[WikiEN-l] Disputes and attribution (was: The MIT vandal is back)

Fri Feb 14 14:30:34 UTC 2003

Regarding Jimbo's QUESTION:

This is the disputed text:
- * More women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]]
- * More women than men suffer from [[borderline personality
disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and
[[hysteria]]

Are these things not true?  Why should they be omitted from the
article, if true?
----

I have composed a little poem to help as remember one of the ways disputed text can be made to conform to Jimbo's neutral-point-of-view policy:

Wherever there's dispute,
We've got to attribute!
--Copyright 2003, Ed Poor and freely distributable under the GPL

Thus, edit the two passages above as follows.

* According to Dr. Effie Nymist, more women than men suffer from [[anorexia]] and [[bulimia]] (source: Annals of statistical medicine, 23:456 June 1997)

* Dr. Mael Fraud of the San Francisco Street People's Clinic observed in his 1997-2001 study of drug addicts and street people that more women than men suffer from [[borderline personality disorder|borderline]], [[histrionic personality disorder]] and [[hysteria]]. Dr. Fraud wrote in Psychology Today, December 2002, that his findings can be generalized to the American public with a 0.0003% chance of certainty.

Okay, maybe the second example is a bit far-fetched, but the idea is to attribute each POV to its adherent. Thus, the Wikipedia itself will not be seen as endorsing that POV but as remaining neutral on the issue.

Uncle Ed, aka Ed Poor