On 6/28/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/06/07, Silas Snider swsnider@gmail.com wrote:
</snip> > Brian Peppers is perhaps the lowest that any editor can go on. It is > everything that wikipedia is not. As I said we echo the craziest things from > a new japanese playing card game and list every character down to their > waist size to news of a cabinet reshuffle before its hit the lunchtime > news. We are not a pen and paper encyclopedia and we have the ability to > echo sourced information long before other have to shift through google > "priority" hits, but when things are nasty, irrelevent or just downright > shocking internet memes - I say don't go there.
But who determines whether it is 'nasty, irrelevent or just downright shocking'? I certainly don't have the same opinion on the matter as you or as several admins. Does this mean that I am wrong? Perhaps. But I would argue that it is important that policy strive for objective measures so that there are no nasty suprises to people several hundred revisions and many consensuses later.
Sincerely, Silas Snider
Look some of the WP:BLP deletions haven't been fun. I don't particulary like every wikilawyer quoting WP:BLP at me either. I can imagine the horror of hours of edits going through the mincer and I am not saying that policy is always right or admins. But when an article is presented in such a way that if lends it weight to shock or ridicule, I can't see how even the most "give the benefit of the doubt" editor can say that articles like that suck and why didn't it get a spd? I'm not trying to give you the mighty mighty tiger argument - "then consider it was you on WP?" I am saying if it isn't covered by notable news organisations then neither should we.
I see where you are coming from, but I must disagree. Notable news organizations can be extremely spotty in their coverage.
Also, are you actually asserting that there are some topics, such as Brian Peppers, which otherwise pass our verifiability standards, but about which we could *never* write a NPOV article? Or are you saying that it would be too harmful to the subject of the article to have one? In the latter case, I thought we had mostly agreed on this mailing list that any harm that we do by publishing information that is available elsewhere is minor compared to the harm of censoring topics because it might hurt someone's feelings, especially as it would never stop at the 'obvious' cases. (Sorry, can't find the link at the moment)
Sincerely, Silas Snider