Molu wrote: [Still top-posting, I see] Our definition of "public interest" is not the same definition as the PRC's. While we're flinging about the "slippery slope" argument with gay abandon, I could argue that you are in favour of us throwing away all editorial standards. We would no longer be able to argue that such-and-such is irrelevant, because That's Censorship, And Censorship Is Bad. We would have to print everything we could get our hands on; we could not decide not to include something of no import, because if it's negative and we leave it out we'd be as bad as the Chinese government ... Wikipedia does not and should not report lies as truth merely because some filthy rag has published them. Being truthful is an inherent component of neutrality --- if we do not report the truth, we are showing bias towards those who want to spread lies. I use Lyndon LaRouche a lot in my examples, because he's just so gosh-darn crazy that he's a good candidate for this sort of thing. So let's take Lyndon LaRouche. Example A: "Lyndon LaRouche is a popular and powerful American politician. He has become famous worldwide for his exposés of Dick Cheney's plan to flatten Iran with nuclear weapons, the Queen of England's secret Satanic connections, and the influence of Masonic Jewish Bankers in international politics. He earned critical acclaim in 2004 after finally completing the construction of the Eurasian Land Bridge, and has been hailed as a modern-day Marco Polo. His critics, however, deny this." Now, as far as I'm concerned a paragraph like Example A would be utterly unacceptable, both because it's biased and because it's a pack of lies. Obviously we can't just say that all LaRouche's "achievements" are in fact the fantasies of his diseased mind, but we can sure as hell point out where the truth lies. While we're talking examples, I'd be interested to hear how you and the Chinese government view ... Example B: Lyndon LaRouche once had sex with a 15-year-old girl while he was 16 (or 17 while 18, or insert your own age of consent laws here). So far the authorities have refused to do anything about this accusation since it surfaced in 2005, sixty years after the fact, but a small group of dedicated Internet slander-mongers are working hard to bring this troubling issue to light. Even in the Land of the Brave, we can be sued for publishing defamatory statements about people, if those statements aren't true. Therefore (if morality is not sufficient), we should be concerned about whether what we say is, in fact, true. If Wikipedia were hosted in a country like Australia, we could also be sued for publishing defamatory statements about people, if we haven't taken reasonable steps to ensure those statements are true, or if what we have to say is something we have no business saying (like the LaRouche example above which, being something I just made up, really did the double here). We have a moral obligation to treat the people we write about with some sensitivity, and not publish stuff just to scream "FUCK YOU" to these people, or anybody who would dare suggest we adopt a modicum of responsibility. We also have some measure of editorial discretion. These two things go hand-in-hand. -- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse

I think we should be thoughtful about our responsibilities and exercise good editorial judgment in all cases. This is not a violation of NPOV, it is what NPOV is all about. Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the impression of a controversy where none exists. Let me give a more detailed hypothetical to explain what I mean. Some minor celebrity, a television star, has a relatively uncontroversial public persona. Just the usual, starred in this television show which was in the top 50 television shows in the US from 1997-2001, appeared in 3 television movies, etc. She is not super famous, so the total number of traditional verifiable sources about her is rather small. But, she has a stalker. The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her. Do we cite those? Here I would come down with Mark Gallagher, quite firmly. It may be true that thus-and-such blogger has said whatever, but so what? Taking what would otherwise be a bland 5 paragraph bio, and turning it into a mouthpiece for a stalker is not neutral. Not every truth belongs in Wikipedia. Because there are no rationalistic or simplistic rules for what counts as information we ought to be providing to the public, editorial judgment is necessary. That's what Wikipedia is really good at. Molu wrote: -- ####################################################################### # Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge # # http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world # #######################################################################