On 8/7/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: Let's go further: All articles must contain all significant viewpoints about their topics, represented without bias, and given space in proportion to their acceptance in the relevant communities. Incidentally, [[WP:NPOV]] has (now that I think about it), an awful and useless "nutshell" summary: "All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly and without bias. This includes maps, reader-facing templates, categories, and portals." It doesn't even mention the critical bit, that all relevant views are supposed to be there. According to that summary, [[GWB]] could simply contain GWB bashing with no rebuttal, as "fairly" representing the views of Democrats... Steve

On 07/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: I like the fact that when you combine NPOV and third-party verifiability, you get that critical views are relevant only insofar as they too can be documented. e.g. [[Michael Moore]] needs a critical section; an article on a minorly notable scientist probably won't. - d.

On 8/7/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: I'd add one more sentence on there, something like, "Wikipedia does not attempt to describe truth itself, but rather to represent the truth as regarded by relevant experts." Except snappier. I think that's a key part of the epistemological position Wikipedia takes -- we shove off the hard issue of "truth" onto others. (In this respect the line between NPOV and NOR is pretty blurry.) FF

On 8/7/06, Fastfission <fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote: Blurring the NPOV/NOR line in a brief description like this may be a good thing, because if may lead to an opportunity to give a one to two sentence followup about NOR. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 07/08/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki(a)gmail.com> wrote: Oh, I do like that one. How about "without advocating them"? "Neutral Point Of View means to describe things or beliefs fairly without advocating them. This is surprisingly rare in reference materials, which often present a supported but partisan view, or seek to discern absolute truth ..." etc. - d.

On 07/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Oh yes. "without taking sides" is a good start IMO. - d.

On 8/8/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh(a)gmx.net> wrote: That's the extremely optimistic view. In reality, all bob supporters go to the bob page, and the bill supporters go to bill's page, and both pages end up containing masses of unsupported hero worship and being useless to anyone. There's no reason not to explain both sets of arguments on the one page. Your argument was a bit flawed in that you were contrasting "Bill thinks pie is good" (one page model) with "bill gets to present his individual views" (multiple page model). That's not a real comparison. Steve

On 8/8/06, mboverload <mboverload(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, it's much more than that. There are plenty of ways of violating NPOV in good faith. You may have simply left out a viewpoint you didn't know about, or let your own world experience (such as living in a certain country) distort the perceptions present in the article. Steve

Then other people can insert it. Maybe I'm the only one that can tell when any article is biased? On 8/8/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 8/8/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: "Teach the controversy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy is the name of a campaign and strategy fashioned by the [[Discovery Institute]] for teaching creationism in schools. Perhaps not quite the image we want to associate with. :-) Sarah

On Aug 8, 2006, at 7:16 AM, Dabljuh wrote: I think we are always going to cheat a bit. Flat Earth, Creationism and Holocaust denial are always going to be slighted somewhat. Fred

On 08/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: It might be worth someone taking the results of this thread and doing a refactor on WP:NPOV (hitting the talk page, of course, because you can bet there's a lot of watchers). If it's like any other Wikipedia policy/guideline mix page it'll have been instruction-crept out the wazoo. - d.

Steve Bennett wrote: That would be too passive. Teaching the controversy requires a greater effort to understand what your opponents are saying to the extent that you would be able to give an eloquent defence of the opposing point of view. Ec

On 08/08/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: Oh, definitely. Creationism is a good example - politically and socially important, but not necessarily relevant in any given article about science. - d.

On Aug 8, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Phil Sandifer wrote: This is what we ought to do, multiple hatchetjobs aren't worth much. Fred

On 8/8/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote: That presupposes there's a controversy. Or a legitimate controversy. Wikipedia has, and naturally should, a strong bias towards verifiable information.

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006 10:16:05 -0400 "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote: Here I disagree. When someone reads anything on Wikipedia that goes against social consensus (the mainstream view, if you want), increasingly, the first reaction is to go "Oh Wikipedia's got it wrong!" In a way, that's good - Wikipedia has got it wrong a lot of the time and people should change it. But then there's the cases - and they're frequent - where the mainstream opinion is terribly wrong because of various reasons, and people fight "The Truth (tm)" vigorously. Consider the regrowth of neurons - only ten years ago, the scientific consensus was that neurons would not regrow in adults. Now we have pretty hard scientific proof that this is simply wrong. There was never any hard proof for the traditional view - according to the portrayal of a neurologist - this traditional view was simply asserted by a single individual at a time without evidence and, rather unscientifically, accepted by the scientific community and transported to popular media where it became mainstream 'knowledge'. Yet the article on neurons reads as if new evidence was challenging old and acting all controversial on the subject - I have little doubt that this is because of WP's bias towards mainstream ignorance rather than towards scientific knowledge. A neurologist changing the article would soon to be bullied out of Wikipedia for "pushing his POV..." In science, the single most important sentence you can ever use or hear is this one: "We don't know!" and the second most important "We were wrong" But the mainstream doesn't work like that: People want absolute answers for everything, even if they're completely fabricated (read the bible for further info) I disagree with a certain interpretation of NPOV that basically says that the mainstream view should be viewed as the right POV. The only POV that can claim to be the rightest of all, is the one that is supported by most of the evidence - not the number of people who believe it. I would go as far as promoting a "scientific point of view" in favor of NPOV. And to imply Wikipedia had a bias in favor of scientific opinion instead of popular, is simply delusional tbh.

On Tue, 8 Aug 2006 17:52:50 -0400 "The Cunctator" <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote: Right right - but you say WP would have a bias towards verifiable information. That is just wrong - WP has not a bias towards verifiable information, but towards mainstream ignorance.

On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:39:39 +0930 "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote: ... Same back to you? Maybe you're one of the people that go "If I ignore the problem hard enough, its gonna go away..." Since your statement appears to imply that you want constructive suggestions, here's one. Give WP:NPOV a "facts override" clause. That is, if something is a simple and verifiable fact, npov is not meant to relativate it when a majority of people are misinformed or simply don't like the information. Right now: Neurologist tries to change the neuron article so it says neurons regenerate (although slower with increasing age) and explains the dated myth as such. Then he gets bullied into leaving Wikipedia for "pushing his pov". With facts override: Neurologist succeeds, and ignorant idiots get their asses kicked.

On Wed, 9 Aug 2006 13:55:51 -0400 jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: Er, yeah. Read again: I said verifiable (which also implies reliable sources) So you're saying... WP's priority is to be neutral rather than factual? Are you... Hmm... I see, that explains a couple of things.

On Wed, 9 Aug 2006 14:24:33 -0400 jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote: "The foreskin is erogenous" ? Actually that can be found in reliable sources. Actually I meant to be ad hominem, like you were and still are. Let me try again: "Adress the issues"? I can't change that you don't like facts.

Sean Barrett wrote: Only if you complain directly. Like so... -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

On 8/9/06, Dabljuh <dabljuh(a)gmx.net> wrote: Sounds dangerous. But can you explain it in a bit more detail? My concern is that most of the time when people think that NPOV already works that way, it's because they want to objectively define truth at Wikipedia or something. Leading to "X said XX. Y said YY. But actually they're both wrong, the TRUTH is Z!" I think we could go so far as to give more weight to scientific opinions, but "facts override" just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Steve

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote: Not at all. Don't underestimate the powerful force that ignorance can exert on the collecttive mind. Ec

--- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote: Nice try, though. Crack et moi: (Ill maybe try for humour later.) Wikipedia's NPOV policy is a re-codification of philosophical objectivity * (as found in professional journalism and encyclopediae), which stands as the unique permanent principle which governs all purpose, process, and working culture therein. ~ ga sp ~ * or "objectivism"[sic] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

On 10/08/06, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote: My laptop has a file containing the complete and neutral encyclopedia, in all languages. It's called /dev/random. It takes a while to read the whole thing, and some would complain about its standard of usefulness. - d.