I am posting this e-mail here, so that other WikiAnswers Supervisors and contributors can see why the alternative medicine section is now unsupervised.
To: Crystal Williams Dear Crystal, I recently read the message that you sent to Thomas (Corriher) regarding his removal as a supervisor. I find it astounding that on your first or perhaps second day with your old position, instead of writing to people to let them know that you have returned... you threaten them mainly in regard to incidents that were over long ago. Then you complain about his interference with a contributor who "contributes" by removing peoples answers entirely, or writing "This is not scientific" underneath all of them. You did this even AFTER you noticed that the contributor in question had already been warned by TWO other supervisors. It is disturbing that you have created a vendetta against Corriher (and me in the past), because we had hoped to keep the alternative medicine section about alternative medicine. Despite the 28 modern-medicine categories under health, plus sub-categories, there will always be some doctor, pharmacist, or pharmaceutical investor who will disrupt the alternative area because it is a threat to their business. As long as that is allowed to go on, you should just go ahead and remove all alternative medicine categories, and all supervisors for that area (which I see you have already started doing). No questions in that area can be honestly answered if we have to consult you for permission before we can warn any user who is threatened by the spread of free information. As such, you should go ahead and remove me as a supervisor as well. While I did enjoy helping people to cure their 'incurable' ailments whilst on WikiAnswers, I now know that allowing people to maliciously remove previous answers and replace them with gibberish is far more important. -- |
Below is an an actual message from Crystal, wherein she flippantly noted that she (as a supposedly impartial administrator) reworded other people's questions to censor the reporting of effective alternatives. It was only alternative medicine that needed such careful management from her, by the way; and she even went so far as to insultingly compare alternative therapies with "spirituality" -- with the implication of alternative practitioners being witch doctors whose decisions were always made based on faith, instead of empirical evidence of effectiveness.
To: Sarah Cain Hi there! Thanks for sending those over, Sarah. I have taken some time to go through everything, and do believe that these issues can be resolved. Obviously, these are questions that have opposing viewpoints. And on WikiAnswers we invite everyone to share their views on questions that ask for opinions or on those that can, in fact, have more than one answer. While we strive for one great answer for each question, this is not always possible. You will find this quite often in Religion and Spirituality and also Health - particularly Alternative Medicine. Questions should be as neutral as possible. So, I have changed "How effective is wu-yi tea for losing weight?" to "What are opinions on how effective wu-yi tea is for losing weight?" and "What is the name of a plant from Madagascar that cures diabetes?" to "What is the name of the plant from Madagascar that has reportedly cured some cases of diabetes?" The other is fine as is. And questions on medications would be phrased in the same manner (i.e. What are opinions on how effective Prozac is for treating anxiety?) I do ask that you keep opposing viewpoints within the answers, only removing those elements that are not directly addressing the question. Snide remarks, insults and so on should be removed. Educate and enlighten people... and allow them to form their own view. They are entitled to hear all perspectives. When in doubt, please feel free to contact me. Crystal |
The part about us rephrasing Prozac questions was merely meant to give us an illusion of fairness; because in actually, it was never our job to alter any orthodox medical questions. In fact, we got into trouble when we tried to do so, which we once did to test our suspicions about the agenda.
To really put things into perspective, Crystal Williams thought that promoting alternative medicine was inappropriate in the alternative medicine section. Promoting virtually anything else on the site, including failed orthodox medicine therapies, like chemotherapy, was okay. Alternative medicine was a special topic for Crystal, and we were supposed to help her friends to discredit it. Crystal simultaneously defended the free speech rights of a 60-year-old man who was trying to connect with teenage girls, and who posted topics such as, "Tips for breaking a virgin". WikiAnswers has to ethically defend free speech, after all; so long as it doesn't threaten the medical establishment. Every other area of the site was policed by moderators ("supervisors"), but we were specifically ordered to allow alternative medicine to be overrun by the opponents of alternative medicine. This was an order that we naturally refused to obey. It was perfectly okay for WikiAnswers to promote chemotherapy in alternative medicine and to be a medium for sexual predators who snare näive teenagers. After all, they have "ethical standards" to uphold. Check out these screen shots to see for yourself what is officially approved by WikiAnswers.
Officially Acceptable Content at WikiAnswers
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