Optim-
"Great brilliant works are built by individuals. Groups of people can only create average works.
Propaganda can be brilliant. It can be convincing, touching you deep in your heart, forcing you to act, to do something about some horrible wrong that needs to be righted. Wikipedia does not work that way. Our articles are generally unemotional. NPOV sucks out the juice, the emotional adjectives, the manipulative imagery, the damning headlines.
But NPOV is a different goal, and we definitely have the potential to attain brilliance in that particular goal. I want us to provide the most neutral presentation on controversial issues that is possible to get, with all the facts and arguments from both sides presented in a manner that is easy to understand.
I want Wikipedia to be a tool for those who ask questions and are undecided about where the "truth" is, and I want us to be genuine and honest in helping people to search for their truth and find it. Above all, I want us to help people think for themselves, rather than telling them what to think.
In many ways, I think these goals are more difficult to reach than to just create great propaganda.
If you had told me a few years ago that I would be working with people who oppose homosexuality, abortion rights, evolutionary theory, separation of church and state, I would have taken that as an insult. But Wikipedia brings these people together in - not always, but often - reasonable discourse, united behind a common goal. The progress I have seen on some articles shows that this goal *can* be reached, that we *can* reach brilliance in areas where few have ever reached brilliance before.
That our process will work is by no means self-evident. It requires constant discipline and oversight, and because we are in uncharted territory, we can and will make mistakes. But only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. And they will never experience the amazing feeling, that satisfaction that you get when you succeed in reaching a true, fair consensus where you know that, together, you have created something that is good.
What is perceived as a brilliant piece of advocacy by those who already agree with the points made, or are on the fence, may be seen as mere propaganda by all others. The "average" tone of Wikipedia articles helps us to move the discussion to the rational level, so that an argument on abortion rights is no longer based on who has the most convincing embryo photos, but rather on the facts for and against the matter.
We don't try to trick people. We are all seekers of truth, and we are all united behind that altruistic goal of helping one another to find it.
And that, I believe, is true brilliance.
Erik