[Foundation-l] PMS propaganda?

[Dan Rosenthal]

On Sep 28, 2008, at 10:13 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Roberto Corda
> <roberto.ilcorda at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> From: "Milos Rancic" <millosh at gmail.com>
>>> 2008/9/27 Roberto Corda <roberto.ilcorda at gmail.com>:
>>>> [[http://pms.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lese_%C3%ABl_piemont%C3%A8is_version_spagneula 
>>>> |
>>>> ...
>>>> Traslate (rough): '''we want to teach respect to all the language  
>>>> an
>>>> we want that people start to use local languages.''
>>>>
>>>> Personally I agree with that thesis, but I also think that is POV  
>>>> and
>>>> it must be deleted from the page (and maybe published elsewhere)
>>>
>>> This is under Wikipedia name space. Under that name space CPOV
>>> (Community POV) is applied, not NPOV.
>>
>> What?
>> Sorry but it doesn't makes sense. Anyway they changed.
>
> Simply, you can't describe your aims by using NPOV. It is always some
> kind of POV. For example, claim like "Wikipedia's purpose is to bring
> free knowledge" is not NPOV, but very POV: you are defining what is
> the purpose; free knowledge is also a very POV position. All of that
> is defined by community consensus.
>
> You may criticize their position if you don't agree, but you can't
> urge that something should be written in NPOV if it is not possible.
>
That's not quite accurate. If the stated purpose of Wikipedia is to  
"bring free knowledge" than saying so is precisely NPOV, because it's  
a mere restatement of what the foundation claims its purpose is. It's  
not a point of view: It's an objective metric based on how the  
organization in question defines itself.

You're confusing the properties of the position with the statement of  
the position. Yes, free knowledge is a point of view. Saying that the  
Wikimedia Foundation's mission statement is to bring free knowledge is  
not a point of view: it's an objective restatement of a fact (the fact  
being that the WMF identifies this as their mission statement).

-Dan