In a message dated 4/29/2008 1:07:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, tonysidaway@gmail.com writes:
We're censors. That is a necessary part of writing an encyclopedia. Yes, we've been over this ground before, and every single time we come down to this: we are not here to make things worse. We are not here to push out trash. >>
-------------------------------- Strawman. Nobody is arguing that we should "make things worse" nor that we should "push out trash". Rather what's being argued is that we should report what *is* published by reliable, third-party sources. Nothing more or less.
Will Johnson
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Will Johnson wrote:
Rather what's being argued is that we should report what *is* published by reliable, third-party sources. Nothing more or less.
But of course it's not that simple, either. What we "report" *is* *less* than what's published by reliable, third-party sources -- because we don't report everything. We select. And as soon as we start selecting, no matter how objective and policy-driven we try to be, we have to worry about -- we get to engage in -- selection bias.
I gave an example of a reliably-sourced fact which I don't think should be in the [[Natascha Kampusch]], because it's a scurrilous allegation that I doubt is true, and it doesn't help (and probably hurts) the victim and her mother, and it doesn't help any of our readers, either. The only way to cover it "properly" is with far more words' worth of explanation than it deserves, so the wise course of action is to leave it out, just as we leave out what Natascha had for breakfast this morning, and what color underwear she favors.
2008/4/29 WJhonson@aol.com:
Rather what's being argued is that we should report what *is* published by reliable, third-party sources. Nothing more or less.
This is what is being argued *by you*, apparently in some kind of special one-man echo chamber. Everyone else was discussing the problem of uncaught vandalism, which is more or less unrelated.
The fact that they are both major issues for the same type of article does not make them the same thing.
Andrew Gray wrote:
2008/4/29 WJhonson@aol.com:
Rather what's being argued is that we should report what *is* published by reliable, third-party sources. Nothing more or less.
This is what is being argued *by you*, apparently in some kind of special one-man echo chamber. Everyone else was discussing the problem of uncaught vandalism, which is more or less unrelated.
The fact that they are both major issues for the same type of article does not make them the same thing.
Yes, and let's not derail a discussion of uncaught vandalism by sidetracking in a bunch of other things.