"THE PRECISE CIRCUMSTANCE WE HAVE, so we don't need to debate this at all - we have the answer! The quality of the original rumormonger does not come into the equation at all. Note ""A politician is alleged to have had an affair"" it doesn't matter if it is Charlie Manson making the allegation, if the allegation is reported by major reliable outlets such as the Times and The Independent and the LAT it goes in. 

 We are simply making wikipedia look partisan and censorious by keeping this out and it is shaming us all. 

 Can you kindly swallow your pride and compromise in some way to save this silly internal wikifued from becoming a cause celebre across half the Internet. 

    

 :[trolling/personal attacks removed]    

  
 So you are going to let the New York Times decide for you what is newsworthy and what is not? Considering they had no problem publishing the ""McCain had an affair with a lobbyist"" story that was debunked before the paper's ink was dry, I would think that you would decide for yourself. But that's the problem, I think. Apparently the censors at Wikipedia don't.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by     

 :And the McCain article makes no mention of this. To answer your question, yes the New York Times (and the Washington Times and Fox News and the Washington Post, etc.) trump the National Enquirer.  | ·  

 :: John_McCain_presidential_campaign%2C_2008#Alleged_inappropriate_involvement_with_lobbyists  But that was from a Reliable Source.      

 The information needs to be added, no matter how unsavory to a small minority of users who repeatedly abuse their power to remove it. Wikipedia is starting to be ridiculed on multiple news sites now due to this article. see:http://gawker.com/5029921/john-edwards-wikipedia-page-strangely-love-child+free  etc. Unlock this article and do the responsible thing and allow this pertinent information to be added.    
 :Please address the concerns that have been raised by a multitude of editors (not a small minority). Multiple ""news sites"" = multiple blogs and forums. Possibly, the confusion of the two is a source of the problem.  | ·  

 == Page protection == 

 I have protected the article for 48 hours, in the form which does not reference the allegations in question. The basis for the protection in this version is the biographies of living persons policy. To elaborate: 
 * Edit-warring is bad. There is already enough edit-warring to justify protection. 
 * Wikipedia is not a tabloid. Biographies of living people need to avoid sensationalism. This is the essence of the biographies policy. 
 * There is potential for real-life harm here. The goal here is to get the article right, not to have something up immediately. This is not Wikinews. We don't lose by waiting 3 days to get our coverage right. We lose by edit-warring and repeating poorly sourced and unconfirmed reports. At the moment, while the allegations have been reported in several reliable sources, those sources are hedging considerably: 
 ** The editor of the Los Angeles Times stated: ""Because the only source has been the National Enquirer, we have decided not to cover the rumours or salacious speculations."" 
 **  ""The New York Times has not deigned to touch the story"" 
 ** ""The National Enquirer may publish photographs corroborating Edwards’s presence at the hotel this weekend."" 
 ** From the Washington Post: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/07/20/DI2008072001482.html ""To be quite honest, we’re waiting to see the pictures. That said, Edwards is no longer an elected official and he is not running for office now. Don’t expect wall-to-wall c