User talk:Avb/Musings
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These musings are continuously being revamped. |
[edit] A 50-year-old newbie on Wikipedia
When I clicked the edit this page button for the first time, I expected Wikipedia to be a struggle for life setup.
I had not read any of its policies; all I saw was the invitation to edit away hovering over an empty space where information I knew (or believed) to have merit had been suppressed, or so it looked. The reason given indicated that it couldn't be added because it was stated in a libelous way. I wanted to render it in neutral language (which to most editors denotes NPOV). However, possibly at my insistence, the apparent suppressor had given up removing the disputed text and started to render it in neutral language. So far, so good.
I wasn't needed at this specific article and wandered off to rather distant parts of Wikipedia. The ideal of creating a gift for the world rang true to me. It just might make a difference, changing for the better whatever it is we're doing to this world and ourselves. I wanted to be part of it. And I rapidly discovered I liked editing here. I liked WP:NPOV. I liked WP:NOR. I liked WP:CITE and WP:V. I liked the total concept. I was amazed at the wisdom of the system. I read about its critics and about wikis with variant policies. Wikipedia's looked the most promising to me. As well as ready-made for me: One of my skills is the ability to pick up bias "down to several decimal places". Regardless of my own position, if any. I acquired that ability through a weird combination of talent and misfortune, then had the good fortune (or insight) to land myself in a profession where the skill is both indispensable and handsomely rewarded. It can be applied to pick up the exact meaning of text in order to e.g. rephrase it minus the bias or render it in a different language while keeping the bias (obviously in the real world bias is often intentional and useful).
Yes, Wikipedia looked ready-made for me. But the warm & fuzzy feeling was not to last.
I have a problem with editing Wikipedia. I find that most articles on a somewhat controversial subject where I try to improve some glaring bias, come with a majority of editors with the corresponding POV. They will simply gang up and vote or badger the newly arrived editor's edits out of existence. The effect is usually that their own POV is promoted and other POVs are suppressed or ridiculed. If I'm lucky I find the article in a phase of development where the number of editors with differing POVs is in balance and I can do some work. But I know it will only be temporary. Articles that should describe two opposing viewpoints usually are initially written from and describing a single POV, probably thrashing the opposing POV in the process. Then the article starts cycling through all intermediate phases until it's just as badly skewed in favor of the opposite POV, and back again. It's basically a function of behavior also found in political voting. Worse - the middle ground the article text occupies twice per cycle is neutral, but it is not very often a good article. A mix of both POVs cemented together into one supposedly common ground text everyone is equally unhappy with.
Such POV groups can be anything from partisan right through to establishment. Each group has its rather silent majority and one or more vocal minorities that can be thought of as the group's "hard core", or its "lunatic fringe" in the case of extremely biased members. Real-world battles decided in the past or going on right now are all being fought out or re-enacted by Wikipedia editors on talk pages and even in article space on a daily basis. Overriding groups confuse things even further in the urge of their members to protect their peers in a totally POV esprit de corps. At the same time such peer groups can be a major factor in writing articles and defending them against corruption. Now if only such groups would limit their edits to articles on subjects they know inside and out... if only they would allow the reader to also hear about the things that are not so wonderful about such subjects, or different ways to approach them, complete with statistics instead of putting other POVs down or thrashing them outright just like other POV warriors...
Did I mention Wikipedia as a meritocracy? It ensures the virtual hegemony of a number of early adopting editors who are experts in specific fields & highly appreciated for the vast amount of knowledge they have added to Wikipedia in the past and the police work they are doing now.
In short, it's just the way humanity has gone about its business since the dawn of time. It seems to me this will only lead to an NPOV encyclopedia in the same way life evolved from inanimate matter: incredibly long odds. No matter how often policies repeat that it should happen and how it should be done. I think the odds can be improved by policing the policies.
The thought that there must be many other editors equally frustrated is almost unbearable. Those I found that have conquered the frustration are not using NPOV to do so. They practice deus ex machina techniques (Jimbo), survival of the fittest (super debaters), meritocracy (long standing admins), or democracy (unite and collectively vote the biased stuff out of existence, teaming up with whomever is available holding the currently "oppressed" POV). Not even remotely attractive to me. And not only because such methods are equally available to go against NPOV. Another problem that remains is the sheer amount of time it takes to get the smallest of edits in even if you're part of a comfortable majority.
I decided to work towards helping the encyclopedia forward in this respect. To help keep it neutral where it is, and make it neutral where it isn't. To help make it great where it is merely mediocre.
I originally thought that I only had to spread the word in order to explain REAL NPOV editing. Or become an admin or so, or make myself a name as a painstakingly neutral editor or something. I learnt a coupe of things and decided it wouldn't work. Then I thought that I should showcase a couple of currently terribly biased articles and some currently terribly uninformative articles on controversial subjects. I learnt a couple more things and now I'm having second thoughts. If I know anything about what makes people tick, this is not going to work without the majority of editors understanding plus neutral ways to explain and if necessary enforce policies. This is not currently the case.
Obviously I also hold some pretty strong viewpoints (my belief in NPOV being one of them). But I all but fell in love with what I felt is the heart of the NPOV policy. I believe it should be taught at school. If it is made clear to the editors, generally acccepted, and uniformly enforced, I strongly believe it will result in an encyclopedia that's much better than anything the world has seen so far. I would not be surprised if such an encyclopedia would play a significant role in human development. I would not be surprised if NPOV itself would play a significant role in human development through the sheer number of editors that understand the concept.
Yes, I understand this is all subjective, depending on what I think is NPOV. But I have a knack for synthesizing text into a Gestalt that's actually close to what's really going on inside the author's head. This time there are two "authors": on the one hand Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, on the other the collective (un)conscious of countless editors. I think I have by now acquired a good insight into both sides of the coin (10:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)).
NPOV is not fully clear to many, due to some unclear wording, the practice of selecting or out-of-context quoting of one or two policy sentences, a lack of awareness of the process that has produced the current policy language, a lack of awarenes of the values developing in and shaping the Wikipedia community, and especially an almost universal ignorance or ignoring of the policy as it appears from the whole of tens of thousands of words of the current language. And even that text has holes in it; the policy as seen by Jimbo hasn't. It's his version I like, but what I find in controversial articles is generally not anything like it.
So far I have been essentially experimenting - trying to give what I can while also learning from others and from my mistakes. I still have to grow a bit as a Wikipedian.
What do I want to achieve by participating here? I feel I have something to offer in editing articles. I feel I have more to offer in NPOVing articles. And I feel I have even more to offer to help make this project REALLY work where controversy abounds. THAT's an important area where NPOV should make a difference. (Obviously the other area consists of the articles whose subject matter is not disputed. These articles are probably the reason why many view Wikipedia as the best thing since sliced bread.) But I don't feel the current Wikipedia reality offers me much hope of getting some real work done.
Did I mention the problems that start when POV warriors decide that I am a POV warrior too? So far I've been deemed a dangerous atheist POV warrior vandal; a creationist liar; a partisan patient; an establishment lackey; selling quack "machinery"; selling out to big pharma; libeler/slanderer; a blinkered fan of Tony Attwood's; joining others in a personal feud against a single editor. I haven't been called an NPOV warrior so far. I haven't done enough NPOVing to feel justified in calling myself that, but even around my 1000th edit and without having given it much thought the numbers are beginning to balance out: the ratio between what could be seen as promoting my personal POV versus what could be seen as promoting a POV to which I do not subscribe. I also edit articles where I do not share any one of the various POVs or where I see (aspects of) two or more POVs as valuable.
It is mostly the other religion of Jimbo's that's keeping the project in this death knell: the conviction that consensus processes protect or generate NPOV. That conviction is NOT part of the NPOV policy as far as I'm concerned. It may well have seemed a beautiful ideal at first, but by now it has become painfully visible that it's not converging towards NPOV, or quality. Articles are forever oscillating between opposite POVs. Where convergence leads to a semblance of NPOV, the article's quality tends to converge towards the mediocre. Because the community feel of Wikipedia is hard-wired to depend on consensus. And anyone like me who can NPOV articles in no time will leave pretty fast. My customers are gladly paying me for this type of work. The same work done for free on Wikipedia is completely at the mercy of the editor faction currently dominating the article. I estimate that if I ever achieve full standing in the meritocracy (after throwing my not inconsiderable weight around, citing philosophers, using latinate & SAT instead of my preferred worker's lingo, and especially after doing a lot of good work) I will be able to organize some support and get things done faster than the bold-revert-discuss/consensus cycle allows, but even so it will slow me down by a factor of 10-20 (currently 20-40 - yes, I mean I am working at an apalling 2.5% efficiency here on Wikipedia). Edits are greeted with shouts of "bad faith" and immediately reverted. WP:OWN and/or WP:POV type editors just know they are right. They will feel free to remove a cite tag from a factual statement without providing any sourcing. Tagging a whole article as unsourced is greeted with personal attacks. Having admins around will usually make things worse. Admins hanging out at an article are often proponents of the currently dominant POV. In other words, they *believe* the disputed statement and do not believe it needs a citation. They believe they're just "stating the obvious".
Perhaps I'd better leave Wikipedia. On balance I think it has done remarkably well without me so far. Oscillating around average is a far cry from top quality, but it isn't worse than Britannica when it comes to controversy. Articles without controversy will hopefully reach greater heights.
Editors with special NPOV skills could easily elevate controversial articles to a higher plane, but there is no policy to help them do that. Perhaps the older idea of freezing WP at some point and having experts apply a finishing touch may be a solution. But my absence right now will not make much of a difference. It sounds attractive - just leave Wikipedia to the self-righteous POV warriors that alternate in building and ruining articles on controversial subjects even as we speak. Leave it to the few NPOV idealists editing articles where they can go with the current flow if they're wise. Leave it to Jimbo to enforce the "real" NPOV policy. Leave it to the many editors that are quietly editing away on non-controversial subjects. Leave it to established process to weed out those who are not going to help build an encyclopedia no matter what they're told.
I'd like to find out if there are any stats available regarding the ratio of very controversial : normal : totally uncontroversial articles. Or the number of editors involved in same. Just take a look at something that should be boringly NPOV by its very nature - the article on Dutch (language).
Reading this over, I realize I was about right when I clicked that edit this page button for the first time. It is a struggle for life setup.
[edit] Ancient history of NPOV
From [1]:
One can think of unbiased writing as the cold, fair, analytical description of debates. Of course, one might well doubt that this can be done at all without somehow subtly implying or insinuating that one position is correct. But experienced academics, polemical writers, and rhetoricians are well-attuned to bias, so that they can usually spot a description of a debate that tends to favor one side.
Sounds like me alright. I wonder how Larry thought having such folks around would help. He then goes on to write:
(So we not infrequently need an expert in order to render the article entirely unbiased.)
So.
[edit] I found an NPOV article on a controversial subject
I had been there before, because it's on my watch list. Can't remember why, probably reverted some Jason Gastrich nonsense there months ago. It flashed up on my screen when someone edited it yesterday. I checked the edit, thought it a bit overzealous and loaded the longish article in MS-Word for a search/replace. While at it I saw a couple of minor errors. While correcting those it became apparent that this article was different. So I spent over an hour reading it and correcting minor problems. And - get this - I found nothing to NPOV. A ready-made NPOV showcase. I left a compliment in the edit summary. Wonderfully NPOV.
When I find the time I'm going to analyze its history.
Almost forgot - it's Abortion debate.
[edit] A thought about the consensus process, posted to Talk:Abortion
A. and P., just a note regarding "requirements such as verifiability and neutrality are not subject to vote or consensus". That was also my impression when I studied the policies some time ago. My belief in the concept was based on that assumption. However, I was wrong. I had not figured in the true importance attached to consensus on Wikipedia. I have since reached the conclusion that the consensus process is assumed to safeguard policy. And I do not like it one bit. Because in practice it means that consensus trumps policy. (I'd like to be proven wrong in this respect but I don't expect I will.) AvB รท talk 10:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
