Hello folks,
I’m sure it’s my fault for not handling the situation well, but Matt doesn’t seem to understand the issue. I appreciate Matt’s work on the help desk, so I didn‘t want to make an issue of it. But since he is discussing the situation, I want to clarify.
First off, I have been a member of WikiEN-l for a number of weeks. Until now, I didn’t write to the list because I didn’t have anything important to say. I am well aware of the ongoing discussion about articles containing misinformation, especially biographies. So last Friday, after Hager was listed as an convicted rapist, I wrote a post to the list. The post was delayed until today because it was my first post and a moderator needed to clear it. This was unfortunate but necessary given the potential abuse of this list by disgruntled editors and such.
One point worth noting. I didn’t ask the Help desk for assistance. Last Friday, after I realized my WikiEN-l post was going to be held, I wrote to Jimbo Wales. He promptly forwarded it to Help desk and Matt Brown answered it. From his reply I knew that Matt misunderstand my concern. His response therefore was unhelpful. Not wanting to be rude to a Wikipedia volunteer, I just deleted it.
To my immediate and the most important concern, enlisting other people to monitor Hager’s article, I still had no help. (I explicitly asked people to watchlist it in both my posts.) So, I asked several editors that I’ve worked with on medical articles to watchlist it. They graciously accepted and were supportive. So far, so good on that front.
Finally, I need to make it very clear that NPOV is not the issue. I wrote the article and included his ex-wife’s allegations and his denial, so of course I don’t want it removed. I put a lot effort into balancing the unseemly stuff with his long list of career achievements. My issue: Unregistered editors can put misinformation in articles that damages the encyclopedia, defames people, and disrupts the writing OUR encyclopedia. The long-term solutions discussed on this list need to be pursued.
Once again, I appreciate Matt’s volunteer work and don’t want to be hypercritical. But, I know My Concern better than he does, so I want to correct his misconceptions.
Regards, Sydney Poore AKA FloNight
Go Bengals!!!
Matt Brown wrote:
On 12/4/05, stevertigo vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
And that takes care of that.
Not exactly, but it renders it a much more complicated case than ones where negative statements about a public figure are unsourced. Since they are sourced in this case, the question becomes: does this article meet NPOV? I haven't researched the article or the subject enough to know for sure.
It certainly is not an issue solved with a quick complaint to this list or the helpdesk or anywhere else.
-Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l