[WikiEN-l] You really don't get it

[Bryan Derksen]

doc wrote:
> George Herbert wrote:
> 
>> Someone who has a WP article about them that they percieve negatively
>> may be upset, but it's one thing to say that we sympathize with them
>> being upset, and quite another to suggest that we shouldn't have an
>> article about them, or about large classes of people including them.
> 
> Gosh, you really don't get it do you?
> 
> We're not talking about Brandt and mildly critical stuff on a 
> well-written and highly monitored article. We are talking about 
> downright libels, negative spinning, and outrageous lies. We are talking 
> about biographies that have pulled together every detail of a minor 
> small-town scandal, and ignored any positive information whatsoever. 
> People have an absolute right not to be subjected to that 
> "WarmFuzzyPedia" or not.
> 
> We insist on NPOV BLP and V, but we are hosting thousands of biographies 
> that do not comply with these policies and we have structures that have 
> manifestly proven inadequate in dealing with them.

{{fact}}. Put together a listing of these biographies, publicize it, and
if they really are so egregiously libelous I expect editors would start
swarming all over them like rabid deletionist weasels.

> If we host bios - we have a duty of care to the subject. We are clearly 
> in breach of that duty.

I've seen no evidence of this beyond individual anecdotal cases.

> Yes, people don't get 'take down rights' in the real media - but real 
> media is produced by writers with real names and by publishers who take 
> legal responsibility, not written by ten year olds or clever anonymous 
> people with a malicious grudge and then published by non-responsible 
> foundation.

How many such editors are there compared to the legions of good editors
who are working to thwart them? Even in those individual anecdotal cases
I mentioned seeing above, the moment the libels and lies became the
subject of widespread attention they got thoroughly stamped out.
Articles get protected, stubbed, or deleted, and problem editors get banned.

BTW, I assume that "doc wikipedia" isn't actually your real name. I have
no problem with pseudonymy myself but since you're arguing that it's a
bad thing you should probably practice what you preach if you want to be
taken seriously.

> People have a absolute right not to have their name googled and find 
> that the highest ranking site (or perhaps only internet information on 
> them) has been written by a silly slanderous schoolkid, their 
> ex-husband's angry girlfriend, or a disgruntled ex-employee or rival out 
> to trash them. And often these subtle attacks are on the face reading 
> well-referenced and seemingly factual. Never spotted as simple vandalism.

Would blocking Google and the other major search engines from spidering
Wikipedia satisfy you? I'd rather see that tried before implementing
some sort of blanket ban on biographical articles.

> People have a right not have to check their own biography for hatchet 
> jobs, and if they they do check it, and there is one, they have an 
> absolute right to expect us to have a means of making sure it never 
> happens again.

Also, I think you're devaluing the phrase "absolute right" by using it
on a relative triviality like this. This isn't exactly on par with such
issues as slavery. Perhaps you should cut back on the hyperbole.

> If Wikipedia can't reasonable insure that people don't have these rights 
> infringed, then it has no business hosting their biographies in the 
> first place.

Wikipedia is better at this sort of thing than pretty much every other
free (or even cheap) web hosting site. Would you also hold MySpace,
Geocities, IMDB, etc. to these standards and demand that they ban
biographical information of any sort?

We can always get better, but perfection is impossible and we shouldn't
fall on our swords the moment we fail to achieve it.