On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 1:20 PM, &lt;WJhonson(a)aol.com&gt; wrote: And that part is exactly -why- we require sources, including to change something at a subject's request. If reliable sources indicate something, and the subject says "It isn't so" but we've got nothing to verify that, we can't simply say "Oh, alright," and change the article. One thing we -can- do in such a case, as stated earlier, is to change that particular part of the article to a quoted form, e.g. "The New York Times reported in 2006 that foo did bar", rather than "Foo did bar <ref name="nyt">". In that case, our statement -cannot- be inaccurate, provided that the New York Times really did make such a report-we're simply in that case asserting that such a report was made. If the subject -does- disagree, it's then his or her responsibility to talk to the NYT and look at having a correction printed (in which case, that correction is a reliable source to change what we've got!) This is better for the subject anyway, as now the original source is corrected and future inaccuracies from anything that relies on it (not just us) can be prevented. And if there is no inaccuracy and the subject is lying or genuinely mistaken, we don't end up removing or changing information which is both verifiable -and- truthful. It is just beyond our means to determine if, firstly, the person claiming to be the subject really is, and secondly, even if that can be confirmed (through OTRS or the subject posting to his/her own site, for example), that the claims (s)he makes are true and the sources are genuinely wrong. Of course, if the subject is willing to post their side somewhere, such as on his or her own site, we can certainly add that "Doe denies this and states that...", citing that source and telling both sides of the story. BLP is a good policy in general, in saying that "Potentially negative or controversial information about a living person that is -unsourced or badly sourced- should be removed posthaste, and such information when well-sourced should not be given undue weight." That's really just saying that our normal content policies (verifiability, NPOV, NOR) should be enforced with exceptional speed and vigor when concerning a BLP. Removing or sourcing questionable unsourced information and properly weighting are things we should aspire to with every article anyway. On the other hand, BLP shouldn't generally enter into the equation when information is well-sourced and duly weighted. That's an issue to be resolved through normal content mechanisms, not the sledgehammer of BLP. It might be needed, but it's got to be kept reined in. -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.

Todd Allen wrote: Just to avoid making *too* strong a "sources are everything" comment here, we can of course also exercise some editorial judgment when it comes to weighting parts of a biography and writing intro-text descriptions and so on. If a source says that someone was born in 1947, and no source says otherwise, in some sense we're stuck, even if it's wrong---absent original research, the literature says he was born in 1947, so we'll duly report that. But just because someone somewhere has called someone "a director" doesn't necessarily mean our intro paragraph has to say that he's "a director". That he directed a film, the body text should say, but which of the things in the body text is worth highlighting in the intro sentence/paragraph should be done by summarizing the rest of the article with some common sense. -Mark

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Delirium &lt;delirium(a)hackish.org&gt; wrote: In this particular case, I would certainly see no problem in changing "Foo is a director" to "Foo directed bar" if that were the only issue. But this had mainly gotten off that issue to a more general discussion of what to do if a subject disputes sourced information in an article. (Obviously, if a subject disputes -unsourced- information in an article, we should remove it at once.) -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:00 PM, David Goodman &lt;dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: And if we've got an undue weight issue, we certainly should correct it. Cherrypicking or giving undue weight to sources to create a non-neutral article slanted toward one's own bias has never been acceptable and never should be. However, neither has excluding well sourced information because someone simply dislikes it or states it isn't so, and that shouldn't fly either. -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.