GetMeta:Positive Point of View

A Positive Point of View (PPOV) is presenting a subject or concept from a the positive perspective of a proponent, a favourable, affirmative light - as in to “posit” - yet, it also equally encourages critical perspectives to be presented. Criticism of a subject or concept can be placed in sections within the ariticle on that subject or concept, or on a separate, well-linked critical, or “against” page. PPOV is used on GetWiki’s information/encyclopedic pages, but is not required for papers, journalistic articles, ebooks, forums, meta pages, or protected documents (ie. non info/encyclopedic pages).

A “neutral” policy, such as Pseudopedia’s, strives to represent all perspectives in a balanced, unified manner. But all too often, it leads to endless bickering and “edit wars” over what is the balanced view. PPOV (adapted from ) allows each perspective to be represented fully and enthusiastically, even passionately. If a typical “pro-and-con” treatment within an article satisfies all sides in a debate, then nothing more is required. But, if various perspectives cannot coexist in a single article, then each can have separate articles, each giving their various points of view.

What “PPOV” encourages is an abandonment of the constraints of viewpoints. Seeking neutrality, or authority, produces disagreements over perceived bias in articles, and encourages discord and conflicts about the very existence of some articles. So, here, we need not suffer these problems. If you wish to write/edit an article, for example, about the beauty of Intelligent Design, then you can go ahead, and we are not going to stop you. Just be prepared for others to “mercilessly edit” your work (to quote Pseudopedia), and to write/edit an article (or section in your article) from an alternate view, strongly supporting Evolution (to follow the example). This ensures that any other connections in the knowledge presented on GetWiki are easily found, and all potential views can coexist.

guidelines

• “Positive” POV means that each sentence, paragraph or section, or article as a whole, need not be “balanced”, “muted”, or “neutral”, but can be seen as endorsing, or positing, the POV relevant to the passage
• An article called “Theory A” needs to be “positive” overall with respect to that theory, while an article called “Against Theory A” needs to be “positive” overall with respect to Theory A’s refutation(s) presented
• An article called “Theory A” with a section within called “Critical Views”, needs to be “positive” overall to Theory A, while the critical section needs to be “positive” about the refutation(s) presented
• Please use Positive views for information/encyclopedic articles, “Forking” them or sectioning them for critical viewpoints as desired
• Do not strive for Neutral views within articles, especially theoretical or controversial topics, because the true complexity of things will almost always be lost - we’re not “dumbing down” here
• Allow that papers, ebooks, journalistic articles and other discussions are exempt from PPOV, but that disagreement with them is still encouraged (probably in separate articles), so that editor discussions and reader discoveries can enriched

---

Some content adapted from the Wikinfo article “Sympathetic point of view” under the GNU Free Documentation License.