On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Andrew Gray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 2008/11/13 Jay Litwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > Since I believe in global warming and I see a contest between it and > > economics, I see a very hot dispute that really should be off-loaded. > There > > are so many other places for volatile information to go. In other words, > if > > someone did [[global warming]], I think they should expect to end up on > > another site, unless the article is restricted to history. > > I think this is going to end in tears - where do we draw the line? Do > we just not talk about global warming; do we talk about it as > something that is believed to have happened up to and including last > week; do we talk about it and imply it may continue to happen; do we > talk about it in general terms in the future but give no numbers? > > I'm not sure this approach is helpful; it tries to deal with a small > set of specific (percieved) problems by applying a draconian general > rule. I mean, take cosmology. We'd be a shoddy encyclopedia if we > didn't talk about the [[heat death of the universe]], a very > well-known concept... but it's entirely hypothetical, it exists as a > paper theory with some substantiating numbers, and it's several > billion years ahead. Talking about the future is fine, as long as it is grounded in reliable sources in the present. I think the original intent of WP:CRYSTAL was to avoid original research and to avoid articles about future events becoming too disconnected from the present and becoming "in-universe" (to borrow a phrase from the debates about articles on fictional topics). In other words, having an article about a future scenario, or an alternate history, or an alternate reality, or a fictional topic, should always be securely grounded in what people have said in the past and are saying now. Carcharoth _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
