--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:
As mentioned
before, what is at the root of this is a
wider problem
though:
to what extent we as a project are happy to act as
participants, rather
than
neutral observers and reporters, in the political
process.
I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as
anything else is likely
to
come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue*
efforts to promote
political or social campaigns.
There is little in present policy to address this.
WP:Activist is an
essay.
Andreas
It is addressed at:
Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion
One of our key policies.
"Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind:
commercial, political,
religious, sports-related, or otherwise. Of course, an
article can report
objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is
made to describe
the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to
start a blog or
visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits
of your
favorite views.[1] See Wikipedia:Advocacy."
Again, this is NOT rocket surgery.
Fred
Maybe I should have said there is little to "effectively" address this.
In my experience activists of either bent violate WP:Advocacy (and WP:BLP)
for years with impunity (cf. global warming). Each side having POV
supporters, there is never any consensus at ANI etc. that a violation has
actually occurred.
It usually goes on for years, until the matter goes to arbcom and swathes of
editors from both sides end up topic-banned.
Our consensus-forming process, which is effectively modeled on a chat-show
phone-in, rather than thoughtful and team-based analysis, does not help
here.
This is why the outcome of arbitration is frequently so different from what
the community does on its own. Ideally, it shouldn't be that way, but the
only people I've ever seen implement WP:Advocacy are arbcom.
Andreas