[ simulcasted to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#Rel... ]
"Though he remains the president of the Wikimedia Foundation," ... "'He had the highest level of control, he was our leader,' a source told FoxNews.com. When asked who was in charge now, the source said, 'No one. It’s chaos.'"
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/14/exclusive-shake-wikipedia-porn-pre...
In the classic tradition of WP:POINT violation I very much want to go around to the "Wikimedia", "Wikipedia", and "Jimmy Wales" articles editing them to reflect these surrealist "facts" as reported by this "Reliable Source"... but that would be needlessly disruptive. (And I fear similarly inspired people would continue that initiative, grotesquely smearing Erik to reflect the repeated libel from prior articles.) So, for the purpose of discussion, imagine that I did.
Many of us have long been aware that the reporting in some professional media frequently has very little connection to reality. Many of us know that they usually perform little to no fact checking, and seldom even run their final drafts past someone with any experience in the relevant area for a sniff test. Since they apparently no longer suffer even the most minor harm from publishing some of the most outrageous errors, why should they? In particular, the online editions from many of these organizations appear to be fairly comparable to randomly selected blogs. Presumably they feel that they are just matching the qualities of their competition. So why do we treat them differently?
I don't believe that this is, by any means, only a problem with Fox although they might be the most obvious and frequent example.
Wikipedia reports what people say, not the truth of it— but we could report the words of a random blog in context exactly as we do Foxnews.com. We have an ethical obligation to not further misunderstanding when we know better, which is what I always saw as the most important justification for treating some sources as lesser than others.
We know high-profile groups with a reputation to lose are going to take more care to get it right, and that their errors are more likely to trigger others to publish corrections. We could reasonably speculate that their journalists' affiliation is primarily to the truth, and this might not be as true of other information sources. We can also argue that the views, even false ones, from a major news provider are obviously more notable.
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Can we really continue in denial when these so-called 'reliable sources' make such obvious and egregious errors about our own projects?
If nothing else, is it possible to write a circulation based criteria which reflects the reality that not all parts of a source have equal exposure?
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
I don't believe that this is, by any means, only a problem with Fox although they might be the most obvious and frequent example.
To a first approximation, mainstream media reporting about "Internet institutions" is largely worthless. They mostly know what a webpage is, and look at institutions in terms derived from models they know (the newspaper with its mainly top-down management, the technology corporation). Such reporting can be redeemed by worthly journalism that investigates what actually goes on.
The current rumpus being an example of WP being successfully trolled by Sanger with the cooperation of Fox, it is not really surprising that Fox's reporting is slanted. I think we can expect more of this: it is a position of honour, as far as taking the brunt of Rupert Murdoch's war recently declared on free content is concerned (with Google, of course, and the other search engine companies that dare take advantage of non-noindexed pages on the Web).
I think the conclusion should be that admins (such as the one quoted) who mouth off about the doings in the usual hyperbolic terms that we get used to on mailing lists, might have to reconsider their approach to commenting so freely in public, given that this is going to be war of attrition against tabloid tactics.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
I think the conclusion should be that admins (such as the one quoted) who mouth off about the doings in the usual hyperbolic terms that we get used to on mailing lists, might have to reconsider their approach to commenting so freely in public, given that this is going to be war of attrition against tabloid tactics.
A simpler representation: Don't feed the tabloids.
Ec
Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I think the conclusion should be that admins (such as the one quoted) who mouth off about the doings in the usual hyperbolic terms that we get used to on mailing lists, might have to reconsider their approach to commenting so freely in public, given that this is going to be war of attrition against tabloid tactics.
Are you saying admins are not reliable sources? ;-)
-SC
I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing with the public.
Emily On May 15, 2010, at 8:16 PM, stevertigo wrote:
Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I think the conclusion should be that admins (such as the one quoted) who mouth off about the doings in the usual hyperbolic terms that we get used to on mailing lists, might have to reconsider their approach to commenting so freely in public, given that this is going to be war of attrition against tabloid tactics.
Are you saying admins are not reliable sources? ;-)
-SC
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing with the public.
Well it's journalistically improper to use admins as sources. At the very least they would have to find an official cabal member.
-SC
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 9:28 PM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing with the public.
Well it's journalistically improper to use admins as sources. At the very least they would have to find an official cabal member.
Can someone point me to the admins as sources bit?
On IRC earlier today User:Ottava_Rima appeared to be claiming to be their source, though I could have been completely misunderstanding him.
On 15 May 2010 21:40, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 9:28 PM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing with the public.
Well it's journalistically improper to use admins as sources. At the very least they would have to find an official cabal member.
Can someone point me to the admins as sources bit?
On IRC earlier today User:Ottava_Rima appeared to be claiming to be their source, though I could have been completely misunderstanding him.
There were quotes from Foundation-L in the article, which is, I believe, what Charles was referring to. It's time to recognise that anyone, including reporters, can read those mailing lists; one doesn't even have to subscribe for some of them, I believe. So it is advisable that people think carefully about what they are saying, and to be aware that the audience is not limited to people who are active participants in the various communities.
Risker
Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
It's time to recognise that anyone, including reporters, can read those mailing lists; one doesn't even have to subscribe for some of them, I believe. So it is advisable that people think carefully about what they are saying, and to be aware that the audience is not limited to people who are active participants in the various communities.
Unless something has changed around here since 2005, we are not a closed community. Also we should regard anyone's participation on these forums as a part of our open mission to assist people around the world write informative articles about the things they know.
It is also natural that we should want employees of the most misinformed institutions, FoxNews being among them, to make use of our materials to better inform themselves.
-SC
Risker wrote:
On 15 May 2010 21:40, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 9:28 PM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I think Charles was saying that admins aren't always good at dealing with the public.
Well it's journalistically improper to use admins as sources. At the very least they would have to find an official cabal member.
Can someone point me to the admins as sources bit?
On IRC earlier today User:Ottava_Rima appeared to be claiming to be their source, though I could have been completely misunderstanding him.
There were quotes from Foundation-L in the article, which is, I believe, what Charles was referring to. It's time to recognise that anyone, including reporters, can read those mailing lists; one doesn't even have to subscribe for some of them, I believe. So it is advisable that people think carefully about what they are saying, and to be aware that the audience is not limited to people who are active participants in the various communities.
Obviously, with so many admins (maybe 1000 active and semi-active), a single admin's beefs don't count for that much. There is a whole spectrum of opinion on Jimbo (as on every other issue). Admins are not going to self-censor - it is not our way. But every opinion can be put in a measured manner: that is not, generally, our way either, but I think the advantages are apparent of _not_ using language like this:
"By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other".
This is classic WP-internal rhetoric, isn't it? It is designed to press buttons with those who, although notionally subscribing to "WP isn't a democracy", basically believe there is "no consensus that doesn't include me". It is quite possible to write "there were plenty who disagreed", without covering in batter, frying in lard, sprinkling with onion rings and cheese, placing under the grill. and serving with sparklers and a side-salad of old grievances.
Of course the story isn't a reliable source. Mainstream media reports are only sometimes reliable. We shouldn't be so doctrinaire, all round.
Charles
Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But every opinion can be put in a measured manner: that is not, generally, our way either, but I think the advantages are apparent of _not_ using language like this: "By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other". This is classic WP-internal rhetoric, isn't it? It is designed to press buttons with those who, although notionally subscribing to "WP isn't a democracy", basically believe there is "no consensus that doesn't include me". It is quite possible to write "there were plenty who disagreed", without covering in batter, frying in lard, sprinkling with onion rings and cheese, placing under the grill. and serving with sparklers and a side-salad of old grievances.
Keep in mind statements like those were made in the context of an action by Jimbo, wherein the issue of "consensus" was moot, because there was none.
The trend towards non-profit corporate culture has had a natural but unpleasant button-down effect. (And not to mention an inane corporate jargon effect - "assets" and "identity?")
-SC
stevertigo wrote:
Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
But every opinion can be put in a measured manner: that is not, generally, our way either, but I think the advantages are apparent of _not_ using language like this: "By rush-imposing his views and decisions on people who are not out of the debate yet, he is browbeating their inner self, ignoring their beliefs and opinions, discarding the value of the Other". This is classic WP-internal rhetoric, isn't it? It is designed to press buttons with those who, although notionally subscribing to "WP isn't a democracy", basically believe there is "no consensus that doesn't include me". It is quite possible to write "there were plenty who disagreed", without covering in batter, frying in lard, sprinkling with onion rings and cheese, placing under the grill. and serving with sparklers and a side-salad of old grievances.
Keep in mind statements like those were made in the context of an action by Jimbo, wherein the issue of "consensus" was moot, because there was none.
The trend towards non-profit corporate culture has had a natural but unpleasant button-down effect. (And not to mention an inane corporate jargon effect - "assets" and "identity?")
Well, I was keeping various things in mind. In our very own inane jargon, WP:BOLD is qualified by "Often it is easier to see that something is not right rather than to know exactly what /would/ be right", which is something of a plea for measured responses, and WP:BRD with "In a way, you're actively provoking another person with an edit they may (strongly) disagree on [...]". I actually don't see that the issue under discussion is a new type of issue. There is a new type of context, which is what I hoped to be addressing.
Charles
Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Well, I was keeping various things in mind. In our very own inane jargon, WP:BOLD is qualified by "Often it is easier to see that something is not right rather than to know exactly what /would/ be right", which is something of a plea for measured responses, and WP:BRD with "In a way, you're actively provoking another person with an edit they may (strongly) disagree on [...]". I actually don't see that the issue under discussion is a new type of issue. There is a new type of context, which is what I hoped to be addressing.
BRD: Read "mitgated but still adversarial editing cycle" (see [[WP:PX]] bottom entry). As much as I agree with the issue, Jimbo's BOLD action appears to have been a shock to the systems of a great number of people who had all this time thought that seriously bold actions required consensus-first. Wikimedia.
Hopefully Jimbo will soon write up his views as a formal argument and then in discussion we can weigh their validity. Just how arguments are weighed afterward is the interesting "context" as you put it.
-SC
To return to the topic of the original post, we have a practice of assuming reliability based on content categorization. We've never examined Fox News and determined "Fox News has substantial quality control at the editorial level, including fact checking and high journalistic standards." Similarly, our presumptive stance against citing blogs is not based on the evaluation of any particular blog. What Greg points out is that our generalizations fail, sometimes spectacularly, at the level of the individual source.
Obviously it would be an impossible task to study all potential sources and make a proactive determination of reliability. We hope to some extent that folks citing academic sources have vetted them in some way as to their credibility, but with mainstream news sources even that expectation is set aside. So instead, perhaps we could have a reactive policy of reassessing the assumption of reliability for specific sources based on a history of errors. When Fox News articles are shown to be riddled with errors of basic fact, indicating that no effort was made to verify claims, we should stop granting it the same deference we extend to other institutions with more integrity.
If I had any technical ability at all, I'd run some sort of query that would tell me how many times Fox News is cited inside reference tags. Perhaps evaluating a random sample of cited articles could tell us if their Wikimedia articles (citing a banned editor as the only non-public source quoted?) are representative or anomalous.
Nathan
There is no centralized place here for ruling on the reliability of particular sources. Competitors and sites like FactCheck.org suffice in most cases, and people deal with sources as they come up.
To my knowledge the particular news source you cite is generally not regarded as reliable on matters which have not been corroborated by other news sources beforehand. Do we give it an air of reputability to be cited here as a secondary source? Perhaps. But putting a label of "yellow journalism" on particular news outlets can only be done informally at the water-cooler.
-SC
Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
To return to the topic of the original post, we have a practice of assuming reliability based on content categorization. We've never examined Fox News and determined "Fox News has substantial quality control at the editorial level, including fact checking and high journalistic standards." Similarly, our presumptive stance against citing blogs is not based on the evaluation of any particular blog. What Greg points out is that our generalizations fail, sometimes spectacularly, at the level of the individual source.
Obviously it would be an impossible task to study all potential sources and make a proactive determination of reliability. We hope to some extent that folks citing academic sources have vetted them in some way as to their credibility, but with mainstream news sources even that expectation is set aside. So instead, perhaps we could have a reactive policy of reassessing the assumption of reliability for specific sources based on a history of errors. When Fox News articles are shown to be riddled with errors of basic fact, indicating that no effort was made to verify claims, we should stop granting it the same deference we extend to other institutions with more integrity.
If I had any technical ability at all, I'd run some sort of query that would tell me how many times Fox News is cited inside reference tags. Perhaps evaluating a random sample of cited articles could tell us if their Wikimedia articles (citing a banned editor as the only non-public source quoted?) are representative or anomalous.
Nathan wrote:
Obviously it would be an impossible task to study all potential sources and make a proactive determination of reliability. We hope to some extent that folks citing academic sources have vetted them in some way as to their credibility, but with mainstream news sources even that expectation is set aside. So instead, perhaps we could have a reactive policy of reassessing the assumption of reliability for specific sources based on a history of errors. When Fox News articles are shown to be riddled with errors of basic fact, indicating that no effort was made to verify claims, we should stop granting it the same deference we extend to other institutions with more integrity.
There are various WP articles that are in parts more explicit than WP:RS. And have the advantage of talking about broadly accepted approaches to "reliability", rather than representing the status quo on an endlessly-edited wiki page. [[Historical method]] may be the most interesting; [[source criticism]] and [[source evaluation]] also have something to say.
Charles
On Sun, 16 May 2010, Nathan wrote:
Obviously it would be an impossible task to study all potential sources and make a proactive determination of reliability. We hope to some extent that folks citing academic sources have vetted them in some way as to their credibility, but with mainstream news sources even that expectation is set aside. So instead, perhaps we could have a reactive policy of reassessing the assumption of reliability for specific sources based on a history of errors. When Fox News articles are shown to be riddled with errors of basic fact, indicating that no effort was made to verify claims, we should stop granting it the same deference we extend to other institutions with more integrity.
If "riddled with errors" means "has more (frequent) errors than other sources", then this makes some sense.
If "riddled with errors" means "has errors that we have recently had our attention called to" or "has errors that happen to be about some subject we are personally pissed off about", then it's a very bad idea.
On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
If "riddled with errors" means "has more (frequent) errors than other sources", then this makes some sense.
If "riddled with errors" means "has errors that we have recently had our attention called to" or "has errors that happen to be about some subject we are personally pissed off about", then it's a very bad idea.
I agree, and that's why I suggested any decision to "delist" a source as presumptively reliable be based on an analysis of a selection of published content. Shmuel wrote that the purpose of identifying reliable sources is to keep editors from making stuff up -- but we exclude all sorts of sources that aren't editors making stuff up, based on a potentially faulty assumption about their editorial review. So rather than aiming to prohibit hoaxes, rules about RS are an attempt to weed out chronically unreliable sources. If we find that a traditionally reliable source of facts has become chronically unreliable, then it should face the same scrutiny as blogs or personal websites prior to being cited.
Nathan
On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 3:10 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
There were quotes from Foundation-L in the article, which is, I believe, what Charles was referring to. It's time to recognise that anyone, including reporters, can read those mailing lists; one doesn't even have to subscribe for some of them, I believe. So it is advisable that people think carefully about what they are saying, and to be aware that the audience is not limited to people who are active participants in the various communities.
Next thing you know, journalists will be reporting from blogs by Wikipedians and Wikimedians, Wikimedia blogs (some of those are semi-official at least) and even (gasp) from Wikipedia or Commons discussion pages! Some of the attitude displayed on internal project pages is rather shocking to anyone not used to the culture there, and despite some people saying (this is a hypothetical quote, not an actual one) "hey, maybe we could try and have a calm and reasonable debate without mud-slinging and personal insults"?
i.e. the level of internal debate sometimes degenerates badly, but that has always been the case.
Carcharoth
Carcharoth wrote:
Next thing you know, journalists will be reporting from blogs by Wikipedians and Wikimedians, Wikimedia blogs (some of those are semi-official at least) and even (gasp) from Wikipedia or Commons discussion pages! Some of the attitude displayed on internal project pages is rather shocking to anyone not used to the culture there, and despite some people saying (this is a hypothetical quote, not an actual one) "hey, maybe we could try and have a calm and reasonable debate without mud-slinging and personal insults"?
i.e. the level of internal debate sometimes degenerates badly, but that has always been the case.
It has always been something of a luxury. We all know this stuff: Don't force the issue/treat other editors as colleagues/don't come across like the The Self-Righteous Brothers (see [[Harry Enfield's Television Programme]]). That's one-and-a-half reasons against "executive decisions", plus one-and-a-half reasons for treating the decisions of others on their actual merits.
Has never stopped anybody much from creating drama. Fodder for WR and ED becomes fodder for WR, ED and Fox.
Why change the habits of a lifetime? Those who argue from abstract principles about our "local governance" will continue to do so. But it would be good if strongly-held opinions were relegated to blogs, in cases where the holder cannot help being divisive.
Charles **
On 15 May 2010 15:12, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/14/exclusive-shake-wikipedia-porn-pre...
From the unflattering photograph of Jimmy wearing a vacant expression
and with his mouth open, I suspect the article will be of the same anti-Wikipedia vein as previous coverage of this topic by FOX News. That, though, is secondary to the tenet that everything produced by FOX is unfit to be called journalism.
The feature says that
Essentially… [Jimbo] has gone from having free reign over the content and people involved in the websites
How many years have passed since Jimbo's role in the project has been more than ceremonial? Around three, as a conservative guess?
AGK
AGK wrote:
On 15 May 2010 15:12, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/14/exclusive-shake-wikipedia-porn-pre...
From the unflattering photograph of Jimmy wearing a vacant expression
and with his mouth open, I suspect the article will be of the same anti-Wikipedia vein as previous coverage of this topic by FOX News. That, though, is secondary to the tenet that everything produced by FOX is unfit to be called journalism.
The feature says that
Essentially… [Jimbo] has gone from having free reign over the content and people involved in the websites
How many years have passed since Jimbo's role in the project has been more than ceremonial? Around three, as a conservative guess?
Personally my favorite sentence is:
"After much pressure from within the Wikipedia community, co-founder Jimmy Wales has relinquished his top-level control over the encyclopedia's content, as well as all of its parent company's projects."
"parent company's" ?
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"Though he remains the president of the Wikimedia Foundation," ... "'He had the highest level of control, he was our leader,' a source told FoxNews.com. When asked who was in charge now, the source said, 'No one. It’s chaos.'"
I'm not sure what the issue with this news article is. It is essentially accurate. It sounds funny, but the fact is that Jimbo had the ability and the authority to make unilateral decisions before, and now he's given some of that up.
Sure the news has a slant, is sensationalized, and bears the inaccuracy of being written by a non-community member for non-community members, but it remains as accurate as could be expected.
The purpose of requiring reliable sources is so that people can't make things up and put them in the articles. Using this as a source will show more or less the truth. Unfortunately it is a limitation of general news media that it always distorts whatever it reports and there is no good reason to consider any news reports as reliable, especially when it comes to details.
Shmuel Weidberg wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"Though he remains the president of the Wikimedia Foundation," ... "'He had the highest level of control, he was our leader,' a source told FoxNews.com. When asked who was in charge now, the source said, 'No one. It’s chaos.'"
I'm not sure what the issue with this news article is. It is essentially accurate. It sounds funny, but the fact is that Jimbo had the ability and the authority to make unilateral decisions before, and now he's given some of that up.
We all have the "authority" to make unilateral decisions on a wiki we edit. That's not the point, never has been the point. Fundamentally wiki editing is about who has permission to do what (which could be described as to do with access, not authority). If Jimbo edits and gets reverted, this is a "normal" wiki situation. The trouble with "in charge" is that it postulates a notional power structure which has never actually existed. In fact under the heading of "office actions" there would be more of that around than before. Trying to analyse enWP in particular, which is not the same as the other 700-odd WMF wikis and has been anomalous for at least five years, in terms of its power structure, usually leads into garden-variety troll talk. If you like, it is an elementary blame game, and is the normal first move of some critics. The insight that "it's the community, stupid" is quite lacking in that analysis.
Sure the news has a slant, is sensationalized, and bears the inaccuracy of being written by a non-community member for non-community members, but it remains as accurate as could be expected.
It would be more "accurate" if it didn't rely on selective quotation to put forward, tendentiously, a bizarrely wrong version of what is true on the ground. It is not true that anyone can now run a bot on enWP, for example, which really would be chaos. It is not true that no one is now baby-sitting key policy pages. I don't suppose that admins are blocking people using very different criteria, this week. On these measures of "control", which apply to reality on the site, what has changed?
Look, the "command and control" idea of how to run a wiki encyclopedia is so bad a model of enWP as to constitute a classic "straw man". So the argument put forward is a fairly basic fallacy.
The purpose of requiring reliable sources is so that people can't make things up and put them in the articles. Using this as a source will show more or less the truth. Unfortunately it is a limitation of general news media that it always distorts whatever it reports and there is no good reason to consider any news reports as reliable, especially when it comes to details.
Well, I agree with that, to the extent that the Fox report could be taken as "professional" at the level of not verbally mangling the quotes. Beyond that it doesn't constitute good, objective journalism.
Charles
On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 5:19 AM, Shmuel Weidberg ezrawax@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"Though he remains the president of the Wikimedia Foundation," ... "'He had the highest level of control, he was our leader,' a source told FoxNews.com. When asked who was in charge now, the source said, 'No one. It’s chaos.'"
I'm not sure what the issue with this news article is. It is essentially accurate. It sounds funny, but the fact is that Jimbo had the ability and the authority to make unilateral decisions before, and now he's given some of that up.
Sure the news has a slant, is sensationalized, and bears the inaccuracy of being written by a non-community member for non-community members, but it remains as accurate as could be expected.
The purpose of requiring reliable sources is so that people can't make things up and put them in the articles. Using this as a source will show more or less the truth. Unfortunately it is a limitation of general news media that it always distorts whatever it reports and there is no good reason to consider any news reports as reliable, especially when it comes to details.
Jimmy isn't the president of the Wikimedia foundation. He's one of ten board members as has been the case for years (well, the number of board members has changed). Michael Snow is the chair of the board. Jimmy is the president of _wikia_, an unrelated commercial wiki host, as noted on his WP bio page, which I guess is the origin of this clam which has since been regurgitated by several other journalists.
Continuing the pattern, A majority of the non-trivial statement of fact in the article are incorrect.
"has relinquished his top-level control over the encyclopedia's content... Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content"
He's still an administrator on the english Wikipedia, able to delete page and, like everyone else, edit content, though he'd has already long since voluntarily declined to perform blocking there due to the resulting drama.
Even substituting commons, he's never been a visible participant in the commons community, certainly not a leader there for which there is now a vacuum. He still has the same ability to edit there— but not the authority of "a low level administrator", he now has the same technical abilities there as the general public.
This also greatly misunderstands the structural model involved. Charles Matthews explained it better than I could.
"their existence was revealed exclusively by FoxNews.com", Fox was only reporting on the letter by sanger which had been widely circulated its author, and was covered by the register. Not exactly an exclusive.
"he'd ordered that thousands more be purged", that isn't correct. He performed a some deletions himself and indicated strong support for other persons who would delete things. This isn't an order. They could have factually claimed that he ordered people not to undelete things, but that is not the same. It's also continuing the implication that Jimmy has the authority to order such things, but he didn't.
"Wales had personally deleted many of the images" this is correct, though perhaps a bit misleading: Jimmy personally deleted 70 images, which might count as 'many', but it's out of 450 or so total deleted images, or out of a few thousands of fairly explicit images most of which weren't deleted.
"Now many of those images have been restored to their original web pages." Holy crap, a non trivial factual statement which isn't wrong or misleading.
"Hundreds of listserve discussions among Wikimedia board members..." okay, well, hundreds of _messages_. This is basically accurate too, but not all that informative.
"which legal analysts say may violate pornography and obscenity laws" No one competent would say it did after an analysis of the facts, but anyone can say "may"— so this isn't helpful or informative. If they gave a name with a reputation to uphold and they made a statement stronger than a completely empty "may" it might be interesting. The author of the Fox news article _may_ be a Ewok from the planet Endor.
"The debate heated up when FoxNews.com began contacting high profile corporations" This isn't accurate, it implies a chain of causality that doesn't exist. To the best of my knowledge, Jimmys first actions on commons happened before anyone at Wikimedia was aware of Fox's activities.
"Several of those donors contacted the foundation to inquire about the thousands of images" I know for a fact that some simply called to warn that Fox was trying to stir up trouble, though I suppose some could have inquired about images on the site. I don't see how fox would have any factual way of knowing about the content of any calls placed by donors.
"There also are graphic photo images of(...)" The word also implies that the "child pornography" they mentioned people asking about in the prior sentence was also hosted on the site— but they are very careful to avoid making that bogus allegation directly. No doubt they've been amply lawyer-slapped after their prior slanderous statements. That point is misleading, but the rest of the classes of images do exist and are accessible as they say.
As a matter of rule commons does not host things which are illegal in the US, although it often doesn't stop much short of the limit of the law!
"When the donors started calling, Wales immediately" as mentioned, not accurate.
"This led to outrage among the sites' many volunteer editors and administrators" okay, that is correct.
Most of the rest are quotes. I'll assume that they accurately quoted without checking. What they didn't do is apply good scholarship to contextualize and weight the quotes— from a sourcing perspective on the quotes the fox article would be no better than going to the primary sources directly.
Basically there is very little in the way of true and not misleading factual information in the article. On the balance, the bulk of it is unattributed opinions, trivialities, and inaccurate, or misleading things.
You could make an argument that the article might give an uninvolved party a reasonable "feel" for the situation, but there still would be effectively no way to incorporate the _facts_ from this article into Wikipedia in a manner which would not reduce the accuracy of the encyclopaedia. We use citations to source the factual details of our articles, and this work generally gets the details wrong.
On 17 May 2010 14:57, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
You could make an argument that the article might give an uninvolved party a reasonable "feel" for the situation, but there still would be effectively no way to incorporate the _facts_ from this article into Wikipedia in a manner which would not reduce the accuracy of the encyclopaedia. We use citations to source the factual details of our articles, and this work generally gets the details wrong.
The article is basically not even wrong. And that's because they really don't care, and literally just made up some shit:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/jimmy-wales-fox-news-is-wrong-no-shakeup/
Sources of this type, even if owned by a large media company, need to be taken with an extra grain of salt.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
The article is basically not even wrong. And that's because they really don't care, and literally just made up some shit:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/jimmy-wales-fox-news-is-wrong-no-shakeup/
Sources of this type, even if owned by a large media company, need to be taken with an extra grain of salt.
I would say the point of the Fox article is the subtext: no one rules the WMF, ergo they would have no way to comply with legal requirements such as a take-down order. NB the subtle solecism "free reign" (for "free rein") that turns the wiki ideal on its head, and the wholely misleading suggestion that Jimbo could ever "assign projects" as man-management (other than to employees), rather than operate as a "low-level administrator" does, by building small teams.
Charles
On 17 May 2010 16:32, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I would say the point of the Fox article is the subtext: no one rules the WMF, ergo they would have no way to comply with legal requirements such as a take-down order. NB the subtle solecism "free reign" (for "free rein") that turns the wiki ideal on its head, and the wholely misleading suggestion that Jimbo could ever "assign projects" as man-management (other than to employees), rather than operate as a "low-level administrator" does, by building small teams.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it has that much point; it constructs a plausible fictional description that would be accepted by people who don't know how Wikipedia works.
On his SharedKnowing list, Dr Sanger notes he's just joined Wikipedia Review and heartily recommends it to all.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On his SharedKnowing list, Dr Sanger notes he's just joined Wikipedia Review and heartily recommends it to all.
Yes, an ideal place to complain about getting blocked from enWP for editing [[Talk:History of Wikipedia]] on the assumption that Wikimedia Commons is part of the 'pedia. Still, it's after his time as editor, and they'll make him welcome on WR. Plenty of room in the [[Cave of Adullam]].
Charles
On 17 May 2010 16:38, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On his SharedKnowing list, Dr Sanger notes he's just joined Wikipedia Review and heartily recommends it to all.
I can almost hear the screeching of his axe.
AGK
David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The article is basically not even wrong. And that's because they really don't care, and literally just made up some >shit: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/jimmy-wales- fox-news-is-wrong-no-shakeup/ Sources of this type, even if owned by a large media company, need to be taken with an extra grain of salt.
And then there is this idea that Jimbo has relinquished actual authority by giving up some functional capacities, when he plainly said in about as many words this was a symbolic gesture to diffuse and refocus criticism. The naive reader might think it means "shakedown", we who've been around for a while know that functional flags can be turned off an on, and Jimbo doesn't edit Wikipedia anyway.
-SC
On 17 May 2010 20:45, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
when he plainly said in about as many words this was a symbolic gesture to diffuse and refocus criticism
Mhrm, that's arguable. The flags that Jimbo relinquished meant that he could no longer do such things as delete Commons images. That's far from symbolic; in fact, it essentially is him resigning rights that the community had began to angrily demand be taken away from him.
AGK
AGK wrote:
On 17 May 2010 20:45, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
when he plainly said in about as many words this was a symbolic gesture to diffuse and refocus criticism
Mhrm, that's arguable. The flags that Jimbo relinquished meant that he could no longer do such things as delete Commons images. That's far from symbolic; in fact, it essentially is him resigning rights that the community had began to angrily demand be taken away from him.
I think the "symbolic" part of Jimbo's place in the overall "constitution" (definitely scare quotes) is rather significant, though. There are three ways in which Jimbo interacts with the community:
1. direct editing or admin action; 2. exhortation and "pulling strings", i.e. getting others to do the things under 1; 3. the business he not inaccurately compares with being a constitutional monarch.
Of those (1) has been of minimal use in recent years, simply because it attracts so much attention. The current furore is perhaps the point at which it hits the buffers. Method (2) is how one expects a Board member to act. The point about (3) is that it is far from a dead letter on enWP, but its traction is much more tenuous elsewhere. It is perhaps not entirely coincidental that we are talking about Commons, which is not "disjoint" from enWP in the way that other wikis are.
Coming from a country without a written constitution, with a constitutional monarch, and where the monarch's role has been thoroughly debated over recent days, I may find this rather more intuitively accessible than those who assume constitutions are well-defined and "leaders" have to "act".
Charles
On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Jimmy isn't the president of the Wikimedia foundation.
True, and that's the one really egregious error.
Continuing the pattern, A majority of the non-trivial statement of fact in the article are incorrect.
"has relinquished his top-level control over the encyclopedia's content... Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content"
He's still an administrator on the english Wikipedia, able to delete page and, like everyone else, edit content, though he'd has already long since voluntarily declined to perform blocking there due to the resulting drama.
Wow, so he's able to delete content on *one* of the 200+ languages of Wikipedia. I'd still say the statement is substantially correct. He used to have unlimited power on every project to do anything. Now he's administrator on one project, and has the ability to view certain things that other people can't view on every project.
"their existence was revealed exclusively by FoxNews.com", Fox was
only reporting on the letter by sanger which had been widely circulated its author, and was covered by the register. Not exactly an exclusive.
Eh, I guess. The whole "revealed exclusively by X" has about as much meaning in practice as "100% natural".
"he'd ordered that thousands more be purged", that isn't correct. He performed a some deletions himself and indicated strong support for other persons who would delete things. This isn't an order.
I'd say that's a minor wording nitpick. Yeah, it's sensationalized, but it's certainly substantially correct.
"Wales had personally deleted many of the images" this is correct,
Yep.
"Now many of those images have been restored to their original web pages." Holy crap, a non trivial factual statement which isn't wrong or misleading.
Yep.
"Hundreds of listserve discussions among Wikimedia board members..."
okay, well, hundreds of _messages_. This is basically accurate too,
Yep.
"which legal analysts say may violate pornography and obscenity laws" No one competent would say it did after an analysis of the facts, but anyone can say "may"— so this isn't helpful or informative.
So another correct statement. Yep.
"The debate heated up when FoxNews.com began contacting high profile corporations" This isn't accurate, it implies a chain of causality that doesn't exist. To the best of my knowledge, Jimmys first actions on commons happened before anyone at Wikimedia was aware of Fox's activities.
Do you have some sort of insider knowledge on that? The deletions were performed on the same day the news story broke. Obviously the contacts were made before that. I find it hard to believe none of the donors would have tipped off "anyone at Wikimedia".
If you do have some sort of insider knowledge, let's hear it. When exactly is the first instance of a donor contacting "anyone at Wikimedia" that you are aware of?
"Several of those donors contacted the foundation to inquire about the thousands of images" I know for a fact that some simply called to warn that Fox was trying to stir up trouble, though I suppose some could have inquired about images on the site. I don't see how fox would have any factual way of knowing about the content of any calls placed by donors.
You don't? It's certainly possible *they told them*.
Maybe this is factually correct, and maybe it isn't.
"There also are graphic photo images of(...)" The word also implies
that the "child pornography" they mentioned people asking about in the prior sentence was also hosted on the site— but they are very careful to avoid making that bogus allegation directly. No doubt they've been amply lawyer-slapped after their prior slanderous statements. That point is misleading, but the rest of the classes of images do exist and are accessible as they say.
I really can't figure out what you're talking about here. Quoting the entire paragraph: "Several of those donors contacted the foundation to inquire about the thousands of images on Wikimedia’s servers that could be considered child pornography. There also are graphic photo images of male and female genitalia, men and women or groups of people involved in sexual acts, images of masturbation and other pornographic material — all of which can be viewed by children at most public schools, where students are encouraged to use Wikipedia as a source encyclopedia." Okay, so we don't know whether or not there were actually several donors that contacted the foundation about the images. The rest of it seems perfectly accurate.
As a matter of rule commons does not host things which are illegal in the US, although it often doesn't stop much short of the limit of the law!
Just because there is a rule against hosting things which are illegal in the US doesn't mean that rule is being followed.
"When the donors started calling, Wales immediately" as mentioned, not accurate.
How do you know? You don't even know when the donors started calling, or if they started calling before or after Wales started his deletion spree. In any case, the word "immediately" is obviously not meant to be taken literally.
"This led to outrage among the sites' many volunteer editors and administrators" okay, that is correct.
Yep.
Most of the rest are quotes.
A very good selection of quotes, in my opinion.
What they didn't do is apply good scholarship to contextualize and weight the quotes— from a sourcing perspective on the quotes the fox article would be no better than going to the primary sources directly.
Are you kidding me? How many messages were there on the mailing lists? Very few of us have the time to read through all that crap. And taking a random selection would be no better.
I was quite impressed by the selection of quotes. Having read through the mailing lists as it happened, it was a great excerpt of exactly the quotes they needed to show their point.
You could make an argument that the article might give an uninvolved
party a reasonable "feel" for the situation, but there still would be effectively no way to incorporate the _facts_ from this article into Wikipedia in a manner which would not reduce the accuracy of the encyclopaedia.
One of the basic problems with the idea of Wikipedia, really. For anything but the most uncontroversial of facts, "verifiability, not truth" just doesn't work.
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
This is more an indication that we need to start using blogs as sources rather than that we have a problem with how we use major media.
I recently had to leave a one-sided paragraph in [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]:
For many years, Bradley actively encouraged Darkover fan fiction and reprinted some of it in commercial Darkover anthologies, continuing to encourage submissions from unpublished authors, but this ended after a dispute with a fan over an unpublished Darkover novel of Bradley's that had similarities to some of the fan's stories. As a result, the novel remained unpublished, and Bradley demanded the cessation of all Darkover fan fiction.
We have the fan's side of this. It puts a very different spin on things, but it's in a Usenet post in the thread at http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/2649... and it's completely unusuable under Wikipedia sourcing policies (even as a self-published source, since it makes claims about other people).
On May 15, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Two reasons. 1) Egregious anti-expert bias. 2) A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the written record of humanity.
1) Our policies are explicitly and deliberately written to try to allow content decisions to be made without any actual knowledge of the subject. That is, we have actively tried to write policy that rejects any thinking about sources beyond the surface level readings, and that take as a premise that, given a large enough pile of books, anybody can adequately write or edit an article on any topic. This premise is dubious at best.
2) We also make the actively false assumption that all significant knowledge is written down, and that the written record is simply a transcription of human knowledge. Neither statement is true - in virtually every field of knowledge, because fields of knowledge organize around communities, there is a substantial oral tradition of disseminated knowledge that is often crucial to understanding the overall subject. The contents of this oral tradition may be written down, but not in a systemic and organized way, while in practice the oral tradition often is fairly systemic. At its most basic level, this translates to "There are things in any field that everybody knows, and since everybody knows them nobody has bothered to write them down."
The combination results in a badly distended view of knowledge that has wrecked more than a handful of articles on Wikipedia.
Best, Phil Sandifer
On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On May 15, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Two reasons. 1) Egregious anti-expert bias. 2) A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the written record of humanity.
- Our policies are explicitly and deliberately written to try to allow content decisions to be made without any actual knowledge of the subject. That is, we have actively tried to write policy that rejects any thinking about sources beyond the surface level readings, and that take as a premise that, given a large enough pile of books, anybody can adequately write or edit an article on any topic. This premise is dubious at best.
While I don't think content decisions should be made from a position of ignorance about a subject, I would disagree with your last sentence. I think it *is* possible for a reasonably educated person, given a reasonably large pile of books, to write an *adequate* article on most topics (there are exceptions). Not the best article, and not an error-free article, but a good enough start that it shouldn't be rejected out of hand. Where the article goes from there is another matter, and in many cases some form of expert peer review is needed to have reasonable confidence in stating that an article is in any way "good". The key is that the layperson writing the article needs to *welcome* input from others. When people try to protect the article they have written and exclude others, and refuse to discuss changes, then you start to get problems.
- We also make the actively false assumption that all significant knowledge is written down, and that the written record is simply a transcription of human knowledge. Neither statement is true - in virtually every field of knowledge, because fields of knowledge organize around communities, there is a substantial oral tradition of disseminated knowledge that is often crucial to understanding the overall subject. The contents of this oral tradition may be written down, but not in a systemic and organized way, while in practice the oral tradition often is fairly systemic. At its most basic level, this translates to "There are things in any field that everybody knows, and since everybody knows them nobody has bothered to write them down."
This I agree with.
The combination results in a badly distended view of knowledge that has wrecked more than a handful of articles on Wikipedia.
Some examples may help.
Carcharoth
On Thu, 20 May 2010, Carcharoth wrote:
The combination results in a badly distended view of knowledge that has wrecked more than a handful of articles on Wikipedia.
Some examples may help.
I already gave an example of the Marion Zimmer Bradley article: a published author has a dispute with a fan. The published author's side of the story is in normal sources. The fan's side of the story is self-published. Wikipedia won't accept self-published sources that make claims about other people; therefore, only one side of the story gets into Wikipedia.
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On May 15, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Two reasons. 1) Egregious anti-expert bias. 2) A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the written record of humanity.
Our policies are explicitly and deliberately written to try to allow content decisions to be made without any actual knowledge of the subject. That is, we have actively tried to write policy that rejects any thinking about sources beyond the surface level readings, and that take as a premise that, given a large enough pile of books, anybody can adequately write or edit an article on any topic. This premise is dubious at best.
We also make the actively false assumption that all significant knowledge is written down, and that the written record is simply a transcription of human knowledge. Neither statement is true - in virtually every field of knowledge, because fields of knowledge organize around communities, there is a substantial oral tradition of disseminated knowledge that is often crucial to understanding the overall subject. The contents of this oral tradition may be written down, but not in a systemic and organized way, while in practice the oral tradition often is fairly systemic. At its most basic level, this translates to "There are things in any field that everybody knows, and since everybody knows them nobody has bothered to write them down."
The combination results in a badly distended view of knowledge that has wrecked more than a handful of articles on Wikipedia.
Second try at sending this... here goes nothing. (gmail, man up!)
While this is not a reply specifically to what Greg raises, it is a fact that we aren't just giving the cold shoulder to "silent knowledge", but also stuff written down in a language not our own, when it happens to exist.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On 21 May 2010 04:40, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
While this is not a reply specifically to what Greg raises, it is a fact that we aren't just giving the cold shoulder to "silent knowledge", but also stuff written down in a language not our own, when it happens to exist.
That's not quite true, you are allowed to add references to material written in foreign languages, and I've seen it done a few times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VER#Non-English_sources
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
On May 21, 2010, at 12:17 AM, Ian Woollard wrote:
On 21 May 2010 04:40, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
While this is not a reply specifically to what Greg raises, it is a fact that we aren't just giving the cold shoulder to "silent knowledge", but also stuff written down in a language not our own, when it happens to exist.
That's not quite true, you are allowed to add references to material written in foreign languages, and I've seen it done a few times.
Permission, however, does not anywhere close to adequately translate into execution. We do not exclude non-English sources on a policy level, but on a social level, we heavily do.
-Phil
On 21/05/2010, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Permission, however, does not anywhere close to adequately translate into execution. We do not exclude non-English sources on a policy level, but on a social level, we heavily do.
Well, the last guy I saw removing non English refs ended up getting perma-banned.
-Phil
On May 21, 2010, at 1:45 PM, Ian Woollard wrote:
On 21/05/2010, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Permission, however, does not anywhere close to adequately translate into execution. We do not exclude non-English sources on a policy level, but on a social level, we heavily do.
Well, the last guy I saw removing non English refs ended up getting perma-banned.
Yeah, but the last guy I saw adding them was...
Umm...
Right, there's the issue.
-Phil
On 21/05/2010, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, but the last guy I saw adding them was...
Umm...
Right, there's the issue.
What issue? We don't want people removing valid references. In many cases references are the most important bits of the whole article.
Note that sock puppet abuse is covered by policy also, using a sock to repeatedly remove references will certainly get you blocked, as this individual involved found out.
I would argue the other way- sticking to English-only references is unequivocally harmful for the project.
-Phil
On May 21, 2010, at 3:10 PM, Ian Woollard wrote:
On 21/05/2010, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, but the last guy I saw adding them was...
Umm...
Right, there's the issue.
What issue? We don't want people removing valid references. In many cases references are the most important bits of the whole article.
Note that sock puppet abuse is covered by policy also, using a sock to repeatedly remove references will certainly get you blocked, as this individual involved found out.
I would argue the other way- sticking to English-only references is unequivocally harmful for the project.
You're missing my sarcasm.
Yes, we do a good job of punishing removal of non-English references. But we still do an awful job of *adding* non-English references.
-Phil
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On May 15, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
But I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Two reasons. 1) Egregious anti-expert bias. 2) A fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the written record of humanity.
- Our policies are explicitly and deliberately written to try to allow content decisions to be made without any actual knowledge of the subject. That is, we have actively tried to write policy that rejects any thinking about sources beyond the surface level readings, and that take as a premise that, given a large enough pile of books, anybody can adequately write or edit an article on any topic. This premise is dubious at best.
I don't believe that there is such a thing as a reliable source. Most people will believe exactly what they want to believe, with a remarkable preference for not having their beliefs encumbered by facts. Data from the corporate world is presumed to be biased in all of its details. While corporations will indeed spin information to their own advantage, it's still important to recognize what comes from their own documentation as proof of what they say about themselves. If a corporation claims that its product is "Made in the U.S.A." that needs to be noted, but so too must it be shown if its claim is based solely on legal technicalities.
- We also make the actively false assumption that all significant knowledge is written down, and that the written record is simply a transcription of human knowledge. Neither statement is true - in virtually every field of knowledge, because fields of knowledge organize around communities, there is a substantial oral tradition of disseminated knowledge that is often crucial to understanding the overall subject. The contents of this oral tradition may be written down, but not in a systemic and organized way, while in practice the oral tradition often is fairly systemic. At its most basic level, this translates to "There are things in any field that everybody knows, and since everybody knows them nobody has bothered to write them down."
It takes a certain degree of sophistication and wisdom to grasp that. As a society we manage to support a fallacy of certainty that rejects any information that has not been rigorously proven. In Lilla's article, "The Tea Party Jacobins" (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/tea-party-jacobins/?pag... ), he observes:
Americans are and have always been credulous skeptics. They question the authority of priests, then talk to the dead; they second-guess their cardiologists, then seek out quacks in the jungle. Like people in every society, they do this in moments of crisis when things seem hopeless. They also, unlike people in other societies, do it on the general principle that expertise and authority are inherently suspect.
In theory the skepticism protects us from quacks and scammers, but not without a cost. In medicine innovative treatments are often rejected solely because they have not received rigorous testing, never mind that funding for such testing is unavailable because no-one wants to fund research into unproven technologies. In areas that are less life-critical, such as history, premises are even less likely to be questioned.
There is more to this than simple unwritten information. Expressions become idiomatic and remain so long after the underlying context and zeitgeist have disappeared. A "tight rein" becomes a "tight reign" to those whose buggies are all automotive.
In the preface to "The Annotated Lolita" Alfred Appel brings our attention to a point where Valeria, Humbert's first wife, was "deep in 'Paris-Soir'." If you don't know that this newspaper was a part of the sensationalist press of the time, you will certainly be more disadvantaged in understanding the situation. Notwithstanding, the story would become laborious if the author had to explain every detail in remembrance of lost allusions.
Ec
At 04:08 AM 5/23/2010, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
On May 15, 2010, at 10:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
[...]I can't say that these points really apply in many cases that we appear to be applying them: We would reject as reliable sources many hobbyist blogs (or even webcomics) with a stronger reputation to preserve, less obviously-compromised motivations, and _significantly_ greater circulation than some obscure corner of Fox News's online product. What can be the explanation for this discrepancy?
Two reasons. 1) Egregious anti-expert bias. 2) A fundamental
misunderstanding of the nature of the written record of humanity.
- Our policies are explicitly and deliberately written to try to
allow content decisions to be made without any actual knowledge of the subject. That is, we have actively tried to write policy that rejects any thinking about sources beyond the surface level readings, and that take as a premise that, given a large enough pile of books, anybody can adequately write or edit an article on any topic. This premise is dubious at best.
Indeed. We needed the adhocracy to rapidly develop a broad project, but we failed to incorporate and implement procedures to move beyond that, imagining, I suspect, that we could do it "later." But by the time "later" arrived, constituencies had formed that were broad enough, at the core, to prevent the necessary extensions. It's a common problem with organizations that work when small but break down as the scale increases.
Given that projects based on the idea that experts -- i.e., professionals -- should control articles, for free distribution, failed, what would have remained was "amateur experts," who will, indeed, freely contribute content. But an impolite term for "amateur expert" is "POV-pusher." (The parallel term for professional expert is "COI POV-pusher." Experts are rarely neutral!) Experts, however, will not make stupid misinterpretations of sources, as routinely happens with non-experts, and as even often happens with professional media, as anyone who is closely familiar with a topic has become accustomed to noticing when an article appears in a newspaper on what they know.
The potential is for Wikipedia to do better than professional media, but it would require structure that was not developed. The key is that experts, indeed, should not control articles, but those who will use the articles should. An expert opinion that is not effective in communication to non-experts is useless except perhaps as a salvo in a battle between experts. Those of us who *need* a neutral encyclopedia will want to insist that expert opinin is used to prevent stupid mistakes, but that where there is variation in expert opinion, it is fairly represented so that we can understand the range of views. Wikipedia sometimes does well with this, but not when political debates and entrenched positions exist between experts.
I argued, in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, that those claiming expertise should be considered COI, which was preposterously taken as asserting that they should be sanctioned, a revealing assumption indeed. No, they should be protected, simply not allowed to *control* articles, but rather invited and encouraged to *advise* the community, and to point out supporting sources where possible. It will not always be possible, or it may be possible, but only with more work than we can expect an expert to contribute. At one point, there was some practice of, where a controversy broke out in an article where expert opinion could be valuable, seeking out expert opinion by emailing experts. That's what a professional encyclopedia would have done. In peer-reviewed journals, "private communication with X" as a source is often seen. We did use and should have continued to use this, as equivalent to unreviewed opinion from someone reasonably expected to have an informed opinion. (It's the same as a blog opinion by a recognized expert, an example of where self-published work is sometimes allowed.)
None of this will work without true consensus process in place. The famous "anti-expert bias" of Wikipedia was a result of failing to develop such process. Obviously, genuine consensus process should not and would not exclude experts!
I don't believe that there is such a thing as a reliable source. Most people will believe exactly what they want to believe, with a remarkable preference for not having their beliefs encumbered by facts.
That's the default, without deliberative process. Because deliberative process can be tedious and can more or less force people to re-examine their beliefs (or abandon the discussion and decision, or turn it into a battle and personality conflict), and because such process was not formalized early on, it has been and continues to be interrupted, and those with special privileges, or with bias that they do not wish to examine, often see it as a waste of time.
Ray is correct in the sense that no source is fully reliable, just as no editor is fully neutral, unless ignorant, which sets up quite a conflict in an adhocracy that assumes neutrality for adequate function!
Relative reliability and relative neutrality are possible, though. In any case, for Wikipedia, "reliable" is a term of art and does not mean that a fact or unattributed opinion found in such a source (deemed "reliable" because of the nature of the publication) is necessarily true, just that it is, ipso facto, sufficiently notable that neutrality requires it be included in the mix of a neutral article, directly or indirectly, not excluded unless possibly redundant to what is included. That's policy, in fact, confirmed by ArbComm, but when we stray into the obsessions of the anti-fringe interest groups, it has been commonly ignored.
Neutrality is fundamental Wikipedia policy, but an error was made, an assumption that any editor or even group of editors, unless very broadly inclusive, can solely judge "neutrality." Bias in text may only be detectable by those who have a contrary bias or POV. Thus the fundamental policy required consensus process, not merely majority or even supermajority rule. "Consensus process" does not mean that everyone, in the end, agrees, but it requires that such agreement be earnestly sought, because whenever a view is excluded and disregarded, there is a risk to neutrality. If neutrality is important, and it certainly is, then, the goal of full consensus must be respected. And I certainly found, in my on-wiki experience, that it is not, and in RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, I was astonished to see so many administrators openly express that it was preposterous to seek full consensus. I did not think they would be so bold.