![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
I thought this would be a good place to direct discussion from Wikipedia talk:How to review a featured article candidate on why it's hard to keep people interested in this project for the long-term.
What problems are there? Bmorton and Dbuckner mention that for experts it gets tiresome to be constantly arguing with people who read a philosophy book once and all of the sudden think they have something to contribute. And of course there's the issue of acceptance of work by the broader community (made evident by objections from a number of editors, including myself, to Putnam's FAC, even though it was already a great article before the process began).
The second issue is one that all wikiprojects face. A personal example: I'm a student at Penn State (no, I'm not a professional copyeditor... as if you couldn't tell!), and as such I help out with a Penn State Wikiproject. There are a lot of Penn Staters who want to create articles on student groups and minor buildings, but such articles aren't accepted by the rest of the community. The only way for us to really get a good idea of that is to create articles and then watch some of them get deleted (not a pleasant experience), even though all of them are potentially useful to Penn State students. Something similar happened on a FAC I commented on a number of months ago—the style conventions for an aircraft wikiproject were not in line with the WP:MoS, and as a result, there were issues on the FAC. So by no means are these problems unique to the Philosophy project.
The first issue is a problem that everyone faces, but especially experts. In most cases, the person who writes an FA is fairly knowledgeable about the subject, since he or she does a significant amount of research to write the article. Thus, it's annoying when someone comes along and says that something needs to be changed, especially when they don't really know what they're talking about. For experts, that problem is much larger, because they already know just about everything related to the topic and some undergrad probably isn't going to have much to contribute. Wikis are great for contributing and expanding content, but not so good for maintaining it. There are a number of proposals that would help address this problem (including stable versions), but at the moment we're stuck.
What kind of things can be done to address these problems? If I haven't totally destroyed my reputation with you all for my objection on Putnam's FAC, I'd be happy to help out with future FA candidates to ensure that the are in line with the ideas of excellence held by the rest of the community. I can't do much about the other problem. However, you may want to look over the old scientific peer review idea, which was implemented briefly to provide expert analysis of science articles. There were disputes over what was an "expert", but if that problem can be addressed satisfactorily, there may be the opportunity to set up a peer review system where philosophy experts are asked for their opinions on the content of articles. That wouldn't give them any sort of "editorial power", but I think that with time, people on WP:FAC and WP:FAR would come to expect that philosophy articles be approved by the group. All that said, it won't make it easy to keep articles like truth from turning into a complete mess. That, I think, will have to wait until stable versions arrive. -- Spangineer es (háblame) 14:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Then I started to wonder where all the other philosophy editors were. Someone mentioned the philosophy page. I went there and read through about three pages of archived debates between Dbukcner, Lucidish, Mel Etitis and a few others. I made some suggestions, but quickly realized the situation was hopeless: several people were discussing about three different versions of the article that they had been preparing separately in their "sandboxes", and others were arguing over the phrasing of the intro for about two weeks on end. I went back to the not-so-important articles (of course, to me, they are all equally important, but that's another topic). Eventually, though, I started working on empiricism, along with User:Kenosis, Jon Awbrey and a few others. It didn't go all that badly, though there were some edit-wars and other fun stuff (see the talk page). Then I decided to check out truth. I wrote the section on deflationary theories. The other fellows insisted on conflating all deflationary theories together as "minimalism". No, that's Horwich's version of deflationism. There are also redundancy, prosententialist, disquotationalist and other versions. So, at this point, they actually started ridiculing deflationary theories and misrepresenting the whole issue (please see talk page archives). Eventually I let that pass. But one fellow kept insisting that the whole thing suffered from a logico-linguistic bias. This same person, who is undoubtedly an expert on C.S. Pierce, turned that page, as he had with empiricism and any other page he could get his hands on, into an article on Pierce and pragmatism. At about the same time, someone asked me to help out on consciousness and mind, where there was a sort of theological guerrilla warrior making the most unintelligible edits that I have ever seen in my life. The edit war went on for about two weeks unabated. I dropped the 'pedia at that point for about four months or so. I came back a few weeks ago. I put Jerry Fodor up for FAC, expecting it to breeze through like the other one. But, in the meantime, Tony1 had come on the scene and changed the nature of the FAC process drastically. Object-2a, object-2a, Peackok and Weasels, Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh MY... And there's the background.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Since you asked, I became exasperated and disillusioned with all strategies for editing upon discovering that all roads led to misery. Both of what I have described as the doctrines of "tentative editing" (trust the experts to the extent it's possible, minimize falsity) and "progressive editing" (trust no-one, go by what you know, maximize truth) seem to raise a level of toxic ire from Dean, so I wanted nothing more to do with anything here. The former strategy became impossible after the dealing with an edit by Charles Stewart, the latter became impossible after the Blackburn affair. (See this talk page and that at the Philosophy page if you think it's worth review -- it probably isn't.) My arrival at the FAC was due to Lacatosias's post on this page, and it had been the first time I'd come around here in months. Lucidish { Ben S. Nelson } 15:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Weird stuff!! Some of you folks have had your votes anulled re the Hilary Putnam article by Raul. He declared the previous page "incomprehesible" and started from scratch. That's a bit anti-democratic, IMO. So this is just to advise the folks who believe their votes should count for something....(;-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I recall reading somewhere - probably apocryphal - that the word "amateur" once had greater stead than "professional", since one who studied a topic with passion and love was more worthy than one for whom it was simply a paid task.
The Wiki is run by passionate amateurs. That's just part of the nature of the beast. It isn't going to change, and if you don't like it, go talk to Larry Sanger. So any proposals that involve editing of articles by professionals are simply unworkable. I have an Honours degree in philosophy, and a Masters with a philosophical emphasise, but have not worked in a Uni for twenty years - perhaps I could have snuck in as a professional, but the point is moot.
The idea of stable versions failed. It would have suited me, since as an admin I would have been able to edit stable articles to my heart's content, while most of you would simply have had to put up with my errors and omissions. But again, the point is moot.
Many (most!) philosophy articles suck. But if you take a look at any article - even truth - what is there now is better than what was there twelve months ago. If you are here to write the definitive article, then good luck - you will need it. The passionate amateurs ensure that progress here is ad hoc. That's just the way of the Wiki. Banno 21:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The Philosophy Wikiversity department seems to have died somewhat. The former head of department hasn't been on since April so far as I can see and is not responding to messages on his talk page. Equally, no other Philosophy Wikiversity members are responding to my request for a new head at wikibooks:en:Wikiversity:philosophy message board#Need a new head. The need is slightly pressing as there is an academic on wikibooks:en:User talk:Alex beta (Alex beta is the former head), who is keen on making some substantial contributions, but will need some help from someone both wiki-fluent and philosophically competent. Feel free to nominate yourself for the position if you are prepared to give some time to it. -- cfp 13:29, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Haha, if it was a paying job I'd be running for it myself despite having forgotten most of the philosophy I ever studied... Seriously though, are you interested? -- cfp 14:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Free will is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 20:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I have started to think that biographies of academics (including, but not exclusively philosophers) raise some special guideline-style issues that are not completely covered by WP:LIVING. In response to this thought, I have created an essay at Wikipedia:Academic and artistic biographies... if it shapes up well, I may turn it into a proposed guideline; but that's getting ahead of myself.
At this point, a lot of the relevant stuff is in the talk page; the essay itself is a bit stubby, but hopefully enough to point to the concerns I have. I would value any input members of this WikiProject have. After all, the bread-and-butter of this project is writing biographies of philosophers (I know about schools, distinctions, paradoxes, disputes, etc.; but bios are big). LotLE× talk 21:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Want to pat self on back, encourage others to participate I like philosophy, so I started the Department of Philosophy in the School of Humanities. Join in! - Justin (koavf)· T· C· M 06:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Omnipotence paradox is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 03:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been making casual edit's for years but I'm fairly knew to the wikipedia community and so I am not sure I'm following correct procedure in posting the following here. Because of the misunderstanding's philosophy page's on wikipedia are filled with I'd like to recomend that something like the following become a guideline for editing philosophy pages.
"Due to the extremely complex and often technical nature of philosophy it is advised that editor's without detailed knowledge of subject's relevant to the page they are editing exercise great caution in their editing. It should be remembered that having merely taken a first year course on the subject or having read an introductory level book on the topic does not mean that you understand it to a level adequate for editing an encyclopaedia; Memory and understanding are imperfect and the issues are often simplified in basic texts and introductory level classes. Even professional philosophers, graduate students etc are advised to approach areas in which they know comparatively little cautiously.
Additionally editors without a detailed knowledge of the subject may wish to defer to known expert’s even when the expert’s reasons seem obscure.
This is intended merely as a guideline and cannot be enforced."
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothy Scriven ( talk • contribs)
JA: Request. Need signature and date on the above. Thanks, Jon Awbrey 15:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
In light of the criticisms of Lacatosias and Lucidish of my idea I have a new proposal to ensure that those with knowledge keep control . We should create a class of users called "Philosophy expert's". These philosophy expert's could intially be elected by a two thirds supermajority with voting open to every user. After a while ( say after fifteen had been selected) we could have all new experts created by a two thirds super majority of those existing expert's who choose to vote. Expert status could be removed by a two thirds super majority as well. To gain expert status a user would have to demonstrate:
1- A very deep and broad knowledge of philosophy and great accuracy in all edits related to philosophy. 2- Moderation, fairness, tolerance and understanding of policies in editing and disscusion. 3- A commitment to the advancement of wikipedia in general and the philosophy project in paticular.
There are two main objections I can see against this suggestion.
1- How do we know who has a broad and deep knowledge of philosophy.? 2- By what mechanism will these expert's have power?
To the first objection I'd reply that the problem is probably not as bad as it sounds on paper. So long as expert status was only granted on the basis of sustained contributions to this wiki project over a long period of time it should be reasonably clear who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't. Since a supermajority is required for selection a strong conservatism is likely to hold.
To the second objection I'd say that the mechanisms by which expert's have extra power could evolve over time. The power of expert's could be enforced by the expert's themselves and by other members of this wikiproject. In addition the possession of a title would give them moral authority and this authority would increase as the institution becomes more venerable.
Of course all the details are just tentative but I think that if the project is going to advance we need something like this. Let's face it, wikiproject philosophy has a lot of diffculties, even the page on philosophy is nowhere near good articile standard. The problem ( as you've all presumably aware of) is that everyone think's they're an expert in philosophy, they don't understand the values of methodological caution and rigour that underpin philosophy and endorse some kind of extreme subjectivism about philosophy as a result they think it's fine to just put their opinions and misunderstandings on our pages and believe that philosophy is a collection of vague and sweeping statements.
Signed Timothy Scriven
I'm back and noticed this discussion. I've changed my mind about the experts thing.
Generally, subjects that have a critical mass of experts involved, do quite well in WP. The reason is that while the experts will disagree over the leading edge stuff, they will tend to agree on the standard responses to questions raised by teenagers from Arkansas. So the experts agree, while the cranky teenagers disagree even with each other. Consensus does work. However, the problem with philosophy in the past was that there wasn't the requisite critical mass of 'experts'. Now that people like Franco have joined, and now Sam and Brian, possibly others, there is a chance that philosophy could work in WP. So long as those people don't get p*ssed off and leave.
So, I'm willing to get to work again. I've already made some comments on Omnipotence paradox. See the talk page. But I do think there should be some discussion of which pages need the work. Suggest avoiding Philosophy completely. There are already some good biographies that should go forward for FA status (Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege?). Dbuckner 07:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'mma gonna quote from admin jkelly here "Wikipedia is an unwelcoming place for the expert. There are a number of reasons for this:
So Wikipedia is, and will remain, a great place for hobbyists. One might say that this has little impact on Wikipedia's quality as the treatment of subjects in thirty-two kilobytes rarely demands an understanding of any subject beyond the hobbyist level. There is a loss is in those places in which the popular view of a subject is misleading. Furthermore, an expert has immediate access to reliable sources which may take a hobbyist a great deal of time to find, or elude them completely. I don't see any way to reconcile Wikipedia's mission with supporting expert editors, however. Experts can, of course, contribute to articles on subjects on which they are themselves hobbyists. The side-effect is that hobby subjects get enthusiastic coverage, while drier topics languish, and will continue to do so until fashion touches upon them."
We can't give experts power, or it isn't really wikipedia. We can give fake rewards like the Star of Sophia or an expert tag. In a sense we already have the expert tags, as some people, (like me) put credentials on our user pages. We can also organize. In RPGs the hobbyists work on their own pet projects, a few people organize the WikiProject, and a few experts look over the more important pages to check for errors. The hobbyists, organizers, and experts all have different jobs. Bmorton3 14:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: F2, With respect to your initial assertions, I think you might find a contrasting perspective on Chris Hillman's pages. I'm afraid — be very afraid — that this WikiProblem is WikiPandemic. 15:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
FF: Yes, that is all true. In retrospect, I have worked on several articles in other areas that were subject to "cranks", obssesive fanatacism as in the case of User:Licorne, and other silliness. On the other hand, the reason I came back to contribute to this thing was becasue many of the articles that I contrubuted to have remained surprisingly stable in spite of all that. One reason for this is that many of them are on topics that most people don't touch. Another is that, even on those that are somehwat more well-known like dualism (philosophy of mind), I started putting in all the in-line references and deleting anything that is not referenced. This seems to discourege a good deal of nonsense. I will try to continue along these line. I don't see any formal, procedural solutions to all of the problems that we all know about. That is, solutuions that don't involve radically changing the nature of Wikipedia. Ain't gonna happen.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Jkelly's full of it. Take a look at this list of contributors to the Neuroscience project:
Looks like some expertise there to me.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
This poll is NOT a policy to make the proposed policy official, it's to gain a preliminary idea of how much support there is for the proposed policy mentioned above. 58.105.111.91 12:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to a request I am adding in a statement of what we are voting for.
Essentially I am proposing that:
1- We establish a badge labelled "I'm an expert in philosophy" or something like that.
2- This badge be given by a two thirds supermajority consensus of voting wikiproject philosophy members (at least initially, later it might be given by a consensus of those with the badge.)
3- This badge will function to inform wikipedians to respect the views of this user on the subject of philosophy and that unless they to are expert's in the field where the dispute is occuring this user's views will likely be more accurate than their's. Further, other users involved in this project may help enforce the authority of the badge.
This is...I hate to say this but I think I have earned the right to use this word...fundamentally insane!! And here I read that Dbickner even agrees with this!! WTF!!!!!!!! What universe are you people living on. It is the topics that do NOT draw popular attention that are stable. Accessible?? Well, two of my "unintelligible" analytic philosophy articles have become FAs and I have also written four or five GAs. Those that have been played with by mathematician pseudo-philosophers have turned to shit. See free will now, and look through the history to find the version (by Rick Norwood et al) before I and Bmroton touched it. Stick to math and stop destroyong articles on subjects you know nothing about, please!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well it look's like I'm going to have to drop this idea. Nevertheless a few parting comments and a last ditch effort.
-Ryan Delaney ignores the fact that very few people are in fact capable of judging the merit's of edit's to philosophy pages. It's difficult therefore to users to judge philosophy edit's own their own merits. -Jaymay's make's some comment's that I disagree with. He forget's the fact that badge's would not stop anyone from editing, if they did keep to the sources and not state their point of view then there would be nothing stopping them from editing any page on philosophy whatsoever. Badges would primarily become useful when there was an NPOV dispute or a dispute over factual accuracy or something like that. Jaymay also urges that there would be no guarantee that elected expert's would be real experts. However I think that it's reasonably clear on this philosophy project who is an expert and who is not, Francesco Franco is clearly an expert for example. -Francesco Franco note's that he has his credentials on his page. However part of the power that an expert badge would have would be the way in which it would gradually become an institution. Over time the de facto power of the expert's would increase. Hence those in possession of badges would put ot just the power of being a clear expert but would put the power of... Wikitradition! behind the expert. Eventually a culture of respecting the edit's and contributions of those with the badge would arise that is unlikely to rise spontaneously for those who possess credentials, not fair I know but that's the way wikipedia works.
On an ideal wikipedia we wouldn't need badges. Everyone would know who is an expert and who isn't. However in this world of original ignorance a quick and easy way to check if someone is an expert is desirable. If we introduced badges I imagine that over time people would get into the habit of quickly jumping onto the user pages of editors they are debating with ( before they revert to the version of the page that had their beliefs (tm) about the meaning of life) and checking to see if they have the badge.
Names and labels confer power that would not otherwise be possessed. At the moment an informal system already exists that gives expert's power. However as paradoxical as it might sound they'd be even more powerful if they had a sticker saying "I'm an expert" made out of a few bytes and a supermajority, a sticker that would only affirm would should be obvious. This is of course profoundly ironic and you could probably write an existenalist novel about it. However that's the way things work on wikipedia.
Timothy J Scriven 22:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
How about some system where you have to earn the trust of other trusted people working in a particular area. The trust group will have a rep who is able to control accounts. The ideal would be a philosophy account, with two levels of access (the first to a restricted number of pages, the second to all pages. The second level requires more trust to be earned). So, instead of the current system where any idiot can edit any page, you would have to apply for permission to edit philosophy pages (pages that are not attached to any subject area could of course have unrestricted access as at present). If the edits earn the trust of the group, the user gets to stay. If not, account is terminated. If the user wants to edit the traditionally more contentious articles, which require a higher level of trust, they have to earn it. Something on the lines of proposer, seconder, consensus, that sort of thing. This is the basis of our current banking system, and it kind of works. Dbuckner 10:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
whether FACS stay up for five days or three months. Whenever I have asked people about minor procedural questions regarding FACS, they tell me to "trust Raul. He does not allow silly objections" etc.. It reminds me a bit of scientology sometimes, as a matter of fact. Then then are, of course, the inevitable informal hiarchies which Timothey Scriven mentioned a few times. So the idea that there is no pecking order in Wikipedia, as Jaymay and a few others who haven't been around very long suggest, is another myth. If anyone is really serious about this matter, then they have to face this fact: On Wikipedia, control has to be asserted in pratice by groups of people dediciding that they are going to cooperate through e-mail, messages and other means to concentrate on this area. This is how informal cabals are formed. To cite one example, Tony1 decided to concentarte exclsuively on improving the prose standards (according to his minimalist criteria), He posted his credential as a oriefssional editor on the user page, wrote up a set of guidelines and exercises about "how to meet crierion 2a", and then he started VERY agressively attacking those FACS to which he objected on the basis of prose and flattering those FACS of which he approved. Naturally enough,the people who were praised (or perhaps just came across his exerices and liked his views on language) began to exchange messages and eventually emails back and forth discussing this FAC or that FAC and how to deal with this situation. etc.. As a result, there are masses of people who subscribe to Tony1 views and there are even some folks who object to articles on this basis of the fact that Tony1 objected to them. If something like this can be done for, say, certain specific areas of philosophy (or whatever subject), then you have essentiall created a "trust group" (better knonw as "cabal"). Another example, is the total control that certaain groups (Randian Objectivsts) exercise over specific articles and whole areas. There must now be about 60 articled devoted to Rand. Hierarachy and control are everyehere on the 'pedia, but it is all informal and cabalish in this way.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I've started a page User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion. This is simply a list of user pages whose users have expressed frustration with the poor quality control at WP. Some of these have now left WP for that reason.
Feel free to edit the page if you have knowledge of experts who have left because of the well-known reasons about quality control, vandalism, trolling, cranks &c. Give a link to their page, or to anything they have written. Thanks. Dbuckner 16:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
PS Hillman's comments and links are excellent. Do follow them. Dbuckner 16:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Of all the critical commentaries which I have come across about Wikipedia, I think this one sums the real problem the best. From content provider to 12-hour-a-day-unpaid-content defender. That's how bad it got the last time. What's the point?? Even for a NON-EXPERT. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Another external link here. This one is interesting because apparently it could be an offense to link to it from WP, as I have just done. Let's see what happens. The relevant WP page is here.
It's supposed to be "boilerplate Wikipedia-bashing borrowed from other critics", and to some extent it is, but it has a great sentence: "I think it is their efforts that gives Wikipedia whatever paltry quality it actually has". He means the so-called exopedians. These are the people who actually write the stuff, the scum. Interesting the exopedian article says "There is currently no organized Exopedian group, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one, as an organized group is theoretically against the spirit of Exopedianism itself.". Bullshit.
I still think Hillman's pages are the best. He has a very acute sense of what is wrong: namely the piecemeal editing approach that destroys any sense of balance or thread. Read through all his links. Dbuckner 19:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
You know I haven't been here very long yet but my experience is that edit quality depends a lot on the nature of the edit and the quality level that an article has already reached. I've had several pages improved by lots of people doing a tiny edit here and there, especially when it was copy-editing, adding a reference, adding a sentence or two about how the topic relates to something else they know. Likewise cumulative editing can take a stub or near stub, and turn it into a list of lots of stuff, that an expert can then whip into shape. But it seems to take expertise to do serious reorganizing or re-casting of a page. Likewise an already very good page can have severe erosion or fan-cruft problems, or self-plugs, from small edits, or can bog down into a stupid flame war over the precise phrasing of a sentence in the lead. I think that cumulative edits probably do help in some contexts, while harming in others. Also I know my self-proclaimed badge suggestion seemed silly, because it doesn't give much of an edge, but notice how Wikipedia gives a little edge for expertise in languages or math, etc. If we created say four levels of philosophy competence mirroring the language levels, created badges, also created a project member badge, and let people self-apply them I think this would be a weak (but implementable) version of what you guys are yearning for. It probably won't be enough, but it might be something that this project can do without trying to fight with the admins. We could put the badges at the bottom of the WikiProject Area along with definitions. I'll bet most people would self-apply them close to fairly. Perhaps we can push for more edge as well, although I doubt any of us have the popularity or power to grant it. Bmorton3 15:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we really need Category:Action theorists? At the moment there is just one entry - Harry Frankfurt -- Davidlud 19:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't pretend to be a specialist but I must confess I'm very surprised to read that discussion on wiki:en. One of the most important contributions of the modern English speaking philosophy is the action theory: I would certainly be very easy to "feed the cat". Or do you think it is better to delete it? If no one is against that idea I accept to do the job and to categorise any articles under the category Category:Action theorists. Apierrot 17:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello, a french user of Wiki:fr has created a few new categories:
The recent discussion of the "problems of philosophy on the Wikipedia" seem to have again led nowhere. Not surprising, since the solutions offered aim to re-model the entire Wiki project rather than address particular issues of philosophy.
Academic philosophers who wish to contribute to an on-line resource but who are disgruntled with the Wiki process have the option of working on either the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [1] or the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2] You don't have to be here, folks.
So if you are still here, and still complaining about the Wiki, the it seems reasonable to conclude that you do not qualify as an academic philosopher to the satisfaction of either of these resources.
Draw your own conclusions about the politics of the two votes above. Banno 18:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to be discreet as I can here. There's a v. interesting discussion going on at Experts problem page. See user TerryEo's comments. It was only predictable that if scholarly editors should be disgruntled about lack of adherence to certain values, then editors from certain subcultures should be disgruntled for similar-ish reasons. The user in question has been banned from Scientology pages, I understand. I have the relevant links on User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion. Dbuckner 16:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I've found an excellent article on the edit creep (mixed up with the 'expert' thing) phenomenon. See User:Ikkyu2 per What's_wrong_with_Wikipedia, by User:Ikkyu2 Dbuckner 07:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
There's an interesting objection to his article on the guys's talk page. It says 'However, all it takes is one neurologist in the whole world to have epilepsy on their watchlist, and the article will remain useful for most people. '
To which the reply is obvious: Sure, but the neurologist has now left. Dbuckner
Ah hah, an ingenious riposte. Even if the neurologist stays around and protects that one arricle, the rest of the articles will go to pot. If he decides to protect two, he will have to spend more time defending content. If he wants to protect three articles, the time spent defedngin conent will oncerase some more. The time spent defending articles increases proportionally with the number of god-awful articles one has tried to improve and which on thereafter wants to defend on the watchlist. I now have 76. I spend three hours in the morning examining all the edits. This time spent defending content is inversely proporional to the time spent creating content. It's all nonsense. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I follow WP:AFD, WP:DRV, ArbCom precedents, and some other Wikipedia policies and guidelines with some interest. I am assisted by my native curiosity, native systematism, and very good memory in my attempts to divine the nature of the underlying structure of the Wikipedia. While these processes sometimes unfold themselves in baffling ways[1], I believe I have already contributed positively to both AfD and DRV, based mostly on my ability to cite relevant policies, recognize where policies and guidelines are incorrectly understood or ignored, and abstract long discussions into a general idea of their rough consensus.
Think about this now. This says it all, right here. Why the hell should a neurologist spend his time having to follow AFD, DRB, Arbcom, etc, instead of working on improvong medical articles!! Would you go to a neurologist who spent his time following Arbcom, AfD and DRV policies on Wikipedia. I wouldn't vist a neurologist who even knew what these terms meant.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking about the 'Ostrich argument' – that WP is so good that we don't need to worry about the brain drain problem. Obvious riposte is that WP is in fact not very good at all. And what better evidence than some splendidly bad articles from the philosophy section. Could I propose a vote on the WORST philosophy article? My proposal is Philosophy, that old favourite. Read it for yourself. Packed full of gems such as:
Speaking of which, though it was the style that primarily attracts me, can anyone verify the quote about Descartes and the princess? I'm not an expert, but rough chronology suggests that most of Descartes work, particularly the Meditations, was completed by 1639, whereas he started corresponding with the princess in 1643. If the quote is meant to suggest that the princess influenced Descartes' published work, then how is that correct.
And do let me have your nominations please. Dbuckner 13:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Needless to say the mind body problem does not begin with old Rene anyway. Dbuckner 14:00, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
According to some recent theories like Infomysticism and TechGnosticism that base themselves on quantum physics represented in work of David Bohm and others (that regard quanta as 'messenger particles', i.e. carriers of information, with the result that quantum teleportation based on quantum nonlocality is simply a matter of 'resetting a value'), and have many roots in some very old philosophical and religious systems, dating to Plato, and even ancient civilizations (since Gnosticism can be traced back to ancient times), combined with today's Information Science, all of the physical universe is based on underlying information (nature's binary code) more basic than even vibration (any two non-physical values as 0 and 1), so matter itself is (en)coded ('bits' of) information in this 'program'. On this view, consciousness is understood as a symbiosis of mind and information. Mind (or soul) is, as a manifestation of the essence, non-physical, and mind emanates from the Spirit (the manifestable essence). Mind is a 'driver', having an associated organic form (material body) as its 'vehicle', and this manifests through any level in pantheistic hierarchy/ holarchy, either a mind/soul of a single cell (with very primitive, elemental consciousness), a human or animal mind/soul (with consciousness on a level of organic synergy of an individual human/animal), or a (superior) mind/soul with synergetically extremely complex/sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-levels. On the other hand, the morphic field of the mind's past is the 'baggage' of an individual (on the synergetic level of an organism with brain, since using existing and generating new abstract forms is only possible with a brain). Thoughts are elemental abstract forms/objects. More complex abstract forms/objects are - skills, sciences, languages etc., and abstract forms are energetically real, as material forms are real ( telekinesis, moving material objects/forms with thoughts, is a direct proof of that). Past is a complex abstract/energetic form/object consisting of all the thoughts, experiences and memories of that mind through its physical lifetime (its ' Akashic Record'). Morphic fields (a term introduced by Rupert Sheldrake) are the universal database of experience (Dr Dejan Rakovic interprets these fields actually as hyperplanes, and uses a term isomorphism instead of morphic resonance, but the basic concept is almost the same as Sheldrake's). The morphic field/hyperplane of a form contains the actual data relevant for that form. All organic (living) and abstract (brain-generated/used) forms have their associated morphic fields, and they 'store' their related data both privately (individually) and collectively (in a one collective morphic field for those similar forms), which is a concept very similar to classes in object-oriented programming languages. Inorganic (lifeless) forms have no morphic fields. Akashic Records, term used in Vedas are only a subset of this universal database of all-connected morphic fields.
So, Consciousness, as the interaction of Mind (essence, the 'driver') and Information (quantum energy and information from morphic fields/hyperplanes) is what a complete living self is ('driver' + 'vehicle' + 'baggage' = consciousness).
Interesting to note is that the famous science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick (the 'modern gnostic prophet') defined a homoplasmate, a person 'in Gnosis', as a symbiosis of mind and information (similarly to the mentioned theories), considering heightened consciousness as achieved Gnosis (or insight), necessary for the self-realization and salvation from the Demiurge's hysterema (world of imperfection and suffering). Self-realization through Gnosis, if true, would mean that higher consciousness gets preserved after physical death somehow (and the 'vehicle' would be successfully transformed from matter into 'pure energy').
giving the majority view predominace, the signficant minority view reasonable representation, and the Rupert Sheldrake's should be either excluded or put on a separate page. The spefific problem with that case, and in happens in many others, is that the tiny minority view refuses to accept its status as tiny minority (sometimes comppletely ad hoc and invented by someone last week) and insists on putting in en entire section in some main article somwhere with equal weight to the views of well-established thinkers and scientists who study the field. I am not protesting the includion of Rupert Sheldrake, astrology, or even techgnostism articles. I would obviously leave this place if, say, "morphic resonances" and "mystical interpreations" should be included in the quantum chromodynamics article. Or, if intelliegent design were to be considered on a par with Darwinian theiry in the article on evolution. Fortuntaly, they are not and that is one of the reasons I returned to wacki Wiki. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Check out the Criticism of Wikipedia article. Contains criticisms such as " Others have noted that in some areas, such as science, Wikipedia's quality is often excellent."
Interestingly, while the New Yorker article by Stacy Schiff is mentioned, Hilary Putnam's endorsement of WP is not. Goodness. But then, they also missed out: "Wikipedia remains a lumpy work in progress. The entries can read as though they had been written by a seventh grader: clarity and concision are lacking; the facts may be sturdy, but the connective tissue is either anemic or absent; and citation is hit or miss. Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole." — Stacy Schiff
The edit creep phenomenon seems to have escaped their attention entirely. Anyone fancy a go at editing this one? Dbuckner 14:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
This little fellow in the photo is an administrator on the Italian wikipedia. Interesting. I was wondering if the English wiki had any power-brokers of a similar level of....maturity? -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I copy a comment on the expert problem pages here. What exactly is the SPOV? How different from NPOV? Aren't they the same? Dbuckner 16:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
"Magnarum et gravium personarum crebra zeloque fidei accensa insinuavit relatio, quod nonnulli Parisius studentes in artibus proprie facultatis limites excedentes quosdam manifestos et execrabiles errores, immo potius vanitates et insanias falsas in rotulo seu cedulis - praesentibus hiis annexo seu annexis contentos quasi dubitabiles - in scholis tractare et disputare praesumunt, non attendentes illud Gregorii: "qui sapienter loqui nituntur, magno opere metuat, ne eius eloquio audientium unitas confundatur", praesertim, cum errores praedictos gentilium scripturis muniant, quas, proh pudor! ad suam imperitiam asserunt sic cogentes, ut eis nesciant respondere. " From the introduction to the 1277 condemnations Dbuckner 16:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The objection here is presuming to treat of and dispute "certain manifest and odious errors" (or rather vanities and mad falsities) as if they were debatable.
How on earth can it be possible, in the end, "to create an article where all sides can agree that their own views are adequately represented"? Stephen Tempier and others wisely saw that this was impossible. There are certain things that are simply not debatable. Dbuckner 16:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
PS This inspired me to look at Condemnations (University of Paris). Another crappy article. What is it about philosophy? Dbuckner 16:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This we could do within existing policy. Now that there are about enough philosophers reading this page, how about an informal panel to look at articles on philosophy, with a view to putting a template on the ones that are 'fit for purpose'.
This would not be as rigorous as the FAC process, at least the panel would not worry about whether there are questions, or whether the word 'also' has been over used. It would worry, I think about whether
How would that help? Well, one problem with attracting subject matter experts is that they will first 'have a look round'. I now have concrete evidence from other subject areas of competent people joining, having a short tour of the premisses, seeing the cockroachers and the unwashed dishes and making a hasty exit. If there were evidence of some quality control, perhaps this would be a start. Also, we owe it to the readers that they have some sort of assurance of accuracy in certain areas.
There remains the problem that any such QA'd article will 'creep'. But that's another story, and another battle. What do you think? Does anyone know how templates work? Dbuckner 10:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Another idea which would not suffer the 'creep' problem is also to identify the outstandingly bad articles, and label them accordingly. Dbuckner 10:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Or see Doxography. Dbuckner 13:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC) Interesting that the 'continental' category of articles is nowhere near as bad as the rest. E.g. Existentiell is not bad, though short. Dbuckner 13:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Instead of lamnting that the category "metaphysics" contains some rather odd stuff (how could you expect any differently on Wikipedia??) and other such trivalities, why don't you actually get to work on improving some articles. A few helpful comments here and there, constant blathering on about "edit-creep" and "expert rebellion", and then quitting makes you begin to look like more of a crank than bad editors like Ndru. Moreover, i have to side with Lucidish ion this one. Metaphyisc is a grab-bag term that has long been used for things outside philosophy, like the ressurection of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, consunstantion and other theological weirdnesses. Why shouldn't the Rosicrucians have their space in it? What's the big deal about Catgeories in any case? Mussolini is classified as a Roman Catholic atheist!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Isn't this another problem with Wikipedia?? I'm protesing againts the fact that experts, well-nigh geniuses, can just throw in their marbles like children and say "that's it! I don't like it anymore!!" It's egoism, plain and simple. YIf you really wanted to help this project, you would have written "I'm not going top post for three months" and come nack to see if things have improved. What does it really mean to QUIT (or leave) Wikipedia? It reminds me of the days when I used to write for a group blog. We had a name for the disgruntled diarist who ostentatiosly posted his last diary so that everyone could note the improtance of his absence: Goobye Cruel "Fill in your Blog" Diary. What do you accomplish for Wikipedia, for Wikiepdians, for anyone else beside yourself, by the act of leaving Wikipedia? "Yeah, now they'll see!! Maybe other experts will follow my lead andmany more will "quit"? Now, that IS very constructive and altruistic of you. Perhaos you leave becasue you actually do feel unappreciated. Is it not enough for you to know that IIIIIIIIIIIIII apprecaite your damned comments and eefforts, you selfish bastard.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Left a little message on
User_talk:Jimbo_Wales.
Dbuckner
07:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
I thought this would be a good place to direct discussion from Wikipedia talk:How to review a featured article candidate on why it's hard to keep people interested in this project for the long-term.
What problems are there? Bmorton and Dbuckner mention that for experts it gets tiresome to be constantly arguing with people who read a philosophy book once and all of the sudden think they have something to contribute. And of course there's the issue of acceptance of work by the broader community (made evident by objections from a number of editors, including myself, to Putnam's FAC, even though it was already a great article before the process began).
The second issue is one that all wikiprojects face. A personal example: I'm a student at Penn State (no, I'm not a professional copyeditor... as if you couldn't tell!), and as such I help out with a Penn State Wikiproject. There are a lot of Penn Staters who want to create articles on student groups and minor buildings, but such articles aren't accepted by the rest of the community. The only way for us to really get a good idea of that is to create articles and then watch some of them get deleted (not a pleasant experience), even though all of them are potentially useful to Penn State students. Something similar happened on a FAC I commented on a number of months ago—the style conventions for an aircraft wikiproject were not in line with the WP:MoS, and as a result, there were issues on the FAC. So by no means are these problems unique to the Philosophy project.
The first issue is a problem that everyone faces, but especially experts. In most cases, the person who writes an FA is fairly knowledgeable about the subject, since he or she does a significant amount of research to write the article. Thus, it's annoying when someone comes along and says that something needs to be changed, especially when they don't really know what they're talking about. For experts, that problem is much larger, because they already know just about everything related to the topic and some undergrad probably isn't going to have much to contribute. Wikis are great for contributing and expanding content, but not so good for maintaining it. There are a number of proposals that would help address this problem (including stable versions), but at the moment we're stuck.
What kind of things can be done to address these problems? If I haven't totally destroyed my reputation with you all for my objection on Putnam's FAC, I'd be happy to help out with future FA candidates to ensure that the are in line with the ideas of excellence held by the rest of the community. I can't do much about the other problem. However, you may want to look over the old scientific peer review idea, which was implemented briefly to provide expert analysis of science articles. There were disputes over what was an "expert", but if that problem can be addressed satisfactorily, there may be the opportunity to set up a peer review system where philosophy experts are asked for their opinions on the content of articles. That wouldn't give them any sort of "editorial power", but I think that with time, people on WP:FAC and WP:FAR would come to expect that philosophy articles be approved by the group. All that said, it won't make it easy to keep articles like truth from turning into a complete mess. That, I think, will have to wait until stable versions arrive. -- Spangineer es (háblame) 14:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Then I started to wonder where all the other philosophy editors were. Someone mentioned the philosophy page. I went there and read through about three pages of archived debates between Dbukcner, Lucidish, Mel Etitis and a few others. I made some suggestions, but quickly realized the situation was hopeless: several people were discussing about three different versions of the article that they had been preparing separately in their "sandboxes", and others were arguing over the phrasing of the intro for about two weeks on end. I went back to the not-so-important articles (of course, to me, they are all equally important, but that's another topic). Eventually, though, I started working on empiricism, along with User:Kenosis, Jon Awbrey and a few others. It didn't go all that badly, though there were some edit-wars and other fun stuff (see the talk page). Then I decided to check out truth. I wrote the section on deflationary theories. The other fellows insisted on conflating all deflationary theories together as "minimalism". No, that's Horwich's version of deflationism. There are also redundancy, prosententialist, disquotationalist and other versions. So, at this point, they actually started ridiculing deflationary theories and misrepresenting the whole issue (please see talk page archives). Eventually I let that pass. But one fellow kept insisting that the whole thing suffered from a logico-linguistic bias. This same person, who is undoubtedly an expert on C.S. Pierce, turned that page, as he had with empiricism and any other page he could get his hands on, into an article on Pierce and pragmatism. At about the same time, someone asked me to help out on consciousness and mind, where there was a sort of theological guerrilla warrior making the most unintelligible edits that I have ever seen in my life. The edit war went on for about two weeks unabated. I dropped the 'pedia at that point for about four months or so. I came back a few weeks ago. I put Jerry Fodor up for FAC, expecting it to breeze through like the other one. But, in the meantime, Tony1 had come on the scene and changed the nature of the FAC process drastically. Object-2a, object-2a, Peackok and Weasels, Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh MY... And there's the background.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 16:44, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Since you asked, I became exasperated and disillusioned with all strategies for editing upon discovering that all roads led to misery. Both of what I have described as the doctrines of "tentative editing" (trust the experts to the extent it's possible, minimize falsity) and "progressive editing" (trust no-one, go by what you know, maximize truth) seem to raise a level of toxic ire from Dean, so I wanted nothing more to do with anything here. The former strategy became impossible after the dealing with an edit by Charles Stewart, the latter became impossible after the Blackburn affair. (See this talk page and that at the Philosophy page if you think it's worth review -- it probably isn't.) My arrival at the FAC was due to Lacatosias's post on this page, and it had been the first time I'd come around here in months. Lucidish { Ben S. Nelson } 15:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Weird stuff!! Some of you folks have had your votes anulled re the Hilary Putnam article by Raul. He declared the previous page "incomprehesible" and started from scratch. That's a bit anti-democratic, IMO. So this is just to advise the folks who believe their votes should count for something....(;-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I recall reading somewhere - probably apocryphal - that the word "amateur" once had greater stead than "professional", since one who studied a topic with passion and love was more worthy than one for whom it was simply a paid task.
The Wiki is run by passionate amateurs. That's just part of the nature of the beast. It isn't going to change, and if you don't like it, go talk to Larry Sanger. So any proposals that involve editing of articles by professionals are simply unworkable. I have an Honours degree in philosophy, and a Masters with a philosophical emphasise, but have not worked in a Uni for twenty years - perhaps I could have snuck in as a professional, but the point is moot.
The idea of stable versions failed. It would have suited me, since as an admin I would have been able to edit stable articles to my heart's content, while most of you would simply have had to put up with my errors and omissions. But again, the point is moot.
Many (most!) philosophy articles suck. But if you take a look at any article - even truth - what is there now is better than what was there twelve months ago. If you are here to write the definitive article, then good luck - you will need it. The passionate amateurs ensure that progress here is ad hoc. That's just the way of the Wiki. Banno 21:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The Philosophy Wikiversity department seems to have died somewhat. The former head of department hasn't been on since April so far as I can see and is not responding to messages on his talk page. Equally, no other Philosophy Wikiversity members are responding to my request for a new head at wikibooks:en:Wikiversity:philosophy message board#Need a new head. The need is slightly pressing as there is an academic on wikibooks:en:User talk:Alex beta (Alex beta is the former head), who is keen on making some substantial contributions, but will need some help from someone both wiki-fluent and philosophically competent. Feel free to nominate yourself for the position if you are prepared to give some time to it. -- cfp 13:29, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Haha, if it was a paying job I'd be running for it myself despite having forgotten most of the philosophy I ever studied... Seriously though, are you interested? -- cfp 14:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Free will is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 20:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I have started to think that biographies of academics (including, but not exclusively philosophers) raise some special guideline-style issues that are not completely covered by WP:LIVING. In response to this thought, I have created an essay at Wikipedia:Academic and artistic biographies... if it shapes up well, I may turn it into a proposed guideline; but that's getting ahead of myself.
At this point, a lot of the relevant stuff is in the talk page; the essay itself is a bit stubby, but hopefully enough to point to the concerns I have. I would value any input members of this WikiProject have. After all, the bread-and-butter of this project is writing biographies of philosophers (I know about schools, distinctions, paradoxes, disputes, etc.; but bios are big). LotLE× talk 21:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Want to pat self on back, encourage others to participate I like philosophy, so I started the Department of Philosophy in the School of Humanities. Join in! - Justin (koavf)· T· C· M 06:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Omnipotence paradox is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 03:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I've been making casual edit's for years but I'm fairly knew to the wikipedia community and so I am not sure I'm following correct procedure in posting the following here. Because of the misunderstanding's philosophy page's on wikipedia are filled with I'd like to recomend that something like the following become a guideline for editing philosophy pages.
"Due to the extremely complex and often technical nature of philosophy it is advised that editor's without detailed knowledge of subject's relevant to the page they are editing exercise great caution in their editing. It should be remembered that having merely taken a first year course on the subject or having read an introductory level book on the topic does not mean that you understand it to a level adequate for editing an encyclopaedia; Memory and understanding are imperfect and the issues are often simplified in basic texts and introductory level classes. Even professional philosophers, graduate students etc are advised to approach areas in which they know comparatively little cautiously.
Additionally editors without a detailed knowledge of the subject may wish to defer to known expert’s even when the expert’s reasons seem obscure.
This is intended merely as a guideline and cannot be enforced."
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothy Scriven ( talk • contribs)
JA: Request. Need signature and date on the above. Thanks, Jon Awbrey 15:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
In light of the criticisms of Lacatosias and Lucidish of my idea I have a new proposal to ensure that those with knowledge keep control . We should create a class of users called "Philosophy expert's". These philosophy expert's could intially be elected by a two thirds supermajority with voting open to every user. After a while ( say after fifteen had been selected) we could have all new experts created by a two thirds super majority of those existing expert's who choose to vote. Expert status could be removed by a two thirds super majority as well. To gain expert status a user would have to demonstrate:
1- A very deep and broad knowledge of philosophy and great accuracy in all edits related to philosophy. 2- Moderation, fairness, tolerance and understanding of policies in editing and disscusion. 3- A commitment to the advancement of wikipedia in general and the philosophy project in paticular.
There are two main objections I can see against this suggestion.
1- How do we know who has a broad and deep knowledge of philosophy.? 2- By what mechanism will these expert's have power?
To the first objection I'd reply that the problem is probably not as bad as it sounds on paper. So long as expert status was only granted on the basis of sustained contributions to this wiki project over a long period of time it should be reasonably clear who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't. Since a supermajority is required for selection a strong conservatism is likely to hold.
To the second objection I'd say that the mechanisms by which expert's have extra power could evolve over time. The power of expert's could be enforced by the expert's themselves and by other members of this wikiproject. In addition the possession of a title would give them moral authority and this authority would increase as the institution becomes more venerable.
Of course all the details are just tentative but I think that if the project is going to advance we need something like this. Let's face it, wikiproject philosophy has a lot of diffculties, even the page on philosophy is nowhere near good articile standard. The problem ( as you've all presumably aware of) is that everyone think's they're an expert in philosophy, they don't understand the values of methodological caution and rigour that underpin philosophy and endorse some kind of extreme subjectivism about philosophy as a result they think it's fine to just put their opinions and misunderstandings on our pages and believe that philosophy is a collection of vague and sweeping statements.
Signed Timothy Scriven
I'm back and noticed this discussion. I've changed my mind about the experts thing.
Generally, subjects that have a critical mass of experts involved, do quite well in WP. The reason is that while the experts will disagree over the leading edge stuff, they will tend to agree on the standard responses to questions raised by teenagers from Arkansas. So the experts agree, while the cranky teenagers disagree even with each other. Consensus does work. However, the problem with philosophy in the past was that there wasn't the requisite critical mass of 'experts'. Now that people like Franco have joined, and now Sam and Brian, possibly others, there is a chance that philosophy could work in WP. So long as those people don't get p*ssed off and leave.
So, I'm willing to get to work again. I've already made some comments on Omnipotence paradox. See the talk page. But I do think there should be some discussion of which pages need the work. Suggest avoiding Philosophy completely. There are already some good biographies that should go forward for FA status (Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege?). Dbuckner 07:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'mma gonna quote from admin jkelly here "Wikipedia is an unwelcoming place for the expert. There are a number of reasons for this:
So Wikipedia is, and will remain, a great place for hobbyists. One might say that this has little impact on Wikipedia's quality as the treatment of subjects in thirty-two kilobytes rarely demands an understanding of any subject beyond the hobbyist level. There is a loss is in those places in which the popular view of a subject is misleading. Furthermore, an expert has immediate access to reliable sources which may take a hobbyist a great deal of time to find, or elude them completely. I don't see any way to reconcile Wikipedia's mission with supporting expert editors, however. Experts can, of course, contribute to articles on subjects on which they are themselves hobbyists. The side-effect is that hobby subjects get enthusiastic coverage, while drier topics languish, and will continue to do so until fashion touches upon them."
We can't give experts power, or it isn't really wikipedia. We can give fake rewards like the Star of Sophia or an expert tag. In a sense we already have the expert tags, as some people, (like me) put credentials on our user pages. We can also organize. In RPGs the hobbyists work on their own pet projects, a few people organize the WikiProject, and a few experts look over the more important pages to check for errors. The hobbyists, organizers, and experts all have different jobs. Bmorton3 14:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
JA: F2, With respect to your initial assertions, I think you might find a contrasting perspective on Chris Hillman's pages. I'm afraid — be very afraid — that this WikiProblem is WikiPandemic. 15:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
FF: Yes, that is all true. In retrospect, I have worked on several articles in other areas that were subject to "cranks", obssesive fanatacism as in the case of User:Licorne, and other silliness. On the other hand, the reason I came back to contribute to this thing was becasue many of the articles that I contrubuted to have remained surprisingly stable in spite of all that. One reason for this is that many of them are on topics that most people don't touch. Another is that, even on those that are somehwat more well-known like dualism (philosophy of mind), I started putting in all the in-line references and deleting anything that is not referenced. This seems to discourege a good deal of nonsense. I will try to continue along these line. I don't see any formal, procedural solutions to all of the problems that we all know about. That is, solutuions that don't involve radically changing the nature of Wikipedia. Ain't gonna happen.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Jkelly's full of it. Take a look at this list of contributors to the Neuroscience project:
Looks like some expertise there to me.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
This poll is NOT a policy to make the proposed policy official, it's to gain a preliminary idea of how much support there is for the proposed policy mentioned above. 58.105.111.91 12:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
In response to a request I am adding in a statement of what we are voting for.
Essentially I am proposing that:
1- We establish a badge labelled "I'm an expert in philosophy" or something like that.
2- This badge be given by a two thirds supermajority consensus of voting wikiproject philosophy members (at least initially, later it might be given by a consensus of those with the badge.)
3- This badge will function to inform wikipedians to respect the views of this user on the subject of philosophy and that unless they to are expert's in the field where the dispute is occuring this user's views will likely be more accurate than their's. Further, other users involved in this project may help enforce the authority of the badge.
This is...I hate to say this but I think I have earned the right to use this word...fundamentally insane!! And here I read that Dbickner even agrees with this!! WTF!!!!!!!! What universe are you people living on. It is the topics that do NOT draw popular attention that are stable. Accessible?? Well, two of my "unintelligible" analytic philosophy articles have become FAs and I have also written four or five GAs. Those that have been played with by mathematician pseudo-philosophers have turned to shit. See free will now, and look through the history to find the version (by Rick Norwood et al) before I and Bmroton touched it. Stick to math and stop destroyong articles on subjects you know nothing about, please!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 10:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well it look's like I'm going to have to drop this idea. Nevertheless a few parting comments and a last ditch effort.
-Ryan Delaney ignores the fact that very few people are in fact capable of judging the merit's of edit's to philosophy pages. It's difficult therefore to users to judge philosophy edit's own their own merits. -Jaymay's make's some comment's that I disagree with. He forget's the fact that badge's would not stop anyone from editing, if they did keep to the sources and not state their point of view then there would be nothing stopping them from editing any page on philosophy whatsoever. Badges would primarily become useful when there was an NPOV dispute or a dispute over factual accuracy or something like that. Jaymay also urges that there would be no guarantee that elected expert's would be real experts. However I think that it's reasonably clear on this philosophy project who is an expert and who is not, Francesco Franco is clearly an expert for example. -Francesco Franco note's that he has his credentials on his page. However part of the power that an expert badge would have would be the way in which it would gradually become an institution. Over time the de facto power of the expert's would increase. Hence those in possession of badges would put ot just the power of being a clear expert but would put the power of... Wikitradition! behind the expert. Eventually a culture of respecting the edit's and contributions of those with the badge would arise that is unlikely to rise spontaneously for those who possess credentials, not fair I know but that's the way wikipedia works.
On an ideal wikipedia we wouldn't need badges. Everyone would know who is an expert and who isn't. However in this world of original ignorance a quick and easy way to check if someone is an expert is desirable. If we introduced badges I imagine that over time people would get into the habit of quickly jumping onto the user pages of editors they are debating with ( before they revert to the version of the page that had their beliefs (tm) about the meaning of life) and checking to see if they have the badge.
Names and labels confer power that would not otherwise be possessed. At the moment an informal system already exists that gives expert's power. However as paradoxical as it might sound they'd be even more powerful if they had a sticker saying "I'm an expert" made out of a few bytes and a supermajority, a sticker that would only affirm would should be obvious. This is of course profoundly ironic and you could probably write an existenalist novel about it. However that's the way things work on wikipedia.
Timothy J Scriven 22:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
How about some system where you have to earn the trust of other trusted people working in a particular area. The trust group will have a rep who is able to control accounts. The ideal would be a philosophy account, with two levels of access (the first to a restricted number of pages, the second to all pages. The second level requires more trust to be earned). So, instead of the current system where any idiot can edit any page, you would have to apply for permission to edit philosophy pages (pages that are not attached to any subject area could of course have unrestricted access as at present). If the edits earn the trust of the group, the user gets to stay. If not, account is terminated. If the user wants to edit the traditionally more contentious articles, which require a higher level of trust, they have to earn it. Something on the lines of proposer, seconder, consensus, that sort of thing. This is the basis of our current banking system, and it kind of works. Dbuckner 10:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
whether FACS stay up for five days or three months. Whenever I have asked people about minor procedural questions regarding FACS, they tell me to "trust Raul. He does not allow silly objections" etc.. It reminds me a bit of scientology sometimes, as a matter of fact. Then then are, of course, the inevitable informal hiarchies which Timothey Scriven mentioned a few times. So the idea that there is no pecking order in Wikipedia, as Jaymay and a few others who haven't been around very long suggest, is another myth. If anyone is really serious about this matter, then they have to face this fact: On Wikipedia, control has to be asserted in pratice by groups of people dediciding that they are going to cooperate through e-mail, messages and other means to concentrate on this area. This is how informal cabals are formed. To cite one example, Tony1 decided to concentarte exclsuively on improving the prose standards (according to his minimalist criteria), He posted his credential as a oriefssional editor on the user page, wrote up a set of guidelines and exercises about "how to meet crierion 2a", and then he started VERY agressively attacking those FACS to which he objected on the basis of prose and flattering those FACS of which he approved. Naturally enough,the people who were praised (or perhaps just came across his exerices and liked his views on language) began to exchange messages and eventually emails back and forth discussing this FAC or that FAC and how to deal with this situation. etc.. As a result, there are masses of people who subscribe to Tony1 views and there are even some folks who object to articles on this basis of the fact that Tony1 objected to them. If something like this can be done for, say, certain specific areas of philosophy (or whatever subject), then you have essentiall created a "trust group" (better knonw as "cabal"). Another example, is the total control that certaain groups (Randian Objectivsts) exercise over specific articles and whole areas. There must now be about 60 articled devoted to Rand. Hierarachy and control are everyehere on the 'pedia, but it is all informal and cabalish in this way.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I've started a page User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion. This is simply a list of user pages whose users have expressed frustration with the poor quality control at WP. Some of these have now left WP for that reason.
Feel free to edit the page if you have knowledge of experts who have left because of the well-known reasons about quality control, vandalism, trolling, cranks &c. Give a link to their page, or to anything they have written. Thanks. Dbuckner 16:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
PS Hillman's comments and links are excellent. Do follow them. Dbuckner 16:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Of all the critical commentaries which I have come across about Wikipedia, I think this one sums the real problem the best. From content provider to 12-hour-a-day-unpaid-content defender. That's how bad it got the last time. What's the point?? Even for a NON-EXPERT. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Another external link here. This one is interesting because apparently it could be an offense to link to it from WP, as I have just done. Let's see what happens. The relevant WP page is here.
It's supposed to be "boilerplate Wikipedia-bashing borrowed from other critics", and to some extent it is, but it has a great sentence: "I think it is their efforts that gives Wikipedia whatever paltry quality it actually has". He means the so-called exopedians. These are the people who actually write the stuff, the scum. Interesting the exopedian article says "There is currently no organized Exopedian group, and it is unlikely that there will ever be one, as an organized group is theoretically against the spirit of Exopedianism itself.". Bullshit.
I still think Hillman's pages are the best. He has a very acute sense of what is wrong: namely the piecemeal editing approach that destroys any sense of balance or thread. Read through all his links. Dbuckner 19:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
You know I haven't been here very long yet but my experience is that edit quality depends a lot on the nature of the edit and the quality level that an article has already reached. I've had several pages improved by lots of people doing a tiny edit here and there, especially when it was copy-editing, adding a reference, adding a sentence or two about how the topic relates to something else they know. Likewise cumulative editing can take a stub or near stub, and turn it into a list of lots of stuff, that an expert can then whip into shape. But it seems to take expertise to do serious reorganizing or re-casting of a page. Likewise an already very good page can have severe erosion or fan-cruft problems, or self-plugs, from small edits, or can bog down into a stupid flame war over the precise phrasing of a sentence in the lead. I think that cumulative edits probably do help in some contexts, while harming in others. Also I know my self-proclaimed badge suggestion seemed silly, because it doesn't give much of an edge, but notice how Wikipedia gives a little edge for expertise in languages or math, etc. If we created say four levels of philosophy competence mirroring the language levels, created badges, also created a project member badge, and let people self-apply them I think this would be a weak (but implementable) version of what you guys are yearning for. It probably won't be enough, but it might be something that this project can do without trying to fight with the admins. We could put the badges at the bottom of the WikiProject Area along with definitions. I'll bet most people would self-apply them close to fairly. Perhaps we can push for more edge as well, although I doubt any of us have the popularity or power to grant it. Bmorton3 15:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Do we really need Category:Action theorists? At the moment there is just one entry - Harry Frankfurt -- Davidlud 19:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't pretend to be a specialist but I must confess I'm very surprised to read that discussion on wiki:en. One of the most important contributions of the modern English speaking philosophy is the action theory: I would certainly be very easy to "feed the cat". Or do you think it is better to delete it? If no one is against that idea I accept to do the job and to categorise any articles under the category Category:Action theorists. Apierrot 17:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello, a french user of Wiki:fr has created a few new categories:
The recent discussion of the "problems of philosophy on the Wikipedia" seem to have again led nowhere. Not surprising, since the solutions offered aim to re-model the entire Wiki project rather than address particular issues of philosophy.
Academic philosophers who wish to contribute to an on-line resource but who are disgruntled with the Wiki process have the option of working on either the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [1] or the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [2] You don't have to be here, folks.
So if you are still here, and still complaining about the Wiki, the it seems reasonable to conclude that you do not qualify as an academic philosopher to the satisfaction of either of these resources.
Draw your own conclusions about the politics of the two votes above. Banno 18:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to be discreet as I can here. There's a v. interesting discussion going on at Experts problem page. See user TerryEo's comments. It was only predictable that if scholarly editors should be disgruntled about lack of adherence to certain values, then editors from certain subcultures should be disgruntled for similar-ish reasons. The user in question has been banned from Scientology pages, I understand. I have the relevant links on User:Dbuckner/Expert rebellion. Dbuckner 16:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I've found an excellent article on the edit creep (mixed up with the 'expert' thing) phenomenon. See User:Ikkyu2 per What's_wrong_with_Wikipedia, by User:Ikkyu2 Dbuckner 07:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
There's an interesting objection to his article on the guys's talk page. It says 'However, all it takes is one neurologist in the whole world to have epilepsy on their watchlist, and the article will remain useful for most people. '
To which the reply is obvious: Sure, but the neurologist has now left. Dbuckner
Ah hah, an ingenious riposte. Even if the neurologist stays around and protects that one arricle, the rest of the articles will go to pot. If he decides to protect two, he will have to spend more time defending content. If he wants to protect three articles, the time spent defedngin conent will oncerase some more. The time spent defending articles increases proportionally with the number of god-awful articles one has tried to improve and which on thereafter wants to defend on the watchlist. I now have 76. I spend three hours in the morning examining all the edits. This time spent defending content is inversely proporional to the time spent creating content. It's all nonsense. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I follow WP:AFD, WP:DRV, ArbCom precedents, and some other Wikipedia policies and guidelines with some interest. I am assisted by my native curiosity, native systematism, and very good memory in my attempts to divine the nature of the underlying structure of the Wikipedia. While these processes sometimes unfold themselves in baffling ways[1], I believe I have already contributed positively to both AfD and DRV, based mostly on my ability to cite relevant policies, recognize where policies and guidelines are incorrectly understood or ignored, and abstract long discussions into a general idea of their rough consensus.
Think about this now. This says it all, right here. Why the hell should a neurologist spend his time having to follow AFD, DRB, Arbcom, etc, instead of working on improvong medical articles!! Would you go to a neurologist who spent his time following Arbcom, AfD and DRV policies on Wikipedia. I wouldn't vist a neurologist who even knew what these terms meant.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking about the 'Ostrich argument' – that WP is so good that we don't need to worry about the brain drain problem. Obvious riposte is that WP is in fact not very good at all. And what better evidence than some splendidly bad articles from the philosophy section. Could I propose a vote on the WORST philosophy article? My proposal is Philosophy, that old favourite. Read it for yourself. Packed full of gems such as:
Speaking of which, though it was the style that primarily attracts me, can anyone verify the quote about Descartes and the princess? I'm not an expert, but rough chronology suggests that most of Descartes work, particularly the Meditations, was completed by 1639, whereas he started corresponding with the princess in 1643. If the quote is meant to suggest that the princess influenced Descartes' published work, then how is that correct.
And do let me have your nominations please. Dbuckner 13:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Needless to say the mind body problem does not begin with old Rene anyway. Dbuckner 14:00, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
According to some recent theories like Infomysticism and TechGnosticism that base themselves on quantum physics represented in work of David Bohm and others (that regard quanta as 'messenger particles', i.e. carriers of information, with the result that quantum teleportation based on quantum nonlocality is simply a matter of 'resetting a value'), and have many roots in some very old philosophical and religious systems, dating to Plato, and even ancient civilizations (since Gnosticism can be traced back to ancient times), combined with today's Information Science, all of the physical universe is based on underlying information (nature's binary code) more basic than even vibration (any two non-physical values as 0 and 1), so matter itself is (en)coded ('bits' of) information in this 'program'. On this view, consciousness is understood as a symbiosis of mind and information. Mind (or soul) is, as a manifestation of the essence, non-physical, and mind emanates from the Spirit (the manifestable essence). Mind is a 'driver', having an associated organic form (material body) as its 'vehicle', and this manifests through any level in pantheistic hierarchy/ holarchy, either a mind/soul of a single cell (with very primitive, elemental consciousness), a human or animal mind/soul (with consciousness on a level of organic synergy of an individual human/animal), or a (superior) mind/soul with synergetically extremely complex/sophisticated consciousness of whole galaxies involving all sub-levels. On the other hand, the morphic field of the mind's past is the 'baggage' of an individual (on the synergetic level of an organism with brain, since using existing and generating new abstract forms is only possible with a brain). Thoughts are elemental abstract forms/objects. More complex abstract forms/objects are - skills, sciences, languages etc., and abstract forms are energetically real, as material forms are real ( telekinesis, moving material objects/forms with thoughts, is a direct proof of that). Past is a complex abstract/energetic form/object consisting of all the thoughts, experiences and memories of that mind through its physical lifetime (its ' Akashic Record'). Morphic fields (a term introduced by Rupert Sheldrake) are the universal database of experience (Dr Dejan Rakovic interprets these fields actually as hyperplanes, and uses a term isomorphism instead of morphic resonance, but the basic concept is almost the same as Sheldrake's). The morphic field/hyperplane of a form contains the actual data relevant for that form. All organic (living) and abstract (brain-generated/used) forms have their associated morphic fields, and they 'store' their related data both privately (individually) and collectively (in a one collective morphic field for those similar forms), which is a concept very similar to classes in object-oriented programming languages. Inorganic (lifeless) forms have no morphic fields. Akashic Records, term used in Vedas are only a subset of this universal database of all-connected morphic fields.
So, Consciousness, as the interaction of Mind (essence, the 'driver') and Information (quantum energy and information from morphic fields/hyperplanes) is what a complete living self is ('driver' + 'vehicle' + 'baggage' = consciousness).
Interesting to note is that the famous science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick (the 'modern gnostic prophet') defined a homoplasmate, a person 'in Gnosis', as a symbiosis of mind and information (similarly to the mentioned theories), considering heightened consciousness as achieved Gnosis (or insight), necessary for the self-realization and salvation from the Demiurge's hysterema (world of imperfection and suffering). Self-realization through Gnosis, if true, would mean that higher consciousness gets preserved after physical death somehow (and the 'vehicle' would be successfully transformed from matter into 'pure energy').
giving the majority view predominace, the signficant minority view reasonable representation, and the Rupert Sheldrake's should be either excluded or put on a separate page. The spefific problem with that case, and in happens in many others, is that the tiny minority view refuses to accept its status as tiny minority (sometimes comppletely ad hoc and invented by someone last week) and insists on putting in en entire section in some main article somwhere with equal weight to the views of well-established thinkers and scientists who study the field. I am not protesting the includion of Rupert Sheldrake, astrology, or even techgnostism articles. I would obviously leave this place if, say, "morphic resonances" and "mystical interpreations" should be included in the quantum chromodynamics article. Or, if intelliegent design were to be considered on a par with Darwinian theiry in the article on evolution. Fortuntaly, they are not and that is one of the reasons I returned to wacki Wiki. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Check out the Criticism of Wikipedia article. Contains criticisms such as " Others have noted that in some areas, such as science, Wikipedia's quality is often excellent."
Interestingly, while the New Yorker article by Stacy Schiff is mentioned, Hilary Putnam's endorsement of WP is not. Goodness. But then, they also missed out: "Wikipedia remains a lumpy work in progress. The entries can read as though they had been written by a seventh grader: clarity and concision are lacking; the facts may be sturdy, but the connective tissue is either anemic or absent; and citation is hit or miss. Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole." — Stacy Schiff
The edit creep phenomenon seems to have escaped their attention entirely. Anyone fancy a go at editing this one? Dbuckner 14:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
This little fellow in the photo is an administrator on the Italian wikipedia. Interesting. I was wondering if the English wiki had any power-brokers of a similar level of....maturity? -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I copy a comment on the expert problem pages here. What exactly is the SPOV? How different from NPOV? Aren't they the same? Dbuckner 16:14, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
"Magnarum et gravium personarum crebra zeloque fidei accensa insinuavit relatio, quod nonnulli Parisius studentes in artibus proprie facultatis limites excedentes quosdam manifestos et execrabiles errores, immo potius vanitates et insanias falsas in rotulo seu cedulis - praesentibus hiis annexo seu annexis contentos quasi dubitabiles - in scholis tractare et disputare praesumunt, non attendentes illud Gregorii: "qui sapienter loqui nituntur, magno opere metuat, ne eius eloquio audientium unitas confundatur", praesertim, cum errores praedictos gentilium scripturis muniant, quas, proh pudor! ad suam imperitiam asserunt sic cogentes, ut eis nesciant respondere. " From the introduction to the 1277 condemnations Dbuckner 16:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The objection here is presuming to treat of and dispute "certain manifest and odious errors" (or rather vanities and mad falsities) as if they were debatable.
How on earth can it be possible, in the end, "to create an article where all sides can agree that their own views are adequately represented"? Stephen Tempier and others wisely saw that this was impossible. There are certain things that are simply not debatable. Dbuckner 16:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
PS This inspired me to look at Condemnations (University of Paris). Another crappy article. What is it about philosophy? Dbuckner 16:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This we could do within existing policy. Now that there are about enough philosophers reading this page, how about an informal panel to look at articles on philosophy, with a view to putting a template on the ones that are 'fit for purpose'.
This would not be as rigorous as the FAC process, at least the panel would not worry about whether there are questions, or whether the word 'also' has been over used. It would worry, I think about whether
How would that help? Well, one problem with attracting subject matter experts is that they will first 'have a look round'. I now have concrete evidence from other subject areas of competent people joining, having a short tour of the premisses, seeing the cockroachers and the unwashed dishes and making a hasty exit. If there were evidence of some quality control, perhaps this would be a start. Also, we owe it to the readers that they have some sort of assurance of accuracy in certain areas.
There remains the problem that any such QA'd article will 'creep'. But that's another story, and another battle. What do you think? Does anyone know how templates work? Dbuckner 10:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Another idea which would not suffer the 'creep' problem is also to identify the outstandingly bad articles, and label them accordingly. Dbuckner 10:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Or see Doxography. Dbuckner 13:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC) Interesting that the 'continental' category of articles is nowhere near as bad as the rest. E.g. Existentiell is not bad, though short. Dbuckner 13:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Instead of lamnting that the category "metaphysics" contains some rather odd stuff (how could you expect any differently on Wikipedia??) and other such trivalities, why don't you actually get to work on improving some articles. A few helpful comments here and there, constant blathering on about "edit-creep" and "expert rebellion", and then quitting makes you begin to look like more of a crank than bad editors like Ndru. Moreover, i have to side with Lucidish ion this one. Metaphyisc is a grab-bag term that has long been used for things outside philosophy, like the ressurection of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, consunstantion and other theological weirdnesses. Why shouldn't the Rosicrucians have their space in it? What's the big deal about Catgeories in any case? Mussolini is classified as a Roman Catholic atheist!!-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 12:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Isn't this another problem with Wikipedia?? I'm protesing againts the fact that experts, well-nigh geniuses, can just throw in their marbles like children and say "that's it! I don't like it anymore!!" It's egoism, plain and simple. YIf you really wanted to help this project, you would have written "I'm not going top post for three months" and come nack to see if things have improved. What does it really mean to QUIT (or leave) Wikipedia? It reminds me of the days when I used to write for a group blog. We had a name for the disgruntled diarist who ostentatiosly posted his last diary so that everyone could note the improtance of his absence: Goobye Cruel "Fill in your Blog" Diary. What do you accomplish for Wikipedia, for Wikiepdians, for anyone else beside yourself, by the act of leaving Wikipedia? "Yeah, now they'll see!! Maybe other experts will follow my lead andmany more will "quit"? Now, that IS very constructive and altruistic of you. Perhaos you leave becasue you actually do feel unappreciated. Is it not enough for you to know that IIIIIIIIIIIIII apprecaite your damned comments and eefforts, you selfish bastard.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
PS Left a little message on
User_talk:Jimbo_Wales.
Dbuckner
07:41, 5 September 2006 (UTC)