For nearly one month, Wikipedia claimed of British actor Paul Danan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Danan



http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=157105123

The rest of this mostly-unsourced article doesn't look good, either.

My view now on these BLP vandalism incidents is that "Jimbo Wales wrote that". "Angela Beesley went to the public and told them that Danan was creating these restaurants". "Mike Godwin spread that rumour". "The Wikia group and the WMF are responsible for that slur".

These people plan to reap large amounts of cash from the (misplaced) reputation of Wikipedia, on the backs of the broken administrators, burnt out article writers and BLP victims. If they are prepared to reap the rewards themselves for everyone else's hard work and suffering, they should be prepared to be responsible for the mindless vandalism of others on their awful site as well. I hold them responsible.

I do, too.

With other volunteer organizations like say, charities, are the charities under obligation to check that the people working for them (for free) are suitable people i.e. do background checks on them to verify their qualifications, previous employment, health and criminal records etc?

What always astounds me in these situations is that other editors frequently come along, read the article, and maybe even make a few edits, but it never occurs to them to question the incredibly unlikely unsourced (or, more sneakily, erroneously sourced) bit in the article, much less remove it. They go to the bar and tell their friends about the crazy thing they read on the internet, with less than zero skepticism. The whole "assume good faith" thing gets taken to a ridiculous, naive level on Wikipedia. I think the history of humanity demonstrates we have an infinite capacity for evil. Hell, just the brief history of the internet makes is abundantly clear that people, when left to their own devices and given the cloak of anonymity, are really quite awful and just plain mean. I assume better faith of my dog than I do of most anonymous internet people.

Jimbo Wales and Angela Beesley are not anonymous people. They are responsible for that claim about Danan appearing on their website. I mean come on, imagine if our IP editor above wrote that on their biographies? Oh, he can't. Jimbo and Angela's biographies are locked from edits by non-registered users. Beesley had hers locked after she herself admitted that her biography had become filled with "lies and nonsense'". Jimbo and Angela can rest safe assured that IP edits aren't going to bother them anymore as they make their fortunes from Wikia. As for Paul Danan, why should Jimbo and Beesley gives a crap about low-lifes like him, eh?

I think the key is the way Wikipedia conceives of authority. In most organizations, authority is concomitant with responsibility. A manager isn't first and foremost defined by his ability to hire and fire subordinates, although he may well have that, among other capabilities, but by his responsibility for whatever aspect of operations for which he is the manager. The powers exist to discharge that function.

On Wikipedia, authority is only a set of new abilities. No matter how many of these one accumulates, one is still not held responsible for the state of any particular page. Most active editors do try to improve the encyclopedia, but no one is ever held responsible for inaction.

This flaw and its associated risks are usually just bad - misinforming people about anything at all isn't ethical - but where living people are concerned, bad becomes outrageously unacceptable.

On wikipedia managers do not have the authority to impose their wishes on editors, and given your average wikipedia admin thank God! Squeak Box

No, they just ban them if they don't like them.

My point wasn't about editors, but about copy. "Imposing one's wishes" on a drive-by anon is meaningless anyhow.

I agree that many wikipedia administrators may not be the ideal people to "sponsor" articles in this manner. But the incompetence which led to the Danan situation isn't individual, but institutional: no mechanism exists to ensure that anyone is watching the page.

They may bear responsibility for the content of the entire website, but they probably didn't actually make the edit. It certainly would be odd if they had, since I imagine they could commit some more creative, insidious vandalism.

My point was that I, random Wikipedia admin, generally do not assume good faith of drive by anonymous editors, especially when they are adding negative information, and I find it kind of sad and naive that other people apparently do. I think the AGF policy has been taken to a ridiculous point and should be rewritten or scrapped entirely. The idea of civility already covers making totally baseless accusations against someone or calling them bad names, so AGF just becomes "don't criticize me, you need to AGF".

It is possible for an admin to see if a page is unwatched, but of course the watcher could be anyone, including an inactive or even banned user.

You misspelled "Encyclopedia" in the banner.

The Joy being a grammar Nazi

Jesus, I did!

Fixed!

Which is the ability to fire, and as a manager if all one can do is fire or suspend one's workers one isn't going to be able to do a very good job, Squeak Box