[WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

[phoebe ayers]

On 1/17/07, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/16/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1/16/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > You seem to know more about it.
> > > Are you saying her accusations are unfounded?
> > >
> > > Mgm
> > >
> >
> > No idea. It's not an area I know much about since other than a few
> > skirmishes it isn't something that chemistry has much in the way of
> > dealings with.
>
> The problem is the categorization of disciplines can be a very
> controversial issue even if the discipline itself does not come with
> specific and explicit political or cultural agendas, much less tied up
> in questions of identity or the ability of individuals to make
> decisions on account of their cultural heritage.
>
> There is absolutely no easy answer to it. The question of where
> ethnic/gender studies (and its variants) fall within the organization
> of knowledge has been something the American academy has been
> periodically battling with for forty years (Peter Novick's _That Noble
> Dream_ has some great accounts of how the discipline of History in the
> US struggled with these issues in the 60s and 70s). The question of
> disciplinary disputes (what sociologists sometimes call "boundary
> work") has existed since before Copernicus (the question of whether
> mathematicians could make statements which impinged on areas of
> philosophy was a big one in his era). Categorization of knowledge was
> one of the most radical aspects of the original Encyclopedie, and some
> scholars (Robert Darnton in particular) have argued that it was in
> categorizing religion in the same tree as black magic (rather than a
> source of revealed truth) that really invoked the ire of the Church
> (rather than the snippy little asides poking fun at the Eucharist).
>
> Which is just to say that while I don't think this is necessarily any
> example of systemic racism or sexism on Sanger's part (there are
> legitimate reasons for not considering these fields to be top-level
> categories, one need not attribute such opinions to philosophies of
> prejudice), it is an example of what some of the difficulties with an
> "expert-driven" system will be. The problem is, experts don't even
> agree on very basic things at times, such as whose knowledge counts as
> genuine, such as how knowledge should be organized, such as where a
> discipline stops and ends. No matter what decision is made in these
> sorts of issues, they will alienate entire disciplines of experts.
>
> I think Wikipedia gets around it, paradoxically enough, by not
> pretending to have any expert rule, as well as having a relatively
> democratic categorization system (things can be redundantly
> categorized). If you don't make the assumption that the material is
> heavily mediated by experts, then you don't feel quite as bad if it
> doesn't align with one point of view or the other. Or maybe experts
> just don't pay a lot of attention to issues like this on Wikipedia for
> one reason or another.
>
> In any case... it will be interesting to see how Sanger works this out
> over time. He really can't afford to alienate the entire humanities
> and if he is perceived as shutting out or, god forbid, segregating
> ethnic/gender studies he will probably end up doing just about that.
> (I'm not saying he's doing that, I'm just talking about how he will be
> perceived.) If he insists on making determinations like this on his
> own (if that is indeed what he has done), he will likely end up
> stepping on a lot of toes.
>
> FF


This is a really insightful post. Categorization, and how one categorizes
knowledge (any kind of knowledge) is very far from being cut and dried; and
how one decides to organize the world does say a great deal about how one
perceives it. (Though Geni doesn't see discipline debates affecting
chemistry much, I bet that he doesn't think chemistry is a part of alchemy
anymore either). People sometimes make their entire academic careers around
arguing over classifications, by developing new subdisciplines and branches
when the old ones aren't good enough; this seems to be part of what the
citizendium conflict is about.

I think Fastfission is right that Wikipedia gets around most controversies
by being redundant, allowing people to categorize as they see fit, and by
allowing do-overs: nothing has to be permanently decided. Sure, it's
inefficient in a lot of ways, but it also (like the whole project) provides
a fascinating map of the world and how topics are perceived. It seems like
this particular debate in Citizendium comes from taking a much more
traditional view of deciding that topics have to go in a particular order,
as if the work existed in a hierarchical link structure or was going to be
printed.

-- phoebe