[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia may provide books made with different perspectives input, whilst others can't

[Anthere]

Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:Jimmy Wales wrote in part:

>Daniel Mayer wrote:

>>Our current NPOV policy does not restrict topical
>>focus; that was my point.

>Well, it does, though, doesn't it? If an article is about X, then it
>is about X, not "X plus some other junk that people like to argue
>about". Often we have to fix this by adding some qualifier to the
>title.

Exactly. If all that mav means by "DPOV" is
«restricting the topic to the discipline at hand and NPOV within that limit»,
then I agree with him about how the textbooks should be written.
But I disagree that this isn't already just part of NPOV.

In Wikipedia, when we write an article on part of biology,
then that article too is restricted to the displine of biology.
This doesn't violate NPOV, and neither will the biology textbook.
An important point is the existence (or potential existence)
of other articles on parts of the discipline of scientific creationism
(such as the attempts to pin down the dating of the flood
by cross-referencing Genesis with geological data)
and similarly, the (potential) existence of a textbook on that topic.
To be sure, we don't have those articles on Wikipedia
and probably never will have that textbook -- but we could.

The text in [[en:Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] of course must be changed,
since it refers to a comprehensive encyclopaedia on everything.
But this is /context/, not the /essence/ of NPOV.


-- Toby
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"In Wikipedia, when we write an article on part of biology, then that article too is restricted to the displine of biology."

Well. No. That is not always true. 

I just don't understand why some of you just keep focusing on the creationnism issue, only leading to hiding more important matters.
Important matters are that some topics just cannot be treated just within one disciplin. 

Mine definitly can't. Writing a textbook about corn, and only sticking to the plant biology would be of no interest to a farming student. He will need plant science and botany to know the crop, farming information to grow it, animal science to understand what it is needed for (hence the quality required), soil science to understand the crop requirement versus soil resources, climate science and water science to irrigate the crop wisely, chemistry and quality management to understand how to best deal with this crop disease and insect specificities whilst insuring food quality and safety, environmental issues related to that crop, such as benefits and drawbacks associated with a particular crop management, a minimum of biotech information to understand what a gmo is and what the different trends are on that topic, mechanics for the farming equipment, trade, market, economical and political background to best sell his product and project himself in the future.

That is what I would put in a good textbook on this "so-restricted" topic. This is the book I would offer to students trained to be farmers for example, this is the book I would tell them to buy. This book would encompass at least 10 different disciplines. Likely, it can only be a group work, as it requires different disciplins to work together. And that is *exactly* where Wikipédia can help, because it is likely to benefit from different inputs, while in the "meat space", these various disciplins don't always meet.

Note I don't necessarily say this has to be NPOV. I just say what Wikipedia can offer that others can't, is the vision offered by people on the same topic from different perspectives. Here, the perspective of a farmer, of an accountant, of a trader, of a seed retailer, of a chemist researcher, of a trade-unionist, of a policy maker...

If corn is too restricted, similar books about cereal cropping would be perfect. Including all these various perspectives. This would be a good book imho.
There are very few books of that type. Even when there is a collaboration, it is usually of two people at best. 2 people cannot give the best in all these disciplines. Wikipédia can provide better because we can be more than 2. 

But if all the various aspects of the topics are spreaded in 15 different booklets, all focusing on one discipline, we do just as the others do. Bland food.

It is quite frequent that professors tend to teach students research stuff, because that is what they know best, and that tend to suggest them the whole world is turning around research, here around biology. But in truth, only professors and researchers are doing stuff in research. What most students will do, and need really, is practical information to do well in life. Professors are not always very good at giving practical information. They need (and often welcome) support to adjust their teaching. They need a resource giving the practical and up to date information they have more pain to provide.

Well, that all depends if we want to make little booklets for academics to put on the shelf, or if we want to make books useful and helping people to get the big picture, as well as provide them with accurate and much needed info to deal with daily life.

Both are ok, but I am here for the second point. Not the first.


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