User:Jeremygbyrne/NPOV
Wikipedia's Neutral point of view policy allows people with significantly divergent and even opposing points of view to collaborate on the documentation of a wide variety of issues. The NPOV project is an attempt to explore the possibility that such a policy might facilitate the development of a mutually beneficial (ideally more optimal, if almost necessarily imperfect) system of transnational and interpersonal relations, with the aim of minimising the negative aspects of such differences of viewpoint.
Current international agencies such as the United Nations have been critiqued from a variety of points of view in recent years, reducing their credibility in some eyes and potentially their efficacy in helping to soothe transnational differences in a way which maximises benefits to all parties. Likewise, few institutions working in the area of interpersonal relations receive support or are credited with relevance by people of widely divergent ethical, morals and philosophical viewpoints. NPOV attempts to establish, using methodologies including negotiation, mutual understanding (if not respect) and consensus-building, a system to assist in optimising transnational and cross-cultural interaction.
Potential criticisms
[edit]It has been and might continue to be argued by some that conflict between people of differing viewpoints is inevitable, desirable or even necessary (in the practical and/or the philosophical sense). As such, people adhering to one or other of these viewpoints might find the NPOV project inimical to their philosophies or interests.
It might equally be noted that the essential "compromises" of NPOV have led to a project rife with subsurface biases. (For example, as of this writing, Fairness is a redirect to Justice, while Reasonable redirects to Reason.)
The NPOV policy will attempt to address all such criticisms; to take account of them as far as practicable; to accommodate them wherever possible; and to precisely identify and accurately specify points of difference with them where it is found to be difficult to encompass them. Optimally, NPOV will present at the very least a depiction of its interaction with such criticisms which can be accepted as fair and reasonable (and not simply factual) by those holding to or supporting them.
Potential methodologies and tools
[edit]- Principled Negotiation
- Mutual gains bargaining
- Consensus decision-making
- Varma Division
- Polder model