On 4/3/06, Arie van Buuren arie2@tien.biz wrote:
Writing for the opposition (i.e. improving, not detracting) - ethical Writing against the opposition (i.e. detracting) - unethical
I may be wrong, being a 4-month WP newbie, but it seems to me that the former type of edits are much thinner on the ground than the latter.
Well, neither is exactly unethical. The problem is that when people are writing for their own position, they are much more likely to be writing something that is not neutral. Now, if they do manage to write something that is neutral (and I can say that from watching others and from my own personal experience, that is very difficult when you are invested in the topic), there would be no problem.
Optimally, each edit should be analyzed on its own merits, not the merits (or lack thereof) of the person contributing. That means that a pedophile shouldn't be forbidden from making neutral, referenced edits to [[NAMBLA]] and an evolutionary biologist shouldn't be forbidden from making neutral, refereced edits to [[Creationism]]. There's no need for this litmus test of moral responsibility-- the quality of an edit stands out on its own.
Ryan