Sanger's latest article, Who Says We Know: on the New Politics of Knowledge is an argument that meritocracy, including an authority accorded to credentialed experts, is preferable to "epistemic egalitarianism." He writes that Wikipedia defenders argue for epistemic egalitarianism, or "dabblerism," on the basis of pragmatics (i.e., experts don't have the time or interest, or the crowd can be wise) and fairness. However, Sanger objects to these claims as either inaccurate (i.e., experts can be included, or the crowd is often dumb) or inferior to a genuine meritocracy. He notes that Wikipedia, too, in a conflicted and twisted way, also "likes" meritocracy. But its meritocracy is not with respect to what you know, but how much time you spend on the project. Or, academically credentialed expertise, as a form of merit, is accepted, but only with respect to citation. This leads him to ask, "If Wikipedians actually believe that the credibility of articles is improved by citing things written by experts, will it not improve them even more if people like the experts cited are given a modest role in the project?" Sanger concludes that Wikipedia has an "untested" prejudice against experts.

The essay has a number of interesting points. For example, Sanger claims Wikipedia's parity with Encyclopedia Britannica in the famous Nature study was not because of many Wikipedian's background in technology and science, but because the science domain is epistemologically more "objective" and consequently an easier topic on which to collaborate. This makes me think of The Story of Webster's Third: Philip Gove's Controversial Dictionary and Its Critics, in which the Third's editor, Philip Gove, campaigned for a new standard of objectivity, much to the chagrin of the editor preparing the wine guidelines (Morton 1994:92). I am no wine expert, but I wonder how Wikipedia's article fare?

In any case, it is the claim that Wikipedia has an untested prejudice that I find most perplexing. If Wikipedia has a prejudice, it is towards "dabblerism" because of the often cited failure of the Nupedia "test" -- which perhaps unfairly taints "expertism" -- and the success of Wikipedia. Sanger will keep making his expertise argument, and Wikipedians will keep making their crowd arguments -- and despite all the words being spent, neither party precludes the participation of crowds, in Sanger's case, nor of experts, in Wikipedia's case. Ultimately, this argument will be won by the test of "running code" -- in this case a widely used reference work. Will Sanger's new project provide so much added value to sustain itself? Or, will Wikipedia develop means of rating the quality of articles or contributors? Time, not arguments, will utlimately tell.