On Feb 5, 2008 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge
<saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Wily D wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2008 2:56 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
>
>> Wily D wrote:
>>
>>> Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus
where
>>> a universal or near universal
practice exists. Every article where
an
>>> image is available to represent
someone it ends up getting used,
even
>>> if there's no particular reason
to believe it's accurate. Pick any
>>> Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever,
and
>>> there's a portrait if we can get
our grubby little mitts on one.
>>>
>>> That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're
>>> useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
>>>
>> There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus
in a
>> discussion represents only the consensus
of the participants, so too
a
>> universal practice represents only those
who actually follow that
practice.
>>
>> I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty
pictures
>> to decorate an article at all costs. It
seems to break up the
monotony
>> of straight text. Where do you get the
idea that "everyone" finds
them
>> useful beyond mere decoration. When we
show a bust of Socrates is it
>> verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these
pictures
should be properly referenced.
The images in the Muhammad article that are under dispute are actually
fairly well referenced, with three of the four giving authors, two of
the four naming the source work and all four giving approximate dates
- beyond that, the common mantra of "verifiability, not truth" can
then be chanted adequately loudly.
As for whether the argument is a fallacy, it's not. I do not mean to
imply that such images are useful in the edification of *every*
editor, just that out editing process has universally held that such
images are of significant educational value such that their usage is
universe. Reject rationalism and embrace empiricism, eh?
The point that would
need to be verified is not who created the picture
or that these pictures exist, but that they truly represent what the
subject looked like, and not merely fanciful caricatures.
This criterion, of course, would necessitate the removal of every
scrap of information present in Wikipedia, and I suspect that any
suggestion we start implementing something like this would be strongly
rejected by the community - but feel free to suggest it.
Realistically, it'd mean trashing WP:V, which is pretty popular, but
you never know ...
"Universally" means "by
everyone.".Whether there is "significant
educational value" depends on what you are trying to teach. Your
particular empirical observations do not imply universality even if all
your observations reflect the same view. If only one person, whose
views you have not observed, sees things differently your views cease to
be universal. What is the educational value of a picture when you
cannot establish that the picture is not a true one of what it purports
to be?
Ec
Since I can't establish that *anything* is truly what it purports to
be, this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. If we only educate
people on what we know to be true, we can't tell them anything. But
again, our relevant inclusion principle is now "verifiability, not
truth", which is what we're doing now.
Right, we accept verifiability, not truth. But we work pretty damn hard not
to educate people with things that we know *not* to be true.