[WikiEN-l] Neutral point of view

[Philip Sandifer]

On Apr 13, 2008, at 12:58 PM, Jonas Rand wrote:

> Wikipedia has a big flaw: neutrality.

You're repeating a pretty standard criticism - it's also leveled  
against objectivity. We teach it in high school pretty often -  
pointing out that no one person has an objective viewpoint on  
anything. It's really an argument about the inaccessibility of  
absolute truth - no account of an even remotely controversial subject  
will be recognized as true by all viewpoints on the subject.

The thing is, that's not the sort of neutrality/objectivity Wikipedia  
traffics in. We don't attempt to present a single objective viewpoint,  
but rather a comprehensive viewpoint that mentions all of the  
significant viewpoints and explains them, clearly attributing claims  
about a subject to the people making it.

This version of neutrality is quite achievable - you can see for  
yourself. Load an article on a ridiculously controversial subject and  
you can see - we achieve what we set out for pretty routinely.

But it's important to recognize that this is not the sort of  
neutrality talked about in that standard "nothing is ever truly  
objective" argument, because we change the game from talking about the  
subject itself to talking about what other people say about the subject.

-Phil