I wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_on_living_persons_deserve... It deals with the need to be respectful of subjects, which policies
It reads too much like an attempt to invalidate Neutral Point Of View and instead install Sympathetic Point Of View for living subjects.
And I see someone on the talk page already thinks this is a cue to abandon NPOV.
- d.
David Gerard wrote
And I see someone on the talk page already thinks this is a cue to abandon NPOV.
Which is what we don't do. I agree generally with David: this page need not, should not put us on the defensive side of biography. I also think the page should be shorter; it should not intimidate biographers by sheer volume of considerations.
Charles
On 12/19/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote
And I see someone on the talk page already thinks this is a cue to abandon NPOV.
Which is what we don't do. I agree generally with David: this page need not, should not put us on the defensive side of biography. I also think the page should be shorter; it should not intimidate biographers by sheer volume of considerations.
Charles
The re-emphasis of NPOV within the page should do the trick. I agree the page should be very short, and directed towards editors; info on legal troubles should be on a separate legal page; advice on biographical style should be on the biography part of the style giude (but linked from here)...
-- ++SJ
"David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote in message news:fbad4e140512190755y2b5766e3heb00ce715a733fd3@mail.gmail.com...
I wrote:
SlimVirgin wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_on_living_persons_deserve... It deals with the need to be respectful of subjects, which policies
It reads too much like an attempt to invalidate Neutral Point Of View and instead install Sympathetic Point Of View for living subjects.
And I see someone on the talk page already thinks this is a cue to abandon NPOV.
If that's a reference to my comment, I'm not advocating any such thing. I merely want to make sure that the risks of harming an innocent third party should be carefully considered.
OTOH, if it's the section further down commenced by [[en:user:Stevage]], then I take your point: ".placating potentially injured parties, even if that involves a minor violation of NPOV" is a slippery slope we should not be allowing anywhere near us. If it's been published in a newspaper, then the facts themselves are fair game, even if the subject is not: I would have thought that a biography stating "X was the subject of a malicious allegation of misbehaviour in Y newspaper which turned out to be fabricatory cobblers" might actually be doing the subject a favour...neutrally of course :-).
HTH HAND
Hi,
be allowing anywhere near us. If it's been published in a newspaper,
then
the facts themselves are fair game, even if the subject is not: I would
have
thought that a biography stating "X was the subject of a malicious allegation of misbehaviour in Y newspaper which turned out to be
fabricatory
cobblers" might actually be doing the subject a favour...neutrally of
course
And how would the subject feel from the time the article reads "X is alleged to have molested children [1]" with a footnote to the newspaper article until the time sometime after the retraction in the paper that the entry is amended to read as above?
In any case, we need some very clear definitions of libel and defamation, with reference to jurisdictions etc, to know exactly what we can and can't say and in what circumstances. I suspect our assumptions of good faith and commonsense being sufficient are unfounded.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
And how would the subject feel from the time the article reads "X is alleged to have molested children [1]" with a footnote to the newspaper article until the time sometime after the retraction in the paper that the entry is amended to read as above?
In any case, we need some very clear definitions of libel and defamation, with reference to jurisdictions etc, to know exactly what we can and can't say and in what circumstances. I suspect our assumptions of good faith and commonsense being sufficient are unfounded.
That may be the only thing we can rely on. How we react when something is brought to our attention is important; having a fact checking mechanism of some sort in place will be important. It's impossible to please all the jurisdictions. Do we take the risk of being charged with insulting the Turkish state for talking about the Armenian genocide of the 1910s?
Ec