Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rdm2376's deletions

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RDM2376's Deletions[edit]

Rdm2376 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) this past hour has started mass-deleting articles with the rationale "Unwatched and unsourced biography that has not been edited for at least 6 months". He continued even after two of asked him to pause until the community has a chance to discuss his actions. Finally he paused after I pointed out to him that one of his deletions was in error. Thoughts? In my opinion the deletions ought to be undone, as they are not in keeping with our current deletion policy and many of the articles can potentially be improved. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 05:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems reasonable to delete biographies of living people that are unsourced and unmaintained. They're ticking time bombs as people can insert harmful content that has very real consequences. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) You would support undeleting unsourced biographies of living people? For all intents and purposes, that is the same as creating an unsourced BLP. NW (Talk) 05:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This method of deletion is blatantly out-of-process, but really it's our only option. What else are we going to do with the hordes of unsourced, stale, and marginally notable BLPs? This has to happen eventually IMO. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not our only option. We have a process for this - PRODding. --NeilN talk to me 05:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PROD works for isolated cases, but is neither appropriate nor practical for hundreds or thousands of pages. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? --NeilN talk to me 05:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because it requires twice the work, for starters. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If someone PRODs 1000 articles in a day, someone will start an ANI thread about them abusing the PROD process. Additionally, PROD fails miserably for articles like this. A few months ago I tried PROD-ing about a dozen of the oldest unsourced BLPs (longest time without sourcing). Around 3 were actually deleted, about half just had the tag removed with no improvements made. Mr.Z-man 05:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Based on the recommendations here tonight, I've just prodded the articles beginning with the letters A and B in Category:Unreferenced_BLPs_from_April_2007, which is a long enough time ago for some sort of sourcing to have happened. I didn't prod any articles with sources where the tag was mistakenly added, or where the tag was left on after sources were added. After just five minutes, one tag was removed (but there was still no subsequent sourcing of content).
However, I could use some help on the prodding; if several editors assisted, we could be done prodding old unsourced BLPs in a couple of weeks. Firsfron of Ronchester 10:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please take the time to think what you're doing before prodding articles. Nominating an article on a former deputy Prime Minister of Australia like you did to Doug Anthony is very unhelpful, and there's nothing obviously wrong with several of the other articles you've nominated for deletion. If there's a reasonable claim of notability and nothing wrong with the article it shouldn't be touched, and some basic editing can remove most BLP concerns. Nick-D (talk) 10:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am simply prodding WP:BLP articles with no sources. You are forgetting that there is something definitely wrong (not "nothing wrong") with BLP articles with no sources. The policy is very clear. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; WP:BLPDEL states that "Page deletion is normally a last resort. If a dispute centers around a page's inclusion (e.g., due to questionable notability or if the subject has requested deletion) then this is addressed via deletion discussions rather than by summary deletion. Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to a version of an acceptable standard." As the articles here aren't problematic for reasons other than the lack of references, they shouldn't be mass-nominated for deletion without any attempt to fix the article up first. Nick-D (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it is a last resort. You may think that PRODding articles left completely unsourced for three years is drastic, but it certainly improved one article rather quickly. Removing prod tags will not in any way improve them, Nick. Are you going to take responsibility for improving and reverting vandalism to these neglected articles? And the 55,000 other BLP violations? Also, the only way to prove a subject's notability is to source it. These articles have no sources, and thus have no proven notability, no verifiable content. I am an inclusionist, but these articles have the ability to harm real people. If there's no effort to improve them, we shouldn't have them. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I approve of his actions. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 05:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rdm2376 is doing good work. Unsourced BLPs that show no sign of ever being sourced should be deleted. If someone personally would like to take on the task of sourcing all of them, ask him to userfy them for you. Wikipedia is full of this kind of stuff and the solutions are to either source them or delete them. Both work just fine. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the articles are not speediable then the deletes are out of process. It makes me nervous that no second opinion is being potentially sought for these deletes. --NeilN talk to me 05:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is my problem as well. The deletions are well out of process, if the current process isn't working then it should be changed but the community should be involved in making that decision. Camw (talk) 05:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The community is incapable of such a conversation and decision. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why, Mayor Daley, I didn't realize that you edited Wikipedia! GJC 09:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly gives you the right to hold a conversation and make a decision to go ahead with it elsewhere because you don't think the community should be involved? Was I wrong when I thought this was a collaborative project? Camw (talk) 05:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hence my actions. Kevin (talk) 05:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More worrying because it's obvious from the discussion that s/he isn't even bothering to check whether the tags are correctly applied or not. Guettarda (talk) 05:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which discussion indicates that? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't true. The one that Paul Erik mentioned had the references very well hidden within the text, and was restored when this was pointed out. It certainly does not invalidate the general principle. Kevin (talk) 05:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's an example, though, of the value of having more than one person's eyes pass over the article before the speedy-deletion happens. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 05:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you'd like to go through this list ahead of time and tag the bad biographies for deletion, I'm sure Kevin wouldn't mind. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Was there a discussion of this somewhere already? (On-wiki or off-wiki?) Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 05:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where? --NeilN talk to me 05:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia Review. Careful, I've been told it's an irresponsible attack site and well-known trolls' den. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, no community discussion? --NeilN talk to me 05:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure there was community discussion. Perhaps not the community you're thinking of? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cute. You should know that the only community discussion that means anything involves the Wikipedia community. --NeilN talk to me 05:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the problem, but I just don't get the whole idea of deleting articles because they lack sources. Delete articles because they're crap, delete articles because they aren't accurate...but unless you're checking the sources, the mere presence of a source says absolutely nothing. Guettarda (talk) 05:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's about a lack of adequate sourcing, not the presence of poor sources. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Deleting articles because they lack sourcing does nothing to reduce BLP violations. The fact that an article has a source doesn't stop someone from inserting smears. In fact, a crap article with sources is more misleading, because it creates a false impression of being 'authoritative'. Deleting articles because someone fails to tick off the proper box is doing something just for the sake of doing something. Guettarda (talk) 05:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLPs are required to have sources. An unsourced BLP is therefore a BLP violation. Deleting an unsourced BLP removes the violation from the site. As long as the number of unsourced BLPs being deleted outpaces the number being created (which is a lot), it will reduce the number of BLP violations. Mr.Z-man 05:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand our BLP policy, the onus is on the user wishing to restore unsourced content about a living person to show the inclusion of sources for the alleged claims, this can easily be done using the normal process at WP:DRV as we would for any other situation in which sources manifest themselves after deletion has occurred. MBisanz talk 05:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on. BLP overrides CSD criteria? --NeilN talk to me 05:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLP overrides any policy. I like to think real lives are more important than needless wiki bureaucracy. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The BLP policy on deletion says that if the article isn't policy compliant then it should be improved and rectified and only deleted if that is not possible. This skips the attempt to improve the article. Camw (talk) 05:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's great, but who's going to do that for 51,864 articles in dire need of either attention or removal? –Juliancolton | Talk 05:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've spent days going over those categories adding references, PRODding sending to AfD. It's both endless and thankless. Kevin (talk) 05:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We thank you for your prior uncontroversial work, but having done that and gotten tired of it is not a justification or excuse for overstepping other existing policy and treading to or past the limit of WP:BOLD... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm involved in it right now. Once the ones in the project are done then I'll help with the rest happily. Others will help I'm sure. Camw (talk) 05:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) CSD exists to have a reference sheet for common deletion reasons. It has never been and never will be completely inclusive of what can be deleted with haste. (And these articles have existed for months without proper sourcing.) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So we're throwing the "credible claim of notability" criteria that stops CSD tags out the window? --NeilN talk to me 05:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) BLP applies where a violation of BLP is credibly alledged to apply; simply saying "this is unsourced" does not invoke BLP. See the shortcut WP:GRAPEVINE to the BLP subsection, quoting:
No allegation of good faith content objections, or attack page status, has been made here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While we sit and twiddle our thumbs on thousands of unreferenced, marginally notable BLPs, the articles can have real life consequences for people. I think these deletions, and MBisanz's idea particularly, is a step in the right direction. Killiondude (talk) 05:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank fuck someone is doing something. ViridaeTalk 05:42, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Because the illusion of progress is so much better than actual progress. Guettarda (talk) 05:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fewer unmaintained biographies. It's small progress, but I wouldn't knock it. You eat the elephant one bite at a time, after all. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One libellous article is worse than 1000 unreferenced articles that aren't. It also takes a fraction of the effort to fix. But, of course, it's more important to look busy. Guettarda (talk) 05:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be missing the point. No one is really doing anything about unsourced BLPs or libellous ones. Surely working on a lower-priority problem is better than working on neither? You're also assuming that there's no overlap between the 2 groups of articles. Mr.Z-man 05:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not better. Because it pushes people to include any source. Pushing people to hide the problem makes it harder to solve. Guettarda (talk) 05:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Out of curiosity, do you have any alternate ideas that don't involve either mass deletion or something substantially similar to what we're doing now (which consists of working through the backlog at only a fraction of the rate that its increasing)? Mr.Z-man 06:03, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I said on Kevin's talkpage, various projects exist to reference articles in areas of interest. Thousands of articles have been improved or deleted. Deleting these removes the chance of improvement. Going ahead with this without consulting our community here is entirely the wrong thing to do and running something based on the consensus of Wikipedia Review is insulting to editors here. Camw (talk) 05:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support Rdm2376's deletions. Not that anybody cares what I think, but it seems like the articles have been tagged, then deletedm because nobody cared to add sources. Abductive (reasoning) 05:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If Kevin's actions are deemed inappropriate by the community, I expect to see Category:All unreferenced BLPs empty shortly thereafter. For what it's worth, 339 biographies have remained unsourced, unmaintained and stagnant since January 2007—three years. It's high time we stop selfishly worrying about our own petty bureaucracy and thinking about the real-world implications of our efforts to harbor these very questionable and low-quality articles. –Juliancolton | Talk 05:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kevin's proposed actions should have been given a chance to be reviewed by the community before going ahead with them. Did you think nobody would notice or disagree? Maybe all project decisions should be restricted to a few selected editors, it's much easier and way less work that way. Camw (talk) 05:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLP clearly and unambiguously supports dealing with articles with identifiable real world issues, such as unsourced negative comments, false statements, potential libel, and the like. It does not support (and other policy does not support) blanket removal of potentially but not specifically problematic articles.
If the community wants to nuke all unreferenced BLPs then that's fine - as a new policy or behavior standard. But we don't have that now. Georgewilliamherbert (talk)
Why do we need explicit policy to take actions to prevent real harm to real-world living people? –Juliancolton | Talk 06:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So the only articles to be mass deleted are the ones causing harm? --NeilN talk to me 06:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. No specific allegations of harm were made regarding these articles. The general allegation - that as a project, we have a lot of unreferenced biographies which arguably contain a lot of bogus data - is rhetorically supported universally but not a validly recognized aspect of WP deletion policy either in precedent or written policy. Specific examples of harm are required under existing policy, and either community consensus on this being OK per further discussion here, or a policy change per discussion there, are required to legitimize the mass deletions. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. I think deleting all unreferenced BLP's two weeks after creation would be great. But this standard needs to have the approval of the community. --NeilN talk to me 06:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect example: DASHbot is in the process of notifying people that they have created unsourced BLPs. The responsible thing to do when you get a notification like that is to source the articles. Properly. Or nominate them for deletion. But actions like this would rather push people to add any sourcing. And once the problem is "solved", there's no longer a push to actually fix the problem of sourcing. But, of course, if you only care about numbers, not quality... Guettarda (talk) 05:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you see the moral imperative here? Most of these biographies are trivial to re-create (or can be restored) when someone is willing to provide sources. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Which means that once they're recreated, they'll be that much harder to find. No more accurate. Just better hidden. Which makes the problem worse. Guettarda (talk) 06:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your point. Are you saying that once an article is sourced, it'll be more problematic? —Dark 06:01, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If it's got false or damaging or libellous content then yes, of course it's worse if it's sourced than if it's unsourced. Because, of course, it's that much harder to find. And if it doesn't have anything damaging, if it's accurate, then it doesn't hurt if it's unsourced. Guettarda (talk) 06:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's all specifically reflected in WP:BLP now, I think - but, doesn't directly apply here, as the deletions didn't make specific allegations of overly negative, positive, or questionable content, only unsourced. If there's a specific problem with the article that's different, but those weren't alleged with specificity here. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, if content isn't negative, or positive, or questionable; then, umm, what content isn't in the scope of that phrase? I would say simply asserting there is content and that none of it is sourced is sufficient to fit it in that phrase. MBisanz talk 06:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Obama decision says, and I quote:
Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately. (sourced from your link).
"Contentious" is a feature of that. You are going beyond that and claiming that it supports removal of non-contentious material.
I do not believe BLP or either decision cited supports that claim. It's a valid community decision if we want to extend that to say so - but it's not what it says now. A specific claim that something in the article is contentious (or wrong, or overly positive or negative or questionable) needs to be made to justify a removal under existing as-written policy. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That sentence has two conceivable readings. One is that "unsourced" and "poorly" are modifiers of the phrase "contentious material about living persons", another is that "unsourced" modifies "material" and "poorly sourced contentious" also modifies "material." I am reading it in the second manner. MBisanz talk 06:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with that reading in the plain english sense. If Arbcom intended us to nuke all unreferenced BLPs as an outcome of the above cases it was not clearly supported by discussion then or since...
Community can decide now that we want to; it's within our remit. But stretching grammar parsing to the point that we break the language to try and support "oh, we already say you should do that" is not a good way to do this. If the communty supports it, it's fine, we can do it. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Arbcom did also rule that admins can do anything, including deletion, to protect BLPs, all at the admin's discretion. That seems to fit with my broader reading of it. MBisanz talk 06:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(after multiple ECs) Still, Arbcom's intention does not appear to be that we proceed with deleting all BLPs simply because they are currently unsourced. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 06:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think they left it up to individual admin discretion and also said that reversal would lead to desysopping. MBisanz talk 06:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's true in specific cases (where there would be a reason to believe that deletion may be necessary for this sort of protection), not in a general sense, as far as I can tell. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 06:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just AfD them if you can't speedy them. They'll be deleted or they'll be improved. Grandmasterka 06:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose I think its great that Kevin is doing something about what is a serious problem on Wikipedia, but I don't think this is the best course of action. A random spot check of the articles he deleted reveals that a quick Google search was all that would have been needed to source many of them. Before I nominate any article for deletion, I at least give it a quick search to see if any valid sources exist. If they do, I add it to the article. If they don't, I proceed with the nomination. Articles shouldn't be deleted just because Kevin feels like doing that instead of doing the briefest of checks for sources. Just because there's <BIGNUM> unsourced BLPs doesn't mean we shouldn't try to source them. If they've existed without being edited for six months or more, they can survive a few days more, especially since many of them don't seem to have any contentious claims. The WordsmithCommunicate 07:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse. I applaud Rdm2376 here for what he is doing, and I hope his talk page is flooded with barnstars by now. JBsupreme (talk) 07:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I oppose all out of process deletions. If people think it is a good idea to delete all unsourced biographies, and it may indeed be a good idea, they should first start an AFD discussion that explicitly applies to all articles in that category, and find out whether there is community consensus for this mass deletion approach.  Sandstein  07:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and block for disruption anyone who continues such out-of-process deletions. Deleting articels with no attempt to source them, and no specific allegation on problems (such as contentious unsourced content) is nothing less than disruption, and will do far more harm than god to the project. DES (talk) 08:01, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse I think Rdm2376 actions are positive. People should not expect to be able to write stuff and just expect others to source it for them. This sort of behavior is disrespectful and is the real disruption not the person who removed these unsourced comments.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, and request he undo his mass deletion. Yes, there is an argument that unsourced BLPs should be deleted via some process. That process is not one admin (or even several) going off on a deletion crusade, however well-intentioned. There is discussion at WT:PROD on instituting such a process, and if that fails, something else can be proposed. Until then, precipitate action is not a good idea. Rd232 talk 11:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly, PRODding doesn't work. Tonight I PRODded a couple dozen completely unsourced BLPs, and was reverted by user:Nick-D, who sees "nothing wrong" with completely unsourced BLPs. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Clearly, PRODding doesn't work." - well no, in its current form, PROD isn't supposed to encompass this. Hence the discussion at WT:PROD about amending PROD so that it does. Rd232 talk 11:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly, PRODding doesn't work

I did no such thing as what Firsfron is accusing me of: I reviewed his prod nominations, and removed the templates from 10 of them. As I noted on my talk page in response to a post by Firfron (see [1]) I actually agreed with most of their nominations, which is why I left them in place (Firsfron has responded to this post (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nick-D&diff=next&oldid=338936564) so it's clear they've read it. Moreover, in a post on their talk page I stated that the only thing wrong with the articles I de-prodded was the lack of references, and not that I see "nothing wrong" with this as they claim ([2]) Lying about the actions of other admins and falsifying a quote is pretty poor form. Nick-D (talk) 12:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and block for disruption anyone who reverses such clearly necessary deletions. Undeleting articles with no sources, is nothing less than disruption, and will do far more harm than good to the project. UnitAnode 11:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stop. This is disgraceful behaviour, it is outright abuse of his tools. If this continues I will open an RFC/U and call for his resignation as an admin, and I will personally restore all articles deleted out of process. Fences&Windows 11:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If you restore unreferenced BLPs, you'll be doing far more damage to the project than these bold deletions have done. Which of you would deserve to lose their tools in such a case? UnitAnode 12:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Less of that. Restoration of improperly mass deleted articles is clearly not disruptive. Nor is the original mass deletion, which stopped before this thread was started, so disruptive that it merits immediate sanction (though if it continued in the face of this discussion, it would). Rd232 talk 12:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If the "mass deleted articles" being restored are unreferenced BLPs, then yes, it is disruptive. UnitAnode 12:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I guess you're not ever planning on being an admin, because I'm pretty sure this view - that mass deletion is OK, and reversal of it pending more organised attempts to address the problem which motivated the mass deletion potentially desysop-worthy - would be held against you. Rd232 talk 12:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You may find it shocking, but I don't give a damn what you think would be held against me at a potential RFA. You may also find it shocking that not everyone who edits this project aspires to wear the gold badge of adminship. UnitAnode 13:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No to both of those; it was just an observation, made in an attempt to "zoom out" and look at the big picture of "how admins are supposed to act". Rd232 talk 14:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:SOFIXIT It takes a marginal amount of time to find a single reliable source. If you find one in Google in 2 minutes, add it. If you can't, PROD it. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undo the mass deletion if it didn't already happen, and ban the admin from anything related with deletion. Mass deletion at odds with deletion policy is one of the most serious abuses of process possible, no matter how "good" the intentions, and should be dealt with very seriously. --Cyclopiatalk 12:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, the "most serious abuse" is in BLP articles that no one watches and no one has sourced in years. This attitude is, again, the reason why you should be banned from coming within spitting distance of an article with a BLP tag on it, honestly. Tarc (talk) 13:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rrrrright, Tarc, someone who mass-deletes articles against policy and process (and reason) is a hero, someone who asks for process to be followed and for abuse to be controlled should instead be banned. Makes perfect sense. Always a pleasure to see you. --Cyclopiatalk 15:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What's the hurry? These BLP have been here for some time. Although "Unsourced BLP must go" is reasonable enough, there is no reasonable reason at all why they have to be deleted today, or even within the short lifetime of a PROD.
Suggestion: we should create a new tag for this, use it (as per these additions) and then process those tagged articles more slowly, so that we can do something useful with them. Then at the expiry of that period, they've either been fixed or can then be deleted as real "BLP orphans without sources, or reasonable likelihood of sourcing".
Comment on the process brought to ANI: This has a number of problems:
    • Firstly it's out of process and controversial. Even if it's right, it's wrong. We don't just need to do the right thing, we need to do it by some vague approximation of consensus, or else politics and emotions will derail it.
    • Secondly, it's too quick. These articles have been here for some time. Bad as they might be, they don't need to go today.
    • Thirdly it fails to give any reasonable chance for interested editors to fix these articles by sourcing them (surely the desired outcome?), before they're deleted for being out of time. Even using PROD would have this problem. Note that we're not dealing with a few articles here, and any editor concerned is likely to be swamped by the volume of them simultaneously. That does seem like an action that fails to AGF those creating or having an interest in these unsourced articles, or to provide them with reasonable opportunity to fix the articles before deletion, which is a harmful action against effective community editing.
I'd also note that it's impossible to know that an article is "unwatched", when the action is applied to so many articles, over such a short time scale. Any concerned editor who might save one is likely to be busy doing triage amongst other affected articles, so we're still going to lose articles that we ought not, and need not, lose. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - clear and obvious abuse of the tools. If user(s) do not agree to stop, an RFC/U and if necessary an RfAr can be initiated. Note that I am in favour of doing something about the problem - but mechanised bot-driven approaches without any thought process going into them usually ends up in unmitigated disaster, and the refusal of those involved to take on feedback is worrying to say the least. Orderinchaos 12:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where were bots used, Orderinchaos? I'm not saying they weren't used, but certainly not by me; who used them? Firsfron of Ronchester 12:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the generation of the list and the complete and utter failure of any human with a brain to check it. Are you saying the 51,000 articles were simply found by concerned editors? Orderinchaos 02:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was discussing this with my wife over a lovely continental breakfast of croissants and coffee and we both came to exactly the same conclusion - that this is exactly what need to be done with unsourced BLP articles! People who are complaining that this is an abuse of the deletion policy are quite clearly missing the point of what the main issue with BLP is. There are thousands of articles which make assertions about living people, are not based on any sources whatsoever, and do not seem to be watched by anyone. This is surely a disaster. If a person is notable enough to be on the Wikipedia then they will have sources to back up what is said about them, and the article can stay - but if an article about a living person is unsourced then there is no indication that what wikipedia is saying about them is true - and often it isn't. Given that wikipedia is very well indexed on google, there is no way to stop false and potentially damaging information remaining here, essentially committing libel and real life harm to these people. My wife was saying, if someone is worthy of having an article, then it is only a matter of time before they can have one, with proper sources and no libel. This deletion is the best thing anyone has done on wikipedia for a long time, and both me and my wife would like to raise our coffee cups and toast User:Rdm2376 with the utmost of cheer. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! MR HANDS APPROVES! REMOVE THE ARTICLES NOW! Hands of gorse, heart of steel (talk) 13:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was listening to a lovey diatribe by Ed Schultz about the election in Massachusets on my radio when I read that, & took a look at at pair of unreferenced biographical articles on living people that had been brought to my attention, & found nothing in either which justified their deletion. (One, in fact, did have a source, & two external links. The other is about someone whom allegedly died within the last 18 months. Both say little more than the individual is a politician, & has a college education -- oh, what libel!) The phrase "the baby with the bathwater" came to mind, & I removed the unreferenced tags on both of them. This whole BLP issue is an ill-considered cure that is constantly proving to be worse than the illness. -- llywrch (talk) 22:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Something needs to be done and taking care of unsourced, stale and unwatched BLPs is a very small step in the direction I'd like to see this process go. However, I'd like to see this happen as a result of community consensus and by that I don't mean a thread on WR. I have great respect for Kevin and I think he had the best intentions but if he hadn't stopped when asked to do so this would have backfired. Hopefully something productive will come from the discussion on WT:CSD. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem was that he didn't stop when asked to do so by two other editors and he hasn't so far given any indication that he will stop as far as I can see. Discussion with the community is important when it comes to a collaborative project, if Kevin and his supporters want a change in policy made then they should have to discuss it at the appropriate venue like everyone else is asked to do. Camw (talk) 13:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the latter part of your reply as I think my initial comment made clear. He did stop and reversed some of the deletions. Progress had once again staled despited the renewed call for flagged revisions to be made available and it needed a kick in the butt. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletions - Cleaning up unsourced BLPs that have been sitting around this long is precisely what WP:IAR can be invoked for. Fuck the bureaucracy, and get it done. Tarc (talk) 13:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Surely you people know how to write articles. So please, someone, explain why an article with a single source is better than an article with none. The issue isn't unsourced articles, the issue is unsourced statements. Any statement in an article that cannot be tied directly to a source is equally bad. There's really no difference between an article with no sources, and an article with statements that lack inline sourcing. In either case, it's impossible to tell what's sourced and what isn't without doing a little work. In some cases, without doing a lot of work.

Deleting articles about living people because they lack sources does nothing to solve our BLP problem. It's a way of improving "the numbers". But fetishising numbers doesn't improve the project, and isn't guaranteed to undo any actual harm. One could spend the same time going through articles and remove unsourced negative statements about living people. That wouldn't "improve the numbers", but it would improve the encyclopaedia. I used to think that was our goal here. Guettarda (talk) 14:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or, another way to look at it: how many people here removed an unsourced statement from a BLP? I looked through a few people's contributions since this discussion. I didn't find many edits along that way. I did see at least one person (who endorsed the deletions) actually edit a section, in a BLP, that had unsourced negative information and a "citation needed" tag. Did this proponent of deleting unsourced BLPs delete the unsourced negative section? Nope. S/he removed a Wikilink. People fetishise numbers, but can't be bothered to do anything about the real problem. Guettarda (talk) 14:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(ecx2) I agree in oh so many ways Guettarda. There's a reason that we have thousands of BLP's on Wikipedia: people come here first. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, and because of this, we need to have clear "safe" articles about those people. Most poorly-sourced BLP articles could/should be stripped down to simply say "Person X is a TV actor, who was in the show [[[TV Show Z]]. Then, add a reference (or two). If we're going to visit all of the unsourced BLP's, then we should do a quick scan for notability, strip out the unref'd cruft, and add one reference and therefore return it back to stub-status. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that poorly sourced BLPs are a problem, saying that deleting these articles "does nothing to solve our BLP problem" is false on its face. It at least removes articles that have no sourcing whatsoever. You may disagree with the method, but it does deal with the problem by removing all the unsourced text. That said, WP:SOFIXIT yourself. We're all volunteers here and crying "number fetish" isn't fixing the problem either. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's say we get rid of every unsourced BLP on Wikipedia. Delete the lot of them. Then the people who are obsessed with numbers can say "we have tackled the problem" and pat themselves on the back. Is the BLP problem solved? No. Is the BLP problem less visible? Yep. So are we better off, or worse off? Having thousands of unsourced BLPs is a call to action, or at least a nag in the back of your mind. If you mask the symptoms, without addressing the underlying problem, we're worse off. Why? Because people are obsessed with numbers. But the numbers aren't the problem. They're the symptom. Guettarda (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention that the obvious "solution" to this is to add a source, any source. Your article is given a reprieve, it's harder to find, it's no longer got a big orange warning sign...and the problem isn't solved. Guettarda (talk) 16:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like your entire solution is... to have us sit on our hands. Either that, or you expect that no one will ever do anything after deleting these articles. That's just asinine. Leaving these articles as "a big orange warning sign" exacerbates the problem, rather than providing a solution. You're talking about us "masking the symptoms," yet providing no viable solution yourself. You just keep going on about "number fetishes," and recommend we do nothing so we'll feel "nagged" by the unsourced BLPs. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disgusted, not just at the out-of-process deletions, but also at the number of people here who endorse the idea that "my fellow Wikipedians would never agree to this" is a legitimate reason to take unilateral action. The arrogance is breathtaking. Hesperian 14:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Kevin should have obtained community consensus for this first. I'd support a mass reversion of his actions. Aditya Ex Machina 16:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support this person of action. Like Tarc said, fuck the bureaucracy. This is good for the project. Anyone arguing otherwise is a supporter of unsourced BLPs (and unsourced articles in general), or a supporter of process for the sake of having a process. Either way it's red tape. WP:V is a central pillar of the project. Tan | 39 16:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:NOTANARCHY - this is a collaborative project, and processes are required to manage that collaboration. Generally, this is more work than letting everyone do whatever they want, but leads to better outcomes. More pithily, if you want to permit people to "fuck the bureaucracy" one way, what argument will you have against others fucking it another way? Also, characterising people who disagree with you as supporting one of two unpalatable options is a cheap debating tactic. Rd232 talk 17:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please link to that anarchy essay one more time? I didn't hear you the first two times. Or, better yet, present an argument against mine that is germane to the issue instead of simply stating that it's cheap? Seriously - counter my arguments; I'm open to changing my mind if I'm presented with reasonable opposition. Above and below, I see no reasonable opposition. Tan | 39 18:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You've miscounted how often I linked to that policy (part of WP:NOT), and ignored the argument I made before remarking that your misrepresentation of others' position was cheap. Not your finest hour. Rd232 talk 21:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There's nothing so wrong with unsourced BLPs that can't wait a week for an RfC to run its course, such that the community input is clarified. Obviously, a lot of people have issues with out of process deletions, while everyone does seem to agree that there's some benefit to a well-orchestrated cleanup of unsourced BLP. Jclemens (talk) 16:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree; unsourced BLP articles should be removed immediately. There is something "so wrong" with them; the integrity of the project are at stake and there are legal ramifications. Tan | 39 17:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Woah there. contentious unsourced BLP material has always been nukable on sight. We've had plenty of not-previously-considered-contentious material that's stayed around for, well, ever. Sounds like there's a developing consensus to change that, which is fine, but removing previously OK material is not an emergency--the risk that exists tomorrow from that pile of BLPs is essentially the same as it was yesterday. Yes, something should be done, but no, there's no need to panic, act unilaterally, and stomp over the notion of community input into the process. Jclemens (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"[T]he integrity of the project are at stake and there are legal ramifications" - no, that's simply untrue. There are no legal problems with unsourced biographies. The problem is with defamatory or, to a lesser extent, damaging information about people. That's quite independent of whether an article happens to have anything in the "references" section or not. Accuracy and NPOV matter. Whether the article happens to have something in the "References" section is secondary. Outside of recently passed FAs and GAs, you're going to be hard-pressed to find an article that lacks unsourced statements. And even then, as I've seen in many a contentious article, the sourced statements may still be defamatory or damaging. Guettarda (talk) 18:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's untrue at all. If a BLP article is unsourced, how are we to know what is or isn't defamatory? For all we know, the entire person could be made up. All the facts could be made up. How you think this doesn't damage the integrity of the project is beyond me - when you see Wikipedia being trashed in the media, this is exactly what they are talking about. I know, I know, it's pretty fashionable to treat little unsourced article stubs as if they're baby birds - "oh, careful, don't step on it, you deletionist meanie". Call me unfashionable; call me a conservative encyclopedist. The shit we publish needs to be sourced. Period. Tan | 39 18:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
how are we to know what is or isn't defamatory? is a perfectly valid question. I look at BLPs and say "would this fact, if wrong or outright false and maliciously untrue, cause a reasonable person to be upset about it?" Allegations of any protected class (sexual orientation, race, religion, etc.) are automatic, as are allegations of criminal activity, specific romantic exploits, and the like. I've been served well by that rule. So if there's an unsourced BLP that has nothing of the sort in it at all... what's the emergency? Why rush to delete? Jclemens (talk) 18:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a debate already underway as part of the WT:PROD discussion; let's avoid duplication and limit this ANI thread to the proximate issue of the mass deletion and what to do about it. Rd232 talk 17:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • So there's a rewrite of the deletion policy hiding someplace, then? Or do we need to register on another site to be able to join the discussion? Deleting articles en masse is a terrible way to go about creating change; at the very least there should have been notification someplace (WP:BLP/N perhaps?) of the proposed approach to allow for improvements before the wholesale deletion. Bad decision here. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • endorse deletion of any BLP that violates BLP policy. Unsourced material, whether positive, negative, or neutral, is a violation of BLP policy and can be removed on sight. If the entire article is unsourced, the entire article is subject to removal. People reverting that are looking for blocks, I reckon. ++Lar: t/c 18:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Agree with previous, but BLPs which contain no contentious material need not have sources to be in compliance with WP:BLP. Admin should be censured, even if his actions were appropriate, as something which has been waiting for 3 years can usually wait for another month for an RfC to complete. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose any process like this that is not driven by some semblance of a community consensus. If a single admin wants to take responsibility for all BLP issues on Wikipedia and exercise editorial authority in this area, I'm sure the rest of us will feel relieved, but otherwise it's the community's reponsibility and there needs to be some kind of consensus as to how to handle these issues. Undermining community values is to the long run detriment of all our policies, including BLP. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support deleting unsourced bios that haven't been touched for...years?!? The idea that they will magically be improved and sourced and whatever is like hoping for world peace. It sounds good, and who wouldn't be for it, but its time to join hands and speak to the living. If any of the 55,000?!? bios that should get nuked are that critical, they will probably resurface. Its like ground hog day around here. Anyways, good luck :) --Tom (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose mass deletion. "Unsourced BLP" is not a speedy deletion reason, and WP:IAR surely doesn't extend to blindly hacking away thousands of articles like this. --GRuban (talk) 19:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose mass deletion. The horrid action should be undone at once. You can't just have one person on their own ignore all policy, and start mass destroying things. There are hundreds of thousands of unsourced Wikipedia articles, most made before the notability guideline was created. Time and again we've seen things nominated for deletion, where simply clicking on the Google news search proves it quite notable, and the article is saved. Dream Focus 19:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I speak from experience; out-of-process deletions (Game Show Congress) are bad. We have plenty of articles in terrible shape, and as frustrated as I am that no one will help me improve articles, I can accept that we have so many that still need improvement. Mass deletion is the wrong way to go. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 22:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and revert out-of-process edits that lack consensus. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - mass deletions, and mass-nominations for deletion that are either opposed or out of process are a very bad idea, and possibly a misuse of tools. Does anyone here recall the nonfree image wars - how many people were blocked, banned, quit, or desysopped in those needless fights? And that was a clear issue on a policy arguably more fundamental than BLP - an edict from the foundation board regarding our mission statement. Certainly a bigger problem, 150,000+ images had to be either fixed or deleted. It only got solved, smoothly, when everyone got together to run through them all a a controlled pace in an orderly way. Here it's not clear at all that BLP requires unsourced articles to be deleted. That's not my reading of BLP anyway. Anything like this ought to be addressed at a policy / consensus level before, not after taking action. If we want to start "project BLP sourcing" and go through them all at, say, 1,000 articles per week on a preset schedule, we can clear this up in less than a year and I'm sure we'll find many volunteers to help with all aspects of it. It wouldn't even have to be normal AfD or PROD - just set a standard that all the BLPs must have sourcing adequate to establish notability or some threshold like that. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support deletions of unsourced BLPs. Thank you, Rdm2376. Cla68 (talk) 00:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and revert out-of-process deletions that lack consensus. Many such articles are uncontentious and easily-sourced, and should be fixed, not deleted. I don't participate in new page patrolling, but 95% of the potentially-defamatory BLPs I encounter have at least some references, and it's just the negative material, which is unreferenced. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The simple matter is that the project has grown in size to a point where it simply cannot all be actively maintained. Articles impacting the real lives of real people deserve priority. This is simply good taste and sense, as well as in according with the spirit of a "high level", or overriding, policy: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Completely unmaintained and unsourced articles are clearly dissonant to the underlying principles of that policy. I'd even prefer moving the bar up to BLPs that are unreliably sourced and/or original research pits, which are usually much worse to their subjects than purely unsourced articles. Whenever one or more editors are willing to providing reliable sources and maintain the article, they can be undeleted or recreated. People have a point that sourced, or rather apparently sourced, information, can be destructive to the subjects. That is certainly true, but objecting to the deletion of unsourced bios on that basis seems more a "POINT" to highlight that particular issue rather than a valid point. I also object to anyone who says that thousands of entries are easily fixed. That may be trued on an individual basis, but the sheer scope of the problems makes it anything but "easy" to fix. Vassyana (talk) 00:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is obvious use of admin powers to override community consensus. --Apoc2400 (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While understanding the viewpoints of both sides, I thought I would quote from WP:BLPDEL:
Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed. If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion.

Page deletion is normally a last resort. If a dispute centers around a page's inclusion (e.g., due to questionable notability or if the subject has requested deletion) then this is addressed via deletion discussions rather than by summary deletion. Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to a version of an acceptable standard. (bold emphases mine)
As a non-admin, I can't see the deleted articles, so I cannot judge whether they contained contentious or negative material. Did Rdm2376 attempt to improve and rectify the articles? Could the articles not readily be rewritten or restored? Again, as I can't see the deleted articles, I cannot judge the state they were in. However, WP:BLP seems to clearly say that the onus is on the proposed deleter to try to improve/rectify/rewrite/restore to get the article to an acceptable state. I can only go by what has been said here, but the impression I have got is that Rdm2376 did not try to this.
However, although I feel that Rdm2376 was wrong in their actions, I do not feel that they should lose the bit over this. If this discussion ends up with a concensus that such deletions should not occur, then as long as Rdm2376 is prepared to stick with such a community decision, I feel that should be the end of the matter. I feel that someone (or more than one person) uninvolved with this discussion (or at least someone who hasn't !voted) should look at the deletions, and if they feel that the article should be restored, then they should do so.
I think that we should clarify whether this kind of action is allowable or not - and either way, it should be incorporated into WP:BLPDEL as policy. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 00:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If one of the basic principals here is that everything needs to be WP:Verifiable by reliable sources, and there are NO sources at all, it doesn't meet the criteria. It is the authors responsibility to make the article meet the standards, not the readers. Frankly, it bugs me that people are so lazy that they will throw an article up and expect someone else to source it for them. If you don't care enough to do it right, then don't do it. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the section of WP:V that talks about removing unsourced information, it also says It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them. - which I have always read as meaning that this should be what the person proposing deleting material should do. Yes, the creator should do this, I agree with that, but many of the creators are newbies, and either aren't really aware of WP:V and/or are unsure how to add citations. Also note that WP:V applies to all articles, not just BLPs. Category:All articles lacking sources currently shows there being 93,226 articles lacking sources - should we thus delete 9-10% of all the articles on Wikipedia?
If the material in a BLP is contentious or negative then yes, it should be removed from the article. However, the BLP policy doesn't say "unsourced BLP articles should be deleted" - and even where it talks about deleting BLP articles, it clearly says that this should be the last resort, and that the proposed deleter should try to improve the article. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 09:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Change WP:PROD to prevent removal of tag on unsourced BLPs, then prod 'em all[edit]

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.

This has been moved to WT:PROD. - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 08:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a completely understandable action by Rdm2376, and personally I'm sure I'd be fine with the vast majority of unreferenced BLPs being deleted, whether or not it was possible to add sources. But I'm not sure that this particular effort will actually succeed since there will be the inevitable objections that have gummed up the BLP reform works too often in the past (and there's the potential for lots of drama here, e.g. admins wheel warring over deletion and undeletion). One of the principle objections (which I would somewhat agree with) is that there are undoubtedly articles in the unreferenced BLP category which we would want to keep were they properly referenced, and simply deleting en masse does not give enough time for citations to be added. However the status quo wherein these articles simply hang around unreferenced for months or even years is simply not acceptable.

The right process to use here should be proposed deletion, but as mentioned above it does not seem to work. However a simple and very quick change to WP:PROD as currently written (which I think could gain consensus) would get around that difficulty—namely making an exception whereby prods of unreferenced BLPs cannot be removed until the article is adequately referenced, meaning that deletion is automatic after one week if improvements are not made. This would allow editors wary of mass deleting 50,000 articles a chance to step in and make improvements, but would also put these unreferenced articles very much under the gun. If a couple of others think this is a possible path to explore I'll boldly make the policy change myself and we'll see if it sticks.

If it did, I'd recommend moving extremely quickly, prodding perhaps as many as 5,000 unreferenced BLPs per week and logging that on daily or weekly pages akin to how we log DRVs and the like (I would think a smart programmer type could write a bot that would both prod unreferenced BLPs in a run of X number of articles and then log the action on a page somewhere). Editors would have a chance to add citations to anything that was prodded, and after one week admins would come in and delete anything unsourced en masse. Even accounting for creation of new unreferenced BLPs at the rate of about 1,000 per month, we'd be able to clean out the whole category in about 2 1/2 months, at which point keeping in place a similar process would prevent the problem of unreferenced BLPs from getting out of control in the future. Some might say 5,000 per week is too many, but a lot of others would see it as too few, and a log would give editors in the former camp a chance to go back and look for sources for articles that were deleted. The point is it would all be transparent but still proceed fairly quickly.

Honestly if those who have objected to past proposed changes in practices related to BLP (e.g. allowing no consensus BLP AfDs to "default to delete") cannot agree to something like this then we probably do need to take a more drastic course like Rdm2376's, but I think the above route is a better one. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Can't see anything wrong with this. NW (Talk) 06:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems reasonable to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sounds like a job for MBisanzBot! MBisanz talk 07:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Long overdue. Make it so! JBsupreme (talk) 07:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm comfortable with this idea. Killiondude (talk) 07:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be willing to support this. Something must be done about BLPs, but it needs to be reviewable by the community, not just Kevin
  • Can't see any problems with this suggestion. (On another note, I'm really beginning to hate Edit Conflicts...) - Tainted Conformity SCREAM 07:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support but the term "adequately referenced" needs fleshing out. --NeilN talk to me 07:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mumble. People have been calling things "unreferenced" because they couldn't tell that "references" was spelled "sources" on the article. Mass deletion means mass errors. But Category:All unreferenced BLPs stands at 50.000 or so. Sigh. Guess we'll just have to live with the errors. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I took a whack at a few articles that have been BLPunsourced since 2006. It takes me about 3 mins per article to find sources that at least allow me to move them to {{refimprove}} (none remained unsourced). So if that sample's typical, we need about 2500 man-hours - 10 man-years, more or less - to deal with them all by sourcing. --Alvestrand (talk) 07:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mean to say "may not be removed" rather than "cannot be removed." While the idea is interesting, it is not, I think, entirely thought through. Inevitably people will disagree about whether an article is adequately referenced, and without a process to determine this, there will be lots of drama and edit-warring over PROD tags. If we want to do this, we must also provide that in the event of any disagreement about whether an article is adequately referenced, it shall be referred to AfD.  Sandstein  07:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Sure, why not. For one thing, it'll make deleting PRODs easier. For another, irresponsible BLPs are a danger to Wikipedia and the subjects. -- Atama頭 07:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've changed the appropriate policy. By all means tweak it or move stuff around, this was just a first pass and I'm sure it could be better, but you get the gist (Sandstein your proposed language about disagreement going to AfD seems fine, luckily I think that would happen relatively infrequently). We'll see what happens on the policy page, but so far there seems to be a clear consensus for this change here (and I'm not saying that's a permanent consensus, just enough to boldly make the change for the time being). Now maybe people smarter than me can figure out something with a bot that would allow us to systematize a process of cleaning out unreferenced BLPs. I'd recommend starting with the articles that have been unreferenced the longest and moving steadily forward, and also obviously publicizing that this is all happening. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I object to this policy change--it essentially amounts to pushing of a mass content purge of the encyclopedia, which for many articles may be undeserving. Robert K S (talk) 07:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • If someone is going to create an sourceless BLP article, then completely abandon it, then it shouldn't stay on site, as it may invoke a whole host of problems. If someone thinks that a person deserves a Wiki page, then it's their job to prove it. If the deletion is contested, then it's contested. The pros outweigh the cons here. - Tainted Conformity SCREAM 07:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • While Rober K S is the only one of about a dozen people who have commented here to object overtly to the proposal, that editor has already reverted the changed language. Predictable, but I think this can and will gain consensus in the end, and Robert needs to articulate a better reason for objecting to a change that so far has been largely endorsed, and which clearly is not a "a mass content purge of the encyclopedia" (since sourced articles would not be deleted). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - absolutely, and long overdue. The issue of unsourced, largely NN BLP stubs has been a festering problem for years on here, and has only been getting worse as time goes on. This effort here really needs to happen - Alison ❤ 07:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in theory, but I'm concerned that 5,000 a week is so many that no meaningful review will take place- and could so clog the PROD categories that other things may slip through that usual processes would have caught and de-prodded. This is a great way to clean out this mess- and a mess it is- but 2,000 or so a week would be small enough to allow interested editors to work on repairing a greater number of them before throwing them out. A separate template- and categories- should be made for these "BLP Prod"'s, at any rate. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 07:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support We could havea a bot programmed to do this if it would ease the workload. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This proposal does not only affect administrators and needs to be discussed more widely than in an AN/I thread.--Michig (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wrong venue. I was under the impression that AN/I was for incidents requiring imminent administrative action, not proposing changes to our deletion policies. A rudimentary search through WT:CSD's archives would reveal that similar proposals have failed to garner consensus in the past. That's not to say that this proposal will suffer the same fate, but this is not the right venue. decltype (talk) 07:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to play bold and copy this discussion over to the WP:PROD talk page, as I believe that's where the conversation should be at this point. Sorry if everything doesn't get copied over. Not sure if it's the right spot or not. - Tainted Conformity SCREAM 08:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's good, discussion should probably continue there (I'll copy over a couple more comments), but that also should not stop people from thinking about how a process like this would work (bots, logs, etc.). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Question: In your proposal Bigtimepeace you say, “unreferenced BLPs cannot be removed until the article is adequately referenced.” [Italics added.] Adequately suggests that merely moving an article from a state of {{Unreferenced BLP}} to a state of {{Refimprove BLP}} would not be sufficient since, by definition, an article with {{Refimprove BLP}} is not adequately referenced.

Elsewhere, you use the word properly, which again suggests that the article must be better than {{Refimprove BLP}}.

With either wording, that would require all BLPs with either {{Unreferenced BLP}} or {{Refimprove BLP}} to be PRODed and deleted in one week. Is that your intention?

I think a bulk way of dealing with unsourced BLPs is great, but not if it sweeps up under-sourced BLPS in the net. Thanks for any clarification you can give! — SpikeToronto 08:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Answered here. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Add new criteria to CSD[edit]

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.

This has now been taken to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Add new criteria to CSD - Tbsdy (formerly Ta bu shi da yu) talk 08:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How does everyone feel about a new CSD# for BLPs that are totally unsourced for more than a year? <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:20, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go for 2 months, myself. If someone's making an article, they should (hopefully) have - or know where to acquire - sources already. A year just seems to long to me. - Tainted Conformity SCREAM 07:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A year? That is not precisely speedy...I'd say a week, tops. > RUL3R>trolling>vandalism 08:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion should be at WT:CSD, but yes, I would entirely support a CSD for all BLPs that are tagged as unsourced for a time on the order of months.  Sandstein  07:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this would work after we largely clean up the current mess. We obviously can't just dump tens of thousands of articles into the current CSD queue, so we'd have to proceed slowly in cleaning up the 51,000 unreferenced we have now. I think using the PROD solution above would work better for that and would not put a bunch of extra weight on CSD which is already always backlogged but important for other reasons (copyvios, attack pages, etc.). Once we've cleaned out most of the existing unreferenced BLPs I'd fully support creating a CSD category for BLPs unreferenced for X months. However I could be missing something in my thinking here, and if others prefer this to the above solution I'd certainly be fine with that. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:37, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If this achieves consensus at WT:BLP (as it should) then it will allow us to fast-track removal of these articles, so yes it's a good idea and will help with what Bigtimepeace calls "the current mess". Guy (Help!) 07:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a double-edged sword. It's productive in theory, so I want to support it in that way. We could delete stuff, but it would have the possibility of alienating editors who are newbies or don't edit much. Ah, a tough decision at almost three in the morning. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, this isn't the appropriate venue for discussing this proposal.--Michig (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm in the process of copying over to WT:CSD. Everyone interested, drop by and share your thoughts. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 08:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a short note that apart from the 51,000 unsourced BLPs tagged as such, there are some 14,000 articles which are tagged as "unsourced" and as "cat:living people", but which are not in the "unsourced BLP" cat. My bot request at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 33#Unsourced BLPs did not get any response though. The number of BLPs tagged as unsourced (correct or incorrect) is thus 65,000, not 51,000. Apart from that, I agree that something drastic needs to be done, either a large collaborative effort in sourcing them or a deletion spree, and I fear that only the threat of the latter can achieve the former... Fram (talk) 08:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Stub then CSD A7[edit]

There seems to be more fallout from this deletion spree. An editor has been going through lots of the articles in question, reducing them to one-line stubs. Because this removes the assertions of notability, the articles then get tagged with CSD A7. If nobody checks the edit history, then this won't be caught. I first noticed this when I worked on one of the articles this morning (Antony Dunn). I did enough to save that one - he's a prize-winning poet but these details had been removed. See Robert Guy (Royal Navy officer) for a fresh example. This activity seems disruptive and so admins and CSD taggers should please take care to check edit histories in such cases. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's been mostly me. Unsourced is unsourced. I've been working entirely from the category "unsourced blps from November 2006," the earliest entries for this problem. Every single unsourced assertion could be false or true or half true or a deliberate lie or, well, who knows? And that's ignoring the promotional assertions. ("So and so is best known for his work in the public school system of hicksville, blah blah state." I mean, we're all "best known" for something, even if that only means that 5 people know it.) There are currently 51,000 unsourced blps alone. If some of these are deleted and a responsible editor comes along with sources and actual, verifiable information (that demonstrates these subjects are in fact notable) then the articles will be recreated by that responsible editor and retained. 38 months is quite long enough for the wisdom of crowds to work its magic, don't you think? No one watches these articles, no one researches them, the vast majority of them have no business here (and in the few cases where someone might be notable, well, the crowd will get right on writing a fresh new, verifiable and reliably sourced blp).Bali ultimate (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your stubbing is disrupting the process though because you are taking prod's and AFD's and falsely turning them into CSD's. I'm trying to clean up the BLP problem and this is just disrupting things and making things even more complicated then they need to be. Now we have another disruptive nightmare to cause even more roadblocks in the cleanup process. Ridernyc (talk) 20:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removing unsourced, unverifiable information placed here years ago by anonymous editors who aren't accountable to anyone is disrupting a process? Fascinating.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removing a claim to notability and making something a CSD is disruptive. You pretty much destroyed 4 hours of work I just did, because now the last 4 hours of work I did has to be rechecked. Ridernyc (talk) 20:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cry me a river. I removed a whole host of unsourced information in blps before you touched them and will continue. That you're too lazy to look at histories (not that it should matter. Unsourced and unverifiable claims are just that, and should be deleted on blps that have stood that way for 3 years) is not my problem.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Removing unsourced material from BLPs is appropriate. The onus is on those who would include the material to support their intent with reliable sources. Stuff that has been fallow for years should be nuked from orbit with a Daedalus class battlecruiser. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removing assertions of notability only to then tag the article with an A7 as containing no assertion of notability is certainly NOT appropriate. It should stop. I have also been trying to improve some of these unsourced BLP articles and one was deleted by this series of events while I was looking at it. And articles don't have to have inline citations in order to be considered 'sourced'. There are 51,000 articles tagged as unsourced BLPs - having looked through about 30 today, I would estimate that there are considerably fewer that are correctly tagged as unsourced BLPs. There's a discussion going on at present about how to deal with these - this trim then A7 tag approach is in my view disruptive - please wait for the discussion to be resolved and an approach agreed by the community.--Michig (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sort of stubbing is completely unacceptable. To get to the point where a person who was Commander of the Turkish Air Force for two years gets tagged CSD A7 is just ridiculous. It should stop, it should be undone, and anyone continuing to do it should be blocked for disruption. I'm willing to countenance dramatic measures to deal with unsourced BLPs, but any such process must allow a reasonable amount of time for someone to make a stab at minimal sourcing. Substubbing every unsourced BLP (and then getting it CSD A7d) is not that process. Rd232 talk 21:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can Kevin, Bali ultimate et al. please read Wikipedia:Don't be a fanatic. This indiscriminate deletion of unsourced material while making no effort at sourcing is seriously disruptive, and you're going to drive editors away from Wikipedia. Bali, is your copy of Google broken? This might offer you an excuse for not doing any sourcing at all. If this fanatical campaign continues, I will consider blocking disruptive editors, restoring the articles and taking a case to ArbCom. Fences&Windows 21:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm pretty sure arbcom has said that restoring BLP deletions out of process will lead to desysopping, while deleting BLPs out of process is permitted so long as the admin doing it feels it is necessary. MBisanz talk 21:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Necessary' surely means that there is a reason other than simply a lack of sources in the article?--Michig (talk) 21:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you read up to my earlier posting, you see how I say the current wording could be taken to mean a mere lack of sources. MBisanz talk 21:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"could be taken to mean" is hardly good enough to justify this sort of precipitate mass action. There's plenty of resistance to even the principle of instituting a process to enable mass deleting (or incubating) unsourced BLPs after a reasonable notice and at a rate such that there's a fair chance someone can have a stab at sufficient sourcing! So attempting to force mass deletions, relying on various flimsy or highly ambiguous policy / arbcom ruling grounds, is counter-productive because it poisons the air and makes it harder to achieve agreement for such a process. Rd232 talk 23:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly are you personally doing to clean up the mess? You seem to be standing in the way of people doing something about it. How is that helpful? ++Lar: t/c 23:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? That's the conclusion you draw from my comment?? And drawing on the "if you haven't fixed X unsourced BLPs today, you may not have a say" non-argument is beneath you. And since you ask what I'm doing: Wikipedia_talk:PROD#Alternative_proposal:_Proposed_BLP_Incubation. Also started the discussion section there in effort to move things beyond !voting. Rd232 talk 00:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we're going to quote Arbcom decisions at each other, remember this one? "Editors who collectively or individually make large numbers of similar edits, and who are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits."[3] Continuing to delete these articles while a (moderately contentious) discussion is ongoing is not acceptable. -Chunky Rice (talk) 01:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The persistence of unsourced alleged information is the problem. No one is preventing anyone from building a proper article, on any topic. I haven't tagged anything for deletion in this process. Is that man a turkish air force general? I don't know. Do you? Does anyone care to write a proper article and demonstrate that he is? Then no one will stop him. But allowing 51,000 completely unsourced BLPs to persist for years send a message that any old rumor, claim i heard from a friend, lie, defamation, misremembering, etc... is perfectly acceptable and non-disruptive (what a weasely little word that is). It is not acceptable. The whole "assertion of notability" thing is laughable. When it's unsourced, it's basically an anonymous person on the internet saying "i assert notability" with no evidence, no signs that reliable sources agree, no verification, etc... But again, I've tagged none of this for deletion (since in fact your speedy deletion criteria is a joke and does insist unsourced stuff persist here if "joelol99" made an assertion of notability).Bali ultimate (talk) 21:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have you even read the CSD you're talking about? "The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source" CSDs are extremely narrowly defined because of the unilateral nature of the action. -Chunky Rice (talk) 01:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • [4] Information about the notable awards he has won, and his works were erased! Totally unacceptable. Dream Focus 23:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It was unsourced. You are free to restore the material, with appropriate reliable sources. Unsourced material may be freely removed from BLPs. If nothing remains, the BLP itself is subject to deletion. There are at least 58,000 unsourced BLPs. Get busy. ++Lar: t/c 23:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, instead of barking orders to other editors, why not stop defending disruption and start working to source these articles yourself? MBisanz and Lar, your defense of this disruptive gaming of wikipedia rules is not the behavior that editors expect from editors who are trusted to be administrators. Ikip 06:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This number keeps changing through out the day, did we somehow add 6000 BLPs to the number in the last 12 hours. 23:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I've looked through about a hundred articles with a BLP tag and about 70-75% had sources already, so I disagree with the 58,000 number. Has anyone else checked and corrected the tags? It seems people who add the tags are not looking in infobox's or in the external links section for sources, and this includes bots. Patken4 (talk) 23:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding "Unsourced material may be freely removed from BLPs", what WP:BLP actually says is "Remove any unsourced material to which an editor objects in good faith; or which is a conjectural interpretation of the source (see Wikipedia:No original research); or that relies upon a source which does not meet the standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability" (my emphasis) - it's stretching it somewhat to interpret this as encouraging, for example, the removal of a professional sportsman's career record, simply because it isn't supported by an inline citation ([5]), although a link was provided (in the infobox) to a source backing up much of it. I have also found that a significant proprotion of articles tagged as unsourced BLPs are not.--Michig (talk) 00:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I read about two years ago that an editor was blocked over behavior similar to Bali Ultimate's, I will see if I can find the case. Fence's admonishment should be heeded Bali Ultimate: "If this fanatical campaign continues, I will consider blocking disruptive editors, restoring the articles and taking a case to ArbCom." Does Bali's behavior rise to the level that he should be included in the request for arbitration?
His personal attacks have continued, calling other editors "lazy" here, "That you're too lazy to look at histories", despite his block last month. Ikip 05:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would include him, he has in at least one case removed sources to make an article look bad. This is just adding to the disruption this is all causing. Ridernyc (talk) 06:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • JBsupreme (talk · contribs) seems to have decided to start gutting a couple of dozen articles too this morning, apparently stalking Nick-D (talk · contribs). Jheald (talk) 13:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wrong. I am using a list generated by a bot which does a regex search for contentious claims or are articles which have been identified as unsourced for longer than 6+ months (in most cases 2-3 years). I strongly warn you to not revert these changes before you are able to provide immediate sourcing. You are otherwise in gross violation of WP:BLP policy. JBsupreme (talk) 18:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

identifying problematic BLPs[edit]

As it stands Im running a text analysis of Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs and I am getting quite a few hits, for phrases that require sources. I haven't had a chance to review whats being identified. βcommand 22:01, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

is there anyway to have the bot also check for tagged articles that also have references or at least link to another site. I'm finding lots of articles that have been tagged that actually have sources. Ridernyc (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can run a scan for that too. βcommand 22:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like an excellent idea. It'll be very interesting to see what results you get. henrik•talk 22:33, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to work with MZMcBride on this one. He's currently doing something similar. NW (Talk) 22:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ive already added those to the list that it checks for. βcommand 22:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Betacommand/Sandbox List of all unsourced BLPs that match \<ref|http|www|\< ref)
User:Betacommand/Sandbox 2 List of all unsourced BLPs that have problem phrases
User:Betacommand/Sandbox 3 List of all unsourced BLPs including all phrases that where triggered.
βcommand 01:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good job! Based on that it looks like almost 17,000 of them are improperly tagged to begin with. The first one, Aslan Abashidze, surely is. Pcap ping 06:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why delete?[edit]

Accepting the premise that the BLPs are a ticking time bomb... why are you deleting them?. Then the red link is a ticking time bomb. Why not full protect the articles instead? Or, if you are going to delete, you'll have to salt as well.--Tznkai (talk) 00:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is the fact that there is no sourcing that is at issue for the unsourced BLPs being deleted. Full protection or salting prevent restoration of a properly sourced BLP. ++Lar: t/c 00:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to not be talking about the same thing. I'm saying, if you delete a low profile BLP for whatever, someone will just recreate it again in the same state, and we wil have gotten nowhere. Salt it. Stub and protect. But deletion is less preventative on Wikipedia than any other technical tool.--Tznkai (talk) 00:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If it's recreated sans sources, perhaps. But I prefer to assume good faith, that after deletion the next person to create it will provide the sourcing. If not, it can be deleted again and THEN salted. ++Lar: t/c 00:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How are you going to track it? There are what, 58000 articles that need to be dealt with, on subjects that apparently the original author and every bluelink user and IP on a drive by has not seen fit to or able to source? Deleting them is big and flashy, but it just drags BLP down into an inclusionist/deletionist debate and kicks the issue down the road. Not to mention when these articles are recreated they won't necessarily be tagged as BLPs anymore. If they need to go, there has to be follow through, or you create 58000 slightly different ticking time bombs instead. Deletion, by itself, will not help.--Tznkai (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't the answer to this be clicking the box on twinkle that delinks backlinks when deleting? MBisanz talk 00:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming for the sake of argument that none of those delinkings are reverted, that would help a bit sure. Until someone tries to look up the obscure footballer, sees nothing, and then slaps something together. Or someone with a grudge creates a bio out of whole cloth without a redlink to lead them in. Or someone relinks the name on some list somewhere in a month. Deleting the pages will increase the costs and barriers of entry to creating potentially problematic mateerial slightly, sure. I'm not convinced that it will help enough. Lets flip it around though, why not protect the pages outright? Either deleted and salted - or stubbed to bare bones (which i'm sure many of these already are) and protect them or so on? I can't see a way thats less effective at dealing with the problem. I'm, also not convinced by Lar's argument about that full protection prevents restoration - crap. Editprotected template will do it. The rest of that thought leads us into absurdity because the BLP problem exists as an outgrowth of anyone being able to edit. If you want to stop bad edits, you'll either need to increase viewership or stop good edits along with the bad.--Tznkai (talk) 01:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct that this problem is an outgrowth of the "anyone can edit" paradigm. But since that paradigm is also responsible for much of the rest of what Wikipedia is today, it's not likely to ever be changed. Therefore, we have to treat the symptoms, and the entire BLP mess is one big symptom. I'm not sure what exactly you are arguing for or against here, actually. If you have an actual proposal, make it. ++Lar: t/c 02:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This section does not really seem to be ANI material; and the WT:PROD discussion might benefit from a wider perspective too. How about starting a centralised RFC? Rd232 talk 01:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, this ANI, remember what it's for? User:Rdm2376 blocked for 3 hours (and unblocked)[edit]

User:Rdm2376 resumed his deletions, user:geni blocked him for 3 hours, and user:Coffee unblocked him. Congratulations, everybody: we have reached Shitstorm Level 5! Rd232 talk 00:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Rdm3276 has declared that he is "not going to join a pointless debate that we have had 10 times before", and will continue with the deletions. At what point does this merit an emergency desysop? Rd232 talk 00:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ask arbcom. ViridaeTalk 00:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why George, what we have here is all the fixings for an old fashioned run on the bank wheel war! –xenotalk 00:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think an emergency desysop may well be merited. Geni needs to stop blocking an admin who is properly deleting material within the remit of the BLP policy. If he does it again I suggest that he be dealt with. ++Lar: t/c 00:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think brinksmanship is going to help solve the BLP issue in general, or this situation in particular.--Tznkai (talk) 00:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm? The mass deletions may warrant an emergency desysop, sure. The block, less so. The idea of deleting unsourced BLPs has been discussed over, and over, and everyone knows there isn't consensus to do it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can I have their badge, please? It's been ages since I've admined something... HalfShadow 00:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support an emergency desysop of Geni for inappropriately blocking another administrator who was simply ridding the project of unsourced BLPs. We really need to get our priorities straight here, folks. UnitAnode 01:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict). Four possible outcomes - the admin needs to stop, the admin needs to be blocked (and later, the admin and anyone unblocking needs to have their administrative status reviewed), this needs to go to Arbcom or someone who can do an emergency temporary de-sysop, or we just let this go on for a little while until they get punch-drunk with the deletions. On a human level, it's probably just a tantrum, and frustrations like this pass. How hard will it be to undelete all these articles? That plus all the ridiculous drama here is the damage, so any emergency block, desysop or action needs to be weighed against the damage it's preventing. Whatever the remedy, using the tools to advance a disputed policy interpretation while a discussion is actively going on in meta-space is a clear misuse of tools. Anyone who honestly believes that it's okay to just go rogue like this because they happen to agree with a disputed / minority position ought to seriously rethink their priorities. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who honestly believes that it's okay to say good-intentioned, constructive administrators have "gone rogue" ought to seriously rethink their priorities. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I have thought about it quite a bit and unfortunately dealt with it many times here. Whoever is right in the end on the underlying policy, using the tools against consensus - on a content matter, no less - based on a disputed interpretation of policy is the very definition of going rogue. Do you know what a "rogue cop" is? It's not a cop who's on the wrong side, it's one who takes matters into their own hands because they think they know best. People who justify their actions because they're on a mission from...Jimbo or something...can cause a lot of damage. You might happen to agree with the outcome in one particular case but it cuts both ways, and as often as not, you're going to disagree with them. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My frustration will pass when we no longer say it's OK to keep tens of thousands of unsourced biographies around for years. Until then I'll deal with it as I have been. It is very sad that people want so much to retain these unsourced, abandoned biographies that they are willing to block or desysop long standing editors over it. Imagine how much better the situation would be if the indignation displayed here were over the articles being unsourced, rather than being deleted. Kevin (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're misunderstanding the objection. Nobody is saying that unsourced articles are okay, just that mass out of process deletions against consensus are a problem. Things need to be addressed in an orderly way here, and there are far better ways to do it than lashing out like that. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only ones who need to "rethink their priorities" are those who view our processes as more important than ridding the project of unsourced BLPs. UnitAnode 01:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Process is actually pretty fundamental. Why do you suppose we have it? It's so a thousand and a half admins, and hundreds of thousands of editors, can all edit the encyclopedia together. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, collaboration just happens by magic, and what sort of community has rules anyway? Rd232 talk 02:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I may come to regret this analogy, but try "I support the immediate impeachment of X for his inappropriate tactics in supporting/opposing health care. We really need to get our priorities in order." Enough of this partisan bullshit. If we choose not to treat those with differing views with respect, we will never get anywhere. We should be lowering the drama, not escalating it to "emergency desysops". Good lord people, this is a collaborative website, not a battleground.--Tznkai (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While we're talking about deletions of BLPs...[edit]

See this - any admin want to review these? Bit harder than if they'd been prodded but anyway...Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

fwiw, he's stoppped at the mo... Privatemusings (talk) 00:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it fine to bring the deletion log at WP:DRV? --Cyclopiatalk 01:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. DRV is for evaluating individual articles. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't say so: Wikipedia:Deletion review considers disputed deletions and disputed decisions made in deletion-related discussions and speedy deletions. This includes appeals to restore deleted pages and appeals to delete pages kept after a prior discussion. - Seems the right venue. --Cyclopiatalk 01:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it isn't the right venue. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why? --Cyclopiatalk 01:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have restored one and added a couple of sources. Will try to get to others. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the deleted edits for one (only one, at random) of the deleted articles in Scott's log, Patrick M. Stillman, and it contained extremely severe BLP violations which had been sitting there for weeks. The vandal had put them in on at least a couple of occasions, and said "if you delete what I wrote one-hundred times, I will re-writted [sic] it one-hundred and one times." This is exactly the problem we are talking about, and the fact that we as a community have not until now come up with a process to clean up this mess makes it understandable as to why Scott and others might be willing to embark on these deletions. It's a moral issue, plain and simple, and while I don't agree with mass deletions out of process at this point (at some point I might), I certainly sympathize with the motivation. Folks who want this to be dealt with in a more organized way need to come up with alternatives and discuss them over at WT:PROD or somewhere else. We're reaching a breaking point here in terms of community frustration with the BLP problem and the time for dithering is already long past, so either sign on to what is being suggested now in terms of mass prodding over time or else come up with a similar solution that addresses the problem of unreferenced BLPs. If you seriously think there is not a problem then there's nothing to talk about, because I just looked at one with my own eyes, and the past examples are quite numerous.. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • And the pettiness continues, as DESiegel has just issued another block. Who wants to rein in this one? Tarc (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plea for sanity[edit]

So now both User:Scott MacDonald (after I asked him not to) and user:Rdm2376 (after I asked him why he wasn't at least sending things to the incubator) are back mass deleting unreferenced BLPs whilst there is a major discussion in progress about mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs. That is the definition of disruptive, and were there not an irresponsible group of admins and others egging them on and clearly willing to do undo blocks, I would block both.

I'm sorry, but the suggestion that a four-year-old problem should be addressed overnight by two individuals making their own decisions (without unambiguous policy backing and with "no consensus" the very best you can say about the community's view of their actions) is absolutely ludicrous. Yes, policy processes can get stuck, and the length of time the problem has been around is unacceptable. But this is so very much not the answer. By all means, set deadlines for the community to create serious processes that actually will solve the problem on a reasonable timeframe; and say that if no process materialises, the community is defaulting to the acceptance of enforcement of Arbcom ruling and policy (and by the by Arbcom should clarify the ruling, and Jimbo perhaps the policy, since it stems from him.) But to persist in taking matters into their own hands like this, immediately, without giving the community a chance to shape up, is frankly outrageous. This is not an acceptable standard of behaviour for admins, and frankly I'm shocked at the number of people I respect endorsing it. Rd232 talk 01:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How many more years does the community need, do you think? ++Lar: t/c 02:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about we figure that every comment as facetious as that adds another?
Actually, I think a month is plenty to create a simple process and to clarify policy etc. Which is hardly a lengthy extension to the problem. And should a month not be enough, after this hooha, then mass deletion would be a whole lot more acceptable. Rd232 talk 03:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, that was a serious comment. There are unreferenced BLPs that have been tagged since 2006 which still haven't been corrected. There is no deadline, so they can be brought back when people have time to work on them. ++Lar: t/c 03:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"there is no deadline" is probably why I said "By all means, set deadlines for the community to create serious processes...."; though possibly you meant something else. Still not clear why the mass deleters have spurned incubation, BTW. Rd232 talk 08:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Incubation doesn't carry personal responsibility the way userification does. As has been explained. As for setting a deadline, sure, ok, that'll work. Worked well for Flagged Revisions. But maybe this time is different. You want a month? As far as I am concerned, you have it. Put forward processes and elaborations of the existing BLP policy that will get unsourced BLPs deleted in a way that satisfies you, and if you ping me I'll turn up and voice my support. If after a month, you have a new process, I'll use it. But if you don't, I'll just have to muddle through with current process, I guess.

Or is that not what you meant? Were you actually talking more about endless stalls and polls and discussions that accomplish nothing so that you can avoid dealing with the problem for a few more years? ++Lar: t/c 16:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration[edit]

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#BLP_deletions –Juliancolton | Talk 02:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Justification[edit]

There is still a complete lack of evidence that a BLP without sources is more likely to be libelous than a BLP with sources. In fact, I suspect a larger portion of BLPs with sources contain libel. --Apoc2400 (talk) 02:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't a bit ironic to post regarding a lack of evidence and then submit unsubstantiated controversial claims? –Juliancolton | Talk 02:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure in fact you have plenty of evidence -cold,hard data- that show that BLP without sources are more likely to be libelous, then. At least Apoc2400 said honestly that he just suspects (a suspect I share). What about you? --Cyclopiatalk 02:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why on earth does it matter which one is more likely to be libelous? Both BLPs with and without sources have libel in them, as you surely must recognize. The latter is a smaller group (and also has articles with terrible sourcing), so going after it first makes sense, don't you think? Incidentally, out of the 50,000+ unsourced BLPs, how many of them would need to have BLP violations in them in order for you to agree that going in and prodding, sourcing, and then deleting if no sources are provided is a necessary step? This is a serious question for both Apoc and Cyclopia. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The latter is a smaller group (and also has articles with terrible sourcing), so going after it first makes sense, don't you think? - Only if you prove that they're for some reason a priority, that is exactly what we're asking for. Otherwise we could argue to delete BLPs which begin with vowels: for sure, since these BLPs are as likely to contain libel as the others, why not taking care of them?
About the second question, it is a good question and not one that has an objective answer. I'd say that if there is overwhelming evidence of more than 10% such BLPs having actually harmed a subject, then there is a real problem. --Cyclopiatalk 02:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, your plan is to delete all articles about living people? Will this also happen with the method of "We don't care about your peasant opinions. We have the bulldozers do we don't have to." --Apoc2400 (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My god cyclopia, enough with the stupid inclusionist-at-all-costs shtick. Hosing an article without proper sourcing is like picking a VP without vetting. let's not run the Wikipedia like a McCain campaign. Tarc (talk) 02:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong, a lot of unsourced articles are perfectly useful. --Apoc2400 (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And a lot of sourced articles use sourcing to justify slamming or puffing up someone. Before we go taking a machete to gazillions of articles, is there going to be notification to the article's original author? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Apoc what on earth are you talking about? "Delete all articles about living people?" No, that's not my plan. Maybe you'd be less worked up if you dealt with what people are actually talking about doing to address these issues, which is cleaning up what can be cleaned up (probably most of them) and deleting those that can't. Nonsense doomsday talk doesn't help anything.
And Cyclopia thanks for this reply. I'm afraid it confirms my suspicions that you have no understanding of the BLP problem. If you seriously need overwhelming evidence that 5,000 (that's what we're talking about if we say 10% of unsourced BLPs) people have been actively harmed by an article in order to think there is a problem, your view is out of step with those of 99.9% of the editors around here (including most of those who don't support prodding unsourced BLPs) and I think it can be safely ignored. The moral answer would be to say that any sort of BLP harm in unacceptable and a problem, but obviously you're simply not thinking about real people here. I again stress (and you've failed to respond to this point twice) that I'd love to see you talk to a real person on the phone (or 2,000 of them, since that's not enough for you!) and explain why you don't give a damn that their defamatory Wikipedia article screwed them over in real life. I am astonished that anyone could seriously take such a position. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are astonished because (sorry to say it) you do not understand my position. Yes, I know that we're talking of real people. If you want me to phone these hypothetical guys (I considered, and I am still considering, joining OTRS, by the way), I'd tell them simply the plain truth: that the responsibility is primarily of the vandals and libelous editors, and that if anything we failed in using adequate page protection. If they ask "Couldn't you have deleted that page?" I'd just answer "Not without reason, and not without consensus. You have all the right to demand that people write about you truthfully, but you cannot decide if people can or cannot write about you".
My opinion is that there is a tradeoff. I usually make the examples of cars. Cars are intrinsically dangerous objects, killing huge amounts of people every day, yet everyone is using one. Why? Because there is a trade off. If anything, we try to make them safer, not to abolish them altogether. The same here. BLPs are potentially dangerous (all of them, unsourced or not); BLPs are also potentially very useful and valuable per se. Therefore we have to set an acceptable trade off. The problem -and that's where controversy arises -is where is the equilibrium point. --Cyclopiatalk 03:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No no, I understand your position perfectly. In terms of an "equilibrium point," you think putting a time limit on how long an unsourced BLP can hang around and then deleting it only if it is not sourced adequately would do more harm than letting those BLPs sit around forever and then having some of them damage the lives of real people because of defamation. Your position is actually crystal clear, albeit completely untenable and wildly out of step with community consensus on the BLP problem. You'll have to accept that you're an extremist in your views on this issue. Incidentally I don't think anyone will let you anywhere near OTRS if they saw your comments above. Sorry if this all comes off as rather harsh, but frankly I'm a bit appalled by your viewpoint. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is "extremist", understanding the obvious fact that simply being unsourced has no correlation with defamation (potential and actual)? If that's your -admittedly weird- definition of "extremist", yes, I am one. --Cyclopiatalk 03:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good lord I hope you never have the opportunity to be on the receiving end of such a phone call. JBsupreme (talk) 03:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please unblock Rdm2376[edit]

There was not a community consensus for this block. JBsupreme (talk) 02:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's only for 12 hours. And if he's being disruptive and won't stop, blocking is appropriate. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except he's not being disruptive, he's completely within policy. ++Lar: t/c 02:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If he were unambiguously within policy, there wouldn't be an issue. And it won't do him any harm to do something else for the next 10 hours. Like sleep on it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Has he agreed to stop deleting articles out of process? -Chunky Rice (talk) 02:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
He's not deleting articles out of process. ++Lar: t/c 02:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well he's doing it based on a highly disputed interpretation of policy and without the support of the community - which is not exactly in process, is it? Rd232 talk 02:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is your basis for claiming lack of support? The random drama hounds who have shown up so far to comment? (excepting you and I of course, we are sober and serious concerned editors) ++Lar: t/c 03:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This all sounds like deja vu. Can anyone say "Betacommand"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can say a lot of things, including "no consensus for a block." JBsupreme (talk) 03:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I concur there is no consensus. I also note I have not been blocked for doing exactly the same. Someone should unblock. DES has had plenty of time to gather consesus for his controversial (re)block and hasn't even tried to.--Scott Mac (Doc) 03:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The blocking admin has relented, asking if I would kindly desist. I fear that if I don't his/her head will spin off it's socket. Kevin (talk) 03:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, goody, let's end this outrageously long block, and sell tickets to the impending resumption of hostilities. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That will pay for a bunch of new servers. Although, ironically, we won't need them if they carpet-bomb all the biographies. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those who keep blocking Kevin for deleting unreferenced BLPs need to be dealt with, as they're the ones doing harm to the project. UnitAnode 03:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is there a plan to notify the authors of those many items that are to be deleted? Because if they could be properly sourced, they would be less likely to get deleted, right? But if an article was written by someone who failed to watch the page, or whatever, then the article has no chance of survival, even if it forms the basis for a useful article. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth...[edit]

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.


I warned Scott MacDonald for his picking up where Kevin left off, and added him to the Arbcom case filing as a party as he stepped intentionally into the same activity the case was brought over. Shortly thereafter Scott indefinitely blocked himself, apparently in frustration.

I asked him to climb down off the building and take the spider man suit off, no response yet. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's your characterization, and in this instance it's bogus. Ask JzG, who popularized the term here. Here's another aphorism, more apt: Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c 04:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how to characterize "Indef blocked self in protest of a warning" other than as a spidey stunt. Several people, you included, are turning this into a higher drama event than is appropriate and justified.
Given that Arbcom's got the case request open and it appears highly likely to be accepted, perhaps now is the time to step off the road rather than charging forwards into the minefield? I appreciate your sincerity and vigor, but is it even remotely possible that the rest of us have some valid concerns about all this that it would be worth discussing with us? Please? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How many years of discussion did you need? ++Lar: t/c 04:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Brits say something about throwing one's rattle out of the pram. Guettarda (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that Gwh warns you for "personal attacks", for comparing those you disagree with to babies. Good show! UnitAnode 04:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's an expression. Sort of like 'cutting off your nose to spite your face'. Guettarda (talk) 05:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's just Guettarda's normal MO, pay it no mind. ++Lar: t/c 04:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Sarcasm is so much worse than disruption. Guettarda (talk) 05:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Old MacDonald is just trying to save on disc space. You know how thrifty those Scotts are. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the proper bit of quaint wiki-wisdom for Lar is "don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point". Guettarda (talk) 04:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The proper bit of wiki wisdom for you is "lead, follow, or get out of the way"... ++Lar: t/c 04:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, when people are out to do damage to the project or themselves, I think the correct course of action is to get in their way. Guettarda (talk) 04:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, it's your contention that deleting unsourced BLPs "damages the project"? That may be one of the most asinine things I've read yet in this whole surreal discussion. UnitAnode 04:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Disruption damages the project. In case you didn't notice, we block people for disruption all the time. We don't "get out of their way". Guettarda (talk) 04:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't noticed you getting blocked much, so it doesn't always work out that way, does it? How's the ID cabal these days, do they have a position on this matter, or did you come up with your stance all by yourself? Er, strike that, there is no ID cabal. Or AGW cabal either, right? ++Lar: t/c 05:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ID Cabal? I don't know, you'll have to ask your friends in whose imagination it exists. But this isn't the place for discussing made up smears, this is about your disruption. Guettarda (talk) 05:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not just your disruption. You're not leading the charge to disrupt the project. You play your politics much smarter than that. Guettarda (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe everyone in this thread should, you know, stop typing things and then saving the page. If not I'll just archive the thread in a few minutes. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why? G was just getting (ahem) warmed up. ++Lar: t/c 05:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So we're done then! Surely you folks can find somewhere else on the internet to continue to explore the fascinating question of which one of you can pee the highest. Obviously there's nothing even approaching a "discussion" here. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Lar continues deletion spree[edit]

As if we hadn't had enough, Lar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) went on a deletion spree, but stopped 10 minutes ago. --Apoc2400 (talk) 04:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good for him. —Dark 04:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deletes a Bosnian Prime Minister. Good one. We shouldn't have any articles about them damn foreigners. Guettarda (talk) 04:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did you want me to userify it for you so you can fix it up and put it back? Happy to do so, just let me know... ++Lar: t/c 04:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hence the term LAR-ceny, ja? :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good work, Lar. UnitAnode 04:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Absolutely. Because arbitrary criteria are much more important than actually getting it right. Guettarda (talk) 04:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Deleting unsourced BLPs is the definition of "getting it right." UnitAnode 04:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think you're missing the big picture. Getting it right means having material in articles that's accurate, and that complies with policy. Whether an article has something in the "references" section or not has little bearing on whether or not it's accurate. Nor is it protection against the addition of defamatory or damaging info. Mass deletion of unsourced BLPs is only going to push people to add refs, any refs, to articles. Does that improve their quality? No, not at all. But it gives the illusion of quality. Which means that we're likely to mislead readers.

          There's no evidence that unsourced articles have less damaging material than sourced ones. In fact, the most contentious articles can be chock full of referenced. Guettarda (talk) 04:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

      • (ec) Of course Guettarda, an unsourced BLP is really "right". —Dark 04:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • If that's what your opinion, you're entitled to it. Of course, I said nothing of the sort. But if you want to address your thoughts to me, you're more than welcome. Bit creepy, I must say. But you do what you feel you need to do. Guettarda (talk) 04:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Guettarda is raising a relevant point: The rule about sourcing *exists* because we know that unsourced correlates with crap and crap hurts people. The BLP policy has no other reason to require sourcing. Guettarda is effectively arguing that by focusing so hard on this single crappness-indicator we would toss a bunch of perfectly fine articles just to get a few crap-articles and we may ruin its value as an indicator as people shove in worthless 'source' links without even reading the article. I think if we are to be rational we must agree that both of these positions are very likely correct. It bothers me to see people getting so invested in the /argument/ that they come off as disagreeing with the reasoned points of the opposition simply because the arguments are from the opposition or, worse, when people adopt a position of blindness to the intention of the rule because doing so conveniently supports their position.
Even accepting that Guettarda's suppositions are correct, we still can decide that the deletion is a good idea: What good is an indicator if we don't act on it? And isn't it acceptable to lose a few articles, which will eventually be undeleted or recreated if they are useful, in order to take out some garbage which is going unaddressed? ...That is a more complicated matter of judgement. I think that I can reasonably bend Guettarda's position that we'll ruin the unsourced check into an argument for being hasty with these deletions: If the process is prolonged there will almost certainly be a wave of crap source insertions in an effort to stem the deletions, it would be less harmful to the criteria to promptly delete the backlog and then stop so that there is no immediate benefit to adding crap sources. --Gmaxwell (talk) 07:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • I agree - taking a weak indicator of a potential problem (BLP without sources as indicator of BLP with bad info) and putting very high incentives to change that indicator (BLP will be deleted immediately without even minimal process) is a recipe for the destruction of that indicator. In this case, it's quite possible that people will go around adding minimal refs to every unreferenced BLP, but under pressure of time won't do it properly, it'll just be "plonk a source". Needless to say this is rather counterproductive - in the circumstances, the few BLPs with actual problems may well stay, with a plonked source. So Cat:unref BLPs may collapse to near zero, but the problem will just be hidden in an even larger swamp of minimally sourced BLPs. Rd232 talk 08:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This disruptive behavior (03:55, 21 January 2010 to 03:35, 21 January 2010) is after Lar protected a version[6] of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons at 02:13, 21 January 2010 that his "friend" Jack Merridew was edit warring on:

Three year old policy:

Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.

Jack Merridew's version:

Contentious Material about living persons 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.

Lar obviously knew the policy, and disruptively ignored it.

Lar is now part of the suicide pact/arbitration request Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#BLP_deletions.

If Lar and any of these other editors don't like and refuse to abide by wikipedia policy and consensus, no one is forcing you to stay. I don't have much faith in many of the current arbitrators, but I hope at the very least there will be some well deserved desysops. Ikip 08:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the material has been unsourced for 2-3 years, believe me, it is most certainly in contention. JBsupreme (talk) 08:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's a novel interpretation of consensus (cf Wikipedia:Silence and consensus). Rd232 talk 09:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. I contend that any material that has been unsourced for any significant length of time without being corrected is contentious by definition. If you'd care to argue about the particular material, I'm happy to oblige you after the deleted article is userified, you have but to ask me. But of course if you argue, that buttresses my case, and if you don't, well then my point stands, doesn't it? See how easy that is?
Because, really, I'm just boggled that anyone would claim that unsourced material that has been unsourced for ages ISN'T contentious. Well, anyone reasonable anyway. Which you are. ++Lar: t/c 13:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that if you transferred that mode of argumentation to another time, place, and author, you would consider it textbook wikilaywering. Unsourced material is not contentious per se, it is unsourced per se. As the policy and essay shows, material which stays in articles for a long time is considered to have consensus (i.e. not contentious). You're welcome to make an argument on a case by case basis why the material is questionable in some way: but you can't just say "it's unsourced". Because the very fact that it's still unsourced after a long time shows that there is a consensus to accept the non-sourced material qua unsourced; the addition of any new information or argument might overturn that. QED - you need to make an actual argument that is specific to the article. Or at least develop a process that permits others to examine articles case-by-case - which rapidfire mass deletion largely precludes (makes impractical); which is why I keep arguing for WP:Incubation. Rd232 talk 13:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar, you know perfectly well that you are misreading the intent of the policy. If you simply cannot abide the idea of convincing others you are right before taking action, you should ask yourself if some other website would be a better place for you in the long term. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's your opinion. But I don't think you have consensus for it being correct. Take me through how having unsourced material around is good for the project, again, when policy clearly states that any unsourced material is subject to removal? Take me through how deleting it after years of time to fix it isn't allowing enough time to fix it? ++Lar: t/c 13:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen quite a bit of this framing the discussion to suit your goals. We are all aware that there have been many proposals to delete unsourced BLP articles, that none of those proposals has every reached consensus, and that the policies were written with that in mind. You're free to twist the wording of the pages all you want, but the simple fact is that no written policy was ever intended to authorize the deletions, and indeed many of the policies were written to explicitly discourage them. The worst part of it is that the deletions do not actually do anything to help the BLP problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's rather funny that you should argue that unsourced material is contentious 'by definition', and apparently the longer it's unsourced the more contentious it is. No, wait, I meant that's absurd. If we put something on the main page, and years and millions of page views later, no one has bothered to provide a source, this is proof that it's horribly contentious, evil, and must be deleted with fire? Obviously not - whatever it was was so acceptable not one person objected to it. Silence is tacit approval, not tacit opposition. That anyone could think the latter is symptomatic of the intellectual perversions that surround BLP. --Gwern (contribs) 15:32 21 January 2010 (GMT)
(note, I inadvertantly removed the above trying to recover from an ec, apologies to Gwern for that, no slight intended). OK, if something, tagged as unsourced, stays on the main page for years, then sure, it's not contentious. (however I suspect that would never happen) But these unsourced assertions were tagged and hardly anyone looked at them at all. Check the article stats, or have MzM run watcher analysis for you. That's not consensus, that's the absence of consensus. Consensus isn't "whoever turns up". ++Lar: t/c 16:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just because an article is unsourced doesn't mean that there are no sources. For example, a newbie editor knows that John Jones-Smith has just become the MP for Anytown, where he lives. He looks and finds that there is no article for John Jones-Smith, and creates a short one which says "John Jones-Smith became MP for Anytown on 20 January 2010. He is a member of the Meat-and-Two-Veg Party." and leaves it at that. They haven't read all the policies, don't know about verifiability or citations: they just know from the media that anyone can edit Wikipedia, and he goes away happy that he's helped. Now, obviously there will be sources of information about this election, but let's say it slips through NPP's net. A few months later, an admin comes along, sees that it's unsourced, that it's not been edited for a few months, and deletes it straight away. How does this help the encyclopedia? How is this a 'contentious' article? All the facts are correct, and would be quickly verifiable if someone bothered to Google... I would support the deletion of any BLP articles which has negative material or likely-to-be-untrue material - however, this would count as a CSD candidate as an 'attack' page. I would support the deletion of any BLP article for which (upon a search of Google etc) no verification can be found. What I am afraid of is older unsourced BLP articles being deleted just for being unsourced and unedited for a few months... the proposed deletor must look for sources before deleting out of hand. That is why these mass deletions are unjustified in my opinion - there is little chance that the deleting admin has looked for sources. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 13:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there are sources, then add them. Get busy. However, I must ask.... How much time do you need? When exactly does this become urgent for you to fix? How many years need to go by first? This community has let tens of thousands of articles stagnate, and it's time something was done. If not today, then when? ++Lar: t/c 14:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at my contribs, you'll see that I have added sources to two of the articles listed since Nov '06. Of course, if all of the active editors did a few articles, then a lot of them would be sourced (or found to have no reliable sources, in which case they could be deleted through PROD/AfD). I'm not saying that none of these should be deleted - but mass deletions seem to imply that the deleting admin did not even do a quick look for sources. For example, I don't know what was in the Greg Landau article for example, but if it was the producer, Google News yielded some results. Similarly with Beth Lapides - if that's the creator of 'UnCabaret' then again Google News yielded hits; Thomas Howard Lichtenstein seems to yield few relevant Google News hits (even as "Thomas Lichtenstein") - neither were there any reasonable hits for Jay Lemke. Obviously, as a non-admin, I can't see the deleted articles, but assuming I had the right people, just looking at the first 4 articles you deleted, 2 of them look like they could have had sources available. Of course, if you say that you looked at the sources for those two, and none of them were connected with the article-subject (or did not confirm any of the article's facts), then I'll accept that - but looking at the number of deletions (I count 14 deletions between 03:54 and 03:55 excluding Talk Pages), I can't see how you could have seen if there were any sources for all of them. WP:BLP seems to say that before deletion, the proposed deleter should try to improve the article. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not my responsibility to determine if sources COULD be found. That's what the "no sources" tagging is for. The community as a whole had 3 years to find and properly source the articles. How much longer should we wait? I reviewed articles from the unsourced since December 2006 category, starting at a random letter, and deleted those that were not sourced at all or were sourced exceedingly poorly in my considered judgment. For any particular article I am happy to userify it to your user space, just ask. (my talk page is a good place for that)... in particular you might be a good person to work on the Greg Landau one if you want since you've already done some leg work.) My MO was to queue up pages, then review their content, article edit history, and logs, and then delete them if warranted. If you review that category,starting at L, you'll see all the ones I skipped (I certainly didn't nuke every article that started with L per defaultsort).I skipped far more than I deleted. ++Lar: t/c 15:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for explaining the rationale you used. I understand it (even if I don't fully agree with it, as you can see from my above comments). It is good that it wasn't indiscriminate! As for Greg Landau, I didn't particular do any legwork - that was the result of a quick search on Google News Archive! Thanks for the offer, though I'll decline. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the by, Lar, you said in a (now closed) ANI thread "How many of those deleted BLPs did you want userified so you can fix them?" So what if I call you on that and say all of them? Obviously you'd have to be sure to tag each one with {[tl|userspace draft}} or the like; and obviously I'd need a shed-load of help. Mmm, sounds a bit like WP:Incubation, doesn't it (assuming that in the circumstances the guideline for deletion from the incubator would be amended appropriately, relative to the volume)? So how about it? Why not incubate? Rd232 talk 13:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That wasn't my offer. Someone has taken me up on it, on my talk, and I plan to userify the articles he/she requested. I'm happy to do the same for you, for however many you are personally going to be responsible for. I'm not sure I see the need for {{userspace draft}} tagging, though, please elaborate. Incubation is just another process that lets us feel like we're doing something, in the hope that someone else will eventually fix it. No. ++Lar: t/c 14:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{userspace draft}} provides noindexing. Rd232 talk 14:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, seems a good thing to add, then. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 15:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting that not a one of the admins involved in the mass deletion so far can give a straight answer why deletion is better than incubation for this purpose. Just 'fess up already: it's too undoable, isn't it? And so would require community approval... Rd232 talk 14:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not involved in the deletion, but I can imagine that anything moved to the incubator could be just moved back (unchanged) by anyone to the mainspace, while a deletion at least requires an admin to undo it, making it a bit harder : making the solution a bit more permanent? Not being familiar with the incubator may also be a reason of course, or generally being totally fed up with the passivity and "every article is sacred" mentality of significant groups of the community. Just some wild guesses though... Fram (talk) 14:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)I'm guessing you're not familiar with the Incubator. It says "In general, an article will need to cite at least two reliable sources and be written from a neutral point of view before returning to mainspace." So if there were an agreed process for mass incubation, that would apply and prevent restoration without fixing. On the other hand, without an agreed process, people will feel free to ignore that requirement, since the incubation was out of process. You see? Rd232 talk 15:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
rd232: asked and answered. Incubator is not something that a particular person is personally responsible for. Userification is. If userification fails there is a particular person to nudge, and failing that, the article can be deleted again. Not so with Incubator. That's about as straight an answer as anyone reasonable could ask for. You're a reasonable person so we're done with that subtopic. Again, if you ask me to userify articles, by name, I will do it. As long as you take personal responsibility. While you guys are talking, another user is on my talk, doing just that. Bravo for him. ++Lar: t/c 15:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. Suddenly you're worried about what happens to the articles ejected from mainspace? Articles don't stay in the Incubator forever - sooner or later there will be a cut off (currently a month, for mass incubation maybe a year), and they'll be deleted if after a long enough time no-one can/will fix. With mass incubation there would be mass attempts to rescue those articles (and delete those not worth saving). Incubation is collaborative userfication, and this is a collaborative project. Apart from anything else, delete first / ask for userfication later makes it much harder for editors to see what is worth worrying about. Rd232 talk 15:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm worried about them sneaking back in, still crappy, still unsourced only now wearing shiny talk page badges placed there by (redacted) trumpeting how they were saved from the wicked forces of harsh reality where unsourced BLPs have negative consequences on real life people. If you want to take personal responsibility for some of the work, I'm listening. If not... ++Lar: t/c 15:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pay attention: I pointed out above that the incubator says "In general, an article will need to cite at least two reliable sources and be written from a neutral point of view before returning to mainspace." And there's nothing to stop a mass incubation process setting a higher requirement for BLPs. Rd232 talk 20:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the incubator, with proper retention guidelines in place, might be a fine place to deal with new unsourced bios in future, but is not a scalable method for dealing with the 50000 or so that face us. Kevin (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it can be made to scale. See my proposal at the current BLP RFC. Rd232 talk 20:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Judge, jury and executioner What I see consistently in the behavior of Rdm2376 and Lar is an arrogant extrajudicial punishment system being executed. They, and they alone decide whether articles are worthy of wikipedia, outside of normal consensus and guidelines. Rdm2376 allows an article to be restored because "A source was kindly provided"[7] Lar will restore deleted pages but in 12 hours Lar alone will decide whether these pages will be re-deleted.

Scott MacDonald's statment personifies the respect Lar and other admins have for our rules and consensus: "The community is quite incapable of doing anything ethically responsible here, and thus I decline to enter into pointless debates with those who have oproven to be ethically irrepponsible people. "Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption."[8]

Add to this is Lar's contempt for other editors good faith contributions such as calling tens of thousands of editors good faith contributions "crap". In addition to his past support of personal attacks and hounding, leads me to only one conclusion to solve this. Since Lar is calling for the revocation of adminships on the arbcom page, let me suggest Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lar as the first step towards Lar losing his administrative privileges. Rd232, would you co-sign a RFC? No administrator should be able to actively participate in such disruption, blatantly ignore consensus, and hold tens of thousands of editors good faith work in such contempt. Ikip 20:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Calling for heads on ANI is unproductive. Lar has a recall process, please either use that or contact others via talk pages to set up the RfC/U. NW (Talk) 20:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that is really going to work. Lar has done something that ArbCOM approves, and might not accept it. Techman224Talk 16:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs[edit]

Because one of the main criticisms of all suggested systems for the deletion of unsourced BLPs was that people are misusing the system to achieve their goals, I have created a proposal for a completely new (although obviously similar) system: Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs. ProD statys like it is, and all discussion, refinements, opposition, ... can be centered at the new location. No confusion between regular Prod and the new system will be possible anymore, I hope. Again, this is a proposal, not a new policy. I'll post notifications of it in a few central locations, feel free to add it to all relevant pages I may have forgotten. Fram (talk) 09:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RfC[edit]

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people is now open. NW (Talk) 20:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here's hoping something productive comes of it. My fingers are crossed but I'm not holding my breath. JBsupreme (talk) 23:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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