Steve Bennett-4 wrote:
And if instead of actually fixing the article directly, the injured party simply left a message on the talk page, and possibly at village pump or something too? No room for cries of vandal, and probably someone would quickly investigate and fix it.
You're assuming that someone entirely unfamiliar with Wikipedia should, when alerted to an unsympathetic and possibly damaging article about them, be able to understand when the mantra "anybody can edit" suddenly becomes invalid, and furthermore deduce the alternate avenues of change which they should pursue, all the while leaving a version of their article on display which might well be somewhat distressing to them?
We should be more careful not to bite newbies, especially when we have...however inadvertent it might have been, and I'm AGFing here like crazy...caused them distress before they even arrive here. We do not exactly improve our general reputation by fostering an atmosphere which potentially allows people to insert damaging and downright mean disinformation into a biographical article, lie in wait for the subject should they turn up, and add insult to injury by castigating their well-meaning if naive efforts to correct the situation.
HTH HAND