deletionism in popular culture

[Steve Summit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6250515/Wikipedia-20-articles-earmarked-for-deletion.html

When a friend forwarded this I assumed it was going to be a
depressing read, filled with useful gems which had been lost due
to the cruel symbiosis between processmongering and deletionism,
but you know, in these 20 cases at least, I think we got it right.

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[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Steve Summit <scs@...> wrote:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6250515/Wikipedia-20-articles-earmarked-for-deletion.html
>
> When a friend forwarded this I assumed it was going to be a
> depressing read, filled with useful gems which had been lost due
> to the cruel symbiosis between processmongering and deletionism,
> but you know, in these 20 cases at least, I think we got it right.

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.

--
gwern

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[Carcharoth]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Steve Summit <scs@...> wrote:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6250515/Wikipedia-20-articles-earmarked-for-deletion.html
>
> When a friend forwarded this I assumed it was going to be a
> depressing read, filled with useful gems which had been lost due
> to the cruel symbiosis between processmongering and deletionism,
> but you know, in these 20 cases at least, I think we got it right.

Some (at least one) are still being discussed at AfD. Shield mate is
looking at things the wrong way, but we should have an article on the
concept of shield-brothers. There is a recognised term for that.
Related to shield wall and shield bearer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_bearer

Ah. Sword brothers! That's the term I was looking for. Similar to the
Anglo-Saxon concept of a sister-son fighting to the death to defend
their mother's brother. Unfortunately, "sister-son" redirects to
"Nephew and niece" with only a brief and incomplete explication of
this. Tolkien used the theme of "sister-son" a lot (Theoden and Eomer,
Thorin and Fili and Kili, Turgon and Maeglin, Beorhtnoth and
Wulfmaer).

Unfortunately, "Sword Brother" is a redirect to some novel.

I'm positive there is some recognised term for pairs of warriors
fighting together on the battlefield, each defending the other (strip
all the sexual content out of it, that is a red herring), but I can't
pin the name down.

It's almost like "blood brother", but not quite:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_brother

I've had another look, and I think it *is* "sword brother" I am thinking of:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2009/07/the_legend_of_s-comments.shtml

"...Gunnar has unjustly slain his sword-brother and widowed his sister..."

http://www.saintedwardbrotherhood.org/StEdwardMartyr.pdf

"Another word, more widely applicable than þegn, which came to be
applied only to noblemen, was gesiþ. This can be understood as
companion, but it really means more than that, and also implies the
sworn sword-brother of the Heroic Code, which I shall mention
particularly in a moment."

But there is still a term that is eluding me. The concept of a central
bodyguard to defend an Anglo-Saxon king in battle. Housecarls or
something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housecarl

But that's different again from the concept of a pair of warriors
working together to defend each other in a battle. I do think
"sword-brother" is the term I am looking for, and it is not quite what
is meant by "shield mate", but I think that concept is partially being
referenced here.

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles_and_Patroclus

Carcharoth

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[Carcharoth]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp@...> wrote:

<snip>

> http://www.saintedwardbrotherhood.org/StEdwardMartyr.pdf
>
> "Another word, more widely applicable than þegn, which came to be
> applied only to noblemen, was gesiþ. This can be understood as
> companion, but it really means more than that, and also implies the
> sworn sword-brother of the Heroic Code, which I shall mention
> particularly in a moment."

Ack! Why don't we have an article on the various heroic codes of
antiquity, the medieval period and today? How can heroic code only be
mentioned twice in Wikipedia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=0&search=%22heroic+code%22&fulltext=Search&ns0=1

Plenty of sources even on a brief Google search:

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&q=%22heroic+code%22&meta=&aq=&oq=&fp=86e5ea432e49e343

Carcharoth

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[Steve Bennett-8]

On 10/3/09, Gwern Branwen <gwern0@...> 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

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[Durova]

Kudos, Steve, for a fantastic thread title.  Laughed so hard I nearly
spilled my coffee.

:)
-Lise

--
http://durova.blogspot.com/
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[David Goodman]

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 <stevagewp@...> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
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>

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[Charles Matthews]

Steve Bennett 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...
>
>  
If this is someone who is on TV in 2009 and (it turns out) by 2010 is a
has-been, it only matters vaguely. I mean, there are respectable reasons
for collecting "ephemera". But it seems to me that this is not
Wikipedia's task. If it is in the class where much more good source
material becomes available next year, then it is mildly unfortunate that
there will probably be people saying (in 2010) that "we deleted this in
2009, what has changed?" (to which there is an answer), and probably
more unfortunate that it will presumably have to survive a speedy (G4
IIRC) bringing up the issue. Which ought to get addressed with a
{{hangon}}; and probably should be pre-empted with a talk page message.
If it is in the class of somewhat notable topics that aren't clearly
notable, I think it doesn't matter much (that said, I'd find it annoying
if the deletion was by some people saying "I'm not interested" when I was).

The usual argument that it matters tends to be that this becomes a
"precedent". Which of course is a bad argument, in itself. My main
concern is that a potentially good contributor could well get
discouraged by a low-grade debate.

Charles


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[Charles Matthews]

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


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[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@...> 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

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[Charles Matthews]

Gwern Branwen wrote:

 >Charles Matthews wrote
>> 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?  

>
> I realize it isn't one of your options, but if I really had such a
> crack team? I'd dispatch them to AfD.
Oh, but it was meant to be a sub-option of "(d) researching for articles
where the initial submission was clearly under-researched". Because the
discussion is meant to be about rescuable articles. And if the topic is
just nonsense, you can't rescue it with refs. It seems clearly wrong to
wait for the AfD nomination before upgrading, so this is the broad form
of class of articles that we are thinking about here.
>
> 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?
Tell me this isn't true. No, really, encyclopedias do not consist of
"important" topics only. And in fact being comprehensive is our
strongest suit anyway. (And don't tell me there are no important
geographical articles we're missing, because that is definitely false.)

The article that gets of the order of a few thousand hits a year may not
look like much to a traffic snob. The point I would like to make is that
50,000 of those make up a huge total number of hits.
> 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.
>
Depends on your priorities. It being all about editors and not at all
about readers is not what I believe, certainly.

Charles




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[David Goodman]

In reality, we have actual editors, with their own interests, and it
is very difficult to get  them to work on anything but what they want
to work on, especially for things that need a serious referencing
effort beyond the googles.  Most of them do have access to a library
with at least some books and some commercial databases, but it's
proven almost impossible to persuade them to use anything beyond arm's
reach--or to even use what material their local library has put within
arms reach to its community.

Many of the topics not presently included are very important--I came
here primarily to work on some of them, before I got diverted to
immediate rescues--and now just defending articles long enough to let
people rescue them. If prospective deletors did follow WP:BEFORE, we
could free up the half-dozen or so people who now mainly do fixes on
articles that should have been improved, rather than nominated for
deletion, but this is many fewer people than are needed

The only effective way to get these topics worked on is to attract
users who want to work on them. Some of the other language Wikipedias
seem to have been more successful in this regard. Perhaps they have a
friendlier attitude towards article writers and a more mature
environment, or perhaps article writers in those communities are more
willing to write in a way that does not display ownership and arouse
hostility from other editors.

Discouraging the people who want to work on popular culture will just
discourage those who might develop into editors on other topics also.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews@...> wrote:

> Gwern Branwen wrote:
>
>  >Charles Matthews wrote
>>> 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?
>
>>
>> I realize it isn't one of your options, but if I really had such a
>> crack team? I'd dispatch them to AfD.
> Oh, but it was meant to be a sub-option of "(d) researching for articles
> where the initial submission was clearly under-researched". Because the
> discussion is meant to be about rescuable articles. And if the topic is
> just nonsense, you can't rescue it with refs. It seems clearly wrong to
> wait for the AfD nomination before upgrading, so this is the broad form
> of class of articles that we are thinking about here.
>>
>> 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?
> Tell me this isn't true. No, really, encyclopedias do not consist of
> "important" topics only. And in fact being comprehensive is our
> strongest suit anyway. (And don't tell me there are no important
> geographical articles we're missing, because that is definitely false.)
>
> The article that gets of the order of a few thousand hits a year may not
> look like much to a traffic snob. The point I would like to make is that
> 50,000 of those make up a huge total number of hits.
>> 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.
>>
> Depends on your priorities. It being all about editors and not at all
> about readers is not what I believe, certainly.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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[Charles Matthews]

David Goodman wrote:

> In reality, we have actual editors, with their own interests, and it
> is very difficult to get  them to work on anything but what they want
> to work on, especially for things that need a serious referencing
> effort beyond the googles.  Most of them do have access to a library
> with at least some books and some commercial databases, but it's
> proven almost impossible to persuade them to use anything beyond arm's
> reach--or to even use what material their local library has put within
> arms reach to its community.
>
> Many of the topics not presently included are very important--I came
> here primarily to work on some of them, before I got diverted to
> immediate rescues--and now just defending articles long enough to let
> people rescue them.

Well, to answer my own question, I would give priority to the
intersection of (a) and (b): popular redlinks that have articles in
other reference works. And I think that means we are not disagreeing so
very much here.

Charles


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[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Carcharoth wrote:
>
>
> See also:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles_and_Patroclus
>
>  

While that is most likely mythical, the case of
Alcibiades and Socrates is quite certainly real
and historically valid.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Steve Bennett wrote:

> On 10/3/09, Gwern Branwen <gwern0@...> 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...
>
>  

How about I raise you one and say we might have got
*two* wrong out of 20?

Personally I am on the fence about the article about
replicas of the White House. Most likely the decision
to delete is valid, but it is very certainly a threshold
case.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


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[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@...> wrote:

> Gwern Branwen wrote:
>
>  >Charles Matthews wrote
>>> 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?
>
>>
>> I realize it isn't one of your options, but if I really had such a
>> crack team? I'd dispatch them to AfD.
> Oh, but it was meant to be a sub-option of "(d) researching for articles
> where the initial submission was clearly under-researched". Because the
> discussion is meant to be about rescuable articles. And if the topic is
> just nonsense, you can't rescue it with refs. It seems clearly wrong to
> wait for the AfD nomination before upgrading, so this is the broad form
> of class of articles that we are thinking about here.

Oh. OK, then, I'm fine with it being '(d)' if you are.

>> 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?
>
> Tell me this isn't true. No, really, encyclopedias do not consist of
> "important" topics only.

Shh - don't tell the deletionists that!

> And in fact being comprehensive is our
> strongest suit anyway. (And don't tell me there are no important
> geographical articles we're missing, because that is definitely false.)
>
> The article that gets of the order of a few thousand hits a year may not
> look like much to a traffic snob. The point I would like to make is that
> 50,000 of those make up a huge total number of hits.

I would say, as a general approximation over more than 3 million articles, my assertions are more true than false. Important articles, with lots of traffic, will tend to fix up important issues (with enough eyes...); that's the wiki model.

>> 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.
>>
> Depends on your priorities. It being all about editors and not at all
> about readers is not what I believe, certainly.
>
> Charles

If you care about the latter, you will prioritize the former. Which came first, the editor or the reader? Readers go wherever Google & other readers tell them to go, and that's where maintained content is. How do you get maintained content? Editors. Take care of the editors, and the readers will follow.

Same ultimate goal (the point of the wiki is to be *used* after all, not play nomic), but very different emphasis in the means.

--
gwern

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[Surreptitiousness]

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:

> Steve Bennett wrote:
>  
>> On 10/3/09, Gwern Branwen <gwern0@...> 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...
>>
>>  
>>    
>
> How about I raise you one and say we might have got
> *two* wrong out of 20?

Most of these are *currently* listed for deletion rather than actually
deleted.

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[Ray Saintonge]

David Goodman wrote:

> 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.
>
>  

Fixing an article involves a lot more work than deleting it. The firemen
who would do that are further discouraged by the crowd that is hurling
rocks from the rooftop.

An editor may very well have the reference material at his fingertips,
but it could take him a long time at solid work to bring the article
into shape.  On top of that he will likely also need to spend time
defending his resuscitation of the article. The ones who are really able
to do this are quickly discouraged by a confrontational atmosphere.

Rampant deletion makes Wikipedia less reliable because it leaves capable
people unwilling to make needed corrections because they want top avaid
fights.

Ec

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[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 04:34 AM 10/8/2009, Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Fixing an article involves a lot more work than deleting it. The firemen
>who would do that are further discouraged by the crowd that is hurling
>rocks from the rooftop.

For a while, I would try to fix articles that I thought could be
rescued, then I noticed that sometimes, too often, finding reliable
source had no effect at all on the discussion, and, in spite of hours
of work finding sources and thus improving the article, it would be
deleted. Writing an article that meets the high standards of scrutiny
that are often applied at AfD can be a lot of work. The wiki model
was that, you know about a subject, you write an article, at least
that was half of it. The other half was someone went to a library and
created an insane number of half-assed articles that were sourced,
all right, but written, too often, by someone who didn't understand
the topic.... Ideally, these two streams would merge and articles
that were good to someone who knows the subject would also be
sourced, but if the article is deleted first, the process can't
happen. The original wiki model didn't even contemplate deletion
beyond what Sarsaparilla/Absidy/etc. called "Pure Wiki Deletion."
Which is simply blanking, an ordinary editorial decision, leaving
everyone free to see the article who wants to.

I gave up. Eventually I came across a controversial topic that
particularly interested me, where I had the background to understand
the sources and where my research radically changed my mind. So I
started working on it, I even bought a pile of books about it (on all
sides of the controversy), and a major recent and very expensive
mainstream work on it was donated to me, and I became much more
vulnerable as a result, since I now had an opinion and a POV, based
on reading the sources, and I started asserting content based on the
most reliable of the sources, especially peer-reviewed secondary source.

The information necessary for my major shift of POV is much more than
most editors could absorb with some light reading. There exist
secondary sources that cover the field that, if editors would trust
them, would make it easy, but .... they don't trust these sources,
even when published by independent, non-fringe publishers, since what
they say contradicts the easy positions of ignorance. After all,
doesn't everybody with a background in science know....? Reliable
source guidelines, if followed, would address the problem, but are
useless against entrenched opinion, because editors will invent this
or that excuse for disregarding them, so that the article doesn't
fall into their view of undue weight.

So ... I'm no longer a Wikipedia editor, I'm now working off-wiki,
with real knowledge and research in the field that interested me,
and, as well, on the kind of voluntary structure that I see as the
only way out of trap that Wikipedia has fallen into. It's much
easier, though, of course, it all takes time. I still have an
account, and the block will expire, and I'm not burning any bridges,
but .... once I realize that a wall definitely exists, I don't butt
my head against it. I walk around it or dig under it or climb over
it, if I actually want to get to the other side, or I do something else.


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[Ray Saintonge]

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> I gave up. Eventually I came across a controversial topic that
> particularly interested me, where I had the background to understand
> the sources and where my research radically changed my mind. So I
> started working on it, I even bought a pile of books about it (on all
> sides of the controversy), and a major recent and very expensive
> mainstream work on it was donated to me, and I became much more
> vulnerable as a result, since I now had an opinion and a POV, based
> on reading the sources, and I started asserting content based on the
> most reliable of the sources, especially peer-reviewed secondary source.
>
> The information necessary for my major shift of POV is much more than
> most editors could absorb with some light reading. There exist
> secondary sources that cover the field that, if editors would trust
> them, would make it easy, but .... they don't trust these sources,
> even when published by independent, non-fringe publishers, since what
> they say contradicts the easy positions of ignorance. After all,
> doesn't everybody with a background in science know....? Reliable
> source guidelines, if followed, would address the problem, but are
> useless against entrenched opinion, because editors will invent this
> or that excuse for disregarding them, so that the article doesn't
> fall into their view of undue weight.
>
> So ... I'm no longer a Wikipedia editor, I'm now working off-wiki,
> with real knowledge and research in the field that interested me,
> and, as well, on the kind of voluntary structure that I see as the
> only way out of trap that Wikipedia has fallen into. It's much
> easier, though, of course, it all takes time. I still have an
> account, and the block will expire, and I'm not burning any bridges,
> but .... once I realize that a wall definitely exists, I don't butt
> my head against it. I walk around it or dig under it or climb over
> it, if I actually want to get to the other side, or I do something else.
>  

So rather than address the problems inherent in this narrative so as to
retain editors, we have a "Bookshelf project" to recruit cannon fodder.

Ec

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