[Wikipedia-l] confession of a science believing man

[David Merrill]

On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 02:56:51AM +0100, Kurt Jansson wrote:
> Hello everybody!
> 
> I think the German Wikipedia is more and more reaching a point, were
> there are enough people to start discussions about controversial topics.
> I'm thinking especialy about articles with an esoteric/mystic/religious
> theme.

Cool!

> Is there some kind of procedure that has been established in the
> international Wikipedia?
> Do you stop working on the article and start a discussion? Or do you
> fight on an article until you come to a consensus (or enough people have
> given up ;-) )?

We just plug right along, writing.

> I think in scientific articles it is not such a big problem to specify
> the different opinions and state which one is more and which is less
> accepted. But I have my problems to declare that ghosts, clairvoyance,
> etc. do exist/work, or do not, and that both opinions have the same
> possibility. But maybe that's a just lack of my democratic, pluralistic
> engagement and an excess of my scientific believing emotions. (BTW: is
> parascience a science?)
> 
> Am I too afraid of fanatic esoterics/christs/etc that are flooding
> wikipedia with totally biased articles and not willing to discuss about
> their opinions?

My opinion, and of course take it for what it's worth, is that a
certain amount of argument and controversy is inevitable. At first it
bothered me. I wanted to get along with everyone, even the people I
thought were crackpots.

Now I just write what I think is appropriate. I am very careful to try
to stay npov, and in my experience 9 out of 10 others do the same.
When an individual insists on being npov, I have stopped arguing. I
just walk away and let them "win". My opinion is that in the long run,
they will get tired and the npov view will win out. With only one or
two exceptions, that has shown to be true.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org

When people understand what Microsoft is up to, they're outraged.
	--Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly & Associates