Not a criticism, just curious. Why do you not just improve the article(s) yourself, rather than devising a "plan" to involve many others - which would inevitably take a great deal of time and effort, and not necessarily achieve a much better result?
> From: edw...@logicmuseum.com > To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 09:59:01 +0100 > Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A V Denham > > Roger said "The board backed "a man with a plan". It does this frequently > and I believe the offer is open to ladies too." OK here is a plan. Here > http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Expert_outreach it says "Wikimedia UK is > working with scientists, scholars, learned societies and funders to help > experts improve Wikipedia and its sister projects, bringing their knowledge > to the widest possible public." I don't know why Wikipedia officially needs > experts, given the proven success of crowdsourcing, but in any case I have > many contacts in the expert world of medieval studies, and could certainly > help with a plan to improve the pages on the medieval intellectual > tradition, which are dire. E.g. the page on > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duns_Scotus Scotus, who was one of the most > significant medieval thinkers, and a credit to Scotland (or England, > actually, given that his birthplace may have in England at the time, > although Wikipedia does not mention this). > > The current article is in a terrible state. It repeats the legend about > Scotus' premature burial, which has for a long time been conclusively > refuted > http://lyfaber.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/heres-few-weird-quotes-i-ran-across.html > , > and no modern biography mentions it. It says he is the 'founder of Scotism' > which is bizarre ('Scotism' so-called was a later idea). It says 'he came > out of the Old Franciscan School' which is not mentioned in any modern > discussion of Scotus (I suspect it is a plagiarism from the Catholic > Encyclopedia). Even more bizarrely it says "Duns Scotus is usually > considered the beginning of the formal Scottish tradition of philosophy > which moved through Duns Scotus, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid and > John Stuart Mill." There is no such movement, at least no direct > relationship, and the claim is absurd. > > The sections on his thought, like all such sections in the Wikipedia > biographies of thinkers, is risibly light. We know very little of the lives > of medieval theologians and philosophers, yet we know much about their > thought, and a good reference work should reflect this, as well as making > the difficulties of their thought intelligible to a general audience. I'm > sure crowdsourcing could achieve this, as Thomas Dalton says, but it hasn't > so far after more than ten years of Wikipedia. Some of those sections I > wrote anyway. > > Or compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sum_of_logic, which is merely a > list, with the much longer and far more comprehensive article here > http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Summa_Logicae_(Ockham) . > > Anyway, enough criticism. I have a plan for working with WMUK to improve > these articles, and if anyone is interested in the details, let me know. > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
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