[Foundation-l] Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing, was Re: Ban and...

[wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk]

millosh at gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 08:54, ???? <wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > Quite right, the articles in other subjects are polluted with irrelevant
> > details so why not pollute this class of article too?
> >
> > Mention it if it is a major factor in some controversy. For example if a
> > number of research results are saying that X is useless for Y, and one
> > report by the manufacturer says X helps in 90% of cases of Y. Otherwise
> > as others have said who funds the research is noise. You might as well
> > add in the funding for any research in the Computer Science articles, in
> > the history articles, in the social science articles, etc, etc.
> >
> > Frankly if manufacturer research isn't providing correct data, for
> > policy makers, and other scientist to work from that is a major problem,
> > and probably illegal in some places too.
> 
> It is hard to say that irrelevant details exist. It is just a matter
> of time when once irrelevant, details would become relevant enough for
> some article. I witnessed a number of times that one detail [inside of
> a Wikipedia article] was irrelevant at one point of time, while fully
> relevant a year or two later.


At which point add the detail. Information can have a positive and 
negative effect on an article. Until it becomes relevant, given 
proper weight, and can be synthesised into the article, odd bits 
of data simply detract from the present real information. Its as 
if you go home and your partner starts telling you about the events 
of the day, minute details of their journey into work, the trip 
to the supermarket, your brother died, details of how they selected 
items from the shopping list, details of the journey back from the
supermarket.


> It is more about well or badly worded articles. And POV pushers have
> developed badly worded articles into the state of art, by pushing
> inside of, let's say, introduction the information which doesn't
> belong there.


And this stuff doesn't belong in the article space, putting it 
there simple provides a handle for the POV pushers to hang stuff 
off of. Shove it in some appendix or expansion of the reference if 
it needs recording. But as someone said in the talk pages, primary 
research does belong in the article space anyway. Let them POV push 
in an area that few will look in.

However, if you want to see POV pushing on drugs trying these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephedrone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2C-T-2

where the molecules are being given cute little animations,
someone might just as well have stuck little smiley faces 
on them.


> Connection between scientific studies and their sponsors is very
> relevant. It goes up to the point that it is important to know who is
> a mentor of some PhD student. Forcing students to build foundations
> for fringe theories of their mentors is a common practice. The only
> difference between the present and past practice is in the complexity
> of mathematics and amount of data behind the fringe science.


Perhaps one should have a credits listing at the end of each 
article listing the sponsors all the references. Something like 
the last 5 minutes of a Hollywood film? To avoid any possibility 
of bias one would also have to ensure that the same thing happened 
with every reference to every article, on every subject. After all
that reference might have been sponsored by Jews, Christians, or 
Atheists.


> The fact that there are no independent researches behind some drug
> means exclusively that. Encyclopedia doesn't describe controversies
> exclusively, it gives useful information about described matter. And
> sponsors belong to the set of relevant information.
> 
> Let's say, it is historically very important to detect Leonardo da
> Vinci's sponsors; or the fact that Tales of Milet was independently
> wealthy; or the fact that not just funds were important in Copernicus'
> decision to become quiet.


The point is that information becomes relevant in retrospect. At 
the time it was news, which may or may not have been correct. One 
needs to decide whether the point of the project is to fulminate 
gossip, or to record facts.


> There are much more scientists and inventions today than in past, but
> it is equally important to detect context around them.
> 
> It is sad to see that Wikipedians are showing the same kind of fear
> toward more information, as classical encyclopedists was showing in
> relation to Wikipedia. Again, there are no irrelevant information (or
> the most of information treated as so are not irrelevant), there are
> just well and badly worded articles.
> 

Its not fear of information, its concern that the addition of 
minutia detracts from the main purpose of the article, and that 
it provides a handle for some agenda pushing. In these postings and 
on the talk page there are references to "Big Pharma". IOW some 
are looking to add this stuff simply in order to POV push.