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AllRovi

They have sites AllMusic, AllMovie etc. I just noticed that their birthdate is incorrect for Kitty Wells. I noticed this about another BLP as well but can't remember which. Should we check a few of their dates compared to other RS and possibly put them on a list as a bad source for accurate dates?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Supplementary essay or addition to policy page?

I'm wondering if users might be interested in writing collaboratively about "what BLP is not." Often I see editors taking cover under BLP for edit-warring, POV-pushing, personal attacks, and all kinds of misbehavior when the material in question does not violate BLP (eg. is very reliably sourced). Do you think that this should be addressed with language on the policy page that specifically addresses the issue, or with a supplementary essay? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

We may wish to add it is not a tabloid. I recently saw an editor state that a BLP article looked too 'nice'. They decided to balance the POV, dug up some trivial dirt, and then asked if the rag source it came from was RS enough to add the dirt to the article. If enough editors want to make it 'wikidirt' then we have no control of the consensus. Stating that 'the readers have a right to know' is another BS statement they like to hide behind. If it does become wikitabloid then I think our reputation will end up in the toilet with all the other crap sites.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I think it would be better to try to have a section on this page, since it would reach more people and be more authoritative. You might want to ask some AN3 admins for their experiences, since "BLP" is one of the most frequently misused defenses against charges of edit-warring.
Under the wording of "what BLP is not", I would like to see: "BLP is not a license to add negative material" about persons in contravention of neutrality and balance, just because they are "reliably sourced" to newspapers; "BLP is not a license to edit war" and avoid discussion; and "BLP is not a license to ignore verifiability", by elevating the subject's own self-published sources and statements above those of third-party sources.
The section could also clarify that the policy's intention is to protect subjects on their own biographical articles. Invocations of "BLP" on non-biographical articles, or on biographies of different people (ex. person A is in dispute with person B; user X invokes BLP on A's biography, ostensibly to protect B, having the net effect of defaming A), should be regarded with more suspicion. Shrigley (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Images

Can we add a statement to WP:BIOSELF to the effect that BLPs are allowed to provide their own images? They should still be aware that which image we use will be decided by consensus. I was thinking more of the articles that we have none or bad images. We could add a link to the commons OTRS, license/copyright etc. I am going to try to make a 'transit BLP' image page on commons so they can upload them with less hassle.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm okay with that, or a link to a page that explains it all, but you'd have to be clear about the CC-BY-SA requirements, including the copyright issues (you can't give away your photographer's property) and the implications of granting free, unrestricted commercial and non-commercial uses. The licensing grants rights that the typical person might object to very strongly, like use in advertisements or someone deciding to photoshop your head onto someone else's naked body, which the license permits without qualification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't think one page explains it all yet. I am trying to create one here: *http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_talk:BLP_transit.jpg like a Grand Unified Theory.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Presumption of innocence and differing judgements

There is, I think, an unstated scenario in the section, which is when different parts of the judicial system give different judgements as to a person's culpability. The example everyone will probably be thinking of is O.J., but I was thinking more along the lines of Simon Harwood, who was found by an inquest to have unlawfully killed Ian Tomlinson, but found not guilty of manslaughter. Should the general advice be the common sense solution to not use absolutes? Sceptre (talk) 22:40, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent suggestion. -- Avanu (talk) 22:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Concur. It would even make a neat phrase for inclusion in a guideline somewhere or other. Formerip (talk) 00:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:SITH is free. :) Sceptre (talk) 04:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Just so that we have a good understanding of what we're dealing with: the coroner's judgement did not extend to the claim that Simon Harwood unlawfully killed Ian Tomlinson. The verdict was simply that Ian Tomlinson was unlawfully killed; it can only be expressed in passive voice. So there aren't different judgments of Harwood's culpability here. That doesn't mean Sceptre's suggestion isn't worth pursuing (though I don't quite perceive yet what that suggestion is), but there isn't really a problem to resolve for the Tomlinson article, as long as we express the coroner's verdict properly. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
That's why I said seemingly contradictory: the judgement couldn't name Harwood specifically, but it was clear that it was Harwood and reliable sources agreed as such (see also: CTB = Ryan Giggs). I've used the O.J. example as a more clear example where the civil and criminal trials also, and more clearly, gave those seemingly contradictory judgements. Sceptre (talk) 22:38, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on Vietnamese diacritics

Badly structured article being edited by people with potential COI

I was referred here from the MOS page. The article in question here is Koh Buck Song, a writer. Most of the editors on the page are not active on other articles, only here. This is in spite of claims that they are on a project to help improve the articles and profiles of all Singapore writers. This subject surely cannot be the only one. Also the structure of the page is making it basically a list of every single writing the subject has ever done. To put it in context, its like listing down every single review Robert Ebert has ever done over the decades. Which would be unreasonable for the purpose of Wikipedia. Hope someone can provide a solution to improve the existing article rather than turning it into a over glorified list.Zhanzhao (talk) 04:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As per the edit history and [page analysis], the following are the top contributor behaviour. I only left out the 1 anonymous IP and myself.

Already put in a COI tag, trying to see how else I could improve the page, thanks! Zhanzhao (talk) 04:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Noted Scholar

Hi, there are 350 articles with the phrase "noted scholar". Some seem to refer to traditional academics mainly who are dead, but some do not. "Wayne G. Hammond, a noted Tolkien scholar said of the first two films that he found them to be "travesties as adaptations... faithful only on a basic level of plot" and that many characters had not been depicted faithfully to their appearance in the novel.[73][76]" What does "noted scholar" mean and should it be given to living scholars as an honorarium. My concern is that it gives undue weight to their opinion. This started as talk on the LOTR film trilogy. http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy Wakelamp (talk) 06:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I find the use of "noted" in any article to be a useless piece of puff -- if the person is not notable, he should not have an article or be cited on a topic. Collect (talk) 12:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
"Noted Scholar" is a common academic term. It means that someone's work has literally been taken note of and has been found important enough by others to the extent that they regularily use it for referencing. E.g. see University of British Columbia: "Noted scholars will be individuals who are preeminent and of international stature in their field." De728631 (talk) 16:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I looked at the British Columbia reference. I don't think it applies, as it is more about a a program for visiting scholars called the "noted scholar policy" rather than what "noted scholar" means. I can't find a definition in wiktionary Wakelamp (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Definitions aside, the term itself is widely being used throughout all kinds of literature. Here's a search in Google Books for "noted scholar": [1]. De728631 (talk) 11:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Sure, it's used elsewhere. The issue is should it be used to describe sources in Wikipedia? I almost always remove it when I find it, as when I find it it's almost always used as a way of saying "obviously this person must be correct or really famous". It also gets used a lot in 'lists of notable whatevers' without any justification. The only question I see is if it is clearly used several times in reliable academic sources, can we use it then (we definitely shouldn't be using it without references using it)? I guess there may be a few unusual situations in which it would be reasonable to use it, but they should be taken on a case by case basis. But at the risk of being repetitive, we would always need reliable sources, to make the judgment ourselves would be OR at best, and in some circumstances pov. Dougweller (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Well said, I agree with that assessment. De728631 (talk) 19:01, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not experienced enough to know. What do I need to add to the WP:ASSERTN ( assertion of notable) and Biographies of living persons:Notability_(people)? Wakelamp (talk) 13:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Gauging opinion for a radical proposal: extending BLP to all people.

This is something that I've been thinking about in my head for a while, and here's the gist of it: I'm aware that BLP is here for legal reasons, and of course, you can't libel a dead person. But BLP also dictates ethical editing, and I don't think it's ethical at all to not care about impeccable sourcing and a neutral point of view as much just because the article subject is dead. Basically, keep the legal aspect of BLP for living people, but expand everything else to all people too.

This is just a feeler proposal, though. I'm well aware that, at the very least, we'll need WP:CENT to actually change it, and we may need the Foundation to look it over too... Sceptre (talk) 18:50, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

On a similar note an admin was kind enough to make Template:Editnotices/Page/James Eagan Holmes and a few more for articles and talk pages. These show up at the above the edit window. Should we add them to all BLP articles and talk pages? We could make a similar one for the deceased pages. See Wikipedia:Editnotice--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:07, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
On an aside and possible extension of this discussion, is there something similar for organizations or groups? I've encountered situations where another editor had made some very questionable edits regarding a group of peple, but because the edit was talking about the group rather than specific individuals, that editor claimed that BLP did not cover it since it protects only individuals. Zhanzhao (talk) 21:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't think he can claim exemption from BLP. If I state that most heavy metal bands are in bed by 11 pm and go to church every Sunday, I would still need an RS.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Added an RfC tag; I'd like a pre-poll on this. Sceptre (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Reliably-sourced and neutral editing are already required for all articles (WP:V and WP:NPOV are policy). We don't need a policy change for this. The fact that we remind people that these things are especially important for BLPs is because of the libel risk, which doesn't apply to the deceased. There's no need to put WP:V and WP:NPOV in people's faces constantly for all sorts of non-BLP topics, as if they are too stupid to remember two basic policies. It's too insulting and annoying to the editorship. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

BLP issues on a Talk page

A couple of editors have been making efforts to prove a TV celebrity is older than he says - see Talk:Tim Wonnacott. This has involved searching official government birth indexes and, recently, publishing the purported names of his parents too. Should this sort of thing be deleted and, if so, in what way? Sionk (talk) 00:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Contentious claim on a group...

I am assuming that per WP:BLPGROUP that if someone is trying to assign a rather negative/derogatory term to a group of people as a whole, this would fall under typical BLP treatment (specifically in terms of enforcing it)? We have an IP editor trying to assert that some members of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom are engaging in bestiality/zoophilia, which I know for a fact (as a primary editor there) that no reliable source has ever connected before, but their claim is that it simply follows from the dictionary definition. You'd never tag a living person with such a claim, and this would seem to be the same here, as per my reading of BLPGROUP. --MASEM (t) 05:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Without wanting to get into the particulars of this case your approach has to be the right one. Take a different, hypothetical, example of a group dedicated to animal rights, and suppose that an editor were to argue that for balance there should be reference to the possibility or even probability that some of its members believed that extreme acts were justifiable in defence of animal rights. To justify including that within the article on that group I should expect reliable sources showing, for example, that such extreme views were part of that organisations policy, advocated by the leadership, or that a faction operating within and accepted as part of the organisation had actually participated in such acts. Even if somebody who was a member of that organisation had been convicted of illegal acts that would not be enough in itself, because I would expect anyone passionate on the subject to join animal rights organisations. Or another hypothetical example. Some people form sexual attachments to all sorts of objects. I have no doubt at all that there are those who form a sexual attachment to certain dolls, have a large collection, spend many hours cruising the internet looking for sites with connections to those dolls, join forums discussing them and possibly even attend conventions. It cannot be right then to describe everything they associate with as a magnet for sexual fetishists unless there were RS showing that what had brought together the members of that particular group was the sexual attachment. Anything else is just guilt by association. --AJHingston (talk) 11:07, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Categories and "parody religions"

Does WP:BLPCAT apply, for instance, to the Church of the Subgenius? See the discussion at Talk:Penn Jillette#Membership Church of the Subgenius. We have reliable sources saying Jillette is a member, even a Rev. And of course we know Jillette is an atheist, he makes that very clear. Atheists don't belong to real churches. So in my opinion, BLPCAT doesn't apply here as this isn't a real religion. Dougweller (talk) 08:41, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you would treat this like membership in any other organization or club. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Question

Are there any existing Wikipedia policies or guidelines or essays or discussions or traditions (etc.) that say it's a better idea in a BLP to describe what the subject has done rather than not done? For example, if the subject did not publicly object to the behavior of Jack the Ripper, is that an appropriate thing to put in every BLP of every person who lived during the Ripper's crime spree, if those people sat out the Ripper episode without public protest? Please note well: this is not a request for any policy change. It is merely a question. Thanks.108.18.174.123 (talk) 02:53, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Well, to start with, anyone from the time of Jack the Ripper would be firmly out of the scope of BLP. But it really comes down to sources: (can a reliable source be said to have made note of the inaction in question?) and undue weight (is the inaction or lack of response relevant enough for a biographical article in a general encyclopedia?). On rare occasions inaction can form the foundation of a subject's notability--such as Rosa Parks who didn't move to the back of the bus)--and in others lack of [public] reaction can cause a scandal in itself--such as Paul McCartney, who made headlines with his seemingly flippant "It's a drag" comment on the death of John Lennon. As a general rule of thumb, if several reliable sources have commented on a person's lack of action or response, it's probably worthy of inclusion. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 04:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Overbroad?

As written, BLP seems to exclude some valuable encyclopedia-building interactions. For example, say that I read somewhere recently that John Doe was the first Asian-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but can't find the source (say because I don't have a digital subscription to the newspaper I read it in). A normal reaction would be to post to Talk:John Doe asking, "I read recently that John Doe was the first Asian-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but can't find the source. Is this true? Could someone help locate a reference?" Another user, who dislikes John Doe and doesn't want their accomplishments to be promoted, removes the request outright, citing BLP (contentious material that lacks a reference, and BLP applies to all namespaces including talk). While I'm not aware of any such case actually occurring, it would seem worth carving out some kind of exception for, unless I'm simply misinterpreting the policy. Dcoetzee 07:01, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

  • That seems like a hypothetical situation that wouldn't be a problem if it actually occurred in the manner you describe. I don't think we could ever see an official policy exception for it though, as it would provide too big a backdoor in which to introduce libel if used in the negative: "I heard somplace that John Doe is a child molester/satanist/drug-abuser/telemarketer/rapist... anybody have a source?" Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 11:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Unless a claim is specifically and directly related to a person and so stated specifically and directly in reliable sources (that is, not in sources with an editorial position or POV about the person), it does not belong in an article. Including in articles about dead people. Including articles about organizations, sects, cults etc. Otherwise, we invite POV-pushing, we invite "silly season" POV pushing, we invite COATRACKing and so on. "Articles which make "allegations" make bad encyclopedia articles, especially when any sort of POV can be attached thereto. "I suggest that articles subject to WP:BLP in any manner which make allegations be strongly constrained." Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Restrction on public records

This bit from WP:BLPPRIMARY seems to me overly restrictive:

Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses.

I understand what the passage is trying to do, but currently written, it forbids the use of certain public records. I'm changing it to the following instead, in line with WP:PRIMARY:

A primary source may only be used to verify straightforward statements of facts. Do not use trial transcripts and court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records in order to include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses. Do not base large passages on primary sources.

LK (talk) 23:13, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I assume the first sentence "Exercise caution in using primary sources" will remain. Because there are many public documents available to search online, it is endemic on WP for editors to find something in a (genealogical) website search engine, put 2 and 2 together to make 5. Sionk (talk) 23:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
(ec) I've reverted your change, Lawrence, because it would allow an increase in the use of primary sources. What we're aiming to stop here is (for example) a BLP subject filing for divorce, and an enterprising Wikipedian heading off to the local courthouse to regale us with the sordid details, including how the subject leaves his dirty socks lying on the floor. There used to be a lot of that kind of editing before we had a BLP policy.
The aim of this part of the policy is to require secondary sources for anything in a BLP that could be contentious. It's not that we're saying court documents may not be accurate (though that is a factor). It's that we want to know that reliable publications have considered the details worthy of mention, and we hope that, if secondary sources do mention them, they might also place them in context for us (e.g. "the subject's spouse initially accused him of leaving his dirty socks on the floor, but a later court filing indicated that the subject has never owned any socks"). SlimVirgin (talk) 23:44, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Are there any appropriate uses of such documents? For example, if Famous Musician files a lawsuit against his record label, could you cite the lawsuit for a statement that he had actually filed a lawsuit? I think that's quite different from accusations about leaving dirty socks around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I can't think of any examples myself. If something is of any note in a court case or law suit, it will be reported somewhere. Any other use of public records usually requires an assumption to link the name on the record to the person in question, which is WP:OR. Sionk (talk) 09:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Sionk. If it isn't mentioned in reliable sources other than primary sources, it doesn't belong in the article. If it is, use the other sources. Dougweller (talk) 12:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
(@ WhatamIdoing) If Famous Musician files a lawsuit, secondary sources will report it, and we can refer to the primary source to augment the secondary ones. It's when Not-So-Famous-BLP-Subject is involved in a court case, and no secondary source has thought it worth mentioning, that the trouble begins. WP is not meant to be a first reporter of BLP issues (unless the issue is a really harmless one, in which case no one minds). But just about the only use of court papers in Wikipedia BLPs (or at least a major use) is to make negative points about the subject; or to make negative points about someone with whom the subject is in dispute. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:31, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not seeing the reverted change as being particularly problematic on that count. More to the point, it seems like there's a bigger deal with court records--which report assertions without verification--than other sorts of public records primary sources. Maybe the tweaking should focus on addressing those concerns? Jclemens (talk) 00:38, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
What kind of thing did you have in mind? Just to remind people, this was Lawrence's change to the policy. The problematic addition (in my view) was: "A primary source may only be used to verify straightforward statements of facts," which carried over the general policy advice found in WP:PRIMARY (part of WP:V), and which seemed to give a green light to the use of primary sources in BLPs. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong about using decisions to verify straightforward statements of facts about those decisions, though most every other court filing is problematic at best. The record contains unfiltered assertions by the parties, random and sometimes irrelevant motion work that may or may not have been granted, and lots of other unusable material. — Coren (talk) 01:52, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Even with "decisions" the situation is not clear—rarely is a legal statement given in words that are unambiguously translatable into NPOV and encyclopedic text. An individual editor may know that a certain court document has a certain meaning, and that there are no other documents that would be required to give an NPOV description, but in general, editors have no way of verifying that a ruling has not been set aside or amended, and have no idea about the material's DUEness. While not related to BLP, I saw the battles at Ugg boots when, among other things, SPAs tried to insert mentions of primary source court cases to "prove" that a certain company owned a certain trademark in various countries—it was very unsatisfactory for isolated decisions to be strung together in that way, and UNDUE primary sources could be cherry picked to create a lot of BLP damage for someone who had a legal problem decades earlier (a problem unrelated to their notability or current life). Johnuniq (talk) 04:24, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

My main problem with the text as it stands is that it forbids the use of public records that include any personal details. I.e. this sentence, "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." Hypothetical: Suppose that we have two secondary sources divided about some trivial issue, for instance, whether they graduated high school in 1997 or 1998. This policy forbids articles from citing any public record that can be used to verify which secondary source is correct.LK (talk) 14:27, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree, that example you give is indeed going beyond the "do no harm" bits of what the section was intended to accomplish. Too much focus has been placed on potentially harmful usages of public records, while ignoring all the good sorts of things they can be used appropriately to accomplish. Jclemens (talk) 14:34, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
How will you be sure that the public record clearly, without any doubt whatsover, is the relevant one? The other problem is the implied one, and that is privacy. Besides the trivial information you want, there may be details about children, addresses and phone numbers, etc. Dougweller (talk) 16:11, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Policy pages are supposed to be descriptive of good practices on Wikipedia. I'll bet that very few, if any, of the editors in good standing of BLPs will agree to not cite a relevant public document just because a personal detail is mentioned somewhere in the document. That borders on the ridiculous. LK (talk) 11:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Not ridiculous - there have been a few cases where editors try adding in a court record into a BLP where the facts are that the use of the record is improper per WP:BLP for good reason. And in some of those cases, the editor is seeking to add information which is not proper in the BLP as well. Collect (talk) 12:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
A blanket restriction on all court documents and all public records is not the way to deal with that issue. If you really believe it is, I suggest a RfC. The sentence "Do not use public records that include personal details ...." essentially forbids the use of nearly all public documents (since almost all such documents will include some personal detail). I strongly object to the current wording. I do not believe that this restriction has the consensus of the larger community. I suggest changing it to "Do not use public records in order to include personal details ...." LK (talk) 09:33, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Surely the existing wording should be retained until agreement has been reached to change it. I see the last sentence has been removed already! Sionk (talk) 09:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The text under discussion appears to have been added at 23:29, 28 March 2010 (diff), and a few checks indicate it has been part of BLP since then. A solid consensus would be needed before significant change (given that it is supported). In general it is a bad idea to change policies based on thoughts—instead, has an example been shown whereby the current wording caused a problem? Johnuniq (talk) 10:11, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
I restored the original sentence, as you probably noticed. Sionk (talk) 10:15, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
The privacy interest is worthy of discussion, but I think the current phrasing of the policy is overbroad and needs to be changed irrespective of any privacy- or BLP-related determination.

I'm with Coren on the idea of distinguishing judicial opinions from court records filed by the parties themselves. The opinion is (very likely) a reliable secondary source for the facts found to be credible during that proceeding, and a reliable primary source for the content of the decision itself (obviously). The concern over rulings that have been set aside is worthwhile, but ultimately doesn't need to be resolved by a prohibition. If a cited fact was correct when cited, it's just a subset of the problem of changing information that renders any reference work suspect. With a BLP, the impetus to fix it is considerably stronger, but it is (arguably, I suppose) not reasonable to mandate that every BLP article must not use citations to court documents, because some could be out of date.

In addition, there are limited situations where a complaint or motion filed by one party is an appropriate primary source for the fact that they have made an allegation (but not an appropriate source for the substance of the allegation). So it would be fine to cite a complaint filed at the court, writing "they sued for trademark infringement", even if there is no independent secondary source to confirm it (that's just an application of the ordinary primary source policy). I see no overarching reason why the excerpted policy needs to always prohibit these kinds of citations. TheFeds 01:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

If the opinion of the court is notable, we should be able to find a reliable secondary source expository of that opinion. If no one else found it notable, we ought not do so. Collect (talk) 01:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Only in relatively rare cases would this be a notability issue (e.g. if the court document was the only source for the article subject, and without any acceptable sources, WP:N would not be satisfied). The more general case would be whether or not to include a fact from a court document: there, it doesn't particularly matter if the opinion is notable, only that the article subject is notable, that there is an acceptable source for the fact, and that there are no overarching concerns raised by the nature of the fact (e.g. controversies).

Or do I misunderstand your point? Are you instead proposing that court opinions should not be treated as secondary sources with respect to the facts of the case, either for determining notability or for sourcing content? TheFeds 08:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Context is all. Taking the discussion away from court records alone, the starting point is that if a notable person chooses not to disclose things about themselves (age, children, previous relationships, criminal convictions etc) then even if these these things are the subject of media speculation editors should not fill in the gaps by disclosing the results of researches or chance discoveries in primary documents. Not only is this a breach of privacy in its own right but even if it appears innocuous in combination it may reveal things that impinge on the privacy or security of the subject or others. So much so clear, and the notability of the subject or the issue is not the point.
The bigger difficulty arises, it seems to me, when the primary records conflict with secondary. Let us suppose an actor claims to be 39, an editor has seen a birth certificate suggesting they are 41. The younger age may be widely quoted, and in that sense notable, but I see no reason for permitting the use of primary records to make the correction. More importantly, the subject may have claimed to have no criminal convictions, an editor may have seen court records to the contrary. If that is significant enough, eg because they are running for political office, then the media may follow it up and if established and reported by them they can then be used as the reliable secondary source. I would see no reason to permit direct use of primary records in this instance either not least because of the risks. The third situation, though, is where the subject or somebody else is seeking to correct something widely reported in secondary sources which they claim is wrong. Primary records may be their best, and in some cases only, tool for doing so. That could well be a court case, where a claim about what may or not have been said in a trial may only be resolved by reference to a transcript. There it seems to me the question becomes one of verifiability, and it would be unjust and unfair as well as unreasonable for WP rules to apply in such a way that a false statement could not be removed or corrected simply on the basis that the majority of secondary sources said otherwise and primary sources could not be used. I have seen instances of editors counting up secondary sources as though they were of equal weight and using a simple majority count, so whether there is a single secondary source quoting the primary is not the point here, it is that a verified primary source can trump any number of secondary sources to the contrary.
Taken together, WP:BLP and WP:PRIMARY seem sufficient to me to deal with the problems, but they are subject to the interpretation and frankly the motives of the editor. --AJHingston (talk) 12:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Birth Certificates are not infallible -- posit my wife's mother was born in Scotland but my wife's birth certificate says her mom was born in South Carolina - seems to me that using the birth certificate as infallible could lead to horrid misstatements of fact. In short, I can readily see where allowing the door ajar even an inch would have far worse results than the current position of keeping it shut. Collect (talk) 13:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Are court documents (or other public documents) particularly prone to error? More so than most other kinds of references that we happily accept in BLPs and elsewhere? What's unique about public documents that they should be treated differently as a matter of policy? If the concern is privacy—which is fair enough—shouldn't we consider a policy that directly addresses privacy, rather than using the document type as a proxy? TheFeds 07:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
Some explanation is in my comment above at 04:24, 7 August 2012. Johnuniq (talk) 12:21, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Restrction on public records

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The consensus was keep as is. I bow to popular consensus. However, I still hold that people do not object to this policy because it has been largely ignored. I leave the people here with 3 words; Obama's Birth Certificate. LK (talk) 03:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)



WP:BLPPRIMARY currently forbids the citation of any public record that contains personal details. It currently reads:

Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses.

Should this sentence in be kept as is, removed, or changed to the following:

Do not use public records in order to include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses.

LK (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Involved editors

  • Change or Remove: Since almost all relevant public records will mention some personal detail somewhere, the sentence as is forbids the use of public records for any reason whatsoever. It's unreasonable to put this blanket restriction on all BLPs in Wikipedia. LK (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep as is The reasons for not using primary sources also include that material of real value to a BLP should also be findable in a secondary reliable source - if no one else finds it useful, then we should not use it. The proposed change elides the real and sufficient reasons for that position. Collect (talk) 15:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
If that is correct, then we should just change the policy to "Do not use public records", the personal details bit is irrelevant and misleading. LK (talk) 15:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep as it is I guess because of my brief involvement above, I should comment here. The proposed change is so subtle as to be almost meaningless, but all the same it is a very subtle move towards increased use of public/government records to source BLP's. Using public records requires an editor to assume the person in the records is the same as the person in the Wikipedia article. This is WP:OR and has no place in Wikipedia BLP's. It is endemic in some WP subject areas and shouldn't have any more encouragement! Sionk (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep as is and recommend responding to earlier comments (for example, "has an example been shown whereby the current wording caused a problem?") before starting an RfC. What is an "involved" editor? Am I involved? Johnuniq (talk) 00:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Uninvolved editors

  • keep as is - the only use for public records are a primary sources which suitability is as sourcing is minimal to begin with and does not outweigh the intrusion into privacy of wikipdia's direct linking to such sources.-- The Red Pen of Doom 15:20, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep. The policy is there to protect living people from having their privacy and security disturbed. Binksternet (talk) 15:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Leaning towards keep as is If something is really worth including in a Wikipedia article, secondary reliable sources would have covered it. Abuse of primary sources remain an ongoing problem for Wikipedia. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:35, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep as is. The reductionist argument by User:Lawrencekhoo is incorrect. The existing text guides editors as to what is meant by "personal details," and does not cover every possible thing that could appear in a public record. The text is necessary and appropriate for protecting the privacy of living persons who have the misfortune to have biography articles on Wikipedia. Deleting the text would encourage abuse and create legal problems for Wikipedia. Abhayakara (talk) 15:53, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • keep with caveat I agree that the purpose of the restriction is to protect people from identity theft/personal intrusion etc. However, in some cases the records themselves are notable, or are of such sufficient importance that they should be included (Court records on an article where the person is notable primarily because of the the case/incident etc.) I would support some sort of exception mechanism to this policy on that basis, but in general think the restrictino should stand. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:50, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep. I see no legitimate reason to cite to public records with that kind of identifying information it. In addition, the proposed change will open up a can of worms in deciding what the purpose is in citing the public record and whether the purpose is otherwise valid. I prefer the clear rule.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:06, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep. The potential consequences of removing or changing the clause far outweighs what could possibly be gained. Useerup (talk) 17:33, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep. - We are here on this E Wikipedia project to report what others have reported in reliable sources - WP:RS - we are not a primary source - Caution and care for privacy/etc are primary concerns in regards to the project being the primary publisher of content . this is especially true in regards t content about living people.- Youreallycan 15:48, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep as is. If anything make it more restrictive. I really can't see the the need to go digging through primary records for a BLP article being so pressing it outweighs the risks involved. Siawase (talk) 16:11, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Guardian of Seattle

This is Colton Cosmic. I could use a little help removing the privacy-violating information from the Phoenix Jones article. He's a "real-life superhero," a costumed neighborhood activist, who patrols Seattle's meanest streets in the dead of night. What a group of editors have done is to make his article an exposé. Like junior Woodwards and Bernsteins they've pounced on revealing his real-life identity. If you look at the discussion, they've linked his personal and unrelated Facebook account[2], and a court database for his traffic infractions.[3]. In a related article one of our fellow editors uses a racial epithet against him.[4] In his line of work, he makes enemies. I believe Wikipedia puts him and his family at risk by publishing his identity. "They'd find out anyway" is not an answer. They shouldn't find out here. Phoenix Jones is iconic, yeah the man behind the mask was a regional mixed martial arts fighter, but in Wikipedia terms nobody knows those guys. They don't meet the notability standards for inclusion. The "article is not just about the superhero, but about his MMA career" argument is an afterthought and rationalization by those who want to do the exposé. Anyhow please help out if you agree, and delete his personal information there. Colton Cosmic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.81.29.145 (talk) 20:18, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The information is well sourced, as Fodor himself spoke to journalists and revealed his identity. [5]OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Note IP has been blocked as banned user Colton Cosmic (talk · contribs · count). OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:49, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Unrelated Facebook pages are banned by WP:EL. WP:ELOFFICIAL permits a BLP's Facebook page, but not if it has nothing to do with the reason the person is notable. (For example, you can link to an author's page if it talks about books, but not if it mostly talks about her grandkids.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

circular reference

WP:BLPPRIMARY refers to WP:PRIMARY. The relevant subsection, WP:PRIMARY#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources refers back to the original page. So which is the main page that rules and which is the summary. They do not agree with each other and that disagreement is a problem. TMLutas (talk)

WP:BLPPRIMARY applies to living persons. WP:PRIMARY to everything else. The primary-source section of WP:PRIMARY ends by linking to BLPPRIMARY and saying extra caution is needed for living persons. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Extra caution does not mean do not use. It means one should be careful. That's WP:PRIMARY's take on what to do with living persons. WP:BLPPRIMARY says do not use flat out. Again, they're not agreeing with each other. Either WP:PRIMARY should be modified to agree with WP:BLPPRIMARY or the reverse. Inconsistent rules covering the same topic and referring to each other are not the best solution. TMLutas (talk)
This policy says "Exercise caution in using primary sources." The other says "Use extra caution when handling primary sources about living people". There is no contradiction here.
This policy additionally bans certain, specific, named primary sources, but the "do not use" does not apply to every primary source, just the named ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

College GPA of a pro athlete - yay or nay?

If the college GPA of a pro athlete (or anyone whose notability is unrelated to their college degree) has been published by multiple reliable sources, is it appropriate to add to that individual's article? aqwfyj Talk/Contribs 17:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiProjects again

BLPCAT is once again being trotted out as "proof" that only WikiProjects with socially acceptable subject interests are allowed to watch and support BLPs. This is because the WikiProject banner adds not only the name of the group to the talk page, but it also add special WikiProject-specific categories, which are used by multiple important bots and upon which the entire WP:1.0 release system depends, to the talk pages. The latest, and most common, is an assertion that WikiProject LGBT Studies is not permitted to track Tom Cruise (a person who according to the explanation given right in the project banner, has repeatedly sued people for making false claims that he is gay) because the group's interest in these lawsuits is supposedly tantamount to calling him gay.

Every single time this comes up, the result is the same: Any group of editors is free to support any article they want, including putting their banner on it. I would like to add a footnote that says "This policy does not prevent any WikiProject from supporting any article that interests them. See WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN."

My hope is that this would halve the number of complaints that WT:COUNCIL gets about discrimination and edit warring over project banners. It won't stop the music-genre complaints, but it should help with the even nastier LGBT and geopolitical ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I would oppose allowing banners to be added to any BLP talk page over objections. Cruise has said he is not gay, and has sued to prevent people from claiming he is. To add an LGBT banner to his BLP's talk page places it in the LGBT category, which is a violation of this policy. It's a little unfair to argue that the banner is there only because he has sued to prevent that association being made, and that it's the lawsuits that have made him of interest to the LGBT project. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:24, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with you, SV. Very specifically, the banner does not place the talk page in "the LGBT category". The banner puts his talk page into a category showing that his page is of interest to the Wikipedia LGBT studies project. It does not assert that he is gay. The category page says "This category contains LGBT-related articles that have been rated ...". There's clearly a relation from the Tom Cruise article to LGBT studies, in the form of the discussion of whether or not Kidman was a beard: it matters not what the "truth" of Cruise's sexuality is, but rather it matters that he was & is the subject of speculation with respect to his sexuality, that this is discussed within the article, and this speculation is of obvious and clear legitimate interest to the LGBT studies project. Cruise's sensitivity on the subject is not a bar to pursuance of the project's legitimate interests in the form of the banner and categorisation of the talk page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:01, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
BLP applies to articles and talk pages equally. The LGBT banner has placed his talk page in several LGBT categories, including Category:B-Class LGBT articles. This suggests he has a connection to the LGBT community, and given that he strongly denies this, it would seem to be a violation of BLPCAT: "Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question ..."
This is a matter of importance to the subject, in whole or in part because his religion (as I understand it) is not sympathetic to people who are gay. So a member of that religion who was gay – or who was not gay but was being discussed in those terms – might be in a difficult position. For that reason we ought to apply BLPCAT with particular care in this case. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:18, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay. On reading WP:BLPCAT and indeed from Where BLP does and does not apply, I am convinced that the current policy excludes the use of the LBGT banner. The complete quote is "Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." I would wish to see the highlighted "and" turned into an "and/or". (Or in fact the thing rewritten to make a distinction between categorisation of talk pages for the use of projects, and categorisation of the article and hence the person.) --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Guys, we've already had this conversation, at great length. You can go read Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikiproject tags on biographies of living people if you want. In the instant case, please go look at the banner in question, which says, " Explanation for inclusion in WikiProject LGBT studies: Cruise has, on a few separate occasions, taken successful legal action against people who have claimed he is homosexual". And I recommend learning a bit about what those banners actually do which is more about enabling the WikiProject bots and WP:1.0 team's selection work (all of which depend on the categories) than about adding a colorful template.
And just in case we're missing an important point, please review the difference between being Gay and the academic field of Gay studies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
The consensus at that RfC isn't clear in my view; in fact I'd say it's against BLP tagging where it might be contentious (though that's just after a quick glance through it). Could you say what the benefits are of adding the banner to that page? SlimVirgin (talk) 18:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I suggest that you read it more carefully. There are thirty or forty people supporting one or more pro-tagging/pro-freedom views, and just five or six who want the LGBT studies group to be prohibited from tagging articles on the same basis as every other group. Both sides make suggestions about how to reduce the potential for misunderstandings, but it is six to one in favor of the LGBT studies group not being discriminated against. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
But the overall consensus of the RfC doesn't seem to be in favour of WikiProjects being allowed to add banners over objections. For example, the proposal "where there is any danger of a tag being misunderstood, being controversial, or suggesting an unverified fact, the tag should be avoided" attracted 20 supports. This applies to any banner, not only LGBT, so the issue of LGBT being discriminated against isn't really the point. I can't see any 6-1 vote in favour or against either side.
Could you say what the benefit is of adding the banner to that page? That is, given that it's contentious, is there not some other way to achieve whatever benefit the banner would bring? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Adding the (visible parts of the) banner provides a tiny amount of advertising for the group and a link to contact the group if there is something in dispute that is related the group's area of interest, i.e., if Cruise were to sue someone else for alleging that he is gay and the editors wanted help figuring out how to add the new information to the article. For that sort of a dispute, it would make more sense to ask for help at WT:LGBT than at, say, WT:FILM.
Adding the categories (which are integrated into the banner, but which could be added manually) enables the WP:1.0 bot to rate the article. The projects are weighted differently, so they're not entirely interchangeable, although in this particular instance I doubt that the LGBT project will have the highest final rating (the highest rating always wins). The same ratings are used by the projects to produce statistical reports. There is no alternative method of doing this. The categories are also used manually by project members to find articles that they want to work on, but I suppose you could maintain a manual list. They are used to check recent changes, and there is no other method for doing this. The cats are used by the Article Alerts bot (notifications about AFD, PROD, GA noms, etc.) The toolserver-based cleanup listings, the Walls of Recognized Content, and several other bots use the cats. So basically, no: there is no reasonable alternative to having the LGBT studies project place their cats on this talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I agree that using the banner does seem reasonable, given the benefits. We've had a similar situation to this one with animal rights categories and the AR wikiproject banner. Until fairly recently (AR has become more popular in recent years), there were certain writers who were strongly in favour of increased animal protection, but not animal rights, and I had a couple of them email me over the years to ask that the AR cats be removed from their bios. I always complied, and I would leave the project banner off their talk pages too, even though their work was clearly of interest to the wikiproject. In the end it mattered more to them than it did to me or WP, and I suppose I'd make the same argument here, though you've made a good case for including it. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I'll add that to the extent that you were, in effect, "the WikiProject", you can tag or not tag anything you want. If WikiProject LGBT studies wanted to remove the tag (and to stop supporting the article), then I'd support that as strongly as I support their right to place it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Does the WikiProject software allow the WikiProject to customize category names? If there are concerns that "LGBT articles" is too vague, could it be changed to "Articles of interest to WikiProject LGBT"? That would resolve any concerns about what the talk page cat does and does not mean.--Trystan (talk) 19:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
As far as I know, they can use whatever cat names they want. Changing cat names is a pain, which is why it's done through CFD instead of a simple, one-editor move, but there's nothing about the template that requires a particular name for the group. Certainly "LGBT studies" rather than "LGBT" would be feasible if the group wanted to rename everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Now that everyone's had an opportunity to figure out what's going on, can we get back to the idea of a footnote or some such idea, so that we can correctly document the actual policy here, and thus stop these misunderstandings?
I'd added that BLPCAT doesn't apply to talk pages, which is an awkward approach, but SV removed it on the grounds that the rest of the policy applies everywhere. I'm not sure how one could have a category that actually belonged on a non-article page and caused a significant BLP concern (more than "people might misunderstand"), but perhaps she'll think of an example, or perhaps she'll change her mind and decide that BLPCAT is really focused on the mainspace.
Does anyone have any thoughts about a WikiProject-specific footnote, along the lines of "This policy does not prevent any WikiProject from supporting any article that interests them, including adding their project banner or their assessment categories to the article's talk page. See WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN."? It is the narrowest approach that is likely to prevent future misunderstandings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

New RfC about Categorization of persons

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Categorization of persons: "Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation? If so, what are our criteria for deciding an identity?" Thank you, IZAK (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

ProdwarningBLP

{{ProdwarningBLP}} asserts that:

Under Wikipedia policy, all newly created biographies of living persons must have at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

but I can find no statement to that effect on this policy page. Have I missed something or does the template misrepresent the policy?

I'm concerned especially because I'm seeing good-faith new editors accused of disruptive editing and hammered with multiple talk-page notices about PRODs of BLP stubs which contain nothing contentions, and which are comprised wholly of information from our other articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

If you go to the section Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons #Deletion of BLPs in this project page, you'll find a link to Wikipedia:Deletion policy #Deletion of biographies and BLPs, which has a link a little further down (in the Wikipedia:Deletion policy #Undeletion section) to Wikipedia:Proposed deletion, towards the bottom of which (in the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion #Sticky prod section), you'll find a brief description of the {{prod blp/dated}} template and a link to a fuller description of the process at Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people.
If newbies can't find that information, it's entirely their own fault! --RexxS (talk) 14:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd assume the discussion was reflecting this page? --j⚛e deckertalk 15:08, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
That talk page represents everything that is wrong with the BLP PROD process, in my opinion. An editor decides to create a few articles and is greeted with a screenful of scary-looking warning messages telling him that his contributions are about to be deleted. There is no actual BLP issue with any of them: none says anything remotely controversial or contentious and it was trivial to find references for all of them. And yes, the warning message is inaccurate. There is no policy anywhere requiring newly created biographies of living people to have sources. There is a process permitting newly created unsourced biographies of living people to be proposed for deletion. That is not the same thing. The policy page dealing with BLP PROD is Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people, and users should be directed there rather than to the main BLP policy. Hut 8.5 17:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I totally agree. Also, perhaps we should be giving some good faith outreach to this new editor, and those like them, and keep this conversation going. I just dropped off a Teahouse invite, but some more directed and personal outreach might be good! SarahStierch (talk) 17:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Point nicely made, RexxS! The page at the first of your links says:

Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed. If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion. Page deletion is normally a last resort... Summary deletion is [read: "only"] appropriate when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to an earlier version of an acceptable standard

WP:BLPPROD seems to be at odds with this; and we clearly need to bring them into line with each other; and to then update the template(s) and associated guidance accordingly. What's the best way to proceed?

Further, WP:BLPPROD enjoins editors to try to improve BLPs before tagging them:

you are strongly encouraged to either source or remove any contentious material and look for reliable sources that support the remainder of the biography's content

In this case, its hard to see where that has been done. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:12, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sort of hard to look for sources when the creating editor can't decide who he or she is writing an article about. That having been said, that particular talk page has a large number of problems, starting with at least 2-3 places where the editor was accused of vandalism for non-vandalism edits. I'm sympathetic too to the issue of "flooding" with BLPPRODs, but if I'm reading the history right the editor at least had been approached about adding sources and had, as near as I can tell, not responded.
In my view, BLPPROD is a fairly problematic mess created by the confluence of several issues.
  1. After a significant incident, the Foundation insisted that the community take some step on the issue of unsourced BLPs.
  2. A significant minority of the community was ready, 2.5 years ago, to delete summarily all unreferenced BLPs; that clearly was a big problem, there were approximately 60,000 biographies at that point in time.
  3. Few editors are willing to expend effort consistently adding references to unreferenced BLPs to address this, although the number that will do so demonstrably increases when deletion tags are placed.
  4. The idea that you can tell when an unsourced BLP is problematic is a bit misleading, some forms of vandalism are subtle, even as simple as insult by a change of birth date.
  5. On the other hand, the idea that there is much vandalism in the unsourced BLP pile is highly exaggerated. There are a few bad bits, much of the real problem in that pile is self-serving unchecked promotionalism.
  6. Despite the Foundation's insistence that "something be done" about unsourced BLPs, the idea that we should actually tell new editors about this concern before they create an article has absolutely no support from the Foundation.
  7. Most BLPPRODs are resolved without the article being deleted, but with a source being added, added by editors who are willing to add references to an article when and only when a deletion tag is added.
None of this should be news to anyone who's been watching for the past 2.5 years, and I'm actually a bit surprised to see this complaint expressed, I figured this was all old old news, my mistake!
In any case, if anyone has a constructive suggestion for how to modify current policy that will get consensus, I'm all ears. In the meantime, I will remain frustrated by the situation as well. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Why not re-work the first section of WP:BLPDELETE to integrate the language of the fourth section regarding non-removal of BLPPRODS without source addition and include a footnote saying that this does not apply to pre-May 2010 articles? MBisanz talk 19:49, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
"Sort of hard to look for sources when the creating editor can't decide who he or she is writing an article about." One of the many new articles had a cut & paste error with the subject's name (I expect most of us have done something similar at some time), that doesn't excuse such behaviour regarding the remaining articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:09, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Uh, RexxS, your reductio ad absurdum there is amusing, but not actually fair or correct, because there's a 2nd level section "Proposed deletion of biographies of living people" right here on this page that explains it, without the extra five clicks. It would have been more fair to address the matter of the length of this page, but I guess that that's a much harder target for amusing criticism. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Joy, the page to which you refer also says (my emphasis/ annotation):

If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced... then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion. Page deletion is normally a last resort... Summary deletion is [read: only] appropriate when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten...

Which does not mention much less support, summarily deletion of all unsourced BLPs. The specific section to which you refer appears to have been tacked on with no regard to that, and contradicts it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I also realize now that none of the unreferenced BLP categories are from before the May 2010 date. That is an even better argument for just collapsing the grandfather clause into a footnote and simplifying it that all BLPs must have at least one source or they can be PROD'd and the PROD can't be removed unless a source is added. MBisanz talk 19:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd support that. The last time it was suggested there were still a fair number of new but never-yet tagged unreferenced BLPs showing up every month. It's my sense that that's really slowed down, we may have really cleaned up a lot of the "dark matter" URBLPs.
I gathered, however, that Andy was more bothered by how harsh the current policy is (and how it's often used/abused), it's an issue I have some concern about myself, and an issue for which I'm occasionally considered to be part of the problem. That seems to be the hardest bit to make much progress on. --j⚛e deckertalk 20:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I did a non-scientific survey of the 84 articles in the BLP PROD category today. One was from before 2012, but after May 2010, and almost all of the other 83 were from the last month. MBisanz talk 03:59, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that there are still quite a few articles in Category:All unreferenced BLPs which were created before March 2010. The reason they're still unsourced is that they weren't identified as unsourced until recently. There's been a steady trickle of these identifications for a while. Hut 8.5 09:51, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Right, I'm trying to get a handle on how large that trickle is. If it's 1/80, the March 2010 date could probably be relegated to a footnotes, if it's 1/10, probably not. MBisanz talk 14:07, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
An excellent question. I went and attempted to answer this, using article id as a rough proxy for creation date (this has worked well enough for me for loose sorting. I then looked by hand at every article that appeared to have been created pre-cutoff. A *lot* of articles in that category predate the cutoff date (maybe half!), however, the vast majority of them have some sort of link that would preclude a BLPPROD, a home page link, say, or the like. The articles that would be newly eligible for the process are Alan Connor, Katalin Károlyi, Melanie Kay Turner, Mazhar Hussain Rehmani, Adam Yellin, Roberto Gargarella and Michael Thomas (American musician). 7 in 200, maybe 1 in 30. In terms of articles entering the category, this is going to skew a little more, as newly placed BLPPRODs are removed and sourced about half the time within a day or two, I think the average "old" article lasts a little longer in this category than the average "new" article. Lies, damned lies, and all that. :) --j⚛e deckertalk 16:12, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you; you gathered correctly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:06, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

As the person who BLPPRODded a batch of unsourced (and unlinked) BLP stubs which seems to have triggered the above discussion:

  1. I came across one or two of these while stub-sorting and then realised they were part of a much wider group of articles
  2. The editor was not particularly new, has been editing since May 2012 on a wide range of articles
  3. The editor had been told twice on 7th Sept that all new articles on living people needed sources, but then created a whole batch more of unsourced and unlinked stubs
  4. I was certainly under the impression, provided by PRODBLP template, that every new article on a living person was required to have sources and should be proposed for deletion otherwise
  5. So I checked the batch of articles the editor had created on the previous couple of days, added the {{curling-bio-stub}} where not yet present, and BLPPRODded those which had no refs
  6. The editor had created various articles with disambiguations, but without making any links to those pages from hatnotes or dab pages: I went through all their "...(curler)" creations and fixed these missing links, leaving a note on their page to point out the need for them.

PamD 23:25, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Didn't it occur to you to just add sources to the articles, which would only have taken slightly longer than what you did do? This was still quite a new editor, they only had 37 edits prior to creating these articles. I doubt they'll be back, especially since you accused them of disruptive editing. Hut 8.5 09:51, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Some of the more recent commenters above are speaking as though all unsourced biographies must immediately be deleted. WP:BLP doesn't say that and WP:BLPPROD says that efforts should first be made to source them. May I direct everyone's attention to those two points, and the fact that the template wording (which is not itself a policy) contradicts this? I doubt that the remedy is to change everything else to support the template wording; and I would be opposed to any move to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:05, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Andy, you're misstating things. WP:BLPPROD says editors are are strongly encouraged to either source or remove any contentious material and look for reliable sources that support the remainder of the biography's content. That's not the same as saying should first be made. The next clause of WP:BLPPROD states: Nevertheless, a nomination may also be used to involve the article creator or to ensure that a problematic entry is being attended to more swiftly than by tagging it with {{BLP unsourced}}. The template doesn't contradict it, it puts people on notice that if they cannot bring their article into minimal compliance with the sourcing policy, it will be deleted within a week. MBisanz talk 13:46, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I misstated anything. "should" is synonymous with "are strongly encouraged to". The template says (my emphasis) that "all newly created biographies of living persons must have at least one reference", which contradicts (or at the very least is not supported by) what WP:BLP says. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Okey, I re-worded the template to match the BLP PROD policy more precisely and linked it directly to the policy. MBisanz talk 16:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Proactive presumption of privacy?

Are we required to removed information from an article where we have iron-clad sourcing for it on privacy grounds? Reason for the question is a dispute on the Annabel Chong article over her real name. We have a reliable source for it - among other places, it's mentioned in a New York Times review of the documentary "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story". I have an editor who is removing it on the grounds that "information should be reliable and not something that the person could reasonably be inferrred to have an objection to being included" (which isn't how I read BLP at all).

Can I get some third opinions on this topic? Tabercil (talk) 15:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Overagainst is misinterpreting BLP. The idea that we can't use the full names of BLP subjects is ridiculous. What it might mean is that we wouldn't want to have a presumption of including middle names (and it certainly means that we should use caution in including birth dates). But the idea of a biography that doesn't use the person's name is quite silly. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:35, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure before I did another revert. Tabercil (talk) 17:21, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The article is about the adult industry career of the subject, and has her stage name as a title. The adult performing career is the only notable thing about the subject. It's not a full bio, as if the subject is someone whose post performing life has an ongoing level of notability. Moreover to give details of what the subject is now doing and where is to ID them. - WP:ALIVE "Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. [...]: the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment".Overagainst (talk) 18:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Policy seemingly leaves this to editorial discretion. There is also ethics to be concerned about. A porn star would probably have more privacy concerns, not less. I would vote against including the middle name, though not on strict policy grounds. The subject, per the article, has made her wishes clear. We are not bound by her wishes on any possible negative material. However, we do need to be more careful about identifying facts of little biographic value but which could be used to trace her. I would rather strongly urge User:Tabercil to weigh the "harm" part. Churn and change (talk) 18:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The subject of the article made the decision to do the documentary about her. It very much appears that her real name was mentioned in the documentary - how else would it end up appearing in the New York Times review of the documentary? She knew well what she was doing. So she's walked away from being Annabel; that doesn't hide the fact that it was her choice that the link between her real name and her stage name was made. Tabercil (talk) 19:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh, I see, you are talking of the real name minus the middle name (I thought somebody had dug up a middle name from somewhere, based on a comment above, but the comment was general). Assuming the documentary is a credible one with no controversies over the privacy issue (no time to check), yes, I would say just the two names there would be fine. Churn and change (talk) 19:15, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Confirmed as co-operating. The AVN review of the documentary states that "We do find out that Chong started as a personality construct of 22-year-old Grace Quek, a USC undergrad with middle-class Singapore roots" and "She moved to America because, she tells the camera, "I had this weird notion that if Armageddon hit the world it was gonna start in L.A."" (emphasis there mine). Tabercil (talk) 19:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Is that reliably sourced? Are we going just by the domain name? WP:SELFSOURCE is acceptable, provided we can verify the website is from the subject, the information can be shown to be notable, and is about just the subject herself. Note that WP:SELFSOURCE doesn't make for great articles, but I guess, is ok here. At this point, I think the discussion should be on either the BLP page or the article's talk page. Churn and change (talk) 19:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I believe it's accurate in that it's her own words. And I would greatly prefer the discussion be here where there's more eyes. If it remains on the article talk page I think it'd just end up being myself and Overagainst debating back and forth and not resolving anything... Tabercil (talk) 19:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I think this belongs on the Talk page, but Tabercil seems to have a low tolerance for debate and wanted to come here, now he's reeling of a list of sources for the name, and mentioning the details about Chong's post performing life repeatedly. I never said that the objection to having the name in the article was that the the name was unreliably sourced, or that she had tried to conceal it (a decade ago when she talked to journalists). She didn't give her name on her website though. The real name and DoB are debatable, but some of the details in the version that Tabercil wants lack relevance. Chongs leisure activities for example. Even if she mentioned what she was training to do does that information belong in the article. The point at issue in this discussion is whether it is reasonable to assume that ex-adult-industry performers now working in an everyday occupation will not be harmed by a Wikipedia article giving their real identity. Katja Kassin still uses her stage name on the net, but is retired and in education, her article doesn't give her real name, nor should it. The main point is that Ms. Chong is in an everyday line of work where it might might reasonably be inferred she could suffer harm to her career prospects through her DoB, real name, current occupation, leisure activities and aprox location all being in an ongoing collation of details that have nothing to do with the adult career that is the subject of the page 'Annabel Chong'.Overagainst (talk) 20:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but if it's RS'ed, it's fair game. While some people might want to conceal their past, if a link is made in the NY Times, there is no privacy-related reason to not make that link in the Wikipedia article: that cat is well and truly out of the bag. When there's no harm to be avoided (and Wikipedia coverage is not more coverage than NY Times coverage: it may be a difference between well-covered and exceptionally-well-covered, but that's no difference at all for privacy purposes) there is no reason to censor Wikipedia's coverage. Jclemens (talk) 03:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
"Sorry, but if it's RS'ed, it's fair game." A bizarre remark, especially to be made so flippantly. You know well that a fact having a source is not on its own a sufficient condition to include it. causa sui (talk) 17:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
It's not that I have "low tolerance for debate" - I just want to make sure that there is a debate which will happen since the BLP board has a lot more people watching it than the Annabel Chong article. And even if we stuck to the Annabel Chong article, I think we'd likely end up here anyway since it looks like we have radically different visions of what BLP means. Tabercil (talk) 04:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Without speaking to anything specific about this one case, U.S. law and principles applies because Wikipedia's servers are hosted in the U.S., so it bears bringing up that the U.S. law draws a distinction between Public and Private persons in dealing with issues of privacy. See Public figure which has a brief overview. IANAL, but my understanding is that, from a legal standpoint, people that voluntarily take professions that place them in the public (like politician or actor or whatnot) have a lower expectation of privacy than, say, a plumber or a school teacher would, and thus the legal standards required for "protection of privacy" are different. How this affects Wikipedia's WP:BLP policy are also tricky, since the BLP policy isn't strictly tied to any laws, but it is an important thing to consider in discussions of this nature. It isn't that public figures have no expectation of privacy, but information that has been published in reliable sources, or which they themselves have disseminated through such sources, is probably fair game (in my non-legal opinion). --Jayron32 03:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Jclemens, you said "if it's RS'ed, it's fair game". Wrong attitude. RS'ed or not, the subject falls under underWP:NPF:- " people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known." As a person she is not well known. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability, focusing on high quality secondary sources. Material published by the subject may be used, but with caution".
I said that, and I stand by it. WP:WIALPI is our (well, mostly my) collected thoughts on that, and "porn star" is a very public performance-oriented profession. There are some number of Wikipedia editors who think that ex-porn-stars should have retroactive privacy protection based on their later activities. I do not think that there is a reasonable basis in policy for extending protections retroactively: they were adults when they decided to show off their private bits for money, else it would be child porn and entirely illegal. Likewise, they consented, else the recordings would have violated other laws. Absent those sorts of legal issues, adults who do things for pay in public and then regret them later have my sympathy... but not to the extent that I'm willing to cheapen our protections designed for real low-profile individuals by pretending they qualify. Jclemens (talk) 17:28, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Jayron32, That is all true, but in my opinion the argument here is a bit different. Someone working in a mundane occupation who had their real name , DoB, current occupation, location and hobbies mentioned in a Wikipedia article about an acting career they had under a stage name several years ago, thereby revealing they are that person, would hardly suffer any harm. The case of a former porn performer there is a potential for harm that does not exist for a former actor. Biographies of living persons: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.[1] Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity [...] Biographies of living persons ("BLP"s) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives: the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." It is there in black and white that " sensitivity" and "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." And those considerations come first. Even if the information does " adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, to this policy, and to Wikipedia's three core content policies: Neutral point of view (NPOV) Verifiability (V) No original research (NOR)" we must consider the possibility of harm. Identifying someone as a former Adult industry performer clearly does have the possibility to harm them. Overagainst (talk) 11:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I would say the earlier name, present in both the documentary and New York Times article, can be included in the article. The other personal information literally dug up from an old website through time machine, and stamped as reliable just by an assertion "it is all accurate," should not be included for both reliability and "harm" considerations. As to the law, it seems quite unclear whether a retired porn star is a "public figure." Also, yes, 'fair game' is a phrase we need to avoid referring to facts in a BLP, though I guess that was just a casual remark. Churn and change (talk) 16:28, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Look at the current edit where her real name is the first thing under the stage name which serves as a title. The article is not about the person, she has no notability, The lede even referrs to her as '****/Chong'. ("****/Chong is also..."). This use of the full real name is continued thoughout the early life section. Then we have a switch ("****, by now also calling herself Chong"). That is a very odd way to refer to someone adopting a stage name. The rule is that a person's first name is only used once, after that the second name is used throughout the article. It is absurd to switch back and forth between a real and stage name. Moreover the current edit implies that she changed her name to her stage name ("After Chong resumed her real name of ****,") which is not true. Overagainst (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Now that's a style point rather than a content point over her real name, and I agree with you in that the article should be written with only her stage name as being the most prominent - i.e., in the same fashion as John Wayne or Judy Garland is. So since it looks like you're agreeing that the real name can be in the article, can I consider this closed now? Tabercil (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
(The systematic overuse of a real name makes we wonder what you were up to in that edit.) No, it isn't closed because possibility of harm to a adult performer from having their real name on a WP article is a valid concern, one which needs to be taken into account. Especially when someone is retired, in a completely different line of work, and has been making a point of avoiding publicity for several years. I think there is an excellent case for omitting the real name DoB, current occupation on the grounds of possibility of harm to the subject.Overagainst (talk) 18:04, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Jclemens on this. We don't ignore the former public career of a now more private person. It's all part of the biography. The argument by Overagainst that the porn actress bio "[is] not a full bio" is ridiculous. Every actress bio is a full bio, as full as can reasonably be written via reliable sources. Binksternet (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
The article isn't a bio because the subject has no notability outside her former adult career, but the rules for a bio of a living person still apply and it clearly states that the possibility of harm to the subject has to be taken into account.Overagainst (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Eh? It's a biography, period. It doesn't matter if the person has moved on to a different field of work from what made them notable in the first place. We still build the article to be a "biography", which is defined in the Wikipedia article of the same name as "A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. It entails more than basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death), a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life...". Now granted we don't go to the full length of what a published biography is, but we do show the full of a person's life whenever possible. Tabercil (talk) 19:15, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I think porn performers are different enough in the potential for harm that the guidance about BLP means the identifying details should be omitted or made less specific at least. When an article has the stage name of a former adult performer as a title the article should give a biographical sketch about that person in respect of their porn career. I don't see the point of going into subsequent activities to the limit of reliable sourced information. If we take on board what the BLP project page says about sensitivity, privacy, and considering the possibility of harm, we'll be conservative.Overagainst (talk) 20:09, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The German legal system says that people who did thoroughly disreputable things, like murdering innocent people, ought to have their identifying details, like their real names and their real convictions and their real prison sentences, hidden away when they're released from prison, all in the name of limiting the potential for harm that the information has. The German courts say that there's no notability to ex-convicts' future lives, names, occupations, or other details about their now normal, private lives that shouldn't be connected to the freely made choices of their past. Even victims of these crimes are supposed to publicly pretend that they were the victims of "Mr X" instead of by an identifiable human being.

Here at the English Wikipedia, we don't buy this argument for protecting murderers or rapists or thieves from people finding out what they used to do. Why should we buy this argument for someone who was just a professional porn actress? Presumably there's a lot more potential for harm to Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber when we continue to name them as the convicted murderers of Walter Sedlmayr (which we do, despite German demands) than there is for this former porn star when we continue to provide a real-world identity to match the stage name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

You may be interested to know that the Project page has section about 'Privacy of names: "When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories". Overagainst (talk)
That only applies to people affected by WP:ONEEVENT issues, not to multi-year careers involving dozens of movies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. This is why there's no section of BLP titled WP:SLAVISHLYMAKEAFUTILEEFFORTTOSTUFFTHEGENIEOFFREELYREVEALEDINFORMATIONBACKINTOTHELAMP. In this particular case, she widely and quite voluntarily used her real name, and we have no reason not to say it as much. WhatamIdoing's reasoning is rock solid here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:16, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I reject and repudiate Overagainst's unsupported theory that we should not treat performers as human beings, but should schizophrenically separate their performing histories from the rest of their lives. A porn actor was born, went to school, had dreams and hopes, did stuff that made them notable, and in most cases then moved on to other things. An article that only discusses their persona is not an article but a character sketch. It's as if a farmer, merchant and surveyor served a one-year term in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and we only wrote about what he did as a Burgess, while completely ignoring who he was, how he got there, and what he did afterwards. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:22, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting those parts of the project page which I have cited should be changed? Here they are again Biographies of living persons: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.[1] Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity [...] Biographies of living persons ("BLP"s) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. [...] When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives: the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." Overagainst (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
It has already been made clear to you that you are misinterpreting/misapplying those passages. The notion of not using a person's full name can make sense when writing an article about some other subject ("any Wikipedia page"). It does not make sense not to use a person's name when writing an article about that person. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:11, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think a real name should be in as a matter of course (if we have a news report source) Even if it is, when an article is about a porn career which is the only thing that is notable about a person, and ended almost a decade ago, the real name should not be anything like as prominent as your edits are making it. One and done.Overagainst (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
No, the article is about a person, of which pornographic actress is a former career. I would also suggest, strongly, that you cease your edit warring on the article. I am seeing eight reverts by yourself on this point over the last several days, along with removal of cited content. I would caution you against a ninth revert. Resolute 23:07, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like the consensus is running firmly in favour of using real names when suitably sourced. Besides myself, I count 9 in favour (4 of whom are admins) while only Overagainst is opposing. Are we at the point where it's worth invoking WP:SNOW?? Tabercil (talk) 17:48, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course. I doubt Overagainst will revert again. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
User:Overagainst just reverted me again. I had based the style (stage name in lede, real name mentioned in the text) on the FA article Vivian Leigh. I don't plan to edit there again; the editors on the article probably have no choice but to ask for a block for edit-warring. Churn and change (talk) 18:48, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Churn and Change, It was about 8 hours ago I last reverted. Your edit summary was alarming, it mentioned the use of an article on a DEAD (celeb) as the model for details on a LIVING person (who is not well known).
WhatamIdoing said "Here at the English Wikipedia, we don't buy this argument for protecting murderers or rapists or thieves from people finding out what they used to do. Why should we buy this argument for someone who was just a professional porn actress? Presumably there's a lot more potential for harm"... Yes there is - to Wikipedia. And with attitudes like that, the day is not far off when some unstable person will give authorities an excuse to clip Wikipedia's wings.
The Blade of the Northern Lights, I don't know why the real name appeared in some newspapers, I suspect that journalists insist on knowing the real names of people they interview.
Orangemike, dead politician is a bit different from ex porn performer currently trying to earn a living with hard-won professional qualifications.
Resolute, An article about a living subject which includes the information that they once worked as a hard core porn performer could be about 'the person', eg Spalding Gray, Sonny Landham. But those people have post-porn career notability. Which is why Landham's article does not have his porn pseudonym 'Tex Miller' as the title, and Gray's is not called 'Rick Carson'. The title of Chong's article shows why the article is there: notability deriving entirely from her porn-career period. The real name, and DoB, occupation and approx location of someone who is not well known on their article may impact their right to make a living in peace, privacy and security. Certainly there can be stuff about their life since then but I think it should be vague enough to avoid identifying them. Of course that's only if the guidance on the project page actually carries any weight. Perhaps it does not.Overagainst (talk) 19:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I've avoided acting as an admin prior to this to avoid conflict of interest charges, but since there is now a clear consensus on the point of real names in the article I'll act. Tabercil (talk) 22:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Real names of pornographic actors and models

There does not seem to be any guidance on having the real names of pornographic actors and models in articles. I think there should be, given the possibility of harm to the subjects.Overagainst (talk) 18:22, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Speculation, and we don't by and large act on that. Tabercil (talk) 18:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
There should not be. If a reliable source connects the dots, the "harm", whatever it is, has been done. We are not here to efface the very public careers of people who have subsequently sought privacy. Binksternet (talk) 18:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Real names of porn stars fall under the BLP policy, which mandates reliable sources for all material added to a biography. I know the project that governs the porn star articles do require that standard for a name to be added to an article (see WP:P*#Real names of performers), and will revert in quick order if no such source is given - e.g., see here and here. Now in a general sense, a reliable source for a porn star's real name usually means it appears in a newspaper, magazine or sometimes a book. If the name appears in a reliable source, it's out there for all to learn about in this wired world we now live in. Trying to keep it off Wikipedia in those circumstances I think is like closing the barn door after the horse has left. Tabercil (talk) 19:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
All assertions stated in WP's voice must be reliably sourced. But isn't giving the real name of a porn performer, especially a long retired one who has made a point of avoiding publicity, a different matter to giving the real name of an ex-actor? I think most people would think it is because there is greater potential for harm, and that's why there should be guidance about it. Overagainst (talk) 20:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
You're not getting any traction on the issue. "Most people" apparently think it's okay to connect the person's past with their later life. Binksternet (talk) 13:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, in that case it should be easy for you to get the project page changed to reflect that view.Overagainst (talk) 19:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm sure that we could get such an agreement, but I suspect that most of us believe that spelling it out for you (and you seem to be the only one of Wikipedia's editors ever concerned about this) would be WP:Instruction creep. It should be sufficient simply not to bother prohibiting it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Tori Black's real name is on her article, apparently for no better reason than a minor domestic incident was reported in scandal mongering media. It seems that in practice WP:NOTSCANDAL doesn't actually mean what it says either. Disreguard of stated WP policy is what's doing the 'creeping', and WP is ill-served by those who allow it. People may be reluctant to be first to take action for fear of the Streisand effect at present, but these kind of intrusive edits are storing up trouble for the future.Overagainst (talk) 09:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Murder of and Death of articles

I've mentioned this a couple of times in various places now, though it never seems to generate much interest, but I think we seriously need to look at the guidelines concerning articles relating to criminal acts. Many seem to appear here shortly after a crime is committed, and often before the facts have been established. Many then go on to afd where they meet with vehement support. My thoughts are that we need to more clearly define the guidelines on when it is and when it is not appropriate to create such an article. I mention it here because many such pages contain biographical information about those involved in events, and often there can be BLP issues. Any thoughts? Paul MacDermott (talk) 23:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but how would you propose to instruct editors and enforce this? I gather that many of such new articles are made by relatively new editors responding to something in the news. We can't put a note above each new article creation edit box saying, "if you are creating an article notable because of a crime in the news, please wait until a trial has been held." Although that would have an enormously positive effect, I suspect. —Cupco 07:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Britain is quite strict about what the public is allowed to know before a trial, but other countries there is a free for all and the prosecuters can leak all kinds of alleged facts. The early versions of the Murder of Meredith Kercher article had totally untrue prosecution assertions stated as fact. BTW the MoMK article doesn't mention the last names of witnesses and people involved.Overagainst (talk) 11:50, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
The existence of the sub judice rule in Britain does protect WP to a degree. As I have pointed out in relation to an AfD discussion of a recent case, the problem is that witnesses are unlikely to tell all they know before or even at the trial, the investigating and prosecutory authorities will almost certainly withold some information whether or not they are permitted in law to disclose, and the person(s) who best knows the facts will be the perpetrator who has good reason to withold or manipulate the truth. Just because usually 'reliable sources' report or speculate on what happened does not mean that they can purport to say what actually happened and so can only establish the barest facts. Information about the victim's private life will often fall foul of WP:BDP or is trivia about a person who does not qualify for an article under WP:BLP1E, and anything said about suspects runs up against WP:CRIME. The problem is not so much that the existing policy does not discourage such articles but that they tend to slip through, and even survive AfD discussion, until there is a fuss over a gross breach of BLP policy by which time it is too late. The best protection may be to ensure that such articles are flagged up for special scrutiny, as is possible. We cannot expect all editors to understand the difficulties. Much as I would like a moritorium on articles until trial proceedings are concluded there will be cases where an exception has to be made but they need to be properly justified in terms other than media interest and about matters other than those relevant to trial. --AJHingston (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
How could such articles be flagged? Isn't the problem that we have no way to know about them until a secondary controversy about the articles arises? —Cupco 19:11, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
From a UK perspective, it's becoming quite easy to hazard a guess at what's going to appear here as blanket news coverage usually translates into a Wikipedia article fairly quickly, so it would be easy for anyone who follows day-to-day news coverage to keep track of them, and flag them. Not sure how it goes with other countries, but I suspect the situation is somewhat similar. Interestingly I made an attempt at putting together a draft essay on this subject after an article I created was expanded post-AFD with lots of speculation and subsequently ran into trouble. I was prompted to post here following a recent UK incident that ended up here within a matter of hours of its occurrance, and before the full picture had emerged. Paul MacDermott (talk) 20:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
The titles do follow a common pattern, so it should be possible to identify most of them automatically. It may be problematic, and yet another burden for the community, but it is, I am afraid, the penalty for allowing them at all. --AJHingston (talk) 22:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Still thinking about this. I wonder if it's worth having a WikiProject Homicide or something similar to cover these articles. The only problem would be that it might mirror the work of WP:CRIME a little closely as a significant proportion of crime articles relate to murder. Paul MacDermott (talk) 16:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

proposing commercial endorsement in present tense as possibly contentious and ads as not sole source

I propose to edit this policy to note that, because use of a person's likeness in advertising generally requires the person's consent under their right of publicity and therefore their endorsing something commercial may be contentious, a statement about a person's commercial endorsement of a product, company, nonprofit, or famous person should be in a past tense unless the source supporting a present tense is very recent, perhaps no more than a few weeks since publication. I include famous persons since they often essentially are commercially famous; for instance, a smiling photo of me combined with one of Woody Allen would bother me, for example, since he married his daughter and his decision offends me a lot.

I also propose mentioning that ads alone are not generally a source.

This proposal is approximate. In the section Presumption in Favor of Privacy, I would add a subsection as the last subsection, as follows:

===Endorsements===

If a person has commercially endorsed a product (including a good or a service), a business, a nonprofit, or a famous person, and the information is reliably sourced, it should be reported only in the past tense, as the person may have a legal right of publicity limiting use of their likeness in advertising or for trade and the endorsement may no longer be true. The use of a present tense should be limited to a few weeks after the publication date of the latest reliably sourced report on point. If the publication date is uncertain, the past tense is required.

An advertisement or advertising campaign by itself should not be considered as the necessary reliable source, although it may be cited along with another source. That is mainly because the advertisement is a primary source and the person's actual opinion about the product may not be accurately represented by the ad. Consumer or industry news media about the advertising are more reliable as sourcing about the fact of the endorsement, although not about the endorser's personal opinion, for which another source may be needed.

I'll wait a week for any comments. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC) (Extended the topic/section heading, added to the explanation, and clarified the proposal: 21:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC))

So if Joe Famous is currently, to the best of our knowledge, still getting paid to endorse a product, but the source at hand is two months old, you want us to write "Joe Famous used to endorse Foo Crunchies", because at some point in the future, he might (or might not) stop endorsing it?
We can't do that: it's unverifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:38, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Maybe I'm missing something, but can't we just say: "In 2011, Joe Famous endorsed Wheaties cereal"? That's specific, verifiable, and doesn't imply anything about whether he continues to endorse the cereal. MastCell Talk 16:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
That only works if you know that he began the endorsement in 2011. Otherwise, you probably want present tense with a time qualifier: As of 2011, Joe Famous is the spokesactor for Foo Crunchies". This kind of problem is why we have the {{As of}} template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:21, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the "as of" is the way to do it. There are lots of places on WP where this needs to be added. (and, eventually, followed up.) DGG ( talk ) 04:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
"As of" and variations are fine with or without the template (almost evry statement is subject to outdating). I use such formulations often. A reason for limiting a current statement about ads to a few weeks is that many endorsement ads run for only a few weeks or less. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
I recall from a forgotten source that Michael Jackson did a TV commercial for Pepsi even though he never drank it either in or out of the ad. If we were editing the article about him while he was alive, I wonder whether paraphrasing that he endorsed the product into that he liked the product wouldn't have violated the BLP policy because of contentiousness. I understand he was paid $15 million to perform in the ad; I wonder whether, once he performed and was paid and the ads had stopped running, he was still endorsing the product. That's a case where a past tense or "as of" or a similar formulation is needed even without a source saying that he stopped endorsing the product. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that "hired to perform in an advertisement" is the same as "endorsed". It sounds to me like Jackson never endorsed the product. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
You raise a good distinction, but it probably would not be hard to find a reliable source for that ad camaign that says he endorsed it, especially since he did more than perform in it, he starred in it, making himself a major reason to buy the product, and it probably worked. So we'd likely miss the distinction while editing, and if we thought to make it contrary to the sourcing that would likely constitute original research, whereas not reporting it might fail the test of due weight (especially, if, say, that's the time when his head caught on fire and he was forever traumatized, affecting his career). Nick Levinson (talk) 22:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Help with Senator Bob Corker's article

Hi, I work for Sen. Bob Corker's campaign and for the past several months I have been working on improving his biographical article with help from volunteer editors. My conflict of interest has led me to focus my efforts on reaching out to other editors to review my suggestions. Right now, I'd like to ask for editors to review two requests I've placed on the article's talk page. In the first request I've suggested two revisions for the "Senate campaign" sections of the article. The second request offers a small addition for the "Blind trust" section. I hope that an editor here can review and implement these two requests for me. Thanks. Mark from tn (talk) 19:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia.
If you haven't found the help you need, then you might try WP:Conflict of interest/noticeboard or the talk pages of any of the WP:WikiProjects listed at the top of the article's talk page (Talk:Bob Corker). WP:WikiProject Conservatism might be the most active of the four. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

proposing more caution for children and incompetents

I propose to edit this policy to suggest that content about minors and about people adjudged incompetent should be edited with even greater care for contentiousness than content about competent adults. By definition, for many matters, minors and people adjudged incompetent who purport to consent to something cannot consent validly, whether purported consent was addressed to Wikimedia, an editor, or someone else entirely.

This proposal is approximate. In the section Presumption in Favor of Privacy, I would add a subsection after the subsection Public Figures, as follows:

===Minors and persons judged incompetent===

If a person is below the age of minority in their nation or locality or has been adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to be incompetent, editing requires even greater care and privacy requires even greater protection than they do for competent adults.

I'll wait a week for any comments. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you give me an example of how this would affect editing in practice? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
In an article about a school, someone added from a major newspaper that a certain named child had had difficulties and the context suggested a disability or misbehavior. Although the newspaper is a reliable source and it published the name and might even have had a parent's support for doing so, it was a child's name, neither the child nor the child's family was notable (and notability would only sometimes matter), and the claim of either disability or misbehavior might be held against the child, who may be unable to defend adequately against it or acknowledge it meaningfully, as an adult can. I deleted the child's name from the article (it can still be found via the article history, so I don't want to be more specific here). Had the person been an adult, it probably would have been legitimate to report what the source said, but I don't think so for a child. In some cases, such as that of a young child (I think 8 years old) who killed an even younger child in circumstances not suggesting an accident, giving rise to a debate about what to do in such cases regarding criminal justice, if a conviction resulted, naming the child might be appropriate. But in the case in which I deleted a child's name, no independent agency made such an adjudication. The important topical content could be given without identifying the specific child, although I'm not sure that matters; I might have deleted the name even if the content had thereby become meaningless.
A newspaper, in an editorial, wrote about a hearing concerning schools. Adults and at least one 15-year-old spoke. The minor got a central fact about the schools very wrong. The newspaper said, "[w]e'll spare her the embarassment that would come with publishing her name." N.Y. Daily News, as accessed today. Apparently, it's likelier the newspaper would have published the name had it been an adult's.
Nick Levinson (talk) 16:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
In your opinion, are WP:DUE and People who are relatively unknown inadequate to protect against unnecessary mention of a child's name? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
They are inadequate, because the two statuses, childhood and incompetence, should require extra care and the two provisions don't. They're a start, but the issue should be specifically mentioned. In the case where I deleted the child's name that had been given in the major source, with all other facts the same, had it involved an adult at an adult-level institution, reporting the name in Wikipedia might have been easier to justify. We're discussing here the marginal cases, not those where we'd never or always report the name regardless of age. These two statuses, especially childhod, are reatively easy to consider and apply if we remind editors of them. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Okay, you removed it. Good. Did anyone fuss at you about it, or did they let the removal stand?
Policy pages aren't magic. WP:Nobody reads the directions. We put something on a page if not having it here promotes disputes. If there's no dispute when you do the right thing, then we don't actually need a rule here about it. Remember: writing down a rule about this is not going to stop someone from adding a kid's name in the first place, because 99% of our editors aren't ever going to read your rule. The only practical value in the policy is giving you some official support when you remove the kid's name. If you don't actually need that support—if nobody fusses at you when you remove the kid's name—then there's no benefit to adding it to the page (and some inevitable costs). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
No dispute arose and that was a while ago, so it's stable. My concern arose because in another case someone put a photo of children up in a context that could look like an endorsement. I raised an unrelated question that led to another editor deleting the image from all of Wikimedia for the different reason. I'm still concerned that the image or one like it will be reintroduced, I'd like some authority on which to rely if a similar problem exists with a new image, and it's helpful to have that authority before it's needed in a dispute. I assume similar concerns should affect other editors.
I agree policies are not read by most editors. Wikimedia likely has a lot of legal and other exposure that is ameliorated only by some editors being attentive to likely problems. I still see editors angry at deletions for copyright reasons, and that's had a lot more publicity. But we need to educate editors. All that's being debated is whether a particular matter should be in a policy/guideline.
Nick Levinson (talk) 17:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
There was an occasion earlier this year where the removal of the name of a child who had suffered a potentially embarrassing medical problem was strongly opposed by the editor who added it, which was only resolved after a BLPN discussion. A specific provision in BLP relating to minors would have helped in that situation. January (talk) 18:35, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

List of notable rape survivors

Hi. Can interested editors weigh in in this discussion of Notables who have been raped? It's an unpleasant topic, but then again, we have a List of suicides article, and I want others' opinions. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 13:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

David Marchick

Hello, to whomever might be watching this page: I've recently been engaged by the current employer of David Marchick to address problems with the stub article about him; it currently includes unsourced information, some of it contentious, which is why I've brought the issue here. I have posted a more detailed explanation at Talk:David Marchick and, to help the process along, I've researched and written a new draft I'd like to see replace the current one. It's a bit longer, though not too much, and much better cited. I'd love to get some discussion on the article's Talk page, in hopes of seeing the new draft replace the old. Hope someone here can help. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Resolved
 – by someone else, see the article talk page for deets. —Cupco 03:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Project categories

A month ago, we had a conversation that is now filed at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 35#WikiProjects_again. This is about WP:WikiProjects and the banners they add to articles that they track and support. Specifically, it is about the WikiProject-specific categories that are placed by the WikiProject banners.

Before we get any further, you need to know the following facts:

  1. A WP:WikiProject is a group of people who want to work together. It is not a subject area. We have dozens of WikiProjects that do not have a subject area (like WP:WikiProject Good articles), although the biggest ones (Biographies, Military History, United States, etc.) tend to be focused on a subject area.
  2. Like any other individual or group of editors, a group of editors that decides to call themselves a "WikiProject" gets to decide which articles it's going to work on. This is documented in the official community-approved guideline at WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN. It's also common sense: short of a WP:TOPICBAN, you can't stop them working on what they want, and, in practice, you can't force them to work on what they don't want.
  3. WikiProjects tag and assess pages to make about a dozen important bots and Toolserver activities work, including those for the WP:1.0 team and those that report disputes involving the pages, like the Article alerts bot. All of these bots require the talk page to contain administrative WP:Categories (not content categories) that the bot associates with the WikiProject.
  4. LGBT studies is an academic area, similar to Women's studies or Black studies or Jewish studies. Professors who study LGBT issues sometimes study people and groups that are not LGBT, just like professors in women's studies might research famously misogynistic men, and professors in black studies might research famous racists, and professors in Jewish studies might research Nazi war criminals.
    • The actor Tom Cruise is one such person: His repeated lawsuits for character defamation against people who've lied about his sexual orientation have attracted scholarly attention in that field. The article about this actor is of interest to WP:WikiProject LGBT studies (who better to help resolve any disputes about Tom Cruise#Lawsuits than people who are familiar with LGBT scholarly works?). It was also the site of the latest dispute over whether WikiProjects that work on potentially mis-understandable subjects (sexuality, religion, ethnicity) should be permitted to support any BLP articles and/or any BLP articles unless the subject is a member (so no Nazi war criminals for any Jewish-related WikiProjects, no men for WikiProject Women's studies, no straight people for WikiProject LGBT studies, etc.).

The RFC at Talk:Tom Cruise closed with an affirmation of the right of any group of editors to tag and track any article they want. Again. Every single time we've had this question, whether it involves WikiProject LGBT studies or WikiProject United States or any other WikiProject, we've come to the same conclusion. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikiproject tags on biographies of living people came to the same conclusion: while we should do our best to phrase the WikiProject banners in ways that make their purpose clear ("This page is of interest to this group" rather than "This BLP is definitely gay"), it was ultimately not appropriate to prohibit any WikiProject from tagging any page that they were supporting.

All of that is background. The problem is that a few editors interpret WP:BLPCAT as prohibiting any "sensitive" WikiProject from tagging articles. WikiProject banners add administrative categories to the talk page of the articles they're placed on, and it's remotely possible that some reader would find the talk page, read the wall-o-text of categories at the bottom, and idiotically conclude that the presence of a "Category:WikiProject ____ studies with comments" means "This person is definitely, provably _____, even though the article said the opposite".

I don't want to re-fight the question. We've been there and done that a dozen times, and the answer is always the same. What I want to do is to change BLPCAT (perhaps a footnote?) so that well-intentioned editors won't keep making the same mistake and wasting so many hours of editor time that could be put to a more productive use.

I'd previously suggested specifying that BLPCAT applied to content categories in articles, but I'm open to anything. What do you think we could do, that would solve this problem? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've added the word "content" to that section as an obvious first step, because we're never going to meet these requirements for things like Category:Wikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest.
How about adding "This policy does not limit the use of administrative categories for WikiProjects, article clean-up, or other normal editor activities." to the end of the section? Does anyone object? Does anyone have a better idea? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Naming of Rape victims

Under English law, any rape case that has been the subject of criminal proceedings grants the victim "Anonymity for life" and as such, any person who names a victim of rape is committing a criminal offence.Markdarrly (talk) 23:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not governed by English law, though editors in Great Britain would certainly need to be aware. Resolute 23:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I do not think it is quite as simple as that. One reason for the protection afforded by English law is to encourage victims to come forward. If somebody has done so under a reasonable expectation of confidentiality, I do not think that Wikipedia can really respond simply with Yah, boo, sucks, can't touch me! --AJHingston (talk) 17:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree entirely with the principle of not naming rape victims. But it will not be adopted via appeal to English law -- it has to be argued out on basis of other Wikipedia policies. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the conclusions (in many but not all cases) of the OP, but definately not the rationale. As Nomoskedasticity states, Wikipedia is not governed by UK laws, and furthermore Wikipedia editors are not Wikipedia. However, in most cases WP:BLP would clearly be against naming rape victims gratuitously or without cause or justification, per Wikipedia:Who is a low profile individual (yeah, it's an essay. I don't care. It's also right). However, one case which would clearly be against this would be about quoting or citing clear self-identifying statements by rape victims. There are some individual people who publicly self-identify as rape victims, and there are some even some of those for whom their self-identified status as a sexual assault survivor has informed an important part of their notability. For example, how does one tell the story of Cheryl Araujo or Tori Amos or other people who self-identify as survivors of sexual assault, and for whom are very public about that. However, the fact that there are some people who do so self-identify in a public fashion does NOT mean that we can go slapping rape stories onto every person's biography who happens to be a rape victim, nor go about gratuitously naming every victim of every rape noted in Wikipedia. It is a balance to play between being complete where obviously required, and being respectful of the privacy of low-profile individuals when it really isn't. --Jayron32 17:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I hope that in an international encyclopedia we are all respectful of differences of law and culture. And of course individual editors are not Wikipedia; that is the point. If an editor inserts something that is legally protected for good reason in the country relevant to a BLP, and in the case of rape victims that is quite a few, then the community has to answer for a policy that permitted it. Perhaps it could, but not simply by reference to the law of California. After all, what if the boot were on the other foot, and the State of California prohibited something that the community as a whole thought should be permitted? There would be a row and pressure to move to servers elsewhere. As for the whether the person is low profile, I would argue that the higher profile the person, the greater the sensitivity. Obviously, if the person is notable for being a rape victim and has chosen to campaign on that the matter is very different, and they have chosen to forgo their right to privacy. --AJHingston (talk) 20:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
This seems backwards to me. If a high-profile person (e.g., Prime Minister of the UK) is a rape victim, then that's just one thing among thousands of things to be said about this person. But if a low-profile person (e.g., the author of a couple of books) is a rape victim, then rape might be one of only a few things to be said about this person. So in the high-profile case, it could get mentioned briefly and then you're off to more important things, but in the low-profile case, just a brief mention could be a sizable fraction of the entire article. I believe that we should be more concerned about having rape overwhelm the article, and therefore we should be more reticent to mention it in the low-profile case, where it is likely to overwhelm, than in the high-profile case, where it is not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Against which, of course, a very notable person's article will have a great many more page views. A more typical example than major politicians, who tend to be a special case, is probably actresses. I just cannot understand why it might be thought that a well known actress would be less unhappy to have a rape referred to in her article than a lesser known one. I know that some editors are inclined to dismiss the feelings and views of the subject of BLPs as irrelevant, but I do not believe that the community as a whole is so dismissive. --AJHingston (talk) 22:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I still believe that it is more acceptable to have a person's status as a crime victim form 2% of an article's contents than to have it form 30% of an article's contents, no matter how often the page is viewed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Um, excuse me, but why is this not only under a separate heading from the discussion right above it, but on this page, rather than on that other page that was linked above? There are now two ongoing discussion on this on two different talk pages. Why is this? Can we please consolidate this in one location? Nightscream (talk) 03:58, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Because they are different topics. One is about the compiling of a list of some notable victims, this is about the identifying of victims at all, particularly in BLP articles. --AJHingston (talk) 11:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Just checking

It's time for the quarterly Update, and I just want to check that everyone's on board with this recent addition, labeled as a copyedit in the edit summary: "Information such as the names of subjects' children, can be removed from articles if the subject requests it, even if it is found in reliable sources cited in the article." That whole paragraph is new, in fact. - Dank (push to talk) 19:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind a provision that permits removing names of children. But I'm not so keen on "information such as..." -- what else is going to be covered via the comparison? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPF questions

I was recently involved in a discussion over the inclusion of some biographical information about Douglas Tait (stuntman) in which proper adherence to WP:NPF was the primary area of contention. I believe the major parties involved in that discussion have since come to a compromise, but somehow, we never really got to properly discuss what NPF entails. In particular, I am not at all sure what the phrase "people who are not well known" means. One editor opined that it meant that anyone who could be considered a "household name" would be generally well known, and otherwise, not. I didn't find that to be a clarification of NPF at all, and honestly, I just have no idea how it should be applied. So I'm here. Thanks, Jonathanfu (talk) 08:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Thats a great question, but one that I think will never be able to be answered. The question is so subjective, a person could be well known for being involved in one particular field, but that incident may well have only made them well known to people in that field. They may be a pop star well known to anybody under the age of 20, but ask older people and they would not have a clue who you were talking about. Its a "how long is a piece of string" question, depending on who you ask, you will get differing views, all of which could or could not be correct.Markdarrly (talk) 11:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it stems from the idea that some people are 'public property', celebrities for whom every detail of their private lives is open to scrutiny, and then there are those who just have an entry because of, say, a post they have held. This is something that has come under scrutiny in the Leveson Inquiry in the UK and I for one do find it a very difficult position to sustain. Law and culture differ. J K Rowling, who gave evidence, argued that just because somebody is very well known as an author does not mean that she is not entitled to keep other aspects of her life, and that of her family, private and other witnesses argued the same. It has arisen in the context of identifying people as victims of rape in the discussion above. I am all for protecting 'people who are not well known', but I do not think that the policy should be read as giving carte blanche to include anything we choose in articles about well known people. --AJHingston (talk) 15:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This policy *does* cover corporations?

Jimmy Wales, in a Signpost interview, this week, responding to the question "Is there an imbalance in the fact that we don't have a corresponding policy protecting corporations from real harm?"

"WP:BLP applies to corporations, which are just collections of people. I don't see any need for extending the policy, although I could be convinced if evidence were produced of an ongoing problem that an explicit extension would help solve."

-- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I would restrict the application of BLP to the effect on people who might be hurt by Wikipedia text about a corporation. I would not extend the BLP coverage to a corporation's brand, image, reputation or financial well-being. Binksternet (talk) 02:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo's assertion regarding WP:BLP policy is simply wrong - see WP:BLPGROUP: "This policy does not normally apply to edits about corporations, companies, or other entities regarded as legal persons.." AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
That settles it. Binksternet (talk) 04:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo should have remembered and cited WP:LIBEL which he pretty much single-handedly declared into policy. Can't blame him though, our policies are a maze of twisty tunnels, all alike. Gigs (talk) 00:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course WP:BLPGROUP is phrased to address the fairly narrow legal point that organisations are persons in law in many jurisdictions. BLP still covers individuals within an organisation so long as they are identifiable, which will include their post or role as well as name. There is a problem with WP's coverage of organisations that the motivation of editors is often to attack the organisation over something, often very specific, or are following on from a media story about a particular event. Balanced coverage is difficult because those with a proper knowledge of the organisation are usually going to be associated with it, and any sources are likely to emanate from within it. Genuinely independent profiles of organisations in reliable sources are rare. WP suffers as a result. Extending BLP policy to cover them is not really the way to go, though, because many of the issues are different. --AJHingston (talk) 08:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Overly glowing corporate articles are just as much of a problem. I'm not sure that any policy can fix that, since we already have policies about neutrality and undue weight. I think it's just something that we'll have to address the old fashioned way, by correcting it when we see it. Gigs (talk) 13:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
As with BLPs, I am reminded of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority's code of practice which for many years was summarised as requiring ads to be legal, decent, honest and truthful (though the codes have now evolved beyond that). When first proposed, some in the industry must have reacted in much the same way as do some WP editors to the suggestion that they should not be free to write whatever they like. I would think everyone now recognises that it was good for both advertisers and brands, by giving the consumer confidence in the information presented. Most regular contributors to Wikipedia do so in the genuine belief that it should be a reliable source of information and a force for good - attack pieces, unbalanced and biased treatment of topics, gaps in coverage because some editors are just not interested, act against the interests of everyone by diminishing and discrediting the 'brand', and do not just harm the subject about whom few may care. --AJHingston (talk) 17:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
The UK's state censorship regime is not anything to be emulated, and I'm surprised you'd even suggest that. Gigs (talk) 19:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary, it was not a state censorship regime, that is the point! It was an exercise of mutual self-interest by the industry. An advertising free-for-all in which advertisers said anything they chose, true or not, simply discredited all advertising. Manufacturers who wanted to promote some new innovation or service providers who wanted to claim that they offered a better service found that consumers did not believe them. If advertising was not shown to work, that was bad for advertising agencies. The answer was self regulation. The parallel with WP is obvious. (And by the way, insofar as 'the state' in a democratic society seeks to encourage regulation or introduce it into other areas that is because society as a whole thinks it is a good thing. That is the point made above about the identifying of rape victims. Prohibition in countries where it applies is seen as the sign of an enlightened society, not state oppression.) --AJHingston (talk) 23:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
The ASA is mutual self interest in the same way that paying a mobster protection money is in mutual self interest. Anyway we are getting offtopic. Gigs (talk) 00:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Very much a minority view, I believe. But the point about the positive value of self-regulation is far from OT here; I argue that self-regulation has benefits both immediate (to the article in question) and wider (to Wikipedia as a whole), and should not be seen as a necessary but regrettable evil. The laissez-faire approach demonstrably does not work in areas such as BLP and articles on organisations. So when criticisms are made, the community's reaction should not be a defensive 'hands off', but to ask what if anything might be done to make it better. There has been a lot of movement in that direction, for example in openly acknowledging that subjects have a perfect right to complain if their article is inaccurate or unfair. So an extension of the BLP approach, if not necessarily the detail of the policy, might well be the way to go. --AJHingston (talk) 12:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Balance

In BLPSTYLE, we have a sub-section that advises editors to achieve a 'balance' of positive and negative material. I understand that 'balance' is often defined differently ('equal weight' as opposed to 'correctly proportioned weight'), but the issue is that WP:NPOV uses the former definition (cf. WP:BALANCE) and this policy uses the latter. I think we should make these consistent--I just saw someone cite BLPSTYLE to try to justify that an article about a musician should summarize a "balance" of positive and negative reviews, even though the musician's music was universally panned. Of course we need to be delicate in these situations (taking great care to be neutral and verifiable), but surely we do not wish to imply that 'balance' in a BLP means equally proportionate weight. I propose that we modify the name of this subsection without a change of semantics, from "Balance", to "Due weight". The qualifying information about being careful and responsible would remain. NTox · talk 20:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I support this change. That section has some other problems (do we really want to ape a Fox News slogan), but changing the section title would be a good start. Gigs (talk) 23:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
What would you change, exactly? The section heading? The assertion (the logically impossible assertion, added despite objections a while ago) that articles must be fair and balanced after every single edit? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm suggesting (only) a change to the section heading, so that it switches from "Balance" to "Due weight". I would perhaps also remove the words "balanced and" at the end of the section, so it reads "biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times". A minor point, but I think it's important. NTox · talk 01:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
I have no objection to changing the section heading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
The section heading is all that is presently proposed, I'm just expressing my dislike for the wording in general. "Fair and balanced" is pretty meaningless, or at least meaninglessly subjective. Our undue weight policies make a lot more sense than this section of BLP, and are almost always what is cited, not this. Gigs (talk) 02:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Personal info, such as birth info, needs to be sourced

I recently made the following addition to the WP:BLPREMOVE section:

Editors who have encountered subjects of BLP articles in person have found that subjects sometimes have strong concerns about personal information about them appearing in their Wikipedia articles, such as birth information, relationship status, or the names of children. Sometimes this pertains to issues of personal privacy and safety, and sometimes it pertains to their career, as some subjects feel that having false birth or other negative information dates can damage their careers. Thus, if such information is included in articles, it needs to be supported by inline citations. Information such as the names of subjects' children, can be removed from articles if the subject requests it, even if it is found in reliable sources cited in the article.

I feel that this was a logical interpretation/extension of WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:BLP, and thought that adding it to the policy page would be encouraged by WP:BOLD. However, User:Mentoz86 disagrees, and removed that material.

This is related to my recent dealings with User:Johnpacklambert, who I discovered added unsourced birth info to an immense amount of BLP articles. In some cases, he says that this material came from foreign language Wikipedia versions of these articles. Not only did this violate WP:CIRCULAR (indeed, many of those foreign versions themselves didn't have citations for the information), but in many cases, he added material to articles that didn't have any foreign Wikipedia version.

Mentoz has argued that inline citations are not needed for birth dates, because birth dates are not contentious, and therefore, do not require citations under any policy.

I believe this position is without merit. This is an encyclopedia, and that means that readers need to be informed of where in the information on it comes from. It's a fundamental part of how Wikipedia is able to bypass expert editing. Does everything need a cite? No. In a discussion with Jimmy Wales about WP:V, he once opined that some things, like "Christmas Day is December 25th" or "France is a country in Europe" are simply common knowledge to the point that inline citations for them is unnecessary. I agree with this, and think that anything not in that narrow range of material that is not so universally established needs to be supported by citations. Otherwise, the question comes up, "Where is this information coming from?" "Where did this editor get this info?" Birth info of BLPs is not "common knowledge", and because many BLP subjects consider that info contentious, for reasons I explained above, that info does not fall into that narrow range of material not requiring sites. Nightscream (talk) 15:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It is imperative that birth dates are well sourced otherwise people will be writing things such as "Joan Collins is 128 years old or that Kate Moss is 18 years old". The result of this will be that people who have come to Wikipedia to find out some information will be relying on incorrect data, but they will think it is correct just because it is in Wikipedia. Further to this point, I have recently deleted the birthdates of the children of Paul Martin, that were included in the article about him. There is no justification for including the actual birthdates of two young children in an article that is about their father. Information in such instances should be left at "Paul Martin has X number of children and they were born in X year". Anything more than this is not required and could be potentially dangerous in this age of identity theft.Markdarrly (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
It is worth mentioning that just because something is in an RS does not mean it is true. Journalists are often rehashing things they have trawled from the internet or may have mistranscribed their notes. Different sources may give different information, and users need to be able to judge the quality of the WP source for themselves. --AJHingston (talk) 17:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree, even a RS can be so wrong that it is painful. The "experts" at the British Museum who one would think are at the top of the tree have been quoted as a RS only to be proved totally wrong. They told Bolton museum that a statue was original and as a result they paid £440,000 for it, but it was a fake. Christies auctioneers even said it was OK, so two if leading institutions who are recognised worldwide for reliability can get things so wrong, where does one go for cast iron, no doubt about it 24 ct gold sources in this day and age?Markdarrly (talk) 17:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, per WP:DOB policy, such birth dates should not be added at all: "Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object. If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we could figure out how to make that sentence a bit more prominent. "Widely published by multiple reliable sources"? It might help people figure out what "widely" means, but it sounds clunky to me. Change the formatting to "widely published"? It might work. Add a no-exceptions requirement for each complete birth date to be followed by an inline citation? What do you think would help people recognize and comply with this standard? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
That could be enforced as soon as the beavers at MIT invent a device that can pass a mild (or major) electric shock to the person who is using the keyboard to type such dross!!Markdarrly (talk) 20:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm glad this conversation is being had. Unsourced DOB's are endemic. To be honest, if every DOB had a citation per the existing WP:DOB policy, it would be a major victory! Multiple reliable sources might be OTT, unless required to verify something that is controversial or disputed. As examples, I have been involved in a discussion on the Talk page of a TV celebrity where amateur Wikipedia genealogists are desperate to prove he is older than he says. I notice on the Nicki Minaj article her older DOB is cited to a police report! Sionk (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Encouraging multiple sourcing might even be counter-productive. Since RS tend to source following the same rules as WP, they are simply copying each other, so it is the quality of the sources, not the volume, that matters. The question that editors ought to be asking themselves in cases of dispute is how does the source know? Personally, I would like articles to admit uncertainty or leave something out altogether unless it is really pertient to the biography. For example, does it really matter where a person was born if they were brought up elsewhere as a child? And if the information can be sourced back to something inappropriate, an even better reason for expunging it altogether. --AJHingston (talk) 16:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
The irony is the stuff like court documents and arrest records are absolutely the most reliable source for things like DOB, and the BLP policy pretty much forbids us from using them, instead we have to rely on hearsay. Gigs (talk) 17:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Template for BLP problems inside non-BLPs

The Wikipedia:BLP#Templates section needs something like: This article (or "this section") contains biographical information which needs additional citations for verification. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. Anyone agree and want to make one up? CarolMooreDC 20:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You mean {{BLP sources}}? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
That reads: This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. So I assume it just applies to BLPs, not articles about living individuals who are part of some other article. CarolMooreDC 01:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
The section switch changes it to "This biographical section needs additional citations..." which might work for at least some of your purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

There's always the option of, you know, fixing the problem, instead of just saying "someone should fix this". Gigs (talk) 17:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

If that means go for it, I will. If I can figure out how to do it. Next week :-) CarolMooreDC 01:57, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
On the rare occasion that I've had to do something similar, I find the most similar template I can, and copy it. In this case, it should be easy enough to re-word BLP sources to work for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
What I mean Carol is that I see limited use for such a section template. If the BLP problem in the section is sufficient that someone is tempted to use this template, they should probably just reduce the section or find sources for it. Gigs (talk) 13:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:BLP and corporations

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Currently WP:BLP explicitly excludes corporations (especially the not-very-small ones). However WP:LIBEL prohibits potential libel on WP, and, at least in Florida, corporations can sue for libel. See, for example, a Florida Supreme Court decision, applying in a somewhat different context, but clearly mentioning a right of corporations to file for defamation. I think excluding corporations from WP:BLP is problematic; we need to remove defamatory material about corporations, if anything, even faster (they can cause stock market drops, for example). The standards for sourcing controversial issues about corporations has to be as high as those for controversies on living or recently dead people, for the legal protection implied by WP:LIBEL, a policy not subject to user consensus. Churn and change (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

The BLP policy isn't about libel, but about the need to use good sources to avoid causing certain kinds of harm, whether it rises to the level of defamation or not, particularly to people who are borderline notable. I would oppose trying to extend it to cover corporations. Editors should stick to NPOV, V and NOR for any subject. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:08, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
But WP:LIBEL is about libel; it is policy, and it explicitly requires removal of all libellous material, implying exemption from 3RR, just as WP:BLP does. Unfortunately, what is libel is not defined, which makes that a magnet for disputes. I guess those pork company people haven't discovered the policy, or else they would be quoting it all over the place, right or wrong. We do need to define what the policy means (yes, it does apply to corporations) and the material in WP:BLP seems a start. I agree "question of harm", "privacy" and "protection of dignity" do not apply to companies; I would say WP:BLPSTYLE, WP:BLPSOURCES, WP:BLPREMOVE, WP:BLPGOSSIP, WP:BLPSPS, WP:BLPEL, parts of WP:BLPDEL, WP:BLPEDIT and WP:BIOSELF do apply. Churn and change (talk) 00:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Any policies with "BLP" in their shortcuts or titles absolutely do not--and will not ever--apply to corporations. They can apply to sole proprietorships, which are legally indistinguishable from persons in jurisdictions like the USA, but not to legal persons who are not living persons. If the intent is to apply same sorts of expectations to facts/assertions about both living and legal persons, then there are two routes to doing so: 1) Make it overarching policy, not specific to BLP, or 2) create a BCP (Biographies of Corporate Persons) series of sub-policies, which may articulate the same thing, but each of which would have to garner appropriate community consensus to indicate that the community agrees in each applicable case that the same "rules" would apply to corporate persons. Jclemens (talk) 01:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Yup. Any attempt to extend WP:BLP policy to corporations must be done through the appropriate channels - by seeking community consensus. And as I've said before, if such a consensus were ever agreed to, I'd be out of here (along, I suspect, with quite a few other editors). I'm not interested in bolstering up corporations that already have extensive control over what is written about them through legal recourse etc. This whole 'corporate personhood' nonsense is a convenient legal fiction anyway - it has nothing whatsoever to do with how we run an encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Agree that corporations should never get the same protection as living persons as they are not living. Corporations don't have biographies, they have articles describing them. So "biography" and "living" do not apply. Binksternet (talk) 01:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I am interested in solidifying what WP:LIBEL means, and agree, based on what I heard, that extending WP:BLP isn't the way to go. I will look at bringing a concrete proposal before a wider community, making the corporation-specific rules guidelines, instead of policies, to provide editorial discretion, while not leaving the issue of what libel is totally open. Legal fictions matter even if we don't like them, and that is the reason why we have WP:LIBEL. Since we do have that, might as well decide its scope with a set of guidelines, put together by the community. We can explicitly not make it a policy since this is not something central to what Wikipedia is. Churn and change (talk) 01:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
WP:LIBEL doesn't need 'solidifying'. It is clear and concise. And we don't make assertions about what is or isn't libel one way or another - that is a job for the courts. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:47, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
This is now what WP:LIBEL says: "It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory." Defamation is indeed a legal word, and that phrasing puts the onus on us to ensure no libellous statements. The reference in the policy is to "Wales, Jimmy (2006-05-16)" who states Wikipedia BLP policy applies to corporations. A policy that puts an onus on editors needs to point to at least guidelines on what is meant. The other option is to remove that statement, which I am fine with, but which may attract resistance from a lot of places. Churn and change (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
If you are proposing that Wikipedia should attempt to give legal advice on what is or isn't defamation, I think you may find that this is problematic, to say the least. As for what Jimbo said recently, he is simply wrong about policy. If Jimbo wants the policy changed, he should tell us so himself. And which statement are you proposing we remove? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
This is now what WP:LIBEL says: "It is the responsibility of all contributors to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory." What use is that without any guidelines on what "defamatory" means? Even without going into legal aspects, the general guidelines of strong sourcing and neutral POV is applicable, and strength of sourcing and POV neutrality similar to BLP (minus harm, privacy and dignity concerns) seem implied. Formalizing the implication in guidelines seems needed to me. Churn and change (talk) 02:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
If you want to propose a change, do so - but you can't do so here, since this isn't a BLP issue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Corporations do not merit any greater concern for good sourcing than current guidelines provide. The guideline does not need to be adjusted. I am feeling an undercurrent of corporate protectionism beyond what is reasonable, for what purpose I don't know. I hesitate to arm a corporation with ammunition to be used against Wikipedia or its editors. We already work very hard to be neutral; we cannot be held responsible for neutrally reporting negative information that is well-cited. Binksternet (talk) 02:41, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree this discussion isn't a BLP issue, and the change should be proposed elsewhere. Answering Binksternet's concern, there are no current guidelines on what defamation is. Just a policy which says "editors are responsible for defamatory statements." BLP policy covers defamatory statements against individuals and small groups. What about corporations? The legal fiction of corporations as people already provides them with all the ammunition they need, if they are willing to risk the dent to their public image. Our working out guidelines would provide a better shield for both WP and individual editors. That there are zero guidelines right now on how to identify "corporate defamation" is, I think a problem. You can reasonably object to the strength of the guidelines, but you can't say current guidelines are enough. Churn and change (talk) 02:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Can you give any specific examples where our existing policy regarding this matter has been problematic? I can't think of any. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:06, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Right. We have never had any difficulty in removing unambiguous libel, as well as any entire articles whose intent is clearly defamation, and there is an excellent way for people to call it to our attention, OTRS, which effectively refers anything that is stated to be a legal issue to the Foundation legal staff, who are the ones experienced and qualified to do evaluate it. DGG ( talk ) 00:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Once again: Wrong page. We do not change LIBEL by having a chat over at WT:BLP, or any other page. If you think LIBEL is confusing, you've got to talk about it at WT:LIBEL, not here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List of family relations in American football

This article is a list of players and coaches of American football who are purportedly related by family to one degree or another. The list includes over 300 individual football players clustered in over 125 family groups. Over sixty percent of the individuals listed are still living. The article asserts that various persons are family members, twin brothers, fathers and sons, cousins, and various other relations. The entries for each person also include a list of teams played or coached by such person, often with the years of association with the particular team. The article does not contain a single source for any of the persons, living or dead, who are listed, nor for any of the various purported family relationships set forth in the list. Not one single source for any of the persons listed. This material is not necessarily contentious, but is subject to challenge in many instances because it may or may not be accurate in many of the particulars, including the degree of family relationships asserted. Does this constitute a violation of WP:BLP? If so, what is the remedy. The article has been nominated for AfD in the past 24 hours. Your advice is hereby solicited. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk or see the New Contributors' Help Page. Alternatively, if the question is about a specific biography of a living person, ask at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard." Road Wizard (talk) 05:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Does the BLP policy apply to "interwiki" links to articles in non-English editions of Wikipedia? Should it apply? What about other English Wikipedia content policies dealing with external links — should they apply to interwiki links (even if they technically do not do so now)?

There has been a discussion at Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories regarding an article on this topic in the French Wikipedia. The French article, at one time, included a paragraph seriously entertaining the question of whether Obama is the Antichrist. Additionally, the article gave a one-sided presentation of Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio's quest (saying, for example, that Arpaio had "declared" Obama's birth certificate to be fraudulent, without also indicating that several other officials had dismissed his claims).

If this material had appeared in an English Wikipedia article, it would (IMO) have arguably violated the BLP policy, in addition to NPOV, a community Obama-related-article probation, and probably other policies. If it were in an ordinary external site pointed to via an external link, said link would (as I understand WP:EL) have been considered inappropriate and subject to removal. But what about the case where material of this sort occurs in a foreign-language wiki and is pointed to via an interwiki link?

The discussion at the article's talk page (see above) suggests that some people think (indignantly) that people on the English Wikipedia are trying to exercise censorship power over the contents of foreign-language wikis. Another comment suggested that blocking an interwiki link under such circumstances could complicate efforts by readers who might want to go to a "corresponding" article in another wiki in order to improve it. I don't believe I'm being insensitive to concerns like these, but I do believe there are cases (especially if a foreign-language Wikipedia article contains egregious BLP or copyright violations) where we may in fact be obligated not to link to a given article in a foreign wiki — just as we would be obligated to remove an ordinary external link to the same sort of material.

What do people think about this? Should policies and/or guidelines be modified or tweaked to deal with this issue? Is there, in fact, already something official that addresses this problem and provides guidance? — Richwales 21:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I found an archived discussion from January 2009 on the topic of interwiki links vs. the NPOV policy (Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 60#Interwiki links). — Richwales 05:46, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't apply. We provide interwiki links "whenever possible", even if the pages in question are biased or otherwise troublesome.
Furthermore, there's no practical way to prevent these links. If fr.wp links to us, then a bot places the reciprocal link from us to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with WhatamIdoing's description of how this works. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

essay on commercial endorsement in present tense as possibly contentious and ads as not sole source

I've added a new essay, following up the recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 35#proposing commercial endorsement in present tense as possibly contentious and ads as not sole source. It's Wikipedia:Endorsements and one of the shortcuts to it is WP:ENDORSEMENTS. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it is not quite as thorough as I suspect would be good <g>. I would suggest that "Paid endorsements of any good, service, group or company should be noted carefully, and specifying that the endorsement was as of a given date, and not imply that the endorsement is ongoing." Also "Endorsements which are not reasonably considered 'notable' should not be mentioned in a biography." That George Gnarph "endorsed" Blurg Antacid is of minimal value entirely - many people "endorse" hundreds of products, and biographies should not be filled with them, IMO. I would, moreover, not invoke "right of publicity" as a reason here - it is not needed, Again, IMO. Collect (talk) 19:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
I'll try to edit the essay within a couple of days or so, clarifying on all the points. The right-of-publicity explanation should generally remain but it isn't the only reason; due weight, as you imply, also applies, so I should address other reasons, too. Thanks for helping make the essay more useful. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:42, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Done. Thanks again. I didn't use notability as a standard since notability applies to whether a subject should have an entire article devoted to them and not to each statement in the article, but I think I came up with something workable. Generally, I reorganized the essay to a major extent while adding to it. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Essay on more caution when editing about children and incompetents

I added a new essay, following up a recent discussion. It's Wikipedia:Minors and persons judged incompetent and one of the shortcuts to it is WP:MINORS. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

"People" instead of "persons"?

Disregard
 – Complaint is not linguistically valid.

I think you should move this to "Biographies of living people". I doubt whether persons is really a kosher world. its as amateurish as saying fishes or sheepes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.239.63.5 (talk) 21:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Please avail yourself of a dictionary, and you'll see that "persons" is a word in current usage, that "kosher" doesn't mean what you think it does, that "word" doesn't have an "l" in it, that "fishes" is a word (meaning "several fish of different kinds not of the same species"), that "sheeps" is a similar word with a similarly specific meaning, and that "spheepes" is not a word in English at all.  :-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 03:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of primary sources

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closed as consensus in favour no consensus. This is a very narrow proposal as it only applies to an extremely small elite group of international courts. It seems pretty obvious that this group of international courts are going to be impartial and serious, at least to the degree of newspapers such as the London Times, the Guardian, the New York Times etc. and other news organisations such as Xinhua which we already consider to be reliable sources.
I'm also sure that as per User:Churn and change that people would use such judgements as sources all the time anyway, so having a legalistic position that is contradicted by actual practice seems kinda pointless, and the sort of thing that is going to produce lots of boring arguments about what is acceptable, which is hardly a positive for the project.
WP:BLPPRIMARY is fairly clearly written like that to stop people's articles being cluttered up with every speeding ticket they got from the oakland county court, not to stop the outcomes of war crimes tribunals from being included in biographies. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
On the other hand on WP:AN User:Dicklyon described these changes as "odd and unique" which seems to finally be a reasonable opposition argument - given the original consensus isn't particularly strong that seems enough to change the close to no consensus. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that the section "Misuse of primary sources" is amended to exclude prohibitions on the usage of judgements and press releases of international courts, such as the ECHR the ICC, and the international criminal tribunals such as the ICTY, ICTR, ECCC and and the SCSL. The reason for this is that unlike crimes tried under domestic law courts in the English speaking world, there may be little detailed reporting in the English speaking press of the procedures and judgements, and so other than the official press releases and judgements other English sources may not be readily and timely available with the details that Wikipedia articles require to be usefully informative. Also unlike domestic trials only crimes of the utmost severity are tried in these courts. They are either government breaches of treaty obligations (ECHR) where the defendant may be an individual, or individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and the like, they do not try cases of the sort that were the mainstay of the now defunct News of the World and its competitors. It is a disservice to the readers of Wikiepdia to forbid editors the use of ICTY press releases such as this. -- PBS (talk)

In some US states they execute people for committing a murder. So once executed the person is no longer living so this restriction does not apply. Yet we have people convicted in the International Courts for mass murder, but as they are not executed and may live for many more years. Take for example the article List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions. Often if the court cases themselves are not used, the only sources for the detailed information that is likely to be available to Wikiepdia editors would be foreign language sources from the Balkans, or unreliable dedicated web news sources. Is it better to have court documents in English or foreign sources for the details of the convictions for the perpetrators, or for the details of those convicted of these heinous crimes to be remove removed from Wikipedia unless another source can be found.

What about the press briefings at http://www.icty.org/ do they fall under "or other public documents"? If they do then it seems odd that we can quote extracts about the Bosnian Genocide Case from court press briefings (because that is about a state) but not about crimes committed by a living ex-servant of that state, unless details in the press briefings published by the ICTY can be found in a news source that repeats that news briefing. -- PBS (talk) 14:54, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The press provides a filter against indiscriminate quoting of any random piece of trivial testimony. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:07, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
What about judgements, they do not contain "random piece of trivial testimony"? -- International courts are not run under the adversarial system used in common law (and not the magisterial system used in much of continental Europe) but a hybrid of the two.
Also "[t]he press provides a filter" good in theory but take for example http://www.icty.org/ there is a news item listed there Mile Mrkšić transferred to Portugal to serve sentence 17 August 2012 Yet a Google search on ["Mile Mrkšić" Portugal] in the first 30 items returned, striking out foreign sources, twitter and youtube one is left with just one source http://jurist.org/faq/ are we going to ignore ICTY press releases? -- PBS (talk) 15:27, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I think the best we can say here is that we've had serious problems with misuse of trial transcripts in the past, and the result is a total ban, even for good uses (e.g., getting an accurate quotation). This ban, while occasionally inconvenient, doesn't have the potential for silliness that the next sentence does, with its insistence that any public record that contains potentially personal information, even if being cited for something unrelated, may not be used for any purpose. So, for example, any public record that contains the address for any multinational corporation may not be used in any article for any purpose, even non-BLP uses, because it is (1) a public record and (2) it contains a business address, and this policy bans any and all use of any source that meets those two criteria. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
The business address issue doesn't mean that any record containing the address of a multinational could not be used. The policy says: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." The address of a multinational would not be part of someone's personal details. But if it's ambiguous, we could simply remove "business addresses" because it's not intended to be an exhaustive list of the kind of thing that counts as "personal details." SlimVirgin (talk) 00:31, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Digging around in the history of the article I see that the section has its genocis in the Revision as of 16:41, 17 May 2006. However that was for non-public figures. The assumption there and elsewhere is that we have lots of sources (there seems to be a general assumption that this is only about court cases in English speaking countries working under the adversarial tradition), has there been any other discussion about usage of press release by International Criminal Tribunals and whether this type of blanket prohibition includes those? In the case of many criminal borough before the courts for genocide and crimes against humanity it is only their infamy of being found guilty major crimes that make them notable in English speaking countries, and often the details of the specific "minor crimes" such as "persecution" (a crime against humanity) are not reported if the word genocide is mentioned in the judgement, or where and when they will be detained is not determined at time of sentencing and when it is announced, the English speaking news circus has moved on and it is not reported in the English speaking press. If no other English speaking source than the International courts websites are available should the fact that a criminal has been sent to Coventry to serve his or her sentence be left to an editor who reads Rurtainian to mention it with the inclusion such a Rurtainian source? Which serves this Encyclopaedia better a Rurtainian source (which may or may not be reliable) or a press release by an international tribunal? -- PBS (talk) 10:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I have now converted this to an RfC in the hope that it will gain more editorial comment. -- PBS (talk) 19:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - If a trial is notable enough for Wikipedia then it will have coverage in the major world newspapers. If the only source is court documents, then the case is non-notable. —JmaJeremy✆✎ 23:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
    • You have assumed that the trial is the subject of the article ("If a trial is notable"). The question also applies to cases in which the trial does not qualify for a separate article (=="notable"), but describing the trial as part of an article about a person is very much WP:DUE, even if it has received relatively little coverage (so far) in the press. For example, representing a client at one of these major courts is a high point in an attorney's career, and it ought to be mentioned in a BLP about the attorney, even if the news media doesn't much care. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I can't believe this conversation is happening again, only three weeks after a RfC which decided to keep things as they were. As others have said here, if the facts aren't of interest to the reliable news sources, they're not of interest to Wikipedia. Sionk (talk) 23:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
    • That RFC was about a completely different sentence and is therefore irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
      • What about press releases by international tribunals? For example which reliable news source has covered this? It is well known that Governments release bad new on busy news days in the hope that it will be buried. If mundane news is released by one of the intentional tribunals (for example the prison transfer date of a convicted prisoner) on a busy news day then it may well not be reported in the press. -- PBS (talk) 22:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as contravening the intent of WP:BLP which is designed to protect the living people mentioned. The requirement for reliable secondary sources is a valid one, and ought not be trifled with. Collect (talk) 15:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
    • How can prohibiting the use of press releases by international tribunals harm living people? Please explain why "The requirement for reliable secondary sources is a valid one" in such instances. -- PBS (talk) 22:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose for no other reason than WP:BLP is about protecting living people from potentially misleading or damaging information, we should always err to the side of "don't include". I would be opposed to any slackening of the current standards. If something isn't being reported at all in any reliable media, and all we have are un-analyzed court documents, then WP:UNDUE comes into play. Also, I don't think that "English-speaking press" is relevent at all. If a trial is reported in the French press, that's always been fine for Wikipedia. The language of the source is irrelevent. --Jayron32 15:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Question All the responses assume that the court documents involve contentious and negative matter. What if it is non-contentious and positive? Are we going to "protect" living people from positive, non-contentious claims, like "Alice Expert served as an expert witness in Some Case or Another at the Big Court" or "Bob Lawyer filed a brief with Big Court that was quoted favorably in the final judgement"?
    You'd all accept that kind of non-contentious statement if it was cited to the BLP's personal website. Why not accept it from an WP:Independent and truly authoritative source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
    • If it is not contentious, then it is not contentious, so the entire discussion is moot. If it is "being challanged or likely to be challenged", then by definition it is contentious, so get a better source. Also, it isn't our business to decide what is or is not "positive" and "negative". We can't know one way or another whether reporting here that Alice served as an expert witness, or Bob was the lead counsel in a case, is a positive or negative thing for them. The same claims get made about birthdates, or marriage licenses, or other publicly availible records. We don't include unanalyzed public records, not because they aren't public, but because they haven't been vetted. It isn't our business to vet things. We leave that to others. It isn't our position to decide if a piece of contentious information is contentious because it is positive or negative. If it is being contended, we need a proper source. Period. --Jayron32 19:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
      WP:Contentious and WP:Likely to be challenged are not identical.
      Imagine that you have two sources: One is Bob's personal website, in which he says "The highlight of my entire professional life was having the judge at Big Court quote favorably quote a large section from my amicus brief." The other is the court judgment in which the court says "To quote Bob Lawyer's amicus brief, 'Blah blah blah'". Which of these sources would you pick to support a claim that "Bob Lawyer filed a brief with Big Court that was quoted favorably in the final judgement"? The personal website or the independent source? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Neither. One is self published, and one hasn't been subject to any vetting as we expect of good secondary sources. Which would you prefer, a punch to the face or a kick to the groin? I would rather the article doesn't mention the factoid at all if we don't have a proper source, which is where someone has analyzed and vetted the raw data and told us what it means. --Jayron32 22:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
        To use that sort of argument I think shows a lack of knowledge of what self-published is intended to mean. Your definition of self published would exclude the use of almost everything. For example The Times is a newspaper where nearly all its content consists of material produced by its staff. We do not call that information produced by its staff self-published. In this case International Tribunals are fall outside the meaning of self-published for that and another reason: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic", or would you argue that that international courts are not experts in their field? -- PBS (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
        No, that sort of argument shows a clear knowledge of what self-published actually means in the real world. Wiktionary gives this definition: "The publishing of books and other media by the authors or creators of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers" (emphasis added). The Times is an "established, third-party publisher". A court of law is not generally considered an "established, third-party publisher".
        Now it's true that some people have a very special definition of SPS that they like to use on the English Wikipedia, which amounts to "doesn't have enough lawyers involved". So according to this novel definition, Coca-Cola, Inc., when it writes and publishes its own website or a press release, is "not self-published", but a small business, when it does exactly the same thing, is somehow "self-published". Most of us reject that strange conception, though, and go back to the basic idea of self-publication, which is when someone (1) writes something, (2) publishes what they wrote, and (3) publishing stuff isn't their primary line of work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
        And the problem with invoking WP:SPS's expert exemption is that BLP has no expert exemption. Self-published sources, if written and published by anyone except the BLP subject himself, are prohibited, with zero exceptions: "Never use self-published sources... as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below)." There is no "expert exemption" that could be applied to the courts here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
        If the Times is publishing something written by a member of its staff its relationship with that member of staff is not third party but the same party. What we mean by self published is by an a person or individual with no editorial or little oversight. Using your definition, then the this page is reliable and this page is not simply because the first page is by a company who's business is publishing. International tribunals have editorial oversight for things such as press releases, and judgements are by their nature reliable. WhatamIdoing you definition of self-published would exclude all UN statements, almost all government statements, and a host of other sources that are accepted as reliable sources in large swaths of Wikipedia articles. -- PBS (talk) 09:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
        Sure, that's one definition of self-published, although I believe that both of your examples are self-published, because traditional publishers like Thompson aren't traditionally in the business of publishing stuff about themselves. Your application of the definition to newspapers is wrong, though: the person who wrote the article is not the person who decides whether the article will run in the paper. All advertisements, press releases, etc. are self-published: the people who decided what it should say are the same people who decide whether or not it will be made public. But it's not the definition found in the dictionary, and it's not defined that way in our policies. Most of us, when we want to point out "little or no editorial oversight" actually say "little or no editorial oversight". That might be true at a traditional publisher, and it might not be true at a self-publisher. As for international tribunes, I have no idea what their editorial oversight looks like. Until proven otherwise, I'd put them in the same category as university press offices, which is "bad". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
        Your response to my last posting shows that you did not understand what I wrote (most probably because my writing style is not always the clearest) -- the example I gave of the two websites was to prove a point about editorial oversight -- I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him [sic]. As to the press offices of an International tribunal do you know of any request for a change in one of their statements? Because unlike a university, these press-releases are about criminal charges of the highest severity, and it beggars belief that such releases are not vetted carefully before release -- PBS (talk) 14:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Something can be challenged not because it is contentious but because the fact that is challenged is not common knowledge and therefore should contain a citation. For example if an article says someone was convicted of genocide then as it is such a heinous crime, I would always demand a citation. Do you know if Radislav Krstić was found guilty of genocide or aiding and abetting genocide? I can find lots of sources that say he was convicted of genocide but in fact that conviction was overturned on appeal. Do you really think that reading press releases from the ICTY is original research and that they have to be vetted by an intermediary? -- PBS (talk) 22:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Hi Philip, could you give an example from a real article of information from an international court that we wouldn't be able to add because of this policy? It would be helpful to see the kind of thing you have in mind. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:39, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
  • How is it that someone who is in the news that much doesn't have a single news source in any language which reports the results of the court case? If someone is so unnotable that not a single news source reports the results of a court case they are involved in, why do we have an article at Wikipedia about it? I find it vanishingly hard to believe that any person who meets Wikipedia standards for having an article in the first place would be so invisible that a major court case would be ignored by literally every reliable newspaper in the world. It looks like we're inventing fantastic scenarios that have no connection to reality. If it isn't important enough for a single reliable secondary source such as a newspaper, journal, TV news report, or literally any other source in the world to have cared to include even a rudimentary story about it, why is it in Wikipedia at all? That sounds like WP:UNDUE attention to something, doesn't it? --Jayron32 23:43, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment; I'm interested to see what examples PBS can provide, but for now I'm leaning towards supporting this. I haven't made up my mind, but it seems prima facie absurd to permit government sources regarding its people while not allowing international court press releases about people before it. This would theoretically permit us to prop up Chinese propaganda bullshit about Liu Xiaobo or the Dalai Lama as fact while preventing us from reporting on the conviction and appeal of Radislav Krstić. We're fortunate that the above cases have sufficient media coverage that even under current policy we don't have to do that, but it seems an odd double standard to allow one party with an obvious vested interest in itself to be used as a source for living people while preventing what's supposed to be a neutral judiciary from doing the same. And frankly, if someone is convicted of aiding and abetting genocide and sentenced to 35 years in prison, they have much larger problems than a Wikipedia article saying as much (I know that's not really an argument for policy, but I think it helps to keep our sense of perspective sometimes). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The policy does allow the use of primary sources where they are merely augmenting secondary sources: "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies."
That is, where an issue has already been discussed by secondary sources (to establish notability), we can expand that coverage using primary sources, so long as we're circumspect and cautious. The example given above of someone being convicted (reported by secondary sources), and the conviction overturned on appeal (reported only by a press release from an international court) would be an example of an appropriate use of a primary source – so long as secondary sources had already discussed the conviction. But it would be unusual for reporters to report the conviction and not the successful appeal; there are international news agency that keep an eye on these cases.
I'd be interested in seeing an example where there is no secondary source involvement, but where the use of a primary source might nevertheless be appropriate. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Is a press briefings by the ICTY a primary secondary source? -- PBS (talk) 10:04, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Considering that newspaper articles on current/recent-past events are primary sources (see the essay WP:PRIMARYNEWS; not a policy or guideline, but linked to from the core WP:NOR policy), I would be surprised if a press briefing weren't primary. However, WP:BLPPRIMARY does not ban all primary sources. Press briefings would not be "court records" outlawed by WP:BLPPRIMARY; I guess they are not recorded by the court clerk? Best I can see, primary sources are acceptable if they do not have the common problems with such sources: reliability, a filter for notability, and understandability to the lay person. Court judgments don't pass the last two criteria; ICTY press briefings do pass all three. However, WP:NOR does have the strong statement: "Do not base an entire article on primary sources" and that is not just BLP policy. Your idea would require modifying this statement. I am, as of now, neutral on that. The alternative, that of modifying the definition of "primary" and "secondary" sources to exclude press briefings, I would oppose as opening a can of worms unrelated to the specific issue. Churn and change (talk) 19:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
"Considering that newspaper articles on current/recent-past events are primary sources" is not a view that most people hold. For example Organisations such as the BBC have a specific editorial policy of a neutral POV similar to Wikipedia's which is hardly the actions of an organisation that considers itself a produced of primary sources. -- PBS (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
POV has nothing to do with whether the source is primary, secondary, or tertiary. WP:Secondary is not another way to spell good. You can write a biased secondary source or a neutral primary source. Most newspaper stories are primary sources: they are eyewitness news, initial reports, etc. Putting something in a newspaper doesn't turn it into a secondary source. If writing "I saw Joe Politician give a speech at City Hall yesterday" on your personal blog would be a primary source, then printing it up on a broadsheet is still a primary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
As I said your point of view on this is a minority one. An historical newspaper report may be considered a primary source, but newspaper articles published before an event becomes history is not. For example Hansard is a primary source for a Chancellor's Budget speech in the House of Commons, a newspaper article on a recent Budget is not a primary source. Or do you make a distinction between a report in The Times and The Economist? If so what about the Economist and the journal, Oxford Economic Papers? Where does primary finish and secondary start for you? Most editors take the view as expressed in WP:PSTS "Secondary sources are second-hand accounts, generally at least one step removed from an event." Newspaper reports of the events in Parliament are second-hand accounts one step removed from the event. -- PBS (talk) 12:45, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree that most editors take the view expressed in PSTS. My view comes straight from that policy, which says, in the lengthy and important footnote, "Further examples of primary sources include… editorials, columns, blogs, opinion pieces, or (depending on context) interviews. ... For definitions of primary sources: "Primary sources were…created during the time period being studied…" "Primary sources may include newspaper articles... interviews,... reports of government commissions, and many other types of documents."". So I think that the consensus is pretty plain that created-at-the-time newspaper articles are (generally) primary sources under Wikipedia's policies. PSTS doesn't even admit the possibility of a newspaper article being a secondary source.
If you want to know what the real world believes, rather than the nuance-free definition in NOR, then this is going to be far more useful to you. A factual account of a recent (relative to publication date) in a newspaper is always a primary source. But an analytical account in a newspaper could be used as a secondary source. So a report on the Chancellor's budget speech is a primary source if the newspaper article is a simple factual account, and it is a secondary source if the newspaper article is analyzing the speech.
NB that the publication itself does not matter. An eyewitness factual account is a primary source no matter whether you publish it in a blog, a newspaper, a scholarly journal, or a billboard. It is a primary source no matter how many editors or lawyers are involved in approving it. Similarly, an in-depth analysis is generally taken as a secondary source, no matter where it is published or how many editors or lawyers were consulted. The nature of the periodical and the presence of editorial oversight doesn't affect the PSTS status. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
The first two links you give are to descriptions of historical primary sources. The first explicitly says "Finding Historical Primary Sources" and the second give the example "Use Subject Headings for your topic and words like '-diaries', '-personal narratives' (i.e. Spain--History--Civil War, 1936-1939--Personal narratives)". No one disputes that once a newspaper report move from contemporary into historical its worth is primarily as an historical primary source, but that is not true of newspapers reporting current affairs. In Britain there is a thirty year rule on the release of many government documents and that is because roughly speaking 25 to 30 years need to pass before current affairs become history (and subjects suitable for historical analysis). I think your definition of what is an eye witness report is simplistic and I deliberately chose the Budget speech in Parliament as a specific example because AFAICT your definition would take two articles from two different broadsheet newspapers and categorise one that started "Yesterday I sat in the public gallery to hear the Chancellor say ..." and another that started "Yesterday the in his Budget speech the Chancellor said ...", but were otherwise identical, as primary and secondary sources. That would be a nonsense. The primary source is the Budget speech in Hansard or the Parliamentary Channel, the reporting of it is a secondary source which may or may not include parts of the primary source in the form of quotations or voice extracts. In this section the judgement at the end of an international trial on a genocide is a primary source, and the press release about the judgement is a secondary source. I do not think that either should be excluded from biographies of living persons, providing that their use follows that of the rest of the relevant policies. -- PBS (talk) 08:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
The text immediately following "Yesterday, I heard him say..." is always primary source material, but beyond that it depends on what the author says. If the rest of the source merely relates the facts ("The speech had three main points, which were..."), then it's a primary source. If it analyzes it ("His first point was a calculated political attack, which will offend the moderates but drive the party stalwarts to the polls..."), then it's a secondary source. Sources can be mixtures, with some parts primary and some parts secondary.
The grammatical person ("I heard him say" vs "he said") is irrelevant. What matters is what the author is doing with the material. If he's simply repeating someone else's work, it's primary. If he's building on someone else's work, it's secondary.
I haven't seen any sources that claim regular who-what-when-where newspaper articles, no matter how recent, are secondary sources, and I have looked. If you can find something that says a typical newspaper article (e.g., "Firefighters responded to a blaze last night at 123 Main Street" or "The city council voted last night to require smoke detectors in new homes") are secondary, then do please share your sources. But I'm betting you won't, because nobody's found any yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that a statement such as "The [Budget] speech had three main points" makes the newspaper article a secondary source (unless the primary source explicitly states it contains three main points). I put in a Google search for [newspaper secondary source or primary source] and the first article returned was Primary and secondary sources - Ithaca College Library "Secondary source materials can be articles in newspapers or popular magazines, book or movie reviews, or articles found in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else's original research" and "You can't always determine if something is primary or secondary just because of the source it is found in. Articles in newspapers and magazines are usually considered secondary sources. However, if a story in a newspaper about the Iraq war is an eyewitness account, that would be a primary source." The second one in the list was "Primary Sources at Yale". It also makes the same point "A serial is a publication, such as a magazine, newspaper, or scholarly journal, that is published in ongoing installments. Like books, serials can function both as primary sources and secondary sources depending on how one approaches them. Age is an important factor in determining whether a serial publication is primarily a primary or a secondary source". The problem is that nearly all the definitions in this area are talking about historical use of newspapers, not use in articles about current affairs, which distorts their definitions in favour of seeing newspaper articles as primary sources (as the Yale quote makes clear). As those were the first two articles returned by my Google search, I am not sure why you have had so much problem finding sources that show that newspapers articles about current events are usually not primary sources. But fun as this to discuss newspaper articles it is drifting off topic and to get us back on topic I do not think that an ICTR press release about an ICTR judgement is a primary source and I think that the wording in this policy should be altered so that the use of ICTR press release as a soruce are not explicitly prohibited by this policy.-- PBS (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Why haven't I found a source that says newspaper articles are usually not primary? Because the sources you provide only say that newspaper articles can be secondary, not that the majority of them actually are. The majority of newspaper articles are short, unsigned factual reports with no analysis or interpretation: It rained yesterday. Bob was arrested. Chris opened a new business. And to quote your link to Yale, a defining characteristic of primary sources is that they "are created at the time when the events or conditions are occurring", which is the major goal of news reporting. So I believe that if you sat down with a newspaper and counted stories, you would find that a majority of the ink was spilled for primary source material.
Although it is possible for a press release to contain secondary material, I believe that most are primary, and I expect that a court in particular likely makes an effort to avoid the analysis or interpretation that is characteristic of a secondary source. Which isn't to say that I believe the ought to be unusable, only that I believe that they are included in the current, ham-fisted ban-'em-all statement in this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I am not suggesting modifying NOR, I am suggesting that the current wording of WP:BLPPRIMARY was written for preventing salacious and titillating trivia about living people from being exacted from court documents and used in Wikipedia articles, because the sources where it is usually found (such as British red tops) are dismissed as unreliable and so excluded. That is reasonable. Bomber Harris said of the policy of area bombardment for want of a rapier a bludgeon was used. The words currently in WP:BLPPRIMARY is a bludgeon, it excludes sources that the primary content polices do not, and it is damaging to the project to do so (because the details of the finding of internal courts on issues like genocide are notable). I think that many people arguing here defending a bludgeon instead of trying to create a rapier to tackle a specific problem are doing Wikipedia no favours. -- PBS (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose court judgments How do we decide what is relevant or not relevant in these mammoth court publications? We will have to indulge in WP:OR to pick and choose. If something isn't being reported in the secondary sources, then it just isn't relevant. It may be relevant to you or me based on beliefs and sphere of activity, but it lacks the general relevance required for an encyclopedia. And why the reference to English news media coverage? We are not limited to that. Secondary sources include foreign newspapers and magazines, books, political and sociological journals and what not. Such sources may not have immediate coverage of the case unlike the court documents, but we are not a newspaper. We can afford the time it takes for experts, scholars and other authorities to analyze, filter and summarize the information correctly. Churn and change (talk) 23:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This is true for all primary sources. It is not OR to summarise a primary source, it is OR to produced "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources". -- PBS (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
It is OR to "analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source" (WP:NOR policy). How does one "summarize" these big judgments, running into several pages, without "evaluating" what is worthy of inclusion? Yes, it is true of all primary sources, and that is why WP asks for secondary sources. The WP:NOR policy explicitly says WP articles are based on secondary sources, and, to a lesser extent, tertiary sources. And there is the specific policy: "Do not base an entire article on primary sources" (emphasis in original). What you are asking for is either to weaken this, or change the definition of "primary source." I oppose the second. I may support the first depending on what extra you want to add; I would oppose an article based on just court judgments; we are not lawyers, judges, or law clerks. Churn and change (talk) 20:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
You quoted the same clause that I did! The answer to your question is that is an issue for editorial judgement and if necessary discussion on the talk page as to whether a fair summary has been included in the article, the same is true when summarising secondary sources. You then quote another section from WP NOR, about basing entire articles on primary sources that is not under debate here. What is being debated here is the limitations imposed on source usage in the section "Misuse of primary sources". -- PBS (talk) 09:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
But to summmarize primary sources requires subject expertise and far more of evaluation than in summarizing secondary sources. That is one of the reasons we don't prefer primary sources except when backing secondary sources. Summarizing a court judgment requires understanding and parsing legal language, something lawyers and judges themselves often disagree on. Your proposal will just lead to interminable arguments on whether the summary was fair, neutral and correct. The WP:NOR issue arises because I presumed your subjects are cited in just these primary sources—judgments and press releases. An article on them would therefore be based on just primary sources, and would require a WP:NOR exception. If you are saying there are secondary sources on them on other issues, I do have to ask how come we are missing secondary sources just for the trials? Churn and change (talk) 16:30, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
You write "That is one of the reasons we don't prefer primary sources except when backing secondary sources" the prohibition on the use of unpublished primary sources is to do with OR not to do with the difficulty of whether they can be summarised. We have the bizarre situation that an international judgement can be cited for a point of law, or the findings against a state (see for example Bosnian Genocide Case), but not for the length of of a named criminal's conviction or sentence. The issue is not because "[the] subjects are cited in just these primary sources", it is that some of the details that are lacking in reliable secondary sources, for example the date on which a prisoner is transferred to serve his or her sentence, or some of the specific charges on which a person was found not guilty, etc -- PBS (talk) 14:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose These sources can still be cited, provided that secondary sources exist to support the use of the cited content. Allowing a special case for court documents seems like precisely the sort of misuse we want to avoid. aprock (talk) 01:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
    Why "Strongly"? Who is we? How is using a international court press briefing a misuse "we" want to avoid? -- PBS (talk) 15:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose with a caveat If there are simply no secondary sources, we have the issue Churn and Change raises above regarding notability/signficance; if there are secondary sources, I'd wikilawyer that the policy already permits those briefings so long as they are not the basis for supporting the material ("to support assertions about a living person" being the operative clause.). Providing a more accessible (read, English rather than non-English) confirmation of information already solidly sourced by non-English reliable sources seems a plausible and relatively harmless use case. --j⚛e deckertalk 22:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
    • How do you come to such a reading of WP:BLPPRIMARY It seems to me that the sentence "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." does not allow such wriggle room. -- PBS (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Good question. What I'm suggesting is that if other sources, included in the article, sufficiently support the statements they verify and establish the significance of the content, then the content is already "supported", and that any additional use of such transcripts would not be done in order "to support assertions about a living person", that instead they would be present more as a matter of aiding the understanding of readers who only speak English, rather than the establishment of documentation toward verifiability notability or signficance. We add sources for different reasons, I'm suggesting a limited reading of "to support assertions about". --j⚛e deckertalk 20:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I support PBS's general idea I think our current wording is too black and white. I understand and agree with the underlying concept that we should not be "digging up dirt" in primary sources, or using obscure public records to publish information on low profile individuals that is not otherwise widely published. Our current wording goes way too far in prohibiting specific classes of primary sources. Our policies should rarely, if ever, present such absolute language. Gigs (talk) 13:49, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Suggestion Add a sentence in guidelines stating press releases from international courts should be treated like news articles in reliable newspapers and magazines. We use such articles throughout WP, whatever policy might say about their primary/secondary status (they are considered reliable anyway, and the problem of interpretation, summarizing and so on don't exist, so whether they are primary matters not much except for things like eyewitness accounts of a reporter). I am not sure whether press releases from a bureaucracy really are considered primary sources right now (PBS said so, and I accepted it for a while, but I guess PBS is saying others would read the policy that way). But since real editing on WP isn't based on these legalistic readings of policy and guidelines, I suggest explicitly linking these PRs to news articles. As for court judgments, I want to see one. Churn and change (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment At the moment the current wording of this section can be read to prohibit the use of both judgements and press releases by international courts. For articles about the genocide tribunals this is being ignored (see for example List of Bosnian genocide prosecutions), so either those articles should be gutted (removing text and the citations to the documentation international tribunals) or the citations to the documentation international tribunals should be removed (leaving much of the text without sources), or this policy should be altered to accommodate judgements and press releases by international courts, or we can just ignore this policy and leave things as they are. Which is it to be? -- PBS (talk) 08:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I rather arbitrarily picked reference 72: Borislav Herak's reduction in sentencing. Amnesty International did pick up on it, though not the exact new term: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,AMNESTY,,BIH,,3ae6aa0814,0.html. An AP source picked up on it: [6] This source, Case Western Reserve's journal War Crimes Prosecution Watch picked up on it. They quote the BIRN Justice Report which is a secondary source, and one assumes reliable at least in this case. Maybe I got lucky with my random check. That last journal looks like a very good resource for sourcing this stuff. From the description at the top: "War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world." It is issued by the Law Department of a major university. Since it is a compilation with no summary or evaluation it is probably technically a primary source, but the vetting involved makes it very useful. In some cases, as in the random example I checked, it is linking to a secondary source for the information. Churn and change (talk) 17:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Press releases by "International Courts" should be treated as press releases by any NGO, and rulings by "International Courts" should be treated as rulings, even more subject to misinterpretation than rulings in English by courts in English-speaking jurisdictions, as the translation into English might not be "official". There may be some exceptions; if a reliable source mentions that someone is convicted and sentenced, it seems possible that an official report from the court could be used for the length of the sentence. The specific example immediately above, as to to a reduction in sentence, probably could be referenced to an official primary source, if unambiguous. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I do not understand your opposition to a blanket ban and then a suggestion that the current wording be ignored with ("There may be...").--PBS (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
    • All animalsNGOs are equal, but some animalsNOGs are more equal than others: Press releases from the UN and the EU are little different than those from government organisations, and are not of a similar level of reliability to those released by a small charity. A distinction has to be made in the type of NGO or one ends up in a looking glass world where: a press release from Lambeth Palace (from an established government organisation) is more reliable than that from the Church of Scotland (disestablished in 1929 and therefore an NGO).
    • As to accuracy of translation, this is not a major issue as the articles are not a legal dissertation or brief (therefore judgements published by international courts in English are reliable sources even if the authoritative source is in a different language such as French). Besides the rulings of international courts such as the World Court are in English as an official and an authoritative language and are binding on English speaking nations. What is you opinion of the judgements of tribunals such as the ICTY and the ICTR where English is not only an official language but is also authoritative so there is no misinterpretation/mistranslation (this is also true for the ICC where the the authoritative version of the judgment [was] in English in the [first trial] case, with the French translation to follow a number of weeks late)? -- PBS (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • Oppose I wasn't aware of this discussion, but now that I am, you can add my name to the list of opposes. This is exactly the type of abuse that Wikipedia policies are designed to prevent. If something is truly worth including in a Wikipedia article, then secondary reliable sources would have covered it. If secondary reliable sources can't be found, it's a strong sign of something that should not be included in a Wikipedia article. This is especially important for WP:BLP content. A Quest For Knowledge (talk), 17 November 2012 (UTC)
    • The flaw with your argument, which is why I closed the discussion as I did, is that the secondary sources will often be much less reliable, and possibly also will not be in English which makes them harder to access and to verify. And that the "primary" sources in question are in fact extremely serious.
    • Additionally this doesn't in any way protect the project from libel claims which is the point of the policy. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
      • The flaw with your argument is that you're conflating verifiability with WP:NPOV. If something is truly "extremely serious" as you claim, then surely secondary sources will have covered it, and non-English sources are allowed per WP:NOENG. If such sources don't exist, you're using your own value judgment to determine what's worth including and what's not worth including, which is a violation of our policy on neutrality.
      • Additionally, there is more to writing encyclopedia articles than simply avoiding lawsuits. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

"If something is truly worth including in a Wikipedia article, then secondary reliable sources would have covered it." The crisis in Syria has not lessened over the last 48 hours but the reports in English speaking sources has diminished as the eye of the English speaking media has turned to the fighting between Palestinians and Israelis. So it is not always true that "secondary reliable sources would have covered it" will cover something to the same depth because it depends also on what else happens on that day. While a conviction by an international court of crimes against humanity may be recorded in some secondary sources, there is no grantee that every case will be covered to the same depth (leaving a summary article open to undue emphasis on a case that hits the papers on a quite day). Also details such as the date that a person is transferred from The Hague to a prison in another country may not be covered in any reliable source but the ITCY. Finally and most importantly, the International tribunals keep their site up to date. Although an older reliable secondary source may record that a person was found guilty of genocide they may not record the appeals process, hence the Wikipeida article that does not use the information on the courts' websites may well be inaccurately reporting that a person has been convicted of a crime that subsequently is overturned by the appeals process simply because no reliable source (excluding the court site) can be found.

Also AQFK, you have not addressed the inconsistency in this section where by a press release by the World Court is excluded by this paragraph, but the transcript from a quasi-judicial publicly funded bodies such as a Royal Commission or a Public Enquiry is not. -- PBS (talk) 16:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

PBS, I asked above whether you had an example of the arguably appropriate use in a BLP of a primary source of the kind you discuss, where there has been no secondary coverage. If you could offer a real example, it would make it easier to judge whether excluding it is problematic. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I assumed that you read my entry at the start of the section time stamped 15:27, 1 September 2012 about Mile Mrkšić transferred to Portugal to serve sentence 17 August 2012. Now it may be that since then there have been some more reports in reliable sources, but it is typical of the sort of information that is not commonly available. -- PBS (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
You wrote there: "Also "[t]he press provides a filter" good in theory but take for example http://www.icty.org/ there is a news item listed there Mile Mrkšić transferred to Portugal to serve sentence 17 August 2012 Yet a Google search on ["Mile Mrkšić" Portugal] in the first 30 items returned, striking out foreign sources, twitter and youtube one is left with just one source http://jurist.org/faq/ are we going to ignore ICTY press releases?"
There's nothing in the policy that would prevent you from using the UN press release. It's not a court document, so it would be an acceptable source if an article about that person already existed. I don't think it would be enough notability-wise to base an article on, but otherwise it's fine. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:07, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
How do you conclude that "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents" does not include a press release by the ICTY? -- PBS (talk) 11:46, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion closure may be misinterpreting the view of consensus

I have reverted a change made by Eraserhead to the policy based on what Eraserhead has interpreted as consensus above. I realize that Eraserhead has imprinted many of his own views while closing the discussion, and has based it as a part of consensus. I suspect this might not be the appropriate way to include such a change in policy. If I've read all this wrongly, please feel free to correct me. However, I'll prefer an RfC that has a wider participation than the one that I've viewed out here - and I'll prefer an administrator or an editor experienced at closing RfCs closing the resulting discussion; and this is with no disrespect towards Eraserhead's contributions to Wikipedia, which are appreciated by me. Kind regards. Wifione Message 16:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The "close" was errant, and clearly so. In fact the consensus was clearly opposed to allowing use of such sources. Charitably counting - 3 in favour, and 8 opposed does not make it anything other than a clear consensus opposed to the proposal. Collect (talk) 16:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the consensus seemed to be against changing the policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Yup - there is clearly no consensus for the change. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
See WP:CLOSE and WP:RFC#Ending_RfCs- you can't just overturn the decision. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Actually I think we can and should. Better yet, revert yourself, since your statement of consensus is clearly opposite to what any impartial observer would see in the discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Until you described this additions as odd, which was the best argument presented in the discussion, this impartial observer judged differently - as is the way of the world. That doesn't allow you or anyone else to ignore the policy in WP:CLOSE and WP:RFC. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Fortunately, editors are allowed to be fallible, but it might be best to avoid closing unclear cases involving a significant change to an important policy. If it is not clear that the case was "unclear", I would recommend not closing any RfCs at all. Johnuniq (talk) 01:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I do not see how it can be claimed that there is a consensus on this issue one way or another as very people were involved in the discussion. -- PBS (talk) 16:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I concur this did not reach consensus, and would like to see it reopened (and wouldn't mind if someone pinged me if it is). This matters and the issues remain only half-explored. I see two really good points on both sides, and they're not trivial to resolve. PS: Concur with SlimVirgin on 'remove "business addresses" because it's not intended to be an exhaustive list'; that is the obvious solution to that little sub-issue. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 14:23, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Diacritics and reliable sources for names in BLPs (essay for discussion)

This RfC has been closed per discussion below and at WP:ANI. Black Kite (talk) 12:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Closed. There is a clear consensus that this RFC is not going anywhere, is duplicative of previous discussions which have reached clear decisions, is spurious to current processes, and as such should be closed. Black Kite (talk) 12:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Reliable NPOV sources for names in English Wikipedia BLP LittleBen (talk) 06:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Executive summary

  • English Wikipedia is intended to primarily be a trustworthy reference as to majority usage in reliable English-language sources. Notable and newsworthy BLP names and name changes (e.g. due to marriage) appear in the media, but may not appear in encyclopedias and the like for many years, so the usage of internationally-recognized organizations such as the Nobel prize committee, Government-level press releases, the Olympic organizers, international sports bodies, and the major media are generally considered to be reliable sources. Newsworthy BLP names also appear in English-language autobiographies and authorized biographies. These are also reliable sources. There are transparent and POV-neutral tools for determining majority usage in reliable English sources—as described below. It is surely unacceptable for majority English naming (as used by the Nobel prize committee, and on the covers of English-language autobiographies and authorized translations of books written by the BLP subject) to be completely stripped out of English Wikipedia.
  • Majority usage in reliable English-language sources should be clearly stated. Ideally the article title should represent majority usage in English. If the foreign rendering of a BLP name is not the majority usage in English, the foreign rendering of the name—where possible—should be in the lede (confirmed, where possible, by the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia, as described below). Otherwise, if the article title does not represent majority usage in English, the article should be renamed, or majority English usage should be clearly stated in the lede.
  • The article should be linked to the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia BLP article. How to find the corresponding foreign language Wikipedia article, and link to it, is described below.
  • The common name of the subject should be on top of the infobox, if there is one, even if the article title is something else: "It should be named the common name of the article's subject...this does not need to match the article's Wikipedia title," per MOS:INFOBOX.
  • Accessibility considerations are not directly related to reliability of sources used for BLP, but as far as possible Wikipedia accessibility guidelines should be observed when embedding foreign-language names in English Wikipedia.

Transparent NPOV tools for determining majority English usage

  • If you page through the first 18 pages of Google results, there is only one Indian newspaper with a couple of pages that have the name with diacritics—the title is apparently copied verbatim from Wikipedia—(and this newspaper has seemingly identical pages that have the name without diacritics if you click on "Profile") but no content whatsoever about the player, and two or three French-language articles on about the 18th page of search results that show the name with diacritics.

Arguments against adopting the English usage of reputable sources in English Wikipedia

  • One argument used to completely eliminate such majority English spellings is the fait accompli argument: that commonsense rules for spelling names in English—and Wikipedia guidelines—have already been widely ignored in Wikipedia, "which makes it OK to do so". But that people have ignored Wikipedia guidelines and virtually universal commonsense rules for spelling names in English doesn't make it OK to do so. Frivolously moving articles to titles with diacritics creates a lot of needless and pointless work; intimidating editors and administrators who refuse to go along with these games just poisons the Wikipedia environment.
  • Another argument, mentioned briefly above, is that "redirects are cheap". Regardless of whether this is true or not, there were redirects from many different misspellings to the Walesa article, but the majority English spelling did not appear even once in the article.
  • Another argument is that to splash foreign words and names—or highly technical words, for that matter—(words that the majority of users cannot reasonably be expected to read, write, remember, or understand) everywhere in articles, and not provide any plain English explanation, "makes Wikipedia encyclopedic". (It is also a great way of polishing the big egos of contributors, and showing the majority of ordinary users—who pay Wikipedia's bills—how utterly ignorant they are. Blow their little minds!)
  • Yet another argument used to completely eliminate such majority English spellings is that "it (using English) is dumbing down Wikipedia"; one editor even goes so far as to claim that it's "unethical" to use English spellings. One famous Polish person whose name is widely spelled without diacritics is John Paul ;-).  Isn't it "unethical", then, to "dumb down" a Polish name to a simple English name without diacritics, so that as many people as possible worldwide can read, write, remember, and revere it? Surely accessibility is what Wikipedia is all about, too?
[Note: Opponents of this proposal have consistently disputed in discussion below that the above bullet points are accurate; their actual arguments in their own words demonstrate that the above is a biased straw man caricature of their views. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)]
Please stop rewriting other people's proposals to make them look stupid. You are welcome to use the Comments section to suggest changes and get consensus, but not to unilaterally trash the wording of the RfC. LittleBen (talk) 10:27, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Please stop using attack language every time you disagree with someone. See WP:NPA, WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. As others have pointed out here, you are the one trying to make others look stupid by blatantly mischaracterizing their views with straw man arguments (among at least 5 other fallacies you use as crutches). Nothing at all about the completely neutral wording "Arguments against promoting the diacritics-free style used by some reliable English-language sources" can be characterized as "making [your] proposals looks stupid", while everything about your wording "Arguments against adopting the English usage of reputable sources in English Wikipedia" is specifically intended to make your opponents sound crazy or moronic. Fortunately, no one is going to believe you, and the proposal is transparently so poor that no one needs to try "to make [it] look stupid". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Finding and linking to corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia articles

To search for a name on a specific, foreign-language Wikipedia, determine its language prefix, and prefix "wikipedia.org" with it when doing a site: search.  Example: Find the Mexican tennis player Manuel Sánchez on Spanish Wikipedia: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:es.wikipedia.org "Manuel Sánchez". (Again, it's trivially easy to show that the name with diacritics is virtually never used in English). As you can see from the Manuel Sánchez article, you link to the corresponding Spanish Wikipedia article by adding [[es:Manuel Sánchez Montemayor]] at the bottom of the article.

(Based on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#RFC: Names with diacritics and other non-ASCII letters,  User talk:Prolog/Diacritical marks, and Talk:Facundo Argüello)  LittleBen (talk) 06:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments

The consensus across a large number of recent RMs has been that the spelling of the name has to come from a reliable source for spelling. IE a source that takes care to get it right. To rely on English sources only is to rely on sources who often do not have the resources or will to fact check (ie tabloid sources - and anybody who has been at the receiving end of tabloid coverage will know what I mean), or to rely on certain sports bodies who because they still use 1980s computers still have the policy to strip diacritics. It has long been established that stripping diacritics does not create an English name it just creates a typographical-limited version of the same. This is clearly another attempt to override consensus at RM by degree, when in fact policies are meant to describe current practise Agathoclea (talk) 07:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC) P.S. this is advertised as a followup to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#RFC: Names with diacritics and other non-ASCII letters. Just a reminder that the referenced RfC was not about article titling it was about the core question if the diacritic stripped version constitutes an alternative name that has to (or can) be included in the lead of if said version is simply a misinformation to be avoided. Agathoclea (talk) 07:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Regardless what RMs about sport-related stub articles decide, unless you can prove that the Nobel Committee, the Olympic Committee, the major international sports federations, editors of English-language versions of autobiographies, major newspapers like the NYT, all the professional editors in all the major English press organizations, and Encyclopedia Britanica editors are not reliable sources—because they are all ignorant and illiterate, and you know better—I think that they should remain as the primary sources used for verifying real-world usage in English, rather than Wikipedia continuing to be troubled by mob rule via RM and intimidation of admins and editors. I agree that xenophobia may mean that the projects of certain countries will argue that articles about their country will not recognize Wikipedia guidelines as to reliable sources in English, but that's something that can be discussed later.  LittleBen (talk) 09:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Adding: "linking" to foreign language Wikipedias is silly - the one big no-no is using any Wiki as a "source" or "reference" for any article. Collect (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I wasn't suggesting that they are necessarily reliable sources or references—but linking to them creates a reverse link, so that people on both sides of the language fence can do sanity cross-checks, and provides access to sources in the other language that can be checked. LittleBen (talk) 19:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Expert opinion - I am a communications professional with many years' experience in public-sector web publishing. The main reason that diacritics are omitted in English-language sources is not the establishment of English-language variants. It is a combination of ignorance that diacritics even exist, or are important, with the generalised incompetence of press officers in using things like extended character sets. (Believe me, trying to get Welsh-language publications with w-circumflex characters correctly rendered is far more trouble than it ought to be.) I consider this RFC to be phrased in a heavy-handed, highly-biased manner. The arguments against are poorly characterised, littered with gratuitous scare quotes, and do not reflect prior discussion on this subject fairly. I endorse Agathoclea's response, and regard LittleBen's counter-argument as premature and unconstructive. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia's job is surely to present the facts as they are, warts and all, and not to present the facts as anybody—self-appointed propaganda expert or not—would like them to be. LittleBen (talk) 12:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Warts and all, but not diacritics and all? And are you going to lurk here and give misleading, emotive responses to every negative comment? AlexTiefling (talk) 12:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I like the way you went back after I'd replied, and sneaked the word 'propaganda' in there. Funnily enough, that changed your comment from accurate to positively misleading. As a British civil servant, I was constitutionally obliged to remain neutral - to edit out propaganda from material supplied to me by others. But it's good to know early on that you intend to fight dirty. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:36, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • If you have any positive contribution to make regarding transparent criteria and POV-neutral tools for determining real-world professional-preferred majority English naming in BLP, then your comments will be most welcome. LittleBen (talk) 12:42, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Let me know when you've come up with a fairer, more balanced characterisation of the opposing arguments. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

My two cents: Wikipedia titles are based on allowing folks to find information. Even in foreign lands, most people searching for information do not search using diacritical marks. The foreign language dictionaries are alphabetised without regard to such marks, but use them to indicate correct spelling in that language. Thus the "title" of an article does not need them, but the "correct spelling" in the "proper language" should, of course, be given in any article. And of cource, completists can add redirects with any spelling they wish, but since the users generally ignore accents etc. in searches, it is totally useless to require them in article titles. Collect (talk) 12:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

  • Many thanks, Collect; very sensible and balanced summary, in my opinion. I'd agree completely. LittleBen (talk) 13:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Practical suggestion - My preference is for article titles to use diacritics when the source language uses a Latin alphabet, and to use appropriate English-based transliteration otherwise; and there should, of course, be redirects from the un-accented versions. My reasoning is that doing otherwise is misleading. The Icelandic PM 's name is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and not '*Johanna Sigurdardottir', and the difference is not trivial. The 'Anglicised' version wrongly suggests that her surname contains two 'd's; it does not - it contains one d and one eth. In her case, there are several English-language sources ([7] [8] [9]) which use the same orthography for her name that Icelandic services do. However, I would be content for each article to be settled individually, as long as sufficient redirects exist to ensure that spellings with and without diacritics work.
I would also make the observation that a lot of these (including the Icelandic PM and other Icelanders such as Eiður Guðjohnsen) have already been thrashed out locally, and this RfC looks like an attempt to overrule those decisions. I notice that Icelanders are particularly susceptible to this; no-one has rushed to rename François Truffaut to remove his cedilla, even though it is just a diacritic, and the Icelandic eth is an entire separate letter. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Note: English also has the same letter as "eth" which was in typecases into the 19th century. That does not mean we use it in search terms. And French speakers do not use the cedille in the search box either. (and I do not use the accent aigu in "cedille" when typing here). Collect (talk) 13:48, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
All absolutely true - and that's what redirects are for. I don't see why the title of the main article itself has to be restricted in the same way. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As pointed out above, there were redirects from many different misspellings to the Walesa article, but the majority English spelling was not only not clearly indicated, but it did not appear even once in the article. Seeing that it had just been stripped out (making it impossible to find the accepted English spelling) was the last straw for me, and led to this RfC.
I dare say you can. But we already had a discussion about it on the page, and reached the decision you see implemented. Why are you so desperate to stomp that collaborative process into the ground with a new, tiresome, and misleading procedure? AlexTiefling (talk) 14:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As I said before, I am keen to see people understand that there are transparent criteria and easy-to-use POV-neutral tools for determining real-world professional-preferred majority English naming in BLP—there's no excuse for endless POV-pushing, revert-warring, threats of blocking, and intimidation. LittleBen (talk) 14:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think these are POV-neutral, though. This entire RfC is phrased in such a way as to promote your opinion that it's somehow more 'neutral', or 'better', to use un-accented versions of names which require accents for accuracy, simply because of the deficiency of news editors when it comes to extended character sets. English-language sources are not a better, or more neutral, source for what people are actually called than the languages spoken by the subjects. Redirects are free. Forcing this tedious and unnecessary policy (which has nothing in particular to do with BLP) on the community is you, pushing your POV as hard as you can. Not neutral, not helpful. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • The search methods are completely NPOV. As shown by the examples I cite, sometimes they will come up with diacritics in the majority, but often not, reflecting real-world usage. There's no way that you or I can influence these results. LittleBen (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
This just isn't true. The choice of method determines the results. You're choosing only to follow English-language sources, on topics where often the most authoritative sources are not in English. That's self-evidently non-neutral. The fact that the process itself is mechanistic does not make it neutral. AlexTiefling (talk) 14:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. I am pro diacritics, because that is the accurate and encyclopedic way to go. As Alex says, they are left out in some other kinds of source because editors do not know how to use them. We can and should do better than that. The preponderance of variants in English-language sources has little to do with it; this is a style guide issue. For comparison, we don't usually need a source to decide how to capitalise names or other words. By the way, this has nothing to do with BLP. There is no possibility of libelling someone through spelling their name with or without diacritics. If we have an agreed style it has to run across all biographies, whether subjects living or not, geographical articles and others where diacritics might be used. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Quote: "If we have an agreed style it has to run across all biographies, whether subjects living or not". Reply: English naming usage changes over time and differs between countries, it can't be "one size fits all", but it is easy to research English usage for BLP, thanks to the Internet. Historical usage is a completely different can of worms, and much more difficult to research. Anyway, the majority of users are looking about information about the here-and-now, not about the long past, and by far the majority of pointless fights—that could be eliminated simply by a little knowledge of how to research stuff—occur in the "here-and-now" space. LittleBen (talk) 14:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Don't really care one way or the other on the diacritic issue (whichever version is not chosen as the title can be redirected to the version that is chosen... so searching is not an issue). That said, Re: "For comparison, we don't usually need a source to decide how to capitalise names". Perhaps not "usually"... but it does happen. I seem to remember a somewhat large debate over whether to title the article eBay vs "Ebay" (we went with the sources). Blueboar (talk) 14:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Quote: "Whichever version is not chosen as the title can be redirected to the version that is chosen." Reply: As pointed out above, there were redirects from many different misspellings to the Walesa article, but the majority English spelling was not only not clearly indicated, but it did not appear even once in the article. Seeing that it had just been stripped out (making it impossible to find the accepted English spelling) was the last straw for me, and led to this RfC.
  • Comment. "Eiður Guðjohnsen" is not more "accurate" than it's English equivalent, it is just more Icelandic. In fact, it is much less accurate, from the point of view that "ð" contains no phonetic information for the vast majority of English speakers. That's why English-language publications don't use it. It obviously has nothing to do with not being able find it in the software, it's just a matter of publishers wanting to provide people with text they can read, rather than being confronted with things like Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu or University of Łódź (apparently WP knows better than the University itself how to spell its own name). Formerip (talk) 14:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks, FormerIP. You have made a key point: surely no major publisher would publish a book, aimed at English readers, whose author (and title, for that matter) contain diacritics that the majority of English native speakers do not learn in school; they can't read, write, or remember them. There are very few articles on the Internet that are aimed at English readers but have diacritics in the title (or in the body, for that matter). Personally, I am not against presenting both foreign-language and English versions together. But presenting just the minority-usage foreign-language version (or using it in an article title) is surely annoying and unacceptable to a majority of people. LittleBen (talk) 15:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • To use (only) the name that is on a foreign-language passport (and that cannot be confirmed independently) in English Wikipedia, rather than research majority English usage, was clearly a pretty dumb and diacritics-biased proposal, doomed to fail. Surely the above proposal to use transparent NPOV tools for determining majority English usage is a completely different proposal. PS: Other past discussions are here and here. LittleBen (talk) 15:30, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is the English WP and so we should write whatever most reliable English-language sources write, which is without diacritics. But Ben, I'm not sure what your proposal is. Do you want to add something to this policy, and if so what? I think you need to make it clear for those responding, and for the closer of the RfC. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks. The five items in the "Executive summary" at the top are the essence of this proposal. If discussion has ground to a halt then perhaps I can rewrite them more briefly and simply, and number them so that people can vote or comment on them individually. LittleBen (talk) 19:58, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Ben, for an RfC to succeed, you ideally need to ask a specific question (preferably a brief one) that people can reply with support or oppose (yes or no, or similar). For example, "This is a proposal to add [these words] to [this section] of the policy." As things stand, it's not clear what people's comments imply for the policy, and a closer will simply close it as no consensus. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
The proposal is too long, and people won't read through it. The RfC bot publicizes RfCs by re-posting everthing that's before the first signature. So you need to write something very short and clear, such as "This is a proposal to add [these words] to the BLP policy," and where it says "these words" write what you actually want to add to the policy. You might want to consider starting this proposal again. I suggest that you create a section header called (e.g.) "survey" and a section header called "threaded discussion," and hopefully people will take the hint and not add threaded replies in the "survey" section. Then add your own support comment under "survey," which can be as long as you want, but remember the longer it is, the less likely people are to read it. Also remember that someone has to close it, and if it's confusing no one will want to do that. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:22, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks again. I will create a more abbreviated version that suggests concrete changes to BLP. LittleBen (talk) 01:37, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I posted an example of the format here. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:39, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Many thanks for your continuing help. I'll draft an abbreviated version (this may take two or three days) along the lines you suggested (thanks for the link) and then seek your kind advice again. LittleBen (talk) 01:52, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
I regard both proposals as broken. But your constant trumpeting of your own proposal as 'transparent NPOV' does it no favours. It very non-neutrally favours English-language sources over sources in the subject's own language - even the subject's own writings. My point was that the issue had been extensively debated, to no effect. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • It surely has been explained to you several times that English Wikipedia is intended to primarily be a trustworthy reference as to majority usage in reliable English-language sources. Do you dispute this? If people want to read sources in the subject's own language then they surely will go to the appropriate foreign-language Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 15:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
It's quite apparent from your own conduct that having things explained to you repeatedly is not terribly effective around here. For what it's worth, my understanding is that for the factual content of articles, we prefer English for the sake of verifiability. This is not the Wikipedia only of things well-covered in English, nor about English-speakers. It is an encyclopedia for English-speakers. It's also by far the largest Wikipedia, so people come here from other WPs in search of better coverage more often than the reverse. There is no rule that says we have to avoid reliable sources just because they are not in English - which is what you are advocating. Indeed, the provision of material in English based on material sourced in other languages is a useful function of an encyclopedia such as this one. If I want information on the Icelandic government, I would regard their own material in Icelandic to be authoritative, even though I don't speak the language. An article in English based on such sources would be more reliable than one that relied only on English-language sources. AlexTiefling (talk) 15:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As explained above, I am personally not against presenting both foreign-language and English versions of names together. I am fluent in Japanese, but if had I behaved as some diacritics pushers have been behaving—stripping out every trace of the majority-usage English version of the name from the title and body of English-language articles, replacing it with the foreign-language version to show off their language skills, and intimidating people who try to suggest more neutral and accessible coverage—I would surely deserve to be subject blocked.
  • Even when the article title does not reflect majority English usage, and the majority English version of the name has been completely stripped out of the article body, as an interim measure it should be made quite clear what the majority English usage is by a statement such as "better known in English as..." in the lede. LittleBen (talk) 16:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Any fluent speaker of Japanese (which you claim to be) will know that Japanese does not have a Latin-based script and that therefore Japanese has no bearing on this discussion. You again bring up the matter of WP:STAGENAME (at least in your link) - At least as regards to tennis the notion that a diacritic-stripped version of the name is to be considered a stagename has been rejected in an RFC earlier this year. Agathoclea (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment If we take Lech Wałęsa as one of the chosen examples, 'ł' is not just a funny way of writing 'l'. They are quite different letters. Both occur in his name. The fact that many people do not know that does not change things and one of the reasons that I or others go to a reference work is to get things right. The same situation occurs in many different alphabets. The second problem is a reliance on historic usage. People's names change or in the case of historical figures usage changes. Knowing how they were referred to 20 or 100 years ago is not necessarily a good guide to how they should be referred to now. Lastly, as has been pointed out in earlier discussions, practice varies around the world even in English language sources and just doing a majority count is a poor measure for WP in many areas including this one. Redirects are cheap - is it really annoying and unacceptable to a majority of people for those searching on Lech Walesa to be directed to an article entitled Lech Wałęsa? They will have learned something. --AJHingston (talk) 16:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • If the article doesn't tell the reader the most important thing—how the name is properly spelled in the majority of reliable English-language sources, including the subject's English-language autobiography—and the reader cannot read the diacritics or guess how they should be rendered in English—which is surely true in the majority of cases—then surely the "reader" has learned very little from this attempt to ram a foreign language that he/she cannot read down his/her throat. LittleBen (talk) 16:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Your use of the word properly here does I think summarise the difference between yourself and many of the respondents. --AJHingston (talk) 16:36, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Diacritics, pageviews, and Web anaytics

As explained here, I'm pragmatic. If a page (like the Walesa one) gets 500 or more daily page views, then it should look good and be accurate and trustworthy (reflecting real-world English usage), or Wikipedia's perceived quality might be affected. However, if a group of enthusiasts create a tennis stub page about a relatively-unknown player called Manuel Sanchez, and it gets between 4 and 8 daily pageviews, I wouldn't see any point in erasing their pride in their contribution by edit warring about style trivia like stripping diacritics, by trying to impose my POV on style, or by spending weeks and months discussing the wording of related style rules, because so few people look at such articles that it makes no difference to Wikipedia's perceived quality. (I wouldn't delete stub pages about subjects that I know little about, or without waiting a sufficient time for their creators or other interested people to improve them, either). This sort of behavior is very destructive to motivation and morale. There are more productive ways to spend time—like creating or improving more searched-for articles—that do make a real difference to Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 16:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

So what is your suggested threshhold of pageviews from which on we have to accurate? Agathoclea (talk) 16:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
You bring up yet another issue - an issue you tried to get the WMF to do your bidding, which got rejected when your real agenda became apparent. But back to my first question: How many pageviews does an article need to have so that it has to be accurate. IE up to how many pageviews can (and must) we be inaccurate? Agathoclea (talk) 17:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I did suggest that using analytics to measure what people search for and what drives people away would be a good idea, and would settle a lot of needless and pointless disputes, but nobody seems to understand the need for measurement and accountability, much less analytics. You question is irrelevant, because the more pageviews Wikipedia articles get the better. My point was that bullying and intimidating many dedicated people like User:MakeSense64 over issues that make no real difference to Wikipedia's perceived quality (articles that get only two to four pageviews on a good day) is stupid and counterproductive. Creating zillions of stub articles—with diacritics in the titles—that nobody reads, does not really benefit Wikipedia but does not damage it either. There's no point imposing rigid rules on everybody if what they do doesn't make any real difference to Wikipedia's perceived quality. There aren't enough thought police, good admins, and good editors to go round—even without perpetual warring, score-keeping, and score-settling. Be nice! ;-) LittleBen (talk) 17:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
How does ignoring my knowledge, talking down to me, and describing me as a "self-appointed propaganda expert" fit with your 'be nice' policy? A cursory glance at your talk page shows you've got a long record of dispute, disruption and POV-pushing on this topic. I'm considering an RfC of your conduct. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • You will never catch me bragging that I am an "Expert opinion - a communications professional with many years' experience in public-sector web publishing". Even if I am one. On Wikipedia you should treat everybody with respect, as an equal. Zero ego. LittleBen (talk) 18:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Actually the argument often cited was that BLP is the reason to include diacritics, hence my question earlier as to how many pageviews an article needs to have in order for the need to be accurate kicks in. You never answered that question after your initial statement that we should not hurt the pride of creators of articles which have little pageviews. This is a wiki - don't post anything if you can't handle it being edited. More so article ownership should never stand in the way of factual correctness. Anyway, why did you collape discussions based on your arguments? If you can't stand the responses you should not make those arguments in the first place. Agathoclea (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Agathoclea, I'm sorry but I can't understand your English—and surely your discussion is rambling way off topic, as the lady pointed out. Please stick to the topic instead of repeating the same irrelevant questions over and over. LittleBen (talk) 19:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I am sure you don't. Neither do I understand your English. You make a statement to which I ask you to make a clarifying comment, which in turn you refuse to give. Maybe because you realized that what you said in the first place did not really make sense and cannot be used as an argument for your cause. P.S. Please stop altering your comments after they have been responded to. It is very bad form. Agathoclea (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Above, and below, is descirbed what is called "There are transparent and POV-neutral tools and methods for determining majority usage in reliable English sources—as described and demonstrated above. These should be used to determine real-world majority English usage." If you take this with a rather less "extreme" diacritic and search for e.g. François Mitterrand (yes, he's dead, that doesn't change anything), these sources (online at least!) more often seem to use the version Francois Mitterrand: [11][12]. However, when looking further, one can wonder how "authoritative" sites like Amazon are, when they even remove the diacritics from English language books that in reality do use the diacritical version, e.g. their first result[13], or their second one[14], or their third one[15]. Moving this article to the version Francois Mitterrand would be a poor move. Perhaps a list can be made of which diacritics are acceptable and which aren't, but to remove diacritics because a number of English sources don't use them would be making Wikipedia less rich and informative. Fram (talk) 09:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

This is true, however it would work in the other direction also. If a music composer spells her name with diacritics in her home country, yet the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, television, UK and US press, and the Grammy awards all spell it without diacritics...all the time... then to ban the non-diacritic use of this composer's name from wikipedia would also make wikipedia less rich and informative. I'm not saying it must go in the title, but to ignore its existence by excluding its mention would be just as incorrect. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Fram, thank you for your comments. As I explained, the reason for restricting this RfC to BLP is that Internet broadband only really took off around 1998. BLP people surely have all been well documented on the Internet in news items, web sites, and the like. Information about historic figures was created using print-era style guides that are ten years old, and pre-Unicode. However—even though Mitterand is not BLP and so not a fair example—just to humor you, I will create a couple of searches for Mitterand based on the examples above. Note that Wikipedia templates can be created for doing these searches, as per the example above, so no real computer skills need be required for doing proper research for BLP.  Also please note that I am not suggesting that the version with diacritics be stripped out: I am suggesting that if the majority English version is plain English then it should be the article title, as per MOS:AT (this is called "the principle of least surprise"), and the French version of the name should appear in the lede. The converse also applies: it is clearly unreasonable to assume that users of English-language Wikipedia, who may not be native speakers of European languages, can either write a name with diacritics or guess how such a name would be rendered in plain English without diacritics. The accepted English rendering is surely what they would come to English Wikipedia for; if they wanted the French version of the name (and could find it) then they would go to French Wikipedia. English Wikipedia is useless to them if the majority English rendering is completely stripped out of the article.  Regarding your Amazon book question, I'm as surprised as you are, but I guess you'll probably find (if you have time to research the ISBN registrations) that the primary form of the registered title does not have diacritics. This makes sense, because many booksellers cannot (or could not, in the past) conveniently handle the ordering of books with foreign-language titles. In researching Walesa, on Amazon I found a single recent instance (2009?) of one version of his autobiography which had his name with diacritics in large letters on the front cover—however, it was out of print, "unlikely to be reprinted", and not available second-hand either (implying that they could not sell it). Thinking that this would be a good example, I went back and searched Amazon for it again, but could not find it.
  • http://www.google.com/search?q="François Mitterrand" -site:*.fr -site:fr.* -site:wikipedia.org -wikipedia
  • Sources for François Mitterrand on Google, excluding language(fr)/country(fr) {{User:LittleBenW/Template test2|François Mitterrand|fr|fr}} Template for doing the above search
  • http://www.google.com/search?q="François Mitterrand" site:britannica.com OR site:bbc.co.uk OR site:nytimes.com OR site:guardian.co.uk OR site:amazon.com　
  • User:The Anonymouse/Template test ( {{User:The Anonymouse/Template test|François Mitterrand}} ) Template for doing the above search
  • As you can see, for both the third (and fourth, which is essentially the same) versions show that (1) majority English usage on authoritative sites removes the cedilla, (2) authoritative sites like the NYT and The Guardian include the name with cedilla at least once. (3) My conclusion is that it is unacceptable to remove either the majority English usage (as per WP:AT) or the French version of the name. There is probably wiggle room as to where they should go in the article. "Often spelled Francois Mitterrand" in the lede might be an acceptable compromise in this case, if he were a BLP. LittleBen (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Since I consider printed sources in general as more reliable and authoritative than internet-only ones, I don't see the reason why BLPs would be split off from non-BLPs. And most of the sources given for Mitterrand (including the Amazon-listed books) are from after 1998 anyway, making your argument invalid. As for Walesa, this one uses diacritics in the title, as does this one, and this one. Don't know whether you found one of these or another one. Fram (talk) 10:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Those three books are on Amazon: here (1982), here (1987), and here (1993). (The third one—the most recent—does not appear to have the name in diacritics on the cover). They are all out of print, with only a few copies available from third parties. By way of comparison, here is a book originally published in 1931 that is not only still in print, it is ranked #19,636 on Amazon, and periodically peaks as high as #1000. It's still relevant to readers. The author's name, as inscribed on her tombstone, is 賽珍珠, but she was not so stupid as to force a non-English name on readers of an English book. LittleBen (talk) 11:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
    • You added "if they wanted the French version of the name (and could find it) then they would go to French Wikipedia. " to your comment. This is just wrong. I come to the English Wikipedia, but I want the correct version of the name, rendered in the Latin alphabet. I don't want a dumbed down version. Of course, redirects from diacritics-less versions should be made, but the article should be correct, not simplified. Francois and François aren't even pronounced the same, just liek a "n" and a "ñ" aren't pronounced the same. Why would we deliberately obscure this? If people don't know what the "Ł" in Walesa stands for, they can use Wikipedia, and go to Ł for all the information they can need. Fram (talk) 11:02, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Surely you haven't even bothered to read the "redirects are cheap" and "dumbed down" arguments above? One of the few arguments that I found hard to refute was "surely nobody is so dumb that they can't guess the majority-usage plain-English version of Wałęsa?" That argument was proven wrong immediately.
  • This Walesa article was originally created in 2001 by User:WojPob—who is in Warsaw, Poland—and contained the Polish spelling with diacritics only in the lede. I like the second motto on the User:WojPob user page, and may adopt it myself ;-). LittleBen (talk) 14:13, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Just because diacritics are meaningful to you doesn't mean that they are meaningful to anybody else, quite the converse—they are not taught in schools in English-speaking countries, and the great majority of people cannot read them and do not wish to be forced to learn them. LittleBen (talk) 12:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Ben, please stop accusing people of poor faith, and of not reading what you've written. Please also stop editing your comments after other people have responded to them, accusing others of vandalism and 'thuggish behaviour', and hiding criticism of yourself under cuts. Your constant small edits to this page mean almost every attempt to engage results in an edit conflict (3 so far for this reply alone). Please plan what you're going to post before posting it. And please read WP:BLUDGEON, and see if it can be applied to you and your methods. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • If you have anything relevant to contribute, feel free to contribute. Otherwise, off-topic posts, mudslinging—and saying that you are the ultimate expert on the topic (implying that you have the final word)—are not constructive ways to behave on Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 13:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
(ec)First off, they are taught in many English schools. Secondly the whole point of an Encyclopaedia is to learn. That is why readers come here, to learn new things. Thirdly the whole point of a wiki especially is that if you are reading something and don't understand something you can easily go to the article about what it is you don't understand. We do the readers a huge disservice when we don't provide the proper spelling of a persons name and we make our information less reliable and accurate. -DJSasso (talk) 12:41, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, of course. There are innumerable works on this topic, from scholarly papers to comedy books, and not just about "American" in general, but specific American accents and dialects. But none of this has anything to do with whether Wikipedia should blatantly misrepresent the facts, about living persons, placenames, or anything else, just because some English-language sources don't or won't bother with distinctions that are important to others, and some WP editors want to pretend that diacritics don't exist or are some evil conspiracy. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 03:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As you apparently didn't bother to read it, this RfC is about determining reliable English sources and POV-neutral ways of researching majority-usage forms of names for BLP on English Wikipedia. If you don't have anything useful to contribute, or are simply opposed to English Wikipedia being a reliable and trustworthy source for the English language, you are way off topic. LittleBen (talk) 04:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Of course I read it. You're missing the point, and if you fail to discern the usefulness of my contributions here, that's on you. PS: Your argument is a classic fallacy, begging the question, that most people recognize as invalid by mid-childhood (even if most children also continue to try to get away with it, but I'm assuming you are at least in your teens). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Your hate speech and vandalism are not appropriate on Wikipedia. The RfC is not proposing that Wikipedia "never use diacritics for BLPs". Wikipedia guidelines also say that both majority English and foreign naming should be shown. LittleBen (talk) 04:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Numbered proposals

Rationale for this RfC

  • I feel that it is better to decide majority English naming based on agreed-upon reliable sources and POV-neutral tools than to have never-ending move-warring and revert-warring. LittleBen (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

BLP naming proposals in this RfC (summary)

  1. English Wikipedia is intended to primarily be a trustworthy reference as to majority usage in reliable English-language sources. The usage of internationally-recognized organizations such as the Nobel prize committee, Government-level press releases, the Olympic organizers, international sports bodies, and the major media are generally considered to be primary reliable sources, but some encyclopedias may be years behind and use antiquated style guides, so arguably may be considered less-up-to-date sources. BLP names that appear in English-language autobiographies and authorized biographies are also reliable sources.
  2. There are transparent and POV-neutral tools and methods for determining majority usage in reliable English sources—as described and demonstrated above. These should be used to determine real-world majority English usage.
  3. Majority usage in reliable English-language sources should be clearly stated in articles: Ideally the article title should represent majority usage in English. If the foreign rendering of a BLP name is not the majority usage in English, the foreign rendering of the name—where possible—should be in the lede (confirmed, where possible, by the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia, as described above). Otherwise, if the article title does not represent majority usage in English, the article should be renamed, or majority English usage should be clearly stated—e.g. by a statement in the lede such as "better known in English as...".
  4. Where possible, the article should be linked to the corresponding foreign-language Wikipedia BLP article, as described and demonstrated above. This doesn't imply that foreign-language Wikipedia BLP articles are necessarily reliable sources—but linking to them creates a reverse link, so that people on both sides of the language fence can do sanity cross-checks, and also provides easy access to sources in the other language that can be checked.
  5. The common name of the subject should be on top of the infobox, if there is one, even if the article title is something else: "It should be named the common name of the article's subject...this does not need to match the article's Wikipedia title," per MOS:INFOBOX.
  6. Accessibility considerations are not directly related to reliability of sources used for BLP, but as far as possible Wikipedia accessibility guidelines should be observed when embedding foreign-language names in the article body or title in English Wikipedia.

LittleBen (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments on summary of proposals

  • Comment: Why would what is essentially an MOS issue be affected by an RfC here? This is not the right place for this issue to be decided. Furthermore, this "RfC" looks to me like soapboxing. Slapping the title "Executive summary" on it doesn't hide that fact. The original proposal was not at all neutrally stated, and there does seem to be some forum-shopping going on. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
    The problem is that there are editors who think that they can completely ignore MOS by threatening and intimidating admins. and editors, by canvassing and and bringing large numbers of cronies to RfCs and RMs.  MOS is quite clear (and Wikipedia is quite clear) that Wikipedia is not about distorting the truth and compromising the NPOV integrity and trustworthiness of English Wikipedia. Surely it is clear even to a complete idiot that English Wikipedia BLP is first and foremost about reporting clearly how a person's name is actually spelled in English by a majority of reliable English sources such as the Nobel prize committee and all the very many others that I mentioned. English Wikipedia is not about stripping every single reference to a person's name, as it appears in such reliable sources, out of English Wikipedia, such that somebody who is not a native speaker of English—and who cannot read Polish or Vietnamese diacritics—cannot find it (such as happened to the Walesa article); such people are trying to do this to many other articles. (If you read my posts you will see that I am not saying that foreign-language spellings should be stripped out of Wikipedia (quite the reverse); I am suggesting that existing Wikipedia guidelines be followed, that the majority usage be neutrally researched and honestly reported, and the move-warring, edit-warring and intimidation be stopped—it's a huge liability to Wikipedia). It is trivially simple to properly research BLP English naming, as I have shown.

    As I pointed out above, for Lech Wałęsa, http://www.google.com/search?q="Lech Wałęsa" -site:*.pl -site:pl.* -site:wikipedia.org -wikipedia you see that most reliable sources, like the Nobel prize organization near the top of the search results, spell his name in English without diacritics. Surely it's not all that difficult to research how the name of somebody as famous as Lech Wałęsa is really written in English by publishing professionals?  Examples here—autobiography!, here, here, earlier-version autobiography, he's in Playboy even!, another by Walesa, by his brother, by him, yet another, Newsweek, and a few dozen more. Isn't it remarkable that some people could strip every single instance of the majority English spelling of his name out of English Wikipedia? Surely this is an incurable competence problem? Some people will never listen and never learn; they just keep repeating the same stupid arguments over and over. It's irrelevant that there are redirects from many different misspellings, the majority English spelling did not appear even once in the article (I reverted it to the lede).

    Are you suggesting that this obsessive vandalism, this blatantly unethical and thuggish behavior, should be taken to ANI rather than posted as an RfC to be discussed?  It's my understanding that exploring other remedies such as an RfC is desirable before taking abusive/incompetent people to ANI.  Admins. in particular are supposed to be fair and impartial; they are not supposed to intimidate users, push the POV of cronies, and ignore Wikipedia guidelines. Such behavior is far below minimum acceptable standards.

    As I have already made clear, I personally really couldn't care less if somebody wants to create a zillion stub articles with diacritics in all the article titles. Nobody reads such stub articles, as is obvious from the pageviews data, so—even if they do not follow Wikipedia guidelines as to clearly citing majority English naming—as virtually nobody views them, they have no significant effect on (do not significantly compromise) the perceived quality and integrity of English Wikipedia. But vandalizing the article about a Nobel prize winner, such as to strip out the universally-accepted English spelling of his name, and organizing mob rule, is far overstepping acceptable limits. LittleBen (talk) 21:47, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

    Jeez, please see WP:TLDR. And people call me long-winded. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:23, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: You really need to get a sense of perspective. You're going to give yourself an ulcer, and your attitude turns off even those that might have supported what you propose. You're basically sabotaging your own cause. If you really want this change to occur, seriously consider dropping the matter altogether and letting someone with a cooler head take care of it. If you want to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, volunteer for JVC or the Peace Corps. Surely there are more productive and constructive ways to spend your time on WP. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
    That, and it's senselessly fallacious, since it incorrectly supposes that everyone with diacritics in their name will be at a stub article. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

BLP naming proposals in this RfC (abbreviated):

< under construction, may take about 24 hours; constructive suggestions welcome on my talk page or by email.  LittleBen (talk) 04:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

There's no point. There is a very clear WP:SNOWBALL against everything you're proposing here, and its procedurally invalid as a proposal in at least 3 different ways, so I'm going to move for an admin closure. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Post comments *above*. After abbreviated proposals are completed, new comments on them will go here.

Comments on abbreviated proposals

Better use of WT:BLP time

  • This is my first and last comment, four points:
  1. Recent discussion of 4 days has gone from (68,969 bytes) to (142,372 bytes) with 1x User advocating something that (1) has been rejected in an earlier RfC here on WT:BLP, (2) followed by a long series of WP:RMs culminating in Talk:Dominik Halmosi which had a unanimous "snow" vote for giving the remaining 300x Eastern European BLPs from the earlier WP:HOCKEYNAMES issue their real names. (3) Currently there are only 9x living persons on en.wp which have been deliberately "anglicised" counter their nationality and residence against up to 500,000 Latin-alphabet BLPs which follow WP:BLP "get the article right" WP:RS "the best such sources" WP:EN "German for German politicians."
  2. The user above does not actually contribute to BLP articles - if we ignore this contribution and shows a continued emphasis on foreignness and nationality of BLPs rather than typographical and WP:IRS source issues. Why focus on Polish BLPs rather than Renée Zellweger?
  3. One thing that's struck me about this entire "English names for foreigners" disruption is that was largely the result of ignoring other (non-diacritic related) sourcing issues on WP:BLP. Six months ago when I first noticed this issue, the second thing I noticed (after noticing xenophobic comments about Hungarians preceding the WP:TENNISNAMES RfC), was that most of the WP:BLPs with inaccurate names also had inaccurate sources for more basic information such as place and date of birth, current activity, and so on; 6 or 7 times out of 10, when there's a badly sourced name on a BLP the rest of the sources are poor too.
  4. At this point I'm going to suggest The basic policy regarding trolling is simple: please refrain. Rule 14 of the internet also states "Do not argue with trolls — it means that they win.". Let's get back to improving some of these BLPs. Someone please close this nonsense and turn the section magenta.
    In ictu oculi (talk) 03:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Your repeated intimidation of people who want to discuss this topic in a neutral way is not appropriate on Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 04:51, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Criticism is not intimidation. I think you need to consult a dictionary. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Entirely agreed, In ictu oculi, except LittleBenW's not really trolling (i.e., doing this for kicks), he's a "true believer" acting tendentiously on what may be the most backward example of WP:SSF to date (here, he's considering "low-brow journalistic English for the masses", basically, to be a kind of special writing, and one so unbelievably important that it overrides all other considerations). It's really the hostile, obsessively activistic and pointedly disruptive "I will get my way or never, ever let this issue rest" behavior pattern that strikes me as the real problem. This one-man cacophony has been going on for years. We have at least two different processes that can be used to address this if it doesn't stop, which it likely won't. The underlying behavior and its prejudicial cause is strikingly similar to those in WP:ARBAA and WP:ARBAA2, which did not take nearly this long to come to a head and be dealt with. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 03:52, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Character assassination, threats, and vandalism are not considered to be acceptable or constructive behavior on Wikipedia. LittleBen (talk) 06:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Then you had better stop editing immediately. >;-) I'm reporting you to the admins' noticeboard as we speak, for censoring others' talk page posts, WP:OWNership of this invalid RfC, repeated WP:3RR violation, and (this actually does qualify as WP:VANDALISM) clobbering entire unrelated discussions even after being warned. PS: This is actually happening, it's not a "threat"; criticizing observable patterns of disruptive editing is not "character assassination", it's an attempt to give you a reality check before this turns into an ArbCom case against you; and neither reverting your gross disruption of the integrity of this talk page nor attempting to moderate your proposal's ridiculously biased straw man language constitute WP:VANDALISM, while suggesting that they do is a violation of WP:NPA policy. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 07:09, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
It is unbelievable that those so against using diacritics take themselves so such unbelievable extremes like this. It is like they don't understand acting like this hurts their case more than it helps. About 2 years ago the wiki was pretty evenly split on the topic. But a couple of extreme anti-diacritic type editors got so extreme that I think they pushed a large number of editors who couldn't care less about them into the supporting them camp just because of the awful tactics and disruption they caused. A number of them have since been topic banned from diacritics....its looking like LittleBenW is on his way in that direction as well. Its like they don't see history repeating itself. If anything their rants have been a bigger help to those thinking we should use them than anything anyone else has done. -DJSasso (talk) 11:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. Also makes me wonder if there's anything interesting about the timing of the topic bans and this user's appearance. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:40, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Motion for admin closure

This bogus RfC should simply be closed by an uninvolved admin, as it is pointless and disruptive.

  • This is a textbook case of a WP:SNOWBALL.
  • More than enough time has been given for the discussion, and nothing new is coming out of this.
  • This is not a proper RfC, as its wording is extremely biased, and fails the WP:RFC neutrality requirements.
  • It has gone off the rails anyway.
  • It is a WP:PARENT and WP:FORUMSHOP violation, as links in discussions above demonstrate, to previous forums where this user in particular has attempted to push an anti-diacritics proposal that was always rejected
  • Nothing suggests consensus has changed on this re-re-re-proposed idea.
  • It's procedurally invalid since this is not a WP:BLP issue, but a WP:MOS and eventually WP:AT issue, and has nothing in particular to do with bios, living or otherwise.
  • It's being blatantly WP:OWNed.

Second, anyone? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Second. Not a real RfC. Fatal problems with bias, forum shopping, bias, and most of all, IDHT and DEADHORSE. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 03:27, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

BLP1E

  • "...and is likely to remain..."

I haven't read through the archives, so please forgive me if this has already been asked, but how does the above phrase not violate WP:CRYSTAL?

Can this be re-phrased? - jc37 09:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

That's long bothered me, too. It's not about likelihood of future happenings, but preponderance of extant, known sourcing, yes? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:41, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTAL works both ways here, of course. It is a variant of WP:NOTNEWSPAPER - by creating a BLP there is an assumption that the person concerned will have enduring notability. The best advice to editors is to wait and see in cases of doubt. --AJHingston (talk) 11:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
If that is the case, then the text needs a bit of rephrasing. I'd be bold, but I think at this stage I'd rather wait for more thoughts on this to try to find a consensus. - jc37 18:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I think switching to a negative might get the job done. Something like: "...and there is no indication that they will". --causa sui (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

We need more imput at that article, concerning its title. GoodDay (talk) 20:28, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

He was widely referred to as "Jr." during political campaigns (vide 1960 campaign coverage). NYT used "Jr." from the 1930's onwards -- the term onlly means "younger" and the "requirement of an exact match to father's name" is not a real requirement anywhere I can find. used of the younger of two persons of the same name especially used to distinguish a son from his father does not say "only" for sone and father, nor did the NYT use it in that manner. AFAICT, the NYT never has used "II" for this person - it would be an affectation for Wikipedia to do so. BTW, he is dead. Collect (talk) 20:40, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Are there any sources using II? PS: Let's have this discussion at the Lodge article. GoodDay (talk) 20:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
As noted there - exceedingly few, and not used by any major newspapers as a matter of style. F'rinstance NYT - zero usages. Seems conclusive to me. Collect (talk) 13:17, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
You can search for usage of a name in a number of reliable English sources using a template: {{User:LittleBenW/Template test|Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.}} gives Sources for Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. on Google. The template can easily be modified to add other sources. (You need to page through to the last page of search results to get an accurate count). LittleBen (talk) 18:23, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I'd support changing the article to Henry Cabot Lodge II, as Sr & Jr are mostly associated with father-son. GoodDay (talk) 22:32, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
You can easily test if reliable sources consider that a better choice of name by clicking on the above template link, changing the Jr. to II, and searching again. Only two hits. This article says that Jr. was a grandson. LittleBen (talk) 02:52, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
It should be at II, but most sources use Jr. Oh well, that was his choice. GoodDay (talk) 17:20, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

OMG WTF BBQ!!

I'm having a really hard time reading the section Subjects notable only for one event. It's written in gibberish; do you expect a common reader to follow a policy that says: "It is important for editors to understand two clear differentiations of WP:BIO1E when compared to WP:BLP1E. Firstly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of living people. Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low-profile individuals"? Could a charitable soul please translate that sentence to English? Diego (talk) 23:53, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you read the links corresponding to the acronyms there? --Cyclopiatalk 14:47, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't hurt to briefly define the meaning - if only in parenthesis - in the sentence. Sometimes people get frustrated or lazy and don't follow links. Maybe often. Frankly, in all the time I've read this page I never paid much attention to that sentence and only am aware of some differentiation or other because people discuss it in real words on talk pages sometimes. CarolMooreDC 04:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
The quoted passage could definitely be simplified a great deal. We are not trying to mimic legal language in policy. Lawyers write like this because (they think they) have to. We don't. causa sui (talk) 23:49, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
How does this changed terminology sound?
It is important for editors to remember that this section should be applied only to biographies of living people who are low-profile.
Wifione Message 16:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I frankly prefer the current wording. It is much less vague and makes it clear that both situations must apply. I am not a native English speaker but I can't see what confusion can arise from the current wording. --Cyclopiatalk 16:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Although I'm not a lawyer, I do realize that sometimes one might be blinded on how the words sound to a normal reader. I remember that while writing up BLPCRIME, I spent some time trying to ensure that the section was readable, yet hopefully didn't miss out on critical details. In this case, I had written the above description to assist those readers who did not understand where to use BIO1E versus BLP1E. I'm neutral to the change, or to the current wording, whatever readers might wish. Wifione Message 16:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
"It is important for editors to understand two clear differentiations of WP:BIO1E when compared to WP:BLP1E. Firstly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of living people. Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low-profile individuals"
versus
"WP:BLP1E only applies to people who are both still living and low-profile."
Why make it complicated? --causa sui (talk) 18:11, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

BDP clarification

"However, material about dead people that has implications for their living relatives and friends, particularly in the case of recent deaths, or list of suicides, is covered by this policy".

Does this mean that our articles Recent deaths and List of suicides are particularly covered by this policy? Or does it mean that entries belonging on those articles are also particularly covered? If it had been just the recent deaths article, I would understand it to mean the entries, but the unpiped link to "list of suicides" makes it sound as if the policy is meant to apply to lists of suicides, not the suicides themselves. Nyttend (talk) 20:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The existence of clarifying examples is never meant to be exhaustive. The idea is that, for recently dead people, BLP still applies, so any information needs to be scrupulously correct wherever it appears at Wikipedia. Those are simply examples of places where deaths which may violate BLP can be found, but it doesn't mean that we're free to print, for example, false or poorly sourced information about suicides elsewhere. Honestly, BLP standards should be universal across Wikipedia for all subjects; I understand why they are not, but a person does not magically become eligible for incorrect or badly sourced information at Wikipedia the second they are reported dead. (Which, if they are not dead, would itself be a BLP violation, n'est ce pas?) --Jayron32 20:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
I've changed [[list of suicides]] to [[list of suicides|notable suicides]], so that the sentence clearly refers to the incidents and not just the list itself. There's probably a better way to put it, so please reword if you can think of something. Nyttend (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

RfC: should the infobox of incumbent public servants allow to include their official phone, email, and Public Information Officer?

Evidently this discussion has passed the point of being productive. There can be absolutely no doubt as to what the result will be, so I am closing it per WP:SNOW. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 17:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

We have an ongoing discussion at Template talk:Infobox officeholder on wether or not infoboxes of incumbent public servants should allow to include:

This is coming from a request by Wikipedia's general public to include such information on the Alejandro García Padilla article.

I truly believe that posting such information on an article is quite beneficial for Wikipedia's general public since Wikipedia is adaptive and ever evolving. This is self-evident from the request from the general public to include such information and from the list of current members of the Senate of Puerto Rico which openly shows Alejandro's official phone and email.

However, we don't have an official policy for this matter. We do have WP:BLPPRIVACY which states that we should be careful about including a person's personal information but that we are not restricted of doing so. Regardless, that policy applies solely to a person's private life and not to the person's job as a public servant. We also have WP:NOTADIRECTORY which is subject to interpretation and was created to stop people from creating articles who's sole content was a list of people by their phone number.

I would like to see what others think about this and engage in a friendly, civil, and polite discussion on wether or not we should allow infoboxes to include such information for incumbent public servants.

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a subjective statement. I mean, somebody else did find value to it up to the point where the person even bothered to fill a form and submit it. I would like to hear a logical argument based on reason of why we should not include phone, email, and PIO. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia isn't a directory AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I have to agree with Dominus here. Wikipedia is not WP:INDISCRIMINATE and it's our intention to cover a topic in an encyclopedic fashion, not to be a phone book. I also think it sounds very easily abused (like vandalism to a sex chat hot line or whatever). Linking to the incumbents page on the department website etc is a much better approach if readers wish to get the information. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I would normally agree with you but the problem is that infoboxes already include information that is not particularly "encyclopedic", such as the current age of the person. So, why is it OK to publish his current age, but not his contact info? —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 20:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia isn't a directory AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't see how posting a phone number is in any way similar to posting someone's current age. The latter is just subtracting one date from another date. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 00:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I look at it as another piece of information. I don't see it as a phone number. Age is a variable, it changes every year. So do the phone numbers when the person leaves office. So if you look at it for what it is they are both variable pieces of information. Birthdate is not which is why we include it, but age? Why? If age is included then by the same logic so should phone numbers, emails, and PIOs. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia isn't a directory AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
BLP problems will occur wether we add the phone, email, and PIO or not. I don't see the point in your argument. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Vandalism will occur with or without infoboxes. You only need an Internet connection to vandalize Wikipedia. I don't see the point in your argument. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
That is your problem. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
By that same logic infoboxes would be static, never change, and never add any new pieces of information. Don't see the point in your argument. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
That is your problem. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose As I mentioned on the template's talk page, it has nearly 63k transclusions. Even if you could provide a convincing argument and achieve consensus for contact details to be added to a particular article or subset of articles, adding the same ability to 63k articles is just asking for a serious BLP violation somewhere in the mix. Road Wizard (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
The number of transclusions is irrelevant, else we wouldn't do any changes to templates just because they are transcluded. BLP will happen with or without the templates so that's irrelevant as well. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
What? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, as in the original discussion: The "general public" did not request it. Some guy did. I've seen other people demand fair use photos in biographies, I've seen people ask for help with their term papers, I've seen people request that we add their website to "list of super-awesome websites" or some such thing. Doesn't mean the "general public" is clamoring for it. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 00:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I understand that but this is one is actually a very plausible request. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:13, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
No it isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the problem with doing it for other candidates. Isn't that what Wikipedia is about? —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
No. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. We are not a directory, and one complaining anon isn't going to change that. If someone wants private information about a politician, they shouldn't come to Wikipedia. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 01:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
You missed the point. This is not about their personal information, it's about their official office contact information (office phone and office email as public servants; not their personal phone nor their personal email). —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the reasons stated above. Also, it is worth considering whether we really want the news story about a public figure's work phone line being swamped because Wikipedia made the number more visible than would otherwise have been the case. -Rrius (talk) 04:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the point in your argument, the information is already publicly available so what does it matter if Wikipedia publishes it as well? —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Ahnoneemoos, you have made your position clear. Please allow others to comment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Like AndyTheGrump, I immediately thought of the potential for somebody changing the phone number, but not to a sex chat hot line, but to some victim of a prank, or even by mistake somebody with the same name as the public representative. Wikipedia can and should link to the official website of the politician. Shrigley (talk) 05:04, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia articles aren't here so we can keep databases of contacts. They're ultimately here to provide a dense overview of a person or their story, or a thing and its story. But we're not here to provide contact phone numbers. Google it or go to someone's official website if you want that. -- Avanu (talk) 05:24, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - per all the above. Snowball close, then trout-slap the poster for ignoring the advice given previously .Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:39, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - per all of the above. Partially appreciate the goals and sentiments of the proposer here, but I think as everyone else has expressed, this isn't what wikipedia is for. NickCT (talk) 16:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Obviously, it's a poor idea and misses a fundamental thing in terms of what WP is for. But I just don't like the way a unanimous discussion looks on the screen. Formerip (talk) 16:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose for the obvious reasons offered - and suggest FormerIP trout him/herself for a frivolous and silly action. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:57, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BLPPRIMARY and birth dates

Hello all, There was a discussion at ANI about BLPPRIMARY and birth dates and it was suggested that a discussion be opened at the Village Pump. I have done so and your input would be most welcome. [16] Thanks, Hobit (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

"These provisions do not apply to autobiographies..." in WP:BLPSPS

  • "These provisions do not apply to autobiographies published by reliable third-party publishing houses, because they are not self-published."

I am not sure that this is a good exception. It is not included in WP:SELFPUB itself, so it appear to make the policy weaker for BLPs than for regular articles. In particular, people say things about other people in their autobiographies. Should we be using this exception for sourcing information related to other people? Particularly people who are otherwise not notable? While I think using a third-party autobiography is fine in general, it seems that the same restrictions should apply as to self-published material. People frequently exagerate their accomplishments and denigrate their competitors in their autobiographies, as well as reveal information about family, friends and associates which may or may not be completely accurate. I think this exception should be removed. Yworo (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, that's not an exception to the whole policy. The section that quote is from only pertains to the subject of the autobiography, not to other people who might be mentioned in it. For example, Liz Taylor's autobiography could be used for information about Liz Taylor, not about everyone else in the book (at least, not any more than any other published source). Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 19:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Yworo (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Google-indexed user pages

Are Google-indexed user pages with unpatrolled and unwatched draft biographies a risk? How can we manage it? Please see example and discussion at WP:VPT#Google indexing user pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:40, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Probably a good idea to put into this project page that people SHOULD put {{Userspace draft}} on such drafts. Does {{Workpage}} work the same way? CarolMooreDC 23:18, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Expanded shortcuts at WP:BLP1E

Continuing this conversation, I've boldly expanded the problematic shortcurt links that made the WP:BLP1E third paragraph barely readable. The problem was not with its wording, but lack thereof; you needed to know what a WP:BIO1E and a WP:BLP1E are to understand the sentence at all, which requires quite savvy editors. While WP:JARGON and WP:CRYPTIC don't apply as rules for policy writing, their advice is good for this case and justifies my expanding of the text without changing its meaning. Diego (talk) 12:28, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Single or borderline reliable source for death date

Is a single source for a death date, in the absence of a formal obituary or a biography, sufficient? I have a draft article on JPL manager and engineer Robert J. Parks (1922-2011?) that I am about to put up, but on re-reading it I realised that the only source I have for a death year and date is this page from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). All other sources I have do not give a death year. The link with the Robert J. Parks I have a draft article on is clear, as this source states that he was elected to the NAE. But I failed to find an obituary anywhere. I would prefer to have an obituary to confirm that he is no longer living, in case the NAE page is wrong. Can anyone help? There is another similar case where I have struggled to find an obituary, or only found those of the type put up online by funeral companies and/or family and friends. I would prefer a better source than that, especially where the name is a very common one. Carcharoth (talk) 02:31, 29 December 2012 (UTC) Originally asked at WP:BLP/N and then moved here.

The official U.S. government Social Security Death Index reports that Robert Joseph Parks, born April 1, 1922, died in California on June 3, 2011. (search result) Based on the article you linked and some other searching, that appears to be your subject. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, and that will be a useful check to carry out in future for articles on US subjects as a double-check. Is the SSDI considered a reliable source or does that veer too much towards primary sources and WP:OR? I seem to remember that being discussed at some point. It's nice to know his middle name as well (less helpful that he was more commonly known as Bob Parks). Carcharoth (talk) 02:47, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, the SSDN is certainly a reliable source in the everyday sense, in that I've used it dozens of times for all sorts of purposes and never encountered an error in it (as long as one is careful about making sure one has the right person when searching a common name, an issue you are aware of). By the strict letter of WP policy, it might be considered too "primary" a database to be the sole source for a controverted fact (although one could argue it's a secondary source, being a compilation of records rather than the records themselves), but as a practical matter the SSDN would be used, are we are doing it here, for checking or backup purposes, and for that purpose I don't see any issue with it at all. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Though you do have to be very careful with common names, particularly when children are given the same name as their parents. The middle name of Parks was very useful, as that led me to the following sources: this article from the 28 August 1962 issue of the Corpus Christi Times, and this biographical database in German which I'm still trying to make head-or-tail of, and the very useful Current Biography Yearbook for 1968 which has an entry for Parks on page 303. It also seems that the sad news in this article is about one of his sons, which is getting away from the main topic but just shows where you can end up when looking for information (I ended up not including this in the article).

The other person that I was looking for information on was Martin Mohamed ("John") Atalla (1924-2009?), who has an article on the German Wikipedia at de:Martin M. Atalla, and is mentioned here, here, and here, but his death (if indeed he has died) I could only find mentioned here. That's based on the SSDI, so not enough to go on there. I wonder if some obituaries (if they exist) are available behind paywalls?

I should add that this all relates to something I've said a few times before about BLPs (bringing this all back on topic), which is that to really have enough to write a proper article on someone, you need at least an obituary and you should be able to include birth year and death year. There are far too many BLPs on Wikipedia where it is painfully obvious that there will never, even after death, be enough for anything remotely resembling a proper article. Some examples I found from disambiguation pages related to those two articles I created recently are: Jack James (fencer) and Robert D. Parks. I read the deletion discussion for the latter, and I wonder how much things have changed since then (over 6 years ago)? Maintaining BLPs in a reasonable state while people are alive is one thing, but what about after they are dead? Less and less people care unless the sources and enduring notability are truly there. Carcharoth (talk) 23:59, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Source attribution and number of sources

I'm writing a biography of a living person who is renowned in his field but about whom I can find only one detailed and very reputable biographical source.

1) Are biographical articles acceptable based on a single source?

2) To what extent can or should the source article be quoted (always, of course, with attribution) without cosmetic attempts to rewrite it solely for the sake of it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Filmian (talk • contribs) 09:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Children's names

I frequently see names of minor children listed in biographies. Usually unsourced, and I see that the names should then be removed, but sometimes sourced, sometimes sourced to CVs or webpages written by or authorised by the article subject. I can't see any purpose unless the children are notable in their own right. And there may be unforseeable child protection implications. Can we amend the policy to say that names of minor children should not be included? Thanks for any opinions. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Just a question

There's just one thing I want clarified about the BLP policy. WP:BLP is a policy, while most other pages related to content (such as WP:N) are only guidelines. Why is this the case? Also, why the priority for living people, rather than all people, regardless if they are alive or not? Is it a libel issue? 112.208.78.89 (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability is the way that it happens to have turned out that the Wikipedia community decides which topics are suitable for inclusion as articles, and which are not. The community could have done this some other way, for example by number of Google hits; or might in the future decide to do it some other way. By contrast, WP:BLP is essentially immutable; there was never a serious possibility of it being considered acceptable for Wikipedia articles to be reckless about the possibility of harm to living people.
There is no such thing as libel against the dead, so making a distinction between the living and the dead is indeed convenient from a legal perspective. However, WP:BLP is emphatically not only about avoiding litigation; it is about avoiding harm. So for example it applies to a certain extent to the recently dead (because inaccuracies in statements about them might harm those close to them). By contrast, incorrect statements about, say, Nebuchadnezzar II, don't harm anyone. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:09, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
It could never be entirely about the law of defamation because this varies between countries and this is an international encyclopedia. But the key obligations to be accurate, truthful, balanced etc apply just as much to the dead as they do to the living. Making up untrue statements about Nebuchadnezzar II would still be a breach of policy even though he no longer has any close relatives to be offended. Setting things down clearly in a BLP policy reminds everyone of the special considerations where living persons are involved (protecting family members, crime victims, personal safety etc). --AJHingston (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Leo Komarov

Input is required at the talkpage, concerning that article's infobox content. GoodDay (talk) 23:33, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Ethnicity in lead section

I'd like clarification on whether "(*Person's name here*) is a (*nationality here*) sportsperson of (*ethnicity here*) descent" is acceptable in the lead section, particularly if that individual has overtly identified themselves with both their ethnicity and nationality, or if it belongs solely in the Personal life section. I recently read a rather heated exchange somewhere on WP in which a user said that a person's ethnicity must not be stated in the lead—only their nationality. Is this true? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 01:01, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It should only be mentioned in the lead if and only if the nationality and/or ethnicity is inherently and completely tied to their reason for being notable in the first place. For example, noting the nationality of athletes who play for their national teams is probably OK in the lead, as many such athletes are well known for playing for their nation. However, noting the nationality of, say, the CEO of a company isn't all that important. Mention it in the personal life section is probably sufficient. Ethinicities get even dicier, but again, there are probably a few cases where a person's ethnicity is inherent to their reason for being notable, for example, if someone was a campaigner for Australian Aboriginal rights, or something like that, it may be useful to mention that they are of Australian Aboriginal decent; it would be sort of hard to avoid it. But if the ethnicity doesn't matter as to why they are famous, it probably isn't worth mentioning in the lead. --Jayron32 02:54, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
By coincidence(?), the article I'm getting at pertains to an Australian. In which case, what would you suggest for the article on Michael Katsidis—a professional boxer who is an Australian national, but always enters the ring with both Australian and Greek flags flown by his handlers (as well as having a tattoo of his ancestral Greek homeland on his back, plus a whole bunch of other Greek-related stuff he displays). Currently his Greek ethnicity is mentioned in the lead, but it's been there more or less since the article's creation, so I never really thought about it until I read the aforementioned "heated exchange". Should I leave it as it is, or move it to the Personal life section? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Barack Obama's ethnicity is the second sentence of his lead. If the ethnicity of the subject is particularly notable, then yes it could be mentioned. If there is nothing special then no (e.g. don't mention ethnicity of US baseball players). A guy who fights under a Greek flag whilst living in Australia could be notable for that, note could not would.Martin451 (talk) 07:53, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
The trouble is that "ethnicity" is a very woolly descriptive term, and fits better in some countries than others, and for some people better than others. In the case of America where people often label themselves, then it is easier than in Britain. For example is the description Scottish an nationality or a ethnicity? -- PBS (talk) 08:16, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the problem with the nationality/ethnicity distinction is that much of the it has been shaped by the US experience, where nationality=citizenship and is a simple matter of fact, whereas identifying by ethnicity (race) has been a matter of great sensitivity. As a generalisation, calling a comedian 'Scottish' in the lead will be acceptable and will often as much refer to accent as anything else. But if we take Armando Iannucci as an example, his Scottishness stems mostly from being where he was born and brought up; it defines at most half of his ethnicity and neither his citizenship nor probably his present residence. What he chooses to put on his self declaration of nationality and ethnic origin for census and other purposes is a matter for him. But it need not be so simple - what if he had moved from Scotland early in his life, or was not known to be happy to be labelled as Scottish? Real difficulties arise where editors attempt to impute identity from birth parentage, (a private matter that might not be as it seems), outward appearance, and attempts to 'correct' or categorise on the basis of 'objective' rules (eg he was born in Scotland therefore he is Scottish, or he is a UK citizen therefore he must be described as British). It can be positively explosive in some cases, for example whether to term somebody as Irish if they come from Northern Ireland, or any living person as Macedonian. So simple rules such as the one that started this discussion are very unhelpful. The information should only be in the lead if it is a key fact about them (central to their notability in WP terms), in almost all cases the subject's self-identification, and the meaning is clear. If there are problems they can be overcome by not using such shorthand in the lead. For example, if an editor is saying only that the subject was born in Scotland then that belongs in the text of the article and is unlikely to belong in the lead at all, whilst if important but complicated a sentence or so will be much better than a simple label. --AJHingston (talk) 12:07, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

We do not normally include ethnicity in the lead sentence, even for deceased persons. The relevant guideline is WP:OPENPARA. Unless the subject is notable specifically due to their ethnicity, we should never have ethnicity in the lead sentence. If the subject has dual citizenship, the word "and" should be used, as hyphenated terms have ambiguous meanings. There is, as far as I know, no prohibition on including ethnicity later in the lead, as early as the second sentence. My reading of the guideline would suggest that ethnicity should be deferred to the second paragraph of the lead unless significant in some way. I'd say the example given might justify introducing it in the second sentence, though not the first. Yworo (talk) 18:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't understand

Sorry but I don't really understand this paragraph, the relevance of the examples, or the necessity for examples.

Examples of such acceptible boilerplate include publication lists potentially-verifiable on pubmed and employment history, particularly if potentially-verifiable by, for example, addresses listed on peer-reviewed publications in reliable third-party journals. Other examples include pending and issued patents potentially-verifiable by a government patent office.

Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIMARY needs help

Past discussion Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_32#Regulation too blunt in "Misuse of primary sources" section? resonates strongly with me, but what bothers me most is that WP:BLPPRIMARY gives no rationale for its dicates:

Exercise caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses.

Why should one not use these sources? What is the reason? Rules without justification are not good rules, and they don't encourage others to follow them. (Full disclosure, I think WP:PRIMARY is extremely misguided and does far more harm than good. So I look at WP:BLPPRIMARY with deep deep skepticism). Can anyone justify? jhawkinson (talk) 13:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Very few of our policies explain why specific limits have been set.
We have this rule because we have had problems with this kind of editing. IMO there are three classes of problems:
Trivia spamming
Some obsessive person spams articles with UNDUE trivia on the grounds that he can find it, and if it's in a court record, then it's clearly extremely important.
Errors
Sure, somebody named "Robert Smith" is listed in the phone book at that address, but how do you know that it's this Robert Smith?
Invasion of privacy
All of these things could be mentioned in a public record, but are also things that people often want to keep private. Most American medical offices use date of birth as a sort of 'password': "What's your name? What's your date of birth? Okay, now what did you want me to tell you about your private medical information?" Banks and other organizations do something similar. And these things can be "published" in court records over the most trivial of reasons. I saw one a while ago that listed the birth dates of family members and neighbors that the police phoned when someone needed to be taken to the hospital. If you were a notable person, would you appreciate having your birth date spammed to Wikipedia just because your next-door neighbor needed some help? How about having your license plate number spammed to Wikipedia just because you witnessed a motor vehicle collision? Does that sound like a reasonable, encyclopedic use of public records to you?
I do think that this paragraph needs some small tweaks. Specifically, I believe that the second sentence ought to mirror the first: "Do not use these kinds of documents to support personal details about a living person, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses" rather than "If a government record contains a 'business address' at which any living person might work, then you may not 'use it' for any purpose at all, even to say something completely unrelated to any living person or anybody's address." WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed change to "Recently dead or probably dead" paragraph

Until yesterday, the Recently dead or probably dead section read as follows:

Generally, this policy does not apply to material concerning the dead. However, material about dead people that has implications for their living relatives and friends, particularly in the case of recent deaths, or notable suicides, is covered by this policy. Contentious or questionable material that affects living people or about the recently dead should be treated in the same way as material about living people. Anyone born within the last 115 years is covered by this policy unless a reliable source has confirmed their death. People born over 115 years ago are presumed dead unless listed at oldest people.

The way this section is written led to quite a bit of confusion, with at least one editor claiming that "recent" must apply to anyone born during the past 115 years. This prompted a discussion on the WP:BLPN under "Huey Newton article - definition of 'recently dead'."

Based on this discussion, I rewrote the paragraph so it would be more clear, with "recent" defined in keeping with yesterday's discussion. The new section read as follows:

Anyone born within the past 115 years is covered by this policy unless a reliable source has confirmed their death. Generally, this policy does not apply to material concerning people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources. The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend one year beyond the date of death. Such extensions would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide. In the absence of confirmation of death, anyone born longer than 115 years ago is presumed dead unless listed at oldest people.

This edit was recognized as good faith, but reverted pending discussion here. I do think this paragraph needs a rewrite to prevent misunderstandings, so am inviting comment.

Thanks. Apostle12 (talk) 18:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I reverted Apostle's edit because they defined recently dead as one year; before, recently dead was not defined (except the link to Recent deaths). Apostle's "definition" was apparently based on User:Yworo's comment at BLPN that it is one year, but I have no idea where that comes from. I don't necessarily object to defining recently dead, but I think that's a significant enough change from the previous/current policy to require discussion. At this point, I personally have no opinion on how long it should be or if it should even be defined at all.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I understand why you reverted; no problem. I chose "one year" mostly because it was in keeping with the comments made by various editors, including User:Yworo. It could just as easily be "six months" or "two years." If we want to avoid seeming dogmatic we could say "six months to two years, depending on circumstances." However, if we leave it as it is some editors are going to insist that "recent" means anything within the past 115 years, especially for contentious material.
The sentence that is particularly confusing in the policy as written reads as follows: "However, material about dead people that has implications for their living relatives and friends, particularly in the case of recent deaths, or notable suicides, is covered by this policy." The problem is that "implications for their living relatives and friends" has no expiration date, so this would extend the policy to the end of even their lifetimes - perhaps even longer than 115 years. During our discussion yesterday the consensus was that six months, a year, even two years at the outside would demonstrate respect and consideration for surviving relatives and friends and give everyone time to grieve their losses. As I see it, this is the spirit of the "recent" exception to this policy. Apostle12 (talk) 18:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
While I'm mindful of the dangers of instruction creep, I think some guidance on "recent" would be helpful, I've seen proposed interpretations range from weeks to decades, and in my view, at least some narrowing of that might be valuable, whether by reference to a target figure ("a year"), a range ("a few months to a couple years"), or what have you. In general. I would also argue for some flexibility as well, some care in how we word things might be due less restraint than, say, a photograph of the subject's corpse (and yes, in fact, we've had discussions about someone, with still-living relatives, who is argued as notable for being a dead body in a particular location.) --j⚛e deckertalk 18:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
With Apostle's clarification, I think we have two issues. The first is how we define recently dead, and the other is even if a subject is not recently dead, what do we do with edits that affect "living relatives and friends", which, arguably, is unrelated to when the subject died. And, as long as I'm wikilawyering this, what counts as a "relative" and what counts as a "friend"?--Bbb23 (talk) 19:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Some of the comments express reluctance to nail down a specific, arbitrary time period, while others have expressed the concern that the lack of a time period has caused some to claim the policy has wildly long time periods. Perhaps instead of nailing down a specific time period, just nail down a limit such that the policy may extend under reasonable circumstances for up to but no more than, say, a year. Gamaliel (talk) 19:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that there's value in nailing down a particular timeframe. For the vast majority of dead people, a week is probably plenty long enough. However, for certain kinds of topics (related to particularly horrifying matters), the need for sensitivity to living relatives might extend for decades. Common sense is needed -- not an arbitrary rule. --Orlady (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
So, there's the rub: Not defining the time period at all leads to vastly different interpretations--"a week" to "decades" depending on our knowledge of the sensitivity of living relatives and friends (Orlady,above).
I kind of like what Gamaliel said: "Perhaps instead of nailing down a specific time period, just nail down a limit such that the policy may extend under reasonable circumstances for up to but no more than, say, a year." This would allow "common sense" to rule, while to some extent defining common sense (since sense isn't really that common). Apostle12 (talk) 19:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The whole paragraph should be removed. We should not be concerned with how "recently" a person is deceased. We should solely be concerned with "implications for…living relatives and friends", if any. This is a determination that should rest in the hands of WP:Consensus, with recourse to our dispute resolution processes, if necessary. They would include WP:3O and WP:RFC. Key among the ingredients determining the outcome of such disputes should be the persuasiveness of the involved participants. The strongest argument should be the reliably sourced argument. It could be argued in such discussions that recentness of death is a significant factor. But our policies don't have to say that. I think doing so constitutes misplaced emphasis. Bus stop (talk) 19:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately trying to establish consensus in the manner suggested would lead to endless discussion. For example, could the Kennedy assassination be discussed at all under such broad outlines given the unending "implications for relatives and friends"? Apostle12 (talk) 19:32, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
This shouldn't result in "endless discussion". The focus of discussion should be on the nature of the information, the quality of the sourcing, and the potential for implications to living persons. A key point should be whether the information is actually about dead persons, or whether it is about persons who are still alive. It appears to me that the recent disputes alluded to here have focused on information about living persons that is added to articles about people who are dead. In such instances, WP:BLP is clearly applicable, because it applies to information about living persons on any Wikipedia page.
In many instances, like the example of the Kennedy assassination, if the information is well enough sourced for inclusion in Wikipedia, it will have been published widely enough that its inclusion in Wikipedia should not adversely affect the sensibilities of the survivors, although balance is still important. --Orlady (talk) 19:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The recent disputes were aired on WP:RSN and they focused on information about persons confirmed dead - specifically Black Panther Huey Newton, dead for 24 years, and producer Bert Schneider, dead 1 year 4 months. Two editors referenced this specific paragraph, claiming that "recent" meant 115 years. The wanted WP:BLP to be applicable to anyone, even if confirmed dead, who had not been dead at least 115 years. I do believe some clarification of the paragraph is necessary. Apostle12 (talk) 08:46, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
You are mischaracterising my position. Perhaps provide links to the (multiple, extensive) disputes, if anyone is actually interested in reading the backstory, which I tend to doubt. -- UseTheCommandLine (talk) 08:53, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, certainly not intentional. I realize your position changed after several editors commented at WP:RSN. Have we heard from editor Amadscientist yet? My point in referencing the backstory is that some changes are in order, though you are correct that few will be interested enough to read it. Apostle12 (talk) 09:02, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I would like to avoid a "magic number" sort of deadline, so "about a year" rather than "one year". I think that what you want is actually a footnote rather than a change to the regular text. The footnote might read something like Recent death generally means someone who died in the last couple of months, although in some cases, this may extend up to a couple of years.
It might also be worth saying that it's not really about "affecting" living people in the sense of upsetting the grieving family emotionally to read baldly stated facts like "Joe Film shot himself in 2013. Toxicology tests showed that he was drunk at the time". What we really care about is material that touches on still-living people, like "Joe Film shot himself in 2013, two hours after his wife publicly announced that she was filing for divorce." WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
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