Erik wrote
I'll just register my strong objections to a deletion moratorium for the record. I do not see any evidence for "rampant" deletionism and think VfD works reasonably well (have people agreed on a threshold, 80% or something like that, of votes required for deletion yet?). If you want to see rampant deletionism, go to Everything2.com, where pages get "nuked" arbitrarily and anonymously. Wikipedia's process is open, based on consensus-forming and well-documented policies.
There are people who make even the deletion of the crappiest conceivable article difficult by voting to keep by default. This kind of behavior leads to the amassment of junk in the database, which never gets cleaned up because once it is gone from RC and VfD, everyone quickly forgets it. You might say people will eventually edit it, but in the case of the rare, obscure and idiosyncratic, that might very well happen years from now, if ever. Of course we shouldn't delete legitimate stubs, but we should remove articles which are in clear violation of one of our policies, be it NPOV or "What Wikipedia is not".
Junk will still get spidered by the search engines if a single link points to it, nd if people come to Wikipedia and find this stuff (like Sep. 11 articles with tributes mixed in), it will greatly lower their opinion of our project (in cases that I consider "fixable", the 7 days of VfD are a nice ultimatum for doing so). Remember that most of our new users come from the search engines.
I am somewhat disturbed by Wikipedia 1.0 being used as an argument not to keep the working Wikipedia clean of junk. Both serve the same purpose. The goal for Wikipedia 1.0 (a limited subset for distribution) is to filter out the kind of stuff that is hard to verify, too obscure, offensive etc., but that would go through VfD unscathed.
Given the large majority support needed for deletion, I do not think that any kind of out-of-control deletion is to be expected. If you are the kind of person who thinks a "List of heterosexuals" might be useful, then you might feel that Wikipedia is somehow oppressing you, but if you want to build an encyclopedia, it is unlikely that you will.
The whole idea to label one faction of Wikipedia as "deletionists" and another as "inclusionists" is bogus. This only makes it more difficult for people to reflect their own decisions and contributes to herd-like behavior. With very few exceptions, everyone accepts that some cleaning up is needed. We just need to agree on when to delete and what to remove, which is best done by improving, newly implementing and pointing to policy pages.
I agree 100% with Erik. This proposal is absurd in the extreme. Wikipedia finds it hard enough to keep up with the deletion of articles continually. A ban for six months would leave a back log of hundreds if not thousands of articles that have no place on an encyclopedia but end up surviving by default, or else leading to a /massive/ period of deletions unprecedented in wikipedia history. It is quite frankly the most ludicrous of ludicrous ideas, an unworkable idea that would damage wikipedia. The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
JT
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On 11/8/03 5:08 PM, "James Duffy" jtdire@hotmail.com wrote:
I agree 100% with Erik. This proposal is absurd in the extreme. Wikipedia finds it hard enough to keep up with the deletion of articles continually. A ban for six months would leave a back log of hundreds if not thousands of articles that have no place on an encyclopedia but end up surviving by default, or else leading to a /massive/ period of deletions unprecedented in wikipedia history. It is quite frankly the most ludicrous of ludicrous ideas, an unworkable idea that would damage wikipedia. The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
I agree that a six month moratorium would probably be counterproductive.
A two-week moratorium on deleting entries that would be placed on VfD, as originally suggested, is more reasonable and should be the only one under discussion.
James Duffy wrote:
[...] It is quite frankly the most ludicrous of ludicrous ideas
Not that anybody is being histrionic or anything...
[...] The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
...nor that we want to mischaracterize legitimate positions in the most extreme terms possible, or insult our opponents. Is there anybody else here foolhardy enough to claim that I don't take the idea of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously?
I've never argued against the deletion of bad content, but the VfD page has become a stalking horse for the debate about WP's scope. That's a fine debate to have, and we should be working to develop consensus about scope; but instead of filling up meta with a rational discussion, we have daily catfights on VfD.
A bunch of my content these days comes from books (remember those?) rather than the net; and so one of these days I'm sure some moron is going to list one of my new articles on VfD "because it only has 20 Google hits", as if Google is now the only definition of human knowledge or something.
Stan
I think it is clear that the 'stop all deletes for 6 months' concept has zero traction, so we can safely dismiss it now.
James Duffy wrote:
The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox where any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
People have been upset about the phrase "straw man", but really I think that phrase has to be said when you try to characterize the debate in this way.
I take the idea that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia seriously, and I think that there are basic standards below which an article should be deleted, and I do not see wikipedia as a scribblebox where any sort of rubbish has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
I don't think anyone participating in this debate currently holds a position even remotely resembling your characterization.
Perhaps you should revisit my position, because it's possible that we're actually in complete agreement.
--Jimbo
From: Jimmy Wales James Duffy wrote:
The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is
deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox
where
any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
People have been upset about the phrase "straw man", but really I think that phrase has to be said when you try to characterize the debate in this way.
The problem is, recently folks have been crying "straw man" and it hasn't been accurate, and unnecessarily villifies the poster.
In most of these cases, discussion has consisted of reasonable "What if..." and "slippery slope" arguments when standards for "articleness" are lowered. This is not automatically a straw man, and in most posts here, they have not been straw man arguments at all.
Straw men are more often a problem with logical reasoning, not policy debate. If there are weaknesses in a proposed policy, and people constructively point that out, it's not automatically a straw man.
-Fuzheado
On 11/10/03 8:50 PM, "Andrew Lih" alih@hku.hk wrote:
From: Jimmy Wales James Duffy wrote:
The ''deletionists'' against ''inclusionists'' argument is utterly bogus. It is a case of those who take the idea that wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously and basic standards below which an article is
deleted and those who see wikipedia as some sort of scribblebox
where
any sort of rubbish, not matter how bad, has a 'right' to be left undisturbed.
People have been upset about the phrase "straw man", but really I think that phrase has to be said when you try to characterize the debate in this way.
The problem is, recently folks have been crying "straw man" and it hasn't been accurate, and unnecessarily villifies the poster.
At least according to Wikipedia, "the straw man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer."
That is what people have been doing.
Your use of the word "crying"--when describing what people are doing in a textual medium--unnecessarily vilifies the posters.
In most of these cases, discussion has consisted of reasonable "What if..." and "slippery slope" arguments when standards for "articleness" are lowered. This is not automatically a straw man, and in most posts here, they have not been straw man arguments at all.
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
Secondly, you actually made a straw man argument again: "when standards for 'articleness' are lowered". I am not advocating lowering standards for 'articleness'. Rather, others are advocating changing the standards, and claiming that the new standards are the "real" standards and that any other position is for lower standards.
Thirdly, slippery slope arguments are generally connected to a further straw man argument when the "what if" scenario is deemed to be bad and used to attack the original position.
Finally, I hope you're not trying to characterize what James Duffy wrote above as a reasonable "what if" argument.
On Behalf Of The Cunctator At least according to Wikipedia, "the straw man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer."
Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't eat where you crap?" :)
That is what people have been doing. Your use of the word "crying"--when describing what people are doing in a textual medium--unnecessarily vilifies the posters.
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
When debating our policies, pointing out resulting troubling scenarios and possible degradation to Wikipedia's reputation is a valid exercise given Wikipedia's stature and importance. Slippery slope arguments are not inherent fallacies.
And, yes there have been charges of strawman, right in the first sentence of several posts on WikiEN-l (not particular to either side).
-Fuzheado
FULL POST:
At least according to Wikipedia, "the straw man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer."
That is what people have been doing.
Your use of the word "crying"--when describing what people are doing in a textual medium--unnecessarily vilifies the posters.
In most of these cases, discussion has consisted of
reasonable "What
if..." and "slippery slope" arguments when standards for
"articleness"
are lowered. This is not automatically a straw man, and in
most posts
here, they have not been straw man arguments at all.
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
Secondly, you actually made a straw man argument again: "when standards for 'articleness' are lowered". I am not advocating lowering standards for 'articleness'. Rather, others are advocating changing the standards, and claiming that the new standards are the "real" standards and that any other position is for lower standards.
Thirdly, slippery slope arguments are generally connected to a further straw man argument when the "what if" scenario is deemed to be bad and used to attack the original position.
Finally, I hope you're not trying to characterize what James Duffy wrote above as a reasonable "what if" argument.
On 11/10/03 11:01 PM, "Andrew Lih" alih@hku.hk wrote:
On Behalf Of The Cunctator At least according to Wikipedia, "the straw man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than your opponents actually offer."
Have you ever heard the saying, "Don't eat where you crap?" :)
Yes. Have you ever heard the saying "Little strokes fell mighty oaks?" I like that one because it rhymes. So?
That is what people have been doing. Your use of the word "crying"--when describing what people are doing in a textual medium--unnecessarily vilifies the posters.
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
When debating our policies, pointing out resulting troubling scenarios and possible degradation to Wikipedia's reputation is a valid exercise given Wikipedia's stature and importance. Slippery slope arguments are not inherent fallacies.
Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of logical fallacies.
Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
Well I guess it is now that you've changed the Wikipedia entry for it and changed "argument" to "fallacy."
The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B. Folks were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11 individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type to fallacy is not fair.
You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of logical fallacies.
"The slippery slope argument is usually used as a commentary on social change, not as a point of logic."
(which used to be in the Slippery Slope article)
-Fuzheado
Andrew Lih wrote:
Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
Well I guess it is now that you've changed the Wikipedia entry for it and changed "argument" to "fallacy."
The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B. Folks were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11 individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type to fallacy is not fair.
I'd agree with that, and calling it a fallacy is often a sneaky attempt by opponents of a particular issue to evade the real questions. The basic issue is that it is a fact that moving in a direction makes it easier to move further in that direction. When we move 5 arbitrary units in a direction, things that were 10 in that direction are now 5. It would be a fallacy to say it is *inevitable* that then we will go the additional five, but it is entirely logical to say it is now *more likely* we will do so, and thus a legitimate point of contention for those who oppose doing anything to make such an outcome more likely.
To pick one example, it is often held that if we begin allowing the government to intrude on our privacy with anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act, this will set the stage for more intrusive legislation to follow--the new more-intrusive legislation is, by comparison, no longer a huge power grab, only an incremental one. This isn't a fallacy, but simple fact, and empirically attested to by legislative history.
If The Cunctator's argument was correct, "precedent" would be a logical fallacy, which it is most certainly not: precedent is appealed to all the time. The fact that something happens today makes it more likely that something similar will happen in the future, as today's act will be appealed to as partial precedent. See court history for another example.
Back on topic, I believe I did elucidate my argument in quite mind-numbing detail. The argument, for those who missed it, is as follows:
* By allowing entries for people whose only interest above any other random person who has ever existed is "died in September 11 terrorist attacks", we are forming a principle that dying in a notable event is sufficient for inclusion in Wikipedia. * Notably, we are forming the principle that "so-and-so died in a notable event" constitutes sufficient grounds on which to oppose deletion of such biographies. * Thus, we have no legitimate grounds on which to oppose the inclusion in Wikipedia of those who died in any other notable tragedy. * Thus, if it occurs in the future that a group of people begin a sustained effort to add thousands of articles in Wikipedia on people who have died in a notable event but are not otherwise notable themselves (World War II soldiers, Holocaust victims, etc.), we have no legitimate grounds on which to ask them to stop doing so or to remove their articles. After all, we let the Sept. 11 biographies be included, so how could we how ask that they refrain from adding their WW2 soldier ones, or suggest that they be deleted?
I don't see how this is a logical fallacy. Those who oppose this point of view need either to find some reason the argument is wrong (is there some grounds on which we *can* legitimately object to WW2 soldiers, but not to Sept 11 victims?), or need to disagree with its premise (that it is undesirable to allow tons of biographies on otherwise not notable people to be included in Wikipedia). I believe The Cuncator has done the latter, but I also think most people disagree with him there.
As for the particular *harm* such entries cause, it will be ridiculous if every single Wikipedia entry on a famous person has at the top (or bottom), "so-and-so was also the name of [somebody not notable in any way whatsoever], so so-and-so (disambiguation)". This _will_ eventually happen, given no policy against the inclusion of non-notable people and enough time. That's not a slippery slope argument either, just an observation that as we continue to add biographies of people who are not notable, eventually we will add many thousands (if not millions) of such biographies.
In short, we must either excise the Sept. 11 biographies, or allow unrestricted biographies of essentially anyone. The Cunctator seems to be arguing that there is no slippery slope here: that we can allow the Sept. 11 biographies and go no further. But there is no legitimate grounds on which to do so: there is no way we can say that the Sept. 11 biographies are notable, but 6 million Holocaust victims are not. Many people, in fact, would argue the reverse, with that particular example.
-Mark
On 11/11/03 5:23 AM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:
Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
Well I guess it is now that you've changed the Wikipedia entry for it and changed "argument" to "fallacy."
The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B. Folks were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11 individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type to fallacy is not fair.
I'd agree with that, and calling it a fallacy is often a sneaky attempt by opponents of a particular issue to evade the real questions. The basic issue is that it is a fact that moving in a direction makes it easier to move further in that direction.
No, it isn't a fact. It is *often* true that moving in a direction makes it easier to move further in that direction, but it is not *necessarily* true.
When we move 5 arbitrary units in a direction, things that were 10 in that direction are now 5. It would be a fallacy to say it is *inevitable* that then we will go the additional five, but it is entirely logical to say it is now *more likely* we will do so, and thus a legitimate point of contention for those who oppose doing anything to make such an outcome more likely.
Again, it is not entirely logical to do so.
To pick one example, it is often held that if we begin allowing the government to intrude on our privacy with anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act, this will set the stage for more intrusive legislation to follow--the new more-intrusive legislation is, by comparison, no longer a huge power grab, only an incremental one. This isn't a fallacy, but simple fact, and empirically attested to by legislative history.
It is not a "simple fact". Moreover, you provided evidence for your argument ("legislative history"), which others did not.
If The Cunctator's argument was correct, "precedent" would be a logical fallacy, which it is most certainly not: precedent is appealed to all the time. The fact that something happens today makes it more likely that something similar will happen in the future, as today's act will be appealed to as partial precedent. See court history for another example.
You misunderstand my argument.
Back on topic, I believe I did elucidate my argument in quite mind-numbing detail.
I would love for you to reference such an elucidation.
The argument, for those who missed it, is as follows:
- By allowing entries for people whose only interest above any other
random person who has ever existed is "died in September 11 terrorist attacks", we are forming a principle that dying in a notable event is sufficient for inclusion in Wikipedia.
- Notably, we are forming the principle that "so-and-so died in a
notable event" constitutes sufficient grounds on which to oppose deletion of such biographies.
- Thus, we have no legitimate grounds on which to oppose the inclusion
in Wikipedia of those who died in any other notable tragedy.
- Thus, if it occurs in the future that a group of people begin a
sustained effort to add thousands of articles in Wikipedia on people who have died in a notable event but are not otherwise notable themselves (World War II soldiers, Holocaust victims, etc.), we have no legitimate grounds on which to ask them to stop doing so or to remove their articles. After all, we let the Sept. 11 biographies be included, so how could we how ask that they refrain from adding their WW2 soldier ones, or suggest that they be deleted?
I don't see how this is a logical fallacy. Those who oppose this point of view need either to find some reason the argument is wrong (is there some grounds on which we *can* legitimately object to WW2 soldiers, but not to Sept 11 victims?), or need to disagree with its premise (that it is undesirable to allow tons of biographies on otherwise not notable people to be included in Wikipedia). I believe The Cuncator has done the latter, but I also think most people disagree with him there.
You are incorrect in your belief. I have, in fact, welcomed people to make the effort to add articles on other notable tragedies, including entries on people's deaths.
As for the particular *harm* such entries cause, it will be ridiculous if every single Wikipedia entry on a famous person has at the top (or bottom), "so-and-so was also the name of [somebody not notable in any way whatsoever], so so-and-so (disambiguation)". This _will_ eventually happen, given no policy against the inclusion of non-notable people and enough time. That's not a slippery slope argument either, just an observation that as we continue to add biographies of people who are not notable, eventually we will add many thousands (if not millions) of such biographies.
The above is fallacious, because the conclusion that Wikipedia will be ridiculous if there are thousands of such biographies assumes that there effort to make necessary interface changes to avoid such ridiculousness.
In short, we must either excise the Sept. 11 biographies, or allow unrestricted biographies of essentially anyone. The Cunctator seems to be arguing that there is no slippery slope here: that we can allow the Sept. 11 biographies and go no further.
No, I'm not. You are wrong.
But there is no legitimate grounds on which to do so: there is no way we can say that the Sept. 11 biographies are notable, but 6 million Holocaust victims are not. Many people, in fact, would argue the reverse, with that particular example.
And I would not disagree with that, nor have I ever.
Please correct your misunderstandings of what I have said.
The Cunctator wrote:
But there is no legitimate grounds on which to do so: there is no way we can say that the Sept. 11 biographies are notable, but 6 million Holocaust victims are not. Many people, in fact, would argue the reverse, with that particular example.
And I would not disagree with that, nor have I ever.
Please correct your misunderstandings of what I have said.
Then I think the simple disagreement boils down to that. I think that this is opening the door for a flood of stuff Wikipedia doesn't need and shouldn't have to deal with, while you disagree that it is undesirable for us to have such entries. So I suppose slippery slope doesn't enter into it at all: I think we should have none of them, and you think we should have all of them. Is that accurate?
I'm curious what you meant by "necessary interface changes". Do you mean we wouldn't reference the non-notable people at all on the articles of the famous people? I'm objecting to an article on, say, Thomas Jefferson, saying "Thomas Jefferson was also a chemical engineer who worked for Raytheon in the 1960s and 70s," or "Thomas Jefferson was a high school student who died in an automobile accident in 1952," or even a link pointing to a "list of other Thomas Jeffersons" which is populated with such non-noteworthy people. If they can somehow be kept completely isolated in a "people who are not notable" ghetto, such that [[Thomas Jefferson]] doesn't have to include them or a link to them or a disambiguating page containing them, I'd have no objections to their mere presence in the database--it's the pollution of the namespace I'm objecting to.
I also have a secondary (and lesser) objection that these are the sorts of articles that never get cleaned up, and are more likely than most to just stay crap for extended periods of time (as some of the Sept. 11 entries illustrate).
-Mark
On 11/11/03 7:02 AM, "Delirium" delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
But there is no legitimate grounds on which to do so: there is no way we can say that the Sept. 11 biographies are notable, but 6 million Holocaust victims are not. Many people, in fact, would argue the reverse, with that particular example.
And I would not disagree with that, nor have I ever.
Please correct your misunderstandings of what I have said.
Then I think the simple disagreement boils down to that. I think that this is opening the door for a flood of stuff Wikipedia doesn't need and shouldn't have to deal with, while you disagree that it is undesirable for us to have such entries. So I suppose slippery slope doesn't enter into it at all: I think we should have none of them, and you think we should have all of them. Is that accurate?
I would only say that my position is that we should have all of them eventually--which could be a very long time. I'm in no rush to accelerate the process.
I'm curious what you meant by "necessary interface changes". Do you mean we wouldn't reference the non-notable people at all on the articles of the famous people?
I don't know, honestly. I do believe that the Wikipedia interface could be improved somehow to deal with namespace collisions.
Disambiguation pages are an imperfect hack.
I'm objecting to an article on, say, Thomas Jefferson, saying "Thomas Jefferson was also a chemical engineer who worked for Raytheon in the 1960s and 70s," or "Thomas Jefferson was a high school student who died in an automobile accident in 1952," or even a link pointing to a "list of other Thomas Jeffersons" which is populated with such non-noteworthy people. If they can somehow be kept completely isolated in a "people who are not notable" ghetto, such that [[Thomas Jefferson]] doesn't have to include them or a link to them or a disambiguating page containing them, I'd have no objections to their mere presence in the database--it's the pollution of the namespace I'm objecting to.
That's a perfectly reasonable objection.
But saying "We can't let people add entries on lesser-known people because then there would be 4000 Michael Jordan articles" is not a reasonable argument.
I think it behooves anyone who wishes to add such entries to ensure that the entries don't collide with more famous people by using middle names, etc.
But as we've seen we still have the name-collision problem with "famous" people as well (see [[Elizabeth Smart]]).
Again, I believe we'll figure out a better way to deal with naming collisions as it becomes a more pressing problem.
On 11/11/03 2:04 AM, "Andrew Lih" alih@hku.hk wrote:
Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
Well I guess it is now that you've changed the Wikipedia entry for it and changed "argument" to "fallacy."
Changed it back, you mean.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/distract/ss.htm http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B. Folks were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11 individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type to fallacy is not fair.
I did not call those questions straw men. Now you're changing the subject.
You seem to have a basic misunderstanding of logical fallacies.
"The slippery slope argument is usually used as a commentary on social change, not as a point of logic."
(which used to be in the Slippery Slope article)
It may be a nice commentary, but it's not a logically valid argument.
The Cunctator wrote:
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
Not always. Some people might convincingly argue, for example, that setting a precedent of banning people for a particular infraction may make it easier and easier to ban them for other infractions. I think that's a legitimate concern.
--Jimbo
On 11/11/03 4:35 PM, "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
Not always. Some people might convincingly argue, for example, that setting a precedent of banning people for a particular infraction may make it easier and easier to ban them for other infractions. I think that's a legitimate concern.
That's an inductive argument, not a slippery slope argument.
All inductive arguments are fallacies, in the rigorous sense. Only deductive arguments are rigorously valid.
Although they are fallacies, that does not mean that inductive arguments should be ignored. They simply need to be recognized as such--that there is necessarily an element of uncertainty about the conclusion.
The Cunctator wrote:
On 11/11/03 4:35 PM, "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
For one, slippery slope arguments are fallacies too.
Not always. Some people might convincingly argue, for example, that setting a precedent of banning people for a particular infraction may make it easier and easier to ban them for other infractions. I think that's a legitimate concern.
That's an inductive argument, not a slippery slope argument.
All inductive arguments are fallacies, in the rigorous sense. Only deductive arguments are rigorously valid.
Although they are fallacies, that does not mean that inductive arguments should be ignored. They simply need to be recognized as such--that there is necessarily an element of uncertainty about the conclusion.
Not under the standard definition of "fallacy". An inductive argument that claimed to be absolute proof would be a logical fallacy, but an argument that claims inductive *evidence* is not a fallacy. If it were, nearly all work done in science would be fallacious, as it relies on repeatability of experiments, which is an inductive claim (it is logically conceivable that an experiment that has been repeated successfully 500,000 times is actually wrong, and you've just gotten lucky that many times: but it's not particularly likely).
There _is_ a branch of philosophy that refers to inductive arguments in general as fallacious, first formulated in its present form (as far as I know) by David Hume's with his famous "problem of induction". However, Hume's attack on induction is not universally regarded as conclusive, especially as the epistemological question of what constitutes proper justification for a proposition is a hotly debated one.
-Mark