Fred Bauder wrote:
Including only material in an article which is within
the accepted
canon of
knowledge is one of the Wikipedia editing guidelines. I think it means facts
which are accepted by scholars in the field.
I couldn't find such a statement in any of the editing guidelines. The
only place I did find such a phrase was in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is
not (and I edited it out of that page, hopefully leaving a less
problematic expression of the sentiment it conveyed).
As to what "accepted canon of knowledge" might mean, I feel that part of
the problem is associating it with the standards of academia. Does
something have to be accepted by "scholars" in order to qualify as human
knowledge, and what qualifications are required to be a scholar? Again,
I think it's easy to reach a conclusion from this approach that we
should restrict Wikipedia contributions to people who have certain
"qualifications", whatever those may be. Also, it's worth noting that
Wikipedia covers many fields in which academic scholars have very little
interest.
--Michael Snow