[WikiEN-l] Neutral point of view

[Marc Riddell]

> On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 04:15:16AM +0100, Ian Woollard wrote:
>> The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to
>> have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for
>> example.
> 
on 4/14/08 9:14 AM, Carl Beckhorn at cbeckhorn at fastmail.fm wrote:

> I don't believe we are happy with that.  If an article said any of
> these things, we would remove them:
> 
> "Jesus was resurrected."
> 
> "Jesus was not resurrected."
> 
> "Jesus Christ is primarily a mythological construct rather than an
> historical figure."
> 
> 
> We would replace them with things like:
> 
> "Christians believe Jesus was resurrected."
> 
> "Christopher Hitchins criticizes those who believe Jesus was resurrected."
> 
> "Rudolf Bultmann argues that Jesus Christ should be interpreted as a
> mythological figure, rather than an historical one."
> 
> 
> The _reason_ we would say these later things, rather than the former
> ones, is because we can all agree that the latter ones are accurate
> (true, in a small-t sense).  Indeed, because of the way they are
> written, they only make claims about statements of other people,
> rather than the correctness of those statements.
> 
> The reason we would not say the former ones is because we would not be
> able to get consensus that they are sufficiently accurate to include as
> stated.
> 
> The key here is that we have to get consensus for article content.
> If there are wide disparities about a point of view, they will
> (it is hoped) reflect in the participants who form that consensus.
> 
Exactly! Thank you, Carl. You said it better than I did.

Marc Riddell