Alex

The philosophical: Argumentum Ad Verecundiam is a well-known logical error.

The practical: when authoritative sources differ (e.g. different state health departments have varying advice for health providers on stockpiling Tamiflu), is it not best to catalogue the advice and then consider on the differences? Which ultimate authority does one refer to? An educated reader ought to be capable of taking that information to their own provider and be able to have an intelligent discussion, thereby coming to a tentative conclusion, which might change as more data becomes available.

That doesn’t make the wiki an authoritative source… or does it, if it has more data than a local health department web site? How would you characterize a health library vs a doctor’s office, and is that a proper analogy? In either case, the striving for authority is not the goal… it’s dissemination of information. How it’s used is up to the user. But this is not done in a vacuum. Health departments use the wiki, too. It’s an easy way to keep track of what everyone else is doing.

Reviewing Kapoun’s criteria, we strive for all of the above. What we achieve is up to others to evaluate; criticism is welcomed, not shunned. In fact, input is even more welcomed. It’s a wiki, after all.

Cheers!

In sociology, Matthew effect was a term coined by Robert K. Merton to describe how, among other things, eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher even if their work is similar; it also means that credit will usually be given to researchers that are already famous: for example, a prize will almost always be awarded to the most senior researcher involved in a project, even if all the work was done by a graduate student.

First, regarding your comment that “even one of the contributors recognizes that there’s a distinction between this grassroots effort and an ‘authoritative source’,” I think the distinction they’re pointing out is that the hypothetical “authoritative source” does not exist—or is not acting quickly, efficiently, and transparently enough to provide information. I emphasize transparency because I think that’s one of the primary benefits of a wiki. You man not know who people are in real life, but you can see every revision they’ve made and judge them thusly. We are not often accorded the same liberty when it comes to traditional authority. (Here I’m thinking Supreme Court Justice nominations, etc)

To answer the question, “Do you see any sources cited for this information?” I would answer that with a question: Did you leave a comment to that effect? Did you go find a source and add it to the wiki? (As of my leaving this comment, that answer is no)

See that’s the difference (between the believers and the non). Traditional source authority creates a sort of passivity in people to respect “authority”. Since you’re used to obeying authority, your first instinct isn’t “I should fix this.”

I liken this participatory authority to voting in our presidential elections. You’ve got to believe that your individual vote, though practically meaningless, contributes to something much bigger, en masse. That’s the authority, or more accurately the quality of a wiki. You’ve got a step back and see how every little change and contribution achieves a collective truth, and the authority is captured in the transparent access to the hundreds or thousands of revisions.

The truth is that you, David, know something, and the something you know is that the section on Pregnant Women needs a source. So you’re faced with several options:

1) Do nothing
2) Do nothing and complain about lack of authority (which inadvertently may bring attention to the flaw which someone else will fix)
3) Fix the problem yourself

Finally your comment “they’ve given no one any reason to trust the information that’s there” I would refute by saying, “Yes they have, the reason they’ve given us to trust the information is that they’ve put together a wiki”—such that qualified people, yourself included (based, frighteningly I know, on self-appraisal), can improve the information at any instant, without any “red tape”—and we can all track the changes, correct mistakes, etc.