On 30/01/2008, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 29, 2008 6:00 PM, Steve Bennett
<stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> POV pushers get burnout or get weeded out? Really?
How do we make this
> happen faster?
I know that certain subjects (Israel-Palestine, for
example) always have
attracted a continual stream of people with an agenda. But I would say that
for the most part, the culture that recognizes the value (not just the
policy) of NPOV is growing, slowly but surely.
What tends to happen (that I've seen over and over) is that
contentious subjects accumulate a core of editors who may hold very
strong opinions on the subject, but realise we're here to write an
encyclopedia and put that first.
(e.g. I'm an ardent and hard-working critic and opponent of
Scientology, but try to edit those articles for the good of the
encyclopedia and happily acknowledge that the Scientologist editors on
them have brought lots of them to better NPOV, even those whose edits
tend not to stand. I'm really pleased on the whole with our articles
on the subject.)
I'm always heartened when there's a hot issue and activists issue a
call to arms to edit the Wikipedia articles - we always get new good
Wikipedians who do get the "write an encyclopedia" thing :-) Activists
are activists because they're trying to make the world a better place,
and we're also an enterprise to make the world a better place.
- d.