The idea that "I don't have to do it if the law doesn't make me" or "If it isn't against the law there is no reason I can't do it if I want to" is not exactly limited to Wikipedia. Seems to be a standard human character defect, to not do difficult things unless forced and to not forgo anything wanted unless forced. Wikipedia hasn't been immune to this problem, but I'm not sure if the "Do no harm isn't a policy" is really the same thing.
Harm is relative, it doesn't work as an objective standard in editing (unlike in medicine, whence "First, do no harm."). If an article is sourced, we may 'do harm' by making more centrally located and prominent a collection of published criticism of an individual. That doesn't mean we shouldn't appropriately include sourced criticism.
Nathan
On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:32 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
So we collect together details like Jimmy dumped his girlfriend over the internet, Jimmy was born in Alabama and Jimmy ran a porn site and voila
we've
done additional harm that any individual source did not do.
I'm amused by the suggestion that stating that someone was born in Alabama somehow does harm. It's been a long time since 1865. :-)
Ec
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