[WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force

[Bod Notbod]

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Living_people

>This won't catch edits which remove the category, and it won't catch
the 5-10% of BLPs which aren't in the category to start with, but it's
otherwise mostly what you want, I think.

Well done Andrew, that looks exactly the sort of thing Casy needs to
know about for the Task Force.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 2:38 AM, <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:

> The language of the board resolution doesn't come down hard enough on
> the side of verifiable information.  That is, if something is
> verifiable, even a direct quote from the subject themself, then that
> information should be allowed to be included, and should not be
> forcibly stopped from inclusion by aggressive article
> patrollers-with-tools.  It seems to me that the way the language is
> worded, the board is going to continue to allow harassment of those
> editors conscientious to the evidence, at the expense of verifiable
> evidence already broadcast widely across the net.

Can you give us a real world example? I use an editing tool but where
a citation is provided I would always check it before removing
'dubious' material.

> If I gave a published interview ten
> years ago where I admitted that I was once a male hooker, well that's
> the bed I made I made and now I have to sleep in it.

Well, to a degree. But what if they later say, in an equally
verifiable source, that that was a joke? Or if a verifiable source
says it isn't true? But yes, I wouldn't object to seeing that in an
article provided policy is adhered to.

> Our job should
> not be to suppress what's already been published, and the board should
> make a strong statement that any tool-user who acts to suppress
> published information should be de-sysopped, so the playing field can
> be levelled.  It's hard enough to fight a billy club using only a
> bullhorn.

I agree suppression is bad. Again, I'm interested to know of an
article where info has been removed even though it meets
'verifiability' and 'reliable sources'.