For benefit of those who tend to use Wikipedia uncritically, let's contrast these "before" and "after" statements:
mathwonk said:
I am in math, and I have often been able to learn something apparently correct in my field from wikipedia.
mathwonk said:
I am just beginning to learn how low the standards are for a WP author. If anyone with a phd in an unrelated math field is considered particularly well qualified to comment on hundreds of other math topics, then wikipedia is, as you have suggested, nowhere i want to go for information, at least not about math.
I'm beginning to suspect this back and forth is mostly a rhetorical device, mathwonk, but assuming you really did revise your opinion from (if I might paraphrase) "the average math-related WP article appears reliable and even a professor of mathematics such as myself can learn from articles in my field of research" to "WP is nowhere i want to go for math-related information", this would provide a striking illustration of my contention that the biggest danger posed by Wikipedia (other than the Wikipedia-Google feedback loop) is that
almost anyone can be seduced into using "information" found at WP without adequate fact checking.
And who the bleep wants an encyclopedia which needs to be
fact checked every time you consult it?!
Really,
it's utterly absurd, but everyone is doing it anyway. Why? Because it is so convenient to ignore one's scholarly instincts (if one has them--- most readers do not). So I ask again: is Wikipedia really a Good Thing for the World? I argue that it is
not.
Now, even someone as smart as
John Baez currently disagrees with me about the "average utility/reliability" of math-related articles in the WP. I feel that this reflects the fact that he has not been anywhere near as active in the Wikipedia community as was I (from 2005-2006). So I wish to stress the point is that as mathwonk has learned more about "who writes Wikipedia", his opinion of its reliability has (if one takes his statements at face value) dramatically decreased.
I am extrapolating quite a bit here, but I would like to suggest that this is consistent with my feeling that those mathematicians who praise WP as a valuable innovation simply haven't enough knowledge of how WP articles are actually created, and by whom. Or sufficient appreciation of the way in which information can be, has been, is being, and increasingly will be subverted in the Wikipedia by individuals hiding behind sockpuppet accounts or anon IP addresses who are pursuing some hidden agenda, to the detriment of the readership.
mathwonk said:
on the topic of zariski topologies, we all have the option of reading mumford or hartshorne, or indeed zariski himself, and artin or grothendieck on etale topologies, so what does a graduate student have to offer of value on this subject?
Getting back to my idea that one way to write a better Wikipedia might be to organize graduate departments around the world to give their second year grad students editor accounts and have them write (signed) articles on a topic in their area of intended specialization for credit. Part of that idea is that while an encyclopedia written by students may be of limited value for readers, it could be of great value for the
writers!
Nonetheless, my own credo at WP was that writing for WP is a volunteer
service, not a right, and that all questions regarding WP policy should ultimately reduce to answering the question: which choice best serves the interest of the readers of the Wikipedia?
In my deleted user space essays at WP, I sketched a "ring model" for a better Wikipedia. Think of a Venn diagram. Initially users with minimal credentials (pass the written exams at an accredited university, say) are granted an account with minimal privileges enabling them to perform limiting editing of particular articles on particular subjects. As they demonstrate increasing expertise (breadth and or depth of knowledge) and as they hone their writing skills, they can be granted privileges enabling more extensive editing, and/or editing privileges in a larger "ring". In my model, articles would be signed by the principle authors, and the history pages would give a clearer view of how much text each author contributed.
Wikipedians will be quick to object that one of the features which turned many novice WP editors into fully fledged Wikipedians is the ability to contribute to articles on all topics of interest to them, regardless of their actual knowledge or expertise. Here too we see the essential conflict between the "anonblogging" and encyclopedic functions of Wikipedia as it currently exists. In addition, in my experience many oldtimer Wikipedians are still stuck in the ancient days when no-one (including myself) believed that volunteer labor could build "something often called an encyclopedia" (thus Sanger) with two million articles, and are fixated on the issue of recruiting volunteers. I feel that we are living in a changed world; the example of Wikipedia, however inadequate as an information resource it might be, has acquainted a sizable fraction of the world's population with the idea that volunteer labor for a project like WP can be fun. And of course I am suggesting here a model in which significant labor would be provided by individuals "rewarded" with modest academic credit, and for the real experts on the faculty, hopefully, some kind of credit for professional service within their professional organization (in this case, the AMS, and maybe their department).
Administering a ring model wikiproject is a bit like administering SElinux--- it would be a lot of work, so every effort would be needed to make this burden bearable by the "executive staffers".
Let's not forget that I have also suggested that head-on competition with Wikipedia is hopeless; rather, visionaries should focus on creating specialized "reliable microwikipedias", perhaps employing something like a ring model. My idea is that such "locally intelligent wikis" (world readable but with sharply defined write privileges) would be readily autoaggregated into something much bigger, i.e. I propose to split up the linking functions. Innovations like Greasemonkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greasemonkey suggest how linking from a closed "algebraic curve wiki" (for example) to a "mathbio wiki" in an article where Cramer is mentioned could be implemented. The effect would be similar to surfing Wikipedia, but the leadership of the individual wikis would be academics whose reputations would be on the line in terms of running them well in order to ensure maximal accuracy and minimal bias. (Indeed, there are already some scripts running at Wikipedia which autocreate internal links, which demonstrates my contention that aggregation can be done by "dumb" software; content creation within a subject requires intelligence and indeed wisdom.)
Wikipedians may object that one of the much touted advantages of "open wikis" is that they can be quickly updated, virtually in real time, to stay current . I'd counter that within the world of algebraic curves, only experts are really in a position to judge what constitutes A Significant Development. Give them the software tools and the profesional credit, and the natural desire to raise the profile of their own field within their academic discipline will do the rest.
Some might object "but then someone like mathwonk, local god-King of 'algebraic curve wiki' would be tempted to overemphasize his own interests, the contributions of his Ph.D. students, etc."; I'd reply that this danger already exists in current institutions such as hiring committees, journal editorships, and so on. And we've tolerated it fairly well for quite some time.
mathwonk said:
it might be of help if authors used the time honored practice by scholars of describing their intended audience. e.g. my notes on the RRT, begin with the statement that i am novice, i wrote the notes for myself and for anyone else beginning its study who may find them useful.
One of the reasons I gave up on my last-ditch attempt to reform WP from within was that WP has no facility--- even though this would be technically easy to implement--- allowing WP users to write signed and write-protected essays for policy purposes. Indeed, while Wikipedia users have their own directories (see the "prefix search" function under "special pages") , unlike what unix users familiar with large computer systems in academia would expect, these are
world writeable, which leads to considerable chaos. So vandals can and do trash essays expressing views they dislike, which is just one more absurd barrier to even
proposing major policy changes, much less implementing them.
"Authors": one of the more disastrous malapropisms which has become entrenched in Wikipedia culture is the use of "editor" to denote a role similar to the role of an "author" in the Brittanica model. This seemingly small mistake is, I suspect, partially responsible for many of the problems discussed by McHenry; a linguistic barrier to recognizing the distinction between the encyclopedic roles of
author and
editor fatally obscured the importance of providing "technosociopolitical mechanisms" to promote orderly structure at all scales.
Returning to the issue of how my ideas differ from the original "open wiki" model for building an information resource, I think the fundamental flaw with the "open wiki" model is the notion that checks and balances are unneccessary, because (according to the wikifaith) a wiki will be automatically attracted to a state of utopian perfection. I argue on the other hand that checks and balances, while a huge pain for everyone, are neccessary, and that software tools and thoughtful design of appropriate "wikiconstitutions" can lessen the pain to the point where the construction of "flawed but viable" microwikipedias are feasible. These can then be autoaggregated with little fuss.
Incidently, I been eyeing Puppy Linux for some time. In the short term, I think the MediaWiki software platform is valuable as a personal website authorship tool, and I envision a live CD tailored to the purpose of setting up a "closed wiki" for the purpose of conveniently creating world readable but unwriteable web content. Here, the math formatting abilities of MediaWiki are highly attractive to prospective authors of webpages with mathematical content.