Grandfather Louis predicted:
-> Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the -> content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption -> requiring bans become rare.
Here I have been remiss. Erik asked me weeks and WEEKS ago to work with him on an NPOV tutorial, and I have barely lifted a finger there.
I seem to be better at actually 'neutralizing' an article or 'talking' to a specific user about NPOV in context. But I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts for a [[Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial]]. Someone else kind of took it over, but it looks like a rehash of an 'NPOV definition' article.
I'd like to see a series of examples modeled on Strunk & White's "Elements of Style" which show clear rules like Omit Needless Words and striking examples of omitting them with vigor and boldness.
Other works which are an inspiration to me in this vein include Huff's "How to Lie with Statistics" -- which, with calculated irony and gobs of good humor and common sense, shows readers how to *counteract* attempts by advertisers and politicians to deceive us with statistics.
Sheepishly,
Ed Poor
From: Poor, Edmund W Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 4:59 PM To: lazolla@hotmail.com; English Wikipedia Subject: [WikiEN-l] Resolving content disputes (was: Mother Teresa article)
Grandfather Louis predicted:
-> Provide a fair, effective means of resolving the -> content disputes, and >poof<, the cases of disruption -> requiring bans become rare.
Here I have been remiss. Erik asked me weeks and WEEKS ago to work
with
him on an NPOV tutorial, and I have barely lifted a finger there.
I seem to be better at actually 'neutralizing' an article or 'talking' to a specific user about NPOV in context. But I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts for a [[Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial]]. Someone else kind of took it over, but it looks like a rehash of an 'NPOV
definition'
article.
I'll say it again, and I'll probably say it until I'm blue in the face: the problem you're having with describing NPOV is that the current LMS-influenced description of what a neutral point of view means is flawed by self-contradiction, muddled meaning, and bad directives.
I've explicated what I consider a healthy and useful conception of how to construct better articles and build a better Wikipedia in the past. I'll just repeat this mantra again:
NPOV is an ideal.
If you understand what that means and what the implications are, you're on the right track.
The Cunctator wrote:
NPOV is an ideal.
If you understand what that means and what the implications are, you're on the right track.
NPOV is important, it's great, it's the way we write articles. Amen.
It is not a palliative for every malady. It has its limits, which have been widely discussed in our various forums.
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. This is a judgment call, hence the dispute. Having and applying an NPOV policy does not abrogate the need to make a judgment call in this case.
Louis
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
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I think that deletionism forgets that Wiki Is Not Paper, and that completionism is likely to lead us to a better final article.
The problem with this approach is that while Wiki is Not Paper, readers' attention spans are limited. If I want to read an overview of Mother Theresa's life, I most certainly do not want it to be 20 pages long. I'd much prefer a more summarized (dare I say, "encyclopedia-style") biography. If the rest of the information must be in Wikipedia, it'd be nice if it were factored out into separate articles (maybe "Criticism of Mother Theresa" and "Reasons for Mother Theresa's Beatification" or something similar). Generally if a Wikipedia article is so ridiculously long that nobody not doing a thesis on the topic would want to read it, it becomes much less useful to the general public.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
The problem with this approach is that while Wiki is Not Paper, readers' attention spans are limited. If I want to read an overview of Mother Theresa's life, I most certainly do not want it to be 20 pages long. I'd much prefer a more summarized (dare I say, "encyclopedia-style") biography.
Well, if the page gets too long, we can break it down conceptually somehow. This is what we do all the time, right?
articles (maybe "Criticism of Mother Theresa" and "Reasons for Mother Theresa's Beatification" or something similar).
Yes. In some cases that's the right thing to do. In other cases, it would make more sense to break it down chronologically or by some other conceptual schema, right? There are some downsides to putting "pro" and "con" in different articles. (And upsides, too, esp. if it keeps the peace around here!)
As it stands, I think that the article needs a major rewrite, and that it is, in fact, unbalanced in its current form.
Notice that we have a section (3) "Campaign on abortion and contraceptives" and a subsection (5.7) containing on criticisms of what is presented in (3). That strikes me as stylistically poor, and I think this also lends to the unbalanced 'feel' of the article.
(1) is Life and Work, which is symmetrical with (4) about her death.
I can envision that a future revision of the article might combine (1) (2) and (4) into a general biographical section, and then there could be links to more detailed articles on her specific work -- and these articles would of course be written in such a way that both a supporter of Mother Theresa and a detractor would consider to be fair.
I can only assume that somewhere easily accessible, when we get around to it, there are the facts we'd expect to find, like "Mother Theresa provided care for 100,000 poor, and got a law passed to prevent thus-and-so, and found 347 clinics in villages that had never had anything of the sort, and blah blah blah."
Presumably, those facts are needed to give a well-rounded picture here.
--Jimbo