JAY JG wrote:
From: Matt Brown morven@gmail.com
I responded to this user previously on the helpdesk. The issue is that David Hager was accused of marital rape by his former wife, who got an article published in The Nation about this, among other places. Thus the allegations, true or not, are documented and citable, and thus cannot be removed as unsourced attacks.
However, he should NOT be listed in any categories that imply he has been convicted of a crime, because he has not.
I've been have a months-long debate with another editor on this topic. I've been stating that we include people in "Criminals" categories if they have been convicted of a crime by an independent judiciary. The other editor insists that we have to decide (by some means) whether or not they have actually committed a crime, conviction is not enough a good enough yardstick. I'd be interested in other thoughts here.
I think that any list that requires charactterizations needs to be approached with caution and sensitivity. Unless we abide by a strict definition of what we mean by the term the [[List of Criminals]] has too much room to become POV, or at worst, libellous. Other criteria than conviction in a court of law are possible, but they too must be strictly defined. We are not in a position to provide the original research that some of these situations may need.
Lee Harvey Oswald was never convicted of murder, and conspiracy theories around JFK's assisination continue to this day. In many minds there is reasonable doubt. Who knows what a jury would have done?
Hurricane Carter was convicted of murder, and it took him nearly 20 years to prove his innocence.
If we are going to keep this characterization at all, the benefit of the doubt should go to the person whose name is being considered for the list.
Ec