Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-01-25/BLP madness

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The Signpost
25 January 2010
BLP madness

BLP deletions cause uproar

By seresin, January 25, 2010

The issue of unsourced biographies of living people (BLPs) came to a head this week after Rdm2376 (formerly named Kevin) began deleting such BLPs with a deletion rationale of: Unwatched and unsourced biography that has not been edited for at least 6 months. This was drawn to the attention of editors when Paul Erik started a thread at ANI, later moved to its own subpage. The immediate response was supportive—Scott MacDonald (formerly named Doc glasgow) and others also performed discretionary deletions—but strongly opposing views on the deletions quickly emerged. Rdm2376 was blocked by Geni after he continued the deletions; he was subsequently unblocked by Coffee and re-blocked by DESiegel, who then unblocked him in deference to a filed Request for Arbitration (see below).

Jimbo's response

I haven't reviewed the specifics of your recent article deletions, so I can't vouch for each and every one of them of course, but I wanted to fully endorse the principles that, as I understand it, you have used in your deletions: unsourced BLPs that have been around for several years are an easy and obvious first target, and your deletions, while unconventional and a bit exciting for some, were carefully considered and I consider this a valid application of WP:BOLD. You have my support. —Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales was notified of developments. In response, he wrote to Scott MacDonald that he supported what Scott was doing; Scott MacDonald was deleting BLPs which had been unreferenced for three years or longer.

New proposals to deal with BLPs

During the discussion at ANI, two proposals were offered and were moved from ANI to the more appropriate talk pages of relevant policies, Proposed deletion (PROD) and Criteria for speedy deletion (CSD).

Enforcement via proposed deletion process

Bigtimepeace proposed an amendment to the PROD policy: that "prods of unreferenced BLPs cannot be removed until the article is adequately referenced." Further, he proposed that once this amendment was enacted, 5,000 unreferenced BLPs—selected from Category:All unreferenced BLPs, which, at the time of Rdm2376's deletions, contained roughly 50,000 pages—would be proposed for deletion each week. Roughly 73% of editors supported this idea. Opposers cited, among other things, dissatisfaction with amending—and in some opinions, completely undermining the purpose of—the PROD policy instead of devising an entirely new process; some did not object to the proposal itself so much as to deletions of articles only because they were unsourced, which did not necessarily imply violation of the biographies of living persons policy; others maintained that any deletion is unacceptable until sources have been actively sought and found non-existent. Discussion ensued, and another proposal was offered by Rd232. Under this proposal, all new BLPs would be tagged with a template and would be placed in the Article Incubator if they remained unreferenced after seven days. Fewer editors commented on this proposal, but response was largely positive. These discussions were cut short due to their archival with a directive to continue discussion at an RfC on BLPs. Shortly before this archival, Casliber linked to a suggestion he had made at the Village Pump; he proposed that a bot would semi-protect all BLPs—including sourced ones—and would automatically protect new ones. Response was evenly split and discussion ended quickly.

Adding a new criterion for speedy deletion

Multixfer suggested that a new criterion providing for summary deletion BLPs which have been unsourced for over a year be added to the CSD policy. Response was mixed, though more negative than the PROD proposal; opposing reasons were largely the same. This discussion was also truncated in favor of the RfC.

Adjusting the planned flagged revisions feature

TheDJ proposed a change to the Flagged Revisions idea, which he believed would resolve the BLP problem. He suggested that en.wiki adopt the model used by the German Wikipedia: de.wiki uses Flagged Revisions on all its articles. TheDJ suggested this as it would allow flagged revisions to be activated on en.wiki immediately, as technical concerns for specific en.wiki execution are delaying its activation. This proposal saw little response.

Separate deletion process

Fram created Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs based on the discussion above about employing PROD to delete unreferenced BLPs. The proposed process is as follows:
1. An article is nominated when the {{dub}} tag is added.
 2. If any person adds one or more relevant reliable sources to the article and then removes the {{dub}} tag, the BLP deletion is aborted and may not be renominated. The article may still be nominated for a regular deletion discussion of course.
 3. The article is first checked and then manually deleted by an administrator 7 days after nomination. It may be incubated.
Discussion on the talk page is ongoing, and as of publication it has neither been marked as a policy nor received significant levels of formal support or opposition.

Wikipedia:Unreferenced biographies of living people was created and proposed by Scott MacDonald. This proposal incorporates the suggestion referenced above by employing a PROD system. New unreferenced BLPs would be tagged with {{Prod blp}} immediately; the page will exist for seven days during which time the tag may be removed only if adequate sourcing is provided. After seven days without sourcing the article would be deleted. Existing articles would be treated slightly differently; a bot would be used to provide a list to Wikiprojects of unsourced BLPs within their purview, and so allow interested editors to find and fix problem BLPs. Aside from this, all BLPs unreferenced for two years or more would be tagged for deletion, and a month would be provided to fix them, after which time they will be deleted. After these articles are addressed, all BLPs unreferenced for 18 months would be tagged and given the same month to be fixed; subsequent taggings would occur in similar iterations based on time tagged as being unreferenced. All articles deleted under this proposal would be undeleted and userfied upon request. This proposal also makes a specific note about deletions of non-attack page BLPs outside of already-established procedures: Notwithstanding ArbCom's recent motion, if this policy is adopted, it shall explicitly be considered against policy and disruptive if any BLP is speedy deleted merely for being unsourced. (See below for explanation of the motion referenced.) Discussion on the talk page is ongoing, and as of publication it has not been marked as a policy nor has it received significant levels of formal support or opposition.

Arbitration Committee grants amnesty, recommends centralized discussion

The Committee has determined that:

  • The deletions carried out by Rdm2376, Scott MacDonald, and various other administrators are a reasonable exercise of administrative discretion to enforce the policy on biographies of living people.
  • The administrators who carried out these actions are commended for their efforts to enforce policy and uphold the quality of the encyclopedia, but are urged to conduct future activities in a less chaotic manner.
  • The administrators who interfered with these actions are reminded that the enforcement of the policy on biographies of living people takes precedence over mere procedural concerns.

The Committee hereby proclaims an amnesty for all editors who may have overstepped the bounds of policy in this matter. Everyone is asked to continue working together to improve and uphold the goals of our project. The Committee recommends, in particular, that a request for comments be opened to centralize discussion on the most efficient way to proceed with the effective enforcement of the policy on biographies of living people.

Motion passed (9/4/3/0)

In response to Rdm2376's deletions, Juliancolton brought a request for arbitration to the Arbitration Committee. Seventy-six statements were posted, and the Arbitrators elected to respond by motion. The motion was largely supportive of this execution of the BLP policy, finding it an acceptable use of administrator tools to enforce our BLP policy and the foundation mandate on BLPs. A page has been created to reference this motion.

Later, another case was brought by MBisanz. In response to the PROD discussion referenced above, an edit war occurred on the proposed deletion policy page over whether consensus favored the proposal; Malinaccier fully protected the page to stop the edit warring. Coffee edited through this protection to include language which supported the change under discussion on the talk page. Sandstein told Coffee he must revert, as making the edit through full protection was against the protection policy. Coffee cited the ArbCom's recent motion as justification for the edit (which was later reverted by OverlordQ). Sandstein disagreed that the motion validated such a change to policy, and blocked him for 24 hours. Sandstein brought the block to AN for review; while some supported Coffee's actions, most agreed that Sandstein was too involved to have made the block. After MBisanz brought the matter to ArbCom, Coffee was unblocked to participate. Arbitrators are split on how to proceed on this case; they stand (3/3/0/4), and most Arbitrators voting to decline or hold off on action suggest deference to the RfC.


The RfC is actively ongoing; it is likely that any resolution will form from there. A summary of the discussion as of midday 24 January was drafted by Risker.

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RFC again: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

A graph of current opinion can be found here: User:Peter cohen/BLP RFC stats. The two opposing views which have the most support is:

  1. Jehochman, who currently wants deletion policy to be more strict, with 139 people supporting, and
  2. Collect, who feels existing policy is satisfactory, has 51 editors supporting.

Ikip 04:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

  • The whole referencing problem stems from a decline in the number of editors. The more draconian we get, the less newbies will turn into valued editors. So, we've got a vicious cycle. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
True, see my comments (hidden) on how the media feels about what is happening at wikipedia: At the Durova it is not pretty. These 7 journalists and one PHD dissertation are the canary in the coalmine about how many wikipedians are treating new editors. Ikip 04:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Is there nothing happening on Wikipedia that is not somehow resultant of editors picking on newbies? Give me a break. The reason BLPs remain unsourced for months, if not years, is because many of them are about people who are not well-known to the general pupulation, many people are generally apathetic (or not knowledgable) about doing sourcing work, and because lots of people are basically lazy. It's easy to write something that you know is true and leave it than it is to go dig up the book where you read it and create a proper citation. The vast majority of newbies aren't even familiar with WP:RS, much less our citation styles. Please stop pushing this agenda everywhere. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I am a relatively new editor and a significant problem I have in following the chain of events in this news article is the extensive reliance on abbreviations, jargon and code words that only the more experienced members of the editor community can easily follow. For example: ANI, PROD, RfC, CSD, AN, ArbCom. This article sounds like a Pentagon briefing, it is not English, per se. It would be more "open" and "transparent" for the community, especially for newer members, if the prose used in the "newspaper" used common vocabulary and complete words, that anyone could understand. Thanks for listening. --Mdukas (talk) 06:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
FYI:
The Wikipedia:Glossary has more. — Athaenara ✉ 07:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Athaenara, thank you. I wish the author of the article could have simply done the same thing. We don't all speak or understand "wiki". thx. --Mdukas (talk) 01:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Happy to help! — Athaenara ✉ 11:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Just great. Deletionists are taking over. Wikipedia is going to hell in a handbasket. It's people like User:Rdm2376 who need to be deleted on sight, not the articles.  Grue  10:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
     Eaten by a grue?  Sorry. Couldn't resist. —what a crazy random happenstance 11:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Two Years here and still a novice I admit, but my entire two years work has now all been deleted and and a huge gap in the progression of digital technologies now exists in wikipedia through a flawed AfD process. No wonder Wiki is losing good editors, I know I wont be spending time on it anymore when all I'm trying to do is to accurately make an article and reference it properly. Bring on the multitude of Biographies for Horses that win minor horseraces!! I'm sure my kids would really like to know about Mr Ed than living pioneers and inventors! --Cafejunkie (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
  • (LOL)--I'm afraid right now I think we should just get rid of admins. We pretty much only need them to undelete stuff other admins have deleted. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

2 opposes = solid opposition?

  • Where is the "solid opposition" to wholesale introduction of flagged revisions, as proposed by User:TheDJ? All I saw at the linked discussion were two (2) Opposes by people who do not seem to have any experience of how flagged revisions work on Wikinews and German WP. Have I missed another discussion elsewhere? If this is all the opposition expressed, TheDJ's idea is worth looking at. --JN466 11:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I have amended it to state that the proposal saw little response. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. (I am still tempted to add a "citation needed" tag to the statement that it "might be impractical due to en.wiki's size." If it works well for a Wikipedia that has 1 million articles, it'll likely also work for one that has 3 million.) --JN466 13:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't flagged revisions get a 60 - 40 vote with Jimbo deciding that we would have it anyway, and that most policies usually need at least 70%? Ikip 05:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading account of events

This account of events is inaccurate. The deletion spree was started by Gregory Kohs, a banned editor, who coordinated off-line with at least one administrator to do a "test" introducing vandalism to unwatched and unreferenced biographies. I believe there was also something about the purchase of an admin account (user:Cool3?). The conspiracy was exposed and blocks issued, but deletions followed with support from the Wikipedia Review crowd where Kohs is active, until a consensus of Wikipedia editors objected (see voting results on proposal that unreferenced biographies can be speedy deleted). How do we get this misleading depiction fixed? ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It's my understanding that the Kohs issue was unrelated; MZMcBride apparently provided Kohs with a short list of unwatched BLPs, and also the Cool3 account was apparently purposely compromised. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2, but except for also being about BLPs, I don't think the two issues are related.--ragesoss (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The short list was 8,000 articles wasn't it? An Arbcom used an alternate account to add them to a watchlist. And the deletion spree that followed was very much related and driven by the same activists on Wikipedia Review, was it not? ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
The list that was given to Kohs, it seems, was 20 articles: User_talk:MZMcBride#Request.--ragesoss (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh. And then an Arb set up an alternate account to watch 8,000 that were unwatched? Is that how it happened? I'm not an expert which is why I was disappointed that there wasn't a better account of the events. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not totally versed on all this either; there's just so much discussion in so many places that it's hard to get a clear big picture view without having been following it all along. But where did this 8000 article arbcom watchlist come in? I hadn't seen anything about that.--ragesoss (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
There were 8,062 unwatched BLPs identified by MZMcBride and subsequently forwarded to Arbcom after they discovered that he had offered to supply them to a banned user. The Kohser said he'd only received a small sample, and after User:Newyorkbrad requested the sample, MZMcBride listed the twenty articles on the 18th Jan. The mass deletion of unsourced Biographies without notification to the creators started a couple of days later. Apart from the chronology and the fact that both seem to have been planned on Wikipedia Review, I'm not sure what connection if any there was between the deletion of BLPs without attempting to source them or inform the authors and the vandalism of BLPs experiment. ϢereSpielChequers 01:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Does this have anything to do with Casliber's claims.[1]

Are you talking about this: The BLP offwiki forum dedicated to tightening up BLP practices any bets how quick this will be deleted?[2] Ikip 05:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The first I heard of it was when it had been linked to ANI and whoever was running it promptly replaced the contents of the site with the goatse picture. I don't know if it had been used for offsite canvassing by deletionists in AFDs and other !votes. But I don't trust anyone who is prepared to use the goatse in that way. ϢereSpielChequers 12:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
What did the Arbcom do about it? Ikip 13:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know if its been to Arbcom or who if anyone has admitted being part of it. ϢereSpielChequers 15:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Both Durova and Casliber seem to have talked to members of the group, or been alerted in some way about this group. Ikip 16:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I would argue the lack of references on BLPs (and all articles, in general) is partially a result of Mediawiki's unfriendly editing interface. We need to make it easier for new users to add references when there's a "Citation needed" at the end of a sentence or a big unreferenced tag on the article. How about a series a screenshots or even a short video clip? We need to teach these same users to add references instead of having a very limited number of experienced editors fixing it for them. MahangaTalk 19:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Ikip/ref is a start on how to reference. Ikip 20:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Without getting into the larger issue, I applaud ArbCom for making a simple, classy decision to declare an amnesty. That's the kind of low-drama forward looking approach we need more of around here. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Way back when...the 'External links' section was used for references for the entire article. Obviously that wasn't the best idea in the world, and it became the common practice to provide separate citations for each statement. I can understand putting these older articles into some sort of 'purgatory' where they can be fixed up, but I certainly can't agree to deleting non-controversial articles about various elected congresspeople, including those no longer in office (which means the Project Vote Smart et al material is no longer available, which means it would be difficult to re-create the article from scratch). I'm sure there are similar stories in other areas. If there are specific problems with specific articles, fine. I just don't believe that one size fits all. (And yes, those who can't figure out how to copy and paste a ref from another article to use as a template of sorts are at a disadvantage with new articles. However, I think many are just too lazy to bother doing anything at all with refs.) Flatterworld (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


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