Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote
If we excluded people on the basis of potential
conflict
of interest we would have no encyclopaedia, but in my experience,
David presses the point long and hard, and that is precisely the point
Alphax was making, I think.
Well, take care you aren't going over the edge on the other issue I mentioned.
Specifically in relation to politics, and particularly in the matter of identifying
'political positions', I think there is a basic style point anyway. For any close
follower of politics there may be an excessive interest in 'pinning the tail on the
donkey': locating politicians on a spectrum, getting the ducks in a row as to exactly
where they stand. When I talk about 'understatement', I think there are a number
of stylistic points that ought to differentiate WP's coverage from that of someone
very interested in partisan politics (from any angle). Something like this:
(a) Obviously membership of intra-party groups is OK to mention (if verifiable);
(b) Obviously labelling someone a Marxist, Eurosceptic, racist, whatever is not acceptable
except as self-identification, or in the context of controversy that we should include and
can support with sources;
(c) I notice plenty of 'epithetting' going on, with attempts to place labels like
'far right' on people next to a wikilink (rather than in the article itself); this
is really not good, but is the kind of style people adopt either because they are
imitating print journalism, or because they are a bit too interested in extremism;
(d) Closer to the Anne Milton thing: presumably anyone active in politics has some sort of
'portfolio' of positions one could research. What gets included and how does it
get treated? I don't know, as an abstract question; US politicians in Congress tend to
have their voting records recorded, but UK politics coverage usually doesn't focus on
that. I do think that principles from the 'living persons biography' criteria can
be applied, within reason. Basically there are things about a politician that are fairly
'salient', and should be included if verifiable. If other matters are raised in an
article, one should wonder why they are there.
I don't suppose this will resolve the particular dispute, but it seems an interesting
area to look into, in general terms.
Charles
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