[WikiEN-l] News agencies are not RSs

[Ray Saintonge]

Durova wrote:
> Agreed.  The challenge is to codify this in a manner that doesn't step upon
> the slippery slope of censorship.
>
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Ian Woollard wrote:
>   
>> On 30/06/2009, Durova wrote:
>>     
>>> Our usual BLP standards demonstrate respect for unwarranted damage that
>>> causes hurt feelings, or professional and community standing.  Surely, when
>>>       
>>> a human life may reasonably be at stake, our responsibility is to be more
>>> careful rather than less careful
>>>       
>> Interestingly, that isn't currently part of WP:BLP. I think it needs
>> to be codified.
>>
>> Clearly, when the subject of the BLP's life may be significantly
>> endangered, through no fault of their own, from information that may
>> be widely published for the first time in the wikipedia, then there's
>> a very reasonable case that it shouldn't be published in the
>> wikipedia.
>>     
If this is to be codified that could begin by taking it out of the 
already contentious BLP arena.  Endangering lives can apply just as 
easily to individuals about whom we would not otherwise have biographies 
at all in the first place.

If the information was already published by an Italian and an Afghan 
news agency, one can hardly say that Wikipedia was publishing it for the 
first time. The whole reliable sources argument too easily becomes 
another way of pushing a POV when there are no guidelines whatsoever for 
determining ahead of time what is or isn't a reliable source.  What will 
be reliable in an era of citizen journalism when reports do not go 
through the filter of paid editorial staff, and the traditional sources 
of original news are no longer consistent with the economics of news 
consumption?  What makes tweets out of Tehran reliable? Is it merely 
because they support our preconceptions?

If saving lives is the issue where do we get the arrogant idea that we 
are so important that our reporting will make any difference.  If we are 
smart enough to suspect that a person from Montreal with the name of 
Hechtman might be Jewish, it underestimates the Taliban enemy to suggest 
that they would not be able to figure that out for themselves.  Do we 
apply the policy even-handedly?  Doing so would require treating a 
Taliban life, or that of his innocent family member, with the same 
respect as a Western life.

Ec