This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
The Experts Problem is the perceived withdrawal of expert editors from wikipedia due to discontent.
This article is an attempt at a community project to investigate this issue, and an investigation into what further wikiprojects would be useful. This page, which is open for the community to work upon, aims to:
Expert editors are one of wikipedia's most valuable resources. These people are subject experts or skilled writers who hold the potential to significantly improve and add to wikipedia's coverage of their subject. Jimmy Wales has stated that wikipedia is in need of more work on quality of articles (as opposed to quantity), and expert editors are amongst some of the most able members of the community for much of this quality improvement drive. Peer reviewing of articles is dependant on Peer reviewers, who by their nature have to be experts within the field of the articles they peer review.
Based on the list collected at User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion, we have the following:
See also Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians. Note however that this list is of all Wikipedians who have left (including clearly some cranks or vandals who were 'encouraged' to leave). Dbuckner's list is specifically those who are discontent because of the crank or edit creep problem (many of which have not left and are continuing to work despite discontent).
Please only list here reasons that can be directly attributed to expert authors
These fall into two classes:
There is an oddball... who has edited in passages of bewildering incoherence... What is happening is precisely what I feared... the work is being bowlderised and corrupted"
[4]
Hillman. " in order to make good judgements in content disputes regarding encyclopedia articles on scientific subjects, one must neccessarily adopt scholarly values. Unfortunately, the populist values of many prominent Wikipedians are generally antithetical to scholarly values, which is a huge part of the problem in attempting to deal with bad content in the scientific categories." [1] "There exists a class of editor so driven by ideological agendas that they simply will not recognize Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View Policy or seem to believe that it means that it guarantees uncritical place for their interpretations regardless of how flimsy the supporting facts or underlying logic might be. Worse, after an exhausting effort to bring these under control in a few months a fresh batch of POV pushers, unrelated to the first, show up to the same topics and the process must begin again from scratch." [2]
"I am sorry to report that I begin to feel-after very few weeks of browsing and editing-the whole Wikipedia enterprise verges on the worthless... It's a pity, really-but there are just two many people with perverse agendas, who care little for clarity or objective truth.... I did try reversion,.. but it was promptly edited back again without explanation. The whole exercise then becomes pathetically childish, and I simply refuse to compromise myself any further. If people prefer ignorance, so be it. I do not want to give you the impression that I consider myself to be infallible; I am as capable of error as any other individual; but I always welcome reasoned challenges to any point I put forward. Sadly, apart from one or two people.. it is not forthcoming." [5]
"There is, I think, a deep flaw in the philisophical grounding of the whole project, the assumption that 'truth' can somehow emerge through consensus. What emerges-depending on the topic- is a kind of mad Berkeleian world, where ideas struggle for dominance in complete disassociation from physical reality-I shout the loudest, therefore I am!." [6]
"the constant drizzle of schoolboy vandalism." [2]
A comment when the Template:Tone tag had been placed on an article: "If you think it needs work then do it instead of adding puerile tags" [7]
Please keep this to personal speculation about discontent. Any discussion belongs on the talk page
Wikipedia is based on the idea that improvement happens via consensus. Consensus can be a powerful means to ensure accuracy, as long as the principle of informed consensus is followed. Informed consensus is the idea that all involved provide sound reasoning and are prepared to listen to provided reasoning, based on evidence. Those with the most soundly reasoned points become the most listened to. Variations upon the concept are used throughout science and industry, and the established means of checking scientific research, peer review, is quite similar (being a method of informed evaluation and requests for improvement).
However it is often the case that public forums (in the general, rather than online sense) and other places soliciting community involvement become controlled via mob consensus, whereby the loudest particapants are the most listened to, and generally dictate the outcome of the debate.
Wikipedia appears to seriously suffer from the clash between those who wish to discuss things professionally and academically, and those who wish to hammer a point home in a mob style manner. In such cases, it is inevitably those who are not using reason who win, for they do not require any thought, effort or personal involvement to drive their point in, and those who prefer reason are not able to counter them without resorting to similar tactics (which they find abhorant).
Please suggest here solutions based directly upon the discussion of problems only - for concepts not drawn directly from detailed problems, see /ideas for improvements
For articles not directly associated with this topic but may also be of us, see…
This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
The Experts Problem is the perceived withdrawal of expert editors from wikipedia due to discontent.
This article is an attempt at a community project to investigate this issue, and an investigation into what further wikiprojects would be useful. This page, which is open for the community to work upon, aims to:
Expert editors are one of wikipedia's most valuable resources. These people are subject experts or skilled writers who hold the potential to significantly improve and add to wikipedia's coverage of their subject. Jimmy Wales has stated that wikipedia is in need of more work on quality of articles (as opposed to quantity), and expert editors are amongst some of the most able members of the community for much of this quality improvement drive. Peer reviewing of articles is dependant on Peer reviewers, who by their nature have to be experts within the field of the articles they peer review.
Based on the list collected at User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion, we have the following:
See also Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians. Note however that this list is of all Wikipedians who have left (including clearly some cranks or vandals who were 'encouraged' to leave). Dbuckner's list is specifically those who are discontent because of the crank or edit creep problem (many of which have not left and are continuing to work despite discontent).
Please only list here reasons that can be directly attributed to expert authors
These fall into two classes:
There is an oddball... who has edited in passages of bewildering incoherence... What is happening is precisely what I feared... the work is being bowlderised and corrupted"
[4]
Hillman. " in order to make good judgements in content disputes regarding encyclopedia articles on scientific subjects, one must neccessarily adopt scholarly values. Unfortunately, the populist values of many prominent Wikipedians are generally antithetical to scholarly values, which is a huge part of the problem in attempting to deal with bad content in the scientific categories." [1] "There exists a class of editor so driven by ideological agendas that they simply will not recognize Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View Policy or seem to believe that it means that it guarantees uncritical place for their interpretations regardless of how flimsy the supporting facts or underlying logic might be. Worse, after an exhausting effort to bring these under control in a few months a fresh batch of POV pushers, unrelated to the first, show up to the same topics and the process must begin again from scratch." [2]
"I am sorry to report that I begin to feel-after very few weeks of browsing and editing-the whole Wikipedia enterprise verges on the worthless... It's a pity, really-but there are just two many people with perverse agendas, who care little for clarity or objective truth.... I did try reversion,.. but it was promptly edited back again without explanation. The whole exercise then becomes pathetically childish, and I simply refuse to compromise myself any further. If people prefer ignorance, so be it. I do not want to give you the impression that I consider myself to be infallible; I am as capable of error as any other individual; but I always welcome reasoned challenges to any point I put forward. Sadly, apart from one or two people.. it is not forthcoming." [5]
"There is, I think, a deep flaw in the philisophical grounding of the whole project, the assumption that 'truth' can somehow emerge through consensus. What emerges-depending on the topic- is a kind of mad Berkeleian world, where ideas struggle for dominance in complete disassociation from physical reality-I shout the loudest, therefore I am!." [6]
"the constant drizzle of schoolboy vandalism." [2]
A comment when the Template:Tone tag had been placed on an article: "If you think it needs work then do it instead of adding puerile tags" [7]
Please keep this to personal speculation about discontent. Any discussion belongs on the talk page
Wikipedia is based on the idea that improvement happens via consensus. Consensus can be a powerful means to ensure accuracy, as long as the principle of informed consensus is followed. Informed consensus is the idea that all involved provide sound reasoning and are prepared to listen to provided reasoning, based on evidence. Those with the most soundly reasoned points become the most listened to. Variations upon the concept are used throughout science and industry, and the established means of checking scientific research, peer review, is quite similar (being a method of informed evaluation and requests for improvement).
However it is often the case that public forums (in the general, rather than online sense) and other places soliciting community involvement become controlled via mob consensus, whereby the loudest particapants are the most listened to, and generally dictate the outcome of the debate.
Wikipedia appears to seriously suffer from the clash between those who wish to discuss things professionally and academically, and those who wish to hammer a point home in a mob style manner. In such cases, it is inevitably those who are not using reason who win, for they do not require any thought, effort or personal involvement to drive their point in, and those who prefer reason are not able to counter them without resorting to similar tactics (which they find abhorant).
Please suggest here solutions based directly upon the discussion of problems only - for concepts not drawn directly from detailed problems, see /ideas for improvements
For articles not directly associated with this topic but may also be of us, see…