[WikiEN-l] NPOV means that we acknowledge all views

Fri Jan 9 19:25:02 UTC 2004

Ed-
> This issue keeps coming up, but the solution is always the same:

>      LET THE ARTICLE SAY THAT X REPORTS Y ABOUT Z.

Yes, that is the basic premise of NPOV. I think everyone understands that.  
The problem is that NPOV is not very clear on other matters, such as  
balance and level of detail. So people keep arguing about the same things  
over and over again.

Articles often get listed on VfD because they (allegedly) *selectively*  
attribute points of views to their adherents. You know that you've started  
quite a few such articles yoruself, Ed. Similarly, in the case of the  
[[Mother Teresa]] article, I added a lot of critical information about  
her, properly attributed.

Many people feel that in such cases, the information should either be  
split away or removed, and only a "balanced" article would be legitimate.  
Of course what is and isn't balanced is different to different people.

Personally, I think that if the statements in an article are correct,  
encyclopedic and relevant to the article's subject, they should remain,  
and the article should be expanded (or summarized) by those who feel that  
certain views or facts are missing (or overly detailed).

Some people may feel that this gives advocates of one stripe or another a  
blanket check to insert their point of view ("propaganda") into Wikipedia  
as long as it is properly attributed. Indeed it does. That is not a bad  
thing, though. We need to get away from the notion that articles have to  
be perfect shining diamonds at any given time, and if they are not, they  
should be deleted. That's not how articles grow and evolve on Wikipedia.

To put things into perspective, most of our information about foreign  
countries currently comes from the CIA World Factbook and the State  
Department. This information looks more or less NPOV, but it obviously  
omits essential historical details. For example, most of our articles  
about African countries make no mention of the corporations and banks that  
have business operations in these countries, or of the mercenaries they  
hire. Most conflicts are described as "ethnic" rather than economically  
motivated. There is little information about how governments and media are  
bribed into supporting pro-western policies. And we don't learn why  
western governments ignore (or actively support) genocides in some  
countries (Rwanda) and invent them in others (Congo).

Yet few people challenge these articles. Why? Because they're nicely  
written and look as if they are complete. Yet, in terms of true NPOV, they  
are among the worst material we have on Wikipedia. Even in these cases,  
however, I think it is better to edit the articles than to delete them.

Regards,

Erik