[WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 57, Issue 48

[Jonas Rand]

> From: "Ian Woollard" <ian.woollard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Neutral point of view
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <781c50250804132015o35a0e2bbx10682509583f6a83 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> 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 shouldn't be only reporting notable opinions, we should report all 
opinions which are verifiable. If you want, you should be able to add your 
own. --Jonas