"I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities."
So why are you discussing it?
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:56:46 +0100 From: Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Nationality in the lead of articles To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTikBOYNem7wE4UD6GpYJSxYPcgZquNDV7KJmRawx@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
One thing that annoys me about some Wikipedia articles is the tendency for editors to argue over the nationality of a person in the biography article about them. The classic example is Copernicus, which has some justification in that there is sourced discussion of the history of an actual dispute (though the dispute was long after Copernicus). This kind of dispute was seen again in the John Michael Wright article that Scott MacDonald mentioned recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Wright
The wording there is fine, but it can lead to convoluted writing, such as in the Descartes or Copernicus articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
"John Michael Wright (May 1617 ? July 1694)[2] was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. Described variously as English and Scottish" "Ren? Descartes [...] was a natural philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic"
The current solution on the Copernicus article seems to be to omit mention altogether from the lead.
I can't see any reason myself why Descartes can's simply be described in the lead as French. Go into detail later, yes, but people tend to be too sensitive about what is said in the lead and sometimes require too much detail in order to achieve precision and accuracy.
Another one is Robert Boyle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle
Again, the question of whether he should be described as Irish or British or Anglo-Irish (or whatever) is avoided in the lead. Extensive discussions have taken place on the talk page. But this is an example of an article where the rest of it should be improved, while resolutely ignoring the storm going on around that one small part of it. I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities.
Carcharoth
"I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities."
So why are you discussing it?
Meta discussions about problems sometimes result in progress.
For example, I've been looking at another article, Astrology, where half a dozen astrology advocates have been banned. Looking at their editing, all the attention was on the presence or absence of the label, "pseudoscience", supposedly based on an arbitration committee ruling.
So, instead of working on the article, and adding something about astrology, there has been a sterile POV conflict. Meanwhile the article is piss poor with one of the POV warriors, now he's gotten rid of the opposition, re-writing it and making it even worse.
So big fight over nothing, while substantial work remains undone.
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
Fred
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
Astrology is one of the oldest and, amazingly enough, still most popular foes of skepticism. If they don't consider it 'High-importance' then what *is*?
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
Astrology is one of the oldest and, amazingly enough, still most popular foes of skepticism. If they don't consider it 'High-importance' then what *is*?
-- gwern http://www.gwern.net
The article should be about astrology, not about the views of a fringe group.
Fred
On Thu, 31 Mar 2011, Fred Bauder wrote:
So, instead of working on the article, and adding something about astrology, there has been a sterile POV conflict. Meanwhile the article is piss poor with one of the POV warriors, now he's gotten rid of the opposition, re-writing it and making it even worse.
So big fight over nothing, while substantial work remains undone.
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
I don't think the article is skeptical enough.
For instance, it says "In February, 2001, the science of vedic astrology, Jyotir Vigyan, was introduced into the curriculum of Indian universities". The reference shows the government of India saying that, but the government of India is not a reliable source for the claim that vedic astrology is a science or is being treated scientifically. The words "the science of" should be removed, or described solely as someone else's words without implying that they are true, for instance "vedic astrology, described as a science by the Government of India, was...."
On 03/31/11 3:24 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Thu, 31 Mar 2011, Fred Bauder wrote:
So, instead of working on the article, and adding something about astrology, there has been a sterile POV conflict. Meanwhile the article is piss poor with one of the POV warriors, now he's gotten rid of the opposition, re-writing it and making it even worse.
So big fight over nothing, while substantial work remains undone.
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
I don't think the article is skeptical enough.
For instance, it says "In February, 2001, the science of vedic astrology, Jyotir Vigyan, was introduced into the curriculum of Indian universities". The reference shows the government of India saying that, but the government of India is not a reliable source for the claim that vedic astrology is a science or is being treated scientifically. The words "the science of" should be removed, or described solely as someone else's words without implying that they are true, for instance "vedic astrology, described as a science by the Government of India, was...."
The Skeptics are notorious for using the term "reliable source" to mean anything that supports their Religious Point of View. Why shouldn't the government be treated as a reliable source? Why should residents of Western countries be so arrogant as to hijack a word like "science" to their own purposes? Traditionally, science always referred to any area of study; it could be gnostic as well as epistemic. It did not depend on following a predetermined and restrictive set of rules, or even the ultimate truth of what was being studied. Your proposed distortion is disrespectful of the Indian tradition..
Ec
On 03/31/11 12:44 PM, Fred Bauder wrote:
For example, I've been looking at another article, Astrology, where half a dozen astrology advocates have been banned. Looking at their editing, all the attention was on the presence or absence of the label, "pseudoscience", supposedly based on an arbitration committee ruling.
"Pseudoscience" is one of those labels that exists for the sole purpose of being tendentious. A perfectly good and neutral article can be written about astrology without resorting to that word. It would make clear that there is considerable doubt about the subject's validity without leaving the impression that the article is nagging about it.
So, instead of working on the article, and adding something about astrology, there has been a sterile POV conflict. Meanwhile the article is piss poor with one of the POV warriors, now he's gotten rid of the opposition, re-writing it and making it even worse.
It has been a long time since I even looked at the article. I have since graduated to become a grumpy old man. The presence of idiotic POV pushers on both sides of the argument means it's less strenuous to keep the article in a perpetual state of error.
So big fight over nothing, while substantial work remains undone.
"WikiProject Rational Skepticism High-importance)" Really?
It's the kind of true-believer syndrome that turns Rational Skepticism into a religious cult.
Ec
Yeah, what about the whole issue of albanians, according to the rules mother theresa was not albanian, but by birth ottoman empire or yugoslavian something. There are many more examples. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Albanians
On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 9:19 PM, Fences&Windows < fences_and_windows@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
"I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities."
So why are you discussing it?
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:56:46 +0100 From: Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com Subject: [WikiEN-l] Nationality in the lead of articles To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Message-ID: AANLkTikBOYNem7wE4UD6GpYJSxYPcgZquNDV7KJmRawx@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
One thing that annoys me about some Wikipedia articles is the tendency for editors to argue over the nationality of a person in the biography article about them. The classic example is Copernicus, which has some justification in that there is sourced discussion of the history of an actual dispute (though the dispute was long after Copernicus). This kind of dispute was seen again in the John Michael Wright article that Scott MacDonald mentioned recently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Wright
The wording there is fine, but it can lead to convoluted writing, such as in the Descartes or Copernicus articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
"John Michael Wright (May 1617 ? July 1694)[2] was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. Described variously as English and Scottish" "Ren? Descartes [...] was a natural philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic"
The current solution on the Copernicus article seems to be to omit mention altogether from the lead.
I can't see any reason myself why Descartes can's simply be described in the lead as French. Go into detail later, yes, but people tend to be too sensitive about what is said in the lead and sometimes require too much detail in order to achieve precision and accuracy.
Another one is Robert Boyle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle
Again, the question of whether he should be described as Irish or British or Anglo-Irish (or whatever) is avoided in the lead. Extensive discussions have taken place on the talk page. But this is an example of an article where the rest of it should be improved, while resolutely ignoring the storm going on around that one small part of it. I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities.
Carcharoth
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On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Fences&Windows fences_and_windows@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
"I dread to think how many megabytes of discussion are spent on discussing nationalities."
So why are you discussing it?
Oh, I didn't really think anyone would discuss it... (the thread has gone off-topic already!).
And to be fair, you should say what you think your view is and where it falls between the two extremes below.
Is it:
(1) Ignore the more trivial of such discussions, only paying attention to the ones where reliable sources have actually bothered to have an extensive discussion about the matter;
(2) Encourage any and all such discussions as they are productive and useful.
The real point I'm making is that it is important to limit any disruption that arises from such discussions. That means accepting that some such discussions are started for trivial reasons, and it is those discussions that waste time. Too often the attitude is "Hmm, that looks like an interesting debate, I'll join in", when the first though should be "do reliable sources cover this in any depth or do they just make a decision and get on with the real business of writing and editing, and if not, then we are likely wasting our time here".
The analogy I like to draw is how such decisions are made in a print encyclopedia with more focused editorial control. Obviously it is asking too much for Wikipedia to attain that level of efficiency, and you will always have some inherent inefficiency in the processes by which Wikipedia works (due to the way things are done), but that is not to say that it is not acceptable to speak up against processes you perceive as inefficient and wasteful.
The above is real meta-discussion, of the sort you don't often see on Wikipedia. Rather than coming up with over-arching conventions for particular areas, the idea is to question the extent of such discussions in the first place. That is not to say I don't think specific conventions are good (they can be very good), but there should be some hurdle to reach before starting a discussion in the first place. That is done to a certain extent at RFC, but not anywhere else, I don't think.
Carcharoth