This sounds a great deal like the Knol-and-Citizendium-vs.-Wikipedia disagreement over whether subject-matter experts should have to put up with having their work edited by uncredentialed dogs. It seems that exposure — actually getting readers and responses — is more relevant than tight authorial control in creating things that people actually find worth reading and working on.
It’s easy to cite Knol and Citizendium as failures of scholarly curation, but what of Springer’s Encyclopedia of Mathematics? I know at least five of epic-level mathematicians who wouldn’t dream of writing an article for any random website, but jumped at the chance to write a section of the EOM.
I know at least five of epic-level mathematicians who wouldn’t dream of writing an article for any random website, but jumped at the chance to write a section of the EOM.
Does anyone read what they write? I did not know of the EOM until you mentioned it, although I do have occasion to look up mathematical topics now and then. I have never known Google to turn up a link to it, and checking a few searches now, it’s nowhere in the results. Wikipedia is always in the first page, and usually Mathworld also.
This sounds a great deal like the Knol-and-Citizendium-vs.-Wikipedia disagreement over whether subject-matter experts should have to put up with having their work edited by uncredentialed dogs. It seems that exposure — actually getting readers and responses — is more relevant than tight authorial control in creating things that people actually find worth reading and working on.
It’s easy to cite Knol and Citizendium as failures of scholarly curation, but what of Springer’s Encyclopedia of Mathematics? I know at least five of epic-level mathematicians who wouldn’t dream of writing an article for any random website, but jumped at the chance to write a section of the EOM.
Or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which tends to be my first resource to visit if there’s a new philosophical topic I’m interested in.
Does anyone read what they write? I did not know of the EOM until you mentioned it, although I do have occasion to look up mathematical topics now and then. I have never known Google to turn up a link to it, and checking a few searches now, it’s nowhere in the results. Wikipedia is always in the first page, and usually Mathworld also.
Yes? One can usually find a concise introduction to X in it, and it’s typically easier than doing a lit review oneself.
That’s Springer for you. They’re not exactly new media geniuses.