Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

Scope of biographies about political officials

There is a disagreement over whether biographies about government leaders should include information about controversies involving the political associates or subordinates in the governments of the subjects of the biographies. An editor argues that no information of improper behavior should be included in a biography unless the subject of the biography himself or herself is directly implicated in the improper behavior. That has not been my understanding of Wikipedia practice, and I am not aware of a policy or guideline on which such a position is based. The specific article in question is Chris Christie, but I am opening a discussion here because the principle involved would potentially affect a large number of other articles. (If anyone is aware of previous discussions on this topic, please point me to them.) Dezastru (talk) 20:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

The obvious question in such cases is to ask what the mainstream media are doing. In the Christie case, given the media coverage of the George Washington Bridge incident (which I assume is what you are referring to) it would be untenable not to include it in his biography. The media see it as of significance, and accordingly so should we. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

To be fair, in the Christie bridge incident, if my understanding of the editor's argument is correct, the bridge incident can be mentioned in the Christie bio, but no information about what Christie staff or administration appointees did or are alleged to have done can be mentioned unless Christie himself was directly involved in those activities, even if the media report that the activities presumably were intended to benefit Christie's administration or that the outcome of the incident has affected Christie's political standing. The argument seems to be that those kinds of details would be appropriate for an article on the bridge incident but not for a bio article, because a bio article is supposed to discuss only the person who is the subject of the bio. Dezastru (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Noting the WP:DEADLINE, I suggest that Wikipedia avoid the "silly season" edits which occur every year which tend to be long on allegations and short on facts. It is better for us to wait for facts than allow the encyclopedia to be used for political campaign purposes. Collect (talk) 17:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to assume good faith and agree with everything you said there. Now, do you have something to say on the specific question of whether biographies of government leaders can include controversies involving officials in their administrations? Dezastru (talk) 17:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Posit that there is a separate article on "Gnarph administration" as well as a separate BLP about "George Gnarph" the Gnarpharchist governor of New Sydonia. Material may well be relevant about appointees in the "administration" article which are not relevant to the actual biography. If there is more than one degree of separation from the claim and the person (Gnarph), it always belongs at most to the secondary article. If only one article exists, then perhaps up to two degrees of separation might make sense, but anything further is "stretching the bungee cord of relevance" to the person the article is officially about. If Gnarph's son's girlfriend were tried for murder -- I would disallow it as being more colourful than relevant. If one of his primary major appointees commits murder, it is likely relevant to the administration article (unless there is credible reliably sourced connection between Gnarph and the murder) rather than to the primary BLP. If a primary major appointee says "Flarg!" to a reporter, it belongs in the appointee's BLP, and not Gnarph's. Only material which is directly associated with Gnarph belongs specifically in his primary BLP. And if the affair is about a minor appointee, then it is less likely to belong. That is one reason why separate articles generally exist. Minor appointees generally are nicely irrelevant to all BLPs. Collect (talk) 20:55, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

If you are saying that whether information about actions of administration officials may or may not be appropriate for inclusion in BLPs about government leaders will depend on the specific circumstances of each individual case, then we are in agreement. If, on the other hand, you are saying that there is a blanket rule that When there is more than one degree of separation from the claim and the person (Gnarph), it always belongs at most to the secondary article irrespective of the individual circumstances of the case, which seems to be what you are arguing, then we do not agree. If the person's effectiveness as a government leader and his or her political standing (such as in the role of leader of his or her political party and potential candidate for higher office) are affected by questions about an allegation against someone in his or her administration, no matter how far removed in the administration's hierarchy, then mention of the controvery may be appropriate for the main article, apart from any other coverage there may be in other articles. Each case will need to be judged on its own merits. Dezastru (talk) 23:53, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

A secretary hired by a political appointee tells a news reporter to "Flarg!". That is more than one degree from Gnarph, and clearly has no real connection to him. "No matter how far removed" is, unfortunately, fatuous. If there are allegations that Gnarph told any intermediary to undertake such an action or to promote such actions, that would be a direct connection to Gnarph. One may note the history in politics of such "vital matters" as to "how much one loves one's dog" achieves "major article status" on Wikipedia as a result of concerted use of Wikipedia as a campaign venue. IMO, if the material has no rational direct connection to the topic of the article, it should be thrown out like the political humbug it is quite likely to be. Collect (talk) 00:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Who decides whether there is a 'rational direct connection' or not? Wikipedia contributors? Or reliable sources? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Editorial decisions are made by the editors here - and if no reliable sources provide direct connection (The Gnarphville Register and Advertiser article saying "Julia Klaroph, secretary to the deputy assistant commissioner for public affairs under Governor Gnarph told our reporter to "Flarg!" is clearly insufficient IMHO to call it a "direct connection" to that governor). The Wikipedia normal processes (RfC etc.) would likely reach proper conclusions as long as the !voters stick to policy and not "IHATEGNARPH" for rationales. And campaign press releases and their progeny, IMO of course, make for very poor sources. Have "really, really bad articles" been written in the past? Yep. Should we permit them in the future based on that? Nope. Collect (talk) 00:27, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, Collect, I'm finding all this 'gnarph' stuff confusing. It this thread actually about a specific Wikipedia issue we can make an 'editorial decision' on, or is this just a practice argument for those of us who are getting rusty in Wiki-Fu, and need to hone our skills before the next bout of debate about whether our List of Jewish Nobel prize winners opposed to the mainstream scientific view concerning the legitimacy of en-dashes should capitalise the word 'prize' in the title? If it is the former, tell us what the issue actually is, and if it isn't, this isn't an appropriate use of this page... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:39, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I have used "George Gnarph" as a "stand-in" for any BLP at all in a large number of discussions ... it is simply intended to take away any preconceived views about "us" and "them" from any political debate. In fact, "general discussion" is the precise best use of this page, and the noticeboard is for discussion about specific pages. If I were to use a specific existing page, then the noticeboard is the place for it, not here. I am making a general discussion point, therefore I can not make it "specific." Is that sufficiently clear? The final editing decisions are made pursuant to Wikipedia policies and procedures - not by any outside agency. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:49, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

If reliable sources discuss an incident in relation to George Gnarph, then it is suitable for mention in Gnarph's biography. That is true whether the specific actions involved were performed by Gnarph himself, by his secretary, by his chief of staff, by his second cousin, or whatever. We follow reliable sources, and we don't make up tortured rationales for reframing their content. MastCell ^Talk 01:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

IOW, you would have added the adventures of All Gore's son to the BLP of his father? But it ain't there. Nor are most such events linked to noted people. And note [1] If WP:BLP (particularly WP:BLP1E) means anything, it's that we don't write an article on someone just because they've been mentioned in the news. , [2] isn't Wikinews, and at best we should be funneling the latest poll numbers and talking points into the campaign articles rather than bios. Cheers -- but it would be nice if you were consistent. Collect (talk) 13:18, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Based on that rationale, any report by a reliable source regarding the administration of any official is fodder for inclusion in their WP:BLP as long as the source mentions the official. If that's the case, there are some WP:BLP's that are going to get quite a bit bigger.... CFredkin (talk) 04:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Rephrase "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" subheading

The subheading "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" is not as clear as it could be. There's a reasonable risk of a non-diligent reader (or by a weak English speaker) to misinterpret it to mean that merely unsourced material about living persons should be removed. I recommend we clarify the heading by renaming it "Remove contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced", which lessens the chance of this happening. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:58, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Makes sense. Ivanvector (talk) 17:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Even better would be "Remove material that is unsourced or poorly sourced". Surely all unsourced/poorly sourced info about BLPs is contentious? GiantSnowman 18:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily contentious, but any unsourced material can and should be removed, so that wording is even better. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 18:33, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

GiantSnowman and FreeRangeFrog, I can't agree with that wording. There are things that can stay unsourced in a WP:BLP that will not cause harm to one or more living people, such as an actor having starred in a certain commercial or a film. We use WP:Citation needed even in WP:BLPs, even in the case of a well known film the actor in question has starred in. WP:Burden is what we should be applying in these cases, which even states that we should look to source unsourced material when we suspect that it is reliably sourceable. Either that, or add a citation-needed tag. We should outright remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material regarding a living person. But then again, even contentious material sometimes validly stays in WP:BLPs; and by "contentious," I mean controversial. I share Jason Quinn's view that the last thing we need are people removing things from WP:BLPs simply because those things are unsourced (though some editors do that anyway). Flyer22 (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with Flyer22 here. The section is referring only to controversial material, and there is no default need to automatically remove all material that is not sourced if it is otherwise OK. For example, stating neutrally someone's nationality without providing a source which says so is not forbidden, unless there's some reason why that person being of that nationality is controversial or potentially damaging, or likely to be disputed. However, it's pretty clear somewhere else in the BLP policy that anything that is removed is contentious by definition and can't be added back without a source. Ivanvector (talk) 19:40, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

User:GiantSnowman and User:FreeRangeFrog, your interpretation of WP:V and WP:BLP is way off here. The only proper way to interpret them is to apply it one a case-by-case basis when you have an actual specific concern the material may be incorrect, being somewhat stricter for BLP. Just assuming "unsourced automatically implies contentious" site-wide is a heinous oversimplification that would dramatically shorten and simplify those documents and ignore all the nuance contained within them. (It would also eviscerate the Wikipedia if actually enforced.) So, no, I do not support GiantSnowman's proposed wording and recommend both of you reread WP:BLP, especially GiantSnowman. You've missed the forest for the trees. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree with changing "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" to "Remove contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced". However, I disagree with GiantSnowman's proposal to change it instead to "Remove [all] material that is unsourced or poorly sourced". Such a change would be a very destructive invitation to widespread, endless edit-warring over trivialities. As Flyer22 says, the existing tools for dealing with sourcing issues for non-contentious material in BLPs are more than adequate. Dezastru (talk) 19:38, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons" - Jimmy Wales.^{""Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information"". WikiEN-l electronic mailing list archive. 16 May 2006.} GiantSnowman 19:53, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Context is important here. "Random speculative pseudo" information is contentious material, as is negative information (in many instances). There is no disagreement about removing contentious material. The disagreement is over whether non-contentious material should also be removed. Dezastru (talk) 20:12, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Well I view almost all unreferenced material as contentious, and pretty much remove on sight. GiantSnowman 20:39, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Even in the case of non-WP:BLPs? If so, in some cases, you'd be removing massive chunks of an article...chunks that are often easily verifiable. Whether WP:BLPs or non-WP:BLPS, such removal is not what we are generally supposed to do; this is per WP:Burden and WP:Preserve, both policies. Do I often revert recently-added unsourced material, such as when I'm using WP:STiki or WP:Huggle to revert vandalism or other unconstructive edits? Yes. But I don't seek out unsourced material to remove and I won't remove unsourced material from an article that was already in the article...unless it most certainly should be removed or I'm cleaning up the article (which sometimes includes adding reliable sources). Flyer22 (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Randomly picking an article from my watchlist, Steven Spielberg has this unsourced sentence: "Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean Connery in a supporting role as Indy's father." Could it use a source? Sure. Is it contentious and should it be removed on sight? No. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

If you are "removing [almost all unreferenced material] on sight", User:GiantSnowman, please stop. This is the kind of aggressive reversion that is giving the Wikipedia a bad name, alienating new editors, and preventing the organic growth of articles. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The issue is that we do NOT know and cannot tell what is NOT contentious. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:06, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The Red Pen of Doom, surely you don't believe that it's contentious to say "Leonardo DiCaprio starred in Titanic." Or "Leonardo DiCaprio has worked with Martin Scorsese on multiple films." That latter bit is even in the lead of the Martin Scorsese article without a source; though the lead, per WP:Lead, does not need citations in that case, I don't think that bit is WP:Lead material (I'll have to scroll down the article and check). Flyer22 (talk) 03:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

We can use our judgment and common sense. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:52, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Anyone who has spent any time on the BLP notice board has seen things that anyone would consider completely innocuous in fact be at the center of huge contentions. If your position is that there are things we can obviously tell that are not contentious, you are flat out wrong. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:07, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Imagine the above statement re Spielberg if instead of Sean Connery it had said Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan. For those that know the subject this is obviously wrong. For those that don't it doesn't seem contentious. By not demanding a reliable reference this permits the adding, by mistake or vandalism, of all sorts of things which could be right, are not referenced and should be removed. If it's worth adding, it is worth providing a source. If it does not have one it should be removed.--Egghead06 (talk) 04:29, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

TRPoD (and others), you're right that we can't always predict what's going to result in debate, but that's beyond the purpose of the proposed change here - it's just grammar. Reverting every change that isn't backed up by a source for the sole reason that it isn't backed up by a source is disrupting to make a point and not in the spirit of BLP or Wikipedia in general. There are things that we can reasonably assume are not going to be contentious, but if someone does revert, there's effectively a 1RR rule that covers all BLPs. Ivanvector (talk) 05:01, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

And this is where common sense comes in. If you think a seemingly non-contentious statement is wrong or iffy, request a source. Otherwise, I challenge you to spend a day removing existing unsourced content like the example I provided above from BLPs and see how far you get before being warned or blocked for disruption. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:11, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll just end my input on these matters (or try to end it) by stating that while I understand where TheRedPenOfDoom is coming from, I disagree with him that "If your position is that there are things we can obviously tell that are not contentious, you are flat out wrong." There is nothing contentious about the "Are these contentious?" examples I provided above, if we are using the true meanings of the word contentious. But then again, seeing as we are in a bit of a debate about it, the "causing or likely to cause an argument" aspect of contentious is ringing true at the moment. Flyer22 (talk) 05:14, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• Agree with Dezastru for reasons stated. Our system, if it is used, is designed to handle common sense - and disagreements about common sense - with grace. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:03, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn:, please don't tell me how to edit. My attitude to BLP is exactly how every other editor's should be as well. By saying "don't remove unsourced information about BLPs" you show zero knowledge of how BLP policy, both on paper and in practice, works. GiantSnowman 12:45, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Editors should be free to remove unsourced material from BLPs, and should probably be encouraged to remove poorly sourced material. As it's been pointed out, if you aren't familiar with the subject you may not know what is contentious, and what seems uncontentious at a quick glance may turn out to be very contentious. I certainly think that if we don't remove 'contentious' we should add 'dubious'. Dougweller (talk) 13:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

"Remove contentious or dubious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced." is good. And GiantSnowman, that's not how BLP works in practice. If it was, the sentence I alluded to above (and others) in Spielberg would have been removed by now. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:49, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

What a piss-poor argument - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, as you well know. Just because there is unsourced information on articles does not give an excuse for unsourced information on all articles. If that was the case how the hell would we ever achieve anything here?! GiantSnowman 13:52, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• If a statement is not sourced anywhere in the article, then, since we're talking about BLPs, it shouldn't be there. The potentially grey area comes if it is sourced in the article, but not directly (at which point the best solution is just to directly ref it, obviously) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 13:59, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: By doing things as we've done ever since WP:BLP became policy? Taking out the obvious and iffy violations, making sure that new content is adequately referenced, and gradually improving existing content. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:05, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

And how do we identify "obvious and iffy violations"? I remember a famous case where someone changed the name of Russell Brand's mother on his article; nobody noticed or questioned it, and journalists subsequently used the Wikipedia article as a source when talking about Brand's family. See also Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia, which includes many fake BLP articles which went un-noticed for years and years. I shudder to think what other false information remains undiscovered. GiantSnowman 16:19, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

And stuff can appear to be sourced even when it's not. Anybody can type in a ghost reference, just like a lot of less experienced people can and do add accurate and verifiable information without being able to figure out how to write a citation.

BLP doesn't invalidate WP:PRESERVE. If, to the best of your personal knowledge and ability, an unsourced (or undersourced) good-faith contribution does not seem to you to be a likely source of contention, then you personally should not blank it. BLP does not authorize an assumption that every single sentence is contentious and therefore blanking every single sentence that isn't followed by a little blue number. Instead, whenever you encounter plausible but unsourced material, you personally should try to PRESERVE it. If the material actually is contentious/dubious/unverifiable/etc., then someone who knows that it's problematic will deal with it. We don't blank apparently acceptable material based on unsupported speculation that it might possibly be contentious.

Let me give you a real example: a BLP contained a birthdate. In this instance, the birthdate was especially relevant (a "youngest person" world record, since broken several times), and slightly wrong. The subject of the BLP corrected it. The correction was promptly reverted to the erroneous date because the accurate date wasn't sourced.

Is that good? No. Does that actually comply with our policies? No. Is it appropriate to blank that highly relevant information? No. What should have been done? Someone should have stopped reverting and blanking and spent ten minutes finding an adequate source. That is, somebody should have followed our policy to PRESERVE good information about BLPs instead of taking the lazy, destructive, blank-em-all approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Note: I queried WhatamIdoing about weighing in on this matter. Thanks for weighing in, WhatamIdoing. Flyer22 (talk) 17:25, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing has the right idea. User:GiantSnowman, you ought to carefully re-read WP:V and WP:BLP. Your interpretation is wrong. You are confusing a policy of "verifiability" with a policy of "verified". Jason Quinn (talk) 19:48, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN - the burden is on those introducing the material to adequately source it. If they don't, then it gets removed, simple as. WP:PRESERVE doesn't really matter; it's more important to have a smaller but better/stronger encyclopedia. GiantSnowman 19:53, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

The WMF resolution on Biographies of living people [3] is of direct relevence here - it makes clear "the editing community's responsibility to ensure articles about living people are neutrally-written, accurate and well-sourced". Well sourced isn't an optional extra as far as BLP-related content is concerned. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Well sourced is not the same as completely sourced. Good link though. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

GiantSnowman, since no one has mentioned it yet, keep in mind that WP:BURDEN endorses WP:PRESERVE; for example, it states, "If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." I pretty much mentioned this near the beginning of this discussion. But WP:PRESERVE, a policy that is an aspect of the WP:BURDEN policy, does not matter?

All that stated, last year I argued against the current way that WP:BURDEN mentions WP:PRESERVE; see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 61#The "provide an inline citation yourself" wording should be changed back to the original wording. I still feel that it shouldn't be anyone else's job to source another editor's addition, but I obviously disagree with the "remove all unsourced material from WP:BLPs" (or from any Wikipedia article) view above. And I don't feel the need to reiterate that disagreement in detail. Flyer22 (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, Snowman, let's read that policy: "If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." BURDEN directly tells you that you should try to PRESERVE material that you personally believe is appropriate, verifiable, and encyclopedic instead of simply blanking it. This is not a game of Mother, May I?. The community does not want you to destroy good content merely because someone didn't jump through a hoop labeled "inline citation" before you saw the sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It may be instructive to take a look back at how the current language in the policy statement has evolved:

16 May 2006 - SlimVirgin added the following line[4] to the lede:
"All unsourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page" – with an apparent citation of Jimbo's mailing-list statement of the same date about zero information being better than misleading or false information (GiantSnowman quoted that Jimbo statement above in this discussion).

17 May 2006 - SlimVirgin added[5] "or poorly sourced":
"All unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page." (some Talk page discussion at the time at [6])

4 October 2006 - David Gerard changed[7] "negative" to "controversial":
"Unsourced or poorly sourced negative controversial material about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages. Some Talk page discussion at the time.[8]

6 October 2006 - Jossi changed[9] the word "negative" to "controversial":
"Unsourced or poorly sourced negative controversial material about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages."[10]

24 February 2007 - SlimVirgin changed[11] the word "controversial" to "contentious":
"Unsourced or poorly sourced controversial contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages."

4 March 2007 - there is a brief discussion on the Talk page in which several discussants essentially say that the word contentious is there to keep editors from immediately removing all unsourced statements even when the statements are not negative/self-serving/dubious. WAS wrote,[12] "One needs to make some kind of reasonable argument for it being contentious - such as it is negative or self serving or you don't believe it or it seems unlikely. If others accept it as a reasonable argument then no problem. The problem is we had one person insist that every unsourced claim was contentious and the point is use reasonable judgement on a claim by claim basis or at least on an article by article basis as when stubbing a whole article due to some article-wide concern."

Given this history, I think it would be helpful to get some input from SlimVirgin, at least. (Looks like Jossi was blocked and WAS has not been active in several years. I don't know whether either of them posts under a different user name now.) Dezastru (talk) 00:35, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the ping. The policy says: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source ..." and over and above that anything contentious that's unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately from BLPs; "contentious" is used here to mean anything even slightly iffy, good or bad.

But there are unsourced BLP claims that are harmless, e.g. things we all know to be true, X wrote this book, or things that the subject tells us are true, so long as we have no reason to disbelief them (e.g. her date of birth where nothing hangs on it). I wouldn't want to see this changed to "remove all unsourced or poorly sourced," though obviously having unsourced or poorly sourced material in a BLP is not ideal, and most of the time it might be best to remove it. But enshrining that in policy will mean that people will remove material that's perfectly fine. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:48, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I concur with SlimVirgin on this - David Gerard (talk) 22:40, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I am going to go ahead and change the heading to my originally proposed wording. Nobody has suggested that my proposed wording is worse than the current wording, and some have agreed it is better. As my change preserves the current meaning, it should be non-controversial. The only debate here was over a proposed wording that would change the current meaning and does not seem like it would garner support. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Misquoting a source written by an LP

The specific issue on Talk:Yamanoue no Okura has been resolved, but for future reference: is it a BLP violation to misrepresent the words of a living scholar to imply he/she holds the opposite views that he/she actually does? I referred to it as a borderline BLP violation and was called out on it. 182.249.58.75 (talk) 12:38, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

It certainly could be, though you need to bear in mind that there is a difference between intentional misrepresentation and misunderstanding or similar errors, and I don't think we'd hold someone accountable for the latter - it would risk stifling talk-page discussions. I'd think that it would need a fairly blatant example of this - involving an intentional misrepresentation that could actually harm the scholars reputation - before we'd invoke BLP policy as a reason to take action. In practice though, if someone is intentionally misrepresenting sources that overtly, we'd be taking action regardless of whether the author of the source was alive or not, and on the whole raising it as a BLP issue is beside the point. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:00, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

"People" vs. "Persons"

I always wondered whether or not is would be correct to call the article Biographies of living people as opposed to Biographies of living persons. I've read dozens of articles in the papers and on the web and rarely do the writers use "persons" as a plural. I've been somewhat inclined to propose a move, but a discussion should suffice for now. As I approach my first full year as an active editor, I've come to understand the value of establishing consensus. NintendoFan (Talk, Contribs) 13:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

If we are to consider a move, I'd have to suggest that we would be better off dropping the 'biographies' in the title - it is misleading, in that the policy doesn't only apply to biographies, but to anything relating to living persons/people, anywhere on Wikipedia. Frankly though, I'm not sure that a long-winded debate about this (which experience suggest might very well occur) would be worth the effort. This isn't an 'article', it is an internal Wikipedia policy document, and as such not of significance to ordinary readers. Fix the articles first, and when they're done, we can sort out internal matters ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:17, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I've always understood that "persons" is the formal plural of person (i.e. an individual) whereas "people" may have other meanings, such as referring to a nationality or culture, possibly in a derogatory sense. It's also possible it's WP:ENGVAR and that either meaning is acceptable, and in that sense I'd oppose the move on the basis that it's fine as it is. Ivanvector (talk) 19:35, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

BLPCRIME violations through reliable source titles

I have boldly added a new footnote to BLPCRIME which says that the titles of articles used as citations may violate BLPCRIME if the title were used directly in an article. In doing dispute resolution work, I've come across instances where an POV editor cannot get a crime accusation into an article due to BLPCRIME, but then picks some useful piece of information which is not in the article which can be established through an indisputably-reliable source which has a title something like, "Bill Brasky arrested in company of prostitute" and uses that source to establish that information so the title will show up in the citation list. It's sometimes the case that the fact simply cannot be established through some other source. This addition makes it clear that the source can be used, but the title cannot. What does everyone think? Rule creep? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:08, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Aaannd ... it's been reverted. (Fully expected, that's the reason I included a diff, above; the BRD cycle is pretty short at these fundamental policies. No offense taken.) Discussion, anyone? — TransporterMan (TALK) 17:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

If the piece(s) of useful information that are in the source are so significant that they should be included in the article, won't there be alternative sources that also include that information? (WP:BLPSOURCES) Presumably, at least one of those alternative sources won't have the same title problem and could be used without needing to censor the title. Wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of sanitizing titles. Either sources meet Wikipedia standards and can be used without modification, or they do not and should not be used.

Also, is the intent behind WP:BLPCRIME to even keep problematic titles out of the reference list? The policy statement has been "For people who are relatively unknown, editors must give serious consideration to not including material in any article suggesting that the person has committed, or is accused of committing, a crime unless a conviction is secured." It doesn't say that the material can never be used. If the consensus is in fact that such material can never appear anywhere in an article covered by BLP protections, even if the only appearance would be as a title in the reference list, then shouldn't that line about 'giving serious consideration to not including' problematic material in any article be revised or removed, so as to avoid any misunderstanding? Dezastru (talk) 18:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Despite the unimperative language, BLPCRIME has applied that language as policy, not as a guideline masquerading as a policy.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:06, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

(ec) My experience is that BLPCRIME is generally enforced as a prohibition, not a suggestion, with the only slack being the issue of whether the person is nor is not a public figure, but others' experiences may vary. If that's the way it's going to be enforced, then the possibility of harm to living persons is high enough as to require a modification of sourcing practices. Bear in mind that we don't have strict rules about citation form and editors are currently free to describe sources pretty much as they see fit, so it's not a deviation from a strict sourcing rule to simply say that the title should be omitted or modified. I do agree that it ought to say more than that, to go on to say that the title ought to be still sufficient to find the citation and not be misleading, but that's a bit too much verbiage. While I don't mind the rule saying that a different citation for the information ought to be used if it is available, thus avoiding even linking to the article with the questionable title even if the title isn't used here, once again that's increasing the verbiage, since the rule ought to then go on and say what I've said already, but I'm not in favor of excluding an otherwise-reliable source altogether just because it has a title which ought not be used here. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Official Responses / Rebuttals

Assume for the sake of argument that we have material in a biography that mentions criticism of a living person. Further assume that the material meets all our requirements for notability, NPOV, weight, etc. In this scenario, we are reporting that the criticism exists, not saying that it is true or false.

Now assume that the person self-publishes a response/rebuttal that is not, in itself, particularly notable or a reliable source, but we do know that the living person published it and stands by it, not some third party. Do we mention and/or link to the response/rebuttal? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:52, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Question One: Do we mention and/or link to the response/rebuttal? (Please sign with ~~~)

• Include. important for fairness/balance and avoiding POV. --Startropic1 (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude Only RSes should be included in any Wikipedia article. Self-published sources to defend accusations made by others are easily tainted and counter-claims should only be supported by WP:SECONDARY sources. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include. I think that we have an obligation to bend over backwards to be fair to living persons, as long as the response published by Wikipedia does not itself make claims against third parties. Coretheapple (talk) 06:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include. CJ (talk) 12:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include if not otherwise problematic (as noted in objections above) - David Gerard (talk) 15:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include and death does not end our obligation for balance in any article. Collect (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include; that is, indeed, part of the point of WP:BLP#Using the subject as a self-published source, to make sure people have that opportunity to rebut, so long as they don't use it to make claims about others that are BLP violations. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:46, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• include, but focus on the claims that they have some authority to make.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include per WP:BLPSPS if it complies with the using the subject as a self-published source criteria. The LP's response to notable criticism is inherently notable, and we have a duty to include it for WP:BALANCE, as long as the published response isn't problematic in some other way. Also note re: criteria #1 that the LP's response is bound to be self-serving, but not necessarily unduly so. Of course it's preferable to use a secondary source if one is available. Ivanvector (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include, per Ivanvector - though this shouldn't be used an an excuse to include anything beyond a direct rebuttal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Question Two: If it is an organization, group, family of a deceased person, or some other entity capable of publishing an official response, do we mention and/or link to the response/rebuttal? (Please sign with ~~~)

• Include. important for fairness/balance and avoiding POV. --Startropic1 (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude Only RSes should be included in any Wikipedia article. Self-published sources to defend accusations made by others are easily tainted and counter-claims should only be supported by WP:SECONDARY sources. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include as long claims are not made against third parties. Coretheapple (talk) 06:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC) I was too hasty. Exclude per WP:BLPSPS Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include. CJ (talk) 12:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude in the case of the deceased, unless noteworthy in itself - BLP is to avoid harming a living subject - David Gerard (talk) 15:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Include and death does not end our obligation for balance in any article. Collect (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude probably, though I would need an example, but WP:BLPSPS would apply. I'm not clear about the point of this RfC; is it an attempt to change policy or ask for clarification of a particular part of the policy? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:50, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• include as long as the claims reasonably made and not about 3rd parties.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:55, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude per WP:BLPSPS which very specifically only allows the use of self-published sources if they are published by the living person. It does not provide an exception for groups related to the living (or recently deceased, see WP:BDP) person. If the person is deceased long enough that it falls out of BDP, and there are no secondary sources, the response is not notable. Ivanvector (talk) 18:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
• Exclude per Ivanvector. Not that WP:BLP policy is even relevant in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

(Please sign with ~~~) Inclusion would maintain balance. If an individual is going to be criticized, the article would be incomplete and be presented as POV without any sort of rebuttal from either the individual, or the individual's estate/family in the event that the individual is deceased or otherwise unable to form a rebuttal themselves. How often is an individual able to give rebuttal through a 3rd party/reliable source as defined by current Wikipedia policies? Startropic1 (talk) 04:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

The specific case is in relationship to the Larry Norman article. The underlying problem is that the subject was known as having a "penchant for revisionist history" (The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music p. 638). In other words, once facts were known, the subject would write material to contradict those sources even if that source was himself. We have emails from the subject claiming paternity of a specific child and then later other emails that deny paternity of that child. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Also, there is a specific RSN discussion about the site(s) at the centre of this "hypothetical" discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#www.thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com and www.failedangle.com Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

That's one specific case. I have seen this issue crop up several times over the years, which is why I asked for an answer to the larger question. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

RE: "penchant for revisionist history" : more claims that require rebuttal. In any case this is not the place to discuss the article's subject. Please remove that conjecture from this talk page, it can be discussed on the subject's talk page. Startropic1 (talk) 18:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment (confused) – If I understand what you're getting at, I don't think the response choices have been phrased optimally. Let me try to rephrase the question: Current policy is that rebuttals to criticism in BLPs are generally only included if the rebuttals themselves are treated by reliable third-party sources as being noteworthy. You're now asking whether the policy should be changed to make inclusion of the BLP subject's rebuttal (or his/her representative's rebuttal), where available, mandatory regardless of whether third-party sources have treated the rebuttal as being noteworthy. (In other words, the viewpoint of the subject of criticism should be defined as being of equal weight to the criticism, in terms of WP:BALANCE. So if the criticism was noteworthy enough to merit inclusion in the article in the first place, a rebuttal must be included for the treatment of the matter to be balanced.) Is this correct? Dezastru (talk) 05:43, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

You've got it exactly right. The RfC wants an across-the-board acceptance of any subject's rebuttal. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:58, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

No it doesn't. Please don't stuff words in my mouth. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

But that's exactly what you wrote. If it's not what you wrote, then clarify it. The question is not a suggested revised policy but just that: a question for you to clarify. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

You could learn a lesson on how to interact with others from Dezastru above. Reading that comment, I thought, "Hmmm. Dezastru didn't understand what I was getting at. I must have been unclear." Reading your comments I thought "Walter Görlitz is insisting that his wildly inaccurate paraphrase was 'exactly what I wrote'." Guess which comment makes me think that further discussion is likely to be productive.? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• [EC] Dezastru, I suggest that we start with the policy that you paraphrase above. Where is the policy so we can look at the actual wording? Also, I am not asking about equal weight. I am really asking whether a response with no third party mention should be included at all. It could very well be that after we apply WP:BALANCE we end up with a page that contains a lengthy criticism section and a simple link to an official rebuttal (Include) or no mention at all of any rebuttal (Exclude). --Guy Macon (talk) 06:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I looked at several policy pages and could not find anything directly supporting the claim that "Current policy is that rebuttals to criticism in BLPs are generally only included if the rebuttals themselves are treated by reliable third-party sources as being noteworthy." There are some policies that could very easily be read to imply that, but I cannot get any farther unless I know which specific part of which specific policy to focus on. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This discussion is also completely misplaced here as the subject, Larry Norman, is not a living person in the classical sense of the word having died February 24, 2008. While I realize that I am not a RS, I attended his funeral, but there are other RSes at the article. So to answer Coretheapple, this case is not about a living person, and the claims are against living persons: a subject claimed to be an illegitimate son and also musicians who had associations with the subject. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:29, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I am only responding to the hypothetical. Coretheapple (talk) 06:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC) After viewing the subsequent discussion, I agree with Gigs that the hypothetical was not well drawn and that this RfC should be closed. Coretheapple (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that Walter Görlitz's opinions about what the topic of this RfC is bear no resemblance to the actual questions I asked, the first of which specifically concerns people who are still alive and able to write their own response/rebuttal, and thus cannot be applied to someone who died in 2008. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's called "front loading" in cognitive psychology. You are asking one leading question that everyone can agree with, and then your real, related, question second. It's a heavily biasing tactic that deserves a trout for attempting to pass this off as some kind of neutrally written RfC. Gigs (talk) 20:15, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

No it's called assuming one's intent based on the comments of a third party. Stop taking the comments of one Walter Gorlitz as absolute fact. Neither he nor you know what is going on in Guy Macon's head. Now let's be done with these personal attacks and inferring intents shall we? Startropic1 (talk) 20:46, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment (also confused): Guy, is this question asking for opinions concerning proper application of existing policy, or is it asking for opinions with a view towards a change or modification of policy? In other words, does the question go to the way things are or to the way that they should be? (A third possibility, of course, is that you're asking about application of current policy with a thought that if the answer comes back in a particular way, or if there is no clear answer, then we'll move on to the question of whether that's the way it should be.) Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Excellent question. I am asking opinions concerning proper application of existing policy. In general, I am quite reluctant to suggest changing any policy without as a bare minimum crawling through the history and understanding why we came up with such a policy. And of course I would also need to quote the exact policy I am talking about and figure out the the specific changes to suggest. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• This RfC should be withdrawn or closed early. The questions are not framed in a way conducive for general policy development (too synthetic and too specific), and its close association with a specific content dispute taints the entire thing. Start a new section regarding the specific content dispute and we can offer our thoughts on how BLP applies to that situation. Gigs (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Gigs. Guy, the parts of policy that refer to these situations are WP:BLPSPS (no self-published sources in BLPs), unless written by the subject (WP:BLPSELFPUB). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:14, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• In what way is a question about living persons (my first question) specific to a content dispute about someone who has been dead for six years? Please don't confuse what you think I should have asked or what one individual with an axe to grind claims I am "really asking" with what I actually did ask.

If you want an RfC asking a different question, feel free to post it yourself. I wanted answers to the two specific questions I wrote, and the answers are clear so far.

Question one = overwhelming support (unanimous except for one individual who appears to be answering a completely different question).

Question two = about 50:50, and the arguments are such that I am very likely to change my prior position and support exclusion. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I guess if you are open minded about using this to resolve the content dispute, it isn't a total waste. I don't see anything here that's relevant to a policy change though. Gigs (talk) 20:36, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to change any policy. I want to clarify the application of existing policy. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

You want to use a BLP policy to help to apply it to a deceased person. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Can we propose a new rule: The BLP policy does not apply to dead people. - David Gerard (talk) 23:04, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

BLPGOSSIP addition

It might be useful to add something like the following sentence on the end of BLPGOSSIP: "Likewise, sources that merely relay claims without (a reputation for) independent fact checking or analysis do not add to the credibility of a claim". I am unsure whether we need "a reputation for" in there or not. Without it, it may be hard to establish whether fact checking actually occurred or not on a particular repeated claim. Gigs (talk) 20:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Possibly:

Where an original source would fail to be allowed by this policy, a mere copying of the source by another without making any further exposition of the claim does not strengthen the source.

Or thereabouts? Collect (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:CREEP? is that often actually an issue? generally when it is pointed out that the normally reliable sources are mere stating what appeared in unreliable sources people drop it. (and those that don't, wouldnt be influenced by a mere sentence in a policy page) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Larry Norman Controversies & Rebuttals -- Fairness/Balance Requirements

See the current RSN article pertaining to this matter: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#www.thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com and www.failedangle.com

Currently portions the article do not demonstrate fairness and/or balance. There are a number of one-sided criticisms made about the subject of the article, with no rebuttals. A consensus was reached to reorganize these criticisms into a "controversies" section with the addition of rebuttals. The subject is currently deceased, but there is no BDP counterpart to this BLP board. The sources http://www.failedangle.com, (the original version of which has been archived at two separate locations as cited below in the list of sources), and its replacement, (which the original URL now redirects to), http://www.thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com are disputed by another editor, but where do the policies/duty of fairness & balance apply? Fairness & Balance are clearly currently not met. Does WP:BLP#Using the subject as a self-published source not permit the usage of one or both of the questioned sites? Relevant sources:

http://www.larrynorman.com Identifies Allen Flemming as "Larry Norman biographer Allen Flemming", and has some articles on site published by Mr. Flemming himself.

http://michaelnewnham.com/?p=12589

http://www.failedangle.com redirects to the new site http://www.thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Failed-Angle/114494451912560 Failed Angle facebook page, which is linked to both versions of the aforementioned website.

http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Charles_Norman__Talking_about_Larry_Norman_and_the_Fallen_Angel_documentary_/48678/p1/ An interview with Larry's brother Charles, in which Charles talks about the Failed Angle site as well as Allen Flemming.

In the interview Charles states that the original Failed Angle site used the same HTML template as the official LarryNorman.com website. He also states that he supplied Allen Flemming with the information found on the Failed Angle site and also "worked on the site with Flemming." You can see this here: http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Charles_Norman__Talking_about_Larry_Norman_and_the_Fallen_Angel_documentary_/48678/p5/

An archived copy of the original failedangle.com : http://archive.is/eAgqg

Archive of the site via Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20100420183656/http://www.failedangle.com/

---

Further input & clarification of policy will be welcome and appreciated. Startropic1 (talk) 21:21, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

"The subject is currently deceased, but there is no BDP counterpart to this BLP board". Since it seems reasonable to assume that the subject will remain deceased, there is no obvious reason why should be discussed here. Please see WP:FORUMSHOP. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Also see the section two divisions above this one, RfC: Official Responses / Rebuttals, which it seems is a genericized version of this exact discussion (another editor alluded to it). I'm assuming you just missed it, but you should comment there and not open a new discussion. Ivanvector (talk) 21:46, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

RE: the subject is deceased: As I already mentioned, and you quoted, there is currently no place to discuss biographies of deceased persons, so where do you suggest we take this discussion??

RE:the section two divisions above this one: It was requested in that section that THIS section be created. It seems to have fallen on deaf ears, but the author of that section and myself trying to keep the two matters separate.Startropic1 (talk) 21:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Since we have no specific policy concerning biographies of deceased persons, I think it can safely be assumed that such articles are covered by the same policies as apply to other non-BLP articles. As for the section above, I can see nothing in it that looks like a request to start a thread here concerning an article on a dead person - and even if there was, it wouldn't be appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Since this page (and all other policy pages) are for discussing the policy, not for specific issues regarding specific pages, the discussion should be happening on the article's talk page. And in fact it is. There was no need to create this section. Ivanvector (talk) 22:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

RE:AndyTheGrump: Since you couldn't find it, let me quote for you: "Start a new section regarding the specific content dispute and we can offer our thoughts on how BLP applies to that situation. Gigs (talk) 20:12, 18 February 2014 (UTC)"

Wouldn't it make more sense to discuss BDP with BLP and not with non-BLP. A biography is a biography, we're still talking about a person. So I ask again, where would the appropriate place be to discuss this if not here? Startropic1 (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

This page is to discuss the policy and not a particular application. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

So for the third time I ask, what would be the correct page for this discussion as requested by AndyTheGrump? Startropic1 (talk) 22:57, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:RSN, and it's being discussed there: Wikipedia:RSN#www.thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com and www.failedangle.com. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. There is an ongoing discussion at WP:RSN. Discuss it there. This noticeboard is of no relevence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:05, 18 February 2014 (UTC)