Ray Saintonge wrote
Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail? You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all proportion to its importance.
Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away? Isn't it more natural to assume that with every milestone Wikipedia passes, in terms of its audience, there is a corresponding increase in the number of those who will come to edit Wikipedia, without having WP's best interests at heart, because they put something else ahead of those? Think of the need to go into what we mean by that as part of the price of success in reaching a mass audience.
Charles
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charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote
Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail? You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all proportion to its importance.
Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away?
There was indeed the long thread that you mention. I am not a supporter of the corporatist agenda, but the best way to keep an eye on it is to have it right out there in the open. Let them have their paragraph (sometimes more depending on the topic), and there will still be room for rebuttals or criticisms of their agenda. The real neutrality will often be somewhere in between. If they parrot the company's PR line it will be evident that it is exactly that.
Isn't it more natural to assume that with every milestone Wikipedia passes, in terms of its audience, there is a corresponding increase in the number of those who will come to edit Wikipedia, without having WP's best interests at heart, because they put something else ahead of those?
It's more than an assumption. Such behaviour tends to scale very well.
Think of the need to go into what we mean by that as part of the price of success in reaching a mass audience.
Rules do not scale as well as bad behaviour. Tediously complex rules will just be ignored. Simple flexible guidelines are far more effective, because they are more broadly understood and enforced by a wider community.
Ec
On 11/4/06, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote
Why is it so necessary to have everything spelled out in such detail? You are making "conflict of interest" an issue that is out of all proportion to its importance.
Hmmm. I remember some very long threads of discussion here, quite recently, about corporate interests. Are you just assuming those will go away? Isn't it more natural to assume that with every milestone Wikipedia passes, in terms of its audience, there is a corresponding increase in the number of those who will come to edit Wikipedia, without having WP's best interests at heart, because they put something else ahead of those? Think of the need to go into what we mean by that as part of the price of success in reaching a mass audience.
Charles
It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.
If your relationship with an article's topic might cause someone else to question your ability to write neutrally about it, then don't be bold. Explain your changes, document your additions, and back down when challenged. If you believe there are legal issues involved which necessitate your edits, then contact OTRS. And if you yourself question your ability to write neutrally about a topic, then don't edit the article at all.
I dunno, that seems to me like a common sense guideline to potential conflicts of interest when it comes to writing Wikipedia articles. This doesn't seem like a place where spelling out detailed policies is useful, because the problem isn't one that deals with many longstanding editors. It also doesn't seem to be a place where there is a strong consensus as to what exactly the policies should be.
Anthony
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 10:07:42 -0500, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.
Sure. But it's good to have a well-reasoned guideline to point them to, and when they ignore it then we can justly point to a consensus view which they are going against.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sun, 5 Nov 2006 10:07:42 -0500, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.
Sure. But it's good to have a well-reasoned guideline to point them to, and when they ignore it then we can justly point to a consensus view which they are going against.
But is it really a consensus view when only a small number of Wikipedians are actively involved, and the rest of us ignore the page completely?
Ec
On Nov 5, 2006, at 4:45 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
But is it really a consensus view when only a small number of Wikipedians are actively involved, and the rest of us ignore the page completely?
That has been the problem all along. From the humble beginnings as a "Vanity" guideline, this new merged/evolved version does not have the support of the wider community as yet, and that is why is being discussed here: to attract the attention of other editors that can comment and bring it to the attention of others, so that it may gain such consensus.
I do not think that you will find a committed Wikipedian that will not want a COI guideline, but what goes into that guideline, in particular in non black-and-white situations, requires wider participation.
-- Jossi
On 11/6/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
It seems to me that the type of people with whom this is an increasing problem are not the type of people who are even going to read such a long and complictated guideline, let alone care about following it.
If your relationship with an article's topic might cause someone else to question your ability to write neutrally about it, then don't be bold. Explain your changes, document your additions, and back down when challenged. If you believe there are legal issues involved which necessitate your edits, then contact OTRS. And if you yourself question your ability to write neutrally about a topic, then don't edit the article at all.
I dunno, that seems to me like a common sense guideline to potential conflicts of interest when it comes to writing Wikipedia articles. This doesn't seem like a place where spelling out detailed policies is useful, because the problem isn't one that deals with many longstanding editors. It also doesn't seem to be a place where there is a strong consensus as to what exactly the policies should be.
That seems common sense to me too. All we need to say about conflicts of interest is "try to recognise your own biases, be open to others who apprehend biases, and don't let your biases get in the way of editing neutrally".
I don't see a real need to say much more beyond what's already at the heart of [[WP:NPOV]], except for some very general advice as is contained in your second paragraph Anthony. I would be happy to include that verbatim as the contents of [[WP:COI]].