[WikiEN-l] Religioustolerance.org

Sun Jun 19 23:02:51 UTC 2005

Jayjg questions why I oppose linking to the religioustolerance.org website, citing an Alexa ranking of 10,000 to 11,000. Let me explain why. Especially as this is the sort of thing we need content arbitration for.

Religioustolerance.org is run by a group called "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance". Not very close inspection of their website reveals that this group has five members, none of whom have any religious training or stature in the religious community (either in Ontario or elsewhere). Almost all their essays are written by one man, who is a retired engineer who freely admits his lack of academic or religious training. This makes the site no better than a blog - after all, I could, if I were so motivated, start a website, sign up four mates, and write loads of essays. That would not make those essays quotable (or the website linkable).

It is because religioustolerance.org is a bunch of (very poorly written) essays written by a man with absolutely no training or stature in the field of religious tolerance that it is not suitable as a link. Except, of course, as an example of how a good URL can boost your number of hits - it's a very good example of that! Since the site is of no academic significance whatsoever, I do not think we should link to it.

(I add as an aside that where I have removed it I have said that I would have no objection to a site that provided similar information or arguments provided that it had some academic or religious stature. Indeed, I would prefer this option, provided the arguments used in religioustolerance.org are not so rare as for there to be no link to a site with suitable stature to replace it.)

Jguk

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