On 8/15/06, Birgitte SB
<birgitte_sb(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
NPOV does apply to Wikiversity, but of course
context matters in how we
understand and apply it.
For example, a course which is highly biased and
pushing some POV should
be fixed, as we would quite
properly consider it to be broken.
But of course, as Cormac points out, some of what
Wikiversity is going
to be about is explorations of
research, etc. As Amgine put it, even here NPOV
applies, but it applies
in a way that makes sense for this
type of content.
The danger of saying too quickly "NPOV does not
apply" is that we would
thereby open the door to lunatics
(and there are lunatics!) trying to push extremely
biased courses. We
can do better than that.
--Jimbo
I think everyone is not quite on the same page here.
Although neutrality is going to be an important aspect
of Wikiversity. WP:NPOV is not going to be the policy
in use there. Mainly this is becuse Wikiversity is
not writiing encyclopedia articles. Bias will take a
subtley different form on that project. Just like
bias rears its' head on Wikisource in the form of
altered texts. I do not believe it was something
people thought of early on at Wikisource, but it is
certainly what has transpired. I am just trying to
guess as to how bias will try and work its way into
Wikiversity. It may not be possible, we might have to
wait and find out when it happens. WP:NPOV is about
how to counteract bias on WP. I do not believe anyone
is suggesting counteracting bias at WV is not of the
utmost importance, just that WV will have approach it
in a unique way.
Birgitte SB
Yes, I think you've got me, Birgitte :-). I just think that NPOV (as I
conceptualise it) is not a useful concept to apply to Wikiversity.
Don't get me wrong - I wince just as much as anyone if someone will
try to teach people that the world began 10,000 years ago ;-), but
surely the point of education is to try to get people to think for
themselves? I see no problem with provocative, even biased,
educational materials - so long as people are given the wherewithal to
critically evaluate them. I think we need an analogy to NPOV -
"completeness" sounds better, but just not catchy enough :-)
Cormac
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