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There is a problem with giving moderation powers to entrenched individuals who are not experts.

I've seen this on the English language stack exchange, the Japanese language stack exchange, the Physics stack exchange, and on stack overflow. The people who are there on the site gathering points and up and down voting aren't necessarily experts, and in many cases they're amateurs or people who know something about one thing, yet have moderation powers over things they really don't know about.

The same applies to the dustier corners of Wikipedia, where entrenched non-experts often reduce articles to the level of their own ignorance. Since nobody is getting paid for their participation in these sites, it's hardly surprising that these people end up predominating.



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