steven l. rubenstein was annoyed to be reminded that
he had stated for
the record:
NPOV does not require that our article on the
moon state, "According
to some, the moon is made of green cheese, although virtually all
astronomers disagree." Don't laugh -- silly statements like this are
easy to spot when we are talking about physical phenomena. But they
are much harder to spot when talking about historical and cultural
phenomena, which is one reason why some content disputes are
protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone.
Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be
rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are
not silly. They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration
candidates.
I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a
committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to
ban those that feel that it is important to record it.