On Sun, Apr 17, 2005 at 12:36:45PM -0400, Steve Lefevre wrote:
Furthermore, I don't buy any claims to NPOV. Language is inherently biased. One bias is what gets mentioned. Wikipedia is more comprehensive than other encyclopedias in another realm, but Another bias is what gets mentioned first. Wikipedia articles are currently serial, so there is always an order to the mentioning of any topic. There are also biases in the wording and terminology of 'controversial' figures and unpopular viewpoints. Who arbitrates who is controversial, or what is unpopular? In the sign-off system I propose, we actually have hard numbers as to what is controversial and unpopular.
I disagree with that characterization of NPOV as a goal. Rather than say that it's some kind of myth to which we pretend to subscribe here, I'm of the opinion that it's more an asymptote rather than a point on a graph, and we are (in general) "approaching NPOV" incrementally with our efforts. The fact that we may never reach an absolute value of NPOV idoesn't make it any less real, though.
-- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]