On Wed, 7 Jun 2006 00:23:36 +0200, you wrote:
On 6/6/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
Surely that is the standard which should already be applied, per [[WP:V]], [[WP:RS]], [[WP:NPOV]] (undue weight) and [[WP:NOR]]? That's how I would read it, anyway.
I think none of those help if the criterion is literally "has ever been called a cult by anyone" which is one, almost reasonable interpretation, of "referred to as a cult". It's just the "referred to" bit - if it was "cults" then I would agree with you.
Sure. An article on "things which have been referred to as foo" has no place on Wikipedia. For any thing which may potentially be described as foo, there will be at least one person somewhere who will have so described it. So this should be the list of groups considered cults, with selection criteria set appropriately, or it should be deleted in favour of a category, so that every entry is rigorously tested by individual article authors (which will end up in the usual "pseudoscience" arguments, but that's a matter for consensus building on the articles).
I'd say that lists of arbitrary constructs meeting arbitrary and broad criteria with no rigorous definition are indiscriminate. But I am one of those who dislikes lists-for-the-sake-of-lists.
Guy (JzG)