Cunctator wrote:
A brief summary of what I'd like to see as the policy:
- The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is to be neutral and authoritative.
- All claims made in Wikipedia should be confirmable by outside
sources. 3. For contentious issues, provide the reasoning behind the antagonists' contentions. 4. Recognize that neutrality is impossible to achieve without omniscience. 5. Eliminate ambiguity. (Make as strong claims as possible.) 6. Celebrate terseness. (If another entry says the same thing, link to it. Don't say it twice if possible.)
This is all well-stated, but some of this goes beyond mere editorial policy and reaches the status of philosophy. Maybe we need a new word: "wikilosophy"?
Regarding the idea of simply "reporting things that really exist," Cunctator wrote:
Yes. Fortunately we can rely on the pool of perfectly accurate, non-propagandizing, value-judgmentless historical references to do so.
Oops, they don't exist.
Actually, they do. For example, "Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821" is a statement whose accuracy no one seriously disputes, and it doesn't carry any particular propaganda or value judgments. Whether you believe that Napoleon was a great leader or a foolish despot, you're bound to agree on the date of his death.
Unfortunately, there are many other things about history and the world that are important enough to deserve inclusion in the Wikipedia that are _not_ this clear-cut. If the Wikipedia restricted itself simply to these sorts of undisputed facts, it wouldn't be a very interesting encyclopedia.
From: Sheldon Rampton Regarding the idea of simply "reporting things that really exist," Cunctator wrote:
Yes. Fortunately we can rely on the pool of perfectly accurate, non-propagandizing, value-judgmentless historical references to do
so.
Oops, they don't exist.
Actually, they do. For example, "Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821" is a statement whose accuracy no one seriously disputes, and it doesn't carry any particular propaganda or value judgments. Whether you believe that Napoleon was a great leader or a foolish despot, you're bound to agree on the date of his death.
There's a difference between accurate statements and accurate references. I didn't say that accurate statements don't exist. I said that "perfectly accurate, non-propagandizing, value-judgmentless historical references" don't exist.
Even in that one sentence are a variety of value judgments, starting with the language used to express such a statement, as well as the name used to describe "Napoleon Bonaparte", to the choice of calendar by which to mark the date of his death. Those are minor choices, and I would agree that it would be counterproductive to challenge the statement.
But when you accumulate the sum of the thousands of minor (and major) choices that go into any reference work (such as whether or not to discuss the death of Napoleon), you get an unavoidable bias.
From: Sheldon Rampton
Cunctator wrote:
A brief summary of what I'd like to see as the policy:
- The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is to be neutral and authoritative.
- All claims made in Wikipedia should be confirmable by outside
sources. 3. For contentious issues, provide the reasoning behind the
antagonists'
contentions. 4. Recognize that neutrality is impossible to achieve without omniscience. 5. Eliminate ambiguity. (Make as strong claims as possible.) 6. Celebrate terseness. (If another entry says the same thing, link
to
it. Don't say it twice if possible.)
This is all well-stated, but some of this goes beyond mere editorial policy and reaches the status of philosophy. Maybe we need a new word: "wikilosophy"?
The one statement above that verges on the philosophical is #4. I recognize that it's a philosophical point, but I think that it's a crucial position for Wikipedians to agree upon to move past the flawed prevailing conception of NPOV.
Another way of stating #4 is "NPOV is a goal, not a style." Our style choices need to move us toward a NPOV. But it should be recognized as nonsensical to say "The article was POV, I fixed it to be NPOV."
The way I stated #4 originally also contains what I believe is a central goal of Wikipedia, which is comprehensiveness (since neutrality is a goal, and neutrality is impossible to achieve without comprehensiveness).
On Saturday 15 November 2003 04:09, Sheldon Rampton wrote:
Cunctator wrote:
A brief summary of what I'd like to see as the policy: Yes. Fortunately we can rely on the pool of perfectly accurate, non-propagandizing, value-judgmentless historical references to do so.
Oops, they don't exist.
Actually, they do. For example, "Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821" is a statement whose accuracy no one seriously disputes, and it doesn't carry any particular propaganda or value judgments. Whether
Some believe that Napoleon was poisoned. Not mentioning that in a sentence about his death is inaccurate to them.