[Wikipedia-l] Contoversy flag on articles.

[Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen]

Hi.

Suggestion. Some background:

I notice that some articles on Wikipedia, while having an air of NPOV (by using
terse language, and lots of facts (or factoids)) are in fact rather politically
tainted.

This is especially the case in left/right issues, middle east issues and in
regards to nationalities (German/Polish borders, etc.).

This is probably unavoidable, and the way to solve it is of course to include
everyone's viewpoint as _viewpoints_, and only let what everyone agrees on be
"facts" of an article.

However, this is _a lot_ of work, for any given article. You have to rewrite
sections of the article (or spread it out through several articles), you have
to go several rounds with people on both sides of the contested issue, and you
have to keep a close watch on the article for quite a while.

Actual suggestion:

Can we add a "contested flag" or something? That alerts the reader to the
opinion (of any given author) that the content of the article is or might be
tainted? A lot of the middle east articles popping up all over could then be
tagged as not entirely reliable until everyone have had their say.

If not as a specific feature, then at least as a convention on how to mark an
article as controversial, for instance with an agreed upon keyword early in the
article.

I love Wikipedia, but this problem always gives me a bad feeling, and makes we
feel like giving up. Something like this would help to civilize disagreements,
and thereby divert a lot of energy away from them, and over to other articles.

What do you say?

-- Daniel