--- David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> Geoff Burling wrote:
>
> > What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity?
> (I don't pay attention to
> > this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if
> Lir is banned, rehabilitated,
> > or quietly making useful & valued contributions.)
> And if this is isn't one
> > of Lir's identities, why would this user bother
> behaving in a manner that
> > is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively
> disfunctional?
>
>
> Currently banned for a year. Keeps coming back,
> acting like Lir, getting
> noticed and resetting the ban.
I've never understood why somebody would keep
committing obvious vandalism (like repeatedly
vandalizing Raul's User page) so that they can get
rebanned. If Lir was ever interested in editing, he
could just come in as an anon and make valid edits,
but he seems more interested in disruption than in
contribution.
RickK
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-------------- Original message --------------
> And it doesn't help that whenever Silverback has an opportunity, he
> belittles our policies. Silverback, your own "definition" of capitalism
> only further muddies the waters. As you should know by now, your own
> definition of capitalism (like mine, or RJII's) is irrelevant here. We are
> researching an encyclopedia, and we are committed to NPOV and NOR. That
> means providing different people's definitions of capitalism in a
> verifiable way.
Marx was complementary of capitalism for demonstrating that wealth was
not static but could be created. If one were to point out that Marx appreciated
that capitalism was not a zero sum game, would one be doing original research
because he is using language that did not exist in Marx's time, or is he merely
being descriptive in modern language of Marx's position? When does mere
description or translation (in this case into modern language) become original
research?
Scientists often define their terms at the beginning of a publication. More precision
or a specific nuance of a term is needed in order to communicate clearly, sometimes
the "definition" is simply to rule out specific possible ambiguous interpretations of
the term. The term still contains a recognizable essence of the original meaning,
but has become a term of art. The recognizable essence may not be the same
essence that YOU would have selected, but you should adopt that meaning
when reading the rest of the paper. Now if at the end, in the conclusions,
the author tries to make rhetorical generalizations to the usual definition of
the term, you are entitled to object.
Yes, I define terms, or rather select reductionists nuances of terms in an
attempt at communication, but if you insist for instance that capitalism is
a subset of fascism (BTW, you haven't as far as I know, perhaps "mercantilism"
would be a better example), you are trying to denigrate and not communicate.
What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? Or do you think
he would avoid giving one as a rhetorical technique to avoid being pinned
down and put on the defensive?
-- Silverback
The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now:
http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/
Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to
MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki
Woes (like vandals).
And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia
in papers they write.
I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a
million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability
which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve.
The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project
for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We
never resolved the tension between:
A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and,
B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair.
Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't
know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to
fork?
I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million
dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition
to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me
out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I
worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
Indeed, there is no reason to have a purely intellectual impass,
whereby one side consistently refuses to cite their sources, turn into
a 'personal' dispute. I realize that, in a certain sense, when one
fails to provide references after being requested to do so, might be
counted as a form of misconduct; but that's really a stretch since it
can take place with all due civility. Of course, when dragged for too
long, the exchanges almost invariably turn uncivil, which, I think,
Steve is alluding to as something that can, and should be, avoided.
There is no need for such needless, eliptical stress, on the article
and those editing it if the content policies (providing verifiable
sources when requested to do so) are adhered to, as a matter of
principle, not merely loose convention.
This is another instance in which Conduct/Community, by design,
muddles and places Content/Encyclopedia to 2ndry role; in needlessly
-driving- intellectual disputes towards the personal after much waste
of genuine effort and potential (including amongst the content policy
violators themselevs, who are, yes, encouraged, but not urged, to
follow said policies) ensue. In short, it's not a republic.
El_C
>I just don't want any personal arguments between me and RJII on the talk
>pages to divert attention from, or overwhelm, these content-issues.
By the way there is another nuance to the Global warming example:
> "Climate models that pass the above tests while only
> modeling the direct effects of increases in solar activity will
> have attributed too much of the historical warming
> to greenhouse gas forcing, and will predict larger increases
> in temperature in the future."
Should wikipedia strive to be "actually" correct or just
"technically" correct? In the same vein as the above quote,
recently published research on "climate commitment" already
cited on the page, means that the predictions made by the models
that do not incorporate this "lag" effect are invalid. Those
models will have been parameterized to attribute to greenhouse
gasses warming that was actually due to a lag effect (due to
the heat capacity of the ocean) from warming earlier in the
20th century and in the 19th century. So, not only could
a qualifying statement such as the one above be put into
the article, the predictions of future warming should be
deleted. However, the statements of those predictions
would be technically correct because they are attributed
to the IPCC.
But is a straight forward application of published research
"original research" by the wikipedia definition? How would
one defend a technically correct statement analogous to the one above?
It is newly published research so no one has said the particular
application before. But it is pretty basic text book stuff, that if
you parameterize a model to data and the model does not contain
a critical variable, if the model can fit the data at all, it will attribute
the effect to the variables that it does contain. This stuff is so basic and correct that one could not get a peer reviewed journal
to publish it, because sorry it is just an application of mathmatics.
But would it be "original research" on wikipedia? Frankly,
I would put it in the article, defend it on the talk page, would NOT insist that the now incorrect facts be taken out. But if
some were to engage in a revert war crying "original research",
I would just blow it off, because they are not showing good
faith. I wouldn't want to bother trying to rally a poll on the
issue because that is not the way factual issues should be decided,
that is not how you "win" in science.
-- Silverback
------------- Original message --------------
d. wrote:
> actionforum(a)comcast.net wrote:
>
> > What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is?
>
> I'd say it's off topic for this list.
Well, I didn't self righteously bring it to the list as if someone I disagreed with was obviously wrong. As long as we are agreed the issue of which side was "correct" or acting in good faith is
NOT obvious.
-- Silverback
-------------- Original message --------------
> Yes. Or the expert can refer to the standard textbook they have several
> of ... or wrote. (If they want to avoid referring to their own work,
> they can note it on talk for another to put on the page.)
>
> I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference.
I tend to agree that things are ultimately referencable, although some derivation or application of a form of analysis may sometimes be needed.
I am probably more concerned about the difficulty of providing
a reference, an example that comes to mind is when something is in the literature, not in the textbooks, but the literature is too old
too have abstracts online, if I recall correctly, this difficulty
actually occurred when I was researching whether the theory
that thalidomide caused birth defects by inhibiting angiogenesis.
Although, research into its possible application in cancer did
not occur until the early 1990s, the theory was first proposed
back in the late 60s or early 70s.
In terms of "real life" wikipedia examples I may not have a perfectly apropo example but I can probably bracket it. Consider the difficulty of defending this statement (fortunately I haven't had to) in the [[Global warming]] article
"Climate models that pass the above tests while only modeling the direct effects of increases in solar activity will have attributed too much of the historical warming to greenhouse gas forcing, and will predict larger increases in temperature in the future."
Yes, it may ulitimately be referencable as an APPLICATION of basic understanding of modeling, parameterization and correlation, but frankly, I am glad that some in the community will apply their basic scientific understanding and not insist that every nuance be documented.
Consider also, consider whether one should object to Connelly's refutation of Singer in the SEPP article, which I tried to revert but have not insisted, since I think, good faith in controversial scientific articles requires the allowance of some argumentation and derivation. Others, however, are in a continuing revert war with him, and I disagree with his interpretation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Science_%26_Environmental_Policy_…
-- Silverback
-------------- Original message --------------
> This is not the first time that SIlverback has misrepresented a conflict in
> order to trivialize the importance of content and contents policies.
It probably isn't, but are you sure in this case?
> The specific issue with RJII is this: he has added -- several times over the
> past several weeks, this definition of capitalism -- "private ownership of
> capital" and he has claimed, on the talk page and in the edit summary, that
> this definition comes from Marx. I am certain that this definition does
> not come from Marx, and is not Marxist, as RJII claims. So how do we
> resolve this dispute? I asked RJII to tell me where Marx said this or
> anything like this, to provide a citation. I have asked him
> repeatedly. He refuses to provide a citation.
> This has nothing to do with word order or grammar, and for Silverback to
> insinuate that it does serves no constructive purpose.
Are you being difficult and taking the point of view, that if it doesn't come from
Marx then it isn't "marxist"? What if such a reasonable inference is involved,
say for instance that marxism is defined as public ownership of the means
of production and marxist rhetoric is constantantly raving about the capitalists
and the private ownership of capital, and private property being a property
of capitalism. Do marxists actually have to have written
a dictionary themselves or formatlly defined the terms in one of their signature works?
It seems a fairly reasonable inference from marxist uses of the word what their
meaning is. What is your objection? It is not as if his definition misrepresents
or is perjorative of the marxist position.
-- Silverback
Blair P. Houghton said:
> I'd just like to add that I wish they'd never named that movie that.
>
> --Blair
They were originally going to call it "The Cecropia Witch Project."
I dodged that bullet.
--C
--
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