“Wikipedia isn’t generally useless, but its usefulness is rather limited, especially when one needs information that can be trusted,” Norwegian Associate Professor of philosophy Lars Fr. H. Svendsen claimed this week.
I’m afraid this is a representative attitude among Norwegian scientists and scholars to Wikipedia, if they have an attitude at all. Wikipedia is kept at arm’s length. A study would probably find that few of them know how Wikipedia is edited and how the process of quality control works.
More constructive approaches are possible. German public service broadcaster ZDF reports from a seminar called “Wikipedia-Academy” in Mainz on how some humanities scholars in that country engage with Wikipedia (the German language version is the second largest overall). Translator of literature Josef Winiger (64) received a prize from the German Wikipedia community for his work on the article about the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. Now there’s a challenge for Svendsen and his colleagues.
In another ZDF article, Professor Peter Wippermann says that the scholars in reality need Wikipedia more than the encyclopedia needs them. The humanities are facing a growing legitimation pressure — the ivory towers that scholars can retreat to are getting ever more scarce. Because of that, scholars in the humanities need to market their knowledge through Wikipedia, he says: At Wikipedia they can legitimate themselves again and give something back to society. (Thanks to Daniel for the tip).
UPDATE: Svendsen’s article is being discussed at the Tinget (Village Pump) page of no-Wikipedia.
