[WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content

Wed Jun 8 19:37:04 UTC 2005

Stephen Bain wrote:

>Exclusion of minority opinions has always been
>policy. Not every theory can get in just because someone published a
>paper on it. 
>
That's a drastic POV on the matter

>Scroll down to the second heading and read the quote from
>Jimbo:
>
>"If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to
>substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
>If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be
>easy to name prominent adherents; If a viewpoint is held by an
>extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in
>Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of
>whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it
>or not."
>
>If, out of a collection of say 100 scholarly articles, less than 5 of
>them represented a particular POV, that POV does not deserve
>inclusion. Of course people will quibble over what "minority" means,
>but we can always have a vote on the talk page to see whether people
>consider a source to be a minority source.
>
So you support the "tyranny of the majority".  Of course 95 will always 
outvote 5.  And 51 will always outvote 49.  I would prefer not to be so 
arrogant in my use of the word "deserve".

>The problem articles are generally not the ones with little
>information available about them.
>
That much is true.

>No, the problem articles are the ones where one large body of people
>coming from one POV are confronting another large body coming from
>another POV. 
>
Generally yes.

>But of course it is not WP's role to solve these
>disputes, merely discuss them. Some people seem to forget this. If the
>process of WP:NPOV (weed out the minority sources) cannot arrive at a
>consensus set of facts, then that's fine. If we can't, then the real
>world probably can't either. We just present the opinions and move on.
>
It's fair enough to say that it's not our role to solve these problems, 
and that we should be prepared to move on if we can't.  There are many 
valid third party minority opinions.  The principal combatants are often 
so caught up in their own battles that they ignore any alternative 
options.  That's a terrible excuse for suppressing them.  The "King of 
Hearts" represented a very important minority when he stood naked at the 
doors of the asylum with a bird cage in his hand.

>All that is necessary for POV to prevail is for good Wikipedians not
>to read/enforce WP:NPOV properly.
>  
>
i.e. behave and do what your told!  No thanks!

I prefer to put principles ahead of rules.

Ec