There's a couple of themes I read above that I'd like to stress. First, this is a knowledge-building project and we shouldn't lose sight of that. I agree with Dan (and others) that the areas on which experts agree is small, thus I'd say we could have more articles but smaller articles. The power of the wiki tech is easy hyperlinking. There is no reason why we need long comprehensive articles on huge topics that throw in every conceivable pov which ultimately end up being what experts would consider rubbish. It's easy to link a lot of little articles to build up a core of knowledge, both pro-and-con.
While I certainly don't think any of it is perfect, that's what I tried to do in Wars of Vietnam, Gulf War, Afghanistan War (2001-), and Iraq War. Remember that Vietnam War was a total rewrite, in part because it seemed to be written from an ideological perspective. The articles on Vietnamese Communist grand strategy and War, Vietnam and the United States at least don't try to reconcile the opposing sides. Now, I think I was able to do some justice to the differing Politburo views, but, even there, subarticles exists for the specific ideologues such as Truong Chinh and Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap and Le Duan. There should be on the American side. For the South Vietnamese, it sometimes changed too fast to figure out who was whom--in cleaning up definitions, I succumbed to temptation and defined one group as the junta in 1964 that overthrew the junta of 1963 that was overthrown in 1965.
Again, I tried to start with a relatively small core for extrajudicial detention or interrogation, and then keep drilling down. At those lower levels, there clearly could be forks. Without agreeing with it, I can articulate the Cheney, etc., "one percent doctrine" and the doctrine of unilateral presidential authority, and articulate a critique of it that is specifically that.
For whatever reason, however, the top level articles haven't gotten approved. I thought Wars of Vietnam was fairly close, and somehow the final tweaking stopped. Extrajudicial detention (top level) and interrogation should be straightforward enough. What happened?
This is why experts aren't interested in rubbish. Why help the heretics?
Matt and I disagree, pleasantly, a lot. He believes there should be debunking of conspiracy theories. I feel it's a losing battle and a waste of expert time.
Now, I am considering an experimental article, tentatively entitled (quotes in title) "They hate us because...", which starts out with a more-or-less offhand comment by George W. Bush and then took on a life of its own, with lots of people using a political phrasing along the lines of "they hate us because we are free" or "they hate us because of who we are." I can describe a number of people who make such statements, but I'm not sure if I can say they have more than an emotional or political basis--a real and significant one. Osama bin Laden is a more coherent writer than Adolf Hitler, both of whom were pretty specific about what they hated. Bin Laden, incidentally, gave a speech, in 2002, as I remember offhand, directly addressing it: if we hate freedom, why aren't we attacking Sweden, which is often measured (e.g., by Freedom House) as more free than the U.S.?
I can then go on and explain what I believe, as a presumed expert, to be bin Laden's main goals, as well as some objectives that are more operational/psychological.
The other problem with the neutrality policy and the whole writing for the enemy analogy, is that while it may work for the sciences (where competing theories are relatively small) it is absolutely unworkable for the social sciences and humanities.
Except in many science cases, there may be no strong competition, but a gradual refinement of a majority view. In a number of technology areas, there are accepted coexisting approaches, where the market may decide (think Blu-Ray DVD, or the Betamax).
There are hundreds of historians, for instance, who have a theory about the American Civil War. That is a few hundred POVs that our neutrality policy would require inclusion. sorry, not going to happen.
I forget the author, but I have a nice book on Why the Confederacy Lost. Some contemporary historian interviewed George Pickett about Gettysburg, asking if it were Longstreet's lack of enthusiasm or Stuart's wandering off. Pickett, not the brightest bulb in the chandelier but an honest man, responded "I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it."
Hard to argue that one.
Thus the neutrality policy is unworkable for arriving at concrete knowledge. Consider this example: liberalism (or conservatism). Liberals, despite what Ann Coulter would have you believe, are not Stalinists, nor are conservatives fascists (Al Franken notwithstanding).
Look at [[American conservatism]] and sort out the references to liberalism as both an opposite and (e.g.,, Benthamite) defining characteristic. I cry.
Basically, I'm advocating a greater granularity of knowledge. We have X and not-X, and little-x, and pseudo-X, and Y. That becomes five different neutrally-written articles, not one "neutral" article with five different points of view. The aim is knowledge. What is this thing called love? Let's not cloud up articles with detours about what it is not or that we don't believe that it is.
I've tried doing this in a number of places, but it hasn't gotten traction. What can I do differently?
