[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Eric's abuse of his sysop powers

Tue Oct 21 15:30:42 UTC 2003

Andre Engels wrote:
> Yes, just put it back on the page. What about the basic question of
whether
> Wikipedia should be NPOV, and how we do that? Maybe we should finally stop
> circumventing that question and actually discuss it. Would be useful, I'd
> say.

 ... what? NPOV is the one absolute of Wikipedia. Now, we sometimes disagree
about what approach is most neutral (there's a tendency these days towards
No Point of View, which is quite different), but NPOV is the keystone of
everything here.

Fred Bauder wrote:
>Interspersed throughout the article it definitely breaks the
>spell, aura of holiness.

Good.

To expand on that: I'm not a huge fan of Mother Theresa (or Catholicism, or
organized religion in general), but neither am I interested in vilifying
her; I think there's too much tendency (in both the article and pretty much
every other medium I've seen mention) to go to one side or the other. But
there should not be an aura of holiness in any article. That's the sort of
thing that stifles clear thought. There are positive and negative things to
be said about anyone and anything, and very few absolute truths.

-- Jake