On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:16 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Saying that things in BLPs "hurts people" only furthers the idea that that is what we're avoiding. It's a simplistic approach to a complex issue.
[snip]
You're correct that the goal is to be neutral and that neutrality sometimes makes people unhappy.... But neutrality goes beyond being simply factual: having a big high profile article about some trivial gaff that would be soon forgotten without WP's help is not neutrality. Neutrality is more nuanced that the impression people put off when they make the "they screwed up, it's their problem" argument. ... and in this and many many other cases, there really isn't an argument the the subject screwed up and somehow deserves the embarrassment of having the truth told.
In any case, the reason for emphasizing the 'hurting people' is that the classic Wikipedian counter to evidence of grevious error in Wikipedia is something like Mark's "We've got 2 million articles, this is to be expected". Expected or not, it's not acceptable. It would be unacceptable if no one were hurt, but it's doubly so because people can be and are.
... and most importantly, we should consider it unacceptable because this sort of harm is a direct result of Wikipedia policies and procedures, and is most likely completely avoidable without compromising on neutrality.