[WikiEN-l] We must maintain NPOV on controversial articles.

Sat Dec 11 18:22:57 UTC 2004

I had written:
>>I totally agree with Jay's point. Wikipedia will
>>immediately lose any credibility it has if it becomes a
>>massive repository of crank views, which it will be if
>>people strictly follow the letter of the NPOV policy as
>>currently written.  Articles on and by cranks will
>>outnumber serious issues a hundred to one (at least).

Ray Saintonge responded:
> Nobody is supporting "a massive repository of crank view"
> Saying that Wikipedia would become so is entirely
> speculative.  There is no evidence for this nor for 
> the hypothetical  loss of credibility. ~~~~

For goodness sake, that is a strawman argument.  You know
full well that NO ONE claimed that Wikipedia should be
turned into "a massive repository of crank view". I
certainly made no such claim.

Rather, I was pointing out the well-known fact that many
Wikipedia articles constantly are being altered to include
fringe and singular point-of-views. On an open Wiki-project
such as this, the NPOV policy has been abused by many
people to try and give the views of tiny groups the
appearance of having the same level of acceptance as views
held by much larger groups. Haven't you read Jimbo's posts
on this issue?  In any case, it is a *fact* that this is
one of the many reasons why many people outside of
Wikipedia do not trust us yet. Your dismissal of their
concerns does not make them non-existent.

Ray continues:
> I agree that that article is dreadful.  To begin with it
is
> sprinkled throughout with with words like "supposed" or 
> "alleged" which if repeated tend to bias the commentary, 
> and certainly detract from the flow of the text.

Sorry, Ray, but NPOV policy demands that all unproven
and/or unfounded claims must be phrased in this way.  We
don't write about unproven phenomenon like ESP and alien
abuductions as facts; we may only write that "Person X
claims that they were abducted by aliens, who them examined
them with ESP. The alleged experience happened in a
cornfield in Iowa in 1977."  We do not write about such
unproven and extraodrinary claims as if they were facts.

For some time now you have been claiming to accept NPOV,
yet at every opportunity you effectively subvert it. Please
recognize this, and desist.

Robert (RK)

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