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No such thing as objectivity

For the thinking behind this change, please see WT:NPOV#Fundamental problem: "neutral".--Kotniski (talk) 07:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The edit was not more objective. You added your own personal opinion to the page. QuackGuru (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I restored the well written text. Personal opinions of NPOV should not be part of FAQ. QuackGuru (talk) 16:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have restored another personal opinion. I don't know what "well-written text" you are referring to, but when you find it, perhaps we can try. Meanwhile let's remove the point altogether for now; it's not necessary and it's embarrassing to have that text on a major FAQ.--Kotniski (talk) 18:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I restored to the version that before you added your personal opinion to the FAQ page. It smacks WP:POINT your deletion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's your repeated reverts of anything I do that are becoming POINTy. Maybe it was my personal opinion, but no-one's yet argued against it despite being linked to the discussion, so apparently no-one disagrees. And the text you restored was even worse than someone's opinion; it was someone's personal disingenuous, patronizing nonsense. We don't particularly need either, but we certainly shouldn't have that text that you put back.--Kotniski (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

No, it smacks WP:POINT your deletion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've explained my thinking at the thread I linked to above. Please respond to it if you have some objection. If you don't see why the text you restored was hideously bad, I'll explain it when I come back tomorrow. Meanwhile goodnight.--Kotniski (talk) 18:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You've made it clear you don't like the current NPOV policy or this FAQ page without any logical explantion. QuackGuru (talk) 18:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

All right, here's the section in dispute:

• Everybody with any philosophical sophistication knows that. So how can we take the "neutrality" policy seriously? Neutrality, lack of bias, isn't possible.

• This is probably the most common objection to the neutrality policy. It also reflects the most common misunderstanding of the policy. The misunderstanding is that the policy would have said something about the possibility of objectivity. It simply does not. In particular, the policy does not say that there even is such a thing as objectivity in a philosophical sense, a "view from nowhere" (in Thomas Nagel's phrase)—such that articles written from that point of view are consequently objectively true. That is not the policy and it is not our aim! Rather, we employ a different understanding of "neutral" and "unbiased" than many might be used to. The policy is simply that we should characterize disputes rather than engage in them. To say this is not to say anything contentious, from a philosophical point of view; indeed, this is something that philosophers are doing all the time. Sophisticated relativists will immediately recognize that the policy is perfectly consistent with their relativism.

• If there is anything possibly contentious about the policy along these lines, it is the implication that it is possible to characterize disputes fairly, so that all the major participants will be able to look at the resulting text, agreeing that their views are presented sympathetically and as completely as possible (within the context of the discussion). It is an empirical question, not a philosophical one, whether this is possible; and that such a thing is indeed possible is evident simply by observing that such texts are written daily by the most capable academics, encyclopedists, textbook writers, and others. Neutrality does not compel us to introduce inaccuracy when something can be directly verified. Neutrality dictates that there can be multiple prominent interpretations to the meaning or validity of a work, but often the contents can be objectively verified, especially in the case of modern documents.

Surely we can see that what this "answer" is doing is simply playing with words (ha, we don't call the view from nowhere "objective", we call it "neutral" or "unbiased", which apparently means the impossible suddenly becomes possible just through a simple name change), and denigrating objectors (the reason you don't accept this policy is that you're not clever enough to understand it - the first line of defence for any dodgy theological dogma; then the tone of the start of the second paragraph continues to patronize). This "answer" to a perfectly reasonable objection says nothing of value, and I hope it won't be restored again until someone rewrites in a saatisfactory manner.--Kotniski (talk) 11:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The text is telling the editor to think and strive to edit from an objective view. You can't force editors to rewrite it. I didn't see any text that was better than what was in FAQ. If no specific proposal is better than what was in FAQ it should stay in the page. You can ask the village pump or start a RFC to get different opinions. Please don't mass delete text again. See Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines#Content changes. QuackGuru (talk) 18:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

You don't seem to have any arguments - I don't udnerstand why you're restoring this text if you can't defend it from the criticism I've presented. This isn't a policy or guideline, and we don't need an answer to this objection if we have no answer. If you think the text is telling the editor to "think and try to edit from an objecgtive view", then let's say that. PLEASE don't restore the philosophically dishonest text again unless you can defend it.--Kotniski (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be best to explain both schools of thought. QuackGuru (talk) 05:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I trimmed the most disputed part of the text. QuackGuru (talk) 05:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Improper addition to the FAQ

QuackGuru recently added this to the FAQ

Requiring an inline qualifier for widespread consensus of reliable sources on the grounds that it is "opinion" would allow a contrarian reader to insist on an inline qualifier for material about which there is no serious dispute, using the argument that the material is an "opinion". This would mean, in the end, that all material in Misplaced Pages would require an inline qualifier, even if only one Misplaced Pages editor insisted on it, which is not the goal of ASF. Presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is needlessly attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none.

There is no consensus for this addition, and QuackGuru knows this, as this has been disputed many times, with many editors. There is no reasonable situation where "all material in Misplaced Pages would require an inline qualifier". When this bold edit was reverted, QuackGuru editwarred it back in again, something he has been blocked for in the past. QuackGuru, please realize that you have reverted to your tendentious editing style. DigitalC (talk) 03:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Editors consider adding inline-text attribution (so-and-so says) where no serious disagreement exists is kind of aburd. This is not typical for material to require an inline qualifier for uncontroversial factual statements. Presenting a "fact" as an "opinion" is needlessly attributing uncontroversial statements, and so creating the appearance of doubt or disagreement where there is none according to this comment. QuackGuru (talk) 07:22, 16 May 2010 (UTC)