2008/9/30 David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>om>: They certainly are, but there is no suggestion in that article that our article was in any way inaccurate or unbalanced.

On Sep 30, 2008, at 4:44 PM, FT2 wrote: Looking at the article as of the beginning of the month, it was half Gower's rugby career, half his alcoholism. I suspect that this is not, in fact, a reasonable weighting of the issues surrounding him. Unless he was a really, really exceptional alcoholic. -Phil

On Sep 30, 2008, at 5:08 PM, Marc Riddell wrote: The comment was meant in sarcasm. He's a noted, skilled professional rugby player - something a comparative handful of people in the world can claim. He's also an alcoholic. One of these is clearly the more exceptional, notable, and worth talking about facts. That we provide equal weight to both is absurd. -Phil

I disagree. An alcoholic whose alcoholism has never resulted in anything notable happening would be unexceptional from the point of view of writing an article about one whereas someone that's been constantly in the headlines because of the alcoholism would be very exceptional.

2008/9/30 Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>et>: No, I'm not. This isn't a mailing list about medicine, it's a mailing list about an encyclopaedia. From the point of view of writing encyclopaedia articles the results of someone's alcoholism are far more important than the condition itself.

I disagree. An alcoholic whose alcoholism has never resulted in anything notable happening would be unexceptional from the point of view of writing an article about one whereas someone that's been constantly in the headlines because of the alcoholism would be very exceptional.

on 9/30/08 5:33 PM, Chris Howie at cdhowie(a)gmail.com wrote: Chris, That is a false and a dangerous belief. Addiction describes the behavior associated with the disease. In short: the emotions trigger the first drink, and the brain takes it from there. Marc

on 9/30/08 6:20 PM, Chris Howie at cdhowie(a)gmail.com wrote: I promise, this is my final contribution to this off-topic discussion.

Whether the article was accurate or not is important, but not the larger point. Our biographies of living people, folks with families and careers, can become the major reference on their lives - so our vigilance on these articles is of extreme real world importance. This event is a very good example of that principle.

It's certainly disillusioned me with it after my recent experiences. BLP is important, but it's equally important to keep it in tight rein to only unsourced or poorly sourced information. I'm certainly not too happy with the whole idea of it right now, it should be an extension of NPOV and V (information should be properly weighted and properly sourced, and we should give especial urgency to this requirement on a BLP), not some type of "I personally don't think this should go in an article on this person, so even though our sources do I'm going to cry BLP and remove it." In this case, it doesn't look like we reported false information, so what's the problem? What is with those who think BLP means "We can't report negative or controversial information even if it -is- well-sourced"? -- Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l