[WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content

Fri Jun 10 06:27:59 UTC 2005

Stephen Bain wrote:

>On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>>The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an
>>>encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The
>>>way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support
>>>they have, in terms of the context and subject matter.
>>>There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus
>>>decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and
>>>enforced (arbitration).
>>>
>>>--
>>>Stephen Bain
>>>      
>>>
>>If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much
>>support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of
>>unpopular views.
>>
>>* We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of
>>  scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC)
>>  disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions
>>  are causing excessive atmospheric warming.
>>    
>>
>That's not what I meant. I'll quote Jimbo again (as appearing on WP:NPOV):
>
>* 1 If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to
>substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
>* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be
>easy to name prominent adherents;
>* If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited)
>minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some
>ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and
>regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
>
>So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say
>anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1.
>The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them,
>and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made
>this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global
>warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under
>#3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority.
>
So who is claiming that it is caused by aliens?  It's easy to invent an 
argument that is supported by no-one and use that as an argument that 
the position is not verifiable.

>I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that
>extreme minority POVs shouldn't be.
>
This is still treating truth as a numbers game.  Sometimes great 
scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained 
their opinions on a discovery.  Verifiability is a more important 
criterion than being the position of a small minority.  Some people who 
held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went around the sun 
were severely persecuted at one time.

Ec