----- Original Message -----
From: "FT2" <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:33 AM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A definite version of WP:CRYSTAL
Wikipedia reports what is known, verifiable, and
stated by significant
reliable sources, at this time.
In matters such as the economy, and global warming, some of the
significant
views held NOW, are views about the future. For example, "Barrack Obama
will
be the 44th president",
A day before the election I was reading this as nearly five coin tosses,
according to polls. That qualified it extensively, because neither party was
about to leave those states up to chance.
" or "Based on current research the great plains will
become desert by 2050 unless action is taken",
You are better off stating history in the form of how much of that land was
not desert fifty years ago and changes in the rate of creepage.
or whatever. Even verifiable
and relevant facts about the future may be fine, such
as "If he wins
another 3 fights he will have the longest record of any boxer".
Stuff like that is why I had trouble pruning the article on United States
Senate, 2010. In 2010, when people are interested in the article from a
historic POV, stuff like that would become a record. We are not robots. That
is what WP:IAR is pretty much about. In sports and politics, we hav money
riding on the future. So, it is natural that we find it harder to resist.
I want to give readers a clue. If their host changes, then maybe they will
understand that they are delving into topics that are almost purely human.
Encylopedias are about understanding things other than ourselves, too. It is
very hard to predict anything but yourself.
If those are
relevant and significant in a topic, then yes, we may
report them. What
CRYSTAL is saying is, much more, that we don't go off speculatively
wondering on our own, about future possibilities, without very good reason
and some kind of backing... (unless these are actually mainstream
significant matters worth reporting, in the field concerned.) But I agree,
it's hard to pin down :)
Now you know why I like mathematics. If I do not follow it, then I only hav
myself to blame. If I can follow it, then I do not need authorities to make
it stronger or more understandable.
FT2
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson <
oskarsigvardsson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Jay Litwyn
<brewhaha(a)edmc.net> wrote:
Even jenerally accepted projections, among
economists, are open to
dispute
on magnitude and applicability. Economics
projections, like weather
projections, get more erroneous as future becomes more distant.
This is exactly! You write that! You write about the dissent, you
write about how there's different views by different people. You write
that the future, as of yet, is uncertain, but you should at least put
in what people are saying!
Wikipedia shouldn't have a "This is what we think will happen" section
on the article about the financial crisis. That would be ludicrous.
But to completely avoid any mention of opinions of top economists
about the scale of the problem simply makes for a bad article. This
information is relevant, it is neutral, and it is informative. You can
write about it in a neutral and factual way, and we have an obligation
to inform the readers about what is happening.
The essence of WP:CRYSTAL is (or at least should be) that *we*
shouldn't speculate on the future. But writing about other people that
do, in a neutral, relevant and factual way (with caveats that clearly
state that the actual future is uncertain) absolutely has a place in
wikipedia. It gives readers a deeper understanding of what's going on,
and it gives them information about what the big-wigs are thinking.
--Oskar
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