[Taxacom] Wikipedia vs. science [some wider issues]

[Jim Croft]

We don't have a taxonomic 'King' as such... he refers to himself as
Herr Uberallepflanzennamenfuhrer...

jim

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Roger Burks <burks.roger at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well if this holds true consistently, then this approach should be a
> positive model for a great deal of future work. The first reaction in
> a scientific setting should not be "who is he to question the king?"
> whenever someone brings any little minor inaccuracy to light. Even
> when I am a world authority on something, I can be wrong. Others share
> this shortcoming.
>
> Roger
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We have tried to address this through cultural change. No-one is
>> allowed to criticise the database content nor engage in ad hominem
>> attacks of those who created it (as tempting and therapeutic as this
>> may be). If you find something not as it should be, you make it so,
>> something missing, you add it, something superfluous, you remove it.
>> Or bring it to the attention of someone who can. If you are not
>> prepared to do these things, you shut your miserable excuse for a face
>> and keep moving (that is the sort of sensitive supportive people we
>> are here).
>>
>> The idea is to turn the database into a sort of zen thing. It is
>> neither right nor wrong. It just is. A reflection of what we take to
>> be facts.
>>
>> It sort of works... people edit stuff, nothing is said, nothing needs
>> to be said. Every now an again a systemic pattern emerges in the data
>> or editing, which may result in a documentation upgrade, a bit of
>> retraining and so on. Complex and technical interpretation sometimes
>> requires a bit of discussion, but the consensus, sometimes compromise,
>> is nearly always amicable. Or, maybe it's a case of, yeah, whatever, I
>> really do not care that much... :)
>>
>> There is a lot of team trust and respect involved and the operation
>> seems to be self healing.
>>
>> It might just be me in cloud cuckoo land, but the notion of
>> 'authority' in or of the database does not loom large. The database is
>> just what we do. This attude to 'authority' is much the same when it
>> comes to humans. ?Maybe it's a southern hemisphere thing. You may
>> regard yourself as the world authority on genus X, your peers may
>> agree, but unless you have published something we can read,
>> understand, believe and document, we really do not care.
>>
>> jim
>>
>> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:46 PM, Roger Burks <burks.roger at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This brings up some thoughts: "he who is convinced against his will,
>>> holds his old opinion still" is an old saying that comes to bear here.
>>> We live in a culture where corrections of mistakes are largely frowned
>>> upon, because correction carries with it connotations of disrespect
>>> for the resource and its personnel. Probably we would all like this to
>>> be otherwise, but many of us reinforce this reality daily. What's
>>> worse, is that public corrections are even more frowned upon, because
>>> then every concerned party will know of the original inaccuracy and
>>> its negative connotation against the entire resource.
>>>
>>> Authority is often seen as preferably unassailable, and if it is ever
>>> successfully assailed, then the authority becomes deprecated in some
>>> people's eyes. This practice strikes me as contrary to the best
>>> principles of science, but adherence to these principles is possibly
>>> beyond the capabilities of general human nature. Rising above that
>>> might be too much to ask or expect.
>>>
>>> Instead, it would be an improvement to many systems if we could
>>> correct an authority, resource, or editor without earning its eternal
>>> enmity or creating a situation where the truth is repressed just to
>>> save face.
>>>
>>> Roger



-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~ http://about.me/jrc
'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to
pause and reflect.'
- Mark Twain
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
?- Robert Frost

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