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Interesting question, how did the article end up? In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on e

Interesting question, how did the article end up? In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough.

arp242 6y ago
It currently says that "three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape", and that the prosecutor of the case was "disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation". So either there is a massive conspiracy, or those editors were perhaps not as unreasonable as the previous poster makes them out to be.
- wolverine876 6y ago
  See my response above; thanks.
wolverine876 6y ago
> In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough. I'm not convinced that it works, but regardless, 'not early enough' is effectively not at all. It's like the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft - Netscape and others were long out of business. 'Justice delayed is justice denied.' The comment below by arp242 demonstrates it: There was a massive campaign on the lacrosse players' behalf and if the campaign succeeds, it becomes circular: That becomes the truth that arp242 believes. There's no evidence that the accusations were false (last I knew), they were just never brought to court; she never had her day in court. (What was the defense so worried about?). You know what they tell victims like the person allegedly raped: 'Nobody will believe you. You're nothing, we're powerful. We can do whatever we want to you.'. Duke University is a powerful institution; some of the lacrosse players parents were Beltway PR consultants, IIRC. Their position was all over the news; the U.S. Attorney General took a position in a local county DA's sexual assault case of no other merit but its publicity. People in power (and on HN) identify with Duke students, not strippers. What will a stripper do in the face of that? Call up her friends in the CNN newsroom? Look at the things DAs do and never get disbarred. What it takes is bringing charges against the powerful. Wikipedia was part of that.
- arp242 6y ago
  > There's no evidence that the accusations were false This is quite the comment; do you need evidence to prove someone's innocence? Last I checked, this isn't really how the legal system works. This does let some crimes go unpunished, which is terrible, but the alternative is much worse. If you want to claim that the disbarment of Nifong was done for political reasons then you're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than some vague story about "the university is powerful" and "Beltway influence". Among other things, he withheld DNA evidence and lied about the facts of the case. Even Nifong himself agreed that disbarment was an appropriate judgement.
  - wolverine876 6y ago
    >> There's no evidence that the accusations were false > This is quite the comment; do you need evidence to prove someone's innocence? I didn't say whether they were innocent or guilty; you can see above what I said. As the charges and evidence were never heard in a public forum, we don't know much about them. I think the rest of the parent comment reinforces my view about the power of the communications machine aligned against one woman with few resources and a local DA.

Interesting question, how did the article end up? In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough.

arp242 6y ago

It currently says that "three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape", and that the prosecutor of the case was "disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation". So either there is a massive conspiracy, or those editors were perhaps not as unreasonable as the previous poster makes them out to be.

wolverine876 6y ago
See my response above; thanks.

wolverine876 6y ago

> In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough. I'm not convinced that it works, but regardless, 'not early enough' is effectively not at all. It's like the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft - Netscape and others were long out of business. 'Justice delayed is justice denied.' The comment below by arp242 demonstrates it: There was a massive campaign on the lacrosse players' behalf and if the campaign succeeds, it becomes circular: That becomes the truth that arp242 believes. There's no evidence that the accusations were false (last I knew), they were just never brought to court; she never had her day in court. (What was the defense so worried about?). You know what they tell victims like the person allegedly raped: 'Nobody will believe you. You're nothing, we're powerful. We can do whatever we want to you.'. Duke University is a powerful institution; some of the lacrosse players parents were Beltway PR consultants, IIRC. Their position was all over the news; the U.S. Attorney General took a position in a local county DA's sexual assault case of no other merit but its publicity. People in power (and on HN) identify with Duke students, not strippers. What will a stripper do in the face of that? Call up her friends in the CNN newsroom? Look at the things DAs do and never get disbarred. What it takes is bringing charges against the powerful. Wikipedia was part of that.

arp242 6y ago
> There's no evidence that the accusations were false This is quite the comment; do you need evidence to prove someone's innocence? Last I checked, this isn't really how the legal system works. This does let some crimes go unpunished, which is terrible, but the alternative is much worse. If you want to claim that the disbarment of Nifong was done for political reasons then you're going to have to do a hell of a lot better than some vague story about "the university is powerful" and "Beltway influence". Among other things, he withheld DNA evidence and lied about the facts of the case. Even Nifong himself agreed that disbarment was an appropriate judgement.
- wolverine876 6y ago
  >> There's no evidence that the accusations were false > This is quite the comment; do you need evidence to prove someone's innocence? I didn't say whether they were innocent or guilty; you can see above what I said. As the charges and evidence were never heard in a public forum, we don't know much about them. I think the rest of the parent comment reinforces my view about the power of the communications machine aligned against one woman with few resources and a local DA.