On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Charlotte Webb
<charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
On 9/24/08, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)
<newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This is not true in the least. There are clear
ethical issues arising
from
the fact that a Wikipedia article on a living
person will generally
become
one of the highest (if not the very highest)
search-engine result for
that
person's name. Writing a Wikipedia article
including derogatory
information
about someone is not the same thing as writing a
comment on some other
random website.
No.
If I refuse to write derogatory information about you at all, I am ethical.
If I write or condone derogatory information about you elsewhere on
the internet, but refuse to post it or discuss it on Wikipedia on the
basis of ethics (basing my ethics on estimated google juice), I am a
hypocrite of the worst kind.
—C.W.
I think our disagreement may stem in part from an ambiguity about the
meaning of "derogatory information." If we are interpreting it as meaning
"blatant lies and malicious gossip," then if course it does not belong
anywhere on the Internet, period, end of story. But if it means "negative
information that is true and can be sourced, but it is still questionable
whether there is value in publicizing it," then the context for doing so may
become more significant. As many BLP problems deal with the second of these
categories as the first.
Newyorkbrad