Wikipedia talk:Expert rebellion

message: I had no idea that putting my name on the page meant that I had left, I thought it just meant that I was discontented with the system. Someone should change this ( I'm not game to, I'm not sure of the situation) or I will have to remove my name.
:Yes, also Jkelly(a quite active admin) certainly hasn't left. ;-) JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed Dbuckner 07:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Users who have left for other reasons."

message: In promoting this list, you have rightly made more people aware of a potentially growing problem. However what is really needed is some means to work from the list, derive the major problems, and work on solutions. I've made such a page at User:LinaMishima/Experts Problem, and I'd welcome more involvement. LinaMishima 18:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A further discussion 

message: Hardly made a lot of contributions over the month he was active on the project - is he really worth including in the list ? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Timothy_J_Scriven
Megapixie 04:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll look into it. Dbuckner 07:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well I have been here longer than I've used that user name. Besides of which the criteria for signing is not the number of edit's you've made, it's being discontent. Timothy J Scriven 02:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fair enough.  However, do you have a clear statement of why you are discontented?  That is important.  Dbuckner 09:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Say no more.  I see you have already done so.  Apologies.  Dbuckner 09:57, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Timothy J Scriven|Timothy J Scriven]]

message: I agree that you've formulated the problem correctly.  My issues with WP are exactly those you describe.  I am not disgruntled or unhappy with WP.  Rather, I feel that I've assessed the Wikipedia project to have a structural or systemic set of problems that I'm incapable of fixing.  The practical result to me of that set of problems is that my time is wasted.  Good edits I have made disappear or are altered and need to be 'maintained'.
Jimbo keeps talking about an 'article review' process as though it were the thing that was going to fix this problem set.  However, all discussions about it center on the 'featured article' paradigm, which is to say, 'article review' is generally envisioned as 'featured article with teeth.'   Since the same group of people (all WP editors) are invited to participate in featured article review as are invited to edit articles, I can't see that this could possibly address the problems we've identified.
I tend to find, as you have, that good WP articles often result from the careful attention and maintenance of a small subset of people.  These people distinguish themselves by a willingness to spend more time attending to the article.
I also have found that bad WP articles often result from the careful attention and maintenance of a small subset of people.  These people distinguish themselves by a willingness to spend more time attending to the article.
Thanks for your thoughts - they're appreciated.
--ikkyu2 (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agree 

message: [I have moved this from my talk page - see the message I sent back on Gwernol's page] Dbuckner 07:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I too signed up with Jon before realizing that he favors a more disruptive approach than I am comfortable with. I have withdrawn my name as well. DV8 2XL 09:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Though Jon clearly seems to have made some good contributions to philosophy (e.g. Peirce, semiotics).  But it is clear that only a constructive approach is going to work, and he seems to have alienated many in the community.  Dbuckner 10:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jon Awbrey

message: [Copied from the 'Elsewhere' project page].
JohnA of Wikipedia Review writes...
If I ran Wikipedia, I'd put every single article on it on a six monthly or yearly review cycle. If its still a stub after 6 months after creation, I'd delete it automatically. If it's an unreadable mess, I'd pare it down to a stub and put it on the "rewrite it or die" list of two months duration. I'd have a quality control box on every single article for completeness, grammar, readability, citations which people can vote for (including visitors) and every three months any article that doesn't have good quality in at least three of the categories, gets pared down to a stub and put on the "rewrite or die" list. Every editor will get a karma rating depending on the quality of the articles produced (automatically from the article quality), so editing an article which you don't know anything about the subject becomes a risk to your karma, reducing the amount of senseless fucking about with articles that happens at the moment.
People with low karma will only be able to edit the lowest quality articles, and people with high karma will be able to edit them all, so if you've got low karma better improve some articles and get your karma risen or face being able to edit fewer and fewer articles.
I'd purchase a large corporate license to turnitin.com and test all of the featured articles and a random sample of 5% of the others for plagiarism. Any article which has plagiarized sentences gets put on a special watch and the article authors warned and their karma reduced. If the plagiarism approaches 25% then it gets pared down to a stub and put into "RW or D"
I'd have an automatically generated list of the top ten or twenty contributors to each article, and I'd reward quality scholarship with prizes, attaboys and attagirls, featured contributors on the front page, scholarships to universities or paid holidays, and I'd let everyone know what wonderful authors we have on Wikipedia.
I'd have fewer editors as a result, but when someone says "I am a Wikipedia author" it will actually enhance their reputation as a good person rather than harm it.
Made some good points, I think DV8 2XL 18:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem, as we all recognise, is that this requires some sort of independent criterion of quality.  What we need is for a CONSENSUS system to do this.  Let's not forget that consensus does work, and is the reason why much of WP is as good as it is.  Groups of like-minded people work together on articles, and such groups tend quickly to recognise, as a group, when someone is not contributing good quality stuff.  That is undeniable.  The problem (I am guessing) is that there is no REWARD for behaving in this way, i.e. no reward whatever for being recognised as part of the group, as opposed to some belligerent troll or crank or whatever.  As someone put it, the cranks and trolls are winning.  Dbuckner 09:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I posted that not to suggest that this was the way to go, but more as a start - a talking point, as it were - to stimulate discussion on solutions. While crying on each other's shoulders may provide some comfort, unless we move forward with some concrete ideas we are wasting our time again. DV8 2XL 10:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And nothing wrong with moaning together as a kind of bonding.  Dbuckner 10:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A modest proposal

message: As I was the person who wrote the proposal, I thought I'd contribute to the discussion. 
Let me make it clear - there is no possible meeting point between the consensus of everyone and academic or scholarly quality. None at all. Academic scholarship is founded on the most elitist system ever invented - a system which is the opposite of the Wikipedia model. Even more it is the economic model on which Wikipedia is founded which utterly fails to understand human motivation or any reasonable quality system, which will eventually bring Wikipedia down. It is an alternative economic model that I was really proposing - which is the Reward system that Dbuckner was referring to - which is fundamentally incompatible with the way Wikipedia operates.
There is no independent assessment of article quality. What actually happens is that the administrators adjudicate for their own belief systems and their own political powerbases and rapidly game the system against editors through the use of political power - and academic quality and accuracy be damned. You can all easily think of examples of this - do I need to name names? 
One of the things that I would change on Wikipedia immediately (other than banning anon edits) would be to ban administrators from editing articles at all. Administrators, in my scheme of things, would be the encyclopedic editors, enforcing quality standards regardless of source and working from a very strict recipe of scholarly guidelines.
The end result of all this, is that sadly Wikipedia is doomed to making the same mistakes, producing even more scandals, becoming more and more known as the acme of unreliability, political shenanigans and bad workmanship, and in the future being known as the model for how not to produce any quality publication, doing for collaborative production what the Titanic did for Atlantic cruises.
I feel most sorry for the Exopedians who did most of the best work on Wikipedia, because they are the people most betrayed and most  unrewarded by the Wikipedia Rolling Ball of Disaster. I don't wish it to be that way - but wishing something doesn't make it real.
I'd like to thank DV8 2XL and Dbuckner for discussing my contribution. -- John A 86.143.198.23 20:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  John A replies 

message: [I have copied this from Lina's page - User talk:LinaMishima/Experts Problem].  Who writes:
:"I'm separating myself from this assocation of expert whiners and malingerers. To me, it has become rather obvious that true "experts" have no need to complain. 
: "What the hell is your probem anyway? If you really are "experts" with the appropiate qualifications go and get your work published by one of the billions of acedmic jounals, publish a book, write for the SEP, Brittanica, IEP, Scicne magaizine.....you have gazillions of options. Lacking such sufficent qualifications of this nature, I do not have these options. If I did, I would take advandtage of them and stop whining about Wikipeidia. I started writing on the 'pedia because it's avaialble to non-credentialed but serious writers and scholars. I am disgusted with the cranks, the fanatical movements, edit creep and all the other nonsense. Thereofre, I plan to start the "serious non-expert contributor rebellion" againt both experts who prevent people like myself from being allowed to publish their writing in serious journals and other forums AND from the cranks and other malevolent destroyers of high-quality content conttibuted by myself on the Wackipedia. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  And of course I (at least) agree, Franco.  Your contributions to the philosophy pages of WP are known (by those who know) to be among the finest in Wikipedia.  I regret using the word 'expert'.  That said, you are in fact a subject matter expert.  What you mean is that you don't have expert 'credentials'.  I never used that word, and I have always been opposed to it. Dbuckner 09:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:   I prefer the word 'competent' when I can use it.  The problem is that there is no noun in English for 'competent person'.  Expert for that noun phrase, ha ha.  Dbuckner 09:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think you are confusing "expert" and "professional". An amateur can be an expert, and a professional can be a dud. --KSmrqT 19:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  do you mean me, or Franco?  I've already used the word 'credential'.  Also, within the scholarly world (which includes professionals and non-professionals) there is the distinction between those who get published in peer-reviewed journals (only about 1 in 10 of submitted articles ever makes it to publication).  Then there are professionals with tenure, and those without, &c &c.  Dbuckner 07:28, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The Serious non-Expert contributor rebellion

message: The last straw can be seen in my entry for today in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy.  As I said there, I really do have much better things to do than this.  Any hope of achieving anything here is impossible.  Thanks for all the comments on this page.  My reason for departure has NOTHING to do with anything here.  Dbuckner 07:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fare-thee-well DB and thanks. There really is no hope for this place. DV8 2XL 16:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actually I'm leaving as well 

message: Since User:Dbuckner has indicated that he is leaving Wikipedia, and to centralize the discussion, I have (with his permission) moved these pages (both project page and talk page) to the Wikipedia namespace.  
--EngineerScotty 19:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page move 

message: User:Electrawn has moved my work to Wikipedia:Expert Retention, in an attempt to hopefully get more input and more work on refining down to real solutions. These two articles really work in tandem. Not quite sure on the best means to work on this would be, but work should probably be co-ordinated. LinaMishima 20:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related wikispace discussion of solutions? 

message: It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. - Chinese proverb
I've created a Wikipedia essay that summarizes the things I wish I had known when I joined the project.  As a new editor I stepped into a hornet's nest of troublesome editors at Joan of Arc.  It's a featured article and a CD selection now, but it was far from that a year ago.  At the risk of making an inappropriate pun, the experience was a trial by fire.  Maybe the page will help some other editors overcome problems and improve articles. Durova 16:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Light one candle]] 

message: See my page.
:One crank drives out two experts - do you think we have a problem yet? --DV8 2XL 04:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Best of luck 

message: I don't want to contribute to a expert retention page.  I want to contribute to an expert rebellion page! Olin 12:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leave this page here 

message: I'm looking at User:WCityMike's or User:DV8 2XL's or User:Ste. Anne's parting messages, and it's not really clear to me why they should be considered "experts". What are the inclusion criteria for being listed on this page? — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 13:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What makes one an "expert"?