This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
To quote the article: "The presence of articles written from an exclusively United States point of view is merely a reflection of the fact that there are many Americans working on the project, which in turn is merely a reflection of the fact that so many Americans are online and working on the English project."
Many articles do reflect the "Americo-centric" attitude of contributors by leaving out the fact that the article is about the US. This is common in US place names. Many of us do know that Illinois is in the United States but, forexample, Naperville, Illinois requires further research to establish the fact that it is in the US. Alan Liefting 22:07, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just a question -- if Wikipedia is supposedly Americo-centric, why do I notice Commonwealth English ("British English") spellings in the majority of articles I read? Sometimes, I see both used in one article... We need some form of consistency, methinks.
Thorns among our leaves 17:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I spend some of my editing time putting in a geographical context on articles about the United States. One problem area is lists. Quite often lists of countries are in order of population in OECD countries rather than in alphabelical order! Alan Liefting 09:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I had put in a request to have Environmental movement in the United States moved back to Environmentalism since the Environmentalism article is on an international issue rather than a national issue. The request was not actioned. The article had a US slant but this was no reason to move it to a country specific article. As I have stated elsewhere it is a rather geographically blinkered approach to move an article on an international issue to one that is for the United States. I have since cut'n'pasted relevent info from one article to the other. Alan Liefting 09:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I ask you some questions. Does NPOV mean majority decision? For example, in Christianity, many people insist that believing trinity is Christianity. Jehovah's Witnesses and Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints are called non-Christians or alternates by this definition. I think this is slander to JW and LDS, because both groups insist Christianity groups definately. Then can Wikipedia's NPOV ignore slanders and accept only majority opinions? Please teach me. Rantaro 14:24, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Lincolnshire Poacher 08:09, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cited definitions from dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary have been cut repeatedly from several Wikipedia pages. The reason given is that the "dictionary definition is POV." I cite you to the recent history of a disambiguation page and its TalkPage.
I suggest part of the solution to this problem is to insert a new paragraph into the NPOV page to state explicitly, "Dictionary definitions are always NPOV if the contrasting definitions of experts are also quoted and cited." The most appropriate position would be following the "Religion" paragraph of the NPOV page. ;)
"Surely such an explicit paragraph would be redundant!" you may reply. Here is an analogy to explain.
Accordingly, I suggest that the fix to this NPOV problem requires two elements
Any thoughts or suggestions? --- Rednblu | Talk 21:18, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Neutrality" is a stance and the choice of "neutrality" is NOT neutral! Trying to be "unbiased" is itself a bias.
Orthodoxy is often assumed to be neutral because people take it for granted and fail to realize orthodoxy and the conventional view is not neutral, because people fail to notice the subjectivity of conventions.
It's impossible to be truly neutral, so we might as well drop the pretense of neutrality. How hypocritical and manipulative and misleading it is to enforce a nonneutral point of view upon others all the while insisting and proclaiming that it is neutral.
I'll try to make myself more clear: There are MANY nonneutral articles on Wikipedia which are NOT noticed as being nonneutral because most readers share the same biases as the contributors. On top of that, because the bias is so pervasive, people can say honestly that the article is truly NPOV when it's not. How authoritarian it is to tell the readers what we think is neutral when we ourselves aren't neutral instead of letting the reader think for him/herself.
"Sticking to the facts" assumes "facts" are "objective" but most of what counts as "facts" are highly processed information by subjective individuals within a nonneutral intellectual framework and not "raw uninterpreted data". --- User:128.175.112.225
---
You may be right. But who could disagree with the following statement? "The Oxford English Dictionary said what it said." That is, quoting and citing to dictionary definitions would always be NPOV if accompanied by the opposing definitions of experts! :) --- Rednblu | Talk 22:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
---
Not at all. Quoting the OED definition merely states the OED POV that should be reported with the other cited expert POVs to make an overall NPOV report. :) --- Rednblu | Talk 00:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
---
This is the main problem with NPOV. Not the policy itself, but the fact that people expect it to mean what it looks like it means. The truth of the matter is that what Wikipedia calls "Neutral point of view" is not really a "point of view", especially not the neutral one. It's the absence of bias, the lack of preference for a point of view. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean taking a majority stance, or supporting the middle road, or presenting every imaginable counterargument, but it's easy for people to be misled into thinking it does.
Cited definitions from dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary have been cut repeatedly from several Wikipedia pages. The reason given is that the "dictionary definition is POV." I cite you to the recent history of a disambiguation page and its TalkPage.
I suggest part of the solution to this problem is to insert a new paragraph into the NPOV page to state explicitly, "Dictionary definitions are always NPOV if the contrasting definitions of experts are also quoted and cited." The most appropriate position would be following the "Religion" paragraph of the NPOV page. ;)
Any suggestions? --- Rednblu | Talk 08:59, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have just been struck by a thought: - sometimes the nature of an article makes it a subjective issue, based on points of view. The fact that these points of view exist, in my view is factual in itself. Now POV goes against WikiPolicy, I know, but the exclusion of POV can mean the omission of facts, leading to an incomprehensive or incorrect dataset. Take World War II: neutral POV in its basic form would not make any destinction between who was right and wrong - after all Hitler was convinced he was right. Same with the current situation in Iraq - everyone thinks they are right there - so who is to say? Unless the POVs are noted (and noted as such) then the reader will end up with, if you like, a "neutral bias".
How about having articles which are subject to POV having sub-articles which clearly state that they are POV? I know this opens up the way for cranks, nutters and fanatics (and vandals), but it could be said that the fact that such idiosyncrasies exist is in itself fact, and should be included. Suffice to say POV sub-articles should be clearly labeled to indicate that they are POV.
I am still formulating the agruments for and against on this though, however please let me know what you think. -- JohnArmagh 05:33, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I merely point out that History is written by the Winners.
Lincolnshire Poacher 23:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The word "regime", which appears in edits from time to time, has unfavorable connotations. Although it can be used neutrally, it usually strikes me as conveying disapproval of a particular government. I'm inclined to remove it almost all the time (except, of course, in direct quotations). Is this an overreaction? JamesMLane 23:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't think it's an over-reaction. Regime comes from the word "king" and is only appropriate for monarchies. In my opinion, this is why it is used, branding a government of a country a "regime" is to suggest that the President of that country has the powers of a king over his people, which is often untrue and/or POV. Regardless of that oversimplified line of reasoning, I agree "regime" has negative connotations. "Government" is neutral. — Ben 23:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I also think that "administration" is also inappropriate most of the time--unless one is referencing the political players involved and not the government. For example, the "Bush administration" did not pass the PATRIOT act, the US government as a bureaucratic body did. — Ben 23:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Regime has been used in the language of diplomacy for centuries. It has gained a popular journalistic used in the recent years, mostly coming out of State Department briefings. To attach some sort of "derisive" meaning to it, however, is short cited. Simple example, during World War II the Comité National Français (or Free French) was a regime that had full diplomatic recognition from Great Britain but not from the United States; converserly the so-called Vichy regime had full diplomatic recognition from the United States, but not from Great Britain. (We recently had a good discussion on the Allies:Talk page, another example is Polish government in exile, which was the recognized government of Poland but derisively called the Sikorski regime by the Soviet Union. Suffice it to say, all governments are indeed regimes; whereas, not all regimes are recognized governments (Palestinian Autrhority PA to use a modern example). Nobs 00:32, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
From the current version of the text: "To state outright that "the existence of God is an opinion", "subjective", or "a personal decision", while seeming to be sensitive to the issue, implies that there is no fact being discussed (postmodernism or strong agnosticism), or that it is relatively unimportant (secular bias), or that God only exists in the human mind (Atheism)."
This seems to me to be saying that if I write in an article: "There is no agreement on whether God exists; it cannot be stated as a fact. A statement as to God's existence or non-existence is an opinion," I am violating the NPOV. If so, what formulation of the statement of the fact of the disagreement among reasonable people on this question would be acceptable? --[[User:Tony Sidaway| Tony Sidaway| Talk]] 01:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC) --[[User:Tony Sidaway| Tony Sidaway| Talk]] 01:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just cut it down to "There is no agreement on whether God exists." If you want to flesh it out "Some people believe that God is a factual entity because...." etc. - Rushyo
40 WAYS TO GET A NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW
1. Write a
Wikipedia article. These HAVE to be written from a neutral point of view.
2. Touch a non-erogenous zone on your body. Oh, no, wait, that’s how you get a neutral point of you.
3. Have a cup of
tea (or, in the interests of this week’s 40 Ways, you can have
coffee,
juice, or whatever
drinks are on offer, or even none at all.)
4. Say you like all
sports, even if you hate a few.
5. Go to the drug dealer. Oh, no, wait, that’s how to get a natural joint of
pooh.
6. Run every
television show in the world on your station. Different people like different shows.
7. Feed her every way, just in case she prefers one way of being fed over the way you usually feed your kids.
8.
Wee in every container available. I do it in bottles.
9. Refer to your excrement under every name available.
10. Watch every episode of
Angela Anaconda simultaneously. You’ll need sixty-five televisions, however.
11. Two cents. Oh no wait, that’s zero
dollars point oh two.
12. Listen to the song by
DB Boulevard. Oh, no, wait, it’s another way from another point of view.
13. Ban said song. It has references to point of view.
14. Vote for everyone in the General Election.
15. Buy
Critic and don’t buy it.
16. Stay out of the
war.
17. At a
rugby game, support both teams, for example when one’s about to score a try.
18. Speak every
language under the sun (or clouds or rain or shelter or wherever.)
19. Listen to every song ever made at the same time. It will be quite hard, however.
20. If there are
galaxies beyond the edge of the visible universe, say there is more than one
universe AND all universes stretch out into infinite.
21.
Shit can happen or be, you can serve wine or grape juice with your shit, you can be sure or unsure about shit, it can be your shit or everyone’s shit, you can buy or sell shit, you can create or destroy shit, etc. Shit is neutral.
22. Use every logo and/or mascot in the competition to symbolize the
Olympics or the
Commonwealth Games.
23. Order everything on the menu in a
restaurant.
24. Whistle when you work and whistle when you eat if you can’t decide which one you like better.
25. Buy and don't buy
milk.
26. Only touch things with a
pH value of 7. Oh, no, wait, those are neutral solutions.
27. Do not use masculine or feminine
nouns. Oh, no, wait, the nouns you use instead are neuter.
28. Wear formal and informal clothes everywhere. This week, we want you to have the best of both worlds.
29. Shop at all
supermarkets.
30. Tidy and untidy your room.
31. Get and don’t get your way.
32. Wear and don’t wear a top.
33. Eat inside and outside.
34. Be a
circumcised male with a
foreskin.
35. Wear clean and dirty undies.
36. Defecate in the
toilet and the
cistern at the same time.
37. Have and don’t have a
G-spot.
38. Be male and female, or just get neutered. They neuter
dogs.
39. Spell and say you can’t.
40. Read and don’t read this page again.
41. Say that everyone can and can’t count to 40.
I hope you found this list funny. In fact, I hope you actually read it. Or, I hope you read and don't read said list.
I hope that both was and wasn't a coan! --[[User:Tony Sidaway|
Tony Sidaway|
Talk]] 11:09, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm wondering on what is the proper NPOV with articles that are not really pseudoscience, but something along those lines. With pseudoscience, it's easy to say first that this is pseudoscience, and everything that follows is according to those who believe it. But then there are cases such as Travis Walton abduction, where a person claims he's been abducted by aliens. Obviously, the majority of people, here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, would say that the claims are false. However, saying that on the page would actually be POV - likewise, insisting that he was indeed abudcted would be POV.
The solution used on that and several other articles I've seen is extensive use of words such as "claimed", "allegedly", "reported", etc. I suppose it's good from the NPOV side, but I find it annoying sometimes to read an article where every fact is preceded by "allegedly", etc. Would it be NPOV to state at the beggining something like "the following description of the events is according to X", and then describe the events using "normal" language? - User:Solver
Look at these statements:
Establish the context, then just follow the material unself-consciously. "In Greek mythology" blah blah blah. You don't have to keep saying "Athena allegedly was born from Zeus' forehead." You've established at the outset that you are discussing within the context: "In Christian thought..." "In Marxist economics..." etc. -- Wetman 19:55, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
==The link to Jimbo's quote==
The link at the top of
WP:NPOV (
[2] as of this writing) doesn't appear to contain any quote from Jimbo, certainly not the phrase "absolute and non-negotiable." Can someone either point out something I've overlooked, or fix the link to point to the correct message? Thanks. -
leigh (φθόγγος) 06:01, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC) I see it's been fixed. :) -
leigh (φθόγγος) 22:08, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
To quote the article: "The presence of articles written from an exclusively United States point of view is merely a reflection of the fact that there are many Americans working on the project, which in turn is merely a reflection of the fact that so many Americans are online and working on the English project."
Many articles do reflect the "Americo-centric" attitude of contributors by leaving out the fact that the article is about the US. This is common in US place names. Many of us do know that Illinois is in the United States but, forexample, Naperville, Illinois requires further research to establish the fact that it is in the US. Alan Liefting 22:07, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just a question -- if Wikipedia is supposedly Americo-centric, why do I notice Commonwealth English ("British English") spellings in the majority of articles I read? Sometimes, I see both used in one article... We need some form of consistency, methinks.
Thorns among our leaves 17:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I spend some of my editing time putting in a geographical context on articles about the United States. One problem area is lists. Quite often lists of countries are in order of population in OECD countries rather than in alphabelical order! Alan Liefting 09:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I had put in a request to have Environmental movement in the United States moved back to Environmentalism since the Environmentalism article is on an international issue rather than a national issue. The request was not actioned. The article had a US slant but this was no reason to move it to a country specific article. As I have stated elsewhere it is a rather geographically blinkered approach to move an article on an international issue to one that is for the United States. I have since cut'n'pasted relevent info from one article to the other. Alan Liefting 09:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I ask you some questions. Does NPOV mean majority decision? For example, in Christianity, many people insist that believing trinity is Christianity. Jehovah's Witnesses and Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints are called non-Christians or alternates by this definition. I think this is slander to JW and LDS, because both groups insist Christianity groups definately. Then can Wikipedia's NPOV ignore slanders and accept only majority opinions? Please teach me. Rantaro 14:24, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Lincolnshire Poacher 08:09, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cited definitions from dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary have been cut repeatedly from several Wikipedia pages. The reason given is that the "dictionary definition is POV." I cite you to the recent history of a disambiguation page and its TalkPage.
I suggest part of the solution to this problem is to insert a new paragraph into the NPOV page to state explicitly, "Dictionary definitions are always NPOV if the contrasting definitions of experts are also quoted and cited." The most appropriate position would be following the "Religion" paragraph of the NPOV page. ;)
"Surely such an explicit paragraph would be redundant!" you may reply. Here is an analogy to explain.
Accordingly, I suggest that the fix to this NPOV problem requires two elements
Any thoughts or suggestions? --- Rednblu | Talk 21:18, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Neutrality" is a stance and the choice of "neutrality" is NOT neutral! Trying to be "unbiased" is itself a bias.
Orthodoxy is often assumed to be neutral because people take it for granted and fail to realize orthodoxy and the conventional view is not neutral, because people fail to notice the subjectivity of conventions.
It's impossible to be truly neutral, so we might as well drop the pretense of neutrality. How hypocritical and manipulative and misleading it is to enforce a nonneutral point of view upon others all the while insisting and proclaiming that it is neutral.
I'll try to make myself more clear: There are MANY nonneutral articles on Wikipedia which are NOT noticed as being nonneutral because most readers share the same biases as the contributors. On top of that, because the bias is so pervasive, people can say honestly that the article is truly NPOV when it's not. How authoritarian it is to tell the readers what we think is neutral when we ourselves aren't neutral instead of letting the reader think for him/herself.
"Sticking to the facts" assumes "facts" are "objective" but most of what counts as "facts" are highly processed information by subjective individuals within a nonneutral intellectual framework and not "raw uninterpreted data". --- User:128.175.112.225
---
You may be right. But who could disagree with the following statement? "The Oxford English Dictionary said what it said." That is, quoting and citing to dictionary definitions would always be NPOV if accompanied by the opposing definitions of experts! :) --- Rednblu | Talk 22:29, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
---
Not at all. Quoting the OED definition merely states the OED POV that should be reported with the other cited expert POVs to make an overall NPOV report. :) --- Rednblu | Talk 00:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
---
This is the main problem with NPOV. Not the policy itself, but the fact that people expect it to mean what it looks like it means. The truth of the matter is that what Wikipedia calls "Neutral point of view" is not really a "point of view", especially not the neutral one. It's the absence of bias, the lack of preference for a point of view. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean taking a majority stance, or supporting the middle road, or presenting every imaginable counterargument, but it's easy for people to be misled into thinking it does.
Cited definitions from dictionaries such as the American Heritage Dictionary have been cut repeatedly from several Wikipedia pages. The reason given is that the "dictionary definition is POV." I cite you to the recent history of a disambiguation page and its TalkPage.
I suggest part of the solution to this problem is to insert a new paragraph into the NPOV page to state explicitly, "Dictionary definitions are always NPOV if the contrasting definitions of experts are also quoted and cited." The most appropriate position would be following the "Religion" paragraph of the NPOV page. ;)
Any suggestions? --- Rednblu | Talk 08:59, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have just been struck by a thought: - sometimes the nature of an article makes it a subjective issue, based on points of view. The fact that these points of view exist, in my view is factual in itself. Now POV goes against WikiPolicy, I know, but the exclusion of POV can mean the omission of facts, leading to an incomprehensive or incorrect dataset. Take World War II: neutral POV in its basic form would not make any destinction between who was right and wrong - after all Hitler was convinced he was right. Same with the current situation in Iraq - everyone thinks they are right there - so who is to say? Unless the POVs are noted (and noted as such) then the reader will end up with, if you like, a "neutral bias".
How about having articles which are subject to POV having sub-articles which clearly state that they are POV? I know this opens up the way for cranks, nutters and fanatics (and vandals), but it could be said that the fact that such idiosyncrasies exist is in itself fact, and should be included. Suffice to say POV sub-articles should be clearly labeled to indicate that they are POV.
I am still formulating the agruments for and against on this though, however please let me know what you think. -- JohnArmagh 05:33, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I merely point out that History is written by the Winners.
Lincolnshire Poacher 23:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The word "regime", which appears in edits from time to time, has unfavorable connotations. Although it can be used neutrally, it usually strikes me as conveying disapproval of a particular government. I'm inclined to remove it almost all the time (except, of course, in direct quotations). Is this an overreaction? JamesMLane 23:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't think it's an over-reaction. Regime comes from the word "king" and is only appropriate for monarchies. In my opinion, this is why it is used, branding a government of a country a "regime" is to suggest that the President of that country has the powers of a king over his people, which is often untrue and/or POV. Regardless of that oversimplified line of reasoning, I agree "regime" has negative connotations. "Government" is neutral. — Ben 23:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I also think that "administration" is also inappropriate most of the time--unless one is referencing the political players involved and not the government. For example, the "Bush administration" did not pass the PATRIOT act, the US government as a bureaucratic body did. — Ben 23:29, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Regime has been used in the language of diplomacy for centuries. It has gained a popular journalistic used in the recent years, mostly coming out of State Department briefings. To attach some sort of "derisive" meaning to it, however, is short cited. Simple example, during World War II the Comité National Français (or Free French) was a regime that had full diplomatic recognition from Great Britain but not from the United States; converserly the so-called Vichy regime had full diplomatic recognition from the United States, but not from Great Britain. (We recently had a good discussion on the Allies:Talk page, another example is Polish government in exile, which was the recognized government of Poland but derisively called the Sikorski regime by the Soviet Union. Suffice it to say, all governments are indeed regimes; whereas, not all regimes are recognized governments (Palestinian Autrhority PA to use a modern example). Nobs 00:32, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
From the current version of the text: "To state outright that "the existence of God is an opinion", "subjective", or "a personal decision", while seeming to be sensitive to the issue, implies that there is no fact being discussed (postmodernism or strong agnosticism), or that it is relatively unimportant (secular bias), or that God only exists in the human mind (Atheism)."
This seems to me to be saying that if I write in an article: "There is no agreement on whether God exists; it cannot be stated as a fact. A statement as to God's existence or non-existence is an opinion," I am violating the NPOV. If so, what formulation of the statement of the fact of the disagreement among reasonable people on this question would be acceptable? --[[User:Tony Sidaway| Tony Sidaway| Talk]] 01:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC) --[[User:Tony Sidaway| Tony Sidaway| Talk]] 01:03, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just cut it down to "There is no agreement on whether God exists." If you want to flesh it out "Some people believe that God is a factual entity because...." etc. - Rushyo
40 WAYS TO GET A NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW
1. Write a
Wikipedia article. These HAVE to be written from a neutral point of view.
2. Touch a non-erogenous zone on your body. Oh, no, wait, that’s how you get a neutral point of you.
3. Have a cup of
tea (or, in the interests of this week’s 40 Ways, you can have
coffee,
juice, or whatever
drinks are on offer, or even none at all.)
4. Say you like all
sports, even if you hate a few.
5. Go to the drug dealer. Oh, no, wait, that’s how to get a natural joint of
pooh.
6. Run every
television show in the world on your station. Different people like different shows.
7. Feed her every way, just in case she prefers one way of being fed over the way you usually feed your kids.
8.
Wee in every container available. I do it in bottles.
9. Refer to your excrement under every name available.
10. Watch every episode of
Angela Anaconda simultaneously. You’ll need sixty-five televisions, however.
11. Two cents. Oh no wait, that’s zero
dollars point oh two.
12. Listen to the song by
DB Boulevard. Oh, no, wait, it’s another way from another point of view.
13. Ban said song. It has references to point of view.
14. Vote for everyone in the General Election.
15. Buy
Critic and don’t buy it.
16. Stay out of the
war.
17. At a
rugby game, support both teams, for example when one’s about to score a try.
18. Speak every
language under the sun (or clouds or rain or shelter or wherever.)
19. Listen to every song ever made at the same time. It will be quite hard, however.
20. If there are
galaxies beyond the edge of the visible universe, say there is more than one
universe AND all universes stretch out into infinite.
21.
Shit can happen or be, you can serve wine or grape juice with your shit, you can be sure or unsure about shit, it can be your shit or everyone’s shit, you can buy or sell shit, you can create or destroy shit, etc. Shit is neutral.
22. Use every logo and/or mascot in the competition to symbolize the
Olympics or the
Commonwealth Games.
23. Order everything on the menu in a
restaurant.
24. Whistle when you work and whistle when you eat if you can’t decide which one you like better.
25. Buy and don't buy
milk.
26. Only touch things with a
pH value of 7. Oh, no, wait, those are neutral solutions.
27. Do not use masculine or feminine
nouns. Oh, no, wait, the nouns you use instead are neuter.
28. Wear formal and informal clothes everywhere. This week, we want you to have the best of both worlds.
29. Shop at all
supermarkets.
30. Tidy and untidy your room.
31. Get and don’t get your way.
32. Wear and don’t wear a top.
33. Eat inside and outside.
34. Be a
circumcised male with a
foreskin.
35. Wear clean and dirty undies.
36. Defecate in the
toilet and the
cistern at the same time.
37. Have and don’t have a
G-spot.
38. Be male and female, or just get neutered. They neuter
dogs.
39. Spell and say you can’t.
40. Read and don’t read this page again.
41. Say that everyone can and can’t count to 40.
I hope you found this list funny. In fact, I hope you actually read it. Or, I hope you read and don't read said list.
I hope that both was and wasn't a coan! --[[User:Tony Sidaway|
Tony Sidaway|
Talk]] 11:09, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm wondering on what is the proper NPOV with articles that are not really pseudoscience, but something along those lines. With pseudoscience, it's easy to say first that this is pseudoscience, and everything that follows is according to those who believe it. But then there are cases such as Travis Walton abduction, where a person claims he's been abducted by aliens. Obviously, the majority of people, here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, would say that the claims are false. However, saying that on the page would actually be POV - likewise, insisting that he was indeed abudcted would be POV.
The solution used on that and several other articles I've seen is extensive use of words such as "claimed", "allegedly", "reported", etc. I suppose it's good from the NPOV side, but I find it annoying sometimes to read an article where every fact is preceded by "allegedly", etc. Would it be NPOV to state at the beggining something like "the following description of the events is according to X", and then describe the events using "normal" language? - User:Solver
Look at these statements:
Establish the context, then just follow the material unself-consciously. "In Greek mythology" blah blah blah. You don't have to keep saying "Athena allegedly was born from Zeus' forehead." You've established at the outset that you are discussing within the context: "In Christian thought..." "In Marxist economics..." etc. -- Wetman 19:55, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
==The link to Jimbo's quote==
The link at the top of
WP:NPOV (
[2] as of this writing) doesn't appear to contain any quote from Jimbo, certainly not the phrase "absolute and non-negotiable." Can someone either point out something I've overlooked, or fix the link to point to the correct message? Thanks. -
leigh (φθόγγος) 06:01, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC) I see it's been fixed. :) -
leigh (φθόγγος) 22:08, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)