[WikiEN-l] Straw man

[Delirium]

Andrew Lih wrote:

>>Yes, they are. By definition it is a fallacy. Slippery slope 
>>arguments, by definition, are missing the connecting tissue.
>>    
>>
>
>Well I guess it is now that you've changed the Wikipedia entry for it
>and changed "argument" to "fallacy."
>
>The slippery slope argument only becomes a fallacy if you make an
>unreasonable conclusion connecting happening A and happening B.  Folks
>were debating the merits of including ~3,000 victims of 9/11
>individually as articles in Wikipedia. Asking what this means for other
>victims of other disasters and crimes around the world and in history is
>not a far stretch. That is why "rounding up" all arguments of this type
>to fallacy is not fair. 
>  
>
I'd agree with that, and calling it a fallacy is often a sneaky attempt 
by opponents of a particular issue to evade the real questions.  The 
basic issue is that it is a fact that moving in a direction makes it 
easier to move further in that direction.  When we move 5 arbitrary 
units in a direction, things that were 10 in that direction are now 5.  
It would be a fallacy to say it is *inevitable* that then we will go the 
additional five, but it is entirely logical to say it is now *more 
likely* we will do so, and thus a legitimate point of contention for 
those who oppose doing anything to make such an outcome more likely.

To pick one example, it is often held that if we begin allowing the 
government to intrude on our privacy with anti-terrorism legislation 
like the Patriot Act, this will set the stage for more intrusive 
legislation to follow--the new more-intrusive legislation is, by 
comparison, no longer a huge power grab, only an incremental one.  This 
isn't a fallacy, but simple fact, and empirically attested to by 
legislative history.

If The Cunctator's argument was correct, "precedent" would be a logical 
fallacy, which it is most certainly not: precedent is appealed to all 
the time.  The fact that something happens today makes it more likely 
that something similar will happen in the future, as today's act will be 
appealed to as partial precedent.  See court history for another example.

Back on topic, I believe I did elucidate my argument in quite 
mind-numbing detail.  The argument, for those who missed it, is as follows:

* By allowing entries for people whose only interest above any other 
random person who has ever existed is "died in September 11 terrorist 
attacks", we are forming a principle that dying in a notable event is 
sufficient for inclusion in Wikipedia.
* Notably, we are forming the principle that "so-and-so died in a 
notable event" constitutes sufficient grounds on which to oppose 
deletion of such biographies.
* Thus, we have no legitimate grounds on which to oppose the inclusion 
in Wikipedia of those who died in any other notable tragedy.
* Thus, if it occurs in the future that a group of people begin a 
sustained effort to add thousands of articles in Wikipedia on people who 
have died in a notable event but are not otherwise notable themselves 
(World War II soldiers, Holocaust victims, etc.), we have no legitimate 
grounds on which to ask them to stop doing so or to remove their 
articles.  After all, we let the Sept. 11 biographies be included, so 
how could we how ask that they refrain from adding their WW2 soldier 
ones, or suggest that they be deleted?

I don't see how this is a logical fallacy.  Those who oppose this point 
of view need either to find some reason the argument is wrong (is there 
some grounds on which we *can* legitimately object to WW2 soldiers, but 
not to Sept 11 victims?), or need to disagree with its premise (that it 
is undesirable to allow tons of biographies on otherwise not notable 
people to be included in Wikipedia).  I believe The Cuncator has done 
the latter, but I also think most people disagree with him there.

As for the particular *harm* such entries cause, it will be ridiculous 
if every single Wikipedia entry on a famous person has at the top (or 
bottom), "so-and-so was also the name of [somebody not notable in any 
way whatsoever], so so-and-so (disambiguation)".  This _will_ eventually 
happen, given no policy against the inclusion of non-notable people and 
enough time.  That's not a slippery slope argument either, just an 
observation that as we continue to add biographies of people who are not 
notable, eventually we will add many thousands (if not millions) of such 
biographies.

In short, we must either excise the Sept. 11 biographies, or allow 
unrestricted biographies of essentially anyone.  The Cunctator seems to 
be arguing that there is no slippery slope here: that we can allow the 
Sept. 11 biographies and go no further.  But there is no legitimate 
grounds on which to do so: there is no way we can say that the Sept. 11 
biographies are notable, but 6 million Holocaust victims are not.  Many 
people, in fact, would argue the reverse, with that particular example.

-Mark