[WikiEN-l] Oversized criticism sections and WP:UNDUE (was: Notability and ski resorts)

[Fred Bauder]

> 2009/9/24 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>:
>> Typically in a situation like that, unless there are active supporters
>> of
>> the person, like Stalin, no one is interested in finding and writing
>> about their virtues.
>
> Most historically prominent figures, no matter how vile, will have
> enough people interested in them to ensure that the article is
> reasonably well constructed; this doesn't automatically imply it's
> being done for partisan reasons. I think it's a little misleading to
> say that the only reason we can have a good, balanced, article on
> someone like Stalin is the hypothetical presence of active apologists!
>
> (I mean, we have an A-class article on Nero, and a FA on Diocletian. I
> don't think many of their supporters are still around...)

Good point, yeh, I'm still living in the past, editwarring over Stalin...

>
>> The major problem is with living persons who have had considerable
>> press
>> regarding some negative action or series of actions. There may not be
>> significant published material regarding their virtues or even details
>> about their life.
>
> Yeah. This is the tough case. You mention below writing about the
> event, not the person, and I think this is the best way to go about it
> - if the notorious event wouldn't stand up as an article in its own
> right, should an article about the protagonist really be able to?
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk

Biographies of living persons, and the considerations behind it, also
apply to the article about the event. And in the cited example, Simon
Fraser University 1997 harassment controversy the material about the
persons involved is considerably toned down from its original iteration
which resulted in deletion for BLP reasons. The focus is changed from the
persons and the alleged details of their behavior to meta considerations
about taking action in situations where facts are inherently unknowable,
perhaps the basis of the notability of the event. That is our clue. We
ought not republish material which is based on one person's version of
events, however laundered the assertion may be by republication in a
generally reliable source.

Fred