Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-05-23

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-05-23. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Injunction – preliminary protection levels for BLP articles when removing PC (981 bytes · 💬)

• Seems to me that a bot would be able to easily do what the arbs are demanding. Perhaps they could just request a bot be tasked with that (removing PC and adding the appropriate level of protection). ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I believe that issue is moot at this time, as all Pending Changes protection has been removed. Powers ^T 19:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Featured content: The best of the week (656 bytes · 💬)

Good call to split features and admins up. Admin promotions are definitely newsworthy, but putting them here wasn't in keeping with the idea that adminship isn't a reward. Keep up the great work on this page everyone: that goes to the people who work very hard to compile this page, those who produce the content, those who review it, and especially those who do two or three of the above. —WFC— 02:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Death of the expert?; superinjunctions saga continues; World Heritage status petitioned and debated; brief news (7,594 bytes · 💬)

Expertise

Just a note on the topic of Wikipedia and expertise, a long time ago I did an impromptu debate on Nick Carr's blog about it (versus a Wikipedia advocate). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 01:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• Maria Bustillos here with thanks for your comments on my recent piece at The Awl. I don't mean to devalue anyone who has studied a subject in great detail and has knowledge to share, but to draw attention to the difference between a model of learning that encourages the weighing of opposing views, and one that requires a single "answer" to any given question. The same kind of misunderstanding evidently occurred between Messrs. Montgomery and Finkelstein in the (excellent) dialogue referenced in the above comment (for which thank you, Mr. Finkelstein.) Perhaps a distinction can be made between "experts" and "authorities"?68.185.76.235 (talk) 03:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

But Wikipedia worships the idea that there is a single "answer" overall. That's a key part of its marketing, the so-called Neutral Point Of View. The idea of multiple independent answers is derided, the jargon term for that is "POV forks", which are to be avoided at all costs. One can hear the dismissal in the language, if something is not neutral (the single "answer" to any given question), but a (gasp!) point of view. The meaning of "neutral" there is subject to confusion, in thinking it means something like accepting different views of knowledge, where it really means the exact opposite, rejecting all views which are not part of the standard construction of knowledge by credentialed experts. This doesn't mean that standard experts agree everywhere on everything - that's an oversimplification of knowledge. And so Wikipedia respects differing views within that framework. But not outside it. It's a bit like journalistic "objectivity". But it's not a different model of learning at all. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I've always thought of Neutral Point Of View as an invitation to draw a landscape on the subject in question. All features within the field of view are present but some are in the foreground and some in the background. It would be a strange landscape that gave equal prominence to all features. The biggest consensual views get the most detail and the lesser ones a sketch. Lumos3 (talk) 16:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

The question here isn't one of "credentialed experts" but of verifiability, as Paul Montgomery pointed out. This means tracing the path of an idea, as opposed to the taking of one person's word on a given question. I doubt my own eloquence will succeed in persuading you that this is manifestly a "different model of learning" where Mr. Montgomery's eloquence failed. I'm not trying to say "anyone's an expert now!" though. I'm saying something more like, when we are invited behind the curtain of the all-powerful Oz, the dangers of trusting "authority" will no longer threaten us so powerfully. (I'm reminded of the Russian proverb that Julian Barnes used as the epigraph for his novel Talking it Over: "He lies like an eyewitness.")68.185.76.235 (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm going down the same path as before, but - you are supposed to take the word from on-high on a given question, that's everything from "reliable sources" to "verifiability, not truth". In fact, you are supposed to be so beholden to authority as to defer to it even when you know differently (that's e.g. "original research", and usually said with a dismissive tone). The arguments are about settling conflicting claims with references to the correct authority (reliable source), which is hardly revolutionary - would you say theology (literally) is a "different model of learning" because since God is unclear, everything is necessarily interpretation? You also ignore all the hucksterism pushing trusting the "hive mind". -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 19:45, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Boy, I get to be the first to respond to his essay with, "Larry Sanger isn't all that either"? -- llywrch (talk) 19:33, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

And that comment isn't all that either 1/2 :-) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 19:45, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Mebbe. But Sanger knows better than to make comments that can be just as easily turned on him. Citizendium is a very large glass house; he would do well not to throw stones. -- llywrch (talk) 05:07, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

When we discuss "causes" specifically of conditions for which the cause is not know we are discussing theories and we try to weight them proportional to the weight they receive in the literature. On Wikipedia we do anything but "provide the one right answer". Context is given. History is given. And if it isn't it should be... --24.66.7.103 (talk) 03:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

In some topics and articles, the editors do work together well to provide all significant views as presented in "reliable" sources. In other topics, however, especially some of the science and political history articles, groups of activist editors prevent that from happening. In the latter situation, in most cases Wikipedia's administration has shown itself unable or unwilling to effectively resolve the problem. Unfortunately, for the most part, Wikipedia's readers have to figure out on their own which is the case for any particular article. Cla68 (talk) 04:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, the community and the ArbCom have acted against activist editors on numerous occasions with some consistency. It's an ongoing problem, but not one that's insoluble.   Will Beback  talk  10:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Fancy words

Epistemic? Spare me! With jaw dropped, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with epistemic? "Of or relating to knowledge or cognition". I could have used doxastic if I really wanted to confuse non-philosophers. Anyway, sorry for the confusion. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Gardner on gender gap

I think Gardner hit the nail on the head right in her second reply when she noted that "Wikipedia is a more critical environment — debate is a bit rough-and-tumble"; similarly, it's very true that the technical barriers to contribution are still far too high. Overcoming these issues would benefit everyone, too, no matter their gender, so I hope progress will be made there. -- Schneelocke (talk) 12:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: GLAM workshop; legal policies; brief news (1,385 bytes · 💬)

GLAMcamp NYC

A different version of the article about the GLAMcamp will appear in this month's "This month in GLAM". Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:06, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Legal Team policy draft

This is all very nice, and it's good to make it official. That being said, there are other pressing issues where clarification from the legal team could be useful. For one thing, the only way that the current battle over the NFCC is going to get settled is with the WMF legal team issuing clarifications on a number of points, most especially NFCC#8 in regards to television screenshots , NFCC#1 in regards to living people (ex. if a person was a notable child actor and is now 50 and still alive, if there are no free images of him as a child does NFCC#1 still apply?) and NFCC#2 (ex. File:Hand of God goal.jpg and this discussion). It would be nice we get a WMF legal staff opinion on these issues, and other issues when they come up. I have been unable to find a way to get in touch with them thus far. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News (1,055 bytes · 💬)

• Nice to hear about the CLDR extension, but how can it be used? It seems to have only server-side hooks, but it'd be nice to be able to use it in a parser function, such as #languagename (provided by Extension:I18nTags) --Waldir ^talk 03:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, a parser function for accessing the CLDR data would be a very good idea. Kaldari (talk) 06:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding the timeouts, I notice that they are more frequent in my preferred browser (Firefox). When I am experiencing one, I can often be productive in an alternative browser such as Chrome.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)