[WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought

Mon Jun 20 17:56:29 UTC 2005

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, David Gerard wrote:

>
> I've noted that the proposed FoF 6 is trivially factually incorrect - it
> only applies to US academia, and even then only a certain portion thereof.
> It notably does not apply to e.g. UK academia. I've written a proposed FoF
> 6.01. Comments welcomed. (The sentence construction could almost certainly
> do with improvement, for instance.)
>
> FoF 6:
>
>   6) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among scholars and
>   those who seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out
>   in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year
>   of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus potentially offensive, see research by
>   El_C.
>
> FoF 6.01:
>
>   6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain
>   portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in
>   inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno
>   Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus
>   regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does
>   not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia.
>
> This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content
> arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to
> use in pushing a POV.
>
I have no objections to the ArbCom's Findings until I reached section 6;
what I found written there yesterday disturbs me greatly, for it appears
that they are embracing one side in a POV dispute.

I, for one, would be far happier if the Committee simply dropped all
comment about the AD/BC - CE/BCE controversy; I think it is clear to all
but a few that there is no consensus either on Wikipedia or in the
larger world about which style is preferred.

But if the members feel compelled to make a statement, I would hope
they limit it to the observation that both styles are widely used in the
English-spekaing world, & that there many arguments for & against each --
acknowledging that for Wikipedia to embrace either exclusively would
be to violate our core value of NPOV.

Geoff