Blunders of the third kind

Blunders: Your last edit on UCC was *crazy* long! I'm not sure what the point is?

Well, the guns certainly seem to have gone quiet, in any event...

Ground Zero's response

Blunders, I apologise for the delay in responding to your voluminous comments at Talk:Upper Canada College. I have removed semi-protection from the article as an experiment to see if we can all work together to improve the article. I hope that it works.

I have taken the liberty of responding on your talk page instead of on the article talk page because I am hoping that we can make a fresh start there. Nonetheless, you have put a lot of thought and consideration in to your comemnts, so I felt obliged to respond.

"There has been so much emphasis placed on the fact that User 66 asked for verification or proof that UCC is located in Toronto. If you actually read the full exchange that has occurred on this page, you will see that User 66 asked for a lot more than that. I do not mean to speak for User 66, but clearly when he or she asked for proof that UCC was located in Toronto, he or she was frustrated by a perceived inconsistency in the application of Wikipedia rules to different users (such as verifiability, NPOV, etc.). To focus on one request for verification (i.e., whether UCC is located in Toronto) is, in my opinion, simply a straw man."

• I identified that as an example of how 66/68 is being disruptive, rather than constructive. The fact is that a lot of what s/he has questioned is verifiable at www.ucc.on.ca. What s/he is doing then, is trying to force other editors to provide webpage references beyond the website references already provided. (S/he also continued to demand verification of the "oldest school in Ontario" point long after I provided a source for that.) This won’t improve the article. It is already better referenced than the large majority of Wikipedia articles. Why is s/he trying to force other editors to do all of this low-value work? Because s/he is angry that his/her strongly POV edits were questioned. This is not about improving Wikipedia, buit about getting revenge. This dispute has taken up way too much of everybody’s time, and has detracted from our collective anjoyment of working on this project.

"Even ignoring this one issue, there are serious and genuine claims in the UCC article that are currently are not verified. And everyone has lost sight of that fact. Everyone is so busy trying to decide if free access should be granted to the UCC sight that no one has questioned whether it is, after all, an accurate article. I note that earlier today when I pointed out numerous deficiencies in the “Ethnicity” section, corrections had to be made. And to Gbambino and Ground Zero’s credit, they were made."

• And indeed, it is worthwhile identifying where the article is weak, and trying to make the appropriate changes. This is a worthwhile exercise. Demanding a blanket verification of every bit of information in the article is not a useful contribution. Let’s focus on the questionable parts, not force editors to defend all of the obvious facts.

"The school was founded in the hopes it would serve as a feeder school to the newly established King's College. / The eclectic mix of different styles was typical of the overall concept of Victorian architecture. / More than 400 graduates perished during both the First World War and the Second World War. / By the early 20th century, the city was growing quickly around the Deer Park campus."

• None of these points is contentious. Has anyone argued that it was not a feeder school for King’s College, or that it was typical of Georgian architecture, or that 400 didn’t die, or even that the city wasn’t growing around the campus? Well, no. None of these statements is POV or is being used to build an argument oof the type that was being built in the ethnicity section. The ethnicity section was written to build the argument that UCC is multicultural, non-racist, etc. User 66/68 tried to reverse the POV to cast the school as being a racist, WASP bastion. So the existing statements and 66/68’s additions had to be re-written in an NPOV fashion.

"By the 1960s, due to broader shifts in social paradigms, belief in the Cadets was faltering; religion and patriotism were not held in such high regard by youth, and rebellion was the more accepted behaviour for teenagers"

• This is potentially more POV, and a reference should be provided.

"Where is that stated in Wikipedia policy that commonly accepted or trivial facts do not need to be proved? What is so glaringly obvious about this endless back-and-forth is that if that were a such caveat to Wikipedia policy, surely it would have been cited by now. The fact that it has not can only lead one to the inevitable conclusion that such a policy does not exist."

• Well, I have not been able to find it either. I think that the policy was drafted in an idealistic way. Ideally, everything would be referenced and verified. In practice, verifiablity is applied to contentious or questionable points. Applying verifiability rigidly and globally to require sourcing and referencing of every statement would require removeal of probably 95% of the content on Wikipedia. It simply isn’t being done now, nor could it be done without destroying Wikipedia. No admin or advocate who has participated in the discussion has thought ath the absolutist approach is workable.

"The Crown is not allowed to say, 'Come on, your Honour – it is commonly accepted that this accused is guilty. Surely, you are not going to require me to actually PROVE it?' Why is proof still required, even in such cases? I would suggest it is because the ONLY way to preserve order in any system of knowledge (whether it be the common law or the gathering of encyclopedic information) is to adhere to unmistakably defined rules that do not admit to exceptions of convenience."

• Proof is required in court when the charge is contentous. When the prosecution says the accused is guilty, and the accused syas, "Yes, I did it", the court drops its investigation and moves on to sentencing. The judge does not say to the accused, "But can you really be sure that you’re guilty?", unless the accused appears to be crazy or otherwise not competent to plead.

"It is no answer to say, 'Well, the fact that UCC is located in Toronto is different than whether or not Milosevic was a war criminal because the former is well known to anyone familiar with the subject and free from controversy while the latter is by nature contentious'."

• Yes, it is an answer because taking an absolutist approach would grind this project to a halt. It would be a case of the best being the enemy of the good. The perfectly-sourced and referenced completely NPOV encyclopedia is completely beyond Wikipedia’s reach. It is also completely beyond Britannica’s reach, too, for that matter. But we don’t give up. We are trying to make an encyclopedia that, despite its flaws, is information and interesting.

"Do you really want pro-lifers to cite your precedent that: (1) If they are in the majority their view of the ‘facts’ govern unless and until the minority can prove them wrong;"

• It is a well-established principle on Wikipedia that "Wikipedia is not a democracy", so not, a majority does not get to impose their POV.
• Most of the points that are being disputed are not being disputed because 66/68 or anyone else disagrees with them. They are being disputed for the purpose of disrupting Wikipedia. This is not a question of the majority trying to impose their view.

"While I accept, as you have pointed out Mindmatrix, that commonly accepted facts do not need to be verified for peer-reviewed publications, surely you realize that Wikipedia is the antithesis of peer-reviewed publications. I think it would be safe to go so far as to say that Wikipedia is a genuine anathema to peer-reviewed publications, since it can be edited by anonymous parties. And the less control you have over WHO is editing, the more strict the adherence to the rules about WHAT is edited and HOW it is edited (i.e., verifiability, no POV, etc.)"

• That Wikipedia can be edited by anyone is both its great strength and its great weakness. It is already, by far, a far wider survey of human knowledge than any other collection of information. It has become this through the contributions of tens of thousands of registered and anonymous contributors. On the other hand, there is a lot of information that has been added without references, to promote particular agendas, or to cause mischief. The place for this sort of discussion really isn’t one article’s talk page, but on the talk pages of Wikipedia’s policies.

"Again, I feel I must say that I make these points in good faith. I hope the fact that I express disagreement with the "majority" is not construed as "trolling" or "vandalism" or even mada fides. I would like to engage in a genuine discussion. If anyone else shares this interest, feedback would be appreciated."

• I, for one, do not consider your comments to be trolling or vandalism. The actions of 66/68, on the other hand, are a different matter. You have attempted to engage other editors in a calm, reasonable discussion, and have avoided making personal attacks or assuming bad faith, and have not been removing large part sof the article’s text in order to make a point. This is the way Wikipedia should work. Regards, Ground Zero | t 17:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)