Thoughts on Wikipedia

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Meta Wikiphilosophy

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I'd identify as an eventualist, with the caveat that I would prefer an aggresive merging of stubs with the understanding that articles will eventually spawn children when enough information on a tangent is accumulated, which I suppose is some kind of mergist "Darwikinism".

Expertise

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Wikipedia is an unwelcoming place for the expert. There are a number of reasons for this:

  1. As with the internet as a whole, there is no convincing way to exert expertise, other than by making sound arguments. As with the entire internet, sound arguments have less impact than persistence, belligerence and popularity.
  2. Experts rely upon original research and sources that cannot always be verified by the public. Neither of these belong on Wikipedia.
  3. Experts expect, quite reasonably, to be rewarded for the effort put into acquiring their expertise. There is no reward system in Wikipedia.

So Wikipedia is, and will remain, a great place for hobbyists. One might say that this has little impact on Wikipedia's quality as the treatment of subjects in thirty-two kilobytes rarely demands an understanding of any subject beyond the hobbyist level. Where there is a loss is in those places in which the popular view of a subject is misleading. Furthermore, an expert has immediate access to reliable sources which may take a hobbyist a great deal of time to find, or elude them completely. I don't see any way to reconcile Wikipedia's mission with supporting expert editors, however. Experts can, of course, contribute to articles on subjects on which they are themselves hobbyists. The side-effect is that hobby subjects get enthusiastic coverage, while drier topics languish, and will continue to do so until fashion touches upon them.

Taking a proactive approach, I hope to solve part of this by marketing a French novelist vs. German literary figures collectible card game.

An insightful discussion of the issue, quoting the above, can be found at ragesossscholar's blog.