[Foundation-l] Wikiversity

[Erik Moeller]

On 8/16/06, Elisabeth Bauer <elian at djini.de> wrote:
> James Hare wrote:
> > We can develop Creationism instruction material as well as Science
> > instruction material, can't we? As long as we have interested parties?
>
> How about someone creating instruction material which teaches the
> superiority of the aryan race? Or schoolbooks in turkish which explain
> that there was never such thing as an armenian genocide? Where's the border?
>
> In my western ignorant mindframe I'd say that we need a common ethical
> ground for those projects to which NPOV doesn't and can't apply.

None of the examples you cite are NPOV. They are, in fact, distinctly
POV. Treating these topics in an NPOV manner requires us to clearly
state that "there was never such a thing as an Armenian genocide" is a
fringe theory which has a significant number of adherents only in
Turkey.

[[Creationism]] is clearly labeled as pseudoscience in the English
Wikipedia right now. I have no problem with Wikiversity instructional
materials that treat it as such. The scope of the project should be
"educational materials with a scientific grounding"; there may be a
need for additional ethical principles, but this is not it.

Research is another story. Some research may only be a cover for
propaganda. But the principle of open collaboration might be enough to
discourage crackpots, who will find their nonsense ideas dismantled
before they have even started putting them together. We've mostly been
able to deal with propaganda on Wikinews so far, which encourages
original reporting, comparable to original research.

Erik