[Arisbe] prestige and anonymity

[Jon Awbrey]

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steven,

the time in excess of a year that i have spent working in wikipedia
and watching what goes on there is enough to convince me that your
assertion is perfectly accurate, "the public is in jeopardy",
though perhaps a bit mildly stated.

i cannot detail the reasons why here, but you can follow
the trials and tribulations that many diverse people have
had with wikipedia at the wikipedia review:

http://wikipediareview.com/

the wikipedia review also maintains a list of other wiki sites
that are trying out different sets of principles in hopes of
correcting the systematic flaws of wikipedia, for instance:

http://www.opencycle.net/
http://www.getwiki.net/
http://wikinfo.org/

many regards,

jon awbrey

cc: arisbe list

Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote:
> 
> On Mar 17, 2007, at 6:27 AM, Joseph Ransdell wrote:
> > Back to Wikipedia, then, the insistence on anonymity is an attempt
> > to eliminate all prestige as if it were only an illusion.  But
> > without intending to argue for an attitude of purely naïve
> > acceptance, it does seem to me that we need to recognize the
> > cognitive value of prestige when there is enough agreement in
> > opinion being reached in common in the given field to make It
> > reasonable to regard its persuasional effect as genuinely tending
> > to improve the likelihood that the truth of the matter really is
> > being got at by people who are prestigious.
> 
> I really do not think that the elimination of prestige is the motive
> of Wikipedia - not that any motive is clearly articulated there. The
> real objective really appears to have much more to do with subversion
> of the establishment - a mission that, in other circumstances, I
> might actually have some sympathy with. That is, Wikipedia seeks to
> enable the establishment of prestige on its own terms - with Jimbo
> Wales being the beneficiary of the collective prestige - the guardian
> of the mob.
> 
> > At present I think this is recognized -- or rather misrecognized --
> > when people want to say that there is such a thing as rightful
> > authority in cognition.  I think this use of the word "authority"
> > is misleading here, and it would be better to say that there is no
> > such thing as being an authority in cognition in a research field.
> 
> On my Wikipedia user page I note that there are two ways that we
> assess the authority of information.
> 
> The first is by familiarity. We know intuitively how to deal with
> those sources familiar to us. Conventions of authority enable us to
> deal with those sources that are unfamiliar to us. If you undermine
> those conventions then you have created a revolutionary situation
> that will enable new conventions to be established. Hence, I continue
> to believe the public is in jeopardy.
> 
> I know, it sounds terribly alarmist. :-)
> 
> With respect,
> Steven
> 
> --
> Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
> Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
> http://iase.info

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