No Steve. Though the current article has been roundly criticised as POV by
most people who have commented, including people who make clear they have
little time for Mother Teresa but still find the article blatently flawed
and unfair, but one user, Erik, is determined to ignore everyone else and
defend his POV text come what may. I called the vote so that people can
clearly and unambiguously express their opinion on the text, what should be
in and what should be out.
Though even doing that was a nightmare as Erik tried to move the vote,
change the vote, add in 'disputed' to questions he doesn't approve of, etc.
Though as the debate showed, notwithstanding Erik's endless lectures to
everyone, the vote is going as expected, with voters stating that the
current text is POV, the picture selection is POV, the caption use is POV,
and that the article needs NPOVing. Maybe /this/ time Erik might get the
message that there is a problem, as he has consistently ignored everyone's
comments, people's attempts to fix the problem and delivered increasingly
bizarre interpretations, most recently using Pol Pot (!) as an example of
something or other. Even MT detesters like the author Christopher Hitchens
would not attempt to prove a point about Mother Teresa by referring to a
mass murderer like Pol Pot. But Erik did so! And you wonder why there is a
problem trying to NPOV Erik's edits, and why so many people are so
despairing of salvaging the article at this stage from Erik's agenda! I know
Erik has strong views against religion (and is entitled to), but his verbage
at this stage is perverse.
As Daniel Quinlan wrote, in an attempt to bring some sense to the article,
"Just because the critics aren't getting to add all 45 pages of criticism
and it's just half the article, does not make it okay. Only here on
Wikipedia can Mother Teresa get more criticism than Saddam Hussein, Joseph
Stalin, Idi Amin, or Moammar Al Qadhafi. Check those articles."
As Delirium observed, "* I personally think Mother Theresa's reputation is
overblown, but the article as currently written is entirely unacceptable. It
reads as an anti-Mother Theresa piece, and is clearly written by someone
with an agenda."
Or in Andrewa's words, "I don't think I have an axe to grind either way, but
my personal impression of the current article is that it is POV and anti
Mother Teresa. . . . They are documents of fact, yes, but they aren't
important to this article. I've probably been photographed with criminals
too... actually I certainly have, I'm involved in a prison ministry! They
are trivial in an article on her life. They are very important to an essay
questioning the significance of her life or the validity of her likely
sainthood, and they might even belong in an article reporting this debate,
but they don't IMO deserve inclusion in the main article. The fact they are
there is a symptom of its being used to promote a POV."
Maybe the vote will /finally/ get Erik to listen to someone other than
himself and Christopher Hitchens for once. But after the last week, that is
more of a hope than an expectation.
JT
>
>"Once and for all?" LOL. Did we forget this was a
>wiki? -- Or did we forget the possibility of some
>other upstart coming along and rewriting it? Heck I
>may take a crack at the intro pgphs.
>
>~S~
>
>--- James Duffy <jtdire(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi, I've called a vote on [[Talk:Mother Teresa]] to
> > clarify once and for all
> > what people think about the current article and what
> > we should do about it.
> > Please express your opinion. lol
> >
> > JT
> >
> >
>_________________________________________________________________
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> > WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
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>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>
>>I think that deletionism forgets that Wiki Is Not Paper, and that
>>completionism is likely to lead us to a better final article.
>>
>>
>The problem with this approach is that while Wiki is Not Paper, readers'
>attention spans are limited. If I want to read an overview of Mother
>Theresa's life, I most certainly do not want it to be 20 pages long. I'd
>much prefer a more summarized (dare I say, "encyclopedia-style") biography.
> If the rest of the information must be in Wikipedia, it'd be nice if it
>were factored out into separate articles (maybe "Criticism of Mother
>Theresa" and "Reasons for Mother Theresa's Beatification" or something
>similar). Generally if a Wikipedia article is so ridiculously long that
>nobody not doing a thesis on the topic would want to read it, it becomes
>much less useful to the general public.
>
>-Mark
Absolutely correct. Encyclopædic articles are not simply limited by paper
but by a range of other issues; readability, context, comprendability,
communicative structure, layout, etc. Extraordinarily complex topics need a
lot of space; World Wars I and II, Vietnam War, intellectual concepts, major
historical facts, etc but except in extreme cases we need to keep
biographies readable, not turn them into theses simply because we don't have
a paper usgae limit. Saying 'lets get everything we can in because we can'
isn't encyclopædic, it is amateurish. Encylopædias communicate themes,
movements, contexts, relevances, not a 'fling the whole lot in' approach. We
have books to do that. An encyclopædia fulfils a different educational role.
And all producing articles of mini-thesis size will do is frighten away
readers, because people don't come to encyclopædias for that sort of
information, which they can get, written by professional
sociologists/historians/academics on the shelves of their library. If they
can get a five paragraph summary in Brittanica, and a good book in the
library they will do it, in preference to a 32K article whose reliability
they cannot vouch for because they don't know how qualified the authors were
to write about it or how much is someone's personal agenda, on wikipedia. We
need to remember what an encyclopædia is and is not, what we can do well and
by our nature we cannot do well. And in depth NPOV is not wikipedia's strong
point given that it does not go through independent assessment but is
produced in a free-for-all writing spree. (Often that free-for-all approach
produces superb stuff. All too often it doesn't, as the embarrassing article
on Mother Teresa, which not a single solitary person hasn recommended in
preference to a better, more NPOV version by Adam Carr, is the embodiment
of, showing what happens when an article goes seriously, embarrassingly and
indeed almost comically wrong.)
JT
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I don't think this person's subject line makes any sense, but his
content claims are surely worth an investigation.
It looks from the history as though there's an ongoing edit war, and
so probably more eyeballs would be helpful.
----- Forwarded message from "Dr. Iris Steineck" <iris.steineck(a)aon.at> -----
From: "Dr. Iris Steineck" <iris.steineck(a)aon.at>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:43:11 +0100
To: <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Subject: donation to ferdinand porsche? article is not available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Dear Mr. Wales,
My grandfather Erwin Komenda designed the VW-beetle and Porsche sport car
type 356.
I wrote this fact more than one times in the Wikipedia Ferdinand Porsche
Article.
([[pl:Ferdinand Porsche]]
'''Ferdinand Porsche''' ([[September 3]], [[1875]] - [[January 30]],
[[1951]]) was a [[Ethnic German|German]] automotive engineer born in
[[Vratislavice]], [[Austria-Hungary]] (now in the [[Czech Republic]]), who
developed the original [[Volkswagen]] and a prototype of the [[Panzer VI]]
[[tank]], which he nicknamed "''Tiger''".
In [[1928]], Dr. Porsche developed the first workable [[hybrid electric]]
car, proving it to be a workable concept. Despite efforts by hobbyists,
this technology lay virtually unused by automotive companies until the
[[21st century]].
Dr. Porsche's son was [[Ferry Porsche]], the developer of the [[Porsche]]
automobile, which was based on the Volkswagen design. Both, the Volkswagen
and the first Porsche sport car, the Porsche type 356, were designed by
Porsche's longstanding chief designer [[Erwin Komenda]].
.[[Erwin Komenda]], the longstanding Porsche chief designer, developed the
car body
for the famous VW-beetle and Porsche 356.
External Link:
[http://www.komenda.at Erwin Komenda Porsche Designer]
But every time I wrote this facts in the wikipedia article - the new
written text is cancelled immediately. I cant accept this fact. Because on
the one hand Erwin Komenda developed the design of the famous cars and on
the other this is no more a free encyclopaedia. So I wonder how this is
possible. Have you got any donations for the Ferdinand Porsche article from
Porsche or the Volkswagen-enterprise, what is wrong with that site?
Best regards Iris Steineck
----- End forwarded message -----
Voting at Wikipedia good, bad, neutral, necessary evil, unnecessary evil?
This came up yesterday, but I know it's not the first time.
I'm not proposing an answer -- but I do have some general thoughts on the
matter. I'm involved in a number of nonprofit organizations and they
operate in different manners -- and I use that experience as a basis for my
thoughts on this. Here are 3 basic ways they work:
A) Seek Consensus, But Vote: For example, most of the organizations have a
board of director that votes and uses majorities when necessary, but most
hesitate to accept a vote if it is close, and they prefer to achieve
something approaching consensus, but will accept a decision if there is a
large majority (this seems similar to Wikipedia).
B) Simply Vote: A few organizations use pure majority rule -- but this is
not very common in the organizations I'm involved in.
C) True Consensus: One organization I work with -- the American Friends
Service Committee (AFSC) is based on Quaker beliefs even though many of the
people involved are not Quakers -- and there we work completely on
consensus. Sometimes that means that it takes months or years to make a
decision, but that is OK at AFSC.
I definitely believe as a matter of principle that consensus is the best
way to operate, even if it can be slower. And I want to mention that with
Quakers and at AFSC, people are completely committed to consensus -- and
that means that people also know that it is a very big thing to block
consensus. So for someone to block consensus, they must believe that it is
extremely important -- for example, something that is opposed to the
overall purpose of the organization (at AFSC) or to the spirit of the
meeting (among Quakers and "meeting" can be read as "congregation"). It is
very unusual for someone to block consensus, because people realize that
the process is as important as the decision in many ways -- both for the
specific issue at hand and for the organization or the meeting in general.
So it might not be too easy with so many Wikipedians who like to argue
about *everything* ;-)
So I am still ruminating about what I think is the best way for Wikipedia
to function, because it is difficult to pin down *only one way* -- or even
two or three that Wikipedia approaches decisions and conflicts, and
therefore come to a conclusion about the best way to decide things. It
seems that people prefer to have rules -- or at least to have guidelines --
to decide what is acceptable and unacceptable (I do as well). However, this
is a positive feedback loop for those people (who will make more and more
rules), and but will also drive away people with other focuses or
personality types in a negative feedback loop (see
<http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points/>). But as the
project continues to increase in size and scope, and as more types of
people join, it is not as clear what is the best way to proceed.
Primarily, I think that we need to think about the concept of voting and
how it affects group processes. Wikipedia is an unusual hybrid of Wiki,
NPOV, *and* altruistic self-interest (i.e., we all get some satisfaction
from what we do here, but we also do it for the good of the
project/community/world). I also think we need to look at how our
decision-making processes affect how much we are open or closed -- we can
be "open" to everybody, but if only one type of person can handle being a
contributor or editor, what does that really mean for us.
Anyway, I have been reflecting a little bit about what I should focus my
energy on -- and it seems like I should be writing articles and *not*
checking Votes for deletion fifteen times each day. But I also feel that it
is important to pay attention to the housekeeping work also, and that often
takes me back to VfD and to Recent Changes. But I do think that we can
bring something positive to articles and be NPOV -- but I find it hard to
decide the balance between *contributing* and *housekeeping*.
And here's one more good link to check out:
<http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiLifeCycle>. I think we might be
somewhere near 17 (Wiki:DeclineOfCivility -- there are more strangers than
friends, and AssumeGoodFaith fails as reputation is fleeting) and 18
(arrival of the PoliceForces)
Anyway, that what I'm thinking today -- but tomorrow it may all change ;+)>
Brian
At 27 Oct 2003 17:50:32 -0800 (PST), Anthere wrote:
>Someone wrote me offline, to ask me what I thought of
>voting, because he noticed I rather rarely did, in
>particular very rarely on vfd. He pointed out that
>mail from Ec and TC to me.
NPOV in the articles concerning all events and locations along the
German-Polish border has always been difficult to attain. I don't know
what the trigger was, but for almost two weeks now many articles are
in the permanent state of edit war. Wikipedians interested in
anything, but not in neutral articles, are reverting and re-reverting,
insulting each other and ignoring the basic Wikiquette. Take Silesia
or Gdansk as some examples.
I am completely at a loss, where all this hatred comes from. My
unsuccessful attempts to mediate in this conflict have completely
shattered my nerves. I am not used to be affronted by narrow-minded
nationalists from either side, and after one party had demanded my
de-adminship, I gave up and retreated from these articles. Another
user with courageous attempts to solve the conflict, Ruhrjung, has
reacted in the same way.
I had some days of thinking, what to do in this conflict, and I am at
a loss. Editing these articles is almost impossible, because you are
either reverted or insulted (or, most likely, both). This is not the
atmosphere where I am
willing to participate anymore. Probably it is, because I am engaged
in a special area within Wikipedia, but from my angle Wikipedia is not
the same place anymore. Please think about, how these disputes can be
handled. Good work of many years is destroyed within few days in the
moment.
Good luck,
Mirko (Cordyph)
From: "Anthere"
>
>
> > Cher Edmond, je vous recommande de lire
> >
>
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_neutralit%C3%A9_de_point_de_vue
> > comme exercice pr�paratoire et entrainement au
> > fran�ais :-)
>
> Enfin, de la clart�: f�licitations!
>
> Charles
Euh...cela veut dire que je suis claire pour une fois
ou que le contenu de ce lien est clair ? :-)
__________________________________
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Grandfather Louis predicted:
-> Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the
-> content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption
-> requiring bans become rare.
Here I have been remiss. Erik asked me weeks and WEEKS ago to work with
him on an NPOV tutorial, and I have barely lifted a finger there.
I seem to be better at actually 'neutralizing' an article or 'talking'
to a specific user about NPOV in context. But I'm having trouble
organizing my thoughts for a [[Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial]]. Someone else
kind of took it over, but it looks like a rehash of an 'NPOV definition'
article.
I'd like to see a series of examples modeled on Strunk & White's
"Elements of Style" which show clear rules like Omit Needless Words and
striking examples of omitting them with vigor and boldness.
Other works which are an inspiration to me in this vein include Huff's
"How to Lie with Statistics" -- which, with calculated irony and gobs of
good humor and common sense, shows readers how to *counteract* attempts
by advertisers and politicians to deceive us with statistics.
Sheepishly,
Ed Poor
"Anthere" <anthere8(a)yahoo.com> schrieb:
> Do you think that if all the decisions on the talk
> page are 40% 60%, picking up the solution with 60%
> will be ok ?
No, but it does beat picking the solution whose proponents
have the longest breath, or the solution that happens to be
on the page at the time the fight started. There IS no ok
solution. Voting might well be the least bad solution in
some cases.
I don't know whether this is such a case. I'm not sure.
What I am sure of, is that there's an article, which I think
is badly POV, but do not dare touch. As you say, it's not
the end of the world. It is not the first article that I
will choose to just not look at because I don't like it.
But I do regret that such is the solution in some cases.
I guess it cannot be avoided, but still it's sad.
Andre Engels
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales(a)bomis.com> schrieb:
> I think that the best resolution here is to lean towards
> "completionism" rather than "deletionism". If an article is
> one-sided, then grow it. And then after it grows too big, it will
> often be much easier to see how to break parts off into sub-articles.
I partly agree, but for a large part also disagree.
> Here's an example from the current dispute.
>
> "Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 20
> paragraphs about why, her good works, why she is beloved by so many
> and so forth. And here's one sentence of criticism consisting mainly
> of a link to a separate page."
>
> OR
>
> "Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 2
> sentences saying way, followed by 20 paragraphs of criticism of her
> and her order."
>
> I would say that in *either* case, the right solution is *seldom* to
> 'balance' the article by *removing* valid material that is otherwise
> NPOV. More likely, what is needed is *more material*. And then
> hopefully, in that process, we can find that both parties are
> satisfied to have some of the material moved out as necessary to
> auxiliary articles.
I disagree. We are to state that there is criticism, and what the criticism
consists of. But there is no need to get into detail to prove those
criticisms or spend two paragraphs per criticism to give examples. I don't
see what the value is of spending eight paragraphs giving examples and
evidence of insufficient care in Mother Theresa's homes. One paragraph
specifying the criticism, and one with some examples would in my opinion
be enough to give the relevant information in NPOV. Wikipedia is to state
what criticism exists, and why. It's not our task to provide the
necessary information for everybody to make decisions on the issue.
> I think that deletionism forgets that Wiki Is Not Paper, and that
> completionism is likely to lead us to a better final article.
I disagree. An article that basically is arguing both sides of an
issues extensively is NOT how I see the ideal, NPOV article. Rather,
I would like the article to mention that there is argument, give the
arguments of both sides, and then be ready with it. Wikipedia does
not exist to build up an argument - also not if it is dressed up in
NPOV language.
Andre Engels
From: engelsAG(a)t-online.de (Andre Engels)
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mother Teresa article
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Everyone should make
> effort
> > to be consensual, but veto should be a "right" to
> me.
>
> But what do you do plan to do if everything is
> vetoed by someone?
>
> Andre Engels
That is a good question Andr�. My belief voting is bad
does not insure that not voting if perfect
unfortunately. None of these options is perfect. I
just think one is better than the other. That is just
my opinion.
I think it unlikely that everything is vetoed by
someone, because everyone is aware of the risk
inherent to blocking. That should be an extrem choice,
not one to choose easily.
So, what might be done in case of a veto ?
I think the first option in case of a veto is
precisely what Jimbo said "The wiki process! Editing,
re-editing, striving to accomodate others, loving care
for the facts, respect for others, editing some more,
re-editing some more, arguing, talking on the talk
page, complaining on the mailing list about article
contents, etc.". Just discussing over and over and
over, till the tip of fingers are raw skin :-) (I talk
less when I cut a bit of a finger while taking care of
carrots in my kitchen :-)). I think that then, perhaps
instead of taking time to vote, people should take
time to go to the vetoer (if that term exists), and
try to see whatever option they could agree on with
him. May take time.
If that does not work, another option is just to drop
the entire matter. Just leave it be. Even if you think
it is pov. It is not the end of the world. I do not
think an article can ever be perfectly neutral. Is it
so important that there is a little bit biais in it
after all ? Why not waiting for a bit, until everyone
cool down, a few weeks perhaps, because sometimes
someone says veto in the heat of a discussion, and
later reconsider quietly.
Or wait for another editor to come one day, perhaps 6
months later, and miraculously, to find the "good"
satisfying solution.
Is there so much hurry for reaching perfection ? May
we not choose to just approach it ?
Another option is to get rid of the vetoer opinion.
That is a way as well. One may say the opinion is
irrelevant as a minor one. Set a vote, pick up the
majority.
Another way is to despair the vetoer so much he will
give up. Some use insults, personal attacks, to the
point the vetoer feels he is not welcome. And goes
away.
A last option is the get rid of the vetoer, by
declaring him unfit to participate reasonably.
And after all, if the only way of a project to go on
properly is to be made by people willing to cooperate
together, it is possible to say that one using veto
too often is blocking situations too often, and as
such having behavior detrimental to the community good
progress.
I choose options 1 and 2. And I keep both Erik and JT
:-)))
Do you think that if all the decisions on the talk
page are 40% 60%, picking up the solution with 60%
will be ok ?
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