> GreenReaper, I ran across that Wikifur discussion at some earlier point, > but > the "Eyes of the Night" story was new to me. BLP subjects in such cases > must > get very frustrated by the wiki-process of forming consensus, which > differs > completely from their dealings with every other organization in the real > world > or on the internet: normally, you just find the one right person to > complain > to, and the problem gets strong-armed away. Supposing the wiki editors > don't > start shouting at each other or at the BLP subject, but actually listen to > each > other's lines of reasoning? That could take days!
And sometimes it does, and this is something you must be prepared for. Unfortunately, it is not something that the subject is always willing to tolerate - in that particular case, I started getting legal threats after an hour, because having correctly identified me as the leader, he incorrectly assumed I would be willing to make a decision by fiat. This sort of situation is exasperated by the difference between your perspective and theirs. To you, this is a problem that needs addressing after due consideration as to the right course of action. To them it is a far simpler equation - it's their life, and they want it down now. Of course, they typically do not have the power to achieve that, otherwise we would not be having this discussion. Assurances that you are not trying to hurt them but just going through the appropriate process may help with some subjects, but not all. > The present problem at the Doom Wiki would never arise on Wikipedia, > because > none of the information in the article meets the "reliable sources" > criteria. > Unfortunately, excepting a tiny number of industry celebrities, the > culture of > any gaming community is expressed almost entirely in non-fact-checked > media > (Usenet, BBSes, IRC, e-mails, forum postings); it would be impossible to > document that culture using Wikipedia's bibliographic standards. Almost certainly the case for most fan wikis. (Quite honestly I think Wikipedia is a little stringent sometimes, but it does have its good side...) > If I had dictatorial authority over the site, I would institute a courtesy > deletion policy like Wikifur's. There are many reasons that someone might > not > want an article, the article doesn't have to be anywhere close to illegal > to do > harm, and the subject is the most qualified person to judge that. > Courtesy > deletion also leaves our NPOV policy intact, nor must we consider a > blanket ban > on hearsay citations; I think the latter would disqualify a lot of > genuinely > significant historical information (at least, in the superficial sense > that our > community as a whole is significant). Despite outward appearances, I do not rule by fiat. ;-) Nor do we remove everything a person has said or done - their "historical impact" should remain intact. It is possible to introduce such a policy under a trial basis, and in fact we tried a combination of several solutions before settling primarily on this one. (I had a productive little meeting with five other admins at Anthrocon 2006 in which we eventually dropped the "user-editable page policy", among other changes) However, when removing pages about people, it is inevitable that you will cut some things out - otherwise, what's the point? All I can really suggest there is that you remove the impersonal data to another page. For example, "Speed run winners" could include the figure, the map, and a name (or pseudonym) but the name would link to an excluded page. We also have the issue of "firstname lastname". Of course, this can be a good thing, too. We probably get more links from people doing "ego searches" than any other single link type, and I get the feeling that it it significantly increases our overall search ranking and the number of pages indexed. There are decided benefits to pages about people, and that is why we have them. > Sadly, the pertinent principle may be that a gaming wiki is populated > largely > by gamers, who are self-selected for poor social skills. Therefore, at > this > stage of our growth, content may have to be added or not added depending > on the > probability of a flame war, which consumes energy (maybe even > contributors) out > of all proportion to any potential improvement to the encyclopedia. In > the > absence of courtesy deletions, the compromise solution above might well > achieve > that, because it implies that editors should use their common sense > instead of > trying to jam in as much information as possible without violating the > letter > of a policy. Sometimes you just have to make hard decisions. This is where the need for personal leadership comes in - if you can be convincing enough and champion a valid a way out of eternal flame-wars, you may avoid contributor burnout. That said, if you *can* find an easy path that is acceptable to all parties, by all means take it, at least to see where it ends up. Sometimes the simplest solutions turn out to be the best. :-) -- Laurence "GreenReaper" Parry http://greenreaper.co.uk/ - http://wikifur.com/ "Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. Have you drunk your fill?" _______________________________________________ Wikia-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
