Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase I: Difference between revisions

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This is a request for comment regarding biographies of living people.

View by MZMcBride

Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight. If a user wishes to re-create the biography, they may request undeletion (or simply re-create the page) as long as they provide adequate sourcing.

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

MZMcBride (talk) 15:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bali ultimate (with the caveat they don't need to nor should they request "undeletion." Unsourced means nothing worth working from. Just start from scratch with sources).Bali ultimate (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Unsourced means nothing worth working from?" I guess you've never tried to source an unsourced article. Or did it never occur to you to use key words and quotes as search terms? Rd232 ^talk 17:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments against have been ruled inappropriate in RfC's in the past. Please reconsider, although I agree with the comment. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Questioning the wording or logic of an RfC !vote hasn't, though. :-) Rd232 didn't say Bali Ultimate was wrong to comment in favor of the BLP enforcement change, or malign B.U. in any way. If editors are immune from critique or question of their publicly stated views on a matter of ongoing community decision making, just because they happened to express them in an RfC bullet point instead of any of various other ways of formatting comments on a talk page, then WP is in big trouble, since what we'd have is a full-on voting system, not a consensus-forming system any longer. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 17:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 17:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
— Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lara 18:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Only in principle, per WP:V. I'd support such a WP:CSD for new BLPs, but for the thousands of old BLPs, who are more likely to be correct by virtue of natural selection (having survived thousands of eyeballs for years), a prod-based system such as proposed below is vastly better than just pressing the "nuke" button. Sandstein 18:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Straightforward and to the point. Clean house, start any notable article again from scratch or from a copy provided to someone's userspace on request. There is no guarantee or certainty that "thousands of eyeballs" have seen some of this tripe. Tarc (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, unconditionally. JBsupreme (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but mainly for the "completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight" part, as the former could be seen as a subjective evaluation and might need more discussion than summary deletion. Cirt (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Particularly for new BLP. All BLPs need to have ref to support the claim of notability and core identifying information. Core WP policy has always required content to be sourced from reliable sources. Raising the standard by deleting unref content is the best way to increase the quality of new articles. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please. It's bad enough we practically give bad articles (OR/SYNTH plagued, sprawling unreferenced messes, and so on) a free pass and cheerfully smile on the preservation of bad and unsourced information with refrains of "but WP:PRESERVE". When it comes to the lives of real people, it is time for that game endlessly holding bad content in stasis to go out the window. Vassyana (talk) 21:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per above. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is part of an admin's function; ethical admins should be using their access to perform this task as they have the time and inclination to work on the problem. Jack Merridew 21:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Viridae ^Talk 22:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in my private capacity as an administrator, not as a representative of the Foundation - Philippe 22:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
GTD 22:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kevin (talk) 23:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cla68 (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
— The Earwig @ 23:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
–Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The same should apply to all articles, really, although we should be more relaxed in enforcing it for non-BLPs. You shouldn't be writing an article unless you have a source in front of you (nobody should write articles from their own memory), so there is really no significant extra work involved in writing down what that source is. It doesn't need to be done nicely with ref tags or anything, just a plain text URL or the title and author of a book would be fine. The great thing about a wiki is that other people can come along later and tidy it up. --Tango (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
agree with Vassyana. - Atmoz (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I strongly agree with this, which follows trivially from the BLP. --TS 00:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nifboy (talk) 00:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the BLP is valid and notable, there should be references. Reywas92^Talk 00:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seraphim ♥ 01:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted on-site, and anyone restoring them without references should be blocked as well. This is a defining issue for the project. Unit Anode 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense to me - Alison ^❤ 03:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Peripitus (Talk) 05:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Extend to all unsourced articles in the long run. Fram (talk) 07:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Wikipedia is not a directory of randomly selected people. It is an encyclopedia of notable topics.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support - if the delete button is issued to everyone. The so-called sysops already have the right to delete, so there's no need to state the obvious. NVO (talk) 11:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - If a BLP hasn't been sourced in more than 6 months, what's the likelyhood it's ever going to be sourced? There may be no deadline, but there's also common sense with regard to comments about a living person that have no sourcing. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - This sort of deletion spurs improvement. We don't need to delete all 50K all at once, and we need to not fool ourselves that this solves everything but we need to get ahead of the backlog, and we need to also do the other needful things that need doing to address the growing BLP problem. It is regrettable that a shock to the system was required. Those of you that have your heads in the sand about this: Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c 16:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse citations are an absolute requirement upheld by the community in many process(WP:FAC, WP:GAC), its a requiremnt for all articles BLP have greater potential for harm to our community as such we should take greater steps to protect ourselves. Gnan garra 16:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Endorse BIO's have to be held to an extremely high level of standards. Any unreferenced BIO should be deleted _{Naluboutes,Nalubotes}^{Aeria Gloris,Aeria Gloris} 17:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Putting up an article without a single reliable source (and in many cases, not even an unreliable one) is not acting responsibly. Throwing an article up without sources and expecting someone else to do the sourcing is just rude. If you can't meet the basic requirements, leave it in the sandbox. In any BLP, unreferenced material can be removed on sight. If none of it is referenced, then it can all be removed....hence it is deleted. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, so long as MZMcBride's phrase "Any biography..." is limited to "any biography of a living person". We need a Draconian remedy for WP:BLPs. I want unsourced, unreliable and unverified stuff out too. But in a BLP, it should be dealt vigorously, on sight. David in DC (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, it really is that simple. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse this would enforce what should be a bare minimum standard for BLPs –Megaboz (talk) 15:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse This is essentially what current policy implies, and if we actually start acting on it the situation will improve. Not only will we get rid of unsuitable biographies, but also once editors realise that is what they can expect we will get fewer unsourced biographies written in the first place. Many of the other suggestions are unworkable, because they involve a lengthy process of going through countless articles and giving time to each one, which is a job which in practice will never be completed. This one, though, is workable. It also means we never deliberately leave stuff which may be libellous on Wikipedia. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sceptre ^(talk) 19:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Far too destructive and WP:BITEy. Likely to lead to the deletion of many valuable and easily-sourced articles. At the very least, a good-faith effort to find sources should be made prior to deletion per WP:BEFORE, but this proposal seems designed to discourage even that. And the "poorly referenced" wording is far too vague and open to interpretation. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, that's not how the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Ruling (BLP Deletions) looks at it. ▒ Wirεłεşş ▒ Fidεłitұ ▒ Ćłâşş ▒ Θnε ▒ _―Œ^{♣Łεâvε Ξ мεşşâgε♣} 06:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ArbCom is who called for this RfC. The ArbCom doesn't make policy, even if in this case they arguably said too much about it such that their ruling is now being mis-cited. All their ruling, summarized at the link above, actually did was arbitrate on the user behavior issues (wihch is all ArbCom can do) - did the deletions-on-sight violate policy, did the blocks for the deletions violate policy, did the wheelwarring over the blocks violate policy. Their answer was no in all cases and a "general amnesty" for both sides on the issue for actions taken up to that point. One shouldn't read into it any more than that. There's a whole RfC section here about this now. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. The fixation on unsourced but noncontentious BLPs is thoroughly misguided. Do I like unsourced BLPs? Absolutely not, I detest unsourced articles of any kind and BLPs in particular. But the essence of BLP policy is in quick removal of unsourced contentious and controversial information. The great majority of unsourced BLPs are entirely peaceful and non-controversial. Many of them are easily improvable and in fact are improved over time. I have seen no evidence that unsourced BLPs are causing significant complaints to WMF, OTRS etc. In as much as BLP articles cause real controversy, is where sources are in fact available and cited in the article, but the subject of the article is still unhappy with the situation. The urgency of the problem seems to me to be artificially manufactured here. I don't see any reason to abandon the existing deletion process in deleting with such BLPs. E.g. the users who are terribly distressed by their existence could send these unsourced BLP to AfD or PROD them and have them deleted through regular means. Why in the world not do that? One of the explanations I have seen is that, in theory, something contentious might be hiding behind outwardly benign language. This strikes me as rather theoretical: is there any evidence that this sort of thing is a significant problem? On the other hand, unilateral on-the-spot deletions of unsourced BLPs by particularly militantly-minded admins is fraught with all sorts of problems. It is far too easy to make a mistake and delete an article on a notable subject, there are no notification provisions, no discussion, no adequate opportunity for interested editors to improve the article. As D.E. mentioned, "poorly sourced" is too subjective and easy to misapply and abuse. If an article is PRODed or AfDed, often new sources are added and the article is improved and kept as a result. This happens because people follow various deletion sorting lists and are likely to see the article there even if they were not aware of it before. An unwatched BLP which is summarily deleted on the spot often simply does not have a chance to attract this kind of attention, which prodding or afd-ing it would bring. The argument about there being a chance that contentious info is hiding behind some benign language in an unwatched BLP and that is why we should summarily discard the regular deletion process (CSD, PROD, AFD etc) is based on an irrational panicky reaction and an exaggeration of the extent of the problem. This reaction rather reminds me of the arguments here, in the U.S., in the aftermath of 9-11, that suddenly we should throw out of the window a well established judicial process (you know, little things, like right to counsel, prohibition against indefinite detention without charge, and so on) and that we should just summarily lock away all suspected terrorists without trial and through away the key because, god forbid, the federal court system might make a mistake and let one of these bad guys go. In relation to unsourced BLPs, I see no reason at all why existing deletion mechanisms (like PROD and AfD) should not be used or are inadequate. You know, even for no content and pure vandalism articles we have a well defined set of procedures and criteria, namely WP:CSD. Even in those cases the process involves at least two sets of eyes: the person placing a CSD tag and the admin doing the deletion. Like I said, the entire urgency of the crisis seems to be artificially manufactured. People who are obsessed with the unsourced BLP problem should learn how to place a PROD tag instead. There is no reason to go back to the Wild West days of Wikipedia when admins pretty much did as they liked. The project has gotten too big and too complicated, with too many people involved in it, for those kinds of cowboy tactics to work. Nsk92 (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Completly disgusted This RFC came about by the mass deletion of over 500 articles by Scott MacDonald (who self-blocked himself to avoid a block), Lar, and Rdm2376 (who was blocked three times).[1]
Ironically, we are rewarding the behavior of administrator Scott MacDonald who holds consensus in "utter contempt"[2], with a Requests for comment to build consensus. We should not reward such disruption. Ikip 00:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
C.f. other Views later down explaining that unreferenced does not necessarily mean libelious. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JohnWBarber (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this will just damage the encyclopedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Timewasting and damaging proposal. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
No. No. No. — James Kalmar 03:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose Many, IME experience most, outsourced BLPs are both accurate and non-contentious, and are sourcable, some with more work that others. Many were created by relative newcomers who did not know why or how to add sources, many were created before the sue of inline citations become common, when EL sourcing was normal. To delete these without a serious attempt at sourcing, or at least an individual review, is to discard good information, thereby harming the project, without any corresponding gain. Moreover to apply the same rules to newly created articles will simply WP:BITE, further restricting the influx of new editors ojn which the project ultimately depends. A very very bad idea. DES ^(talk) 04:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Terrible idea - (I generally don't like to add "oppose" votes to an RfC but some are doing it) it goes against pretty much everything we have by way of deletion policy. We improve problems, we don't delete them. This does little to serve the purpose or letter of BLP, and much to waste time and encourage capricious administrative behavior. Wikidemon (talk) 04:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The subjective "poorly referenced" is not a suitable criterion for deletion on-sight. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I could support if (a) the subjective "poorly referenced" were removed, and (b) we had a search tool or some function/tally/record of all the BLPs removed, so that they could be located, sourced and readded when sourced. The primary purpose is the building of an encyclopedia. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Super-Duper Strong Oppose, as other state above, this will only damage the encyclopedia. The vast majority of BLPs are not the cause of any trouble. PROD, AfD, protect BLPs from IP edits if necessary across the board, but "shoot on sight" is a bad bad bad idea.--Milowent (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Even if you made an argument for deleting all unsourced biographies which is a really bad idea (as we've already seen how much gets lost in the shuffle when people try to do that), what constitutes poor sourcing is precisely the sort of thing that requires careful community discussion. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Just use some common sense. This type of blanket statement is what drives away authors from Wikipedia before articles can be fleshed out. A more reasoned approach is needed if we are going to save Wikipedia from what could become mass destruction of valuable information.--Modelmotion (talk) 05:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This will get deleted thousands of valid articles that could fixed by editing, and that didn't have any contentious material. --Enric Naval (talk) 05:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous Conflating articles lacking proper references with BLP violations is silliness. One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other and this campaign is not constructive. It's far more likely that an article with references will be used to smear someone and our focus should remain on fixing the problem instead of deleting articles that need improvement but that were created in good faith. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per David Eppstein and Nsk92. Even now, articles are often prodded when they already have decent references, and it is inevitable that "poorly referenced" will be interpreted as "not visibly in 3 seconds referenced according to my preferred scheme" even if every statement is derivable from references provided. If a fraction of the energy used for BLP drama were used in thinking of ways to deal with real blp problems and to support and realize ideas already proposed, serious BLP problems would already be a thing of the past.John Z (talk) 06:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much better to source them on sight if possible. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Yet more BLP madness. For sanity's sake, the entire wiki's consensus on policy should not be controlled by a cabal, nor should the ArbCom have blatantly ignored policy and guidelines and offered amnesty to admins who had done so. The statement even states that policy was breached, and yet those breaking policy were rewarded. Poorly sourced articles occur outside of BLP too. Might as well just delete all articles on site, lets WP:BITE everyone. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The latest version of Kill them all and let God sort them out --KrebMarkt 10:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose like cleaning one's house with a bulldozer. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opppose - this "solution" distracts from actual efforts at sourcing, and prevents non-admins from helping. the wub "?!" 10:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose diametrically the wrong approach. Many of these are for truly notable people and without problems. Of the ones I have worked on, at least half are easily sourceable and probably notable. What we need is to get people to source in putting in new articles, and it will not help do this by throwing out improvable old ones. Certainly let us get rid of the old and non-notable added when standard were lower; certainly let us add sources to articles that need it, but this approach detracts from paying the proper attention. I echo what John Z says above that about 10% of the prodded articles did in fact have sources, though not necessarily a reference section. These were supposed to have been screened out of the unsourced BLP list in the first place, but if the bot didn't do it right, that is no excuse for humans to act equally unthinkingly. DGG ( talk ) 10:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I would say no. This is not the right thing and the right place to do it. There should be some new standards or procedures on monitoring new biographical articles instead of deleting them. If articles were unsourced, then source them. Deletion wouldn't solve things up. It would only discourage people from editing. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 11:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Speedy deleting poorly referenced or unreferenced BLPs is an OK idea in theory, but I don't trust all admins are able to make these unilateral decisions correctly. "Poorly referenced" is subjective, and I have seen several articles speedy deleted today that I believe had adequate sources. Epbr123 (talk) 11:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Suggest that Sysops be restricted of their power on deleting articles. Articles should be brought to attention first before it can be deleted. I've gone through some issues where some Sysop delete articles that has never been tagged with PROD or BLP templates, or never been brought to AfD. It is simply not the right thing to be done since users never get the chance to protest or to fix it. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 12:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. No evidence that unsourced bio stubs and bios with one source are actually causing legal or other problems in such a large number that we should be this concerned. The fact that anons can, at all, is a far greater source of potential liability (this is not an argument for banning anon edits; I'm just pointing out that the feature has its risks). "Poorly sourced" is far too vague, otherwise WP:RS would be a policy not a guideline and no one would substantively edit it any more. The extant deletion procedures are sufficient. This all started because someone was deleting source-problematic BLPs that were abandoned for 6+ months. The odds of prods on them being responded to seem low. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The Law of Unintended Consequences accompanies all such dicta. WP has current processes set up for deletions, and I have seen no reason to unilaterally destroy them. Collect (talk) 12:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I agree with the principle, but we have due process for a reason. It should be tagged with some yet-to-be created BLP PROD and deleted if that remains in place for one week. This way actually seems to discourage due diligence, rather than encourage it. HJMitchell You rang? 12:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We have policies to deal with this already: the CSD for contentious bios and attack pages, and the deletion process for the others. Side note: I'll never support a policy of speedy-deleting articles that are "poorly sourced" as it leaves far too much to discretion of the editor, and too much is at stake. Ivanvector (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Ruslik_Zero 13:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per SMcCandlish and DGG, among others. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Poorly referenced or unreferenced bios that contain no potentially libellous statements are not our main problem, and - unless an editor states a specific reason to delete them (e.g. dubios date of birth or whatever) - these article should be tagged with an appropriate warning, but editors should be encouraged to find sources and to expand them. If a short survey indicates that a BLP is not notable, the article should be deleted. A much bigger problem, in my view, are sourced BLPs, when information from sources has been used in a selective and biased fashion. Also, we need more eyes on the bios of those people who are not held in high esteem by the mainstream of society. (For an example, see Mahathir bin Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia.) Cs32en Talk to me 14:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Needs to be discression used. No need to BITE when cites are easily available and the info is non-problematic.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deleting unsourced BLP's on sight are going to create more problems than it solves. It will chase away users and destroy wikiprojects. First, it is overly bity as some people may have worked hard to write these BLP's, but simply failed to do so correctly. We need to educate not punish those editors. Second, when we do wholesale deletions, the projects and people who are interested in a subject may not know or realize that various articles have been deleted. This will create gaps in our coverage that nobody knows about---eg think of it this way, a wiki project took the time to write articles about all of the heads of state for a given country. They know that is done. What they didn't realize is that 2 of the articles were unsourced BLPs. Suddenly those articles are deleted without notice. The project may never realize this and when may have to start from scratch. We need to clean up the BLPs, not delete them blindly. I find it a little disappointing that seems to be the push of this RfC and the 5 or so other forums where this issue has been brought up.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, but only for the reason that "should be deleted on-sight" is too imperative. It might be taken as grounds for admonishing an admin who viewed such an article and did anything else reasonable, e.g., prod. If it said "may be deleted...", I would weakly support: not the best solution, but one which in the long term would improve the project. In the short term it would create some problems. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, BLP is too often overextended by over zealous people for a "delete on sight" approach. I would like to see a community review of an article before it is deleted. Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - The current PROD and CSD processes work. The unreferenced BLP backlog is steadily decreasing. This is unnecessary and the wrong way to approach the problem. Jogurney (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - People cannot be trusted to Prod these correctly. Something harsher would be worse. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose They'll start with these, then move on to all unsourced articles, as some have said they wanted to do already. Destroy 60,000 now, and hundreds of thousands later on. Too much mindless destruction on Wikipedia already. If you want something deleted, you use Google news and book search first, then if there is no reference found there, send it to AFD. Many times someone tries to delete something, others come in and say delete, and then someone takes the time to click on Google news search, and prove that the person is notable, and the article gets saved. Dream Focus 18:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the majority of unsourced BLPs have references available if you're prepared to actually look. Deleting articles is not a substitute for doing actual work, and does incredible damage in the process. The minority of articles that might actually damage the subject can be fixed under current policy. This proposal is like cleaning streets with a thermonuclear weapon. Hut 8.5 20:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous. For all the previously stated reasons and evidence that regular editing and editing processes is all that is needed here. If Wikipedia was less of a battleground and more of an educational institution where we *gasp* actually encourage and welcome newbies and work with one another to improve articles rather than trying to see all issues as adversarial. -- Banjeboi 20:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There's CSD G10 for the contentious ones, and there's no reason to insta-delete something that is not clearly harmful. I've been chastised for using G10 on unsourced stub biographies that are not 100% negative, but only 25-50% so. I think that when an unsourced article has only a few sentences, and one makes a negative BLP claim it should be deleted as a precaution. Perhaps the language in G10 should be adjusted that way. Pcap ping 20:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Horrible!. What's the point of crowd-sourcing an encyclopedia if we're going to delete everything that's not already perfect? If we adopt this, I say we delete the whole stupid Wikipedia and just go buy a perfectly-edited, perfectly-sourced Britannica. Isn't that where this is really headed? BenRussell (talk) 20:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose When I read this proposal, the phrase "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" comes to mind. -- llywrch (talk) 21:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose way to drastic the prod proposal makes much more sense. Ridernyc (talk) 21:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If unsourced, remove any contentious material and slap a unreferenced tag or inline cite needed for the rest. Or, simply find the refs. The "cleaning the house with a bulldozer" comparison is perfect. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is an encyclopedia that works because different people work together. Any unsourced BLP should be sourced and fixed, not deleted. We delete articles that fail to meet the notability guidelines, not articles that meet the guidelines but lack the sources for it. WP:BLP is founded on protecting living people from harm but it's also based on the editing policy, something people often seem to forget. Regards So Why 21:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Attempt to source it first; if no sources exist online make a note to that effect. Wholesale deletion on sight solves nothing. Plenty of BLPs that fall under these restrictions could be salvaged with a little sourcing, and while the onus should fall primarily on the contributor to fill the gap, if he's not done it, or done it insufficiently well, an attempt should be made by the deleter to source before deletion. Failing that, I see no need to delete an innocuous article that establishes a few very basic and uncontentious facts. Deletion should be a last resort, and should only occur once all other avenues of resolution have been exhausted. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Erm, I think the best solution here (as do a lot of other people) is to source them and possibly add more information. Deleting them would sort of ruin things (and if all articles are deleted that is just completely ridiculous). RoryReloaded 22:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I have two real issues with this proposal. First, Llywich's phrase rings true; for all the BLP violations mass deletions will remove, there will be much more collateral damage in terms of lost articles that are not controversial. Other proposals here would at least keep such damage to a minimum. Second, what is the intended definition of "adequate sourcing"? Is it one or two cites that establish notability? Or is it sourcing an entire article? The proposal is very unclear in this regard, and begs the question of why unsourced BLPs are that much worse than BLPs with very minimal sourcing. Uncited info is uncited info no matter the article, and the potential for libelous content is there either way. Also, David in DC's comment in the support column about misleading language regarding the scope is accurate. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 22:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - completely unreferenced BLP's yes, though most are pretty innocuous. But "poorly referenced?" According to who? Almost every BLP contains one or more unreferenced statements, and these statements should be sourced or removed rather then deleting the entire article. Deleting articles because any one editor arbitrarily decides that it contains a single unsourced or "poorly referenced" sentence is a nonsense. As someone pointed out in an earlier discussion, the article on George W. Bush would fail this test. So would every other BLP that is not a current FA. I appreciate the proposer of this statement would intend that common sense be applied in exercising it, but as thuis debate has shown, what is or is not common sense is not always a universal understanding. What's wrong with - "When an unreferenced BLP is discovered, the first step should be to reference it, and remove any content that cannot be sourced. If there's no notable content that can be sourced, the article should be deleted." Euryalus (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Sole Soul (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The vast majority of unsourced info in Wikipedi is useful and valuable and correct. Even if it's not correct, it's easier to confirm something you see here than something you research from scratch. It's ridiculous overkill to delete unsourced articles wholesale. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose - This is being too quickly, too much, and is overwhelming our system. BLPs should be eliminated one at a time, or 100 at a time, not 60,000 at a time. Bearian (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose - tag/prod articles that are source-weak, don't wholesale delete. Too subjective as proposed - admin tools should not mean unilateral power in their hands. And what happened to flagged revisions for BLPs? Tvoz/talk 00:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - as SilkTork writes below, fix it. This is an encyclopedia, not a game of whack-a-mole. --GRuban (talk) 01:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No Ray^Talk 01:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There are more proportionate solutions, like the one directly below. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - The potential problems with an unsourced BLP are exactly the same as with a sourced one. The presence of sources doesn't magically make something accurate. If a sneaky vandal (the thing we are scared with to begin) wanted to get this all they'd have to do is add any "source" (which wouldn't have to actually validate the statement). Mass deleting unsourced articles encourages sneakier fraud while discouraging inexperienced editors from contributing anything. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible oppose, I don't think that a mob of fundamentalists should be setting our priorities. There are non-destructive ways to solve this problem. Blurpeace 03:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Silktork's comment below is apt. Unsourced, accurate biographies are not harmful. Sourced, libelous ones are very harmful. The thing that matters is not an arbitrary sourcing requirement (especially not "poorly referenced", which could mean anything). — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - reading the comments made after this week's bold action, I no longer trust the judgement of some admins to decide what is "poorly sourced". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Many stubs, BLP or otherwise, are unsourced. That does not mean they cannot be improved. If there is unsourced defamatory information, remove it. If the entire article is unsourced and defamatory, it qualifies for C:SD. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Such articles should have unsourced contentious material removed and should be improved where possible.--Michig (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Too broad I'm afraid. An article that is simply poorly referenced should be tagged for reference with a "citation needed" tag. It would make it even easier if the editor who added the unreferenced material could be notified by a bot, but this might be hard to accomplish (perhaps a tag for the addition of a completely new unreferenced paragraph on a BLP article would be a good place to start). If a BLP article is completely unreferenced, it is my understanding that that article should at least be nominated for deletion as failing WP:Notability. In my opinion it should be speedily deleted due to the real possibility it could be libelous. If it's a significant BLP it should not be hard to recreate with proper references. I will note that bots sometimes do incorrectly think that an article is unreferenced (see edit history of Henry Bramwell) and therefore oppose deletion by bots of articles that were tagged by bots as unreferenced.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Vehement oppose Perhaps it is wrong that the backlog of unreferenced BLPs has been allowed to build for years, but most of these articles were created in good faith without controversial content and have existed peacefully for a long time without causing any specific harm - unlike summarily trashing thousands of articles which took a lot of time and effort to build and include a great deal of genuinely useful information. This is not only intolerably bitey but impedes progress: if we (the editors without mops) can't see what's broken, how can we hope to fix it? I also have grave concerns about decisions based on one person's interpretation of "poorly sourced": this is far too subjective, particularly if assessment of the situation is cursory. If an article which does not meet any existing CSD is to be considered for deletion because of questionable sourcing, we should use the old-fashioned methods of discussion and consensus. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Such WP:POINTy would be disruptive of the task of building an encyclopedia. While there is a problem to be addressedm this is not the solution.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be sourced. It's more difficult, and it takes longer, but is a more positive attitude to take. Unsourced material is not in itself harmful to Wikipedia, either in terms of legal actions or of reputation for reliability, it is contentious material that is harmful - and if there is a cite doesn't mean that the cite is correct, it just means that people are less likely to challenge the statement. Contentious material which is not appropriately sourced should be removed. SilkTork *^YES! 20:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Jehochman

Proposal:

Any article that satisfies the attack page criteria should be deleted on sight.
Biographies of living persons (BLP) articles that are unreferenced should be proposed for deletion (prod).
Prodding should proceed at a reasonable rate to allow interested editors the chance to add sources. The volume of proposed deletions should not be unreasonably large. Discussion can establish what is a reasonable pace.
After ~~five~~ seven days, any article so tagged may be deleted, or moved to the Wikipedia:Article incubator if it shows promise.
Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references risks a block for disruption.
All editors are invited to participate in this BLP cleanup campaign.

Thank you for your consideration.

Clarifications

I changed from five to seven days to be consistent with existing deletion processes.
Any user can remove a prod. We are not concerned with the occasional removal of a prod without fixing the article. Those few can go to articles for deletion. We are concerned about mass removals without cause and without attempting to make improvements. Such action would be tantamount to disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, and would risk a block. Existing policy is sufficient to prevent that if a few admins with cojones are willing to provide enforcement. Jehochman ^Brrr 13:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Jehochman, please don't change the key points about your proposal after significant voting. Removal of a prod tag and putting it back into main space unsourced is not an acceptable outcome. Many people will not support this change because it defeats the purpose that we are trying to achieve. The occasional prod removal IS a problem because those can fall through the cracks and end up remaining unsourced. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 11:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Agree with FloNight, the majority of the supports below were to the fact that the PROD template cannot be removed at all unless the article is sourced. Please strike out that clarification, as it only serves to confuse and make a false look of consensus towards it. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 22:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Disagree. The irremovability of the prod is not something clearly consistent with the nature of a wiki, was a preliminary idea, and not fundamental to the proposal (which is essentially to affirm current mechanisms). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Jehochman ^Brrr 16:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
David Gerard (talk) 16:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC) See below my suggestion of a rather more onerous BLP-PROD.[reply]
--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC) - Adding: similar as below, keep the number of tagged articles low (~500 max), keep the time at 5 days, fill by bot if <100 left over, no bot-deletion, strictly by hand to see if there are mistaggings by the tagging-bot). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good enough. Hipocrite (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a much more correct interpretation of the BLP policy. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a good way to satisfy both those who want to see process and those who want to eliminate the risk of unreferenced BLPs. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, although this type of PROD would need to be distinguished from the other somehow, for the benefit of both processes. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This compromise isn't bad. JamieS93 16:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about correct or incorrect interpretation of policy, but what works. Policy says absolutely no unreferenced BLPs, but we have a backlog and we have a certain amount of ongoing management of newbies to handle. A hundred a day, say? It needs to be of that order of magnitude to fix the problem before the heat death of the universe. Guy (Help!) 16:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Generally accept, with slight modifications (see my view below). NJA (t/c) 16:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, with emphasis that the timing really does need to be at least 5 days. Some otherwise productive editors (like me) don't log in on the weekends, or are gone for several days for RL issues.. Karanacs (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems quite reasonable. Reach Out to the Truth 16:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good idea. Them From Space 17:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a reasonable compromise... The Thing _{Vandalize me} 17:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first reasonable proposal on the page, ergo it shall be the one to pass.... it's mostly details which separate it from several others, and the details can be hashed out at the next step. Question though: there was substantial opposition to using WP:PROD in this way; so wouldn't a separate BLP-PROD process modelled on it avoid that issue? Rd232 ^talk 17:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Though the details of the implementation of 5 should be discussed at WT:PROD or use another process and we should stress that in light of the reasonable rate clause (3), the prodding should be done in priority on articles 'needing to be dealt with most', for example those which remained unreferenced for a long time or are suspected to contain potentially harmful content; while prodding recently-created stubs such as those with only basic info is much less useful. Cenarium (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Immediate and instant deletion on sight is irresponsible to say the least, as we lose the opportunity for interested persons to source the problem articles and chances are they won't be recreated. (Plus it's against policy, but that doesn't seem to matter these days.) This proposal is reasonable and would be effective. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

–Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sensible approach. Though I'd prefer it if it were clarified that in the event of any disagreement about whether the sourcing is adequate the article shall be referred to AfD for discussion. Sandstein 17:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, with a nod that deletions on sight are technically allowed per the passed ArbCom motion (and yes it has passed with 9 in majority). Using common sense would apply here, as doing process for the sake of doing process doesn't always help. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Along with the usage of various cleanup listing bots and the engagement of Wikiprojects, a suggestion such as this can mitigate or resolve the issue in a much more satisfactory manner than an indiscriminate nuke will. Reso lute 18:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lara 18:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse if done properly. What is the point of 5 days (or fewer) rather than the usual 7? This is material that has mostly been here for months or years, without actually causing any critical problems--just hypothetical possibilities of them. The shorter the time, the less chance of sourcing. People who might be specialists need to have a chance to see the articles. We should also make it clear in deletion policy that we do not accept arb com's change of policy. They depend on community support, and I do not think they have it. DGG ( talk ) 18:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An acceptable solution. Solid deadlines that can't be argued around are needed in this area. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 18:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An acceptable solution, although ArbComm should be censured and/or recalled (if they allowed that) for their motion as encouraging disruptive actions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tried this weeks ago, but my prods were undone as "notable". I can gowith this if there is clearly a ban on removing without sourcing, and any such undoing can be reversed.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Scott MacDonald after deleting hundreds of BLP articles, which prompted this RFC, wrote: "Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[3] Why are participating in a process which you "hold in utter contempt"? Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 23:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This appears to be the most sound and sensible approach. --Jezebel'sPonyo^shhh 18:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can do some tweaking, but this is akin to what I proposed on WT:PROD so obviously I like it (I think it should be 7 instead of 5 days as the former is now standard for all deletion discussions). I also draw editors attention to Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs which is a variation on this proposal that would not require us to change PROD policy (I'm fine with either approach, but some who objected to the proposed change to WP:PROD might be happier with the latter). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With a nod to the idea of prod tags only being allowed to be removed if additional sources are provided. NW (Talk) 19:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like the best option I've seen thus far. I'd prefer to create a special "BLP prod" of some sort, but I hope it's something everyone can live with. Masses of grandfathered, unsourced content have been the skeleton in our closet for some time, which is an especially serious problem with BLPs. If these articles are really so important, what better path to veracity than recreation with sourcing? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we should not consider this "PROD" but a new mechanism, so as to avoid confusing the two, but wholly support the spirit and ramifications of this solution. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 21:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cirt (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This seems more likely to get wide support than the proposal to speedy on sight, because there are a lot of editors who can and will find sources for unsourced BLPs, given the time. I have a pagescraper that checks the G10 (db-attack) cat every 5 minutes, and that experience tells me that you can't tell just from reading the words of a page whether it was meant to embarrass a living person or not. Sometimes "He's so cool!" is an insult. I'm very happy with the current enthusiastic push to delete unsourced BLP articles, but only if we prod them, and not more than roughly 1000 per week, to give everyone a reasonable chance to source them. - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someguy1221 (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I supported this change in policy yesterday and do again here. No deletion discussion on WP English should end with the claim of notability and core identifying information remaining unreferenced. So, removal of a prod tag should not happen on an unref or poorly referenced article. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support — I'm in favor of expeditious approaches, and this is good approach to the Large Problem. Time should be *two* days, as the Backlog is Large. Jack Merridew 21:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seven days seems like a bit too long but as long as we get this show on the road we'll work out the details as we proceed. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 21:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - we had our old friends Artie and Wanda round for dinner this evening, my wife had made a lovely pie, and we were talking about the exciting developments in the BLP issue that have been going on. Both Artie and Wanda, as well as my wife, are big followers of what's been going on here, and I told them the different solutions that had been presented. Wanda used to be a bit more pro-inclusion a few months ago when we first discovered the wiki, and we talked around both the sides. I have to say, although MZMCBride's suggestion was just as good (me and Artie had a bit of a cut and thrust about that, I can tell you!), we all plumped for this one as a compromise to keep everyone happy. So, wishing you all the best with it! This is one of the best things that's happened on here for ages. See ya around! Hands of gorse, heart of steel (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of pie? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Supporting only in the weakest fashion possible. The clause for a "reasonable rate", as expressed, begs for a long term struggle, arguments, and disruption ala the previous pushes for notability enforcement and non-free content tagging. Anyone who was around for those two previous site-wide conflicts ought to remember that even the arguments about what was a reasonable rate (not including appropriate to tag, sufficient sourcing/license info, etc) stretched over nearly the entirety of those disputes and produced sprawling megabytes of acrimonious argument. Expect a swift repeat of all that nonsense and disruption if this is implement "as is" on that clause. Also, I prefer five (or even three) instead of seven daysm though I understand views to the contrary. Otherwise, I think this is a reasonable approach and middle ground. Vassyana (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Because this you know, actually might make minimal sense. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support seven days for the current "backlog" as an extra few days doesn't matter, at a reasonable rate of 100-150/day; however, reduce it to two to five with a new BLP-PROD template for newly created BLPs. -SpacemanSpiff 21:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If deleted you can always request them back to work on them. Viridae ^Talk 22:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest any BLP with any significant amount of unsourced negative content (so much that removing it would not leave an acceptable article) be deleted, but not so strongly that I wouldn't support this as is. Mr.Z-man 22:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I had supported this already. I have no problem with some sort of prod system to delete articles, I do have a problem with wholesale speedy deletions. If the article existed for several months to years, a few more days won't hurt and will give people a chance to salvage the articles. RE Z-man's concerns. If the article has a significant amount of unsourced negative content, then it is already eligible for speedy deletion per BLP as an attack page.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

CSD G10 requires that the entire article be negative an unsourced, not just most of it. Mr.Z-man 22:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If getting rid of the negative unsourced material leaves you with an article that fails A7, then it doesn't matter if there is somthing that isn't a negative.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I worry about the quality and extent of the referencing that will be added to individual articles just to get rid of the prod tags (you can bet that some editors will just slap a URL somewhere and then delete the prod tag), but this is better than nothing. Deor (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A reasonable compromise. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, but with two caveats:

PROD is the wrong name. What's being suggested is in effect a delayed CSD, as used for images.
The default should be for most of the articles not fixed in a week to go into the incubator. I presume it would then need an admin to let them out again. They should be allowed to stay in the incubator for at least up to six months, because it may take some time for the right people to come along to fix them.

I would also like to add that in my view the present hysteria about "unsourced" BLPs is hugely overdone -- from what I have seen, the unsourced BLPs are not typically any less reliable than most BLPs that do have some sources. Most of the material is entirely anodyne; much of it is in fact often directly verifiable from the subjects' own academic CVs, or the subjects' books / films / records that are already identified in the article. There is usually no material that could be construed as BLP-problematic. Generally, the fact that the article has existed untouched for so long is testament to how anodyne it is. So in my view there is no need for panic, and no need to be precipitate; we need to set a realistic timetable to work through and fix this material, because most of it is entirely non-problematic, and useful to our readers. Most of the articles are harmless; some are over-inflated; vanishingly few are libelous. Those that are potentially risky can be pretty well identified with filters (Betacommand already has filters); but even then, most hits are "false positives". Those which ping the filters are the ones we should start with, and if that means that others don't get got around to for some time, actually it almost certainly doesn't matter. Jheald (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Second choice after MZM's above. Cla68 (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Prod is the right way to allow time for watchers of old articles to notice the request for sources. In the absence of actual contentious unsourced material (which our policies already allow for the immediate removal of) I don't see the need for any quicker process, nor do I see a need for the instruction creep of a fourth deletion process on top of prod, csd, and afd. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm endorsing this as a clear and reasonable process, but not necessarily the only process to be used, to deal with the problem of unsourced BLPs. It's long past time to deal appropriately with these dangerous pieces of unsourced material masquerading as articles. --TS 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gigs (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as first choice. Happy with five days even. Adding bit about reference inclusion as prerequisite for removal of PROD tag is very rpudent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Second choice over CSD above. Nifboy (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as a well though out compromise. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Much better than the overly hasty number 1. --99of9 (talk) 00:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. Articles must be improved with refs when removing Prods. Reywas92^Talk 00:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good Idea. -- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

TotientDragooned (talk) 01:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

JohnWBarber (talk) 01:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC) -- First choice, and I agree with Alison's comment, below. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is my favourite solution. Much better than 1. Martin451 (talk) 02:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A good solution: should help to get rid of this mass of greatly problematic articles without doing it so fast that they can't easily be sourced by those with access to good sources. Support Scott MacDonald's proposal that sources must be added for these articles to avoid being deleted. Nyttend (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

⇌ Jake Wartenberg 01:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A preferable system to deletion on-sight that ultimately achieves the same objectives. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. Kevin (talk) 02:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Acceptable, with preference for incubation over deletion in cases with no contentious or patently inappropriate material. — James Kalmar 03:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reasonable compromise, though I'd not like to see articles getting shunted to Incubator and then forgotten. They should also be tagged with a similar 'kill by' date - Alison ^❤ 03:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Realistically, this is the most likely thing that will happen. MER-C 04:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Overall procedure looks good. Minor point: I prefer a deletion process separate from PROD like those proposed at WP:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs and #View by David Gerard. Flatscan (talk) 05:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. We already do this for images (7 days with no source - goes to the bin) - Peripitus (Talk) 05:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reasonable and well thought out. LK (talk) 06:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can support this with the reservation that this should be a process separate from but essentially similar to WP:PROD as mentioned in the discussion below. (WP:BLP PROD). Also, I favor incubation rather than deletion when the BLP-PROD expires. Time limit should be at least 7 days because some people only edit on weekends or other specific days of the week, and they should not be precluded from sourcing after a prod is placed. if Incubation is not used, a 14-day period would be more appropriate. Notifications to creators and major contributors should be made when articles are BLP-PRODed. DES ^(talk) 06:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, bus prefer (obviously) a separate but similar procedure, Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs (for which i stole the shortcut WP:DUB). Fram (talk) 07:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support SANITY! ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, either as an extension to PROD, or, as a new "BLPPROD" process. This is my first choice. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support This seems to be a sensible approach - would be good to ensure that article creators are notified of the prods (and the requirements for removing them) - I may well have created a few unreferenced BLPs earlier in my editing history and have no problem referencing them if I know what they are! пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 09:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Reasonable "hurry up slowly" proposal with the slight caveat that "proper references" needs to be defined. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support A nicce balance of "let's get this done" and "let's not delete things that can be sourced in two seconds." Bradjamesbrown (talk) 10:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support , providing reasonable pace is defined as a max number of prods per day, Id suggest 10, and that if the number of prods exceeds the limit mass de-proding should be allowed with no risk of a block. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a fair compromise. the wub "?!" 10:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Good compromise. --KrebMarkt 11:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. However can I point out that this is already supported by current policy? I also noticed today that there is a bot notifying editors that pages they have worked on are tagged as unreferenced BLP's, and pointing them towards the BLP policy and the current backlog count. Ivanvector (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support, in light of the clarification provided by the proposal's author here[4]. Really, I don't see why the current PROD system is not an adequate enough tool for proposing BLP deletions. But if it will help some people obsessed with the unreferenced BLP issue sleep better, Jehochman's proposal is a reasonable compromise. I would still like to see an option added to it, where a user contesting the PROD may request an automatic remand to an AfD. Nsk92 (talk) 14:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support in general. Point 5 should be considered point by point. There's a difference between just following someone around and removing all their prods, and a good faith prod removal where the intended sourcing doesn't happen. One may be dissruption, the other isn't.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly Support - This is a sensible solution to the issue. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can support the general idea of this. If people don't like it under the "PROD" label, it could just as well go under the system of timed CSD queues, like those we have for unsourced or non-free images. Same principle: safe prospect of deletion after grace period, not to be interrupted unless it gets fixed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like a very reasonable idea in line with the spirit of the project and of BLP. Per objections, the language about deprodding could be tightened; mentioning the importance of BLP in such language would be an improvement. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse. Good compromise. As long as we realize that PRODding something will lead to it being fixed or deleted. No other choices. Keeping unfixed is unacceptable. Removing notices without fixing should be blockable (perhaps a new sort of notice is needed). ++Lar: t/c 16:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse mostly -- sanity needs to rule. For example, I had a really hard time finding truly reliable sources to establish notability for Tom Smith (filker), but he's one of the most notable filkers out there. Filk isn't a topic that is hugely covered in RS, though. I like the idea of tagging with BLPPROD, rather than confusing the issue of whether you can remove a PROD tag or not.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good compromise. Cool Hand Luke 16:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Allows users to fix articles in a timely amount of time, which IMO is a must to deal with unsourced BLPs. As for the brought up issue of not being able to remove the PROD template, I feel that we could make some sort of a "sibling" to the PROD template; it would work like the PROD, except that it cannot be removed without good reason (which in this case would be adding reliable sources), and could fall under another name to avoid confusion. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this exactly the right idea. I think we need a specific BLP PROD template but this is the kind of path we need to be going down- due process an reasonable numbers so we can keep what is salvageable but clearing out the tens of thousands of articles in Category:Unreferenced BLPs, many of which have been there for years, attract no attention and may not even be notable. HJMitchell You rang? 16:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This still gives people the chance to fix articles while providing a kick up the backside without which, realistically, not much would happen. And if some PRODs expire where the pages could have been fixed - well, it's only a website. Olaf Davis (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Like this one. Hal peridol (talk) 17:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support, excellent idea. Ironholds (talk) 17:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support a good compromise idea. (Although this would be my first choice). -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support with the caveat that it should be called something other than PROD, to avoid confusion or at least use a different template that makes it clear which ones can and can't be removed. Other than that, its a good, solid compromise. I would also want to have the BLP PRODs that expire be logged somewhere by a bot, so that way we can see what is being deleted and maybe undelete later if we find sources. Also, as I understand it, Arbcom doesn't make policy, so this would seem to overrule that motion. The Wordsmith^Communicate 18:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as a very sensible solution. But with the caveat that not ony the principle contributors but also the relevant projects are contacted. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a reasonable way to go about fixing the problem. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

a good first step. Flagged Revisions would reduce this need. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This sums up our current best practise. It is what considered consensus has arrived at over the years - a sensible, appropriate and helpful approach, which is what Wikipedia is about. If it is not working then we need to be examining intelligently why it is not rather than arbitrarily replacing it with a destructive approach that is going to cause disruption and conflict. SilkTork *^YES! 20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support the most reasonable and easy way to deal with unsourced BLPs and will likely clear up the backlog quickly now that since we will finally have a process to deal with the issue. Ridernyc (talk) 20:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very weak support. Sounds good in theory, but I suspect the devil is in the details (what is a reasonable pace), and the inviting people to reference random biographies seems unlikely to attract qualified editors. A more sensible approach is what User:CBM has done: provide WikiProjects, on request, with a list of unreferenced biographies that interest that particular WikiProject. See this or this list/thread. See also my comments to MZMcBride's proposal for a more proactive use of CSD G10. Pcap ping 21:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC) This RfC has already been abused to edit war over a fully protected WP:PROD policy to impose a WP:BOLD approach to mass deletion. I barely supported it before due its promise to clarify the details later, but those details have become abundantly clear now. Switching to oppose. Pcap ping 10:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse A sensible proposal that provides scope for salvaging worthwhile content, does not threaten to overwhelm volunteer resources, and at the same time bites the bullet on the serious problem of unreferenced biographies. I am concerned that in implementation it might be abused, but it is important enough that the principle be supported for that discussion to be left to a later date. Skomorokh 22:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse This is the best way of handling things, I think, but I'd be inclined to suggest that the article creator be notified, so he can work on improvement himself if he so desires. Is it perfect? No, but I think it's the best way to go. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse. And introduce flagged revisions, so anything added by an IP only becomes a part of the article once it's been sighted by a Wikipedian. --JN466 23:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse, and I do think David Gerard's proposal below should be folded into this. Tabercil (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support While I doubt the sense of immediacy here, I can see this (as clarified) being acceptable if we kept BLP PRODs to no more than 100 per day--a reasonable uptick that can be handled without cratering the PROD balance of efficiency and administrator review. Note: as far as I know, I'm one of the more active admins in PROD handling over the past month or two. Jclemens (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support per DGG, Jclemens et al.. A quota of 100 or so must be placed on mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs per day, and a full 7-day waiting period, to avoid over-burdening the system of sorting out ProDs. Bearian (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support as an improvement over the previous proposal, but per DGG give people time to actually provide the sourcing. And what happened to flagged revisions? Tvoz/talk 01:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SupportXinJeisan (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Durova⁴⁰³ 03:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - a sane solution --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as best option. Deals with the problem, but does so at a reasonable pace, and allows lots of "outs" in case an article is tagged for deletion that can be rescued. --Jayron32 06:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Bravo Jehochman. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support as it clears the backlog but with a chance to save any article subject to it. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 11:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional support Per DGG, et al., this proposal needs further discussion. A per-day quota has to be included to avoid misuse by tagging far more articles than the community can handle and it should not be included in WP:PROD but into a separate process (like the WP:DUB proposed by Fram) because it's not really a PROD if there are conditions for when the tag can be removed. Regards So Why 11:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support seems reasonable and workable and addresses concerns on both sides. DuncanHill (talk) 15:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support – A much more common sense approach than immediate deletion of all uncited BLPs on sight, which will hopefully lead to the sourcing of all BLPs (a worthy goal no matter what side of the debate one is on). Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support with the additional comment that I think BLPs should be, as a matter of course, semiprotected. I agree that misinformation can be a problem, which routine semiprotection should help with. Tigerhawkvok (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

A prod that cannot be removed is not a prod at all. If you want to implement this, go ahead and invent whatever tools and templates you need to do it. But don't co-opt, and break, a tool that was invented for some other purpose, and is meeting that purpose fairly well. Hesperian 06:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is PROD-like but not quite PROD, and should use a different name. DES ^(talk) 06:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts exactly, see my comments on this on the talk page (here). It's really more akin to a hybrid AFD. NJA (t/c) 09:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

#Oppose I would strongly support most of this proposal, but the idea that "Prod notices should not be removed ... unless proper references are added" is not acceptable. This would mean that an editor who believed that good sources were available, but could not immediately provide them, would not be able to indicate the fact, and have a chance of slowing the deletion process to allow for sources to be provided. In an AfD such an editor would be able to give a comment, but with a prod there is no facility to do so. (Of course it is possible to put a comment on the talk page, but that does not stop an uncontested prod from leading automatically to deletion.) We could, of course, change the definition of a prod to avoid this problem, but then we are in "sort of prod, but not actually prod" territory, so why not admit it. The version at Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs is more clearly thought out than this "prod that you are not allowed freely to remove" idea. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Withdrawn: I have changed my mind about this.[reply]

Prods may still be contested as always, just not en mass. Things that are normally allowed, turn into abuse of process when done indiscriminately in order to make a point. Likewise, somebody who repeatedly proposes deletion of articles that are not eligible (such as those previous proposed or sent to AfD) could be sanctioned for abuse of process as well. Jehochman ^Brrr 16:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused - the proposal says "Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added" - but your reply to James suggests that a PROD can be removed in the "I have sources but not quite yet" sort of situation he mentions, as long as it's not done en-masse. Could you clarify which you mean, Jehochman? Olaf Davis (talk) 16:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind, realised this is already clarified below the proposal itself. Olaf Davis (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It was a great ideas until the part about not being allowed to remove a prod tag. Prod is not meant to be forced onto a page until certain criteria is met, it is meant to be put there to see if anyone objects. There is too much room for debate regarding what is a reliable source and if the source does cover the content of the article. Perhaps a new tag that is not prod would be better. Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Sounds good in theory, but the prodders have shown they can't be trusted, so all that's left is mass reversion. If they could be trusted, that would be another matter. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. On the surface this sounds great except that Prod is just as abused as other avenues. If only articles that sources were extensively sought and not found were prodded this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately many many prodded articles are indeed exactly the ones Wikipedia should have. -- Banjeboi 20:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, in response to Durova's comment above which implies this RfC is a "select only one option" choice. There have been a number of other thoughtful comments below which should be taken into consideration before any final action or decision is made. -- llywrch (talk) 07:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This RfC has already been abused to edit war over a fully protected WP:PROD policy to impose a WP:BOLD approach to mass deletion. I barely supported it before due its promise to clarify the details later, but those details have become abundantly clear now, so I'm opposing. Pcap ping 10:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I largely agree, but where a prod is clearly inappropriate I see no reason why it shouldn't be removed before sources are added. An edit summary indicating why the prod was removed should be sufficient. If no improvement has been made after a day or two it can go to AFD - there's no reason to make prod anything that it isn't already.--Michig (talk) 11:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose After expressing support for motherhood and apple pie, this proposal puts, as always, the devil in the details. No deprodding without adding "proper sources". And of course, prods are never put on already well-sourced articles. One can form an idea of some mass blp-deleters conception of "proper sources" from the diffs I posted here. Maybe out of 3 million articles there may be a few which have always fit these procrustean strictures. There can't be many which shouldn't have been deleted according to these amusing rules. This is an extreme? - well, as Pcap notes, there's already been an attempt to change the longstanding consensus at WP:PROD according to this proposal, and even an arbcom case beginning about it Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#WP:PROD_wheel_war. Finally, see Peregrine Fisher's comments above.John Z (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is quite a lot I agree with in there, but there are too many vague terms and it is not even handed. What is a reasonable rate to procede with prodding depends on the number of people doing the prodding and the number of articles in a project that are prodded at the same time. Mass prodding is as disruptive as mass-deprodding can be disruptive. If an editor wanting to fix the problem of unreffed blps is taking a WP:SOFIXIT route, trying to find sources and prodding those for which no sources are apparent, that is good faith conduct. But a pattern of prodding without accompanying fixing by the same edit is WP:POINTy.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who are neutral about or partially endorse/oppose this summary

Conditional/partial support: Per the two first opposes above, and some discussion below, this a) should have a different name, and b) needs to either be deletable or have some other means of slowing process down because one wants to source the article or to argue that it is already adequately sourced. An "undeletable prod" would be problematic. Otherwise, this proposal has a lot of merit and is less extremist that deletion-on-sight. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Jehochman's proposal looks more reasonable than most things on this page, but in its present form it is still problematic. I would be fine with this proposal if it allowed for an automatic remand to AfD in contested BLP-prod cases. As it is, under the proposal in its current form, it may be that after being BLP-prodded the article is reasonably improved (at least to the extent of no longer being BLP-prod eligible), but it may still be deleted without discussion by the admin closing the BLP-prod. Then such a decision would have to be contested (presumably at DRV), adding an extra layer of bureaucracy. Basically the current version of the proposal, by disallowing anyone to remove the prod tag prior to its closing by an admin, cuts out the possibility of a more substantive discussion at an AfD where multiple editors can comment and the matter can be explored in greater depth; IMO that's not good. I think there needs to be something like a provision stating that if at least one verifiable reference is added (even to a primary source) and at least one editor contests the prod, then the prod-closing admin has to either decline the prod or send the article directly to AfD. Or something along these lines. Nsk92 (talk) 05:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, 100% JamesBWatson (talk) 11:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The proposal says "Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added." I take that to mean that any editor who adds "proper references" may remove the tag. (It does not specify what constitutes "proper references".) If that is not the case it should be made explicit. DES ^(talk) 06:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In that case I may just be misreading the proposal. I had understood it to mean that only an admin may remove a BLP-prod tag. Perhaps the author of the proposal could clarify this? Nsk92 (talk) 11:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While this proposed mechanism is very similar to the existing WP:PROD it is different enough that I think a different name, set of categories, template, etc should be used if it is implemented. {{BLP Prod}}, WP:BLP PROD and the like. That will allow differeign time periods and rules to be separately tweaked for the two processes. DES ^(talk) 06:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It does not seem to be getting a lot of attention, but a proposal was recently started basically along the lines of what you are looking for, see Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs. Pretty much prodding (call it "dubbing" instead) but just for BLPs, and without functioning under WP:PROD. It could well be the process we end up with and it might not be a bad idea to continue to work on the proposal even as this RfC runs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the proposal lacks a step before #2: "try to fix it yourself" per WP:ATD. If you simply say "prod them", it will just lead to some people running a script tagging hundreds or thousands of articles without any attempts to fix them. Regards So Why 21:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree one should at least attempt to fix it before deletion.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The thing that impresses me most about Jehochman's proposal is that it has the qualified support of User:DESiegel who in my experience can take a lot of persuading on deletion matters. I think the way forward is for us to follow his lead: let us discuss what constitutes "proper references". I also agree without reservation with DESiegel when he says that this new process we're talking about isn't PROD. PROD is the "easy add, easy remove" tag, and that isn't what we're discussing here. Call it BLPPROD or whatever you like, it's sufficiently different from any other deletion process that it needs a new name and a new locus in project space. --TS 23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs currently proposed, I think Jehochman's idea would probably result in a process similar as to what Fram proposed there. Regards So Why 01:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The support for Jehochman's proposal (currently above 95%) is not only impressive, but demonstrates that the community can indeed come together and enact solutions by consensus. Durova⁴⁰³ 03:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: there are now new templates available at {{Prod uns blp}} and {{Dated prod blp}} that may serve for this process. Please review and feel free to tweak. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Jclemens

BLPs have certainly been abused in the past, but the simple fact remains that most BLPs, even those that are unreferenced are innocuous, provide useful material, and do no harm. The issue with the status quo hasn't been the wording, but the implementation: page protection (as it exists today, leaving alone discussion of future technology) has been applied too stingily to BLPs, even in inexcusable cases like Joseph Farah where he's both a vandalism target and an Internet journalist who's been critical of Wikipedia. The choice set before us is a false dichotomy. Do we really need to delete every unsourced BLP? If we do that, we're cleaning up the 80% of them that are only 20% of the problem, and we're not touching the issue of false information appearing in sourced articles.

The risk reduced--and let's be clear, there certainly will be some--is insufficient to justify the widespread deletion of accurate, useful, and innocuous information, sourced or not, and ultimately damages Wikipedia without helping BLP vandalism subjects.

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Jclemens (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Collect (talk) 16:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Power.corrupts (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 18:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Enric Naval (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hobit (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but the ratio is more like 95%/5%, and we ought to find an orderly way to improve the 95% and delete the other 5% rather than preserving the status quo. Wikidemon (talk) 20:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DES ^(talk) 21:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
GRuban (talk) 21:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
llywrch (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC), as well as agreeing with Wikidemon's comment immediately above.[reply]
Agree 100%. A good portion of the unreferenced BLP's are still viable, neutral, informative articles. Being unreferenced does not mean it is bad.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- Quiddity (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nsk92 (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have concerns here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ikip 01:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC) I could not say it better.[reply]
JohnWBarber (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The case that the encyclopedia will suffer more for having the occasional contentious, unsourced content than for deleting all unsourced BLP content, regardless of whether it's contentious or not, has not been made in any convincing way. Some numbers would be useful. I can see how the Foundation and Jimbo are annoyed that they have to deal with reporters delighted to find that "OMG! Wikipedia was wrong on something!", but I don't see a direct link from the Foundation public relations argument to the encyclopedia quality argument. - Banyan Tree 02:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously. Otherwise, many of our featured and good articles today would have been deleted when they were a stub. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Vertebrate support.John Z (talk) 08:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ruslik_Zero 14:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - If the cost/benefits were wayed, this whole thing would fall apart. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hut 8.5 20:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gigs (talk) 20:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- Banjeboi 20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Generally support. There's CSD G10 for the contentious ones, and there's no reason to insta-delete something that is not clearly harmful. I've been chastised for using G10 on unsourced stub biographies that are not 100% negative, but only 25-50% so. I think that when an unsourced article has only a few sentences, and one makes a negative BLP claim it should be deleted as a precaution. Perhaps the language in G10 should be adjusted that way. Pcap ping 20:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Amen. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. Bearian (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ray^Talk 01:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good common sense summary. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We often use "sourced" as a proxy for "accurate". For BLPs, we need to do better than that. Ignore the proxy, and look at the actual article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
remove the contentious ones, improve the non-contentious ones. This is already happening. Give it a chance.--Michig (talk) 11:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because this doesn't fix the problemm. Most of these articles were created in good faith, without any intention of harming someone, they just didn't source it because it wasn't necessary. Where has assuming good faith gone? Few people at all write stuff here to harm other people. Secondly, unsourced isn't immediately a problem, inaccurate is the problem. By giving an article sources, the stuff in it doesn't magically become true. The sources can be wrong, or one can make claims of existing articles. My two cents about the unsourced BLPs: Get a bot which contacts all creators of unreferenced BLPs, telling them the problem which you have with unreferenced BLPs and ask them to fix it. Then, look on every article on a case by case base, find sources and if there are no, then do something about it. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly agree with JClemens, and specifically with The Evil IP Address' comment that "unsourced isn't immediately a problem, inaccurate is the problem." If it's true, it belongs, even if a citeable source cannot be found. -- BRG (talk) 16:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The long-standing status quo has not suddenly become an emergency overnight, nor does the politician's syllogism justify throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 20:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support A well reasoned summary of the situation.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

This is the kind of milquetoast "oh, they're not hurting anything" approach that has led to the current mess. Spines have been found, backbones have been formed, time to get work done. Tarc (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Things have been "status quo" for the past three years, just like the backlog at Category:Unreferenced BLPs. It's a quite pathetic state of affairs for something the Foundation goes out of its way to remind us to take care of on a regular basis. Nifboy (talk) 06:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, an unreferenced BLP left neglected for years is bad; adding references to it shows that someone is willing to make necessary improvements. BLPs left unreferenced for years cause headaches for WP and for the subjects of these articles. I agree, though, with the statement that deleting unsourced BLPs won't help incorrect sourced articles. That's another issue that should be addressed, though. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Tarc. This is wishy-washy thinking. WP:BLP is pretty clear that this view is not supported by Wikipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do nothing is not an option. It's a ticking time bomb and needs to be defused. Guy (Help!) 10:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I assume that "we're cleaning up the 80% of them that are only 20% of the problem" is intended to mean something like "only 20% of them are a problem, we would be getting rid of teh other 80% as well": if not I should be grateful for clarification. Taking it in that sense, even if it is true (which needs justification) then that means there is a huge number of unacceptable biographies around. We have an obligation to avoid publishing libel: a moral objection as well as a legal one. We cannot sit back and allow the 20% of unacceptable ones to remain, whether or not this means the 80% suffer too. How do I know when I look at an article whether it is one of the 20% or one of the 80%? If we had a simple "no sources = no article" rule then the acceptable ones would become 100% instead of 80%. Unfortunately such a rule cannot, in practice, be quite as simplistic as that, so the question is "what modified rule, essentially based on no sources = no article, will work best?" The question "do we need such a rule at all?" is not appropriate. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with a "no sources, no article" policy being enforced from now on (perhaps not as CSD, but this can be discussed). What I can't agree with is deleting what are the most probably good faith efforts of thousands of editors in the past, when rules/practice were much more relaxed, only to get rid of a few problematic articles; what I can't agree even more is this is indeed a solution to the so-called BLP problem, while the problem is bias, libel and vandalism, not sourcing per se. No one has still provided hair-thin evidence that unreferenced BLPs are more of a problem than referenced ones, nor has anyone provided evidence that deletion is better than semiprotection. All I see here is moral panic justified with handwaving or, in some cases, odd infantile cortical hyperostosis. --Cyclopia ^talk 12:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Yes, poorly sourced BLPs are a problem. Saying that ignoring unsourced BLPs is a solution is baffling. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose I concur that in many or perhaps even most cases there is no problem. I disagree with the prioritization that the other cases is less of a problem than starting from scratch. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Head in the sand view. Better safe than sorry where real people are involved. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c 16:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can't live without repeating that quote every five minutes,isn't it? Well, I prefer to quote "Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct." ,at cost of falling under our favourite lawyer's law.--Cyclopia ^talk 16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While much of what Jclemens writes is true, adopting this stance does nothing to advance a solution. Saying "this problem is not as it seems" or "there are other worse problems" is not a compelling response to the very real problem here. Skomorokh 22:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The point behind this proposal is to state that not everybody agrees with the notion that having unsourced BLP's is the end of wikipedia... many of the articles are decent quality articles that should be saved, not deleted on sight without thought as to how their deletions will affect projects and various users. The delete on sight mentatility will cause more problems than it solves.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An excellent summary of my position, Balloonman. Other editors should note that I've endorsed a number of other positions that speak to different solutions. By focusing on the problem's severity and the consequences of "solving" it in a draconian manner, I haven't put my head in the sand, or advocated anyone else doing so. Rather, I've looked while we're busy getting ready to leap. Jclemens (talk) 23:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Collect

Controversial or contentious material with no references should be deleted on sight. Existence of a person is not, however, controversial nor contentious. WP has policies for deleting articles lacking notability, and no Draconian policy of automatic article deletion should pre-empt the orderly functioning of processes already existing. Collect (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Collect (talk) 16:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC) (approving own message as seen above)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, and I think it would be appropriate to extend the definition of controversial or contentious material as it pertains to living people vs as it might pertain to a video game. I see no reason whatsoever to delete, for example, a BLP that states simply "Person X is a New York Times best-selling author." and then provides a list of books. This generally falls under the "common knowledge" exception of WP:V. Karanacs (talk) 16:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, provided that references need not have {{cite}}s or <ref>s, or links to be real references. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Enric Naval (talk) 19:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very wise. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hobit (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with same proviso as above. The key word is "draconian" - we should have an orderly, organized, agreed-to improvement-and-deletion campaign. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As Per Arthur Rubin. DES ^(talk) 21:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Arthur. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And this is the problem with making deleting unreferenced BLP's a CSD criteria.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 23:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- Quiddity (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nsk92 (talk) 23:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
—David Eppstein (talk) 23:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Arthur. I'm OK with content being wholly unreferenced AND contentious being deleted. - Banyan Tree 02:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Duh. If only the ArbCom listened to community consensus. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 07:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Arthur Rubin.John Z (talk) 08:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ikip ^{Frank Andersson 45 revisions restored:}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 09:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 12:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Colonel Warden (talk) 14:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good way of putting it. We can already remove unverified information on sight, why delete articles wholesale? Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can support this, but the word "Draconian" might have different scopes for different people, so my support here should not be taken to be inconsistent with my supporting more aggressive alternatives. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is the shortest and clearest explanation of how I feel. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See, we agree sometimes. Gigs (talk) 17:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I examined our intersections - our agreement rate is about 80% <g> Collect (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per Karanacs Nancy ^talk 17:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- Banjeboi 20:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So Why 21:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. The sophistic and blatant misinterpretation of the BLP policy used to retroactively justify blind deletions was farcical, and its proponents wear no clothes. Skomorokh 22:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support per Chillum, Peregrine Fisher, Skomorokh, et al. Bearian (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ray^Talk 01:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No evidence of current procedures being inadequate has been offered by detractors, just hysteria about hypothetical nightmeres. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously controversial material should be removed. Material that is not actually controversial or likely to cause harm (for example, the school where someone went to college, in 99% or article) is a different matter. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonable, sensible, constructive.--Michig (talk) 11:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Common sense, expressed succinctly. I applaud. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 21:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support it isn't the lack of current process that's the problem. It's the lack of its use.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

Too subjective a viewpoint. Making a special case for "Controversial or contentious material" is practical, for who would decide what is or is not covered by this category? This is just another restatement of WP:IKNOWIT. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Um -- what precisely do you find fault with? I cite the current policies and procedures, and state that using orderly process is good. Yet your argument deals with an argument for deletion discussions only? I note your opposition to almost everything under the sun on this page, and would be pleased to deal with any constructive criticism. Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It seems perfectly clear to me precisely what Gavin.collins finds fault with: the subjective nature of "Controversial or contentious". As for the ad hominem comments about Gavin.collins's objections elsewhere, they are completely irrelevant: what matters here is the value or lack of value of his comment here. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose What is "Controversial or contentious" is entirely subjective. I think particular material is controversial, so I delete it: you think it wasn't controversial. Not a workable proposition. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right -- if you, as an editor, feel that some material is controversial or contentious, then, by all means, delete it. The process is then that according to existing policy it is up to the person who wants it in to furnish appropriate referencing, and to discuss the matter on the article talk page. Just like any other editing dispute in a BLP. The issue here presented is, moreover, a short-circuiting of the extant processes. Rather like seeing a burnt-out bulb on the tenth floor of a building and deciding to cut all power lines to it. Collect (talk) 12:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - An unsourced BLP is contentious. Without sourcing, we have no idea if any of it is accurate. And I'm surprised "he/she exists" is being put forward as an argument. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Per Hand that Feeds, et al. ++Lar: t/c 16:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. Unless you are God Almighty, it's not obvious whether statements are controversial without sourcing. Cool Hand Luke 16:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nor is it obvious that most statements in a BLP or elsewhere are true, even if sourced. And even when sourced, it isn't always easy to get to the source. And even a well-sourced statement can be libelous. This whole encyclopedia, to a great extent, floats on trusting anonymous strangers to be honest and upright, and nothing will ever get us around that. Deleting unsourced BLPs may be the way to go to solve some of the most egregious problems, but its a blunt instrument that removes a lot of good information with it. So it's better not to bring God into this. We've already had enough crusading and human sacrifices for one controversy. What to do about a problem like this is a judgment call, best made calmly. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, your statement would apply equally to almost every single article where there has been no dispute over contents - I have found a great many references which do not say what they have been claimed to say. Perhaps all articles should be subject to summary deletion on the basis that the references may be false? Interesting concept, that! But using the Raleigh solution is, I fear, worse than using existing processes. Collect (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are potential problems with any article and doubtless there are perfectly true BLPs without references. My point is that the gray area is wide, so let's think about where we're going to draw the line and what we do when we draw it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC) What's a "Raleigh solution"?[reply]
"A sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills." Collect (talk) 19:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do think we need some kind of automatic deletion for BLPs with no sources, so I can't support this. It'd be better to give editors plenty of chances to identify BLPs in areas they're interested in so that they get a chance to save good material, but we should be doing something, more and I don't think this statement addresses that well enough. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Unsourced material can be removed on sight. No sources=no content that can be kept. Besides, who says they even exist? Are we going to start allowing what you or I "know" to be exempt from WP:V? Niteshift36 (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even something that looks positive can be potentially damaging if false. Existing processes have been failing here for years, we need something new. Mr.Z-man 23:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal conflicts with the verifiability policy. It's an encyclopedia. Don't put any old crap into it just because you kinda remember hearing about it somewhere. Go back, check your sources, then cite them. If you don't do that then you're not writing an encyclopedia, you're just inflicting your hobby on everybody, --TS 01:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Controversial or contentious material with no appropriate references should be sourced, but if that is not reasonably possible, then it should be removed. SilkTork *^YES! 20:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by David Gerard

Deletion on sight for completely unsourced bios is IMO a good idea at this stage. That said, errors are far too easy. Articles replaced with an unsourced version, references vandalised, etc - there's a bit much that can go wrong.

I suggest a PROD-like template - call it BLP-PROD - which says "Find references for this article or it DIES." Five days seems too long, make it two days. Notices to creator and all major contributors as for an AFD. This would also serve as warning to casual readers that the article is really not up to scratch and should not be considered at all quality content as yet. Perhaps a big red STOP sign icon.

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

David Gerard (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd accept a special flavor of prod as part of my proposal above. Exact number of days is not critical. Also, include a {{NOINDEX}} magic word in that template. Jehochman ^Brrr 16:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC) - adding: 2 days is too short, 5 days, I would say that no more than 500 articles be tagged at one time, strictly by a bot. Prods be removed (for mistagging by bot or for resolved when sources added) or articles deleted (after the 5 days, by hand, not by bot, again to find mistaggings), if there are less than 100 left then (and only then) the bot should refill the cat to 500. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Adding more: I would also suggest that human tagging should be discouraged, and that hand mass-tagging should be treated as a form of disruption as well, just to keep the situation handleable. {{NOINDEX}} suggestion of Jehochman is indeed a good one, though for those 5 days not really necessary (in the very first 5 days, the majority of the other thousands will be indexed, so it does not make a difference). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good enough. Hipocrite (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As with Jehochman's proposal, this seems like a good way to satisfy both those who want to see process and those who want to eliminate the risk of unreferenced BLPs. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, subject to Beetstra's suggestion that the period should be 5 days, and the bot's activity rate-throttled to something that humans can follow (perhaps a couple of hundred proposals/deletions per day?) Jehochman's idea of {{NOINDEX}} tagging is good too. -- The Anome (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This works too, for the same reasons as Jehochman's proposal. The crucial factors are that any deleted article should not come back without sources and the PROD tag must not be deleted without sources being added. A separate template has merit due to the different conditions. Guy (Help!) 17:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Setting a deadline is a good thing. Editors should no longer be able to camp on unsourced BLPs, doing nothing but preventing deletion. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 17:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial endorse, but the time spent will need to be much longer than 2 days. Not everyone works full time on Wikipedia. The current 7 days is appropriate. I can work very fast at sourcing, but I cannot work that fast. If they have been here for years, why the hurry? It's enough of an improvement that we do get to them promptly. Shortening the period is biasing against being able to source. And we need to remember that the authors of the older problematic articles are in most cases no longer active. DGG ( talk ) 17:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Equal preference to Jehochman's proposal, also with the suggestion that any disagreement about the quality of the sourcing should lead to an AfD discussion. Sandstein 17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this, but I think we need at least 5 days. Lots of editors (myself included) don't edit on weekends or for several days in a row if there are RL issues at play. I also think we have to work slowly through the list - nominating 50k at once for this special prod is not the right solution, because we won't be able to fix many in that timeframe. Karanacs (talk) 18:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Lara 18:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me. I think 5 days would be reasonable. This system and template would work with Hochman's proposal, and/or NJA's clarification below. JamieS93 18:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse with the already stated caveat that two days is far too short. Especially if someone goes on a tagging run that creates a large backlog for an editor or project to handle. Reso lute 18:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse variation on a good theme - but wait period should be 1 week, especially if failure to source means deletion rather than incubation. Better with incubation as an option than deletion - but hey. Rd232 ^talk 18:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Rd232. All proposed deletions other than some (but not all) speedy's were recently (in the past few months, anyway) changed to be one week, to allow time for consideration. If the period were 5 days, addition of any legitimate source should stop the procedure for at least one additional week. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support this on the basis of confirming that unsourced BLPs can be deleted. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is a bit too short for me, but overall I can agree with this. NW (Talk) 19:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is too long in my opinion, but I can still support this idea. JBsupreme (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed but no, 5-7 days for old articles and near-immediate/speedy for new unsourced articles, and article processing is done on a set schedule over the course of a few months in conjunction with a real effort to improve the articles or userfy / incubate them. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt (talk) 21:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Two days is being nice. If we limit this to a thousand a day, we could get done in a reasonable amount of time; i.e. two months. Jack Merridew 21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support especially for new article because new editors need to be reached soon after they write the article so they don't repeat errors in sourcing. And it needs to be clear that the prod tag can not be removed. I like the red stop sign idea for during the time the article is on site and unsourced. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Two days is being nice but that's a minor detail as long as we get the ball rolling. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. See my comments on MZMcBride's proposal. Vassyana (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the same reason Jhochman's proposal works. Viridae ^Talk 22:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days might be good for new articles, but for older ones where the creator is gone, 5-7 is better. Some of these have been sitting around unsourced for years, another couple of days won't be that bad. Mr.Z-man 22:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per z-man---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kevin (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good idea, too. I endorse it. --TS 00:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can work well with Jehochman's proposal above. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonable and sane - Alison ^❤ 03:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, reasonable and sane. Pigman☿/talk 03:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but unsure about exact time limit. Flatscan (talk) 05:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A very good idea - Peripitus (Talk) 05:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another more sensible, yet still teethy, approach than deletion on sight. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, I like that it does not corrupt the existing prod system. I would suggest more than 5 days, at least 7, perhaps 14(after all it is a time to look for sources). Chillum ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like this idea. I think 2 days is too short as well but that is not a deal breaker. Normally I would quote WP:BUREAU as a drawback, but in this case we have a serious problem which has come to a head, and if it takes a new solution to be a really good solution, so be it. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Any halfway sensible, halfway workable proposal is better than where we are now, I'm not fussy. This one isn't bad at all. ++Lar: t/c 16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also support this, although it appears the 7-day option is more likely to find consensus. Well-thought out, David Gerard. Cool Hand Luke 16:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I could go with this if done in conjunction with other ideas that would encourage editors to work on the article. If it can be identified as falling into an area covered by a wikiproject, it's more likely to find editors willing to try to save it, and maybe an animal shelter could be set up for the rest before they get put to sleep. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as sensible. But... it's a good idea, essential really, to contact relevant projects too. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. If this happens, the tag should specify that reliable sources are needed.Bali ultimate (talk) 20:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I could live with this. 2 days is plenty of time, especially since many of these have had months, even years without anyone caring enough to add them. Why the big concern? If it was that important, where were you for the past year? Other things seemed more important you say?....yeah, that's kind of the point. Funny how an article can go years without a single source....throw a PROD or AfD tag on it and all of the sudden, someone cares about it.Niteshift36 (talk) 22:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. At least it gives a chance for the article to be improved on. Instituting a "kill on sight" method I think would only cause more problems (due to public reaction) than it would fix. Tabercil (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support a special speedy prod could be an ideal way to deal with these -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Bsimmons666 (talk) 02:37, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the creation of the BLP-PROD template, but with the same rules as a regular prod. Otherwise, seems like a reasonable solution. --Jayron32 06:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse A good way of ensuring the article either improves or is removed –Megaboz (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, but I think 5 days would be more reasonable. Something along the lines of b:Template:Impending Doom, perhaps? --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this view

Strongly oppose Many, IME experience most, unsourced BLPs are both accurate and non-contentious, and are sourcable, some with more work than others. Many were created by relative newcomers who did not know why or how to add sources, many were created before the use of inline citations become common, when EL sourcing was normal. To delete these without a serious attempt at sourcing, or at least an individual review, is to discard good information, thereby harming the project, without any corresponding gain. Moreover to apply the same rules to newly created articles will simply WP:BITE, further restricting the influx of new editors on which the project ultimately depends. A very very bad idea. DES ^(talk) 04:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is way too short. Even with five days, this would remove any unsourced BLP regardless of merits. With no throttling, the PROD queue will fill with hundreds, even thousands, of unsourced BLPs. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has no deadline. 2 days is too short. 5 days is fine. Think of it this way: if 2 days is short enough for it to have no large negative impact, what are the chances that someone would come by and NOTICE the article is up for deletion? Not high. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 08:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is a crazily short period - have supporters actually done such source finding work? It can take thought and time in hard cases. On the order of 1000 per day would completely overwhelm current resources and result in the deletion of vast quantities of our Long Tail of articles, our most valuable in toto.John Z (talk) 08:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sensible proposal, but is too case specific, as it assumes that content is not malicious or biased. To protect living persons, all unsource articles should to be deleted. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is too short. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is too short for any less active contributors. I hold fears of how bitey this might be. I would support if this were closer to 5 days. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Zed-man. Happy with 7 days for existing articles, speedy deletion for new unsourced bios after the date when we inform new article writers that bios must have sources. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I like the idea of PRODing, however, two days is just too short for my liking, as said above. This would not be enough time, especially for the less active contributors, to fix up an article. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 15:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - The would be good except for Wikipedia's slow death by loss of editors and editing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like the principle but 2 days is far too short a time- it's entirely conceivable that anybody notified of this would not have time to make improvements, especially if they were templated at a weird time in their time zone. It also risks being very bitey, as mentioned above, of new editors, who may not know how to put references in. I also think there needs to be more consideration given to userfication or incubation of articles on notable, verifiable subjects which just lack sources. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 17:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous. Inventing a new level of of prod is a step backwards and as pointed out is actually missing the real BLP problems which mostly are not unsourced BLPs but BLPs used disparagingly with sources. -- Banjeboi 20:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is essentially the same statement as that of MZMcBride above. AfD runs for 7 days for a reason, so there's no reason to nuke from orbit non-contentious material. Having said that, CSD G10 is interpreted too literally by some admins, who refuse to delete and even restore the full text of un-sourced biographical stubs that are "only" 25-50% negative. A negative BLP statement in an unsourced stub should be red flag sufficient for a G10 deletion. Pcap ping 20:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the problematic BLPs cited in favor of deletions are from a time when WP:V was not enforced and references were not often used. The people who created them did not do so in bad faith but more to the point, they are mostly not active anymore. Sending someone, who created an article in 2007, a message now that the article has 2 days to live...how many articles do you think will be saved? 0.1%? Less? Those articles exist for years now, there is absolutely no reason to start rushing now instead of taking some time to fix them. Regards So Why 22:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partly oppose - I love the idea of a different BLP-ProD template, but I hate the 2-day waiting period before deletion by a single sysop. 7 days' minimum are needed to avoid a mass slaughter of perfectly good, but unreferenced BLPs. Bearian (talk) 00:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose 2 days is nowhere near long enough. Ray^Talk 01:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
2 days is WAY too short. Most people are not on Wikipedia every day. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman's approach is better. Getting BLPs right is not a synonym for deleting them, particularly when they can be recreated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ill thought-out and 2 days is nowhere near long enough for non-daily editors to notice.--Michig (talk) 11:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ruslik_Zero 13:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A few days doesn't make that much difference. Why something that has been ignored for years has suddenly become something that needs special measures today is not explained.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Jehochman's approach, above, is more considered. I understand the viewpoint behind this, though Jehochman covers more angles in more detail, and better reflects current procedures which have been developed through considered discussion and actual use over the years. What is needed is just a little more effort to pay attention to problem areas. We don't need to change our process, just advertise the issues and the solutions more vigorously. SilkTork *^YES! 20:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Henrik

A significant minority of editors are unwilling to let unsourced, but likely uncontentious biographies remain in the encyclopedia. Deleting content makes the text available to only a select few, and makes fixing the articles a significantly harder process. I suggest an alternative to tackle the backlog of the roughly 50k articles in question:

We institute a process to hide the contents of unsourced biographies, using a template developed for the purpose.
We provide clear instruction that sourcing must be instituted before the template is removed (easily checkable by automated means)
Those articles which have remained in this hidden state for a reasonable, but fairly long, amount of time, but which have not been fixed are deleted.

This allows us to work towards preserving the content of these articles, while maintaining respect for the potential harm unsourced biographies may cause.

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

(There was an old copyvio template that worked like this, wasn't there?) henrik•talk 16:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it doesn't even need to "hide" the contents, just warn the reader? Much like, you know, {{unreferencedblp}}. Jclemens (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good enough. Jclemens suggestion is not good enough. Hipocrite (talk) 16:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That might work too. Is it possible to include something for noindexing in that template (which would be presumably a new version of {{unreferencedblp}})? And make it BRIGHT RED FOR DANGER? - David Gerard (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Partial endorse) Per my suggestion elsewhere - give a header saying "This article has not been reviewed for accuracy." Or thereabouts. Collect (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, hide the contents. This prevents potentially damaging information from being live on Wikipedia, while preserving existing text for future use. Ucucha 17:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but consideration must be given to what is a reasonable time for the large number of older articles, which could be many months. DGG ( talk ) 17:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I suggest setting a time limit of one month prior to deletion. Not everyone is around on Wikipedia every day or every week. I'd like to add that the introduction of bogus material, either unsourced, or based of sources that actually do not support the content of the article, seems to be a much bigger problem. Cs32en Talk to me 18:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse hiding, noindexing, and penalties for removing the tag without adding sourcing, but without a rapid deadline. If it's good enough for potential copyvios (which could clearly cause damage to Wikimedia), it should be good enough for potentially potentially potentially (repetition intentional; there are about that many steps between unsourced and libelous here) libelous material. I think a month should be adequate if hidden, if no more than 1000-4000 articles are in the queue at a time. However, it should be clear that this does not exempt the article from deletion for being an attack page, or exempt it from conventional AfD discussion suggested by an editor who actually looks at the article and believes the person non-notable or that the potential notability is not from reliable sources. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support templating but we should have a deadline and a schedule, and also not hide articles in the meanwhile - that does temporary damage rather than permanent damage. Better yet, have a flag so that the template functions in two ways, keeping but flagging the good ones, and disappearing the stinkers. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and create a template as a trial balloon. These articles have been around for months and years. It won't kill anyone to keep them around for three more months while we improve them. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. Done! - {{UBF}}. If you set the parameter "action=collapse" it makes a collapse box. With "action=hide" the text is completely hidden except when editing. See Ninety-nine (owarai) for an example of the new template in use. It still needs some work but what do you think? - Wikidemon (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see the potential for something like this being added for drafting of WP articles from articles on other language wikis. Sometimes the material is not ready for main space. But we can not let it be a long term solution or a place for attacks or contentions material to remain. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 21:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorta; this is Flagged Revisions after a feature request: an article draft that is visible to editors but not to anonymous readers or Google. Jack Merridew 22:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--99of9 (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 08:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a sensible alternative to deletion, and a good back-up proposal in case the community rejects the PROD or BLPPROD proposals. This would not be my first choice, though. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is definitely a better answer than deletion. the wub "?!" 11:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds pretty good. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A clever and reasonable compromise, and for sure better than deletion: it allows BLP concerns to be mitigated but does not remove information for improvement. I like it! --Cyclopia ^talk 17:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is essentially an implementation of "flagged first revision", and it's what we do for some copyvios. Pcap ping 20:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good sense. The time allotted must be long enough to ensure that competent editors have inspected and given up on the article, per DGG, many months will be sometimes appropriate.John Z (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support per DGG. I am against mass deletion all at once. This has to be done in a methodical fashion, not by eliminating 60,000 articles in two days. A feature to "hide away" or "no-index" such BLPs might work. Bearian (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Has some merit, but needs work. Theres some good ideas here that need fleshing out, and should be carried through in any discussion of how to deal with the BLP problem, but not the only/best solution on the board. --Jayron32 06:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Looking to presevre content rather than lose it is an important principle.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

See the draft statement by ArbCom for the reason I oppose any solution that does not enforce referencing of all biographies by a defined deadline. No ambiguity. What looks uncontentious may in fact be problematic, we cannot know without reliable sources. I ave handled OTRS tickets, I can think of several examples of text that looked quite innocuous but actually wasn't. Temporary history undeletion for referencing on request may well be a good idea, but I think we should be entirely unambiguous that the default outcome for any unreferenced biography - and ideally any unreferenced article, it's not like WP:V and WP:RS are new - is removal. Guy (Help!) 17:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adding a deadline to any proposal that is adopted is a good idea. Providing a schedule, even better. If the BLP cleanup is a success we can repeat the experiment on a far broader scale with all articles. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Arbcom has consistently failed to set reasonable deadlines for its own activities (remember the Agenda?) the wub "?!" 11:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Putting these nonnotable unreferenced BLPs in a hidden state will not help them. Most of these potentially harmful BLPs have surely been sitting for years. How long is "fairly long"? Reywas92^Talk 01:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An unsourced article is contentious. What is or is not contentious beyond this definition is a matter of WP:IKNOWIT, which is not a rational basis for inclusion. Henrik's proposal is sounds good in theory, but can of procedural worms in practise. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unfortunately "unsourced, but likely uncontentious" is totally inadequate. What do you mean by "likely uncontentious"? Whatever you mean the word "likely" indicates that you may be wrong, and out of hundreds of articles for some of them you will be wrong. It is not acceptable to allow libellous material to remain on the grounds that we do not know exactly which ones are libellous and which are not. The onus is on the writers of an article to demonstrate' that it is not libellous. If a libellous article about me appeared I would not regard it as a defence that "the article was hidden, which means a member of the public couldn't see it unless they clicked on a link marked history first", and neither would any judge. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose This proposal has some merit but the language needs to be significantly tightened, as well as a firm deadline proposed. If we are going to build another process, let's make sure it is really good. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose. Unworkable by itself. There may be some good ideas here worth further investigation after one of the more effective proposals gets put in place, though. ++Lar: t/c 16:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is basically a deluxe incubation of sorts which in itself is a mass prodding. We do need to coordinate a clean-up as if that would actually appease that small minority but again these unsourced BLPs are generally not the zomg! alarming problem this entire dramatic episode has spelled it out to be. -- Banjeboi 20:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by WereSpielChequers

Apart from thinking of a timeline of a few months rather than weeks I'm not all that far from MZMcBride. I broadly agree with the destination, but disagree with the route to get there. But I would rather start with all new articles, whilst giving the authors and various wiki projects a set time to source all existing BLP articles. I would rather that this was done over a period of months than that we rush this as I think rushing it would risk mass sloppy partial referencing to rescue articles.

I'm not convinced that old low traffic BLPs that are tagged as unsourced are really our biggest BLP problem, or that starting with our oldest supposedly unsourced BLPs is the best approach. A lot of the "unreferenced BLPs" are really under referenced ones, and I suspect the sneakier vandals have the sense to at least partially source their cyberbullying. Also, in my experience when you search userspace for badwords you find more personal attacks, cyberbullying and {{G10}}s per hour than looking at Category:All unreferenced BLPs, and the worst bits of mainspace vandalism I've ever encountered have not been in BLPs. So despite the current fashion for deleting old unsourced BLPs, I'm not convinced that this is the best or fastest way to improve the pedia or address our BLP problems.

We also need to remember that Wikipedia is a very complex system, and one should always be cautious about making multiple simultaneous changes to complex systems as the interactions between different changes can be unpredictable. Earlier this month User:DASHBot started gently chiding the authors of unsourced BLPs. I think we should wait a couple of weeks to see what effect that has on Category:All unreferenced BLPs, or if people want to give DASHBot a hand, look for retired/inactive/blocked users who DASHBot has spoken to and help them fix or delete their unsourced contributions. Alternatively or as a next step, can someone write a Bot to inform wikiprojects of unsourced BLPs in their remit in the same way that DASHBot has been informing authors? Flagged Revisions is also supposedly on the way, so I think we have quite rapid change taking place on the old BLP front even without admins deleting articles without attempting to fix them or inform the authors.

To my mind treating our oldest BLPs more harshly than our newest is like rounding up escaped rabbits and putting them back in the run without first moving the run away from their escape tunnel. Rather I would suggest that for new BLPs we introduce "delete new unsourced BLP" as a speedy criteria; provided that we very clearly inform article creators that from a particular date this is the new rule, and that articles created after that date with information about living people must be reliably sourced. I think this would stop the problem growing and then there is just a mammoth maintenance task to improve or delete the crud .

After starting with the new stuff, and seeing how much DashBot can improve the crud, and seeing if flagged revisions can protect the rest, and then proding the unreferenced residue in batches over a couple of months, then I agree with delete unsourced BLPs on sight as the policy we should be able to enact in say 6 months. But with the following provisos:

An unsourced biography should at the very least have its history checked to see if reverting a bit of vandalism won't restore it to a referenced article.
Good faith contributions should never be deleted without the author being informed and given an easy route to getting their article restored for their next editing session.
We also need an exception for articles being restored and referenced - some sort of template such as prod that can be added to a restored article so that the person requesting its restoration has at least a few hours to do so.
Any user should be able to request, and any admin permitted to restore an existing article deleted under this process, provided the requester is promising to reference the article ASAP.

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Users who endorse this summary

Ϣere SpielChequers 16:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This process seems much more fair. Standards were quite different 2 or 3 years ago. DashBot notified me recently that 2 of the very first articles I ever created (in 2006) were unreferenced BLPs, and I promptly fixed them. Let's at least give these types of methods a chance to work for older articles while tightening the noose for newer ones. Karanacs (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse except for the flaggedrevs bit, which I disagree on. All unsourced BLPs have equal weight and we should be progressing towards a speedy criterion to take care of incoming ones. Them From Space 17:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse in principle, but we must take account of the fact that authors of the older articles are mostly no longer available, and it will be necessary to recruit sufficient people to work on them to process them properly. DGG ( talk ) 17:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The backlog has been declining steadily for some time now thanks in part to DASHBot and these efforts should be given time. There are probably a pile of unreferenced BLPs that no one will ever (be able to) source so deletion may be needed in the future. Jogurney (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly endorse. Apart from Flagged Revisions (which I'm undecided on), WereSpielChequers' summary is spot on. Unsourced BLP as a speedy criterion makes so much sense that it's almost amazing why it hasn't been suggested before. Hmm, after a bit of looking, the similar proposals Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles (User:Dominic in October 2006) and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion process for unsourced articles ([[User:Seraphimblade in February 2007) were rejected, but I think that narrowing the scope to BLPs is likely to gain at least a rough consensus, especially in the curent climate. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 17:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well stated, indeed. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, except that I am neither in support of nor oppose flagged revisions at this time. DES ^(talk) 21:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in my private capacity as an administrator, not as a representative of the Foundation - Philippe 22:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-- Quiddity (talk) 23:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right on. Reso lute 00:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the bit about the new speedy deletion criteria in particular. I worked on a bunch of bio articles on little known African rebel leaders five years ago or so and it seems draconian to have bio stubs that have been pretty much untouched, outside from bots, be mass speedy deleted because a citation system that wasn't invented when the articles were created isn't in use to solve a BLP concern that wasn't on anyone's mind at the time. No such excuse now. - Banyan Tree 02:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems the optimal approach except it may take longer than a few months to properly source all the worthy BLPs. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A responsible and thoughtful proposal. What is being obscured in much of the discussion over deletion is that the circumstances under which removing access to troublesome content from readers (i.e. deletion) are very different from those under which that access ought to be denied to editors. Skomorokh 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support in concept per FeydHuxtable, Skomorokh, et al. Bearian (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very Weak support as with Henrik's ideas above. Theres some nuggets of wisdom here, but this is unworkable as a full solution. I like the idea of keeping these ideas on the table going forward, but this is not a complete solution to the problem. Some interesting stuff here.--Jayron32 06:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of common sense here. The BLP issues need to be fixed one way or another but they don't need to be fixed in a few days. More effort should go towards preventing new unsourced BLP articles from being created, while fixing the backlog, which is already underway, takes place. --Michig (talk) 11:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Some good thoughts. And yes the proposal needs fleshing out, but if we accept the principle that what has been wrong for years can be fixed in months rather than needing to be fixed today, then we can spend a little time sorting the mechanism.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

WereSpielChequers's proposal appears reasonable, but is too bureaucratic. Why invest so much time and effort in unsourced articles which are deletion candidates? Better to get rid of them in the quickest way possible, and focus on improving more marginal articles. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you spot an article that meets the speedy deletion criteria then tag it as {{A7}} or whatever deletion criteria it meets, this RFC is for tens of thousands of unsourced or poorly sourced articles that many editors don't think meet the deletion criteria. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with much of what WereSpielChequers says, but I think the problems mentioned above of taking too much time and work and being bureaucratic are too serious. In fact I would go so far as to say that the amount of work would be so great that in practice the task would never get completed. Also, some of the articles in question are libellous. We do not know exactly which ones, which is why there is problem, but a proportion of them will be. Do we have the right to knowingly allow libel to remain for six months (an optimistic estimate, I think)? Also the onus is on writers to provide sources: if we make it clear that from now on failure to do so will result in quick deletion we will get less unsourced biographies written in future, whereas if we convey the message that such an article will be put through a long and very likely incomplete process that may eventually lead to deletion, then we will continue to get loads of them. JamesBWatson (talk)
In less than a year as an admin I've done over 3,900 deletions, many of them of unsourced libels. If you spot an article that meets the criteria for {{G10}} tag it as such - I may even be the admin who deletes it. This proposal is not about changing the way we treat articles that already meet the A7 or G10 criteria. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose. Unworkable by itself. There may be some good ideas here worth further investigation after one of the more effective proposals gets put in place, though. In particular the older articles have been problems longer and shouldn't get passes. Do this for new articles while also doing something about older ones. ++Lar: t/c 16:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is much more holistic and realistic and thus likely to have some constructive ideas. Realistically however a new BLP bot misses the mark in that often we don't know if a new article is a BLP and even non-BLPs can easily contain BLP violations as they disparage people in context of the subject. In this light a basic new article bot - even if temporary - to place an unambiguous note about BLP issues including (i) BLPs that have no sources are likely to be deleted and (i) any statement about a living person that is seen as controversial or negative must be sourced reliably might be a good option. -- Banjeboi 20:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by NJA

Essentially what Jehochman suggested, but with some modifications (tying in what I think is the best of the other views noted above). Everyone seems to agree we need a new BLP PROD template.

Thus, all things listed here, but:

reduce the time from five days
devise a special PROD template specific to BLP's so that it can have a specialised category for monitoring and tracking (using NOINDEX)
set out to add an edit filter to track BLP PROD template removals, as is currently done for CSD template removals for easier admin tracking

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Users who endorse this summary

NJA (t/c) 16:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, except that I'd rather stick to 5 days. JamieS93 18:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt (talk) 21:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support all three points. The latter two points are compatible with most any PROD/CSD style approach proposed here and are wise additions. Vassyana (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Feasible. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I very nearly support this, but I don't agree with reducing the time limit. Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs has a version of the "special prod" idea which is thought out in more detail. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC) I have now read that proposal more carefully, and I think there are serious problems there. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems similar to David Gerard's proposal above. This is a good idea. I note as well that the assertion about the acceptance of such a template is not obvious to me, although that does not affect my opinion of the proposal itself. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not fussy, this would be a fine set although there may be other sets that garner more support. ++Lar: t/c 16:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

This seems like kind of random commentary. It includes a false assertion "(Everyone seems to agree we need a new BLP PROD template" - in point of fact, many have disagreed with this, instead calling for deletion-on-sight), an incomplete proposition ("reduce the time from five days"... to what?), a repeat of common comments to Jehochman's proposal (that the new tags have their own name, categories, etc.), and a new (that I know of) edit filter idea that could simply have been added to Jehochman's or most other proposals here. I actually agree with that final idea, but it doesn't need to be proposed here since it's not a solution/approach to the overall issue under discussion, it's just a minor technical detail that can be fixed at the filters page. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some editors only edit at the weekends or on a particular day of the week. We have a longstanding tradition of running non-urgent things over 7 days to ensure we include such editors. A problem that has built up over years cannot be suddenly turned into something that has to be run in less than a week - and if it were then much of the response would be botched. Only when editors come across articles that genuinely meet the speedy deletion criteria should deletion take less than a week. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, I would go with Jehochman, but expand it to 7 days, and place a limit of 100 or 200 per day for ProDs. 2 or 3 or 5 days is not enough time to find the vandalism, find the gems to rescue, cut the cruft, etc. That short time would overwhelm the system we have right now. I agree with the idea of a BLP-ProD template, but I am certain that this is not yet the consensus here - more discussion is needed. Bearian (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per SMcCandlis and others --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose As long as ther problem is being addressed, there is no need to rush things. --Peter cohen (talk) 23:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by the Anome

David Gerard's proposal looks good to me. I'd just like to emphasize that any bot activity on this will need to be intensively supervised by humans for some time to avoid serious loss of useful articles. For example: numerous articles are currently tagged as unsourced BLPs when they have references: see Hermann Zapf (from which I've just removed a {{BLP unsourced}} tag) -- any bot would need at the very least to detect this sort of error, and I can think of many other scenarios that might cause errors. -- The Anome (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

Cirt (talk) 21:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the potential for bot and AWB damage here is enormous. Another related issue is that innumerable articles actually have multiple sources, just in the wrong place and not used inline with <ref>. See for example the vast majority of Category:Snooker biography stubs' articles. Almost all of them cite at least an official World Snooker bio page and often another one, but do so in the "External Links" section because the handful of authors who created most of these stubs (or copied other stubs's formatting in creating new ones) seem to have wrongly assumed that "References" have to be print publications and that online sources have to go in the EL section. I see this, of course, outside of snooker bios all the time, I just use that as an example because of the problem's prevalence in that category. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also like DG's proposal, and this commentary here goes without saying. Since it was said, I fully support it. ;) Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
seems sensible Voceditenore (talk) 19:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Evidently. Sandstein 19:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support. You rule, The Anome! Bearian (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with the part that many of the BLPs tagged as unsourced are not, actually, unsourced. Note that the existence of an external link causes an article not to be "unsourced". — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly agree with the comment that "numerous articles are currently tagged as unsourced BLPs when they have references." I was notified that several articles I worked on were "unsourced." When I went to edit them, I found only one that was truly unsourced (though I added a few references to some of them by way of emphasis). Carl's comment that "the existence of an external link causes an article not to be 'unsourced'" needs to be emphasized here; some of my articles had "External links" rather than "References" so I changed the section headers, but why should I have needed to? -- BRG (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by DGG

For old articles, a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless. Of course we should we should work on them, at the pace at which we can manage it, with the special problem that the author is generally no longer be around to help. What I think is extremely dangerous is people nominating them or any article for deletion without first looking for sources, because it takes no more work to try for basic sourcing. We might even have a priority category for "I tried, but further help is needed." -- that's the sort of think I'd like to work on. What is even more dangerous is deletion without looking. As a related example, let me give the 40 prods of this nature I worked on in the last two days, about 10 were easily sourceable. About 5 were a real challenge--for some I too needed some help to do it right--and trying and not succeeding with them is not something anyone should be blamed for. The other half I decided could not be sourced in any reasonable way, or were so unlikely I at least wasn't going to bother, and I let them stand. But since they were prods, anyone else could look at them and try. Frequently I see ones I've given up on done easily by someone else. Some of the ones I found easily were ones where I can understand another person in perfect good faith might not think were likely enough to be worth the bother. That is the reason summary deletion is inappropriate--there are only a few special classes of things where one or two people can securely decide. Among the articles listed for deletion, and which could be deleted under the proposed ruling was one which was easily verifiable that the person was an ambassador, and one a member of a state legislature--things said on the face of the article. . In both cases, it took about a minute to source them. With respect to the arbitrary deletions we are concerned with, I note what Rebecca said above--deleting an article that is on its face probably notable without checking is about as destructive to the encyclopedia as one can get.

The offer to undelete on request in ludicrous as a solution--for most editors cannot see the articles to tell. For those of us who can, we would of course be able to check and see if we could source, and undelete if we could. I certainly would not undelete in this circumstance unless I could source, But relying on a few of us to check is only practical if the people deleting are more responsible than some of them so far have been.

An RfC as far-reaching as this requires more than one day;s consideration. Very few people have been heard from, except those with one particular view on BLPs. I shall a little later today propose a substitute suggested policy. DGG ( talk ) 17:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

Enric Naval (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree. DES ^(talk) 21:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Sometimes the best & simplest solution is a lot more work than what appears at first glance. Which I've suspected has been the case with BLPs all along. -- llywrch (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Nsk92 (talk) 23:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JoshuaZ (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reso lute 00:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JohnWBarber (talk) 01:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Banyan Tree 03:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Xxanthippe (talk) 03:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 06:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't believe we're agreeing on a matter involving deletion policy, but here goes. :) Orderinchaos 06:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John Z (talk) 07:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's just common sense. In spirit with llywrch above, we have a lot of answers already and it's hard to connect the dots when rushed to action like this. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with that the deletion en masse is a reckless solution. Better to "hurry up slowly". Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More reckless than unsourced biographies? I don't think so. Look at this week's breaching experiment for an idea of why reckless is not really the term to apply to deletion of unsourced biographies. Guy (Help!) 17:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not arguing for unsourced biographies. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is the best comment up to this point. Baby and bathwater. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nancy ^talk 17:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat agreed. Nuking all the old unsourced BLPs without even looking at them would be vandalistic. But they do need to be looked at within a reasonable period of time and be either sourced or deleted. And speedy deleting new BLPs that are created unsourced in spite of a big flashing editnotice - no objections there. Sandstein 19:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This matches my experience as well, some articles i can readily find sourcing for - others not so much but someone else could. This is how Wikipedia works, we each bring to the table different skills, knowledge and experience and generally improve articles effectively. Meanwhile I had to report to the BLP board just yesterday a very sourced BLP that was again highjacked for soapboxing. Clearly old ignored BLPs is not the biggest or main BLP issue by a longshot. -- Banjeboi 20:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well put - agreed on all counts. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, you are my hero. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 23:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support per SMcCandish, Peregrine Fisher, Benjiboi, Ikip, et al. Nicely worded, DGG. Bearian (talk) 01:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ray^Talk 01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Hobit (talk) 01:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly endorse - my thoughts exactly --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree entirely.--Michig (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't I already support? --Cyclopia ^talk 14:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. While many of these articles will be unsourced because they are non notable and thus unsourceable', PRODding without even trying to look for sources is reckless. I came across Nadine Garner yesterday which had been unsourced for three years. 20 minutes later, I'd found enough coverage from the Google News archives to verify most of what was in the article. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 14:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Power.corrupts (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support As long as serious efforts are being made to largely fix the problem by the end of the year, there is no need to take precipitous action this month.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who disagree with this summary

I agree with Guy. If an article can't even verify that the person exists in the first palce, that is is reckless to assume it can be sourced at all. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that "For old articles,a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless". The older the article the more chance there has been to find sources, and so the less likely that the article is notable. Also I think the time and work required to check everything would be excessive, and in practice the job would not get done. Unfortunately, despite the collateral damage to good but unsourced articles, the only realistic solution is the Gordian one of deletion by default. If anyone can quickly produce sources, then good, but if not, we cannot hang on forever. In many cases the retentionists have had years to find sources, and now that they see a real threat of deletion they start asking for more time. Yes, a summary deletion process will lead to loss of some good but unsourced articles, but the alternative of putting in the vast amount of work to check every one of them is, unfortunately, not feasible. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose. 1) Quality review of articles is a necessary part of maintaining Wikipedia. Once articles have been tagged as needing significant clean up then deletion may be a reasonable outcome for a subset of them if no improvements are made. 2) Quality review and improvement processes on Wikipedia are too time consuming and ineffective resulting in a significant number of poor quality articles. 3) Most people do not spend a significant amount of time working on improving articles of low interest. This lack of attention has left a large back log that needs to be addressed. 5) Many of the poor quality articles of low interest were written in no more than a couple of minutes by one person with few improvements over years time on site, so a deletion discussion that take hours of many editors time to complete does not make sense. 6) Improvements in the deletion process to make them more efficient and effective in managing poor quality articles is needed now. This could include speedy deletion for a subset of articles. 7. Speedy deletion, prod, and Afd needed to be improved so they enhance and not hinder content improvement. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 16:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who are neutral about this summary

I agree that there are drawbacks arising from any proposed summary mass deletions, although one may or may not think it "reckless". That said, in the long run the project would still be better off, although less harsh options exist which are significantly better. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

If the sum of what DGG is saying is that we should make the effort to first source something before deleting it, then Jehochman's view, above, encapsulates that, and the appropriate process (which we already have in place) for handling the situation. I support any thinking that is about dealing appropriately with contentious and problematic material, which is to first of all make a reasonable attempt to ensure that the material has appropriate sources. SilkTork *^YES! 20:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Resolute

I am reminded of all of the drama with Betacommand and FU images back in the day. Like this problem, his unilateral actions set off a firestorm. That in itself is not an issue. What was then was his (and his supporters) unwillingness to consider any view but his own as being correct. And since only his view was correct, only his decided course of action was correct, and he felt free to disregard everyone else's arguments, right up to the point he was banned. Well here we stand again with another issue. And likewise, a certain group has determined their actions are right and damned be the view of anyone else. Not acceptable.

A lot of people are viewing this as an all or nothing argument. I don't buy false dichotomies. As with the image problem, suggestions that were grudgingly accepted (and only after much gnashing of teeth) helped mitigate the problem. It did not solve it entirely, and a lot of images were still deleted, but many were also saved. When "deletion is the only option" was finally rejected as the only solution, things became much more productive.

This is a case where Wikiprojects can help. User:WolterBot has a function that generates a cleanup listing by project. Using tools such as this allows the community to break the overwhelming scope of this issue down into manageable sizes. If we repurpose this function as a mandatory listing for all projects - either as a one time run or a quarterly listing - we can at least begin to tackle this problem. I can't speak for all projects, but from the perspective of my primary, WP:HOCKEY, when presented with notifications regarding the image issue, we took as much action as we could. For many active projects, I think the same would happen here. Will this solve the entire problem? Nope. There are a lot of bad articles that have no project banners that nobody watches. Are they useful? Probably not. Can they be deleted? Probably. But at least by developing and utilizing tools that better inform Wikipedia's editors of articles needing such cleanup, we can take steps to save as many as we can. Coupled with a deletion system such as Jehochman proposes, we can begin to address this in a much more productive fashion than by taking a flamethrower to a powder keg. Reso lute 17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

Reso lute 17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but there does need to be a system that results in more or less speedy deletion if a BLP is not fixed within a reasonable time. We slowly seem to come around to the consensus that eventualism is not an entirely adequate approach to the problem. Sandstein 18:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think many editors are overwhelmed by the scope of the problem. I'd be much more likely to work on articles in the topics that I already have some knowledge of - I just don't always have a good way of figuring out which articles those are. This would be a good first step, and, as Sandstein says, should be for a predetermined amount of time (2 months?). Karanacs (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ucucha 18:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Yes, and ideas like this are why it is a bad idea to continue deleting those articles now. We've probably achieved a consensus that unsourced BLPs have to go in some form or another, but we're still getting ideas as to what would be the most efficient way to achieve that.[reply]
Endorse (though I feel you're failing to recognise that an unsourced BLP is an affront against God, and that any attempt to institute a process to tackle them is WP:CREEPy process wonkery. Flamethrowers are go!). Bah. Rd232 ^talk 18:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. henrik•talk 18:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Enric Naval (talk) 19:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. This will work (Wikipedia:FOOTY/unreferenced BLP is an example). Jogurney (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fully endorse DES ^(talk) 21:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I believe Resolute's statement touches on a tension which has existed in the Wikipedia community for some time -- at least as long as the Userbox wars back in 2005/2006. On one side are those who consider themselves "clued", & consider anyone who disagrees with them insufficiently informed about Wikipedia & treat them with a lack of respect. On the other are those acting in good faith yet have a disagreement based on information or experience that the first group lacks, but aren't being listened to. Things -- & Wikipedia -- change. Except for one example (that one on Siegenthaler), I am unfamiliar with another biographical article about a living person which is unduly problematic. Yes, there are errors -- in some case serious errors -- in this group of articles, but are they any worse or more common than the errors in other groups of articles? Making a single solution fit all cases will only harm the content of Wikipedia in the long run as well as discourage the contributions of new volunteers -- another problem which we do not need to worsen. -- llywrch (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I missed the userbox wars. Were they anything like the nonfree image wars and the trivia/in popular culture wars? - Wikidemon (talk) 23:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Similar in some ways, but the most important difference was that, in the case of nonfree images, trivia/in popular culture, & this instance, the anti-party did have a point whereas the presence of userboxes posed no serious threat in any way to Wikipedia. They're still around, Wikipedia is still around, but there are long term project members who think userboxes was the Beginning of the End. Some of whom are participating in this RfC. -- llywrch (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I thought the beginning of the end was the penning of WP:POKEMON. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, the actual beginning of the end for Wikipedia was when the PTB allowed me to create an account. ;-) llywrch (talk) 21:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The proposals that call for deletion are only one step of the process. We need to find a way to figure out which articles are worth keeping and which should be deleted. Mass deletions out of the blue is not the proper course of action.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a good idea. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed - good faith way of moving forward. Agreed with Balloonman's comment in this section also. Orderinchaos 06:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Especially agree with what's Resolute's said below as well as above in this section. Having a useless list around isn't going to solve the problem. The vast majority of editors willing to work on cleanup are either only willing to do it for specific topics, or they're already doing it as part of some other process like new pages patrolling. Projects exist for a reason. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Qualified Support I do not agree with some of the characterizations and commentary, but if someone wants to build such a tool I can see it being helpful if done well. I reemphasize a very important point made in passing: this solution need not be mutually exclusive to some other proposals. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This does remind me of Betacommand. What a fiasco that was. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Balloonman Nancy ^talk 17:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
exactly, I suggest however that a heads-up unsourced BLP bot run every 10 days with the 10-20 oldest listed or something similar to keep the work chugging along and yet not overwhelm. -- Banjeboi 20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 23:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 00:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bearian (talk) 01:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well put. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
— Carl (CBM · talk) 04:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ruslik_Zero 09:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. There's a lot of heat around with editors stating that nothing has been done about the problem for years, but I am only recently seeing meaningful attempts to inform editors and projects of unsourced BLPs that need attention. Let's have a few months of trying to find a constructive solution before just zapping these articles. Notifying all projects of articles would be a good start. --Michig (talk) 11:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is nothing wring in fixing something that has been wrong for years over several months rather than acting recklessly now just to be seen to be doing something.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

There is no false dichotomy here: unreferenced biographies are a violation of policy and have been for years. I will support triage, working groups, limits of x hundred per day, WP:PROD, all sorts of compromises around implementation, but if we have learned nothing else in the last three and a half years since WP:BLP was made policy it's that any solution that requires people to bring shrubberies before allowing deletion of unreferenced BLPs is functionally indistinguishable from mandating that nothing is done. There are too many. There have been lists of unreferenced BLPs around for literally years, the inclusionists have always had the option of fixing them, they didn't. If the policy had been on display in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard" I might have some sympathy, but that's not the case. Drama? Shame. It was time. Fair use is different, it is ambiguous and subject to judgement. Sourcing is binary: either sources are cited or they aren't. This process does not cover poorly-referenced biographies, that is for AFD. Guy (Help!) 20:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"unreferenced biographies are a violation of policy and have been for years." this is simply inaccurate. It may be that they are about to becoeme agaisnt policy, but lets not rewrite history here. DES ^(talk) 21:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Amen. Hobit (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unreferenced contentious biographies are a violation of policy, not simply unreferenced biographies. That said, the false dichtonomy I refer to is the either/or of "we have to live with it" or "we have to delete everything". I am not proposing the former, but rather looking for a way to avoid the latter. Ultimately, I expect that a large majority of such articles will be deleted. But answer me this: are we harming Wikipedia by giving projects the chance to clean up the mess? Like FU images a couple years ago, this issue is coming to a head. But, we've existed in this situation for three years. What harm is there in giving editors the opportunity, even if under the gun, of fixing at least some of the mess? If we save only a small percentage of BLPs by giving each project a manageable listing of problem articles under their bailiwick, then we have done this project a far greater service than the indiscriminate deletion of all problem BLPs would constitute. I am not proposing that we ignore the problem any longer. We cant ignore it any longer. I am proposing that we give editors the tools to find a solution that does not involve summary execution. Reso lute 21:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLP,WP:V,WP:RS. Guy (Help!) 21:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No shit. Don't play the rube, Guy, I already know you aren't very good at it. You know full well I am talking about ways to clean up the mess. But yes, anyone who's seen you on AN and ANI knows that your favoured solution is destruction. Frankly, in the case of a lot of these BLPs, that is very likely to be the answer. But it isn't the answer for every problem article, and your attempts to stand in the way of rescuing those are worth rescue is counterproductive. Reso lute 22:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And to pointedly respond to your one argument: Yes, lists of unsourced articles have existed for years. Great. Category:Unreferenced BLPs is utterly useless to me, as 99.9% of that category tree involves articles I don't have the knowledge or resources to deal with and offers me no way to sort out articles I can deal with. Unfortunately, we haven't yet gotten one of WolterBot's cleanup listings for the hockey project, while WP:Canada doesn't appear to even be signed up for it. So at present, I do not have a functional list with a scope that lies within my areas of expertise. Give me that, and I can take more direct action on the problem rather than randomly picking articles as I have in the past. Make the creation of that cleanup listing mandatory for all projects (excepting WP:Biography, obviously), and all groups will then have a much better place to start. Couple that with the message that it either gets fixed, or it burns, and we will be much farther on our way to fixing this mess. Reso lute 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Guy - sooner or later we have to enforce policy. Keeping older unsourced articles on the grounds that enforcing policy will put off new editors ignores the fact that policy exists to empower new editors to create articles in the first place. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the above comments. We cannot realistically check every article, with or without bots creating further lists. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Too big, don't bother" is the attitude of a defeatist. The simple fact is, we *have* to check every article regardless. Any admin who summarily deletes an article because he sees a template but does not check the article itself needs to be desysopped in a hurry. Destruction through laziness is not a good solution by any stretch of the imagination. Giving projects and concerned individuals the ability to check and fix the few hundred articles within their baliwick spreads the workload and helps reduce the size of the backlog that requires checking and, if necessary, deletion. Reso lute 15:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Guy. If not now, when? ++Lar: t/c 16:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You and Guy are representative of the attitude I mentioned in my initial comment: The "all or nothing" view of cleaning up the BLP mess. Outright destruction may be your preference, but I maintain that it is the lazy solution. I have little doubt that a very large majority of these articles will be deleted, and others have proposed methods by which to organize that aspect of the cleanup. However, as should be obvious to you by now, "delete it all and let god sort it out" has no community support whatsoever. The only thing you accomplish by stubbornly hanging onto that argument is to obstruct progress towards a real solution. The community has recognized that deletion is the ultimate result for articles that are not cleaned up and improved, but your knee-jerk opposition to proposals designed to help coordinate efforts to save articles worth saving are counterproductive. Reso lute 18:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect you are confused. Review my talk page and then come back. Characterizing my efforts as "knee jerk" shows a profound lack of understanding. There's a problem with BLPs. Deleting unsourced ones won't solve the whole problem. But it's a start. If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. And that's precipitated this action. ++Lar: t/c 20:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with your with-me-or-against-me stance is that you fail to recognize that there are multiple solutions to the issue that can be enacted concurrently. The need to prune low-value, unsourced articles on marginally or non-notable BLPs does not preclude the need to source high-value articles on clearly notable individuals. If your opposition is not knee-jerk, then by all means, please tell me on what grounds you oppose the suggestion that we seek to engage groups that are most likely to help source, and keep sourced, Wikipedia's BLP articles. Reso lute 21:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as the false analogy to the Betacommand issue is worse than the false dichotomy noted. The Betacommand issue was never about enforcement of the Fair Use policy, that was a red herring thrown about to mask the real problem, which was refusal to communicate civily and effectively. I too dislike false dichotomies, but this proposal started off on a bad foot by bring up the wrong issue from the start. --Jayron32 06:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Power.corrupts

The real problem is unsourced contentious info, not unreferenced articles. The proposal will do nothing or little to the real problem, and at the same time incur tremendous costs. I examined a sample from Category:Unreferenced BLPs from November 2006. Results are reported at Wikipedia talk:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs#What problems will the proposal solve, what will it create. If the articles are deleted there is no gain on the alledged "BLP problem", because the articles hold no contentious info, but we will have lost a number of articles on head of states, academics, artists, etc. etc. This proposal is completely misconceived .

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Power.corrupts (talk) 18:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Guettarda (talk) 18:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 18:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly accurate, but not really helpful. Perhaps we should just delete all articles with unsourced information, including this one. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Enric Naval (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DES ^(talk) 21:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
yeah. 21:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
While there is overlap, the problem is throwing out the good with the bad. Unsourced BLP's are not, in and of themselves bad, the challenge is separating the wheat from the chaft. The proposals from the BLP regulars (and now ArbCOM) is that we should throw everything out at one. This is, IMO, not optimal as I suspect that we are going to end up creating more confusion/problems in the long run.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An article being sourced or not has no bearing on its likelihood to contain or attract libel. Those who are claiming it does are making an exceptional claim without any evidence to back it up. Gigs (talk) 22:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Baby + bathwater. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
—David Eppstein (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nsk92 (talk) 23:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if there's zero overlap but it is clear that the overlap is very tiny. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is probably a pretty good amount of bathwater being tossed with the babies, so I wouldn't put the matter as strongly as Power.corrupts, but I mildly support the statement. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 02:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John Z (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. There is a certain element of this debate who seem to feel that the best way to clear dead branches is to burn the entire forest down. While that is the simple way to clean up this one problem, it will create namny more. The indiscriminate deleters are looking for the lazy way to "fix" the problem. Their desires are no better than ignoring the problem is. Reso lute 15:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure you replied in the right section? Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did indeed. Thank you for noticing this Reso lute 19:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This matches my experience with BLPs and BLP issues. -- Banjeboi 20:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unsourced does not mean contentious every time; just as existence does not mean notability in most cases. Bearian (talk) 01:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The real problem is unsourced contentious info, not unreferenced articles" - Indeed. The proposed "solution" does almost nothing to address the problem. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with ThaddeusB. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely - I've seen unsourced BLPs tagged as such, prodded, but the one line of unsourced derogatory material left in, and there are undoubtedly plenty of sourced BLPs that have content that shouldn't be there. The point is being missed.--Michig (talk) 11:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support -- The idea that "sourcing" mitigates "contentiousness" is hard to fathom. One can find sources for the most malicious slanders, while it is hard to find sources for some articles that do no harm to anyone. -- BRG (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tremendously strong support - Quoting Balloonman: "The problem is throwing out the good with the bad". Precisely. What makes it more difficult is that there's so much that passes for "good" at this point. Any wholesale mass deletion must needs destroy an incredible amount of worthwhile information that could be saved merely by adding a source to it. Or is that no longer enough? Will we begin nuking things that have no inline citations, even if there's a source or two at the bottom of the page? There are ways to deal with this problem, yes - wholesale deletion is not among them. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 21:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libellous statements as well as stuff that is just plain wrong and harmless to the subject can be found in apparently sourced articles as well as in unsourced ones. It is good that projects are being encouraged to look over their stock of articles, but this campaign doesn't fix the real problem. When are we going to at least move part of the way that de.wikipedia has on managing new problematic content? If we made serious efforts to stop the mess getting bigger, then projects can be encouraged to steadily work through all that is there already and we would be solvign most of the problem for good rather than indulging in gesture politics.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

There's no overlap whatsoever between unsourced BLPs and ones with contentious unsourced statements? Given the sheer quantity of unsourced ones, I highly doubt that. Mr.Z-man 22:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any evidence? Have prior problems with actual BLP violations had any relation to the article being unreferenced? Can anybody point to a list of prior BLP problem cases, could be interesting to examine. Power.corrupts (talk) 23:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say there was a direct relation, just that a total lack of overlap, as you claim based on a non-random sample of 0.04% of unsourced BLPs, was incredibly unlikely. You're claiming that while there's 50,000 unsourced BLPs, not a single one of them has any contentious content. Based on your experiment, I took a random sample of the January 2010 pages (there are over 1200, so I couldn't check all of them), assuming that older articles that had truly defamatory claims were more likely to have been weeded out by now and found a couple questionable ones. Cilia Flores is an article that makes unsourced claims about someone's political views as well as containing unsourced criticism of those views. Mr. criminal, besides being terribly written, claims that he was arrested and convicted several times (though to be fair, it did have a link to a myspace page in it at one point). Mr.Z-man 00:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would also point out that problematic content is not always obvious. I recall one email to OTRS from a CEO of a company in the UK, who claimed that our article made false statements about him that he was concerned could be damaging to his image. The statements were unsourced (the article itself may have been partially sourced), but unless someone was really familiar with that person or had read the email, it would have looked entirely innocuous (see also JzG's related statements elsewhere on this page and the current ArbCom motion). Mr.Z-man 00:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unrefered content makes a joke of Wikipedia and breaks numerous policies. It is a problem in and off itself and needs to be addressed.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no "alledged 'BLP problem'"; only a BLP problem. I cannot agree with the statement that it's ok to have unsourced bios "because the articles hold no contentious info". They may or they may not, and the best way to find out is by finding sources for the material. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unsourced biographies are contentious. What is contentious beyond this is just a matter of degree. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An unsourced anonymous contribution is not an article, at least not in an encyclopedia. And yes, there really is a BLP problem. Kanguole 12:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I find the statement "If the articles are deleted there is no gain on the alledged BLP problem, because the articles hold no contentious info" quite astonishing. Are we expected to believe that none of these articles contain unacceptable material? That I do not believe: some of them do. The problem, unfortunately, is that we do not know which ones do: requiring sources is Wikipedia's method of telling which do and which don't. Also "alleged BLP problem"? There is a problem, and we need to discuss the best solution to the problem: denying that there is a problem is not helpful at all. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I admit there would be losses but completely disagree that there would be no gains, at least in the long term. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
the issue is unsourced BLP's what ever the content a pov article is a pov article positive or negative Gnan garra 16:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This user is confused. ++Lar: t/c 16:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Avoid personal attacks and explain, Lar. --Cyclopia ^talk 17:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What were you having trouble understanding this time? ++Lar: t/c 20:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, 3rd grade taunts. He raises a vaild point. Hobit (talk) 01:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
an unsourced BLP is a contentious BLP. Jack Merridew 23:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I claim I find any unsourced statement in any BLP contentious do I get to delete them all? Claiming that someone won a golf tournament is pretty hard to reasonably label as contentious. Hobit (talk) 01:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds that it is impossible to know what may be contentious or not without sources. As noted by Coren in the arbcom decision, even something as boring as "place of birth" or "birthdate" could be contentious. There are LOTS of ways to damage someone's reputation, and to be an unwitting partner to that is unexcuable just so some private individual with a tenuous claim to notability can have an article maintained about them; especially where we have no assurances that anything in that article is even "right". --Jayron32 06:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. The premise of Wikipedia is that non academics can write an encyclopedia because the content is based on verifiable reliable sources. The material in an article without sources is completely unreliable and should either be promptly backed up with sources or removed. The problem with having false, stale, or poor quality content is intensified because Wikipedia is usually a top search result for internet search engines, and the content is often mirrored on other web sites. So there is urgency in verifying the material and removing unsourced or poorly sourced content. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 20:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2nd View by Power.corrupts

The proposal will make the BLP situation worse, not better. Wikipedia has 50k unreferenced BLP articles and 400k referenced BLP articles. Examining the 50k articles at AfD over a year will roughly amount to 1,000 articles per week, about the same amount of articles currently debated at the already strained AfD circuit. This considerable additional workload will necessarily deprive the attention given to identifying unsourced contentious statements (i.e. the real BLP problem) in all BLP articles, not least the 400k referenced articles.

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Users who endorse this summary

Power.corrupts (talk) 11:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Logically, this is the checkmate for the deletionists: they're explicitly making their problem worse. Unfortunately, they will never understand it. They take too much instinctive pleasure in their moral crusade. --Cyclopia ^talk 14:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

3rd View by Power.corrupts

The proposal is a veiled WP:N initiative, merely using BLP concerns as a vehicle. Unreferenced articles is basically a discussion witin the WP:N realm. The AfD discussions of articles nominated under this proposal so far, clearly demonstrate that keep or delete arguments are based on the WP:N guideline. The BLP proposal is fundamentally a WP:N discussion veiled in WP:BLP urgency and alarmism. Proponents of this proposal are generally also known staunch supporters of a strict interpretation of N and wish it be promoted from guideline to policy status.

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Users who endorse this summary

Power.corrupts (talk) 11:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

View by Themfromspace

My solution would be to create a sort of "holding tank" for all uncited BLP articles. This could be a separate project space altogether, or the subpages of a WikiProject. Each uncited BLP would then be automatically moved out of the mainspace to this holding space where it would not be indexed by Google. Each of these articles would then be considered a work in progress (and could be tagged as such) until they were moved back into the mainspace. Once we have the whole lot protected from sight, editors would then be able to take their time looking for sources, tagging them for deletion (by the usual methods) or moving them back into the mainspace on a case-by-case basis when they are fixed. This solution preserves the material on wiki while sheltering it from the eyes of most casual readers. No content will be deleted out of practice, but none would be publicly visible as a "wikipedia article". I think this is a fair compromise between the hard core eventualist and deletionist proposals given above.

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Users who endorse this summary

Them From Space 19:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In effect a separate instance of the Incubator. DES ^(talk) 21:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. To what end? I approve the logic entirely, up to the point of ignoring the existing Incubator. Rd232 ^talk 22:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I figured this was out of the incubator's scope but they can go there if appropriate. My main point is that I would like them all to go someplace away from the public's eye at once and then be let back on a case by case basis. Them From Space 22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The incubator is currently for articles where a specific editor has indicated and intention to improve the article, as I understand it. That function might be overwhelmed by this proposal, so keeping them separate but parallel might be a good idea. DES ^(talk) 03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see some merit in this too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we must remove them from public sight, then let them be sent to a holding area such as this, so that others beyond the (shrinking and overworked) administrator corps can help resolve them. Jclemens (talk) 03:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fundamental problem is unsourced, unverified claims about living people written by anonymous and unaccountable people on the intertubes and advertised as being factual, accurate and fair entries in an encyclopedia. Automatic move to the holding pen is not a bad idea.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who disagree with this summary

Sounds like a proposal to create a entirely new level of bureacracy akin to Purgatory. Maybe we could ask the Jesuits to handle this, so as not to burden our administrators. Giving the last rites before deletion would be an extra benefit. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1)I agree that this would be an entirely new level of bureacracy. (2) The amount of work entailed in checking every article one by one would be so great that the job wold never get done. I have seen other well-meaning projects to clean up particular classes of articles. Lists have been made, and for a while an group of enthusiastic editors have beavered their way through the lists. The lists are still around, years later, with a small percentage of the work done, and no active work being continued. (3) "Once we have the whole lot protected from sight, editors would then be able to take their time looking for sources" is nonsense. If an editor can see the article to edit it then any member of the public can see it. Maybe it isn't listed on Google, but that doesn't mean that the information isn't public. If a libellous article about me ever appears on Wikipedia and is not deleted as quickly as is reasonably possible I will not accept as a defence "ah, but members of the public had to click on a link labelled WikiProject unsourced BLPs, otherwise they couldn't see it. Nor would any judge. Even if access were restricted to registered Wikipedia users, would I accept "ah, but only about eleven and a half million members of the public could read the libellous material", and other people would have to do something called "registering" before they could see it? Of course not. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose on WP:BURO grounds. However there may be some workable ideas in conjunction with other proposals. ++Lar: t/c 16:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Too complicated. Sandstein 19:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is just another form of deletion/prod/incubation, et al. -- Banjeboi 20:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Lar, Sandstein, and Benjiboi. I agree with Gavin Collins, but not with the tone. Also, we are humans, not bots. Bearian (talk) 01:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who are neutral with this policy

Such a proposal has significant merit, but the complexity and consequences would be problematic. As there are other proposals adding procedures but which are significantly better, I cannot support. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Arthur Rubin

Any deletion by an accelerated process (taking less than a week, or with more than 1000 active at a time), such as most proposed here, should, after deletion, restore a (locked, if needed) stub stating something like:

This article was deleted as being an article about a living person without sources. If you wish to create an article about the person, you may

Request temporary undeletion or userfication so you can find reliable sources to verify information about the person. (You will have no more than one week to find those sources.)
Discuss finding such sources on the talk page, and/or
Bring the matter to deletion review.

The stub should not be deleted for 6 months, unless a non-accelerated deletion procedure is followed.

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Users who endorse this summary

(me) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If mass deletion does win a consensus, the deleted articles should give clear instructions as to what can be done to restore them. (More than a short blurb in wikispeak). Them From Space 19:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was just suggesting that any and all articles deleted in a process with limited review be deleted and stubbed. The details shouldn't have been in my proposal. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I don't think we need to encourage editors to use deletion review, so I would leave this part out. People who don't have an account and never have edited the encyclopedia before would probably need a much simpler template: "You may ask for the text of this page at [[appropriate page|this page]]." Also, new editors need to know that they can simply replace the entire template with sourced text. Many would probably hesitate to edit on such pages, so we need to (a) encourage new editors to edit on such pages (b) provide the relevant links to WP:RS, WP:BLP and WP:V. Cs32en Talk to me 19:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Up to a point. I think we should amend the UI text around the deleted article to make the restoration procedure explicit, and we should have a separate subpage of WP:DRV with a template or wizard that allows you to identify the article and the sources which you intend to use to support it. Guy (Help!) 20:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with Cs32en's points. Vassyana (talk) 22:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in my private capacity as an administrator, not as a representative of the Foundation - Philippe 22:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, if (as would be preferable) an article gets moved to the incubator, there should be a note as to where to find it. Jheald (talk) 23:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a good way of tracking some notable articles which will likely get deleted. An admin can always restore the article for an interested editor on hte proviso of future addition of sources. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree here. Also I would prefere usification to more experienced editors. Martin451 (talk) 01:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support in principle, although I share the notion with other endorsers that some of the details can be revisited and fleshed out thoroughly. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At least worthy of further consideration, in conjunction with whatever else gets adopted. ++Lar: t/c 16:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can't see the downside. Sandstein 19:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But only as a rescue anchor if consensus really emerges in favor if mass deletion (I really hope it doesn't). And in this case I see no reason to delete those messages ever. It would be like WP:RA on those articles, informing editors that previous content exists that could be restored if they are willing to work on it, which will probably make it more interesting for some editors to create them again. But again, supporting this proposal does not mean I support deletion itself. Regards So Why 22:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse while opposing mass deletion. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, as with any other deletion that does not involve a discuss, any admin could undelete individual articles upon request. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since it looks like a special procedure for dealing with unsourced BLPs will come out of this RfC, I support this proposal as a reasonable compromise between WP:PRESERVE and the assumption that anything un-sourced is contentions, which is held by ArbCom, Jimbo, and about a third of the voters in MZMcBride's proposal. Pcap ping 13:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Opposed:

Opposed. This is still mass deleting and doing several processes that are likely unneeded in the first place. The energy required should instead be applied to simply adding sources and using our already established processes to fix, redirect, prod and delete articles accordingly. -- Banjeboi 20:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unworkable. Bearian (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Sandstein

The Arbitration Committee has the authority to settle disputes by applying accepted Wikipedia policy and guidelines, but it has no authority to make policy. For this reason, the motion (permalink) about to be passed in the current BLP deletions arbitration case only settles the dispute about the specific mass deletions, blocks and other actions at issue in that case. The motion is not to be understood as changing or superseding general deletion policy and process as applied to the biographies of living persons, and it should be considered void if and insofar as it might have been intended to have that effect. Instead, any policy change should be decided by community consensus, starting with this RfC.

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Users who endorse this summary

Sandstein 19:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Although ArbCom has its power to issue statements, these statements only reflect consensus and consensus can change. Them From Space 19:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ARB says it: the community have to sort this out. Power.corrupts (talk) 19:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Some people seem to have forgotten this. Hut 8.5 20:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. How to proceed must be worked out here, not by unilateral actions. henrik•talk 20:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Cs32en Talk to me 20:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The ArbCom (a body appointed by supreme fiat, although based upon the results of a non-binding poll) has no authority to put forth decisions that do not comply with our guidelines and WP:5P. Consensus can always overturn any ArbCom decision, and it would be far more approriate to allow the multiple discussions to be completed before issuing any decision. No policy, guideline, or principal allows for the deletion of non-contentious material. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 20:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, Sandstein is full of clue; I'm honestly confuzzled by the number of comments suggesting that the Motion is anything other than an acknowledgement that editors with good intentions got over zealous and the community should sort things. Shell ^babelfish 20:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt (talk) 21:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Arbcom is claiming they can overrule a wider consensus, but they shouldn't be. Hobit (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rd232 ^talk 22:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gigs (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Guettarda (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be consistent with the comment by Shell (and concurring comments by Hersfold and KnightLago) on the motion. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nsk92 (talk) 00:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kind of a meta-view, but absolutely endorse. Nothing should get in the way of consensus. --Cyclopia ^talk 00:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JoshuaZ (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
99of9 (talk) 00:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Martin451 (talk) 01:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed -- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John Z (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Spot on. --Mkativerata (talk) 10:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only valid source for editorial policy change rests with the editors according to precedent. If we truly believe that we are competent to write encyclopedia articles, we ought similarly be competent enough to determine which articles on a case-by-case basis ought to be deleted as a matter of policy. CSD currently allows for gross violations of BLP to be deleted quickly, but the current ArbCom position vis-a-vis endorsing deliberate violation of set processes was ill-advised, and ArbCom should forthwith state that the authority to set policy rests with the editors. Collect (talk) 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ruslik_Zero 14:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is how much i trust ArbCom in this matter. We have to find our own comprise and not let ourselves be imposed a sort of decree from god. --KrebMarkt 14:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to sign. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCOM rushed to a verdict and the resolution actually does not represent the views of all the members. A number of people who supported the resolution actually indicated that the mass deletions were not the best thought out path---but they still supported the statement that praised the action?---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Arbcom didn't do to hot this time. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Without endorsing or condemning the statement, if S's proposal means that statement applied there and need not apply (or not apply) in any future case, but any future case will have to be made in the context of the result of this RfC and any ensuing consensus policy changes and implementations, I fully agree. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom does not dictate policy. Period. Anyone or anything claiming otherwise and acting upon it could be seen as just short of a Wikipedia Coup d'état, overthrowing the community and basic concept of consensus, and is indeed in opposition to the deepest roots within WMF:Values that we are a community-lead collaborative project. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 19:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a minimum view. Right reserved to support even stronger comment.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reso lute 20:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So Why 21:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is deplorable that this even needs to be said. Skomorokh 22:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With an inverted paraphrase of Lar's comment, anyone on the Arbitration Committee who thinks the community hasn't sent a clear signal here is fooling themselves. At their peril. Durova⁴⁰³ 23:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ray^Talk 01:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Skomorokh. Bearian (talk) 01:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I agree with the main statement and various views expressed here. Orderinchaos 03:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support, absolutely. Blurpeace 03:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. However, the issue is that those in favor of deletions are intentionally misreading the current policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
not that it matters. Could we get a list of the arbs who commended/praised this disruption? It seems to be hard to find the motion now. . .R. Baley (talk) 05:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While my hasty statement at the RFAR late last night was misinformed, as I somehow completely overlooked the fact that arbcom had in effect handed this issue back to the community to resolve via this RFC, for the record I still endorse this motion. The community makes policy decisions, not arbcom, and any attempt to read arbcom's motion last night as carte blanche for ignoring community consensus would I believe be misconceived. Gatoclass (talk) 08:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Michig (talk) 12:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Pcap ping 13:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, shouldn't need saying but clearly does. DuncanHill (talk) 15:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per above. — James Kalmar 20:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Absolutely.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who disagree with this summary

On the face of it an uncontroversial of the correct policy situation. However, making this statement has the tendency, and perhaps the intention, to reduce the authority of the decision. I have read the Arbitration Committee's decision carefully, and I do not see anything in it which could reasonably be interpreted as a change in policy. However I do see much which is a reaffirmation of existing policies which recently a good many editors have been denying, minimising, or trying to explain away. The ArbCom decision's reaffirmation of the existing policy is an important answer to those editors who have followed that line, and a statement seeking to reduce the impact or authority of that decision is unhelpful, even if the actual wording of the statement is technically correct. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks as if it were a clear indication that ArbComm believes the word "contentious" in WP:BLP is (or should be) meaningless. That seems clearly false as an interpretation of policy, and (effectively) removing it is a change of policy. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For one thing the inclusion of the word "contentious" is being debated. For another, any content to which someone objects could be regarded as contentious. Otherwise who decisdes what is contentious? Contention is purely a matter of what people contend, and therefore entirely dependent on subjective judgement. If I disagreee with something you agree with then there is contention. Thus I do not see ArbCom's decision as implying that "contentious" is meaningless. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think anyone who thinks that ArbCom hasn't sent a clear signal here is fooling themselves. At their peril. ++Lar: t/c 16:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Their views are noted but since Wikipedia is not an oligarchy, their views carry no more weight in this discussion than yours or mine. Reso lute 18:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to try that out. Go do something blockable, or even something worth losing your bit over, then after the block (or arbcom case), see if you don't get blocked (or debitted), and then tell me again how the views of those we elected to make these decisions carry no more weight than yours. Disregarding policy is fundamentally a behavioral failing, and it's exactly what ArbCom has a mandate to address. ++Lar: t/c 20:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am suprised to hear such threats from a steward. Are you imaging youself a (deputy) king of this project? Your arrogant behavior is unbecoming for a steward. Ruslik_Zero 20:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean this as any offense to you, but the fact that you are surprised only means you havent been paying attention, at least to certain things.--Cube lurker (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom's function is dispute resolution, in particular interpersonal disputes. It has no mandate to force changes in policy. If the members of the committee wish to participate in these discussions, they should do so wearing the hat of an editor. Using their position as arbitrators to try and influence or overrule the community's will is cowardly. Reso lute 20:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. the arbitration committee sets policies regarding a number of contentious issues all the time. Any policy can be changed. Often they ask for policy to be discussed and decided without their participation. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per Lar; anyone missing this needs to wake up and smell teh coffee. Jack Merridew 23:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per Lar, BLP stems from a foundation resolution folks, you know, the guys that run the servers. If you want to maintain thousands of potentially libellous and hurtful BLPs feel free to transwiki them somewhere else and take your own legal risk but until such time the landlords get to set some rules and the BLP situation is way overdue resolution. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See MickMacNee's comment below. Also, the community elects the Board. — James Kalmar 20:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

My reading is that the motion called for this RfC, and that ArbCom have not taken upon themselves any authority to make policy - rather, that they are commenting on policy, and the implementation of it. I'm not sure I see anything deeply troubling in the motion, though "unsourced biographies of living people may contain seemingly innocuous statements which are actually damaging, but there is no way to determine whether they do without providing sources" is a statement worth examining closely - I'm not entirely sure of the deeper implications of what it is saying. I would welcome an open discussion on that statement. SilkTork *^YES! 21:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how anyone thinks they can tell the ArbCom where to stuff it and continue violating this clearly-worded statement. Do admins plan on ignoring ArbCom and continue to edit war to restore deleted BLPs? Woogee (talk) 22:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Unpopular ArbCom decisions may have ramifications in future ArbCom elections. I, for one, applaud SirFozzie's rational and principled oppose to the motion. Jclemens (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Foundation has Section 230 immunity. All this talk of lawsuits is tedious b.s., the phantom lawsuit that will bring down Wikipedia if Something Is Not Done has been 'around the corner' ever since I've been here. It is activist propoganda, nothing more, nothing less. The reason the policy actualy exists, is one of ethics, not law. There is a difference. Namely, what you might think is ethical, others might not. As for arbcom making policy, what are people smoking if they genuinely believed before this motion that it was either community or indeed admin consensus that the simple existence of material, whatever it said, was 'contentious' as regards the BLP policy, or that under any previously imaginable interpretation of IAR/admin discretion/aggressive enforcement, this brief episode of Total War of the cabal against the community, was justified, let alone excusable. The wording of the motion is a pure retcon of the actual events. Go and read the evidence if anyone doubts it. MickMacNee (talk) 06:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by NuclearWarfare

It has been agreed upon that blatant violations of the most important policies of the site, such as the copyright policy, are incompatible with adminship. Just last week, we had an administrator who had repeatedly violated that copyright policy resign under pressure, and there is a pending Arbitration case over a similar matter. It would probably be commonly agreed upon that the copyright policy and the BLP policy are the two most important policies on the site. Creation of unsourced biographies of living persons has largely been agreed upon to be a violation of WP:BLP. Therefore, the repeated introduction of unsourced BLPs or the failure to clean up unsourced biographies of living persons that one had created a while back after a reasonable amount of time is a violation of WP:BLP. I would submit that the community cannot fully trust administrators who violate the BLP policy.

To clarify, there are indeed multiple administrators who I had in mind while writing this. However, to avoid making this about personalities rather than generalities, I shall refrain from listing the names here.

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Users who endorse this summary

NW (Talk) 19:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If they've obviously neglected to address problematic articles they created, they should be respectfully asked to resign. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. Huge, festering problem.Bali ultimate (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Wordsmith^Communicate 21:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree completely. Admins who are irresponsible with BLPs should not be admins. Lara 21:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 21:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All admins should clean-up any unsourced BLPs they've in their create log; quickly. Jack Merridew 21:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. Mr.Z-man 22:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, however I would also fully support the notion that such an admin can redeem himself and this cloud be considered lifted after a time period of contributions without issues. MLauba (talk) 10:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue of problematic BLPs is the largest problem facing the project, and will remain so going forward. Any admin on the wrong side of the issue shouldn't be an admin, and any prospective administrator should have to demonstrate a grasp of why this is such a large problem before being granted the bit. In short, this idea is a good first step. Unit Anode 12:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to block any regular editor (as a last resort and after patient explanation and due warning) who persists in adding unreferenced material on living people.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is the problem with this proposal. If this proposal were what you said, then I would support it. The problem is that this proposal is intended to work retroactively on articles that people may have written YEARS ago. It places responsibility on them to clean up articles that they may not have touched in 4-5 years, and if they don't clean up the articles that they haven't worked on, then they may be desysoped!---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely correct in every respect. Nobody who willfully or recklessly violates core Wikipedia policy should be an administrator. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adminship is not a permanent gift. If circumstances change, and an admin acts in ways contrary to current policy, eventually, after sufficient discussion, warnings, and milder remedies, loss of adminship is entirely appropriate. This view of NW's is not a new idea, it's merely a restatement of existing principle and policy. ++Lar: t/c 16:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this description of the simple implication that administrators are editors who can demonstrate they can be trusted. I point out that there is a continuous spectrum of this kind of distrust and my support of this statement should not be taken as a support of some codification of a deadminning policy. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. Woogee (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
⇌ Jake Wartenberg 05:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I have to Strongly oppose this based upon NW's comments at WP:BN today. NW felt that a former admin should not have the bit restored because she had 35 unreferenced BLP's that she wrote that she has not even begun to fix. I looked at the first ten items from an automated tool that were give to her a week ago. Of those first ten unreferenced BLPs 4 of them did have in fact have references. One of them her last edit was last year; 3 of them her last edit was in 2008 (2 in Feb of 08)---but on most of them her last edit to the article was in 2004/2005/2006---when our expectations were much different. Heck, I think there was only one article where her last edit the article had been tagged as not having references! Instituting this criteria on articles that one may have written and last edited four, five, or even six years ago is ridiculous. If she hasn't edited the article in 4 years, she probably doesn't care about the article anymore (I've written ariticles that I don't care about.) To say that she should be denied or stripped of her adminship over that is just dumb---especially as expectations were existing at the time. Heck, to expect her to clean them up might be a stretch. Most of those articles have been adopted by Wikiprojects, contact those wikiprojects and let them know about the problems, we'll probably have better luck.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I checked, we didn't normally do opposes in RFCs. Regardless, what does any of this have to do with his proposal? I think you're lost, B-man. Wrong venue and such. This isn't BN and it's not RFA and it's not Nuke's talk page. While I can appreciate you disagreeing with him on the matter of Rebecca's adminship (or lack thereof), opposing a view on an RFC because of that doesn't really do much to cast you in a positive (or reasonable) light. Perhaps you may considering reading his view and either endorsing it or not endorsing it. If you want to comment on specific points you disagree with, the talk page is that way. Lara 00:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I completely oppose the proposal because the proposal, as envisioned by NW, would have applied to Rebecca... I don't know Rebecca. But she would have retroactively become responsible for editing and maintaining articles that she hadn't edited in up to six years! Her request and NW's desire to tie her to those articles provides the perfect reasoning as to why this is a flawed proposal.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What does it matter if she hasn't edited them in six years? That just means she has, for six years, neglected to reference biographies of living people that she wrote. This project is in serious need of cleaning up this BLP problem. We need admins who contribute to fixing the problem, not worsening it. If an admin can't be bothered to reference their own BLPs, how in the world are we to expect them to not only reference others, but do anything proactive wrt to BLPs? Clearly if they're letting their own creations sit for years unreferenced, they don't really care. Not what we need in admins. Lara 01:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Six years ago, the expectations were different. This proposal gives ownership responsibility to individuals. A person can no longer write an article and move on, they would be responsible to ensuring that article is properly maintained and updated based upon the current expectations. This proposal would make the creator responsible for the CURRENT content of an article. If somebody is responsible to ensuring that it meets current expectations, then that person had better have the right to say what goes into it! In other words, they would own it. They should also have the right to delete the article years down the road when they no longer interested in the subject, because it might be used against them. This proposal goes entirely against a community built project and places responsibility on the creator, regardless of how long ago they wrote the aritlce. Saying tha SHE neglected to refefence them is a false premise if she doesn't own the ariticles.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What? Give me a break. It's not giving anyone ownership over anything. It's requesting editors clean up their own messes. Expectations were different then, true... but so what? If you're still here and you're requested to add a reference to BLPs you created and you can't be bothered? What does that say about you? (Collective you.) If an admin cannot be bothered to source their own article creations, BLPs in particular, they clearly do not care about the BLP problem or, in my opinion, the project. There is nothing positive about unsourced biographies, and if an editor is too lazy to look up references for their own BLPs, deciding instead to leave it to someone else, they're just contributing to the backlogs and contributing to the problem. No one of that mind should be an admin. In my opinion, they should be booted off the project. Lara 02:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Except that this does miss a fundamental point: Most of these unsourced articles don't have any problems at all. It isn't an unreasonable course of action for someone to look over the article see that everything in it is clearly true and not harmful and then not bother. There's an assumption here that there's some deep moral problem with unsourced biographies. But the problem isn't in unsourced biographies. The problem is that some of the unsourced biographies might contain problematic material. And that's just a drop in the bucket to the serious BLP problem which this is really a distraction from. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, the missed fundamental point is that this is an encyclopedia which is, by definition, supposed to be written from existing sources. Unreferenced BLPs are not okay, Joshua. No article of an encyclopedia, including this one, should be unsourced. This is particularly important with BLPs. That said, what's the serious BLP problem, Josh? Because every push for anything BLP-related is met with a big ol' fight. Where should we be focusing? The BLP problem is vast. It's not one thing, it's countless things. No matter which one is the focus at any given time, there's always someone there to point out it's the wrong one. How about everyone stop complaining that it's the issue at hand and not some other issue, and just focus on the fact that it's a BLP issue and fix it. Then we can move on to the next, and the next, and so on until we get to the "serious BLP problem", whatever that is. Lara 02:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You and people who live at WP:BLP may feel that way, but the rest of us are not so convinced. Having an unsourced BLP mean that the article was written in a vacuum, is researched, well written, or neutral. It merely means that there are no sources. Having sources is ideal, but not having them is not the end of the world. But, I will agree, BLP's are special. There is a stronger need to have sources, the problem is that not everybody agrees that unsourced BLP's should be blindly deleted en masse. In fact, there is a fair amount of opposition to this notion. A better idea would be to get help in cleaning them up and figuring out which articles are worth keeping and which ones should be deleted. Thus my proposal below, why not get the various wikiprojects to help out? Getting help from others would be much more desirable than mass deletions and will avoid the out cry that will come from mass deletions.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal has nothing to do with deletion. We're talking about this specific proposal, Balloonman. It has to do with making editors responsible for their contributions. WP:V puts the burden on the editor who contributed the information. You want Wikiprojects to do the work, and you want to get help from others. Fantastic. The people who created the article should be willing to help out with it. If they can't be bothered to hit up Google and grab a source to do their part on their own creations, they should not only be denied adminship, they should be shown the door. Everyone has so much time and so many ideas to contribute on what could be done and how it could be done, but at the end of the day, look at how many of those people are actually working on BLPs. I'll give you a hint: It's not an impressive numbers. Lara 02:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that the only proposal I've seen from the BLP crew here is CSD/PROD. There are other proposals out ther... but people should not be obligated to own an article six years after they wrote it. There may be other editors who are much more involved in the article and the articles development than the person who first started it. As for "their own creations" that only matters if they OWN their creations. Once they finish editing the article it is no longer theirs. Now, if you were talking about a person who routinely wrote BLPs today without providing sources, I'd be in full agreement with you... but you are talking about holding a persons feet to the fire for actions taken YEARS ago. You can ask them to do something, but they simply may not care enough about the subject, again you cannot attribute motivations for somebody failing to act in the way you want them to.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You miss my point. Yes, our end goal is to connect everything to reliable sources. But if there articles that are truthful and whose soul problem is a lack of sourcing in the articles then that fundamentally isn't a high priority issue. The rest of what you said is simply window dressing. To say that this is a substantial part of the BLP problem is seriously missing the forest for the trees. Simply put we have far more serious problems with POV pushing, vandalism and related issues. If you want to do something useful send a note to your favorite member of the Board harassing them about flagged revisions. Or add more articles to your watchlist. Or help figure out which BLPs are getting regular vandalism and still aren't protected. All of those are far more useful. Frankly, the problem here seems to be that much of the actual solutions (aside from getting flagged revisions) simply aren't glamorous. That's how life works. There's far more work to be done maintaining content than engaging in this sort of destructive drama. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just going to assume that you neither read my response nor realize who you're talking to, because I know JoshuaZ did not just advise me on how to edit wrt to BLPs or what the problems are. Lara 03:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure that JoshuaZ did exactly that. If however, you insist on personalizing this to somehow being about you and me (it really isn't, and personalizing things likely would make a matter which is already quite emotional for a lot of people even more so) Just wondering when was your last edit that actually got rid of a genuinely bad statement in a BLP? From your contributions it looks like it was in November. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've done more than my fair share to fix this problem. Which one of the other signatures on this page is your sock account, used to keep BLPs that should be deleted... or do you not do that anymore? Lara 03:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for not answering the question. Of course, you know that I've repeatedly denied those accusations. Now why don't we try to actually focus on the issue at hand which is the complete lack of utility in these deletions. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ecx2 That is the definition of ownership. If a specific individual is responsible for the article, despite not working on the article for years, then you are putting ownership responsibilities on them. According to this proposal, the creator of an article is still responsible for the article SIX YEARS AFTER creating it. Guess what if I fail to add a source to an article I wrote SIX YEARS ago, it does not say anything about my concern for BLP. It probably says more about my interest in the subject. Let me give you an example, I wrote an article that was taken to AFD. Did I fight for the article? No, I didn't bother to get involved in the debate because frankly I didn't care about the article anymore. I had written it 2+ years ago and moved on. You cannot make the generalization that a person is responisble for editing an article simply because they wrote it, by doing so, you are putting more responsibility on article creation than was EVER intended.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The verifiability policy, which ranks pretty high on the scale of importance, puts the burden on the editor who added the content. Your ownership argument remains ridiculous in my opinion. Lara 02:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Expecting an editor to clean up an article they wrote six years ago and making them responsible to do so under threat of desysopping is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that you think admins would be that lazy and worthless is ridiculous to me. If you'd written a couple BLPs five years ago and I asked you to "Hey Balloonman, we're trying to get this backlog of 50 thousand unrefed BLPs down, can you do a couple Google searched and try to find a ref or two for these BLPs you created?", would you refuse? Lara 02:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are misconstruing doing the right thing and establishing bad policy---this is bad policy. As for your question: Depends... probably I would, but if it was on a subject I no cared about, I might not. Let's turn the issue around. You wrote an article five years ago. When you wrote it, it was a short stub and conformed to all of the guidelines at the time. In the intermeaning five years, the article has grown and policies have changed. Perhaps it was on a subject you didn't care about or perhaps the article took an editorial direction you disagreed with. Perhaps you left the article because somebody who cared more about it took the lead on its development. Or perhaps you merely stopped caring about the subject. The article is still well written and neutral, perhaps better written than what you had, but as far as you are concerned it is no longer your article---you could care less if it was deleted or not. The point is, that it is in no way shape or form the article you wrote and you haven't been involved with it for years. Based upon this proposal you would still be responsible for the content and if you don't clean it up, then you may be desysopped. If a person is going to have responsibility for ensuring that it conforms to guidelines in perpetuity merely because they wrote the first incarnation, then they need to have editorial powers. The point is, that you cannot deduce motives in failing to act and you should not impose penalties for failing to do what somebody else wants. We are ultimately volunteers here and you cannot force others to have the same set of priorities that you have.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would, without doubt, add a source. If I couldn't find one, I'd nom it for deletion myself. We are all volunteers, and you're right that we can't force people to have the same set of priorities. We also don't have to allow them to keep their adminship. People have been desysopped for less, after all. Lara 03:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to see the call for a desysop based upon the fact that somebody refuses to edit an article they haven't touched in six years. The only basis for trying to force them to would be because they ~~own~~, I mean, wrote it.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're surely stuck on that ownership thing, aren't you. Understanding the verifiability policy is hard. I know. But whatever. You're clearly the expert when it comes to who's acceptable for adminship, Ballloonman. I'll just rely on your expertise for basing my decision here. Lara 03:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I fully understand verifiability. But do you realize that 6 years is a long time. If a person hasn't edited an article in six years, perhaps there is a reason. You want to make people responsible for articles that have been in the public domain for six years simply because they were the one to click the button that said "create this page." Verifiability is good and fine... but if you want to force somebody to adhere to that policy do so within a reasonable time frame. Years after the fact is not a reasonable time frame. The only way that you can expect somebody to do something six years down the road is if you expect them to be responsible for it.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care if it was nine years ago. It's a Google search. Help fix the problem or go away. Lara 03:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I invite Jennavecia (who chooses to sign as "Lara") to consider WP:CIVIL
Just for the record---that was NOT me.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No it was me. I must have forgotten to sign: sorry. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I may return to Balloonman's "Strongly oppose", a case in which NuclearWarfare made comments which Balloonman disagreed is irrelevant to whether we agree or disgree with what NuclearWarfare has said here. For the same reason all the above argument following from that is also irrelevant. The suggestion should be judged on its own merits, not on ad hominem arguments about something the same person said elsewhere. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that this assigns responsibility to people who may not have been involved with articles since their inception. If the proposal were reworded to talk about an ongoing problem I could support that. But to make a guideline that can be applied to articles that an author wrote years ago is dumb. The next thing you know, we are going to try to instill a policy that if you edit an article, you are responsible for cleaning it up.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 14:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is just one criteria by which a RFA could be voted on by someone. In it self it is not a reason to desysop. As yet there is no policy on when to desysop. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's what RFCs are for. Lara 02:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But not this one.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 02:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If consensus is gained here for a proposal, there is room to run. Lara 02:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also oppose any such ex post facto rules. If the rules do in fact change as a result of this RfC, then an amnesty for actions taken prior to the RfC must accompany such changes. No one should be penalized when their previously-accepted behavior later becomes impermissible. Jclemens (talk) 03:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When I posted this, I did not mean for it to become a new rule used to desysop people or anything of the sort. I just felt that administrators should not be actively refusing to source articles that they themselves introduced to the encyclopedia as BLP violations. Also...weren't we going to move the oppose sections to the talk page? NW (Talk) 03:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NW, the problem is that as you tried to apply this rule earlier today, it would have been applied to articles that were written before BLP was an issue.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So where else in Wikipedia do we make people deal with their previous contributions? I seriously know of no precedent where a user's standing (administrators included) can be adversely affected by a requirement to maintain previous articles on which they've worked. To be sure, many do feel some sense of pride, connectness, or whatever, and editors who're still around often do maintain the articles they've helped. But a positive, elective ongoing association is different than a negative (punitive?), mandatory ongoing association. Jclemens (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We make people cleanup their own copyright violations oftentimes. I would consider the introduction of unsourced BLPs to be just as damaging as copyright violations, at least new administrators. NW (Talk) 11:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I will agree with that... if the proposal had a time frame or something, it would be more than reasonable. The problem is, that you would use this proposal on people who haven't edited an article in YEARS. My writing an unsourced BLP today is a lot different than my ignoring an unsourced BLP I wrote five years ago and haven't touched in 3.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per Jclemens. Reminders, sure - but that's already underway by bot notification. Rd232 ^talk 07:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
as worded this would appear, indeed, to be ex post facto and therefore contrary to common sense. The rules at the time the acts occur ought to be the determining factor, although I fear the motion adopted by ArbCom arrogates powers to ArbCom not reasonably foreseen. As the plenum for WP, it is, moreover, up to the users to prevent such arrogation, and this proposal does not do so. Collect (talk) 11:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No ex post facto rules. Ruslik_Zero 14:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Don't be silly. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh hell no. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per collect and Balloonman. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Totally silly. Pcap ping 00:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Collect, Ruslik, et al., as an ex post facto rule. Also, people make terrible mistakes when they are newbies; I should not be desysopped because of Joseph Stenard. Bearian (talk) 01:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This would be a purge of admins for old mistakes. To make creating unsourced BLPs retrospectively a policy violation severe enough to deserve desysopping is not reasonable. Fences&Windows 22:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by OrangeDog

As far as I can tell, the only problem with BLP articles that other articles don't have is that of libellous statements. However, an unreferenced article need not be libellous and a libellous article need not be unreferenced. From a technical perspective, not every article with {{unreferenced blp}} is an unreferenced blp and not every unreferenced blp has {{unreferenced blp}}. Therefore, judging whether a blp article requires special treatment cannot just be a check of unreferencedness and should not be done automatically without proper human oversight.

Not every user checks Wikipedia every day. Many will only have access at weekends, or deliberately restrict themselves to weekends due to having real-life work to do. Therefore, no process that assumes or expects the input of other editors should take less than 7 days to complete.

Any article (including blps) that is entirely libellous can be deleted using WP:CSD#G10. Any unreferenced article on a non-notable person can be deleted using WP:CSD#A7. Libellous material on any article is already removed on sight, and WP:OVERSIGHT can be requested if necessary. Articles subject to repeated addition of libellous material can be protected. Unreferenced articles on notable living people that contain no contentious material (including, but not limited to a large number of stubs) should be treated the same as any other article, noting that they provide useful information and provide a mechanism for the encylopedia to grow.

In conclusion, I do not see any reason to create new deletion processes to circumvent or abuse those that we already have. Especially not ones that involve automatic and unsupervised mass deletion.

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
—David Eppstein (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jheald (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 00:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John Z (talk) 09:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Xxanthippe (talk) 11:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 13:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - When you put it that way, the BLPers really have no leg to stand on. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
llywrch (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bearian (talk) 01:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The present policies permit the removal of libel. However, this is not adequate, and a system such as flagged revisions is preferable to help prevent libel from being added, even when it is sourced. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Michig (talk) 12:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BRG (talk) 16:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC) my point of view exactly. in response to Baccyak below, inaccurate information is bad in all articles - I'm sure the harm done by inaccurate info in our medical articles, for example, is far greater than that in our blps, but we're not deleting unreferenced medical articles...[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

Perhaps I am spitting hairs, but I regard inaccurate information, even if innocuous, as a problem in a BLP. There clearly is a need to improve the BLP issue, even if it's only flagged revisions (but even that would not have totally prevented what started this dramorgy). Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My point there was that innocuous inaccurate information is a problem in every article. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 14:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This user is confused. ++Lar: t/c 16:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain, Lars. He makes perfect sense to me, & makes the point I have with the BLP issue -- if an article about a living person is not contentious or damaging to the person's reputation, & the person is clearly notable, what harm is the article causing if it lacks sources? -- llywrch (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Hut 8.5

Unsourced BLPs are a problem. They are more of a problem than other unsourced articles. But the best possible way of countering this problem is not deleting all the articles but sourcing all of them. To date, there has been very little attempt to source all of these articles. I have fixed a number of them recently, and this has convinced me that a large percentage of these articles can be sourced, most with very little effort. There are many reasons why this hasn't been done so far - it's fairly tedious work with little recognition, to name the most obvious two. But this is a problem that can be tackled.

I propose that we set up a wikiproject to source unreferenced BLPs. The issue has now become high profile, so such a project will probably attract quite a few members. Perhaps the project could involve other wikiprojects in the relevant fields, as has been suggested elsewhere. If, a few hundred editors are prepared to source just one or two articles per day then within a few months there will be a significant impact on the backlog. If little progress is made then, perhaps, we could come back to the drawing board and consider mass deletions. But at least this way we could try to retain some baby when we throw out the bathwater. Hut 8.5 20:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: if you're interested in sourcing these articles you may want to sign this. Hut 8.5 21:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Hut 8.5 20:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DES ^(talk) 21:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Referencing BLP articles (and others) is highly useful, but in practice it wont have any impact on the BLP concerns at all. What is needed is an intelligent bot (likely a human) that can locate problematic BLP statements in the body text. It's a monumental task to reference BLP articles (which basically is a veiled WP:N issue), it's a wholly impossible task to source all sentences with uncontested material in an article. Power.corrupts (talk) 21:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. They should be done by category so editors skilled at and interested in sourcing (or even just in a narrow category of articles!) can proceed with doing exactly that. Orderinchaos 06:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I personally have seen Hut at work on the problem this week, and believe this is a good-faith effort to fix a serious problem. I remain skeptical that this will solve all of WP's problems with BLPs, but encourage editors to try to source these articles. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 12:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Only as a working group (taskforce) of WikiProject Biography. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this idea. If another process for deleting unsourced BLPs gains enough community consensus (such as developing a PROD tag, etc.), this project would work nicely with it, as users could sort through these PRODed articles and source them. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not. But not at the expense of not doing something. Every BLP needs fixing, and the time for dithering is past. As an adjunct to some other more concrete proposal, sure. By itself? no. ++Lar: t/c 17:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A reasonable proposal in conjunction with other proposals. Details/scope/operations open for discussion. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So Why 22:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as written by Hut 8.5, and per SuperHamster and Baccyak4H. I also agree to plan it as possibly as a working group of the BLP, as SMcCandlish suggests. Bearian (talk) 01:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Several editors are already doing something to fix these BLPs. This should be encouraged.--Michig (talk) 12:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Reso lute 22:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by MickMacNee

The recent and ongoing activist campaign of out of process and unsupported deletions was and is a disgusting abuse of power by a small band of rogue admins. Despite what the proposed arbitration motions says, they are condemned by their own words. They did not really care if they had policy on their side or not, what motivated them to abuse their tools in this way was a contempt for the community, and their best attempt at an explanation was a variation of 'I'm fed up and have the power to do something' and 'IAR allows me to do what the hell I want'. The ends justify the means? Well, we'll see what the next campaign might be, maybe it will be something you don't think 'just needs doing'. One thing is for certain, you won't receive any warning on Wikipedia.

See Wikipedia:Petition against IAR abuse for a more general opinion and a way to permanently register your disgust. MickMacNee (talk) 20:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

Ikip 21:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Wikipedia is rewarding editors with this philosophy.[5][reply]
I agree with the spirit of this comment, if not the actual vitriol. Reso lute 22:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support but less strongly worded. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with sentiment not wording, and noting that *many* admins are as shocked at these weird goings on as are other users. Orderinchaos 06:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 12:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with sentiment. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I thought this is how arbcom would see it too. Oh well. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
just to make sure I'm on the shit list when the time comes. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support although I'd prefer more straightforward wording.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I am outraged at the Arbcom decision. Normally I get on fine by ignoring wiki-bureaucracy but this is too big and too awful to ignore. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the idea per Resolute, Graeme Bartlett, Orderinchaos, et al., but I'd tone it down. Bearian (talk) 01:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not so much IAR as admins intentionally misreading policy pages after not getting their way in discussions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User who oppose this summary

I strongly disagree with the "delete on sight" idea for improperly referenced BLPs, and lean toward the "new variant of PROD" solution. But I can't assume bad faith about the admins who were doing the deletions. I can assume chutzpah, but that's actually kind of encouraged around here (BOLD, IAR, BRD, etc.) ArbCom only found their approach problematic for being "chaotic" but agreed that it was within policy and commendably motivated. The admins were not borderline vandals or something, they were editors whose good-conscience interpretations of iron clad policy led to them what they saw as the only option to take to protect the encyclopedia and its subjects. One does not have to kick them in the virtual groin to disagree with the specific approach they took and propose a different one. If you want to tell the ArbCom they are full of crap, try WT:ARBCOM; that's not what this RfC is for. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to agree with you, but perhaps you haven't read statements like this one by the admins doing the deletion. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that just cemented my position on the matter. The admin is question is exercising IAR as a matter of strongly-held ethical principle, and is willing to be desysoped for it if necessary. A bit melodramatic, and certainly polarized, but not crazy or vandalistic. I don't agree with his proposed solution of deleting everthing but the best 20% of BLPs, but I can respect his reasons for wanting to do so. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 23:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with this more strongly than anything else I have read so far on this page. MickMacNee has ignored both WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, and the policy on no personal attacks. However much MickMacNee may dislike the actions of the people in question, to be so contemptuous towards them is totally unhelpful. Furthermore I do not see this as a "disgusting abuse of power": on the contrary, they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy. The fact that there is a significant number of editors who disagree with the existing policy does not invalidate that fact. If you don't like the policy, the thing to do is to argue in favour of changing it, not to make angry and uncivil accusations of bad faith against those who take efforts to implement that policy. As for the comment by Cyclopia, the fact that one of the administrators in question has made a rather intemperate and intolerant comment does not justify an abusive attack on all those involved. Also even if MickMacNee had confined his attack to Scott MacDonald, the comment by Scott MacDonald linked by Cyclopia, although extremely ill-judged and unhelpful, would not justify MickMacNee's remarks.
JamesBWatson (talk) 13:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When editors flagrantly violate our policies as Scott MacDonald, Lar, and Rdm2376 did, the faith and confidence that editors have in the rules and in our system is damaged. JamesBWatson, your condemnation of MickMacNee not following policy, with your accompanying acronyms, seems rather meaningless given the disgusting history of this RFC.

"they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy." is so utterly false I am shocked.

Scott MacDonald, who was blocked three times wrote:
"Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[6]

Lar protected an editor war on WP:BLP, protecting it on his "friend"s edit which deleted the word "contentious" from "~~Contentious~~ material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive"[7] Before this edit, the edit had stood for 3 years. A couple of hours later, Lar was deleting non-contentious articles. Clearly Lar knew the policy, protecting BLP on his "friends" edit, and yet Lar blatantly ignored policy.

Arbitor SirFonzzie warned that the next editor who edited the protected page WP:BLP would lose his adminship, Coffee, the editor who began the wheel war when Scott MacDonald was blocked his first of three times, reverted the page anyway.

Coffee has since proceeded to threatened to block editors for following the rules established for removing PRODS. User_talk:Power.corrupts#Warning

This complete disregard for our community rules is a portent of the disruption that the deletion of 50,000 articles will bring: bullying and abuse of administrator powers on a grand scale. MickMacNee was right, this was a "disgusting abuse of power"

If editors repeat an untruth long enough, editors unaware of the real history will believe it. Statements such as "they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy" should be quickly condemned as a complete and dangerous fabrication, because it teaches editors that disruption and "utter contempt" for our rules will be rewarded and that "disruption" will be forgotten. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 08:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we have more inciviity, and more failure to assume good faith. If the above had said that "they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy" was a mistake, then it would simply be a difference of opinion. However, instead we are told that it is a fabrication. It is not: it is a sincere statement of what I believe to be the situation. Does Ikip have any grounds for thinking I did not write that in good faith? As for Scott MacDonald's comments, I have already said that he was wrong: that, however, is completely different from saying that all the actions of all the editors in question were wrong. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per JamesBWatson. This user is sorely confused. Not just a little. And way out of line. ++Lar: t/c 17:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose this on grounds of its civility alone. As to its content, I respond mu. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds that this misses the point entirely. If there needs an RFC started about actions by specific admins, be our guest. This in no way addresses the issue of how to manage BLPs. --Jayron32 06:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Ikip

Addendum: Wikipedia:Petition against Ignore all rules abuse

This RFC came about by the mass deletion of over 500 articles by Scott MacDonald, Lar, and Rdm2376.[8]

We are rewarding the behavior of administrator Scott MacDonald who holds consensus in "utter contempt"[9], with a Requests for comment to build consensus.

This RFC was created MZMcBride, who in response to "The deletions are well out of process, if the current process isn't working then it should be changed but the community should be involved in making that decision." stated, "The community is incapable of such a conversation and decision."[10] If MZMcBride believes that the community is incapable of decision and supports disruptive behavior in violation of consensus, why did MZMcBride create this RFC?

Some of the same editors who supported Scott MacDonald's, Lar's, and Rdm2376's "utter contempt" for consensus are now trying to build consensus. The irony and hypocrisy is overwhelming.

User:Coffee unblocked User:Rdm2376 after he was told to stop deleting articles with no consensus, unblock reason: "no breach of policy here"[11]
Jennavecia/Lara: "The "community" is irresponsible. Consensus, like perfection, is unattainable. As always, if people are opposed to the idea of taking out the garbage because they can make art out of it, get to making or take your seat."[12]
Trac: "if the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ten ignore them (sic)...It is rather unfortunate that admins chose to block other admins for improving the Wikipedia in this fashion, and they should be dealt with accordingly."[13]
JBsupreme: "I applaud the bold actions of these editors who stepped forward and did the right thing."[14]

Three cheers to editor Sandstein, Jehochman, etc. who support the end deletion result, but still beleive consensus is necessary first.

I ask that MZMcBride remove his statement, allowing Jehochman's statement, which supports MZMcBride's views, be the first on this page. Jehochman at least consistently acknowledges and respects consensus. It is hypocritical for MZMcBrideto selectively support consensus only when it supports his viewpoint.[15]

As Scott MacDonald and Tarc stated, should we hold the results of this RFC in "utter contempt" and "ignore them"?[16][17]

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Users who endorse this summary

Ikip 21:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gigs (talk) 23:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 23:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JohnWBarber (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ruslik_Zero 13:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support. Admins should support policy, consensus, and ArbCom. Bearian (talk) 01:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who Oppose this summary

Oppose as with MickMacNee's statements, this misses the point. RFC/User is elsewhere. If the actions of admins who acted irresponsibly need to be discussed, please have that discussion, but have it elsewhere. The discussion here needs to be focused on how to manage the BLP problem at Wikipedia. Even a proposed solution of "maintain the status quo/make no changes to the BLP situation" would have been better than statements like this, because at least it would remain focused on the topic at hand rather than straying into discussions which have nothing to do with this RFC. --Jayron32 07:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This argument misses the point. The underlying way that this RFC came into being is a portent of the way these same editors and their supporters will bullying handle deleting 50,000 articles: badly, disruptively, and as bullies. "straying into discussions which have nothing to do with this RFC." ignores the entire history of how we got here. This RFC did not happen in a vacuum, pretending that this RFC does not have a vile history because it severely weakens your viewpoint does not change this fact. When the community discusses consensus, we discuss all of the consequences of those proposals. Lar, Scott MacDonald and Rdm2376 are the face of the bullying and "utter contempt" for other editors which the community will have to suffer through if we decide to delete 50,000 articles. Condoning such behavior by attempting to sweep it under the rug does not change that history. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 07:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Without endorsing or disputing any of the assertions made, I do not feel this is constructive at this particular venue. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
the community should not reward intentional "disruption" and "drama" by editors who have "utter contempt" for consensus. Editors new to this issue deserve to know the illegitamate and disruptive way this RFC came about. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 22:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the actions should not be condoned and that many of the deletions were viable article, but you have to hand it to them- they've brought more attention (2 ANI threads, an ArbCom case, a comment from Jimmy Wales, 2 policy discussions and now an RfC) to these ~50,000 articles desperately in need of attention that months of campaigning and small discussions in other venues haven't achieved. Ironic really. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 01:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by HJ Mitchell

The first thing to say is that, while many of us have conflicting views, there are a lot of highly respected editors here and a lot of very sensible suggestions being raised. The views that struck cords with me personally were those of MZMcBride, WereSpielChequers Jehochman and DGG, however I cannot fully endorse any of those. First of all, userfication is a very good idea for articles which show promise, but it could easily be abused and we risk just moving the problem elsewhere. However, it seems there is a community will to do something about these ~50,000 unreferenced BLPs once and for all. My proposal would be thus:

Obviously, anything which serves no purpose but to threaten or disparage somebody should be obliterated or tagged as G10 on sight (regardless of whether it's 5 years or 5 minutes old)
Any BLP more than a week old with no references (official websites and look X up on IMDb, Facebook, Myspace etc do not count as references.) should be proposed for deletion
Someone who, unlike myself, is not completely incompetent in template space should create a "sub-template" of {{subst:prod}}- something like {{subst:prod|BLP}} which would add the article into a category that can be patrolled by editors willing to seek sources.
The {{subst:prod|BLP}} should not be removed unless at least one reliable source has been provided to verify the subject's name and reason for notability at a minimum
If said tag remains in place for one week (7 days) the article can and should be deleted by any administrator
Articles which are questionable (for example, somebody who appears more than marginally notable) and lack sources should be taken to AfD and this should be a default option for admins dealing with expired BLP prods- it's better to clog up AfD than to throw the baby out with the bathwater
Mass drive-by prodding would be discouraged and attempts should be made to limit the number of "BLP prods" at any one time to ~1000
A log should be created where editors must record the removal of "BLP prods" after proper sourcing or report others who improperly remove the tag (similar to special enforcement)
Administrators should be willing to email the code of any deleted article to any editor who requests it in good faith
BLPs which ahve been sourced but could be tagged with {{refimproveBLP}} should be userfied at admin discretion
The creator of any new, unreferenced BLP (most will be new/inexperienced) should be welcome (if applicable) and asked to add sources to the article and warned in a friendly manner that the article is at risk of deletion or userfication if said sources are not added.

Hopefully my colleagues will see this a sensible solution to the existing problem and a prevention of such a problem in future. HJMitchell You rang? 22:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this statement

Reywas92^Talk 01:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
However, see way-above issues raised, under multiple "View by..." sections, about the idea of an "undeleteable PROD". It has to be something "PROD-like" but different or people will flip out about it and it will be redundant with other process. Agree with the overall flow presented, though. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that view- the hope is that we can have a separate system that works in a very similar way to PROD but I'm not clever enough to do something like that- I'm utterly useless in template space. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 17:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm liking this idea. It would gradually take care of the unsourced BLP problem, but wouldn't be completely harsh and bitey to newcomers. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial support. I am not sure how 8 will be implemented in a nonbitey way (new editors will wind up forgetting sometimes), and I am not sure 7 is a good thing (we want the backlog fixed sooner then later), but much like DG's proposal and a couple other similar ones this has promise, after the details are worked out better. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think other proposals are better but I could live with this one. ++Lar: t/c 17:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weakly endorse - if this can be the consensus. Bearian (talk) 01:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support as with others, good ideas to carry forward here towards solving the problem. Not the sole solution, but a start. --Jayron32 07:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by LeadSongDog

Lets just keep a simple hard line for new articles. If the stub isn't referenced the very first time that it is saved with {{blp}}, {{blp-stub}}, Category:Living people or any equivalent, it should immediately be wp:userfied to the creating editors space by a bot, much in the way of user:CorenSearchBot's handling of gross copyvios. The creator should be advised why it happened and invited to correct their omission. By doing it up front, we avoid having editors grow greatly invested in articles that must eventually be deleted for lack of any WP:RS to establish WP:N. This would even be worth considering for non-BLP articles.
The concerns with BLPs are not solely with libel. We've also got the whole band of selfpublishing editors seeking to use WP as part of their personal social networking scheme, or wp:advertising their own books, music, artwork, business etc. The same approach would limit those to the presently extant.
Even in userspace the libel issues persist, so some watch over of the userfied blps would still be needed to address those promptly. LeadSongDog come howl 20:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Worth discussing further. As ever.. gooooo.... Incubator! as collaborative userfication, with eg less risk that useful things started get abandoned and no-one ever sees them. Rd232 ^talk 20:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary

Worth a try in conjunction with other proposals. Helps new users now without being bitey. ++Lar: t/c 17:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I disagree about the need and utility for rapid cleanup of a problem that's existed for years, I agree that the first thing we should do is enforce these or similar restrictions against NEW BLPs. Jclemens (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the first thing to do is to get a grip on new unsourced BLPs rather than starting with with articles tagged in 2006, or else we'll just be chasing our tail. If the 'encouragement' to source articles had been more apparent in 2006, we probably wouldn't have anywhere near as many articles to deal with here.--Michig (talk) 12:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Looie496

This is intended as a clarification, consistent with many specific procedures: No articles should be deleted using automated tools. There is no reliable automated method for recognizing whether references exist, so every article must be viewed at least once before being deleted.

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Users who endorse this summary

Looie496 (talk) 23:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree Martin451 (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
DES ^(talk) 02:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jclemens (talk) 03:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Should be obvious. Sandstein 05:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strangely, past Arbcoms have opposed adminbots. Orderinchaos 06:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
-SpacemanSpiff 07:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
although positing an exception for articles whose entire content is obscene, and articles with under 20 words. Collect (talk) 11:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd make various exceptions, including for certain types of G7s. But I agree that it isn't an appropriate solution for allegedly unreferenced BLPs. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia ^talk 13:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please note, however, that this was already proposed above, at #View by the Anome, makin this a duplicate thread. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Automated methods can not recognize obscene content as well. Ruslik_Zero 13:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with a bot deleting articles after they have been looked at by a person, but a bot should not be the first pass. Karanacs (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
agree - this process needs human decision making even if its falible and time consuming. Gnan garra 16:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure this prohibition needs to be absolute, but agree that it should be nearly so. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. Actually about 17,000 of the 53,000 appear to have at least one source. See this thread Pcap ping 21:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What Sandstein said. Tagging for deletion should also not be automated. Regards So Why 22:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolument. Skomorokh 22:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support. Bearian (talk) 01:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Michig (talk) 12:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Should be nearly absolute -- "empty articles" (under, say, 100 words) and those with clearly problematic words (not needed to be enumerated) might reasonably be deleted otherwise Collect (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Balloonman/technical option

Background: I am personally opposed to any speedy deletion option as this bypasses all other considerations on the project. It denies people the opportunity to respond or fix the articles before they get deleted. Some may say, but they've sat for years un-referenced... and that's just my point. They have sat for months or years without a reference. A little while longer won't hurt (unless it is already a candidate for CSD.)

I am very invovled in WP:POKER. I have very little doubt that there are articles under that umbrella that are unsourced. There are possibly articles on my watchlist that are unsourced as well---I've been adding to it before BLP was even an issue. I know that if there was a wholesale deletion without there being some sort of notification, that the project wouldn't be happy, especially if those deletions occured on people the project sees as important. I can't help but think other projects would be upset if a score of articles under their purvue were suddenly deleted and those projects were not notified. Today I saw a template that was sent to a user that listed all of the articles that she had created that were unsourced BLP's. (NOTE: I checked 10 of the unsourced BLP's for that user, and 4 of the 10 had references!)

My proposal: That we create a tool that can notify these projects and key editors what unsourced BLP's exist under their purvue. This could be done in two ways:

First, if a project is concerned about the article, there is an assumption that they have tagged the article on the article's talk page. This is standard practice. The tool should be able to identify unsourced BLP's and cross reference them with the projects in question. Those projects would then be notified, just as the author was.

Second, the tool could look to see if there were any significant editors. (EG somebody who edited the article more than say 10 times, and notify them as well.)

Let me spell out the logic

WP:BLP has what 25 active editors, there are an estimated 50K articles that have been tagged as unsourced BLP's. In order for WP:BLP to review each of these articles, each of the active editors would have to review (on average) 2K articles. There is no way that these volunteers can do an adequate job identifying the articles that are worth keeping and those that are not worth keeping.
The proposal coming out of WP:BLP is wholesale deletions. This would result in many articles getting deleted that should not be---and has been roundly criticized by people who are interested in CSD and PROD. It goes contrary to trying to improve the encyclopedia as many good and important articles would be deleted under that proposal.
We are not going to get enough people interested in biographies of living persons to start haphazardly looking through the haystack and cleaning it up---and even if we did, they might not be able to adequately assess the articles they are reviewing.
We can contact the articles creator and ask them for help, this has apparently been done in some cases already. But this method fails as many of those creators are no longer active on WP and those who are still active may not care about the articles---their interests have shifted. Thus, contacting authors may not get more people tackling the project.
Wikiprojects will tag articles that they are interested in. Articles that fall into their purvue. Some articles are tagged by multiple projects. Often times Wikiprojects will work on completing a series or theme (EG all of the Lt Governors for a given state.) Many participants at these projects do not have every article on the project tagged (and may not know about all of them.) Asking a project to help is not giving them ownership, but rather asking them for help. By tagging the article, they've already indicated that they would like to know about issues like this. It is a courtesy thing, not ownership.
The best way to get the backlog cleared, without wholesale deletions, is to get as many people as possible working towards clearing it. This can be done by tapping into the resources that are wikiprojects. WP:BLP CANNOT do it by itself, and you will not get enough people to make the commitment to WP:BLP, but I can guarantee that if you let many of these projects know that there are unsourced BLP's under their purvue, you will find volunteers to help clean them up and identify the good from the bad. Especially, if we combine the project notification with a PROD of some sort.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

I think Baloonman's idea has a lot of merit to it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This was my idea also - the projects don't own articles but they have the ability and the editors to know what to do with them. Certainly if someone handballed me a list of Australian BLPs meeting the criteria I'd find some way to get the list out to 16-20 Australian editors who would undoubtedly be able to either fix them or decide they needed deletion. I'd assume ones within other big projects such as Milhist, Canada etc would probably figure similarly but I can't speak on their behalf. Orderinchaos 04:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is one of the best thought out ideas listed so far. It brings the articles to the attention of those who most likely want to fix the article. Definately has my support. - Tainted Conformity ^SCREAM 06:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a good idea to me. And I really suggest that Sysops be restricted of their power on deleting articles. Articles should be brought to attention first before it can be deleted. I've gone through some issues where some Sysop delete articles that has never been tagged with PROD or BLP templates, or never been brought to AfD. It is simply not the right thing to be done since users never get the chance to protest or to fix it. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 11:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent plan, this could run in parallel with Jehochman's suggestion. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is one part of my proposal, though Balloonman explains it better. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with WereSpielChequers's and Resolute's related proposals. I also not that this is not directly antithetical to various other proposals, e.g. for a PROD-like way to deal with bad BLPs more quickly. I.e., don't let this polarize any further. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC) PS: I don't mean "edit this page right now to merge the sections", I mean combine forces as things progress. Just to be clear. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this should be one of the first steps in addressing this problem. When I was notified by both that several articles I created in 2006 were unreferenced BLPs, I got those articles fully referenced within an hour of getting the notification. I'd be happy to help with the same effort for the project in which I'm involved, but it's very difficult to find the UBLPs in those areas. Karanacs (talk) 14:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, I would be happy to work on the poker related articles, but I'm not going to tredge through 50K articles to find them, nor am I going to tredge through the thousands of Poker articles looking for them. This gives the people who care a chance to help out. Which we are currently missing---and is a much better option than going straight to the delete button.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same with me and hockey, though it would take time given the number of bios we have. This is something that we can easily implement now, in advance of any consensus on a deletion policy for such articles. Reso lute 15:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely think this idea has potential. Most WikiProjects have bot-driven alerts that notify the project to AFDs (and PRODs, I think). These can be very useful tools for getting a marginal article up to speed. Guettarda (talk) 16:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If implemented well, this certainly can help, especially in conjunction with other proposals here about what to do when even the project members do not fix the issues. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. It's virtually impossible to pick out suitable articles to source and prioritize from the morass of Category:All unreferenced BLPs. As I said above, it's essential that not ony the principle contributors but also the relevant projects are contacted. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
wow, what a great idea. To bad it is so far down it will be largely ignored. See below. Ikip. 21:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Sole Soul (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can't hurt, compatible with multiple other solutions. Jclemens (talk) 00:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent idea. Deletion sorting greatly improves the quality and accuracy of deletion debates. Getting knowledgeable people involved will be highly beneficial here too.John Z (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree entirely. I will happily deal with any unsourced BLPs in projects that I'm a member of, but if these could be pointed out it would be a hell of a lot easier. --Michig (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

discussion

I disagree with the proposal, because it gives Projects ownership over articles, which is not a good thing. Woogee (talk) 23:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not giving ownership to the projects, but it is giving them a chance to salvage the articles. They have tagged the article as falling under their purvue because they care about the article. If they want to salvage them, then notify them. This is probably the best bet to get people to work on the issue. Notifying a person who wrote an article 4 years ago is unlikely to yield results. Notifying a project that is attempting to create a comprehensive encyclopedia that a dozen of their articles will be deleted if they don't provide sources will get their attention. Here is a case in point, John Eren is the incumbent for the Victorian Legislative Assembly in Australia. Wikiproject Australia apparently uses a success template to show who the politician was preceded by and who followed the politician. The article is unsourced. The author of that article has not worked on the article in almost a year. But if we notify the wikiproject, they can then act. There might be people who are CURRENTLY interested in keeping that succession path entact. If we delete the article without notifying them, we may set their efforst back... especially if the project has numerous unsourced BLPs. If the project chooses not to add sources, then they cannot cry foul get upset. The goal of this endeavor should not be to delete every article, but only to get rid of those that should be deleted. If we can get people to salvage articles, we should.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unless your proposal is to notify some other organization, or place, or person, or whatever, only notifying the project gives them final say in the matter, if there's nobody in the project who will do anything about it, then the BLP will just sit there unmodified. Woogee (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Baloonman's idea is exactly what I am proposing, and what User:WolterBot tries to do. here is an example from the Tennis project of what it looks like. This isn't a case of giving a project ownership of the articles, but rather directing problem articles towards the people most likely to have an interest in fixing them. But you are right that this is also only a partial solution. If you combine the notifications with one of the BLP-PROD suggestions being raised, then you have not only a process for immediate cleanup, but also a mandate to delete if that fails to happen. Reso lute 00:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reso, if you already have a tool that does this, could it be run for WP:POKER? If so, we'll get started on cleaning them up.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not my tool, alas. B. Wolterding operates the bot that generates those lists every couple of months when new database dumps are made. You can subscribe a project here and get the list next time he runs it. We tried this for WP:HOCKEY but got the template parameter wrong and only got an error. :/ Hoping the next run bears more fruit. In the meantime, an attempt at engaging the hockey project on this has led to the revelation of another tool that might help identify some of these articles, though not nearly as well. Reso lute 01:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The notification is part of a process, you notify them that the article is in danger of being deleted if the articles are not cleaned up in a certain time period. The catch here is that there would need to be a way to make this window more than 7 days... say a month because some projects will have huge lists. And ideally the solution would have a means to extend that month if the project is making a legit effort to clean up it's mess. The goal is to get others to help find sources and figure out what needs to be kept/deleted. If we just tag the article for deletion, then you are going to open up a whole ball of wax and really piss people off... people who have no idea that these articles are in danger of being deleted.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ikip Technical option building on Balloonman's idea

I suggest creating Category:Wikipedia_BLP_sorting which mirrors Category:Wikipedia_deletion_sorting with the same categories. Then moving these unsourced BLPs to new project sub pages.

For example, the unsourced BLP article, bob johnson could be moved to WikiProject Deletion sorting/BLP/bob johnson part of Category:WikiProject Deletion sorting/BLP/Ethnic groups. Ikip 21:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

addendum: Let the experts in each topic decide whether these unsourced BLP articles are notable, while removing them from main space and search engines. Ikip 22:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with moving an article is what do you do with the articles where a half a dozen projects want to help out? Many articles have multiple projects that would need to be notified.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Good question, and thanks for the wonderful idea again balloonman (I loved, absolutly loved your study on CSD). I am sure someone else can answer better than me. Ikip 22:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! I'm agreeing with you twice in one day! This suggestion is one of the most sensible I've seen here. Sorting by topic is much better than just chronological and alphabetical order. It also makes it easier for editors to get involved as they can clearly click on a link to articles sorted by a topic that interests them. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 22:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Balloonman/no index

Another step that can be taken that is less drastic than deletion, is to modify the template for unsource blp's so that they are not indexed. This will help keep them off of various search engines.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Support

Support. Was thinking on that too. Rather surprised we don't already do this. Reso lute 18:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Even if we miss it at the get go, eventually it will drop out of the search engine caches. Which is better than staying there forever, so this seems an obvious one to me. Good idea. ++Lar: t/c 20:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this, if it is technically feasible. Ikip.
Support. Bearian (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose on technical grounds - Google indexes articles as soon as they are created (literally fast enough that I have trouble seeing the lag. Try searching an article in NEWPAGES in google, it almost always comes up). Since the page has already been crawled before any tags can be added, it's not as helpful to place a no-index tag as a solution. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that while it would get captured by the various search engines, if we put a no index tag on it, the search engines would eventually drop them? EG if an article is left unattended for a week or two... or heaven forbid, a year it would not show up.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose this because too many articles (about 1/3) are incorrectly tagged as lacking all sources. Pcap ping 01:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Articles exist for readers. If we don't want people to find an article, we shouldn't have it on the site. At best this will only be a temporary delay until enough mirror sites pick up the article to appear in Google results. Mr.Z-man 18:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Wikidemon

I'll skip the eyebrow-raising behavioral aspect of what's happening and go straight to a proposal.

Proposal to establish schedule

This is in several parts, and you might agree with some and disagree with others.

We work to create a bot that finds and tags all unreferenced BLPs with a special template relating to its status.
1. The template could be based on or incorporate aspects of one I just created, {{UBF}}, that hides articles from viewers but preserves the text so that it can be reviewed and improved
2. The template is not to be removed by anyone (other than in cases of error) until the procedure is followed for clearing it.
3. Ideally someone could program a more sophisticated bot that flags articles sourced only to sources known to be unreliable, e.g. businesswire, blogs, facebook, IMDB, etc.
We set a schedule and a deadline for processing all of the articles
1. I would propose we do 4,000 per week for 3 months, either alphabetically or thematically (e.g. politicians, then athletes, etc.)
2. The bot / template will set a field for when the article's time is up.
3. Anyone is free to improve the article before then, but if it's not up to snuff by the due date it gets deleted
4. We can probably include another flag to indicate that the article has been improved, checked, and/or improved and found good enough to keep
5. Any article can still be speedied, prodded, or nominated for deletion at any time if it looks irredeemable, as long as it is done in good faith and not as a process fork - just like copyvios, clear BLP viols should be blanked or deleted on sight
6. I'm deliberately omitting from the proposal the question of who decides whether the article is worth keeping, and what the criteria are. That's a different issue. This is just about the schedule.
We create a "BLP brigade" project and socialize it as a noble pursuit on Wikipedia.
1. We should include userboxes, barnstars, achievement badges, praise, etc., and use it as a way to train serious new editors who want to improve their Wikipedia skills (and old ones who enjoy it)
2. We probably need 100-500 active editors to be doing this. If we can't get enough that's just tough luck then, we gave it a try and the articles not improved will be deleted (probably at the discretion of a reviewing administrator)

Something like that. Like any proposal this one need some refinement and collaboration, and consensus to adopt. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who support this proposal

Great idea that will systematically, orderly, and definitively take care of unsourced BLPs by improving or deleting them. Reywas92^Talk 01:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Favor in general, not sure at all that schedules and deadlines will work, and they might be counterproductive in demoralizing participants; making it a common practice for WikiProjects to deal with unsourced BLPs in their fields would build on existing brigades -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this proposal

Oppose - too much, too fast, too complicated. Sorry. See proposals and ideas above. Bearian (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Bearian. 4,000 a week is way too much to be manageable. Many of the currently-tagged articles were tagged by bots, often incorrectly, missing plain links or non-inline references. I don't support a new deletion process for these at all. The "BLP Brigade" idea is a good one though, and is already happening.--Michig (talk) 12:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Interesting idea. You say the bot would flag 4000 per week, but you don't suggest how long a given article would remain flagged before it became deletable. Some suggestions if this is to fly:
The bot should also notify the article creator and any major contributors when it flags an article. A "major contributor" being anyone who edited more than, say 5 times, and whose edits increased the size of the article by more than 20%, say.

The bot shpuld look for not only inline refernces but for external links. It shoud remove any existing BLPunreferenced tag (or repalce it with BLPrefimprove) if it finds references.

There must be human review at some point before deletion. It is not acceptable to delete things after a fixed time period based only on the taggign by a bot -- bots are just not smart enough to trust for that.

What do you think? DES ^(talk) 02:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the articles at issue in this debate won't even have 5 editors much less editors with more than 5 edits. And percentage doesn't mean much. 20% of a two-sentence stub is a couple of words or a DAB hatnote. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with DESiegel that some questions are unanswered, but overall it probably will be necessary to have deadlines, regardless what the overall solution is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting proposals that have merit. I agree with others that some details might need tweaking but there might be something useful to come out of this. Note these proposals are not mutually exclusive to some other proposals made here. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Martin451

I suggest that if articles are prodded by one of the above methods then:

No bots should be used, semi automated prodding is ok.
The person prodding, should judge the notability of the person and article, and apply a parameter to the prod accordingly, marking the most notable few for extra work. Prods could then be listed by notability.
An admin (and only an admin) reviewing the expired prod can extend the life of the prod for the most notable people.

This would hopefully mean that a few of the most notable unreferenced BLPs would be saved. As an example, I have just found Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking in the list of unreferenced BLPs. He was a top UK politician, and held the position of Home Secretary, one of the four top political offices in the UK. Whilst a lot of unreferenced BLPs are boarderline notability, it would be a shame to loose ones like this.

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Users who endorse this summary

Martin451 (talk) 02:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know what you mean. Not the best worded proposal, but I could support this, too. Bearian (talk) 01:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Don't agree with 3, but I do have concerns about automated processing here. A quick review of some of the articles tagged showed me that 4 of 10 articles I reviewed had sources. An automated process might simply delete those items.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

This is pointless. The amount of work it would take to establish notability - i.e. to find multiple instances of non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources is precisely what it would take to source the article! If AfD often takes a week to decide if something is notable then a PROD-like process isn't appropriate for it. Even the notability aspect of WP:CSD is cut-and-dry: Does the article at least assert some kind of notability, sourcedly or not? (No one has to do anything but read the article to decide that.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While not in such harsh terms, I agree with SMc above: this puts too much onus on the prodder, when one considers the best place for this onus is on the article creator. It is not a big deal to undelete and article. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Jake Wartenberg

Deletion or sourcing of all of our 50,000 unreferenced BLPs would, if achieved, solve only a small part of the BLP problem. We have over 400,000 BLPs in total, many of which are still of marginal notability and are waiting to collect libel. In a similar manner to the Targeted flagging proposal, unwatched BLPs should be indefinitely semi-protected. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 02:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

It would certainly be a step forward, one which I fully endorse, but the issue does indeed go beyond unsourced articles. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLP issues are about content generally, not articles specifically. An article can have ten sources but twenty unsourced libellous statements. Take this disgraceful piece of rubbish about a prominent politician: a lengthy article with a number of thinly used sources, combined with a number of blatant unsourced POV claims that amount to libel and an unsourced "these are the great awards that this great man has won" section. These problems are probably worse than harmless unsourced BLP stubs. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that sourcing is irrelevant to the concerns being expressed, the lack of watchlist coverage is a much better indicator of risk. I said it before and I'll say it again here, sources don't prevent libel, editors do. Gigs (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this as an additional measure of protection. Kevin (talk) 04:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another excellent piece to add to the puzzle. It would be good to see other proposals that also help address other aspects to this entire situation. As this view correctly notes, the unreferenced articles are but a fraction of the sum total. The remainder are largely poor referenced, underwatched articles about individuals relatively close to the notability bar for inclusion.Vassyana (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regrettable, but sound. It's a core WP idea that wherever possible anyone should be allowed to improve anything. But unwatched (and also lightly watched articles, probably) do need special care. Another alternative would be a patrollable list of edits to lightly watched articles. Jheald (talk) 10:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would go a bit further and urge semi-protection of articles that are watched by fewer than 5 editors. Karanacs (talk) 14:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
unsourced articles not the only BLP of concern just the easiest to highlight Gnan garra 16:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In conjunction with other ideas. ++Lar: t/c 17:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All BLPs should be protected while we wait for this mythical flagged protection to arrive. Semi-protection is useful, but it most definitely is nothing more than a stop-gap measure. After flagged protection is available, we should switch to that. NW (Talk) 02:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Iff the semi-protection is done manually, with review of each article before applying it. Semiprotection without review is worthless. Mr.Z-man 18:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

Just so we're clear, this is a proposal to remove from anons the ability to edit all "unsourced BLPs", however that is determined. I just have to point out that the extremely controversial "get rid of anon editing" camp would get a lot of what they want, and be in a strong position to move forward. PS: Probably the only want to enforce such a topical ban would be to prevent anon bio article editing at all, since a BLP with one source today might be a BLP with no sources tomorrow, for any of a number of reasons. I will not offer an opinion pro, con or neutral on changes to anon editing privileges. I'm just noting that this proposal goes in that direction, in strong favor of one side to a years-long controversy, yet this is supposed to be a discussion about BLP enforcement not the future of anon editing, so this shouldn't go unnoticed in the shuffle. Adopting this proposal would have consequences far outside the this unsource BLP issue. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While the proposal to semi-protect BLPs seems appealing on the surface, I'm not sure it would actually help. Sure, anons add nonsense to articles. And a lot of it is removed by bots before any human editor gets to it. But anons also fix articles, and remove obvious smears. Semi-protection eliminates anons, but it's fairly easy to circumvent for any determined person. Each new controversy brings a flood of editors who haven't edited in a couple years. These aren't (usually) sleeper socks, they're people who registered a username long ago, and never edited. Most people determined to smear someone need only dredge up the account they registered in 2007.
And, of course, this presumes that unsourced articles attract more troublesome edits than sourced ones. I can't say this has been my experience. Guettarda (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure how one determines an "unwatched BLP". That said, if one could make that determination, I have mixed feelings about such a harsh default, but on the whole I think I would weakly support it. But I certainly will admit it would be weak, and that I may very well change my mind in the future. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much too imprecise and inconsistent with the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" idea. Most BLPs never need protection, but many articles that are not biographies but contain sensitive BLP content do. A selective flagged revisions approach is much more discriminating and would be preferable. Sandstein 19:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that sourcing all these articles is not going to have much of an impact, but I think a better way of dealing with unwatched BLPs is to put them on someone's watchlist. I would be happy to stick some on mine, and I'm sure a number of other editors would as well. These articles aren't edited regularly so it wouldn't put too much of a burden on anyone. Hut 8.5 18:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Vyvyan Basterd

Politicians talk, leaders act. Those who oppose these initiatives have had years to acknowledge the problem and show at least some willingness to address this. Opt-out was shot down, semi for BLPs was shot down, flagging was shot down and then stalled. We're not waiting any longer. This is gonna happen and by repeatedly opposing the far less radical solutions that have been proposed in the past you've shown that you cannot be relied upon to take this seriously. BLP incubation and ridiculously low throttles on how many articles can be dealt with per day are all just more ways to stall this. We're not buying that anymore. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 07:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who support this statement

Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 11:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
++Lar: t/c 17:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the underlying sentiment but think its expression contains considerably more polemic than ideal. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this statement

If they were shot down, have you ever considered that the community Opposes them? What makes your opinion worth more than that of others? True, Politicians talk, and leaders act. But Leaders act on what their populace wants in a polity, monarchy, or aristocracy. Leaders act for their own interests in a Tyranny or Oligarchy. (definitions taken from my AP Gov book) ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 08:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As ArbCom has noted in the motion we have core policy on our side. We're not the ones blocking progress. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the comment that those opposing summary deletion of unreferenced BLPs have done little to solve the backlog. The truth is that thousands of unreferenced BLPs have been sourced in the past few months (I've done thousands myself) and the backlog has been steadily declining at least since November (probably longer, but I wasn't paying as much attention). If the backlog is only reduced by 1,000 articles per month, it will take a long time to eliminate, however, the pace has clearly picked up since DASHBot's notices. I agree that there are plenty of unreferenced BLPs that should be deleted (I've PROD'ed over 100 by now), but the current processes work well for this. Jogurney (talk) 12:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you acknowledge the problem and are trying to fix it then you aren't in the group of people I'm talking about. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused because you didn't qualify your statement about opponents of these initiatives to summarily delete unreferenced BLPs. As I stated, progress on the backlog is being made and the current article deletion procedures are working. There is no need for such drastic action. Jogurney (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Those who oppose these initiatives have had years to acknowledge the problem : Proof that unreferenced BLP are a problem per se is still lacking. We had years to acknowledge a non-problem? --Cyclopia ^talk 13:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that there are still people around who refuse to face the facts is why we're raising hell now. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Give me those facts. I've seen none. Endlessly repeating "it is a problem" does not prove that it is. Provide data. --Cyclopia ^talk 13:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ask OTRS how much time is spent on this issue or ask Oversight. Alternative, spend some time going through the articles tagged as unsourced and see for yourself. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Been there,done that. Turns out that a pessimistic estimate is ~0.2% of all BLPs (sourced or not) being actually problematic. And anyway there is still no proof in sight that unsourced BLPs show an higher rate of OTRS-related incidents. Waiting for data. --Cyclopia ^talk 14:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please fix the link so that it points to where it says that? The current one doesn't seem to make any sense. Thanks, Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 14:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Right, sorry. Fixed the link above -you have to scroll a bit. --Cyclopia ^talk 14:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! Of course! All we need is a strong leader who tells us what to do, preferably by shouting at the top of his voice at a huge rally of awe-struck followers, who then grab the torches and crowbars and do what must be done! It's so obvious a solution to any problem, I wonder why nobody ever thought of that before! Sandstein 19:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- Bait not grabbed. If you want a reply I suggest you drop the sarcasm. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 19:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Sandstein, and with the strongest support possible for his sarcasm.John Z (talk) 21:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein's comment is both apposite and humorous. Suggest Vyvyan Basterd revisits the wording of their view to note that the amount of rhetorical statement might impede a neutral reading of the material content. SilkTork *^YES! 22:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ALL RIGHT WHO CARES ABOUT CONSENSUS!!! WE WILL DO AS WE DAMN WELL PLEASE!!!---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the idea, and the obnoxious wording, too. Bearian (talk) 01:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Most 'leaders' usually deliver eventually, or finally figure out that they themselves are the problem and step down, or ultimately they get shot in the back of the head. Failure after failure, for five years? You are no leader, you're incompetent. MickMacNee (talk) 03:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not that people do not "acknowledge the problem". The issue is that it is difficult to arrive at a solution, but certain admins lack sufficient patience. These admins should ask themselves if their temperament is compatible with a collegial project. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I don't see what has happened in recent days as in any way resembling 'leadership'.--Michig (talk) 12:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Some claims in this view are false. Opt-out has nothing to do with sourcing and reliability. Flagged Revisions were not shot, they were approved, but stalled due to the circumstances that lie outside the control of Wikipedia editors. These circumstances are mainly technical. If you want to accelerate FR implementation you should learn how to write code in PHP. Ruslik_Zero 18:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Juliancolton

The community had years to expand, reference, and improve problematic BLPs. Now it's time to be responsible. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary:

++Lar: t/c 17:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Stop arguing. Start fixing. --Mkativerata (talk) 17:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't propose any initiative directly, but is self-evident. My hope is this RfC is an example of such responsibility. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, far too late to piss and moan about it now. Tarc (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support, with the caveat that this is a moral support only. Lacking a concrete way forward towards solving the problem. --Jayron32 07:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary:

"Problematic" is a loaded word: there are still no proofs whatsoever that being unreferenced is a problem (or at least a problem of such magnitude to require mass deletion). So, we had years to fix them? Yes. Were we in a rush to fix them, were them a priority? Not at all, despite today's moral panic. --Cyclopia ^talk 17:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You've consistantly treated all such comments as trash. Please answer the question. Hobit (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What question? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only people who are legally and morally responsible for any given problematic BLP are its author and, under certain rare circumstances, the Wikimedia Foundation. You, I and "the community" are unpaid volunteers of the Foundation's project and are not responsible for problematic BLPs that we did not write. That does not mean, of course, that we shouldn't do our best to fix them anyway. But as long as this is a volunteer project, people can do whatever work they want, and if they don't want to source or delete other people's bad BLPs, we can't force them to help out with that. Sandstein 19:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's not my point, though. I'm not arguing that we should force anybody to do anything they don't want, but if they choose not to help clear the unsourced BLP backlog, they don't have much room to complain when other people do so themselves. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, not exactly... I'm in a LEGO club. It's run by volunteers, and we all work on what we want to work on. But we have scope, and rules, and regulations and the whole schmeel. If someone turns up and says "I want to display fingerpaintings at your layout" we say "no, thanks, that's not what we are volunteering about". So, if we WPians want, we can say to all our volunteers "THIS is what we are working on today... not that and not this other thing either". We can (if we wanted to be drastic) say "either you help fix BLPs the way we outline, here, or don't do anything at all" or we can (less drastically) say "you can help the myriad problems with BLPs get fixed, or you can work on something else entirely but we've disallowed creating any new BLPs" or (even less drastically) say "any unsourced BLP is subject to deletion... you can fix it, or you can not participate at all in this area, but you can't add more unsourced material and you can't remove the tags that flag it as unsourced."... None of that says that any particular volunteer has a responsibility for something they didn't write, but it does demonstrate we can constrain volunteer activity as needed to address the problem. We may lose a lot of volunteers. Or a few. Or none. Or gain them. Who knows. ++Lar: t/c 19:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the proposal you endored above for NW does just that... it says that if somebody wrote an article a "while back" they are now responsible for it, even if the article no longer resembles the one they originally wrote or are no longer involved with the article.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We've had enough political posturing. This RfC should discuss concrete solutions. Pcap ping 21:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Political posturing? That's a little harsh. The man has a point to make and is as entitled as you, I or the next Wikipedian to express his view. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 21:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Cyclopia. The problem is not "problematical" biographies, but unreferenced, non-notable, and libelous BLPs. Bearian (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with Bearian; I think the issue is that "unreferenced" is a completely inaccurate proxy for "problematic", and removing the unreferenced ones only buys a false sense of confidence. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Collaborative views

How to edit here: if you can tweak an existing proposal for clarity, or add an additional argument that strengthens it, do so. If you agree with the basic idea but would prefer different parameters, say so in your endorsement.

BLP incubation

A big part of the problem is that the stream of new unreferenced BLPs is never-ending. Unsourced BLPs should be incubated after a time (or in some cases userfied). Articles in the incubator are automatically {{noindex}}ed and in general are deleted after a month of incubation.

Proposal:

New unreferenced BLPs (new = created in 2010 or later), if they are more than 1 month old, get tagged with {{prod|newunrefBLP}}. The tag may not be removed without the article being sourced to the minimum standard. If at the end of 1 week of being tagged they're referenced to the minimum standard, the tag is removed. Otherwise, the article gets either incubated, userfied, at admin discretion (in consultation with the creator).
- minimum standard is demonstration of notability with reference to reliable sources which are independent of the subject.
- in the incubator, articles have around a month to come up to minimum standard (as standard for the incubator), or risk deletion. This period could be extended for BLP incubation, particularly if the volume of articles suggests it's necessary. (It's at admin discretion anyway.)

Old unreferenced BLPs (pre-2010) go through basically the same process. The difference is that because of the backlog, the rate of nomination has to be kept low enough to be manageable. Starting point for discussion: max 1000 old articles tagged for BLPincubation at any one time (i.e. max 1000 in Category:Old unreferenced BLPs proposed for incubation).

Click "show" to participate in the discussion.

Endorse

Rd232 ^talk 17:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
in part. Some approach like this is needed, but 1 we could do higher quality work with smaller numbers, such as 500 a week maximum. 2, I do not see the point of waiting 1 month for new BLPs--the time to deal with them, and other unsourced articles, is right at the start when the editor who placed them is available., and 3 the minimum standard is not enough RS to show notability. The minimum standard is an RS to show that the indication of plausible notability is real . DGG ( talk )17:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with allowing them to be fixed up outside of the mainspace but I don't really support the use of a prod system here. See my proposal for my full opinion. Them From Space 19:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good comprimise. Ikip 01:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, with the caveat that I don't see any reason to ever delete incubated articles. Jclemens (talk) 03:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fits almost everything we want: NPP loses its biggest stress factor, removes the content from mainspace and indexing, non-bitey, minimal policy changes, automatically categorizes everything we're worried about, if openly listed can cut down on duplicate articles, makes it easy to start a editor group like... WikiprojectBLPstubs tasked with contacting the publishing editors to inform about BLP and at least get the article to stub-class so it can safely rest in the mainspace soon or eventually. Does need more details, but it can hit every one of these troubles at once. Seems too logical to ever be implemented, I fear. ♪ daTheisen (talk) 06:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Solid endorse. - Tainted Conformity ^SCREAM 07:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
cautious support, Incubator shouldnt become a dumping ground for blp articles, deletion from incubator should be a quick process as extended time to address sourcing has already been given Gnan garra 16:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse in principle. Incubation is definitely part of the solution. Skomorokh 22:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

This is a new process that invites gaming. It's better I think to work with smaller numbers but a more definite process. The idea that people will patrol an "incubator" but won't be prepared to patrol the deletion category is puzzling to me. I've always wondered why more inclusionists don't patrol WP:PROD, I rarely see a prod tag removed by any editor who is not already active on that article (and it's usually the article creator). Guy (Help!) 17:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. How does it invite gaming? If you think the numbers are too high, fine, suggest lower ones (or an extended period in the incubator). And the point of incubation is that people get two bites at the cherry: once at the nomination for incubation (1 week), once in the incubator (c 1 month, or more if agreed necessary). Rd232 ^talk 17:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Too much process wonkery, if these articles are going to be maintained, I'm fine with userfying after request and after deletion. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. The differences between mine and Jehochman's proposal are minor, aside from mine going into more detail, partly as a result of prior discussion at WT:PROD. And by the by, the perennial question: who's to know (especially in a mass deletion scenario) whether something's worth the bother of requesting? Rd232 ^talk 18:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
2. Exactly. We admins can do it, and we will do it if we need to, but if we're going to do anything else we need the participation of all the other good editors to do the screening also. Most good editors are not admins. DGG ( talk ) 11:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a game, and this proposal invites gaming. JBsupreme (talk) 20:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. Is the unexplained claim that it "invites gaming" part of the game?? JzG didn't explain either. Rd232 ^talk 20:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At minimum, new unsourced BLPs need to be deleted. If everything is just moved to the incubator, working through the backlog will be much harder. Mr.Z-man 22:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1. But not through CSD. I can support deleting them through PROD, but a new editor may not know or realize that they need references. This does not mean that A7/A10 are over writtent... just that we shouldn't CSD new articles without giving the author a chance to get the sources.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse idea but it's far too lax. I think we should simply allow for speedy deletion of new unsourced BLPs, and best if done immediately and with a little friendly counseling to the editors who create them. Of course you can game that, you can game anything here. But a good faith editor who really wants to do good around here will probably react to their first BLP article being deleted by learning how to source articles properly. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, because we are so good at friendly counseling new users as is. Speedy deleting new unsourced BLPs is a really, fantastically bad idea. Prod might make sense or something like this. Or even you know, flagged revisions which would go a long way to dealing with a lot of these issues. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can write a really friendly templated notice with lots of bunnies and unicorns on it. But seriously, I think a quick correction as soon as someone creates something that we've decided is deletable is a lot less BITE-y than letting their creation sit around for a long time, or dragging them into a difficult deletion process. The new page patrollers are already pretty bitey to begin with, and often generate false positives. I don't think expanding their duties to include policing unreferenced BLPs would make that problem any better or worse. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why cannot people just write the article offline, find sources (even if it takes months) and then create the new BLP? I concur with others that it will create more problems than it will solve. This is not so much the fault of the proposal per se, but of the lack of understanding of some empirical features of the project itself. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
People can, but typically don't/won't do that, particularly newcomers. Attempting to force it will simply reduce the flow of new valid articles and of new editors on which the project depends. DES ^(talk) 21:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template by Wikidemon

Following Henrik's suggestion above, I have created {{UBF}} (short for "unreferenced BLP flag") that can be used in place of {{BLP unreferenced}}, the primary difference being that this flags and hides the text of any BLP. By setting a parameter you can decide to show the article anyway, put it in a collapse box, or blank it for the viewer. If we can get people to hide all of the unreferenced BLPs for now that should take the pressure off while we consider different approaches to improving or deleting them. The template could use some more work, and I invite people to play around with it and help me over at the template page. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, the NOINDEX magic word and templates that use it does not work in the main articel namespace, and this cannot be easily changed. I could be mistaken abut thios but I don't think so. To have the effect of noindexing, pages would need to be moved into project space, as the Incubator does (the incubator template includes the noindex function. Aside from that this template might be useful. DES ^(talk) 02:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I noticed that. The __NOINDEX__ magic word, and the {{NOINDEX}} template that calls it, are disabled on Wikipedia's instance of the software. I'm wondering if there's a WML hack that will get around that, e.g. inserting an HTML noindex tag directly into the article.- Wikidemon (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't try. They are off for a reason, not just because of lack of care. They do work in other namespaces, they are specifically and deliberately disabled in the article space. Circumventing both the developer's intent in disabling them and the previous community consensus to not ask devs to make them work there would be bad. Gigs (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that suggest then that the content should remain indexed? Alternately we could move all the articles to a different namespace and leave just a placeholder and a link in main space. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think a move to another namespace as is done now with articles in the Incubator would be the best solution. See the draft idea below. DES ^(talk) 20:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by FT2

BLPs are the sharp end of a problem that potentially affects all articles. Also referencing alone, while important, is not sufficient to ensure high standards.

In parallel with other ideas, I would urge the creation of a "Draft:" namespace as follows.

Clearly defined working space - Provides a communal space where new BLPs can be posted (instead of mainspace and user space) while being worked on and prior to being ready to meet the requirements of WP:BLP. The namespace can also be used for any other article being drafted. Makes draft articles more visible and easier to collaborate and patrol. Also note user space and mainspace are INDEXed; this space would be NOINDEXED and not linked from articles so drafts would be much less harmful.
Benefits for in-work or substandard BLPs - BLPs ready for mainspace can be moved to mainspace; conversely BLPs in mainspace that are in an unacceptable state but may be capable of fixing can be moved to Draft: without redirect. This prevents BLPs doing harm while the wiki process of improvement and collaboration is in process, and is less WP:BITEy, giving a fair chance to improve the problems. The author or major editors are notified of the page move.
Easy to patrol - Bots can automatically patrol for mainspace articles that are in BLP categories and also have major content issues such as no referencing or NPOV tags, and move them to Draft: (basically page move without redirect). As with BLP itself it's better to move a dubious and tagged article out of mainspace upon suspicion without redirect, and then discuss the content issue at leisure, which makes moving a BLP to Draft: less contentious. If consensus agrees the article is okay, reinstate to mainspace afterwards.
Easier to "banner" - all draft pages can be given a banner stating clearly the article below is not an encyclopedia article, it is a user draft and should not be relied upon. Similar to {{user page}}. Also explains how what to do if there are concerns and how to request deletion of a Draft:.
Gives fair time for fixing before deletion - Pages in Draft: that have not been worked on for more than a given period are automatically {{PROD}}ed.
Compatible with current process - Egregious bad BLPs that would still be a problem in draft space can still be redacted or deleted as usual.
Changes onus on new BLP creation - At present BLPs are created in mainspace by default. If AFD is needed, or there are discussions about referencing and balance, it often still gets its 5 days in mainspace by which time it's comprehensively linked and spidered. If there were a Draft: space, then it might be possible to move to a position where a new BLP doesn't get linked or spidered in the first place, until it meets WP:BLP.

Advantages: - solves the brunt of the bad BLP problem; BLPs of unacceptable standard are immediately removed from the encyclopedia on better terms than userspace drafts; much reduces window for questionable or bad BLP spidering (including new BLPs); less BITEy and encourages fixing where able; idea scales to other articles and to drafting in general if it works; sustainable; no more edit-warrable than current process; probably a good idea anyway (userspace drafting is both INDEXed and hard to patrol).

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Endorse

I wouldn't quite go so far as to say that I endorse every word of this, but it's certainly an interesting idea. It could be blended with the whole "articles for creation" model. Guettarda (talk) 16:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Provided that once adequately sourced, drafts are allowed to become articles and this is not seized by those who would have it be a place where articles go to die and new contributors are dissuaded from participating. A logical extension of the incubator that addresses important issues beyond this particular debate. Skomorokh 18:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Flagged Revisions! by far the best middle path resolution to this issue. Tell Mr. Wales and the others who oppose it to please let us have something that will allow for reasonable fixes to this serious problem. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not quite flagged revisions, as once moved to mainspace future edits would be applied at once, and would not need anyone's approval to go live. Also, IP viewers could read (and edit) such drafts, provided they know how to do so, which is not true with FR as I understand it. This is rather a much enlarged version of the incubator, as user:Skomorokh says above. Moreover, it need not even use a new namespace (although that would be good). Pending creation of such a new namespace, all such draft pages could simply be subpages of Wikipedia:Article drafts or some such page. Not a bad idea at all. DES ^(talk) 20:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

The mainspace is already a draft namespace. Per WP:General disclaimer, we do not guarantee that anything in mainspace, including BLPs, is correct at any given time (although of course we try to make it so). Such is the nature of an encyclopedia that anybody can edit. We should continue to educate the public that despite our efforts to the contrary our articles (including BLPs) may at any time be wrong and should therefore not be relied upon for any important purpose. Your proposal would give the opposite, and untrue, impression that mainspace BLPs can be presumed to be reviewed and correct. Sandstein 11:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is. And that's the problem. As a top 5 website should mainspace be the first port of call for any new-draft BLP? BLP policy, the recent mass deletion and Arbcom's endorsement of admin actions related to substandard BLPs, suggests that mainspace is not the appropriate place for drafting BLP articles. A BLP article simply should not exist in mainspace until/unless already of a high quality. Educating the public runs alongside that, but it doesn't replace it or excuse its absence. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a much simpler solution for that. The original, unmodified Flagged Revisions as they exit on de.wikipedia prevents a new article from appearing to non-registered users until it has been patrolled. This not only serves the same purpose as this, but further also prevents the other major issue of having new copyvios on display until an admin has time to work down the backlog at WP:SCV. And it could be turned on immediately. MLauba (talk) 11:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If "original unmodified" FR was endorsed then we wouldn't be needing this discussion in the first place though. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
the first step, though, is to try the proposed experiment. Then we can see how it works and whether we want to proceed further along that line. I think everyone agrees it would go far towards solving the problem, if it proved practical, and did not discourage new users. Making over-extensive changes in the meantime is introducing too many variables and destroying the validity of the test. DGG ( talk ) 12:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a wiki; everything is a draft. Gigs (talk) 13:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing because a much simpler solution exists which would do the same thing: Simply NOINDEX all BLPs by default until sourced/checked by a human editor. Similar to patrolling. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Hmm, after reading above that my alternative might not be workable (and admitting I do not know either way), I am striking my opposition. However, it still strikes me as being overkill ("everything is a draft"); I feel a less complex way can certainly be found. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
this sounds like reinventing flagged revisions. Guy (Help!) 18:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View (and wild suggestion) by Sjakkalle

I think the reason some people are up in arms against unsourced BLPs is that there have been some nasty instances where BLPs have done harm, and that the problem of unsourced BLPs has not gone away. The reason some people are up in arms against deleting them is that many of the articles are on undisputably valid subjects, e.g. I just went ahead and sourced an unsourced BLP about an Olympic gold medalist.

Just a wild suggestion: What if all editors must contribute to source at least one of the BLPs in Category:All unreferenced BLPs for each comment made on this RFC? That would at least force people to see both sides of the issue, crap articles which should be deleted and valid articles which should be sourced. Perhaps that will create some empathy for the opposing viewpoint and lower the temperature. It really would be better if everyone makes a small contribution to make the matters better instead of just complaining about it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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endorse this summary and wild suggestion

remember that YESPOV is as harmful as NPOV. Gnan garra 15:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hear! Hear! henrik•talk 21:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree. Not sure what to do with my other 2 comments to this RfC to which I am entitled. Hans Adler 23:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nedd mawr dramah. Bearian (talk) 02:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Gnangarra

That BLP articles have the biggest potential to create an adverse impact on Wikipedia and The Foundation and that the community needs to take action to mittigate any such potential by ensuring that all BLP articles are sourced inaccordance with WP:BLP by properly utilising verifiable and reliable sources to support any facts. BLP articles that are unsourced need to be sourced or delete in a timely fashion any deletion should occur after editors have had an opportunity to address sourcing.

Wikipedia has been and continues to be a work in progress and that community standards have continued to be adapted to address issue as they arrise. The need for citations was not a primary concern during the early developement of Wikpedia the community has since 2007 focused on ensuring that all facts are sourced. This change in standards should be taken into account when considering how to address the number of unsourced BLP articles. Gnan garra 15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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those who endorse this summary;

Gnan garra 15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly. While I think it preferable that an opportunity be given to address sourcing before deletion, I do not think it necessary in that if the community decides to go with delete-on-sight, I do not think it a bad thing, only not the best thing. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This summarizes my position very well. I'd wager the majority of unsourced BLPs are/were created out of ignorance of community standards, or because the standards at the time of creation were very different. We've finally got better tools to help editors clean those up (the bot that was informing creators was a BIG help for a lot of users); let's work on improving those tools and see if perhaps we can get the backlog reduced. Karanacs (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we can take a more relaxed attitude to any that predate WP:V and WP:RS. I think there are nearly 20 of them. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Baccyak4H and Karanacs. Bearian (talk) 02:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

those who oppose this summary

Comments

Initially article processes like WP:FAC, WP:GAC or project A class assestments could take a lead in addressing the sourcing problems by adopting a requirement that any BLP linked to a nominated article needs to sourced before the nominated article can be promoted, which is similar to requirement of licensing and/or fair use rationale for media.

Deletion should be in reverse cronological order allowing a greater time frame for older articles which were created under different standards any such process should have an active notification process at or before an article is listed for deletion even to the point of emailing the creator of the article where possible. Gnan garra 15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As an FAC delegate, I would not enforce this provision at all. Those processes exist to analyze a specific article, not all the articles that it links to (and what about the ones those articles link to?). There could be any number of serious problems with some of the articles that are linked (including blatant POV, copyvios, plagiarism, other vandalism), but these are not in the remit of the FAC/GAC processes. This would discourage people from nominating articles and certainly discourage people from reviewing them. Karanacs (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If a BLP is significant enough to warrant inclusion in an article thats at FAC then thats person inclusion is supported by a reference, so we have a situation that an unsourced article is left unfixed when we have an editor(s) with sources to address the problem. How can we call an article our best work when it relies on articles that violate our policies to provide additional information. Gnan garra 01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's not a particular article's fault that another article has problems, unlike with pages containing FU images that have poor rationales. To use your analogy, that would be akin to not promoting an article because a linked article has a problematic image. There's also an issue of practicality. Every major content review process is dealing with backlogs as it is. As a site, we're having trouble finding reviewers for them. I doubt the reviewers we have are going to go for clicking on every BLP link in an article when they're busy enough as is. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by SarekOfVulcan

Since obscure unreferenced BLPs may require offline work to source, no period shorter than 7 days should be used. If an article is tagged on Sunday night, an editor who needs to wait until the weekend to go to the library will be out of luck.

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Users who endorse this summary

SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Milowent (talk) 18:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC) (95% of BLPS, if not more, are non-contentious. The "bad stuff" often creeps into sourced BLPs, frankly.)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 18:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JohnWBarber (talk) 18:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In fact even seven days is likely to be excessively short in many cases, unless the result is not true deletion but incubation or some similar holding area. Fourteen days seems more like a good minimum to me. Several people suggest that an editor can instead ask for undeletion. This works when a single specific article is being worked on by a particular (knowledgeable) editor. It will not work when an editor is trying to keep up with lsits of articles proposed/tagged for deletion. It also does not work if the editor is not an admin and has not already examined the article, because without examining the article's text an editor cannot determine if it is a good candidate for sourcing, nor even what search terms might be useful. It also does not work for relative newcomers to the project, whoi will not know where to find deletion review nor how to ask for undeletion/userfcation, and will find such processes threatening, with the probable result that they simply abandon the effort, and we lose a potentially worthwhile article, and perhaps a potentially useful editor. DES ^(talk) 20:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I find Sarek's logic satisfactory.John Z (talk) 21:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, although I would not be opposed to blanking or otherwise hiding the text while the article is tagged or otherwise waiting deletion. That would remove the potential problem while still preserving the content for nonadmins. Karanacs (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support---when dealing with 50K articles, we need to curb the enthusiasm of those people who will use bots to tag thousands in a row and then want to delete them in a week.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sole Soul (talk) 00:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With the caveat that CSD criteria like A7 and G10 still apply. Jclemens (talk) 01:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support, subject to Jclemens' caveat. Bearian (talk) 02:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the same time, when someone tags a BLP as unreferenced, they should remove dodgy statements simultaneously. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 07:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Michig (talk) 12:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

Comments

While certainly seven days will work and in fact seems reasonable to me, I would not object to other intervals. I do not think article falling through the timeline cracks is that big a deal—if an editor comes back from vacation say and finds an article gone, there are options available. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. There are other options to that editor; they can simply recreate it, ask for it to be userfied, or request undeletion once they've acquired sufficient sources. Opposing an RfC statement is silly, though, so I'll just comment here. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by Badger Drink

I see no reason to distinguish between unsourced, non-contentious BLPs and any other unsourced junk article. Perhaps all articles should be included in a plan like Jehochman's. Unsourced misleading information about a small town in Arkansas is just as damaging to the end-reader as unsourced misleading information about the Duke of Hull's seventh illegitimate daughter's tennis instructor.

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Users who endorse this summary

Badger Drink (talk) 18:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OrangeDog (τ • ε) 18:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
eventually, yes. BLPs are the most damaging though. So let's eat the elephant one bite at a time. ++Lar: t/c 19:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Lar. In the long run, we need to work on a far higher standard of quality. For now, though, BLPs should be our top priority. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, I think all new articles should have reliable sources. We need to make sure, though, that any method we choose gives sufficient time - and motivation - for cleaning up older articles created when sourcing was not the norm. I'll also note that many articles about topics other than people actually discuss living people and pose just as much of a problem as an article specifically about a person. Karanacs (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually largely agree, for some definition of "plan like" and the caveat of being a long time from now. I view the issue raised (BLPs aren't special as BLP-material can show up in any article) as a reason to not do crazy things with deletion tools, but I could see you could reach the viewpoint that we lock down the whole thing and only keep the good articles or a number of spots in the middle of those two stances. I don't think that having sources in the article is what we need, rather we need a way to "mark as verified" by a trusted user that every single sentence in every single article is sourced. Then we need a way to make sure multiple trusted users verify each sentence. I think that's actually doable (and where we'll end up) but not for a decade or two. Hobit (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

You've got to draw the line somewhere. Being unsourced is one big indication of possible irresponsibility; libel is more likely to be found at BLPs, so this is the lowest hanging fruit and a good place to start. I'm not opposed to some process that would gradually delete unsourced articles. But we need to stress the gradual part. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not for now. BLPs are a special and urgent case because of the legal risk they pose to the project and the harm they can do to the subject. However, unsourced BLP material in a non-BLP article is a problem that none of these proposals would address. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, this will kill the expansion of Wikipedia. Fences&Windows 19:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:INSPECTOR Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In line with this proposal, I nominate the article on the Solar System for deletion. After all, there exist no high quality reliable sources independent of the subject. Clearly, all our information is biased and of poor quality, coming as it does from rabid partisans addicted to living in the subject locality. Ray^Talk 01:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- :-) Hobit (talk) 02:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. Maybe every word should have inline reference too, and a bot should check if it really comes from the source. But what to do about WP:SYNT? Wait! Strong AI has just been invented. Pcap ping 01:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NO way per JohnWBarber, RayAYang, Mkativerata, Fences and windows, and Pohta ce-am pohtit. Bearian (talk) 02:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC) See also Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built per Calliopejen1. Bearian (talk) 02:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You have it backwards; the lack of difference is exactly why we shouldn't mass-delete BLPs. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Though this has merit it is simply too large a bite to chew now. It is basically a large rethinking of the entire way the site works - Peripitus (Talk) 09:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion by Bigtimepeace

It's too far down the page so no one will read this, but I have a simple suggestion as we eventually embark on cleaning out the category of unreferenced BLPs. In the process of doing that, editors who come across BLP violations in the articles should log that fact on some central page. Not the BLP violation itself (obviously), but either the article where it was present or even just the mere fact that a BLP violation was found (basically making a tick mark somewhere—I think the former is better). Why do this? Because there are some editors who claim that there are not all that many BLP violations in our articles (thus little or no need for reform), and it could be useful to have some data one way or another from a given sample of BLPs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

Well, I read it. Nicely worded. Bearian (talk) 02:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
— Carl (CBM · talk) 05:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comment

For this to be useful, editors should log all unreferenced BLP articles reviewed and whether they did or did not contain contentious or false statements. Reporting only the violations found without at least the number of non-problematic articles reviewed give not data on the ratio of problems to non-problems. With that change there is some value to this. I will start a personal log, and if such a central log is created, the data from my personal log can be merged in. DES ^(talk) 20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although I agree in theory with this proposal (data is GOOD), in this case I don't think it will make a difference. Those arguing to delete all unsourced BLPs on sight have repeatedly stated that one violation - one actual person harmed - is too many. They have a valid point. (I also think that some of the arguments against this are very valid points.) So the statistics, in the long run, will be disregarded because it is not possible to measure the actual or potential harm. Karanacs (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Karanacs I definitely see your that point, and indeed that's the primary argument against doing this (i.e. it won't affect debate so why bother). Really I'm just throwing this out there as a suggestion since it theoretically could be useful. And DESiegel I guess my thinking was that we know how many unsourced BLPs there are as of right now (50,000 and whatever), so if we keep track of how many more pop into the category over the course of cleaning it out (let's say 5,000 more) and then log only the ones where there were problems (obviously not everything would get logged as people would forget), we could end up with a number like "1,000 out of this 57,000 articles tagged as unsourced BLPs had BLP violations" (the assumption would be that anything not logged did not have a BLP vio). It doesn't even matter that a good percentage of those articles are wrongly tagged as is certainly the case (i.e. they did have sources), the point is we'd be looking at a defined (but large) chunk of the full set of BLPs and seeing what percentage had problems, which I'm not sure we've ever done before. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we do track, I would recommend noting the types of problems, for example - negative POV, positive POV, generic vandalism, false information (or info that cannot be quickly sourced), contentious material. Karanacs (talk) 22:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How can we track how many new articles are added to the unreferenced BLPs category? Some are being removed constantly, and some are being added - there is simply no way to tell how many go in. Jogurney (talk) 00:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If a BLP is unreferenced and contains a serious BLP violation then it should be speedy deleted. It should be quite easy for a bot to chart how many attack pages and vandalism pages we are deleting per week, and calculate whether the current process is increasing or reducing the number of such pages being identified and found. I would really like to know whether our current focus on old supposedly unsourced BLPs is distracting editors from other areas of the pedia and making it easier for the vandals to get away with things on more frequently viewed parts of the pedia. Ϣere SpielChequers 01:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a good idea to collect data on this. For reference I collected data on how many requests for semiprotection we got, and how many were done versus not needed. It was anecdotal but it was also eye opening. ++Lar: t/c 02:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by RoryReloaded

Instead of deleting all those poor BLP articles (60 000 to be exact), why don't we just clean them up, add some sources to the sourceless ones and add more information? It would be a shame to get rid of 60 000 articles. And what about the ones (any that may be under the 60 000) that are beautifully crafted, with many sources in them, well written and that can keep a reader busy for a while? What about the ones which students might use for help on a test or something? It just doesn't add up.

So, if all else fails with the sources and things like that, deletion may then be considered.

I doubt anyone's going to read this because it's like the 50th section but please pay some attention to us bottom views. RoryReloaded 22:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

You forgot the most important reason this won't be taken seriously: this is far too reasonable an approach to this matter. (Reminds me of another problem: how do we reduce the percentage of stub articles? Why not improve them so they aren't stubs any more? Instead, there are people who want to delete them -- or prevent any more stubs from being created.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mass deletions is not the ideal solution.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly endorse - There are many articles in this category that should be saved. After more than 12 months of sourcing footballer BLPs, I noticed yesterday that there are still many two-time World Cup players that were unreferenced (there are still several more). Many of these articles are well-written and are about very notable people, but they were created years ago when sourcing wasn't a big focus. They have only recently been tagged as unreferenced (many with the past month or two) so editors like myself didn't even realize they were unsourced. I have yet to see any evidence that the current processes for deletion don't work (in fact, the steady decline in the category:unreferenced BLPs is evidence that they are working). Jogurney (talk) 00:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much too sensible an approach. After all, about 200 editors have commented here. If every one of these editors committed to sourcing 300 or so of these articles over the next year (less than one a day!), the backlog would vanish. So far today, I've rescued an article on a prime minister of a mid-sized country, a Holocaust survivor who became a major general, a professor who won a Guggenheim fellowship, and a popular singer whose audiences regularly draw more than 100,000 people. And I've reviewed fewer than 50 bios. The error rate on these mass deletion proposals is simply too horrendous to be believed. Ray^Talk 01:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support per all of the above. Bearian (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
support What's been fun is that I sourced a few from Nov 2006. Not well, but I found minimal sourcing to meet WP:V. The result was AfD for a fair number of them (where all but maybe 1 will be kept). I spent more time dealing with Prod/Speedy/AfD stuff than I did sourcing because of all that... Hobit (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support --GRuban (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Users who oppose this summary

Comments

I read it! Mass deletion is not and ideal solution by any means, but many of these articles have other serious, fundamental problems besides references (or lack thereof). A lot of those have been unreferenced for over three years because they are simply not notable, thus there are no references to add to it. Care needs to be taken to ensure that only those which cannot be referenced are deleted as opposed to this which are not referenced. That's where due process proves its importance. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 00:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Humm, the oldest backlogged articles are largely easy to get at least basic sourcing for in my experience. I'd say of the 30 I looked at, only 1 or two may have met a speedy criteria and 20 or so were clearly notable (many currently making it just fine in AfD, 2 snow kept. Now those may have already been prodded/speedied to the bone so perhaps not a good random sample. But I suspect a slim majority of these articles meet our inclusion guidelines. Hobit (talk) 03:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concrete suggestion by Scott MacDonald

Unsourced biographies must not be left lying around. If we are to avoid having to speedy delete them (which is not the best option), we need something workable. Something that gives a newbie a chance to source it, or get help from others, but still does not leave long-term unsourced articles.

I suggest:

For new BLPs, as has already been suggested, we have a special BLPprod. This will state that the article needs sourcing and if not given at least rudimentary sourcing within 7 days is liable for deletion. The prod notice may not be removed unless the article is sourced. If the article is deleted, it may be undeleted by any admin if someone is willing to source it.

For the backlog - we don't want several thousand BLPprods with a seven day deadline, so we do this stage by stage.

Initially, we BLPprod all unsourced BLPs which have been tagged as such for over 2 years. These articles are given one month's grace. During that time the tag can be removed if the article gets sourced (or is already actually sourced). After one month, any remaining articles can be deleted (but again undeleted if anyone is willing to source them.
When that month is over, we BLPprod all BLPs which have been tagged for over 1 year. Rinse and repeat.
When that month is over, we do the same for the remaining backlog.

In three months the entire backlog is gone, and no unsourced BLP remains in Wikipedia for any more than 7 days. I strongly suspect that the number of articles deleted (other than those that should be deleted for other reasons) will be fairly minimal.--Scott Mac (Doc) 02:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've fleshed this out at Wikipedia:Unreferenced biographies of living people.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Strongly support, great ideas. Bearian (talk) 02:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll endorse this. Jack Merridew 02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sensible since it includes a deadline and the requirement that the BLP be sourced by the end of the deletion process or be deleted. FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 02:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WorksForMe(tm). I will support ANY halfway sensible approach to this. This one is a lot more than just halfway. ++Lar: t/c 02:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
3 months more is not too long to wait. It's fairly clear that we need to treat the backlog differently from new articles. Kevin (talk) 02:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Better than nothing. I support this. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 02:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
potential support at a much slower rate. Say 2 months of backlog per month. Still done in about 2 years (given time to catch up) and much less likely to delete things we should keep. The issue has been with us for years, let's acknowledge that fixing it is going to take a while but still set a deadline so it _does_ get fixed. I'd also like a good faith pledge that those pushing so hard for deletion are going to help source. Say each of the 50 or so pushing for this promise to do 30 a month. I'll be happy to pledge the same thing. Hobit (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good ideas, and better than either of a) the traditional neglect of the BLP issue to the detriment of Wikipedia; or b) mass deletions by fiat. Gives people a realistic, but not indefinite, chance to address problems with articles. Euryalus (talk) 03:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Make it so, please. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely a good proposal. Coupled with improved methods of notifying interested editors of articles in need of saving, we can help the project considerably. Reso lute 05:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
--Mkativerata (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Similar to other proposals but basically with a time frame. Sounds great to me, so long as we build in a little bit of flexibility (not a lot) if we're finding we can't quite work our way through (i.e. at least attempt to source) all the articles in a month. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. There are some tweaks we can work out if this is the top contender - for example, I think it should be phased in smaller weekly chunks rather than big monthly ones so that there isn't a huge crush once a month. Also, there is no reason we can't tag all the backlog articles right now (and whenever we catch one it can be tossed into the pile), just give them different due dates. But overall I think this is the best approach. We might want to combine this with an incubation / move to alternate namespace, stubbification, and/or content hiding for all the articles awaiting rescue or deletion. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems workable and well thought out - Peripitus (Talk) 09:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support the general concept of having a schedule to manage the problem, though I think the specific schedule may need to be tweaked a bit. --Jayron32 15:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems sensible. JamieS93 17:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The summary deletion of quality articles or those with potential is disastrous for the encyclopaedia; although I share the misgivings about whether or not this process can respsonsibly achieve its goal of clearing the backlog in the timeframe specified without overwhelming volunteer resources, it does address the problem in a measured way that provides scope for salvaging good content. Skomorokh 20:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a good proposal. Vassyana (talk) 21:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks workable and effective. Cla68 (talk) 22:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Unsourced articles over 2 years old - that's 5,000+ articles, which is too many to deal with in a month. The next month's set of articles is even more unworkable. I have no problem with the proposal for new articles, but since there are editors already trying to fix these older articles to avoid deletion, more time is required. Better to look at each article individually and see if it needs to be deleted by existing means or improved. Now that the issue has become so apparent, editors are already working to fix these articles, one way or another. This proposal wouldn't really give this effort a chance to succeed. A few months of tagged articles have already largely been dealt with, mostly in an appropriate manner - give it a chance to continue amd concentrate on halting the creation of new unsourced BLPs.--Michig (talk) 12:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose, Scott MacDonald wrote: "Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[18] This was after deleting hundreds of BLP articles, which prompted this RFC. Scott then blocked himself to avoid being blocked like the R... who was blocked three times. Scott why are you participating in a process which you "hold in utter contempt"? The way this RFC was created is a precursor and example of the way this policy will be implemented: with "drama and disruption". As Scott's supporters alienates thousands of editors. Ikip 21:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Yes, that sounds good. I think three months is okay but we could stretch it out to six or even nine if this is an issue. Setting a timetable is good, leaving time for salvage operations is good. --TS 02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal seems designed to produce the following results: (1) so many articles get tagged at once that it discourages anyone from seriously working through the backlog, almost exactly matching the current situation with the unsourced BLP tags; (2) most of the articles don't get fixed; (3) big bang when they all get deleted. Unless the intent really is to delete as many salvageable articles as possible, I think it would be much better to use a standard 1-week prod period (I prefer standard prod to avoid new process but BLPprod could work) with a much more steady rate of moving articles from unsourcedBLP to prod, maybe enough to get us through them all in a year. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In principle, I can agree, but in practice cleaning up 50K articles in 3 months is nigh impossible. Just putting tags on the articles isn't going to be enough... we need to make sure people know about this process---eg it needs to be advertised at various projects AND the Signpost. We also need a mechanism to make sure that people who care about the articles, the various projects, know which ones need cleaned up. Getting the projects involved is, IMHO, the best way to tackle the problem. Get people who know and care about the subject to help out with their areas of expertise. If we don't have a means to notify people, we are just going to end up deleting articles.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 19:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Complementary solution by Father Goose

I've recently created the template {{BLP unverified}}, which allows one to stub an article down to just its sourced material, while leaving a pointer to where to find the unsourced material, for sourcing at a later time. Here's an example of it in action: [19].

If just enough sourcing were added to unsourced BLPs to establish basic notability, then the article stubbed with a link to the remainder of the content provided via this template, I think this would expedite the processing of the backlog via any of the other methods proposed here.

It's an even better fit for Category:BLP articles lacking sources, although that backlog can be addressed after the wholly unsourced articles are dealt with.--Father Goose (talk) 08:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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View by otherlleft

Wikipedia has clear processes for deleting articles, which involves (in most cases) a community discussion to determine the merits of the individual article. There is no clear reason to either develop a new process or backlog prod and afd in this manner. If this is a legal concern, the Wikimedia Foundation can make a determine that overrules how the community functions. Otherwise, the process works just fine.--otherl left 12:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View by The-Pope

Can I first state how appalled I am that the actions of the few ~~editors~~ admins in arrogantly and in direct opposition to the established deletion process, used a process that had been rejected many times before to highlight this problem to the wikiworld. I agree that it's a major problem, but how about highlighting it to us, the common editor, first, before you bring in the big WP:POINTy stick next time?

You claim that three year old unreferenced BLPs have no right being here, and we all had three years to fix them. Well, unreferenced BLPs is just one of the 108 cleanup categories that are listed on the current Wolterbot Cleanup list. Sorry that I wasn't aware that #82 on the list was the one area I really should have been working on, or that it was those 2000 articles, out of the 17000 articles with clean-up tags on them, that were the real problem.

Since this mess has begun, no actually, even before this mess had begun, back in early January, another overly enthusiastic editor moved a long-term unreferenced BLP into the WP:Article Incubator. After working out that this wasn't really what the incubator was meant to be used for, User:Gnangarra told us about the task force that had been set up to deal with the 50,000 unreferenced BLPs. I then created a list of Australian related ones - about 2028 of them. This morning, I suggested to WP:Australia that this should be our Collaboration of the month. So far, in about a day or two, we've got it down to 1811 pages. Maybe it's an initial rush, maybe were more organised that other projects, but 10% in a day or so by a few people shows that it's possible. So my proposal:

Make it known that this is the site's current main priority. Most users have their own priorities - whether it be new page creation or patrolling, improvements to get to FA/GA (maybe stop FA/GA assessment for a month to get everyone to work on the bottom end, not polishing the top end), DABing, stub sorting, vandal fighting, etc. We don't sit around wondering what to do next. Get the banner/talk page spam/ whatever to tell EVERYONE that unreferenced BLPs are to be our priority. I mean if it's OK for three admins to invent their own CSD category, delete a bunch of articles and then be commended for doing so, it has to be the #1 item for all of us, right?

Also get Wolterbot to change the order of the cleanup list to highlight what are the real problem areas, and which ones are "nice-to-haves" (ie MOS type ones).

Get ALL of the projects on board. Get a bot/code/something quicker and smarter than me to auto-generate the lists based on the intersection of Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:WikiProject XYZ articles It needs some smarts, cause the project cats are on the talk pages, but the unreferenced BLPs are on the main pages, but I can do it for a project at a time using WP:AWB, so it must be able to be done. Then create a Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Unreferenced BLPs page for EVERY project. Update the list daily. Hold a competition to see who can zero their list the quickest - winner gets money/fame/links on the main page for a month/etc. Create a hall of fame for most removed each week. Do whatever, but get the projects on board. As the BLP Task Force page says The BLP Task Force should not be encumbered with fixing individual biographies. The Arbcom/Crats/Admins aren't going to do the grunt work to fix this problem, we are. Projects are. Get them onside.
Review the progress after a couple of months. If it isn't working, then either up the profile/rewards for the projects that are doing well, or then bring in some of the more dramatic suggestions by others. And how about the BLP Task Force actually publish something, or is that just another death by committee organisation? I note that one of the rogue admins who did, or strongly supported, the deletions is actually a member of that task force. Nothing like jumping the gun, or trusting that they might come up with a solution, heh? -The-Pope (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Users who endorse this summary

I wholeheartedly support this approach. The only part which makes me uneasy is "I mean if it's OK for three admins to invent their own CSD category, delete a bunch of articles and then be commended for doing so, it has to be the #1 item for all of us, right?" I do feel that responding to such tactics by prioritising this problem over other important work is basically rewarding bullying and blackmail, which establishes a dangerous precedent. If the admins involved had tried more constructive and community-based initiatives in the first place, I would feel far more comfortable supporting their cause. The-Pope has entirely the right idea: change should be encouraged through community effort, not forced with threats and tight deadlines which could be detrimental to efforts to deal with more serious problems such as vandalism on high-profile BLPs. I also agree that in general we should shift the emphasis on improving Wikipedia to the lower end, making poor and potentially problematic articles acceptable rather than making already good articles better. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support: This is not very glamorous work but I for one would do a few every day if the project was set up the way the Pope suggests. In my opinion the articles should not be deleted if it can be helped.--Diannaa (talk) 18:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

View and proposal by Cenarium

The issue of sourcing for biographies of living people is vast and cannot be resolved without a large and concerted effort by the community, which can only be engaged and organized through consensus. Opening this request for comment seems to be the best way to start it, regardless of how it came to be opened. While remarkable efforts have been made by various users on the broad issue of BLP enforcement in the past few years, no major initiative have been launched so far to tackle the problem of backlogs for unsourced or undersourced BLPs, which would require the work of a large number of editors for sensible progress. So, while we should attempt to find a consensual solution to the question of deleting unreferenced BLPs, we should also strive to address the rout of the problem: the insufficient sourcing. Thus it is proposed to create a site-wide initiative aimed to source unsourced and undersourced BLPs, and also maybe let more users know ('sensibilising') about the general issues surrounding BLPs and how they can help. This initiative can be summarized on a dedicated project page and advertised through the use of notices, for example the watchlist notice or a dismissible sitenotice for all registered users. The project page should be well though-out and consensual, free of drama, accessible and comprehensive. The page should link to the category of unsourced BLPs and undersourced BLPs (stressing on the former), but if possible in a way to attract interest, for example by dividing the category by topics (musicians, writers, etc). Editors should also be encouraged to better source or review any blp they encounter, and general advice can be given on how to help for the blp issue. Cenarium (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. All our bios could be sourced to the hilt and Wikipedia would still be vulnerable to libel and vandalism. 'Sourced' statements may fail verification or come from poor sources, and new changes will not always be spotted immediately by the article watchers or recent changes patrol. This moral panic over unsourced BLPs misses the point entirely. Fences&Windows 21:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 278: / Line 278: @@
 #'''Support''' seems reasonable and workable and addresses concerns on both sides. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 15:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 #'''Support''' – A much more common sense approach than immediate deletion of all uncited BLPs on sight, which will hopefully lead to the sourcing of all BLPs (a worthy goal no matter what side of the debate one is on). '''[[User:Giants2008|<font color="blue">Giants2008</font>]]''' ([[User talk:Giants2008|<font color="darkblue">27 and counting</font>]]) 23:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
+#'''Support''' with the additional comment that I think BLPs should be, as a matter of course, semiprotected. I agree that misinformation can be a problem, which routine semiprotection should help with. [[User:Tigerhawkvok|Tigerhawkvok]] ([[User talk:Tigerhawkvok|talk]]) 00:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 ; Users who oppose this summary