From: Sheldon Rampton
Cunctator wrote:
A brief summary of what I'd like to see as the policy:
- The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is to be neutral and authoritative.
- All claims made in Wikipedia should be confirmable by outside
sources. 3. For contentious issues, provide the reasoning behind the
antagonists'
contentions. 4. Recognize that neutrality is impossible to achieve without omniscience. 5. Eliminate ambiguity. (Make as strong claims as possible.) 6. Celebrate terseness. (If another entry says the same thing, link
to
it. Don't say it twice if possible.)
This is all well-stated, but some of this goes beyond mere editorial policy and reaches the status of philosophy. Maybe we need a new word: "wikilosophy"?
The one statement above that verges on the philosophical is #4. I recognize that it's a philosophical point, but I think that it's a crucial position for Wikipedians to agree upon to move past the flawed prevailing conception of NPOV.
Another way of stating #4 is "NPOV is a goal, not a style." Our style choices need to move us toward a NPOV. But it should be recognized as nonsensical to say "The article was POV, I fixed it to be NPOV."
The way I stated #4 originally also contains what I believe is a central goal of Wikipedia, which is comprehensiveness (since neutrality is a goal, and neutrality is impossible to achieve without comprehensiveness).