Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales colludes with NY Times to suppress news? | Hacker News Reader

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales colludes with NY Times to suppress news?

guardian.co.uk

8 pointswmf18 comments

As previously discussed in other HN threads on this same issue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographies_of_living_persons

"Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid paper; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. The possibility of harm to living subjects is one of the important factors to be considered when exercising editorial judgment."

Yes. And while I can't flag this article as another misleading duplicate, I can point out that this simply isn't news: there's a huge amount of "true information" that is surpressed from WP every day based on WP's policies about what they do and don't want in the encyclopedia.

I think part of the disconnect is that people see WP as a news source (it is not), the Hitchhiker's Guide (it is not), and a general-purpose lessaiz-faire commons for sharing information of all sorts (it is not). WP is a community effort to build an encyclopedia. That's all.

In this case I think Wales probably did the right thing, however there are two lessons in this article:

The claim that the Internet -- and Wikipedia in particular -- inevitably routes around censorship is wrong.

Wikipedia won't publish damaging information about you if Wales is on your side, but otherwise beware.

You just sidestepped the point of the original comment. Wales didn't have to do anything. The request was directly in line with WP's stated policies. During the 4 months I spent on WP in 2007, WP:BLP was a constant presence in edit wars.

Since this last came up on HN, I looked up the biography of Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales

The day I saw it (and again today), it was locked, but it definitely included unflattering information. If Jimmy Wales is on the side of Jimmy Wales, he evidently acknowledges the principle of posting objective information in Wikipedia.

Sorry for the guardian, but no news was suppressed, a persons life was protected.

Your really have to weigh these things carefully.

That not everybody has 'friends in high places' ensuring such a treatment is maybe a reason to review the policy of WP, but the word 'censorship' is not even applicable. News is important, human lives are more important.

> News is important, human lives are more important.

SOME human lives are more important. Others must be sacrificed to "if it bleeds, it leads".

There were other requests to keep quiet about kidnapping in the same circumstance for exactly the same reason while this was going on. They didn't get the same consideration.

Then again, they weren't reporters.

I asked Jimmy about it. Here's his response: http://mixergy.com/wales-wikipedia-rohde/

The real issue here is not Wikipedia. It's the fact that for 6 months a single call was enough to shut up the whole global press. Just imagine how often the others call: governments, corporations, Scientology...

It worked because it was a reasonable request. It wouldn't have worked so well for unreasonable requests (e.g. hiding US torture policies).

> It worked because it was a reasonable request. It wouldn't have worked so well for unreasonable requests

You mean "unreasonable" requests like wrt other kidnappings?

Of course it's unreasonable to keep quiet to protect "those people" - they're not reporters.

When your single call is "if you run this story, one of our reporters will die", the reporter on the other end of the phone is going to take that call very seriously.

That doesn't mean a single call that said "don't run that story about the real reason Sarah Palin resigned" is going to work the same way.

And do you think the same result would be achieved if the person wasn't a reporter?

No, and that's my point. It was a unique situation created by the nature of the information at play and the people handling it. And you can make a federal case out of that happening, but it isn't an ominous Orwellian phenomenon.

How about "don't run that story about Monica Lewinsky"? That call was taken seriously by Newsweek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal

And by apparently nobody else; read the cited Drudge piece.

Don't run tis story or someone will die?

Don't write this or the terrorists strike. Don't write about our soldiers killing and raping in Iraq as they may die in retaliation. Don't write about that epidemic or more people may die due to panic...

News is always about life and death.

This way the Chinese also argue when subduing information about the Tian'anmen massacre "to prevent more people from dying".

I'm pretty sure you didn't read my comment. Maybe you meant to make this reply a top-level comment of its own.

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