Wikipedia talk:Ask an expert

Discussion of this proposal[edit]

This idea is so fraught with potential problems I hardly know where to begin. Here are some of the more glaring ones:

"The expert everyone agrees on" What are the chances that parties in a protracted dispute are going to agree who is the best expert to ask?
What if the there are two sides in the dispute and the "expert" says they are both wrong and the present a completely different interpretation that they insists is the right one?
These expert opinions could so very easily turn into blunt objects used to quash reasoned debate. "I have the expert on my side, so I am right and you have to shut up" will be heard all over WP
This explicitly is not an "ask an expert" website. Such sites do exist for those who want them, most notably Citizendium. Look how well that is turning out. Alexa rank:270,538 total articles after 5.5 years:16,276 Only 165 of those are properly vetted by experts. (Wikipedia's Alexa rank:6 Wikipedia total articles after 11 years:4,055,281)
as this is intended to be done by email alone it would be way to easy to distort, cherry pick facts, outright lie, etc.

In short I do not believe this idea is even remotely compatible with Wikipedia and has little to no chance of being accepted by the community. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:01, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I heartily agree with Beeblebrox's eloquent opinion. Ebikeguy (talk) 02:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think these criticisms do not really rise to the level of requiring a scuttling of the idea.

I think that rather than ask rhetorical questions about the "chances" that parties can agree on experts, we should see whether it can happen.

If the expert says that both parties are wrong, that's fine. I don't think that this is a problem.

If experts agree with one side, surely Wikipedia should encourage those sides to "win" the content dispute.

This proposal is not to have experts "vet" articles. This proposal is to have experts help provide opinions about content disputes.

I agree that the e-mail system could be abused, but one could always assume good faith.

Junjunone (talk) 12:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure this process is fraught with difficulties, however I am not totally opposed to it (preferably as an essay).

I think that there are cases where an expert will be able to explain something in such a way that it becomes a non-issue, or at least ceases to be an issue of knowledge. There is of course no reason people can't contact experts now. It is important to distinguish between two types in information - useful background ("you can ignore Bloggs et al., it is superseded by Smith and Smith", "For these types of data you are better off looking in the annual reports", "This is generally laid out with brackets to indicate subsidiary factors.") with data we want to include in articles which still needs a WP:RS.

Whether experts will be annoyed at getting communication from the general public, or Wikipeida editors, depends on the expert. We do, of course, have many experts editing Wikipedia - this raises the question what happens where they don't agree?

Rich Farmbrough, 16:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC).[reply]

(edit conflict)I can't speak for others but these replies do nothing to assuage my concerns. What we see now in prolonged content disputes usually involves two or more sides who each have reliable sources that appear to back their position. To trade that for two or more sides who each have a supposed expert who backs their position does not seem like a workable solution.

I get the impression you do not understand how radical this proposal seems to experienced Wikipedians. Wikipedia's fundamental model for decision making has always been consensus-based. If you are seriously going to attempt to change something so basic to what this website is and how it works it is going to need to be much more developed than this proposal is. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

this might be of interest. Rich Farmbrough, 17:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC).[reply]

It seems that there are broader discussions undergirding some of the commentary here. All I have to say is that I do not think Wikipedia should be written by experts. I don't think that asking experts for their opinion undermines Wikipedia's integrity or culture as I see it. The consensus model is not in jeopardy simply because an expert weighs in one way or another on a topic. The writers are free to dismiss whatever expert opinion they'd like in favor of some sort of alternative based on some other sort of consensus model, but to say that we shouldn't encourage writers of content to ask for help from experts does not seem to be in the best interest of an encyclopedia trying to create the best content possible. Junjunone (talk) 02:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]