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> the author "classif[ied] editors into the Anti-Fringe camp (AF) and the Pro-Fringe camp (PF)". The AF camp is described as "editors who were anti-conspiracy t
by LordDragonfang 3y ago
> the author "classif[ied] editors into the Anti-Fringe camp (AF) and the Pro-Fringe camp (PF)". The AF camp is described as "editors who were anti-conspiracy theories, anti-pseudoscience, and liberal", whereas the PF camp consists of "Editors who were more supportive of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and conservatism."
It's interesting to see Wikipedia publication so readily admit that, rightly or wrongly, its "Neutral Point of View" considers [American] conservatism a "fringe" (implicitly, counterfactual) belief.
The "politics" section further down touches on this, but doesn't actually deny it. Like I said, interesting, since it's something that I've seen conservatives whine about, but I assumed Wikipedia's official position was the "NPOV" meant politically neutral.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoThere are two mistakes in your response here. 1) "the author" is an academic who is being quoted by a writer for the Wikipedia newsletter. No "Wikipedia publication" is admitting or endorsing that definition. In fact the newsletter piece discusses several issues they have with the definition. 2) A classification system that combines multiple attributes to define a group is not a claim that all the attributes that define one group are equivalent to each other. It's a measure of correlation.
- LordDragonfang 3y agoI made the mistake of stopping there to comment before finishing the article, so I've gotten several replies to this effect; You were the first, so I'll respond to yours. "Endorsing" might be too strong a word, but they're certainly highlighting it. None of the issues the article author (User:HaeB) has with the study's classification really manage to rebut it. They bring up a 2012 study (pointing out its methods were dubious) - but that was over a decade ago, and before the reforms to NPOV enforcement as the article and paper define them. The author says it may not "generalize to other countries", but that just means we're talking specifically about American "conservatism" (and "liberalism"). Likewise, there's the anecdote about applying the general principles to the Republican Houses of Congress, where anti-Trump is the fringe, but the comparison there only really holds with the implicit admission that in Wikipedian politics, non-liberals are the fringe among the people making the decisions.
- lazyasciiart 3y agoWhy would they “rebut” a correlation? Is there some reason you think it is impossible for American conservatism to correlate with conspiracy theories? Did you just entirely ignore my explanation of the classification system?
- f5e4 3y agoThis article is discussing a paper about Wikipedia. This quote is from the research paper. It is not someone from Wikipedia saying this. This article briefly addresses this inclusion of the political-leaning in the definition of fringe later on.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoThis is discussed in the "Fringe and politics" section, and not from the Wikipedia writers: > As readers might have noticed above, the author includes political coordinates in his conception of "fringe" ("more supportive of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and conservatism") and "anti-fringe" ("anti-conspiracy theories, anti-pseudoscience, and liberal"). This is introduced rather casually in the paper without much justification... I don't want to quote the whole thing, but its worth a read.
- chpatrick 3y agoI think these days there's conservatism and "conservatism".
- RajT88 3y agoI think there's always been those different flavors of conservatism in play, even when the parties were not aligned according to conservative/liberal. https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...
- chpatrick 3y agoThat tweet brings to mind American Republicans being keen on my home country's prime minister Orbán, where the state increasingly controls everything and we have the highest VAT in the world. Must be "those views".
- RajT88 3y agoYes, there's a lot they admire about the guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n#Criticism_and_political_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n#Criticism_an...
- Brian_K_White 3y agoIt's unfortunate, but probably defensible. That is, if the correlation is high, then the correlation is high, and I'd rather observe and act on that than ignore it. It's only unfortunate in that it legitimizes groupthink. Varying degress of conservatism with a small C should ideally be allowed and encouraged, the same as varying degrees of novelty-seeking vs risk-aversion (value freedom vs value safety), tolerance for confrontation or debate, logic vs emotion, etc, etc.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]