Search For Diversity

What's wanted in a SociologyWiki is a forum for the comparison and contrast of diverse ideas. You disagree with me on some ideas, and you agree on others. We can beat each other up about truth and make no difference to each other or to anyone else. Or we can relate each idea to the other, sometimes spawning syntheses, sometimes cataloguing distinctions, and improve our understanding of the alternatives and their mutual interactions.

SearchForTruth is self-defeating. SearchForDiversity is self-seeding.

And that's exactly what we're doing on TheReformSociety. -- PeterMerel

As pointed out in SearchForTruth, SearchForDiversity is how WikiWikiWeb already works. Since WikiWikiWeb is a failure at politics, why would SociologyWiki succeed using the same strategy?

Let me see if I follow your logic here. "As contended on page X, Y is true. Further assume Y implies Z. Asserting then that Z never works, we are forced to conclude Z-prime is doomed." If we ruled out contentions, assumptions, and assertions, it might seem such an argument is flawed. Yet in the spirit of SearchForDiversity, it's accommodated simply by distinguishing it as existing outside the domain of rigorous logic. So, under the SearchForDiversity policy, it would rightfully belong on the SociologyWiki. If, however, SociologyWiki is to uphold a SearchForTruth, it would reject your argument as specious. Truly, which would you prefer?

Wiki is a failure at politics because it's not for politics, it's for an InformalHistoryOfProgrammingIdeas.

Politics is a failure at politics.

Wiki is a success at many things only loosely related to programming. It's a notable failure at politics. And while the above argument is amusing, it isn't serious. If SearchForTruth were limited to rigorous logic, it would be useless for politics, psychology, sociology, economics, history, anthropology, et cetera. Specific reasons were given on SearchForTruth why the values of this wiki would inevitably result in failure for political discussions even if the audience were limited to politically interested people. For the sake of avoiding redundancy, a reference is given to that page.

'Failure' at politics as compared to what? UseNet? SlashDot? I've only really used UseNet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the problems with politics we're seeing on this wiki are not exclusive to wikis, but to online discussion forums in general. Didn't our grandparents tell us not to discuss politics or religion with strangers? That's basically what we're doing here. Is it any surprise that we get into heated, off-topic arguments?

If your hypothesis is correct then why bother having a SociologyWiki? It'll be a failure.

WhyClublet was a success at religion but an absolute unmitigated failure at politics, even though people really tried. It was based even more on SearchForDiversity than WikiWiki. Except for a refusal to think psychologically, alt.atheism.moderated was a success at religion within the limits of UseNet itself (eg, no long-term memory).