Responses by Fred
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Szilagyi [mailto:szilagyi@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 12:58 PM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BLP, and admin role in overriding community review
On 5/23/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
No, any user or administrator who is following
the terms and intent of
Biographies of living persons may remove grossly inappropriate material or
delete an offending article even if almost everyone else on Wikipedia
objects.
The problem is that ArbCom doesn't do content disputes. Do they act as a
final voice on what violates BLP? Here, there are 3-5 people saying that the
Crystal Gail Magnum article violates BLP and is an attack page. Having read
it's deleted form, I'm torn on that. But you have many more people
disagreeing. In this case, who gets the final decision? Any admin can simply
delete it, yes--I agree, this is in and of itself needed. If I wrote, "Jimmy
Bob McGee of Backwater Arkansas sucks off turtles and beat his wife" as an
article, delete it on sight. But on cases that some disagree on, do we defer
to the first admin to delete it? What if others say he's wrong? If he won't
agree to restore the article, it has to go to DRV. Which is good: it's a
sanity check on rogue actions of deletion.
We are responsible for enforcing Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. The alternative
is OFFICE which is unworkable. If any administrator deletes it and cites Biographies of
living persons that is the end of it until the Arbitration Committee says the deletion was
unfounded. Yes, you do defer to any administrator who deletes on that basis. However, they
should be thoroughly familiar with the policy and be applying it correctly. If they
habitually overreach they will soon be in trouble with us.
The problem here is that people are basically saying
any keep or overturn
deletion opinions are invalid, by invoking BLP. In essence, the argument is
that any admin can, citing BLP, delete any article and have it stick, even
if others disagree with the admin's BLP reasoning. The problem obviously is
that the only way to then stop this--if the admins close the DRV that
supports retaining/overturning the deletion as "Delete/keep gone per
BLP"--is to wheel war.
They are invalid if a the deletion was made under BLP. Yes, if they cite BLP it sticks
until the Arbitration Committee has ruled otherwise. Anyone who wheelwars in this
circumstance will be desysopped without the question of whether BLP was applied properly
being considered.
It reads awfully like people are treating BLP as an
I-WIN button in a case
like this, implying that differing opionions that no BLP vio occurred have
no credence. The implication is that the opinions of the 3-5 outweigh
anything else.
It's more like an Eject the Warp Core button. Using it inappropriately will lead to
serious trouble. Those who differ are welcome to use the dispute resolution procedures.
Those who invoke the policy inappropriately will be straightened out. (All this assumes
nerve the Arbitration Committee may not have).
Regards,
Joe
http://www.joeszilagyi.com
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