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Best I can tell, I (and everyone else who uses a VPN) have been blocked from editing Wikipedia. To quote Douglas Adams, so long, and thanks for all the fish.


Absolutes in articles

I've had a few debates while revising articles, and it seems to me that they represent variations of efforts by me to remove absolute statements. For example, is FIFA "the governing body" or "a governing body" for football. I think "a" is the right choice, because "the" implies an absolute that doesn't match reality. Other organizations could and, in fact, do exist that fit the description, and implying that FIFA is the only possible such organization, as "the" does, detracts from the article. Compare the FIFA article to the articles about other organizations, such as the International Olympic Committee, which describes it as "an international organization". A similar sort of absolutism also kicks off arguments in biography articles, in which editors go back and forth about whether the subject is "the best ever", or "one of the best ever", or "widely regarded as the best ever", etc. With this sort of debate, it's easy to find independent, reliable(ish) sources that support any version. My suggestion would be to provide guidance to editors to avoid unnecessary absolutes, that is, that wikipedia policy says stick to observable, measurable statements ("most goals in league history") instead of absolute judgementsuse "one of the best whatever" I spent a few minutes searching for guidance on this question, and I haven't found any. If such guidance exists, I would appreciate a pointer to it. If not, I think that perhaps NPOV should include a statement that adding unsupported claims to absolute Rks13 (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikilinks
- Template:Infobox writer/doc
- Template:F1_Drivers_Standings