[WikiEN-l] original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Sean Barrett wrote:

> The article [[The League of Distinguished Gentlemen]] purports to 
> describe a secret society at Creighton University.  It clearly was 
> written by the secret society himself and is currently listed for 
> deletion.  A popular reason given in the votes for deletion is 
> "unverifiable," the rebuttal to which is "you can't verify it because 
> it's a /truly/ secret secret society!"
>
> All of which is only mildly amusing, but did lead me to contemplate 
> the possibility of a /real/ truly secret secret society.  Even if such 
> an Illuminatus really did exist, and someone really were able to 
> penetrate it, it seems to me that the resulting exposé would be 
> original research, and not appropriate for Wikipedia.
>
> Thus, it seems to me that all unverifiable claims about secret 
> societies are logically either
> (A) untrue, in which case they should be deleted, or
> (2) true, in which case they are original research and should be deleted.
>
> Comments?

It's a bit like talking about conspiracy theories, or the cabal that 
controls Wikipedia. :-)

Ec