In a message dated 4/13/2008 10:00:04 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, joeyyuan@cox.net writes:
Wikipedia has a big flaw: neutrality. The core principle of writing from a "neutral" point of view is contradictory: it has a point of view in itself, and the point of view is supposedly against points of view.>>
---------------------- If you hate bigots are you a bigot? Or are you a meta-bigot? "You're a hater, because you hate haters!"
Essentially the same logic applies to your above statement. "Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
Will Johnson
**************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850)
In a message dated 4/13/2008 10:00:04 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, joeyyuan@cox.net writes:
Wikipedia has a big flaw: neutrality. The core principle of writing from a "neutral" point of view is contradictory: it has a point of view in itself, and the point of view is supposedly against points of view.>>
This is essentially an issue of semantics.
on 4/13/08 7:47 PM, WJhonson@aol.com at WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
If you hate bigots are you a bigot? Or are you a meta-bigot? "You're a hater, because you hate haters!"
Essentially the same logic applies to your above statement. "Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
I agree with you, Will. Actually, NPOV should mean "No Point Of View".
Marc Riddell
On Apr 13, 2008, at 8:23 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
I agree with you, Will. Actually, NPOV should mean "No Point Of View".
No - that's not possible. We retain a point of view on the issue of significant viewpoints - we routinely display this point of view when we decide that various fringe nutjob theories are not worth covering.
It's most accurate to say that NPOV means a thorough description of the points of view that are part of mainstream thought on the subject.
-Phil
On Apr 13, 2008, at 8:23 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
I agree with you, Will. Actually, NPOV should mean "No Point Of View".
on 4/13/08 9:30 PM, Philip Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
No - that's not possible. We retain a point of view on the issue of significant viewpoints - we routinely display this point of view when we decide that various fringe nutjob theories are not worth covering.
It's most accurate to say that NPOV means a thorough description of the points of view that are part of mainstream thought on the subject.
Phil, you're referring to what is, and is not included, in the encyclopedia. I'm talking about having no point of view (spin) on what is entered.
Marc
On Apr 13, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
On Apr 13, 2008, at 8:23 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
I agree with you, Will. Actually, NPOV should mean "No Point Of View".
on 4/13/08 9:30 PM, Philip Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
No - that's not possible. We retain a point of view on the issue of significant viewpoints - we routinely display this point of view when we decide that various fringe nutjob theories are not worth covering.
It's most accurate to say that NPOV means a thorough description of the points of view that are part of mainstream thought on the subject.
Phil, you're referring to what is, and is not included, in the encyclopedia. I'm talking about having no point of view (spin) on what is entered.
I think it's a false dichotomy to try to disentangle them, but I suspect we, in the end, mostly agree on actual content decisions and that this is a bit professorial. :)
-Phil
On Apr 13, 2008, at 9:47 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
On Apr 13, 2008, at 8:23 PM, Marc Riddell wrote:
I agree with you, Will. Actually, NPOV should mean "No Point Of View".
on 4/13/08 9:30 PM, Philip Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
No - that's not possible. We retain a point of view on the issue of significant viewpoints - we routinely display this point of view when we decide that various fringe nutjob theories are not worth covering.
It's most accurate to say that NPOV means a thorough description of the points of view that are part of mainstream thought on the subject.
Phil, you're referring to what is, and is not included, in the encyclopedia. I'm talking about having no point of view (spin) on what is entered.
on 4/14/08 9:08 AM, Philip Sandifer at snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I think it's a false dichotomy to try to disentangle them, but I suspect we, in the end, mostly agree on actual content decisions and that this is a bit professorial. :)
You're right, Phil. After all, we all know that Ph.D. stands for "Piled high and Deep" :-).
Marc
On 14/04/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
"Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
Will Johnson
On 14/04/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
"Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
on 4/13/08 9:02 PM, Ian Woollard at ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
Ian, we're writing an encyclopedia. We're reporting on facts. Something either happened or it didn't. Newton's Principia may have been his point of view, but stating it in an encyclopedia is not.
Marc
Marc Riddell wrote:
On 14/04/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
"Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
on 4/13/08 9:02 PM, Ian Woollard at ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
Ian, we're writing an encyclopedia. We're reporting on facts. Something either happened or it didn't. Newton's Principia may have been his point of view, but stating it in an encyclopedia is not.
Even if we grant this, there is plenty of subjectivity in Wikipedia: How exactly to arrange the facts, which to report where, how not to give "undue weight" to things that are minor points of view, how to determine what is consensus in a field, how to determine what constitutes a field, how to judge the reliability of sources, how exactly to summarize or paraphrase an existing argument or claim, and so on. This doesn't even begin to touch on the problematic definition of "fact" to begin with, which epistemology of the past at least 150 years or so has had a good time wrestling with. The old Nietzschean aphorism, "there are no facts, only interpretations", is still rather influential with many of the modern-day authors who write on these sorts of matters.
-Mark
On 14/04/2008, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
On 14/04/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
"Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
on 4/13/08 9:02 PM, Ian Woollard at ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
Ian, we're writing an encyclopedia. We're reporting on facts.
No, we're reporting notable opinions. The *only* 'facts' in the wikipedia should be verifiable, notable opinions.
Something either happened or it didn't.
The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for example.
Newton's Principia may have been his point of view, but stating it in an encyclopedia is not.
Careful here, Newton was a very great physicist, and his POV is entirely notable. We can have lots and lots of it in the wikipedia without violating any of the policies or guidelines in any way at all.
There's absolutely no prohibition against having POV in the wikipedia; quite the contrary, it's just that it must be *notable* POV and not OR of the editors or anything like that.
Marc
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 04:15:16AM +0100, Ian Woollard wrote:
The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for example.
I don't believe we are happy with that. If an article said any of these things, we would remove them:
"Jesus was resurrected."
"Jesus was not resurrected."
"Jesus Christ is primarily a mythological construct rather than an historical figure."
We would replace them with things like:
"Christians believe Jesus was resurrected."
"Christopher Hitchins criticizes those who believe Jesus was resurrected."
"Rudolf Bultmann argues that Jesus Christ should be interpreted as a mythological figure, rather than an historical one."
The _reason_ we would say these later things, rather than the former ones, is because we can all agree that the latter ones are accurate (true, in a small-t sense). Indeed, because of the way they are written, they only make claims about statements of other people, rather than the correctness of those statements.
The reason we would not say the former ones is because we would not be able to get consensus that they are sufficiently accurate to include as stated.
The key here is that we have to get consensus for article content. If there are wide disparities about a point of view, they will (it is hoped) reflect in the participants who form that consensus.
- Carl
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 04:15:16AM +0100, Ian Woollard wrote:
The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for example.
on 4/14/08 9:14 AM, Carl Beckhorn at cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm wrote:
I don't believe we are happy with that. If an article said any of these things, we would remove them:
"Jesus was resurrected."
"Jesus was not resurrected."
"Jesus Christ is primarily a mythological construct rather than an historical figure."
We would replace them with things like:
"Christians believe Jesus was resurrected."
"Christopher Hitchins criticizes those who believe Jesus was resurrected."
"Rudolf Bultmann argues that Jesus Christ should be interpreted as a mythological figure, rather than an historical one."
The _reason_ we would say these later things, rather than the former ones, is because we can all agree that the latter ones are accurate (true, in a small-t sense). Indeed, because of the way they are written, they only make claims about statements of other people, rather than the correctness of those statements.
The reason we would not say the former ones is because we would not be able to get consensus that they are sufficiently accurate to include as stated.
The key here is that we have to get consensus for article content. If there are wide disparities about a point of view, they will (it is hoped) reflect in the participants who form that consensus.
Exactly! Thank you, Carl. You said it better than I did.
Marc Riddell
On 14/04/2008, Carl Beckhorn cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 04:15:16AM +0100, Ian Woollard wrote:
The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for example.
I don't believe we are happy with that. If an article said any of these things, we would remove them:
"Jesus was resurrected."
"Jesus was not resurrected."
"Jesus Christ is primarily a mythological construct rather than an historical figure."
Hey nice strawman; I said the wikipedia is happy to have *people* say that. And you removed the people!
We would replace them with things like:
"Christians believe Jesus was resurrected."
Uh. No. You would need to specify the people more than Christians. Christians don't invariably believe that.
- Carl
On 4/13/08, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
If you read an article about Newton, you will read about "Newton's" point of view. You should not be able to determine the "author's" point of view.
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 07:47:58PM -0400, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Essentially the same logic applies to your above statement. "Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
I don't think there is much support in contempory critical theory for the idea that a writer can write without presenting a point of view, or that a reader can read without a point of view. Trying to pretend that we have no point of view will only make us blind to our own viewpoint.
- Carl
--
It is useful to make the following three observations about language games. The first is that their rules do not carry within themselves their own legitimation, but are the object of a contract, explicit or not, between players (which is not to say that the players invent the rules). The second is that if there are no rules, there is no game, that even an infinitesimal modification of one rule alters the nature of the game, that a “move” or utterance that does not satisfy the rules does not belong to the game they define. The third remark is suggested by what has just been said: every utterance should be thought of as a “move” in a game.
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
And if you are in agreement with Lyotard, and regard the pursuit of knowledge as a language game, you can still play. "If there are no rules, there is no game"... and the game we are playing is NPOV.
Carl Beckhorn wrote:
On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 07:47:58PM -0400, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Essentially the same logic applies to your above statement. "Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any point-of-view.
I don't think there is much support in contempory critical theory for the idea that a writer can write without presenting a point of view, or that a reader can read without a point of view. Trying to pretend that we have no point of view will only make us blind to our own viewpoint.
- Carl
--
It is useful to make the following three observations about language games. The first is that their rules do not carry within themselves their own legitimation, but are the object of a contract, explicit or not, between players (which is not to say that the players invent the rules). The second is that if there are no rules, there is no game, that even an infinitesimal modification of one rule alters the nature of the game, that a “move” or utterance that does not satisfy the rules does not belong to the game they define. The third remark is suggested by what has just been said: every utterance should be thought of as a “move” in a game.
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
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On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:44:45AM -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
I was only quoting Lyotard for effect. The point I was making in my actual message is that the idea that it's possible to write with no point of view whatever (as had been proposed in an earlier message) is fallacious. I would go so far as to say it verges on solipsism.
But of course the NPOV policy does not say we should write with no point of view, so I'm arguing against strawmen. We write with what we call a neutral point of view, and generally we do well with it.
- Carl
Carl Beckhorn wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 10:44:45AM -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote:
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
I was only quoting Lyotard for effect. The point I was making in my actual message is that the idea that it's possible to write with no point of view whatever (as had been proposed in an earlier message) is fallacious. I would go so far as to say it verges on solipsism.
But of course the NPOV policy does not say we should write with no point of view, so I'm arguing against strawmen. We write with what we call a neutral point of view, and generally we do well with it.
Yep.
On Apr 14, 2008, at 10:44 AM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
And if you are in agreement with Lyotard, and regard the pursuit of knowledge as a language game, you can still play. "If there are no rules, there is no game"... and the game we are playing is NPOV.
One of these days I will get around to writing "What Wikipedia Could Learn From Postmodernism" to make the second part of that more explicit. Suffice it to say that I think that appealing both to the sort of classical viewpoint in your first paragraph and to a postmodernist Lyotard-style viewpoint is an essential goal of our content policies. If we're doing it right then a committed classicist (as I suspect Jimbo is) and a committed postmodernist (hi) will both be satisfied with our policies.
-Phil
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
And if you are in agreement with Lyotard, and regard the pursuit of knowledge as a language game, you can still play. "If there are no rules, there is no game"... and the game we are playing is NPOV.
Wittgenstein created the idea of a language game to describe what he called a "form of life," which he never defines, but which is roughly how we see the world around us -- how we use language and its rules to allow us to think and talk about the world.
The question is whether there is a universal form of life -- to what extent there is a shared seeing. Is there a way of seeing the world that is shared by all Europeans? By all human beings? By all living beings?
Wittgenstein says no: "If a lion could speak, we could not understand him." In other words, your form of life defines what you can articulate (and vice versa), and what you can see, what you can think about, and what you can know. That might be very limited -- regarding some issues, it might only be people within your own culture who can see certain things.
This tells us that the idea of a neutral point of view is impossible.
For example, look at our article on [[Girl]]. There is no hint there that throughout history and still, the birth of a girl has not been a cause for celebration; that they are left to die, and sometimes actively killed, or aborted. Now, we could add this to the article -- that culture X does or did this, culture Y this or that. But the tone of the article would never truly reflect that this has been the serious position of many societies. No matter how dominant a position this was within the world, our article would never reflect it. Anyone who tried to create that reflection would be accused of POV pushing.
One of my interests is the way we treat and view animals. There would be uproar if I started adding information about the treatment of non-human animals to all relevant articles -- and not only that, but if I were to change the tone of the articles so they were written as if by a Martian who had no preference between the human and the non-human.
The way we avoid even the possibility of NPOV is by insisting that the POVs we reflect must have been published by reliable sources, and that NPOV must reflect the proportion of the POVs as reflected by those sources. I support this, because there is no other way to write a reliable encyclopedia. But what it means is that any notion of NPOV is lost, because the sources we respect reflect the dominant POVs of people we regard as educated in our own language, which Wikipedia simply repeats.
What we really mean by NPOV is a position that all educated holders of the dominant POVs within the English-speaking world can accept as valid and responsible. It's a wonderful achievement when an article manages to cater to those positions. But it is not neutrality.
Sarah
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 9:51 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 9:44 AM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
A big part of the point of NPOV is that if you don't agree with postmodernists like Lyotard (quoted below), you can write carefully and clearly, striving for neutrality as best you can manage, and be satisfied that the result is useful.
And if you are in agreement with Lyotard, and regard the pursuit of knowledge as a language game, you can still play. "If there are no rules, there is no game"... and the game we are playing is NPOV.
Wittgenstein created the idea of a language game to describe what he called a "form of life," which he never defines, but which is roughly how we see the world around us -- how we use language and its rules to allow us to think and talk about the world.
<snip>
The way we avoid even the possibility of NPOV is by insisting that the POVs we reflect must have been published by reliable sources, and that NPOV must reflect the proportion of the POVs as reflected by those sources. I support this, because there is no other way to write a reliable encyclopedia. But what it means is that any notion of NPOV is lost, because the sources we respect reflect the dominant POVs of people we regard as educated in our own language, which Wikipedia simply repeats.
What we really mean by NPOV is a position that all educated holders of the dominant POVs within the English-speaking world can accept as valid and responsible. It's a wonderful achievement when an article manages to cater to those positions. But it is not neutrality.
Sarah
If anyone doubts both the exact accuracy and the necessity of this statement (especially if one replaces "educated" with "informed"), consider the battles over evolution and creationism. Genuine NPOV would mean that 40% of the articles would talk about Genesis. Genuine NPOV would be a death-knell for this project as a scholarly enterprise. But filtered through our policies on reliability we can keep that fate at bay.
More generally, viewing each of our three original foundational policies individually is a mistake, which is why the last three mega-threads have been more heat than light. Understanding NPOV by itself is absurd, it needs V; V left to itself sounds dangerous, it needs NOR. And so on.
RR
On 4/14/08, Relata Refero refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
More generally, viewing each of our three original foundational policies individually is a mistake, which is why the last three mega-threads have been more heat than light. Understanding NPOV by itself is absurd, it needs V; V left to itself sounds dangerous, it needs NOR. And so on.
Yes, but we don't have a talk page for addressing fundamental inaccuracies and flaws that have crept into our entire policy apparatus. Which is why I'm left holding two parallel discussions on WP:V and WP:NOR when, really, what I need is a discussion about why Wikipedia needs to shape up and be more postmodern from which changes to both pages (and NPOV) can be edited according to consensus.:)
-Phil
On 4/14/08, Relata Refero refero.relata@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 9:51 PM, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
What we really mean by NPOV is a position that all educated holders of the dominant POVs within the English-speaking world can accept as valid and responsible. It's a wonderful achievement when an article manages to cater to those positions. But it is not neutrality.
Sarah
If anyone doubts both the exact accuracy and the necessity of this statement (especially if one replaces "educated" with "informed"), consider the battles over evolution and creationism. Genuine NPOV would mean that 40% of the articles would talk about Genesis. Genuine NPOV would be a death-knell for this project as a scholarly enterprise. But filtered through our policies on reliability we can keep that fate at bay.
More generally, viewing each of our three original foundational policies individually is a mistake, which is why the last three mega-threads have been more heat than light. Understanding NPOV by itself is absurd, it needs V; V left to itself sounds dangerous, it needs NOR. And so on.
That's right. They are so interdependent that in a very real sense they comprise three parts of one policy.
Sarah