tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017194111535484943.post2833974456193184146..comments2023-11-18T13:08:29.315-08:00Comments on The Unfashionable Human Body: WikipediaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017194111535484943.post-41268020216136602192009-12-12T13:50:31.003-08:002009-12-12T13:50:31.003-08:00Ouch, just read the Doctorow comment. Seems guilt...Ouch, just read the Doctorow comment. Seems guilty of a rather glaring confusion. <br /><br />Statement A: The Earth is flat.<br /><br />Statement B: Statement A claims that the Earth is flat.<br /><br />My point: Statement A does not go from being false to true just because Statement B is made about it.Charles P. Everitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04746755256664380397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017194111535484943.post-22894172811108007882009-12-12T13:46:15.105-08:002009-12-12T13:46:15.105-08:00Thanks for responding. I think there's someth...Thanks for responding. I think there's something right in what you say, but the question is about what it takes to justify the original observation about the artwork itself. That observation does not go from being "subjective" to "objective" (to use your terminology, which I myself think is riddled with deep philosophical confusions) just because someone else cites it! <br /><br />Think about the following simple case:<br /><br />Person A: Herbie Hancock's "Head Hunters" record exemplifies the worst sort of tendency in popular music, to take an authentic form of musical expression (e.g., funk) and try to make it "artistic" by making it more complex. But complexity, in itself, is neither necessary nor sufficient for artistic merit.<br /><br />Person B: "Head Hunters" is not a good record (footnote: see what Person A said).<br /><br />My point is that with regard to the aesthetic merit of "Head Hunters", Person B's comment is no less "subjective" than Person A's! It's true that Person B's comment contains a footnote to someone's else's comment, but all that that does it show that there is a very small amount of intersubjective agreement between A and B. It is, of course, "objectively" true that Person A said something similar to Person B, and the accuracy of the footnote depends upon this fact, but that, in itself, is irrelevant to the question of whether Person A's or Person B's judgments about "Head Hunters" are objective or subjective. <br /><br />That said, you mentioned something I completely forgot, which seems decisive, and that's Wikipedia's policy against original research. Though, in response, part of me wants to say that the observation about "When the Levee Breaks" is so obvious (albeit on point), that it could hardly be called "research". But I realize that's grasping at straws. I'm going to go read the Cory Doctorow comment now.Charles P. Everitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04746755256664380397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3017194111535484943.post-86406796215213840062009-12-12T10:37:57.091-08:002009-12-12T10:37:57.091-08:00The idea would be to limit what people can just ma...The idea would be to limit what people can just make up. Wikipedia's policies against <a href="http://enwp.org/WP:OR" rel="nofollow">original research</a> and for <a href="http://enwp.org/WP:NPOV" rel="nofollow">neutrality</a> mean that citing sources whenever possible is highly desirable, <em>particularly</em> for subjective material like the description of music you identify.<br /><br />If we just revise the material, we're back where we started, with some random person's opinion on how it should be worded. If instead we use more of a form like "Critic X praised 'foobar' while Critic Y found 'example' to be lacking", we introduce verifiable components that are objective (what someone said) rather than subjective (what we personally think). See also <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/25/wikipedias-facts-abo.html" rel="nofollow">Cory Doctorow's take on the idea</a>.nihiltreshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00079913991767893265noreply@blogger.com