Inclusion principle

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Inclusion principle is a normative rule for handling contributions of an open assessment or other information work. It says that any contribution must not be ignored during the work but all relevant points from the contributions must be included into the information object. The only situation where there is no need to include anything is a situation where it can be shown that the contribution is totally irrelevant, i.e. there are zero relevant points that should be included. (Even in this case, the contribution is archived together with a comment that shows its irrelevance.) In a case where the contribution is relevant but can be shown to be false, the information about the falseness of the contribution should be included in the information object.
The result of the information object must not be in conflict with any of the contributions. For example, let's think of an object that has a current result A. Someone brings up a hypothesis B that is in conflict with A. If B is relevant, it must be included. If B cannot be shown to be wrong, and if B does not show A to be wrong, the result must be updated into a form "A or B". This procedure does not depend on how many people are supporting the original hypothesis A or the alternative hypothesis B.

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