G'day Guy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Viewing_Timeline -
user Huntley
Troth wants a more neutral moderator - i.e. one who does not see
remote viewing as pseudoscience. Obviously it is necessary to accept
bizarre claims in order to be neutral...
Because of a supposed secret contract between the CIA and highly
trained Scientologists at the inception of the CIA-initiated remote
viewing program, events related to Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard that
led up to the unlikely marriage of CIA and Scientology are included.
[etc., etc.]
I think it's very clear: we can either have this reviewed by someone
with enough connection to reality to know the article is nonsense well
in advance, or we can try to contact the nearest asylum and request one
of the fellows locked up for their safety and ours to take a look.
Some things are utterly, incontrovertibly, 100% iron-clad bollocks. I
bring up the old LaRouche cases from ArbCom a lot (strange, 'cos I
wasn't around at the time and am not an arbitres), because I think they
were quite important in establishing that LaRouche is a dangerous
lunatic and Wikipedians are not required to respect any LaRouchite
publications as a source (quite the opposite, in fact).
I think this was a Good Thing, and we should have more liberty to deal
in a similar manner with people even crazier than LaRouche. Discussion,
consensus, sources, etc., is a wonderful goal, but we shouldn't allow
kooks to scare off good contributors through sheer doggedness and
wiki-lawyering. If someone is peddling something that is clearly,
unarguably bollocks, they can bloody-well fuck off. Kooks try the
patience of long-term editors and administrators, they render far too
many pages utterly unusable and untrustworthy, they waste the time of
ArbCom, and they drive actual experts away with their incessant
bullshit. We're "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit", provided
they have the patience to deal with fools who spend all their time
trying to pervert a resource for knowledge into a tool of propagandists.
Saying something along the lines of "you're a twat and you have
forfeited your right to continue to damage our hard work, because we
think you're batshit insane" ought to fit the bill.
(I've spent a decent amount of time this morning deleting embarrassingly
inaccurate articles written by kooks attempting to abuse Wikipedia to
get the word out about their idiotic scientific or spiritual
revelations. You can tell, can't you?)
--
Mark Gallagher
"What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.392 / Virus Database: 268.5.6/340 - Release Date: 15/05/2006