"Advocacy Articles" Options

[Herschelkrustofsky]

There is a new debate about what might more accurately be described as POV Battleground articles, and it is to be found at Wikipedia:Advocacy articles (T-H-L-K-D). The good news is that they are actually trying to formulate some sort of response to the problem, and among the suggestions are various types of disclaimer labels that warn the reader to expect opinion, not fact. That, IMO, would be a step in the right direction. In other words, abandon the pretense of being an "encyclopedia."

[Mister Die]

Although there is always the issue of a few "cabal" individuals completely dominating an article or subject for their own purposes, it should be noted that there are also instances of others trying to take over articles/subjects and raising the banner of "NPOV" to accomplish this. They then proceed to run roughshod over the article(s) in question while constantly screaming "NPOV! NPOV!" and adding the tag and making it look like there's some sort of huge controversy that doesn't exist outside of the minds of a few activists.

That's why I think that the "this article may not be neutral" tag shouldn't exist, nor should anything similar to it. It's basically saying to the world "yeah, Wikipedia can't actually prevent stuff like this from happening because of its own inanities, so just watch your step, alright?" If anything a warning should emerge as a popup within the page when you visit Wikipedia for the first time, noting that because it's an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" that the content of an article can easily be unreliable, but then again I'd personally add "Wikipedia isn't actually a real encyclopedia" to begin with. As it stands the "NPOV" tag is just used as a weapon in the hands of activists one way or another.

This post has been edited by Mister Die:

[Herschelkrustofsky]

Although there is always the issue of a few "cabal" individuals completely dominating an article or subject for their own purposes, it should be noted that there are also instances of others trying to take over articles/subjects and raising the banner of "NPOV" to accomplish this. They then proceed to run roughshod over the article(s) in question while constantly screaming "NPOV! NPOV!" and adding the tag and making it look like there's some sort of huge controversy that doesn't exist outside of the minds of a few activists.

That's why I think that the "this article may not be neutral" tag shouldn't exist, nor should anything similar to it. It's basically saying to the world "yeah, Wikipedia can't actually prevent stuff like this from happening because of its own inanities, so just watch your step, alright?" If anything a warning should emerge as a popup within the page when you visit Wikipedia for the first time, noting that because it's an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" that the content of an article can easily be unreliable, but then again I'd personally add "Wikipedia isn't actually a real encyclopedia" to begin with. As it stands the "NPOV" tag is just used as a weapon in the hands of activists one way or another.

I'm thinking more from the standpoint of what would be beneficial to the unsuspecting reader who is searching for reliable information. Obviously, from the standpoint of the internal WikiMMORPGist scene, it just becomes another tactical issue.

I would also note that there are probably thousands of WP articles which are non-controversial and probably quite helpful to people who are interested in those topics.

[iii]

I'm thinking more from the standpoint of what would be beneficial to the unsuspecting reader who is searching for reliable information.

This issue is one near-and-dear to my heart. My current belief is that what would be best would be a complete take-down of the site leaving the pieces to be picked up by the scattered remains of a free-culture contingent trying to figure out what went wrong. In my most giddy moments, I dream of something like a number of million-dollar defamation lawsuits litigated in parallel. Note that the WMF has deliberately cushioned themselves with some pretty deep pockets, no doubt to protect themselves from this eventuality, so it will need to be a concerted effort akin to the Church of Scientology's successful take-down of the Cult Awareness Network.

That would be my dream scenario. I don't think it's likely to happen, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

As for your proposal, I don't think it would have any impact on consumers of Wikipedia. I form this opinion on the basis of discussions I've lead with various academically-inclined undergraduates as to how they view Wikipedia. Anecdotally, these consumers of Wikipedia's content tell me that they understand the crowdsourcing approach has reliability issues, but they don't care since they see Wikipedia as a means to get a free and quick an "introduction to..." a particular topic rather than a comprehensive or unimpeachable source. When particular problems associated with the reliability of Wikipedia are brought to their attention, they tend to shrug them off. They are also keenly aware that Wikipedia has an enormous plagiarism quotient, but that also doesn't really bother them either. They see Wikipedia as doing the legwork of informal research for them: Wikipedia collects all the dredged-up and dubious content found on the world wide web with a Google search, but reading Wikipedia doesn't require their lazy asses to actually narrow the search for themselves. It also removes the issue of discriminating between good and bad sources. If they are serious about research, for example writing a paper for a class, they treat Wikipedia as a kind of annotated DMOZ. Otherwise, they just take the grain of salt with the content, laugh at the errors, and move along.

In short, these passive consumers of Wikipedia content are largely aware of the problems but essentially do not care because they like the convenience.

This is why I believe the correct answer to be, if your goal is to promote critical thinking among the masses, take away the security blanket altogether.

I would also note that there are probably thousands of WP articles which are non-controversial and probably quite helpful to people who are interested in those topics.

Depends on who you talk to, obviously. For example, Wikipedia's coverage of Einstein's theories of relativity is not all that bad, but there are members of this very forum who have elsewhere intimated that they think it to be controversial. For nearly any idea, no matter how non-controversial it is in the larger world, you can find a crackpot willing to argue against it.

This post has been edited by iii: