[Foundation-l] Wikipedia articles based on Wikileaks material

Sun Dec 12 19:21:19 UTC 2010

I've seen editors -- editors which I respect -- argue for example that if 
the terrorists beheading Iraqi hostages released Commons-licensed videos of 
their beheadings, these would be suitable additions to Commons and the 
biographies of the people concerned, per NOTCENSORED.

You might not see an NPOV violation in such an editorial decision, but I do 
(bearing in mind that UNDUE is part of NPOV, and dueness is established
by weight in reliable sources).

Why we should be doing things that no other reliably published source out
there does is beyond me. 

Andreas

--- On Sun, 12/12/10, FT2 <ft2.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: FT2 <ft2.wiki at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia articles based on Wikileaks material
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Sunday, 12 December, 2010, 19:06
> Don't see an issue for this list:
> 
>    1. The topic is apparently reliably
> sourced in that numerous credible
>    sources have discussed it and no credible
> source appears to claim it is a
>    hoax.
>    2. Legitimate is different from reliable
> - we may well cite from sources
>    that should not have come to public
> discussion but in fact did end up
>    "noticed" in the public eye. Many<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squidgygate>
>    articles <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal>
> exist<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_expenses_scandal>
>    that <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers>
> draw<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak>
>    in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents>
> part or whole on
>    material that originated via leak.
>    3. In cases like this where the topic is
> clearly major and has already
>    gained significant attention, the primary
> sources and such secondary sources
>    as develop over time will probably
> justify an article in the end even if
>    borderline now.  We can defer it but
> there seems little point. Given the
>    gravity of the matter it's almost certain
> that more secondary coverage will
>    be added over time. If not that will
> become apparent over time too.  We
>    routinely keep borderline articles on
> major matters where further secondary
>    coverage seems almost certain - AFD's on
> breaking news of major disasters
>    for example.
>    4. The exact policy on sourcing is
> *"Primary sources that have been
>    reliably published may be used in
> Wikipedia, but only with care... Any
>    interpretation of primary source material
> requires a reliable secondary
>    source for that interpretation. A primary
> source may only be used on
>    Wikipedia to make straightforward,
> descriptive statements [...] Do not base
>    articles entirely on primary sources"*.
> At the moment, the article seems
>    to draw on secondary sources for
> interpretive matters related to the primary
>    source.
>    5. On the "list of sites", full copies
> (or regional extracts with
>    links) were published in
> multiple<http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=wikileaks+(%22Ysleta+Zaragoza%22+OR+amistad+OR+rhodium)&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8>mainstream
> media. The decision whether these should or shouldn't be
> listed
>    in any article is probably a community
> decision.
>    6. Harm is often subordined to
> non-censorship. In the NYT kidnap case
>    Jimmy's comment was that if sources had
> existed then removal of the
>    information would have been difficult. In
> this case clear published sources
>    exist, they have attracted mainstream
> front page comment, and harm seems to
>    be disputed in community discussions.
> 
> 
> One correction of a point higher up:  NPOV (on enwiki
> anyway) does
> *not*apply to matching editorial decisions made by other
> sites. It
> applies to how
> we represent the topic in an article. If many sites do not
> publish something
> but some or a few do, we decide first whether it meets our
> inclusion
> criteria, then how to represent it if an article is viable.
> NPOV is not an
> inclusion policy.
> 
> (*Reductio ad absurdum *version: - many articles are kept
> with just a
> handful (<5) sources; this implies "mainstream" did not
> notice them,
> therefore "NPOV" would say we don't notice them either?
> No.)
> 
> FT2.
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > This might need some eyes and attention:
> >
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=401953034#Creation_of_articles_from_leaked_classified_documents
> >
> > It concerns Wikipedia articles reproducing the content
> of the recent
> > Wikileaks releases, notably
> >
> >
> > https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Critical_Foreign_Dependencies_Initiative
> >
> > Andreas
> >
> >
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