On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Bod Notbod<bodnotbod(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think it is this one: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people Carcharoth _______________________________________________ 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

2009/8/5 David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com>om>: The WMF has always had the power to do stuff like this, ArbCom hasn't and doesn't. I don't think there should be too much complaining about this group unless people don't like what they come up with.

"I don't think there should be too much complaining about this group unless people don't like what they come up with." I'm not being silly here, but couldn't that good-faith statement you just made apply to *any* group?

on 8/5/09 4:33 PM, David Goodman at dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com wrote:

> I accepted membership in a committee chosen by > ArbCom, under the assumption it would be generally supported. Having > found out my assumption was wrong, I can't say I'd want to repeat the > embarrassing experience.

I had a similar experience where the committee was chosen at the Foundation level, and I regret it to this day.

> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 8:51 PM, > Carcharoth<carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > >> I think it is this one: >> >> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people > > Aha! Thank you. > > Hmm, well I can see a way I could help out with the Task Force, but > it > would depend on some adjustments to 'Huggle' which I use to observe > and make quick edits to stuff on Recent Changes: if the people that > update the application could make it so that BLPs were highlighted > somehow, given precedence in the application, that would help me and > other Huggle users out. > > For those not familiar with Huggle see, WP:HUGGLE. > > I guess it would also be feasible and helpful if BLPs were > highlighted > on the usual Watchlist interface too? (Turn on and off-able in > preferences, perhaps?)

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Phil Nash<pn007a2145(a)blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: Ha ha, I like the way you think :o) However, we do have [[Category:Living people]], so if we had those highlighted on Watchlists and in editing tools, that would surely help the cause, no? And it could be a choice in prefs or in the tool whether you want that function? It can't catch all BLP problems as you've so wonderfully illustrated. But it can show us a worthwhile subset, don't you reckon?

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Well, to a degree. But what if they later say, in an equally verifiable source, that that was a joke? Or if a verifiable source says it isn't true? But yes, I wouldn't object to seeing that in an article provided policy is adhered to.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Steve Bennett<stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote: Well, I guess you could invoke Wikipedia:UNDUE at that point :o)

The language of the board resolution doesn't come down hard enough on the side of verifiable information. That is, if something is verifiable, even a direct quote from the subject themself, then that information should be allowed to be included, and should not be forcibly stopped from inclusion by aggressive article patrollers-with-tools. It seems to me that the way the language is worded, the board is going to continue to allow harassment of those editors conscientious to the evidence, at the expense of verifiable evidence already broadcast widely across the net.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 6:38 AM, <wjhonson(a)aol.com> wrote: Hitler's a BLP? Man, my education sucks.

>> We're encyclopediasts and sometimes you have to say that Hitler was >> bad. > > I agree. > > But what if the only verifiable information in the article is the > negative stuff, in spite of having other, less widely-reported > information available? If I had ran across that as a new page > patroller, I'd probably tag it as an attack page if it was severe > enough, but what about less severe, and/or older pages? Do we delete > and start over, or do we merely add the positive information? > > Hitler is an extreme example. Everybody in the mainstream knows > Hitler was bad. We just state why.

What you're really saying is, "Isn't there a way to be nice even to people who aren't nice?".

If the only verifiable information on a BLP is negative, then that is what the article should contain.

We shouldn't add unverifiable information simply for balance. That sort of action would be untrue to our principles and policies.

"Starting over" won't change that.

"Starting over" won't change that.

Now discarding those sort of sources, let's say we have five newspaper articles, and two mentions in books about this person positively, and 245 newspaper articles and 18 mentions negative. What would you do?

The weight is clearly on the negative and that's how we should write the article.

Blog posts fail our requirement that an author of a piece be previously published by a third-party publisher. Blog posts are almost always by amateur writers, regardless of how long they've been blogging. A true writer, has true writing credits by reputable publishing houses. Similarly newsletter articles have little to no valid editorial oversight. Generally what you write, is what they print, and sometimes there is a too-close relationship between the writer and the publisher which we would want to avoid. True writers, have true writings, published by actual third-party reputable publishing houses. Newsletters would fail. Now discarding those sort of sources, let's say we have five newspaper articles, and two mentions in books about this person positively, and 245 newspaper articles and 18 mentions negative. What would you do? What I would do, is try to distill the essence of those contributions into an article. Obviously nobody, not even Barack warrants 270 footnotes. So we have to narrow it somewhat. The way we should narrow it however wouldn't be to balance the positive with the negative in this case. The weight is clearly on the negative and that's how we should write the article. Will Johnson -----Original Message----- From: Emily Monroe &lt;bluecaliocean(a)me.com&gt; To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Sent: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 8:20 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force No, I didn't. You misunderstood me. Let me explain. I'm more worried about uneven reporting. If, say, there's one hundred blog posts and fifty newsletter articles about how horrible a person is, and twenty blog posts, ten newsletter articles, and a somewhat notable book saying "Hey, this person is actually pretty decent.", of course these sources containing positive information being somewhat more hard to find, being the minority, then the wikipedia article will focus ALL on the negative aspects on the person with a glossed over paragraph or two about "Some people disagree with this". I wasn't talking about violating WP:UNDUE. I wasn't talking about featured articles which has 150 inline citations, with an extensive bibliography besides. I was talking about long-forgotten articles which gets maybe more edits from the article creator (stereotypically somebody who isn't very experienced in "Wikipedia Ways") and the new page patroller, who notices the statement of notability, assumes good faith, tries to make it NPOV, tags the page, marks the page patrolled, and moves on, than anyone else who's human. Humans tend to unconsciously focus on the negative. This is something we do automatically. It probably makes sense in terms of evolutionary history. It's better to avoid fire than get burned. It's better to avoid water than to drown. In modern history, it gets you more attention from a medical laymen, and so you are more likely to get attention from a medical expert (via getting means of transportation, peer pressure, etc.). It increases the ability to survive, but not write Wikipedia articles. Perhaps I'm thinking in black and white, or using the filter of "I have read way too many stub-to-start class articles which only the author and the new page patroller [me] has read and yet have not enough experience or ability to self-express to even participate in this discussion" improperly. You're right. To interpret what you said literally, no, starting over an article doesn't usually change policy. To respond to what I think you were saying, I thought that was we achieve, to a lesser degree, when we userfy an article that could be speedied and yet appears to be made in good faith? On the other hand, with BLP, there's a point when the whole ethical question of "Should this even be in Wikipedia at all?" needs to be asked. In that case, the answer I would give is "Unless and until somebody can provide a WP:UNDUE, WP:RS, BLP compliant article, then the article doesn't belong in Wikipedia." Emily On Aug 6, 2009, at 9:37 PM, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote: > > > If the only verifiable information on a BLP is negative, then that is > what the article should contain. > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Emily Monroe &lt;bluecaliocean(a)me.com&gt; > To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; > Sent: Thu, Aug 6, 2009 4:52 pm > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force > > > > > > > > > > >> We're encyclopediasts and sometimes you have to say that Hitler was >> bad. > > I agree. > > But what if the only verifiable information in the article is the > negative stuff, in spite of having other, less widely-reported > information available? If I had ran across that as a new page > patroller, I'd probably tag it as an attack page if it was severe > enough, but what about less severe, and/or older pages? Do we delete > and start over, or do we merely add the positive information? > > Hitler is an extreme example. Everybody in the mainstream knows > Hitler > was bad. We just state why. > > Emily > On Aug 6, 2009, at 12:38 AM, WJhonson(a)aol.com wrote: > >> Of course, and that's why we have other rules which moderate the >> other >> rules. And the BLP policy itself is a rule. However if a piece of >> evidence is both verifiable, and widely reported and yet negative >> about >> a person, and that person vociferously objects to it's inclusion... >> than what? That is the problem here. We should not white-wash a >> piece >> of negative, verifiable, widely reported bit simply because it might >> affect a person, or even if they claim it does or has. We're not >> the >> nicey-nice patrol and shouldn't be forced to become it. We're >> encyclopediasts and sometimes you have to say that Hitler was bad. >> >> Will Johnson >> >> <<Not everything which is verifiable should be included in >> Wikipedia.>> >> >> >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Ken Arromdee &lt;arromdee(a)rahul.net&gt; >> To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; >> Sent: Wed, Aug 5, 2009 10:30 pm >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] In development--BLP task force >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, 5 Aug 2009 wjhonson(a)aol.com wrote: >>> The language of the board resolution doesn't come down hard enough >>> on >>> the side of verifiable information. That is, if something is >>> verifiable, even a direct quote from the subject themself, then >>> that >>> information should be allowed to be included, and should not be >>> forcibly stopped from inclusion by aggressive article >>> patrollers-with-tools. It seems to me that the way the language is >>> worded, the board is going to continue to allow harassment of those >>> editors conscientious to the evidence, at the expense of verifiable >>> evidence already broadcast widely across the net. >> >> I think that this is exactly why we need people working on BLP. >> Wikipedia >> has put so much emphasis on rules such as verifiability that some >> people think >> that the rules trump everything else. Worse yet, the system is set >> up >> so that >> the rules *do* trump everything else; in a conflict between someone >> with a rule >> and someone who's trying to use judgment, the rule always wins, >> because >> you can always argue with someone's personal judgment, but the >> rule's >> right there in print. >> >> BLP is sort of a hack to the system which says "we're going to force >> you to >> ignore the rules in this particular situation, because they *really* >> don't >> work". It by no means covers every situation where the rules cause >> problems, >> but it's better than nothing and right now it's all we've got. >> >> Not everything which is verifiable should be included in Wikipedia. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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

Humans tend to unconsciously focus on the negative.  This is something we do automatically. It probably makes sense in terms of evolutionary history. It's better to avoid fire than get burned. It's better to avoid water than to drown. In modern history, it gets you more attention from a medical laymen, and so you are more likely to get attention from a medical expert (via getting means of transportation, peer pressure, etc.). It increases the ability to survive, but not write Wikipedia articles.

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Cary Bass&lt;cary(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: 2009/8/6 &lt;wjhonson(a)aol.com&gt; This is a problem. From Cary's email it sounds like this task force will only be composed of people with similar views on BLP, in fact that will be the main selection criteria. Regardless of the merits of these views, such a task force will be prone to groupthink.