[Wikipedia-l] confession of a science believing man

Jimmy Wales jwales at bomis.com
Sat Nov 24 18:51:21 UTC 2001


Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
> international Wikipedia?
> Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
> fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
> given up ;-) )?

Does there exist in the German wikipedia the custom of /Talk pages?

I think we generally tend to simultaneously work on the article while
also discussing (on the /Talk page) the changes that are being made.

I think that the most important thing is that all parties have a
commitment to the NPOV.  This doesn't always solve all arguments, but
it does solve most of them.

One of the most effective techniques for avoiding controversy is to
shift the article from "what is true" to "what people say".  It is
controversial, perhaps, to say that ghosts exists, or ghosts do not
exist.  But it is not controversial to say that some people believe in
ghosts, but that the vast majority of scientists point to the lack of
credible scientific proofs as a reason not to believe.



-- 
*********************************************************************
*"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its*
* own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but *
* there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be *
*  pursuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can   *
*  certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." -Jeff Cooper    *
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