Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Quackery

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[edit] More comments and "votes"

[edit] A misunderstanding?

• Obvious keep. This article was listed for deletion using the argument "Inherently POV." NPOV was not invoked, but that would be a possible policy to use as justification (if that were a problem), and in that case NPOV issues should be taken care of instead of deleting the article. A gracious interpretation of this nomination would be that it reveals a misunderstanding of the NPOV policy, and of the purpose of Wikipedia. Wikipedia exists to document the sum total of human knowledge, IOW all notable things, events, facts, ideas, beliefs, and POV that can be documented using V & RS. We document POV, not "truth". Deleting this article would create a significant hole in our coverage of such knowledge. Such complete coverage automatically means that some (many) articles will be "inherently POV," since the subject is about a POV. NPOV forbids us from writing such articles in a manner that promotes the POV or excludes criticisms of the POV. Such articles will naturally contain documentation of the POV as the main portion of the article, but must also contain mention of notable criticisms.

Weight and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ also make it plain that the scientific POV should dominate, and with this particular subject, that means the criticisms will also get criticized without mercy, since there are plenty of criticisms of quackery coming from pro scientific sources. Articles with the opposite POV, IOW articles about fringe, pseudoscientific, quackish, and antiscientific subjects will also fall prey to the "weight" rule, IOW the criticism section should dominate the article in every conceivable manner, while the subject itself should be neutrally presented and described. In either case, no articles here should ever be dominated by antiscientific or pseudoscientific subject matter. That means that we are not enforcing policy on many articles where pro-pseudoscience editors are having a field day, and readers are being deceived by Wikipedia articles.

This article is a "canary in the coal mine" that guards the borders between medical science and nonsense, and is thus a prime target for editors who thus reveal that they harbor pro-quackery and pro-fringe POV. They would love to kill the canary by deleting it, since it attacks their POV. Interestingly, this article isn't their major target, as the subject cannot promote itself in real life. It is the persons and organizations who actively promote anti-quackery POV that are their main targets here and off-wiki, IOW the closely related articles like Quackwatch, Stephen Barrett, National Council Against Health Fraud, Skeptic's Dictionary, List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The same editors attack all these articles, and as representatives of fringe and/or anti-scientific POV are acting against policy and the interests of building a reliable encyclopedia. Few of them stick to keeping these articles NPOV, but usually attempt to use wikilawyering and tendentious and disruptive editing to destroy them, water them down, or use the talk pages for soapboxing their antiscientific agendas and hatred of the article's subjects and POV. Editors who do this should be topic banned, leaving other editors who are more neutral on the subjects to take care of possible NPOV violations, and such things will indeed need to be done, just as with other articles. No, this one is an obvious keep. Let common sense reign, not nonscience/nonsense. -- Fyslee / talk 04:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)