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

[Ray Saintonge]

Fred Bauder wrote:

>  
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Carl Beckhorn [mailto:cbeckhorn at fastmail.fm]
>>Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 08:03 AM
>>To: 'English Wikipedia'
>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] BLP, and admin role in overriding community review
>>
>>On Fri, May 25, 2007 at 01:11:35PM +0000, Fred Bauder wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Verifiability and No original research are fundamental policies and 
>>>enforced as such.
>>>      
>>>
>>Of course they are policies. I only said they are not foundation issues 
>>and therefore must be the other sort of policy: the type that is 
>>actionable only because there is consensus to follow it.
>>
>>I am more intersted in the interplay between 
>>* your (novel) interpretation of the BLP policy
>>* the requirement for "wiki process", which _is_ a foundation issue. 
>>
>>It's clear that they fit together nicely in this case, but not in the 
>>way you claim. 
>>
>>- Carl 
>>    
>>
>I think my prior interpretation of BLP may have been unduly expansive.
>
>With respect to Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view there is firm longstanding consensus dating from the founding of the project. A transient consensus overruling those fundamental policies in a particular case is not valid and will not be effective.
>
This is historically inaccurate.  NPOV has indeed been a part of 
Wikipedia from the very beginning.  Wikipedia was already a year old 
when I became involved, and it was during that year that no original 
research became important.  This was primarily in response to a number 
of crackpot physics theories that were being added to the encyclopedia.  
Verifiability followed quickly on the heels of this as a means of 
establishing that something was not original research.

>Likewise we will not permit potentially libelous material to remain in an article. We term it poorly sourced controversial information, but bottom line, not only is there potential legal liability, but it is wrong. With respect to articles such as about the complaining witness in the Duke La Cross case, Neutral point of view conflicts with Verifiability as we have no way to round out such an article as the only published material is negative. Resolution of the conflict is difficult and results will vary with the situation.
>
So who is arguing that we should include libellous material?  Whether 
something is libellous is a question of fact that is highly debatable.  
When you extend that to the "potentially" libellous so too is the 
debatability.  These debates on fact driven situations need a chance to 
run their course.

I know nothing of Duke La Cross or what he might have done wrong, and I 
don't care to know.  Furthermore one should be cautious about 
generalizing on the basis of one individual.  If all that anybody 
verifiably know about him is bad, and we include it all in our article, 
then our article has satisfied NPOV.  We are not a community of Anne 
Franks who must document the little bit of remote good that must exist 
in everyone.  There is no obligation for a single editor to cover all 
the bases in an article.  A second editor can still add the positive 
features to an otherwise negative biography.  The real problem arises 
when each tries to suppress properly verifiable information which the 
other has supplied.

Ec