[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia in the news

Wed Aug 4 02:24:37 UTC 2004

Rick wrote:

>  This is a pretty good indication that our [[John Kerry]] article needs
>  SERIOUS NPOVing, since it's being praised by the Bush people:

I took a glance through the John Kerry article and thought it was 
pretty good. I'm no expert on Kerry's background, so of course it is 
possible that there are errors I didn't detect, but on the whole it 
seemed to be a balanced assessment of the man and his career. The 
Bush people may find it shocking that Kerry spent some time in France 
as a youth and had a friend who became a leader of the Green Party, 
but people who aren't totally dumbass Republicans will probably greet 
that kind of revelation with big yawns.

I thought the description of his time in Vietnam was particularly 
good. It gave a detailed but matter-of-fact description of the 
battles in which he fought and the injuries that he experienced. The 
article doesn't seem to be trying to build him up as a hero (which is 
his campaign has been doing) or trash him for not having been injured 
more severely (which is what the dumbass Republicans have been trying 
to do).

I did sense some spottiness in the article's reporting on his career 
in the U.S. Senate, but this didn't seem to stem from any particular 
POV.

--Sheldon Rampton