[WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

Sun Sep 11 12:06:10 UTC 2005

On 11/09/05, William M Connolley <wmc at bas.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, Dan Grey wrote:
> > What is this "standard of notability" anyway? I prefer Jimbo's guide
> > to what should and should not be in: if the information is verifiable
> > (ie it's been published somewhere, and most people who are going to
> > interested in it can access it), and it's not original research, it
> > deserves a place.
> 
> As a criterion for new articles, I agree. But the trouble is that people use it
> for pushing junk into existing articles. Take [[Ark of the Covenant]] recently:
> should a sensible article like this include stuff about it being an
> extraterrestrial communications device and an early example of a capacitor, just
> because its verifiable that people have said it was? There is a junk science /
> psuedo science problem.
> 
> -W.

I think Jimbo once used the example of flat earthers - the view is so
soundly rejected by the vast majority of the world that it doesn't
deserve mention in [[Earth]] (I have no idea if it is mentioned or not
- I just recall that being the example!).

But if we were to apply policy here - the NPOV covers this - it would
tell us that we should present that point of view, but give it
coverage proportional to how widely held that view is. So [[Ark of the
Covenant]] would have a line or two saying "a small minority of
[whoever] believe it's ET's telephone, and here's there 'evidence'"
tucked away at the end. If the PoV pusher(s) want more than that, then
put them through Dispute resolution, eventually culminating in an
arbcom case if needed.

Dan