Charles R. Matthews writes:
Some tension between your two points, here. Milton, we assume, commented on the blog, i.e. she reacted to its existence.
Would it not be more accurate to say she reacted to its contents? For instance I don't suppose she would have reacted, or the blog would have been noticed, if its criticism was limited to (e.g.) her dress sense.
There might be some cause to include the blog in the article if her reaction had been extreme (e.g. legal measures). But if it is being argued that her reaction was in any sense over-reaction, then indeed including the blog in the Milton article is a negative comment ("MP lashes back at blogger shock", in tabloid terms); and so the BLP guideline is relevant.
Hmm. Quite difficult, that one, since WP:NPOV applies. The article does report Milton as having refused to discuss the blog contents and having described Tim Ireland dismissively. Is that an over-reaction? Almost certainly not. Does that engage WP:BLP? Probably not, although even if it did, the sources are adequate to keep it. The report from Sandra Howard, which might be considered an over-reaction and probably does engage WP:BLP, isn't included. However, the fact that it is not included in the article doesn't mean we dismiss it from our thoughts when assessing the noteworthiness of the blog.
This only makes for Milton's notability if politicians rarely do this.
I do not see the relevance. As I pointed out before, the issue is not Milton's notability (she's automatically notable as an MP) but whether a critical blog is noteworthy. That depends on whether the criticism is targeted at the reason she is notable, or at some other aspect, and here it is unquestionably targeted at her political activity.
I really think, outside the rather airless atmosphere of Westminster politics, this gets the big 'so what?'.
I think we're discussing the blue-rinsed atmosphere of Guildford politics. Does "so what?" apply to the blog or the debate over the blog, though?
david@election.demon.co.uk - Ta fys aym
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On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 07:37:32 -0500, "david@election.demon.co.uk" david@election.demon.co.uk wrote:
I do not see the relevance. As I pointed out before, the issue is not Milton's notability (she's automatically notable as an MP) but whether a critical blog is noteworthy. That depends on whether the criticism is targeted at the reason she is notable, or at some other aspect, and here it is unquestionably targeted at her political activity.
And the subsidiary issue is, if the incident is considered noteworthy, do we need to go further than linking to the critic's article (which we do) and the news source (which we do) and include the critic's blog, which has a header describing the subject as a "dipstick".
Guy (JzG)