I wholeheartedly agree with Gerard.
During the conference by the KNAW ( academy of sciences) in Amsterdam
when the Wikipedia community received from HM Willem Alexander of the
Netherlands the Erasmusaward
Philosofy Professer Jos De Mul ( Erasmus university of Rotterdam) , who
specialises in the impact of information
and communication technology on humans and on culture, said
(paraphrased) the Wikipedia and its community
looks like a modern religion, with its proper dogma and clergy.
In the 15-16 th century Erasmus and a lot of the learned men of his era
sought refuge in the united Provinces of
the Netherlands together with the protestants who denied the Pope of the
Roman Catholic church the right
ro call himslef the sole and infallible and omnipotent representative of
God on this earth, and warred about this for 80 years with the catholic
kings of Spain.
If we continue to put sourced content before real knowledge, we are no
better the flat-earthers who denied the evidence of a round earth
circling the sun in favour of the catholic dogma of a flat earth center
of the universe.
Currently the Wikipedia encyclopedia is not gathering knowledge, like a
candle burning on two sides :
on the historic side of the candle the flame makes us lose knowledge
that has never been recorded or described in writing; traditional
aurally transmitted knowledge, descriptive knowledge about traditions,
about history, about regional and local languages that have no written
literature, about traditional costumes, music, dances and ceremonies,
knowledge stored in family or tribal tales;
On the contemporary side we are not admitting knowledge because the
scholar is not taken seriously, is not referenced by others. By analogy
if wikipeida had existed in the 20th century : contributors could not
have written about black holes because the Einstein's theory had not
been proven and it would have been all considered speculation, just
because a despotic self-serving Wikiclergy would have decreed that black
holes were heresy... but on the other hand that same clergy currently
does allow disproven superstition to survive as fact on the same wikipedia.
Haven't we learned anything from clinging dogmatically to conventional
wisdom instead of allowing creative theories to be tested and either
being proven or disproven ?
Derek
On 13-03-16 09:12, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi
When this is it, when these people get away with it, their behaviour is as
bad as much of what we have seen lately. I do not care who they are. There
is too much going where people decide on policies and effectively destroy
our culture.,
We do no longer care about our quality, it is all about what others have to
do. It is all about determining for others what is good for them. The
resulting negativity has a lot to do with demanding influence and meddling
with what works by some. Some of the trappings of influence may be exposed
like information about the deliberations of the board but then what?
The board is not at the apex of our community, we are the community. Most
of us do care about issues that are real. But when real things happen
apparatchiks do not care; it is not in their interest. It is why Basel
probably died without even a whimper. What is lost in all the huha is care
that shows what really matters and is not reduced to the regurgitation of
the same old, mostly self serving arguments.
We have so much money that we have money stashed away for a rainy day while
at the same time we have millions of well educated people are in refugee
camps with nothing to do going stir crazy. We could make a difference there
having them edit Wikipedia. It would be mostly languages other than
English. Doing this would be good if only to make up for dropping the ball
for Basel. Alternatively we could invest all that money in green energy to
offset the generation of energy with fossil fuel that powers all the
computers and mobiles of people reading Wikipedia.
As an organisation we have been beaten into a pulp with words. Arguments
are only accepted when they come with a long list of sources. These same
sources are often what holds us back. A psychiatrist was sentenced by a
judge [1] because he argued that a caring psychiatrist will improve the
results for a patient. Later research more than vindicated him. The point
being sources exist and their point is often very much wrong. Our culture
of sources prevents our thinking.
That chuckle is so infuriating because it exposes what is wrong with us.
Thanks,
GerardM
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/02/wikipedia-peter-breggin-power-of…
On 13 March 2016 at 00:58, Marc A. Pelletier <marc(a)uberbox.org> wrote:
On 2016-03-12 1:35 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
When it is only a nominal consideration but
mostly a chuckle, what does it
say about the validity of those people and their assumptions?
I should say that it says more about the (lack of) validity of the RfC
itself, Gerard. To be fair, while I applauded the *idea* of doing a
consultation about the future of Wikimania in substance and in form, what
actually happened - a very quiet poll involving three preset options that
weren't even satisfactory to the very small number of participants - cannot
possibly be interpreted to reach conclusions to reshape the biggest
community event of the movement.
I'm all for a proper consultation. This wasn't it.
-- Coren / Marc
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Kind regards,
*Derek V. Giroulle*
Wikimedia Belgium vzw.
Treasurer
Troonstraat 51 Rue du Trône, BE-1050 Brussels
M: derekvgiroulle(a)wikimedia.be
T: +32 494 134134
F: +32 3666 2700