Louis Kyu Won Ryu wrote:
I'm going out on a limb somewhat here, but I believe that NPOV is difficult to apply in the MT dispute because there is disagreement over the amount and prominence of critical material that should be included in the article.
I agree that this is a common difficulty that does not admit of the easier solutions. But I don't think it is in any way insurmountable, nor do I think that we need to appeal to some non-NPOV decision rules.
We're all by now quite good at such techniques as "going meta", i.e. rather than making some claim, we just cite that some important group or person makes such a claim. Usually, though not always, this resolves the issue to everyone's satisfaction.
But we're less sure about how to find a neutral ground, by which we mean a ground of mutual agreement between opposing editors, when the issue involves questions of prominence.
I think that the best resolution here is to lean towards "completionism" rather than "deletionism". If an article is one-sided, then grow it. And then after it grows too big, it will often be much easier to see how to break parts off into sub-articles.
Here's an example from the current dispute.
"Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 20 paragraphs about why, her good works, why she is beloved by so many and so forth. And here's one sentence of criticism consisting mainly of a link to a separate page."
OR
"Mother Theresa is just about to be elevated to Sainthood. Here's 2 sentences saying way, followed by 20 paragraphs of criticism of her and her order."
I would say that in *either* case, the right solution is *seldom* to 'balance' the article by *removing* valid material that is otherwise NPOV. More likely, what is needed is *more material*. And then hopefully, in that process, we can find that both parties are satisfied to have some of the material moved out as necessary to auxiliary articles.
We've also seen this recently in a Danny/RK edit war over 'Anti-Semitism'. Danny wanted to (and actually did win out, eventually, I think, at least at last viewing) simply remove one huge section of the article that he didn't like. I don't think that was the right move at all. (Of course, RK responded badly, which he and I have talked about.)
I think that deletionism forgets that Wiki Is Not Paper, and that completionism is likely to lead us to a better final article.
--Jimbo