I just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop¹ hosted by the Credible Web Community Group² (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions:
1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!"
2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y"
After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid:
3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading.
I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions.
We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others.
We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions.
#W3C #credweb #credibleWeb #authenticWeb #flaw #fallacy #fallacies #logicalFallacy #logicalFallacies
Glossary
Ad Hominem
attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Politician's syllogism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
Solutions Looking For Problems (related: #solutionism, #solutioneering)
Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem
Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem":
* https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
Forbes has an illustrative anecdote:
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/
References
¹ https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/
² https://credweb.org/ and https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/
Previously in 2019 I participated @misinfocon.com #MisinfoCon:
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation