While Ken makes an excellent point regarding the quality assurance provided
by journals compared to wikipedia, I would suggest that there is a
difference in reach. Journals are not typically read by the general public.
Wikipedia is. Thus, articles written for wikipedia can help "popularize"
certain ideas.
As a modest suggestion, I would bring up Citizendium; it's a version of
wikipedia with a "proper" editorial and review workflow. One could write a
more rigorous article for citizendium and then link it to the wikipedia
page, to increase its visibility.
Just a thought.
Cheers.
Fil
On 16 August 2011 10:18, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Friends,
>
> First, thanks to Brigitte for an excellent note on design management.
>
> There seems to be confusion on how Wikipedia works. There is no peer review
> process. Everyone who joins Wikipedia has the right to edit any article at
> any time. There are no ad hoc groups, and no one joins as a group. All
> Wikipedians are equal members. Anyone may edit, anyone may revise, and there
> is no process for appeals to expertise on content.
>
> The idea behind Wikipedia is that slow, repetitious evolution will
> eventually lead to robust articles. This is partly true: it sort of works --
> up to a point, but generally no further. The passionate amateur who is
> willing repeatedly to revise a text eventually wins the revision wars that
> sometimes emerge. Because there is no appeals process, a dedicated
> enthusiast can over-rule a serious expert. Wikipedia editors gain status of
> a sort based on the number of articles in which they've taken part. Someone
> who makes ignorant contributions to hundreds of articles therefore appears
> to be a greater expert than a serious scholar who might be willing to work
> on one or two or half a dozen pieces in a field of expertise. The amateur
> editors and contributors often sign their work or their contributor pages
> with a pseudonym, so there's no way to know what they've done to warrant
> their own sense of expertise.
>
> While Wikipedia is improving, there remain vast numbers of stubs:
> incomplete and inaccurate articles. The serious scholars who try to
> contribute go through the cycle a few times and give up. No one wastes
> effort writing a serious note or helping to reshape an article to find that
> the work gone three days later with amateurs revising or removing even such
> minor improvements to entries as bibliographic notes or corrected
> chronologies.
>
> The Wikipedia home page provides information on the process. Good luck with
> this.
>
> If you don't mind a suggestion, a robust survey article on design
> management would find a welcome home in any of several journals. One of
> these has all the virtues of free access that Wikipedia offers, and none of
> the problems. This is the International Journal of Design, a top-quality
> journal that is available online and free. A serious expert-level article
> here would be published in a stable format, truly peer-reviewed, and it
> would remain widely available for the entire field.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ken
>
> Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
> Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology |
> Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214
> 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
>
--
\V/_
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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