No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume that it does.
And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations.
[snip]
Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudoscience]]...
Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]?
Such over-qualifications with the good intention of being as NPOV as possible is something which Wikipedia has too much of already.
My favorite example is this sentence which I found on the [[Britney Spears]] article about two months ago:
"Britney Spears is often regarded by many as a controversial sexual figure"
In my opinion the following sentences are fine:
1. Britney Spears is a controversial sexual figure. 2. Holocaust denial is pseudohistory. 3. Creationism is pseudoscience.
And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's fine too. Because it is.
Regards, Haukur
Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. Categories are an aid to the reader to in finding information.
To take an example from a current arbitration case (Yoder); He removed the category "Geography of Israel" from the article on Golan Heights. His view was that having the article in that category established or somehow endorsed Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. However the purpose of the category is to point the reader to the articles which have information which falls into the category, not to establish a fact.
Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- science, without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough that a the category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean that articles may fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an exercise in logic but in finding information.
Fred
On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's fine too. Because it is.
From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net
Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. Categories are an aid to the reader to in finding information.
To take an example from a current arbitration case (Yoder); He removed the category "Geography of Israel" from the article on Golan Heights. His view was that having the article in that category established or somehow endorsed Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. However the purpose of the category is to point the reader to the articles which have information which falls into the category, not to establish a fact.
Just to clarify, Fred is referring to User:Yuber.
Jay.
Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- science, without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough that a the category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean that articles may fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an exercise in logic but in finding information.
Fred
On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's fine too. Because it is.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fred Bauder (fredbaud@ctelco.net) [050701 04:06]:
Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- science, without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough that a the category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean that articles may fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an exercise in logic but in finding information.
Actually, [[Cold fusion]] is in all the categories "Pseudoscience", "Protoscience" and "Pathological science". And aspects of it are arguably all of these, and I see no problem with that.
- d.
From: Haukur Þorgeirsson haukurth@hi.is
No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume that it does.
And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations.
[snip]
Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudoscience]]...
Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]?
Such over-qualifications with the good intention of being as NPOV as possible is something which Wikipedia has too much of already.
Indeed; for example, there have been persistent attempts by a small number of editors to remove Wikipedia all instances of the phrase "Conspiracy theory", particularly in titles, in the name of "NPOV", and replace them with various circumlocutions. Having generally failed at that, in some cases they have restored to creating POV forks of articles which, for example, list the commonly understood view of 9/11 (Al Qaeda hijackers) as just another "conspiracy theory", on the grounds that it is a theory about a conspiracy.
Jay.
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume that it does.
And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations.
[snip]
Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudoscience]]...
Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]?
Yes. Some neutral title like [[Category:Non-mainstream historical claims]] or [[Category:Non-mainstream historical theories]] would be much better.
Although on a larger level, I'm not convinced using any of these labels is superior to not using them at all. Is [[Atlantis]] under [[Category:Pseudohistory]]? What about [[The Bible]]?
-Mark