[WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV

Tue Jun 28 11:41:58 UTC 2005

> And in the end, maybe what it comes down to is: Categories should not
> serve as "warning" flags. They are meant to just be taxonomic devices.

Agreed. If someone reads an article on, say,
homeopathy and only realizes when she sees the
categories at the bottom that the thing doesn't
work then there's something wrong with the article
(incidentally I think [[homeopathy]] makes the
"doesn't work" part fairly clear as it is).

I think rejecting this particular useful category
on grounds of the NPOV-policy is a bit too much.
Almost every category could be questioned by
someone. For a random example I see that the
article on the Church of Jesus Christ of the
Latter-day Saints is in the "Christian denominations"
category. There are Christians that think Mormons
aren't Christians.

As for the "alternative medicine" category then I
suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work"
or some such would be more accurate. I for one would
actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative"
has some undeserved positive connotations and implies
that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual
medicine.

So, don't forget to take the Grumpy Scientist Point
of View into account :)

Regards,
Haukur Þorgeirsson (User:Haukurth)