Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
> If we excluded people on the basis of potential conflict
> of interest we would have no encyclopaedia, but in my experience,
> David presses the point long and hard, and that is precisely the point
> Alphax was making, I think.
Well, take care you aren't going over the edge on the other issue I mentioned.
Specifically in relation to politics, and particularly in the matter of identifying 'political positions', I think there is a basic style point anyway. For any close follower of politics there may be an excessive interest in 'pinning the tail on the donkey': locating politicians on a spectrum, getting the ducks in a row as to exactly where they stand. When I talk about 'understatement', I think there are a number of stylistic points that ought to differentiate WP's coverage from that of someone very interested in partisan politics (from any angle). Something like this:
(a) Obviously membership of intra-party groups is OK to mention (if verifiable);
(b) Obviously labelling someone a Marxist, Eurosceptic, racist, whatever is not acceptable except as self-identification, or in the context of controversy that we should include and can support with sources;
(c) I notice plenty of 'epithetting' going on, with attempts to place labels like 'far right' on people next to a wikilink (rather than in the article itself); this is really not good, but is the kind of style people adopt either because they are imitating print journalism, or because they are a bit too interested in extremism;
(d) Closer to the Anne Milton thing: presumably anyone active in politics has some sort of 'portfolio' of positions one could research. What gets included and how does it get treated? I don't know, as an abstract question; US politicians in Congress tend to have their voting records recorded, but UK politics coverage usually doesn't focus on that. I do think that principles from the 'living persons biography' criteria can be applied, within reason. Basically there are things about a politician that are fairly 'salient', and should be included if verifiable. If other matters are raised in an article, one should wonder why they are there.
I don't suppose this will resolve the particular dispute, but it seems an interesting area to look into, in general terms.
Charles
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Guy Chapman writes:
>On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 05:44:17 -0500, "david(a)election.demon.co.uk"
><david(a)election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Now that really does annoy me. Whatever happened to "This user is a
>>Wikipedian and seeks to eschew other ideologies while building an
>>encyclopedia"?
>
>Yes, you've said that before. But the fact remains that you are a
>party political activist editing articles on politicians, and
>frequently in a way which causes conflict with other editors, and this
>is not the first time the criticism has been levelled at you either,
>so perhaps you do have biases and are unable to discern them in your
>own writing (which would only be human, after all).
Directly contrary to your repeated claims I have not been sanctioned
for POV editing. There was no such finding in the arbitration case.
Moreover Irishpunktom eventually agreed that he and I had produced a
balanced article in the end.
What has often happened is that I have turned a mass of POV into
something more closely approximating an encyclopaedia article, and
found myself roundly criticised for it solely because the other editor
found out my political affiliation and assumed I must be biased - not
because they could impugn the merit of the edits but because "well you
must be". That was always unfair and was one of the reasons I changed
my user name and broke the link to my article.
I note that you, Guy, have made the same unsupported allegation. I also
note you now admit to being a member of a different party to me. Hmm.
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Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
> <david(a)election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>Hello! Politician discussing what gory details should be in the article
> >>about another politician! Conflict of interest, anyone?
>
> >Now that really does annoy me. Whatever happened to "This user is a
> >Wikipedian and seeks to eschew other ideologies while building an
> >encyclopedia"?
>
> Yes, you've said that before. But the fact remains that you are a
> party political activist editing articles on politicians, and
> frequently in a way which causes conflict with other editors, and this
> is not the first time the criticism has been levelled at you either,
> so perhaps you do have biases and are unable to discern them in your
> own writing (which would only be human, after all).
This area is covered in outline by [[WP:COI]]. Conflicted editors should back off (i.e. not press the point) in POV arguments. However potential conflict of interest should not be used as an argument in such disputes: it is not proper behaviour to bring it up and attempt to bludgeon other editors (with either declared or suspected COI). These points simply reflect our commitment to both of NPOV and AGF; whch are idealistic standards, maybe, but are thereby written into the COI guideline.
Understatement and being nice to people aren't wasted on Wikipedia.
Charles
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Alphax writes:
>
>Hello! Politician discussing what gory details should be in the article
>about another politician! Conflict of interest, anyone?
Now that really does annoy me. Whatever happened to "This user is a
Wikipedian and seeks to eschew other ideologies while building an
encyclopedia"? I don't suppose the three featured articles I wrote about
politicians, which have never been impugned for their neutrality,
occurred to you?
If it is held that no-one who is actively involved in politics should be
contributing to articles about other people actively involved in politics,
then that would would really be the end of my contribution and of many
others, of the whole basis of WP:AGF, and of the founding principle of
Wikipedia that everyone is welcome to come in and leave their own biases
at the door.
I would reconsider that statement, if I were you.
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No new posts, so I'm taking the liberty of summing up.
At one end of the spectrum Charles Matthews doesn't see the need for
mentioning the blog in the text of the article. However, if I discern
his views correctly, he sees it as insignificant rather than violating
policy. His was the only voice against including the blog in the text.
Guy Chapman accepts inclusion in the text, but objects to the link on
grounds of WP:EL and WP:BLP.
Supporting linking are myself, Ryan Wetherell, Luna, The Cunctator,
and Steve Bennett from the list. In addition two recent editors to
the article, Catchpole and The Golux, have either put the blog link
back in or commented in favour of it. (In fairness, Jossi has also
removed the link citing WP:EL and WP:BLP)
Although Charles Matthews argued against the significance, he did
accept that linking to partisan sources was possible providing there
was "a 'shield' of NPOV" in the article.
I sum this up as consensus in favour of including the mention in the
text, and including the link.
--
David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
david(a)election.demon.co.uk (home)
dboothroyd(a)westminster.gov.uk (council)
The Cunctator writes:
>My comments were only about theory. I haven't ever looked at the article in
>question.
Fair enough, but the issue was whether the link was unacceptable on
strict application of policy - ie unacceptable in theory. If acceptable
in theory, then it becomes a matter of individual judgment as to whether
the link actually goes in, and here it is my judgment (for one) that
it should do.
--
David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
david(a)election.demon.co.uk (home)
dboothroyd(a)westminster.gov.uk (council)
Guy Chapman writes:
>On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 23:11:05 +0000, David Boothroyd
><david at election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Guy Chapman accepts inclusion in the text, but objects to the link on
> >grounds of WP:EL and WP:BLP.
>
>No, I think that inclusion of the Times-sourced reference does not
>violate [[WP:BLP]], but I consider that the entire thing violates
>[[WP:NPOV#Undue weight]].
It's interesting that you should choose this moment to announce
your conversion to this view, which you had previously mentioned as
merely a fallback position. For what it's worth, the first time an
edit war broke out over the Tim Ireland issue, it did dominate the
article: see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anne_Milton&oldid=60181758
for one example of an old revision, most of which is taken over either
by reporting the blog or its contents. This did cause problems with
undue weight, until on June 30th one very helpful editor came in and
researched a much longer article. Modesty forbids me from saying
who exactly this much maligned editor was.
--
David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
david(a)election.demon.co.uk (home)
dboothroyd(a)westminster.gov.uk (council)
Reading http://www.laboratorium.net/archives/SevenWikipediaFallacies.html :
So maybe the argument is that the fluff somehow degrades the tone of the
encyclopedia. But that can't be much of a concern either. Are we really
going to discredit something useful because it also chooses to be fun? No
one ever forces you to read about Star Trek. If you want to know how a Geneva
drive <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_drive> works, what matters to you
is that Wikipedia have a damn good entry on it. That the same web site also
contains a multi-part list of fictional
cities<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_cities>is neither here
nor there.
I tried to follow the link to the list of fictional cities (because I find
the topic interesting). But it had been deleted.
Why? The argument was that a category would be better.
I have my opinions about that, but then WHY DID THEY NOT JUST REDIRECT TO
THE CATEGORY?
Arghhhhhh.
Sorry for the rant.
On 5 Dec 2006 at 10:08, "Gregory Kohs" <thekohser(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Alphax makes the common mistake of confusing the "submission" with the
> "submitter". All public relations workers are not welcome to edit in
> Wikipedia, regardless of the quality of their writing, or even whether
> independent non-paid editors in good standing have personally vetted the
> content before it's posted.
I'd expect that if such people do their editing on topics on which
they don't have any conflicts of interest, they wouldn't have any
problem.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
My comments were only about theory. I haven't ever looked at the article in
question.
On 12/7/06, David Boothroyd <david(a)election.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> No new posts, so I'm taking the liberty of summing up.
>
> At one end of the spectrum Charles Matthews doesn't see the need for
> mentioning the blog in the text of the article. However, if I discern
> his views correctly, he sees it as insignificant rather than violating
> policy. His was the only voice against including the blog in the text.
>
> Guy Chapman accepts inclusion in the text, but objects to the link on
> grounds of WP:EL and WP:BLP.
>
> Supporting linking are myself, Ryan Wetherell, Luna, The Cunctator,
> and Steve Bennett from the list. In addition two recent editors to
> the article, Catchpole and The Golux, have either put the blog link
> back in or commented in favour of it. (In fairness, Jossi has also
> removed the link citing WP:EL and WP:BLP)
>
> Although Charles Matthews argued against the significance, he did
> accept that linking to partisan sources was possible providing there
> was "a 'shield' of NPOV" in the article.
>
> I sum this up as consensus in favour of including the mention in the
> text, and including the link.
> --
> David Boothroyd - http://www.election.demon.co.uk
> david(a)election.demon.co.uk (home)
> dboothroyd(a)westminster.gov.uk (council)
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