[WikiEN-l] Analysis of BLP issues (Jimmy Wales should reconsider)

[MacGyverMagic/Mgm]

On 4/22/07, Jeff Raymond <jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:
>
>
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > 2. How much of that material is posted by one person?
>
> Why should this matter?  I'm the primary author of two (almost three)
> featured articles - if one was a bio negative in tone, does it matter if
> it's sourced well?

If all the negative material is written by a single person, it's more likely
they have an axe to grind with the article subject.

> 4. Is it based on one negative incident?
>
> An entire biographical article on Michael Richards balanced too far on the
> n-word incident, or the Alec Baldwin thing from this week, yeah, there's
> an issue.  What about the astronaut who went cross country in an alleged
> attempt to murder her jilted lover?  Guess what - her biography's going to
> be based on that one incident, no matter what the eventual outcome.  This
> isn't a bad thing, either - it's simply reality.


That would be a bad thing. You could write a perfectly fine article about an
astronaut that doesn't have its focus on the alledged murder plot.
There's other reasons why he should be noted and those should be given more
weight.

The Bauer article is a very poor example - talk about a bad result
> comnbined with an atypical situation.  If 4 is the case, under normal
> circumstances (i.e. the subject isn't in the midst of suing Wikipedia),
> the article would likely be kept.
>
> -Jeff


Have you heard of the case going to court? I certainly haven't. Bauer has a
history of frivolous legal threats and she's never followed through on any
of them.
Anyone with even a smidge of knowledge about the literary world would've
known enough to see it could've been kept without any problems (someone even
tried to balance it). The thing is, if you are mainly known for something
negative, that's going to be the focus of the bio. The Viriginia Tech
shooter would have the shooting feature heavily in his article. That doesn't
mean anything negative is automatically a BLP issue. But it appears lawsuits
scare people enough to give up on the spot.