Decius wrote:
] ] Wikipedia is under criticism by its co-founder Larry
] ] Sanger who has left the project. He warns of a possible
] ] future fork due to Wikipedia's Anti-Elitism and he
] ] presents his view on Wikipedia's (lack of) reliability.
]
] I've been wondering when this was going to start. The "anyone
] can edit this" mantra has finally found some respected
] detractors. The question is, how do you decide who is an
] expert?
You don't have experts. Reality is decided by consensus. The right look at the world through their ideology so does the left and so do liberals. Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims view the world through a lens. We all sit in the mouth of the cave watching the shadows play on the walls and think we see the outside world.
I read Shakespeare and am told that he is a great writer. I read Shakespeare at University and make up my own mind as did my peers. Each generation makes up its own mind. Reputations ebb and flow with intellectual fashion. The cliche of Mozart and van Gogh not being fully appreciated when alive. These things take time to settle down and sometimes never fully settle down. Oliver Cromwell hero or villain? The expert is the alpha male/female of the tribe that everybody listens to, often a different person depending on the subject, and it is decided by consensus. Or alternatively the expert depends on which grouping within the tribe you ask. Different groups have different experts, different nodal points in the great cacophony that we call culture and civilisation, those individuals who, maybe only for that 15 minutes of fame, are perceived to most eloquently articulate a point of view held, perhaps only partly, by some group, or sub set of some group, within the tribe. Wikipedia is a forum, a thought space and I believe a valuable one.