Talk:Maria Borelius

The role of blogger Ljungkvist

As all the established media have been aware, a lot of the original muckraking & hard research was done by blogger Magnus Ljungkvist, not by the tabloids. I've edited and expanded the "Nanny controversy" section to bring i n this (well sourced) and also to explain to non-Swedes why the household work thing became so damaging; if not it might have seemed like sheer fussiness.

In the process of pointing out how the story grew, the Falsterbo summer villa has got mentioned in two places, first in this section d then unde "other controversies" but I think it could well be left, the "other controversies" bit is more secific while my edit brings out how it undermined the credibility of Borelius. Strausszek 18:25 (CEST) October 14, 2006

Just remember that Wikipedia does not allow original research. The role of the blogger has to come from a reliable source, and this article has to adhere to the policies regarding biographies of living persons. For a summary of what wikipedia is about see five pillars. Other than that, best of luck! --Oden 10:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Ljungkvist's been credited by Aftonbladet now (in a separate article yesterday), and the fact is getting well-known in the Swedish blogoshere. I haven't seen anyone disputing today that he was first. Though tabloids are not always reliable sources, in this case they clearly are.

Btw I agree that drunk driving in 1988 should be removed from the "Other controversies" section: that's not even a controversy, just unrelated gossip picked up by the media.Strausszek October 15, 2006 15:10 (CEST)

--Oden 10:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

POV

This article is clearly being constantly attacked with "controversies", for example, a company going bancrupt is not a controversy, and admitting driving under the influence once 18 years ago is neither... /Grillo 10:59, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Articles covering current events tend to undergo many edits under a short period of time, the most important issue is to adhere to the policy on living persons biographies. I suspect that in time much of the article will change, any many trivial details will be removed.

For now the statement about the K-World bankruptcy still remains in the "education and career" section, where I readded the references which were also removed. It is imperative that the article is properly sourced, in order to adhere with WP:BLP. --Oden 14:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple of other issues:

• This biographic article not only presents facts but also draws conclusions (as regards tax evasion for instance).
• The section on controversies is too long, too detailed and too difficult to grasp.
• Without being specific this article instinctively feels "sensationalist" rather than factual.
• The role of the blogger is more of a "process story", and really should not be gone into any great length in this article.
• As regards some of her indiscretions, I am not even sure that they need to be presented in such detail. For instance the summer homes were registered to her husband, which is a indirect link. Going into detail might be warranted if the Swedish authorities initiate some kind of legal action. --Oden 14:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

• I fully agree that there's no point in repeating every single detail that's been put up in the Swedish papers and media, or even on the Swedish wikipedia. However, there's little point in splitting up endlessly from "Maria Borelius (bio)" to "Borelius affair" (special article), "Swedish controversy on household work and tax breaks" (a matter that might come up on a side in several different entries in the near future) etc. IMO the point of writing and commenting on a non-Swedish wikipedia on Sweden and Swedish affairs is to give reliable facts and current comment to a non-Swedish audience, anywhere in the world really (not POV comment, but explaining comment, because some things self-evident to us as Swedes will be hard to understand to others). I agree that the article should not indulge in stating a lot of allegations tossed around or speculation about her motives and I don't think I've been into that (I didn't add the drunk driving bit and it should of course go).

However I don't think it's terribly useful to just write a bare-bones article about who alleged what and giving a few disjointed quotes (all of them made in defense of someone or something). With the issues of household work and "black labour" it gets hard to understand for people in many countries how this could kill a Govt secretary in just a week; even the BBC (BBC World) were a bit perplexed when Borelius' resignation was big news on tv Saturday. And in Finland, the prime minister commented that "over here we wouldn't even dig up this sort of thing in the media" (he was probably playing up to his guest Reinfeldt a bit, but he's right that the media over there are a bit more respectful to politicians, and above all household questions are not as scandal-prone or ideologically hot as they are here). Obviously, the affair got damaging to Borelius because of the discussion on household work in the background, among other things; that one's not self-explanatory to someone in Britain, Spain or Russia, so I brought in and sourced some things to explain the background here. This is not original research or POV but easily verifiable from Swedish sources as done here, and I urge on you not to edit it out.

I think the part of the blogger belongs in the article too, as a side note, and it matters that he's not affiliated with the news media, since it's a "first" and will inspire others in Sweden. Nobody is going to come look for "Magnus Ljungkvist" on the Wikipedia if they didn't know the full story already (well, maybe in ten years time if he becomes anew Jan Guillou). As I put it, this is IMO a resource for non-Swedes. Most native Swedish people (or people living in Sweden) don't have a huge need to find facts on Sweden here.Strausszek October 16, 2006 04:05 (CEST)

Do what you think is best to make the article more accessible (Be bold!). Remember though that Wikipedia's different language versions are not targeted at different audiences, instead they are different language versions of the same encyclopedia. English Wikipedia even has a WikiProject Countering systemic bias.

Even the Swedish version should be written with a global Swedish-speaking audience of non-swedes in mind (for instance Swedish-speaking Finlanders or Ålanders as well as Swedes who have left Sweden or even anyone who has some knowledge of the Swedish language). --Oden 10:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism by User:Skalle

I have removed material from this article that does not comply with our policy on the biographies of living persons. Material in a biography must always be referenced from reliable sources, particularly negative material. Negative material that does not comply with that must be immediately removed. Note that the removal does not imply that the information is either true or false.

Please do not reinsert this material unless you can provide reliable citations, and can ensure it is written in a neutral tone. Please review the relevant policies before editing in this regard. Editors should note that failure to follow this policy may result in the removal of editing privileges.--Oden 04:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)