Wikipedia:Using Wikipedia to gain legitimacy
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
Using Wikipedia to gain legitimacy has become more and more of a problem, as Wikipedia itself grows in credibility.
Numbers of contributors have created articles which turn frivolous activities into jokes. Only these are jokes on the reader, who may not understand that they are only jokes and could be seriously misled.
Also, many POV-pushing groups and individuals turn to Wikipedia to settle issues or endorse their claims. Naming conflicts are just a small part of this. Attempts to point to even so small a thing as the choice of an article title, as proof that a certain name "really" belongs to a certain group - or that a certain territory "really" belongs to a certain people or nation.
A very large number of political questions are seen as "already settled" by their partisan supporters, who flood article pages and talk pages with their Wikipedia:POV and suppress any reference to opposing points of view. Except to use the bully pulpit of Wikipedia, the world's most authoritative (and neutral!) encyclopedia to declare that the oppositions is wrong.
The solution is to apply Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. We need a new policy for its application. Instead of instituting 3RR rules, or allowing an editor timidly to slap an NPOV-dispute tag on top.
Once it has been established that an article has neutrality problems, it should enter a special mode. The biased part should be moved to talk. (That is, the part which a contributor disputes the neutrality of). This action should not be reverted, even once. The disputed text must be repaired first.
The standard should be: if the person who took it out and the person who wants it back both agree that the repaired passage is accurate AND neutral, then either may put it back.
