A Scientific Dissent from Wikipedianism, A Crockwork Orange Options

[dogbiscuit]

Well, let's change that to Guy will never admit he was wrong.

Glad you are keeping up, Guy. Didn't you just meat-puppet for me?

[Moulton]

What is JzG's evidence and reasoning that I am (or am not) "using numerous sockpuppet accounts"?

[dogbiscuit]

What is JzG's evidence and reasoning that I am (or am not) "using numerous sockpuppet accounts"?

You see Moulton, your fundamental flaw in all your discussions is that you hope that people who do things have rational reasons for doing them.

While you could analyse Guy as to what motivates him to come up with his decisions, I doubt very much whether he consciously thinks things through - he sees things and he "knows".

[Kato]

Well I hope they're not as bizarre as Picard's.

What a load of crap.

What would you have said were Ms. Picard a Muslim?

If they were a convert like the above, quite probably. If they were brought up Muslim, it depends. But I have said similar things to cultural Muslims over the years, and said something similar only yesterday to a Muslim friend when I was helping her out with a spot of gardening. I'm not Muslim, but I live among Muslims. We have all kinds of banter about all kinds of things. In fact, I don't come across many Christians these days. Probably more on this site than in real life. I find all of these ideas to be a bit mad. But having a heavy dose of Catholicism as a child, I can understand and empathize with the cultural aspects. When people start justifying irrational beliefs as adults out of the blue, there isn't much excuse.

[Moulton]

When people start justifying irrational beliefs as adults out of the blue, there isn't much excuse.

Kato, it would be helpful if you would pick out one or two of the putatively irrational beliefs and indicate how or why you reckon them to be irrational.

While you could analyse Guy as to what motivates him to come up with his decisions, I doubt very much whether he consciously thinks things through — he sees things and he "knows".

How typical would you say that characteristic is of Wikipedians in general?

Do you consider that characteristic to fall short of best practices?

[dogbiscuit]

While you could analyse Guy as to what motivates him to come up with his decisions, I doubt very much whether he consciously thinks things through — he sees things and he "knows".

How typical would you say that characteristic is of Wikipedians in general?

Do you consider that characteristic to fall short of best practices?

I think that describes the thought processes of a vast majority of the human race. The stupid thing about Wikipedia is not that there are a few irrational beings screwing it up, it is the failure to recognise that just about every Wikipedian is a human being with a full set of human foibles, and the kidology that somehow Wikipedianism transcends the human spirit drags it down into the stupid illogicalities of everyday Wikipedian behaviour.

It is like a recent exchange I had on Wikipedia when a young sprog had the temerity to suggest that my criticisms of Wikipedia must be false because policy said that the things I claimed to be the case were against policy, therefore could not be true.

As another example, everyone who evaluates the ID Crowd rationally should come to the conclusion that they are an abusive crowd. Yet is seems, through some perverse Wikipedian logic that Wikipedians are able to rationalise that small group's abusive activities as acceptable.

Best practices need to recognise that Wikipedians are imperfect human beings and policies and processes need to recognise that it is run by a bunch of irrational amateurs, rather than the pretence of high minded perfection. I guess that means no to your second point.

[Moulton]

I guess that means no to your second point.

Bummer. I am so chagrined.

[guy]

What is JzG's evidence and reasoning that I am (or am not) "using numerous sockpuppet accounts"?

Since even Checkusers often don't have a clue about who's a sockpuppet of whom, how can JzG do better?

[Moulton]

What is JzG's evidence and reasoning that I am (or am not) "using numerous sockpuppet accounts"?

Since even Checkusers often don't have a clue about who's a sockpuppet of whom, how can JzG do better?

Well, I suppose he can examine the public record and discover that there has never been even a hint of a suspicion that I've ever registered an alternate account.

[Moulton]

Sam Korn is a former member of ArbCom who posted on WP:AN an open invitation to me to send him E-Mail presenting my case.

After a few rounds of E-Mail, Sam Korn has posted his analysis and opinion of the case.

His view is that the RfC and its aftermath were flawed:

What it important here is that the action taken was not wholly appropriate: that is indicative of the process being wrong. I don't know who Moulton would like to make this statement: I for one am happy to say "no, we didn't get this one quite right".

This is a major step towards recognizing and rectifying the problem as I perceived it.

I would also like to acknowledge the significant roles played by Lar and GRBerry in the WP:AN discussions, and the instrumental role that PrivateMusings played in bringing the issues to wider public awareness through the medium of the NTWW Skypecasts.

[Lar]

Sam Korn is a former member of ArbCom who posted on WP:AN an open invitation to me to send him E-Mail presenting my case.

After a few rounds of E-Mail, Sam Korn has posted his analysis and opinion of the case.

His view is that the RfC and its aftermath were flawed:

What it important here is that the action taken was not wholly appropriate: that is indicative of the process being wrong. I don't know who Moulton would like to make this statement: I for one am happy to say "no, we didn't get this one quite right".

This is a major step towards recognizing and rectifying the problem as I perceived it.

I would also like to acknowledge the significant roles played by Lar and GRBerry in the WP:AN discussions, and the instrumental role that PrivateMusings played in bringing the issues to wider public awareness through the medium of the NTWW Skypecasts.

You're welcome, I guess, but I haven't changed my basic view, that unless you're willing to edit within WP guidelines, an unblock would be symbolic, since you would be rapidly reblocked.

I do think Sam Korn did a fine piece of analysis.

[Moulton]

An open letter to PlatanusOccidentalis...

Hi PlatanusOccidentalis,

Regarding that controversial edit you made to the Picard bio, essentially implementing the proposed edit that I had posted on WR upthread here, I'm wondering if you independently examined the rationale, per WP:RS and WP:V, to establish the proper basis for that proposed edit.

Elsewhere (primarily in private Skype chat) I have walked several others through the examination of the WP:RS and WP:V sources to arrive at that edit without violating WP:NOR (and to refute the prevailing wording that Filll reinstated).

I've offered to Sam Korn to walk anyone else whom he cares to nominate through the exercise to properly ground that proposed edit.

If you have independently done the same exercise, I imagine that would be even more helpful to him.

Regards,

Moulton / Barry

P.S. You are at liberty to disclose, share, or paraphrase this E-Mail.

[Moulton]

Media Ethics: Into the pot, already boiling

What Is the Name Of This Problem?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Wikipedia has begun to recognize that it has a huge problem with biographies of living people.

But that's not what I want to talk about in this post.

What I want to talk about today is akin to a tiny pea under a pile of mattresses.

But it's an annoying pea that illustrates the subtlety of reckoning ethics in online media.

For the past ten months, I have sought, with notable lack of success, to raise to the attention of editors on Wikipedia a seemingly insignificant error that has caused a number of people considerable grief.

The problem arises because the editors of several related articles on Wikipedia insisted on incorrectly labeling a 2001 document that had become the centerpiece of a national controversy.

There is an article entitled "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" which describes a 2-sentence petition and a sponsoring web site promoting it. The problem is that the name attached to the petition and the purposes to which it has been put by its sponsor have varied and evolved since the document first was circulated in academia back in 2001. Among the signatories to this petition, the first 100 are said to be the most notable and most prominent scientists and academics. They are the ones who had signed the petition in question in 2001, prior to its first known publication.

Let's take a close look at the article in Wikipedia. First look at the main section, Statement, just below the article table of contents. Note that the text of the statement is in a pink box, with the italicized title outside the box. So far, so good. Below the pink box with the 32-word statement, the article continues, "The statement, and its title, refer to ..." Notice how the authors of this article have distinguished the 32-word statement from the 5-word title. In a minute you'll discover why. But first look at the balance of that section carefully, with special attention to the degree of ambiguity as to what it is that the petition is a "dissent from." Notice the article is now referring to "the petition" which is ambiguous, because we don't know if 'petition' refers just to the 32-word statement, or to the 32-word statement plus the 5-word title as a package.

Now we come to the next section, Discovery Institute usage, which talks about a "list of names" that the Discovery Institute has published in various paid advertisements, beginning in 2001.

Now it's time to drill down to the primary sources, which are references 19 and 20 in the current version of the article. Reference 19 goes to a press release from the Discovery Institute that has some bylined text followed by a bold-faced title, an italicized 32-word statement in quotes, and then a list of about 100 signatories. Reference 20 goes to a facsimile of the printed ad, as it appeared in the NY Times and other publications around September/October 2001. This is the best source. Look at it carefully.

It is a newspaper ad with a headline, two paragraphs of advertising copy and then a gray box with a 32-word statement in quotes, surrounded by the same list of about 100 names.

Now, here is the Socratic part, dear reader:

1. What is the headline of the advertisement?
   
2. What is the title of the statement inside the gray box? (Is there one?)
   
3. If you were a journalist, what would be your evidence and reasoning to support the notion that those 100 scientists put their signature to a document that contained both a 5-word title and a 32-word statement?

Is it journalistically accurate and ethical to say that those 100 scientists put their names to a petition bearing the title, "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism"?

See also the cited analysis by Skip Evans, published by the NCSE shortly after the ad first appeared, which raises similar concerns about how the Discovery Institute had reframed and recontextualized the 32-word statement by framing it with a headline and two paragraphs of advertising copy suggesting how they'd like the public to interpret it.

Until last week, Wikipedia had prominently tagged the biographies of any of those scientists as "Signatories of the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". That category tag has since been removed from Wikipedia, although it remains as a list, which includes those 100 scientists and academics who did not sign a petition bearing that name.

[Random832]

What is JzG's evidence and reasoning that I am (or am not) "using numerous sockpuppet accounts"?

Since even Checkusers often don't have a clue about who's a sockpuppet of whom, how can JzG do better?

Well, I suppose he can examine the public record and discover that there has never been even a hint of a suspicion that I've ever registered an alternate account.

Yeah, but you do have thousands of meatpuppets...

...where "meatpuppet" is defined as "anyone who makes an edit you might agree with after the fact"...

...and in other news, if you call the tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

[dogbiscuit]

Media Ethics: Into the pot, already boiling

What Is the Name Of This Problem?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Moulton: thank you for clearly stating the issue. Keep this quality of post up and your concerns will be clearly understood.

[Moulton]

Yeah, but you do have thousands of meatpuppets...

Back in the early 90s, when I was championing children's educational networking via an innovative MUD called MicroMuse, my colleagues at BBN Systems and Technologies used to joke that I had become a cult leader with dozens of youthful acolytes who had flocked to MicroMuse to experience the joys of Model-Based Reasoning.

I seem to have improved my charisma a notch. Now instead of a few dozen adolescent acolytes on MicroMuse, I am graced with thousands of worshipful meatpuppets on Wikipedia.

I am humbled beyond words.

[Moulton]

Media Ethics: Into the pot, already boiling

What Is the Name Of This Problem?

Monday, May 19, 2008

Moulton: thank you for clearly stating the issue. Keep this quality of post up and your concerns will be clearly understood.

I had made the same argument, albeit less Socratically, in the talk pages of the Picard bio back on August 23. Notice how Filll supplied to me the very same primary sources in that discussion.

Can you see how exasperating it was, dealing with Hrafn, Filll, and Ornis in that early colloquy on this very issue?

[dogbiscuit]

Can you see how exasperating it was, dealing with Hrafn, Filll, and Ornis in that early colloquy on this very issue?

Certainly, and still, today, the argument is being cast that there is nothing wrong in their obvious manipulation of the story. What I had not picked up till now was that their main sourcing was an advert rather than journalistic content.

In fact, I now understand why OrangeMarlin, Jim Schuler and so on were so sensitive about attempted changes to the sourcing policy as stated in WP:Verifiability where various editors at times have agreed that the bald statement that mainstream newspapers are reliable sources is entirely inappropriate, whereas others have sort to ensure that is qualified.

The ID Crowd paranoia extends to the assumption that if someone is independently seeking to change policy, that in fact these people are in league with the devil and are simply seeking to change policy to allow creationists to defeat their arguments which they known in their hearts are built on the sand of their delusional beliefs.

[Moulton]

I had pointed out, time and again, that they had no reliable source to assert that those first 100 scientists (who included Tour, Skell, Picard, and even Berlinski) were either dissenters from Darwinism or anti-evolution or supporters of ID. There simply wasn't a shred of evidence anywhere (including on the DI's own carefully spun PR pages) to support the view that those editors stubbornly insisted were facts on the ground. For the life of me, I couldn't fathom what purpose could be served by including such absurdly false and defamatory content in those BLPs and compounding it by making it the dominant WP:Coatrack content in violation of WP:NPOV (which would have included the analysis by Skip Evans of the NCSE, who was Filll's hero in the fight against the DI's misleading presentation of the petition and its interpretation). To my mind, they were in willful disregard of the patently evident truth, as demonstrated by a sober and objective examination of their own sources.

Ken Chang might well have thought that the 2006 website, DissentFromDarwin.Org was "anti-evolution" (even though the phrase never appears on the DI's website and nowhere in the text of his own NYT article). But even so, his personal opinion (as expressed in that private E-Mail) hardly elevates that personal point of view to an uncontestable {fact}. Picard posted on WP her contrary view that the controversial headline was skewed that way "to sell more newspapers". Chang never said who wrote the headline for that article. (Very likely he wouldn't have remembered after a year and a half.)

The definitive primary source was the facsimile of the original anti-PBS ad, which exhibits the 32-word statement in a grey box with 100 names, below a headline and advertising copy that were clearly crafted expressly for that ad.

Filll's position that it was up to each of those 100 scientists to publicly refute the misrepresentations of Wikipedia was absurd. And even when several of the aggrieved scientists did that, the controlling editors still left the misbegotten content in the articles and BLPs.

[Moulton]

Good grief.

Dave Souza on WP:AN...

Oppose unblocking On the basis that Sam's proposal is "unblocking with a strict prohibition from editing in areas concerned with the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. We should, as a community, be prepared to say "we would like to see you editing productively"," then I'm willing so see it would be possible to consider unblocking on these conditions with close and effective monitoring. Moulton is not disinterested about policy, he appears passionately committed to changing BLP so that information from reputable sources is overridden by personal anecdote and speculation about improbable potential harm. Expect extended and tendentious discussions in that area, and care should be taken to ensure that these views do not unduly override community consensus. ... dave souza, talk 12:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Amended after reading User:Filll/Moultonunblock which refreshed my memory. Any unblocking is likely to lead to grief as well as being an enormous waste of time . . dave souza, talk 09:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Grief for whom?

Grief for responsible Wikipedians of good will?

Or grief for the often mean-spirited and hard-hearted editors in the WikiClique on ID?

How much more time will have to be consumed before they learn not to WP:BITE the newbies and academics who come to Wikipedia in good faith to help build a better, more reliable, more accurate, and higher quality encyclopedia?