Clutch seems is seriously violating the NPOV policy and needs to stop.
The worst offenses have occured in the social worker article. See diff http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Social_worker&diff=471250&am...
Note: "Social workers are often found in hospitals, and play a hand in ear-marking newborn babies for potential seizure and kidnapping by government adoption departments."
"Social workers are widely hated."
"Social workers are trained to treat their feelings and gut more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help. "
and
"Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control."
This is just so bad that no further comment is needed.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 05:47:22PM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
"Social workers are widely hated."
"Social workers are trained to treat their feelings and gut instincts as more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help. "
"Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control."
Looks like Clutch is telling the honest truth, to me. Sorry you feel offended by it. Instead of erasing what he says, try to provide factual counter-views. Bet you can't. Social workers are trained for years to be really rapid and effective communicators. This, plus their training to lie without compunction, and their unaccountability to the court system, gives them an incredible edge in defending themselves against factual accusations.
Jonathan
Jonathan Walther wrote:
Looks like Clutch is telling the honest truth, to me. Sorry you feel offended by it. Instead of erasing what he says, try to provide factual counter-views.
Jonathan, are you Clutch? If so, please don't refer to yourself in the third person, as it makes conversation tedious.
--Jimbo
Clutch wrote:
Mav quoted Clutch:
"Social workers are widely hated."
"Social workers are trained to treat their feelings and gut instincts as more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help."
"Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control."
Looks like Clutch is telling the honest truth, to me.
It *looks* that way? Surely you remember if you were being honest when you wrote it!
Instead of erasing what he says, try to provide factual counter-views. Bet you can't.
I did social work for a year (1999 to 2000). I was not a social worker as such -- I wasn't hired with that job title, or on the basis of holding such a degree or certification, which I don't hold -- but I worked with several people who would qualify. It was a private, nonprofit agency (Ortolan88's sense 2), although it worked to some extent as an affiliate of the local government.
I was not trained to trust feelings over reason. Furthermore, I was specifically instructed to respect human dignity. Now, since I was just a temporary worker, with no degree or certification, perhaps I didn't receive the training that you refer to above. But if the social workers that were my bosses (and trained me) did receive such training, then why didn't they try to pass it on to me? In particular, why did they stress the importance of human dignity to me, if they had been trained to disregard it?
The organisation that I worked for definitely trusted the government too much. That is, they assumed that laws passed by "progressive" legislators were well intended and should not be thwarted, although had no compunction against working around amendments passed by "conservative" legislators. (For example, we would gladly try to get people on food stamps. But we'd also try to find a way to make them qualify, even if a prima facie reading of the guidelines suggested that they didn't.) It even ran Head Start (a nationally funded public preschool programme) *for* the local government, although I wasn't involved in that. But ultimately, the assumption was to trust the people we were working with over the government (although not, unfortunately, over one's coworkers).
I don't think that anybody there liked big business. We didn't have businessmen on the board of directors.
Social workers are trained for years to be really rapid and effective communicators. This, plus their training to lie without compunction, and their unaccountability to the court system, gives them an incredible edge in defending themselves against factual accusations.
So what's your factual basis for the training to lie without compunction? And do you have statistics on the wide hatred?
-- Toby
Paranoia strikes deep. Zoe Jonathan Walther krooger@debian.org wrote:On Sun, Dec 08, 2002 at 05:47:22PM -0800, Daniel Mayer wrote:
"Social workers are widely hated."
"Social workers are trained to treat their feelings and gut instincts as more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help. "
"Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control."
Looks like Clutch is telling the honest truth, to me. Sorry you feel offended by it. Instead of erasing what he says, try to provide factual counter-views. Bet you can't. Social workers are trained for years to be really rapid and effective communicators. This, plus their training to lie without compunction, and their unaccountability to the court system, gives them an incredible edge in defending themselves against factual accusations.
Jonathan
"Told ya so" (during the User:Lir page episode). Clutch (Jonathan Walther) enjoys trolling Wikipedia from time to time. He's quite persistent, too. If he keeps it up, we'll have to ban him.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
"Told ya so" (during the User:Lir page episode). Clutch (Jonathan Walther) enjoys trolling Wikipedia from time to time. He's quite persistent, too. If he keeps it up, we'll have to ban him.
*sigh* I tend to agree with you.
Disputes over NPOV are not unusual and not, generally, problematic. But I do hate to see someone on a rant who clearly has no intention of accomodating other people's views in the least.
Clutch, notice that "It's true" is not usually a defense against a charge of POV. I could write, on a page about North Korea, that it is led by muderous tyrants with no right to exist, much less right to nuclear weapons. Well, that's true. But it is still not NPOV.
--Jimbo
On 12/9/02 7:05 AM, "Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
"Told ya so" (during the User:Lir page episode). Clutch (Jonathan Walther) enjoys trolling Wikipedia from time to time. He's quite persistent, too. If he keeps it up, we'll have to ban him.
*sigh* I tend to agree with you.
Disputes over NPOV are not unusual and not, generally, problematic. But I do hate to see someone on a rant who clearly has no intention of accomodating other people's views in the least.
Clutch, notice that "It's true" is not usually a defense against a charge of POV. I could write, on a page about North Korea, that it is led by muderous tyrants with no right to exist, much less right to nuclear weapons. Well, that's true. But it is still not NPOV.
The "murderous tyrants" bit is NPOV, but it would require some backing up.
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 04:05:53AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Disputes over NPOV are not unusual and not, generally, problematic. But I do hate to see someone on a rant who clearly has no intention of accomodating other people's views in the least.
Clutch, notice that "It's true" is not usually a defense against a charge of POV. I could write, on a page about North Korea, that it is led by muderous tyrants with no right to exist, much less right to nuclear weapons. Well, that's true. But it is still not NPOV.
I wasn't obstructing NPOV, but I was obstructing peoples attempts to make sure that the POV shared by myself and countless others was eliminated from the article.
In other words, there was no lack of accomodation, just protest that people tried to eliminate what I wrote entirely. If you look at the beginning of the edit war, someone summarily reverted my addition to the article, instead of incorporation my information. When, later on, someone did incorporate my information, I worked forward from that.
If warnings are in order, I think they should be directed at those who want to silence any view other than their own.
Jonathan
Jonathan Walther wrote:
I wasn't obstructing NPOV, but I was obstructing peoples attempts to make sure that the POV shared by myself and countless others was eliminated from the article.
This discussion should probably proceed primarily on the Talk page for the article.
However, it's worth noting that you wrote "Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep people under control."
This is a controversial view, and therefore under NPOV, should have been attributed to someone, as well as worded in a less contentious fashion. Absent attribution, it was perfectly appropriate for people to simply delete it. The Wikipdia itself should make no controversial claims.
In other words, there was no lack of accomodation, just protest that people tried to eliminate what I wrote entirely. If you look at the beginning of the edit war, someone summarily reverted my addition to the article, instead of incorporation my information.
They were right to do so. If you write non-NPOV material, it can and should be deleted on the spot. If someone happens to feel that they can adapt it to be NPOV, that's fine, too. But it is poor judgment to add clearly non-NPOV material and demand that others clean it up.
If warnings are in order, I think they should be directed at those who want to silence any view other than their own.
Well, when I see anyone like that, I'll warn them. But that's not what happened here.
NPOV is a virtue for all of us. The process is not to post competing viewpoints. One test of good Wikipedia writing is that other readers can not guess what your POV is from what you have written.
Our process should not be a competitive process of posting POV claims and daring others to fix them. Our process should be that *each of us* works to present NPOV discussions of all views.
--Jimbo
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 05:45:02AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Our process should not be a competitive process of posting POV claims and daring others to fix them.
I'm not so sure this is a good general rule. Probably if used in too many cases or taken to extremes then it is a bad thing, but used sensibly it can be a good thing in my opinion.
If I start an article about something controversial and I stick to a bland NPOV stub, chances are it'll get ignored or only get minor corrections and additions. If I start with a blatantly biased stub which makes outrageous claims, you can almost guarantee one or more gangs of people will become very interested in expanding the article.
Of course, once you've "hooked" some people, you have to revert to being fair and neutral otherwise it's counter-productive.
Consensus and niceness are good things, but contention and argument drive the wheel faster and produce more comprehensive results.
Jason Williams wrote:
Consensus and niceness are good things, but contention and argument drive the wheel faster and produce more comprehensive results.
You've been watching too much Babylon 5. I'm with the Vorlons -- conflict may promote growth, but it's not a healthy way to do so.
The social workers I have encountered have been idiots, not pathological liars. I've found it's the structure they work within (and their pen-pusher mentality which means they can *never* look outside of it) which has caused me problems in the past. If we want to criticize social workers, we need evidence, like specific cases -- and we also need to present the wider picture.
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 03:40:20PM +0000, tarquin wrote:
Jason Williams wrote:
Consensus and niceness are good things, but contention and argument drive the wheel faster and produce more comprehensive results.
You've been watching too much Babylon 5. I'm with the Vorlons -- conflict may promote growth, but it's not a healthy way to do so.
The social workers I have encountered have been idiots, not pathological liars. I've found it's the structure they work within (and their pen-pusher mentality which means they can *never* look outside of it) which has caused me problems in the past. If we want to criticize social workers, we need evidence, like specific cases -- and we also need to present the wider picture.
Here is one specific "case"... it's a small and trivial one as far as these things go, but telling. It is my most recent experience; my earlier, more horrific experiences aren't described on this page because it would take too much time to write up.
http://reactor-core.org/~djw/diary-arc/20021129072842.html
Want to hear the case of how a social worker in the state of Oregon aided and abetted a pedophile porn ring run by one of the state approved foster parents, and got away with it for more than 5 years? The step-mom of one of the victims, a 6 year old girl, write up her experience.
http://reactor-core.org/security/weidner-method.html
Then there are all the personal anecdotes. When you are poor, you tend to hang out with other poor people. And we talk to each other. And everyone has stories about themselves, or about family members, friends, or coworkers who have been jerked around and abused by social workers.
One such personal story: friend of mine was told by the social workers that if he and the wife wanted a night or a weekend off, there was a sort of transition house where they could leave the kids to be baby-sat for a while. He decided to try it out one weekend. That night the house called him and told him to bring his son home. It turned out that a 9 year old girl with Downs syndrome had sexually molested this 4 year old boy, and he was "acting up" as a response. But noone at the house would listen to the boy, nor did the social worker take any action on the matter.
And theres plenty more where that came from. Shall I continue?
Jonathan
On 12/9/02 10:39 AM, "Jonathan Walther" krooger@debian.org wrote:
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 03:40:20PM +0000, tarquin wrote:
Jason Williams wrote:
Consensus and niceness are good things, but contention and argument drive the wheel faster and produce more comprehensive results.
You've been watching too much Babylon 5. I'm with the Vorlons -- conflict may promote growth, but it's not a healthy way to do so.
The social workers I have encountered have been idiots, not pathological liars. I've found it's the structure they work within (and their pen-pusher mentality which means they can *never* look outside of it) which has caused me problems in the past. If we want to criticize social workers, we need evidence, like specific cases -- and we also need to present the wider picture.
<anecdotes of malicious social workers snipped>
And theres plenty more where that came from. Shall I continue?
Not on the list. Try Wikipedia. And anecdotes are of limited utility. There are as many evil doctors and soldiers and teachers as there are social workers. And what can be said is not that doctors, soldiers, and teachers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control, but that there are abuses of power and problems of accountability, which are endemic to all bureaucracies with more power than accountability.
You don't get to say, "Doctors are often found in hospitals, and play a hand in ear-marking newborn babies for potential seizure and kidnapping by government adoption departments," which I'm sure they do, under a certain definition of "potential seizure and kidnapping".
Or "Teachers are widely hated".
Or "Soldiers are trained to treat their feelings and gut more important than reason, rationality, and respect for the human dignity of those they seek to help. "
That's not to say that there aren't endemic problems with social workers, doctors, soldiers, or teachers. That just wasn't the way to go about it.
What's annoying is that you should know this.
Jonathan Walther wrote:
Here is one specific "case"... it's a small and trivial one as far as these things go, but telling. It is my most recent experience; my earlier, more horrific experiences aren't described on this page because it would take too much time to write up.
http://reactor-core.org/~djw/diary-arc/20021129072842.html
Want to hear the case of how a social worker in the state of Oregon aided and abetted a pedophile porn ring run by one of the state approved foster parents, and got away with it for more than 5 years? The step-mom of one of the victims, a 6 year old girl, write up her experience.
Then there are all the personal anecdotes. When you are poor, you tend to hang out with other poor people. And we talk to each other. And everyone has stories about themselves, or about family members, friends, or coworkers who have been jerked around and abused by social workers.
One such personal story: friend of mine was told by the social workers that if he and the wife wanted a night or a weekend off, there was a sort of transition house where they could leave the kids to be baby-sat for a while. He decided to try it out one weekend. That night the house called him and told him to bring his son home. It turned out that a 9 year old girl with Downs syndrome had sexually molested this 4 year old boy, and he was "acting up" as a response. But noone at the house would listen to the boy, nor did the social worker take any action on the matter.
These are all anecdotal evidence. It's like trying to draw conclusions from "I know somebody whose arthritis was cured by drinking snake oil." or "I know somebody whose astrological sign was Leo, and he was insane." Knowing several people who fit these circumstances might seem to strenghthen your conclusions, but still proves nothing.
Eclecticology
Ignorance is no defense of non-NPOV:
1 - social worker -- employee of government agency, working under a budget and administering policies in the context of individuals having some kind of problem (sometimes with the government) 2 - social worker -- employee of private social services agency working with individuals having some kind of problem 3 - social worker -- employed by private agency providing psychotherapeutic support, often with problem solving included 4 -- social worker -- self-employed, providing psychotherapeutic support under health insurance, often with problem solving included.
All have weighty responsibilities, which means all have some opportunity/danger of doing harm.
The amount of pen-pushing varies, but category 4, where my wife performs much of her social work, requires as much as any to appease the insurance companies.
Tom Parmenter married to an L.I.C.S.W. (not an idiot, possibly more intelligent than Tarquin), former food-stamp recipient, currently unemployed, and Ortolan88
|From: tarquin tarquin@planetunreal.com |X-Accept-Language: en-us, en |X-VSMLoop: planetunreal.com |Sender: wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 15:40:20 +0000 |
|Jason Williams wrote: | |> |>Consensus and niceness are good things, but contention and |>argument drive the wheel faster and produce more comprehensive |>results. |> |> |> |You've been watching too much Babylon 5. |I'm with the Vorlons -- conflict may promote growth, but it's not a |healthy way to do so. | |The social workers I have encountered have been idiots, not pathological |liars. I've found it's the structure they work within (and their |pen-pusher mentality which means they can *never* look outside of it) |which has caused me problems in the past. |If we want to criticize social workers, we need evidence, like specific |cases -- and we also need to present the wider picture. | |> |> | | |_______________________________________________ |WikiEN-l mailing list |WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org |http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 12:22:46PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
1 - social worker -- employee of government agency, working under a budget and administering policies in the context of individuals having some kind of problem (sometimes with the government)
This is a social worker.
2 - social worker -- employee of private social services agency working with individuals having some kind of problem
These used to be called social workers, but with the passing of the work house, no longer are.
3 - social worker -- employed by private agency providing psychotherapeutic support, often with problem solving included
Nor are these.
4 -- social worker -- self-employed, providing psychotherapeutic support under health insurance, often with problem solving included.
Same. Often this would be called a "Community health support worker", "Community health nurse", or similar. Not a social worker.
All have weighty responsibilities, which means all have some opportunity/danger of doing harm.
When one human being gains power over another, there will be abuses and resentment. Nanny fascism is still fascism.
Jonathan
L.I.C.S.W. means "Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker". It is a license from the government that allows one to conduct business and charge insurance companies for performing clinical social work. All of those categories I listed are called social work in the United States (note the S.W. in the license). I have no idea what the different functions are called in Vancouver (pause to note that Vancouver is the most beautiful city in North America, at least of the ones I have seen).
You seem to be saying that only the ones you hate are social workers, what you call the "nanny state" (a dead giveaway of POV) and I call the "cruel orphan warden" hypothesis (smarty-pants version of same), and all the others are something else. But, at least in the states, they all go to social work school and they all call themselves social worker and no amount of bluster will change it, although I grant the terminology may be different in Canada.
Tom P. O88
|From: Jonathan Walther krooger@debian.org |Content-Disposition: inline |Sender: wikien-l-admin@wikipedia.org |Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org |Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 09:20:22 -0800 | | |--pWyiEgJYm5f9v55/ |Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed |Content-Disposition: inline |Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable | |On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 12:22:46PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote: |>1 - social worker -- employee of government agency, working under a |>budget and administering policies in the context of individuals having |>some kind of problem (sometimes with the government) | |This is a social worker. | |>2 - social worker -- employee of private social services agency |>working with individuals having some kind of problem | |These used to be called social workers, but with the passing of the work |house, no longer are. | |>3 - social worker -- employed by private agency providing |>psychotherapeutic support, often with problem solving included | |Nor are these. | |>4 -- social worker -- self-employed, providing psychotherapeutic |>support under health insurance, often with problem solving included. | |Same. Often this would be called a "Community health support worker", |"Community health nurse", or similar. Not a social worker. | |>All have weighty responsibilities, which means all have some |>opportunity/danger of doing harm. =20 | |When one human being gains power over another, there will be abuses and |resentment. Nanny fascism is still fascism. | |Jonathan | |--=20
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 12:48:09PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
You seem to be saying that only the ones you hate are social workers, what you call the "nanny state" (a dead giveaway of POV) and I call the "cruel orphan warden" hypothesis (smarty-pants version of same), and all the others are something else. But, at least in the states, they all go to social work school and they all call themselves social worker and no amount of bluster will change it, although I grant the terminology may be different in Canada.
We could make a note of that then; when people talk about "social workers" they are generally talking about implementors of government social engineering policies and legislation, but the term itself has a broader meaning in the United States.
Jonathan
Clutch wrote:
Ortolan88 wrote:
But, at least in the states, they all go to social work school and they all call themselves social worker and no amount of bluster will change it, although I grant the terminology may be different in Canada.
We could make a note of that then; when people talk about "social workers" they are generally talking about implementors of government social engineering policies and legislation, but the term itself has a broader meaning in the United States.
I wouldn't even say that they are *generally* talking about government workers in the US. I usually think of social workers as not working for profit, but they may work for governmental or private nonprofits. I just asked a Canadian (from Ontario, not BC) to define "social worker", and he never mentioned government. I asked who employs them in Canada, and he says that it's ususally the government, but there's no reason that it has to be. So the more general sense is being used in Canada. (My Canadian friend is an anarchist, BTW, if you're worried about ideological bias.)
My impression now is that Canadian social workers are simply much more likely than those in the US to be employed by the government -- which I'd guess anyway. If so, then the article should reflect that.
-- Toby
Tom Parmenter wrote:
L.I.C.S.W. means "Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker". It is a license from the government that allows one to conduct business and charge insurance companies for performing clinical social work. All of those categories I listed are called social work in the United States (note the S.W. in the license). I have no idea what the different functions are called in Vancouver (pause to note that Vancouver is the most beautiful city in North America, at least of the ones I have seen).
You seem to be saying that only the ones you hate are social workers, what you call the "nanny state" (a dead giveaway of POV) and I call the "cruel orphan warden" hypothesis (smarty-pants version of same), and all the others are something else. But, at least in the states, they all go to social work school and they all call themselves social worker and no amount of bluster will change it, although I grant the terminology may be different in Canada.
I, like Jonathan, live in the Vancouver area, and for the purposes of this discussion don't see any significant difference between Social Workers in Canada and the United States. The terminology may be different, but that doesn't change the fact that educational standards need to be met before a person can call himself a social worker. The categories of social work that Tom listed are just as valid here as there.
Jonathan's response seemed to make it clear that he was only concerned with one of the four categories, social workers employed by government. This and some of the other discussion suggests that his criticism of social workers is misplaced. When commissions here have investigated the operation of the provincial government's Child Protection Branch, they have determined that the social workers which it does employ have chronically huge case loads that do not permit the workers to give each case the attention which it needs. The current provincial government's obsession with eliminating deficits at the same time that it is giving tax cuts for its more affluent supporters frequently means that spending cuts will have the greatest effect on those who can least afford it. Adequate funding for social services would go a long way toward reducing the abusive incidents that Jonathan reports.
Eclecticology
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 04:54:58PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Adequate funding for social services would go a long way toward reducing the abusive incidents that Jonathan reports.
To the contrary; when the current budget cutting government got voted in, and sliced the social workers budget in half, the number of child seizures dropped in half too. Since 90% of the seizures end up being ruled "unnecessary", that's a very positive step in the right direction.
Jonathan
Tom Parmenter wrote:
Ignorance is no defense of non-NPOV:
1 - social worker -- employee of government agency, working under a budget and administering policies in the context of individuals having some kind of problem (sometimes with the government) 2 - social worker -- employee of private social services agency working with individuals having some kind of problem 3 - social worker -- employed by private agency providing psychotherapeutic support, often with problem solving included 4 -- social worker -- self-employed, providing psychotherapeutic support under health insurance, often with problem solving included.
All have weighty responsibilities, which means all have some opportunity/danger of doing harm.
The amount of pen-pushing varies, but category 4, where my wife performs much of her social work, requires as much as any to appease the insurance companies.
Tom Parmenter married to an L.I.C.S.W. (not an idiot, possibly more intelligent than Tarquin), former food-stamp recipient, currently unemployed, and Ortolan88
Apologies, Tom. I meant type 1. I'll tell you the long saga of me versus my local social services one day. It will take a large number of beers (and ideally some shadow-puppets for the action scenes!) but it boils down to said social workers repeatedly quoting regulations at me, despite my pointing out that they didn't apply to particular case in question; and then them being unable to actually tell me which person or body was responsible for the regulations' existence, and which person or body had the power to overrule it -- since they seemd to timid to do so. it took about 2 years for the whole thing to be sorted out. ... sigh ...
-- tarquin
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 05:42:01PM +0000, tarquin wrote:
I'll tell you the long saga of me versus my local social services one day. It will take a large number of beers (and ideally some shadow-puppets for the action scenes!) but it boils down to said social workers repeatedly quoting regulations at me, despite my pointing out that they didn't apply to particular case in question; and then them being unable to actually tell me which person or body was responsible for the regulations' existence, and which person or body had the power to overrule it -- since they seemd to timid to do so. it took about 2 years for the whole thing to be sorted out.
I have experience trying to take things up the chain of command. It always boils down to "This or that act that was passed as legislation ordains that it shall be thus, and gives us no flexibility to act otherwise". And good luck getting your elected representative to help; that often makes it worse. Lower level flunkies poison the ear of the head minister (an elected official, who is appointed) if you try to talk to him, and don't let you talk to him in the end anyway.
Jonathan
Amazing! The volume of e-mails on a subject is proportional to the perseption of misdeeds. :-)
Eclecticology
Jason Williams wrote:
If I start an article about something controversial and I stick to a bland NPOV stub, chances are it'll get ignored or only get minor corrections and additions. If I start with a blatantly biased stub which makes outrageous claims, you can almost guarantee one or more gangs of people will become very interested in expanding the article.
I don't agree. This is a tempting idea, but I don't think the empirical evidence supports it. What actually happens is that contentious beginnings delay the proper expanasion of an article because tempers are high.
--Jimbo
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 10:55:35AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
If I start an article about something controversial and I stick to a bland NPOV stub, chances are it'll get ignored or only get minor corrections and additions. If I start with a blatantly biased stub which makes outrageous claims, you can almost guarantee one or more gangs of people will become very interested in expanding the article.
I don't agree. This is a tempting idea, but I don't think the empirical evidence supports it. What actually happens is that contentious beginnings delay the proper expanasion of an article because tempers are high.
Fair enough; you certainly have vastly more experience than me, and I'm prepared to defer to that. I'd offer [[UK Firefighter strike 2002]] as the most recent example of my point (although not a particularly striking example), though.
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 05:45:02AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
This discussion should probably proceed primarily on the Talk page for the article.
However, it's worth noting that you wrote "Social workers are the foot soldiers of the ivory tower social engineers that governments and big businesses hire to keep the masses under control."
I have a valid and extensive historical basis for saying that, from the history of Margaret Sanger, to the old English "work houses" and religious charities like the Salvation Army, on to the modern behavior of welfare workers in intruding on peoples privacy and human dignity as a precondition to providing them with the necessities of life. I could go on for quite a while on the topic, showing all the evidence for that view. I see now that my view is not widely shared by the relatively affluent contributors to the Wikipedia; and now that I think about it, it is understandable given their lack of background.
To people with sufficient background, the above quote is not a controversial statement. I need to make clear that I wrote what I did in good faith. My intent wasn't to spark debate and make other people do all the hard work by writing something egregiously POV.
to simply delete it. The Wikipdia itself should make no controversial claims.
People turn to encyclopedias for facts. Once a fact is established, it should present it, even if the Joe Sixpack may find the fact startling, or contrary to what he expects. Naturally in such cases we should give enough detail so a person can verify these facts for themselves.
Jonathan
Jonathan Walther wrote:
People turn to encyclopedias for facts. Once a fact is established, it should present it, even if the Joe Sixpack may find the fact startling, or contrary to what he expects. Naturally in such cases we should give enough detail so a person can verify these facts for themselves.
I hardly count as "Joe Sixpack" -- indeed, I agree 100% with your non-NPOV statement. Nonetheless, it is non-NPOV, and it was right for people to delete it.
--Jimbo