[Foundation-l] Wikipedia articles based on Wikileaks material

FT2 ft2.wiki at gmail.com
Sun Dec 12 19:06:39 UTC 2010


Don't see an issue for this list:

   1. The topic is apparently reliably sourced in that numerous credible
   sources have discussed it and no credible source appears to claim it is a
   hoax.
   2. Legitimate is different from reliable - we may well cite from sources
   that should not have come to public discussion but in fact did end up
   "noticed" in the public eye. Many<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squidgygate>
   articles <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal>
exist<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal>
   that <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers>
draw<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak>
   in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents> part or whole on
   material that originated via leak.
   3. In cases like this where the topic is clearly major and has already
   gained significant attention, the primary sources and such secondary sources
   as develop over time will probably justify an article in the end even if
   borderline now.  We can defer it but there seems little point. Given the
   gravity of the matter it's almost certain that more secondary coverage will
   be added over time. If not that will become apparent over time too.  We
   routinely keep borderline articles on major matters where further secondary
   coverage seems almost certain - AFD's on breaking news of major disasters
   for example.
   4. The exact policy on sourcing is *"Primary sources that have been
   reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care... Any
   interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary
   source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on
   Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements [...] Do not base
   articles entirely on primary sources"*. At the moment, the article seems
   to draw on secondary sources for interpretive matters related to the primary
   source.
   5. On the "list of sites", full copies (or regional extracts with
   links) were published in
multiple<http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=wikileaks+(%22Ysleta+Zaragoza%22+OR+amistad+OR+rhodium)&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8>mainstream
media. The decision whether these should or shouldn't be listed
   in any article is probably a community decision.
   6. Harm is often subordined to non-censorship. In the NYT kidnap case
   Jimmy's comment was that if sources had existed then removal of the
   information would have been difficult. In this case clear published sources
   exist, they have attracted mainstream front page comment, and harm seems to
   be disputed in community discussions.


One correction of a point higher up:  NPOV (on enwiki anyway) does
*not*apply to matching editorial decisions made by other sites. It
applies to how
we represent the topic in an article. If many sites do not publish something
but some or a few do, we decide first whether it meets our inclusion
criteria, then how to represent it if an article is viable. NPOV is not an
inclusion policy.

(*Reductio ad absurdum *version: - many articles are kept with just a
handful (<5) sources; this implies "mainstream" did not notice them,
therefore "NPOV" would say we don't notice them either? No.)

FT2.


On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> This might need some eyes and attention:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=401953034#Creation_of_articles_from_leaked_classified_documents
>
> It concerns Wikipedia articles reproducing the content of the recent
> Wikileaks releases, notably
>
>
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Critical_Foreign_Dependencies_Initiative
>
> Andreas
>
>



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