On 3/29/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I'm troubled here by the shifting argument. First it's from a tabloid. Except it's not from a tabloid - it's from a reputable paper that did original research. But then when it's pointed out that NOR isn't relevant to this either it becomes insignificant.
Still not the case - if we're having an article on the guy, this is a sensible thing to put in it.
I wholly agree. We don't have a policy of avoiding scandalous or unfavorable information about living persons - we have a policy about being strict about our sourcing.
This story was published by a paper that yes, is alternative and local - but not a tabloid by any means - and was republished by other alternative-press papers including the Village Voice. These are sources that exercise editorial judgment and fact-checking, and they are big enough to be vulnerable to lawsuits if they publish libellous untruths, just like the major press.
Stories like this rarely make the major press simply because they are not the kind of stories they're interested in. In my experience, personal scandal like this is generally not reported in the local mainstream press unless real-world consequences occur - criminal prosecutions or dismissals, for instance - and even more rarely in the national or financial press unless the individual is of national significance and the scandal has grown to have substantial real-world consequence. The tabloid and celebrity press is generally not interested in businessmen unless they're stupendously rich or a media whore a la Donald Trump.
IMO, this is using BLP as a hammer to beat scandal and negative stories out of Wikipedia, even a well-sourced one, and I suspect that it is done out of a belief that Wikipedia should not be reporting on such - that it is 'unencyclopedic'. I don't think that point of view has strong consensus.
-Matt