Episteme issue about Wikipedia appears
A special issue of the highly-regarded journal of social epistemology, Episteme, has just appeared. The journal is edited by one of the most important living epistemologists, Alvin Goldman, but this issue was co-edited by University of Arizona philosophy professor Don Fallis and me (Don more than me). Anyway, here is the issue.
I have an article in the issue, called “The Fate of Expertise after Wikipedia.” Here is the abstract:
Wikipedia has challenged traditional notions about the roles of experts in the Internet Age. Section 1 sets up a paradox. Wikipedia is a striking popular success, and yet its success can be attributed to the fact that it is wide open and bottom-up. How can such a successful knowledge project disdain expertise? Section 2 discusses the thesis that if Wikipedia could be shown by an excellent survey of experts to be fantastically reliable, then experts would not need to be granted positions of special authority. But, among other problems, this thesis is self-stultifying. Section 3 explores a couple ways in which egalitarian online communities might challenge the occupational roles or the epistemic leadership roles of experts. There is little support for the notion that the distinctive occupations that require expertise are being undermined. It is also implausible that Wikipedia and its like might take over the epistemic leadership roles of experts. Section 4 argues that a main reason that Wikipedia’s articles are as good as they are is that they are edited by knowledgeable people to whom deference is paid, although voluntarily. But some Wikipedia articles suffer because so many aggressive people drive off people more knowledgeable than they are; so there is no reason to think that Wikipedia’s articles will continually improve. Moreover, Wikipedia’s commitment to anonymity further drives off good contributors. Generally, some decisionmaking role for experts is not just consistent with online knowledge communities being open and bottom-up, it is recommended as well.
Here is a direct link to the PDF. Not sure how long this will be up; I’ll post a copy on larrysanger.org eventually.
It’s a work of academic philosophy, but that didn’t stop Slashdot from commenting. (I gotta wonder…what percentage of the commenters bothered to RTFA?)
The other articles are interesting — check them out!
That was certainly an interesting read.
On a general level, I agree with the majority of the points you make in the first three sections, in particular the conclusion that ‘ultimately, the credibility of
Wikipedia remains “tethered” to expert opinion’. I did find, however, that the “Wikipedia Potential Thesis” sidetracked somewhat one of the main issues. The question of whether authority for experts is ultimately unnecessary if Wikipedia succeeds in its primary goal is peripheral to the question of whether an (officially?) authoritative role for experts is necessary for that goal.
In section four, I found that the argument became less convincing. While the problems of the dominance of the persistent and the enforceability of restrictions & punishments are certainly valid, the usefulness of Citizendium’s (CZ) policies as a solution is dubious, especially insofar as it disrupts that strength of openness you mention near the start. For all that CZ has grown, it would be unrealistic, to say the least, that the scale of the growth corresponds to the growth of Wikipedia. In my opinion, this comparison, for all that it might be invalidated by any number of factors, illustrates a constructive value of openness reasonably well. I mean to say that while CZ’s policies may be (prima facie) effective, there are surely other methods of dealing with the problem which do not have nearly as many detrimental side-effects.
I haven’t read any of the other articles yet, but this one certainly reminds me of the usefulness of considering the core problems of openness and how they can be dealt with. If the concerns you raise in section four could be solved, or more likely, alleviated, without causing the project to be significantly less open, it would be a significant improvement for Wikipedia, its quality, and its reputation.
Comment by Nihiltres — February 16, 2009 @ 3:30 pm
Thanks for putting in the effort to write “THE FATE OF EXPERTISE AFTER WIKIPEDIA” (EPISTEME 2009 DOI: 10.3366/E1742360008000543). Made sense to me. A few comments:
Re: “For now at least, there seems to be a continuing demand for more authoritative information sources.”
Personally, I demand not only authoritativeness - well established - but also pedagogic superlativeness. What good can I assign to explanation, if the explainer lacks explanatory skill, pedagogically speaking?
Re: “Nevertheless, I plausibly assume that various classes of certified professionals, and some others said to be “experts” or “authorities,” have a role in society of articulating what is known in their fields or
industries.”
I would include as experts many popular science writers, for example, who cannot claim certification as a professional in the field they write about, but whose ability to research a subject, put the issue together coherently, in a way the reader can verify for herself, with style and grace and explanatory excellence.
Re: “Wikipedia’s “Verifiability” policy holds that “material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published
source using an inline citation.””
Even so, “reliable, published” sources may find themselves abused by interpretations ‘out-of-context’, or abused by reader bias, or even by malicious intent.
Anthony.Sebastian
Comment by Anthony Sebastian — February 16, 2009 @ 11:57 pm
Anthony, very interesting points — I didn’t think to include “pedagogic superlativeness” as an epistemic virtue, but of course you’re quite right.
Comment by Larry Sanger — February 17, 2009 @ 10:03 am
The comment above about out-of-context citations could be amplified. The fact is that scholars, at least in the humanities, often use language loosely: they don’t really mean what they appear to be saying. Wikipedia’s verifiability policy doesn’t take account of this, except where the discrepancy is itself verifiable: the author says at the start “When I say this I mean that”; or a reviw in a reliable source mentions it.
The Citizendium system should be abole to deal with this. However, it can only work in those areas where expert editors are actually there. Some weeks ago I posted a request for editor assistance on the talk page of every editor in the workgroup. So far no replies.
Comment by Peter Jackson — February 18, 2009 @ 7:28 am
Another point. Scholars often are unaware of each other’s work (eg Mendel). Wiki allows massive resources to be brought to bear to deal with this, in principle.
Comment by Peter Jackson — February 18, 2009 @ 7:29 am
I think the most insightful thing here is your remark about the quality of a Wikipedia article tending to follow “random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article.” There are serious problems with Wikipedia articles in areas where people are willing to aggressively push poorly grounded theses. They wear out the patience of the people who know what they are talking about. This is especially true on topics that are abstract enough that it is hard to find definitive authorities. This is why I don’t think Wikipedia under its current rules is equipped to build and sustain a good article on (for example) liberalism, but it can actually produce quite good articles on any number of prominent liberal thinkers.
Comment by Joe Mabel — March 1, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
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