[WikiEN-l] COO story now in major media

[Thomas Dalton]

On 21/12/2007, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> WP:BLP1E
>
> There is no problem with covering the situation in appropriate places,
> but normal consensus about BLP's is that we don't have articles about
> people who have had some new coverage only due to a single negative
> event.  It may seem like Wikipedia is the center of the universe, but it
> actually isn't. :)
>
> Random sample found by searching in google for "coo scandal":
> http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/7813032
>
> A brief search of Wikipedia shows that in this case of a fraud alleged
> by the SEC to have involved $8.2 million profit to the CFO and COO of
> this company, we have nothing on either person, nor on the company, nor
> on the scandal.
>
> http://www.cnet.com/8301-13555_1-9805001-34.html
>
> This story talks about the same event as a $200 million fraud.  The CEO,
> about whom we do not have an article, is charged.
>
> I am not arguing that we should or should not have an article on this
> other case (but please let's not have my use of this example trigger an
> idiotic war about it!).
>
> I am just arguing that there is absolutely no way in hell we would have
> an article in the case of Carolyn Doran, were it not for Wikipedia
> navel-gazing.  There was no fraud (that we know of), nothing bad
> happened to us (that we know of), it is just an embarassment and for
> this poor woman, her rather sad life story is now in the Associated
> Press.  But this whole thing is still amply covered by BLP1E and
> non-Wikipedia precedent and tradition.

I don't see how this falls under BLP1E, since it doesn't boil down to
a single event in any way that I can see. That policy isn't critical
to your point, though, so you're still absolutely correct in your
conclusions.