[Wikipedia-l] Collective POV ("systemic bias") rampant

Phil Sandifer sandifer at sbcglobal.net
Sat Nov 27 08:08:41 UTC 2004


And let's not forget the most rampant bias in Wikipedia, one that 
affects all of the language Wikipedias, namely the belief that it is 
worthwhile to present all sides of an issue.

Which is to say that the neutral perspective is itself a bias. As the 
NPOV policy is pretty explicit about.

I'm pretty willing to accept the fact that there is no way to write 
without writing to some cultural context. We cannot simply imagine a 
culturally unbiased perspective and then write from it. This systemic 
bias, real as it may be, is unavoidable. As such, I am unable to 
seriously consider it a problem.

-Snowspinner




More information about the Wikipedia-l mailing list