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Text of the page (random words):
ation of either version of the fallacy sometimes stated explicitly is a straw man argument that disagreement with specialized naming and style preferences is a criticism of specialized sources or even a direct attack on the specialty and editors who work in that particular field this particular ssf variant is the specialist straw man ssm why the ssf s underlying assumption about reliability is wrong edit put the interests of readers before those of editors and those of a general audience before those of specialists the practice of using specialized names is often controversial and should not be adopted unless it produces clear benefits outweighing the use of common names wikipedia article titles policy the sources we use to verify content are not necessarily our best sources for style even in cases where they may be reliable on certain style matters in specialized publications wikipedia and its manual of style article titles policy and related guidance draw primarily upon reliable general purpose broad scope sources for editing guidelines these sources include the best accepted style guides for formal writing like the current editions of the chicago manual of style the new oxford style manual a k a new hart s rules and the new oxford dictionary for scientific writers and editors and others such as fowler s dictionary of modern english usage strunk white s the elements of style the mla handbook etc dictionaries and other encyclopedias as well as observation of what is most commonly done in reliable general audience publications like newspapers and non specialized magazines and websites and even in refereed academic journals that broadly cover multiple fields e g science and nature typical ssf wording is we are guided by the most reliable sources in our field as if the wikipedia community in writing the manual of style were relying on novels and blogs the most reliable sources on how to capitalize italicize hyphenate or otherwise style the name of a subject or its subtopics in a general interest work like an encyclopedia are reliable works on style and grammar in english broadly not just usage in the specialty at issue specialized works are notoriously unreliable for this purpose because in a great many fields they tend to reflect conventions for specialized publications that widely depart from grammatical and style rules of everyday english for reasons usually specific to that sort of publication tailored for that field s special internal needs or simply aimed at very expedient communication between experts in the same speciality there is also a natural tendency to capitalize italicize boldface or otherwise emphasize things that are important in one s field of interest to highlight their special importance in that context this is a bad habit more of technical professionals than others 1 that specialized context is not the encyclopedic context that wikipedia presents to its users yet specialists may push for such stylization to extremes 2 the wikipedia community supports specialized publications stylistic recommendations when they do not conflict with widespread general spelling grammar and other expectations we side with general not specialized practice when there is a conflict because wikipedia is the encyclopedia with the most general audience in the entire world and is not a specialized publication or collection of specialized publications because wikipedia is not paper it need not limit itself to non specialized information and can be as rich in detail as we like but the audience has not changed when we present specialized information the manual of style most often does defer to style preferences espoused in academia when those preferences are shared across multiple disciplines the ssf is distinct from this is being the advancement of a style preferred by a narrow subset of disciplines often just one conflicting with other disciplines and with general usage the ssf not only errs in considering specialized sources reliable for encyclopedic style but also in assuming opponents of a specialized style to be generalist editors with inadequate understanding of the specialty field interested primarily in applying rigid simplistic rules with no regard for specialists rationales in fact many opponents of specialized styles are themselves specialists who understand that idiosyncratic and conflicting stylistic specialisms are distracting to encyclopedia readers and diminish the general accessibility of articles covering any topic in any specialty in short if every speciality is permitted to apply unusual stylization to whatever it wants to then eventually virtually everything would have weird stylization applied to it and editors would spend much of their time fighting about which stylization to apply instead of actually working on producing an understandable encyclopedia how the ssf works edit the core tactic of the specialized style fallacy is to claim that any disagreement with the specialist s very strongly held and argued preference with regard to their specialty or disagreement with the underlying premise that reliable sources on specialized facts are the most reliable sources on style when the specialized topic is involved at all is cue dramatic music here necessarily also an accusation that the specialized sources are faulty inconsistent don t exist or don t say what they say alternatively the claim may be that those who disagree with the specialized source preference are criticizing the specialty itself and or editors who come from that field next comes an attempt to shift debate into a long winded proof against arguments no one actually made about the value of these sources or of this specialty this will sometimes be done using emotive even insulting language that generates heated responses and tends to derail discussions the likelihood of this increases with the frequency of disagreements about the specialized practice under scrutiny and with the rise in general consensus against it every reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that material is presented in the most widely understandable manner possible wikipedia make technical articles understandable many specialists make this error being too concerned about their own specialized interests versus the broader ones of the encyclopedia its readers and its more general editorship they are effectively writing for the wrong audience the specialized one they tend to be convinced that anyone who disagrees with their pet stylistic or naming scheme is surely ignorant and simply can t understand or is just too much of a rube to care a few of them will even say so dismissively specialists may be anything from academics in a particular field to devoted fans of a particular fiction or gaming franchise to adherents of a particular religious or political point of view to hobbyists of any kind to students steeped in a particular pedagogical camp to employees of a certain company or agency ministry to players of a particular sport or devotees of a specific team if it has its own body of insider publications sites and jargon it is a specialty and will have specialists fortunately most of them do not engage in the ssf most specialists don t have any stylistic agenda to push consciously or otherwise most wikipedians are specialists of one or more kinds and we always need to keep this in mind there is no such thing as a conflict between generalists and specialists here only between the wikipedia community as a diverse broad population and specialists on a particular topic who are going a little too far it s a can t see the forest for the trees problem of priorities and focus not a mental disorder or inherently a bad attitude specialists even unintentionally engaging in the ssf have a tendency to attempt to repetitively re explain their belief that their specialty s preferences are absolutely paramount in wikipedia articles in that field simply because that s how the specialists write off wikipedia they may thus dismiss or ignore without fully engaging or addressing any arguments by others that what is appropriate and standardized in specialized literature often has nothing at all to do with how wikipedia should be written for a general audience this argument may be lost on them for some time even indefinitely drowned out by sheer disbelief at the stupidity of anyone who cannot see that the only way to possibly write about their topic is their way they may exhibit what can seem like signs of fanaticism about or rampaging obsession with the style issue especially when debates become protracted and their opponents become less patient and more judgmental when pushed to frustration themselves specialists on a style mission may actually resort to psychodrama and debate skewing histrionics even appeal to pity like threatening to quit wikipedia if their preference is not upheld as that of wikipedia itself or proclaiming that wikipedia is going down the tubes and should be replaced by something more reliable i e friendlier to unreasonable demands made by some members of their specialty chest beating to drive away the opposition is very effective if you re a gorilla collections of specialists typically in wikiprojects may attempt to exert an extreme level of control over articles they consider within their scope and badger other editors to do things the specialists way often citing guidelines written by the project specifically for articles on topics within the scope of the specialty and which do not agree with mainstream site wide wikipedia guidelines and policies such behavior is rarely initiated in bad faith but can become quite problematic over time especially if the most activist and combative of the specialists at a topical wikiproject decide amongst themselves to become entrenched even to publicly threaten to engage in strange protests like going on an editorial strike if they don t get their way when their heels are dug in this way they believe they are acting as defenders of the faith against any disagreement with their specialized practice however reasoned or criticism of their behavior in their attempts to maintain and justify that practice through obstinate filibustering or outright advocacy against what they see as a rising tide of mean spirited hostility many ssf cases begin as such attempts at protectionism and simply go off the deep end alienating more and more other editors a formerly common result of group action of this sort is a fait accompli whereby the majority of articles within the scope of the specialty may be edited by the specialists to conform to the specialized source style practice through a combination of edit warring using the ssf in edit summaries to confuse other editors into yielding and the fact that most editors who don t focus on that specialty won t care enough about the disagreement at any given article to get into a lame protracted dispute about it but will just roll their eyes and walk away no one likes chest beating except at the zoo the group may then declare that the specialized practice is normal wikipedia practice or a standard operating procedure in their articles having chased off any who disagree and should thus be enshrined in the mos as how it s done they forget that mos is a prescriptive and proscriptive internal guideline based on a descriptivist interpretation of reliable sources on grammar and style mos is not a vote not a bureaucracy and not itself descriptivist much less based primarily on specialized sources mos is an internal style manual for mooting style disputes and getting on with content writing it is not style advice for the world and it cannot possibly agree with all of the world s style advice since a large amount of it conflicts from source to source and audience to audience when the ssf is most disruptive edit rarely but very disruptively the specialized style fallacy is deployed intentionally as a strategic form of ideological and debatory verbal combat especially to short circuit the normal formation of consensus if it looks like the broader community is leaning away from the preference of an angry specialist or sometimes group thereof an attempt may be made to employ the ssf to disrupt a proposal poll rfc xfd or other consensus discussion to mire it in distracting arguments about the veracity of various sources if any did not notice the bait and switch and fall into the argue round in circles trap added to that pile of posts will be all those that refute that any of this nonsense is relevant posted by those who did recognize it as blatant misdirection to a straw man the combined wall of text could then result in a tl dr situation that could derail the discussion make it too difficult for incoming editors to figure out what the issues are and confuse many of the extant participants making it difficult to restart the consensus building when done by a group of like minded specialized style advocates the ssf can even be used in an attempt to create a false consensus through vote stacking on freewheeling web forums and internet mailing lists such a tactic would rarely work because it would be recognized as an obvious form of trolling but because wikipedia has a unique and formal guideline about assuming good faith many editors will attempt to reason with ssf posters and reason against their arguments and straw men sometimes at great length that clouding draining expense of time energy and verbiage is the whole idea when ssf is undertaken in bad faith more often it s what we could call grey faith a the ends justify the means use of inappropriate behaviors to try to achieve well motivated goals but it s not any less disruptive worse yet some may attempt to repeatedly exploit wikipedia s assume good faith default this is a form of gaming the system in this case the ssf is also used as a red herring fallacy to cloud debate further by asserting even after discussion has moved on that the debate is actually still about what specialized sources do in this hybrid i didn t hear that siege the ssf claim is inserted as often as possible into the debate no matter how many times it is refuted in any new subtopic that opens in false response to every question in any vote as the commenter s only real content in ssfer created new subthreads declaring what the real issue is and that the preceding debate is a conspiracy to silence the specialists in counter polls that don t have a snowball s chance but divide attention or are stacked through on wiki canvassing and off wiki coordination via e mail or outright meatpuppetry and so on this can happen in more than one place anywhere the topic comes up or in new threads anywhere the specialist thinks the audience may be more sympathetic or just unaware of the nature or existence of prior debate about it article talk pages dispute resolution the village pump user talk administrative noticeboards policy and guideline talk pages anywhere it is a memetic written form of denial of service attack ...