[WikiEN-l] Re: RE: Wikipedians as war criminals

Wed Apr 16 13:26:00 UTC 2003

What's really difficult is this:

* to describe one's most cherished, most deeply held beliefs

but NOT

* to insist that others agree with (or even respect) those beliefs

How many of us can simply say what we believe, and be content to let it go at that? I'm not even sure I myself am capable of that -- and I'm a fairly easy-going, tolerant kind of guy.

Many of us, certainly including me, sublimate this desire to see our beliefs reflected in print, by incorporating them into Wikipedia articles. We are allowed to do this, of course, provided that they are expressed *neutrally* -- that is, not asserted as FACTUAL but presented as the POV of someone outside the Wikipedia community. (I think Larry and I disagreed over whether it's ethical to do this, I might add.)

Most of what I put into the Wikipedia touches on controversial subjects, although I have been known to enter the odd indisputable fact now and then. Why, just yesterday I wrote about Graffiti (Palm) -- 'cuz it's on my ViewSonic PDA. 

I try very hard to present POVs which I disbelieve just as clearly as those I believe. My goal is always that no one ought to be able to discern MY point of view from my edits alone. If I succeed more than half the time, I think I'm doing fairly well. 

And some of my prose has lasted untouched for months at a time (in one case, well over a year) -- even though it touches on issues which typically arouse the greatest antipathy when DEBATED. But the consensus of Wiki writers on some of these examples is, de facto, that I expressed it best. 

To my great distress, I don't always do so well. Hardly a day goes by when someone has to revert one of my edits, because MY point of view slipped in, rendering an article non-neutral. I appreciate all those fixes, even if I don't always say so ^_^

Ed Poor

-----Original Message-----
From: koyaanis qatsi [mailto:obchodnakorze at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 9:02 AM
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RE: Wikipedians as war criminals

Jimbo writes:
> It might be interesting (but probably dangerous and
> destructive so I'm not actually in favor of doing
> it) to have a poll of regular contributors on a
> number of political issues, just to see where we
> lie.  I suspect that we're almost everywhere except
> the center.  :-)

That would be interesting, but dangerous to the
community?  Now that you mention it, I could see work
on the 'pedia descending into a big bickerfest.  I'll
take that as a gentle reproach for bringing my POV
into it.  :-)

kq

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