[WikiEN-l] [Fwd: Re: The hard work of NPOV]

[Andrew Gray]

On 06/12/2007, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:

> I was in an evil mood and confess to trolling; there are a lot of good
> thoughts at http://yudkowsky.net/virtues/ besides the sentence I seized
> on. We have published a "consensus of the most widespread error" from
> time to time, particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War. (I was one of
> the parties in error). Especially with current events, it is hard to
> know when you are doing that as our favored sources, in my case The New
> York Times, are fostering the error.

Even were we perfect overnight - all our articles neutral and informed
and comprehensive - we would still be guilty of this; an encyclopedia
reflects existing knowledge, and all too often existing knowledge is
systematically wrong.

(The most obvious dangerspots are physics, biology, astronomy - fields
that could have one unexpected announcement tomorrow throw entire
textbooks out of whack.)

I'm not sure it's in our best interests to pre-empt this, though
ensuring we can transition as smoothly as possible is always good. (I
remember the day of Sorting Out All The Pluto Stuff)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk