[WikiEN-l] BLPs: Wikipedia entry nearly scuppers rugby player's career

[Charles Matthews]

"Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia)" write
> 
> On the other hand, in the realm of BLP, this guideline becomes much more
> important to keeping content that could damage the well-being and reputation
> of a living person, while serving no sufficient encyclopedic purpose to
> warrant doing so, does not sully our project.  Wikipedia does not exist to
> hurt people.

We could try to get untangled here:

- a necessary condition for material to appear in WP is not the same as a sufficient condition.

"Guidelines", to the extent that they contribute to content policy, are primarily not about "keeping". but excluding. That is what a guideline is - why have we forgotten? Outwith the guideline there is reason to ask why the content is there, in that form.

The reason that such confusion is possible goes back to wiki. Wikis are systems of permissions. The default is that people can post material to Wikipedia unless we have said otherwise. But BLP certainly is a big "otherwise". It says we need stringent application of content policy in the cases to which it applies. I certainly agree with that.

"Wikipedia does not exist to hurt people" - true, it exists to write the encyclopedia. There is no general principle of "do no harm" that we recognize, though.

Charles


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