Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 24

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Ward Churchill

There is discussion about whether or not Press Releases from the American Indian Movement can be used to substantiate the position AIM has taken in regard to Ward Churchill in a section that deals with Churchill's history with AIM. The discussion can be found here07:21, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The content is being inserted in the subject's "Ethnic Background" section, not in "a section that deals with Churchill's history with AIM" (that would be the "Involvement with Indian organizations" section). The discussion could use more eyes upon it. The 2 issues being discussed are 1) can the AIM press release be used (with its inflammatory rhetoric) as a primary source instead of reliable secondary sources (newspapers) covering the same information, and 2) does this disparaging content (the opinion of an organization long in contention with the BLP subject) qualify in significance and import to be included in a BLP? Xenophrenic (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this question belongs at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard, not here.--agr (talk) 01:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Short answers: 1) The AIM press release is authoritative for what AIM says, and can be addressed appropriately in an NPOV manned such as "AIM issued a press release disputing Churchill's status...." and so forth. Don't try to make them an authority on what Churchill is or is not; make them an authority solely on what they say Churchill is or is not. 2) Sure, when used appropriately. BLP isn't a license to say nothing bad about someone, it merely insists that we source negative material appropriately. Jclemens (talk) 01:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Question about sourcing

The BLP policy says all unsourced information should be removed, and whether it's positive or negative is irrelevant. Then it goes on to say only contentious and defamatory material that a good faith editor objects to should be removed. Which one should I follow? If an article says- ABC worked with company X for 20 years. And that's unsourced, should I remove it? Assuming I've tried to search for sources. Additionally, should I even bother to search for a source? Or should I just remove it with the burden of evidence argument? ƒ(Δ)² 19:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

My opinion: Of course you should bother to have at least a look around, before removing something, otherwise you just unnecessarily remove information that could just be a Google search away. For the main question, I would follow the second advice (only clearly contentious and defamatory material should not be given the benefit of doubt), but I'm sure you'll find a plethora of different opinions. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 22:10, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That apparent discrepancy between the lead and the section further down does point to the same thing - that not all material should be removed, just that which is questionable or contentious, with contentious defined as material to which a good faith editor objects. That means that if you remove something in good faith, and are not vandalizing or being deliberately disruptive, that is OK. Where you will run into trouble is if you remove something that most editors would not find questionable or contentious. Easily sourced material may fall into this category, and while you are within the policy to remove it, you will find that locating a source, or tagging with {{fact}} is preferable. Kevin (talk) 22:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I find that to be exceedingly vague. Where you will run into trouble is if you remove something that most editors would not find questionable or contentious. Easily sourced material may fall into this category, and while you are within the policy to remove it, you will find that locating a source, or tagging with {{fact}} is preferable. So I would be correct to remove material that I can't find a source for, even if it is not contentious? (Refer to my question in the original statement) ƒ(Δ)² 08:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I would say that if you cannot find a source then the material is by definition questionable or contentious, and should be removed. Sorry if this doesn't make my point clearer. Kevin (talk) 23:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. If you cannot find a source for a claim, remove it. Even if it seems harmless, inaccurate information is no good. We are an encyclopedia. We build our articles by compiling already published information. If you can't find where it's been published, take it out. As Kevin pointed out, it's easy to run into trouble when you remove information that many others don't see a problem with. In addition to his suggestions, removing the information and then placing a note on the article's talk page explaining why you did can often prevent drama. Lara 18:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Indications that bio policy is FAILING

http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/Culture/gossipedia.html

First, understand that I deleted my old user page with my real name at the time of the Seigenthaler incident. I did it not because I am notable, but because some of the regulars involved in that incident were so unreasonable that they scared me.

Derbyshire did not know what to do about his slanderous Wikipedia page so he attempted to fix it himself. He was immediately slammed as if he were some stupid newbie instead of a notable person with a bio. Now listen here you regulars, I know for a *fact* that such behavior is flat prohibited by this policy and it has been ever since Wikipedia almost got the crap sued out of it during Seigenthaler. I don't know how much clearer Jimbo could be about this policy. I also know for a *fact* that such behavior is both unfair to living people and harmful to Wikipedia, and if you don't understand why, please read this policy *again*.

One of the things that so irritated me during Seigenthaler was how regulars could quote chapter and verse of Wikipedia policies to other people but used that ability to avoid following those policies themselves. What happened to Derbyshire proves this. What happened to him should *never* have happened.

I apologize, but I find myself unable to keep from ranting on this issue.

To continue, I have found that anyone who wants make an effort to keep controversial bio articles clean gets the exact same negative treatment. I have attempted to work on the Palin and Limbaugh articles, and I have found that there are regulars who use their extensive knowledge against normal editors like me and who make POV edits. Working on these articles is such a battle that I have given up and so have most other editors like me. Like Derbyshire, I have neither the time nor inclination to become a Wikipedia expert just to keep a bio cleaned up.

Once again, this is a problem, it needs to be fixed, Jimbo *knows* it needs to be fixed and I don't see what else he can do without the help of all of us. Your goodwill and cooperation is always greatly appreciated, but as Derbyshire shows, it is certainly not forthcoming.Jarhed (talk) 18:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The second thing I noticed was that my Wikipedia page was written by an AAM — that is, an Angry Asian Male. This needs a bit of explanation. Among East Asian males, there is a large subgroup who are flipped into a mode of blind fury by the thought of Asian women consorting with non-Asian males. In the young-adult cohort of mainland-Chinese males, I would estimate the subgroup as about one in three. These are the AAMs. One recent target of their rage has been Chinese movie star Zhang Ziyi, whose affair with Israeli venture capitalist Vivi Nevo has stirred quite horrifying levels of vituperation against Ms. Zhang on Chinese-language blogs. After hanging out among Chinese people for forty years on three continents, and having been married to a lady of Chinese ancestry for twenty-three of those years, I am exquisitely well-sensitized to the AAM mentality. I can, as it were, spot an AAM at five hundred yards. That the author of my Wikipedia page is an AAM shone out loud and clear.

From that rant. I'm sure their were innacuracies in his bio. It was (and probably is) too long, focused on trivialities, slanted by the likely bias of editors and readers of wikipedia, and generally well below par for a 'real' biography. But he's not a sympathetic figure. And he's not making a clear case. And you are presenting his unclear case as some call for immediate action as if there were a solution right in front of us that would allow anonymous (or even just pseudonymous) editing, provide for redress of wrongs and allow our biographies to instantly reflect the will of their subjects (except where that would be wrong). There isn't. So I don't see the need to give more credence to a quasi-racist rant (With the important caveat that he knows asian people, so he can't be racist!) than would normally be due to it. Protonk (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

You are *exactly* the type of editor I am talking about.

But he's not a sympathetic figure.--Pure POV and anyone who has even the tiniest inkling about how this place works knows that is *not allowed*.

And he's not making a clear case.--You are attempting to use a blog entry as a *primary source* for keeping slanderous data in a *bio*. You don't have to know much about sources or bios to know that THAT is *not allowed*.

some call for immediate action--I have a documented case of a living person being reverted from changing slanderous data in his own bio. Not only that, the person is a writer with a national platform who is criticizing Wikipedia's bio policy, and it is not like this is the first time. Don't you consider THAT "some call for immediate action"?

as if there were a solution right in front of us that would allow anonymous (or even just pseudonymous) editing, provide for redress of wrongs and allow our biographies to instantly reflect the will of their subjects--How about this commonsense and easy to do approach: how about none of you regulars revert bold changes to bios without being careful not to bite a newbie notable trying to fix his own bio? Merely *that* would have prevented this issue.

So I don't see the need to give more credence to a quasi-racist rant (With the important caveat that he knows asian people, so he can't be racist!)--That is more POV crap. It is good that you didn't put quotes around that "knows asian people" because in fact the man said that he lived in China for forty years, and remember, he did that on a *blog post*.Jarhed (talk) 19:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

So could you please elaborate on how exactly the policy has failed? The policy seems fine to me; if people don't follow it, then that's a different issue which should be handled here. Astronominov 18:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The policy clearly says to be careful about reverting a good faith edit by a notable person attempting to fix his own bio. I have been editing here for years and I have no clue what a BPLN is without researching it, how do you think a notable person trying to fix a slanderous bio feels. Once again, I am saying that there is a real problem here and that regulars who quote policy in leiu of trying to actually fix the problem are actually making the problem worse.Jarhed (talk) 18:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a problem and has been for as long as I've been paying attention to BLPs. WP:BLPN is the BLP (biographies of living people) noticeboard. A better place to take these issues is actually WP:OTRS. Ranting usually doesn't do much to help one's cause in these situations, but trust me that I understand. Really, I do. I'll look over the article but would appreciate a simple, clear list of issues, preferably on the article's talk page. Lara 19:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

See, I don't know the *exact* policies about raising an issue like this. Rather than forcing me to learn them could you give someone like me a little help instead? I know enough about the policies that posting about this issue *here* should be enough to get this issue raised properly, whatever that is. The article has already been fixed by other editors, so the article as it stands is not the problem. The problem was the violation of bio policies documented by Derbyshire on his blog and the thousands of people who have read them.Jarhed (talk) 19:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

We all start somewhere. You aren't being "forced" to learn the policies; Jennavecia has just helpfully pointed out where you can go to register a complaint about a BLP. As you have noticed, posting a message on a relevant talk page usually elicits help pretty quickly. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of this problem comes merely from reading this policy, and it seems so obvious to me that it should be obvious to anyone. This policy is shot through with warnings to be careful with bios. I have already encountered tremendous institutional resistance trying to do something positive about this in the past, and if I can't get any traction here, then I am unwilling to attempt it again. If that is the case, then let's just drop it. However, I know for a fact you are all wrong.Jarhed (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you are talking about. I've never edited that guy's biography, and I never plan to. Nowhere have I said "yeah, blog posts are great sources for biographies". I also fully admit that the bias (in the aggregate) of wikipedia editors is likely to push this guys article toward defamation. I'm just pointing out that a racist and misleading attack from the subject of the article isn't a great place to start. If you want to fix the article, then do it. If you are uncomfortable doing it, then list precisely the problems with the article. You don't need to know or reference wikipolicies, just say "this is what the article says, this is why it is wrong/inaccurate/out of context." But broad rants about how bad biographies are aren't in short supply. Protonk (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

We have >400K BLPs. Every here and there, someone rants about his/her own BLP. Sometimes rightly so, sometimes not. All I can say is: meh. Not that we don't have to get these cases seriously, but we cannot assess things with isolated anecdotes. If there is a problem, let's bring statistics about the size and depth of this problem. Data. Until that moment, some dozen of BLP complaints over 400.000 overall BLPs tell us that the policy is working exceptionally well, if anything. There will always be some problematic cases, it is in the nature of WP -we must reduce them to a resonable minimum, without crippling the encyclopedia. I'd say the current BLP policy is good enough, and my personal opinion is that the real problem is that it is already interpreted even too much restrictively by most editors (have a look to AfDs to get an idea). --Cycl^opia - ^talk 20:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Stats would be nice, but I'd settle for simple enumeration of the problems with a specific article. Protonk (talk) 21:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

He was in no way treated like a "stupid newbie"; see User talk:Ptvydanh. WhyDoIKeepForgetting (talk) 02:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Cyclopia, you're doing nothing to help the situation. Our policy is not working exceptionally well. A HUGE chunk of those BLPs are worthless stubs. A lot of people don't know they have a biography here, because we'd surely see complaints from them if they did, considering how poorly they're written and the garbage that gets stuck and left in them. Not to mention you don't know how many complaints we get each week from subjects of biographies. "Some dozen" is about how many we get a week. If you want stats, get to coding something, otherwise relegate yourself to the discussions where you know what you're talking about and can be helpful. Lara 16:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're no one to tell me where I should "relegate". I have my opinions on the BLP stuff and I can express them, politely and respectfully. You had a shining career as an admin involved in this thing: If you have statistics on how many complaints are received each week on BLPs (and how many of them are actually serious complaints), please share them and if they are as overwhelming as you claim , I am willing to change my mind. Maybe I talk out of ignorance, absolutely, but it's hard to do otherwise when the people who supposedly know don't share with us numbers and facts. Please do. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 17:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

some numbers to support that BLP is failing CAT:BLP 53,000+ unsourced, that in itself is a scary figure, while it will be inaccurate 10% either way as for complaints. Year to date we have 1000+ [1] disputes via Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard thats just the discussion that reach the notice board, there are more that just occur on talk pages and even more that come via OTRS. As for actual articles according to WP:BIO there 747,000(467,000 stubs & 152,000 start) bio articles 436,000 articles are tagged as living=yes Gnan garra 17:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the numbers, Gnangarra! A quick look on WP:BLPN shows that , while many of them are reasonable complaints, they are in vast majority complaints between editors on the quality, bias etc. of BLPs. If anything, it shows that the process is working and vibrant. In any case, 1000 (or even 2000) complaints on the noticeboard for 436000 BLPs mean anyway that significant problems are acknowledged in substantially less than 1% of biographies. There's room for improvement, and for sure an underestimate; but not bad, I'd say. But anyway: what are meaningful about "failing" are the complaints of the BLP subjects, and in this respect an estimate of OTRS tickets by subjects would be most helpful.

That said, I am personally a big fan of semiprotection on all BLPs -it would really help avoid at least basic vandalism. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 17:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to comment: Yes, the unsourced figure is more concerning. However there's a discussion above just about that, and it turned out that 1)the figure is inflated because many articles are added sources but stay tagged as unsourced 2)most probably the ratio of problematic BLPs in this subset is not substantially larger than in all the BLP set. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 17:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I am someone to tell you, as I am someone who knows what I'm talking about when it comes to BLP. Whether you listen or not is up to you. I'd think you'd not want to make inane comments, but that's just an assumption on my part and I'll admit that I don't understand the deniers. That said, I don't have specific figures. I haven't nor do I plan to scour through thousands of pages and email archives to gather up statistics. I also am not able to detail you into OTRS stuff, but if you like, go ask User:Keegan about how many BLP OTRS tickets we get a week. He's been working with them far longer than me. Also, my "shining career" is unfazed by the loss of my tool belt. Lara 18:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't sarcastic abou your admin work (I am aware of the recent drama and I'm sorry for what happened, but this has nothing to do with what we're talking about now). Now, the point is that I'm more than willing to listen, but I'm not going to listen arguments that amount to "I know this stuff and you do not" without ay more explanation. I am more than willing instead to listen factual data, instead, but it seems that almost no one (except our fellow Gnangarra) wants to expose them. We can invite User:Keegan to the discussion for sure and listen to his estimates. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 18:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a privacy violation to give out details of OTRS tickets. There may be numbers, but I don't know of any compiled statistics, so I can only go by what I've seen. I handled I think about a half a dozen BLP tickets last week. There were others that I read but did not feel inclined to take on, and I'm sure still others that I didn't see. Last week wasn't an exceptional week, in my opinion. Keegan, though, should be able to give a more solid opinion on numbers. Lara 18:33, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Enough to understand orders of magnitude. 10 a week mean ~~540~~520 a year. Let's make it 600 a year. On the total of ~400000 BLPs, it makes ~~500~~600/400000 = 0.15% of BLPs in one year led to an OTRS ticket. That is consistent with rough estimates above. It seems all evidence points to the fact that the odds of a given BLP to create trouble to its subject are between 0.1 and 1%. That's the magnitude of the BLP problem, it seems. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 22:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

What an amazing use of mathematical formula - 10 a week = 540 per year(?), let's make it 600 (okay...) so 500(?)/400,000 (never mind the stubs previously referred to). That's accurate quantitative research followed by top analysis right - so that you can reach a statement enough to understand orders of magnitude? BLP issues are qualitative in their nature not quantitative or statistics as you wish to put it. Perhaps this is another something not understood. Oh and Cyclopia you were being sarcastic about Lara's admin work - indeed you were very rude and your comment was not helpful nor professional, indeed it was placed simply to poison the well, raise argument and disrupt this project. To move on - in terms of the general premise that BLP policy is failing - yes it is failing to the tune of hundreds, perhaps thousands of living persons each year, and no movement to statistical analysis (even very poor statistical analysis as described above) regarding a qualitative situation is going to be able to adjust the level of concern that this project must hold over that situation.--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 22:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention that OTRS stats only cover those aggrieved parties who actually find their way to OTRS in the first place. Kevin (talk) 22:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes exactly - statistical analysis such as directly above(?) - bloody hell what a load of perverted nonsense!--VirtualSteve ^{need admin support?} 22:42, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

VirtualSteve, don't dare putting in my mouth things I've never said nor thought to say. I wasn't sarcastic at all -me and Lara may have argued about a lot of things, we may be at the antipodes on a lot of stuff, but I think she was doing a good job and in good faith. It's only your malice thinking that I had been sarcastic. I've read what happened to her and I have my opinion on that; but she was anyway doing a good job on the BLP stuff, even if from a position that I may disagree with.

That said, you can be sarcastic with me instead as you like, but that trivial back-on-the-envelope calculation gives us an estimate. I did it hastily and got funnily a lot of numbers wrong, right, so you can laugh at it as much as you like, anyway the substance does not change: we're still between 0.1 and 1%. And yes, if someone says that "BLP is failing", one has to do that on some quantitative basis, we cannot just scream "FAIL" bringing out the latest odd anecdote. Now, we have an idea of the overall magnitude of the problem. Next, it would be interesting to see if the problem is getting worse or better over time: that's the only meaningful way to say that "we are failing".

That said, I'm not gonna say people can relax and abandon BLP patrolling -quite the contrary, if numbers are that low is probably because of the alert on the thing. But one thing is saying that we should be vigilant and that we could improve, another is screaming "we're failing!" without any data backing it. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 00:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes we all need to take a "leap of faith" we can all manipulate numbers to support our arguments 520p.a. you've calaculated as having issues is enough to cause serious damage 520 potential litigants in the US is enough to cause many companies to abandon a project as a class action even a minor judgement of $1,000 per person would see $520,000 gone in an instance given that such judgements are never that low but I've just thrown out a suposition based on figures that have no intrinsict value. Lara is just one person working OTRS there are many more the numbers she is seeing can be reflected by a magnitude of 10 maybe even 100 because there are more than that answering OTRS tickets. When it comes to issues in BLP they arent limited to unsourced articles from my experience most of the serious concerns come from sourced articles as they are guarded by editors with barrows to push. BLP is failing because a POV editor with a barrow can disrupt for weeks, even months on end while editors(OTRS volunteers) with no prior knowledge of the subject are expected to find sources to disprove the claims, demostrate that the source isnt reliable, find sources to balance arguements in the article. Wikipedia is turning in to a great place to attack a person and because we all have/are working hard to raise our credability to point where we are accpected as reliable a slur against a person is given credit and considered important because are recognised as an authorative source. This policy doesnt give editors/admins the ability they need to address the problems, 1 article out of 436,000 will be enough to destroy the work we have done that may appear to you be an exageration but consider if that one is about you. Gnan garra 01:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The debate over numbers is a waste of time. Even if it is only 1% of half a million, it's still 1% of half a million. It's too much. There should have never been the incidents of Taner Akçam. Some BLP editors are in it for the foundation, to protect against potential lawsuits that could, if not for Section 230, cripple the project. I'm not in it for the foundation, though. I'm not trying to keep the Foundation from getting sued. I'm trying to get the project to a place where people aren't given a reason to sue. The policy isn't working exceptionally well. Exceptionally well will be the case when there's a drastic decrease in the number of shitty biographies making it through AFD, and when the number of OTRS complains from subjects dwindles into nothing of importance. The fact of the matter, despite the percentages, is the policy is not only not working exceptionally well, but (as the header notes) it's failing. It's been failing for as long as it's existed because if it had ever been good enough, we wouldn't have tens of thousands of problematic BLPs. Lara 02:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Dates of birth

I wonder if the policy on dates of birth needs to be strengthened or clarified. Right now, the policy is vague: "Caution should be exercised with less notable people. . . When in doubt about the notability of the subject, or if the subject complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth." Obviously if one is in doubt about the notability of a person the article can be nominated for deletion. If deletion does not take place, and the subject does not object, this policy implies that a precise DOB is acceptable. Many people have their DOBs and even their mother's maiden names in Who's Who editions of some years ago, before identity theft became a matter of concern, and this opens the door to publishing their DOBs in the world's most-clicked-on website and exposing them to identity theft.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

"less notable" does not mean "not notable". We have tens of thousands of biographies on people who are not widely notable. Those articles shouldn't include birth dates, but many of them do. Lara 18:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought so too. But a rather protracted talk page discussion in Stephanie Birkitt indicated otherwise.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The rule that I personally go with is that if we can only find a year of birth, use it. Don't use a full DOB unless you can find it widely cited (and, of course, the subject does not object). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

What cities notables are from

Subjectively, 1), I'm uneasy that the Notability sections category tags are being used for promotion of individuals and cities.

Objectively, 2), Since I do a fair amount of anti-vandalism -- I'm concerned that the Notability sections are targets for unverifiable information.

But, 3), what really seems problematic is that there is an unstated, implicit assumption that something about a city is relevant to a person's notability. Let's assume -- for the sake of discussion -- that I am notable. I was born in one city. However, I was raised in another city, and it greatly affected me (and my hypothetical notability). However, I left that city and moved to still another city, where I have my (hypothetically) notable career. Which city influenced me most strongly? The second. Which city influenced me next-to-most strongly? None of them, it's another that I lived in only for a few months. If I was wonderfully notable, wouldn't all four cities like to "claim me as their own"? ... Including cities that I wouldn't care to identify myself with?

A practical example: In Amy Grant editors have categorized her both as "People from Franklin, Tennessee" and "People from Nashville, Tennessee". But then the article says she was born in Augusta, Georgia. There is no "Notable" section in "Nashville, Tennessee" or "Augusta, Georgia". There is a Notability section in "Franklin, Tennessee", but Grant isn't in it.

So, quite apart from promotion and vandalism issues, there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument that a notable who has lived in a city is notably associated with it. Thoughts? Should notable people who aren't worked into article text be excluded from the article? Piano non troppo (talk) 11:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Not everything in an article has to be related to proving the subject notable. Some of it can just be information. Mr.Z-man 17:36, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Unless I am misunderstanding the thrust of your comment, I don't see this issue as a WP:BLP issue (except to the extent it relates to the requirement that information be properly verifiable). The general subject of how best to organize information about where people are from has been extensively discussed at WP: Village pump (policy), notably here. --Arxiloxos (talk) 19:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Names of children in infoboxes in articles about politicians

I am currently in an "sort of editwar" with an administrator (User:Kevin) about Natalia Korolevska (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I didn't want to remove the names of her children from her infobox, User:Kevin said that was against Wikipedia:BLP#Privacy_of_names. I replied that there seems to be general consensus on wikipedia that says "kids name in politician-infoboxes please" cause most infoboxes on politicians have the names of the kids mentioned in there wiki-articles (from Obama to Roland Burris!) So I thought: 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong and simple acted (what for me looks like) in wikepedia consensus. If the other politicians infoboxes don't change then why should Korolevska's one change? Surely this "don't mention there kids name"-rule is completely outrun by reality and therefore should not be enforced any more. Besides "outing" the names of politicians kids does not do those kids any harm (especially if they live in Ukraine!). — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 23:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The difference between Korolevska's children and those other examples you mention is that her children are under 18 and are not widely named in published sources. Obama's children are very widely discussed in the media, and the Burris children are adults, and therefore accorded less protection per this policy. Kevin (talk) 23:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, now I get it! Good argument, (now) I agree (well only with the "under 18" argument). I once got the tip to never argue on-line/e-mail when you can speak to somebody face-to-face (I regret we couldn't do that, I suspect we would have talked it out in 30 seconds). Let's just say this was a great example that one should never argue on-line and in future I will try to ask for exact arguments sooner!
— Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 23:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Need opinions on which photos are better

Discussion moved to Wikipedia:BLP/N#Need_opinions_on_which_photos_are_better Kevin (talk) 01:52, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to bring BLP in line with actual practice with respect to 3RR

In WP:BLP, subsection WP:GRAPEVINE, editors are instructed as follows:

Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Remove any unsourced material to which a good faith editor objects; or which is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research); or that relies upon self-published sources (unless written by the subject of the BLP; see below) or sources that otherwise fail to meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability.

The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals. Editors who find themselves in edit wars over potentially defamatory information about living persons should bring the matter to the Biographies of Living Persons noticeboard for resolution by an administrator. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel.

Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no neutral version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).

Now whilst this may have seemed like a good idea at the time(?) it is evidently not the policy that is applied in practice either by experienced editors or administrators.

Just a day ago a fairly new editor BluefieldWV (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was blocked for 24 hours for removing material from Anthony Watts (blogger)'s biography that is subsequently regarded by uninvolved consensus (at least four genuinely uninvolved editors all agreed that the material being added was not in any way supported by the source) as unsupported by the source (therefore OR or SYN). I have also been threatened by uninvolved administrators with blocks for edit-warring whilst trying to keep material that was later agreed to be violating BLP out of the article until the BLP dispute was resolved.

The policy in practice seems to be, instead, that 3RR always applies unless there is an "obvious" BLP violation.

So at the very least, the BLP policy needs to be updated to actually say this. It is not fair on new editors to be threatened and blocked by administrators for doing exactly what BLP stresses that you must do.

That said, I believe it would be better still just to remove from the policy any suggestion of 3RR not applying to removals. Saying it only applies in "obvious" cases is a recipe for disaster; how is "obvious" defined? What is obvious to one person is completely wrong to the next. In the case of BluefieldWV, he has been blocked for is to me a very blatant BLP violation (one of the most blatant I've seen), and I have no doubt that Bluefield was acting in good faith.

(References, WP:BLP/N#Anthony_Watts (blogger), Talk:Anthony_Watts_(blogger)#Surfacestations, User_talk:BluefieldWV#October_2009, User_talk:Sandstein#BluefieldWV). Alex Harvey (talk) 15:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

There's no question that certain policies are observed in the breach. When was the last time you saw a serious effort to consistently and strictly enforce WP:CIVIL? But the policy on 3RR for BLP breaches is a good one and should not be changed. Good policies, like BLP and CIVIL, should be enforced, not changed just because people don't observe them. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That's an enforcement issues, not a policy issue. Lara 16:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's my point (I don't know if you're responding to me or Alexh19740110). The policy is sound.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I was responding to Alex. Lara 18:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree with these responses so let's look at it another way then. Let me quote WP:EW:

Exceptions [to 3RR] by content type

...

Libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced controversial material which violates the policy on biographies of living persons (BLP). What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption.

Unlike the WP:BLP this is hopelessly vague. "What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption." That's kind of like saying, "Okay, on second thoughts, maybe edit-warring to enforce BLP is not such a good idea after all. Go to BLP/N instead?"

The point is, whilst policies may not get enforced properly, because we don't live in a perfect world, we can surely agree that having people being blocked, and quite often I'm told, for doing the right thing is an very, very bad outcome for Wikipedia. Alex Harvey (talk) 10:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

As Alex knows, the reason he (the other editor) was blocked is because the material in question wasn't a BLP issue, hence he wasn't exempt from 3RR. This issue wasn't such a pressing one the edit warring was sensible or required. No change to BLP or 3RR is required. Editwarring is never a good idea. Verbal chat 11:08, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Here are some things Alex knows: (1) unsourced material was added to a biography of a living person. (2) the BLP policy states that unsourced material that is added to a biography of a living person should be aggressively removed. (3) an editor was then pursued through AN/I and subsequently blocked for aggressively removing unsourced material that was added to a biography of a living person. (4) It is subsequently argued that only "obvious" BLP violations should be aggressively removed. This is supported by a vaguely worded note at WP:EW but unsupported by anything in WP:BLP. Alex Harvey (talk) 12:04, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

1, It was poorly sourced material about a website, not unsourced material about a living person, and many felt within the bounds of OR; but the current decision is a better source is needed. 2, "aggressive" is not supported by policy, and definitely counter to many policies. 3, An editor was reported to WP:AN3, not ANI, for editwarring, where a neutral admin decided if editwarring had occurred. The option of requesting an unblock was open but unused. 4, Nothing should "aggressively" be removed apart from copyvios and gratuitous vandalism, but even then it should usually be done with an assumption of good faith. All BLP violations should be removed, but where there is dispute they should be discussed, and OR etc being on a BLP does not necessarily make it a BLP issue.

Basically, if you are reverting more than one good faith editor you should escalate, not editwar. Verbal chat 15:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

@Alex Harvey: Though I disagree with your suggestion to change the policy, and am not familiar with your personal situation, I think you have raised what is in principle a valid point. Editors who remove BLP-violating text should not be blocked for doing so, just because other editors are determined to add bad stuff to the article. The question is, how does on deal with this situation? Is there some process for "expunging" a 3RR block in the narrow circumstance of remedying in good faith a BLP issue? After all, going to the BLP noticeboard is frequently an exercise in futility. The board is backlogged and many postings go unanswered.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

@Verbal: But escalating often doesn't work, and sometimes editors in "good faith" want to skewer people they don't like. I think Alex has a good point, in theory at least. I've seen administrators, who are supposed to know the ropes, showing abysmal lack of knowledge of BLP. If you want specifics, I can email.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 15:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

As the editor who was blocked, I wanted to put my $.02 in here.

Why have the policy if its not going to be uniformly and unequivocally enforced? One of the first lines of BLP states that: Material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. If this is not the case, as it was not in the article I was blocked for, why have it? Having a policy like this enforced and followed at the whim of fickle and sometimes partisan editors/administrators opens it to abuse and severely undermines the credibility and perceived legitimacy of Wikipedia and its functionaries.

Either enforce it all the time and make it apply to every editor and every article, or remove it. BluefieldWV (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to remove every policy that is sporadically, inconsistently or unfairly enforced, you'd have no policies.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It sounds as if you are making an argument for better enforcement of policies already in place and some sort relatively quick remedy when they are not? BluefieldWV (talk) 16:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Or another proposal.

The policy states that material should be removed if it violates BLP but this could be abused by partisan editors. Policy also states that it is up to the editor who wants to include the material to demonstrate why it isn’t a BLP issue. A simple solution would be as follows. 1.Require any material removed on BLP grounds to be justified on talk. 2.If anyone objects to the removal, it should be sent to the BLP notice board until it is resolved. 3.The material cannot be restored until it is resolved on the notice board 4.After a resolution, the material can be restored or rejected 5.The original resolution can be referred to for future incidents

BluefieldWV (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"sent" to the BLP noticeboard by whom? All this would do is shift large numbers of discussions from one place in Wikipedia to another, and does not increase safeguards for BLP subjects. Better to provide more protection for editors who remove BLP-violating material.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 16:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

“It would be “sent” by the individual who wants it to stay on the article. The entire reason to get the discussion off the article’s talk page and onto the notice board is so that a fresh set of eyes and uninvolved parties can take a look at it. It has been my experience that the article talk page is dominated by people who edit the article and there appears to be very little input from disinterested third parties. BluefieldWV (talk) 16:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

As I see it (and I did try to warn BluefieldWV he was seriously violating rules although I was not the blockin admin) there is a huge issue with subjectiveness here. Editors without ability to see anyone else's point of view (and I speak only generically with no particular editor in mind) are a real menace on WP, and we cannot word BLP policy in a way which gives them carte blanche for bad edits on grounds they claim they can see a "BLP angle". In general most admins still enforce 3RR aggressively as important for policy and if there is a serious BLP violation other channels exist to deal with them. Sure if a group of students get accounts and gang up to slander their College Dean credible editors will go over 3RR to stop them. But disagreement with good faith editors on whether something is a genuine BLP violation does not give the remover divine rights to go over 3RR --BozMo talk 16:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

BozMom, that is absolutely positively untrue. No where in this policy does it discuss either the good faithed or bad faithed nature of an editor, only that there is a BLP violation. In addition, the violation is not a matter of degree, its only a true/false statement.

Back to this specific case, mine, there was most certainly a violation, everyone agrees with that. We can argue if it was a tiny BLP violation, or whether it was a gigantic BLP violation, but the policy does not make that delineation. I followed the rules, as laid out in this policy and was punished for following them.

If Wikipedia is going to have statutory rules, I would suggest that they be followed to the fucking letter, otherwise shitcan them and go by some kind of common law system. BluefieldWV (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

WP is not a bureaucracy, and policy is not written in stone. It is the spirit, not the letter that counts. (with the possible exception of 3RR). BLP violations are invariably about a person and with regard to material that is "Libelous", "biased", "harmful", "hearsay"... The key word is about a person. Its not narrowed down to material that happens to be on a biography article. It applies to most material on a biography, and some material in regular articles. There are gray zones everywhere, and black/white thinking isn't furthering things. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You keep saying that, but nothing in the policy would seem to back your opinion. BluefieldWV (talk) 18:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IAR, which is policy, supports Kim on that of course. --BozMo talk 19:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Until there is a formal change in policy, I would tend to interpret the BLP exception to 3RR quite narrowly, as in 'So-and-so committed serious crimes and was never brought to justice.' In hotly-contested articles people tend to wave WP:BLP arguments around even when there is no immediate threat of defamation. Some of the leeway given to 3RR closers, I think, allows us to try to figure out where the reverting editor is coming from. BluefieldWV was a very new editor who seemed to be doing lots of reverts on global-warming related articles. In my mind that tended to reduce the seriousness with which we should take the BLP claims, since they already were questionable. Since the phrase 'partisan administrators' was used by Bluefield above, in my personal opinion at least one of the things he was trying to remove was in fact OR by others and deserved to be removed. The question of whether something is OR is usually left alone by admins so that editor consensus can make the decision on it. EdJohnston (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The rules apply only to the extent we want them to apply (regardless of what the actual policy says) and apply to those we want to apply them to. I appreciate the clarification. BluefieldWV (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Funnily as far as I have looked at it I am a bit sympathetic to his edits (viz, there are changes he is trying to achieve I probably weakly agree with) but the conduct was the issue. Most of the (mainly admin) editors on the article did not accept that there was a BLP violation. I can see BLP versus 3RR is an argument versus which takes precedent. As well as what is the better policy you also have to deal with the practicalities than BLP is a tiny proportion of WP and most of the admins who look at the 3RR noticeboard will shoot first and talk later. BWV I think you need to think more. Two admins warned you that you had crossed 3RR and you flatly contradicted both. The third blocked you for it. And yet you are still adamant they are all in the wrong, and claim "everyone" agrees with you. I wonder...

The only thing I am adamant about is the lack of consistency here, which is pretty confusing. There is a policy, BLP, and its non-negotiable .... except for the thousands of instances where it is. Whats even better is that no one can tell you what these instances are, you just better hope that when an administrator show up to kick some ass he agrees with your interpretation of the “non-negotiable” rules and not the other guy. BluefieldWV (talk) 18:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Well I did try not to kick ass, to be sympathetic and explain. And you are still a bit black and white where I see shades of grey. But I take your point on practise. --BozMo talk 19:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not familiar with incident in which BluefieldWV is involved and I'm not sure I want to be. But I think that in general he has a point on the need to revert BLP damaging content, even if it is not as dramatic an example as EdJohnston mentions. A good example is in the Colorado Balloon Incident article. Experience editors, acting in good faith, wanted or perhaps still want this article to say that the hoax was "confirmed" and at one point the name of the article was changed to Colorado Balloon Hoax. There was no edit warring over that but there could have been, and if so there might be a 3RR situation. BLP issues can cause real life damage, and in this case the article is linked from Google News and can prejudice the legal case involving the parents. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 17:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you've written. But the trouble is that the articles in question contain material that isn't biographical or relating to a person. The reasons for this are varied, but basically boils down to material that isn't considered notable enough to have its own article, and thus got relegated to related articles. In all of the cases here, it is that material which is in dispute. One side wants to use BLP as a hammer to remove, and the other side wants a more nuanced look at things. What is clear, is that we are talking about border-line original research, which is in content dispute - but none of the material is problematic with regards to the "do no harm" spirit of BLP. So it is a gray-zone, but not the one you are talking about. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure it's biographical, as "hoax" would mean that two specific people (the parents of the "balloon boy") committed a criminal act. I assume we're talking about the same articles, on the Colorado balloon case. BLP relates to text about living people, whether or not it is in a biography or not.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 19:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree in your case with the Colorado balloon case (which i first heard of today), the usage of "hoax" distinctly implies a perpetrator (thus BLP alerts are chiming (someone is harmed if its not correct)). But the original reason for this thread lies with a different kind of dispute, where it is content related and not person related. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I guess we're talking about different specific situations then. I wasn't commenting on BluefieldWV's specific problem, as I don't know anything about it, but was speaking in more general terms about how, yes, 3RR can conflict with fixing bona fide BLP problems. That could certainly happen. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 20:51, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep - i can (and does). Mostly (except in extreme cases) 3RR in reality takes precendence, but gets fixed by unblock requests (if the user isn't hostile), from my experience of watching these. I've rarely seen 3RR get trumped by using the BLP card. Mostly because 3RR is demonstratable, while BLP can be tricky. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) KDP wrote ----- the original reason for this thread lies with a different kind of dispute, where it is content related and not person related

I respond ----- This is to say you are still insisting that an unsourced statement asserting (almost certainly falsely) that it is a goal of Anthony Watts' SurfaceStations project to not publish in the peer reviewed literature (thus diminishing in my opinion and in the opinion of others the credibility of its author, Anthony Watts) is a statement about the SurfaceStations project and therefore has nothing to do with Anthony Watts. I have not understood yet how a statement about the intentions of the project can be interpreted without believing those are actually the intentions of Anthony Watts. Let us be clear, it was for removing this allegation that BluefieldWV was blocked.

JohnnyB256 wrote ----- Though I disagree with your suggestion to change the policy, and am not familiar with your personal situation, I think you have raised what is in principle a valid point. Editors who remove BLP-violating text should not be blocked for doing so, just because other editors are determined to add bad stuff to the article. The question is, how does on deal with this situation? Is there some process for "expunging" a 3RR block in the narrow circumstance of remedying in good faith a BLP issue? After all, going to the BLP noticeboard is frequently an exercise in futility. The board is backlogged and many postings go unanswered.

I respond ----- (1) I don't know if expunging from the record is going to do much to undo the bad memory and experience that gets left behind. How are you going to make me forget the warning I received from an administrator for crossing 3RR to remove a BLP violation from another article? In that case too, it was finally agreed that I was right that it was a BLP violation. But I got very angry, and the whole thing was quite upsetting. The net result is to create ill will and diminish the credibility of Wikipedia. (2) What about the WP:EW policy; if you believe the BLP policy should not be changed, then would you not agree that the vaguely worded statement in EW with respect to how it applies in the WP:BLP needs to be changed? Alex Harvey (talk) 12:26, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You can raise the subject at the 3RR noticeboard, and try to provide a wider exception to people citing BLP. But the sense I'm getting to this discussion is that there would be resistance to that, as it would open a loophole for people to bring bogus BLP arguments as a justification for edit warring, and that chaos would ensue.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Somebody changed to "may" from "does" the language in the paragraph on removing poorly sourced negative material (not being subject to 3RR). "Does" is the longstanding policy and should not be changed without extensive discussion on the talk page here. There is no consensus for this change, and I have changed back. We need to strengthen BLP protections in this day and age, not weaken them or undercut editors removing libelous and poorly sourced text.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Badly done. It is out of line with 3RR now. Consensus looks to me like only BLP related material gets a 3RR exemption which is what the 3RR article says. This one now implies lots of subjective non BLP edits to BLP pages get exemption which makes work on 3RR blocking all the people who have read the version here in good faith. --BozMo talk 17:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't imply anything of the kind. The policy now is narrowly drawn, and should not be watered down, certainly not in the current climate in which Wikipedia is criticized for being insensitive to BLPs. Obviously there can be good faith disagreement about what is or is not a BLP issue, but right now, at the very least, we have a policy that protests someone from sanctions if he or she corrects a determined editor coming in and persistently adding unsourced negative content. It sometimes takes a while to get attention from BLP/N and other overburdened notice boards. There simply must be protection for editors who stick their necks out and protect BLPs from causing real life damage to people.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 19:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What if, say, 4 or 5 good faith long standing editors think it isn't a BLP concern and have restored the material, which doesn't directly relate to the person but is a statement about a project they are involved in, and only 1 recently joined editor and one longer standing think it is a BLP issue? Make it simpler: if you're reverted by more than one editor, and those editors aren't SPAs, then you should escalate to BLPN/AIV/ANI as appropriate rather than editwar. I've noticed most people assume it is one person trying to insert material, but that doesn't parallel the situation that initiated this discussion at all (and neither does my hypothetical, it is a mere counterpoints). Verbal chat 19:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Simple: if there is no bona fide BLP issue, then BLP does not apply. I'm talking about the kind of situation addressed in the policy.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 19:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, you need to be reasonable and use common sense. If you are being reverted by good faith, non-SPA, long term editors, you should take the matter to the various boards before going way over 3RR. The policy already says that. Crum375 (talk) 19:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This discussion started because BluefieldWV was correctly blocked for crossing 3RR in removing material he considered poorly sourced from a Biography, based on his understanding of this guideline. He was warned by one involved and one uninvolved admin (I was the uninvolved admin). Then he was blocked by a third blocking admin and the fourth reviewing admin all ruled the material he was edit warring was not specifically Biography of Living Persons even though it was in a BLP article. I do not doubt BluefieldWV believed in good faith that this guideline said any poorly sourced material in a BLP article can be removed ignoring 3RR. The guideline gives a false impression. --BozMo talk 20:05, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me like the system worked just fine. An editor edit warred and was blocked. Most edit warriors edit war in good faith, in the belief that their cause is just. We don't withdraw protection from editors who do the right thing because of an editor who doesn't do the right thing (assuming he didn't; I have no personal knowledge of his situation). Assuming your assessment of the situation is correct, then it would seem that BluefieldWV made a mistaken interpretation of BLP policy. That happens all the time. I've seen administrators who seem not to know a thing about BLP policy.--JohnnyB256 (talk) 20:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree of course. His reading of BLP policy as written was literal and accurate. The policy does not suggest going and reading the 3RR text whereas "may" lets the reader know he should go and find out more, e.g. read advice like "post on the noticeboard unless ultra sure of your ground". BLP is a tiny corner of Wikipedia in terms of the numbers of articles and it seems perfectly fine to me if Wikipedia Admins have not realised we have particular policies for BLP. Anyway 3RR will be what determines the blocking so I guess I am not too fussed if it is downright misleading here. --BozMo talk 20:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what happened, but if BLP was violated he should not have been blocked. However, I understood this to be a situation in which BLP did not apply. So he was correctly blocked. This policy does not say, "you can edit war in BLPs. That's OK." No, it's quite specific. But as in all policies, you've got to get it right. Should blocking administrators go easy on editors who think they are correctly applying BLP? That's a separate issue, and really should be discussed in the edit warring noticeboard talk page or the 3RR policy talk page. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that in order to be credible in this discussion you need to actually understand what happened. By saying now that he was in fact "correctly blocked" after all, this entire conversation has become a bit laughable. It makes Wikipedia's stance on BLPs laughable too. If Bluefield was correctly blocked, then it follows that the BLP is a policy that should not be taken literally. Even the group that supported his block seem to agree that his actions were supported by a literal reading of the BLP policy. Alex Harvey (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I rather think your credibility in the matter needs attention as well. As far as I know, unless I missed a discussion somewhere, his block was not overturned and was supported by every admin who has voiced an opinion on it (of which I am aware of four). I did notice you proclaimed a consensus the other way which he seems to have repeated in a block appeal and perhaps undermined his credibility in the block review, which was not helpful to anyone. So as far as I can see there has not been any "after all" or "in fact", the summary above is correct. Personally I agree his actions were supported by a literal reading of this policy which is not in line with the more important edit warring policy and needs fixing. Certainly aside from 3RR his edits look correct, there was a problem with the edits he was reverting which went against several policies. Other people have agreed that the edits he was reverting went against policy. But we have very good reasons for the 3RR rule and there was no basis for over-ruling them. Just being right does not justify 3RR. --BozMo talk 09:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

@Alex. I'm not "defending" the block. I've said several times that I have no opinion on the block but am commenting only on policy. JohnnyB256 (talk) 12:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

@JohnnyB256, you just said that Bluefield's block appeared to be correct. If you believe in the BLP policy his block can't have been correct. This contradiction needs to be resolved, and although I strongly believe the BLP policy should trump 3RR I believe even more strongly that the policies need to be mutually consistent. You can't have it both ways: if Bluefield's block was correct, then the BLP policy needs to not say that 3RR does not apply. If the BLP policy is correct, then Bluefield's block was incorrect, and 3RR needs to be changed. Is this not just common sense? Alex Harvey (talk) 14:27, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No, as I have said repeatedly, I have no personal knowledge of the block and have no opinion on it. I was responding to an editor saying as follows: "he [Bluefield] was blocked by a third blocking admin and the fourth reviewing admin all ruled the material he was edit warring was not specifically Biography of Living Persons even though it was in a BLP article." BLP is not a get-out-of-block-free card for editors who improperly cite BLP. Again, I'm not specifically saying his block was incorrect, but you keep bringing it up again and again. We shouldn't be weakening protections for BLPs because of this controversial case, and we don't change policies out of spite or for "consistency." The fact is that the vast majority of policies on Wikipedia are contradictory or inconsistent in one way or another. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

<backdent> I work on a lot of bios where there is flagrant defamation of the subjects and it is important to be able to refer to this. I was scolded recently by an admin because I reverted a few times too many before finally bringing it to WP:BLPN. Anyway, an editor did come by and set the offending editor straight on his WP:OR in those quotes. Of course, now the editor is just doing it with other quotes in another part of the article. So I'm trying to decide how many times I can get away with reverting - while I'm waiting for a response from WP:BLPN on my second complaint. (I guess WP:ANI is next per the BLPDispute tag on top of page!) Anyway, I do think this is a necessary road block against defamation that is at least temporary while you are trying to get someone else to set offending editors straight. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Self published books for further reading

Quite rightly BLP policy says "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, blogs or tweets as sources for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the biographical material". However, it does not mention the insertion of SP books in the "Further reading" section of a BLP. Unless this loop hole is closed anyone can write material that would be unacceptable in the article or as a link and place it in " further reading".Momento (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not a loophole, it's rightly so. A self-published book is not a source but it can be for sure a further reading on the subject. That is: if I want to write about John Doeselfpublisher , I won't use his selfpubs as a source. But if I want to know more of John Doeselfpublisher, his self-published stuff is for sure an interesting and useful read. --Cycl^opia - ^talk 14:14, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

If I am reading the question correctly, Momento is concerned about self-published works written by someone other than the subject of the article, an attack piece perhaps. However I think that possibility is covered by our WP:external links guideline. In particular under Links normally to be avoided, it lists "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints which such sites are presenting." It goes on to say "In biographies of living people, material available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all, either as sources or via external links. External links in biographies of living persons must be of high quality and are judged by a higher standard than for other articles. Do not link to websites that are not fully compliant with this guideline or that contradict the spirit of WP:BLP." --agr (talk) 14:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The exception can't be for the subject's own works, because those are already allowed as sources per WP:SELFPUB, so surely they would be allowed for "Further reading" as well. Momento, can you point to where you saw the comment about allowing self-published books (other than those by the subject) in the "Further reading" section? At the moment I can't seem to find that in WP:BLP or WP:V, but perhaps it is somewhere else?

In any case, I've added WP:External links to the See also -- Relevant guidelines section of the BLP policy.--agr (talk) 14:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

A self published book was inserted in the Prem Rawat article "Further reading" section and was removed as being against BLP policy. It is being argued that since this SP book is not being used as a source nor linked to and is not specifically flagged as inappropriate for "Further reading" is should be allowed.Momento (talk) 15:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, none of the policies or guidelines explicitly address the question of including a self-published work under "Further reading", but the spirit of the policy is this from WP:BLP: "Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should not be used, either as a source or as an external link (see above)." Just because that doesn't mention "Further reading" sections specifically shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of including a questionable source in such a section. To me this omission just means that we need to clarify the point in the policy statements. (Note that I say this without expressing any judgment on the particular book being disputed at the Prem Rawat article; I don't know if it is self-published or otherwise questionable.) --RL0919 (talk) 16:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Also see [2], where I raised the same point, unaware that it was being discussed here. --JN 466 02:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Note that in this edit, I updated the BLP policy to exclude such books from "Further reading", but that doesn't specifically cover non-BLP articles. --RL0919 (talk) 02:57, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Biographies of living people

Surely people is better than persons? Majorly talk 23:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No, wikt:persons is technically the more precise choice, because the policy is primarily conceived for the protection of individual humans (Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) instead of collective groups of humans (wikt:people#Noun, e.g., Englishwomen). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Ron Luce

Recently, after having read the article on Mr. Luce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Luce), it struck me that the article had a slanted view of him and the ministry. An example of this: "ome have criticized his organization, citing frequent militant statements by him such as: "This is war. And Jesus invites us to get into the action, telling us that the violent—the ‘forceful’ ones—will lay hold of the kingdom," [1] and exhorting his young followers to proclaim in unison: "I will keep my eyes on the battle, submitting to Your code even when I don't understand."[2]"

(Citation 2: Taylor, Sunsara (2006-06-11). "Battle Cry for Theocracy". truthdig.com. Retrieved 2007-08-04.)

The article cited is an opinion based article, one that is quite obviously AGAINST Mr. Luce, and should be removed. Not only that, but there is no citation as to the words Mr. Luce was supposed to have said, and is a misrepresentation of some of his teachings.

Charlie181 (talk) 15:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The citation is reported in the Truthdig article. Regardless, there is some bias for sure in the article, and the paragraph you report is problematic for sure. However it is better to discuss this on the Ron Luce talk page; this page is to discuss the BLP policy. --Cyclopia ^talk 15:57, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If there are still problems with the article after discussing the matter on the article's talk page, you can post a message at WP:BLPN. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Or WP:NPOVN, depending on the nature of the case. --Cyclopia ^talk 16:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP notification bot

Following on from discussion above, it was agreed at WP:Bot requests to create a bot to tell certain people that articles they've been involved with are unreferenced BLPs. User:Fritzpoll has kindly agreed to write the bot, so a discussion is in order on what sort of parameters to use. As a starting point for discussion, I propose notifying

Editors who created an article which is now classed as an unreferenced BLP
Editors of such an article who made changes > X bytes (excluding any changes consisting of tag or category removals or additions)
Activity filter: Only notify editors with <Y edits, if they were active in last 30 days; or if >Y edits, if they were active in last year (more likely to return)
Wikiproject filter: reduce X by half if the editor is a member of Wikiproject Biography

X might be 500; Y 1000. Thoughts? Other criteria, tweaking the numbers? Fritzpoll said "To develop criteria, perhaps we should grab a sample of unreferenced articles and examine them manually, deciding who we would and would not contact. From that, a set of criteria should hopefully emerge. Otherwise the values of X and Y will be arbitrary." So anyone willing to have a crack at that and provide some input based on that, that would be great. Rd232 ^talk 21:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

A minor tweak: in the past I've gotten AfD 'bot notifications for articles that I created as a redirect. I think the editor who first adds content other than a redirect should get notified, if possible.--agr (talk) 23:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem - that's a pretty simple additional check. It'll also have to be nobots compliant, and I will set up a separate exemption list to allow for opt-outs per good practice. I am concerned about arbitrary criteria, so I'm going to pick 5 unreffed bios at random aqnd list them here - then we can decide who should be notified. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Ingebrigt Steen Jensen, Tsvetomir Panov, Henri Sader, Guilherme Fontes, Gregory Zientek. Where to begin? Fritzpoll (talk) 15:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure, but looking at Gregory Zientek suggests additional criteria: exclude IPs; exclude from analysis any edits which are in some way minor (marked as minor; edit summary includes "using popups" or similar; "rvv" or "sp" or similar; "stub sort" or similar); exclude any edits identifiable as vandalism (eg page blanking, reverted by Cluebot, or maybe using Cluebot's heuristics). In the case of Zientek, these criteria (with activity filter) leaves nobody to notify. This is probably going to be the case more often than not, but there we are. Rd232 ^talk 16:12, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

For Henri Sader, User:Earl Andrew (edits), User:SimonP (edit). All other editors excluded. Rd232 ^talk 16:17, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so how did you determine that those two editors should be picked? Fritzpoll (talk) 17:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

They were the only ones left after excluding the currently inactive and those who only made minor changes (eg adding a category). Rd232 ^talk 17:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

arbcom

"The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to the subjects of biographies who try to remove what they see as errors or unfair material:"

What's the point of including this? Arbcom doesn't make policy. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

In any case, that isn't a BLP issue but a WP:COI issue. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:17, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Edits

Hello. I have copyedited this page a bit for clarity of wording, to attempt to shorten it a bit, and fix some broken section links. I am posting here not because my edits were anything special, but because it is such an extremely important policy affecting so many articles, so that the changes may be seen and so that I am here for convenience of being yelled at if necessary. :)

After I somehow managed to spend three hours working through this outstandingly boring page, I was dismally disappointed to discover that I only managed to shorten it by 5% (though I replaced some cryptic shortcut links to aid navigation and avoid annoying redirects). It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, given its unholy length, though it's extremely repetitive. I guess it has to be that way because nobody would ever read the whole thing. Most editors have probably never even glanced at it other than to find out what WP:BLP stands for.

Anyway, though I made a few other changes not directly related to copyediting, I took great care not to affect the policy's current spirit or meaning. Please review and correct my wording changes if/as you feel is appropriate. • Anakin ^(talk) 17:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I think you've generally done a good job with the rephrasing. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, just wanted to be sure I wouldn't cause any grief with any drive-by editing. :) • Anakin ^(talk) 13:20, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

"persons born prior to 1887 can be safely assumed dead."

Is it safe to change this to 1894? The oldest living person was born in 1895, and what are the chances that a person is notable, living at 115 years old, and have an article on wikipedia? Also, can the word "dead" be changed to something along the lines of "deceased"? TheWeakWilled (T * G) 22:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

If the oldest known person was born in 1895, then it should be safe to update that assumption. The odds of someone being older than that and keeping the fact hidden are pretty low. --RL0919 (talk) 23:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the article oldest people, the oldest confirmed age is 122years, 164 days. Reason dictates that there probably might have been older unconfirmed people somewhere somewhen, but not too much more than that. "...125 years..." leaves a safe margin, don't you think? A nice round number, too. If you leave a year like "after 1895", we'll have to update it regularly. "...more than 125 years ago..." would be a nice, perminant wording, IMHO. Chrisrus (talk) 05:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll change it to "persons older than 125 years can be presumed deceased". TheWeakWilled (T * G) 15:28, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

That phrase doesn't really make sense. By referring to a "person older than 125 years" it sounds like the person is alive, which then makes the part about him or her being "presumed deceased" incongruous. I prefer that a year be stated as it is easier to determine by looking at the policy whether a person should be presumed deceased or not. A simple way of ensuring that the year in the policy is automatically updated is to do it this way: "persons born prior to {{#expr:{{{CURRENTYEAR}}}-125}} can be safely assumed dead". I've therefore updated the policy in this manner.

Note that the cut-off date was previously discussed: "Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 21#1887 cutoff" and "Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 22#assume people born before 1900 are dead". If anyone disagrees with the current period of 125 years from the current year, feel free to revert the change and discuss the matter here. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't revert, but I did adjust the calculation slightly. The two previous discussions you linked agreed on 122 years as the benchmark, not 125 years. The higher number was suggested above as "round number", but if we are doing an automatic calculation of the year then there is no reason not to stick with the number that had consensus before. If someone breaks that benchmark, we can adjust then. --RL0919 (talk) 16:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I also feel it's safe to change it to 1894, while the oldest person reached 122 years, that could be considered as a rare event. Secret ^account 22:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's change it to "persons born more than 122 years ago (the oldest age on record) can be presumed deceased." That's a nice number, grounded in something more than aesthetics, that we can justify. Ray^Talk 02:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The policy currently states: "Persons are assumed living unless there is a good reason to believe otherwise (for example, persons born prior to 1887 can be safely assumed dead)." I think the present wording is fine. Note that 1887 is 122 years before 2009, so the policy does make use of 122 years as a yardstick. It is more useful to have a year indicated than a period (i.e., "1887" rather than "more than 122 years ago") as readers can immediately decide whether a person should be regarded as living or not without having to engage in mental arithmetic or whip out their calculators. A mathematical formula is used to generate the year, so there is no worry about the year having to be updated regularly. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You say "until someone beats the benchmark" of 122 years. It's been beaten! The oldest confirmed person lived several months longer than that. Also, reason dictates that if that's just the oldest CONFIRMED person, there is no rational reason to believe that no one anyone ever lived longer. We'll never know, I suppose. For this reason, some leaway, some reasonable amount of time longer than 122 years should be allowed, just to stay on the safe side. We can't assume that no one could ever live longer than 122. Give us a little buffer, some reasonable amount of margin for being wrong about how long a person could live. While I did mention "a nice round number", it was clear I was basing it on something more than "aesthetics", evidence and reason dictate that 122 is not safe enough an assumption. Add a few years to that, and then we have a safer assumption. Chrisrus (talk) 02:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

You've changed the figure to 124 years; I have no objection to either that or 125 years. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP issues in redirects

A recent RfD resulted in deleting the redirect of Fort Hood terrorist attack to Fort Hood shooting; see also the current discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Redirect#Section regarding neutrality of redirects. I'm bringing it here because I agree that there's a BLP issue here, but there's nothing precisely on point, either on this policy page or in this year's WT:BLP archives.

Consider this analogy: in the index of a book, I see "silly twat, p. 50". I turn to page 50, and it's about Barack Obama. I assume that it's a mistake or vandalism, but then the author tells me it was intentional. I wouldn't bother reading anything else that author wrote, even if he pointed out the "silly twat" quote several pages later. To intentionally direct someone to a page via an offensive epithet, knowing there's a reasonable chance they won't get far enough to see where the epithet came from, is childish, or worse.

The problem with our current guidance at WP:REDIR, that you can't redirect from "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", unless "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" is discussed in the article, is that most readers don't have our long attention spans, or our confidence that we'll find what we need to find in the article if we just keep reading. In the Fort Hood deletion discussion, I would have insisted that the redirect go to a section talking precisely about the widespread (120K ghits) use of the phrase in the redirect, and even wider use of the word "terrorist" referring to the shooter, with a neutral assessment of who used the term and what people understood it to mean. - Dank (push to talk) 20:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion on specific text (either here, or at NPOV since it's also a neutrality issue, but not at WP:REDIR, since it's a matter of policy rather than a guideline): "A [non-neutral, disparaging, whatever] redirect to biographical material about a living person, for instance from "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs", should be tagged for speedy deletion [alternatively: nominated at WP:RfD ] unless there is a section in the article that discusses the widespread use of the phrase by reliable sources and complies with our neutrality policy. If so, the redirect should go to precisely that section, not to the top of the page." - Dank (push to talk) 21:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC) tweaked

I like your suggested wording. In the case above, the terrorist attack redir could point to Fort Hood shooting#Possible motivation.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should refer to redirects to any BLP material rather than just entire articles, I'm not sure. - Dank (push to talk) 21:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Btw, note that I didn't mention which speedy deletion criterion ... that's because of the ones available, it would have to be G10, but I'm concerned about the language in the G10 template in this situation. The average editor making a link from "Fort Hood terrorist attack" would be very surprised to find out that we're more or less calling them a vandal. We might need a new CSD criterion, or at least an alternate template, for this one. And I just added "alternatively, nominated at RfD" ... my BLP instincts say "shoot on sight", but given the fervent discussion these things generate, maybe a slower approach would be less inflammatory. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

G10 is not appropriate when there is a good faith difference of opinion. If there are two sides to a deletion debate, such that one side has clearly articulated a reason for keeping some content, tagging that content for G10 is disruptive, because G10 requires that there be no good-faith difference of opinion. Speedy is not for controversial matters. Jclemens (talk) 23:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I personally support your position on this, Jclemens, but I was too much of a wimp to say it, because I know that there are a lot of people who feel strongly that we "shoot to kill" anything that even sniffs of a BLP violation. I think the greater good here would be RfD so that we can go slow, talk it out, and make sure we're getting it right. - Dank (push to talk) 00:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks--that level of validation does somewhat bolster the spirits in the face of some rather scathing condemnation. Jclemens (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

For reasons enumerated at great length at Wikipedia_talk:Redirect#Section_regarding_neutrality_of_redirects, I oppose the introduction of any new language extending BLP to redirects. Ray^Talk 23:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with your assessment at WT:REDIR that these are contentious issues that seem to be straining good faith, but I don't need to assume, Ray, you've proven your good faith. I can't agree with your argument over there that since it's okay for Google, it's okay for us; everyone knows that Google is a search engine that points you to other people's material. When someone starts typing "Fort Hood" into our search box, and they see "Fort Hood terrorist attack", click on it, and get an article about this guy, with nothing until 3 or 4 screens later about that term, that's our search term leading to our article. If Newsweek has "Dick of the Week" in their table of contents and it takes you to an article on Dick Cheney that tries to attribute the quote to other people 4 pages in, would that seem like good journalism to you? You and I are comfortable with how Wikipedia works, but most of our readers are not. Their models for what it means to be "reference material" are books and magazines. I guess my main point is: what is the downside to forcing the disparaging redirect to point to the part of the article that discusses the disparaging term? - Dank (push to talk) 00:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, to your particular proposal, in general, I have no issues with it as a recommendation - falls clearly under the lines of "more relevant and better" redirect. I do oppose the notion that a useful redirect could be deleted b/c the association, if made in the narrative voice of an article, would be a violation of BLP, for reasons I outlined over at WT:REDIR. Ray^Talk 01:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Oppose such changes. Existing BLP rules are more than adequate, and we don't need any more BLP-creep, where things that aren't BLP violations are called BLP violations because of editors' misunderstanding of the guidelines. Redirects don't assert anything, they simply redirect to a correct article where NPOV, BLP, etc. applies. Likewise "reliable sources" is too high a standard for redirects--the workable criterion is "useful", such that blog posts and other unreliable sources can demonstrate non-trivial usage of a term. Jclemens (talk) 23:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully, I disagree that the existence of an "offensive redirect" is somehow POV. If some people know a person/event by a certain phrase, as evidenced by RS, then I don't have a problem with the direct existing. Only people who already know the phrase will use it, so it shouldn't cause offense to people who have never heard it, nor can it reasonably been as causing harm to the subject. Clearly disruptive redirects can already be speedy deleted as vandalism, and borderline stuff should go the RfD. The only test should be "could someone reasonably type in this phrase expecting to find an article?"--ThaddeusB (talk) 02:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Thaddeus, pardon me, but I don't think you've got the right end of the stick. Completely random example: type "latino s" into the search box. Whether you're logged in or not, you'll probably see 4 options; click on "latino stereotypes", and you'll see that's a redirect to another page. If you type "Fort Hood" into the search box, you won't see Fort Hood terrorist attack, because that redirect was deleted (and also because not everything shows up in the search box, I don't know what algorithms they use). But for some disparaging redirects, you definitely don't have to type the whole thing into the search box to have it pop up. To most readers, it looks like a term we're suggesting as a valid search term, one they may have never seen before. - Dank (push to talk) 02:20, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I thought redirects didn't appear, but that is obviously not the case. (I believe the frequency of usage is what determines what shows up.) Incidentally, your example had been pointing to the wrong location since June due to some vandalism - ouch. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes - and certain editors need to reign in their "editors' misunderstanding of the guidelines" song and dance a bit; it is old, tired, and rather demeaning. In some cases, BLP can and should be applicable to redirects. Tarc (talk) 13:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
- How about this, then: I fundamentally do not believe that allegations are transitive for BLP purposes. An assertion "A is a terrorist" is a BLP violation if there aren't RS to back such up. Two assertions, like "B was a terrorist attack" "C is a suspect in B" together do not imply that "C is a terrorist" in a BLP-relevant way. Again, redirects are not allegations, but this assumes for the sake of argument that they were, and redirects can be deleted for plenty of other perfectly good reasons, but BLP is the nuclear option and must be closely contained to prevent such absue. Jclemens (talk) 19:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  - I am well aware of your position by now, thanks. Tarc (talk) 20:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

AP Stylebook puts it this way, I'm quoting from page 396 of the 2009 edition:

Summary of practical points

Although every AP story is expected to be accurate and fair, stories that involve negative reports about individuals or companies warrant particular attention. When evaluating such a story, it usually is prudent to ask these questions:

1. Are any statements in the story capable of defamatory meaning? In this regard pay close attention to the use of certain "red flag" words that may sound more negative (and thereby more defamatory) than if a different, but similar, word had been chosen. ...

2. Are those statements ones of fact (capable of being proven true or false), or protected as opinion, or simply rhetorical hyperbole that no reasonable reader would understand as a statement of fact?

3. Could someone reading the report reasonably understand it to be about a specific person ...

4. Could you prove that the statements in question are true (and do so without violating promises to any confidential sources)?

5. If it turns out that you have the facts wrong, would a jury think you did not do something that any reasonable journalist would have done to get it right?

6. Assuming there is some possibility that the first five questions could be answered in the plaintiff's favor, is there a privilege that nevertheless justifies proceeding to publish? For example, is the report a fair and accurate report of an official government proceeding or document? ...

I want to particularly point out that "Do we say he's a [whatever]?" isn't the right question, according to that list; the standard is "capable of defamatory meaning", that is, could a persuasive lawyer conceivably convince a jury that someone's reputation was harmed because the author said they participated in a terrorist attack, if the jury believes that to be not factual and the author knew or should have known it was untrue? (The answer is: yes.) Note that the word "defamation" doesn't mean exactly the same thing to lawyers, journalists and Wikipedians. Still ... in addition to not being sued, which is always a plus, we're also trying to grease the flow of information into and out of Wikipedia, and a story that runs afoul of those six points is not going to flow if mainstream US journalists are involved (and it's going to be even less likely to flow in countries that don't have a First Amendment. We're currently being sued by two individuals in Germany; see the most recent Signpost.) If our search box suggests the term "Fort Hood terrorist attack" when a reader types in "Fort Hood", even if certain news organizations who have more lawyers than we do could get away with it, I think there's a good argument that all six of the points apply, even if we never call this guy a "terrorist", because "terrorist attack" sounds conspiratorial and sinister, compared with my understanding of the facts. But I'm not trying to argue this particular case, I'm saying that legal and journalistic "defamation" is a big part of WP:BLP, and this is the page where defamation issues tend to be discussed. I understand that we have traditionally thought of defamation in redirects as being less of an issue, or a non-issue, but as long as we have a search box that suggests terms as people type, that's not only wrong, it's backwards: things that look like a table of contents or headline are a bigger defamation risk than ordinary text. And of course, Wikipedia policy is to stay far, far away from the risk of defamation. - Dank (push to talk) 20:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I'm aware that a defamation lawsuit from this particular plaintiff is unlikely; I'm talking about defamation issues in general. - Dank (push to talk) 21:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Dank, it's been many years since my college civil liberties course, but unless I attended school in an alternate reality there's no way a public suspect like Major Hasan could win a defamation suit over a statement calling him a terrorist flat out, much less an indirect statement that somebody searching on his actions might characterize them as a terrorist attack. I believe the standard for such public figures on matters of indisputable public interest is something like reckless or malicious disregard for the truth. To use the AP's framework, your argument in that case fails both points 2 and 6. A statement that the Fort Hood attacks were terrorist ones, much less one that some people might reasonably search on them as terrorist attacks, is both protected opinion (in the first case), and verifiably true (in the second). Even on the example, I find your discussion unconvincing. (Addendum: I notice that since I wrote this you mentioned that you only use this example as an illustration, and you don't expect Major Hasan to actually sue Wikipedia and win. I hope you read my discussion of this example in the same light).

On a more general note, I believe that such changes as the community makes to our BLP policy should not be a concern for legalities or a fear of getting sued, but we should instead base our policies on the purpose of Wikipedia: to encourage the propagation of useful, well-sourced, and pertinent information to our readers. If we are actually endanger of getting sued, that's what office actions (and Wikimedia's quite capable official lawyers, and the people who advise them) are for; let the Wikimedia Foundation alter that policy by office action if they think it's necessary. We, as editors, should be concerned with the areas within our gambit, which is the propagation of knowledge. To deliberately chill the speech of our editors by going beyond what the law requires, in a manner contrary to primary purposes of Wikipedia, would seem to me to be an excess of caution. Ray^Talk 22:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

The way I'd put it is that "being an encyclopedia" is our mission, and "being nice" is at best one constraint upon that mission. "Do no harm" is a parameter, not a mission, that is often not reconciled well with WP:NOTCENSORED. Jclemens (talk) 22:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

(To Ray) The propagation of knowledge is my top priority as well. No mainstream journalist will touch material that even "feels" defamatory according to the rules they've learned, so the appearance of defamation impedes the flow of our information, and that's one of the reasons for our WP:BLP policy. I understand that we've had endless discussions about the particular concept of what a "terrorist" is; this just happened to be the precipitating WP:RfD. I'll be happy to switch examples if you think it will make the issues clearer.

Also, here's a reference for something I said above: although AP Stylebook doesn't refer to "search boxes", of course, I think the principle is expressed in (p. 397): "Headlines, photos and captions must be as accurate and objective as news stories." - Dank (push to talk) 22:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Comparing redirects to headlines is an inapt comparison, in my view. We already have an analogue to headlines: article titles, which DO have to follow NPOV. Alternatively, DYK hooks do serve the same purpose as titles, and they are required to be NPOV and V. Redirects only show up if someone is already looking for a topic via the search box, often alongside the real title (headline). Let's not forget that some people (certainly not just me) enter search terms into URLs. I do this because I can generally count on a combination of naming conventions and redirects getting me to what I was looking for, and in such cases I bypass the search box entirely. Jclemens (talk) 23:09, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Type a term into the search window, hand the laptop to someone who doesn't know a lot about Wikipedia, and ask them what they're looking at. I've tried this experiment several times; people tell me it's our table of contents or index. Although I'm talking about "journalistic" and not legal defamation, it's still true that what counts is the way it looks to a jury or a typical reader, not what it looks like to you or me. - Dank (push to talk) 00:24, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

So yes, I agree that users may misunderstand redirects. I do not consider their misunderstanding of redirects as a particularly big problem, compared to all the other issues Wikipedia has, and I do not see how that "table of contents" misunderstanding is sufficient to change our fundamental navigational efforts. Although... Maybe we should eliminate redirects from the search box, or allow redirects to be tagged as "unsearchable" if you think NPOV and BLP in redirects are sufficiently large issues. Would that help at all? Jclemens (talk) 19:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Requests at bugzilla that require a judgment call can take a long time to get action. Okay ... we haven't gotten much response here, have we? Does anyone want to talk about this issue in some other forum, such as WT:NPOV? - Dank (push to talk) 21:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any cases where blogs may be used as BLP sources?

I am involved in a debate on BLP/N about using a well-known blog (RealClimate) as a source in a BLP (Fred Singer). The blog is written by climate change experts in the field of global warming and is occasionally used as a reliable source in non-BLP articles, but because it is self-published it is not generally used in BLPs.

The current debate is about whether it is ever acceptable to use a blog like RealClimate as a source for critical content in in a BLP, if the specific point being addressed is judged to be impersonal, i.e. not directed at the person himself, even though the text appears in his BLP.

The policy as it stands does not seem to cover any sort of exemption, other than to make a blanket "these sources are not allowed in BLPs". Some editors are claiming that there is an exemption, while others are applying the strict "no blogs in BLPs" rule, and we have reached an impasse. There is an open debate on BLP/N where the specifics of the case are being discussed, but there has been no outside input, so we're still debating in circles on this fundamental point.

Any assistance from uninvolved BLP experts would be appreciated, either here or on BLP/N. ATren (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

My two cents: Blogs really ought to be treated as any other self-published source. If RealClimate meets the criteria for a SPS, it can be used to source things related to its topic. Otherwise, it should not be used. NW (Talk) 18:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify - we are talking about a WP:SPS where its clear that the exception "published experts talking about their topic of expertise" is in effect. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is definitely an important point to clarify. It is unlikely that any SPS on climate change will be an appropriate source for biographical details. Climate change, sure, but biographical details, unlikely. NW (Talk) 19:16, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The BLP and SPS policy pages explicitly exclude SPS in BLP, even "expert blogs". The only exemption listed is for newspaper "blogs" which are under the newspaper's editorial control. So if unpublished expert blogs are allowed, should we modify the policy to reflect that? Currently the language does not include this exceptional case. ATren (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can always make exceptions in exceptional cases, regardless of what any policy says. I think even on a general basis, however, use of self published sources should be done cautiously and conservatively, and as with anything we should be especially cautious in BLPs. This being said, there may arise a circumstance at some point where the information is not overly controversial and the self published source is considered extremely reliable for what's being stated. I think that would be the bar—if the information is controversial, we really should be waiting for regular reliable sources to decide to report on it (and if they don't, how important is it really?), and if it's seemingly uncontroversial, we should still tread carefully and make sure the source really is a very reliable one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above. The reason that realclimate is cited here, is to present the scientific mainstream on a report by Singer and others, that has ended up on Singers biography because it lacked notability enough to merit an article by it self, and which is too far outside the mainstream to be included on Global warming controversy. My argument is basically, that either the material should be removed (it has no real relevance to Singers biography), or the mainstream scientific opinion on the report must be presented (according to WP:NPOV), and as this material is significantly outside the mainstream, and therefore has been ignored by scientific media, thus we are down to citing RC as an expert source that actually has commented on the report. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing it entirely is OK with me. But keeping a blog source which calls Singer "dishonest" and a "contrarian" is not appropriate or necessary, especially since there is well-sourced criticism already in the article. Interestingly, I mostly agree with Seraphimblade too, in an abstract sense, but I think we are reading this case differently. RealClimate scientists and Singer are at opposite sides of a very contentious public debate, and RealClimate is calling Singer dishonest - to me, that clearly falls under the BLP policy and not as one of the "rare, exceptional cases". ATren (talk) 22:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but there is a difference between calling a report "dishonest" and stating that Singer is dishonest. If we follow through on that line of argumentation, then every negative critique of material would be dismissable by BLP, in all articles because they have a(n) author(s). As for describing Singer as a contrarian - that is the word used for his position by rather a lot of reliable sources (see: [3]) And therefore has already been vetted as acceptable in the biographical material on Singer, where there are a total of 7 examples of usage in reliable sources to this description (see Fred Singer#Views). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you seriously arguing that the words "S. Fred Singer and his merry band of contrarian luminaries served up a similarly dishonest ‘assessment’..." are not calling Singer dishonest? Well then, all I can say is that KDP and his merry band of global warming editors is serving up a dishonest assessment of this situation. ;-) ATren (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

A dishonest assessment may indicate that Singer is dishonest, but that is an inferred statement. That statement is completely A-OK for non-biographical material - and that is the trouble here: There is quite a lot of non-biographical material on Singers biography, things that either shouldn't be there - or must be presented in a WP:NPOV fashion. WP:NPOV doesn't suddenly get "turned off" because it things are written on a biography. And neither does WP:BLP suddenly get "turned off" when we write biographical material on regular articles. Otherwise biographies turn out as WP:COATRACKs. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Support ATren, observe BLP policy. As a side note, I see Gavin Schmidt of RC is his usual charming, charming self. Ugh. Pete Tillman (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Are weasel words in BLPs okay if sourced?

I had a concern about an edit in Allen Iverson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which introduces a pretty serious accusation about the subject phrased as weasel words, but properly sourced. This edit includes the phrase,"...while others opined that the sleeve was being used to hide a gang tattoo.". Implying criminal affiliation is potentially libelous, but that's exactly what appears in the cited source, a Psychology Today article. The problem is that the source doesn't attribute anyone or qualify/substantiate the accusation in anyway, so there's no way of verifying the statement. Should this be removed as unattributed, unsubstantiated weasel words, or remain because it is from a WP:RS? --Mosmof (talk) 23:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Reading these comment it seems a bit weak to me, it can't be attributed if it doesn't say who is responsible, are similar accusations repeated in other reliable sources, it sounds a bit like an opinionated editorial to me...imo.. thats without going and having a look at the edit. Off2riorob (talk) 23:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Who are these others? I would take it out..its opinionated gossip, he used to be a crip...is there a citation for that? Off2riorob (talk) 23:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mosmof, I think the first step is to examine all the allegations separately and flag them for citations as appropriate, like this:

Iverson continued wearing his basketball sleeve long after^[45] his elbow had healed, leading to much speculation among fans^[who?] over its purpose. Some fans believed^{[citation needed]} that the sleeve improved Iverson's shooting ability, while others opined^{[citation needed]} that the sleeve was being used to hide a gang tattoo. In a 2008 Psychology Today article, Steven Kotler suggested that the sleeve may act as a placebo for players who want to prevent future injuries.^[45]

The second step is to look for sources for the main allegations:

In this case the "gang tattoo" allegation is the big question. I couldn't find a reliable source easily, so the phrase "while others opined^{^{[citation needed]}} that the sleeve was being used to hide a gang tattoo."has to be deleted.

Continue using this basis until eash weasel phrase is individually referenced from a specific—named—writer published by a reliable source. That should do it. - Pointillist (talk) 00:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Good work moving any remaining uncontroversial text out of "Controversy" (that was going to be my third point). Best wishes - Pointillist (talk) 01:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Children and Wikipedia

Might it be worth considering to create a more demanding set of guidelines for use when minor children are the subjects of articles here on Wikipedia? Even were some to meet the general inclusion criteria of the WP:BIO, wouldn't it be more legally prudent to set much stronger criteria when considering the inclusion of informations about children? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 19:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I would support strengthening of the guidelines in respect of minors, could you provide a couple of links to look at some articles we presently have of BLP minors. Off2riorob (talk) 22:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Not intending that a debate begin over current articles meeting current standards, as most do, my concern has been peaked by the sheer number of articles being created about minors, in entertainment and elsewhere, and my thought that extra care should be taken to protect the kids. This Wikipedia Search alone shows hundreds of child star BLPs. And though many of those listed may even have survived AFDs based upon current inclusion standards, I believe that in the case of children, Wikipedia needs to have a more stringent standard for inclusion for minors. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 23:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose. All else being equal, being a minor doesn't make you less worth of inclusion. We're here to cover notable subjects. If among these subjects there are minors, so be it. We're not a charity; we do not decide our inclusion criteria or our coverage based on the fact that it contributes to be subject's good or bad. Plus, despite what some people believe, being on WP is not a shame: saying that we should raise the bar of our inclusion criteria to "protect the kids" is utter nonsense, and even a bit insulting to editors: we're not here to harm kids, I guess, so why not including them should "protect" them? --Cyclopia ^talk 23:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I was having a little look there and it is a good job I haven't got a delete button, like there ..Paula_Riemann Aline_Sokar , If the policies we have got were implemented there would be a lot less of them, How many children are actually notable enough to have a biography, not many. Off2riorob (talk) 23:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that MichaelQSchmidt was proposing an outright ban on biographies of minors. I think that added guidelines would be helpful. For example, should we list the school that a celebrity child is currently attending? Will Beback talk 00:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

No, definitely not an outright ban, nor censorship, nor saying that they are not worthy of inclusion... simply a determination of better way to protect children. By way of example, Macaulay Culkin had tremendous amount of press coverage as a minor... far and away exceeding even current standards for BLP articles on anyone. It's that so many of these wee folk have admirers that feel their every detail should be included. Even the current WP:BLP guidelines write of "Presumption in favor of privacy"... can we perhaps then err on the side of extreme caution when minors are the subject? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

If it is covered in WP:RS, of course yes -why shouldn't we? WP:NOTCENSORED. --Cyclopia ^talk 00:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I would say that we would do better by not revealing any personal details like that, if you had a child who had a couple of acting roles and then a wiki page was created with her school details you wouldn't be very happy, well I wouldn't.. The fact that perhaps the school was mentioned in say one local paper, that wouldn't be as damaging as taking that local comment on one days paper, tomorrows chip wrapper and then publishing it here where it would attract a much bigger audience for the rest of time.Off2riorob (talk) 00:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

if you had a child who had a couple of acting roles and then a wiki page was created with her school details you wouldn't be very happy, well I wouldn't:Probably, but that's entirely irrelevant. Happiness of our subjects -or of their parents- is not our concern. We're here to report information. If such information exists and is verifiable, we do nothing wrong in reporting it -quite the contrary, it's what we're here to do. Again, we are an encyclopedia, not a charity. --Cyclopia ^talk 00:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

We already do this to an extent, e.g. Malia Obama. Tarc (talk) 01:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes... but minor children are not adults. Society and Law recognize that fact. It might be prudent for Wikipedia to more specifically do so as well. While yes, a minor child might be covered in reliable sources... but is it wise, even for an uncensored encyclopedia, to allow that their BLP's be treated the same as adults? There is that marked difference. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

While I fully support BLP, there also comes a point at which enough is enough. Certainly, children should be subject to all normal BLP protections—no publication of gossip or rumors, no insertion of previously unpublished material, and so on. But that's enough. If we did put into an article what schools a child goes to, one of two things will happen. If that information is not published elsewhere, we would already quite properly revert that under BLP as previously unpublished material. On the other hand, if it were already published by reliable sources, it's not private information. Our current level of protection for BLPs is exceptionally strong, I don't see any need to strengthen it further. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I am simply suggesting that WP:BLP be tweaked to address very real concern where children are concerned. As most law recognizes that children (should) receive greater protection than adults, shouldn't Wikipedia as well? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 02:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Are we here to protect our subjects, or to cover them in articles? What concern are you talking about? I am beginning to be confused. I didn't know our aim was to protect kids. I knew this was an encyclopaedia. --Cyclopia ^talk 02:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you have made your "cover all people at all costs" point of view abundantly clear; I recall the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miriam Sakewitz most vividly, and unpleasantly. A time can come though where displaying excessive details of people, children or otherwise, can do more harm than good. All that is being discussed here is if a bit of extra discretion should be had for minors. Tarc (talk) 03:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Michael above, I don't see any greater protection that's needed or desirable. BLP is already quite strong, and while well intentioned, has already had several undesirable side effects. No one's citing at any actual issue that's come up, especially not frequently enough for policy to address it, so it doesn't appear there's a need for this just to address nebulous fears of harm that's never actually happened. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

We already have a very strongly enforced policy of keeping names of minors out of articles except where this is necessary. If the written policy doesn't reflect this, we should update it. --TS 04:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The policy currently talks specifically about private, living individuals such as family members of the subject of a biographical article who are not themselves notable enough for their own articles. In particular, "WP:BLP#Privacy of names" states: "There is a presumption against using the names of such individuals, even if the names have already appeared in the media, where ... they are under the age of 18 years, and thus deserve greater protection from intrusions upon their privacy." However, the policy does not deal with whether a minor should be the subject of an article in his or her own right. This raises a wider issue that needs to be discussed thoroughly before it is sought to update the policy: should Wikipedia protect the privacy and safety of potentially vulnerable subjects of articles (e.g., minors, the mentally disabled, suicidal persons) when there is no requirement to do so as a matter of law? Newspapers, for instance, do not appear to adhere to such an ethical standard. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

My answer is a resounding no. I am not a robot, I understand there are very good reasons to propose such a thing. However if we begin to ponder all possible ramifications of our coverage, and to stop editing or including information out of mere preemptive precaution, we can shut down this project altogether. A lot of information here is potentially harmful. Should we delete suicide methods because some fragile adolescent could use it for inspiration? Should we delete links to Google Maps of sensitive sites because, you know, terrorists could use it? We cannot let ourselves be scared away by that. We are not doing anything harmful -if people use public information we repeat for harmful purposes, it is not our fault nor it is our business. We should care about things under our direct responsibility (defamation etc.), but we cannot be responsible for third parties. --Cyclopia ^talk 12:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

And there you have it....I come across people with this position all the time, I remove children names and people come along and replace them as if the names of irrelevant children are useful detail, I have a citation so I can add it...not censored... is not a free hand without giving a damn, this position finds it irrelevant if they are venerable people or not. One of the problems here is that many editors have never actually read an encyclopedia and relate to tabloid standards. Off2riorob (talk) 13:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

You probably know this already, but in this case you can cite WP:BLPNAME. Hans Adler 13:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually have read plenty of encyclopedias, thank you -they were among my favourite reads since when I was a child. Treccani, Encyclopaedia Britannica. I love encyclopedias because they are a sum of total knowledge, not because they are merely "useful" -they stand as monuments. You come across this position all the time because you come across people who love knowledge for knowledge sake, something that unfortunately is in short supply nowadays. Now, we should not care if details are "useful" or not -this is unavoidably POV: what does it mean that a detail is "useful"? What does it mean it is not? Who are you to decide what should I want to know about a subject? It's not matter of "tabloid standards". If it is public information, and there are RS, about a notable subject, it is our duty to cover it, without judging it. Otherwise we can decide only to cover the information we like and to censor information we dislike, but this is not what an encyclopedia is for. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:49, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Please let's all distinguish clearly between (a) naming non-notable children in articles that are not about them, and (b) creating articles on notable children. For (a) we have a very clear rule in WP:BLPNAME. For (b) we don't seem to have an analogous rule, and in my opinion it does make sense to discuss whether we should be slightly stricter in our application of the normal notability guidelines when it's about children. Hans Adler 14:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for re-emphasizing the point I made in my earlier posting. I tend to agree with Cyclopia: if a living person perceived as vulnerable is notable in his or her own right and there are reliable third-party sources for the facts in the article, then I feel it is acceptable for an article to be created about the person. It is not Wikipedia's role to "protect" such people; in any case, we attempt to do so in vain if there are already third-party sources about the person freely available. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a fundamentalist position to me. To make up a relatively concrete example, let's say a 5-year-old child becomes notable, e.g. for appearances in two films. The parents push this, and the media start discussing whether that's OK, resulting in two documentary films about the effects of the publicity on the daily life of the child and their family.

Let's further say that this was 10 years ago. The world has forgotten about this child, but "notability is not temporary". The now 15-year-old is no longer acting, and is just an ordinary child in puberty. Then there is a big difference between the name appearing in a few 10-year-old newspaper articles, two documentaries that would not be shown again on TV and in the credits of two movies – and Wikipedia having an article on the child.

My point is: We have a perpetual battle between inclusionists and deletionists about how to interpret the notability guidelines. In the case of particularly vulnerable article subjects we may need to make sure that we don't have an article just because the most radical inclusionists have won a battle in that instance. Hans Adler 14:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

(indent reset) If you'll have a look, I'm about as far as you get from an inclusionist at all, but even deletionists don't want to delete everything! I think the hypothetical case you bring up might certainly be deserving of a hard look from a WP:BLP1E perspective, but again, that's already there. What we would actually do in such a scenario would probably depend on the scope, breadth, and duration of the coverage, and may result in keeping the article, moving to an "event" type article, or outright deletion, so it'd be difficult to speak to such a case in the type of terms we'd codify in policy. Such events are much better handled on a case by case basis, as they are now. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, since nothing will curtail editor's differences in interpretations of guideline, and after reading WP:BLPNAME's "they are under the age of 18 years, and thus deserve greater protection from intrusions upon their privacy", I was simply hoping that the term "greater protection" might be beter codified and not left so open for interpretation... IE, What would BE that greater protection for minors? Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 17:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that becomes clear in the example given in that section. Our articles consist of (a) information that is noteworthy for the article in question in the sense that it would be incomplete without it, and (b) additional information of the kind that might well be dropped if the article is reorganised/rewritten. The latter basically just gives additional depth to the article, but it's not crucial. If I understand WP:BLPNAME correctly, then it says that we write about children in case (a), but never in case (b). Hans Adler 17:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't generally agree with the premises of BLPNAME anyway, as it seems to advocate second guessing of reliable sources. The section header is "Protecting the privacy of names", but then goes on to largely outline scenarios where the name is already public. In effect, it's advocating "protecting the privacy of something that's not private", which seems bizarre. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no. You are simply totally wrong about this. Wikipedia isn't the huge project for making sure that every single piece of information that has at some time been published in a local newspaper will be available to everybody, everywhere, forever, so long as it can by some stretch be argued to be relevant to a notable topic. The three examples are very reasonable; they describe what is common practice among most publishers. There is no reason for Wikipedia to behave like a bunch of immature children who haven't learned about ethical obligations yet and refuse to hear about them.

Your point about "second guessing of reliable sources" also doesn't seem to make any sense, unless you have the misconception that reliable sources are a kind of oracle that instructs us what to put into our articles. Hans Adler 16:31, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

We're not more "totally wrong" than you are. We interpret this thing differently, and it would be nice if you could respect different points of view. To put it simply, ethics is POV. What is ethical to you can be unethical to me -and in fact in this case, it is, I find it highly unethical and disruptive to censor public information only because of the vaguest possibility it could annoy the subject in the future. To cherry-pick information because of ethical concerns is a kind of POV editing, simple as that. That said, reliable sources are a "kind of oracle that instructs us what to put into our articles", or at least they're the closest thing they can be. An encyclopedia is a comprehensive compendium of information from reliable sources, no more, no less. About your "the world has forgotten about this child" example: we're here exactly to make sure that the world won't forget. That's one of our added values, one of our missions. We archive notable information. It is our mission and, in my case, also an ethical imperative. --Cyclopia ^talk 18:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Did you just say it is your mission here to make sure that if due to miscommunication or an error of judgement private information about a child appears in an obscure publication, then it stays public? Please tell me that that isn't what you meant, or confirm that it is in fact what you meant so that I can report you to ANI. I am sure that that's a serious offence in more than one jurisdiction. Hans Adler 18:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Erm, certainly not in the US. And Hans, I echo that it'd be nice if you could treat others with some civility. Discussing BLP seems to be the one area that it's acceptable to attack those who disagree. That's not a constructive way to discuss something. I certainly respect your right to disagree, but that doesn't mean we can't refrain from name calling or calling one another children, or unethical, or even criminals. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty more areas worse, ANI or RFA for example. we are unpaid part time editors here, missions and imperatives is a bit over the top, imo. I support having perhaps a new noticeboard that is specific to under adult age biographies, we all know that articles get vandalised and turned into attack pages without being noticed, I personally feel that although we protect all living people, perhaps bios of children could use extra attention, it's not so easy for them to call and complain. There is nothing wrong with being as responsible an operation as possible.Off2riorob (talk) 00:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, civility is not a natural reaction to trolls who use non-arguments such as "ethics is POV" in their battle to turn Wikipedia into an outlet of the yellow press that does not even respect the privacy of children. Hans Adler 12:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Hans, please avoid personal attacks. You do not have the right to call trolls people who disagree with you. And, yes, ethics is -at least in several people's opinion- a POV thing -see moral relativism for some quick information on the subject. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

After some quick research I have come to the conclusion that in the US apparently everything but libel is formally free game for republication after the first publication, even if the original publication was illegal. E.g. if a child's health report is published illegally in a school newspaper, it would be allowed to subsequently publish it in a New York Times ad. Such a system can work only so long as the media are aware of their ethical obligations. If Wikipedia is not, then we will destroy this system and cause additional restrictions to the First Amendment to be enacted.

The situation is dramatically different in Germany, see Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber#Privacy dispute or [4] for an example that affected Wikipedia. Of course the publication of a murderer's name is very different from the publication of a child's school, and the right balance is somewhere in between. Hans Adler 13:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The material removed in this edit is the type of private information that concerns me, the current schools of celebrity minors.[5] However since it was deleted without controversy the current policy and practice appears sufficient. I don't think we can make a sweeping prohibition on including the current schools attended by minors, because in some cases the school is part of their notability. But the school should probably only be included if it is connected to their notability. The privacy issue doesn't apply, so far as I can see, after they graduate or change schools. Will Beback talk 01:44, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for this excellent example. Now I would really like to know whether certain participants in this discussion really support inclusion of such information (provided it has been mentioned once in a local newspaper). Hans Adler 12:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If it is only a local newspaper, I am pretty neutral on that -I wouldn't push for it but if it is included and sourced I wouldn't touch it. In the example brought by Will Beback, it is information repeated on the government site of California, on state-wide newspapers etc., and as such it is nothing private anymore -therefore I'm all for including it. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Superfluous information?

Could someone look at this section and consider if all the information is appropriate to include. The fourth paragraph mentions details about the subject's career and personal life that seem irrelevant to me, particularly since it is not actually a BLP article. (If there is a better MoS talk page to discuss this then let me know.) Lfh (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP backlog status

It finally appears that the backlog of unreferenced BLPs may have stopped growing (and possibly is decreasing). I noticed in the archives that there were over 54,000 articles in this category last month, and now it is barely over 53,000. Over at the Wikipedia Football project page, we have noticed a similar drop (an average decrease in the backlog of roughly 500 articles a month for the past few months) in the project-supported articles in this category. Obviously eliminating this backlog remains a huge task, but I think the corner has been turned.

Some things that seem to work well include: (1) notifying new users early on that they are creating unreferenced BLPs and pointing them to relevant project pages for help on following WP:BLP; and (2) sorting though the backlog with Catscan to develop lists of articles in a particular subject matter area so experienced and interested editors can more easily source them.

Happy holidays and keep up the great work! Jogurney (talk) 21:48, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP news cleanup tag

Would it be helpful to create an extra tag specific to a particular BLP situation, something like {{BLP news cleanup}}, modelled after tags like {{BLP unsourced}}. This would be for the not infrequent situation where a BLP gets caught up in a fairly high-profile current event, and the article gets rather overbalanced towards that issue, often to the point where a daughter article is spun off to reduce the impact on the main article. Ultimately, when the issue has died down, someone needs to go back to (a) remove the extraneous detail (b) add some long-term perspective (c) in some cases suggest merging the article back into the main one. A tag to identify these situations/issues/daughter articles would help bring attention to the issue (both to the general issue and for specific cases). Rd232 ^talk 01:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP semi-protection petition

Is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_semiprotection_petition

Please consider the arguments there. I hope you will sign. Thanks. S B H arris 03:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Castor Semenya

This is a very tough test for the BLP. No one seems to know what to do.

One is to write it so that those responsible for her exposure are themselves exposed, but never to say any personal or private information dealing with her personal body parts. If you have not been following her case, our reliable sources already in the article could easily support the following:

In the fall of 2009, Athletics South Africa president Lenard Chuene; Wilfred Daniels, Semenya's ASA coach; and ASA team doctor Harold Adams all admitted that they had gender-tested Semenya without her permission or even telling Semenya that they were, in fact, gender-testing her; that the ASA had not informed Semenya of the results of the tests; had not told Semenya that running in the IAAF’s woman’s 800M race in Berlin would necessarily entail making the private matter public; all so that she might decide herself whether to run in Berlin.

So we could go that route, but I'm guessing that one could see that as dangerous with regards to BLP guidelines. But the agenda to expose the exposers has gotten some of this information out of the sources, past the censors, and into the article albeit in a fractured way, which explains why much of the article is there. Some of was all written before the above was shown to be the case, back when the ANC was still on a public relations campaign of public outrage at the IAAF for testing her, so it starts with a lot of anti-IAAF stuff, Micheal Johnson et al. Then it tries to keep up with more recent stuff about the ASA, but that would entail us outing her as intesex even if we don't come out and say so explicitly so mostly it tries to say nothing much.

If this sounds complicated and confusing, that's probably because it is, and a big job for a little article.

The other idea is to forget exposing the exposers and clean out the whole gender section and leave it as an article about an athlete.

Or just to say briefly that there is something out there about her gender, but we're not saying exactly what.

Or we could just transfer the whole story from the sources into the article. This might entail a lot of work for which a plan is needed. But also, this would expose her as intersex. We could figure, "the cat's out of the bag," at least that she's intersex and give up not telling the readers that. Did you know that we have nothing to indicate that she was aware of this before Berlin? Think about how heavy that is to learn a thing like that in this way. So we aren't sure if we should do this.

The last choice would be to do nothing, and just leave the article as it is. That's definately the path of least resistence and as such seems the most likely thing to happen. But that might leave an article potentially in violation of BLP guidelines as it stands, as it communicates clearly to anyone who reads it closely that she's intersex, which is exposing personal and private medical information about her to the world. Not to mention that it pretty well maligns the IAAF officials and the ASA without really explaining who is accused of doing what, which isn't fair to them. AND I hasten to add concerns such as writing a good article or at least a coherent one. Please read the article and see if you agree that, to be perfectly honest, it's bad article.

Big trouble. I think we need some help. Any advice? Chrisrus (talk) 06:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean Caster Semenya. If that's the case I don't understand the problem. The article reads a bit clunky and dances around the actual result too much, but what's the issue? The actual controversy surrounding her gender (or sex, if you prefer) comprises the overwhelming majority of the news coverage out there--and a lot of that coverage turns the lens back on the IAAF. I can't imagine that this article would (or should) be rewritten to make any of the changes you suggest except the second to last choice (which really just moves the problem to a new article and doesn't solve them). What is ongoing is best described as a controversy, and reporting (or summarizing that reporting) on a controversy will always involve some degree of ambiguity, not to mention a variety of sources casting blame hither and thither. Protonk (talk) 07:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

How does WP:BLP apply to unknown individuals?

Let's say, for example, that we have an article on a bank robbery, and indentity of bank robbers are unknown. Assuming we have a third-party, reliable source, are we allowed to say that "Unknown persons broke into a bank and stole 50 million dollars". Is that allowed? How does WP:BLP apply to people whose indentity is unknown? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

If it is based on reliable sources, such a statement should be fine. No identifiable person could possibly be harmed by such a statement. However, calling someone "unknown" should not be used as an end run around the policy. For example, you can't say "The unknown person who currently serves as President of the United States" or "An unidentified person who looks remarkably like Sarah Palin" and expect that you are avoiding BLP issues. It only works if the party's identity truly is unknown. All the usual policies (WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc.) still apply, of course. --RL0919 (talk) 22:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

'Openly gay'

Here's a minor issue that just occurred to me. On several biographies of living people, we say 'X is openly gay'. Surely the word 'openly' is redundant here? If their sexuality is sufficiently attested in reliable sources, we should just say 'X is gay' - to add 'openly' implies that there is something negative about it, as though it's something they should keep quiet about. Moreover, we should never say 'X is secretly gay, but refuses to admit it' or something like that, so there's no need to distinguish those who are open about their sexuality. If a person's sexuality is not public knowledge, we should not mention it; if it is, we should, but either way there's no need to use the word 'openly' in BLPs. Robofish (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It is only redundant in my opinion too. I see no issue however. If redundant, the "openly" adverb it can be safely taken away, except in cases where explicit exhibition/outing of the sexual orientation is a notable part of the persona. --Cyclopia ^talk 17:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

We should keep in mind that it is only redundant because of our own BLP policies, and then only for BLPs. (A biography of a deceased person could describe them as "secretly gay" if the consensus of reliable sources described them thus.) So for the average reader who is not familiar with Wikipedia's BLP policy, the adverb does communicate relevant information. I also don't agree that 'openly' suggests negativity. --RL0919 (talk) 17:26, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

If we say someone is gay, that's because they have announced their sexuality as gay. So the word is redundant. However, using the word "openly" here may be taken to imply that openly announcing one's sexuality is unusual or even questionable (obviously it isn't, people do it all the time, and we don't say "X is openly heterosexual"). So it's not just redundant, it can be read in a negative light. So don't say "openly gay", say "gay". --TS 17:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree in some sense, but not for the same reasons. I don't know how the phrase "openly" can lead you to conclude that announcing someone's homosexuality is "questionable"--it is certainly unusual. But I wait patiently for a time when we can follow the Economist's style guide and dispense with the compound appellations when we refer to folk. Until then, we have to contest with the fact that nearly every newspaper in the country is calling Annise Parker openly gay. Protonk (talk) 17:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Aggressive announcements of sexuality are quite common, but are not considered important enough to mention in articles. To imply an exception for homosexuality seems a little prejudicial to me. --TS 17:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I catch your meaning. Protonk (talk) 17:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but it seems like you are talking yourself into a corner. Yes, wikipedia won't include allegations of homosexuality unless the allegations become notable and are substantiated in serious & reliable sources. But that doesn't mean that the closet ceases to be relevant. There is a substantive difference between someone who may be gay and someone who has publicly asserted their homosexuality, especially in the political world. Protonk (talk) 17:31, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

This is maybe a stylistic point rather than a BLP issue, but my problem with the phrase "openly gay" is that people think it means something, but no two people agree on what it means (and some people think it means "flamboyant"). As a writer, I prefer to either omit the word "openly" in most contexts, or to say what it is they've said or done that would suggest the word "openly". - Dank (push to talk) 23:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe someone can help with a recent issue that has been opened up on the article Gareth Thomas (rugby player). There are two issues regarding his sexuality that need to be addressed by BLP, the first being the phrase "Thomas' public confirmation of his sexuality makes him the first openly gay professional rugby player still playing the game". Does the word 'openly' stand in this situation? Secondly there has been some debate on the talk page regarding the lede, but I'll open that in a seperate discussion. Thanks in advance FruitMonkey (talk) 08:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

If I were playing copyeditor, I wouldn't object, since the source (presumably) plus the phrase "public confirmation" defines what's meant by "openly". If I were writing, I would say what he said rather than using the often-misunderstood word "openly" ... "the first male rugby player to talk about (whatever it was he talked about) in the press". - Dank (push to talk) 14:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Gareth Thomas (rugby player)

Please could the project take a look at the article for Gareth Thomas, a top flight professional rugby union player who has recently disclosed the fact that he is gay to a national newspaper. There is debate on his talk page regarding a disagreement regarding the worth of adding this fact to his lede. Good arguments on both sides, but we have hit a stalemate. We would appreciate your project's advice on the matter. Thanks FruitMonkey (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Signpost Policy Report

Responses by Rusty Cashman

While for the most part I think that BLP is an effective policy that is well enforced. However, I question whether the WP:BLPNAME section is enforced or makes sense. As I read it, it seems that it would strongly discourage listing the names of the children of celebrities in articles about those celebrities unless those children are notable in their own right. In fact from the examples given that would seem to be its primary intent. However, a quick sample of such biographical articles shows that many (probably most) of them would seem to violate this rule. Here are some more or less random examples: Frank Zappa, Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Harry Turtledove, Jim Butcher and John Landis. A couple of them even have sections labled "list of children". An old saying goes something like you should never give an order you know won't be obeyed and I think it is going to be very hard to discourage the editors of these sorts of articles from mentioning children's names as you sort of expect to see that kind of information in biographical articles. It is precisely because WP:BLP as a whole is such an important policy that I think it is a very bad idea to have any portion of it that is so widely ignored in practice. At the very least I think it should mention that there may be an exception in cases were the names of someone's children are widely known (ie as in the case of Authors who list their chidren's names in the bio blurbs on the dust jackets of their books). Rusty Cashman (talk) 10:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Responses by Jacklee

Hi, just responding to [Rusty's] comments. I was one of the editors who participated in the debate on WP:BLPNAME. I realize that this policy is difficult to enforce, but I believe the concern of the editor who proposed revisions to the "WP:BLP#Privacy of names" section was that people who are not notable (particularly minors) should not get dragged into articles merely because of their friendship or kinship with notable people. I suppose that this may seem an insignificant point in the case of celebrities who have freely shared the names of their spouses and children with the media, but do the otherwise-unknown relatives of, say, a convicted murderer deserve to be tarnished by association? Perhaps this part of the policy needs to be refined along those lines. Feel free to initiate a fresh discussion on the matter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Responses by Rusty Cashman

This is a response to Jacklee. Ok, given your convicted murder example I can see the motivation for the policy, which completely eluded me when I read the examples given in the current section. I do think a revision is necessary. I can't imagine biographical articles on really famous people (as opposed to people who are noteworthy because of a particular news event) that didn't list the names of spouses and children, and obviously other editors have felt the same. Otherwise why would the infobox templates for US presidents and authors have fields for listing children, and why would the infobox for actors have a field for spouses and domestic partners? Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Responses by Jacklee

Why don't you start a discussion a new section so this issue can be discussed? It does sound like the guideline needs some tweaking. As for spouse/domestic partner and children fields in infoboxes, all I can say is that editors who create these infoboxes aren't always aware of applicable policies such as WP:BLP. Note WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Contrast {{Infobox person}}, where the template description page states that only notable children, parents and other relatives should be named (though |spouse= and |partner= are exempt from the rule, for some reason). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I am replying here because I don't think my comment here will need to be included in the discussion summary. I will start the discussion per your suggestion right after Christmas. I understand the point about otherstuff, I run into it all the time in arguments about enforcing WP:V, but it is one thing if some articles of a certain type violate policy it is another if they almost all do, and in the case of articles on celebs I suspect that may be true. More random examples include: Nancy Grace, J.K. Rowling, Carl Sagan and at least one of them is FA. I admit to not being an expert in this area, most of the bio articles I work on are on historical figures from the 18th and 19th centuries, and I never would have looked at the issue with out being pointed at it by signpost, but it disturbs me when I find policy (as opposed to guidelines) and practice this far out of alignment. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Responses by Seraphimblade

BLP is an excellent idea, and we should've had something like it in place before Siegenthaler happened. Hindsight, of course. Unfortunately, that's also the problem—since it is a noble cause, quite often enforcement of it gets taken a little (or a lot) overzealously, and people are hesitant to oppose anything taken in the name of what is on the whole a good idea. I wish this were the BLP I signed up for—enforce our normal content policies (V, NOR, CITE, NPOV) swiftly and decisively on BLPs. Didn't imagine it would go beyond that to affecting verifiable and NPOV information, wish it hadn't. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:35, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Responses by Coffee

The BLP policy is one of the best and most important policies on Wikipedia. It's key focus is that articles on biographies of living people be gotten right. This is because of the fundamental problems with libel, that Wikimedia can, and does, experience each day with these articles. Unfortunately there has been a lot of issues actually getting all of our biographies of living people to conform to the standards listed in this policy. Sadly that's not likely to change until we come down stricter on all of these articles. We don't necessarily need to delete the articles, or have a stance on deletion vs. inclusion with them. What we need to do is make sure that every single, even slightly, controversial piece of information about a living person is cited with a verifiable source, otherwise that information should be removed. This, while in policy, is not always in practice, and it's that attitude that I think is necessary that we change. The easiest way to fix the problem, is for there to be a change from the top (Wikimedia Foundation), that forces this change. Unless that happens, or we semi-protect all BLPs (or initiate flagged revisions) we're likely going to continue having this issue.

Responses by next user

{{rfctag}} A summary of your comments on our WP:Biographies of living persons policy will be featured in the Policy Report in next week's Signpost. If it helps, monthly changes to this page are available at WP:Update/1/Content policy changes, July 2009 to December 2009. All responses are welcome.

A paradox of modern democracies is that voters generally have a low opinion of national politicians, but tend to trust and re-elect their own representatives. I think the same thing goes on with policy pages ... some people^[who?] distrust policy pages in general but like the pages that they keep up with. The weekly Policy Report aims to let people look at policy pages through the eyes of the people who work on the page.

To get an idea of what kinds of questions and answers the community is interested in, see the archives of this talk page or the previous surveys (here, here, here and here.) Answering any of these questions would work: Can you summarize the page? How has the page changed over the last few months? Did the changes involve some compromising or negotiation? Would the page work better if it were shorter (or longer)? Is this page "enforced" in some useful and consistent way? Was this page shaped more by people's reactions to day-to-day issues or by exceptional cases, for instance at ArbCom? Does the policy document reality, or present ideal goals for content, or something in between? Does this page contradict or overlap other policies or guidelines? - Dank (push to talk) 23:54, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Format: I moved Jacklee's response from Rusty's section into Jacklee's section. If boxes turn into conversations, then it will be hard to pick a representative sentence or two out of each box. Feel free to reply to other people's comments down here, or add your username and your comment in the boxes above, and then if someone wants to change their boxed comment in response to what you're saying, they can do that. - Dank (push to talk) 18:00, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Clarification on BLP referencing

I've come upon a situation where there is information in an article that is not itself a BLP, but contains material covered by the BLP policy. Some of the information is derogatory to various living persons. The information is probably properly cited, but the citations are weblinks that have died. I removed much of the material but was reverted and informed that contended BLP material must stay even if the links to the references have died. This would be in keeping with the WP:LINKROT policy. Because the links have died, I have no way of knowing if the material is properly cited until we find an archive of the reference. As an example:

The Media has questioned John Smith's integrity. A person who used to work with him said he was an incompetent hack.

(new paragraph in same section)

John Smith was found guily of fraud in 2009 and was sentenced to 1 year in jail. (dead link citation.)

In this example it seems likely that the second paragraph is properly cited, but the first paragraph may not be true. Without being able to see the cite in the dead link, there is no way of knowing if the cite was intended for the information in both paragraphs, or just the second one. Since the second paragraph includes specific information, it is highly unlikely that it is improperly cited. Since the first paragraph includes weasally statements, it is at least questionable.

I've been told by a very experienced administrator that we must assume that all information cited with dead links is accurate unless proven otherwise. (And the admin is correct per WP:LINKROT) This includes derogatory information about a living person. (As I've found nothing in WP:BLP to indicate otherwise) I am working with the other editors but am quite confused about when contentious BLP information should or should not be pulled from an article. Could anyone shed some light on how to handle this type of situation? Sperril (talk) 16:33, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The article in question is 2006 Duke University lacrosse case, please see discussion there on the talk page and check the article history. The waters are somewhat muddied by Sperril making fairly wholesale edits which only in part came to BLP matters and which slanted what has been a very neutral slant to the article, achieved over a considerable discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I in no way made "fairly wholesale edits which only in part came to BLP matters." I made individual edits, some involving BLP and some not. The ones involving BLP were clearly stated as such. What you describe as "waters are somewhat muddied by Sperril making fairly wholesale edits" were actually an attempt by me to make my edits piece by piece with the knowledge that some of them may be challenged. I did this in an attempt to make my edits easier to revert precisely because I didn't want to make "wholesale edits." My individual edits were reverted in their entirety by another editor who claimed I needed to discuss on the talk page before I edit that article. I reverted and posted on the talk page that my content edits could be reverted, but the BLP issue edits should not have been reverted without cause. A second editor pointed me to the WP:DEADLINK policy and I read it and agreed that I was wrong. Once again, my edits were reverted wholesale instead of singly even while I was being told on the talk page that some of my BLP issue edits were valid. I then preceeded to talk it through on the talk page with Wehwalt and have not reverted even a single one of his/her edits. I am still confused by the DEADLINK policy as it applies to BLP and informed Wehwalt that I was going to ask the question here. I am asking here for help with understanding the policy. I am not disupting a single edit that Wehwalt has made and am frankly surprised that when I invited Wehwalt here to help educate me that he/she then showed up to make what I consider a gross mischaracterization of my edits in that article. Sperril (talk) 20:02, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Whoever told you we can rely on dead links was wrong with respect to BLPs. If a link is given and is the only way of verifying a factual statement about a living person, remove the statement until an appropriate reference is found. This applies mainly to the personal blog of the person in question, newspaper websites and the like. Where a statement is adequately supported by a good bibliographical reference, however, the question doesn't arise until somebody visits an academic library and finds that the book cannot be procured. --TS 19:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I would note that they can certainly be sourced to the newspaper they appeared in, if they are news articles. Nothing in the rules says we have to have a link to them, dead or no.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Wehwalt. Most, if not all, of the dead links were convenience links to newspaper articles. An enterprising editor or reader could find back issues of the relevant newspapers to verify the sources. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 22:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Wehwalt is right. But bear in mind that many links to newspaper websites are to articles that aren't published in any other form. Once they're gone, they're gone. --TS 22:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Not so. Nexis, EBSCOHost, ProQuest, and other fee-based news archives will tend to have them. I once had someone claim that a link to such a reference was invalid, because the links weren't freely visible to all. Sorry, but RS'es like local newspapers don't cease being reliable sources just because the links have died. Has anyone tried archive.org for the articles in question? Jclemens (talk) 00:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I just got dragged into this overnight and my time has been limited today, I'm working on another article.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:06, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't had time to take a look either. And for that reason, I'm not going to remove any more BLP information from the article. There must certainly be an archive of the information available. Sperril (talk) 05:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

We've never required that sources be web based or available via link, so I don't see how the link going stale would affect that requirement, especially to items like newspapers that are generally available in other forms. archive.org is also an excellent tool for these scenarios, as is Google Cache if the link went dead recently. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:18, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it's broadly correct that many newspaper-based items will be carried by Nexus and the like. Some of our articles, however, are poorly sourced to begin with. If the only thing provided as a reference for a statement is a URL (and this is distressingly common) then the thing to do is to expand the reference by checking the content of the page at the link and giving any identification material you can (date of publication, newspaper name, author, edition, and so on). If the link has died in the meantime sometimes that's the end of it--it's impossible to identify what piece the link referred to. When that happens, a serious BLP issue arises and you should pull the statement if no alternate reference is immediately obtainable. --TS 09:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

That is correct. We err on the side of caution and "do no harm" in BLP cases. If there is a derogatory statement cited to a dead or offline link (e.g. book or newspaper), the user who adds the material has the burden to provide page number(s), and quote from the source upon request, to prove he has current access to the source. If no Wikipedia editor has access to it any more (e.g. due to linkrot or any other reason), then derogatory BLP material must stay out until somebody has the source in hand, and can quote from it. Crum375 (talk) 14:07, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've ordered a book or two on the affair, ahd hopefully I can stem the bleeding here. I really don't have time to do a proper job on the article, I'm too busy with John Diefenbaker, but I'll put it on my long term improvement list. I'm afraid that the issue is too controversial to remain stable in the face of serious article improvement, but I'll see what I can do.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:15, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this as well. Random dead links are different than and inferior to fully-cited (e.g., with {{cite news}} or similar) references to traditional/print media whose URLs no longer work because old content has become pay-per-view. Balancing BLP concerns may vary from case to case, hence this talk page--or even better, WP:BLP/N are good places to find others to provide opinions on iffy or complicated cases. Jclemens (talk) 18:24, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Potential biographies

--MZMcBride (talk) 22:45, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

BLP1E problems

BLP1E permits people known for one event to have articles. There are 2 problems.

1. Editors cite BLP1E as prohibiting articles for one event persons. This is not clearly stated. It just says that we should "generally avoid" an article. It does not say deletion though BLP1E is often cited in deletion.

2. There is inadequate description of who qualifies for an article. Only one example, John Hickley is given. Another problem is that many one event people are known for only one event that is well documented.

Equal treatment, such as "this person has an article, so that person should" is often met with "other crap exists".

I am not for deletion or inclusion of one event people. What may help Wikipedia is to further define this short section into something a bit more clear. Note that this discussion should be open a bit longer because of the holidays. I will hold off on making a new proposal on the slight re-wording for a few days because of the holidays. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 17:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of BLP1E is that people notable for one event shouldn't have an article. Instead, the event should have an article. It doesn't really make much difference beyond the title of the article - the contents will be pretty much the same, just with a different emphasis. Since it has so little impact, I wouldn't worry too much about the exact wording of the section. --Tango (talk) 18:20, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

A number of editors have varying opinions on BLP1E and BIO1E. Mine are mostly expressed at WP:WI1E and WP:WIALPI, essays on which I was the originator and primary author. Jclemens (talk) 01:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Your assertion highlights an issue that's somewhat controversial around Wikipedia. Policies, in general, should reflect common practice (as opposed to the other way around). So, I think we should look at recent AFDs, and see how users understand BLP1E and what they expect from it. Once we do that, we can see if the wording is clear enough, or if not, what needs to be changed. (Disclosure: I co-wrote WP:EVENT, which is somewhat related here, and Suomi Finland has asked me on my Talk page to comment here) The Wordsmith^Communicate 05:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Biographies of NON-living people

Every reference concerning WP policy and biographies I've seen makes the distinction "Biographies of living persons." What are the guidelines for bios for deceased? More specifically, images of deceased people for the infobox on their article page...what are the policies regarding what images may be used? Here again, the rules on fair use specifically state they apply to "Biographies of living persons."

Where might one find policies regarding bios for deceased persons? --JohnDoe0007 (talk) 07:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Generally, if no free image already exists for a deceased person, there's certainly a much stronger argument that it would be impossible to create one (as opposed to someone who's still alive, where in almost all cases creating a free image is quite possible). Of course, if a free image already exists, or later one that was taken while the person was alive is made free, then we'd use the free image. Other than that, biographies of a deceased person are covered by normal content policies, including that material in such an article that's about a person who is still alive (surviving children, spouse, etc.), is still covered by BLP. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe the reason why there is no specific policy for deceased persons is that such persons (or, properly, their estates) have no standing to bring claims in defamation. I agree with what Seraphimblade mentioned in the above comment. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I figured as much about the fair use of images, but how does one make the argument that "no free image exists" for a deceased person? Certainly if someone is notable enough to be included in the encyclopedia there will have been countless photographs taken...and it's not like a logo or magazine cover where by definition no free image will exist. So how do we go about making such a claim to get a photograph in the infobox for a deceased person for which there are currently no free images in the Wikimedia Commons and none found online? One article I have in mind is Milton Friedman. --JohnDoe0007 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Privacy of names and children/relatives of celebrities

The following discussion took place as part of the signpost review of this policy. At the request of one of one of the other participants I am opening a more general discussion of the topic here on the talk page. Here was the original discussion:

While for the most part I think that BLP is an effective policy that is well enforced. However, I question whether the WP:BLPNAME section is enforced or makes sense. As I read it, it seems that it would strongly discourage listing the names of the children of celebrities in articles about those celebrities unless those children are notable in their own right. In fact from the examples given that would seem to be its primary intent. However, a quick sample of such biographical articles shows that many (probably most) of them would seem to violate this rule. Here are some more or less random examples: Frank Zappa, Mia Farrow, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Harry Turtledove, Jim Butcher and John Landis. A couple of them even have sections labled "list of children". An old saying goes something like you should never give an order you know won't be obeyed and I think it is going to be very hard to discourage the editors of these sorts of articles from mentioning children's names as you sort of expect to see that kind of information in biographical articles. It is precisely because WP:BLP as a whole is such an important policy that I think it is a very bad idea to have any portion of it that is so widely ignored in practice. At the very least I think it should mention that there may be an exception in cases were the names of someone's children are widely known (ie as in the case of Authors who list their chidren's names in the bio blurbs on the dust jackets of their books). Rusty Cashman (talk) 10:40, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, just responding to [Rusty's] comments. I was one of the editors who participated in the debate on WP:BLPNAME. I realize that this policy is difficult to enforce, but I believe the concern of the editor who proposed revisions to the "WP:BLP#Privacy of names" section was that people who are not notable (particularly minors) should not get dragged into articles merely because of their friendship or kinship with notable people. I suppose that this may seem an insignificant point in the case of celebrities who have freely shared the names of their spouses and children with the media, but do the otherwise-unknown relatives of, say, a convicted murderer deserve to be tarnished by association? Perhaps this part of the policy needs to be refined along those lines. Feel free to initiate a fresh discussion on the matter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:48, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a response to Jacklee. Ok, given your convicted murder example I can see the motivation for the policy, which completely eluded me when I read the examples given in the current section. I do think a revision is necessary. I can't imagine biographical articles on really famous people (as opposed to people who are noteworthy because of a particular news event) that didn't list the names of spouses and children, and obviously other editors have felt the same. Otherwise why would the infobox templates for US presidents and authors have fields for listing children, and why would the infobox for actors have a field for spouses and domestic partners? Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you start a discussion a new section so this issue can be discussed? It does sound like the guideline needs some tweaking. As for spouse/domestic partner and children fields in infoboxes, all I can say is that editors who create these infoboxes aren't always aware of applicable policies such as WP:BLP. Note WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Contrast {{Infobox person}}, where the template description page states that only notable children, parents and other relatives should be named (though |spouse= and |partner= are exempt from the rule, for some reason). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:20, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I am replying here because I don't think my comment here will need to be included in the discussion summary. I will start the discussion per your suggestion right after Christmas. I understand the point about otherstuff, I run into it all the time in arguments about enforcing WP:V, but it is one thing if some articles of a certain type violate policy it is another if they almost all do, and in the case of articles on celebs I suspect that may be true. More random examples include: Nancy Grace, J.K. Rowling, Carl Sagan and at least one of them is FA. I admit to not being an expert in this area, most of the bio articles I work on are on historical figures from the 18th and 19th centuries, and I never would have looked at the issue with out being pointed at it by signpost, but it disturbs me when I find policy (as opposed to guidelines) and practice this far out of alignment. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

That was the exact text of the thread from the signpost review. To it I would add that while I am disturbed by the descrepency between policy and practice, I also fundamentally dislike the policy at least as it applies to biographical articles on leading celebrities whose family relationships have been well documented in published biographical material and discussed by the celebrity in public forums. I can't imagine buying a biography on Angelina Jolie in a bookstore, or even a feature on her in a magazine and not having it contain a discussion of her children. They are just too much a part of here public personna. Similarly I can't imagine not finding the names of J. K. Rowling's kids in an article on her given how many times she has told the story of how she wrote the original Harry Potter book at cafes where she had wheeled her infant daughter Jessica, or the fact that she dedicated one of the books to another of her children. In a similar vein I would expect to find the names of Harry Turtledove's daughters in his article given that in an intro to one of his short stories in an anthology he mentions that it was inspired by his daughter Rachel as an infant, and Nancy Grace has put her young sons on camera on at least one occasion I can recall. I think it is appropriate that Tiger Woods' kids are mentioned by name in his article even though I can see why that would be a little sensitive given the nature of some of the material in that article. However, given the amount of materail that has been published containing their names I doubt it can doo much harm. I guess that brings me to the change I would like to see. I would like some kind of wording like the following: "In deciding whether or not to include the names of close relatives, such as the subject's children, in an article about a celebrity the editor should consider whether or not the relationship has been widely publicized and to what extent the celebrity has discussed the relative by name with the media." I think something along these lines would make the policy more consistent with actual practice with regards to celebrity articles, and in particular would cover the cases I most worry about, ultra famous people like Woods and Jolie, whose children are almost household names. Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:15, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you like to prepare a draft amendment to WP:BLPNAME for discussion purposes? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I will propose a specific change to the wording tonight or tomorrow night. Rusty Cashman (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

As a thought, I would say that I could support an amendment that says, if a celebrity has made an effort to keep his kids out of the media, then we should not (not must not, this is a tricky area) name them. However, if they've been dragged along to public events, or their name mentioned repeatedly by Mom or Dad, well, we're here to gather secondary sources, not to judge.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

If a celebrity has tried to protect the privacy of his or her spouse and children, shouldn't our policy state that they must not rather than should not be named? Why do you feel that an outright ban is inappropriate? If they should not be named, what criteria should be laid down to determine this? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps if, as an example, the child is notable in his own right. Royalty, for example, seems to be notable from birth. There may be other examples as well. Or if the child is dragged out for a time, but then the parent changes her mind and demands privacy for the child. I'd like to see flexibility in any guideline.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:33, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The policy is not hard to police if you find the name of a not notable child in an article and they are more than likely alive then remove it, I have removed any of the non notable names from the list at the top of this discussion, such high profile childreen as mia farrows and joles are perhaps public enough to warrant inclusion, I have opened a discussion on farrows talkpage to see if anyone thinks that having them is of any added value, the policy is fine as it is imo. We are an encyclopedia and not celebrity ok magazine so naming these children is of little encyclopedic value. Off2riorob (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, this is a matter of what "encyclopedic value" means. It should be on a case-by-case basis at the very least. --Cyclopia ^talk 00:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, case by case is good, at the mia farrow article and angalina jolie there has been so much coverage of the childrens names supported apparently my the mother herself that even though some of the children are not notable at all themselves it is hard to simply remove them, also for example Frank Zappa four children, three of which have their own articles, the last one hasn't but considering the notability of the other three I chose to leave the name of the fourth child, a personal judgment at the time, as far as encyclopedic value goes, individual names of not notable children are of no value at all except perhaps titillation and the modern desire to know even minute detail about celebrity, imo we are not here to support that. Off2riorob (talk) 00:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Specific proposal for change in policy

Ok here is a proposal for a specific change. namely to add the following note to the end of the Privacy of names section:

A note on well publicised family relationships
In some cases the names of immediate relatives of a celebrity may be well known. In such cases including the names of the relatives in a biographical article may be appropriate even if that relative is really only notable because of their relationship to the subject. Such cases might include relatives who have been discussed by name by their celebrity relation in multiple interviews in reliable sources, relatives of a well known author who have been discussed by name by that author in published works, and chidren of celebrities whose birth or adoption has recieved widespread media coverage in reliable sources or chidren who have been mentioned in multiple published (by reliable sources) profiles of their parents' family life. As an example the name of any child of a President of the United States will normally be well enough known because of media coverage to be included in the article on that President even if that child has not done anything noteworthy his or her self. Such decisions should be made on a case by case basis and special care should be taken to protect the privacy of the names of people who are relatives of people who are notable primarily for what might be considered by many peoiple as negative reasons; these might include peiple who are notable for being involved in a crime, or the adult film industry, etc.

Rusty Cashman (talk) 10:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it may be better to rewrite the current policy rather than just tack on a note, to ensure consistency. Here's my suggestion, which is based on ideas expressed in what you wrote above:

Privacy of names [1st revision]

Shortcut

WP:BLPNAME

Consider carefully whether significant value is added to an article by including the names of private, living individuals such as family members of the subject of a biographical article. There is a presumption against using the names of such individuals, even if the names have already appeared in the media, where:

they are not in themselves sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article, for instance, because they are only named in published third-party sources because they are related to or associated with notable individuals;

and

being named in connection with the subject of the biographical article can be embarrassing or dangerous to them (e.g., if the article's subject is a convicted criminal or a wanted terrorist, or works in the adult film industry);
it is sufficient to identify them by their affiliation with the article's subject without naming them;
they are under the age of 18 years, and thus deserve greater protection from intrusions upon their privacy; and/or
the article's subject has actively tried to preserve their privacy.

An exception may be made where:

the non-notable persons are closely related to or associated with the article's subject;
the article's subject is notable for positive or neutral reasons; and
the names of the non-notable persons have either been disclosed to the media by the article's subject or have otherwise been widely published in reliable third-party sources.

Consider, though, whether referring to these non-notable persons in the article is useful for increasing understanding about the article's subject, or is merely trivial information.

Examples	Suggested action
The names of the wife and children of Ihava bin Hidin, a wanted terrorist who has orchestrated suicide bombings that have resulted in deaths, are published in a newspaper article.	Applying criterion 1, the names of Ihava's wife and children should not be disclosed in the article about him. There is a risk that people may try to harm them because of their hate for Ihava.
It is disclosed on an established website reporting entertainment news that Betty Boomz, a well-known porn actress, has an adult daughter who is training to become a nun.	Applying criterion 1, Boomz's daughter's name should not be mentioned in the article about Boomz. Consider also whether the information, which is trivial, belongs in the article at all.
Actor John Doe has lent his name to a campaign for tough criminal sentences for heroin addicts. Newspapers report that his adult son was arrested for possession of heroin. In spite of the irony of the public allegation, the son is not notable in his own right.	Applying criterion 2, it is permissible to mention that Doe's son has been arrested, but his name should not be mentioned in the article about Doe.
A news report states that famous sportswoman Waheeda Ismail has been seen in the company of a man who is otherwise not notable.	Applying criterion 2, the fact that Waheeda is dating may be mentioned in the article about her, but the man should not be named. However, consider whether the information, which is trivial, belongs in the article at all.
Peter Chen is the education minister, and has frequently stated that educational standards in government schools are the same as those in private schools. He has always kept his wife and minor children out of the limelight. A journalist tracks down Chen's children and discovers that he has sent them to an exclusive private school abroad.	Applying criteria 2, 3 and 4, the fact that Chen has sent his children to a private school abroad may be mentioned in the article about him, but the children should not be named.
Barack Obama is the President of the United States. He is married to Michelle Obama and has two daughters, Sasha and Malia. As of 2009, Obama's daughters are minors and are not notable in their own right.	Applying the exception, they may be named in articles about Barack and Michelle Obama.
Actor John Doe and his wife Jane have given an exclusive interview to Gossip Magazine about the birth of their daughter Booboo Happy Flower. Despite the novelty factor of her name, the child is not notable in her own right.	Applying the exception, Doe's daughter's name may be mentioned in the article about Doe.

Where names are redacted, editors are encouraged to explain why on the article's talk page.

— Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 15:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutral I am OK with the policy, but I fear that there is more strictness in the examples than in the policy, perhaps unnecessarily so.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Do feel free to suggest changes. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather split the proposal, and if the policy gains consensus, then seek whether to have a table of examples.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:54, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually I kind of like the proposal. For one thing I think concrete examples are very useful in policies and guidelines, and I think having someone come along later and tack the examples after the policy wording is decided. As a SW engineer I prefer to work through the use cases first, and then try and specify the design :) I would tweak the Obama example to make it a little more explicit. My suggested wording would be:

Example: Barack Obama is the President of the United States. He is married to Michelle Obama and has two daughters, Sasha and Malia. As of 2009, Obama's daughters are minors and are not notable in their own right, but they have been widely mentioned by name in news coverage of the Obama family and have been discussed by their parents in media interviews. Therefore the exception applies.

In a similar vein I would rework the celebrity birth example a little to make the point clearer.

Example: Gossip Magazine mentions that actor John Doe and his wife Jane have named their child Booboo Happy Flower. Despite the novelty factor of her name, the child is not notable in her own right. However, if the Does give interviews about the birth of their daughter that appear in multiple reliable sources the exception may apply.

I would also suggest that a table is not the right format for the examples. A simple list might be more appropriate. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

John doe's herion addict son, personally I would see that as coatracking his son and his sons crime on to his bio, he is not responsible for his sons criminal actions or the fact that his sisters brother is a burglar and neither crimes have place on john does article, this all looks a bit complicated if you ask me, the policy is quite clear to me as it is, as someone said, each case needs a personal summation. Off2riorob (talk) 20:11, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not coat racking if a sufficient number of reliable media sources have drawn a connection between the actor's public positions and his son's life style issues. I agree the name of the son should not necessarily be publicised if he is not notable himself. When I started this discussion I never claimed that the policy was unclear. Rather I claimed that the policy as written seemed to exclude information that was commonly included in biographical material, namely the names of children of well known celebrities even when those names had recieved widespread publicity. Rusty Cashman (talk) 20:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It is so coatracking...although the father was strongly against smoking the press reported his son smoked. The whole 2 plus 2 equals four bit should not be included. There is an assumption that there is a connection or..you want to add...the press drew conclusions that is is connected. Anyway I digress...When the children have been publicised by the parents but are not really notable then it is easy to open a discussion on the talkpage to see what consensus arises, I have opened one on the Mia Farrow bio and as yet no one has commented, as the names of the children have been widely reported by the press and also by the mother there is not a very big BLP issue. No list will ever be able to represent what in the few cases where issues arise is a case by case situation. Off2riorob (talk) 12:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I like the examples as its easier to point people to specific examples, but the explanations do seem a little to complex take Applying criterion 1, the names of Ihava's wife and children should not be disclosed in the article about him. There is a risk that people may try to harm them because of their hate for Ihava. is too much why not Applying criterion 1, the names of Ihava's wife and children should not be disclosed in the article about him. or Applying criteria 2, 3 and 4, the fact that Chen has sent his children to a private school abroad may be mentioned in the article about him, but the children should not be named. when Applying criteria 2, 3 and 4, the children should not be named.. Being brief and specific reduces uncertainity, the examples are only about mentioning names also there should be a less dramatic example that covers the very limited stubby BLP ie 2010 Idol winner Twobob who just released his debut album is married with two kids, Applying criteria 2, 3 and 4, the children should not be named. Gnan garra 17:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I felt "XYZ should not be named" was vague, as it might be understood as either "XYZ should not be mentioned in the article at all" or "XYZ can be referred to in the article but her name should not be stated". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 19:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but this is a bit much, the proposer Rusty has now come along to the discussion that I have opened at Talk:Mia Farrow regarding her children's names and commented that we have to wait for the result of this all powerful discussion, as I see it there is plenty of long term policy and guideline to deal with any issues there without waiting for this discussion to play out. Off2riorob (talk) 04:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I also opened a discussion on the Morgan Freeman talk page about your deletion of his children's name from that article. I did some research using google and I believe that those names have been widely enough publicised (including being mentioned in published interviews of him and some pieces about him that included interviews of them about him) to fall under the exception as Jacklee has proposed formulating it. I think that it may be a good test/study case as that information (the names of his children) is available in biographical information about him; I think it should be included in his wikipedia article, and I think that is a good reason to consider a change to the wording of the policy to allow it to be included. I am sorry if the comment I made at Mia Farrow bothered you, but I had been holding off commenting there while this discussion played out, and when I read your comment here about no one having commented there, I felt I should say something there. I also thought that people interested in that issue might be interested in this discussion.Rusty Cashman (talk) 05:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I actually disagree regarding this as applied to Morgan Freeman's children. I believe that because they are non-notable private citizens who do not work in the entertainment industry, the presumption of privacy should apply. This is in direct opposition to the example of the children of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt or of John Travolta and Kelly Preston, whose son Jett died quite publically and their daughter Ella has appeared in film. I agree with the deletion of Freeman's children. Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:34, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Is there any way to remedy the problem by removing whatever portions of the policy misstate the general position, instead of making it longer? Can't we just express a set of general principles and avoid examples? KISS principle and all that.--Father Goose (talk) 07:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

discussion on drawn images on BLPs prompted by those at Geoffrey Boycott

Discussion has arisen at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket regarding the images drawn at Geoffrey Boycott in the absence on valid alternative photographs. Opinions sought there please! SGGH ^ping! 15:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to reply here, as this is a bigger issue than just in relation to cricket, though you may copy my comments there or wherever if you wish. No offense intended to the artist, but a poorly-done drawing on a BLP is much worse than no image at all. It can draw ridicule to the BLP subject, to Wikipedia, and even to the artist. Drawings (and other artwork) are really only acceptable on long-dead subjects for whom no photograph could possibly exist, such as George Washington. The question we need to ask is: "Is this the best reprsentative image of the subject that could exist?" Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- There was also very recent discussion of this on the WT:NFC policy talk page. It came to much the same conclusions as Starblind above. Jheald (talk) 17:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

From a BLP perspective, I think the only issue is the neutrality of the drawing. Even a photograph can portray a person in a bad light. We had a discussion a while back on the use of mug shots in BLPs. The drawing on the Geoffrey Boycott appears neutral enough to me but I don't have any idea what the person looks like. Whether it is a good enough likeness to use seems to be a question that ought to be discussed on the article talk page and decided by consensus there. I don't see a need to clarify BLP policy here.--agr (talk) 17:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, we were looking for that discussion Jheald linked to. SGGH ^ping! 19:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

BLPSPS and user-generated images of living persons

I've added the following line to WP:BLPSPS to address a loophole in BLP:

However, images of living persons that have been generated by Wikipedia contributors or other sources may be used to illustrate articles, provided that they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia's copyright policy and subject to the considerations set out in Images above.

Under a literal reading of WP:BLPSPS, self-published sources such as Wikipedia contributors, Flickr or other similar sources would be excluded from use as sources for images. However, it's been Wikipedia's policy from the start to encourage the use of user-generated images, whether of buildings, places or living persons. We have literally thousands of such images across Wikipedia (I've taken a number myself). I've therefore added the line above to clarify BLP on this point to ensure that it matches the situation in practice. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems like a reasonable statement of our longtime practice.--TS 01:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tweaked it slightly to link to Wikipedia:Image use policy#User-created images rather than Wikipedia:Copyrights, since the former is a more useful link than the latter on this particular issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect to my good friends here, they do not constitute a consensus and they should not be editing policy pages without it. --GoRight (talk) 02:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The consensus already exists, since the change reflects what is currently standard practice and has been since Wikipedia was established. If you want to change Wikipedia's standard practice, you need to get consensus for that. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) It is consensus as it's been the established practice for years and tens of thousands of contributions. It's up to you to show support that your novel interpretation should be accepted. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, perhaps that is so. But should it be so? Would it be acceptable for someone to take an image of someone who is an imposter for the purposes of denigrating a particular subject, upload it to Flickr, and include that on a BLP? --GoRight (talk) 02:50, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. --TS 02:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a different issue entirely. It's got nothing to do with whether a source is self-published or not, as any commercially published image could potentially have the same (extremely unlikely) issue. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Not so. This is precisely why we are asked to defer to neutral WP:RS with a reputation for fact checking. --GoRight (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) To answer your question, no, it wouldn't be as it is deliberately inserting incorrect facts. What in the policy makes you think it would be? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

What is the purpose of WP:BLPSPS then anyway, if not to forestall exactly this type of thing ... whether through false statements by one's political enemies or through image manipulation or falsification? --GoRight (talk) 03:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the issues you raise exist for non SPS also. For BLP images, we need to be sure we have the right person, and to avoid unflattering images (e.g. 3AM arrest photo of a celebrity would not be desirable). But we do want to encourage editors to contribute photos in general, since public domain images are so hard to get. Crum375 (talk) 03:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I do understand why user generated photos are being sought. And for things other than BLPs perhaps that even makes sense. I guess it still could make sense for BLPs too but we should have some safeguards, IMHO, to aid editors in keeping such material out and such a policy should err on the side that excludes controversial (within the wikipedia community) material. So if multiple editors contest the inclusion, for example as was the case for Monckton, a super majority should be required to include it. Otherwise someone's detractors could come to wikipedia and seek to include such material AND prevail as long as they manage to maintain a majority (and yes I know that it should be all about consensus, but in some cases it just doesn't work that way). --GoRight (talk) 03:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is consensus of editors that an image is false, or excessively unflattering, then it should not be used, regardless of source. Crum375 (talk) 03:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

But therein lies the problem. Sometimes people's critics come to wikipedia to disparage them and even if they merely represent a simple majority and not a true consensus, they can force the disparaging material into an article. Consensus in this case is insufficient as a safeguard from a BLP perspective. At least IMHO. --GoRight (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is a choice between two portraits, where one seems to be more flattering, then by our BLP goal of "do no harm" we need to choose the more flattering one. If the only available photo is obviously intended to disparage the person, then it may need to be left out. If an editor feels any living person is being improperly disparaged for any reason, they should post a complaint on BLPN. Crum375 (talk) 04:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I know of at least one case where a BLP was created and an image uploaded deliberately to disparage the subject of the article, so this is by no means something that doesn't happen. The image and the article got speedily deleted, but I can try and dig out the links if that would be helpful. Carcharoth (talk) 10:17, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:MUG already cover that issue? The wording could perhaps be tweaked if you feel it is not sufficiently clear already. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Part of the problem with this policy is that it is very bloated and that leads to inconsistencies. People can point to one part to justify their actions, and others can point to another part to justify their actions. Rather than pin down specifics in policy like this, it should be possible to use broader guiding principles, common sense, and treating BLP articles with the highest of standards and care. In the case I am referring to, it was a local councillor who had presumably annoyed someone, and who had their photo taken in such a way that it presented them in an unflattering light. I think there was also some context that made it clear that the person uploading the photo had done so with less than pure intentions. WP:MUG seems only to address police photos, not clearly unflattering photos taken without the permission of the subject, and added only to attack the subject. In such cases, context is everything. Carcharoth (talk) 11:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've strengthened the first sentence of WP:MUG as follows: "Images of living persons should not be used out of context to present a person in a false or denigratory light." Police mugshots are mentioned as an issue of particular concern, but WP:MUG clearly isn't meant to refer exclusively to such images. An image may still have a negative impact - think of Jimmy Carter being attacked by a rabbit - but if it's germane to the topic of the article, i.e. not simply being used to attack the subject, that should be acceptable. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:23, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I strengthened the language in WP:MUG a bit more to address the concerns raised and to ensure BLP WP articles do no harm. Free free to improve. Crum375 (talk) 12:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I have also added a note to NOR#Original images about required compliance with WP:MUG. Crum375 (talk) 13:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds pretty reasonable to me! - Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) ^talk 21:19, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I've re-added "out of context" since that's a very important point. Your wording would have prevented any unflattering image being used under any circumstances. That's clearly not going to work, since there will inevitably be occasions when an unflattering image may be relevant to the topic of an article - think of Bernie Madoff doing the "perp walk", for instance, or Hugh Grant's police photograph. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Hugh Grant 's police photo was inserted at one point but was removed on BLP grounds. The same goes for Maddoff's so called perp walk photo, that is also not in the BLP anymore. Off2riorob (talk) 22:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

unreferenced BLP bot

There was consensus here a bit ago about a bot notifying users who's articles were unreferenced BLP's. I wrote the bot, and before I go for approval, Id like some final input. See the discussion here Thanks. Tim1357 (talk) 18:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

User:LaraBot was created several months ago and has been doing this. Lara ☁ 15:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

This bot creates a full list of articles, it appears LauraBot only does newly created ones. Tim1357 (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

See my posting on your talk page, Tim. Your bot seems to have a problem in correctly identifying the original authors of some articles. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 22:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have raised a complaint about User:DASHBot over at Wikipedia talk:Bots. —Lowellian (reply) 01:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

New page

As part of ongoing community discussion concerning issues surrounding interpretation of our BLP policy, I have posted Wikipedia:BLP examples for discussion. This page contains five examples of situations in which application of the BLP policy could lead to disagreements among good-faith editors. The examples, based on specific articles but intended to be discussed more abstractly, are designed for discussion either on-wiki and also as an aid to discussion of the problem at meet-ups where there is a session scheduled on BLP issues (including in New York this Sunday, January 24). Input is welcome. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced articles

I'm slowly going through the list of unreferenced BLPs from January 2007 and adding reliable sources when available. I have been able to find at least one or two references for most of the articles and the few remaining are prodded (if uncontroversial) or send to AfD (if there is a chance the article could be kept or improved if there were more eyes on it). There are a couple of articles that I've come across that I'm really not sure what to do with - the person appears to be notable, but I can found zero reliable sources to verify the notability and information contained within the article. This may due to a language barrier, or in cases where the individual's profession is not commonly covered in depth by what we consider reliable independent sources. In such cases is it best to just leave the article unsourced and move on? Examples include Giovanni Adamo, Andrea Bruschi, and Michael Castellana. Jezebel'sPonyo ^shhh 20:07, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You could try adding a expert required template with the specific topic or nationality to attract attention, the issue imo with uncited bios is that they may either be fake or derogatory, {{Andrea Bruschi]] for example has a link to his webpage and an imbd info page so although a citation is not jumping out we can see the article is more or less correct so do what you can and if there is no harmful content then move on. Off2riorob (talk) 20:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Rob, that's pretty much what I've been doing (I'm the one who added the "official website" to the Bruschi page). Essentially if there is no contentious or really questionable assertions made I've just been leaving them be if my search for references gives the impression of truth and notability, despite the lack if independent coverage and sources. I just wanted to make sure that I'm in step with other BLP project members as to how to proceed. If nothing else at least the articles have been edited for POV and updated, and are now watchlisted. --Jezebel'sPonyo ^shhh 20:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I totally agree, I had a bit more of a look at them and prodded Michael Castellana and Giovanni Adamo as not notable, it you have a good look and find nothing then I wouldn't be worried about prodding them, that gives anyone else and the creator a week to establish notability, if not then the article wasn't of much importance or value and it can always be recreated in the future. I found a citation for Andrea Bruschi and have added that, I usually add the search template on the talkpage as you will see here and if I can't find anything then how notable are they? Feel free to ask me to join in with anything you need another pair of eyes as we seem to be working on along similar lines. Off2riorob (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI, policy proposal regarding unsourced BLPs

Proposal to prohibit the removal of Proposed deletion tags from unsourced Biographies of living persons and prod all of them in groups over the next 2.5 months.

Please add your input at the proposal page. -- Banjeboi 09:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Questionable/ unproven deaths

What do we do when a person has schroedingered and we're not sure he's alive or dead? Is it appropriate to apply BLP? 68.83.179.156 (talk) 04:40, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say yes, because we should err on the side of caution. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Exceptions exist. I think a good faith assumption that anybody over 120? years from their date of birth is dead wouldn't land you in any trouble. I think we actually had a minor discussion about this awhile back. Other than that, for ambiguous cases, once we can agree they're probably dead by examination of sources and some analysis, I think that works too - like, say, Amelia Earhart. Ray^Talk 14:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

How to proceed?

I've come across two articles about the same individual Chris Clark (editor) and Chris Clark (sports reporter). Normally the articles could be merged, however I'm having a hard time determing which article to "keep" and which to redirect, as well as what content should be merged. The crux of my dilemna is that both articles were created in 2007 and have never been sourced. They're both poorly written and don't appear to be very neutral and have only been edited by a handful of editors over the past three years. Any ideas on the best way forward? --Jezebel'sPonyo ^shhh 19:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest redirecting the poorer article to the better one, IMHO Chris Clark (sports reporter) is the better as it has more prose. I quick glance through the article does not show any obvious things in (editor) that are not in (sports reporter), and one is not an obvious copy of the other. Martin451 (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but Clark is listed on the WTOC-TV article but not the other station. You could check the newer station's web site. The claim is he won an emmy so he's notable enough. It should be possible to find a source for that. Do the best you can.--agr (talk) 21:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both for the advice, however it's apparently moot now as an admin has deleted the (editor) article. I'll just work on cleaning up the remaining article. --Jezebel'sPonyo ^shhh 15:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Stop immediately.

The next person who edits this through full protection should turn their mop in with it. This has gone FAR enough, and the request is being handled at ArbCom. SirFozzie (talk) 04:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Woops didn't see this message before I reverted. ArbCom is free to revert what I did. --— Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

It bears repeating that everyone involved in contested or contentious editing should read to the end of the associated talk page before editing. I'd recommend you revert yourself, rather than expecting ArbCom to look favorably upon your admission that you read this after the fact, but let your edit stand... Jclemens (talk) 07:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Meh someone else reverted, no problems. However I do remember somewhere the idea of protections not taking one side over the other... — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Meatpuppet Jack Merridew has openly admitted he participates in a form of meatpuppetry, giving Lar's wife a barnstar for acknowledging this when she was defending him calling another editor a WP:DICK. As one of Jack Merridew's self described "friends" it is no surprise that Lar protected on Jack Merridew's edit. Caveat, this is all from memory, so some of the facts maybe slightly different, edit diffs if needed

It doesn't take much of a leap to see how Coffee and Arthur Rubin, two editors who support the same views on content, end up with the version they wanted. Way to game the system gentlemen. Ikip 08:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Fozzie, you should know that the Rd guy was the first to edit through protection, as he apparently didn't care for the version that was protected. UnitAnode 07:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
- I think you meant to link to this. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I reverted, then reconsidered, adding a {{verification failed}} tag, rather than the more obvious {{disputed guideline}} (or equivalent) tag. If you wish to revert back to the pre-war version, go ahead. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

However, mt:wrong version does not apply to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, or sometimes even essays. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

And there are excellent reasons why it should not. The present case is so clear cut it should be Exhibit A. Rd232 ^talk 08:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin and Coffee, you two are supposed to be examples. Not only are you supporting disruptive edits, you two are clearly gaming the system. Coffee, I hope SirFozzie moves to take away your administrative privileges immediately. I will push for this in the arbcom. Hopefully you are administrator number five who I help get desysoped. Ikip 07:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's one reason why policies should be exempt from the Wrong Version when there is an unambiguously identifiable longstanding version of the relevant part. We've now ended up with a policy which is certainly important and which some say trumps everything else which contradicts itself. The lead contradicts the relevant body section ("Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material"). And of course in the lead the policy nominally says one thing, which has no demonstrated consensus, but has a "verify" tag. This messiness matters in a way it does not with articles, because we can't just suspend the existence of a policy whilst it is under dispute - it is still going to be applied, perhaps by people uninvolved in or uninterested in the dispute; so we're left with a sort of limbo. For purposes of stability and sanity, we should stick to a stable version where it is obvious what that is, while discussion is ongoing. Perhaps we could amend WP:POLICY, because this is hardly the first or last time this is going to happen. Rd232 ^talk 13:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we please archive the above discussions (and the various reverts) as an essential reading for all the fresh editors at Wikipedia who want to become administrators in the future? :):):) ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 16:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs

Because one of the main criticisms of all suggested systems for the deletion of unsourced BLPs was that people are misusing the system to achieve their goals, I have created a proposal for a completely new (although obviously similar) system: Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs. ProD stays like it is, and all discussion, refinements, opposition, ... can be centered at the new location. No confusion between regular Prod and the new system will be possible anymore, I hope. Again, this is a proposal, not a new policy. I'll post notifications of it in a few central locations, feel free to add it to all relevant pages I may have forgotten. Fram (talk) 09:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people --MZMcBride (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted unsourced BLPs

I wanted to start an unsourced BLP drive to actually source these articles, but now that ArbCom has ruled that all 50,000 unsourced BLPs can be mass deleted this seems a bit moot, as it is much quicker to hit the delete button than find sources - any effort at sourcing would be quickly overtaken by the deletions. Without knowing who is doing mass deletion there's no way to record which unsourced BLPs have been deleted, unless I trawl the whole deletion log. Can we record the list of titles somewhere so those of us who wish to find sources and retain some of this content can work on them? Fences&Windows 17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I strongly second this request. I've been working on adding sources from the back of the Unsourced BLP log (I'm just starting on D here) and it's rare that I haven't been able to find several reliable sources for each individual. Those that I can't source, or that do not meet notability criteria, have been prodded or sent to AfD. I'm more than willing to keep plugging away at sourcing of old articles because there is indeed some good material already in place, such as with Tanya Chua, Gianrico Carofiglio, and Terence Cole, which were all tagged as unreferenced until I sourced them this week. Perhaps there can be an opt-in group to somehow access the deleted articles or have batches of them userfied? If there are many people willing to really dig in and seperate the wheat from the chaff perhaps we should explore that option? As with the recent clean-up of the New Page Patrol backlog, I think that if a concerted effort was made by a group of willing participants, we could clear this backlog and then concentrate on maintaining the quality of BLPs. --Jezebel'sPonyo ^shhh 18:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Generating lists of unreferenced BLPs by WikiProject tag

Due to all the fuss about deleting unreferenced BLPs, I'd like to add references to many articles I created earlier in my editing history that were probably left unreferenced. Is there any way of generating a list of articles that are tagged as unreferenced BLPs and as WikiProject Israel? Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 10:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

If you don't mind using an external search tool, a google search for "Israeli Jews" "Living people" "Contentious material" site:en.wikipedia.org might help. The trick is to find a category (in this case Israeli Jews) that appears on the article page rather than the talk page. The phrase "Contentious material" is a standard part of {{BLPUnreferenced}} and is relatively unlikely to occur in the body of an article. - Pointillist (talk) 10:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC).

After some further testing, suggest removing the "Living people" term, so the search is simply "Israeli Jews" "Contentious material" site:en.wikipedia.org. - Pointillist (talk) 10:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - managed to find a few using this technique. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 16:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I have added a subscription to cleanup listings to WikiProject Israel. It will appear at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel/Cleanup listing in a couple of days. It includes unreferenced BLPs based on the latest database dump. Rettetast (talk) 13:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

My solution

Put into action: [6].

Hopefully this approach will be embraced by the community as a middle ground between the asinine extremes of summary deletion and paralyzing eventualism.--Father Goose (talk) 11:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC) is very nice (though probably works better on pages where it is not lost beneath so many project banners!). I do hope it catches on. Jheald (talk) 15:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice. Perhaps a version for completely unreferenced articles too? - Wikidemon (talk) 01:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what a great idea! It is very possible we could have a bot stubify these articles down to the first sentence. Shouldn't the banner be on main space, not the talk page? Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 02:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

This template is intended to be used when stubbing an article down to just its sourced statements. If you want to use it on a completely unreferenced BLP, add at least one source first.

I think the talk page is the better place for it, for two reasons: one is that there is something to be said for hiding potential libel from the average reader, and the other is that we don't want to tempt IPs to restore the "unreferenced version" reflexively. The target audience of the template is editors who will actually pay attention to the requirement that sources be added -- i.e., those who might actually use the talk page.--Father Goose (talk) 07:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be a different version, but a notice like this could be left for unsourced BLPs as well. It could be one for the main page that simply notes that the article is on hiatus, and one for the talk page that points to the earlier version. The point is to preserve the information for article editors to process in the future, while quickly hiding the inormation from casual readers. Automated tools can do that in a hurry to quickly address the BLP concern, but only editors can add sources or make a reasonable call that an article is unsalvageable. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Yeah, I think I could support that, although I think certain other approaches emerging in the RfC have more promise. But things are still very much up in the air at this point.--Father Goose (talk) 09:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

If you want to use it on a completely unreferenced BLP, add at least one source first.

Um, then it is really not a solution, because I don't think any group can source 50,000 articles in one month (when this RFC closes).Ikip 00:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If ArbCom ends up sanctioning the removal of all unsourced BLPs within a month's time (implicitly or otherwise), there's no solution save having to undelete and fix them one by one. I have to hope that a reasonable timeframe will be adopted that allows the work to be done while the articles are still accessible to non-admins. Stub-and-archive is the fastest approach we can hope for that still allows non-admins to restore the remaining material according to the time available to them.--Father Goose (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I asked User:Bali ultimate if he'd be interested in using it, as he's been doing a lot of stubbing; his reply was to remove my comment with the edit summary "Nope".[7] How nice to see such communication. Fences&Windows 03:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, well, he is... not a... nice person. That doesn't change the utility of the template. You could always add it yourself to the articles he's stubbed. If he then wars over its removal, we could then ask others whether they feel use of the template is reasonable.--Father Goose (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Um... when, if ever, would this template get removed? Probably just about every article in Wikipedia contains an unreferenced statement somewhere in its history. As written, this template looks like you could add 'his favourite colour is green' (say) to an article, add this template, and then leave it there indefinitely until someone is able to find a source for this unverifiable claim. I'm sure that's not the intention, so perhaps it needs to be rewritten slightly to clarify its purpose. Robofish (talk) 03:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually, there's a bigger problem here: uncontentious unsourced information about living people is not a problem. In the example you gave, [8], adding the template solves nothing - it takes away material from the reader, uncontroversial material which is probably true, and doesn't do anything to provide a source itself. In the absence of sources, we should assume in good faith that material is factually accurate. Removing uncontentious unsourced information is against the very spirit of Wikipedia. Robofish (talk) 04:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I actually agree with that, but in light of the current environment, stub-and-archive is probably our best hope for recovering over time the massive amount of content that is about to be removed summarily.--Father Goose (talk) 04:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Mmm, good point. I intended to use it on Terry Downes, but I was able to locate sources for just about everything, and removed some "personal life" stuff for which sources were not forthcoming. That's what I meant by "once all sourceable information has been restored", but that language could be tweaked. I might take a shot at it, or feel free to change it yourself.--Father Goose (talk) 04:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

And looking over the article again, I was able to find sources for just about all the "personal life" stuff as well. Maybe no tweak is needed to the template's instructions -- for now.--Father Goose (talk) 05:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

My solution also

How about:

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#User:Ikip_Technical_option_building_on_Balloonman.27s_idea

Thanks for taking the time to consider it. :) Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 03:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we change WP:BLPDEL please?

Given that the arbcom ruling has commended the administrators who proceeded on the deletion drive, can we please change the relevant sections in the article to reflect that poorly sourced/unsourced BLPs should be deleted? ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 18:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The motion hasn't even passed yet.
This page really shouldn't be edited, at all, until it is unprotected.
Since when does ArbCom declare policy?

--Conti|✉ 18:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the motion has passed now. But that doesn't change point #3. Guettarda (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Also, see here. Make a RfC or something to gather consensus before changing the long-standing wording, instead of people edit-warring a new version in the middle of a content dispute. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Irrespective of that, I've documented the history of this case here Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Ruling (BLP Deletions). It'll at least go a long way for future BLP editors. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 19:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:CONSENSUS. ArbCom does not decide policy. ArbCom's role is to resolve editing disputes, and they have overstepped their bounds in a poorly considered and worded motion. Fences&Windows 19:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose ArbCom would be well advised to keep orderly processes in WP. Once a belief that WP editors set WP policy is briken, WP editors will have little faith in WP processes in the future. Collect (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per above. In these hours, the whole concept of process is under jeopardy, and we have to do everything to maintain it. Process is not mere bureaucracy, it's there for a reason: to above that this place becomes a jungle where whoever twists arms more, wins. Unfortunately this seems to be the case lately. Now, there is a RfC on the matter: let's wait for its outcome. --Cyclopia ^talk 00:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The "concept of process" should be "in jeopardy", when that process collides with BLP issues. Unit Anode 01:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Wait some. The ongoing RfC is addressing this issue. Once it finishes in a couple of weeks or so, we should have some new policy language, based on broad community input, to add to this policy page regarding what to do about unsourced BLP material, including entire articles that are unsourced. Please go participate in the RfC if you haven't already. Cla68 (talk) 01:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The arbitration committee interprets policy definitively (and of course in doing so, makes policy--it's unavoidable). The Committee here has correctly affirmed the primacy of the BLP, just as it did in Badlydrawnjeff. This will, in effect, mean that we may in future have a BLP, rather than the ghost of one. Thus arbcom has made policy: namely the now four-year-old BLP. Arbcom needs to keep making the same policy until the people who think it doesn't count or isn't a real policy or has exceptions or is subject to the notability guideline, etc, etc, etc, give up. --TS 01:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The arbcom "sets policy" when a certain contingent of the community begins to think that WP:CONSENSUS is a bludgeon to keep others from cleaning up the BLP problem. BLP trumps consensus, when consensus is wrong. Period. Unit Anode 01:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

BLP trumps consensus, when consensus is wrong.: Tell me your definition of "wrong". Because, you know, in a community, "wrong" is what the consensus thinks it is wrong, usually. Unless your ethics descends directly from God or something like that, of course. How do you define "wrong"? --Cyclopia ^talk 12:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with Unit's analysis. It's wrong to think that after an ArbCom has actually gone ahead and commended administrators for deleting unsourced/poorly sourced BLPs, we still can revisit the question of what needs to be done. And obviously, we're not even discussing Kevin's off-wiki permissions (or lack of) out here. The changes should be made right now simply based on on-wiki ArbCom rulings. The policy change discussions will keep going on, and will be re-referred to ArbCom in case they in any way whatsoever, move away from the current ArbCom ruling. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 06:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree Wikipedia has been drifting in the last few years towards an attitude that allows almost anything to stand, leading to a gradual decline in Wikipedia's standards. Wikipedia policy is, and I believe always has been, that unsourced material should be removed, and the extent to which editors have decided to place limitations on this principal has been quite destructive. The fact that ArbCom has made a decision to support taking this policy at face value should be an encouragement to try to move consensus back against the direction of that drift. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

These impressions of the history of the project are quite inaccurate. There is no doubt that standards have been constantly rising. Take any article and look at its history for proof. Wikipedia policy has never been that unsourced material should be removed. This has been debated many times, but always defeated.John Z (talk) 18:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You might be wrong John. The Foundation has always (since some time) been to the strict view that unsourced material on BLPs should be removed/nuked. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 09:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Arbcom does not set policy, the community sets policy, see WP:POLICY. The wikimedia foundation reserves some rights but I do not see them being exercised in this case and they are only for exceptional circumstances. Wikimedia says explicitly that the consensus of wikipedia sets policy. As to the business at hand I view it as silly. Being referenced does not make bios less likely to have libel. What wikipedia has to do is have procedures in place for checking and fixing libellous information in bios and it needs to respond quickly if there is a complaint. That has practically nothing to do wit6h being referenced, there was no check made on whether this was a source of problems or whether this would fix anything and the evidence I've seen since shows there isn't one and it wouldn't anyway. This is all a waste of time and against the interests of wikipedia as an encyclopaedia as far as I can see. If Arbcom see themselves as imposing rules then I invoke WP:IAR for this. Dmcq (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose officially, Arbcom does not make policy, unofficially, indirectly, yes, it does. Tony Sidaway knows that. The motion stated: "The Committee recommends, in particular, that a request for comments be opened to centralize discussion on the most efficient way to proceed with the effective enforcement of the policy on biographies of living people."[9] Ironically, the abuse of these three admins ignoring and having "utter contempt" for consensus, and intentionally disrupting wikipedia, was rewarded by this Arbcom and RFC. The RFC, and the RFC alone decides this policy. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 22:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Dmcq and Ikip. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)