In a message dated 8/14/2009 8:58:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time, abd@lomaxdesign.com writes:
No, they may be expert, but biased, or not good at explaining how they know what they know. Absolutely, the best experts can do this, and will. But it can also be a lot of work, and many experts won't want to put in that work, because, after all, they know the fact so well. So we get the best results with interaction between experts and non-experts.>>
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I'm glad you finally agree with me :) Everyone can edit. Experts and non-experts together. Anyone can find a source stating that "cats have retractable claws". Supposed experts should be able to find that souce faster.
I'm not really interested in an expert *explaining* anything to me. I'm interested in that expert finding the souces that *back up* their words with published third-party authorities.
If they can't do that function, then I agree that they should not be editing. You might find 200 online sources that state that Mary of Parma was born in 956, but I can show that none of these are realiable sources. My own opinion on when she was born has nothing to do with anything, sources are what matters.
Will Johnson
2009/8/14 WJhonson@aol.com:
editing. You might find 200 online sources that state that Mary of Parma was born in 956, but I can show that none of these are realiable sources. My own opinion on when she was born has nothing to do with anything, sources are what matters.
The problem comes not in finding sources, but in establishing due weight, convincing anyone that a crank idea is a crank idea and so forth. Most usually, it's when an expert is arguing with a crank and the crank won't be satisfied until the expert proves a negative - there's no great sources that the crank idea is a crank idea because only the cranks even bother talking about it. Often, the expert goes "bugger this, I have better things to do." Even quite patient experts have a limited tolerance for idiocy.
For an extreme case, look at the first global warming arbitration case, where the cranks got together to try to get one of the UK's top climate scientists voted off the island. Fortunately, the AC had the presence of mind to point out that peer-reviewed scientific papers are rather better encyclopedia sources than Rush Limbaugh show transcripts. And the expert in question also happens to be a rather good Wikipedian.
Abd's proposed rule is pathologically anti-expert and would be disastrous for Wikipedia's content and its production process.
- d.
At 02:27 PM 8/14/2009, you wrote:
I'm glad you finally agree with me :) Everyone can edit. Experts and non-experts together. Anyone can find a source stating that "cats have retractable claws". Supposed experts should be able to find that souce faster.
I'm not really interested in an expert *explaining* anything to me. I'm interested in that expert finding the souces that *back up* their words with published third-party authorities.
Sure. However, sources alone are often not enough. You may have all the sources in front of you, and fail to understand them because of assumptions in those sources that an expert -- or someone moderately familiar with the field -- will understand.
If they can't do that function, then I agree that they should not be editing.
I wouldn't go that far. Experts should have the same right to put up unsourced text as anyone else, in fact probably more right. The problem is only when there is conflict.
You might find 200 online sources that state that Mary of Parma was born in 956, but I can show that none of these are realiable sources. My own opinion on when she was born has nothing to do with anything, sources are what matters.
I'm chary of experts determining what sources are reliable, as Carcharoth suggests. There are two meanings for "reliability." Reliability in RS, I claim, depends solely on the publisher, and reliability in this sense is about notability, and certainly not about reliability in the ordinary sense, that we could assume that the material is "true." If it's in independently published source, it's reliably sourced. Sure, there are gray areas.
If we accept that fact in reliable source -- or "asserted fact", to be precise about what can be verified -- is usuable in the project, my view is that RS establishes notability and that, therefore, the fact belongs somewhere in the project, it should not be excluded because someone, expert or not, claims that, say, the author is biased. Rather, if that impeaching claim can be backed, itself, by reliable source, we would provide both, and the original "fact" would be stated with attribution, "according to ..." and probably likewise the rebuttal. Even if there is no impeaching claim in reliable source, it is within the sovereignty of local consensus to include attribution where it will broaden consensus.
I'd love to give some examples, but not right now. The real point is that we determine NPOV and many other things by consensus, there is no objective standard that works all the time, but if we have broad consensus, found through voluntary acceptance of text, we can be sure that it is NPOV *and* accurate, and the broader the consensus, the greater our certainty. At some point, there is a loss of efficiency, when our scale is large, trying to pull in and satisfy that last holdout.... but the principle remains. Consensus is the only way we have of measuring NPOV, notability, or anything, in fact.