I would rather not as they are seen as controversial to outsiders since outsiders have probably only heard of them due to the drama. The common theme of these articles is that if you go to their wikipedia page and go to the very first revision you will see that the article was made to document a controversy.
I don't think it's necessarily the person writing the wikipedia page malicious, but it creates a reinforcing cycle where journalists don't know what XYZ is so the Google it, get the wikipedia page Since wikipedia ranks highly, then see a bunch of controversial stuff, and then propagate that more. Similar with average people wondering what it is.
Personally, I don't like controversy sections in wikipedia article as the way wikipedia works does not make them work well. Good luck trying to correct misinformation while simultaneously following wikipedia's rules as you can't correct misinformation yourself.
Who do you think is allowed to correct misinformation?
I don't know but you can't simply delete it yourself as technically that information did come from a reliable source. I figure you have to counter it by finding another published work that is a reliable source. Even then people have agendas they want to push, so in the end your correction may just be reverted.
It still sounds as if you're thinking of an article about yourself. You aren't supposed to edit an article about yourself, that's true. The proper course is to post to the article's talk page, specifying the change you want made, and asking for some other editor to make the change.
If the "misinformation" was from a RS, then you're right: to reverse it, you need your own RS that contradicts the misinformation, and is better than the original. But if the information/misinformation is in an article about a living person, and the sourcing is contested, then it should be removed. Everything in a BLP article is supposed to be reliably sourced.
FWIW, I think this rule has unfortunate consequences; articles about living people tend to be insipid, and fail to mention well-known controversies about their subject. That is, I think Wikipedia is a poor resource for information about living people.
Comments
Can you point to a few specific examples? Are there signs this is targetted, and done maliciously?
I have not previously noticed/recogmized articles like this, and am asking out of curiosity.
I would rather not as they are seen as controversial to outsiders since outsiders have probably only heard of them due to the drama. The common theme of these articles is that if you go to their wikipedia page and go to the very first revision you will see that the article was made to document a controversy.
I don't think it's necessarily the person writing the wikipedia page malicious, but it creates a reinforcing cycle where journalists don't know what XYZ is so the Google it, get the wikipedia page Since wikipedia ranks highly, then see a bunch of controversial stuff, and then propagate that more. Similar with average people wondering what it is.
Personally, I don't like controversy sections in wikipedia article as the way wikipedia works does not make them work well. Good luck trying to correct misinformation while simultaneously following wikipedia's rules as you can't correct misinformation yourself.
Huh? Do you mean "you can't correct misinformation about yourself? Who do you think is allowed to correct misinformation?
I don't know but you can't simply delete it yourself as technically that information did come from a reliable source. I figure you have to counter it by finding another published work that is a reliable source. Even then people have agendas they want to push, so in the end your correction may just be reverted.
It still sounds as if you're thinking of an article about yourself. You aren't supposed to edit an article about yourself, that's true. The proper course is to post to the article's talk page, specifying the change you want made, and asking for some other editor to make the change.
If the "misinformation" was from a RS, then you're right: to reverse it, you need your own RS that contradicts the misinformation, and is better than the original. But if the information/misinformation is in an article about a living person, and the sourcing is contested, then it should be removed. Everything in a BLP article is supposed to be reliably sourced.
FWIW, I think this rule has unfortunate consequences; articles about living people tend to be insipid, and fail to mention well-known controversies about their subject. That is, I think Wikipedia is a poor resource for information about living people.