On Sep 12, 2012, at 5:05 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > The main problems are that it allows anonymous editing, and it has no respect > for authorities in complicated, specialized subjects. I hope that it is > reformed, or -- if it is not -- that some competing encyclopedia arises. > Perhaps another encyclopedia can be established that specialized is > scientific subjects such as cold fusion, and that does a better job using > more traditional academic standards.
Encyclopedia for cold fusion would be quite good idea. Although wikiversity's resources are quite comprehensive. What I would add to the wikiversity, is a good and comprehensive video lecture series about the topic. I think 30-90 45 mins video lectures would be great. If lecture series is well made, it will find very fast good reviews and thus it increases a lot the gredibility of arguments. The main difficulty with cold fusion is, that it is very difficult to evaluate the reliability of sources. I think that your criticism about wikipedia is disproportional. Controversial subjects are not that important, because usually there are very good reasons why they are controversial. Wikipedia is just not the right place to settle controversies. If something cannot be settled without writing 'walls of text', then we must seriously question whether it can be expressed in wikipedia, without that people get false impressions while they are reading compact wikiarticles about the topic. I think that it would be good idea to have in paraller, more specialized version of wikipedia. I would dream about wiki like online community that would be used also for original research and debate. However discussion should civilized and moderated. Something like light peer review process, that before any comments are published, they are reviewed by several established experts and editors. And if necessary, feed back and suggestion for change are given before publishing. ―Jouni
