On 8/2/07, Joshua Brady somitho@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