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@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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Steven L. Rubenstein
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
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Ohio University
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