[Wikipedia-l] Re: Contoversy flag on articles.

[Toby Bartels]

Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:

>My idea with the "controversial issue" flag/page-link would be to use it for
>articles that are still "contested" at Wikipedia. Many articles that in
>themselves regard controversial issues have been splendidly NPOVed, and
>wouldn't need to be flagged.

>But others, where people bicker back and forth, or where someone still doesn't
>consider the article to be NPOVed, would benefit from it.

First, I don't think that this should be encouraged just because
a reader doesn't think that an article is NPOV but hasn't time to fix it.
Although you can't vote automatically from a page anymore,
the listing at [[Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing]] serves this purpose.
You apparently think that this won't be used widely
because there's a threshold of trouble involved;
but adding "This is a [[controversial issue]]."
at the end of the introductory paragraph is quite easy,
and it's hard to justify removing it if the statement is literally true.
Listing on [[Wikipedia:Votes for NPOVing]] is a more reasonable threshold IMO.

However, the pages where people bicker back and forth
could reasonably stand be flagged for the benefit of casual readers
(or to calm down the authors, although I don't think that that will work).
But casual readers won't be tipped off by a link to [[controversial issue]].
The only way that I think that this will work is an entire paragraph,
placed after the introductory paragraph in Wikipedia's patented '', say:

''This is a [[controversial issue]], and the authors of Wikipedia
have yet to come to a consensus on the best way to present it
from a [[neutral point of view]]. Please bear that in mind while reading,
and if you wish, help us to craft this article in a way
that will be fair to all viewpoints.''

Since the existence of bickering is fairly clear cut,
people can easily justify including or removing this.
Even the bickering authors of the article know that they're bickering,
even if each does think that said bickering is all the other side's fault.
(A computer script to determine whether there's bickering might be better,
except that I have no idea how this could be implemented.
Lots of edits is no evidence; even lots of reverts could just be vandalism.)
People that just jumped in from Google are told up front what's going on,
and a page like [[Wikipedia:Controversial issues]] (redirected to from
[[controversial issue]] for ease of linking) will explain the policy,
not serve as a list (although a list would appear on "What links here").

I'm not convinced that this is necessary at all, but if it is,
then I think that it'll work better out front like this
than as a subtle flag that only insiders will notice.


-- Toby Bartels
   <toby+wikipedia-l at math.ucr.edu>