On 5/17/07, Will Beback will.beback.1@gmail.com wrote:
There are two kinds of experts: those who are involved actively in their subjects and those who simply study them. With either type there is a danger in conflating expertise with neutrality but it is especially a problem when the experts have business or personal connections to the subjects. While I realize that Patrick and Theresa Nielsen Hayden are major figures in their field that does not mean that they are neutral commentators. In fact, their history at Wikipedia shows just the opposite. Assertions by an expert who has an interest in a subject may be useful but we should not abdicate our usual procedures just because the famous person decides to give us their input. While their comments may be a reliable source for their opinions, their opinions don't trump NPOV, OR, and V.
Their opinions do not trump core policies but I cannot see any conflict in this instance. NPOV does not prohibit sources with a strong point of view, or indeed editors with a strong point of view.
As for OR, some of the arguments in this case seem to be running in the direction of stating that if someone is a Wikipedia editor, their opinions and beliefs and publications are suddenly off-limits for Wikipedia articles. The end result will be not allowing the views of any expert still alive to be used in Wikipedia, which I don't feel is the intent of this core policy. The essence of No Original Research is that Wikipedia is not a place of first publication.
As for Verifiability, that simply requires all contentious statements to be sourced and encourages us to source everything, even the non-contentious. Again, not a problem. The assumption that Verifiability includes everything ever written in [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] as gospel is the issue.
-Matt