[WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force

Fri Aug 7 03:32:21 UTC 2009

Blog posts fail our requirement that an author of a piece be previously 
published by a third-party publisher.  Blog posts are almost always by 
amateur writers, regardless of how long they've been blogging.  A true 
writer, has true writing credits by reputable publishing houses.

Similarly newsletter articles have little to no valid editorial 
oversight.  Generally what you write, is what they print, and sometimes 
there is a too-close relationship between the writer and the publisher 
which we would want to avoid.  True writers, have true writings, 
published by actual third-party reputable publishing houses.  
Newsletters would fail.

Now discarding those sort of sources, let's say we have five newspaper 
articles, and two mentions in books about this person positively, and 
245 newspaper articles and 18 mentions negative.  What would you do?

What I would do, is try to distill the essence of those contributions 
into an article.  Obviously nobody, not even Barack warrants 270 
footnotes.  So we have to narrow it somewhat.  The way we should narrow 
it however wouldn't be to balance the positive with the negative in 
this case.  The weight is clearly on the negative and that's how we 
should write the article.

Will Johnson

-----Original Message-----
From: Emily Monroe <bluecaliocean at me.com>
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 8:20 pm
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force

> What you're really saying is, "Isn't there a way to be nice even to
> people who aren't nice?".

No, I didn't. You misunderstood me. Let me explain.

I'm more worried about uneven reporting.  If, say, there's one hundred
blog posts and fifty newsletter articles about how horrible a person
is, and twenty blog posts, ten newsletter articles, and a somewhat
notable book saying "Hey, this person is actually pretty decent.", of
course these sources containing positive information being somewhat
more hard to find, being the minority, then the wikipedia article will
focus ALL on the negative aspects on the person with a glossed over
paragraph or two about "Some people disagree with this".

I wasn't talking about violating WP:UNDUE. I wasn't talking about
featured articles which has 150 inline citations, with an extensive
bibliography besides. I was talking about long-forgotten articles
which gets maybe more edits from the article creator (stereotypically
somebody who isn't very experienced in "Wikipedia Ways") and the new
page patroller, who notices the statement of notability, assumes good
faith, tries to make it NPOV, tags the page, marks the page patrolled,
and moves on, than anyone else who's human.

Humans tend to unconsciously focus on the negative.  This is something
we do automatically. It probably makes sense in terms of evolutionary
history. It's better to avoid fire than get burned. It's better to
avoid water than to drown. In modern history, it gets you more
attention from a medical laymen, and so you are more likely to get
attention from a medical expert (via getting means of transportation,
peer pressure, etc.). It increases the ability to survive, but not
write Wikipedia articles.

Perhaps I'm thinking in black and white, or using the filter of "I
have read way too many stub-to-start class articles which only the
author and the new page patroller [me] has read and yet have not
enough experience or ability to self-express to even participate in
this discussion" improperly.

> If the only verifiable information on a BLP is negative, then that
> is what the article should contain.

> We shouldn't add unverifiable information simply for balance.  That
> sort of action would be untrue to our principles and policies.

You're right.

> "Starting over" won't change that.

To interpret what you said literally, no, starting over an article
doesn't usually change policy.

To respond to what I think you were saying, I thought that was we
achieve, to a lesser degree, when we userfy an article that could be
speedied and yet appears to be made in good faith? On the other hand,
with BLP, there's a point when the whole ethical question of "Should
this even be in Wikipedia at all?" needs to be asked. In that case,
the answer I would give is "Unless and until somebody can provide a
WP:UNDUE, WP:RS, BLP compliant article, then the article doesn't
belong in Wikipedia."

Emily

On Aug 6, 2009, at 9:37 PM, WJhonson at aol.com wrote:

>
>
> What you're really saying is, "Isn't there a way to be nice even to
> people who aren't nice?".
> If the only verifiable information on a BLP is negative, then that is
> what the article should contain.
> We shouldn't add unverifiable information simply for balance.  That
> sort of action would be untrue to our principles and policies.
>
> "Starting over" won't change that.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Emily Monroe <bluecaliocean at me.com>
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 4:52 pm
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> We're encyclopediasts and sometimes you have to say that Hitler was
>> bad.
>
> I agree.
>
> But what if the only verifiable information in the article is the
> negative stuff, in spite of having other, less widely-reported
> information available? If I had ran across that as a new page
> patroller, I'd probably tag it as an attack page if it was severe
> enough, but what about less severe, and/or older pages? Do we delete
> and start over, or do we merely add the positive information?
>
> Hitler is an extreme example. Everybody in the mainstream knows Hitler
> was bad. We just state why.
>
> Emily
> On Aug 6, 2009, at 12:38 AM, WJhonson at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Of course, and that's why we have other rules which moderate the
>> other
>> rules.  And the BLP policy itself is a rule.  However if a piece of
>> evidence is both verifiable, and widely reported and yet negative
>> about
>> a person, and that person vociferously objects to it's inclusion...
>> than what?  That is the problem here.  We should not white-wash a
>> piece
>> of negative, verifiable, widely reported bit simply because it might
>> affect a person, or even if they claim it does or has.  We're not the
>> nicey-nice patrol and shouldn't be forced to become it.  We're
>> encyclopediasts and sometimes you have to say that Hitler was bad.
>>
>> Will Johnson
>>
>> <<Not everything which is verifiable should be included in
>> Wikipedia.>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net>
>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Sent: Wed, Aug 5, 2009 10:30 pm
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 5 Aug 2009 wjhonson at aol.com wrote:
>>> The language of the board resolution doesn't come down hard enough
>>> on
>>> the side of verifiable information.  That is, if something is
>>> verifiable, even a direct quote from the subject themself, then that
>>> information should be allowed to be included, and should not be
>>> forcibly stopped from inclusion by aggressive article
>>> patrollers-with-tools.  It seems to me that the way the language is
>>> worded, the board is going to continue to allow harassment of those
>>> editors conscientious to the evidence, at the expense of verifiable
>>> evidence already broadcast widely across the net.
>>
>> I think that this is exactly why we need people working on BLP.
>> Wikipedia
>> has put so much emphasis on rules such as verifiability that some
>> people think
>> that the rules trump everything else.  Worse yet, the system is set
>> up
>> so that
>> the rules *do* trump everything else; in a conflict between someone
>> with a rule
>> and someone who's trying to use judgment, the rule always wins,
>> because
>> you can always argue with someone's personal judgment, but the rule's
>> right there in print.
>>
>> BLP is sort of a hack to the system which says "we're going to force
>> you to
>> ignore the rules in this particular situation, because they *really*
>> don't
>> work".  It by no means covers every situation where the rules cause
>> problems,
>> but it's better than nothing and right now it's all we've got.
>>
>> Not everything which is verifiable should be included in Wikipedia.
>>
>>
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