Wikipedia talk:BLP deletion process

Um.

So, any admin may claim BLP violation, and the only way to dispute it is direct appeal to Arbcom? BLPs harmful enough to require no public discussion are either OTRS issues (which definitely shouldn't be subject to public discussion, that defeats the point) or so bad that nobody would dispute deletion. Either way, there is no need to grant immunity from public review to anyone who can make a halfway plausible case for BLP issues. -Amarkov moo! 00:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Worst policy proposal of the year, at least so far, though at least it's a formal proposal for discussion rather than an individual implementation of it as if it existed.

1/ Even if you accept the goal as desirable, the limitation doesn't accomplish the desired goal. It applies to none of the articles that have been the subject of discussion lately.

One key phrase is "no fault of their own" The Bus Uncle was notable through his own fault,it could be argued that the fat boy similarly.

or "negative information only". The pole vault athlete had no negative information

"primarily to provide publicity that is harmful to the person" The articles on victims of crimes exist primarily to provide information about the crime or the criminal--the victim is named merely because that is the way the case it known.

similarly, with missing children, the primary purpose is to provide information, but not negative information--information which can only have a positive effect on them.

and missing children when found--again, the information is not negative to them.

So who would it have applied to? The only possible way negative information can be provided about a person who is without substantial fault is if irrelevant detail is included, and then even the proposal says it should merely be removed. So the first conclusion is it will do no good. 2/ It removes articles matters where the BLP is asserted, but not shown, as judged by any one of some 1200 individuals. There are 1200 different views about something as subjective as "primarily to do harm". Someone may thing that the assertion that someone is a member of the X church is one that can only do harm to the person, and an article saying so should be removed. Someone may think the same about appearance in a pornographic film. Some of them probably think members of certain religious of pseudo religious groups is inherently damaging to an individual. It was asserted that being named as a member of a particular political party was damaging, and that therefore an article about the head of the party was subject to BLP. I think that nonsense, because he wouldn't have become head if he thought it disgraceful, but it takes only one person to see the logic otherwise. So the second conclusion is that it leaves to much to individual idiosyncratic judgment. 3/ It assumes good faith on all the 1200. I certainly assume good faith generally of them and all other WPedians. I also know that within the year so far there have been at least 2 undoubted exceptions to this, and probably a few more. Assuming such a person did not dramatically call attention to himself, he could do much harm. Suppose a member of a group that wishes to suppress all public mention of the group that they themselves do not write & there are such groups, and there are WP articles about these groups. He would simply delete as BLP all the articles about those who criticise the group. This isn't hypothetical, its been tried. It hasn't succeeded because public scrutiny made it evident. But it takes public scrutiny. There are fairly frequent cases where after the reject of an article about minor public figure A, the sponsor of that article begins to delete articles about others in the field. It doesnt happen only to unusual sects--the last one I remember involved republican politicians. The speedies were however easily reversed. So the third conclusion is hat it is liable to abuse. 4/ The method for contesting them is hopelessly complicated, and puts a tremendous bias in favor of deletion in any claimed case, regardless of the merits. Read the details for yourself. 4a/ The method for dealing with abuse is desysop for excessive or frivolous use. But this requires the stewards to make the decisions, subject to review by the arb com. Judging what is meant by "excessive" will immediately involve them in deciding the fundamental BLP issues. Arbcom has repeatedly stated it does not want to be concerned with maters of this sort. They are right--their independence and the maintenance of respect for them requires they're not getting involved in such individual article decisions. So the fourth conclusion is that the mechanism is unsatisfactory.

I propose an alternative: BLP is subject to AfD & Deletion Review at the level of articles, and the normal process of dispute resolution in the case of content. Neither claims of it or disclaimers are given preference. The only exception is cases involving liability to libel or to immediate personal harm, which are judged by OTRS as now. We have everything we need. The only reason it hasn't worked is its preemption by individual action. We might indeed need an additional rule providing for desysopping of anyone taking unilateral action which is not supported by the final outcome. But the proposed policy would enshrine exactly the parts which don't work right.DGG 01:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with User:DGG's alternative, except that I take no position as to whether we need a rule regarding desysopping anyone taking unilateral action not supported by the final outcome. --Metropolitan90 01:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia administrators are trusted users. Consequently, any action they take benefits from a rebuttable presumption of correctness. So, if an administrator deletes an article citing "harmful publicity created through no fault of the article's subject" as a justification for deletion per WP:BLP, we may presume that the article is indeed a WP:BLP violation until there has been a finding otherwise. Contesting such a deletion in an open forum such as WP:DRV has the effect of extending such publicity, without a finding that the publicity is not harmful. Thus, any permissible forum for contesting the deletion of an article in which WP:BLP is cited as a justification is necessarily private, avoiding any on-wiki discussion. A post to the Arbitration Committee mailing list provides an ideal forum for the private resolution of the issue. Furthermore, allowing a direct appeal to the Arbitration Committee actually increases the effectiveness of remedies for improper deletions of biographies of living persons, since the present practice seems to be out-of-process speedy deletion, speedy closure of deletion reviews or relistings at AFD as a result of deletion reviews, eventually degenerating into an all-out wheel war (see [1], for example). It would be far better for such matters to be decided by the judgment of the Arbitration Committee than by whichever side can muster a greater number of administrators to participate in a wheel war. In response to the claim that

Arbcom has repeatedly stated it does not want to be concerned with maters of this sort. They are right--their independence and the maintenance of respect for them requires they're not getting involved in such individual article decisions.

I would note that the Arbitration Committee's present role of resolving allegations of administrative misconduct requires them to consider the propriety of deletions for which WP:BLP is cited as a justification, under circumstances in which allegedly improper WP:BLP deletions are cited as evidence of administrative misconduct. Ordering the undeletion of improperly deleted articles (even when the deletions are not so improper and/or numerous as to constitute grounds for sanctioning the deleting administrator) is but a minor extension of the Arbitration Committee's existing function in evaluating the propriety of deletions. Nor is requiring stewards to evaluate whether WP:BLP deletions are frivolous a great extension of their duties, since any administrator who starts to indiscriminately delete articles would probably be subject to emergency desysopping even without this proposal.

Also, consider the possible alternatives to this proposal:

(1) Do nothing. We will have more wheel wars just like this one, more conflict, and more disruption.

(2) Sanction the administrators who perform out-of-process speedy deletions of biographies of living persons which do not meet CSD G10, but allegedly constitute WP:BLP violations nonetheless. Problems with this remedy include the large number of administrators who would be desysopped as a result, perpetuation of WP:BLP violations through full-length discussions on WP:AFD and WP:DRV, and the possibility of articles which actually do constitute WP:BLP violations being retained.

(3) Sanction the administrators who undelete articles deleted out-of-process with WP:BLP cited as a justification, when the articles end up deleted as a result of the ensuing wheel wars (since we don't, after all, want the Arbitration Committee to rule on the ultimate disposition of the articles in dispute). Initially, large numbers of administrators would be desysopped, simply for reversing deletions they genuinely believed to be improper. Eventually, with no administrators willing to risk their sysop bits on undeletions, deletions of articles with WP:BLP cited as a justifications would be effectively uncontestable, without the possibility of appealing such deletions to the Arbitration Committee as provided in my proposal.

I submit that this proposed process appears to be the best available method to

(a) ensure that disruptive wheel wars like this one aren't repeated

(b) provide for the rapid and permanent deletion of articles which actually do constitute WP:BLP violations

(c) prevent the abuse of deletions for which WP:BLP is cited as a justification through private, but fair and impartial review by the Arbitration Committee, desysopping of any administrators who engage in a sufficient level of wrongful speedy deletions as to warrant this sanction, and the rapid reversal of frivolous deletions, coupled with emergency desysopping of the offending administrators. John254 04:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Section break

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then this proposal is the yellow brick road to hell. BLP is one of WP's most critical and most problematic policies. It stresses the tension between neutrality and ethical integrity. However, it has directly contributed to some of Wikipedia's most unfortunate incidents, such as the Brian Peppers brouhaha and the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war.

This proposal strikes me as creepy. It correctly distinguishes between CSD G10s of the type "Joe Bloggs is a n00b!" that I tend to see on Newpage patrol, and the nastier stuff that's cited to sources but reflects poorly on its subject. Forgive me for being a Pollyanna, but I really don't see the harm in letting such biographies go through the normal deletion process, at least to get a few more eyes on them, or failing that, to go through DRV. Just because a few deletion experts see the page doesn't mean the whole world is going to see it.

I'm a little troubled by the whole aura of secrecy. Basically, from the perspective of this non-admin, the current proposal amounts to a de facto Oversight of deleted BLPs. I'd rather allow the possibility of further wheel wars than to endorse such a policy. But I hope it can be tamed to a more palatable format. YechielMan 05:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we need something to address this issue, but this 100% isn't it. There are very good reasons that Arbcom does not and should not rule on content disputes, and instead focuses solely on disruptive behavior. Firstly, it doesn't scale, and they'd rapidly get swamped. This means one of two options: Either it will take months to get an answer from Arbcom after filing for review, since they'll be buried with them, or they will be forced to give cursory reviews rather than in-depth ones to get an answer back in a timely manner. Neither alternative is a very good one. Secondly, content decisions, aside from the few Foundation-level issues or actions taken under WP:OFFICE taken due to imminent legal risk, are rightfully and properly seen as the decision of the community at large. And finally, it just wouldn't work. Arbcom would have a difficult time indeed enforcing a decision against community consensus that they were wrong.

The reason we make decisions by open discussion by anyone who cares to participate rather than in back rooms is because that's how this project works. If you want to read an encyclopedia that a small handful of people have total control over, go read Britannica. If you want a model where some public input is allowed but "experts" have the final say, that's five blocks down and take a right at Citizendium. If you want a pizza, call your local pizza joint. We don't do any of those things, we do things in an open, transparent manner by consensus of the community at large. That's not a perfect model, none of those are perfect models and each has unique advantages and drawbacks. But it is the model we use here. And many of its advantages would be lost by this proposal, including that anyone familiar with the situation may put his or her input in or correct an erroneous assumption on someone's part, that there's a clear record of how and why the decision was made to point to, that if we decide in the future we made a mistake we can change our minds, and the accountability of having the process be transparent. I can understand the reasoning behind this proposal, but I do not think that what would be gained from it outweighs those losses or justifies an exception to the open, accountable model. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Problems with this proposal

1. It increases the workload of ArbCom - probably by a very significant amount. This is bad. ArbCom already has too much work.
2. It requires ArbCom to make content decisions - while they will "quasi"-address these from time to time, they strongly avoid it. They're likely to get really pissed off (and possibly uncooperative) if we slap a bunch of inappropriate work on them
3. It fails to really address the disputed area. The disputes aren't clearly frivolous deletions (do we really need a policy to say "de-sysop people who delete Pythagorean Theorem claiming BLP"? I hope not) nor are they clearcut - clearcut ones are G10s.
4. The area that needs to be addressed is where people are using their own morality to decide whether articles are harmful or not - we can't sanction people who are acting in good faith and making reasonable decisions in a grey area - and make no mistake, most of the strongly disputed deletions are on articles where a quasi-reasonable person acting in good faith could come to the conclusion that the article is reasonable, or unreasonable. These are people proposing speedy deletion of Monica Lewinsky because her article talks too much about how she blew some old guy, or Anna Ayala because she is basically famous only for being a con artist.

Since I don't condone bitching without offering suggestions, let me set out where I think the answer lies:

1. Delete (and salt?) BLP violations that don't meet G10
2. Template the talk page with your name and (where appropriate) some information on why you speedied
3. No speedy undeletions, except in crazy cases (See: Pythagorean Theorem)
4. Anyone wanting to undelete an article should talk to the deleting Admin first, if at all possible
5. If people are still in dispute bring it to some appropriate discussion forum (which might need to be developed at WP:BLP/N or such). Realistically, we're not "immoralising them forever" - realistically in any "disputed" cases, the top google hits apart from Wikipedia are going to say the same thing anyhow. Or discussions could be moved to someplace that isn't well found by google, and (probably) blanked after discussion.

Remember what we're talking about are "Well sourced articles" anyways - The claim that we're harming a person by discussing what'd be the top google hit for their name if there was no Wikipedia article, which'll be blanked in a week anyhow, is pretty frivolous. WilyD 16:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a better starting point, if nothing else. Where the current proposal is opaque, it is transparent, and where the current proposal is convoluted, it's straightforward. I am already of the opinion that the 2007 BLP dial-back (I guess that's more NPOV than saying "crackdown") is a further wedge between editors and admins, in terms of power differential expressed as a knowledge differential. We already have a lot of back-channel stuff going on wrt to BLPs as there has, I assume, always been with speedies and other matters. With this proposal, important discussions are being deliberately moved to the back-channels. I'm also disturbed a bit by the moralizing that accompanies some BLP discussions; there's an AFD current that appeals to "human decency" instead of policy. Perhaps the non-policy WP:DIGNITY was intended, but when you start to wonder if you'll be seen as a bad person for expressing a contrary opinion, I think things are out of hand. --Dhartung | Talk 01:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

optimism & pessimism

• Perhaps the last weeks of discussion will lead to a greater responsibility and common sense in application of our present procedures. Maybe I am not a good admin, as I am certainly not an experienced one, but I would not trust myself or any one person with a decision in a difficult or non-obvious situation of this sort--in either direction. A group decision will always get more respect from the community.
• However, if we still cannot find a way of proceeding, it will represent a continuing disagreement on the principles, not just the process. One view, represented on WikiEn-L more than here, is that we should accept he judgement of the responsible major media, such as the NYT, Washington Post, Guardian, BBC, and PBS--they are professionals at knowing what is acceptable to the general community, and they are very careful indeed about libel: if they think something suitable, so should we amateurs. The opposite, is we should disregard the media, and hold ourselves to the more stringent standard expressed perhaps in the US by the C S Monitor, of being above all considerations that might in any one's mind resemble sensationalism or invasion of privacy; as judged by any established and generally responsible member of the community. If this is true, and there cannot be compromise on a middle standard, the recourse is to split Wikipedia: an admittedly recentist WP accepting any sourcing the media accept, and printing whatever may be legal, and a stricter admittedly censored WP that might find itself limited to coverage of the dead. DGG 22:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I can just see it: "Transwiki to WikiDead." YechielMan 23:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course there's disagreement - BLP is fundamentally about controlling information based on morality. Since we all have different morals - we all have different ideas of what should be done. Don't worry about trusting yourself or anyone else - any action you take can always be undone. And that's what we need for the super secret BLP speedy deletion criterion - a way to undo it we can all agree upon. WilyD 12:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Change of direction

What this should be about is clarifying what is a clear speedy-delete situation, and what is something that should be taken to AFD. "Harmful" is just way too subjective. It seems to me that the a big reason we want to be speedy-deleting some of these "BLP" issues is because people drag them on and on and on, such as mentioned in a current arbcom case. Without that, and looking at the content itself, there are many cases where speedy deletion doesn't actually help, and usually just pisses people off (including the ones who don't drag things on and on).

But, like I said, there are simple and obvious situations which can be fairly speedy deleted, and I think the community generally feels the same way. What should be speedied, and what should be discussed, that's what this should be about. -- Ned Scott 04:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

There are many people I trust in wikipedia, because I know they will never do a unilateral action in a controversial situation. There isn't a person in WP I trust to individually do a speedy deletion in a controversial situation. Recognizing the need for confidentiality, I trust a group like OTRS do meet them confidentially; recognizing the need to maintain legal standards even in consensus is slow to gather, I recognize them as a group to have that authority. I recognize also the possible occurrence of emergencies--but not a single one of the emergency deletions for BLP in the last few weeks have actually been emergencies--they have all concerned material already present for some time or already available in other sources--neither of these factors rationally count as emergencies.

The people who claim the need for unilateral action are the people who use it; this is a classic example of aggrandizement, and for me at least, it has had the result that I will never again fully trust any of the people who have made that claim. The definition of proper action in emergencies is action that everyone is willing to accept afterwards. The definition of proper and obvious is that no person disagrees. We have it backwards: it should not be that any one admin can speedy--it should be than any one admin can prevent a speedy. DGG 05:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow

This is a boatload of legalistically-worded instruction creep. Simplify, man! Radiant! 08:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think I'd go so far to say that the existence of this proposal constitutes instruction creep. Administrators are already empowered to delete harmful articles, as established by very successful existing practice. The arbitration committee will undoubtedly have comments to make about the way in which disputes should be handled in delicate cases. So consensus modified by adoption of best practice is likely to resolve any uncertainties. --Tony Sidaway 00:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Worst policy proposal of the year

The author of this proposal writes above that "this proposed process appears to be the best available method". On the contrary, as said above, it is nigh on the worst policy proposal of the year. It incorporates everything that is bad about the recent events, including mis-use of administrator tools to win discussions by fiat, exclusion of non-administrators from discussions, involvement of off-wiki discussion fora that not everyone has access to, and byzantine procedural hoops to jump through before content can even be mentioned; and it excludes pretty much all of the good ideas that people have had.

I can almost see the "rouge administrators" waiting in the wings to delete this page, citing simply "WP:BLP" as the reason for deletion and demanding that John254 present an argument to the arbitration committee via a private IRC channel before allowing its restoration to even be discussed, simply in order to prove the point of exactly how wrongheaded and bad this proposal is.

This proposal is so bad that the egregiously erroneous idea that deletion is the only way to solve the problems with articles is almost a minor problem with it. Uncle G 14:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Uncle G stated it even more strongly than I would have, but got the basic idea quite right, as usual. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think there is consensus for the rejected tag, DGG 03:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it - I'd rather fix it than just leave the enormous problem unsolved. WilyD 03:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)