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List:       wikipedia-l
Subject:    Re: [Wikipedia-l] An idea
From:       Elisabeth Bauer <elian () djini ! de>
Date:       2005-05-25 0:06:36
Message-ID: 4293C18C.8000204 () djini ! de
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Chad Perrin wrote:

> I see two ways in particular in which the idea can backfire pretty
> badly.  One is, as Angela pointed out, we will likely have a lot of
> "credentialed experts" unwilling to give up the goods on their offline
> personae.
> 
> The other is simply that Wikipedia, among other things, is a fantastic
> demonstration of a particular model of aggregate authorship (the wiki);
> it is, in fact, sort of the perfect poster-boy for that model, and its
> reputation depends to a large extent on the public perception of that
> model's strengths and legitimacy.  There's a very symbiotic relationship
> between Wikipedia's reputation and the reputation of the wiki in
> general.  If one falters significantly, the other can as well.
> 
> To begin making concessions to standards unassociated with the wiki
> model, as if only those carrying credentials are worth public notice, is
> to undermine the credibility of the wiki model, or so it seems to me.
> It seems likely that putting such a weight of import behind the
> credentials of our experts would make Wikipedia more of a wanna-be for
> "real" encyclopedias, and less of a revolutionary new type of
> encyclopedia, in the eyes of many.
> 
> Of course, I could be wrong.

A good point to which I'd like to add a few sentences.
I think such a system, may it be based on verified credits or claimed 
ones, benefits only two groups of people:
* the reader who believes more in authority than his own judgement/good 
arguments/etc
* the mediocre persons with credits. Someone really knowledgeable in a 
field doesn't have to cite his credentials to gain respect in the 
wikipedia community, his contributions speak for him. If you have to 
refer to your credits in an argument instead of citing sources and use 
arguments, there's something wrong.

I don't see it as absolutely necessary to accomodate these two group of 
persons. It could even harm wikipedia if people suddenly started 
valueing credentials more than previous contributions or well formed 
arguments, based on good sources. We've achieved a lot with our current 
system, no reason to change or endanger it.

On a side note a little story from german wikipedia. We recently had a 
new user, claiming an academic degree in orientalism and islamic science 
on his user page giving names of his teachers and everything. While he 
was attacking all our old hand people in this area, challenging them to 
put their credentials on their user page (nobody had his degrees there), 
we tried to point him to a mistake he has made in writing down the root 
of the word Islam. ehemmm. He didn't get it.

greetings,
elian


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