Talk:Lonely Planet

Text removed temporarily from article

Lonely Planet hit controversy in April 2008, when a former writer for the series claimed that he had never travelled to areas he had written about. Passages on Colombia were actually written in the USA, using personal informants, and sections on other South American and Caribbean countries were plagiarised. Thomas Kohnstamm also said he had contravened company policy by accepting free services, and had included a favourable review of a restaurant which was actually a cryptic reference to an after-hours experience with a member of its waiting staff. Kohnstamm blamed poor pay for his activities, and other writers also stated that Lonely Planet's pay scheme was inadequate. The company itself insisted that its books were accurate and its payments among the best in the industry; no inaccuracies had been found despite Kohnstamm's claims.

Why the text was removed

I removed the above text only because it simply looks terrible for us to have an article where a recent scandal receives more attention than the topic itself. This smacks of Wikipedia's focus on controversy, which we would prefer to avoid. Therefore, as Editor-in-Chief, I'm asking us to expand the main article so that it is at least twice as long as the section about the controversy. Then we can re-add in the above text. I'm sorry to have to do this, because I never like to remove text from an article, but it is important that we be sensitive to providing solid, basic information before scandal. --Larry Sanger 10:07, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

By the way, I would like to add that I personally love this sort of topical focus--I would like to encourage people to write articles about topics that are in the news. It's just that, when we do so, we should not have more info about recent events than the more basic info (unless the recent events really are that important). --Larry Sanger 10:09, 14 April 2008 (CDT)

I can understand why you've done this, Larry; but I fear this practice can also lead to accusations of censorship. If I have time I will expand the article and reinsert the deleted material (assuming I can write twice as much). John Stephenson 02:18, 15 April 2008 (CDT)