On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 08:13:24AM -0800, Larry Sanger wrote:
more credible by actually presenting an argument that we all ought to understand "neutral" to mean whatever you think it does mean (your views on this are none too clear to me; as best I can make out, you think it
I think we could do with a good definition of what "neutral" means. If it means not supporting one view over the other, and giving all views equal time, that can be a can of worms. If neutral means "not making moral judgements about things", thats something I think we can all agree on as being neutral.
I tend to disagree. I don't think we should encourage anyone in this regard. Give an inch, and they'll gladly take a mile. It's just far too convenient as an excuse: "Oh, I know there was a little bias there, but I was trying to provoke a debate." How conveeeeenient.
That approach does encourage laziness. But sometimes it is so exhausting to defend an NPOV edit against partisans that it is tempting to put in bias, so the opposite side will be more inclined to meet somewhere in the middle.
Take the current article on fluorine for instance. It took no end of effort to get the statements about fluoride out of the fluorine article where they didn't belong; some folks insisted on linking fluoride with dental health in the fluorine article, without any of the important context that the fluoride article provides about the health risks of fluoride.
The policy about "not deleting any information" really needs to be revisited. I recommend rephrasing it as "don't delete any RELEVANT information". This is an encyclopedia after all. Have we lost our roots? Remember Denis Diderot.
Jonathan