Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:21, 25 January 2008

Proposal:

Given the level of dysfunction that has come to prevail on Misplaced Pages, the most appropriate course for a principled scientist is to withdraw from the project.

Discussion

• I agree. In fact, I suggest that we should start a movement where we encourage scientists or pro-science editors to post the above notice or a similar notice on their user pages and talk pages as a signal to a system that is refusing to listen. Comments?--Filll (talk) 05:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• I basically agree, but with modifications. How about proposing a one month moratorium? All pro science editors simply stop editng for one month and abandon Misplaced Pages to the mob. If the result doesn't make the front page of the New York Times I'll bet..... It should cause the ArbCom members and Jimbo himself to stop and take notice. They need to take this matter seriously enough to establish an ArbCom Science Committee that can deal with questions like "Is homeopathy pseudoscience?" IOW a high level RfC that has binding consequences and creates policy. Such questions need to be settled. Then methods of effectively and quickly dealing with pushers of fringe POV who violate NPOV need to be developed.

May others propose other wording here? I'd like to see other versions on this page and then we can take a vote and begin to use the one we choose. -- Fyslee / talk 05:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Propose whatever you like. No rules, no deadlines, no preconceived outcomes. This was meant to be open; I'm curious to know the views of other science-oriented editors. Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages would go on without experts; it would be qualitatively worse, but it would still be at the top of most Google searches. I can only speak for the U.S., but many of the scientific "controversies" of the day (intelligent design, global warming, medical scams, etc) have their roots in widespread scientific illiteracy. Misplaced Pages is an incredibly powerful medium to counter that illiteracy. I would propose something diametrically opposite: Given the level of dysfunction that has come to prevail on Misplaced Pages, the most appropriate course for a principled scientist is to impress upon all of his or her colleagues the importance and value of participating in a medium like Misplaced Pages. Scientists are busy; they have to publish or perish, and ever since - I dunno - 22 January 2001 or so, this country's research investment has shrunk dramatically and it's not easy to keep an investigative career going. Misplaced Pages is free, volunteer work, but the more the inmates appear to be running the asylum, the more important it is for scientists and experts to volunteer their time and put up with the BS. Just my 2 cents - it's late, and I've had a few gin and tonics, so take it with a grain of salt. MastCell 06:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
• Motion to move to Citizendium. ~ UBeR (talk) 06:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• The main reason I stay is whatever I write shoots right up to the top of Google. I feel it is my duty as an expert in my field to put accurate information in that spot. But I sure as hell sympathize with you, and my field is not nearly as overrun with kooks and nutjobs as is any one of the sciences. Just my opinion, and I'm no more sober than MastCell. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 06:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Good example of a defeatist attitude. --Merovingian (T, C) 06:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, that approach would be defeatist. Do you have a proposal for how to address the situation? Or do you feel there is no problem to be addressed? Raymond Arritt (talk) 06:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Experts should be given some leeway when dealing with topics in which they are well-versed. --Merovingian (T, C) 06:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Merovingian, I don't see that you are a regular contributor to scientific or healthcare articles, much less controversial ones. In spite of that, as an experienced admin, I'm hoping that you have an angle on this that might be enlightening to us beginners. What is your interest in this matter? -- Fyslee / talk 06:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• No, I am not an expert on anything in particular, not that that should exclude me from this conversation. I believe it is important to retain experts on real-life subjects. This issue should go beyond science, as well. They have the kind of knowledge and experience that is not easily duplicable. Calling for some kind of withdrawal or boycott is naive, frankly. Boycotts do little to help a problem; rather, they prolong any solution. On the contrary, more participation or active lobbying on the part of experts would be more helpful. --Merovingian (T, C) 06:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• You are definitely welcome. I am hoping you have some suggestions for a solution. These concerns aren't coming out of nowhere. We need some fundamental policy changes and enforcement provisions. Misplaced Pages needs to decide if it will become an authoritative resource, or remain an unreliable one. -- Fyslee / talk 06:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• As I said, experts should be given some more clout, if you will. Exactly how to do this cannot easily be defined without being inherently arbitrary. A side issue is identity. Not all users disclose their real identities, and maybe some experts wish to as well. Any policy to have experts put in a more powerful position (the word "powerful" being relative here) would be hard to enforce without some type of vetting system, so we don't have to deal with another Essjay controversy. But for the experts we do have and have verified, they need to be respected and listened to. To play the devil's advocate for a moment, however, this is not to say that they should have the final word on a given subject. Any expert scientist has his or her own motives, that much cannot be denied; we are all human, and most of us still have to make a living. They will still be subject to core Misplaced Pages guidelines, and I feel that that includes NPOV as well. If a fringe theory receives enough attention by credible sources, there is no reason to deny it space on Misplaced Pages simply because it is not a mainstream theory. Perhaps a structured type of group of experts meant for discussing certain fields should be set up. Obviously we'd need to get in touch with the Foundation, as I believe they are best able to coordinate something between online and real-world cooperation. --Merovingian (T, C) 07:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• I've read some horrible stories about "experts" who were really hurt by off-Wiki attacks by the POV zealots out there. If I have to give my private information to edit here, I'm not going to edit. Think about the Scientology article. Who here would even dare go over there to clean up that mess? Not me. They are scary. And think about the sociopaths that inhabit Creationism, Abortion, and numerous other articles. If they knew who we were, they'd not stop at harming our reputations or worse. Not to sound paranoid, but these people ARE sociopaths. OrangeMarlin 15:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think my motion is a defeatist attitude. I see it as an evolutionary process, if you will. Just as Nupedia transformed into Misplaced Pages, so should Misplaced Pages transform into Citizendium. The problems over which we quarrel today do not exist there. There's no need for a revolutionary process or profound changes to a dysfunctional system and its policies--just a simple move for those dedicated to providing accurate information. ~ UBeR (talk) 07:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• UBeR, I don't think M. was responding to you but rather to the original proposal. Raymond Arritt (talk) 07:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I know he wasn't. If you simply leave the project, then Merovingian may very well be correct. I was simply trying to explain why I think my idea shouldn't be considered a defeat. ~ UBeR (talk) 16:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• That would amount to abandoning the highest profile source to the cranks. Citizendium is a noble idea that will never begin to compete with Misplaced Pages for the top spot in searches, and that's what the public uses. This is a much larger vehicle that just needs fixing. No need to build the (much smaller) bridge all over again. -- Fyslee / talk 07:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• With that type of attitude, yes it will remain that way. The purpose, of course, is to dispel that kind of attitude and eventually bring that project to something that surpasses Misplaced Pages. Lets not kid ourselves, we're not working on some bridge that just needs some minor tweaks and adjustments--this is more akin to an I-35 we're working on. You are not going to fix things here in one fell swoop. You're talking about big changes, some of which are inherently against Wale's philosophies and ideals for Misplaced Pages. I've been looking around reading some the suggestions and can't help but notice the similarities between what they want and what Citizendium already has: appreciation and roles for its experts, flagged articles, accountability, reliability, accuracy, stability... ~ UBeR (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• As a finance professional, please change "scientist" to "expert." There are experts in fields that are not hard-sciences. PouponOnToast (talk) 15:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

* How about a one-week strike!!!!  :) Let's see what Jimbo has at the end of the week. OrangeMarlin 15:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Clearly this is an issue which a lot of people are concerned about. Is it entirely out of the question to push for a policy change or for specific new panel? Jefffire (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think a policy change is in the cards, and I'm not convinced one is even needed. Misplaced Pages already has some good policies but they're being ignored or perverted to other ends. Instead of WP:WEIGHT, we get a fatuous "some say the earth is round, others say it is flat" version of neutrality. Instead of WP:IAR, which says that the good of the encyclopedia is more important than rigid adherence to rules, we have endless process wonkery while the encyclopedia deteriorates (more like "ignore all facts, obey all rules"). It's more of a cultural issue than a policy issue. And cultures are much harder to change than policies. Raymond Arritt (talk) 16:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I mostly agree, but with some minor disagreements: It's not something to be done out of principle but something scientists are forced to do out of pragmatism. Expert editors simply cannot effectively make edits to Misplaced Pages. The upward battle in attempting to do so is extremely stressful, and not enjoyable. I'm no scientist, but I am a college student and I have struggled to include basic information I learned in introductory college courses, based on college textbooks I currently have in my posessions and extensive research, as a hobby. Simply leaving Misplaced Pages is not a good thing because Misplaced Pages is a feedback loop whereby if expert editors leave, the whole thing will collapse into a jumble of nonsense in an even worse condition than it is in now.

Scientists firmly standing against Misplaced Pages's model is a good thing, provided that they either:

1. Strongly voice their condemnation of Misplaced Pages together in an attempt at gaining consensus for policy reforms.
2. Continue making the same contributions on outside wikis based on a different model, such as Citizendium.

In my experience with Citizendium so far, the model seems to suffer from the exact opposite flaw of Misplaced Pages, in that its registration process is unnecessarily tedious, its complex process is difficult to follow and poorly worded such that it discourages "non-expert editors" from being able to quickly and easily join and make edits. An appropriate step towards progress would be a combination of the Misplaced Pages model and the Citizendium model. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 16:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding defeatism: It is only defeatism if this proposal is created by a lack of conviction. Given the amount of work a lot of people have put into stopping fringe theories, I don't think anyone's conviction here ought to be in question.

It is not defeatism if the problems are based on experience, reason, and evidence. See Outside scientific studies confirming Misplaced Pages failure on WP:FAIL. This proposal is based on a rational response to these real observed problems, not mere emotional weakness.

As a few studies have noted, Misplaced Pages has the stability that it does because of a core group of editors regularly watching certain pages. Based on this, an "expert revolt" or "boycott" would definitely have a noticeable, meaningful impact on getting the issue of fringe sources clarified.

For those that do, however, wish to call this "defeatism," based on the University of Minnesota's recommendations, here is one suggestion other than a boycott: A "Greylist" of sources that are usually used as unreliable sources, since fringe-pushers tend to use sources from the same URLs, regularly. Regularly consulting this "greylist" possibly in combination with one of the pro-Science Wikiprojects suggested here may be a more effective way of dealing with fringe. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 2

It definitely needs tweaking and shortening, so make Proposal 3, 4, 5, etc... -- Fyslee / talk 06:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The ArbCom does not exist to dictate content disputes. --Merovingian (T, C) 06:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It's about time it consulted scientists and got involved. The reputation and atmosphere of Misplaced Pages are at stake. We are driving away excellent editors, while kooks are a dime a dozen, and they are protected. -- Fyslee / talk 06:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Kookery generally can't stand up against the necessity for good referencing. Even without experts, most editors (be they administrators or not) should be able to enforce our core guidelines. --Merovingian (T, C) 06:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree. The problem is that it isn't working, or at least it is so difficult that good editors get burned out, while some admins protect the kooks, even unbanning them, adopting them, and then protecting them. -- Fyslee / talk 06:57, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

So, the development of processes to deal with fringe theories and their proponents and their proponents' behavior (not to mention the behavior of Misplaced Pages members such as admins that would condone unwarranted attention for such things) does need to go forward, but I highly doubt that a boycott by experts in those fields will help. Bringing attention to a discussion should give as many users a chance to comment as possible, not that everybody will care, but some fresh ideas can be culled. --Merovingian (T, C) 07:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

As you can see from my link to the "Is homeopathy pseudoscience?" discussion, we have no high level place to discuss such matters. An ordinary RfC doesn't cut it. Science isn't bound by consensus, and in such matters science needs to be given the deciding vote whenever it is feasible. Seriously doubtful situations are another matter, which is not the subject here. -- Fyslee / talk 07:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I would see nothing wrong with establishing a place to discuss that. Please see my longer post in the first section for more. In short, some serious work needs to be done to set something like that up. --Merovingian (T, C) 07:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

As a way to draw attention and more eyeballs to this discussion, I have posted a version of the "notice" to my user and talk pages and invited others to do so as well, with a link back to this page. I think some other mechanisms, like a special Science Committee with administrative powers and input to the Senior levels of the Wiki hierarchy might be helpful. I am not sure a boycott will be necessary, but a widespread threat of a boycott might be enough to get someone's attention. We need to brainstorm to think of ideas on what to do. Here are some:

• a high level committee to deal with science issues and pseudoscience issues or disputes
• renaming NPOV as something else so that people do not mistake NPOV as being neutral, and therefore supportive of pseudoscience
• rewriting the NPOV guidelines to make it more clear that Misplaced Pages will not and can not be a platform for the promotion of pseudoscience over real science
• mechanisms to encourage pseudoscience proponents and trolls etc to go to related Wikis such as Paranormal Wiki where they can promote their material without restrictions that they view as unfair, such as NPOV or interaction with real science and real scientists. Note: the Paranormal Wiki might need to be renamed to accommodate alternative medicine and some other WP:FRINGE science areas, which might object to be classified as "paranormal"
• possibly some sort of special expert status, possibly from vetting, potentially confidential so that people who want to remain anonymous can still have that benefit but be recognized as experts (I have a few graduate degrees in the sciences, but I am loathe to drop my anonymity and I know several others in the same boat)

Here is my proposed viral marketing notice for this page. Please feel free to copy it to your user and talk pages:

Given the level of dysfunction that has come to prevail on Misplaced Pages, the most appropriate course for a principled scientist is to withdraw from the project.

The bureaucracy should either take corrective steps to fix this situation, or else suffer the eventual loss of huge amounts of valuable talent and volunteered resources.

If you agree with this statement, post it to your pages, and pass it on. (discuss this here)

--Filll (talk) 14:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The problems are not confined to 'science'. 'Philosophy' has long since been abandoned to the wolves. 'Religion' is near hopeless. The Christianity article devolved from an FA article, to GA, to barely B-class because of in fighting, POV-pushing and nonsense. I spent 2007, in that part of Misplaced Pages and — by reputation — had thought the 'science' side was the bastion of sanity. Even outside reviewers have written that the 'science' articles were superior: for example, the infamous 'Nature' comparison to Britannica. To a very productive editor who left Misplaced Pages over the destruction of the Christianity article, I said as - a parting comment - that:

Misplaced Pages eats its young, no doubt about that. I do not know if it will survive in the long term. I'm afraid I spend time at Misplaced Pages with a cheerful apathy and yet I'm endlessly surprised by the destructive behavior: if Misplaced Pages were a person, I'd say it had a severe personality disorder.

Now, I find the same problem exists with the science articles. Having spent a month on the science side, my preconceptions have been shredded. Science is in worse shape; my opinion, but also my observation. I agree with Filll (talk · contribs). Everyone take a wikibreak for a month. The project is entirely volunteer-driven, and everyone deserves a vacation. Nevertheless, I don't think it will cure the problem. I think Misplaced Pages hit its peak in 2007 and will begin its decline this year. Like so many Internet fads, this one will pass. Yahoo and AOL are imploding. MySpace and Facebook will peak this year. Misplaced Pages will have company. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 14:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Anything about finance or economics is overrun with goldbugs and other sorts of fringe wierdness. PouponOnToast (talk) 15:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Just for everyone's info, there is this discussion - Evidence Misplaced Pages is failing at the village pump. A perennial discussion, yes, but relevant. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• How about some sort of "certified science" label for articles that have been through review by the science community, and judged to be reasonable and balanced and following NPOV carefully. There could be special permission to protect these sorts of articles more aggressively to keep them at a high standard. Other articles might be good, but might have some pseudoscience in them and would not get certified.--Filll (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• • The pie in the sky is not attainable. The problem is not even acknoledged, so let's not skip step 1. PouponOnToast (talk) 16:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• I think we first have to hit the mule on the head with a 2x4 to get its attention. And we should have proposals to suggest once we get the mule's attention.--Filll (talk) 16:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Even though I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a big contributer to these articles in question, I fully support this month long break. Though most of my editing is simply reverting POV edits and being cranky on talk pages, I have always wondered what would happen, especially if we truly got all the editors on board, if everyone with an ounce of integrity decided to stop defending these articles from the constant onslaught of "fringies" who are seemingly adored by a good number of admins. This whole enterprise would be even better if the articles, that everyone here seeks to protect and uphold, have an outside review during the period everyone is gone (drinking). The intelligent design article will read like a DI blog post. Water memory will be proven through cherry picking of unreliable sources. Evolution will be "just a theory" and Darwin will be described as some of a minion of Satan. Good stuff. Baegis (talk) 16:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• An idea similar to a "certified science" label - see Misplaced Pages:Flagged revisions - seems to be moribund. Zenwhat (talk · contribs) has been busy making some interesting contributions to the Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is failing article. See Outside scientific studies confirming Misplaced Pages failure which says, in part:

For instance, in order to address the problem of unreliable sources and fringe views, there could be the creation of a "greylist" which automatically generates a list of articles which likely contain inappropriate edits, based upon the likelihood of certain sources to be regularly misused again and again. This could more appropriately address extreme violations of WP:NPOV and WP:V, which are not captured by bots, while at the same time allowing humans to make the final decision as to what constitutes a "reliable source" or not.

and

...Misplaced Pages's ability to prevent obvious vandalism is intriguing, but that alone is not how Misplaced Pages's success is defined since the problems stem from system bias and erosion of good content, which, unlike random vandalism, cannot simply be addressed through the use of large networks of bots crawling Misplaced Pages and making automatic reverts according to a set algorithm.

Anyway, as always, there is a lot of typing going on, but will anything get done? The academics seem to see failure. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Here is another idea. How about a Science Guild, with levels? The top level might be certified experts with credentials. A secondary level might be those invited into the guild by those in the top level as pro-science editors and somewhat trustworthy. People in the guild might be accorded special powers or consideration.--Filll (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The bigger problem is that Wikpedia is all voluntary. No one has to do anything, so establishing a super user with certified credentials doesn't mean the super user is going to step in and do anything. We are barely replacing Admins because of attrition. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Put on your thinking cap and see if you can come up with constructive suggestions to improve the current situation.--Filll (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The issue of quacks\cranks\kooks

A completely open wiki-process appears to fail because it makes the false assumption that a minority of bad editors (vandals, trolls, and just general nutcases) cannot overwhelm a majority of good editors. An open question: Can we make a similar assumption regarding the sample of "expert editors"?

The idea of supporting a more closed system like Citizendium or a "Science Guild" as proposed above seems to rely on the assumption that the proportion of bad average editors to good average editors is larger than the proportion of bad expert editors to good expert editors. If we have a more closed system, a Science Guild, etc., some theoretical problems that could arise in certain fields:

• People with degrees in Feminist studies, Black studies, Queer studies, etc., vandalizing various articles
• Neomarxians, Austrian economists, Sociologists, and Ecologists vandalizing articles on economics
• Economists vandalizing articles on Ecology and Sociology
• Theologians vandalizing articles on religion
• Philosophers -- they'd probably vandalize just about everything (just kidding)
• Wackos with Ph.D.s in medical fields vandalizing articles on Homeopathy and Alternative medicine

As a demonstration of how this problem might arise (and certainly would in rare cases), there is User:Pundit who is a visiting professor at Harvard (I verified his credentials), but at the same time he made this absolutely absurd edit and has argued that Cannabis Culture magazine is a "reliable source."

Having an education, such as a Ph.D., generally grants a greater absolute degree of trustworthiness, but not a guaranteed degree of trustworthiness. (See quackwatch) More importantly, does the attainment of a degree ensure a greater relative degree of trustworthiness, compared with others of the same educational achievement? If not, then how could such a policy improve Misplaced Pages's margin of error?

And should expert editors have broad authority or only authority over their particular field? How narrowly should "their particular field" be? On one article I saw a debate where some people claimed that a professor wasn't a reliable source, because the article was on Islamic history, but he was a professor just on Islamic theology, not specifically on "Islamic history"! Is that too narrow? ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Under the current system, one or two vandals or POV warriors or trolls etc can overwhelm many mainstream editors. What is needed is a new approach to this and a willingness to try different kinds of remedies and tools. For example, one thing that is often tried is to restrict the editing of the mainspace page by a problem editor, but to let them run rampant on talk pages at will. This really is just about as disruptive and upsetting, and frankly not a useful remedy on places like homeopathy. Of course, "experts" can still cause problems. That is why a self-governing Guild, which can control or monitor the actions of its members, with levels of "trustedness" is appropriate. As an outside check, the products of the guild should be eventually peer-reviewed by outside bodies as feedback to the WP community at large that the Guild has not gone off the deep end. --Filll (talk) 18:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Counter-proposal

I mentioned this above, but I feel like putting it in a blue-bordered box like everyone else:

Given the level of dysfunction that has come to prevail on Misplaced Pages, the most appropriate course for a principled scientist is to impress upon all of his or her colleagues the importance and value of participating in a medium like Misplaced Pages.

The reason that WP:WEIGHT is so hard to uphold is that minority views are represented on Misplaced Pages far in excess of their representation in the real world. This creates a skewed perspective, where ideas like AIDS denialism or secondhand-smoke-is-harmless are considered reasonable alternative views rather than discredited fringism. The solution is not to go on strike, which would dilute the accurate representation of these topics even further, but to convince scientists, researchers, and generally knowledgeable folk of the need to contribute. Such people tend to be skeptical of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit - for good reason - but with increased participation these problems will go away. MastCell 18:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this in principle, except that we should try to consider some other options to try to improve the situation if we cannot recruit enough mainstream scientists, or recruit them fast enough, or if they find Misplaced Pages to be an unfriendly environment.--Filll (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it even the right option to try and fix the problem by weight of numbers? It could just turn out a big-ass edit war. Jefffire (talk) 18:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)