
Report for America funded a community Wikipedia editor at a library - danso
https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/12/this-is-how-report-for-america-ended-up-funding-a-community-wikipedia-editor-at-a-library/
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Jaruzel
Or, y'know, actually employ a _qualified librarian_ to do the role. /smh

Librarians (the real ones, not the trolley pushing assistants) despair at
Wikipedia. There have been many reports[1] of Librarians who are subject
matter experts correcting the Wikipedia pages of which they are an expert in,
only to end up in a edit wars with seasoned Wikipedia authoritarians who
revert the Librarians edits because they are wrong(!). As such a lot of
Librarians won't give Wikipedia the time of day, which is a real shame as
these people are the real authority on their chosen subjects.

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[1] No I don't have links; you'll have to ask my partner.

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teddyh
People with actual authority should know better than to try and write simply
by asserting their own authority; they should be able to source their
statements and give proper references, like professionals. It’s when they
_don’t_ do that, and treat Wikipedia like their own private blog, that trouble
ensues: Other Wikipedia editor and admins demand proper references, which
these people interpret as an affront to their personal expertise, and it goes
downhill from there.

Instead, people with actual expertise should realize that for Wikipedia, their
expertise is _not_ in the actual subject matter, but their value as experts is
instead in _knowing where to find proper references_ to things which most
people might know already about the subject. This is where they can really
contribute.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors)

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Jaruzel
Did I say not-referenced? Trust me, Librarians are the best people for
referencing stuff - _it 's their job_.

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larnmar
This kind of model seems like an excellent way for political groups to push
their agenda while staying at arm’s length.

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joe_the_user
Indeed. Report For America's stated mandate is to fund reporters covering
"under-served news issues". It seems like the honest way to spend money on
this is to start your own magazine/newspaper/TV-station and talk about the
issues you are interested in.

On the other hand, a large amount of the news is already repackaged corporate
press releases and similar things, so there's no much further down things can
go.

