There is yet another deletion debate ongoing about a BLP article, but I
think this is by far the highest profile BLP anyone has tried to delete
simply because the subject is upset about the content. So far, the hyperbole
has focused on how Wikipedia is theoretically causing harm to this
individual. I can't see it. This is a high profile guy who seems to
consistently angle for an ever higher profile, with a great deal of coverage
in the press and a very significant talkpage presence aimed entirely at
keeping the article in line with the BLP policy. If we don't report anything
that hasn't already been written by a few very mainstream newspapers, how
are we causing harm? All of the information is readily available, and anyone
who searches for his name will find both the Wikipedia article and every
critical article every written about him.
So he's a very wealthy lawyer and today he posted a document that purports
to be a letter to the WMF auditing firm, and the letter claims that he has
filed cases against a group of editors, the individual members of the Board,
Wikimedia Foundation and even Wikia. Let me ask, then. No one who has been
editing the article is unaware of the risk in this case, so for whose
benefit do we capitulate to his threats? Do we really want to get in the
habit of deleting articles of fairly famous individuals based on a threat?
You'll note that the current complaint is pretty baseless. He was happy with
the article a few weeks back, and hardly a single thing has changed about it
since then. It is only the risk of having a group of editors on the page who
aim to create a truly representative article that has caused him to step up
the pace of intimidation. I think that is what we ought to want, but
apparently others disagree. So if there is a new consensus about this, I'd
like to see someone add it to WP:BLP.
Nathan
[[User:Barstaw]] was banned by Jimbo (
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AArticles_for_del…)
for threatening to find the real-life home and office locations of three
users, [[User:R_Physicist]], [[User:Proscience]], and [[User:Antignom]]
(repeatedly referred to as Proscience's "wife" by Barstaw, currently banned
as a sock of Proscience). She e-mailed me last night requesting the
identities and locations of these same users, which I refused. I'd take
this up at [[WP:ANI]] myself, but at my current location I am unable to
edit. If someone could do this for me, I'll be able to provide more
detailed information around 16:00 EST when I get home. I've also e-mailed
R_Physicist (who revealed his identity to me in private) to notify him and
asked him to e-mail Proscience (R_Physicist has said before that he suspects
who Proscience is, but if someone could e-mail him at the e-mail he
registered that'd be great). Thank you for your time.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barstaw Barstaw <barstaw(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 9:08 PM
Subject: fropm Barstaw
To: lifebaka(a)gmail.com
Dear Jonathan Hughes,
Thank you for your supports. By the way I asked the administration of CRM
and its MathPhysLab to identify R_Physicist. But I not received any
responses. Please help me. Here we very want find these 3 dogs: R_Physicist,
Prosciences and his wife. We want do something very bad with these
dogs... They deserve ....
Best
Barstaw.
Corrected posting:
Note the "in general" . Our purpose is not the defense of the innocent
or the guilty, or the bystander, but the provision of acurate POV
information about
matters of concern to the public. The provision of this information is
of general befit to the entire community. We have a responsibility
to our subject, and a equal responsibility to each individual human being.
A reporter, who enters into a relationship of trust with an
individual, may-- & in some circumstances must-- feel differently. If
he enters into an engagement with an individual to provide
information, he must honor the terms. I would say this applies to a
reporter for Wikinews conducting an interview. But at WP. we do not
enter into these relationships, and we use only public information.
That is in fact the point of avoiding COI, to avoid a personal
relationship with the subject because such relationships prevent NPOV.
This applies of course only to public information--if we accidentally
come across private information, we should not publicize it,
regardless of its tendency. But that's not specific to BLP--it's
simply a case of avoiding OR.
Can someone provide an argument why we owe any special responsibility
to our subjects rather than our readers, except that of avoiding
wanton damage to private individuals through recklessness or malice?
If there is any uncertainty in the balance, there will be more than
one reader, so the interests of the readers will always predominate.
To say otherwise tis to commit the fallacy of being concerned with
named, rather than presently nameless, individuals, merely because we
can identify and name them. But in reality, since we have no
confidential or personal relationship, they are all equal. To the
extend we let the feelings of the subject affect an article, we are
engaging in conduct in defiance of NPOV and COI.
If any person can not square his personal conscience with this due to
whatever ethical conceptions or misconceptions, he has a remedy: not
to work on BLP articles. Just the same as any other COI. A person who
writes or discusses on the basis of personal sympathy with a subject
should not be working on that article, any more than if he had
personal hatred.
On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 5:12 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> note the "in general" . Our purpose is not the defense of the innocent
> or the guilty, but the provision of acurate POV information about
> matters of concern to the public. The provision of this information is
> of general befit to tthe en tire community. We have a responsibility
> to our subject, and a eq
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 22/04/2008, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > In the long run, we avoid harming people in general by telling the
> > > truth.
> >
> > I don't see how that works. If the truth is negative, telling the
> > truth does harm. The net result to society is positive (we generally
> > consider having a free, neutral encyclopaedia a good thing), but that
> > doesn't mean we haven't harmed the subject.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>
--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
2008/4/22 Stuart, Ryan (CIV) <rlstuart(a)nps.edu>:
> Is there a way to upload files en masse to wikipedia.org? My
> organization has been running its own MediaWiki installation but would
> like to move these files to Wikipedia. We have 771 pages and 156 image
> files in our current wiki.
> We'd like to start our own portal on the subject (net-centric warfare)
> as none currently exists.
> All advice appreciated, including whether there's a better way than a
> portal.
Dumping wiki text en masse is likely to produce a backlash (of
silliness) from the English Wikipedia community. Start small. Or, say
"here's a bunch of text we're releasing as GFDL, have at it" and work
with the existing community to get stuff done with it - that's likely
to work very nicely.
An image donation dump to Commons would be most warmly welcomed -
anything under a proper free licence is suitable. For mass upload,
Commonist works quite well in my experience - it's a Java app that
will upload a directory of files. Worked fine for me on Linux when I
tried it. http://djini.de/software/commonist/
(cc'd to wikien-l for the text aspect and people who would be
interested in working with you, commons-l re: the image dump)
- d.
That it's time for a concerted attack on "do no harm"
We cannot be journalists without doing harm.
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/200653,wikipedia-to-be-converted-to…
Basically, they're taking the first paragraph or lead section of
50,000 or so articles to make into a 1000-page concise desk
encyclopedia.
This is why the lead summary of articles is *vastly* important. It
must be a complete standalone short article in itself.
By pushing this stylistic rule on en:wp, we can make it a better
encyclopedia and more reusable for those without internet connections.
- d.
In a message dated 4/22/2008 11:32:12 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
saintonge(a)telus.net writes:
WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote:
> So we collect together details like Jimmy dumped his girlfriend over the
> internet, Jimmy was born in Alabama and Jimmy ran a porn site and voila
we've
> done additional harm that any individual source did not do.
I'm amused by the suggestion that stating that someone was born in
Alabama somehow does harm. It's been a long time since 1865. :-)
------------------------------
My point isn't the individual atomic details. It's the collection of
details in one article.
Knowing that Jimmy was born in Alabama and that he ran porn site x and now
is the "at-least-nominal" head of Wikipedia, *could* be used to do further
research, for example one could find a picture of him in his high school
yearbook right? Once you find that detail, can a person then argue against it's
inclusion? It is relevant to a biography to know where someone went to High
School or that they were arrested at age 15 for shop-lifting or that they won
the blue ribbon for the biggest hog at the County Fair.
We create the situation from where you can further that sort of research.
That very situation, that we create, and that has not previously existed, is
what people are arguing against.
That is, to wit, *if* we find details from the newspaper about Jimmy's early
life, that we can't include them, simply because they don't exist already
somewhere ....else. That position is exactly the argument used on the article
about Genie feral child, and so far I am the sole voice of reason *imho* to
argue that it's a ridiculous argument.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
In a message dated 4/22/2008 10:03:38 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
"We should not do harm" >>
-----------------------
If people are going to keep rephrasing BLP into "do no harm", can we please
rewrite 9000 BLPs right away? Because we certainly do "additional harm"
collating and collecting details into one mass.
That's been the essential argument which is imho entirely ridiculous and
specious.
So we collect together details like Jimmy dumped his girlfriend over the
internet, Jimmy was born in Alabama and Jimmy ran a porn site and voila we've
done additional harm that any individual source did not do.
"We should not do harm" is not what BLP says, nor what it should say. We
are reporters and editors, the fact that we must oh I don't know... EDIT...
should be relevant. But we should not censor.
I'm in a soapbox mood today, sorta pissed off about the Genie (Susan Wiley)
article, and the incredibly silly counter-arguments being used there.
Will Johnson
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
In a message dated 4/22/2008 10:40:10 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com writes:
What it means is that we should completely ignore NPOV with regards to
living people, which I don't think anyone is actually in favour of.
The policy page should be corrected.
------------------------
I agree that it should be corrected to *remove* the apparent belief that "do
no harm" is the nutshell of it.
**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car
listings at AOL Autos.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)