Dan Tobias wrote:
>> Why should any part of main article space (or
>> templates included in it) be controlled by outside people and used to
>> present their (perhaps distorted) view of reality?
Why? Maybe because all parts of current main article space are controlled
by "inside" people and used to present their (perhaps distorted) view of
reality.
By policy, rule, and decree, the "outside" people are told to try to voice
their concerns on Discussion pages, which we all know, are not mandated to
be heeded. So, the "outside" people don't have equal power. If the
guideline is that contributors to the article should have no conflict of
interest in the topic on which they're editing, almost by definition,
experts are thus driven out by those who merely know how to do citation
searches in the library (if even that). So, Dan, that's why Ray thinks it
might be more "neutral" if such a space could be provided to "outside"
people to even the playing field and maybe get the "inside" people to
understand how things actually work among the experts in the area that the
article covers.
But, Geni's concerned that this will take up too much server space.
Why don't the "outside" people just do what Angela does -- serve "inside" on
the Board for a while, then go "outside", but retain the special "insider's"
privilege of editing articles (like the one about Wikia) directly from the
"outside"? I guess that rule doesn't scale so well.
Greg
On 1/28/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
> Handled correctly this could be a PR benefit for WP.
>
> Not long ago I expressed my opinion that our view toward Conflicts of
> Interest was not a workable one. I'm also of the view that any
severe
> action against editors who are paid to clean up a company's article,
> will only drive such activities underground.
>
> I think that we need to establish a right of defence or rebuttal (or
> whatever we want to call it). This would allow anyone who is
directly
> affected by the article a place to defend his point of view. This
could
> probably be done in a template that is linked from the page in
> question. The person or company affected would have the exclusive
right
> to make substantive edits to that template. The result would be a
> section that is the person's view on the issue; if they want to make
a
> radical departure from the truth that would be their right within
that
> context. If the subject tries to put the same information in the
main
> body of the article that would be subject to the usual meat-grinder
rules.
>
> I'm sure that we will have a few of our own dinosaurs complaining
that
> they should have the right to edit everything, and that having such
> pages would be tremendously unwiki, but I think that giving any
person
> the opportunity to defend himself should improve Wikipedia's image as
> one of fairness.
>
> A few simple rules may be necessary for these persons.
> 1. The writer must be the person himself or have the right to
speak
> on behalf of the person
> 2. The writer must be registered and properly identified.
> 3. All that he writes is subject to GFDL
> 4. The financial arrangements between the writer and the person
are
> not our concern.
> 5. We reserve the right to limit the length of submissions to
> prevent long-winded rants.
>
Um... why? If we write the article as well as we should, they will not have any valid reason to complain, and I refuse to think that we should be hosting blatantly untrue things under the guise of the subject defending himself. Do we really want the White House telling us about how everyone who disagrees with them is a terrorist-lover, in their own page where nobody is allowed to remove the content, or even register disagreement?
-Amarkov
---------------------------------
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Hello. I'm a Japanese man worked at Wikipedia:en, de.
I was "banned" because an ":w:en:-administrator" :User:Kusma's erroring.
Please relese me! ("unblock"), help me!, now.
And, can you tell me the Kusma's e-mail address?
-- by, User:Sheynhertz-Unbayg, the fighter, semi-linguist,
semi-Hebraist 〔http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sheynhertz-Unbayg,
or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sheynhertz-Unbayg 〕
>
> I have noticed that when you create an imperfect article (no stub tag,
> no categories, or something badly wrong), someone tends to show up and
> fix it. Often they add something else in the process. But at least you
> get a tiny bit of feedback.
>
> However, when you create a "perfect" article in one go (referenced,
> with categories, links and incoming links), you actually get no
> feedback. No one is drawn there to fix some automatically detected
> fault. In short, no one even seems to see it.
>
> This strikes me as slightly sad. But then, I haven't had my coffee yet.
>
> Steve
>
Always Leave Something Undone used to be a Rule To Consider, didn't it.
Dan
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ron Ritzman [mailto:ritzman@gmail.com]
>Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 05:09 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Consensus vs "groupthink"
>
>Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term
>"groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the
>two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are
>on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD,
>then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of
>course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
>
>Same with an edit to an active article. If the edit stands, it's
>"consensus" if it's constantly reverted and your persistence gets you
>banned by a "rogue admin (tm)", it's "groupthink".
>
>Therefore, I have to wonder if "groupthink", as long as it doesn't
>lead to an [[Abilene paradox]] might not just be another way of saying
>"consensus" which can either be good or bad. Good if the "consensus"
>decision squares with previously established policies, bad if it
>doesn't.
Groupthink refers to solidarity by fiat, while consensus refers to a group decision arrived at after full discussion.
Fred
On 27/01/07, LAWRENCE A TKALYCH <lat2000(a)msn.com> wrote:
> As I have received a myriad of e-mails re:mthis issue, I will do my best to
> respond to you personally.
You'll be most pleased to know that Mr Tkalych is set to moderated and
nomail now.
- d.
> From: Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com>
> I'm reminded of another entity we love to hate: credit reporting
> agencies. One of the reasons we (justifiably) love to hate them
> is that they provide little or no mechanism to challenge the
> information they hold about us. Wikipedia should not be anything
> like a credit reporting agency.
???? It is only because of laws passed within the last ten years or
so, certainly no credit to the bureaus, but... just for the record...
...everyone is entitled to get one free report every year from
Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. (This has been true for at least
ten years in Massachusetts, and has been true nationally for a couple
of years).
I noticed a ludicrous error in one of them one year, found an online
correction form, filled it out, clicked "send" or whatever, and it
was fixed in the next report.
On 28 Jan 2007 at 08:42, Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com> wrote:
> I'm reminded of another entity we love to hate: credit reporting
> agencies. One of the reasons we (justifiably) love to hate them
> is that they provide little or no mechanism to challenge the
> information they hold about us. Wikipedia should not be anything
> like a credit reporting agency.
And it isn't. Credit reporting agencies' reports are produced and
distributed in a secretive, prorpietary manner, and don't include any
external links section to direct readers to alternative views of the
facts involved. None of this is true of Wikipedia articles.
--
== Dan ==
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