-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The hard work of NPOV From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net Date: Thu, December 6, 2007 12:15 pm To: dgoodmanny@gmail.com
I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New York Times, are fostering the error.
It would be interesting to go back and look at the development of those articles and see how much "air time" we gave to the view that there were no weapons on mass destruction. Some modesty is in order. Even some intelligence services were taken in. We can aspire to do better then they, but without good sources on the ground, and willingness to use what they might tell us, which is their failing too, we cannot expect to surpass them.
Fred
perhaps we should redefine it our goal, as the nearest practical approach to truth the wiki process can obtain, obtained at in a spirit of impartiality. That's what people reasonably expect from us, not a consensus of the most widespread error.
On Dec 6, 2007 9:17 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Please discuss.
- d.
"If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety."
NPOV is a measure of propriety, not of truth.
Fred
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Even if we gave little weight to such claims that isn't our fault. Giving extra weight due to or own suspicions or looking at the facts on the ground would almost certainly constitute [[WP:OR|original research]]. Not our job.
Quoting Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net:
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The hard work of NPOV From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net Date: Thu, December 6, 2007 12:15 pm To: dgoodmanny@gmail.com
I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New York Times, are fostering the error.
It would be interesting to go back and look at the development of those articles and see how much "air time" we gave to the view that there were no weapons on mass destruction. Some modesty is in order. Even some intelligence services were taken in. We can aspire to do better then they, but without good sources on the ground, and willingness to use what they might tell us, which is their failing too, we cannot expect to surpass them.
Fred
perhaps we should redefine it our goal, as the nearest practical approach to truth the wiki process can obtain, obtained at in a spirit of impartiality. That's what people reasonably expect from us, not a consensus of the most widespread error.
On Dec 6, 2007 9:17 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Please discuss.
- d.
"If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety."
NPOV is a measure of propriety, not of truth.
Fred
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-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
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I aspire to more, but did we even satisfy the requirements of NPOV?
Fred
Even if we gave little weight to such claims that isn't our fault. Giving extra weight due to or own suspicions or looking at the facts on the ground would almost certainly constitute [[WP:OR|original research]]. Not our job.
Quoting Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net:
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The hard work of NPOV From: "Fred Bauder" fredbaud@fairpoint.net Date: Thu, December 6, 2007 12:15 pm To: dgoodmanny@gmail.com
I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New York Times, are fostering the error.
It would be interesting to go back and look at the development of those articles and see how much "air time" we gave to the view that there were no weapons on mass destruction. Some modesty is in order. Even some intelligence services were taken in. We can aspire to do better then they, but without good sources on the ground, and willingness to use what they might tell us, which is their failing too, we cannot expect to surpass them.
Fred
perhaps we should redefine it our goal, as the nearest practical approach to truth the wiki process can obtain, obtained at in a spirit of impartiality. That's what people reasonably expect from us, not a consensus of the most widespread error.
On Dec 6, 2007 9:17 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
Please discuss.
- d.
"If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety."
NPOV is a measure of propriety, not of truth.
Fred
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
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joshua.zelinsky@yale.edu wrote:
Even if we gave little weight to such claims that isn't our fault. Giving extra weight due to or own suspicions or looking at the facts on the ground would almost certainly constitute [[WP:OR|original research]]. Not our job.
Though Fred's and my political views may often be seriously divergent, I can give him credit when he makes thoughtful comments.
I would also be inclined to say that in the general case NPOV trumps NOR. Holding a view that is patently wrong, and which we know is wrong simply because we have only original research to support of the contrary view strikes me as somewhere between unethical and wilfully stupid. To give a religious analogy, it's a bit like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the whole shameful business, . . . so that he could spend more time developing his exercise scheme.
On the one hand we need to assume good faith on the part of those who believed the received wisdom that Iraq had WMD. We cannot ignore that a significant part of the population had contrary views. In addition, those with contrary views were left with the unenviable task of proving a negative.
"Not our job," strikes me as an excuse for avoiding responsibility.
Ec
On 06/12/2007, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New York Times, are fostering the error.
Even were we perfect overnight - all our articles neutral and informed and comprehensive - we would still be guilty of this; an encyclopedia reflects existing knowledge, and all too often existing knowledge is systematically wrong.
(The most obvious dangerspots are physics, biology, astronomy - fields that could have one unexpected announcement tomorrow throw entire textbooks out of whack.)
I'm not sure it's in our best interests to pre-empt this, though ensuring we can transition as smoothly as possible is always good. (I remember the day of Sorting Out All The Pluto Stuff)
On 11/12/2007, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure it's in our best interests to pre-empt this, though ensuring we can transition as smoothly as possible is always good. (I remember the day of Sorting Out All The Pluto Stuff)
An important lesson of Wikipedia is that people will argue to death over ANYTHING in the pursuit of Getting Things Right. See [[Talk:Prime Minister of Australia]] for the now-moot dispute over what on Earth the correct term for the leader of the party that won the last election is before he's actually sworn in as the new Prime Minister (there doesn't appear to be one), and whether the loser can still be described as "incumbent" (probably).
I'd like to see our obsession with getting things right as a virtue, even when it verges on the querulous ...
- d.
On 12/11/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
An important lesson of Wikipedia is that people will argue to death over ANYTHING in the pursuit of Getting Things Right. See [[Talk:Prime Minister of Australia]] for the now-moot dispute over what on Earth the correct term for the leader of the party that won the last election is before he's actually sworn in as the new Prime Minister (there doesn't appear to be one), and whether the loser can still be
Really? All the papers used the term "prime minister-elect". Except for one radio host who made the unfortunate tongue slip "prime-minister erect"...
described as "incumbent" (probably).
Good question. Funny issue though, because in that week or so, there was virtually no coverage of him whatsoever, so no one else seemed to face the dilemma. But we at Wikipedia NEED TO KNOW. :)
I'd like to see our obsession with getting things right as a virtue, even when it verges on the querulous ...
It's a bit wasteful to spend so much time and effort getting things right for one week, only to have that debate become totally moot.
Steve
On 11/12/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
It's a bit wasteful to spend so much time and effort getting things right for one week, only to have that debate become totally moot.
Steve
Unless there is a constitutional change it will happen again.
On 11/12/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
described as "incumbent" (probably).
Good question. Funny issue though, because in that week or so, there was virtually no coverage of him whatsoever, so no one else seemed to face the dilemma. But we at Wikipedia NEED TO KNOW. :)
It's our education remit! Thirty years down the line, someone will need to know in a hurry, google it, and we'll have answered the query for them... and be the only person ever to have done so.
On 11/12/2007, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/11/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
An important lesson of Wikipedia is that people will argue to death over ANYTHING in the pursuit of Getting Things Right. See [[Talk:Prime Minister of Australia]] for the now-moot dispute over what on Earth the correct term for the leader of the party that won the last election is before he's actually sworn in as the new Prime Minister (there doesn't appear to be one), and whether the loser can still be
Really? All the papers used the term "prime minister-elect".
I expect they'll make that into the standard term for it. (What did they call Howard between the 1996 election and him being sworn in?)
The constitutional anoraks argue there's not actually any such thing - there's just a party who have the majority of the seats in the lower house; their leader is conventionally sworn in as Prime Minister, but until the swearing in it could *theoretically* be anyone. (The job "Prime Minister" isn't even named in the Constitution.) Even Rudd said a few times he wasn't PM until he was actually sworn in. OTOH, there's a heaping dose of "convention works so Nobody Cares (tm)," so this was basically original research because there wasn't much if anything in the way of referable resources by past constitutional anoraks who'd worked this out already.
But don't let me take away from anyone the inestimable joy of tracking through that talk page ...
- d.