[Wikipedia-l] Contoversy flag on articles.

[Neil Harris]

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:

>>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.
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>>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.
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>>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.
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>I would consider just marking an article as "likely to be
>controversial" or something along those lines as tantamount to
>giving up on the goal of making it a good article, so I wouldn't
>want that.  On the other hand, it is not only acceptable, but
>highly recommended, that the first paragraph if not the first
>sentence of such an article simply tell the reader in plain
>English that the topic is controversial and likely to contain
>contradictory opinions. That's just part of describing the topic.
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>We could make a clearer statement of policy to that effect if
>it would help.
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I have created:

Controversial issue
#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:List of controversial issues]]

that can be used as a tracker link. That way, an article can contain 
something like the words:

(Name of issue here) is a [[controversial issue]], with widely differing 
points of view...  &c.

Neil


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