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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."
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?
Most I hear from academics is that they got annoyed with Wikipedia once somebody removes their well explained text, around a subject they know a lot about, once too often.
A clean slate for academics... hmm. And maybe we could collect all of the academic-written articles into a book format to sell to raise money for Wikipedia? And since it'd be a lot of information, we could divide it into volumes! And we'd need to name them after Wikipedia, but more book-like. Encyclopedia, maybe?
A few weeks back there was a /. article about there were a sizable portion of wikipedia contributors who were just up and leaving because they didn't want to deal with that anymore.
I wouldn't expect a person who spends their days doing research / classes on their topic-of-expertise to have more patience than anyone else in dealing with that.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
... their precious time to editing Wikipedia, they should first up find a solution to shield them from the drama some Wikipedia editors, admins and ArbCom members love so much.
More to the point, tenure and promotion depend significantly upon recognized publications. I'd speculate that there is zero incentive for an academic to spend time updating Wikipedia, but the traditional conference/journal/book publication path is required for advancement in the academic career.
To represent the disinterest in Wikipedia updates as "academic ego" is extremely misleading.
I'm a professor of mathematics, and in the past I've attempted to contribute to several math related articles on wikipedia. You know what always happens? Someone reverts all my edits within a day or so. It doesn't matter how meticulously crafted and referenced the added material is, my contribution gets removed.
I stopped bothering years ago, and it has nothing to so with my inflated "academic ego", a ludicrous concept itself. If recognition was largely important to academics, they probably wouldn't be academics!
If wikipedia wants academics they'll need a nice clean slate for only academics to play in.
Exactly. Because Academics went to school for all those years so their edits can carry the same weight as anyone off the street. Its an even better bonus that if the random dude of the street has been contributing longer they'll get a bump in credibility.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Unless Wiki has done something about the moronic system they have in place that allows people to camp articles and defend them by simply deleting anything that doesn't conform to their exact views I can't see why more professional people would be the slightly bit interested in wasting their time there. I corrected a few articles a few years back now where I had enough expertise to realise some mistakes only to see them deleted the very next day, consequently they were also the last contributions I ever made to wikipedia,
Ph.D. historians (and similarly, all other scientists) really, really hate it when their texts are edited by a highschool dropout who thinks he remembers a history channel feature broadcast three years ago which totally refuted the presented facts and conclusions written by the academic who only studied the subject for a measly twenty years.
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/
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.
I don't see how it can be done at all in wikipedia's current state. You'd need something like protected edits or two separate pages for each subject. It basically throws the idea behind wikipedia into the toilet. It probably would be a good idea if wikipedia's house is in order, but the latest fiascos show that the whole thing is out of control and is being hijacked by some losers with inflated egos that go on campaigns against people. I personally can't even make an edit on a talk page without some self-important ass being rude to me. No academic who has spent years studying their subject is going to put up with that.
It doesn't matter who does the edits: an academic subject matter expert, or a random website visitor. The article will be deleted anyway. It's only a matter of time before wikipedia deletes itself down to 0 articles.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Maybe it's time for the professors as a whole to grow the hell upMaybe it's time for the professors as a whole to grow the hell up.
Or maybe it's time for morons to realize what professors actually do for a living. Sometimes you take weeks or months of your 'spare' time writing grants. You get a score in the top 6% in your field like my friend just did, and it still didn't make the cutoff for funding in his area. So all that time essentially went down the drain. Now he's writing another grant, to try to keep funding for his technicians, post-docs and graduate students. Oh, and he teaches classes in addition to all the other mentoring duties he has. Then of course there's writing papers for peer review publications. Those things that actually add to your CV and get you recognition in your field.
Think he really wants to spend extra hours of his precious time editing a wiki page, when a 12-year old with an attitude who has been on the wiki longer can just reject his edits or change them? Think again.
"Maybe it's time for the professors as a whole to grow the hell up."
Maybe the professors are avoiding contributing until wikipedia trolls grow the hell up.
Why spend several hours of your time trying to write a careful, well referenced, measured piece if there is too high a chance that you'll come back the next day to find "u r gay" or something like that splattered all over it? Or somebody with little knowledge of your field picking a fight with you and re-writing your article without entering into measured debate before undertaking the edits? Some professors feel it's not worth the time contributing to a space that may require a lot of time fighting over for little gain. They might feel their time is better spent communicating through other media, say for example contributing to a popular science book, explaining what they are doing on their personal website, publishing in the academic media or doing talks in science festivals. Perhaps they feel the debate is of higher quality in these channels?
Other academics do publish on wikipedia though, some academics do feel it's a place they can share ideas, e.g. in community informatics. Here's looking at you Mike and Larry
Nah, that teacher was just... obsessive... with history. And slightly evil - he played the Imperial March before every test, had a framed picture of Mao, used an actual Aztec skull chalice as a pencil holder, had an (empty) can of Zyklon-B from the Nazi death camps in the room, owned the sword of a convicted Japanese war criminal, and had a historic Nazi flag hanging in the back. And he had a pretty sinister laugh...
OK, yeah, the guy was evil, but it was a cool evil. Besides that one event, we got along well. I wonder if he still teaches there...
Or, something like Scholarpedia, perhaps?
As an academic (physics prof.), I can tell you this is exactly why I don't contribute. Ditto for the GP post. I spend many, many hours per week educating students and learning more about my field to stay on top of things, not to mention all the years at university. So, yeah, I expect my opinion in my areas of expertise to count for something more than average.
That being said, my domains of expertise are limited, and that is something not all academics are good at recognizing. Being a PhD in one subject doesn't imply anything about your fluency in another (though it sometimes make you *think* otherwise), so even a 'privileged contributor' status of sorts would have to be implemented carefully I think (e.g., I should not be allowed privileged status to edit medical articles, for instance, I am not qualified for that).
If the climate gets better, I'd love to help out. But that doesn't look likely at this moment. Best I can do for now is keep putting out free texts, notes, solved problems, etc. and hope people find them.