Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

[[:|WT:BLP/N
WT:BLPN]]

Archives

Archive 1 — talk page posts from August 2006 through March 2007.

Parliamentary privilege

I'd like opinions on whether information disclosed using Parliamentary privilege is acceptable for use in articles. An MP is welcome to make any allegation they choose without any evidence, and as all proceedings are available online they can be reliably sourced. The articles I'm concerned about are La Mon restaurant bombing and Kingsmill massacre. The latter is slightly less problematic due to the additional coverage of the allegation. Thanks. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 18:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My view is that as long as Parliamentary privilege article is linked to, and is properly explained, it isn't an issue. The Parliamentary privilege article explains it fully, but maybe in each article which has a mention of its use there should be an explanation of its legal standing and the controversy surrounding it. It is mentioned in the Bobby Storey article as well. In that article it states that "No evidence has been publicly produced to confirm these allegations", which is an important point to make. Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 15:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm of the opinion that if we're including an allegation that a living person murdered 12 people we need a better source than this person said it, as after all exceptional claims require exceptional sources. For example David Icke claimed that the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are "bloodsucking alien lizards", I can only imagine the furore if I tried to include that in their articles. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 15:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My view is that as long as Parliamentary privilege article is linked to, and is properly explained, it isn't an issue. The Parliamentary privilege article explains it fully, but maybe in each article which has a mention of its use there should be an explanation of its legal standing and the controversy surrounding it. It is mentioned in the Bobby Storey article as well. In that article it states that "No evidence has been publicly produced to confirm these allegations", which is an important point to make. Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 15:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is fine as long as it is done responsibly and within the bounds of WP:BLP as is done in Kingsmill massacre. That is, the text is cited and it is explicitly stated in such a way that it is understood that MP X stated Y about Z under parliamentary privilege. It becomes a problem when a cite of something said under parliamentary privilege is used to support weasel wording like "it is widely believed [that something is true]" or "officials believe person X is responsible for action Y". As long as it is clearly stated who said something and in what context, I'm comfortable letting readers discern the validity of the statement and source for themselves. I was writing this during your post above and I'd say that I wouldn't want to see "person X murdered 12 according to MP Y". but "in a parliamentary session MP Y, invoking Parliamentary privilege, stated it was his belief that person X was responsible for the murder of 12 people" would be more acceptable.--Isotope23 15:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable enough, I'll make the necessary changes to the La Mon article later and probably include brief details about the controversy of the use of PP as a footnote. So I take it there's no objections to the addition of "According to David Icke, the Duke of Edinburgh is a bloodsucking alien lizard, but no evidence has been publicly produced to confirm this allegation" to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh then? ;) One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 17:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm certainly not going to revert you... I for one welcome our new Reptilian Overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a Wikipedia Admin I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves... or would that be guinea pig mines?--Isotope23 17:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and removed the section, given that it adds nothing to the section, as it is not an official call for inquiry. In addition, the removed section is nothing but anti-SF and anti-Adams rantings that would be considered libel anywhere else gaillimh^{Conas tá tú?} 20:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of Bill O'Reilly

A highly biased study of Bill O'Reilly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Bill_O%27Reilly has been added to his criticism article with the results comparing him to a Nazi sympathizer. Regardless of whether the study is valid, it's only purpose is to criticize BOR further and may be libelous. Arzel 19:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I made some edits that I hope vitiate the POV nature of the study in question. Since the controversy has drawn replies from BOR and a FOX producer, I think it's notable. Best, MoodyGroove 19:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)MoodyGroove[reply]

I still don't think it is notable, but it is nice to see another response. I re-inserted the comment you took out. It is in the published article near the end of the paper in the discussion section. Arzel 14:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Section removed

Special:Contributions/72.139.17.252 posted a BLP/N section about Max Boot with "Fix it, you retards" in the post and "wikipedia, or a hole in the ground?" in the edit summary. I applied {{unsigned}}, investigated the situation (article history, diffs, etc.) and removed it. If any conscientious NPOV editor thinks the section belongs on the noticeboard, please feel free to restore it. — Athaenara ✉ 07:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Followup (1): User again posted, reverted by Crum375. — 00:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Followup (2): User hates Wikipedia. — 19:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Living people cat

When I run across articles like 2002 George W. Bush pretzel incident, I add the Living people cat so that it will show up in the related changes tool we use. Often I get reverted repeatedly. Can I get some consensus here as to whether or not this is an appropriate application of the category? - Crockspot 06:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As my edit summary when I restored the category there said, "The point here is that the Biographies of living persons *policy* applies here and Category:Living people keeps the article on WP:BLP patrol." — Athaenara ✉ 07:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Owe you one. - Crockspot 12:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The BLP policy applies to every single article (and every page) we have. violet/riga (t) 13:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a monitoring thing. Please stop reverting the category. - Crockspot 16:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, me? I've not reverted anything. violet/riga (t) 18:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article is now listed on the noticeboard, due to edit warring over the category. The category was created exactly for the purpose which I am attempting to use it for. I don't have the time to fool around with a bunch of editors every time I try to apply this cat to a biography fork that needs oversight. - Crockspot 17:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely with violetriga. This is clearly not as clear-cut as you (Crockspot) seem to believe. [[WP:BLapplies to all articles, not only to those in a given category. Checking recent changes there may be a useful tool, but we shouldn't introduce nonsense into the encyclopaedia just to improve a tool; it is the tool which should be improved in that case. --Stemonitis 17:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why not create a Category:Biography of living persons, with Category:Living people as a subcategory. An event such as the "pretzel incident" clearly falls into the category of biography (as would many other things), but without requiring the absurd situation of requiring a pretzel incident to be classified as a person. It would mean that the people who monitor the category would have to monitor one more category, but I think it's worth it. I regularly monitor a couple of dozen categories, and I wouldn't expect the encyclopaedia to change just to make my life easier in that regard. --Stemonitis 17:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone made a similar suggestion yesterday, and I tested it. It doesn't work. "Related changes" does not pick up changed to articles in subcategories. If you list a category within "Living people", only changes to the category itself, and not the articles within it are picked up by related changes. It need the Living people cat directly applied to be picked up by our monitoring tool. - Crockspot 17:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand. Instead of checking Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Living people only, you would then check Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Biography of living persons as well. The fact that one was a subcategory of the other would only be to clarify that Category:Living people is an administrative category, and would have no effect on the functionality. --Stemonitis 17:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No one uses Category:Living people to find articles. It is the hugest and most unusable category on Wikipedia, so these arguments are without merit. The only useful use of the category (and the reason it was created) was for us to monitor activity that may be libelous. - Crockspot 17:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See my answer above; this would not be diminished by the addition of a second category. I also don't think it's clear to the average reader that it is a purely administrative category; they may well browse through it for other reasons. I use it to find ill-sorted biographical articles (either no sort key or the wrong sort key), and I dare say others use it for other purposes. Adding a supercategory for articles which are not strictly biographies but which contain material where violations of WP:BLP are likely to occur would seem to solve all the problems with relatively little change. --Stemonitis 17:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a reasonable enough proposal, but I cannot speak for the entire group. As you can see, it is difficult enough rounding up more than a couple of BLP patrollers at a time. We would have to get everyone on the same page about this. - Crockspot 18:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No-one has spoken out against it, so I've created Category:Biography of living persons, and put the only appropriate article I know of into it. I will leave it up to the BLP regulars to decide how wide its scope should be — whether articles like political positions of Barack Obama, which are currently not in any such administrative category, should be included, and so on. If it proves to be unworkable in the longer term, then it can be deleted, but please give it a fair go first. I think it could make things much easier. --Stemonitis 06:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Noticeboard archiving

Just a note that because of mouse issues I won't be archiving for awhile. I know others will pick up the slack. — Athaenara ✉ 00:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your closing templates

You might take a look at your closing templates and shift to a system more like {{drt}} and {{drb}}. These (DRV) templates keep the section header on the page, but mark the discussion as closed. This means that 1) the links in the table of contents show which discussions are closed, and 2) the links in the table of content actually work. Neither is currently true here. GRBerry 03:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that bot archiving be considered for this noticeboard, as well as for WP:COIN. The explicit collapse boxes are cute, but they are more suited to something like AFD or DRV where there is a closing event that will always occur. BLPN does have many issues that go away due to inactivity (so that 'resolved' is not 100% true), and time-based archiving would handle that with much less manual labor. Currently ANI (1 day) and AN (2 days) have time-based archiving, as does WP:WQA. BLPN could just be set on a longer timeout, like 14 days. EdJohnston 13:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: This is relevant to the two linking problems named by GRBerry because those problems are *caused* by the collapse boxes that are now in use. Bot archiving would not do any collapsing. It would just remove items for inactivity whether 'closed' or not. Other templates such as {{resolved}} could still be added if people wanted to. EdJohnston 14:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and made the change to {{blpt}}. Obviously, this doesn't preclude the use of bot archiving, if that's what people decide they want. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 22:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A query

I don't know if this is the right place or not, if I'm wandering around somewhere I shouldn't be feel free to say so ;) I just have a simple question. It's in regards to the expression "contentious material". Some editors have taken to removing huge chunks of information stating that it was contentious because it's unsourced, nothing else, nothing related to the specific content being removed just "It should be sourced or it should be removed". I guess what I want to know is this: Doesn't contentious refer to specific content, not a general state of "unsourced-ness"? Thanks in advance. MPJ-DK 16:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How are BLP guidleines interpreted for a subject who is dead?

This is a serious question - obviously we always should source articles, but do the particularly stringent BLP rules apply for a subject who is no longer alive? Specifically I'm talking about the removal of material that hasn't been adequately sourced(BLP) vs. adding a "Fact" tag requesting citations (most others). Thanks. Tvoz |talk 03:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V is the guiding policy. - Crockspot 04:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, as it is everywhere in the encyclopedia - but WP:V allows for tags to be added requesting citations, I believe, whereas WP:BLP seems to require questionable material to be removed if it isn't well sourced - my question is whether those BLP rules can or should be applied to a subject who is not alive. Tvoz |talk 04:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BLP applies only to living persons. So the fact tag is the polite way to go. THF 04:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I thought - one other question: are BLP concerns only relevant to the subject of an article - so if the subject is dead but other people referred to are still alive, do BLP rules take precedence? Tvoz |talk 04:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that part is a misnomer. BLP doesn't apply just to biographies, but to all information about living people. THF 04:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Not trying to be dense, but I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing: an article about a dead person refers to some people who are still alive in some sections. Are those sections in the dead person's article covered by the more stringent BLP rules requiring removal of questionable material rather than fact tags? thxTvoz |talk 04:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) In the Princess Diana article, material about Princess Diana and Dodi need comply only with WP:V, and gets a fact tag if not sourced. Material about Prince Charles in the Princess Diana article is subject to BLP and gets immediately deleted if not properly sourced. Examples:

The false statement "Prince Charles ordered Diana and Dodi killed" would be subject to BLP and would be immediately deleted if not properly sourced.
"Diana and Dodi planned to have a Muslim wedding" would be subject to WP:V and get a fact tag.
By extension, "Diana and Dodi planned to have a Muslim wedding, causing Charles to order them killed" would be edited to "Diana and Dodi planned to have a Muslim wedding.^{[citation needed]}"

Hope this helps. THF 04:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perfectly clear - thanks very much. That's exactly what I was looking for. Tvoz |talk 04:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except that ultimately, unsourced material needs to be either sourced or removed. To use your example of "Diana and Dodi planned to have a Muslim wedding", there are three possibilities with regards to this statement:

It is a false statement - they had no intention of having a Muslim wedding
It is a true statement, but unprovable because it relies on unpublished information, rumor, etc.
It is a true statement and can be sourced, given time and effort.

In the first two cases, having the statement in the article is still a bad thing, even if the people involved are dead. Without doing research, we have no way of knowing which of the three is the case. So we have to use some good judgment. If the statement doesn't seem reasonable, it should be removed, rather than being left there with a fact tag. If the statement is probably true, in your judgment, ok, put a fact tag on it, but if no source can be found given time, it still needs to be removed. Simply having a subject other than a living person is not a license to leave false/unsourcable information in an article for eternity. --B 04:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with this, and did not mean to imply otherwise. If you don't know for sure that it is false, however, the polite thing to do is to put the fact tag on and give editors a chance to fix it. If it stays unsourced for a week or two, then remove it. In the case of a BLP, one doesn't wait a week or two: source controversial or negative claims immediately, or they go. THF 04:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V ultimately allows material to be removed. The current wording is a bit weaker than it was a few months ago. There wasn't any talk about allowing people time to find sources. You have to use common sense. If it is relatively harmless, use a fact tag. If it's more contentious material, move it to talk or remove it, and explain why you did in talk. BLP applies to any claims made about living people in any article or talk pages. There has been some informal extension of BLP to the recently deceased. It's not like the minute someone dies, all bets are off. BLP is really just a conglomeration of the other core policies, with some extra penalties, and less discussion required for removals. - Crockspot 05:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo Wales stated unambiguously that arguing someone is dead should not be used as an argument that BLP does not apply: [1]. Quatloo 06:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BLP isn't an invitation to smear the dead. I interpret Wales' remarks to mean that we shouldn't engage in inaccurate writing even if the subject isn't living. But there is a clear divide between the legal and ethical issues affecting living people, and those affecting the rest of the encyclopedia's subjects. That's why we have this policy to ensure special treatment where it's most needed. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 08:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is really interesting, and I'd like to thank THF, B, and everyone else for clearing up some questions that have been burning at the back of my mind for a while; when the subject is deceased, but the article refers to one or more living persons. I'd noticed some of this in the Diana article as well, and while I did not take action, I did wonder how such matters are/should be addressed. Thank you all for this informative, and helpful discussion! ^Ariel♥Gold 11:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]