Wikipedia Fallacy : Fantasies About Research, Reality Chucking : Care And Feeding Of Bubble World Options

[Jonny Cache]

I feel some sense of scholarly duty to call attention to this, though I'm losing the energy to do much about it under current conditions in this Forum. Maybe someone else who reads this will pick up the ball another time — maybe I'll feel less dispirited tomorrow.

There was a time when Wikipediot policies and guidelines on Sourced Research and Reliable Sources were roughly in accord with the way that those concepts have long been understood and put in practice in the Real World. That is far from being the case today, in no small part due to the relentless and ruthless efforts of SlimVirgin, Slrubenstein, and others to warp Wikipediot policies to their own private Fantasies About Research (WP:FAR) and to eliminate from site anyone who says boo about it.

It is no accident that ongoing developments in the state of WP:FAR make it far more difficult with every passing day to puncture the Self-Sealing Bubble World of the Wikipediot Web Of Maya with any and all poignant prickings of External Reality Checking.

One of the things that external researchers will eventually need to do, as they slowly, all too slowly come to recognize the kind of threat that Wikipedia poses to the minds of previously untrained intellects, is to pick over the time devolution of Wikipedia's ever shifting policies on Sourced Research and Reliable Sources. These are currently found tucked away under such acronyms as WP:ATT, WP:COI, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:VER — though, of course, even the names are constantly changed to protect their ignorance.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

[Jonny Cache]

It's been a while since I've even dared to look in on the motley crew of monkey bizness that I'm barreling together here under the monicker of WP:FAR, but then I thought that maybe I should, just in case that barrel of monkeys had accidentally righted itself in the mean time, making me look like a Crying Wolf Boy or something.

Needless to say, I shouldn't have worried — when it comes to exponentially increasing absurdity, Wikipedia never disappoints.

Here's just the first random sample of WP:FARCE that I ran into —

NB. In the current WikiPatois, PST(S) refers to Primary, Secondary, Tertiary (Sources).

As I have expressed, I believe there is always room for improvement, and I have tried to suggest some ways the definitions of PST sources could be improved — and would welcome other suggestions. However, I believe it is essential for this discussion that we all agree that it is inevitable that some Wikipedia policy terms will be ideosyncratic [sic] to Wikipedia and thus require people to (temporarily) "unlearn" (I would say "bracket") their more familiar definitions. I make this as a general point and acknowledge that one can in good faith say "Yes, but this is not one of those times". We can disagree over whether we need to use the words primary and secondary, and we can disagree over how to use them. But I do not think we will get anywhere unless people asknowledge [sic] that unique definitions are sometimes unavoidable and good. I have two reasons, and an example.

Reason 1: our policy must apply to people researching within or about different disciplines, professions, and domains. Thee is no reason to think that lawyers, engineers, historians, and anthropologists would necessarily all use the word "source" (or pick any other important term) the same way — but we need to define it in a way that can apply to any article; in other words, we need a definition that is appropriate not for law, engineering, history, or anthropology, we need a definition that i [sic] appropriate for an encyclopedia.

Reason 2: we are a wikipedia, an necyclopedia [sic] written through a collaboration by diverse amateurs. Our policies must foster effective collaboration. Being diverse amateurs creates challenges and needs not faced, say, in peer-revidewed journals or EB where most authors are all academics and share many conventions, and furthermore what they write is policed by an editorial board or editors (I mean, journal editors, people with power to dictate content to authors).

See — even when talking about peer-reviewed journals, we see that we define "editor" in a way utterly unlike most other people. This is already an example, but not the one i intended (which will follow) but eveytime I contribute to Wikipedia I need to "unlearn" what "editor" "really means" (meaning, the definition I need to live by in my work, if I am to keep my job and advance in my career — I have to unlearn that definition).

Anyway, my point is that absent the kind of editorial supervision of journals and other encyclopedias, we rely on policies — policies take the place of people. So we are going to have policies that may be unnecessary at journals and other encyclopedias, and our policies have to accomplish something that is accomplished through very different means in other context. So it shouldn't surprise us if some of our policies are unique and use words ideosynratically [sic].

Now my real example (though editor is still a good one!): NPOV. most of us are used to this policy and realy "get it" but read the policy and you will see it is written for people who need to redefine what they mean by "neutraility" [sic] to understand the policy. So I have nothing against unique definitions, as long as they are clear and consistent and useful. I realize others may disagree with me that "primary sources" should be one of those words, but I hope we can agree on the general principle. Slrubenstein 03:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Source. Slrubenstein, Wikipedia Talk : No Original Research, 27 Sep 2007 UTC 03:29.

You can't make this stuff up — that's their job!

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

[Jonny Cache]

It's been a while since I've even dared to look in on the motley crew of monkey bizness that I'm barreling together here under the monicker of WP:FAR, but then I thought that maybe I should, just in case that barrel of monkeys had accidentally righted itself in the mean time, making me look like a Crying Wolf Boy or something.

Needless to say, I shouldn't have worried — when it comes to exponentially increasing absurdity, Wikipedia never disappoints.

Here's just the first random sample of WP:FARCE that I ran into —

NB. In the current WikiPatois, PST(S) refers to Primary, Secondary, Tertiary (Sources).

As I have expressed, I believe there is always room for improvement, and I have tried to suggest some ways the definitions of PST sources could be improved — and would welcome other suggestions. However, I believe it is essential for this discussion that we all agree that it is inevitable that some Wikipedia policy terms will be ideosyncratic [sic] to Wikipedia and thus require people to (temporarily) "unlearn" (I would say "bracket") their more familiar definitions. I make this as a general point and acknowledge that one can in good faith say "Yes, but this is not one of those times". We can disagree over whether we need to use the words primary and secondary, and we can disagree over how to use them. But I do not think we will get anywhere unless people asknowledge [sic] that unique definitions are sometimes unavoidable and good. I have two reasons, and an example.

Reason 1: our policy must apply to people researching within or about different disciplines, professions, and domains. Thee is no reason to think that lawyers, engineers, historians, and anthropologists would necessarily all use the word "source" (or pick any other important term) the same way — but we need to define it in a way that can apply to any article; in other words, we need a definition that is appropriate not for law, engineering, history, or anthropology, we need a definition that i [sic] appropriate for an encyclopedia.

Reason 2: we are a wikipedia, an necyclopedia [sic] written through a collaboration by diverse amateurs. Our policies must foster effective collaboration. Being diverse amateurs creates challenges and needs not faced, say, in peer-revidewed journals or EB where most authors are all academics and share many conventions, and furthermore what they write is policed by an editorial board or editors (I mean, journal editors, people with power to dictate content to authors).

See — even when talking about peer-reviewed journals, we see that we define "editor" in a way utterly unlike most other people. This is already an example, but not the one i intended (which will follow) but eveytime I contribute to Wikipedia I need to "unlearn" what "editor" "really means" (meaning, the definition I need to live by in my work, if I am to keep my job and advance in my career — I have to unlearn that definition).

Anyway, my point is that absent the kind of editorial supervision of journals and other encyclopedias, we rely on policies — policies take the place of people. So we are going to have policies that may be unnecessary at journals and other encyclopedias, and our policies have to accomplish something that is accomplished through very different means in other context. So it shouldn't surprise us if some of our policies are unique and use words ideosynratically [sic].

Now my real example (though editor is still a good one!): NPOV. most of us are used to this policy and realy "get it" but read the policy and you will see it is written for people who need to redefine what they mean by "neutraility" [sic] to understand the policy. So I have nothing against unique definitions, as long as they are clear and consistent and useful. I realize others may disagree with me that "primary sources" should be one of those words, but I hope we can agree on the general principle. Slrubenstein 03:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Source. Slrubenstein, Wikipedia Talk : No Original Research, 27 Sep 2007 UTC 03:29.

You can't make this stuff up — that's their job!

Jon Awbrey

Now I know what yer thinking — yer thinking, or doublethinking, that Slrubenstein is really a sockpuppet of Jonny Cache, deliberately giving himself away flagrante delicto with devious double-entendre mispielings of critical mots de passe.

Well, I must leave you to yer own recognizance of that, since to denny it cold would do nada but convict us all all the more.

But do let us flag a few of these more choice parapraises that afford such flung-open floopholes to the uncns soul.

• asknowledge. No doubt a mispelling of ass-knowledge, cf. pons asinorum. Use it in asentence? Sure:
  1. Asknowledge wot unlearning canoe 4U, asswipe U canoe 4 asknowledge.
  2. Wikipedia — the sump of human asknowledge.
  3. Okay, maybe yer doublethinking Number 2 is not asentence, but doublethink again, and it is.

• bracket. [sic]…[/sic].
• ideosyncratic. Hard to say whether this means ideological idiosyncrasy or idiosyncratic ideology, but I'm guessing it's [sic]s one way, ½ a twit the other.
• ideosynratically. This is when you rat on ∑ rat for not being a big enuff ideosynrat.
• necyclopedia. From the Latin nescio + cyclus + ped-, meaning, "I dunno Juzon Vürßt — but look, Mum, I can ride my bike without any feet on the pedals!"
• neutraility. This is when you rail on ∑ newt for not being a big enuff newt.

Salute !

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: