User talk:Tdawgh

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Hello, Tdawgh!

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Happy editing! Cheers, Doug Weller talk 12:09, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

December 2022

Please remember to assume good faith when dealing with other editors, which you did not do on Talk:Graham Hancock. Thank you. Doug Weller talk 12:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Doug, thanks for the heads up. It definitely wasn’t in good faith, plus I’m new here and am just testing out the wiki editing (and limits) to see how everything works :) wiki is great and impressive in many ways, however it seems that some of the content and phrases on e.g. the Graham Hancock page is perhaps not written in good faith, although in a subtle way. Everyone sees what’s going on but it’s difficult to prove. This seems to be a challenge on certain topics and personas on Wiki - the (strong) opinions of certain editors sometimes shine through, especially on polarising topics, and there’s no bulletproof mechanism to do more objective edits if several editors of the same biased conviction happen to create a consensus about certain things. But nothing is perfect I guess, and for all we know this is probably the best way at this point. But it’s probably good to openly acknowledge and be aware of this issue - that wiki pages can sometimes be quite biased, and that it can be difficult to correct this. A consensus among wiki editors does not mean it is a representative consensus of most people. Tdawgh (talk) 16:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There’s nothing wrong with bias. We are biased against pseudoscience, against Creationism, etc. We are a mainstream encyclopaedia. Did you read the letter from the Society for American Archaeology? Doug Weller talk 18:05, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, we’re all biased anyway, and probably should be on many topics, but it’s important to recognise that. Don’t get me wrong - I think Mr. Hancock’s Netflix-series are one-sided, and although slightly entertaining and refreshing, I assume he’s mainly showing us stuff that fits his narrative and leaving out relevant points of view that are unsupportive of his. So you take everything with a pinch of salt - that’s just common sense. Also, one gets a bit tired of all his slights towards archaeologists (or academics in general) - it’s too much, and seems bitter and unbalanced. That doesn’t mean that I think it’s OK to try discrediting him on a seemingly neutral encyclopaedia like Wikipedia though, because the theories he presents, although unlikely, haven’t been disproved, have they? I’ve read the recent open letter from SAA, yes. Given the many attacks against archaeologists in Ancient Apocalypse they didn’t really have any choice but to stand up for themselves. I'm glad they did, and they’re completely right, although I’d like to see the exact evidence they refer to when they write that “Hancock’s narrative emboldens extreme voices that misrepresent archaeological knowledge in order to spread false historical narratives that are overtly misogynistic, chauvinistic, racist, and anti-Semitic.” Once people start throwing in those words into a discussion, they come off as a bit unbalanced themselves because that’s quite an escalation. Oh well, anyway: I get your initial point, and I did not assume that the editors acted in good faith. Let’s hope they did, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Tdawgh (talk) 20:30, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]