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

[Ray Saintonge]

On 02/19/12 12:04 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:57 AM, Mike Christie<coldchrist at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Perhaps the policies can be improved, but they are written to stop bad
>> editing rather than to encourage good editing.  I don't think that can be
>> changed.  It's impossible to legislate good judgement, and it's judgement
>> that was called for with the Haymarket article.
> If policies don't encourage good judgment, or discourage bad judgment,
> then what are policies for?
>
> It seems worth discussing whether it would be good to revise the
> existing policy to restore its original (presumed) functionality.
>
> More generally, I've believed for a long time that WP policies have
> been increased, modified, and subverted in ways that both create a
> higher barrier to entry for new editors and that discourage both new
> editors and existing ones.
>
Policies in general tend to discourage judgement of any sort.  Even when 
such policies are classified as guidelines there will always be those 
who seek their rigid application. In criminal law, when an accused is 
acquitted of a particularly heinous crime there will always be those who 
believe that it's because the law was not tough enough. They often 
succeed in making it tougher, and end up catching more fish than intended.

I just passed my 10th Wiki Birthday, and I'm certainly discouraged from 
much substantial editing. I often leave material that I suspect to be 
wrong because the emotional cost of making the correction is much too 
high. If others do that too the reliability of the entire Wikipedia is 
put in question.

As Mark has said, some subjects are highly vulnerable to recentism, but 
one shouldn't expect that with a historical article about events from 
1886. When crowdsourcing it is dangerous to assume that the majority 
will always be right.  That perpetuates errors, and makes correcting 
them very difficult.  Whatever we think of Stalin we want to spell his 
name right. An English speaking majority in a Google ranking refers to 
him as Joseph even if a stricter or more scholarly transliteration gives 
Josef. Whatever spelling we choose alters the landscape; as a highly 
popular source that is often quoted and copied we set the standard for 
what is correct. Our errors will establish the norm. We become our own 
uncertainty principle.

Ray