In cases of expert academic POV pushing their efforts remain obvious, but
definitely the ante is upped, perhaps beyond our current ability to deal
with. However we must develop this capacity or accept a mediocre product. In
such fields as Soviet studies (the area I have interest and experience with
on Wikipedia) books are written about the state of the discipline and about
the orientation of the workers in the field who produce the articles and
books. An expert POV pusher will fight to exclude this information or to
minimize it.
One must keep in mind that the viewpoint of these academic experts is
properly included. What is not within our policy is their insistance that
other viewpoints be excluded. Sometimes the alternative viewpoint does not
have the authoritative status of a university chair but may nevertheless be
substantial. For example, while a professor at Columbia may deny that
millions died during the famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s there may also
be hundreds of eyewitness accounts and thousands of graves as well as
contradictory academic and journalistic authority.
Fred
From: Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry(a)xigenics.net>
Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 07:58:04 -0500
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: A Solution to Larry Sanger's Criticisms -
Project Has Been Around For A While
On Jan 7, 2005, at 5:49 AM, Fred Bauder wrote:
Dispute resolution with respect to POV pushers
may work if you focus
on What
Wikipedia is not, the clause about propaganda and advocacy. For
evidence you
need to show repeated removal of well referenced information which the
POV
pusher is trying to remove and repeated insertions of poorly or
unreferenced
information the POV pusher is trying to add
In articles of current interest, there are many poves who are not well
informed but have very strongly held opinions, and will fit this
profile. The other pove profile however, is that of a person advocating
the viewpoint of a particularly group or point of view. It may be the
orthodox academic view, or it can range all the way out into the far
fringes of fruit loopery. But one can be sure he's got documentation.
Lots of it. It's his holy book, and he can quote chapter and verse why
you aren't right, and he has websites that repeat, over and over again,
basic dogma. They compile references and create arguments for their
evangelists.
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