[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

[Brian J Mingus]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus
> <brian.mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> > I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment
> is
> > false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that
> the
> > article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased
> > anti-Santorum contributors.
>
> The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia
> editors is true.  Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to
> such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.


This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased
then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is
biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact.
However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an
article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your
line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased
because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie,
implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I
believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs
attention away from the real issues at hand.

- Brian