[WikiEN-l] BLP, medical information, and media controversy

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/9/21 Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>:
> Among issues difficult to resolve while respecting the limitations of
> the BLP policy, enter the article about a world-class athlete whose
> gender has recently been questioned. The problem is this: can the
> article discuss the supposed results of the tests and its
> implications, as widely reported, without violating the BLP policy?
> The information is clearly personal and very sensitive, and the
> official results have not yet been released (and they may not be). In
> normal circumstances, that would argue strongly against including
> speculation. The perverse effect in this case, though, is that details
> that have become common knowledge are entirely missing from our
> article.

When you are unsure how to apply a policy to an unusual situation, it
is best to go back to first principles and consider the reasons behind
that policy. The main reason for BLP is to reduce harm to living
people, so the question you need to ask is "Will including this
information cause more harm to the subject than is acceptable?" (what
is acceptable is obviously subjective). In this case, the information
is so widely available that I can't see including it doing any
significant harm at all, so we should include it.