Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

If he's dead, we don't care

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

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

What about George Washington?

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

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

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

Public documents

(Restored form archive for more thorough debate.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note: this section once said

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Added some Wikilinks to articles in Wikipedia proper on relevant topics

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

The addition reads:

Wikipedia articles

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

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

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

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

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

Year of Birth

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

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

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

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

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

Currently:

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

Proposed:

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

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

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

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

This is why.

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

BLP = GAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Likewise, people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career. For instance, in sports, a Roman Catholic athlete is not treated differently from a Lutheran or Methodist. Similarly, in criminology, a person's actions are more important than their race or sexual orientation. While "LGBT literature" is a specific genre and useful categorisation, "LGBT quantum physics" is not.

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

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

Again, "notable".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ethnicity, Gender, day 1

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

  Note Bene: some comments here seem to be related to re-arguing very recent polls on relevance, and notability, and lists, and templates. Those have already been decided! This is solely about adding two words from the WP:EGRS guideline criteria to this policy language to avoid wiki-lawyering disputes. Hopefully, the closer will disregard those irrelevant comments.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 15:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The WP:EGRS guideline applies only to Categories. Your proposal above extends that guideline to Lists. Yet Lists are vastly different that categories because List articles can (and often do, especially in contentious areas) supply context, footnotes, sources, and nuances. You may want to consider re-submitting this proposal but limit it to Ethnicity (not Gender) and limit it to Categories (not Lists). --Noleander (talk) 16:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

No, that has already been decided. In fact, this should reduce conflicts, because Lists and Templates are annotated with "context, footnotes, sources, and nuances." I'm sorry you don't like it.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

What was already decided? My prior comment had several sentences in it. --Noleander (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that "already decided" in relation to WP:EGRS is quite a bit misleading. This text was added into that guideline in July 2009 by... William Allen Simpson. It was added there after being brought up on the talk page by... William Allen Simpson. No one else wrote in in support at the time. When I tried to remove it from the page, citing lack of consensus, I was reverted by... William Allen Simpson. So to keep citing that "policy" as having "been decided" is quite a bit misleading. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:48, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support - for ethnicity. 'Gender' however is a little difficult - taken literally this might be read as not being able to state whether a BLP was about a man, or a woman. I'm sure this wasn't the intent, but I think this needs clarification, or possibly further discussion as a separate rewording. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
  • It would only be a problem with transgender people, and I would support self-identification in that case. --JN466 01:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree with Jayen466. This is only about creating and including folks in categories. There's no reason to bother, unless it is relevant to their activities. The recent testing of the South American athlete comes to mind, although I don't remember the name. But we shouldn't exclude or include somebody, just because genetic testing says their self-identification is somehow "incorrect".
    --William Allen Simpson (talk) 01:59, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. --JN466 01:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - ridiculous. I use Jason Derülo as an example once again. As the son of Haitian immigrants, he's obviously of Haitian descent. It's absurd to require that this fact be "notable to his public life" in order to be listed under Category:American people of Haitian descent. Why would we want to do that? It doesn't make any sense. Nor does requiring that his being "African American" be notable to his music in order to be listed under Category:African American musicians. Obviously, he's an African-American musician. What logical sense does it make not to categorize him as such? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 02:02, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Bzzzt, thank you for playing. That is not the question. The only issue before us is whether BLP should be different than all other pages. All categories are required to be both notable and relevant. Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 06:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Thank you for bringing this error to our attention. The Jason Derülo article does not give any verified sources indicating African descent, and he does not self-identify as African American. In cited sources, he's of French and Haitian descent. Removed! We do not subscribe to the racist one drop rule, nor do we add folks to African American categories based merely on appearance as "not white".
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 06:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  What are you talking about? Who is this "our"? Under your proposal, Jason Derulo couldn't be listed under "American people of Haitian descent" unless this was notable to his music? Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't. And yes, obviously he's African-American, see here and here. Whether or not he self-identifies as African-American or Haitian-American wouldn't get him listed as an "African-American musician" or an "American of Haitian descent" anyway under your proposal, because some poor editor would apparently have to "demonstrate" that this is notable to his songs? Is this proposal for real? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 07:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support the addition of "ethnicity". On gender, I doubt t hat restricting categorization by gender is plausible. How would we determine if a singer's gender was important enough to his/her notability to determine whether they go into something like "French female singers" vs. "French singers"? Would that mean that female sports players would automatically keep their "Women's..." categories, because most sports are segregated by gender? Unless we're actually prepared to eliminate all gender based categories, I doubt we could make the distinction usefully. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Qwyrxian, are you saying that Jason Derülo, the son of Haitian immigrants, shouldn't be listed under Category:American people of Haitian descent unless his Haitian ancestry was relevant to his music? That's what you're saying by supporting this proposal. Because that's what the wording of it mandates. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 07:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

    Please stop raising these Strawman arguments. They disrupt discussion. The only issue before us is whether BLP should be different than all other pages. All categories are required to be both notable and relevant.
    --William Allen Simpson (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

    I thought we weren't supposed to canvas, were we, WAS? I refer only to this this and this. And no, it's not a strawman. It's quite a legitimate question. You're free to answer it yourself. Why shouldn't Jason Derulo be listed under "American people of Haitian descent"? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 08:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

If the fact that he is Haitian is notable, then it may be mentioned in a category. But if only the fact that he is a musician is notable, then it may not. That seems logical to me. There is no requirement that Haitian descent must be related to his musical activities. Debresser (talk) 18:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

According to this proposal, his Haitian ancestry should be "relevant to [his] notable activities or public life". Since Derülo's activities consist pretty much entirely out of his music career, that would mean his Haitian ancestry would have to be related to that to be listed under "American people of Haitian descent". Which doesn't sound like a good idea to me. If I'm a student doing a project on famous Americans of Haitian descent, it would be immensely helpful to me if he was listed in that category. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support -for ethnicity not for Gender - would be most likely impossible to implement and enforcer in a civil manner.Moxy (talk) 08:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  This is required to document the result of many WP:CFD Gender decisions, such as double and triple intersections Buddhist women, Clothing for women, American Muslim women, Iranian women fashion designers, etc. Is there a reason we should allow such Gender categories for living persons? We already require deletion for dead, undead, or wraiths! Easier to enforce and implement consistently.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 13:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support Dougweller (talk) 14:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support in spirit. I would like to see some wording that recognizes that these categories are usually uncontroversial, especially gender, but leads to removal of unsourced categories if there is any controversy over them. Gigs (talk) 14:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  That's an excellent suggestion! (I remember you've made it before.) Let's do that after this certification process is complete. Always best to complete one thing at a time.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 15:47, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  • The uncontroversial/controversial issue is a totally separate one. This policy mandates the removal of all categories, whether controversial or not. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I see no reason given for the change, unless one is accepting of "to reduce quibbling" as a reason for the change. I feel the opposite is the case. Simplification is not called for here, necessarily. These attributes are different in fundamental ways from one another. In some instances some of these attributes of personal identity should be included in the article only if accompanied by self-identification; in other instances this is not called for at all. Ditto as concerns notability: in some instances it might be arguable that the relation between an attribute of identity and the person's reason for notability is so tenuous that inclusion is gratuitous and perhaps even contrived. Yet in other instances inclusion of attributes of identity may be warranted even if not related to notability—that is simply because the reader is understood to be interested in all relevant material. The simplification seen here in the interest of reducing quibbling is also going to be used by editors in their incessant arguments to keep material out of articles and to block categorization as concerns individuals. It is not unheard of for editors to have some very personally motivated reasons for mounting arguments to keep well-sourced and perfectly innocuous material out of articles and categories. I see no reason to enshrine in policy that all attributes need both self-identification and a relationship to notability. This gives more tools for censorship to those already inclined to exclude material from biographies that is not in violation of the spirit of WP:BLP. This is an abuse of WP:BLP. It encroaches on normal article-writing, including the categorization that facilitates the research aspects of the project that makes Wikipedia useful to readers. Bus stop (talk) 16:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Again, that is not the question. The only issue before us is whether BLP should be different than all other pages. Do we permit these two methods of categorization for living people, and then delete them as they die? That seems very difficult to enforce and implement consistently. The folks at WP:CFD are overworked enough already.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

William Allen Simpson—WP:BLP involves sensitivity. This is a collaborative project—"quibbling" is what this project is about. You are suggesting substituting simplicity for sensitivity. I find the following language:"Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity..." There is not any one applicable rule as to whether or not any attribute of personal identity should or should not be included in an article or in a category. This is for individual Talk pages of separate articles. We should not be providing language in policy for editors to exclude material based on reasons unrelated to the special sensitivities that should be accorded the biographies of living people. This is suggestive of an abuse of WP:BLP as you are not providing a reason for the suggested change. Reducing quibbling is not a reason. This is a collaborative project, where quibbling is intrinsic. Bus stop (talk) 16:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• I don't entirely understand this - especially the bit about deleting categories when people die - but if we are going to categorize people by gender or ethnicity (and most of the time I'd prefer it if we didn't), I wouldn't have thought self-identification would be the criterion (it should be what reliable sources say, as with most things, plus a dollop of common sense).--Kotniski (talk) 17:23, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
  • I generally agree, but self-identification isn't that bad. The real problem is "related to notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources". That means we couldn't list the son of Haitian immigrants as an "American person of Haitian descent" unless this was related to his profession? (even if he repeatedly self-identified) That doesn't make any sense. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support because the qualifier: "unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the information in question; and this information is relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources" is good all around! IZAK (talk) 17:58, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Big but wait a second. at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality we were talking about "descent" categories. Is that part of "ethnicity"? Debresser (talk) 18:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• I was under the impression it was. If they're not part of that, that should certainly be stated explicitly in any proposal. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - Because it is being applied to Lists as well as Categories. Lists (as has been discussed above in this Talk page) should not be lumped in with Categories in BLPCAT because Lists do permit "disclaimers and limitations" and other contextual information that Categories do no support. I have no objection to applying this proposal to Categories, but sweeping Lists along with the Categories is ill-considered. --Noleander (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Again, that is not the question. The only issue before us is whether BLP should be different than all other pages. Language about "Lists along with the Categories" was added months ago. That bus has left the garage.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The proposal above adds words both into the Category text and into the List text. This proposal could just focus on the Category text. By choosing to add words to the List text, the proposer is deliberately continuing the (erroneous) treatment of Lists as the same as Categories. The proposal could easily be split into two parts. The proposer did not choose to do so, and so my Oppose vote remains. --Noleander (talk) 19:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Note It should probably be pointed that out that William Allen Simpson just keeps on Canvassing. He has successfully brought IZAK and Gigs and Jayen466 over here. All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:56, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Notifying folks that proposed earlier versions of this text is required.

  • On the talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics), who are known for expertise in the field, or who have asked to be kept informed.

  Indeed, I've not had time to complete all my notifications. I'll be working on that over the next few days, little by little.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 19:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  • • "However canvassing which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate". All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 19:11, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Question - Im not too familiar with the BLPCAT policy history, but hasnt there been substantial discussion aboutList of Jewish Nobel laureates and how that list (based on ethnicity) was entirely valid (even though the ethnicity was immaterial to inclusion in the list)? I guess I'm asking for some habitue of this Talk page to re-cap the history of that topic. Would adopting this policy cause most (living) persons to be removed from that list article? If so, this policy absolutely should not be adopted. --Noleander (talk) 19:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

As some here know, the existence of precisely such lists is extremely controversial. Feketekave (talk) 11:44, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support pending further discussion. Although I think it may be useful to separate categories from lists and gender from ethnicities to gauge community support if there is no clear consensus forming here. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• oppose Has the problem already brought up of fairly obvious cases where they haven't even bothered saying they fall into the category because it is so obvious. In general is unnecessary rule creep. We can rely on reliable sources just as much as we can rely on self-identification unless there's an obvious cause of controversy. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

• Question for -William Allen Simpson - WAS: I've read your comments above, and most of your comments are directed at how the BLPCAT policy could guide a decision on whether to delete a given Category (e.g. you cite CFD, etc). Yet most editors, I believe, treat the BLPCAT as primarily guiding whether a given individual can be inlcuded in an existing (valid) Category. That is a huge difference. I think the wording of BLPCAT shows it is aimed more at the latter than the former, so you might want to re-cast your comments. --Noleander (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? We've long has this restriction in creating and naming categories. Simply following the criteria of Categorization, they should not exist. But they keep getting added to articles, and thus re-created, and WP:CFD has to clean them up (over and over again). The lack of prescriptivism in this policy is only the current wikilawyering rationale for adding ethnic or gender categories to articles.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 13:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I cannot understand your logic. You did not respond to the points I raised. Of course WP should, and does have many ethnicity-based Categories. There is no policy prohibiting them, and they are very useful to readers. The proposal you are making above is to change the rule on which living individuals may be included in a given ethnicity-based category. Your proposed rule would cause many key persons to be deleted from many Categories, such as List of Jewish Nobel laureates. That is not sensible and is not going to happen. --Noleander (talk) 17:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support having BLP match other guidelines and vise versa. Blueboar (talk) 20:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Rule creep, foolish consistency. --Avenue (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  While "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", we apparently need the consistency because of the little minds.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 13:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• (ec) We do not need the excessive consistency proposed above. Why should a properly sourced list, with appropriate notes and caveats, be subject to the same membership restrictions as a category that cannot include such caveats? This proposal is also a clear case of rule creep. It stretches a rule that deals with unobservable and often highly sensitive personal characteristics (sexual orientation and belief) and tries to force typically observable and much less sensitive characteristics (gender and ethnicity) into the same mold. If you were instead trying to extend the rule to something similar in nature (e.g. transgender or ambiguously sexed people, such as the South African runner Caster Semenya), I would be much more likely to support it (although I think requiring self-identification in the latter case would probably be too big a stretch as well). --Avenue (talk) 16:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Avenue's comment: "Why should a properly sourced list, with appropriate notes and caveats, be subject to the same membership restrictions as a category that cannot include such caveats?". This is a very important issue that needs to be addressed. Not only does it justify rejection of the current proposal, but it even justifies revising the current WP:BLPCAT policy, because that policy treats Lists and Categories identically. BLPCAT started off as a decent rule for Categories, and an overzealous desire for uniformity caused Lists to get dragged in about a year ago. On two occasions, a proposal was made to distinguish Lists from Categories in BLPCAT, but it failed because of the simple fact that it is virtually impossible to get consensus for change in WP policies (due to the "there will always be 20% oppose, not matter how sensible the proposal" principle). --Noleander (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ethnicity, Gender, day 2

• Have to oppose this for now, as it doesn't seem to have been properly thought through. I share Noleander's concern above: there seems to be confusion between the questions of which categories should exist, and which articles should be placed in a category once it does exist. BLP is dealing with the second question; and on that question I think the criterion should be what information can be reliably sourced, nothing more, otherwise we'll end up with incomplete categories. Though generally speaking I'd be in favour of a move to limit the number of categories of these types that exist in the first place.--Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

  Again, that is not the question. Unfortunately, as you well know, wikipedia editing doesn't actually work that way. In any case, that's not the argument made: that this policy trumps category creation and naming guidelines. This brings this policy into line with existing guidelines, so there is no perceived conflict or nuance.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 13:54, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

  I don't see any contradiction between the policy and guidelines (except in that the guidelines aren't worded particularly well), though I may do if you can point one out to me. As I see it, the guidelines (if you mean Overcategorization) are about what categories should(n't) exist; the policy (BLP) is about how we decide (in certain specific cases) whether to put a given article into a given existing category. Once we've decided that, say, the category "LGBT golfers" should exist because we think sexual orientation is a notable characteristic of golfers, then we can populate it without worrying for each individual whether their orientation is notable for their golf-playing. The issue addressed by BLP is that in the case of living persons we need to be especially wary of the danger of defamation when putting a living person into some category. (OK, I see that's not actually what the policy says; the whole thing needs tidying up, certainly, but I don't see that the solution is to extend to another two classes of categories the same somewhat muddle-headed thinking that's been applied to religion and orientation.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

  Ramble. Yes, I think what I don't like is that this section of BLP is getting outside of its scope. BLP should be about protecting living people from potentially defamatory or privacy-breaching labels, not about preserving the usability of Wikipedia's category system, which is the job of other policies and guidelines that, most importantly, don't cease to apply when the subject dies. I can accept that sexual orientation and (perhaps to some extent) religion are potential BLP issues in that sense, but I don't think that gender or ethnicity normally are. If we want to control overcategorization based on these features, then we want to do it mainly because it overloads and overcomplicates the category system, with respect to both living and dead people, and so BLP is the wrong place to be doing this.--Kotniski (talk) 16:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

  About this "policies trump guidelines" thing: It's not actually true. See Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays. For example, an immediately relevant guideline can 'trump' a vague policy. For another example, we never delete interlanguage links (a mere informational page) even if they (currently) violate WP:LINKVIO (a major policy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

  I agree, and certainly that was the long-term consensus. Guidelines are simply more detailed than policy, usually with more examples and explanation. Unfortunately, a bit of recent wikilawyering brought this into question regarding WP:EGRS. Simplest to make this policy exactly match the existing WP:EGRS guidelines.
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 14:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Per proposer's rationale. Categorizing people by ethnicity, gender, etc. is only informational when the category is meaningful to the person's notable activities. On a related note, I'm firmly against the use of Wikipedia to promote the various social groups that some Wikipedians belong to. While there are certainly people opposed to this rules change who are so for principled (and not political) reasons, I've seen way too many of the recent BLP identification controversies not to note the fact that these usually stem from pride based identity politics (nationalistic, ethnic, religious, etc.). To those of us who do not belong to a certain group the categorizations become trivial at best, and to those who do belong they become badges of pride, or worse at times to some who do not belong they can be badges of hate, ridicule, scorn, etc. Let's leave the identity politics to the blogosphere and spend our time writing an encyclopedia. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment/question: Why should notability be tied to categorization by attribute of identity? I should think that categorizing people by well-sourced attributes of identity is an unalloyed good, or at least unless a reason can be given for why an individual should not be categorized by an attribute. Is there a reason that categories of identity should be related to the individual's reason for notability? Isn't this a project for bringing information to people? The principles of WP:BLP do not seem to me to be applicable to the proposed alteration to policy. WP:BLP emphasizes the "sensitivity" with which we must approach article-writing concerning living people. I find: "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity..." How would that translate into creating rules in policy that prohibit categorizing people by well-sourced attributes of identity unless those attributes are related to notability? By what rationale would well-sourced and in many cases 100% innocuous information be blocked from inclusion in the categorization function of the project? I think that the default position should be for the inclusion of information. The proposed change in policy is to a default position of exclusion of information. How is that consistent with a project that ostensibly assembles sourced information? Special sensitivities apply to biographies of living people. In fact sensitivities should extend to those no longer living as well, in my opinion. But why should we enshrine in our policy language that the standard fare in information concerning personal attributes of identity should be excluded unless it can be demonstrated that these attributes have a strong connection to an individual's notability? Bus stop (talk) 14:50, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm sure this must be the third time recently I've opposed this. Kudos for not giving up, though. The purpose of the guidance on sexuality and religion is to protect a legitimate right to privacy and act against the genuine problem of categorisation ultimately based on rumour. The same issues don't arise for ethnicity and gender, however (or, the cases where they might are not common enough to justify the application of a blanket rule). There seems to be a rationale here that (per Griswaldo, above) "Categorizing people by ethnicity, gender, etc. is only informational when the category is meaningful to the person's notable activities". That's just not true in the first place. It's just as informational as the year in which someone was born, their nationality, the fact that they are a living person, their alma mater etc etc. There doesn't seem to be any specific logic being put forward as to why ethnicity and gender should be special cases. --FormerIP (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

• Ethnicity isn't 'information' - it is opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is ethnicity "opinion"? Reliable sources are up to the task of supplying us with the ethnicity for a person. If the source isn't "reliable" then an argument can be made that indeed we do not know the person's ethnicity. Another situation is not inconceivable in which two sources contradict one another in this regard. In such a case an editorial decision might be reached on an article Talk page that we do not know with assuredness that we know the individual's ethnicity. But in a case where sources clearly indicate what a person's ethnicity is—is it still opinion? Editors at individual articles need the latitude to make decisions of this sort. They should not be hobbled by overly simplistic policy. Bus stop (talk) 02:52, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Bus Stop, do you not understand that ethnicity is a social construct? It is something that can only be 'true' in as much as people believe it to be so. This is all that needs to be said on the matter, and your endless going on about 'reliable sources' is of no consequence whatsoever - it is impossible to 'know' someone's ethnicity in any sense other than as an assertion that you know that someone says that the person is of this or that ethnicity: opinion. Frankly, I find your obsession with 'sources' for the plainly unsourcable tiresome and probably indicative of some deep insecurity about the issue - but this is of no relevance to the discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Why would ethnicity be "plainly unsourcable"? Sources all the time tell us about such aspects of a person's identity. Are you saying that under no circumstances can we rely on sources when they tell us what a person's ethnicity is? Bus stop (talk) 05:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I simply must say that Category:2011 births is opinion, too. Not everybody agrees on what year it is now. Same thing for geography. Almost every method of categorization and labeling is based on a normalized opinion. Most are universally accepted in the Western world, of course. But still... All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 03:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, ethnicity is a "real" property just as much as all the other things we categorize people by. Is there really a clear physical divide between writers and non-writers, kings and non-kings, towns and non-towns? No, everything is fuzzy (like everything we write in articles is potentially fuzzy), but in determining what's true we defer to what reliable sources say (which is also a fuzzy matter, of course). --Kotniski (talk) 08:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Except not. Ethnicity is a construct with strong ideological pressumptions. What these are depends exactly on what is meant by ethnicity; in the worst of cases, the usage of "ethnicity" in Wikipedia comes across as racial classification or attempts at group conscription that are out of place in an encyclopaedia. Feketekave (talk) 11:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Feketekave—you say "Ethnicity is a construct with strong ideological presumptions." Sources determine ethnicity. We are not presumed to have expertise in these areas. Reliable sources tell us what a person's ethnicity might be, if applicable. And if reliable sources are found to be in contradiction with one another then we may have an unresolvable problem. But standard procedure should be to see what sources say and then to follow their lead. You say, "in the worst of cases, the usage of "ethnicity" in Wikipedia comes across as racial classification or attempts at group conscription that are out of place in an encyclopedia." I don't think we should be saying what is "out of place in an encyclopedia." Wikipedia is not censored. My perception is that many people are very interested in knowing the ethnicity of others. In many cases this is wholesome and innocuous. But I don't think we need to be imposing rules on the construction of this project with the purpose of creating a better world. Ethnicity is an attribute of identity. In biographies it is exceedingly common to find references to an individual's ethnicity, as well as to a variety of other personal attributes. I think editors should have free rein to reach decisions in this regard by discussion at article Talk pages or at the Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Bus stop (talk) 02:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Ethnicity, Gender, day 3

• Oppose While editors should use discretion, and err on the side of caution in those rare instances where the correct category is disputed, they should not be prohibited from proving that, for example, a monarch's gender is "notable" before placing the ruler in either Category:Kings or Category:Queens. Identifying the person's gender or ethnicity is not an invasion of privacy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
  1. I think you might have an extra not in there, otherwise you are agreeing with me! Nobody in this proposal is "prohibited from proving" notability. On the contrary, other guidelines already require it!!!
  2. While an "invasion of privacy" argument may seem easy with a Straw man like highly public officials named Kings and Queens, it certainly wouldn't apply to sportspersons, etc.
     --William Allen Simpson (talk) 14:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You really think it's an invasion of privacy to identify a sportsperson as a man or a woman?!?--Kotniski (talk) 14:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I repeat: as is required to document the result of many WP:CFD Gender decisions. Many of those are sportsperson categories.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 16:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You again seem to be confusing the question of whether categories should exist (which is what your link refers to) with that of whether to put an article in a given category (which is what this guideline refers to). Until we can get that distinction clear in all our minds, I don't see any point in further discussion. NickCT's comment below seems to sum up the "thinking" behind all the support for this proposal: "I'll support any policy wording that [makes] ethnic categorization more difficult". Never mind whether the resulting policy wording makes any logical sense. This still seems to me like a knee-jerk, improperly-thought-through reaction against what is widely perceived (quite reasonably) as excessive categorization and listing by ethnicity. We really need to ask the right questions, clearly, if we are to get meaningful answers.--Kotniski (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support - for ethnicity Ethnicity is a highly subjective category. In current discourse, it depends partly on self-identification; when others - as often happens here - assign an ethnicity to an individual irrespective of this fact, many readers will reasonably assume that the individual identifies with the ethnicity in question. Moreover - ethnicity, if understood culturally, is a multiple and non-binary matter; if understood racially, it is a category that should most definitely not be used in Wikipedia.
  
  I would moreover be wary of having an instance or two of self-identification be taken in and of themselves as a sufficient criterion for ethnic labelling: the instances may be rhetorical, they may be a response to provocation, etc. Feketekave (talk) 11:43, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that living African-American musicians cannot be included in the Category Category:African American musicians unless they publicly say "I am African American"? Or that living Jews cannot be included in List of Jewish Nobel laureates unless they say "I am Jewish"? That is not sensible, and - as a practical matter - will never be followed. Mind you, I have no objection to requiring that there be a Reliable Source that asserts the ethnicity, but the requirement for self-identification is not reasonable. --Noleander (talk) 15:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that both the category and (certainly) the list you mention have no place in an encyclopaedia. Feketekave (talk) 19:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, in fact, those two things already require self-identification via the guidelines. Certainly after death, we require a consensus of sources. But more importantly, self-identification rarely comes up, because it's not both notable and relevant.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey Noleander, as someone who's conversed with you in the past and generally been impressed by your reasoning, I'm disappointed we fall on different sides of this issue. I think the basic problem here is that there exist editors on WP, who finds out that "Black Times Weekly" notes that John Doe's great granddad was african american, and so they want to apply Category:African American musicians to John Doe. We need some kind of policy that explicitly prevents this kind of practice. Could I beg you to reconsider your position? NickCT (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

NickCT: Thanks for the insight about the "Black Times Weekly" situation you are citing ... I've never really seen that situation before, but I can see how it might happen. My experiences have been pretty straightforward: the editor must supply an excellent reliable source that squarely puts the individual within the category (ethnicity, religion, etc). Cant there be some middle ground between "self identification" (which would eliminate much valuable and accurate info from the encyclopedia) and "any old source" (which is your Weekly example)? Every editing decision in WP comes down to judgement and consensus. I think the best middle-ground guideline is: "Ethnicity must be determined by reliable sources" and let editors work it out on the Talk pages. --Noleander (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

That example isn't a problem. A statement in a source that John Doe's granddad was African American isn't the same as a statement that John Doe is African American, so it doesn't cut it in the first place as far as categorisation goes. What if John Doe is quoted as saying: "My granddad was African American"? And why the need for a rule to address a non-problem when it produces the bizarre side-effect that even if Stevie Wonder's own mother is quoted in the back page of the Bible as saying that he is African American, the category has to go until he says it himself? --FormerIP (talk) 16:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@FormerIP - Ok, so what if the source is an article on "notable black musicians", and it mentions John Doe's grand dad is African American in a way that might infer that John Doe himself could be considered African American. I promise you there are editors who would take this as sufficient grounds to categorize John Doe. re Stevie Wonder, I take your point. Really, I'm mostly worried about places where race/ethnicity is an open question. I think when there is a huge slew of RS noting an individual as being African American (as is probably the case with Wonder) with no RS arguing to the contrary, it's probably OK to categorize Wonder as such. At the moment though, I'm more concerned with over-zealous ethnic categorization, rather than over-cautious ethnic categorization; hence, I support the rewording. NickCT (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you think "when there is a huge slew of RS noting an individual as being African American ... with no RS arguing to the contrary, it's probably OK", then I think you ought to oppose this proposal. That's not to say there isn't an issue, just that this isn't the right solution. In cases where there are contradicting sources etc we already have policies (chiefly WP:V and WP:NPOV) that should work. If they are not working, I agree that's a problem. But a proposal that will prevent as much good editing as it will bad is not the answer.--FormerIP (talk) 17:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, the thing is, I'm more concerned that ambiguous cases are inappropriately labelled, than that obvious cases aren't labelled. If we can't have some really clear and consistently followed policy on ethnic categorization, than it's best to be as conservative as possible when categorizing; however, I would support some additional wording to the policy that says something like "when there is a huge slew of RS ... it's probably OK". As sort of a thought experiment, I've mocked something up here. NickCT (talk) 17:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is an excellent idea. It aims for a good middle ground between draconian exclusion and the wishy-washy inclusion. It attempts to codify what is really happening in the Categories & Lists, so it reflects a broader consensus. I'll take a stab at tweaking your sandbox wording (just revert if you want to manage it yourself). --Noleander (talk) 18:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Tweak away. The correct way to deal with this might be to have several interested just to brainstorm language. NickCT (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've refined the text to make it as crystal-clear as possible. I removed some duplication, consolidated similar things, made explicit was what implicit, and added a few examples. Other editors are free to continue refining. The draft text is in Nicks sandbox here. --Noleander (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Self-identification may or may not be a valid criteria. But what about "relevance to notability"? Somebody could presumably repeatedly self-identify, yet still be removed from the category because somebody says it's not relevant to their career. That's the most inexplicable part of this proposal to me. And one no one seems to be talking about. NickCT, in your sandbox proposal, if "B" is true, why do you need "A"? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Precisely - the text of the article should mention these matters only when relevant, and these lists and categories are extremely controversial in part because, by their own rationale, they run against any sensible policy of the kind that is being proposed. If these matters can be left to the text of the article, then a non-mention that X is supposedly Fooish, Fayish or X-Y will in no way imply that X is not Fooish, not Fayish or not X-Yian. Lists and especially categories force these complicated matters in one way or the other. Feketekave (talk) 19:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. I partially agree. We should include some kind of provision for explicit self-identification. NickCT (talk) 18:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

You're saying a provision that says explicit self-identification is enough to list them in the category, regardless of whether someone things it's relevant or not? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support - for ethnicity - I've made arguments on this topic in several forums, which I don't care to repeat. Needless to say, people ought to be categorized by ethnicity very cautiously. I'll support any policy wording that ethnic categorization more difficult. NickCT (talk) 16:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose regarding ethnicity as unencyclopedic, POV, and WP:CREEP regarding the relevance of personal identity as a valid categorization of people in the world. It's also very naive, as self identification is but one of a number of factors pertaining to individual identity, others including social construction, external perception, and legal classification. This would basically do away with a range of knowledge (ethnic studies, concerns of ancestry and heritage, etc) that has deep cultural and scholarly relevance. I would also dispute that we can legislate this kind of WP:CREEP from the top down on a page like this. There is obviously consensus on Wikipedia for inclusion of categories like Jewish-American X, or X of Irish descent, because those categories, lists, and articles are duly sourced and have long been a part of the encyclopedia, but just as obviously there are editors who have sought to do away with all of these, many based on the stated opinion, biased and offensive to some, that ethnicity doesn't mean anything. You are six-feet-two, or from Minnesota, or of Irish descent, whether or not you identify as such, and whether or not it is a significant part of your notability. If a person suffers from Parkinson's disease, we can put them in a category of sufferers from Parkinson's disease even though with few exceptions that's not what they're notable. From whence the opinion that being of Jewish descent is something to purge from the encyclopedia? I have not contemplated gender, and wonder what that arises from. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• It's also very naive, as self identification is but one of a number of factors pertaining to individual identity, others including social construction, external perception, and legal classification. That's exactly why identifying people by ethnicity is problematic to begin with. There is no uniform understanding of ethnicity and when identity politics are involved the situation becomes even muddier. I'm not sure it's the support arguments that are naive on those grounds. Just the opposite.Griswaldo (talk) 21:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Griswaldo—you say "There is no uniform understanding of ethnicity…" Reliable sources, for our purposes, determine ethnicity. We need not have expertise in this area. We need not personally grasp all that there is to know about ethnicity. It is your assumption that there is no "uniform understanding of ethnicity" but in point of fact reliable sources use the term all the time. It is only rarely that sources are in conflict about what an individual's ethnicity might be. In those instances that sources adequately identify an ethnicity for a subject, I think that becomes usable information just as any other well-sourced information. Bus stop (talk) 02:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

If I humor your claim for a second can you tell me how often reliable sources say something like "John Doe is ethnically Lilliputian"? I can answer that for you, they rarely ever do. Instead they say, "John Doe is Lilliputian". For some so called ethnicities, this isn't a big problem. "African-American" fits that bill for instance, but for most it is highly problematic. If your source says "John Doe is Serbian," how do I know it doesn't just mean he is a citizen of The Republic of Serbia, which is a nationality and not a so called ethnicity? If your source says, "John Doe is Chinese," which of the many ethnic groups in China does that mean he belongs to? If your source says "John Doe is Jewish", does it mean he is "ethnically" Jewish even if he's descendant of converts? The truth is that sources rarely ever make emphatic categorizations of ethnicity, instead they ambiguously identify people with identifiers that may or may not really be ethnic (as opposed to national, religious, etc.). So yes we rely on sources, but if you really wanted to rely on sources that clearly identify ethnicities good luck.Griswaldo (talk) 03:03, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of all things, including social constructs like ethnicity, race, and gender identity. It's naive to think that self-identification is either a necessary or sufficient basis for determining ethnicity, even if we were in a position to decide that. But we aren't in that position, the sources are. Nor are we free to do away with ethnicity as a sourced attribute of people just because it's complicated. Ethnicity, or gender identity, is not necessarily a contentious or negative thing, which is where the POV comes in. Some people just don't like ethnicity or consider it valid, and some of the comments here reflect that. Other people derive great meaning from it, as fuzzy as the boundaries are, and would as I said be offended to be told that it does not matter. Yet others are chauvinistic. Some resent being categorized, and many people ignore it. Anyone who's watched the subject of identity politics knows that there are strong feelings on many sides of this. Deciding that ethnicity is not a valid way to categorize people, or that self-identification is the only valid means, is taking one side of a contentious issue. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:23, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The questions

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion, partly caused by the muddled wording of the policy and guidelines as they stand, and as they would still stand if this proposal were implemented, it might be more profitable to consider the relevant questions separately:

1. When is it desirable to have categories (of people) based on (a) gender (b) sexual orientation (c) ethnicity (d) religion?
2. When deciding whether to place a person's article into an existing category based on (a) gender (b) sexual orientation (c) ethnicity (d) religion, what additional criteria need to be considered over and above those that are normally considered when placing articles in categories? Do these extra criteria (if any) apply to all people or only to living people?

If we could get clear answers to these questions, it would be easy to word the relevant policies and guidelines to match.--Kotniski (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and the same questions with regard to lists in place of categories.--Kotniski (talk) 17:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

These are always, or almost always, intersection categories. We don't have lists or categories of females, lists of bisexuals, Christians, etc. We have lists or categories (say) of African-American poets, or gay German playwrights, etc. It is desirable to have a list if: (a) the subject is notable in its own right, e.g. there are scholarly works, major reportage, etc., on the topic of African-American poets; and (b) there is a sufficient but reasonably limited number such that we can construct a useful list with sensible inclusion criteria. The fact that ethnicity is a social construct is neither here nor there. So is being a poet, and almost every other piece of humanistic knowledge. Once we've decided that there should be such a list or category, the next question is the inclusion criteria. In general it's up to the editors on a given page to decide on the criteria, and it's dangerous to legislate that from above. One problem is that ethnicity is different than gener, or sexual orientation, and also one ethnicity has different bounds than another. One is Native American in a very different way than one can be Hispanic, or African American, or First Nations in Canada, and one can be all at the same time. But at a minimum, I would say that there has to be strong enough reliable sourcing from a single source that a person fits all the categories. If one source says a person is African-American, and another says he is a poet, I don't think we can necessarily call him an African-American poet. You would have to find a source that calls him that. The question of a list's notability is fairly rooted in policy; the inclusion criteria is more of a discretionary thing about how we want to build an encyclopedia. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikidemon: Look again: there is Lists of Christians and Lists of Jews and several other broad lists. They serve a valuable purpose in the encyclopedia: indexing and searching. --Noleander (talk) 21:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, as super-lists and super-categories. If we have a list of Christians, and a list of writers, and a list of athletes, and a list of Norwegians, what's the big deal with intersections anyway? Is there a technical means where the reader can make their own intersections if they wish? If I want a list of all the Norwegian Christian writer-athletes, something that doesn't seem likely to stand around here, is there any kind of query I can run for that? I know people are talking about making Wikipedia content more database / semantic web friendly like that. That could make all this discussion moot. Just do away with all intersections in favor of a tool, and then header articles about the intersection as a subject. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)