Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-04-09 Simon Hoggart

Request details
Apparent disagreement about the meaning of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm".

Who are the involved parties?
flatterworld, Philip_Cross

What's going on?
The article is relatively short, and so this 'affair' is both against the guideline above and the general idea of proportionality and relevance. It was in the news cycle a very short period of time, and only because of Fortier's later affair with the British Home Secretary (which was actual news because of his use of his job to get a visa for her nanny, etc.). Wikipedia doesn't list Paris Hilton's affairs, so I don't see any reason to keep this affair in the article. He has two teenage children, so I expect having this in Wikipedia is indeed doing harm.(edited to remove name) Flatterworld (talk) 02:07, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

What would you like to change about that?
Remove any references to the affair in this article and the Kimberly Quinn article.

Mediator notes
flatterworld, and Philip_Cross: Please submit a short summary as to the dispute, as well as your argument(s) as to why it should be changed.

I've stated my view, I see PhilKnight has posted his view, and nothing from Philip_Cross. How long do we wait? Also, is there a robots thing that could be put on Mediation pages so the search engines don't crawl them? Particularly when we're discussing private matters, it doesn't help that the page comes up at the top of Google serps.Flatterworld (talk) 02:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Administrative notes
From Biographies of living persons:

"insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability."

Looking at the discussion on the talk page, I haven't seen a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability. PhilKnight (talk) 12:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * After evaluation of the relevant discussion pages, this dispute has petered out. No edits to the page by the parties have been made in two months. In accordance with WP:BOLD, I am therefore closing this case. Geoff Plourde (talk) 06:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)