[WikiEN-l] The current purges in English Wikipedia (...and my personal case)

[Charles Matthews]

Nathan wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Charles Matthews 
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com 
> <mailto:charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>>
>
>
>     As far as I know, motivation is still a bad argument at AfD.  The
>     basic
>     "conflict of interest" point is not that motives should be pure,
>     whatever that means, but that outside motivation should not be
>     playing a
>     role so large that the interests of the encyclopedia are pushed to
>     one side.
>
>
> And how should the role of outside motivation be determined?
At the level of discussion trying to reach a consensus on content, it's 
the thumb on the scales applied when people are trying to balance up 
factors. But it really takes a dispute resolution process to deal with 
the consequences, for example to see if a topical ban is required. It 
was always intended that a COI guideline was mainly about preventing 
people blundering into the kind of edit wars that would be the worst for 
them; and not designed as such for enforcement.
> Personally, I think "conflict of interest" and "outside motivation" 
> arguments should be completely verboten in deletion discussions - they 
> are irrelevant and call for pure speculation by participants. I don't 
> care why an article was created, what matters is the quality and value 
> of the content itself.
I agree, that is how it should be.

Charles