Karl Wick wrote:
That way a creationist textbook could be written and
prepared on the
site by and for creationists.
Well, I don't think that abandoning NPOV is going to help at all.
Let's use this example, because I'm guessing that all of us here today
think that creationism is essentially wrong, a false theory about the
world.
A book *about* creationism, written mostly by creationists but also by
anti-creationists, with both sides working hard to accomodate the
other, could easily be NPOV. Abandoning NPOV merely weakens the book
for everyone.
I'd like to at least keep the door open and deal
with it as
it comes up instead of outright outlawing it from the
start.
Well, certainly as a practical matter, we can deal with it as it comes
up. No sense generating a priori rules and regulations for a problem
that doesn't exist.
But I think it is critically important that the Wikimedia Foundation
adhere *strictly* to NPOV, globally, as matter of quality control.
We want people to say "Well, the Wikimedia Foundation book about
creationism is a revolutionary tour de force. It has been widely
adopted in college courses dealing with the controversy, and it is
pointed to by evolutionists and creationists as the most wide-ranging
and fair treatment of the subject. Newcomers wishing to learn about
the controversy can ask for no finer presentation of the issues and
arguments."
We do NOT want people to say "Yes, those Wikimedia people will publish
anything. They have a pretty good encyclopedia, but they also publish
books that are pro-creationism, pro-Nazi, and pro-homosexual
marriage."
NPOV generates credibility, because it is a credible decision rule, a
credible process. NPOV is that which we can all agree with. And NPOV
also gives us a way to settle internal controversies peacefully,
because of the standing rule that if two people are arguing about the
content of an article, they should both be working hard to try to
accomodate the other point of view.
--Jimbo