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

[David Goodman]

I see people are saying it's obvious, but they're saying it about each
of the incompatible alternatives.

I think we have a clear rule about this, which is to wait for a
confirming source. If it's talked about so widely, someone will do it
in print. In essence, I agree with Matthew. This is one of the things
provided for in the BLP compromise.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:08 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> 2009/9/21 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>:
>>
>>> The distinction to be made is between information about a person, and
>>> popularly reported claims about the person.  It needs to be made clear
>>> that reporting about a controversy is not identical to reporting about
>>> the person.  It's disingenuous to pretend that a very public controversy
>>> doesn't exist. Rather than suppressing anything about the controversy we
>>> would do better to find the appropriate language for discussing it
>>> neutrally.
>>>
>>> It's much easier to permeate a community with a series of doctrinaire
>>> rules than with a grasp of the underlying principles.
>>>
>>
>> The key point with that, in general, is "undue weight" - it is easy to
>> give too much weight to a controversy. In this case, though, the
>> controversy is so high profile and it is pretty much the only thing
>> the public know about this person that the due weight is very high.
>>
> But if the only substance to the controversy is rumour, and speculative
> discussion of rumours, we don't need either BLP or NPOV to work to
> exclude it or cut it back to a bare statement. So I agree with geni. I
> have never heard of this idea of giving weight to public conceptions or
> misconceptions. (Time to check up on how many urban myths we have. I'm
> glad to see that [[tulip mania]], a topic constantly referenced in the
> newspapers at the present, does sound the cautious note: "Many modern
> scholars believe that the mania was not as extraordinary as Mackay
> described, with some arguing that the price changes may not have
> constituted a bubble." That one has been running since the 1840s.
> Pretty much the only thing the public know about tulips in the 17th
> century is that it was a bubble.)
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> Charles
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania#cite_note-5>
>
>
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