Ray Saintonge wrote:
Discussing "how many primary sources we require" is playing a numbers game. It doesn't matter. It is also not our responsibility to try to disprove these theories. That is not a requirement of NPOV; they can be met by a brief statement as part of the disclaimer. It often seems that the compulsion which "science advocates" in our community show for disproving the unprovable is just another variation of throwing tasty morsels to the trolls. Letting our theorsts sit quietly in their playpens will generate a lot less crying than spanking them.
A numbers game is a bad idea. For each case we must use or judgement on how much source material there is and what its quality is
I take a decidedly history-of-science perspective on these issues where even the scientifically invalid may neverthess be valid history. There are better ways to deal with these issues than simply deleting them. I would be glad to work on a respectful boilerplate disclaimerfor these pages that would also allay the concerns of those who fear that we are going to be overrun by an endless series of nutball theories.
There are nutball theories and nutball theories. The "aquatic ape" theory is an example of a nutball theory we should cover, because it's been discussed and reviewed. Now if I wrote a webpage saying I think the universe is made of plasticine and Lego bricks, then spammed the URL around Usenet for a few months -- surely you don't suggest that be included in WP?