I agree with Alistair about the certification thing - Wikipedia is it’s own phenomenon, and I can’t see what would be gained from making it more like a normal encyclopedia - always out of date, boringly written, and full of rules about what can even be covered. I can’t imagine Brittanica having an entry on ‘ass to mouth’. Not that I was particularly interested, but I was interested that it was allowed, and that people put so much thought into such a strange matter. Good on them, if that’s their bag - better to be informed about it. I can’t attest to the veracity of that entry, and I challenge anyone from a big encyclopedia to do so. Or they can get on with their old skool way of doing things while the world rushes past.

that sort of plitical crectnis sets my teeth on edge (sorry ladies )

I’ll try to explain why…

Really it’s because I’m an etymology freak. What’s a “layman” ? A non-ordained person, one who has not been initiated into the mysteries, a profane. Therefore, ignorant of the revealed truth, not qualified to speak on religious matters.

This, in the context of English/European cultural history, is necessarily a question of ordained / non-ordained men, because women’s opinions were of no account anyway.

That’s my first problem with “layperson”… it’s an etymological anachronism.

But in explaining it, I’ve realised that I’ve got a problem with the underlying concept… see previous post!

“Experts” need to “certify” stuff before it can be “trusted”…

this attitude is to be expected from academics, it’s a conditioned reflex. But I feel it’s rather missing the point about the nature of knowledge — this is the fascinating aspect of the Wikipedia phenomenon. It seems pretty subversive to me. By construction, academia can never accept it as authoritative.

Actually, everything in Wikipedia is peer-reviewed. The difficulty is that there is no hierarchy… everyone is everyone’s peer…

I have always instinctively felt that there are many paths to truth… maybe some shorter than others… but none are inherently invalid. It doesn’t surprise me at all that the collective intelligence, and power of synthesis, of an organic network like Wikipedia results in material which is about as accurate as a reference encyclopedia. And the thing is still young. I expect it will become more accurate.

But I think the notion of “certifying” articles is ideologically unsound.

The strength and the weakness in the system, of course, is that it’s a benevolent dictatorship. It will be fascinating to see how that evolves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layperson

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

And if you don’t like it, we invite you personally to bring it up to your standards

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/index.php?p=524&tag=nl.e550

Open access, like open source, will continue to be debated, until something causes the shutdown of access to allcomers, then it will merely be mourned.

Make the most of it while you can!