In the long run, we avoid harming people in general by telling the truth. The proposition that we must never report anything unpleasant about anyone even to report the truth about that person's notable activities is contrary to the production of a NPOV encyclopedia. We probably do need a explanation of the meaning of do no harm; as I understand it it consists of the wide dissemination of technically public but not widely disseminated negative information about a private individual. The classic example is the identity of the victim in the Central Park Jogger case. It was reported in one NYC paper, but the others none the less refused to include it. We use it in WP, because the victim later chose to publicize it widely in a book.
As applies to us, if something disreputable is published in a tabloid about the early career of a notable but private individual, we would not include it unless widespread more respectable sources did so. I would extend it to not doing the same for most public figures either. Once the story is truly widespread, no further harm can be done.
On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It's certainly not what the people you were talking to there were arguing, they were quite specific. (And I'm not sure sure thats what anyone is arguing, I'm pretty confident that compromising neutrality is a decidedly minority view).
I'll use the nomination in the Stefano AFD as an example (I specifically said I was talking about this case). It includes the sentence:
"If real people are negatively affected, we do the right thing, and stop hurting them."
That's an absolute statement that we mustn't do harm and doesn't even try and take into account whether the harm is justified. (I know that's just one sentence, but even in context, I think that's how it was intended.)
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