User:Seth Ilys/WikiPhilosophy

Here I plan to work out some of my thoughts about philosophy, ethics, administration, and organization, as they relate to Wikipedia. I intend these essays to be my own original work, released under the GFDL. However, feel free to help me refine my thoughts by making comments in italics after the relevant paragraph or section; I'll remove the comments as I respond to them within the essay. Like everything else on the Wiki, this is a work in progress.

NPOV

A "neutral point of view" is, in fact, a point of view. It's the point of view that we can't take sides on disputed issues. Strictly speaking, it should be called "all points of view."

NPOV as a policy can only effectively be applied to articles, and not to statements or even paragraphs. It's an approach to writing articles. In truth, no individual statement can be NPOV.

Wikipedia doesn't archive facts, it archives contemporary knowledge.

Ethics of Information

Information has positive value. The dissemination of information is a desirable thing.

Privacy is not a right.

Lies and secrecy have negative value.

==Consensus==

Before discovering Wikipedia.com, if you had asked me if a Wiki would work, I would have said no! People would vandalize it, people would argue forever. However, Wikis have an amazing property. Unlike mailing lists, newsgroups and bulletin boards where people argue forever, and get real mad at each other, Wikis tend to come to a consensus. If there are irreconcilable differences, people will eventually be happy if both sides are presented. Arguments are presented in the "Talk" pages so they are not presented to the casual reader of an article. A community develops that defends the spirit of the Wiki. Vandalism is promptly fixed. Paul Studier 23:53, 2004 Jun 15 (UTC)