Wikipedia: Sokal Affair/Talk

Thanks much for this entry!! :-)

Much and all as I think the excesses of postmodern philosophers deserve ridicule, this article is a fairly blatant violation of the neutral point of view. Please dig up what the journal and others said in its defence. --Robert Merkel

Not a lot. Backtracking, ad hominems and vaguries mainly. See for yourself: http://www.nyu.edu/pubs/socialtext/sokal.html

Actually, this looks like an entirely fair treatment to me--it lays out the facts of what happened and why, and summarizes the editor's response fairly. In fact, if the whole of the editor's response was included, it would be even more unfavorable to them, because they really emabarrass themselves. It should probably link to Soakl's own page and to Social Text. --LDC

: The bit about the editors response was added after my initial comment. It is now substantially fairer. --Robert Merkel

[People who add major sections to an article and then try to hide it as a "minor edit" are weasels IMHO]

I do this, to greater and lesser degrees. Sorry if it really annoys anyone. I believe the "Wikipedia contributing conventions" (or whatever we want to call them) do not discourage this. I look at it this way: anybody who's actually interested in the entry will take a look at it some time in the next few days and notice the changes.

Personally, I am quite annoyed by people who feel it necessary to clutter up the list of recent changes with such notations as "corrected spelling", "added a new joke", etc., etc. I guess it takes all kinds to make a Wikipedia.

: I agree - spelling and punctuation changes *are* minor edits, and should be marked as so. But adding an entirely new paragraph without registering it in "recent changes" smacks of trying to be subversive. Everyone relies on the "recent changes" list to keep track of what is being dealt with currently. As it turns out, this new paragraph was very good, and it added balance to the entire article (you'll notice I did nothing to it but remove a HR). But still, it would have been nice to know it had been added, and it certainly was not a "minor" edit. - MB

: Why don't you just set your preferences so that minor edits show up in the list of recent changes? People have wildly different ideas as to what constitutes a "minor edit", so I find it's best to ignore the distinction (although I try to mark my own edits in an appropriate way). --Zundark, 2001 Oct 16

Everything about Wikipedia is subversive by traditional publishing standards. :-) Thanks, MB, for your thoughts on this (sincerely). I will consider changing my contributing style. But please note that there is nothing, so far as I know, in Wikipedia to prevent or even particularly discourage people from doing things the way I have been. Maybe I'll change. Maybe others won't. That's Wikipedia.

: No, there is nothing to prevent you from doing things how you want. If you get some minor little thrill from trying to make changes subversively, then go right ahead. You have to get your kicks somehow. - MB

Ouch. I thought that was uncalled for. I try to use "sorry", "thanks", and ":-)" in the appropriate places. I'm not trying to bug you or anybody else here. Have a good one.

I think this article needs to be edited to bring it into line with neutral point of view. I agree 100% with its bias, by the way. --LMS