Wikiversity talk:Disclosures

Votes

• Pro TimNelson 06:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC), with the qualification that the reference to scholarly ethics not be operative until that policy has general support.
• Neutral Rayc | (Talk) 17:14, 10 September 2006 (UTC) Until policy is completely writen
• Contra Mirwin 23:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Contra capi ^talk 14:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC), polemic learning resources should introduce its subject, then make different sections (not forks, nor templates) to take non-neutral approaches.
• Pro Opensourcejunkie 12:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC) users need to understand what bias they're learning from. I also agree with TimNelson's comment above
• Contra --Una Smith 03:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Things that need doing here

Things that need doing after this policy is approved

The following need to be done after the policy is approved. My thought was that they'd be done as separate pages.

• List of possible POVs; each one should be summarised on a page on Wikiversity as to what it (eg. Marxist) means for Wikiversity purposes, with links to Wikipedia for further details. Marxist may not be a good category; it might be better off as the two categories "Low social intereference by government" and "High economic interference by government"; I'd suggest that intially we let people label things however they want (or maybe just give a few broad general categories), and let the disagreements develop the policies. These should probably go in pages like: Wikiversity/POVBias/Christian or whatever

• Definition of EPs for Wikiversity purposes likewise

Scholarly ethics discussion

• "Only Wikiversity participants who have explicitly affirmed their personal commitment to the Wikiversity Scholarly ethics policy are allowed to edit Wikiversity pages outside of the restrictions imposed by NPOV policy." This statement should be deleted. Mirwin 23:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

"This statement should be deleted" <-- why? --JWSchmidt 00:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Because in some fields of human endeaver NPOV is clearly impossible and the Wikiversity Scholarly ethics policy is currently only a draft proposal. Mirwin 12:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If Wikiversity is going to move beyond the traditional Wikimedia project NPOV policy, we need to find a way to manage the problems that will arise. Scholarly ethics is a proposal for how Wikiversity can deal with problems that will arise from allowing editing outside of the confines of NPOV. It may only be a "draft proposal", but that does not mean that links to should be deleted. --JWSchmidt 14:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mirwin that I'd be happier to see that go. I've seen all kinds of things defined as propaganda by different people, and I think the only solution that will work well in this kind of situation is to fork the page so that there are two disagreeing pages with different bias confessions. I'm assuming that one of the points here is to develop a large contributing community. For example, say Fred is an Creationist and takes a Perennialist approach to education. He is presumably going to disagree with Bill who is an Evolutionist and takes a Progressive approach to education. If all Bill's edits are reverted, he will most likely become disaffected and stop contributing (or vice versa, for Fred). If each is given a separate page marked with different NPOVs, they can either ignore each other or debate each other, as they choose. Either way, each spends more time contributing, Bill because he doesn't feel he's wasting his efforts, and Fred because he isn't spending as much time reverting stuff that doesn't belong on an Evolutionist Progressivist page.

Anyway, that's how I see the choices; either accept that there are genuine differences of opinion, and allow for it, or refuse to accept it and drive away (or commence battle with) the large portion of the community that will disagree with you.

-- TimNelson ^(Talk) 10:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

i cannot say anything without expressing my values in my discourse. i may hide them, but it would be so hard i'd rather say nothing at all - and even if i did mask them, they'd be there anyway. instead, i believe different PoVs should collaborate, and wikimedia software makes room for it. say, if i ever find a pro-fascism resource, i will add information on how fascism made room for genocide. clearly, a pro-fascist would find ways to explain those genocides, but there are many ways we can go on that discussion, creating lots of interesting material rather than a useless flame-war. sections, discussion pages, source documenting, it'd all add up for better in-depth resources, and it is all currently possible within wikimedia software. advocating POV forks is the opposite of advocating diversity - it is segregation of thought, not dialogue.

capi ^talk 14:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• Wikiversity is not a place for all opinions to be expressed just because people believe in them. Wikiversity, as a Wikimedia Foundation project, is dedicated to making use of wiki technology to promote education and help make knowledge freely available. Wikiversity will have room for multiple and even contradictory ideas, but those ideas need to be explored in a scholarly way. You seem to be suggesting that scholarship need play no role at Wikiversity, yet you offer no alternative method for protecting the project from people who would gladly use this wiki as a platform for spreading propaganda. Insisting that participants learn and apply scholarly standards to their activities does not prevent differences of opinion. "either accept that there are genuine differences of opinion, and allow for it, or refuse to accept it and drive away" <-- this is a false dichotomy. Anyone who wants to express opinions in an undisciplined or dishonest way should be driven away. --JWSchmidt 14:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Note

Most of the comments below are from the old Confessions and NPOV pages, which were merged here.

Stuff merged from Confessions page

How does Confessions work with NPOV?

JWSchmidt asked how Confessions conflicts with NPOV. This should help clear things up:

• If NPOV applies everywhere, the POV biases section of Confessions will be pointless, because everyone will confess to NPOV.
• If Confessions applies everywhere, NPOV can apply in the places where people decide to agree on that. So Confessions#POV doesn't eliminate NPOV, just subordinate it. But NPOV effectively eliminates Confessions#POV

---

"NPOV effectively eliminates Confessions" <-- that is only true for a wiki that applies the traditional NPOV policy to all pages. However, the proposed Wikiversity NPOV policy is a policy about how to include in Wikiversity both:
1) pages that follow the traditional WikiMedia NPOV policy
and
2) pages that do not follow the traditional WikiMedia NPOV policy.
In particular, the Wikiversity pages that do not follow the traditional WikiMedia NPOV policy could use the "confessions" system to help show reders how those pages diverge from a neutral point of view. --JWSchmidt 18:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Stuff merged in from NPOV page

For anyone who hasn't seen it, there has been a discussion on the place of NPOV in Wikiversity on the foundation-l mailing list, beginning with this post from Anthere (or, well, really the following post from James (Messedrocker)). Cormaggio 15:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Which post are you referring to? That link points to something else I think. --HappyCamper 11:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Try this: [1] TimNelson 05:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Eek - I only saw this now! How did I get that so wrong? (Yes, that's the right link from Tim :-)) Cormaggio ^talk 16:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Old Votes

I'm assuming these are now defunct. Please vote again at the top of the page.

• Neutral Mirwin 21:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC) Changed per persuasive presentions. Oops! Again! 8)
• Pro Messedrocker 05:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pro digital_me^talk 01:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral :-) (veering towards pro - see comment below) Cormaggio 08:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pro Some P. Erson 15:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pro --Nick1915 11:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Pro --Dario vet 12:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Contra as this needs extensive revision, see NPOV/MPOV discussion below, and a key point of this policy refers to Wikiversity:Scholarly ethics which is not receiving support -- Reswik 01:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
• Contra as I like Confessions better, although it also needs a lot of work TimNelson 06:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments

NPOV has been an excellent restatement of "objective" as the term is used in Journalism for focusing discussion on creation of a balanced concise summary suitable for an encyclopedia article where there can be only one main page for each article title. Limiting all articles in learning processes to NPOV is counterproductive. The real world has many POVs and to study or understand it requires exposure or familiarity with multiple viewpoints and the arguments or reasoning which they provide. Obviously POVs should be identified and intellectually honest as possible. Mirwin 21:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Did you read this version of NPOV? It might be more in line with what you're saying. -- sebmol ^? 21:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I read it. Decent first cut but "NPOV" has too much baggage from Wikipedia. A policy discussion on "Intellectual honesty" or "Propaganda" or "objective" or "reasoned discourse" or "begging the question" would be more useful on Wikiversity. Disagreement with a percieved POV should invite discussion not mere dismissal or rapid deletion. Wikiversity is not an attempt to quickly manufacture an encyclopedia. The product is the learning process the reader/editor undergoes thinking about the material and how it could be improved or where it is incorrect in their own view. Why is their view different from the original author's? The learning is in the analysis of detailed chains of individual reasoning, not compression to a bland neutral concise presentation. Yes much of the above is as the current version reads but it is counterproductive to have a different policy or definition of "NPOV" than Wikipedia. It invites a "Jimmy says" flash gram. Wikiversity should revolve around or strive for some form of intellectual honesty or scholarly ethics. These policies should be defined adequately under useful and obvious titles. Confusing definitions or policies created for Wikipedia should left at Wikipedia. Less confusion will result from the soon to be arriving Wikipedian masses bored with writing NPOV encyclopedia articles or arguing about minute changes to existing articles if our policies are clearly titled and do not attempt to modify their bedrock codifications such as "NPOV". Mirwin 22:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

This needs more discussion! The impression that "NPOV" produces a "compression to a bland neutral concise presentation" of learning material is incorrect, IMO. We can have brilliant prose describing "individual reasoning" that is NPOV in its description of that specifics of that reasoning in how it is placed in the many schools of thought - Majority, minority, fringe, aso. (Need I really remind you of the creationism/evolution mine field?) What we should not allow is propganda and distorted presentations. Some more work is needed to forge this policy into a good policy. Awolf002 00:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding propaganda I disagree. Our future wiklars should become experts at analysing and seeing through "propaganda" and "distortions". Honest true believers should welcome and benefit from the discussions of the "propaganda" or percieved mistakes in their materials. The dishonest and deceptive will quickly learn to ply their trade elsewhere and dread encountering wiklars at large prearmed with exposure to their garbage and contradicting facts and analysis. Propaganda was dangerous at Wikipedia to the casual consumer of the data assuming an encyclopedia is reliable. It will be much harder for the casual consumer at Wikiversity to be harmed particularly since we should make it clear to them they are responsible for critical thinking and cross checking of the data, notes, quizzes, reasoning, etc. etc. Mirwin 05:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we can work the concept of NPOV into a workable concept, but we need to think carefully about how to do it. Through the recent discussion on the foundation mailing list, I've come around to the view that NPOV is a term we can invest with our own meaning. What's there now is a good start, but I still think we need to link it better with pedagogy (or, more precisely, pedagogies). Cormaggio 08:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

These links don't link to anything relevant; please fix. TimNelson 07:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't understand what's been going wrong with my links to foundation-l. Here are some of my posts to that thread I was referring to: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] - I think the latter two were the links I was trying to reference. (Hope these links stay stable now.) Cormaggio ^talk 16:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

MPOV or NPOV? NPOV has problematic assumptions but it is a useful principle for a first approximation of a critical approach to appreciating multiplicity of perspectives. I expect that over time that Wikiversity scholars may evolve NPOV into an MPOV (multiple points of view) principles which calls for the appreciation, based on in depth study, of how it is possible to vary the number of positions, interpretation, balance, level of coverage and summary conclusions offered for different points of view -- such that there are very many mixes of points of view possible that would all seem to satisfy NPOV.

For some wikischolars studying multiples schools of thought, reducing bias might perhaps be not an aim as much as developing ever more depth of appreciation of the biases and presuppositions of varying perspectives and their contrasts -- a richer and richer MPOV, one could say. Differing scholars and schools of scholars would have differing MPOVs. An MPOV policy would be a meta-position beyond NPOV which calls for the comparison and evaluation of differing MPOVs. MPOV would call for increasing depth in critical understanding of and comparison of varying MPOVs rather than decrease in bias ever more closely towards NPOV. I think NPOV as written assumes one root balanced POV is possible in the future as the endpoint of NPOV work of including and balancing various views. MPOV does not assume this -- it assumes that an MPOV is always constructed from an POV and can not escape this, hence there are always MPOVs and MPOVs may expand and not contract in further MPOV work. We do not know which position is correct, an NPOV endpoint or an expanding set of MPOVs. In part, it is an item of metaphysical belief to assume NPOV or MPOV as so described here. A meta position requires contrasting NPOV and this MPOVs. Note that the MPOV perspective may be more relevant to a number of schools of thought in the social sciences and humanities than to the natural sciences. Social theorists are underrepresented perhaps in Wikipedia discussions. I hope that is not the case in Wikiversity. (One could argue that the MPOV idea is present in seed form in one way of interpreting the NPOV concept, but I think it could be elaborated here or somewhere in Wikiversity space.) I've copied these ideas and will edit and extend later on the Multiple points of view page. An afterthought: I think it is reasonable to take a position in between their being one NPOV possible and many MPOVs as probable (between modernity and postmodernity if you will) which is that a small finite set of kinds of MPOVs are possible -- I actually favor this at times -- but it would require multiple writings from multiple MPOVs to construct that theory space - not one multidimensional writing/text/MPOV-NPOV but a finite group of MPOV texts with differing MPOV perspectives. Reswik 01:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Reswik makes some excellent points - in my field of psychology there are multiple perspectives on different levels ranging from different scientific paradigms to more detailed different interpretations of the data from a research study. I think it will be impossible to write without having MPOV. In the counselling field there can be seminars where the same case study is examined from each major perspective - eg what would a behaviourist say about this woman - what would a Jungian look at next? etc. and this can be a very good way of deepening a student's understanding. --Vannin 17:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)vannin

I think this is a good suggestion, as well. The Jade Knight 20:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge into Confessions?

If people like Confessions, it would be possible to merge this NPOV document in as one of the POV options. This would be in line with:

• Confessions itself
• MPOV as discussed above
• The "exceptions" section of NPOV itself

What do people think? If I don't hear any complaints, I'll do it.

TimNelson 07:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

A different name

• "confession"
  • "a confession is a document in which a suspect admits having committed a crime"
  • "disclosing sinfulness before a priest"
• "disclosure"
  • "revealing what previously was private knowledge"
  • "the speech act of making something evident"
    --JWSchmidt 10:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I had a feeling this was coming. I was using it in the sense "a public declaration of your faith" (Google define:confession). I happen to like Confessions myself, but I'll change it :). TimNelson 11:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Disclosures is much better, thanks. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 12:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

New Comments

Another example

See my userpage. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

(Moved here from project page by TimNelson 15:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC))

OOps... I thought I was posting here :). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 15:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Where is it?

TimNelson (Talk) 16:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I see what you've written there. The point of the Disclosures box is not to mark people, but to mark learning materials and projects. So if someone comes to a learning project ("course") that's quite left wing, they know pretty much immediately (although what you've done is great too -- it's just not what this particular policy is about).

Disclosures Template

Since much of my writing is from an interpretive bias, I've been fooling around with the Disclosures Template a bit. Mostly my goal was to understand how it works so that I can add a new bias effectively.

Well, I figured it out, but I disapproved of the method of categorizing bias pages. The categorization system consisted of linking to pages with the following format: "Wikiversity:name_of_bias_point_of_view" (ex: Creationist_point_of_view). Because no bias pages had yet been created, I reworked the system to the following format: "Wikiversity:POV/Name of bias" (ex: Wikiversity:POV/Creationist)

I find the use of subpages in this context to be helpful in grouping POV's together. Thus I created a root page at Wikiversity:POV to display all of the recognized POV's, and instruct editors how to add them to the template. So, I wanted to run it by everyone else to see if everyone approves/disapproves, etc. Let me know what you think,

--Opensourcejunkie 10:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed that this was a fulfillment of what was spoken of above. --Opensourcejunkie 12:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

About Original Research

I recall reading somewhere when I first arrived @ Wikiversity that Wikiversity would be home to original research as well as normal learning projects. I'm curious to know how this policy will affect research into questionable lines of reasoning.

For example, consider the following situation: a philosophy teacher is trying to convince his students that in Plato's works, Socrates was underlyingly presented as the god of love (eros). This (probably) constitutes original research, done by the professor, presented as a line of reasoning to convince someone of his position. The viewpoint is a fringe viewpoint, so we know the author has a unique POV.

Would such a page need to have a statement of bias? It doesn't begin with a bias, rather it uses a line of reasoning to arrive at the bias.

Similar issues could be applied to principles of writing, of hermeneutics, or even the Creation/Evolution debate. Any page that contains a line of reasoning ends at a bias; should such pages be required to assume a bias at the onset? --Opensourcejunkie 12:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

"It doesn't begin with a bias, rather it uses a line of reasoning to arrive at the bias." --> I think this is an important idea (perhaps already mentioned? Good ideas usually aren't original...!). Opensourcejunkie points out correctly one of the main reasons why people believe that they are right rather than realise that they have a bias - namely, that they think they have logic on their side. There is something very strange about the assumption that contributors will actually be sufficiently aware of their POV to disclose it. --McCormack 12:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

"Good ideas usually aren't original" --> neither is research ;-)

I'm wondering if we might be talking more about disclosing a hypothesis rather than a point of view. For example, the Bloom Clock (which is original research) discloses this on the first page (Bloom_Clock#System). Socrates as Eros would also be a hypothesis in the example above, but in that case the research part would be either providing a positive or negative proof showing that either Socrates is indeed Eros, or that Socrates could not possibly be anything but Eros (a definiteve proof in either direction is likely impossible, but various inductive arguments might be interesting to read). A parallel resource proving/disproving the opposite could also be pursued as well, etc. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 17:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I agree with you on that. How would that fit into the disclosures policy? --Opensourcejunkie

I experimented a bit with "disclosures of hypothesis" in the (eventually proposed) subpolicy Wikiversity:Draft policy on religious content (see section on primary sources). What do you think of it? --Opensourcejunkie 14:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)