Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:54:31 +0100 From: Guy Chapman aka JzG Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Who wins
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On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:09:58 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
So I wonder if it would be more pragmatic to drop these arbitary thresholds and just say "sources are required". Each article has the best sources we can find for that topic. If the best sources are blogs then fine - the reader is left to him/herself to determine notability based on their own frame of references.
This has been suggested at WP:V but was soundly rejected as being functionally equivalent to "articles must cite sources unless you can't find any". There is a good reason that encyclopaedias typically do not document facts which cannot be verified from reliable sources: a significant proportion of them turn out to be false.
Consider: you wish to promulgate a "Fred is Gay" meme (you are a not a friend of his, as we know friends of gays should not be allowed to edit Wikimedia projects). So, you set up your blogs on LiveJournal and Blogger, publish it, and then toddle off to Wikipedia to complete the writing into canon of your new shiny meme. Job done. Can you see how that might be bad? Guy (JzG)
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:30:35 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal.
Yes, big deal. Ask the lawyers. Guy (JzG)
Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal. )
Yes, and we could re-name ourselves at the same time: not longer 'encyclopedia' but simply 'blog report' or 'blogs in brief'!
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:30:35 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal.
Yes, big deal. Ask the lawyers.
To quote a famous poem:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
Cf. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud
Ec
On Apr 21, 2006, at 4:13 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:30:35 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
Umm... No? What's so bad about it? Wikipedia has an article saying two blogs contain a sentence "Fred is Gay" and the reader draws the inference that the owner of those blogs is seriously retarded. Big deal.
Yes, big deal. Ask the lawyers. Guy (JzG) --
We don't need WP:V to be our sole line of protection against this, though, and we certainly don't need to behave stupidly in relation to other sources over this.
The problem with libelous crap is not that, prior to Siegenthaler, we allowed it. It is that prior to Siegenthaler and continuing to the present, we have been insufficiently skilled at catching it and fixing it. We know and have always known what libelous crap looks like. We do not need to try to make a definition of verifiability that a trained monkey could follow - especially not when that definition is wrong.
We have always had the policy of not reporting on trivial crap in articles. That your hypothetical "Fred is Gay" bloggers insist on its content in Wikipedia is neither here nor there. We look at it, we see that it is not, in fact, of sufficient widespread interest to be worth reporting, we remove it. If they are dicks about it, we ban them. The end. We do not need to change policies to say that we can remove it - we have always and will always have the right to make any changes we want to articles to improve them.
I will say again: The problems we have with libelous materials are not problems with our policies - they were fine before, and are substantially less fine now than they were a year ago.
-Phil
On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 14:47:56 -0400, you wrote:
The problem with libelous crap is not that, prior to Siegenthaler, we allowed it. It is that prior to Siegenthaler and continuing to the present, we have been insufficiently skilled at catching it and fixing it. We know and have always known what libelous crap looks like. We do not need to try to make a definition of verifiability that a trained monkey could follow - especially not when that definition is wrong.
I mostly agree. We apply insufficient scepticism to critical comments about some subjects - if it's fashionable to knock them, criticisms get an easy ride. Guy (JzG)