Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Vote/Manning Bartlett

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Pmanderson

Strongly oppose. The candidate has long been of the opinion that all policies on WP should be completely locked and not subject to editing by anyone, including admins within the WP itself. Development of policy should only ever be conducted at Wikipedia:Meta. This is insupportable; it would in practice empower our worst policy bullies, who snuck in their favorite crank remedies when no-one was looking. A symptom, I suppose, of being out of touch with what we are now doing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A response to this comment has been made at User_talk:Pmanderson#Your_ArbCom_voting_comment Manning (talk) 00:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I trust it is clear that the sentence about being out of touch is a deduction. Nevertheless, as I have replied elsewhere, this candidate seems to want us to be a bureaucracy, with fixed policies graciously bestowed on us by meta:, an arrangement contrary to our present policies. I should prefer not to see him an Arbitrator. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Manning has a well-reasoned position on this matter. If policies are continually changed, then policy disputes become overly political and the fight over policy distracts from content editing. Even worse, there is a tendency, as we have seen over the past few years, for those in positions of power to change policies in ways that concentrate the power of controlling the project with them, a tendency that is entirely against the founding principles of Wikipedia. Luqman Skye (talk) 11:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

"Anti-Science" accusations

In at least two cases on my "oppose" comments, there have been accusations of me of being "anti-science". I am somewhat baffled by such a claim, particularly as I have been heavily involved in the creation of many articles which seek to display pseudoscientific topics in a "neutral" light (which effectively *IS* the SPOV).

I do however reject the idea of formally "legitimising" the term "Scientific point of view" (SPOV) within Wikipedia. There are a number of reasons for this, all of which derive from the fundamental principle of NPOV, and it in no way indicates that I am anti-science.

1. Legitimising the term opens the door to demands to legitimise other "POV"s. If we formally legitimise *any* standpoint other than NPOV, then we open the door for demands to "legitimise" any number of other viewpoints. The consequence of this is that the philosophical foundation of NPOV of would be severely weakened, and the SPOV would in fact suffer as a consequence. Once any area of Wikipedia is seen to allow an article to "take sides", then everyone with an alternative viewpoint will demand the right to have their own viewpoint formally recognised, and chaos will ensue.

2. There is simply no need to legitimise the term. Wikipedia does not take sides. Our job is to present the various viewpoints, and as best as we can give an indication of the level of significance and proportionality of the viewpoint. In all cases to do with scientific articles, and especially in the case of pseudoscientific articles the SPOV is the most neutral, and also the best referenced and most proportional. NPOV demands that the predominant arguments of the proponents of a pseudoscientific topic be acknowledged, but NPOV also guarantees that neutral and impartial evidence (which in many cases utterly refutes any argument for legitimacy) is presented. Wikipedia does not need to "take sides" by aligning itself with SPOV, as the evidence speaks for itself. This viewpoint is also in accordance with the official NPOV view of pseudoscience.

3. Prononents of SPOV are not immune from axe-grinding, and formal allowance for SPOV may encourage that. Now there is a degree of speculation to this particular point, and (unlike the above) it does not derive from an analysis of the principles of NPOV. However my experience leads me to believe it is a possibility.

Obviously not every person who subscribes to the SPOV is an axe-grinder, in fact the majority of WP editors already essentially subscribe to this philosophy (as do I). However there are zealots in every sphere of thought, and excessive zealotry must be discouraged no matter what perspective it derives from.

There have been instances where over-zealous proponents of SPOV have weakened WP by inserting superfluous arguments where they are not needed (chiefly on topics which have no scientific relevance). An example would be a case a few years back where a group of editors began systematically attacking every article to do with religious beliefs and principles and presenting them from a scientific framework. While their intentions may have been noble, it added nothing to the quality of the Encyclopedia and only provoked severe edit wars. An article on Transubstantiation does not need to point out that there is no scientific basis to the claim that "the wine and wafer are converted into the blood and body of Christ", any more than an article on Finding Nemo needs to point out that "fish can't talk". The attempt to present the scientific framework paradoxically creates the absurd notion that there was any doubt to begin with, which is fallacious. We will never see a scientific paper that analyses whether or not Transubstantiation is genuinely possible, except on April 1.

I hope this clears up the confusion. Manning (talk) 03:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

A proper article on transubstantiation neeedn't shy away from dealing with SPOV of the subject. After all, issues of Aristotle's "substance" versus "accidents" are essentially what the question of transubstantiation revolves around with Catholics generally taking the noetic approach and Protestants taking the actualist approach. A good article on the subject, therefore, would engage in the issue of observable reality of the wine and host (accidents) being separate from a noetic sense of body and blood (substance) and include discussion of the implications of each perspective. This removes, effectively, the philosophical question of whether transubstantiation can be scientifically measured because it demands that no observation can ever show the reality of the situation according to religious dogma: the question is purely one of metaphysics. Editors who think that SPOV is somehow contrary to NPOV and use the religious exceptionalism argument haven't really thought through what exactly SPOV is. The argument that religious articles would somehow be "weakened" by appealing more strongly to scientific issues surrounding religious statements not only insults science, it insults religion as well. This kind of content demagoguery makes me convinced that my oppose vote was correct. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I acknowledge your opinion, but continue to disagree. A failure to reach the same conclusion as yourself does not mean a failure to "really think it through". I stand on my central point, zealotry - regardless of its basis - is harmful to the pedia.Manning (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It could be argued that Wikignomes who fight vandalism all day are zealots. They certainly devote enough time to their activities to be considered as such, by most standards. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)