Talk:Steve John Shepherd

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[edit] Private information

I believe the statement in the "Personal life"-section to be of too private a nature and perhaps not suitable for Wikipedia. I also believe the statement to be poorly sourced. Wikipedia:Reliable sources (What is a reliable source?) says "Articles should be sourced to works [...] found in reliable publications with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Can www.people.co.uk be considered to meet theese criteria? Any thoughts? --Bensin 01:52, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The whole point of a "Personal life" section is to provide info of a private nature. The info here is tame in comparison to other people in the public eye, check out Britney Spears#Personal life for one. Wikipedia allows "Personal Life" sections to be included in bio articles so long as the info is sourced. I think that if you are unhappy about this then the best thing to do is try to change the overall poilicy, because censoring personal information from articles will be futile in the long run, as it will only be reincluded eventually.
The source from "The People" is just one source out of many that I came accross from a brief search. Shepherd's relationship with McCutcheon has been well documented: Evening Standard [1] The Mirror [2] [3] [4] BBC and others [5] [6] Gungadin♦ 17:56, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
The point of a "personal life"-section is to provide information of a personal nature, but not necessarily private nature. Also, the article in question here is the one on Steve John Shepherd, not the one about Britney Spears.
Information, personal or not, should not only be sourced. "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."[7].
As for the sources you have listed above:
  • The Evening Standard and The Daily Mirror are both tabloids
  • What is www.htropic.ie/hotgoss.php? Hot gossip? (The page says "All the goss that's fit & FUN to spread around..." and "We love Hot Goss. If you want to send us some [...] we may publish it! PLUS we'll give you FREE HotPoints as a thank you!")
  • BBC is using "Star" (Probably The Daily Star, also a tabloid) as a source.
I'm removing the whole section from the article according to Wikipedia:Verifiability ("Burden of evidence"). If you want it included I suggest you either prove credibility for these sources or provide new ones. If you disagree with this I propose we ask for a second oppinion on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. --Bensin 18:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I do disagree. You have no evidence to suggest that any of those tabloids are reporting false information, you are just basing their reliability on subjective POV. You only want the information removed because you feel it is "too private", this is again subjective, I disgaree that it is too private. The evening Standard is actually an interview with him, and one of the articles from the Mirror is an interview with McCutcheon. If you are desperate to censor this article, then i'll remove the stuff about him supposedly cheating on her, but I see no need for you to delete that he once dated another well known actor.Gungadin♦ 20:22, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
When it comes to the credibility of sources, the burden of proof lies with the editor adding information based on the aforementioned sources. However, the article reads better now that the potentially libelous material is removed. --Bensin 00:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)