I agree with the Cunctator that context is important, and perhaps worthy of
more discussion. But I am not sure I completely get the current
questioning about NPOV. As I understand it, our NPOV policy does not state
that every "statement" must be NPOV, it states that articles must be
NPOV. What that amounts to in effect is providing multiple points of view
and also providing context for each point of view. I do not think that any
one contributor has the obligation to write a complete and polished NPOV
article; writing articles is a collaborative process. But this does not
mean NPOV is a platonic ideal. There may be many kinds of chairs and
people may have some sort of abstract notion of "chair" that is an ideal,
but we can still point to something and say "that is a real chair" and
"that is a good chair" or "that chair still needs one more leg" (if
you
don't mind an analogy). I do think that every contributor must contribute
in a way that acknowledges or makes possible the inclusion of other points
of view, and must provide some context and allow for more context to be added.
As for what constitutes context, the wikipedia "news style" pretty much
covers it, I think -- who what when where why. Naming who, when, and where
is pretty simple (although sometimes people resist it -- it is taking ages
to get some contributors on the "Supernaturalization" page to offer this
kind of context); providing the why is more difficult especially since
people may have different notions of why, thus, why itself becomes subject
to NPOV (requiring multiple points of view with context) -- still, to me
that is the fun of research; it is doable, and I believe the results are
worth it.
Steve
At 01:53 PM 5/23/2003 -0400, you wrote:
On 5/23/03 6:54 AM, "Jimmy Wales"
<jwales(a)bomis.com> wrote:
The Cunctator wrote:
Don't blame me! The problem is that what is
defined on
[[Wikipedia:NPOV]] != "neutral point of view". That is, the concept
denoted by the four letters NPOV, as defined within the Wikipedia
context, is not congruous to the concept denoted by the phrase "neutral
point of view".
This is a basic problem.
Fair enough, I suppose. It's jargon, and jargon is dangerous in that
way.
I'd recommend changing it, but it's so well entrenched in our culture
now, that...
The important thing to do before (talking about) changing it is to figure
out what it actually means, which we can do by looking at how "NPOV" is used
in context.
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Department of Sociology and Anthropology
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Ohio University
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