[WikiEN-l] Otto Middleton (a morality tale)

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Fri, 13/5/11, Scott MacDonald <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> The problem is that Wikipedians like to make the complex
> world simple, in
> order to create nice rules and pretend that what we do is
> objective and
> editorial judgement and POV can be excluded. This is a myth
> and a dangerous
> one.
> 
> We end up with people saying "well, is the NYT a reliable
> source or not?"


That reminds me of the celebrated occasion when editors insisted that 
Gloria Gaynor was a "former Scientologist", based solely on the fact that 
the Guardian had once published a piece called "Listed Scientologists".
The piece was on page G2, "Diversions", next to the crossword puzzle and 
the TV programme.

The piece was just a list of names, and it had an uncanny resemblance to 
Wikipedia's List of Scientologists at the time of publication (which also
included Gaynor as a former member, based on a poor and misrepresented 
web source).

Nevertheless, editors insisted that this was good sourcing, even though 
sources discussing her life in depth said nothing about that - except that
she had at one time in her life looked at about a dozen different 
religions, including Scientology, to see if any would suit her.

Jimbo said*, "Do we imagine that the reporter interviewed a few dozen 
people to establish facts? No, the list obviously came from a quick look 
at something... could be Wikipedia, could be earlier news reports. If it's 
valid, then there should be some actual source to prove it (and so far no 
one has come up with one)."

That's exactly the kind of discrimination and judgment that needs to be
applied. But editors were unwilling to give up on their "scoop", and
barricaded themselves behind "The Guardian is a reliable source",
"verifiability, not truth", and "not whether editors think it is true".

What's worse is that any editor who loses an argument based on "it's 
verifiable in a reliable source" and "not whether you think it's true"
learns that this is how you win arguments in Wikipedia, and will use 
the same method themselves next time round, creating new converts in 
those they defeat.

A.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive89#List_of_Scientologists_--_Gloria_Gaynor