Bcorr used this puzzling phrase:
* "NPOV facts"
1. Excuse me, folks, but that is a blatant contradiction in terms. I see the terms "POV" and "NPOV" misused quite a lot, and I think this misuse betrays a fundamental misunderstanding.
NPOV = [[Neutral Point of View]]
The NPOV is a /policy/ about how to describe ideas or facts which are in dispute. The term is /not/ a synonym for "objective truth". I can't emphasize enough that it is a Conscious Repudiation of the notion that Wikipedia has the capability or authority to determine what is really true or good or beautiful or valuable.
The NPOV policy is, in short, an agreement to disagree.
Let's try to distinguish better between "objective truth" (which, of course, each contributor always thinks their perfectly in command of!) from "a neutral statement about a controversial matter".
2. People have continued to say, over the years, that if we dignify fringe theories with any better treatment than utter condemnation, they'll infect all the mainstream articles. They bring up [[flat earth]] or [[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]] (PEZ) as examples. But we already have a policy for these topics which works well and is stable.
Ideas held by a partisan minority are labelled "held by a minority", and that minority is identified. Believers in a flat earth, by the way, are so few that none has ever graced our hallowed halls. Lots of Arabs, though, believe (or frequently hear their government-sponsored media say) that the PEZ is authentic. The way we treat PEZ is to say that
* Western historians dismiss PEZ as a fabrication, although several Islamic nations officially support it.
The job of the NPOV is not to determine facts, but to describe /opinions/ about reality without endorsing them. Let's get this straight. Please.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed