[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

[Brian J Mingus]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus
> <brian.mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> > On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
> >> <brian.mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> >> > I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my
> comment
> >> is
> >> > false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show
> that
> >> the
> >> > article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
> >> > anti-Santorum contributors.
> >>
> >> The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
> >> editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
> >> such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.
> >
> >
> > This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is
> biased
> > then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
> > biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
> > However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
> > article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
> > line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
> > because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
> > implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
> > believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
> > attention away from the real issues at hand.
>
> I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased.
>
> If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have
> taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of
> paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which
> were improper or unbalanced.
>
> The actual discussion has included essentially none of this.
>
> It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's
> nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim
> could be made and defended credibly.
>
> The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in
> Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations.  BOLD allows us to take wider
> views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider
> view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth.
>
> Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem.  No, not
> everyone does.  No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your
> side, much less a majority.
>
> Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and
> to standard interpretations.  About which no detailed problems have
> been asserted so far...
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
>


If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would
be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the
article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In
general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be
rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate
every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the
end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty
close. That's not how it's supposed to be..

- Brian