Nathan wrote:
On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com mailto:charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com>
As far as I know, motivation is still a bad argument at AfD. The basic "conflict of interest" point is not that motives should be pure, whatever that means, but that outside motivation should not be playing a role so large that the interests of the encyclopedia are pushed to one side.And how should the role of outside motivation be determined?
At the level of discussion trying to reach a consensus on content, it's the thumb on the scales applied when people are trying to balance up factors. But it really takes a dispute resolution process to deal with the consequences, for example to see if a topical ban is required. It was always intended that a COI guideline was mainly about preventing people blundering into the kind of edit wars that would be the worst for them; and not designed as such for enforcement.
Personally, I think "conflict of interest" and "outside motivation" arguments should be completely verboten in deletion discussions - they are irrelevant and call for pure speculation by participants. I don't care why an article was created, what matters is the quality and value of the content itself.
I agree, that is how it should be.
Charles