On 12/12/06, Parker Peters onmywayoutster@gmail.com wrote:
It is in my opinion notable and verifyable that there are conspiracy theories about 9/11. In my opinion, it's perfectly fine to document that fact in Wikipedia, and explain what those theories are.
So long as we also explain that these "theories" are thoroughly debunked and that nobody should take them even remotely seriously, sure.
I have not been hanging around the 9/11 related Wikipedia pages
regularly for a while and I don't know the degree of shove we're getting from those conspiracists of late.
"Too Much."
I am sympathetic with "it
takes too much effort to fight these kooks", but suppressing Wikipedia *coverage* of the issues is almost certainly the wrong approach to dealing with it.
No. If you say we can document that the theories exist, sure, but our coverage shouldn't give them any sort of credibility.
In my currently ideal world, we'd do something like a policy which
says that conspiracy theories MUST be segregated to a separate page, and simply apply normal warn-and-block to anyone who violates that and puts it on the main pages. Let them have their playpen at the conspiracy theory page, let the anti-conspiracy-theory people have a "Criticisms of conspiracy theories about X" page to argue the point on, and concentrate on squashing anyone who tries to pull that debate onto the main page.
Problem: this gives the kook nutjob theories credibility.
The real problem here is that overenthusiastic anti-conspiracists get into a vicious cycle where they try and suppress conspiracists, which encourages the conspiracists, which further angers the anti-conspiracists.
You are part of the problem. You can either keep battering your head on it until it stops hurting, or play Aikido with the problem. Guess which way minimizes long term stress by anti-conspiracists and public belief in conspiracy theories?