JAY JG wrote:
But of course it is there to do just that (among other
things). For
example, Wikipedia clearly insists (via the NPOV policy) that you may
not argue only one position on a subject, but must bring countering
views citing various holders of positions, inevitably introducing an
adversarial element to articles. And the original research policy
insists that one cannot argue one's own views, but rather must present
other's views, and that tempered with the caveat that extreme minority
views need not be presented at all.
It may be worth mentioning that recent ArbCom rulings have done their
best to bludgeon home this aspect of NPOV: that all significant views
on a disputed topic need mention.
("Significant" then may become a bone of contention^Weditorial discussion.
Creationism, for example, is of tremendous social and political importance,
but is very unlikely to achieve significant play in almost any scientific
article about biology. Osama bin Laden has strong views on America and on
Jews, but his views are unlikely to play a great, if any, role in [[Jew]]
or [[United States]]; they will only end up in more directly relevant
articles because most editors would find it *intolerably stupid* otherwise.
The view that Australia is in fact a republic is so insignificant a view
by numbers that it is only advocated as [[original research]]. Etc. Etc.)
- d.