On 1/4/13 5:51 PM, George Herbert wrote:
On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:05 AM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote:
On 4 January 2013 17:56, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
1a. Do *not* pick a source that you have a particularly close personal or
emotional connection to: it is not good to start with your own research,
your supervisor's or colleague's research, a project of yours or that you're
involved with, a nationalist/political/religious subject you feel strongly
about, the history of your own family, etc.
This can be a problem in that people will become interested first in
fixing something they think is wrong because they know about it. I do
realise all the steps from that to here, and that a list of
instructions pretty much won't be read.
Along the lines of noneuclidian geometry...
What if we experiment (at least conceptually) with inverting that
instruction? Encourage people to write on subjects they know...
Hmm, I should've worded that more narrowly. I don't disagree with people
writing on subjects they know (quite the opposite!). I have more in mind
to avoid things that people have an unusually close personal/emotional
connection to, which makes it more likely their editing will result in
POV-pushing.
For example, I'm Greek, and know a bit about Greek culture, history,
etc., and these are fine areas for someone to start editing in. On the
other hand, a Greek choosing [[Macedonia naming dispute]] or [[Cyprus
dispute]] as the first article one edits (e.g. to "correct
misinformation") is less advisable, imo. It's certainly possible to edit
reasonably in those areas, but I think it's a poor starting point, and
requires some more experience with how to write neutral articles in
contentious areas, and how to reach a consensus over what that even means.
Same in my area of expertise: editing AI articles is a great place for
an AI researcher to start editing, but editing an article on one's own
research lab, self, department, algorithm, etc. is not a great place.
Unfortunately I often find academics primarily interested in the latter:
the would-be-editor question I most often get is along the lines of,
"how do I create a Wikipedia article on [my own thing]"? I do try to
redirect this into suggesting they edit more generally in their area of
expertise but not *specifically* their approach/self/lab they're trying
to promote, e.g. think about what exists in a good textbook or survey
article that's not yet covered well in Wikipedia, and work there. But
I'd say that's usually not successful.
-Mark
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