[WikiEN-l] Yet another PR company busted ... apparently it's all our fault

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> On 12 November 2012 15:26, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > You misunderstand.
> >
> > As I mentioned: we simply have no moral high ground to criticise their
> > actions. Our controls are shoddy and we defame people all over the place.
> > They massage biographies etc. to cast things in a better light.
> >
> > Who is the good guy?
>
> On the grounds that two hypothetical wrongs don't make a hypothetical
> right, there need not be an answer to your question.



I thought Tom's question "Who is the good guy" was entirely rhetorical, and
precisely intended to make the point that there *wasn't* a good guy.


On the grounds
> that someone who claims to be able to fix your house or car and then
> charges yo u money despite being incompetent is traditionally called a
> "cowboy", the idea that WP's procedures _in cases that are not
> removing defamation_ can be called "cumbersome" by PR pros rebounds on
> them.
>


It occurs to me that biographies can be malicious without being defamatory.
It would be wise to check what exactly went on in the biography before
passing judgment.

Andreas



> The right answer is in terms of the hourly rate PR pros can ask for.
> If they need to be trained to operate properly on WP, that is what
> should happen. The bar for people's reputations should be set at least
> as high as for plumbing.
>
> Note, in other words, that the "defence" of the PR editing here is
> entirely deflection.