I'm sort of new, as of 2006. Rather limited in interest fields; I will add to pages I run across when there's something I can contribute.
Interests include noise music, heretical occulture, the rapidly changing politics of the USA (and what it now means to be liberal, versus what it once did.)
Wikipedic ruminations:
NPOV is something that - while a general Good Idea, particularly for certain types of articles, is viewed by me (from rapidly changing points, as I move from one room to another, literally and figuratively) as something of gradation and not a bitwise (YES or NO)matter; something is judged here either as having POV or being NPOV when there's such a wide gradient between:
- the closest thing to absolute lack of bias ("true NPOV" is something that seems to be purely conceptual; in reality, can this actually exist? All persons have some opinion about everything; even neutrality is a sort of opinion.)
Example: "Wikipedia is a encyclopedic website ."
Pretty close. But...Is this NPOV? Some might say that calling it encyclopedic is a point-of-view.
and
- flagrant, blatant, runaway extremity of personal feelings
Example: "Wikipedia is the best web encyclopedia ever made, because it is obviously the most useful, wonderful, perfectly-organized, and beautiful website.
Here's another example of opinionated statement: the opinion expressed being my own.
Since Wikipedia disallows "original research" every editor is reduced to passing along someone else's information and prohibited from provision of any originating from one's own self.
So, if I want my information here, apparently, some believe I should have to print and publish a book, and then, someone else has to cite it.
Since publishing books is expensive, verifiability is thus based on economy; this creates an economic chasm defining legitimate and illegitimate information here, which is bothersome to say the least; it abrogates the purpose of an editable web encyclopedia.
While some restraint and control of consensus-lacking matter is understandable, it ought not be forbidden outright. I am thinking of proposing some way to deal with this problem--one of WP's stickiest wickets. I invite your comments and suggestions. Be as opinionated as you wish. This is my page. I am allowing YOUR point of view, along with mine, because that to me is closer to the way the world actually IS.
Thank you for your patience, Psychaotic