On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 11:15:10AM -0500, Phil Sandifer wrote:
> I am not sure the point applies as well to NOR, where we do actually run 
> into the problem that we need to have some way of differentiating  
> between an acceptable interpretation of a source and an unacceptable  
> one.

The only method we have is to engage in discussion on the talk page. 
I often say something like "Anybody can edit Wikipedia, but not 
everyone can edit every article".  In practice, I find that it's not 
specialized topics that are more difficult, but topics that are 
associated with actual political or religious debates.

One incident I remember involved an article where an editor 
wanted to introduce a certain type of proof that the editor found more 
intuitively clear. In the editor's opinion, the way that the proof
is ordinarily presented in the literature is non-ideal because of the 
way that certain basic parts of the field are organized. Responding
to this sort of proposal is extremely difficult without a broad 
knowledge of how the literature as a whole deals with a particular 
topic, because there's no single source that can be consulted to 
settle the debate.  

This type of high-level decision about the fundamental organization and 
due weight of ideas in a certain article will always require a broad 
knowledge of the field. 

 - Carl 

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Reply via email to