Yes, scholars SHOULD contribute to Wikipedia!

I find myself convinced by Erik Olin Wright's arguments that scholars should actively contribute to Wikipedia. Wright is a sociologist, a productive senior scholar and current President of the American Sociological Association. His views are set out in a clear and concise article in the ASA's newsletter, Footnotes (from November 2011). He has initiated a Wikipedia initiative at the ASA. Here are some quotes from the newsletter article:

"I like to think of Wikipedia as an example of a "real utopia." It embodies ideals of equality, open access, participation, and deliberation in a domination-free environment. It has created a public good available to all."

"Wikipedia has become an important global public good. Since it is a reference source for sociologically relevant ideas and knowledge that is widely used by both the general public and students, it is important that the quality of sociology entries be as high as possible. This will only happen if sociologists themselves contribute to this public good. The basic goal of the new ASA Sociology in Wikipedia Initiative is to make it easier for sociologists to do this. (See the ASA homepage for more information at www.asanet.org.). The heart of the initiative is the creation of a Wikipedia portal connected to the ASA website."

**NOTE: Here is the current link on the ASA website for the "ASA Wikipedia Initiative." I would guess that this is a provisional site that will be improved at some point.

Wright has a great website - many of his publications are available for download, and all sorts of other things. It includes other material related to his Wikipedia initiative, such as a document, "Writing Wikipedia articles as a classroom assignment."

Should scholars edit Wikipedia?

There was an interesting story on NPR's Morning Edition yesterday about a historian (Timothy Messer-Kruse) who tried editing an article in Wikipedia, only to have his changes immediately reversed as soon as he made them. The article concerned the Haymarket affair, when rioters at a labor demonstration in Chicago in 1866 tossed a bomb at police and several people were killed. Evidently Messer-Kruse found some evidence that the standard version of this event, as told in history textbooks, may not be entirely correct. He thinks his attempted revision of the Wikipedia entry was reversed for ideological reasons. The Haymarket affair has been an important part of labor history, and partisans of organized labor apparently did not approve of Messer-Kruse's version of events.

The NPR story mentions an interesting-looking book that I have not seen yet:

Weinberger, David
    2012    Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room is the Room. Basic Books, New York.

The story brought mind my own encounter with this kind of ideological editing on Wikipedia, involving the entry for City.  I posted the following comment on the NPR site:

"This story points out the weakness of Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information. I am an archaeologist, an expert on ancient cities, and I used to work on Wikipedia entries within my domain of expertise to improve them and correct errors. But then I ran up against an ideological roadblock. Revered urban planner Jane Jacobs had claimed (against all fact) that early cities preceded agriculture. This is a silly error to an archaeologist, a no-brainer. There is not a single reputable archaeological work that supports Jacobs's view on this small point. But there is a cult of Jane Jacobs, and members believe that anything she said must be true. After having my corrections of this minor empirical error reversed several times by a cult-member, I gave up editing Wikipedia.

But Wikipedia has become a major reference source for millions of people. Should I just turn my back and ignore it because of its obvious scholarly problems? Or should I still try to work to improve it as I can? Is this worth my time? Anything I add to Wikipedia (so long as I avoid cults or ideological topics, I guess) will be read by many many more people than read my scholarly books and articles. As a scholar, I find this difficult territory to negotiate. Thanks for the interesting story."


Also, see my earlier post, where (at the end of the post) I suggest that "wrong information from amateurs is fine for Wikipedia, but not correct information from scholars."

Publishing for a general audience

Someone just sent me the following query. They gave me permission to quote it here, but anonymously:

• What are your thoughts about academics publishing books about archaeology (or other non-fiction topics), but for a general readership? Is it frowned upon by other academics (seen as a "waste of time")? And how does this relate to stage of career: should only senior/tenured professors do it, or should a young professor or even graduate student - if the opportunity arises - take a stab at it?
• And perhaps also we should consider whether the prospective author has a solid signed advance contract, or whether s/he plans to write the book and then try to pitch it to publishers - with a chance of failure.

I don't consider myself any kind of expert here, but I can give my views of the matter. These remarks are from the perspective of academic archaeology; I'm sure that government, private, and other archaeologists have different insights and concerns.


First, my general perspective. I think that communication with a general audience is essential for archaeology (and for all scholarly disciplines). I've published some general papers (Scientific American, etc.), and I give public lectures all the time, but I have not thought too much or published anything on this kind of communication.


There has been a general prejudice against popularization within the sciences generally. Carl Sagan, whose astronomical accomplishments were significant (even without his work on extra-terrestrial intelligence), was consistently nominated but voted down for membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Margaret Mead is still dumped on as a "popularizer," not a serious researcher. Is Brian Fagan considered a serious archaeologist, or just a mere textbook author? I don't know how common this attitude is today, but I do think it lingers. My guess is that many archaeologists and others still think that popularization is not serious work, and should be valued less than research and professional publication. Few will admit that today, since there is a big push for communicating the results of science, both within archaeology ( see the publications and lectures of Jerry Sabloff), and in many educational institutions. But if academic archaeologists really think this is important, why aren't more of us doing it?


I think that career stage is definitely relevant here. Once someone has tenure, it provides the freedom to do things like popularization. If a junior scholar were to write a popular archaeology book, I don't think it would be evaluated negatively in absolute terms, but it would definitely be discounted in relative terms. For example, say I am chairing a search committee for a junior scholar. If person A has published a popular book or some magazine articles, that would be seen, by itself, as a positive attribute. However, if person A has a very popular book plus one journal article, and person B has five articles in top journals but no popular works, person B would almost certainly be ranked higher. A department can't risk pushing someone whose scholarly professional research is less than stellar, since their choice could be declined at a higher level (with various possible negative consequences). This would go for tenure decisions also.

I didn't write my textbook, The Aztecs, until I had tenure. In addition to the factors mentioned above, senior scholars have the advantage of greater experience and perspective, which can benefit popularization. On the other hand, junior scholars may have more energy and passion, and if they are in the midst of relevant fieldwork, this can be a big advantage for the public. The major advice is usually to tell a story that is interesting and attention-grabbing, and junior scholars have some advantages here.


As to the issue of having a contract in advance, I'm not sure how much difference this makes. Many academics pay no attention to contracts - they sign them, and then ignore the dates or terms (or even the book project itself). Others stick to them religiously. Someone with more experience and savvy in book publishing can probably give better advice (I always start with Beth Luey's Handbook for Academic Authors). One of the main benefits I've seen from contracts is that it makes an unfinished book look more "real," more liable to be completed, when listed in a CV.

I'm not sure if this is very helpful. For a grad student or junior scholar, I would avoid large popularization projects unless one is very well organized and very productive (so that one can maintain scholarly research and publications at the same time). Perhaps one could start with smaller projects - magazine articles and the like - and then worry about bigger projects later.