[Wikipedia-l] A canon blast

Sun Feb 1 01:25:30 UTC 2004

Fred Bauder wrote:

> Including only material in an article which is within the accepted 
> canon of
>
>knowledge is one of the Wikipedia editing guidelines. I think it means facts
>which are accepted by scholars in the field.
>
>  
>
I couldn't find such a statement in any of the editing guidelines. The 
only place I did find such a phrase was in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is 
not (and I edited it out of that page, hopefully leaving a less 
problematic expression of the sentiment it conveyed).

As to what "accepted canon of knowledge" might mean, I feel that part of 
the problem is associating it with the standards of academia. Does 
something have to be accepted by "scholars" in order to qualify as human 
knowledge, and what qualifications are required to be a scholar? Again, 
I think it's easy to reach a conclusion from this approach that we 
should restrict Wikipedia contributions to people who have certain 
"qualifications", whatever those may be. Also, it's worth noting that 
Wikipedia covers many fields in which academic scholars have very little 
interest.

--Michael Snow