on external links

I wrote in a comment on the "Why MWI?" post:

"External links can be very useful, and thanks for the tips, but there is one problem: There is liable to be something I disagree with at most links. For example, while the article on collapse interpretations that you gave a link for is good, it casts them in a more favorable light than I would. I mentioned collapse in my blog only to say why it is wrong, get it out of the way, and move on to the more interesting stuff :)"

The matter bears some discussion, and I would welcome comments about it, though those remarks might have scared off the guy I was responding to.

There are a few things I want to make clear:

1) I do not want to limit anyone's exploration of ideas or to railroad people into a particular conclusion. This isn't about that at all. What I want is to avoid sending people to read misleading articles until they are ready to detect the ways in which those articles are unintentionally misleading.

2) Now, the best way for you to know if an article omits important information, contains outright untruths, sweeps problems with a claim under the rug, or is otherwise misleading, is for you to read it and decide for yourself! However, in order to decide correctly, you often need considerable background information.

For example, suppose you see an article that says "Bell's theorem, and the experiments that have tested it, prove that nonlocality is a real feature of our world."

You are likely to see statements like this in many different, independent articles and sources. It's a common interepretation of Bell's theorem, even by respectable physicists (those who know little of the MWI). Should you therefore believe it?

No, it's false. You could know that if you read my post
http://onqm.blogspot.com/2009/07/simple-proof-of-bells-theorem.html
in which I mention

"Note: The theorem is often said to prove that QM is nonlocal, because a reasonable local model would not allow the direction chosen for a distant measurement to influence the result of the other measurement. That is not the whole story and you should be aware of the other possibilities. In particular, Many-Worlds interpretations do not suffer this limitation because all outcomes occur and correlations might be established only after local interactions; see http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3827"

Now here I did give an external link, because I read it and it seemed fairly reliable. You can read the linked paper and decide for yourself.

But most links I could give to discussions of QM are liable to contain misleading statements.

3) So, I could prepare the reader in advance, by telling you what to look out for at a particular link, right? Not usually practical. If I give a link, it's so that I don't have to explain the whole thing myself, but I'd practically end up having to do it anyway. In some cases though this could work, if the problem area is relatively small or obvious.

4) If you read a long link, that could take a lot of time and interrupt the flow of what I am trying to say.

5) You should know upfront, this blog is my turf. I don't claim to take a neutral stance on the issues; I just present the correct stance as I see it. This is not a public school or a newspaper.

Comments?