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Recently, while participating in edits and discussions on various articles related to gender issues, I identified several problems with criticism of criticism in Wikipedia articles, and with some guidelines that govern criticism of criticism.
Note: In this essay I will often use the phrase "defense of X" as a shorthand for "criticism of criticism of X",
Notability Inequality is the simple observation that criticism of a view cannot be more notable than the view itself. Criticism necessarily mentions the criticised view, therefore every reader of the criticism notes the criticised view, but not the other way around.
Notability Inequality ails us when we try to ensure NPOV by citing a POV, then a criticism of that POV, then some defense of it, some criticism of the defense, and so on. As notability of cited views decreases at each "turn", we eventually end up in a paradoxical situation where the least notable voice, which is also barely notable in absolute terms, enjoys the privilege of having the final word because no existing counter-arguments are notable enough to be mentioned.
This phenomenon can be exploited in bad faith. In a Wikipedia article about fooism, a fooist can "fix" barist criticism of fooism by deliberately injecting references to barely notable defense against that particular criticism.
Existing guideline on criticism sections
These sections must not be created to marginalize criticism or critics of the article's topic or imply that this criticism is not true while the more positive claims in the rest of the article are.
The Notability Inequality exploit can be prevented by instituting a guideline (or agreeing to interpret the seemingly relevant existing guideline quoted to the right) so that multil-level criticism in a single article would be discouraged. If (a particular source of) criticism has its own Wikipedia article then that article could have a Criticism section where the corresponding defense should be placed as first-level criticism. Multi-level criticism should only be allowed if criticism doesn't have its own article and the corresponding defense is deemed notable enough to be mentioned. In short, a criticism section should be expected to accomodate corresponding defense only if the latter has nowhere else to go. This seems to be a moderate position compared to what Joema suggests on the criticism talk page.
NOTE: This essay is being typed in at this very moment. You may want to consider this before starting a discussion on the talk page.