[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Board statement regarding biographies of living people

[Ken Arromdee]

On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, David Gerard wrote:
> I was thinking more "where's the catch?" I still can't see one. A
> lollipop for each catch anyone can spot!

Some catches:

1) Glosses over how you reconcile the conflict of interest policy and allowing
people to fix their own biographies.

2) It gives a cursory, vague, reference to human dignity, but in general it
emphasises accuracy and verifiability too much.  Some BLP problems aren't
really about that, and painting them as such is trying to fit a square peg
into a round hole.  Privacy problems aren't about either one.  Undue weight
problems *could* be called accuracy, but that gives the wrong impression.
Someone who shares a name with a child molester and finds Wikipedia the first
Google hit for his name can't really complain about accuracy or verifiability.
And this doesn't even touch the issue of what to do with information is
verifiable but false.

3) And then there's this:
# Treating any person who has a complaint about how they are described
# in our projects with patience, kindness, and respect, and encouraging
# others to do the same.
The problem here, as with so many things in Wikipedia, is that Wikipedia
is set up so that in a conflict where some of us want to use a rule and some
want to use human judgment, the rule wins.  If someone who complains
ends up violating a rule, it doesn't matter how many times we say he
needs to be listened to with patience, kindness, and support; he'll probably
get treated as a rule violator.