[WikiEN-l] let's be honest then

[MacGyverMagic/Mgm]

Outrageous claims that are in fact libellous should indeed go. Unless the
article consists entirely of such claims this can be fixed without article
deletion. Unfortunately, people who wish to retain such text know where to
find it while editors like me don't.We should find some way for OTRS people
to get vandal hunters and other editors to keep an eye on such articles to
avoid such material from being reinserted.

Mgm


On 3/31/07, doc <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> "I was heartbroken and nauseated almost to the point of vomiting about
> the last two lines"
>
> These are the words of an e-mail I dealt with today - and they are not
> untypical. Without breaching confidentiality I can say little more. But
> it related to a biography which, without any citation, commented on an
> individual - making outrageous (and quite probably libelous) claims
> about certain activities.
>
> On behalf of wikipedia and the community, I apologised and assured the
> complainant we took such things seriously and were working to ensure
> they didn't happen. I may have lied.
>
> Perhaps a more honest reply would have been:
>
> "We're sorry you had to complain about this. Regrettably that's the
> price you pay for our determination to retain as many articles as we
> can, even though we can't currently maintain most of them. You see, if
> we change things we might upset some of our editors who might have some
> of their unreferenced articles deleted by mistake. Basically, we're more
> concerned with that type of collateral damage than with wrecking your
> life.
>
> Over time we hope to correct articles like this, although, at current
> rates of growth we'll have ten times as many by then and still won't be
> able to cope.
>
> We have fixed the article, but please be aware that this incident may
> well reoccur. We'll do our best to try to avoid that (providing it
> doesn't interfere with our determination not to change our basic way of
> operating).
>
> Disclaimer: the Wikimedia Foundation is protected by Section 230 and so
> takes no responsible, and the Wikipedia Community has not signed up to
> any ethics code.
>
> PS. You might like to know that the objectionable content has probably
> been picked up by our mirrors by now. You can either live with that, or
> contact them yourself.
>
> Yours sincerely etc."
>
> Doc
>
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