On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:18:42 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Cade is clearly looking for and finding controversy. The Register thrives on that. The reality is rather different. Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of the project.
However, it's a logical fallacy to go from there to where several admins seem to be on various related articles lately (e.g., [[Gary Weiss]]), where they're dismissing all concerns that are in any way related to those mentioned in that article, even when brought up by perfectly rational, non-sociopathic, non-banned editors.
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
1) Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
Quoting "Daniel R. Tobias" dan@tobias.name:
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:18:42 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Cade is clearly looking for and finding controversy. The Register thrives on that. The reality is rather different. Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of the project.
However, it's a logical fallacy to go from there to where several admins seem to be on various related articles lately (e.g., [[Gary Weiss]]), where they're dismissing all concerns that are in any way related to those mentioned in that article, even when brought up by perfectly rational, non-sociopathic, non-banned editors.
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
- Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the
Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
No it doesn't. But the conclusion of 3 happens to be true. The main issue seems to be whether a mention of Bagley's criticism of Weiss is warranted in [[Gary Weiss]]. Now, I can see the argument for doing so, especially since the matter has been noted in some secondary sources, but there's also a good argument that minor coverage of Bagley's flailing isn't that relevant enough on an article about Weiss who is much more notable. The consensus currently is not to mention Bagley on that page. I'm not sure I agree with that(I think I do but I'm not sure) but it is a reasonable consensus that hardly constitutes a serious NPOV problem.
Bagley had other claims he wanted in the Weiss article but if I recall, they amounted to not much more than Bagley and Overstock's smears of Weiss that aren't worth repeating here (and indeed have not generally been repeated elsewhere aside from a few places noting how completely wacko Overstock's behavior has been). (Disclaimer: I haven't looked at the details of his claims in a while so this is from my memory of my earlier impression back when I payed attention to the matter).
On Dec 7, 2007 3:44 PM, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:18:42 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Cade is clearly looking for and finding controversy. The Register
thrives
on that. The reality is rather different. Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of
the
project.
However, it's a logical fallacy to go from there to where several admins seem to be on various related articles lately (e.g., [[Gary Weiss]]), where they're dismissing all concerns that are in any way related to those mentioned in that article, even when brought up by perfectly rational, non-sociopathic, non-banned editors.
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
- Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the
Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
So that we're clear on this, I agree that this does not follow logically.
However, IMHO, Bagley's claims are false, for reasons unrelated to him being a sociopathic, evil harrasser.
I don't agree with completely stifling discussion on whether they could be true... There's some sense of "echoing harrassers is bad" but we have to be able to move beyond "X was harrassed and therefore is now untouchable."
And I think we organizationally have. Responsible persons (arbcom, Jimmy, etc) have looked into claimed abuse by people who were also harrassment victims. They certainly aren't skating away scot-free from credible claims of problems.
THAT said... We do end up with a vicious cycle, where a self-defining "out crowd" find themselves "up against" a self-defining "in crowd" within Wikipedia, and both sides then do illogical things either to attack or antagonize the other, or in response to attacks or antagonism.
One of the things that gets done is that illegitimate claims by people like Bagley get echoed a lot more than their fundamental credibility deserves.
I don't know that there's a good solution, other than everyone assuming more good faith about the active participants in the project, and trying less to polarize and antagonize each other within the various Wikipedia social cliques.
On Dec 7, 2007 11:34 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 7, 2007 3:44 PM, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
- Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the
Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
So that we're clear on this, I agree that this does not follow logically.
However, IMHO, Bagley's claims are false, for reasons unrelated to him being a sociopathic, evil harrasser.
They're definitely not *all* false. Many of his claims have checked out. Bagley isn't the only one with old copies of the database.
I don't agree with completely stifling discussion on whether they could be true... There's some sense of "echoing harrassers is bad" but we have to be able to move beyond "X was harrassed and therefore is now untouchable."
The problem with allowing open discussion is that most of Bagley's claims involve revealing the real identity of Wikipedians, which most seem to agree is not permitted in open discussion.
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:18:42 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Cade is clearly looking for and finding controversy. The Register thrives on that. The reality is rather different. Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of the project.
However, it's a logical fallacy to go from there to where several admins seem to be on various related articles lately (e.g., [[Gary Weiss]]), where they're dismissing all concerns that are in any way related to those mentioned in that article, even when brought up by perfectly rational, non-sociopathic, non-banned editors.
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
- Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the
Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
AKA the ad hominem fallacy: Just because an asshole said it doesn't mean it's incorrect; assholes can still be right.
Quoting Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com:
Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:18:42 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Cade is clearly looking for and finding controversy. The Register thrives on that. The reality is rather different. Rendering aid and comfort to people who behave sociopathically online is not in the best interests of the project.
However, it's a logical fallacy to go from there to where several admins seem to be on various related articles lately (e.g., [[Gary Weiss]]), where they're dismissing all concerns that are in any way related to those mentioned in that article, even when brought up by perfectly rational, non-sociopathic, non-banned editors.
If mapped out in outline, the line of argument seems to go:
- Bagley claims that [list various claims of his, such as that the
Weiss article is non-NPOV] 2) Bagley is a sociopathic, evil harasser. 3) Therefore, the claims in (1) are all false. 4) Thus, anybody who repeats the claims should be dismissed out of hand.
This does not follow logically.
AKA the ad hominem fallacy: Just because an asshole said it doesn't mean it's incorrect; assholes can still be right.
Correct, if that line of logic worked I'd never be right about anything. Point of fact, my impression is that Bagley wasn't treated very well when he did show up but his behavior was so out of proportion that I lack any sympathy for him.