In a message dated 4/23/2009 3:09:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
oskarsigvardsson(a)gmail.com writes:
Why shouldn't it be in the article?
Wikipedia is not paper, if we can have an article on every Simpsons
episode, why not include this information?>>>
-------------------
Undue... Weight.
No biographer past their Intro Class would write something like this.
Whether a list of every town Bill Clinton visited exists, does not mean we
should host it in his biography.
In this case, there are two pages (yes just two) of "biography" if you
will, and *six* pages of this nonsense. That's just a tad overweight I think
we can all agree on that point.
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 7:33:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
oldakquill(a)gmail.com writes:
What if there had been more than one person imprisoned that
year who had been a member of the French Foreign Legion? This is not
inconceivable, since many people are imprisoned every year, and it is
possible that they may have been members of the Legion. If so, what if
the person identified was the wrong person? If the wrong person had
been identified, what you claim to be valid research would have
produced incorrect claims.>>
-------------------------
That's right.
That doesn't make the research original in the sense with which we use it
in Wikipedia however. We have many cases where two different sources
conflict, or where sources are entirely silent or confused on some matter and we
can still cite what they say.
Using some data to find more data in some source isn't original research.
That is source-based research. If you are creating the data, as opposed
to reading it, that would be original research.
In the example we just had, I found four boys who could be the target. I
could certainly in that article say, "he himself states that he was born in
Lancashire, and there are four boys born in Lancashire with his name and
approximate age". That's not original research, it's an observation based
on some source which anyone else can validate and with which they can agree.
If I were to choose one, based on asking his granddaughter, that would be
original research because I am creating a new source not currently
existing. A person is not a source, but her statements to me, writen down, is the
creation of a source.
That's my opinion of the matter.
Will
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It is my opinion that you cannot defame a person by telling the truth.
This, like libel, is simply a way to try to use a hammer.
"You can't libel garbage by saying it stinks."
Simply using newspaper archives does not constitute original research.
So there must be more to your story than is apparent.
Will
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It might be of interest to someone that pseudonymous Guardian writer
"Erwin James", who wrote articles on prison life while serving a term,
was outed using Wikipedia. He was released in 2004, and had chosen to
remain pseudonymous. Published in today's Guardian, he an article
formally revealing his identity[1]. It seems that users at a
discussion board (at least, it is suggested on the board that some
users made these edits) [2] had identified him using newspaper
archives, and had outed him on his Wikipedia article[3]. It appears
the discussion board users did not want to reveal his identity there
initially, and had used Wikipedia to out him. The revisions were
rightly removed from the article (and from article history) because
they constituted original research. Following this identification, he
has written this piece in the Guardian, formally identifying himself.
I thought this might be of interest regarding the real world
implications of biographies of living persons and the community's
response to original research and possible defamation. In this case,
the discussion board users would have used another outlet, if not
Wikipedia. We just happened to have been the obvious choice for them
as a third-party, editable medium. Administrators here responded
quickly and effectively to possible defamation, since relating 20
year-old newspaper articles to a pseudonym constitutes original
research. Specifically, the first edit revealing his identity was
reverted after 30 minutes, and a second edit revealing his identity
was reverted after 20 minutes. Both of these revisions were deleted
from article history. It is interesting to read a discussion of the
BLP policy at the discussion board, and the user's impression of what
it means.
Just to be clear, Wikipedia was only incidentally used to out him, and
Wikipedia was not mentioned in Erwin James' article. He was identified
on the message board later in the day, after the revisions were
deleted. Erwin James comments, "The fallout from my identification on
that message board, and the lies I told, has led to this piece; to me
feeling that I now have to be completely honest about both my time in
the legion and to stop hiding from who I really am."
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-journalism
[2] http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boa…
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_James
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)
On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:46:07 +0100, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> That statement just shows a misunderstanding about what Wikipedia
> admins do - the are janitors, not bosses.
Yeah, right. The cleaning crew at the building where I work doesn't
go looking through the papers on my desk, throwing some of them in
the trash because they think they belong there even though I didn't
actually want to throw them out, and sometimes getting offended by
the content of some of them and threatening to get me fired over it.
It's a favorite trope to claim they're just "janitors", but WP admins
often act more like Judge Dredd.
--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 2:16:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com writes:
You take the OTRS volunteer's word that they
have indeed checked the person granting permission was in fact checked and
ensured they were the copyright holder as they claimed, or their
representative.
Same thing.>>
--------------------------
That's a much more minor issue than a person claiming to be Barack Obama
and then spouting a lot of nonsense just on the say-so of an OTRS volunteer.
This would probably pass and be fine, until we have that enormously
embarrasing incident (which is bound to come) where the whole thing blow egg in
our face.
The fewer eyes you have on an issue, the more likely it's going to
explode. Creating more black boxes that few to one person ever can view and
analyze is not the answer to our "open society" experiment. The more open we
are, the better it is for all concerned. The more closed we are, the more
likely we will have rising problematic issues.
Will
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 2:14:26 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
arromdee(a)rahul.net writes:
Even if you word it as "they won't refuse to jump through the hoop unless
they're lazy", you're still making them jump through a hoop. Not everyone
has a blog, let alone the ability to publish very minor facts about
themselves
in a print source.>>
-----------------------------------
Right and I already stated what might happen if they do not have their own
official web site. You missed the discussion we're having on the OTRS
issue with that right now.
All readers and writers in-project have to "jump through hoops". No one
is exempt from jumping. Not I. Not you. And we certainly shouldn't create
a new class of "whoever claims to be uh... Cloris Leachman gets a
no-hoop-jumping pass so she can tell us that she doesn't have throat cancer, she has
liver cancer." or whatever.
No one gets the get-out-of-jail free card in the Wiki world. Not even the
co-founders ;0
Will
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 5:00:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com writes:
> It's already there. How do you think we get and check permissions for
> images
> released by their copyright holders? The contacts for those get verified
> too; exactly the same. Formalizing it wouldn't hurt but the point is we do
> this already, enough to satisfy us that copyright's ok which is also a
> legal
> matter.>>
>
------------------
You're missing my meaning. What is the mechanism by which a random editor
can *see* the ticket which verifies copyright, or the newly-discussed
"identity of the speaker"?
Not other OTRS volunteers. How can I see it? If I can't, then it's a
black box and it's the same as saying "some guy said it", because we cannot see
what they said, how they said it, who said it, when or where.
Will
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I think the only way to address this, is to make "presented by the subject"
be "published by the subject". That is, as I've said, there has to be
some sort of publicably accessible site, whether that's a blog or not, created
by the subject, which later readers/editors can refer to, in order to
verify the citation "Britney Spears says this is not true."
So we come back again to the same point. If the subject is so lazy they
are not even willing to post some sort of rebuttal, then apparently they
don't care enough to do something so simple.
On another note, if OTRS tickets are now "published" than I'd certainly
like to know where and how to access them. Perhaps the subject, who doesn't
have their own web site, would be willing to "release" a ticket for
publication at... Wiki...uh... Problems dot com?
Will Johnson
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In a message dated 4/23/2009 12:16:12 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
oldakquill(a)gmail.com writes:
> Similarly, if a businessman were famous today for being a
> businessman, it would make sense to list the companies he has been a
> CEO of.
>
> As David said above, it is a short article, so his landholdings take a
> up a large portion of it. Just add more biographical information.>>
-------------
If a businessman were famous for being a businessman, would it make sense
to list *every* company he has worked for, from the age of 16 onward. That
is the issue. Not whether you list the most prominent companies. Whether
you list *all* of them.
That is the very heart of Undue Weight. When you write a biography, you do
not include every minute detail of every minute aspect of a person's life.
Not even hard-bound biographies do this. Certainly in 8 pages, you would
weight the *differing* aspects of a person's life correspondingly, not
focusing on a single aspect with a lead anchor, while the others are treated with
a feather.
As far as adding more details... you are assuming they exist. I would
submit that anyone who wants to research this man, do so. You will find that
those details simply do not exist. We know very little truly about him
directly. The vast majority of what's been written about him (which is skant) is
based on suppositions and background color, not on actual documentary
evidence.
This is a moot point. I am satisfied with the rolled-up listings.
Will
**************
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