Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
I'm going out on a limb somewhat here, but I
believe that NPOV is
difficult to apply in the MT dispute because there is disagreement over
the amount and prominence of critical material that should be included
in the article.
I agree that this is a common difficulty that does not admit of the
easier solutions. But I don't think it is in any way insurmountable,
nor do I think that we need to appeal to some non-NPOV decision rules.
We're all by now quite good at such techniques as "going meta", i.e.
rather than making some claim, we just cite that some important group
or person makes such a claim. Usually, though not always, this
resolves the issue to everyone's satisfaction.
But we're less sure about how to find a neutral ground, by which we
mean a ground of mutual agreement between opposing editors, when the
issue involves questions of prominence.
I think that the best resolution here is to lean towards
"completionism" rather than "deletionism". If an article is
one-sided, then grow it. And then after it grows too big, it will
often be much easier to see how to break parts off into sub-articles.
Here's an example from the current dispute.
"Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 20
paragraphs about why, her good works, why she is beloved by so many
and so forth. And here's one sentence of criticism consisting mainly
of a link to a separate page."
OR
"Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 2
sentences saying way, followed by 20 paragraphs of criticism of her
and her order."
I would say that in *either* case, the right solution is *seldom* to
'balance' the article by *removing* valid material that is otherwise
NPOV. More likely, what is needed is *more material*. And then
hopefully, in that process, we can find that both parties are
satisfied to have some of the material moved out as necessary to
auxiliary articles.
We've also seen this recently in a Danny/RK edit war over
'Anti-Semitism'. Danny wanted to (and actually did win out,
eventually, I think, at least at last viewing) simply remove one huge
section of the article that he didn't like. I don't think that was
the right move at all. (Of course, RK responded badly, which he and I
have talked about.)
I think that deletionism forgets that Wiki Is Not Paper, and that
completionism is likely to lead us to a better final article.
--Jimbo