[WikiEN-l] Re: rampant scientism

[Jimmy Wales]

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

Allowed, yes.  Encouraged, no.

The talk page is supposed to be about the article, about how to
improve the article.  As such, the debate or discussion can be more
wide-ranging there than in the actual article.  But even on the talk
pages, things work best when people try not to _argue_, but rather to
_co-operate_ in finding a wording that works well for everyone.

If someone thinks "Well, no one will let me put my advocacy on the
encyclopedia article, so I'll just post my polemical essay on the talk
page" they are thinking wrong about the purpose of the talk pages.

> 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?

I think we find it completely unacceptable, but at the same time we're
very slow to do anything about it most of the time.

This is one reason I personally rarely edit, by the way.  Not because
I don't want people to call me a fascist, I really don't care about
that.  But because I would feel compelled to accept bad behavior
directed towards me that I would not accept when directed towards
others.

--Jimbo