Sponsor |  Naruwan | Mar 2, 2007 3:43am | "Who gets to be an "expert" on biology, a creationist, or an evolutionist. And, who decides this?"
eh? |
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Sponsor | | Stevietheman | Apr 9, 2007 8:31am | Here's the real deal: Citizendium was started because Larry Sanger has Wikipenis-envy. End of story.
CZ will crash and burn before long due to lack of critical mass. Wikipedia works because anyone can contribute. And Wikipedia's value continues to build despite its problems (and what real-world project doesn't have problems?) -- therefore, Citizendium will *never* be able to catch up. Not to mention many of us Wikipedians detest CZ's philosophy and will *never* make one edit there.
Wikipedia is built from anti-elitism, and the forces who believe in that far outnumber the elitists.
P.S. Citizendium's "experts" will *never* be able to match Wikipedia's coverage of the American Civil War (as one example). Never. I'll stake my existence on it. |
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|  |  2116738 | Apr 9, 2007 10:45am | Naruwan - I agree with you.
I visit Wikipedia often and to a lesser extent Citizendium. I am a scientist - in atomic and nuclear physics with side interests in roman literature and history. So I like Wikipee. When I compare content on physics, astronomy, literature, history, and even politics to a degree, I see very little difference between the two. I hear otherwise on other hot button topics and have noticed religion and biology have been butchered - but that is the nature of Wikipee.
However, those insulted by the "elitist" approach will always have WikiPee where everyone and their neighbor may be an "expert" of their own opinions.
Serious students (not school children - but those learning) will benefit and may even one day contribute to the pages of CZ or something along those lines.
Facts nowadays are like values of what is right and wrong - we live in a age where we doubt everything and everyone - so there is no need to assume someone else knows better than we do - thus they let the masses correct the masses is the Wikipee approach. Leaving it to the masses is a risky approach for the serious student.
Putting your faith behind something because of the number of participants is not very logical - though it does depend on who those participants happen to be - and thus arises the cry of "elitism". |
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Sponsor | | rumisong | Apr 9, 2007 10:58am | "History is written by the Victors"
well, this is changing that, thats all ... guess what, this means that those who used to be the "elite" (and the wannabes) are no longer ... the elitists no longer have their full and royal say, and may lose part of their identity in this process .... so what?
this is "history in the making" ... was there ever any other kind?
"Who gets to be an "expert" on biology, a creationist, or an evolutionist. And, who decides this?"
academic knowledge has been held up as sacred ... but it misses on so many counts ... and this (wikipedia) is a correction, a natural part of the evolution of human knowledge itself - get used to it |
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| | | 2116738 | Apr 9, 2007 2:02pm | Ah, no one has to get use to it! All things change.
How often people criticize the mob until they are part of it.
History is written by everyone who writes - the victors lost out on that role after World War II with the rise of low cost publications and paperbacks - Right, Beatles?
And of course we are free to believe anything we read - which is obvious by the contributors to most newsgroups and other forums ... maybe even this one ;) |
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Sponsor | | Naruwan | Apr 9, 2007 5:42pm | This is a good response from Sanger to the charge that CZ is elitist.
from the Citizendium Blog:
"Because the Citizendium has a role for experts, some have suggested recently that we're "elitist." But the claim is, frankly, absurd. Projects that allow teenagers to work with tenured professors and seasoned professionals cannot with any good sense be called "elitist." Consider a hierarchy of "elitism" in content-production organizations:
1. Very exclusive: the only participants permitted are not just experts, but distinguished experts. Example: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. One of the finest free reference works available online, just by the way. Would it be appropriate to accuse them of being "elitist"?
2. Exclusive: experts/professionals only. Examples: most big newspapers and magazines; some academic journals.
3. Expert-focused, but semi-expert-welcoming: while experts are most actively recruited, honored, and empowered, the system is also open to people who have a solid but nonexpert understanding of the relevant material. Example: Encyclopedia of Earth; some academic journals (think: first papers written by grad students).
4. Open, but making a special role for experts: no expertise is needed to participate, but experts are invited to fill a special role in the system. Example: Citizendium.
5. Radically epistemically egalitarian: everyone may participate, and no roles are made for experts; everyone is on an equal footing when it comes to making judgment about what is allegedly good, true, and beautiful. Example: HotOrNot, Wikipedia, and most Web 2.0 projects.
We are far more open and egalitarian compared to most everything outside of Web 2.0. To accuse us of elitism is merely to expose the limitations of your world."
blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/28/we-aint-elitist/ [blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/28/we-aint-elitist/]
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I think it would be a very interesting experiment to make a mirror site of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and turn it into a Wiki project. In what ways would it change? Would the quality of writing improve or gradually deteriorate? Would it become more concise or would it become more on the bloated side? Would the information become more reliable or less reliable? OK, they're loaded questions, but you get the idea. |
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Sponsor | | Stevietheman | Jun 7, 2007 11:46am | | Sanger actually convinced me of the opposite of what he was intending -- he makes a case for marginally keeping the riff-raff out, so as to somehow make an encyclopedia better. Whereas, in reality, keeping the riff-raff in has already been proven to work. Therefore, Sanger is essentially insisting that elitism be increased, for no discernible advancement. And to me, this is a crock. |
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Sponsor | | rumisong | Jun 7, 2007 12:40pm | "Projects that allow teenagers to work with tenured professors and seasoned professionals cannot with any good sense be called "elitist." ...
... To accuse us of elitism is merely to expose the limitations of your world."
LOL ...
a hypothetical response:
dude (the author of the article in absentia, is who I mean by dude) ... dude - just because you are saying it (in 'any good sense') does not make it true ... look at it again, man ... look at it again and again until you are 90% without bias - or more - and then look at it one more time ... THEN, you may see something about not only this, but about life itself, that youve never seen before !!!
until then, consider you may be elitist,
consider too, "the limitations" you are seeing, may be the biases you are not yet willing to shatter ...
come to me with the broken shards of a good number of those - and then we will talk ... |
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