My 2¢ The avoidance of politically sensitive issues is not the same as being politically neutral.
Political neutrality isn’t about shifting your politics to wherever your local Overton window currently sits. It involves a longer, broader, global view of what accepted political norms are.
Political neutrality also sits in relation to your movement’s or organisation’s other values, which shouldn’t be compromised or undermined for the sake of maintaining it.
As an example, anthropogenic climate change is a politically sensitive issue, but how can a consensus-driven movement not take into account that 97% of climate scientists acknowledge its existence ? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change Accepting a scientific consensus just isn’t a political position.
And child refugees. They are politically sensitive in light of the current situation of various government’s policies on accepting them. But the rights of the child are internationally agreed upon and have been for decades, in treaties such as UN Convention on the Rights of the Child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child there is consensus on basic things like a child’s right to education, with a special focus on child refugees. Omitting to talk about your work on the above topics accepts a narrative of controversy about the issues that is quite extreme.
Our movement values neutrality, but it also values evidence and consensus. If following the two latter principles leads WMF to a position where it is not politically neutral, I’d suggest it is not WMF that has adopted an extreme or partisan position. Thinking longer term, and more globally, seems sensible here.
S
On 2 March 2017 at 20:08, George William Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Mar 2, 2017, at 11:13 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
politics damages our brand in real and serious ways.
Such as how? This assertion keeps being made without any evidence
supporting it.
It's more ammunition for everyone else's distrust and fear of our
community and organizational motives.
Are there any actual reasons to believe that such distrust and fear exists apart from those upset about being on the losing end of some Wikipedia content dispute?
Surely you haven't missed the spectrum of external criticism of Wikipedia which in no small part claims we have a left bias.
We are always able to come back and point to (usually) functional neutrality. But then we go and do this.
-george
Sent from my iPhone
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