Common Craft Blog
Wikipedia and the Value of No Experts At All
By leelefever on January 18, 2008 - 11:32am
My Dad has a saying about trying to get boys to do work. "One boy is worth one boy, two boys is worth half-a-boy and three boys is worth no boys at all."
When I look at Wikipedia with my plain English glasses, I think the same is true about experts. Look at it this way...
Let's say you're trying to learn about digestion. You can likely find an expert who can sit with you and make digestion very easy to understand. Now, lets say you're talking to two experts. Something changes - the experts are now double checking each other and looking for ways to relate their unique point of view. With each expert you add, the more accurate the information becomes and the harder it becomes for you to understand.
This is what happens on Wikipedia all the time. Experts are looking over each others' shoulders to such a degree that the entries become very accurate, but very hard to understand for the general public. Here are the first couple of sentences for the Digestion entry on Wikipedia:
Digestion is the process of metabolism whereby a biological entity processes a substance in order to chemically and mechanically convert the substance for the body to use.
And guess what? A Google search for "digestion" reveals this wikipedia entry as the first result.
So what?
I'm not against Wikipedia or experts. I just want to be sure that we're not assuming that:
- Wikipedia is the end-all be-all for understand something, even though it's so often the #1 result.
- Experts, especially as a group, will produce results that relate to everyday people.
Why is this the case? I'd say it has a lot to do with what Chip and Dan Heath call The Curse of Knowledge in their book Made to Stick. I'll cover that ground sometime soon.
Oh, one last note - I'm the third of three boys in my family, so my Dad knows what he's talking about.
Google and Wikipedia
Google needs to replace the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button with one labeled "Skip Wikipedia Please" :+)
digestion
One more reason I am using Ask.com more than google these days :)
tell 'me more in the interview
Yep that's the flip side of the Wisdom of Crowds.
Also, from the Heath's there's the Semantic Stretch.
Beyond three boys imagine a committee of 10 "grown-ups"....but that's why they need you, eh?
Thanks for the idea-packed interview
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/01/18/create-short-how-to-videos/
Spot on addition
Hi Lee,
This is spot-on in my experience and your Dad is indeed, a wise man. Having two sons of my own I can attest to at least part of the saying.
I use Wikipedia a lot as my "first stop" starting place for a quick description or for the more "stable" information. I can't tell you how many times I've come across an entry like the one you describe and have wished for a layperson's description ... in my wildest dreams it would be audio, with John Cleese narrating!
As I write I wonder whether one can add a lay description to an etnry? I don't actually know the editing rules but assume there is some standard format? Then again, if I knew enough to be able to write a short, concise description, I probably wouldn't be looking it up on Wikipedia! (grin)
LaDonna
Experts?
It's pretty funny that you frame this issue in terms of "experts," since the biggest critique of Wikipedia is that it's a poor source of information because it's not edited by "experts."
With what you are saying about Wikipedia, I think it makes more sense if you replace "experts" with "editors" or with "editors and contributors."
The issue you are getting at is the "design by committee" problem. In this case, you are talking about communication design--how to design a communication so that it is most usable, understandable, etc., by particular types of people for particular uses.
It's true that an expert in a subject is not necessarily an expert in communicating about that subject to a particular audience in a particular setting (e.g., how many people hate math because of math classes right after lunch taught by boring math teachers?).
There are actually a lot of ways that Wikipedia doesn't have a really refined communication design, e.g., who exactly is Wikipedia for? Not only do the contributors need to reconcile their own approaches to communicating, but they need to reconcile their own ideas about the people to whom they are communicating, and what the info should be useful for by those people. Reconciling all of this is a pretty sophisticated and nuanced task.
Re: Experts?
Great to have you back, Jay! I think you hit on something when you said:
To whom they are communicating. Good point. More often than not, I think contributors are writing for each other as opposed to the end user. Not an easy job, but something that is currently making things needlessly complex.
if you want simple english, choose it.
I find the digestion entry to be perfectly understandable. It contains hyperlinks to wikipedia entries on some of the bigger terms in the first paragraph, so I can learn about those if I don't know them. I took college biology as I summer course because I disliked it as a subject so much.
Wikipedia offers "simple English" as a language now. Check out that entry on Digestion:
Simple English
I did not know that Wikipedia offers simple English as a language. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing Benjamin!
Wikipedia's 2 biggest
Wikipedia's 2 biggest problems: bloat and wordiness
Simple English friendlier to newbies, too
Benjamin beat me to it. Great Ben's think alike. For complicated entries, I often switch over to the Simple English version. I've also found that the wikipedians are not as aggressive on the Plain English site, so edits and new entries are more likely to stick (since we're talking Heath brothers).
I am the second boy, but to
I am the second boy, but to tell the truth I don't understand what are you talking about
Third Girl?
Loved the post, Lee.
Now I wonder, what happens when you have three girls. Or two girls and a boy. ;-)
Experts or expertise or ... ?
Lee, great discussion topic. I agree with Jay's comment about the design by committee and communication issues. In addition, I think that your claim that more expert input yields more accurate output is wrong. Accuracy is contextual. For example, what's accurate enough for me in my daily local weather readings could be too much detail for one friend (I don't care about air pressure and temperature, just tell me if I need a coat.) and generalized noise to another.
And, experts themselves can differ on how to present information about a topic. When I put on my chemistry hat it becomes clear that explanations of process and even the metadata used to describe experimental setup and results is situated -- situated by the goals of my description, my community of peers (how we talk about things), as well as my own incomplete knowledge.
And I've come to rely on Wikipedia to help me with the NYTime crossword, but I've become quite skeptical of it's accuracy for scientific and technical content. I know that's an overgeneralization, but I still look in math textbooks for explanations.
-Bill
wikis and the nature of explaining things simply
Lee - I think what you're doing is fab! If I take the wiki vid for a start. Of course this is just about the core concept but before long folks will need to explore a few things. When do you decide to let them in on this and where to point them bearing in mind the need to phase in the correct level of complexity....
For example, with Wikis, pretty soon you'll need to know about at least 2 complexities you necessarily skate over in the wikifliki,
1. turn taking and other editing protocols,
2. top level taxonomy or structure of the site.
By the way, do you know where this kinda thing is brought together because I cant see it (although http://wiki.ittoolbox.com/index.php/Challenges_with_starting_a_wiki is getting close but note how complex even this advice is starting to sound - miles away from the wikflik). Most of the google culled comment is about security and choosing the right wiki....
Best wishes,
Mike
Experts
I think that your claim that more expert input yields more accurate output is wrong. Accuracy is contextual. For example, what's accurate enough for me in my daily local weather readings could be too much detail for one friend,I don't care about air pressure and temperature, just tell me if I need a coat., and generalized noise to another.
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