On Wednesday 22 February 2012 03:45 PM, Thomas Morton wrote:
Jokes aside :)
the problem here is exemplary of what Wikipedia *doesn't*
do well, which is to find ways to assess the legitimacy of
not-yet-legitimised knowledge
I'm not seeing a good argument that we *should* assess the legitimacy. This
seems to be being cast in the light of "verifiability not truth" (a really
silly maxim) but, in reality, it goes more back to our idea of "we use
reliable sources because they are *peer reviewed*".
Well actually, we use newspaper sources very frequently, as well as
non-scholarly (and therefore non-peer-reviewed) books, so in fact, we
rely on *printing* (or to put it more kindly, publishing) as a signal
for peer-review, not peer-review itself. In my opinion, this is a poor
signal.
The implicit suggestion here is that Wikipedia could/should act as that
form of peer review for so called "not-yet-legitimised knowledge".
Although it would be nice to have that role it isn't actually all that
practical for several reasons:
- We already have enough disagreement over sourcing as it is
- Very few of us are truly subject matter experts
- Even fewer of us have experience of peer review and critical examination
of work (this is especially critical in the sciences)
- Taking on the role of peer review puts us at odds with our main aim; of
providing a summary resource.
The main thing it would do is open up Wikipedia as an avenue to push (and
legitimise) fringe material.
I completely agree that we need a system that doesn't throw a spanner in
the works - but if you're suggesting that the only workable signal for
legitimacy is printing, then that seems odd; and it is odder that while
we ourselves rely on a range of filtered non-printed sources for our own
information (social media, conversations) that we shouldn't attempt to
find a way to bring Wikipedia into these very old and very new systems
of legitimate knowledge that we've fundamentally accepted ourselves.
whether the 'truth' is new analysis
backed up by serious scholarship (as
in this case), or things that have not yet made it to reliable print
scholarship (knowledge that's circulated orally, whether in conversations
or social media). The core of the problem would appear to be our insistence
on the narrowest and smallest possible definition of 'legitimate
knowledge'.
Is it? Lets look at what happened here.
- Someone posted information apparently based on their own analysis - it's
not unreasonable to remove this
- He began to defend his additions on the talk page and some were
incorporated
- He gave up further attempts
- The next day a lot of those comments were incorporated (if you read
through the detail very carefully, to as much of an extent as the published
literature allowed) based on the inconsistencies he raised
- He went away and wrote a book which forwards a number of new theories and
updates our understanding of the topic.
Has anyone actually read through the points raised? The problem is not a
case of "well this factual thing disproves what is in the article". It is
much more a case of disagreement over the established *interpretation* of
events and over the *extent* to which views expressed by the previously top
level source were recorded (for example; "no evidence" was a mistaken
summary of the view raised by the source, a point which was then corrected).
And I'd imagine that the solution is to find
a workable, sensible and
cross-culturally translatable version of legitimacy that is a lot better,
bigger and more generous than what we have.
No it isn't.
We have a good sourcing policy; one which does cover a very wide range of
sources and can be relaxed and restricted as required to fit the topic
based on good editorial judgement.
Consider these two points:
1) Bad behaviour needs a back-up, and inadequately updated/ incompletely
thought out policies serve as a bulwark against weeding out bad behaviour.
2) If, for instance, 'no original research' was to keep physics cranks
out, as seems the case, then it's succeeded - the physics cranks are
out. Given that it was put in place ten years ago though, and given that
it may have been very useful circa 2001, in a Wikipedia with limited
geographical contribution and use, things are very different now. Might
we not benefit from assessing the cost of policies that guard against
enemies who no longer exist?
However, for the topic of *history* (in which I have an interest, and where
I work on articles at the moment) we definitely should stick to well
reviewed, published material.
What *was* at issue here is how we treat new users; the discussion was
approached (on the part of our editors) either as a battleground/fight, or
in a quite patronising way. The issue here was that someone was put off
from raising the issues.
I do know of academics who are frustrated by what they see
as inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles; and when they try to correct them
from their own knowledge get reverted. That, coupled with a lack of
understanding of how Wikipedia works from a technical perspective, can make
the experience very frustrating - and the opportunity to explain the
rational viewpoint (i.e. peer reviewed sourcing) is lost.
If you read the article this is what he is saying; that academics should
follow the peer review route before trying to get their material
included. He also notes that even when he had taken this route he was put
off because of his treatment the last time.
The failure here is *not* our content policy. But the behavioural.
I respect where you're coming from and it's very helpful in furthering
my own understanding of the situation. But: I think the 'behavioural' is
distinctly affected by 'policy' - especially when the policy is
malleable, loose and archaic enough to interpreted (usually hawkishly)
at will by those already in the know.
Tom
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