In a message dated 6/21/2008 2:19:34 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com writes:
You might like to consider the relationship between our BLP handling and NYB's departure, for a moment of silence.>>
------------- Sure. Give us the details. So far no one seems to want to do that. I'd be interested in the rank and sordid or mundane details.
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I noticed an interesting juxtaposition above. Star Wars Kid, and the glaring lack of the real name, was brought up. Charles stated above that NPOV is not negotiable. I would hope, then, that he is entirely for including the name in this article. The absolute overwhelming majority of reliable sources reporting on the Star Wars Kid incident used his real name. By failing to follow that lead, we are pushing a POV, that POV being "They were wrong to publish that." Pushing a POV by silence or removal is no more acceptable than pushing it by what we do write. Given the number of sources which have so chosen to report, that is clearly a minority, fringe POV, and has no place dominating an article.
Here, we have a real situation where NPOV and (the expanded version of) BLP have come into conflict. BLP used to mean, very simply, "You want to say something negative or controversial about a living person, you must source it very well." Those of us who had misgivings about creep, especially given the proposed strict enforcement, were given assurances that it would never go beyond this narrow scope. Yet, here we have a piece of information which can be very, very reliably sourced, is not negative (it is a simple statement of simple fact), and is reported in the overwhelming majority of sources on the matter. NPOV would demand that we follow the lead of those sources and include the name, regardless of whether we personally agree, just as we always follow sources whether or not we personally agree. Yet we are seeing an expanded, creeping interpretation of BLP used to state that this information should be kept out.
And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly, it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy." If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to protect.
Todd Allen wrote:
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition above. Star Wars Kid, and the glaring lack of the real name, was brought up. Charles stated above that NPOV is not negotiable. I would hope, then, that he is entirely for including the name in this article. The absolute overwhelming majority of reliable sources reporting on the Star Wars Kid incident used his real name. By failing to follow that lead, we are pushing a POV, that POV being "They were wrong to publish that." Pushing a POV by silence or removal is no more acceptable than pushing it by what we do write.
Well, I wonder about that (I know nothing about the specific matter, which is a long war from anything I edit on). An omission is "pushing a POV", and about other media? There is a tremendous amount of constructive interpretation behind that. As well as some debatable grammar. Editors "push a POV", articles "fail to be neutral" (third person singular, not first person plural).
Charles
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:20 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Todd Allen wrote:
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition above. Star Wars Kid, and the glaring lack of the real name, was brought up. Charles stated above that NPOV is not negotiable. I would hope, then, that he is entirely for including the name in this article. The absolute overwhelming majority of reliable sources reporting on the Star Wars Kid incident used his real name. By failing to follow that lead, we are pushing a POV, that POV being "They were wrong to publish that." Pushing a POV by silence or removal is no more acceptable than pushing it by what we do write.
Well, I wonder about that (I know nothing about the specific matter, which is a long war from anything I edit on). An omission is "pushing a POV", and about other media? There is a tremendous amount of constructive interpretation behind that. As well as some debatable grammar. Editors "push a POV", articles "fail to be neutral" (third person singular, not first person plural).
Charles
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Well, we could just as easily say that the editors who are refusing to let the name be in the article are pushing their POV (that the name should not be published), and that, since the vast majority of reliable sources disagree, the article fails to be neutral because of this. I really don't think that changes the underlying meaning.
The BLP policy is obviously stupid and mindless adherence to it is bad for the structure, content, and purpose of Wikipedia.
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:20 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Todd Allen wrote:
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition above. Star Wars Kid, and the glaring lack of the real name, was brought up. Charles stated above that NPOV is not negotiable. I would hope, then, that he is entirely for including the name in this article. The absolute overwhelming majority of reliable sources reporting on the Star Wars Kid incident used his real name. By failing to follow that lead, we are pushing a POV, that POV being "They were wrong to publish that." Pushing a POV by silence or removal is no more acceptable than pushing it by what we do write.
Well, I wonder about that (I know nothing about the specific matter, which is a long war from anything I edit on). An omission is "pushing a POV", and about other media? There is a tremendous amount of constructive interpretation behind that. As well as some debatable grammar. Editors "push a POV", articles "fail to be neutral" (third person singular, not first person plural).
Charles
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Well, we could just as easily say that the editors who are refusing to let the name be in the article are pushing their POV (that the name should not be published), and that, since the vast majority of reliable sources disagree, the article fails to be neutral because of this. I really don't think that changes the underlying meaning.
-- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.
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On 22/06/2008, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly, it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy." If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to protect.
"Yeah right"
That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement. The video was stolen and edited to make it look even more foolish and distributed. So far as I am aware the guy's name was placed in the public domain without his request, and this has been repeated by a bunch of publications. He also received a large award in an out of court settlement, and could possibly have a case against the wikipedia if they chose to *perpetuate* it (the wikipedia may not *ever* go away, but other publications tend to fade).
That could happen to *anyone*; it could happen to you, Todd Allen. Are you truly saying that this is a *good* thing??? The wikipedia gets to chose its policies, we don't pick them and stick to them even if it gets the wikipedia legally attacked or it needless helps destroy people's lives.
The question here is 'what is undue weight'. Does the wikipedia agree that his name is essential to the story or is publishing it undue weight, and frankly part of continued harassment?
I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
Ian Woollard wrote:
That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement.
Why does the fact that he was a "victim" change the standards for what the contents of an article about him should be? That seems like it fits the definition of POV very well.
I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
How do you propose to judge this without resorting to original research?
2008/6/23 Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca:
Why does the fact that he was a "victim" change the standards for what the contents of an article about him should be? That seems like it fits the definition of POV very well.
Let's assume that it doesn't. Hey, let's assume that you think that somebody who is bullied deserves it, if they're fat or something.
So should we also create wikipedia categories for:
Category:rape victim Category:child abuse victim
and add them to BLP articles?
After all, in some cases it's a matter of public record right? I mean of course if the person makes a point to talk about it to the press that might be entirely appropriate to raise awareness of an issue or something, but if they didn't?
How do you propose to judge this without resorting to original research?
The point is the principle that just because it may be true, doesn't mean you have to necessarily put it in a BLP article. There are legal and ethical constraints that make it to not always be a good idea.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Ian Woollard wrote:
I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
How do you propose to judge this without resorting to original research?
Via some evolving and difficult-to-define policy which we are nevertheless attempting to define here.
There's a not-terribly-tasteful joke which I think is at least a little bit apropos here: "Why does a dog lick his balls?" "Because he can."
Just because a fact is true and we can report it, does not mean that we have to report it, that we must report it, that we are compelled by some robot-like imperative to report it. We can choose, or not choose, to report facts as we wish. Some of the choices are made by objective or externally-sourced means, but some of them are subjective. Perhaps this is one of those subjective decisions, and perhaps that makes it difficult or even scary to think about, but the appropriate response is not to resort to a robotlike all-or-nothing mentality.
Remember: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Publishing hurtful information about people can hurt people. And "sorry we helped fuck your life up, dude, but we don't care; we're Wikipedia and we have to publish everything that's true and well-sourced" is not a valid excuse.
On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 9:53 AM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/06/2008, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly, it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to negative information." NOR should already serve to protect "privacy." If something hasn't already been published in a publicly available source, we can prohibit it under NOR, if it has, there's no privacy to protect.
"Yeah right"
That sort of misses the *huge* point, particularly with the Star Wars kid, that the guy was a victim of bullying and copyright infringement. The video was stolen and edited to make it look even more foolish and distributed. So far as I am aware the guy's name was placed in the public domain without his request, and this has been repeated by a bunch of publications. He also received a large award in an out of court settlement, and could possibly have a case against the wikipedia if they chose to *perpetuate* it (the wikipedia may not *ever* go away, but other publications tend to fade).
That could happen to *anyone*; it could happen to you, Todd Allen. Are you truly saying that this is a *good* thing??? The wikipedia gets to chose its policies, we don't pick them and stick to them even if it gets the wikipedia legally attacked or it needless helps destroy people's lives.
The question here is 'what is undue weight'. Does the wikipedia agree that his name is essential to the story or is publishing it undue weight, and frankly part of continued harassment?
I would argue that, under the circumstances it is the other sources that give it undue weight, not the wikipedia.
-- -Ian Woollard
We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly imperfect world things would be a lot better.
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If there were a likelihood of legal repercussions to including the real name, I do imagine that Mike Godwin would have told us by now that to include the name would be a very, very bad idea. Given that this has not occurred, and I can think of no legal basis under which such a suit would be made (this is a US site, there is no law in the US against reporting truthful information that is already widely available to the public), I don't believe legal concerns are at issue here.
As to me personally, why yes it could. It could happen to anyone, given that this is the age where information can flow from one side of the world to another in a matter of seconds. That's an important phenomenon, and we would do ourselves a significant disservice by not reporting on it as accurately and thoroughly as possible, when verifiable, reliable information is readily at hand.
While there was legal action in the Star Wars Kid case, it was, as far as I know, taken against those who -initially- distributed the video, not those who simply reported truthful information regarding the video or its maker. And the NYT and the like, compared to Wikipedia, aren't going to "fade" anytime soon. Archives of major newspapers from over a century ago are available. Wikipedia, compared to that, is in its infancy. I certainly believe and hope that the Wikipedia model is robust and will be around for many, many years to come, but that shouldn't cause us to shy away from our critical responsibility of reporting verifiable fact from reliable sources, regardless of our personal feelings regarding it.
Todd Allen wrote:
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition above. Star Wars Kid, and the glaring lack of the real name, was brought up. Charles stated above that NPOV is not negotiable. I would hope, then, that he is entirely for including the name in this article. The absolute overwhelming majority of reliable sources reporting on the Star Wars Kid incident used his real name. By failing to follow that lead, we are pushing a POV, that POV being "They were wrong to publish that." Pushing a POV by silence or removal is no more acceptable than pushing it by what we do write. Given the number of sources which have so chosen to report, that is clearly a minority, fringe POV, and has no place dominating an article.
This is a somewhat anomalous situation, because it's really a single fact that seems to be neither negative nor positive being omitted, and the interpretation that it's non-neutral because others include this fact is a bit of a stretch.
There are much more direct and worrying examples, mainly the omission of widely-reported, well-sourced negative information which tends to make the resulting articles non-neutral in that they're more positive than the consensus view we're supposed to be summarizing.
-Mark
On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 10:25 PM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
And now we are seeing an expanded "enforcement" provision come into place. I think, before we worry about -enforcing- BLP more strictly, it needs a good reining in. It needs to be strictly defined as "no unsourced negative information," and perhaps "no undue weight to negative information."
Perhaps it's the "undue weight" clause that's causing most if the controversy over BLPs and enforcement. If a negative fact is unsourced then it's a no brainer. It goes and it stays out until sourced. No consensus, no 3RR, no "bold/revert/discuss" and you can LART anybody who tries to put it back in.
However, if the negative fact is properly sourced and the issue is "undue weight", then that's subjective and "reasonable" editors can disagree on it. However, with the BLP policy, the side with the admin bit automatically "wins" because he can remove it and invoke the magic word "BLP". This may alienate the "reasonable" editors who think it's not undue weight.