Mailing List Archive

On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
> Dear Jimbo:
>
> I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>
> ''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
> the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
> on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
> between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
> 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
> there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>
> From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi

Probably somethinbg published by the local post office or city
planners would be the logical aproach.




--
geni
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Walter van Kalken wrote:

>Dear Jimbo:
>
>I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>
>''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
>the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
>on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
>between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
>7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
>there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>
> From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
>
>Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to
>provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this
>just because it is unreferenced?
>
In theory, there is probably a reference and legal basis for this kind
of thing in Bangkok city hall, but unless we are challenging the way
that the Bangkok city fathers are numbering streets it would be an
incredible waste of time to track it down. I am willing, on a
provisional basis, to accept the observations of someone who has lived
in that city. If I doubted the facts I could always go to Bangkok to
verify the facts by walking the streets. The information is right there
for everybody to see.

Ec

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Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>
>
>>Dear Jimbo:
>>
>>I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>>
>>''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
>>the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
>>on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
>>between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
>>7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
>>there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>>
>>From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
>>
>>Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to
>>provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this
>>just because it is unreferenced?
>>
>>
>>
>In theory, there is probably a reference and legal basis for this kind
>of thing in Bangkok city hall, but unless we are challenging the way
>that the Bangkok city fathers are numbering streets it would be an
>incredible waste of time to track it down. I am willing, on a
>provisional basis, to accept the observations of someone who has lived
>in that city. If I doubted the facts I could always go to Bangkok to
>verify the facts by walking the streets. The information is right there
>for everybody to see.
>
>
>
Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of
things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out
these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I
get from statements like the one Jimbo made.

Waerth
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On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:

> Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of
> things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out
> these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I
> get from statements like the one Jimbo made.


On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something
unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case
where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living
biographies.


- d.
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Hoi,
There is a difference between a need for being hard-arsed and being
hard-arsed. As there are many people considering the lack of sources as a
reason for immediate deletion, I would say we are way over the top already.
I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many
people who have something to add.
Thanks,
GerardM

On 9/18/06, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
>
> > Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of
> > things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out
> > these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I
> > get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
>
>
> On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something
> unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case
> where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living
> biographies.
>
>
> - d.
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>
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David Gerard wrote:

>On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Thank you EC that is exactly how I feel about this and these kind of
>>things. Unfortunately the tendency seems to be to rigouresly edit out
>>these kind of unverified statements. At least that is the impression I
>>get from statements like the one Jimbo made.
>>
>>
>
>
>On en:wp, the guideline is "don't put a {{fact}} tag on something
>unless you actually think it's likely to be wrong." The only case
>where we need to really be hard-arsed about citations is on living
>biographies.
>
>
>- d.
>
And again a statement that makes sense. Unforunately most wikipedians
just see a rule, or a statement by jimbo and will be hard arsed about it
in unfortunately. We will see where this ship ends up ......

Waerth
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On 18/09/06, GerardM <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a difference between a need for being hard-arsed and being
> hard-arsed. As there are many people considering the lack of sources as a
> reason for immediate deletion, I would say we are way over the top already.


If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of
deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture
things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to
establish that anyone even cares.

In the case of the street layouts ... it's possible Wikipedia isn't
the place for this unless and until there's a third-party source to
verify it. And, you know, there are websites other than Wikipedia in
the world to write up this stuff in the *first* instance.


> I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many
> people who have something to add.


It's a balancing act between not discouraging the newbies and dealing
with the firehose of complete crap that hits en:wp every day. (The
numbers as of Nov 2005 were around 4000 new articles/day, over 2000 of
which were killed within 24 hours; we've become really stupidly
popular since then, I don't know what the current numbers are.)

But deletion policy on en: has been problematic and deeply antisocial
in its construction for a long time.


- d.
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On 18/09/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:

> And again a statement that makes sense. Unforunately most wikipedians
> just see a rule, or a statement by jimbo and will be hard arsed about it
> in unfortunately. We will see where this ship ends up ......


People will sometimes take a reasonable guideline entirely too far.

The trouble is that by its nature, Wikipedia attracts obsessives who
see things only in black-and-white, and if they can't get their
personal obsession on the wiki just as they want it, they scream
loudly about it.


- d.
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On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
>
> >2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl <Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at>:
> >
> >
> >>Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be
> >>a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative
> >>'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs
> >>a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be
> >>sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of
> >>negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of
> >>people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy
> >>writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude
> >>and frustration.)"
> >>(http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
> >>
> >>
> Dear Jimbo:
>
> I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>
> ''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
> the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
> on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
> between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
> 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
> there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>
> From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi

Is this sufficient?
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/bangkok/0071024195.html

> Not everything can be referenced, or a reference is almost impossible to
> provide. But what stands there is the truth, so should we delete this
> just because it is unreferenced?

I agree that over-referenceing can be a problem. This case of Soi
numbering might fall right between "needs" and "doesn't need it."

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
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Andrew Lih wrote:

>On 9/17/06, Walter van Kalken <walter@vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Andre Engels wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>2006/9/17, Christoph Seydl <Christoph.Seydl@students.jku.at>:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jimbo Wales says: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be
>>>>a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative
>>>>'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs
>>>>a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be
>>>>sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of
>>>>negative information about living persons. I think a fair number of
>>>>people need to be kicked out of the project just for being lousy
>>>>writers. (This is not a policy statement, just a statement of attitude
>>>>and frustration.)"
>>>>(http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-May/046433.html)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>Dear Jimbo:
>>
>>I challenge you to find me a reference/citation for:
>>
>>''When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all
>>the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones
>>on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added
>>between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi
>>7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if
>>there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.''
>>
>> From the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soi
>>
>>
>
>Is this sufficient?
>http://www.frommers.com/destinations/bangkok/0071024195.html
>
>
>
Interesting thanks.

Waerth
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2006/9/18, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:

> If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of
> deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture
> things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to
> establish that anyone even cares.

Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article
20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped
did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I
was not sure where to put it).

--
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ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
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On 18/09/06, Andre Engels <andreengels@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2006/9/18, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:

> > If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of
> > deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture
> > things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to
> > establish that anyone even cares.

> Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article
> 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped
> did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I
> was not sure where to put it).


It's usually applied to new ones. I save the {{unreferenced}} tag for
articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc whatsoever.

Your assumption is that anything to do with verifiability *must* be
applied pathologically or not at all.


- d.
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--- David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 18/09/06, Andre Engels <andreengels@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 2006/9/18, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:
>
> > > If there are NO sources for an article, that
> tends to be a sign of
> > > deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly
> applied to popular culture
> > > things, where evidence of third-party
> verifiability may be needed to
> > > establish that anyone even cares.
>
> > Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I
> picked random article
> > 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4
> did (the one skipped
> > did not have references, but did have a
> 'bibliography' section, so I
> > was not sure where to put it).
>
>
> It's usually applied to new ones. I save the
> {{unreferenced}} tag for
> articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc
> whatsoever.
>
> Your assumption is that anything to do with
> verifiability *must* be
> applied pathologically or not at all.
>
>
> - d.

The problem is that a growing number of people *are*
applying this pathologicaly. I don't know the answer
to this but it is a real problem. Many people have
given up working on articles where these sort of
people (who really are well meaning and gracious but
also unreasonable) show up and make demands for
exacting citations of all asssertions equally.

I have seen the argument that a citation is not a
citation per WP:CITE unless it contains page numbers
and if no page numbers are given after some amount of
time the assertions will be removed per WP:V. Now in
this case the assertions (from what I can gather) are
not actually believed untrue and have been in the
article for over six months (which is why page numbers
are hard to come by). In the end I have found a local
copy of the book. But I can only find it in the
original french so it is not a small effort for me to
sastisfy these demands (french is not my best
language, not to mention I can not check this book
out).

Two of the original people seem to have left the
article (one declared they were, the other may have
left the project entirely). These demands have forced
people to scramble for any sort of citation they can
turn up on the internet. I personally believe this
article is of worse quality since the citations have
begun being adding, because many of the footnotes are
misleading or are an incorrect use of primary sources
(which are easier to find on the web in this case). I
feel I can straighten this case out, now that I have
found the book that the information oringinally came
from. But how many more places is this happening? I
am very alarmed this might become a widespread trend.
I have not been sucessful at countering a pathological
application of these ideas, and I really did try.

Birgitte SB

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2006/9/18, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:
> On 18/09/06, Andre Engels <andreengels@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2006/9/18, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>:
>
> > > If there are NO sources for an article, that tends to be a sign of
> > > deletability on en:wp. But that is mostly applied to popular culture
> > > things, where evidence of third-party verifiability may be needed to
> > > establish that anyone even cares.
>
> > Then you have a lot of deletable articles... I picked random article
> > 20 times. 15 of them did not have references, 4 did (the one skipped
> > did not have references, but did have a 'bibliography' section, so I
> > was not sure where to put it).
>
>
> It's usually applied to new ones. I save the {{unreferenced}} tag for
> articles with no sources, bibliography, links etc whatsoever.
>
> Your assumption is that anything to do with verifiability *must* be
> applied pathologically or not at all.

Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not
me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not
at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either
you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then
you have to state the rules.

--
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ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
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On 18/09/06, Andre Engels <andreengels@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not
> me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not
> at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either
> you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
> Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then
> you have to state the rules.


I suppose the problem is I'm assuming editors who are not insane robots.


- d.
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict.
Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to
enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big
community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common
sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.

If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there
are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish
legitimate rules.

/Chris


Andre Engels wrote:
> Well, YOU are the one who said it was 'a sign of deletability', not
> me. And if you want to apply it different from pathologically or not
> at all, it is you who are to come with a different approach. Either
> you apply it or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
> Sure, you can make rules as to when to apply it and when not. But then
> you have to state the rules.
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Am Montag, 18. September 2006 15:19 schrieb Christoph Seydl:
> I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict.

Quite some people already have highlighted that Verifiability and "no original
research" are two sides of the same medal.

This means in especially: "Look outside not inside if you write articles."
[Jimbo said something like this somewhere TM]. This means an article about
Wikipedia necessarily primarily needs to be based on external views. Raw data
like size, transfer data and such are something different.

Interestingly the question of Verifiability and "no original research" is
strictly correlated with the flame proof eternal debate on "relevance
criterias". There's an easy answer to it:
* If an article with serious flaws is that much important for the authors that
they need to write long complains defending its serious flaws they probably
better invest the time improving the article.
* If they're unable improving it, the article is obviously not really
important enough for its authors and thatfor lacks general relevance and thus
does not fit into Wikipedia.

You will quickly notice that topics like "politics", "physics", "religion" are
important enough that you can draw from a large body of publications and that
there will be at any given time people that can and do improve such articles
if there is a serious flaw with them. The more narrow the topic is the harder
is it for the author writing something useful about it. For example an
article about "Joshi" is way harder but there were people that managed it
writing something really encylopedic about it.

Another metric is:
* If a discussion thread about an article is more than 10 times longer than
the article itself then there is something wrong with the style of that
particular debate.

> Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to
> enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big
> community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common
> sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.

Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something
wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody. I suppose everyone can sign
that. Constructive critics is the key but if someone does not listen to
constructive critics, well then we don't need further patience like a buddha
and should just execute what we consider necessary in that case without any
further debate.

> If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there
> are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish
> legitimate rules.

Well the best rules are rules nobody needs to write down. Do we need a
detailed written down policy on separating article and discussion? No. Our
interface inherits that policy already. Just look at other wikis and you see
that this key policy is not for granted.

So please let us not write tons of detailed policies down; just the key
principles and brainstorm what we want to achieve in detail (synonym to
policy) and then how to make certain policies an obvious corollary of the
user interface structure so that you don't need to remind people about it
again and again.

Cheers, Arnomane
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Hoi,
When some people have highlighted that in their opinion veriability and
no original research are two sides to the same coin, it does not equate
that everyone agrees with that. Not everyone does. When people make the
effort to write an article for Wikipedia, it does not make them POV
warriors; constantly on the lookout what is happening to their article.
This invalidates your argument that they will "defend" their article in
the first place. There are many people who have been disgusted by the
policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is
not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that
something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of
itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.

On the topic of politics, the Hungarians know all too well that
politicians lie. What proof is in the fact that something was said
publicly. It is public knowledge that the voting machines are not
reliable and politicians are still elected this way. The same is true
with religion, every religion believes in their truth and consequently
what an other religion says is an affront. The points that prove any
point of view in this have sources, it is just what you want to
believe.. in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial
healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that
is acceptable this fact is ignored.

When the talk page is long, the facts and probably the sources are biased.

Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..

When you think that things are self evident, think again.. The only
point you may have is that there are loads of crackpots posting their
ideas. The overwhelming mass of them is why you come up with these
rationalisations.. They help you sometimes, but they are as likely to
prove you wrong.

Thanks,
GerardM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354972.stm

Daniel Arnold wrote:
> Am Montag, 18. September 2006 15:19 schrieb Christoph Seydl:
>
>> I agree with Andre. The rules [[w:en:Verifiability]] are very strict.
>>
>
> Quite some people already have highlighted that Verifiability and "no original
> research" are two sides of the same medal.
>
> This means in especially: "Look outside not inside if you write articles."
> [Jimbo said something like this somewhere TM]. This means an article about
> Wikipedia necessarily primarily needs to be based on external views. Raw data
> like size, transfer data and such are something different.
>
> Interestingly the question of Verifiability and "no original research" is
> strictly correlated with the flame proof eternal debate on "relevance
> criterias". There's an easy answer to it:
> * If an article with serious flaws is that much important for the authors that
> they need to write long complains defending its serious flaws they probably
> better invest the time improving the article.
> * If they're unable improving it, the article is obviously not really
> important enough for its authors and thatfor lacks general relevance and thus
> does not fit into Wikipedia.
>
> You will quickly notice that topics like "politics", "physics", "religion" are
> important enough that you can draw from a large body of publications and that
> there will be at any given time people that can and do improve such articles
> if there is a serious flaw with them. The more narrow the topic is the harder
> is it for the author writing something useful about it. For example an
> article about "Joshi" is way harder but there were people that managed it
> writing something really encylopedic about it.
>
> Another metric is:
> * If a discussion thread about an article is more than 10 times longer than
> the article itself then there is something wrong with the style of that
> particular debate.
>
>
>> Who is deviant (better word than pathological)? The people who try to
>> enforce the established rules or the people who ignore them? In a big
>> community, it doesn't work to refer just to common sense because common
>> sense is POV. Everyone defines common sense differently.
>>
>
> Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something
> wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody. I suppose everyone can sign
> that. Constructive critics is the key but if someone does not listen to
> constructive critics, well then we don't need further patience like a buddha
> and should just execute what we consider necessary in that case without any
> further debate.
>
>
>> If you are not satisfied with the rules, try to change them. If there
>> are no rules how to deal with the daily conflicts, try to establish
>> legitimate rules.
>>
>
> Well the best rules are rules nobody needs to write down. Do we need a
> detailed written down policy on separating article and discussion? No. Our
> interface inherits that policy already. Just look at other wikis and you see
> that this key policy is not for granted.
>
> So please let us not write tons of detailed policies down; just the key
> principles and brainstorm what we want to achieve in detail (synonym to
> policy) and then how to make certain policies an obvious corollary of the
> user interface structure so that you don't need to remind people about it
> again and again.
>
> Cheers, Arnomane
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> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
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>
>

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David Gerard wrote:

>In the case of the street layouts ... it's possible Wikipedia isn't
>the place for this unless and until there's a third-party source to
>verify it. And, you know, there are websites other than Wikipedia in
>the world to write up this stuff in the *first* instance.
>
>
>>I also am of the opinion that it will do little good but to drive away many
>>people who have something to add.
>>
I wouldn't go so far as to draw that conclusion. For most things
verifiability brings us to a website or some dead-tree sourece. These
shouldn't be treated as exclusive means. Something is verifiable if it
is stable enough that another person can go there and see the same thing.

Ec

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Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>When some people have highlighted that in their opinion veriability and
>no original research are two sides to the same coin, it does not equate
>that everyone agrees with that. Not everyone does. When people make the
>effort to write an article for Wikipedia, it does not make them POV
>warriors; constantly on the lookout what is happening to their article.
>This invalidates your argument that they will "defend" their article in
>the first place. There are many people who have been disgusted by the
>policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is
>not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that
>something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of
>itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.
>
Defending an article is not inherently wrong. How and to what extent
one defends the article is far more important. The same thing can be
said about how and to what extent one opposes an article. The problem
arises when the author's personal investment in an article is more
important than the article itself.

>On the topic of politics, the Hungarians know all too well that
>politicians lie.
>
Hungarian politicians do not have a monopoly on this skill.

>What proof is in the fact that something was said
>publicly.
>
It proves that whoever said it said it publicly

>It is public knowledge that the voting machines are not
>reliable and politicians are still elected this way.
>
Many would say that "public knowledge" is a weasel phrase, although in
this instance I am sure that enough people have made that assertion that
it should be easy to track down a quotation from somebody who should know.

>The same is true
>with religion, every religion believes in their truth and consequently
>what an other religion says is an affront. The points that prove any
>point of view in this have sources, it is just what you want to
>believe.
>
Religious belief is a problem by itself because it does not adapt very
well to compromise solutions.

>in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial
>healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that
>is acceptable this fact is ignored.
>
The death rate everywhere is neither more nor less than 100%. :-)

>When the talk page is long, the facts and probably the sources are biased.
>
When the talk page is too long people stop reading it. It will
naturally contain multiple biases. At one time it was considered a
positive contribution to condense the contents of a talk page, but I
have heard very little about that recently. Preparing a fair summary is
a tough job.

>Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
>not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
>of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
>
Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what
is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve
the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not
constructive.

Ec

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Avete!

Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> in a similar vain, research has indicated that commercial
>> healthcare result in a higher death rate but as this is not a fact that
>> is acceptable this fact is ignored.
>>
> The death rate everywhere is neither more nor less than 100%. :-)

That depends on how you define death rate. If it's about death per
treatment, 100% is quite a lot. In this case, I would suggest a
reference to solve this imperfect assertion. ;-)

>> Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
>> not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
>> of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..
>>
> Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what
> is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve
> the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not
> constructive.

There are different ideological beliefs in Wikipedia. We have
inclusionists, delusionists, exclusionists, eventualists,
immediatists,... Hence, constructive criticism is often hard without any
general guideline. There are good reasons for eventualism, but also for
immediatism. Such discussions are usually time-consuming and the
arguments are always the same.

Valete! Chris
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Am Montag, 18. September 2006 20:39 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
> There are many people who have been disgusted by the
> policies about (in their opinion) nitwits who claim that an article is
> not "good" but do not argue WHY it is not good. The notion that
> something is not good because there are no sources provided is in and of
> itself not a conceptual argument, it is a formalistic argument.

Well, as I have said it:
> > Well enforcing of policies in a bureaucracy way like: "There is something
> > wrong but I don't say what" does help nobody.

This includes that you are a bit patient with a newbie and go into detail what
you think a proper source could be because he probably has not a real clue
what a proper source could be like. But general patience does not mean that
you need to be overly patient and wait for enternity for validation of
information.

> Constructive criticism.. I would love a definition for that.. is that
> not the criticism that says "you are on the right track but see the way
> of your errors" .. basically replacing one POV with another ..

Ray Saintonge did define it nice:
"Not really. It presents alternative points of view. It recognizes what
is right in the article, and suggests alternatives that might improve
the article. Insisting that the original writer has erred is not
constructive."

So I don't see how constructive criticism can introduce more POV.

> When you think that things are self evident, think again.. The only
> point you may have is that there are loads of crackpots posting their
> ideas. The overwhelming mass of them is why you come up with these
> rationalisations.. They help you sometimes, but they are as likely to
> prove you wrong.

True I love rationalisation but I don't mean dumb rationalisation blindly
ignoring everything else. Rationalisation does not mean applying a robot like
style. Rationalisation of certain things will also give you a lot of time and
creativity back you can use for for example for helping newbies making good
edits.

Cheers, Arnomane
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