I am responding to this post because it contained a link regarding Digital Universe, the supposed better version of Wiki, because it will be reviewed by "experts". While I don't want to totally put it down, I do think its funny that the guy putting it together (who was also a founder of Wiki) misses that he is appealing to a logical fallacy.
He is claiming it should be more trustworthy because reviewers will have PHDs, and actually uses the argument that "If you get operated on you'd rather trust a guy with an MD". Well yeah, but you know what? You also should go and get a second opinion, and sometimes it turns out people with PHDs ARE WRONG. Pasteur got nowhere for a long time because of this same type of educational/professional bias.
To be frank, I think that on scientific and humanitarian subjects it will be more trustworthy if the people have PhDs.
The most common form of inaccuracy from Post doctorates, I've found, is that when they speak outside of there sub-subject area they start making one or two mistakes, but that’s still a hell of a lot less than the average person you choose to speak about it.
So an article on "Alexander the great" could be edited as long as it was by somebody who was an expert in that area and still is or formerly was active in academic history.
Now articles such as "The history of First-Person Shooters on the PC"
wouldn't benefit from expert attention.
I understand that it is a logical fallacy to appeal to authority in debating when you use it without reference, but I don't think it's a
logical fallacy for an encyclopaedia striving for accuracy.
I'd still prefer if their were non-expert editors, but only to prevent an article from becoming too-technical.
Although, I also think that it won't be superior to Wikipedia.
It's my belief that it will be more accurate but a dryer read.
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