Proposal talk:Academic Peer Review -layer
Support, I suppose
This might work, I suppose, althogh the details look vague. What would be the form this would take: 1) a particular version accompanied by comments 2) a particular version revised and polished by the expert 3) other?
Is it safe to have only one expert, rather than a few? - Brya 18:04, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Particular version accompanied by comments. If improved with the help of comments, then new version of the article would be re-evaluated and saved again with comments or approval. Peer reviewed versions of the article would be highlighted in article history. All experts would be unique with some identifying data. Reader would have to decide him/herself whether to trust particular expert. --212.149.204.84 23:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Impact?
Some proposals will have massive impact on end-users, including non-editors. Some will have minimal impact. What will be the impact of this proposal on our end-users? -- Philippe 00:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Logical Academic Conflict Wasteland
Academic 'Peer Review' has no better advantage than any high school graduate of checking that any given statement in an article has been published previously in a 'Reliable Source'. Authors and supporters of this proposal should acquaint themselves again with the 'rules' of Wikipedia regarding acceptability of any particular statement in any particular article. Wikipedia does not require any statement to be True, Accurate, or Verifiable (verifiable in the English Language sense rather than the Wikipedia sense**).
Additionally, there exists an apparently self-appointed committee which, through questionable credentials and bona fides, authoritatively determines which publications will be considered official "Reliable Source(s)" for the Wikipedia. Any Academic involved in a 'Peer Review' of an article will run into trouble with that Wikipedia exclusive group. One or the other will have to give-ground (give up) and corrupt their responsibility whenever there is a dispute. And there will be disputes. The corruption of responsibilty that follows from the dispute will most probably add to the laughability and unreliability of Wikipedia.
Colleges and universities are not the bastions of truth and accuracy. On the contrary, due to the 'tenure track' requirements to 'publish or perish', these institutions of higher learning spew out tons and tons (British Long Tons) of junk science and junk "research" for every one little nugget of actual advancement in knowledge. When academics can't agree amongst themselves about what constitutes proper grammar, punctuation and style, any attempt to have "an" Academic stamp an article as "approved" may be met by disagreement from another academic. (For grammar and punctuation (American), we have the Wikipedia's Own Home-Grown Style, the APA style, the APS style, the Chicago style, the CGOS style, the CSE style, and the MLA style (the MLA can't even agree with itself, hence its numerous style manual "editions")). Wikipedia is currently the resting ground of more than a few Academic 'pet theories' that are not necessarily mainstream, nor factual. One example is the recent "freshly minted Phd" who wrote his publish-or-perish dissertation on the known, but obsure, Lady Jane Gray and her birthdate. Although he had his paper published in a University "Notes & Queries" section, he presents it as being published in a "peer reviewed" publication. When reading his actual paper, one gets dizzy at all of the "maybe", "probably", "unlikely" "could have" "doesn't seem" and numerous other qualifying weasel words drenching his paper. Yet this is accepted as the cutting edge of Academia on Wikipedia.
In fin, the 'problems' currently associated with Wikipedia (other than the defacing type of vandalism) are not due to the lack of Academic review, but are instead due to Wikipedia's requirement solely that someone else has already 'published' in a 'reliable source' those things that are left as 'acceptable' in any article. The handling of the 'published' and 'reliable source' requirements are what currently allow junk to enter, and stay in, Wikipedia articles.
(** "Verifiable" in the English Language means (able to) establish the Truth, accuracy, or reality of something. In Wikipedianese, 'verifiable' has nothing to do with truth, accuracy, or reality.) Joe Hepperle 12:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Who is an "expert"?
The biggest problem with having experts review articles is determining who is an expert. A much simpler solution is to let *everyone* rate any revision of any article. Of course, this means you cannot simply compute the average score to determine how good an article is. There are, however, other ways of analyzing such numbers. For example, if you produce a small list of aliases whose ratings you find to be good, you can then automatically generate a large list of aliases whose ratings tend to be in agreement. There is no need for Wikipedia to implement analysis techniques like this. People can analyze the data however they want. A diversity of analysis tools is a good thing anyway. All we need to do is start collecting the data. So, nix the "expert" thing and just start collecting ratings.