Geoff Burling wrote:
If one were to submit to Wikipedia a comment like "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is considered the finest musical piece written" or "Tolstoy's two novels _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karinina_ are considered his best writings", one could insist that this is not a valid submission -- even though these are judgements that are widely held and considered by many people statements of fact, rather than opinion.
Consider three alternatives:
BAD: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is the best motion picture ever made."
BETTER: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is considered by many experts to be the the best motion picture ever made."
STILL BETTER: "Orson Welles' [[Citizen Kane]] is considered by many experts to be the best motion picture ever made. For example, in 1998, the [[American Film Institute]] voted..."
Notice that I didn't say "Best" because there's likely always going to be a possible improvement. :-)
to explain: a given group who is considered authoritative in a given field, makes a judgement. And that judgement is recorded in Wikipedia as a fact.
There's an important distinction here between saying that a particular judgment is _true_, i.e. for the wikipedia to actualy _assert_ it, versus saying that a particular judgment is widely held, or widely held by experts, or held by these experts but not those.
It's important and informational to include judgments that are widely held, but not to assert them ourselves. If the reader thinks that *we* are asserting it, well, they aren't reading carefully enough.
However, all that does in move the problem of subjectivity to another area: how do we then determine if the authority cited is truly authoritative?
We just use judgment and good sense. It's not hard.
People "these days" are often very concerned about answering the hardcore skeptic or relativist. I'm not. We can use judgment and good sense, and let the postmodernists deconstruct how many angels aren't dancing on a pinhead.
What if some troll insists on countering the reasonable example I made above about "Citizen Kane" with her/his own citation, "Joe Blow considers 'Manos, the Hands of Fate' to be the best motion picture ever made"?
Is Joe Blow widely considered to be an expert? Probably not.
I don't have an answer to help Wikipedia out of this dilemma. All I can do in this email is point to it, ask that everyone acknowledges that it is a problem that needs solving, & hope that we can discuss this as adults.
I don't think any solution is needed, because I don't see the problem.
Joe Blow's opinions on films are not encyclopedic. The votes of the American Film Institute are.
Maybe this will help: "encyclopedic" is not necessarily the same thing as "true". Every statement that is encyclopedic should be true, but not every true statement belongs in an encyclopedia.
--Jimbo