User:SummerPhDv2.0/Fringe

It is possible that several decades from now there will have been a complete change in the world and reliable sources will show that the best way to address illness is through the system described here. Or maybe it will be back rubs, doses of sugar water, prayer to one or several gods, pulling invisible energy across time and space, one of various diets, adding magnets to clothing, spiritual cards, specific eye wiggling, talking to an animal that is not there, acting out what you think your birth was like, removing trapped spirits from a nuclear bombing of a volcano millions of years ago, or any one of several hundred other sources of "information" that could cure everything -- if only people would stop looking for evidence and listen to the right person.

Unfortunately, we can't decide which one of those is right and do not wish to simply say that every theory is equal. Instead, we rely on the academic consensus.

Over the years, I've seen a few recurring approaches in various fringe articles. You are certainly free to see if you get different results, but here's what I have seen:

1) Prolonged discussion involving this system being right and all of evidence-based medicine being wrong: The longer-term editors repeatedly refer to WP:V, WP:MEDRS, WP:FRINGE, etc. In the end, some changes are made to the article to bring it into stricter compliance with those policies and guidelines. (Your arguments might hinge on saying the existing sources are unreliable in some way and sources from promoters of this system are reliable. The end result is the same.)

2) More or less ignore the discussion and try to just change the article to match your views: After lots of reverting, warnings for edit warring and editing against consensus, etc., you either give up and leave or are blocked from editing. In the end, some changes are made to the article to bring it into stricter compliance with those policies and guidelines.

3) You attempt to work within the system: This may involve working to better understand our policies and guidelines. Working to find additional reliable sources would likely involve you reading a lot of material that you disagree with. Intellectual honesty would possibly involve you changing the article to agree with those sources though you might disagree with the material. The end result is an article that is in stricter compliance with our policies and guidelines. This approach is fairly rarely used.

4) You attempt to work within the system to fundamentally change our policies and guidelines: Virtually nothing on Wikipedia is immutable. The exceptions are typically legal: no libel, no child porn, etc. All of our policies and guidelines are constantly evolving. It involves a lot of discussion. There is absolutely no guarantee that anything will change or that any changes will be in the direction you want. Most attempts here are too halfhearted to amount to much.

5) You can copy pretty much anything you want from Wikipedia and start another site and make changes based on your beliefs: This can range from a basic blog all the way up to a complete copy of this entire site (all the content, all the underlying software, etc.). Countless bloggers have done this, of course. There are also numerous niche sites that do this to varying degrees. See Category:MediaWiki_websites for a list of a few.

In more general terms, an argument here will likely hinge on our policies and guidelines. Arguing against or attempting to disregard them here is a waste of time.