Well it has taken some time, but Larry Sanger has exposed the real fault of Wikipedia. The conflict between egalitarianism and what he calls epistemic egalitarianism (the idea we are all fundamentally equal in our authority or rights to articulate what should pass for knowledge; the ground on which a claim can compete against other claims are to be found in the content of the claim itself, not who makes it.)
He is right this is a doctrine about rights or authority, not about ability (read expertise). This doctrine doesn't declare we have the right to say what really is known; but only what passes for knowledge, or what is presented as known, for example through Wikipedia's mechanisms. The problem with this is that what passes for knowledge is SEEN as knowledge no matter how incorrect it might be.
The problem with this notion is that we are not all equal in the amount of knowledge that one has obtained over their life time. Equality is a great thing. However, taken to the extreme like Wikipedia in many instances it provides history by consensus. A group of people with no credentials determines the meritoriousness of an article. Now this is as absurd as taking your car in for brake repairs to your local MD. He/She may understand the concepts of the hydraulics of the braking system; but they certainly are not an expert in the field. This desire for fairness had created an atmosphere of hostility to any authority. Sorry to say it folks, but we have to have some authorities somewhere. It is not that the dabbler as Sanger notes, is no less accurate in their assessment than an "expert". The fact remains that those who have studied in certain fields do possess a certain amount of knowledge. To not make use of this would be a sad thing indeed.
For many of the so called experts, the problem with these egalitarian schemes is that they have no room for experts. Wikipedia aims for the consensus of opinion hoping to mold what people call "common knowledge." As a result, there has not been a drive on the part of professionals to engage in this medium because their advanced knowledge is not valued. The mistaken assumption by the egalitarians is that the experts will want to take over in all things. This is a mistake. Professionals do not want to take over all things, they only want to use their knowledge obtained over a long period of time within their areas of expertise to guide people.
I reject the egalitarian epistemological position. We are not all equal when it comes to our levels of knowledge. Some people study areas for years and have written extensively. And to place the results of decades of work on an equal footing with those who have not studied the subject with the same intensity is absurd. As Sanger states, "if we reduce experts to the level of the rest of us, even when they speak about their areas of knowledge, we reduce society's collective grasp of the truth." Wikipedia is a good example of that. While many of its articles are very good, the areas where they are not so good are in the social sciences where facts are not as "hard" as in the area of science.
I also reject the idea of a crowd mentality. Crowds and consensus can do some destructive things, Nazi Germany comes to mind. The greatest historical fact about NAZI Germany lies not in its great demonstrations; but in the willingness of the "average" person to do nothing and let events unfold. It is this withdrawal that helped create a consensus and crowd mentality that remains one of the most destructive examples. Do we really want a group mentality that could potentially arrive at such erroneous conclusion?
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