[WikiEN-l] Attack Site Wars, Episode VII... The Return of the Essjay

[George Herbert]

On 6/25/07, Anirudh <anirudhsbh at gmail.com> wrote:
> the media coverage was because Wikipedia is a famous website, Essjay was
> not, is not. He came into limelight only because of the controversy created
> on the website.
>
> Would this piece be of any value after 10 years? I think not.
>
> It is a serious BLP violation and should be deleted. Imagine something like
> this having repercussions for the rest of your life for something which you
> did in your teens.
>
> Sir Nicholas

I think two statements are true:


1) An incident which has coverage (in some cases front-page) in most
major US newspapers and newsmagazines rises to the level of notability
under any rational interpretation of the word.

2) This sucks for Essjay.


BLP doesn't mean we won't cover something because it involves a friend
or aquaintence of ours who has been put in a terrible situation.

I understand the desire to save Essjay the ongoing embarrassment.  I
sympathize with it.  But that doesn't override (1) above.  He managed
to make himself notable in the real world press.

If you're going to propose that we really should delete the article,
then don't cloak it in BLP.  There is no BLP policy violation.  There
is an arguable human dignity issue, but that's not strictly a BLP
policy issue.  If you want to argue for one of the special-case human
dignity exceptions to be made, then argue for that, not that this
falls under BLP policy.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com