lcrocker@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.
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.
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.
We could make a clearer statement of policy to that effect if it would help.
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