-----Original Message----- From: Travis Mason-Bushman [mailto:travis@gpsports-eng.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:33 PM To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Libeling NFL players; or, our abject failure to protect living people
how can we possibly hope to protect the ordinary, average Joe who happens to wind up with a page on Wikipedia for being caught up in someone else¹s scandal? Who are we kidding, anyway?
I believe that we should immediately make all articles about living people into ³stable versions,² editable only by administrators based on talk page consensus, so that we have at least some degree of control over what we say about people. We are doing way, way too much damage, and it has to stop, and stop now, before we really cause permanent harm to someone.
As one of the Internet¹s top-10 Web sites, we have a moral and ethical responsibility to the people and topics we write about. We cannot continue to let anyone say anything they want, pending reversion because as this case makes clear, that reversion might not come for weeks or months, if ever.
-Travis Mason-Bushman
This is the best argument for not accepting articles which will receive no significant attention, either from the public or from us. We have long passed the point recent changes patrolling will catch all such vandalism.
Fred
On 4/19/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
This is the best argument for not accepting articles which will receive no >significant attention, either from the public or from us. We have long passed the >point recent changes patrolling will catch all such vandalism.
But how to tell? And how to prevent such articles? While it could be done to an extent through a crude "any new article must have X links pointing to it" it cannot be done through deletion where we are close to capacity.
On 19/04/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/19/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
This is the best argument for not accepting articles which will receive no >significant attention, either from the public or from us. We have long passed the >point recent changes patrolling will catch all such vandalism.
But how to tell? And how to prevent such articles? While it could be done to an extent through a crude "any new article must have X links pointing to it" it cannot be done through deletion where we are close to capacity.
Deletion could help. Ignore any "keep and cleanup" which isn't "keep and cleanup, I'll do it"... We "vote to keep" an awful lot of articles that the community then shows no interest at all in maintaining.
On 4/19/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Deletion could help. Ignore any "keep and cleanup" which isn't "keep and cleanup, I'll do it"... We "vote to keep" an awful lot of articles that the community then shows no interest at all in maintaining.
Afd deletion rate is way to low to effect the change Fred was proposing.
On 19/04/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/19/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Deletion could help. Ignore any "keep and cleanup" which isn't "keep and cleanup, I'll do it"... We "vote to keep" an awful lot of articles that the community then shows no interest at all in maintaining.
Afd deletion rate is way to low to effect the change Fred was proposing.
Yes, but it could help slow the rate of increase. Not implementing solutions because they're not perfect and won't solve everything at once won't get us anywhere.
On 4/20/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but it could help slow the rate of increase.
Given that CSD is pretty much maxed out deletion is unlikely to make a dent in the current situation.
On 4/19/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
This is the best argument for not accepting articles which will receive no significant attention, either from the public or from us. We have long passed the point recent changes patrolling will catch all such vandalism.
Fred
Most cases of articles not receiving attention are due to the people who could handle it either aren't online at the time such vandalism occurs or simply don't know the article exists.
I have multiple biographies of living people on my watchlist and I can give it attention, but I can't check that list for vandalism 24/7. Anyway, I don't think cutting otherwise okay articles is the way to deal with this. That's like giving in to the vandals.
I am still waiting for Stable Versions.
Mgm
On 4/19/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/19/07, Fred Bauder fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
This is the best argument for not accepting articles which will receive no significant attention, either from the public or from us. We have long passed the point recent changes patrolling will catch all such vandalism.
Fred
Most cases of articles not receiving attention are due to the people who could handle it either aren't online at the time such vandalism occurs or simply don't know the article exists.
I have multiple biographies of living people on my watchlist and I can give it attention, but I can't check that list for vandalism 24/7. Anyway, I don't think cutting otherwise okay articles is the way to deal with this. That's like giving in to the vandals.
I am still waiting for Stable Versions.
Mgm
Why is it that you consider deletion the solution? Wouldn't the logical first step be to try to get attention to the articles that need it?
Also, biographies of living people may be the articles that can lead to legal cases if they contain libel or severe inaccuracies, but they're not more important than the other articles. An article about a 17th century painting needs to be just as accurate if we want to have a good encyclopedia. Are you going to delete that article too if no one is looking after it?
Mgm