Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 9

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Even AfD?

It appears to me that the BLP policy states that, even on say an AfD, people can't mention something about a living person unless its sourced? I feel like if I went through and removed huge sections of AfDs, I'd be violating WP:POINT. I have a Very hard time justifying all of this in my head. The right thing to do, and the thing that many administrators have been doing is blanketly removing content from pages, article space or otherwise with this policy in mind. If it's consensus that I should remove all possibly contentious, unsourced or poorly sourced edits from any page I would like to, give me the go ahead. Even still, it would seem like this would still be me trying to prove a point. So that means the BLP policy should change? McKay 20:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think a degree of common sense should be used. If someone is spamming defamatory things into discussions just for the sake of posting defamatory things and isn't really contributing to the discussion, obviously that ought to be removed... on the other hand, if people are posting information to discuss whether or not it is defamatory, whether a given source is good enough, etc (and therefore whether or not BLP applies to it), it in the middle of discussion is probably unhelpful, and deleting their argument and objections entirely would clearly be over the line. Very exact personal information, though--specific locations, birthdates, etc--is probably not necessary just to discuss whether or not that information should be included. In any case, deletions in comments should always be as minimal as possible, and try to leave enough so that the larger discussion can still be followed (e.g. change it to "Do we really have to say that the article's subject lives at EXACT LOCATION DELETED and was born on EXACT BIRTHDATE DELETED" rather than deleting the discussion completely.) --Aquillion 01:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
So what you're saying is content like this edit (which you should note is well sourced, and is on a talk page) doesn't warrant an immediate removal, and a block warning? Hmm, that's what I was thinking too. How can we update the page to reflect this. Anyone else care to chime in? McKay 05:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
There is a lot of history and raised emotions there, so it's hard to say about that specific case. But I think that at least one thing that that makes clear is that more detail needs to be added to the policy on how to deal with talk pages. The way it's interpreted there implies that someone could claim a section is a BLP violation, then remove any sourced and reasonable argument on talk that it isn't a BLP violation by claiming that that argument is, itself, a BLP violation as well. Another thing that it makes clear is that we need at least an informal process for trying to determine via consensus whether something is a BLP violation or not... People there keep referring to the DRV to show that the parts in question violate BLP, which is sort of not something that the DRV as a whole would have been considering in the first place (it was over whether it was an A7 speedy, which it clearly wasn't. A7 was deliberately written so as to never apply in controversial situations; any assertion of notability, however slender, disqualifies it.) Now, even with an informal BLP determination like I described, we still couldn't decide to keep an obvious BLP article, just like we can't override WP:NPOV... but I think it would be helpful, in many unclear cases, to have someplace specifically designated where people could go to to try and settle things. Centralizing it would ensure that people who are familiar with BLP (and likely to be neutral to the subject) would see the discussion and be able to contribute. There is Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard, but that's more for reporting clear-cut cases... --Aquillion 06:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, despite Sidaway's hope, it seems extremely unlikely that the ArbCom will offer any shocking insights - they'll only re-affirm what 95% of us know anyways - that suspected BLP problems should be handled with caution and sensitivity, that BLP is not an axe that can be used to delete things in a way that can never be questioned, that we're really not equipped right now to handle speedied BLPs where the validity is in doubt. I suspect about the same thing you do Aquillion - that either the BLP/N or some new BLP/review board will be needed to look at the issues in particular cases - BLP/N probably makes more sense but I'm not sure. That these things should probably be discussed with the closing admin first. At the same time, the atmosphere needs to be cleared and understandings need to be reached. Real consensus will clear the air and restore the working relations that are so damaged - anything else will not. WilyD 14:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
You can call me Tony. In my experience the arbitrators are of pretty much the same opinion as the OTRS editors. I don't expect any huge surprises for myself in the near future, but I suspect there are some on the way for the community as a whole.
On the pole vaulter case, it was explicitly decided that concern about certain content was valid. Such concerns cannot be ignored on a technicality such as "invalid A7 speedy". No consensus existed or developed during the discussion that such content could be included. An attempt to restore the removed content in the talk namespace was treated as trolling, I seem to recall.
On potentially defamatory content, it should never be directly discussed on a deletion discussion, for the same reason that it is not to be directly discussed anywhere else on Wikipedia. Negative information, if correctly sourced and compatible with Neutral point of view, should be included in an article. It is for those who want to include content about a living person in an article to demonstrate that it belongs in the article. If there is doubt, it should be removed. Protracted discussions about whether content is defamatory should be avoided. Just remove it.
I wondered whether some kind of review board might work. I don't currently think it's necessary, but I'm sure it could work. People who habitually abuse BLP to remove non-sensitive material can be subject to dispute resolution just as other disruptive editors, but care must still be exercised in cases of BLP. It's a new situation but really all it needs is for people to relax and let it happen. --Tony Sidaway 19:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

BLP template

Please take a look at the nomination for deletion of {{blp}}. violet/riga (t) 15:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

An outside evaluation

This article says "five rated as 'generally privacy-aware.' They were: BBC, eBay Inc. (EBAY), Last.fm, LiveJournal.com, and Wikipedia.com." (Note: It is possible they only evaluated our user privacy behavior rather than our subject privacy behavior.) WAS 4.250 22:27, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Names of private individuals

I've added this form of words to the section on articles about living people notable only for one event:

Editors should consider whether, in a particular article, the names of private individuals could be redacted without the loss of significant information.

This is from a new addition What Wikipedia is not. As it relates to our treatment of private individuals involved in events, it probably belongs here too. --Tony Sidaway 16:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Further, I prefer your wording to its changed version. Your wording reads to me that it is saying "evaluate on a case by case basis, article by article" while the changed version seems that it could be misread to mean "decide if a person's name can be deleted from all articles they appear in, and then do so if it seems right" which I think is asking for trouble. I guess I'll add the above and see if people agree. WAS 4.250 22:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I think your added wording is overdoing it. Instruction creep. I reverted but if you want to replace it with my original wording I think that would be okay. --Tony Sidaway 23:06, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I've gone back to Tony's original wording. I think it cover's WAS's concerns: the question should be considered for each particular article. I think it is also simpler and avoids telling people what NOT to do (Tony's "instruction creep"). FNMF 23:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'm fine with Tony's original wording. WAS 4.250 23:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Change private to "non-notable". Even celebrities are private individuals. SchmuckyTheCat

"Non-notable" would mean they do not meet criteria for inclusion. Celebrities are not private persons, they are public persons. There is a distinct legal and ethical difference. Vassyana 07:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
One way in which this interacts with the central dictum on the Presumption in favor of privacy ('In case of doubt, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm"') is that one would expect those wishing to insert information about private individuals, up to and including names, to justify the addition. If the article will work without the names, there is no need for them and they can be excluded on the basis of the injunction to "do no harm". This makes us different from a newspaper, which would name a private individual as a matter of course. --Tony Sidaway 17:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Celebrities are not public persons. I would hope we would know that by now. Rockstar (T/C) 17:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
criteria for inclusion implies an article. This discussion is about text within an article. SchmuckyTheCat

Requests for clarification of policy

While Arbcom does not make policy, part of its role is to clarify and interpret policy. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#BLP deletion standards is a new section whose interpretation by the community and arbcom is critical to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Brandt (14th nomination). The community is providing its input at that deletion discussion page. I request that arbcom provide its input in the form of participating in the closing of that deletion discussion to whatever degree arbcom feels is appropriate. WAS 4.250 23:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Celebrity Question

Has the question of identifying a link or external address for the agencts/agencies for named celebrities (actors, musicians and the like) ever come up before? I am not talking about the actual addresses of these individuals, but rather the contacts for their representation. I ask because my nephew wanted tosend a fan letter to an actor he likes, and couldn't find it in Wikipedia. I thought that maybe it would be something useful to have on the bio's of such folk. I don't think its an intrusion, as the info isn't private or whatnot. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 12:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is no. That information should be easily available from official websites. Your nephew should go to the Wikipedia article, and then find a link from there to the official website, which will have those contact details. Carcharoth 14:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Right, but most of the celebrity articles don't have "official" websites - many only have imdb listings or fan-sites, neither of which are necessarily encyclopedic. A proper link seems to be more on target. I know how to find the representation myself, and the question that my nephew inspired is not one of Q&A but of institutional value. Is there a reason why your feeling is no? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 14:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia is not a surrogate-official website to be used to inform people of the contact details of the representative of a celebrity who hasn't set up an official website. People shouldn't be using Wikipedia to find that sort of information. We should be providing readers with an overview on a subject, an interesting read about that subject, links to background information on Wikipedia, and links to external websites for further reading, and details of reliable sources and background reading where they can also read more. That is all. Anything more is not needed. More material and information may be available, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Another consideration is that this is ephermeral information. When the contact details change, or when the actor dies, the contact details of the representative will need to be removed. An official website keeps that sort of thing up-to-date. We shouldn't have to bother with trivial things like that. Carcharoth 14:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Carcharoth. While a site that wished to be a comprehensive link farm would have such a link, we strive to be the best encyclopedia we can be and regularly trim our link lists back rather than try to maintain a diversion. WAS 4.250 16:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
(nitpick) It might be a diversion, but what we are avoiding is a diversity (or rather avoiding an indiscriminate diversity - as you say, no link farms). :-) Carcharoth 17:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"by e-mail if the material is sensitive"

I perfectly understand the intent of this, but at last check I still don't get paid for editing Wikipedia and I dislike the idea of writing an e-mail requirement into policy. Could we re-word to something like "in discussing a deletion administrators [or anyone else, for that matter] must absolutely avoid repeating sensitive material."? Marskell 19:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

But if it has to be discussed, it should be done by e-mail. Sometimes the details will need to be given if another admin questions a deletion. I'm not sure I see the problem. SlimVirgin 20:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Any Wikipedian should be free to not reply to an e-mail—any e-mail—if they chose. The instruction can simply reiterate not repeating sensitive info while discussing it on-site; this will suggest e-mail without demanding it. Marskell 20:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
What about using the OTRS ticket system? That will keep things confidential. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Email to the administrator is best. All administrators should have email enabled. Anybody expecting to discuss sensitive matters should provide an email address though the Mediawiki mechanism. You may not be paid to edit Wikipedia, but equally you don't have a right to know Wikipedia's business if you don't provide a reasonably confidential means of communication. It goes without saying that SPA's would be unsuitable for the purpose. Wikipedia admins should as a matter of course refuse to discuss matters with new editors, declared SPAs and socks, and the like, but should answer all good faith queries. --Tony Sidaway 20:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
"All administrators should have email enabled." I agree. But if an administrator I have no desire to speak to e-mails me and asks "why did you delete this?", I won't respond. I'll respond on Wiki to good faith queries, but not off, if I'd rather not. (I mean I'll usually reply off site, but if I don't want to, I don't want to.) That's all. Marskell 20:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Simply because they disagree with it

If a page is deleted by an administrator citing this policy, the deletion should not be overturned by other administrators simply because they disagree with it.

I see no evidence that this is consensus. It is very dangerous wording; it can easily become: "I deleted this as BLP, so it's deleted, and nobody can overturn me without violating policy." This would be a very bad thing. I have suggested a more reasonable wording, less open to abuse, invoking WP:WHEEL. I'm sorry SlimVirgin continues to dislike my prose; but the way to deal with bad prose is to fix it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I am surprised by this rewrite from Tony:

Administrators who dispute a deletion of a page where this policy has been cited by the deleting administrator should not reverse it before contacting the deleting administrator and obtaining his agreement.

The last four words are a liberum veto. We do not make admins to do this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I have put some wording, suggesting agreement, in place of this, and now revised it: It would be nice if the deleting admin agreed; but sometimes the deleting admin is simply wrong. (This is not intended to mean any of the recent cases; I didn't follow them until my first comment on the relevant ArbCom case.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with SlimVirgin that Tony Sidaway's version is preferable. It is clearer and more precise. FNMF 23:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
PMA, your additions are making it long-winded; good writing matters in policies, and the tighter, the better. Tony's version is clear and succinct, and it definitely does have consensus: wheel warring is frowned upon in all areas, but particularly in BLP deletions, for obvious reasons. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony's version said, as above, that noone could ever undo a BLP deletion without the consent of the deletor. That has never been consensus. Such language as I have added has been to attempt to incorporate the sentiment, with which I agree, that the deletor's agreement would be a good thing. But we can leave it out, if you value terseness above all else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, it adds clarity to a policy question that some editors and administrators seem to be having particular difficulty with. FNMF 23:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it says something clearly, which is clearly unacceptable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. There is no consensus to overturn the part of undeletion/deletion policy that has existed since 2003: "If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an admin may choose to undelete it immediately." This includes "BLP" deletions if another administrator disagrees. Of course, discussion with deleting administrator first is still preferable. Prolog 00:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
But the line of policy you are citing must also be qualified by this part of WP:BLP: "Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion," as well as by the fact that administrators may have information not available to others. The whole purpose of the addition is to reinforce the understanding that overturning a WP:BLP deletion may in fact re-commit the very BLP violation the deletion was attempting to remedy. Thus if the deleting admin is aware of the BLP violation the article contains, they will be obliged by policy to immediately re-delete. Tony's addition breaks this circle by placing the obligation on the overturning admin to make sure there are truly grounds for doing so. Thus this is not any new addition to policy, but a useful and practical clarification and reinforcement of existing BLP and deletion policy. FNMF 00:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
There is a big difference between G10 and these recent "ethical" deletions of articles that one administrator sees as improper. These deletions are often done citing "BLP" as a reason, but are not supported by this policy or any other either. All admins should be able to determine whether an article is in such bad shape that deletion is the only alternative. We can all edit articles too, after all. And this "obtaining his agreement" is just ridiculous and completely unwiki. We are equal here, both as editors and admins. Also, it seems pretty dubious to edit the policy this way in the midst of the ArbCom case. Prolog 03:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems you have not really read my comment closely, nor Tony's comment below. We may all be equal, but being equal does not mean we all have all the information. If you cannot obtain the agreement of the deleting editor to overturn the deletion, there are other avenues available, as has been pointed out. FNMF 03:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
This is a claim that a deleting admin will never simply make a mistake, or be unwilling to admit it if they do. I don't know what WP you've been working on, but it's certainly not this one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Consulting and obtaining agreement from the deleting administrator is important before reverting a deletion under claim of BLP, but it doesn't amount to a veto. Let me explain.
The reason we have these special problems with BLP is that harm is claimed to be done by the deleted article. The deleting admin could well be wrong, however this should be carefully discussed and (in line with the rest of this policy) the presumption should be to do no harm. So, you look at the deleted revisions and see nothing wrong. You may think the deleting admin was being a bit of a twit, and you could be right. But that's okay, if he's made a mistake it can be reversed in due course.
So you consult him. He may say something like "you're right, I erred in deleting here, I could selectively undeleted and stub, and it will be a useful article without any harmful content in the history." Problem solved.
Or he say something like "actually if you look at the first revision it claims that the fellow was raised in an orphanage. However his mother is interviewed by Channel Four News and she laughed it off as a clerical error. The error is repeated in every single revision" The source cannot be relied upon if it's clearly contradicted, so deletion was correct. A stub should be created if it's clearly "notable" person.
Or he could say something that makes you wince a little. Perhaps some absurd reason like "Elton John would never wear green trousers with a red hat." Well the solution there is to discuss. In the case of a clearly absurd reason it's okay to discuss openly on the wiki. In the case of a plausible (but to your mind incorrect) reason, use your noggin. Discuss privately with other admins who can see the article. Reach a decision. Three administrators overruling a single admin, and none dissenting, make a powerful argument. Take this to the deleting admin. If he won't restore, consider taking it to deletion review. In some circumstances perhaps three admins who agree should simply announce their decision to undelete, and restore the article. It's up to anyone who wants to delete to then list it for deletion or (if the material really is unsuitable despite the opinion of the three undeleting admins) to ask them to redelete. At which point I do think the sensible thing might be to at least hear the fellow out. And he safe thing to do would be to delete pending further discussion.
This is a bit hypothetical of course. But did you notice at all that the deleting admin really doesn't have a veto? His decision is subject to review by multiple people, even before the decision on whether to take it to deletion review is made. --Tony Sidaway 00:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I am really pleased to see that Tony did not intend a veto; but what he has written, and the revert warriors insist on, offers no recourse if the admin simply refuses to agree - because he sees a BLP violation, even if nobody else does. Perhaps they will leave alone a simple statement of no veto; even if they are unwilling to engage in the wiki process. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
It is simply not the case that what he has written "offers no recourse" to admins (or editors generally) opposing a deletion. I think a closer read of Tony's long comment is called for. Editors can have recourse to consulting the admin, to consulting other admins, or to opening a deletion review. The fact that there may be times when a deletion is firmly insisted upon despite the objections of another editor or admin does not mean there is no recourse. It means that sometimes BLP policy will dictate that articles be deleted, whether opposing editors finally understand the reasons for the deletion or not. FNMF 00:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Pmanderson, I'm not sure what you mean. Could you give an example of where an article hads been deleted and no recourse has been available at all? It seems a bit unlikely, unless the deleting admin had persuaded an oversighter to hide the deleted revisions even from admins. There is always recourse and a chance of redress of a wrongful deletion. --Tony Sidaway 01:00, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
You were proposing new language; under that language, there would be no recourse; I objected to the language before any abuses took place under it. Tony's latest revision is a definite improvement; I will consider whether it requires work. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I get the "actually if you look at the first revision it [makes an incorrect claim] The error is repeated in every single revision" bit. Tony's long post above suggests that in this case you delete. Well, what if you find such a 'timebomb' in an article with a long edit history, eg. George W. Bush? Does that mean you have to delete the whole article and start over again? Carcharoth 01:04, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I suppose the argument goes that though each subsequent contributor licenced their contributions under the GFDL, they failed to check for libellous statements, and so any version with a libellous statement in it is deleted. Does that sound right? Carcharoth 01:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that in principle a single clean revision with a list of prior editors would be sufficient to pass the GFDL. You could produce the clean revision by removing the defamation and then deleting all but the latest revision. Obviously we prefer to have a full revision history but this procedure might be acceptable in the case of a very old article. I am not a lawyer.
Current policy suggests, I believe, that all revisions should be deleted and a clean stub created. This procedure has been followed many times in the past. --Tony Sidaway 02:25, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Another approach

How about this, for a simpler approach that reduces the emphasis on ethical and subjective criteria?

"Writing about the notable parts of a living person's life in the relevant articles is fine (that provides the context for what you are writing about), but unless reliable secondary sources (not newspaper articles) have written a biography of that living person, we shouldn't attempt to do so. Cobbling together known facts from disparate newspaper articles and interviews is essentially original synthesis (research). When you find yourself struggling to find facts like birth date, and so forth, it it usually because the basic research for a biography hasn't been done. It is not Wikipedia's role to carry out that research, and we should wait until reliable sources (in this case, not newspapers) have done so)."

How does that sound? Carcharoth 20:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds overly strong. Plenty of highly notable people haven't had their biographies published outside newspaper articles: award winning actors, writers, scientists, even politicians. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
You'd be surprised. Are you looking in the right places? Note that I'm counting biographical material on their own webpages as an autobiography. Once that exists as a seed for the article, then I'd be OK with the rest flowing from that. In essence, if they have self-published biographical material, or an autobiography has been published, or a Who's Who-style entry exists somewhere, then fine. But don't rely solely on newspaper articles and interviews to construct a bio from the ground up. It skews things horribly. Carcharoth 21:34, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Who's - who style entry? Would you consider this short biography to be an acceptable "seed" for instance? WilyD 21:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Which brings me to an even simpler formulation of the principle I've written above: defer to biographical sources for biographical articles. In other words, a newspaper interview or article is not written as a biographical article, even if it may contain biographical details. The primary source for the key details of a biographical article should be something that is itself written as a biography. This doesn't exclude other sources (for additional information), but the primary source should be a biographical one, simply to demonstrate that a reliable source has gone to the trouble of writing in a biographical style about this person. Otherwise, if most sources only write about someone in connection with something else, then we should only mention that person in connection with that something else. Can it really be that simple? Carcharoth 00:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
You might be on to a better way to phrase "write about the event and not the person". WAS 4.250 06:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

semi-notable BLPs

Can someone please define what "semi-notable" means in the context of this policy? --JJay 02:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

On a practical level, it just means that their notability is debatable. Personally, I believe it references people who would be judged by a court of law in Florida to have significant privacy rights with respect to biographical data. To clarify, I think it means as a practical matter, we can not use non-news sources for private details - SlimVirgin might perhaps phrase this as "use secondary sources". WAS 4.250 02:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree with WAS. I don't think it's a very complicated concept. It just refers to borderline cases. The phrase "semi-notable" could in fact be changed without significant loss of meaning to "cases of borderline notability." I don't believe it needs any more legalistic specfication than that: common sense should suffiice. FNMF 02:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe semi-notable is HORRID standard, and to be honest a bit of non-sense. Either a subject is notable, or they are not. Notability is a bar for inclusion. You either pass the mark, or don't. Regarding the section in question I'd like to see "semi-notable BLPs" replaced by "private persons". This would better cover the legal and ethical concerns, in my opinion. For example, someone who organizes a large public genderqueer rights protest would be considered a public figure, both legally and ethically. Under the "semi-notable" standard, they may only have a relatively small number of sources mostly dealing with the protest and their leadership thereof. However, there would not be legal or ethical concerns in having an article about the person. As an opposing example, there may be a housewife who generates a a short but very intense period of wider coverage, coupled with extensive ongoing local coverage, because her husband has called the police a ridiculous number of time due to spousal abuse. The coverage could even include some fine biographical details, as often found in well-covered "human interest" stories. Under the "semi-notable" standard, she would be excluded. The breadth and depth of coverage would preclude her from it. However, despite the unwanted exposure, she would still be ethically a private person. Just some thoughts. Vassyana 21:18, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the passage is meaningful anyway, and we just need to find the right language. How about "borderline-deletable BLPs"? The passage is advice to the closing administrator helping him to reach a decision, and says "if you're unsure whether to delete, you may take into account whether the subject of the article has asked for the article to be deleted, and the weight you assign to this is up to you." --Tony Sidaway 21:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm not saying that this has no use, however, is this intended to be a potential justification for nominating AfDs? Because that's what this looks like in the initial reasoning of the 14th edition of you-know-who. From what I read, this is a note to a closing Admin (which implies that there should be other good and valid reasons for nominating an AfD. And I'd assume, but prefer to have spelled out, that there should already be other valid policy concerns like N, RS, or V before this section is applied.) LaughingVulcan 00:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Also (and separately,) what constitutes request of the person in question? This is not an issue for you-know-who, apparently, but I see great potential for abuse here. Who determines whether a request has actually come from the subject of the article, and how? It's one reason that I think any such request belongs firmly and solely in the purview of an Office decision, and should not be handled by Editors or Admins. "He(she) told me so" isn't good enough in my humble opinion. LaughingVulcan 00:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
OTRS volunteers receive and respond to communications from the subjects of articles on a daily basis. Shunting everything up the line to OFFICE is not on the menu. We are supposed to handle this ourselves. --Tony Sidaway 02:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Since I started the current pair of nominations I'll clarify my standards and reasoning. First, if people want to route authentication through WMF that's fine with me. More importantly, I propose we do courtesy BLP deletions based upon what I'll call a dead-trees standard: if no conventional paper-and-ink encyclopedia would cover a particular living person's biography then upon a specific request from that individual we'd remove their biography from Wikipedia. This dead-trees standard is essentially a humane consideration toward individuals who spent most of their lives and careers in a world where Wikipedia didn't exist and who had reasonable expectations, based upon then-current technology, that the disclosures they made about themselves would see brief and limited circulation.

I propose this with respect for fellow Wikipedians' commitment WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:OWN, WP:V, WP:COI, and WP:RS. Those standards have made this the most popular reference site in the world. Yet, good as those standards are, it's important to temper them with a measure of humane consideration. I do not propose censorship or whitewashing. Actually I've devoted a great deal of volunteer time to complex investigations that short circuit attempts at censorship and whitewashing. Yet it's also reasonable to make one concession to living people whose careers have spanned enormous changes in technology, and that concession is a reasonable chance to opt out.

This wouldn't apply to Donald Rumsfeld, whose career would get covered in any general purpose encyclopedia. It wouldn't apply to Scott Lee Peterson, who would likely be listed in an encyclopedia of notorious criminals. It would apply to bread-and-butter individuals who qualify for a page under Wikipedia notability standards but nowhere else. I doubt we'll see many of these requests. Before I nominated Seth Finkelstein and Daniel Brandt for deletion I did some research and found very few individuals who had ever stated a wish to have their biographies removed from this site. The goodwill we earn from fulfilling those requests outweighs the slight impact on the site's coverage. DurovaCharge! 20:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It's the "who would likely be listed in an encyclopedia of notorious criminals" bit that bothers me. In other words, we are not only supposed to hypothesize wildly about what a theoretical encyclopedia would or would not include, but we are supposed to include special purpose encyclopedias in this theorizing. That's not too clear cut for most articles - for example, there are Star Trek encyclopedias in print on dead trees.[1] If, say, an actor having a bit part qualifies there, would he now meet our standards, which he didn't before? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for providing your rationale, Durova. I dare say that if I had seen your above paragraphs, I might not have added my comments in the AfD. I can understand why you felt it natural, given the change in policy, that you felt reopening the AfD might be proper at this point in time. I haven't offered a keep or delete opinion on the article itself, mainly because there are more than enough opinions to give the closing Admin a representative sample of consensus (or lack.) I'm still not quite sure about the dead tree argument since Wikipedia is not paper would seem to dilute that somewhat. Given WMF's resources, why shouldn't there be an encyclopedia of the Internet or of Activism that would include "borderline" notables. But at least I better understand your nomination statement now.
While I also dislike instruction creep, would it be out of line to have it in BLP (or elsewhere) that the editor using this criteria provide a clear and unambigous link or other proof that the subject has requested deletion? I found (after the fact,) that this doesn't apply in the Brandt AfD. For those of us passing through the AfD it might save time if the self-request was provided more evidently (even though I know that in this case it was sitting in the huge Talk page.) Finally, Tony Sidaway used an acronym I'm not familiar with, OTRS. Any explanation? Thank you. Edit to add sig, sorry!: LaughingVulcan 23:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
OTRS is an open source system for handling and tracking complaints by email. Wikimedia uses this system to track complaints and other requests sent to the various official email addresses we publish on the wikis. These complaints are handled by a corps of trusted volunteers, selected from Wikipedians, Wikimedia employees, board members and so on.
On requests for deletion, these can be referred to by ticket number and verified by any OTRS volunteer. The emails themselves are, for obvious reasons, confidential. --Tony Sidaway 19:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for that explanation, Tony. I didn't realize that OTRS existed, but it makes sense. Would it be proper to write in the line, "Users referencing a deletion request by the article subject are asked to provide the OTRS ticket number (or other reference) to the subject's request." Alternatively, replace the last half with, "reference to the subject's request," if the OTRS number itself is confidential. Or is that instruction creep, and the user referencing can simply be asked for the justification. I must admit, I do not like being called silly for not having prior knowledge of somebody's request or knowledge that requests for deletion can be securely made. But thanks again for taking the time to provide the information. LaughingVulcan 22:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Vulcan. So far you're the first to ask me about authentication of these specific requests. I could ask Seth Finkelstein for permission to forward our correspondence, although by the time I heard back from him the discussion might be closed anyway. I'll wait for follow-up from you before proceeding with that. With regard to Wikipedia is not paper, my view on how that dovetails with BLP has shifted since I first became aware of the issue. Wikipedia is a new project that's been rethinking the definition of encyclopedic, which used to be limited by practicalities of print publishing, but what Daniel Brandt in particular has pointed out is that a too-rigid application of that principle treads on the toes of people who didn't own crystal balls thirty years ago - they probably thought we'd all have robot servants in the early twenty-first century rather than the Internet, if you get my meaning. DurovaCharge! 00:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
On "not paper" I didn't mean to minimize your theory - on third thought I think there would be very few people in the world who would want to have every verified fact about them online somewhere for public inspection. And there are certainly people who prefer as little information as possible (or information that cannot possibly be vandalized.) It's just titling it "dead tree" or relating it to the (very real) differences between print and virtual that I perceive as a hole - but I could be wrong. And, while ultimately I feel that notability either exists or it doesn't, I can realize that there are certainly times when notability cannot be absolutely demonstrated nor disproven.
Towards authentication, I'm tending to think that if there's just some way that that there either be a link provided to a public location (if the request is publicly available.) For example, on Mr. Finklestein, one link like this should be ample to prove that there is a verifiable and legitimate request. For subjects that have a recognized official blog or website, ask the subject to put up a one line page or entry, "This confirms that I do not wish to be listed at Wikipedia," then link to that. If this kind of assurance isn't possible, then the best information that can be passed along. If that's an OTRS number - if that doesn't violate security - great. At minimum, communicating that the request was received by OTRS (and thus verifiable to Admins and above,) though I suspect there are many others like me that would wonder "What's an OTRS and why is that reliable?" But having something in the policy here, requesting (but not demanding) that upon use of this part of policy the best level of assurance possible should be included by the editor, seems the best way to stave off trouble.
At any rate, my most recent AfD post wasn't meant to imply that your explanation here wasn't more than sufficient for me - just that I hadn't read it here before, first. Edit:add one sentence above, and apparently I timestamped instead of signing. LaughingVulcan 02:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks again for your well-reasoned and articulate comments. Speaking for myself here, if I read Mr. Brandt's comments accurately, part of the dilemma has been that once some living person satisfies Wikipedia's site standards for notability, then everything that person ever disclosed to a verifiable source became fair game. Mr. Brandt's request to have some details of his childhood deleted seemed reasonable to me, but I really couldn't find a way to satisfy that particular request without stepping onto a very slippery slope with regard to other living persons. So the best compromise seems to be all-or-nothing. We won't tailor the biography to the subject's wishes, but up to a certain threshold we could delete the page altogether if it's an overall headache to the individual. DurovaCharge! 21:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, it seems to me that the information needs to be notable too. That's something that needs application across the board, if only to suppress trivia. I'm not sure whether that would help Mr. Brandt's case, though. Mangoe 21:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Split-out awards sections, are they subject to BLP?

There is a debate at Talk:List of Michael Jackson awards about whether the article is subject to the policies of BLP (i.e. does it have to be fully sourced with reliable sources) if it is not a traditional definition of a biography (it's not about his life, it's about his achievements). It is my belief that these type articles are subject to the guidelines as they are simply split out of the main article because they are too large to maintain in the main article. Is this interpretation correct? What should be the proper action for an unreliably sourced article like the Michael Jackson article or List of Mariah Carey awards? Metros 18:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As regards sourcing, this policy applies to every single contentious statement about a living person in any page on Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 18:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Wrestling articles

I'm not interested in the subject itself but Wrestling bios have concerned me for a while - they are generally a) very badly sourced and b) confuse the role that they "play" in the ring with their real world activities (and I know the two can be blurred because of the nature of the business). maybe we need some form of additional guidance? --Fredrick day 03:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a Wikiproject working on sourcing and how to present articles. I suggested they develop some notability guidelines and they tinkered with that a little bit. I think there are some overzealous deletionists, imho, who either afd articles or delete much of the content citing blp even though the content has not been contentious or negative in nature. A "fix it" tag should have been enough in those cases. I think it would be better to help them improve wrestling articles before trying to delete them. MrMurph101 04:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you responding to an invisible post I cannot see? you seem to be responding to a post that says "let's delete wrestling articles!" I'm not really sure what your the second part of your answer has to do with my question. --Fredrick day 04:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, you mentioned how you considered how wrestling bio articles are poorly sourced and the "blur" between in-the-ring and real life activities and I responded that there is a project working on it. The rest was mainly a comment on something I've noticed. Sorry to go off on a tangent on something else. :) MrMurph101 04:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
My apologies - I'm very tired and it's making me short-tempered - I think maybe the wrestling project might need to change their style guide to highlight BLP concerns. I'll mention it to them when I get up. --Fredrick day 04:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

talk page BLP violations (back door articles)

We need to have specific policy addressing the concerns of BLP violations on talk pages. This is a very serious matter. I have seen bias editors use the talk page to create 'back door' articles and engage in a seemingly never ending discussion. The talk should never be used to run a smear campaign against any person. Readers also read the talk page. I hope we can update our policy to stop agenda driven editors from going around policy and having a free for all on the talk page to write unfounded rumors, speculation, and/or libelous information against the mission of Wikipedia. Any thoughts. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 05:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

That one is pretty easy - using the talk page for a smear campaign is not what it is for and as such it can be removed by anyone and those who are doing it should be warned - however this should not be taken to mean discussions of controversial issues or sources (and wether they should be included) should not occur because that is exactly what the talk page is designed for. ViridaeTalk 05:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
As I previously stated above: We need to have specific BLP policy on this. Thanks. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 05:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Why? Its already written down somewhere what a talk page should and shouldnt be used for. ViridaeTalk 05:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
There has been a dispute for about 3 months to add BLP violations to an article against policy but a group of editors are ignoring policy. See: Talk:Stephen Barrett. I am exhausted and they continue after being told to stop. I'm considering I should MFD the talk page. I need guidance and specific policy on this. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 05:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
That appears at first glance to be a legitimate discussion on whether to add something to an article, regardless of whether you agree with the additions or not. Talk pages are used to discuss issues like that frequently and it is preferable that the discussion happens rather than edit warring over the addition in the actual article. Furthermore this seems to be precisely what I said was allowed on talk pages, and not an example of what I said was disallowed. ViridaeTalk 06:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I suppose this is about how far we can go allowing (possible) BLP violations in discussions. I certainly hope the type of overlong discussion mentioned by Mr. Guru, where editors keep repeating compromise proposals and arguments that (may) violate BLP, does not happen very often. But if it does, I would say some policy language to help keep such discussions brief and to the point could be considered. Or maybe the question has already been addressed here?
So far it has been my personal position that language disputed per WP:BLP is allowed on talk pages as long as the discussion is productive and the disputed language is not overly blatant, informs the discussion, and is interspersed with solid arguments explaining why it is not allowed. (Comments very welcome.)
On a side note, I'm involved in editing the article in question and have already removed quite a few (more blatant) BLP violations from its discussion page over time. I reported some of those deletions at WP:BLPN. AvB ÷ talk 09:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
"So far it has been my personal position that language disputed per WP:BLP is allowed on talk pages as long as the discussion is productive and the disputed language is not overly blatant, informs the discussion, and is interspersed with solid arguments explaining why it is not allowed." is my position too, and also the function of a talk page. ViridaeTalk 10:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
All I am asking for is an update in policy for talk page BLP violations. Editors are left in the dark when we do not have specific policy for talk pages. How long can a dispute go on. 3 months? 6 months? A year? I am not interested in opinions. I am interested in being directed to a new BLP talk page policy. There should be specific BLP limits for talk pages. On a side note: Tony, thanks for your help. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 18:42, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree. BLP policies need to be updated, specific to both article talk pages and user talk pages. Information posted to these pages frequently comes up on google searches of people's names. I believe that article dicusssion pages are excluded from Wikipedia's google site map, but user talk pages are not. I've seen quite a few User Talk pages being used as slam pages, with Wikipedia as the free web host. Regardless, both types of talk pages are frequently reprinted by other sites, such as biocrawler. I know I have seen a lot of the type of "back door" behavior you describe on the Talk:Paris Hilton page, which has seen lengthy discussion of sexually transmitted disease, among other things. There need to be stricter policies, that are more tightly enforced. Cleo123 04:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. There seems to be some disruptive editors who are taking advantage of the loophole in policy. There is a free for all on the talk pages. We must close the back door behaviour. We have no specific policy to address BLP talk page violations. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 17:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have edited the policy so that it no longer recommends moving trivia sections to talk pages. Such sections should be integrated and removed if integration is not possible. This will reduce the likelihood of BLP violations being moved around. Also, this reflects a consenus reached at the main trivia guideline about 2 weeks ago. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed deletions: clearer wording

I've placed this new wording into disputed deletions:

Administrators who dispute a deletion of a page where this policy has been cited by the deleting administrator should beware of reversing the deletion before contacting the deleting administrator. The deleting admin should be willing to explain the deletion to other admins, by email if the material is sensitive. Administrators who object to the deletion should bear in mind that the deleting admin may be aware of issues that others are not. If the deleting admin doesn't agree to restoration, the dispute can be taken, if appropriate, to Deletion review. However public discussion of sensitive personal material about living persons, particularly if the material is negative, should be avoided, so it may be better to ask other administrators to review the deletion and decide together whether to undelete.

This outlines the route by which a dispute between two administrators can be expanded to more adminstrators and reach a consensus decision without running the unnecessary risk of discussing sensitive material on the wiki. If at any time a consensus arises that the material is not sensitive, then they can decide to undelete or send to deletion review. Even if the material is sensitive, several admins together can arrive at a better decision than one. --Tony Sidaway 03:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe this:
Administrators who dispute a deletion of a page where this policy has been cited by the deleting administrator should beware of reversing the deletion before contacting the deleting administrator.
Should be changed back to this:
Administrators who dispute a deletion of a page where this policy has been cited by the deleting administrator should not reverse the deletion before contacting the deleting administrator and obtaining his agreement.
Prolog's change ("beware of") leaves the door open to abusive overturnings of BLP deletions. FNMF 03:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I just changed back to original wording. I think it is clear from the ArbCom case that the newer wording currently lacks consensus. Prolog 03:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
The newer wording is a little problematic for a couple of reasons - patently rediculous uses where the Admin doesn't respond for long periods, whatever. Admins are appointed partly on the grounds that anything we do can easily be undone if it's a mistake - it is also a mistake to give us this kind of "enhanced authority". WilyD 13:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
The wording "should not reverse" doesn't make sense. It's based on the assumption that the admin who who wants to reverse the deletion is incompetent. That they cannot read this policy, the page in question, the talk page, the afd (or whatever there was) or use their brains at all. Presumably administrators are given buttons to play with because they have shown an ability to use their heads and recognize that they might not always be right and because they don't forge ahead blindly, but do things like ask someone why they made a particular decision before reversing it. If administrative behavior (wide-spread, in general) is such that this wording is needed we might as well just de-sysop everyone and start over and do it right. Miss Mondegreen talk  13:50, June 13 2007 (UTC)
"Be careful of" might be better still. A BLP is not a dragon, that we should "beware" of it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that "be careful of" is better wording, I disagree with your premise. BLP's might not supposed to be dragon's, but in my experience they tend to have a similar temperment and the ability to blow fire and leave only ashes behind. Miss Mondegreen talk  07:45, June 14 2007 (UTC)
The new wording appears to be reasonably stable. I think it gets it right because it is written in a fairly permissive language. There are circumstances such as the deleting admin going on wikibreak where getting his explanation and agreement to undeletion is impossible. In such circumstances, of course, one would confer with other admins and decide whether it appears to be sensitive. If so, default to delete. If not, sending it to deletion review if the material and circumstances of deletion seem to merit it. --Tony Sidaway 14:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this language is a great improvement; I deny that it was consensus before; or that it is, as Tony contends elsewhere, a 0RR. There is no consensus for more than a recommendation.
On a wider issue, attempting to rewrite policy in the middle of an ArbCom case on the subject is polemical and divisive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
If there's no consensus for this, or if consensus shifts away from it, we'll soon find out.
On the wider issue. I don't think this has ever been suggested before. I edit policy documents as a matter of course and can scarcely remember a time when I didn't do so. As long as editing is done in a manner that helps to form or express consensus (that is: not edit warring, and definitly not edit warring against obvious consensus) then there should be no issue. --Tony Sidaway 20:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Borderline notability

Blackfalcon, "semi-notable" and "of borderline notability" mean the same thing; the former is tighter and it's the phrase that has caught on, because it's not so long-winded, which is why it's being used here. Both mean that the subject is somewhat notable, but not pressingly so for Wikipedia's purposes. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

  • And what does "somewhat" notable mean?. That the subject somewhat or sort of or kind of meets WP:BIO? Who decides whether a bio involves a borderline or semi-notable individual? What matters here is to define the concept, not to edit war over semantics. As it stands, the section unfortunately introduces an entirely subjective element into an important policy. --JJay 19:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) SlimVirgin, they do not mean the same thing. "Borderline notability" means that a subject is barely notable. Semi-notable can refer to people who are notable, but are just less so than others. Also, "of borderline notability" emphasises that the subject's wishes, if they are to matter at all, should matter only in a limited number of cases. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 19:17, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I agree with SlimVirgin. It's neater, more compact, writing, and has been there since 1 May. Not that the latter is a reason for keeping it if there's something obviously wrong with it.[2] But it is at least a reason why we should have a clear explanation on the talk page as to what the problem is with "semi-notable", and why "of borderline notability" is better. ElinorD (talk) 19:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Both terms are going to involve the judgment of the closing admin, so whether we use borderline or semi doesn't really matter: the subjective element is there. What we're trying to get at is "not fully and unambiguously notable." In other words, if the notability can be argued about by reasonable people, then the subject is semi-notable or borderline notable. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
It really doesn't matter which words we use. They both mean the same thing. The people who will wikilawyer about the one will wikilawyer about the other. --Tony Sidaway 19:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
  • That's not an especially helpful comment. There is no shame or wikilawyering in trying to find policy wording that is clear and meaningful. The problem is that "semi-notable" or "borderline" notable" are concepts that do not fit with current guidelines and policy on article inclusion. The notability guidelines set thresholds that topics are supposed to meet. Meeting those criteria is supposed to imply notability. Partial or semi or borderline status is not addressed, and the concept - as best I can tell from the very limited attempts at explanation here - is apparently exceedingly subjective. That is something we should be striving to avoid, if possible. However, the policy/guidelines are applied on a case-by-case basis. Most probably in every case where BLP deletion policy will be applied, there will be an existing dispute over the notability/prominence of the individual manifested in an AfD discussion. While editors can disagree on the notability of an individual, it's much harder to deny when that notability has been disputed. I, therefore, favor the wording suggested by Serpent's Choice and think that "disputed" notability or "lack of consensus" on the notability of an article subject should be made explicit in the policy. Since BLP deletion policy is essentially a fig leaf to justify the removal of a certain number of articles, let's make a fig leaf that truly covers the administrative tool that will be used to perform these deletions. --JJay 10:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
If it doesn't matter, why revert? Let's say what we mean; vagueness has helped produce this mess. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed why revert? I don't believe I'm involved in the dispute over "semi-notable" and "borderline notable". Just giving an outsider view. --Tony Sidaway 02:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


  • Perhaps a better solution would be to take a few syllables to make the topic more clear? "When closing AfDs about living persons whose notability is ambiguous or disputed, ..." Serpent's Choice 20:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Borderline and semi- certainly don't mean the same thing. Semi means half or partial. If something is semi-notable it is partially notable, which implies that it is notable, and in how notability is talked about on Wikipedia subjects are worth including if they have notability. So leaving it in as-is can lead people into thinking that notable articles can be deleted based on whether the subject of the article likes it or not.

Borderline means that it is uncertain whether something is notable or unnotable, which fits in better with how notability is talked about in Wikipedia. We shouldn't opt for the less clear wording just to save a few letters or because we're afraid of changing it. --notJackhorkheimer (talk / contribs) 06:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There are longstanding precedents at WP:AFD for deleting some biography articles per the request of the subject. Usually this has been done for stubs that have a minimum of sources and that barely meet site notability standards. Individual editors' opinions have varied about whether to do these courtesy deletions at all and how far the practice ought to extend. Now that the practice is supported in policy I've proposed expanding it to a defined level: if no pen-and-ink encyclopedia does have an entry on a person (or reasonably would) then I'll consider courtesy deleting their biography article on Wikipedia. This standard includes specialty encyclopedias such as encyclopedias of music, architecture, etc. DurovaCharge! 18:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
What if they have an entry in a directory of self-provided biographical information, like Who's Who (UK) (and similar publications elsewhere)? These have notability standards, but the subjects provide details an/or write their own entries. Kind of a cross between a directory and a biographical dictionary. Carcharoth 22:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Most Who's Who directories are self-serving and criteria for inclusion either very loose or non-existent. See this article in Forbes≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Article titles naming people

What does this policy have to say about article titles? I recently moved several biographical articles about the subjects of iconic photographs from Category:Photographs into Category:Photographs (people). Sometimes the article is named after the photograph, like Kissing the War Goodbye, sometimes the photograph's name includes the name of the person, like Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, sometimes the title is descriptive, like 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute, sometimes there is a title (such as Migrant Mother - a redirect), but the article exists at the name (in this case Florence Owens Thompson). The articles in Category:Photographs (people), though, are named after the subject of the photograph, as the photograph has either become indelibly associated with the subject, or there is no other convenient 'hook' on which to hang the article. Is it acceptable to use names as a 'hook' like this? See Wikipedia:Coatrack for an essay on this issue, mainly on how this kind of naming procedure can introduce bias. In some of these cases, use of the subject's name as the article title is probably justified, though in others I'm not so sure. I've provided a list for people to comment on and add their thoughts.

Would simply adding "(photo)" after the name in the titles resolve this? Carcharoth 22:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding inclusion of data regarding earlier documented religious conversions relative to BLP

It has been suggested elsewhere that it might be a violation of BLP to include information regarding an individual subject's religious conversions, if that conversion is not documented as continuing and/or if that living subject has had a subsequent apparent religious conversion. The person who has made that suggestion has indicated that they believe inclusion of such data might potentially be the grounds for a lawsuit against wikipedia, particularly if the subject is alleged to have a rather litigious history. Taken this information into account, I would welcome any reasonable, informed comments from anyone interested as to whether they believe the existing policy should be changed to reflect those concerns or not. Thank you. John Carter 13:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Much as it is often prudent to mention the identity of the source for certain information in the text (ie, instead of "X is the case" say "According to A, X is the case") it may also often be prudent to mention when the source is from (ie, instead of "According to A, X is the case" say "According to A, writing in 2003, X was the case"). --bainer (talk) 14:11, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the sources are already mentioned. The point of dispute is whether, given the subject's later apparent reconversion to his earlier religion, whether there would be any basis for a lawsuit from the subject regarding his/her inclusion of a list of individuals who had had such a religious conversion. The threat of such a lawsuit from the subject seems to be an overriding concern of the editor putting forward this argument. John Carter 14:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
If the basis for saying that a subject has reconverted is original research, then that shouldn't be included, no. You should consider whether it would be best not to mention religion at all. --bainer (talk) 14:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

John Carter -- That is not all that the dispute is about. The dispute is about several other things as well. One has to do with the absence of formal conversion. Conversion based on flimsy things like album lyrics, and dating from 1979, do not have much force in 2007. Another is the antisemitic implication of placing any Jew (presently Jewish) on a list that is part of the Wikipedia Christianity Project, which heads up the page with a crucifix. It is antisemitic to imply by words or by means of iconography (crucifix) that a Jew is a Christian. Bus stop 14:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The issue has very much revolved around whether non-Christians should be included on a list that in its simplest and most basic meaning is a list of Christians. It is only by a contrivance of the most naturally arising parameters for a list such as this that one arrives at the understanding that people who are no longer Christian should be included on it. Bus stop 14:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but my thoughs on what I think the issue you're mentioning is:
  1. It is probably inappropriate for most articles about someone who is Jewish have any of the WP:Christianity sidebar on it, because of the inconography associated. It is not in the slightest way inappropriate to have Jewish people on a list at one of the WP:Christianity pages. McKay 15:15, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I think ALL wikipedia lists of persons with religion X should be deleted. It is ridiculous. Jewish American TV hosts? Irish Catholic Texans? Chinese female buddhists? WAS 4.250 15:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I do agree with that sentiment too, WAS 4.250. I think these list are the locus of much abuse and point of view pushing. There is the simplistic understanding that lists convey information. By and large, they don't. They give the illusion of factuality. But any investigation reveals that such lists are primarily boosterism for some agenda. Bus stop 15:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I wish everyone to note that the basic question asked was whether or not there is a specific reason to think the inclusion of a person who was at one point not only recognized as a convert but even has even had a book of his speeches on the subject published, would by BLP rules be eligible for inclusion on a list of converts to that religion (which he may no longer be actively adhering to - sources exist, but are not conclusive), or whether the implicit threat of a lawsuit from the subject is sufficient to make the inclusion of his name problematic as per BLP. I acknowledge that there are other questions involved. However, I am not sure that those other concerns necessarily relate to this policy. If anyone can indicate how those other concerns are directly relevant to this policy, that might be different. However, I would specifically like to know whether inclusion of a living person on a list of converts to a religion that subject seemingly did convert to at one point but may not adhere to now is a violation of BLP. It should also be noted that the introduction to the list specifically states that inclusion on the list does not say or imply that the individual listed still practices that religion. John Carter 15:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
If well sourced, it isn't a problem, but whether to include anything is an editorial decision. Wikipedia describes some histroy ... biographies aren't immune from including a persons's history, where well sourced. WilyD 16:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
So noted. I should clarify however that this is not about inclusion of info in the subject's biography, but rather about possibly including the subject on a list of converts to a religion he converted to once, but no longer seems to actively practice. John Carter 16:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A biography written in prose form, such as the article Bob Dylan, has much more latitude for finding the right language to describe a particular individual's situation. A list is an "either/or" situation. A list is dependent on its parameters. Fudging the parameters to also include non-Christians (not presently Christians) is unacceptable. Natural parameters describe that group of Christians who became Christian by way of conversion, as opposed to the only other way of becoming Christian -- by way of birth. Those two naturally arising categories only contain Christians. No non-Christians are contained in either category. It is only by slightly modifying the most naturally arising parameters that we come up with those parameters that include "anyone who has ever converted to Christianity." Those are the parameters that many editors argue for. There happens to exist a mirror image of the list in question. It is a list of converts to Judaism. It does not use these parameters. It confines its content only to people who are presently Jewish. It has a tag on it which reads: "This page is a list of Jews." It goes on to say: "This list of Jews should be restricted to individuals identified as Jews by reliable sources, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability and no original research policies. Any items not conforming to these policies may be removed immediately." The parameters that some editors are arguing for obviously include a much larger group of people. And it inevitably gives the appearance that any person listed on it is a convert to Christianity, because that is the logical understanding anyone would have of such a list. Bus stop 16:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

  • A while back I suggested that all religious attributions should be treated as "contentious" and need RS sourcing or be deleted forthwith because there is no NPOV way of selecting which religious tags are contentious in which situation. Carlossuarez46 22:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
For the list in question, every name currently included is currently individually sourced. Acknowledging that there are other questions as well, but wishing to return to the question I asked, holding open the possibility of treating other questions upon the resolution of this point, would the inclusion of the name of a living person, which is at least adequately sourced by what are generally considered to be reliable sources, in the eyes of the rest of you be a potential violation of this rule and/or the basis of a possible lawsuit? If the consensus of those who make comments here believe that the answer should be "yes", then I would welcome notice to that effect, and possibly changes in the content of this page to reflect that. If the consensus response is "no", then knowing that the consensus lies there would be useful information as well. John Carter 15:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

John Carter -- What is your question? Should Bob Dylan be included on the List of notable converts to Christianity? He is presently Jewish. The question is: Should people who are not presently Christian appear anywhere on a List of notable converts to Christianity? My answer is: No. You are stretching the parameters of the list in doing so. I am objecting because that is not what the parameters describe for the purpose for this list. Iconographically the crucifix at the top of the list indicates an association with Christianity. It is offensive to a person who is presently Jewish to list their name on such a list. It is also a contradiction. You acknowledge it is a contradiction by the variety of language you and others have proposed to "disclaim" his presence on the list. Bus stop 16:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The question was quite clearly asked. Why is it that you are once again trying to hijack someone else's requests for comment with your own clearly off-topic comments? Please allow other people to get the responses they seek without further trying to obfuscate and confuse things. You are free to request comments for your own question/topic separately, but show the civility of allowing other people to actually answer the questions asked as well. John Carter 16:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Bus stop, as you have presented no sources whatsoever concerning Dylan's current religion, I'm rather surprised that you hold strongly to Dylan's Jewishness (when, if anything, he adheres to no religion at all). And in fact, all the sources which do claim a 'return' to Judaism are Jewish community sites... did you forget the part of the discussion where you rejected any Christian site claiming Dylan's conversion because of inherent bias? Well, the same rule should apply, then, when judging sources for any occurrence for this discussion.
Additionally, I'm a little concerned that you choose to impose a personal opinion on the state of an article which has held consensus since it's inception more than a year ago up until the point in which you became involved, apparently. As Dylan has been on the list since day 1, and his post conversion religious state has been noted in his description from day one (shortly followed by Duleep Singh), it is hard to argue that there has not been general consensus on the inclusion up until this point. As long as you continue to present your personal take on things as being the hard law, your argument might appear sound to some, but you should stop and realize that it is the decision of the community which decides parameters, not the feelings of one easily offended editor.
Your new argument concerning the cross is one of the weakest ones I have ever seen. The article concerns a religion known as Christianity. Therefore the Christianity project keeps watch over this article, and any article related to Christianity. At what point is it decreed that all individuals listed under this project have to be Christians? As Dylan has had an affiliation with Christianity, he is relevant to one of the lists within the Christianity project. You need to get over your phobia regarding the cross here, and start thinking sensibly.
Additionally, we have acknowledged no 'contradiction'. Clarification of rules, parameters, doctrine, etc., is not an indicator of contradiction, but of lack of specificity. Every edit made during this discussion has been catering to your (at times, baseless) argument in an effort to make specific what was general so that you might be satisfied in regard to the article's content. This is what might be called compromise, but a one-sided type, as you've had no interest in the opinions and arguments of any users involved unless they've agreed with you thoroughly. In short, the only 'compromise' you accept involves Dylan being removed from this list, and the only compromise proposals you accept or even discuss are those coming from your own side of the argument.
So, Bus stop, please don't apply your own presuppositions about other editors to this discussion as well. You've been reprimanded for that a couple of times. If you want to argue, thats obviously fair, but when you attempt to undermine opposing arguments by accusing those individuals opposed of knowingly doing wrong, you've stepped over one line too many.
With this being said, I don't want to get involved in yet another argument. 60 days of this is more than I can take. Therefore, I don't feel much like getting involved here, although I felt the above comment was enough to note; for this reason, I won't be commenting further in this discussion (except, perhaps, to Marskell below, out of curiosity). Thanks for your time.--C.Logan 19:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I think all of those conversion lists should be taken out and shot. I notice a very lengthy AfD discussion went keep on Christianity, however. A little depressing. Marskell 19:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I've always wondered why some people have held this opinion. What's your reasoning?--C.Logan 19:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that, regarding the request for mediation, the final comments of the mediator as to why he belived the attempt could not be successful here might be of interest. John Carter 19:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The reasoning is because it is the locus of abuse. If this is the List of notable converts to Christianity (it is) then it constitutes Christian antisemitism to put a person who you know to be a Jew on it. Forced conversion has gone on for hundreds of years. It is a one-way street. (It is only Christians who have forced Jews to convert to Christianity, not the other way around.) No Jew has ever forced a Christian to convert to Judaism. The Pope has even apologized to world Jewry for the history of that. Christianity has an established principle of proselytization. Judaism does not. The List of notable converts to Judaism (which I wouldn't mind seeing deleted either) does not contain on it any living person who is not reliably identified as a Jew. These are its parameters:

"This page is a list of Jews. This list of Jews should be restricted to individuals identified as Jews by reliable sources, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability and no original research policies. Any items not conforming to these policies may be removed immediately."

Is there any non-point-of-view-pushing explanation for why the List of notable converts to Christianity is casting such a wider net for names for inclusion on its list? Bus stop 20:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

First of all, we know Dylan to be an ethnic Jew, but not a religious one. You think you know that, but you've shown nothing of worth to convince anyone else of this belief. Additionally, the RS have shown to be against you in this belief.
Secondly, it would be nice if you could abstain (once again) from bringing history into the discussion. It makes it rather clear that you aren't thinking with an encyclopedic mindset, and are allowing a biased perspective to swallow up your argument.
Additionally, you neglect to mention that the final sentence of that 'template' was added 8 days ago, while the entire discussion about this template existed prior to this change. It's also worth noting that I've explained to you continuously the necessity of the template on the Judaism page, but not on the pages of other religions, because of Judaism's unique status among the different religions (as one need not be religiously Jewish to be considered a Jew).
Finally, I believe it's been noted several times that the reasoning behind the support of, as you might call it, 'casting a wider net' (one which believe the article has always done), is for encyclopedic purposes. In contrast, your entire argument appears to be self-motivated and dependent upon bias and unwarranted presuppositions. If none of the editors who opposed you were Christians, your argument would have zero merit (and indeed, many aren't). As you've said, an encyclopedia is all about providing useful information. The editors involved believe that this information is entirely relevant to the subject matter and is being presented in a clear manner which would confuse no one, though that seems to be a major argument point of yours. If you feel the need to argue over the reasoning behind including a superior level of information, feel free to do so, but please discontinue beating your dead horse, wholly baseless argument of 'proselytism'.--C.Logan 21:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

You are not "clarifying" parameters; you are contriving parameters. It happens to constitute Christian antisemitism to put a known Jew anywhere on a list of converts to Christianity. It is forced conversion, Internet style, and Wikipedia style. His conversion to Christianity is not at all a fact. Yes, there are sources using such words as conversion in relation to Bob Dylan from 1979. But as we very well know, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." That "verifiability" is turned totally upside down if not completely invalidated by 2007. Conspicuously absent is any formal conversion, only the use of the word figuratively in relation to Bob Dylan. He has had nothing to do with Christianity in the intervening 27 years, and he has been religiously involved with the ultra-Orthodox Lubovitch Jews of Brooklyn, New York. The list has been invalid from day one. Now is the time to correct that error. Since it is a list of converts to Christianity, it should only contain on it those living people who are actually Christian. The title seems to imply that only Christians will be found on this list. The iconography indicates that those on this page will be associated with Christianity, because that's what the crucifix implies. And logic says that only Christians will be found on this page. There are only two ways of becoming Christian (or Jewish): by conversion, or by birth. Therefore the two most elemental categories are those Christians who arrived at Christianity by means of conversion, and those Christians who arrived at Christianity by means of being born to that religion. We should not be making changes to those parameters. If we make a change to those parameters we should expect that another editor can come along and challenge the wisdom of that change. That is what I am doing. I am saying that putting known Jews (or people of any religion other than Christianity) on that list, is an offense to that person's present religion. Dylan happened to have been born Jewish. We understand religion of birth to have a degree of lasting importance, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Bus stop 20:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

So, I gather from your comment above that in fact you are not willing to allow this simple matter to be discussed without introducing the enirely off-topic and oft-repeated (possibly even another cut-and-paste) repetition of contrived parameters and the like. Is this an accurate assessment, that you are once again trying to determine the content of not only articles on the basis of your own say so, but even the questions you allow others to try to get answers to? John Carter 21:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Again, you return to an argument that is found weak even by those who generally agree with you. It is verifiable that he converted in 1979. Should I quote the sources for you? Here is one such example:
The catalyst to Bob's extraordinary full-blown conversion to Christianity...
The sources don't seem to be baby-stepping the issue. Verifiable, reliable sources explicitly state that Dylan 'converted' to 'Christianity'. Your own scrutiny of the sources is troubling when one considers the complete absence of sources provided to support your own viewpoint.
Regarding every element of 'evidence' you provide for Dylan's 'return', the sources find it well to disagree with you. No sources, save those Jewish sources mentioned, argue for a 'return'. Dylan does not adhere to any single religion. It seems that you are more eager to assign him to a religion than anyone else, and without sources, no less.
Additionally, I'm unaware of what your obsession with '2007 sources' is. All the recent biographies use the same terminology which was used in 2007. What's the issue? Additionally, the list is simply noting that he converted to Christianity in 1979; it is not claiming that he is a Christian (or anything, for that matter) today.
Regarding the title of the list, the only thing is seems to imply to me is that individuals who converted to Christianity will be listed. Though you prefer to stretch this to involve continued participation, it doesn't make your interpretation correct, and many individuals have been inclined to disagree.
The rest of your comment sinks into a sea of illogic and self-glorifying portrayal. Unfortunately Bus stop, if your argument has any legitimacy, you've failed to show it so far. You continuously make tenuous connections in a straw-grasping effort. The argument concerning the cross- what is the point of that? Do you completely ignore the comments which have been directed at you to correct your misconception concerning this tag? Again, Dylan is only a 'known' practitioner of Judaism based on your personal statements and your invisible sources. No reliable sources support the idea of Dylan being a Jew, or a Christian, today. Your antisemitism argument is truly handicapped, and you should be mindful that in lack of evidence concerning religious involvement, the only affiliation of Dylan to Judaism is his cultural/birth factor, which is not an issue when listing on an article concerning religious conversions. I'm very surprised as well that you've revived your 'birth religion' reliance argument, which is based on some unknown space logic. You are, essentially, arguing that we should make claims about individuals based on assumptions concerning their past, and not on reliable sources (never mind the fact that it only allows two possibilities concerning religious belief, when there are in fact many hundreds of possibilities).
As you've gone through all this before, and have been repeatedly criticized for it, I don't know why you're going through it again.
Can't we argue reasonably about this, dropping all presuppositions? --C.Logan 21:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I had planned a full response, but this thread is too long. The lists are idiotic. Trivia, self-fulfilling tit-for-tatism, unmaintainable BLP info, and, yes, subtle proselytizing. I see no need. Marskell 21:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
The lists are easy to maintain since all that needs to be documented is the conversion. Rather than "idiotic trivia", religious conversion is among the most consequential acts that someone can undertake. Regarding proselytization, I hardly think the Jewish Encyclopedia was looking to encourage an exodus from Judaism when they published a list of converts to Christianity. [3] --JJay 21:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
JJay -- If it is "consequential" then why would we want to mislead the reader about that by including on a list of converts to Christianity someone who is not a Christian?
Concerning proselytization, the relevant difference between Wikipedia and Jewish Encyclopedia dot com is that Jewish Encyclopedia dot com is not a Wiki. Jewish Encyclopedia dot com does not receive input from anyone but a probably small handful of authors. Furthermore, it treats a wide range of subjects relating to Judaism; conversion is just one of many topics covered on that web site. (Additionally it makes no mention of Bob Dylan.)
Lists on Wikipedia don't lend themselves very well to this sort of thing. Lists rely on parameters, and as we can see, parameters get manipulated with the aim of arriving at the list that one desires to see. Fictitious lists as these are best deleted. I don't think the Wikipedia Christianity Project is ever going to confine itself to compiling the simple list of those notable people who arrived at Christian identity by way of conversion. There is always going to be an editor willing to expand those parameters.
Interestingly, we don't see the same sort of abuse taking place at the List of notable converts to Islam or the List of notable converts to Judaism. Nevertheless I think all three of these lists should be deleted, for the sake of fairness, and to prevent future abuse, which I think is a distinct likelihood. Bus stop 00:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The Jewish Encyclopedia dates from circa 1905. The authors who provided input are all dead. Otherwise, it seems to me that none of what you are saying has much to do with improving this policy (and I have no idea why this thread is here), but please carry on. --JJay 00:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I can suggest why this thread is here. This thread concerns biographies of living people. Biographies and lists are different in significant ways. Biographies in prose form can use an almost infinite variety of language to describe situations applicable to particular individuals. Lists can not. Lists are subject to parameters that have to apply to all individuals on the list. The bottom line is that we have to adhere to simple parameters for lists or we should not be using lists. We should be using instead biographies written in prose form. There is no simple way of compiling knowledge. (That is what we are doing here at Wikipedia -- compiling knowledge.) Choices have to be made after weighing pros and cons. Lists fail in many cases because closer examination reveals that some of the contents do not really fit the parameters. One particularly relevant example is the non-Christians proposed by some editors for inclusion on the List of notable converts to Christianity. But I think many more examples can be found, because parameters for lists and real-life people rarely yield to categorization as neatly as we may think they do. Bus stop 02:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict response to User:Marskell:Understood. However, in general, do you believe that inclusion of such data, presuming the lists are going to continue to exist, as seems likely, is possibly a violation of BLP and/or possible grounds for a lawsuit? The other comments and questions are basically relating to other matters. I do think it would be a good idea, if the answer to the question is "yes", to make some proposals to change the page here accordingly. That's all the original post for this thead was ever about. John Carter 21:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I see what you're saying. However, one should remember that any list can be abused, and what may seem trivial to some might prove to be useful information for another. As mentioned above, the information was deemed useful enough for the Jewish Encyclopedia to print such a list.
Personally, I find many lists on Wikipedia rather useless, but I keep in mind that I have a limited array of interests, and what is useless to me may prove extremely valuable to another user. This is also not to say that such lists do not undergo abuse from enterprising editors, but one should keep in mind that most articles are used to advance a point at one time or another, and that's why other editors need to keep such attempts in line.
Changes made to such pages which go beyond reason and begin to favor a religious (such as at List of notable converts to Islam) are regularly combated by several staunch editors (although I've been attempting, somewhat, to promote a compromise between both sides, so that the edit warring might cease). However, that an article has some problems with vandals and POV-pushers does not mean that the information should not be presented.--C.Logan 22:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
"Religious conversion is among the most consequential acts that someone can undertake." On this we agree, JJ. Which is why these compartmentalized lists ("John Smith, former agnostic") are, in fact, idiotic. You are taking the most consequential private description of a person and turning it into New York Post bullet point. Bob Dylan shouldn't be listed as a Christian or a Jew. The man himself—his career, his changes—should be described. (Despite a bit of over-quotation, his page actually does this.)
In reply to John, how does it relate to this policy? In general, Wiki policies aren't meant to be preemptive and the onus is generous: editors, per eventualism, ought to prove they can maintain something. But this policy has a (somewhat new) preemptive aspect. On BLP grounds, I feel it would be better if lists of this sort did not exist. For example, Kirk Cameron (apparently former atheist) is first off the top on the Christianity list. Has anyone talked to him lately? When did he actually join the atheist club, thus making his later conversion relevant? Has he re-converted to atheism and decided to sue us for calling him a Christian? Oh, probably not. But given that anyone can add trivia of this sort about more-or-less irrelavent people, the BLP concern will always be foregrounded and suggestive of deletion. So yes, take it out and shoot it, along with the List of Jews (think of how stupid that is. do we have a List of Women?) and every other attempt at generic, impossible-to-supervise attempts at compartmentalization. Marskell 22:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed deletions 2

In the Badlydrawnjeff arbitration, an arbitrator has pasted the following proposed principle on the "Proposed final decision" page:

Summary deletion of BLPs
4) Any administrator, acting on their own judgement, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. This deletion may be contested via the usual means; however, the article must not be restored, whether through undeletion or otherwise, without an actual consensus to do so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy.

Now the arbitrators will vote on it, and if it gets a majority support it will be accepted as a principle in that case, and will tend to influence our future conduct (assuming we don't want to be told off by the arbitration committee).

Comments? My own comment is that this makes our current "Disputed deletions" clause, listed below for completeness, look rather timid:

Disputed deletions
If a page is deleted citing this policy, adminstrators should not undelete it without discussing the issue in detail with the deleting administrator if possible. The deleting administrator should be willing to explain the deletion to other administrators, by e-mail if the material is sensitive; administrators who object to the deletion should bear in mind that the deleting admin may be aware of issues that others are not. Where appropriate, disputes can be taken to Deletion review, but any protracted public discussion should be avoided for deletions involving sensitive personal material about living persons, particularly if it is negative.

--Tony Sidaway 07:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that would even work. Let's say you, Tony, thought a deleted article actually did meet BLP, and wanted to contest it. How would you do that, without even a history restore? I can do it, but that's a pretty small subset of editors (namely, those who happen to be admins) who would be able to offer any meaningful input at all to such a discussion. I think a little wider notification (perhaps watchlist?) is needed for the way BLP is changing around—to me it was always a common-sense policy that "If something nasty or controversial is in an article about a living person and it's unsourced or "sourced" to some rumor blog, don't fact-tag it, remove it at once. If that's all there is to the article, delete it." I can't imagine anyone could disagree to that. But we're going well beyond that now, and I think it needs a little more discussion outside of the heat of any particular contentious debate. Just the fact that it is producing contentious debates shows it needs discussed. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, just suppose a majority of the arbitrators agreed that this is how to contest deletions. Wouldn't that sway you a bit? Shouldn't the parts of a policy that impinge on conduct in a dispute reflect the way the arbitration committee views conduct? --Tony Sidaway 08:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
ArbCom should not be setting policy; that some of them have deviated from this seriously disturbs me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The DRV template currently includes links to (Google) cached versions of articles. Is this intended so that non-admins can review deleted content? If so, does this clash with the proposed arbitration case principle? I also clicked on the cache links for several current DRVs, and the links don't seem to work. I suspect this is because the articles were only a few weeks or days old, and thus aren't on the Google cache yet, or maybe the Google cache updates more frequently than I thought. I can't check, because I can't see the history of deleted articles. Can anyone shed light on this? If not, then it is possible that non-admins will have to start writing stubs for articles at DRVs and asking admins to compare the stubs to previous versions of the articles and asking if the stubs are acceptable. Though really, it should be possible to discuss BLP violations by linking to external sites to illustrate your points. The point here though is that contested BLP deletions will effectively become an AfD, but without having the article to examine. In essence a DRV of a BLP deletion (unless it is something simple like "this is an article about a building, not a person") will be questioning whether the article contained anything against the BLP policy. To participate meaningfully in that discussion, you would need to see the article. A better way to do this might be to say that those contesting BLP deletions should not try and defend the deleted version of the article, but should make a case for any article about that person existing. Once that is established, then those who deleted it under the BLP would be asked to restore an edited version (probably a stub) that was acceptable to them, and those editing the article would be allowed to continue and strongly reminded to adhere to the BLP policy. Also, a default question at a DRV should be whether the deleting admin looked through the article history to find a version that was acceptable. Carcharoth 09:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
This seems a reasonable proposal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The proposed final decision (above) addresses content at the article level, but does not seem to address individual content within that article. If the article is deleted, does that mean that all information within the topic itself is off limits from being posted anywhere on Wikipedia? If the deleted article is rewritten with the disputed material removed and reposted, does that constitute undeleting the article? The key here - which seems susceptible to being overlooked - is that every previous version of the article needs to significantly violates any aspect of the relevant BLP policy. In other words, there is not one version to which the article could be reverted where it would not significantly violate any aspect of the relevant BLP policy. In this regard, it would seem that the topic itself - at least the topic as previously presented by every effort to present it on Wikipedia in that article - is off limits through undeletion or otherwise if deleted under the believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. Carcharoth's point about making a case for any article about that person existing is astute. Coupled with the proposed final decision language restoring through undeletion or otherwise (e.g., at DRV, RfC, user page, etc.), some could see this as leaning more towards banning information about the topic from Wikipedia, even those parts that do not significantly violate any aspect of the relevant BLP policy or information about the topic that previously was not posted on Wikipedia. Seraphimblade is correct in that a wide discussion outside of the heat of any particular contentious debate would be appropriate. -- Jreferee (Talk) 15:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Deleted pages seem to disappear from Google's cache on hour timescales in some cases - maybe the case here. WilyD 16:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
If it's in Google cache, it's not as big a deal, though a lot of editors have no idea such a thing takes place or how to find it if it does. (And if we link to a cached version of the article, it's really not a whole lot different from doing a protected history-only restore anyway, with the article blanked and replaced with the DRV template.) As to Arbcom, I'm not sure their function is so much to set policy as to interpret it. I'm not sure it's within their purview to decide what should be policy, as far as I knew, only Jimbo or the Foundation can do that unilaterally. (That doesn't mean we shouldn't carefully consider what the Arbcom thinks, especially given their expertise and experience at handling tough situations, but I don't know if they can just say "This is how it will be, period.") Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The way I read that proposal, it's an interpretation of the BLP, very much in line with the kind of deletions recently carried out under its aegis, and a reasonably detailed interpretation of the standards of conduct that should prevail in the case of a dispute. This is well within the purview of the arbitration committee, which can make general statements about policy as part of its role in resolving disputes. --Tony Sidaway 00:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree here with Tony. ArbCom is simply re-iterating the BLP policy. Even without that proposed decision, admins can take these actions within the current application of WP:BLP. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. But I'll repeat what ALoan said elsewhere: "disputed material has to be removed until "a decision to include it is reached" (by whom? how?)" - who decides the dispute? I see this creating more disputes in the long run, though it should stop the wheel-warring. Carcharoth 13:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

New template

Due to the number of BLP articles lacking sources, I went ahead and created {{BLPsources}} & Category:BLP articles lacking sources. The template also adds the tagged article to Category:Disputed biographies of living persons and Category:Articles lacking reliable references. Vassyana 09:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

How borderline notability should be determined

Notability is measured by the amount of coverage in reliable secondary sources. According to Notability, a topic is Notability if that coverage is "significant". Beyond this threshold line of Notability lies the importance/fame of the person. Some may measure this by the person's position or standing. However, such criteria is subjective. Objectively and for Wikipedia purposes, individual editors may measure the importance/fame of the person by the number of published materials, the circulation of those materials, and the time period over which those materials were circulated. It is an objective measure because the number, the circulation, and the time period themselves are undistorted by emotion or personal bias of a Wikipedia editor. With few published materials, collectively having a low circulation, over a short time period, such a person would have a low importance/fame for Wikipedia purposes. In other words, their level of Wikipedia notability is close to the boundary line of Notability and they would have Wikipedia boarderline notability. (Note that "borderline notability" is an appropriate term because it means of or near the boundary of Wikipedia notability.) -- Jreferee (Talk) 14:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Question about BLP Deletion Standards

Is it simple Common Sense that the recent noms at AfD (Brandt, Beesley, Finkelstein) have WP:BIO or WP:N concerns, and therefore their self requests automatically imply a (new) AfD discussion? In each of these nominations, the nominator's entry makes reference to BLP Deletion Standards as the reason for re-nomination. I know that each of these have had prior contested notability claims, however, none of the nominations thus far have made reference to the underlying reason of notability. Rather, each has bandied about this standard as if it were part of reasons for deletion. And each has then relied upon allowing other editors to rehash any WP:BIO arguments. If this is a new de jure deletion standard, shouldn't it be discussed and included de facto at WP:DELETE? Or should there be emphasis placed that (as it is written now,) this is not a Reason for Deletion, but rather a note allowing a closing Admin to give weight to a self-request for deletion? I believe it is a perceived conflict between BLP and DELETE which is causing at least some of the fracas about these controversial AfD noms. LaughingVulcan 16:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Good point: I raised two of those nominations per changes in the BLP policy. A WP:DELETE discussion is sensible. DurovaCharge! 17:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Disputed BLP standards

The neutrality of the BLP standards is now disputed. This seems like an unfair way to simply delete an article on any semi-notable person if they want the article on them deleted. Strange policy. :) - Mr.Gurü (talk/contribs) 00:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed deletions 3

In line with a principle adopted (6-0-0) in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff/Proposed decision, I have changed the first sentence of the "Disputed deletions" section to read:

If a page is deleted citing this policy, administrators should not undelete it without an actual consensus.

--Tony Sidaway 20:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Although this modification was restored because it "goes to far" - I'll just note that's impossible. It doesn't go anywhere or even mean anything. Clarity is a virtue here - what the ArbCom is trying to get at (presumably) is already encoded in the procedure suggested - discuss, bring dispute somewhere to find a consensus, don't run off willy-nilly, but introducing vagueness here is just asking for trouble. WilyD 20:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Could you explain the above? What do you find vague about this? --Tony Sidaway 21:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The existing phrasing makes clearer how to find consensus and at least implies what is, or isn't a consensus. "A consensus" is a nebulous thing, and by leaving vague what kind of consensus you need, rather than being clear, you're only opening the door to more conflict, a more poisonous atmosphere, et cetera. For ArbCom's purpose this might be fine, because they don't care where the consensus comes from - but a policy needs to be clearer. WilyD 21:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused but for a different reason; why are we enacting ArbCom policies findings before they even close the case? Presumably they can change their vote until such time as they all agree to close the case, so let's not jump the gun here, Tony. -- nae'blis 21:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Strike while the iron is hot. This is 6-0-0, there's no reason to suppose that it will change and if it does we'll deal with it when it does. --Tony Sidaway 00:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes. It's unlikely that it would be 6-0-0 right now if the idea were not a good one. And if we need to change it later, which is unlikely, well, this is a wiki. ElinorD (talk) 00:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to cool the iron a bit... does your proposal mean that if opinion on a deletion is roughly evenly split, and the admin who happens to close it favors deletion, then deletion thereby becomes a preferred alternative that can't be changed without consensus? even if there was no consensus originally? JamesMLane t c 00:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Absolument. This policy carries with it the burden that we don't carry any material covered by it, unless the is an actual consensus that it is fully compliant. On that, the arbitration committee is unanimous. --Tony Sidaway 00:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
So one just needs to cite BLP when deleting an article (or removing contentious facts from an article) - and it should be possible to make out a case for some tangential BLP problem in virtually any circumstances, as the policy is now widely construed - and can then insist that a clear consensus to the contrary must emerge before that deletion is reversed? Good luck dealing with the consequences. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No way to this. We promote admins because we trust them with admin tools, not because we trust them to decide for us what is a BLP issue or not. -- Ned Scott 01:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I urge those trying to run away from this clause to consider carefully that those who fail to comply will risk being desysopped, whether the wording of this policy says so or not. It is surely better that our written policy documents should reflect the actual interpretation of Wikipedia policy by the body which is charged with resolving disputes and interpreting the policy. --Tony Sidaway 01:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought we already had a page that said not to wheel war. -- Ned Scott 02:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Apparently the interpretation of that page in these circumstances was a subject of considerable dispute, which has now been resolved. --Tony Sidaway 02:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
There's no evidence of this - this has been the subject of considerable dispute, and in spite of your high hopes, ArbCom has told us nothing we didn't already know. WilyD 03:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed name change

The name "Biographies of living persons" does not accurately describe this policy. I suggest renaming it to Biographical content (WP:BC)

My reasoning is such:

  1. The current name implies it only relates to biography articles when it applies to all our content, including non-biography articles, talk pages, Wikipedia pages, etc..
  2. The policy applies (at the very least) to the recently deceased, but the current name suggests that it only applies to the living.

This was mentioned previously but received too few comments. This time I suggest that it will be moved unless serious objections are made. violet/riga (t) 12:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I agree with such a move, as it will make this more descriptive/precise in its scope. -- nae'blis 15:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Biographical content would include people who have died. This page is about living persons only. If we want to change the title, the best thing would be Wikipedia:Living persons, though I also think it's fine as it is. BLP has caught on. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
There's some consensus that it applies to the recently deceased - it may only be virtual, not actual though. WilyD 04:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I want to bang my head on the wall about this. The policy is being applied by people using it to delete articles on people that have died and if we can't even agree which is correct then we have a very basic problem with this policy. violet/riga (t) 08:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Policies and Principles

The eagerness to include the ArbCom statement of principle (which was already in the policy anyways - both because it was, and because ArbCom doesn't make policy) has lead to the destruction of policy and it's replacement with principle. The policy needs to outline what to do - this is being lost. It now says "the deleting Admin should explain" but takes out "you should talk to the deleting Admin". My revised version had all the force of the Arbcom statement of principle (which just repeats what was here before ArbCom said anything anyways) but had the advantage of being useable policy, rather than the unusable statement that also constitutes unintelligible policy.

Oh yes, the second point is - "Actual Consensus"? Does this phrase have some secret jargon meaning? Apart from the possibility that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle allows for a "Virtual Consensus" I don't see any possible meaning for this phrase over "consensus". WilyD 01:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course you should talk to the deleting admin (or at least attempt to do so). This is already in the deletion policy. Please add that back for emphasis. --Tony Sidaway 01:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
When you cut that part out, the result was a jumbled thought process that didn't effectively communicate anything. The process for handling disputes is the heart of so much of the toxicity around this policy - it should be as explicit and straightforward as is reasonably possible. This is "the first step" - on what otherwise is a road map, it needs to be there. WilyD 03:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
"Actual consensus" means "a discussion has been held and consensus was achieved" and not "I restored the item anyway because I figure the deletion was a mistake and obviously there must be consensus to restore." See for instance the findings in the Badlydrawnjeff arbitration concerning NightGyr and Violetriga, where often no attempt was made to talk to the admin, and if an attempt was made no consensus was achieved and no attempt to go to deletion review was made. Just "undelete, please put this through AfD", which is of course unacceptable. --Tony Sidaway 01:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I've also added references to the procedure for summary deletion of irretrievably bad pages, which is the new WP:CSD#G10. --Tony Sidaway 02:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony, for fuck's sake, stop jumping the gun. I don't know what you're up to, but there is no reason to rush a number of badly worded policy changes when, as others have pointed out, nothing has changed. -- Ned Scott 03:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, I'm sorry if it appeared incoherent. That won't do. It must be as clear as possible that admins are not to undelete BLPs without clear consensus. I'm sort of amazed that anyone finds such statements difficult to understand, but if they do that's an indication that we need to work on it. --Tony Sidaway 03:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You appear to be twisting premature arbcom findings to push your own view on how you feel such things should be handled. Don't even try to spin this around as "if you disagree with me, you disagree with arbcom". -- Ned Scott 03:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Could you explain how I'm twisting "the article must not be restored...without an actual consensus to do so"? I'm really puzzled about this, and a little hurt that you appear to be accusing me of "twisting" and anticipating that I will launch a counter-accusation against you. --Tony Sidaway 03:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
"It must be as clear as possible that admins are not to undelete BLPs without clear consensus." How do we determine when content has been deleted pursuant to BLP, so that this unusual process (no undeletion without consensus, reversing the usual WP:AfD process; no "revert, discuss", reversing the usual WP:BRD cycle) is engaged? It is sufficient that the person making the deletion simply asserts a BLP concern? Need that person explain the basis underlying that assertion? Or does the deleting person get their own way until an "actual consensus" emerges following the subsequent discussion? (For the deletion of articles, we might rely on the good faith of admins, but BLP also covers the removal of well-cited, neutrally-phrased facts from articles - this sounds like a charter for POV warriors to get their own way.) -- ALoan (Talk) 10:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Page protection

Due to the active dispute over wording, I have protected the page for one week. Please try and resolve conflicts over wording through discussion and consensus. Vassyana 02:16, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This revision [5] is actually pretty good. The CSD stuff Tony's after should probably be moved up if it sticks - it's about deleting, not undeleting. WilyD 03:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Specifically, G10 is already mentioned under the heading Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material - where it belongs. Wily 03:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It's expanded a bit. The written policy has lagged behind actual practice for some time, as I remarked about a month ago during the Crystal Gale Mangum deletion review. It's taken us a month and an arbitration to get to the point, but now we're in a position to update the written policy by observing actual practise as captured in the arbitration case and endorsed by the arbitration committee.
Or if you prefer we could just continue to limp along with a BLP that I will have to pretend not to have read. --Tony Sidaway 03:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm saying that G10 is relevant to discussion, but it's not relevant to undeletion, really. The expanded talk about undeletion of attack pages doesn't belong at CSD either, but here. What I'd like to see is a clear, more transparent BLP with a consensus on how to handle things and a straightforward, explicit procedure for handling deletions and disputes. The standards don't even bother me much - I'm sure we'll figure those out eventually - but the ambiguity and apparent lack of process is creating a poisonous atmosphere, which is the issue I'm looking to address. WilyD 03:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I (and others) would probably understand better if you could indicate what you think it should look like. Would you like to put some wordng up on the talk page? I'm definitely with you on your wish to clarify the process, and (perhaps mistakenly) thought the arbcom had done a pretty good job of that. --Tony Sidaway 04:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm happy with a general model of (usually) delete-discuss-(restore or leave deleted) or the copyvio model of blank-discuss-(restore or delete). I'll think about the wording. WilyD 04:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

(Comment) I've unprotected the page per a concern of a conflict of interest (though I believe the concern misplaced). I did so out of courtesy. Please continue the talk page discussion. Vassyana 10:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No you haven't. ViridaeTalk 11:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
However, I did because you obviously intended to. ViridaeTalk 12:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Ack! The edit must have went down the wireless internet hole. Sorry about that. Vassyana 14:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Quote addition

I added. A quote from WP:CSD to make it clearer what the summary deletion section refers to, and the G10 does not allow speedy deletion of sourced articles (seems to be some mistake about that one). ViridaeTalk 11:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Defining Contentious

I restored a severely pruned article, Mark Copani, to its undamaged state. The deletionists, RFerreira, Burntsauce, and Bmg916, have been sub-stubbing the article for several months now. There has yet to be any explanation or elaboration on the talk page. In fact, they've entirely dismissed the concept of 'discussion'. For example, Bmg916 said in an edit summary "there doesn't need to be discussion about potential BLP violations".

For restoring it RFerreira informed me "...Replacing unsourced material about a living person which has been challenged is cause for a block."

This came as something of a surprise to me because I was pretty sure none of them had "challenged" the material so much as "deleted" it. The BLP policy reiterates the phrase "contentious material" over and over. In my mind and in dictionaries, 'contentious material' would be material people dispute the accuracy of. That certainly hadn't been done. After pointing this out I was further informed that my interpretation is non-standard, not how it has been interpreted for the past year, and I should take it up elsewhere.

So here's my question: If the current working definition is correct, then shouldn't we just remove the phrase 'contentious' as it causes confusion due to people using a dictionary definition and not a WikiDef? If the current working definition is incorrect, then do we need to clarify that 'contentious' does involve some level of discourse and explanation? Chris Croy 06:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't split hairs. If someone removes unsourced statements from a living bio, only restore that which you can source. --Tony Sidaway 07:07, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
that stubing seems entirely in line with BLP - like most wrestling articles, it contained virtually no sources. More stubing is required not less. The broader principle is not hard to understand - if you want to claim that a living person did something, said something or has a certain view on an issue - well you need a good source for it. I see no duty on the removing editor to do anything more than remove the information. Some people find it hard to grasp that those issues can be avoided by *gasp* sourcing from the outset! --Fredrick day 07:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not hair splitting. There is a very substantial difference between "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" and "Unsourced or poorly sourced material". The first implies some level of discretion and discussion. The second does not and says what you and many other people seem to think it says. The first version is how the policy has ALWAYS been. From the very first mention of 'unsourced', it has always been hedged by another word such as 'negative'. The clear intent by the authors was NOT to declare it open season on everything neutral and unsourced. Several early versions had something to the effect of

When information supplied by the subject conflicts with unsourced statements in the article, the unsourced statements should be removed.

Which implicitly means unsourced information from the subject was considered somewhat OK. It's only in the past couple of months that 'negative' was changed throughout the article to 'contentious', which again says "It is not open season on all unsourced statements". This leads to option #1: If you want policy to say "OPEN SEASON!", then go through BLP and the other policies and remove the word 'contentious'. Chris Croy 16:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think your example is a good one. Without going into detail, the removed unsourced statements included some that were clearly negative. This wasn't even close to borderline. --Tony Sidaway 16:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Show me one in the version I restored. All of the negative statements I see are aimed at the character, not the actor behind him. Chris Croy 22:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I am a bit astonished of this discussion. WP:V is very clear about this question:
  • The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material.
  • Any edit lacking a source may be removed
- regardless of whether it is an article about a living person or not. All unsourced information should be removed or sourced eventually, the only difference with BLP is that with them such a removal should be done immediately and without discussion because in such cases it is especially urgent to get the facts right.
I suggest dropping the word "contentious" from this policy altogether. First, because it frequently leads to this kind of misunderstanding that Wikipedia is happy with unsubstantiated hearsay as long we don't get sued for it. And we are not, because citing references is the way to get things right, and we want to get every article right, not just the ones we could get sued over.
Secondly, because it is very unclear what "contentious" actually means. I guess it was meant as "likely to be objected by the article's subject", but there really is no way for other editors to guess whether that is the case. Sometimes X will not care about being called a convicted felon, but on the other hand sometimes X will have good reason to object to the most basic, seemingly harmless or "positive" information like his actual name or age, or "X studied at Y university", "X was member of band Z" - especially if it is wrong. (Somebody already recognized this and changed "negative" to "whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable", but then, which facts can be declared unquestionable by whom?)
Regards, High on a tree 19:25, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I was recently pegged a vandal by User:Burntsauce for reverting one of his massive and unannouced deletions per WP:V, to Jerry Lawler. He then reverted my revert, claiming that it violated WP:BLP policy. My attempt to change the wording of the policy to more accurately reflect this de facto attitude that some editors seem to have taken has been removed. Am I therefore justified in restoring the deleted sections to Jerry Lawler? They weren't exactly contentious, as far as I can tell, and there was absolutely no discussion of a wholesale removal of unsourced material. If I am not justified, by BLP, in restoring the deleted sections, then I feel that the project page should be changed to more accurately reflect the standards that are currently being employed by certain deletionist editors. Comments? Silly rabbit 20:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
WP:V allows you to delete anything that isn't sourced - for that matter, WP:IGNORE allows you to delete anything else ... the short answer is WP:BLP probably doesn't force you to remove any unsourced information when the information is uncontentious and easily verified. Of course, what qualifies as "negative" could be anything ... WilyD 20:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
You still need good grounds to apply WP:V to delete unsourced material, particularly in a wholesale fashion (as in, most of the article). In other words, the material must be challenged before it can be deleted. I would go further and say that the behavior exhibited by some of the deletionists borders on uncivil. Unilaterally declaring material is objectionable by virtue of its being unsourced is not what the WP:V policy is about. We're trying to improve articles here, not hobble them. Then, without discussing the reasons for their removal, except in saying that it violates the stated policy of WP:BLP invites a counter-claim. BLP requires the material to be contentious, no? If not, then the policy statement should be changed. If so, then the deletionists need to do a bit more work than unilaterally removing entire sections of articles. Silly rabbit 20:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
In principle, you're removing information because you're challenging it, and the burden is on the person who wants to include it to source it. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to tell you. WilyD 20:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
That people are going around and doing incivil things in the name of BLP (and in many cases things that would be unbelievably offensive to the subject) is just settling of policy. Policy is like sausage, and you're seeing what you're not supposed to. BLP doesn't force you to remove unsourced, uncontentious material (especially when easily verified, like that Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls or such. WilyD 20:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
The way I see it, is that admins are "setting policy" without reason. I got blocked from editing from adding information that was sourced, solely on the BLP grounds, when I claimed (and others agreed, but there wasn't consensus) that I was following BLP. The just of the situation, is that I was blocked for being bold. The admins in charge are preventing an open discussion on issues. My sourced content even got removed from talk pages. the fact that these rogue admins are setting policy is the problem. McKay 20:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
So the contentiousness of material to be removed is based on "Because I said so" grounds? Note that these deletions were not specific challenges, but rather a broad implementation of several editors' interpretation of the policy that they should essentially delete any unreferenced material. There are already unreferenced and fact tags for material which, although potentially valuable to the article, needs citations. I don't understand why it's so imperative to delete uncontroversial material from articles en masse, unless it is clearly a policy of the project or of Wikipedia more generally. I don't see that the policy has been articulated in this way here or at WP:V. Otherwise, why is there the key word "contenious" in the BLP page? Silly rabbit 21:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Could someone comment whether a significant removal in Jerry Springer (now reverted and in the process of being sourced) that introduced new content problems is justified? Also note my reaction at Wikipedia talk:Attribution.
In that same post, I say that for some people, contentiousness (that leads to deletion) may be based on general skepticism of the topic and details, not taking anything as fact and not knowing of the subject matter beforehand. This is opposed to overt praise, overt critcism, factual inaccuracy or borderline original research, which appears to be the original coverage of BLP. Skepticism does not equal contentiousness for some people, but for others it does. So is there some way to clarify the word "contentious", so that the distinction of "general and blind mistrust of any unsourced information" could be pointed out? The interpretation of Jimmy Wales' quote "This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." should also be acknowledged somehow: should the second phrase be regarded higher or not? Tinlinkin 10:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

A test case for WP:BLP1E

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tawana Brawley. —M (talk • contribs) 13:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

What? We don't do test cases for policy, and we don't use AfD to deal with BLP violations. -Amarkov moo! 13:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, then an administrator should speedy delete the article per this policy. —M (talk • contribs) 13:30, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Or NOT. Edison 14:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Movement to impeach George W. Bush

User:Crockspot is claiming that WP:BLP applies to Movement to impeach George W. Bush. Surely the rationale of this page, "Wikipedia articles that contain information about living people can affect a subject's life", does not apply to news items about the leader of the free world. — goethean ॐ 14:31, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

That article borders on being an agregate of original research and a POV fork. BLP should apply to everyone regardless of their position in society. —M (talk • contribs) 14:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Privacy of person

Anyone else see a real problem with this new section? Doesn't every biography contain personally identifying information? I mean, this featured article gives her birthplace, occupation, previous spouses, specific awards won, what schools she attended, probably a dozen specific jobs she's had, extensively coverage of her travel, specific charitable contributions, her tattoos - there's probably more. While MONGO's purpose might be admirable, adding more and more to this policy is just making it unreadable - and the current addition is unusable. I just thought I'd say something before I did anything. Cheers, WilyD 17:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Individuals who seek that degree of celebrity know that their lives will be scrutinized in public. That's part and parcel of becoming an A list movie star. Most people make different career choices that go along with a greater expectation of personal privacy. DurovaCharge! 18:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No doubt, which is why it's problematic. Although something like Roger Penrose is a mathematician at Oxford is still personally identifying, and he's less of a public figure (I think - I usually have a harder time figuring this out for physicists), but this is important to an article of Penrose, who is far more important in the 100 year view than Jolie ... WilyD 18:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
For someone with enough skill and time almost anything can be personally identifying information (and I wasn't aware that say Gordon Brown's adress was secret).Geni 23:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed - I'm not aware of any crisis, although Wikipedia does have this guy's street address, which is probably known to less than 100 million people ... WilyD 23:52, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
No residential addresses? Buckingham Palace? 10 Downing Street? The White House? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:06, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, they're fine. But street addresses of marginal people would be overdoing it. If you see stuff like "the new proof of Hilbert's 15th problem was provided by Geoffrey Perkins of Northumberland Lane, Chester", then it's going far too far. --Tony Sidaway 10:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
There is a rather large grey area between heads of state or government and Geoffrey Perkins. In any event, the policy currenty says "Wikipedia biographies should not include addresses..." which, it seems you agree, is too strong. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm inclined to the view that there should be very few exceptions to this. State functionaries who have one of more official residences have been mentioned. Also famous people whose residences are in themselves famous, perhaps, such as Jeffrey Archer who lives at the Old Vicarage in Grantchester, made famous by the Rupert Brooke poem of that name. Archer bought the house because of the literary connection. Gilbert and George whose life is their art and whose Fournier Street studio is also their residence. As Phil Sandifer is fond of saying, "you can't taylorize clue", so I'd be reluctant to remove the general injunction against including addresses. The few exceptions will be treated as such by all sensible people. People who aren't sensible have no business editing Wikipedia in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 11:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Depends on what you mean by "personally identifiable information". The place of work of almost every scientist or other professor is probably in thier biography "Stephen Hawkings, a professor at Cambridge University" and so on ... the addresses part isn't what bothered me as much as the "other personal information" - it's true that you can't give people who don't have a clue any help, but given the slavish overenforcement of this policy these days, nor is it a good idea to write something that says "Delete any information about a person from their biography". WilyD 11:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Not sure why this was struck out. Stephen Hawking's post as Lucasian Professor of applied mathematics and his fellowship at Gonville and Caius are hardly private personal information, but the street address of his residence would probably be going too far. --Tony Sidaway 12:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I struck it because the wording I was most objecting to was modified to alleviate some of my concerns. I think "private" is the key quantity here, not "personally identifying information" or "contact information". If I type "Stephen Hawkings' Home Address" into google, I get his email but not his street number. In most cases, none of this information is encyclopaedic anyways (although in the examples above it probably is) and certainly there are encyclopaedic cases of street addresses or phone numbers being encyclopaedic. In general, the information is typically not encyclopaedic, but typically not sourcable. In cases where you can find a multitude of reliable third party sources that give contact information, addresses, phone numbers, et cetera, this information actually stands a good chance of being encyclopaedic (I suspect, anyhow). WilyD 13:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the bottom line is that one cannot legislate common sense. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if someone added Madonna's street address to an article, and I wouldn't be dumbfounded if someone removed it as unencyclopedic. If it stayed and I subsequently read an email from Madonna via OTRS asking us to remove it, and I'd be utterly ungobsmacked and would almost certainly support removal. There are a limited number of circumstances in which the address of a private dwelling, in detail, might be encyclopedic (10, Rillington Place is one good example). --Tony Sidaway 19:49, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Eventualism is deprecated on BLP articles.

What does "Eventualism is deprecated on BLP articles." mean, and how did such a poorly worded sentence become policy? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 04:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Did you read the Eventualism article on Meta? It explains a lot. Basically it's a rationale for incusionism based on whether or not a stub article on a subject would or could "eventually" be expanded. I think the implications for non-notable or mildly notable living persons should be obvious. —M (talk • contribs) 14:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any consensus for such a broad claim nor do I see any evidence that the ArbCom has endorsed it. JoshuaZ 13:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
It's just another way of saying that biographical material about living persons that doesn't meet the core content policies may be removed right away. --bainer (talk) 14:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Um, that doesn't read that way to me at all. Since the rest of the policy makes that clear why not just get rid of this sentence? JoshuaZ 14:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I moved all the sections containing authorship guidelines to one place. In doing so, I removed the sentence under discussion above as redundant to "While a strategy of eventualism may...", which was already present in the "writing style" section and seems less controversial. Serpent's Choice 15:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Addition to nutshell

I removed the recent addition Violating content can be removed and articles deleted, as I see it as not an accurate summary of BLP. Do we need this in the nutshell? If so, a tighter sentence will need to be crafted. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe something along the lines of "Unsourced or poorly sourced material should be removed immediately", to keep the wording in-sync with the policy text ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
That version of the nutshell is unsupported by policy text. The actual text says, over and over, 'contentious material'. That does not mean 'ALL unsourced material', it means material people actually dispute the accuracy of. If you want it to say 'all unsourced material', then change the policy to actually say that. Chris Croy 19:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Since content and article deletion is a significant part of this policy there should be mention of that fact in the nutshell. Not added by me though, apparently. violet/riga (t) 15:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps : "Wikipedia articles can affect real people's lives. This gives us an ethical and legal responsibility. When biographical material does not demonstrate the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality and the avoidance of original research, it is subject to removal, particularly if it is contentious." ? Serpent's Choice 15:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

That's probably about right. --Tony Sidaway 19:44, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Privacy of names

Probably needs some tweaking at a minimum, but I've made an effort to expand the two lines about name redaction into a subsection that provides a bit more guidance for editors. Serpent's Choice 21:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Looking good! ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
It's good, but I don't think it's comprehensive enough. People shot by the Virginia Tech killer, who survived, were primary participants (against their will) in the events and are named in reliable secondary sources, but I don't think that we should necessarily name them. Their identities are incidental to the events, and we should respect their privacy. Just because they've been mentioned in newspapers doesn't mean they're public people, and we shouldn't name them if it's possible to write a perfectly good article without their names.
Baby 81, is his name material? I think not, others think so. Why include a name in a permanent, highly popular encyclopedia unless it is necessary. That child will one day be an adult and may not appreciate having an event from his infancy dragged out. The story, if it belongs on Wikipedia at all, is about media manipulation and chinese whispers that led to a false story being published in western media. We need to address these issues in our policy, and it would be as well if it were in the written version. --Tony Sidaway 22:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't know exactly where to draw the line on some of these situations. Short version: how do we judge what is "necessary" to an article? Long version:...
The VT shootings don't exist in a vaccuum; some consideration should be given to the handling of tragedies and disasters (natural and artificial) in general. When do we list those who have died in an event? When do we list those who have not died? Certainly any people whose exceptional actions are themselves significant to the event can be mentioned, even if they do not rise to the level of standalone-article notability (in this case, that includes Albarghouti, Petkewicz, et al.). In the VT incident, one facet of its notability is that it is (per the article), the "deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history." That seems to imply validity to including the names of those killed, but not a full list of the wounded. By contrast, I believe that Wikipedia is correct in providing a full list of both those injured and killed at the Kent State shootings, because even the injuries are a substantial factor in the event's notability.
The Baby 81 case, on the other hand, is particularly difficult for me to take a clear stance on. The story, as presented by the media initially, was about the child. It seems illogical to discuss a international custody battle between multiple parties, caused by one of the most significant natural disasters in modern history, without detailing its conclusion. The problem, of course, is that the story was false; the case is only an example of media manipulation and sensationalism. It is almost certainly a notable metareporting topic. But what do we call the article? "Baby 81" (the false-premise name), "Tsunami Baby" (the pseudonym employed by the court in Sri Lanka), the child's actual name, or something else in an effort to make the article about the event ... keeping in mind that we cannot contrive an event-name not otherwise in use? And in the article, who can we name? The child? The parents? And, when that is settled, what do we permit as redirects? In this case, perhaps the solution to the article-text question is compromise: refer to the "Jeyarajah family", but not the given names of individuals? But title or redirect status? I really don't know. I don't know if that's even a solution at all, and I know even less how to write its handling into policy; I think that our efforts are better served by looking at other topics first, and returning to this mire of misinformation and failed reporting with a more comfortable consensus that can adapt to its peculiarities. Serpent's Choice 05:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, well Baby 81 looks like a classic "in case of doubt" situation, in which case "do no harm" kicks in. Sorry to sound so cocksure about it, but the policy is specifically designed to give us a clear instruction on what to do in doubtful cases. Now in the event a number of people disagreed with me on the talk page, but to my relief nobody has put the name back recently.
I don't see what's wrong with the term "the baby's family" or "the parents" since we're writing in retrospect and there is no longer any controversy about the child's parentage. The identity of the child was of course of supreme importance to the parents, but to us it doesn't impinge on the story at all, which is about press bungling and manipulation. --Tony Sidaway 11:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
For my part, I see no doubt. If the name can be sourced to publically available source material, name it. That's part of comprehensiveness and completeness. There's no harm to be done in that case, the name is already public information, so we're...what? Publicizing public information, and doing harm by that? That makes no sense. On the other hand, if finding the name requires some really deep digging, there's probably a good case for not including it.
SlimVirgin actually makes my case above in the discussion about self-published sources, where she talks about the importance of the fact-checking process. She's absolutely correct there, but it goes both ways. If the name is published in a vetted, respectable, fact-checked publication, we can be sure that their lawyers and copy editors have decided that it is legal and appropriate to include the name. We shouldn't second-guess them, as the vast majority of us are not copy editors (at least not professional ones) or attorneys. Generally, having the names of the people involved in an event are crucial to doing research and follow-up on that event. Given this, if it was general practice to mention the names in the sources we use, it should be general practice to incorporate them into the article. We cannot do harm by making public what already is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Examine a random article

I just looked for a random biography and the first one that came up was Kristine Holzer. I'd like to discuss, using such an example, how BLP applies to many of our articles.

Firstly, should we even have an article at all? She is an Olympic athlete and is included on the appropriate sites, but (no offense intended) her best solo finish is 27th. If she were a medal winner then I would say yes, but then the content may be questionable...

It will never be a true biography as it will always focus on that aspect of her life. However, it also details:

  • Her birth date
  • That she had juvenile rheumatoid arthritism, from what age and until when
  • Which university she went to

Are these details important? Are they an invasion of privacy? Are they relevant to a biographical article about her? Well the first item perhaps not, but it would seem odd to just give a year.

Since we are not going to run a full biography of her should we move it to Kristine Holzer's speed skating career? That's not a serious suggestion but it does fit in with the concept of articles not being named after someone if they are notable for only one thing.

Finally, does this article harm Kristine, in what way, and how would we look to remove such harm while (if she was considered to be a notable athlete) retaining the article? violet/riga (t) 08:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

As a member of the US official olympic team she's probably a public person. Her full birth date is given on her team bio at the official site but we'd possibly only list the year (her year of birth is indisputably relevant to her career, the day people sing "Happy birthday" less so).
As a matter of sports coverage, we'd probably want to fold this into an article about speed skating at the 2006 Olympiad. --Tony Sidaway 11:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Self published external links should be allowed simply because there are often the only comprehensive source of online information going. Secondly we are not responciple for the content of external links. Thirdly our normal rules requireing a high level of quality from external links should work well enough to keep the trash out. Fourthly this would prevent us from linking to say BrianDeer.com in the Andrew Wakefield article which is fairly clearly completely stupid. Fithly by allowing links to the subjects website only we violate NPOV by biasing the links in the subject's favor.Geni 19:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

It has been suggested that this requirement is in line with Wikipedia:Verifiability. First Verifiability only talks about sources not external links and secondaly it accepts self published sources under some limited conditions so even if Wikipedia:Verifiability did apply some self published sources would be allowed. Pages actualy relivant to external links would be Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Spam neither of which object to self published links.Geni 19:47, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Every single edit you make to this page shows a failure to understand it or any related content policy. If we were to allow self-published material in BLPs, we would be linking to material that included personal websites set up to attack people, material published with zero editorial oversight, insults and polemics published because people were angry with one another, and so on. That is the reason for no self-published sources in BLPs — not as references and not as external links. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah no. That would run into the "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research" of the links to normaly avoid section on Wikipedia:External links. Your version would require the removal of BrianDeer.com in the Andrew Wakefield article which would depending on your POV be considered anything from unbalanced to unethical (certain systems claim it is bad to deny people information that the lack of could risk increasing child mortality rates) on the other hand it would allow links to an online version of private eye something which would have a rather greater capacity to make life ah interesting.Geni 20:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Can we please resolve this here on the talk page instead of with reverts? Dmcdevit·t 21:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt a white line "no self-published" rule is going to prove useful in this case. I agree that many bad sources need to be actively watched for in BLP articles, but I think any sort of categorical attempt to cordon off a type of source is almost certain to be wrong in a number of cases. If anything, the heart and soul of this policy is that these issues require careful judgment. Trying to replace that judgment with a white line distinction is a poor idea. Phil Sandifer 21:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

We've had the no SPS provision either here or in V for some time, so we'd need to hear very strong arguments before changing it. I think we'd be opening a can of worms if we did. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Then show that my arguments are flawed rather than trying argument by assertion logical fallacies.Geni 21:54, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree. I have not heard any good arguments presented that warrant the removal of that long-standing wording from the policy. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
The reason is the same as it's always been - the Internet is becoming important to the world. Sometimes things happen in blogs and other sources that move faster than traditional editor-based publishing can. In these cases, we sometimes have to use a self-published source. It should be done rarely. It should be done carefully. But self-published is not an inherent flaw - just a warning that many flaws may well exist. But this becomes an attempt at source profiling - a lot of bad sources are self-published, so let's ban the self-published ones. This isn't useful. Phil Sandifer 22:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that although one of our goals is to disseminate information quickly, it is less important than the other goals of accuracy and reliability. Thus, on the balance we would prefer to be slightly behind the blogs, news media and tabloids, if it means that our information can be more accurate and reliable. There is no rush to insert the latest bit of gossip from a blog into a BLP article. The valid material will reach the reliable sources soon enough, if it's important. Crum375 22:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
In policy, we do not cater for exceptions. Exceptions can be made based on editors' good judgment. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
And I strongly disagree with the statement that Wikipedia's aim is to to disseminate information quickly. That is best left for Wikinews. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
But our aim is to disseminate information thoroughly, and sometimes that involves speed. As for exceptions, as long as we have as many editors willing to act like Taylorized killbots as we do, we cannot write whiteline policy like this. It's just a bad idea. Our policy should embrace the mutability and judgment that our practice requires. Phil Sandifer 02:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Most third-party publications that we use as sources employ people who are familiar with libel law, even if it's only a lone copy editor, and the bigger publications will have dubious material checked by lawyers before publication. We rely on that due diligence to protect ourselves. With a self-published source, there's no such checking, so we put ourselves at great risk by repeating what they say about living persons. There's also the notability issue; if something has only been published by an SPS, we have no reason to suppose it's notable enough for inclusion. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
That depends on the person and the area. Again, I don't see a good reason to make this claim in the absolute, and am very uncomfortable about your desire to make sweeping rules about all sources. Evidence, sourcing, and research just don't work like that. Phil Sandifer 02:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me like the rules for external links covers this well enough as is. I'm not sure what we gain by this. JoshuaZ 02:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

This.. completely is the wrong way to address external links for BLP. There are tons of completely appropriate "self-published" ELs in bio articles that this will target. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also, since when has this been an issue? I can't help but think some of you are looking for problems, rather than just removing a stupid link that shouldn't be there. -- Ned Scott 06:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The vast majority of the internet is self-published, you'd be preventing just about every single EL out there. Am I the only one who thinks this is insane? It's one thing to get rid of bad ELs, but that doesn't mean we should accept a really bad way of doing it. Then there's the question about it even being an issue in the first place. "rm per WP:EL" normally does the trick, unless it's super popular, and the policy line still won't help that. This would just make it a pain in the ass for everyone else to include good ELs. -- Ned Scott 06:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely believe that WP:V, WP:OR and WP:RS clearly do NOT apply to external links and instead are intended for sources of the article. We have plenty of external links to fansites such as memory-alpha for example. External links are meant to be "further reading at own risk" and not a part of wikipedia articles content. External links themselves should not be used as a source. Slanderous external links related to living persons should preferably be removed however. -- Cat chi? 15:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I have readded it. If it is not appropriate to use them as sources, then I fail to see why we should use them as ELs. And we're not talking about ELs on every article or subject, obviously—only those that contain bio material. Marskell 11:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
It's far from clear that these are blanket unacceptable sources. Even if they were blanket unacceptable sources, it is even less clear that this translates at all directly to them being blanket unacceptable external links. This is overreaching policy at its absolute worst. Phil Sandifer 15:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Self-published sources are blanket unacceptable where they contain biographical material. I'm not saying you can't add an EL with some interesting colour info that might be weak as an actual source on a gadget page or an animal page or a video game page—just not on a bio page. Marskell 19:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
External links in this case are not sources.Geni 20:20, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Like the others have been trying to explain, ELs in the EL section are not sources. No one should be using ELs in the EL section as a source. -- Ned Scott 21:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Though, and I stress this again, even if they were sources I still wouldn't support a blanket ban on them, because self-published and unacceptable are not inherently equivalent. Phil Sandifer 21:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
If we link them, we sanction them. These arguments are bizarre. Wiki has (rightly) arrived at the point were the onus is absolutely on the editor adding bio material to be absolutely sure of reliability. But hey, we can fudge with ELs? Add a blog repeaing such-and-such gossip? It makes no sense. Marskell 21:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
You're changing my position from "do not ban all self-published external links/sources" to "allow all self-published external links/sources." My position is neither. My position is that most are surely unacceptable or at the very least undesirable, and that these can and will be detected by ordinary editorial judgment, eliminating the need for an overreaching bright line distinction. Phil Sandifer 21:44, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
If we need to say something about ELs to keep bad ELs out, then that's one thing. We have many different ways we can do that, and how we can word the restriction. Excluding all self-published ELs, however, is the wrong way to do it. -- Ned Scott 00:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Some observations.

At this point we've had three AfDs of long standing articles where the subjects wanted deletion- Daniel Brandt, Seth Finkelstein and Angela Beesley. Brandt ended with a "complex merge" which led to a DRV with an endorsement of the close. Finkelstein ended with a deletion deletion, a DRV in which the majority of people favor overturning but the closing admin endorsed and Beesley which ended with a non-consensus keep despite Beesley easily being less notable than either Brandt or Finkelstein. One thing is very clear from this: a policy which allows closing admins to apply any level of weight to the closer's wishes with no guideline for how much or how little is a recipe that produces inconsistency in the project and general time-wasting drama. Given all this, we need to clarify two things:

  1. How much weight can an admin use in such circumstances and what factors should the admin consider? Consider the following problem: obviously George W. Bush is one on extreme example where even if Bush requested his article to be deleted and an admin closed it as delete we would still overturn it as he is obviously notable. Yet the Finkelstein DRV was closed in part due to the claim that DRVs cannot determine notability. Related to this, consider the following list: the now deleted [{Archimedes Plutonium]](deletion endorsed even though it seems AP wanted an article), Kent Hovind Jack Sarfatti, Jonathan Sarfati, Stephen Barrett , David Miscavige, Guillermo Gonzalez, John C. Sanford, Rachel Marsden, J. K. Rowling, Diane Duane. Now, which of any of these would we overturn an AfD if an admin closed due to a deletion request by the subject? For all but one of them I really have no idea what we'd do.
  2. The current policy allows the closer to apply some unspecific amount of weight to the subject's wishes. However, in Beesley, Finkelstein and Brandt (which sounds oddly like Tinker to Evans to Chance) people in the discussion called for deletion with the sole justification of the subject's desire to not have the articles. We need to resolve whether that is a valid reason for a person within the discussion to call for deletion or simply applied at closing as a reading of the policy would suggest. JoshuaZ 17:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
  • If it's true that consensus is not going to be taken into account in BLP-related articles, then BLP-related articles should not be brought to AfD, and new copy should be added to the BLP project page saying so. There's no point in wasting the community's time if their opinions will not be weighed. If people disagree with this, then they should seriously reconsider or reevaluate the above closures. Otherwise, let's stop wasting everyone's time. Rockstar (T/C) 18:11, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, I see that conclusion as almost a reducio ad absurdum illustrating what's wrong with our current approach to deleting BLPs of public figures. JoshuaZ 18:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
You know, if would probably qualify as a reductio if what I described above weren't already true. I'm just saying either we need to accept that our draconian application of this policy is true and move on, or we need to reevaluate such applications. I don't like pussyfooting around and general bullshit, and our current policy is both. The text says one thing and people do something else. Either we say admins can just delete anything related to BLP at whim or we say we want consensus. Either is fine with me; middle ground is not. Rockstar (T/C) 18:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
It appears that the arbcom are saying that admins can delete whatever they want citing this. violet/riga (t) 18:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Bingo! Well, most of ArbCom. But anyway, once the BJD case closes, I guess we should be seeing some new text on the project page. I suspect all of the text on the page will be deleted and replaced with something along the lines of: "BLP is meant only for admins, who may delete the page of any living person whenever they feel like it, so long as they cite this policy." That's pretty much where we're at right now, especially with the ArbCom ruling. And yes, that is a reductio. But yes, that is, apparently, the reality of this situation. Right, Tony? After all, we are writing an encyclopedia... right? Rockstar (T/C) 20:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

(general comment) re: the additional consideration of (unspecified) weight given to the wishes of the subjects of articles (biographies). We should remove this section that was added recently. It leads to inconsistent results which are administrator dependent and have nothing to do with the (currently time-wasting) comments of the wiki community (the first admin to close wins!!!). If others feel the same way we should conduct a new straw poll with an eye towards achieving a policy the community consents to and which leads to consistent outcomes; not dependent on any specific editor or varying interpretations due to vague policy wording. R. Baley 20:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

But that's exactly the issue -- BLP does not listen to the community -- the community has zero input on either the policy or the application of it. It boils down to unilateral and sanction-free admin action that no one can question, even if the article in question does not violate the policy. Well, at least that's what ArbCom is saying. BLP is now, essentially, a silver bullet that any admin can use to win an argument: A: "Why did you delete the article?" B: "BLP." A: "What do you mean? What policy did the page violate?" B: "I can't talk about it... BLP issues." End of conversation. Rockstar (T/C) 21:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
It certainly does feel as if we have zero input. I reverted some minor copyediting, since I thought it might confuse things, and asked those changing it to talk on the talk page. Another admin even protected the page for half a day, asking for discussion (before I had left a note on Slim's talk page, but had gotten no reply). Slim added it back in, with no discussion whatsoever, not even acknowledging the valid reason the edit was reverted. Tony comes in and backs her up. What the hell? Maybe they're right, and the wording isn't a big deal, and maybe that's just one small example, but these guys are just forcing shit in, not having a single drop of respect for their other editors. And as you said, the abuse can extend further, to deletions. This is getting out of hand. -- Ned Scott 00:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Same thing is happening on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources today. A Change resulting from a discussion involving the input of at least 10 editors was reversed without so much as a comment on the talk by SlimV. I (and MastCell) have left comments (link) on her user page (I think I was adding mine as he/she added theirs). (quotes and surrounding text perceived as attacks removed. R. Baley 02:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)) Also wanted to note that SlimVirgin has responded on the talk page at W:RS, my apologies for thinking she might not. R. Baley 02:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
edited to add:assumed you were refering to Tony Sidaway here, if not, my deepest apologies all around. If so, this is getting ridiculous. R. Baley 00:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Nothing remains in Wikipedia policy document without consensus. The above seems to be just an extended bout of bad faith and personal attacks. You cannot get your way by attacking those who disagree with you, so I suggest that you stop. --Tony Sidaway 01:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no interest in attacking you. If you had refactored your statement as requested (not by me, but others did), I would never have quoted it (or the historied version of it I mean). What I do have an interest in, however is that changes to core polices be the result of thoughtful discussion and consensus of the editors involved. So, please, be well, talk, discuss, make policies more clear. When people are ignored they tend toward crankiness. For now though, I'm going to assume that SlimVirgin had an off day wrt what Ned Scott said above, and wait for a response to my (or mastcell's) inquiry. R. Baley 01:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC) SlimV is talking, again, my apologies. R. Baley 02:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The policy page is bullshit, and we obviously don't give a crap about consensus -- if we cared about consensus, we'd listen to the community when it comes to BLP deletions. But we don't care, and neither do you. And that's fine, really. It would be nice, however, if you stopped pissing around and just admitted to it. Rockstar (T/C) 06:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Please remove your personal attacks from the page. --Tony Sidaway 01:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Done (not an admission it was a personal attack though). Can you please refactor your comments on the arbitration page I quoted you from. nevermind. R. Baley 02:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I see my name being taken in vain here. R. Baley, can you say how I'm having an off day? :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 02:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletions

Two sections, BLP deletion standards and Disputed deletions, seem to be giving the wrong impression to me. If it's just me, then I apologies, but the way it's worded gives the impression that DRV is less of an option than in normal situations. It's also odd to mention that one admin should not undo the action of another without a consensus, as that is normally what should happen, regardless of BLP. Both sections just seem to be chipping away at giving BLP deletions more power when no more is needed. I'd like to know what other people think. -- Ned Scott 01:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The intent is indeed that DRV would be less of an option, but that is in dispute. As to an admin undoing another admin's action, that should generally never happen without either discussing the matter with the admin who took the action, or, if they refuse to discuss the matter or no agreement is reached, seeking community input on whether reversal is appropriate or not. Wheel-warring is bad in all cases. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm disturbed by the first comment. Nothing resembling a consensus or anything has declared that DRV should be less of a burden and it is already very hard to get something undeleted at DRV. JoshuaZ 14:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
JoshuaZ, I'm one of the ones who disputes that DRV should be less of an option. If anything, if we allow such unilateral deletions, it will be critically important that they be reviewed by the community at DRV. However, it is indeed the intent that DRV should become less of an option, even if I strongly disagree with that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I suggest we fix it, then. -- Ned Scott 22:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Minor nitpick in BLP deletion standards

Can the run-on sentence, "When a BLP is deleted, moving data to another article should be given serious consideration, but bear in mind that this policy applies to all pages of Wikipedia; material should never be moved from a deleted BLP as a way of thwarting the point of the page deletion," be changed slightly? I was thinking of, "When a BLP is deleted, moving data to another article should be given serious consideration. Bear in mind that this policy applies to all pages of Wikipedia where BLP material exists. Material should never be moved from a deleted BLP as a way of thwarting the point of the page deletion." Aside from (IMVHO) nicer grammar, the current sentence implies that BLP applies to River, Betta, and Videocassette recorder. LaughingVulcan 03:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, in a way, it does. If someone was to edit Videocassette recorder to say that the guy who invented videocassette recorders did so as part of his fiendish Nazi plot to take over the world, that would be a BLP violation. Not one that's likely to happen, and not one that we'd (hopefully) need to invoke BLP to remove anyway, but BLP applies there... although, really, it hardly matters, since there's no practical effect when no BLP material exists. --Aquillion 05:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if it was simply biographical details of the creators of Videocassette recorder I'd agree - you've got a point. But BLP does not apply to articles which have no biographical information in them. Yes, that seems like common sense, except that I'd like the following hypothetical situation considered (no Nazi plots required ;) ): Mr. X formed Company Y (which is notable for being the #1 Widget maker in the world,) and Mr. X has an article written about him. Sadly, the article is so chock-full of libel that it is deleted per BLP. Let's say Mr. X requested it, also, and that Mr. X himself has no other claim to fame than Company Y. Great. Yet, it is determined that non-biographical information about Company Y should be merged to the history section of "Widget." "Widget" contains (after merge) no information about Mr. X. BLP then does not apply to Widget making, unless somebody decides to vandalize it with any Mr. X information (at which time WP:BRD or reversion should handle it.) Under the current policy, without Mr. X info, I can foresee Administrator Z coming along and declaring all of "Widget" a BLP article. So, I feel that the (ordinarily) common sense limits of BLP be explicit, rather than stating BLP blanket applies to every article in Wikipedia (when it only applies to articles containing BLP information.) LaughingVulcan 12:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Hang on, how does this fit in with the GFDL? If we delete content we shouldn't be moving it elsewhere if we don't preserve part of the history. JoshuaZ 14:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The suggestion is to move data, not content. If someone makes a factual statement concerning a person in an article that I delete, transferring that data to another article doesn't involve the GFDL at all.
For instance if someone make a reliably referenced statement "George Limby has blue eyes" in an article about Grenville Limby, his son, and we AfD the article on Grenville and delete it, this doesn't mean that, if relevant, I should not put "Eye color: Blue" into an infobox on the George Limby article, accompanied by the exact same reference. Nobody holds a copyright on facts. I believe the procedure I've described here is sometimes called a smerge. --Tony Sidaway 14:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, we may want to make it more clear that that we mean that and we don't want general content transfers. JoshuaZ 14:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
(EC) That is indeed possible, in the case you mention, but not in all cases. If I write several paragraphs about George, you'd have to either rewrite them (so thoroughly they couldn't be considered a derivative) or preserve the history to follow the GFDL. One cannot copyright facts, but one can copyright how they're presented. I can't copyright the fact that 2+2=4, even though I just wrote it here. I could, however, make a detailed illustration of that fact, and copyright the illustration. The same applies to the prose presentation of facts on Wikipedia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Some more thoughts

I haven't followed all of the above discussion, so apologies if I repeat some stuff, but I wanted to raise a few points and see what people think.

  • (A) My view on what Wikipedia is not and why the focus on verifiability and attribution has skewed some people's views, so that they are focusing on attribution before looking at whether the information is needed or not, can be summarised as follows:

    "Not every that can be verifiable needs to (or should) go in Wikipedia. The thinking should not be: "If it's verifiable, let's put it in"; it should be (1) "do we want/need this information here?" and (2) "can we supply a source for the information so the reader can verify what we have written?". (1) comes before (2) every time." Carcharoth 20:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

  • (B) I noticed someone raised an issue about biographies versus profiles. See here. My opinion is that many of the profiles found on Wikipedia do indeed need to be rewritten in biographical style, and ultimately the point needs to be made that Wikipedia is not the place for profiles on people. A truly independent source will not write in the style of a profile, and this ultimately is what needs to be teased out of the discussions. Truly independent sources will write critically (ie. looking at both the good and the bad) about a person, and that is what is sometimes missed in these discussions.

Anyway, two separate issues really, but I thought I'd add them to the discussion here. Carcharoth 09:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that having false information in the encyclopedia is inherently harmful. This isn't an issue just limited to BLP, of course; having false information about the Taj Mahal can be harmful, too. But when it comes to articles on living people, false information has the potential to do much more harm, since reputations and lives can be destroyed in a single news cycle. Therefore we have to be much more careful when writing about living people; if we are not completely certain that a potentially libelous statement is true (in other words, if it hasn't been verified), we need to remove it until an acceptable source becomes available. Saying we need it in the article doesn't do any good; an incomplete article is, as a rule, far less harmful than a potentially libelous one. It's much easier to re-add the fact that XYZ is an axe murderer after a proper source has been added, than it is to restore their reputation if a news agency cites our false information. One good example: Look at Ray Nagin. You will notice that it mentions a controversy over whether or not he used to be a Republican (something he denies). I spent a while looking at sources on that, trying to puzzle it out, and from them strongly suspect that the original source on the story that he used to be a Republican is, in fact, us--an anon added it to his article ages ago, with no sources, back when he wasn't very well known. Then, after Katrina, many blogs and, later, even respectable news agencies used our article for a quick background check. The result? Our unverified statement on him has been echoed around so much that we now have to report on it, even though it was probably just a mistake. While not really as libelious as some potential BLP issues could be, that's a good example of what we have to beware of, and why we have to err on the side of non-inclusion sometimes, at least until a good source can be found. --Aquillion 20:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Another example, and it isn't the least bit damaging as far as I can tell, but it illustrates how unreliable Wikipedia can be, and how easily seeded with information: Richard Gere's German half-brother. Here I comment, "the only source I can find for this is Wikipedia--should we be in the business of creating fact?" [6], and here, a German anon provides a source for the statement and restores it [7], and here [8] we learn on "talk" that a German may be using Wikipedia to disseminate the notion that he is Gere's half-brother. Or is he really Gere's half-brother providing information he knows to be true? Well, no one appears to care--the only thing that's really important, if you read the talk page, is whether gerbils should be mentioned and what should be said about his sexual orientation. And where did I first learn the gerbil legend? Wikipedia, where else? Meanwhile, the Gere entry stagnates and collects troll edits. That's the Wikipedia I know. If it takes BLP to fix that, then I'm all for it. -Jmh123 06:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Some good examples, though really, why newspapers are using Wikipedia as a source of information is completely beyond me. Do newspapers no longer have journalistic standards? Carcharoth 10:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Many do not. -Jmh123 15:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
That article does seem to have had problems in the past, though at present there is no obvious problem material there now. I think the question of how and whether to discuss events of his brief marriage, which were prominent at the time but now seem a lot less important, is a legitimate one. Now, I think, even in America the question of a film star's sexuality carries a lot less weight than it used to, but as recently as the early nineties this kind of speculation still fueled the less salubrious magazines. Nowadays Drew Barrymore can discuss her bisexuality and hardly anybody notices. --Tony Sidaway 13:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood my comment, Tony. The article doesn't have problem material now; it's just not a great bio, and is rarely edited except to add perjoratives that are then deleted. No one cares about improving the entry, but people do care about gerbils. The bare facts about his personal life are all that is necessary in an encyclopedia. -Jmh123 15:21, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Writing well is hard, writing poorly is easy. You can't realistically expect anon or even new editors to know about verifiability and citing sources - they're mostly going to write about what they know. On every article you're always going to have to explain to anons the importance of citing sources. For many (most?) people, the rumours about Gere's sexuality may be the only thing they know about him (shit, I'd heard the gerbil rumour at least six years before I was able to name a single film Gere was in) and there's nothing you can do but be patient with them. As for improving enteries - if you watch, most "largescale" improvements come in spurts - because they're much harder work than copyedits, reformats, rvvs and the like. WilyD 15:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Feuds between notable LP's

I have a question on a certain issue. I'll oversimplify it for sake of argument. Here goes: Individual A is controversial, so it is noted that someone else (Individual B) does not like that person and accuses him or her of being a jerk (which is sourced of course). There is not much objection to this information since it has been there for a long time and when it is taken out it is put back in. That's fine. Now, someone puts in a negative accusation from Individual A about Individual B or maybe another person (also sourced). It is taken out because it is an "attack" so BLP comes into play or maybe it is due to notability since it is not covered by a secondary source which could be argued in the first example. The situation appears to be a double standard at worst and inconsistency at best. It does not matter to me which was is the right way. I just believe there should be a uniform way to handle controversial people who have some sort of grievance with other LP's. Do I have something here? MrMurph101 21:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Essay

I've written an essay on this topic at Wikipedia:Avoiding harm. It doesn't actually reflect my own views on BLP; rather, I think it reflects the broad opinion of most people on this, and I hope it will form an appropriate compromise. Waltontalk 14:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

"Presumption in favor of privacy" and "encyclopedia"

From the encyclopedia article:

"An encyclopedia, encyclopaedia or (traditionally) encyclopædia[1] is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge."

Since when did "privacy" began playing a role in this? Why the fuck should wikipedia care about privacy concerns of a individual by not posting published content he/she doesn't or even "might" not like. Non-notable people are deleted. Non-sourced information is deleted. That's simple and makes sense.

Since when was this added to determing which information can stay here:

"Sourced information which "sounds bad" on the living person must be deleted. Also refrain from mentioning too much about the person since that might also be used in a foul way somehow."

The above is my interpretation of course but it's not too far from what this section is basically saying since it's just asking to be abused by someone who holds the above view. Hasn't already been abused thought, ironic and ridiculous.

99.244.236.210 18:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Since when did encyclopedias become daily news reports that covered every Tom, Dick, and Sally whose name ever appeared in the paper or online? Ironically, much of what makes it into Wikipedia isn't covered in Wikinews. In my opinion, this isn't a matter of censorship, but of differences of opinion about what content is encyclopedic. I think all this BLP brouhaha evolved out of a too-broad interpretation of "reliably sourced and NPOV", which became a catch-all defense for including tabloid-y material and internet memes in/as Wikipedia biographies.-Jmh123 20:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the anon is completely right. We're heading in a bad direction for why we do this and how we do this. We are neutral, we are not out to promote or hide, attack or defend. Is it encyclopedic content or not, is it sourced or not, that's what we are about. BLP is a tool that gives bio articles extra care and attention so the risk of false information (which can have a significant impact for a living person) is minimized. It wasn't about hurting people's feelings, or harming their public image (that's what NPOV is for). Now we have BLP policy sections about identity theft (which may or may not be needed, but isn't what BLP was supposed to cover). I think people are losing sight of what BLP is actually about. -- Ned Scott 21:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Re: Jmh123, I am puzzled why this policy is always mentioned when it comes down to deletions of articles such as ones in categories you have mentioned and some that are not. In the past if I remember correctly it was covered by Wikipedia:Notability. Now articles are being deleted for "privacy" and "courtesy" reasons with reasoning pointing back here. How exactly did that section turn into an afd arguement? 99.244.236.210 22:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
To add, you are welcome to delete little kid's articles, meme's, local hero's and all the other useless biographies. It's all possible under Wikipedia:Notability (people). This section I mentioned in this thread has somehow made it to afd reasoning. If you have a section that talks about censoring published information in the name of privacy and courtesy we have a problem. It might be little kids names (example Talk:Baby 81) today but what about tommorow? I don't know about you but when it comes to "information" privacy only means one thing - censorship in one form or another. 99.244.236.210 22:15, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that the understanding of notability has been way too broad, but it is also about abusing the notion of reliable sources. Advocates for an entry on AfD often say, "It was in the papers; it's reliably sourced. It's all over the internet; it's notable." There's no recognition of the difference between the NY Post and the NY Times, between a gossip column and front page content, between a fluff piece for entertainment, and hard news, between a pop culture feeding frenzy and genuine importance. Never mind giving someone time to demonstrate genuine notability or else fade into cultural oblivion. There's a sense of urgency about getting things into Wikipedia NOW. If you don't include it, it's censorship. There's that word again. Personally, I'm not really moved by it, because every time someone makes a good argument for not including something or someone, people cry "censorship". One of the most sensible things I read in the ArbCom case discussions is that, if a subject is truly notable, blanking shouldn't be a problem. It should be easy enough to start over. If we're really worried that people will forget Little Fatty without Wikipedia's help, doesn't that say something about his notability? Nothing is irretrievably lost by not being in Wikipedia, and if it is, in my opinion, it wasn't encyclopedic to begin with. So, yes, I agree with some of what you and Ned Scott are saying, but I do not agree that this BLP debate is leading down some slippery slope. I think it's a much needed and long delayed effort at correction and balance, after the failure in execution or interpretation of policies like notability, NPOV, and reliable sourcing. I welcome these changes. -Jmh123 23:40, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I definetely agree. I hope your not assuming I'm a Badlydrawnjeff clone with hardline inclusionist demands. The issues you say are real indeed. Inclusionists always over estimate the importance of reliable sources when it comes to afds and so forth but last I checked Wikipedia:Notability (people) criteria is more than a "source requirement". I don't think you can deny that. The thing I am worried and I feel justified in it is that this new BLP page will be used inapporiately. This policy was based on making clear that unreliable information on living people should never be on wikipedia and be deleted on sight. When have we become concerned with "privacy". I agree with the subcategory "Well known public figures" on this page. But everything it says is already covered by other policy. This policy already assumes that you are dealing with a notable subject so no need to mention it when dealing with non-notability. It basically tells you that even though the subject is notable, refrain from putting useless published information here. You can interpret "useless" anyway you want. All information we have on "living people notable only for one event" and "relatively unknown" has been published. If it hasn't been than it can be deleted under WP:OR. Why has this policy decided to give users the authority to decide which published information is notable to include or delete under some "privacy" ethics? I would like to hear why published information should not be included on a notable subject. Please dont mention gossip and other bullshit since it adheers to Wikipedia:Reliable sources and can be deleted under it.
As I see it this policy is hiding behind WP:NOT, WP:OR, and WP:N lightly and quickly paraphrasing them while giving right to its true purpose "privacy". As i see it its pure censorship. It probably was not intended as "censorship" but more of some ethic thing by the moral police, but this policy will and probably only can be used as "censorship". Everything it's trying to say is already in established and ancient rock solid policies except the "privacy" concept. Has this change in BLP been discussed with the wider community? I'm sorry I have no idea when this was implemented but I'm pretty sure there hasn't been much disussion about it outside afd's and a group of users. 99.244.236.210 00:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
To the anonymous editor above, I believe your point is quite well-said. WP:ATT was considered a sufficiently major policy change suggestion to merit a watchlist notice, in order that as much of the community as possible would be brought in to discuss the matter. I'll ask again, why aren't we doing that here? This is certainly a much more far-reaching change than ATT would've been-ATT was just an attempt to clarify and consolidate existing policy, while this is a tremendous shift. A measure like this can only succeed with widespread community support, and in order to ensure that takes place, we need to ensure that we get community participation and really do develop measures the community can and will support. To that end, I propose we place a notice and an invitation to discussion (perhaps on this page, or a subpage so this one won't get massively flooded?) on the watchlist notice for one week. Let's make a policy the community can and will get behind, so we can put the endless debates on individual subjects to rest. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

You cannot have a neutral point of view if everything is considered to be wort reporting. The idea that Mrs Smith's dalliance at seventeen with a man who later went on to become a drug dealer is as important as her blameless life before during and after is incompatible with the neutral point of view. We're an encyclopedia and not a scandal rag. The neutral point of view implies judgement, careful judgement, and a presumption that we do not report that which is private. --Tony Sidaway 02:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, I am glad to see that you have noticed that an inherently subjective process, like deciding if somebody is "notable," or whether or not a given fact should be mentioned in the context of their biography, is essentially one of judgement and POV. One which (by its very nature) cannot possibly be neutral (since you either have to DO it or NOT DO it, and neither one of these is a neutral act).

The real problem is the howling absurdity that Wikipedia itself is capable of NPOV or anything approaching it. I've brought this matter up before in criticizing the NPOV policy, and only gotten back the answer that a clear POV is okay for inclusion in Wikipedia, if we can find a citable/reliable source to pin it on (and leaving aside all question of whether or not the proportionality of expert POV is represented by the cite, etc, etc). But even so, that only takes care of part of the problem, such as (say) representing POV of various factions in opinion-wars in public scientific or political debates, which take place in the "real world," outside Wikipedia. It really doesn't help in shaping of Wikipedia policy (except in those rare cases where Jimbo wants some policy and has said so in a citable way), and it doesn't help either in case-by-case applications of Wikipedia policy, where obviously there are going to be differences of opinion (i.e., such as "is this person notable or not"?), and where the various POV's involved obviously cannot be backed up by any non-wiki (ie, external) sources. SO all you end up doing in such cases, is quoting adminitrators or editors' opinions. Which isn't too satisfying for an encyclopedia which pretends to be NPOV driven, is it?

And that kind of thing (are we following WP policy or not in a given editorial decision) taints every single editorial decision made in the writing of Wikipedia-- it's just more obvious when it comes to BLP issues.

In science, we know that one cannot "polish a turd," or IOW, one cannot make an inherently subjective judgement, and somehow magically turn into an objective judgement, by means of application of statistics (i.e., collecting statistical data on how many experts think a math theorem, or a painting, is "beautiful" or "important," or not). But too often, that's exactly what Wikipedia does, all the while pretending that this launders a completely POV-driven and subjective process, into something that is objective and NPOV. <laugh>. Well, here's news: it doesn't. SBHarris 21:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

When I made this thread I was a little over the place in terms of how I wanted to adress the issue. Hopefully I'm more clear now in my thinking and will come of as comprehensive. I would enjoy hearing your response about a couple issues. Policies already exist for subjects you speak of above. Why merge them all here? When was this "privacy" concern for BLP's been decided? Was the community at large involved? I am not argueing here about non-notable front page bullshit and in those cases I agree with you. I am having a problem with this "privacy" section which does not clearly adress its purpose and what "privacy" even has to do with notability. Why tie privacy with notability in this discussion? 99.244.236.210 02:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony, you keep restating these principles, and I think you'll find that most everyone is largely in agreement with them. Obviously, we shouldn't be in the business of reporting private information. After all, private information wouldn't be verifiable anyway. I might've seen Mrs. Smith with Mr. Drug Dealer, but I'm not a reliable source. On the other hand, if it does become a significant issue, we should report on it. Obviously, there are certain parts of his presidency I imagine Bill Clinton might like to forget, but they were a genuinely important issue, even if many people believe it was also a rather silly one. In that case, however, we're not reporting on it from tabloids and blogs—we're reporting on it from reliable sources, and the person involved is unquestionably notable.
If all Mrs. Smith is notable for is her relationship with the guy who went on to become the drug kingpin, we probably shouldn't have that article at all. On the other hand, if she were running for Senate and her opponents used that against her, causing a major nationwide issue and eventually being credited as a major factor in that race, we should most certainly cover that somewhere. (That "somewhere" might ultimately be Wikinews, but we can always transwiki.) The point you appear to be missing, however, is that very few people disagree to your principles, even though you continue to repeat them as though that's the case. I haven't seen anyone on this page saying "Hey, we really should be reporting private information and setting out to do harm." And I'll be the first to agree we need a lot less bios on non-notable and marginally-notable people. Where there is a tremendous amount of disagreement is as to what is harmful, what is private, and what is notable. A discussion of that, rather than to continue to repeat those principles, would be much more productive. The principles are not in dispute. The interpretation is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to clarify our actual policy for the anonymous, who seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick about what it is. He seems to think it is solely motivated by whether someone might or might not like us saying something about them. I'd explaining that it's all about neutrality and particularly balance. --Tony Sidaway 05:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
This is true, and again, I have not seen those principles disputed. However, there are quite a few people who evidently believe the recent actions under BLP do not actually follow those principles, do not advance neutrality or balance, do not prevent significant harm, and are not otherwise justified by them. The question here is not "Should we follow these principles?". It is "What should we and should we not do in the interest of following these principles?". There is a significant and very real difference between those two issues, and the latter certainly is a major issue, one which glib dismissals, assertions of "ethics" when there is sigificant disagreement over what would and would not be ethical, and argument by assertion ("Of course all the recent actions followed those principles") will not resolve. Only a good, robust discussion over what exactly our code of ethics should be will result in a code of ethics which the community at large will follow and uphold. This only holds true if the community at large is invited to such a discussion. Also, since you made no comment earlier, I presume you have no objection to a watchlist notification in the interest of bringing a wider segment of the community into the discussion? Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
It's fine to dispute the application of agreed principles. That's what dispute resolution is for. I'm not sure whether a discussion like this will shed light on best practise, which I have found to be better learned by doing stuff and finding what works. But there I'm just showing my pragmatic bias. I'm confident that a true understanding of the policy's application will only emerge through such action and through dispute resolution. Others may feel that they need the big talk. There is room for both, provided we are agreed on the principles. --Tony Sidaway 05:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm actually with Seraphimblade on this one. A robust discussion in which work out guidelines with the support of something resembling a consensus is infinitely preferable to two hundred nasty little battles as people try to stretch the policies in practice, rather than amending the guidelines as they stand. Rebecca 05:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Oh I don't think battles of any kind will be necessary. The important battles were won before a shot was fired. There is a tendency to think that just because people disagree on interpretation, they have to fight about it. What really needs to happen is for the policy to be applied repeatedly, successfully, until everybody understands that it works, and most of them understand how it works, and we are all agreed that it has to work.
I suspect that the biggest hump to get over is from viewing Wikipedia as some kind of website or online game, with winners and losers. It has to be taken more seriously than that. Brad says, "Leave the living alone unless they can be written about in a manner worthy of reading 50 years from now." It might sound extreme, but I really do think we have to do something that. Well, 10 years time, at least.
If you're still with me, then you may say that we agree on the principles of the BLP. And now the physical problem: Messedrocker has a list of some 20,000 articles that made it to the "Living people" category but are missing sources--roughly half contain "fact" tags and the other half contain "unreferenced" tags. It's growing in size at a rate of approximately 10% per month, and I'll bet there's a much bigger backlog of articles about living persons, that haven't even been categorized and tagged yet. We are ill-equipped to handle this glut of spurious information about living people. The best thing we can do with most of it is to manage its disposal, but we don't yet even have a workable system for grading information at this volume by importance. And that's why the BLP has to work. For the most part, it's a job for bulldozers and machine shovels, not trowels and tweezers. We have to know when it's time to let go of information, and we must dump the most toxic and spurious information in a timely manner--before it has a chance to do damage. --Tony Sidaway 07:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, what do you expect? Nobody cares as much about the info in BLP articles as the subject, and nobody else is as expert in the same. And yet, WP has effectively taken upon itself the responsiblity to insure the accuracy of such information, without giving subjects any extra incentive (which in practice means power) to fix such things. The result is rather the same as in an economy when you take all economic (market) decisions away from the people directly affected, and give them to small committees of overworked commissars. It's completely ridiculous to imagine that 200,000 people are "notable" enough to warrent public biographies in a encyclopedia, which they (at the same time!) effectively forbidden to have any control over, information-wise. If THEY aren't given oversight power over this kind of thing, which is what would be necessary to keep the content reasonably accurate, then you can't afford to have it exist at all. Any more than if you and the small group of Wikipedia editors were to take on responsiblity for the contents of (say) the refrigerators of those 200,000 people, without letting any them have particularly any more reporting or stocking or shopping privileges than anybody else. Present policy MIGHT work (sort of) with the limited population of BLPs of the VERY famous living people to be found in a paper encyclopedia--- which is why I've long suggested it be kept to that number. Even then, tabloids only survive because they deal with "public" personalities who have limited recourse against large print media outlets, absent proof of actual malice.

But Wikipedia's BLP policy can't and never will work with the number of relatively unknown people it will expand into with no effective limits on size, which is what we're seeing now at 10% BLP growth rate.

Now, why is this obvious to me, but not to anybody else here? Have I lost my mind, or the reverse? Because one of us (me or the community) is surely and totally and headbangingly wrong about this issue. So how do we tell? Do you want me to suggest some standards and tests over the next couple of years, to find out which (myself, or the Wiki community which has crafted WP:BLP) holds the completely nutso position and set of expectations? Here's one: I predict that things will only get worse until some completely obscene miscarriage of bad BLP information, badly handled by the editors, finally results in Wikipedia being legally forced by Florida law into taking down all BLP content of anybody not already in paper encyclopedias, or on the covers of taboids, sometime in the next two years. Anybody want to take me up on the wager? Loser gets to publicly eat crow in June of 2009, right here. SBHarris 03:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly you're responding to. But you're on. So long as WP:OFFICE continues to be available, those subjects with genuine and legitimate complaints can have them addressed quickly and definitively. So, sure, I'll take up your bet. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
This is where you lose me. I see BLP as fulfilling the purpose it was actually intended for; minimising any unnecessary harm to living persons as a result of their having been mentioned on Wikipedia. I draw the line at using it is an excuse to go on a deletion-fest and wipe out a huge swath of perfectly good content because referencing four years of back-unreferenced-content actually takes time. We've only been strongly pushing referencing of all articles for less than a year now. Perhaps a more suitable way of dealing with the problem would, instead of warring over BLP policy and trying to shoot the entire flock on sight, actually spending ones days referencing the articles on that list. There, not so hard, is it? Rebecca 08:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
At that rate of growth, far too hard. We already have primitive triage systems at work. CSD-A7 is the most basic, and a comparatively small (very small) number of articles go to afd or prod. Some of the rest gets tagged, perhaps mostly by robot--for instance it's easy to automatically tag orphans, articles that contain no internal references, and articles that contain no external references. By the time a human looks at some of these articles they're smothered in pastel boxes. This is a big job and it's getting bigger.
But I got a bit carried away and perhaps you misunderstood me as advocating mass deletion. Well perhaps that will be necessary, perhaps not--but even now we're deleting some 7,000 items per day, including images, so it's a bit hard to argue that mass deletions aren't already necessary simply to keep our heads above water. Certainly automation will increase and improve.
Rather, I advocate making it easy to delete any biography of a living person, temporarily or permanently, if and when it should become necessary. That means, I'm afraid, something much harder than sourcing articles, far, far harder than deleting thousands of pages a day. It means a culture change. That culture change will make Wikipedia a little less anal about process, rather more circumspect about the dangers of acting in ignorance, more thoughtful and far more proactive. --Tony Sidaway 09:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


Tony, I don't think this is necessarily a job for "bulldozers and machine shovels". Some of it, yes. G10's been a speedy criterion for as long as I can remember, if something's an unsourced attack piece, by all means take the bulldozer to it posthaste. But when we're talking about more contentious matters on well-referenced subjects (Allison Stokke, QZ, Daniel Brandt), have a discussion. With Daniel Brandt, we did that. A discussion was held, a solution was found, it was overwhelmingly endorsed. No problem, the community said "Yes, this is the solution we want to this", so that's what we do! But in the other cases, especially looking at some now-deleted talk pages, it appears the community (or at least part of it) was saying "No, this is not the solution we want." In that case, we discuss. We AfD, we article RFC, or, as I've suggested, we even hold a community-wide discussion to make a major policy change. But we don't just plow over significant objection from good, established editors. This approach has already driven several good editors away, and promises to do so to more. That's not "doing no harm" in my book. Now, I personally am with you that any article we write should have lasting, historical significance. But I'm also willing to say "The community disagrees with me on what some of that is." When Rebecca and I actually agree on something, there's very likely something really there. In this case, there really is a problem. Yes, part of that problem is bad BLP content. Part of it also is overzealousness in removing that which is not bad BLP content. But the line, ultimately, is not "where Tony Sidaway says it is" or "where Seraphimblade says it is". It's where the community as a whole says it is. So let's invite them to tell us. And let's participate in that discussion, not as "the one who knows best," but simply as one member of that community. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Anon, you are conflating two important principles - neutrality and time-sensitivity. Traditional, old, dead wood encyclopedias, or weekly print magazines for that matter, have an immutable characteristic overshadowing their content decisions every time they go to press, namely, time. Time allows decisions about what is notable, non-notable, etc., to emerge clearly. This project does not enjoy that luxury - it is in fact considered one of its distinct virtues. Neutrality is *assumed* - but that is insufficient to answer the question about what is appropriate about something that is flash in the pan sensationalism. Gotchapedia is not what this project is about. If you think this is incorrect, go write for some blog that is irrelevant a week from now. If you don't believe me, try reading what is on your dentists' waiting room coffee table. The headlines from then (6 months ago? a year ago? two years ago?) are fodder for this day in history articles. Leave the living alone unless they can be written about in a manner worthy of reading 50 years from now.--Brad Patrick 03:28, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
No offense, but what does that have to do with the anon's point? I'm not even sure if he disagrees with you on what you just said. -- Ned Scott 03:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the anon understands what the policy is. Obviously what Brad or anybody else says is going to sound like gibberish to someone who thinks the policy is about not saying things about someone that they might not like. --Tony Sidaway 05:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Put your reading glasses on, Tony. I'm saying from Brads statement and the Anon's statement, I don't see two different views. I see two different comments about different aspects of BLP. Brad is not talking about the same thing the anon is talking about, nor do I think their two views are in conflict. Brad is talking about getting it right the first time, the anon is talking about our emphases on privacy without considering notability. -- Ned Scott 21:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Bingo. The original complainant thinks we have a policy which amounts to - "Sourced information which "sounds bad" on the living person must be deleted. Also refrain from mentioning too much about the person since that might also be used in a foul way somehow" - which is a horrendous idea, but as it's basically a wild misinterpretation of what the policy says, the exact details of how horrific it is are fairly moot. (I wonder sometimes if this might be better renamed "biographies of private individuals", to make it a little clearer what it's driving at...) Shimgray | talk | 07:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Shimgray, your paraphrase of the original complaint's view of the policy isn't completely off-base as a description of the policy. (I realize you intended to exaggerate so as to amplify its flaws, but some of its underlying soundness still comes through.) Further above, Tony Sidaway criticized the anon on this ground: "He seems to think it is solely motivated by whether someone might or might not like us saying something about them. I'd explaining that it's all about neutrality and particularly balance." No, it's certainly not all about those things. The recent policy change does indeed give weight to whether some people like us saying something about them. Furthermore, because it doesn't specify the weight, but instead leaves that solely to the closing admin, the weight actually given can be (and has been) very great indeed. JamesMLane t c 10:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I was quoting their paraphrase directly... Essentially, their version might describe the situation if we assume our editors are stupid and never intend to apply common sense. As our editors are not entirely stupid (well, not all days), and most apply common sense sooner or later, the paraphrase really doesn't describe what actually happens. Shimgray | talk | 18:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
That isn't new. It's been around since late April. It seems to have worked pretty well in practice. --Tony Sidaway 10:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
If you want to quibble, I didn't say it was "new", I said it was "recent", and two months ago qualifies for that term in my book. More important, of course, is your assertion that it seems to have worked pretty well in practice. My personal opinion is that it has been an absolute disaster. JamesMLane t c 10:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
From my point of view, getting rid of that pestilential non-bio of Daniel Brandt was a very good thing for Wikipedia. Well I'm sure we'll find something else to moan about in due course, but I think it's good that we have the weight of that thing off our shoulders. If it took the wish of a borderline notable person like Brandt, the expertise of A_Man_In_Black as closer, and a two-part debate lasting over a week, it was still cheap at the price. --Tony Sidaway 11:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm familiar with two applications of the policy, namely the deletions of the Daniel Brandt and Seth Finkelstein articles. (If you want to quibble, call it the "effective deletion" of the Brandt article.) In each case, it was absolutely clear that there was no consensus to delete. In each case, many closing admins would have resolved the AfD as a "no consensus, defaulting to keep". In each case, there was a DRV in which significant numbers of Wikipedians expressed their unhappiness at a closing that didn't follow our established policies concerning consensus.
So, we've seen a sub rosa attack on one of our core policies, a change that means AfD results will be much more highly dependent on the happenstance of which admin closes them, and a process that left many people feeling not only that the result was wrong but that the process itself was fundamentally flawed. As against all that, the effect of the recently adopted policy was that you got what you wanted in the particular case you mention. If that's your only criterion for deciding whether a policy has worked well in practice, then I can't argue with your conclusion. JamesMLane t c 15:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you're absolutely right to highlight the fact that "if in doubt, don't delete" is under severe attack as regards biographies of living persons. Perhaps it's time we recognised openly that this is no longer considered an appropriate rule of thumb in all cases, particularly with regard to living bios. --Tony Sidaway 08:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Radical proposal

Radical idea I just had...

  1. Move this to "Wikipedia:Do no harm" and possibly downgrade to a guideline
  2. The important, policy aspects of this should be covered by Wikipedia:Verifiability and WP:CSD

The ethics behind this policy applies not just to biographies of the living. We should "do no harm" to the dead and their relatives, to organisations, and should avoid "harmful" material in all our content. "Verifiability" and "Do no harm" have become two of our most central ideologies, but the latter has clearly caused problems. WP:V should give people the ability to remove unsourced content from articles, while WP:CSD gives the ability to speedy delete articles where necessary. This policy page would be opened up as a guideline (or policy) for the inclusion of content that would be considered harmful.

This page currently overlaps with CSD and V and it leads to more confusion. Only the CSD page should give permission to speedily delete an article, while V should be the policy that covers the importance of sourcing.

I expect opposition to this, especially as I've not spent an age developing the idea. I just think that it's something that might help progress this policy and work towards a better situation. violet/riga (t) 22:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Actually, this is not a totally crazy idea - these principles definitely apply to other entities - like businesses, or what have you. WilyD 22:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I like this idea, and was actually thinking something similar last night. A two tier system like how we have WP:NFCC and WP:NONFREE. I think people will oppose not having a specific BLP policy, but they might support a BLP policy and a BLP guideline system. -- Ned Scott 22:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking along those lines myself, but if it's a code of ethics we want, how about leave BLP as is (or as was, as the case may be) and develop Wikipedia:Ethics with input from the whole community? If it comes out there that we want a stricter BLP, we can always do that too. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the principle, but have a question about what exactly a biography is/isn't? Some seem to think that any discussion of a person who happens to be alive is a biography. For example, BLP currently states under the subsection, Articles about living people notable only for one event; Cover the event, not the person. The problem is that in most cases the person famous for the event must be discussed to at least a minimum. Here are four examples;
Sylvia Seegrist, Heidi Fleiss, John Wayne Bobbitt, and Reginald Denny.
These people either caused, or were a party to events that would be remembered; Seegrist killed three and wounded seven people at a Pennsylvania mall. Heidi Fleiss had a profitable, and eventually, high profile business in the oldest profession which gained her notoriety. John Wayne Bobitt's wife gave him an at home penile reduction procedure, and Reginald Denny got hit in the head with a brick during a riot on tv.
My view is that only biographical directly related to the event should be discussed in these situations. It should be mentioned that Sylvia Seegrist was crazy at the time of her rampage, Heidi Fleiss was a woman of means when she established her business and she had other options. The fact Bobbitt's wife felt he wasn't a very good husband, to say the least and that Denny happened to be caught in the LA Riots would also need mentioning. Since the four mentioned people's claims to fame are probably events they'd rather just forget any mention is going to cause some harm. Anynobody 10:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
We should avoid "harmful" material in all our content? And what is harmful? There is a word for what you are talking about, and it is censorship. Last time I checked, Wikipedia was not censored. There are so many kinds of information that some people consider harmful and others don't that I won't even bother giving examples. --Itub 11:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I was one of those who set the policy that Wikipedia isn't censored. This doesn't mean that, when it comes to living people, we include poorly sourced statements or write poorly balanced articles.
For instance someone might produce an article titled Arnold Beeswax in which, with evidence from responses to FOI requests posted on a website, he states that Mr Beeswax fiddled his taxes in 2001. It might be perfectly true that Mr Beeswax did something wrong, even illegal, but such an article would still violate several Wikipedia policies. These policies work together in quite complex ways that are not immediately obvious even to people who think they understand them. This policy is an umbrella policy which emphasizes that, with respect to our articles about living people, it is of utmost importance that we get it right, or not have an article at all. To that end, it has much, much sharper teeth than the other policies.
Of course that is the reason why Violetriga's suggestion, at least in its initial form, probably wouldn't work. This is a unique policy in its provisions, and its importance as a statement of how we handle biographies of living persons is not something that we want to dilute, or even to appear to dilute. --Tony Sidaway 11:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Not necessarily dilute, but as it stands now the policy is jumbled, with a lot of specific "notes" rather than a singular vision. And it's not really only for biographical material - I've applied to same principle to businesses, for instance (although they are, I suppose, fictional people). The policy is getting bogged down with very specific instructions that come from problems with one or two articles - in the long term, I'm confident it will be streamlined and clarified without any dilution. Discussing how best to do this isn't a terrible idea. WilyD 13:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
There is zero possiblity that the most serious issue facing OFFICE will be downgraded to a guideline and removed from it's logical target. Marskell 13:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you've missed the point. All the ethical and legal implications contained here would be covered by WP:V. violet/riga (t) 13:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I definitely don't think it's a bad idea to discuss this. Just putting my point of view. --Tony Sidaway 13:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Heidi Fleiss isn't famous for an event, she's famous for her career. A person's career is not an event, it's an ongoing series of events; if a career were treated as an event, 90% of our entries about people would be about events. Neither Fleiss's not Bobbitt's claims to fame are "events they'd rather just forget", they did their best to earn as much money from their resultant fame as they could, made multiple compensated media appearances, and parlayed their fame into Nevada brothel careers. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anyone disagrees that we need to be careful with living biographies. (If anyone does disagree to that, I hope they're not editing them.) I think the question is, "What is proper caution, and what crosses the line into overcautious?" I would break it down as such:
  • Proper caution:
    • Ensuring that any potentially controversial material regarding a living person, wherever it may appear, is sourced to a highly reliable source, and removing any such material which is not immediately.
    • Ensuring that any source used for negative material used regarding a living person is a publicly-available and reliable one, and disallowing the sourcing of such material to primary records, tabloids, gossip sites/blogs, or the like.
    • Taking into account (though not necessarily accepting as final) a complaint from a living person regarding material about them.
    • Deleting unsourced or poorly-sourced biographies of living persons at once.
    • Taking an eye toward covering a notable event as an event, and merging pseudo-"biographies" of those notable only for their incidental affiliation with that event into the article about the event, with the person's name as a redirect to the event article.
  • Overcautious and potentially harmful:
    • Deleting articles well-sourced to publically-available and reliable secondary sources about a living person unilaterally or without first gaining consensus.
    • Removing publically-available, reliably sourced material from the article of a person because they may not like it.
    • Taking into account hypothetical (rather than actual) claims of harm, where the subject has not actually complained.
    • Prohibiting discussion of such issues when they are controversial.
    • Failing to redirect names to event articles when the person was noted in connection with that event.
    • Disallowing material because we don't like or find distasteful what happened, e.g. Allison Stokke, QZ.
If we want an ethics code, I again strongly suggest that we make a proposal at Wikipedia:Ethics, and develop it with consent and participation of the entire community. I really don't want to place a "disputed" tag here, but with this going on, it's clear that it is. I personally don't think the "Ethics" page should be a redlink anyway, so let's develop it! And please keep in mind, your ethics are not necessarily those of anyone else, no matter how strongly you may believe that you are right. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
If you want an ethics code, keep it realistic. The views you have expressed above, when acted upon, resulted in an arbitration case where a person espousing those views and two persons acting on them were sanctioned. Any code of ethics, must correctly reflect Wikipedia policy, and not a set of personal views based on misconceptions of why this policy has consistently resulted in the removal of grossly inappropriate articles and materials. --Tony Sidaway 09:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Tony, ArbCom doesn't make policy, only interprets it. To my understanding, should the community decide that ArbCom's interpretation of policy is incorrect, it is the community's version which will ultimately be implemented. (This is true anyway, I don't think ArbCom is genuinely capable of overruling the community, nor do I believe it is their wish or mandate to do so.) That's why I say, develop a separate proposal, put it on the watchlist notice, and see who the community says is right. It might be your version. It might be mine. Chances are, it will be neither of the two, but somewhere in the middle or something else entirely. But let's not pretend you, me, or even the ArbCom can override or substitute for a genuine, community-developed consensus. I suggest that we start that page at once, with proposals for a community code of ethics from anyone who cares to write one (perhaps each person can write his or her proposal on a subpage, and the main one can link to each proposal with a short summary?) What would you say to that? Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
(Replying to Tony) - I think there are important differences between what Seraphimblade proposed above, and what Jeff, Violetriga and NightGyr did or stand for. The key difference to me is the exclusion of tabloids, gossip sites, blogs and primary sources. From what I was seeing, the "keep" side were saying that these are acceptable as sources for Wikipedia articles. What Seraphimblade is saying is that this is incorrect, and that they are unacceptable as sources. If something is based on numerous reliable and respected sources (eg. 30 years worth of books and published articles and studies), then caution should be used before applying BLP. That is common sense. I think the key objections that many people have to the current BLP culture are the following two points which should, in my opinion, be considered bad BLP practice:
  • Taking into account hypothetical (rather than actual) claims of harm, where the subject has not actually complained.
  • Prohibiting discussion of such issues when they are controversial.
The process, though, I agree on. Delete first, then discuss. Don't stifle the discussion in controversial cases, and open an arbitration case if someone insists on discussing everything. Don't presume that the article will stay deleted. Open an arbitration case if a deleting admin consistently fails to explain their actions. Seraphimblade's approach is good because it clearly marks out the lines on either side, within which is the grey area. What it could do with is a "too little caution" section, explaining where the boundary lies in that direction. Carcharoth 13:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that the point about taking into account hypothetical claims of harm is reasonable in a lot of cases, but not all. I've seen quite a few cases lately where material was being removed or articles deleted because of extremely dubious hypothetical claims of harm. I'm quite concerned, however, that Seraphimblade cites the Stokke article as something that "good BLP practice" would have us keep. That was the sort of article where the BLP issues are obvious, staring us in the face, and needed to be killed with fire, complaint or not. It wasn't the first of that nature, and it won't be the last; these are the sorts of cases that the BLP policy was designed for. And with that, there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rebecca 14:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
To be clear on Stokke/QZ-I don't think we should be presenting that material as a "biography", that's exactly the type of pseudo-biography I was talking about merging. On the other hand, it might certainly be acceptable to mention Stokke somewhere like Internet privacy, or QZ in, for example, list of Internet memes. Just because we don't have enough information to write a reasonable, balanced biography doesn't mean mention of the information must be Strictly ForbiddenTM anywhere at all. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
QZ is covered already at List of internet phenomena#Images. It's been there for months. The Alisson Stokke case is unlikely to be a longlasting meme so (thankfully) we probably won't be faced with the question of whether it should be covered there. --Tony Sidaway 08:19, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Applying this policy

OK - I'm interested in trying to develop concensus as I think the wrestling articles are pretty shameful in their current state and who knows what's hidden in some of them.

Policy says Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.

As far as I can see this edit in line with policy (I gave nine days notice of my intention) but many editors will consider this going too far - thoughts? --Fredrick day 00:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

So you can't talk about his prolific career but you can mention wife abuse? Interesting interpretation. You removed far too much acceptable material in that edit. violet/riga (t) 08:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Does seem a little odd. However the description of the career is for the most part unsourced cruft. Perhaps deletion might be more appropriate. --Tony Sidaway 08:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
The wrestling articles are odd in that - unless articles about other performing arts, they tend to be a mixture of the real and whatever storyline that person is involved in. Now the wrestling fans might know what is what, but how are the rest of us mere mortals suppose to delineate out the difference? A storyline written up in the wrong way is reported as a factual happening in that person's life. Those articles of living people are amongst the most detailed yet unsourced that we have on wikipedia. I have no interesting in wrestling but as a BLP-related issue, they really do need more of a spotlight shined on them. --Fredrick day 09:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems odd, Tony? Who could've predicted that "odd" edits would happen when people read the BLP policy in different ways? violet/riga (t) 11:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Stick to the subject. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)