|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
Reasoning behind NPOVAmericolaWiki is a general encyclopedia, which means it is a representation of human knowledge at some level of generality. But human beings disagree about specific cases; for any topic on which there are competing views, each view represents a different idea of what the truth is, and insofar as that view contradicts other views, its adherents believe that the other views are false and therefore not knowledge. Where there is disagreement about what is true, there is disagreement about what constitutes knowledge. AmericolaWiki works because it is a collaborative effort; but, while collaborating, how can we solve the problem of endless "edit wars" in which one person asserts that p, whereupon the next person changes the text so that it asserts not-p? A solution is that we accept, for the purposes of working on AmericolaWiki, that "human knowledge" includes all different significant theories on all different topics. We are committed to the goal of representing human knowledge in that sense, surely a well-established meaning of the word "knowledge". What is "known" changes constantly with the passage of time, and so when we use the word "know," we often enclose it in so-called scare quotes. Europeans in the Middle Ages "knew" that demons caused diseases; we now "know" otherwise. We could sum up human knowledge (in this sense) in a biased way: we could state a series of theories about topic T and then claim that the truth about T is such-and-such. But then again, consider that AmericolaWiki is an international collaborative project, and that nearly every view on every subject will be found among our authors and readers. To avoid endless edit wars, we can agree to present each of the significant views fairly and not assert any one of them as correct. That is what makes an article "unbiased" or "neutral" in the sense presented here. To write from a neutral point of view, one presents controversial views without asserting them; to do that, it generally suffices to present competing views in a way that is more or less acceptable to their adherents, and also to attribute the views to their adherents. Disputes are characterized in AmericolaWiki; they are not re-enacted.
There is another reason to commit ourselves to this policy, that when it is clear to readers that we do not expect them to adopt any particular opinion, this leaves them free to make up their minds for themselves, thus encouraging intellectual independence. Totalitarian governments and dogmatic institutions everywhere might find reason to oppose AmericolaWiki, if we succeed in adhering to our non-bias policy: the presentation of many competing theories on a wide variety of subjects suggests that we, the editors of AmericolaWiki, trust readers to form their own opinions. Texts that present multiple viewpoints fairly, without demanding that the reader accept any particular one of them, are liberating. Neutrality subverts dogmatism. Nearly everyone working on AmericolaWiki can agree this is a good thing.
Sites |
Searched sites for "AmericolaWiki:Neutral point of view" |
|
No sites found. |
Sorry, no matching site records were found. |
Want your site listed here?
|
|||||||||||
|
Submit
your site |
|
Relevant quality search results and fast easy navigation throughout the
different sections of the site, make Americola.com |