Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 5

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 3

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Users who don't want their biographies here

Ahem. If a person does not want their bio printed at all, then whatever you do to it, and no matter how you mess with it, you cannot be acting with the highest standards of love and respect for the dignity of others. In that case, these standards ("verifiable" writing, and love) are simply incompatable, even if you wish otherwise. At best, you may simply be an enabler or co-violator, who acts to mitigate the invasion of privacy, by acting to decrease the outrage. But that doesn't count if you give your assent to the whole process. Giving a drink in a torture chamber doesn't make you a saint if you assent to torture chambers. Being kind to a person in prison doesn't count if you assent to the imprisonment of a person who doesn't deserve to be there at all. If you've got two burglars in a house arguing over whether or not to steal just cash, but not an antique ring which might cause the owner some extra anguish, and one burglar starts talking about "standards of love and respect for the dignity of others," then you know somebody is mightily confused. People who care about love and respect for others don't violate their houses AT ALL. Nada. They don't engage in legalistic niceties about what's kosher to steal and what isn't. I hope that's enough metaphors for the day and that the point comes across. S B H arris 20:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean it's more like HITLER - David Gerard 12:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the point seems to come across -- we should forget about being an encyclopedia, since an encyclopedia is really, really similar to a torture chamber, and repurpose ourselves as a press release service, since "the highest standards of love and respect for the dignity of others" means saying whatever they want us to say (even if what they want us to say is something akin to "each and every one of my alleged victims is a publicity-seeking liar", which does not show much love and respect for said victims who are now being publicly accused of wrongdoing.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed a fascinating exchange. On one side we see a person with a vision in which human diginity plays an important role (and that IMO, is the reason why may of us dedicate so many hours of our time, effort, and yes, love) and on the other side a person that views this project as a torture chamber, as if that was a 'good thing. I am very glad that the latter is not the modus operandi of this project, and that the vision of the founder is one that appreciates human dignity and respect, while maintaining the core of our mission to create a free source of human knowledge. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:24, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

That does sound like a fascinating exchange, Jossi. Can you tell me where on this page you'd find that exchange? I've looked all over for it, and I can't find a single exchange where anyone expresses the view you attribute to "the other side". Can you please tell me where I would find this fascinating exchange? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Antaeus, but your logic, argumentation style, sarcasm, etc, escapes me completely. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

That's the understatement of the year, if you somehow read "we should forget about being an encyclopedia, since an encyclopedia is really, really similar to a torture chamber", with or without irony, as "on the other side a person ... views this project as a torture chamber, as if that was a good thing." I mean, really. Even if you manage to miss the irony, it doesn't come out as support for torture chambers or anything like them, and I surely would like to know how you came out with such a complete misreading. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow. I see that metaphors do not work. Torture, and aggressive actions with bother people and invade their privacy, are bad things. Wikipedia does not have to be bound to print lies in a bio. There is an intermediate state where people should be able to choose EITHER between having a bio (in which case it is fair game subject to WP:V and BLP and so on), or not having one AT ALL. Being the target of a bio on your life which you don't want here, is a bad thing. Many people arguing that this kind of thing should continue (for OTHERS), cannot seem to imagine themselves in the position of being the target of an unwanted bio on Wikipedia. Why is that? It continues to mystify me. Is it that they never expect to do a notable thing in their entire lives? Is it that they hate people who do do notable things so much, that they don't care about their privacy? What's going on, here? Wikia founder Angela Beesley, who now wants her bio deleted, and cannot get it done, does not seem to have been able to envision her current curcumstance, before the fact. Why not? I don't know.

Jimbo evidently doesn't like his own bio, and has diddled with it in ways which the average wikipedian cannot (this has all been admitted and appoligized for, by Jimbo). And yet Jimbo continues a policy which caused and causes HIM pain, and which he has every reason to think would cause the average bio target even MORE pain than he got, since they don't have the POWER on Wikipedia that Jimbo does; and YET Jimbo does this, while speaking of treating other people with love and respect. Again, this is a mystery to me, and I could use explanation. Jimbo? You didn't like it when it was done to you, and yet you're in a better position than everybody else is, to mitigate what this process does to its targets. You KNOW it's bound to hurt others more than you. So what gives? S B H arris 19:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

SB, you're violating WP:AGF here and I daresay WP:CIVIL too, suggesting that maybe people who don't agree with you "hate people who do do notable things so much, that they don't care about their privacy". Your torture chamber analogy didn't work because it was a bad analogy. Torture is a bad thing, so bad that (at least according to most civilized people) it should never be committed. Can the same be said of negative press? No -- frequently people deserve their negative press (such as, oh, someone who committed actual torture?) Yet it is on the basis of this bad analogy that you suggest that, unlike any other encyclopedia on the planet, people should be able to opt out of having a biography in this one. Why? You say "I see that metaphors do not work." No, they don't -- at least not the kind you have presented, which imply that anyone who doesn't support your proposed radical change to policy might as well be condoning torture, while your proposed change would protect actual torturers. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's a good game. I can play! Note that for you to suggest that there exists any such thing as an "actual torturer," violates WP:AGF by your above-suggested standards. I mean, who are you to question the motives of testicle-shockers or water-boarders? Or to suggest that they are less than pure, and not of the highest caliber? Assume good faith, my man. Some of these people historically have been worried about the destination of the immortal souls of their subjects. Some have been worried about national security and fighting terrorism. These arguments have even been made by the Bush administration. Which you must assume is acting in good faith, or else risk violating WP:CIVIL. That is, if WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL were actually designed to protect nebulous groups defined by their behavior from any criticism thereof, on Wikipedia. Which they weren't.

As for the rest of what you say, other encylopedias before now have been protected by space limitations from biographizing only the very most notable of living people--- people who have in nearly all instances sought notability, or who acted in ways in which notability would be a foreseen consequence. Even so, shorter enclycopedias play with fire. When persons of lesser notability are profiled by newspapers (as for obituaries) or by publications (Who's Who) they are given the kind of editorial control not seen here on Wikipedia. The NY Times even famously is courteous enough to send notable men their own obituaries years in advance, for editing. Wikipedia however, is large enough to be qualitatively a very different thing-- its size resulting in notability creap, which I have noted and don't want to repeat myself about. However, it's a real effect and not to be triffled with, since a personal bio is coming to a place near you. Why have you been so careful to protect your own personal information here on Wikipedia, if you don't want to extend this courtesy to others? Inquiring minds want to know. Perhaps you've been out there fighting injustice with such vigor, that evil people are after you? Golly, me too. :). It's a common problem, don't you know. Wiki bios don't help. S B H arris 21:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"Adolf Hitler is the Chancellor of Germany. He is noted for his work on the moral fibre of German society and stimulating the economy, notably through the Autobahn programme. Some have criticised aspects of his work." - entry written after Hitler's complaint and a rigid WP:OFFICE application of WP:BLP - David Gerard 21:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, that's exactly how the George W. Bush entry reads. Without any personal

complaint by Mr. Bush. 24.59.105.229 12:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful demo of Godwin's law in action here. I can only note that for every Hitler we miss the chance to "bio", while he lives, there are a lot other less notable and fairly ordinary people who don't get hurt. And the living Hitlers we miss, are bound to get their criticisms from other sources, if they're THAT famous. So we don't lose much. Wikipedia is hardly needed to help, in this regard. Wikibios are only really clearly morally justified in circumstances where they are superfluous anyway. S B H arris 22:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia_Watch - David Gerard 23:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, SB. I am a bit puzzled what "game" you believe yourself to be "playing". Unless the name of it is "straw man", you don't seem to be playing it well. "Note that for you to suggest that there exists any such thing as an "actual torturer," violates WP:AGF by your above-suggested standards." If that's what you actually think, it only demonstrates that you don't comprehend the "above-suggested standards" that you nevertheless feel yourself competent to criticize. There is a difference between saying "yes, there are people in the world who have committed torture" and "If you Wikipedia editors don't agree with me that Wikipedia should do something that no other encyclopedia on the planet does, it means that you hate notable people." In fact, there is such a difference that the only question in doubt is whether there was ever any similarity. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all, "torture" is a loaded word. It's like "pornography". One man's "torture" is another man's "interrogation pressure" or simple punishment or even re-education. It's hard to define. You may say you know it when you see it, but hey, that's what they say about porn also. But it's not Wikipedia's job to decide on who is a "torturer," or who's a pornographer for that matter (vs. purveyor of erotica). And while metaphors are compact ways of expressing thoughts, and are never perfect, I'm amused at the problems on this one. Who's to say whether people "deserve" their punishments, or their tortures, or their bad press, or their invasions of privacy? These things that happen to people are not all just alike, or equally evil, to be sure. But none of them are good, and all of them are ungood, even if the perpetrators have the best of intentions. Why don't we just avoid all of them, here on Wikpedia?

As for hatred of one group by another, I threw it out as a possibility. You know there is hatred in the world. Celebritites do get hated for merely being famous. Ask one. Celebrities also routinely are subjected to invasions of privacy which you or I would find appalling. Sometimes by people who don't hate them or have bad intentions. Hoards of souvenier-seeking tourists stipped all the bark off the trees in Jackie Kennedy's front yard, after she moved out of the White House. I'm sure they didn't hate her, but the effect was the same and due to things of this nature she had to follow many an American celeb and flee to Europe just as though the intent had been bad. Let us not make Wikipedia the same kind of influence, whether the intentions are good, or no. S B H arris 23:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all, "torture" is a loaded word. Yes, it is. Pity you didn't take that into consideration before you started comparing Wikipedia to a torture chamber and anyone who didn't support your proposal to someone who condones torture chambers. Not that I think your proposal of "We should let anyone opt out of having a bio" had much to recommend it in the first place, but if those merits ever existed, they were masked by your own hyperbole. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

ONCE AGAIN, you don't have a bio up on Wikipedia. And you're very careful with your own personal information and your own privacy (on my own talk page you can find out exactly who I am, yet I wouldn't like a bio, either). Until this changes, you simply don't have enough experience to tell what's "hyperbole" here, and what isn't, and how much a metaphor holds in this area. An as anonymous editor discussing bio privacy invasion, you're sort of like a virgin discussing sexual techniques (hey, another metaphor; and not meant to be uncivil, merely humorously illustrative of the problems of inexperience and inexpertise). Let me know when get to the point that the public can show up at your door and look you up in the phonebook, AS THEY CAN ME.

BTW, I note that Angela Beesleys bio is nominated for deletion ONCE AGAIN (fifth time, now). Unless she's bothered in a major way by all this, her behavior is inexplicable. It's almost like this whole thing was some kind of torture for her. Silly me. S B H arris 17:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with SBHarris that an ordinary non-notable person should have the right to have their biography speedily deleted. Whatever happened to privacy? However, the right of persons to have their biography deleted decreases as notability increases. So, if for example, one is marginally notable, one should be able to propose one's self for deletion as non-notable, and if one is slightly more notable, one should be able to argue for deletion on AfD. Once one becomes a major public figure, one loses the right to delete one's self. Ultimately, the goal is to fashion Wikipedia into a major reference work (which it is already), and major reference works don't contain biographies of non-notable people who do not want to be included. 69.140.173.15 18:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This discussion would need to result in a new policy. The current one does not extend to a right to demand the deletion of one's biography, only poorly sourced negative content. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 00:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

However this isn't specifically necessary. Biographies on non-noteable people are already disallowed and there is AFAIK nothing specific preventing the person who's biography it is from asking for it's deletion due to non-noteability Nil Einne 15:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

When a subject publishes information about themselves

I am trying to update an existing article regarding a national radio talk show host. The host has very little information in electronic format/internet sources.

I asked the host for material his publicist may have or other links that may provide more information and received an email from the host. Instead of providing links or third party information, the person provided answers to questions which were in the email (history, family, career, etc).

Is it OK to expand an article based on this as a source? If so, how would one cite it?

Jaymzyates 04:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

sounds like a private email, which is not publication. Negative on this. Rjensen 04:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change/clarification to privacy of birthdays

I am hereby proposing the following change/clarification. Currently, policy reads: While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. I would like to add the following sentence: For the purposes of this paragraph, any candidate representing a major party (i.e., after the primary or convention) for the US House, US Senate, or Governorship, shall be deemed a person who is public enough that their birth date can be included.

Thoughts? -- Sholom 00:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like instruction creep - something generally to be avoided.
I'm not sure that I agree with the premise. We haven't even established that all such candidates are automatically includable, much less that their birthdays should be included. (See, for example, Wikipedia talk:Candidates and elections where there has been extensive discussion on those candidates who are "nominated" by a major party only so that the other party does not run unopposed. Candidates in such non-competitive races may or may not be notable but merely being a candidate has not generally been held to guarantee automatic notability.
Being a candidate does not require you to give up your rights to privacy. While many candidates choose to open their lives up to public scrutiny, some do not. The current Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio comes to mind.

Unless there's a particularly compelling reason to add the clause, I'd leave it out. Rossami (talk) 01:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rossami on all three points. Also, I suspect that the publication of a person's birthday will become less and less frequent (both of people whose birthdays are already "out there" and of new/younger people who come into the public eye). Even if someone's birthday is in a publication, it becomes increasingly difficult to find that information as time goes on (depending on how the publication stores their archives and whether they will get if for you without you having to go to their location in person, it could be extremely difficult or remarkably easy to get the information). On the other hand, Wikipedia articles and article histories have an unlimited shelf life. -- Kjkolb 12:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Similarly I agree with Rossami especially with point 1 being from New Zealand and Malaysia, I'm acute aware of international issues and groan whenever people appear to forget that wikipedia is international. I don't see any particularly reason why all candidates birthdays become public and I also think if we start to mention specifics for the US, people are going to rightfully ask, well what about UK, India, Canada, etc etc? If there is really a need for it then there's nothing wrong with it but there isn't Nil Einne 13:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

In Norway the birth date is a matter of public availability for all people who have had their financial income taxed. That makes any privacy concerns irrelevant. For other countries the situation may be different and people may therefore be wary of having this bit of information about themselves disseminated. Could this issue not be resolved by simply applying the requirements stated in Wikipedia:Verifiability in the strictest sense whenever a privacy concern is raised? That means, for most people that are of such a level of fame that they have an article in Wikipedia, having their birth date published here (along with other places) raises no particular concerns and hence no particular precautionary action needs to be advised. In those cases where this issue is raised in a considered fashion, e.g. by the subject of the article, the full force of Wikipedia:Reliable sources should be applied. __meco 19:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that would work. In the US, birth date is technically a matter of public record since birth certificates must be filed with the local clerk of the court in almost all jurisdictions. However, the average person still gains a great deal of functional privacy because those records are maintained physically and are not available online. That means that most hackers/scammers/outsiders 1) do not know which county courthouse to go to in order to petition for the record and 2) are not likely to physically travel to do so. The same is true with most criminal records, many employment records, etc. They are technically public but physically controlled. Because users rely on this implicit privacy, birthdate is still considered a reasonable confirming piece of evidence to authenticate the identity of a person.

Your standards, however, would allow the permanent "outing" of anyone's birthdate by anyone who took the time to access one of those physical records. My birth certificate is most assuredly verified and is a reliable source but it is not and should not become commonly available.

As to the assumption that most people with an article in Wikipedia are already famous enough to be considered to have waived that particular right to privacy, my own experience is the opposite. Take a scan through Category:Living people. You'll find a very high proportion of only marginally famous people with articles. They may be notable in a particular field but that does not mean that they must be forced to give up their right to privacy - especially when many of them may not even know that an article exists in order to complain about it. Rossami (talk) 03:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I should add regarding Norwegian practice that birthdates are available online [1] (temporarily unavailable). I feel that we should at least consider the practices of reference works such as Who's Whos and other biographical dictionaries. My position is that we should not limit the information flow on privacy grounds more than is common practice in such works. __meco 18:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a reasonable point but we should be cautious when evaluating that comparison between our biographies and the practices of a Who's Who. First, remember that all of these biographical dictionaries have clearly established inclusion criteria and professional editorial boards who decide who will and will not be included. They are not wikis. Our openness is a strength but it also creates special challenges for us. We are more likely to have marginally includable people listed than I think they will.
Second, remember that Who's Who directories are "opt-in" directories - that is, the subject agrees to be included and self-reports many of the biographical details. See, for example this set of instructions for Who's Who in the UK which explicitly includes the subject in the decision of what to details to report. (This also used to be and probably still is true for Who's Who Among American High School Students but I couldn't easily find an online page demonstrating it.) I don't say that practice is true for all biographical directories but we should be sure that we're only comparing ourselves to the ones with equivalent practices.
long break while I did some research
Based on your comment, I took some time reviewing the policies of a number of biographical directories. So far, I have not found a single one covering living persons that did not directly involve the subject in 1) verifying the accuracy of the information and 2) deciding what data elements should or should not be included.
Perhaps we could try to craft a more nuanced rule which would allow the inclusion of a birthdate in unambiguous circumstances such as the Norwegian practice or if the subject has already opted in by agreeing to the listing in a Who's Who. But such a rule would have to be carefully tested before putting it into effect. Such a complex rule might prove unworkable in practice. Rossami (talk) 23:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) This is not strictly relevant to this discussion since we are not a "covered entity" but I think it does provide some evidence about general privacy expectations. Under the US HIPAA law, date of birth is considered "protected health information" and must be protected from unauthorized access. Given the general trend that European law is usually more privacy-friendly than US law, I'm a bit surprised to hear that Norway publishes all birthdates online. I guess it just proves that there's an exception to every rule. Rossami (talk) 23:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

There is 100 years rule, no information about people who has born later than 1906 or is living. I would say no exceptions. Really, no information about living people. Some Lawyer migth give better definition (should be familiar with national,international and global laws. And also Custom (law).--Jack007 18:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

A few rebuttal points: there is generally no right of privacy for information when that information is publically available. HIPAA applies to information privately collected in medical records, that's not what we're talking about here, and so is completely irrelevant. (BTW, even Census records are available in 72 years, not 100!). Look, every candidate who was running for House had their birthdate easily and publicly available on the internet. How does it make sense that all these election-web-sites can have the information but Wikipedia can not? Recall, all I am talking about are people who are running for US Congress for major parties. If their own websites, or other publicly available websites, list the birthday, why can't WP? This isn't a violation of privacy, this is a simple matter of collecting publicly available information -- Sholom 20:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

a more general proposal (section break inserted to aid editing)

In cases where the subject or their agents have publicized their birthdates then we should feel free to include that information. -Will Beback 21:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense. We ought to add that into the policy. Any objections? -- 16:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I have some implementation concerns. While there are few legal or even moral concerns if we can meet Will's threshold, such a nuanced rule within Wikipedia will create apparent inconsistencies among our articles. New users will see birthdates in some articles and not in others and are likely to feel an obligation to go find the "missing" birthdates without realizing that it was a deliberate choice to leave it out. It would also seem to require explicit documentation of the source of the birthdate and confirmation that the source was in fact the subject him/herself or an authorized agent. That seems like an awful lot of work for a data element that I think adds very little to the understanding of the subject. It also adds complexity to our processes but I suspect would apply to only a small subset of all our biographies covered. Rossami (talk) 20:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what inconsistency you're referring to. The current policy allows for birthdates in the case of well-known individuals. However some less-well known individuals have openly published their birthdates. One such instance is Jack Sarfatti [2], who includes it in his CV. -Will Beback · † · 21:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring the armchair legal philosophies for a moment, I can give countless examples of people who use WP to look up birthdates for constructive or informative purposes - and I've never yet heard of anybody using Wikipedia to commit credit-card fraud. This is paranoia at its finest. None of us are using top-secret information from classified sources to divine birthdates (in fact, that would contravene WP:V), but the simple fact is that any celebrity who has never told anyone their birthdate...we don't list birthdates for. We only list the birthdates of people whose birthdates are widely available in the public domain. Ergo, I strongly suppose any suggestion that would emasculate Wikipedia "for fear that somebody might try and use Donald Trump's credit cards" Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 06:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any question about celebrities. The question is about marginal cases such as minor authors, barely notable professors, people who become slightly famous by accident, etc. -Will Beback · † · 03:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Names - an interesting issue

I recently became aware of the Brandy Alexandre which has an interesting history. Basically her real name has been revealed somewhere else (and recently a wikipedian also got it from a website profile). However Brandy has made it clear that she does not want her real name linked to her pseudonym and we don't have any reliable sources so we don't mention it. However in the talk page, there is still discussion of the fact that her name was made available in this other place (primarily in the issue of whether we're allowed to mention it or what it was about).

Does anyone else think this kind of discussion should be removed? Basically, even if inadvertedly, we're telling people "hey we can't tell you her real name but if you want to know it you can easily find it out from this other place". Obviously we don't actually say it's definitely her real name but looking at the circumstances, most people can come to their own conclusions. Indeed I did very easily. While we usually tolerate a lot of junk in talk pages, libelious info is something we don't.

This isn't libelious AFAIK but we tend to treat personal info the same way at least from Wikipedia:Oversight. Do we need to go as far as perma removing all connection between her name and this other place or even her and this other place with oversight? Or am I just being to privacy paranoid? Or do other editors think it's stupid for us to try and hide something that is out there? P.S. For obvious reasons, please refrain from mentioning what this other place is here. Nil Einne 13:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It could be libelous, if the person whose real name is being discussed is NOT a famous porn star. Going around naming real people as porn stars is not a good thing. Without a real source, such "outings" should be regarded with great suspicion, as they could easily be malicious attempts to hurt some real person who is not a porn star.--Jimbo Wales 01:06, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Not only is Jimbo's point well-taken, but as a general matter even if a source were available, it strikes me that the encyclopedic value of publicizing (directly or indirectly) that an identifiable, currently-non-notable person who is living a quiet life was formerly a porn star is exceedingly slight. Newyorkbrad 01:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say if the source is only primary, like some public record in some government office, then we try to protect BLP subjects and skip it. OTOH, if it's a published secondary source, like some magazine article, then it's fair game and we would lose our our credibility as an encyclopedia if we suppress it. In all cases, as always, the source must be highly verifiable and reliable - no rumors or blog sites. Crum375 01:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Given the concerns here, should the field "birthname" be removed from Template:Male adult bio and Template:Female adult bio?

As to "hiding something that's out there"; if that issue were to be raised, reliable sources for the information and an explanation of how the information improves—or why it belongs in—an article in an encyclopedia would need to be furnished.—Chidom ^talk 06:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Date of birth missing

Has there been any discussion here regarding the above category. It seems to be designed to encourage editors to find the missing date. Meanwhile our policy here indicates that for most living persons this information is best left out. Should there be a statement on the category page to that effect? -MrFizyx 02:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added a caution to the category page but I have to wonder whether that entire category will create more confusion than anything else. I would encourage a discussion on the category's Talk page to decide whether the category should be deprectated. Rossami (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

A not entirely hypothetical case

I have a question as to how WP:BLP handles a certain type of problem, that can be laid out this way. Suppose that there is a club called the Bunny Club, it’s a gentleman’s only club that is roughly a cross between a Masonic lodge, and Club Med. Many wealthy and influential people are club members; however, it is a private club, and does not make its membership lists public. Now conspiracy theorists spend a lot of time contemplating that all these rich and famous people getting together in private is not a good thing. So they, the conspiracy theorists, spend a lot of time tying to figure out who’s a member, and then spend more time “outing” them by making their names public. Now apparently nothing that bad goes on when club members get together, because some people out themselves, and leak it out that thy are members, and don’t seem to show a lot of guilt concerning their membership. Soon lists start to float around, some people on the lists are in fact members, even admitting it publicly, and other names on the lists are more speculative.

One day someone starts a page here on Wikipedia concerning this Bunny Club, and all the information concerning the club gets dumped onto that page. The creditable, the non-creditable, and anything in-between; its all there with Wikipedia’s name on it.

Some of the claims are pretty wild by conventional standards, but to the crowd that wears tinfoil hats, the claims are entirely credible. Some claims are not only wild, but criminal. Being a gentleman’s only club, it starts making the rounds that the club supplies prostitutes to its members, and not only prostitutes, but under aged ones. Other things pop up, dark tales of conspiracies, etc.

So now we have a page in Wikipedia that on the one hand contains a list of well known public figures, while a few paragraphs down you have allegations of prostitution, so forth and so on. No specific individual is said to have partaken, but it is implied that any or all could have.

Now if this was the end of the story, it would not be so hard to fix the problem, assuming that the above is in fact a problem to be dealt with. However, there is another angle to the story, the conspiracy theorists who accept the whole thing as gospel truth. Worse, some of them are editors right here on WP, and they will fight you tooth and nail, using most any pretense they can think up to keep you from removing their version of the “truth”.

It seems that they see themselves as heroic figures in a David v. Goliath type battle. Goliath is more formally known as the Illuminati, the Globalist, the Trilateralists, -if you will “The Man”. It appears that Wikipedia is their sling-shot, a way to get the word out and awaken the masses; Wikipedia to them is a way to expose “The Man” and his sinister plots. And any editor who fails to see the greater good of what they are doing, and dares to challenge their sources, or whose version of the truth differs from theirs is either a simpleton unable to think for himself, or is secretly an agent of “The Man”.

The problem is that right now the claims made on the Bunny Club page do not tie directly to any one individual. It’s all done indirectly. So it is hard to get a lot of support for using WP:BLP for indirect claims; and its simply not worth the headaches of challenging the sources in order to remove the claims. Thus some of the claims will likely hang around for sometime to come. Some of the worst claims have been removed, but only after minor edit wars, and one edit war is still going on. Referring the problem to the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard has produced more giggles than results.

Would it be possible to address indirect claims through a rewording of WP:BLP? Or am I overstating the role WP:BLP was meant to play?

Thanks, Brimba 02:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You are right that this is a combination case of multiple individuals, not a single living person as is typically addressed here. I am assuming that you are referring to this article, which I can see would be a magnet for all kinds of mayhem. I don't see however why we need any new rules or any rewording of WP:BLP. Like any other sensitive article, it needs extra concern with and attention to source reliability and verifiability, as well as WP:BLP. As long as these criteria are met, along with the usual WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, etc., I think our goal of presenting neutral and verifiable information should be met. If you can identify one specific defect in the current body of policies, that would be helpful. Crum375 03:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I added the BLP template to the article's Talk page. Crum375 03:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Pages created solely to avoid BLP policies

Does wikipedia have a policy regarding pages that were created specifically so that editors can avoid following WP:BLP rules? The page Views and controversies concerning Juan Cole has been the site of massive edit wars over material attacking Cole (much of it coming from blogs). A couple of editors have insisted on including every scurrilous sentence published on any blog anywhere about Professor Cole on this page, while a couple of other editors (myself included) have had to go out of our way researching responses to these attacks (which in some cases get deleted and are only allowed to remain up after extensive edit wars). The editors bent on attacking Cole make no bones about the fact that the page was created precisely to avoid having to follow the rules of WP:BLP. Is there a precedent for such activity? I am of the opinion that the page should follow BLP rules because the page is an offshoot of Juan Cole, and the subject of that biography is the central subject of this page. The anti-Cole editors, predictably, disagree. Is there a process to get a ruling on this issue? Or should the whole page be AfD'd? Any suggestions are welcome.-csloat 05:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

All articles must follow this policy, regardless of whether it is the main biography on the person. —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Even a passing reference to a living person in an article on some other person or topic is subject to this policy. Thus an accusation by Jane Doe that she was abused as a teenager by Richard Roe is subject to BLP so long as either of them are alive. Absent a reliable source for a person's being dead, I would advise that we presume anyone born within the past 120 years (the limit of proven human longevity) to be alive. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

And per WP:BLP any controversial information about a living person, wherever it appears on WP, whether in a dedicated article or not, can be immediately removed by anyone, with no prior discussion needed, and with no WP:3RR limits, if it does not have high quality and reputable reliable and verifiable sources. Crum375 13:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed CSD Criterion

~~I have made the following proposal on WT:CSD.~~

Articles about living persons that cite no sources, cite non-existent sources, or that cite only self-published and/or notoriously unreliable sources, may be speedily deleted. It is not necessary under this criterion for the article to be defamatory.

~~Please comment. Robert A.West (Talk) 02:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)~~ Never mind. If WP:SNOW ever applied to an idea, it was this one. I'm going home to lick my wounds. (just kidding!) Robert A.West (Talk) 04:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy proposal: Notification of subjects of articles

Above is an interesting comment:

"You'll find a very high proportion of only marginally famous people with articles. They may be notable in a particular field but that does not mean that they must be forced to give up their right to privacy - especially when many of them may not even know that an article exists in order to complain about it." Rossami

This got me thinking. Maybe this has been discussed before, but in case it hasn't, here goes.

Proposition:

Shouldn't there be a policy that requires notification of the subjects of articles before the articles progress too far? This isn't for the sake of asking permission, but of common decency. They, of all people, should have a right to some say in the matter, or at least knowing that they should keep their eyes open. Articles can be started by fans, but can also be started by enemies who will gain an unfair advantage by editing "behind the back" of their intended victim, so the potential victim deserves to be forewarned. Such a policy could save a lot of time and grief, both for the subject, the involved editors, and for Wikipedia. -- Fyslee 21:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

An interesting idea but it has many problems. First, we get some of the worst POV pushing on bios by their authors. Second, if the process is working it shouldn't matter whether there enemies have access to the article, neutral editors will push it towards conforming to WP:NPOV. Third, it would be hard to implement if we had difficulty locating an individual and it isn't clear how much work would be required. Fourth, making editors contact the people is unreasonable and making the foundation do it would put a large burdern on the foundation and possibly expose it to additional liability. Fifth, arguments of "decency" create dangerous precedents, the next step which would be deleting articles about WP:BIO-compliant people who don't like having artivcles. If this did anything it would create more edit warring and associated problems. JoshuaZ 21:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Fifth, arguments of "decency" create dangerous precedents, the next step which would be deleting articles about WP:BIO-compliant people who don't like having articles. COMMENT: Ohmygod! Then we must stop it then, before it gets out of hand and we can't find out the latest on Paris Hilton by reading Wikipedia. Surely, world economic slowdown would then be next, just from the information gap.
If this did anything it would create more edit warring and associated problems. COMMENT: As opposed to the legal and bad-press and bad-faith problems which it surely has created and will continue to create? The German Wikipedia solution, BTW, which works just fine, is to simply prohibit bios (that is, per se dedicated articles on a single person) on living persons. It works well, and there's usually not as much edit-warring about who's dead, verses who's merely notable (We can take a consensus on Jimmy Hoffa.) S B H arris 19:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I see plenty of biographies of living people on the German Wikipedia. de:Barack Obama, de:Shirley MacLaine, de:Lyndon LaRouche, de:Neil Simon, de:Paul Cameron, de:Louis Farrakhan, de:Harriet Miers, de:Kevin McHale, de:Angela Merkel, etc. It'd be odd for an encyclopedia to avoid biographies of major figures of the era, or even the previous era. -Will Beback · † · 23:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

But they do have one on de:Monica Lewinsky. Where's this policy you're referring to? -Will Beback · † · 23:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ach du leiber, you're right. I had it on the best authority (just some German guy) this wasn't true. Perhaps it was once, but now isn't. Just because they don't have one on Monica Lewinski, I assumed they wouldn't have one on Paris Hilton. Wrong. They do. Well, the world is going to the dogs, es tut mir Leid. I spelled Lewinski wrong, too. Not my day, and I'm quitting. S B H arris 23:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

"Hello, Mr. Al Capone the third? My name is SlutEdit from Wikipedia. That's not my real name, because my real name is none of your business. I'm calling to tell you that I've started a biography on you. You do not have the right to edit it, and you do not have the right to decline the honor of your own bio on Wikipedia. Resistance is futile. If you have any problems with this, just call the Wikipedia office. By the way, you should watch your bio for the rest of your life, in case someone vandalizes it. Thank you for your understanding and support. Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running!" 68.92.156.246 15:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That IP resolves to San Antonio, TX, FWIW.[3] Crum375 15:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

COMMENT: Thanks for sharing that. I myself live in the Los Angeles area and agree with the Texan sentiment. Perhaps if they dare to edit under a username, someone will suggest permabanning them, just as soon as a mighty Bureaucrat with the sacred Checkuser Power can feret them out? I have noticed that sarcasm, even when it targets no particular person and is therefore not uncivil, is itself close being banned on Wikipedia. Apparently it holds up bad policies here up to the kind of all-angles scrutiny you have to go to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to see done well these days. S B H arris 19:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

The comment by 68.92.156.246 (probably Brandt) made me laugh. With wit, it summarizes why BLP was created in the first place (but not all the reasons it was expanded and kept). It puts the reader (the wikipedia editor) in the mind of the victim, I mean the beneficiary of our attention; to create the sensitivity demanded by this policy. In that, it does something the written version of our BLP policy does not do and thus would make a good footnote to it. (By the way, the most outrageous parts of it are direct quotes made to Brandt during his efforts to have his bio deleted before we had a BLP policy.) WAS 4.250 22:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, who doesn't ego-Google every now and then? Googling my user name[4] gives a number of results, including my Wikipedia user page at the top. I suspect that if there were a bio under that name, it would come up with a high ranking as well Changing the search to Robert West brings up a Wikipedia bio by that name on the second page, probably because of the large number of consultants, lawyers and suchlike with their own web pages and Google-enhancement strategies. Its not as if Wikipedia bios are going to be on page 100. Would notificaton actually serve any real-world purpose, even if we could do it accurately? Robert A.West (Talk) 19:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

a debate on persian wikipedia-please answer

Dear English wikipedians,

we had a debate in persian wikipedia which i'd like to know your comment on. can we publish simple information (like places of study) on a person based on his autobiography? this person is an outlawed political activist (Ali Javadi) so he does not use his real name so the matter cant be checked with univeristies. I (the editor of article) have used phrases like "he claims to have studing in Newmexico state university". is that counted as "vefriable"? if not, how simple information on some one's background can be verified if he doesnt use his real name? isnt good to use autobiography as a refrence and then declare that these are only self-claims?

the translation of article is visible in "Ali Javadi". (altough in persin i have done some edits including adding "he claims..."). please give us your view on that. --Arash red 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

It sounds verifiable that he claims it. "Asserts" would be better in English, btw, since "claims" suggests falsehood; I don't know about Persian. I would be cautious about clues to the identity of an outlaw, even if the authorities have his autobiography; first, do no harm. Septentrionalis 06:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

An autobiography published by a reputable publishing house is a perfectly fine source. A vanity press autobiography or personal web page is almost as good, you can use it for less controversial issues. For non-controversial issues, you don't even have to write "he claims". Where someone went to school is usually not controversial unless someone disputes it, or it seems highly unlikely ("eight year old claims to graduate Oxford"), but if he is hiding his name, then "he claims" seems appropriate for virtually anything. About the link, though, if he is a fugitive, and hiding his name, writing "He is know living in Los Angels with his wife and two daughters and is teaching at UCLA" would seem to be highly controversial, and needs a good source. However the article doesn't seem to say that he is hiding or that anyone is pursuing him. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The BLP1 Template, and others

"Defamation" is a legal term. It does not mean, "any unsourced material". Do not use templates to attack editors who place unsourced material. Be very sure you understand what is, and isn't defamation before you use the templates. For example, "garbage smells" is not defamation, it is the truth. It may or may not require a source depending on how much it is common-knowledge. Do not use blp1, 2, etc for removing or edit-warring over inocuous remarks. "Paris Hilton likes banana pie" is not defamation. It may be silly, but it's not slander. Similarly "Bill Clinton was once arrested for jaywalking" is not defamation either, believe it or not. The sort of "crime" if you will, has become mundane i.e. no one cares. "Negative" is not the same as "defamation". Do not accelerate a conflict by throwing lighter fluid on it. Wjhonson 15:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Whilst to wrongly accuse someone of defamation may itself be defamatory.--Doc^g 15:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Sourcing concern that needs clarification

Lately in an article I edit quite frequently, there has been a drive to include derogatory content based on a number of partisan sources. When asked for neutral, third party sources the editors who have been challenged have presented someone who's neutrality is suspicious. A simple google search leads to a number of websites which question his objectivity, although he works for a mainstream newspaper. My question is, when dealing with questionable content such as this and the only sources are either partisan or "dubious", how should I continue? Thank you. (Should I crosspost this to RS as well?) Kyaa the Catlord 21:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Need more details. The New York Times and Washington Post are almost the epitome of reliable sources, yet have been accused (by people including a few presidents of the United States) of being quite partisan. Reliable does not mean non-partisan. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It does mean non-partisan to some extent, but not based on whether people make political exaggerations about the partisanship. —Centrx→talk • 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The partisan websites in question are the Council for American-Islamic Relations's press release database and similar organizations which reprint their press releases, these are the epitome of partisan groups in that they are working towards a particular agenda. The reporter in question is Jim Ritter, who has been accused of being a mouthpiece of CAIR. CAIR has a habit of libelous name-calling in the press releases and the only news organization put forth by the people who seem determined to keep in a one-liner slur against Ann Coulter is Jim Ritter's 'article'. The actual press release takes one of Coulter's statements horribly out of context and bases its statement around it. Kyaa the Catlord 23:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

RfC: William G Tifft

I started a biopgraphy on astronomer, William G. Tifft, and discovered one of the few sources of biographical information, and want to include it. But another editor disagrees. I would appreciate some input, described on the Talk:William_G._Tifft page. --Iantresman 17:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Both your concerns and ScienceApologist's concerns need to be taken into account here; as it is a delicate matter to not mislead when the readership varies as widely as it does at wikipedia, and the subject is the physics of the universe; and data and minds have changed over the time period that the article's sources where written. I recommend you make multiple attemps at approaches or ways to phrase and maybe even seek third parties attempts at a mutually acceptable approaches or ways to phrase. I know you two can play nice if you try. WAS 4.250 21:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Can a verbatim quote of sources be a violation of writing style?

I am having a dispute with an editor who very selectively summarizes a particular quote that he thinks violates BLP writing style. See [5] [6] In contrast I think that it is important to stay close to the source to avoid omitting and distorting information. Andries 19:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If that quote is highly controversial and it is not described in multiple reliable sources, then I would not use it. Highly contentious material need to be supported by multiple reliable sources, in particular in BLPs. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, that is new for me and I do not think that I agree. Nevertheless that particular quote is more or less in correspondence with what other sources have stated. Andries 19:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Your opinion about the need for multiple reliable sources to include a quote is not supported by this policy unless I missed something. Andries 19:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The insistence of multiple reliable sources for highly contentious statements can be easily abused. For example, I can label all statements sourced to reputable sources that I do not like and agree with as highly contentious. And as a result I will be able to remove nearly all statements that I do not like from an article. Andries 19:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

By labeling something as 'contentious' you don't get to remove it. It must also be unsourced or poorly sourced. If something has excellent sourcing, it can stay regardless of how controversial or negative it is. Crum375 20:02, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It can stay unless we make a rule that a statement needs be sourced to multiple excellent sources to stay. Andries 20:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

As an encyclopedia, our articles should summarize information as much as possible rather than giving verbatim quotations. In rare circumstances direct quotations are needed, such as to give the exact wording of an assertion, because a concept is hard to summarize, or to illustrate a style of writing. The limited use of a direct quotation in [7] appears reasonable to me. Since the source is a journalist writing in a newspaper, I'm not sure how there could ever by multiple sources for the quotation. I suppose another paper could also carry the article, but that would be quite unusual unless it's part of a wire service. -Will Beback · † · 22:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to the allegation being reported by multiple, reliable sources, and not to the specific quote, as in "Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple credible and verifiable sources" (WP:RS). If such a contentious allegation is reported in multiple reliable sources, there is no reason not to include it. But if it was made by one journalist, one can argue against it by applying the "exceptional claims" provision, or by applying WP:NPOV undue weight. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Sexual abuse by a guru or clergy is not an exceptional claim, because it is not very rare. Andries 22:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You may argue not to be an exceptional claim generically, but this is specific to a LP. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

And, of course, one may also argue that it is very rare indeed, if one takes into account the large number of members of clergy relative to the small number of them that abuse their position. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

See Priest. I do not see there any allegations of sexual abuse reported in that article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, now you used a Wikipedia article as proof which I cannot consider very convincing. Andries 22:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I continue to disagree that this is very rare and as such I do not except removal with the only justification that exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. May the term exceptional claim should be defined. Andries 22:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

(ed conf) <<<Outdent. An exceptional claim is easy to spot. For example, a highly contentious statement that has not been reported in reliable sources, and that is based on the opinion of a single journalist, may be considered to be exceptional. If it was not, one could argue that it will be widely reported in multiple sources. As for your assertion that it is not rare that clergy engages in sexual abuse, you may be surprised that it is indeed rare. Yes, there has been huge controversies in the US recently about this issue that have raised public outcry, but nonetheless these cases are very rare indeed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess the term exceptional claim means very rare or contradicting not seriously disputed generally accepted scientific or scholarly research. This is not the case for someone who commits sexual abuse from an authority position. What I do think is an exceptional claim in the article at hand, Sathya Sai Baba, that requires extraordinary evidence are the testimonies that Sathya Sai Baba can change from a man into a woman instantenously.Andries

Both are exceptional claims, Andries. The sword cuts two ways. And both need exceptional evidence to be asserted as facts. If we are asserting these as opinions, then the only question remaining is the validity/notablity/relevance of that opinion, and if undue weight applies or not. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I continue to disagree. How you can put sexual abuse and instaneous sex change in the same category of probability is beyond me. Andries 23:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

<-- We've got a whole article devoted to Roman Catholic sex abuse cases. But aren't there multiple sources making allegations of sexual impropriety in this case? Is the newspaper article the only source available? -Will Beback · † · 22:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Will. I would invite Andries to read that article, and the stats presented there. Yes, the perception is of widespread sexual abuse by clergy, but that is not grounded in reality. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I see no stats for sexual abuse, except for pedophile which formally means children not teenagers. Andries 23:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, this is not the place to discuss that subject. I think that your last edit in that article is a much better effort as it gives context and only asserts the opinion of that journalist. The onlly question remaining is one of undue weight, that you may want to discuss with other editors involved in that article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I agree, but the question what the term exceptional claim means will probably be posed often here. Andries 23:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

An exceptional claim, is just that: a claim that is not common, that is surprising, unnecessarily contentious, etc. You know one when you see one. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Some people find "God exists" to be an exceptional claim. Some people find "God does not exist" to be an exceptional claim. Some people find either to be an exceptional claim. It all depends on your prior understanding of reality. Wikipedia editorial discussions about "an exceptional claim" need to discuss relevant specific evidence and not merely assert claims that so and so is "an exceptional claim". It amounts to an I'm right and you are wrong argument. WAS 4.250 00:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleting unsourced BLPs on sight

The discussion on Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles seems to have stalled out with opposition to use of it as a general policy, but there was a recognition that BLPs need high standards for sourcing. Would there be a support for a policy that biographies of living persons, even if they claim notability and escape a7, should be speedy deletable if they cite no sources? No sources means nothing can be verified, and that's essential to know if what we write is true. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that speedy delete only makes sense if there are unsourced or poorly sourced controversial claims in a BLP related article. If the claims are not controversial, it makes sense to let the editors have some time to improve their sourcing, hence no speedy delete is warranted or desired. If the claims are controversial, we can delete them instantly per BLP, and if the article then becomes empty or nearly so, speedy would make sense. Crum375 23:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

But without a source, you can't know what would be considered defamatory or controversial. If I write an article that says "Johnny smith is a republican activist" and Johny smith is a rabid democrat, he might be pissed. This isn't a question of improving sourcing, this is a question of needing sources vs. allowing baseless, unverifiable statements about living persons to stay just because they sound reasonable. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. Some controversial statements may not appear controversial on the surface. In those cases we won't get a speedy but instead a normal delete, which may take a week or so. The difference is that we do want to allow a claim that is not explicitly controversial to be bolstered with proper sources during the AfD process. If there are still no proper sources by the end of the AfD period, hopefully the consensus will be 'Delete'. Remember that the most important inclusion criterion is notability, which will require sourcing to show the person is well known. Typically such sources will tell us if he's (in your case) democrat or republican and his claim to fame. Crum375 00:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability is far more important and fundamental than notability. A verifiable article about a non-notable person harms Wikipedia much less than a non-verifiable article about a notable person. Since, as Nyght Gyr pointed out, an inaccurate assertion about a living person can be harmful without being obviously so, we should strictly insist on sources for all statements in BLPs. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability is far from the most important inclusion criterion. Too many people here treat notability like the law, but notability is not fundamental, it's just a shortcut to help make sure policy is followed. Also, notability doesn't require sourcing to prove claims to fame--it just requires that the claim be made. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Images of Living People

I assume that images of living people come under this policy if the caption makes an assertion, or the placement of the image invites an assumption. Thus, a user placed an image of three young people in threesome with an assertion that this was a picture taken just before an encounter, but with no source cited. I deleted as potentially a BLP violation. Was I right to do so? 68.238.241.22 09:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I doubt it was a libel issue, more likely someone joking around with their friends, but it's still an assertion about the people and not really any more appropriate to include than a picture of some guy you know in the article child molestor with the caption "probable child molestor." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Deletion debates

Should the language in a deletion debate conform to BLP when the subject is a living person? Guettarda 22:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, WP:BLP applies anywhere on WP. Crum375 22:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Because of rules against attacking other editors, it should go without saying; but as it has come up in the past: WP:BLP also applies to comments made about and to other editers whether we know thier real life identity or not as they as living humans beings - so treat them like it. WAS 4.250 23:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's what I was thinking. Guettarda 00:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Although to be clear, "not-notable" is not a BLP problem and the US courts have made it clear that certain hyperbolic terms are not-actionable. So for example there would be nothing wrong with on a deletion dicussion saying "Delete non-notable crank" (I mean no BLP problem. It still would lack useful discussion or argument in the statement). JoshuaZ 06:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What is or is not actionable is relevant to policy aspects based on law such as our libel policy and the foundation of our copyright policy and the subset of BLP that deals with the privacy of nonpublic persons. The rest of the BLP policy is not based on laws but is instead based on common human decency - or ethics. The word "crank" is an insult that is better not used if at all possible and if used should be properly sourced. JoshuaZ, being mean is not helpful and being legal is no excuse. WAS 4.250 08:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, when it comes to libel, precendence suggests it isn't just US law that we should be concerned about. We could get in trouble e.g. in Australia (there is a specific case) for libel. This could affect any local chapter in Australia and may also make travel to Austalia difficult for Foundation members. It may also affect Australian Wikipedians. So IMHO, we should consider the laws of other countries when resonably possible. This is a moral issue as well, and there is a strong sense including in BLP that it's not just because of legal reasons but moral reasons as well. In any case, as WAS has pointed out it serves no purpose Nil Einne 16:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

To be specific, I was thinking about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dan James Pantone - I really do think that the language there, especially of the nomination, is a bit too strong. Since I am involved in the debate I am probably not the best person to judge, so I would appreciate if someone would have a look at it. Guettarda 14:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of one Wikipedian by another for things done as a Wikipedian is an NPA or WP:CIVIL issue, not a BLP issue. The distinction is more than technical, it is essential to the functioning of the project. Pointing out violations of WP:AUTO and WP:COI, as well as likely commercial misuse of Wikipedia, may be unpleasant, but it cannot be a BLP violation, or RfC's and Arbcom procedings would have to be sealed.

Clearly the AfD is overheated, and I suggest that both sides climb down from the Reichstag, but I don't see the word "crank" anywhere in the debate. I do not speak to the facts of the case in point, but Wikipedia has an interest in preventing articles that are mainly promotional, and notability criteria are and must be valid for discussion. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I second that. Also having no opinion on the matter at stake, I feel that open and frank discussion about notability is actually encouraged, as long as we remember to stick to WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Just add a little of that, and the discussion would be fine. Crum375 14:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the debate is a mess, but the point that bothered me was the characterisation of the subject as "only notable as a spammer on Wikipedia". Guettarda 15:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that was uncalled for. So was the author's calling someone a "racist" for proposing a deletion. If deleted, we will see this on DRV. If kept or no consensus, we will probably see a renomination, and then a DRV challenging the renomination. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

This book, published by Doubleday and written by Hoover Institute research fellow Peter Schweizer, contains chapters entitled things like, "Hillary Clinton — Greedy Speculator, Corporate Shrill, and Petty Tax Avoider" and "Ralph Nader — Bourgeois Materialist, Stock Manipulator, and Tyrannical Sweatshop Boss". Is listing these titles a violation of WP:BLP? // Lawyer2b 03:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say that if they can be proven notable, per book notability criteria, then we may quote the titles, with a neutrally presented verbiage. Crum375 03:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

In any case when it is the title of a book I think we can report mention it as a book title as long as that is clear. JoshuaZ 06:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen a Wikipedia article that lists chapter titles. Kaldari 02:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

There are many of them. See for example Blaming the Victims. Isarig 04:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

New template for WP:LIVING disputes

I have created a template, {{blpdispute}}, for use in WP:LIVING disputes. It's analogous to templates like {{POV}} and {{disputed}}, in that it attracts attention to problem biographies, warns editors and readers of a dispute and provides a resource, in Category:Disputed biographies of living persons, for collaboration in bringing articles in line with WP:LIVING. Any thoughts? szyslak (t, c, e) 06:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree with this on principle. If someone can point to an item in a BLP-related article that is controversial, and is unsourced or poorly sourced, then that item should be deleted immediately, no prior discussion needed, only a simple edit summary. By inserting the template, we would be acting counter to policy, as policy requires us to immediately delete the item, not to prolong the problem by adding a template or discussing it at length. Crum375 23:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree. If the dispute is sufficiently borderline to leave the material in (for example, if true and verifiable information is being given undue weight), the existing dispute templates should suffice. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Biographies of Dead People

Why should living people get precedence over dead people? Can't estates of the erstwhiles sue as well? — Rickyrab | Talk 19:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The law protects only the memory of the dead, not their reputation. An estate succeeds to all the property and claims of the deceased, including the right to sue for torts, but the wrong must have been committed against the deceased during life, or must be committed against the estate itself. It is possible to defame survivors, heirs, the executor, or the estate itself (such as by a false assertion of insolvancy), but so long as the derogatory information involves only the dead, there is no cause of action. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:04, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

When "living" is disputed

How does this policy apply when it is disputed whether or not the individual in question is alive? It's seems reasonable that it would continue to apply following unconfirmed (yet, perhaps, still notable) reports of a person's death. However, at the other end of the specturm, one can imagine Elvis Presley, etc. who some claim are still alive. Just thought it would be good for the policy to address this explicitly if some consensus can be developed. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The basis of this policy is common sense and standard ethical considerations and not legalistic lawyering. Treat people like you want to be treated and don't use "this is an encyclopedia" to treat people like you would treat a building or an idea. Detailed legalistic nit-picking over what is a person or what is living is not helpful; if you lack a heart and need to get advice from others on how to ethically behave, then ask for advice when a relevant situation arises. We have plenty of contributers with a heart who will gladly help you fake it if you can't tell the difference between when to apply BLP and when its ok to just add a fact tag and not delete a probably true but maybe not true claim on a guy who is probably dead but whose body was never found. WAS 4.250 05:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Elvis is dead. Jim Morrison is dead as well. And John Lennon is dead. We don't have to support lunatic concepts in order to function. In fact we function by ignoring them. If a reliable source has reported that person X is dead, then they are dead, until another reliable source reports that they are not dead. In the case where two reliable sources conflict, post both to the article. However Elvis is still dead. Wjhonson 05:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We have a category, Category:Possibly living people, for cases where it's not definitively known whether someone has died, usually because there is no reasonably recent news about them. I think we should consider merging the former cat with Category:Living people. Putting someone in the possibly living cat excludes them from the the living people RC and could be a potential loophole in the process of preventing WP:LIVING problems. While the category contains many people who are more than likely dead, it contains others who are probably alive. I'll go ahead and nominate it for merger on WP:CFD. szyslak (t, c, e) 08:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories have multiple uses, and except for cleanup tags, RC patrolling/BLP enforcement is generally secondary. Catting someone as possibly living invites others to provide definitive information one way or the other. Removing this information would make it impossible to locate such bios easily. On the other hand, an RC patroller can check Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Possibly living people today, with no changes needed. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't include potential libel about anyone, even if they're dead. The only difference is a stricter enforcement of the standard, so there's no harm in treating these articles as if they're about living people. Since they're such high profile figures, it's probably worth it anyway. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please avoid using the term, "libel" (which is a legal term with specific meaning) in cases where it cannot apply. The living/dead distinction on how sourcing is handled is vital for two reasons. First, for many famous historical figures, the best information we have on controversial events would not pass muster for a BLP. What would we do with Caligula or Richard III of England if BLP rules applied? Is Sally Hemmings a public person? Second, BLP provides for exceptions to the three revert rule. We have enough revert wars over bios of important historical figures: we don't need more. BLP was created as a response to a potential legal problem. In the absence of that problem, WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV would have sufficed. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

How would any of those not pass muster? All accusations are sourced from secondary sources (historians) and reported as such, rather than indisputable fact or simple tittilation. BLP is a strengthened enforcement of existing policy, and things that wouldn't pass muster under BLP wouldn't pass muster period, BLP just means that we should be more aggressive about enforcing compliance. I said potential libel because if the person was alive then things could be libel, and it's not libel to report that accusations have been made (as long as the existence of the accusations is true, and we don't take their word as fact). As the quote goes on what material is unsuitable... "This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For a living person, it can be actionable to report doubtful accusations. Even if properly attributed to the person making them, accompanied by words of limitation (such as "alleged"), and the counter-arguments discussed, a cause of action may still exist, because the repetition tends to continue the harm. For example, if an irresponsible accusation was reported in the press, and then quickly dropped, it would be legally dangerous and ethically questionable to resurrect it as "verifiable."
For persons no longer living, historians freely reprint such sources and then set out to evaluate the claims and repeat such accusations. For one thing, we have more perspective on whether the doubtful information had influence. In some cases (such as Caligula or Richard III) the accusations are important, even though they may amount to mere court gossip, or tales told a century after the fact. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Your two points are in stark contrast. You say that reviving dropped accusations can be considered harmful, and then you say that there has been an extensive evaluation and discussion of these claims (which means that they haven't simply been dropped). What I'm not seeing is how any historical article would fail our standards, which is what I asked. The "tales told" were written about in reliable secondary sources, which would permit inclusion even in articles about living people. We include allegations about Vince Foster against the Clintons, as spurious as they may be, because the accusations themselves are written about in reliable sources, and for historical allegations it's no different. Your point was that applying BLP standards to historical biographies would be harmful, but I have yet to see an example of where it would actually cause trouble for content otherwise in compliance with policy. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come on, examples are everywhere. Catherine_the_Great#Personal_life for one. If this were a living person, people would strike this whole section, not a single in-line citation of clearly scurrilous gossip. Legends of Catherine II of Russia - the whole article is mostly about things considered untrue, and even more scurrilous and sensational. Henry_VIII#Henry.27s_mistresses - "there is evidence to link" but that evidence is not cited. This is a Wikipedia:featured article, mind. These are just the first few monarchs I thought of. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You could yank that material right now as unsourced and controversial. WP:V says so. Henry VII was passed as an FA in 2004--standards have risen since then. Inline citations are a requirement for FAs now. None of the stuff you point to is actually in compliance with existing policies other than BLP. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

But, the material is not controversial. No one seriously disputes that these legends exist, and they have had significant influence on literature and culture. Yes, they should be sourced, but they can be. The difference between gossip and legend is, largely whether the subject is dead. The former is unencyclopedic because we have no distance. The type of speculative analysis that is PhD-level research into the life of Justinianwould be defamation applied to Brittany Spears, and Wikipedia should not repeat defamation. That's why biographies of the dead should be treated just like any other article, and not accorded the special care due BLP's. Robert A.West (Talk) 18:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We do repeat a lot of the gossip-type stuff written about Britney Spears, when found in reliable secondary sources. We don't ignore the existence of such claims if they've been noted by reliable secondary sources. The PhD analysis is not the same as a gossip rag because thesis work is generally peer-reviewed and otherwise more reliable than the average issue of a tabloid, so you can't make a straight equality between the two. It's still perfectly legitimate to remove any unsourced material pending sourcing, regardless of the subject of the article. The claims that were pointed out would be perfectly legitimate to remove with a request for a source to support their readdition. My point is simply that BLP is a more vigorous enforcement of existing policy, so there's no harm in applying it to people who may be alive, rather than only people who are definitely so. All of wikipedia would be better off if we had such a stringent requirement for sourcing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

"BLP is [simply] a more vigorous enforcement of existing policy" is not true. There are two vital differences. The first is recognition of the legal and moral right of nonpublic persons to privacy. This is unique to BLP among WPs policies. Please don't sweep it under the rug. Second, the content policies that you rightly refer to as more agressively enforced in BLP are based on what is good and useful in the creation of an encyclopedia and as such were used in the past without regard to common human decency when dealing with the subjects of articles in terms of asking them to accept that eventually the article will be better, that the good off all outweighs specific harm to them, and in general treating them no better than a building because to do so would not be neutral. BLP is not based on law as much as common human decency. Please don't sweep that under the rug either. Saying BLP is just "a strengthened enforcement of existing policy" terribly misrepresents the entire reason for its esistance and thus encourages its misapplication - such as to dead people. The BLP policy means that we accept limiting the usefulness of Wikipedia as an all-encompassing encyclopedia in the case of living people in ways we do not accept for corporations or dead people. WAS 4.250 22:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm talking about its substantive effects on the encyclopedia. I wish we did treat people no different from buildings, and had just as high standards with strict sourcing requirements for all articles. Policy says unsourced material may be challenged and removed by any editor at any time but people are hesitant to apply it and be called deletionist or attacked for removing something "everyone knows" is true yet is noncompliant with policy. I also think many of the pieces of data the policy is concerned with are already excluded by other policies, or simply by its irrelevance. WP:NOT#DIR means that we don't include things like addresses, phone numbers, birthdays (where they're irrelevant) etc. We're not going to be making personal data public when we limit ourselves to already published material like we generally should. I understand the change in motivation for the policy, but the substantive effects on articles should not be exaggerated, simply because all other articles deserve to be held to just as high a standard. It's better for us to have a single correct and sourced article than it is to have a hundred cruddy ones. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

BLP policies regarding edits by paid assistants of the subject of an article

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest WAS 4.250 22:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of mugshots

Several times now I have seen debates erupt about the use of mugshots in articles about living people. Recent examples include Sultaana Freeman and Al Gore III. Would it be reasonable for us to state in the BLP guidelines, that for non-public figures, it is generally not appropriate to include police mugshots in their Wikipedia articles? This may seem obvious, but it seems that every time this comes up there has to be a debate before the image is removed. For public figures I think there is some wiggle room, but for non-public figures I think this is a pretty safe rule to go by. Obviously, very few people are going to be happy about having mugshots of themselves in their Wikipedia article, especially if they are not well known enough to be able to define their own public image. In many of these cases it seems editors are resorting to mugshots simply because they can't find any other images, or worse, to smear the person in question. Enacting a rule about this would help ensure respect for people's privacy and may even prevent a lawsuit or two. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Kaldari 02:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If they're known as criminals or for their arrest, it's definitely appropriate to include them. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what "this may seem obvious" is based on. We're not writing articles in order to make the people in them happy, we're writing articles in order to document the way the world views these people. If the world views them through mugshots, that's what we put in our articles. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Using a mugshot nearly always lends undue weight to the arrest. It seems obvious to me that persons booked for summary offenses (including most drunk driving and simple possession cases) or pursuant to an act of civil disobedience should not be identified by their mugshots. In fact, unless the person is a notorious convicted criminal, it seems reasonable to me that they should not be so identified, and even then I would hesitate unless the mugshot illustrates the section on arrest or is the only image available. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If the musgshot doesn't look like a mugshot then it would probebly be OK. There have been a few such pictures. The Vanilla Ice article had one (now deleted). // Liftarn

Not just mugshots but photos in general

I've always been planning to query this. Per above, I would actually go further since I'm of the opinion any photos should be used with caution. People have a right to privacy and if people aren't public figures, I would suggest we shouldn't include their photo unless there is a good reason why we would should be showing it. For example, I removed another photo from the Sultaana Freeman in agreement with some discussion on the talk page since I don't feel there is any good reason why we should be showing a photo of her and she clearly doesn't want her face to be seen by the general public. (The photo didn't have copyright information specified and given it was from a yearbook, I doubt it would come under a suitable copyright anyway). Given her specific case, the drivers license photo can perhaps say but everything else IMHO is unnecessary at the current time. (Obviously depending on how notable and publicly identifiable she becomes this may change)

Similarly, another case I'm familiar with is Amir Massoud Tofangsazan. This article had an image with uncertain copyright status for a while. While this has been removed a while back, I'm of the opinion even if we do get a suitably licensed photo we shouldn't include it. Although this guy's photo has been splashed all over the internet, he still IMHO is entitled to a resonable degree of privacy and given his limited noteability, I don't see any reason to include a photo of him.

We don't currently have a specific policy in BLP on photos but IMHO we should. (We do cover privacy in general of course). What do others think? Nil Einne 15:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Strongly support. I agree with pretty much everything you've said. The bottom line is that non-public figures are entitled to a degree of respect for their privacy. People justify including these images by saying "Yeah, but they were published on smokinggun.com or CNN or whatever, so their privacy is already compromised, the images are already public, etc." The reality is, however, having an image included in your Wikipedia biography has far more impact on it's public exposure than it would being on pretty much any other website. If you have a biography on Wikipedia, it is almost guaranteed that that is the first match for your name in a Google search. Thus it pretty much defines you to the rest of the world (if you are not a public figure). This is a huge responsibility! We're talking about actually affecting people's abilities to get employment, date other people, live normal lives, etc. The fact that we even allow articles about non-public figures is somewhat amazing given the potential for harm that is possible. Just because someone was arrested for pot possession (Al Gore III for example), does not mean that they should live the rest of their lives being primarily identified by a mugshot or some other embarrassing image. I'm amazed at the lack of sensitivity to this issue displayed by most Wikipedia editors. I guarantee, however, that they would feel a lot differently if it was their own Wikipedia biographies that were being discussed. For non-public figures we usually have very little information available anyway to write a balanced article, so any image we include has huge potential to throw off the balance of the content. I think we need to err on the side of caution, respect, and civility, and stop letting tabloid-style editors control these articles. Kaldari 00:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Birthdates

I was going through the archives and noticed someone said that we shouldn't worry about the privacy of birthdates because in California and some other US states, you can get anyone's birthday for a $75 subscription to some websites. As soon as I read this I thought it was a silly argument and I just wanted to raise this issue again to point this out. Really I don't think it matters if people's right to privacy is not respected in the US. It is in many other countries, often in law. Of course, if someone's birthdate is available from a reliable source, then obviously it isn't just about whether the information is already publicly available but whether we should respect people's right to privacy when they have limited notability Nil Einne 15:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

"Biographies of living persons for deletion" (BLPfD) policy proposal

I want to explore introducing a process for deleting BLPs and their talk pages if the subject of the bio requests it, so long as the subject isn't an important public figure. We're all aware of cases where Wikipedia bios allegedly caused problems for subjects who weren't really public figures. Yet subjects have very little recourse, and we have no formal mechanism for dealing with them and no consistent policy to apply.

The BLPfD policy would have to include a way of deciding which bios it's in the genuine public interest to retain (i.e. in the interests of the public, rather than something the public is simply interested in).

Once a complaint is received from the subject, there would be a presumption in favor of deletion. The process would be something like this:

A living bio subject applies for deletion by contacting any admin, who tags the page for deletion; the tag places the page in a "BLP for deletion" (BLPfD) category for those who want to keep an eye on the issue;
It's speedy deleted after 72 hours if there are no objections on the talk page;
Any objection would have to be on particular grounds, which our policy would spell out, but which would basically boil down to "this is an important public figure, according to reliable published sources."
Those objecting would file a BLPfD, but there would have to be 75 per cent in favor of retention. Those voting to retain would have to argue that the subject is an important public figure in a particular country. Their public importance would have to be nationwide.
A BLPfD could only be triggered by a complaint from the subject of the bio. It would be left to admins to determine whether they were really were dealing with the subject.
If the BLPfD is in favor of deletion, then the bio, its talk pages, and the BLPfD discussion itself would all be deleted.
The BLP could only be recreated by going through deletion review. If it failed, the deletion review would be deleted too.

I'm posting this here to test the climate. Is this the kind of thing that editors could support in principle? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:18, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I could never support this. Giving subjects any sort of veto power is not any idea I can get behind. Furhtermore, even if this was palatable, part 7 (where the reviews were deleted) is a poison pill of sorts. So-called "courtesy blanking" is bad enough. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- It wouldn't be a veto, Jeff. But it gives us a consistent mechanism for dealing with deletion requests, which we currently don't have. Some BLPs do end up being courtesy deleted, and others not, and it's not clear what the criteria are for saying yes to some and no to others. This would be an attempt to introduce consistency. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  - So what isn't be handled by our current AfD processes that require this? Could we use some consistency on courtesy blanking of some AfD/DRV/Talk discussions? Absolutely, but this seems to take things way too far in a direction that opens up a Pandora's Box of issues. The Wikidrama alone would go off the charts in no time, not to mention the already widening divide between the uber-"privacy" advocates and the rest of us. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    - The current AfD process has a presumption in favor of retention. A BLPfD would have a presumption in favor of deletion, so long as the subject wasn't an important public figure. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
      - And "presumption in favor of retention" is a problem why? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
        See below for several reasons why I believe presumtion in favour of retention is a bad thing for articles about living people (remember "do no harm") Nil Einne 16:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose per bdj. I have several times supported the deletion of a borderline notable article on AfD, but codifying it this way is a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. In addition to what Jeff writes, BLP is already here to ensure that any controversial information about a living person be very well sourced, and any admin who would be willing to delete such an article would certainly already be willing to delete the specific information. Therefore, we must be talking about deleting very well sourced articles. Deleting very well sourced articles should happen quite rarely. For occasions as rare as that, we have WP:OFFICE. Not to mention that we would be trusting any one of over 1000 people, many of them not particularly Internet-knowledgeable, many of them teenagers, with determining that, yes, this is really the highly controversial person we are writing about? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- AnonEMouse, some of the scenarios I've dealt with have involved borderline notable people who've done something stupid in their lives, which some reporters ended up writing about. Some Wikipedians possibly with a grudge either create the bio in order to keep that stupid thing in the public eye, or the subject creates a vanity article not thinking that the 20-year-old stupid thing will be resurrected, but it is. At that point, Wikipedia becomes the only thing keeping that incident alive, given that the newspaper stories were largely forgotten. Living bio subjects who have experienced this have talked about suffering clinical depression as a result; physical illness; losing or failing to get jobs, or living in fear of it; having to sit down and explain to current family and friends about the ancient stupid thing; obsessively checking their bio to make sure it hasn't gotten even worse; losing their peace of mind.
  I feel it's arrogant of us to presume that Wikipedia has the right to do that to anyone. Would you want us to do it to you? Imagine you were now, as a young man, to go on a shoplifting spree, triggered by a clinical depression, and a few reporters pick up on it because you're actively involved in some local charities, so you scrape through their, and hence our, notability criteria. Would you really want to fail to get a good job over that in 20 years time because your employer saw the Wikipedia article? The court recognized you were depressed at the time, and gave you a telling off so you could put it behind you, but Wikipedia in its wisdom decides it knows better, and that in fact you must never be allowed to put it behind you.
  These cases are really happening. Surely you can see the unfairness of it.
  As for how to determine we're really dealing with someone, that's a minor issue and easy to organize. If you know someone works at Smith&Co, and you get an e-mail from X@smithandco.com, that's good enough. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  - Slim, I'm afraid that's exactly what I was worried about. You're an extremely experienced, even legendary, Wikipedia administrator, but I'm afraid you are now in the class of not very Internet knowledgeable people that I was writing about. (I'm just guessing that you're not a teenager.) The "from" address on an email is not reliable. Send me your email address and I can send you an email from george_bush@whitehouse.gov. To quote from our very own article on Email: "It is very easy to fake the "From" field and let a message seem to be from any mail address." And that's just one of the tricks, I can't list them all, heck, I don't know them all. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    - These are details that can easily be worked out, and don't touch on the question of whether such a policy is needed. If I were the admin, I'd pick up the phone and speak to the person who had e-mailed me from X@smithandco.com, and I'd be sure to phone them at work. Any policy could offer advice on how to identify someone. Admins have to do this all the time already when dealing with people suspected of sockpuppetry who say they're not. In the event that we later found out the subject hadn't really complained, everything could be undeleted within seconds, so it's not an issue. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
      - I appreciate your well written concerns, and agree that a well written and balanced policy is needed. I don't agree that this is that policy. While the concerns are well written, the proposed policy is not. It is bending way too far in presumption of deletion, and pooh-poohing many very real and serious issues that immediately come up. Anyway, I thought you wanted to test the climate, and not start an argument. I would say the climate has been tested. If you want to continue by working together and crafting a more reasonable proposal, I would be amenable. If you want to have an argument, I recommend room 12A.AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  - Imagine you were now, as a young man, to go on a shoplifting spree, triggered by a clinical depression, and a few reporters pick up on it because you're actively involved in some local charities, so you scrape through their, and hence our, notability criteria. Would you really want to fail to get a good job over that in 20 years time because your employer saw the Wikipedia article? The court recognized you were depressed at the time, and gave you a telling off so you could put it behind you, but Wikipedia in its wisdom decides it knows better, and that in fact you must never be allowed to put it behind you
    "Actively involved in some local charities" is not a sufficient mark of notability, and any such article could be removed regardless of whether or not the information was damaging. As I've said before, we already have the mechanisms to remove articles about genuinely non-notable subjects. CJCurrie 20:34, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    - That was just an example, so make up your own. The point is the notability was sufficient to trigger some newspaper stories, which Wikipedia could then use as reliable sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
      - ... and which can be located and read by the potential employer just as easily as any Wikipedia article can be located and read. (After all, Wikipedia editors often find sources using Google. The potential employer's own Google search will turn up all the same stuff.) So the problem that the subject has is with the sources, not with the encyclopaedia, and should be addressed to the sources, not to the encyclopaedia. Wikipedia is not the tool for solving the problems that you describe. Thinking that it is is an error. Uncle G 05:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
        Actually, a simple search engine search would not return up everything that some Wikipedia articles contain. Last time I checked Google does not include the NY Times archive in their search results. The point that a Wikipedia entry also comes up way above many other things does have some merit and shouldn't be simply disregarded. If someone wants to dig up dirt on someone, they likely can, should we make it extremely easy to dig up dirt, that is the question -- Tawker 06:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
        That doesn't change the argument. The potential employer can still read the New York Times article, just as readily as xe can read a Wikipedia article. Nothing that Wikipedia can do will affect this. Once again: Wikipedia is not the tool for solving the problems that you describe. Thinking that it is is an error. Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
        On the contary, it does. I'm pretty sure the chances of someone finding and reading a 30 year old NY Times article is much lower than the chances of someone finding the said information on Wikipedia. To read the NY Times article one would have to go to their archives, pay to access the article. I'm not sure if all NY Times archives are even accessble in a searchable database now. In any case, it is a lot easier for someone to type the name into google, find Wikipedia as the first result. We do make information a lot more readily accessible and do have some moral issues with making such information so readily acccessable -- Tawker 03:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Support. Some of the more controversial items (e.g. proposal 7) might or might not fly, and this needs to be approached with caution. However, in general, we seem to have an imbalance on Wikipedia; almost anyone who is powerful or threatening or savvy enough can get their biography deleted (or severely stubbed), but the rest need to basically put up with whatever others want to say about them, which can often be quite negative, as long as someone somewhere is able to find a newspaper article that references them. The proposal is quite restricted in scope, so it's extremely unlikely (basically impossible) that articles about anyone who was actually important enough to warrant an encyclopedia article would be deleted, and is a necessary counterbalance to the power of Wikipedia over the lives of essentially non-notable individuals who sometimes get caught up in it. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I think a new policy is unneeded but addition to the existing BLP policy to clarify the issue would be useful. BLP should be clear that its basis is common human decency moreso than law even though laws such as on libel and privacy are relevent; that semi-public persons are not to be given undue prominence (like a category named after them or their bio article spammed across many other articles) or undue coverage of nonpublic things in their lives; that self-promotion, public appearances, advertizing, web pages under their real name, and press statements all make a person more public, less private and less able to claim privacy as an excuse for controlling their public image; that deletion of their bio on wikipedia is a delicate balancing question and deletion is not to be misused as either a tool by wikipedians for any personal reasons (example: not deleting or deleting based on the subjects behavior on wikipedia) or misused by the bio subject to simply gain control of their public image. WAS 4.250 20:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose There are already mechanisms in place for the removal of articles about genuinely non-notable figures, whether BLP has been violated or not. I'm concerned that this proposal could be used to remove information that certain public figures might consider to be inconvenient or unflattering. I'm also a bit concerned about the qualifications in SlimVirgin's proposal (ie. "important public figures" instead of "public figures", and "in the interests of the public, rather than something the public is simply interested in"), as it is my understanding that we don't normally use such qualifications in determining whether or not articles should be retained. CJCurrie 20:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- The wording would be worked out by the policy proposal. This is just to see whether editors support the idea in principle, then would come the hard work of coming up with appropriate wording. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- By way of an example to demonstrate my concerns, I would point readers in the direction of the Rachel Marsden page. Marsden is unquestionably a notable figure: she's journalist of international repute, and her article has survived three afds (the result each time was "speedy keep"). She was also involved in two notable controversies before she became a journalist, both of which received a fair degree of attention in the Canadian national media.
  - International repute? That's absolute nonsense. She's someone you think we should have an article on because you don't like her politics. Anyway, please be responsible and don't discuss individual cases here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
    - Considering that the person writes an weekly column for a newspaper with a paid daily circulation of 200,000 in one country, and is a regular commentator on Fox News which is based in another country, it is not absolute nonsense. It is a debatable point. Kla'quot 23:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- There was recently an arbitration case concerning the question of how Marsden's controversies should be presented on her biography page. The ArbComm ruled that a previous version of the article was unfair to the subject, but did not take any particular position as to how the matter should be resolved. In response to a Request for Clarification, one ArbComm member made the following statement: Our ultimate goal is an NPOV article on Masden and her controversies. This could be achieved by deleting the existing content and starting work on a new version, or it could be done by refining the existing pages. The ArbCom made no firm assertion of what path is the better one. ([8])
- Despite this, some editors have attempted to remove Marsden's page in its entirety, while making questionable assertions that their actions were justified under BLP, the ArbComm ruling, and a request from Marsden (please review the current talk page and second archive for details). I'm concerned that a policy change of this sort would encourage such questionable deletions, and perhaps set in place a double-standard which allows certain controversies to be buried without due cause. CJCurrie 20:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
  - It would do the opposite. It would make sure any such cases were dealt with consistently and with more transparency than is currently the case, where some are deleted quietly and without fuss, and some have to go through multiple RfCs and ArbCom cases, and there's no telling in advance which ones will be dealt with which way. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Test cases

List here the kind of bios we are talking about: Rachel Marsden, Daniel Brandt, Seth Finkelstein, Brian Peppers (deleted), Brian Chase (deleted), Gregory Lauder-Frost (deleted), Angela Beesley, Sam Vaknin (deleted), Stan & Frank Koebel, Kevin Federline, Christopher Michael Langan, Sollog, Dolores McNamara, Michael D. Brown,

I started the above list. Please add to it. WAS 4.250 20:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

WAS, I don't want to add the cases I know about, because it'll give some people an excuse to discuss the details. I want to keep this on the level of general principles. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Applying general principles to specific test cases is a useful way to debug the verbalization of those general principles. Rachel Marsden is a perfect test case. WAS 4.250 21:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle, but there are unresolved or sensitive issues in all the real cases, including Marsden's. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

O.J. Simpson? Monica Lewinsky? Absolutely not. This proposal was only intended to apply to non-notable individuals. EpicFantasyStory 01:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't remove items from the list of test cases, especially if you think they are obvious keeps. Test cases help ensure that we don't write policies that would get obvious-keeps deleted. Kla'quot 06:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me be more frank: If you disagree with the inclusion of a test case, you can move it to a separate section or add a comment about why you disagree with it. Blanking other users' good-faith, policy-conforming contributions to a Talk page is rude, and I won't hesitate to give any editor a vandalism warning if it happens again. Kla'quot 16:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

BLPfd Comments section 2

Comment I don't have enough history with, interest in, or support for this project to lend any credibility to a vote I might make here, but I can share a comment. My comment relates more to the narrative task of writing bios than to the administrative obligations related to publishing biographies, but evidence of insufficient substance to produce useful narrative might be relevant to a policy discussion. Looking at the complete message, my comment is a bit of an essay, but I hope it is useful. In short, some of the "BLPs" on little known figures aren't bios at all; they are collections of facts that have strayed into the public arena.

Wikipedia follows two standards that make production of bios on little-known living persons exceptionally difficult, if not impossible. One is the rejection of "original research". The other is similar; it requires citations from reputable publications. A biography is not simply an account of a person's public life. A biography is a well-rounded account of a person’s life that hopefully lends some insight into the influences behind a person's public activities, or reveals profound meanings from their personal activities. A news story about Ted Bundy, for example, (fair subject because he's a public figure and deceased) might start with his murders and end with his execution. A biography of Bundy would tell us what childhood influences might relate to his adult activities, or at least reveal a stark contrast.

In the absence of interviews with the subject, or with acquaintances of a subject, we can never produce well-rounded bios. Public figures have usually been the subject of numerous biographical interviews. Less "notable" private persons, who might be quasi-public figures in specific news topics, often or usually have not been exposed in personal interviews. The result, as I stated in my premise, is not a biography, but a collection of published facts.

Wikipedia doesn't systematically call these articles biographies. The articles seem to become "BLPs" in discussion, but in the main space, they are just articles. Their content sometimes tends to expand from a collection of published facts into what appears to be a biography. The result is a false impression about that person's life -- an apparent biography that is instead a collection of summarized news clips under a heading that seems to indicate a bio. The difference in that and the actual news clippings is the clippings are archived in a context that indicates they were the news of the time, but not that they are the predominate facts of a person's life. If a person searches "John Doe" in an online news archive, they can know all the results with old dates are old news, not in the context of either current events and usually not in the context of the person's entire life history. We can discern from the narrative of the articles whether they were intended to explain particular events or whether they were composed as a personality profile. In the original context, discernment is possible. Compiled out of context, a collection of summarized news clips can appear to be a biography.

From the numerous biographical articles of little-known persons I've read in this collection, I've found no compelling reason (aside from general, widespread and overwhelming concerns about the efficacy of such exceptionally loose editorial management as Wikipedia seems to advocate) to reject publication of these articles except that the no-original-research bans exactly what any responsible biographer, nay, any responsible writer would do. Contrary to ethical guidelines of most biographical publishers, subjects of Wikipedia articles aren't routinely contacted about contents of articles that claim to describe their activities. I find nothing in Wikipedia guidelines or policies that prohibits such contact, but a general arms-length attitude toward subjects and sources implied by no-original-research suggests a Wikipedia bio need not be believable to its subject if it can be documented with other published sources. That doesn't fly with me, but that's not my point. If people want to write poor narrative and no one says they are personally hurt, our critique would usually be toward the general quality of the narrative, and not about the negative impact on the subject. My point, in the context of responding to the above proposal, is that when subjects of biographical articles contact Wikipedia to complain about a bio, they might not be prepared to expose the differences between an actual biography and a user-generated collection of news accounts, but they can be negatively impacted all the same. Their ire might or might not be well articulated.

The least Wikipedia can do is to recognize that these collections of news items about little known persons are not biographies. As such the introductory sentence "John Doe is..." often has little comprehensive meaning and can easily misinform people who John Doe is. John Doe might in fact be the man who streaked naked through a televised college football game, but that one fact about John doesn't tell us much. It's certainly not the story of his life. If John contacts someone from Wikipedia and says "look, off the record, I was recently divorced and running with some old buddies from my alma mater, but that was 15 years ago. Now I'm the candidate for CFO at a major firm. Could you please at least remove that fact from an article under my name and place it in an article about "streaking" or "Streaking at College Football Games"?

There is no reason other than stubbornness I can imagine to deny John's request. There might or might not be legal reasons to honor his request. The reasons offered in the policy trial balloon above primarily consider the impact on the subject of the bio, but the impact on public appreciation of narrative is also worth considering. If as some suggest, Wikipedia can serve as an alternative text book, degradation of standards in Wikipedia could have a cumulative effect if collections of news items became widely considered tantamount to biographies written by professionals trained to expose the psychological, social and cultural influences that shaped a person. It seems the core question is whether Wikipedia wants to campaign for a cause, which would be the right or privilege to publish anything that can be remotely construed as factual regardless its value to any meaningful narrative, or whether Wikipedia wants to produce meaningful narrative. In summary, there are humane reasons to heed the advice of little-known subjects when publishing biographies, there might be legal reasons not to misrepresent narrow slices of their lives as comprehensive accounts and there are definitely reasons related to the integrity of knowledge.Jill Hemphill 21:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Addendum to comment: Thinking more about the example of John Doe streaking, if Mr. Doe were to run for governor, his streaking might be germaine to a bio, but we would then probably have more information about him than just his streaking. We would have published interviews.

Maybe a better example refers to the widely distributed "Girls Gone Wild" productions. Thousands of young women have been recruited to participate in these commercial porn videos. The productions definately have a reputation, and are definately published. Eventually, many of these young women will grow up and appear in other published contexts. It may be easy to document that they appeared in a porn series that exploits intoxication to recruit volunteer actors, and it may be easy to document that they appeared in a notable news story. But if the subject says the news story and the GGW appearance are not sufficient to comprise an article about her, the person in the news story could be named in an article about that topic of the news item(for example, "Organized Protests against Yellow Snow", or something). In the case of a figure whose only public role outside their professional profile relates to controversies with which they are involved, I would find it much easier to write an accurate article with the controversy as the topic rather than the person.

On the matter of things the public is interested in, some of the public is interested in my personal banking information, but it is not in the public interest to distribute such information. One traditional social organizing role of media has been to serve as a gatekeeper to let the public share dialogue that is of public interest, while excluding public dialogue where prurient interests or simple curiosity infringe on privacy of individuals. Since those traditions govern most of the sources Wikipedia relies on for information, respect for values embedded in those traditions will more likely help than hurt a project such as this. Jill Hemphill 22:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent comments, Jill. You've given us a lot to think about. Thank you. Kla'quot 23:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Support. My views have been extensively expressed. In short, "You've achieved a few things over the years, and as a reward, here's your very own troll magnet to monitor and defend for the rest of your life.". I've made arguments akin to the above proposal, but am cognizant that I don't have the status within the Wikipedia community to push them as a policy revision. I cannot endorse it more strongly. -- Seth Finkelstein 00:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Thinking that one has been presented with an article that one owns and has to "monitor and defend" is an error. Please read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. Uncle G 05:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
The idea of having a policy to delete bios on compassionate grounds definitely has merit. I'm not sure if WP:OFFICE can't handle these cases though. My main concerns about this proposal are with the definition of "important public figure" and with making this a criterion for speedy deletion as opposed to AfD. The higher the bar for "important public figure," the less comfortable I am with the proposal, and "nationwide importance" is way too high a bar. I would consider nationally syndicated journalists to be public figures, but SlimVirgin doesn't. What I really dislike about this proposal though is the assumption that given good policies, the community wouldn't come to consensus to delete an article that should be deleted on compassionate grounds. The community is not a heartless mob. Finally, we keep deletion discussions for good reasons, and I don't understand why courtesy-blanking would not suffice. Kla'quot 00:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Kla'quot, the definition of "important public figure," and any other terms, would be worked out in the policy proposal. Same with courtesy blanking v deleting AfDs. These are details that can easily be tweaked; this is just to see whether there would be support in principle for such a proposal. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what you're trying to do here, in starting a healthy discussion about what is obviously an important issue. At this point, I think it's too early to explore a single solution in detail. I'd like to get some clearer articulation of the problem and then consider a variety of solutions: First of all, isn't the Foundation Office taking care of the compassionate-delete cases? Does the Office want our help with these decisions? I'll give a radically different possible solution just to illustrate the range of possiblities: Perhaps these cases should be handled by a Jimbo-appointed ethics committee that discusses mostly in private. Kla'quot 02:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify my comment, the only thing I support in this proposal is the good-hearted intentions behind it. As they seven points in the proposal are currently written, I disagree with all seven of them. Kla'quot 06:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is worth exploring. Let's work on a draft for BLPdD and see were we get to. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, we can put something up and start on it. I like Kla-quot's suggestion too about the ethics committee. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to participate in that discussion. I also like the idea of a select committee - clearly this should be handled with care and respect. A committee of individuals that can deal with the unique aspects of each case is better than a popular vote by whoever happens to be passing by at the moment. Finally,I also agree with the motivation and disagree with the specifics. OK, that's it, I'm letting Klaquot write my statements from now on, to save time. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose specifics While I agree that we need stricter standards, I see this less as an issue of compassion than of Wikipedia's integrity. Further, I don't see why this couldn't (and shouldn't first) be handled via simple changes to the current process and policies. Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators already instructs administrators not to count votes, especially where the reason for deletion is that the subject is unverifiable, and to ignore WP:ILIKEIT arguments. We could simply raise the (currently very low) bar for establishing notability for a living person, especially when the article contains negative material. In addition, we could establish a current relevance and context requirement for negative material. Thus, editor Jill Hemphill raised the very legitimate concern that Wikipedia could become the means of immortalizing some long past and largely irrelevant misdeed, and thereby becoming an actor rather than a reporter. In fact, I have argued that NPOV (and especially the need to avoid undue weight) already demands that we avoid biographical articles about living persons unless there is sufficient information to write a complete and balanced one, and we avoid negative information about a living person unless the information appears in current sources, or is otherwise obviously relevant and important in context. For a serial killer, the context and relevance is obvious. For a living person who appeared once in a sex video, we may have no idea whether this will be a blip or the defining moment. For the dead, we generally have more perspective. Robert A.West (Talk) 12:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the above post a lot. I note that there is enormous financially motivated pressure to keep the bar of entry low, from people who want free publicity to help them sell sell crap, and there are many philosophical inclusionists who for whatever reason are willing to let this happen. 67.117.130.181 17:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment ... Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Theo_Clarke suggests that there is acceptance of the notion that the subject's request is at least A factor to consider. Which strikes me as a good thing. ++Lar: t/c 19:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Support. I haven't read all the discussions above, but it seems that there needs to be a well-thought-out way for people who want their biographies deleted to get a hearing, and to have a reasonable process for making the decision about deletion. I like the idea of a special committee of responsible people to handle the requests, or at least to make preliminary determinations. Lou Sander 19:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- There is a way for such biographies to get a hearing. It's called Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Uncle G 05:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Support. We need some kind of process in place to handle this. I agree the wording on the specific points above probably needs some work, but I agree with the principle ideas. Maybe we can agree on a more simplified version and then tweak it from there. Kaldari 00:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose provisions (5), (6) and (7). I am also strongly uncomfortable with the idea of writing articles on living people looking for the subject's approval, which this will tend to encourage. We have too many puff pieces now. If one of the things someone is notable for is a scandal, this will tend not merely to ensure that it is covered accurately, verifiably, neutrally, and without undue weight; but that it is omitted entirely.
As for (6) and (7) I oppose deleting the discussion (as opposed to editing it and deleting some of the page history; what we would do for a personal attack or a revelation of personal information on an editor.) Consensus can change, and discussions make mistakes; but how can a decison to delete an article on these grounds ever going to be reconsidered? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- A constructive suggestion would be to have, in some readily visible place, a page for comments of the form "This page is about me, and I don't care for it." We could even have an admin running it, and screen fake messages. The editors there could speedy attack pages, and nominate for AfD, as we do now (and there have been several AfD's resolving that embarasseing articles on living people, mostly former porn stars, be deleted and salted). Why do they need more powers? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose as I feel WP:OFFICE, AFD, and our current level of compassion and skill make this redundant, if not outright harmful to the stated goal. I have no doubt of SlimVirgin's intentions being honorable in this, but I don't think this is the way to do it. When the OFFICE folks come to us because they can no longer handle the load, then it may be time to expand the processes, but right now we trust AFD for most of these. As someone above said, AFD does take requests from borderline-notable people into consideration on many occasions, for those who can't decipher the intricacies of requesting article deletion formally. -- nae'blis 04:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- But here's the thing, given that we are talking about living people here, (who are probably aggreived,) shouldn't we have a formal, simple way to deal with this rather then just hoping it always works, and saying tough to those poor individuals who happen to fall through the cracks? Don't you want wikipedia to develop a reputation as dealing nicely with all invidiuals who have concerns about wikipedia articles about them rather then leaving it to the luck of the draw and expecting them to negotiate the rough and tumble of wikipedia? (I'm not saying that we are that bad, but I think a user who has concerns about an article about them is quite different from a user who is asking a question about how wikipedia works or about some fact or says something on wikipedia is wrong and I think we should deal very carefully, politely and nicely with these inviduals and I don't think our existing policies or behaviour always goes far enough. I seem to recall at least one instance I came across where a person claimed to be the person the article was about and express concern about something in the article and people were simply making fun of the person!) Nil Einne 17:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  - If the concern is valid — i.e. it is that the information in the article is unsourced, then those editors are at fault. Creating new deletion procedures won't do anything towards fixing their behaviour. If the concern is not valid — i.e. it is a dispute with a robustly and copiously sourced piece of information, then the person is at fault, in that xe is arguing with the encyclopaedia when xe should be arguing with the sources. Creating new deletion procedures won't fix something that isn't within Wikipedia at all. Uncle G 05:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Support - per my own User:Tawker/BLPD - we do need something to this extent -- Tawker 06:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Oppose, because it will give too much power to criticized figures to silence legitimate negative information (an article on a known scam artist who doesn't want it included, for example). I really don't see enough instances to justify creating a process that subjects these kinds of questions to the whims of the community anyway. They can already send a complaint to the office if there's an issue with an article about them, or put it up for regular or speedy deletion if they aren't a sufficiently public figure to merit an article to begin with. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Conditional support. I am generally strongly supportive of the right to privacy of non-noteable people and think this may go part way to achieving that. However although I agree with the idea in theory, I have some concern of the potential negative outcome. Mostly, I wonder whether it might be a problem given the resources and experience of admins to accurately determine if the person is who they claim they are and properly handle the matter whatever the case. I'm not saying that all admins won't be able to handle this, but I'm concerned that some admins won't and they might not realise that they don't. This could go two ways. It may mean they are fooled or waste a big amount of time on people who pretend to be someone they're not. It may also mean that they offend and cause unnecessary friction with someone who is making a legitimate request because they falsely believe this person isn't actually who they say they are. However perhaps I underestimate our admins. My other concern is whether this may reduce vigalance on our part. The problem here is that we risk creating a situation where rather then being vigilant in removing shoddy articles and ones abount non-noteable people, we end up in the situation where we mostly wait for complaints. In any case, I don't agree with the idea WP:OFFICE and our existing policies is enough. IMHO, WP:OFFICE mostly deals with fairly serious stuff, generally when users are extremely agrieved. IMHO, it's not a good thing that people have to get to this level before we take serious action. Rather, I think it would be good if people have a less-formal but simple channel they can go through when they have some concerns but are not on the level where they are screaming down the phone. Expecting people to have to understand how wikipedia works before they can get articles about them removed IMHO is a bad thing. In many cases, they will be frustrated and get annoyed and will end up screaming down the phone. What should hopefully happen if this succeeds IMHO is instead, if someone comes across an article on them and they think it should be deleted, they make a simple request. If the article was such a poor job or the person was not noteable, it's deleted because no one can adequetly defend it. If the person was sufficiently noteable and the article was good or at least savagable, editors improve it as necessary and explain why it should remain in the deletion request. The decision is made to keep and the person who made the complaint is able to see the hopefully improved article and what people have said. Hopefully they will agree with what's been said and even if not, hopefully they will at least see that people have properly considered the matter and have come to reasoned conclusions and let it be. Perhaps they don't and may end up yelling down the phone which is unfortunate but unavoidable. However we will hopefully avoid many instances of this. Because the alternative is that a person wants an article deleted and they ask about it. Some tells them well this is what you have to do, try reading this and this and then do this. The person may get marginally annoyed here. But perhaps they will do so and successfully nominate it for deletion. However as is easily the case, the deletion debate may not attract sufficient attention and no consensus is reached and/or users don't really bother to consider the matter properly so the article isn't deleted even tho it should be. The person who the article is about is obviously going to start to get annoyed here when users haven't adequately explained why the article should be kept or there was no consensus and they have to go through another debate. (Remember the article is about them.) Alternatively, it could even be a time thing. Perhaps a decision to delete the article would have been made eventually, but the lack of action on the debate means that the person who the article is about is yelling down the phone after a week because of a lack of action. It's important to remember the "do no harm" part of our BLP. Leaving an article about a non-noteable person when said person doesn't want it clearly IS doing harm and it's something we should avoid. And we currently presume in favour of retention so this means the harm will remain until the debate attracts enough people to actually look into the issues and realise that the article should be deleted. Another thing to consider is that this should hopefully help us deal more fairly with people from a diverse number of countries. Clearly calling someone in the US is not going to be something people in a number of countries are likely to consider. While I presume OTRS will end up in WP:OFFICE eventually, clearly phoning is one options less open, especially to those in less developed countries. Furthermore, different cultures etc means that in some countries, people are more used to deferring to authority and less experience with sticking up for themselves and what is right. They also have less experience with things like the right to privacy and issues like libel. It's therefore incredibly unfair IMHO, that we're far less likely to delete an article on a person who doesn't want it when it shouldn't even be on wikipedia just because the person doesn't fight hard enough for it. By presuming in favour of deletion, and making a clear & simple policy; articles about these people will be deleted when they should be, rather then kept as is IMHO likely to happen at the current time. N.B. I purposely didn't name any countries. I'm also not saying that people in certain countries are incapable or fighting for their rights, simply that for a variety of reasons they're less likely to do so. Nil Einne 16:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- The alternative as I see it is that we should instead direct ALL requests to WP:OFFICE when this issue arises (in a simple manner, perhaps tell them they should either e-mail this address or phone this number), unless a user voluntarily expresses a desire to deal with this via the other channels. We should also make clear to WP:OFFICE that we expect them to deal with all individuals and consider whether the article adequetly establishes noteability per wikipedia standards. And this should happen regardless of whether the user is sufficiently angry or the issue of libel arises. Nil Einne 17:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- The office has failed to respond to my letters and faxes and emails, in which I've raised issues of libel and invasion of privacy concerning my own bio. It is naive to assume that the office wants to get involved. It has a vested interest in pretending that the Foundation is separate from the editing process on Wikipedia, because Jimmy and Brad plan to argue that the Foundation is legally immune as a "service provider" instead of a "publisher." Brad Patrick's publicly stated position is that the editors themselves are responsible for Wikipedia. It is not only appropriate, but somewhat urgent for the editors themselves to establish a policy to better deal with situations such as mine. The office would be delighted with such a policy. It will help resolve some issues, and enable the office to better maintain its pretense of immunity for a while longer. The alternative is that issues raised by living persons who don't want a bio will not get addressed on Wikipedia. But sooner or later, this problem will have to be addressed. Here's the question: As Wikipedia editors, do you want it resolved in court, or is it better to resolve it internally? By the way, I cannot sign this because I'm banned. And all my websites are on the spam blacklist. So much for your comment that "we expect them to deal with all individuals and consider whether the article adequetly establishes noteability per wikipedia standards." Your notion of how Wikipedia works is a hallucination. Jimmy has a much more realistic impression: Jimmy Wales speaking at Wikimania, August 4, 2006: "What happens is we have very minor celebrities and sort of controversial people, they read their article on Wikipedia, and if it isn't good, then they complain, they get upset. There's a sort of typical pattern where I've seen this happen over and over and over... somebody goes to an article, and they see something they don't like in it, so they blank the article. So somebody warns them. And then they blank again, and they get blocked. And then they make a legal threat, and then they really get blocked. And it's just like a totally bad experience for that person, when in fact, they may have been right in the first place. Or maybe they weren't right, maybe they just didn't like what we wrote about them, but still, we didn't handle it well." And also, Jimmy Wales describes what can happen to biographies, WikiEN-l mailing list, December 14, 2006: "Perhaps young and excitable Wikipedia contributors think that the point of the exercise is to SHOW PEOPLE that you CAN'T PUSH WIKIPEDIA AROUND, and go out to try to dig up well-cited dirt on the person, creating an even more horribly bad and biased article than we started with, forcing us to start all over again." 68.90.179.196 21:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
  - Daniel Brandt's entirely correct in his above statements. Further the issue is not even deleting material from Wikipedia; as Brandt had in the past agreed to a compromise in which the content would be moved to other articles in Wikipedia. I'm hoping this effort by SlimVirgin will result in an improvement in the situation for numerous semi-public persons. Just because privacy is dying doesn't mean we have to take it off life support just yet. The main sticking point for me is the issue of a semi-public person's misusing our compassion to gain control over their public image - in other words if they assert they have the right to release public statements that define who they are in the public eye while asking us not to and that's not right either. Brandt releases public statements both to news media and on the web but I could argue on both sides of the issue of the extent his efforts do or don't constitute trying to create or control a public image for himself so I'm on the fence with regard to what to do with our article on Brandt. We should embrace the middle-ground on semi-public persons, it seems to me. The world is not black and white. Maybe we could define a range of options:
    1. no article
    2. redirect
    3. a stub that points to other articles
    4. a minimum article sometimes without images or real name depending on circumstances - (written to clearly convey it is not a rounded biography but is simply an article about a few noteable events in a semi-public person's life - maybe a template to say so?)
    5. a full biographical article but for a semi-public person so takes privacy especially into account
    6. a BLP for a public person WAS 4.250 23:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

- - Thats's the main sticking point for me too, and I like the range of options. It's just occured to me that for people known mostly for their role in scandals, our well-meaning attempts to balance and round-out the articles may actually make them worse. Infoboxes, photographs (even good ones), and chronological flow all signal "this is a biography," when the article can never be a biography because we do not know enough about the person. Sometimes it is suggested that netural background information such as "so-and-so was born in Hong Kong, went to Gladstone Elementary School, married John Doe in 2001 and has a dog named Fluffy" be added to balance out the negative information. This is well-intended (I've made some of these suggestions myself) and may not violate privacy, but including the material adds strongly to the impression that the article is a biography. Kla'quot 20:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

This proposal is unnecessary, ill-conceived, and a bad idea.
It is unnecessary because enough mechanisms already exist to handle such cases. A living person only warrants a biography if xe satisfies the WP:BIO criteria. If xe satisfies the primary notability criterion, then xe will be the subject of multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources. As such, there will be be plenty of source material for a biography, and all of the handwringing above about narrative becomes entirely moot.
If xe doesn't satisfy the PNC, then (failing the applicability of any secondary criteria) we shouldn't have a biographical article, and again the above handwringing is moot. The John Doe streaker example is a good example of a person who does not satisfy the PNC. Whilst the single sentence may be verifiable, giving it a whole article to itself, with John Doe as the subject, is the wrong way of including it in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Notability#Dealing with non-notable topics. Notability is, in part, about including verifiable information in the right way. The right way to include the verifiable sentence is to mention it within an article with a wider context. For this, the sources are the guides. If the act of John Doe streaking is only mentioned in the sources in the context of discussions of the game itself, then the verifiable sentence should be included in Wikipedia in like manner: in an article on the game itself, and not in a biographical article.
For deciding whether the WP:BIO criteria are satisfied, we have AFD. Biographical articles that fail the WP:BIO criteria are regularly either merged or deleted having gone through AFD. Whether the person xyrself objects to having a biographical article is irrelevant. If the PNC is properly applied, any biographical article that passes muster will have copious sources for it to be based entirely upon; and thus any complaints by the subject will be a matter to be taken up with the sources themselves, not with the encyclopaedia at all. Thus the proper focus is not to consider the opinions of the subject; it is to apply the PNC properly. Concentrating upon the opinions of the article subject actually detracts from this. It takes the focus away from looking to see whether the PNC is satisfied.
The opinion of the article's subject is not and should not be a criterion, either for inclusion or exclusion. We don't include articles simply because people want to have themselves included in the encyclopaedia, and we don't exclude articles simply because people want to have themselves excluded. The criteria are WP:BIO, and should be applied uniformly and dispassionately. AFD is the tool of long-standing for this.
The proposal is ill-conceived and a bad idea for several reasons. The most obvious is that it is trivially easy to game. Consider Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sophie Ellis-Bextor, for example. There is no way for an administrator, or any other Wikipedia editor for that matter, to know that it actually is the subject of the article that is complaining, as opposed to an imposter or a simple anonymous troublemaker. Another reason is the idea of "nationwide importance" that the proposal incorporates. That is a badly flawed metric, incorporating as it does both problems of systemic bias and problems of subjective judgements on the parts of Wikipedia editors.
Time spent on this proposal would be better spent encouraging editors to use the existing mechanisms properly and fully: to mercilessly apply the sword of verifiability to all biographical article content, and to ensure that deletion discussions concentrate upon citing sources to show that the PNC is satisfied rather than veering off into irrelevant tangents. Uncle G 05:08, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

BLPfd Comments section 3

- I'm not yet sure whether I like this proposal and I agree that the current wording could be too easy to game but I do think that you've missed a key point in the argument. Several times in this debate, you've said that this can be resolved through rigorous application of our sourcing and verifiability requirements. That misses the principle of undue weight. An encyclopedia article should be a biography - a summation of the person's entire life - not merely a news story. Yet because of where and how we typically find our sources, we can get a preponderance of negative information that misrepresents the person's life. A single negative fact can often be reliably sourced from a news article. All the positive facts of the non-notable person's life, on the other hand, are more likely to be functionally impossible to independently source - they're just not newsworthy. Do we really want biographies of non-notable people to be limited to what showed up in the police blotter twenty years ago?
  Now, if we could convince editors to stop mistaking Wikipedia for Wikinews, the "sourcing fixes it" argument might hold up better. But frankly if we could fix that problem, we wouldn't even be having this argument... Rossami (talk) 07:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  - I didn't miss it. I directly addressed it. See what I wrote about the John Doe streaking hypothetical. I repeat: If a biographical article can only be a single-fact article, then the PNC (obviously) isn't satisfied and having a biographical article is the wrong way to include the verifiable fact in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Notability#Dealing with non-notable topics directly addresses this.
    Moreover, your question "Do we really want biographies of non-notable people to be limited to what showed up in the police blotter twenty years ago?" is unanswerable, having as it does a premise that is simply false. We don't actually want biographical articles for non-notable people. Therefore asking what we want them to comprise is unanswerable. I repeat what I wrote before, with emphasis on the part being missed: Whilst the single sentence may be verifiable, giving it a whole article to itself, with John Doe as the subject, is the wrong way of including it in Wikipedia.
    The sources do "fix it". Wikipedia should reflect both what the sources say and how they say it. As such, if the single verifiable fact is part of a discussion of a larger topic in the sources, then it should be included in Wikipedia in the same way. See the big coloured box at User:Uncle G/On notability#Dealing with non-notable things.
    If there's something that we should be convincing editors of, it is that not everything needs its own individual article. Not every name in a list of people associated with some overall topic should be a link, for example. Uncle G 02:06, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    - Uncle G, your suggestion of dealing with this by following Wikipedia:Notability#Dealing with non-notable topics sounds nice in theory but doesn't match what actually happens here on Wikipedia. See for example Dave Gilbert (game designer), a basically promotional biography based on exactly one newsworthy accomplishment of the guy (he wrote a computer game, and there's already a separate Wikipedia article about his game). That particular biography has been AfD'd three times without being deleted, with the third apparently now approaching a strong consensus to keep (ok, it looks like the article has now added mention of a couple other games that he worked on, and there's a new Wikipedia article to go with one of the other games despite its dubious notability). There are similar examples I won't name where the article contents were quite invasive and the subject wanted the stuff removed and were refused despite total failure of the inclusionists to show notability of the contested content (the factual correctness of the content was not disputed, just the appropriateness of including it). There just doesn't seem to be a way to beat back the inclusionist mobs who think that Wikipedia biographies are supposed to be advertisements and/or dossiers. 67.117.130.181 05:26, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
An excellent idea. "Thus the proper focus is not to consider the opinions of the subject" is pure arrogance. It does not hurt the encyclopaedia one bit to remove articles about almost nobodies who pass some hurdle that a couple of people once debated on a page somewhere. We are supposed to be kind! That includes being kind to the people we write about as well as to each other. I didn't actually see, in that long screed from Uncle G, any argument whatsoever why we should not allow people to be excluded if they wish it! Neither is it "trivially easy to game". Sophie Ellis-Bextor has a press officer. We're all making out we're researchers here. A researcher would ring up Ellis-Bextor's press. Anyway, she is famous. This proposal is clearly aimed at biographies of people who are not. If someone writes to us saying they are "John Smith", barely known outside his village, does it really matter whether it's really John Smith or someone else from their village masquerading as him to have his bio pulled? Would we actually miss the bio of someone who we couldn't readily discern was who they claimed they were anyway? Grace Note 05:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- That is rubbish and borderline uncivil. Arrogance has nothing to do with focusing upon what encyclopaedists should be focussing upon, which are the sources, and not focussing upon personal wishes, which detract from the proper study of encyclopaedists. The argument, which was right there in front of you, is that we don't include articles simply because people want to have themselves included in the encyclopaedia, and we don't exclude articles simply because people want to have themselves excluded. We include and exclude things based upon sources. Uncle G 02:06, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  - I generally consider that an editor who reaches for "uncivil" feels himself worsted, Uncle G. Which you are. Your comment doesn't address anything I said. It simply repeats the arrogance and lack of compassion I noted. The "proper study of encyclopaedists" is in any case whatever the encyclopaedists consider it to be. If they consider it proper to allow decency to overrule their desire to be ruled by process, then it is proper. If they consider it no great loss not to have an article on a guy practically no one has ever heard of, or to carry only the briefest mention of him (for instance, "Daniel Brandt is a researcher" or "Rachel Marsden is a journalist". Why, actually, must we say more? Your argument seems to be "because there are other people who say more". Uncle G, I urge you to have a good think about that because it's not terribly compelling. I have sources who say I'm an arsehole but I don't post it on my userpage), that too is proper.
    Now the thing we are discussing, Uncle G, is whether we might exclude biographies of almost nobodies if they ask us too. You say you presented an argument. Here it is, if I might quote you: "The argument... is that.. we don't exclude articles simply because people want to have themselves excluded." I am planning to try that one on Mrs Note tonight: "I am not doing the washing up, Mrs Note, because I do not do the washing up." I'll tell her Uncle G sent me. Grace Note 04:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    - Wikipedia:Consensus can change - "Since the Wiki grows and develops, consensus can change at a later date." -- Seth Finkelstein 05:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
      - Yes, indeed, Mr Finkelstein. I guess what I am urging is a shift in our understanding that we should just put up whatever we like about whoever we like and ignore their opinion to one in which we accept that upsetting people who really are not very well known is not a good thing. I do understand Uncle G's POV. It's certainly less complex to approach things his way, and less complexity is often a good thing. But so is being decent. Grace Note 06:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
        You've used the propaganda technique of labelling above. Putting forward the argument that "we should just put up whatever we like about whoever we like" in order to then counter it is what is known as a straw man. No-one has suggested doing that, apart from you yourself. Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
    - Wrong in about five different ways, and inching yet closer to the borderline of incivility by unapologetically repeating the borderline incivility of your previous comment, and even augmenting it. The proper study of encyclopaedists is not "whatever the encyclopaedists consider it to be". (A lot of encyclopaedists, after all, consider it to be writing vanity articles about themselves.) The proper study of encyclopaedists is looking for, reading, citing, evaluating, and using sources. Basing the argument upon a claim to a moral high ground of "It's decent." is to assume that writing neutral articles based upon sources is somehow indecent, something that is clearly false. The repeated wholly unfounded assertions that this unnecessary, ill-conceived, and wrong proposal is "the decent thing" is an example of a propaganda technique known as "name calling" or "labelling". The answer to the question "Why, actually, must we say more?" is, of course, that we are writing an encyclopaedia here. If you find the idea of writing an encyclopaedia "not terribly compelling", then Wikipedia is not for you.
      As for your quote: I suggest going back to what I actually wrote — which is conveniently right there in front of you twice, now — and reading the next sentence. Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
      - I refuse to discuss this any further with you for two reasons: first, the implicit threat of your first sentence is something I won't tolerate (and I don't find it enjoyable anyway to discuss anything with the kind of Wikipedian who brandishes the word "civility" because he is not getting it his own way; there is almost nothing in this community less civil than those of our fellows who use that policy and others like it as weapons aimed at obfuscation and destruction of others' viewpoints, rather than the safeguards of decent interchange that they are intended to be) and second, you have not actually put forward anything new, except to make veiled attacks against me personally. "Writing neutral articles based upon sources..." can be indecent, in ways that have been explained on this page. That you cannot grasp the explanation is unfortunate, but I do not suggest you should leave the project on account of it. Grace Note 07:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment We do something a little like this at WikiFur, the furry fandom encyclopedia. That said, we don't have notability critera for inclusion other than involvement with the fandom, so just about anyone can have an article created about them. Often, people are known mainly for things that already have articles, so on request we may move the specific information about their involvement into those articles and then blank the original with a notice. Some rather popular individuals have had the articles about themselves blanked in this way - but that is because the purpose of our encyclopedia is to serve our community, and each individual in the furry fandom is a far larger part of that community than Wikipedia's community, which is the entire world. There is a saying: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Wikipedia has many, indeed, and its notabiliy standards are much higher to match that. I think the current policies work well enough for now, though a person should really be able to defend themselves by making some kind of a statement. This could most easily and appropriately be done by having them argue with the statements of others, and recording that on the page. In the specific case of criminal convictions? They happen, and they should be recorded, and if it's 20 years ago then people should weigh that in their consideration when reading about that person. GreenReaper 02:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Support Meeting the conditions of WP:BIO (e.g. being the subject of a couple of obscure newspaper articles related to some arcane topic) certainly does not turn a person into a public figure. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a total information awareness program. Wikiproject Novels currently has assessment criteria for both the quality and importance of a novel-related article (importance to the encyclopedia is rated in terms of literary significance etc. of the novel that the article is about). Wikiproject Biography apparently only assesses article quality right now but rating importance at some course-grained level seems feasible enough. At least from viewing AfD's, we have a heck of a lot of biographies that might arguably cross the line into "notability" per WP:BIO but are definitely low in actual importance.
BLP articles with a low importance assessment (and I'm expecting this would be at least 75% of them) should be generally be deleted if the subject requests it (some authentication should be required if there is doubt) unless there's a good reason to do otherwise (obviously there will occasionally be debates about someone's importance). In fact most low-importance BLP's should be deleted regardless (since they are full of COI and publicity seeking, and the BLP policy is inherently in conflict with NPOV, so we should only create a BLP article if it's important enough to justify a lot of careful editing to preserve the encyclopedia's neutrality) but that's a different topic. 67.117.130.181 15:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- "being the subject of a couple of obscure newspaper articles related to some arcane topic" is no different to "being the subject of a couple of obscure scientific journal articles about some arcane topic". We don't exclude subjects that are obscure or arcane. This is not an encyclopaedia of only famous things. That is a point that has been made time and again, by many editors, including at Wikipedia talk:Notability/Historical/Fame and importance. What counts as far as the PNC is concerned is that the published works documenting the subject be non-trivial.
  As for "In fact most low-importance BLP's should be deleted regardless": I suggest doing some New Page Patrol and seeing what actually occurs from day to day. Most biographies of living people are deleted, inasmuch as they are usually people submitting unsourced autobiographies, or unsourced biographies of their friends and relatives. Consulting Special:Log/delete, I see that three such biographies were deleted in just the 20 minutes prior to my typing these words. (They were Brandon Di Puma, Brian Russell-Simpson, and Chanroeun Saron.) Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  - Clarification: I don't claim that being notable only for an arcane topic makes someone unsuitable for a biography--it just doesn't make them a public figure. Public figure (as linked there) has a specific meaning--please check the linked article if you're not sure what it means. BLP policy should treat public figures and perhaps celebrities differently from non-public figures who happen to be biography subjects. 67.117.130.181 15:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Additional comment Generally, my concerns are being considered here and my lengthy original message thoroughly explained my concerns. I offer here a response to a couple of comments above, which seem not to grasp the scope of deliberations familiar to most professional biographers, at least as I expounded upon that scope. I respond to the comment that "If xe satisfies the primary notability criterion, then xe will be the subject of multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources. As such, there will be be plenty of source material for a biography, and all of the handwringing above about narrative becomes entirely moot." Typical hand posture of most professional biographers I've observed during editorial deliberation is either one of relaxed placement of the fingers on the keyboard, or otherwise resting on a lap, on a table, on the arm of a chair or taking notes on a pad of paper. I've seen very little, if any, handwringing in editorial discussions among professional biographers or among scholars I've observed discussing the scope of useful narrative.
More importantly, "multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources" does not necessarily comprise "plenty of source material for a biography". I reiterate points I made above, but they seem worthy of consideration if someone has yet to recognize the measure. In most professional biographical publishing houses, the threshold of "plenty" when assessing source material for a biography necessarily includes original biographical interviews with the subject. Except in the most unusual circumstances, at least a pre-publication review of a draft in consultation with the subject is expected before any major biographical document about a public figure goes to press. Unless a publisher is unconcerned about repeating other publishers' errors, one benefit of such consultation is that the subject often offers the last best chance of challenging the veracity of "multiple non-trivial published accounts." Exceptions abound -- but even in significant exceptions, such as the case of an internationally-known political fugitive, earlier biographical interviews are available. However, a collection of "multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources" might not include a single biographical interview. As I explained earlier, these published works might be about isolated events in the subject's life, but they might not come close to offering biographical insight. We are left with a collection of "multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources" paraphrased and placed under a person's name to appear as if, and indeed intended as (according to the intentions of some expressed here) a biography. Quite simply, paraphrased narrative based on a collection of press accounts about a person’s life is not necessarily a biography. To represent it as such can erode trust in a source that claims otherwise, especially among readers astute enough to recognize the difference. Jill Hemphill 20:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

BLPfd Comments section 4

- More importantly, "multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources" does not necessarily comprise "plenty of source material for a biography". — Yes, it does. Every word in that formulation is important, as Wikipedia:Notability explains, including "non-trivial".
  As for your reiteration, you are missing the fact that this is an encyclopaedia. The lengthy handwringing about "original biographical interviews" and "consulting the subject" is completely ignoring our Wikipedia:No original research policy. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, a tertiary source. That means that the journalists and biographers who have performed interviews and consulted the subjects are our sources. Handwringing about a need to interview the subjects to check facts is missing the point. It has always been the principle here that Wikipedia is not set up to perform fact checking. Therefore we write, and only write, based upon sources where that fact checking (e.g. interviewing any necessary people) has already been done. For further explanation, see User:Uncle G/On sources and content and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.
  As I have already written once above, all of the handwringing about narrative and interviews is moot. If someone satisfies the PNC, there will be enough source material for a full article. If someone does not satisfy the PNC, then we shouldn't have a biographical article in the first place, so any arguments based upon the premise of such articles being comprised of a sparse few facts pinned together are completely irrelevant. In such cases, giving the subject its own article is the wrong way for Wikipedia to be presenting what information there is on the subject.
  So the proper course of action is to do some AFD Patrol and ensure that the PNC is properly applied at AFD, not to waste time and effort inventing additional deletion processes. It isn't a lack of deletion processes that is the problem.
  To see the problem, note that not a single editor in any of the three AFD discussions of Rachel Marsden actually challenged it (or, indeed, defended it) on the depths and the provenances of the published works that cover the subject. None of the editors who are here pushing for a new deletion process have actually applied our existing processes. Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
- From looking at AfD it's evident that "multiple nontrivial published sources" very often means the person's name was simply mentioned in the newspaper a couple times in connection with something. 67.117.130.181 04:00, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  - No, it does not. Wikipedia:Notability explicitly points out that the works must be non-trivial. Mere mention in connection with a main subject in the sources only justifies mention in connection with a main subject in Wikipedia, and does not justify a biographical article. So if you see someone arguing that, then challenge them! Point out that the sources only mention the person in passing, and are not non-trivial. Evaluation of sources is part of the proper study of encyclopaedists. So do it! Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
    - I have done it. Look at the third AfD and the first deletion review for Dave Gilbert (game designer) and tell me what I should have done differently. 67.117.130.181 12:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    - SlimVirgin on 2005-01-06: "He's not a credible source, not a journalist, and seems to write only for his own website i.e. he's a blogger. It's not appropriate to use someone's personal website as a source... My main concern about Brandt is that he self-publishes. The few things I believe he published in the 80s were in outlets with little, if any, editorial oversight... I know he's been quoted a bit regarding Google Watch, but it's not clear it's taken seriously. We can't use information from people who only self-publish on their websites, otherwise any of us could start up a website today then quote ourselves in Wikipedia." Ten months after expressing this opinion, SlimVirgin starts a stub on this trivial person. Over the next 14 months, trivia is piled on top of trivia, going back 39 years in this person's life, and the article, which is quite long now, has so far survived 11 AfD attempts. There are 142,766 biographies of living people on Wikipedia. How many of these are trivial? The problem with Wikipedia is that the editors don't have to live with their judgements about what's appropriate in a biography, or whether a biography is appropriate at all, but the subjects of trivial, poorly-balanced biographies do have to live with them, every day of the week. They end up at the top of the search engine results, and stay there forever. I'd prefer that my trivial biography appear in Who's Who in America, where no one would read it. But do you know something? WWA wouldn't be caught dead producing such trivial junk. And if I ever became non-trivial, they'd ask me first, and invite me to write my own. 68.92.158.200 17:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
      - Please read more carefully. 67.117.130.181 and I were discussing the case where the published works were trivial, not the biographical articles. Applying the PNC involves considering whether the published works are non-trivial. Most of your argument is, because it is wholly confused on that point, irrelevant to the discussion. In addition, your final sentence is simply misguided and not thought through. Having people write their autobiographies is not a good thing. Far from it. There is plenty of evidence, appearing on a daily basis, that it is not. It does not lead to a neutral and verifiable encyclopaedia, as any editor who has done New Page Patrol and looked at the many self-promotional autobiographies that are continually submitted will attest. (From the last 15 minutes' deletion log: TONY SCHILLING, Thunderpickachu, Si traynor, Kevin chiarot) See Wikipedia:Autobiography#The problem with autobiographies. Uncle G 02:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Oppose per CJCurrie, and because existing mechanisms like WP:OFFICE and policies like WP:BLP are enough. The subjects don't own articles just because they are about themselves. --GunnarRene 03:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
- I don't want to get myself too deeply into this thread, because I really don't have the time for it, but there's a set of Frequently Asserted Points that the debate really would benefit from a listing WITH THE REBUTTALS. For "don't own article", the rebuttal is that that policy applies to editing an existing article. However, not wanting to have an article about oneself at all is in a sense the inverse of "ownership", being a desire to be removed the process entirely. Thus, it does not fall under the policy about article ownership, since it's a dispute at a different policy level. Even if one disagrees, it should be acknowledged that this has been asked and answered -- Seth Finkelstein 03:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  - In practice, giving subjects a say in deletion would give them a say in content. You can easily imagine the subject of an article showing up on a Talk page and saying, "If you re-insert the following well-sourced fact, I will ask for the article to be deleted." You probably wouldn't do this, but the likelihood that others will is enough to compromise our editorial integrity. Seth, since you are mostly concerned with vandals and trolls, would it address your concerns if enough people put your article on their watchlists? We could, for example, have a noticeboard for asking editors to watchlist BLPs that are prone to vandalism. Kla'quot 03:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

- - - Could someone try to leverage an "opt-out" threat into micromanagement? Yes. But they run the risk that they'll then end-up micromanaging no entry at all. Moreover, if someone feels a particular fact is so harmful to them that they'd rather have the entire article deleted, I'd be very inclined in the case of living marginally-notable people, to err on the side of their wishes, as they are the ones with the most to lose. My main point is that no-ownership is not a policy trump card here. To assert it is, begs the question. Regarding a prone-to-vandalism list, well, I can only speak for myself, but "whack-a-mole" playing just doesn't sound reassuring. It's telling people that first they have to build a case against vandals and trolls, then hope some patrol is efficient enough to catch any repeat offenders. I know this is the wrong audience to say the following, but please try to understand, if you've been burned by the process before, or even seen other people get burned, more of the same isn't appealing. -- Seth Finkelstein 04:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
      - Seth, I am interested in having more than two choices (deleted or not deleted) with regard to articles about semi-public living persons or semi-noteable living persons (not the same thing). Above, I list a few in-between choices. My question for you is specifically, what can we do to help you be comfortable with our article on you short of deleting it? What one sentence most doesn't belong in an encyclopedia and why? Would it help to delete the photo? Would it help to add a fact (provide a source)? How about if it were permanately locked from editing by anyone except an administrator? You are an important example of a borderline case we can and should get right with regard to balancing the public's right to a free flow of information and privacy rights. (So important as an example, you could go down in Wikipedia history for your role in the creation of a Wikipedia policy - we might even have to create an article on that ... just kidding.) WAS 4.250 05:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
        Hmm ... that's a tough question, though I suppose it's fair. Well, after thinking about it a little, this is not going to be a popular answer, but I suppose I would not be completely comfortable without some sort of personal pre-review of edits. Which is I know is arguably unreasonable, but it is the honest reply. Before someone jumps on me for "ownership", note my reason there is NOT micro-management. It's that I just don't trust overworked, volunteer, administrators to do a good job against a dedicated troll. The problem is less the "l33t d00d" vandals, than that Wikipedia acts too much as an "asymmetric warfare" platform - a clever attacker loses almost nothing for trying and failing, but if they succeed in getting some smear into a biography, it gets made prominent and scraped all over the web. Right now, the article about me isn't terrible. It's not great, but I can live with it (ironically, I've made such an issue of it that I now couldn't get away with basically writing my own biography by using a sockpuppet, as others have :-) ). But it's been used for attacks a few times already, so my viewpoint is that it's a proven overall negative to me. I'd rather not play games and chase after hit-and-runs. Oh, it's too late to delete the photo - it already got grabbed by one my attackers, so that horse is out of the barn. -- Seth Finkelstein 07:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
        How about if it were permanately locked from editing by anyone except an administrator? Like Wikipedia's Main Page. Go there. See the "view source" instead of "edit"? Like that. WAS 4.250 12:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
        Let's say there's levels - the more protection against use of the article as a weapon against me, the happier I am. But fundamentally, I view it as of basically zero benefit to me, and so I can only lose from it. That is, the outcome for me is at best zero, and at worst very negative, as a huge megaphone for people who want to attack me. So it's "expected value" for my life is negative. What you're discussing is reducing the probability of the negative, which is an understandable approach. However, the "expected value" remains negative. Of course the smaller the negative, the better. But zero seems unfortunately best. -- Seth Finkelstein 03:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

- - - - Uh, I thought this was supposed to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not the free encyclopedia with tens of thousands of semi-obscure and generally quiescent biographies that only admins can edit. It's different that that we sometimes temporarily protect articles that are the target of heavy vandalism, as we're supposed to unprotect them when the vandalism slows down. There are very few permanently protected articles, most of which (such as the main page) would otherwise be nonstop vandal magnets. Anyway, even if we protected Seth's biography we'd still want to shield its talk page from search engines (see my "talk page" rant in another section of this page). I've heard that the whole editing model may change when 1.0 gets close to release, so that users will no longer directly edit the "live version" of any page, but I haven't looked into this yet. 67.117.130.181 15:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The bottom line for me is that one of Wikipedia's most talented (though biased) administrators was not professional enough, nor experienced enough, to realize that she should not have started that stub on me. After that, dozens of drive-by editors and administrators were incompetent to determine which facts are important in a well-balanced biography, as opposed to which facts are insignificant, and which facts are trivial but harmful to me decades after the referenced events occurred. And through 11 AfDs, more drive-by editors were oblivious about the history behind the article, but hang out on AfD just to offer stupid catch-22 wikilawyering pot-shots and vote to KEEP. Wikipedia doesn't know when I was born, they don't know what I look like, there's nothing about my education in the article, and my most significant achievement and life's work is barely mentioned. That's because it's not a biography that was written the way that most biographies are written -- which is to say, with the permission of the subject (in the case of semi-notable persons). I didn't want the damn article to begin with, and I've been trying to get it deleted for almost 15 months now. No one assumes any accountability for what I've been through on Wikipedia. Here's the blunt truth: Wikipedia is insufficiently competent to deal professionally and responsibly with biographies of living persons. When a semi-notable subject of a biography requests a take-down, then it should come down. If I can't convince Wikipedia, then I plan to convince a jury of my peers. Yes, that's a legal threat. Delete this post, ban me for a third time, note it on WP:ANI, unblock my talk page long enough to scold me again. It hardly matters at this point. It's time for me to start playing on friendlier turf. -- Daniel Brandt 68.90.165.175 06:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
- - Daniel, leaving aside the shocking hypocrisy of complaining that you have your bio here when you publish fabrications about others elsewhere, you have about zero hope of convincing a jury of anything. Still, when they laugh you out of court, perhaps you can then hunt down their exes and ask whether they have any dirty laundry that you can use to try to persuade them to change their minds? In any case, can you not see that some here do agree that your article, and those of other nobodies, should be removed? And also that there is some understanding that close-to-unknowns who have made the news only for negatives will tend to have articles that tend to negative as an outcome of the demand to include only sourced material? A more positive dialogue might bring about needed change here and also achieve what you want for yourself. And before you suggest that you have tried that: you haven't. Dialogues can rarely begin from demands, nor from blackmail. Grace Note 05:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
    - "...publish fabrications about others elsewhere..." "...blackmail..." Grace Note, please be more specific when libeling me, and please use your real name when libeling me. Otherwise I cannot even get you into court, which means that you won't be able to watch them "laugh me out of court." Your little post is a perfect summary of everything I've been talking about when it comes to the lack of accountability on Wikipedia. You drive by, you shoot, someone bleeds, and no one can catch you. Is this fun for you? Is this what Wikipedia is all about? -- Daniel Brandt 68.91.89.150 15:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
    - I've chosen to take the high road - no legal threats, attempting civility, stay in good standing, be a part of the process, etc. Sadly, I can't see that it's been all that much more effective. Look, you're right that there's people who are sympathetic. But the nature of Wikipedia is that it's driven by giving volunteers an illusion of power, and that's incompatible with a community decision of letting "subjects" go. There's just too many people who have a stake in feeling important by such minor exercises of power over marginally notable people. The only way such a change will be made is by "Jimbomancy", as I think it's called. Otherwise, the same discussion will happen repeatedly, and come to the same contentious gridlock. I just don't see much evidence that dialog has meaningful effects here. I'd hate to see anybody sue over this issue, for a lot of reasons - but I'd understand why they did it. I really have no idea how it's all going to turn out. -- Seth Finkelstein 05:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
      - Seth, I don't say that these things happen fast, if they happen at all. I just doubt that they can ever happen by blackmail, threats and conflict. I agree that there is a problem with power-tripping here, which is obviously unlikely to be addressed because those in power are, erm, doing the tripping! It's quite possible that "Jimbomancy" might be required because the arrogance that you are describing is very much a feature of Wikipedia. I think Jimbo is on the whole sympathetic to cases such as yours though and I think that it's quite likely that more Wikipedians than is first apparent are sympathetic to the idea that upsetting our subjects is not actually a goal of ours. Grace Note 07:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

- Would it help to have the article begin with a sentence or two from you? I don't know how we should introduce what are clearly not well rounded biographies but something is clearly needed. Like this maybe:

There's nothing about my education in the article, and my most significant achievement and life's work is barely mentioned. This Wikipedia article is an incompetent biography. -- Daniel Brandt - January 2, 2007

WAS 4.250 12:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

- - Harlan Ellison did an anti-Wikipedia rant with more styleful venom here. Brandt's attacks are rather pedestrian in comparison. *Dan T.* 02:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

BLPfd Comments section 5

Some input on the above, in 3 areas:

Addressing one point made above by Jill and others, please go read Bodil Joensen for a biography I expanded (apologies, it's on a notable Danish porn star, but it's one where this exact issue came up). Go read it. She's dead, but the fact that a simple article discussing her porn career could be easily expanded to a balanced biography, based upon publicly available and citable sources, makes me sceptical that we really have a problem here. Also look at the article on Hani Miletski, a notable academic researcher in the same pornographic field. If someone is notable enough for a biography article, then there will usually be enough material to describe at the least their work and some basic personal information in a balanced manner (Miletski's article is an example) and often enough to do a full bio in a balanced manner (Joensen's article is an example), drawing on cited sources in each case. My point being, lack of sources doesn't necessarily seem to me to be causing huge problems for notable people's biographies in practice. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd support some form of subject input on articles which personally impact upon them. That's not a matter of dropping dispassionate objectivity, nor a charter for caving in on demands and threats. It's a recognition that Wikipedia, like it or not, has the ability to impact on peoples lives and others perceptions in a big way. That power is usually used well, but it is a power and a responsibility, and it's more important to say "is there a genuine basis for review here", than to say "make them jump through hoops to get listened to".

What I would like to suggest as an alternative to "Biographies for Deletion", would be some form of editor committee which takes third party complaints about biographies and articles which are claimed to impact them negatively (with strict criteria clarifying the bases upon which complaints will be considered), so that third parties can post if they have an issue and members of the committee can consider each objection neutrally and direct that the article be rectified in specific particulars as needed (eg a section should be reliably cited or dropped... or a balancing viewpoint should be added if the third party has provided a valid source). I'm wondering if this would achieve more than a "biographies for deletion" listing, since it would have the ability to rule on specific facts and issues, and thus rapidly address the more troublesome BPL's where (as often happens) part may be fine and part may not.

The aim would be specifically to answer concerns of the form "this article contains significant untrue or unbalanced information that impacts on me or my life", and which responds to these by stating which of the bulleted concerns seem to have no basis for complaint and are policy compliant, and which are legitimate concerns possibly needing editorial rectification. Note that we already have a page like this for copyright violation complaints, another area where third parties need to interact with Wikipedia content criteria.) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Last, although it would in many ways be a problematic can of worms, it seems undeniable to me that a person's view of their biography as written by another person (whoever that 'other' may be) is in fact almost always notable in the context of their already-existing bio. Should there therefore be some provision to make a person's (possibly limited length) statement in response to the bio available, as part of NPOV? ("==Statement by John Doe on this biography article==" up to say 500 words or some fixed, reasonable maximum?) Clearly there would have to be criteria to ensure no breach of copyright, no self-promotion, no spam or hate material, no other legally troublesome issues, but since it would be identified as their personal comment, NPOV would be fine. I think I'd like to give that to subjects of bios. Their viewpoint is notable, and provided it's clearly identified as their personal viewpoint, it can only serve readers, to be able to see what subjects say about the bio written on them. Yes it would be unusual, but also it is a very obvious enhancement. It adds content richness and the chance to include additional material, without detracting from existing factuality. It also would work well even in the event of someone who is upset about some negative fact reported in their bio, since then both viewpoints are shown. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How about a test - if said information is on a living person AND it can easily be found in a search engine search (from a non Wiki site of course) then it is fit for inclusion. If it exists and is citable BUT the subject objects to the material, we remove it. That seems pretty simple to me -- Tawker 05:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

What if OJ doesn't want it in his article that he was found liable for the deaths? There's such a thing as negative information that we ought to include against the subject's wishes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

But, that information would come from multiple trivial to search for and find sources. Hence it would pass the test -- Tawker 06:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:Lists of people with disabilities and Category:Lists of people by medical condition

What is the best thing to do for the unsourced lists in Category:Lists of people with disabilities and Category:Lists of people by medical condition? They are almost all unsourced and many have a lot of (or all of them) living people entries. I sourced a few of them like list of HIV-positive people and List of autistic people, but it's a lot of work. I also put some on prod or AFD (which is usually contested). Or I removed the person section, like on Quadriplegia which was also contested. Other examples are list of stutterers, List of physically disabled politicians and List of people with visual disabilities. Garion96 (talk) 16:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Get rid of the category - it's POV by nature. I thoroughly and completely sourced Sociological and cultural aspects of Tourette syndrome, but categorizing Tourette syndrome as a disability is extremely offensive and POV, particularly since the diagnostic criteria for TS do *not* require disability, distress, or impairment in functioning. Read the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I just removed TS from the category: there are guidelines for referencing notables with medical conditions at WP:MEDMOS, using Sociological and cultural aspects of Tourette syndrome and List of people with epilepsy as examples. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I just reviewed more of those lists - they're awful. Some of them are pure speculation. IMO, *any* unsourced addition should be aggressively deleted, for living persons as well as dead. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought. But that would mean for a bunch of them just blanking the whole page. Since prod most likely would be contested and AFD might fail. Garion96 (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure AfD would fail - how about attack page? I know medical authors who will help out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Afd might work yes. I put one up and thought it failed. But it might turn out to be deleted after all. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who became famous through being terminally ill. Garion96 (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Assuming one doesn't fix the list oneself… talking to the major contributors (if any) and removing the unsourced entries should be done prior to AfD (which shouldn't be used as a means to improve an article that isn't fundamentally flawed). The authors should be given a chance to improve the article before subjecting it to the sort of unhelpful WP:IDONTLIKEIT comments that tend to appear on AfD. Discuss (perhaps on the talk page) how the entry criteria may need adjusting. However, some of these lists are just misguided in their scope (too general, impossible to verify or lack enough verifiable notable cases to be worth having). As Garion96 says, finding reliable sources is a lot of work – too much for someone to do for a big list whilst on Afd.

Wrt to the Category:Lists of people with disabilities, I do think it is problematic since the word "disability" can be offensive to some: Not all medical conditions are viewed as being entirely disadvantageous by those who have them. Colin°^Talk 21:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Please remember the fundamental rule of categories: if an article is in a category, it must be obvious to a reader of the article why it is there, on first coming from the category description. First decat all the entries where this isn't so, and you will have left either quite reasonable cats, or empty ones. In the first case the problem is solved, and in the second case the TfD (if you explain what you've done) should be a piece of cake. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's another good one: Category:People by medical or psychological condition. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the editor who started List of notable brain tumor patients, which was the fist rare-medical-condition featured list. How about the following approach to these problems?

Delete unsourced references to living people ruthlessly. For politeness, leave a note about the deletions on the list's talk page.
For deceased persons, leave a note on the talk page in advance of deletion. Then wait a reasonable period before acting.
For lists that get depopulated by this approach, either take the time to source them or nominate them for AFD. Cite this discussion if necessary or drop me a note.

Regarding lists that may be too general or large for Wikipedia, the best I can offer is some background regarding what type of list does work here. Before I compiled the first edition of the brain tumor list (a few years before I discovered Wikipedia) the most comprehensive information of its type on the Internet was this essay by Michael Finley that names about two dozen people.[9] So when I compiled a referenced list of over a hundred names and distributed it through a brain tumor e-mail list the positive responses were really surprising: a major brain tumor charity even contacted me and asked for a copy and distributed parts of it in press releases.

Brain tumors are a rare and usually fatal family of conditions that disproportionately affect children and young adults. Anything that raises awareness in a positive and respectful manner is welcome in that community, partly for the hope of raising research funding and partly to reassure affected patients. The wiki process has done wonders for this information: contributions from other editors have expanded it to more than twice the number of entries I located. So the next time the parents of a twelve-year-old look for ways to soften some terrible medical news they can come to Wikipedia and find out who had a similar condition in their child's favorite areas of interest. I wish we could give them a miracle cure, but what can do is give those parents a moment to smile when they tell their daughter You've got something in common with Elizabeth Taylor and she's getting through this pretty well. So if another list has similar potential for a different condition, let's give it our best effort. Durova^Charge! 16:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

This problem arises everyone now and then. Nearly all lists of people are problematic. For example, we have lists of gay people. I'm pretty sure if you look through the archives both here and the noticeboard you'll find this issue of lists has been raised before. Generally speaking, the consensus AFAIK is to ruthlessly delete people from the list unless the claim is supported by a reliable source Nil Einne 08:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

One thing you might want to do is check the main articles for the people on the list and see if there is any referenced mention of them having the disease in their own article. If so, copy the reference to the list. That's what I'm (slowly) doing on List of haunted locations. I'm running into a lot of resistance from people who think that articles need references but lists don't and that any references should be in the article for the place (or person in your instance). ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

talk pages

I stopped by because of a situation in the Sathya Sai Baba arb case. Take a look at Talk:Sathya Sai Baba/Comments. Basically I think the restrictions on talk-page content are way too onerous, especially for articles about public figures. They make collaborative editing extremely difficult. The point of talk pages is to be able to assess claims and citations, chase down better sourcing for material that appears to be correct but you don't have completely solid cites for, ask people if they have access to works cited in bibliographies, etc. The link above shows someone hassling me over an arb restriction [10], for posting a link to a carefully researched bibliography that was written by a former Sai adherent who subsequently left the movement. Keeping such discussion off of talk pages stops the articles from improving. You end up getting groups of editors collaborating secretly off-wiki instead of openly on the talk page. That is not in the wiki spirit, in my view.

The BLP policy in general should distinguish public figures from not-so-public ones. At least for public figures, the rule for talk pages should be similar to the arb ruling in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Francis Schuckardt, which said don't remove stuff from talk pages unless it's actually libelous, rather than the current extremist practice which destroys the thoroughness and NPOV of articles. If necessary, protect talk pages from Google indexing using a robots.txt tag, or even have restricted subpages that can't be viewed except by established users (initially let's say that means those who can create new articles, i.e. account is a few days old and they've made a few edits) that can be used for more open discussion. That should totally stop search engines and slow down random snooping. More serious snoopers will use Google and find everything on other sites anyway.

Weirdly about the Sai Baba article, it extensively discusses very serious allegations about sex abuses that are not all that convincing, because those were the ones sensational enough to get attention from TV networks and big newspapers and so they're considered well-sourced. This is about a guy who claims to materialize gold jewelry from thin air, a much easier claim to refute in scientific terms than allegations that someone did or didn't commit lurid sex crimes. But those easy and straightforward refutations from Indian skeptics' journals are excluded from the article because of wikilawyering over circulation figures etc, and pointing out the obvious non-miraculous explanations of these materializations was not sensational enough to get made into TV shows.

67.117.130.181 19:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"unsourced or poorly sourced controversial" - what about unsourced trivia?

I've been repeatedly confused by the phrase "unsourced or poorly sourced controversial material".

Does this mean: Material that is EITHER unsourced OR poorly-sourced-and-controversial? Or does it mean: Material that is EITHER unsourced-and-controversial OR poorly-sourced-and-controversial?

Does anyone else find this unclear? I would appreciate if a clarification were made here or on the main page.

The reason I keep stumbling on this is there are certain bio pages I watch that are contstantly begin littered with stuff like "Smith owns two golden retrievers," or "Smith's favorite rock band is Ear Damage and he once served as a guest roadie at their gala concert in Des Moines." In other words, unsourced but not particuarly controversial. I would expect this page to make the policy on handling such additions crystal clear. But it doesn't, at least to me.

Maybe another way of putting my question is, what is the policy on handling unsourced trivia? Personally I think it should be deleted immediately just like unsourced controversial material, but I don't see an easy justification for that on the policy page. Mrhsj 16:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the former, because we're going for strict enforcement of WP:V, which already says that any unsourced material may be challenged and removed on sight. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

If it is unsourced and you think it doesn't belong in the article then remove it - especially if it appears trivial. We can't know which unsourced statement is a problem for the subject. On the other hand this doesn't mean to go around deleting everything that is unsourced. Wikipedia is a work in progress. WAS 4.250 10:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it means controversial material that is unsourced or poorly sourced. It makes no sense to say "you must remove the statement about Smith's golden retrievers if it's unsourced, but it's ok to leave it in if you can cite it to something written on a bathroom wall in Toledo" (or some tabloid or rumor site or whatever). The idea being expressed is that crap sourcing is for our purposes the same as no sourcing.

It's always the case that unverifiable material may be removed anywhere in Wikipedia. This "unsourced or poorly sourced" language generally addresses what must be removed, not what may be. Generally, use common sense. If someone is persistently adding trivia to a particular article, I'd suggest simply discussing it with them, asking why they think it's relevant, etc. If an item is uncontroversial, then there's not any, uh, controversy about it, so use editorial judgement about whether it belongs there, or maybe spend a couple minutes researching the item so you can add a cite. In some cases, stuff like "Smith has two golden retrievers" is added by Smith herself, so should be left alone unless self-promoting or controversial.

As WAS says, we shouldn't go around deleting everything that's unsourced--there's tons of it in WP, most of it uncontroversial, and there have been at least two academic studies about the number of errors in Wikipedia compared to other encyclopedias and we came out fine both times. So we don't need to go berserk removing stuff that looks correct unless there's a recognizable chance from the nature of the item that an error could do damage (mainly this is when the item says something unflattering). What we have to safeguard against is malicious editing, repetition of controversial gossip as if it were fact, etc. Beyond that, we should as usual AGF. 67.117.130.181 12:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Category Anti-Islam sentiment

Isn't labelling someone with this drawing a conclusion on that person and breaking WP:NOR and defamatory which would break BLP? Kyaa the Catlord 17:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Notes links

The wikien-l links in the notes section currently [11] go to wrong posts. Will somebody find the right URL's? PrimeHunter 16:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Now an editor has inserted "failed verification" instead of the links. Somebody should look at this. Sorry for not doing it myself, but I'm not familiar with wikien-l. PrimeHunter 14:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Mother's maiden name

Concern has been expressed about giving the exact dates of birth of living people as it might assist in identity theft. Surely this is even mor etrue of mother's maiden name. I am constantly asked for this as a form of identification. Also, maiden name of wife would assist in identity theft if there are any adult children, even if the subject of the bio is no longer alive. I therefor epropose that maiden name sof mother and wife be excluded from all biographies where this may be a danger.--Holdenhurst 16:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This would be impractical. Often the family connections are part of the story -- if Rose Schlossberg ever seeks a political career, the fact that her mother is Caroline Kennedyg is going to be an important fact. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel like our need to worry about these things is more a symptom of the sad state of identification and security than a fundamental privacy issue. These names are public record and relevant for cross reference and study; I don't think it's an undue danger.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Where the names are on the public record, they should be included. Similarly, where the exact date of birth is on the public record, it should be included.--Runcorn 23:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Can one cite a blog that claims someone is a murderer without evidence as long as one states that this information is from a blog?

Hi, I was contesting the inclusion of material from a blog posted on the article Benjamin M. Emanuel I had deleted the information saying it was poorly sourced contentious material that claimed the father of US Rep Rahm Emanuel was a murderous terrorist and also called for the speedy deletion of the article saying that it was an attack page. My edits were reverted by Admin User: Mel Etitis, thankfully now another Admin has deleted the same things that I had. My question to the board is about Mel Etitis' claim on my talk page that I was “misinterpreting the guidelines concerning blogs”.

The article at this point in the edits (which can be found in that old version at this link )

listed three sources #1 being the reliable Washington-Times and #2-3 being from blogs, it stated

“According to Steve Hendrix of the Washington Post, he was also a member of ‘the pre-independence Israeli underground’.[1]. Chicago-based independent investigator Sherman Skolnick has qualified this further[2], asserting that he was a member of the Irgun, a radical paramilitary organization that was a predecessor to the IDF, and, somewhat contradictory, to have participated in the assasination of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte in 1948 (which would have placed him with the rival Lehi, or Stern Gang). Skolnick is known not to document his sources; the matter was explored further by another independent investigator, Christopher Bollyn. While Bollyn's account is tinged with anti-semitism, and also does not cite all of its sources, Bollyn does assert to have actually called Emanuel at his home in Wilmette, Illinois; when asked about the Irgun, Emanuel said he has been "but a simple soldier",[3] having served under (but not having met) Menachem Begin. Emanuel then also denied having participated in illegal weapons shipments to Palestline, ‘despite press reports’, before terminating the conversation. Bollyn also speculates that Emmanuel Auerbach was related to Moshe Auerbach, who with Pino Ginzburg established an office in Berlin in the 1930s, in an attempt to establish a modus vivendi with the Nazi regime, whereby Jewish emigration to Palestine be allowed (followed by recognition of a Jewish state by the German Reich) in exchange for active opposition to British forces throughout the Middle East.”

I stated that “This page is in violation of wiki-standards concerning biographies of living persons, it cites three sources two of which are blogs which are not reliable sources by wiki-standards and therefor can not be used. The one reliable source mentioned does not claim association with Irgun but only the "the pre-independence Israeli underground" and so does not support the claims made in this article.” User: Mel Etitis explained why I was mistaken by writing on the talk-page that “The article, however, is clear about the sources of the claims that it reports, and reports them in a dispassionate, disinterested, not to say sceptical way. Blogs, etc., shouldn't be used to verify claims made by articles, but they can certainly be referred to as the source of claims that are reported.” I wrote “The use of skeptical caveats does not allow for wiki-pages to use unsubstantiated charges that come from non-reliable unnotable sources." I received no direct response to that post, but at one point Mel Etitis wrote “WP:V#SELF simply doesn't rule out the reference to a blog, it rules out the use of blogs as (the sole) source for what articles say about their subjects. if the article said that he was a murderer, and cited a blog, that would be wrong; if it says that he's accused of murder in a blog, that's very different.” Is this true? Can an editor cite any claim from a blog as long as they cite that blog and add skeptical caveats? At first I thought he was just being biased because he was an early contributor to the article and had placed claims that Benjamin M. Emanuel “was a member of the Irgun, a radical Zionist paramilitary organization” on his son US Rep Rahm Emanuel’s page on 19:47, 9 January 2007 without any references. But as he is an Admin and as another Admin User:NawlinWiki had removed my request for speedy deletion at 18:44, 10 January 2007 and wrote on the title of that edit “doesn't seem to be an attack page, has sources”, I was confused. I went to the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability page and asked if this was acceptable and they seem split on the matter see discussion here. So the Question is: Can one cite a blog that claims someone is a murderer without evidence as long as one states that this information is from a blog?--Wowaconia 19:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

In some cases, yes. If the accusations are notable, relevant and add significant value to the article without giving undue weight to the claims a case could be made for their inclusion. In this particular case however, I think the more pertinent issues are the lack of notability of the subject and the murder claims being the focus and majority of the article; if the accusations were notable and relevant to his son's political career, a short note on the son's article should suffice. Shell ^babelfish 19:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing is a judgement call, so the right answer is "It depends." But since anyone can edit, we create policies and guidelines to help; and saying "no blogs" is a useful rule of thumb. It is better to defer to the judgement of good editors like Mel Etitis rather than to blindly apply rules of thumb like "No blogs". When good editors disagree on things like this they should discuss based on the details of the specific case rather than the details of policy and guides. WAS 4.250 05:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Private information concealment

There is an article about Blackmore's Night vocalist Candice Night. There was a note about her given name. But then her management deleted it. What do you think about it? Is it right or wrong? Geevee (talk) 14:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

If the given name was sourced by The New York Times we would keep the name but if sourced by a legal document as part of a lawsuit we would allow deletion by her. But there is no evidence the anon was her management. But there is no source for the given name. And the article is so poorly sourced it could be deleted altogether. I'm inclined to let it be as is for now. WAS 4.250 14:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

User pages

Are we now to police user page content to this BLP standard or just attempts to associate user pages with notable people's biographies? E.g. Jimbo's bio points to his web page (which looks OK) but maybe not every Wikipedia account holder who is notable wants to advertise his/her edits as being contributed with such gravitas. -- 71.141.231.234 23:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page was vandalised at some point with three unnecessary occurences of the {{failed verification}} tag. I have sorted it out, but watch out for that happening again. Jake95 17:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:AGF --PopPop PopMusic 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I discuss this above in "Notes links". I think it was improper application of "failed verification" (deleting the bad references with no mention on talk) but not vandalism. The best action would be to find the right URL's for the references. I remember reading them once, so they probably still exist with different post numbers. PrimeHunter 18:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

There should be tags there to remind editors that updated links are needed. --PopPop PopMusic 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not vandalism. --PopPop PopMusic 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not vandalism, but only use {{failed verification}} if you keep the incorrect reference. It makes no sense if an article says "not in citation given" when no citation is given. And finding a right reference can be much harder (certainly in this case) if people don't know the false reference which may just need a minor correction, e.g. because a site reorganized URL's. I will try to nail the references before more time is wasted on this. PrimeHunter 14:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the deleted references with corrected URL's which just added 7 to the post number at the end of the URL. I wonder whether similar wikien-l URL changes have caused problems in other places. PrimeHunter 15:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Question re: deceased

Once someone is deceased, BLP no longer applies. Shouldn't the WPBiography/BLP templates come down from the articles then? What is the proper way to handle this? F.F.McGurk 16:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Just do it. If you see a template that is not appropriate then delete it. If you are viewing an article because a person just died, add their date of death with a source and remove the BLP from the talk page and the category "living person" from the article. If someone wants to fight about it, wait a couple of days to revert ... people get emotional about these things and it can wait while people mourn. WAS 4.250 16:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the standard template, it says {{WPBiography|living=yes}}; just alter "yes" to "no".--Runcorn 17:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Sourced Rumors

What is the policy on sourced rumors in general? Also here are a couple of particular instances I have questions about:

What is Wikipedia's policy on properly sourced but completely unfounded rumors? Rumors which have absolutely no evidence to back them up, but nonetheless are well known rumors such as the insidious Richard Gere gerbilling rumor that people keep re-inserting into his article.

How about unfounded rumors which exist but are completely relegated to a small group of people. Such as the little known rumor that Michael Jordan retired in 1993 because he was banned from the NBA for a period of time for gambling? Quadzilla99 22:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a judgement call on what's "encyclopedic". We try to steal other's judgements by insisting on noteable sources for such things - so for example if the New York Times sees fit to mention it then we certainly can also. Ask why is it important enough to be mentioned. Imagine trying to justify it to the person you are writibg about. Do you say "Well people like to read dirt on famous people" ? If so leave it out. But some rumors get famous enough they need to be covered. Some rumors have consequences such that the whole sordid thing meeds to be explained for it all to make sense. But usually people make up lies, trash papers print trash, life goes on, and nothing encyclopedic has happened. WAS 4.250 01:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Commercial endorsements by living people

A recent discussion on the Village Pump about whether it was ever appropriate to list product endorsements in the articles of celebrities (consensus: yes) got me thinking about the potential problems with unsourced claims of endorsement. Many jurisdictions have a distinct cause of action for false endorsement claims, i.e., making it look like someone has endorsed a product or service when they have not, and it's not extreme to imagine this amounting to libel in even ordinary cases of endorsement.

I propose that all claims that a living person was paid to endorse a particular product or service be expressly treated as inherently "controversial," so that they are to be removed if they are not reliably sourced. Thoughts? Postdlf 16:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course. All claims about living people should be sourced, and any claim that might be a problem should be sourced or deleted immediately. WAS 4.250 17:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Basically I want to add to this policy page something to the effect of "Unsourced claims that an individual endorsed a particular commercial product or service should always be removed on sight." In other words, state that such unsourced claims are a problem as an absolute rule, rather than going into a pointless discussion over whether that endorsement might have negative implications. Postdlf 18:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

There are at least two schools of thought in this regard. For example, I think it is best to give general rules and identify factors to consider while SlimVirgin likes to "nail things down" so admins have a useful tool in a dispute. So long as WP:IAR is a policy there is no conflict between those two divergent points of view. WAS 4.250 00:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Given the legal risk from even an ostensibly benign but false endorsement, I think this should be "nailed down" as an absolute rule, requiring removal of all unsourced claims of this nature. Postdlf 16:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There are thousands of such cases that could be itemized. Do we nail them all down? And what of WP:IAR? Doesn't that make "absolute rules" not absolute? WAS 4.250 18:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with WAS here. We cannot have wording on each exception. Editor's good judgment plays a role in this. I would delete an unsourced claim of product endorsement on sight, but that is just me. Others may ask for sources and wait for few days before deleting. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What to do when you think an editor is the subject of a biography?

What should one do when you notice an editor that is adding things to a bio that seem to indicate a possibility of the user being a subject of that biography, or affiliated to a subject? I noticed User:75.80.55.135 adding some things that seemed to suggest just that. The way the user is adding things has got some of the edits reverted though (not because the edits were really malicious though). And I wanted to make sure that the user, if indeed a subject or affiliated with a subject, doesn't leave wikipedia with a bad experience, which is the general idea of WP:LIVING#Dealing_with_edits_by_the_subject_of_the_article I think. So I left a message on the talk page, and I just wanted to make sure if I handled that right. If I am not being too presumptuous, or on the other hand if I am not assuming too much here, and if what I did was at all needed. What do the rest of you think?--Codemonkey 03:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

You can place a notice at WP:COI/N or at WP:BLP/N, so that editors monitoring these type of articles can offer some assistance. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought your message was very well-considered and thoughtful, Codemonkey. Too often the subject of an article, obviously concerned about how they are presented, finds themselves thoroughly bitten by editors who are trying to do the right thing. Gently nudging the "outsider" to what is after all only our internal, inward-looking idea of what the right thing is should be approved, and I approve it in your case. Good work. Grace Note 08:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Dates of birth for living persons

It may be that the current policy is unrealistic and should be more flexible. Those people in the very many directories extant, such as Burkes, Debretts, Who's Who, Kellys, Whittakers, Who's Who in Scotland, Dods, etc., all carry the full dates of birth for living people/people in the public domain. David Lauder 14:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not familiar with all of those directories but the ones that I've researched (and I assume the rest) are "opt-in" directories. That is, the person listed can choose (and often pays) to be listed, and is involved in the decision what information to release. That means that they have put their birthdates in the public domain themselves. They have volunteered to take on the identity risks and accepted the additional burdens of policing their credit reports, etc.

If a birthdate can be sourced back to such a directory or if a definitive case can be made that the person is a clearly public person, we may leave it in. Absent such evidence, we ought to have a presumption toward privacy and ought not to be disclosing someone's exact birthdate. Birthyear aids the reader in their understanding of the culture and times which influenced them. Exact birthdate on the other hand is almost never essential for the reader's understanding of the biography. Rossami (talk) 20:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I would side with Rossami's interpretation here. Better to err on the side of caution, in particular in bio articles about people that may be "notable" for WP, but nontheless are not considered "public figures". ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

None of the principal UK directories I have listed accept payment for entries. That sort of thing is unheard of, at least with these better quality directories, all of whom insist upon certain fundamental facts (includes DOB) in the entries. The individuals once approached (and not the other way around) may indeed limit the other information but agreeing to an entry and then refusing proper biographical inmformation doesn't make sense. In addition, once you agree for them to have an entry for you, the editors will always add any new relevant information in the public domain without passing it by the individual. Certainly all the peerage and landed gentry entries are listed automatically, whether or not the individuals give their consent. Last but not least, in Scotland any member of the public can pay £10 and spend half a day in New Register House, Edinburgh, looking at every single birth death and marriage detail, and noting them all if he so desires, right up to today. Its all in the public domain really. David Lauder 21:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Controversial -> potentially controversial

For something to be controversial, by definition, it must have already caused a controversy. I'm pretty sure the idea of this policy is to prevent things from getting to that stage, so I think we should change it to "potentially controversial". -Amark moo! 02:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This could be problematic, because almost anything could be "potentially controversial". I understand and share Amark's concern about preventing controversy before it happens, but we should also make sure that the wording doesn't open the door too far. Instead of replacing "controversial" with "potentially controversial" throughout, perhaps it would be better to add a sentence or section about potential controversies, applying a reasonable person standard. Something like, "Material does not need to have created a controversy to be removed under this policy. If a reasonable person could be expected to find unsourced or poorly sourced material controversial, it should be removed." How about that? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to alter the criteria for listing dates of birth

There has lately been a bit of controversy and heated debates about including the dates of birth for certain articles. Here I would like to propose some sort of change to clarify matters further to prevent such wide interpretation of the policy as has been done. The current text is:

Wikipedia includes exact birthdates for some famous people, but including this information for most living people should be handled with caution. While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. With identity theft on the rise, it has become increasingly common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information. When in doubt about the notability of the person in question, or if the subject of a biography complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth rather than the exact date.

I would like to open up discussion on altering the bolded part of that quote. Certain possible ideas that have come up have been:

Specifically mentioning that subjects of articles under 18 should not have their full birthday listed.
- An exception to this would be if the figure's birthday is readily available and the figure has voluntarily entered media coverage about themself.
Specifically allowing both the month and year of birth, instead of just the year (as listing the month as well is already common practice, might as well amend the policy)
Some sort of clarification as what qualifies as the notability of someone being in question: perhaps having a no consensus AFD debate? (This may lead to instruction creep, so perhaps not)

I'm leaving a note on the village pump to get some opinions about this as well, but I'd be much interested in opening up a discussion here about this. Cowman109^Talk 16:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm agreeing on certain issues above. First Month and Year would not facilitate identity theft and so seems fine. Second if a subject has specifically told a media outlet (like Gales Author's Online for example) what their birthday is, evidently they do not care if everyone knows. That is quite different from *finding* the birthdate in a public document like a court record, since that is not voluntary. Third I do not feel that a public figure *complaining* about their birthdate being present should at all influence wikipedia. Next they will be complaining about us using their middle name, or saying the town in which they were born, and in what pissy movie they were. We're not here to mollify personalities, but to provide information. Wjhonson 18:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

My two cents. If the persons birthdate is listed in a number of reliable sources, list it. If it can't be well sourced, don't list it. I am not buying into an identity theft problem issue. Cheers --Tom 17:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I have e-mailed Brad Patrick for his legal opinion on the identity theft issue. Otherwise, I am inclined to agree with Tom. --Aervanath 19:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: Brad Patrick gave me a very polite brush-off. However, I don't want to drop this issue. Can someone get a real legal opinion on this? We don't want Wikipedia to get sued because of this policy. However, my gut instinct is that if it's well-sourced, and the article subject is over 18, then there should be no legal issues with this. However, I AM NOT A LAWYER, so this is something which should get real legal input, or at least some amateur legal research. --Aervanath 21:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Err on the side of being too conservate and do not hide behind a supposed protection in the law. CyberAnth 21:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

A cite for every statement - "controversiality" is irrelevant.

As far as WP:V is concerned I'm wondering if it should be a 100% cite policy for each and every statement in an article, since users are using it that way already under the assumption that any statement could be potentially controversial.

I don't necessarily think that a 100% cite policy is a particularly good or workable one, but if that is what we effectively have then the article should say so. Artw 03:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

In addition if the policies WP:CIVIL, WP:BITE and WP:POINT do not apply once WP:BLP is invoked then that should be made clear. Artw 15:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a big problem in the Ann Coulter article. Among her many activities, she is in the business of making "exciting" speeches at colleges. She often says "outrageous" things. People often walk out. Other people then "defend" her and/or object to the people who walked out. There is often news coverage in the student paper and sometimes even in the one from the town. It usually covers both sides.

Many editors want to include every one of these events, want to repeat the "outrageous" things, etc. Many do NOT want to repeat the words of the "defenders" and "objectors." If you quote the whole source, the article becomes too big. If you summarize what the "defenders" say, some editors call it original research. What is to be done? Lou Sander 16:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Lou, this is where Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight comes into play. Apparently immature editors seem highly inclined to make BLPs little more than slagfests, and are allowed to do so under the very false assumption that WP:CITE fully meets each and every element of WP:BLP. It does not. When an article begins to become a slagfest of "controversies", it does not matter if each controversial statement can be cited. If the article is starting to take on an Undue Weight devoted to controversies, one should step in and take action because it has reached a point of being potentially libelous. It is NOT the time to negotiate over content at that point but to remove some, explain the action on the Talk Page, and enact blocks for contrary editors if it must come to that. CyberAnth 21:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

At present Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight is very unclearly written, with a lot of vague statements about points of view. It should be rewritten so that it makes it clear that too many factual statements that could be considered negative are cause for stubbing and article. Artw 21:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

What is unclear about this from the policy?

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

CyberAnth 04:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

CyberAnth weighs in

I fully support an interpretation that each and every statement beyond what is clearly common knowledge be cited in BLPs - especially in BLPs.

Apart from such a standard, determining what is or is not "controversial" is clearly a subjective exercise. It is therefore inherently error-prone. Within the space of that proneness is risk - risk of liability. These are hard facts, folks.

What is or is not "controversial" must therefore become a strictly objective exercise. The sole and exclusive way for that to happen is via strict adherence to WP:V. And even WP:V itself is very clear that any statement not cited may be removed.

The perennial incantations of many editors and admins - "BITE" and "POINT" and "CIVIL" - are typically rouges to allow irresponsible editorship to go on. "I like it" - "this is my nest" - "this may spillover to upset my articles" - these are the more likely causes underneath the incantations.

Yet it has all along been the responsibility of editors to know WP content policies before adding material to the project - especially with regards to BLPs. And they are forewarned of this at numerous turns, including when they sign up, and on BLP article Talk Pages.

It is time - far, far past time - to require real responsibility in editorship on BLPs. While this may cause some transitory upsetting of "nests", that is an entirely acceptable thing if it serves to produce the desired outcomes, and to alleviate even the potential for liability. And besides, the only reason it might be upsetting to some is that the culture here has been far too lax with BLPs.

A helpful analogy here is the mass deletion of replaceable fair use images by a cohort of admins. Yes, it upsets some editors' "nests" - editors who had a responsibility to know better in the first place. Yet given the GFDL, and despite the upsetting, it is for both the the long and short-term good of the project. If you are reading this, it is therefore in your interest as well.

Jimbo has well stated that "WP:BLP is essential the future of the project in every regard and must be taken very very seriously in all respects."[12] I invite others to join me in taking these words to heart, and following it with commensurate actions.

CyberAnth 21:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

CyberAnth, a few seperate points about your edits based on this policy:

The word "controversial" exists in the policy for a reason. By claiming anything at all may be controversial you act as if the word is not in the policy. You are supposed to use reasonable judgement and not apply it to every single case of uncited material.
Last time you got in trouble, I and others told you to slow down. Look at it this way. "Poison" means "too much". Too much water is poisonous. Too much application of a good policy can be poisonous. Slow down. Balance is the key.
Our articles are far too uncited. May I suggest political living persons are a better place to start than popular culture living persons? WAS 4.250 21:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

So, who is going to define "clearly common knowledge" then? "Otto Waalkes is a German comedian and actor. His perhaps most famous trademark are the 'Ottifanten' ('Ottiphants'), elephant-like comic characters of his own design." is clearly common knowlege for me (and every other German out there), but I'm sure it's not common knowledge in the US. Whose common knowledge are we going to use? --Conti|✉ 21:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:CK already exists so we need not debate here what is and is not common knowledge. Even so, how hard is it to cite http://www.otto-waalkes.com/ to verify he is a comedian and http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/11/the_man_who_beat_borat.html to verify his pre-occupation with comedic elephants? The bit about elephants could even be interpreted as vandalism without verification. CyberAnth 22:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That was just an example, of course. It's of course not a problem at all to cite all this. But you're right, Wikipedia:Common knowledge is helpful. --Conti|✉ 22:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I just cited the elephant pre-occupation in the article.

I suggest the following as particularly pertinent from Wikipedia:Common knowledge:

Anything the reporting Wikipedians don't have direct personal experience with. Most of us don't have personal experience with space travel, or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. But many of us have experienced popular music, know our local geography, and are familiar with the meanings of words within our local communities, although, as always, if your edit is challenged, no matter how convinced you are that you're right, you must cite a reliable published source.

CyberAnth 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

An additional suggestion

Since meeting WP:BLP relies heavily on the citation and reference tags, which are complex to use and quite frankly not something a new or casual user is likely to bother themselves with, perhaps anyone who is not a longstanding user should be banned from editing articles where WP:BLP applies altogether? In the long run it can only save trouble. Artw 21:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not at all difficult to cite articles with reference tags. It is Easy-peasy with the right tool! The problem is the community has been lax in informing new users of Wikicite. I would very strongly suggest that in the Welcome! message new users receive, a link be provided to the program. Even so, how difficult is to simply place [http://www.url.com] or (Author, Year, Page #) after adding material? This is what we were supposed to learn how to do in middle school! The great and tragic irony is that here we have people arguing for lower than middle school standards in Wikipedia BLPs, and ganging up on someone who so much as points that fact out. CyberAnth 21:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that Wikicite works only for Windows users. I agree that we should do a better job in educating new users about providing citations, but I think that we fall down more on the cultural side than the technical side. It's more important to explain why citation is important, and required, than to enforce a particular method of it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Point taken about Windows and Wikicite, although most Wikipedians probably use Windows. Cultural change in such a crucially important matter as WP:BLP will best come via enforced citation. Any method will do, for example the very simple [http://www.url.com] or (Author, Year, Page #). CyberAnth 21:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the edit tool should be changed so that it only allows users to add new sentences or paragraphs if they provide a cite? Or autobans them if they fail to provide a cite three times running? Artw 21:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Rather, perhaps people can learn to take responsibility for their actions. CyberAnth 21:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Now, we could leave the wikipedia as it is and let pweople stumble into such situatiosn,and find that the time they have spent editing has actually been a complete waste of time, or we can let them knwo what thesituation is upfront andf save them the bother.

Also there are exceptiosn to people taking responsibility for their actions. For instance, if a user carries out a series of rude and destructive edits, but can cite WP:BLP (no matter how applicable), they shouldnlt have to have any responsibility for their actions whatsoever. I believe that's in the rules. Artw 21:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you are not really trying to engage in meaningful dialog. CyberAnth 22:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Why would you say such a terrible thing?

I merely wish that this page should reflect WP:BLP as it has been used. Artw 23:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that this suggestion is completely against the idea of Wikipedia. Users should never be forbidden from editting articles just because the individual contained within the article is alive. The Earth has over six billion people, and while less than one percent of them could be construed as notable for coverage in Wikipedia, we should not restrict new users to write solely about historical (read deceased) individuals.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wot about foreign language subjects and sources?

There is a problem at Boris Stomakhin with contributors edit warring. The problem is that the sources for the negative comments are all in Russian. Not only is it impossible for non-russian speakers to read them, we can't even tell if they are reliable" or not. For example, "death to all russians" is sourced to [13]. So, what guidance is offered? In a sense, these sites fail "verifiability" for most of us William M. Connolley 12:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Being in Russian does not make it fail verifyability, it just means that only someone who can read russian and has good judgement on Russian sources has a useful opinion on whether the source is reliable or not. Sometimes a good solution is if both sides can agree on an english language characterization of the reliability of the source (that charcacterization can be summarized in the text and be provided in full in a footnote that includes the original russian text). WAS 4.250 22:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Um. In this case, the two sides don't appear to agree on anything! Is there a default position in cases like this? How is an admin supposed to judge whether the BLP "opt-out" for 3RR is applicable, when its impossible to tell whether the source is good or not? William M. Connolley 22:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

How is an admin supposed to judge whether the BLP "opt-out" for 3RR is applicable, when that admin is not qualified to tell whether the source is good or not? Such an admin should not make a judgement when they realize they are unqualified. Aren't you an expert on some subjects? Do you have experience with admins making judgements in areas they lack an adequate background? Are you using this episode to illustrate a larger point? Or is that simply a lucky secondary point? WAS 4.250 04:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The default position with WP:BLP seems to be to delete everything, then claim WP:BLP if challenged on it, possibly being quite rude to other editors in the process, then sit back and win applauds from various admins. Artw 22:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The default position is that in BLPs, "You must get it right", or when unwilling to do this, perhaps find another area.

So my feeling of it is, my sense of it is, that the living biographies part of Wikipedia, which is one of the most difficult and most important areas, is one where we're really seeing a really massive movement towards higher quality. A lot of people in the community are really committed to that.

And the few people who are still sort of in the old days, saying, "Well, you know, it's a wiki, why don't we just... ", yeah, they're sort of falling by the wayside, because lots of people are saying actually, we have a really serious responsibility to get things right.[14]

CyberAnth 09:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Have you posted a request yet to any of the folks at Wikipedia:Translators available#Russian-to-English or from any of the users who self-describe as fluent in Russian?
You could also compare the article with the biography in the Russian Wikipedia (which, admittedly, is in Russian but even a machine-translation can sometimes clear up points of controversy). Comparing the english biography to the foreign language version is particularly helpful because it's one of the few tactics which can address the "undue weight" concern. Even if you translate and verify the disputed facts, they may still present an incomplete or biased view of the subject. Our counterparts in the Russian Wikipedia are charged to uphold the same standards for NPOV and balance as we are here. Rossami (talk) 22:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Many articles are going to need to use foreign sources if Wikipedia is to avoid Western bias. There are many Wikipedia contributors who speak other languages. It should not be difficult to find an impartial editor (or even an admin) who speaks the relevant language and can check the validity of the source. Wikiprojects on countries that speak that language and translation projects are a good place to look. Also as Rossami points out most people have userboxes whith their language proficiencies which add them to relevant categories. Off the top of my head, Mikkalai is a native Russian speaker, you could approach him. WJBscribe 14:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I would like to note that Mikkalai participated already (although very little) in editing this article. Main problem: Stomakhin allegedly made comments which may be offensive for Russian nation. It is most important to have an impartial editor, and that would be a non-Russian who knows Russian language. I suggest User:HanzoHattori because he seems to be also well familiar with Chechnya and other subjects relevant to Stomakhin case. Biophys 18:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Support and comment. I agree with William M. Connolley. But the reason of this editing war is actually violation of LP policy by User:Vlad fedorov. Please see my arguments here Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Violations_of_LP_policy. Biophys 16:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that Biophys claimed some Russian sources to be unreliable because they contradict to other Russian source. Biophys failed to show the real contradiction. All interested may see how Biophys lied about controversy in citations here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Points_to_answer_for_Biophys and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#quote_.22Death_to_Russia.22 Biophys claims the source to be unreliable since he believes in conspiracy theory that prominent Izvestia journalist who also was a reporter of NTV Russian TV channel wa shired by Russian government to defame Stomakhin. However this theory contradicts to obvious facts.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is actually not translation. The problem is that User:Vlad fedorov hates Boris Stomakhin. I also do not like Boris Stomakhin and can understand Vlad. Vlad clearly should not be editing this article, as was noted by User:Jkelly. Biophys 17:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that Biophys claimed some Russian sources to be unreliable because they contradict to other Russian source. Biophys failed to show the real contradiction. All interested may see how Biophys lied about controversy in citations here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Points_to_answer_for_Biophys and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#quote_.22Death_to_Russia.22 Biophys claims the source to be unreliable since he believes in conspiracy theory that prominent Izvestia journalist who also was a reporter of NTV Russian TV channel wa shired by Russian government to defame Stomakhin. However this theory contradicts to obvious facts.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Translation of the material needs to be provided for verifiability. See WP:V#Sources_in_languages_other_than_English ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree. If there is a highly controversial article or a source that became a reason of edit warring, such as this: [15], one should provide a really good complete translation of the entire article to English. Then everyone can see what it really says and judge that citation was not out of context. This particular article has no date. So, we even do not even know when it has been written.Biophys 20:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course the whole article should be translated for other users to see what Stomakhin was actually writing about - extermination of all Russians without mercy.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not. But I included this controversy in the last paragraph of article Boris Stomakhin to find a compromise without violating LP policies too much. I hope that resolves our differences. Biophys 16:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't resolve our differences since you have deleted all the citations which should be kept for Wikipedia readers to judge themselves whether Stomakhin is extremist who called to commit terrorist attacks against Russian civilians and to exterminate Russians or not.Vlad fedorov 17:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Edits claiming someone is dead

I was wondering what kind of "warning" I should give a user who edits an article to state a person has passed away? See Jaco van der Westhuyzen. It seems like a pretty serious thing to be claiming. I did a search on google news and he seems to be almost certainly alive and well. - Shudda ^talk 23:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd use shiny new: {{subst:uw-error1|Jaco van der Westhuyzen}} . You can also use uw-error2 or uw-error3 for stonger versions of the warning. The full set of warnings can be found at WP:UWT WJBscribe 14:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. - Shudda ^talk 09:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Modification to the dealing of BLP

A lot of heat has been thrown about lately due to the aggressiveness that BLP allows editors to utilize in conforming to the guideline. I think that the project would benefit from adding a request that any of the following be fulfilled:

References be sought after by the person responding to the BLP report
Contact a regular author of the article to see if they can contribute with their expertise on the subject to contribute references
Leave a message on the talk page

If these are done, and there is no response, then removal of controversial and unsourced material should be utilized as a last resort. We are a community and we will work a lot better if we communicate instead of forcing some individuals to work from scratch (and do not quote Talk:Ron Jeremy#WP:BLP, I'm tired of that whole situation).—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 08:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You stand anywhere from zero to a negative differential of weakening this policy. This is a policy initiated from the top-down because it is that important. That said, I think your proposal might work fine if you were willing to donate a billion dollars to the Wikipedia Foundation to cover all the extra potential for lawsuits that come their way. Look, it is the responsibility of the editors adding material to cite his or her sources, especially in BLPs. If they skip over reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents/Policies_and_guidelines then anything "lost" is regrettable, but they had a responsibility to know the policies in the first place before typing. CyberAnth 21:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

That... totally circumvents the point of BLP. The idea is that we remove negative information which might be false instantly, not after we've contacted a bunch of people and waited for them to find sources. Your idea treats such information just like any other unsourced information. -Amark moo! 21:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

And as such it is causing major, major problems. I can see the point of WP:BLP but I seriously think that it should be re-examined and tweaked slightly so that it is not a tool for griefers. Ryūlóngs second two suggestions seem like very good steos towards this and have been made elsewhere - I think they should be written into WP:BLP, possibly as suggestions rather than requirements

The First suggetsion, "References be sought after by the person responding to the BLP report", would be a major shift in the burden of work, and would terminally weaken WP:BLP, however I think it's reasonable to expect in cases where there is nt teribbly contensious and a very simple and obvious search that will return the information from a decent source then it isn't really that controversial, and editors should consider that step before throwing the information out.

This would make it harder for a dedcated implementer of WP:BLP to edit dozens of articles at a time without paying much attention to their individual content, but seeing the resulkts of that played out over WP:AN/I I don't see that as a great loss.

Of course, we could just decide we like WP:BLP the way it is being implemented today. If so i suggest we modify WP:BLP per my rather sarcastic conversation aove, and modify WP:CIVIL, WP:POINT, the five pillars and other policies that are circumnavigated by WP:BLP to make it clear that they no longer apply. Artw 16:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

A compromise option might be to create some templates which could be placed on an article's talk page (and possibly the talk pages of regular contributors), noting that material incompatible with WP:BLP has been removed, but can be restored if properly cited. Unless the information has been purged from the article's history, editors should be able to see what material has been removed, and therefore what citations need to be found before the material is restored — and the template could point this out. Applying a template like this might help reduce the emotional response when material is removed. This way, the material is still removed ASAP (to cover Wikipedia's collective ass from lawsuits), but regular editors of an article might feel less affronted. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable compromise. It's certainly better than simply slapping a ^{[citation needed]} tag on the questionable material. However, I see that the vast majority of BLP removals are already accompanied by a descriptive edit summary, which serves to both make clear the reasons for removal and mark exactly the diff where the information was removed. Frise 03:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Really? A lot of the edit summaries I've seen have almost delighted in their obtuseness and the awesome absoluteness of WP:BLP (vich vill be obeyed at ALL TIMES). Also edit summariries are somewhat transitory - unless we assume people always look at the entire edit log for an article when considering an edit. Frankly as a solution it leaves almost everything to be desired. Artw 04:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you in favor of a talk page template? Frise 04:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Very definately. And a modification to the WP:BLP guidelines to encourage using it. Artw 04:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Josiah's idea is good, with some very important caveats. The sum total of WP:BLP is not satisfied by simple adherence to WP:CITE, although it is is a very common misconception among Wikipedians that it does. Often, the problematic issues are more nuanced but problematic just the same. For example, say a biography (or more properly, something under the guise of a biography) contains numerous sentences explaining the person generally, but the rest of the article is little other than a slugfest of controversies and criticisms, placed in most often by that person's critics. In this case, and even if each item is properly cited, WP:Undue weight is the concern - and an undue weight problem is a BLP problem. Another example is often found in the sections on the subject's viewpoints and beliefs. When a subject's views are expressed primarily from the perspective of his or her critics, even if properly cited, this violates WP:NPOV, and as such it too is a BLP problem. So, perhaps a way to deal with this is to make a talkpage template that says, "Material incompatible with WP:BLP has been removed from this article. Further information may be available in this article's edit history." I think such a template is a good idea for articles that show no recent edit history and/or no obvious evidence that the article is in recent editors' watchlist. CyberAnth 20:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The further information being in the edit hoistory is not, IMHO, a particularly good solution. The template as you suggets it would simplky be a continuation of the status quo. Artw 21:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The template could contain a summary of the most common WP:BLP problems. I'm thinking of something like:

Material has been removed from this article in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons. This policy states that "editors should remove any controversial material about living persons that is either unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Reliable sources, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source." Care should also be taken to avoid giving undue weight to minority viewpoints.

This page's history will show the information that has been removed. If it is possible to restore that information with citations from reliable sources, and while maintaining a balanced tone, editors may do so. However, please do not restore content that violates WP:BLP. Thank you.

(It would be good to link the word "history" to the page's history, but I don't know how to do that.)

Would a wording like this satisfy everyone's concerns? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Great work, Josiah. :-) CyberAnth 06:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I made a slight phrasing tweak, and invite anybody to improve my prose — I sometimes have an unfortunate propensity towards prolixity. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I added quotation marks. We should specify exactly what's being quoted from the policy page by setting it off with quotation marks for ease of verification. Wjhonson 07:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The "undue weight" part was my wording, not taken from the policy, so I've adjusted the quotation marks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Try this: "Improperly sourced material has been removed per this policy. Please do not restore it without appropriate sourcing." Lou Sander 11:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that a positive wording ("you're welcome to restore it if these criteria are met") may get a better reaction than a negative wording ("don't do this"). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing is only one issue. Improper conjectural interpretation, juxtaposition of individually well sourced facts, i.e. OR, can also be issues. Crum375 12:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but unsourced/badly sourced negative material is serious, obvious, and can be fixed without justification. The other stuff isn't quite like that. Lou Sander 12:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily. I have seen cases where 'poor sourcing' was an extremely contentious issue among wikipedians, and other cases where OR based on conjecture or juxtaposition was patently obvious. So I think that both NOR and V violations can range from 'obvious' to 'subtle', depending on the situation. The only point I can see is that lack of sufficient sourcing can render the entire item unacceptable, while the other criteria (to which I would add NPOV) only require a revision or rewrite. Crum375 13:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Banjee

Could some people please take a look at Banjee and then weigh in at Talk:Banjee#WP:BLP on whether {{BLP}} belongs on that talk page? One editor thinks it does, because the article has a photograph of an (unidentified) living person and mentions another living person by name. I think it doesn't, because the article isn't a biography of a living person, but rather an article about a group of people. —An gr 17:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It is standard to put the BLP talk template on every article in the category living person which is what we are very loosely are calling "biographies", but many are merely encyclopedia articles on some noteworthy events organized in an article titled by the name of a living person rather than a real biography. It is very rare but not forbidden to put it elsewhere. Use good judgement and don't fight over it. WAS 4.250 20:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The article in question is not in Category:Living people because it's an article about a cultural phenomenon, not a living person. —An gr 23:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think whenever living people are involved the ethics of WP:BLP should be consulted. CyberAnth 20:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

List of contentious articles

Do we really need the list of articles about living persons that have been contentious? This looks to me to be irrelevant to a policy page, and I would suggest it is removed. Enchanter 21:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd concur that it is irrelevant and should be removed. It causes an undue focus on articles that have been problematic in the past but are now resolved, though the normal editing to WP:BLP standard. --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 00:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's a hold-over from when we needed some example pages to properly explain what the original BLP proposal was about and why it was important. At this point, it has some minor value as a teaching tool but we'd probably do better pointing new readers to the Talk page archives. Take it out. Rossami (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the list --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 23:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Biography of living persons adminship

Biography of Living Persons Administrators ("BLP Admins") carry out a specialized, narrowly tailored administrative role within Wikipedia. Please see WP:BLPADMIN to offer your thoughts on this proposal. CyberAnth 03:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Negative material being posted at Gillian McKeith

I hope this isn't the wrong place to post this. I posted a report yesterday at WP:AN/3RR, but nothing was done. I appreciate that administrators are working on a voluntary basis, and may not have had time to look into my complaint.

Gillian McKeith is a living person who writes books on nutrition. She uses the title "Dr Gillian McKeith", but her doctorate is not recognised by the authorities in the area where she obtained it. (Correspondence course, and payment of fees.) She appears regularly on television, and claims to be able to diagnose and cure health problems by examining peoples faeces, which I believe she does on her TV programmes.

A user Briantist started inserting "aka the poo lady (passes herself off as doctor)" into the first line of the article. Several users have reverted him, but he keeps reinserting it, sometimes under the pretext of reverting vandalism.

He made four reverts yesterday, and I left a message on his talk page and also on the article talk page. I asked him to revert himself. He replied that "the rule doesn't apply if you are restoring items that have references which are being replaced by opinion". I've read the 3RR policy page carefully, and I can't see that it says that. (In any case, his edits are not being replaced by "opinion"; they're just being removed.) He added "Also, it's not me who appears on TV every week at about 830pm forcing people to smell and look at poo!" (This can all be found here.)

I reported him, but no administrator took any action following my report, and I accept that. However, he came back today, and made two edits, which I think violated the spirit of 3RR. He had been changing "Gillian McKeith" to "Gillian McKeith aka the poo lady". Now, he changed it to "Scatalogically infamous Gillian McKeith".[16] And he had been adding "passes herself of as doctor". Now he added "who sells herself as Dr Gillian McKeith".[17] I reverted him, and he reverted me with "rvv".[18]

I apologise if I shouldn't bring this here, but I think this is more than a content dispute. I've read various policy pages, and feel I'm now familiar with several of them, but I find this one more difficult to absorb, because the idea of "negative, unsourced" is rather subjective. Briantist insists that his claims have references, and I believe it's quite true that her doctorate is unaccredited, and that some people call her "the poo lady", but I think the living Gillian McKeith might well object if she saw such inflammatory langauge in the very first sentence.

It doesn't seem to be a 3RR matter any longer, because his more recent reverts were not within the twenty-four hours. But I'd really appreciate some help from someone experienced who has a good understanding of the BLP policy. Thanks. ElinorD 11:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's still going on,[19] and I'd really appreciate some help from an experienced Wikipedian. I know that removal of negative, unsourced material is an exception from the three-revert rule, but this stuff apparently is sourced. It's still couched in very insulting language. My instinct tells me that we should not start an encyclopaedia article with:

Gillian McKeith (aka the poo lady (also passes herself off as Dr Gillian McKeith but does not have an accredited doctorate (born September 28 1959, Perth, Scotland) is a controversial Scottish television presenter and author.

It sounds completely unlike what any reputable encyclopaedia would publish. However, I don't want to keep reverting, and since I'm not at all a fan of Gillian McKeith, I certainly don't want to get blocked for defending her! I reported Briantist for his 3RR violation, but nothing was done. If an administrator just tells me to leave it, I'll leave it. Thanks. ElinorD 14:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with "the poo lady" if that is what she is called in reliable sources, but 'passes herself off' is over the line and was rightly removed. I cannot see taking that out as edit warring. Even if we take a legalistic approach to counting reverts (and I do not), blp makes clear that such removals should not count. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw this the other day, but was busy. I agree with Tom about "passes herself off as". However, I find "scatologically infamous", and "sells herself as Dr Gillian McKeith" if possible, even more problematic.[20] [21] [22] To begin an article with "Scatologically infamous Gillian McKeith" completely violates WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:BLP. While NPOV and NOR violations do not absolve a user from the obligation to adhere to 3RR, violations of BLP do, and any editor should feel free to continue taking out such material, without regard to 3RR. The insertion of such material is borderline trolling, and I wouldn't hesitate to block someone for it (after warning), even if he did not violate 3RR. I'm rather busy at the moment, but I think an administrator should keep an eye on that page, as there seems to be an ongoing problem.[23] Even the talk page (because talk pages are subject to BLP too) is problematic.[24] Musical L inguist 13:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a look and tided it a little. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Removal of non-controversial material

The purpose of BLP is to not to remove things like "so-and-so likes apple pie." Or "so and so has a dog". Overly bold editors are removing such mundane uncited things simply because they are being WP:DICK. Perhaps the proposal should be discussed but reverting based on the statement that we have to cite every, single, non-controversial, statement is utterly ridiculous. You want to read an article with one hundred footnotes? I certainly don't. Wjhonson 16:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any specific examples? Frise 18:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Here. Note the edit summary... "removing all uncited material"... including, "On August 1, 1982 Hank Aaron was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame"... despite the fact that this appeared right next to a picture of his hall of fame plaque (also deleted). If something is obviously true and uncontroversial, but uncited, a {{fact}} tag should be the limit of 'verifiability' needs. If it seems like it might be untrue / can't be easily Googled, but still isn't at all inflammatory, then removing it to the talk page should suffice. Only truly controversial matters should be subject to BLP strictures of immediate removal and/or deleting of the page.

In any case, even BLP ought to require that you explain what you are doing. Deleting large sections of the page without posting why you think they are "controversial" is clearly going to cause problems. --CBD 19:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It is only common courtesy to explain in some manner what the issue is with the material. In fact I'm not sure I even like, on the article page here, lumping "controversial" with "poorly sourced". These two, in my book, are chapters apart. Wjhonson 06:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just stumbled across an example of my own. [25] Frise 01:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you using that as an example of a good edit, or a bad edit. Seems like a good BLP edit to me. Even though the claim may be uncontroversial (I don't know), it seems inappropriate to mention a pesonal life detail, unless that detail is written about widely (thus making it public). With no citation, its reasonable to treat it as private (and not include it). --Rob 18:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good edit, but most people would say it isn't controversial and shouldn't have been removed under BLP. Frise 20:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe that people are seriously arguing that the proper way of handling disputed/unclear actions is to NOT explain why you are doing it. :] --CBD 23:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Child victims of sex crimes

Should they have their own articles? There is a discussion about this going on on the living persons noticeboard. I have complained but am not sure what to do next. For one thing I am using my real name here and I don't know what kind of people I would be going up against if I made a big thing about this. Steve Dufour 18:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless there are extenuating circumstances (and none jump to mind for victims who are still alive), then not only should they not have their own articles but they probably should not be mentioned in other articles. Child victims deserve a chance to grow and get on with their lives. In fact in most jurisdictions that I'm familiar with, privacy of a minor victim's identity is required by law.
The other strong argument against a victim having a separate article is that Wikipedia is not a newspaper. There are very few crimes that are truly of an encyclopedic nature. For those that are, it's almost always the crime that's notable, not the victim. (Note: The victim can be notable for other reasons and just happen to be the victim of a crime - in which case it may or may not be appropriate to cover the crime in the victim's existing article.)
Having said all that, sometimes the article about the crime is written at a pagetitle carrying the name of the victim. Kitty Genovese is an example of such an article. Rossami (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Kitty Genovese seems to be an exceptional case, as well as happening a long time ago. Steve Dufour 22:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Past and present KKK members

A CFD has been proposed to merge Category:Ex-members of the Ku Klux Klan into Category:Ku Klux Klan members, because categories for people shouldn't distinguish between past and present status. However, I'm concerned that because "members" implies present status (something that a category's description can't ameliorate because that doesn't show up in the articles that are tagged) this could be libellous if they've in fact renounced the KKK. I'd appreciate some other thoughts in that CFD. Postdlf 18:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Just bringing this to your attention

On my watchlist, I recently noticed on the article on Katharine McPhee that a controversial subject regarding a Sirius satellite radio show was added (tabloid gossip, perhaps?).

I am not sure what to make of it. It seems offensive but also kind of relevant. (Key phrase: kind of.)

It seems unnecessary / awkward to use the word "penis" in an otherwise innocent looking article. The subject is a mainstream act, not in the sex business.
It might send out a negative message to potential fans- that if a creepy guy can find her number, then anyone can. Wouldn't want the site to promote stalking of a living person.
Ms. McPhee may not want it on here, anyway, since she hates any mention of Sirius satellite now.

I'm aware that articles are to be comprehensive to the person's life and career. Is this going too far or is it ok? I'm neutral- neither against or for inclusion.

The guy has an article. Would the statement be more suitable on that article than on hers? Whatever the consensus is, feel free to make the changes. Or not, if it's perfectly fine. Elle Bee 19:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll take it out as unreferenced, unencyclopaedic drivel more suited to Stern or midget article --Steve _(Slf67)^talk 08:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

RFC: David Barton

David Barton is a controversial figure, for various reason cited in his article. Please review the diff between myself and another editor. We have been engaged in a reverting battle and I'd like other opinions. diff Wjhonson 20:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Gossip re dating

I work on a lot of Bollywood actor/actress pages, and I see a great many edits concerning the stars' romantic lives. If the star is married and not known to be carrying on an immensely public affair, editors generally leave the star alone. We end up with "X married Y and they have two children." However, single stars are the subject of laser-like focus by gossip columnists, gossip which editors then insert in WP. It's the latest hottest stars who get this treatment; no one seems to care very much about the dalliances of Dilip Kumar. So we get statements like "X has had relationships with A, B, and C; X dumped B for C." Some of this is referenced to gossip columns and some of it is inserted without references and like kudzu, keeps re-appearing even after it has been weeded out.

A great many of the Indian editors seem to think that this is a proper use of WP and get irritated with me when I replace it with "X is single." Myself, I see it as a mis-use of WP. I don't think who dates who is at all notable, unless there's some huge controversy or the matter ends up in court. Or someone writes a tell-all roman à clef that becomes a best-seller. Retailing gossip is just so ... vulgar. So invasive. So unkind.

I should perhaps note that my position on this has changed over the years. When I first started editing here, I would let that sort of stuff pass, as long as it was referenced. Over time, it has come to seem more intrusive and more irritating.

I don't edit non-Bollywood star biographies, but I imagine that this happens in other places as well. (Not to all stars -- the Nathan Fillion article, which I do follow, is blessedly bereft of gossip.) Is there a policy that applies to salacious concentration on single stars' dating lives? Zora 04:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I support your position. Single people date other single people, it's assumed. It's also assumed they date people in similar social standings - so stars will generally date stars. Unless the relationship is somehow unusual (engagement; adultery; jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch :-) ) I would consider it no more notable than writing about which restaurant they've been eathing at or which fashion designer they have been wearing clothing by. (Note that gossip columns will cover restaurants and fashion designers.) That's not quite a policy, but it may be a useful simile. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 22:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)