[WikiEN-l] Bruce McMahan

[Ray Saintonge]

Matthew Brown wrote:

>On 3/29/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>I'm troubled here by the shifting argument. First it's from a
>>tabloid. Except it's not from a tabloid - it's from a reputable paper
>>that did original research. But then when it's pointed out that NOR
>>isn't relevant to this either it becomes insignificant.
>>
>>Still not the case - if we're having an article on the guy, this is a
>>sensible thing to put in it.
>>    
>>
>I wholly agree.  We don't have a policy of avoiding scandalous or
>unfavorable information about living persons - we have a policy about
>being strict about our sourcing.
>
I have no problem with including scandalous information as long as it's 
verifiable, and, because of the potential for repercussions doubly 
verified rather than merely verifiable.  It is inevitable that those who 
spesak for us in the media will be blinsided by questions about these 
articles, but with 1.7 million articles there is no way that such a 
person can be familiar with every possible problem.  When a problem is 
raised one can only promise to have people familiar with the subject 
look into it to ensure that the information it contains is accurate.  We 
should not be promising political correctness.

>This story was published by a paper that yes, is alternative and local
>- but not a tabloid by any means - and was republished by other
>alternative-press papers including the Village Voice.  These are
>sources that exercise editorial judgment and fact-checking, and they
>are big enough to be vulnerable to lawsuits if they publish libellous
>untruths, just like the major press.
>
Absolutely.  The paper press is paper.  Even if the New York Times 
supports the motto, "All the news that's fit to print," it is still 
constrained by the realities of the paper medium.  It follows from that 
that certain issues will be covered by publications with a more local 
distribution.  A topic that is local in its notability is still notable 
to the locals.  Most would not be publicized far and wide, though local 
newspaper do get mailed to a town's former residents who have moved 
away.  Most of us are completely uninterested in local scandals in 
somebody else's community, but some people are.

>Stories like this rarely make the major press simply because they are
>not the kind of stories they're interested in.  In my experience,
>personal scandal like this is generally not reported in the local
>mainstream press unless real-world consequences occur - criminal
>prosecutions or dismissals, for instance - and even more rarely in the
>national or financial press unless the individual is of national
>significance and the scandal has grown to have substantial real-world
>consequence.  The tabloid and celebrity press is generally not
>interested in businessmen unless they're stupendously rich or a media
>whore a la Donald Trump.
>
It's also not unusual for the mainstream press to have a big front page 
article when the subject is spectacularly arrested.  But it's damned 
boring for them to sit through a trial that finds someone innocent.

>IMO, this is using BLP as a hammer to beat scandal and negative
>stories out of Wikipedia, even a well-sourced one, and I suspect that
>it is done out of a belief that Wikipedia should not be reporting on
>such - that it is 'unencyclopedic'.  
>
I do have a book titled "Encyclopedia of Serial Killers."  There is some 
interest in this kind of thing!  Enough to make it encyclopedic.  While 
I don't think there is much honour in extensive reporting on this kind 
of thing I think we do just as much if not more harm bringing it to 
people's attention by arguing over it.  By all means remove the 
information immediately when it cannot be substantiated.  If the 
argument is only over its importance to the subject, we do much better 
waiting a couple of months before removing it quietly.

>I don't think that point of view
>has strong consensus.
>
The point may not have strong consensus, but that's no deterrent to the 
supporters from pushing that point of view.

Ec