Jimmy Wales wrote:
Mostly, when people call us on the phone with a beef, quiet upset, they are not complaining about a neutral presentation of the facts. They are upset because someone has written a one-sided hack job. Often it is *not* libel, but just bad writing.
What should we do in such a case? Well, our fundamental goal *as a community* is to write a really great encyclopedia. Being jerks toward people who have their feelings hurt *and* who know nothing about how we operate, does not strike me as a very useful way to respond.
Rather, we should respond quickly and politely to their concerns, including in most cases, *blanking or deleting the article* and *starting over*, being *extremely* careful as a community to get all the facts right, to strike a fair and neutral tone, and to cite sources even more extensively than normal.
I was with you until this last paragraph, which seems to be so far off the mark as to be ludicrous.
What we should do, of course, is what we always do. Someone should tell us *what* the complaints are, and we should fix the article. Blanking and deleting the article should only be the done in the most extreme cases where there is absolutely nothing useful or salvageable about it.
I feel the current policy is striking a strong bias against criticism of political figures in proportion to how much money and time they have to get staff to complain to us. Some Chinese leader? Sure, criticize him. But Harry Reid? Hands off!
-Mark