Are corporations people? Options

[thekohser]

A Wikipedia essay that tried to extend WP:BLP protections to articles about corporations was recently burned and scattered to the wind -- the "public" reason being the essay was created by a banned user. I think the "private" reason is one more familiar to us, though -- such a policy would fly in the face of Wikipedia's real purpose as the world's largest online defamation platform.

How can you tweak Crisco's nose, if you're going to be subjected to duty of care policies about corporations?!

Anyway, I have asked three administrators if they would issue me the contents of the deleted essay. One has refused, while the other two have not responded.

Is there a functional admin somewhere who could reproduce here the contents of the deleted essay?

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[Somey]

I would just like to go on record (actually, I believe I've said this in at least one earler thread) that I personally don't believe corporations should be treated as people at all, and that includes on Wikipedia. I'd be concerned that applying BLP standards to corporations would just water down the existing rules, though admittedly the existing rules are already extremely watered-down from what they should be.

What WP really needs is some sort of new guiding principle with respect to articles containing criticism of corporations - that being, "would this content threaten to put a significant percentage of the company's staff out of work"? And if so, that shouldn't be added to the article unless there's a criminal conviction or some other ironclad factual sourcing for such content. (And it should also require a good deal of pre-publication review, not that anyone on WP really believes in things like that.) Whereas, if the content would threaten just one person's position, and by that I mean the CEO's in most cases, then properly-sourced allegations might be appropriate even if a conviction hasn't (yet) been obtained.

But that's just me; these days I'm becoming increasingly anti-corporate personally, so y'all can take that with a grain of salt if you wish.

[anthony]

What WP really needs is some sort of new guiding principle with respect to articles containing criticism of corporations - that being, "would this content threaten to put a significant percentage of the company's staff out of work"? And if so, that shouldn't be added to the article unless there's a criminal conviction or some other ironclad factual sourcing for such content. (And it should also require a good deal of pre-publication review, not that anyone on WP really believes in things like that.) Whereas, if the content would threaten just one person's position, and by that I mean the CEO's in most cases, then properly-sourced allegations might be appropriate even if a conviction hasn't (yet) been obtained.

I'd say that's pretty much exactly backwards. If the content would threaten just one person's position, then it's already clearly a BLP issue.

(I'm saying this based on an assumption that a guiding principle on WP could actually work, which is probably false.)

This post has been edited by anthony:

[EricBarbour]

(I'm saying this based on an assumption that a guiding principle on WP could actually work, which is probably false.)

And I'm here to tell you, it isn't "probably false".
It simply won't happen--unless there's a massive purge of the WMF's brown-nosing top management,
followed by a purge of the administrative ranks. I suspect that flying pigs are more likely to appear
at this point. WMF is becoming "entrenched" as a nonprofit, one that makes money despite its own
blatant incompetence and corruption. People have said similar things about PETA, so think of it as the
"PETA of 'pedias". They're complete lunatics, but some people love 'em. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/yecch.gif)