[WikiEN-l] Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun

[Bryan Derksen]

Slim Virgin wrote:
> On 3/29/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> Slim Virgin wrote:
>>> We're going to have more than a major hole in our coverage if we lose a lawsuit.
>> Why? Aside from requiring us to take down whatever libelous
>> misinformation we lost the case over (which we would want to do
>> _anyway_), what limitation would it put on Wikipedia's coverage?
> 
> If someone with money were to sue Wikipedia for having damaged him --
> or were to finance a lawsuit brought by someone else -- it could end
> up costing a great deal because of the global distribution of the
> content, and perhaps also because we've not shown ourselves to be
> deadly serious about getting rid of defamation. Unlike news
> organizations Wikipedia has no libel insurance so it could put us out
> of business.

Okay, I guess I'll accept it as a hypothetical worst-case scenario. So
Wikimedia Foundation goes out of business. The database is GFDL, we can
set up a new foundation and resume editing elsewhere. A major hassle but
IMO better than compromising the fundamental goal of writing a
comprehensive free encyclopedia.

I don't consider this scenario likely, though. We _are_ serious about
removing libel, we've got powerful policies to that effect, and the site
is laden with disclaimers in case we temporarily miss some. I have faith
that the legal system is not _completely_ insane, as evidenced by the
fact that numerous other sources that could be much more damaging have
yet to be sued out of existence.

>>> The ideal thing would be to come up with a working definition of
>>> "borderline notable" and to give those people the right to have their
>>> bios deleted on request. But this being Wikpedia, we'll never agree on
>>> a definition.
>> Largely because IMO such a thing is impossible to define in anything
>> like an objective manner.
> 
> We could come up with an imperfect working definition.

It would result in unending conflict. I'd rather look for ways to
sidestep the issue by improving the maintainability of even "borderline
notable" bios.

>>> Another good idea is not to allow living bios on people who have not
>>> already had a bio published by a reliable source. That would massively
>>> reduce our coverage, but it would solve almost all of our problems.
>> It would leave at least one really massive problem though; we'd lack
>> coverage of everyone who doesn't already have a bio published by a
>> reliable source (for whatever value of "reliable source" gets settled
>> on). For a resource that's claiming to be a general encyclopedia this
>> would be a _massive_ omission.
> 
> It would be an omission for sure. It would mean only truly notable
> people got WP bios.

Based on an admittedly imperfect definition of who's notable, though. In
this case _very_ imperfect since there are plenty of people who a lot of
editors would consider obviously notable who haven't had biographies
published about them. Lacking articles on them would (IMO rightly) be
seen as a flaw in Wikipedia.

>> Also, I'd like to know how you know that there's a "huge number" of
>> vanity articles and attack pages on Wikipedia.
> 
> I don't know how many there are, and I've not kept any kind of
> records. I know that I've encountered a large number of problematic
> bios, or biographical material inside other articles, where people
> with grudges have inserted false material maliciously, or for a laugh.
> And the problems of vanity articles are well known, though less
> pressing.

Well, my subjective experience has been the opposite of yours. Lacking
an objective measure of some sort I guess there's not much more to be
said on this one.

> I'm guessing that this kind of thing goes on a lot under the radar,
> and that one day we're going to do it to the wrong person. I'd like to
> see an imaginative solution before that happens.

I think the best way to approach this would be to get better radar. Our
existing policies and practices should be just fine, it may simply be a
question of applying them properly.