Andrew Gray wrote:
2008/10/2 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
There is, or certainly should be, at a minimum, a policy and spirit of "do no UNNECESSARY or UNJUSTIFIED harm." And I believe that in fact, there is. Of course, it's the question of what is unnecessary or unjustified that raises the most serious ethical quandaries.
"Do no harm for the sake of doing harm" covers it, I suppose.
But then, that falls under the all-time number-one guideline in this field: "don't be a dick"...
It also might as well not be a rule at all, though, because none of the contentious cases of potentially harmful information on living people were added *solely* to harm the person. The problem is when information is potentially harmful, but also potentially useful, especially when people disagree on the degree to which it's either of those.
The most frequent disagreement seems to be tied in with our long-running notability wars, but with the added BLP / potential harm edge. Especially with things to do with popular culture, people simply disagree on to what extent pop-culture phenomena are notable. I happen to take a pretty inclusive view -- several of my academic colleagues study popular culture full-time, including things like internet fads -- but obviously many others don't.
-Mark