Open analysis is an essential tool for collaboration an d building an informed citizenry.

The challenge[edit | edit source]

The internet and the media are filled with subjective or shallow green views, attention given to the most "interesting" or sensationalist views rather than to intelligent or fact-basedl views. Even pseudoscience may get more attention than real science.

Journalists are generally not scientists, and the issues they report on often require significant expertise to give a full and fair report.

Open, public analysis as a solution[edit | edit source]

Open analysis in this context refers to analyzing a claim or issue in open collaboration with others. In practice this will require a tool such as a wiki, with open edit (or at least free and open registration). It will also require an active community with agreed groundrules for the analysis.[1]

There are many challengesto such an approach, but some success has been had on Appropedia (see below) and if persistence and experimentation are applied, an extremely valuable platform for public debate could be unleashed.

Open analysis on Appropedia[edit | edit source]

By providing a platform for open analysis, Appropedia empowers individuals and society to make intelligent choices on large and small matters.

Appropedia (unlike Wikipedia) encourages analysis as part of its content, both as part of topic project and other pages, and as separate analysis pages.

Examples on Appropedia:

  • Hybrid cars critiques the claim that hybrids have a larger carbon footprint than SUVs, and finds it incorrect, with apparent bias and dubious assumptions in the report made the claim.
  • Should I clean my refrigerator coils finds that a suggestion on popular green sites is actually not useful (and actually harmful, in diverting effort away from effective actions]]).
  • Housing affordability: ":Limiting land release, according libertarian/conservative commentator Wendell Cox WP, is a major contributor to housing becoming unaffordable,[verification needed] and this is quite logical."

(These examples remain open and the analysis remains open to improvement or correction.)

The (draft) policy that governs such analysis is Appropedia:Analysis. All content is also subject to the (draft) policy Appropedia:Rigour.

Notes[edit | edit source]

  1. In order that the community takes ownership of the groundrules, these should also be open to development by the community, as with the Appropedia policies Appropedia:Rigor and Appropedia:Analysis.

External links[edit | edit source]

http://www.withouthotair.com may be a related effort or at least a good source of information for appropedia's efforts.

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Authors Chris Watkins
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 0 pages link here
Impact 272 page views
Created February 18, 2010 by Chris Watkins
Modified June 9, 2023 by StandardWikitext bot
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