Neutrality, Compromise, Productivity

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Stephen: if you have developed some techniques for checking plagiarism, then please let all the editors have them! I suppose they need to be confidential, though.

[Aleta Curry]

...
We are talking about two whole different concepts. I, like Martin, have also acted as peer reviewer for a number of academic journals and using that model for vetting articles for acceptance such that they remain frozen as "approved. This is not the same as a "featured" article on WP. I notice you have a quote under your post that I read as pointing out that without stable versioning any prose can vanish at any time. The idea of having a series of frozen versions that finally morph into something great is how I see, excuse me, saw, CZ working....

Well, this is it, isn't it?  I care much less about what is the "right" or "wrong" approach to approvals, and much more about everyone being on the same page with respect to what the approval process is.   As I asked before, what are we trying to get to when we say "approved"?  Is an approved article, as you say, a stable one (assuming we all have the same interpretation of "stable"--does not equal a barn in Bethlehem), is it a "perfect" article, whatever that means, or is it, as Derek suggests, THE definitive article? That's all I meant when I said this was a hook we'd have to wiggle on for a while, that we don't all have the same understanding.

[Chris Day]

For me approval is not about a final version, but it shouldn't be sloppy either.  There is no excuse for spelling errors. For me there are two critical aspects for any approved article.  It needs to be balanced and accurate. Without these two we lose credibility.

[Larry Sanger]

I agree with Nancy's original post. The comments about neutrality are right on the button.

I noticed this thread just now.

I'm afraid (surprise surprise) that I must disagree, and I think Nancy's remarks actually belie any sophisticated understanding of the policy.  "I ,myself, do not believe ANY article or statement can be 'unbiased'. In scholarship, as I understand it, it is understood that there are no straight unbiased facts."  Anyone who actually thinks that should not be in this project: you must agree with our neutrality policy.  If you think neutrality, not on your conception but on the Citizendium conception, is impossible, then you may not participate.  If that means we can't have Nancy's support, so be it.

But I'm not sure Nancy actually has rejected our neutrality policy, because, as I say, I don't think she understands what she claims to deny.  I don't mean to be disrespectful, but speaking as a philosophy teacher and proselytizer of neutrality since Nupedia days, I know that it is difficult both to explain and to grasp--even when, as in Nancy's case, you usually by habit do what the policy requires.  Actually, just as all scholars apparently "know" that there's no such thing as neutrality or objectivity, all good scholars also know how to treat a subject neutrally, as Nancy does.

The telltale statement is, "I ,myself, do not believe ANY article or statement can be 'unbiased'."  But our policy is not "make only neutral statements" and does not refer to "unbiased facts" (whatever those might be): we don't define neutral statements at all.  Neutrality in the context of CZ refers to neutrality of the exposition of a topic.  Ultimately, what it means is...well, I'll just let you go and read the policy.  You'll find there a reply to the objection that "everybody knows there's no such thing as objectivity, everyone has his own agenda and conceptual scheme, incompatible with everyone else, blah blah blah."  Um, perhaps you forget that the author of the policy has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, with a specialization in Epistemology.  I'm not likely to make a beginner mistake here.  Neutrality can be (and is, by us) defined operationally.

I am glad Nancy still cares what's going on here, in any case!  I was surprised to see her message!

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Although that was exactly Nancy's original point -- that no article can be unbiased -- it is not a complete statement of her position.  I interpreted her comments as meaning that neutrality requires that we do our best to be "inclusive" of the different approaches of which we are aware, but our knowledge will always be incomplete. The implication of that, is that any article is subject to future modification on neutrality grounds, as we acquire a better understanding of the complexity of knowledge on that topic. Thus, Approval is a staging post, not a final destination.

[Larry Sanger]

Although that was exactly Nancy's original point -- that no article can be unbiased -- it is not a complete statement of her position.  I interpreted her comments as meaning that neutrality requires that we do our best to be "inclusive" of the different approaches of which we are aware, but our knowledge will always be incomplete. The implication of that, is that any article is subject to future modification on neutrality grounds, as we acquire a better understanding of the complexity of knowledge on that topic. Thus, Approval is a staging post, not a final destination.

I don't really claim to know what Nancy meant or believes, but I can say that I agree with the above.  In order to make articles as neutral as possible, they must be written collaboratively, precisely because not any one person has all the knowledge necessary to make them as neutral as possible.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

Well, it was perhaps a little presumptuous of me to say what someone else means I think the whole point she wanted to make was about the Approval status; if we can all agree on my interpretation of Nancy's thoughts, then this is probably good progress! We do actually need some agreement on what we think Approval is about.

[Nancy Sculerati]

Of course I care about the project, and I have read the neutrality manifesto a dozen times, but that has nothing to do with what I am talking about. The internet chat community may see bias as personal advocacy, the academic scholar sees that as only one small part of bias. Good luck with your endeavor.