[WikiEN-l] Neutral point of view

[Ian Woollard]

On 14/04/2008, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
 >  > On 14/04/2008, WJhonson at aol.com <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
 >  >> "Neutral point-of-view" is not a point-of-view, it is the absence of any
 >  >> point-of-view.
 >
 > on 4/13/08 9:02 PM, Ian Woollard at ian.woollard at gmail.com wrote:
 >  > No, that's a common misconception; and if it was true, that would
 >  > rapidly create an empty wikipedia, *everything* written, *ever*, is
 >  > somebody's point of view. For example, Newton's Principia was Newton's
 >  > point of view, but we don't remove that from the wiki ;-)
 >  >
 >
 > Ian, we're writing an encyclopedia. We're reporting on facts.

No, we're reporting notable opinions. The *only* 'facts' in the wikipedia should
be verifiable, notable opinions.

 > Something either happened or it didn't.

The wikipedia doesn't assume that. The wikipedia is quite happy to
have people saying both that Jesus was resurrected as well as not, for
example.

> Newton's Principia may have been his point of view, but stating it
> in an encyclopedia is not.

Careful here, Newton was a very great physicist, and his POV is
entirely notable. We can have lots and lots of it in the wikipedia
without violating any of the policies or guidelines in any way at all.

There's absolutely no prohibition against having POV in the wikipedia;
quite the contrary, it's just that it must be *notable* POV and not OR
of the editors or anything like that.

 >  Marc

-- 
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly
imperfect world things would be a lot better.