On 21 Aug 2006 at 10:10, "Steve Bennett" <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> (Yes, I top posted. I didn't have any specific remarks to make wrt any
> particular section of the post).
Then did you have any reason to quote back the whole frackin' thing?
--
== Dan ==
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---- David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
=============
On 18/08/06, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> So our "living persons" banner contains the following text:
> "This article is about or directly concerns one or more living people
> and therefore must adhere to the biographies of living persons policy.
> Specifically, unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about
> living persons should not be posted to this article *or its talk
> page(s)*. Such material must be removed without hesitation. "
> (emphasis in original)
> I'm particularly concerned about the "or its talk page" bit. Is
> someone just confused, or should we actually *not* move material from
> the talk page like this:
> I have removed the following text because it sounds defamatory and
> probably isn't true: "John B Smith was busted twice for frequenting
> prostitutes in the 1970s". Anyone have a source?
> How can we realistically work with potentially defamatory statements -
> eg, requesting sources for them - if we can't even repeat them on talk
> pages?
Who put that in, and what do they say?
(A lot of stupid stuff in the living bio and verification policies -
and in a lot of other policies - is because someone edit warred it in
and no-one could be bothered arguing in a querulous fashion. And then
it stays because it's POLICY rather than because it makes sense.)
- d.
David,
The arbcom uses Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons in their findings and sanctions quite a bit. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me.
Take care
Sydney aka FloNight
[[Wikipedia:Usurpation]] is an extension of the user renaming process
I've proposed, to meet the need I saw [[Wikipedia:Changing
username/Requests to usurp|here]] (more than 54 requests, and it isn't
even policy!). In a nutshell: "If an account has never been used for
anything, let someone else take that account's name."
It has all the appropriate formatting and stuff mentioned in
[[Wikipedia:How to create policy]] and it's been in proposal and
discussion since at least April now (and was batted around long before
I actually wrote the page); the overwhelming majority of the feedback
has been positive. And the comments which have been critical or
opposed generally are such because they believe that the "waiting
period" in which the account to be usurped is notified to be too short
- it should be longer than a month, should be a year/three months/etc.
In other words, I think consensus has for the most part been acheived,
and that the last niggling bit is the exact length of the waiting
period. We need more people to review it and settle on a time period,
then we can send it off to Jimbo or whatever the next step is.
I've also made a request at [[Wikipedia:Requests for
comment/Policies]] for more comments.
Thoughts? Comments? Expressions of effusive enthusiastic ecstatic enthusiasm?
~maru
Hi,
On this article, there's a dispute going on that relates to the
defamation discussion that just happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones
The discussion is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#.…
Specifically, the question is whether labeling someone a conspiracy
theorist is pejorative and a violation of policy, and if it's
sourced--if he is considered one--whether it should be in the article
lead. I agree with this: "It should not be WP editorial position to
characterize anyone in such a pejorative term (no matter how accurate),
but presenting outside characterization is OK."
But other editors are strongly disagreeing on this article and related
ones, and I would like some clarification, especially as the subjects of
these articles are known to read these articles.
--
Regards,
Joe
On 8/21/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah, now, I didn't say that. Note "compared to anything else written
> about them". We should have good, informative articles; so should the
> newspaper which mentions the organisation, or the biographical
> dictionary which has a paragraph on the person.
>
> But we shouldn't be the only ones publishing the story about
> so-and-so's messy divorce. We shouldn't be the only ones pulling
> together this court record and that advertisment and another press
> release to say that the company has systematically defrauded its
> customers.
>
> If we can influence people to think, that's good. But if we can
> influence them to think where no other published source would
> influence them to think... are we really being an encyclopedia,
> republishing knowledge, or is this a sign we're getting into original
> research?
Oh, sorry, looks like I did distort your meaning a bit. Yes, I agree
with all that - we should not be too far out of line from other
sources. We can definitely achieve things by bringing together
material that two different types of publications would publish - in
fact, that's probably one of our major strengths, the fact that we
shamelessly quote from scientific journals, popular magazines,
blogs[1] and newspapers in the same article.
Steve
[1] Yeah, yeah, some people think blogs are uncitable.
Great news.com commentary piece on WP, humorous and serious at the same time:
http://news.com.com/Teens+warning+on+the+gospel+of+Wikipedia/2010-1038_3-61…
>From the article:
"Of course, for students, Wikipedia is the miracle cure for
procrastination (and there's science to back that up; a recent poll
showed that nine out of 10 doctors suggested Wikipedia as a cure to
putting homework off. The other 10 percent were too busy uploading
spurious entries to participate in the poll)."
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com
For those who watch the Alexa numbers. Seems WP has just overtaken Amazon.com; which recovers the place lost when YouTube passed us.
Charles
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Wikipedia has followed a policy whereby it's content is not censored
for children. Having said that would it be useful to put a
warning/advisory on the website to make it clear to users that though
it is legal for them to enter the site, they should be aware that
Wikipedia's content is not censored for minors and the latter may come
across some sexual or other adult material so it is advisable for them
to be careful what they view? As Wikipedia's popularity increases, so
do the njmber of kids who access it-mainly for homework help. As a
result the chances of young users coming across such material are high
so perhaps a warning like this will be for the best? Also there may
also be some adults who for various reasons would prefer not to view
such content.
On 18/08/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5(a)adelphia.net> wrote:
> The arbcom uses Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons in their findings and sanctions quite a bit. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me.
The arbcom has also notably ruled that admins who follow written
policy to the letter to do something jawdroppingly stupid can and will
be desysoped. Thankfully.
- d.