Can we add a "contested flag" or something? That alerts the reader to the opinion (of any given author) that the content of the article is or might be tainted? A lot of the middle east articles popping up all over could then be tagged as not entirely reliable until everyone have had their say.
If not as a specific feature, then at least as a convention on how to mark an article as controversial, for instance with an agreed upon keyword early in the article.
I love Wikipedia, but this problem always gives me a bad feeling, and makes we feel like giving up. Something like this would help to civilize disagreements, and thereby divert a lot of energy away from them, and over to other articles.
I would consider just marking an article as "likely to be controversial" or something along those lines as tantamount to giving up on the goal of making it a good article, so I wouldn't want that. On the other hand, it is not only acceptable, but highly recommended, that the first paragraph if not the first sentence of such an article simply tell the reader in plain English that the topic is controversial and likely to contain contradictory opinions. That's just part of describing the topic.
We could make a clearer statement of policy to that effect if it would help.
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
Can we add a "contested flag" or something? That alerts the reader to the opinion (of any given author) that the content of the article is or might be tainted? A lot of the middle east articles popping up all over could then be tagged as not entirely reliable until everyone have had their say.
If not as a specific feature, then at least as a convention on how to mark an article as controversial, for instance with an agreed upon keyword early in the article.
I love Wikipedia, but this problem always gives me a bad feeling, and makes we feel like giving up. Something like this would help to civilize disagreements, and thereby divert a lot of energy away from them, and over to other articles.
I would consider just marking an article as "likely to be controversial" or something along those lines as tantamount to giving up on the goal of making it a good article, so I wouldn't want that. On the other hand, it is not only acceptable, but highly recommended, that the first paragraph if not the first sentence of such an article simply tell the reader in plain English that the topic is controversial and likely to contain contradictory opinions. That's just part of describing the topic.
We could make a clearer statement of policy to that effect if it would help.
I have created:
Controversial issue #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:List of controversial issues]]
that can be used as a tracker link. That way, an article can contain something like the words:
(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing points of view... &c.
Neil
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Neil Harris wrote:
Controversial issue #REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:List of controversial issues]] that can be used as a tracker link. That way, an article can contain something like the words: (Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing points of view... &c.
Hm. I think the idea of having a page called "controversial issue", and describing the problem there is a good idea. I also think that linking to this page early in a controversial article is a good idea.
I _don't_ think listing them up is a good idea. The page should be an explanation as to why we chose to flag certain articles as controversial, what it implies (that one should be prepared for slanted content, etc.), and how to ultimately solve the controversy (npov tactics).
Linking from each article, instead of linking _to_ each article will also make it easier for the random reader (just arrived from Google) to know whether these are cold encyclopedic "facts" or contested viewpoints. (Of course, the system can be abused, but it is more dangerous for people to have too little skepticism, than too much. (And a flame war of people turning on and off the "controversial issue"-link is far less intrusive than one where they rewrite large sections for every update.))
If you need to track down controversial issues to work on, use the funky "pages that link here" gizmo.
-- Daniel
At 02:44 PM 7/26/02 +0200, you wrote:
On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Daniel wrote:
Hm. I think the idea of having a page called "controversial issue", and describing the problem there is a good idea. I also think that linking to
this
page early in a controversial article is a good idea.
I _don't_ think listing them up is a good idea. The page should be an explanation as to why we chose to flag certain articles as controversial, what it implies (that one should be prepared for slanted content, etc.), and how to ultimately solve the controversy (npov tactics).
Linking from each article, instead of linking _to_ each article will also
make
it easier for the random reader (just arrived from Google) to know whether these are cold encyclopedic "facts" or contested viewpoints. (Of course, the system can be abused, but it is more dangerous for people to have too little skepticism, than too much. (And a flame war of people turning on and off the "controversial issue"-link is far less intrusive than one where they rewrite large sections for every update.))
If you need to track down controversial issues to work on, use the funky
"pages
that link here" gizmo.
You might be right, but that would not justify removing the page [[List of controversial issues]]. What you need to do is write a new page, however titled, like [[editing controversial issues]]. Perhaps the redirect could be removed from [[controversial issures]] with links to [[editing and [[list
Fred Bauder
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org