[WikiEN-l] BLP, and admin role in overriding community review

[David Gerard]

On 23/05/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:

> What I said is that it should -stay gone- until discussion takes place.
> However, my concern is that Fred effectively said that even if the
> matter is discussed, and consensus is "This is not problematic, it does
> not violate policy", anyone-even who acts on that consensus-would be
> penalized for doing so.
> I agree that if someone brings up BLP concerns, we should err on the
> side of caution until the matter is discussed, and that no one who acts
> on a BLP concern should be reversed unilaterally. But it shouldn't be
> closed to discussion or immune to consensus.


FWIW, the last actually stupid case of BLP concern I was involved with
was the one I mentioned on the list earlier, where an editor was
concerned that we were saying that [[David Gaiman]] (a somewhat famous
Scientologist, more in the 1960s than presently) was the father of
[[Neil Gaiman]] (a really quite famous comics and fantasy writer). We
had to take it all the way through showing it was likely the case to
showing it was clearly the case to showing this was public knowledge
and neither acted in any way ashamed of it to multiple newspaper
articles. Apparently we're still at risk of Neil Gaiman getting upset
that we associate him in some way with Scientology. [*] But the
articles do in fact associate the two now. (FFS.)


- d.

[*] Scientology-watchers note that Neil never, ever speaks of
Scientology and politely declines to discuss the matter in any manner
whatsoever. Finding a source for such a negative is, of course,
difficult.