[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Saints

Thu Oct 23 23:59:54 UTC 2003

>
>>James Duffy wrote:
>>
>>>As we have an agreed naming convention, applied to thousands of articles, 
>>>by a range of people from professional editors like Zoe and bookworms 
>>>like Deb to experts on constitutional history like John Kenney, any 
>>>unilateral attempt to abandon what has been agreed because Mark has a POV 
>>>he wishes to push, would be a gross abuse of  wiki and grossly insulting 
>>>to the many people who solved what had been a glaring problem. Mark may 
>>>not like titles, but the fact that they exist. Covering them accurately 
>>>and factually is NPOV. Trying to push an agenda that says 'I don't like 
>>>them, therefore I will remove them', is pushing a POV, is unencylopic and 
>>>grossly disrespectiful to the large numbers of people who debated the 
>>>issue, made observations and have spent a year implementing the agreed 
>>>wikipedia policy in a professional, encyclopic NPOV manner.
>>
>>
>>I disagree strongly, and your attempt to leverage credentials is both a 
>>logical fallacy (look up "appeal to authority", or the equivalent Latin 
>>phrase if you prefer) and grossly un-wiki.
>>
>>The issue is that Wikipedia is endorsing certain titles, and not endorsing 
>>others, which is inconsistent and POV.  When we use Sir, Blessed, and so 
>>on, and refuse to use His All-Holiness, His Excellency, and The Honorable, 
>>this is a POV judgment, and unacceptable in a professional encyclopedia.
>>
>>If you do wish to use some honorifics, I would like to see some 
>>conventions adopted indicating which we should use, and which we should 
>>not.  Why should the article on [[Mother Theresa]] start off "Blessed 
>>Mother Theresa", while the article on [[Clarence Thomas]] does not start 
>>off "The Honorable Clarence Thomas"?  Is there a principle behind this 
>>decision?
>
>You're talking about two different issues.  James is talking about article 
>titles.  Delirium is talking about personal titles at the beginning of the 
>text IN an article. It makes it easier to know what we disagree about when 
>when we agree to disagree about the same thing. :-)
>
>POV is unencyclopic when it pokes out one's only good eye.   ;-)   Sorry 
>James, but I can't resist the temptation of a good typo.!
>Ec

:-) Actually Ec, the naming conventions deal with whole issue of naming; 
article titles and textual entries. Whether one likes titles or loathe 
titles, they do (unfortunately) exist. Using factually existing titles is 
simply a recognition of reality. ''Choosing'' to ignore them is by 
definition POV and you are choosing because of a point of view to ignore 
them. So Delirium's stance, apart from doing a Bobby Ewing and trying to 
imagine that the last year and the work of many people, not to mention 
debates, discussions, proposals put to the Wiki-L, etc didn't exist, is POV 
in that it is taking a policy stance based on personal opinion to ignore 
something that exists. So on three fronts, ignorance of what titles are, 
ignoring the work of everyone over the last year who following an agreed 
naming convention, and seeking to opt for POV reasons to ignore the reality 
and push a POV agenda on titles, Delirium is wrong.

JT

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