User:Jkelly/thoughts
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[edit] Thoughts on Wikipedia
[edit] Meta Wikiphilosophy
I'd identify as an eventualist, with the caveat that I would prefer an aggresive merging of stubs with the understanding that articles will eventually spawn children when enough information on a tangent is accumulated, which I suppose is some kind of mergist "Darwikinism".
[edit] Expertise
Wikipedia is an unwelcoming place for the expert. There are a number of reasons for this:
- As with the internet as a whole, there is no convincing way to exert expertise, other than by making sound arguments. As with the entire internet, sound arguments have less impact than persistence, belligerance and popularity.
- Experts rely upon original research and sources that cannot always be verified by the public. Neither of these belong on Wikipedia.
- Experts expect, quite reasonably, to be rewarded for the effort put into acquiring their expertise. There is no reward system in Wikipedia.
So Wikipedia is, and will remain, a great place for hobbyists. One might say that this has little impact on Wikipedia's quality as the treatment of subjects in thirty-two kilobytes rarely demands an understanding of any subject beyond the hobbyist level. There is a loss is in those places in which the popular view of a subject is misleading. Furthermore, an expert has immediate access to reliable sources which may take a hobbyist a great deal of time to find, or elude them completely. I don't see any way to reconcile Wikipedia's mission with supporting expert editors, however. Experts can, of course, contribute to articles on subjects on which they are themselves hobbyists. The side-effect is that hobby subjects get enthusiastic coverage, while drier topics languish, and will continue to do so until fashion touches upon them.
Taking a proactive approach, I hope to solve part of this by marketing a French novelist vs. German literary figures collectible card game.
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- An insightful discussion of the issue, quoting the above, can be found at ragesossscholar's blog.
