[WikiEN-l] NPOV and Reverting all edits (was: Odd)

Wed Jul 13 17:55:51 UTC 2005

--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
> I have never agreed with the practice of "reverting
> all edits" by a
> particular user. Either ban them outright, or take
> each edit on its
> merits.

Hear hear.

> ...things are different. And we need to relate this
to our NPOV policy...
This kind of policy lag is of course widespread. Its
almost too big to look at now, and major overhauls
(revolution) can be more harmful than the status quo.

> We say we want neutrality in the articles, but in
> the special cases where NPOV *most* needs
application, we tend to surrender to POV-pushing. This
is an egregious lapse, and is retarding Wikipedia's
> acceptance as a reliable and authoritative source. 

This is a fact which eventualism explains and
considers -- and a kind of de-facto NPOV enforcement,
where anyone can  (If theres POV in the woods, and
theres noone around to read it, does it make a
grinding sound?)

> It's not the fact that "anyone can edit any time"
> which makes librarians
> and college professors shun our work. It's that
> there is insufficient
> dedication to policy enforcement. No one is really
> worried about "stray
> marks" on the page. There are enough eyes to deal
> with simple vandalism.
> It's the long-term errors of bias which hurt us.

I think "insufficient dedication to policy" could be
translated to insufficient editorial guidance. The
answer to which would be to craft an editorial or NPOV
board for oversight specific to bias handling. 

> For example, the Jerusalem article...[lots of weasel
terms]...all meant to make some person's
> case or another,
> over historical right to the land, specific
> religious sites and so
> forth.

Yes, but academic specifics can be just as
meaningless. "Historical right" is so utterly
subjective a term that it can be explained and debated
ad infinitum, and doesnt really require any comment
here. "Specific religious sites" are likewise
subjective, and overlapping in that area. Does
tradition dating ~2500 years ago naturally supercede
traditions that date ~500 years? If yes, then by that
logic, traditions of ~3500 years supercede those, dont
they? So, just going by what you just wrote, I'm
skeptical of that criticism. The tendency toward
detail often glosses over the need to be removed and
generalistic, and vice versa. Its a balance.

> It's the same with countless other articles. I
> stopped even trying to
> list them, long ago. It's like indexing a book...
> ...So many times I get frustrated with the bias...

> * Any addition to an article, which 1 or more users
> label as an "NPOV
> violation", may be moved from the article into the
> text page.
> * It must not be replaced, until there is sufficient
> agreement that an
> accurate description of the dispute has been
> crafted.

Basically, what I think youre saying is there needs to
be another layer, besides the visible article, and the
talk page. Ive been using  more and
more these days in cases where I think something needs
to be cut, but I know there could be an argument
against it. I recommend using these. In the future,
perhaps an annotation system which shows/hides these
comments will be implemented.

Ed frustration: WP is too big for any person to
regulate in terms of its nuance and detail. Whats
important now is growing the core of NPOV oriented
people, and distinguishing NPOV from other
institutions like adminship, mailing lists, etc. Is WP
a glass half full or half empty. I dont know. A
"random page check" can be dissapointing though, if
youve a tendency to niggle.

> Forget 3RR. It's mechanical and therefore (nearly)
> senseless. Let's
> start using our judgment. We are all smart enough to
> do that.

Forget 3RR? In favor of what? Subjective judgement?
Eriks idea was simply to institute a simple and
straightforward guideline -- netural in its
application to all parties, and where any case by case
details can be sorted by the Arbcom. It was a great
idea then, and remains a great idea now. The move
toward subjective judgement policy only works when
those sujective powers are given to a small set of
people -- which has its own problems.

~S

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