Taylor Marshall's video on Fratelli Tutti- am I missing something or is TM being disingenuous...?

[Anesti33]

My point @Bithynian is that in writing about a Vatican document on wiki, surely a person should be reading that Vatican document, that primary source, in its entirety.
It is impossible to present a neutral point of view if bias already exists in a lack of want in reading the primary source.

It is also impossible to present a neutral point of view if secondary sources are themselves not neutral.

I don’t see how that follows. I can spot-check the document all I want, which is exactly what I’m doing right now. I can ensure that the secondary source is accurately reporting on a given section.

However, I don’t need to travel to Barcelona and go to Mass in the Sagrada Familia to write an article about Antoni Gaudi. I don’t need to work in the Roman Curia to write an article on Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. I don’t need to read the Koran in Arabic to edit an article on Islam.

And when I say “write the article” I must stress that every editor writes really small parts! I mostly delete stuff, frankly! Most content contributors write a paragraph at a time and stick one reference on it. Articles come together over the course of months or years with hundreds of editors collaborating. That’s the fun part.

 

[humilityseeker]

I don’t see how that follows. I can spot-check the document all I want, which is exactly what I’m doing right now. I can ensure that the secondary source is accurately reporting on a given section.

I am responding to your claim further up the thread

You know, I don’t feel it’s a good investment of my time to read it.

I am taking that as you dont feel its a good investment of your time to read Fratelli Tutti and you have read as much as you are going to read and not going to read any more of that document

and that’s as far as I care to go.

I read Evangelium gaudii and that will be the last Francis document for me

I can spot-check the document all I want, which is exactly what I’m doing right now.

Spot-checking can miss the entire context of an idea or statement. There are countless examples of where this has happened. We can dip into an article at a particular spot, read the paragraph, and not realise the context, and erroneously believe it is the stance of the author, or the argument the article/document is being built around.

It does an author a great discredit to not read an article/document in its entirety .

 

[Anesti33]

Once again, that’s not necessary to do my job. I have edited 50,000 articles over 13 years (my anniversary’s coming up.) I am insulted by the suggestion that I need to be intimately acquainted with all primary sources before I can legitimately edit an article about them.

 

[Bithynian]

My point @Bithynian is that in writing about a Vatican document on wiki, surely a person should be reading that Vatican document, that primary source, in its entirety.
It is impossible to present a neutral point of view if bias already exists in a lack of want in reading the primary source.

It is also impossible to present a neutral point of view if secondary sources are themselves not neutral.

Hopefully an editor has some reasonable familiarity with the subject of an article or the specific edit being made. But Wikipedia doesn’t require this as ultimately Wikipedia isn’t supposed to care about an editor’s knowledge, credentials or bias. It doesn’t matter whether an editor is a 15 year old chemistry student making an edit about MacKinnon’s research on ion channels or the editor is Professor Roderick MacKinnon the Nobel Prize recipient. What matters is that that edits are accompanied with citations to reliable secondary sources.

 

[humilityseeker]

I am responding to a person who is going to write/edit a wiki article on Fratelli Tutti without reading the document in its entirety.

I am insulted by the suggestion that I need to be intimately acquainted with all primary sources before I can legitimately edit an article about them.

I am insulted that a person would not read the article in its entirety before writing about it or editing articles others have written. Wiki is a free platform, anyone can write anything they wish.
Catholics have an obligation and a service to the Church of which they are a part, to accurately represent a thing. That is impossible if bias leaves the primary article not thoroughly read.

This is my last post on this. I have made my view quite clear and will again reinforce that wiki is a free platform where anyone can post and edit and re edit without recourse to unbiased information.

 

[Anesti33]

The key thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can delete anything they want, too. So if YOU think I wrote something wrong then delete it! I’m up for correction!

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Ideally we rely entirely on secondary, independent, third-party, reliable sources. Well-written articles that win awards rarely make reference to a primary source. Consider biographies. What primary source can you have, conduct an interview with the dude? Oh, he’s been dead for 500 years. Nothing but secondary sources to write about.

In general, people who write crap on Wikipedia don’t get to stay around for long. Anyone with a valid rationale can make a deletion directly to the articles. It’s that easy. Make the case, push the button. I do it all day.

 

[humilityseeker]

http://www.vatican.va/content/franc...ncesco_20201003_enciclica-fratelli-tutti.html

Fratelli Tutti

Eight Chapters, quite an easy read.

 

[Anesti33]

I call up a friend and ask him to share a beer with me tonight. He comes over. I hand him a bucket of hops, yeast, a still, more equipment and ingredients, and a 500-page recipe book. Then I bid him farewell for six months.

No, I hand him a bottle. This isn’t rocket science.

 

[humilityseeker]

Yes indeed my bias runs to if someone is going to write regarding specific documents, then they should give the author of that document the respect and service of reading the document. That is what I am responding to. It was absolutely necessary for the discussion between my self and another poster.

Why should it not run to that?

It is very necessary for a discussion to actually read the thing. Especially if the person is

I find that insulting, as I am the person helping to write the article,

This person is not editing, this person has stated they are helping to write the article.

 

[pnewton]

My point @Bithynian is that in writing about a Vatican document on wiki, surely a person should be reading that Vatican document, that primary source, in its entirety.

There is no problem with ignorance. We all are ignorant. However when one chooses ignorance, then believes that an opinion based on ignorance is somehow reasonable, then we have the internet.

One biigggg advantage to an encyclical like this one is that it draws a line between those who want to play layperson complain, and those that want to play a student. Sure, it is too much to digest in one sitting, but it doesn’t exactly come with a time limit. I am less than half way through myself.

It is not for everyone. Lay people to not need to be knowledgeable on all things, deep or theological. Some of the greatest saints have been the simplest. But it is good to recognize the limitation of any opinion without first wanting to put in the sweat.

That should be the motto of modern man’s devolution.

 

[pnewton]

FT quotes for the day, that pertain to this conversation:

At times, the frantic pace of the modern world prevents us from listening attentively to what another person is saying. Halfway through, we interrupt him and want to contradict what he has not even finished saying. We must not lose our ability to listen”.

The flood of information at our fingertips does not make for greater wisdom. Wisdom is not born of quick searches on the internet nor is it a mass of unverified data. That is not the way to mature in the encounter with truth.

 

[Gab123]

I am insulted by the suggestion that I need to be intimately acquainted with all primary sources before I can legitimately edit an article about them.

It would certainly make your work more accurate and legitimate, and make you a much better editor, enabling you to Identify the spin being spread by secondary sources. Relying on secondary sources would be like using Nancy Pelosi as a source for an article about President Trump’s State of the Union speech (which she tore in half). What is troubling is that you could probably have read the entire document twice in the time you’ve spent on this thread and watching Taylor Marshall videos… Jussayin’

 

[Anesti33]

Anesti33:

I am insulted by the suggestion that I need to be intimately acquainted with all primary sources before I can legitimately edit an article about them.

It would certainly make your work more accurate and legitimate, and make you a much better editor, enabling you to Identify the spin being spread by secondary sources. Relying on secondary sources would be like using Nancy Pelosi as a source for an article about President Trump’s State of the Union speech (which she tore in half). What is troubling is that you could probably have read the entire document twice in the time you’ve spent on this thread and watching Taylor Marshall videos… Jussayin’

Welp I wish I would’ve fought in the Punic Wars too, but I have to edit that article practically blind! Just sayin’

What I’ve added to the article is two paragraphs that describe what Taylor Marshall said. I had to carefully watch Taylor Marshall’s video to determine what he said. I then referred to the paragraphs in question to determine that what he said was accurate and of substance. Since I was not directly asserting anything about the encyclical, but instead describing what Marshall said, there was no reason for me to read 42,000 irrelevant words. Marshall read them all for me. I trust him to report what Francis said somewhat accurately, because I have identified him as a reliable source. He read all the words for me and I’m just benefiting from the distillation. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

The Wikipedia article is not about what Pope Francis wrote, per se. The article is about what was said by the NC Register, Ed Pentin, Catholic Herald, NYTimes, America, RNews Service, Fr. James Martin, Fr. Thomas Reese, et. al. I have read what these sources said about it, and I have verified that the article is accurately reporting what they said.

That’s how an editor writes an encyclopedia. It is a tertiary source. An encyclopedia does not discuss the primary source, it discusses what secondary sources said about the primary source.

If you had a student who wrote a paper on a certain medical treatment, they would cite journal articles. These journal articles have footnotes. The students are under no obligation to read the referents of all the footnotes, nor are they required to interview the medical professionals who did the research, nor are the students required to participate in studies or experiments themselves. It would be insulting for a teacher to require this.

 

[Anesti33]

I think it would be a little beyond the student’s pay grade to critique methodology of a research study that appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, don’t you?

But I see your analogy, you’re slagging off Marshall again. Yeah, you guys really don’t get how encyclopedias are written.

As an editor I have made a prudential judgement about the reliability of this source, Marshall’s podcast. According to that reliability, I have written in my own words a couple paragraphs about what he says about Tutti fratelli. Since Wikipedia has extensive editorial oversight, anyone on the Internet can delete or modify what I’ve written about Marshall and Francis. Therefore, I can be exceedingly confident, as my edits stand over time, that my contribution was worthwhile and correct.

Wikipedia works on long time scales. Fratelli tutti came out 3 weeks ago. Right now we’re based off news reports, but 10-25 years from now, this article might be based on scholarly books from academic publishing houses. I fully accept that my edits may just be standing in the breach until something better comes along.

 

[Anesti33]

I largely agree, and what rankled me is that “God the Father” shows up in a very prominent place: as the first of two concluding prayers, ecumenical ones, but it still invokes the First person of the Holy Trinity by name. Just not by the pattern that Marshall demanded. And this is a social justice encyclical – doesn’t need to mess around mentioning theological terms a lot.

 

[Gab123]

Marshall read them all for me. I trust him to report what Francis said somewhat accurately, because I have identified him as a reliable source. He read all the words for me and I’m just benefiting from the distillation. I stand on the shoulders of giants.

The problem is that Taylor Marshall is a giant spreader of sensational misinformation. Don’t trust him for these types of projects. He is the same fellow who misrepresented what occurred in the Vatican Gardens with the delegation from Amazonia. According to his ‘expert analysis’ he assumed they were pagans invited to the Vatican to perform their pagan rituals, which Marshall then concluded was an installation of demons in the Vatican. In reality this was a delegation of Catholic natives affiliated with the missionary group Palavra da Vida Norte. The edited videos clip of the group bowing to the ground in a circle was used as as proof that they were worshipping a pagan wooden statue. In truth, they were thanking and praising God Our Father for the goodness of His Creation. Had people watched the entire event for themselves, they would have known better than to swallow the nonsense peddled by the YouTube babbling heads, that scandalized Catholics and non-Catholis alike with a false narrative That takes aim at the pope and spreads suspicion and mistrust rather than the truth.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[pnewton]

One of the problems with skipping a personal reading of the documents is that statements, that is, sentences, taken by themselves convey little. Like most things, an error in the beginning is an error indeed. Without the foundation Pope Francis lays on the universal brotherhood of man, what human dignity is, and what it is not, how can there be an informed opinion on later sentences built upon the more basic foundation?

 

[pnewton]

Speaking for myself, I am reading at a more deliberate rate, and I will not address his points because I have no desire to read his second hand opinions when I have the real deal in front of me, from the guy that actually is the Pope.

 

[pnewton]

I try to follow the rules for posting here. I will not follow new stuff people make up, but I have not made a lot of comments about what he has specifically said based on what I have not read. You follow your conscience in this, and I will follow mine.

 

[humilityseeker]

Fratelli tutti - Wikipedia