On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 6:37 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 07/04/2008, Wily D
<wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The converse is, when we say "use your good
judgement and own
knowledge" we enter unsolvable conflicts. Excessive sourcing is the
only way to resolve this - in an article like Evolution or Armenian
Genocide, you simply source the fuck out of everything and tell those
acting in bad faith to take a hike - as it stands, on Wikipedia,
there's no other way to deal with this.
Attacking V/NOR et al. without replacing the absolutely critical
functions it does perform would be suicidal.
The trouble is that building a structure rigid enough to deal with bad
faith or even just blithering stupidity is utterly unsuitable for use
by clueful editors of good faith, and is actually actively damaging
right now.
You are not going to solve malice or cluelessness with a set of rules.
I think the failure of the current incarnations to do so demonstrates
this, and I really doubt the solution is more of the same.
- d.
No matter how much that's damaging right now, merely letting the
malicious and clueless run about unchecked would not improve the
situation. They're already problematically powerful, and this is
about the only leverage that exists against them. Without a radical
overhaul of the whole method of writing, no new leverages will be
created. Everything is contraversial, and every article has cranks &
the passionate trying to push junk into it. While it might've been
possible to go without in 2004, and article writing culture today
demands it or some huge substitute.
Until some other method exists to deal with POVpushers, bad-faith
editors and cranks, these really are the pillars that support the
whole structure.
WilyD