jf_wikipedia wrote:
In en-wiki we are making good progress in addressing
BLP concerns
related to non-notable individuals, as well as being very cautious
about using primary sources that have not been described in secondary
sources (such as court documents) in BLPs of notable individuals. But
what about Wikisource?
Currently there is no exclusionary criteria in Wikisource that will
limit contributors into adding material such as civil cases court
rulings, including divorce proceedings, bankruptcy cases, and other
such disputes.
As it stands know, an editor can upload a bunch of court documents to
Wikisource, link these Wikisource pages back to Wikipedia articles
and add a links to Wikisource to WP articles via the {{sisterlinks}}
or {{wikisource}} templates.
Material that would not have been acceptable to include in a BLP,
either as text or as an EL, by virtue of the lack of a consistent
exclusionary policy in Wikisource, and relative low number of
contributors and admins that monitor material there, is now bypassing
all these BLP protection measures we have in place.
Any thoughts?
BLP is a construct of en:Wikipedia, and unless it has been properly
discussed in other projects it would be improper to impose this on them
out of nowhere.. The autonomy of each project should be respected unless
there is a very good reason to do otherwise.
Have there been any real problems of this sort in Wikisource, or are you
just speculating? Wikisource does not write its own biographies, except
to give a few details that would help to identify authors whose works
are included.
Court documents are in the public domain in many jurisdiction, this
would include pleadings of all sorts as well as decisions of judges.
Realistically, only the decisions tend to be regularly reported. Court
decisions are themselves a part of the law in that they provide a body
of precedents to be used in future decisions. They provide the
reasoning that is essential to the law. They are a significant factor
in attaining an accountable judicial system in a free and open society.
You mention the possibility that some individuals could circumvent WP
policies eith links to WS. A more important question is how many such
instances have their actually been. If there have been none, or they
are very few, it would seem that following your suggestion would be to
seek solutions for make-believe problems. Perhaps then, the most
practical approach would be to deal with this at the link level on WP.
Ec