[WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV

Mon Jun 27 14:03:07 UTC 2005

>From: Fastfission <fastfission at gmail.com>
>
>I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for
>some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today
>that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would
>seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could
>include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]]
>or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual
>articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does
>the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to
>think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be
>converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic
>lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included
>[[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic
>lie]] put onto the Evolution page.
>
>Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over.

I've already seen categories used specifically for the purpose of promoting 
a POV.  For example, a few months ago someone added [[Muhammad al-Durrah]] 
to the [[Category:Hoaxes]], and in response a [[User:Alberuni]] added [[Anne 
Frank]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]]  I have no doubt neo-Nazis would be 
repeatedly adding [[The Holocaust]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]] as well, if 
they were smart enough to figure out how to do it.

Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fertile ground for this kind of 
issue.  As an unsurprising example, [[Zionism]] has been added to (and 
removed from [[Category:Racism]] more than once.    Recently [[User:Yuber]] 
went on a campaign of removing all sorts of areas controlled by Israel from 
[[Category:Geography of Israel]], typically adding them to 
[[Category:Geography of Syria]], apparently on the grounds that the these 
kinds of Categories were not intended as an aid to the reader in finding 
articles, nor should they reflect physical reality, but rather the should be 
seen and used as a political statements about legitimate ownership of 
territories.  Both sides quoted the same policy  to each other (""Unless it 
is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it 
should not be put into a category"), indicating that the specific policy was 
actually of little help in making these kinds of decisions.

Jay.