[WikiEN-l] Bans and online/offline reputation (was Re: Follow-up on my Ban from Wikipedia (part 3))

[Armed Blowfish]

On 13/09/2007, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Sep 2007, Thomas Dalton wrote:
>>> Wikis are, by Wikipaedia's own definition, self-published
>>> and therefore unreliable, especially when it comes to
>>> negative info on living persons.
> >
> > For the main namespace, certainly. Other namespaces and the official
> > logs are acceptable primary sources for things to do with Wikipedia
> > and events that happened on it.
>
> If I wrote on my blog that you eat hobbits, my blog is a primary source for
> "Ken claims Mr. Dalton eats hobbits", but an unreliable self-published
> source for "Mr. Dalton actually does eat hobbits".  The former is an event
> that happened on my blog.  The latter is unreliable info about a living
> person.
>
> Most people who Google someone's name
> and come across a Wikipedia page about
> them will be using Wikipedia as a source in
> the latter, unreliable, way.

Exactly.  : )  Also, reliable sourcing restrictions
server not only to ensure a certain level of
accuracy, but also to ensure a certain level
of notability.  Non-notable subjects have a
presumption in favour of privacy.  So, unless
Britannica bothers to mention that the individual
was banned from Wikipaedia, not need for
Wikipaedia to mention it on a Google-indexed
page.