Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Slim Virgin Let's face it, it's kind of odd that we assume the right to expose a living person to the whims of anyone of any age anywhere in the world, people who don't have to use their real names, don't have to understand the policies, don't even have to be able to spell. It's a lot to ask of that person that they should simply acquiesce and dutifully check their bios every day for the rest of their lives, in case some 10-year-old, or a malicious enemy, has added insults or libel that thousands of people might read before it's fixed, and which Google may continue to distribute anyway.
At the risk of being tedious and repetitive, I strongly endorse the above view:
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1882027,00.html
A Wikipedia biography page is an attractive nuisance and a weapon of asymmetric warfare.
I wish it weren't so, but that's how it works.
I consider our current attitude to the biographies of living persons to be positively immoral. We know people are being adversely affected, libeled and harassed. We know people are having to check their articles daily because of the danger of malicious attacks. And yet we hide behind the belief that we are legally untouchable and we refuse to take any real steps to reduce the harm, on the basis that 'it isn't how we do things', it might upset our users, or it might inadvertently take out a precious article on a webcomic as collateral. Well, the collateral to real people, in the real world, is now unacceptable.
We greedily insist on retaining as many articles as we can when we evidently cannot properly monitor them. That is immoral. We should not be hosting articles on people that we cannot reasonably service.
When a dreadful article is pointed out - it is kept on the basis that it can be fixed - even if it isn't actually fixed. And even if we fix it, we know we cannot sort all of them. Yet we allow the bios to keep being created. Even when people are hurt, we have no means to say it will not happen again next month.
Daniel Brandt is a bad case study, because he merits no sympathy, and his wiki-notoriety means that his article is well maintained. But, beyond that, he's profoundly correct.
I'm now frankly disgusted. Quantity has triumphed quality at every juncture and this callous community is more bothered with its in-house rules, and myopic power games. We demand our rights, we patriotically denounce 'appeasement' as if we were some little state within a state. Well actually there's a real world out there - and people like Brandt (only nicer) don't want editing rights in our little happy utopia - they want our face out of their lives.
Wikipedia has a tremendous power for good - but I'm fast reaching the point where I think the human costs are just too high.
No, I don't have the panacea, but we need to start by saying 1) the status quo is NOT an option 2) radical solutions must be contemplated - up to and including deleting all biographies of living people who are not in Britannica. No, I don't think that's necessary, but only if we start there and work down to see if anything less drastic will make a significant difference, might we have a hope of getting there.
Yes, I know ethics are POV. But amorality isn't attractive either.
"Attractive nuisance" - not so attractive I fear.