[WikiEN-l] Clutch is on a POV tirade

[Larry Sanger]

Jonathan Walther wrote:
> One way to state the NPOV policy is that it encourages people to use a
> Hegelian dialectic.  I wish the NPOV policy could just say "Use the
> Hegelian dialectic".  That whole thing about "neutrality" is delicate
> and confusing otherwise.

It really isn't that confusing if you actually read what we wrote about
it.  It's a heck of a lot less confusing than goddamned Hegel.  :-)

If you read the "write for the enemy" section you will see that the
current document actually specifically repudiates using anything like a
"Hegelian dialectic."  (I take it Jonathan means that we ought first to
make the text biased in one direction, then biased in the opposite
direction, and then someone like me or Ed should come in and find common
ground.)  That's not really how we've worked, and I think it's a grand
thing we haven't, too--because we don't have enough "synthesizers" and
far, far too many partisans who would be (and, when they can get away with
it, *are*) only too happy to use Wikipedia to advance their personal
causes, at least until the next step in the dialectic came along.  ;-)

Larry
-- 
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell