[iDC] disagreement by deletion/addition

Sun Dec 9 13:40:46 UTC 2007

Sorry but too many people have pushed me out of debates by arguing  
facts v opinion and while I have learned to appreciate this  
distinction, I find this distinction is used to oppress people one  
disagrees with.

  This is probably old news to many of you.

New facts for me are a realisation that law in fact judges can make  
what might be a subjective reality to an academic class an objective  
fact. As noted by having enough reasonable people agree to it.

I have seen our panhandlers union article deleted and I think it was  
because as you note it was fame seeking.

I tend to think the quality of the science pages on wikipedia may be  
because of the lack of literacy there and also the aggression of  
persons in the sciences.

My only successful wikipedia articles are in the math pages btw.

Peter Timusk,

B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University
Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa.
just trying to stay linear.
Read by hundreds of lurkers every week.

On 8-Dec-07, at 12:43 PM, Paul B. Hartzog wrote:

> thx Frank
> my only "addition" would be related to #2
>
> I have maintained for some time, that what a network culture practice
> like open-editing actually does is make chronically apparent that our
> desire for a comfortable distinction between "facts" and "opinions" is
> (and always was) hopeless.
>
> Facts are simply statements supported by widely held opinions about
> methods of validating facticity.  Large scale cooperative knowledge
> construction puts this dilemma right out in the open (whichlike).
>
> -p
>
>
> On Dec 8, 2007 12:25 PM, Frank Pasquale <frank.pasquale at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>> That's a good account of a fundamental divide on the nature of  
>> disagreement.
>> I have a few responses.
>>
>> 1) Perhaps there are places where "disagreement by deletion" is  
>> good.  For
>> example, in reports put out by credit bureaus, if a creditor said  
>> something
>> about my behavior that is unduly negative, I may not merely want  
>> to add my
>> side of the story, but also to delete the "wrong side."
>>
>> 2) But even this old system of reputation management had some  
>> measure of
>> "disagreement by addition."  You can, for example, put your  
>> account of a
>> credit dispute on the report in case the bureau can't resolve the  
>> dispute
>> (under the US's FCRA).
>>
>> 3) The key problem here is a difference between facts and  
>> opinions.  Perhaps
>> opinion statements always ought to invite disagreement by  
>> addition; perhaps
>> facts invite disagreement by deletion.  That may be why wikipedia  
>> is great
>> for its science pages, but raises all sorts of concerns when it  
>> deletes bios
>> on the basis of a group of editors' opinions about the subject's  
>> importance.
>> That latter insistence on "fame" seems like a form of artificial  
>> scarcity to
>> me.
>>
>> 4) Finally, I have written a paper arguing that search engines  
>> need to give
>> people a right to "disagree by addition."  There are many  
>> "privacy" or
>> "reputational" challenges arising out of search results.  For  
>> example, one
>> New York Times reporter recently recounted her unsuccessful effort  
>> to keep a
>> webpage featuring an unflattering photograph of herself from  
>> appearing as a
>> high-ranked web result when her name was a query on Google.   
>> Google won't
>> take down the result--but shouldn't such a person be able to  
>> annotate it
>> (with, say, an asterisk linking to a page with a better picture)?
>>
>> I propose a right not to suppress the results, but merely to add  
>> an asterisk
>> next to the hyperlink directing web users to another webpage,  
>> which would
>> lead to the complainant's own comment on the objectionable result.  
>> Such a
>> right would be based on consumer protections guaranteed by the  
>> Fair Credit
>> Reporting Act.
>>
>> Anyway, the paper is here:
>> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=888327
>>
>> A critique is here:
>> http://yalelawjournal.org/2007/09/08/grimmelmann.html
>>
>> and I'll be happy to send anyone my response to the crititque--it  
>> will be
>> published next month.
>>
>> best wishes,
>> --Frank
>> blogs @
>> concurringopinions.com
>> madisonian.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/6/07, Paul B. Hartzog <paulbhartzog at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> conversation starter:
>>>
>>> Deletionism, or Disagreement by Deletion
>>>
>>> long time ago in my naive days
>>> Sunir Shah and I got talking about what was good about wikis.
>>>
>>> one of the key things was:
>>> 1) disagreement by deletion
>>> vs.
>>> 2) disagreement by addition
>>>
>>> DbD was the old-school political philosophy of exclusive practice,
>>> i.e. deciding who is "in" and who is "out"
>>>
>>> DbA was the new-school of pluralization, pluralism, and  
>>> conversation,
>>> i.e. including perspectival acknowledgement as part of the process
>>>
>>> I actually used to lecture that this was a KEY reason why wikis are
>>> politically revolutionary, which is that by using DbA they
>>> 1) mesh with a multivocal world
>>> 2) function on inclusion instead of fragmentation (echo chamber)
>>>
>>> Now we see the "new" spaces, turning into "old" spaces
>>> by adopting the same rules as the old.
>>>
>>> Question:
>>> Is this a historical inevitability.  Will new open spaces that  
>>> emerge,
>>> ALWAYS become co-opted by the old rules systems?  Will they
>>> ALWAYS be forced (as they scale?) to adopt the old rules?
>>>
>>> thoughts?
>>>
>>> -p
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
>>> http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
>>> http://www.panarchy.com
>>> PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
>>> PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
>>> PHartzog at umich.edu
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
>>> The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
>>>                 --Muriel Rukeyser
>>>
>>> See differently, then you will act differently.
>>>                 --Paul B. Hartzog
>>> --------------------------------------------------------
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>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> --------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.PaulBHartzog.org
> http://www.panarchy.com
> PaulBHartzog at PaulBHartzog.org
> PaulBHartzog at panarchy.com
> PHartzog at umich.edu
> --------------------------------------------------------
> The Universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
>                  --Muriel Rukeyser
>
> See differently, then you will act differently.
>                  --Paul B. Hartzog
> --------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
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