Re: [Ldsoss] Re: Ldsoss Digest, Vol 39, Issue 1
Stephen said, Why has *neutral* become good? and Criticizing things...is...[now called] progressive. I appreciate the concern behind these expressions, Stephen. I think you are spot on in your values, and perhaps the aim of Wikipedia has simply been misrepresented or poorly represented to you. The absolute and non-negotiable policy of Wikipedia is not immediately and intuitively easy to grok. Even regular editors with months of experience there can fail to grasp fully the policy. And probably even the most experienced editors sometimes fail to implement it properly. The policy is thou shalt write without bias. One facet of it is thou shalt not be snide, condescending, or critical in tone. Another facet of it is thou shalt aspire to practice wikilove and assume good faith. These are lofty principles, I hope you'll agree. If you or any of us find an article in the LDS area of Wikipedia stained by a critical, snide, or condescending tone, or if we find false reporting, we may work to correct it. What we can't do is work to see that Wikipedia advocates our position or suppresses the position of another significant and sincere group. I think if you will read and ponder carefully the Wikipedia policy and explanations you will appreciate their wisdom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial -- Tom Haws Have a beautiful day. ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
[Ldsoss] Re: Ldsoss Digest, Vol 39, Issue 1
At 11:21 AM 4/2/2007, Thomas Haws [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a lot of Wikipedia experience, particularly in the LDS area, and I have system administrator privileges there. I know at least one other participant on this list is an experienced Wikipedian. The Wikipedia community stalwarts are fiercely committed to a non-negotiable policy of non-bias. The non-bias policy states that all significant points of view must be represented appropriately and that when any point of view is represented, it must be done with a sympathetic tone. The best way to improve Wikipedia is to present all information of interest with source citations as though you were explaining to your teenage kid all the diversity of opinion and information in the world regarding the First Vision. For the First Vision article, it would be appropriate to include a statement that in the LDS Church the 1838 account of the vision is canonical. ^^ I agree. In fact, I just edited a change to the First Vision article to make it more NPOV (Neutral Point of View). The only way for Wikipedia to become anti-Mormon is for LDS to avoid the site. It is important to realize that neutral means that all points of view are respected. Therefore, you will read things like Joseph Smith claimed to have a vision ... A faithful LDS person would rather read Joseph Smith had a vision. However, that would not be permitted. It works the other way as well: Cirtics claim ... when anti-Mormons would probably want things like that stated as facts. It is important to respect this neutrality. At one point, somebody made a bunch of biased edits to some article. It was found that the IP Address was in the church offices, and so that raised quite a stink. The conclusion was that it was just an over-zealous employee rather than an organized effort to bias the articles, but if too many such incidents were to happen, it would have caused a real problem. I hesitate to mention this (for fear things will get knocked out of balance), but I have been working on the article Mormonism and Christianity, which attempts to compare the two viewpoints. In addition to a number of LDS editors, we have a protestant who is asking some really good questions in trying to understand what we believe and why. If you get the right mix of people, then articles can come together very nicely. If, however, you get too many zealots (from either side) working on the article, it can get quite tedious, but even the most obnoxious are helpful in that they can detect bias in places that we wouldn't notice. IMHO if an article is well-balanced and truly NPOV, then neither side is happy with it. ;^) --- Bill Pringle work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.unisysfsp.com http://www.unisys.com home/school: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.personal.psu.edu/~wrp103 http://CherylWheeler.com ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Re: Ldsoss Digest, Vol 39, Issue 1
Excellent Wikipedia primer, Bill. Do you also agree with the following? Therefore, you will read things like Joseph Smith claimed to have a vision ... A faithful LDS person would rather read Joseph Smith had a vision. However, that would not be permitted. It works the other way as well: Cirtics claim ... when anti-Mormons would probably want things like that stated as facts. The only improvement to this, using the idea of sympathetic tone, would be to use the word said Joseph Smith said he had a vision ... Critics say ... Any visitor can, with judgement and skill, make small changes that bring tone more into neutrality. -- Tom Haws Have a beautiful day. ___ Ldsoss mailing list Ldsoss@lists.ldsoss.org http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
Re: [Ldsoss] Re: Ldsoss Digest, Vol 39, Issue 1
I haven't checked today to see if these have been added, but we might
want to consider some of the witnesses listed on fairwiki as well -
they usually do a somewhat decent job of citing what they put there (I
think we obviously would want to cite the source, not fairwiki):
http://www.fairwiki.org/index.php/Joseph_Smith_did_not_know_if_God_existed_in_1823
Here's fairwiki's response to all the First Vision issues. There's a
lot of great citations and witnesses there representing more than
what's stated on the wikipedia article:
http://www.fairwiki.org/index.php/First_Vision_accounts
Jesse
On 4/2/07, Bill Pringle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
At 11:21 AM 4/2/2007, Thomas Haws [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I have a lot of Wikipedia experience, particularly in the LDS area, and I
have system administrator privileges there. I know at least one other
participant on this list is an experienced Wikipedian.
The Wikipedia community stalwarts are fiercely committed to a non-negotiable
policy of non-bias. The non-bias policy states that all significant points
of view must be represented appropriately and that when any point of view is
represented, it must be done with a sympathetic tone. The best way to
improve Wikipedia is to present all information of interest with source
citations as though you were explaining to your teenage kid all the
diversity of opinion and information in the world regarding the First
Vision.
For the First Vision article, it would be appropriate to include a statement
that in the LDS Church the 1838 account of the vision is canonical.
^^
I agree. In fact, I just edited a change to the First Vision article
to make it more NPOV (Neutral Point of View). The only way for
Wikipedia to become anti-Mormon is for LDS to avoid the site.
It is important to realize that neutral means that all points of view
are respected. Therefore, you will read things like Joseph Smith
claimed to have a vision ... A faithful LDS person would rather
read Joseph Smith had a vision. However, that would not be
permitted. It works the other way as well: Cirtics claim ... when
anti-Mormons would probably want things like that stated as facts.
It is important to respect this neutrality. At one point, somebody
made a bunch of biased edits to some article. It was found that the
IP Address was in the church offices, and so that raised quite a
stink. The conclusion was that it was just an over-zealous employee
rather than an organized effort to bias the articles, but if too many
such incidents were to happen, it would have caused a real problem.
I hesitate to mention this (for fear things will get knocked out of
balance), but I have been working on the article Mormonism and
Christianity, which attempts to compare the two viewpoints. In
addition to a number of LDS editors, we have a protestant who is
asking some really good questions in trying to understand what we
believe and why. If you get the right mix of people, then articles
can come together very nicely. If, however, you get too many zealots
(from either side) working on the article, it can get quite tedious,
but even the most obnoxious are helpful in that they can detect bias
in places that we wouldn't notice.
IMHO if an article is well-balanced and truly NPOV, then neither side
is happy with it. ;^)
---
Bill Pringle
work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.unisysfsp.com
http://www.unisys.com
home/school: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.personal.psu.edu/~wrp103
http://CherylWheeler.com
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