Ed Poor wrote: And Erik Moeller replied: Thanks, Erik, for rising to my defense. I should point out, however, that I *have* made a "single edit" to the global warming article. I made the edit on December 18 under IP # 208.171.49.198. It's a fairly minor edit, and I wasn't logged in under my user ID at the time because I had only begun using Wikipedia a few days previously and wasn't accustomed yet to the habit of logging in. I must say, though, that I find it remarkably hypocritical for Ed to accuse *me* of being disingenous with regard to inserting a POV. I'm not going to debate him here about the scientific evidence on global warming, but it's very clear that he has been assiduously lobbying to inject his point of view into the article - a point of view that he expressed quite clearly in the Talk page, where he stated, "The whole global warming thing is a hoax, and 'warmers' have used statistical manipulation (i.e., lied) to bolster their arguments." Clearly, when someone resorts to calling other people liars, that's a strong point of view, and virtually every edit that Ed has made to this article is an attempt to inject this point of view by challenging the scientificity of the global warming hypothesis and impugning the motives of its proponents. Ed has also injected a point of view into his articles about Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. The article about Moon reads more like worshipful hagiography than a serious attempt at biography. It gushes about his "cheerful attitude" and "intolerance of injustice," and states that Moon "had a vision or revelation of Jesus Christ while praying on top of a tall hill," as though this were a documented fact. The article on "Sun Myung Moon/tax case" consists primarily of Moon's defense arguments and even includes a first-person statement by Ed in which he first states as fact an undocumented claim that the government made an offer to "drop all the charges," and then writes that this is "a story circulated among us UC members." It's clearly POV and a violation of Wikipedia policy to inject first-person commentary based on church gossip into the actual text of articles. These examples demonstrate a dilemma that is bound to arise occasionally when attempting to write from a "neutral point of view." When someone believes passionately in their point of view (as Ed clearly does with regard to both global warming and the Unification Church), it becomes difficult for them to distinguish between their strongly-held beliefs and a NPOV. In the case of Rev. Moon, Ed seems incapable of even *attempting* to draft a neutral text. In the case of global warming, his version of "neutrality" consists of tortured equal weight to skeptics and global warming proponents alike, while constantly impugning the alleged "environmentalist bias" of global warming proponents. In reality, this forced "balance" is no more inherently neutral than it would be for Wikipedia to give Nazi Holocaust deniers the same weight and credence as it gives to Holocaust historians, while insinuating that the people who believe in the Holocaust are Jews and Jew-lovers. I don't fault Ed for having some ideological blind spots. I'm sure I have my own. However, I strongly disagree with his absurd notion that I have some personal responsibility to do his dirty work for him by inserting arguments with which I do not agree into the global warming article. He wrote: Since I am sure that Ed doesn't want us to think he's a hypocrite, I am sure that he will set an example for us all by editing his articles about Rev. Moon so that they "focus on making the best case" for arguments that Moon is a fraud, tax cheat, manipulative cult leader, failure as a father and behind-the-scenes backer of Nicaraguan contras and North Korean politicians who lives in ostentatious wealth while expecting his followers to live in poverty. I would do this myself, except that I'm not really interested in writing about the Unification Church. And since Ed "believes passionately" in his church, one of the "best ways to attain neutrality" would be to have him be the one who makes these arguments. -- -------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts --------------------------------