Sean Barret wrote,
I am not lying when I say I am worried. I am worried about people who want to set up committees to decide what points of view will not be allowed to be represented in Wikipedia.
This is indeed a straw-man argument (to give Sean the benefit of the doubt; if it is not a straw man argument, it is either a deliberate lie, or an example of un-comprehension). No one -- no one at all -- has said that they want to set up a committee to decide which points of view will not be allowed on Wikipedia. On the contrary, Jayguk has suggested a committee which will enforce NPOV, and Mav's suggested committees will obviously adhere to our NPOV policy. Sean is clouding the issue by claiming it has anything to do with NPOV. Or he believes that our NPOV policy means that anything anyone writes stays, whether it is accurate or properly sourced or not. If this is what Sean thinks, he is seriously misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting our NPOV policy and I suggest he take the time to read it.
Of course, misunderstanding or misrepresentation is something Sean is well-practiced at. In reply to an earlier e-mail of mine, he wrote, "Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are not silly." Again no one -- no one at all -- has ever said that false statements can be corrected "only" by rendering them "unexpressible," nor have I or anyone else ever even suggested that content should be rendered unexpressible. This is a matter of style, not content. Falsehoods can be rendered unexpressible, truths or facts can be rendered lucid, even eloquent. The proposals circulating have nothing to do with style, only with content -- which is what an encyclopedia is all about.
People can "express" their personal views on talk-pages. But Sean seems to think that Wikipedia is a chat-room, not an encyclopedia. In an encyclopedia, verifiable and accurate (yes, presented in an NPOV way, as everyone agrees) really are important.
Steve
Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701