Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote:
The reason I balk at using the SSDI or the census is I don't think we
should be using primary sources in this manner. There are numerous
pitfalls, including many errors of spelling and fact, to using these
sources. Historians and journalists should be evaluating these
sources, not us. In this particular case, editors are using a primary
source to disprove reliable secondary sources, which are plentiful and
unanimous (until now, see below) when it comes to the birthdate.
Isn't this the kind of primary source research that we always
discourage Wikipedians from doing?
It's worth drawing the distinction between a secondary source which
explains its disagreement with a notable primary source from one which
doesn't.
If the secondary sources provide uncontroversial cause for believing
the SSDI (a notable and relevant primary source) to be incorrect in
this case, then it may well be best to not even mention the SSDI data.
But if no reliable source gives us an objective reason for the
primary data to be considered incorrect, beyond mere inconsistency, it
would only be reasonable for the article to disclose the disagreement
without taking a position ('however, the SSDI states X').
Stated generally, in a form suitable for a policy page:
Although we believe secondary sources (Works which relate or discuss
information originally presented elsewhere) to be more reliable than
primary sources, they are still often incorrect. One cause for errors
in a secondary source is that its author was unaware of an important
primary source. A secondary source which fails to explain its
disagreement with an obvious primary source was either created without
considering that source or fails to be thorough scholarship, and mere
disagreement with such a secondary source cannot be sufficient reason
to believe the primary source is incorrect.
Where no source can be found stating that a particular primary source
is incorrect, we can not know (in any source-tractable manner) whether
that primary source is correct. Since we do not know, we should not
take any position on its correctness. Presuming that the primary
source in question is uncontroversially relevant and sufficiently
notable, using it in the form of a mere statement of fact is the more
neutral action. An intentional omission of a relevant and notable
primary source would be a value judgment which, in the absence of a
sourceable cause, NPOV philosophically prohibits us from making.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] IAR
Ken Arromdee wrote: The result is people constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns, since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia. Hang on, you've set up a straw man there. You haven't shown how helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia is actually true. Which is wrong, because there are instances where helping the BLP subject does improve the encyclopedia. Most people who participate in debates of this nature are usually wise enough to recognise that there are two sides to the debate: the side that says maintaining good PR and taking moral and ethical concerns into consideration makes us a better encyclopedia, and the side that thinks that presenting information that is reliably sourced, verifiable and neutrally presented best improves the encyclopedia. Most sides will concede that you can IAR either way, but the important thing is that if you do IAR either way and someone feels you called it wrong, you don't actually quote IAR but instead you join the debate and reach and respect a consensus. IAR works fine until you use it as a defense. It isn't a defense. The defense is why you used IAR, not that you used IAR. I'd hate to arrest some of the people who misuse IAR; they probably carry a get out of jail free card from monopoly in their pocket for use in such circumstances. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] IAR
On 10/2/09, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: But the IAR policy is clear, if ANY policy, including BLP stops you improving the wikipedia then you can override it. ...until someone objects. The important caveat. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture
On 10/3/09, Gwern Branwen gwe...@gmail.com wrote: Actually, there is one in there that strikes me as valid: the shield-mate one. I know I've read about the idea before in multiple contexts, and there's the obvious historical example of the Sacred Band. I don't know if it's *correct*, and it looks like no one has ventured into academia for some sources so deletion is likely, but that's far from a clear case. Ok, here's a hypothetical. Let's say out of any twenty given AfD's that close as delete, it turns out we get one wrong. Is that acceptable? Deletion is hardly the end of the world in itself... Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture
Come join the talk at deletion review if you think its so easy to restore articles. People cant even se ethem to work on without asking an administrator. (though there are some, including myself, who will always userify for a good faith editor). I think it's more likely that of the 20, not 1, but 10 could be rescued--and some have already been, in some cases by merging. Of the contested afds, I think that's probably the proportion. since we keep fewer than half of the contested ones, we are losing the potential for 50 articles a day, 18,000 a year. I do not consider that trivial. The deletion of improvable articles because the small number of participants at AfD who are interested and willing to rescue them is one of the reasons for people losing the interest in Wikipedia. Who after all actually wants to come to articles for deletion, but those who want to delete articles. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: Ok, here's a hypothetical. Let's say out of any twenty given AfD's that close as delete, it turns out we get one wrong. Is that acceptable? Deletion is hardly the end of the world in itself... Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] IAR
Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: On 10/2/09, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: But the IAR policy is clear, if ANY policy, including BLP stops you improving the wikipedia then you can override it. ...until someone objects. The important caveat. Heh. That's interesting that the application of a policy (pillar even) that itself is simply a caveat, requires another caveat with regard to its application. In any case, the problem lies with both policies: IAR, as everyone here knows is a practical oxymoron, and a relic from a bygone era of adequate-ness, where a simplistic policy could substitute for a simple one. BLP is just a range-specific application of OFFICE and RS -- reliable sources itself being a necessary, but nevertheless idiopathic stepchild of the [[objectivity (journalism)]] principle (our NPOV), with a quasi-subjective misnomer in its name. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research
On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote: The fact that original secondary sources were wrong in this case is immaterial. Errors in secondary sources should be a reason to dig up more secondary sources, not to make a point using primary ones. Wikipedia is already full of places where people are required to jump through hoops merely because that's what the rules require, even if it doesn't actually help. This is another one. Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules. The secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules requirement. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] IAR
On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Surreptitiousness wrote: The result is people constantly claiming that you can't ignore rules for BLP or privacy concerns, since helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia. Hang on, you've set up a straw man there. You haven't shown how helping the BLP subject is not a form of improving the encyclopedia is actually true. It doesn't need to be true, it just needs to be something that people believe and which can be gotten from a fairly straightforward reading of the rule. Which it is. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] IAR
On 02/10/2009, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: It doesn't need to be true, it just needs to be something that people believe and which can be gotten from a fairly straightforward reading of the rule. Which it is. The problem is, IAR doesn't specify or imply what they mean by 'improve'. Improve in what way? Is an encyclopedia improved by adding encyclopedic content on somebody who has been kidnapped or not? There's no value system; NOR, NPOV, BLP, ISNOT all give a value system, the wikipedia values this or that, but not that or the other. IAR doesn't, but can over-rule the rest. I'm saying no, it *can't* override BLP, because BLP is about protecting, not the wikipedia but a real life person from what is essentially libel. -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture
David Goodman wrote: The deletion of improvable articles because the small number of participants at AfD who are interested and willing to rescue them is one of the reasons for people losing the interest in Wikipedia. Counterfactually, suppose you had a team of universal researchers you could assign to work on articles. What relative weight would you give to various types of work? Out of these, (a) filling in popular redlinks, (b) working over topic lists from other reference works, (c) fact-checking and referencing long-standing articles on the site that really are not shaping up, (d) researching for articles where the initial submission was clearly under-researched, which seem to you most important factors in developing the site as a whole? Which, for example, are going to do most to cure systemic bias? Which are going to help our reputation in the academic world? Which are going to do most for general reliability? And which (your point) could have the most impact on the community? I kind of feel most thoughtful people long-term on the site have voted with their feet on these issues. It would be surprising, of course, if self-assignment of tasks also corresponded to any particular person's view of the correct allocation of priorities. (Only one of the 20 items culled from AfD has any historical content, the foolish [[shield-mate]], only one takes us outside the Anglosphere to the 90% of the world's population who don't think in English, and so on. You may well be right that something could be salvaged in some cases by good research. Which is why I'd like to see the cost of diverting people onto such work as part of the assessment.) Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] deletionism in popular culture
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: David Goodman wrote: The deletion of improvable articles because the small number of participants at AfD who are interested and willing to rescue them is one of the reasons for people losing the interest in Wikipedia. Counterfactually, suppose you had a team of universal researchers you could assign to work on articles. What relative weight would you give to various types of work? Out of these, (a) filling in popular redlinks, (b) working over topic lists from other reference works, (c) fact-checking and referencing long-standing articles on the site that really are not shaping up, (d) researching for articles where the initial submission was clearly under-researched, which seem to you most important factors in developing the site as a whole? Which, for example, are going to do most to cure systemic bias? Which are going to help our reputation in the academic world? Which are going to do most for general reliability? And which (your point) could have the most impact on the community? I kind of feel most thoughtful people long-term on the site have voted with their feet on these issues. It would be surprising, of course, if self-assignment of tasks also corresponded to any particular person's view of the correct allocation of priorities. (Only one of the 20 items culled from AfD has any historical content, the foolish [[shield-mate]], only one takes us outside the Anglosphere to the 90% of the world's population who don't think in English, and so on. You may well be right that something could be salvaged in some cases by good research. Which is why I'd like to see the cost of diverting people onto such work as part of the assessment.) Charles I realize it isn't one of your options, but if I really had such a crack team? I'd dispatch them to AfD. A crack team can only do so much, and is limited. But if each member can be responsible for making an editor's experience better, for being the cause of an editor staying and not leaving in a huff because some people unfamiliar with his pet subject didn't like the few sources he had thrown together, then that's a big multiplier. AfD is exactly the area where a crack researcher can zoom over, see what 'looks' valid yet not very good, and drop some 5000lb bombs of references and citations down onto the delete votes. All the other areas are ones where effort would be repaid with no multipliers. In a way, if an article hasn't been created on an old topic yet (your red links, your topic lists), then that alone shows it isn't important. Likewise, if a longstanding article needs work, then doesn't its longstandingness show that it isn't apparently all *that* awful because someone would've fixed it up if it was so bad and they cared about it? Worse is Better. Nobody will think better of Wikipedia if some old article gets a dozen references and some tags removed. But the editors of an article *will* remember it if an angel swooped in and saved their article and laid the groundwork for improvements. -- gwern signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Classic commentary
'''Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.''' - Larry Sanger I found this classic comment again, while looking through the history of WP:DISRUPT -- digging around to find out who the genius was that first misconstrued the concept of an edit to mean edits and|or comments, and thus had blurred all canonical, traditional, and logical distinctions in the minds of thuglodyte admins everywhere. (WP:DE, by the way, should be No disruptive editing). Larry's above comment came as one of his recommendations upon his exit. In the same message he prophetically forewarned us Wikipudlians to to be open and warmly welcoming, not insular. Larry had been growing frustrated with types of people, and had been making some quasi-draconian overtures. In retrospect, these seemed to have had a large influence in his subsequent sudden funding restrictions. ITEHO, -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: Searching far and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules. The secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules requirement. The secondary sources (presumably, ideally) will discuss why there is a discrepancy between the birth records and the obituaries and encyclopedias and dig into the issue a lot further than just merely announcing the obituaries are wrong. Searching far and wide may be too much to ask, and I realize that not every editor has the research mojo of a librarian, but all I did was track down a newspaper article and a biography. Perhaps digging up the former is too much, but is it really too much to ask that editors working on a biographical article crack open a biography of the subject? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Classic commentary
On 10/3/09, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote: '''Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.''' - Larry Sanger Out of curiosity, on which side of the door do you see yourself, Steve? Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Classic commentary
Ah, the good old days. On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 8:40 PM, Steve Bennett stevag...@gmail.com wrote: On 10/3/09, stevertigo stv...@gmail.com wrote: '''Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here.''' - Larry Sanger Out of curiosity, on which side of the door do you see yourself, Steve? Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
