Talk:Scholarly method
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[edit] POV
I removed this section from the article, which is simply an opinion piece touting the supposed (but unsubstantiated) advantages of Wikipedia. The last two sentences are priceless pieces of POV. (I've bolded the funniest bit for your reading pleasure -- professional scholars, you see, apparently overlook the really important stuff that we here at Wikipedia pay attention to, like, say, Digivolution.)
- "The Wikipedia can be construed as a grand experiment in amateur scholarship, designed to determine whether the joint efforts of a largely nonprofessional scholarly community can achieve a product of sufficiently high quality to count as worthwhile. The volunteer editorial staff of the Wikipedia almost certainly suffers in comparison with professional scholars in terms of training, reading background, and experience. Yet it has some compensating advantages. Professional scholars often emphasize unimportant detail, perhaps as a way of asserting their credentials, whereas an outsider may be in a better position to emphasize what is most important. Moreover, the Wikipedia is jointly and continually authored and thus has better chances of improving over time."
Perhaps Wikipedia merits mention in an article like this, but probably without the puerile propagandistic platitudes. --Kevin Myers 15:14, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
- So, why all the sarcasm and mockery? The passage was meant to be balanced, not propagandistic. In particular, the comment about professional scholars missing the forest for the trees is based on hundreds of hours of reading the Britannica--try it and you will see.
- Editor KM needs to work on his Wiki-courtesy. Opus33 15:48, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
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- I apologize for the sarcasm. We can refactor this page to remove it if you like. However, I do believe that the section I deleted was pretentious and arrogant, so I was fighting fire with fire. In the future, I'll try harder to play nice.
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- You say, "the comment about professional scholars missing the forest for the trees is based on hundreds of hours of reading the Britannica." I think this assertion of yours unquestionably violates the Wikipedia policy of no original research, because you've inserted your own assessment based on your own reading. Wikipedia isn't supposed to the place for that sort of editorializing, although a minority of Wikipedians (in my assessment) actually take this policy to heart. --Kevin Myers 19:10, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
