Wikipedia:New proposal for alternative analysis
This is a failed proposal. Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use the talk page or initiate a thread at the village pump. |
Wiki is currently experiencing a dilemma. How do we expand how our reality is defined by the “experts”? If we do not perform this task then we are not “open”.
The Point of View icon could, in reality, be attached to every citation referenced in a subjective article, and even to many objective (scientific) articles. Simply because something is peer reviewed among experts in the field does not mean it is objective. Politics and pressures are active in all professions.
Point of view is inescapable then and the current movement in WP is to reliably reflect the current state of thinking on a subject by those leaders in a field. This does not mean WP is or can be a purely fact based encyclopedia.
Leaders in a field often disagree, agree, or are mute on alternatives for a variety of reasons. Every article which contains subjective elements is then opinion - it might be studied opinion but it is opinion nonetheless.
The POV label should be used for those who are not properly reflecting the intellectual consensus on a subject but cut and paste views of others in order to justify their own view. In this way an article is not neutral since it does not accurately reflect professional consensus.
The POV label is also used against those who are in opposition to the dominate view - and if WP is to be more than just a forum for those who struggle to maintain the status-quo it is useless relative to the vast expansion of communication and ideology offered by the Internet.
But how do you inform others when the leaders in a specific field can be reliably alleged to dominate and suppress views for their own self-interest without that being opinion?
The current policies of WP combine to support status-quo since any alternative to the status quo must be, by definition of current policy, opinion.
Evaluate the following:
1. The preferred format for articles is short and concise. This is a good thing since most people desire the salient point of a subject as rapidly as possible. But this does not serve those who wish to study a subject in more depth. Every page that cannot provide a full understanding of a subject should have a “More” link section in which the author expands on the subject where length and depth are desirable.
2. Original thought is barred. This directly protects and supports the status quo since if the leaders in a field find new ideas threatening they will not allow it to be published or peer reviewed. Alternative analysis and new ideas should be allowed on every page if nothing more than a link to the subject titled with the prefixed “Alternative analysis of [Original Tittle]”.
The rules of alternative analysis should be as follows:
1. To point out the motivations and self-serving interests of a profession which may effect their formation of knowledge, not by conspiracy, but as a result of the professional culture. 2. To analyze by logic and reasoning defective logic and reasoning on a particular subject - especially when such defects are obvious. 3. To make the reader aware of new ideas, research, or the coalescing of ideas which may be occurring on the horizon which have the potential to change the status quo by those who cannot gain acceptance by knowledge leaders.
Either provide a section within each article for an alternative analysis, or links to alternative definitions, and apply rules of analysis to them. This is where, and how, WP can truly inform and educate on articles which are subject to controversy.
Provide the dominate view first, then link to pages which are truly analytical so that people can be made aware of alternative views.
There is a major difference between analysis and opinion. Analysis attacks or supports the logic of an idea or system. From WP to logical analysis is made up of three major properties:
1. Consistency, which means that none of the theorems of the system contradict each other.
2. Soundness, which means that the system's rules of derivation will never let you infer anything false, so long as you start with only true premises. So if a system is sound (and its axioms, if any, are true), then the theorems of a sound formal system are the truths. All of the theorems of a system that has no axioms are its truths and sometimes the truths of such a system are called 'logical truths.' (Note that if a system is not consistent, it cannot be sound. This is because a contradiction is always false, so if two theorems contradict at least one is false.)
3. Completeness, which means that there are no true sentences in the system that cannot, at least in principle, be proved using the derivation rules (and axioms, if any) of the system.
The Alternative Analysis of the Fourth Amendment, and Alternative Analysis of Judicial Activism is an effort to show how such analysis should be performed.