On 4/14/08, Relata Refero <refero.relata(a)gmail.com> wrote: It is a cheap shot, but it's one that I think is important to defend against. The dominant and mainstream academic view on the nature of language and research is heavily informed by contemporary critical theory. How writing is presented on the freshman comp level is informed by contemporary critical theory. I know that the conclusions of contemporary literary theory are less than popular among the techno-libertarian crowd that makes up Wikipedia's core base, but the fact remains - if you want to pursue the goals Wikipedia is trying to pursue, you've gotta pursue them according to the prevailing rules and standards. (Or you've got to admit that you're not - if Wikipedia wants to explicitly repudiate postmodern thinking in its policies it's welcome to.) I actually think (and have argued both at conferences and on Wikipedia) that NPOV is more radical than that. NPOV is not just a goal, but an epistemology - it serves to replace the goal of metaphysical or ontological truth with a socially defined truth - presenting a mainstream overview. (In this regard it's much more allied with contemporary critical theory than I think most people realize) The nice thing about a socially defined truth is that it can be more readily checked, especially with a social editing system, since then the method of writing and the standard of evaluation are closely related. Hence our dependence on consensus and discussion. -Phil

On 4/15/08, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: On the gripping hand, letting any idiot edit the website is the necessity that made it impossible for there ever to be any tenable alternative to NPOV. When every idiot can edit, NPOV is the only way to make it work. Citizendium can have it's narrativist, "engaging" style precisely because they don't let every idiot edit. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On 18/04/2008, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: Indeed. en:wp's size, and English being the current lingua franca, can actually be helpful in this regard - we get a much wider range of contributors. This sort of thing is a worry for the Chinese Wikipedia - PRC POVs are important to have access to, and now they don't. - d.