Not Considered Harmful

Some people's discussion contributions consist of only the following catchword ConsideredHarmful.

If another one places the catchword NotConsideredHarmful, then this annihilates the first one.
Is it stuff for the refactorer to delete both?
Or a suggestion to the first contributor to give an explanation?
Or a suggestion to open two sections for Proponents and Opponents?

If one person says that all crows are black, and another says that all crows are not black, is truth served by removing both statements?

Agreed. Give them both a chance to offer their arguments.

But on this Wiki, even if an example of a non-black crow is given, the statement that all crows are black remains. It remains because the page doesn't get refactored, partly due to lack of effort, but also because the WikiReductionists have been effectively shut down.

Dear proponent of the WikiReductionists: I can feel with you. You are looking for the elegance of a formal system, based on classical logic. In such a system a single counterexample is sufficient to prove the contrary of the above state- meant all crows are black. Because we are HumanBeings and the current state of the art Wiki has no certified sensor tools to verify intersubjectively statements about reality [external to the Internet], the given counterexample might exist only as a statement. In the best case it is based on a chain of trusted instances in the world of science [as presented online]. In a Dialogical Logic each statement remains 'true' so long as it can be defended against each opponent's argument. It's like on a Yahoo-Forum on stocks. Each contributor has special concerns. Bulls are collecting and presenting facts to try to influence the public and Bears do the same. What is ConsideredHarmful for the Bulls might be NotConsideredHarmful for the Bears and vice versa. The hefty dialogue singles out serious and less serious contributors. Therefore it might be a good idea, not to delete too fast unholdable statements, because they are valuable input material for personal view filters, that do the reduction. -- FridemarPache

Let us create content for people, not for machines.

Maybe I'm missing something. Would people really be so offended to have both viewpoints summarized as "some people consider that all crows are black, while others point to the existence of WhiteCrow? as a counterexample". True, it doesn't resolve anything, but it cuts two paragrahs of threadmode, making it much less likely that someone else will come along and continue the argument. See CommonLisp for an example -- DanBarlow

I agree with Dan until such time that a larger unifying argument could be posited. While the vast majority crows are black, occasionally a genetic aberration results in a white crow. You can see this albinism in other species, including humans. -- SunirShah