Delirium wrote:
> I don't think that's actually true. I think some areas, like evolution
> that you mentioned, are covered reasonably well, because there are
> enough Wikipedians who have an interest in and reasonably decent
> knowledge of the field to write a good article, and perhaps more
> i
Pharos wrote:
> My experience has been that, although certainly there is room for
> expansion in scientific articles on specialty topics, Wikipedia
> already has much better coverage of science than any print
> encyclopedias, and most basic scientific subjects are treated fairly
> completely.
>
> I
Pharos wrote:
> In contrast, Wikipedia's coverage of the humanities is often inferior
> to the better print encyclopedias, and even with very basic subjects.
> This is perhaps because the humanities lend themselves less to easy
> summary, as there is usually a great variety of scholarly opinion on
Well, one has to adopt a relative perspective.
My experience has been that, although certainly there is room for
expansion in scientific articles on specialty topics, Wikipedia
already has much better coverage of science than any print
encyclopedias, and most basic scientific subjects are treated
> But I do not believe that experts should have any special powers in
> the editing of articles.
>
> Rather, I think they should be encouraged to act in a pure review
> capacity, assessing the existing work of Wikipedians, and making
> recommendations for improvement. This might also be partially
I agree with Yaroslav that we should have a specific role for experts,
or rather for the greater number of experts who may be interested in
contributing, but who will not be attracted to participate in the
classical back-and-forth wiki model.
But I do not believe that experts should have any speci
> One of your points there was:
>> 6. The current experience (or at least my current experience) is not
>> really encouraging. The real top researchers just plainly have no time
>> to edit articles, nor are they really interested. Those who come are
>> mostly interested in editing article about th
Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
> Just to remind that I am a university professor and that I posted my
> thoughts a while ago on meta
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yaroslav_Blanter/Temp17
>
> So far, nobody showed any interest.
>
One of your points there was:
> 6. The current experience (o
>> If we were doing such a thing:
>>
>> 1. we wouldn't be paying anyone
>> 2. we'd be shouting it from the rooftops.
>>
>> Nice idea, actually. Anyone feel they could put together a serious
>> programme to recruit academics to such a cause?
>
> (changed subject as this is an interesting discussion
