Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

If he's dead, we don't care

A deceased person can also be harmed by false allegations. The person has relatives that does not like that such things are written (I would be very angry if I was the widower of a woman who suffered from false allegations at Wikipedia, even after her death).. I propose it to be changed so the BLP policy also applies for persons 20, 30, 40 or perhaps 50 years after their death. This should be discussed. The purpose of this is to avoid false allegations on deceased people, to avoid harm to their relatives. JustEase (talk) 09:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JustEase (talk • contribs)

I think you misunderstand the purpose of WP:BLP, there are no special rules regarding the living and the dead as regards falsehoods or undue negative content - the various policies are more quickly implemented in the case of living persons, is the difference. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

What about George Washington?

One might play up legends and stories that he started a war by assassinating someone. Washington has been dead since 1799. Should there be a policy concerning that Founding Father and respect for him? — Rickyrab | Talk 15:44, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Also: Muhammad (dead for numerous centuries, but gossiping about him might anger millions of Muslims), Jesus (many say that he was resurrected, but officially dead is pretty much officially dead), just about any past Pope, etc., etc. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:47, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

No, no, and no, etc. WP:NPOV
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 23:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Public documents

(Restored form archive for more thorough debate.)

"Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person."

I can see no reason for not allowing these documents, used correctly. (Public documents of course is ... everything we can cite: I imagine what is meant is some kind of vague hand-wavy "official documents".) We extensively use election returns to support articles on politicians, we cite SCOTUS cases in articles about SCOTUS judges. Certainly we should not be using unsubstantiated witness statements as if they were fact, but this is a perfectly normal citing requirement. Nor should we be digging out personal information that doesn't belong in articles, but once again this is common sense. Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC).

Agree with you at face value, but perhaps someone added this for some reason I now can't recall? --Cyclopia^talk 20:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that 'public documents' may not in fact refer to the person you think they do, and to confirm that they do sometimes needs OR. They may also include personal information that shouldn't be included in a BLP - addresses etc. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I am currently in a dispute about this issue at Mohamedou Ould Slahi. My suggestion would be to change "assertions" to "allegations" and another sentence that clearly states written opinions of court judges are not included in this category. Mnnlaxer (talk) 06:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Rich on this. An official filing, especially if sworn to, should be preferred over any newspaper article or book especially an autobiography or a biography written by a family member.

Despite the policy every contributor uses original research all the time. Original research is used whenever a contributor uses a search engine to find information on a subject. Original research is also used to determine which of the search results applies to the person who was meant because large, prominent families tend to reuse given names, sometimes within the same generation. JimCubb (talk) 21:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think "public records" would be a more appropriate phrase than "public documents". It better carries the flavour of birth certificates, real estate valuations, and similar incidental governmental data, which I assume is what's meant. --Avenue (talk) 22:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Rich, the crucial wording in that area is to support assertions; it is perfectly acceptable to cite facts about a person from public records and court documents (for example; findings). But assertions (i.e. speculation or opinion) is definitely a problem; citing allegations of wrong doing from a trial transcript is definitely a big problem btw you might want to go a bit more neutral on the central discussion template --Errant ^(chat!) 13:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

That is a good point - certainly if it said "to support speculation and opinion" it would be clearer. Well I wanted it to be a hook - change it if you wish. Rich Farmbrough, 13:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC).

Note: this section once said

Material from primary sources should be used with care. For example, public records that include personal details such as home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations and home or business addresses should not generally be used. Where a fact has first been presented by a verifiable secondary source, it is acceptable to turn to open records as primary sources to augment the secondary source. Material that is related to their notability, such as court filings of someone notable in part for being involved in legal disputes, are allowable, as are public records such as graduation dates, dates of marriage licenses and the like, where they are publicly available and where that information has first been reported by a verifiable secondary source.

(In other words the meaning in respect of legal filings was completely reversed)Rich Farmbrough, 13:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC).

ErrantX makes a good point, I think. We should be able to use "public records" as sources, but only where the statement being verified is not speculation, misleading, or anything of that sort. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:04, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I saw this on CENT, and I agree with Avenue, ErrantX, and Fetchcomms. "Public records" is clearer wording than "documents", and as long as the public records are used to source facts, and not, in effect, WP:SYNTH, then it makes entirely good sense to use them. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:02, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

• Trial sources and rulings are like any other source. They may contain primary (untested, undigested) first-hand material and claims, which is the view/claim of the speaker only. They may contain analysis, summaries or balanced collations of expert views, references to past cases or rulings, and other analysis to the point it probably has the standing of a secondary source. No need shown for any special rule or policy clause here. We already clearly say how sources may be used in BLPs (including covering problems like gosssip, speculation, original research, misleading, etc) and official trial sources etc are clearly reliable sources in the sense WP:RS means the term. Subject appears covered. Hence oppose more policy wording until a genuine need is shown that existing words don't already cover. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:30, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the view FT2 takes of what the policy is. But the present wording is grossly unsatisfactory, because it contradicts that view. The former wording above at {once said) comes nearer, , though it does not give the precision of FT2s statement.

The fact that the situation keeps arising in current controversial cases is reason for change. Another reason, and a good one, is that it contradicts basic policy. And finally, it's nonsense: it actually says we cannot use Supreme Court decisions! True, I have not seen that particular weird statement yet, but , as we unfortunately know, if something can be misinterpreted for someone's attempt to make a point, it will be. DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Though BLP policy tends to be conservative, there's no reason why we can't have more comprehensive guidance, distinguishing between partisan legal briefs, lower court rulings vs. higher court rulings, facts vs. allegations, primary v. secondary source usage, etc. Court records are very valuable resources, so long as we can identify the cases where we don't want them used. I think we can do that while still emphasizing that significance can only be established by a secondary source, and that BLP writing should still err on the side of caution. Ocaasi (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

One problem with these kinds of primary sources is the cherry picking they allow: an editor can comb through hundreds of documents and insert tidbits they think are helpful to the POV they support into some article. I have seen this in BLPs and an article about a boot. Johnuniq (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Public documents are inherently unreliable, because they are primary materials. There is no editorial judgment, the accountability if any runs along completely different lines, and it is often impossible to know what they mean without bringing extrinsic knowledge to the table. There is certainly no way to judge the weight or relevance of a public document without adding our own interpretation as editors. Court filings are one of the most obvious examples (where, for example, a raw digest of someone's criminal charges, legal briefs, causes of action, etc., is almost completely unhelpful). But so too are all kinds of public filings. We can't dig up someone's old driver's license records to try to show where they lived, or their property deeds to show that they lived in a house. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Primary sources aren't always evil, though; we can use them for basic, noncontroversial details or carefully quote someone as having said something in [court case X], etc., no? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Court documents? No. See the first post in this thread. And this is a very good part of policy; see the comments of Johnuniq and Wikidemon. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:35, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

We can only use court documents and similar if secondary sources have already used them and we want to add slightly more detail. But the text must be for the most part supported by the secondary source, not the primary one. This is to make sure, for example, that someone doesn't pour through court documents searching for a person's messy—and otherwise unpublished—divorce details to add to their BLP. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 19:49, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Court decisions are often swept up in the primary source ban as "court filings" but IMO should be treated as secondary sources. Judges spend substantial time sifting and synthesizing the evidence before them before arriving at a conclusion--typically they do their job more carefully and accurately than many journalists on deadline. While I agree that many court documents, such as complaints and deposition transcripts, should not be used in biographies of living persons, I think that public decisions of trial courts of general jurisdiction should be cite-able regardless of whether they are reported in newspapers. In general, the judges themselves are a more accurate source for their own rulings than a newspaper article by a layman, who may garble or misstate the content. I would also like to see WP:BLP revised to reflect this--I have been involved in many debates here in which people cited it to exclude notable court decisions. Jonathanwallace (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that court rulings are often poorly reported. From my experience with a couple of controversial New Zealand cases, court decisions seem to be a more reliable source than many newspaper articles for not only their ultimate rulings, but also the facts of the case. --Avenue (talk) 22:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

SV, your position about court decisions is not reasonable. They are records , but they are written by people who are experts in their subject, who write in the awareness of reviews by other courts, whose work is citable in the legal literature, who summarize the issues before them, whose decisions are authoritative. Sometimes they are not mere;y acceptable, but the best possible sources for BLP That a person has been convicted of a crime is best proven by the court record of the conviction--what a newspaper may same about it is of less reliability. If we want to call someone a murderer in a title or infobox, the court record is the reference needed. The facts in a civil dispute involving a person are as established by the court decision, and any secondary work based on it is of lesser authority--except, of course, another court decision (from a higher court). With respect to court arguments or pleadings or indictments, they're another matter, but can still be used for the opinions of the people who said them. The reason to take care is that sometimes editors here do not realize, and use such pleadings as if they established the facts of the matter. We can not call someone a murderer on the basis of an indictment, even if reported by secondary sources also. DGG ( talk ) 06:35, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

DGG is right. Affidavits, deposition, testimony, etc. are all primary sources, and are rightly excluded as not permissible--all they establish is that A said B about C, and a primary source cannot be used to establish anything with respect to a third party. Decisions, on the other hand, are legally established. If we can use them to call a convicted murderer a convicted murderer (and we can and do), then on what basis would we reject any other fact established by a court? To be sure, they are most appropriately reported with attribution as "X court found that...", just like any other reliable source. Jclemens (talk) 06:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact that A said B about C is sometimes relevant as well. I can't think of much that would be totally useless to us. I think it's misguided to say that "someone might dig up effectively unpublished dirt" to justify such a strict prohibition. We already have a section on low profile people. This prohibition most often gets invoked on very very high profile cases, where it makes the least sense. We aren't protecting anyone there, we are just lowering the quality of our coverage. Gigs (talk) 23:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I think people are mixing up reliability and desirability here. If it were relevant to an article then court verified contents of an affidavit they filed, their property deeds, or other public records are indeed reliable in the sense of WP:RS - we know who wrote them, we know that they can be verified, the source is of known reliability for the documents they hold, and they are valid sources for the words they state having been truly stated. Whether they are desirable to use, or should be avoided if possible, and if they merely speak to the author's view as a primary source, is a separate question. But in the sense that we would say a blog or tabloid is unreliable, a public record document is usually a reliable source for its contents. There is no reason to set a blanket ban on them. The question is more as others have said, what guidance we want to give on their use. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

If court records are reliable enough to get you put to death or to take your money or property away from you, then why are some people on Wikipedia such pussies about using them? Brittany Cintron (talk) 20:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Added some Wikilinks to articles in Wikipedia proper on relevant topics

The below articles show some of the reasons why there is a BLP policy and why that policy makes sense, even though those aren't Wikipedia behind-the-scenes pages but Wikipedia articles proper.

The addition reads:

Wikipedia articles

• Gossip
• Bullying
• Lawsuit
• Teasing
• Social norm
• Lashon hara
• Defamation

Is that okay with the community? — Rickyrab | Talk 15:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

No. For one thing, some are already part of the text. For another, the policy is to elucidate actions, not merely list problems without explication. Finally, you've been bold, but discussion here prior to the edit would have been preferred.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 22:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Is a woman who is sentenced to death in the USA notable?

Question at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Is_a_woman_who_is_sentenced_to_death_in_the_USA_notable.3F SilkTork *^YES! 16:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Year of Birth

Many years ago, circa 2006, we discussed eliminating the full birth date, and concluded that year of birth should be included for most people, but not month and day.

Recently, I've had private communication that asked to remove the year that she became active in her field, and also not include her year of birth. Perhaps she's being overly sensitive, but in the entertainment field, I understand sometimes there's rampant discrimination as women approach 40.

Actually, her month and day of birth are well known on various public social media. But she's done quite a bit to try to obscure her year of birth (that I've determined).

She's had an article for almost 4 years, with a notability tag (removed last August), and recently has been performing in front of tens of thousands (and televised before millions). The usual Category:Year of birth missing (living people) was added to the page some 14 months ago.

What to do? Leave the category, but add a bang comment in the source indicating that she's asked her age not be revealed? What about those folks running around with automated scripts? Perhaps a new hidden Category:Year of birth removed (living people)?
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 23:27, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Bad idea. That would simply lead Googlers to folks that want to keep the year private. Instead, would adding the category inside a comment allow the scripts to detect that year was deliberately removed? That is,

 <!-- [[:Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]] year removed -->

--William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently:

If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.

Proposed:

If the subject complains about inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and omit the date. Add a comment in place of the date, such as:

<!-- subject requested birth date removal --> A similar comment must be added next to a related maintenance category:

[[:Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]<!-- subject requested birth year removal -->

--William Allen Simpson (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

This is why.

This whole article is why I abhor Wikipedia so much and wish it would crash, burn, and go away forever.71.245.207.16 (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

BLP = GAY

Who came up with this policy? It seems really stupid, and gay, and, like, who cares? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brittany Cintron (talk • contribs) 20:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I very much doubt that the BLP policy is "lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind"; "bright and showy" or homosexual. Your mileage might vary. NW (Talk) 21:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Relevancy for ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality (WP:EGRS)

Further information: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality § Relevance revisited

A contentious editor, All Hallow's Wraith (talk · contribs), has been trying to remove without discussion the long-standing requirement that all Wikipedia:Categorization of people#By gender, religion, race or ethnicity, and sexuality requires (at Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#General):

4. Inclusion must be specifically relevant to at least one of the subject's notable activities and an essential part of that activity, but is not required to be an exclusive interest. Moreover, inclusion is not transitive to any other activity. (For example: a notable LGBT activist is not automatically included in a corresponding LGBT musician category, unless also notable for one or more LGBT-related music compositions or performances.)

Note that Wikipedia:Categorization#What categories should be created explicitly requires:

They should be based on essential, "defining" features of article subjects, such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), type of location or region (in the case of places), etc. Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features. Examples of types of categories which should not be created can be found at Wikipedia:Overcategorization.

See also Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-notable intersections by ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.

For many years (since 2006?), Wikipedia:Category_names#Heritage has specified:

• People are sometimes categorized by notable ancestry, culture, or ethnicity.

Again, "notable".

Also, Wikipedia:Categorization of people applies to ALL people, living and dead.

As time progressed, it appears that the real underlying reason for removal is that it is frequently cited in WP:CFD decisions about ethnicity categories. S/he now claims that discussion here removed a notability requirement for Ethnicity in December, 2010. Could folks here please point to such discussion?
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 14:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

wouldn't it make more sense to ask All Hallow's Wraith to point to the discussion - if he/she says it occurred, he/she should be able to find it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I did, twice. S/he hasn't replied.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 21:46, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Now, I've spent even more time re-reading the recent archives. What I've found is a proposal to remove the "relevant" clause, and that was soundly rejected!
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:10, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Also, I've compared the current text with the section that I transcluded in June 2009, and it is nearly word for word the same! (The whole section has been moved to later in the page.) This lays to rest the notion that anything has changed: both relevancy and notability are required.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Include "ethnicity, gender," to match all other guidelines

To reduce quibbling about different wording in different guidelines, existing wording should be inserted here to match:
... ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, ...

Also, change the redundant wording "belief or orientation" to "information" in two places; this will shorten and simplify the sentence structure.

Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources. Categories regarding ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the information in question; and this information is relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.
...
These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and/or {{infobox}} statements that are based on ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or suggest that persons have a poor reputation.

• Support -- as proposer --William Allen Simpson (talk) 01:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)