User:Tumbleman
About Tumbleman
The name 'The Tumbleman' comes from the title of a story I wrote over 10 years ago and has stuck with me ever since. I am a wiki enthusiast, public speaker, media and technology professional, and developer of a collective editing platform for the purposes of online negotiation and problem solving. Of keen interest to me are online mediation platforms, collective problem solving platforms, and online dialectics for conflict resolution.
Point of View on Wikipedia
Wikipedia is one of the most impressive collective platforms in the history of the world. It needs help! When possible, I enjoy engaging in the 'talk' debates and RFD process to insure that reason, logic, journalistic integrity and objectivity is expressed and editors are without bias.
Intention as a Wikipedia Editor
I am here to do a little field study into online resolution disputes, especially in consensus building platforms that rely on consensus rather than vote. I am fascinated by the concept of 'wiki wars' where two ideologically opposed editors have to find consensus. I hope my stay here provides help to both wikipedia and my own work into collective editing platforms. My focus is primarily on the conflicts that arise when editors are faced with maintaining a neutral point of view with subject matters that have proven to be controversial historically. Although some suggest that objectivity may be a fleeting illusion, pure objectivity, or neutrality as wiki refers to it, is essential to distinguish in any collective editing platform. So my focus is more on the back end process that editors have to engage with and face.
Philosophical/Ideological POV
Case Study in Wiki editing and mediation: Rupert Sheldrake Biography page
Currently I have decided to focus on the biography of Rupert Sheldrake as a case study in online wiki mediation. I am agnostic as to Sheldrake's theories and admittedly have no qualifications one way or another to accept or refute them, I am intrigued by the reactions to them from both the scientific community as well as mainstream culture from an ideological perspective. I found the TALK section to often be a war between two sides of the issue regarding Sheldrake, both having various levels of bias. For me, this represents a wonderful opportunity to show the value of pure unbiased, neutral, or objective reviewing when addressing contentious biographies or issues. What makes this a perfect case study for me is the issues regarding Sheldrake are very well documented and sourced, and considering it's science, easy to distinguish inside of a NPOV.
To any editor of the Sheldrake page who visits here, rest assured I have no ideological agenda, one way or another, regarding his theories and am not seeking to promote or condone them, rather simply listing the debate and historical record around them so they are framed within a NPOV and of course written within WP Good Article Criteria. which the page is sorely lacking.