Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shows a higher-quality internet is possible

Re:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shows a higher-qualit... by jessriedel on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @04:20PM (#10267871)

Your first complaint ("updated at most once every four years") is fine, except that it's not that big of a deal for a 3000 year old field. As another comments stated, topics that are changing rapidly are updated more frequently.

But your second and third complains are about process rather than result. What exactly do you think could be better about the SEP if they had non-academic authors? Or decentralized control? Not in a hypothetical world where the editors are evil, but in the real actual world?

I think the answer is "not much, and lots would be worse", because those properties are key to the SEP's success. This is different than Wikipedia, which has a much broader mission and would be crippled by these restrictions.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shows a higher-qualit... by pc2g4d on Thursday September 24, 2015 @07:40PM (#10275563)

Good point---for philosophy, the slow updates aren't a huge issue. But the article seemed to be holding up the SEP as a model for other endeavors, and this seems to limit its usefulness in many other areas.

The centralized, academic nature of SEP is fine for them, but it must result in a sort of elite bias. In my mind, that's a kind of limitation. I actually prefer the Wikipedia approach or something along those lines, which I do feel is often effective at capturing various viewpoints.

Ultimately, there exists no one perfect approach to online encyclopedia compilation. Pros and cons all around.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shows a higher-qualit... by austenallred on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @04:26PM (#10267908)

Right; even Wikipedia admits it may get to the point where most of the articles are reviewed by experts and locked to some degree.

[ Parent | on HN ]