[Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions

[Delirium]

On 2/19/12 4:12 PM, Sarah wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Mike Godwin<mnemonic at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I think the article in The Chronicle of Higher Education is a
>> must-read. Here you have a researcher who actually took pains to learn
>> what the rules to editing Wikipedia are (including No Original
>> Research), and who, instead of trying to end-run WP:NOR, waited years
>> until the article was actually published before trying to modify the
>> Haymarket article. To me, this is a particularly fascinating case
>> because the author's article, unlike the great majority of sources for
>> Wikipedia articles, was peer-reviewed -- this means it underwent
>> academic scrutiny that the newspapers, magazines, and other popular
>> sources we rely on never undergo.
>>
>> I think the problem really is grounded in the UNDUE WEIGHT policy
>> itself, as written, and not in mere misuse of the policy.
>>
>>
>> --Mike
> I agree. It's the way UNDUE is written that is problematic, and it has
> led, for years, to significant-minority viewpoints being excluded --
> on the grounds that the views are not sufficiently well-represented by
> reliable sources; or that the reliable sources, even if peer-reviewed,
> belong to the wrong field.

The history of why it's written that way is interesting to keep in mind. 
As far as I recall and can reconstruct, the main three targets were: 1) 
fringe-physics advocates; 2) alternative-medicine advocates; and 3) 
advocates of heterodox theories of WW2 and the Holocaust. There was an 
influx of all three circa 2003-05, once Wikipedia started getting 
internet-famous (featured on Slashdot, etc.).

WP:NOR was a first-cut reaction to exclude the totally fringe stuff, 
like some Usenet people who had migrated to Wikipedia and were trying to 
make it their own personal original-physics playground. But what about 
minority views that *are* published somewhere, just not widely held? The 
response was WP:UNDUE, that those should indeed be covered, but in an 
appropriate, limited sense--- it should not be the case that every 
single article on a subatomic particle would include a section 
explaining the heterodox view according to $very_minor_fringe_theory, 
even though the theory itself should have an article, and perhaps a 
brief mention in one of the top-level articles (e.g. in some sort of 
"alternative views" section of a particle-physics article). Same with 
including minority historical views in every single article on the 
Holocaust, or on the Civil War, even in the case of minority views held 
by respectable scholars.

What I find discussing this is that, put in that context, the majority 
of people (at least that I've talked to) think the policy is correct and 
makes sense in that context. So the trick seems to be that it makes less 
sense in other contexts.

-Mark