Awhile back, Jimbo wrote:

...

From our perspective, NPOV is a great mechanism for avoiding libel,

because it's pretty hard to libel someone without taking any position.

His point at the time was that my Disinfopedia is inherently more controversial and confrontational than Wikipedia. Being controversial arguably creates more INCENTIVE for someone to sue. Regarding the question of actual LIABILITY, however, I don't think NPOV offers the protection that Jimbo thinks.

The Wikipedia editorial policy is "neutral point of view." My Disinfopedia policy is "fair and accurate." Either of those policies, if practiced consistently and completely, should offer protection against a successful libel action. (Actually, I think "fair and accurate" offers slightly better protection, because it may be easier to define "accurate" than "neutral.") In practice, however, 100% compliance doesn't exist. The real question is what happens if someone wants to sue over an article that they think fails to meet one of these standards.

To put this in concrete terms, let's consider how someone might write an article about Jeffrey Dahmer. It is certainly fair and accurate to say that Dahmer was a serial killer and human cannibal. I haven't looked at the Wikipedia article on Dahmer, but I imagine that's what it says about him, and I can't imagine anyone seriously claiming that these statements violate the NPOV rule. Moreover, Dahmer's relatives would have no basis for a lawsuit, because this characterization is true. It's been proven in court, and Dahmer admitted it.

Now let's imagine a hypothetical situation in which a false urban legend has been circulating that MERV GRIFFIN is a serial killer and human cannibal. This claim gets added to the Wikipedia by someone who believes it. Griffin responds by suing for libel.

You can't really argue that a NPOV rule prevents Wikipedians from calling ANYONE a serial killer and human cannibal. Therefore, the question of whether it's OK to say this about Merv Griffin ultimately devolves to whether it is a "fair and accurate" statement.

From a strict NPOV perspective, in fact, you would have to refrain from taking a position either way about Merv's eating habits. Once someone has inserted that claim in an article, subsequent editors must either (1) delete the claim entirely, because it's ridiculous, thereby asserting a point of view; or (2) offer a tortured construction such as, "Some people allege that Merv Griffin kills people and eats them; most people, however, contend that this is ridiculous." If you adopt #2 (the strict NPOV construction), Merv might still have grounds for libel action.

I'm certainly not trying to suggest that the Disinfopedia editorial policy is better than the Wikipedia policy. The two policies simply serve different purposes. However, I'm questioning whether Wikipedia's policy offers as much protection against libel action as some people seem to think.