o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Citing cases of "Priority Inversion", in this case where a few editors declare their "consensus" as an excuse for deleting relevant and sourced information. Case 2. Article: Charles Peirce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce Section: Scholastic realism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce#Scholastic_realism Edit: Revision as of 01:49, 11 June 200601:49, 11 June 2006 by Wylie Ali (?Scholastic realism - deleting section as explained on talk page) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Peirce&diff=next&… Entire section deleted by "new user" Wylie Ali. This section was well-documented with both primary and secondary source citations. The explanation given on the talk page by Wylie Ali is this: | ==Deleted Material: Scholastic Realism== | | It is clear from above that there is a concensus that this article is pitched to journal level | and not general educated audience as it should be. For that reason and others, I'm moving the | Sholastic realism section to here (for consideration ;-) ). Besides the fact that most of it | is taken up with an interpretation dispute among scholars (and it takes sides in that dispute), | the first sentence calls "well known" something readers will have never heard of and the second | sentence is obviously POV. The second sentence also assumes wrongly that one who believes that | reality depends on many minds instead of one is not an idealist. The part beginning "Third" is | weird because if Peirce's doctrine is not about realism vs. idealism, then why did this very | paragraph start out talking about realism vs. idealism? Why not leave the latter topic out of | this section entirely instead of putting it in and suddenly saying well Peirce is not really | talking about that anyway. --[[User:Wylie Ali|Wylie Ali]] 01:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC) Note the spelling of "concensus". You will see it again. As far as I know, this section came in with an earlier Nupedia article by a recognized Peirce scholar that formed the initial material of the Wikipedia article. It is true that some of what it says is controversial among the scholars so affected, which is par for the course in any article about any philosopher worthy of note. Standard practice in WP dictates dynamic balance not wholesale deletion as a solution. Jon Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Jon Awbrey wrote: For example, under the proper ordering of priorities a statement that is relevant and sourced should not be deleted in favor of an opinion that is unsourced just because the source is not the favorite writer of 2 or 3 editors or because the sourced statement contradicts the personal POVs of 2 or 3 editors. But this is actually the routine way that things are done in WP. Rosa, Michael wrote: Cite please - preferable at least a dozen or so of examples, they should be easy to find if this is really the "routine way" of doing things on WP. This is a persistent, recurrent and systematic pattern in your emails that I have observed, you describe something that you claim is taking place without giving any specific and real-life examples. o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:18:44 -0400, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote: Why invent a new term for this, especially one which does not actually appear to bear any relation to the supposed problem? Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 6/30/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote: Was this block quote really necessary? Why can't we just say "Peirce was primarily known as a scientist during his lifetime" and be done with it? And what's the big deal? Either way this argument goes, the outcome is relatively insignificant and the article as a whole won't be affected much .

On 6/30/06, Jon Awbrey <jawbrey(a)att.net> wrote: If the majority of editors on the page agree that the block quote is inappropriate, this is concensus. If you disagree with this decision, you can initiate a discussion on the talk page, and ideally these editors would discuss the issue with you. I'm still trying to sort out exactly what your complaints are, so I don't want to accuse you of saying or advocating something you are not saying, as I inadvertantly did regarding the 3RR. So I have some questions: What would have been the ideal outcome in this case? Do you think the editors should be forced to discuss the issue with you before removing this block quote? Do you think consensus should not be used to guide decisions regarding Wikipedia content? If so, then what decision making process should replace it?

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Genus: Priority Inversion Species: Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars) Case 5. Article: Charles Peirce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce Section: Formal perspective http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce#Formal_perspective Edit: Revision as of 16:09, 11 June 2006 by Wylie Ali (-> Formal perspective - deleting long intro. See talk.) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Peirce&diff=next&… The entire contents of the section introduction, the part between a [==head] and a [===head], was deleted by the "new user" Wylie Ali (incept date 8 June 2006). The explanation given on the talk page was as follows: | ==Removing intro to Formal perspective== | I am going to remove the whole of the intro to the | Formal perspective section for these reasons: | | It begins with two long (and too long ;-) ) quotations that | won't be understandable to the audience of generally educated. | Also, we are writing a secondary source, so it is our job to | interpret and paraphrase so that the reader doesn't have to | decode original material. | | The rest of it is original research about a "crisis" and the "life cycle" | of a "symbolist perspective" that is not about Peirce. Looks like somebody | has a thesis about symbolism, but they should submit it to a journal; not | put it here. It suffers from the same writing problems mentioned above. | I am not going to copy it here, since you can get it in the history. | --[[User:Wylie Ali|Wylie Ali]] 16:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC) This section had quite a long history that had been discussed with previous editors. It purpose was to place some of Peirce's projects in logic within the context of his times, partly by comparing one of his important statements about mathematical symbols with similar statements by George Boole, and other mathematicians of that era who had emphasized the role of mathematical symbolism. The rest of the section was written in response to a reader who had explicily asked editors to make up a concrete illustration of the very abstract ideas that were being taken up in this section. At a time when I still imagined that the newly arrived editors were going to help improve the article, I had already pointed to this section as one of the "known bugs" in the article that could stand improvement, both in writing introductions and transitions for the long quotes from Boole and Peirce, and also in improving the concrete example given. The help that came was simply a deletion of the whole section. Jon Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

On 6/30/06, Rob <gamaliel8(a)gmail.com> wrote: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he things the problem is that when consensus can be defined as "Me and three of my friends I IM'd to come and agree with me", there's a problem. Especially when a "consensus" among like-minded people on the same side of an issue can be used to trump core Wikipedia policies and standard Wikipedia ways of working. Part of the issue is that there's always tension between deciding an issue for good on the one hand, and having every single opinionated person coming along to any article being able to re-open things for which an adequate conclusion has already been reached. Standard Wikipedia policy / practise here is that there are no permanent decisions on Wikipedia apart from core policy, but that if an issue has been decided by strong rough consensus, we're resistant to re-opening the issue unless the one wishing to re-open it can convince enough people that the previous rough consensus no longer holds. "Strong rough consensus" in my opinion means an issue that for the vast majority of contributors has a result they can live with - even if not outright approve - and that has been reached after a satisfactory discussion, a satisfactory attempt at compromise, a respect for policy, and with sufficient editors involved that are representative on the issue. IMO, a rough consensus is not a strong one, a good one, if it has been arrived at without discussion, without attempts to find common ground, without regard for over-riding policy, or without sufficient numbers of contributors or variety of points-of-view to be truly representative. There are many editors on Wikipedia who want to truly do the right thing and achieve good results. There are enough others, however, who want articles to say exactly what THEY wish them to say, and who will game the rules and do everything they can to get their way. (There are probably other categories of editors, of course, but this is simplifying). I have a feeling that another issue Jon has is that some contributors are too willing to remove things from articles if they don't like them, regardless of the work that went into them, the usefulness of the content, or in any way trying to achieve consensus for that removal. Jon, do I have your positions right? -Matt

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Matt, There's a still-outstanding request to cite "at least a dozen or so of examples", it's a Major PITA to document this data right, and there's this Big !-Up Holiday coming up Stateside, so it may be well into next week before I can catch up with my homework on this score. I have to run now, but a quick scan of what you have written below tells me that it's probably worth the pain to lay out all the gory details in this way. Back later, Jon Awbrey Matt Brown wrote: o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Genus: Priority Inversion Species: Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars) Case 8. Article: Truth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth Section: Correspondence theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#Correspondence_theory This is a complex series of edits and requires a bit of background. Some time ago I placed a POV tag on the article, asserting that the article is biased toward (1) a particular POV and (2) a particular theory of truth. 1. The POV in question is the POV of analytic philosophy, which from its beginning and to this day relies almost exclusively on the methods of linguistic analysis, consequently ignoring or dismissing almost every problem of philosophy that is not especially well handled by its favorite method. In short, it suffers from a "have screwdriver, try to screw everything" variety of POV myopia. 2. The theory of truth in question is the "correspondence theory of truth" that is being discussed in this section. The complaint that I have made is that even several other theories of truth are discussed, they are all described and evaluated only in so far as they can be characterized from the POV of the correspondenc theory. In short, the discussion of other theories examines them through "correspondence theory-colored glasses". Correcting this bias depends on a critical examination of every theory in view, including the correspondence theory. In addition there were many errors of fact in the article when I first came to it, some of them maintained even though they contradicted each other. For instance, there were the unsupported attributions of a correspondence theory to numerous Classical philosophers, but also the POV claim that Bertrand Russell either invented it "was substantially responsible for helping to make correspondence theory widely known under this name". These claims are all controversial at best, deriving as they do from the belief system of a single POV, and it is easy to find both primary sources and reputable secondary sources that either refute them or express a contrasting POV. In the process of tracking down primary sources and second opinions, I found a highly pertinent remark that Immanuel Kant made in 1800, where he discusses the Classical history of correspondence theories of truth and also gives a critical appraisal of the problems that they have in being fully satisfactory. So I naturally added the quotation to the section, and, because of its complexity, added preliminary and post hoc translations of what it says into more contemporary and idiomatic English terms. The deletion of this entire contribution was accomplished in two steps: 1. First the quotation and its analyis are paraphrased: Edit 1. Revision as of 19:20, 30 June 2006 by Jim62sch (-> Correspondence theory - rewrite of presentation of Kantian views -- quote now used as a ref) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truth&diff=61421673&oldid… 2. Then the entire paraphrase + analyis is deleted: Edit 2. Revision as of 20:12, 30 June 2006 by Kenosis (-> Correspondence theory - Here goes Kant, per talk, for now at least. Too much else could be here in this section in addition to Kant, such as Tarski and others sectioned elsewhere) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truth&diff=next&oldid=614… The end result is that an important correction of historical fact plus a modicum of POV-counterbalancing material has been excised. Oh, the POV-based assertion about Russell remains intact in a footnote. This is one of the ways that WP maintains its reputation in philosophy circles as a dumping ground of popular errors. The fact is that the Star Trek Universe pages exhibit more devotion to accurate detail and responsible scholarship than the whole WP Philosophy Project put together. Jon Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Complaint: Priority Inversion Specifics: Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars) JA = Jon Awbrey MB = Matt Brown MB: So I have some questions: MB 1. What would have been the ideal outcome in this case? JA: First off, no single case of alleged abuse proves anything. I am responding to the request to cite a number of actual incidents, and it is the pattern of conduct that we ought to be concerned about, namely, where 2 or 3 or 4 possibly different persons, and possibly independent voices, or possibly not, acted in a way that I am alleging rather obviously violates what are and ought to be higher priority norms of participation in WP. These are, among others, lack of due regard for Relevant and Verifiable information, in contrast with the mere opinion of the editors, consensus or otherwise, and lack of due regard for the good faith time and effort of other editors to improve the quality of an article. JA: The pattern of conduct that was exhibited over the space of a few days by this small group "new users" was a type of slash and burn and section blanking that I personally consider to be nothing short of rank vandalism, whether anybody else had the boldness to call it that or not. JA: The ideal outcome in this case and the others like it -- what should be the routine outcome if the Policies of WP are respected in their declared order of priority -- would be that a simple reference to [[WP:Policy]] would suffice to remind the editor(s) in question what is most important in Wikipedia, as opposed, let us say, to the rules of some chat-room. Have to break here. Jon Awbrey MB. 2. Do you think the editors should be forced to discuss the issue with you before removing this block quote? 3. Do you think consensus should not be used to guide decisions regarding Wikipedia content? 4. If so, then what decision making process should replace it? MB: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he thinks o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Complaint: Priority Inversion Specifics: Pseudo-Consensus Overturning the Big Three (and the Five Pillars) JA = Jon Awbrey MB = Matt Brown MB: So I have some questions: MB: 2. Do you think the editors should be forced to discuss the issue with you before removing this block quote? JA: The general question is whether editors can be forced to do anything. The answer is that WP has no enforcement power against any persons, and thus it has no enforceable policies whatsoever. All Management can do is to block IPs, but that has no effect on persons except to introduce a minor inconvenience into their ability to edit pages. JA: I don't believe in force. I believe in education and information. That is -- was -- the only reason for believing that WP might be worth spending some time and energy on. But you can't force people to act according to the primary WP policies if they don't want to, and it does not seem like they want to. Something like 90% of what people have been saying to me on this List has been this: "But we can't really do it by the Book, so let's just do it any way we darn well please." That pretty much confirms what I had already seen in WP itself. MB: 3. Do you think consensus should not be used to guide decisions regarding Wikipedia content? JA: The question is not what I think. The question is what [[WP:Policy]] says. But there is no question as to what it says: JA: The pages on [[WP:POLICY]] clearly identify the three content-definitive and non-negotiable policies of WP as [[WP:NOR]], [[WP:NPOV]], and [[WP:VERIFY]], reiterating three times over on each of their individually dedicated pages, with no substantive variation, the following norm of participation in WP: Quote: These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. JA: You can't force people to prefer sourced information over ungrounded opinion -- it's either something in the their bones, something they are trained to do, or something that the hard knocks of reality have cudgeled them into. JA: When a small number of editors put their heads together and "vote" a bit of unsourced opinion into an article, then those editors are arrogating to themselves the role of the primary source for that opinion, which is to say that the opinion in question orginates with those editors, and that spells Original Research with a capital "O" "R", and that spells trouble in WP City. JA: This is one of the main reasons why editorial opinion, con-sensus or con-census or otherwise, is just plain not permitted to overrule NOR, NPOV, and VERIFY. Jon Awbrey MB: 4. If so, then what decision making process should replace it? MB: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he thinks the problem is that when consensus can be defined as "Me and three of my friends I IM'd to come and agree with me", there's a problem. Especially when a "consensus" among like-minded people on the same side of an issue can be used to trump core Wikipedia policies and standard Wikipedia ways of working. MB: Part of the issue is that there's always tension between deciding an issue for good on the one hand, and having every single opinionated person coming along to any article being able to re-open things for which an adequate conclusion has already been reached. MB: Standard Wikipedia policy / practise here is that there are no permanent decisions on Wikipedia apart from core policy, but that if an issue has been decided by strong rough consensus, we're resistant to re-opening the issue unless the one wishing to re-open it can convince enough people that the previous rough consensus no longer holds. MB: "Strong rough consensus" in my opinion means an issue that for the vast majority of contributors has a result they can live with - even if not outright approve - and that has been reached after a satisfactory discussion, a satisfactory attempt at compromise, a respect for policy, and with sufficient editors involved that are representative on the issue. MB: IMO, a rough consensus is not a strong one, a good one, if it has been arrived at without discussion, without attempts to find common ground, without regard for over-riding policy, or without sufficient numbers of contributors or variety of points-of-view to be truly representative. MB: There are many editors on Wikipedia who want to truly do the right thing and achieve good results. There are enough others, however, who want articles to say exactly what THEY wish them to say, and who will game the rules and do everything they can to get their way. (There are probably other categories of editors, of course, but this is simplifying). MB: I have a feeling that another issue Jon has is that some contributors are too willing to remove things from articles if they don't like them, regardless of the work that went into them, the usefulness of the content, or in any way trying to achieve consensus for that removal. MB: Jon, do I have your positions right? o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Huh? What are you talking about? On 7/1/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

On 7/2/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve(a)yahoo.com> wrote: No just our young male demographic writeing about the things they are interested in (and things that are fairly easy to source). The overuse of fair use in the LL article is rather worrying though. -- geni

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o JA = Jon Awbrey MB = Matt Brown MB: So I have some questions: MB: 4. If so, then what decision making process should replace it? JA: I think that editors should read the WP policies early and often and decide for themselves whether they really believe that's the way it ought to be done. People who are used to the requirements of accurate, balanced reporting, and responsible scholarship find those principles already familiar, because that's the rules of the game that they've been living by all along. Other people seem to read that stuff and go "yeah sure", then they go right back to the type of popularity contest of ideas that they are familiar with. Until the community embodies those principles as secind nature, it doesn't really matter whether they use Robot's Rules or just draw straws. MB: I hope I'm not putting words in Jon Awbrey's mouth by stating that he thinks the problem is that when consensus can be defined as "Me and three of my friends I IM'd to come and agree with me", there's a problem. Especially when a "consensus" among like-minded people on the same side of an issue can be used to trump core Wikipedia policies and standard Wikipedia ways of working. JA: Yes, that's a good way to put it. MB: Part of the issue is that there's always tension between deciding an issue for good on the one hand, and having every single opinionated person coming along to any article being able to re-open things for which an adequate conclusion has already been reached. JA: I have run into some pretty insistent 1-idea or 1-issue people in WP. In my experience folks like that are not really all that big a problem. Two sorts of things typically happen. (1) You find some way to include a 1-liner in the article that accommodates their POV. (2) Your have to be firm with them about the fact that bowing to their issue would violate a non-negotiable WP policy. One of the reasons that these people are not that big a problem is that they are somewhat aware that their idea or their issue is an individual or minority position, and so you don't have to make them conscious of the fact that it ''is'' a POV. The Really Big Problems, the so far just about insoluble problems in WP compliance come from people who have never had, or can't remember ever having had a different POV from the one they now have, or who have always been confluent with what happens to be the dominant "religion" (POV) in their parish. These folks are not even aware that they have a POV, so they can't imagine how could it be anything but neutral, or how any other POV could even be regarded as rational. So they have a divine duty to stamp out all diversity. JA: In the comments from MB that follow, I am guesssing that he is talking only about policy pages, not the main body of articles. As far as content goes, that is, on pages that are not being watched by masses of observers all the time, the partisans of the "instant consensus" never check to see what kind of concensus may have preceded them. MB: Standard Wikipedia policy/practise here is that there are no permanent decisions on Wikipedia apart from core policy, but that if an issue has been decided by strong rough consensus, we're resistant to re-opening the issue unless the one wishing to re-open it can convince enough people that the previous rough consensus no longer holds. MB: "Strong rough consensus" in my opinion means an issue that for the vast majority of contributors has a result they can live with - even if not outright approve - and that has been reached after a satisfactory discussion, a satisfactory attempt at compromise, a respect for policy, and with sufficient editors involved that are representative on the issue. MB: IMO, a rough consensus is not a strong one, a good one, if it has been arrived at without discussion, without attempts to find common ground, without regard for over-riding policy, or without sufficient numbers of contributors or variety of points-of-view to be truly representative. MB: There are many editors on Wikipedia who want to truly do the right thing and achieve good results. There are enough others, however, who want articles to say exactly what THEY wish them to say, and who will game the rules and do everything they can to get their way. (There are probably other categories of editors, of course, but this is simplifying). MB: I have a feeling that another issue Jon has is that some contributors are too willing to remove things from articles if they don't like them, regardless of the work that went into them, the usefulness of the content, or in any way trying to achieve consensus for that removal. MB: Jon, do I have your positions right? JA: The main thing will be whether the majority of editors understands the WP policies, and why the actual community practice departs so widely from the preaching. JA: I will have to leave it at that. Jon Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Jon_Awbrey o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Good catch. Mislabeled as GFDL even. I've removed them from the FA + tagged them as unknown until a source for the GFDL claim is cited. Erik

BG> Sunday, July 2, 2006, 5:17:50 PM, you wrote: EM>> Good catch. Mislabeled as GFDL even. I've removed them from the FA + EM>> tagged them as unknown until a source for the GFDL claim is cited. BG> hm... This image is marked GFDL-self, too: BG> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kuzma.jpg BG> from BG> http://www.lastovo.net/145a.jpg also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fumar.jpg from http://www.gianfrancogervasi.it/images/fumari_small.jpg :-)

On 7/3/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort(a)gmail.com> wrote: See the uploaders talk page. There are other things (image size, resulution lack of meta data) that also point in the direction of non original content. Wikipedians images tend to follow a certian style. -- geni