----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony" <[email protected]> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 5:01 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Peter Damian <[email protected]> wrote: > I gave a list of problematic articles. Here is > one of them again. > > http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/08/argumentum-ad-baculum.html >>>I really can't comment on that one without first learning more about argumentum ad baculum (I agree with you that the Wikipedia article is not a good one at presenting it - the examples of fallacies and the example of a non-fallacy are not even in the same form). The link you provided just says Wikipedia is wrong, but it doesn't really explain why. Yes, there is an implicit step missing from the argument "that you should not do that which you do not want to do", but that's not the same as saying the argument is fallacious. <<< I thought I had explained the problem. The article says that the following syllogism is valid. If you drive while drunk, you will be put in jail. You want to avoid going to jail. Therefore you should not drive while drunk. The problem is that it mixes 'want' and 'should'. In the post linked to above, I wrote " But it doesn't follow that you shouldn't drive when drunk. 'Should not' or 'ought not' expresses a moral conclusion. This does not follow from any psychological assumption such as wanting or desiring.". On the verifiability thing, when I say an article is 'wrong' or 'contains mistakes', I mean, is not supported by reliable sources. The issue I mention above is explained in any good elementary article on deontic logic e.g. here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-deontic . Johnson >> You fell down. "Wrong" does not imply unverifiable. Verifiable does not >> imply "Right". It does in Wikipedia. All dubious claims should be supported by reliable sources. Any claims that contradict reliable sources are 'wrong' or 'mistakes'. >>Bad" is judgement based on morals ? You're revealing your bias that there >>is right and wrong, good and evil, and that some articles are evil. No 'bad' as in an article contains serious mistakes or errors. Mistakes or errors (in Wikipedia) are defined as claims that contradict reliable sources. E.g. 'the earth is flat'. Reliable sources say that the earth is not flat, so any article claiming this without qualification would be 'wrong'. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
