[WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin

Thu Jun 2 16:32:22 UTC 2005

Rob Brewer (rob at rbrwr.org) [050603 02:25]:

> This week's edition of the UK entertainment scandal e-mail Popbitch (see
> [[Popbitch]]) includes a link to [[Talk:Michael Colvin]] which includes some
> "bizarre conspiracy theories" relating to [[Derek Laud]], a contestant on the
> current series of Big Brother. User:Smoddy deleted them as "possibly
> libellous" but they have been restored. They also exist in the history of
> [[Michael Colvin]] at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Colvin&oldid=6052341
> Do we really want to be carrying this stuff? If not we will have to delete it,
> both from the article (using selective undelete) and the talk page, and
> probably protect the pages to stop it being pasted back in again. 
> Opinions?

It's been deleted from the talk page once (admins can see it, and IANAL but
I have been a journalist, and it sure smelt like defamation to me). This is
close to zap on sight IMO. (It's certainly original research if the
documentation backing it up isn't to hand.) May need to keep an eye on the
article and talk page for a while, yes.

- d.