I think we should be thoughtful about our responsibilities and exercise good editorial judgment in all cases. This is not a violation of NPOV, it is what NPOV is all about.
Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the impression of a controversy where none exists.
Let me give a more detailed hypothetical to explain what I mean.
Some minor celebrity, a television star, has a relatively uncontroversial public persona. Just the usual, starred in this television show which was in the top 50 television shows in the US from 1997-2001, appeared in 3 television movies, etc. She is not super famous, so the total number of traditional verifiable sources about her is rather small.
But, she has a stalker.
The stalker posts longwinded ranting criticisms and insults of her.
Do we cite those? Here I would come down with Mark Gallagher, quite firmly. It may be true that thus-and-such blogger has said whatever, but so what? Taking what would otherwise be a bland 5 paragraph bio, and turning it into a mouthpiece for a stalker is not neutral.
Not every truth belongs in Wikipedia.
Because there are no rationalistic or simplistic rules for what counts as information we ought to be providing to the public, editorial judgment is necessary. That's what Wikipedia is really good at.
Molu wrote:
I submit that this is a terrible standard for WIkipedia to aim for, and the day Wikipedia starts doing that is the day Wikipedia as we know it has died a horrible death. When the government of PRC censors content critical of them, they say those content were banned because they are "not in the public interest".
IMO, none of the two criterias you mention are good criterias for inclusion in WIkipedia. Wikipedia does not report the Truth™, only the NPOV. As for public interest, let the public decide what is in their interest, wikipedia is not the appointed moral guardian of the society (and in case Jimbo received that appointment letter I hope he has burned it).
Molu
On Wed, 24 May 2006 13:40:28 +1000 Mark Gallagher wrote:
I submit that this is a good standard for Wikipedia to aim for (even if we don't need to). If something is not true *and* in the public interest to know, we should not be saying it about anyone, in particular living people. That's not a legal decision, it's an editorial (and, if you like, moral) one. We should be displaying more discretion than simply "oh, it's true, chuck it in". Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of facts.
-- Mark Gallagher "What? I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!" - Danger Mouse
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