On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 17:15:57 -0700, slimvirgin@gmail.com slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:55:19 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote: It implies that a crackpot theory
is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere else. However, if the public thought that the theory was so ridiculous that they felt it a waste of time to dispute it we would not be allowed to publish a refutation on the grounds that it was original research. You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule.
It would be acceptable so long as it had been published somewhere reputable and credible, and the chances of it being crackpot would therefore be low. If the public genuinely thought a theory so ridiculous that no one had bothered to challenge it, it almost certainly wouldn't have a place in Wikipedia. This is why the NOR, NPOV, and cite sources policies should always be considered jointly, as each policy serves to illuminate the meaning of the others. Jointly, they would be able to deal with the kind of example you raise.
Just a few thoughts on this:
1. *Who* defines "reputable"? If crackpot is just defined as "not reputable" then that just shifts the point of discretion somewhere else; it doesn't resolve it. 2. "The public" rarely challenges theories. "Pundits", "journalists", "writers", and "academics" challenge theories. The vast majority of "the public" is informationally mute. Which again gets back to the "who?" question.
Of course, the "who?" question seems to be the most divisive one here, and I'm not sure it *should* be resolved. I think removing than tension, however satisfying it may feel at first, will destroy the engine which makes this online knowledge project qualitatively better than any of the other attempts (nupedia and everything2 come to mind as extreme approachs to answering the "who?" question in a binding way, and both seem to fail in my opinion for that reason). Okay, now I'm just rambling on...
FF