On Sep 28, 2008, at 11:43 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Dan Rosenthal
<swatjester(a)gmail.com> wrote:
That's not quite accurate. If the stated
purpose of Wikipedia is to
"bring free knowledge" than saying so is precisely NPOV, because it's
a mere restatement of what the foundation claims its purpose is. It's
not a point of view: It's an objective metric based on how the
organization in question defines itself.
You're confusing the properties of the position with the statement of
the position. Yes, free knowledge is a point of view. Saying that the
Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement is to bring free knowledge
is
not a point of view: it's an objective restatement of a fact (the
fact
being that the WMF identifies this as their mission statement).
I think you didn't understand my intention. Saying so in the article
about Wikipedia on Wikipedia is according to NPOV if it is a
"Wikipedia statement". However, I was talking about the page which
defines Wikipedia at Wikipedia (let's say Wikipedia:About). Defining
yourself is not NPOV, it is very POV; actually, strictly speaking,
even the word "encyclopedia" defines that we belong to a particular
(positivist) ideology. (No matter how that ideology is common these
days.) And unlike a definition at the article Wikipedia (which should
be NPOV article), definition at the article Wikipedia:About is doing a
self-definition.
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Again, I disagree. Even if it is on a project page defining Wikipedia,
it's defining Wikipedia according to what the foundation's definition
of Wikipedia is. Therefore, the statement itself still comes from a
neutral (objective) point of view. Again the actual inherent points of
view implied by words are not relevant when the words themselves are
being used to repeat the foundation's definition of Wikipedia, or it's
mission.
Wikipedia's mission could be "to fight jihadists for the glory of
George Bush in Afghanistan". If that was how the foundation defines
Wikipedia, then it is entirely npov for the Wikipedia:About page to
define Wikipedia as a project "to fight jihadists for the glory of
George Bush in Afghanistan" because that's merely an objective
restatement of what the foundation itself defines Wikipedia as. The
fact that the words themselves are charged or biased, or opinionated,
does not make the restating of them carry the same point of view.
Wikipedia is whatever the foundation says it is by definition. It is
what it is. And saying such does not inherently carry a point of view.
-Dan