Mikkerpikker wrote:
Theoretically yes, except that I would say any rebuttal rather than just a verifiable one. It is NPOV because it represents the average of all views that have been submitted until then. In practical terms that neutrality will cease as soon as one other person reads the article and challenges its contents, unless a visiting Beta Centaurian decides to get in on the act. A challenge to the system can be as simple as a polite request for sources to be cited.
So Wikipedia policies only apply once someone insists it does? I.e. I can keep an article about my random theory about Beta Centauri until someone comes to read the article and wonders "mmm, I wonder if this satisfies WP:V?"?
No policy of any sort can be applied until someone has seen the article. Perhaps you can keep your article there, but only as long as absolutely no-one other than you sees it. If you want it to stay a long time maybe you should give the article a name that will be difficult for anybody to find.
BTW I thought that your article was about the Alpha Centaurians. The Beta Centaurian was a visitor from your neighborhood who showed up to testify in your favour. Is your guy related to the Jello Monster that ate New York City which Bill Cosby wrote about?
Once a request has been made for verification, the original contributor has the primary burden of proof, but that does not prevent others from supplying proof if they so desire. If the original statement is as patently ridiculous as the one you hypothesize, any attempt at rebuttal implies that there was something there worth rebutting, and the very act of initiating a rebuttal gives credibility to the original statement.
That's quite a statement. Holocaust denial, say, is often rebutted so does this give those claims "credibility"?
If you are saying that the purpose of the holocaust was to turn its victimes into lime Jello, I would be inclined to question the credibility of your statement. Holocaust deniers don't need to be rebutted; they are making the negative statement that something did NOT happen. When you undertake to rebutt such a POV you are in effect feeding trolls. Feeding trolls gives them more credibility than they deserve.
Ec