[WikiEN-l] iCorrect

[Nathan]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Scott MacDonald
<doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Geni, you are now being obtuse.
>
> Sometimes we publish false crap on people, sometimes we do it all on our
> own, and sometimes it's because we're following a source that is publishing
> falsehood.
>
> When a victim tries to get a correction, the whole deck is stacked against
> them. Edit Wikipedia and get hit with COI. E-mail OTRS and you're dealing
> with a non-editorial non-authority, who might not believe who you are, and
> probably won't accept your own testimony as other than worthless. Even if
> you convince the OTRS person, he might well get reverted by someone who
> can't see the e-mails.
>
> Now, along comes another way of people setting the record straight, and you
> reject it because a) it doesn't comply with policy b) people may pay $1,000
> to impersonate someone c) you choose to be cynical about their identity
> checking d) it doesn't make sense to you.
>
> The bottom line is that you are representative of the most cynical,
> irresponsible BLP attitudes on Wikipedia, and if we were serious about our
> responsibilities here, people with you cavalier attitude would be banned
> from BLPs, and BLP process, as a positive menace.
>
> Scott
>


I think you're going a bit overboard there, Doc. I agree that the
claims of the subject shouldn't be ignored, particularly if they spend
$1000 to publish a correction on a startup site (as long as we can
confirm it is them). But should it count as a reliable reference to
trigger a chance in our articles? Not necessarily. Geni and I have
both worked over the years on a particular BLP where the subject has
enormous financial resources and the apparent desire to
distort/falsify his record. If we were to credit his public statements
as fact, we'd be allowing him to hijack our content to suit his own
needs.

Nathan