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