In a message dated 9/19/2010 10:47:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, peter.dam...@btinternet.com writes:
> You have made your view very clear. I've tried to be polite, and to > avoid > any talking-down, and I am sorry if it has appeared that way. You use the > > collective 'we', meaning you speak for all Wikipedians. To the other > Wikipedians here: is there a problem with academics 'talking down'? Do > they > have a problem explaining their ideas in articles? Are they 'too > rarified' > to be included in Wikipedia? If so, can Wikipedia do without them? If > not, > how could they be encouraged to contribute better? Your reading comprehension is lacking. If you again review my post you will find that I was quoting and thus responding to the quote you made where your colleague (or sock-puppet?) was stating that a particular article should be written and edited only by experts. I find that it's never the case that an encyclopedia article cannot be understood enough by myself, to be able to add a word, or fix a usage, or add a source, at the least. To make a claim like that is shocking to my senses, I fell right on the floor. Some academics do not have a problem explaining their articles or edits, *some do*. And some think they have an acknowledge high position from which to dictate. That is false. The point of view of an academic contributition, imho should be, "I'm in a better position to EXPLAIN this article, paragraph, sentence, edit". Not "I'm in a better position to ENFORCE same." The latter view is anathema to the project and must be shunned by all right-thinking people (the rest will be dealt with later by the re-education committee). I hope my position is more clear now. If you can't support your posiiton in such a way that most editors, non-experts, would say, "Oh I see, yes that seems clear and seems to have evidence..." then you have failed, not the reader and not the co-contributor who may not be an expert. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
