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I entered the following as a draft recommendation for a more objective means of defining how the weight of an article should be balanced and developed.
Two comments to the above, if I may.
Many subjects are not controversial from a scientific point of view, but are controversial from political and religious points of view ( Intelligent design and creationism being prominent examples). These political and religious controversies should be treated in the same manner as controversies that have no relation to science, where ordinary rules of neutrality would apply. While wikipedia necessarily "takes a stand" on matters of scientific fact, it can have no stance on the political worth of an idea, the character of its proponents, and so forth. All this is probably already implicit, but may need to be made explicit. Marginalized is probably the wrong word to describe fringe theories, by the way. pseudoscientists aren't some unjustly persecuted minority 140.247.249.58 ( talk) 05:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No updates to the proposal since September 17, no discussion on this talk page since 1 October, and clearly no consensus on this proposal, so I suggest it is time to change the <proposal> tag to <historical>. Any objections ? Gandalf61 ( talk) 15:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Discussion here has merely halted while debate moved on to WP:FRINGE. I see no reason as yet to "kill" this page by marking it historical. It can still be developed and expanded after discussion elsewhere, which is related, concludes or moves on enough, or more of us have more time. Verbal chat 17:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
No updates to the proposal and no discussion on this talk page since December 1. Clearly still no consensus on this proposal. For the second time I suggest it is now appropriate to change the <proposal> tag to <historical>. Any objections ? Gandalf61 ( talk) 13:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Clearly no consensus has developed, and no ongoing discussion is taking place. Dlabtot ( talk) 18:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I only just learned about this interesting page, and I oppose marking it as historical. Cardamon ( talk) 22:19, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Just as a heads-up from an admin, I would like to remind all editors here that this page falls within the scope of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions, which says, "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision by an uninvolved administrator; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines."
In order to avoid sanctions, all editors are encouraged to keep their communications in accordance with Wikipedia's civility policy, and to please keep comments focused on the content, and not on other contributors. If there are concerns about user conduct, there are proper venues in which these concerns can be raised, per Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. I see that editors here have already availed themselves of some of these mechanisms, since threads have been started at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#ScienceApologist, Wikipedia:ANI#SA_-_once_again, and WP:RFAR#user:ScienceApologist. The first two threads appear to have been closed, though the Request for Arbitration is still active. Any editors who wish to offer further comments about relevant user conduct are encouraged to present statements there. In the meantime, let's please keep this talkpage here strictly for civil and collegial discussion about the Wikipedia:Scientific standards page itself. Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions, -- El on ka 03:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I have a number of concerns with this proposed guideline. For one thing, as others have already mentioned, I think that existing guidelines such as WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE alrady adequately address that are supposed to addressed by this proposal. Also, to the extent that this proposed guideline would have any effect, the scope seems very broad. That breadth may well be appropriate. But would editors working on, say, history, geography or finance (to the extent it overlaps with economics) articles recognize that this proposed guideline would apply to their work, even if they are aware of this proposal. And to the extent that the proposed guideline would presumably impact numerous editors, has there been any attempt to inform them of the effort (or plans to), in order to allow them to help shape the proposal and insure that their views are incorporated into any consensus? I did take a quick look at the talk pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates, Wikipedia:WikiProject History, Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, all of which would presumably be affected by this guideline, but saw no notification. However, I recognize that I may have missed it, or that there may be plans to do a widespread notification at a later stage of drafting this proposed guideline. Rlendog ( talk) 17:55, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
No activity has been going on here since December last year. We have already seen two motions on this talk page to declare the policy proposal as historical. Given the limited number of total comments (after all, this is something very big on Wikipedia – a Policy Proposal!!!) a significant part of the comments are sceptical.
A list of editors that have expressed objections (from objections to outright rejection) are given here: Gandalf61, Karonen, Deamon138, jossi, Ronnotel, Ozob, Magnum Serpentine, Peter Damian, Shirahadasha, Nealparr, J. Langton, Be Bold.Bakaprod, SaraNoon, Hordaland, Philcha, MaxPont, Phil153, Rlendog.
Therefore this Policy Proposal should be tagged as historical. MaxPont ( talk) 10:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Now that I'm no longer banned from editing Wikipedia, I'd like to discuss coming to terms with writing standards about how to write articles on various subjects. I removed the historical designation for this reason. ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:ESCA could perhaps be included in this article. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I have placed a request at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests to ask for input from uninvoled editors on whether the {{historical}} tag should be restored to this page. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:07, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Should this page be considered historical or in development? - 2/0 ( cont.) 14:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
This is already de-facto policy on many science articles. Count Iblis ( talk) 19:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Scientific standards page. |
|
Archives: 1, 2 |
I entered the following as a draft recommendation for a more objective means of defining how the weight of an article should be balanced and developed.
Two comments to the above, if I may.
Many subjects are not controversial from a scientific point of view, but are controversial from political and religious points of view ( Intelligent design and creationism being prominent examples). These political and religious controversies should be treated in the same manner as controversies that have no relation to science, where ordinary rules of neutrality would apply. While wikipedia necessarily "takes a stand" on matters of scientific fact, it can have no stance on the political worth of an idea, the character of its proponents, and so forth. All this is probably already implicit, but may need to be made explicit. Marginalized is probably the wrong word to describe fringe theories, by the way. pseudoscientists aren't some unjustly persecuted minority 140.247.249.58 ( talk) 05:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
No updates to the proposal since September 17, no discussion on this talk page since 1 October, and clearly no consensus on this proposal, so I suggest it is time to change the <proposal> tag to <historical>. Any objections ? Gandalf61 ( talk) 15:16, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Discussion here has merely halted while debate moved on to WP:FRINGE. I see no reason as yet to "kill" this page by marking it historical. It can still be developed and expanded after discussion elsewhere, which is related, concludes or moves on enough, or more of us have more time. Verbal chat 17:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
No updates to the proposal and no discussion on this talk page since December 1. Clearly still no consensus on this proposal. For the second time I suggest it is now appropriate to change the <proposal> tag to <historical>. Any objections ? Gandalf61 ( talk) 13:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Clearly no consensus has developed, and no ongoing discussion is taking place. Dlabtot ( talk) 18:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I only just learned about this interesting page, and I oppose marking it as historical. Cardamon ( talk) 22:19, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Just as a heads-up from an admin, I would like to remind all editors here that this page falls within the scope of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions, which says, "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision by an uninvolved administrator; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines."
In order to avoid sanctions, all editors are encouraged to keep their communications in accordance with Wikipedia's civility policy, and to please keep comments focused on the content, and not on other contributors. If there are concerns about user conduct, there are proper venues in which these concerns can be raised, per Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. I see that editors here have already availed themselves of some of these mechanisms, since threads have been started at Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#ScienceApologist, Wikipedia:ANI#SA_-_once_again, and WP:RFAR#user:ScienceApologist. The first two threads appear to have been closed, though the Request for Arbitration is still active. Any editors who wish to offer further comments about relevant user conduct are encouraged to present statements there. In the meantime, let's please keep this talkpage here strictly for civil and collegial discussion about the Wikipedia:Scientific standards page itself. Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions, -- El on ka 03:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I have a number of concerns with this proposed guideline. For one thing, as others have already mentioned, I think that existing guidelines such as WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE alrady adequately address that are supposed to addressed by this proposal. Also, to the extent that this proposed guideline would have any effect, the scope seems very broad. That breadth may well be appropriate. But would editors working on, say, history, geography or finance (to the extent it overlaps with economics) articles recognize that this proposed guideline would apply to their work, even if they are aware of this proposal. And to the extent that the proposed guideline would presumably impact numerous editors, has there been any attempt to inform them of the effort (or plans to), in order to allow them to help shape the proposal and insure that their views are incorporated into any consensus? I did take a quick look at the talk pages for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates, Wikipedia:WikiProject History, Wikipedia:WikiProject Geography and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, all of which would presumably be affected by this guideline, but saw no notification. However, I recognize that I may have missed it, or that there may be plans to do a widespread notification at a later stage of drafting this proposed guideline. Rlendog ( talk) 17:55, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
No activity has been going on here since December last year. We have already seen two motions on this talk page to declare the policy proposal as historical. Given the limited number of total comments (after all, this is something very big on Wikipedia – a Policy Proposal!!!) a significant part of the comments are sceptical.
A list of editors that have expressed objections (from objections to outright rejection) are given here: Gandalf61, Karonen, Deamon138, jossi, Ronnotel, Ozob, Magnum Serpentine, Peter Damian, Shirahadasha, Nealparr, J. Langton, Be Bold.Bakaprod, SaraNoon, Hordaland, Philcha, MaxPont, Phil153, Rlendog.
Therefore this Policy Proposal should be tagged as historical. MaxPont ( talk) 10:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Now that I'm no longer banned from editing Wikipedia, I'd like to discuss coming to terms with writing standards about how to write articles on various subjects. I removed the historical designation for this reason. ScienceApologist ( talk) 03:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:ESCA could perhaps be included in this article. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
I have placed a request at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests to ask for input from uninvoled editors on whether the {{historical}} tag should be restored to this page. Gandalf61 ( talk) 10:07, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Should this page be considered historical or in development? - 2/0 ( cont.) 14:10, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
This is already de-facto policy on many science articles. Count Iblis ( talk) 19:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)