I'm just getting back into the swing of Wikipedia things after
returning home to cheap and convenient Internet access, and I find
that in one particular article when I ask for a checkable source for a
questionable statement I'm met with a torrent of abuse from an editor
who should know better.
The discussion page may be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia
The background is that there are three opinions as to who is
Australia's head of state, all supported by constitutional scholars.
1. The Queen is Australia's sole head of state.
2. The Queen and Governor-General are both heads of state, with
adjectives such as effective, formal, symbolic, defacto and de jure
used to differentiate the two roles.
3. The Governor-General is Australia's sole head of state.
The popular belief favours the first view, but the population is
generally ignorant of constitutional niceties.
Most constitutional scholars hold some variant of the second view.
The substantial monarchist following supports the third view, in an
interesting twist of irony.
I'm questioning unqualified statements supporting any one of these
three views as fact, but instead of polite debate, I'm receiving
puerile abuse. I don't think I should have to put up with this.
--
Peter in Canberra