[WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content

Sat Mar 26 18:13:42 UTC 2005

I trust that Sarah is as sincere as I in exploring the meaning of these concepts and their implications for the quality and future of Wikipedia.  And I appreciate her effort to elucidate.  I take exception to her coining the phrase "popular opinion" and building her talk around it.  I don't really want to be in the position of discussing the "validity" of "popular opinion".  But the general thrust of her summary is probably at least approximately correct.  Namely, that NPOV requires we represent all views fairly.  And I suppose "popular opinion" is usually a significant view.

The background from which I come is this: As a Wikipedia *reader*, I expect to find articles that give me a complete picture ("all sides") of a subject I seek to learn about.  I have used Wikipedia to learn about Islam, Buddhism, and many other controversial subjects.  In fact, the more controversial a subject is, the more I insist within that I must see what Wikipedia has to say.  That is because I know that "given enough pens, all biases are level."  I trust Wikipedia to feed me more "knowledge" free of spin than any other source.  And I say that if we fail to be fair in presenting all human "knowledge", we fail to deliver to that trust.

Tom Haws