Guardian (UK) mentions Citizendium ...

[Russell Potter]

Just read the following from the Guardian (UK):

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2101810,00.html

It's good to see Citizendium mentioned -- but then (ugh!) not so good to hear it soon dismissed, with a comment on some language in our Neutrality policy, particularly:

"We could state a series of theories about topic T, and then claim that the truth about T is such-and-such. But again, consider that the Citizendium is an international, collaborative project. Probably, as we grow, nearly every view on every subject will be found among our authors and readership. To avoid edit wars, we should agree to present each of these views fairly, and not assert any one of them as correct. And that is what makes an article 'unbiased' or 'neutral'."

to which the writer says:

"But the choice in such matters is not between treating only one view as true and treating all views as potentially true. No one in real life does so about any subject that they understand. There are a very large number of theories or fact claims which are simply false; two or three which may reasonably be held by a well-informed student in good faith. It is the job of an encyclopedia to direct us to the very few stories that might be true, whatever the opinions of the mass of readers."

I have to say, this is a criticism we ought to take seriously.  I think we certainly need a Neutrality policy when it comes to those issues which are genuinely controversial.  But in certain areas, I do think we will need to make a clear editorial decision that some things simply are true -- or not -- because if we don't, it will undermine our claim to be more reliable.  Identifying which issues, in which fields, need this sort of treatment is something we will certainly need to do, as difficult as it is, I feel.  I would wish to change that language a bit, because "every view on every subject" will not necessarily be credible -- perhaps "a wide variety of views on many subjects"?

[Greg Woodhouse]

I have to say, this is a criticism we ought to take seriously.  I think we certainly need a Neutrality policy when it comes to those issues which are genuinely controversial.  But in certain areas, I do think we will need to make a clear editorial decision that some things simply are true -- or not -- because if we don't, it will undermine our claim to be more reliable.  Identifying which issues, in which fields, need this sort of treatment is something we will certainly need to do, as difficult as it is, I feel.  I would wish to change that language a bit, because "every view on every subject" will not necessarily be credible -- perhaps "a wide variety of views on many subjects"?

I do, too. One fundamental problem is that genuine controversies are lumped together with the type of fringe views that have come to dominate much of the discussion on Citizendium (consider, for example, the history of the Global warming article, or the article on Intelligent design.) I don't know if there's a geocentrism article, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were, and I'd be be even less surprised if it took up more time and energy than a hypothetical heliocentrism article.

There are legitimate controversies in science, but we make no effort to distinguish between real controversies (say, over the usefulness of connectionist models in linguistics, or over Hawking radiation) and non-controversies that have no theoretical content, but are instead manifestations of ideological and social currents. In my view, the failure to make this distinction approaches being a make or break issue, as it is a good test of whether Citizendium will actually be able to achieve its goal of reliablitly (and let's face it: credibility), or whether it will merely be a wiki that plays by different rules. Sorry to be so harsh, but as i see it, this really is a big issue.

We must also remember that only a tiny fraction of Citizendium articles are actually approved. Until such a time as we build up a decent core of approved articles, Citizendium will (rightly, in my opinion) be judged by all the articles it has to offer, regardless of approval status.

[David Tribe]

to which the writer says:

"But the choice in such matters is not between treating only one view as true and treating all views as potentially true. No one in real life does so about any subject that they understand. There are a very large number of theories or fact claims which are simply false; two or three which may reasonably be held by a well-informed student in good faith. It is the job of an encyclopedia to direct us to the very few stories that might be true, whatever the opinions of the mass of readers."

I have to say, this is a criticism we ought to take seriously.  I think we certainly need a Neutrality policy when it comes to those issues which are genuinely controversial.  But in certain areas, I do think we will need to make a clear editorial decision that some things simply are true -- or not -- because if we don't, it will undermine our claim to be more reliable.  Identifying which issues, in which fields, need this sort of treatment is something we will certainly need to do, as difficult as it is, I feel.  I would wish to change that language a bit, because "every view on every subject" will not necessarily be credible -- perhaps "a wide variety of views on many subjects"?

Well , yes having to myself address the Intelligent design issue this pretty much fits with the misgivings I was expressing about the a false depiction of a topic as a fake controversy being misleading and in fact, biased and unneutral.

[Larry Sanger]

The Guardian piece belies any sophisticated understanding of the neutrality policy.

Have any of you actually carefully read the policy?

There are hints going on all over the place here, and no one ever comes out and says what he means: that he really is opposed to neutrality, when it comes to certain issues, like global warming.  In other words, we really should simply state that certain views are incorrect, period.  This is the only way to achieve "credibility," especially on issues that are merely "manifestations of ideological and social currents" as Greg nicely puts it.  But it is precisely because they are such manifestations that our readers deserve a neutral presentation of them.  It would be false, misleading, and ultimately a great disservice both to our readers and ourselves to pretend that controversies don't exist, when they most certainly do exist--even if they are, as you say, merely religious or political.

Let me be quite clear.  No, we will not ever simply state that certain views in some currency (however ridiculously false) are simply false.  This is what our Statement of Fundamental Policies says, and it is going to be written clearly into the Citizendium Charter.  We will always make room only for views outside the mainstream, and allow people to make up their minds for themselves.  Note, this does not mean we will simply state what all of us probably regard as pseudoscience uncritically.  We will simply give it a fair hearing, and we will not state or imply that it is false; we will carefully word our articles so that the reader is apprised of the relevant facts, including the facts about what different people say (and how they reply to each other), and then the reader can decide for him/herself.

If for instance you feel that the "intelligent design" article should simply say, or take the clear stance, that intelligent design entirely lacks credibility, period, that is tantamout to rejecting the neutrality policy.  As a Citizen, however, you are committed to this policy.  Please, please do not harbor plans to change the policy, because this will only end in grief for everyone.  Neutrality is part of the social contract that defines CZ, which I have been quite clear about since Day 1.

Besides--I honestly don't understand the desire to silence dissent about academic and scientific issues.  Doing so will only have the opposite effect of polarizing the opposition even further.  And if the mainstream views on various "controversial" issues are so obviously right, then it should be quite easy to explain why the wrongheaded views are false, right?  CZ actually requires you to make such explanations, after all.  Is it that you don't recognize the right of people to make up their own minds?  You fear that they will believe false things, when you could have caused them to believe true things?  I don't get it.  If you're liberally-minded people, who recognize the autonomy of your readers, what is the resistance to the policy?  I wish I understood this, because I honestly don't.

Again, bear in mind that our neutrality policy permits--indeed, requires--that the mainstream views on "controversial" issues be stated clearly and forcefully, albeit attributed to their main proponents (such as mainstream scientists), and that, if space is limited, they (roughly speaking) have the space in proportion to the representation of their view among the affected population.

[Russell Potter]

Neutrality is a fundamental policy, absolutely.  But the trouble is this: if Citizendium, in any case where it can be shown that there are some people somewhere who disagree or doubt a certain thing, will then have to not only report such disagreements (of course we should) but also use language which regards everyone else as merely "asserting" this thing, then we get into trouble.  It makes it look then as though everything is merely an assertion, a claim, a viewpoint, and gives the lunatic fringe of any field of study the right to make all who disagree with it sound as though they, too, are merely "claiming" something. 

The Guardian reviewer's point is, who would want to consult an encyclopedia which hedges every one of its bets?
That's a question a lot of people may have, and I think we should give it some thought.

If our claim to being better and more reliable is that our entries are edited and vetted by experts, and the experts in a field say "x = y," but some bunch of people who know nothing of the field say "x is not y", and if then we must tell our experts that they must revise their entry to say "experts in the field generally agree that x = y" then that falsely implies that "x is not y" is somehow credible.  Experts are those who make judgements, after all.  If our neutrality policy requires that they not make such judgements, then why have them at all? 

Of course we want our readers to be able to make informed judgments in cases where there is really some controversy - but at the same time, we don't want to mislead our readers into believing that there is a question of judgment when there isn't one. 

So I have agrued all along that most things simply ought to be stated as facts, unless there is a significant body of expert opinion, of people within the field in question, that disagrees.  If there is such a body, then of course it should not matter whether its 1% of experts or 49%, their views and the nature of their objections should be given, as we have done, for instance with Critical views of Chiropractic.

[David Goodman]

This has of course been a matter of continual depend in the precursor project also, where they use the concept of "proportional weight"  As applied there, it unfortunately sometimes tends to result in either the exclusions of views held by a small but responsible minority, or the inclusion at considerable length of non-mainstreat positions that should really just be mentioned in passing. We should be able to be much more responsible about it here. For one thing, we will have a much smaller proportion of people come here primarily to support a particular view of a particular subject.

[Larry Sanger]

Neutrality is a fundamental policy, absolutely.

No, Russell, the more you write, the more you make it clear that you don't understand the policy, or wish it said something other than what it does say.  The fact of the matter is that you actually do disagree with the policy as it is stated.  You're going to just have to live with that fact, because the policy isn't going to change.  Everyone's views will equally be at risk, because contrary views will be permitted.  Can you live with the risk?  Can The Guardian?  Sorry, but I doubt it.  But that's how neutrality is: it's risky, because letting people make up their own minds is risky.

But the trouble is this: if Citizendium, in any case where it can be shown that there are some people somewhere who disagree or doubt a certain thing, will then have to not only report such disagreements (of course we should) but also use language which regards everyone else as merely "asserting" this thing, then we get into trouble.

That's not "trouble," that's the policy.  If you think it's trouble, you think the policy's trouble.  But it's not as simple as one might think: also bear in mind that, while we may not commit ourselves to views that (say) only right-wingers reject, we also are actually required to express the grounds on which our views are held, and on which the contrary views are rejected.  And we must also lead with the mainstream view, and label it as such.  The point is that the debate is actually represented, and furthermore, when there is limited space, we apportion space based on proportion among expert viewpoints, giving some small space to the public that has a view that no expert has.

The Guardian reviewer's point is, who would want to consult an encyclopedia which hedges every one of its bets?
That's a question a lot of people may have, and I think we should give it some thought.

Answer: I would.  Of course!  It isn't "hedging," it's representing the fact that people actually do disagree.  I am sick and tired of reference works, journalists, and professionals generally, simply instructing me what to think, when I know that there are other professionals who disagree with them and who are not given a fair hearing.  There is a sort of paternalism about the acceptance of bias in expository writing that I find disturbing.  It's not unlike propaganda, ultimately.  I'm probably going to be starting a book soon; I'll have an entire chapter about this.  Probably before I write that chapter, I'll probably finally sit down and finish a serious philosophical defense of neutrality.

If our claim to being better and more reliable is that our entries are edited and vetted by experts, and the experts in a field say "x = y," but some bunch of people who know nothing of the field say "x is not y", and if then we must tell our experts that they must revise their entry to say "experts in the field generally agree that x = y" then that falsely implies that "x is not y" is somehow credible.  Experts are those who make judgements, after all.  If our neutrality policy requires that they not make such judgements, then why have them at all? 

The trouble is that in almost every case you can think of, the existence of a Mainstream does not entail the existence of unanimity among all experts.  If the mainstream expert view is that x=y, but there are some experts who happen to agree with the non-experts who say x is not y, then we cite those other experts as well.  We are not a project of The Mainstream.  We are a project of The Whole Dialectical Landscape.

Furthermore, we will not represent just expert opinion.  It will be privileged, yes, but views and phenomena not shared by experts will not be ignored, either.  Just be assured that I will always support our leading with the mainstream expert opinion, and that we label it clearly and unequivocally as such.

So I have agrued all along that most things simply ought to be stated as facts, unless there is a significant body of expert opinion, of people within the field in question, that disagrees.  If there is such a body, then of course it should not matter whether its 1% of experts or 49%, their views and the nature of their objections should be given, as we have done, for instance with Critical views of Chiropractic.

This view is contrary to our Neutrality Policy, to which you are committed, Russell.  If you can't accept it as a working principle, at least, you're not welcome here.  That's the bottom line.

I wrote the policy precisely to reject the sort of view you are promoting.  The view you are promoting is contrary to neutrality, and is in favor of simply biasing the resource in favor of whatever the mainstream says.

[Greg Woodhouse]

So I have agrued all along that most things simply ought to be stated as facts, unless there is a significant body of expert opinion, of people within the field in question, that disagrees.  If there is such a body, then of course it should not matter whether its 1% of experts or 49%, their views and the nature of their objections should be given, as we have done, for instance with Critical views of Chiropractic.

This view is contrary to our Neutrality Policy, to which you are committed, Russell.  If you can't accept it as a working principle, at least, you're not welcome here.  That's the bottom line.

I wrote the policy precisely to reject the sort of view you are promoting.  The view you are promoting is contrary to neutrality, and is in favor of simply biasing the resource in favor of whatever the mainstream says.

I think I agree with Russel Potter here. Your position seems to take it as given that professionals cannot engage in reasoned discussion of issues where they do not all agree and, perhaps more to the point, that there is no possibility of divorcing one's position on an issue from a critical evaluation of the available evidence. I can rationally say that there is evidence supporting both hypothesis A and hypothesis B, that in my estimation, the arguments currently available in support of hypothesis A are stronger, but that, in the end, I believe hypothesis B (or perhaps a hypothesis C that no has even thought of) will prove to be the better explanation of some phenomenon.

What does this have to do with neutrality? Well, yes I have read the neutrality policy (a number of times), and I guess I do not share all the inferences you seem to draw from the stated policy. The essence of the policy, I think is that the presentation remain fair and intellectually honest. If I intentionally omit arguments that can be marshalled in defense of a position that commonly accepted, but perhaps not the most common view (think, for example about Sir Fred Hoyle's position regarding the big bang, or Roger Penrose' ideas regarding the nature of human intelligence), then I am not really being honest. But neither is it intellectually honest to present every idea that someone could conceivably hold without any critical assessment or acknowledgment of its minority status. Indeed, regardless of the reasons for doing so, writing in this manner amounts to misleading the reader, and that is wrong, as wrong as it would be for me to present evidence for my own point of view without acknowledging others.

[Russell Potter]

Back to Larry:

Look, let's just start with the most fundamental epistemological level: there are, as Aristotle himself noted, a large number of things that any reasonable person familiar with the facts accepts as true.  Such things can't be argued, he says in his Rhetoric, because they don't need to be argued.  There are certainly some things we can place in this category: Kennedy was assassinated, Mount Everest is the world's highest peak, Germany lost WWII.  That some people may think JFK is alive and living in Brazil under an assumed name is not a legitimate controversy.  In such cases, an encyclopedia must state the facts clearly and accurately, or be of no use whatsoever.

Secondly, there are matters about which knowledgeable people in a given field may disagree.  The exact mechanisms of human evolution, whether or not gravity will ever be comprehended in a unified field theory, or whether Dickens was a greater writer than Thackeray, are all legitimate areas of debate and discussion.  In such cases, we should give a fair, accurate, and proportionate account of these differing views.

Thirdly, there are things about which a loud and sometimes strident group of people have loud and forceful criticisms, quite often on account of their political, religious, or other beliefs and convictions.  If the matter of disagreement is itself a political or religious controversy per se (should euthenasia be legal?  Is the Eucharist the actual body of Christ, or merely a symbol?) then it falls within the field, as it were, and we must be very careful that all views are accurately and fully described.  If, on the other hand, it's one of those "mixed bag" issues, such as the objection of Biblical literalists to scientific accounts of the earth's origins that say it took more than six days to create, we may be better off with separate articles, one on "Geological Age of the Earth" and another on "Young Earth Creationism," with some cross-referencing as needed.

I am simply saying that these three types of cases are epistemologically and rhetorically distinct.  Our Neutrality policy as currently written, however, seems to throw all three into the same pot.

[Larry Sanger]

The neutrality policy states that items in the first category--on which virtually everyone agrees--can be stated as facts.

It does lump the second and third thinigs, and I defy you to make the distinction without reference to popularity or what happens to be mainstream.  CZ is committed to neutrality on all these matters.

This means, among other things, that we do not reject Intelligent Design, and we do not endorse anthropogenic global warming.  We can certainly explain the mainstream view sympathetically, saying indeed that it is the mainstream view, but we will neither say or even subtly imply that this view is correct.  This is not an Encyclopedia of the Mainstream.

[Russell Potter]

Larry, I don't at all want an "encyclopedia of the mainstream" that would be dreadful (as well as useless).

Scientific and scholarly consensus, however, work very differently from politics or popularity contests, and should not be confused with a situation where there is a "mainstream" along with some deviant or dissident groups who don't agree.

In science, and in most academic disciplines, there is a large weight of research and argument, built up over years, which never really ends, but nevertheless has a 'point of consensus' from which further work proceeds.  If we had an entry on Continental Drift in 1915, when Taylor and Wegener were mavericks and widely ridiculed, we'd be right to say that there was very little, and at best conjectural, evidence for this theory, and that the scientific consensus was that it was erroneous.  Today, it's universally accepted, but not because of political or social changes, rather because a very large and substantial body of published work in refereed journals, giving data that could be tested and corroborated by other scientists, has over the years convinced geologists that it is correct.  To have an article today which described continental drift as a mere "claim" or a "viewpoint" would be nonsense.  It remains, however, a theory, albeit a very-well documented, tested, and researched one that is in every geology textbook -- but in science, of course, there is always a search for improvement, and the possibility that another, better theory could some day emerge that would better explain the data.

That human output of carbon has added to the warming of the planet is, similarly, very widely accepted in the fields of climatology and atmospheric science.  To describe it as "controversial" would be similarly inaccurate.  However, it is a scientific theory and like any other such theory, is always subject to refinement, always being tested, always capable of being superseded.

So I guess I'd say that, if by "controversial" we mean "capable of possibly being refuted," then every single scientific theory is controversial, and CZ ought to take no stand on any of them.  Such a position would earn derision from scientists, but I suppose it would have the advantage of being simple and pure.  But I think that, in the sciences, the fact that theories are theories is implicit, and that a nearly-universally accepted theory should be described as such, with the awareness that, like any other theory, it is only the best currently available explanation of the data.

Now if we are talking about something in the range of politics itself, or religion, or other fields of human conflict where all kinds of differing views exist and there will never be any complete explanation or absolute answer to any of them, I would say that the very broad definition of Neutrality that CZ currently uses is 100% appropriate.

But in the sciences, the notion that, simply because someone somewhere disagrees that we cannot state, without reservation, the current consensus of knowledge, is absurd. 

I would suggest this: why not invite someone with absolutely impeccable credentials -- a Nobel laureate, University Professor, or top person in any field of the physical sciences -- to craft a version of our Neutrality policy just for science articles.  They can see the policy we have, and see how difficult it has proven to use in the area of the sciences.  I think they would propose something significantly different from what we have in place.

[Chris Day]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Citizendium

Interesting interpretation of this thread at wikipedia (see link above). I'm not sure what to make of this one comment from MastCell:

Yes, Citizendium actually much more friendly to a certain sort of editor than Wikipedia is. I recall the case of a particular user whose strongly held views on the benefits of vitamin C made it quite difficult for him to work collaboratively here. He subsequently rewrote a large portion of the Citizendium article on Vitamin C. I'll withhold judgment on the quality and accuracy of the Citizendium article vs. ours - well, no I won't. Comparing the two confirmed my belief that Wikipedia's model is by far more effective. But Citizendium did allow a reasonably satisfactory parting of ways.

i do recall Pierre-Alain Gouanvic adding a lot of his own ideas about the megadoses advocated by Pauling but the article is hardly that far off mainstream views.  I agree it is not a great article, far too bitty, but Pierre was not given freedom to write about his views as suggested above. A big difference was that there was collaborative discussion in the talk page.

In this cases Wikipedia's model cannot be compared to the citizendium model since the article is not approved, but from what i saw it is moving in a similar direction without the fights.

i find it a little worrying that the wikipedian's see citizendium as a home for strange ideas since it shows a misunderstanding of the goals for citizendium. The wikipedia model opens itself to repeating their content fights eternally.  We have editorial oversight that, in theory, nips the arguments in the bud and does not allow them to be revisted without substantial changes in the knowledge. A consequence of the wikipedia model appears to be that wikipedian's get worn down by the "give an inch they take a mile" reality and thus they are becoming a zero tolerance community with regard to fringe ideas.

A consequence is that they misunderstand the quote from this thread of  "We are not a project of The Mainstream". They see this as meaning that citizendium endorses fringe views as opposed to meaning that we incorporate them within a mainstream perspective. Wikipedia is slowly becoming a movement against fringe, a place where people patrol for so-called zealots not even realising that they are becoming the same.

[Paul Wormer]

Thank you, Chris, for the link to an interesting WP discussion about CZ.  I agree with some of what it's said there: we are vulnerable to fringe ideas, to people with an agenda. We (except Hayford  ) are too non-assertive and too polite to those one-issue contributors.

An interesting remark in this discussion was: Even some of their [i.e., CZs] well developed, "approved" articles have an odd slant because they're essentially the work of a single person.   The Wikipedians  are so used to the incoherence and repetitiveness of the WP model,  that a coherent article with a consistent viewpoint  and without undue repetitions is perceived as having an "odd slant".

[Hayford Peirce]

All testimonials gladly accepted!

[Hayford Peirce]

A consequence of the wikipedia model appears to be that wikipedian's get worn down by the "give an inch they take a mile" reality and thus they are becoming a zero tolerance community with regard to fringe ideas.

A consequence is that they misunderstand the quote from this thread of  "We are not a project of The Mainstream". They see this as meaning that citizendium endorses fringe views as opposed to meaning that we incorporate them within a mainstream perspective. Wikipedia is slowly becoming a movement against fringe, a place where people patrol for so-called zealots not even realising that they are becoming the same.

I dunno if the above is true, or not, but if it is true, then I think it's a very welcome change from what WP was four or five years ago.  When I first joined WP around 2003, many, many articles were just underway and I worked on a lot of them. The article about Uri Geller, the Israeli spoon-bender, for instance, was just getting started and at least *half* the article was being written and reverted by credulous believers in this charlatan. I worked and worked and toned things down and effected compromises and by the time I left in May of '07 it was at least presentable, although, to me, it still had too much of the credulous about it.

Based on this Forum discussion here, I just took another look at it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Gellar and it's 100 percent better! The writing isn't great, and it's still chopped up a little too much, but it's very much, I think, an article that could be here in CZ.  I was astonished! All of the credulity and open-mouthed panting is gone.  It would be impossible for anyone, I think, to read this article and not come away with the clear impression that Uri Geller, far from being a master of psychic powers, was, and is, nothing more than a low-skill magician with a great knack for publicity.

Of course, if you're a devout believer in spoon-bending, you'll hate the article.

So, as a man who is always willing to give WP a swift kick for any number of failings, I wonder if some of us aren't  being over-harsh when we condemn them for (apparently) no longer allowing any credibility to be attached to the really fringe subjects?  I wonder, for instance, what they now say about crop circles?