[WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment

Mon Jun 6 14:25:31 UTC 2005

steven l. rubenstein was annoyed to be reminded that he had stated for 
the record:

> NPOV does not require that our 
> article on the moon state, "According to some, the moon is made of green 
> cheese, although virtually all astronomers disagree."  Don't laugh -- 
> silly statements like this are easy to spot when we are talking about 
> physical phenomena.  But they are much harder to spot when talking about 
> historical and cultural phenomena, which is one reason why some content 
> disputes are protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone.

Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be 
rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are 
not silly.  They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration 
candidates.

I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a 
committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to 
ban those that feel that it is important to record it.

-- 
  Sean Barrett     | All men are frauds. The only difference
  sean at epoptic.com | between them is that some admit it.
                   | I myself deny it. --H.L. Mencken