[WikiEN-l] Non-office OFFICE actions

[Matt Brown]

On 6/23/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:24:29 -0600, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> wrote:
>
> >I suggest focusing on his political activities. If they are not
> >notable, the personal details of his life are not either.
>
> Tony Sidaway closed the last "real" AfD as keep because he was
> secretary of the Monday Club.  I thought this a tenuous claim to fame,
> myself.  Actually the theft, appeal, imprisonment and custody battle
> for his daughter which the theft funded are far and away the most
> interesting things about him.  Otherwise he's just a generic "darkies
> go home" far-right Tory.

Indeed.  I wouldn't be put out at all if the article was deleted; he's
at the threshold of notability if that.  However, if we're to have an
article, it should be brief but accurate.

It does seem that, aside from being a source of juicy 'nutjob tory
right' quotes when needed, his conviction for pilfering funds from his
health authority position is the most newsworthy thing he's done.  And
I'd certainly agree that most of THAT press was sheer schadenfreude at
seeing a "high Tory" caught with fingers in the till.

I couldn't find any reference material that suggested that reporting
upon a spent offence that had entered the public consciousness through
publication in the national press at the time was likely to be
forbidden under the Act.  Granted, I'm now in the USA and the only law
libraries I have access to are American ones, but I suspect that
Sussexman and sundry anon contributors would have raised some if there
were to be found.

It would be a much different matter if it were regarding an conviction
that had never garnered press attention, I suspect.

This is a very difficult area for Wikipedia because, unlike most
complaints, it has nothing to do with publishing untruth or
speculation.  It's about our publishing a sourced fact with more than
enough in the way of citations to justify it, but that someone is
arguing should be removed because of privacy law - despite the public
nature of the very sources upon which the article is based.

Note that the article has not gone into salacious detail of his
conviction - the article's words were (more or less - not looking at
it right now) 'retired from public life following a 1992 conviction
for theft".  Nothing else.

I'd also note that it's easy to get a solicitor to write threats on
headed paper - regardless of the legal methods.

-Matt