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

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Sarah <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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*.

Ok, but ...

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

Again, privacy isn't an absolute right.

The WMF exists to be a vague version of "the editor" and legal and/or
PR and/or OTRS people can look in on and intervene in situations which
are bizarre or abusive.

The particular case here where the local radio personality objected so
much, we're reading too much in to.  They had an idiosyncratic
reaction and did a bunch of actions that made the situation worse and
called more attention to themselves.  Their press campaign did not
help.

There seems to be an argument here that the projects and/or Foundation
should extend "Do no harm" to "Avoid any emotional distress".  Taken
literally, we can't possibly do anything at all, as anything we do
(including characterizing bedrock deposits under continental plates)
can cause emotional distress.  Even if only applied to BLPs, I'm sure
that our accurate and neutral coverage of controversial public figures
sometimes causes emotional distress, because I know that accurate and
neutral press coverage does and we're exhibiting similar total
societal impact to press organizations now.

I understand your point.  But there's a difference between "Please act
in a way that doesn't antagonize sensitive people and is respectful of
their feelings" and "Remove BLPs on request".

The key problem here - IMHO - is not-sensitive editors interacting
with sensitive BLP subjects.

If you feel that we need to destroy the encyclopedia to fix that, I
disagree.  I disagree on principle, and in practice - I'll fork the
project over it if it comes to that, creating a biography pedia if
that subject can no longer be handled in an acceptably robust manner
within Wikipedia.

It can only be fixed at a human level.  It will only be fixed as well
as our volunteers perform, which will include outliers where the
editors go make things far worse than they have to before anyone in a
position of community influence becomes aware of it, and rarely beyond
any hope of salvaging the subject's opinion of WP and consent to being
included therein.  BLP's "Do no harm" is not a suicide pact for our
core project goal.  We accept that the value and significance of the
Encyclopedia outweighs the rare occasions where something like that
happens.

Or we don't, in which case either you or I will leave the project, with a split.


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