On 12/4/05, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: I know Wikipedia was developing a live feed for answers.com at some point. Not sure if this was ever implented. But that's just answers.com. Most of the mirrors likely use database dumps. Also, if answers.com updates that quickly, then it'll fix the problem as quickly as it creates it.

And that takes care of that. Stevertigo --- Matt Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote: __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

Hello folks, I’m sure it’s my fault for not handling the situation well, but Matt doesn’t seem to understand the issue. I appreciate Matt’s work on the help desk, so I didn‘t want to make an issue of it. But since he is discussing the situation, I want to clarify. First off, I have been a member of WikiEN-l for a number of weeks. Until now, I didn’t write to the list because I didn’t have anything important to say. I am well aware of the ongoing discussion about articles containing misinformation, especially biographies. So last Friday, after Hager was listed as an convicted rapist, I wrote a post to the list. The post was delayed until today because it was my first post and a moderator needed to clear it. This was unfortunate but necessary given the potential abuse of this list by disgruntled editors and such. One point worth noting. I didn’t ask the Help desk for assistance. Last Friday, after I realized my WikiEN-l post was going to be held, I wrote to Jimbo Wales. He promptly forwarded it to Help desk and Matt Brown answered it. From his reply I knew that Matt misunderstand my concern. His response therefore was unhelpful. Not wanting to be rude to a Wikipedia volunteer, I just deleted it. To my immediate and the most important concern, enlisting other people to monitor Hager’s article, I still had no help. (I explicitly asked people to watchlist it in both my posts.) So, I asked several editors that I’ve worked with on medical articles to watchlist it. They graciously accepted and were supportive. So far, so good on that front. Finally, I need to make it very clear that NPOV is not the issue. I wrote the article and included his ex-wife’s allegations and his denial, so of course I don’t want it removed. I put a lot effort into balancing the unseemly stuff with his long list of career achievements. My issue: Unregistered editors can put misinformation in articles that damages the encyclopedia, defames people, and disrupts the writing OUR encyclopedia. The long-term solutions discussed on this list need to be pursued. Once again, I appreciate Matt’s volunteer work and don’t want to be hypercritical. But, I know My Concern better than he does, so I want to correct his misconceptions. Regards, Sydney Poore AKA FloNight Go Bengals!!! Matt Brown wrote:

Hello folks, I agree that there is more to this issue than sourcing. From a legal point of view, it is common for the prosecution, victim, and defendant to agree to plea bargain of a lesser charge than rape to keep the victim off the witness stand. The crime will be much lower status with the defendant avoiding jail time, permanent sex register, loss of state licenses (eg. medical license), etc. But from a medical/health point of view, nothing has changed. The rapist and victim need psychological/medical assistance tailored to the actual event. This makes if more difficult for the media to describe the nature of the actual events, but we need to try. If the proper context can't be described due to space (or whatever) than its better to say nothing. Sydney Poore Ray Saintonge wrote:

I've been have a months-long debate with another editor on this topic. I've been stating that we include people in "Criminals" categories if they have been convicted of a crime by an independent judiciary. The other editor insists that we have to decide (by some means) whether or not they have actually committed a crime, conviction is not enough a good enough yardstick. I'd be interested in other thoughts here. Regards, Jay.

What about, say, a criminal was killed before conviction by a court - say [[Michael Robert Ryan]]? Regards, Jay.

On 12/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg(a)hotmail.com> wrote: If the person is dead, they certainly can't sue us for libel (of course, they can't sue *us* for libel anyway, only the person who actually added the libelous statement). But the NPOV issues are more serious. I don't see how a category such as "criminals" can possibly be NPOV. "Convicted criminals" maybe. "Indicted criminals" might be possible. "Alleged criminals" would probably be way too broad (might as well redirect it to "List of people"). Anthony

Anthony DiPierro wrote: That's a poor criterion for justifying our actions. It may be legally correct, but ethically it sucks. Ec

Ray Saintonge wrote: Agreed. Our core passion is to *get it right*. --Jimbo

Prisons are full of innocent people. Just ask them. If a person has not admitted a crime, then it may be that they did not do it and the legal system made a mistake. It happens. Or that the prosecution case accepted by judge and jury was inaccurate. Or the defence was incompetent. Or that the convicted criminal has rationalised his crime in his own mind to something else, something justifiable. How can we possibly know? If a person had admitted guilt, then there is no problem. We may describe them as a criminal. But if they maintained their innocence and were found guilty instead of pleading guilty, then we should use conventional phrasing to indicate this, by describing someone as a convicted rapist, rather than a rapist. In a case like marital rape, where much of the evidence would neccesarily revolve around the conflicting statements of the two participants of an act presumably performed in private, then how could we know what did or did not take place? We know that he was found guilty of rape, we don't know if he did it. Best to stick to the facts. Peter (Skyring)

On 12/5/05, JAY JG <jayjg(a)hotmail.com> wrote: The problems is that you're trying to apply a fundamentally 20th-century view of legal systems across the board. Only recently have the majority of criminals begun to appear before courts; in earlier periods, it was quite common for them to simply be killed, or to kill themselves. What about cases like [[Marcus Junius Brutus]]? There is little, if any, doubt about his role in Ceasar's death; should we then refrain from adding him to the Assassins category merely because he was never convicted in a court? Kirill Lokshin

Concur. Despite the evidence, Wikipedians are not private dicks. I note that the media in general seems to have little trouble in using whatever form of words best suits the case, and it should be no hardship for us to follow suit. Perhaps we could call someone a "confessed criminal" if they claim they did something but there was no official finding of guilt? If the confession is a matter of public record, but we have some doubt that they actually shot John Kennedy, then this phrasing should keep us out of trouble. Peter (Skyring)

On 12/4/05, JAY JG <jayjg(a)hotmail.com> wrote: Jay, it would be original research to claim that someone is a "criminal" even though they haven't been convicted. Committing a crime is not just the apparent performance of a prohibited act, but is also (usually) connected to the actor's state of mind at the time, something a court rules on based on the available evidence. Wikipedia editors are not in a position to judge what a court would have ruled, no matter how obvious the case might seem (e.g. a public figure admitting they once stole something from a store). Sarah

On 12/5/05, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: Yes, that's true, Mark, but it would be very unusual for a reputable publication to come right out and say someone was guilty of something they had been acquitted of. There have been some high-profile cases where that has happened (or where newspapers have strongly hinted at it), but usually news organizations go along with court rulings to keep themselves safe from legal action. But even so, quoting someone else wouldn't allow us to put someone not convicted of a crime in the "criminals" category, which I think was the point being raised. Sarah

Jimmy Wales wrote: I agree with you, but community consensus doesn't. I recently tried to get the criminal categories renamed to include the words convicted but was told that was unworkable since Butch Cassiday was never convicted, or something. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_Nov… -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.12/192 - Release Date: 05/12/05

On 12/6/05, David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote: I'm not quite sure why this would be a NPOV issue, unless we're going to start deleting any category for which the membership may be contentious. To continue with the example cited above, is describing Butch Cassidy as a "prolific bank and train robber" in the article text permitted while placing him in the bank robbers category is not? That seems to be a rather unintuitive approach to categorization. Or are the statement and the category both NPOV violations since he was never convicted of robbing banks (even though no sources dispute the assertion)? Kirill Lokshin

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Fastfission wrote: I suspect David was attempting to use cruel, unmitigated sarcasm to deal with the problem, but as you have shown this doesn't work in every case. I'd say you're not alone. Unless you can find some objective way to include/exclude possible candidates (e.g. "convicted of being", "indicted of being", "identified by a known authority as being"), the category is useless -- except for people who are POV pushers. Or can I create [[Category:Moron talk show hosts]]? If you want to nominate this on RfC, I'd be happy to second it. However, while the cruel, unmittigated sarcasm strategy might be less effective than the motions of an RfC, it would doubtlessly be far more satisfying. Geoff

Ray Saintonge wrote: Yes! I see now that my earlier agreement with JayJG was a touch premature, as least to the extent that I agreed with what was probably a very short summary of his view. Conviction is a sufficient standard. A lack of a conviction should strong predispose us against listing a person in this sort of category, but there could be other *clearly defined* criteria which would do work for us similar to a conviction. The lynch mob mentality is worse than failing to have some criminals listed. Calling someone a 'criminal' is a contentious matter which ought to be done only very carefully, cautiously, and conservatively. --Jimbo