Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: We discussed this a couple of days ago at our meet-up. Jayen466 has a long history of harassing Cirt, an editor who has created dozens of featured articles on a variety of topic. He has engaged in widespread forum shopping in an apparent effort to foment opposition to Cirt's editing. I am concerned that he seems to have used a Wiki meet-up as yet another venue. The editors who had said they would attend that meet-up include: Acalamari Charles Matthews Deryck Chan Magnus Manske Rich Farmbrough Silas S. Brown I see that Charles Matthew has participated in this thread. Could he or another editor who was present describe the tone of the discussion, and whether Cirt was mentioned by name? -Will Beback ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
Fred Bauder wrote: The matter can be resolved by editing which conforms the article to Wikipedia policies. This is true, however it is also true the editing which conforms the article to WP policies might fail to resolve the matter. The revival of Gore Vidal's technique of some 50 years ago, where he associated the names of several supreme court judges with sexual acts and parts of the human anatomy, in his novel /Myron/ may or may not be considered a reasonable political ploy. The same would apply to the relatively common practice of gaming page-rank for phrases such as the worlds biggest liar to ones political opponents. The issue here is that Wikipedia becomes party to the action, and lends credibility to one side, not solely by documenting a (possibly) notable incident, but by the manner in which it does it . There are several simple methods that could avoid or reduce this within sensible working practices of Wikipedia. Firstly WP:UNDUE applies, the depth of coverage should not exceed that appropriate for the topic. Secondly the wrod itself is not notable, so much as the incident. therefore simply renaming the article something like Savage Google attack on Santorum is far more apposite, and may not feed the Google attack it is documenting to the same extent. Thirdly the direct quote should not be included in many places in Wikpedia, and coverage should be mainly confined to the article in question. Some parts of the article are of very dubious significance, and the recycling of random quotes does, for example the last one in Recognition and usage - citing the coiner himself, does nothing to enhance the readers understanding of campaign, only of preserving their linen. RMF. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
Presumably we are evaluating the arguments that are not /ad hominem /on their merits, rather than on the /ad hominem/ basis that their author elsewhere makes /ad hominem /attacks? RMF On 25/05/2011 22:38, David Gerard wrote: See, at this point you completely blew your credibility in this discussion by slipping into ad hominem. That's where you wiped out all gains from your previous posts in the thread. Don't do this if you want to be taken seriously. - d. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
Actually I'm evaluating them on their appropriateness for a mailing list. A discussion that would be perfectly in order on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DRV#Principal_purpose_.E2.80.93_challenging_deletion_decisions looks more like off wiki canvassing to me. May I suggest that we close this thread or focus it on the issue of how we prevent this list for being used for forum shopping and canvassing? WereSpielChequers On 25 May 2011 23:56, Richard Farmbrough rich...@farmbrough.co.uk wrote: Presumably we are evaluating the arguments that are not /ad hominem /on their merits, rather than on the /ad hominem/ basis that their author elsewhere makes /ad hominem /attacks? RMF On 25/05/2011 22:38, David Gerard wrote: See, at this point you completely blew your credibility in this discussion by slipping into ad hominem. That's where you wiped out all gains from your previous posts in the thread. Don't do this if you want to be taken seriously. - d. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Wed, 25 May 2011, George Herbert wrote: You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term, descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts). No, I am not. I am conflating what the article says and the article does. What the article *does* is smear a human being. The fact that our rules don't consider it to be a POV violation as long as as the article doesn't state a position is a loophole in the rules. You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. Not in any real-world sense. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Andreas Kolbe wrote: As a matter of fact, it would help Wikipedia if the article were retitled, [[Dan Savage Google-bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]]. The fact that it would help is exactly why it's not going to happen--all the people who are promoting the article because they want to participate in the campaign would resist such a name. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
This is a mistaken understanding of what unbalanced means with respect to Wikipedia. On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.netwrote: Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced. Having an article that associates someone with human waste be reasonably balanced is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced. The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced; it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit. Well said. That's the problem. Fred ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, 26 May 2011, Tom Morris wrote: If there weren't a tea party movement, we wouldn't have an article on the tea party movement. The tea party movement isn't mainly an Internet campaign, and even the aspects of it that are Internet-based don't involve attempts to increase its search engine rank. Wikipedia's effect on the Tea Party by having an article about it is much less direct and much less significant overall than it is for the anti-Santorum campaign, given the different natures of the two campaigns. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: [...] You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. Not in any real-world sense. I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. We can and in my opinion we have and do. This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism, sexism, etc. Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people on the list here. He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making any attempt to suppress the incident. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: [...] You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. Not in any real-world sense. I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. We can and in my opinion we have and do. This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism, sexism, etc. Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people on the list here. He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making any attempt to suppress the incident. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com He has no responsibility for using the resources of a non-profit corporation for political purposes. We do. Fred ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:47, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: We aren't doing anything wrong here. We could, but the actual coverage in the actual article is NPOV and does not show Santorum himself in a negative manner, because we show Santorum's reasoned and mature response for what it was. +1. It's far better for us to report neutrally on the term, describing its origins, its effects on the Senator's career, et al., than to stick our collective fingers in our collective ears and pretend that the term doesn't exist - or worse, to whitewash our content and leave only the happy nicknames for controversial figures. This goes for other disparaging googlebombs or nicknames as well, whether the subject is a politician or not and whether the subject is alive or not; the encyclopedia is less complete if we leave out Slick Willie or miserable failure or (my favorite) Attila the Hen. -- Jim Redmond [[User:Jredmond]] ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On 26 May 2011 00:52, Ian Woollard ian.wooll...@gmail.com wrote: On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote: The common element is promoting a POV. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening here; I don't see signs of breach of NPOV. Andreas appears to have a vendetta against Cirt personally, and this is just part of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cirt#Advocacy_concerns Andreas has been hounding Cirt for a while, starting on Wikipedia Review and then forum-shopping anywhere that will listen. That's the entire source of the present discussion. (Proposed general rule: if you launch your complaint on Wikipedia Review, you're already wrong.) - d. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 10:28 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: [...] You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. Not in any real-world sense. I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. We can and in my opinion we have and do. This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism, sexism, etc. Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people on the list here. He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making any attempt to suppress the incident. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com He has no responsibility for using the resources of a non-profit corporation for political purposes. We do. We are not using the resources for political purposes. The article is NPOV and does not show Santorum in a negative light. George, Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated by biased anti-Santorum contributors, that the article is covered in too much depth to be neutral, and that the article is being as a launchpad for the campaign against Santorum. As I described in my OP, the use of this article has revealed a boundary condition in our notability guidelines. I believe that what many people find distasteful about this article is that it is a *reductio ad absurdum *case that sets the following precedent for others to follow on Wikipedia: - Person A dislikes Person B. Both persons have name recognition. - Person A creates an offensive definition for Person B's last name. - Person A documents said definition in Wikipedia. - Person A uses Wikipedia's intrinsically high Google ranking, in conjunction with in-bound link-spamming to said article, to *cause* it to appear high in Google's rankings. - When people search for Person B's last name they find a discussion of the smear campaign rather than the BLP. - Wikipedia is now the lauchpad for a smear campaign, and this launchpad's existence is justified by Wikipedian's because documenting the previous five steps is considered encyclopedic according to the guidelines. Suffice it to say that *many* people do not want to see Wikipedia abused in this manner. Additionally, some people, such as myself, find the existence of this article to be *morally wrong.* I find the following counter-arguments unsatisfying: - We have no control over Google. This is actually not true for a number of reasons, some of which have already been elucidated. - The article is NPOV, factual, cites sources and notable, therefore it should exist. This is unsatisfying because it exists only because of anti-Santorum pro-Savage contributors. If it were not for them the article would not have 100 sources, would not be so long, and would not be of such high quality. These several factors have been put there precisely in order to increase its relevance in Google results. This point is not contested to my knowledge. In other words, the quality of the article is not consistent with the historicity, or notability, of the topic. If you can reply to these points in sum, I think we might make some progress. I believe that you should at least agree that the article should be no more than 2-3 paragraphs in length, with a small handful of citations to truly authoritative, and perhaps even academic, discussions of the subject. - Brian ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit. Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not? - Carl ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipe...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit. Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not? Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article belong on the article talk page. Carcharoth ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article belong on the article talk page. As I understand it (not having participated) the idea of reducing the article to a stub was proposed on the talk page and rejected. I'm sure that everyone accepts the general principle that some articles are too long, but this thread is about a particular article. One argument in that section of the talk page is the following: : BLP basically means cover it sanely and safely, not don't cover it at all. : The ongoing reliable source interest in the phenomenon means that the : horse has already well and truly bolted. We Wikipedians can't change the : course of history, we can only report on it. Now the implicit claim in that quote that we can act publicly without affecting society is arguably incorrect; of course we change the course of history by participating in society. But we have often been willing to be involved in the very early development of a public conception (e.g. articles on Michael Jackson's death and other events). I think that any arguments about this article are going to have to be specific for the topic at hand, rather than trying to espouse general principles. In other words they have to distinguish between this event and others. I am not sure how strong those arguments are yet, which is why I am posting in this thread. - Carl ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, 26 May 2011, George Herbert wrote: The *term* shows him in a negative light, but the *incident* actually shows him responding maturely and responsibly. This is an artificial distinction that happens to fit Wikipedia rules, but not reality. Spreading the term automatically shows him in a negative light, in the same way that spreading a denial gives credence to the claim that is denied. I have a modest proposal: change the title to read Dan Savage campaign against Rick Santorum or something else which has Dan Savage's name in it. Some people have already suggested this, but I will bet that the same editors who want the 100 link template in will argue vehemently against this. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:30 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: (Proposed general rule: if you launch your complaint on Wikipedia Review, you're already wrong.) This is going on my user page. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated by biased anti-Santorum contributors, Well, you lost me right there. This is a terrible slur on both the editors of the article as well as all the uninvolved editors who have examined the article and found it compliant with Wikipedia policies. Surely if this broad slur that you've made is true, then uninvolved editors on both sides of this issue would have noticed this rampant bias and its effect on the article. This kind of thing, as well as earlier emails here from another editor with dark hints about how the creator of this article also started an article about a gay porn company, is really distasteful. And ironic that the bold defenders waving the banner of BLP would defend a living individual by slurring other living individuals. I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. - Brian ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion. ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
Man, I'm not even for us having an individual article on this-it belongs in the Rick Santorum or Dan Savage articles-but this relentless barrage of bad faith assumptions is ridiculous. You're inferring a conspiracy to smear Santorum by enlarging the article. I hope you realize you're alienating people who would have supported the original position that the article wasn't worthy of Wikipedia. At this point, I'm staying clear of the Santorum neologism article by a good ten feet. This 'debate' isn't worthy of the mailing list. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu Sender: wikien-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 17:44:41 To: English Wikipediawikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated by biased anti-Santorum contributors, Well, you lost me right there. This is a terrible slur on both the editors of the article as well as all the uninvolved editors who have examined the article and found it compliant with Wikipedia policies. Surely if this broad slur that you've made is true, then uninvolved editors on both sides of this issue would have noticed this rampant bias and its effect on the article. This kind of thing, as well as earlier emails here from another editor with dark hints about how the creator of this article also started an article about a gay porn company, is really distasteful. And ironic that the bold defenders waving the banner of BLP would defend a living individual by slurring other living individuals. I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. - Brian ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion. This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand. - Brian ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion. This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand. I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased. If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which were improper or unbalanced. The actual discussion has included essentially none of this. It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim could be made and defended credibly. The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations. BOLD allows us to take wider views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth. Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem. No, not everyone does. No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your side, much less a majority. Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and to standard interpretations. About which no detailed problems have been asserted so far... -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion. This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand. I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased. If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which were improper or unbalanced. The actual discussion has included essentially none of this. It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim could be made and defended credibly. The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations. BOLD allows us to take wider views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth. Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem. No, not everyone does. No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your side, much less a majority. Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and to standard interpretations. About which no detailed problems have been asserted so far... -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty close. That's not how it's supposed to be.. - Brian ___ 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] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]
On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert george.herb...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamali...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.min...@colorado.edu wrote: I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors. The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion. This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand. I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased. If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which were improper or unbalanced. The actual discussion has included essentially none of this. It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim could be made and defended credibly. The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations. BOLD allows us to take wider views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth. Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem. No, not everyone does. No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your side, much less a majority. Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and to standard interpretations. About which no detailed problems have been asserted so far... -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty close. That's not how it's supposed to be.. As I said earlier - I think that making it shorter and more concise would leave out elements that *improve* how Santorum appears, in the totality. His behavior - described in some but not excessive detail - and the critical and academic context - described in some but not excessive detail - make him look better than the raw incident does. In this particular, I am vexed and confused. If the longer article makes him look better, why in the flying spaghetti monster's name are those advocating human dignity here asking to shorten it? Seriously - the details here matter. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
