I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a CONSENSUS that supports their POV. I'm talking about PhD scientists like William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and saying WHY they disagree.
I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV. Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report findings which disagree with environmentalist POV.
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a temporary ban.
Jimbo keeps saying he's sorry to see me go and happy to see me back. Well, I call on him to back me up -- or fire me.
Ed Poor (aka Uncle Ed))
--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a CONSENSUS that supports their POV. I'm talking about PhD scientists like William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and saying WHY they disagree.
I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV. Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report findings which disagree with environmentalist POV.
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a temporary ban.
Jimbo keeps saying he's sorry to see me go and happy to see me back. Well, I call on him to back me up -- or fire me.
Document their activities, and take'em down. If they want to argue their case, they can go the the arbitration committee.
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a temporary ban.
Don't do any of that, please. Admins are not authorized to ban logged in users except in emergency cases.
Jimbo keeps saying he's sorry to see me go and happy to see me back. Well, I call on him to back me up -- or fire me.
Sure, I'll back you up, but follow the process. Make a specific complaint against a specific person with a specific set of edits to back it up.
--Jimbo
From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com
Make a specific complaint against a specific person with a specific set of edits to back it up.
This is the essence of what any mediation or arbitration complaint should be.
Alex756
Alex R. wrote:
From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com
Make a specific complaint against a specific person with a specific set of edits to back it up.
This is the essence of what any mediation or arbitration complaint should be.
Well, let's not try to read too much into that. Mediation and arbitration should apply to the bad behaviour of some contributors. It should never be used to support one POV over another. Ed was not specific about the articles where the problem was happening, and the search function is temporarily ( :-) ) not very helpful, so I have not looked at whatever edits were being questioned. Manipulation of the process in support of an anti-environmental stand would subvert everything we are trying to do.
Ec
From: "Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net
Alex R. wrote:
From: "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com
Make a specific complaint against a specific person with a specific set of edits to back it up.
This is the essence of what any mediation or arbitration complaint should be.
Well, let's not try to read too much into that. Mediation and arbitration should apply to the bad behaviour of some contributors. It should never be used to support one POV over another.
Isn't that what making a complaint will show? This is the problem with the current system. If you are going to make allegations back them up with specifics. If the specifics show that it is really about POV then maybe some mediation will work, but the Arbitration Committee will have to listen to the arguments of the accused that the complaint should be dismissed because POV is no reason for a ban.
It is my opinion that most of these alleged users will be exonerated once the complaint is out in the open. I see arbitration and mediation as a way to weed out these kind of things, not to create some kind of cowboy/cowgirl justice system that is there that will allow Jimbo to put his imprimur onto any crazy suggestion that a bunch of people who are pro banning want to implement.
At least half the members of any artibration committee should be people who are anti-banning so that they keep the other half of the committee honest. I think that allowing people just to volunteer who are just pro-banning is a bad idea for this reason (there has also been some discussion on talk pages about this that I agree with).
Some people seem to think that suggesting an arbitration system that is organized is an attempt to ban a lot of people, au contraire, it is to prevent banning except in the most outrageous behavior and not to allow it to excalate and pollute the collaborative environment in which we all work. Giving it rules and structure will help to make it more difficult, and will give the accused user a chance to convince the pro-banners that the anti-banners have some merit in their arguments. That is the only dynamic that makes sense, just having a committee that bans anyone who brings a complaint is crazy, if someone brings a complaint alleging unwiki behaviour the committee will help to clarify what such behaviour is and isn't. My bet is that a lot of disputes will be resolved amicably and that people who might be banned won't be either because those bringing the complaint will see that banning is not really warranted or those who engage in activity that might lead to a ban will be warned and will decide to tone down their behaviour and try to focus on contributing in a collaborative way.
We are talking about transformative justice here (that is the civil version of restorative justice) not retributive justice. I personally do not beleive in retribution. Justice is a process that should enlighten and help people live together, it is not intended to punish except in the most severe cases where no other redistribution is useful and even then such punative action is not preferred if there is another solution.
Alex756
Alex R. wrote:
At least half the members of any artibration committee should be people who are anti-banning so that they keep the other half of the committee honest. I think that allowing people just to volunteer who are just pro-banning is a bad idea for this reason (there has also been some discussion on talk pages about this that I agree with).
I'm a little confused by what you're saying here. I have said that I am going to try to appoint people who are anti-banning and people who are pro-banning. I expect them _not_ to just 'vote the party line', of course, but to consider the merits of each case, but it's also reasonable to assume that some people are much less likely to approve of a ban than others.
So, to be clear, I too am opposed to "allowing people just to volunteer who are just pro-banning".
We are talking about transformative justice here (that is the civil version of restorative justice) not retributive justice. I personally do not beleive in retribution. Justice is a process that should enlighten and help people live together, it is not intended to punish except in the most severe cases where no other redistribution is useful and even then such punative action is not preferred if there is another solution.
Very well said.
One of the problems that we've had is that mediation and arbitration and executive clemency have all been wrapped up together. I see the mediation->arbitration process as being partly about getting me out of the business of having to deal with every single problem that comes up (which is a bottleneck and also risks a loss of legitimacy if I'm not perceived as cautious, wise, fair, etc.) AND also about separating mediation from arbitration.
The mediators will not have the power to ban, will not be in the business of recommending bans, but will instead be in the business of trying to work helpfully with people, without a direct threat, to try to resolve conflict. I think that's going to be very good.
I think, obviously, that my own banning decisions have been very very good. So I want the committee to accurately reflect the internal struggle that I feel about banning. Sometimes I feel like going through with a chainsaw. Other times I feel like not banning anyone ever for anything. The right policy is somewhere in the middle, to ban only reluctantly and as a last sad resort.
--Jimbo
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
While I can sympathize with some of this, I don't think it's any sort of a special case. Environmentalism versus its critics is an NPOV dispute, much like Israel/Palestine, pro/anti War on Iraq, pro/anti abortion, and so on. We have a ton of NPOV disputes on Wikipedia pretty much constantly, and I don't think there's a great solution to it other than to hammer them out on a case by case basis.
That said, users on any subject who are consistently problematic should be asked to tone things down. But if we banned all partisans, we'd be banning a good portion of our userbase (just banning all Israel/Palestine partisans would probably take out 10-15 of our more active contributors).
As for "issuing official warnings," how exactly are they official? I could issue "official warnings," but they'd still just be me personally warning people. As for suspending people, you *certainly* don't have the authority to do that any more than I have the authority to suspend you. At this point I think only Jimbo has the authority to do anything officially, and soon hopefully we'll have some committees set up to do so as well.
-Mark
Ed Poor wrote-
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
Welcome to the club, Ed. Let's call it the club of people frustrated with ''inclusivity bias''. You're in good company here, so put up your feet and have the barmaid bring you a glass of good [[Scotch]].
You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a few pet subject areas. It is also the reason why most credentialled people have left the project.
''Inclusivity bias'' is my term for the pattern of putting the [[burden of proof]] on editors making content changes in broad areas. The trouble is that the Wikipedia culture is deletion-adverse and reversion-adverse. Wikipedia culture is to include things until they are proven unmeritous. If you cut paragraphs, revert bad edits to an article, or try to have an article deleted--unless you have proof, you get NO support from the community.
And you need that community support, because you are up against people with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way. You mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where this is a problem. The Isreal/Palestine issues, articles on different religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the same problem.
I think the culture has to change. I don't know how to do it. I've tried, and it is *excruciatingly* hard to walk into an article that has bias, that clearly has a problem with facts and with neutrality, and accomplish anything good. The usual outcome is outpouring of anger, edit wars, and hard feelings all around, and the well-meaning editor just ends up making enemies. What *should* happen, is that the community should rise up and *support* people who are trying to help out in these situations.
What kind of support? Well, people should be rushing to your side to reinstate your edits when some POV writer keeps reverting you. Other people should be coming to the discussion, and not just adding and refactoring ad nauseum, but actually trying to push the process towards a decision. What we need more of are editors who are willing to approach a controversial topic that they don't feel strongly about, and staying there with tenacity, requiring sources for questionable edits, flat-out reverting inappropriate garbage, and doing their own cross-checking.
This is all going to get worse as Wikipedia becomes more important in the real world. When its #90 at alexa.com, you can bet that somebody from Monsanto and somebody from Greenpeace will both be here trying to steer the articles around on GM food.
Louis
Welcome to the club, Ed. Let's call it the club of people frustrated with ''inclusivity bias''. You're in good company here, so put up your feet and have the barmaid bring you a glass of good [[Scotch]].
I think this type of thing was one of the reasons for the I-E fork. They use the sympathetic point of view, unless they're wrong, in which case they say the right point of view.
You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a few pet subject areas. It is also the reason why most credentialled people have left the project.
No, people leave the project because of people like RK, who claim they're doing something equivalent to inclucivity bias, saying that the other people are wrong and they're using the only reasonable point of view; the other people are neo-nazis/environmentalists.
''Inclusivity bias'' is my term for the pattern of putting the [[burden of proof]] on editors making content changes in broad areas. The trouble is that the Wikipedia culture is deletion-adverse and reversion-adverse. Wikipedia culture is to include things until they are proven unmeritous. If you cut paragraphs, revert bad edits to an article, or try to have an article deleted--unless you have proof, you get NO support from the community.
So what's wrong with that? Don't you have some kind of reason to delete content? If you don't think (and prove, if someone asks) that the content is inaccurate, why should you delete it?
And you need that community support, because you are up against people with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way. You mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where this is a problem. The Israel/Palestine issues, articles on different religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the same problem.
You're just going against NPOV. You just think that everything should be "right". Well, who's to say who's right? You? Someone from the other side? The concept of NPOV is to show all sides and let the reader decide.
I think the culture has to change. I don't know how to do it. I've tried, and it is *excruciatingly* hard to walk into an article that has bias, that clearly has a problem with facts and with neutrality, and accomplish anything good. The usual outcome is outpouring of anger, edit wars, and hard feelings all around, and the well-meaning editor just ends up making enemies. What *should* happen, is that the community should rise up and *support* people who are trying to help out in these situations.
What's your definition of neutrality? Is including other points of view that are "wrong" not neutral?
What kind of support? Well, people should be rushing to your side to reinstate your edits when some POV writer keeps reverting you. Other people should be coming to the discussion, and not just adding and refactoring ad nauseum, but actually trying to push the process towards a decision. What we need more of are editors who are willing to approach a controversial topic that they don't feel strongly about, and staying there with tenacity, requiring sources for questionable edits, flat-out reverting inappropriate garbage, and doing their own cross-checking.
Is the POV writer deleting other people's points of view or in any way making his POV the only one there? Is he asserting that he's right while leaving other POVs there (although asserting that they're wrong)? If it's one of the first two, then you have a case, but since Wikipedia is a wiki, it's easy to change (but if you get into an edit war, you can report it to the list). If it's the third one, then it's very easy to fix; just make minor changes in the language (eg. some say that..., proponents claim..., etc.).
This is all going to get worse as Wikipedia becomes
more important in the real world. When its #90 at alexa.com, you can bet that somebody from Monsanto and somebody from Greenpeace will both be here trying to steer the articles around on GM food.
Louis
The article on GM food should reflect both points of view. If the Greenpeace and Monsanto people read the Wikipedia policies, they can have their opinions and not be trolls. If they are trolls, and reason is found that they are trolls (instead of assuming that all edits should be reverted until proven otherwise), and an edit war starts, then the involved parties can write to the list for discussion of banning, or they can use the planned arbitration pannel. But banning when you're in an edit war with someone for including their POVs is going too far. LDan
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
Jesus is Lord! needs a name change-- the WP:NOU policy was designed for User:THROBBING MONSTER.. and really should be renamed as something like no controversial usernames, or no inflammatory usernames.
The use of Jesus in a name is designed to be inflammatory.
~S~ BTW: Is beat up on Ed day over yet? Take it easy folks...
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Stevertigo wrote:
Jesus is Lord! needs a name change-- the WP:NOU policy was designed for User:THROBBING MONSTER.. and really should be renamed as something like no controversial usernames, or no inflammatory usernames.
The use of Jesus in a name is designed to be inflammatory.
I'd agree. Though at least the inflammatory username gives one a warning as to (some of) the user's edits.
I get a suspicion this is someone already known coming back with another name; they seem way too familiar with Wikipedia to be as new a user as this username is.
-Morven
Jebus is also making POV edits that need to be watched, especially in the homosexuality-related articles.
RickK
Stevertigo utilitymuffinresearch2@yahoo.com wrote: Jesus is Lord! needs a name change-- the WP:NOU policy was designed for User:THROBBING MONSTER.. and really should be renamed as something like no controversial usernames, or no inflammatory usernames.
The use of Jesus in a name is designed to be inflammatory.
~S~
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
<<I-E Fork/sympathetic POV>>
I have seen some of their articles and don't believe that the slight change in perspective makes the core problems go away. If they had the size and diversity of user community we have here, they would have the same problems.
<<Reasons people leave the project>>
No, people leave the project because of people like RK, who claim they're doing something equivalent to inclusivity bias
I agree that many of RK's edits were unhelpful, and the RK and people like him drive good editors away from the project.
But it was RK's vitriolic putdowns, allegations, and attempts to confuse the discussion by deleting portions of talk pages that made him so hard to accept. To be sure, many of his edits were POV, but some of the crap he reverted out of hand, deserved to be reverted out of hand. Had he done so in a caring, loving way, with an edit comment like "moving unsourced material to talk page," and then made a genuine attempt to work with the other contributor to get the article fixed, he would have accomplished great things here.
<<what's wrong with putting the burden of proof on the editor>>
[...] Don't you have some kind of reason to delete content? If you don't think (and prove, if someone asks) that the content is inaccurate, why should you delete it?
Well, we have to decide on the bias.
Presently, if someone adds something to an article, they generally aren't expected to provide sources, though it is encouraged.
If another editor wants to delete something, they *are* expected to provide sources, at least if challenged. Now, it is difficult and time consuming to try to refute facts one at a time. So the editor who's trying to delete something has to do, say, 100 times the work of the person who added it.
That imbalance does not make for good articles, It also makes people frustrated who would otherwise try to work through articles, removing the junk, and making them more NPOV. That is especially true outside the sciences. It's fairly easy to check the atomic weight of silver, but much harder to refute an assertion that Count Leonard III was a pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100 years war. He's not, I just made that up, now what do you suppose it would take to refute that?
And you need that community support, because you are up against people with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way. You mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where this is a problem. The Israel/Palestine issues, articles on different religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the same problem.
You're just going against NPOV. You just think that everything should be "right". Well, who's to say who's right? You? Someone from the other side? The concept of NPOV is to show all sides and let the reader decide.
Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I support NPOV, and don't think that it's the encyclopedia's job to take sides. But having an NPOV policy does not prevent conflict, as we've seen. NPOV is not a pallative for disagreements about articles.
With an NPOV policy, there are still problems in three areas:
1. There are disagreements about the facts.
There are, for example, people who believe that Roundup (the herbicide) is carcinogenic. It isn't, but based on a single irresponsibly written study (Ericson & Hardell), this belief persists. Some people might consider statements like, "Roundup, a known carcinogen, has seen increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since 1995." Someone might try to compromise by replacing "known carcinogen" with "suspected carcinogen," but even that view is fringe enough that it doesn't belong in an article about vegetable crops.
2. There are disagreements about what is important and what is not, and hence, the relative amounts of emphasis something should be given.
This is a problem particularly outside the sciences.
3. Closely related to #2, there is difficulty coming up with summary statements for difficult, involved problems.
Often such statements can be crafted, with careful participation of several writers over time. When someone new to the article comes in, they may (inadvertently or deliberately) destroy a fragile consensus.
What's your definition of neutrality? Is including other points of view that are "wrong" not neutral?
Having all points of view represented in the encyclopedia is great. Having points of view present that are not supported by facts ("wrong"), are great to have in context.
I think it's great to have articles on UFOs, the "Reciprocal System of Theory," and how G.W. Bush stole the presidency from the rightfully-elected Al Gore.
But none of these should pervade the article space. We wouldn't want a UFO enthusiast to get a bot and edit all the city articles and add a list of UFO sightings for each city. And we wouldn't want every article that has a reference to Al Gore to refer to him as "Al Gore, rightfully elected president of the United States."
But banning when you're in an edit war with someone for including their POVs is going too far.
I don't think that banning users solves anything, and did not suggest it in my post.
Louis
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
So the editor who's trying to delete something has to do, say, 100 times the work of the person who added it.
I don't think that's true. If it is, then we should engage in a concerted effort to be conscious of it and make it not so. Basically, I think we should have a general attitude against _mere_ deleting, in favor of _correcting_ and _improving_. But that alone doesn't put any additional burden on the revisor that wasn't on the originator.
the sciences. It's fairly easy to check the atomic weight of silver, but much harder to refute an assertion that Count Leonard III was a pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100 years war. He's not, I just made that up, now what do you suppose it would take to refute that?
But you don't have to refute it. It isn't necessary to prove a negative in order to remove something. All that you have to do is say something like, in your own delightful wording, "moving unsourced material to talk pages". And then put a note on the talk page saying something like "This is interesting about Count Leonard III, however I was unable to confirm it. Can someone post a source before we put it back in the article?"
I'm sure that would carry plenty of weight.
Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I support NPOV, and don't think that it's the encyclopedia's job to take sides. But having an NPOV policy does not prevent conflict, as we've seen. NPOV is not a pallative for disagreements about articles.
Well, it is true that NPOV policy doesn't prevent _all_ conflict, but it's designed to help prevent _most_ conflict, and more importantly, to ensure that there is at least the _possibility_ of a resolution.
With an NPOV policy, there are still problems in three areas:
- There are disagreements about the facts.
There are, for example, people who believe that Roundup (the herbicide) is carcinogenic. It isn't, but based on a single irresponsibly written study (Ericson & Hardell), this belief persists. Some people might consider statements like, "Roundup, a known carcinogen, has seen increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since 1995." Someone might try to compromise by replacing "known carcinogen" with "suspected carcinogen," but even that view is fringe enough that it doesn't belong in an article about vegetable crops.
One issue here is whether or not it belongs in the article, and that's a tough one to treat. I suspect an article about Roundup could more easily cover that controversy, and that the throwaway statement on the vegetable crops article is likely best just left out completely.
For example, it would likely be best to avoid "Roundup, generally considered safe, has seen increasingly..." too. If there's ongoing genuine controversy, then perhaps it's necessary for even the vegetable crops article to say something like "Roundup has seen increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since 1995. There has been some resulting controversy, which is covered in more detail in the article on [[Roundup]]."
(Stylistically, that's a bit odd, because we usually write each article as self-contained and without mentioning other articles.)
- There are disagreements about what is important and what is not,
and hence, the relative amounts of emphasis something should be given.
This is a problem particularly outside the sciences.
This is certainly true, and the usual solution, which works fairly often anyway, is to break the article down into component parts, so that the issue just vanishes. I concede that this is not always possible.
- Closely related to #2, there is difficulty coming up with summary
statements for difficult, involved problems.
Often such statements can be crafted, with careful participation of several writers over time. When someone new to the article comes in, they may (inadvertently or deliberately) destroy a fragile consensus.
That's true, but that's also the essence of the NPOV process. So it isn't really a problem for the process, it _is_ the process. If you see what I mean...
I think it's great to have articles on UFOs, the "Reciprocal System of Theory," and how G.W. Bush stole the presidency from the rightfully-elected Al Gore.
Hmmm, I think I agree with you, but would have phrased this ever so slightly differently. I think it's great to have articles on UFOs, the "Reciprocal System of Theory," and how some people think that Al Gore tried to steal the presidency from the rightfully-elected G. W. Bush. O.k., I am just having fun by reversing it, but my real point is that having an article about what some people think is fine, but an article titled "How George Bush stole the election" isn't fine.
But I'm pretty sure that's what you meant anyway.
But none of these should pervade the article space. We wouldn't want a UFO enthusiast to get a bot and edit all the city articles and add a list of UFO sightings for each city. And we wouldn't want every article that has a reference to Al Gore to refer to him as "Al Gore, rightfully elected president of the United States."
That's right.
I don't think that banning users solves anything, and did not suggest it in my post.
Do you think it never solves anything? I agree completely that banning has an uneven track record. Sometimes it works! Other times, it just generates monsters from people who would have otherwise merely been annoyances.
One of the things that my strong 'libertarian' political views tell me is that "there ought to be a law" is a constant temptation, but often a siren's song. People misbehaving on the Wikipedia? Ban 'em!
But sometimes this just drives the undesirable activity onto the 'black market' or whatever.
--Jimbo
the sciences. It's fairly easy to check the
atomic weight of silver,
but much harder to refute an assertion that Count
Leonard III was a
pivotal figure in British tactics used in the 100
years war. He's not,
I just made that up, now what do you suppose it
would take to refute
that?
But you don't have to refute it. It isn't necessary to prove a negative in order to remove something. All that you have to do is say something like, in your own delightful wording, "moving unsourced material to talk pages". And then put a note on the talk page saying something like "This is interesting about Count Leonard III, however I was unable to confirm it. Can someone post a source before we put it back in the article?"
I'm sure that would carry plenty of weight. -- Jimbo
That would carry a lot of weight? That's the most baseless argument I've heard so far, that it's unsourced. Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced! If you have a question about the source, just ask whoever wrote it. That way, they will be a lot quicker to respond. I almost never watch articles I write, and if someone took off some of my content because it's "unsourced", there's little chance I'd go back and find it and write the source. If we say that all of wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very detrimental to the project. A Google search will almost always find some reference supporting any fact in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't made up (if they're "wrong" or it's a minority view or something, then it should still be preserved). The only time this doesn't work is for obscure historical or local stuff. LDan
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
[...]
Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced! If you have a question about the source, just ask whoever wrote it. That way, they will be a lot quicker to respond. I almost never watch articles I write, and if someone took off some of my content because it's "unsourced", there's little chance I'd go back and find it and write the source. If we say that all of wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very detrimental to the project.
For pop culture and trivia, sources don't matter that much, but a an article without a list of references cannot be taken seriously. Check out the fine print at the end of Britannica articles, they are usually quite thorough; Wikipedia should be aspiring to the same level of quality.
A Google search will almost always find some reference supporting any fact in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't made up (if they're "wrong" or it's a minority view or something, then it should still be preserved). The only time this doesn't work is for obscure historical or local stuff.
Don't be too trusting of Google - it can only tell you about the info that somebody went to the trouble of putting into a web page. I've been comparing Google results with books from the library lately, and there is a lot of encyclopedic information that is simply not online, or not being indexed. For instance, most US Navy ships are well-documented online because the US govt wrote them all up and made the info PD, so it's been cloned on web pages all over, while there is little online info for the once-enormous fleets of Great Britain and France, even though there is plenty of raw data in the respective governments' archives.
Stan
Don't be too trusting of Google - it can only tell you about the info that somebody went to the trouble of putting into a web page. I've been comparing Google results with books from the library lately, and there is a lot of encyclopedic information that is simply not online, or not being indexed. [...]
I would like to second this. Google is a great tool, but everything is not on the web, and everything that is on the web is not indexed.
Historical data is one gaping hole, such as the history of a town or small city, or a biography of a person who is no longer prominent.
There is also relatively little coverage of past controversies. You can still find articles about the refusal of Minnesota's state government to fund construction of a new stadium. But what can you find about the controversy that went on regarding the construction of the present stadium, 20-odd years ago?
And some corporations maintain official web silence on controversies they are involved in. Continuing an earlier example, Monsanto doesn't have a rebuttal of the Ericson & Hardell study on their web site, but if you write to them and explain that you're writing an article about the safety of glyphosate, they'll send it to you, with references.
Also, the web is a terrible place to try to get a sense of the relative importance of something. Books aren't perfect but you can get a rough sense of importance of, say, composers or painters by reading through a survey of the era in which they were prominent.
Louis
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
That would carry a lot of weight? That's the most baseless argument I've heard so far, that it's unsourced. Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced!
And almost all of Wikipedia is uncontested, too. One benefit of our NPOV process is that at any given point in time, 99%+ of what is written is something that everyone who isn't bonkers could agree with.
But when something _is_ contested, then saying that it's unsourced is a perfectly valid response. In the specific example we're discussing, the fact in question, about "Leonard III" was made up whole cloth.
If we say that all of wikipedia must be sourced, it would be very detrimental to the project. A Google search will almost always find some reference supporting any fact in Wikipedia, so long as it isn't made up (if they're "wrong" or it's a minority view or something, then it should still be preserved).
Right, well, in this case, the fact was made up. That was the context of the example.
I'm not saying that everything in wikipedia has to be sourced. That would be burdensome. But I am saying that one way to prevent an excessive anti-deletionism is for someone who objects to something to request a source before the item in question goes back into the article.
Perhaps my phrasing could be improved. "I did a quick search in google and found no evidence that anyone named Leonard III ever existed, much less that he was a brilliant tactician in the 100 Years War. I've removed it for now, and unless someone has a source, I think it should stay out."
I think that's a totally valid way to remove things from articles that shouldn't be there.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
That would carry a lot of weight? That's the most baseless argument I've heard so far, that it's unsourced. Almost all of Wikipedia is unsourced!
And almost all of Wikipedia is uncontested, too. One benefit of our NPOV process is that at any given point in time, 99%+ of what is written is something that everyone who isn't bonkers could agree with.
Not bonkers, yes. But see:
... an equally out-of-control Blomberg inspired crowd (libertarians
mainly) who are convinced -- almost to the point of religious princple -- that global warming is a giant left-wing conspiracy and that Kyoto was an anti-american plot (amongst whom, sadly, I number Ed Poor).
Jimbo,
Thank you for your response. I think I agree with most of what you said. Here are a few comments:
So the editor who's trying to delete something has to do, say, 100 times the work of the person who added it.
I don't think that's true. If it is, then we should engage in a concerted effort to be conscious of it and make it not so.
The best example of an article where I was not involved personally is "Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory Contamination." Here we have an article written by someone who clearly has an axe to grind. It has been listed on VfD but kept. In the words of User:ThereIsNoSteve, "The tiny amount of research I've done on this topic shows that most of the claims are greatly exaggerated and some might be outright false. The whole article is essentially an editorial..."
No one has tried to remove the outrageous claims because there wouldn't be much of anything left and the community frowns so heavily on just blanking things. And no one is willing to do the research for the _correcting_ and _improving_ that are probably called for. So the article remains in its present form.
I'm willing to bet that if I walked in and started editing, that there wouldn't be much support for removing the outrageous claims (or restating them as opinion rather than fact), even if I had some well-researched factual material debunking them.
This isn't so much a matter of policy as a matter of culture, and perhaps it has drifted since the early days.
But you don't have to refute it. It isn't necessary to prove a negative in order to remove something. All that you have to do is say something like, in your own delightful wording, "moving unsourced material to talk pages". And then put a note on the talk page saying something like "This is interesting about Count Leonard III, however I was unable to confirm it. Can someone post a source before we put it back in the article?"
I'm sure that would carry plenty of weight.
I think you might find it interesting to log in under a pseudonym and try exactly that in a couple places.
One issue here is whether or not it belongs in the article, and that's a tough one to treat. I suspect an article about Roundup could more easily cover that controversy, and that the throwaway statement on the vegetable crops article is likely best just left out completely.
For example, it would likely be best to avoid "Roundup, generally considered safe, has seen increasingly..." too. If there's ongoing genuine controversy, then perhaps it's necessary for even the vegetable crops article to say something like "Roundup has seen increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since 1995. There has been some resulting controversy, which is covered in more detail in the article on [[Roundup]]."
Yes. I chose an example where the attempt to ''load the language'' was blatently obvious, so it's an easy case. Real article disputes are more opaque.
I don't think that banning users solves anything, and did not suggest it in my post.
Do you think it never solves anything? I agree completely that banning has an uneven track record. Sometimes it works! Other times, it just generates monsters from people who would have otherwise merely been annoyances.
Banning a user is like divorcing a spouse or firing an employee:
- It is not a problem solving tool, but rather an outcome when problem solving tools fail.
- Though it is the largest hammer in the toolbox, it is not 100% effective. Just like ex-wives and ex-employees, banned users can continue to make nuisances of themselves.
- If we were truly wise, we would make an effort to learn in what fashion the community failed to serve the banned member (realizing that in some cases there was probably nothing to be done).
- When it is inevitable, it should be done promptly, and with respect and proper follow-through.
One of the things that my strong 'libertarian' political views tell me is that "there ought to be a law" is a constant temptation, but often a siren's song. People misbehaving on the Wikipedia? Ban 'em!
I continue to believe that most bad behavior on Wikipedia by established users grows out of disputes over articles. With a better method to address these disputes, the number of users where a ban is contemplated is sure to drop.
Louis
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
This isn't so much a matter of policy as a matter of culture, and perhaps it has drifted since the early days.
*nod* Well, hmmm, let's drift it back. :-)
I think you might find it interesting to log in under a pseudonym and try exactly that in a couple places.
I might. Of course, my schtick is that I don't edit in order to preserve my neutrality in the case of disputes, but the truth is I can't stand editing the website when it's slow. It drives me bonkers. So after the upgrades, perhaps I'll sneak around and study things by trying this.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote in part:
If there's ongoing genuine controversy, then perhaps it's necessary for even the vegetable crops article to say something like "Roundup has seen increasingly widespread use on fruit and vegetable crops each year since 1995. There has been some resulting controversy, which is covered in more detail in the article on [[Roundup]]."
(Stylistically, that's a bit odd, because we usually write each article as self-contained and without mentioning other articles.)
Personally, I think that this is a bad idea. Most of the time, a [[wiki]] link to another article will be fine; even in this example, beginning the sentence with "[[Roundup]] has ..." is probably plenty good to let people know where to go for more detail. But in some cases, it's not clear to the reader (especially to a newbie) where discussion of some further point may be found. This is especially true when there was controversy among Wikipedians as to whether some material should be on a certain page or another. So in some cases, an explicit link to some other article (along the lines of "For more on this, see the article [[X]].") can be a very helpful edit.
-- Toby
On Tuesday 07 October 2003 05:59 pm, Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a few pet subject areas. It is also the reason why most credentialled people have left the project.
Can you give supportive evidence of your claim that "most credentialled people have left the project"? The only 'credentialled' person I have personally met on wikipedia is Michael Hardy, and he is editing as I speak.
Best, Sascha Noyes (aka: snoyes)
Can you give supportive evidence of your claim that "most credentialled people have left the project"? The only 'credentialled' person I have personally met on wikipedia is Michael Hardy, and he is editing as I speak.
Best, Sascha Noyes (aka: snoyes)
JHK is probably the best example, particularly given the extent of her commitment to the project while she was here.
Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
Ed Poor wrote-
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
You have hit upon the number one reason why good, evenhanded contributors leave the Wiki, and why many of those who stay become frustrated and limit their edits to mechanical changes and work on a few pet subject areas. It is also the reason why most credentialled people have left the project.
That's a sweeping generalization. I would hardly call the reverends of scientism evenhanded. Limiting oneself to a few pet subject areas is usually a reasonable even without the frustration; it usually means that the contributor is not wandering into things that he does not know anything about.
It is no doubt true that the reason cited has led to the departure of many credentialled people, but I do not accept "most" without questioning the source of the statistic on which that statement is based. Also, I do not attach as much weight as you do on being credentialled. On the positive side it shows that one has a long standing acquaintance, but on the negative side it suggests that the person has accepted the biases of the profession as though they were truths.
''Inclusivity bias'' is my term for the pattern of putting the [[burden of proof]] on editors making content changes in broad areas. The trouble is that the Wikipedia culture is deletion-adverse and reversion-adverse. Wikipedia culture is to include things until they are proven unmeritous. If you cut paragraphs, revert bad edits to an article, or try to have an article deleted--unless you have proof, you get NO support from the community.
I consider inclusivity to be one of the key attractions of Wikipedia. Why should an editor have any less a burden of proof than the person whom he is editing? The statement at the end of the paragraph is quite valid, unproven POVs shouldn't get the support of the community. An initial contribution very often expresses a particular POV; that's OK at that stage because the opponents to that view have yet to come to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Perhaps you are right that Wikipedia culture is deletion- and reversion-averse, but that's a good thing too. It suggests that there is a high degree of respect for each other. Including material that has not yet been proven to have no merit is perfectly acceptable, as is mentioning the fact that there is significant contrary opinion; censoring it out because it does not accord with the world view of scientism should not be acceptable.
Far too many of scientism's preachers too readily seek to censor what they oppose. When they start using pejorative terms like "pseudo-science", it tends to be without foundation in fact, or it depends on a clearly inappropriate applicationn of the topic which they turn into a straw-man to discredit an entire area of study, or it is based on the topic's failure to meet extraordinarily high standards that they would never put upon the gods of their beliefs. Scientism, like any other religion, is based on fear and insecurity. In a world where the old gods have lost credibility these new believers cannot aford to have their new gods questioned. To quote Martin Luther: "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the divine Word, treating with contemptall that emanates from God."
In all probability, many of these criticized studies are indeed invalid. I don't know which ones, and I suspect that many more will contain only a mere grain of truth, but I would not arrogate to myself the authority to decide where the truth lies; for true scientists to do so would be anti-scientific hypocrisy.
Inclusivity respects all opinions. It requires enduring patience. In our context it also requires accepting that no article will ever be in final form. Articles in uncontroversial subjects will remain stable for long periods of time, but could still be changed at any time. If you succeed in editing an article to the point where it meets your standards after having beaten off all who seek to make reference to alternative opinion, and have removed all references to these alternatives then perhaps six months later when somebody reintroduces the point the same argument will start again from square one. Then there will be no point in refering to the old arguments, because they have been removed, and why should our newcomer not have the same opportunity to participate in the debate as those who previously participated. Don't insult the newcomer by telling him that the point was settled six months ago.
The internet is affecting human communications more profoundly than anything since Guttenberg. Revolutions in the means of communications can have very broad effects. The inclusivity that modern communications can now allow was impossible in the past. The people of science and other dwellers of the ivory tower will need new techniques for communicating with the populace without consescension. Those who previously had no access to the tree of knowledge are clamoring to climb it.
And you need that community support, because you are up against people with strong feelings, who want to paint subjects a certain way. You mention environmentalism, but that's just one of the many areas where this is a problem. The Isreal/Palestine issues, articles on different religions, articles on cults, politics, and world trade all have the same problem.
I think that this is written by someone who fails to recognize that his position is guided by strong feelings just as much as those whom he opposes..
I think the culture has to change. I don't know how to do it. I've tried, and it is *excruciatingly* hard to walk into an article that has bias, that clearly has a problem with facts and with neutrality, and accomplish anything good. The usual outcome is outpouring of anger, edit wars, and hard feelings all around, and the well-meaning editor just ends up making enemies. What *should* happen, is that the community should rise up and *support* people who are trying to help out in these situations.
Maybe the community does not see your efforts as help. You could start by respecting those who have a contrary POV to yours.
What kind of support? Well, people should be rushing to your side to reinstate your edits when some POV writer keeps reverting you. Other people should be coming to the discussion, and not just adding and refactoring ad nauseum, but actually trying to push the process towards a decision. What we need more of are editors who are willing to approach a controversial topic that they don't feel strongly about, and staying there with tenacity, requiring sources for questionable edits, flat-out reverting inappropriate garbage, and doing their own cross-checking.
Tenacity about something that you don't feel strongly about may be self-contradictory.
Ec
Eclecticology wrote in part:
Also, I do not attach as much weight as you do on being credentialled. On the positive side it shows that one has a long standing acquaintance, but on the negative side it suggests that the person has accepted the biases of the profession as though they were truths.
I know that I try to be doubtful of the received philosophical truths in mathematics -- not that there is much controversy in that field, but when there is, I'm usually at least sympathetic to the minority. OTOH, I find that uncredentialed dissenters (both in mathematics as well as in the more controversial theoretical physics) often don't understand even the most basic ideas that they're criticising. This can make argument and NPOV quite difficult to deal with -- one reason that I have stayed away from physics articles on Wikipedia. However, replacing "uncredentialed" with "uneducated" above makes the correlation even stronger -- I am uncredentialed in physics (since my only degree is in mathematics), but I am well educated in it (since I studied a great deal of it on the way to that degree, and would have gotten a degree in it under only mildly different conditions). So I would not speak about credentials at all, but only about education. If a dissenter does not understand what they are criticising, then they have little credibility; but if they understand the standard view, then their criticisms mean a lot more, regardless of any credentials.
An initial contribution very often expresses a particular POV; that's OK at that stage because the opponents to that view have yet to come to bat in the bottom of the first inning.
That's OK /if/ it was an honest mistake due to the first writer's ignorance, or /if/ the initial version explicitly stated that it was incomplete. NPOV is not a competition like baseball; every contributor has the duty to leave the article in as NPOV a state as they can reasonably manage.
-- Toby
I VOCIFEROUSLY object to Ed Poor's taking these POV matters into his own hands. Banning people is a last resort, not something to do because he disagrees with their edits. If he tries to ban them, I will immediately unban them unless he can prove that they deserve to be banned. Do we really want to start a banning war?
RickK
"Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote: I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a CONSENSUS that supports their POV. I'm talking about PhD scientists like William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and saying WHY they disagree.
I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV. Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report findings which disagree with environmentalist POV.
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a temporary ban.
Jimbo keeps saying he's sorry to see me go and happy to see me back. Well, I call on him to back me up -- or fire me.
Ed Poor (aka Uncle Ed))
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
At 05:25 PM 10/7/2003, you wrote:
I VOCIFEROUSLY object to Ed Poor's taking these POV matters into his own hands. Banning people is a last resort, not something to do because he disagrees with their edits. If he tries to ban them, I will immediately unban them unless he can prove that they deserve to be banned. Do we really want to start a banning war?
Oh for goodness sake...
Everyone calm down, Ed's just venting, he hasn't gone insane... right Ed?
----- Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
Dante-
Oh for goodness sake... Everyone calm down, Ed's just venting, he hasn't gone insane... right Ed?
No, he hasn't gone insane, he just sometimes does things like that out of frustration. Please remember that Ed is a member of a cult group called the Unification Church, led by convicted tax criminal Sun Myung Moon. His opinions are mostly identical to the positions of his Church, this includes - the belief that scientific theories which attribute global warming to industry emissions are "junk science" at best and environmentalist naivete at worst - the belief that acting upon homosexual urges is highly immoral - the belief that deceased major religious and cultural leaders, including Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Lenin, Stalin and lots of other folks met in heaven in 2002 to declare Sun Myung Moon the Messiah (see [[Clouds of Witnesses]]). In case people weren't convinced yet, God himself added a letter to the same effect.
I'm not writing this to attack Ed. Let's just be clear that even though he normally is the friendly, helpful "Uncle Ed", he has strong beliefs on various subjects. Most of us do. For a religious fundamentalist, the secular notion that there is no soul, no God, no afterlife, no supernatural seems equally ridiculous as theological discussions about the conception of "Virgin" Mary seem to an atheist reader. I am not a relativist -- I believe there are fundamental differences between these beliefs and their origins -- but for the purpose of this discussion, they are equivalent.
There is no such thing as a "neutral opinion". If it is neutral, it is not an opinion. And it will often be the most knowledgeable people who have the strongest feelings associated with their opinions -- they spent more time developing them, and they had a strong motivation to do so in the first place. I object to excluding these people from working on articles about these subjects as long as they follow Wikiquette and NPOV.
But because of these very obvious facts, mediation and arbitration are best done by people without a direct stake in the matter, and by groups and not by individuals. I would be appalled if Ed used his sysop or developer privileges to enforce his views on global warming. I am a principled person, so I would be similarly appalled if a secular humanist did the same with his (and my) point of view on, say, church/state separation. This is, obviously, no way to build an encyclopedia, and it is not going to happen. Ed knows that, and I hope that after some brooding, he will come back calm and reasonable (which he was in the cases where I worked with him).
While I agree with everything Sheldon wrote, this takes us in the direction of a flamewar between Ed and Sheldon. Let's try to avoid that and strive for peaceful cooperation instead. We can all agree that this matter is really one for the respective talk pages, to be resolved in the usual wiki process without any use of authority except by unconcerned third parties as an emergency measure in case of edit "wars".
Regards,
Erik
--- Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote: <A whole bunch of stuff>
All that Erik speaks is true.
Still, this has no effect on my high esteem for Ed and the {{soothing}} feeling he brings to Wiki. Usually.
Ed's mini-blowup here is way out of character and as such is more pronounced-- a pleasant reminder to all that he, too is human, and needs to vent like the rest of us. Such humanity when displayed, brings me no shortage of joy...
And to Ed -- as a good friend once told me: "If ya cain't laugh et y'sef, who da fuck kin you laugh at?"
~S~
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
Rick wrote:
I VOCIFEROUSLY object to Ed Poor's taking these POV matters into his own hands. Banning people is a last resort, not something to do because he disagrees with their edits. If he tries to ban them, I will immediately unban them unless he can prove that they deserve to be banned. Do we really want to start a banning war?
It's hard to imagine that Ed would not have forseen the can of worms that he was opening with his comments. :-(
Ec
--- "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:
I'm getting awfully tired of watching environmentalists inject their junk science POV into articles. They palm off their own prejudices as scientific fact far too glibly for me to remain patient any longer.
Junk science? Global warming is a mainstream view. You can disagree with the science, but you can't call it junk.
We need to start cracking down on contributors who do this.
I'm talking about the dozens of places in which environmentalist contributors keep inserting their unattributed claim that there is a CONSENSUS that supports their POV.
There *is* an almost complete majority, but perhaps not a consensus. Your diffs make it seem like it's split evenly between people who acknoledge and don't acknoledge global warming.
I'm talking about PhD scientists like William Connolley who insert statemnts like "Singer is wrong" into articles instead of NAMING the scientists who disagree with Singer and saying WHY they disagree.
Well, he's just a poor author.
I've tried being cordial affable. I've tried patiently explaining NPOV. Nothing works. These advocates keep injecting their POV back into the articles, even using smear tactics against scientists who report findings which disagree with environmentalist POV.
Sounds like you're in an edit war. Maybe you should lay off the article for a while while non-involved parties fix the article.
I really see no POV in other people's revisions in the article, but your revisions seem to be somewhat against acknowledging global warming.
I can't stop three dozen other contributors from injecting bias into the scientific articles relating to the environment. Not by myself -- not by slowly and patiently undoing each mistake and explaining it. I'm outnumbered and outgunned.
Did you ever think for just a moment that you could be wrong?
I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them -- give them a temporary ban.
For that? You're out of your mind!
Jimbo keeps saying he's sorry to see me go and happy to see me back. Well, I call on him to back me up -- or fire me.
Ed Poor (aka Uncle Ed)
What's with you and banning people you disagree with? LDan
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com