User:Student7/Sandbox 29

(repelling hijackers)

Highjacking articles

I wonder where I might find information about policy on highjacking articles for a pov presentation.

For example, let's say that a serial killer attended school x. I go to school x (which has no article as yet) and contribute accurate information on the killer's prolongeed association with the school. This is the only information there. No teachers. No principal. No school board. No other graduates. No information about who attends. Number of pupils. Nothing.

While not violating any policy, it seems to me that this ought to be discouraged. For example, I just had to disassociate a business which only had very lengthy info about a seven year old series of illegalities. The company went bankrupt a long time ago and was brought out and became a legitimate business. Not that Wikipedia ever discovered that! There was only one name that I recognized on the list of bad guys which were all breathlessly reported in exquisite detail when it became known, I suppose.

Anyway, it seems to me that the person doing the entry has some obligation to see that details about current operation are entered, however slightly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Student7 (talk • contribs) 01:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a section on WP:NPOV titled "Undue Weight" which deals with this. The usual response to "This article is f***ed up" is {{sofixit}}. If nobody steps up to fix it, it's likely to be deleted at WP:AfD. Argyriou (talk) 01:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Some other relevant links: Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Notability and undue weight; Wikipedia:Tendentious editing#Undue weight; Wikipedia:External links#Avoid undue weight on particular points of view; and {{unbalanced}}--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, directly relevant essay: WP:COATRACK. --- tqbf 03:51, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

1. I think (a) comes down to notability. Is the location notable for being the haunt of a notable criminal? Is it notable for any other reason? The WP:N + WP:V equation is surprisingly powerful: do reliable sources write about the criminal haunting the location? If so, it's fair game for inclusion. If not, you can make a strong case for undue weight.
2. Even if the accused is alive, WP:BLP doesn't prevent you from writing about the accusers claims. It just requires that you be very, very careful about sourcing, about not misrepresenting those quotes, about the neutrality of the language used to convey them, and about the weight you give those accusations versus everything else about the person. The easiest way to handle this is to use only material from the highest-quality printed sources, where editors will have already taken much of this into account. If the accused is notable for nothing else but being accused, consider whether they merit an article at all. --- tqbf 18:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)