I experience a moment of shock, accompanied by what seemed to be a mild itching or burning sensation, as I realized that I was strongly in agreement with what Jimbo had posted here. He was registering his approval of Scott MacDonald's essay, "Wikipedia:Otto Middleton (or why newspapers are dubious sources)", or WP:OTTO.

Of course, Jimbo's endorsement is meaningless, given his role as the Grand Enabler for SlimVirgin, back in the days when she was first re-writing Wikipedia policy with the creation of WP:V. One of the seminal moments in Wikipedia history was Slim's creation of the maxim, "Verifiability, not Truth."

So now Scott has ably demonstrated the outcome of the policy: it is easy to lie at Wikipedia, provided that you use Reliable Sourcesâ„¢. That pretty much defines the rules of the game: collect more newspaper clippings than your opponent, and you are free to lie about your target of choice.

There are things that could be done to at least mitigate this situation. For example, WP:BLPGOSSIP says, "Be wary of sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources." In practice, this is widely ignored. If some teeth were added, to the effect that "allegations which are cited to anonymous sources in news media stories may be summarily removed," that would be a step in the right direction. Watch the POV warriors howl if someone attempts to make that policy, though. SlimVirgin has already howled in advance: "The BLP policy was never intended to mean that we can't repeat what multiple reliable sources say about such figures, and indeed it's that sort of extreme interpretation that has caused the policy to acquire a bad reputation with some editors."

However, if Wikipedia is ever going to become something like an encyclopedia, instead of "the biggest and most prolific defamation machine that the world has ever known," something must be done to check the unrestricted use of news media as sources, especially for BLPs.

The following was added to BLP policy recently, following the Mould case --



Perhaps it will help keep some crap out. SlimVirgin, incidentally, has just suggested that perhaps Wikipedia shouldn't host BLPs at all, given that they can't be handled "thoughtfully in an open-editing environment."

Well, it depends on how you define "tabloid." Some of the sources in Scott's "Otto" article would be considered "tabloid," but most of them are highly regarded, "mainstream" media. The moral of the story is that even papers with the best pedigree cheerfully publish material that is not fact-checked and may be highly biased. A "more reliable source" is not another newspaper -- it's a peer-reviewed scholarly publication. If material is contentious and the best source you can find is a newspaper, leave it out of the article.

SlimVirgin is probably engaged in a tactical retreat, after she received quite a drubbing from you on the Jeremiah Duggan issue. Will Beback, on the other hand, has just offered himself up as a splendid example. On an issue where various commentators disagree and the issues are complex, and where you had just made an eminently lucid observation, he is proposing that the matter be "settled" once and for all by taking a count of newspaper clippings. He wants to see whether his list is longer than your list.

There are NO non tabloid newspapers. There are sections in some that one might assume are well researched, politics and business probably, but not issues that affect the personal lives of politicians, and those in business. Anything outside of those narrow sections is likely to be very weakly sourced.

Forgetting the basic mission, of course, making the "open editing environment" superior to the mission. Supposedly "consensus" was to dump Pending Changes. That was actually, Newyorkbrad noted in his closing, a two-thirds majority, but Wikipedia has never developed a decision-making process that is truly deliberative and responsible. NYB noted that there might still be Pending Changes with BLPs, and that's exactly what just came to ArbComm. Why Kww would be so obsessed with removing the pending changes flag from certain BLPs is completely beyond me.

What was needed for PC to work would be a more intelligent and responsible decision-making process. Direction for that, because of the legal issues involved with BLPs, could come from the WMF Board. Don't hold your breath, but I don't see that the community, as it is structured, can make the necessary decisions.

Haven't you realized yet that there is no way that any current practice can change. PC has as much chance of getting approval as the sexual content does. IOW no fucking chance at all.

As soon as it goes to t'communitah it is throwing the discussion over to the whim of 15-24 yo demographic, brought up on no responsibility, waving 'WEZ NOT CENZERD' links.

Thanks, it's always amusing to see others assuming what I don't realize.
Yeah, and that's why at some point the "responsible adults" will need to exert parental control. I.e., those who will get sued and who might be held personally liable for their failure to exercise due supervision just might decide to, ah, intervene. "Office action."

Or ArbComm might grow some guts and again start up the Advisory Committee, and see that it sets up decent process for deliberation, off-wiki. On-wiki RfC is almost impossible. Preposterous arguments get accepted and carry the day, for example. If each argument were examined in detail, so that supporting the argument became Obviously Stupid, in a discussion where the only topic to agree or disagree about was that narrow argument, this would be far less likely to happen. But because RfC typically considers One Big Decision that depends on a host of piled-up arguments, this kind of clearance of the space doesn't happen.

Short term "efficient," it might seem, but long-term highly inefficient and unintelligent.

People comment without having read all the comments. It's really voting, which is part of deliberative process, but not even the most important part. Voting is how a committee decides when it's time to move on, and, in standard rules, that requires a supermajority on each and every narrow question. People don't realize how close to consensus process the standard rules (like Robert's Rules of Order) are, in practice.

(I've suggested that RfCs be set up in phases, the first phase collects evidence, the second arguments, the third proposes solutions or responses to a situation, the fourth summarizes and organizes the evidence and arguments and solutions to remove redundancy (by consent within what may be factions), and only the last phase actually votes, on propositions that are themselves considered ready for vote by supermajority. Basically, any standard deliberative body knows how to do this. Wikipedia does not. WP has people voting immediately, before hardly any argument and evidence has been presented. That only works when the issue is obvious!)

This is true. I've seen the attitude of POV-pushers in Wikipedia change when they learned that the editor opposing their edits has access to media databases like Lexis/Nexis, Infotrac, or ProQuest Newstand and they don't. They try to get that editor to stop editing the topic as quickly as possible. Interesting, isn't it, since they're supposed to be building an encyclopedia? Opposition to including information they don't agree with is one of the hallmarks of activist editors as I highlighted in the essay I drafted a few months ago (which SlimVirgin helped me write).

Anyway, when it comes to BLPs, verifiability not truth may not be a high enough standard because the consequences could be too severe if the information isn't true.