User:The Minister of War/Wikiphilosophy

Wiki Philosophy
One of my favorite pasttimes on Wiki has to be resolving of disputes (sometimes with mediating). One of the things I've noticed is that disputes are rarely, in terms of content, unsolvable conflicts. Most of the positions in disputes aren't even that far apart, but have the atmosphere disturbed by some remark/edit/revert somebody made.

As a reaction,

and can be handled easily with some tact and a cool head.

A lot of articles seem to be tagged with &#123;{TotallyDisputed}} with rather strange reasons, and quite a few of those have afterwards been abandoned.

Neutral Point of View
One of the most wonderful things on Wikipedia must be the policy on Neutral Point of View. Wonderful, because its respectful, but also because it is ambituous. However, because of its strongly flexible interpretation, more articles seem to be flagged with the NPOV tag (or often inappropriately with the TotallyDisputed) than there seem to be non-flagged articles.


 * 1) Neutral does not mean that all viewpoints have to be included and respected equally, nor should it be. This is a view which seems to flourish widely on Wikipedia, one I try to combat. Facts need to be included, and where facts are ambiguous, arguments for different POVs should be listed with their due weight.
 * 2) Listing multiple arguments For and Against does not make it neutral. Recently I edited an article on the fictional creature of the Balrog in which the argument was whether or not it had wings. The two "sides" then started listing arguments 'For' and 'Against', and then attempted, to reach NPOV, to make the 'amount of arguments equal on both sides'. The solution was simple, yet eluded the editors in the dispute: one single paragraph on the ambivalence of the Balrogs appearance.

Neutral to my mind means both sides are equally obliged to supply arguments to claim their point, both are obliged to listen to the others arguments, and to yield their own claims if necessary. Sometimes one of the two is being unreasonable, but this always become much more clear if both are sides are asked to provide arguments for their position. In that case, the best bet is always to stay level-headed and never get frustrated. It proves that you're not the one unreasonable, and highlights the others position that much more clearly.