English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

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Re: [WikiEN-l] An example of a bad...

Gregory Maxwell

22 Apr 2008 22 Apr '08

5:27 p.m.

In a recent discussion on the Wiki someone made a proposal which began "In the case of biographies of living people, where a number of editors have expressed the opinion either (...)". One of the outspoken critics of the general class of proposal began his retort "First, what is 'a number'? As a mathematician I'll tell you that 0 is a number." Now, I didn't particularly support this proposal either, ... but I'm not about to argue that zero users fits the proposed criteria. In the same general set of proposals there were a couple of people earnestly arguging that some change to AfD closure procedure could be expected to result in the deletion of [[George W. Bush]] and [[Bill Clinton]]. ... I don't think the particulars of the proposal are relevant for the meta-issue I'm raising here, if you want to argue about BLP and AfD there is a dandy discussion going on on the wiki... But how can the project ever hope to continuing surviving when people slash at honest proposals with outrageously literalistic arguments like this?

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Wily D

22 Apr 22 Apr

5:37 p.m.

New subject: English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The problem, Greg, is that policies on English Wikipedia are almost uniformly horribly vague, and so if you have to figure out what they mean by ''reading'' them, you're likely to come to errant conclusions - but the reality is that most editors do figure out what they mean by reading them, and misunderstandings about. Realistically new BLP handling situations probably won't result in [[Bill Clinton]] being deleted - but as long as they're written to allow this, the policy is wrong, not the person suggesting perhaps the policy should say what it means. Policies are often enforced with the same kind of literalist mindset ... so it makes sense to evaluate proposals that way. Cheers WilyD

Gregory Maxwell

5:46 p.m.

New subject: English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Wily D <wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The problem, Greg, is that policies on English Wikipedia are almost uniformly horribly vague, and so if you have to figure out what they

[snip]

...

Policies are often enforced with the same kind of literalist mindset ... so it makes sense to evaluate proposals that way.

Certantiantly vagueness can cause problems... so it's in everyone's interest to avoid vagueness, policy proposers, supporters, opposers, and neutralists alike. If people can come to an agreement on a meaning then establishing a non-vague expression may take some effort, but it's mostly an effort of copyediting not something deserving an argument. The issue I was trying to raise is that someone proposed a requirement of "a number of Wikipedians" which was countered with "Zero is a number" ... and If you're willing to take that literal an interpretation no policy can avoid being vague or having significant unintended consequences.

David Goodman

9:03 p.m.

New subject: English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

When some people started trying to use the BLP policies to cover the deceased, I realised that not even the most precise wording could protect against the lack of common sense. When some people took the arb com restriction during their discussion of episodes and characters to refer to exactly that type of articles only, and succeeded in establishing it, this confirmed my view. When a respected admin argued at Deletion Review that speedy deletion policy covers removing duplicate articles, I realised we need both exact policy , and the will to back it up. On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Wily D <wilydoppelganger(a)gmail.com> wrote:

The problem, Greg, is that policies on English Wikipedia are almost uniformly horribly vague, and so if you have to figure out what they

[snip]

Policies are often enforced with the same kind of literalist mindset ... so it makes sense to evaluate proposals that way.

-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

Matthew Brown

9:32 p.m.

New subject: English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 12:03 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

This seems to be a constant idea at Wikipedia (and elsewhere); "If only the rules were exact and complete, life would be perfect, because we wouldn't have to rely on common sense and good judgment anymore." IMO, you can't get there. It's impossible to get the rules exact unless you're strictly in a world of mathematics and absolutely defined meanings; there is always ambiguity and there are always edge cases. It's even less feasible for the rules to be complete, meaning that they produce an acceptable result in all circumstances including unforeseen ones. Stupidity will always occur; good sense will always be required; good judgment will always be necessary; and sometimes arguments will happen because there will be disagreement about what exactly is the right thing to do. Wikipedia has too many computerheads thinking that the world could be solved with a good algorithm and a smattering of code. It's a compelling fantasy for many, but it does not work in reality. -Matt

Delirium

30 Apr 30 Apr

12:35 p.m.

New subject: English Wikipedia and the poison of procedural literalism

Wily D wrote:

...

I'm a bit late on this post, but really policies are only quoted literally to support arguments, not actually enforced literally. What's actually enforced is consensus, which the written policy pages often lag behind or don't capture at all. Now once an existing consensus (or compromise, or something similar) is written into policy, it does tend to be somewhat effective to quote it to influence future consensus ("but [[WP:SOMETHING]] says...!"), but it's not a legal code or anything. Even more fun fact: policy varies widely by subject area. If your favorite supposed policy is very unpopular among the majority of editors in an area, it for most purposes isn't policy in that area. -Mark

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David Goodman
Delirium
Gregory Maxwell
Matthew Brown
Wily D