Penalized is just the converse of rewarded. Use negatively-weighted instead if the language is the point that trips you up, but the person who writes “Frankly, I was shaken to the core by what was exposed, yet I understood why the stakes were sky high for those seeking to hide the truth. Why it was a fight to the death to keep a lid on their secrets?” does get those words negatively-weighted in my accounting.

That negative score is added to the positive score from the expertise part of the author when I determine how much credence to give their argument.

Yes, I understood the meaning, and stand by my refinement. However the passage you quote is devoid of argument and full of emotion (and to be fair so is much of the article), it is not the type of information for which I am suggesting a penalty is inappropriate.

When presented with a true argument, information that can be reasoned about or verified, this is where penalization is not appropriate - healthy skepticism ensures you are critical of it, but an attitude of penalization adds a handicap to every argument produced by a committed person regardless of any truth it could hold.

When the argument is almost entirely emotional however I'm inclined to agree - a negative weighting is reasonable.

Was there any particular section in that piece that struck you as deserving of strong positive weighting? I found the entire thing fairly breathless emotional screaming about a topic that quite possibly is one deserving of serious attention, but I'll never realize that through the tears.

No. I agree the article is not well written, and I think this is a case where the author is not the best placed to communicate the issue in a convincing way, he has literally been personally defending thousands of individuals directly affected by the manufacture of PFOS, so it's understandable how the subject is an extremely emotional one for him.

The parent's principle is in fact quite applicable in this case due to the lack of arguments presented along side facts and explanation, but that does not justify over generalizing it to argument from all committed people.

Perhaps "passion" is a more precise word for the thing which should be negatively-scored then, rather than "commitment"?

By "penalized", I meant the opinions they offer should be weighted lower (i.e., a penalty should be applied to the weight). Committed people do offer insights. However, for every valuable insight, there are a lot of confidently proclaimed but unfounded claims.