Ensuring high quality sources where needed, especially science/academic topics (narrow focus)

Well, I think Randomran deserves credit also. I have been watching the article "Race and Intelligence" since I got here, and Race as well. One reason I care about these articles is because I believe - with no data, I admit - that these are topics of high interest to people, and they get many readers. In the general public, there is a "nature versus nurture" debate. Among scientists (social scientists as well as life scientists) there are debates, but not nature versus nurture. I think this is a case where we could use more experts, not because there is a paucity of scholarly sources, but because the editors who add these sources are partisan in a debate I do not think scientists themselves are having. This leads to real distortions. The result is that a very small number of people have to keep a sharp eye on the Race article, to keep it stable. And it has been fairly stable, for a while, but in part because of the few keeping sharp eye. And "race and Intelligence" keeps going in and out of mediation. There is no consensus as to what are considered fringe views among scientists.

These are just two examples but for me they are exemplary of quality issues because when I think of high school or college students using Wikipedia, I think of the damage that can be done if they rely on Race and Intelligence.

I think that there are similar problems in the social sciences and humanities: many articles (postmodernism, the Glorious Revolution, Emile Durkheim) have citations, even good citations. But these citations do not represent the current state of research or scholarly debate on these issues. The articles have little OR, have verifiable sources, appear NPOV although perhaps with some weasel words. They just are not great articles because we do not have enough editors who know a lot on these topics, OR because we have editors who make contributions but do not know how to do good research (i.e. identify the major sources) or use sources well (i.e. organize different views into debates, rather than just pasting together different views.

I agree with Randomran that there may be two separate problems. In the past he has been skilful at deviding one thread into two. Randomran, do you want to do that here? I think both of us are bringign up important issues, but keeping them in one thread may not be productive.

I agree with KrebMrkt's point bout BLPs. At En WP, there was a robust discussion at the WP:Areas for Reform page, on BLP issues, you may wish to review.