Re: [Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

[FRED BAUDER]

Conservative in the sense that it contains significant information limited to 
that derived from reliable sources.

Progressive, to the extent we can include information that is not that well 
sourced but is derived from traditional sources or personal experience. For 
example the Hopi creation story, or a person's knowledge about their home town. 
With respect to medicine, I like to see information included that goes beyond 
the standard of care, but not with some aura of reliability attached to it, 
just the facts surrounding it, such as it being recent research or anecdotal 
reports of practitioners.

Wikipedia long ago lost the battle with respect to inclusion of some 
information which in only included due to the persistence of biased editors who 
have acquired skill in manipulating our guidelines. Generally, that tends to 
the authoritarian left. 

Fred Bauder

 
- Original Message -
From: Ziko van Dijk 
To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
Sent: Wed, 27 May 2020 09:36:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

Dear fellows,

Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of course,
these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
complex.

It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves as
being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.

When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression that
the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
bureaucracy and traditionalism:
* being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
* community spirit
* treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest ideal
of the Prussian civil servant)
* individual initiative
* reliability

What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or has
Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell ourselves
and others?

Kind regards
Ziko
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

[effe iets anders]

In good encyclopedic tradition, a reference to that quote in context, is
probably in order. Ziko, I suspect you got this quote from this 2010
chapter? https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-2.html

If I look at this post, he talks about progressivism in the context of
methodology and technology used, much more than where it comes to content.
It is very well possible to be progressive in the way you edit your
encyclopedia, or to hold progressive values, and at the same time be
conservative in the decisions what knowledge to incorporate and what to
leave out. But maybe I'm reading it wrong?

But I'll let others read Reagle's chapter, and draw their own conclusions -
it's an interesting read either way.

Lodewijk

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 6:46 AM Yaroslav Blanter  wrote:

> Hi Ziko,
>
> there is a long-standing problem of recentism. There are a lot of Wikipedia
> articles which are only based on new sources (though reliable) and not on
> serious academic literature. There are some which contain zero encyclopedic
> information because they basically only retell the news stories. There are
> twe whole classes of articles which are not even written in prose, such as
> all COVID-19 article (with a couple of exceptions). I have just given up at
> some point, I think we are beyond the point of no return. As soon as we are
> working on really notable topics and their quality is improving and not
> degrading I can live with this.
>
> This is just one aspect of what you mention but I think an important one.
>
> Best
> Yaroslav
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:
>
> > Dear fellows,
> >
> > Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
> > progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
> > intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of
> course,
> > these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
> > complex.
> >
> > It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves
> as
> > being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
> > enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
> > regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.
> >
> > When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression
> that
> > the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
> > bureaucracy and traditionalism:
> > * being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
> > * community spirit
> > * treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest
> ideal
> > of the Prussian civil servant)
> > * individual initiative
> > * reliability
> >
> > What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or
> has
> > Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell
> ourselves
> > and others?
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Ziko
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

[Yaroslav Blanter]

Hi Ziko,

there is a long-standing problem of recentism. There are a lot of Wikipedia
articles which are only based on new sources (though reliable) and not on
serious academic literature. There are some which contain zero encyclopedic
information because they basically only retell the news stories. There are
twe whole classes of articles which are not even written in prose, such as
all COVID-19 article (with a couple of exceptions). I have just given up at
some point, I think we are beyond the point of no return. As soon as we are
working on really notable topics and their quality is improving and not
degrading I can live with this.

This is just one aspect of what you mention but I think an important one.

Best
Yaroslav

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM Ziko van Dijk  wrote:

> Dear fellows,
>
> Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
> progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
> intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of course,
> these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
> complex.
>
> It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves as
> being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
> enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
> regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.
>
> When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression that
> the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
> bureaucracy and traditionalism:
> * being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
> * community spirit
> * treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest ideal
> of the Prussian civil servant)
> * individual initiative
> * reliability
>
> What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or has
> Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell ourselves
> and others?
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
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[Wikimedia-l] An encyclopedia must be conservative (?)

[Ziko van Dijk]

Dear fellows,

Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of course,
these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
complex.

It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves as
being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.

When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression that
the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
bureaucracy and traditionalism:
* being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
* community spirit
* treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest ideal
of the Prussian civil servant)
* individual initiative
* reliability

What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or has
Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell ourselves
and others?

Kind regards
Ziko
___
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,