On 23/04/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/04/2008, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
In the long run, we avoid harming people in general by telling the truth.
I don't see how that works. If the truth is negative, telling the truth does harm. The net result to society is positive (we generally consider having a free, neutral encyclopaedia a good thing), but that doesn't mean we haven't harmed the subject.
If the article is properly sourced then all of the opinions and facts expressed in the article are derived from outside sources so they are not being harmed by unique information in wikipedia, just their perception of wikipedia being more influential than scattered news articles and books. If wikipedia doesn't say anything new any harm due to the compilation of facts is immaterial IMO. Unless a court rules that random facts can't be combined in properly sourced secondary/tertiary sources due to the effect of the combination alone then they have no case.
Peter