Moulton arbitration request Options

[michael]

There's currently a request at WP:RFAR to review Moulton's indefinite block. I'm a bit confuzzled. No arb has yet voted on whether to accept it or not, and I know they're active - the Episodes and characters RFAR just went from evidence fo voting. Will he win a reprieve like Ferrylodge? Or will he be sunk like Iantresman?

[AB]

From the statement by MastCell (diff, minor amendments):

he has a fundamental disagreement with the policy of
verifiability, not truth.

Well, as Ms. SV pointed out (page creation):

To "verify" means to confirm that something is true.

Thus:

The terms "verifiability" and "no original research" confused
people, newbies and experienced editors alike.

It's really not all that fundamental as MastCell thinks. See
Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Role of truth, for example.

In an edit summary:

false and libelous statements do not belong in biographies,
even with attribution

Coppertwig on truth and attribution in biographies of living
persons (diff):

I agree with Simon Dodd and Dcmacnut, if I understand
correctly. First of all, if a statement about a person is false,
then it is not very interesting. Wikipedia's purpose is to
present interesting or potentially useful facts. So if
Wikipedians have established to their satisfaction that a
statement is false or probably false, then it probably doesn't
belong in the article, (unless maybe there's significant
controversy about it), especially not in a biography of a living
person -- whether it's published material or some other thing
which has convinced the Wikipedians that it's false. If different
Wikipedians disagree about whether it's false, that's a
different situation -- however, we need to be careful in
biographies of living people. If there is good reason to believe
that a statement may be false, maybe it needs to be taken out
of a biography of a living person pending further investigation.
In any case, whether it is true or not is certainly not irrelevant.

There might be no published refutation of the statement, but
the living person might privately hold conclusive proof that it's
false, which could be brought out during a libel suit against
Wikipedia. We don't want Wikipedia going bankrupt having to
pay legal fees. Better to delete the information unless we're
on solid ground.

Coppertwig's question (original wording, wording change):

Proponents [of Wikipedia:Attribution] have not given a yes or
not to this question: Are you really suggesting that an editor
who knowingly includes cited, but false, information, is helping
write the encyclopedia?

Opinion from Ken Arromdee (diff):

If you try to deny that verifiability and truth are ever at odds
with each other, you're not accurately describing Wikipedia. In
some cases, "verifiability, not truth" really *means* "not truth".

This post has been edited by AB: Thu 6th December 2007, 6:27pm