22. David Gerard on September 22, 2006 07:08 AM writes…
Plenty of people complain of Wikipedia’s alleged “anti-expert bias”. I’ve yet to see solid evidence of it. Unless “expert-neutral” is conflated to mean “anti-expert.” Wikipedia is expert-neutral - experts don’t get a free ride. Which is annoying when you know something but are required to show your working, but is giving us a much better-referenced work.
One thing the claims of “anti-expert bias” fail to explain is: there’s lots of experts who do edit Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is so very hostile to experts, you need to explain their presence.
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23. engineer_scotty on September 22, 2006 01:19 PM writes…
I’ve been studying the so-called “expert problem” on Wikipedia—and I’m becoming more and more convinced that it isn’t and expert problem per se; it is a jackass problem. As in some Wikipedians are utter jackasses—in this context, “jackass” is an umbrella category for a wide variety of problem behaviors which are contrary to Wikipedia policy—POV pushing, advocacy of dubious theories, vandalism, abusive behavior, etc. Wikipedia policy is reasonably good at dealing with vandalism, abusive behavior and incivility (too good, some think, as WP:NPA occasionally results in good editors getting blocked for wielding the occasional cluestick ‘gainst idiots who sorely need it). It isn’t currently good at dealing with POV-pushers and crackpots whose edits are civil but unscholarly, and who repeatedly insert dubious material into the encyclopedia. Recent policy proposals are designed to address this.
Many experts who have left, or otherwise have expressed dissatisfaction with Wikipedia, fall into two categories: Those who have had repeated bad experiences dealing with jackassses, and are frustrated by Wikipedia’s inability to restrain said jackasses; and those who themselves are jackasses. Wikipedia has seen several recent incidents, including one this month, where notable scientists have joined the project and engaged in patterns of edits which demonstrated utter contempt for other editors of the encyclopedia (many of whom were also PhD-holding scientists, though lesser known), attempted to “own” pages, attempted to portray conjecture or unpublished research as fact, or have exaggerated the importance or quality of their own work. When challenged, said editors have engaged in (predictable) tirades accusing the encyclopedia of anti-intellectualism and anti-expert bias—charges we’ve all heard before.
The former sort of expert the project should try to keep. The latter, I think the project is probably better off without; and I suspect they would wear out their welcomes quickly on Citizendium as well.
I would love to see a few case studies, linked to the History and Talk pages of a few articles— “Here was the expert contribution, here was the jackass edit, this is what was lost”, etc. Reading Engineer Scotty’s comment, and given the general sense of outraged privilege that seems to run through much of the “Experts have their work edited without permission!” literature, I am guessing that the problem is not so much experts contributing and then being driven away as it is non-contributions by people unwilling to work in an environment wherre their contributions aren’t sacrosanct.
1. Larry Sanger on September 22, 2006 4:54 PM writes...
Suffice it to say that no one's contributions to the Citizendium will be sacrosanct, editors included; editors will be answerable to other editors, and will not simply be able to lord it over anyone. We'll eject misbehaving editors as well as misbehaving authors.
Permalink to Comment2. David Gerard on September 22, 2006 6:01 PM writes...
Good Lord. *dives for cover*
I should note here that as well as being an active and opinionated Wikipedia editor and also an active Wikipedia/Wikimedia press contact, I'm reading and speaking on the Citizendium mailing list a fair bit; I may or may not end up writing or editing for it myself, but I'm very interested to see how it goes.
There are cases of experts on Wikipedia having non-experts actually try to drive them out; the most notable I can think of was William Connolley, a British climate scientist, who was taken to arbitration by a long list of faith-based science advocates trying to get him kicked off the wiki for daring to say his peer-reviewed scientific references were somehow better than their Michael Crichton novel and Rush Limbaugh talk show references. That one was also mentioned in the article on Wikipedia in Nature. Connolley is distinctly not a jackass, he's a good bloke and a very good Wikipedia editor - and Nature brought up the attack on him and he downplayed it - and he suffered about the worst attack of blithering idiocy I can remember happening on Wikipedia.
(Since then we've been much clearer that science is science and the political ramifications of the science are something else entirely, and from the 20,000-foot neutral point of view the science is pretty much the landscape of the science kthxbye.)
Another problem touted by experts is that they like the idea of contributing to Wikipedia but don't want to risk diving headfirst into a barrage of morons. That's fair enough, but that's a problem with people, not with experts - working collaboratively with thousands of people at a time is politics, and on Wikipedia you have to work with people you consider complete blithering idiots - it's not optional. If Citizendium can take away that, I'll be pleased but also quite surprised. The realm of experts has as many idiots as the realm of non-experts, and the expert idiots have something to be arrogant about.
The experts I know personally who do well on Wikipedia tend to be naturals with Internet culture. Often they've come from environments like Usenet and can really appreciate an environment where the rules do in fact say that you need to play nice or leave.
Permalink to Comment3. engineer_scotty on September 22, 2006 7:47 PM writes...
Clay,
You may wish to start with the Wikipedia essay "Expert Retention" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_Retention). Many editors who post there self-identify as experts; including several who have greatly reduced their contributions to Wikipedia. (At least one of them is now active on Citizendium's discussion wiki at http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Citizendium). There are several (though not yet many) instances described where editors who could uncharitibly be described as "crackpots" managed to frustrate editors knowledgeable in the subject matter, some to the point of leaving Wikipedia. (That said, many who leave Wikipedia voluntarily find it hard to stay away long; Citizendium may propser by giving them an alternative).
But yes, quite a few of the complaints of anti-expert bias come from folks who, judging by their actions, have trouble functioning in an environment where people who would be clearly subservient to them in the academy or workplace, are regarded as peers--and settling disputes by pulling rank is not an option. And to be fair, there are more than a few "non-experts" on Wikipedia who relish the opportunity (and exploit Wikipedia's lack of formal power structure) to knock famous scientists and authors off of their pedestal, when they do come to Wikipedia.
Permalink to Comment4. Joe Clark on September 23, 2006 3:24 PM writes...
Your last sentence completely muffs the issue, Clay. Expert writing is not “sacrosanct”; it is merely *more authoritative* and *more likely to be correct* than a jackass’s.
Permalink to Comment5. Dorothea on September 29, 2006 9:59 AM writes...
This is true, Joe -- but from the other side, working in publishing services I saw a lot of expert jackasses who couldn't accept that while they were experts in their subject matter, editors have expertise in, well, editing. The pop-eyed bugfaced rants from some medical Ph.D who thinks (wrongly) that he knows every grammar and punctuation rule there is defy belief.
I suspect these same people will find themselves in Clay's "expert jackass" category. Not because they're stupid, but because they think they're omniscient.
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