Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 09:21, 7 August 2009

Recently I've read two editorials about Misplaced Pages. L. Gordon Crovitz offers a vote of confidence in the Wall Street Journal ("Misplaced Pages's Old-Fashioned Revolution"), citing Misplaced Pages's "growing professionalism" and suggesting that it is "fast becoming the best" encyclopedia. Meanwhile, Oliver Kamm at firstpost.com takes a position at the other end of the teeter totter ("Knowledge by consensus is Misplaced Pages's downfall]") by offering bracing criticism. Kamm writes that "Misplaced Pages is indeed comprehensible, and some of its articles effectively mimic the language of scholarly reference. The venture is junk, nonetheless". He rounds off this drubbing by saying "there is no reason to accept or value , still less use it for its intended purpose." Only after all the torches have sputtered out and all the pitchforks are once again leaning against the toolshed wall will any villagers who read Kamm's editorial pick up on the fact that he never provides any real evidence to support his critical stance. Perhaps a bit more noticeable is the lack of any offer of meaningful advice or helpful input.

Kamm is correct in claiming that many articles – even among the bronze-starred featured articles, which are supposed to represent our best efforts – are just a mishmash of relevant terminology floating in factoid soup. He's right again to fault a project that over-emphasizes the (un)reliability of WP:CONSENSUS as a means of determining excellence. As often as not, consensus works to nullify any value contributed by Misplaced Pages's exceptionally sensible guidelines and policies on the necessity of employing verifiable and reliable sources, and on the virtues of maintaining a neutral point of view without conducting original research. If you're looking for examples of where the process has gone awry, look no further than Misplaced Pages's article on lightning, or the featured article on tropical cyclones. Judge for yourself whether you come away with anything even vaguely resembling an intuitive understanding of how these fundamental meteorological phenomena work. After you've done that, dig into the latter article's FAC to see the unadulterated fan-club voting that brought it the coveted bronze star. Little wonder that Kamm finds our wares resistible.

Our faith in WP:CONSENSUS neglects to note that many editors are inadequately equipped, insufficiently disciplined or insufficiently objective for the task of creating excellent content. They are similarly impervious to the very real differences between content that is excellent and content that is merely adequately stocked with verifiable facts. By extension, they are unable to constitute a review process that rewards only the former while sending the latter back to the drawing board. Consensual soup – all too often, that is what we are in the business of creating. We take our lumps for it in editorials and in the offhand comments of university professors across the world, but those lumps are often well-deserved.

It's hard, then, to avoid the conclusion that Kamm has his finger on a truth about Misplaced Pages, but he may not have corralled the whole truth.

Crovitz too has noticed the existence of WP:V and WP:RS, as well as the significant influence they exert over articles. Rather than joining Kamm in completely discounting them, however, Crovitz places too much faith in their power to heal Misplaced Pages's wounds. Both views are wrong, in my opinion, and to find the truth one needs to look in a different direction.

There is a deeper problem within Misplaced Pages's article creation and content review processes, and neither editorial points out the ghost at the banquet: flooding Misplaced Pages-space with do's and don'ts wrapped in the cloth of policies and guidelines cannot transform the great mass of Misplaced Pages editors into effective writers. The run-of-the-mill Misplaced Pages editor approaches WP:V, WP:RS and WP:WIAFA as items on a checklist, or perhaps lines in a recipe. Such editors are fairly quivering with an unspoken faith that if some minimum number of the right kinds of ingredients are present, the cake will come out Betty Crocker perfect. Unfortunately, our uncritical reliance on such guidelines fosters this approach. At some point, the spell needs to be broken, the penny needs to drop, and the folks at the water cooler to be told: much as jumping and then jumping again while still in the air can't make you fly, magical thinking that involves plugging bits 'n pieces of WIAFA onto a page doesn't create an excellent article.

Rather than slapping down the crap that results, the content review process makes it possible to reward such factoid soup output with Misplaced Pages's seal of approval, thus perpetuating the headlong rush to mediocrity. The FAC process is set up so that one well-placed Oppose can counteract a host of Supports, but it is also set up so that the outcome depends on whatever reviewers happen to show up (as opposed to designated reviewers of professional or near-professional quality). If only the fans show up to review that article, well then... we get what we get. This gaping hole in the quality control process is a direct offshoot of Misplaced Pages's attachment to consensus, and its volunteer makeup.

Effective writers are made, not born. If Misplaced Pages wants to improve the quality of its articles, it must have the foresight to stop relying on the talent that we get, and instead start a self-sustaining process of mentoring the contributors that we have. Professional-quality writers, editors and researchers should rethink their decision to volunteer their work as editors, and consider volunteering to teach others their craft. Our other option would be to start hiring professional writers, and that of course runs far too sharply against the grain of Misplaced Pages's distinctive spirit.

Our guidelines and policies are powerless to point out the fact that both research and writing require diligent mental effort and a continually, recursively reflective attitude. Time and again the editors must return to square one and ask themselves, "Is this all there is to the issue? Have I missed anything? Did I leave out or under-emphasize anything that cropped up again and again during my research? Have I overstated anything? Have I organized and presented the information in a way that my audience could intuitively grasp and clearly recall? Did I place myself in the reader's shoes, imagining the basic questions they might ask ("What is the relationship between wind speed and air pressure?), and writing to the questions? Did I scoop a few unprocessed factoid dumplings from various sources, plop them down onto the page and refer to the result as "summary style", or did I unpack them in a way that successfully transfers meaning from the page to the reader?" Effective writing – writing which is thoroughly researched, well organized, comprehensive but selective and prioritized, and above all is clear – is not a journey from point A to point B. It is not even a two-stage process in which one set of content-providing editors charts a course, and a second set of copy editors removes the major stones and obstacles from the path. It is instead a prolonged period of round trips from A to B and back again, continually scouting the landscape via ongoing research, smoothing the path for others to trod, and shifting its course to make sure it offers an unobstructed view of the most important landmarks.

I would say that writing and research are hard work. I would love to say that writing and research are hard work. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that my idea of "hard work" is vastly different from many other editors' idea of what those words mean. The fundamental problem with Misplaced Pages – and it is a problem that our reliance on policies, guidelines and consensus only exacerbates – is that far too few Wikipedians understand the hard work involved in writing and researching well.

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