Mikkerpikker wrote:
Theoretically
yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just
a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all
views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that
neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and
challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to
get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a
polite request for sources to be cited.
So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I
can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until
someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this
satisfies WP:V?"?
No policy of any sort can be applied until someone has seen the
article. Perhaps you can keep your article there, but only as long as
absolutely no-one other than you sees it. If you want it to stay a long
time maybe you should give the article a name that will be difficult for
anybody to find.
BTW I thought that your article was about the Alpha Centaurians. The
Beta Centaurian was a visitor from your neighborhood who showed up to
testify in your favour. Is your guy related to the Jello Monster that
ate New York City which Bill Cosby wrote about?
Once a request
has been made for verification, the original contributor
has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from
supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as
patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal
implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act
of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so
does this give those claims "credibility"?
If you are saying that the purpose of the holocaust was to turn its
victimes into lime Jello, I would be inclined to question the
credibility of your statement. Holocaust deniers don't need to be
rebutted; they are making the negative statement that something did NOT
happen. When you undertake to rebutt such a POV you are in effect
feeding trolls. Feeding trolls gives them more credibility than they
deserve.
Ec