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

[George Herbert]

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:
> I should add a response on this point:
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 6:35 PM, George Herbert
> <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The post-facto probability of 1.0 that the researcher was in fact
>> professional, credible, and by all accounts right does not mean that a
>> priori he should automatically have been treated that way before the
>> situation was clarified.
>
> Should we declare that "Assume Good Faith" is now a dead letter?

No.  But in day-to-day operations, AGF has fallen somewhat in
prominence for the simple reason that a lot of the time someone brings
it up, it's after credible evidence is already in hand of bad faith
actions.

AGF is not a suicide pact; we cannot insist that each and every kook
or fringeist gets to waste a man-days worth of Wikipedian senior
volunteer time every day that they're active.  There simply aren't
enough senior volunteers to go around to do that.  The policy - as
implemented, if not as written - has to acknowledge that reasonable
provisions for defending the encyclopedia, that work and are
sustainable over months, years, and heading into decades are a
necessary function of the encyclopedia.

If you unbalance the defense of the encyclopedia attempting to right
another wrong, we all lose.

>> By far the majority of people who come up and "buck the system" or
>> challenge established knowledge in this manner are, in fact, kooks or
>> people with an agenda.
>
> To me the interesting thing is that this author did not "buck the
> system." It seems clear he attempted to learn the system and abide by
> the system's rules. If someone goes to the trouble he went to, getting
> an article published in a peer-reviewed journal, then citing it in his
> editing of the Wikipedia article, what else could he have done,
> precisely?
>
> If we pass over this and classify it as an anomaly, then I think the
> very best thing that can be said is that this is a missed opportunity
> to review UNDUE specifically, and, more generally, the problem of
> policy ambiguity and complexity as a barrier to entry for new,
> knowledgeable, good-faith editors.

I don't think this is an anomaly, in terms of being rare (I think it
happens dozens of times a year at least, perhaps daily-ish) or
unusual.

I think it is an anomaly, in the sense that 3,000 senior editors dealt
with 10,000 problems that day, and got one (all things considered)
slightly horribly wrong.

Again, it's balance.  If we just twist the knob the other way, we
start to let crap in.  Some of the crap in - such as the Seigenthaler
fabrications - is as much or more of a problem than good or fixes kept
out.

You can say "Just turn the response quality level up", which is all
fine and good, but it's a volunteer organization, done again by people
with free time (or after work, on breaks, etc; and often tired, or
working fast).  Realistically, either we turn the knob on number of
problems reviewed, or on the threshold for handling something; either
of those lets more crap in.

Again, this is not an excuse for someone having gotten it wrong here.
But real life activities accept error rates.  Some journalists in war
zones step in front of friendly fire bullets; police in the US shoot
innocent people at a non-zero rate.  Surgeons make mistakes and kill
people.  Journalists make errors of fact or citation.  Scientists make
data collection, logical, or other errors.

We need to be aware going into a deeper discussion of what tradeoffs
are involved.

That should not lead to paralysis.  The discussion is useful and
change may be beneficial.  The problem you're calling out is real.
But it should be informed discussion and change.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com