[WikiEN-l] Cluesticks needed regarding WP:BLP and WP:RS

Wed Sep 6 14:39:35 UTC 2006

On Sep 5, 2006, at 1:35 PM, Rob wrote:

> Of course I fully support the spirit and motives behind BLP and
> obviously I see the urgent need to make sure serious allegations
> against living people are fully and reliably sourced.  But people are
> stretching BLP far beyond what it should be used to combat - unsourced
> and unreliable assertions.  Now people are using it to remove all
> sorts of critical information that would reasonably be included and to
> further their own ideological agendas.  Some examples, all typed in
> with presumably a straight face.
The pendulum effect? Now that we are being more responsible in what  
we allow in articles about LP, it is only natural that some will  
attempt exploit it.
>
> * A man who posted nude pictures of himself on websites whose domains
> he registered advertising himself as a $200-an-hour gay prostitute can
> not be identified as a prostitute.
Was this reported in a reliable source (this person being called a  
prostitute?). If not, this is OR.

> * The Financial Times cannot be used as a source in an article about a
> journalist because they "report on finances issues" and thus are
> "unreliable" when it comes to other matters.
Nonsense
> * The Columbia Journalism Review is a reliable source.  A blog run by
> the Columbia Journalism Review on the website of the Columbia
> Journalism Review is not.
Only if the Columbia Journalism Review has editorial control of the  
blog. Otherwise, I would agree that it is not a RS.

> * The New Republic, among other reputable, long-standing publications,
> cannot be used as a source because they are "too partisan".
Nonsesne
> * Partisan organizations and publications, even long-standing and
> reputable ones, cannot be used in an article at all, even to
> substantiate the fact that there is partisan criticism of the subject
> of the article.  I'm not taking about someone objecting to "John Doe
> did this bad thing", I'm talking about people objecting to the article
> saying "X, Y, and Z criticize John Doe, saying this thing he did may
> have been bad."
Only if X, Y and Z and notable people, and the partisan orgs and pubs  
are so.

As you  can see many of your examples above, could be argued with  
existing policies, and have been argued as such in the past. Nothing  
new here.

>
> In addition to well-intentioned people wildly misapplying BLP and RS,
> we may have handed a powerful new weapon to POV warriors, who wish to
> sanitize all the articles about their ideological fellow travelers.  A
> well-meaning user has created the "Libel Protection Unit", but this is
> the same person who thinks that you are libeling someone by quoting
> something said by the "unreliable" Financial Times, and among the
> people he's unwittingly recruited for his new group and have eagerly
> signed up are some notorious POV warriors and at least one certified
> troll.  I realize that what I'm writing may not show much good faith,
> but based on what I've seen from some of these folks and the
> statements I've noted above, I fear that this LPU will do much to
> remove legitimate material from the encyclopedia and do little to
> protect us from actual libel.  Some people have weighed in with
> sensible remarks, like Jmabel at [[Wikipedia talk:Libel-Protection
> Unit]], but I think more people should do so before this gets out of
> hand.
This is ungrounded paranoia. If you think that this new "unit" is a  
threat to WP, join in  and help make it better, as some of us are  
attempting to do.

-- Jossi