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I have just learned of a project called "Les sans images" which aims to create artwork to illustrate women's articles lacking an illustration. The Commons category is Category:Les sans images. I reverted multiple instances of what I considered non-notable "fan art" being added to BLPs until I learned of this movement just now. It appears to have begun at the French Wikipedia around 2021, but some images are in use here. I'm bringing this to the community's attention (assuming there have not been previous discussions on the topic) to see how we feel about the implementation of these images, and any guideline updates that may be necessary. Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk18:55, 2 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There was a very recent discussion (can't remember which noticeboard it was on) regarding a similar instance of the inclusion of cartoon portraits of living people. The consensus reached, if I remember correctly, was in favor of exclusion; the determination was that if the cartoons were based on actual images, then they would not meet our copyright licensing requirements, and if they weren't based on actual images, then they were original research. Curbon7 (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the recent discussion which didn't actually reach a final consensus.
I support it, assuming that the images are sufficiently high quality and respectful of the person portrayed, and with the caveat that we remove them if the subject objects. (Unlike a photo, which we can argue to keep even if the subject objects, like an uncomfortable fact that we will often keep even if the subject objects, a non-notable sketch that we ourselves generated should be removed if the subject objects.) Some, even most, of the images in that category are high quality and respectful, and some ... aren't. Here are some examples of each in my opinion. (My opinion is just one editor's opinion, but I have uploaded a few images to illustrate a few articles in my time.)
High quality respectful drawing. I'd support using it.... with the exception that it seems to be derived from a specific copyrighted image, see User:Abecedare's note below.
High quality cartoon, but clearly a caricature. Since the subject is a comedienne, that may be acceptable in this case, but I can definitely see subjects that lack a sense of humor and would not like to be caricatured in this way.
High quality cartoon, but clearly a caricature. Since the subject is an activist, notable for being beaten and having her son be murdered, I think it is not appropriate for us to use a non notable caricature to illustrate her article; not funny.
Not a professional quality work. If the subject article were a BLP, I'd remove it immediately. Since it's not ... I'd still advise against using it there.
Not a professional quality work, and the article is a BLP. I'd be against using it there without explicit consent from the subject (and if we can converse with the subject, why not just ask her to release a photograph?)
The opinion that User:Curbon7 brings up "if the cartoons were based on actual images, then they would not meet our copyright licensing requirements, and if they weren't based on actual images, then they were original research" does not apply; images are an exception to the original research policy, we editors are explicitly encouraged to go out and make images of our article subjects to illustrate our articles, and a pencil and paper is no more or no less an instrument of illustration than a camera is. You can take a bad photograph of a person the same way that you can make a bad drawing - it's just easier to take a passable photograph than to make a passable drawing; many amateur photographs will be perfectly acceptable, while most amateur drawings will not be. --GRuban (talk) 14:05, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will reply to you here since you used two of my portraits.
I drew Aditi Mittal in such a colourful way because it’s how she appears in the numerous media I’ve seen her on. Colourful patterned shirts, coloured hair and coloured background.
As for Ahlam Khudr, I didn’t draw her in a funny way. She often is displayed using the V sign and with a flower crown. I depicted her as she appears in reality. EthicalComics (talk) 18:44, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would it include everything someone could draw like diagrams, graphs, charts, svgs of flags and symbols, etc., but kust specifically exclude drawings of people. This is senseless, and the vast majority of arguments I have seen against the stuff are mostly rooted in a Wikipedia:I don't like it mentality. Huggums537 (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support this initiative. I actually don't see a problem using any of these drawings above for articles that have no illustrations provided they follow the commons rules (the judging of the "professional quality" I find is sometimes very subjective.). The use of colors in itself should not be an incentive to rule out a picture.
In some cases some drawings have triggered living persons to provide a free licensed photography (I cannot remember which one) and the drawing has been replaced by the photo. These images are usually done by professionals or experienced amateurs that have some notions of drawing portraits and published under free license. The actual process of using drawings for living persons is well known in the medias for exemple, where often drawings of trials are done instead of photographs. :There are many examples of personnalities illustrated with a painting or a drawing. I think furthemore we are loosing time that could be devoted to contribution instead of arguments and also, please consider how discouraging it can be for a new contributor on our projects to see their work that they have generously published under free license being brushed away and constantly criticized. Hyruspex (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’m sorry to say I find it fairly damning to learn BLP subjects have been distressed enough by volunteer illustrations that they felt they had to release photos to ameliorate the situation. To me that says the depictions were out of line with our BLP policies against causing harm. Really all contributors should be apprised that their work like all work on the project could be subject to scrutiny about how it complies with these policies. Innisfree987 (talk) 05:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that judging "professional quality" is very subjective. The images labeled above as not being "professional quality" were created by a professional designer. I think it might be fair to say something like "not the formal style I associate with encyclopedias", but that's not quite the same as "quality". WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:12, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Woo. Nice catch. Found and uploaded a frame from the video to replace the drawing in the EN article, and will nominate the drawing for deletion on that basis. I still support the principle as above; it is not the case that every drawing has to be a derivative work of a copyrighted photograph, but in this case it seems clear that this one is. --GRuban (talk) 17:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I agree with the gloss you appended to the images above and also agree that WP:OR-concerns need not always forbid use of user-drawn images. So in principle user-drawn images may be used in some instances but I fear that, for the reasons you already mentioned and the derivative-work concern Curbon7 raised, those instances may be very few and may need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Abecedare (talk) 17:41, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support the initiative, subject to the criteria outlined by GRuban above. There's going to be some degree of subjectivity to the decision to add any image, but we should prefer ones which are high-quality, respectful of the subject, and appropriate to the tone of the article as a whole. Nick Number (talk) 17:32, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the initiative is a positive one and support the inclusion of these images as a general principle. I think it's also important to remember that illustrators as much as other contributors will be working in good faith. Lajmmoore (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support the initiative and endorse the excellent points made by User:Hyruspex above. It should be recalled that the use of references in art is a universally accepted practice and does not in itself constitute a copyright infringement, just like writing an article from several sources and without copy-pasting from any one of them is not plagiarism. I also congratulate Abecedare and GRuban on their finding, while underlining that their discovery was triggered by the existence of the hand-drawn portraits of Anna Tsing; it thus must also be in part put to the credit of Les Sans Image, further demonstrating the value of the project. In general we should value and encourage the production of original work, avoid putting our contributors in impossible situations (such as "it's either plagiarism or original research"), and strive to improve not only our articles but also the skills of our contributors. Rama (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't support use of these illustrations in articles. WP simply isn't equipped to judge whether they are of sufficient artistic merit to warrant inclusion, much less whether the tone is one the subject would appreciate. Judging an illustration is much more subjective than determining whether a photo gives a clear view of what a person looks like. The encyclopedic value of the illustrations is small, as an abstract drawing doesn't really convey a person's appearance. Their primary value would be as an artistic flourish, but we don't even allow MOS:PULLQUOTES, so I don't see why we would allow these on that basis.--Trystan (talk) 18:32, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to ground your argumentation on false premises: these drawings are not abstract, and photography very much carries artistic style. There is no reason they would be any less encyclopedic than photographs. Some might not be to everybody's taste, some might advantageously be replaced by better images; but I see no reason to refuse them on principle. As far as encyclopedic value goes, a good drawing is worth a good photograph, a bad drawing is worth a bad photograph; and in any case the thing to do with perfectible Free content is not to delete it, but to surpass it. Rama (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have seen an image added to Eileen Kramer, and I'm not sure it is helpful. The caption to a photograph usually specifies "Kramer in 20nn", showing the point in time when it was taken. Here we have a generalised image of the subject (still active Nov 2022 aged 108), with no indication of its sources, and in a style which looks, to me, like a whimsical image rather than an encyclopedic illustration. PamD23:19, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On further thought I have removed the image from Eileen Kramer because it is an unsourced addition to a BLP. If we allow unsourced images like this there is nothing to stop anyone from adding an image which completely misrepresents the topic, and that is dangerous for the encyclopedia. While the artists contributing at present are doing so in good faith, we know there are people out there with other agendas. PamD08:26, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While I very much appreciate the spirit in which it was undertaken, I don’t think this initiative has proved helpful for en-wiki (which I specify only because I am a very limited contributor to other languages and can’t speak to their policies.) Every example I have seen either has the copyright issue mentioned above and/or is not a sufficiently serious representations for use as an encyclopedic portrait, from my POV (I would not use the image of Tsing above even if it were not copyvio). I don’t object to using, for instance, a professional courtroom sketch if we did have access to it, so I don’t think we need a rule against drawings, but I don’t think the project of soliciting volunteer drawings is working out. My two cents. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To add. While not on par with GRuban’s experience, I do have more than 500 uploads to the Commons at this point. So my comments do not come from lack of concern with or attention to the challenges of illustrating women’s bios especially BLPs (rather the opposite—I am very concerned we maintain our standards when representing women.) Innisfree987 (talk) 00:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would not call the image of Tsing "High quality respectful drawing". Divorced from the context of the photo it is copied from, the first thing it brings to mind to me is that it is a picture of a bird pooping on her head. The second thing it brings to mind is that her features have been exaggerated to look more Asian, perhaps based on her name and not the way she actually looks in the many photos one can find of her. Not the sort of thing we would want to show in a BLP, and especially not of someone who has written serious academic works on the problematic behavior of white men regarding Asian women [1]. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:15, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Divorced from the context of the photo it is copied from, the first thing it brings to mind to me is that it is a picture of a bird pooping on her head. I didn't get to see the image, but this description is hilarious! I'm going to see if it is still visible in the page history... Huggums537 (talk) 15:58, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:IMAGEQUALITY encourages us to "Use the best quality images available. Poor-quality images—dark or blurry; showing the subject too small, hidden in clutter, or ambiguous; and so on—should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Think carefully about which images best illustrate the subject matter" and states "A biography should lead with a portrait photograph of the subject alone, not with other people." MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE includes, "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones" and "Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, whether or not they are provably authentic." In the context of WP:BLPIMAGE policy, these guidelines seem to discourage the use of "ambiguous" images that do not 'look like what they are meant to illustrate' in BLP leads, such as the abstract portraits identified in this discussion, even when it is not possible to find an alternative image. There was also a brief discussion at Talk:MOS/Images#Sketches, drawings or paintings as photograph substitutes in July 2021, a more substantial discussion about BLP lead images generally at BLPN in April 2021, and a discussion about low quality images on an article Talk page in September 2021 that may be relevant to consider. Beccaynr (talk) 02:59, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hello,
I support the project "sans imagEs" in which I am active.
It is very important to distinguish the use of files on Commons and on Wikipedia pages.
In my view there are far too many issues with BLP, copyright and NPOV for amateur portrait drawings to be used in articles on living persons. Our priority should be to be faithful to the actual appearance of the subject and a truly faithful depiction will probably end up being a derivative of a copyrighted work unless the artist is very skilled - and to be frank, most highly skilled artists are not willing to work without compensation or credit (despite what the licensing terms may say, it's a reality that images from Wikimedia Commons tend to get shared throughout the internet without crediting the original creator). The examples presented above are (no offense to the artists) in no way suitable for use in articles, IMO. Besides the issues with copyright and encyclopedic style, the NPOV issues are a minefield, e.g. David Eppstein's note above that the drawing of Anna Tsing seems to exaggerate her "Asian" features. I'm sure this wasn't the artist's intention but one can imagine the outrage if someone complained about Wikipedia using a "racist caricature" to depict a woman scientist. What if someone wants to illustrate an article on a Jewish politician and happens to draw them with a slightly larger nose? Such things have been done in political influence campaigns, and been condemned as antisemitic [2]. What if the drawing leaves out a few blemishes or makes the person look a bit slimmer than they normally do? Is that just artistic license or is it enforcing unrealistic beauty standards on women?I ran into a similar issue a few years ago with someone adding amateur illustrations to a number of Canadian biographies (link). The images ended up being deleted on copyvio grounds because they were basically traced from copyrighted photos. Despite that, there were still issues with how accurately they depicted the subject. I remember in particular an illustration of Aliocha Schneider, who if you look him up on Google is a young, trendy-looking man - but the illustration made him look like someone's grandma. I think a better way to solve the issue of biographies without images might be an outreach campaign to encourage subjects or their representatives to release images under a compatible license through WP:VRT. Spicy (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Found and uploaded two pretty good (if I do say so myself) images for Aliocha Schneider after this mention. That said, speaking as someone who has done them regularly, outreach campaigns to subjects are HARD. Explaining to people why and how we need them to release images is HARD. (I've learned that:
Tell them "you need to be the photographer; take a selfie" and they will immediately steal an image from their last published magazine interview and pretend they own it. You'd think "look into a mirror holding a smart phone" would be simple enough, but they'd rather die than not have a professional image, but they aren't going to pay for a professional to release an image.
If they actually do have a professional quality image, they will send it in with the statement "you can use this on Wikipedia but we retain the copyright" - despite the fact that I told them that wouldn't work in the very email they're responding to.
The majority of article subjects couldn't edit their own web sites if their lives depended on it, so they will have to email it in to permissions-commons with a release.
Sometimes permissions-commons will make them jump through hoops to prove they own the image; I've had a request to scan in and mail their driver's license, I've had a claim that they need to email a release from the photography studio even though the photography studio closed 20 years ago, and in the country the photo was taken the law was that the client owned the copyright not the studio.)
I'm reminded of a story that Nicolas Slonimsky once told: briefly, he was challenged by a policeman one day, while walking in the street, to present his identity documents, and was unable to do so, having forgotten them at home. Slonimsky asked the officer to come with him to the public library, where he went to the stacks, pulled down a reference work, and showed his portrait in the book to the policeman to establish who he was.
The story gets to my feelings about this discussion: I think any illustration provided to any article should be realistic enough as to be easily used to identify the subject of said article. That's my prime concern in situations such as this; too often I find that the illustration, as created, is either too abstract, or too stylized, or too cartoonish to serve its stated purpose. I have no objection, on principle, to using a created artwork as the lead image in an article, but I think the style of artwork chosen needs to be considered carefully. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.22:19, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strictly oppose these images. Way too many issues with them: inappropriate free advertising for the artist, tracing from copyrighted images without disclosure, universally unprofessional quality, and extreme stylization inappropriate for an encyclopedia, leading to pointless debates about whether a given drawing is "realistic" enough which would distract us from core encyclopedic work, i.e. writing and improving prose. What's wrong with a BLP lacking a photo? The lead must be sufficient to convey that the article is about a given person and not another of the same name. The intent behind these drawings is to fight systemic bias in who has a picture, yet it creates a new systemic bias in who gets a proper pic and who gets a childish drawing (others have disputed that they're childish, but sorry, they are). DFlhb (talk) 11:01, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm perfectly ok with this initiative. All of the "what-ifs" brought up by Spicy and DFlhb are no more important than any other ordinary what-if we might encounter in day-to-day editing. It amounts to nothing more than fear-driven decision making. It's almost like saying we should not have Wikipedia because what if thousands of people end up vandalizing it? Or, we're going to have to fight vandalism every single day for the next 20 years, let's not do it! I mean so what if there will be some issues with it. There are issues with any aspect of editing. Wikipedia:So fix it. In addition, Courtroom sketching continues to be a universally accepted form of news reporting into the modern day when we aren't allowed access to film or photo, and even the often unreliable use of Forensic sketching is good enough for the police or the FBI when they don't have a photo to use and the actual lives of people are really on the line so I think the use of sketching/cartoons/drawing is good enough for us when we don't have a photo. Huggums537 (talk) 16:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)Updated on 15:50, 2 July 2023 (UTC) Updated again on 16:05, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My experience has been that people really do not understand that if they base a drawing of a celebrity off a photograph, they are violating the copyright of the photographer of the photograph. "Copyright owners have the exclusive right to authorize the creation of derivative works." So it seems like a copyright work-around rather than a realistic solution. Denaar (talk) 14:44, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If we have a photograph of a person that is no longer covered on copyright... we would take the photo and put it directly on the page. There would be no need for artist involvement, other than to touch up the photo. Denaar (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that is a fair point, but doesn't cover a myriad of other complicated situations such as instances where the artist has drawn from memory, or photos from public appearances, gained permission from the subject, or other subtle situations. Exactly how would you tell someone drew from a photo unless they included the exact same background, and clothing, etc.? Otherwise, you would just be drawing from the likeness of a person which isn't able to be copyrighted anywhere as far as I know. Huggums537 (talk) 03:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This makes the false assumption, or at least implies that plausible deniability is the only defense, alternative, or substitute to valid licensing. Huggums537 (talk) 18:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While that may be true in some cases, in the vast majority, it won't. Certainly, a person drawing a caricature of someone while looking directly at that person is not violating copyright, but a caricature based upon a photograph or video still of the individual likely would be, as it would be a derivative work. And if you're close enough for long enough to draw a decent caricature, why not just take an actual photo? SeraphimbladeTalk to me20:37, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If a person were making a drawing based on a composite of dozens or hundreds images they had studied about the individual, then that would not be any violation of copyright. Like I said before, unless a person makes an actual copy of clothing they are wearing or other identifiable background material, then it would be extremely difficult to prove anyone had copied or even made a derivative work when it comes to drawing the caricature of someone since they don't own the caricature. I'm pretty sure that is why the law doesn't allow for a violation of copyright to occur unless some kind of commercial gain or privacy breach has been involved in most states. Huggums537 (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're kind of showing a misunderstanding of copyright in general. Copyright isn't a state matter, it's always been a federal one, so copyright law does not vary by state. You can breach copyright without making any financial gain; profiting from a copyright violation is considered an aggravating factor, but "I didn't make any money from it" is not a defense against infringement. And privacy laws are entirely separate from copyright law. So, given that you've already gotten three out of three things wrong there, I don't think I'm inclined to take you very seriously on that. SeraphimbladeTalk to me21:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I should have more specifically said the law doesn't allow for a violation of copyright to occur on the ownership of a persons caricature unless some kind of commercial gain or privacy breach law has been involved. However, Stanford university seems to think Nevada has some state copyright laws that aren't that great, and this article seems to think your state rulings on copyright concerning government works and public records can vary to the point of resulting in opposite outcomes for New York and Florida. So, your idea that copyright is strictly federal, and doesn't vary state to state is not exactly accurate. Also, one of the four factors of determining the fair use defense is whether the use was commercial or not (i.e. "I didn't make any money from it"). Anyway, how would you know the difference between someone using one video still, and someone studying several videos over a period of time to get the impression of a caricature they can work with in their mind? I'd say it would all fall under fair use, and would not be any different than if they had seen the person live and studied them for a while. Huggums537 (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the difference would be that if they saw them live they could just take the photo like you said, but if they were studying photos, and films of a person they would not be allowed to take a photo of the film or take a photo of any of the pictures of the person because that would be an illegal copy, but there has to be some kind of creative expression allowed at some point where it is ok to make an ordinary caricature based on other likenesses. Huggums537 (talk) 22:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that has been present here that an artist rendition just absolutely must have been a copyright violation from a photo or video still frame is an extremely bad faith insult to creators. Huggums537 (talk) 22:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, another one of the four factors is if the work is transformative, and I'm pretty sure that transforming a bunch of photos and films into a single cartoon image counts. Huggums537 (talk) 22:19, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, those cartoons/illustrations/drawings fail MOS:IMAGEQUALITY since the images are too ambiguous (not to mention amateurish). Without a link or caption to the cartoon on the right, for example, no one would know who exactly that drawing is trying to depict. And imagine adding this silly-looking cartoon to an article about a murder. Some1 (talk) 22:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the link captions thing probably would have been a good point except the same could be true of a photograph of a person as well since the image of a person without a caption doesn't tell you anything either unless the person happens to be highly recognizable. Not to mention the fact that these images should be attached to articles to explain who they are because images are not supposed be articles unto themselves, but only helpful to understanding context. Per MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE "They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals.", and "Images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, whether or not they are provably authentic." So, in my mind when you put all this together it means that a good caption is duly warranted, but all this fuss about these images having to be exact replica authentic quality representations is a bit much. I think that as long as you have a reasonable basic physical description of the person embodied in the illustration with a good caption to go along with the article it would be attached to, then it would be good enough to use until something better could be found. Even in the examples you provided here they are reasonable depictions of basic physical descriptions. For example, the image to the right with the person in glasses wearing the dark colored t-shirt that says, "Youth Climate March" matches most of the basic physical appearances that I found and studied when I searched for them on the web i.e., young female with shoulder length dark wavy hair, and light or olive complexion who wears glasses and is "fist pump" active in climate change. We don't really need much more than what is in this illustration to get the basic context of this person. Is it flattering? Not really. Is it an accurate depiction of her likeness? That depends on what you are calling accurate, and it depends on how accurate it really has to be. If you are saying accurate means that it has to look exactly like her, then it fails miserably, but if you are saying accurate meets basic physical descriptions that give you a reasonable context of the person, then I'd say it is pretty accurate. The same is true of Bridget Cleary. The image we have might be an accurate one, but it isn't really that much better than the cartoon depiction because it is so blurry all you can make out is basic physical description anyway, and all I can really glean from that is that she was a white female because hair and eye color are really not possible to verify or make out due to lighting or contrast. I can only guess that maybe she was blonde with blue eyes from my study of other images on the web, but my point is that the cartoon depicts just as much context as the actual photo we have of her even including the old timey dress. Huggums537 (talk) 02:58, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support images Very soon we are going to be dumping 2-3 copyrighted photos into the AI generator and get out a perfect public domain AI-generated photo, and have public domain photos for every article subject who has ever been photographed. As we make the AI transition, I do not think we should also commit to saying that realistic photos are the standard for depicting everyone. I also do not think we should start seeking consent from subjects based on whether we depict them as cartoons versus photos, because we never sought consent for low-quality photos in the past two decades nor does journalism do this anyway. If there is light editor stakeholder consensus for including a cartoon or depiction, then I think that light consensus from people who edit the biographies overrules scaled up objections from editors who are not editing those articles, but who oppose cartoons as a policy for 1000s of articles where they do not edit. Bluerasberry (talk)15:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rashid Buttar and the topic of "death announcements" here
We are currently dealing with a number of attempts to add content for the alleged death of Rashid Buttar. (See the talk page.) The sources are very poor, so experienced editors are encouraging a "wait for better sources" attitude. We really do not know if he's dead.
We need an official section in this BLP policy for dealing with such matters. Careless editors have been punk'd and fooled many times by hoaxes and unreliable sources, and premature and false death announcements cause real world harm to the person, their family, and Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy.
I propose we add something like the following to our BLP policy:
Death announcements Shortcut: WP:BLPDeath
Due to the sensitive nature of death announcements, and the tendency of the worst sources to be the first to publish such things, editors need to be extra cautious about sourcing. Hoaxes abound and some may be targeting Wikipedia in hopes of damaging our reputation. When a notable person dies, we must be able to find more than one very reliable secondary source that mentions the death, or at least one very reliable secondary source and a primary source (per ABOUTSELF), such as the person's website or workplace. The content must be backed by inline citations to more than one RS.
In some cases, temporary protection must be used to prevent Wikipedia being cited in external sources for the death. This happens almost immediately, so it must be stopped quickly here. It must be treated as "unsourced or poorly sourced negative information". The prohibition against edit warring does not apply to deletion of clear vandalism or clear BLP violations.
No harm is done by waiting a few days until the death is properly verified, but great harm is done by getting this wrong. Careless editors have been punk'd and fooled many times by hoaxes, unreliable sources, and activists. Premature and false death announcements cause real world harm to the person, their family, and Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy.
Strike "a few days" in favor of "until properly verified", or something along those lines. Reliable sources could in some cases just be minutes behind the TMZs and Daily Mails of the media sphere, I would not want to create a suggestion of an artificial wait-time. Zaathras (talk) 19:18, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your policy needs to take into consideration the fact that someone can be just barely noteworthy enough to have the minimum number of reliable sources writing about him, but also hated enough that no reliable source will stoop to take notice of the fact that he has died. This appears to be what is happening in the present case. What this means is that your policy keeps the bereaved family waiting for Wikipedia to acknowledge that he has died; anyone coming to the page and (at present) not scrolling to the bottom will assume the person is still alive. This is, arguably, even more offensive than a person being said to be dead when it is easy to prove otherwise. --Larry Sanger (talk) 19:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is almost always inadvisable to make substantive changes to policy based around unfolding events concerning a specific individual. More so, if the justification given is entirely unsubstantiated hyperbole. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, after you've caused the family enough pain by making them wait, go ahead and change the page, and then look at the policy again.
Of course, you won't.
Again, the argument is simple: if it does harm to a person to be falsely said by Wikipedia to be dead, and if you should care about such harm, then why do you not also care about the harm done to a family when a person is falsely said to be alive (even if the fact is not reported in any "reliable source")? --Larry Sanger (talk) 19:52, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Larry Sanger, you have been wrong about every aspect of online encyclopedias for over 20 years. Why should anybody pay attention to your ill-informed opinions after that track record? Cullen328 (talk) 19:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
According to ad hominem, Philosopher and pundit on informal fallacies Douglas N. Walton argues that a circumstantial ad hominem argument can be non-fallacious. This could be the case when someone (A) attacks the personality of another person (B), making an argument (a) while the personality of B is relevant to argument a, i.e. B talks as an authority figure. To illustrate this reasoning, Walton gives the example of a witness at a trial: if he had been caught lying and cheating in his own life, should the jury take his word for granted? No, according to Walton. That is perfectly applicable in this context. Cullen328 (talk) 20:49, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You plainly understand neither the fallacy nor even what you quoted. I was not at any point depending on my own authority in my argument. If you think I was, you are committing another fallacy, namely, strawman. Larry Sanger (talk) 23:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on, your only claim to fame is 20 plus years of being spectacularly wrong about Wikipedia and alternative online encyclopedias. That's not a straw man. That's the genuine Larry Sanger. Cullen328 (talk) 00:06, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The harm caused by falsely claiming someone is dead is very different the harm by falsely claiming they are alive. For example, someone may miss out on opportunities if they are falsely believed to be dead; that isn't possible if they are falsely believed to be alive.
Perhaps you are not familiar with the grieving process, or this might be more obvious to you. The failure of a major public source of information to acknowledge the passing of someone they love, and in fact falsely implying (at least at the top of an article, last time I checked) that he is still alive, does emotional harm the family. If you continue to claim not to understand this, I probably shouldn't waste my time trying to convince you. --Larry Sanger (talk) 20:15, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As someone familiar with the grieving process (sadly most people are), I'd have to suggest that Wikipedia biographies being out of date wouldn't be much of a priority for most people. And if it were, there are better ways to rectify the situation that getting their friend Larry Sanger to gripe about it - I assume you are a family friend, since you seem to know so much about them? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:22, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While emotional harm of third parties is unfortunate it isn't the sort of harm we have BLP policies to avoid. It also isn't the sort of harm we can reasonable avoid without causing immeasurable damage to the encyclopedia; in this case it would require us to include unverified and possibly false information, while in other cases it would require us to exclude verified and encyclopedic information.
When we have a reliable source declaring someone is dead then we can list them as dead. Until them, we minimize harm by presuming they are still alive. BilledMammal (talk) 20:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
collapsing commentary unrelated to the topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Blah, blah, blah. Whatever you need to say to let you keep doing exactly whatever you want to do. This place hasn't changed one bit. Still as fraudulent, self-important, and childish as ever. Larry Sanger (talk) 20:34, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Zaathras, Pete Best is a far better person. He says he has no regrets, has led a productive life, is cheerful and has not wasted decades in bitter recriminations. Cullen328 (talk) 01:02, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
ec LMFAO! Ouch! A very apt description, Zaathras. People often get wiser with age. Sad story, and not aging well. Our garden variety trolls often have more appreciation for verifiability, source quality, BLP, and NPOV. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are personal attacks flying around from both "sides" but it wouldn't nearly get this heated up if he didn't come in here with fury and tell all editors that they are "acting like clowns". Merko (talk) 01:01, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Buttar is/was a dedicated self-publicist. I agree that we should have a high bar to inclusion, and this article should probably have been merged to Disinformation Dozen, but Wikipedia allows ANTIVA to edit like anyone else, and they are quite determined to include their false prophets, regardless of how badly that usually goes for them - like SovCits demanding a supervisor, even though said supervisor very often arrests them. 92.40.199.21 (talk) 10:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is and remains a top ten website worldwide, except in authoritarian countries that suppress Wikipedia. Larry Sanger has struggled and failed for decades to create and maintain a top 100,000 website as an "alternative" to Wikipedia. To advance his vindictive agenda, he has chosen to endorse far right disinformation operatives and their unhinged conspiracy theories. He freely made those deranged choices and it is incumbent on us to observe the facts of the matter. Cullen328 (talk)
Someone has, without a solid consensus, added the info to the article, seemingly based on the idea that using several poor sources makes it okay. They don't understand the adage "The plural of anecdote is not evidence." Sad. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:32, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I like clarifying the handling of recent deaths with respect to BLPs. But a question: Would it be reasonable to carve out a distinction between high-profile and low-profile individuals for death announcements? I've had a few articles where IPs repeatedly added a death date, and the death date appeared to be accurate per e.g. twitter posts of family members, friends and colleagues, but where there was no source passing WP:RS. After reverting several times over several weeks, looking for reliable sources, and verifying that there is nothing to suggest that they did not die on the given date, I've on a couple of occasions added a citation-needed tag to the death date (but let it stand). I am not certain of the best way to handle a situation like this, but I do think we should take into account the grief of survivors as one factor of many. (To be clear, I do not think that Rashid Buttar is a low-profile individual in the sense that I am speaking of.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Russ. I think you make a good point. There should be different standards of probable cause for how we deal with high- and low-profile individuals. Please attempt to formulate such content. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:19, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps "If the subject is a low-profile individual, then reliable sources may be more difficult to find. If no obituary or other source can be found after several weeks, and if there is some reason to believe the death date (and no evidence to the contrary), then it may be appropriate in some circumstances to leave the death date in the article with a citation needed tag." Others may be able to think of some unintended consequences, however. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One question, is there actually an attributed quote form a family member saying he is dead? Not sources saying "according to the family" an actual attributed quote? Slatersteven (talk) 14:42, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We now have workplace confirmation. While his workplace website says nothing, a call to his official workplace answering machine does. < redacted > Try it.
The answering machine message confirms his death. While an unusual source, I feel it justifies tweaking our wording to an actual death. Such a source should be listed as generally reliable for this purpose. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:48, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As pointed out by another user (but reworked by me) trying to wp:v this might be seen as harassment. Imagine 100's of editors trying to confirm this? Slatersteven (talk) 15:09, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Andy. We shouldn't add an entire section (and a long one, 3 paragraphs) about something that isn't a frequent problem across BLPs, to address a single talk page dispute. WP:BLP already requires poorly-sourced contentious claims to be immediately removed. This is WP:CREEP. DFlhb (talk) 10:29, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Labels again - request for clarification/clearer guidance
Over on the article for Elizabeth Holmes we recently had an RfC "Fraudster" on the issue of whether it was appropriate to use the label "fraudster" applied to Holmes in the article (as well as her associate Sunny Balwani). I posted an initial Talk issue, with skepticism as to the use of the word, but initially not sure. As the talk evolved, I became more certain, and eventually we had the RfC, with overwhelming support for avoiding the term. I had looked into the guidance on the issue on this page, but found it ambiguous - for the arguments back and forth we were having, this guidance could be read in different ways. The issue is as broad and pervasive as it is unclear...e.g., there is List of fraudsters, which given the results of our RfC, is an inappropriate name for the list (it calls everyone on the list a "fraudster", irrespective; an equivalent name might be "Rogues gallery"). In the Holmes case there were "sources" that used the label, to be sure, but it seemed to me that was part of the national bandwagon of anger at Holmes (with, with all due respect, elements of the usual insidious misogyny). The main news reporting articles did not use the label. Anyways, it seems to me that there should be a quite high bar on the use of such labels - someone with an extensive history of fraud/crime/"whatever", and perhaps even enough time passing to have a historical perspective. Also at issue here is the article is a biography of a living person, an important factor. I posted a similar inquiry on MOS:LABEL. Thanks, Bdushaw (talk) 12:04, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To spark a bit of discussion on the general issue of the use of labels, I propose below a new section that might be appropriate - I had in mind something like this. I am reluctant to "boldly edit" a guidance page such as this. This new section I have in mind would go in the "Writing style" section, between "Balance" and "Attack pages".
Use of labels
A label is a single word or brief phrase used to describe the essential essence or nature of a person or thing. For example, Wikipedians have labelled Adolf Hitler "an Austrian-born German politician" and Charles Manson "an American criminal and musician." As in all cases, use of such labels should reflect common such use in reliable sources.
Labels can also be cheap, misleading, or sloppy writing. Context or nuance are impossible to convey in a label, and a simple label can carry with it misleading implications about the person. A label ascribes to a person a state of permanence: Hitler will always be a politician, Manson a criminal. The use of a label should be cautious, particularly for living persons, if that label applied to the person does not evidently convey their permanent nature. As general rule, labels should be avoided when a simple statement of the facts, situation or events will suffice.
As an example, the article for Elizabeth Holmes applied the label "fraudster" to her for a time. In the heat of her fraud scandal, numerous contemporary sources used this label, but strict news reporting sources rarely used it. In this case, the problems with the use of the label included that the label did not convey the nature of high-risk startup enterprises, or the particular nature of Holmes' fraud. Further, it was unknown if Holmes would be perpetually inclined to fraud. By consensus, the label was removed and replaced by a simple description of Holmes' fraud and its consequences.
Incidentally, I've also been thinking about using labels in lists, such as List of fraudsters. I've concluded that labels in lists can be grossly wrong. Here, this list is labeling everyone on that list a "fraudster". Wikipedia is really going to do that? Bdushaw (talk) 10:35, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This comes up regularly, and I've begun to associate it with a model of parenting that says you can't say "You're a bad boy", but must always say "You made a bad choice". We seem increasingly squeamish about labeling people with negative "identities", with a few exceptions. We're still willing to say that Jack the Ripper was a serial killer, but I don't think that we have a single BLP that begins "_____ is a thief", even though Category:Thieves has hundreds of articles in it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:43, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t think this is a question of being squeamish – I think it’s a question of being informative. In your analogy, it is no use telling a child ‘You’re a bad boy’. You need to tell the child what they have done which is bad. Similarly, labelling someone a thief in the lead gives hardly any information. Presumably it means, at least, that the person has been convicted of theft, because otherwise it would be defamatory, but the label would cover ‘has throughout their life made a living by pickpocketing, and has never held a job’ and also ‘has spent most of their life in honest paid employment, but has also defrauded thousands of people of millions of pounds/dollars.’ If I’m reading a Wikipedia BLP, I don’t want to know whether Wikipedia editors disapprove of the subject of the article, I want to know what the subject has actually done. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:26, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consider these two:
"_____ is a thief best known for stealing the Famous Painting in 1972."
"_____ is a person best known for stealing the Famous Painting in 1972."
Do you find one of them tells you less about what the subject has actually done? Do you feel a difference in the level of disapproval from the Wikipedia editors? I don't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find that the first version is less informative, because it suggests that A is a habitual thief, but leaves me guessing as to whether that is the case. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:39, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as noted in my proposed text, when one uses "...is a thief..." a whole lot of implications and assumptions go along with that (habitual thief? thief as their profession? generally thieving according to opportunity? psychologically prone to thievery, etc.) that may or may not be true. Use of labels can be quite misleading. However, if the article goes on to describe a lifetime of professional thievery, well, ok then. Bdushaw (talk) 14:49, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"willing to say that Jack the Ripper was a serial killer" - yes, this is an interesting point, in that with a sufficient historical retrospective, such a label becomes both valid and appropriate (not sure why Hitler is not labeled a "mass murderer"). A living person, however, is still subject to change and perhaps should not be labeled by whatever, that is, should not be typecast. In the example above, after Holmes has paid her debt to society (i.e., finished her prison term), was she still to be labeled "fraudster"? Seems so inappropriate. Bdushaw (talk) 13:46, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Hoping for redemption"...lately my antenna has been sensitized to ad hominem arguments, which is what this is (attempt to spin the issue into what I "hope"; but thanks for the compliment). Rather, I try to be objective about what we know and don't know - generally speaking, we don't really ever know what a living person IS, that is, their permanent essence, until after their life. If someone does something early in life, say commits a single fraud, then goes on to become a famous nuclear scientist, say, does that make them a "fraudster and nuclear scientist", forever? I would say that if a label can't be assured of being true for the remainder of the person's life, then perhaps it should be avoided. If one swiped a candy bar from the local store as a youth, and is convicted of it, say, does that make one "a thief" for life? No. Bdushaw (talk) 15:08, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, if one is elected to public office for a few years, we call that person "a politician" for life; if one acquires a medical license at any point, we label that person "a physician" for life (although if we are very disapproving and their license is formally removed for bad conduct, such as for Andrew Wakefield, we may call them a "former" physician); if one wins an athletic competition once, we call that person "an athlete" for life; if one is known for making music, we label that person "a musician" forever; if one is notable for running a business, we call that person "a businessman" even after retirement.
These are all labels. Do you think it is completely neutral of us to be biased in favor of "____ is <pro-social activity>" and biased against "____ is <anti-social activity>"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A fair point, though do I think we have greater responsibility to avoid applying negative connotations to someone with a BLP. I contemplate Caitlyn Jenner, who I would not label "an athlete", but would be OK with "was an athlete" (as her page employs). As you see, someone who could have been labeled "an athlete", but then that changed, though always "an athlete in the 1976 Summer Olympics". It does seem as if it is generally possible to avoid the simple (often misleading) label, by adding some phrasing to be specific. Rather than "fraudster", use "convicted of such and such fraud". Bdushaw (talk) 16:36, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The List of fraudsters could be renamed to List of people convicted of fraud, assuming that the list is strictly limited to convicted criminals, or List of people who committed fraud if it includes people who haven't been convicted (e.g., people who died before the trial ended, or people who admitted to fraud but weren't prosecuted). It's more verbose but not excessively so. I doubt that anyone would object if you created those titles as redirects, and you might find support for moving the page to one of those titles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:57, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This Talk has been fairly quiet - I move toward including a version of the example text above in the guidelines. I might note that applying a "label" is a close sister to "name calling". I sense that labeling Holmes a "fraudster" was also somewhat calling her this name, that is, with an undercurrent of vindictiveness. Bdushaw (talk) 13:46, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Labels are difficult to write policy about… A LOT depends on the specific situation, and the specific label used. One thing we need to be wary of is using a label when someone is “convicted in the court of public opinion” vs convicted in a court of law. For the first, I feel we should always use in text attribution - as they ARE opinion (even if very common opinion). For the second we can state as fact. Blueboar (talk) 15:09, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would also think we need to always use labels with some context for the label (which by essence requires in-line source). For example, simply describing someone as "fraudster" without any explaining why that applies is basically name calling and is definitely non-neutral, non-impartial writing. On the other hand, briefly explaining the events that led to why the person is considered a fraud is far more appropriate neutral and in the right tone for an encyclopedia. Masem (t) 15:42, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One of the things I noticed about the "fraudster" label, for example, was that everyone seemed to have a different idea about what that meant. When one uses such a label, one has to assume that all readers understand it the same way, which is not really possible. The definition of the word was quoted in our Talk discussions, but I found that to be disingenuous - the word, as in any label, carries a variety of meanings. Anyways, I concluded that by using a label like that, the text loses control of the narrative it is trying to convey. It (can be/is) sloppy writing, prone to error. (And not everyone understood the idea of "a label" the same way either!) Bdushaw (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that all labels carry a variety of meanings. Murderer has one meaning. Bank robber has one meaning. Jewel thief has one meaning. Abortionist has one meaning.
I happen to personally dislike fraudster (because of the -ster ending, it sounds slangy to me), but I recognize that's my personal preference, which is not really relevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you with the -ster ending. But each of the labels just above conjure up in any given reader a particular and individual picture, and they each have dimensions of intent, extent, context, guilt, etc. Murderer: serial killer, spouse killer, manslaughter? In an accident, inadvertent, or planned? Car accident or deliberately run over multiple times in a parking lot? Drunk or sober? A single incident or many? A mass murderer (mass shooting) or ... etc. (Could Ted Kennedy be labeled a murderer? Chappaquiddick incident The same as Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, Caitlyn_Jenner#Fatal_car_collision, or the 3-year old who inadvertently shot his mother?). With a label there are always context, intent, degree, etc. and how an individual reader will interpret the label. Why write a vague, ambiguous label, when some simple phrasing will carry a far more precise meaning? Bdushaw (talk) 21:42, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're overthinking this (and perhaps under-thinking it, too). First, educated English speakers already know that what differentiates murder from killing is that murder is an intentional and guilty action, which eliminates half of your confusion.
Second, while it is possible to say "What kind of murderer is he?", that doesn't change the fact that a murderer is a murderer. It is also possible to say "What kind of athlete is he?" or "What kind of physician is he?" or "What kind of businessman is he?" or "What kind of politician is he?" – but the possibility of providing more detail does not stop us from labeling these subjects according to their actions.
Finally, when I wrote that "Murderer has one meaning", I meant that all the usual dictionaries literally give a single meaning for the word:
"one who murders, especially: one who commits the crime of murder" [3]
"someone who illegally and intentionally kills another person" [4]
There is no second definition in any of the dictionaries I checked. It is not a vague or ambiguous label; it is precise and specific, even if it leaves some people wishing for more of the gory details. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:54, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have invoke ad hominem arguments, which is bad faith behavior, IMO. Knock it off. Regarding definitions, you are rehashing ground that's already been worked over. In the RFC for the label for Holmes, the proponents of "fraudster" restated the definition multiple times, but the overwhelming consensus was against using the word. A strict dictionary definition of a label is often disingenuous in practical use, as has been stated already. One thing to note, is that a label can be a long term profession (accountant, politician), which would be appropriate, while other labels (fraudster, murderer) used the same way can inappropriately suggest that that is the person's predilection or profession. But these arguments are a rehash of those we had during the RFC for Holmes/fraudster. Bdushaw (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"I think you're overthinking this" is not an ad hominem argument; it is an identification of an (alleged) error that you're making, equivalent to "you forgot to carry the 2 when you added those numbers up".
Your argument here basically says that a single word does not always tell the story of an entire life, so (according to you) we must not use them unless the word happens to represent most of the person's life story. I agree that a label does not always represent a person's whole life, but I do not agree that this prohibits us from using labels anyway. Pope John Paul I was only pope for about 1/700th of his life, and we still label him as being a pope. Articles should lead with what a person is known for – whether that's a positive or a negative thing – and not try to get in the business of "who I really am".
I don't think so. I think I'm in the business of saying what someone's known for. That could be unrelated to what they believe is most important about their lives. People's self-conception is not always aligned with their public reputations, partly because the public doesn't know everything in our hearts, but also because our capacity for self-deception is truly astounding. I've been working on an article recently that involves an abusive father (think: towering rages, threatening suicide if he doesn't get his way, shooting at the police). I'm convinced that the father thought well of himself about would have said that "who he really is" is a loving and supportive father who wanted nothing but the best for his child. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It may be the best approach is not to specify a "policy" but to give Wikipedians something to think about before employing a label. Bdushaw (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I find it interesting that this is primarily a BLP issue. We tend to NOT use contentious labels for long dead people. For example: King Richard III of England is widely considered by historians to be a “Usurper” (and even a “murderer”)… and yet we don’t feel the need to label him as such in the lead (much less the first sentence). No one seems to mind.
Meanwhile, in BLPs (and especially BLPs about anyone even remotely political) we get into huge debates about labels. Yet these are the articles where we are supposed to be at our most neutral! Blueboar (talk) 16:58, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For some more recent murderers, there are occasional articles that feel weird to me, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, whom we introduce as "a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy". I doubt that he's best known for being a veteran – perhaps it should just say "the American who assassinated JFK" or "an American who once attempted to defect to the Soviet Union and later assassinated JFK" – but we lead with veteran status. (That talk page might benefit from indefinite semi-protection. They seem to get a lot of conspiracy theorists.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:38, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Bdushaw: Regarding contentious labels in lists, see the discussion here. While that didn't focus on how it would affect BLP's, I realize now that the greatest problem is with the inclusion of BLP's in such lists. BilledMammal (talk) 11:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In academic or professional writing (different from persuasive writing) one should avoid language that is judgmental. If I say "X raised their voice and used cuss words" - I'm describing what happened. If I say "X was a jerk" - that's making a judgement about that person. Same with "X was charged with fraud for Y situation" vs "X was a fraudster". One is describing a situation and inviting the reader to make a judgement, one is making a judgement about the person. I really think we should avoid judgmental language in the lead all together. It might be appropriate later in the article, attributing it to specific sources. But in the Lead, in Wikipedia's voice, should be considered a biased approach no matter who it is. Denaar (talk) 15:23, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When a BLP has been charged but not yet convicted, I'd be hesistant to say that they "are" a <type of criminal>. However, do you feel the same about "X was a <relevant type of criminal>" when the person has been convicted or admitted to the crime in question? WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:06, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why focus on the conviction instead of their own actions? How about "X murdered 23 people and injured 23 more"? "X robbed banks"? "X staged an elaborate Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of innocent victims"?
I have carefully reviewed the comments above and reviewed the previous RfC "Fraudster" on the topic and found there to be a consensus for the addition of text such as I suggested above ("Use of labels"). I have revised the original suggested text in response to some of the discussion. The discussion above is quite similar to the discussion of the previous RfC. I contemplated yet another RfC on the issue, but it seems to me there would be no point. The text I added may be perhaps overly wordy, as is my nature; others may refine it. My thinking was, for those looking for guidance, to raise the various considerations discussed above, while offering not "rules" or "policy" but guidance. Thanks to you all for comments! Bdushaw (talk) 16:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have reverted your addition, as WhatamIdoing did before me. Reading through the above discussion, I see no consensus for the merits, placement and especially language of the addition. And in any case, any such substatantial change to a core policy requires a *much* wider discussion. I'd suggest opening a discussion (as a precursor to an eventual RFC) at the appropriate Village pump if you want to proceed further. Abecedare (talk) 20:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Really? By my count there was universal support for the concerns I've been raising concerning labeling, with the exception of one vocal editor,WhatamIdoing, prone to repetitive arguments (some with ad hominem elements) and talking past opposing views. I don't discount the existing RfC as noted. The Village pump? I see no guidance at the top of this page concerning taking issues to the Village pump...perhaps the guidance above should be revised to better describe the process. I've been engaged on this Talk page now for a month, posting proposed text 3 weeks ago...now I wonder to what end? Bdushaw (talk) 00:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
An RFC here would be adequate under the usual WP:PROPOSAL rules, but I think you may have conflated support for "the concerns" with support for "the specific words you put in the policy".
I've pulled, it because it still needs some work. Here's the test you posted:
Use of labels
A label is a single word or brief phrase used to describe the essential essence or nature of a person or thing. For example, Wikipedians have labelled Adolf Hitler "an Austrian-born German politician" and Charles Manson "an American criminal and musician." Use of such labels should reflect common such use in reliable sources.
Labels can also be misleading or sloppy writing; a label is a close cousin to name calling. Context or nuance are impossible to convey in a label, and a simple label can carry with it misleading implications about the person. Consider that people may interpret a label not by its strict dictionary definition, but in widely different ways. A label ascribes to a person a state of permanence: Hitler will always be a politician, Manson a criminal. The use of a label should be cautious, particularly for living persons and absent historical retrospective, if that label applied to the person does not evidently convey their permanent nature, long-term profession, etc. As general guidance, labels should be avoided when a simple statement of the facts, situation or events will suffice.
As an example, the article for Elizabeth Holmes applied the label "fraudster" to her for a time. In the heat of her fraud scandal, numerous contemporary sources used this label, but strict news reporting sources rarely used it. In this case, the problems with the use of the label included that the label did not convey the particular nature of Holmes' fraud and that there was no evidence that Holmes would be perpetually inclined to fraud. By consensus, the label was removed and replaced by a simple description of Holmes' fraud and its consequences.
and here are some comments:
It does not differentiate between "labeling" and "describing" or "defining". Have we "labeled" the "essential essence or nature of" Algebra? How about Cipro? Or New York City? Or is that not "labeling"? Are we really "labeling" Hitler by saying that he was a politician? You implicitly present here labeling as being something bad, but you don't explain how to tell the difference between the bad thing and the good thing (i.e., the thing that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#First sentence wants us to do for every single article).
"Labels can also be misleading or sloppy writing" → Anything except clear, good writing can be misleading or sloppy writing. Since you haven't differentiated between objectionable labeling and sentences that "tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is" (to quote the MOS), this is pointless. Penicillin will be "labeled" as a type of antibiotic (its "essential essence of nature"), and now we're being told that might be misleading and sloppy writing, but not told what we could write that isn't "labeling" the drug.
"Context or nuance are impossible to convey in a label" is not a factually true statement. Some objectionable labels provide a wealth of context and nuance. (Also, sometimes nuance is irrelevant, e.g., when writing about violent crimes.)
"a simple label can carry with it misleading implications about the person" – and so can a refusal to use plain, straightforward language, like "Charles Manson was a murderer".
"Consider that people may interpret a label not by its strict dictionary definition, but in widely different ways." This is true for almost every word we use and is not uniquely relevant to "labeling" politicians as being politicians.
"A label ascribes to a person a state of permanence" – Remember when we were talking about philosophical or religious ideas? Your personal POV is showing up again. The idea that murderers are "permanently" murderers or that monarchs are "permanently" monarchs is not inherently a bad thing for an encyclopedia. "Charles Manson was a person who killed a few people, but that was only during two months a long time ago, and for all we know, he might have had a complete change of heart before he died in prison, so we wouldn't want to label him a murderer, as if that were a permanent thing with him" is not an encyclopedic approach, no matter how much you copyedit it.
"The use of a label should be cautious" – editors can't be cautious if they can't figure out which words are "labels".
"As general guidance, labels should be avoided when a simple statement of the facts, situation or events will suffice": It is unclear to me that this desire to be verbose ("Charles Manson was a human who made music, operated a cult, and killed multiple people in 1969"? We'd still label him as a human, but presumably that's not an objectionable label) applies generally, rather than in a very few high-traffic articles ("very few" as in "a single-digit number"). Also, the "simple statement of the facts" is that Hitler really was a politician, and Manson really was a murderer.
I'd remove the Holmes example entirely. For one thing, AFAICT from the inadequate definition, we're still labeling her "an American former biotechnology entrepreneur". According to what you wrote, labels ascribe permanence, and we don't know whether her current unemployment is permanent. Secondly, "was convicted of fraud" does not say anything about the consequences of that fraud, unless you think that being convicted is the only consequence worth mentioning (and not, e.g., the consequences for the former staff, other investors, etc.).
I suggest that if you want to add a complaint about "labeling", then you figure out what labeling is and isn't, and that you come back when you can give a definition that editors can apply to a few dozen articles and get consistent results from. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"still needs some work" - that's disingenuous, as is the rhetorical morass you've made above. You've been opposed to the concerns over labeling from the beginning, whereas "still needs some work" suggests you've accepted the issue, but the language just needs refinement; I don't believe that's true. I couldn't begin to unpack the multitude of ways the above rhetoric is off track (well, I could, but why? e.g., "It does not differentiate between "labeling" and "describing" or "defining"." is an ipse dixit statement; no one else had any trouble with what a label was, generally, etc.). You could just as well apply these rhetorical tricks to the rest of the article page. You disagree? OK, "Still needs some work", how would you rework the text I proposed three weeks ago? Bdushaw (talk) 00:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have already told you how I would re-work it: "figure out what labeling is and isn't, and ... come back when you can give a definition that editors can apply to a few dozen articles and get consistent results from."
I don't want to see articles begin by inappropriately labeling people, e.g., "Manson was an abusive, manipulative predator". I do want to see articles begin by appropriately describing what people are, e.g., "Manson was a murderer". You've provided a whole lot of reasons why inappropriate content is inappropriate, but you have provided only two sentences that address what editors ought to do ("Use of such labels should reflect common such use in reliable sources" and "As general guidance, labels should be avoided when a simple statement of the facts, situation or events will suffice") and zero sentences about how to tell whether a given word is "a label" or "a simple statement of the facts". How can people replace what that sentence calls "labels" with "a simple statement of the facts" if they can't figure out whether "Manson was a murderer" counts as "labels" or "a simple statement of the facts"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bdushaw, I understand what you are trying to do and I agree with it in concept. I do think labels are applied to BLP subjects too freely. I also think WhatamIdoing is making very good points. Essentially the addition is long winded and vague. It's intent is, in my opinion, correct, but the clarity isn't there. I absolutely agree with WhatamIdoing's comment about trying to better define when something is a label vs description. I think part of that can be pulled from LABEL were we talk about value driven but you also might look at how relatively subjective the thing is. "Mayor" as a job title is objective (was mayor from 1982-1990). "Evil" is harder to define. Mao is considered evil by many but others may see what he did as good. Perhaps listing some potential labels would be a starting point. We could then try to understand what makes some of them better/worse when applied to BLPs. The objective would then to use that information to try to draw a better line in the sand for the rest of your arguments. Springee (talk) 11:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would say the descriptions of Hitler as a "German politician" and Manson as a "criminal and musician" are not good examples; they certainly aren't good examples of describing their essential essence. The use of labels is tricky to give advice on, because it is so multifaceted. It depends on whether a more specific option is readily available (clearer to introduce Oswald as "an American who assassinated John F. Kennedy" rather than generically as an "American assassin"), context (natural and appropriate to put Oswald in an "Assassins" category"), relative importance (weird to lead with Hitler being a politician, Manson being a musician, or Oswald being a marine), and the specific term used (I think there are valid reasons to avoid "fraudster" in American English).--Trystan (talk) 04:31, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I strenuously oppose the second paragraph, which makes no mention of sources at all; in particular the sentence Labels can also be misleading or sloppy writing; a label is a close cousin to name calling is extremely strange and aggressively-worded. Calling something "name-calling" or "sloppy" is itself name-calling and would never be acceptable in a policy page; I don't think we can seriously consider any version that uses either term. And more generally, the aggressive tone of the second paragraph seems to invite editors to argue for ignoring sourcing because they personally feel that a particular summary of the subject, though widely-used in high-quality WP:RSes, is "name-calling" or "sloppy", a subjective judgment that essentially invites them to substitute their own beliefs and prejudices for the assessment of the sources. Likewise, I would oppose As general guidance, labels should be avoided when a simple statement of the facts, situation or events will suffice in strongest possible terms because it disregards the sources; it would have to be something like as general guidance, labels not present in high-quality sources should be avoided. The "simple statement" bit should be omitted; it isn't correct and isn't relevant, since our judgment should be based on what the sources say. And the rest of this paragraph is likewise meandering and essentially invites editors to use your personal opinions about what you personally consider "labels" to be as a substitute for the judgement of sources. I would also oppose the entire example paragraph, which is vague and hand-wavy about the relative quality of the sources. Simply saying Use of labels should reflect the common use in the best reliable sources is sufficient - we should avoid any wording that could be seen as encouraging editors to apply standards beyond "what do the best available WP:RSes say". Although, since one thing I think that this discussion has shown is that "label" itself has become a bit of a snarlword, I think it would probably be best to avoid using the word entirely in this section and focus on a less emotive wording - eg. Subjects should be described using the terminology in common use among the best reliable sources. It doesn't need its own paragraph; there's several places it could be put. Our ultimate responsibility is to describe subjects the way the best sources do - going beyond that threatens to tread into WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. That has always been one of the guiding principles of WP:BLP - the purpose is not to describe subjects the way they would want to be described, but to accurately summarize them in strict adherence to our core content policies, which tell us that sourcing, not editor's opinions about "labels" or personal preferences for the language they wish the best sources used instead, are what is paramount. --Aquillion (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that seems to invite editors to argue for ignoring sourcing because they personally feel that a particular summary of the subject, though widely-used in high-quality WP:RSes, is "name-calling" or "sloppy", a subjective judgment that essentially invites them to substitute their own beliefs and prejudices for the assessment of the sources might kinda be the point. Viewed very narrowly, this is supposed to enshrine in policy a recent decision that even though Liz Holmes was called a fraudster in many reliable sources, Wikipedia shouldn't follow the sources' choice of language.
"Subjects should be described using the terminology in common use among the best reliable sources" has some potential (but I doubt it will be acceptable, because that would argue in favor of calling Holmes a fraudster), but I'd like to consider as well that we should Wikipedia:Use our own words. Sometimes this even means not using the words that are commonly used in reliable sources (best or otherwise).
(If you wanted to avoid the word label – which has the additional virtue of removing the potential confusion with WP:LABEL – then one potential approach is to recommend against using judgmental language.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A few points that I'd want to see:
Label should always be considered to be contentious language for purposes of NPOV writing, even if the label is widely used.
Labels should be used only if a significant portion of high quality RSes use the label in non-opinion reporting pieces. We don't want labels cherry picked from a few sources.
In this view, we also should only use labels that have persisted in time, and to point labels that remain in use in multiple sources for years after core events have passed can start to be treated as facts (though should still be considered controversial from a neutrality and tone level). Labels that only come out of one event and are never used again by RSes probably should be included.
Labels should be introduced in context of why the label applies. Labels used in isolation from text that describes why they apply do amount to name calling and poor writing. "X is a far right politician." Is poor, while "X is a far right politician, supporting anti abortion and anti LGBTQ legislation and promoting religion in public schools." is a much more neutral and useful statement.
in following these points, labels should never be included in the lede sentence, even if that label is what they are most noted for. Labels can be introduced later in the lede with context to keep ledes as neutral and impartial as possible, even of BLP articles whose subjects are seen casually as vile people.
@Masem, I think part of the problem here is that it's unclear whether or not "X is a politician" is "a label". Joe Biden currently begins this way: "Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˈbaɪdən/ⓘBY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States." Is calling him a politician "a label", or not? If it's "a label", should it be considered contentious language? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Most times, "Politician" is an occupation/profession which we can clearly factually sort to Biden throughout his career. That's not a label in this sense. I could see that being an issue with some random Joe, who happens to be notable, that may have a normal occupation but one year decided to run for their local school board and lost but otherwise was never involved in such governmental positions; calling that person a "politician" would be a label in that case (in my scheme, that would likely be an issue with few sources covering that label particularly well after the election) Masem (t) 12:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know whether a given word is "a label"?
One could say that your random candidate isn't a politician (i.e., that the statement is inaccurate, and we should 'label' him as "a failed candidate" or by whatever thing made him notable). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding self-published references to DOB
Earlier discussions have attempted to focus on whether these are allowed, and if a single mention in social media constitutes sufficient grounds for concluding an individual approves of general disclosure of the personal information.
Here, I wish to suggest a different matter for conclusion and resolution—whether, by any party, a self-disclosed DOB is trustworthy biographical information. Invited are perspectives at least along two lines—
that in particular lines of work, e.g., news broadcasting, acting, etc., that there is, woven into the dynamics of the occupation, reasons to dissemble; and
that as a disclosure or personal information, an individual knowing that a statement in social media is such, may likewise covertly attempt to dissemble, for reasons of maintaining privacy (e.g., the non-public facing individual that values privacy that states an inaccurate DOB, not out of vanity, but of intent to obfuscate easily searchable records).
Bottom line is the question, can any self-statement of personal information (of the DOB sort), be prima facie evaluated as non-self-interested, and therefore reliable in encyclopedic writing.
No. Such personal statements are always sufficiently suspect, such that they are never further trustworthy as stand-alone sources in encyclopedic writing. They can however be communicated as supplementary sources alongside a valid, independent, third-party (reliable) source, or as stand-alone with prose making clear that it is an autobiographical claim, e.g., "[Article subject] has stated on social media that they turned 50-years old on [date of posting]."<ref>{{cite twitter | etc., etc. 2601:246:C200:4619:926:F7C2:6D6B:7EC3 (talk) 01:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like you feel very strongly about this subject. May I suggest, though, that you not try to "vote" at the end of your comment? WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:45, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Should a marital status or number of children be mentioned if no sources deem them noteworthy?
I can't find any policy for mentioning a subject's marital status or number of children in general, only a policy about the names of family members. WP:ABOUTSELF notes that uncontroversial information about a subject can be sourced from primary sources, but should that be done if no reliable secondary sources deem it necessary to mention the subject's family? Cortador (talk) 08:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This would be the content in question. Seems utterly ridiculous that we can't use the subject's own website to say that he's married and has children. But have at it, folks. Let's all do our best to make Wikipedia even more embarrassing. – 2.O.Boxing09:01, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see an issue with it. On a biographical article, I would expect basic details like schooling/degree, marriage status, children, religion, etc. Primary sources should be fine for WP:ABOUTSELF info, barring issues like self-serving/WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, WP:BLPPRIVACY concerns, etc. It's not like we're naming names or revealing birthdates or something, right? Woodroar (talk) 21:26, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would not expect any mention of marital status, children, or religion except in cases where it is relevant to the notability of the subject. Indeed, specifically on the topic of categorizing by religion, WP:BLPCAT and WP:CAT/R demand that it be a defining characteristic and that the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief. I do not think we should use lower standards for inclusion in the text of a BLP. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:07, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to me that, as a general rule, use of self-published material is problematic. I am thinking of George Santos at the momennt, who lied about everything in his life. We are in a "truth-challenged" era, and we need to be that much more vigilant that the facts are correct and correctly supported. And I find the persistent need to delve into a person's personal life (sexual orientation, relationships, children, etc.) to be often intrusive and unnecessary - seems to me to include such factoids, they should be relevant to their notability. Bdushaw (talk) 07:05, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's two coniderations here, due-ness and reliability. There's certain basic facts that, IMO, are by default considered due because they are the sort of thing encyclopedias include in biographies—essentially the things Woodroar says above. That's a presumption, not an absolute; if RS seem to go out of their way to not include a particular detail, for instance, or there's reason to think it would have some negative effect (like abetting harassment), that can change things. But in general, basic biographical information is appropriate in a biography. The question of when we consider someone reliable for talking about their own life is a deeper one. Most people don't lie about their own basic biographical data (or, frankly, if they do the lie is usually inconsequential), so there's a longstanding consensus to trust people unless they're someone like Santos who has lost credibility as a narrator of their own life story, or if it's something like Andrew Tate's supposed coming-out as trans where there's obvious reason to doubt that. Whether we should be lest trusting of ABOUTSELF sources in general is a different discussion. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe)07:19, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Marital status and the number of children are typically basic information that we would expect to find in any biography elsewhere. If the information is not contradicted or there's no serious question about the veracity, the DUE bar should generally be set very low, because in most cases the marital status or number of children are unlikely to cause harm to parties. Politrukki (talk) 12:31, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:ABOUTSELF says "it does not involve claims about third parties". However with the possible exception of when someone says they're single, "marital status" is explicitly a claim about a third party. Likewise an claim about children is a claim about a third party. There is nothing in BLP which suggests ABOUTSELF can be used for someone to make claims about third parties when they are not named so the fact that they aren't named is irrelevant. Even when someone claims they are single, there is a risk that this could involve claims about third parties. So no, ABOUTSELF cannot be used for either. P.S. Hopefully it should be obvious why making a claim about marital status can affect the partner a person is claiming they're denying any connection to/engaged to/married to/separated from/divorced from etc. In case it's not obvious why number of children can have the same implications, consider the history of Steve Jobs and Lisa Brennan-Jobs, where for a time Jobs was publicly denying paternity which affected both his daughter and her mother Chrisann Brennan. Nil Einne (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, as for the basic biographical information thing, I'd argue that if this is really such basic biographical information then it shouldn't so hard to find a reliable secondary source covering such details on a notable person. Perhaps such arguments could be made for someone of borderline notable especially if there are few or no recent sources and the information is new but definitely not for anyone with many recent sources. I'd go so far as to claim that in such a case, the inability to find coverage of such details in reliable secondary sources suggest it's not in fact basic biographical information that must be covered. I'd note that I've seen the same arguments made about the names of non-notable children as well of birthdates, things we explicitly don't always mention even when they are in reliable secondary sources so it's clear that people have different ideas of what's basic biographical information. (I'm fairly sure that for some fans, every single person some celebrity has dated or at least the person they're currently dating is basic biographical information.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, it is a requirement that the subject be notable enough to have an article, not that any of the information in the article has to be notable just to be mentioned in the article. If you have facts that are verifiable by reliable secondary sources, then you are fully allowed to put them in an article without any requirement that they be notable, and WP:NNC actually forbids notability governance over content within articles.. Huggums537 (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I'm sorry to have misinformed you. It is my responsibility to you as a new editor to let you know that the notability guideline is not a requirement, but rather a debatable "test" for the inclusion of new articles. WP:Verifiability is a policy and WP:Notability is a guideline. Policies do take priority over guidelines, but we have been inundated with so many notability fanatics in recent years that it sometimes seems the other way around... Huggums537 (talk) 17:54, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've read them multiple times, but they are subject to change very quickly around here for one thing, and for another thing, human beings (such as myself) are not impervious to making mistakes at any given moment. I asked forgiveness for making a mistake, and corrected myself. If what you have to offer in return is a snarky comment masked as an unhelpful suggestion, then please understand that by virtue of everything I have just explained to you, your suggestion is simply no use to me. Huggums537 (talk) 13:50, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the issue of third party claims, your logic here is akin to saying that if a divorced wife decided to keep her ex husband last name we shouldn't be allowed to use that last name because we have no idea what kind of an effect it would have on the ex husband as a third party [or that it would be insinuating some kind of a claim about a third party] [such as they are still married or something], and that is extraordinarily ridiculous. It isn't up to us to decide or even speculate on this, only to report the biographical facts. Huggums537 (talk) 15:44, 25 June 2023 (UTC)Updated on 15:49, 25 June 2023 (UTC) Updated again 19:55, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No that's just dumb and not at all equivalent. A wife keeping her ex-husbands name is very different from us re-broadcasting lies someone has told because we are inherently unable to fact check such claims and can't even provide a simple process for people to get such lies corrected. Nil Einne (talk) 16:54, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I know, right? It sounds dumb as hell doesn't it? I think that was part of the whole point. I'm glad you at least got half of it, and you almost have the other half because it really isn't up to us to be doing research on who is telling the truth and who isn't, but just reporting straightforward facts about who said what. Likewise, it also isn't up to us to speculate on who gets hurt by what people say, but only to report what people have said. Huggums537 (talk) 17:35, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In other words, it is our mandate that we shouldn't be trying to control how people "feel" about reading our articles because different people are going to have different reactions. Someone who loves one thing might be hated by another, so our mandate should be to simply report neutrally as possible, and let the audience decide how to "feel" for themselves, not control things so that we decide how they should feel about someone or something for them. I mean, why stop at saying things like this would "hurt the feelings" of the Wife and daughter of Steve Jobs? Why not say it would also hurt his reputation, or that of the company? Why not just say the living persons policy also extends to the "feelings" of readers throughout the globe if it is "harmful" to them? If this were our barometer, then we'd have to limit our content just because some people hate it or it makes them sad. There is a huge difference between protecting living persons we write about from harm, and protecting the "feelings" of the entire populations of the Earth, which is not only a futile task to undertake, but one we are incredibly ill equipped for handling, and I think it is an extremely arrogant if not ill conceived idea to suggest it in the first place. We can't possibly know, and we shouldn't try to speculate on what kinds of effects any of our articles have on our readers just because our readers are "living people". It is not our mandate to be the self appointed guardians of the "feelings" of Earth, but to protect who we write about from harm. Honestly, we should be writing in a way that has no effect on people one way or the other if we can, but if we want to tell the truth, there is sometimes just never any best nice way to say something bad has happened. Huggums537 (talk) 21:19, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I should add that we are not just repeating any possible lies about other people but we are repeating them in a way that will often only they are simple facts. E.g. We're not going to say the person has said they're married or have X children and we're definitely not going to have a footnote in the info box making it clear such details are only coming from the subject with no checking at all. Nil Einne (talk) 04:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your logic here is akin to saying that if a divorced wife decided to keep her ex husband last name we shouldn't be allowed to use that last name because we have no idea what kind of an effect it would have on the ex husband as a third party - well, no, there's several problems there. First, in that case we'd normally be relying on a secondary source, surely? When we have a secondary source for someone's name, all the problems about WP:ABOUTSELF go away. And second, making the statement that someone has a particular last name doesn't directly imply anything about a third party (because, of course, they could still be married or not; people's names can change in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons.) Whereas if someone makes a blog post saying they're married to some celebrity, stating that they're married to that celebrity in an article would clearly be a potentially WP:ABOUTSELF-sensitive statement (and potentially even on the level of WP:BLP) with regards to the actions and status of that celebrity. You seem to be taking the position that "of course whatever they posted on their blog is true and accurate, since it's just an uncontroversial minor biographical" but Cromwell's rule applies most pointedly here - while it will usually be true, even the slim possibility that it could be wrong or that they could be outright lying could lead to a catastrophic outcome on the level of what caused us to create WP:BLP in the first place. Given that the lack of secondary coverage shows that this is not a defining part of them (or even particularly significant), and therefore not something that must be included, it seems reasonable to say that we should err on the side of caution and omit it. I should be clear here - I think that we can sometimes use an WP:ABOUTSELF source to say "person X is married", although I'd still argue caution and I never think it's something we're required to include. But I don't think we should ever say "X is married to this specific person" cited only to an WP:ABOUTSELF source. Why would we? It's something that the sources clearly do not treat as important, and which provides little-to-no meaningful information to the reader except in the very situations where it would be an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that most clearly requires a secondary source. --Aquillion (talk) 06:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be taking the position that "of course whatever they posted on their blog is true and accurate, since it's just an uncontroversial minor biographical" but Cromwell's rule applies most pointedly here - while it will usually be true, even the slim possibility that it could be wrong or that they could be outright lying could lead to a catastrophic outcome on the level of what caused us to create WP:BLP in the first place. You've misunderstood my position. I'm not saying that whatever people print is usually true. I'm saying that our job is more to report what is printed than on figuring how much truth there is to it, and that once something is public any perceived "catastrophic outcomes" have already occurred by virtue of the fact that once something is published the cat[astrophie] is already out of the bag so to speak. Given that the lack of secondary coverage shows that this is not a defining part of them (or even particularly significant), and therefore not something that must be included, it seems reasonable to say that we should err on the side of caution and omit it. Just imagine yourself making that same exact argument for other basic biographic information like date-of-birth, and then tell me if your position still makes sense to you. In other words, just because secondary coverage doesn't include DOB doesn't mean the DOB isn't "defining", "significant". Huggums537 (talk) 08:59, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I also forgot to make the point that what you said about Cromwell's rule seems to apply just as equally to either primary or secondary sources when it comes to the fact that they both might usually be telling the truth, but there may be the slim possibility of sometimes being wrong or outright lying so I so see no real distinction in using either one to support such claims if it comes down to that, and if there are no secondary, then primary seems good enough to me under this "Cromwell rule". Huggums537 (talk) 09:23, 2 July 2023 (UTC)Updated on 09:26, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say this is basic biographical information, so as long as there is RS (ABOUTSELF being fine, saying that someone exists and is related to you is making no claim about their thoughts or actions) it can be included. Whether something is basic biographical information also doesn't change based on who it relates to: it either is or isn't. Immediate family is one of those things, so if there's a source, I think it's fine. Just remember to date the statements (i.e. "as of 2023 they were married"), as marital status can change and a new source may not appear to update it. Kingsif (talk) 22:13, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is potentially one of the best ways to enrage a BLP subject: state that they are married when actually that marriage is over. Extreme care needs to be taken in using old sources for subjects who are not celebrities or public figures (for whom current marriage data might reasonably be expected to be available). —David Eppstein (talk) 23:26, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah that's actually a common problem we get at BLPN. Someone complains that they're no longer married but our article still says they are. Mostly these are cases where the info is from some reliable secondary source but old. The solution IMO is to just remove the information but it's tricky and sometimes editors may disagree or simply not think of this. More likely if the request for the information to be updates never makes it to BLPN and instead only appears in an article or its talk page. Note IIRC most cases I recall, this person has no website, or public and verified social media so it's not a case where us using such sources will help. (Although I'm sure there are some cases where this has arisen but even there the solution remains the same IMO, just remove the info completely.) I think there have been times when the person wants their marriage mentioned but these are not surprisingly far rarer. (I mean specifically rather than because the article just mentions they are divorced, or worse still attached to an older partner.) This actually ties in with my point above about the difficulty people have given the nature of Wikipedia in getting such info corrected. Note an important point I made here is that often this info is from some reliable secondary source but is outdated. Our standard response, ask the source to get correct the info doesn't really work since you're basically telling the person to convince a source to publish a "correction" or "update" to information that was correct at the time of writing in cases where they don't normally do so and it's just a routine life change. Likewise telling the person to get a secondary source to publish this information (as new information) is also very odd. In some cases the person may have social media or an official website they could use, but as I mentioned a lot of the cases I recall they don't. Note that even if someone has a website linked to them this doesn't mean it can really be used for that purpose. E.g. I hope no one expects an academic must publish their marital status on their university page just so we can update it. So really the best solution IMO tends to be just remove the info completely (assuming this would satisfy the person), perhaps asking for identity verification first. Nil Einne (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to agree with @Woodroar and Tamzin:, to say biographical info like this is fine, but it looks like Woodroar struck their comment for some reason. I tend to agree with Tamzin that the most relevant factors here are reliability and what is DUE. Huggums537 (talk) 19:41, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm reconsidering how I think about this. I've always felt that biographical articles should probably include where and when someone was born, who their parents are/were, where they grew up, any higher education, plus family details like relationships and children. These are basic facts that you expect in a biography, just like a photo, you know? Of course, we have to balance that against the subject's privacy, copyright of images, questionable claims, and generally leaning towards being encyclopedic and not a gossip rag. But I can't argue with the fact that ABOUTSELF says "it does not involve claims about third parties" and not "it does involve claims about third parties as long as we don't name them". A reasonable reading of policy says that shouldn't mention marital status and children unless covered by reliable, secondary sources. It also makes me rethink what I considered "basic facts"—and if they're at all "basic" if RS don't consider them so. Woodroar (talk) 20:16, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I really think that interpreting ABOUTSELF in that manner is a huge error, and this whole thing about privacy is blown way out of proportion since it doesn't matter if it is being published by a primary source vs. a secondary source for the information to have been made freely available to the public either way. For example, if someone writes an autobiography, or posts information about their family on social media, they have the option to make it private or public so we should be able to take basic biographical information that has already been made public without fear of violating any privacy that hasn't already been made public. This idea that we shouldn't report marital status or children based on some paternity dispute with Steve Jobs is just patent nonsense. So what if it affected the mother and daughter? That's not our fault for reporting the facts, it's their fault for making it public. If someone denies paternity, then it isn't our fault if they make it public or if it hurts the feelings of a million people. Once it goes public, it's out there. There is no more "third party" feelings/privacy BS. Stop letting others pull on your heartstrings or play on your fears and start thinking for yourselves people! Huggums537 (talk) 22:29, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If other reliable sources reported information that is incorrect because they didn't do proper fact checking that is unfortunate but it's not something we can easily do anything about given the way Wikipedia works. We can of course ensure we are careful in what sources we deem reliable so this is less likely to happen but I think anyone who works on a BLP knows that this is something that is going to happen sometimes. However it's a completely different thing for us to directly repeat someone's lies in an article which is often one of the only things people may read on a subject, and hurt living persons by doing so because we intentionally do not, and aren't really able to engage in fact checking. Indeed even the process for subjects to get hurtful lies corrected is very convoluted on Wikipedia, whereas good sources tend to have far better processes in place than we can ever have precisely because of the different ways in which we operate. And to be blunt, if you don't care about us hurting living persons because you don't think the harm caused to them is allowed to "pull on your heartstrings" then you shouldn't be editing BLPs period. Nil Einne (talk) 16:50, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
However it's a completely different thing for us to directly repeat someone's lies in an article which is often one of the only things people may read on a subject, and hurt living persons by doing so because we intentionally do not, and aren't really able to engage in fact checking. I think you have missed the point of what I have been saying. If it is already the the only thing people have been reading on a subject, and it is already public, then it already all they know so so we are only reporting what the public already knows, and we aren't supposed to be using living persons as an excuse to play investigator to find out if it is the truth or who it might hurt, and if you think we should be doing that, then maybe you should reconsider editing BLPs.Huggums537 (talk) 17:42, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Updated on 17:48, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, to provide some crystal clarity for context, I have struck the last portion of my comment because it unfairly speculates on what you *might* be thinking, and "to be blunt", if you have any objectivity whatsoever, you would do the same with the last sentence you wrote, and for the same reason. Huggums537 (talk) 18:40, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Actually if the information is only in someone's website, the reality is it's often not something people read about the person. As I've already said, the reality is we are one often the only thing people read about a subject. There's a reason people complain to us when something is wrong and don't give a fuck about the information being wrong in somewhere else, even in a reliable secondary source. Any regular at BLPN knows this, and any dealing with BLPs regularly really needs to understand what appears on wikipedia tends to matter far, far, far more than what someone has published on their website let alone something someone published on their social media one day 3 years ago that is now very hard to find or even deleted. An exception might be for very high profile celebrities but let's be realistic, this issue is only going to arise where that isn't the case. If Kim Kardasian posts on her Instagram that she married or had a child or whatever, this isn't going to be something we need to rely on social media to cover. Even for someone like Hayley Westenra, there was an uncertain social media post she made once about a possible marriage which RS in NZ did comment on, yet in reality she's still someone who far more people in the world are only ever likely to read about her from her Wikipedia article than her social media or anywhere else. As for your investigator point, I don't understand what you're trying to say. I keep saying the opposite. In fact it's precisely because we don't want to be playing investigator that we do not want to have to deal with such things, as I've clarified even more in my new post below (before I read your response). I'm saying we should not be playing investigator hence we should not be using ABOUTSELF when it means we have to play investigator to ensure we don't lie about some third person, as even Red Hawk a support of ABOUTSELF to tell such things seems to acknowledge, and others (why else bring up Santos?) If you don't want us playing investigator then pray tell me WTF do you expect us to do when someone complains that we've told mistruths about them based solely on the word of another person? As I've below I do hope you at least acknowledge it's ridiculous for us to expect this person to convince the subject to stop lying or another source to publish info on the lies and we really should remove it after some minimal verification (perhaps simply of identity). By comparison it's far more reasonable when some trusted source has published this mistruth for us to tell the person they need to deal with the trusted source although still not always simple, especially in the case where the source doesn't exist.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean you are making some fairly valid points here, but surely you have to see the contradictions you are are making within them where you say at one point that you are firmly claiming we don't investigate, but then later asking me WTF are we supposed to do when people ask us to investigate? We can't have our cake and eat it too by deciding investigation is okay only when it is convenient, and not okay when it isn't. Otherwise, rules are just nothing more than inventions for people to use as excuses to argue about, punish each other with, or profit from, and not for their intended purpose. Huggums537 (talk) 05:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I realised I failed to re-iterate my main point. Let's put aside how often people read Wikipedia vs random websites or social media posts i.e. and how high profile Wikipedia is vs some random person's website; and how this affects the spread. All that aside there is a big difference between whatever someone has posted on their website which may or may not be true and where hopefully most people reading the website do recognise this is something under the complete control over the person and in any case whatever the person has told which is untrue that's on them, and a when we as an encyclopaedia who people often trust probably way more than they should repeats such information because our editors have decided it's okay to repeat. And where even if the person reading does happen to look at what the citation is for such information and sees it's only the person's website, there's a fair chance the same mental processes (this is only what the person said, it's not something which has been checked in any way), likely still doesn't apply. It's why we as editors have responsibility to ensure we use good sources before saying something, and that when we don't and as a result spread mistruths and when we do, that's on us as editors and not something we simply waive away in a sorry not sorry the info is already out there manner. I mean let's be clear stuff that's already public includes accusations of crimes like sexual assault and rape and all sorts of things that we intentionally do not cover because they have not been covered in reliable secondary sources (and sometimes per WP:DUE etc, even when they have), recognising that us repeating such things is very significant no matter that the info might already be on Twitter or Reddit or whatever. AFAICT, everyone in this discussion recognises this and the reason some people are saying it's fine here is because it's far less consequential and/or something which rarely requires a different perspective, neither of which I disagree with, I'm simply saying it's still not okay. That's why I'm so confused about the information is out there argument since it could be used to allow stuff which I think anyone here acknowledges we should never do. P.S. I recognise I've posted a heck of a lot on this so I'll refrain from posting any more and let others continue if they wish. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I should clarify, I'm not trying to suggest reliable secondary sources must check such claims and they've failed if they don't. It may very well be reasonable for them to not bother most of the time and just rely on what the person says even if this unfortunately leads to the occasional error. However such sources are much better places than us to actually decide when they do need to check. If there are rumours about a secret family, or if they're interviewing the person by voice and the way they respond is weird, if the person is known for hiding or misleading about details.
People brought up Santos but there are undoutedly a lot of people where is enough reason for sources to take care with what they say, but where such things are mostly only known to journalists etc or maybe in Reddit threads etc i.e. not something we would consider but where it's might be fair and right for our secondary sources to take much more caution with fact checking what they've said. I don't want to make this too political, but my understanding is Donald Trump's tendency to tell lies about himself and his businesses was known within the media much earlier then it became well known in the public sphere.
There might be other cases where they seek clarification for what we'd consider OR e.g. the person says they married their same sex partner but unfortunately they live in a bigoted place that still doesn't recognise same-sex marriage.
And as I keep saying, such sources are also in a much better position to deal with any fallout if someone did lie and they repeated it. If a person failed to acknowledge their children of an affair or when they were younger or whatever, and these children or the other parent (probably mother) of these children wants the information corrected, any decent source should have processes in place to deal with the person's complaint, fact checking it probably asking the original subject for a response and likely publishing a correction.
I can say as a BLPN regular, I definitely never want to be dealing with someone saying they're such a child the subject refuses to publicly acknowledge even if it's legally accepted they're the parent. And if it does ever come up, I don't want to be telling this person hey sorry the subject lied on their website/Twitter/whatever, um there's actually nothing we can do other than remove the information. No we don't want your birth certificate or proof, there's zero we can do it. I mean you could try and convince someone else to publish this info but since no one else re-published this lie, well good luck with that.
I.E. unlike the case where the info came from a reliable secondary source where we can at least say hey sorry about that, but while I understand why you care much more about us one of the highest profile websites in the world publishing the info compared to some obscure old source few people ever read; they did publish it. It would be best if you ask them to correct it and hopefully they'll provide enough info in their correction that we can do more than simply remove the information. Of course such things don't always work, in particular if the source is no defunct the person is in the same boat which isn't ideal. Still assuming we are vigilant with RSS requirements at least we can point to someone else other than the subject's direct lies where the info came from.
P.S. It's not clear to me but are those advocating the use of such ABOUTSELF sources at least agreeing that where someone does come and dispute the claims, we should remove it? Or are they applying the same standard we sometimes apply to info from reliable secondary sources and this person needs to convince the subject to correct the info on their website/whatever, or another source to publishj it. I do hope it's not the latter since if that's the case I don't even know what to say other than that they really don't understand BLP and so frankly shouldn't be editing any BLPs. (As I say we should often do even for info from reliable secondary sources where someone complains and the sourcing is limited or may be up to date.)
I.E. unlike the case where the info came from a reliable secondary source where we can at least say hey sorry about that, but while I understand why you care much more about us one of the highest profile websites in the world publishing the info compared to some obscure old source few people ever read; they did publish it. It would be best if you ask them to correct it and hopefully they'll provide enough info in their correction that we can do more than simply remove the information. There is no reason why this same process can not also be equally applied to the same primary source subject where the details come from. I see no valid argument suggesting why we could not do the exact same process if the details came from the subject, or why it is "unlike" the following; "hey sorry, we understand you care about our highest profile article compared to the website from your ex-spouse few people read, but they did publish it so go ask them to change it, and we will update it accordingly." I'm not sure what to tell you where I stand on the issue about if someone disputes the claims because that isn't the main topic, and I really want to dial down the time I have invested in this discussion since I don't edit BLPs that much anyway. Huggums537 (talk) 06:42, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would definitely argue that even if from a BLPSPS, if this type of data is not reported in any way by a third-party RS, it should not be included in WP, particularly given the issues described by Nil Einne above (where the BLP may make questionable claims). I know there's a desire to have what is considered "standard" biographical data on WP, but I really think that we should be far more precautionary on inclusion of this material across the board. Masem (t) 22:32, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's a terrible plan. That means that if we have a totally notable subject who has written an autobiography, but reliable sources only talk about the life work of the subject, we can't include simple biographical information from the subject because it comes from their autobiography, and not any third party sources. I think that is just pretty darn nuts if you ask me [goes beyond precautionary, and ventures into overprotective territory]. Huggums537 (talk) 22:52, 25 June 2023 (UTC)Updated on 22:58, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If they are "totally notable", to the point they have written an autobiography, it would be unexpected that details that might involve third-parties like claims of marriage or children are only reported in the autobiography. Masem (t) 00:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see how you might mistakenly think it is unexpected, but it isn't completely impossible. I should have left the "totally" adjective out to illustrate the point better, and avoid your confusion. Even if a regular notable person wrote an article about themselves, or their personal life we wouldn't be able to use it with your suggested standard if the only thing third party sources cover are their life accomplishments. For example, a business leader or professor might be covered in sources about their career while basic biographical information about them as a person may not be covered outside of their name. Just because they are notable and covered by third parties doesn't mean that coverage is complete. Significant coverage doesn't require that every possible detail about them is contained in order to make them notable or even "totally notable". So, I have absolutely no idea why you would have the false impression that just because they are "totally notable" it would somehow mean that third party sources just must have included every possible detail. Huggums537 (talk) 05:44, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again if this is basic biographical information that it's so important we must include, why is it that none of the other sources have thought this is basic biographical information that they must include? The obvious answer is that it's not basic biographical information that must be included to understand the person. Nil Einne (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just because sources haven't written every possible detail about a person since they might have only been focused on one particular aspect of that person doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't add verifiable details about that person to get a better understanding of them. It also doesn't follow that just because those details were not needed for the understanding of that particular aspect of the person does not mean that the details are not needed for the overall understanding of the person in general. Concluding that just because sources might have focused on one aspect of a person by leaving out some details of them as a general person must mean those details are not needed for the general understanding of that person is actual nonsense when you think about it. Huggums537 (talk) 22:50, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Updated on 22:55, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least I don't think it's fair to say that we must include material that can only be cited to their autobiography. For the most part I lean towards "uncontroversial WP:ABOUTSELF stuff is take-it-or-leave-it"; most of the time, I don't think it would particularly harm Wikipedia to allow it, but I also don't think it would significantly harm Wikipedia to completely ban it. The actual important things - the things where it would actually reduce the quality of our articles to omit them, the "must-have" things and not the gray-area "have it or leave it things" - those things are going to have secondary sourcing, fullstop, no exceptions. You say "coverage of them would normally include these biographical details" but if that's true, and if they're notable enough for an article in the first place, then that secondary coverage will exist and will include those things - if it doesn't, then there may be more significant reasons why it's not mentioned anywhere. (In fact, the very basis of your argument there strikes me as off a bit - you're implicitly acknowledging that secondary coverage is what really determines when we must cover something, by implying that secondary coverage of someone's marriage and children usually exists in the abstract even if you're unable to find it in a given specific case. That argument doesn't really scan.) And on the balance - given that this sort of information is mostly on the razor's edge of "we might be able to include it, but we're never going to be in a position where we must include it" - I feel the most compelling argument is the one raised by David Eppstein above; that is to say, while someone's marital status might usually be uncontroversial, there are still going to be some cases where it is very controversial indeed - and in situations where there are no secondary sources covering it, how are we going to reliably spot those cases? For this reason I would lean towards exclusion. --Aquillion (talk) 06:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of thing is basic biographical information that are warranted in any good biographical entry on someone. A core principle of Wikipedia is that when a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Unless there is reason to doubt the veracity of the claims, then I don't see why one's post on a public social media account that they married someone, complete with wedding photographs, would be unacceptable for saying that the two are married. The same goes for a self-published autobiography: unless the claim is potentially self-serving or there are other reasons to doubt claims of marriage/progeny, then I see no logical reason why that would be unacceptable as a source.
If we need to amend WP:ABOUTSELF or include a footnote to say that information related to one's marital history/progeny is not excluded under "other parties", then so be it, but this seems to be the sort of edge case that WP:IAR is built for. — Red-tailed hawk(nest)16:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. Even if ABOUTSELF didn't exist, us repeating whatever someone thought to post about other people is clearly harmful, so we should never allow it no matter how much some editors may insist it's basic biographical information that for some reason no other sources thought was important enough to mention. So let's not even discuss this further and just acknowledge it's completely unacceptable to use such sources whatever BLP says since ultimately it doesn't matter since we should just IAR and remove such harmful additions on sight as they are clearly bad for Wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 17:07, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
[tangent] @Red-tailed hawk and @Nil Einne: I agree with you, and I sometimes wish that the NPOV had a short paragraph that explained this concept. Officially, due weight is determined by what the reliable sources write about, but in practice, every subject has a certain set of "basic" information that's expected in an encyclopedia article, even if it's neglected by most/all reliable sources. For a biography, it's place and time (e.g., "a 19th-century French writer", even if the sources are all from France and felt no need to point out that he was a French writer). For a disease, it's symptoms and treatment. For a city, it's location. For a non-fiction book, it's the subject matter and publication date. If you don't include some basic information, you haven't really written an encyclopedia article. Maybe NPOV needs a bit called ==Write an encyclopedia article==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:00, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why would we even consider mentioning the name of a spouse that has no secondary coverage? There are only two possibilities here, in my mind:
First, they've made a blog post saying that they've married someone who isn't particularly well-known or high profile, and is therefore unexceptional. In this case, its inclusion has no value to the reader to offset the slim but very real risk that the source is inaccurate, outdated, or an outright lie. The balance here is to clearly exclude the names of non-notable spouses. We don't usually want to name low-profile individuals anyway unless we absolutely must due to high coverage; why would this be a special exception to that?
Second, the name is of someone significant, such that mentioning them has clear implications for the article's subject - they've made a blog post claiming they married a famous celebrity or something. In this case, surely it becomes important to have secondary coverage? The idea that someone has married someone so significant with no coverage is already a red flag in and of itself.
And, obviously, I don't think that we want to be analyzing a primary source for veracity (eg. looking at wedding photos - are editors going to go over the pixels and argue whether they are AI-generated?) It's much simpler to just omit the name of the spouse unless they have secondary coverage, which is how we would cover naming any other name in any other context. I would strenuously oppose both changing both WP:ABOUTSELF or invoking IAR to name spouses in that circumstance - avoiding names in those sorts of situations is part of the purpose of that sort of policy! I'm indifferent to whether we can say "X is married and has Y children" based solely on an WP:ABOUTSELF source, but I'd strenuously oppose using it to include names - including the name of a specific individual in an article should always require secondary WP:RS sourcing. --Aquillion (talk) 06:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The OP was simply determining the mention of marital status and number of children. Nobody has said anything about mentioning names afaik, but even if they did you are confusing the difference between analyzing a primary source for veracity, and Wikipedia:Verifiability. One you don't want to do, and the other you do. Simply going to a primary source to verify and report that wedding photos and marital status have been published is something that you do want to do, but I agree with you that trying to analyze about if any of it might be unreal, from another dimension, or just part of the matrix is something you sure don't want to do. In other words, we do want verify it, but not analyze it for veracity. Huggums537 (talk) 07:26, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really surprised to hear anyone saying that "He's married and has four children" involves a claim about any third parties. I don't think that's either true or reasonable, and I don't think this concept helps Wikipedia.
I also add that ABOUTSELF is regularly and uncontroversially interpreted as permitting self-published sources (e.g., corporate websites, press releases) to name people that are associated with them (e.g., their employees). I'm not sure why "He's married and has four children" would involve more third-party considerations than "We just hired Bob Business as our new CEO".
I personally dislike having the names of non-notable family members in articles (or, worse, the dates of birth for the children), but I recognize that my POV is not universally shared. WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:55, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you on the last point - I think personal info like birth dates, marriages, children - unless it's somehow important to the article, can be skipped. If the spouse/child/parent is also notable, then it makes sense to include them. Denaar (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
”I am married and have two children” is NOT a claim about a third party - It is an ABOUTSELF claim, no different than “My first job was delivering news papers”. No third party is identified. Now, “In 1995 I married my wife, Morgan Fairchild. (yeah, that’s the ticket)” could be considered a claim ABOUT a third party, since the third party is identified. Blueboar (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Naming accused perpetrators of crimes
A curious development at 2023 Kingsessing shooting. at least two editors there are claiming that it is not appropriate, under WP:BLP concerns, to include the name of the accused perpetrator, Kimbrady Carriker, even though that name has been widely reported here: [6], [7], [8], [9] and many, many other places by reliable sources. Looking at analogous articles for other American mass shootings that have transpired this year, we see that the names of the surviving accused-but-not-yet-convicted perpetrator(s), where known and reported, are included in the article in every other case:
The accused in all 11 of these cases are non-notable people who have no public profile other than their alleged role in these shootings. One of two things are must therefore be true. Either A) BLP concerns are being erroneously applied at 2023 Kingsessing shooting. Or B) these other 10 articles are in violation of WP:BLP.
@Xan747: Due to my editing interests, I am familiar with most "attack" articles. Other than Neely and Kingsessing, the name of the accused has been withheld in Killing of Brianna Ghey (as the accused are minors) and Killing of Nahel Merzouk, where the accused police officer is named only as Florian M. due to a court ruling. WWGB (talk) 05:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think perhaps WP:BLPN is a better place for escalating the discussion of a particular article, whereas this page is probably better-suited for launching a referendum on policy (which has been done recently but died on the vine just as it was getting interesting). Regardless, courtesy pinging the other involved editors: @Esb5415, @Sideswipe9th, @Orthogone. Xan747 (talk) 17:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BLPN would I think be a better venue for this. This issue clearly involves multiple articles, and the discussion is about the application of the policy point to those articles and not (yet) changing the policy point. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:53, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th, agree with you; however, I want to clarify that I think it's premature to elevate the Kingsessing article to BLPN at this point in time. The article's talk page discussion is still in productive territory, and it doesn't name the suspect at this point in time, so there is no rush.
This conversation has merit as a discussion for a policy change that I think is useful, but it's a perennial one and I'm dubious it will gain much traction, but would not be upset if it did. Xan747 (talk) 19:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
True, but at a glance it looks like the other articles, including the three that Jweiss11 mentioned on the Kingsessing article do contain the other relevant names.
I'm not saying we should bring the Kingsessing article to BLPN, we should bring the broader issue to BLPN. Think of it this way, that the other articles contain the names of suspects, potentially in a manner that contravenes BLPCRIME, is an issue that should be discussed at BLPN. That doesn't preclude other productive discussions at the Kingsessing article, and would draw attention to this broader issue that's affecting multiple articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Sideswipe9th I pointedly have not reviewed those other articles bc I consider it a burdensome distraction from the Kingsessing case; however, I wouldn't be surprised if they are directly comparable as @Jweiss11 says. In that case, yes, those clearly could go to BLPN but I can imagine a lot of editors complaining about escalating before asking them about it on the local talk pages. I can see editors monitoring BLPN saying the same thing. And as this is only the tip of the iceberg, there would be a lot more of "what about this case, and this one ..."
I'm also undecided about what I think policy should be when it comes to mass murderers who clearly did it, especially ones making some kind of point--which it seems like the Kingsessing shooter may have intended. If it weren't for my understanding of current policy, I might very well !vote to name him same as I would have for the likes of Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Dylan Roof, etc., ad nauseam.
Don't get me wrong, I fully support your intentions and very much feel that if policy is being violated it needs to be rectified. You would have my support at BLPN based on current policy at least in terms of making some initial arguments, for whatever those would be worth. Xan747 (talk) 01:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just because a name of a non-notable person is widely repeated in RSes before they have been convicted of a crime does not mean we need to repeat it. Thats the essence of WP:BLPCRIME. Masem (t) 17:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why do editors keep repeating that there is a "violation"? BLPCRIME says that "editors must seriously consider not including material". You cannot "violate" a policy if that policy merely requires you to "consider" something. BLPCRIME is not a bright-line rule. WWGB (talk) 03:26, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We are supposed to use a very conservative/middle-ground approach on BLP articles, and claiming that just because a person has been named/arrested as a suspect by RS doesn't mean we should name them yet. There are probably exceptional cases where the non-notable person's name is necessary to mention but in the bulk of these articles, knowing the name doesn't aid the reader because of the "trivial" nature of the crime (trivial in the sense of the long-term view an encyclopedia has). Masem (t) 03:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with what Masem has said here. We are supposed to use a very conservative/middle-ground approach on BLP articles, and claiming that just because a person has been named/arrested as a suspect by RS doesn't mean we should name them yet is the right approach here.
Despite this, there is it seems a subset of articles where no serious consideration has been given, and the name of the suspect(s) has/have been included once it is verifiable. Taking the list of articles identified by Jweiss11 in his opening post for example, only three have had any discussion on names, in the Half Moon Bay article an admin removed the name of the suspect's uninvolved co-worker/roommate as a BLP violation, for the Dadeville shooting an editor removed the suspect's names because they were not convicted and many were minors, and for the Cleveland Texas shooting an editor queried why the article excluded the name at a time when the article looked like this. In all other cases, the name has been included without any obvious discussion as to why.
If there is serious consideration being given to determine when it is warranted to include the name, with the implication that the default is to exclude it until that consideration is made, where is this determination happening? Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the determination is being made in the minds of editors who in good faith earnestly believe these edits don't fall afoul of any BLP violations when they make the edit. The rule is a pretty stupid sledge hammer approach to what seems like was probably fixing a problem about false slander of people being falsely accused or maybe to avoid political mud slinging in articles, but the rule really doesn't work as a one for all across the board for everything or ordinary reporting of information about some events. Huggums537 (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So I was interested in seeing how BLPCRIME developed over time, because I have the suspicion that it was written at a time when newsorgs were less likely to name suspects who had been arrested and/or charged with a crime. The text was added in January 2012. While the phrasing of it has shifted over time, the thrust of it remains the same. A person is innocent until proven guilty, arrests and/or being charged with a crime are not the same as a conviction, and for non-public figures strong consideration must be given to the exclusion of material that suggests one or more suspects have committed the crime for which they have been accused.
Do we maybe need to look at updating this text, to make it more strict on when content can be included? For at least the last five or so years, newsorgs have been far more likely to mass report the names of criminal suspects pre-conviction, despite the ethical and in some jurisdictions legal implications for doing so. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:12, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sideswipe9th, to the extent that the reliable segment of the media may have ethical or legal shortcomings, I think WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS applies. I'm just now discovering that Daniel Penny's name is excluded from the body of the Killing of Jordan Neely article, and I see that this had been a subject of much discussion. And yet, "Daniel Penny" appears in the title of over 20 sources cited by the article. Who do we think we're fooling here with such an exclusion. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So the Killing of Jordan Neely article is an example of BLPCRIME being applied correctly. There was an RfC held on inclusion of the name in June, that was closed with no consensus to include. There is another RfC occurring now because some editors believe the circumstances have changed enough to warrant inclusion. That is a case of strong consideration being given on two occasions for inclusion of the name. And that is I think perhaps the structural benchmark for how this content should be handled. Of course, it goes without saying that it doesn't have to be an RfC for this, as that would be tedious. Just that before the name of a non-convicted suspect, a significantly indepth discussion must be held beforehand.
On the RGW point, you are expressing I'm afraid a fundamental and sadly common misunderstanding of what that essay point means. To right great wrongs, as that essay means it, you must be adding or seeking to add content to an article that is not verifiable to reliable sources. You have to want to be correcting you perceive to be a wrong in an article or series of articles. It does not however apply to discussions on policies and guidelines, especially those that have legal, ethical, and privacy implications. BLP content in particular is content that per the Foundation's resolution we have to handle with an exceedingly high degree of care and attention, because of the negative effects mishandling of this content will have upon those to whom the policy is applicable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I remember the BLPCRIME is useless happening, though didn't comment on it at the time. I think Beccaynr's suggestion at 14:26, 7 April 2023 is a good one. The text of WP:BLPRESTORE makes it clear that content that has been removed requires an affirmative consensus before it can be included, if it is to be restored in an unmodified state. The policy itself operates under a principle of least harm where it states the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment in the third paragraph. Beccaynr's suggestion is a good one, because it explicitly states what was formerly implied through the rest of the policy text, that for this type of content the default should be exclusion until a discussed consensus forms for inclusion, or the suspect is convicted. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:12, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sideswipe9th, I'm confident that it's you, not me, who is misunderstanding the spirit of RGW and interpreting it in an unduly narrow sense. While we can record the righting of great wrongs, we can't actually "ride the crest of the wave" ourselves. We are, by design, supposed to be "behind the curve".Jweiss11 (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your quoted part clearly only applies to article content, because we have to wait for content to be verifiable through reliable sources before we can include it. Project space discussions, like this one on the BLP policy, don't ordinarily involve reliable sources, because there are precious few sources, reliable or otherwise, that actually document how we handle the guidelines that govern content. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:06, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Jumping in here to raise my old standard that wikipedia is not the news and to suggest that, especially where WP:BLPCRIME issues arise we should be erring on the side of silence. If it weren't for the fact that I'm kind of tired right now I'd be tempted to nominate every one of those bulleted articles for deletion. Simonm223 (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Writing or interpreting value-based policy such that the content we ultimately produce has suppressed reliably reported information on perceived ethics grounds contravenes RGW. Jweiss11 (talk) 21:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think being designed to be "behind the curve" could also suggest that as an encyclopedia (and not a newspaper), we do not have to "ride the crest of the wave" to include the name of a suspect. I also think BLP policy could potentially benefit from some wordsmithing to help guide article talk discussions for case-by-case consideration on the inclusion of suspect and defendant names, and I appreciate these discussions, including because they may help develop an eventual RfC. Beccaynr (talk) 00:31, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So I've been kicking around something like this.
Until conviction is obtained, do not name a living person accused or suspected of committing a crime if:
1. they are a minor not charged as an adult (nor after conviction?)
2. name suppressed/sealed by a court in any jurisdiction
3. not named in sustained national coverage by most RS
4. was not a public figure before act, and the following are both false:
a. committed act to draw public attention to self or some cause
b. sought public attention after act
5. etc ...
I'm not wedded to these policy statements, but they seem to reflect the more cautious interpretation of blpcrime whne it comes to naming. I personally lean more toward inclusion of name based on sustained, wide reporting in RS for ... reasons. But mainly I would like to see the section tightened up with less ambiguity and self-contradiction either way it goes. Xan747 (talk) 01:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Simonm223 The way BLPCRIME section is written clearly applies to including information that the person in question is suspected of having committed a crime. It doesn't say a thing about whether to use the suspect's name. By the letter of how it's written, I agree with you: these articles should not exist until a conviction is obtained.
Whether I think that should be the actual policy is a different question. In brief, I absolutely lean toward inclusion of the article because in over a decade of reading Wikipedia, I have come to depend on it as a news aggregator. When I became an editor 7 weeks ago, I was shocked to learn that policy was quite different from standard practice. Xan747 (talk) 19:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am a very old Wiki Ogre. My last period of dormancy was largely because of frustration with Wikipedia over-including articles about contemporary events referenced to breaking news articles. It's very distant from encyclopedic standards of source reliability. I prefer to source to academic monographs and journals whenever possible. Simonm223 (talk) 21:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't know I was an inclusionist until I started editing--something for everyone to read, and something for everyone to write. But it must get tedious repeatedly telling clueless IPs why their favorite citation is a shit paper. Xan747 (talk) 01:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Simonm223, when you have an encyclopedia that contains over 6 million entries there probably isn't much left to write about that has much "encyclopedic value" or isn't a "recent event". I think Wikipedia rules and mentality are so funny that it is actually fascinating... Huggums537 (talk) 16:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't read all of that, but what I did was good reading. The article says: On 13 July 2021 Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Colum Eastwood revealed the name of "Soldier F" using parliamentary privilege. On 17 July Village magazine published the identity of "Soldier F" and some pictures of him at the time of the massacre." Two of the three citations in that section name "Soldier F" (the one does not for "legal reasons"). This makes no sense, policy is mum on the matter so far as I know, but it's been explained to me that in articles when a suspect is not named it's ok to use sources that name them if there are few or no other options. Chalk this up as something I think that any serious policy review should address explicitly instead of, "well, go read these RfCs". Xan747 (talk) 02:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the decision to censor Soldier F's name was in part taken because the killer is protected by an anonymity order in the UK, and there was worry that UK editors may become legally liable if the killer is named on Wikipedia. Cortador (talk) 08:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The exact reasons for why Soldier F's name is not included don't really matter for the purposes of this discussion. Every article is going to have its own reasons for inclusion versus exclusion after all. What matters is that those purposes were discussed, and serious consideration was given for both inclusion and exclusion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:56, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Right. As I think we're finding out, it's not usually discussed--the default is to name when RS do. So, a policy proposal could be: don't name until there's a strong consensus to do so. And template the talk page of every blpcrime article with that policy. Xan747 (talk) 02:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here's how I see it: if you decide to go on a killing spree, you are seeking publicity, as a killing spree will be in the news. Thus, you qualify as a public person once committing such a crime, and if reliable source report on the name, it should be included. Cortador (talk) 08:31, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Someone who has gone on a killing spree by definition will not be convicted (of homicide) for some period of time, and may never be convicted at all. Take for example, Chunli Zhao in the 2023 Half Moon Bay shootings linked above: it is a widely reported verifiable fact that he killed seven people (he even admitted it), but he has not been convicted of a crime. Combefere★Talk19:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, he has plead not guilty to seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and as such we should presume his innocence of seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder (we already do on our article!). We need not censor the fact that he killed seven people to do so. Combefere★Talk19:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And courts can be wrong. We don't have any specific obligation to wait for court rulings here. We can stick to what reliable sources report, and if said sources report that a person has been alleged to have committed a crime, we include that information here. Cortador (talk) 20:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That courts, police, and media can be wrong is precisely a reason to wait. There are some well known examples of wrongly named suspects, like Chris Jefferies, and the Central Park Five for whom the breach of privacy by the media caused lasting repercussions.
There is also a rather large element of systemic bias at play here. The US approach of widespread naming of alleged criminals is not common practice elsewhere in the world. The German, Dutch, and Swedish codes of journalistic ethics strongly urge a default practice of not identifying suspects until they are convicted. According to an article by The Conversation, this not only protects those who are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but also their family members. And in 2021 the Associated Press changed their policies so that they will no longer publish the names of those accused and/or charged with minor crimes, due to the known longlasting effects such coverage can bring should the person not be found guilty.
It is a mistake and mischaracterisation to call this censorship. We have policy reasons like WP:NOTNEWS, WP:RSBREAKING, and WP:BLP that compel us to be, as Masem has said above, conservative and cautious in our approach to this content. We lose nothing by waiting until a conviction is secured, no matter how long that takes, and gain the time and space to make sure that everything we do record is factual once the facts are known and proven. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In Germany, headlines like "Former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten released from California prison" are usually illegal. I believe the idea is that you've "paid your debt to society" and that upsetting the public with reminders that you previously committed heinous crimes tends to impair re-integration into society.
There's a balance to be found, though, because you want the public to know when a particular person is in custody, both for reasons of challenging improper detention and to identify potential witnesses. A statement like "The police have arrested Indigo Innocent" can result in a witness appearing to say "They're obviously innocent, because they were with me at the time of the crime" whereas "The police have arrested a suspect" cannot produce any such additional information. I say this because people naturally tend to think that our own culture is the right one, so if you come from a culture that affords more privacy to suspects or convicts, then please consider the downsides of such a policy, and if you come from a culture that revels in every tiny detail, then you, too, should consider the downsides of such a policy (e.g., the false accusation in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing).
(Also, as a side note, I point out that "pleading not guilty of the specific crimes charged" is not the same as saying "I didn't kill anyone". John Hinckley Jr. was never "convicted", but he definitely shot people.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are overlooking the obvious fact that regardless of whatever the Germans or other publications might do, the RS's that have mentioned these names have decided in their policies that it was ok to do so, and have already made the names public. Huggums537 (talk) 16:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hello all, without overstaying my welcome or interrupting the flow too greatly, I did want to briefly note my position here. Those familiar with me will no doubt know where I am headed (and probably roll their eyes), but here we go. As a preface, I very much have thoughts here, but I am not strident about them and I don't think this is a grave threat to the encyclopedia, peace, or the universe. Happy to follow wherever consensus leads. That said my preference would be to not name suspects until there is some form of finality. For suspects who are widely reported and for whom there is little doubt about the cause-in-fact in question, I do not believe mentioning them in talk or linking to sources which include the name (even, say, in a URL) are problematic. My basic thinking is simply that we are accorded the luxury of time. We need not be a blow-by-blow source of information (though consensus seems to be trending against me on that, as well). I merely believe that putting Wikipedia's imprimatur on a fact like that is best done with context, and that context is best assessed at a later time when there is at least some resolution. That said, cheers to all, and hope everyone has a wonderful week. Dumuzid (talk) 00:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Individuals notable for their participation in high-profile, violent incidents should be named. This is how we have treated mass shooters, mass bombers, assassins, and other high-profile killers or shooters that are the subject of national media attention on hundreds of pages on Wikipedia. Per BLP, we do not state that they are guilty of any crime until they have been convicted; this is as far as BLP requires us to go to maintain neutrality and avoid legal concerns. We should not censor widely reported verifiable facts, such as their names, their involvement in the violent incident, and any charges against them (provided that all of these details are widely reported and verifiable facts). I agree that BLPNAME (not BLPCRIME) is the guiding policy on name inclusion. I would strongly oppose any alteration to that policy which would cause us to censor the names of hundreds of highly notable, but non criminal (or not yet criminal) killers on Wikipedia. Combefere★Talk18:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We have seen many historical incidents in which news media rushed to name suspects who were later exonerated. We should not follow that rush to state that these people "participated in high-profile, violent incidents" until enough time has passed for the incident to be settled. WP:NODEADLINE. If an incident has been resolved without a conviction, but nevertheless reliable sources name certain people as participants (maybe for instance they were not convicted because they died before going to trial) then we can state their names. If an incident is too soon to have been resolved, we should err on the side of privacy. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:38, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
David Eppstein, in the case of the Killing of Jordan Neely, there is zero doubt that Daniel Penny is the name of the man who put Neely in a choke hold immediately preceding his death. There is an outstanding legal question about whether Penny committed a crime. But there is zero doubt that Penny is the guy. And it is an unquestionable fact that he has been charged with a crime. This is also a very high-profile incident, one of the most prominent American events of 2023. And yet, in an act of wikiabsurdity, we can't put "Daniel Penny" in the body of the article. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a difference between a high profile case involving people that have previously been non-notable, and the type of crimes that this section leads off with very low profile incidents in the larger scheme of things. I would agree that in a high profile case which has the clear tail of ongoing news coverage, as in the case of Neely, and where there is very clear evidence of what happened, that naming the arrested suspect is likely not to be an issue. But that should be considered the exception and not the rule. If there's any questions to the long-term importance of a crime, the name should always be omitted until a conviction is made. Masem (t) 02:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we do, and it is a very complicated problem, because it involved not only BLPCRIME, but premature creation of articles under NEVENT/NOT#NEWS, and the general trend that, presuming all editors are decent people but still human beings, the urge to want to point out and highlight those that disrupt society in a way that goes against how NPOV demands we write. Masem (t) 04:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've always been on the side of less information when dealing with BLPs and accusations of crime. I see that most of this discussion relates to articles about the crime and naming the accused. I have to admit a lot of sympathy for Sideswipe9th's POV here. I'm sure we can't practically do a hard line on "no conviction, no name". Take the Kyle Rittenhouse case. Prior to the trial I think both of the following were true; 1. Rittenhouse didn't seek any publicity/interviews etc and 2. Rittenhouse's name and other information were widely discussed. In that case it would have been unreasonable to avoid naming Rittenhouse. I think the hard part is nailing down how much publicity is required before names can be named. I think a related issue is when the name is out there how we should handle accusations. For example if a notable person is accused of a crime do we report before all the facts are known? In the Rittenhouse case a number of accusations were made by the prosecution before trial. Those claims were not brought up at trial and were arguably made to smear Rittenhouse in the court of public opinion. Should we report on such content or hold off? I personally feel, even in a high profile case we should err on the side of excluding information like that until such time as it's relevance to the historical picture becomes clear. Springee (talk) 11:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Springee, I know you were much involved in the Rittenhouse case, but for benefit of others; he gave at least one on-camera interview with a media outlet prior to the shooting: In another clip from an on-camera video with Richie McGinniss, the chief video director of the Daily Caller, Rittenhouse says he was there to protect a business and "to also help people."(via CNN) The video in question was played at his trial, I don't know how soon or widely disseminated it was just after the event, but it mentioned in the Kenosha unrest shooting article.
After the shooting his lawyers released several statements defending his actions. In the currently running Killing of Jordan Neely RfC whether to name Neely's assailant, I !voted to name the accused on the basis that, after the fact, he granted on-camera interviews explaining his actions and pleading his innocence of any criminal act, and promoted a crowd-funding campaign for his defense which earned $3 million; therefore, he met the bar for public figure. Rittenhouse might be an even stronger case for naming since he 1) voluntarily put himself in harm's way, 2) armed with deadly force, 3) apparently in part to make a societal statement, 4) didn't shy from public attention after the incident.
Both examples are kind of gray areas, especially given my understanding of current policy. Whichever way consensus falls, I'd like there to be brighter lines than we've got if at all possible. Xan747 (talk) 14:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You'd like editors to use their best judgment less often? That's what "brighter lines" means: more rule-following, and less need to think about all the facts and circumstances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
More that when a discussion actually does happen, the choices are clearer. A good first step would for policy to explicitly say something like, "If a low-profile person is accused of a crime, do not use their name in the article until such time as a conviction is obtained."
That said, I do hear your concern. My counter is that I see very little evidence of any deliberation in these kinds of articles. In 13 of the 18 articles cited above, there was zero discussion about whether to name the suspect. The vast majority of those were either named when the article was created, or within a day or two, often on the same day RS first named them.
In the five articles where it was discussed[1], the conversations were short (four or fewer comments) and never once considered the public-figure criterion. The most common arguments were along the lines of "suspect has been arrested and charged" and/or "suspect has been widely named in multiple RS". One article of the five, 2023 Brownsville crash, wasn't really a discussion--an editor wrote in talk, I don't know if it's OK to name this person or not, but in case it is, here are some sources: and that was it.
So if your goal is to encourage editors to use their best judgement, we might also add to policy, "Never name any person accused or convicted of a crime in an article until there is clear consensus to do so." Which would cover public figures and low-profile persons alike. Then for consistency, when a public figure is notable and already had a Wikipedia article prior to the allegations being made public, there should also be an injunction against inclusion until there's a clear consensus.
I'm not wedded to the idea of having a public figure test as part of policy. But if it is to be so, these suggestions are where I'd start.
I think most editors who include the name of the accused (as in the 18 above) are guided by the inclusion of that name in multiple reliable sources. If Billy Killer's name is published in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian etc, then editors "consider" that in deciding to name the accused in a Wikipedia article. Some exclusionists overlook that WP:BLPCRIME only requires contributors to "consider" exclusion of a criminal charge. BLPCRIME does not "forbid" anything. A big part of that consideration is deciding whether the accusation has been widely published elsewhere. If it has, why should Wikipedia adopt a nanny position? WWGB (talk) 01:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think because other aspects of BLP policy may be relevant, depending on the circumstances, such as WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE ("Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care") and WP:BLPNAME ("Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event.") Also, I think the overall principle of BLP policy should be considered (we're not a tabloid, vehicle for sensationalism, etc). So according to the underlying principles of BLP policy, it appears that names of peoplenonpublic figures accused of crimes can be removed from articles as potential BLP policy violations, until inclusion is "seriously considered." Beccaynr (talk) 01:14, 18 July 2023 (UTC) - update comment Beccaynr (talk) 01:20, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but that language is routinely dismissed as, "well it just says we need to consider not doing it, not that we can't do it." As a result, those things are hardly ever evidently considered from what I've seen. As written, the policy is effectively toothless. Xan747 (talk) 01:18, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I note the use of rubbery terms in policy like "should be treated with special care" and "caution should be applied". Nothing absolute there. Yes, "names of people accused of crimes can be removed" but they do not have to be. WWGB (talk) 01:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it could be read as shifting the burden to those seeking to include the name - if special care, serious consideration, and caution should be applied, that would seem to necessarily need to happen before inclusion happens. It may be that the technical language needs to refer back to the overarching principles of BLP policy, and clarify that the burden to exercise care, consideration, and caution is on those seeking to include the name. Beccaynr (talk) 01:29, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One thing absolutely needs to change; blpcrime needs to explicitly say, "If a low-profile person is accused of a crime, do not use their name in the article until such time as a conviction is obtained." Because it currently does not, and that's loophole numero uno. Xan747 (talk) 01:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC) This was poorly worded, see my clarification at 02:27, 18 July 2023. Xan747 (talk) 16:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One thing absolutely needs to change I strongly disagree, there's little reason for named individuals in high profile crimes to be protected like this. It runs counter to other policies and guidelines such as WP:NOR and WP:DUE. BLP is, of course, important, but not to the point that we're self censoring topics that are covered widely (especially if we're using language that is appropriate, i.e. "accused", "suspected", etc). —Locke Cole • t • c01:54, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that consensus will form on a strict prohibition, and I think it is a challenge to determine who is otherwise "low-profile" and how that relates to nonpublic figures. However, as Locke Cole notes, there are cases where we have high profile crimes, where serious consideration can include the magnitude of coverage (e.g. sustained national and/or international coverage, in-depth coverage focused on the individual, secondary context and commentary, voluntary statements by the accused, etc) as noted by Aquillon below. I can think of various examples where a crime may be considered 'high profile', for example because it has been unsolved for years, and then someone otherwise low-profile and not a public figure is arrested but mentioned only briefly in the coverage. There seems to be a much stronger case for waiting to include their name until much more substantial coverage of the individual develops or a conviction is secured. Beccaynr (talk) 02:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was not being clear. Currently blpcrime doesn't say anything about whether to include a suspect's name--it talks about whether to include information about criminal activity. So whatever the standard of name inclusion, blpcrime needs to speak to that. The language in blpname doesn't doesn't explicitly talk about criminal acts, and that is another loophole. As Combefere points out at 06:41, 19 July 2023, the real loophole is using BLPCRIME to exclude a suspect's name. Xan747 (talk) 16:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I think when an otherwise low-profile individual has gotten sustained national/international press as a suspect, we absolutely should name them. But that is not how I've been arguing in actual articles because my understanding is that they need to somehow clear the public-figure hurdle if they're to be named prior to a conviction. Xan747 (talk) 02:27, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This point sounds familiar to issues that have been raised in previous discussions about the policy and possible revisions to help clarify that language, but with a fresh perspective on an aspect that could benefit from clarification. Ultimately, I think whatever we may do with the policy can include a goal of helping facilitate constructive article Talk discussion and avoiding wikilawyering with technical language that may contravene the principles of BLP policy and our overall purpose as a tertiary source and encyclopedia. Beccaynr (talk) 02:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOR forbids original research. I don't see how leaving out a name would constitute original research. WP:DUE is about neutral point of view. In a slightly different context (deadnaming) people are arguing based on WP:DUE that leaving out a name violates WP:NPOV in this RfC. But I don't get how this is a point of view. Could you elaborate why you think WP:NOR and WP:DUE apply? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 12:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The concept of NOR and DUE applies because the names were inserted with RS's so they are DUE portions of a NPOV. Had they been inserted without RS's then they would have been OR. Huggums537 (talk) 17:04, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Random person no 362478479, @Huggums537: I honestly think I typo'd in my rush to reply and meant to link to NPOV (of which DUE is part of). The only way I could even rationalize NOR would be the "original" idea that somehow the suspect/accused was somehow nameless despite reliable sources all claiming the contrary. —Locke Cole • t • c06:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would strongly oppose such a change to the policy. WP:BLPNAME (the section of BLP titled "Privacy of names") is and should continue to be the controlling policy on including names of living people in articles. The misapplication of BLPCRIME for the inclusion of names is largely responsible for the confusion in this discussion in the first place; we already have a policy for that.
This is not a "loophole." It's how the policy was intended, and it's well supported in common practice. In fact, it is the editors who cite BLPCRIME in cases where BLPNAME doesn't support their preferred outcome that are looking for a loophole. Combefere★Talk06:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Combefere, I take it you were replying to my 01:42, 18 July 2023 comment. It was poorly written, and (hopefully) clarified at 02:27, 18 July 2023. I should probably strike the former and refer to the latter. You're correct about my use of "loophole" so I should also amend that.
As written, the clear intent of blpcrime is to protect low-profile individuals from the damage associated with being accused of a crime. I take it that there's a greater public interest to report allegations made against high-profile individuals, hence the distinction.
Now we all know this by heart: editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. In the case of Kingsessing, not including such information would effectively mean no article at all. So consider that the "preferred outcome" of not naming is that article can both exist and cohere to the spirit of blpcrime.
That logic relies on an assumption that commission of a crime isn't sufficient in and of itself to elevate a low-profile individual to public figure status. Otherwise, as @Dumuzid so very often says, why make the distinction at all. Xan747 (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BLPNAME protects low-profile individuals from the risk or damages associated with name publication. It does so quite well as written, including for cases where individuals are charged with crimes. It protects people whose names have been intentionally concealed, or whose names are not included in non-news sources, or who are loosely involved in the event, and more. But it doesn't discourage us from naming anybody who has ever been charged with a crime, nor should it.
As for whether an article about a potentially criminal act should exist at all, WP:NCRIME is the guiding policy.
The "clear intent" of BLPCRIME is to ensure verifiability, neutral point of view and protect Wikipedia from litigation over libel. It has nothing to do with names at all. Names are not ever 'material that suggests a person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime.' BLPCRIME (and NPF and others) just discourages us from making specific legal claims or defamatory claims, regardless of whether the person affected is named in the article. It's not intended as a secondary policy to govern the privacy of names whenever BLPNAME leads us to a conclusion that an editor doesn't like. Combefere★Talk22:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
NCRIME doesn't really offer much guidance beyond general notability, but it links to WP:CRIMINAL, the final paragraph of which reads:
Note: A living person accused of a crime is presumed not guilty unless and until the contrary is decided by a court of law. Editors must give serious consideration to not creating an article on an alleged perpetrator when no conviction is yet secured.
By the letter, this is absurd because even an amateur wikilawyer like me could argue, "well it doesn't say anything about including them in an article about the event they're known for," and *poof*, the protection that paragraph is supposed to afford vanishes without a trace.
So maybe once upon a time there was a discussion that concluded, "Ok you can have your article, just don't name the suspect until they're convicted," but it was never codified. All I really know is that that sentiment exists today and is expressed by multiple editors with far more experience than me. Xan747 (talk) 00:54, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CRIMINAL relates to creating articles about individuals who are accused of a crime (ie creating the biographical article Daniel Penny in addition to Killing of Jordan Neely).
"By the letter, this is absurd because even an amateur wikilawyer like me could argue, "well it doesn't say anything about including them in an article about the event they're known for," and *poof*, the protection that paragraph is supposed to afford vanishes without a trace."
This isn't wikilawyering, this is exactly what that policy is supposed to do. In many cases, (the one listed above for example), it is appropriate to include the name of somebody suspected of a crime even though it's not appropriate to create a separate page for that person. That's what WP:CRIMINAL (a part of our notability policy governing when we create articles) is for. WP:CRIMINAL is also not intended to govern the privacy of names.
BLP is the policy that determines what information we can include about living people and how we can write it. There's a whole section of the policy called Privacy of names which provides guidelines on when we include names on Wikipedia and when we don't. The fact that it doesn't do what some editors want it to do is not an indication that some other policy somewhere is secretly "intended" to deal with the privacy of names. There are in fact other aspects of writing the encyclopedia that those policies do govern; not everything in PAG is about the privacy of names. If you want to change how we deal with the privacy of names, then you want to change BLPNAME. Combefere★Talk01:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So, Comberfere, just so I make sure I am following the argument, your contention is that WP:BLPCRIME would have no application at all to the name of the accused in the killing of Jordan Neely? Dumuzid (talk) 03:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to ask another hypothetical case to try to get an idea where the line should be. What about Richard Jewell and the Centennial Olympic Park bombing? Initially Jewell was lauded as a hero for saving lives but later it was leaked that the FBI suspected he might have placed the bomb himself specifically to be a hero. For a time (I don't recall how long) Jewell was considered a suspect but was ultimately never charged and later the actual bomber was caught. So how would we cover Jewell in context of the article on the bombing if Wikipedia had been around at the time? We likely would have mentioned Jewell's name when he was viewed as a hero. Would we have avoided mentioning him when be was considered a suspect? I guess that would depend on if we felt he was truly a low profile person or not. With perfect hindsight it might have been good to delay reporting the suspicion of Jewell since in the end it was wrong and Jewell really did save lives. I also think it would be helpful if we had some guidance as to what counts as public profile. If John Doe is accused of a high profile crime are they automatically high profile? Do they have to answer public questions to be a public person? Is it just one question or lots of questions? What about coverage including Mr Doe's name? What counts as sustained coverage? Certainly a week's worth of coverage by major media outlets counts as initially high profile but if Vice or some other lower profile source is the only one still talking about things a week later is that sustained coverage? Conversely do I need more than a week's worth of coverage out of a major news source (AP News etc)? I don't know the answers but I figure the more we can answer the better off we are. Springee (talk) 02:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know the answers but I figure the more we can answer the better off we are. - but isn't this what leads to the micro managing of instruction creep to begin with? Huggums537 (talk) 03:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean that is a buttload of questions to answer, and it only scrapes the tip of the iceberg. Can't we just trust editors to make judgement calls on all these questions, and further trust them to sort it out if there hiccups down the road? Huggums537 (talk) 03:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that accused who have received significant coverage using their name are usually in the gray area where we can include their name but are not required to; but I also think it would be hard to set a hard-and-fast rule. Assuming the perpetrator is not notable for anything except the crime, their name has little encyclopedic value initially; but if significant and WP:SUSTAINED coverage uses that name, then it is likely to be something people are going to search for, which creates at least some reason to use it once, if nothing else. Additionally, heavy coverage using the name can turn it into a "handle" that allows readers to connect this to other things they heard - "oh, that person, this is that case!" So I'd say that including the name is generally optional, with a bias towards excluding when coverage is sparse or brief, and including at least a single brief mention when coverage is sustained and discusses the accused in-depth using their name as opposed to just passing mentions. --Aquillion (talk) 12:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Aquillion, BLP makes a distinction between notable and public figure that is subtle and difficult for me to fully grok. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one, because I very often see the argument that if the event is notable enough, the alleged perp becomes notable and therefore nameable. I see you started a new conversation below this one, I will say more there. Xan747 (talk) 15:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
PUBLICFIGURE begins with In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources... In context, this is clearly referring to when there are accusations against a public figure; the definition of public figures vs. low profile figures is in WP:LOWPROFILE, which the section links. However, leading into the section with that sentence, without a summary of what a public figure is, does invite confusion, and has led some people to the mistaken belief that a public figure is simply anyone who has received a lot of coverage. I suggest a sentence summarizing the points in WP:LOWPROFILE to clear this up, eg. A public figure is one who has sought out public attention or something to that effect. (Keep in mind, of course, that we can and do cover low-profile individuals when there's enough coverage, of course; it's just that the standards for what we include are different per WP:NPF.) --Aquillion (talk) 12:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My present understanding is that the person either must have been a public figure prior to the event or chooses to seek public attention after the event to qualify for naming prior to any conviction.
The BLPCRIME section links directly or indirectly to no fewer than three separate places for guidance on what is a public figure:
So not only does someone need to go to four different places, the guidance they'll read is conflicting, and mutually incompatible. This is totally unnecessary, confusing, and ultimately useless--particularly to new editors like me--and even the experienced ones on the crime beat either don't seem to understand it, or completely ignore it and go by wide-spread RS mention. It should be possible to write a succinct definition of public figure in BLP itself, in a dedicated section, with no external links to chase, that carries the strength of policy; i.e. is not WP:JUSTANESSAY.
WP:NPF is arguably a 5th (anti)definition. Did I miss any others?
Why not simply say a person is a public figure if they meet certain criteria, and if they don't they're not?
I think the succinct definition of pubic figure is one who has sought public attention. One gray area might be if they've only succeeded gaining it in self-published media like Twitter or YouTube. Then there is do public academics not widely known outside their field count? WP:LOWPROFILE seems to have pretty good guidance, and that's what I have mostly relied on, ignoring the spread-out, and confusing text currently in BLP proper. Xan747 (talk) 15:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a wikilink in WP:PUBLICFIGURE: In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources..., which from my view, can set a higher bar than the WP:LOWPROFILE essay. I also take a holistic view of the WP:LOWPROFILE essay (indicative of an overall pattern of conduct), but I have seen the essay treated more like an à la carte menu (i.e. if an individual does any one of the examples, they can be considered "high-profile"), so I agree there appear to be opportunities for wide differences in interpretations within the current language. As to what may be missing, I also think the introduction of BLP policy is worthwhile to consider: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment.Beccaynr (talk) 15:32, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned above, I definitely don't think that the multitude of reliable published sources... bit was ever intended to have anything whatsoever to do with defining a public figure. It is saying if someone is a public figure - and when there is an allegation or incident, the larger topic of the section - then a large number of sources will discuss that allegation and incident. But simply presenting a big pile of sources discussing them is not sufficient to render someone a public figure. I also strongly disagree with the assertion that it is a "higher bar" - it is, in my experience, a much, much lower bar, at least in the situations where this policy actually matters. Realistically, we would never even consider including BLP-sensitive material of the sort this section contemplates about anyone without a multitude of reliable published sources. The point of WP:PUBLICFIGURE is that for some people - specifically, WP:LOWPROFILE ones - even that is sometimes insufficient; when someone is not a public figure, we should cover them in as minimal a manner as we can while still reflecting what the sourcing requires we include. The sourcing threshold to pull someone into the spotlight is much higher than the threshold for covering stuff about someone who is already there (or who is clearly seeking it out), so to speak; if simply having a multitude of reliable published sources alone was enough to negate the protections of being WP:LOWPROFILE, then WP:PUBLICFIGURE would have no meaning at all and would realistically protect nobody. --Aquillion (talk) 20:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I meant to refer to the public figures wikilink, not really the "multitude of reliable published sources" bit, but now that you mention it, I do consider the scale and depth of coverage as a factor, although not the only one. I do agree "The sourcing threshold to pull someone into the spotlight is much higher than the threshold for covering stuff about someone who is already there (or who is clearly seeking it out)", and I think this distinction may help discourage using the WP:LOWPROFILE essay to declare someone a "public figure" for the purpose of naming them (or including allegations in their article) before they have been convicted of a crime.
From my view, I think we have plenty of BLP subjects who could be considered "high profile" according to the WP:LOWPROFILE essay, because e.g. they are artists/musicians/authors/athletes/politicians who have engaged in self-promotion of their work, but are not public figures to the extent that allegations of criminal conduct should immediately be included in their articles. A "multitude" of sources might change the consideration - sustained, national and/or international reporting on and secondary coverage of an individual accused of a crime could demonstrate a level of public interest that makes it much more clear that the person is a public figure. Beccaynr (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've never looked into it myself, but it's my understanding that our original use of non-public figure related to the concept of a public figure and how this affects defamatory action in the US. I don't know if this was because of the stronger threshold for defamation of public figures or simply because it was felt we should provide additional protections in a similar vein to US civil law even if it's believed in we should never come close to risking defamation of a non public figure even if we apply the standards we apply to public figures. My assumption is this move to talk about low-profile individuals rather than non public figures was a move against tying our standards to the US legal concept but does anyone know? In any case, do we want any connection now in our policies and guidelines? IMO it might be helpful to clarify this especially since there are still various links to the wikipedia article on the legal concept of public figures. Nil Einne (talk) 12:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
High quality cartoon, but clearly a caricature. Since the subject is a comedienne, that may be acceptable in this case, but I can definitely see subjects that lack a sense of humor and would not like to be caricatured in this way.
High quality cartoon, but clearly a caricature. Since the subject is an activist, notable for being beaten and having her son be murdered, I think it is not appropriate for us to use a non notable caricature to illustrate her article; not funny.
Not a professional quality work. If the subject article were a BLP, I'd remove it immediately. Since it's not ... I'd still advise against using it there.
Not a professional quality work, and the article is a BLP. I'd be against using it there without explicit consent from the subject (and if we can converse with the subject, why not just ask her to release a photograph?)
