Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Wants More Contributions From Academics
holy_calamity writes "University professors don't feel their role as intellectuals working for the public good extends to contributing to the world's largest encyclopedia, the Guardian reports. Wikimedia foundation is currently surveying academics as part of a search for ways to encourage them to pitch in alongside anonymous civilians and raise quality. The main problem seems to be the academic ego: papers, talks and grant proposals build reputation but Wikipedia edits do not."
You're asking an academic to write stuff in the same vein as John D Public.
Our Professors tell us to NEVER use wikipedia except as for a citation. Do you think they're going to then go do their edits? If wikipedia wants academics they'll need a nice clean slate for only academics to play in.
Yeah, calling it "ego" implies that it's unwarranted. Professionals/experts in any field (including academics) often get sick of dealing with retards, trolls, under-informed know-it-alls, control-freaks with OCD, and your basic antisocial sociopaths... and Wikipedia has lots of those.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Or, perhaps, academics don't see any reasons to contribute to something that'll erase anything they might add because of Wikipedia's No Original Research clause?
Why would this be any more of a problem? Academic authors ought to be able to cite research papers just like anyone else; in fact, they could even cite their own publications.
The goal isn't to use Wikipedia as a new publishing mechanism for academic papers. It's to get academics (who probably have a better understanding of a nice suite of topics versus their non-academic counterparts) to contribute material to the encyclopedia. The belief is that, in many cases, that material will be higher quality due to its academic origins. However, the material is still subject to all of the constraints that any other material is.
If Wikipedia didn't have these standards, it could not ever hope to hold its own as a legitimate source of quality research, which is the goal it seems to be striving for.
1. Hire a person or two to work @ Wikipedia (I live in town, Jimmy, hire me!) to accept and process documentation from users indicating them an expert on subject matter. So, I submit my PhD in Astrophysics, and I get the Astrophysics Expert flag on my account. I give my resume saying I've been a programmer for 30 years, and I get the Computer Programming expert flag. 2. Use the existing tag cloud-style architecture to tag articles by their subject matter (ie, this article on geostationary orbit goes in Astrophysics). 3. Any edits made by a Verified Expert to an article flagged as being part of their area of expertise must be voted down by multiple Wikipedians before they can be removed.
THAT is Wikipedia's real problem. I'm afraid it might well be the harbinger of its demise if they do not quickly sort things out. Right now adding to Wikipedia is virtually impossible.
I'm a physics undergrad; I plan on moving on to a PhD and I would personally love to add stuff to Wikipedia. It's been a very resourceful starting point for a lot of information and details on courses and I'd be happy to give back. Unfortunately, articles seem to be set in stone by now and I'm not interested in having to fight for every inch of text I'd want to add.
I've seen very few pro-wikipedia comments here but have read many decent wikipedia articles, so I think there may be selection bias going on.
Personally, I have edited various biomedical, biochemical pages and never had any problem. In fact the majority of future modifications only improved upon what I had created. I almost always use wikipedia as a starting point when learning about a subject. Often there is some random fact or connection someone has added to the articles that wouldn't fit well enough for a review article and I would have never thought to check on my own otherwise. Anyone who knows how to do actual research wouldn't really trust even a textbook or peer reviewed article 100% anyway.
I see no problem at all with double checking everything seen on wikipedia before taking it as "fact," this is what people should be doing no matter what the source is. Even if it is a primary source, you need to look at the data and decide for yourself. Of course, if you aren't an expert in an area then it may not be worth the time to double check everything. In that case peer review is more trustworthy than wikipedia, but there should still be a nagging thought in the back of your head that the info is beyond what you should feel "sure" about. Then it becomes important to know your boundaries.
Anyway, I have found reading and contributing to wikipedia a rewarding experience.
It's the Wikipedia "split personality" syndrome.
On one hand, Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously as an information resource, so the editors delete huge swathes of articles because they aren't "notable", i.e. "a real encyclopedia wouldn't publish an article like this, so get rid of it".
On the other hand, Wikipedia wants to preserve its culture of "any idiot with a keyboard and an agenda has just as much right to edit an article as an expert in the subject".
The problem is that those two viewpoints are in complete opposition to each other. Wikipedia cannot have its cake and eat it too. Frankly I thought it was a much better online reference when it allowed all those obscure articles, and didn't take itself so seriously.
My first large scale mathematics-related edits to Wikipedia were also heavily reworked/reverted. Quickly, ruthlessly, and *absolutely correctly* changed. While mathematically correct, they also happened to be written at a level of detail not appropriate for Wikipedia.
Even as a mathematician, I get frustrated sometimes looking at Wikipedia articles from other fields of mathematics that are narrowly aimed at specialists within the field. In some senses an article written by an outsider can be better than one written by a professional mathematician, because it's less likely to be aimed at the wrong audience.
In the same way, "troll" doesn't mean "I disagree". Wikipedia deletionism, and editorial tribalism, is often discussed on Slashdot, and seems to me to be a real obstacle to getting academic contributions. Did I really need to explain that connection, or was it obvious from a moment's consideration?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
What I find fascinating is the idea of a guy spending years and years researching a subject and writing a long, detailed article describing his research only to have it edited down to nothing.
I am, of course, referring to Ford Prefect's article on the Earth edited down to 2 words: Mostly harmless. Presumably because it wasn't notable enough.
Talk about prescient....