Doesn't this just duplicate WP:CORP as well as a number of other pre-existing policies? Fagstein 07:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Almost all the primary information (Stuff from Jumbo) relates to WP:BLP withg a little note "about the related policy on living persons". I strongly suggest someone ask him about this proposed policy and if he likes it, ask him to do another mailing list post explicitly dealing with this , so we don't keep having to say "He said this about BLP, but this is about the same thing, so it applies here too" over and over. 68.39.174.238 15:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The proposed policy was almost pro-advertising. With that policy, most company articles would be puff pieces. I've made some changes to balance it more. -- John Nagle 19:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
How big a legal problem is this?
I don't want to see Wikipedia turned into a business directory, full of puff pieces. The bad news belongs in there too. Here are a few pieces of bad news about companies I've added, all currently in Wikipedia.
Computer model name | Battery model number | Battery serial number range |
12-inch iBook G4 | A1061 | HQ441 – HQ507 |
12-inch PowerBook G4 | A1079 | 3X446 – 3X510 |
15-inch PowerBook G4 | A1078 | 3X446 – 3X509 |
We need more of this, not less. WP:VAIN seems to encourage this practice, discouraging puff pieces - live by the hype, die by the hype. I don't want to face pressure to remove negative info like that. -- John Nagle 23:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)'
The place to go for guidance on this is here:
This is the working journalist's guide to libel law. It tells you how to stay out of trouble without being overly conservative. If Wikipedia management is worried about libel suits, that's the place to look for policy guidance.
On a personal note, during the dot-com boom and collapse, I ran Downside, a web site devoted to predicting which dot-coms would go under and when. Predictions of corporate "death dates" were generated by automated processing of company SEC filings. The accuracy was suprisingly good. I received hate mail and occasional legal threats, sometimes from CEO-level people. But nobody ever actually sued. They knew they'd lose. So don't cave in to corporate pressure when you don't have to. -- John Nagle 02:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just posted a concern about linking to customer opinion websites on WP:WPSPAM:
What does everyone think about linking to websites which contain customer opinions?
For example consider http://www.airlinequality.com/ which contains passenger opinions on airlines ( all links). I beleive such a site doesn't meet any of WP:ELs "when to link" guidelines (for #4 it's hard to consider it neutral & accurate) and hits against some of the recommendations on when not to link:
- 2: "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources"
- 9: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself."
I wonder if there's a parallel here with the WP:BLP policy which is applied to biographies of living people... And has recently spawned a Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises proposal?
Your comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Customer opinion sites. Thanks/ wangi 21:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What is the definition of "ongoing enterprise"? Cub scouts? IBM? Democrat party? Israeli government? Mafia? A child-porn ring? A terorist organisation? Why? What is the criteria? Why is that criteria used for this policy? WAS 4.250 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Moved this from the article to talk, because that quote isn't in the reference. "Addressing the question of biographies of living persons, a subject analogous to articles about ongoing enterprises, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, said: We must get the article right. [1]" Wales doesn't seem to have said that. The closest he came was to say "And the few people who are still sort of in the old days, saying, "Well, you know, it's a wiki, why don't we just... ", yeah, they're sort of falling by the wayside, because lots of people are saying actually, we have a really serious responsibility to get things right." -- John Nagle 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The ongoing enterprise article has been helpful to me and I saw the enterprise template and added it to the Starbucks article. But another editor removed it the next day saying it is only a proposed policy. Should we not be using the enterprise template afterall? And should we be using the proposed policy as a guide now, or ignore it until it becomes official policy? Thanks for any input you can provide. Mr Christopher 19:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the whole point of this was "legal liability". OFFICE was created for that, so this proposal seems redundant to the extent that is is needed at all. If "legal liabilty" is the excuse for it then OFFICE makes it redundant. WAS 4.250 00:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
"Remember what we are doing here. We are building a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. We are trying to do it in an atmosphere of fun, love, and respect for others. We try to be kind to others, thoughtful in our actions, and professional in our approach to our responsibilities." Jimbo Wales 16:49, 26 August 2005 (UTC) [2]
I help with THAT. WAS 4.250 05:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV is important for every article. Special sensitivity (enhanced awareness for privacy rights and morality concerns) is for living people. Providing special sensitivity for IBM is nonsense. I note Fred has changed the actual proposal to take some of this into consideration. Perhaps a litle more tweaking to say hardnosed application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV anywhere in wikipedia that legal liability comes into play and don't limit that to enterprises. WAS 4.250 03:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit so far only deals with biographies of living persons. Fred Bauder 00:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit is a proposed monitoring group that doesn't even exist yet. WAS 4.250 05:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Livedoor says:
This kind of detail about living person is not appropriate and is deleted inder BLP. This Ongoing enterprises proposal was modeled afer the BLP policy, yet enterprises are public in critical ways that living people are not. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Tokyo Stock Exchange says:
It is based on firm evidence in the sources section. Morality concerns for living people indicate the morality of providing accurate data on enterprises that can harm living people through profit based desicions. Not including data that can harm a company can harm the public. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The entire incident is notable for its severity in one persons action affecting the bottom line of two companies so greatly. The entire paragraph may be WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, but I am not for that particular argument. Electrawn 01:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Please justify the Merge idea or delete it. It makes no sense. BLP is a well defined policy. This is not even a fully defined proposal. What it applies to is not identified. What is to be applied is debated and modified. Merge what? This proposal is not well defined enough to be able to be merged. WAS 4.250 08:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, the merge is the wrong way to go. There will be parallels and differences between the two standards. If anything, it looks like this started as a cookie cutter copy of BLP and we are now trying to work out here what the differences ought to be. BLP started 17 December 2005 as a proposal, was upgraded to a guideline at some point, and was upgraded to policy on 18 July 2006 (on the it is being so used basis), and the community as a whole is still coming to realize that BLP is a policy and figure out how to apply and work with it. If it still looks like basically a cookie cutter copy of BLP this time next year, then merging will be a good idea. For now, let's work out what this ought to be. GRBerry 15:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
"Law.com: What is your liability for inaccurate information that's posted on the Web site?
Bradford A. Patrick: Our belief is that since every post is attributed to an individual, is time-stamped and is retained in the database, the foundation itself is not publishing that content. We view individual editors as responsible and have prominently displayed on every edit page that individuals are responsible for their own contributions. We take the position that we are a service provider and are protected under §230. We try to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. " [3] WAS 4.250 06:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
The following was added yesterday to the article about a church body:
and is sometimes derisively referred to in ELCA circles as the "Misery Synod".
No citation information provided. I reverted as uncivil. Were this proposal a policy, I would assume it would be removable under it. -- CTSWyneken (talk) 15:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I put a "fact" tag on "Well-founded complaints about articles about ongoing enterprises from their subjects arrive daily in the form of e-mails to the Wikipedia contact address, phone calls to the Foundation headquarters and to Jimbo Wales, and via postal mail." That unsubstantiated claim doesn't belong in the policy without substantial backup. Discussion here hasn't established that there's a real problem, and putting that line in the article lead asserts that there is. I know that it's not customary to require WP:V in a policy, but because that's being used as justification for the policy, it's appropriate and necessary.
Let's see a monthly summary of complaints for the last year. Then this issue can be discussed effectively. Thanks. -- John Nagle 18:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Could they be posted here for public review, without getting into specific names? I think this may be a bad idea; as organizations/groups/companies and corporations are not people. Negative press and sourced facts are that; and we don't have to concern ourselves with the hurt feelings of a given political party or corporation, in the same regard as we do a living human being. · XP · 16:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't this just duplicate WP:CORP as well as a number of other pre-existing policies? Fagstein 07:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Almost all the primary information (Stuff from Jumbo) relates to WP:BLP withg a little note "about the related policy on living persons". I strongly suggest someone ask him about this proposed policy and if he likes it, ask him to do another mailing list post explicitly dealing with this , so we don't keep having to say "He said this about BLP, but this is about the same thing, so it applies here too" over and over. 68.39.174.238 15:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
The proposed policy was almost pro-advertising. With that policy, most company articles would be puff pieces. I've made some changes to balance it more. -- John Nagle 19:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
How big a legal problem is this?
I don't want to see Wikipedia turned into a business directory, full of puff pieces. The bad news belongs in there too. Here are a few pieces of bad news about companies I've added, all currently in Wikipedia.
Computer model name | Battery model number | Battery serial number range |
12-inch iBook G4 | A1061 | HQ441 – HQ507 |
12-inch PowerBook G4 | A1079 | 3X446 – 3X510 |
15-inch PowerBook G4 | A1078 | 3X446 – 3X509 |
We need more of this, not less. WP:VAIN seems to encourage this practice, discouraging puff pieces - live by the hype, die by the hype. I don't want to face pressure to remove negative info like that. -- John Nagle 23:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)'
The place to go for guidance on this is here:
This is the working journalist's guide to libel law. It tells you how to stay out of trouble without being overly conservative. If Wikipedia management is worried about libel suits, that's the place to look for policy guidance.
On a personal note, during the dot-com boom and collapse, I ran Downside, a web site devoted to predicting which dot-coms would go under and when. Predictions of corporate "death dates" were generated by automated processing of company SEC filings. The accuracy was suprisingly good. I received hate mail and occasional legal threats, sometimes from CEO-level people. But nobody ever actually sued. They knew they'd lose. So don't cave in to corporate pressure when you don't have to. -- John Nagle 02:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just posted a concern about linking to customer opinion websites on WP:WPSPAM:
What does everyone think about linking to websites which contain customer opinions?
For example consider http://www.airlinequality.com/ which contains passenger opinions on airlines ( all links). I beleive such a site doesn't meet any of WP:ELs "when to link" guidelines (for #4 it's hard to consider it neutral & accurate) and hits against some of the recommendations on when not to link:
- 2: "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research, as detailed in Wikipedia:Reliable sources"
- 9: "Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to unless mandated by the article itself."
I wonder if there's a parallel here with the WP:BLP policy which is applied to biographies of living people... And has recently spawned a Wikipedia:Articles about ongoing enterprises proposal?
Your comments welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Customer opinion sites. Thanks/ wangi 21:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What is the definition of "ongoing enterprise"? Cub scouts? IBM? Democrat party? Israeli government? Mafia? A child-porn ring? A terorist organisation? Why? What is the criteria? Why is that criteria used for this policy? WAS 4.250 11:35, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Moved this from the article to talk, because that quote isn't in the reference. "Addressing the question of biographies of living persons, a subject analogous to articles about ongoing enterprises, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, said: We must get the article right. [1]" Wales doesn't seem to have said that. The closest he came was to say "And the few people who are still sort of in the old days, saying, "Well, you know, it's a wiki, why don't we just... ", yeah, they're sort of falling by the wayside, because lots of people are saying actually, we have a really serious responsibility to get things right." -- John Nagle 19:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The ongoing enterprise article has been helpful to me and I saw the enterprise template and added it to the Starbucks article. But another editor removed it the next day saying it is only a proposed policy. Should we not be using the enterprise template afterall? And should we be using the proposed policy as a guide now, or ignore it until it becomes official policy? Thanks for any input you can provide. Mr Christopher 19:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the whole point of this was "legal liability". OFFICE was created for that, so this proposal seems redundant to the extent that is is needed at all. If "legal liabilty" is the excuse for it then OFFICE makes it redundant. WAS 4.250 00:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
"Remember what we are doing here. We are building a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet. We are trying to do it in an atmosphere of fun, love, and respect for others. We try to be kind to others, thoughtful in our actions, and professional in our approach to our responsibilities." Jimbo Wales 16:49, 26 August 2005 (UTC) [2]
I help with THAT. WAS 4.250 05:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV is important for every article. Special sensitivity (enhanced awareness for privacy rights and morality concerns) is for living people. Providing special sensitivity for IBM is nonsense. I note Fred has changed the actual proposal to take some of this into consideration. Perhaps a litle more tweaking to say hardnosed application of verifiability, no original research, and NPOV anywhere in wikipedia that legal liability comes into play and don't limit that to enterprises. WAS 4.250 03:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit so far only deals with biographies of living persons. Fred Bauder 00:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Libel-Protection Unit is a proposed monitoring group that doesn't even exist yet. WAS 4.250 05:40, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Livedoor says:
This kind of detail about living person is not appropriate and is deleted inder BLP. This Ongoing enterprises proposal was modeled afer the BLP policy, yet enterprises are public in critical ways that living people are not. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Tokyo Stock Exchange says:
It is based on firm evidence in the sources section. Morality concerns for living people indicate the morality of providing accurate data on enterprises that can harm living people through profit based desicions. Not including data that can harm a company can harm the public. WAS 4.250 04:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The entire incident is notable for its severity in one persons action affecting the bottom line of two companies so greatly. The entire paragraph may be WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, but I am not for that particular argument. Electrawn 01:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Please justify the Merge idea or delete it. It makes no sense. BLP is a well defined policy. This is not even a fully defined proposal. What it applies to is not identified. What is to be applied is debated and modified. Merge what? This proposal is not well defined enough to be able to be merged. WAS 4.250 08:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, the merge is the wrong way to go. There will be parallels and differences between the two standards. If anything, it looks like this started as a cookie cutter copy of BLP and we are now trying to work out here what the differences ought to be. BLP started 17 December 2005 as a proposal, was upgraded to a guideline at some point, and was upgraded to policy on 18 July 2006 (on the it is being so used basis), and the community as a whole is still coming to realize that BLP is a policy and figure out how to apply and work with it. If it still looks like basically a cookie cutter copy of BLP this time next year, then merging will be a good idea. For now, let's work out what this ought to be. GRBerry 15:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
"Law.com: What is your liability for inaccurate information that's posted on the Web site?
Bradford A. Patrick: Our belief is that since every post is attributed to an individual, is time-stamped and is retained in the database, the foundation itself is not publishing that content. We view individual editors as responsible and have prominently displayed on every edit page that individuals are responsible for their own contributions. We take the position that we are a service provider and are protected under §230. We try to emphasize to everyone who posts that they, as publishers, have responsibility for what they add. " [3] WAS 4.250 06:18, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
The following was added yesterday to the article about a church body:
and is sometimes derisively referred to in ELCA circles as the "Misery Synod".
No citation information provided. I reverted as uncivil. Were this proposal a policy, I would assume it would be removable under it. -- CTSWyneken (talk) 15:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I put a "fact" tag on "Well-founded complaints about articles about ongoing enterprises from their subjects arrive daily in the form of e-mails to the Wikipedia contact address, phone calls to the Foundation headquarters and to Jimbo Wales, and via postal mail." That unsubstantiated claim doesn't belong in the policy without substantial backup. Discussion here hasn't established that there's a real problem, and putting that line in the article lead asserts that there is. I know that it's not customary to require WP:V in a policy, but because that's being used as justification for the policy, it's appropriate and necessary.
Let's see a monthly summary of complaints for the last year. Then this issue can be discussed effectively. Thanks. -- John Nagle 18:31, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Could they be posted here for public review, without getting into specific names? I think this may be a bad idea; as organizations/groups/companies and corporations are not people. Negative press and sourced facts are that; and we don't have to concern ourselves with the hurt feelings of a given political party or corporation, in the same regard as we do a living human being. · XP · 16:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)