Both should be presented with view Moo given complete but not extensive coverage.

Fred

On May 2, 2006, at 7:20 PM, Cheney Shill wrote:

Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote: On May 2, 2006, at 10:25 AM, Cheney Shill (Pro-Lick) wrote:

...

This regards Undue weight part of NPOV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight

Sometimes the quality of the sources may differ substantially with one source representing scholarly opinion, the other reflecting popular culture. Fred

I definitely agree. However, that's not the problem in this scenario. I didn't intend this to be an RfA exam test question. From the responses I've gotten so far, I probably should clarify, but it also shows the great deal of ambiguity I mentioned regarding determining the majority/minority POV.

Restated: *View Moo has 3 sources that support it. *View Bark has 15 sources that support it. Under the assumptions that the sources are all independent of each other, all of equal quality, and they have already been discussed thoroughly and agreed upon as the sources that should be used to write a section of an article, which, if either, is the majority view that will be presented to the greatest extent in the section? Should either not be presented?

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G'day Fred,

Sometimes the quality of the sources may differ substantially with one source representing scholarly opinion, the other reflecting popular culture.

Or, surprisingly commonly, the other reflects not popular culture but the view of an idiot who should be locked up for his own protection.

See: Eurasian Land Bridge, Anti-metrication, Gatekeeper (politics), and, well, too many to mention, I guess. I think you could probably pick any POV, however, absurd, and find that there's a batshit conspiracy theorist who holds it. Further, that conspiracy theorist will either edit or inspire another loony to edit Wikipedia to push that POV sooner or later. We're too damn big.

On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:

I agree about the 10 fringe vs. 2 authorities. But that has nothing to do with this scenario, in which the sources are of equal authority. In fact, the very fact that you turned a non-ambiguous scenario into an ambiguous scenario is evidence that the process itself is far too ambiguous. It's not just you; I have not gotten 1 straight answer on this. Are we not supposed to be judging and reporting on the facts as they are, not as we think they should be?~~~~Pro-Lick

"As they are" in this case is a socially defined fuction, inseperable from "as we think they should be".

It will always be semi-ambiguous. That's fine. We do our best. But since we are all "editors" in the end discussion and fudged compromises are what we will have to go with. Whether that is a disadvantage or not is up for debate, but it's clearly one of the inevitable aspects of an open knowledge-production system.

Of course, that our standards are defined by social activities does not make Wikipedia really any different from any other aspect of knowledge-production. But with Wikipedia that social process is very transparent and the "hand of the author" is very obvious.

In a scientific journal, for example, those social activities are still there, but the boundary for admission to the discussion is much higher, and the mechanisms of how they work are hidden away from sight (and tied up with a number of other variables as well). But in the end it is still a social activity which produces, certifies, or knocks down the "knowledge" itself. Since we at Wikipedia are not even making any claims of doing the research ourselves, pointing to "the facts as they are" as some sort of stabilizing mechanism seems even more problematic than it already would be in something like scientific activity, where the social structures which support "the facts" are far less obvious.

FF

On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a socially defined collection of original research.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which subverts the usual definition of an encyclopedia and expands far beyonds the bounds of typical encyclopedias because of its social model, one based on collective authorship. You can't get around the social interaction, it is what makes the entire thing work. I should think such is fairly obvious.

"In particular, to elaborate on the last comment above, if you are able to prove something that nobody currently believes, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a proof." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight In other words, there is even less need for social interaction. No need to petition funding for a laboratory to test a hypothesis. No questions about which researcher should have his name placed first next to a theory.

I think you misunderstand what I mean by social interaction. I do not mean funding or interactions with "society" (a slippery term), I mean something roughly like "practices by which human beings interact with one another to establish knowledge." The social practices cannot be avoided. Especially since we do not do original research (though even establishing what "original research" is a social practice here as well, one based on collaboration, discussion, and compromise!). But even in the scientific laboratory, facts do not just spring out of the air, nor do they cling onto the pages of journals by themselves, nor do they maintain themselves under the sheer weight of their own conviction.

We need to accept the social nature of Wikipedia's claims to truth (even if we do not want to bother trying to accept the social nature of truth itself), and understand that 1. it does not devalue Wikipedia's claims to truth, and 2. it is not something which can be avoided anyway. The value of accepting such a thing is not that we throw our hands up and say "Well, that's just how it is and we've got to accept it, whatever it is!" of course, but it directs our lines of inquiry away from things such as "How does one know whether something is Original Research or not?" and instead re-frames the question into something like, "What policies and social mechanisms will produce the sorts of content we want, in the end, given our system of knowledge production?" And again, by "social" I mean only that which refers to the interactions and mediations between users themselves, and that's all.

You could view the scientific method as a social system meant to produce a certain type of knowledge, for example. It (ideally) organizes researchers in a way which attempts to develop reliable and hopefully incremental knowledge, to fact-check and self-police itself, to standardize vocabularies and agreed-upon sets of beliefs, and so forth. Calling something a social system does not devalue it in the slightest; it is a system for organizing human interactions.

I apologize if this all sounds terribly academic or pedantic but I do have a point in all of this -- I think too many of these discussions are based on some sort of abstract way of trying to define things like "Undue weight" or "Neutral Point of View" or "Original Research" as if these were just natural categories sitting out there in the world. I think considering them to be guidelines by which a social process will produce certain types of knowledge, at the deliberate exclusion of others, will help better focus exactly what sorts of policies we should have and also help us avoid dreaming of a day when there will be no ambiguity or disagreements between users on these issues. Rather than viewing ambiguity and disagreement as things which should be eliminated, I think they should be viewed as necessary elements of a larger system, things which can probably be channeled or transformed or mediated to certain degree by policies but something which will, and must, always be a part of a relatively communitarian system as Wikipedia uses.

(Even relatively authoritarian systems of knowledge production, with top-down hierarchy and clear guidelines worked under by people of a similar mindset, have their internal conflicts. But their lack of transparency just keeps it out of sight, something we can't do under our system.)

It seems the policies and problems of the foundation in general (i.e., which projects and enhancements to fund, which gets a new server, which gets a new lawyer, etc.) are being confused with those of the encylopedia itself. Yet another area in need of clarification, not ambiguity.~~~~Pro-Lick

I don't quite see that particular slippage going on, myself...

FF

On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:

Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:

On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill wrote:
> Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a socially defined collection of original research.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which subverts the usual definition of an
encyclopedia and expands far beyonds the bounds of typical
encyclopedias because of its social model, one based on collective
authorship. You can't get around the social interaction, it is what
makes the entire thing work. I should think such is fairly obvious.

I think "free", the assumption of accuracy that comes with "encyclopedia", and the assumption that reasonable people will be reviewing the changes without requiring days of debate over easily verifiable knowledge is more obvious. Unless we're discussing trolls, you'll have to provide support for your opinion. How many people arrive at Wiki as a result of a "social interaction" or "chat" search on Google? Has that even been suggested in a motto of the day? That's a reasonable argument for mysapce's success, not an encyclopedia who's goal is to share the sum of the world's knowledge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About I'll respond on the rest later.~~~~Pro-Lick

I still think you've entirely missed the point of what I mean by "social interaction." Wikipedia works because people come together, contribute information, edit information, squabble over it, have little arguments, e-mail each other, organize list serves, organize chats, use elaborate guidelines and rule structures to get what they want, etc. etc. etc. Wikipedia's content is produced through these interactions between users, who are organized and regulated by the software which runs Wikipedia, by their shared (and not shared) values and norms, and by a complex set of regulations, stated ideals, and bureaucratic procedures which have been formulated over time. Wikipedia succeeds to the degree that it does because these regulations of user activity are, ideally, designed to encourage contribution, discourage the effects of vandalism, and weed out bad content.

All of this would fall under "social interaction" in the standard definition. If the "social" is what is confusing you, you might look at our article on [[social interaction]] which goes into a little more detail on this, if you are interested in pursuing this further. I think I've exhausted my ability for explaination it at the moment.

FF

On May 9, 2006, at 9:07 PM, Cheney Shill wrote:

So your point is "social interaction". Start a new email thread with that subject and enjoy. You won't have to "exhaust" yourself for my social development because I won't be socially interacting with it. This email subject is very clearly about applying existing policy and how consensus obstructs and interferes with doing so. I do appreciate you providing an interactive case study.~~~~Pro-Lick

Is this an argument for the sake if argument? The explanations given by several editors is pretty clear, and I fail to understand what your point is. Can you succintly explain what is your concern and what is your proposal (if you have any) to ameliorate the situation?

-- Jossi

On May 10, 2006, at 10:18 AM, Cheney Shill wrote:

Basically, it's an argument that you can apply policy however the current majority of an article sees fit.

My understanding is different. Editor's consensus cannot be used to bypass policy

See:

"NPOV is one of Wikipedia's three content-guiding policy pages. The other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one other, and editors should therefore try to familiarize themselves with all three. The three policies are also non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV

I am missing something?

-- Jossi

jayjg jayjg99@gmail.com wrote:

No, you're not. Editor consensus does not override policy, though, at times, new editors have attempted to re-write policy to allow this.

Actually, the view that editor consensus does override policy is being imposed by existing admins in the articles I've worked on. In one article, there were at least 3 admins actively involved and all claiming that.~~~~Pro-Lick

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On 5/10/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:

jf_wikipedia@mac.com wrote:

On May 10, 2006, at 10:18 AM, Cheney Shill wrote:
> Basically, it's an argument that you can apply policy however the
> current majority of an article sees fit.

My understanding is different. Editor's consensus cannot be used to
bypass policy

See:

"NPOV is one of Wikipedia's three content-guiding policy pages. The
other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original
research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of
material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three
policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in
isolation from one other, and editors should therefore try to
familiarize themselves with all three. The three policies are also
non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by
editors' consensus."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV

I am missing something?

No, except that we agree completely. I'm not, nor have I ever argued, that consensus should bypass policy. I'm simply repeating the claim made by Fastfission and the majority of admins and users I've had contact with while editing that consensus is more important than policy. Fastfission seemed to be paraphrasing the beginning of the consensus guideline that says "Wikipedia works by building consensus." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus I'm not sure when that was put in or if it was snuck in at some point, but given what the rest of the guideline states, not to mention policies, it's definitely taken out of context. Maybe the fix is simply removing that sentence. This view seems so prevalent, however, it probably wouldn't be taken seriously unless Jimmy himself emailed every admin with an attached photo of a clue bat.

Anyway, I'm open to suggestions on how to solve it.~~~~Pro-Lick

Content policies have far less leeway than other policies.

Jay.

Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:

Cheney Shill wrote: >I'm not, nor have I ever argued, that consensus should bypass policy. I'm simply repeating the claim made by Fastfission and the majority of admins and users I've had contact with while editing that consensus is more important than policy. Fastfission seemed to be paraphrasing the beginning of the consensus guideline that says "Wikipedia works by building consensus." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus I'm not sure when that was put in or if it was snuck in at some point, but given what the rest of the guideline states, not to mention policies, it's definitely taken out of context. Maybe the fix is simply removing that sentence. This view seems so prevalent, however, it probably wouldn't be taken seriously unless Jimmy himself emailed every admin with an attached photo of a clue bat. > >Anyway, I'm open to suggestions on how to solve it.~~~~Pro-Lick > In other words you would gut the policy by removing its most important feature. Consensus guides the _proper application_ of policies, or more importantly principles. While principles should remain fairly stable, policies should be more adaptable.

In actual words, consensus is a guideline, not policy. The importance of the sentence is your opinion. It actually contradicts the rest the guideline itself, which means that the guideline should be truncated to that one sentence only or that sentence needs to go.~~~~Pro-Lick

"It is assumed that editors working toward consensus are pursuing a consensus that is consistent with Wikipedia's basic policies and principles - especially NPOV." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus_vs._other_policie...

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Cheney Shill wrote:

Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:

I still think you've entirely missed the point of what I mean by "social interaction." Wikipedia works because people come together,

Then don't use "social interaction". How about some words that generally encapsulate whatever it is your point is? After reading the current reply, I didn't see any other point.

To me it's clear that "social interaction" does "generally encapsulate" his point, which was very well phrased.

Wikipedia works because people come together contribute information, edit information, squabble over it, have little arguments, e-mail each other, organize list serves, organize chats, use elaborate guidelines and rule structures to get what they

Again, that's why you think it works. Repeating this over and over isn't the same as verifiability. I think you're mistaking the means with the end. We've been over this. Source it. I'm not interested in socializing about it.

Scholarly opposing points of view will engage in verifiability wars. Social interaction is indeed a means for approaching an end that is only rarely reached, if it exists at all.

All of this would fall under "social interaction" in the standard

So your point is "social interaction". Start a new email thread with that subject and enjoy. You won't have to "exhaust" yourself for my social development because I won't be socially interacting with it. This email subject is very clearly about applying existing policy and how consensus obstructs and interferes with doing so. I do appreciate you providing an interactive case study.~~~~Pro-Lick

While I find social interaction to be an inteeesting process, I don't gove a damn about your social development. When we lament that "consensus obstructs and interferes" with the application of policy we have clearly lost our ability to apply common sense. It suggests that policy should prevail no matter how ridiculous the results.

Ec

On 5/5/06, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:

I agree about the 10 fringe vs. 2 authorities. But that has nothing to do with this scenario, in which the sources are of equal authority. In fact, the very fact that you turned a non-ambiguous scenario into an ambiguous scenario is evidence that the process itself is far too ambiguous. It's not just you; I have not gotten 1 straight answer on this. Are we not supposed to be judging and reporting on the facts as they are, not as we think they should be?~~~~Pro-Lick

NPOV is not a process, that's the problem with your line of thinking. If it were, someone could write a nice script, and people would input a list of sources and encyclopaedia articles would come out the other end.

NPOV is an editorial skill, one of the more difficult editorial skills to learn. Trying to reduce it to a formula will not work, because there is no perfect scenario like you outline. Sources will always need evaluating, that is the role of editors.

-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com

Cheney Shill wrote:

Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote: I think the ambiguity is necessary -- 10 fringe sources do not outweigh 2 sources from recognized authorities. But there's no easy

I agree about the 10 fringe vs. 2 authorities. But that has nothing to do with this scenario, in which the sources are of equal authority. In fact, the very fact that you turned a non-ambiguous scenario into an ambiguous scenario is evidence that the process itself is far too ambiguous. It's not just you; I have not gotten 1 straight answer on this. Are we not supposed to be judging and reporting on the facts as they are, not as we think they should be?~~~~Pro-Lick

Reporting yes; judging no.

Ambiguity is a fact of life; learn to live with it!

Ec

Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:

Cheney Shill wrote:

very fact that you turned a non-ambiguous scenario into an ambiguous scenario is evidence that the process itself is far too ambiguous. It's not just you; I have not gotten 1 straight answer on this. Are we not supposed to be judging and reporting on the facts as they are, not as we think they should be?~~~~Pro-Lick > Reporting yes; judging no.

So we should "report" the facts as we think they should be, not as they are?

Ambiguity is a fact of life; learn to live with it!

So is bias. Yet we have something called NPOV. So is rumor and hoax, yet we have verifiability. It appears there are contributors having learning issues living with policy.~~~~Pro-Lick

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