[WikiEN-l] Re: Resolving content disputes (was: Mother Teresaarticle)

Tue Oct 28 17:34:31 UTC 2003

 From: "Andre Engels" <engelsAG at t-online.de>

>I disagree. We are to state that there is criticism, and what the criticism
>consists of. But there is no need to get into detail to prove those
>criticisms or spend two paragraphs per criticism to give examples.

This is related to the point I was trying to make on textbook-l discussion
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/textbook-l/2003-October/000522.html
regarding the development of historiography and the varying POVs
of historians that are considered valid but not conclusory by other
historians of differing methodological approaches to social science
research. If one is going to include all these different perspectives
in a textbook that is only going to be used by one of these approaches
the book will fail in its purpose of being a textbook of a particular type
of history. The arguments are very similar, you cannot include every
point of view, but just reference it. In an encyclopedia that is
unproblematic,
as I agree, you are not writing to include every point of view but reference
it, an encyclopedia is not just a collection of texts, it is a synthesis of
knowledge. A textbook is more of a collection of knowledge, and
many knowledge theorists acknowledge that knowledge may have
a point of view and still be useful.

Alex756