On 09/11/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
It seems strange to me that any category which could be defamatory would be subject to the whims of the voting process. This is not just a question of "Soviet spies". Any category suggesting a criminal activity of any kind should be viewed as POV.
Do we have "Category:Convicted rapists"?
In effect, yes. [[Category:Rapists]] states: "This category is for individuals who have been convicted of rape, or those for whom there is little academic doubt as to whether they committed the crime".
(There's also a [[Statutory rapists]] subcat, which I'm less comfortable with having - it's rarely a defining feature of anyone in the same way as being a convicted rapist is - but also less worried about; the very nature of the term means you have to be convicted!)
"Little academic doubt" covers things like rape-and-murder where someone's been convicted on seventeen counts of first-degree murder; even though they didn't get around to charging him with the rapes, it's not generally seen as a sign of innocence.
For [[Category:Soviet spies]], however, the description is: "This category lists people who are said to have spied for the Soviet Union by some sources. Many are not Soviet citizens. Several denied they were spies, and even more were never indicted."
This is somewhat less stringent, certainly. I mean, there's no shortage of claims that [[Harold Wilson]] was a Soviet spy - should he be in that category? God no - and if there'd been accusations of rape he wouldn't be in [[Category:Rapists]]. But under the wording now, you'd be perfectly justified adding him...
The difference between the scope of the categories can be put this way: you wouldn't be able to add Bill Clinton to the Rapists category, but you would be able to add Wilson to the Soviet spies one. Yet the accusations are only accusations for both...
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk