Sarah wrote:
On 7/13/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
How does Wikipedia not benefit from including the information? If Wikipedia biographies are to be accurate articles, they should not selectively exclude facts deemed inconvenient.
We don't benefit because he's a very minor figure, arguably not someone who should have an article in the first place, and it wasn't a good article anyway. So for the sake of upholding some unwritten principle of completeness (i.e. for the sake of ideology), we're prepared to harm an individual's real life, someone who has done nothing to any of us, to ensure that this incident will continue to haunt him, whereas he thought he had put it behind him.
My argument is that it's neither fair nor rational to do that, and we ought always to be both fair and rational when dealing with people who are, in a very real sense, at Wikipedia's mercy.
We don't invent the facts in a person's life; they lived them themselves. I don't think that ideology is a factor. This person happens to be on the right end of the spectrum, but I'm sure that we have enough "right"-minded editors to make sure that no criminal activity is "left" behind.
The most disturbing part of these comments is to measure the inclusion of these facts by reference to criteria such as, "We don't benefit," or "has done nothing to any of us." Such personalizing of the criteria to Wikipedia could too easily erode objectivity.
Ec