User talk:Filll/BLP Challenge Exercises

If you're going to parody my argument, at least make it absurd, like your previous challenge, or hew more closely to the actual argument, to make it an actual challenge, eh? Straw men educate nobody. -- Relata refero (disp.) 13:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I just read the next section. It seems obvious that this is supposed to be a joke page. I apologise. -- Relata refero (disp.) 13:51, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are referring to. However, I had begun this set of exercises before I ever met Relata refero.

An early version of this set of exercises:, April 5, 2008.

My first encounter with Relata refero, to the best of my recollection:, April 6, 2008.--Filll (talk) 21:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm referring to the first example, as is eminently clear to any rational observer, from the diff you provide. That was certainly not part of your "earlier" set of "exercises", which are completely independent of this.
 * Do consider revising it so this is more a "challenge" and less an echo chamber. Read WP:WFTE before attempting to summarise arguments you disagree with, and you may be able to write a more believable setup.
 * Of course, if, as is more likely given the second "example" on the page, this is humor, I apoloigize. There's a big purple banner somewhere you might be interested in. -- Relata refero (disp.) 21:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah so now I see what is going on. You are looking at a rough draft of a problem set that is not even released yet and not yet edited properly. So why do you believe that any of these exercises refer to you and you alone? I have not even put the disclaimer on these problems yet, or finished with the questions or the descriptions or had people review them. When they are further along, there will be a disclaimer like there is on User:Filll/AGF Challenge:

Does that look familiar at all? Also, do you think I am writing a parody of your argument? I will grant you that you made a somewhat similar argument to the argument presented in the first exercise, but you are not the only person I have heard make an argument similar to this. I have heard it at least 5 times or so from different people.

The name "challenge" is just a name. Why does it bother you?

Let me repeat that there are no right answers and no wrong answers to any of these exercises. They are just meant to stimulate thought and discussion in a sanitized safe environment where nothing is at stake, and the situation is accessible.

Over 100 people have taken the User:Filll/AGF Challenge and many people have enjoyed them and praised them. If you do not like them, that is too bad, but it is highly unlikely that this project will meet with universal approval. You are free to disapprove. And if and when you encounter this problem set, when it is finished and released, then you have my personal permission to ignore it.--Filll (talk) 22:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to actually stimulate discussion rather than seek sympathy, you wouldn't create straw men for random strangers to gawk at. You would, instead, actually attempt to summarise other people's arguments in a manner which demonstrated both your ability to grasp them and your understanding of BLP.
 * The name "challenge" bothers me because it is a perversion of the English language, like a step six inches high being called a "hurdle".
 * When these are "released", if they stay this poor, I may or may not ignore them. I may instead just write a disquisition on exactly how they're straw men and badly framed. -- Relata refero (disp.) 06:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

That post does not really even warrant a response. However, I do not care if you ignore them. I already told you that you were free to do so, or did you miss that part? They are not being produced for your benefit or for "people to gawk at". What on earth kind of conceited nonsense is that? Seems like a good example of WP:BAIT, frankly. But I have experienced your incredible perspicacity at, where to my recollection, about 11 other editors felt the arguments presented were complete nonsense. Yep, a real expert alright. And very insightful.--Filll (talk) 13:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks again! You're very kind. But it isn't nice to mock the other editors.
 * For some reason you didn't quite understand what I said, but perhaps if you read it again you might realise that I was pointing out as delicately as possible that I didn't exactly require your personal permission. Mere politeness, which of course you are perfectly within your rights to ignore as unrequited folly. -- Relata refero (disp.) 14:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Politeness begets politeness. Kindness begets kindness.--Filll (talk) 14:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not that I've noticed :) -- Relata refero (disp.) 14:42, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I notice you still haven't made the slightest effort to actually create more than a bunch of straw men. I'm beginning to wonder if the purpose of this challenge is to mock people you have had disputes with. That is uncollegial, especially done in userspace where there is more latitude allowed, and consequently greater personal responsibility expected. (If not, then, as Awadewit says, this is pretty useless. I do hope you're not planning to spam this one to talkpages as well.) -- Relata refero (disp.) 05:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC) Pretty much all of these problems so far (the 8 in AGFC, the 8 in AGFC 2 and the 12 here in BLPC) are based on real situations with real articles and real editors. What nonsense. Why don't you replace "based" with "modifications with wishful thinking put in and real opposing arguments taken out".

Comments from Awadewit
My first reaction was "wow, this is a lot of text for a voluntary 'test'!" - You might think about cutting the challenge down a bit.


 * The other side in these trials has always ripped the testimony of this author to shreds, ridiculing him. - Who is "the other side"? Environmentalists or scientists or both? A bit fuzzy here.


 * The Registration, a British technology and news website, publishes a series of articles purporting to reveal a secret homosexual cult operating among the editors of Wikipedia. - Is "cult" the right word?


 * However, the newspaper stories do reference Wikipedia, even though the information was removed from Wikipedia a while back. - "several months ago", perhaps?

I'll keep reviewing and copy editing later. Awadewit (talk) 22:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It might need a bit more pruning. Thanks so much for your assistance.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 22:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Janice Tightbottom is also somewhat notorious for having long legs and showing them off by wearing short skirts. - I didn't see the relevance to the case, so I deleted this sentence.


 * You create an article for the SSEL. - I added this sentence in - a step was missing, I think.

More copy editing finished. Awadewit (talk) 23:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well the legs were not relevant. It was a stream of consciousness article. No rough draft. No thought ahead of time. I just let it flow. I suspect that at that time I thought I would fold the legs somehow into the narrative but I guess I never did. That is why some of these are a bit too long.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 23:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. Perhaps I will be a bit more ruthless, then. :) Awadewit (talk) 23:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Well part of the reason for this is to give a tiny taste of what it is like to dig through reems of irrelevant information and cruft in a discussion or argument on the talk pages of some of these articles. Just a taste, instead of having to read through 500 kilobytes.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 23:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * They all seem very similar so far. Are they supposed to be that way? Awadewit (talk) 00:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

In a certain way, yes. They are all supposed to ask about where the limits are of BLP. Durova asked me to compile all the BLP ones together since she wants to develop a training program and to concentrate one segment of it on BLP to have a special BLP SWAT team of administrators. So these all explore different but similar aspects of BLP. If I thought of some aspects that were not being covered, I would write exercises for them. These are just examples of the BLP problems I personally have encountered. Of course I probably do not know all of them by far.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 00:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, I think that the same sorts of issues come up over and over and over. BLP, NPOV, NOR, RS etc. The same thing again and again. I hope that after some of the participants of the WP Challenge, the AGF Challenge and the BLP Challenge have completed a few of these, that the principles involved start to sink in. They hopefully will learn these conventions and principles better. They hopefully will understand how contentious some parts of Wikipedia can be and how stupid some of the arguments are. --Filll (talk | wpc ) 00:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, so far, they seem to be about RS. Awadewit (talk) 00:23, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Some are, although I have not explored the situation with WP:SPS yet and differences between peer reviewed sources and media sources. In BLP, a lot of what we have sources for does not appear in our articles, to avoid being overly negative. Where do you draw the line on that? Also we have COI problems sometimes. And some of the problems (not in this set so much) are about OR and NPOV and other principles. Of course, a lot of the problems would be different if we followed your rule of only "peer reviewed articles only in academic journals". But then about 80 percent of what is on Wikipedia would disappear too.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 00:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I want them to be fun to do and fun to read. I do not want them to be deadly dull like all the policy pages. I do not want them to be ghastly reading like the talk page arguments. I want them to be accessible and fairly succinct, but not overly so. I want them to be challenging, at least a little. I want people to have to think a bit about what is appropriate. I want them to highlight some of the weak parts of our policies and procedures. I want them to present a safe environment, unlike some of these article talk pages which get so heated. I want a person to be able to get a good overview of the situation in a few minutes, instead of participating in some of these disputes as they are happening.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 00:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So far, the challenges seem to have obvious answers. I don't see the weak points in the policy yet. Awadewit (talk) 00:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think a lot of them are obvious too. Although there is some confusion as to how negative you are allowed to be when dealing with a FRINGE subject, for example. And there are questions about how to draw the line on COI and BLP and so on. And there is the perrenial question of IAR which means people will try to dismiss all the others. And then there is the question about where the CIVIL boundary is exactly, although that is not explored so much in this set of exercises. There is a fuzzy question about what is a neutral description. There are problems with deciding how should be the proportion of primary secondary and tertiary sources. There is a question about what is WP:DE and WP:TE exactly and when is the boundary crossed and what do you do about it. There are questions about free use of images that are disputed since the policy is vague. There are disagreements about how lenient one should be to FRINGE view proponents in promoting their material. And so on.


 * Pretty much all of these problems so far (the 8 in AGFC, the 8 in AGFC 2 and the 12 here in BLPC) are based on real situations with real articles and real editors. And although they seem obvious to you (and maybe to me and Durova and Shoe), some of these were the subject of IMMENSE disputes that went on for hours, days, weeks and months. Sometimes over a year in some cases. And sometimes dozens or even hundreds of editors involved. Sometimes people were furious over the situation. There was profanity. People were blocked and banned over some of these. Some of these lead to death threats. Some of these are the subject of angry threads on Wikipedia Review and other "Wikipedia criticism" sites.


 * The point is to present them in a sanitized form, so that people can see through to the heart of the matter. And hopefully be clear on what should be done. Because in practice, in the field, these are as tough to deal with as the proverbial gordian knot. And if you try to "force" an answer, you are accused of being a bully and worse. Just look at the angry exchange in the section above, from someone who thought one of these was about him. Months later he is still stewing. And he attacks me on all kinds of issues because of the difficulty we had months ago.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 00:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * First it is claimed that it is a violation of WP:CIVIL to disagree with the editors that support Professor Tation. - Who claims?


 * This fails, so then it is claimed that only neutral noncritical sources can be used to satisfy WP:NPOV, by which they mean sources which do not criticize the concept of gob energy. - Who claims?


 * There is a paragraph in the Tation episode that goes "and then...and then...and then..." Perhaps you could fix this?


 * The Tation example needs to be rewritten in the active voice - the passive voice is obscuring who is claiming and doing what. I fixed a lot of this, perhaps you could do more? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Awadewit (talk • contribs) 00:47, 23 May 2008

I would like to express my appreciation to Awadewit for her editing prowess. Here is how I have dealt with some of her queries:


 * My first reaction was "wow, this is a lot of text for a voluntary 'test'!" - You might think about cutting the challenge down a bit.

It is a bit long, partly due to how it was created. On the other hand, being a bit longer is good if it introduces a bit of humor. Also, being a bit longer is good if it also gives a taste of what it is like to deal with a real situation. In a true editing situation, an editor has to deal with all sorts of chaff and cruft and extraneous information that is irrelevant to the actual underlying problem and not get distracted with the extra detail. These exercises cannot quite reproduce that experience in a few paragraphs, but can give some indication of it.


 * The other side in these trials has always ripped the testimony of this author to shreds, ridiculing him. - Who is "the other side"? Environmentalists or scientists or both? A bit fuzzy here.

Tried to make it clearer.


 * The Registration, a British technology and news website, publishes a series of articles purporting to reveal a secret homosexual cult operating among the editors of Wikipedia. - Is "cult" the right word?

Probably not. Changed to cabal (chosen as a joke).


 * However, the newspaper stories do reference Wikipedia, even though the information was removed from Wikipedia a while back. - "several months ago", perhaps?

Changed.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 16:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * First it is claimed that it is a violation of WP:CIVIL to disagree with the editors that support Professor Tation. - Who claims?

Hopefully fixed.


 * This fails, so then it is claimed that only neutral noncritical sources can be used to satisfy WP:NPOV, by which they mean sources which do not criticize the concept of gob energy. - Who claims?

Fixed I hope.


 * There is a paragraph in the Tation episode that goes "and then...and then...and then..." Perhaps you could fix this?

I tried to introduce some variety.


 * The Tation example needs to be rewritten in the active voice - the passive voice is obscuring who is claiming and doing what. I fixed a lot of this, perhaps you could do more?

Hmmm. I need an example. Remember, I am a dope here.--Filll (talk | wpc ) 16:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)