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

[Todd Allen]

Fred Bauder wrote:
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 04:21 PM
>> To: 'English Wikipedia'
>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BLP, and admin role in overriding community review
>>
>> On 23/05/07, Trebor Rowntree <trebor.rowntree at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Sorry, repeating myself here. The lesson from Siegenthaler was to source
>>> source source, and delete anything which wasn't. It didn't (and BLP doesn't)
>>> say anything about deletion of articles about individuals famous for
>>> negative reasons.
>>>       
>> The point is that isn't particularly fame. The incident is famous, the
>> person's pretty much only famous in association with the incident. For
>> a local example, there's an article at [[Essjay controversy]] but only
>> a pointer at [[Ryan Jordan]] (which is a disambig).
>>
>> The Crystal whatsit article is now a redirect to the incident of fame
>> (and I'm fine with that; I zapped it because the single-purpose
>> editors were so rabid about it). But her *grade point averages* sure
>> as hell don't belong in the article. That's what I mean by
>> immaculately sourced attack article. Her GPAs? What on earth?
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>     
>
> That is an appropriate resolution. Rather than an article about a not notable person involved in a notable incident we have an article about the incident. What else is there to say about this person that is not malicious?
>
> Fred
>
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>   
Fred, I think you're confusing "real, verifiable, widely-reported, true
but negative information" with "malice". Slander or libel is reporting
-untrue- information, not -true- information. Especially when that
information is already widely published in reliable sources (and it
should be, we're never a first publisher), we're not harming someone by
reporting on what the reports said.

If I go put into a person's article "X murdered someone a year ago! I
know it!" with nothing to back it up, I'm acting out of malice. On the
other hand, if someone is a convicted murderer, I'm not acting out of
malice by putting that sourced information into their article-even if
it's really all they're noted for. (We have an article on Jeffrey
Dahmer, and though he's not alive, he's certainly only notable for his
murders. Same with John Lee Malvo, and he is alive.)

We don't have a ton of negative information in the article about Mother
Teresa, because, well, she's mainly notable for doing positive things!
That's not a violation of undue weight, it's an accurate reflection of
the information and sources available.But by the same token, it is -not-
a violation of undue weight to have mainly negative things in an article
about someone who's mainly notable for doing negative things.

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