[WikiEN-l] Re: Announcing a policy proposal

Sun May 15 23:21:52 UTC 2005

steven l. rubenstein wrote:
> 
> I am posting this on different talk pages, and want to inform the 
> mailing list.
> I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a 
> Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are 
> appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an 
> account of a Christian point of view.  In other contexts, I argue that 
> they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See 
> [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate]] for the detailed 
> proposal.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/BCE-CE_Debate
> 
> There has already been a long and contentious discussion on the Jesus 
> talk page, and it has gotten cumbersome.  It might get cumbersome to 
> discuss this proposal here, too.  Anyway, in the very early stages of 
> the debate, someone told me that rather than argue on the Jesus talk 
> page, I should propose to change the policy.  Thus ....
> 
> Steve

Ultra-short summary of previous debates:

Pro-CE) AD = "Year of Our Lord" thus is POV. Use CE.
Pro-AD) No AD is more widely used and WP is not a vehicle for advocacy 
for change, so stick to AD.
Pro-CE) But that is ignorance. We should be correct and neutral, not 
sheep-followers of the majority.
Pro-AD) I am not Christian nor ignorant, but still use AD as the 
"standard". Adovacy is a bigger POV problem than origins of common terms 
being POV.

Rinse and repeat with minor variations.

Result: Weak argument to agree to disagree and have the Manual of Style 
  say that both styles are acceptable and it should be decided on a 
page-to-page basis.

Now I am going to read the new debate and see what's new has been said :).

Pete/Pcb21