[Wikipedia-l] Re: The Onion on Peer Review

[Rowan Collins]

On 4/24/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > And just in case: you do realise it's fiction, don't you. ;)
> 
> Where does it say that? The site passes itself off as a "news source",
> so I don't think it was unreasonable of me to think it was real.

Well, had the seed of doubt, or even a questing mind's wish to know
"who the bleep are these people?", led you to click the logo to bring
you to the front page, you would have found that this week's "Top
Story" is "Pope Emerges From Chrysalis A Beautiful Butterfly".

Tell me that you believe *that* story is real, and I really will be worried. :D

> > As far as I know, The Onion's readers are not primarily in the
> > "5th-grade" age range
> 
> I'm sure The Onion's readers are not *primarily* Jews, either, so is it
> okay for The Onion to be anti-Semitic?

Well, that wasn't really what I was trying to say - I was responding
to a claim that they were "condoning bullying", not one that they were
being "anti-5th-grade". The equivalent would therefore be something
more like "The Onion's readers aren't primarily non-Jewish caucasians"
- those being the people that it would matter if the Onion *condoned*
anti-semitism. It's a very crude equivalence, but the point is that if
the piece *were* aimed at 5th-graders, there would be a worry that,
not seeing the irony, they would take it as support for such
behaviour. I'm not convinced they would, but I don't think they'd be
reading it anyway.

Meanwhile, I would tend to say it was at worst non-comittal on the
issue of bullying - if taken literally, it fails to criticise the
comments, but doesn't give them credence beyond reporting them. If
taken as a satire on genuine Peer Review processes, the comments can
be taken as stinging parodies, and implicitly a thorough rebuke of the
all-too-easy habit of mixing personal attacks up with genuine
criticisms.

It's always an interesting question with irony and satire - how far
*can* you push the boundaries of criticism without becoming
hypocritical - hence the scandal surrounding the UK television series
"Brass Eye" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Eye) Just thought
I'd drop that one in... :)

-- 
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]