No subject

in high school who can't even spell when I provide higher-level concepts  on 
a subject that I have had a major interest, something's very wrong.   
Moreover, I people use the ad hominems on me, but I get the extension to the  block, 
and I've been reading Wikipedia for years, started the editing account in  late 
'05, even began articles such as the GuideStar article.  Am I in COI  because 
I began the GuideStar article but also was a major founder of a  nonprofit?  
No, but I'm in COI because I talk knowledgeably about a  subject.  The 
article's ruined right now.
 



I understand you're saying that with people of sufficient  honor, we can 
hopefully get away with it. It's plausible to me, but I  can't see any 
clear revision to the COI guidelines that will keep only the  honorable 
people doing this, and -- just as important -- keep them from  being 
eventually corrupted. We don't have the mechanisms to enforce  honesty 
that a major research institution does, and I don't think we'll be  able 
to afford to build them for a decade or more.
 
Well, Wikipedia's gotten a good deal of public support.   Now  it's coming at 
me not only with anarchy, my complaint from before, but  totalitarianism.  
LOL!



<snip>
>>> More similar, I think, would be to  compare historians who write works on 
>>> commission.  These  are generally paid for by an interested party,[...]
>>>   
>>>       
>> I'd be  intrigued to read more about this, but my guess is that it would 
>>  require several conditions for it to work:
>>
>>   1. The company would have to have a clear and special interest  in
>>       being seeing as completely  forthright.
>>    2. The historian would have to be  somebody with an established
>>       reputation  and solid credentials.
>>    3. The historian would do a  relatively small amount of work for the
>>        commissioning party. (E.g., they would not be a staff  historian.)
>>    4. The historian would not primarily do  commissioned work.
>>     
>
> The last  three at least seem to be the case here---an established and 
>  well-respected contributor is asking if writing the occasional article  
> for a paid commissioner would be okay.  I think the first is  actually 
> better to avoid having to decide, since the motives of  companies are 
> rather difficult to discern---so long as the writer is  not a staff 
> historian, and doesn't do this as their main living, then  whether the 
> company is interested in forthrightness or not matters  little.
>   

No slight intended to Jaap or any of our  contributors but I don't think 
the comparison is even close. A  professional historian with an 
established reputation and solid  credentials has put, what, two decades 
into getting there? And getting  caught distorting the truth means they 
throw that and their professional  future away. Even our very best 
editors don't have anything like that on  the line. For those who are 
pseudonymous, there is even less penalty for  ethical missteps.
Historians are human too.  I've had problems with them before, but I  still 
end up with Bs in college history, not higher, not lower.  I'm  planning to go 
back to college even, but in World War II, I should have done  better.  I've 
studied it, along with the Civil War, since I was a  kid.
 
Why, there's complaint about the article on  the American  Civil War being 
"long," and it bothers me.  There's not even a  definition of "First Defender" I 
can find yet.
 
What about pseudonyms when you reveal your real name on your user page  then? 
 I use that of my grandfather, John Wallace Rich, for example,  who was KIA 
in World War II.



And those historians work in a field where academic norms of  
intellectual independence and honesty have been built up over centuries,  
with detection and enforcement mechanisms to match. Not to mention years  
of training in research and writing for every person involved. We aren't  
even close to having that kind of infrastructure.
As far as I'm concerned, there's too much of a lack of ethics in school as  
well.  I've seen it firsthand, and though I've only read half of _The  Closing 
of the American Mind_, I still think we need more checks and  balances.



As to item 1, again it comes back to conflict of interest. If  Intel pays 
some professional technology journalist to expand our computer  science 
articles, more power to them, as I don't see them as having an  interest 
in distorting them. But as soon as they want changes to anything  where 
there is a conflict of interest, we should say no.
Yes, but then you see the slippery slope.  Something's wrong here, and  I 
think it's selfishness somewhat.  Moreover, I've seen problems with  Wikipedia 
for a long time.  People troll articles, and provide sleeping-dog  information.  
I can see them yawn in their pajamas on the last Monday in  May.  LOL!

What about the truth for the readers besides just  writing for them?  I don't 
think writing for Nazis in 1941 would have been  a good approach.
 
Vincent
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