An organisation exists which makes certain claims. These claims are at odds with informed opinion on the subject. They are not published in any peer-reviewed journals, and can be demonstrated to be false or at best questionable by reference to primary sources.
Most credible authorities do not deign to reply to these claims, because the organisation is mainly dismissed as cranks (or rather, a lone crank) and many of the claims are considered absurd, but they have a popular resonance among certain groups who desperately want to believe them. The person who runs the group is a talented self-publicist and gets his claims in the news, but declines all invitations to submit the claims for peer-review. As unpublished work, there are therefore no published rebuttals, and most reputable authorities simply dismiss the group.
Some of the group's claims have a basis in published research, but constitute an extreme interpretation of that research. This interpretation is, in some cases, strongly contested by the researchers themselves.
Supporters of the group are vociferous; this is in many cases the sole source for what they really want to believe, so they promote it assiduously.
So: the group is notable by reference to news coverage. The existence of the group's claims come from reliable sources, the group's own materials which are reliable in the context of documenting the group. Rebuttals do not come from reliable secondary sources because the secondary sources have published neither the claims nor the rebuttals. Opposition to the claims is therefore denounced as uncited and "weasel words" because the opponents are not named, although there is not one single reputable authority which supports the claims.
How best to handle this?
I am personally involved in one side of a dispute on this, as is patently obvious from the way I have phrased the above :-) In the end I want the article to be a good one because every article should be a good one. Another user, DeFacto, has been effective in challenging opposition from me and others, and thus tightening up this and other articles on subjects related to motorist activism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.
There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives. How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]] requires we must, without straying into original research?
This is also a problem because their claim that cameras cost lives has now been repeated in other Wikipedia articles. That is a serious concern to me. It is a claim which Smith actively refuses to put up to peer review. Guy (JzG)
On 3/21/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.
There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives. How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]] requires we must, without straying into original research?
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
Ryan
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:15:16 -0500, you wrote:
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
A good solution, but it is the single most notable thing about him and has been repeated on news sources such as the BBC. Guy (JzG)
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
Ryan
I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact that there are no views cited to challenge it.
On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker mikkerpikker@gmail.com wrote:
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
Ryan
I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact that there are no views cited to challenge it.
We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that someone, somewhere holds that view. Even if policy supports that (and I strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on Wikipedia.
Ryan
We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that someone, somewhere holds that view. Even if policy supports that (and I strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on Wikipedia.
Right, but then the question is: are the cited views notable? I'm not sure, but from what JzG wrote, they do seem notable. In other words, if we grant the notability/importance of the view, we can't simply remove the statement.
On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker mikkerpikker@gmail.com wrote:
Right, but then the question is: are the cited views notable? I'm not sure, but from what JzG wrote, they do seem notable. In other words, if we grant the notability/importance of the view, we can't simply remove the statement.
My first reaction would be a short paragraph along the lines of "There is at least one group, Speed Demons Inc, which claims that the above research is false[1][2]. No research to this effect has been published in peer-reviewed journals, however".
Or something. Their claims are notable. And it's true that they haven't been published, right? (though how you cite that...)
Steve
On 3/21/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that someone, somewhere holds that view. Even if policy supports that (and I strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging the article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on Wikipedia.
The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation, named "Safe Speed", and thus his organisation's claims and opinions are definitively "on topic". If it was a general article on road safety issues, his organisation's claims might be removed as an unsupported minority opinion given undue weight, but they can't be here.
-Matt
On 3/21/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation, named "Safe Speed", and thus his organisation's claims and opinions are definitively "on topic". If it was a general article on road safety issues, his organisation's claims might be removed as an unsupported minority opinion given undue weight, but they can't be here.
Then the right thing seems to be to stress that the claims have not been published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. It seems perfectly appropriate to explain the claims of a kook group on a page about that kook group. By the same token, it's inappropriate to misrepresent those claims as having any kind of validity or acceptance.
Steve
On 3/21/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/21/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
We don't have to include every view merely because we can verify that someone, somewhere holds that view. Even if policy supports that (and
I
strongly suspect it doesn't; see "undue weight"), that would be damaging
the
article for the sake of process. Which is something we don't do on Wikipedia.
The thing is that the article is about Paul Smith's organisation, named "Safe Speed",
Looking at this article, I think the main problem is that it is /not/ about the organization, but about the organization's arguments. The whole "Safe Speed's Claims" and "Opposition and Criticism" examples could be summarized in a few sentences.
Imagine if someone wrote up a solitary article with all that content in it. It would be AFD'ed in a flash, and rightly so. But by grandfathering it into an article that is nominally about something else, they've succeeded in getting a soapbox for advocacy. Kill it with fire.
Ryan
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:26:31 -0500, you wrote:
Looking at this article, I think the main problem is that it is /not/ about the organization, but about the organization's arguments. The whole "Safe Speed's Claims" and "Opposition and Criticism" examples could be summarized in a few sentences.
I agree. The only problem is, I am not convinced that other editors will accept my doing so. I think I will engage in a Talk discussion on this. Guy (JzG)
On 3/21/06, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Looking at this article, I think the main problem is that it is /not/ about the organization, but about the organization's arguments. The whole "Safe Speed's Claims" and "Opposition and Criticism" examples could be summarized in a few sentences.
Having now looked at the article, it actually has quite a few problems. It has various points of view sprayed all over it. Some examples: -- (Intro para): Safe Speed does not campaign against speed limits, only against their enforcement by automated means, because their view is that sticking to a speed limit does not guarantee safe driving, and that all motoring laws should be enforced appropriately and proportionately. ... The group has links with libertarian groups. One prominent supporter (presented as giving academic support to Safe Speed's claims) is Dr. Alan Buckingham, a specialist in family life and relationships at Bath Spa University College and a contributor to The Centre for Independent Studies. ... Although Smith has always used the word "we" when discussing Safe Speed on the website, it is very much his idea and his organisation. ... The Safe Speed website makes the claim that if any fact can be proven to be incorrect, it will be removed. One page was removed following criticism by Jocksch, whose work was cited, but subsequently reinserted with similar content..
--
Perhaps there is not much that is interesting and encyclopaedic that can be said about this group. At the moment, this article really doesn't paint Wikipedia is a good light. It gives far too much detail to the claims (claims by *any* single group should never be given that much detail, regardless of validity), and falls into the classic "claims / criticism" trap. There are also very few sources even for the claims (which ought to be easily sourcable from the website). There is also general bloat, featuring remarks about the history of motoring regulation, which clearly don't belong in this article.
My last question is: Who the hell is Paul Smith? The article begins "Safe Speed is a UK web-based road safety organisation run by Paul Smith." and only has this to say about him: "Smith ran the project as a hobby from his home in Scotland for some time but in 2003, following a period of illness in which his self-employed computer engineering business ran down, he took it up full time at some significant personal cost. Although Smith has always used the word "we" when discussing Safe Speed on the website, it is very much his idea and his organisation. Smith is also a member of the motorists' pressure group Association of British Drivers (ABD)."
Are we to be led to believe that this whole article is about some angry British motorist running a website from home?
Steve
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:05:05 +0100, you wrote:
My last question is: Who the hell is Paul Smith? The article begins "Safe Speed is a UK web-based road safety organisation run by Paul Smith." and only has this to say about him: "Smith ran the project as a hobby from his home in Scotland for some time but in 2003, following a period of illness in which his self-employed computer engineering business ran down, he took it up full time at some significant personal cost. Although Smith has always used the word "we" when discussing Safe Speed on the website, it is very much his idea and his organisation. Smith is also a member of the motorists' pressure group Association of British Drivers (ABD)."
And all the above as well. Yes, it's all a problem. A problem which is hard to address, since the site is *about* making unprovable claims, and is cited by libertarian motorists as an "authority" to back their views - it is the sole "authority" doing so, of course, which makes it widely cited..
Are we to be led to believe that this whole article is about some angry British motorist running a website from home?
Correct. But he is a talented self-publicist and has succeeded in getting his absurd "one in three" claim on the BBC News website, among other coverage.
Someone has taken to slapping {fact} and {weasel} all over the criticisms, which is understandable enough since the rebuttals all come from primary sources. Any decent suggestion on how to prune it down to an appropriate length and keep it that way would be appreciated. Guy (JzG)
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Someone has taken to slapping {fact} and {weasel} all over the criticisms, which is understandable enough since the rebuttals all come from primary sources. Any decent suggestion on how to prune it down to an appropriate length and keep it that way would be appreciated. Guy (JzG)
Formatting. Just as I create subsections when I want other editors to expand on sections, do the opposite if you don't want that. So, trim a whole section down into a bullet point, headed with "the three most well-known claims are the following".
The 'weasel' tag is pretty silly - there's not even consensus that weasel words are particularly bad. It should be deprecated in favour of {fact} or something.
Steve
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:23:19 +0200, you wrote:
The 'weasel' tag is pretty silly - there's not even consensus that weasel words are particularly bad. It should be deprecated in favour of {fact} or something.
I thought so. And he applied a {fact} tag to something which is stated in the footnotes of one of the currently linked sources, which struck me as a bit bizarre. Guy (JzG)
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I thought so. And he applied a {fact} tag to something which is stated in the footnotes of one of the currently linked sources, which struck me as a bit bizarre.
Ok, I'll swap you. You work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]] and [[Melbourne University student organisations]] for a while, I'll take [[Safe Speed]]. In a week, we'll swap back?
Steve
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:49:29 +0200, you wrote:
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I thought so. And he applied a {fact} tag to something which is stated in the footnotes of one of the currently linked sources, which struck me as a bit bizarre.
Ok, I'll swap you. You work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]] and [[Melbourne University student organisations]] for a while, I'll take [[Safe Speed]]. In a week, we'll swap back?
Looks like you got you a deal :-) Guy (JzG)
Sweet. Actually you have life easy - all the main edit warriors are currently blocked pending arbitration.
Steve
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:49:29 +0200, you wrote:
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I thought so. And he applied a {fact} tag to something which is stated in the footnotes of one of the currently linked sources, which struck me as a bit bizarre.
Ok, I'll swap you. You work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]] and [[Melbourne University student organisations]] for a while, I'll take [[Safe Speed]]. In a week, we'll swap back?
Looks like you got you a deal :-) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ok, I think my work at [[Safe Speed]] is done. Feel free to admire, oh innocent bystanders. It's about half the size it was a week ago :)
(PS keep up the good work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]], but don't forget [[University of Melbourne student organisations]] :))
Steve
On 3/27/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Sweet. Actually you have life easy - all the main edit warriors are currently blocked pending arbitration.
Steve
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:49:29 +0200, you wrote:
On 3/27/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
I thought so. And he applied a {fact} tag to something which is stated in the footnotes of one of the currently linked sources, which struck me as a bit bizarre.
Ok, I'll swap you. You work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]] and [[Melbourne University student organisations]] for a while, I'll take [[Safe Speed]]. In a week, we'll swap back?
Looks like you got you a deal :-) Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:49:15 +0200, you wrote:
(PS keep up the good work on [[University of Melbourne Student Union]], but don't forget [[University of Melbourne student organisations]] :))
Haven't forgotten, but I'm singing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis tomorrow night, and we are hosting a choir over from Germany to sing with us, so I'm a bit busy and will be until Monday.
I'm not welshing, honest :-) Guy (JzG)
On 3/31/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Haven't forgotten, but I'm singing Beethoven's Missa Solemnis tomorrow night, and we are hosting a choir over from Germany to sing with us, so I'm a bit busy and will be until Monday.
I'm not welshing, honest :-)
Heh, no worries. If this works out we'll have to write it up as a policy document.
Q: What to do when an article stresses you out? A: Find someone else in the same boat. Swap. Don't even look at "your" article for a week.
We could revolutionise Wikipedia!
Steve
On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:04:16 +0200, you wrote:
Q: What to do when an article stresses you out? A: Find someone else in the same boat. Swap. Don't even look at "your" article for a week.
Who's going to create the [[Wikipedia/Edit war swapmeet]] then? Guy (JzG)
But we can note, if it is true, that it is not currently adopted by any authorities, that no tests of it have been done, and that it has been soundly ignored by experts in the field.
It's not easy to define what is or is not a "consensus" in a field (the lack of published controversy does not indicate consensus at all), people with a reasonable familiarity with the literature of a field can usually give a good sense of how something has been received or ignored or what-have-you.
I think the fact that this hasn't been taken up by any recognized experts in the subject is a verifiable fact, and telling enough for most people.
FF
On 3/21/06, Mikkerpikker mikkerpikker@gmail.com wrote:
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
Ryan
I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact that there are no views cited to challenge it. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 3/21/06, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
But we can note, if it is true, that it is not currently adopted by any authorities, that no tests of it have been done, and that it has been soundly ignored by experts in the field.
It's not easy to define what is or is not a "consensus" in a field (the lack of published controversy does not indicate consensus at all), people with a reasonable familiarity with the literature of a field can usually give a good sense of how something has been received or ignored or what-have-you.
I think the fact that this hasn't been taken up by any recognized experts in the subject is a verifiable fact, and telling enough for most people.
Ok, having now also looked at the website and looked for references to it in the news, I can conclude that it's mostly a case of bad science with a lot of fast talking. One of the guy's major arguments against speed cameras is, believe it or not, that the rate in reduction in road deaths slowed down since their introduction. You might wonder what he expected to happen if road deaths every hit zero.
Strangely, he has actually been cited by a couple of reputable publications, including the BBC, which perhaps mistook him as a spokesperson for motorists? Really a very strange character though, especially the constant references to having spent 5000 hours "researching". He also claims to be an "advanced road safety enthusiast"...whatever that is.
Steve
On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:06:20 +0100, you wrote:
Strangely, he has actually been cited by a couple of reputable publications, including the BBC, which perhaps mistook him as a spokesperson for motorists? Really a very strange character though, especially the constant references to having spent 5000 hours "researching". He also claims to be an "advanced road safety enthusiast"...whatever that is.
Smith is a strange one alright. He was OK up until a three-month disappearance from the usual Usenet forums he frequented - presumably the illness which killed his one-man business - but since then he has rebranded himself as a "full time road safety campaigner". This is also what ran up the debts which - incredibly - his supporters are paying off for him. If he's telling the truth about that, of course.
He always worked back from the conclusions, as many activists do, but what really gets me is this bizarre "one third of fatalities" claim, which is very eyecatching and has got him a lot of publicity.
Now he can point to some successes for the anti-camera brigade (which of course he claims as vindication) like issues with hand-held camera accuracy and the Government bringing in the three-coffin rule, it gives an impression of a solid campaign headed for success. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, of course, but you can almost see the goalposts shifting as he takes you from "some cameras are faulty" to "cameras are faulty" to "camera convictions are unjust" to "use of cameras is wrong". Another favourite is to go from "speeds less than the limit can be dangerous" through "1mph over the limit is not inherently dangerous" to "speeding is not dangerous", all the time justifying it with careful interpretation of figures which say the exact opposite :-)
One TRL report - an experimental accident reporting technique, is Solid Gold Gospel Truth, because it gives speed as a minority cause of collisions (which is a misrepresentation anyway, as many other causes also implied excessive speed) but all the TRL reports which say driving too fast is dangerous - i.e. all of them - are "flawed" and even "fraudulent". His absurdities are not held up to scrutiny because we have no mechanism for official sanctions against lies told on the Internet. He reports camera partnerships to the Advertising Standards Authority, who would have a field day with his website, but they can't touch him because he has never published a brochure, flyer, poster, paid advert or anything else they regulate.
He has stated that 100mph plus on single-carriageway roads is "perfectly safe", that there is nothing wrong with parking in disabled bays, that he can't see why the disabled should get special treatment, and so on. And as usual with this kind of person, proving him wrong never actually results in him stopping saying something. So even after the charts and figures were analysed in great detail and it was shown that his supposed loss in trend applies only to road users and roads unlikely to be affected by cameras, he still carried on (and carries on) making the claim. Old Lenin knew what he was talking about when he coined that phrase about a lie told often enough :-)
But you can see why he's popular with a certain class of driver, because there is *so* much evidence that they are dangerous and selfish that they will latch onto anything which says otherwise.
And to be fair most of our articles on road safety and speed limits are affected by the same libertarian mindset. The constant references to the fastest roads being the safest (with qualifications noting that this is the result of design, grade separation, very few junctions and so on being quietly removed), the way it's always Germany's Autobahns which are held up as a model, although the speed-limited British motorway network is far safer, and the M25 with its variable speed limits safer still - well, you know all this stuff. Sometimes it makes me ashamed to be a driver. Ah well. Guy (JzG)
Mikkerpikker wrote:
We don't "prove" anything. We just take his claim out of the article.
Ryan
I think the point is we *can't* simply take the claim out because it satisfies [[WP:V]]. And since there are no rebuttals that does satisfy [[WP:V]] the article in question becomes POV by virtue of the fact that there are no views cited to challenge it.
That's not logical. If there are no views expressed that challenge the premise, it necessarily represents the Neutral Point of View. A rebutting argument that is not verifiable is as good as no argument at all.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
That's not logical. If there are no views expressed that challenge the premise, it necessarily represents the Neutral Point of View. A rebutting argument that is not verifiable is as good as no argument at all.
...so if I claim that there are gigantic hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello living on a giant pumpkin orbiting Alpha Centauri and that they have five hands and one foot, and no-one makes a verifiable rebuttal, then my claim, being the only published view on the subject, represents the Neutral Point of View about hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello?
I don't think that's quite what you meant.
On 3/25/06, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
...so if I claim that there are gigantic hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello living on a giant pumpkin orbiting Alpha Centauri and that they have five hands and one foot, and no-one makes a verifiable rebuttal, then my claim, being the only published view on the subject, represents the Neutral Point of View about hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello?
I think our solution to that problem is noting the lack of sources supporting the theory. Like in the case with Safe Speed - there are no reputable sources which back up the theories, therefore we say so. We have to publish the claims because the group is notable, but we're also obliged to give the reader a sense of their acceptance in the scientific community.
Steve
Assuming you have published a book on the subject, yes. This is obvious nonsense, as you note. But it often applies to articles about living persons, whose 5 minutes of fame is often some trouble they go into. That may be the only published material on them. This creates a quite unbalanced article despite following Wikipedia policies. Information about the quiet peaceful and uneventful life they have lived is not acceptable as there is no published source.
Fred
On Mar 25, 2006, at 6:22 AM, Ilmari Karonen wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
That's not logical. If there are no views expressed that challenge the premise, it necessarily represents the Neutral Point of View. A rebutting argument that is not verifiable is as good as no argument at all.
...so if I claim that there are gigantic hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello living on a giant pumpkin orbiting Alpha Centauri and that they have five hands and one foot, and no-one makes a verifiable rebuttal, then my claim, being the only published view on the subject, represents the Neutral Point of View about hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello?
I don't think that's quite what you meant.
-- Ilmari Karonen _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
That's not logical. If there are no views expressed that challenge the premise, it necessarily represents the Neutral Point of View. A rebutting argument that is not verifiable is as good as no argument at all.
...so if I claim that there are gigantic hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello living on a giant pumpkin orbiting Alpha Centauri and that they have five hands and one foot, and no-one makes a verifiable rebuttal, then my claim, being the only published view on the subject, represents the Neutral Point of View about hyperintelligent aliens made of lime jello?
Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a polite request for sources to be cited.
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
Ec
Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a polite request for sources to be cited.
So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this satisfies WP:V?"?
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so does this give those claims "credibility"?
Mikkerpikker wrote:
Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a polite request for sources to be cited.
So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this satisfies WP:V?"?
No policy of any sort can be applied until someone has seen the article. Perhaps you can keep your article there, but only as long as absolutely no-one other than you sees it. If you want it to stay a long time maybe you should give the article a name that will be difficult for anybody to find.
BTW I thought that your article was about the Alpha Centaurians. The Beta Centaurian was a visitor from your neighborhood who showed up to testify in your favour. Is your guy related to the Jello Monster that ate New York City which Bill Cosby wrote about?
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so does this give those claims "credibility"?
If you are saying that the purpose of the holocaust was to turn its victimes into lime Jello, I would be inclined to question the credibility of your statement. Holocaust deniers don't need to be rebutted; they are making the negative statement that something did NOT happen. When you undertake to rebutt such a POV you are in effect feeding trolls. Feeding trolls gives them more credibility than they deserve.
Ec
G'day Michael,
Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a polite request for sources to be cited.
So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this satisfies WP:V?"?
Well, sure. That's called *real life*. If an editor is either ignorant of Wikipedia practices or, alternatively, a kook, they aren't likely to restrain themselves --- so their work stays in until someone more knowledgeable/less crazy takes a look.
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so does this give those claims "credibility"?
Frankly, yes ... as shocking as it sounds. There's a spectrum of credibility, which I will be making up over the next few seconds. It goes something like this:
* the unchallenged truth ("George W. Bush is President of the USA") * unlikely but true ("scratching just makes it worse") * true, but beset on all sides by kooks (Chip Berlet around?) * plausible but untrue (e.g. those "stupid people sue for their own stupidity and win" hoax emails) * lies that have attracted the attention of rebutters (Holocaust denial, for example) * lies so obviously false that it's really not worth our while to rebut them (like Lyndon LaRouche's claims to significance) * kookery (lizardmen, anyone?)
So, David Irving is more credible than Lyndon LaRouche, who in turn is more credible than David Icke. All three are members of that subset of humanity known as "lying scumbags who really ought to spend all their time hung up by the ankles while well-paid troops take turns tickling their soles with feathers", but some of that subset tell more fantastic lies than others.
Cheers,
Mark Gallagher wrote: <snip>
- kookery (lizardmen, anyone?)
Lizardmen are perfectly real and certainly verifiable...
... in a fictional context, that is.
On 3/26/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
There have been a couple of attempts to give responsibility to the original contributor, but I think it goes against the wiki concept. As I see it, you contribute something to the encyclopaedia, and that's where your responsibility ends (libel etc aside). If your contribution is no good, someone can ask for sources. Someone else, who thinks the contribution is good, can supply them.
Attempting to maintain a dialogue with the original contributor is impractical (people don't necessarily stick around, or check the talk page or whatever), and contributes to the misleading impression that people "own" articles, or sections or whatever.
Steve
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
An organisation exists which makes certain claims. These claims are at odds with informed opinion on the subject. They are not published in any peer-reviewed journals, and can be demonstrated to be false or at best questionable by reference to primary sources.
Most credible authorities do not deign to reply to these claims, because the organisation is mainly dismissed as cranks (or rather, a lone crank) and many of the claims are considered absurd, but they have a popular resonance among certain groups who desperately want to believe them. The person who runs the group is a talented self-publicist and gets his claims in the news, but declines all invitations to submit the claims for peer-review. As unpublished work, there are therefore no published rebuttals, and most reputable authorities simply dismiss the group.
Some of the group's claims have a basis in published research, but constitute an extreme interpretation of that research. This interpretation is, in some cases, strongly contested by the researchers themselves.
Supporters of the group are vociferous; this is in many cases the sole source for what they really want to believe, so they promote it assiduously.
So: the group is notable by reference to news coverage. The existence of the group's claims come from reliable sources, the group's own materials which are reliable in the context of documenting the group. Rebuttals do not come from reliable secondary sources because the secondary sources have published neither the claims nor the rebuttals. Opposition to the claims is therefore denounced as uncited and "weasel words" because the opponents are not named, although there is not one single reputable authority which supports the claims.
How best to handle this?
I am personally involved in one side of a dispute on this, as is patently obvious from the way I have phrased the above :-) In the end I want the article to be a good one because every article should be a good one. Another user, DeFacto, has been effective in challenging opposition from me and others, and thus tightening up this and other articles on subjects related to motorist activism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Speed is the article in question.
There now exists a groundswell of motorist activists who sincerely believe that Paul Smith has "proved" that speed cameras cost lives. How can we demonstrate that this is a false claim, as [[WP:NPOV]] requires we must, without straying into original research?
This is also a problem because their claim that cameras cost lives has now been repeated in other Wikipedia articles. That is a serious concern to me. It is a claim which Smith actively refuses to put up to peer review. Guy (JzG)
Though there may be no published academic papers that challenges Smith's views directly, surely there are studies that attack his views indirectly? That is, surely there are studies showing, say, that driving over X km/h is intrinsically dangerous as it increases beyond some threshold the probability of dying or sustaining serious injury in the event of an accident. Moreover, I'd be very surprised were there not academic studies linking speed with higher accident incidence. (There are, after all, simple ways to test this: count the number of accidents before and after cameras were deployed in a certain stretch of road. So if A=accident, b=before cameras were installed and a=after cameras were installed, then if A(b) > A(a) then cameras improve safety. If A(b) < A(a) then cameras decrease safety, and if A(a) = A(b) then cameras don't have an effect).
Citing such "indirectly" critical published studies will, I am sure, go a long way towards improving the article.