Difference between revisions of "Wikispooks:Editorial Policy"
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'''Same problem - plus "reliable sources" and "significant viewpoints" themselves involve superlative value judgments.''' To illustrate, wind the clock back some 450 years and replace 'flat-earth' with 'Heliocentric'. | '''Same problem - plus "reliable sources" and "significant viewpoints" themselves involve superlative value judgments.''' To illustrate, wind the clock back some 450 years and replace 'flat-earth' with 'Heliocentric'. | ||
| − | '''''WikiSpooks''''' has no intention of maintaining a spurious neutrality as between so called '''"reliable sources/significant viewpoints... in proportion to their prominence", and solid evidence-based minority | + | '''''WikiSpooks''''' has no intention of maintaining a spurious neutrality as between so called '''"reliable sources/significant viewpoints... in proportion to their prominence", and solid evidence-based minority viewpoints - however small'''. The entire quoted phrase is loaded with value judgments - even when said sources are claimed to to be purely scientific - let alone if they are government/political. The inevitable result of such neutrality is to give grossly disproportionate weight to the "The Establishment view" or "The Official Narrative". |
'''There is a lot more in the quoted.''' It strives valiantly for the impossible. The result is a sort of bland establishment approved "neutrality" that further entrenches the status-quo. It is akin, for example, to the absurdity of the BBC refusal to broadcast the "Disasters Emergency Committee" Appeal for Gaza <ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/23/bbc-refuses-gaza-appeal BBC refusal to broadcast the "Disasters Emergency Committee" Appeal for Gaza - The Guardian January 2009]</ref> in January 2009 on the grounds of 'maintaining impartiality'). It may be appropriate for a mainstream encyclopedia striving to avoid having an opinion on anything, but NOT so for ''WikiSpooks''. | '''There is a lot more in the quoted.''' It strives valiantly for the impossible. The result is a sort of bland establishment approved "neutrality" that further entrenches the status-quo. It is akin, for example, to the absurdity of the BBC refusal to broadcast the "Disasters Emergency Committee" Appeal for Gaza <ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/23/bbc-refuses-gaza-appeal BBC refusal to broadcast the "Disasters Emergency Committee" Appeal for Gaza - The Guardian January 2009]</ref> in January 2009 on the grounds of 'maintaining impartiality'). It may be appropriate for a mainstream encyclopedia striving to avoid having an opinion on anything, but NOT so for ''WikiSpooks''. | ||
Revision as of 15:31, 16 May 2010
The editorial policy of WikiSpooks is similar to that of Wikipedia and for the purposes of acceptable composition and page layout style, the "Guidelines, Help & Resources" section of the Wikipedia Community Portal Page[1] should be followed.
How WikiSpooks differs
It is over the definitions of "bias" and "Neutral Point of View" that WikiSpooks parts company with Wikipedia. The whole of the Wikipedia document 'Neutral Point of View Neutral Point of View'[2] is worth reading in this context but some brief extracts will suffice to illustrate the differences.
Quote: "In attributing competing views, it is necessary to ensure that the attribution adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity. For example, to state that "according to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the super-majority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field."
The problem with that formulation is that it equates majority with accuracy. To focus on the specific example, it is quite likely that many non-Western Establishment scholars would reverse the relative Wiesenthal/Irving super-majority/minority proportions stated here. Add to that the propensity of certain western countries to imprison people like Irving for simply expressing a minority opinion, and the mainstream assumption that we have anything approaching freedom of expression, speech and research becomes risible. Which is not to defend Irving's opinions but merely to illustrate the ways in which 'The majority' imposes absurd orthodoxies which define the boundaries of allowable debate and are thus reflected in all mainstream media - including Wikipedia.
Much madness is divinest Sense
To a discerning Eye
Much Sense- the starkest Madness
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail
Assent-and you are sane
Demur-you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a Chain
-Emily Dickinson (poem 435), c. 1862
Quote: "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views, and the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. For example, the article on the Earth should not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority."
Same problem - plus "reliable sources" and "significant viewpoints" themselves involve superlative value judgments. To illustrate, wind the clock back some 450 years and replace 'flat-earth' with 'Heliocentric'.
WikiSpooks has no intention of maintaining a spurious neutrality as between so called "reliable sources/significant viewpoints... in proportion to their prominence", and solid evidence-based minority viewpoints - however small. The entire quoted phrase is loaded with value judgments - even when said sources are claimed to to be purely scientific - let alone if they are government/political. The inevitable result of such neutrality is to give grossly disproportionate weight to the "The Establishment view" or "The Official Narrative".
There is a lot more in the quoted. It strives valiantly for the impossible. The result is a sort of bland establishment approved "neutrality" that further entrenches the status-quo. It is akin, for example, to the absurdity of the BBC refusal to broadcast the "Disasters Emergency Committee" Appeal for Gaza [3] in January 2009 on the grounds of 'maintaining impartiality'). It may be appropriate for a mainstream encyclopedia striving to avoid having an opinion on anything, but NOT so for WikiSpooks.
As a general guideline, the following are to be substituted everywhere where establishment value judgments are clearly in evidence in the Wikipedia guidelines:
