[WikiEN-l] Announcing a policy proposal: Why I devised this proposal

Mon May 16 19:37:55 UTC 2005

steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> [...] many people oppose the proposal because AD/BC doesn't bother 
> them. Okay, they have a right not to be bothered by AD/BC. But to make 
> that a reason for not using another term is — and I am certain I am 
> correct in this – fundamentally incompatible with our NPOV policy. The 
> basis of our NPOV policy is that not everyone feels the same way. This 
> necessarily means that it doesn't matter that you are not bothered by 
> something; what matters is that someone else is. I think this is the 
> very essence of NPOV, to recognize that one's own feelings are not 
> shared by others and thus cannot be the basis for making decisions 
> concerning NPOV! [...]

That's a rather extreme interpretation of NPOV. There are cases
in which language itself expresses POV; "dictator" and "terrorist"
are two of our classic examples, they being often used as a
substitute for objective description of an individual's beliefs or
acts. However, BC/AD carry little or no such baggage, just as days
of the week do not convey a pro-Norse-religion POV or the months
of the year endorse Roman religion.

Given that, it shouldn't be too surprising that you're going to
get dismissive reactions; with the thousands of serious and
difficult neutrality problems all over WP, to make BC/AD usage
some kind of test case for NPOV is the sort of focus on triviality
for which American (excuse me, USian) academia has become infamous
in recent years.

Stan