[WikiEN-l] more Kennedy assassination fun

Fri Dec 16 23:11:09 UTC 2005

On 16/12/05, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> After reading a couple on this thread, I went to the
> 'Kennedy assassination theories' article and found
> that Fred had just AFD it, claiming it was a nest for
> "vandals and kooks."
>
> Here is my response:
>
> Hardly a good reason to delete a page. Both JFK and
> his assassination are reasonably encyclopedic topics
> about one of the more prominent politicians in the
> last century and how he died. Stemming from that are
> the various theories about how it came about, and its
> not original research to point out what the various
> points of view.
>
> Because the 'official version' does not have very
> broad support, NPOV requires that the various other
> theories be explained, albeit in a general and
> condensed way. Are these theories "conspiratorial"
> theories? Of course, and this should be explained,
> albeit in a way which does not rely on a pejorative
> interpretation of the term "conspiracy."
>
> I do agree however that 'vandals and kooks' would feel
> more at home on some Wikipedia fork. ;)

I was only complaining about the (now-redirected) list.

However, the article its been redirect to is actually pretty awful and
should be wiped and started again, but only allowing non-crazy
people to edit.  I don't know that it should be deleted from history
though.

The phenomenon of Kennedy conspiracy theories is interesting,
so if we were writing about it we'd want to date the outlandish
claims of conspiracy theorists and trace when books were published,
when movies were made, and suchforth.  But the article there now
is junk and doesn't try to do this at all, it just presents point/counterpoints,
with very little sourcing.

--
Abi