In this thread:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=7820
somebody allegedly associated with The American Mutoscope and
Biograph Company is threatening to sue Wikipedia over his company
being "done wrong".
>From what I can gather, the company of that name was active in the
early days of motion pictures, from the 1890s through the 1920s, but
faded out and went completely out of business by the 1930s. Somebody
with no apparent true connection with the original company went into
business in the 1990s under that name (long after all of the original
company's copyrights and trademarks had lapsed into the public
domain), and is making questionable claims at being the legitimate
continuer of the original company's tradition, along with some other
wacky claims such as saying they have purchased land on the Moon on
which they soon will be filming movies.
Of course, Wikipedia is "evil" because it fails to take all of this
guy's claims at face value, and persists in having an article about
the classic original company (which is legitimately notable in the
early history of the movie industry) with only a brief paragraph
noting the existence of an unrelated new company of the same name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mutoscope_and_Biograph_Company
Naturally, this guy's claims and whines are getting a favorable
reception over on Wikipedia Review, where they see no anti-Wikipedia
rant they don't like.
--
== Dan ==
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Doc Glasgow came up with this, and I said I'd post it here for feedback...
Basically, we have an issue with the biographies of living people
where - by the simple act of repeating published and verifiable
information - we can give a vastly misleading impression about them;
we report their drunk-driving conviction at 19 in the same tone and
length as we report their Nobel prize. Oh, it's verifiable and true...
but should we be publishing it? Editorial common sense says, perhaps,
no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
Anyway, a thought experiment. I would be very interested to know where
people think we a) should be drawing the line; and b) *are currently*
drawing the line...
----
Let's take Professor John P. Smith, the ninth-most leading Australian
contributor to the field of marine bioscience. He's written a few
books, say, and he's notable (if barely) for it and his impact on the
field.
1) Now, he gets divorced in messy circumstances - his wife accuses him
of sleeping with her sister or something. it is all there is the
on-line court reports. Do we include it? No - and perhaps court
reports should not count for BLP sourcing - if it isn't in the
mainstream media ignore it.
2) OK, now, although Dr Smith isn't that notable to a world-wide
encyclopedia, he is fairly notable in Smalltown NSW, where he once
served as an alderman. So the Smalltown Gazette runs the divorce
story. Now, do we include it? If we do, we are responsible for taking
a local story to global level - we are essentially promoting it.
Usually, if Dr Smith moves to NZ, people will only know of his shining
academic career - not his divorce. But if it makes Wikipedia - it will
follow him about. Perhaps we should exclude information based only on
local press from BLP sourcing.
3) OK, now supposing the Sydney Herald is running a story on 'sex and
stress in academia', and they use the story for the Smalltown Gazette
to illustrate it? Do we allow it now? It is still the same crappy
story.
4) And what if the Sydney Herald get the story wrong, and claim he DID
sleep with HIS sister - and he sues them. Do we report the libel case
in his biography?
How do we write policies that deal with this?
(Disclaimer: Real people were not harmed in the making of this case
study. Any resemblance to actual events or persons (or their sisters)
living or dead is purely coincidental)
Doc
----
Thoughts appreciated.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
In a message dated 3/31/2007 7:07:46 PM Central Daylight Time,
darthvader1219(a)gmail.com writes:
On 3/31/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Why don't we lock new article creation in the main namespace entirely
> for three months? Or six months? Demand that people fix existing
> articles.
I feel this is a poor idea; some articles might need significant trimming or
need to be broken up into several subarticles. Also, some articles need to be
renamed, and so on. And what if an admin decides to delete a bunch of
articles to be an asshole?
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