[WikiEN-l] Radical redefinition of OR

[Ray Saintonge]

Ron Ritzman wrote:

> Come to think about it even a normally "neutral" fact might have some
>
>POV and OR issues. Let's take "date of birth" for example...
>
>There is an article about a notable model named "Carmen Roe".
>
>Carmen Roe claims to be 19 years old.
>
>Somebody digs up a copy of her birth certificate that shows that she
>is 26 and updates her Wikipedia entry.
>
>If such was done, it would be using "original research" to show that
>she "lied about her age". The article now violates both OR and NPOV.
>It would be the same as if somebody found a copy of her medical
>records that says she is HIV+ and added that. In both cases the
>article should be reverted until it's reported by a "real" news
>organization.
>  
>
There are two types of situation identified here. 

In your HIV example we are dealing with a fact that was not previously 
included in the article.  It is also a fact that could easily be viewed 
as derogatory.  You would be right to seek stronger support before 
including it.

With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming that the question of her 
editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19 
is properly documented to be a claim.  I'm also assuming that there is 
no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really 
said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26. 

It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be 
wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct 
information is not in an acceptable format.  If we are to remove the 
information about her correct age we must also remove the information 
about the age which we know to be false.

Ec