[WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions

[Emily Monroe]

As I understand it, a bunch of adminstrators deleted a bunch of  
articles that they felt violated BLP aganist community consensus.

On one hand, it is quite important that we don't say something that  
isn't true, controversial or not. We ARE used as a source, like it or  
not, and of course, anything false that is stated on Wikipedia can  
damage reputations, both of Wikipedia and other people.

On the other hand, BLP is supposed to apply to only *controversial*  
information, and deletion is supposed to be a last resort.

Emily
On Jan 21, 2010, at 10:59 AM, The Cunctator wrote:

> Just restored a former prime minister.
>
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com 
> >wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 4:03 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>  
>> wrote:
>>> 2010/1/21 Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com>:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> silent mass deletions are now an acceptable admin tactic.
>>>
>>> That bit's not ideal, I'd think they should be listed first.  
>>> Perhaps a
>>> {{BLP-prod}}, where someone has a few days to put the references in.
>>> OR THE ARTICLE DIES.
>>
>> I'm not going to say much in this thread (I'm in the group that's  
>> been
>> asked to arbitrate this dispute), but I would urge a list be made of
>> where discussion is taking place on-wiki about process related to
>> this, and for people to help form a workable consensus there.
>>
>> I would add that one part of the problem is bagging and tagging these
>> BLPs when they are created. If someone can demonstrate that BLPs
>> currently being created are getting enough attention, that would
>> ensure that things are reasonably under control from that end (the
>> BLPs that have been unsourced for years are technically a backlog -
>> the ones being created now should also be dealt with, otherwise the
>> problem grows again). The lessons from the past are that if you turn
>> away for even a few months from situations like this, the creation of
>> new articles returns you to square one.
>>
>> Overall, a discussion on whether Wikipedia has the volunteer  
>> resources
>> to maintain articles of a certain type to a minimum standard, is
>> needed. Plus whether technical measures (flagged revisions) will help
>> that or not. Another part of the problem is that some of these
>> discussions have been had before, and some people are assuming
>> everyone knows the stats and figures involved. Pointers to summaries
>> are helpful. There is one here:
>>
>>
>> http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20080415/the-biographies-of-living-people-problem/
>>
>> We also have:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_essays_on_BLP
>>
>> Carcharoth
>>
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