[WikiEN-l] NOR contradicts NPOV

[WJhonson at aol.com]

<<In a message dated 1/6/2009 4:31:29 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
cbeckhorn at fastmail.fm writes:

Doesn't  the NPOV policy, specifically the "due weight" part, demand
that our  articles include exactly those things that people educated in 
the field  all know about, and avoid including things that people 
educated in the  field feel are not important?>>
 
These two clauses have an excluded middle or rather two such.
I know and it's important.
I know and it's not important.
I didn't know about it, but I see now that it's important.
I didn't know about it, but I see that it's not important.
 
Due weight does not *demand* anything at all, but what it states is that we  
should give the appropriate weight to sub-sections of articles *based* on how  
the community who knows about them would themselves weight them.
 
In an articles on "Number Theory" the expansion of Pi wouldn't even be  cited 
much less discussed.  However in an article on Pi it might merit at  least a 
citation, maybe one sentence in a ten paragraph article.
 
In an article on "Normal Numbers" it might merit several sentences.
 
We have no requirement to base our perspective on the most edge-cutting  
research, and I would suggest that encyclopedias of the print variety don't  
either.  There is a time to weight to see if the *community* who cares...  decides 
to care.
 
In the case of the missing neutrino problem it decided it cared.  In  the 
case of whether sun spot cycles effect the price of rice it decided it  didn't.
 
It's not our place to decide *for* the community, what sholuld come to the  
top of the pond.  It's our place to just skim the top of the pond and write  up 
what we find.
 
Will Johnson
 
 
**************New year...new news.  Be the first to know what is making 
headlines. (http://www.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000026)