On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Sam Korn wrote:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 12:36 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/4/5 Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com
I think it's very clear that wikipedia has developed a very successful model, not least because many other wikis seem to almost automatically adopt our style and policies. In short: Wikipedia Works.
NPOV is our key innovation. Much more radical than letting anyone edit the website.
I agree. The only way a wiki that says "anyone can edit" can work is with NPOV. You can either enforce a POV by banning people who don't share your point of view, or you can explicitly endorse *no-one's* point of view.
An enforced POV cannot really be neutral.
Exactly. My dilemma is between an enforced POV and no POV (i.e. NPOV).
(Similarly, NPOV would be extremely difficult to manage with a small base of users as discussion (and, to some extent, conflict) is essential.)
Not really, in a paradoxical way. Many rarely visited articles on non-controversial subjects already achieve that neutrality. An unchallenged article written by a single person is neutral at the moment it is written, and remains so until challenged. If the content is outrageous that neutrality will seldom last more than a few minutes.
But on other articles it would be plain impossible, the general point I was aiming at.