In a message dated 12/31/2008 7:53:06 AM Pacific Standard Time, crustybush@gmail.com writes:
If I'm right, Phil is complaining that NOR contradicts NPOV because someone won't necessarily be able to defend themselves in their article because what they say (eg through a letter) will be OR, and therefore the article won't have NPOV?>>
--------------------------- No. What Phil is stating is that NOR contradicts NPOV because of a line which states that primary sources may only be used for descriptive clauses (not interpretive ones). Therefore, since what an author writes is a primary source, they cannot defend themselves from perceived false interpretations of others, which are secondary sources.
My counters included an attack on whether an op-ed is really secondary. And also an attack on whether a self-review is really primary.
Will Johnson
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On Dec 31, 2008, at 7:36 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
My counters included an attack on whether an op-ed is really secondary. And also an attack on whether a self-review is really primary.
To which my response is that, while a broad clarification of what primary and secondary sources actually are, and a better sense of when they should and shouldn't be used would be lovely, and I would support it whole-heartedly, the dogmatism that dominates discussion of NOR is sufficiently bad that it is difficult to get even the smallest of changes through - little yet something like that.
Incidentally, for those who have stayed away from the discussion, newer suggestions include the banning of any use of any source that requires specialist knowledge. This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
-Phil
on 1/1/09 9:52 AM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
It's the dominant culture, Phil. And, sadly, it is the way the Project has been headed for some time now.
Marc Riddell
on 1/1/09 9:52 AM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
on 1/1/09 11:10 AM, Marc Riddell at michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
It's the dominant culture, Phil. And, sadly, it is the way the Project has been headed for some time now.
Marc Riddell
Soon a group of persons will design an encyclopedia project with the same free-editing capability as Wikipedia, but which will creatively and effectively combine input from the specialist and generalist alike. We'll see.
Marc
On Jan 1, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
on 1/1/09 9:52 AM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
It's the dominant culture, Phil. And, sadly, it is the way the Project has been headed for some time now.
Indeed. But it is, in practice, not difficult to find the most pernicious pieces of bad policy that allow that move, and to make it so that people who are actually interested in writing a useful resource for our readers can do so.
As it stands, Wikipedia is increasingly at risk of having its quality swept away by the increasingly large community, and the resultant drop in quality of the average community member that entails.
This hard and fast rule against specialist knowledge - and the bizarre belief that the solution is to strengthen it - is a key place where pushing back is beneficial.
-Phil
On Jan 1, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
on 1/1/09 9:52 AM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
It's the dominant culture, Phil. And, sadly, it is the way the Project has been headed for some time now.
on 1/1/09 1:28 PM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed. But it is, in practice, not difficult to find the most pernicious pieces of bad policy that allow that move, and to make it so that people who are actually interested in writing a useful resource for our readers can do so.
As it stands, Wikipedia is increasingly at risk of having its quality swept away by the increasingly large community, and the resultant drop in quality of the average community member that entails.
This hard and fast rule against specialist knowledge - and the bizarre belief that the solution is to strengthen it - is a key place where pushing back is beneficial.
Our last two posts must have waved at each other as they went by :-).
Phil, I have been "pushing back" for the three years that I have been here. And it is worse now than when I came. And a great part of the problem is that the "leadership" that does exist here appears to condone the current thinking. I believe it is time for me to help build an alternative.
Marc
2009/1/1 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Phil, I have been "pushing back" for the three years that I have been here. And it is worse now than when I came. And a great part of the problem is that the "leadership" that does exist here appears to condone the current thinking. I believe it is time for me to help build an alternative.
If your pushing back was here *rather than* on the wiki, it will have been useless. Did you try on the wiki itself?
- d.
2009/1/1 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
Phil, I have been "pushing back" for the three years that I have been here. And it is worse now than when I came. And a great part of the problem is that the "leadership" that does exist here appears to condone the current thinking. I believe it is time for me to help build an alternative.
on 1/1/09 1:53 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
If your pushing back was here *rather than* on the wiki, it will have been useless. Did you try on the wiki itself?
David, I don't know what you mean by "the wiki itself".
Marc
2009/1/1 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
on 1/1/09 1:53 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
If your pushing back was here *rather than* on the wiki, it will have been useless. Did you try on the wiki itself?
David, I don't know what you mean by "the wiki itself".
In the various Wikipedia: space pages where policy is actually discussed and consensus reached. (It isn't here.)
- d.
on 1/1/09 2:13 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/1 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
on 1/1/09 1:53 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
If your pushing back was here *rather than* on the wiki, it will have been useless. Did you try on the wiki itself?
David, I don't know what you mean by "the wiki itself".
In the various Wikipedia: space pages where policy is actually discussed and consensus reached. (It isn't here.)
Yes, David I have. One example: For the first year and a half I tried to help improve the Alcoholism Article. I ran head-on into an editor that fought me at every turn regarding the disease concept; he favoring the self-help, "faith-based" approach. I finally gave up in disgust over the process. I have found the Talk Pages to be as set in their ways as are the Mailing Lists. But, no surprise there, they represent the same culture.
Life's too short, David - there are still too many important things to accomplish.
Marc
Marc
Phil - can you be more specific about that policy?
Where is it?
I haven't run into it in areas I care about, and if it's there right now that's a bad enough thing that I'll go tilt at it for a while.
-george william herbert
On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Phil Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.comwrote:
On Jan 1, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Marc Riddell wrote:
on 1/1/09 9:52 AM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This really is how bad our policy formation has gotten - there is a sincere belief that specialist knowledge is actually harmful to Wikipedia.
It's the dominant culture, Phil. And, sadly, it is the way the Project has been headed for some time now.
Indeed. But it is, in practice, not difficult to find the most pernicious pieces of bad policy that allow that move, and to make it so that people who are actually interested in writing a useful resource for our readers can do so.
As it stands, Wikipedia is increasingly at risk of having its quality swept away by the increasingly large community, and the resultant drop in quality of the average community member that entails.
This hard and fast rule against specialist knowledge - and the bizarre belief that the solution is to strengthen it - is a key place where pushing back is beneficial.
-Phil
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On Jan 1, 2009, at 6:28 PM, George Herbert wrote:
Phil - can you be more specific about that policy?
Where is it?
Sure - it's actually WP:NOR - specifically, the line that all statements from primary sources must be easily verifiable by someone without specialist knowledge. This poses a significant problem for articles on scholars and specialists, whose writings provide a crucial perspective that, by its nature, cannot be replaced. It's a problem for a large band of articles - academic topics really, by their nature, can't function well when crucial sources need to be summarized without use of specialist knowledge.
Currently the discussion is proving how deeply pathological the anti- specialist bias is, with the suggestions being made, in all seriousness, that no sources that require specialist knowledge should be used, and that it is desirable to have people edit articles in areas they do not know anything about.
-Phil
On Jan 1, 2009, at 6:28 PM, George Herbert wrote:
Phil - can you be more specific about that policy?
Where is it?
on 1/2/09 12:18 PM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Sure - it's actually WP:NOR - specifically, the line that all statements from primary sources must be easily verifiable by someone without specialist knowledge. This poses a significant problem for articles on scholars and specialists, whose writings provide a crucial perspective that, by its nature, cannot be replaced. It's a problem for a large band of articles - academic topics really, by their nature, can't function well when crucial sources need to be summarized without use of specialist knowledge.
Currently the discussion is proving how deeply pathological the anti- specialist bias is, with the suggestions being made, in all seriousness, that no sources that require specialist knowledge should be used, and that it is desirable to have people edit articles in areas they do not know anything about.
This is stunning, Phil. Now perhaps you and other persons on this List can appreciate the growing stone wall that I, and many other editors, have been confronted with for a long time.
Marc Riddell
2009/1/2 Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
on 1/2/09 12:18 PM, Phil Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Currently the discussion is proving how deeply pathological the anti- specialist bias is, with the suggestions being made, in all seriousness, that no sources that require specialist knowledge should be used, and that it is desirable to have people edit articles in areas they do not know anything about.
This is stunning, Phil. Now perhaps you and other persons on this List can appreciate the growing stone wall that I, and many other editors, have been confronted with for a long time.
See, it's nothing we didn't appreciate already. However, this list is a place for more general discussion, not where any binding decisions are made.
The trouble with "anyone can edit" is that anyone can edit. And that you can't get away from idiocy. Suffering fools is in fact required.
- d.