Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 71, Issue 74

[Matt Jacobs-2]

>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:03:33 +0100
> From: Sam Blacketer <sam.blacketer@...>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] News agencies are not RSs
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l@...>
> Message-ID:
>        <e75b49f70906290903m485a5e6bo285d4216cc2dc993@...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 4:55 PM, geni <geniice@...> wrote:
>
> > 2009/6/29 Gwern Branwen <gwern0@...>:
> > > ?We were really helped by the fact that it hadn?t appeared in a place
> > > we would regard as a reliable source,? he said. ?I would have had a
> > > really hard time with it if it had.?"
> > > ...
> >
> > The question is though is is
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pajhwok_Afghan_News genuinely not a
> > reliable source?
>
>
> What was that underlying principle which was codified after the Brian
> Peppers deletion debates? Ah yes, 'basic human dignity', now to be found at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_dignity.
>
> This case is more about basic common sense. If someone's life may be
> endangered by what is on their wikipedia biography but is not widely
> reported elsewhere, I would expect that anyone sensible would find some way
> of applying policy so as to keep the life-endangering stuff off it. And
> that
> would take precedence over secondary arguments over whether obscure news
> agencies were reliable.
>
> --
> Sam Blacketer
>

Thank god common sense won out over the egotism of those who insist they
must know everything as soon as it happens, and also to tell everyone in
every forum possible.  It would be utterly absurd to even take the
self-centered whining regarding censorship seriously.  Waiting several
months for the conclusion of the incident in no way harmed WP.

It really doesn't matter what policy administrators used to keep it quiet,
or even if they abused the rules.  The information had a very real
probability of affecting whether a man lived or died, so that takes obvious
precedence over internal rules on an online website.

Sxeptomaniac
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[Ken Arromdee]

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Matt Jacobs wrote:
> It really doesn't matter what policy administrators used to keep it quiet,
> or even if they abused the rules.  The information had a very real
> probability of affecting whether a man lived or died, so that takes obvious
> precedence over internal rules on an online website.

1) We have IAR so we don't need to abuse the rules.  In this case, WP:OFFICE
would have been even better.

2) Whether something endangers lives is often not a black and white decision
(especially if it was reported in an Afghan newspaper, which reduces it
from "will endanger lives" to "might endanger lives").  We would not give
similar consideration to non-well-connected Wikipedians who think something
should be left out of an article because it endangers lives, especially if
it was reported in a newspaper (in which case the person wanting to remove
it will be told that Wikipedia is not censored and that we couldn't possibly
hurt someone by publishing something that's already in a newspaper).

In fact there have been cases in the past where the Times or other newspapers
have been accused of endangering lives *by* releasing information.  For
instance, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/web22ksmnote.html?_r=1 .
I've never heard of Wikipedia not using the information in such cases.
(Of course, you could argue that since the name is already out, Wikipedia
can't cause any further harm, but the same could be said about something
being reported in an Afghan news source.)

3) Abusing the rules this way makes it hard to trust Jimbo, administrators,
and anyone else with authority in future disputes.


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