On 14/02/12 02:39, Achal Prabhala wrote:
The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia
By Timothy Messer-Kruse
[...]
My improvement lasted five minutes before a Wiki-cop scolded me, "I hope you will familiarize yourself with some of Wikipedia's policies, such as verifiability and undue weight. If all historians save one say that the sky was green in 1888, our policies require that we write 'Most historians write that the sky was green, but one says the sky was blue.' ... As individual editors, we're not in the business of weighing claims, just reporting what reliable sources write."
There are lots of places on Wikipedia where misconceptions have been summarily dealt with, respectable sources criticised and facts brought to light. Unfortunately, most academics don't have time for the edit wars, lengthy talk page discussions and RFCs that are sometimes required to overcome inertia.
The text of Messer-Kruse's article doesn't show much understanding of this aspect of Wikipedia. But publishing it could be seen as canny. It should be effective at recruiting new editors and bringing more attention to the primary sources in question. The article is being actively edited along those lines.
-- Tim Starling