[Foundation-l] Wikiversity

Wed Aug 16 21:00:11 UTC 2006

On 8/16/06, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/16/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Cormac Lawler wrote:
> > > It could well be argued that much of what most
> > > people consider to be appropriate educational material espouses a
> > > particular world-view, such as that of free-market economics,
> > > feminism, whatever.
> >
> > It could well be argued that this is one of the things which is deeply
> > flawed about proprietary texts... the passing off of propaganda of
> > whatever kind as being educational materials.
> >
> > > This is a difficult issue that we can't simply dismiss out of hand.
> >
> > Certainly, we do need to discuss it in detail.  But I think it would be
> > a tragic mistake to dismiss NPOV out of hand based on arguments which
> > fail to draw on our deep experience with how it works and what it means.
> >
> > --Jimbo
>
>
> I think part of my reaction to the word "neutral" in this discussion
> is due to the fact that I don't really know what it means :-).

It's a very difficult topic.  For perspective: a french curriculum
about how to teach neutrally, for teachers in french-speaking belgium
--
http://www.academielouvain.be/view.php3?include=288&pere=139&print=0

Investing "NPOV" or the general sense of neutrality with different
meaning for each Project -- and taking this seriously, rather than
relying on the acronym as a totem, may be quite beneficial.  Other
examples in the Wikimedia family : there are certainly different
senses of neutrality needed for coping with linguistic or species
standards than there are when crafting encyclopedic articles.

SJ