In a message dated 10/26/2008 9:14:59 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, arromdee@rahul.net writes:
So why don't we just let him fix the Wikipedia article, and consider the Wikipedia correction to be the subject self-publishing the correction?>> -------------------------- Ken why don't you go "fix" the George Bush article and claim that you are in-fact George Bush? **************Play online games for FREE at Games.com! All of your favorites, no registration required and great graphics – check it out! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1211202682x1200689022/aol?redir= http://www.games.com?ncid=emlcntusgame00000001)
Out of genuine curiosity, which among you believes that you will be able to convince any of the others with whom you are debating this issue?
One side says "If someone edits an article claiming to be the subject, or posts to the talkpage, and disputes a factual claim in the article - we should assume in most cases that the editor is in fact the subject and either remove or limit the impact of the claim in dispute."
The other side says "If someone edits an article claiming to be the subject, or posts to the talkpage, and disputes a factual claim in the article - we cannot assume that the editor is in fact the subject, and we should limit the impact of the claim in dispute and attempt to verify the counter claim."
These two points of view are not that far apart, but the difference lies in the level of trust in humanity (specifically humanity through the Internet) held by the two groups. You aren't going to reconcile that sort of difference using a mailing list - not least because on one side, you have people inclined not to trust essentially anonymous people on the Internet. The good news is that everyone agrees that controversial information about a living person should be well sourced or removed from any article on Wikipedia.
Nathan
On Sun, 26 Oct 2008 WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Ken why don't you go "fix" the George Bush article and claim that you are in-fact George Bush?
Because common sense would indicate that someone who claims to be George Bush when fixing an article probably isn't. George Bush is a massively well known public figure who is likely to be a target for impersonation. We already have WP:NPF which makes this distinction, so it's not exactly a new idea that some people are more public than others.
I'm sure that if someone claiming to be George Bush had written an article for Edge, they'd have verified his identity too.