[Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions

Wed Feb 15 03:36:31 UTC 2012

There are a number of interesting relies. As they too undoubtedly
intended the material to be available, (I'm one of them & at any rate
I did,)  I include them here; if additional come in, I shall post
them.

operalala 1 day ago
In your 2011 edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...
instead of providing a counterargument to a cited quotation, you
removed and replaced it.

>From the research that went into your book, you should have a wealth
of material to draw on to support your edits.
You need to cite your sources, just like a term paper, or not complain
when it gets handed back to you.

marka 7 hours ago in reply to operalala
Wait a minute.  He claims to have cited primary sources - but
potentially erroneous secondary sources are the standard?  By these
measures, Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, etc., wouldn't have been
mentioned in their own time - but Biblical entries should get top
billing because they have been cited by many?  Or Stalinist & Maoist
propaganda, because they have been cited many times?

And as his student says, if the prosecution spent numerous days at
trial, what, indeed, were they talking about?  On its face, the Wiki
entry is clearly erroneous.  A judge & jury found the evidence
'credible.'  Who says it wasn't, and what is their evidence?

jwhab309 1 day ago
Thank you.  I was not aware that quality research was unacceptable in
Wikipedia land.  Very unfortunate indeed.
6 people liked this.  Like   Reply

See Kuhn, Thomas, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," with
Wikipedia playing the role of gatekeeper of hegemonic paradigms in the
place of scientific journals. Although "in the place of" may not be
correct -- perhaps "in addition to" is more accurate.

marka 6 hours ago
And now that I've gone to the primary sources cited in the Wiki article,
the author of this Chron article is correct - the citations do NOT
support the assertions in the Wiki.  For example, the assertion that
'friendly fire' was the cause of police wounds, the very sources cited
say exactly the opposite - primary gunfire was from the crowd - also
noted in Wiki footnote 5.  Yikes!  Looks like Wiki 'editors' are
adhering to some ideological point of view, rather than actually read
the footnotes and follow the links.  Operalala, who .... are you?

dgoodman 6 hours ago
Qualified experts prevail at Wikipedia when they rely on their
expertise, not their qualifications. A true expert will be able to
give the best arguments and know the best sources. If they also write
in a style understandable by non-specialists, and not condescend to
them, they will have their edits accepted.  It is intended to be
different from the academic world; there is no respect at Wikipedia
for status, but only for evidence.
People however qualified or expert who have done original research
that is not yet accepted by their profession will not have their ideas
accepted  at Wikipedia as the mainstream view, precisely because their
views are in fact not yet mainstream. How could they expect it, for
who at Wikipedia will be able to judge them?  For that they need other
experts, and the world of peer-reviewed publication is the place for
them.

22067030 4 hours ago
Wikipedia is presumably not authoritative so much as a place to start.
 The gatekeepers are often inexpert, and may be unaware of who the
experts are, and at any rate are not maintaining a citable source.
Wikipedia is the place to START research.  That means, for example, if
there is a squabble over, say, climate change, then the squabble
itself is a topic that should have citations for people who want to
explore the squabble further.  But Wikipedia's mission will be
undercut if experts - or people who imagine themselves to be experts -
start deleting stuff.

I would recommend that if this is a place where the conventional
wisdom is very wrong, you start a new page on the controversy itself,
with citations to as wide a variety of points of view as you can find,
and then link current pages to your new page.

My experience with Wikipedia is that you can tell if you are having an
impact by what you initiate, not what you inscribe in stone.

GLMcColm

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 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
>
>
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-- 
David Goodman

DGG at the enWP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG