Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced biographies of living people

Sequence

I'd say go in the opposite direction - start with the 6-month-olds and work backward. Articles created after the introduction of the BLP policy should be referenced, people should have known better. Older articles were created when a different set of standards applied - back when I started references were an afterthought, not a necessity. That also would allow DASH bot to finish doing its job, and allow older, but less active editors the opportunity to save articles the may well have forgotten about (I was surprised by some of the notifications I got from DASH bot). Guettarda (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm flexible on that. Although the point could be that more of the older ones will violate BLP and thus should be sorted quickest. But, the basic point is to trickle backlogged BLPs though the system.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't know, one way or the other, how BLP violations are distributed among uncited bios, cited bios, and non-bio articles. Each can benefit from having the spotlight turned on it. Guettarda (talk) 18:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We could just do it alphabeticaly? Seriously, I doubt it matters much, but psychologically going for ones that have been tagged for the longest time seems logical.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you're right, it really doesn't matter much. Guettarda (talk) 18:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Next question - how many do you think "the system" could handle, a month? And how best could we get the community involved? Right now it feels polarised between people who want to delete, and people who want to save. I'm sure that's more a perception than anything else. But if we're going to tag articles in manageable blocks, my thought is that it should be done by a bot, but should require human verification.

That's where I see a potential problem. It's easy to say "yeah, I looked at it" without doing an even cursory search for sources. On the other hand, if meaningful examination is required, the whole deadline thing goes out the window. Looking through the prods that have been done, some of the "mass prodders" are actually doing a good job, using existing notability guidelines. Others are simply tagging articles because they're unsourced. Most people are going to be happy with the former, many are going to get upset by the latter approach. (Of course, there's always going to be subjectivity. Bali ultimate's prods of video game musicians looks good to me, but attracted the ire of others.)

That leads to a third point - how many articles can we handle? I think that's really an unknown. It all depends on how many people choose to get involved. Keeping in mind the goal to get this done in a reasonable amount of time, I think any system needs constant monitoring. Are they getting done? Is a backlog building up? If we can get 100 people to do a minimum 10 articles a week, we could clear this up in a year. But the reality is that there are thousands that fail the notability guidelines, and that could be dealt with quickly people who know the guidelines well. But there will also be thousands that are important articles - third world political leaders, jurists, business and community leaders - but that will be difficult to source. And fixing these require a very different skill set. There should be a reasonable way to ask for 'more time', be it userification, movement to an incubator, or something else set up specifically for this drive. Guettarda (talk) 18:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, notability doesn't come into it. This is only about sourcing. If it isn't notable, then existing rules apply. In other cases, we are saying "this needs sourced if it is to stay". Secondly, the onus is clearly on those wishing to retain to source it. If no one is willing to do that, then the article needs to be deleted until someone is. There's not too much subjectivity here. IF it has no sources, there's a reasonable time to source it, then it goes.

The time could be expanded somewhat, but you are asking the wrong question. We should only keep the number of articles we can reasonably maintain. If people are not willing to fix them, then in the end we remove them. The current system has taken the "eventualist approach" and given people as much time as they need - and that "lots of time" approach hasn't done the job. Only a deadline is going to do it.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scott, I strongly agree with your last statement that we need to work toward only creating and maintaining the number of articles that our volunteer workforce can handle.

And Guettarda, you are correct the biggest challenge is notable people that do not have reliable sources in English. I've been talking this over with several people and I think the best way to address this might be a cross wiki campaign that works to improve BLP content on all wikis. If we could share our material with other wiks and them with us, we can get the job done and have excellent coverage of international people. But if we try to do it alone, then I think we are going to add to the problem because we will keep articles are will be or grow stale because we use the barest sourcing for them. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 19:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another point. When we look at the article as a prod, we still need to evaluate other issues beside lack refs. When you work with the articles, you will find every thing under the sun wrong with them. Copyright vios., misspelling of names, vanity articles for barely notable people with all the material coming from their website. It takes skill and tact to know how to manage some of these issues since we will be working with the subject of the article or people close to them. So we need to follow BLP best practice guidelines. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 19:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Centralize

This seems quite reasonable. But I'm not even attempting to follow all the discussions going on on this same topic all over the place. Is any attempt being made to centralize them, so we can have one discussion where people can see all the currently proposed options?--Kotniski (talk) 18:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's the RfC. However, it seemed to me that it was already convoluted - and yet reading through the screeds there seemed to be some consensus, which I've tried to embody in this proposal. Hopefully.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people which is where this should be. DES ^(talk) 00:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support

I like it and would support it. --JN 466 18:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Time to bed down something concrete and this is a very well-balanced proposal.--Mkativerata (talk) 21:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support If there is to be deletion of unsourced BLPs, this is the way it should be done. --Lyc. cooperi (talk) 10:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

1) Don't "prod" new unreferenced BLPs. Speedy them. If we're going to deal with established articles via a prod or prod-like manner, allowing new into the same queue (or one that will compete for admin attention with the other) is counterproductive. First, we must stop the problem expanding, and a harsh moratorium on new unreferenced BLP articles doesn't harm the current contents of the encyclopedia, nor does it drive away contributors any more than {{db-band}} does. Jclemens (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2) Overall, this really isn't a policy, but a specific course of action. Let's be sure to separate how we deal with the backlog from ongoing policies for handling new BLPs. Jclemens (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speeding them will never get agreement. Anyway, after how long? I mean a new user starts to write a BLP, he needs given a chance to source it before you kill it. A seven day deadline will prevent escalation. All new unsourced BLPs die after 7 days. That's time enough to let people source them. Naturally if they are unsourced and negative they can still be speedied as G10.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it will. More to the point, if it DOESN'T, then there's no point in tackling the backlog. Unless we can agree to ruthlessly eliminate new issues, then we really have no agreement to solve the problem. Jclemens (talk) 20:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at the RFC? I'm missing your point, surely saying "all new BLPs will be sourced within 7 days or face deletion" is a step in the right direction.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you've looked at the RFC, you'll see that I've contributed heavily to it and authored one of the more popular positions. Along with that position, I fully believe that the first step to fixing the problem is not letting it get any worse. While many certainly oppose speedying existing unsourced BLPs, I think you'll find there's much broader support for speedying new unsourced BLPs which is all that I'm proposing here. Jclemens (talk) 21:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

This is pretty useless since multiple other proposals have been made, and separation of discussions reduces the likelihood that any given proposal can ever be viewed as consensus. My strong views on BLP (including strong support of flagged revisions) is clear, but this sort of proposal will benefit WP not a whit. Collect (talk) 20:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why will it not benefit Wikipedia?--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because if there are seven places where a discussion is taking place, what is the likelihood that one will be viewed as establishing any consensus? Place your proposal on the extant RfC, and not have this bee the "seventh fork" for discussion, please. Thanks! Collect (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No I like it here. :-) The other pages are too cluttered to make sense of them any more. Scott has taken the ideas from leading comments on the RFC and put them in the format used for a Wikipedia policy. That makes perfect sense since the material needs to be move to a page like this one. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose in favour of this suggestion. The proposal is similar, but was made in the right way, and takes the view that we should use a carrot with the threat of a very big stick, rather than start with a stick with the threat of a bigger stick. WFCforLife (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That isn't a suggestion. It is a set of principles (which I'd support), which are entirely consistant with this present suggestion. Indeed, the person who proposed those principles has indicated support for this suggestion. So it isn't an either/or. Can you outline what you'd prefer? The current suggestion gives time for people to fix things, and appropriate wikiprojects can be notified. They'd have between one and six months to fix the articles, and in any case they can be undeleted and fixed even after that on demand.--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The approach to the backlog is wrong. The problem is not about referencing X articles in Y time. Those are arbitrary quantities, however ambitious/mundane/reasonable/unreasonable they are. The longer term problem is how we get people to take ownership of BLPs, and failing that, how we ensure that those BLPs that are left do not contain harmful material.

The notion that we delete all existing notable articles in X days (regardless of what X is) should be a last resort, rather than a central pillar of the proposal. In my opinion the proposal can contain it, but it should be introduced only after we have exhausted more positive methods, such as wikiproject utilisation, cross-language participation, etc. There is a school of thought that this could/should have happened years ago, but to my knowledge there has never been a large, centralised push to do something before, hence a lack of urgency and co-ordination.

Looking at the wikiproject I'm working on, a high proportion of the unsourced BLPs are of Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Asian or South American descent. Now, some of these will be non-notable, but those that are will be particularly susceptible. I'm sure it's a similar theme across wikipedia. Introducing this sort of thing without first actively trying to reach out to editors who can help in those areas will increase the systemic bias of the English wikipedia.

You've asked me for specifics, so here are a few ideas:

1. Whatever the final proposal, it is introduced at the same time as flagging. By encouraging mass action now, we do not have an effective system in place for bad edits between the time of referencing/de-tagging, and the time that flagging comes in. If anything, the larger that gap, the more harm we are doing. If this is worth doing, it's worth doing properly, and we are in danger of creating a false sense of security.

2. Slightly unorthodox for a policy I admit. But the policy itself should specifically encourage people to get involved with unwikiprojected (excuse the phrase) and hitherto unwatched BLPs, with a relevant link to the (new?) narrower category containing these.

3. The proposal should outline specific, practical steps that will be taken to work with wikiprojects, and if deemed useful foreign language wikipedias, to both improve sourcing and prevent systemic bias.

I would encourage everyone who reads this to follow the link in my sig. I will also be encouraging the people who have signed there to watchlist articles once they have referenced them, at least until flagging comes in. WFCforLife (talk), Help wikipedia. Make the pledge. 20:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose the key point of this proposal "Biographies of living people should be sourced at creation, if they are to remain on Wikipedia". Many new editors do not know how to source properly, and we should not reject their contributions out of hand. Moreover, unsourced but probably accurate and apparently non-contentious BLPs, IMO do no more harm than articles on possibly non-notable subjects. Then can and should be edited to provide sources, they can be proded (but not en masse please) or nominated for WP:AFD. They can be tagged s unsourced. Contributors can be asked to provide sources. I don't really object to deleting after a reasonable time (at least a month) has gone by, but I would prefer that before any deletion process is started someone makes at least a cursory search for sources. DES ^(talk) 00:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This does almost nothing about the original problem of keeping libels out. Long-existing material is particularly unlikely to contain libels that have not already come to notice. On the other hand, an intentional libeler can easily create fake sourcing that will let a statement remain until someone actually researches it. Anti-libel efforts need to concentrate on actual negative statements rather than wasting effort on the huge body of statements that are not negative but not yet sourced. --JWB (talk) 22:28, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Selective enforcement of our rules when it serves his purpose

Moved off topic discussion of my behaviour to my talk page.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No mass PRODing?

That's a deal-breaker for me. PRODing -- as long as it's not indiscriminate, and follows some set pattern -- is simply not an issue. My current efforts have led me to review 163 unreferenced BLPs, placing 120 PROD tags, and stub-ifying or simply removing the unsourced tags from 43. Many that I have tagged have since been "saved" by people who looked up a couple of sources on them. It's been effective and quite useful. Only Prodego (as far as I can tell) has simply removed the PROD without attempting to source the articles he removed them from. While I've no idea why he did this, it was only perhaps 15-20 of the articles, and in no way does it negate the usefulness of the work I've been doing. Forbidding this work hurts the project, and I fail to see how such a prohibition aids in any way the effort to solve the problem at hand. Unit Anode 22:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By "no mass proding", I mean that we don't want someone immediately using a bot or scripts to prod 60,000 article with a 7 day deletion period. It does not prevent selective proding.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I think the larger concern is the rate--it's obviously easier to PROD something than it is to research and correct it. If the sourcers can keep up with the current rate, it's not too concerning what that exact rate is. Jclemens (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think scale matters here. If you prod 120 articles in a day, that's no big deal (although it may be if you prod 120 articles by a single editor, or in a single subject area). But if 100 people do this, then it becomes a problem. Intervals matter - if there's 100 articles to look at over a week, that's no big deal. If there are 100 a day, every day, people are going to burn out very quickly. Guettarda (talk) 22:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's sort of pointless at this point, as there are editors and admins mass un-PRODing without bothering to add sources. Lara 22:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

People doing that (including Prodego) should be blocked. Unit Anode 22:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No good faith editor should be blocked there is clearly multiple issues surrounding this. Off2riorob (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Currently there's no policy to prevent deprodding. If this were adopted there would be, and unproding without sourcing would be treated as disruption (after polite warning).--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also Unitanodes comment that he has prodded 120 but most of them have been saved so it has been good work is a short term reflection, editors will soon get tired of being forced to attempt to protect the prodded articles and then they will stop, I have stopped already, I won't be forced to attempt to follow editors around that are mass prodding articles for deletion, you will end up needing administrators that are prepared to press the delete button in a week from now to an article that they know the subject is notable and that they could just as easily find a citation. Off2riorob (talk) 22:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In truth, it is not as easy to find a citation as to press a delete button. But this is a voluntary project, so people can volunteer to do either task. If no one volunteers to fix an article, then it needs removed. Remember the article I deleted had been tagged as requiring citations for THREE YEARS, and in that time no one had volunteered to fix them. People only seem to volunteer when deletion is threatened. REally, the onus has to be on those wanting the kept to sort them. If not, we need to delete as "unmaintainable". We can only maintain what people volunteer to maintain, perhaps that would be a better benchmark for the type and number of bios we should retain rather than the illusive notability concept.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have found and added in two minutes a citation... there are plenty of volunteers to prod articles I imagine I could prod a thousand a day, an uncited blp that has three supporting externals and is clearly notable should not be prodded, it should have a citation added, how can someone check 165 articles and not find at even one that adding a citation was the best thing to do? I think that the issue is that yes it is easy to get people to do easy things but getting them to work on an article that they care less about is much more difficult and this action by people who would rather delete articles that do the smallest of work on it is detrimental to the project and upsetting to the editors that would be prepared to add the content rather than delete it. I have yet to see one prodded blp that had any detrimental or libelous content at all. Off2riorob (talk) 23:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is hard to get people to fix BLP sourcing. That's the point. We've been unable to do it, and that's unlikely to change. Saying "people should" is no use in a voluntary project, people aren't. You say "an uncited blp that has three supporting externals and is clearly notable should not be prodded, it should have a citation added" - fine, but when after three years no one has added one, what do we do? Wait another three years and see an increasing number of these in the backlog? I've been partolling this horde of unmaintained bios for over two years on an off. I've removed and deleted dozens of libellous or BLP violating articles. How many more are there? I have no idea. But when we've got a heap of articles no one is even motivatd enought to give a basic reference to, we've got a heap of articles that will be underwatched and undermaintained. There will be libels here, and it is imperative that we rid ourselves of them. Again, we can't motivate people to check them in a volunteer project, but what we can do is say "if no-one is willing to check the sources and verify this article, then we'll shortly delete it". That doesn't force anyone to do anything, but it means that either the article gets properly checked or it gets deleted - either response is a win, since we reduce the heap of unchecked and unverified articles.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing is ever a win win, all articles get checked when they are created, you make a massive issue as though this is something in need of drastic action, its not at all, you could have gone down a different path, it is possible to get editors together to do the same work in a better way to solve the problem, yesterday from a hundred prodded articles that I looked at I cited about thirty of them, other people cited most of the rest, and from all of them there was not one thing that I saw that was an issue at all. Off2riorob (talk) 00:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And..when you say this I've been patrolling this horde of unmaintained bios for over two years on an off. I've removed and deleted dozens of libellous or BLP violating articles you are talking about new page patrol and yes people create libelous attack pages, that has nothing to do with an article that is three years old and has occasionally been appraised and tagged or whatever by editors, also we have filters so that even if rude words are added they are picked up and reverted and reported, sorry but its thinking there is a massive thing that needs dramatically saving, its nothing of the sort. Off2riorob (talk) 00:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And now, they're sourced. Because they were PRODed, and then fixed. Problem solved. Unit Anode 00:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yes the 120 you have prodded have been cited but that won't continue, volunteer editors are not going to follow you round searching and citing articles just because another editor has pressed a prod now button. Off2riorob (talk) 00:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

they got sourced yes, but at the cost of not doing how many other necessary things? They got sourced, yes, but sourced minimally instead of properly. they got sourced, but at a level that will need redoing later.

My own summary of WP:BLP policy is be very careful. There is harm in deleted the notable, as much as in keeping the non-notable. There is harm in removing the sourceable, as much as in keeping the unsourceable. If we think everything is dangerous, we will not notice the ones that were. The often quoted siegenthaler article had clear signs of outrageously harmful nonsense on its face, unlike any of these that have yet been shown. The way to be careful is to try to improve each article before trying to delete it, and then consider it as a community before actually doing so. What we need to do is for those of us who know how to work on them systematically, at the rate we can carefully work, in a way that will avoid duplication. I will use a personal example: What i can do best is rewrite, not screen, by selecting those that have promise for rewriting. This may be too slow for the amount of material, as i can only do to my standards about 5 or 10 a week, and I already do that with current articles. Therefore I am willing to do an extra 2 or 3 hours a week of screening. If I pick the ones i can screen most easily but others may have trouble with, I can do about 25 a week. If 100 of us do similarly, it's about 10,000 a month. We cannot review 50,000 articles in a month. We can review them in a half year. Setting unrealistic deadlines defeats the purpose, because the only way to meet them is to work without due care, and do an emergency rescue by using only the most minimal of standards. Considering the problem has been here for years, and nobody has been able to show any harm from the sample you deleted of the currently existing articles, there is no emergency. Considering the number of probably harmful errors in articles that do have some sort of sourcing, I might even say that dealing with these is avoiding facing the actual problem--which is why I think we should avoid over-concentrating on these. DGG ( talk ) 00:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, check my work. If you find that I'm tagging articles that had some form of sourcing, point it out, and I'll fix my system to improve my tagging. Right now, of the 195 articles, I've tagged 145 with a PROD, and done other sorts of quick work on 50 of them. Look through the 145 articles. They're conveniently listed for you in my userspace. If I'm consistently tagging articles that DID have sourcing, let me know. I'll fix my system. But I'm not going to stop doing it, just because it bothers a few people. Unit Anode 00:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree DGG, when I cited the prodded articles I added whatever weak citation I could to support even a word of the content to remove the prod tag, rushing this now is only creating more work down the line. Off2riorob (talk) 00:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't see this as the way forward, to quote Unitanode ...I'm not going to stop doing it, just because it bothers a few people. ' Off2riorob (talk) 00:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A bit of sourcing is much better than none. Some progress is being made. And I'm not going to stop working at it, so what would you rather me do, lie? Unit Anode 00:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have already asked you to please stop doing it and put the same amount of energy into adding citations to articles and you will see that you can still remove many from the list without simply prodding them. Off2riorob (talk) 01:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do you even have any idea what the work I'm doing is? It's not "simply prodding them." I've quickly formatted existing references, stub-ified them, and removed tags that were no longer relevant on a bit more than 25% of them. Unit Anode 01:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen exactly what you are doing, that is why I asked you to stop, you are mass prodding articles without even the smallest intention or desire to add a single citation. Off2riorob (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Work with the Wikiprojects:Notification

If an article talk page is tagged with a wikiproject, or the article itself is tagged with a category associated with a wikiproject, then that wikiproject needs to be notified. Editors there are probably going to be the people most capable of saving the article. Even if they do not meet the 30/60/90 day deadline, these are the people most likely to revive it to an acceptable state in future. Can something to this effect be added to the proposal? In the event that this gets off the ground, I'm sure a bot for the task would be found. WFCforLife (talk) 01:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I left this at the bot requests page today; hopefully something will come of it. NW (Talk) 02:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one. I'll add the rest of my thoughts there. WFCforLife (talk) 02:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't look carefully enough at the comments just above when I posted the following a minute ago, but it looks like a bunch of us are thinking along the same lines. Maybe some of these links will be useful to someone: In addition to threatening to delete unreferenced BLPs, we can make it as easy as possible to alert editors who have an interest in a particular subject to look at the unreferenced BLPs related to that subject and then decide to save what's worth saving. Go look at View by The-Pope's suggestions at the BLP RfC for suggestions on informing the wikiprojects. Many Wikiprojects have links on their pages to related AfD discussions. (One enterprising editor has already started a discussion on unreferenced BLPs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Unsourced mathematical biographies We should be able to set up the links and create subject-related or project-related lists to unreferenced BLPs. Ideally, when unreferenced BLPs are tagged, it would be great if they were also given a project link, although that's extra work. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that identifying and inviting members of Wikiprojects that carry a banner for the project is an excellent way to get the right people reviewing the BLP content. Organizing this with a bot notice would simplify it. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Remove from CENT for now?

Might I recommend this be removed from WP:CENT, pending the outcome of the RfC, so as not to duplicate the conversation (as well as being temporarily mooted/superseded by the RfC)? --Cybercobra (talk) 03:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A similar question was asked with respect to this related proposal regarding unreferenced BLPs, and again I would say no, this should continue to be listed on WP:CENT and discussion should continue. The RfC is going to have to lead to a specific change to a policy and/or new policy or process pages (assuming we are actually going to try to work on the issue), and I don't think it hurts to start working on drafts of those in parallel with the RfC itself. Indeed we should probably shut down the RfC in the near future and start focusing on formalizing some sort of process. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying don't keep working on it, I'm just saying it perhaps shouldn't compete on WP:CENT for interest/mindshare while the RfC is ongoing; the fact that it's chronologically after the RfC's entry is also confusing as it sort of suggests this is an/the direct outcome of the RfC (while that may indeed ultimately become true, it's not as of yet). --Cybercobra (talk) 08:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Untagged BLPs

There may be unreferenced BLPs around that are not tagged as unreferenced, so will not be included when dealing with the backlog. Should the provision for new BLPs be extended to cover older ones which are spotted after the backlog phase is complete? Cassandra 73 (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After the backlog is cleared, these could be prodded for sourcing or deletion in 7 days.--Scott Mac (Doc) 13:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia mirror/clone sites

By the time articles go through speedy, speedy is contested and declined, then through AfD, very messy content can be all over the mirror/clone sites. Their crawlers may not obey HTML noindex tags when they scrape content. It would be good to be able to hide content until "cleared". Esowteric+Talk 18:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Protecting the integrity of sites which divert our potential readers to a copy of our content framed in their paid advertising is a generous act, but it need not be our first priority. Certes (talk) 01:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative view

I just added the following:

==An alternative view==

As Wikipedia continues to lose editors, organizations decide not to work with our projects, and several journalists severely criticize our deletion policies and the way we treat new editors, it is important that we warmly welcome new editors. Quickly deleting other editors contributions will only increase the decline in editor membership.

An alternative view

Thank you. Ikip 01:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This reminded me that the BBC already publishes Wikipedia biographies as companion content, including hundreds, if not thousands, of these unreferenced biographies, and they have written a very good and balanced pro/con rationale for doing so. MickMacNee (talk) 02:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the BBC doesn't do so indescriminately. It will have a working quality control. We do not.--Scott Mac (Doc) 08:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Do some research if you disbelieve me. They publish them as is, whether referenced or not, even several of the highly informative but ludicrously PRODed ones. They appreciate what Wikipedia is and how it works, they even encourage people to join in and fix problems if they see them. Their quality control is simple, leave it to us, because Wikipedia has proven to already be a highly succesful generator of "good quality biographies with very good coverage", and that "the entire Wikipedia model is a living demonstration that openness to user contribution and amendment tends to improve content over the long term". That's how a professional and cluefull organisation works. I'm guessing you won't be applying to them for a job anytime soon, your kind of 'leadership' skills are I am sure not desired by Auntie. MickMacNee (talk) 20:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bullshit. See their declaimer, and the fact they also link to the BNP website.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this is relevant either way. Are we saying that the BBC condone the quality of our BLPs? Or that the BBC are unwittingly presenting wiki-based inaccuracies as fact? We don't know either way, so let's stick to the matter at hand. WFCforLife (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are hosting wikipedia BLP content in the full knowledge of how Wikipedia works. I've got no idea how them linking to the BNP or having a disclaimer just like every website on the planet including Wikipedia itself, has anything to do with it. MickMacNee (talk) 23:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

THis thread has no relevance whatsoever as far as I can see.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:47, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't expect you to have a clue what its significance was. MickMacNee (talk) 00:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Insults, incivility and assumptions of bad faith? Generally these area sign of losing the arguement. Oh, you can have the last word, I'm done with you.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mick, I'm opposed to many of Scott's views on how to deal with the BLP problem (agreeing that there needs to be a permanent solution, but disagreeing with the means proposed). But he's right here. This isn't relevant to the debate. WFCforLife (talk) 00:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was responding to the original post, to which it was perfectly relevant. Scott can whine on all he wants about civility and bad faith, he's all out of credit on both of those scores. MickMacNee (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative view

As Wikipedia continues to lose editors, organizations decide not to work with our projects, and several journalists severely criticize our deletion policies and the way we treat new editors, it is important that we warmly welcome new editors. Quickly deleting other editors contributions without effective communication will only increase the decline in editor membership. - IKIP (moved from proposal text)

I agree with the removal of that addition pending discussion. I've added my suggested improvement to it in italics. WFCforLife (talk) 01:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Far more journalists have criticised our lapse approach to BLPs. Do you really want to go down this comparison? I guarentee you'll lose.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Working toward community consensus

As a project in project space, I thought this was a proposal that anyone can develop. Mr. Scott MacDonald just deleted my edit saying that my addition was a "comments go on talk",[1]

Scott MacDonald also insisted that his flagged revision petition had no opposes.[2][3]

I think Mr. MacDonald needs to allow other editors to edit project space articles he is working on collaboratively as a community, even those editors he disagrees with. Otherwise we should decide if this article belongs in project space at all by putting it up for MfD, and it can be moved to Mr. MacDonald's user space, were he will have full control of this article. Ikip 05:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Threats of MfD are not the way to go - try that if you want. It will be speedy closed. We have an established way of doing policy proposals. The proposal is made on the page, the discusson of the proposal on the talk page. If you want to change that established process, feel free to make your case. Please don't personalise things either. The discussion of the petition was for elsewhere.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicates WP:RfC/BLP

This proposal starts by reminding us that controversial unreferenced material should be removed. It then discusses the mechanics of removing all unreferenced biographical material, whether controversial or not. Whilst many editors favour removing unreferenced but uncontroversial material, a substantial number do not. That debate is already in progress with a wider audience at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people (WP:RfC/BLP, 1 megabyte).

Do the authors favour the removal of unreferenced but uncontroversial material, and are they hereby proposing to change Wikipedia policy to match that view? If so, that part of this proposal duplicates WP:RfC/BLP, and this proposal should be suspended until WP:RfC/BLP is concluded then revised to accept its consensus. Certes (talk) 00:07, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another alternative

And a very simple one, based on existing policy. Require the use of WP:BEFORE, prior to all nomination for deletion via prod or AfD to the extent it is relevant. In particular, require point 9 before any suggested deletion for lack of references. This will automatically rebalance the procedure to keeping what can be kept, and removing without much argument anything that cannot. Both of these are necessary. DGG ( talk ) 21:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Competing proposal

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people#Next step(s). Maurreen (talk) 21:31, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RANDUNREF

I've created a page at WP:RANDUNREF which provides a random Unreferenced BLP every day. It's transcluded below.

Dan Lupu (random unreferenced BLP of the day for 21 Nov 2024 - provided by User:AnomieBOT/RandomPage via WP:RANDUNREF)

This approach could possibly be worked into something more elaborate, since the bot can filter by other categories too (eg five unreferenced BLPs of the day, from different topic areas). Note though that the bot can only do one entry per page, so it would involve making various subpages and transcluding them. See the use at WP:VRNB. Rd232 ^talk 10:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BLP tag for groups???

I have been working on the unreferenced BLPs. In the February group [4] I found a number of entries that were actually not biographies of a person; they were about musical groups. On several I changed the tag from "BLP unreferenced" to simply "unreferenced." But then I saw in the history of one of them that the same change had been made before, and someone had changed it back [5] with the comment "This is a BLP." So now I'm confused. Is it WP policy to treat an article about a group as a "biography of a living person"? The project page here doesn't seem to say so. --MelanieN (talk) 00:02, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that the previous reversion is in error. Any number of articles may have BLP material in them, not just articles named after individual people, but we've chosen to focus on articles named specifically after people first, and your change seems in line with that. Jclemens (talk) 01:00, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 01:34, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify the above comment further: any information about a living person, in any article, is subject to BLP policy. But only an article about a living person is a BLP in the strictest sense. —WFC— 01:54, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Got it. That allowed me to dump about 25 articles from the "unsourced BLP" backlog. They are all still tagged as unsourced, and they will all need to be sourced someday, but at least this lets us concentrate on the actual biography articles as a first priority. --MelanieN (talk) 01:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]