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== | ==Wikipedia and the World== | ||
Every issue we discuss here has its real world counterparts. WP is a sort of laboratory, where we can explore the implications of issues which are not limited to our immediate needs. BLP is the obvious example, but also the nature of truth; The reliability of evidence; The degree to which we can trust our judgment and our senses; The extent our biases are perpetuated by the way we teach; The nature of social control; The liberty we allow to other people to do what we think wrong; The relative weights of individual freedom to be bizarre and responsibility to a social purpose; The role of personal feelings and trust as compared to abstract rules; Whether to obey social rules we think evil; Whether to respect social taboos; Whether to judge by motive or result. And the foundations and purposes of civil and criminal law, & the purposes of punishment. The specific WP issues related to all these will occur to you--I have specific things in mind for every one. | |||
Many advocates of extreme free speech in the outside world are in favor of a restrictive POV at Wikipedia. Many who are libertarians of various sorts in the outside world are much less so here. Many who are proponents of radical change are much less so here. We justify our witch hunts by the need to appear squeaky-clean to a potentially unfriendly world. | |||
Mostly, our examples are trivial. There are RW examples that are not the least trivial, besides the syphilis studies we all know about: The best atlas of human anatomy in the late 40s was prepared by a Nazi physician containing his drawings of what he knew were slides made from brain tissue of people killed in a concentration camp, and he is even recorded as having explained to the commandant the sort of specimen and method of preservation he wanted, so people were killed on purpose to make it. There has since been consensus to remove the atlas from libraries, though individuals have retained copies and argued for its continued value--there remains nothing of equal quality. (The slides themselves have been recovered, and buried properly, tho some of them are probably still in existence, because one brain can give thousands of thin sections.) In the USA in the 1950s, the question of what amino acids in proteins were essential for human growth was investigated by feeding human infants diets chemically prepared to be lacking in various amino acids, to see which ones stunted their growth. (The stunting from such starvation is permanent.) The compiler of the standard reference work in the late 50s decided to not cite these studies, even though there was no equivalent source of information, and no real prospect of another way to get it, and I don't think they have been cited since, As I said, our problems are not so consequential. They're self-protective, rather than immoral. Important as it is to protect WP, they do not rise to the same status. | |||
==What I believe about current issues at Wikipedia == | |||
The only 2 policies I see here that I have an uncompromising disagreement with are: consulting subject's preferences about whether to have an article (because I think it an invitation to writing to please the subject), and using arguments that would not be used for routine subjects in order to eliminate articles on unpopular subjects -- they are both questions of [[WP:NPOV|NPOV]]/Censorship & if we compromise about that we lose our purpose. There is a popular-liberal flattening of positions here, and I do not speak from any conceivably right-wing position. I am willing to compromise on [[WP:NOTNEWS|NOT NEWS]] and [[WP:WHIM|NOT FICTION]], because they just harm the scope of the encyclopedia, not the reliability. | |||
There are also 2 patterns of interacting I unhesitatingly condemn: First, those who badger other contributors to the discussion: people should perhaps reach conclusions based both on the arguments and the degree of support for them, not the behavior of those supporting a particular position, but people in all contexts tend to discount the views of those who interfere with the proceedings. The other, often related, is the increasing and often successful attempt aided by discretionary sanctions to win arguments by maneuvering the opponents into poor behavior, even though this is often successful--people actually keep track of how many have been banned on their side vs. the enemy | |||
Revision as of 14:02, 2 June 2021
Wikipedia and the World
Every issue we discuss here has its real world counterparts. WP is a sort of laboratory, where we can explore the implications of issues which are not limited to our immediate needs. BLP is the obvious example, but also the nature of truth; The reliability of evidence; The degree to which we can trust our judgment and our senses; The extent our biases are perpetuated by the way we teach; The nature of social control; The liberty we allow to other people to do what we think wrong; The relative weights of individual freedom to be bizarre and responsibility to a social purpose; The role of personal feelings and trust as compared to abstract rules; Whether to obey social rules we think evil; Whether to respect social taboos; Whether to judge by motive or result. And the foundations and purposes of civil and criminal law, & the purposes of punishment. The specific WP issues related to all these will occur to you--I have specific things in mind for every one.
Many advocates of extreme free speech in the outside world are in favor of a restrictive POV at Wikipedia. Many who are libertarians of various sorts in the outside world are much less so here. Many who are proponents of radical change are much less so here. We justify our witch hunts by the need to appear squeaky-clean to a potentially unfriendly world.
Mostly, our examples are trivial. There are RW examples that are not the least trivial, besides the syphilis studies we all know about: The best atlas of human anatomy in the late 40s was prepared by a Nazi physician containing his drawings of what he knew were slides made from brain tissue of people killed in a concentration camp, and he is even recorded as having explained to the commandant the sort of specimen and method of preservation he wanted, so people were killed on purpose to make it. There has since been consensus to remove the atlas from libraries, though individuals have retained copies and argued for its continued value--there remains nothing of equal quality. (The slides themselves have been recovered, and buried properly, tho some of them are probably still in existence, because one brain can give thousands of thin sections.) In the USA in the 1950s, the question of what amino acids in proteins were essential for human growth was investigated by feeding human infants diets chemically prepared to be lacking in various amino acids, to see which ones stunted their growth. (The stunting from such starvation is permanent.) The compiler of the standard reference work in the late 50s decided to not cite these studies, even though there was no equivalent source of information, and no real prospect of another way to get it, and I don't think they have been cited since, As I said, our problems are not so consequential. They're self-protective, rather than immoral. Important as it is to protect WP, they do not rise to the same status.
What I believe about current issues at Wikipedia
The only 2 policies I see here that I have an uncompromising disagreement with are: consulting subject's preferences about whether to have an article (because I think it an invitation to writing to please the subject), and using arguments that would not be used for routine subjects in order to eliminate articles on unpopular subjects -- they are both questions of NPOV/Censorship & if we compromise about that we lose our purpose. There is a popular-liberal flattening of positions here, and I do not speak from any conceivably right-wing position. I am willing to compromise on NOT NEWS and NOT FICTION, because they just harm the scope of the encyclopedia, not the reliability.
There are also 2 patterns of interacting I unhesitatingly condemn: First, those who badger other contributors to the discussion: people should perhaps reach conclusions based both on the arguments and the degree of support for them, not the behavior of those supporting a particular position, but people in all contexts tend to discount the views of those who interfere with the proceedings. The other, often related, is the increasing and often successful attempt aided by discretionary sanctions to win arguments by maneuvering the opponents into poor behavior, even though this is often successful--people actually keep track of how many have been banned on their side vs. the enemy