[Wikipedia-l] Non-notability "abuse"

[Ray Saintonge]

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:
> Given its size, Wikipedia has an enormous responsibility to people  
> everywhere. While most of us who work on Wikipedia know how to take its content  with a 
> grain of salt, the fact is that the vast majority of people simply  turn to 
> Wikipedia as a first (only?) source of reference. Like it or not, warn  against 
> it or not, for many it is "the" reference--the most accessible  source for 
> reliable information. 
>   
It's not our responsibility to protect people from themselves.  It 
should be sufficient to warn people prominently that a given article is 
not supported by the mainstream scientific community.  People who fail 
to heed warnings do so at their own risk.
> This can be dangerous. For instance, putting pet pseudo-scientific theories  
> on Wikipedia gives them a certan credence that they would not get anywhere  
> else. Often, those articles will be better sourced than the more  conventional, 
> standard entries on accepted scientific theories. People seeking  information, 
> who are not quite discerning, will turn to the net, see the  article, see the 
> copious references, and come to accept that as normative  scientific fact, 
> when actually the vast majority of scientists may well reject  it. 
>   
Maybe.  This seems to establish the point that the quantity of 
references is not determinative.  Still, unlike the devotee sources, we 
also allow for contrary views.  That alone may defuse the notion that 
these articles are dangerous.
> Rather than consider this as hypothesis, it has already happened,  
> frustrating some of the conventional scientists who edit this site. The  debates over 
> use of the Pseudoscience category tag are very telling in this  regard. 
> Wikipedia's goal is to report, rather than promote ideas. It can,  however, happen 
> that by giving unequal weight to spurious topics, we are doing  the latter.
If the conventional scientists feel frustrated by having these articles, 
too bad!"  That does not justify labeling the people who have differing 
views with the pejorative tag "Pseudoscience"; there are plenty of less 
controversial terms that can be used,

Ec