Matthew Brown wrote:
On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 12:23 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Note that this has been a problem - BLPs with information from one bad source that got copied around the world, and the subject unable to get it removed from Wikipedia because of bloody-minded editors who think sourcing must be done robotically.
It has indeed been a problem. What I've also found is that in many cases the person in question is not willing to publish a denial entirely because that would only make the incorrect story more newsworthy.
I wonder if they'd be willing to "publish" a denial with us if we had some mechanism for doing so? We could have some sort of way for them to register a denial or disagreement or clarification, which we'd cite in the article. I don't see this as much of an increase in original research---We consider notable people's blogs reliable sources on their personal views, and it seems like saying "just register your disagreement here and we'll cite it" isn't any worse than the more roundabout "okay, start a blog, then post your disagreement there, and then we'll cite that".
Of course, that still leaves the other problem of editorially judging of noteworthiness---do we report the allegation along with a denial, or not report it at all once we determine it to be false? This depends on the noteworthiness of the allegation of course (something that was a big furor for months /has/ to be reported; something alleged once in a semi-rag paper shouldn't be), but people disagree on the threshhold.
-Mark