[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

[James D. Forrester]

-On Monday, June 20, 2005 2:52 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester <james at jdforrester.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE
> > > doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV.
> >
> > Please don't be overly broad-brush. I am very much certainly in the
> > former group, and am equally certainly not in the latter. I severly
> > doubt that I am not alone in this, either.
> 
> I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made
> that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue.

No, it isn't. Were it "clearly untrue", everyone would see it immediately
(that is, after all what those words would mean). I don't. Others don't. Or
are we all just being difficult and stating that we fail to see the BCE/CE
is NPOV to annoy you (what is termed "trolling")?

> The confusion that it is clearly stems from the fact that many people
> with a particular pov prefer one over the other...

Well, yes, indeed. Something that is regarded by one group of POV-holders as
good and another as bad is, generally, well ... How to put this? So terribly
tricky. Still, I will try: POV. Gosh. Wasn't actually so hard, when it came
down to it.

If group A says that foo is NPOV, but group B say that it is POV, then it by
definition cannot be NPOV - because otherwise group B would agree that it
was.

In this scenario, I think that the difficulty is that people want something
that is, indeed, absolutely NPOV, and acceptable to everyone. However, this
is a case, I feel, like too many others, sadly, where there is no such
Nirvana solution; we must make do with the least POV use. "Both" sides feel
that using "AD" and "BC" is POV, and both are right. However, where they
differ is that one side either considers "CE" and "BCE" to be less POV than
the others for most people, or fails to see it as POV at all, whereas the
other finds it more POV.

[Snip]

> Since I was specifically discussing the claim that arbcom was getting
> involved with supporting one POV over another, my primary interest was
> in demonstrating why BCE/CE isn't POV at all.

Please, do, go ahead. I await with baited breath.

> That is to say that arbcom may or may not be doing the right thing,
> but they aren't affirming one POV over another...

I disagree; by strongly criticising one side of a wide-ranging edit war, and
saying nothing at all about the other, the old proposed rulings were
impliticly condoing the POV of those not mentioned, and discarding that of
Jguk and others.

> because if we were to agree that one of the phrasings were non-neutral
> then it would be the BC/AD nomenclature and we would have no choice but
> to adopt the BCE/CE form.

I agree. However, this is not true - *both* are non-neutral, the argument is
to the relative neutrality of them two.

> Since the original post was concerned about arbcom's involvement in
> deciding NPOV, I think this point is quite important.

I absolutely agree. I just disagree with your conclusion. :-)

> > [Snip the rest of the argument based on this logical fallacy]
> 
> I'm sorry, because I suspect I must be a little dense here... I just
> can't follow how your (quite correct) criticism of my loosely worded
> claim in any way invalidates the rest of my message, and I really do
> wish you had replied point by point.

Sorry. In future I will reply, point-by-point, with "See above.". I had
written this  thrice before deciding to merely snip.

Yours,
-- 
James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk
IM  : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com