Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 3/13/06, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
Tony Sidaway wrote:
You don't suppose, do you, that involvement of a self-identified pedophile in authorship of an article on this particular subject might pose problems for Wikipedia's credibility?
Not if everything is accurate and sourced. We don't have an obligation to the assholes who wouldn't believe the article just because of its author. They're probably gone anyway because we have articles about sex.
*I* wouldn't believe the article because of its author. There's more to accuracy than just citing sources. Pedophiles can probably write as good an article about mathematics, psychology, anatomy, politics, history or theology, but when it comes to articles about the exploitation of minors I would be as likely to give an article by a pedophile as much credit as I'd give to an article about global warming written by a road lobbyist.
Should we extend this to a general policy?
No Polish nationalists editing articles on Poland. No strong religious believers (or strong atheists) editing articles on religion. Etc.
All do have some degree of merit---I would be more skeptical of an article on Christianity written by the Pope than I would be of one written by someone relatively neutral. But are we actually going to have policies like that?
-Mark