Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 38

Unreferenced lists and porn stars RFC

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.

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There has been an ongoing dispute about what requirements Biographies of living persons policy places on lists related to Porn stars. In particular, where a list is full of blue links to the articles of the personalities being listed and the linked articles do support inclusion in the list, does BLP Policy justify blanking those entries without inline citations? Monty₈₄₅ 17:03, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all list entries must be cited

Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed, and under BLP Policy, it may only be restored when properly cited.

• Support We cannot assume an article contains the references required to be in the lists and any other approach wil result in BLP violations easily occurring and a level of trust towrds all editors that BLP does not show. If we dont require info in a listt article the next step will be not to require it in a bio either. In List of pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films some ditors argue we should allow the orignal research of editors who get to choose who has appeared in both porn and mainstream films with no need for citation but the reality is this citation is needed both for them being porn worklers and mainstream film workers, otherwise we are saying wikipedia standard of excellence is in its editors and not in its verifiability not truth approach to all information and particularly that about living people. IMO we need to be tightening up our BLP policy not weakening it. Adding a reliable source on the list works for everyone whereas the approach suggested in the No option seems to require every individual editor and reader to verify for themselves the veracity of these alleged reliable sources. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support: I don't even see the question. There's no doubt that being described as a pornographic actor has to be sourced, and a blue link is not a reliable source. It's not even close to being a reliable source. Using a blue link to source material is the same as using a Wikipedia page in an inline citation, a practice that we reject out of hand.—Kww(talk) 18:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support: because this is already the policy. See, for example, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources which states Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. See also Wikipedia:Verifiability The citation must clearly support the material as presented in the article. Perhaps it's worth remembering that we are writing an encyclopaedia here. Verifiability policy isn't just an arbitrary rule to be gamed where possible, it's the only way to achieve our common goal. Deltahedron (talk) 20:45, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Comment I actually support the title of this section as an eventual goal, but recognize that the project is WP:IMPERFECT and reject the blanking of the list when there's no doubt that the removed entries *can* be sourced instead. This is what is being discussed here - I think no one denies the need to remove unsourced, problematic content on sight, but this is not what this RfC is about.

We're not discussing content policy here but behavioral one - do we support the asymmetric process created when an editor removes *all content at once* without even reviewing it for verifiability and force others to check whether it was already sourced elsewhere? We didn't support that process when we reviewed WP:BURDEN and neither should we support it here. I say we must not remove content against WP:PRESERVE when even the people removing it agrees that it "would belong in a finished article". Diego (talk) 21:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

• Framed another way, you might ask if you need to reference a controversial claim made about George W. Bush in the article about him if its referenced in another article, say Jeb Bush. The answer becomes clear: the existence of a reference in another piece of content, in another context, does not remove the need to reference a claim made in a new context. If the article behind the blue link changes, there is no automatic cascade to the list. The reference must appear on the list itself. Nathan ^T 16:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@Nathan:, the question here is whether bulk removing such claims in that case is acceptable procedure, rather than merely copying the available reference from the first context to the second. Could you please clarify your position on that? Diego (talk) 16:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The question I see above says nothing about bulk removing. It's standard practice in BLPs to remove uncited information. It is the responsibility of someone adding controversial claims about a living person to ensure that they are adequately sourced; we do not allow that kind of thing to hang around until someone can be bothered to cite it. Nathan ^T 19:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The question says "Any entry ... may be removed", which someone interprete as "any entry must be removed", thus bulk removing all entries which are not cited inline, regardless of their actual citation status elsewhere. The disagreement on this RfC lies on what is considered "adequately sourced", for information which has been already adequately sourced - just not on the format requested by the editors removing it. Again, nobody is disputing removal of information for which adequate references are not known, but the disagreement that prompted this consultation is not about that situation. Diego (talk) 20:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support Don't even see why this is up for discussion. Sourcing for claims or categorization of living persons is required everywhere, especially in potentially problematic contexts. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 18:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose unless all the "Support" folks here intend to review every freakin' list in wikipedia rather than only applying this rule to lists they are offended by. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: BB - this is not exactly new territory for BLPs, which have basically always relied on the subjective assessment of what constitutes a "controversial claim." Despite your attempt to label everyone as Puritanical moralists, it is clear to most that calling a non-porn star a porn star might be upsetting or objectionable, and therefore we should ensure that we only label someone that way when we know and can prove (in context, to the reader, and not relying on some other page that may eventually change) that the label is accurate. Nathan ^T 19:42, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. After thinking this through, I think this is a poor way to organize information and a disservice to the reader. It does little or nothing to advance the aims of BLP, and in fact it may be harmful. The current BLP policy says that for a person to be included in a list, just like a category, "the case for each … must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." That means the article in question, as a whole, must contain adequate sourcing that the person qualifies for the list or category. Lists by contrast do not contain article text. Putting a single cherry-picked citation culled from each main article next to each list item does not make a case for anything, or explain much. The citation may or may not reflect the current state of the article, and does not give the whole picture. The problem for the casual reader is that when they see a single link by each name in a list they are expecting an authoritative and informative resource that says something useful about the person and perhaps why they are on the list. They are not expecting that the citation is a pro forma response to comply with a new policy we make here. They don't know that they they are in fact getting a less than full picture of the person by following the citation instead of following the article link. Giving the reader less than our best information about a personis not a good way to serve that person's interest. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:54, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

This seems to be arguing that providing verification by citing independent reliable sources is somehow less useful than providing no citation at all. This cannot be right. The choice is not between uncited mention and badly cited mention: it is between well supported mention and no mention at all. To insert a name of a living person in an article entitled "List of Foo", or "List of Foos who are also Bar", is to assert, in the voice of the encyclopaedia, that the named living person is a Foo, or a Foo who is also a Bar. That assertion, by WP:BLP policy, if challenged or likely to be so, "must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources makes it clear that the inline citation should be in the list. Further, normal WP:V mandates an "inline citation that directly supports the material". If the citation does not directly support the assertion that the living person is a Foo, or a Foo who is also a Bar, it should not be used. An aggregation of sources cannot be synthesised: the assertion must be direct. This is what the reader expects, and deserves, when they see the citation. If no such source can be found, then the assertion cannot be verified, and so should not be made, and hence the name should not be in the list. This is not a new policy being made up here -- it is how we construct an encyclopaedia. Deltahedron (talk) 20:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Correct, the argument you pose is neither valid, nor is it the argument made. You are conflating several issues. Current BLP policy is that the citation to support an item's presence in a list should be justified by the article about the item and verified by the sources there. Requiring a duplicate (or worse, new) source next to the list item is a step backwards as far as informing the reader, giving them a full picture of the person, and keeping the list in conformity with the article. Your point about synthesis is an orthogonal one that affects many lists and has been the subject of much debate about lists and categories. If someone is sourced as being French, and the same source also verifies that he is a chef, it does not necessarily follow that he is a French chef. Moving citations back and forth from the article to the link does not affect that question. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

"Current BLP policy is that the citation to support an item's presence in a list should be justified by the article about the item and verified by the sources there" does not appear to be correct. Requiring a citation to a reliable source is what policy demands, as quoted and it should be in the list per MOS, as quoted. Supporting the presence of the entry in the list by a citation to a reliable source in the list as required, and linking to an article for further explanation seems a step forward rather than backwards. Why would providing less information be better for the reader? However, whether or not this argument is correct (and I cannot see that it is) it is an argument for a change in policy, and this is explicitly not what this RFC is about. Deltahedron (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

No, current policy and prevailing interpretation is for the links to be in the article, not the list. The predominance of opinions here agreeing with that interpretation of policy supports that. At the risk of quoting the exact same material quoted elsewhere, the relevant section "Categories, lists and navigation templates" says that "the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources...These principles apply equally to lists". There is only one place that has article text and reliable sources (plural) to justify anything, and that's the full article. Adding a citation to the list would be a new step, and it's a legitimate question whether that is a step forward or backward. It probably depends on the list. I've worked some on the List of Internet Phenomena article, where I encouraged that as an inclusion criterion and it was a definite step forward. However, I do think it will be a step backwards if applied broadly to BLP lists. You'll have perfunctory compliance with digging a source out of the main article, but as I said that will be at the cost of possibly misleading the reader and providing less information if they follow that citation rather than the link, and having the list and article diverge. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

No, Wikidemon , current policy is that all articles have the same sourcing requirements. Lists are articles. Saying that some of the requirements for categories apply to lists as well doesn't somehow say that lists are immune to the requirements that apply to articles. It would be helpful if you didn't continue to repeat that fallacy.—Kww(talk) 03:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

No, current policy is that the sourcing for lists is found in the articles to which they link. To repeat your argument by assertion, saying that BLP means other than what it says about where the sources should be located is somehow saying that lists are immune to the requirements of BLP. It would be helpful if you didn't continue to repeat that fallacy. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:21, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it is not. No, you haven't found a single line of text anywhere that would indicate that to be true. You repeatedly quote a line saying that requirements that apply to categories also apply to lists and keep discussing it as though it says "all other requirements that apply to articles don't apply to lists". BLP says "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". Note the lack of mushiness or vagueness about that direction: not a single "except for in lists" to be found. Your argument is without logical foundation: lists are articles. Articles are required to source contentious material with inline citations, not blue links.—Kww(talk) 04:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is. The BLP policy explicitly describes how to handle sourcing for lists, and that is "by the article text and its reliable sources". That is not only the line, verbatim, but also current practice and interpretation of the BLP requirement, and it also appears to reflect consensus on this page about what the policy means. Interpreting the text of BLP to say otherwise is wishful thinking; if it BLP or WP:V had intended to require in-list citations they would have said so directly instead of saying they should be handled like categories and templates. A couple pointers on interpreting rules: (1) the specific overrules the general, Lex specialis, and (2) where a passage is capable of two constructions, one of which will render parts of the passage invalid, contradictory, or otherwise meaningless, unnecessary, or void, the construction rendering the passage to have a valid meaning is preferred. Nobody has ever proposed sourcing lists by blue links, that is a straw man. The sourcing is contained in the references for the listed articles. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

A list of "People who are Foo" is an article; inserting a name in that list is an assertion that the person is a Foo. An assertion in an article text requires sourcing in that article. The text you quote refers very elliptically to BLP "principles" and how to carry those principles out in practice is explained in the MOS in an extremely clear and explicit requirement which I will not trouble to quote for a third time. BLP and V do not say that lists should be handled like categories. Lists are articles, and BLP and V and MOS are very clear about how to handle articles. Resort to arcane legal doctrines to support an interpretation must count as a prime example of Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. Deltahedron (talk) 06:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The text of BLP is clear; calling it "elliptical" in order to ignore it doesn't work. It's fine if you consider the discipline of logic from antiquity to the present to be "arcane" and "wikilawyering" and would rather apply your own rules, but you'll have to realize that others who seem to be in the majority now and throughout Wikipedia's history of list creation interpret the policies differently. Bottom line, any factual assertions about living people are verifiable, sourced, and readily available in the encyclopedia. You and some others are now insisting that the location of that source has to be transposed to the list itself; others disagree. The question boils down on where to put the sources. We're having an RfC about that. We'll see which view prevails. If the outcome is to copy sources to the lists, then we'll muster our resources to make that happen in an orderly way; if not we'll leave it up to the projects and editors of each list, and perhaps the MOS, to make guidelines. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. I realise this is rhetoric rather than reasoned argument, but I'll spend some time unpicking it as an exercise. "The text of BLP is clear". Not on this point: if it were, there would be no debate, and certainly no need to invoke arcane rules of interpretation to understand. Calling it elliptical is not to ignore it but to draw attention to the fact that it needs interpretation. Fortunately, it is interpreted quite explicitly at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources. "Feel free to do X" is a rather stale rhetorical device, strangely still popular on Wikipedia. It is usually deployed, as here, where X is something plainly stupid, something the opponent never did, and indeed something the proponent would not actually want to do either. Its purpose is to leave the casual reader with the impression that the opponent did do the stupid thing X but without the proponent ever having made an explicit assertion that can be rebutted. "Bottom line ..." usually introduces, as here, an assertion which is at best irrelevant, and probably incorrect, as here. It is extremely unlikely to be the case that all list entries which are not supported in the list article are actually correctly supported in the linked-to article. "You are now insisting ..." No, I did not say that. Please quote me correctly in future. Deltahedron (talk) 18:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

For goodness sake, the entire dust-up over the porn article is a clusterbomb, of rhetorical nonsense and process gaming. I put my original comment in this section to point out that a change in policy interpretation that would require source citations after each list item instead of the underlying article is not only a major change in Wikipedia practice, but in my opinion a disservice to readers and to the BLP subjects, and I explain why. That's important, I think we need to take a step back and look at the whole picture (that's what "bottom line" means, incidentally), is there actually a problem here that needs solving, and what would it mean for the encyclopedia one way or another if we adopted any of these solutions. I'm not lawyering things, I'm trying to work on the encyclopedia, but when the instigators of this latest in a series of BLP-related WP:BATTLEs chime in that there's no point discussing it because the policy is 100% clear on their side, they don't have to listen to other editors, and they can edit war against the community to have their way, I do think I need to school them a little on how to actually read a set of rules. That the exception trumps the rule is grade school logic, if they're teaching that anymore in school, but a common mistake people make. The fact that it has a latin name and dates back thousands of years doesn't mean it's too highfalutin for us to follow, quite the opposite, it's a 2+2 sort of thing. Whatever your favored interpretation, misquoting the policy page, calling the text of the BLP page "oblique", then using that know-nothing term "wikilawyering" against someone who's actually trying to use logic, accusing me of dishonesty, resorting to insults, threatening blocks, etc., as various editors have done, is not the way to support it. I haven't read the manual of style but I'll take your word for it. If that's its interpretation, it is on shaky ground and not something to follow. Most of the community does not and has not. My understanding is that someone wedged that into the style guideline in 2013 during a debate similar to this one. We should probably wedge it back out, depending on the outcome here. Indeed, this and all policies are subject to interpretation, and it takes two or three logical steps to go from the text on the page to either side's conclusion. I do believe that if you take those steps carefully, and look at what the policy says and means, and its purpose and context, it certainly permits sources to be either in the article or on the list. My point here is that always putting the sources on the list would have a negative effect. I have not quoted you, but as far as misrepresenting your position do you or do you not say that the source links should be found in the list rather than in the article? - Wikidemon (talk) 19:06, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

My assertion is that BLP policy requires the list article to have at least one citation to support the assertion that the person mentioned is a member of the class described by the list. Of course the article on the person, if there is one, should also be supported by reliable sources. Comments on other editors attitudes and education do not advance a discussion of what BLP policy is or how to implement it and are not really worth refuting further. Deltahedron (talk) 19:51, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

- List articles have always been treated differently than regular articles, being closer to categories, given their primary role in most cases as indexes ("hubs of links") rather than containers. See WP:LISTN for example - that's a case where Wikidemon's "arcane doctrine" also applies to policy; the general rules of notability for articles don't apply to lists, even though they're very clear rules. Saying that "list are articles, therefore all article rules apply to them" is ingenuous, there has never been a community-wide consensus to treat lists as articles with all its consequences. Now, BLP policy applies to all Wikipedia space; but that doesn't mean that the references must appear inline whenever BLP material appears, only that they exist - inline citations are not required at talk pages, for example.

Whether to have an inline reference in lists when the references are already in the linked article is a matter of style, not a requirement of BLP for the protection of the subjects - nobody has stated a clear case that the status of List of pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films created a risk for any of the people that were listed there (which is the spirit of the BLP policy); all I see here is people debating about nit-picky, bureaucratic rule-following for the shake of compliance with rules, not for the benefit that those rules should bring up. Diego (talk) 08:26, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikidemon, at this point, I can only assume that you are intentionally misreading the policy in order to support your position. That's always been a shoddy debating practice. It's quite true that people creating lists have tried over the years to push their obligation for sourcing onto other editors, but it's a distortion of policy to say that policy supports that effort.—Kww(talk) 13:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

If I'm at a category, there are typically no citations. So I would still have to go to all the individual articles to confirm if they're cited. How is that any different from sitting at a list and wanting to confirm individual citations? By your logic, someone could change the list to a category and you'd be fine with that - despite the fact it's no improvement to the level of citations. I could just as easily categorize Mickey Mantle into "porn actors" as I could put him on a list of "porn actors". What's the practical difference? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Kww, it looks like you just lost the debate if you have to resort to insults rather than trying to understand policy. I won't stoop to that level, so I think we're done on this particular exchange. This is an RfC on how people interpret the policy. I'm part of the majority who interpret it differently than you. Leave it at that. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm with Kww here. The policy says that for a category to appear at the bottom of an article, there must be sources on that same page that justify the inclusion of that category on that page. The principles apply equally to lists, so for a contentious item to appear in a list, there must be sources on that same page that justify the inclusion of the item on that page.
The reason that I don't support this statement as written is because it covers non-contentious items as well, and the policy does not require inline citations for non-contentious statements about BLPs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

There are generally not citations on category pages, and a category page is just another type of list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec, addressing WhatamIdoing) The phrases you put in quotes and italics are not found on the policy page. You're making an interpretation. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

You have edited long enough to know how to add an item to a category, haven't you? Can you explain a method for doing so that doesn't follow WhatamIdoing's "interpretation"? Her material certainly does follow WP:CATEGORY:"Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories."—Kww(talk) 19:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

There's no practical difference between the one kind of list and the other, yet you're taking contradictory positions on the one vs. the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:40, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm certainly struggling to see why we should have completely different policies about [1] and [2], which both appear to the ordinary reader as lists of names. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Being as charitable to the deletionists as I can, it would be a fair bet that the rules for these two types of lists were developed separately, as in "the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing." Regardless, it makes no sense to have opposite rules between two types of lists. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

(outdent) Whether I'm tending a list or category as an editor, or looking through one as a reader, I would go straight to the article and examine its text and sources to see why and if the item belongs there, and not count on the presence or absence of a single citation on a list. The exception is where a highly notable subject is on an obscure list far removed from their reason for notability. If Barack Obama appears on a list of people of Scottish ancestry I don't want to muck through the entire Obama article to see why, it's better if there is a link and/or explanation there. In the more common situation where the person is of moderate notability, say Emerson Fittipaldi being on the List of Formula One Grand Prix winners, going to the article in question is clearly more useful. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

With regards to lists versus categories, I think User:Fayenatic london has a good reasoning on his deleting Category:LGBT_Roman_Catholics. A list is a far better place for this information as grounds for inclusion can be explicitly stated, cited and discussed. A list can also be much more informative, with sections or table columns for historical period, occupation etc. I left a link to the diffs, in order to facilitate creating such a list. Personally, my view is that lists and categories are different because the former can include citations if warranted. That said, I don't believe can include citations means must have citations. moluɐɯ 13:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I really don't believe that List of burial places of Presidents of the United States would benefit from inline citations to prove that still-living US Presidents are still living and thus not buried. We have a few sky-is-blue perfectly uncontentious list entries involving BLPs. We should not require pointless make-work for these uncontested items, and we should not encourage people to make a WP:POINT by authorizing removal of such items. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose This is ridiculous. Oh no! Someone might theoretically add something to a list that isn't true, and you know all the big studios always check this list article before hiring anyone, since they don't want anyone who formerly worked in porn. In this case, their name is in the credits of everything they do. Articles for films, pornographic or mainstreaming, don't have a reference for every single actor they say is in the film. Do we remove all those cast members? Dream Focus 20:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - But per User:Deltahedron; I feel like this question is already pretty clearly addressed by Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources. NickCT (talk) 16:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
• Hearty support - Statements about living persons absolutely must be sourced where they appear, according to policy. I agree with AndyTheGrump on this one - this list has no reliable sources (IMDb is not reliable, you all know that) and he was correct to blank the page; WP:BLPREMOVE (part of a policy, not a recommendation) requires us to remove unsourced contentious material about living persons. If Andy asserts that it is contentious, then it is by definition contentious. Encouraging editors to go out and find sources or pull them from bluelinked articles is all well and good, but that does not override site policy. Ivanvector (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Do you likewise support the abolition of categories? Those are lists that likewise lack sourcing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• Bugs, all categories are supposed to be verified/verifiable, too, and supported by the article's text. Per WP:Categories,

"Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. Use the Template:Category unsourced template if you find an article in a category that is not shown by sources to be appropriate or if the article gives no clear indication for inclusion in a category."

That seems pretty clear. And, yes, I have seen various gnomes removing unsupported/unverified categories from articles. Happens all the time, and it should. Even more so if an unverified category might constitute a BLP problem. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

And I say there is no practical difference between the one type of list and the other. There's no justification for having one rule for one type of list and a different rule for another type. Either way, you can go to the linked item to see if it's a valid entry on the list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:14, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The discussion is not about whether we should have different rules for lists and categories, but how to respond to the fact that we do. A proposal to change the policy would be a different RFC. Deltahedron (talk) 19:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

No, you either have a policy or you don't. You can't claim that a citation is needed in one type of list but not another. A list is a list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

"A list", otherwise known as "a list-article", is indeed a list, but a category is not a list. (A category is a navigation tool.) Compare, for example, List of World Heritage Sites in Africa with Category:World Heritage Sites in Africa: I believe that you will find that they are rather different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

No. A category is a list with links to individual articles. It is functionally identical to what you call an "article-list". There's either a policy or there isn't. You can't have it both ways. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:08, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

A category is not functionally identical to a list: the differences, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed at length in Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, which begins "Categories, lists, and navigation templates are three different ways to group and organize articles". One of the stated advantages of a list is (7) "Can be referenced to justify the inclusion of listed articles". Hence the differences in policy to reflect the differences in functionality. Deltahedron (talk) 16:36, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that gem. So all those saying lists are functionally identical to categories and therefore they could avoid their BLP responsibilities as editors were in fact ignorant of this point. There is now not a single valid arguemnt to not be sourcing list, as things should be to avoid lists being made up by editors who do not fel they are required to justify their inclusions by reliably sourcing. It also means that in the long term all lists should be made BLP compliant at the evry least. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

You're both missing the point. If you're sitting at the top of a category, there is no practical difference to sitting on a so-called "list article". Having one rule for one and a different one for the other is ridiculous. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:43, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The guidelines I quote above list 17 eminently practical differences, so I think we can regard that as settled. Do I take it that we are now agreed that there are in fact different policies for lists and categories? Deltahedron (talk) 18:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

No. Lists and categories present the exact same BLP challenges due to very similar navigational structure, and a uniform approach to them as suggested by the current BLP section on the subject makes a lot of sense. The only relevant difference is that lists can have explanatory text or citations next to each list item, which is a lot different than establishing that they should or that they must. I mention in my opposition here that I don't think it's a good idea as a blanket requirement because there are cases where that would be a disservice to the reader and actually weaken BLP protection, but there are certainly other cases where it is helpful to have a list inclusion criterion that the list entry has a reliable source next to it. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec)The core issue of this discussion is about requiring citations on lists for allegedly "contentious" information. There is no reason to treat one type of list different from another. Either way, if you're sitting at the top of a list, you can check the citations by lookin at the article - and for categories, that's the only way you can check it, unless you embed sourcing in the category, which I don't see the manual-of-style warriors arguing for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec) My question was directed at BB who said that having different rules "is ridiculous". That seems to me to imply that BB agrees that there are indeed different rules, although they have made it clear that they do not think there should be. Is that a fair summary? Deltahedron (talk) 18:34, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, you have your work cut out for you if you hope to get BB to agree to anything. He's quite persistent in his opinions. Good luck :) - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I am trying to check exactly what BB's view is on this point (namely that BLP policy differs as between lists and categories) since it seems that we might actually agree on the point, if not on its ramifications. Deltahedron (talk) 18:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see what you're unclear on. The complaint here is supposedly about the alleged risk of alleged BLP violations in "list articles". If you're not concerned about the same gaping citations gap in category lists, then there's no valid logical argument for being concerned about it in these "list articles". And if you are concerned about it, then you should likewise be arguing for applying the same standard to categories. Both, or neither. Any other way makes no sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:52, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Then let me more explicit, if I can. Is it BB's view that current BLP policy requires a different treatment of the citation of reliable sources for contentious inclusion of names of living persons in lists to the treatment it requires for the contentious inclusions of such names in categories? We take it as read that BB feels any such difference in policy to be ridiculous, the question I am asking here is whether BB agrres with me that the difference exists. Deltahedron (talk) 19:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

So far, no one has convinced me that there even is a requirement for a redundant citation within the "list article". Some are saying yes, some are saying no. The policy must not be as crystal-clear as Squeak thinks it is. Regardless, if this is a good-faith effort to fix BLP problems and not just to feed deletionists, then the BLP rules for lists have to be consistent. If they aren't, then you haven't solved anything. Oh, and squeaking of Speak, er, speaking of Squeak, there is a topic-ban discussion for him at ANI right now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

That's clear, thank you. Your previous use of the indicative "is" rather than conditional "would be" conveyed the opposite impression. It is indeed true that various editors have expressed the opinion that, for example, "The BLP policy explicitly describes how to handle sourcing for lists" only for that explicit description to turn out to rely on tortuous rules of legal interpretation. So I can certainly agree that it is not as clear as might be desirable. Nonetheless I think it is definite, for reasons I have already given several times. The separate issue of verification of inclusion in categories, where it is not technically possible to give direct citations, is indeed problematic, but I do not think that situation likely to be improved by changing the policy to weaken the requirement elsewhere. Deltahedron (talk) 19:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, there was a discussion on possible BLP issues with categories recently: Category talk:Antisemitism#RFC on purging individuals and groups. You might be interested, although the scope of the discussion was very narrow. Ivanvector (talk) 21:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Ivanvector: As I've said elsewhere, there needs to be a limit on what counts as contentious and what is considered adequate enforcing of BLP according to the spirit of the policy, beyond which the edit warring and refusal to collaborate is considered disruptive. Otherwise, I could go to any B-class BLP article and perform a removal like this of every single sentence that doesn't have a direct inline reference within it, and keep edit warring any revert in the name of BLP enforcement way past the 3RR and refusing any request to stop or help fixing the removal; thus gutting the article to an unreadable mess that, per policy, could only be fixed by inserting a new reference within every sentence in the article. I don't consider that to be improving BLP coverage, nor that BLP justifies such unconditional removals in all circumstances, for any reason (or without a reason at all), without any kind of checks and balances, which is what people supporting the wording of this option are doing. Diego (talk) 06:22, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I disagree, I think the bar for what is considered contentious should be deliberately low for BLPs, because of the sensitive nature. The spirit of BLP is that all material on living persons must be held to the highest standards of verifiability - there's no room for leniency. If material is not verifiable we can't publish it, and in some cases that will result in paragraphs peppered with inline refs. There's nothing wrong with that, other than maybe looking kind of ugly on screen. On the other hand, if an editor is removing material which is properly sourced, then they are not protected by WP:NOT3RR and should be blocked. Ivanvector (talk) 13:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a problem for having a citation for each sentence (although WP:CITEDENSE allows for references to be placed at the end of the paragraph, or even one reference for all the content from a single source). I don't think we're actually in disagreement - having a sentence without a reference within it is not by itself enough reason to remove it, nor to say that it's not properly sourced, not even for BLP content, as it may very well be sourced at the paragraph level. My problem is with removing content without even looking whether it's properly sourced or not, which you agree is not protected by policy. I'll highlight these words from the norm you linked: "Wikipedia requires inline citations based on the content, not on the grammar and composition elements." Diego (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support - Yes, all BLPs included in a list should be supported by in-line citations per WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:RS. Frankly, so should all the dead persons who are included on any given list, too. Often, the real value to our readers of our list articles is not the list itself, but the citations that corroborate the information provided. Come on, people. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a sixth-grade book report. Everything in a well-written article or list should be supported -- why would you think otherwise? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• opposeThis is already the case per present policy. Any challenged content has to be supported with citations. ON the otherhand I think it is a very bad idea to agressively remove uncited entries as is being suggested here - many people seem to take great delight in removing entries without first making even the most trivial attempt to find a possible reference for the fact. This kind of attitude is frustrating and amounts simply to pushing the work onto others. I would support this suggestion only if it were coupled with an injunction that at least one good faith attempt to find a source should be made before removal. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Per WP:BLP policy this is a requirement - and per common sense we should be referencing lists in the way that we reference any other article. If a list is worth having, it is worth referencing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Having references is a requirement, but removing unsourced content is not. I agree with Maunus that pushing work onto others when the references are available should not be allowed (and as I explained above, I think doing that is already not allowed now per WP:CHALLENGE).Diego (talk) 19:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLP mandates the removal of unsourced content about living people which is contentious: Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.. WP:CHALLENGE is part of WP:V, which explictly defers to WP:BLP on this point. Deltahedron (talk) 19:11, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Well yes, as long as the material is contentious and without references. The entries in this list all have known valid sources. Diego (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

This section is discussing the general proposition Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed, and under BLP Policy, it may only be restored when properly cited and the assertion "Having references is a requirement, but removing unsourced content is not" contradicts BLP. If any specific list includes citations to independent reliable sources that supports the inclusion of a name in the list then that would be a reason not to remove the content. Deltahedron (talk) 21:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Precisely, this section includes the case of content for which good references are known, but are not inline - thus a matter of style, not of challenged content. WP:PRESERVE is also a Wikipedia policy; although people wanting to remove content routinely break it, it clearly says "As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the requirements of the three core content policies: Neutral point of view, Verifiability and No original research." So removing such content can't be done, by policy; and there's no contradiction with BLP: sourcing the content is compliant with policy, removing content for which references are known is not. So it seems we've arrived to the same conclusion. Diego (talk) 23:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Several people in this discussion have overstated the rule, probably because they're thinking of the specific list that prompted this. Having references for every BLP-related list entry is not "a requirement" per BLP. BLP requires citations if and only if said material is "contentious". For non-contentious material you should add citations, but you are not required to add citations. "Must" and "should" are not synonyms in our policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

As I pointed out just above, the first part of the proposition here is that "Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed", not "must". But if it is removed, then it becomes contentious to reinsert it, and BLP requires that it not be reinserted without a citation, and hence the second part, that "it may only be restored when properly cited". Deltahedron (talk) 16:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• oppose Lists and categories are generally interchangeable, and membership in the category is cited only by the citations in the article. When looking at the category page itself, no citation is visible. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support. Comment - We can and so we should. BLP demands this and rightly so to protect living people from the excesses of editors. Otherwise our verifiability standard becomes whatever editors say and not citing reliable sources. Without reliable sources these lists cannot be verified. We cannot strat putting the needs of our editors above the needs of the livign people we write about. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Haven't you just !voted twice in this thread? Diego (talk) 19:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Apologies, wasnt trying to game the system, thought it was a different poll. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - The proposal would apply to all lists of living persons, including things like List of Nobel laureates, which could be immediately blanked if this was the policy. In reality, this proposal, without limitation to controversial subject like porn, has never been policy in practice. It may well be our long term goal, though.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 17:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - If the subject in question has an article that substantiates their inclusion on the list, this just creates unnecessary workload. If its a red link or just text, then yes of course it needs to be sourced. BLP policy is important, but so is common sense. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 21:03, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - The distinction between lists and categories, which has been made much of by some !voters, is an artifact of the underlying technology, and has no reality for ordinary readers, or indeed subjects of BLPs. Inclusion in a list or category is absolutely fine as long as the name is blue linked to an underlying article on the subject which makes the case for inclusion in an immediately obvious way (for example, in the opening paragraph of the lead, or in a named section) and the underlying article is itself adequately referenced. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:17, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I referred to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates which lists some 17 differences, most of which are entirely real for readers, such as the possibility of having inline citations, which, we might recall, are there for the benefit of the reader. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists explains how to use them effectively, in ways which are largely not possible to categories, for technical reasons. In particular it mentions that "Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content as are paragraphs and articles, and they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies such as Verifiability, No original research, Neutral point of view, and others." Deltahedron (talk) 17:57, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Unless you believe that categories should never be used for contentious material that argument simply makes no sense at all. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:15, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

What argument, and why drag categories into what you think I might have meant? I was reminding you of what editing guidelines already say about lists. Do you believe those guidelines make no sense? Or is it the notion that references are there for the benefit of readers that seems so absurd to you? What exactly is it you object to here? Deltahedron (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you have said this sort of thing repeatedly and at length, despite which you have failed to convince a substantial number of posters on this page, myself included. If you really can't see why category lists such as [3] hole your argument below the waterline there is little more I can say. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:02, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Since my arguments are based in Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and you have not been able to point to any problem with those, or quote any specific point that you can refute, I conclude that your position consists mainly of disliking the conclusions. Your position, whatever it may be, would carry more weight if it was supported by policy or logical argument. As for convincing the majority or not, you will doubtless recall that Wikipedia:Consensus is "ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy", it is explicitly not a vote.

Now let me address your assertion, made above,that "The distinction between lists and categories, which has been made much of by some !voters, is an artifact of the underlying technology, and has no reality for ordinary readers", which is presumably part of your argument. I pointed out guidelines on another page giving 17 reasons to believe that there is a difference, and observe that in many of those 17, the difference is real for readers. Do you assert that every single one of those reasons is incorrect? Shall I reiterate them here for you to refute individually? Would you explain in a little more detail how the existence of the category you mention supportes the notion that there is no difference in reality between lists and categories and refutes all 17 points? Or would you like to modify your assertion somewhat? Deltahedron (talk) 16:23, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Do feel free to keep repeating the same old argument at ever greater length, and I'll be sure to let you know as and when I find in convincing. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I asked you some questions about your assertion, which you appear to be unwilling to answer. I will assume that means that the answers would tend not to support your position. (Oh, and let me refer you to a previous comment of mine on the rather stale "feel free" rhetorical device [4].) Deltahedron (talk) 17:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Jonathan, I think you are making the error of assuming that because many of us who agree with Deltahedron choose not to repeat ourselves that somehow your argument is prevailing. Quite the contrary, I see a nearly even split of !votes, and no consensus for creating an exception in BLP policy that would permit unsourced lists of BLPs. Nor do I buy the specious argument that Wikipedia lists and categories are functionally the same, because they are not. Wikipedia lists are articles and are subject to the same policies as all Wikipedia articles, including WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:RS, among others. Wikipedia categories are indexes, more akin to a table of contents or subject index than an article. The different functions and purposes of articles and categories is so self-evident that I am shocked that no one has stated the obvious until now: No, articles and categories are not the same thing, and they do not serve the same purposes -- apart from navigation. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:11, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• You're making technical arguments about categories vs. lists, which betrays the fact that this issue is not actually about BLP, it's about manual of style. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:18, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Mr. Bunny, the differences between a Wikipedia article and a Wikipedia category are not "technical arguments"; the differences are fundamental. And this has precious little to do with the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Nor will repeating yourself -- over, and over, and over again -- add any weight to your fundamentally flawed argument. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:41, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
• It's about the MOS of lists, specifically BLP lists. Categories are being drawn as a comparison, specifically technical limitations on them and citation. Trying to call his argument invalid because they are lists v. categories sounds like you're running out of ideas for what to refute. moluɐɯ 17:21, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

BB has made this point elsewhere. I note that JAJ asserts that there is no difference between categories and lists, whereas BB asserts that the argument is entirely about the difference between categories and lists. Perhaps someone would hold their coats while they settle the matter? More seriously, and perhaps surprisingly, I tend to agree with BB's point, made elsewhere, that categories can be also be problematic with respect to BLP, but of course one of the many differences between categories and lists is that it is posible for lists to have other information for the benefit of the reader about each topic other than the article titles, such as, but not only, supporting references. However the focus of the discussion is not just about how to reprepresent those references in the article, which might be a stylistic issue (and is indeed adequately covered in MOS), but also about how those requirements determine how editors respond. That is not a style issue but a BLP policy issue, and that's why it is being debated, quite properly, on this page. Deltahedron (talk) 17:30, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Referencing the lists could be considered an MOS issue, but BLP is indeed a more fitting category of discussion; however, what exact policy this discussion should fall under is pretty irrelevant, and is a distracting debate. I maintain that whether you agree lists and categories are the same or not, that the comparison used in the above arguments is certainly valid. moluɐɯ 17:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Deltahedron, you did see my point -- made elsewhere in this OOC wall of text -- that categories are also subject to being verified/verifiable and supported by article text, otherwise they are subject to being removed per Wikipedia:Categories, right? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and I quite agree that this is what BLP policy currently requires. Deltahedron (talk) 18:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

If you really cared about BLP, you would likewise be arguing to fix this gaping loophole in the category setup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I care about all sorts of things, some more than others: like most people I prioritise and focus my energies. At present we are discussing an agreed interpretation of BLP for lists. Suggesting that I don't really want that, because I'm not doing something else as well, or instead, does not serve to advance that discussion; it's pretty obviously not true, and might even be considered by more sensitive individuals to be casting some kind of aspersions on me. Well, I'm sure BB doesn't really intend to do that, and I'm sure that, like me, he prefers to concentrate on the validity of the arguments and the extent of the evidence rather than making guesses about the motivations of the people involved. Deltahedron (talk) 21:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not convinced you care anything about BLP. Lists and categories are the same thing in practice. The identical (alleged) problem exists for both. To argue about one and not the other betrays a concern about the technicalities of rules rather than on true concern about BLP issues. I'm seeing arguments here that somehow it's "not possible" to add redundant citations to category list items. If so, then someone who's really concerned about this needs to take it to the developers and tell them to make it possible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Come on now. Categories and article pages have different technical restrictions and have different standards because of that. Yes it would be nice if categories could support citations for its members, I support that. Its lack of existence is not an argument for not citing lists. Chillum 21:55, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec)Replying to BB: Thank you for your frankness, let me be equally frank in return. This is the middle of a discussion on how to interpret and act on existing BLP policy. Arguing for changes in policy or in the underlying software is not what we are doing right now. That might be desirable, and it might happen in the future -- indeed, if you care so much about these issues, why don't you start a separate discussion on those issues in another section of this page and, as I have said, I might even support that. Or not. I do not care whether you approve of my motivation, and am content to argue my position on the basis of policy and evidence. Your disparaging of other peoples motives rather than engaging with the arguments suggests that you either do not have arguments of your own, or that you are here not to advance the discussion but to disrupt it. Deltahedron (talk) 22:07, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec)"It would be nice". If you actually cared about BLP, you wouldn't be settling for "it would be nice". It doesn't matter anyway. The deletionists will win here. They always do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Bugs! Chill. It appears unlikely so far that there is a clear consensus either way. If in the end we were to move to an interpretation requiring citations on each item for all blue link lists of people, or all blue link lists that conveyed potentially contentious information about people, then the community would likely devise a tagging, rescue, and deletion schedule for old lists and an absolute policy requirement for new lists, much as it did in two other similar instances in the past, NFCC use justifications and BLPPROD. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:56, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think BB has a contribution to make to the discussion, and I don't think s/he particularly cares about BLP policy either (indeed, s/he has on more than one occasion described referencing as a stylistic matter). What BB does care about, it seems, is poking editors who do care about BLP, by attempting to wind them up with assertions that they don't care, or don't care enough. Another windup seems to be claiming that editors who care about logic and reasoned argument are being inconsistent in their thinking. That might be because BB wants to make one side or other of the argument look bad, by making its proponents look uncaring or unreasonable, but the way s/he spreads his attentions around suggests that s/he is just looking to find someone whom he can provoke into an angry or ill-judged response. I assume s/he does it for the drama value, or to gratify her/his own ego, or for self-aggrandisement; although the technique is not unknown in cyber-bullying. It's probably worth refuting any outright untruths that such people write, at least the first time, just for the record, but Wikipedia is rather deficient in mechanisms to deal with persistent low-level incivility and anti-collegiality, as the current discussions at User talk:Jimbo Wales amply demonstrate. Deltahedron (talk) 10:33, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I do care about BLP's, much more than you're aware of. Any article linked from any list needs to be properly cited. It would be as much of a BLP violation to put a porn actor in a category or other type of listof major league ballplayers as to put a major leaguer into a category or other type of list of porn actors. (If you think otherwise, you've missed out on the BLP verbal violence over seemingly mundane stuff like date of birth.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• Dirtlawyer1, on the contrary, I think your assessment of the relative support for the two positions is about right. I also happen to think that your position is likely to prevail in the end, but of course that doesn't alter the fact that I think it's wrong. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 17:47, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support of course I don't know where people get the idea that lists are somehow special. The WP:V applies to all articles including lists. The MOS for standalone list says "Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations.". Lists have been subject to the same verification requirements as any other article for the 8 years I have been here.

  Also a blue link to an article with citations is not even close to a citation, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Chillum 18:35, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support Has been policy for a while, and is just common sense. If it's already sourced in the linked article, it's not going to be a problem pulling it to the list article. All information on BLPs should be sourced where the information is presented, that's just plain BLP policy. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:06, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support If someone makes a removal on BLP grounds, that can only be reverted if a source is provided or if consensus has been reached that the original removal was in error. Sourcing cannot be palmed off on to other articles. Such a principle could not be confined to lists. Neljack (talk) 00:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but only in the case of potentially contentious lists

Each individual item in any potentially contentious list, such as lists of allegations of criminality or historically divisive topics, should be cited and may be removed until it is cited to a reliable source. Inclusion in a porn-related list is inherently contentious as persons incorrectly included on this list may find this personally or professionally damaging.

• Support. Visually , this page is a stark illustration of the currently polarized debate on this topic, with large numbers of comments above and below, and not a single comment in this middle section until now. But nothing will be accomplished until we bridge this divide, so I've tweaked the language in this middle section a bit. We need to be able to act on BLP-infringing matters but we don't want to blank many long-standing lists that are accurate and don't present any serious issues. Gamaliel (talk) 17:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - If someone doesn't belong on any given list, they can be removed. Comparing porn actors to gangsters is highly offensive original research. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Is anyone seriously making that comparison? Gamaliel (talk) 19:14, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• The first paragraph in this section. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Providing a couple of examples of potentially contentious topics is not directly equating or comparing two things. Gamaliel (talk) 23:01, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• In common English usage, YES, it does. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:45, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• If I note that apples and oranges are both fruits, apparently I am equating them. Good to know. Would you care to substitute language above that you feel makes the case that these are both potentially contentious topics without comparing them to one another? Thanks. Gamaliel (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• I don't know about gangsters here but there's clearly a stigmatization of pornography implied by mentioning criminals in the same sentence as an analogy for porn stars. I'll leave porn star pride out of it but there are certainly sex positive people who see this kind of judgment as oppressive and insulting. Refusing to be frank about sexual matters, for the supposed protection of the people involved, is among other things not an encyclopedic approach. That's a danger when declaring entire topic areas to be inherently contentious. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:04, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• As I said, I welcome alternate language to address these concerns. I have no desire to stigmatize anything, but it's not stigmatizing or being anti-sex positivity to note that there are people who would strongly object to being misclassified in such a matter and would find it personally and professionally damaging. Refusing to be frank about this will not help us address this issue. Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• Happy to support this version. The BLP policy is intended to apply to controversial ("challenged or likely to be challenged") claims about living people. Nathan ^T 19:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - It doesn't matter how obvious we think something is, Wikipedia content must be verifiable and this is particularly important when the content relates to the divide between a person's professional and private life. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support mostly. Contentious matter about BLPs requires inline citations. There are no exceptions to this rule. An item is contentious if anyone contests or WP:CHALLENGEs its inclusion. Whether some other editor believes that the challenge is based on ignorance or anti-sex bias is irrelevant: challenged is challenged, and the response should be inline citations, not complaining.
  What I don't support is the reason given for why inclusion on a porn-related list is contentious. The effect on the BLP is actually irrelevant to the determination of contentiousness. Something is contentious if it is (a) actually contested or (b) reasonably WP:LIKELY to be contested. It is the experience of our editing community that inclusion in a porn-related list is likely to be contested. We could say the same thing about a List of causes of climate change or List of health benefits from tobacco use, even though these subjects involve no BLP issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • None of the complainants here have actually challenged the contents of the list. This is strictly about manual-of-style sledgehammering. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support For non-controversial lists like "People from X", blue links are fine for references as this data should be relatively easy to extract (such as a link from the infobox, etc). For anything where the data can be controversial, the blue links are not likely going to be sufficient because you'd have to read the whole article to determine if the controversial criteria is there or not. As such, inline sourcing (or in some cases, a single header source that encapsulates the whole list) is required for each entry of controversial lists. Ideally, one will be pulling a source or two from the blue-linked article for this, so it should be trivial to complete. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose If the information is the article linked to, then no reason not to have it on the list. Someone could just as easily enter false information in the main article as in on a list. They could easily have a reference to something else, since most won't click on the link in the reference to read the actual source. I don't really see this is something that is happening though, so its not really a problem. Dream Focus 19:59, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral Something is contentious if someone thinks it is, the wording given here does not make that clear. I think our current BLP, MOS, V and other such policies already clearly cover this. Chillum 18:43, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support I think this is an accurate statement of current BLP policy, though WP:V goes further and supports the option above (requiring such referencing for all lists). Neljack (talk) 00:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Not all lists. The way around this deletionism is to get rid of the "list articles" and replace them with categories, which don't even support redundant citations, let alone requiring them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
• Strongest support possible. The manual of style enforces this point. "Being articles, stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies, such as verifiability, no original research, neutral point of view, and what Wikipedia is not, as well as the notability guidelines." BLP policy requires STRONG sourcing with respect to contentious material about living people. A blue link article is not a source, and even if that article contains strong sourcing, the RS should be included in both articles. Articles should stand on their own; Blue link articles can be changed, deleted or even point to the wrong article in cases of disambiguation. The "list" article, if it relies on a wikipedia article for a source making a potentially contentious statement could easily become unverifiable. The burden to copy or find a RS is on the editor who wishes to add or re-add the contentious statement, not on the editor who removes or challenges the statement.Two kinds of pork (talk) 07:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

No, unless there is a dispute over the factual basis

When a blue linked name of a living person is removed from a list for being unreferenced, it may be restored if the linked article supports inclusion and there is no factual dispute at that article over the characteristic supporting inclusion.

• Support In my opinion, a reference is only required where there is a factual dispute about the characteristic justifying inclusion. Where a person's blue linked article clearly labels them with a particular characteristic, and there is no dispute there or anywhere else that the label is fair, than including them on the list is neither contentious nor likely to be considered contentious, which is the trigger under WP:BLPREMOVE for requiring a reference. The blue link is not a reference, but merely a way for someone to see that a reference is not required under policy. Again though, if anyone wants to claim that the label is wrong as a matter of fact, then BLPREMOVE does require an actual reference on the list. Monty₈₄₅ 17:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Agree. BLP does not require blue link item in a list to have a verification citation next to that list item. As User:Cavarrone points out BLP currently says the exact opposite: "the case for each content category must be made by the article text and its reliable sources...these principles apply equally to lists." Lists contain links to articles that in turn provide sourcing, a practice that is standard in BLP articles and elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Requiring citations next to blue link list items would be a significant change in policy that I think is beyond the scope of this RfC. However, editors may on a case-by-case basis decide that a particular list ought to have citation sources and I would support that requirement for this particular list. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support because of Wikipedia:COMMONSENSE as well as of WP:BLP which states in the Categories/lists section: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by THE ARTICLE TEXT and ITS reliable sources." Otherwise it is just a pointy sky-is-blue dispute. --Cavarrone 17:41, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support per WP:BURDEN and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. The same principles at hand at WP:BURDEN that establish a responsibility prior to challenging unsourced content and forbid its blanket removal also apply here - one has to assert their good faith belief to make a case that the content is controversial and unverifiable, otherwise page blanking is considered disruptive (see also WP:MINREF - "section blanking may be vandalism, rather than a demand for inline citations"). Following the letter of policy while ignoring its intent, like when deleting content that is known to be true and verifiable, is not a good use of WP:BLP - given that this case is one of article style, not content substance; BLP material that is referenced one link away is not "unsourced or poorly sourced", it's just improperly formatted. The expected behavior of an editor who knows that the material can be sourced is to add the citation themselves. Diego (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support If the list is compiled from existing WP articles on these individuals where the assertion is being made that they indeed are a porn actor and that assertion is reliably sourced and there is no dispute about the sourcing that supports that assertion, then exactly what is contentious. The list itself is not making a contentious assertion about anyone, it's merely listing people who have already been identified through sourcing as being a porn actor. If someone wanted to dispute the sourcing making the assertion at that person's article page, then it would stand to follow that they would then be removed from the list as well. Isaidnoway (talk) 19:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• SupportUsing BLP policy to blank articles everyone knows is verifiable is just pointy and disruptive. Making 'contentious' assertion is just another excuse. Especially when you know your claims are false. There is no dispute about the sourcing, only the methods. Dave Dial (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support with reservation. The claim should be supported by the article about the list item, and the claim in the article itself is subject to the normal sourcing requirements. In other words, this does not in any way weaken RS or BLP, it simply allows latitude as to where the sourcing sits. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC).
  
• Support - for all of the above reasons and the observation that its just not practical. Some lists can have 100's or 1000's of entries. If the destination of a blue link that contains references to confirm what is being listed exists, let it stand. Furthermore I'd like to add that this attribute could just as easily by a Category and there would be no recourse for adding a reference of any kind. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support It's ridiculous to have redundant sourcing just because two people want to take an overly strict interpretation of the words of BLP policy. Strict BLP policy is actually a good idea, and in theory prevents maybe Libel lawsuits due to unsourced information being regularly deleted from articles. In this case, the aforementioned articles in the list have the citations within them but it is expected by two editors (who have reverted more than 3 times under BLP umbrella) that we are to harvest sources from these articles and that it must be done in spirit of BLP policy. No, we are not a bureaucracy and do not have to bend to this specific interpretation of policy. Indeed, one of the pillars guiding Wikipedia is that we do not have firm rules. Tutelary (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

We've got redundant sourcing all over the place. Haven't you seen similar claims referenced in more than one article before? If I reference a claim about Marie Curie in the Marie Curie article, do I then not need to provide any references related to her in any other context where her life and achievements are described? If I add a reference in Columbia University to a claim about Dwight D. Eisenhower, do I then not need to source it on the Dwight D. Eisenhower article itself? Nathan ^T 16:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Fairly clearly there are only a narrow set of circumstances where sourcing s required. In this scenario appropriate sourcing is present, and available with a little effort. Given that sourcing can be to, for example, a scarce book that costs hundreds, or requires a lengthy library trip to consult, sourcing that is indirected through a blue link should not to be considered "inaccessible". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

In what circumstance would a reference for whether or not someone is a porn star be found only in a scarce, enormously expensive book? That's a strange assertion. In any case, the principle holds - controversial claims must be sourced in each context in which they appear, lest we establish that "x is sourced somewhere, therefore we need not source it here" is the new and correct interpretation of WP:V. Such a strange outcome might lead some bot operator or script user to go through and remove a million "duplicate" references. Nathan ^T 19:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support - "where a list is full of blue links to the articles of the personalities being listed and the linked articles do support inclusion in the list, does BLP Policy justify blanking those entries without inline citations?"

No. What's been unfortunately going on recently with respect to many pornography-related articles is that a very few users (when they see Wiki-linked names on pornography-related articles) choose to blank those names entirely without any attempt to simply click on the blue-linked article names and see if there are reliable sources that those names are, in fact, associated with known adult industry performers.

"The expected behavior of an editor who knows that the material can be sourced is to add the citation themselves." Exactly...what those few users also unfortunately refuse to do (in almost all circumstances when not confronted by an administrator) is to simply copy those same reliable sources from the blue-linked articles over to the pornography-related Wikipedia article that was originally "in question" in the first place. This kind of "pointy" behavior is fundamentally disruptive to collaborative editing, and it unfortunately is a too common attempt to use phony "BLP concerns" as a shield for one's edits. Wikipedia BLP policy should not be used to push one's own agenda, no matter what that personal agenda is. Guy1890 (talk) 21:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support - As long as doubt can be removed by a veritable source... I think anyone who was unfamiliar with Wikipedia would probably click the link to the article first; anyone familiar may check a reference. If there is no reference, I'd expect the regular to click the article on the person. Where the reference is placed is overly bureaucratic and it hinders the goals of list makers more than it helps the readers. If someone wants to add extraneous references to the list, I don't see any reason to object, but blanking a list because the sources are not directly on the page is ridiculous. It's like you're building a tower out of Legos, but half of the bricks you need are 5 feet away. Instead of scooting over to them, you just knock the tower down. moluɐɯ 22:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

  Changing stance to Neutral - While I still firmly believe my reasoning above for supporting, the editors opposing and their arguments are leaving me with some doubt as to future invocation and application of such a rule. moluɐɯ 16:29, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support BLP requires explicit referencing of controversial material Stuartyeates (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - If the article is BLP compliant and the claim is well referenced, then it is redundant to do the same on the list. There is no BLP issue whatsoever -the claim is meant to be sourced in the article. The list is just a pointer to the articles, which contain their individual sourcing. If someone wants to add such sources to the list as well, then by all mean do that, but as long as the article is properly referenced there is no reason to remove the entry.--cyclopia^speak! 17:35, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support - For many of the reasons already stated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose This leads to maintenance problems as pages get out of sync. I can easily imagine hoaxing this way: add a contentious statement and a ghost citation to the article about Joe Film, link it on the List of evil people, have your garbage reverted out of the first, but no one noticed your second effort. Even if you started off with real citations and reasonably accurate information, they can get lost due to editing and merging. The only reasonable safeguard is to require citations on every page that contains the contentious material about the BLP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Hoaxes can just as easily be made via categories, which in spite of being just another type of list, don't seem to require direct citations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:15, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Sourcing for controversial information should be immediately available as an inline source. While it is likely that the fact is sourced on the blue-linked article, it requires some work to "extract" that. We don't do that with block quotes or other controversial facts, it should not be an allowance for list of persons grouped by a controversial aspect. --MASEM (t) 19:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Then categories should likewise have "immediate availability" without having to link to the individual article. Yet they aren't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • We should not be using categories for contentious topics in the first place. Mind you, there is the hypothetical cross categorization of "port actors" and "mainstream actors", but either bit of information should be a thing readily verified on their page; it's the immediately cross relation page like this list that is the problem. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
      • • There is no practical difference between lists and categories. You're promoting contradictory standards. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
      • Let me add that the hypothetical example that I am considering here is an actor that may have started in the porn industry but under a stage name but got a break and later got into real films upon which he used his real name; in such case, unless we have a BLP-quality source that equates the stage name to the real name, then we would have separate articles for these people (assuming both notable), and we would not classify the real name as someone previously working in porn. We would categorized the stage name article as a porn actor, and the real name article as a mainstream actor, neither which are contentious facts. But then making a connection between the two that a BLP reliable source does not provide is where the problem starts. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
        • That's not the complaint. The complaint is that the persons named in this specific type of list are lacking citations... which is false on its face. The citations are in the respective articles... just as they are on a category page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
          • This may surprise you, but I don't even care what the situation is at the list that started this discussion. We've been asked what the policy should say for all lists, not just for one list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
            • Well, the outcome of this RfC is certainly going to apply to that list too, isn't it? So maybe you should educate yourself as to the effects of what you're supporting as a result of your positions for all lists, including that one. Diego (talk) 22:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
              • If the decision is for redundant citations on all lists and not just certain ones, that would be good, or at least consistent. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support Clicking on the blue link to the person's article is just as easy as clicking on a reference link. Stop being ridiculous. Dream Focus 19:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
• SupportUser:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Masem's comment above: every list with BLP constituent list items should have in-line citations supporting the inclusion of individual list items. Why is this so hard, people? Do it -- it's the right and proper thing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support. However, adding a reference from the subject article, when restoring to entry to the list, should be encouraged. Likewise, no editor should remove a blue link entry from a list before at least spending 5 seconds reviewing the entry, absent exigent circumstances (e.g., mass vandalism suspected)--Milowent • ^hasspoken 17:37, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Every article on Wikipedia should stand on its own. Because A links to B which has a RS stating A is a porn actor is not sufficient. What happens if B changes or is deleted? The claim that A is a porn actor is no longer verifiable. And to those clamoring for others to bear the burden of copying cites from B to A, I say to you "Tough Titty". It is not the responsibility of those removing unsourced, contentious claims to look for existing sources, regardless if there is a "blue" article or not.Two kinds of pork (talk) 22:11, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose A blue link will never be a reference. The linked article can change. Each article is responsible for its own citations. Returning a name that was removed per BLP without providing a reference in the same article/list is a violation of BLP and it should be. No returning contentious information about living people without an inline reliable source, it is that simple. WP:V places the same burden for non-living subjects, BLP should not have a lower standard. Chillum 18:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support. Cheers and Thanks, L235-Talk Ping when replying 00:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Masem and Chillum. Neljack (talk) 00:46, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

General Discussion

I really don't see that there is any room for debate in this instance - WP:BLP policy is clear that unreferenced contentious material on living persons must be "removed immediately and without waiting for discussion" (emphasis in original). A blue link isn't even remotely a 'reference', and an unreferenced assertion that someone is a pornographic actor is clearly contentious. WP:BLP policy doesn't have a get-out clause that says we can ignore the need for references if we think something may be true.

With regard to the more general case, as a matter of principle we should be encouraging sourcing for any article or list, and where lists include living persons it needs to be borne in mind that almost any inclusion has the potential to prove controversial. If a list is noteworthy enough to merit inclusion in Wikipedia, individual inclusions must be noteworthy enough to merit proper sourcing, I'd have thought - and the more potential for controversy there is, the greater the need is for strict enforcement of sourcing requirements. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

On a personal note I find it frustrating that people are more willing to criticize BLP enforcement than to fix the problem in the way BLP requires, which is to reliably source each entry of any living person on any list. Otherwise I could create a list of war criminals and put Barak Obama on the list because I, a humble editor) think he is a war criminal with no need to reliably source my claim. Having a blue link is not evidence that somebody is a porn star and I would have thought BLP is very clear that to include people in porn lists need reliably sourced references. If we make an exemption for porn we are breaking our BLP policy and our watermark of verifiability not truth. I personally do not believe a group of porn article editors can break our BLP policy so easily. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I invite you to not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. Now, the difference between the example you're citing is that Barrack Obama's article does not say that he is a war criminal. Now, say the UN comes to a unanimous conclusion that he was, and it was added to his Wikipedia article (and wasn't contentious material or disputed by other editors). Then, he could be included and WP:BLP policy would not prohibit it. Now, on every single blue linked article on that page, the lead or the article itself demonstrates that they are/were a pornographic actor. It's in the article and isn't disputed. What you are doing on the article is that you are blanking the page and are not disputing any specific person on the list that you have a problem with, which we've already asked you about, but you have a problem with the lack of citations when there are already blue linked articles. Tutelary (talk) 17:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

There is clearly no BLP issue here current policy does not require citations on lists of wikilinks. Squeakbox, why aren't you helping to fix the problem you perceive instead of edit warring? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:23, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Well I could ask that question of you too, wikidemon. I prefer to wait till the drama has calmed down and it has been established that BLP must be enforced here. And BLP policy requires the removal of this material but it does not require its addition so I need to enforce BLP first and the get on with finding refs. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP policy requires that unreferenced contentious material be removed, plain and simple. There is nothing whatsoever in it about Wikilinks providing some sort of exception to this policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Nor is there anything about worrying about being disruptive when enforcing BLP, and nor is enforcing BLP "making a point", its real editing to protect real living people. If all these articles demonstrate that these people are porn actors it should not be difficult to reliably source each one and return it to the article, Tutelary, problem solved. But of course the inclusions were disputed the moment I, a wikiepdia editor, disputed them. People dont blank pages citing real BLP concerns, they rempove BLP violations and claiming I was page blanking will not be confirmed by any diffs. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Please reread the policy page, it is not on your side. BLP does permit these lists. See the section on links, lists, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP policy requires that contentious material be referenced. It makes no exception whatsoever for lists - it explicitly states that "These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and {{Infobox}} statements (referring to living persons within any Wikipedia page) that are based on religious beliefs or sexual orientation or suggest that any living person has a poor reputation". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Now back up 2 paragraphs to see the first of "these principles" is: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." - Wikidemon (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Lists and categories are not the same thing. If an article contains a category, that article already should contain the citation to a reliable source to support the categorization as well. A list stands alone, and the sources for that list need to be contained within the list.—Kww(talk) 19:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The policy page says that the same principles "apply equally to lists", that "the case must be made clear by article text and its reliable sources", i.e. at the linked-to article. If the policy intended to treat lists differently than categories it would say so. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

One statement in BLP related to inclusion in categories of people doesn't somehow magically erase WP:RS: Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and cannot be used as a source in other articles.—Kww(talk) 02:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP does not say the Wikipedia article is used as a source, it says the sources are in the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

And what if A) the wrong article is linked too (disambiguation) B) the article is deleted C) the article is changed? The "link" is no longer providing a RS.Two kinds of pork (talk) 08:15, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Squeakbox, you clearly could not add Barak Obama to List of war criminals with impunity, because the article Barak Obama does not support his categorization as a war criminal. If it did it would require appropriate sourcing in the article. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 3 August 2014 (UTC).

And if I, say using a sockpuppet, add the name of some just notable enough blogger to a porn list. Where is the guarantee that person's name will be deleted if we cannot even be bothered to demand reliable sources for their inclusion? Or does every 3rd editor have to check back to the bio article in every case, creating far more work than adding a citation. And why? Because people dont want to do the tedious work of adding citations to porn lists. That is not a good reason to break BLP. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, duh! Because of people like you and Andy who are constantly patrolling for BLP violations, that's why it will be deleted. Along with the rest of us who just want the articles to have accurate information. As for tedious work, I spent 4 HOURS adding references that you reverted in about 5 seconds. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:39, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You spent four hours without wondering whether IMDB was considered to be a reliable source?—Kww(talk) 20:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, with over 70,000 mentions of IMDb on this site[5], many of which are inline citations for the cast and crew of various productions, no I didn't wonder at all... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Scalhotrod, I actually dont spend all my wikipedia time patrolling for BLP violations but I can think of no more noble or useful thing to be doing on this project. I am not entirely conviced you do want accurate information because, according to my reasoning, if this were important to you and certain other editors, you would be fully supporting my BLP compliance attempts, as some editors have done, and you would not have made the false accusations that I am trying to undermine our porn coverage on wikipedia simply because I am asking for BLP compliance today. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Squeak, I am in full support of BLP compliance, I'm just not in support of your bizarre interpretation of policy or your disruptive efforts... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 21:02, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Scalhotrod, what is bizarre about wanting reliable sources for claims made in an article about living people? And how is removing those unsourced names disruptive? I cant see how one or the other could be so. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's not a good reason to blank the whole page either. I reject the idea that BLP should be enforced based on the article's status rather than the truthiness and verifiability of the knowledge represented. Had you and AndyTheGrump reviewed each entry in the list to challenge only those entries that have unreliable sources (or no sources at all) at their linked articles, thus detecting a real problem with sourcing, I would have a lot more respect for your position.

A challenge to the whole list because a of a defect in form creates a backlog of work for other editors, plus an urgency that the problem must be solved right now for fear of the risk that the content be lost to the article history. That is a good thing to do when there's an actual probability that it may risk someone's online reputation. But as it is with this case, where all entries have been already reviewed by the editors crafting the list and there's no one who actually believes there's a problem with the asserted facts, editors making the challenge should be expected to assume at least a fraction of the work to ensure that there's indeed something severe to fix. Under these circumstances, a requirement that others stop everything they're doing and fix the problem right now, just because now is when you've found about it is not the way that collaboration among editors should be set to happen. Diego (talk) 20:55, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

P.S. The morale would be that burn on sight all content without an inline reference, without bothering to check whether it's reliably sourced at some easy to find place elsewhere is NOT the way we want to go enforcing the BLP policy, as it's a highly asymmetrical way to go on reviewing the verifiability of possibly contentious material and thus a disruptive process. Go on challenging individual statements all you want after you tried *and* failed to verify each of them, but don't bulk delete when there's evidence that the references are at hand without checking them nor trying to add them yourself first - that has always been unacceptable, and certainly not in the spirit of neither WP:V nor WP:BLP. Diego (talk) 21:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Diego, I did indeed check every entry and only removed those without reliable sources, there can be no question that that is how I did it. And Andy merely reverted back to what I had done. If I had found entries with reliable sources I would have left them as my only concern here is BLP compliance. BLP does not require me to look for reliable sources before removing the names of living people and it is right that it does not require me to do so as the whole emphasis is on removing the offending material before even discussing the issue. The time tolook for reliable sources is later on, and I am sure i will be doing so once all the dramma has died down. But if not, others can do so, thematerial is all well stored int he history so reinsertion is technically easy once a ref has been found. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

And where exactly did you look, that you missed all the existing sources? WP:Verifiability does not require that the references are placed inline. And BLP may not require you "to look for reliable sources before removing" content, but WP:BURDEN certainly does ("When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that there may not be a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."). Diego (talk) 06:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

This whole discussion does not seem to get the fundamental principal on Wikipedia is that it is the responsibility of those seeking to include information to meet policy. If it does not meet policy it can be removed, BLP or not. It is not the job of the person removing it to fix it. If someone wants a name put back then do the research and return it. If nobody bothers to look up a reference then it should not be here.

The types of changes discussed here would be better discussed on WP:V which has the same standards of the burden being on the person seeking to include, which says blue links are not references. If we make BLP less strict than WP:V then we have missed the whole purpose of BLP. Chillum 18:51, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

The main hole in that argument is that the blue link list items meet policy to begin with, as they are verified by reliable sources in the target article. You think they do not; Wikipedia convention and a substantial but not overwhelming number of commentators here think that in a BLP context they do. If you think something is inconsistent with policy you may challenge it. The burden of other editors is to make sure it does, not to convince you and every last doubter. As for jobs, one expectation of every editor here is to work together in a collaborative fashion to create an encyclopedia. Making messes for other editors to clean up, if you have been asked to stop, is certainly falling below that expectation. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:05, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists#Citing sources

"Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations". Contentious BLP material is of course one of the 'four kinds of material' where lists must be 'sourced where they appear'. No wiggle-room here, the list requires sourcing. On the list page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Then go on and add them yourself. What good do you expect will come from blanking the article? Diego (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Compliance with policy. And no, I am under no obligation whatsoever to clear up other peoples' mess. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

But you feel entitled to put others under obligation to fix yours? When you haven't checked that the material is contentious and unverifiable, you're not complying with policy by removing it, you're actually breaching WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN. Diego (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Believe me, Diego, when I say I checked the material was contentious when I looked at the article's title. I then checked every person for a reliably sourced ref and when I found none I was forced to remove all the names. Nobody is claiming the material was or is unverifiable, merely that it was and mostly is unverified. So I was definitely complying with BLP policty and those other policies you are quoting at me do not trump an urgent need to remove non compliant BLP material about living people, in this case sex workers. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Then I feel pretty safe in calling Squeak a liar. It took me 4 hours to just copy/paste a reference for each entry on that list that I added here which was reverted 4 minutes later by Andy the Grump here, which I re-added 3 minutes later here.

It took Squeak all of one minute to revert it again here. Sure, you thoroughly checked it... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 21:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

LOL, "I checked every person for a reliably sourced ref and when I found none I was forced to remove all the names."! Here SqueakBox is just lying, and these are that kind of ridicolous, blatant lies which has no chance to be trusted here. It is sufficient to check the first name in the list, Abigail Clayton, and her article lists multiple RS attesting she is an adult actress. The same with the second name Aino Kishi, a bunch of RSs, the same with the others. Also look at his edit history: he blanked the page a few minutes after this bold removal in another sex-related article and just a dozen of minutes after this one. Cavarrone 22:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course I was not lying, Cavarrone. I checked the names of every person on the list in the article itself. It took me a couple of mins at most. I did not see any need to check the articles of the porn stars themselves and nor was I willing to start the long task of reliably sourcing these people BEFORE removing the BLP non compliant material and I fully stand by that decision. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Not lying, just playing word games. SB did not bother checking the list for sourcing, they just edit warred to delete it with a weird justification that few editors agree with. The "I am under no obligation to deal with messes I create on Wikipedia for other editors" attitude is toxic. If acted on, it becomes tendentious. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

No word games. You cannot expect an editor to spend an afternoon wading through 50 bios to verfy other editor's unsourced asserttions, BURDEN places that duty on those who added the material and to put that on me would require a change in policy as well as being unfair. And that would take hours whereas the BLP violations had to be removed prior to discussion, ie with some sense of urgency. And if I had verified the 50 bio. So what? The next editor would have to verify them to. Editors expecting this kind of ridiculously overtasking so they dont have to maka the effort of reliably souring is getting everythign the worng way round and in the emantime we are not guaranteeing our BLP polciy with a contentious subject like porn. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay — if we're talking about this edit[6] then we can accept on good faith that SqueakBox did look at every reference, and because they were all to IMDB, concluded that none of them met the burden of reliable sourcing imposed by BLP, reverted to an earlier version that had only two names on it with different references. Cavarrone, I think there are some places in this discussion where twisting of the record does go over the line as far as lying, but this is not such a case, and it would be helpful if we can steer this discussion towards explaining editors' understanding of policy. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• The person meets the Wikipedia notability requirement. An exception to this requirement may be made if the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have a Wikipedia article about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to: a) establish their membership in the list's group; and b) to establish their notability on either BLP1E or BIO1E. (emphasis added)
• The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources.

Special care must be taken when adding living persons to lists based on religion or on sexual orientation. For further information, see Wikipedia's policy on biographical information about living people, in particular the category/list policy for living persons. Isaidnoway (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I would say living people on porn lists are amply covered by sexual orientation as needing special care especially as some will almost certainly be involved in gay porn. So this should hopefully quieten those who are claiming that porn work is not by definition contentious as understood in the BLP policy. By saying it is contentious we are not claiming porn workers are contentious but that their profession means we need to pay special care to how they are portrayed as living people on wikipedia. So we should not be looking to change the policy to give some editors a way of avoiding BLP at the expense of the living people they are writing about. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I would say living people on porn lists are amply covered by sexual orientation as needing special care especially as some will almost certainly be involved in gay porn. I'm not sure how to respond to most of that without making a fool of myself. These people have sex for a living as actors. A man having sex with another man in a pornographic film isn't any more definitive proof that he's gay than The Terminator is for proving Arnold Schwarzenegger is a robot from the future. I'm not well versed on what weird exceptions, if any, there may for the LGBT WikiProject to include a person on a list by sexual orientation, but I do know that a publicized statement of sorts (such as openly stating sexual orientation or announcing a relationship) is generally, if not always, required. As far as porn is concerned, I can't consider an act performed for money on film to be a statement of orientation. I think citing "gay porn" is merely a strawman being set up that would just unnecessarily make involved an extremely sensitive issue. moluɐɯ 23:04, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

What you are saying may be true but even so it does not in any way lessen the care and attention these people deserve and nor must we forget the impact that wrongly placing someone on a list might have and these people wrongly placed would not be porn workers and might well not agree with your interpretation of what is or is not gay and might well be extremely irate at being wrongly accused by wikipedia of being a porn star. So sexual orientation is important because it is an important theme in all porn, its part of the sex act itself. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

If the people on that list are being culled from existing articles on WP that are already in compliance with WP:BLP, then by including them on that list, we are not making any new assertions about that person. You seem to want to carve out a niche for porn actors specifically and require that anywhere they are mentioned, a RS should be included to back up that assertion, regardless if the assertion has already been sourced and verifiable in their bio. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Nope, Isaidnoway , because while we can assume the bio article is BLP compliant we cannot assume it is a bio of a porn star. Not without checking the bio itself. What you have to do is rely on the editor who added it to the list or check yourself becuase not all bios are of porn stars on wikipedia. This belief that a blue link is evidence that someone is a porn star is patent nonsense and too many editors have been spreading it. Unless we trust 100% in editor judge3ment (which is a huge shift form current BLP policy) we have to rely on reliable sources. What you are propoing is that nay editor does not have to provide proof of his edition of a bio article to a list of porn stars and thatbthe burden is on the reader or other editors to check this information out themselves or trust the editor. I would rather trust relaible sources and so I think would the living people we write articles about as well as the WMF, who would have ot deal with the defamation cases. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

♫ SqueakBox talk contribs The article in question is now being rehabilitated to comply with all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. It's also important to remember that this article is several years old and this is a mass undertaking, so I think good faith is being shown here by the editor's working on the article and a little time would be appreciated in the rehabilitation. A little collaborative effort is always welcome too. As far as your argument is concerned, it has been noted, and I will leave it at that, and defer to the consensus on this page pertaining to this issue.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Isaidnoway Collaboration is exactly what I am looking for. All hosde editors who add reliably sourced names are collaborating with me, ad lets face it if I hadnt done what I did the article would still have no reliable sources in it, although many an editor would not have dared givent eh incredible level of abuse I have had to put up with by editrs who had found something "better" to do than collaborating with my effort to get BLP compliance. In term of time the WikiPorn project had 6 months notice and as I was first enforcing BLP back in January on porn articles. When I remove non BLP complint entires the work is not detroyed, it is there in the history where it can very easily be pulled out agin, a source added and re-added t the live version. There is zero need to add any non BLP compliant names. Brad was right about tackiling the most important cases first and being cautious and this is behaviour I have stuck to all along, and when the furor dies down I will certainly be doing more BLP enforcement on porn articles and hope and trust others will collaborate then as well. If the wikiPorn team had been willing to collaborate back in January rather than fighting my proposals form the opening (how dare I enforce BLP on porn) there would not now be nay porn lists that were not 100% orn compliant. All I want is collaboration. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC) Isaidnoway

And help editing the article is exactly what I am looking for when I speak of a collaborative effort. And as I said above, I will defer to the consensus on this page, rather than rely on the opinion of one editor.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 00:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not an article is BLP compliant is not an indicator of whether it should appear in a porn list. How do you know the article asserts the person listed is a porn star and has appeared in mainstream films. It might be a BLP compliant article and assert no such thing. Seeing a blue link to an unknown name verifies nothing other than that this named person has a bio article. It gives no clue as to the nature of the article or the person. You are making 2 new assertions because you dont know what the bio says, or not without checking the bio pages out of each eprson on the list and that should not and must not be required in order to establish verifiability on a porn list page. Each wikipedia page must stand on its own. Othewerwise nobody knows whether your list is reliable or is pure original research without doing a massive personal checking process. We avoid such a cumbersome approach to verifiability by having reliable sources. Telling me I have to read 50 or 100 porn bios if I want to prove the verifiability of assertions other editors have made is not verifiability. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

What you are saying makes no sense. If you wanted to verify the reliability of whether every person that is included on that list should be listed, then you are still facing the daunting task of having to click through 50 or 100 reliable sources (citations) to establish that verifiability. Same difference of clicking through their bios. Isaidnoway (talk) 00:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's a bit of a loaded sentence, so I'm sorry if I can't fully comprehend it, but... The two things I see being mentioned are specific situations about care being taken to handle sexual orientation, and whether or not a film is porn. The issues can be dealt with as such for each question: "What is this person's sexual orientation?", what have they stated it to be? "Is this film porn?", is it (to put it politely) an erotic film meant to arouse its audience? The general case is pretty clear cut. Your focus is sounding to me like hypothetical specific situations where Wikipedia would be held accountable for libel, but I fail to see how these situations are particularly relevant to this sub issue of pornographic actors on lists with links to articles that contain reliable references, much less the main issue. moluɐɯ 23:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

But how do you know those reliable sources you talk about reference what you are claiming they reference? You dont cos you havent even seen them so you could not possibly know whether or not these claims are referenced in another article. Its pure specualtion on your part and because of this, you asset, BLP can be ignored. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

That's mincing words. If you can't be bothered to check another article that is clearly linked, how can you be bothered to check a particular reference? I'm not asking BLP to be ignored, nor is this speculation. If I have a reliable source on an article linked from a list, I consider that perfectly valid for verifying a statement. If the statement does indeed turn out to be false or not supported by the source, it's an entirely separate issue. It becomes a case of "This statement isn't verified by the source so I'm removing it from this article for now. As such, I am also removing this person from a list that was dependent on this statement and source." moluɐɯ 23:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Note:MOS is a guideline, not a policy. This wording was added in 2013 during a discussion on the talk page about this very question. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

Note

Since no proposal to revise WP:BLP policy requiring references for contentious material is being made here, and since WP:BLP policy does not state that a blue link is a reference, this RfC is pointless - we cannot reach a 'consensus' to ignore policy, regardless of what is decided here. Unless and until WP:BLP policy is revised, the removal of unreferenced names from the list is required under existing policy, and the inclusion of such names is a violation, end of story. If people wish to propose a revision to WP:BLP policy, they are free to do so (though the WMF might possibly have something to say on this). AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Is there any contentiousness about folks like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy being porn actors? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:37, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLP policy requires sources, end of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Without sources of course the answer is yes. After all they are living people and so entitled to protection under our BLP policy. Lets assume we havent heard of any of these people, I hadnt heard of Ron Jeremy till editing yesterday. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You're wrong. The answer is NO. There is no contention whatsoever over Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson being porn actors, any more than there is contention that Mike Trout is a major league baseball player. Your ignorance of the subject, betrayed by only having ever heard of him yesterday, demonstrates that you're incompetent to be discussing this issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you checked the page we're on? This is the BLP policy talk page so a consensus on this page could indeed change the policy. However, current policy does not require citations for this sort of list, and this RfC is posed too narrowly to suggest an outcome of adding that requirement. In its more limited question, a consensus here that the article should or should not have link citations would certainly apply to this article. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Re "we cannot reach a 'consensus' to ignore policy" — It's not a matter of ignoring policy, it's a matter of correctly applying policy. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Yup - and policy is entirely unambiguous. Unreferenced contentious material concerning living persons must be removed immediately. Nowhere does it suggest that a blue link is a reference - because quite obviously it is nothing of the sort. We don't cite Wikipedia as a source. Ever. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:51, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The dispute seems to be based on what the policy means by contentious material. My understanding is that contentious material are facts which someone claims may not be true. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

And you don't think that unreferenced assertions that people are pornographic actors might prove contentious? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's a matter that they might prove to be contentious, it's a matter of whether they are contentious. I think that's what the policy pertains to when it refers to "contentious material" rather than to "material that might be contentious". --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

There are two halves to the question: are the assertions contentious, and are the assertions inadequately sourced. Neither is a sufficient condition for the other, so it's best to treat them as two separate issues. As to whether being a porn actor is contentious, that depends. If you said that about Paris Hilton because of her sex tape, perhaps. If you said that about Ron Jeremy, clearly no, that is not a contentious claim. In my opinion it would be a big mistake, as you say, to categorically regard all discussion of pornography as contentious because it might be contentious for some people but not others. The more direct question here is whether BLP and WP:V require citations for blue links of this type, if the sources are found in the linked article. A couple editors are saying yes, others (and Wikipedia practice) say no. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

The sources you talk about may or may not be in the subject article, this is why wikipedia has long rejected inline citations. Its best we assume nobody has even heard of Ron Jeremy and assume all porn work is contentious in nature when it comes to BLP. If porn work is not contentious almost nothing is and BLP would fall apart because everyone would be clamouring for a BLP exemption "just like the one the porn project has". ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 19:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting that a blue link is a reference, it is merely an indirection to appropriate sourcing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC).

But BLP requires explicit sourcing otherwise it is the editor who decides if someone should be in a list and not the reliable sources. And these appropriate reliable sources may not exist. Having an article, for instance, is not evidence of being a porn star. But a reliable source will indicate said individual is say a porn star without each and every new editors having to chase down the same sources allegedly found in the bio article, causing an endless cycle of unnecessary work AND violating BLP. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

If no one is challenging the fact that a person is a porn star, why would you challenge them being on a list of porn stars? Surely you're not claiming that they will be insulted by the Readers of Wikipedia knowing that they (aghast!) appeared in mainstream, non-porn, productions? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

You are presuming the answer. The question is not about any individual listing, it's about whether an unsourced statement that someone is a porn star can be allowed to stand (and again, a blue link is not a reliable source, for the very same reason that we don't permit citations to Wikipedia articles).—Kww(talk) 20:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP requires a higher threshold than you are wanting. My plan is to check the verifiability of individual porn stars re BLP later on when I have the time. So either propose a policy change or accept our high standards for today at least. I am challenging these names because I want to see them reliably sourced, to protect their reputations as living people, to protect wikipedia's reputation as reliable and verifiable and to improve our porn coverage by making it BLP complaint as of today. Making the concerns of living people who are porn workers into a joke is not amusing, User:Scalhotrod. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

@Kww, if I understand your statement correctly you're saying that every time a (notable with an article) person is mentioned on Wikipedia and they are mentioned as being in the Adult industry and/or in association with their status as a performer in that industry that it should include an inline citation to explain why this claim is being made? So for example, when its mentioned in Charlie Sheens article that he is dating a porn star (and her name is given) or more recently that he got engaged to one, that a citation is specifically required, correct? How are we going to managed the cleanup of that? Ron Jeremy alone is mentioned over 5,000 times. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Each article certainly requires an inline citation to that effect. No need to repeat it every time the name is mentioned in the same article.—Kww(talk) 22:13, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

So there are several thousand articles that mention Ron Jeremy that may require updating by your assessment. I'll split it with you, care to start from the top or the bottom? We'll meet in the middle. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 22:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I tell you what: since you want to include the material, add citations. That's what WP:BURDEN demands of you. I won't specifically search out the articles that mention him, but I'll remove the uncited material when I wander across it.—Kww(talk) 23:02, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

That would be pointiness in the extreme. Try not to make Wikipedia look stupid. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:44, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The core complaint is bogus. There is no contentiousness over Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson, for example, being porn actors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but WP:THATSBOGUSSOWECANIGNOREPOLICY appears to be a redlink... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Your argument is based on "contentious material". Jeremy and Jameson being porn actors IS NOT "contentious material". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Without a source, it's a contentious statement. What you are basically saying is "since I already am familiar with sources, there is no obligation for anyone to provide one." That's ludicrous on its face.—Kww(talk) 00:14, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Why does Mike Trout not need a citation in lists that contain his name? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Kww, but this is where the zealotry of BLP enforcement is rather silly. There is nothing contentious about the statement that people like Jeremy, Jameson and Lords are/were porn stars. It doesn't become contentious simply because you say so any more than an unsourced statement that Wayne Gretzky played hockey becomes a BLP violation because someone chooses to dig their heels in the ground. The real issue with this list is the lesser known actors. Those are the ones where I agree that it is valid to make such a claim of contentiousness. However, we now have pages and pages of arguments because both sides have chosen to act stupid. This was a minor problem with an easy solution: Squeakbox blanks (or preferably, asks an associated project to source with the reminder about BLP and the likelihood of the material being removed soon). Interested editors unblank and source. Life goes on. Problem solved. Resolute 16:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't care much about the BLP issue, Reso. It's this peculiar notion that list articles don't require sourcing at all, so long as some other article contains the source. That's just runs so completely counter to WP:BURDEN and WP:V that I don't see how one small RFC started in reaction to an overstep by SqueakBox could somehow enshrine such a thing.—Kww(talk) 16:55, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

List of American scientists has not one single citation. Without sourcing, that list should be rubbed out. (Using Kww's argument.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely it should.—Kww(talk) 00:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Do I have your permission to erase it until it gets proper sourcing? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

pokepoke moluɐɯ 00:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

All participants here should avoid disruptive point-making. In a perfect world, every statement in every article would be sourced, but that is not attainable anytime in the foreseeable future—and actually, that would not be a perfect outcome at all, as a footnote after every routine and non-controversial statement in every article would make the articles look like footnote salad. Anyone who can't see that there is a greater need for sourcing for the statement that someone is a pornographic actor than the statement that someone is a scientist, should not be editing articles on either. And even as to the article about the pornographic actors, priority of attention should be given to genuinely disputed or contentious statements—the ones that could be actually harmful to BLP subjects—as opposed to ones that are not subject to genuine dispute. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, when I began applying BLP enforcement on Saturday I was very aware, having had 6 months to think about the issue, that enforcing BLP on all porn would be far too big a task for a humble editor like me and therefore I chose to focus on articles which mention a lot of likely living people as likley being involved in the porn industry. I made list of my target articles, ie the ones I considered of the greatest urgency, on my user page. Beyond that my knowledge of who is famous in the world of porn is so poor that I was unable to distinguish within a list who might or might not be more controversial, so my picking was based on whole articles rather than praticing any discrimination within an article. Some editors could not believe I did not recognise the names of well known US porn stars but I am not an American. On the other hand many experts on US porn would doubtless not be clued into the stars of Japanes adult video, where I am working now, besides which expertise in a subject is not required to edit it for BLP compliance. One thing I have learnt is that lists of award winners are much less open to editor interpretation than lists such as porn actors who have appeared in mainstream films. When one works on a list one removes 50 or 60 possible BLP vios, much more than are liley in a bio article so I stand by the choices have made as to priority in BLP enforcement. We need to treat all unsourced or poorly claims that somebody living is or was in the porn industry as high importance BLP violations. Porn stars get their kids turfed out of kindergarten among other things for being outed as porn stars and yet we were claiming that people are porn stars without even bothering to verify the facts. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

"I was unable to distinguish within a list who might or might not be more controversial"...what "Squeak" is finally admitting to here is what has been unfortunately obvious for quite some time now. He never bothered to check any of the blue-linked names that he arbitrarily blanked from many articles recently. If he had simply clicked on those obvious links, he would have been able to see clearly that they were all associated with stage names of people that were involved in the adult industry. " When one works on a list one removes 50 or 60 possible BLP vios"...without really knowing if those removals are, in fact, based on actual "BLP vios" that is. There are plenty of facts (verified by reliable sources) in many Wikipedia articles that "Squeak" obviously doesn't know about or even care about, and that's unfortunately what this entire affair is all about. Guy1890 (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Based on that assesment, hopefully we can all agree that Baseball Bugs should not be editing bios and should just stick to "working" the drama boards. --Malerooster (talk) 02:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

It's important to avoid harm to living persons. There's no harm to Jenna Jameson in calling her a porn actress... because she IS (or has been) a porn actress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:02, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Jenna who? You see I am NOT American Bugs and so have not heard of her. For all I know she might be a tennis player. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Yea, it's not like Jenna Jameson has a Wikipedia article written about her with literally dozens & dozens of reliable sources in it...ugh... Guy1890 (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Which means that it should be super-easy for anyone who wants to include that material to copy a source over. The WP:BURDEN is always on the person who wants to include it, not the person who wants to WP:CHALLENGE unsourced BLP material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that one can't really challenge information (a simple blue-link to another Wikipedia article) in good faith on a list if, when going to that blue-linked article, one can easily see that the information is valid & well-sourced in the blue-linked article in the first place. If one thinks that other editors or readers might find the information on a list article to be "contentious" now or in the future, then one can simply copy the necessary citation(s) over to the list article that was originally in question in the first place. If there are obviously no reliable sources readily available for some conentious information on a list, then (and only then IMHO) should the information be removed. Guy1890 (talk) 21:10, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

ok, I'll keep it simple, how about calling somebody who is NOT a porn star a porn star. Is there ANY harm in that? --Malerooster (talk) 03:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Possibly. Did you find some examples in that list? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

How would I know? There were no citations. DOOOOOOHHHH. Does anybody else feel my pain :) Good night.--Malerooster (talk) 03:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

There were links to the articles, which presumably have citations. If they don't, obviously they shouldn't be on a list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The mere raising of the absurd complaint is a major exercise in pointiness. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad deleting List of American scientists would be WP:POINT, suggesting that someone else's claim would mean it should be deleted definitely isn't. It is pretty clear that neither BBB or KWW intend to do the former. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:19, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

• There doesn't need to be a change in BLP policy, it's clear that lists can be made with sourcing in the given articles. This RFC should be closed making that clear. Challenging a list just because you want to blank the page is disruptive, especially when you know there is adequate sourcing directed by blue links. It's disruptive and pointy to claim a BLP exemption to blank articles you know is sourced. If you want the list deleted, take it to MFD or wherever you go to have lists deleted. Don't edit war to blank the article and claim BLP exemptions. That SHOULD be the outcome of this RFC, those supporting the absurd point that lists need sourcing are just supporting further disruption to the project for no reason other than to make a point. Dave Dial (talk) 15:32, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP policy modification may be needed at this point

• These issues have been discussed at some great length across a variety of talk pages recently, at BLP/N in the recent past, and even very recently at AN/I. I don't sense that anyone here is vehemently opposed to eventually having inline citations in list articles (especially for truly contentious or controversial content), but blanking article content and immediately trying to have those self-blanked pages summarily deleted is obviously not constructive or condoned editor conduct on Wikipedia.

Therefore, I believe that our existing BLP policy should be tweaked to encouage editors to try & find inline citations for list articles from simply visiting blue-linked names contained on any list (not just pornography-related lists - that's a red herring) and then simply add inline citations (if they exist) to the list in question from those other notable, well-referenced Wikipedia articles instead of simply blanking article content. This kind of policy change would, IMHO, conform with both the letter and spirit of many of our existing Wikipedia guidelines (including BLP) for collaborative & constructive editing.

I encourage others to propose specific policy language below, which others can tweak as necessary before implementing. I feel very strongly that's it past time to end the practice of allowing a certain few users to invoke "BLP" as a defense for editing articles in whatever manner that they personally see fit. Guy1890 (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

A PROD is not an attempt to have an article deleted but to have it improved, hence the name. Eventually is of course not good enough for BLP, non complinat material needs to be removed asap. So basically you proposing we change policy to entirely undermining our requirement to have reliable sources when living people are mentioned. And what about the needs of the living people themselves who are the subjects of our articles. Or should we just ignore their needs now? And why does removing the verifiabilty requirement help the encyclopedia, as that policy will also have to be modified. And why should we trust editors to add names to lists of living ´people if we dont impose the reliable sources constricts on them? Isnt that asking for abuse? Preventing editors from invoking or applying the BLP policy is to essentially destroy the BLP concept but I dont believe you will find it easy to gain a consensus for such a bold policy direction change. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 00:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

You will also need to modify the opening, Guy, which currentkyu explicitly calls for the removal of non BLP complaint material porior to discussion. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

You're inventing contentiousness where there is none. Your claim of a BLP violation is false. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

How is that, Baseball Bugs. Has the policy just been changed to allow unsourced original research about alleged porn stars on wikiepdia. or what piece of policy do you base your insights on. Claiming my claim is false is not an argument it is an assertion. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

How is borrowing properly and reliably cited information from a policy compliant BLP original research? Are you suggesting we can't use a source validly simply because it exists elsewhere on Wikipedia? Something like watching an inordinate amount of porn and compiling a cast for each film yourself would constitute original research. You're throwing policy names around without understanding the policy itself. It would help to read WP:OR before making these tangent claims. moluɐɯ 16:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

PROD obviously stands for Proposed deletion and competence is required when editing Wikipedia.

"you proposing we change policy to entirely underminj our requirement to have reliable sources when living people are mentioned"...far from it. If sources are readily available on notable, reliably sourced Wikipedia articles, then why not use them instead of blanking content & moving on? No one is proposing "removing the verifiabilty requirement" at all. Again, this kind of proposal actually enhances it because it encourages users to add citations when they are already readily available right here on Wikipedia.

"why should we trust editors to add names to lists of living ´people"...indeed, why should we trust anyone that edits Wikipedia?? Let's just delete the entire site & move on if that's really the way that everyone feels about everyone else on here. Guy1890 (talk) 01:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

we trust the reliable sources not the editors. if you dnt like it set up a fork where reliable sources arent required. it might be popular but nobody would believe a word it said, Guy1890. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

"we trust the reliable sources not the editors"...and we trust that editors on Wikipedia have the competence required in order to tell when there are reliable sources available for non-controversial Wikipedia content and when there aren't reliable sources available on Wikipedia for content which one may deem (in good faith only) to be controversial. Guy1890 (talk) 03:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

And as any competent editor knows from reading WP:BLP, when it comes to BLP issues, it's not good enough to find sources "on Wikipedia" somewhere. The source must be on exactly the same page as the contentious claim about the BLP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

See my reply in the above section...what you're really doing here with this line of argument is encouraging the kind of bad faith editor behavior that started this whole thing in the first place. No one that I can see here is opposed to including citations for actual contentious information in any articles. Guy1890 (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that what WAID is "really doing here" is trying to uphold high standards of sourcing in the case of BLP, as one would expect of a serious encyclopaedia. On the other hand, quite a number of people appear to be opposed to including citations in certain articles, namely lists. Deltahedron (talk) 21:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

This makes sense as long as we make clear that this is a policy for new lists with a transition for old ones rather than an occasion for anyone to engage in mass content deletion. We should have a clearer bright-line standard, not just material that is contentious or likely to be challenged, because that leaves everything up in the air until people challenge it. This would time to develop list templates, for example, and update the existing ones, also it would need reasonably wide community input. Are you sure you want to limit it to BLP lists? The logic is the same either way, either the link target is a suitable place to find the source for verification purposes, or we expect a source next to the link itself. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm aware of the fact that using inline citations on all lists was apparently frowned upon long ago on Wikipedia (like they are now with categories), so it's no surprise to me that there are tons of lists on Wikipedia that have little to no inline citations at this point. I think it's also obvious that not every "challenge" can be made in good faith. The standard that I've always personally used for when to cite something inline is whether or not I could ever imagine that someone else could possibly find the facts that I've added to an article to be in serious doubt, and I personally try to err on the side of including a citation rather than not including one, if possible.

As for "limiting it to BLP lists", there's been a gaming of the system that I've unfortunately seen ongoing for years now when it comes to using our BLP policy to remove content at will that one might not find personally agreeable. We need to clearly state from here on out that that needs to end. BLP should not be a shield for poor or bad faith editor behavior.

A discussion from last July had a great quote in it: "But it is inappropriate, per WP:V, to remove a blue link that is not inline-cited where there is a reference on the linked page to support inclusion, since it is simply a matter of moving the reference across." That's the most reasonable position that I can imagine here, and our policies should continue reflect that...to the extent that they already do (or don't) right now. Guy1890 (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to agree for a blue link. The problem is these articles with hundreds or thousands of missing or inadequate citations where the people interested in the article contents refuse to provide citations and people uninterested in the article contents don't appreciate being forced to their work for them. In a case like that, the only reasonable thing to do is to remove the article contents until the editors working on the article live up to their obligation to provide inline citations.—Kww(talk) 02:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

On that list of scientists, I see the name Thomas Edison. Yet I don't see any citations in his article that properly source him being a scientist. Yet you wouldn't challenge that, because everyone who knows who he is knows he's a scientist. (Or are they wrong about that?) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't give the Tesla crowd any ideas. Monty₈₄₅ 03:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

"where the people interested in the article contents refuse to provide citations"...I don't think that's a fair assessment at all. "and people uninterested in the article contents don't appreciate being forced to their work for them." Well, life is a two-way street my friend. People that have spent many, many hours of time working on list articles of all kinds don't like having their work wiped out in one swoop by editors that can't be bothered to click on a blue-link & move over real, live inline citations from that article for material that they personally happen to find controversial or contentious. We're supposed to be all in this group endeavour on Wikipedia together. Guy1890 (talk) 03:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

What makes it an unfair assessment? I don't see many of the authors of the lists in question working on providing citations to reliable sources, an act that would not have been particularly onerous if they had done so one at a time while building the list in the first place. The lack of sources may have been excusable five years ago, but it's not any more.—Kww(talk) 03:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not required of them, and in times past it was actively discouraged. If anyone is interested in article content instead of playing wiki-cop they can help the effort, if the community indeed decides that effort is worthwhile. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

"I don't see many of the authors of the lists in question working on providing citations to reliable sources"...look harder. A lot of work has been done (both recently and over the last year or so) at List of members of the AVN Hall of Fame, as well as many of the other adult film-related award articles, adding sources. Is there more work to be done on other articles? Sure, but there's always going to be more work to be done on Wikipedia on a whole host of fronts, and, again, this is a collective project. It also helps if while some work to add sources & more reliable information to articles that others aren't waiting at their respective keyboards with their Delete key at the ready. Guy1890 (talk) 05:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Hear, hear; this is the whole crux of the matter. Editors wanting to properly challenge BLP content will always have the right to delete it and keep it removed for concerns that it is unreliable or problematic, but not when the policy is wielded merely to force others to comply with the MOS and check a bullet point in the style guides when there's no real BLP problem - only a problem of formatting. Diego (talk) 12:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I see that on ANI, the editor Squeak owns up to pushing this whole thing due to a personal agenda. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

What personal agenda is that, Bugs. Being in favour of porn workers? Thinking the living people we write about are more important than we are? ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Nope. Self-evidently untrue. Unless by 'personal agenda' you mean wishing to see WP:BLP policy properly applied. What's your agenda, Bugs? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Bugs, what are you referring to? Do you have a diff? In any event, complaints about editor behavior over this are better left to the AN/I discussion, which was originally brought to complain about SB's repeated page blanking. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

This bit of dialogue.[7] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, you are certainly rightn about my bias towards the subjects of our articles. Perhaps you should report me for it, or try to get the community to topic ban me. After all it is simply not acceptable that an editor would place the living subjects of our articles as more important than editors. I really wish you would do one of these things so the wiser community can itself decide whether alle ditors who put living people we write articles about as more important than editors and then topic ban them all from enforcing BLP. A new wave of editor power. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

So you think that "defending the subjects of articles through enforcing BLP" is somehow wrong? Would you care to explain why? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

You're not defending BLP, you're only defending a manual of style sledgehammer. There's no BLP issue here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Clearly some editors think those who defend living people need to be dealt with by changes to BLP policy to not allow them to enforce BLP, especially not against a consensus of editors, who some claim certainly should have the right to walk all over the rights of the living people we write articles about. If we change the policy in favour of editors not having to reliably source potentially defamatory statements (such as that somebody is a porn star) lawyers will have a field day if a person wrongly labelled as a porn star does sue because it would be clear eidence of an attempt to undermine the BLP policy to allow greater freedom for editors to label whoever they want as porn star, with no guarantees as tot he veracity of that claim and with attempts made to stop those attempting to enforce any reliable sources compliance. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The harm to living people and the lawsuits to be avoided are entirely hypothetical, and in this case look extremely remote, whereas the aggravation and antagonism directed to the Wikipedia community is clear and real. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Changing policy is not needed. Content that does not meet BLP should be removed, if this leaves the article empty then it should be deleted or rebuilt and prod is appropriate. Lists do need to meet the same standards and a blue link is not even close to a citation. Inclusion in a list can and often does make a statement about a living person that violates BLP. BLP is not something that should be eventually attained, it is something we need to maintain at all times. The burden to meet BLP is on the person seeking to include the information not the person removing it. Just my 2 cents. Chillum 21:35, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

A different perspective, and a proposal

1. There has been been a longstanding, broadly supported consensus, reaffirmed during deletion discussions regarding lists of gay porn stars, that associating individuals with the pornography/erotica industries was contentious under BLP policies. I don't recall anyone other than the notorious Benjiboi seriously disputing the matter at that time.

2. Lists involving such contentious characterizations of individuals are particularly problematic. Not only do all significant assertions regarding the individual need to be properly sourced, as for a standard article, but we also need to verify that the list links to the correct individual BLP article.

3. Wikipedia continues to do a dreadful job of verifying entries in porn/erotica-relted lists. I've just removed four more spurious sets of links from List of Penthouse Pets, an article that's already had about two dozen bad links removed, if not more. I've had to take similar steps at quite a few other porn-related lists, even List of members of the AVN Hall of Fame, an aericle where such errors should be particularly easy to avoid. (Inadequate scrutiny pf porn-related articles is hardly limited to lists; check out Pornosonic, a set of fabrications that should have been stifled within seven days rather than hanging around for seven years.)

4. While SqueakBox's removals were more drastic than what I might have done, and might not have been the most prudent to make without advance discussion, they were consistent with BLP policy and practice. When confronted with a complex test permeated with non-BLP-compliabt assertions, it's better to remove the entire text and try to construct a clean build. "You can't sort jam and marbles".

5. Proposal. Lists of persons associated with the pornography/erotica industries should not be created or maintained unless the subject/defining characteristic of the list cannot be addressed adequately by a category. When the value added by list format is less substantial, the added risk of BLP violations in a sensitive field justifies limiting the treatment of such subjects to category format. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 04:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

• Disagree. It's based on a flawed understanding that BLP mandates it, it would be difficult to manage without significant removing of viable content, and it advances a contentious moral opinion to single out a single range of subjects having to do with human sexuality as something shameful and scandalous that we would essentially be censoring. I would not support forbidding lists in any subject matter based on the subject's being contentious. If we're going to require a different sourcing format for lists it should apply to all lists, or at the very least all lists of people, not lists based on sexual topics. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
• Nice idea but - the porn industry is not special. The wrong turning taken by a number of editors in the distant past was simply to attempt to use Wikipedia to compile relatively weakly sourced information about non-notable performers, something that did not then and does not now fit with the scope of the project. This is unconnected with the standard BLP type problems in the pornography articles. (Apparently not many editors are interested enough in porn... another demographic revelation.) If a list is checked (as it should be) that it links to the correct articles, that will, de facto provide a check that the claim is sourced in the article linked to. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC).
  

Reflection within this policy page

Given this RFC, what will happen once it's finished? Will it simply be closed and consensus used to restore the page? Or would this be effectively be written into WP:BLP policy? If so, we need to have the specific text that is going to be used for this. Tutelary (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Unless policy is changed, the RfC will have no effect anyway, given the requirement in WP:BLP for unsourced controversial material to be removed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

So you would disregard the outcome of the RfC? Wikidemon (talk) 17:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The contents of the list in question are neither unsourced nor controversial. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

A list citing no sources is an unsourced list, end of story. And unsourced assertions that individuals are pornographic actors are self-evidently controversial. If they weren't do you really think we'd be spending all this time arguing about it? Time which those who consider this distinctly trivial list actually worth keeping could usefully have put into actually adding the sources they insist are available. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

The last time someone attempted this, they were immediately reverted. moluɐɯ 18:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

What's your citation for the claim that they are "self-evidently controversial"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no unsourced assertion being made here. Before a person is even placed on the list, they must meet the inclusion criteria to be placed on that list. That's the way it works for all the lists that are on WP, you must meet the inclusion criteria before being placed on a list. So in this instance, it had already been established that these individuals were indeed working in the adult film industry, therefore they met the inclusion criteria and were placed on the list. There is no new revelation being made about the individual, nor is there a controversial statement being made about the individual. They already have an article on WP where it has been established through reliable sourcing that they work in the adult film industry. You can certainly argue for inline citations, but saying that it is an unsourced assertion is false and misleading. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Since there were no sources in the article, any assertion made by the article was unsourced. Remember: a blue link is not a citation, and Wikipedia cannot use itself as a source. The only way for this article to make a sourced assertion is to have a citation to that reliable source.—Kww(talk) 22:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

If by "article" you mean the list, then you should likewise call for the abolition of categories which lack citations - which would be most of them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:48, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

A category appears as text inside an article, and that article needs to contain a citation supporting the category. A list is a standalone article.—Kww(talk) 23:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

From a category, you have to link to the article if you want to find the citation. Same as with a list. There's no practical difference. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Except that one is a part of an article, and one is an independent article. That's an extremely important distinction when one is discussing the proper location for sources.—Kww(talk) 03:24, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

From a given article, I can go to "what links here" and get a list. Or I can go to "categories" and get a list. There's no practical difference. A list is not independent, no matter what form it takes. Without the links to other objects, there's no list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

A list is just merely a compilation of already sourced content. The assertion that a person has worked in the adult film industry is sourced in their bio article. The assertion that a adult film star has also appeared in a non-adult film is again in their bio article. The list is just a compilation of that already sourced content. There are no assertions being made by the list. Isaidnoway (talk) 01:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

A list is not merely a compilation of already sourced content: in general a list may contain items which do not yet or may never have their own articles, see WP:AOAL points 4, 8 and 15, where this is given as an advantage of using a list over a category. To insert an item in a list, whether or not it is a link to another article, is self-evidently an assertion, made in the voice of Wikipedia, that the item satisfies the criteria for incluson in the list. Deltahedron (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

It depends on the list, its inclusion criteria, and what it's for. In a list of porn actors it doesn't seem wise to include anybody who is not notable enough to have their own article, or to include them unless their article makes it clear that they are a porn actor and that it is relevant to their notability. On the other hand, if an article about a musical group lists current and former members it seems okay to include some that are not notable or that simply don't have an article, with due sourcing in the parent article about the group. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

What is the "it" here that "depends"? There were two assertions in the comment above: (1) that a list is not merely a compilation of sourced content; (2) that inserting an item in a list is an assertion. Which of these depends on the list, its inclusion criteria and what it's for? It's tautological that what a list is depends on the list. Deltahedron (talk) 19:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I really should've titled this 'What's gonna happen next?'. I didn't mean to get this into another heated discussion, just wanted to discuss solutions on what's gonna happen after this RfC closes. Obviously there's still some contention, but with support for one option...Gah. I'm just not sure what'll happen. Tutelary (talk) 01:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I seriously don't know where this strange notion that a list isn't an article comes from. It's an article. Its requirements for sourcing are no different than any other article.—Kww(talk) 03:24, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the reason this RfC was opened was to address some of these issues, was it not?-- Isaidnoway (talk) 03:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• In response to the question of what happens next, and without prejudging the outcome, IF the discussion is closed such that the list in question does not need references, I would expect the blanking editors to stop, and if they don't, they will no longer be able to claim exemption from edit warring policy on account of BLP Policy. If it closes the other way, the list stays blanked until such time as adequate references can be added to each entry as its restored, and we may see other lists blanked accordingly. Monty₈₄₅ 21:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Maybe someone could suggest a good general source to use with each name in the list, such as a list provided by the industry. I might be willing to do that work myself, as the deletionists clearly aren't willing to do it, but I wouldn't until that ridiculous RFD is closed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • And now it's closed. Give me the best general source to use and I'll get to work on fixing the list so the deletionists will have to find some other target. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Who will bell the cat?

Requiring references for BLP lists is a fairly good idea in theory. In practice, if it is approved, supporters of this measure will have to go around putting references for each and very entry on thousands of lists or risk having all of these articles summarily blanked and deleted. KonveyorBelt 00:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The complainers are the ones who will have to do that work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I am confused as to what "complainers" you are talking about, since there seems to be ample whining from both sides, but if you mean people who want every list to have references you are spot on. KonveyorBelt 00:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course BLP lists should have references, and no doubt that's even more important in porn-related articles. (Its also great in high school notable alumni lists, too, which are rather prone to receiving baloney additions.) Solving this problem cannot be done by some drama-filled attempted mass blanking. We saw that in the Jan 2010 attempted mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs. Instead, that problem was worked on by creating BLP-PROD for new articles, and the Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue project to review all unreferenced BLPS, which it did over a 14 month period, until there were zero entries. It takes work, but that's what an encyclopedia requires.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 02:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that up, I knew this latest all sounded familiar. If I recall, many of the participants here were part of that one as well. I hope there is a lesson to be found there. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why "lists of people" were excluded from BLP-PROD. I also agree that wholesale nuking of content is not a productive or reasonable approach to addressing this issue. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying it's only a matter of time before another idiot comes across this hypothetical new policy and decides to take matters into his own hands to enforce it. KonveyorBelt 03:50, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Yep. I'm looking at the days of year articles like August 5. Nary a cite to be found. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

In which regard note that August 5 contains among the list of births "1987 – Lexi Belle, American porn actress". Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:20, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The Lexi Belle article, to which the August 5 list links, has ample citation for her being a porn actress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:14, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I removed the work "porn". Her entry now reads "American actress" like other female performers from the US. If someone wants to know what kind of actress they can click on her link. If editors feel its important to designate her a porn actress on the birthday list, they can add a cite.--agr (talk) 16:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

But you left Rita Faltoyano unchanged? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:39, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

My bad. I removed two more. They should go for all dates, a bot would help. These porn tags are too easy to vandalize. Who is going to check them all? For a birthday list, actor or actress should suffice.--agr (talk) 22:07, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

it's not reasonable, and unhelpful, to call "porn actors" "actors" in a list like that. These three are clearly and unquestionably porn stars, and adequately sourced as such. This is the same issue behind the RfC. I would definitely oppose rummaging through the entire encyclopedia to scrub that word out of lists. - Wikidemon (talk)

This RfC does not seem to be generating a consensus in favor of change and the current policy is still in effect. And if porn is not a disreputable profession, why should performers in that field have the title "actor" or "actress" qualified in a list of births on a given day? Finally I would argue that these birthdate lists are an easy target for pranksters, so contentious designations should be kept to an absolute minimum, even if sourced.--agr (talk) 16:21, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

The RfC, to my understanding, is an attempt to divine what the community thinks current policy is, not to change it? The side-discussion under "Try Again" is an attempt to add a helpful pointer, also consistent with current policy. If there's no consensus here one way or another, current policy indeed remains, but it means we have disagreement on what that is. I'm confident that most famous porn stars, seeing that they are willing to take their clothes off and have sex in front of a camera, are open enough about their chosen profession that they are comfortable with the word "porn" or "adult entertainment" as part of their job description. Systematically scrubbing the encyclopedia of their professional category is not a service to them or our readers. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:52, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

That is also my understanding of what the discussion here is doing. However, the reason we have a policy at all is that we are bulding an encyclopaedia and we need to make it accurate. BLP is an area in which inaccuracy has an effect on real people. The question is not whether we want to deprive the encyclopaedia of correct material on some technicality: it is to put in place arrangements to make it as unlikely as we reasonably can that incorrect and damaging material goes, or stays, in. It's not the people who should be on those lists but maybe are not that we should be more worried about -- it's those who should not be but maybe are. Deltahedron (talk) 17:11, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

The burden to meet BLP is on those who want to include content. Lists without citations are not deleted right away. A prod can be removed under the justification that the article will improve. AfD gives at least a week to improve the article.

Articles are not going to get deleted without some chance to bring them up to standards. Unlike other policies BLP needs to be immediately met and kept met. Eventually met is not good enough. Chillum 16:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

List has been nominated for deletion at AfD

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. I thought this should be listed here as well. Discussion at AfD-- Isaidnoway (talk) 17:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

That seems a little WP:POINT-y, and at the very least a poor choice of timing while we're trying to have a discussion here. I'll probably go ahead and restore the list for now so that anyone participating in the deletion discussion can see the actual list that is under consideration. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Please do. The nomination argument is referencing the deleted content anyway, so it's best if we all can see it. Diego (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I found a better way, I just inserted a note pointing to the historical version so that editors can review the real version, not the trivially small one. Edit warring to blank or gut an article on supposed technical policy grounds, then nominating it for deletion, while threatening anyone who restores or even discusses the matter, is an old play from the deletionist playbook. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Update - the nomination has been decided as Keep per WP:SNOWCLOSE. Diego (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Article was under Full Protection

Article was fully protected with this message: Persistent disruptive editing: Figure out how to improve this article, people!!!

Just when a bunch of editor's jumped in to help provide references, the article gets protected. Go figure.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 23:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Never underestimate the zealous determination of deletionists. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Update:Protection has been lifted, so editing can continue in a collaborative manner.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 02:49, 6 August 2014 (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.

Is the RfC close effective?

I attempted to incorporate the RfC close results into the policy page, as succinctly and clearly and using the closer's language as directly as I could, so that we can have some clarity regarding how to handle lists.[8] This was quickly reverted.[9] So... are we going to follow the RfC results or not? I don't think we can selectively follow it, either the RfC is closed or not. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• I fully support Wikidemon's recent attempt to codify the close of this RfC into existing Wikipedia policy as it relates to list articles. The wording used was pretty fair & neutral IMHO. It's fairly obvious to me that the kind of editing practices that started this RfC in the first place will continue (and are basically still continuing now) without some kind of policy clarification. Guy1890 (talk) 05:28, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you, guys, for saying this but dumping the language of my close directly into the policy may not be the best approach. I chose my words with care, but they're my words for what the community decided. I'm certain that editors will be able to improve on what I said so as to be clearer and more succinct, and leave fewer loopholes for misinterpretation. I hope this process doesn't take too long though.—S Marshall T/C 08:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

So, do we know what the results are from the RfC or does this remain an undecided policy matter/? - Wikidemon (talk) 09:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with the revert. AFAIK, the RfC said nothing changing policy. That needs to be a separate discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 09:50, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• I've tried to be as clear as I can in the close. I've said what I think the results of the RfC are, and I've said we need to discuss whether those results will have an effect on the policy wording. If we're willing to be constructive and flexible, then I think that discussion can be informal and relatively rapid. There certainly should not need to be a new RfC to discuss how to implement the last RfC.—S Marshall T/C 11:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• This is the talk page for the Wikipedia policy on BLP. To assert that an RfC on this talk page regarding requirements for sourcing is not about policy is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in quite a while. The consensus as determined by the closing admin is now part of BLP policy; the policy page should be updated accordingly. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
  • And the closer stated in the close, and quite carefully restated above, that the specific language of the closing statement was not presented as consensus policy language. Pasting into the policy as such was clearly inappropriate. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 17:09, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
• The policy applies everywhere on Wikipedia, so it applies to lists too. I've added "and lists" just to make that clear. [10] That might be all that's needed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Well done, Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, on making that revert, we do NOT need BLP being weakened as Wikidemon, a proliferate BLP violator, was trying to do. Guy also seems to want a weakening of BLP policy in order to prevent people from enforcing BLP, something he feels very resentful that people are allowed to do when it comes to his favoured area of porn. But there is no consensus for his favoured viewpoint of preventing people from enforcing BLP. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:32, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The language of the edit seems to represent the RFC fairly well to me. Alternate wording is welcome but we do need to add the spirit of the RFC in some words. Chillum 18:55, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I am not convinced there is any consensus to fundamentally weaken BLP by saying "Editors are asked not to go through pre-existing lists making large scale and unilateral changes that would overwhelm the people who maintain these lists. If you can easily source an entry yourself, removing it as unsourced is considered unhelpful." Essentially this is putting the needs of editors before the needs of the living subjects we write about and the Rfc is not of itself a consensus that such a radical change to the spirit of BLP is required. one would hope a thorough discussion lasting a good 6 weeks would be required to propose and ratify such a drastic change to the policy which currently is 100% in favour of enforcing BLP and defending the rights of our living subjects and only (rightly IMO) putting the needs of editors second. Currently BLP demands offending material is removed prior to discussion and any change to that, as Wikidemon was trying to enact, would fundamnetally weaken that. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

You make a good point. Chillum 19:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• "Squeak" wasn't "enforcing BLP", he was blanking articles at will in a disruptive fashion. There's plenty of consensus in the above RfC discussion to clarify our BLP policy page as it relates to lists only in the manner that was recently done. What's going on here in this discussion is fillibustering by those that lost that part of the above discussion. The debate is over now, how are we going to clarify our BLP policy as a result of this RfC? Guy1890 (talk) 20:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Your inability to distinguish between page blanking and BLP enforcement is very disturbing, Guy, in such an experienced editor. But when an editor mentions BLP in the edit summary and that editor is experienced it is always best to assume that BLP is being enforced. Claiming that BLP enforcement is page blanking in these circumstances is such a weak argument, and in your case you knew I was BLP blanking due to the conversations we had on the wikiporn project page in January. And it does not look to me like there is any consensus for further changes to the BLP policy based on the Rfc. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

"Assumming good faith is not a suicide pact"...your edits were what they obviously appeared to be...blanking articles to suit your own personal fancy "Squeak". There's volumes of discussion about those edits in other forums that you are well aware of at this late date. Again, the debate over that nonsense is over. Guy1890 (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed my edits were what they obviously appeared to be, BLP enforcement, and as you knew that I was enforcing BLP because I specifically asked for your help in the issue, you cannot claim that these articles were being blanked. And indeed the debate over whether or not to weaken BLP to give editors more power and those we write about less rights is indeed over. the fact that your desire to see people who enforce BLP dealt with has not happened is something you will jsut have to accept. It is you here and here who re-added BLP non compliant material to wikipedia and therefore it is you and you alone who have to justify why you did so. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:25, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Those edits were justified in the edit summaries that I made at the time. Again, none of this has anything to do with the purpose of this thread here...it's an intentional distraction that needs to stop please. We don't need to re-hash all the work that you forced other editors to do all over Wikipedia because you just didn't feel like doing it yourself. Guy1890 (talk) 20:31, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP mentions nothing about using cleverly worded edit summaries as a way of avoiding YOUR BLP responsibilities. Your claims that discussing here is disruptive are not worth responding to but needless to say I absolutely have helped improve the encyclopedia with my work, and more importantly I have defended the rights of our living subjects as BLP requires us to do. If you actually read the policy you will see that the responsibility is on those who add the material not on those who remove it, but you ACTUALY know this already. And until you change that policy wording you would be well advised not to make claims about what I can and cannot be "bothered" to do. Claiming that BLP enforcement is intentional disruption is perhaps another claim you might try to get the community to endorse in the policy itself, otherwise please stop attacking me. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:38, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If this RfC close is effective it should go onto the policy page as a clarification of policy, as it begins to address a wider policy matter that blanking otherwise verifiable material is a disfavored alternative to sourcing it, and disputed mass blanking under BLP is "unhelpful" as the closer says. If that is valid policy, it belongs in the policy wording. If it is not, then the RfC close was invalid, a matter that ought to be taken up in some way other than filibustering. Although I think that's an important enough and often enough misunderstood issue to belong on the policy page, we might be able to address any WP:CREEP issues by linking in the category / list section to a guideline or some other page about how BLP enforcement works, or about lists in particular. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Ummm...no, the RfC had absolutely nothing to do with changing policy. Please don't retcon the RfC to be about something it's not. I would think that would be obvious. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. That's exactly why, if the close was valid, the language belongs in the policy page. We were discussing if policy requires lists to be cited inline, or whether they could be verified by the sources in the linked articles. The answer about what policy requires came back from the closing admin, well, exactly as it did. So per my original question, does the RfC close reflect policy or is it invalid? - Wikidemon (talk) 00:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Neither. That's a false dichotomy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:09, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It's either policy or not policy, unless you have a third option.- Wikidemon (talk) 01:11, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Please don't defend your mistake of using a false dichotomy with a second false dichotomy. See WP:ICANTHEARYOU for more information. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a false dichotomy, only a reasonable question; if RfCs are supposed to implement/change policy, why is this suddenly the exception to that? Tutelary (talk) 01:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Tutelary, I'll answer you as your question as it appears to have been made in good faith. Your question is based on a false premise. Just because there was an RfC doesn't mean that it requires changing the policy. Wikipedia has lots of RfCs and most are ignored because most editors simply don't have the time to examine each and everyone of them. If the RfC was intended to change policy, it should have explicitly stated that the intent was to change policy. This RfC did not, otherwise more editors would have paid attention to it. Also, virtually all RfCs about a policy change provide a proposed wording of what that that change should be. This one did not. In fact, many RfCs are simply about the correct interpretation of policy, rather than a change in policy, which appears to be the case here. If someone wants to change policy, then the RfC should have explicitly stated so, and should have given a proposed wording. Attempting to change the scope of an RfC after the discussion has been closed is extremely bad form (and I'm putting that politely). If this RfC was intended to change policy, it fails in virtually every way imaginable. It's that bad. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree, if people want to see the changes Wikidemon tried to impose then they need to start an Rfc stating that that is their intent from the beginning. After all such a proposal could be construed as weakening BLP policy and therefore might encounter strong resistance. We will never know until someone starts an Rfc proposing the specific changes but it would be unfair to institute such changes when they have not been proposed and when editors have not had a chance to consider them. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I am not "imposing" anything, only restating the outcome of the RfC as a clarification of what the policy is on lists, which is the exact subject of the RfC. If you don't think any part of the following is policy, could you please point out the part that is not policy and explain either how it doesn't reflect the outcome of the RfC or the outcome of the RfC is not the correct policy? Thanks - Wikidemon (talk) 02:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

With respect to lists, a reliable source should be added in-line for every entry that is challenged or is likely to be challenged as contentious. New lists that are created should generally have sources for each entry unless the list is uncontroversial. Editors are asked not to go through pre-existing lists making large scale and unilateral changes that would overwhelm the people who maintain these lists. If you can easily source an entry yourself, removing it as unsourced is considered unhelpful.

It is "Editors are asked not to go through pre-existing lists making large scale and unilateral changes that would overwhelm the people who maintain these lists. If you can easily source an entry yourself, removing it as unsourced is considered unhelpful" that editors have not been asked to comment on in an Rfc and represents a massive change to the spirit of the policy which till now has in no way tried to slow the efforts of BLP enforcers but indeed has actively encouraged them. Such a change would require a new RFc but you have the words now so I susggest you start a new Rfc. I personally would strongly oppose such a wording as it shifts the balance of power away from the living subjects we write about and towards our editors. IMO the closig admin has focussed too much on what is fair for editors and not enough on what is fair for living subjects and so a new Rfc IS required to make such a change. I think SlimVirgin's change was the right one to make concerning this Rfc and that no further changes should be made without specific proposals for policy change including the exact wording. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

So you're disputing the outcome of the RfC that it is considered unhelpful to make large scale unilateral changes that would overwhelm other editors? Perhaps you need to petition for the RfC to be reopened. Until then, that is the outcome, and it is not a change in policy at all even if it does put a crimp on your approach. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

That wasn't the outcome of the RFC; those were comments from the closer. And the ill-fated gloss on it which some editors have been pushing -- that it's wrong to remove unlinked or redlinked names, to say nothing of bluelinked names where nothing in the linked articles support inclusion on the list -- is wrongheaded and unsupported by the substance of the RFC. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 15:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to the part about mass edits being unhelpful, not the part about blue links requiring citations. [removed summary of Hullaballoo's position that Hullaballoo objected to]. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

redacted it's possible for an RFC closer to make comments in the closing statement that go beyond stating the community consensus from the RFC (which, quite appropriately, include advice regarding future action), [and] it's possible for reasonable editors to distinguish between what courts might call "holding" and "dictum" redacted. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:09, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

[comment removed to avoid engaging insults] - Wikidemon (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

redacted. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 21:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

[comment removed to avoid engaging] - Wikidemon (talk) 23:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

redacted The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 22:09, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Summary

So to summarize, we have:

• an RfC and subsequent close that say what they say

• a closing administrator who says that it is for us to work out

• four editors (me, Guy1890, Chillum, and Nomoskedasticity) who believe that the RfC closing is an acceptable statement of policy and should be mentioned on the policy page
• two who reject the RfC closing statement about avoiding large-scale unilateral changes to existing content or removing easily sourced text being unhelpful and oppose its inclusion on the policy page (Hullaballoo, SqueakBox)
• one (Collect — and possibly a second, SlimVirgin) who accepts the RfC close but describes the statement about large-scale changes as a "practicality" and not part of policy, so it should not be in the policy page
• three (A quest for Knowledge, Tutelary, SlimVirgin) who have commented but not directly answered whether the RfC closing is to be followed

That's a fairly light turnout, but probably moot because the RfC is finished, we don't need an RfC on whether to accept the RfC. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• "that it's wrong to remove unlinked or redlinked names, to say nothing of bluelinked names where nothing in the linked articles support inclusion on the list"...no one that I can tell has ever said that, either here in this thread or above in the RfC (that's unfortunately still under discussion here), which obviously discussed proposed policy changes at length (including some expected consequences of those proposed changes). As I think the closer of this RfC said above, we really don't need another RfC to decide what the first RfC said...that's silliness & unneeded game playing.

Removing unsourced names from any lists that aren't Wiki-linked at all or that are red-linked isn't controversial at all...neither is removing blue-linked names when the blue-linked articles themselves don't contain any information or citations that are relevant to the original list. Mass removing blue-linked names from lists that can easily be sourced by simply copying over already-available citations from those blue-linked articles is unhelpful at the very least. Why that seems to be "controversial" with a select few people at this late is really beyond me. Guy1890 (talk) 23:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and restored a shortened version of the RfC close in the list section of the policy page, edited for clarity. The two things I did not restore were the statement on exactly how and why editors should be careful about handling old lists, and another that "If you can easily source an entry yourself, removing it as unsourced is considered unhelpful." Though both are clearly part of the closing discussion of the RfC and seems to have the support of the majority of the community, the first has been called commentary and practical advice by some rather than part of policy, and both are part of a larger question affecting all of BLP, not something confined to the question of lists. As such, if it is included it should be in a broader section about policy compliant editing methods. The policy page is full of instructions and practical guidance on how to handle BLP compliance. Some seem to object to this particular piece of guidance. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:46, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so reverted.[11] Now what? - Wikidemon (talk) 02:21, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

If you really want to make these changes you need to start an Rfc that makes it specifically clear that you are asking for the specific changes you desire so that the whole community can weigh in. The previous Rfc did not make any policy proposal changes and that is why your proposed changes should be discussed BEFIRE being added. Seems to em that is the only proper way forward. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

These have been discussed and approved. No policy change is required, but we've agreed that the wording should be changed to reflect what the policy says. That's what the RfC was. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the RfC close specifically makes zero changes to policy. The closer did suggest, purely as a practical matter, that editors not make wholesale deletions from current lists, but did not assert that such practicalities are part of any policy or should be regarded as part of any policy. Adding the aside about practicalities to the policy is, in my opinion, not justified by my reading of the close. I assert that I took no position in the above lengthy discussion, and that I agree with the closer on this matter and his close. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:41, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Wikidemon, I'm not familiar with the details of the dispute that sparked the RfC, and I didn't take part in the RfC. But the policy is clear: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." This applies to all pages on Wikipedia, including lists.

  That's a fairly crucial part of this policy. If someone wants to change it, we would ideally need a 30-day RfC that asks for consensus to change X to Y, with a CENT notice and all the usual notifications for major policy changes. And it would be better to wait until September, when the holidays are over for most people. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

That would have been a point to make before the RfC was closed, or indeed before people started participating in it. It sounds like we're going to have people trying to invalidate an RfC because it didn't happen at a certain time, or because it wasn't mentioned at a particular location. If that's the way this place works, just do all yourself. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 03:20, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

But the Rfc never asked us to decide whether or not to make a major policy change, and such a drastic policy change as has been added recently should absolutely be explicitly stated as a policy chane proposal and then advertised as widely as possible, and indeed not done in the quiet season when many are away from work and wikipedia. I can also so no reason to have such an Rfc open for less than the full 30 days. Anything else is simply unfair on the community and unfair on the living people BLP has been written to protect. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 04:23, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Drastic? Really, now. Hyperbole much lately? Mass content edits require community support. Disputed interpretations of policy require community support. That is at least as fundamental as BLP, and the history of Wikipedia bears that out. I'm not sure if what you, Squeak, are proposing is truly mass content edit. If it's just 10-20 articles on porn, it is contained even if absurdly misguided. If it implicates thousands or tens of thousands of list articles and you're actually planning to do something about it then yes, it is a mass edit for which BLP is no shield. We're left with two options, per SlimVirgin. Either the RfC and its close does not change policy, in which case we should follow them whether or not we add that to the policy page — or they are invalid as a bad close and we should ignore them. Just so you know, that includes any finding that list articles should be cited in-line. You can't pick and choose from a bad close. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The RfC didn't suggest changing policy. It asked "does BLP Policy justify blanking those entries without inline citations?" The answer is yes, BLP policy does justify blanking entries without inline citations.

I believe the closer tried to balance the policy statement with the practicality of WP hosting a large number of unreferenced names of porn stars that everyone knows are porn stars. (I'm not familiar with the dispute, but I believe that was the gist of it.) So he was trying to address a behavioral issue, as well as a policy one. A proposal to change the policy itself is a different matter, especially given that this is a central part of it.

I'm curious as to why those involved don't simply copy the citations over from the parent articles. It would probably be faster to do that than to argue that they should stand without sources. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:12, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Across half a dozen porn lists, yes, and in fact that has happened on the relevant articles — they are all either sourced by now, or in some cases deleted or eviscerated. There are two larger issues here if it spills out beyond porn and into the content base at large. First, if we are to enact a mass project-wide effort that some or all lists of living people have a citation next to each list entry or else the entry or the entire list are deleted, the decision to do so and the method by which this is done are community decisions, not left up to the most aggressive or extreme editors to do on a mass scale under cover of policy. This mirrors similar past changes with respect to non-free copyright policy and unsourced biographies, probably others, where the end result is that project-wide changes require an orderly process. Second and somewhat peripherally, do societal mores justify that we give articles about minority opinions, identities, etc., an enhanced level of scrutiny that results in scrubbing much of that content off Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikidemon (talk • contribs)

This issue comes up every so often regarding lists, but the answer is always that lists are articles like any other. Issues that need a source (anything "challenged or likely to be challenged," per V) must be sourced with an inline citation on the same page, not somewhere else.

With living persons, there's the additional instruction that anything contentious and unsourced must be removed immediately. "Contentious" just means anything that might raise an eyebrow. The policy says this can include material that is "negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable," so List of nice people would need inline citations just as badly as List of porn stars.

Regarding what to do to make sure all lists are policy-compliant, I don't know, because I don't know how extensive the problem is. It's perhaps something WikiProject Lists could take on: a drive to make sure every entry about a living person has an inline citation within a certain time frame. People wanting to mass-delete could be asked to hold off during that period, except for anything that might be harmful. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

A quick guess is that nearly all of the lists of people are uncited, whether contentious or not. A project-wide undertaking similar to the mop-up for NFCC compliance and the unreferenced BLP articles could work, but those aren't necessarily great examples of how to do things as a community because both started with massive threatened deletions and drama, before they eventually settled on a process. It is worth considering that the solution in those cases was to establish a firm requirement going forward, and then have a schedule and stable rate for revising legacy articles. Ideally every time any person appears on a list, contentious or not, perhaps any time anything appears on a list, would be verifiable in a predictable, perhaps machine-readable way. That eliminates any human judgment or dispute over whether a particular thing is contentious or a BLP matter. How we get from here to there is a big question. There's also a question of whether that's a good use of editor time versus other things they could be doing, including other BLP cleanup work. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:52, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. I had no idea the problem was so widespread. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:28, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Material related to content choices

At the moment WP:BLPTALK says Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices should be removed, deleted, or oversighted, as appropriate. I believe that this wording creates a loophole: a logical reading of this sentence implies that it is acceptable to put unsourced, contentious claims about living persons on talk pages if that material is related to making content choices. Should we amend this sentence to make it clear that making unsourced, contentious claims about living persons is not acceptable anywhere on Wikipedia?

The context: after removing a message from Talk:Zoe Quinn per this policy, I received a message on my talk page saying that the post I removed didn't violate BLPTALK because it was related to a content decision. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:45, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• The wording in BLPTALK needs to be changed to remove the suggestion that inappropriate comments can be retained on a talk page because they relate to "making content choices". For example, I'm following a BLP reported at the BLP noticeboard because the subject is under attack. A recent comment on the subject's talk page was titled "Art Theft" and asked "Should we acknowledge that X stole someone's art: [links to two blogs]". The comment was removed and an admin warned the editor that they would be blocked if it is repeated. That is the correct reading of the BLP policy which states the obvious: "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages...". The simplest change would be to remove "and not related to making content choices". Johnuniq (talk) 02:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello Stradivarius, and I'm the one who left the message on your talk page. I -wasn't- meaning to start any long drawn out discussion about this. Defamatory and nasty material should be oversighted and omitted on the talk page, but the content choices is made to make sure we can discuss contentious material relating to actual text in the article. Propose for a second that Robin Williams' death was not confirmed. There were conflicting reports and what not. Technically, if there was no content choice 'loophole' (I don't think it's a loophole, it's a reasonable exception) people could just remove the section citing the conflicting reports and discussing whether to include it or not in the article as 'BLP violation' even though it's relevant to discuss and needs to be gotten right in the article. That's what the 'content choices' exception is for, though it should be used with reason. Why I messaged you on your talk page is that the content was revdeld. This makes it difficult to discuss as I cannot see the content because I'm not an administrator. I asked you because of your administrator privileges makes it capable to read such material, and you can probably tell whether it was related to content choices or not. If the answer was no, that would be the end of that and I would let it be. Though if you said yes, I might message the revdel administrator with a request to restore the diff in question; they'll probably refuse but I believe it's in the benefit of the encyclopedia in order to get the article right. Extra note: I didn't say that it 'didn't violate BLPtalk' I just cannot tell because it's been revdeleted, so I wanted to ask. Also, in order to change BLP policy, you must have consensus. Tutelary (talk) 02:19, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

• No, let's be clear here. It is hard to talk about and gain consensus and discuss an issue when half the page history is revdeled and you can't even post what you want to add or talk about. KonveyorBelt 02:30, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• Not necessary to change wording. BLP policy makes it crystal clear that the policy applies EVERYWHERE, talk pages included. Good faith discussions about content that may violate BLP policy are permitted. A determination needs to occur somewhere after all. Anyone trying to exploit said "loophole" is not acting in good faith, and will be dealt with accordingly. We as editors should be above acting like Congress or MP's with a case of the knee jerks. Who are we trying to impress writing new "laws", ourselves?Two kinds of pork (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• The language at issue has been in the article since November 25, 2007. The same editor announced it on the talk page here. I didn't look to see if there was any ensuing discussion or later discussion of the material. Despite its longevity, I would favor changing the language, but not a complete change because I think there's a range of material that can be added to a talk page. When I have a moment, I'll propose some language, but I have a feeling it will be difficult to agree on any changes.--Bbb23 (talk) 04:49, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• I'd support "or". That seems to be the spirit, and that part of the sentence is mainly for non-article talk pages because practically all article talk page comments should be for content choices. For instance if I said, 'Sally is a ______', right here right now in this discussion, that would likely violate BLPTALK, even if I somehow linked Sally to the theory of BLP content. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
• I would support rewriting to indicate that as soon as a consensus is reached, such material as is reasonably worded should be excised, and that iteration of such material should be immediately excised as only one copy is needed for editors to discuss its usability. Material which is clearly intended to be in any way a defamation should not be tolerated even with an excuse that it is there for discussion. Discussions can generally take place about sources without including the problematic material on any Wikipedia page. Collect (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
• Keep as is - It has served WP well for many years, don't see a need to change as it will stifle talk page debates, when we need more debates and less reversions. When someone breaches BLP in talk space it is obvious. - Cwobeel (talk) 01:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
• Remove the wording "and not related to making content choices". The prohibition is on "unsourced or poorly sourced" material, and there is no excuse for discussing unsourced or poorly sourced material even in terms of content choices. The only thing for which the "and not related to making content choices" makes an exception is unsourced or poorly sourced material, and we don't need it. Find the good sources first and then discuss them. --RexxS (talk) 18:19, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Victims of Crimes such as Hostages

Could the guidelines be updated to better reflect how Wikipedia handles notability/non-notability with respect to crime victims of world wide significance, such as a prisoner of war or a hostage. There has been some inconsistent behavior with the way it has been handled, permitting one article, while scrubbing the entire site from referencing another. There should be consistency.MeropeRiddle (talk) 05:14, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Please note that there's already an established discussion going on at WP:VPP#Guideline for crime victims of world wide significance on this, and thus better to comment there. --MASEM (t) 05:44, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Some clarifications about this policy; BLP applying to all biographies in general or to corporations

This is not a discussion to change consensus. Rather, I'm asking for clarifications of certain aspects of this policy. Out of curiosity, I have been wondering:

1. Why does BLP appear to be Wikipedia's strictest policy, arguably enforced with stronger force than policies like NPOV and even copyright rules? BLPs appear to be the most likely to be given the most restrictions or special cases than any other form of article. Finally, BLPs are pretty much given the highest standards for any article (notably that everything must be sourced, unlike other articles that only require that statements can be verifiable), with arguably only articles fringe theories being anywhere close to having similar standards. For example, BLPs are (to my knowledge), the only exception to Wikipedia:There is no deadline (not a policy, but hopefully you get my point; in fact, BLPs are explicitly mentioned as an exception in the aforementioned page). BLPs even have their own special form of deletion, which no other kind of article has. Finally, unsourced BLPs have their own Refimprove template ({{BLP sources}}). The only other kind of article to have their own special form of Refimprove are medical articles, but {{Medref is not as commonly used; it's not even on Twinkle, for example. So why is BLP so strictly enforced compared to other policies?

2. BLP only applies to living or recently deceased people. To my knowledge, BLP is somewhat based on the concept of defamation. However, from what I can recall, at least in United States law, defamation also applies to companies. Thus, why aren't corporations included in BLP or otherwise have a similar policy regarding them? Like people, companies can also be harmed by negative information that circulates about them. What makes them different from people when it comes to these standards?

3. How come the policy only applies to BLPs, people who have recently died, or to living descendants of deceased people, rather than all biographies? How come, for examples, we need higher standards on our article on Barack Obama than our article on Alexander the Great?

4. Finally, how come, for the most part only BLPs are given such stringent requirements? Though I have given some examples of non-BLP articles that also have high standards (such as medical articles and articles on fringe theories), none of these standards are as strongly applied as in BLPs (at least from my experience). If all articles were given the same standards as a BLP, then arguably the quality of the encyclopedia would improve (whether or not we'd actually want to have all articles not have a deadline, be exceptions to 3RR, etc. is of course another question), so why the strong requirements for only BLPs?

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:56, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

That BLP does not cover corporations is evidence that it is not driven by the defamation concerns, as is the fact that the BLP policy was born out of the experience of editors on the frontline of editing wikipedia, it was not imposed top-down by the WMF. The difference between Obama and Alexander the Great is that false accusations of say alcoholism or drug use cannot effect Alexander in person in his personal and professional life whereas similar false accusations could have a devastating effect on Obama's real life. Even so, we do not refuse to include contentious information about an individual, we refuse to include it without a reliable source so even if Obama wanted any possible past soft drug use claims removed from wikipedia he could not do so providing that information was reliably sourced. Wikipedia is a charitable work maintained by volunteers and it would be morally and socially wrong, especialy given that (almost) anyone can edit the encyclopedia, to be making contentious statements that can effect real living people. BLP is also a way of bringing the living subjects we write about and their wishes to not have unsourced information about them on wikipedia, such as happened in the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident, itself one of the incidents that drove the formation of the BLP policy. That is why a consensus of editors can never defy BLP, because BLP takes into consideration not only the editors who are editing but the living subjects we write about as well. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:52, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Another thing, you mentioned about "bringing the living subjects we write about and their wishes to not have unsourced information about them on Wikipedia" (emphasis mine). I understand and respect their feelings, but I'm pretty sure there are also several corporations, organizations, etc. who also share the same sentiments, but our page on Verifiability does not give the requirement of every statement to have a source to corporations, unlike BLPs. My question above was not answered properly: why are corporations not included in BLP, nor does a similar policy exist to them, when corporations arguably suffer from the same problem as living people (negative information can also affect them and ruin their reputation)? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, notably, there is nothing wrong with BLP-level care given to every article on Wikipedia. No one has told you that you shouldn't provide high quality, super-reliable references for dead people, or corporations, or really anything. I don't understand the complaint implicit in the OP's post. Why would you think that the existence of the BLP policy somehow means that bad editing is preferred for the rest of Wikipedia?!? --Jayron32 02:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

I never said that bad editing is preferred for the rest of Wikipedia. I was only wondering how come I almost never see editors who want the same level of care and attention to BLP articles for non-BLP articles. For example, on an article for a certain person named John Doe, if I added a true, verifiable, but unsourced statement that Doe has come out as gay, if I don't give a source, it could possibly be reverted immediately, but if I edit the article on a company called Jane Doe Enterprises, adding a true, verifiable, but unsourced statement that Jane Doe Enterprises has gone bankrupt, theoretically it might not be reverted as quickly. But anyway, thanks for the responses. The clarifications have been fairly enlightening and helped me understand the policy more clearly. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:49, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: Bad editing happens everywhere at Wikipedia equally. Recognizing it does happen is not the same as saying that it should We have limited resources to deal with it. Information about living persons has the potential to cause real world consequences for that person TODAY. For that reason, BLPs move to the top of the queue for "stuff that needs to get fixed right now". Of course, with all of Wikipedia, it ALL needs to be fixed. BLP is just a triage procedure: we take the stuff that has the most potential to cause real harm, and give it the highest priority. --Jayron32 15:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

IMO making corporations equal to living people in terms of our policy would weaken BLP whose enforcement, as Jayron has pointed out, has to be a matter of prioritizing anyway. And I for one am not in favour of weakening BLP at all. While corporations have some of the qualities of human beings they do not have others, such as for instance a tendency to abuse drink and drugs or to be involved in some kind of sex scandal. Like Obama a corporation can lose money but not a wife or children. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 02:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

• @OP. BLP is "up there" as major rule because we care about humanity and do not wish to harm living, conscious souls by our actions. Even if they deserve it. Especially if they deserve it. The sources and society will judge a BLP subject, but never us. We never judge because we are neutral. There might be some liability issues for the WMF as well.Two kinds of pork (talk) 11:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

"Innocent until proven guilty" is not a worldwide standard

In the WP:BLPCRIME section, it starts, "A person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and convicted by a court of law." This is, of course, not true globally. So depending where you are reading it, that statement could be false. Moreover, it may reinforce a notion of simplicity in the world for young readers unaware of the diversity that exists. It also has overtones of a political message. Of course, as most of the servers are located in the US where it is true, it is quite necessary that Wikipedia follow suit. I would prefer to see it prefixed with, "As far as Wikipedia is concerned, ..." which causes the previous concerns to vanish. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Note also that the precept of "do no harm" is compatible with that rule. Too often we see allegations in the media being used to tar people who end up being innocent (vide the Duke Lacrosse case) and Wikipedia can irremediably harm such individuals. Collect (talk) 00:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

We are following the practice of mainstream media. They usually do not state someone's guilt as a fact until it is proved. I do not know of any legal systems today where one is presumed guilty. although serious penalties may be imposed on "innocent people" awaiting trial. Also, the evidence required to charge someone varies considerably, even in countries with independent judicial systems. Someone on trial in Quebec for example has a 99% chance of conviction, while in England it is only 80%, which falls below the degree of reliability we would need to say someone had committed an offense. And in the U.S. plea bargains are common, so that individuals are often not convicted of the crimes for which they have been accused. TFD (talk) 02:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Edits by antagonists

I'm wondering if we might want to consider tightening up the language on "Importation of off-wiki disputes into Wikipedia". I think that this is well-drafted so far as it goes. But there are situations, and one just arose on BLPN, in which there is no "off-wiki" dispute but in which the editor in question made antagonistic remarks in an edit summary. No harm was done, but it was a red flag, and if such an editor had made a pattern of such remarks then I think he should have stayed away from that article. I think readers would have a similar expectation. Such situations can bring Wikipedia into disrepute. The idea is not to "coddle" the subject of an article but to protect the project.

So I thought I'd throw out a possible change in the wording for discussion. My suggested add is in boldface; omitted words in italics:

Wikipedia articles concerning living persons may include material—where relevant, properly weighted, and reliably sourced—concerning controversies or disputes in which the article subject has been involved. However, Wikipedia is not a forum provided for parties to off-wiki disputes to engage in or continue their hostilities. Experience has shown that misusing Wikipedia to perpetuate legal, political, social, literary, scholarly, or other feuds and disputes is harmful to the subjects of biographical articles, to the other parties to the dispute, and to Wikipedia itself. It is harmful to both the subject of the article and Wikipedia for biographies to be edited by persons who are antagonistic to that person. Therefore, an editor who is involved in an significant off-wiki controversy or dispute with another individual, or has expressed disdain for that person, or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the possible conflict of interest. More generally, editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article, just like editors with a strongly positive view of the subject, should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally if they choose to edit it at all not edit articles about that person.[9]

-- Coretheapple (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Is that not covered already at WP:EXTERNALREL? - Cwobeel (talk) 16:20, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

In a very general way, but this would deal with very specific situations involving BLPs. And of course BLP is a policy whereas COI is a guideline that is widely ignored. Coretheapple (talk) 16:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Would having 'expressed disdain' for mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik be sufficient grounds to exclude someone from editing his biography? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

The same objection could be raised to the current language ("editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article"). That language, and my proposal, deals with the vast majority of BLPs who are not axe murderers or heinous individuals. Coretheapple (talk) 19:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

More simply:

Editors with direct personal, political, religious or business disputes with the subject of a BLP should not edit such articles in any manner at all.

Seems to cover the issues raised AFAICT. Collect (talk) 17:17, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

'Political disputes'? Defined how? I'm sure I'd have plenty of politics to dispute with Kim Jong-un should I ever be in the position to do so, but I don't think that should rule me out from editing his biography. Anyway, this is a non-starter if it is going to be based on opinions expressed off-Wikipedia - the last thing we want to to encourage trawling the web for 'evidence' of supposed bias. It could only result in doxxing, and endless disputes over unverifiable identities. Wikipedia contributors should be judged solely by what they do on-Wikipedia. Nothing more, nothing less. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:38, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

"John Xoe" running against "John Yoe" for office - they or their campaign workers should edit neither BLP. Anyone is certainly free to have political, philosophical, religious beliefs, but if they have a direct connection to the BLP, they ought not edit it. "Doxxing" us a straw man here. This is what is intended in simple language. Collect (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Your proposed language needs to be more precise then. And Coretheapple specifically mentioned 'off-wiki controversy' involving the putative contributor. Anyway, I see no need for this whatsoever - we already have the WP:COI guideline (which incidentally covers "John Xoe"'s campaign workers editing his article too) and there is a well-established principle that we judge contributors by their edits, not by their opinions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a can of worms opening slowly. WP:EXTERNALREL covers this well, and if that is a guideline and not policy, there may be a reason for that. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Notice of discussion that needs input

There is a discussion at RSN that could use more comments: lukeisback and sexherald dot com. (Re porn sources; stalled after a few comments.) Lightbreather (talk) 15:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

James Rosemond - A question of libel

A number of editors have raised the question as to which version of the these two versions are libelous

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Rosemond&diff=prev&oldid=591977987

I thought it best to litigate it here, on the BLP board, as editors have been accused of libel for participating in the older version that documents most completely the history of James Rosemond aka Jimmy Henchman that was created over a the two years since his conviction. I'd appreciate it if people would decide here. I don't wish to be confronted on my talk page as I've observed with other folks. I'd welcome the opinion of respected lawyers on the site with Mensa memberships. Peace and love, Nothingknewunderthesun (talk) 06:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Where have 'a number of editors' discussed this, and who are the editors? I can see nothing on Talk:James Rosemond to indicate any such discussion as having taken place. As for 'litigating' anything here, this is not a court of law, we are not lawyers, and avoiding libel is not the only objective of this notice board - we have to ensure compliance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, which go beyond simple compliance with libel laws. Furthermore, the purpose of discussions over such matters isn't to look into old versions of articles, but to ensure that current content is appropriate - nobody is going to 'approve' one past version over another. If you have a specific question regarding a particular issue concerning the Rosemond article, feel free to raise it at WP:BLPN (not here - this talk page is for discussions regarding proposed changes to BLP policy) - but you will have to explain what the issue is, rather than making vague claims about 'libel' and expecting us to figure out what the problem is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

This is the talk page about the policy regarding living people. For specific interpretations and applications, please start a discussion on the article talk page or the living persons notice board. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a sock of Scholarlyarticles. I will be opening a SPI. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Article subject requesting anonymity

Regarding CGP Grey: The article's subject (close enough; granted the article is technically about the channel) has requested that his name not be included. An editor recently added it back, which I reverted, and was re-reverted. I don't want to get into an edit war, but there is no clear language in WP:BLP that allows for a minor subject to request (and be granted) anonymity on their article, though the consensus on that article's talk page seems to align with the subject's wishes. Suggestions? --Fru1tbat (talk) 19:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Update: another editor has also reverted the addition, but I'd still appreciate some clarification on the issue. I was not able to find a guideline or policy that was completely unambiguous. --Fru1tbat (talk) 19:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

For clarity, by "minor subject" do you mean someone under 18, or someone not notable, or someone not the main subject of the article...? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, sorry - the policy language is "person who is relatively unknown". --Fru1tbat (talk) 19:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

This is probably a better question for BLP/N. It doesn't seem that he is claiming any particular harm, just a desire to be anonymous (a strange request from somebody who names a website after himself, and whose name and picture are readily available on google). I'm not sure that a desire by a notable person to control his public persona fits into the cognizable harm BLP is supposed to avoid, but indeed, if he is on the boundaries of notability, his own desires can tip the scale, and adding his name does not measurably improve the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:31, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

'Tabloid journalism' in WP:BLPSOURCES section

I'm thinking of adding a footnote to 'Tabloid journalism' in the WP:BLPSOURCES section saying "For the purposes of this policy, tabloid journalism includes the supermarket tabloids of the United States and Canada, and the red tops of the United Kingdom." Any objections? PhilKnight (talk) 15:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No objection in principle, but I wonder if that's the best way to explain this. My understanding is that the confusion arising from the word "tabloid" is that this word has different definitions in the United States than in Great Britain. Perhaps some sort of explanation that the word "tabloid" means different things in different parts of the world? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:05, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The term tabloid is problematic. It refers to both formatting and editorial discretion depending on who you ask. The real concern is the use of sources that have a poor reputation for fact checking and honesty. Certain papers are universally considered a poor source, others not so clearly. I am not sure what a better way to word it would be though. Chillum Need help? Type {{ping|Chillum}} 16:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Chillum. The proposed change might have the effect of restricting tabloid journalism to just the limited universe of supermarket tabloids. Coretheapple (talk) 16:37, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Using BLPs to further disputes

Our section on this referred only to off-wiki disputes, though clearly it covered on-wiki disputes too, so I've edited the section to make that clear (diff):

Previous:

Wikipedia articles concerning living persons may include material—where relevant, properly weighted, and reliably sourced—concerning controversies or disputes in which the article subject has been involved. However, Wikipedia is not a forum provided for parties to off-wiki disputes to engage in or continue their hostilities. Experience has shown that misusing Wikipedia to perpetuate legal, political, social, literary, scholarly, or other feuds and disputes is harmful to the subjects of biographical articles, to other parties in the dispute, and to Wikipedia itself. Therefore, an editor who is involved in a significant off-wiki controversy or dispute with another individual, or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the possible conflict of interest. More generally, editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article, just like editors with a strongly positive view of the subject, should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally if they choose to edit it at all.

Current:

Biographies of living people should not be used by parties to on- or off-wiki disputes to continue their hostilities. Experience has shown that misusing Wikipedia biographies to perpetuate legal, political, social, literary, scholarly, or other disputes is harmful to the subjects of biographical articles, to the other parties to the dispute, and to Wikipedia itself.

Therefore, an editor who is involved in an on- or off-wiki dispute with another individual, or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest.

More generally, editors who have a strongly negative or positive view of the subject of an article should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally, if they choose to edit it at all.

SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:30, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Elaqueate has reverted, referring to a drastic cut. [12] I can't see any drastic cutting in my edit. I tightened the writing slightly, but otherwise left it pretty much as it was, except for the addition of on-wiki disputes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Elaqueate, I see you reverted but added "(whether on- or off-wiki)," which is better than it was, but it has left the section not making as much sense (including the heading). Also, it could use some tightening. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the proposed edit removed some nuance. I don't see how removing the initial part about how Wikipedia covers controversies is useful, it seems to balance the section and keeps it from being a "Thou shall not do wrong" section. The same for this bit: More generally, editors who have a strongly negative view regarding the subject of an article, just like editors with a strongly positive view of the subject, should be especially careful to edit that article neutrally if they choose to edit it at all. Editors may have a conflict of interest in the article being edited due to various reasons. Some definitions are given below: That seems like balanced and useful advice. Removing these sentences (and the NY Times bit in the refs) is more than cosmetic tightening. The section head could be changed, but it should maintain a description of the topic, as per the other section heads, not a "Thou shall not...". __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

And Wikipedia articles concerning living persons is much more clearly about all Wikipedia articles that contain living people, while Biographies of living people should not be used... sounds much narrower, and could be mis-interpreted as only talking about biography articles specifically. I think it's better to emphasize the true scope here, as it is in the longstanding version. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I like the added clarity of the slightly shorter version but I don't think either version is adequate. What I would like is a stronger advisory that persons containing strong negative views of the subject should not edit. I raised this point a few weeks ago after a BLP was edited by a person whose edit summaries showed hostility. We need to guard against the impression that our articles, especially of living people, are edited by people who have a personal antagonism or axe to grind. Often the appearance of bias is as bad as the bias itself.

Perhaps we can add the text in boldface to the three paragraph version: "Therefore, an editor who is involved in an on- or off-wiki dispute with another individual, or who is an avowed rival of that individual, or has demonstrated hostility to the person in any public forum, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest."Coretheapple (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'd support something like that. The point is that BLPs should not be used as weapons by on- or off-wiki foes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No, no, no. Having a negative opinion of someone - and expressing it - doesn't make for a conflict of interest. Or is my expressed opinion on mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik evidence that I shouldn't have edited his biography? The proposal is a Wikilawyers' dream, and an incentive to engage in doxxing. As the proposal stands, all supporters of politician A have to do to exclude supporters of political opponent B from making otherwise legitimate edits to an article is to demonstrate that they are supporters of politician B - which can only lead to a situation where NPOV is less likely to prevail. We should judge contributors by their contributions - nothing more, nothing less. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I preferred the version before SV's changes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh please. Red herring. We already discourage contributions from antagonists. This just makes it mandatory. The purpose of this is to protect the vast majority of subjects who are not mass murderers. Coretheapple (talk) 17:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The proposal 'protects' BLP subjects from legitimate criticism. It violates NPOV. It has no place in Wikipedia policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:13, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't. What it means is that if a person says in an edit summary (and I'm recalling this from memory) that the subject of the article is "scum," then no, that person shouldn't be editing the article. As I recall this particular instance, the person in question was a particular radio host who was a self-described conspiracy theorist. Controversial people who aren't axe-murderers or politicians seem to comprise a significant percentage of biographical subjects. Also I've noticed that celebrity BLPs are often edited by people who can't stand them (as well as drooling fans). Both can skew articles but the "can't stand ems") are the ones who are more problematic. We already discourage people with that kind of bent from editing BLPs, but I think they should just stay away and let those of us who don't have an axe to grind to work on those articles. Coretheapple (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of what you think the proposal 'means', it is self-evident that it would be used by partisan contributors to exclude legitimate criticism. It someone is controversial, excluding individuals on one side of the debate from contributing is a violation of NPOV, and no matter how many anecdotes you pull out of thin air to justify it, it will remain so. If we can't judge contributors by their contributions, but instead have to go trawling around elsewhere to decide whether they are fit to contribute, we have a fundamental problem - and one that can't be solved by inventing policies that only apply to people careless (or honest) enough to make their off-Wikipedia identities unknown. If NPOV is being violated on Wikipedia, it needs to be tackled by methods that require on-Wikipedia evidence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Then I guess you're opposed to the existing language, which already explicitly discourages editors with strongly held negative views of the subject from editing those articles. Note that the language doesn't refer neutrally to persons with positive or negative feelings on the subject, but only negative views. That is because the aim is to protect BLP subjects. We can of course strip BLP subjects of that protection in the name of "NPOV" or some other excuse, but I think it would be a giant step backwards. Antagonists can be damaging to BLP articles in a host of ways. The aim is to protect the project from their bias as much as it is to protect the subject, and I don't think the current language does the trick. If we're against something, we should prohibit it, not leave it up to the editor with the bias. Coretheapple (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not interested in what you 'guess' - and nor do I consider adherence to NPOV an 'excuse'. The proposal is ill-thought out, an incitement to Wikilawyering and doxing, and incapable of actually tackling the problem it purports to solve. As long as Wikipedia permits anonymous editing, there is no way that partisan editing (pro or anti article subject) can be dealt with by methods that require knowledge of off-Wikipedia behaviour. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually I misquoted the current policy because it says strongly negative "or positive" view of the subject. I have no problem with altering my language to say or has demonstrated hostility toward or advocacy of the person in any public forum. That resolves your NPOV concern, to the extent there is any, and also strengthens the current policy. I don't think it would encourage "doxing" though I do agree that the current controversy over "Tutelary" at AN/I is going to encourage doxing generally if that person is banned as suggested. But we don't have to dox to find out if an editor has shown a particular bias concerning a subject. Coretheapple (talk) 18:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Nope, it doesn't resolve the NPOV problem at all. Instead, it merely enlarges the scope for Wikilawyering and trawling for off-Wikipedia evidence, while failing to deal with the problem it purports to solve. Either people are violating existing Wikipedia policy already - in which case we can tackle it with existing practice - or they aren't. And if they aren't violating policy, prohibiting them from editing because someone has found off-Wikipedia evidence that they hold an opinion regarding the subject of an article that someone else doesn't like is ethically questionable, and incompatible with an encyclopaedia which encourages 'anyone' to edit. If we can't reliably decide whether someone is suited to edit an article based on their on-Wikipedia behaviour, we have no business permitting anonymous editing at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I was actually drawn to this subject more by on-wiki behavior than off-wiki behavior, but in fact, yes, I think that off-wiki behavior matters. If a person is antagonistic toward the subject of an article, or the head of the fan club,. he or she should stay away from the article on that person. I don't care how good a front they put on. To me it's just another form of conflict of interest, and it has no place in the project any more than paid editing or other forms of corruption. Obviously you and I disagree on this but I'd like to see how others feel. Coretheapple (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, You are suggesting that the head of a fan club editing a Wikipedia article on the subject of their fandom is 'corruption'? That seems a little over the top to me... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Meh, you're right. I'll stick with my original suggestion. Striking out the revised one. Coretheapple (talk) 22:21, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPNAME, WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE and List of controversial celebrity baby names

Am I correct in believing that most of the names on List of controversial celebrity baby names are violations of WP:BLPNAME and WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes. --Jayron32 00:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Susan Lindauer

Expertise on BLP1E is needed at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_September_18 for the Susan Lindauer article. The issue is whether her 10 years of media coverage are for the one event she is best known for, a trip to Iraq to protest the call-to-war for which she was arrested as an unregistered foreign agent. Is she a private person where BLP requires us to be cautious and delete ... or by publishing an autobiography and making media appearances is she now a public figure where the standard notability issues determine if she gets an article. She was given a 5 page profile in the New York Times magazine. More eyes are needed. She has fringe/conspiracy followers and I think that is coloring people's opinion on her notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I too came here to ask for a look at this article. I'm more concerned that this is a case of BLP1E. An essay states someone actively seeking attention is therefore not low-profile, but I think that's nonsense. We let the sources establish profile. What is the historical basis for the creation of BLP1E? Is it solely to protect individuals who would rather not be involved or embarrassed by their involvement with an event? Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 16:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME should it discuss the legitimacy of the court in question?

The "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" standard is given in the {WP:BLPCRIME} article. I am curious if this paragraph should include some discussion about the legitimacy of the court of law. Current policy would say that unless the person confessed to the crime, instead of ever saying "John Doe murdered Jane Doe", it should always be "John Doe was convicted of murdering Jane Doe." I am suggesting that it might need to go further and say "John Doe was convicted of murdering Jane Doe by The Court Of Whatever." A whole lot of small town judges operate with very little oversight. Even national courts may be untrustworthy sources when politics gets involved, as seems likely in my opinion when considering cases like the Egypt's judgments on the Muslim Brotherhood. It is hard to say that a court conviction is a sufficient standard for guilt. Should this paragraph be expanded upon to somehow discuss these nuances? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AristosM (talk • contribs) 17:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Inline references in templates

If a navigation template is listing (unlinked) names, what is the policy? The names are listed under organisations (linked) which contain the necessary references, however the names themselves are not linked - what policy applies here? Zambelo; talk 02:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The templates you refer to are navigational aids, and as such they require that what is included in them are wikilinked articles that readers can click through. References are not needed for that same reason. Note that free text is not to be included in such templates.- Cwobeel (talk) 04:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

"Applies to talk pages" - Is this actually policy?

A great deal of this - NPOV and NOR in particular - are extremely difficult to enforce on talk pages, and even RS is problematic because people may be searching for a source on something and unable to find it, and, according to a strict reading of this policy, it would then be removed instantly and possibly revdeled, even though they're just looking for help in improving the article.

The cite next to the "including talk pages" doesn't actually note that it includes talk pages, which is a bit problematic as it seems to be there in support of the statement but doesn't actually note the talk page bit (it does note that it applies to all articles, though).

Moreover, because most editors aren't trying to use the most neutral language possible, and are going to be trying to put stuff together in the talk space and see if they can properly cite it, it seems like this policy would create enormous BLP enforcement issues on pretty much every BLP (and everything even referring to living persons), as statements about living persons in article space not infrequently express opinions about them.

The reason that WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:RS exist is in order to improve articles, but these are not generally applied to talk page space in order to avoid unduly bogging down discussion - and in reality, no one cites everything they say on a BLP talk page, which means that everyone who ever talks on these pages is in violation of policy. And generally speaking, people aren't terribly neutral either - and reporting people for not being neutral on talk pages just feels like a recipe for disaster to me.

Not only is pretty much every talk page on Wikipedia which involves living persons in violation of this policy, but it doesn't really seem to be consistently enforced, and I'm not sure where the policy originally came from. While we obviously should be removing slanderous material from talk pages, this policy doesn't seem to really be applied even remotely consistently, and I'm not sure that it ever can be.

Is it even the intent of the policy that it applies things like WP:NOR which explicitly only applies to article space or talk space? Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:50, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

RFC re: Intro

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.

---

According to introduction to the present version of WP:BLP, this policy applies to talk pages; however, the citation referencing this notes only article space being affected. The citation issue has been fixed. The rest of the article seems to contradict the introduction - WP:V appears to apply to talk space, while WP:NPOV and WP:NOR do not, per the non-article space section, as well as their own pages (WP:NOR explicitly notes that it does not apply to talk space, and WP:NPOV notes that it is about articles). I propose that ", and on other pages, including talk pages." be changed to ". Unsourced or poorly sourced material about living persons should not be added to any page, including talk pages." This would make it less ambiguous as to what part of WP:BLP applies to talk pages. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:35, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Simple questions should be asked at WP:HELPDESK. There is no need to start an RfC in order to get an explanation of basic policy. One way to understand the situation is to think about what Wikipedia is—it's an encyclopedia with a very high search ranking, and it is not a place for editors to post their views on living or recently deceased people. Someone should terminate the RfC (I would do that, but I have to go). Johnuniq (talk) 08:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• SNOW Of course BLP applies to all space, by common consensus over many years and by common sense. we are concerned about the impact we may have on living people, not just in our very public space, but in all space. @Titanium Dragon: please close this to show that you have some WP:CLUE and that the withdawal of your topic ban was not a huge mistake. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
  • @TheRedPenOfDoom: I think you misunderstood my point here; the introduction doesn't seem to agree with the body of the article. Note that there is actually a section of the policy page entitled "Where BLP does and does not apply" which notes specific rules as relates to BLP in various areas; if all of BLP applied equally everywhere, why would this section exist and be called such? It specifically notes non-article space. The problem is, as the introduction is presently worded, the intro seems to suggest that WP:NOR and WP:NPOV apply to talk page stuff pertaining to living persons. The actual rule noted in the body of the article is that unsourced or poorly sourced material should not be added to talk pages, and that unrelated material about living persons (i.e. stuff which has nothing to do with content choices) should not be added to talk pages. NPOV and NOR are both article space policies, not talk page policies. I feel that the present wording in the intro doesn't really agree with the main article text of WP:BLPTALK, nor with WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Ideally, all of our policy pages should be as unambiguous as possible and agree with each other. If NPOV and NOR apply to BLP material in non-article space, that needs to be noted in those policies; if not, then BLP should be unambiguous about that. Titanium Dragon (talk) 11:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
• Misphrased, but there is a legitimate distinction here. Good faith questions about "should we include the shoplifting conviction from when the guy was fifteen?" and similar things are permissible on a talk page even if we decide it would violate BLP by way of WP:UNDUE to include it in article space. BLP certainly applies to talk pages, but the material we see as prohibited does differ slightly.—Kww(talk) 11:37, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
  • What would you suggest to clarify this? Titanium Dragon (talk) 11:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Well, even on the talk page that allegation should be well sourced or rev del'ed and no one should be saying it with poor sourcing -- now perhaps confusion about sourcing will get a bit more leeway but not much -- in both the article and the talk page the likely first response will be don't say that or (re)add that (unless you have great sources) -- for the article, there might be a somewhat faster block. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:37, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comment - It's clear that the principles of BLP policies apply to all Wikipedia space be it articles, talk project space or user pages. Titanium Dragon has raised a valid concern here about the wording of the policy, and the amount of links needed in talk pages. In particular, the parts of BLP regarding content policies that are worded in terms of articles like NPOV and OR don't make sense for Talk or other non-article spaces.

I'd say that a reasonable requirement is to ensure that a link to the source supporting the problematic claim is included in the same section of the talk page where the claim is made (so that readers following the thread can encounter it), and ask editors to word the claim with as little detail as possible following WP:BLPTALK. A link for each vaguely worded mention of the claim would be overkill, and doesn't follow current practice. Diego (talk) 13:19, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - As relates to unsourced or poorly sourced material, there is no doubt that it applies to all spaces. Best practice would be for someone seeking to insert information from a questionable source to first post a bare link to the source so that the community could first discuss whether the source is an acceptable one for information about a living person. If the source is determined to be acceptable, then information from that source could be proposed for introduction into the article. What is not acceptable is to make a wide range of allegations about someone on a talk page, supported only by sources that could be, at best, described as questionable. That is a proper and fit candidate for immediate removal. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPTALK already allows more than that, and restricting it as you suggest would make discussing about living people unworkable (as well as not gaining us anything, since the link itself provides exactly the same information as if its content were embedded within the talk page). Policy is fine as it is now: Contentious material related to making content choices is allowed at talk pages in order to seek advice, provided the question itself does not reveal sensible information that should be concealed if deemed unusable. Diego (talk) 22:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Or if the material is not related to making content choices and is simply being used to impugn the subject.

I used the words "best practice" intentionally - I did not say that should be a requirement, but doing so would certainly help avoid these situations; if agreement is reached that a source is not reliable before making claims based on that source, then the need for BLP redactions would be reduced, the contention and heat would be lessened and disputes would hopefully be somewhat defused. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well, I don't agree that constitutes best practice. It's merely an awkward way to bring exactly the same information to the table - if the claims stated in the source are problematic, they will equally accessible from Wikipedia whether we copy/paste them to the talk page or not, so we don't gain anything by forcing readers to perform a browser reload; and we lose a lot of flexibility for no benefit. Diego (talk) 16:06, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

How is encouraging circumspection in the treatment of such things awkward, when that is what we ask for. It's good if people are circumspect, and any tangential awkwardness is easily handled by circumspect people. And then its rev'deled. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Because there's a difference between being circumspect (which the current policy already requests), and merely posting a featureless link to [13] and saying "read this page and comment", which is the above's proposal. At the very minimum the editor posting the link for consideration should explain why they're bringing the link to their fellow's attention, and what claims in the source are those being proposed for the article. The reliability of sources depends on how they're used to support content in the article - the proposed link could be valid for some claims and not for others. Diego (talk) 21:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, so it goes something like, 'This link has serious allegations about subject; we should add these to the article' 'No, bad source because . . ., or 'Yes good source because . . . etc. (and/or admin steps in and revdels in the spirit of WP:BLPEL). Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, that would be a valid right level of detail. In some cases it may be needed to explain the nature or the allegations as well, or the part of the linked article where they're included, which also is something acceptable to do - once. ("Questionable claims already discussed can be removed with a reference to the previous discussion"). The policy for this is quite good, it doesn't need amendments. Maybe adding an example like the above of what's acceptable would be useful to readers, though. Diego (talk) 22:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker did a better job of explaining my proposed best practice than I did. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:46, 3 October 2014 (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.

WP:BLPN Instructions

I am requesting input about BLP Noticeboard instructions. Please see the following discussion.[14] Thanks. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Great apes

We have a few articles on notable chimpanzees and gorillas. It has been argued that such animals should be regarded as persons, so one can make the case that our BLP policy should also apply to them. Count Iblis (talk) 19:41, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia's position (link) is that apes are not humans and not afforded the same legal rights and protections. If an ape does not have copyright law protection, it certainly cannot have libel law protection. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:07, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, here's the deal - if you can persuade 0.1% of the living non-human great apes to sign a petition asking to be recognised as persons under Wikipedia policy, I'll make a formal proposal that it be accepted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

In the meantimje it is hard to see how genuine distresss would be caused to a great ape by having unverified and perhaps false information about them in their biography but if you can think of an example that would at least be helpful in starting any process off. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

BLP is also about protecting the public profile of a person. Suppose that in the future a chimp like Congo who can paint will have a Wiki page. Then negative information like "that ape doesn't actually make the paitings himself", could be damaging to the interests of the chimp as it could negatively affect the price of the paintings. So, such statements should not be allowed unless it is supported by clear evidence. Count Iblis (talk) 02:09, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

The chimp does not have interests in the eyes of Wikipedia, its owners do. But of course any dubious unsourced statement could be challenged. No need for BLP. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:29, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Your AGF and comments are excellent, but some threads should be allowed to wither away because they are not worth feeding, if you get my drift. Johnuniq (talk) 03:07, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia's current position may have to be revised in the future. See e.g. this legal case. Count Iblis (talk) 03:37, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

BLP is not, though, based on US law, othwerwise we might give corporations BLP status too, as was requested here the other week. I did think about this yesterday and concluded that not only would the chimp not understand the concept of money but it is hard to see how his or her lifestyle could be affected by the price of his or her paintings as the chimp will not be able to have a bank account that he fundamentally controls, not now or in the future. Whoever would be making the money, it would not be the chimp. Making exceptions to BLP policy by including corportions or animals would tend to weaken the policy and so I would oppose on this grounds. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 00:50, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME should it discuss the legitimacy of the court in question?

(I added this to the talk page last month. A spambot removed it without anyone ever answering the question and deciding whether or not an edit was appropriate. I'm not sure of the protocol here, so I'm asking my question again.) The "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" standard is given in the {WP:BLPCRIME} article. I am curious if this paragraph should include some discussion about the legitimacy of the court of law. Current policy would say that unless the person confessed to the crime, instead of ever saying "John Doe murdered Jane Doe", it should always be "John Doe was convicted of murdering Jane Doe." I am suggesting that it might need to go further and say "John Doe was convicted of murdering Jane Doe by The Court Of Whatever." A whole lot of small town judges operate with very little oversight. Even national courts may be untrustworthy sources when politics gets involved, as seems likely in my opinion when considering cases like the Egypt's judgments on the Muslim Brotherhood. It is hard to say that a court conviction is a sufficient standard for guilt. Should this paragraph be expanded upon to somehow discuss these nuances? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AristosM (talk • contribs) 03:24, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Surely we would need reliable sources to mention any suspicion of unreliability of a conviction or of unreliability of a court. And generally whether we say "is a murderer" or "was convicted as a murderer" should also be based on the reliable sources. I personally see no need for change to the policy here. The nuances are either in the reliable sources and this can be reflected or they are not in which case this should not be reflected, that would be original research. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 04:15, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

In some cases, yes. "George Gnarph was a traitor" (positing he lived in a country where some people might view such charges as "show trials" a la Stalin) is a far stronger claim in Wikipedia's voice than "George Gnarph was convicted of treason against Josef Stalin in a 1937 trial". On the other hand, we should also not use Wikipedia's voice to imply doubt just because the trial was in a small-town -- "George Gnarph was convicted of treason in a town of only 1500 population" would be improper IMO. Is there a simple solution to the dichotomy? I wish we could find one. Collect (talk) 12:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

As always, no policy can exclude us from making sound editorial judgements. The policy needs no changes, and if there is an issue in a specific article about weight, attribution, or wording, it can be worked out in talk with other editors. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

What happens if a person's death goes unremarked by reliable sources?

Do we have a guideline or procedure that covers the case where a person with a Wikipedia article dies, but the death is not reported by a reliable published source, perhaps because the person's period of public prominence has passed?

The particular case is that Alataree wishes to update the Barry McSweeney article with details of McSweeney's death, but the only published reference Alataree has been able to find is a brief death notice which lacks the details that would establish that it's about the same Barry McSweeney. (Discussion starts at User talk:Alataree#Barry McSweeney and continues at User talk:Paul A#Barry McSweeney edits.)

Alataree has asked me what happens if no better reference turns up: does the article remain in its current McSweeney-is-alive form indefinitely? This is a good question, which I don't know the answer to.

Is there a procedure or guideline that covers this? Am I being too cautious about the suitability of the death notice in the first place? — Paul A (talk) 01:40, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

In the first instance, we wait. It's not uncommon for obituaries to be published months after death of a person. In this instance I would be surprised if one of the organisations this person has been associated with didn't publish a obituary, potentially in an annual scientific journal (which potentially means waiting more than a year). Stuartyeates (talk) 06:12, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I think WP:BDP applies here: unless we have reliable sources to the contrary, we have to assume he is not confirmed deceased and treat the article as though he is living. I have to agree that the source given does not establish the death of this Barry McSweeney. I don't see any harm coming from leaving the article as it is currently until a reliable source reports his death, however I do see the potential for harm if we report him dead if he isn't. Ivanvector (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

One has to question whether this individual is notable for an article, or indeed anyone whose death does not merit an obituary. BLP demands a reliable source fior us to report his death, we need to verify it whether it is true or not. We certainly cannot withdraw BLP from this subject without a reliable source as to his death. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:37, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME Vs WP:WELLKNOWN

Two BLP articles, two crime related incidents in which subjects are allegedly involved, both not proven in court of law. But users use WP:BLPCRIME to censor crime related contents in one article, and use WP:WELLKNOWN to insert crime related contents in other article. In this ref of BLPCRIME section, it is stated that "WP:BLPCRIME applies to low-profile individuals and not to well-known individuals, in whose cases WP:WELLKNOWN is the appropriate policy to follow". But as it is inside ref, no one can see it. This problem should be addressed so that users do not abuse BLPCRIME to censor contents. Abhi (talk) 18:20, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

This section of the policy is meant to protect the privacy of low-profile individuals. News reports about criminal events are often sensationalized, such that if we include published allegations even from reliable sources, they may turn out to be poorly fact-checked or simply incorrect. Thus editors are encouraged to favour privacy for people who are not well known. This doesn't apply for people who are well known.

Although it should be clear as-is, I think you might be right about burying this in the ref. I suggest pulling out the last sentence and adding it as a second paragraph in this section, reading "WP:BLPCRIME applies to low-profile individuals and not to well-known individuals, in whose cases WP:WELLKNOWN is the appropriate policy to follow." Ivanvector (talk) 18:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I oppose the change as unnecessary and am disturbed by the motivation of the proposer who just recently escaped an edit war and violations of BLP policy with only a warning.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:09, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I was aware of that when I responded. I think the accusation of violating BLP is flimsy, although the user certainly violated 3RR. But that's an issue for AN/I and I think it's already there.

I'd like to agree that the change is unnecessary, but I've run into this interpretation issue a number of times in the past, where users have misinterpreted the exemption as applying to all BLP content, rather than just content on relatively unknown persons. I would like to rearrange the entire "presumption of privacy" section, but this is a fair start. The blurb to be added is already in the policy, it's just buried in a ref where most editors miss it. Ivanvector (talk) 20:33, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion of this issue at WP:ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to tell the world about grievances. It is extremely undesirable to edit a policy to say the opposite of what it has said for a long time in order to win an edit war with the intention of adding a grievance to a BLP. The current policy is fine. Johnuniq (talk) 23:18, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

If you want to edit the policy you need to start an Rfc with the policy changes you wanted stated clearly, debate the issue for say 6 weeks, and then if there is wide community input which in balance is in your favour the policy can be changed, though obvioulsy by an uninvolved Rfc closer. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Nutan and son

Actress Nutan was married to Rajnish Behl. Her surname appears as Behl in her article. The son Mohnish Bahl also has an article. Is there a custom in India that when one's father and mother surname is Behl, the son's surname be Bahl? I am confused. Who can shed light on this? --Why should I have a User Name? (talk) 23:54, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Why discriminate?

Why discriminate between BLP subjects, i.e public figure and non-public figure? Same multiple reliable sources in both cases but why some BLP subjects deserve privacy, while other BLP subjects don't deserve privacy? For example, why this actress Sana Khan deserve privacy, but actor Salman Khan and actress Aishwarya Rai don't deserve privacy?

I tried to trace source of WP:WELLKNOWN and WP:NPF policies. This WP:BLP policy page was created on 17 December 2005 following a privacy controversy over article about wikipedia user Daniel Brandt] who was involved in Essjay controversy. The thoughtprocess while drafting initial stages of BLP policy was driven to protect the privacy of this wikipedia user (who was never a public figure or even 'relatively unknown figure' and about whom BLP article doesn't exist now).

2 days after the creation of this BLP policy page, on 19 December 2005 at 06:32, User:FRS made this edit on talkpage in 'privacy issues' section and suggested to protect privacy of lesser known BLP subjects without explaining why this discrimination should be made and this whole shebang began. 11 minutes later, at 06:43, User:WAS 4.250 supported this idea, but he too didn't explain why privacy of lesser known BLP subject is more important than privacy of other BLP subjects. User:SlimVirgin, who was in the process of expanding page, saw these two comments, drafted wording and added 'presumption in favor of privacy' section in the BLP policy page after 29 minutes, at 07:12. This whole so-called policy/suggestion to discriminate between BLP subjects was completed within 40 minutes by 3 users during initial rush hours of page creation and even till date all wikipedia community is dancing around this suggestion of User:FRS as if it is religious commandment or commandment of all legal courts around the world. Based on suggestion of FRS, WP:BLPCRIME sub-section was drafted by 2 users in 3 days in Jan 2012, not in Rfc of something 6 weeks. Even this WP:LOWPROFILE page was created to expand baseless suggestion of FRS.

Both WP:WELLKNOWN and WP:NPF can sue Wikimedia Foundation, although wikimedia foundation is protected in the US under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Laws in other countries are more or less same. I don't think there is a country which allows to invade privacy of public figures and protects privacy of non-public figures. How to prove 'actual malice' or 'negligence' in case of public and non-public figures is court matter[15], but these both types of BLP subjects can sue and have tried to sue wikimedia foundation and wikipedia users. If both types of BLP subjects around the world can sue wikimedia foundation and wikipedia users, why wikipedia community is protecting 'weaker section of public figures or celebrities' i.e NPF? Our job is to document encyclopedic contents as per WP:V and WP:NPOV, why are you trying to be saviour or crusader or Jesus Christ etc of these so-called WP:NPF BLP subjects and villain for WP:WELLKNOWN BLP subjects? Why you allowed the suggestion of User:FRS to take control of your thought process and drafted policies surrounding it?

All of you sound characters in my dreams who behave illogically. This is not my first dream on wikipedia and no matter how hard I try, I can't wake you up. You simply laugh or shout in incoherent sound and move away like those weird characters in my dreams. Abhi (talk) 18:08, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

One could write a book about how the various Wikipedia customs, policy pages, and other institutions arose, though I'm not sure how interesting a book it would be. The justification for offering greater protection for less well-known people than for public figures tracks the rationale behind US law, which is a balancing of various individual rights against being defamed or having their privacy violated, versus the right of free speech (or in Wikipedia's case, against the mission to present an uncensored encyclopedic account of the world). Public figures are matters of public concern, and usually put themselves there through their own actions and decisions. They do not have a reasonable expectation of remaining private, unbothered, uncriticized. In the US, a person can get up on a stump and accuse a politician of lying; on Wikipedia, multiple reliable sources can conclude that they were not telling the truth. There is indeed a much higher threshold in law before a public figure can claim defamation. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:58, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Didn't read the entire wall of text, but short story is that legally public figures are afforded less privacy under US law by the nature of their celebrity. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Alas wrong. US courts have a very high standard in libel cases - requiring actual malice where the person is a "public figure" but that is not the same as "privacy" at all, and public figures have exactly the same privacy rights as everyone else. One can not plant a microphone or camera in a celebrity's home and use "they have less privacy" as an excuse. Collect (talk) 12:26, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

What Wikipedia means by privacy is very different than the legal right to privacy. On Wikipedia it means something like not being the subject of unwanted attention. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:24, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Citizenship in reliable sources

Odeya Rush (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

What is the threshold of verifiability for the citizenship of a person? If a source says "Israeli-born American actress" is that proof of dual citizenship? We have a plethora of sources describing her birth in Israel, but I feel that evidence is lacking to support that she has attained American citizenship. It is clear that she lives and works in the USA, so it is likely that sources are describing her as "American" based on those factors. But in the lede paragraph we describe a person's citizenship, and so I would think that more evidence is required to assert she is both Israeli and American. Elizium23 (talk) 20:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

• Citizenship and nationality are far more nuanced than that. For example, in international sports, legal "citizenship" is not the defining characteristic, but "sporting nationality" (i.e., the country for which the athlete competed) is. In another scenario, a non-citizen may serve in the military of another country. In your example, I have no idea whether the actress in question is an Israeli citizen, a U.S. citizen, a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen, an American who was born in Israel to parents who were U.S. citizens, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born an Israeli citizen, or an Israeli citizen who is primarily known for acting in the American film industry. In my interpretation, "Israeli-born American" implies that she was born an Israeli citizen and became an American, but without further explanation, it's ambiguous. Clearly, this should be clarified, and any relevant details described in the main body text. The threshold for verifiability is a reliable source per WP:RS. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:46, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Suppressing birth names

WP:BLPPRIVACY explicitly says to remove the specific birth date if a subject complains. What about a birth name? Should we remove the birth name if a subject became notable under a different name and objects to their birth name being listed? Background here. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 10:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

See also Talk:Laverne_Cox#Birth_Name. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

If the person's notability relates to the birth name in any way, we include that name. On the other hand, suppose "George Gnarph" were initially named "Stalin Gnarph" and he has never used that (presumably) embarrassing name, nor is it related to his notability - in which case we have no encyclopedic reason to include that name. This is not a mere hypothetical question - a number of Germans were named "Hitler," "Adolf" or the like during the 1930s, and basically there is no reason to add it to their biographies other than to possibly embarrass them. Collect (talk) 12:52, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

In this above specific case, sourcing of the name in USA Today demonstrates this is a widely published biographical fact. I agree that caution should be applied if sourcing is obscure (e.g. public records) rather than on reliable sources discussing the subject. I disagree with the concept of not including birth names where it is discussed in such sources. SFB 18:10, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

SFB strikes exactly the right balance here: if a person's birth name is a widely published fact, then it probably should be included in the person's Wikipedia biography. If the only sources are public records (e.g., a search of birth records, etc.), then I would be more inclined to omit the birth name. We need to remember that part of the logic for excluding exact birth dates, when requested, is the prevalence of identity theft and the ability of scammers to use such information to gain access to a subject's credit history, etc. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:39, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

NeilN is mischaracterizing the debate, though. The issue is a problem of circularity, since USA Today used Wikipedia as their source for the alleged birth name. The author of the USA Today piece (by far the "best" source for this alleged fact) just confirmed that Wikipedia was her main source for this alleged fact. She responded as such to someone's Tweet asking "was Wikipedia your source for Laverne's birth name in this article? http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/09/01/best-summer-ever-iggy-azalea-brenton-thwaites-lizzy-caplan-john-green-laverne-cox/14747241/ Would help settle a debate. Thx!" She replied:

                              "Donna Freydkin @freydkin 2h2 hours ago

                              Yes.The name was up there and out there long before I wrote the story.It still is."

She is incorrect that the name was "out there" anywhere other than Wikipedia and one Alabama newspaper blog (which was subsequently edited to remove this piece of information, which suggests that the editors had a problem with its factual sourcing). The only source is Wikipedia and one quickly removed version of a local newspaper blog.

The relevant issue is that this journalist who the argument hangs on has publicly admitted that she used Wikipedia as her primary source. THAT is a huge circularity problem. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 17:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

We have only your assertion that the USA Today author is incorrect and you're still characterizing Al.com as a blog? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The USA Today author tweeted about it. You can read her tweet, as above. Is the al.com entry not a blog? It looks like a newspaper blog to me. More to the point, what does that matter? The point is that al.com retracted the information, so the only credible source is one retracted version of an al.com entry. Aroundthewayboy (talk) 17:25, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

'She is incorrect that the name was "out there" anywhere other than Wikipedia' <-- your assertion. The blog distinction matters because as WP:NEWSBLOG says, "These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because the blog may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process." And I've removed the material until sourcing is cleared up. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh I see about the blog question -- I was not intentionally trying to impugn the source in that manner. I'm genuinely interested in the fact that it seems like a Wikipedia circularity issue, so I'm not trying to distort the facts. Anyhow, it's a gorgeous Sunday and I am outta here! Aroundthewayboy (talk) 17:33, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

A clarification to limit biographical information about trans people that has no strong connection to the reasons for their encyclopaedic notability would be a positive change. The parallel given for people with embarrassing birth names is a good one, as well edited encyclopaedic articles avoid collecting trivial facts and demeaning gossip for the sake of it. Perhaps someone would like to propose a change and run an RFC for it, if the change remains contentious? As well as birth name, there may be other trivial information such birth defects, plastic surgery in early life, or otherwise personal events in their 'pre-notable' life that we may wish to encompass if the policy leaves editors in doubt of what best practice should look like. --Fæ (talk) 18:44, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

For a different instance of this see article history of Elizabeth Garrett. Unused part of birth name in opening line only was taken out apparently upon her request and then put back in per normal WP first line practices. What is the right answer? 2600:1002:B10C:3BF:308D:767A:789C:DA3E (talk) 21:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

It's getting out of control at Garrett's page. Please advise! 70.215.78.139 (talk) 18:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposal re: fraudsters

I hope this is the right page to be making this proposal...

The wiki policy regarding biographies is to err on the side of omitting material that may reflect a source in a negative light. I propose that an exception be created for people who have been convicted of fraud.

The way that business frauds work, fraudsters don't just lie about their products. They also lie about themselves. They do it pervasively. And they are very, very good at it. As just one example, even years after his arrest, Madoff continues to claim that his business was legitimate until the mid-1990s, and no fraud took place prior to that time. In reality, employees of his have pleaded guilty to acts in connection with his fraud that took place as early as 1973. Another example: In literally hundreds of newspaper articles and his memoir, Jordan Belfort claimed to have been employed by L.F. Rothschild prior to Black Monday. Scenes at L.F. Rothschild even appear in the movie. It seems that few if anyone bothered to verify the claim, which turns out to be completely false -- the Stratton Oakmont fraud was already underway for six months before Black Monday. Some more examples with Belfort and his accomplices can be found on their talk pages.

For other people, their biographies may be seen as reliable-but-first-person, and newspaper articles appear reliable. This presumption should not be applied to fraudsters, because they (a) have an incentive to misrepresent, and do misrepresent, facts about themselves pervasively, even facts that seem irrelevant or innocuous, (b) it is rare for journalists to fact-check in the detail necessary to deal with fraudsters, (c) fraudsters are very efficient at spreading misstatements so those misstatements appear to be accepted consensus fact.

We see this throughout fraudsters' pages in the wiki. Belfort's page until recently had all sorts of cheery-sounding nuggets from his childhood about lemonade stands and formative experiences and such, all sourced only to his memoir. Similarly, Ray Nagin's page had paragraph after paragraph of cutesy details about his hardworking parents and struggles to make something of himself through adversity -- all sourced only to his self-published biography.

I propose that for persons convicted of fraud only, wiki adopt a rule that a statement of fact should not be considered reliably-established unless it can be traced to an independent source and confirmed that the fact was independently verified by that source.

Djcheburashka (talk) 04:01, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose this measure. BLP needs to be for all living people WITHOUT exceptions. Your arguments are not strong enough to withdraw our protection from these people in question. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 05:02, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I do see the point of this proposal. We surely want to publish only true information. I think the last part ("confirmed that the fact was independently verified by that source") might go a bit too far -- but when someone has been convicted of fraud there are grounds to doubt the things they have said about themselves e.g. in a memoir. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The question of how much evidence is needed for a point is always going to very by circumstances. Obviously where fraud is concerned, more care will need to be taken. But there's no reason to burden the policy with this point of common sense, imho. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Philosopher Thank you for your comment. The reason I ask for the modification, is that its come up on some talk pages. A single sentence like "Special care should be taken in assessing whether claims that may have come from persons convicted of fraud have been verified" would really do the trick and avoid some disputes. Djcheburashka (talk) 03:28, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

This is a real issue, and it comes up regularly. It's often associated with COI editing. A common case is 1) someone was convicted of a felony, 2) they made lots of money, and 3) now they have paid editors, or at least SPAs, trying to clean up their image. This has been a problem at Michael Milkin, Yank Barry, and Cortes Wesley Randell, just listing ones I've been involved in. While I don't think we need a formal change to WP:BLP, we do need to look hard at the COI issues when this happens. Between WP:V, WP:PEACOCK, and WP:COI, we have the policies needed to deal with the problem. The paid editors tend not to give up easily, and these articles can become a time sink for volunteers, fact-checking the PR. The main thing is to insist that COI editors only edit on talk pages, which means others look at their input before it becomes part of the article. John Nagle (talk) 03:58, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I take and appreciate your points, as well as your clearly sharp eye regarding all of those people except the ones represented by law firms I have been associated with, who definitely absolutely positively have never done anything wrong except for the things they pleaded guilty to.

I think the issue may be a bit broader than that, though, because it can creep into the wiki through the backdoor of usually WP:RS, and its then hard to deal with. My current example of this is on Jordan Belfort, of "Wolf of Wall St." fame. Most of the issues with that page two months ago could be fixed on WP:V, WP:PEACOCK, or other grounds. But... One crucial "fact" in Belfort's story is whether Belfort trained as a stockbroker at L.F. Rothschild, where older brokers talked him out of his naivete, then was laid-off on Black Monday, to find his way into penny stocks and found Stratton Oakmont (which Belfort claims was actually mostly legitimate). The story has been repeated in about a hundred usually reliable newspapers. There's even a New York Times editorial discussing the moral implications of the scene at L.F. Rothschild in the Wolf of Wall St. movie. The thing is, Stratton Oakmont was founded six months before Black Monday, according to the NASD. So, there.

In discussions about how to fix this, I've been addressing concerns about WP:SYNTH, WP:ORIG, [[WP:V], WP:RS and WP:BLP. It is taking a long time, its very up-hill, and when I do get it fixed its not uncommon for a drive-by edit to see the paragraph and revert because they think there's a WP:BLP problem.

Meanwhile, there are a slew of editorials by people who investigated Belfort, in NYT and WSJ, saying that the memoir is bunk, Belfort and SO never had legitimate operations at any time, etc. But the strictness of WP:BLP leads to a lot of resistance in mentioning those sources, even very gently. So, that's some background about what led me to make this request. Djcheburashka (talk) 03:28, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Old Blpprod template

Not sure if this is the correct forum but seems reasonable enough. I would like to suggest the creation of a Template:Old prod full template for articles which have an expired WP:BLPPROD but which are not deleted but some other action occurs, such as a redirect. The specific example I am looking at is Savannah Summers, an article which was BLPPRODded a month ago and which no sources were provided. Rather than delete, an enterprising editor redirected the article to an appropriate target. Some days later, a discussion opened at Rfd about deleting the redirect which resulted in the article being retargeted. Since there's a backlog at Rfd, this stayed open and stale until today when I came across it, and non-admin-closed it. However I found that an IP had restored the article, still without references. I restored the redirect per the Rfd but it took me a while to determine that my action was justified because of the previous expired BLPPROD, otherwise I would have added a new one. So, I thought it would be a good idea to add the template I suggested to the talk page to avoid that problem again, but I found that there isn't one, and "old prod full" is only for articles where the prod is contested (rightly so - if it's not contested then there is no article). So long story short, I think an "old blpprod" template is a good idea. Cheers. Ivanvector (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Plot sections and the WP:BLP policy; discussion about All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story#Removed plot per WP:BLP. A WP:Permalink for the discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 07:56, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Feedback requested regarding BLP policy and citing primary sources

Hi WikiProject, there is a conversation at Talk:Sonic Boom (TV series)#Recent page protection about whether or not editors need to cite a primary source for acting/writing/directing credits in works that have been released. Could use some feedback. For example, here if episode 4, "Buster" airs, and we add that Eric Trueheart was the writer, do we also need to add a citation to support it, or is the primary source, the episode itself, assumed to be the source of this information? Does not adding a citation to the primary source run afoul of BLP policies? Please note that we're not talking about eps that haven't aired yet, which would have to be sourced per WP:CRYSTAL. Danke, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:48, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

References

An example of the absurdity of this policy

Two people have a confrontation. One kills the other. Because of that fact and that fact alone, Wikipedia grants coverage "sensitivities" (or whatever you want to call it) to the shooter that are not extended to the deceased when covering the incident.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:18, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

The source you link says nothing whatsoever in relation to any shooting. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

It most certainly says something about the shooter and if the shooter is irrelevant to the shooting then the complaint ought to be "off optic" not "BLP violation", no? It again fails me why other Wikipedia policies like WP:NPOV, WP:RS, etc are not sufficient such that we have to have a BLP policy that is selectively applied to article subjects of a certain class, as if other classes of article subject are not entitled to the same courtesies. If they are all entitled to the same policy, but BLPs need more attention, that goes to editor attention priority, not policy: the fact someone is at the article in a position to cite BLP means the requirement that attention be paid has already been satisfied.--Brian Dell (talk) 22:45, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I'd say that the fact that it was off-topic made WP:BLP policy even more relevant. And in response to your point about 'other classes of article subject', I'd consider it an entirely good thing if we were to apply the same high standards we aspire to regarding BLP matters to other subjects - but the fact is that we have enough trouble getting them applied where they matter most. Hence the need for the policy. There is nothing in the policy which states that we must apply lower standards elsewhere. Anyway, are you proposing a specific change in policy, or just having a rant about the inequalities of the world? If the former, we need specifics, and if the latter, this really isn't the place to do anything much about it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

If the shooter is off-topic to the shooting then the shooter is off-topic. That's another policy. Go back to my comment at the start of this thread and treat it as a pure hypothetical if that's what's needed to keep this discussion on track. This policy is, at bottom, based on discrimination between the living and the dead (and between individuals and corporations, etc). I have to thank you for writing out "we have enough trouble getting them applied where they matter most. Hence the need for the policy" for us so clearly because this gigantic non sequitur is what's been so wrongheaded about this policy from the get go. The word you use that would be highlighted in red is "applied". The solution to "getting policies applied" is to APPLY THEM! NOT invent a new policy whose only distinction on true policy grounds is to introduce the discrimination I've noted. The specific change I am proposing is to clarify, once and for all, that this "policy" is not a "policy", it's a call for editor attention to BLPs, at which point they are REMINDED that OTHER policies apply as opposed to implying that what the subjects of an article want matter as much or more to us than what our readers want IF those article subjects are of a certain class.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:28, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Again, are you proposing a change in policy? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:43, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

What was unclear about my call to stop calling BLP a "policy"? It should not be "policy" to have it as "policy" to exclude material from A, when A has killed B, that would otherwise not be excluded from B. If that's not what the policy says that's certainly how it is interpreted by editors in my experience.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Ok, make a formal proposal, so we can all !vote to retain the policy, and/or the WMF can instruct us that it is policy whether we like it or not... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

People can !vote right here in this thread. You can kick things off by giving a clear and concise reason for your presumed vote against.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense - Your statement that we can !vote right here in this thread is just plain wrong. First, you haven't stated exactly what you want done. Do you want the policy changed, or do you want the policy downgraded or deleted? The latter will not happen; the WMF will never allow it. The former, a change in the policy, requires a clear statement of what change is being requested. I know that you don't like the policy, but you haven't said what you want done. Second, since this isn't a formal RFC, your proposal that we !vote here will be difficult to close. Your suggestion that we !vote right here is absurd. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I am not calling for a !vote. Rather, Andy was, and my reply was to the effect, sure, whatever, knock yourself out. What I'm interested in is justifications of the policy, and instead of getting that, I was being called on to agree to a process that wouldn't address whether justifications have been presented or not. I said sure, whatever, in order to set that detour aside and continue on with what matters, namely, "clear and concise reason[s]" for the treating this as "policy" the way it gets treated.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I consider the provisions of WP:BLP policy necessary to protect the rights of living individuals. Concise enough for you? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

So, politics (from the Wikipedia article on "Rights": "Rights are often included in the foundational questions that governments and politics have been designed to deal with"). I address the politics of BLP policy below.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• Hang on. You link an unreliable source into an article, and you're complaining about someone removing that? Just because there was a quantifier on "living person" does not mean this policy is hideously broken. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:47, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian called reader attention to that source, and so did the Washington Post. Apparently because the Guardian and the Washington Post are more interested in informing their readers than in trying to do a news subject a favour by suppressing that reporting. I suggest you write the Washington Post editor and complain to them about their "hideous" editorial judgment and how Wikipedia would never reveal to its readers what WaPo dared to. Perhaps WaPo will print your letter so readers can see the difference in POV between Wikipedia editors and other respected Western media.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• That is utterly meaningless, when reliable sources reference obviously unreliable stuff, like the Daily Mail. Besides, if the source IS already in the Guardian link, then you didn't need to link it in anyway, and that makes this complaint even more bogus. One does not simply get a valid policy changed because they violated it. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:13, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

The South China Morning Post is equally guilty of violation if it is a violation to not dismiss out of hand what was reported. When I've done the same thing the SCMP, the Guardian, and WaPo have done, I believe I do have the right to call for us to stop suppressing material that these organizations are not, given that we are not supposed to be inserting our own editorial judgment as a general rule as opposed to following what the RS say. It's "obvious" to you that the police report scans are fakes? How did your discriminating eye catch that when the Guardian's editors missed it? I'll note that is is all off topic anyway when the issue here ought to be considered as a hypothetical (if you want to discuss a specific edit, head to that article as this page is for discussion about editing guidelines in general): do we slant coverage of a fatal confrontation between two persons in favour of the survivor? If not, then the moral of the story is that, as far as "policy" is concerned, ALL SUBJECTS deserve the courtesy of NPOV and use of RS as supposed to just some, no? As for needing to link, the issue here is transparency: is it "obviously unreliable" or not? If yes, it's just as unreliable after the Guardian reported on it in the world of fact since the Guardian did not go back in time and change history. That unreliability should be revealed to editors by calling attention to where the Guardian got its info.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:31, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

A simple question. Are you (a) advocating the abolition of WP:BLP policy, or (b) advocating that WP:BLP policy be extended to apply to non-living persons (which incidentally it already does to some extent)? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

If it applies to non-living persons to a non-negligible extent I would think it would not have "living" in its name. Extending it to non-living persons would invite the question of why not organizations. Look, there is a place for having a Wikipedia page about BLPs. Wikistars etc should be handed out to BLP editors because there is a rationale for giving BLPs more attention. But once one has arrived at any given BLP and is editing it, one should not be citing BLP as a "policy" when there is an editing dispute. If you have no appeal to NPOV, or to RS, or to UNDUE WEIGHT, etc and the other party does, that other party is presumptively in the right. Editors currently use BLP to call for the removal exclusively of negative material and exclusively from a certain subset of articles, and they cite BLP because they cannot articulate an objection on RS, NPOV, or other grounds. That is what is going on in practice. Does the New York TImes have a BLP policy? No. So why do we? In my view, it's Wikipedia's "individual versus the establishment" politics. We won't give a corporation a break, and for sure not a three letter agency, but with an individual, there's to be no hard hitting, no sir, different rules apply: living individuals are to be given special treatment by virtue of their capacity to feel hurt (dead people, you see, can't feel pain), and corporations and agencies don't have "rights" that Wikipedians are as interested in. Shutting down Wikimedia websites to lobby Congress made a joke out of guidelines like Wikipedia:Do_not_disrupt_Wikipedia_to_illustrate_a_point but most of all out of the neutral POV policy. I would be surprised, Andy, if you reacted skeptically to the WMF's leading with regard to the blackout given that you've already called for deference to the WMF once already in this thread. The WMF has teamed up, or proposed doing so, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation agenda more than once and we see elements of the EFF's "privacy" agenda in this BLP "policy". I see far more privacy objections from Wikipedia editors than one would find in a Washington Post newsroom. On top of this is all the Wikipedia:Oversighting going on in the shadows that only a very select few is allowed to review. The editing community is entitled to say "no" to this politicization. There's no need to "abolish" BLP if it is just stated clearly that it is not to be cited as "policy" in a bona fide editing dispute. If you are in an editing dispute concerning a BLP, cite where in RS or NPOV or UNDUE it suggests what you want deleted should be.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

tl;dr. But from what I did read, you probably need to step away, have a good walk around your neighborhood get some fresh air and a nice cup of tea. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:28, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

It says at the top of this page "The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons". Do you have anything to say about that, Red Pen? Here's your executive summary: The compromise to NPOV that current BLP "policy" represents reflects WIkipedia's political lean being "normalized" to the point that's it's deemed beyond question enough to no longer be politics. In fact, however, it's still politics. In other words, what Andy calls "rights" protection, I call a political agenda. It's content lobbying.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:50, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec) BLP explicitly extends its protections to the recently-deceased (see the section anchored by WP:BDP), particularly where our coverage is likely to affect living friends and relatives. I have not investigated the particular incident that Brian Dell is raising, but I will note that purely as a matter of policy his assertion about BLP's scope are incorrect.

Still speaking to the general point, if a source is not appropriate for a BLP, it's probably not appropriate for a relatively-recently deceased person's biography or biographical details, either. Whether or not the individual's specific circumstances happen to engage the enforcement provisions of BLP, strict standards of sourcing and reporting can and should still be applied to biographical content in order to comply both with WP:RS and WP:NPOV. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I had vaguely recalled a discussion from some time ago on this page, which I have just now gone back to, and one observation expressed there was "Repeated efforts to broaden that policy to apply to non-living people have been rebuffed." Apparently, no longer. I note, however, that although the verbiage is now there as you've noted, Ten, a rule without any rationale provided is an empty one. All of the rationales given in BLP do not apply to the deceased, e.g. “applicable laws in the United States”, defamation, libel, "the possibility of harm to living [Wikipedia] subjects", "potential impact on biography subjects’ lives”, etc. Per Wikipedia:The rules are principles, "understanding these principles is more important than understanding the rules." If there isn't an apparent principle behind a rule, it's vapid. In this case, if that extension to the dead is taken at face value one could argue that the references to defamation etc should be dropped as misleading as such notions are not the fundamental notions generating the policy rationale. The notion that should be presented to readers is whatever notion it is that extends to the deceased as well as to the living. If it's truly policy to defer to the wishes of a select group of persons who are not even mentioned on Wikipedia, then the deference and the courtesy extending is even broader and more arbitrary than I thought. It least it would be fair in the A recently killed B example!--Brian Dell (talk) 21:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Once again, it appears that your assertions about this policy don't actually reflect the contents of this policy. In the policy section that I linked in my original comment (WP:BDP), it is explicitly noted that "[This policy] would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends...". In other words, the rationale is, very straightforwardly, that things we publish about the recently deceased have particular potential to have effects – emotional, psychological, financial, legal, or otherwise – on the still-living. Our stated rationale for extending BLP protections to the recently-deceased has nothing to do with hypothetical arguments about novel interpretations or changes to U.S. defamation law; it appears that you're using this talk page to argue for or against something that...well, no one here is saying, based on a mistaken reading of what's actually written in the policy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:59, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Then put "emotional, psychological, financial" etc in there instead of mentioning U.S. law when U.S. law not the real concern. This still doesn't answer the question of WHY we should care about this one group's psychological well being and not other groups. It doesn't do anything for Wikipedia's readers. The group could also be defined so broadly as to apply to enormous numbers of people (while still only applying to a minority). It appears editors are just not all that bothered by this whole notion of owing certain people some sort of obligation that's not owed equally to everyone. I had hoped there would be more editors who objected to this favouritism.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:27, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Bdell555, if you want to describe respecting the rights of individuals as 'politics', fine - that's your choice. In which case, I have to suggest that your politics and agenda appear to incompatible with those ascribed to by Wikipedia contributors in general, who are responsible for existing policy. You are of course open to making a formal proposal, to see if I am wrong in my assessment of this, but otherwise you will have to put up with complying with 'an agenda' you don't like. And for the record, I have 'lobbied' for no content in the article you raised here - I have neither contributed to the article nor the talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

It is not "my" choice. It is the choice of the New York Times to call these issues "highly political". By the way, this is not about any particular article or and particular editor's edits, including yours.--Brian Dell (talk) 20:46, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Nope. The NYT piece concerns extending libel laws to cover the (recently) dead. It does not concern any proposal to remove the protection Wikipedia policy applies to the rights of the living (I don't think this thread, or Wikipedia policy in general, is ready for the NYT yet). Which is what you seem to be suggesting - though yet again you have failed to make a formal proposal. How about getting off your soapbox and doing so? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

The NYT piece did not, in fact, say that "extending libel laws to cover the (recently) dead" was "highly political", although that's certainly one of many implications following from the NYT's observation that the "debate over the proper balance" concerning "personal rights" was "highly political." According to you, this is about "rights". If that's so, why aren't "rights" ever referred to in BLP? Let's hear some more rationales. Rationales that would justify the full breadth of the policy, which apparently includes the recently dead. If sound rationales can't be provided, that goes to the question of BLP's place in the policy hierarchy.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I have made my position clear, and see no need for any further rationale - and if you believe that the arguments in favour of WP:BLP policy aren't sound, get off your soapbox and make a formal proposal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

You got on your own soapbox to say it's about "rights". Which is more than fine as that's exactly what I invited everyone to do. I'd like to see someone else get up on a soapbox and tell us what he or she believes is the bottom line "argument in favour of WP:BLP policy," with particular attention to why enforcement of NPOV, RS, UNDUE etc is not good enough. Because my issue is not so much that they aren't "sound", but that they are pretty much absent. Given that the policy is apparently also supposed to apply to the recently deceased, I'd like to see just how the "argument" segues so readily into applying to the dead as well. It so easily doing so would suggest to me that there really is no argument and would be better described as ad hoc. This is not the waste of time you seem to be suggesting, since getting a grip on the background principles, if any, will ultimately inform not one particular discussion going forward but potentially several. The way to deal with instruction creep is to return to the broader objectives of the instructions and then test the instructions against that.--Brian Dell (talk) 23:56, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

• Brian, your argument makes no sense at all. As far as anyone can determine, you are simply lashing out randomly at the removal of one source you've used. Nothing else you say seems to have any relevance, make any sense, or be valid at all. BLP applies to the recently dead, and NPOV/UNDUE apply to EVERYTHING. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 07:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• As Brian Dell said much earlier in this meandering thread: "People can !vote right here in this thread." OK, I vote in favor of maintaining our current BLP policy, as currently interpreted, including its reference to people who have recently died. I oppose' any changes whatsoever based on this misguided and ill-advised thread. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

• Agreed 100%. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 07:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

BDP has been applied multiple times in the Michael Brown article to remove poorly sourced and defamatory information about Brown. Does the OP have a specific example of information about Brown they think should be removed from the article per BDP? Gaijin42 (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

And BDP was cited as the rationale for that? In any case, this is not about Michael Brown. I've invited people to think abstractly here but that doesn't seem to be working. I'll leave you with this observation: the influence of BLP on the project has just kept expanding over time. As of now, it has breezed right through the living / dead distinction, to apparently stop somewhere amidst people whose existence isn't necessarily even hinted at on Wikipedia (if "relatives and friends" of the deceased matter, logically relatives and friends of the living must also matter, no? It would be quite incongruent to give a darn about someone feeling hurt because of what Wikipedia said about their dead friend but shrug shoulders if they're hurt because of what was said about their living friend). Eventually editors will have to address the issue of just where does this all stop, if anywhere.--Brian Dell (talk) 03:27, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Who ever said, anywhere, that we "shrug shoulders" at the concerns of the friends and relatives of the living? That seems to me to be a bizarre misreading of BLP policy and its practical application. There is no need to "stop" anything, as our BLP policy works quite well, despite this strange thread. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:37, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

A shrug of the shoulders is what someone to whom BLP doesn't apply to gets, relative to someone to whom it does apply. The turn of phrase endeavours to make relatably concrete the abstract point that if there's no difference between whom the policy applies to and whom it doesn't, there's no apparent point to the policy. If you're saying we ought to care about everyone equally, whether in Wikipedia or not, I most certainly agree. Whether there's a lot of love going around or very little, petrochemical multinationals are entitled to their share as the subjects of Wikipedia articles. So says NPOV, anyway. If BLP works so well why does summoning it during an edit war fail to resolve that edit war in the majority of cases? In my view, it doesn't resolve conflicts because whether one appreciates an appeal to it or not is largely a function of one's POV or politics. If the other party doesn't buy into the value system that holds that we owe a certain class of subjects special treatment so they don't get their feelings hurt, pleading BLP is entirely unconvincing. For me, if it's NPOV, RS, and not UNDUE then if it hurts your tender feelings tough luck Sunshine. But then I'm hardheaded as opposed to a bleeding heart liberal. Thing is, I'm more than willing to care if someone would come up with a good argument for just why I should care. Until then, I work for the reader. I owe the subjects of articles the same fair presentation of the facts that readers demand, not a Hallmark card. We certainly wouldn't cut the FBI any slack simply because they complain about their Wikipedia coverage. So it is that pleading BLP obscures the nature of the disagreement more than it enlightens and editors talk past each other even more. This in contrast to policies like WP:RS and WP:NPOV that appeal to commonly recognized values. One can't build the authoritative encyclopedia readers are looking for if there's no discrimination when it comes to one's sources, just like the New York Times couldn't write an authoritative newspaper. One most certainly can, however, build an authoritative encylopedia while holding to the principle that what the subjects of articles want us to write is frankly irrelevant to the mission, again, just like the New York Times can write an authoritative newspaper without a BLP policy or even something analogous. The NYT will spike stories, yes, but they'll also do it on the request of the US Gov citing national security, something most Wikipedians would probably laugh off with a "you must be kidding" given the politics around here. WP:BLP boosters' notion of social responsibility is very different from NYT's or WSJ's. It shouldn't be if we are passively following the leads of our reliable sources and not pushing our own agenda.--Brian Dell (talk) 06:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• For the nine thousandth time; do you actually have a point, or are you just complaining about absolutely nothing? Your grievance makes no sense whatsoever, and an uninvolved admin should hat this waste of time. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 09:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I have to endorse Lukeno94's position. Brian Dell/Bdell555 seems intent on arguing about an idiosyncratic reading of BLP which seems to be almost entirely unconnected with either the plain text of the policy or the way it is actually applied on Wikipedia. I'm certainly not participating further in this waste of time. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:27, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Facebook and DOB

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't find it - what's the general feeling about using Facebook profiles as a source for DOB? Artw (talk) 14:33, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

General feeling? I would treat it like most other self-published sources, like a personal website. If there isn't any reason to doubt the information provided – that is, if we are reasonably certain that the Facebook profile really does belong to the individual in question, and there aren't any at-least-equally reliable sources which give a different DOB – then I don't see a particular problem. If you have a specific case in mind there may be particular details which bear on the point, of course. And if you're stuck, WP:BLPN is a good place to ask. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:40, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Damn it. I knew I shouldn't have looked at your contributions. When someone asks a vague, "general feeling" question on one of these pages, it's always about a specific dispute. Didn't take long to find that you're asking this as part of a pissing match at an AfD. Note that having a Facebook page with a DOB on it is still just like having a personal website—while you can now do a bit of childish point-scoring at the AfD about how we can "reliably" source a DOB for the individual, it will look very silly if you try to argue that having a Facebook profile counts toward notability. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:50, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I very much doubt the DOB is going to affect the AFD outcome. I would however like to restore it after it had been blanked, and a Facebook profile appears the best source on that. Artw (talk) 14:54, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

• Facebook has no real verification procedure, and Facebook profiles are generally not designed to be publicly available. If it was a YouTube VLOG or a tweet from a verified Twitter account, then I'd say yes, let's consider it; but not Facebook IMO. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:02, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to lean towards "no" then. Artw (talk) 15:09, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

clarifying recent edit

RE. this, the addition about names is for people who maybe don't want maiden names etc. listed on the page under a similar vein as DOB's, which seems fair enough to me. I may not have made this clear, or there may be some consensus against my change, I'm not sure either way. --Mdann52talk to me! 16:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

That was pretty unclear. And I would probably be against any change the precluded editors from adding birth names to articles if they appeared in reliable sources. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:06, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course; I believe this section is on about borderline notability people, that maybe have the name mentioned in one source, where common sense should prevail. --Mdann52talk to me! 17:16, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not. " If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable". It's "or", not "and". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:19, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

And your change reinforced that, "If the subject complains about inclusion of these details, either on-wiki or via OTRS, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year or current name." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:23, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Interpretation of BLPCRIME

At Talk:2014 Cairns child killings some editors are interpeting BLP to mean that the killings cannot be called murder in the article body or categoriea " until someone is convicted". Input from people actively involved in the BLP guidelines would be appreciated. Edward321 (talk) 14:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Suggested change - new subsection on WP:PAIDBLP

I suggest a subsection following "8.1 Dealing with edits by the subject" be included

"Paid editors (as defined at WP:PAY), whether they are paid by the article subject or by anybody else, are prohibited from making edits to BLP articles, with the exception of removing unsourced contentious or libelous material, and then reporting the the edit and their paid status on the article's talk page or at WP:BLPN"

The wording, of course, can be adjusted as long as the main point - that there is no need for paid editors on BLP articles - comes through.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:01, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• I do not think you are intending to ban them from the article talk page also or from submitting AfCs or article requests. Perhaps a better way of wording this might be the positive: "Paid editors (as defined at WP:PAY), whether they are paid by the article subject or by anybody else, are permitted to edit BLPs using the article talk page or AfC, but not the article itself, with the exception of removing unsourced contentious or libelous material, and then reporting the the edit and their paid status on the article's talk page or at WP:BLPN" (This is not a comment on the merits of the proposal, but on how to word it.) DGG ( talk ) 04:17, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

That wording is fine with me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

So the reaction to a paid advocate failing to disclose, who was banned upon disclosure, is that we don't need enforcement, but that we need to ban political science professors from openly editing articles about politicians? That doesn't make any sense. WilyD 15:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Of course we need enforcement, but we also need simple rules to enforce. If a political science prof "accept(s) money to edit Wikipedia" (the WP:PAY definition of paid editor) for an article on a living politician, then this change in the policy would kick in. Consider who might be paying for the article (which would have to be disclosed according to the ToU in any case)

• A political opponent - we would certainly not want the prof to be editing the article in this case
• A political supporter - ditto
• A neutral party - say the Political Science Profs Association or the League of Women's Voters. The prof can write whatever he wants on the Association's or the League's website or on his university's website (with or without a free license), and we can quote him or her. Or the prof can write on our article's talk page, and an unpaid editor can post from the talk page to the article if it appears to be NPOV. Nothing lost here, as far as I can see.

But of course the poly sci prof seems pretty far fetched (has a poly sci prof ever been paid to write BLP articles?) What the rule would really stop is PR folks hyping their bosses achievements, or paid "political assassins" from smearing an opponents reputation, This type of thing happens quite often. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:47, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you should go back and read WP:PAY before linking it. It explicitly notes that a lot of paid editors that're benign, with the examples of museums & the lot given. Academic positions typically include an outreach component, which would usually include writing Wikipedia articles. PR folks hyping bosses, smearing opponents, and the like are already banned when they get discovered (e.g., the person whose actions triggered this discussion). A new rule doesn't change that; a new rule can only change the situation for non-advocates. I can't say I'm specifically aware of a political science professor who's written an article, but it's unthinkably daft to suggest it doesn't happen. I do know several professional astronomers who edit Wikipedia, all of whom are very likely to be paid for public outreach, including editing Wikipedia. A rule change doesn't affect the outcome for FergusM1970, who already was banned under the existing rule structure - it only serves to prohibit someone like me from writing something like this. (And here, a graduate student writing about someone in their field because they like their textbook, or went to a good talk by them, or they're otherwise relevant to their studies, is probably far more common than a professor, sure). WilyD 08:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Your argument about this rather reduces to absurdity. Academic work "in the real world" gets attacked all the time (it being generally the job to write) but it is an unusual circumstance that it is attacked for COI (unless, of course like a pharma scientist they appear to have a COI) - so your boogeyman of every academic getting shredded for COI is silly. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Your comment appears misplaced? We're not discussing COI here, but Smallbones' proposal to ban all paid editors from editing biographies of living people, here on Wikipedia. This would represent a change of policy only in the sense that paid, non-COI behaviour would become prohibited. The example I provided is exactly what the rule Smallbones proposed would prohibit. WilyD 15:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's the absurdity - you argue that being paid to do public scholarship is being paid to edit wikipedia, but people in general just don't draw that overwrought connection except for those who oddly seem to be unable to distinguish standard and ordinary COI. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

What? No, I note as a fact that most academics are paid to do public outreach, including via social media. Not (typically) as a part of our scholarship, but as part of our ancillary duties. This point can't really be disputed, unless you're wholly unfamiliar with academia, and merely making up what you believe to be true. When my funding agency asks what I've been up to, one of the things they ask about is public engagement about my research/astronomy in general/science in general (maybe they're interested in even more general, I don't have these forms on hand). But that's hardly the point. The proposal is to ban paid editors from BLPs (per WP:PAY), rather than paid advocates from BLPs (per WP:NOPAY), the very next section). So yes, it's pretty clear that this proposal is not about paid advocates, but paid non-advocates, such as teachers doing class projects, or academics editing in their field of research. WilyD 08:20, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

More absurdity - if writing an article for Wikipedia is your social media outreach, than you don't know what you are doing. Wikipedia is NOT a social network. If you are not sharing public scholarship (on science), than you are doing it wrong. Nopay is part of COI - drawing your overwrought connections just shows someone who decidedly cannot distinguish standard and ordinary COI. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:56, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a social network, but it is social media. The rest of what you're saying appears to be non-sequiters. WP:PAY mostly describes paid editors without problematic conflicts of interest - teachers, librarians, university academics, art galleries, museum workers, that sort of thing, while WP:NOPAY described paid advocates - marketing departments, firms, writers-for-hire, SEO people, and so on. The proposed language here chooses to link WP:PAY rather than WP:NOPAY (which are adjacent sections in the same guideline), indicating it was chosen to prohibit the class of paid editors without problematic COIs (and perhaps also those with). Apart from that, no I'm not sure I can distinguish between standard COI and ordinary COI. But that's hardly the point. This isn't about COI, but about paid editors. To quote WP:PAY

The act of accepting money or rewards for editing Wikipedia is not always problematic. There may be benign examples of editors being paid; for instance, Wikipedians collaborating with mission-aligned organizations such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

So why does it become problematic when it's BLPs? WilyD 10:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Your reading is again overwrought, PAY, which is part of COI, also describes problematic editing in detail and "not always problematic" is not an endorsement. As noted, your inability to distinguish COI is probably the source of your overwrought readings. However, your failure in that regard is even less understandable when you make the useless distinction between social media and social network, which in their problematic aspects for Wikipedia are the same thing - this is not a place to promote, no matter if you call it outreach or not - it is a place to educate, which is the purpose of public scholarship (and for public scholarship, the platform is immaterial). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

There's essentially no reading. We're not talking about distinguishing COI - we're talking about distinguishing paid advocates from paid non-advocates. This proposed rule says nothing about COI, which is entirely a red herring. it is only a proposed rule about paid editors, whether or not they have a conflict of interest (and conversely, it doesn't care at all about editors with conflicts of interest who aren't paid). Outreach is not about promotion, except to the extent that it's about the promotion of education/knowledge (or perhaps, it's a non-conflicted interest - the purpose of outreach is to educate the public about the subject, the purpose of Wikipedia is to educate the public about the subject, so the "two" interests don't conflict, because they're really one interest.) If you think COI should be distinguished from non-COI, then you should believe this is a bad rule. If you think the problem is COI-editors, you should believe the initial phrasing should be something like "Paid advocats (as defined at WP:NOPAY)...". Otherwise, you're arguing that conflicts of interest aren't relevant. WilyD 11:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

PAY is part of COI (so your claim we are not taking about COI makes no sense) and it already describes what is prohibited:

"See Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, described above. What follows is subject to the Terms of Use and if there appear to be any contradictions, the Terms of Use overrule this guideline.

Paid editing is the practice of accepting money to edit Wikipedia. Paid editors who insert material that is promotional in tone into an article may be presumed to be violating our policy on neutrality.[10] Advertising, promotion, public relations, and marketing are prohibited by our policy WP:NOT. . . ."

It is precisely your inability to distinguish what COI is, that leads you to these draconian and absurd claims that academics writing about astrophysicists will be rooted out - it just won't happen, unless their writing leads others to know they have a COI. It is at least heartening to see that you have now circled around to agree that to the extent that academics do any Wikipedia-useful-outreach, it is in doing public scholarship. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Ananscottwalker and Smallbones, and I think that this is a commonsensical tweak in the policy. Coretheapple (talk) 17:20, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

If the intention is not to root out public educators (and other non-COI paid editors), why is the proposal written to target them, rather than paid COI editors? Writing the latter requires no more difficulties than the former (indeed, I demonstrated how it could be done by changing two words). PAY is quite clear that it covers all paid editors, whether they have a COI or not. The guideline distinguishes between paid editors and paid advocates, why do you refuse to? WilyD 11:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

PAY has precisely the "give" that you request "not always problematic" - if you are not being directed by your astrophysicist boss or your institution to pump them up, and you are not writing promotion (to pump yourself up or curry favor with your paymaster), you will be fine. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:10, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Right, and I have no problem with WP:PAY, because it takes the very sensible/reasonable position that being paid often results in a conflict of interest that is incompatible with writing here, but being paid often does not result in such a conflict (noting the particular examples of people employed by galleries, libraries, archives and museums, which are quite similar to my own example). But this proposal takes the opposite opinion, that there should be no "give", and all paid editors, whether that status creates a conflict or not, should be prohibited from editing. Somehow "We're going to write a rule to say it's absolutely prohibited, but don't worry, you'll be allowed to do it" is not very convincing. WilyD 11:30, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia policy is self-regulating, it does not generally work otherwise. Only in the extremes can Wikipedians even begin to do anything about the failure to self regulate. So, in that sense policy is there to guide self-regulation. 'If in doubt, don't', is the general maxim of self regulationAlanscottwalker (talk) 12:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

No? No, you do believe professional astronomers should be banned from editing BLPs? Or, No, you don't believe this proposal is a good one? WilyD 09:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Dato Sri Shuaib Salihu

Yang Berhormat Dato Sri Shuaib Salihu, one of the member of Malaysian Business Associations of International Trade and Industry. Assumed office 10 April 2009 Preceded by Muhyiddin Yassin which Member of the Malaysian Business Associations too for Jeli, Kelantan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juan bill (talk • contribs) 08:21, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Background check websites as sources for BLP content

Hey all, in the course of my travels I've periodically noticed editors using background check websites (Intelius, geneological sites and the lot) as a source for DOBs and birthplace info. I've seen it argued (although I can't remember where) that these sites are insufficient as references since they are not proper publications and do not have clear editorial standards, but it also occurs to me that they facilitate original research (we are effectively running background checks) and the information can in many instances contravene WP:BLPPRIVACY. Whatever the BLP community's expectations are about this should probably be made clear in BLPPRIVACY. Thoughts welcome. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Accusations and accusations as opinions in BLPs

I am not aware of any policies covering the distinction between verifiability of criticism existence and the veracity of the criticism itself. There is very little difference in an accusation of a wrongdoing and an opinion which makes an accusation of wrongdoing. As of right now, these two statements typically are treated entirely different:

• X is a bigot.(source calling X a bigot)
• Y accuses X of being a bigot.(source calling X a bigot)

For the sake of the example let's state that the source in question is from a reputable publisher, but lacks an example or a case. It is just a trivial "X is a bigot" and nothing more. Certainly, most editors would look at first example and remove it as an attack. The second will almost certainly remain because the existence of the opinion is verifiable even if the contentious claim is not. Essentially, signing off that it is okay because the source says X is a bigot. Is it still a BLP issue? If it is not allowable, what policy specifically prohibits it? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:18, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

An interesting question. I think that an accusation of a wrongdoing is (nearly) always an opinion. This is especially so where the wrongdoing relates to an internal thought process, such as in this example. Wikipedia's core content policy, WP:NPOV (at WP:YESPOV), requires that opinions not be stated as facts, which the "X is a" form would do. The "Y accuses" positions the accusation as an attributed opinion, and is more clearly compliant.

Additionally, I think it's worth noting that (IMHO) the purpose of the biographies of living persons policy (WP:BLP) is not to protect living persons (although this is a pleasing side effect); but to protect Wikipedia from slandering or libeling living persons (and the consequences thereof). The "Y accuses" form, in conjunction with requiring a supporting reliable source, makes it clear that it is not Wikipedia making the accusation.

Hope this helps in some small way. I am interested in the ongoing discussion, and any other alternate thoughts. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 01:39, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ryk72: This is the related discussion: WP:BLP/N#Steven Emerson part 2. You can weigh in there. - Cwobeel (talk) 04:17, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I think ChrisGualtieri is referring to this source and quote: Hammer, Julie; Safi, Amid (2013). The Cambridge Companion to American Islam. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 9781107002418. Retrieved 22 January 2015. "Islamophobe[s] Steven Emerson (the discredited "terrorism expert" who falsely identified Muslims as being behind the Oklahoma city bombings committed by Timothy McVeigh)" - Cwobeel (talk) 04:19, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

That source confuses fact and fiction - but you insisted upon putting it in with your "fomenting Islamophobia" spiel which is not even in the source. It was not my example, but if you must interfere it will distract from something that I am also researching - thankfully mostly out of BLP, but my standards are not limited to such. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the context. I'll have a look & a think. Probably best to keep the details of the specific instance on WP:BLP/N, so I'll reply there if anything useful & specific, and reply with anything more abstract & esoteric here. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 05:07, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• That's a good question, and I think WP:UNDUE gives us some guidance. We should consider whether the accusations had any impact on the person's field of notability, as well as whether they're likely to become part of the enduring legacy of that person. So, for example, something like "During the debate Smith accused Jones of being a 'coward' and 'soft on crime'." should be left out because it's just generic political trash-talk, but "After the watchdog group accused Jones of corruption, he was forced to resign when an audit found several thousand dollars missing from city funds." should be left in (well-sourced of course) as it is impactful on Jones' career. As a general statement, mere accusations are generally pretty weak article material, and especialy so for a BLP. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:04, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Birth intros

Do we use (born date) or do we just go with (date), for the birtdate? GoodDay (talk) 07:24, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Typically (born date) if they are still living and (date – date) if they are not. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

My corrective edit got reverted, yesterday at Song Jia (actress, born 1962). I wasn't sure if I had done something wrong. GoodDay (talk) 17:57, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Death cause changed to drug overdose without a source

I don't know if I'm asking in the right place, so please direct me if I'm not. I'm concerned about edits made to Christine Cavanaugh's article, as her death cause was recently changed from undisclosed causes to drug overdose. No death cause has been disclosed as of yet, and I've since reverted the edits. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I feel like claiming someone died of a drug overdose could be a serious violation of policy. Could someone please advise? Thanks, Melonkelon (talk) 10:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It is entirely reasonable and proper to insist on a Reliable Source for such a claim, and to revert in the absence of such. The RS guidelines spell this out clearly, and should you have problems you should point the other party at WP:RS, which says:

Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

Hope this helps. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:28, 7 February 2015 (UTC)