I find it perplexing that someone with a science background could have said this: "Gary Martin and Sean Ekins are personal friends so YES, I have close connections with the subject. And I believe I can objectively write a good article about them."
He may have good information, and it's great that he's sharing that information. But being friends with the subject immediately rules out the authors objectivity. That information needs to be corroborated.
As apposed to someone saying "I've spent many hours enjoying videos staring adult performers Belladonna and Sasha Grey so YES, I have close connections with the subject. And I believe I can objectively write a good article about them."...
...which by Wikipedia's standards would then be ok.
I'm pro-porn, but from my experience many of these 'fans' are so in awe of their idols they're far more likely to write biased entries than peer-scientists who are able to write about a notable scientist with a professional level of rigor.
Factor in most adult performers have all sorts of controversy surrounding them that fans will happily defend/spin you have even more room for abuse and non-NPOV articles being written about adult 'talent' (for want of a better word, that is the official industry terminology).
But I'm not commenting on that aspect of the argument. I'm simply pointing out that the author can not be wholly objective on the particular point I quoted.
Well for a start, I didn't downvote you - just replied.
I think if you take your aspect of the argument to it's logical conclusion no one that has any reason to be editing a wikipedia page on a given subject can be wholly objective on that same subject.
Anything I know enough to comment on, I probably have a biased view on.
For example I have no biased view on the Greek/Turkish ownership dispute of Cyprus, but that's because I know nothing about it.
Which all just demonstrates yet another flaw in Wikipedia; why he put that resource on such a pedestal all the time, I don't know.
Without a doubt you could give some great insights and a lot of useful information. But to answer your question; No, you alone could not write an objective encyclopedia article on the subject.
Ok, so if a bunch of folks write about a given scientist - 2 being friends of the subject, the rest not - then by this logic the resultant copy they create as a collective should be objective. Great, problem solved.
Where did I suggest they shouldn't be writing about it? All I said was alone a single source with a biased outlook can't offer an objective view.
"Citizendium hadn't fell apart"? Hyperbole in the extreme.
"I'm pro-porn, but from my experience many of these 'fans' are so in awe of their idols..."
Tangential to the discussion, and maybe I live in a bubble, but do this sort of people exist? I mean, what does being a 'fan' in this context constitute? Collecting all movies of a certain actor/actress, or actually reading biographies, trying to meet (maybe 'meat'? I'm the funny guy in the family) them? I'm not even sure how that would work, do porn actors have like 'public appearances'?
Actually yes, many do, as it can be a great boost to their popularity (and thus income). There are public sex industry trade fairs that feature live performances, and some porn publishers release videos featuring the stars "performing" with lucky fans - I imagine the latter is in part an anti-piracy stunt and only available to registered buyers of the product.
He may have good information, and it's great that he's sharing that information. But being friends with the subject immediately rules out the authors objectivity. That information needs to be corroborated.