On 2/19/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
This depends--context is everything. For instance, I'm libertarian, but I've edited [[Libertarianism]] because I like to pretend I know something about the subject. In the interest of full disclosure I might mention that I am libertarian, which might unknowingly color my contributions. If I edited a lot about politics (I don't), I might want to outright state, "Here are my biases, if they get in my way let me know and help me improve."
Not surprisingly, I see a big difference between *admitting* a bias, and proudly *proclaiming* a bias. Someone who recognises that their bias is a problem is more likely to step back when told their edit is not NPOV. Someone proud of their bias is more likely to accuse that person of themselves having a bias.
If someone's pushing a POV, you can tell from editing patterns alone. On the other hand, if someone is making valuable, good-faith, albeit biased contributions, it's a lot easier to assume good faith when they say straight out "here's my bias, if it shows in my contributions too much feel free to correct."
Yep. Do you think POV userboxes express that humility?
This might surprise you, Steve, but people with a strong interest in something generally have an opinion about it too, and vice versa. People usually edit articles about their own interests, after all.
Yes...I don't have any intelligent response to make to this comment at the moment. But I'll get back to you. :)
Abortion in particular is the biggest issue where people's opinions tend to create blind spots. Pro-lifers tend to fail to understand and appreciate abortion-choice arguments while abortion-choicers tend to fail to understand and appreciate pro-life arguments, and no one seems willing to acknowledge that the other side holds their opinions in good faith. It's these blind spots which make it utterly crucial for us as editors to be open with one another about our biases so we can correct one another's mistakes.
What if the userbox was "People who believe in abortion are scum"? How would you treat their edits then? Is there a liimt to how biased a person can be and still make useful edits?
For the same reason that we don't allow strong POV usernames (AntiAbortionCrusader etc), shouldn't we discourage stating of POVs on userpages?
Not if we want to get an encyclopedia written according to the neutral point of view.
Then shouldn't we allow strongly POV usernames?
Steve