[WikiEN-l] Re: rampant scientism

[Sheldon Rampton]

Viajero wrote:

>I am the last person who want to see Wikipedia turned into a repository
>for flaky, New Age esotericisms, but at the same time the scientism which
>has manifested itself in the past few days in response to Mr Natural
>Health's questionable contributions is also profoundly disturbing and
>likewise a very insidious form of non-neutrality.
>
>Take for example this comment by user Snoyes on the [[Alternative
>medicine]] talk page:

Setting aside the question of scientism's merits, isn't the talk page 
_supposed_ to be a place where POV statements are allowed?

Actually, what are the terms of allowed discourse on talk pages? I've 
had a user recently on the Disinfopedia who hasn't done any damage to 
actual articles, but he has made a number of nasty remarks on talk 
pages, accusing other users of "paranoid ravings" and referring to me 
personally as a fascist. I've been operating on the assumption that 
even intemperate remarks like this should be acceptable if they are 
limited to comments on talk pages. At what point do Wikipedians draw 
the line on this sort of thing?
-- 
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|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
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