[WikiEN-l] Fringecruft piles up

[Brock Weller]

I was looking at the RFK article, got to the article on his assination (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_assassination) and in the
process of doing some minor cleanup became astounded by the amount of cruft
in this article. Fully half of it is various conspiracy theories, badly
presented in varying manners, none of which comply with our standard format
and style guidelines, overstating proof and presenting opinion as fact
['television program on the Robert Kennedy case entitled "Conspiracy Test:
The RFK Assassination<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conspiracy_Test:_The_RFK_Assassination&action=edit>,"
which provides powerful scientific evidence that Sirhan
Sirhan<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan>did not act
alone.'], and worse, it's spreading. The Sirhan Sirhan article (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan) is swelling with fringecruft as
well, a third of that article devoted to conspiracy theories. We have a
full, extremely large page devoted to 9/11 conspiracy theories, all of which
have been rather fully debunked.

Are articles with large kook sections an artifact of coverage, the more
literate 'pedia editors avoid them knowing their bunk and hence dont get
much cleanup, or are they being claimed by 'true believers' to box out
everyone else?

-- 
-Brock