[WikiEN-l] "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement"

[Sarah]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:26 PM, George Herbert
<george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 10:18 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> It would be better to have a rule to never take the views of the
>>> subject in consideration about whether we should have an article,
>>> unless an exception can be made according to other Wikipedia rules, in
>>> particular, Do No Harm.  People have the right to a fair article, but
>>> not to a favorable one.
>>>
>> David, a major problem with BLPs is that marginally notable people
>> sometimes find it quite creepy to be at the centre of apparently
>> obsessive attention from people they don't know, who in addition may
>> be editing anonymously (and therefore may be people they *do* know!).
>>
>
> This is a legitimate concern, but not unique to Wikipedia.  I have
> seen people have similar reactions to ongoing local gossip column or
> industry coverage (DJ, Radio personality, local politicians, etc) in
> local newspapers.
>
> There's an organization and editor to complain to in those cases, but
> ultimately unless the coverage is libelous it's really hard to get it
> to stop, and making an effort often intensifies the (non-libelous)
> total coverage of the subject.

With almost all news organizations, if you wrote to the editor and
told him several of his reporters had been discussing his date of
birth in public for two years -- some of them using pseudonyms -- and
that it was creeping him out, the editor would (at the very least)
tell them to stop or justify it.

The scary thing about Wikipedia, from the point of view of a BLP
subject, is that no one is in charge, and no one is being paid, and
that means no one is worried about losing her job, so there is less
(or no) restraint.

But when a BLP subject gets scared, and admits it has been affecting
his health, we call him an idiot on the talk page and tell him he has
to interact with us even more to correct any falsehoods. But he
doesn't want to interact with us *at all*.

The problem lies with us, in that we feel we have the right to make
people enter into these relationships with us.

Sarah