Wikipedia talk:Anti-elitism

message: Anti-elitism is not the best term for the problem. We don't need "an elite". Indeed, the proposition sets up a straw man. Who would want to participate in a project controled by an elite, except the elite? And does it make any sense to consider the entire membership of anything "elite"? Besides, it's poor construction to invite anyone to join the war on anti-anythingism. 
 
The problem lies within elitism is its core belief in superiority. If the idea of superiority of a particular traits develops results, other views and characteristics, become ignored and thus does not allow for adequate competition. Anti-Elitism allows for the greatest respect of true merit and not simply advantages given by birth with particular resources and with society having a favorable view of particular talents and culture.
As long as the castle-jumpers can destroy 8 times as fast as the builders can build, there will always be a uphill battle to produce and maintain decent content. — Xiong熊talk* 00:51, 2005 August 9 (UTC)
:So I think about Hypatia at Alexandria. Wyss 05:14, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It wasn't directed at anyone, only a citation of an historical event, something PoV warriors did to a scholar out there in the real world. Wyss 16:16, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ochlocracy

message: ===Solution?===
Maybe what needs to be done is to recognize a certain discipline in editing these articles. Rather than going by what's popular and what people feel should be done I think we need to do some deep reflection on what we want to put in and what should be in. Whenever you get a publicly available editing scheme you start dealing with people's personalities and often personalities clash. But, if we were to come into this with a clinical view of correctness over popularity some things might happen: 1.) We might have to agree with something that goes against our individual views. 2.) We might have to defer to good old fashioned succinctness where we might want to put as much information in as can possibly fit. It's always amazed me how lilliputian egg breaking some of these arguements can get when the simple solution of "keeping it simple, stupid" is long since been passed on by. I think Wikipedia is a great resource if enough people took it seriously and the people contributing it weren't too serious for the wrong reasons. I think there's a very simple solution if we can all keep our heads cool. Wikipedia shouldn't be anti-elitist just as much as it shouldn't be elitist. It should not prefer one over the other and should only put contributions up to clinical scrutiny not popular opinion. Problem with that is not everybody is trained in that form of behavior and more often than not you get your normal everyday untrained Joe trying to be the authority on things. Which is fine, but it takes more than "I think it should be..." or "I disagree on the basis of personal feeling". FazzMunkle 08:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Beyond agreeing and disagreeing and being neutral

message: Maybe what needs to be done is to recognize a certain discipline in editing these articles. Rather than going by what's popular and what people feel should be done I think we need to do some deep reflection on what we want to put in and what should be in. Whenever you get a publicly available editing scheme you start dealing with people's personalities and often personalities clash. But, if we were to come into this with a clinical view of correctness over popularity some things might happen: 1.) We might have to agree with something that goes against our individual views. 2.) We might have to defer to good old fashioned succinctness where we might want to put as much information in as can possibly fit. It's always amazed me how lilliputian egg breaking some of these arguements can get when the simple solution of "keeping it simple, stupid" is long since been passed on by. I think Wikipedia is a great resource if enough people took it seriously and the people contributing it weren't too serious for the wrong reasons. I think there's a very simple solution if we can all keep our heads cool. Wikipedia shouldn't be anti-elitist just as much as it shouldn't be elitist. It should not prefer one over the other and should only put contributions up to clinical scrutiny not popular opinion. Problem with that is not everybody is trained in that form of behavior and more often than not you get your normal everyday untrained Joe trying to be the authority on things. Which is fine, but it takes more than "I think it should be..." or "I disagree on the basis of personal feeling". FazzMunkle 08:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Solution?

message: I agree: We need a little bit of "elite" element, that is, "authority" element to control problems. For example, the New York Times' web pages are NOT edited by just anyone: Whether the stories are biased or not, the pages are stable and free from vandalism. Additionally, lack of pay ensures you "get what you pay for" in the quality of editors on some occasions. Both the instability and lack of pay can lead to low morale and lack of respect for those with expertise who contribute that professional knowledge to wiki articles in their area of expertise.--GordonWattsDotCom 17:10, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Agree

message: *The statements are too vague for me to be comfortable with a categorical opinion on them. What is meant by anti-elitism? And how are difficult people dominant? I just don't understand what Sanger is talking about. I agree fully with Llyrch on the distinction between good credentials and good arguments. I also agree with St that Wikipedia's fundamental quality is openness. - Haukurth 21:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not so sure WP was "built with the idea of letting everyone have equal say" but rather, to let everyone have an equal chance to participate in writing an encyclopedia according to WP policy. Wyss 13:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral/other

message: The problem isn't so much anti-elitism as it is a kind of reverse snobbery that seeks to excuse mediocrity.  I suspect that mediocrity, in addition to the bad actors already cited here, also has to do with sophomoric undergraduates and pedantic graduates, who seem to subscribe to the post-modernist cultural relativism which feel-good hack academics have been foisting on them, which says, "Your truth is as good as mine, now aren't we sophisticated?"  
Tolerance is the cheapest of virtues because all too often it's nothing more than a sanctimonious way of disguising one's moral and/or intellectual sloth.  This perversion of tolerance creates one of the big problems on Wikipedia, the confusion of NPOV with "balance".  Truth (yes, dear post-modernists, objective truth) isn't balanced, so NPOV will seldom be "fair".  And need we go into that other pernicious way for people to sneak in their POV, the weasel words that plague almost every article with a history?
I think the best way to maintain excellence in Wikipedia, to keep it a truly collaborative effort as invisioned by its founders, is for users to be made to recognize that Wiki is not an exercise in civil rights but an effort to prove that truth is more reliably found in the dialectic of continual critical review than with standing peer review.  And critical review does not require specialized knowledge of the article subject, just the ability to recognize bullshit when we see it.  And those who can recognize bullshit when they see it are called editors.  And I think that editors, not content providers, are what Wikipedia sorely needs.
Agreeing with versus being informed by seems to be a distinction that some folks have a problem with, and it's not those folks whom Wikipedia should seek to accomodate.  As someone here has pointed out, Jimmy Wales told us (doubtless with Ward Cunningham's strong second), don't scrutinize the credentials, but by all means do scrutinize the content.  And if that smacks of elitism, then so be it. — J M Rice 00:10, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The problem is not anti-elitism!

message: True experts can explain their subject so rational though previously uninformed people will be convinced of the soundness of their views--and so the irrationality of absurd positions will be self-evident to any unbiased non-expert observer. True experts acknowledge and fairly present other valid positions than their own. The experts who get impatient at Wikipedia may be suited to scholarship, but not to a general encyclopedia, which is properly seen as a project in educational outreach. Alternatively, they may be less expert than they think they are.DGG (talk) 20:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What true experts can do

message: Are these truisms: 
*"The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: 'Experts are scum.'"
*"And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse." 
It certainly seems like a statement of an established idea. I would really like to see that whole quote removed, because it reduces the subject to absurdity and its purpose is unclear, however funny it may seem. It generalizes: its premise is that all experts act in a certain, childish manner and makes the issue worse, rather than explaining it. Rosier (talk) 12:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: With this quote removed, the redirect to this article from Wikipedia:Sword-skeleton theory now seems inappropriate, since there is no longer mention of said theory on this article. Therefore, I have listed the redirect on RfD. If anyone objects to the removal of the quote, please also add a comment to the RfD discussion so the redirect can be kept. Dansiman (talk|Contribs) 22:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

text: It is a most elegantly phrased and pithy quote. Powerful, self explanatory, apposite and funny. Autodidactyl (talk) 12:34, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Are experts really "scum" on Wikipedia?

message: This term currently redirects here. Apparently it was put up for 'redirects for discussion' but I can't find it. I think if it has any relevance as a redirect then the coiner of the term should explain what it means. Tyciol (talk) 16:22, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What is 'sword-skeleton theory'?

message: There are some areas where your average man on the street is, in fact, just about as qualified as someone in academia. Keeping track of internet memes and pop culture, for example, would be an area that requires no special expertise. But what I think we're seeing is a class of elitist editors within the community who seem to be dedicated to throwing out the baby even before they drain the bathwater. --Nerd42 (talk) 00:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about elitism within Wikipedia? 

message: Wikipedia's hostility to simple explanations for initial learners of a  subject and its tendency to label everything as original research or cite undo weight whenever a disagreement is explained is the real problem, a problem I would summarize as elitism.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.52.53.32 (talk) 02:36, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia's problem is eletism there is no anti-elitism 

message: The paragraph on Randy describes a negative consequence of anti-elitism, not a positive one; just look at the other items listed under positive and negative consequences.  Hence , which I trust isn't particularly bold, even in an essay.  If it is too bold, I trust someone will revert, and then we can do the WP:BRD thing.  Happy editing. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • COI) 18:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paragraph on Randy: moving