http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_10_14.shtml#1098119066
I'll be blogging about this in the morning, but I did want to say that I think Orin Kerr is right about this particular entry, but wrong about how wikipedia works and the degree of commitment that the community has to getting it right.
In particular, I think he's wrong about this part:
If I understand accurately how Wikipedia works -- a big 'if,' I should point out -- my views of what is in the Patriot Act are no more and no less valued by Wikipedia than the views of any other Internet user.
About this, I very much think he's wrong. Certainly I am not aware of any serious support for this kind of wholesale intellectual relativism in any wikipedia discussions. Instead, there's always an underlying and thorough commitment to _getting it right_.
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual errors.
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual errors.
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week, instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive amounts of time that could be used more productively.
Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
Stan
One of the problems is that you run into these folks while editing in an area that you are interested in and probably have a point of view about yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be banning them.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual errors.
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week, instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive amounts of time that could be used more productively.
Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
Stan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I don't think the banning can be done unilaterally, but if you have one person willing to consider that he might be wrong, versus another who is utterly and absolutely convinced of his rightness, which of the two POVs is more likely to be represented, and which is more likely to be deleted from an article? By its nature, fair-mindedness can make us weak against the single-minded.
One interesting experiment to try would be for the ArbCom to lower the bar for accepting POV warrior cases, and have as a condition of avoiding banishment, for the warrior to add to one or more talk pages a statement like "I acknowledge that my opponent's point of view may be correct." I suspect that nearly all of the troublesome POVers would rather quit WP forever than go on record making such a statement.
Stan
Fred Bauder wrote:
One of the problems is that you run into these folks while editing in an area that you are interested in and probably have a point of view about yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be banning them.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh Conspiracy
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more effectively with the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries like this one... where politically motivated hysteria leads to blatant factual errors.
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week, instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive amounts of time that could be used more productively.
Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
Stan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
pages.
Stan
Well great. You say that black is white. I say that, no, black is black. You say that maybe I'm right, but you disagree - how about the possibility that black is grey? Surely that's being reasonable? I say that no, black is black, I'm not interested in compromise on this issue. I get banned for not acknowlesging the validity of a different point of view?
Surely this isn't what you mean? Mark
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Mark Richards wrote:
If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
pages.
Stan
Well great. You say that black is white. I say that, no, black is black. You say that maybe I'm right, but you disagree - how about the possibility that black is grey? Surely that's being reasonable? I say that no, black is black, I'm not interested in compromise on this issue. I get banned for not acknowlesging the validity of a different point of view?
Surely this isn't what you mean? Mark
It's exactly what I mean. The correct response would be "well, I'm pretty sure black is black, and haven't heard of anybody besides yourself disagreeing, do you have a source for this other POV? How about writing an article on the 'black is white' theory, and we'll link to it from here?" We have plenty of mechanism to constrain the scope of alternate theories, if you're worried about that; despite people's fears, the existence of a creationism article has not compelled us to modify every reference to evolution in science articles.
When you declare that "obviously so-and-so is wrong and there's no point in further discussion", you're giving POVers an opening to make the same declarations for their POV. As persons engaged in scholarly work, we need to be ready to question any statement at any time, and so it's critical that we exclude anyone who wants to declare that their statements must be accepted without challenge.
Stan
Plus, they might be right... Mark
--- Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
One of the problems is that you run into these folks while editing in an area that you are interested in and probably have a point of view about yourself. That puts you in a poor position to be banning them.
Fred
From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:42:55 -0700 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia on Volokh
Conspiracy
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal
more effectively with
the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries
like this
one... where politically motivated hysteria leads
to blatant factual
errors.
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no
upside and lots
of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political
partisans, and
they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as
long as they
find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to
identify the
avowed partisans and kick them off after no more
than a week,
instead of agonizing over them for months and
sucking up massive
amounts of time that could be used more
productively.
Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because
they are
completely unable to admit that the other side
might possibly be
right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody
who refused to
acknowledge the possible validity of a different
point of view,
you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk
pages.
Stan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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There is simmply no upside and lots of downside to 'lots more banning'. Mark
--- Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I do wonder how, in the long run, we will deal more
effectively with
the kind of POV warrioring that leads to entries
like this
one... where politically motivated hysteria leads
to blatant factual
errors.
Lots more banning, I suspect. There is simply no upside and lots of downside to letting WP be hijacked by political partisans, and they will keep coming, in ever-larger numbers, as long as they find WP a congenial soapbox. We need a process to identify the avowed partisans and kick them off after no more than a week, instead of agonizing over them for months and sucking up massive amounts of time that could be used more productively.
Partisans are actually easy to recognize, because they are completely unable to admit that the other side might possibly be right about an issue. If you were to ban anybody who refused to acknowledge the possible validity of a different point of view, you'd see a whole more useful discussion on talk pages.
Stan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush somehow the thumb of GWB in National Guard gear has been replaced by a pic of Hitler.
Ha, ha, bad joke.
I can't figure out how to fix it/who did it.
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:00:20 -0400, The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush somehow the thumb of GWB in National Guard gear has been replaced by a pic of Hitler.
Ha, ha, bad joke.
I can't figure out how to fix it/who did it.
Kate/kturner on #mediawiki fixed it, not sure exactly what she did.
Pak
It is not fixed yet, how can it be fixed or removed?
-----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Nathan Russell Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 12:56 AM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] GWB Picture vandalism
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:00:20 -0400, The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush somehow the thumb of
GWB in
National Guard gear has been replaced by a pic of Hitler.
Ha, ha, bad joke.
I can't figure out how to fix it/who did it.
Kate/kturner on #mediawiki fixed it, not sure exactly what she did.
Pak _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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