[WikiEN-l] Re: Crackpot articles

Sat Jul 12 02:09:20 UTC 2003

Chong Yidong wrote:
> Any suggestions about what to do?

It really depends on the situation:

> I'd like to point out a number of crackpot articles recently
> contributed by the user Reddi:

What exactly does 'contributed' mean here? If the articles are entirely 
new, then there's no reason to act at all, other than improving the 
articles. If the user has replaced the entire text of existing articles, 
I suppose that would be reason enough to revert, although of course it 
would be wiser to try to combine all the information contained in both 
versions.

> These studies have however no relevance to the
> purported topic, which is an "alternative cosmology to the Big
> Bang theory."

Then simply remove the reference ;-)

> In addition, there have been several equally incoherent edits to
> articles such as [[Luminiferous aether]].

Again, this depends on what kind of edits they were. If they only added 
a paragraph or several, then leave them or improve them. If they have 
actually deleted/replaced text that you think was much better before the 
edit, try reverting it. The worst that can happen is that they will 
re-revert it, in which case you should discuss it with them either on 
the article's talk page or on their User talk page. Or maybe you should 
do that in the first place.

In any case, I don't think it was a good idea to post this to a public 
mailing list (and/or newsgroup). If I were them and I'd read it, I'd be 
offended, being ridiculed and denunciated publicly.

Sorry for my bad English, I'm just tired and I'm going to bed now,
Timwi