I've cleaned it up. ... and, it's been reverted back into its crufty revisionism. Good job, Tenebrae. On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Steve Summit <scs(a)eskimo.com> wrote:

I sent a reply to her twitter, telling her about the discussion. I probably should log in an look for a reply, but, yes, common sense, and courtesy, might rule in this matter. Fred

Exactly right. And the issue is further confounded/compounded by the medium that the alleged new "source" was reported in. Even if Demi Moore is perfectly reliable on the truth surrounding her birth name, common sense tells you that a 140-character tweet (or two) is not the sort of place where you can make nuanced distinctions between "I was born Demi, which is to say, that's what everyone always called me, even though it says 'Demetria' on my birth certificate" versus "I was born Demi, and it even says that on my birth certificate, but my parents always said it was short for 'Demetria', and I always believed that, and told the story in a People Magazine interview, too, and I only just recently learned the truth." (Common sense should also tell you that revisionist history is rampant when it comes to these sorts of aspects of the personal lives of celebrities.) The Cunctator wrote:

Ken Arromdee: wrote: That's true, and remains so if you generalize it to "people who are not specifically experienced with formal reporting won't make statements with lawyer-like precision". I think you've just proved that interpreting primary sources can be hard (and sometimes borders on OR), which is why when there's any doubt, it's correct for us to defer to secondary sources -- the more reliable and verifiable the better. So, yes, in this case, Encyclopaedia Britannica is more reliable than People magazine is more reliable than Demi Moore herself. (I agree with you that this is a surprising result, and that it seems to defy common sense at first. Truth has a way of doing that, sometimes. :-) ) But it's not "whenever you want", it's "when there's reasonable doubt", which there certainly is here.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 6:17 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Demi Moore BLP name Or, to put it another way, hearsay evidence is generally inadmissible because it is not susceptible to testing by cross-examination. But there are exceptions so numerous as to have led to comments that the "hearsay rule" no longer exists. As I understand it, one's name is whatever one wants it to be, unless it is changed for fraudulent purposes, so if Demi Moore wants to call herself Demetria *now*, she may do so; but that cannot change the name given by her parents, which would appear to be fixed by her birth certificate.

Um, People Magazine got their information from an interview with Demi Moore. On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Another little tidbit for the "common sense" grist: While her mother was still alive, Demi Moore stated her birth name was Demetria. Virginia Guynes died in 1998. On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote:

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:19 PM, The Cunctator <cunctator(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's not true as a blanket statement. Conventionally FOIA refers to the federal open records law, but there are others (under many names, including FOIA) at the state level in most states. Whether birth records are included or not varies by state. Back to People Magazine... First, I did say "no more reliable than Demi Moore herself." Which isn't contradicted by your assertion that she was the magazine's source for this bit of information. Second, I'd take the opposite track on your little decision tree. Which is more likely? A) Demi Moore has consistently and correctly reported her own birth name. One outlet got it wrong, leading to a cascade of re-reporting in other outlets also getting it wrong Or B) Demi Moore from time to time changes her mind about whether to lie or tell the truth about her own birth name I pick B. Having worked for several newspapers and, as a regular reader, witnessed a mind-boggling array of errors in even the best and most prestigious news outlets, I have a pretty healthy doubt for the accuracy of any interview or news report. If you never read anything other than Wikipedia coverage, it would still make any reasonable person question whether journalists are capable of getting even the most basic information right most of the time.

On 12/05/11 11:33 AM, Nathan wrote: I think that many Wikipedians still believe in the myth that every question has a correct answer. Never mind Demi Moore, the birther controversy about Obama lasted much longer than it should have among people who certainly had the resources to track down the correct information. Asking for a birth certificate rather than a photocopy of the birth registration no doubt added to the confusion. My inclination when somebody who should know contradicts usually reliable sources would be to add a note to that effect directly quoting what she says. Let the reader choose what he wants to believe. Another factor that a reader should consider is that she was very young at the time of her birth. Ec

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 10:09 PM, Carl (CBM) <cbm.wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote: ng that's probably misinformation but which has When you said "fact checkers at People magazine" I laughed. Just saying.

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 10:28 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: Actually, I believe People magazine in particular actually does fact checking. If they aren't good enough, presumably the Independent is - it is also cited in the article. But that's neither here nor there. Common sense in this sort of case is that we should expect celebrities to be constantly managing their public brand - particularly on a medium such as Twitter which is used explicitly for that purpose. There's no reason to give much weight to tweets like the one that is now footnote 1 of the article. - Carl