--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Here's a false alternative: (a) pretend that 'maybe' the Nazis were right or (b) engage in random moralizing on every controversial topic in wikipedia. When I say that we must avoid (a), I am not advocating (b).
Exactly. In Larry's Big Reply on the NPOV, he said,
"Your assumption appears to be that, if we do not explicitly declare something to be true, then the reader can draw certain inferences about us--such as that we wish to placate creationists, or that we think creationism might be scientifically respectable, or that we might be creationists ourselves, etc., etc. Well, no. Reasonable people do not draw such inferences when presented with unbiased texts. You [...] would not typically draw such inferences--you know better, of course. Suppose that a history text adopted a policy of failing to identify Nazi scum as the murdering bastards they were--but simply reported the facts about what they did. Would it be reasonable to assume that the text's author(s) might just be willing to admit the possibility that the Nazis were upstanding citizens doing a service to Europe?"
Of course not. No one is going to read a NPOV article on the Holocaust think it was ok... except Nazis. People don't need an encyclopedia to say "Look now, those Nazis were bad." The facts speak for themselves.
Stephen Gilbert
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com