Well, it's against my role as 'the Jimbo' around here to call people
crackpots, so I'll avoid that word here. But you'll all know what I
mean anyway. ;-)
It has been my long experience, too, that there are many, uh, creative
minds, who are drawn to theorizing about the puzzles and mysteries of
physics. Their struggles against the tyranny of the mainstream are
romantic and lonely; they are voices of reason, crying out in the
wilderness.
I think this presents challenges for our NPOV policy, but not
_special_ challenges. As with any controversial subject, and many
uncontroversial ones, there are mainstream views, minority views, and
singular views.
NPOV does not require us to present all these views as if they are
equal! This is one of the things that's hardest to remember about
NPOV. If a view is the majority view of a broad consensus of
scientists, then we say so. If a view is a minority view of some
scientists, scientists who are respected by the mainstream that
differs with them on this particular matter, then we say so. And if a
view is held only by a few people without any traditional training or
credentials, and if that view is dismissed by virtually all mainstream
scientists, then we can say that, too.
The reason we can do all of that is that, usually, those statements
are not controversial to any of the parties in the debate. We could
have a problem if someone insists that their peculiar views are shared
by all scientists, but that's usually not the case. Usually the
creative alternative-physics types will readily agree that virtually
no mainstream physicists would agree.
And we can use all of that as a reasonable grounds for dividing up
articles. Usually, mainstream and minority views are treated in the
main article, with the mainstream view typically getting a bit more
ink, but the minority view presented in such a fashion that both sides
could agree to it. Singular views can be moved to a separate page and
identified (disclaimed) as such, or in some cases omitted altogether.
There's a popular view of bias in journalism, held more in practice
out of laziness I think than held as an actual theory of bias, that
the way to be unbiased is to present both sides of an argument without
prejudicing the discussion for or against either one. "Some say that
the earth is round, others say that it is flat."
Our approach is more sophisticated, I think.
--Jimbo