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

[George Herbert]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Brian J Mingus
<brian.mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> 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..

As I said earlier - I think that making it shorter and more concise
would leave out elements that *improve* how Santorum appears, in the
totality.  His behavior - described in some but not excessive detail -
and the critical and academic context - described in some but not
excessive detail - make him look better than the raw incident does.

In this particular, I am vexed and confused.  If the longer article
makes him look better, why in the flying spaghetti monster's name are
those advocating human dignity here asking to shorten it?

Seriously - the details here matter.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com