On 07/04/2008, Phil Sandifer <snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's not a problem with a specific article so much
as a problem with a
specific attitude that gets brought up, often at AfD, that seems to me
uniquely pernicious as it is based on the substitution of an
ostensibly mechanical, automatic standard for one based on judgment
and subtlety. This sort of wikinomic has always been a problem, but is
becoming more and more of one.
And the reason it's a problem is editors who are bright but are
unschooled in joined-up thinking, who (usually unconsciously, some
consciously) don't like the idea that judgement takes time and effort
to learn, and jump at the promise of a mechanised substitute. Because
it clearly works *up to a point*. (Which is what I mean when I say
it's at best training wheels for beginners, even if it's no way to do
serious work.)
While it certainly cannot be legislated
away, we can, at least, take the tools used to bludgeon discussions
away from articulate and careful discussions among passionate,
knowledgeable editors (i.e. how articles are actually written) and
towards a game where you get your way not by persuading anybody, but
by going "A ha ha, you only have one independent source."
Yes. The level of clue-hostility is quite remarkable. Encyclopedia
writing should not be an exercise in bureaucratic box-ticking.
Can we legislate away the Taylorized killbots who
would rather treat
Wikipedia as the hot new thing in MMOGs? No. But we can at least stop
privledging such approaches in our core policies. Right now
bizarrenesses like "interpretations and summaries must be clear to a
non-specialist" and "all statements must be backed by sources" -
things that have no relationship to any reality of research as it is
taught or understood - rule the day.
Yep. It's like a first attempt at the *concept* of properly sourced
writing by bright kids ... who bitterly resist people pointing out to
them that, actually, people have been doing this sort of thing for a
living for hundreds of years.
(If you go to WT:V now you'll see someone quite literally arguing that
this is an open source project therefore all past rules don't apply.
What?)
- d.