[WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV

[Andrew Gray]

On 26/06/05, Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for
> some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today
> that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would
> seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could
> include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]]
> or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual
> articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does
> the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to
> think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be
> converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic
> lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included
> [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic
> lie]] put onto the Evolution page.
> 
> Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over.

I'm not sure how much use this is, but it strikes me as an interesting example.

A large number of people consider the Apollo landings to be a hoax -
I'm sure you've encountered them. We have many, many pages on the
Apollo program, the individual flights and associated topics. None of
these contain any significant discussion of the hoax theories - at
least, I haven't seen any.

We also have [[Apollo moon landing hoax accusations]], which discusses
the various hoax theories, counterarguments, all that sort of thing.
*It* is categorised under "Conspiracy theories" & "Hoaxes" (so, yeah,
we have both)...

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk