>-----Original Message-----
>From: geni [mailto:geniice@gmail.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 04:28 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as moral tool?
>
>On 6/5/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>> We must work to strike a moral balance between to good of knowledge being available and the possible evil of harming others.
>
>It is impossible to know which bits of information cause damage it is
>impossible to quantify the damage and again impossible to quantify the
>good.
It's not at all impossible. Detailed information about private people is harmful. Even excessively detailed information about public figures. publishing private phone numbers of celebrities is an obvious pain in the ass. We don't need to know if George Bush has Herpes. People have a right to live without a spotlight turned on them. Likewise detailed information about how to kill people is rather obviously harmful. None of the statements you made are true. Rough approximations may be arrived at with respect to all 3.
>The field of science has been dealing with this problem for some time.
>The position of arguing that information is neither intrinsically good
>nor evil appears to be the only sustainable option.
The question is whether dissemination of the information is useful or harmful.
>--
>geni
Responses by Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 07:19 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as moral tool?
>
>
>My understanding of what Wikipedia does at the core has always been
>pretty simple: We take factual material elsewhere and summarize it
>neutrally and clearly.
We have always included material which is not factual in the slightest. If a subject attracts human attention, it is considered worth of inclusion.
>I feel like the service we provide to readers is
>pretty simple: instead of making them dig through all the stuff out
>there on some topic just to get an overview, we do the first pass at
>that for them.
>
>But lately I hear a different thing. Now that we've become so prominent,
>I hear people saying that we should be using Wikipedia as a moral
>instrument.
We have a duty to act responsibly. Although we are a corporation, we are not necessarily nihilistic.
>If we don't like how sites treat our editors, we should disappear them.
Sites which cause serious harm to our users may incur such a penalty.
>If we don't like that the media reports certain things, we should prune
>that information. It doesn't matter if it was in multiple reliable
>sources: if we don't trust our readers with the facts, we should cut
>them out.
Media reports which abuse the privacy of other persons, even those in the Washington Post, need not be repeated on Wikipedia as though we were mindless, nihilistic robots.
>What worries me about this isn't so much the current uses, although they
>bother me a little. Instead, I worry about two things:
>
> 1. Once we cross the line away from "just the NPOV facts, ma'am" to
> Wikipedia-as-moral-tool, will it really be limited to these two
> things? Won't people find more ways to improve the world by
> restricting what we print?
We must work to strike a moral balance between to good of knowledge being available and the possible evil of harming others.
> 2. Don't we risk eternal contention? It seems like getting people to
> agree on the facts is hard enough. Can we ever come up with a
> shared morality?
We can move toward it, learning from experience and observing the results of our actions.
>That's not to say that we shouldn't suppress facts for moral purposes.
>There are good arguments for it. I'm just wondering what the long-term
>cost is.
There are two costs, the costs of doing nothing and the costs of attempting to be responsible, both are substantial.
>William
Responses by Fred
>-----Original Message-----
>From: William Pietri [mailto:william@scissor.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 08:19 AM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as moral tool?
>
>Hi, Dan.
>
>Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
>> On 6 Jun 2007 at 00:32:41 +0000, "Fred Bauder"
>> <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Except for the BADSITES linking policy, which was "arrived at" by
>> lots of yelling and general bluster, pursued with a pit bull's
>> ferocity and tenacity, backed up by a bad ArbCom decision despite
>> ArbCom not making policy or precedent by its own admission, and
>> further "justified" by its proponents as "representing consensus
>> because it's what we do", where the "we" in this sentence means the
>> handful of partisans who intimidate into silence anybody who attempts
>> to revert their removal of "bad" links by threatening to block them.
>>
>
>Having tried pretty hard to learn why I should back the proposed
>replacement for BADSITES and not gotten much info, I share your
>concerns. It seems like a policy that requires keeping people ignorant
>of the reasons the policy is good will never get very far here.
>
>However, I'd like it if you could be kinder about this. Although I've
>never seen a clear explanation of the motivations that drive the
>policy's supporters, I don't have cause to doubt that they mean well.
>
>William
While occasionally principles from arbitration decisions can sometimes be generalized into policy, they are intended to apply only to the specific case addressed at that time. There are many other possible fact situations not contemplated or considered.
BADSITES was such a clumsy adaption that it is reasonably suspected of being the work of someone who opposed the policy expressed in it. The trolling was highly successful.
Fred
On 6 Jun 2007 at 00:32:41 +0000, "Fred Bauder"
<fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
> We follow a reasonable standard that we arrive at though the same
> process we arrive at any policy, discussion leading to consensus.
Except for the BADSITES linking policy, which was "arrived at" by
lots of yelling and general bluster, pursued with a pit bull's
ferocity and tenacity, backed up by a bad ArbCom decision despite
ArbCom not making policy or precedent by its own admission, and
further "justified" by its proponents as "representing consensus
because it's what we do", where the "we" in this sentence means the
handful of partisans who intimidate into silence anybody who attempts
to revert their removal of "bad" links by threatening to block them.
--
== 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/
On 5 Jun 2007 at 09:01:39 -0400, "Nick Wilkins" <nlwilkins(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> So, what's wrong with going to [[Wikipedia:Featured article review]] and
> saying "this is a steaming pile of excrement"?
Wouldn't that be better done on [[Wikipedia:Steaming pile of
excrement review]]? (WP:SPOER)
--
== 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 understanding of what Wikipedia does at the core has always been
pretty simple: We take factual material elsewhere and summarize it
neutrally and clearly. I feel like the service we provide to readers is
pretty simple: instead of making them dig through all the stuff out
there on some topic just to get an overview, we do the first pass at
that for them.
But lately I hear a different thing. Now that we've become so prominent,
I hear people saying that we should be using Wikipedia as a moral
instrument.
If we don't like how sites treat our editors, we should disappear them.
If we don't like that the media reports certain things, we should prune
that information. It doesn't matter if it was in multiple reliable
sources: if we don't trust our readers with the facts, we should cut
them out.
What worries me about this isn't so much the current uses, although they
bother me a little. Instead, I worry about two things:
1. Once we cross the line away from "just the NPOV facts, ma'am" to
Wikipedia-as-moral-tool, will it really be limited to these two
things? Won't people find more ways to improve the world by
restricting what we print?
2. Don't we risk eternal contention? It seems like getting people to
agree on the facts is hard enough. Can we ever come up with a
shared morality?
That's not to say that we shouldn't suppress facts for moral purposes.
There are good arguments for it. I'm just wondering what the long-term
cost is.
William
Everyone,
Rx: [[Patch Adams (film)]]. Directions: Insert DVD or tape, elevate feet,
open ears, open mind, apply liberally Prn.
Marc
--
:-) ---- Smile - touch a life! ---- :-)
I have never been so ashamed to be associated with Wikipedia as I am just now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Allison_Stokke…
There are a large number of people saying we should have this article.
As of the time of writing, they seem to *all* be basing this on
various forms of an assertion that because the subject fulfils an
arbitrary criteria that we ourselves made up, having an article is
therefore either necessary, our right, or inevitable. (It is not clear
which of these schools they subscribe to, but it seems implicitly to
be one of the three)
There is *one* passing comment, made in response to my complaint,
about a neutral article being a defensibly a "good thing", because
then we get on top of the google results and it's better than the
alternatives - I disagree with it, but it's a reasoned position.
Otherwise... not a smidgen of editorial thought. Just an incantation
of an article of faith, a slavish devotion to a meaningless line in
the sand.
And then, the crowning glory: "Strong keep ... No BLP issues and
Wikipedia contains content you might find objectionable ... Wikipedia
is not censored ... ethical point of views and non-neutral !votes are
irrelevant." - from, god help me, an admin. One of the people we
theoretically select for common sense and an understanding of our
goals. Linking - I am not making this up - to the content disclaimer.
Are we really saying that *because we made up an arbitrary rule
ourselves*, we get to ignore any form of editorial sense and then
loudly disclaim responsibility for the result? Do people honestly
believe that this makes us an encyclopedia? A grand game of nomic over
what does and doesn't constitute a topic, an endless series of rules
on who we can and cannot write about, without any attempt to apply
*judgement* to them? Without any attempt to say - hey, sometimes we
have to make decisions on things?
The world is not full of hard and fast situations. We can't draw nice
defining lines everywhere and get shining happy results. Sometimes,
God forbid, we have to think about boundary cases. I wish people would
show some willingness to.
What happened to the project I signed up to back in 2004? This twisted
imitation of an attempt to write an encyclopedia sure as hell doesn't
seem to be it.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Delirium [mailto:delirium@hackish.org]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 5, 2007 06:16 PM
>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as moral tool?
>
>Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>>>It is impossible to know which bits of information cause damage it is
>>>impossible to quantify the damage and again impossible to quantify the
>>>good.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>It's not at all impossible. Detailed information about private people is harmful. Even excessively detailed information about public figures. publishing private phone numbers of celebrities is an obvious pain in the ass. We don't need to know if George Bush has Herpes. People have a right to live without a spotlight turned on them. Likewise detailed information about how to kill people is rather obviously harmful. None of the statements you made are true. Rough approximations may be arrived at with respect to all 3.
>>
>>
>The rough approximations vary widely according to cultural norms,
>though, which poses quite a problem for Wikipedia since we're an
>international enyclopedia, rather than situated in any one culture. We
>don't need to know if George Bush has Herpes, perhaps; do we need to
>know that FDR had polio? The consensus for many years was that this was
>private information that would be inappropriate to publicize against his
>wishes. However, more recently, it's been mentioned more widely, and we
>mention it in our own article. There are probably still people who find
>that distasteful, but what are we supposed to do about that?
>
>I think that we can probably all agree on the extremes (e.g. home phone
>numbers), but it gets murky quickly past that. For example, some
>countries prohibit publishing the names of various categories of alleged
>criminals, or various categories of alleged victims, whereas other
>countries' press does so routinely; which standard do we follow?
>
>-Mark
We follow a reasonable standard that we arrive at though the same process we arrive at any policy, discussion leading to consensus.
Fred