[WikiEN-l] Cluesticks needed regarding WP:BLP and WP:RS

[Jason Potkanski]

(Note:The original message ended up in a moderator queue for being too
long. Plain text version only -Elec)

Greetings, Electrawn here. I think this is a perfect opportunity to
introduce myself since I am being flamed on the list here without a proper
invite. I will mention the articles in reference. Defamation and False light
are serious problems with wikipedia and need to be addressed now.
Eventualism is not going to work in this case, this is a ticking bomb that
has already gone off twice, first with Siegenthaler, and parodied with
"Wikiality." If we are going to hand off cluesticks in posts, we should hand
them to the reflections in the mirror. We need to resolve the issues before
the messengers and lawyers arrive with a subpoena.

Reference/Disclaimer: The information in this post derives from talk at Kyra
Phillips and Jeff Gannon. Kyra Phillips is a CNN news anchor who seems to
lean conservative. Jeff Gannon was a reporter with dubious credentials
involved in a white house scandal. Administrator Rob/Gamaliel is currently
in arbitration with editor Crockspot over edits to Jeff Gannon.

For much of this post, I suggest readers read
http://www.chillingeffects.org/defamation/faq.cgi .

> Of course I fully support the spirit and motives behind BLP and
> obviously I see the urgent need to make sure serious allegations
> against living people are fully and reliably sourced.  But people are
> stretching BLP far beyond what it should be used to combat - unsourced
> and unreliable assertions.  Now people are using it to remove all
> sorts of critical information that would reasonably be included and to
> further their own ideological agendas.  Some examples, all typed in
> with presumably a straight face.

The contrary to that is that criticisms of Kyra Phillips were petty, not
really criticisms, and provided NPOV:Undue Weight to tiny minority
arguments. In regards to defamation and potential libel, the
statements/criticisms on the Kyra Phillips are likely (
http://www.chillingeffects.org/defamation/faq.cgi#QID526) Defamation per se:

   - Tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession,
   trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in
   those respects that the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or
   by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or
   business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits.

Journalists pride themselves on objectivity and painting them as unobjective
or biased may cause injury. The section itself may paint Kyra Phillips in a
false light, (http://www.chillingeffects.org/defamation/faq.cgi#QID726).
Yes, it seems by letting a tiny majority have equal say, this is potential
defamation.

Legal or illegal, such biographies should be given benefit of the doubt and
extreme careful vetting to negative criticism. Its an encyclopedia, not a
soapbox.  If an editor rushes to add one negative thing without adding two
positive things, that should be a clear clue that its an agenda and NPOV.

BLP is not just for combating "unsourced and unreliable assertions." BLP is
an policy to combat against defamation. WP:LIBEL needs to be defined to
protect wikipedia from both agenda editors and lawsuit happy individuals.

Lets beat this in like a headon commercial.

BLP is a policy to protect biography subjects and wikipedia from defamation.
BLP is a policy to protect biography subjects and wikipedia from defamation.
BLP is a policy to protect biography subjects and wikipedia from defamation.

Addressing critical information: Most "critical information" in wikipedia is
from a tiny minority. Some of these editors are cranks, some are well
meaning or mastermind schemers. In an article about an inanimate object,
like say pluto, wikipedia eventualism can have its way. Dead people don't
have careers, just legacy. Eventualism can discuss whether Abraham Lincoln
was gay all day. In a BLP article, the defamation per se ramifications put
the subject, editors, wikipedia and wikimedia foundation in potential legal
trouble. This requires immediatism, which is contrary to how most editors
act and feel about wikipedia. (Consensus building, etc.).

"Ideological agenda." Wikipedia is not a soapbox, nor a tabloid newspaper,
nor a bunch of other things. Wikipedia is moving from concept to
authoritative. The more relevant wikipedia becomes, the more potential
damage from defamation in BLP articles. The stakes become higher. Expert
Editors are realizing the stakes are becoming high and becoming discontent
and flaming out (see WP:Expert Retention). Openness is what made wikipedia
reach critical mass and will be critical to its reaching fully authoritative
status in the future. The US is still a nation of laws (as much as we hate
them and those that create the laws) and we can't throw those out just
because they are inconsistent with a majority of wikipedian editors.

Personally, I find Kyra Phillips and the criticisms on her page amusing but
irrelevant. The criticisms are dangerous when seen from a libel perspective,
and BLP has to be used like a fist to keep it out of the article until it is
negative criticisms are carefully gone over with a fine toothed comb and
polishing cloth. My thoughts on Jeff Gannon are he probably is a prostitute
and there are certainly big problems with his white house access. Still,
claims of sexual impropriety are strong defamation per se, and need the fine
comb and polish cloth...and then again twice more for good measure.

BLP:When in doubt, keep it out.
BLP:When in doubt, keep it out.
BLP:When in doubt, keep it out.

...

Now I "threw the book" at Kyra Phillips as a sort of test case. While
NPOV:Undue is much much stronger, WP:V requires that editors with dubious
sourcing have the burden of proof in BLP instances to keep a dubious claim
in. It is much easier to attack a dubious source than dubious claims. WP:V
with WP:RS has much more of a yes or no factor than the NPOV:undue
Maybe/maybe not.


>* A man who posted nude pictures of himself on websites whose domains
>he registered advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay prostitute can
> not be identified as a prostitute.
>
>

This related to [[Jeff Gannon]], and the potential defamation per se is
ugly:


   - Charges any person with crime, or with having been indicted,
   convicted, or punished for crime; (
   http://www.chillingeffects.org/defamation/faq.cgi#QID726)
   - Imputes to him impotence or a want of chastity.
   - Tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession,
   trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in
   those respects that the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or
   by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or
   business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits;

I suppose we could even use the disease claim, since prostitutes are known
for likely having diseases. Claiming a guy is a prostitute nails the head of
defamation per se. WP:V isn't enough here if using primary sources, editors
better make sure this is TRUTH before allowing it in wikipedia as a fact.

The more "true" phrasing is to use the word alleged. Alleged prostitute is
much easier to prove true. Did the media at the time bring up allegations of
impropriety and prostitution? Sure did. Using wikipedia to say he IS a
prostitute? Potential libel, lets have a media source with a fact checking
department or a grand jury indictment/trial or a book publisher and author
sort that out. Using an op-ed piece in a primary source form to back up the
claim is dubious. A secondary source here is REQUIRED.

The "agenda" here is wikipedia CYA.


> * The Financial Times cannot be used as a source in an article about a
> journalist because they "report on finances issues" and thus are
> "unreliable" when it comes to other matters.
>
> This is related to Kyra Phillips

Field of view. Sources get more unreliable as they report on matters outside
their focus subject. While your surgeon is qualified to remove your gall
bladder, is he qualified to replace your auto transmission? Can an auto
mechanic remove your gall bladder? Now this analogy is specific to
defamation. Think of the surgeon as a potential BLP source, the gall bladder
as negative criticism and the body as the BLP subject. The auto mechanic
here is just a regular source, maybe even the same BLP source, your
transmission is negative criticism and the auto is a non BLP subject. If the
surgeon screws up your car, you are just likely out time, money and a means
of transportation. If the auto mechanic screws up your gall bladder surgery,
you may die. The point here is BLP articles have much higher stakes,
certainly not death itself, but death equivalent if they have no career.

This calls into play use of FT in a BLP article...use of FT may be fine in
any article, say Pluto...but a UK papers commentary of a US journalist may
be dubious.

Irrespective, the FT source use in the article wasn't criticism, more a
notable instance of stupidity regarding what Kyra Phillips said. It did not
back up claims of "conservative bias" or my assertion of possible bad
objectivity. It was just a stupid thing to say, and journalists make them on
rare occasions. The framing of the statement was used to support a "bias"
claim, which may be false light.

Personally, attacking FT as a source is a devil's advocate argument. I
certainly believe a UK paper can comment on a US journalist and do it
fairly, objectively, and not be a dubious source. There are much bigger
problems with the section/statements in general than claiming FT as a
dubious source. However, since it is much more defined on what a dubious
source is in policy, it is easy to chip away at the libel rocks using this
method.

* The Columbia Journalism Review is a reliable source.  A blog run by
> the Columbia Journalism Review on the website of the Columbia
> Journalism Review is not.
>
>

I will state I don't think the blog of CJR is a dubious source. I would
think by having the name CJR as part of the name of the blog, the reputation
and editorial oversight of the CJR journal extends to the blog. Another
brought up significant questions of the blogs oversight and self published
sources. Since those tests were generally unanswered, even though I strongly
don't agree, I still follow "when in doubt keep it out" regarding the
source. This is contrary to the way most editors are acting, but this method
of keeping out till proven reliable should be the standard, not the
exception.

* The New Republic, among other reputable, long-standing publications,
> cannot be used as a source because they are "too partisan".
>
>
 Field of view again. How far is the politics of a publication too far? Much
of this boils down is way too many articles using PRIMARY sources
 rather than secondary ones. Partisan magazines should be used in articles
discussing politics, not in biographies of journalists, authors, etc. This
is a fundamental wikipedia credibility problem. Using primary sources like
these brings up NPOV issues for the entire article. This also brings up
false light problems in BLP articles.

I think The New Republic and The Nation have a place in articles such as US
Political Newspapers, US Politics, Democrats and Republicans, but their use
in a biography of a journalist should be avoided.

Rob forgets to mention a more obvious case....Can Southern Voice, a gay
newspaper with a LGBT audience, be a reliable source for a BLP article? My
assertion is no way can a LGBT newspaper be assumed not to be far left and
too partisan/too advocacy journalism for a wikipedia source. There may be
perception that I have  an anti-homosexual agenda, which is false. I don't
find a church bulletin or "Christian newspaper" as an acceptable source
either. 501(3) non profits need careful scrutiny as well.

>* Partisan organizations and publications, even long-standing and
> reputable ones, cannot be used in an article at all, even to
> substantiate the fact that there is partisan criticism of the subject
> of the article.  I'm not taking about someone objecting to "John Doe
> did this bad thing", I'm talking about people objecting to the article
> saying "X, Y, and Z criticize John Doe, saying this thing he did may
> have been bad."
>

In this case I think Rob is misreading the talk discussion. I have never
objected to the use of a direct quote, however, I will still bring up use of
that quote versus NPOV:undue, and notability of the person making the
criticism. Once in direct quote form, that won't end discussion on its use.
In this case, there is no "X, Y, Z" more like just X. X is from the Poynter
institute, a journalistic education and ethics think tank. Quite qualified
to criticize a journalist, however, is one criticism enough about one
specific issue worthy of a biography article? How about when the critic is
not directly criticizing the biography subject, just news journalist in
general?

> In addition to well-intentioned people wildly misapplying BLP and RS,
> we may have handed a powerful new weapon to POV warriors, who wish to
> sanitize all the articles about their ideological fellow travelers.  A
> well-meaning user has created the "Libel Protection Unit", but this is
> the same person who thinks that you are libeling someone by quoting
> something said by the "unreliable" Financial Times, and among the
> people he's unwittingly recruited for his new group and have eagerly
> signed up are some notorious POV warriors and at least one certified
> troll.  I realize that what I'm writing may not show much good faith,
> but based on what I've seen from some of these folks and the
> statements I've noted above, I fear that this LPU will do much to
> remove legitimate material from the encyclopedia and do little to
> protect us from actual libel.  Some people have weighed in with
> sensible remarks, like Jmabel at [[Wikipedia talk:Libel-Protection
> Unit]], but I think more people should do so before this gets out of
> hand.
>

Just the nature and framing of this post should be insight into the
defamation potential and problems with Libel on Wikipedia. We obviously
don't worry about NPOV on mailing lists, but you can see without my
perspective, this post and thread has just generated a bunch of "yup yup"
within the metapedian perspective. In short, please don't shoot the
messenger. Concerns about this group getting out of control are unfounded, I
repeatedly am attempting to build consensus before action. All sorts of
people were invited to participate who have concerns about NPOV, Bias, BLP
and Libel...possible "POV warriors" and "trolls" too. Of the initial people
invited, I invited a "POV warrior" by the username of Gamaliel. Gamaliel has
made repeated reversions to pages to versions containing potential libelous
material rather than leaving it out when confronted with BLP policy. I fully
understand the nature and culture of eventualism, hence why I took a bit of
tea, put on the thinking cap and came up with a working group for Libel
issues. Still, there are no innocents here, including admitted acts of bad
faith. No attempts have been made to exclude anyone, the more eyeballs and
consensus the better.

Since this post, Jossi has renamed the unit BLP Patrol, [[WP:BLPP]]. Before
the group can act, defamation needs to be strictly defined on wikipedia.
Reliable sources have a much more strict definition and are one method I use
for bringing up potential libel issues if NPOV:Undue isn't obvious. There
are severe problems with [[WP:LIBEL]], wikimedia and the legal team, as well
as members of florida bar and wikipedia law project really need to get
involved with the discussion and crafting of [[WP:LIBEL]]. Experts and legal
advice are needed badly.

Action is needed yesterday. See [[WP:BLP]], [[WP:LIBEL]], [[WP:BLPP]].

Jason "Electrawn" Potkanski