[WikiEN-l] Defamation policy

[Anthony]

> > I agree with the idea of treating bios with care, but that does not
> > necessarily necessitate the use of an entirely different methodology
> > than any other wiki page - including censoring talk pages. You may as
> > well start a biowiki that operates under entirely different rules.
>
> BLP at its best (I'm not saying there isn't any instruction creep and
> CWE cruft appearing at the edges) is not about establishing a double
> standard.  It's about making damn sure the standards we should be
> applying to other sections of the encyclopaedia as well are followed on
> the biographies of living persons.
>
> Untrue statements should not be published in our encyclopaedia.  Since
> the project is so big (and we have contributors who are misinformed,
> stupid, or just plain malicious), problems are unavoidable.  By being
> strict about the biographies of living persons, we're trying to crack
> down on problems that can actually hurt people here and now.  True
> statements which happen to raise the ire of an article's subject,
> however, should remain, and insisting on a reliable source for such
> statements simply gives us something to point to next time the article's
> subject comes around to complain.
>
I think it's important to take a grain of salt with this argument.
The fact is that untrue statements pretty much anywhere in Wikipedia
can actually hurt people here and now.  Personally I don't really
think there is much justification for having a different set of rules
for biographies of living people.  What I do think is that they
generally need to be monitored more closely than the average article,
because the subjects tend to be more controversial.

By the way, if we really do want to remove potentially defamatory
statements from all of Wikipedia, and not just the articles, I'd like
to nominate [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro]]
for deletion.  The comment made by Muriel is particularly defamatory
to me.

> For some editors, WP:BLP is the difference between "fuck you, man, you
> can't tell us what to do" and "I'm sorry you feel aggrieved.  Our
> article about you is well-sourced, however, and contains no errors of
> fact as far as we can see.  If you dispute the content of a particular
> statement we've made, please point to a reliable source providing an
> alternate theory and we'll be happy to update the article.  Thank you
> for helping us improve Wikipedia."
>
An interesting question is what to do when the false rumors are
well-sourced, but the real truth isn't.  I'd think this was rare
except that I've seen it happen on quite a few occassions.  I'm sure
Jimbo can attest to the fact that the media quite often turns complete
falsehoods into what passes for a reliably sourced statement when it
comes to living people.  When this happens should we give the person a
chance to defend themselves?  How can we do this while keeping with
the standards of verifiability and no original research?

Anthony