On 4/3/06, Arie van Buuren <arie2(a)tien.biz> wrote:
Writing for the opposition (i.e. improving, not detracting) - ethical
Writing against the opposition (i.e. detracting) - unethical
I may be wrong, being a 4-month WP newbie, but it seems to me that the
former type of edits are much thinner on the ground than the latter.
Well, neither is exactly unethical. The problem is that when people are
writing for their own position, they are much more likely to be writing
something that is not neutral. Now, if they do manage to write something
that is neutral (and I can say that from watching others and from my own
personal experience, that is very difficult when you are invested in the
topic), there would be no problem.
Optimally, each edit should be analyzed on its own merits, not the merits
(or lack thereof) of the person contributing. That means that a pedophile
shouldn't be forbidden from making neutral, referenced edits to [[NAMBLA]]
and an evolutionary biologist shouldn't be forbidden from making neutral,
refereced edits to [[Creationism]]. There's no need for this litmus test of
moral responsibility-- the quality of an edit stands out on its own.
Ryan