Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:14, 10 May 2007

• Misplaced Pages talk:Expert retention/Archive 1

The "still active" group

Maybe I am being over-critical, but it seems to me that the section labeled "Those who are still active on Misplaced Pages" are, as a group, less expert than those who have departed (long-term or forever). Maybe there is no way to address this without a lot of finger-pointing and hurt feelings, but that is my overall impression. In particular, it seems that philosophers and computer science credentials have always been in abundant supply within the project. What is needed it true hard-science credentials, ideally at the PhD level. All you have to do is look at the portals listed on the main page to understand how the face we present mismatches the reality of the "expert pool" within the project. -- 70.231.147.149 20:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You are comparing a list of 19 items to a list of 9 items; not especially good statistics in any case. Neither list is very current; the "departed" list contains several contributors who have returned, or who are only semi-active, and the "still active" list contains several who have not made contributions recently. And of course, neither is comprehensive in the least. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from a simple comparison of the two. Opabinia regalis 23:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Featured article "solution".

This seemed like a very good idea to me, however also at the same time going a little too far? The concept is good, but perhaps semi-protection would be better? Also I'm sure if it was just semi-protection rather than full protection it would be a lot easier to get wide spread community consensus on this (though I'd still have doubts about it being possible). Anyway, I edited it to add that in and I felt that I'd mention it here on the talk page for futher discussion. Mathmo 03:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Add to list

You might think about adding PhD Historian to your list or at least looking at his talk page. Awadewit 02:04, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Good addition; I've added him. +sj + 01:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Refactoring to mention non-disgruntled experts

Two refactors: a new subsection about experts who left but returned; and a new section for the hundreds or thousands of experts who edit every week without hitting dangerous levels of wikistress.

We should solve the problems identified here, especially for highly specialized and focused experts such as PhD Historian -- even if we cannot provide their ideal environment for contribution, we can set expectations so that they never feel their time contributing has been wasted, and so that the chance of their having a senseless argument is minimized. We should however not conflate this problem with the perceived problem that 'experts don't as a rule edit / don't like editing wikipedia' which can be shown to be false by enumeration.

Using a more careful language of expertise as suggested above by QTJ would help reduce this confusion as well! +sj + 01:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

In order to tie experts to numbers you will have to define an expert.

In my area of expertise the articles show no evidence of an involvement by experts. The specialised articles tend to be patchy clumps of detail containing noticeable numbers of small errors and major omissions. Experts would tend to produce a broader view and pickup on the small errors. In the more popular areas which overlap my area of expertise and where the informed view is in conflict with competing marketed views either the latter tends to dominate or the article presents a messy argument. If there has been input by experts it has been swamped by the enthusiastic and ill-informed.

Experts come from an environment where debate takes place between the informed and is built on top of a shared and agreed knowledge about the fundamentals of the subject. Peer review and academic status are substantial barriers to the ill-informed. In wikipedia, expertise has little value when reasoned argument about the subject of the article fails to be met in kind. It does not take long to realise that one-sided reasoning with the ill-informed does not prevent damage to the wikipedia articles. HonestGuv 11:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Something missing

The thing that's missing from this page is that people who see themselves as expert editors aren't necessarily good Misplaced Pages editors. They suffer from what several editors call "expert syndrome," which is when someone with an advanced degree in a subject, or a particular professional background, feels there's no need for them to cite their sources and edit within the policies, because their original research is expert research, and it therefore ought to be good enough for Misplaced Pages. As a consequence, the material they produce may be wrong, careless, and POV. It may also be badly written.

We should also bear in mind that just because someone has an advanced degree in a subject doesn't actually mean they're an expert in it. The degree might be from some time ago. They may just have scraped through. It's likely to be in a very particular area, and not applicable to much outside that area, even within their own field. They may not be particularly respected by their peers. They may not work within their field, and so on.

The other problem with expert syndrome is that expert editors feel that, because identified as experts in one area, they should be regarded as experts everywhere else in the encyclopedia. Then when they're not accorded sufficient respect (not allowed to add their personal opinions to articles), they complain about disrespect for experts and leave (and then get added to this list).

I'm not arguing that we don't need experts, because we do, but what we really need are good editors, whether experts or not. I'd much rather work with a good editor who knows little about a subject than with a bad one who has a PhD in it. By putting people with expertise on a pedestal, we exacerbate "expert syndrome." It might be a good idea to add something like this to the page, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it. SlimVirgin 11:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It is the experts who are competent to judge whether material is "wrong" or "POV". Mangoe 14:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

There's the problem in a nutshell. SlimVirgin 16:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we should remove the names from this page, and try to write something that's focused on the issue. It's not clear how we're defining "expert" for a start; the list seems to include users it would be hard to regard as experts, and there's also the issue of credential verification, another can of worms. SlimVirgin 16:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Credential verification is not the problem it is being made out to be. In the interests of assuming good faith I trust that anyone who points to an off-wiki site with a resume or what-have-you of that ilk is who they say they are. But the focus here isn't on them: it's on the people who don't have credentials and who know that they don't have credentials, and nevertheless persist in acting as if they were experts. No matter how well they play in the Misplaced Pages pool, by whatever standard one takes for that, if they are contributing erroneous information, they are hurting Misplaced Pages. And if they persist in defending their errors, they are hurting Misplaced Pages all the more, because genuinely knowledgeable people are faced with the prospect of having to persuade them-- not likely-- or drive them away, for which the knowledgeable then get tagged as "disruptive". We would be a lot better off if we could learn to live with the allegedly prickly experts and to cater to those amateurs who substitute a veneer of civility over their tendentious editing. Mangoe 17:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue is not only prickly experts, but people who say they are experts, but who write badly, use sources badly, edit from only one POV, think their POV is NPOV, and so on. But because they have an advanced degree in something (and not even that at times; I removed a name from the page today of someone with no degrees in the subject he wrote on Misplaced Pages about), they think they must be good writers and how dare anyone think otherwise.

This issue comes in waves in Misplaced Pages, that a certain group of people say, in effect, "we are the people who keep Misplaced Pages going, and if we leave it'll be a disaster, so treat us well." The truth is that Misplaced Pages is kept going by people who do whatever they do well, whether it's writing, copy editing, offering specialist knowledge, creating templates, keeping the site up, or whatever. We shouldn't place any single group on a pedestal, or denigrate any group either. The project works because different people contribute different skills. SlimVirgin 18:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

"Disaster" is your word, not theirs. Misplaced Pages keeps going, yes, but whether it keeps going well is hotly argued. In the rest of the world, it isn't argued much at all; it is not considered a reliable source precisely because it is extremely easy to find problems with its content. And a major source of those problems is amateur and crankish editors who simply do not know enough about the subjects of the articles to update them or even copyedit them correctly. Yes, there are other problems, and talking about those other problems doesn't make this one go away.

I have to say that I haven't come across a place where someone made a claim of real expertise that proved false. (That isn't counting the Essjay mess, which I only heard about third-hand.) Every battle of tendentiousness I've come across involved amateurs on the apparently faulty side, or a subject which is inevitably the target of relentless POV pushing. I have never bothered to edit (or consult) articles on middle Eastern politics or history because of this, and I quit editing social issues articles because of this. It's understandable that discussion of those articles is always going to be poor. But when it comes to Drosiphila or any number of scientific articles, there's no excuse for amateurs to defy anyone, and especially not experts, no matter how rude they are. But it happens all the time. Mangoe 19:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point. I'm not talking about faux experts. I'm talking about people who do have advanced degrees, but who are poor editors. Having a PhD after doing research on fruit flies for three years is neither here nor there when it comes to being an editor, just as being a good editor doesn't mean you know something about fruit flies. To think having a PhD is all that's required to be good in another area (i.e. writing and editing) is to take an anti-expert position; that is, it assumes that writing and editing isn't an expertise in its own right. This is a problem we've encountered many, many times with people who see themselves as "expert editors." They frequently see only their strengths, not their weaknesses.

As for rudeness from editors, no one gets a free pass. We might tolerate quirkiness or a certain brittleness from people who are genuinely doing good work, but not from people who cause disruption, even with degrees coming out of their ears.

Anyway, can you answer my question about the list? Are you saying we ought to retain a list of "experts" who have left, which includes at least one person who has no degrees at all, and comments from experts that contain spelling mistakes? SlimVirgin 19:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Having done a few spot checks, it's clear that a lot of these people aren't really gone. However, it also seems that none of those who remain or who have returned have withdrawn their objections.

As far as whether they are good editors, there seems to be some difference of opinion about what editing is about. In the more conventional sense, yes, probably some experts are poor at copyediting and the like. On the other hand, my experience copyediting articles is that only pretty trivial editing can be done by people ignorant of the subject. For instance, I can copyedit the taxonomy material across biology as a whole because I am familiar with the conventions and because I know who to consult in questionable cases. Someone who isn't familiar with this stuff isn't competent to do this. Anything much more than the trivial tends to require understanding the subject, and for amateurs or passers-by, a willingness to suffer correction on content.

The problem cases here don't involve any of that. They involve writing, that is to say, producing content. For that, the author needs to know the stuff. And when that knowledge is marginal, they need (again) to be willing to accept correction when they are not experts. I'm sure there are experts who can't write, but that has nothing to do with the cases referenced here. The cited cases are of amateurs who simply did not know what they were talking about, who either inserted information without cause or were dogged in defending errors. They cannot be defended by attacking the supposed writing/editing skills of their expert opponents-- or for that matter, their inexpert opponents. Mangoe 21:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Mangoe, again, you keep misunderstanding what I'm saying. When I talk about bad writing, I'm not necessarily discussing anyone on the page. I'm deliberately not giving examples for obvious reasons, but I can tell you that the ones I'm thinking of haven't all left. My point is a more general one, namely that some people with specialist knowledge are good editors and some aren't; and that some people without specialist knowledge are good editors and some aren't, and the problem with this page is that it's lumping one group together, calling them "experts," and implying that ipso facto that means they're helpful to the project.

The other problem with the page is that it's assuming that people who call themselves experts are experts, and I'm arguing that, even with advanced degrees, they might not be, for a variety of reasons; or their expertise might be so narrow it's practically worthless. Someone with a PhD in philosophy in concepts of time won't necessarily know much more about moral philosophy than anyone else, for example. Then you have the other group: the ones who pretend to have expertise, some of whom were and still are on this page. That's why this list is not a good thing. (a) It contains non-experts; (b) it contains experts who left for reasons unconnected to their expertise; and (c) it's very short, which actually indicates that the problem the essay says exists may not exist. All in all, it's an odd list to want to retain.

Please tell me this: do you consider writing to be an expertise in its own right? SlimVirgin 23:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I consider myself an expert in it. And there is definitely a problem with the quality of writing in Misplaced Pages, one that cannot be solved by throwing copyeditors at it.

But that is a side issue. The expert rebellion was brought on by disputes over content, not over writing style.

And as far as pretending expertise, I don't see much proof that this is in fact happening. The Essjay incident stands out as an exception. If you are going to assume good faith, you are obligated to take people at their word if they assert credentials. And if they point to an extra-wikipedial website which expresses those credentials, I have to say this trumps your doubt in the matter, especially if you are an amateur. Of course, all too many-- maybe most-- people come to Misplaced Pages acting as if they were experts, and that needs to stop. But again, that's not about expert editing, but about amateur editing.

Your resistance to giving examples is a problem because it reduces your point to unfounded allegations. Mangoe 15:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The case of User:KimvdLinde

How do we define an expert? Well, in the case of Kim van der Linde, there seems to be every reason for people who aren't biologists to consider her to be an expert-- that is to say, their superior in the field. She has a PhD and she is published; what more is needed? Mangoe 17:11, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

She doesn't appear to have left over any dispute regarding her area of expertise. Jayjg 21:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's why I moved her to the "still here" column. Her complaints may still be seen on her user page, however. Mangoe 21:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Her pretext for leaving is on her user page. Jayjg 22:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Come, come. You accuse someone else of bad faith, and then you refer to her "pretext"? If you take the comments on her user page at face value, then she certainly belongs ehre. If you want to allege otherwise, spell it out. Mangoe 23:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

This is part of what is wrong with this list. We have no evidence with some of them that they're experts. We have no evidence with others that their leaving had anything to do with the expert issue, regardless of what they say. I know of one editor who's actually nothing short of a lunatic, but who claims to have been driven off qua expert. In terms of content, length, and the spelling mistakes in the comments, the list makes us look pretty silly. SlimVirgin 23:33, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Unlike you, I was quite involved with or aware of her during her lengthy period of "leaving" Misplaced Pages. Jayjg 02:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and that's why both of you have a conflict of interest here. In any case, she is clearly an expert on fruit flies, so I don't see how bringing anyone else up matters. Mangoe 02:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

"Conflict of interest" is a phrase people like to fling around quite loosely on Misplaced Pages, but, as I've explained a number of times, "interest" and "conflict of interest" are entirely different things. My active involvement with Kim stopped long before she left Misplaced Pages, and was never all that significant to begin with. Jayjg 02:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Please. You are trying to pass yourself off as neutral judge, and you aren't. And in any case, she is still an expert of fruit flies. Mangoe 03:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

As a person who talked to Kim before she left. While my impression is that Kim did leave in part due to reasons that Jayjg has referred to, well before she left in emails to she discussed planning to leave with me based on the concerns on her userpage. While obviously my claim wouldn't be enough evidence if this were mainspace, I think we can safely include Kim on this list. JoshuaZ 03:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

My neutrality and judgement in this matter is certainly better than yours, yet I don't see you vacating the page. Jayjg 03:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with that editor is that she blamed so many people and so many incidents for leaving that it became hard to keep track. Anyway, the issue is not any one individual, but the entire list. It's inappropriate and makes us (and them too, actually) look bad. SlimVirgin 04:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Her circumstances are complex, no doubt, and the two of you obviously play a direct part in it as active participants. Nobody has any obligation of any kind to take your word on this, nor to accept any claims as to your neutrality. Part of me wishes to investigate the records myself, and part of me realizes that there isn't enough time to do that and have a life. So I'm forced to fall back on my initial conclusion that anyone who persists in editing the kind of article in question can be assumed to be a POV pusher, because nobody else has a prayer of prevailing. Mangoe 15:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

List of people

I think we need to get rid of the list. I'm seeing people on the list who left because they were in trouble of some kind; people who have no degrees in the area they edited in (no degrees at all, in fact); and some of the quotes contain spelling mistakes, which is odd if we're saying these are the people we must keep. Retaining such a list makes the page look odd, and it's a can of worms. If there are no objections, I'll remove it. SlimVirgin 19:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I object. Indeed, a lot of the people who are listed opine that they got into trouble because of the disrespect afforded to experts by people who manifestly weren't. Yes, it's a can of worms, because this is about a problem topic. Your recent edits here seem to me to add up to the message that there isn't really an expert retention problem, because the objecting "experts" deserved to be driven off. Perhaps you are entitled to that opinion, but in the interest of historical honesty the list should remain. Perhaps it might be re-made as a list of comments by the people in question. Mangoe 19:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

No, my point is not that people should be driven off, but that some of the people listed left because of difficulties they were having getting on with people in areas that they weren't experts in, and so that had nothing to do with expert retention. Are you honestly saying we should keep an "expert" list that contains someone with no degrees or professional expertise; and comments from those experts that include spelling mistakes? SlimVirgin 19:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, without naming names, I'm disinclined to believe this. In the example that you keep deleting, I am aware that the person in question came into conflict with you over articles about the middle East. I reserve judgment as to whether she had a point in that; I don't think it is worthwhile to bother editing those articles, so I'm biased. But her complaints centered on an entirely different group of articles in a field where she is demonstrably an expert. In the other cases, it seems to me that the complaints were largely justified and in some cases understated.

Besides, you are assuming bad faith. Why should you presume that everyone else is not an expert? Mangoe 19:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

You're disinclined to believe what? SlimVirgin 19:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

That any given person on the list left for the reasons you ascribe to them. Mangoe 20:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that some did, and you can see for yourself if you look at some of the diffs they present. But can you please answer the question I've asked three or four times? Are you saying we ought to retain a list of "experts" that includes at least one person who has no degrees at all, and comments from them that contain spelling mistakes? SlimVirgin 20:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I expect you to name cases that you wish to delete, that they may be considered on their merits, rather than taking a "one bad apple spoils the whole bushel" approach. Mangoe 21:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any point in any of them; they add nothing to the page except spin. Do you want to set up a "rebuttal" section as well for the people they got into conflicts with? Jayjg 21:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I object. This is a brainstorming article on expert retention and you are proposing to remove the evidence for reasons that appear suspiciously weak. Can I ask why? HonestGuv 20:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

See above. SlimVirgin 20:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid I can still only see what lead me to ask the question rather than something new that answers it. HonestGuv 21:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The list isn't about "brainstorming", it's about people claiming they have left because their expertise wasn't respected. The claims are dubious, and the page should be about solving problems, not putting spin on your personal difficulties. Jayjg 21:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

As reasoning for removing the evidence that supports the article this does not even reach the level of suspiciously weak. People are quite capable of judging the strength of the evidence for themselves. HonestGuv 22:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

"Evidence that supports the article"? It's not evidence, it's just a list of people, and this isn't an Arbitration case, it's an essay. People can hardly "judge" these things anyway; they aren't going to be able to unwind months or years of edits and decide exactly what went wrong. Your reasons for suggesting this list be retained are suspiciously weak, and arguably don't even reach that level. Please come up with better justifications. Jayjg 22:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Chortle. I am relatively new to all this and consequently a bit slow finding my way around. You pair are probably stronger evidence for experts leaving than the evidence which you are seeking to remove. HonestGuv 22:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I see. So you've got nothing besides bad faith. Understood. I'll weigh your statements accordingly. Jayjg 23:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Emasculation

This article has been taken in a direction which is essentially at odds with Misplaced Pages:Expert rebellion, from which it was derived. The thesis of the new editors seems to be that there really isn't a need to do anything, because all the people who left or who otherwise expressed discontent did so for reasons other than that having to do with expertise in the field. I don't believe this, and I see no reason to believe this in the absence of concrete and specific evidence. The strategy of erasing all the specific statements which one graced the article has left us with nothing but unsustainable allegations, one way or the other. It's particularly obvious that at least one of the erasures has to do with a contratemps between one of the erasing admins and one of the people whose complaint (which had nothing to do with that incident) has thus been erased.

I have no truck with the false choice between cooperative, "good editing" amateurs and uncooperative, "bad editing" experts. Incidents involving bullheaded amateurs abound, whether or not their opponents are experts or even passing novices. Policy attempts and essays such as Misplaced Pages:Ignore all credentials and Misplaced Pages:Credentials are irrelevant testify to the hostility experts are met with. The former proposal, in fact, failed only because it failed to reach consensus, not because there was a consensus to reject it. The current seizure of this article by the opposition is simply another act enabling this kind of abuse.

This article should be restored its former state. If SlimVirgin and Jayjg want to oppose it, then they should write their own essay and leave this page alone. Mangoe 02:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't attribute your lengthy straw man arguments to me. The purpose of this page was to generate ideas for retaining experts. Instead parts of it were used by self-appointed experts as a forum for claiming they had left because of expert issues. It's supposed to be a solution page, not a gripe session. Jayjg 03:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The page is for people to edit, so it's being edited to take other views into account. Not everyone believes that the editor issue is as simple as this page was painting it. Some of the people posting here in favor of scientific rigor in articles would do well to apply some of their philosophy here; we can't simply post a list of user names and take on board everything they say, bad spelling and all. There's more than one POV about this situation.

As for "Incidents involving bullheaded amateurs abound ..." ditto with supposed expert editors.

We should be pro-quality, not pro-expert. The former will often embrace the latter, but not invariably. SlimVirgin 04:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a brainstorming article about retaining experts and evidence for that is (was?) contained in a list of examples. If you wished to refute the evidence then the normal and appropriate manner would be to do so by adding opposing arguments. Removing all the evidence, particularly after asking for agreement and not receiving it, is a wholly unreasonable action. Since you must know this I await the next move with curiosity. HonestGuv 07:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, it's a page for discussing ideas for retaining experts, not a court case. Jayjg 16:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

First, I don't think there are all these incidents with people producing false credentials. If you won't cite them, then it's reasonable (based on my own experience) to assume that they aren't happening.

Second, who is going to be the judge of quality? Well, experts!

Third, I don't have a problem with you presenting a contrasting view, as an addition. If you did that, there wouldn't be the traces of an edit war here. But right now I'm only refraining from reverting most of your damage to the article because, as an admin, you cannot be trusted not to WP:OWN the article by blocking or banning me. As it is, you are taking advantage of the fact that most people have apparently thrown in the towel to write the history as the victors of the conflict. Mangoe 15:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I haven't mentioned "false credentials", I don't know why you have. Second, I don't know why you're talking about who is "the judge of quality". Third, there aren't two "views" being presented here. Fourth, this isn't an article about a specific "conflict". Fifth, your clear failure to assume good faith and violations of policy when you refer to my edits as "your damage to the article", and claim that "as an admin, you cannot be trusted not to WP:OWN the article by blocking or banning " indicate that you have nothing to offer here. I suggest you restrict further "contributions" to your favorite attack forum, where, rather than being a policy violation, this kind of rhetoric is de rigueur. Jayjg 16:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)