How and when I trust science, when would you trust science?

When something drops on my head, it is gravity that brings it down. When I travel to the USA, the shortest route is over Iceland, the world is round. I did not get polio, measles or whooping cough, my parents had me vaccinated. I worked in computing, most of the women were better then the men, my observation, I am happy working for women.

When I read articles in Wikipedia, I know that I can trust it up to a certain level because there are citations indicating that something is true or that a given opinion is held. Its neutral point of view means that equal weight is to be given to opinions but not when it flies in the face of proven facts, the science about a subject. The best news; when scientific papers are retracted, we start to know about this and act upon it in Wikipedia. The nonsense, the preconceptions, the paid for science is to be removed once it is retracted.

In the Netherlands a prominent scientist has been tasked to root out those medical practices that are proven not to work. His work will be hard he will have to deal with vested interests, ingrained practices and a public that wants everything to be as expected. People will still be vaccinated, some medications will no longer be available, some treatments will not be there, they do not work even when you are desperate for them to work..

That is me, now you, when can you trust.. Well it is good to be wary, just consider the numbers. When a politician says he was effective because many drug dealers went to jail, ask yourself why should they be in jail, did your community end up safer? If not, not much was achieved. When scientific papers show the numbers of junks go down when substance dependence is treated as a medical and not as a criminal issue. Wonder what this meant for the communities these people come from. Seek out the numbers and you are no longer talking politics but considering the science of it.

A lot of so called science defends points of view that do not fit facts on the ground. This can be tricky/tough to understand because the difference may be local versus global. World wide, temperatures go up. Our climate is no longer stable and yes, in the USA it has been cold lately.. not so in Europe, Africa, Asia. One thing to consider, is it truly science, peer reviewed and everything or is it to shore up a point of view.. A tell tale is when it is from a "research institute" / "policy institute" paid for by an interested party.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Wikimedia - #diversity and #inclusion requires #trust

All the Wikimedia projects have their culture. Each project has its own culture and there is this overall stated ambition that diversity and the inclusion that is needed to make it work is alive and well.

We have our diversity conferences and the best result is how the "gender gap" is approached. It gets a lot of attention and the positive effects are noticeable. There is however more to diversity and some of the beliefs we hold so dear prevent the inclusion from those that are at the outside looking in.

One of the Wikimedia traditions is that we do not trust; trust is in the citations, the sources. We do not trust each other, why should we? When for diversities sake, people who receive the "Harriët Freezerring" are added, it is accepted because there is a Wikipedia article that mentions them.. But when people are added because they are "artists from the African diaspora" there is a problem. There are no articles yet and the point of adding the artists first is because Wikidata enables managing projects in multiple languages.

There are many people who are targetted for attention in Wikipedia editathons. There have been editathons in the past so there is an established track record for the Black Lunch Table. That did not bring trust, the trust needed to accept that the BLT will manage the people on the list. The trust that bare boned items will get sufficient statements eventually.

The problem with trust is that when it is not given, it can not be assumed for other, similar situations either. The trust that retractions from scientific papers will be included so that we know what Wikipedia articles are inherently wrong. Retractions are absent at this time and while I trust the people involved in the inclusion of citations, why trust at all when equally worthy causes are not trusted? Why include all these scientific papers without similar quality control?
Thanks,
       GerardM

Was Cezhiyan Cendana a Pandyan king?

There is no way for me to find out if Cezhiyan Cendan was a Pandyan king or not. The only source I can find is a blog saying so. The problem is that texts in Wikipedia make me doubt. The text in the article for Maravarman Avani Culamani states that he is succeeded by his son Jayantavarman.

One fun fact is that templates do not have sources. It is however what I base information on when I add information to Wikidata. The other interesting point is that dates given are overlapping to the extent that they are not reliable.

So this is where we get into a problem. When information is good enough for a Wikipedia, is it good enough for Wikidata. More importantly is the question how do we curate information like this in a way that helps us all?
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Facebook, we ARE your partner .. trust us, trust #Wikipedia

#McAfee scans links from Facebook. This would be a good idea when done right. As it is, links to Wikipedia are flagged on Facebook as "potentially unsafe by our trusted partner".

This is rather silly because the Wikimedia Foundation has been a partner of Facebook longer then this new "trusted partner". Facebook, I trust that you can agree that you have got it wrong. It is "wonderful" to have trusted partners who talk on your behalf and get it so magnificently wrong.

As a long time partner we do trust you to do good..
Thanks,
     GerardM