[WikiEN-l] The Second Rape: Victim-Blaming (was Re: Self-sensorship, how far should it go?)

[Slim Virgin]

On 8/2/07, Joshua Brady <somitho at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can we try to move on and stop harping on this, and discuss a real
> solution for a change? What do we want to do/what are we going to do
> about this? What can/will we do to stop this in the future?
>
Josh, we already have a policy in place for dealing with this type of
situation, and what we can do to stop this in future is to stick to
that policy. It's [[Wikipedia:Biography of living persons]], which
extends to material about living persons published anywhere on
Wikipedia, including talk pages.

It says that we must use the best sources for anything contentious,
and that unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material must be
removed immediately from any page it's found on (not may be, must be).
It also says that discussion about these issues must not be
protracted, and that we should act sensitively, with due regard for
the effect any discussion might have on a person's life.

In my situation, certain editors seem to be feel that OhmyNews (which
is effectively or entirely composed of self-published material, in
this case written by someone with no relevant qualifications or
experience, and who made no effort to contact me, which is something
no journalist would have done) is a reliable source, as is Slashdot,
which simply repeated the OhmyNews story, and which also made no
effort to contact me, which -- again-- is something a reliable source
would not have done. Our loose definition of "reliable source" hinges
on the issue of fact-checking: sources with a poor reputation for it
are not regarded as reliable for contentious BLP material. In this
case, there was no fact-checking whatsoever, and both websites went
ahead and published false and highly damaging material.

Therefore, it seems to me that the editors who referred to the
allegations on my talk page, and those who now say those posts
shouldn't have been removed, haven't read the BLP policy, which is
worrying, or else they think I'm not a living person. Perhaps I'm a
member of the Wikipedia undead, good enough to squeeze tens of
thousands of edits out of, but not good enough for any of the
editorial protection we extend to every other (non-Wikipedian!) human
being on the planet.

Sarah