Spontaneous Monotony

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have absolutely no idea why the timestamp on this post is about five hours behind when the post was actually made. I had forgotten to turn on DST in the options, but that should have only made an hour of difference. Hmm….

For years, one of the biggest black marks against Gordon Brown’s claim to economic competence was the tens of billions of pounds his first Budget wiped off the value of pensions.

Now it emerges that he knew all along – unless he lacks the ability to read, as the harmful effects of the proposed changes were outlined in plain English by civil servants: ‘We agree that abolishing tax credits would make a big hole in pensions scheme finances’

Gordon’s response to this? Apologise to the millions of older people facing poverty as a result of his mistake? Arrange a fund to make good the losses? No, in truly Blair-esque fashion he tried to block the release of the information, and then arranged to be in Afghanistan when it was coming out. Perhaps one of the Treasury minions thought that the ongoing Iran crisis offered a good opportunity to ‘bury bad news’?

Those who are ambivalent about independence now have a reason to vote for the SNP in May. The ‘Scottish’ Labour leadership have already signed several ‘policy agreements’ with their London masters – in other words, they will capitulate to the commands of the now-inevitable mandateless Brown government.

Whatever else might be said about the SNP, I think they will be slightly less willing to capitulate to any future cunning plans that Brown might come up with.

• BBC News – Tories call for pensions inquiry

AUTHOR’S NOTE Apologies to any Planet Wikimedia users among you. I have no idea why PW took every Wikimedia-related post I have ever made and displayed them with today’s datestamp. All posts were correctly datestamped in the feed, it’s the aggregator’s fault.

Following the unjustified hounding-out ‘voluntary’ resignation of Essjay from Wikipedia, a number of essays have sprung up debating two questions:

• Whether ‘credentials’ even matter
• If they do, what Wikipedia should do regarding them

The arguments for and against are spread out over numerous Wiki pages, and often run on for a paragraph or three (guilty), so I’ll offer what I think is a fair paraphrase here to save you the bother of reading it all. If you think I’ve missed anything on either side then drop me a line (comments preferably, or by wikimail).

Credentials matter because:

• The current climate in Wikipedia is one of hostility towards credentialled experts, and this is causing many of them to leave
• Experts know more about the subject matter, and in a dispute are more likely to be correct than an amateur
• Since experts work with the subject matter every day (as opposed to an amateur who may just have started editing the article randomly), they are more likely to understand the finer details – anyone can get the basics of a subject by googling it, but only experts can understand it fully
• Wikipedia is supposed to be a serious project to build an encyclopedia, not a Slashdot-style free-for-all. Top-quality work is only achieved by a proper, credentials-based academic review process.

Credentials don’t matter because

• Wikipedia judges people on the quality of their contributions – this inherently conflicts with any notion of judging people on the size of their credentials
• ‘I’m a PhD, so shut up’ is in conflict with numerous Wikipedia policies (author’s note: I count five) and is completely unacceptable. A policy recognising credentials would allow such obnoxiousness.
• Wikipedia’s requirements for verifiability and reliable sources mean that only statements which are already supported by people who know what they’re talking about will be included in articles. Nobody, regardless of their credentials, should be able to circumvent these requirements.
• Someone who demonstrates knowledge in a particular area will be respected by other editors (without the need for a ‘credentials policy’) whether they are credentialled or not.

What Wikipedia should do about credentials
Different people have different ideas about what Wikipedia should do as regards credentials. Obviously your opinion of what to do will be affected by what value you place on credentials in the first place!

• The Wikimedia Foundation office should set up a verification service, which would ask people claiming to be credentialled experts to send proof of such by email, post, fax etc. (author’s note: in Jimbo’s essay – see below – he says that any future verification process should not involve the WMF office)
• Institutional email accounts could be used for verification. For example: someone claiming to be a university professor could supply a link to ‘his’ staff bio page on the university’s website. A trusted Wikipedia user could then email that staff member at their institution account, confirming if they are really the person they claim to be
• People who know the person ‘in real life’ could post statements on-wiki testifying as to their true identity. (author’s note: this of course assumes that trusted members of the community are telling the truth. If that were always the case then the Essjay scandal would have never occured)
• Current policies are sufficient – a credential verification process would not significantly benefit Wikipedia, and an ‘ignore all credentials’ policy would further the perception of hostility towards experts.
• Ignore all credentials. There is no practical means of verifying the identity of people claiming credentials (at least, none that would not involve posting personal info on a public wiki page thus making the person vulnerable to id fraud), therefore the only way to avoid a repeat of the Essjay scandal is to never give claimed credentials _any_recognition

External links
This article is a summary of the proposals below (and their associated talkpages). In brackets is a brief explanation of the content of each page.

• Credentials are harmless (advocating the status quo)
• Credentials matter (the real problem is not abuse of credentials, but lack of respect for them)
• Ignore all credentials (proposed guideline encouraging users to ignore credentials)
• Jimbo’s ‘Credential Verification’ page (credentials should not have any power on Wikipedia, but verifying them helps to maintain Wikipedia’s culture of mutual trust)
• MikeURL/Credentials (encouraging respect for credentials and suggesting means of verification)

Teachers’ unions have claimed that plans to allow teenagers to learn a trade as an alternative to purely academic education would lead to a ‘two-tier’ education system.

The reality is that what we currently have is a two-tier education system. At the moment, children who want to go on to university are catered for well, with otherwise pointless subjects such as French and trigonometry offered to help people develop academic skills.

Those teenagers who do not want to go to university, but want to go into a ‘trade’ of some kind (plumber, electrician and so on), have the same curriculum imposed on them. What, for example, is the point of a young aspiring joiner being forced to learn French verb tables at school?

The current system offers a worthwhile education only to those children interested in university, and does not offer the same usefulness to children interested in working in a trade. That sounds a lot more like a two-tier system to me than giving school pupils the opportunity to learn what is appropriate for their career plans.

There was much celebration today when Gordon Brown announced a 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax. However this soon died out when media reports went into more detail. Yes, those on average incomes (and high ones – the threshold for 40% has gone up again) will be somewhat better off, but those on low incomes will see their income tax bill double ((The 10% ‘starter’ rate has been abolished, leaving those on low incomes now paying the 20% basic rate)).

So hang on, Gordon Brown has given tax cuts to those on medium and high incomes, and financed it by a massive tax hike for the poor? And this guy is supposed to be less right wing than Blair is? ((God help the Labour party if this is what passes for a leftist champion these days)) I really hate to use textspeak in blog posts, but Dubya Tee Eff?

In principle, the idea that our tax money goes to pay for Blarist/[Insert the name of your least favourite party] propaganda is not a comfortable one. However it is the lesser of two evils. At the moment we have the super-rich, big companies and trade unions ploughing millions into trade unions, and getting favours in return. ((Legal note: This point does not suggest that anyone involve in the so-called ‘cash for honours’ inquiry is guilty of any wrongdoing. Instead, the point that I am making is that there is a remarkable coincidence between (for example) Bernie Ecclestone’s £1m donation to the Labour Party and the Labour Government giving his sport an exemption from a tobacco advertising ban.))
The mechanics of the reforms are still to be worked out, and the parties are still bickering over the extent of restrictions on donations and use of funds. However, in principle a system under which political parties depend on their public popularity for funding is greatly preferable to one under which they depend on pleasing a handful of powerful individuals and organisations.