Wikiversity talk:Scholarly ethics

Votes

 * Messedrocker 21:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Mirwin 22:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC) flipped 27oct06 mri
 * --Sojourner001 16:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * TimNelson 10:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC) because of template requirement, and agreement with Mirwin's comments
 * Rayc | (Talk) 17:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC) (See below)
 * Daanschr 20:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Heltec talk  20:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC): its an good idea, but bad application. Sorry.
 * Njyoder 05:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC) - Too subjective, not realistically enforceable without the enforcers becoming propaganda pushers.

Scholars club?
As written as of this date this whole policy strikes me as non useful and not applicable. I had never considered Wikiversity as an exclusive scholars club. Rather I had viewed it as a watering hole where regular people (kids even) could learn from other people in sloppy corners with evolving works as various information or perceptions of possibilities were tested with and against each others understanding and data resources. Perhaps we need to evolve scholar zones with much higher expectations and/or student/beginer only zones where people can let their hair down and really have detailed specific discussions. I think as a starting point we could have a good article on scholarly ethics and state that we strive to work towards in specific ways such as sorting/weeding/priortizing the best links to material of various grades around the net applicable to specific subjects. As currently written this policy makes we wonder why I would be wasting time here. I am not currently a scholar. Perhaps this could be written as a voluntary guideline and scholars in self training encouraged to use the template to advertise to others to help them hold themselves to very high standards in their writings and interactions with others. Mirwin 23:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it is the case that there would be no point to having a Wikiversity project if we simply adopt Wikipedia's Neutral point of view (NPOV) and No original research (NOR) policies. However, I do expect that much of Wikiversity should fall under those rules. The critical feature of Wikiversity is that some Wikiversity pages should be allowed to explore individual points of view and some Wikiversity pages should be devoted to original research projects. Why? Learning is not restricted to learning about known "facts". Wikiversity must also concern itself with exploring the unknown. Wikiversity has two problems that arise from exploration of the unknown. First, some people who are involved with the Wikimedia Foundation do not want Wikiversity to be allowed to step outside of the restrictions of the NPOV and NOR policies. In order to deal with these folks, we need to show clearly that the Wikiversity community has a coherent plan that will allow Wikiversity participants to do some work outside of the restrictions that are imposed on scholarship/exploration of the unknown/learning by the NPOV and NOR policies. Second, there is honest debate about how to move Wikiversity beyond the restrictions of the NPOV and NOR policies. During the beta phase of the project, we have six months to sort this out. I originally proposed that Wikiversity adopt Wikipedia policy until the Wikiversity community can define new policy that is suited for our unique project goals. I believe that the Wikiversity community needs to define a coherent set of policies to support those Wikiversity participants who will edit pages outside of the confines of the NPOV and NOR policies. I think that a Wikiversity policy for Scholarly ethics will allow Wikiversity to support scholarly efforts such as original research that need to move beyond the confines of NPOV and/or NOR. If Wikiversity adopts a policy on Scholarly ethics doing so will not mean that Wikiversity will become an "exclusive scholars club". Many Wikiversity participants will never stray outside of the confines of the many Wikiversity pages that will continue to be regulated by Wikipedia-like NPOV and NOR policy. The idea of providing support for Wikiversity "scholar zones with much higher expectations" is the intent behind the Scholarly ethics policy. However, even if most Wikiversity participants will not need to be consciously concerned about the Scholarly ethics policy, I do think that all Wikiversity participants can benefit from the existence of a Scholarly ethics policy because it can help to push the basic culture of the Wikiversity community in favorable directions. --JWSchmidt 23:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Edifying and persuasive as usual JW. I have flipped my vote and added a scholar tag to my user page.  At a minimum it should enourage anyone who wants to know to ask what my POV of convenience was and how or why it was selected.  Mirwin 11:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Usual scholarly ethics unnecessary
When I here "scholarly ethics" I think: Don't cheat, don't lie, don't claim other peoples work as your own. Cheating is either going to be impossible (wikiversity sans exams) or universial (self-testing), lieing will be covered under a WP:V type policy, and claiming other peoples work as your own is both impossible and ingrained into the techical software of the wiki.--Rayc 23:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Template requirement

 * What I don't like about it is the template requirement. What are we going to do if they don't have that template when they edit a certain page? Revert their edit? People should be responsible for knowing applicable policies when they edit; they shouldn't need a template on their page to do so. Though the idea of scholarly ethics is a good idea. Messedrocker 21:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree -- I think the Disclosures template, which links to the Disclosures page itself, which links here, should be sufficient. TimNelson 10:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Beliefs

 * It needs work. It may be unenforceable except through diffuse and shifting community pressure.  The people (the ones I view as non mainstream, not necessary the same ones you or others view as non mainstream) in apparent violation (if we do not assume good faith) may be incapable of immediate understanding of why they are censored.  HOw do you tell the difference between someone deceptively pushing propaganda in outright violation of the policy and the actual true believers who honestly believe they merely need show you/me the truth to change your/my entire world view?  If you believe the true believers are incorrect in their POV, then they are exactly those in most need of the diverse but accurate learning resources and communities we intend to provide.  How can they learn our correct worldview, if they are not allowed to explain theirs in detail and as a group we/they analyze both detailed chains of reasoning and/or starting assumptions?  They and we will learn more interacting with each other than either group in isolation, if one group is censored from this site.  Who picks the final arbiter of which group is intellectually dishonest?  On Wikipedia it is the Arbcom appointed by Jimbo and "Jimmy says" flashgrams.  Fine.  They are putting together an excellent mainstream encyclopedia and possibly need only a subset of humanity as editors.  We are putting together a humanity wide set of learning processes and materials regarding human knowledge.   How is this to be done by arbitrarily dismissing groups of true believers such as scientists (many of whom as an article of faith are atheists), religious groups (all of whom disagree with each other as an article of faith)(not to mention various sects of similar religions or cults), nationalists of various flavors claiming the same lands for conflicting reasons poorly documented in conflicting historical resources, conflicted philosophers (some think it obvious what is fair and beautiful in the universe others claim might makes right) etc. etc.  Maybe it would read better as goals to strive towards without specific condemnation or enforcement clauses.  Mirwin 22:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm with Mirwin. TimNelson 10:44, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "HOw do you tell the difference between someone deceptively pushing propaganda in outright violation of the policy and the actual true believers who honestly believe they merely need show you/me the truth to change your/my entire world view?"
 * You can challenge them. Observe their reactions. And give them the benefit of doubt.---Hillgentleman 02:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And your observations of their reactions will still be subjective. Not to mention, there are numerous people who honestly push propaganda--they sincerely believe what they're saying is true and that they're obeying scholarly ethics.  This creates a massive issue for subject areas that essentially propaganda magnets and impossible to objective regulate, especially in the humanities: religions, oppression fighting movements/counter-movements (e.g. African-American & Women's studies), arts, history, philosophy, politics, etc....  What conceivable objective criteria and processes could you design to avoid propaganda being pushed this way, especially if it's done honestly?  Don't just say "it's common sense," because we all know that fails horrible as a policy and equates to an oligarchy--so do something other than proposing another oligarchy (elite ruling body like the arbcom which decides for everyone).  Njyoder 05:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Answer: Self-consistency and depth. Njyoder, To non-believers, Christianity is an exact  example of  propaganda done with complete sincerity.  However, since they have developed a more or less complete, self-consistent and deep theory,  it is still very interesting.---Hillgentleman|Talk 06:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Objectivity is something that cooperating scholars strive for through open discussion, challenges to ideas and exploration of conflicting ideas. A community of scholars creates objectivity from subjectivity. I think it is unrealistic to have a desire for a finite set of "objective criteria" by which content can be judged as "acceptable" or "unacceptable". Scholarly explorations constantly reveal new issues that must be evaluated on their own merits, not by consulting some body of existing rules. A scholarly community must observe the actions of its members and decide if those actions promote discovery and learning. Similarly, communities of scholars do look for ways to apply expert knowledge and such communities do make use of the help of experts to guide the group in the task of sorting "acceptable" from "unacceptable" scholarship. My reading of history tells me that this sorting task does not involve an "elite ruling body"; it requires an open community of scholars in which the views of experts are used for guidance while experts and leaders are also open to questioning and challenge by all. Wikiversity will be an experiment to test if wiki technology can allow a community of scholars to function efficiently online. --JWSchmidt 13:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer review

 * The concept of scholarly ethics is a good one, but a little more complicated than can be expressed in a single wiki policy document. Ethics in academia are enforced via peer review - and while that's possible here, for a good time yet the user base is going to be too small and insufficiently qualified to do that diligently enough. I don't have an answer to this quandry.Sojourner001 16:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that Wikiversity needs a policy on Peer review. I have started to bring some ideas about peer review over from their original location at the meta wiki; currently some destinations for key hypertext links only exist there. --JWSchmidt 23:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Misc

 * My first impression of this proposal is its imperious tone. The threatened sanctions for misbehaviour make me feel that I don't want to have anything to do with these guys.  No legitimate scholar wants to produce when members of a truth squad are looking over his shoulder.  Who are you requiring to add this template?  If any should have it (or a much revised version) apply, it should be the administrators who could then be held to a higher standard.  Scholarly ethics reflect the way a person thinks and applies himself to the task at hand, and includes an ability to adapt to circumstances.  It also includes the ability to show a modicum of common sense.  Unless its violation results from a massive conjunction of misbehaviours, the consequences of specific acts that are possibly unethical need to be considered in their own contexts.


 * The questions of NOR and NPOV belong in separate discussions. In the vast majority of situations, I don't think that NOR should apply.  NPOV should be applicable, but needs to be adapted to Wikiversity's own self-image.  There must be some articles (lectures?) that are exempt; as ethical scholars we need access to POVs presented by their proponents.  We can only provide fair discussions when we know the genuine views rather than ones that have been imputed to them.


 * The final criticism relates to the excess verbiage on the page, but that's not unusual in the early draft of any document. Eclecticology 05:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Can this attitude work?
When I read up to the yellow label, stating "This ... will ... (not) ..." I stopped. I firmly believe this to be a wrong attitude towards reaching a - possibly honourable - goal.

Put to an extreme: Will it help to have a terrorist, having a bomb in his backpack, sign a flyer that he comes with a piecful mind? I expect him to sign whatever you ask him to sign and finally blow off his bomb. Will it help to ask a firmly convinced christian fundamentalist to sign a paper saying that he will be respecting religions? I doubt. His faith is with gods bible, he must be believing that christianity were superior, in fact the only true religion, as he reads the bible to say just that. You will easily find many more examples of that kind. People having certain convictions will not always be able to see themselves as people having certain convictions, which cannot even blame them for, so you cannot expect them to label their work accordingly.

I am not against labelling someone, or somehting. On the other hand, I consider that not very necessary. Bias is not usually a hindrance to learning (only not switching schools, and teachers is) and Bias is usually pretty evidently presenting itself. Ok, you need sometimes some basic education in order to get it, but learners do not come to wikiversy with blanked minds, do they. For example, if I read someone explaining the history of the United States of America as a series of violations of human and civil rights, and broadly exemplifying how even today, they politcally, socially, and legally deprive citizens of their human right to live their own sexuality, I might suspect the writer to be e.g. gay or lesbian. They may, or may not, have a "gay activist" button on their personal pages, I'm pretty confident to find that out myself.

If I don't trust someone, or do not like her/his way of writing, I might go elsewhere and read other authors. So some of the intent behind this kind of signed statement will likely be reached automatically by market force.

--Purodha 17:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Against this proposition
I am in favour of changing the tone of this proposition. I think that a template will not prevent people from trying to impose propaganda, deception and intellectual dishonesty. A solution could be to allow researchers to form different groups of their own liking who can include and exclude others in their group for whatever reason they want themselves. The more respectable groups among these will probably get positive feedback from scientists and intellectuals around the world, if Wikiversity becomes a succes. So, i am in favour of the silence of social control instead of hard rules that can be misused against those whom were supposed to be protected by them.--Daanschr 21:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Useful and in the right direction in balancing freedom and harmony
I consider this page useful. ''and any questionable edits that you make will be reverted or challenged. A demonstrated pattern of vandalism or disdain for the practice of scholarly ethics will result in blocks from editing and ultimately a ban from participation.'' ---Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 23:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Freedom and harmony are delicate. It is often difficult to balance the two.
 * This policy will serve as a useful bottom line, above which we can discuss with complete freedom. One should not expect to enjoy great freedom without first being responsible.
 * The template is a reasonable and useful disclaimer. It frees the wikiversity scholar, in the sense that one need not worry about making mistakes so long as she is honest.
 * The followings words are already implied, and need not be spelt out, if people don't like them.


 * What is the difference between scholarly ethics and the practise of fighting vandalism and pov-pushing on Wikipedia? I don't like the use of the word honesty. I prefer verifiability above honesty. People can make honest mistakes, but only verifiability can make sure that a mistake will be fixed.
 * I like the use of the words trust and responsibility, because i am in favour of commitment and improving quality.


 * These two sentences are part of the template: This editor will not attempt to use Wikiversity as a platform for advocating or advancing propaganda or any other type of deception or intellectual dishonesty, but rather, this editor is devoted to scholarly consideration of all topics of study. This means not distorting or hiding evidence and not crafting illegal, deceptive, dishonest or otherwise unethical accounts of facts or ideas.
 * I have a problem with the words advancing propaganda. What propaganda is for one person can be knowledge for the other. A propagandist can be honest in his opinion that the propaganda is just. It could be said that this template makes propaganda for scholarly ethics, which means that the text is intenally contradictive.
 * The words distorting or hiding evidence are too naive. Knowledge can only be understandible through generalizations, especially in a learning proces. In social sciences (the study of human behaviour), it is impossible to give all information. Human actions are, through memory, connected to events that happened billions of years ago and to places billions of years away. There are billions of reasons that could lead to a single action where humans are involved. It is impossible not to hide and distort evidence, because researchers can't comprehend anything they learn from their research. Verifiability can solve the problem. Veriafialibility is of the most importance at my university (honesty is has never mentioned as important). It is important as well on Wikipedia.
 * I think this template is not useful for helping researchers. If i have to choose between the scholarly ethics at present and the NPOV-policy of Wikipedia, then i would choose for the NPOV-policy.--Daanschr 13:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * "only verifiability can make sure that a mistake will be fixed" <-- My expectation is that the vast majority of Wikiversity pages will be edited according to the traditional Wikimedia Foundation NPOV policy. When dealing with most topics in education, most people are open to the idea of presenting and discussing all significant points of view. However, we know from our history that important ideas initially arising as minority points of view are sometimes eventually adopted by the vast majority once those ideas have a chance to be explored and understood. Many great ideas start out as fragile ideas that need to be protected. If we fully support the search for knowledge then scholars need to be given the freedom to explore and discuss unusual and unpopular ideas. Wikiversity needs policies that allow for some pages to exist outside of the restrictions of the NPOV policy. Fragile new ideas are not subject to verifiability in the traditional way that Wikipedia editors verify sources and citations. "What propaganda is for one person can be knowledge for the other" <-- In my opinion, "propaganda" is like "pornography", every community has its own standards. A key community practice within Wikimedia Foundation projects is to provide readers with information and let the readers make their own judgments about the political, religious and moral implications of the information. I think the Wikiversity community will be able to develop its own standards for distinguishing between undesirable propaganda and desirable explorations of ideas. It is true that any human society includes members who cannot distinguish between honesty and dishonesty and who cannot understand the idea of their society placing bounds on human behavior such as designating some actions as criminal. That does not stop social groups from working together to establish social conventions and enforce them. I think the Wikiversity community will find it easy to recognize editors who make honest mistakes, discuss those mistakes, and are willing to make corrections. It will also be easy to identify editors who are using dishonest and deceptive methods to push particular positions on morality, political or religious points of view. I'm not saying that setting such standards and making such distinctions will be simple and accomplished without argument, but I think wiki technology provides us with the communication and collaboration tools that are needed to meet the challenge of opening Wikiversity to academic freedom and some page editing beyond the NPOV restrictions. We just need to establish a set of policies that will support the community as it discovers how best to allow academic freedom without also inviting in those who would abuse and disrupt the educational mission of the Wikiversity project. --JWSchmidt 19:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Propaganda:Let us distinguish the two roles of wikiversity: studying old knowledge (teaching)and seeking new knowledge (research).
 * In teaching, it is unavoidable that a teacher has her points of views, and some even amount to propaganda. But that may not be a serious issue; after all, the knowledge is already understood.  Another scholar with another point of view may comment on the lesson to make it more comprehensive.
 * In research, propaganda should be prohibited, because it runs against the spirit of truth and objectivity.---Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 22:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This kind of stark division between teaching and research is common in "factory schools", but we do not have to accept that model of education. Personally, I prefer a model in which research is a central and integral component of learning. Wikiversity is a place where we can use wiki technology to support collaborative learning and active learners; it does not have to be a place for teachers to dump facts into the heads of passive learners. The idea of allowing propaganda in education is counter to principles that have guided the development of Wikimedia projects; for example,  "let the facts speak for themselves" and "trust readers to form their own opinions". It is possible to explore topics from a particular point of view without crossing the line into propaganda.


 * In many sciences (like physics), it will be hard to understand and contribute to research, because lots of general knowledge is required in which it would be good to have a teacher with authority. I am a historian. In history, teaching and research could be integrated. My plan for history is to have people read the most well-received books and articles on a subject and to have a debate on all this literature. Controversial subjects in history could get the debate very emotional. Therefore, i would like to have participants to such debates to have the freedom to expres their emotions, which would involve dishonesty and propaganda. The outcome of a debate doesn't need to have a result. I have started one controversial subject already Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture. Would do you think about it?--Daanschr 15:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A solution to the problem of protecting controversial new ideas in research could be that the researchers working with this new ideas have the power to exclude people from their own project, so they will have authority on the contents of parts of their texts. Researchers who like eachothers methods of research and treating other people could cooperate with eachother.
 * About plagiarism: if new research is open available on the internet, then others can steal the knowledge and use it for their own. It could be an idea to do research secretly and to give only a small indication at the public pages of Wikiversity of what is going on.
 * I spoke with a Frenchman on Wikiversity Beta who was so busy that he could be active on Beta, only in 2007. This makes my point clear that research without money is very hard to do. Research needs commitment. Only salaries can provide commitment, because researchers will not have a full time job next to their activities on Wikiversity. What Wikiversity could do is providing a platform for those who already do research on universities. Psychologists have already created such a platform (Psychology Wikia)--Daanschr 08:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 *  the power to exclude -- It is too drastic.  We can deal with this issue more conveniently with the civility policy.   People who disagree are welcome, people who vandalise are not welcome.
 * People who vandalize are not welcome anywhere on the internet. There are no scholarly ethics needed for ending vandalism.--Daanschr 15:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * providing a platform for university researchers -  It will probably be one important function of wikiversity.  But we probably want more.
 * A growth plan is needed. At the moment there are hardly any people here. It is good to think practical next to having ideals.--Daanschr 15:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * to do research secretly Everybody is free to post as much or as little as she wants on wikiversity.  But being too secretive is not helpful in a collaboration.Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 09:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I was thinking about how to ensure having researchers with good quality at Wikiversity. They need some protection for their ideas.--Daanschr 15:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Many scholars are already good at writing in such ways that only their own circles of people can understand.  Do you want to have pages which can only be seen by designated people?---Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 22:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It would be could to adress researchers not to use unnecessary technical terms. What i want is that we adapt to the demands of researchers who perform with high quality, otherwise these researchers will simply refrain from joining us. Being accesible to contributors is the reason why i am scepticle about the scholarly ethics. Personally, i like honesty, trust and responsibility. But i am afraid that the scholarly ethics are missing the goal.--Daanschr 19:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * people could steal ideas- Everybody can certainly use the new ideas posted. But the credit of the idea itself goes to the originator, because everything on wikiversity has a time stamp.--Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 09:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * There are many examples of people who had an idea and didn't get any money out of it. Other tresearchers, large companies or governments use their ideas for their own benefit. An example is Einstein. Einstein never used footnotes, so when he wrote texts, he took credits for ideas he used from other people. The time stamp is a great asset indeed, but i don't think it will be sufficient.--Daanschr 15:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that Wikiversity participants should be free to experiment with new methods and reasons for protecting pages from editing. Wikipedia has one page on each topic. Wikiversity can have many pages on the same topic, one for each point of view about the topic. I think Wikiversity pages should be able to hold statements describing a particular approach for how to edit that page outside of NPOV guidelines. --JWSchmidt 15:41, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Research Paradigms
I propose that Faculties, Divisions, Schools, Institutes, Projects... describe their basic assumptions or research paradigm on their main page. Research of different subcommunities may then follow different paradigms and approaches. The Wikiversity policy should then be that when material is put into a section, it must comply with the paradigm defined there. If you want to do different reserch, you should put it somewhere else. Especially in the Humanities/ Social Sciences etc. there might be different and sometimes contradicting approaches to topics. To avoid conflicts and misunderstandings, theses should be made explicit. So the Wikiversity policy should not make any prescriptions about the paradigms, just demand them to be made explicit and to be regarded when adding contributions. I have tentatively tried something like that on Topic:History of Racism. What do you people think? Hard sciences should also make their research paradigms/biases/underlying assumptions/beliefs explicit (e.g. that a real world goverend by laws of nature exists, or that parrallel universes exist or don't exist etc.). This would not stop creationists to put their work here, they would just be forced to make their basic assumptions explicit and could be kept out of the scientific biologist's pages.Nannus 20:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I made an explicit link to Disclosures in the "see also" section of Scholarly ethics. The "Disclosures' policy is for when Wikiversity participants move beyond the traditional Wikimedia Foundation NPOV policy. "the genetic diversity of humans does not justify any division of them into 'races'." <-- One problem I see with this approach is that some very easy-to-satisfy biological definitions of "race" have been proposed, for example:


 * "A population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd 1950)." (see Race at Wikipedia).


 * "Also, there is going to be continuing interest from the medical community directed towards attempts to target medical treatments to particular genotypes. It seems like the question becomes if any existing biological or medical justifications for continued use of the term "race" are countered by the existing reasons to avoid using a term that is also associated with past political, social and economic policies that we do not wish to perpetuate.--JWSchmidt 21:31, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

A different approach
When I started at my current job, I was informed that employees are subject to both negative and positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement referred to correctional actions, whereas positive reinforcement referred to incentives. For the last five years, I have seen quality employees molded quite effectively using these two complimentary approaches.

This policy strikes me as a "negative reinforcement" approach. Perhaps the problem with the policy is that we are trying to enforce scholarly ethics (a difficult task without NPOV & NOR), instead of reward it. I think we might have better success with a policy that rewards scholarly work while simultaneously punishing vandalism and other blatant misdemeanors.

As for what the rewards system might be, I'm not sure. I think that we have to look at the values/motivations of our quality contributors, and understand why such editors decide to contribute to Wikiversity. I myself do so because I enjoy producing a piece of work that will be useful and used by many people. If that is a common motivation, then perhaps Wikiversity should offer quality editors ways to popularize their work which are not available to the average editor or vandal.

For instance, it was mentioned that a peer-review system could be installed to enforce quality work; what if such a system were voluntary, where editors could submit their work to be reviewed. Then, if a page/set of pages passed peer review (perhaps after some revisions), a "peer reviewed" template and/or category tag could be applied, to demarcate exceptional work. Perhaps, even, we could convince MediaWiki programmers to add a "search peer reviewed" check box next to the search box which would display only pages in the "peer reviewed" category.

Another idea is to do a similar thing with a "scholarly" template/category tag. As I was reading about peer review, either above or on the page it linked to, it was noted that a peer review system is at present beyond the capabilities of our small user base. An alternative would be to create a "scholarly" category/template in which editors can place their pages themselves. Placement of the template would require compliance to some scholarly ethic policy (perhaps similar to this one?), thence helping to separate the scholarly material from the not-so-scholarly.

What do you guys think?
 * --Opensourcejunkie 15:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Status?
I not so recently got a welcome template (although I can't find which one it was, it doesn't seem to be in Category:Welcome templates) and Scholarly ethics was linked. I finally actually read it closely and noticed the ethics link. So I followed the link, read the Scholarly ethics template, thought it seems like a good idea to me, and added the template to my user page. But in reading this talk it seems the idea has been roundly rejected. Is that correct? Very few users seem to have the template on their page. Why is it linked from the welcome template? (or is that just historical?) Just a bit curious here. ++Lar: t/c 17:43, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Lar, As I can know it, it was rejected not because it was a bad idea, but that it needed improvements; The problem is that little improvment has been made (and some of these ideas may not even be suitable for a enforceble formal policy).   Wikiversitians are of course free to adopt these ethics voluntarily.  However, participants engaged in research are advised by the research guidelines to adhere to them.Hillgentleman|Talk 04:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Wording literally requires that signer writes 100% complete academic review topic on "all" topics
"all relevant scholarly evidence, facts, analysis, and ideas within all scholarly topics of study"

The second "all":

The only way that someone could get anywhere near carrying out what is literally claimed here would be to import all the 1 million or so scholarly articles of the w:Wikipedia here ("scholarly" can exclude all the US-pop-culture stars that seem to constitute a big part of the en.wikipedia) into the Wikiversity, or at least heavily cross-reference to the Wikipedia. This could only be possible using a robot.

The first "all":

Clarifying that only the pages that the signer contributes significantly to are covered by the statement would still not satisfy the statement. Wikipedia has a notability requirement that is stronger than a "relevant" requirement. Evidence, facts, analysis and ideas may be relevant but not widely enough known/supported/understood to be notable. Writing a really complete review on a topic that you do research in would be a huge effort (i haven't done this yet), and doing that without getting formal brownie points for your academic career for all this work would probably discourage any university researchers from doing so.

If this is supposed to reply to a teaching project, this would also be ridiculous. You can only cover a few key really new ideas in each lecture, over a dozen or so lectures, in a typical course. Of course you need to do your best to present the most important empirical evidence and theoretical arguments, including unsolved, contradictory information, etc. But no student is going to learn "all".

To put it another way, $$\forall$$ is a very strong idea that should not be trivialised.

(i'm not saying that the idea of a statement like this is a bad idea, but more work would be needed in improving the wording. i'm not saying that it's a good idea, either. Radically transparent peer review using mediawiki software and Wikipedia culture to support these should already help a lot. But i do see the point about what to do with reports on "what was done and when and why" or other pages that may need protecting and the wiki processes cannot function quite the same way as on Wikipedia.)

Boud 22:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * There is an obvious problem with the wording that Boud cites. This requires some thought, at least for me! The goal is that a scholar does not exclude the full body of work, but, in many fields, nobody is aware of all of the work! --Abd 15:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Consequences of the failure to adopt a policy on Scholarly Ethics
In the absence of an agreed-upon policy on Scholarly Ethics, a number of problematic practices arise that undermine the integrity of both the project as a whole and the integrity of the work of scholars here.

Presently, it is commonplace for a Custodian to block a scholar on specious and unjustified grounds, over disputes that should be resolved in a more civil, collegial, and congenial manner through discussions and mediations.

In these cases of autocratic exercise of power, the comity of an otherwise democratic collaborative learning community is disturbed and supplanted by a disruptive political drama that can persist for weeks and even months, even to the point of sundering the community as it descends into absurd psychodrama.

In my case, I have reasserted my unalienable right to challenge the erratic behavior of autocratic custodians by continuing to participate without logging in.

Two of the largely unappreciated consequences of doing so are:


 * 1) It's nearly impossible to use the Special:Contributions page as a functional index into the corpus of my contributions here.
 * 2) Adversarial editors can exploit that loss of indexing and attribution to corruptly redact my original contributions and later republish them, making it appear as if they were their own original contributions.  When automated systems later compile derivative summaries, the automated attribution systems are likely to misattribute my original work to someone else who had nefariously redacted my original work and then republished some or all of it later as if it were their own original and independent work.

In cases of original research, the loss of reliable attribution may also become a matter of the integrity of a body of research and a matter of scholarly ethics, where it's important to maintain a functional and reliable record of the identifiable authors who did the original work.

Moulton 16:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Extreme statement in the present draft of this proposed policy
''This Wikiversity editor in their contributing to scholarly works, agrees to strong scholarly ethics. In particular this Wikiversity editor: [...] Will respond to all questions about the ethical caliber of their contributions on their talk page.'' (emphasis added)

This has been interpreted by at least one Wikiversity user to require any and all questions be answered about any and all "contributions" -- including maintenance contributions -- by any editor at all -- including blocked editors.

Not all work on Wikiversity is "scholarly." This policy is intended to address, "scholarly contributions," as it says, in their contributing to scholarly works.

Further, any scholar has the right to refuse to respond to hostile questioning that is not, itself, presented in a scholarly way, but which is insulting or harassing. When a question is presented in this manner, a scholar may refuse to answer, and may remove the question from their talk page or otherwise respond as the scholar chooses. If there is a legitimate question, the questioner may restate it, in a more cooperative manner, seeking clarification, not impeachment or blame. If the questioner has been asked to not post to the user's talk page, another editor may act as an intermediary, asking the question in a proper way.

Agreeing to the scholarly ethics policy is not a suicide pact. I would add the qualification "civil and reasonable" to the noun "questions." Okay? --Abd 15:17, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This has been interpreted by at least one Wikiversity user to require any and all questions be answered about any and all "contributions" -- including maintenance contributions -- by any editor at all -- including blocked editors.
 * I read that to mean you would like to have First Class Citizens who are entitled to be treated in an ethical manner, and Second Class Citizens who are not entitled to be treated in an ethical manner. Am I misreading you, Abd?  —Caprice —16:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)