The Democratization Of Expert Knowledge
I was listening to a podcast recently of a debate that originally aired on NPR about whether social media undermines the quality of the information that we find on the internet.
Before the advent of web 2.0. it was argued, we had mainstream media and cultural institutions inhabited by “experts” who made sure to filter our information for us. Now, all bets are off and readily available but potentially substandard content is in danger of destroying whole industries, particularly our culture industries. It was posited that the so-called wisdom of crowds is itself an “extraordinary popular delusion” and the best work can only come from the individual, professional mind.
How do you define expert? To me, an expert is someone who has demonstrated know-how backed up by solid credentials. Usually an older professional who has paid their dues and learned a lot along the way. How much of that expertize is making its way into web 2.0? Not as much as you’d think. Because web 2.0 is still fairly immature, older professionals are typically less plugged into it - they don’t feel like they understand or can control it - which means that younger, “digital natives” are producing the majority of the content.
Fortunately, more and more academics are embracing sites like wikipedia and the newly launched citizendium. Some time ago, we wrote an entry in wikipedia defining evidence-based design. We think we know what we’re talking about when it comes to this subject, (we’ve certainly paid our dues) but the wikipedia moderators apparently didn’t agree and have made a notation that the introduction to the article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter.
So, to all of you experts out there in the CHD community, please give us a hand. Collaborate with us and other experts on the web to create meaningful, relevant and, most importantly, accurate information that can be accessed by many people. Log into wikipedia and help us improve this definition.
If you don’t, who will?