[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]]

[George Herbert]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
>>> Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.
>>
>> Having an article that associates someone with human waste be "reasonably
>> balanced" is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil
>> rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably
>> balanced.
>> The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced;
>> it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many
>> disclaimers
>> we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.
>
> Well said. That's the problem.
>
> Fred

All things considered, it's a societal problem for people to be
claiming Santorum is human excrement, that women shouldn't have a
right to own property or vote, that homosexuals should be beaten up or
killed for being who they are, that blacks (or Latinos, or Asians, or
Jews, or whoever) are less human than (whites or whomever), or that
some adults advocate adult/child sexual relations.

We have hopefully NPOV articles on the Santorum neologism, women's
rights, gay bashing, the KKK, the Nazis' antisemitism, and NAMBLA.
And we should.

That's what being an encyclopedia is about.  Yes, it's embarrassing to
Santorum that he became the target of a particularly hateful political
advocacy campaign.  But he was a politician, and said some things that
Savage thought were particularly hateful of homosexuals.  This became
widely enough known to be news, academically interesting, and
societally and politically significant for Santorum's career.

We're an encyclopedia.  We cover stuff that's news, academically
interesting, and societally and politically significant.  Even if it's
unfortunate for the public figures that created the kerfuffle.

BLP policy says we handle all of these things, where they bear on
individual persons' lives or reputations, with kid gloves.  But it
does not say that we whitewash significant events.  I feel sorry for
Santorum, and it was a somewhat irresponsible tactic of Savage, but I
don't feel that our article is at all improper.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com