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List of atheists

• List of atheists (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This list's stated inclusion principle is

This is a list of people who have been identified as atheists, or who have expressed that they do not believe in deities.

To the extent that this concerns living people, it's a BLP violation, for two reasons:

1. WP:BLPCAT requires self-identifcation in matters or religious belief and sexual preference. Identification by third parties is not enough. (This has been part of BLP policy for as long as the policy has existed.)

2. According to authoritative surveys, most people who don't believe in God do not identify as atheists.

The same applies to the various sublists.--JN466 05:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

What the heck? Why is nonsense like this included in Wikipedia in the first place? If this is a valid article, can I create one on 'halfwits who think that they can classify people according to arbitrary categories based on abstract questions on theological propositions they may never have attempted to answer, not being deluded enough to think they could'? Obviously I'll include anyone on my list that I can't find conclusive evidence shouldn't be. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

JN466, it looks like you haven't mentioned WP:BLPCAT at the article talk page. Why not? There's a discussion there about this very topic. The editor Noleander wrote, "The WP:BLP policy does not require that all information come from the subject's own mouth. If a reliable source says that the subject is an atheist, that is acceptable. The essence of the BLP policy is that the source has to be very reliable, and not a gossip-mongerer (for instance, if the source were hostile to the subject, that may disqualify the source). In addition, there is no requirement that the source use the word 'atheist': the source describes the person using words that reasonably fit within a common definition of "atheism", that is sufficient.". Why not try to set Noleander straight?Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not that simple. In the UK - and probably much of the US - atheism means an absence of belief in God or a god. However, there is a determined effort by some evangelicals to push the concept of atheism as a specific belief system. People are more chary of being identified in this way in countries where religious faith is seen as something generally positive. I agree with Andy above and can forsee ongoing arguments about how to define an atheist. Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

These types of lists should be avoided here at all costs, especially if they require editors to make inclusion judgement not based on exact self-identification. There is some manner of contemporary disagreement about what "atheist" means in terms of disbelief. For instance, the broad idea that atheism is the "absence of belief in God or gods" is not very traditional, and to some (myself included) much too general. Agnosticism is also the "absence of belief in God or gods", but to many it is rather distinctly not atheism or any part of a spectrum of atheism. I would argue that atheism is the belief that there are no gods. The belief that the world is absent of gods, not the absence of belief in such gods. But like I said others will disagree, but my point isn't that I, as an agnostic, am correct, but simply that the definition of atheism isn't as cut and dry as some believe it is.Griswaldo (talk) 16:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

That is correct. Agnostics do not believe in God either. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, atheists make up only about 16% of non-believers in Europe, for example. The remainder are classified as "Nonreligious (agnostics): Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so." --JN466 10:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Agnostics neither know nor care (much). Look at Britannica's definition of atheists. . Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion). It includes persons expressing disbelief. That's all. Fainites ^barleyscribs 17:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Disbelief is different from nonbelief. Compare the Britannica definition of nonreligious (agnostic), in the same source: "Nonreligious (agnostics). Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so." --JN466 17:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(Undent)I've put a note at the article talk page pointing here. I also quote policy at the article talk page: "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources."Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The reason for this mess is that someone moved the article to List of non-theists which opened a whole extra can of worms :) Then it got moved back and modified and... etc. I'm not sure of the relevance of your comments Griswaldo (FYI agnosticism is definitely distinct from atheism and you won't find a mainstream account that suggests one is a subset of another). Generally speaking the list criteria works on the broader definition of "little a" atheism (i.e. a belief that there is no God, rather and advocation of no God). For deceased subjects we can rely on their own accounts OR reliably published and neutral sources (and with the latter form of source we should be careful to ensure that it indicates the persons preference - i.e. if the subject rejected the term but a reputable source calls them atheist we should go with the former). For BLP's it is personal accounts only. If someone wants to go through the list and weed out the BLP problems I fully support them doing so, I don't have the time or the inclination though ;) On a side not: the list has as much legitimacy as List of Christians, and getting rid of it or applying particularly gregarious restrictions becomes difficult in that context. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding your comment on my comment see Negative and positive atheism and Implicit and explicit atheism. In recent years the category has been stretched by some to include various types of people who have not made any determination of their own about the existence or non-existence of deities. Anyone who is not a theist is basically considered an atheist of some sort in some of these schemes.Griswaldo (talk) 16:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

yeh, sorry for the aside on this. I see the point you are making - but these are fringe issues, Atheism is pretty clear as an article in identifying the generally accepted broad and narrow definitions. It seems widely established in the list that we use the generally accepted wide definition with certain caveats --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:56, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I dispute the idea that this is a "generally accepted wide definition". Definitions this inclusive may be generally accepted by many self-proclaiming contemporary atheists but not others.Griswaldo (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's very hard to see it otherwise I am afraid, atheism has a pretty clear definition with wide sourcing, and the two articles you linked to are identified as fringe in a number of ways :) It is not really in debate what "atheism" is generally accepted to mean in normal usage. Of course; when dealing with a source we should account for the writers (or subjects) personal interpretation of the word. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 18:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

What sources? Did you look at Jayen's reference to the Cambridge Companion to Atheism? A majority of people who answer surveys that they do not believe in God do not self-identify as "atheists". How can you argue that the inclusive definition of atheism is generally accepted in "normal usage"? Above and beyond this it is listed in reference works as a more contemporary and alternative usage to the traditional and more strict usage. As I said above, this inclusive definition may be the normal usage of self-identifying contemporary atheists perhaps, but not of others. I keep on hearing about it being well attested to in reliable sources but I don't see it.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

How can you argue that the inclusive definition of atheism is generally accepted in "normal usage"? , I'm s;ightly confused because I have not argued this? Please have a good read of the atheism article - "little a" atheism is a well defined term dealing with the rejection of a deity. It is not overly inclusive and does not include agnosticism etc. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Look you started this over something I claimed, so I'm the confused one, no offense. I was arguing against the even more inclusive definition listed above, that atheism is simply the "absence of belief in a deity". Such a definition, does indeed include agnosticism. If that's not what you are claiming as the "wider definition" then I plead innocence to the charges of causing the confusion. I do think, more generally however, that the entry atheism is skewed towards the atheist POV, and gives the appearance of mass usage from that perpective as opposed to any real sociological or socio-linguistic evidence. But that is, I guess, a matter to be discussed elsewhere. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

The consensus that has developed for this list up to this point is that it is to be inclusive of all persons who do not believe in deities, as confirmed by reliable sources. The subjects' choice of a particular label for this non-belief is not considered a necessity for (or an obstacle to) inclusion. It is the position that is being documented--the term atheist (or, until somewhat recently, nontheist) in the title has merely been chosen as a far less unwieldy placeholder to mean, simply, "one who does not believe in deities." This definition, though more inclusive than some, is well-attested in numerous reliable sources.

To what extent does the policy or guideline for categories apply to lists? Nick Graves (talk) 17:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLPCAT explicitly addresses this - These principles apply equally to infobox statements, and to lists and navigation templates that are based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation, or which suggest that the persons included in the list or template have a poor reputation. I don't think there is any question that for BLPs self-identification is a requirement.Griswaldo (talk) 18:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I think a good way to see that there is disagreement and inconsistency on this issue is to look at Ed Miliband. He's in the list but his article doesn't treat him as an atheist. See the tragically long talk page... some of which addresses this issue (search for atheist). Sean.hoyland - talk 18:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

That's probably a prime example of someone to be removed. If the article is inconclusive then he has no place on the list. My marker for lists such as this is does their article identify them as such. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 18:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not qualify as a reliable source, and if a main entry is violating BLP you risk violating BLP at the list as well by not strictly applying WP:BLPCAT to the list itself. In other words do not simply rely on what is written in an entry, but of course use the main entry's reliable sourcing, when it does exist, to verify the claim. But in the end it has to be self-identification per WP:BLPCAT and that is policy.Griswaldo (talk) 18:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Apply common sense! To spell out what should have been clear; if the article reliably identifies them as an atheist then they work for inclusion in this list. My main point is I am always dubious of list entries with their own specific source where it is not mentioned in the article --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 19:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't help thinking that some people are missing the point here. As Jayen466 stated at the start of this discussion, and tmorton166 has just reminded us, WP:BLPCAT requires self-identification in matters or religious belief.... There is no need to argue about what constitutes atheism - the sole criteria for inclusion of any living individual on this list will be a WP:RS that demonstrates that he/she has explicitly self-identified as atheist. End of story. No other source has any relevance whatsoever. Anyone not meeting this criteria should be removed from the list immediately. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:15, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear, that is not what Tim is saying, that's what I'm saying. Tim said that the main article on the BLP has to be conclusive about calling them an atheist. That's not what BLPCAT says. The subject has to self-identify as an atheist, as you are saying, as Jayen was saying, and as I have been trying to say as well. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(e)@Tim. I am also dubious of list entries in general, especially lists like this that classify people by religious belief, etc. I'm simply saying that a reliable source is required which shows self-identification. If that source is also found in the main entry of the BLP, then great, if it found somewhere else, then great, but it is required. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

But atheism is not a religious belief; it is a lack of religious belief. It is misleading to consider "lack of belief" as a sub-category of "belief". RolandR (talk) 19:25, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Although atheism is sometimes treated as a religious identity, atheism is not perfectly analogous to religious adherence. The latter involves membership in a religious organization, completion of initiation rites, and/or self-labeling according to a specific religious identity. Atheism is largely a philosophical position. Unlike most religious groups, atheists do not necessarily share a common cosmology, mythology, moral/ethical system, body of rituals, etc. Just as one needn't specifically identify oneself as a materialist, determinist, utilitarian, etc. in order to be reliably identified with these philosophical positions, so too one needn't specifically identify oneself as an "atheist" in order to be so identified. Expression of a view that constitutes atheism as defined in reliable sources is sufficient. Nick Graves (talk) 19:32, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Self identifying atheists certainly share those attributes with each other to a much closer degree than all of the different self-identifying theists. There is a false-dichotomy creeping in here between atheism and religion. You say atheism is a philosophical position, but the philosophical dichotomy is between atheism and theism, and not "religion". Relgion, as a sociological category, cannot be confused with theism. Sociologically speaking the various attributes you mentioned above are actually found in common between most self-identifying atheists. Not between most non-theists, sure, and certainly not between most of the dissafiliated, but atheists yes. That's the last I will say on this here though, since we are now way off topic. My original point was only to illustrate definitional disagreement and not to hash out these disagreements.Griswaldo (talk) 19:40, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Other than the above paragraph, I am sympathetic to much of what you have written in this thread, Griswaldo. Yes, there is definitional disagreement, and I've made that point repeatedly over the years during my involvement with this list. If this disagreement is explicitly acknowledged in the list, and the inclusion criteria explained and supported by reliable sources, does this not address the following concern stated in the relevant policy?: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." In other words, is the case for inclusion in this list not made clear by (1) acknowledging definitional disagreement, (2) explicitly stating what is meant by use of the term for purposes of this list, and (3) citing the reliable source that confirms that a particular person is an atheist according to the reliably attested definition chosen for the list?

Concerns about self-identification were addressed earlier by a move to "List of nontheists." Nontheist was then deemed a more neutral, less controversially defined term whose advantages outweighed its lesser currency as an identifier. I submit, however, that expression of non-belief in deities can be regarded as a sufficient self-identification as an atheist (broadly defined), even when use of the term is absent. Nick Graves (talk) 20:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I made the mistake of continuing to debate the definitions, and I apologize for that. Like I said I really just wanted to illustrate disagreement originally. I think Jayen's point #2 is being overlooked a bit in the thread. The point of BLP standards being very conservative and hinging on self-identification, is illustrated by the fact that many people say they don't believe in god(s) but do not self-identify as "atheists". If we used inclusion criteria other than self-identification such individuals would be included despite their explicit distancing from identifying with the term "atheism". Like it or not, "atheist" connotes much more than even "not believing in god(s)" to many people, and we can't impose our own criteria of what we claim the term means upon them. We can write general entries on atheism based on the most reliable sources, but we can't go around calling people atheists if they are not willing to do so themselves. That's my position on this.Griswaldo (talk) 20:14, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeh, I think we actually agree on this - just coming from different ends. The atheism used in this list is, I think, self-identified atheists who fall under the general broad definition of "denying the existence of god" (not the ultra modern "include everything" fringe variance). By using the article I meant to imply that as long as it follows BLP then the conclusion of the article is fair; that is because it might be legitimate to label someone Atheist without them explicitly saying "I am an atheist". We can best deal with those issues at the article levels and just use the decisions there to fill the list. I think everyone agrees on this article - that we need to weed out any BLP problems, it's just getting down to sorting it ;) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 22:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

OK great. I'm just a tad too argumentative on this subject for some reason :). It sounds like we are making headway at the list in a productive direction.Griswaldo (talk) 22:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(Undent) I've edited the intro to the list, in order to conform with WP:BLP.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's all very well editing the intro, but the fact is that many (possibly most) entries on the list of living persons are in fact in violation of WP:BLP, as they do not provide WP:RS for self-identified atheism.

Given that the list is clearly flawed, can I suggest that the correct action would be to remove the article, and then start a new one with proper sourcing - doing anything else is just leaving the violations in place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:32, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

The list is perfectly okay, as regards dead people. As for live people, they could be deleted, but it might be better to put a "verification needed" tag next to each one, or just presume that each one complies with BLP policy until proven otherwise.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

"...just presume that each one complies with BLP policy until proven otherwise...". Nope. Policy is policy. Nothing that might breach policy should be on the list until it shown that it doesn't. Why else have a policy in the first place? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Andy here. Unreferenced BLP information should be deleted.Griswaldo (talk) 22:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Gris, Andy, Anything: All information is supported by reliable sources. The question is not of sourcing, but of inclusion criteria. If it is a BLP violation to identify a living person as an atheist without them having specifically identified themselves using this term, then culling the list would be in order. However, complete "removal" of the list is not necessary. The history should be retained so editors have access to all of the sources that have been cited in order to rebuild it with more restrictive criteria. Having helped with or witnessed the addition of most of the several hundred entries, I'd wager that most of the entries would be retained under the more restrictive criteria, though many would indeed have to go.

I still think it is worth revisiting the issue of renaming the list. A number of possibilities come to mind: "List of nontheists," "List of atheists or nontheists," "List of atheists and other nontheists," "List of atheists and agnostics," or "List of atheists, agnostics and other nontheists." Or there's the clunky "List of people who do not believe in deities," which is all that was meant by those who have developed the list. An objection was raised before to the use of the term "nontheists," but I still maintain that it does not have the definitional challenges or potential negative connotations of the term atheist. Nick Graves (talk) 23:49, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

"All information is supported by reliable sources". Even if this is true, it is irrelevant. The article is in breach of WP:BLP. As such, it should not remain as an article on Wikipedia, just for the convenience of editors. As with any article, there is nothing that prevents someone copying it to a local hard drive, or indeed looking at the article history. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Andy, whether the information is supported by reliable sources has quite a lot to do with BLP violations, real or alleged. I still don't see the conflict with BLPCAT here. Those who say they do not believe in deities have publicly self-identified with atheism, broadly defined, whether or not they use the word to label themselves. Regardless, atheism is not a religious belief. Nick Graves (talk) 02:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you regarding WP:RS and WP:BLP, however what you describe is a BLP violation. I do not "believe in deities" and if I were notable enough for an entry and you added me to a list of atheists I'd send in an OTRS request because I would deny rather vehemently that I was one. The fact that you think all people who "do not believe in deities" are atheists does not make it so, and once again, the statistics Jayen quoted show that in fact a majority of people who say they do not believe in god(s) do not identify as atheists. BLP is conservative exactly to protect the rights of living individuals, and that includes the right to choose their own religious, or non-religious self-identifications. I think that part of this issue is closed since BLP is 100% clear on the matter.Griswaldo (talk) 02:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

(Undent) How about if we tag every living person on the list like this?Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Still a violation of WP:BLP. The correct approach has to be to comment out all the names on the list, and then for those who wish the list to be maintained to go through each case and restore those who are either (a) dead, or (b) have cited RS verification of self-identified atheism. In fact I'm almost tempted to do this right now. Obviously, a note would have to be put on the page to explain why the list was empty. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

What does "comment out" mean? You mean "hide"? Anyway, there are clearly many dead people on the list (this is clear because the list includes year of death).Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I say just go through the list and remove living individuals for whom an adequate source for self-identification cannot be found. I don't think there is any need to hide every entry of a BLP before verifying. On the other hand I do not think verification tags will do either. When the individual is assessed if there is no adequate sourcing simply delete, when there is retain. My hunch is that 95%+ are going to be retained here.Griswaldo (talk) 02:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Self-identification sourcing

Do we actually need quotations from the living person using the self-identification of "atheist" or is an RS claim that they self-identify as such enough? For instance, the second entry on List of atheists (activists and educators) is Ayaan Hirsi Ali and it is sourced to the following quote from the Financial Times - "Too much reason can reform a faith away, which would be fine with Hirsi Ali, who regards herself as an atheist." My inclination is to say that this satisfies BLP unless the claim is disputed somewhere else. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 02:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Your inclination is correct.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually it isn't - this is what WP:BLPCAT says: "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources". The FT stating that someone regards him or herself as an atheist isn't the same thing as that person actually saying so: journalists can get things wrong.

The proviso "the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life" also seems to be relevant here. On this basis, even self-identification as an atheist may not be sufficient.

Can I remind people that we cannot ignore WP:BLP 'by consensus' here. Even if we were to decide we thought the standard was too strict, we couldn't apply a looser one. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Andy the problem is that you are interpreting the policy in ways that the rest of us are not. If a reliable source says that someone regards him or herself as an atheist we can trust that they have publicly identified as such unless another source disputes this fact. It does not say, in any shape or form, that we need direct quotes from such figures, or that we need a reliable source to use the exact words used in the policy, or some such. Of course consensus does not override policy, but when most editors interpret policy in one way and not another, well then that's what the policy says. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

If I accept that for the moment (it isn't particularly clear-cut either way), how do you suppose we deal with the proviso in PP:BLPCAT that living people can only be included if "the subject's beliefs ... are relevant to their notable activities or public life"? That seems significant too, and was presumably included for a reason. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

To me it seems that this proviso implies that the subjects must be notable as atheists, and not just a notable person who happens to be an atheist. A notable person who made a passing comment on their beliefs to a reporter or mentioned their beliefs in a single interview should not be on this list; someone whose activities that directly pertain to atheism have generated news coverage for whatever reason should be. As examples anyone who is particularly vocal about it, or is involved to some great extent in an atheist organization would qualify.--Dycedarg ж 06:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, if a politician says "I don't believe in God", all the papers that don't support his party say, "S/he is a self-confessed atheist". Now, as I pointed out in my original post, the two are not the same. While politically motivated papers make the jump from "I don't believe in God" to "He is a self-confessed atheist", we as an encyclopedia should not. That is a very important point. The same applies to sexuality: if someone says in an interview, "I had a homosexual experience at boarding school", you may well get sources saying, "S/he is a self-identified bisexual". "I had a homosexual experience at boarding school" is not self-identification as "bisexual". Saying that we should categorise and infobox such a person as bisexual unless we can also find a quote where the person says, "I don't actually identify as bisexual, even though I had a homosexual experience when I was 14", is putting the cart before the horse. --JN466 10:10, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

From that perspective I'm very sympathetic to your POV and that of Andy. I wonder though if the language at WP:BLPCAT doesn't need to be strengthened in that direction. It doesn't indicate that a person has to publicly declare a self-identification with the specific label used, instead using "belief" as the criterion. Holding a religious "belief" (or anti-belief) is not equivalent to identifying with a group of seemingly like-minded people. Self identification, in other words, is not the same as publicly declaring a belief. That's exactly what your statistics tell us as well. The language of BLPCAT has to change if we want this to stick and I'm 100% behind doing so for the record.Griswaldo (talk) 12:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Subject's beliefs or sexual orientation need to be relevant to their notable activities or public life

I think this needs to be emphasised more, hence a new subheading although others have referred to this before. There's a strange tendency to ignore this bit of our policy. Unless someone's beliefs have clearly influenced their notable activities/public life, they should be categorised, listed, or info-boxed by their beliefs. This is flaunted in many, many articles, and I'd like to see it taken more seriously. It is just as relevant to articles mentioning religions as it is to this list. Dougweller (talk) 06:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree here too, but my first reaction to that part of the guideline was to squirm because of the ambiguity of the guideline. Who judges relevance? In the example Jayen brings up certain publications keep on labeling a politician as "atheist" in public, seemingly for political reasons. These publications are clearly wanting us to believe that the religious beliefs of the politician they are reporting to are relevant to their notable activities or public life. In fact, even though the politician has not chosen this for himself, one could argue that his opposition has made his beliefs relevant to his public life and that this is easily measurable and verifiable. What do we do in such a situation? This is just one example that illustrates how tricky that part of the policy is to implement. It relies on a heavier dose of interpretation than I'm comfortable with presently. I agree with it's aims, but I can see why it is easier for most editors to overlook it.Griswaldo (talk) 12:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, when lists of people like this one are compiled a 'heavy dose of interpretation' is inevitable. Probably a good reason for discouraging them. I'm uncertain why they are so popular in the first place, given their arbitrariness and incompleteness. I'd say that if we are to accept such lists at all, it is down to those compiling them to ensure they meet the requirements of WP:BLPCAT, and if this is 'tricky' in a particular case, then the person under consideration should not be on the list, per WP:PROVEIT: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed. How quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources yourself that support such material, and cite them. Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page". In this case, what has to be proven is that the inclusion of the person on the list is not in fact in breach of WP:BLPCAT. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:14, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a matter that extends way beyond this specific issue. Because there are a number of arguments; for example if someone identifies as an atheist, but it is not a significant aspect of their life (i.e. it is simply their belief and is not involved with why they are notable) does it count to be included? I've always argued that, where non-controversial, it is necessary to record these aspects of their life; because we aim for a complete and balanced biography (recall; notability relates to the entire articles existence, there is a much lower bar of "significance" for article content). BLPCAT and other aspects of BLP policy do not preclude recording "X calls himself an Atheist", just cautions the use of categories or inclusion in lists. If you read the talk page archives of this page Jimbo actually stepped in and argued that we should make it a list of notable atheists - i.e. those notable for their atheism. Such a criteria is going to be hard/subjective to judge - but it is probably what BLPCAT recommends. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 13:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree absolutely that it "extends way beyond this specific issue". It has to be seen in the broader context of a world where data-gathering is used for all sorts of purposes other than the one originally intended by the person compiling it. Many of these uses have the potential to be harmful to the individual about whom the data is gathered. I'd assume that it should not be Wikipedias job to make such data-gathering easier. Individuals, even notable ones, have a right to privacy where their beliefs, sexual orientation and other personal issues have no consequence to outsiders. BLPCAT seems to be based on this assumption, and enforces (not 'recommends') it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

BLPCAT has to be the most unenforced part of policy we have. I had a quick look through Category:American Roman Catholics the other week, and out of the first 200 entries I found 39 out of 82 living people were inappopriately categorised. When you also add on the fact that probably 15-25% of the living people who were appopriately categorised were Catholic priests/bishops/etc, it becomes even more worrying. There are probably thousands upon thousands of violations of BLPCAT right now, it really does need a major cleanup effort if it's going to actually be policy. 2 lines of K₃₀₃ 13:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Every time I've looked at one of these lists I've also easily found people who were inappropriately categorised. Maybe we should get up a working party? Dougweller (talk) 17:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

It would be simplest not to have such categories (be it for atheists, Christians or lions) - and living people should certainly be excluded. A category of "Catholic religious figures" would certainly be appropriate. Feketekave (talk) 08:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral page move

User:Nick Graves has now unilaterally moved the list(s) to a new title, and re-added Mililband and Gillard based on his page move. I do not think this is an appropriate way to solve the problem under current discussion. In fact I actually don't think it solves the problem either.Griswaldo (talk) 15:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

If we are concerned about listing people as atheists who might object to being called atheists (despite confirmed non-belief in deities), a more inclusive name for the article is a step in the right direction. Perhaps it does not solve the problem, but to revert to its former name would certainly make the problem worse. My unilateral (bold) move of the article is a precaution more consistent with protecting BLP than to leave the article as formerly named while discussion continues. Gris, there are many more like Miliband and Gillard who have been listed for quite some time. The consensus that developed at the list prior to opening of this discussion was to be inclusive. My reversion and page move are consistent with that consensus for inclusiveness. Nick Graves (talk) 15:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

"The consensus that developed at the list prior to opening of this discussion was to be inclusive". Possibly. Of no relevance however, as policy cannot be ignored 'by consensus'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree, Andy. Which is why I moved the list to a more inclusive name. Weren't we concerned about living people being listed as atheists when they hadn't specifically used that label for themselves? Nick Graves (talk) 15:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

You are wikilawyering Nick. The main concern here has been with self-identification, which is not in anyway solved by your page move. Does Miliband refer to himself as a "nontheist" or "agnostic"? I don't think so. Please revert yourself in good faith while the conversation is ongoing. You do not own the list. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Nick, you may have been involved in discussions over "living people being listed as atheists when they hadn't specifically used that label for themselves", but as I'm sure you are well aware, the debate has moved well beyond that. Please revert, and then discuss the issues here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the new name opens a whole new issue with inclusion on the list, how to list people in a way that reflects their own choice of label, whether it allows us to work with people who are not self-identified etc. Plus we have, then, issues with whether to include the many religions that are non-theist and whether it is logical/correct to list them besides Atheist. To put it into perspective this would be like having List of people following a religion. Which was the main reason for resisting a move to nob-theism as a title. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you Tim. I think there are a myriad of reasons why this is not a good idea and ought to be discussed first. Nick has made it clear on his talk page that he will not self-revert. I am going to revert him.Griswaldo (talk) 16:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no 'issue' over whether a rename "allows us to work with people who are not self-identified". This is expressly forbidden by WP:BLPCAT. The only possible issue is how strictly the requirement to only include subjects who's beliefs (or lack thereof) are relevant to their notable activities should be interpreted. AS I've already said, WP:PROVEIT applies here in any case. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:27, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I have reverted the page moves. I hope that Nick will engage in discussion about them at the appropriate talk page, or here instead of move warring.Griswaldo (talk) 16:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The list was renamed to 'nontheists' some time ago. I moved it back to atheists on the basis of WP:NAME and what I saw as a BLP violation in calling people who self-identified as atheists nontheists, and discussion confirmed that that was appropriate. Nick Graves seems to have taken the opportunity here to overrule that discussion. Not a good idea, and I agree with AndyTheGrump that this has no effect on the BLP issue. Dougweller (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Doug, the renaming I did was not back to the old name (List of nontheists), and addressed the concerns of that earlier discussion. When the list was earlier renamed List of atheists, none of the participants who were so concerned about atheists being offended at being called nontheists did anything to sort out the several nonbelievers in deities listed who might object to being called atheists. I find it bizarre that you say that the name of the list has no effect on the BLP issue, as it was that very concern that precipitated your earlier move of the article.

If it's a BLP violation to list living people as atheists who have not publicly identified themselves as such, then either the name needs to change, or the articles need to be blanked using "<!-- -->" while the entries are sorted through. Inexplicably, this discussion's participants seem to prefer a more exclusive and potentially connotation-laden identifier in the list name during ongoing discussion than a more inclusive and neutral set of identifiers. I'm not going to fight it, but given the relatively clear consensus that BLP violations are occurring, the latter interim solution (blank and sort) is, at the very least, in order. Any volunteers? Nick Graves (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Go for it.Griswaldo (talk) 21:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I've not expressed any opinion on the name - this isn't what is currently under contention. Yes, the lists need blanking: I'd do this myself, but as a newbie at Wikipedia editing, I'd be afraid I'd make a mess of it. Perhaps someone else will do the honours?

As for 'sorting' the list, that as always is the responsibility of those who wish to add people to it: I'd recommend not doing this until it is clear exactly what criteria are being used, and having ensured that such criteria do not breach WP:BLPCAT. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

They don't need to be blanked. People need to just start going down the lists, finding the living persons and verifying. If they fail verification delete those entries.Griswaldo (talk) 21:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm going through the activists and educators list right now.Griswaldo (talk) 21:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that the source given for David Miliband is woefully weak for a listing like this. It is a throwaway line written by a journalist, not something he said himself, and not something that - based on the surrounding text in that article - was the point of the article. Arguably, if there were a whole article on the issue, with thorough proof provided by the journalist, then this listing would be appropriate. Here, it isn't.

Let's not be afraid to raise the question of POV-pushing - a desire to make as many people into "atheists" as possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Jimbo Wales raises an important point (well I would say that, grovel, grovel...), The very existence of such lists can create a real locus for POV-pushing. I'll find all the atheist 'good guys' and someone else will find the atheist bad guys, and then we'll have a race to see who can throw the list out of whack first. Not a very encyclopaedic activity, but difficult to legislate against. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I've never understood that concern about POV pushing. Let's say some famous author publicly says "I am a homosexual", yet the homosexuality is not a major part of their public life or writings. Can that author be included in the List of LGBT writers? I think the answer is "yes". Inclusion is factually accurate, and helps the encyclopedia provide information to readers. If a gay person looks at the List article and finds encouragement that hundreds of writers were gay, is that a bad thing? How can a fact be POV? Is there some opposing view to "author XYZ is gay"? --Noleander (talk) 00:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

You may think the answer is "yes", but BLP policy clearly states "no". If you think the policy is wrong, you should try to get it changed, not ignore it. The fact that BLP policy was misapplied in the first place is the reason this debate is occurring, and nothing we could decide here about what we think policy 'should be' would stop it occurring again. We cannot overrule policy by consensus. End of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:02, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Im curious: what was the situation that gave rise to the policy? That is what I dont understand. If some editor added 100s of persons to a LGBT list who where not LGBT, the Verifiability policy would be sufficient to remove them. What episode led to the " must be relevant to their notable activities or public life" requirement? Also, it seems that if the person made a public pronouncement, and it was significant enough for a biographer to repeat it, that alone makes it "relevant". --Noleander (talk) 01:11, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the precise reasoning and history for the policy, though I can see why it was arrived at: people become 'notable' for what they do to establish their notability. Other information about them (particularly of a personal nature) isn't automatically 'notable'. This is basically a presumption of the right to privacy of living individuals (a right which incidentally is protected by law in some countries: If I was to compile a list of 'notable gays', store it on a database on my PC, and make it available to others, I might well fall foul of the UK Data Protection Act 1998). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I have more questions, but I'll pose them on the WP:BLP talk page. --Noleander (talk) 02:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Although lists are historically more inclusive. I think there is reasonable precedent for including a larger list of atheists; it at least needs discussing one way or another. BLPCAT is very brief and I don't think it is particularly clear whether it being part of their notability is a hard and fast rule or part of the criminal example (an example I agree with). Then we get into a major issue over whether their atheism is part of their notability (for example, Dawkins as an atheist writer) or whether it is notable because of who they are (i.e. the fact they are declared atheist is a notable fact about them - i.e. in the case of a prominent public figure). Someone needs to open a central discussion I think --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Going forward

• Some of the sub-pages seem to have been moved also. Can they go back? At least in the interim, it's a bit confusing.
• We need to agree one way or another on an inclusion criteria and list name; I support the current name and a more BLP-friendly inclusion criteria.
• It might be worth discussion ways to re-sort the list, and cut down the number of sub-lists. It's a bit unwieldy to maintain and condensing things might make the job a little more sane :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 23:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The inclusion criteria don't just need to be "more BLP-friendly". They need to conform to WP:BLPCAT: all of it, including the requirement that "subject's beliefs... are relevant to their notable activities or public life". This is not an issue for debate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The names of the lists should remain "List of Atheists" - that naming issue has been widely discussed in the past in the Talk page of that article, and the naming debate is not relevant to the BLP issue. The requirement for sourcing in these List articles has always been enforced. I'd say over 50% of the persons added into the list are removed within a day because the source is insufficient, or because they are not atheists. The BLPCAT issue does need more consideration, to be sure. But that is a simple matter of identifying living persons that have not made a big deal of their atheism and removing them .. although that is a bit of a subjective call. Looking at the lists of LGBT person (List of LGBT writers for example) it is clear that the BLPCAT policy is interpreted fairly liberally, that is, WP has erred on the side of inclusion. The atheist lists should be treated no differently. --Noleander (talk) 00:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but just because you can find an example of a 'liberal' interpretation of rules that you think harmless, doesn't mean other 'liberal' interpretations may not be. Since I don't want to be accused of canvassing, I'll not cite any examples, but believe me, they exist... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. But to help give newcomers some guidance on the BLPCAT policy, can you give some List articles that are in conformance with the policy (i.e. have had "non relevant" persons removed) and some Lists that have not had that done? You say we should not use List of LGBT writers as a model ... but how can we know that? Maybe seeing the "before" and "after" versions of a List article (and the associated Talk page discusssions) will shed light on the matter. --Noleander (talk) 01:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Editnotice

I propose we create a coloured Wikipedia:Editnotice for all the lists of atheists, making clear to editors that living persons require self-identification rather than identification by third parties. --JN466 06:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Here is a draft edit notice:

Please review
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Will this do? Editors would see this when they click Edit on any of the Atheist lists. --JN466 12:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This proposal has merit. But why limit it to lists of atheists? There's now a debate about List of Jewish actors, where few of the sources are self-identifications. In some cases, religion and sexual orientation can be hard to determine by objective standards, unlike nationality or race, so self-identification is necessary. I suggest making this notice more generic and adding it to every applicable list article.   Will Beback  talk  13:19, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm with you there; we could use it as a boilerplate and adapt it to similar cases. The situation with the Jewish categories is that it is unclear whether they are ethnic or religious categories. (I actually replied to an old post of yours the other day at Category_talk:American_Jews#BLP_issue.3F.) Per current BLPCAT status, ethnic origin does not require self-identification and can be sourced with third-party sources; there have been proposals at BLP talk to change this. I don't know how best to solve the ambiguity; perhaps you and Jayjg can come up with some ideas. --JN466 17:19, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is insufficient. As WP:BLPCAT clearly states: "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources". Quite explicit: Unless a persons Atheism is of relevance to their notable activities, they cannot be included on the list. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Andy, that applies to categories, not lists. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

And how exactly do you compile a list, without deciding whether a particular candidate fits the category for inclusion? In any case WP:LISTPEOPLE is completely explicit here, even to the extent of actually mentioning atheism: "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future). For example, lists of atheists doesn't include every individual with a Wikipedia article who happens to be an atheist, because not all of them are notable for their atheism. However, it might well include Sigmund Freud." AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:13, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Andy, you are confusing two meanings of the word category. One is "category" in the technical Wikipedia sense. The other is using category to mean "satisfies a certain predicate." These are not the same thing. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The section heading of WP:BLPCAT is Categories, lists and navigation templates. In short, it applies to all three, not just categories. Yworo (talk) 01:36, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Tha's a good point. Not from the title (which doesn't matter) but regarding later in the section where it says that "These principles apply equally to infobox statements, and to lists and navigation templates that are based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation, or which suggest that the persons included in the list or template have a poor reputation" which strongly supports that interpretation. It appears that Andy may be correct. But if he is correct, it is a correctness which is completely coincidental, having nothing to do with his argument about LISTPEOPLE. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, really it all follows from WP:BLP itself. Yworo (talk) 03:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• You're right Andy, the requirement that it should be relevant to their notable activities is something I should have included as well. It occurred to me later, but I didn't have time to put it in, and anyway wanted to see what sort of feedback the proposal would get. I've added it now; please check the wording. Thanks. --JN466 15:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this template intended solely for lists of atheists? I'd assume that a similar editnotice would be applicable for all religiously-categorised lists, as the policy is the same, and only applying it to atheists would seem to imply some sort of exception.

I see that JN466 states that "ethnic origin does not require self-identification and can be sourced with third-party sources". I thought that in regards to BLPCAT for living persons, self-identification was mandatory, even under present rules, or if it wasn't it was certainly covered by Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality guidelines, which are expected to be followed with "occasional exceptions", which presumably have to be justified per BLP burden of evidence requirements. I'd also suggest that the term "ethnic origin" is misleading in any case, as it isn't the same thing as "ethnicity" Actually one can't self-identify one's "origins": "I'm Albanian" is a statement about oneself, whereas "my parents came from Albania" is a statement about them, not you. This may seem a minor point, but it is clearly relevant in relation to several of the debates currently going on regarding BLP categorisations and lists. The term "ethnic origins" is generally best avoided anyway, as it implies a particular POV: that "ethnicities" are eternal constants, which is demonstrably false. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This particular editnotice is for the 16 atheist lists that we have, but I fully agree that we should create equivalent editnotices for other lists of that type. BLPCAT's self-identification requirement presently only applies to religion and sexuality. There have been proposals recently to expand that to ethnicity (see BLP talk page), which I support, given the neverending problems. Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality does not require self-identification for ethnic categories; as far as I can see, it just says "Inclusion must be justifiable by external references". --JN466 08:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Andy. "Ethnic origin" (e.g. "his grandparents emigrated from Albania") and "nationality" (e.g. "he is a French citizen") can be sourced to reliable third party sources, but "ethnicity" (e.g. "he is Italian-American") cannot, and should require self-identification. The difference between these three is not a minor point at all in my book. "Ethnicity" really ought to be added, per many of the proposals at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons, to the language of WP:BLPCAT. That said I support Jayen's edit notice and would also support a similar one across religious categories.Griswaldo (talk) 17:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both of you, but we have to do the work to get ethnicity included in BLPCAT first, at BLP talk. --JN466 18:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with the proposed wording of the Edit notice, for a few reasons: (1) Relevance to public activities: not clear enough that that rule only applies to living persons; (2) the requirement of the specific word "atheist" is not required by any WP policy. Such a "magic word" is not required for LGBT, etc. (3) the wording "notable for their atheism" is not equivalent to the WP:BLPCAT policy of "relevant to public activities ...". We should just state the BLPCAT wording and leave it at that. There is no reason for us, here to interpret the BLPCAT wording, especially since it may change. Safest is to refer the editor to BLPCAT. Also: There does appear to be some discrepancy between Categories and Lists regulations, and the "over-categorization" concern does not apply to lists. Does BLPCAT really apply to lists? Finally: Agree with suggestions that a more generic template for all BLPCAT articles (religion, LGBT, etc) is best: otherwise we end up with lots of duplication and overlap. --Noleander (talk) 23:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The wording "notable for their atheism" is actually taken verbatim from WP:LISTPEOPLE. --JN466 01:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. But that LISTPEOPLES guideline states "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future). For example, lists of atheists doesn't include every individual with a Wikipedia article who happens to be an atheist, because not all of them are notable for their atheism. However, it might well include Sigmund Freud. " That is rather incomprehensible. The wording "all of them are notable for their atheism." is part of an example, not the primary guideline. The guideline is "selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category " but it is hard to say what that means: is the list being selected? or the people being selected? What does it mean to be "important in that category"? Why is Freud acceptable, since he was not especially famous as an atheist? The fact is that 99% of people-lists in WP do not limit themselves to people notable due to their status in the list. I presume this is one of those "its all hosed up and we can't get consensus to fix it" things. --Noleander (talk) 02:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You are not very well informed here. Freud's atheism has been very widely commented on in reliable sources: [1][2] What the guideline says is precisely that people should be notable for their atheism. They "should be selected for importance/notability in that category", i.e. they should be selected because they are important within the category of atheists. Some editors take a stamp-collecting approach to lists and categories, but that is not the intent of these lists. You're right that the beginning of the sentence was poorly formed; I've edited it. --JN466 14:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

There is an ambiguity in the above interpretation of the LISTPEOPLES guideline: (1) the statement "[the] people should be notable for their atheism" means that the atheism caused them to be notable; (2) whereas the statement "[include a person] because they are important within the category of atheists" means that we take the universe of all atheists, then find the persons that are most notable (for any reason) and put them in the List. The latter interpretation is generally followed in WP's religion lists and LGBT lists. The former interpretation is used for most occupation/profession lists. No big deal: it is just a guideline, but I'm a bit surprised that these guidelines/policies are several years old and yet still seem to be the source of much confusion and consequent debate on the Talk page. Can't the ArbCom just appoint some committee of a dozen respected editors to go study this for a month and come back with a recommendation on how to re-word these guidelines? --Noleander (talk) 20:03, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the wording above to say, "notable as atheists" rather than "notable for their atheism", to avoid the ambiguity you are drawing attention to. It's like you say; while Freud's atheism was notable, he was primarily notable as the founder of psychoanalysis. Does this help? I prefer the fuller editnotice above compared to your shortened version below. If we put the salient points into the editnotice itself, this makes for a better chance that editors will take these points on board than if they first have to navigate away to two policy/guideline pages. --JN466 12:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Brief Edit Notice

Here is a suggestion for a Edit Notice for all Religion/orientation lists. I tried to (1) make it small (because it hogs space at the top of the Edit page); (2) directly quote the policy/guideline but do not add supply interpretations (which would be subject to dispute); (3) make it generic for all religion/orientation lists so we don't need to re-invent the wheel:

This list is subject to the WP:BLPCAT policy and the WP:LISTPEOPLE guideline. Please familiarize yourself with those before editing this list. When adding living persons to the list, the WP:BLPCAT policy requires that the person identify themselves as belonging to the category, and that the person's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life. A reliable source must be provided.

--Noleander (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Any thoughts on the relative merits of the latter (green) text vs the text at top? I think the proposal at the top is way too verbose; and adds too much interpretation/extrapolation to the policies/guidelines. I think the green proposal is best for all religion/belief/atheist/orientation lists. I favor a single EditNotice, rather than specific EditNotices for each sort of belief (Methodist, Agnostic, Atheist, Catholic, Jewish, etc). EditNotices should not try to expand on the policies, but simply make sure editors are aware of them. The Policies speak for themselves. The proposal at top seems to add a lot of opinion and interpretation. EditNotices are not policies and do not undergo the same kind of scrutiny and review as policies; so EditNotices cannot add interpretation to policies. EditNotices can only be edited by Admins; because they are "off limits" to mere mortals we need to be very careful what goes in there: it will be very hard to change afterwards (contrast with textual info at the top of a List article: any editor can edit that) ... which is yet another reason for keeping the EditNotice (1) terse; and (2) just link to the policies. --Noleander (talk) 02:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Noleander, on reflection I think you have a point. How about if I create the editnotice with the graphical design as above, but with your text? (Except I would propose "Please familiarize yourself with both before editing this list" – i.e. "both" instead of "those".) --JN466 23:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, that would be fine. I have no preference on color/layout. --Noleander (talk) 14:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I've done the editnotices for the lists of atheists (e.g. Template:Editnotices/Page/List_of_atheists_(surnames_A_to_B)), and will continue with the other lists based on religious belief and sexual orientation. --JN466 10:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

List of Jewish Nobel laureates

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There is an ongoing dispute at List of Jewish Nobel laureates that would benefit from some outside help. At the center of the dispute is the repeated insertion of recent laureate Andre Geim into the list. Geim, who was born of German parents in Russia, has a Dutch passport, and lives in the UK is not ethnically or culturally or religiously Jewish. To quote Geim, "My mother's grandmother was Jewish. I suffered from anti-Semitism in Russia because my name sounds Jewish." But of all the hundreds of articles that have been written about Geim that describe him as Russian and German, the cherry-pickers have managed to find 3 sources that call him "Jewish"--and as for all the rest of the WP:RS that talk about his ethnicity, they do not specifically say Geim is NOT Jewish.

The same people who want to stretch the list by describing Geim as "Jewish" are adamantly opposed to having the article say that the criterion for inclusion is that some WP:RS called the person Jewish. It seems to me that the word "Jewish" could have many definitions, and any article using such a wide-ranging term should make it clear to readers which definition is being used. betsythedevine (talk) 03:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's List of atheists does include a sensible explanation of their rule of inclusion: "This is a list of people who have been identified by reliable sources as atheists, or who have expressed that they do not believe in deities; the living people on this list have publicly self-identified as atheists or have expressed that they do not believe in deities, according to reliable published sources (and those reliable published sources do not say that their religious beliefs are irrelevant to their notable activities or public life)." I think that some similar rule for the list of Jewish laureates would work well -- for dead people, that WP:RS called them Jewish but for living people that they self-identified as Jewish. I might add that having such a clear, public expression of the inclusion rule would save a lot of arguments over whether any person did or did not belong on the relevant list.betsythedevine (talk) 04:40, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd advise people to read what WP:BLPCAT has to say on the subject, and to note that there is an ongoing discussion (above) about whether the List of atheists is in fact in breach of Wikipedia policies. In particular, look at Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, where it is stated that "Categories regarding religious beliefs ... should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief ... in question; and the subject's beliefs ... are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources. This states that inclusion requires both (a) self-identification, and (b) relevance (with RS) to notability. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Part of the difficulty is that there is no consensus at the list's talk page that WP:BLPCAT applies to the list. This is because the word "Jewish" has many meanings, and need not refer to religious belief. --Avenue (talk) 13:23, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The word Jewish has many meanings, but if you subtract both ethnicity and religion from the definition of Jewish then not much is left. One could just as well argue that the restrictions of WP:BLPCAT should apply even more carefully to describing people as "Jewish," since the clear intent of including both ethnicity and religion as covered categories is to cover such cases. If "Jewish" is excluded from those rules, by all means re-write BLPCAT to explain that no restrictions at all are placed on describing people as "Jewish" other that some reliable source called them so.betsythedevine (talk) 14:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps that intent is not clear enough to many editors. One of the reasons people gave for keeping the list during its an AfD earlier this year was that Jewishness has a significant ethnic aspect, and does not only reflect a religious belief. However BLP issues were not raised once during that AfD, as far as I can see. --Avenue (talk) 00:05, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It appears to me that it is simply a mistake of omission that WP:BLPCAT does not expressly include ethnicity as well. The related policies about categories lump ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality together. WP:BLPCAT needs to add the other two. Ethnic nationalists of all types often argue tendentiously about labeling prominent people they can be proud of as part of their group. These people ought to have the right to self-identify as part of that group, anything else seems contrary to the spirit of WP:BLP.Griswaldo (talk) 14:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I should have figured there was already and ongoing discussion. See - Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Ethno-religious_categories.Griswaldo (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Griswaldo

(Restarting indents) This is a much smaller and more resolveable issue than the enormous question being debated at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Ethno-religious_categories. If we assume for the moment that there exists in Wikipedia a List of Jewish Nobel laureates, should not such a list explain what rules it uses to classify people as Jewish?betsythedevine (talk) 02:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The only valid rules according to WP:BLPCAT would be that (a) they self-identified as Jewish, and (b) their Jewishness was relevant to them being Nobel laureates. I suspect that the resultant list will be fairly short... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

And that is precisely the problem. The BLPCAT policy is not being followed in most Lists. I'm not sure when that "must be relevant" policy was established, but it was a mistake, and is not being followed. Using that policy to prune a particular list (when scores of lists are not following it) is senseless. --Noleander (talk) 03:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

If you think the "must be relevant" policy was a mistake (I don't) then try to get it changed. Having rules that 'nobody' follows is senseless, particularly when the same rules can then be cited to push a particular POV. There are enough people engaging in Wikilawyering over rules we at least attempt to follow, without giving them unenforced rules to play with. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've made a change proposal on the BLP talk page. But it looks like there is a lot of heat on that Talk page, and not much light. So Im not optimistic. --Noleander (talk) 04:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree that those rules are the only reasonable interpretation of how WP:BLPCAT should apply to this list, because BLPCAT seems to apply to statements about the religious beliefs of living people, but not about their cultural background or ethnicity. In fact, we have an experienced editor maintaining on the list's talk page that BLPCAT doesn't apply at all to the list for this reason. I wouldn't go that far, but I do find the situation very unclear.

However, there are two cases that do seem clear to me. If a laureate (1) identified as Jewish, but not in a religious sense, then BLPCAT apparently would not apply. Thus BLPCAT's requirements for self-identification and that their Jewishness was relevant to them being a Nobel laureate would not apply either. Another situation that seem clear to me is laureates who are religious but not ethnic Jews, e.g. recent converts, to whom BLPCAT would definitely seem to apply. But all other cases seem to fall into a grey area, where it is quite unclear to me whether BLPCAT applies. This would include entries for laureates where it is unclear whether the laureate was Jewish in some sense other than a religious one, or where they are Jewish in both a religious and an ethnic sense. Why do you think BLPCAT applies in these cases? --Avenue (talk) 08:50, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Ethno-religious categories, which is probably where Noleander's post should have been placed. Dougweller (talk) 10:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I have now read through that twice. There are several proposals there for changes to BLPCAT, none of which seems to have gathered a clear consensus, so I don't see how it answers my question. It does make clear that this is not an isolated problem. --Avenue (talk) 04:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I hope everyone realizes there's a very simple solution to this problem. That being delete the list. It serves no purpose because the Nobel Prize committee explicitly states its prize is awarded without consideration to ethnicity, religion, or even nationality. Ethnicity, by itself, is not notable and the policy on lists states that a good way of judging whether something is listcruft is by seeing if an article can be written about its contents. List of Freemasons exists because of Freemasonry... but List of Jewish Nobel Prize winners doesn't have a Jews & The Nobel Prize article to substantiate it, and will never have such an article because there's nothing to say except "A good number of Nobel Prize winners had a Jewish parent." Furthermore having members of a distinct ethnic group win the prize often is also not a list-worthy characteristic. Nobody feels the need to make List of ethnic German Nobel Prize laureates, though if it were created on the same criteria as the Jewish list (having a recent ancestor of German ethnicity), there'd be just as many self-identifying candidates. Furthermore, despite what's being said here, about 1/3rd of the list maintains various other ethnic ancestries in addition to Jewish, and many more have never outright stated they identify as being "Jewish." (e.g., It's never mentioned that Otto Wallach -- who is frequently listed as only Jewish -- is only approximately 1/4th Jewish by ethnic descent -- his Jewish grandfather having converted to Protestantism and the rest of his ancestors being church-attending ethnic Germans.) I would say the exact same thing about List of ethnic Chinese Nobel laureates, and I plan to nominate that list for deletion first (because it's less controversial) shortly. Bulldog123 11:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

From WP:BLPCAT: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." This should especially apply to List of Jewish Nobel laureates -- every name on it is being tagged as "Jewish" without any disclaimer or modifier. An explanation of why that identification -- ethnicity? religion? self-identification? -- is made should be given either name by name or else at the beginning of the list.betsythedevine (talk) 13:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should at least say how people qualify for inclusion in the list. We had an explanation that appeared to have consensus until it was removed in this edit a month ago. Now there is no consensus at the talk page that the list requires any such explanation, let alone what it should say. --Avenue (talk) 04:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Before somebody says that a list is not a category, the List of Jewish Nobel laureates is being used like a category in that the Andre Geim article has repeatedly been tagged with a See also section whose only member is List of Jewish Nobel laureates, which amounts to a prominent claim that Geim is unmodified-ly Jewish. betsythedevine (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Betsy is 100% correct. This backdoor technique of using lists to replace the functionality of categories on Jewish pages is not exclusive to the Nobel Prize list either. A long time ago there was a massive debate about Category:Jewish mathematicians. When that category was deleted, List of Jewish mathematicians popped up and a handful of users began to surreptitiously add the list to "See Also" sections of the articles formerly under the category. Today, the Nobel Prize list is popping up in See Also sections for various people like Otto Warburg, basically suggesting that Warburg is famous FOR being Jewish. Note: Warburg's father's family converted to Protestantism and his mother was a Christian gentile... so how exactly is his career/life defined by being Jewish? Bulldog123 14:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

You badly want the list deleted, so you see everything through that lens. I think that the best remedy for somebody adding such a list to "See also" sections where it doesn't belong is to remove it from those sections and dissuade them doing it again - not to delete the list itself. --Avenue (talk) 10:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Note the list has now been AfDed (again) with discussion ongoing.betsythedevine (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

And I've gone ahead and speedy deleted it WP:CSD#G4 (recreation of deleted page) and WP:SALTed it to prevent renewed recreation without a WP:DRV. There are lots of inbound links (from all the list members I guess) which need cleaning up. Rd232 ^talk 22:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

And the list's creator has gotten it undeleted again. And the AfD is a mess. Uninvolved editors are urged to check out the policy issues raised. betsythedevine (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I took a look at List of Jewish mathematicians, the first living entry I found, Philip Dawid, has nothing in the article suggesting he's Jewish, he was in 2 Jewish cats and another list, List of British Jewish scientists. There's a huge number of these lists. Dougweller (talk) 15:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe that we have three solutions here:

1. Closely watch all such list articles and enforce the BLP requirement for sources supporting self-identification.
2. Move all such articles to "List of such-and-such of Jewish descent".
3. Delete all such lists.

Not sure which is the more appropriate solution. Yworo (talk) 16:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think there may be 100s of such lists, so closely watching them is virtually impossible (and not a good way for experienced editors to use their time). Dougweller (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment the people who WP:OWN the list claim the list is exempt from the WP:BLPCAT requirement for self-identification because 1) ethnicity is excluded from teh requirement for self-identification and 2) the article is a list not a category. If some uninvolved editors were able to establish which Wikipedia policies should apply to the list, that might improve the future ability of a few random incomers interested in Wikipedia's accuracy and policies to correct the systemic bias of the list's proponents. betsythedevine (talk) 16:29, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLPCAT specifically includes lists, both in its heading and the text. "These principles apply equally to infobox statements, and to lists and navigation templates that are based on religious beliefs and sexual orientation". Further, as the term "Jewish" is ambigious and can refer to religion, the principles of WP:BLP require us to treat it as such. Further, a main principle of our BLP policy is "Do no harm". We need only one example of a subject objecting that being misidentified as Jewish has caused them harm, and we have that quite clearly in Andre Geim's statement, "I suffered from anti-Semitism in Russia because my name sounds Jewish". This is enough to show the potential for causing harm by including living persons who do not self-identify as Jewish. Yworo (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I accept that reasoning, especially since the misconception that the term "Jewish" refers only religious belief seems to be widespread, and not just a theoretical or isolated misconception. --Avenue (talk) 01:41, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree the list should be deleted. TFD (talk) 16:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Ditto, and same for the list of Jewish mathematicians referred to above. Feketekave (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Deaths in 2010

• Deaths in 2010 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Severe BLP issues with this page. There is no References section, at all. Just listed bare-links next to the entries. What if the links go dead? What if someone wants to cite a newspaper, a book, a magazine? This is entirely an inappropriate formatting structure for information related to WP:BLP. -- Cirt (talk) 04:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

First, if they're truly dead then BLP does not apply. Second, there appears to be plenty of bare EL's in other "deaths in..." articles. Jclemens (talk) 04:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Note: One of the users that added poorly sourced info to the page, WWGB (talk · contribs), removed a BLP warning from the account's user talk page with the edit summary, "cleanup". There indeed appears to be very cavalier flouting against WP:BLP at Deaths in 2010, in addition to fundamental site policy issues such as WP:RS and WP:V. -- Cirt (talk) 04:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

In response to Jclemens (talk · contribs), see WP:BDP. There are BLP issues to be considered here. -- Cirt (talk) 04:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There are sourcing, referencing, and cleanup issues to be considered, and this and similar articles do indeed deal with real people. What I have not seen is a specific assertion of unsourced negative content. Digging through the various articles might very well turn some up, of course, and scrutiny for such is well-advised, but concern is accurately based more on quantity (lots of mediocre entries) than on a specific concern that a particular person may be harmed, am I right? Jclemens (talk) 05:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

This is mainly a formatting issue. All one would need to do, if one were interested in being WP:BOLD would be to convert these to proper footnotes. It seems a minor fix. --Jayron32 05:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

It does, doesn't it? And yet users such as WWGB (talk · contribs), seem quite resistant to this BLP related improvement. -- Cirt (talk) 05:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Update: In response to above recommendation from Jayron32 (talk · contribs), please see this edit. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Now ten references have been formatted, see diff link. -- Cirt (talk) 06:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I came here because WWGB raised an issue on my talk page, and I have to admit a bit of a conflict in my eyes. On one hand, I continue to be disappointed with the reliability of sourcing for Britton Chance's death – I would expect that, within a week, there would be some uncontroversially reliable sources mentioning his death, as a famous medical researcher and Olympic gold medalist, but everything I have seen is problematic at best and seems to stem from information presented in a blog article (ie. I see no verification of his death independent of this source). I do think WWGB made an error in the source that he used to present the death, although I think the types of warnings left for an established user such as himself were a bit excessive. I want to speak in his defense a bit - the Deaths in 20XX pages are incredibly difficult to maintain and no one on Wikipedia does a better job than WWGB. He has maintained the page for years and done an admirable job of it, for even despite the fact that the Deaths in 20XX pages are all among my most edited articles, he still finds mistakes that I make and corrects them as due. So firstly, I think think that if we start escalating warnings on each other's page and avoid speaking directly, we're going to cause more drama than is necessary. I noticed that Cirt, whom I have known to be nothing but an exceptional editor and administrator in my limited dealings with them, has taken to converting the bare URLs to proper references, despite a previous talk page consensus, as well as a controversial semi-protection. Regarding the latter matter, I understanding the rationale behind this (Deaths in 2010 has been a highly-vandalized – and remains a highly visible – page on Wikipedia), but I think that the semi-protection was a bit of an over-reaction; if WWGB can make an error, then anyone could, and I think under the current circumstances, the semi-protection limits valuable IP edits more than it protects against BLP vandalism. I think that there are some concerns about reference styling and BLP that are legitimate, but I think the first step should be to clear the air a bit, because I know that WWGB and Cirt have only the best interests of Wikipedia in mind. Hopefully with that said, we can follow up on discussions at Talk:Deaths in 2010 rather than have to deal with the issue on my talk page, Cirt's talk page, WP:BLPN, WWGB's talk page etc. etc. My point in all of this is that I think we can work this out on the appropriate talk page, and centralize the discussion there. Canadian Paul 06:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Some very good comments have been raised, here, including those of Jayron32 (talk · contribs). The issue is relevant to WP:BLP, specifically, WP:BDP. It is worthwhile to continue centralized discussion, here, at WP:BLPN. -- Cirt (talk) 06:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven no objections to centralizing the discussion here, but perhaps we should make note of that at Deaths in 2010 in the two threads that have been started there? I know that there are some long-term editors who would be happy to comment here if this is the more appropriate venue. I think if we can all agree to discussing in one place, then the issues that have been raised will be more easily solved - sometimes I feel like the Deaths in 20XX pages run on sporadic or even implied consensus, so it would be nice to have a direct link to... well, you know, link to, if need be. Canadian Paul 06:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Notice given. -- Cirt (talk) 06:56, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. I'm tired and I'm going to bed, haha. Hopefully this will all work out to everyone's satisfaction. Canadian Paul 06:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I share that hope. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 06:59, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Do I assume, one week on, that this 'discussion' has ground to a halt ? Where does this leave the question of the formatting of references ?

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 18:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I see ten have been formatted - that just leaves about another 280, why not start formatting the new additions and get the regulars there to slowly every now and again do ten and slowly they will get formatted.Check links results looks good and doesn't reveal any excessive dead links issues. Off2riorob (talk) 18:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not have strong views either way on this issue. However, I think Canadian Paul's valid comment that Deaths in 20XX maybe operates on 'sporadic or even implied consensus' is yet to be addressed. Various interested parties do not appear to have commented here (or even elsewhere), and in my view that is not consensus. If future editors are to have a reasonably clear (by Wiki standards) guideline over the issue of formatting, then it seems to me that further input/discussion/rationale/broad agreement is needed. Merely quoting, for example WP:BLP (bearing in mind that the entries are clearly not biographies of living persons anymore), does not seem to really address the specific issue here. Truly, I do not have a hidden agenda, and am happy to go with the generally agreed, sensibly discussed, consensus - but presently that does not seem to be apparent. Broadly speaking, when I next add something to the article, as I do on occasion, which formatting style should I adopt ? Or, please forgive me, have I missed something ? - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I also don't have real strong views, 280 refs is a big ref section. You could start adding format style of your choice as long as it has ref tags to show up in the reference section. I use <ref>{{cite web|url=add url address here|title=add title here|publisher=add publisher here|date=add article date here|accessdate=add the date you access the article here}}</ref> Off2riorob (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

As strong views, or indeed any views, seem to have dried up here, I am assuming that the status quo regarding formatting of entries at Deaths in 20XX is perfectly acceptable. The "severe BLP issues" debate is dead, n'est pas ? Moreover, without really trying to press the point, this now constitutes Wikipedia agreed consensus that can be referred back to, should the subject arise in the future ? - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 01:46, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Phyllis Connor

Resolved

 – deleted by Administrator:HJ Mitchell after expiration of uncontested seven day WP:PROD - Off2riorob (talk) 15:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Phyllis Connor (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is about my aunt who is a very private person and doesn't want to be on Wikipedia. How can I have the article removed? Thank you so much? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prayn4peace (talk • contribs) 07:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• - Prodded,WP:PROD and removed non free picture from a living persons infobox. Note - The amount of picture violations that are throughout wikipedia it is always a good idea to have a good look at not only the content but also the pictures in an article. Off2riorob (talk) 11:33, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

David Draiman

David Draiman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

article about David Draiman - discussing whether he is jewish or not and if so, should he be listed in categories related to jewish people (jewish musicians, jewish americans, etc.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Draiman&action=historysubmit&diff=399641653&oldid=399526685

in sum: thefrozenfire has removed any reference to david draiman as jewish since david proclaimed in an interview that he is 'not religious'. i have tried to show thefrozenfire that within judaism, one need not be religious to still be jewish. including very active jews in the jewish community and in the non-jewish community (i.e., the world). ("religious" within judaism means "observant", as in following the commandments, which most orthodox jews do, some conservative and reform jews do, but very few others. AND, only about 20% of the jewish world is 'religious').

while i disagree with thefrozenfire regarding his (obscure) definition of being jewish (he contends you must be religious - even though he is not jewish....), i would be willing to accept his definition IF every article on wikipedia regarding jews and the jewish people would follow it. for example, go to the page about jews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews - you would have to get rid of three of the four pictures there since only one of them is religious. (and the same for jewish americans, jewish politicians, jewish sports players, etc.)

and how could you possibly have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews#Secular_organizations if one must be religious to be considered jewish????

anyway, i can give you numerous examples of the general principle. in addition, i did give thefrozenfire a specific example of where david says that he is indeed jewish: http://www.concertlivewire.com/interviews/disturbed.htm (Livewire: You're Jewish, correct? David: Oh yeah.) but alas, that was still not good enough for him.

can someone please help? since this discussion with thefrozenfire started, he has gone ahead and changed several other articles where people are listed as jewish and removed it. it almost seems like he is trying to 'cover up' or 'cleanse' or i don't what about jews...very strange. thanks. Soosim (talk) 11:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Jewish is not a religion - Judaism is the religion. He is clearly not a follower of Judaism as he clearly said so, that means he shouldn't be in the infobox as religion - Jewish. that doesn't stop him being Jewish as an ethnicity though. Well, thats what I have understood from previous discussions. Personally I don't support ethnic profiling, not in the infobox anyways. So, yes you seem to be wrong to be adding religion Jewish to the infobox, do you not hear the subject saying he is not religious? Draiman is of Jewish ancestry, but insists that he is not religious. .. I also do not see the need for the word .. insists .. its a bit weaselly, it is enough for him to say he is not religious, there is no need for him to insist. The cats, I don't see any reason for him not to be in American Jew and one of the music cats, Jewish musician seems plenty, no need to over categorize. I have left the other involved user a note and a link to this thread. Off2riorob (talk) 12:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The major confusion here is what the Jewish categories actually refer to. It is obvious to anyone who considers the matter that the lack of distinction between being ethnically Jewish and being religiously Jewish is confusing. I make no secret of the fact that I find the intentionally muddying of the two wholly dishonest and malicious. A person's religion should not be decided for them for no other reason than that they were born to religious parents. Draiman insists - yes, *insists* - that he is not religious. Thus, it should have never been indicated on his BLP that he is religious. That's precisely what the BLP policy regarding religion is about.

I, personally, would greatly like to see a distinction made on every Jewish BLP category between ethnic and religious. Otherwise, it's often assumed that anyone who is "Jewish" is religious.

On another note, this issue is also greatly one of reliable sources. Soosim, you made two personal comments directed at my work, so I must counter with this: You seem very evidently non-neutral when it comes to editing Jewish-related articles. You've made several edits to BLP articles indicating that individuals are both Jewish in ethnicity, and Jewish religiously. You failed to offer *any* references to back up those claims. You now proceed to insist that because I'm not a Jew, I shouldn't be passing judgement on who is a Jew and who is not. I think it is quite distinctly the other way around; your bias towards favouring Judaism has evidently caused you to make several edits that have violated the core principles of Verifiability and No Original Research.

TheFrozenFire (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

sorry i haven't responded sooner - been busy with the worst natural disaster here ever. ok, back to wiki business. "jewish" means being a jew. being born a jew makes you a jew, as does converting to judaism (which is the name of the religion). see: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jewish -- one is longer a jew only when one converts out of the religion to another religion (and even then, there are many rabbis and leaders who say you are still a jew....). anyway, the point is that once a jew, always a jew. (we don't let go so easily!). being 'religious' has NOTHING to do with it. at all. as i have said, 80% of the jews worldwide are not 'religious' but still very much jewish. there is NO muddying of the distinction between the two for they are ONE AND THE SAME. let's say that draiman insisted that he was not a musician but only a singer. would you include him in music categories?

fro - all edits have references. no violations have taken place. you, on the other hand, seem bent on cleansing and whitewashing wikipedia of the 'jewish' category. and that, is troubling. Soosim (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Gillian McKeith

Gillian McKeith (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I received a complaint from a non-wikipedian about the neutrality of this article. Looking over it myself, I find the article to be surprisingly negative, not just in the lead but throughout. The entire article, through focus, phrasing and selection of material, reads like a philippic. I don't know enough about the subject to assess whether or not the citations behind the criticism are simply excuses for the editors to attack someone they don't like, or if they represent a genuine balanced reflection of the weight given to such matters in reliable sources. I have already raised the matter on the article talk page, but I don't find the what the local editors say in support very convincing. The manner in which some negative material is enthusiastically sought and added, as shown by this section ["This story may well contain RS documentation of deception. She or her people have tried to hide the evidence, which has provided evidence of a cover up."], makes me worry a little about the main editors of the article. So I'm dropping it here as I'd like some reassurance from seasoned BLP watchers that this is an acceptable article. All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Alas, "negative" does not mean "wrong"; BLPs should reflect what reliable sources say, and reliable sources don't always have good things to say about every person. According to one of the more restrained sources on this subject (a real doctor, no less), "To anyone who knows even the slightest bit about science, she is a joke".

(I just spent a couple of minutes getting that book from the shelf and finding the quote; I hope others might return the courtesy by at least spending a few moments looking at specific claims and references before complaining that the article might be wrong).

If you can think of any specific flawed text in the article, other than a general impression of negativity, please do point it out on the talkpage; then we can either add another ref (there are 55 so far), or delete it. Various editors, including me, would be quite happy to delete any text you can point out which is not compatible with sources. Alternatively, you could delete any such text yourself.

bobrayner (talk) 23:48, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

We don't usually add opinions that are a bit insulting, like harry said john was an idiot and a fool .. even if we have a citation, we should try to write about living people in a conservative manner, with intellectual criticism being preferable. Off2riorob (talk) 00:01, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

@Bobrayner Negative of course does not mean wrong, but no-one ever said that. The concern is poor balance between WP:Criticism and praise, that an article about a living person appears to be no more than a well referenced written assault. Anyway, what you are saying could be correct and maybe this is justified. I am however not an expert on these matters, so not really trusting the article's main editors, all I can do is bring them to the attention of others. All the best, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:12, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, the four editors who responded to you on the talkpage appear to have agreed that the criticism was actually rather mild; and you are of course encouraged to point out specific flaws or remove unsourced stuff. If, instead of those options, you would prefer to seek out other editors who might give an alternative viewpoint, that is your prerogative, and I won't push the point any further here. bobrayner (talk) 00:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that any biography of Gillian McKeith that presents a NPOV is going to be 'negative', in that she herself has made numerous claims about her qualifications, products etc that have turned out to be of questionable merit, and has attracted much attention in consequence. The article looks well-referenced to me, and I'm not sure how it could be 'balanced' except by removing sourced material. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we have to be careful with articles like this. McKeith is a popular topic for criticism online and, dare I suggest, among the sorts of people who edit Wikipedia more. We need to constantly strive for a neutral approach. All that said, I looked through the article recently and I thought it worked pretty well. There is a lot of WP:RS criticism of McKeith: you can't talk about her work without covering the criticism of her claims as a nutritionist. Bondegezou (talk) 15:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

If the article is unbalanced with negative material, clearly some of it should be removed, referenced or not. In the case of most high profile figures it is possible to write articles with mostly negative material, referenced of course, if less negative material is ignored. That doesn't make it acceptable. Lots of it is of questionable value. ASA, ok. Amanda Wynne, "senior diatician", more marginal. Why is it necessary to have a section about her "legal threats"? And who cares about Ben Goldacre and any cat-fighting between the two? Is there really no more to this woman than the depiction in this article. Like I said, I'd never even heard of her until I got the complaint, but it would be naturally surprising if this was all there was among reliable sources. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:51, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

This article has been problematic for a long time. When I last looked at it, several editors were there only to add criticism, and there was a fair bit of sockpuppetry; at least one IP address resolved to a place associated with someone who wrote about McKeith for a publication other than Wikipedia. Uninvolved eyes would probably help. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Norman Finkelstein

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Resolved

 – User:Wikifan12345 is topic banned from the area of conflict as defined in WP:ARBPIA#Area of conflict, for eight months.

Norman Finkelstein (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hopefully this is the right place. I'm concerned by a pattern of quote distortions and potentially libelous material added by editor Wikifan12345 at this article. After a rather long RFC, the talk page controversy now centers around whether or not Wiki's addition of "Finkelstein has characterized Hizbollah as "a group of patriotic and dedicated soldiers” defending their lands from “American and Israeli ‘terrorists in uniform.” is ok. The problem? Finkelstein never said it. It's from an email posted on his website by another person. I assumed it was a mistake, it's easy to read over these things too quickly, but Wikifan continues to push for its addition. Another editor pointed out a very selective quote added by Wikifan and my curiosity was piqued. Looking back, I found a few interesting edits from Wikifan: that Finkelstein "said Hezbollah had a "right" to kidnap Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev" (the source does not mention a right, nor kidnapping, nor individual soldiers), that DePaul University's tenure board "ruled Finkelstein violated the "professional ethical norms" ("supporting" source here) and that Finkelstein expressed solidarity with a Palestinian who went on a bulldozer rampage through Jerusalem (the source discusses a poor taste post on Finkelstein's website).

Finkelstein is a controversial character but he has neither condoned kidnapping of specific soldiers, called Hizbollah "a group of patriotic and dedicated soldiers”, expressed solidarity with a specific terrorist or been censored for professional ethics violations by DuPaul. This history of repeated distortion aimed at painting Finkelstein in the worst possible light doesn't speak well of the editor's neutrality and appears, to my inexperienced eye, as a series of libelous BLP violations. Is this a correct characterization or am I off-base here? Sol (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

The above edits are being taken out of context. The issue of libel and BLP violations were originally brought up by myself. User:WLRoss had originally made a libelous analogy on his own and falsely attributed it to Finkelstein.

Had Sol made this BLP topic when the edits were added weeks ago I'd be more inclined to AGF, but he posted this as the talk discussion was nearing closure. I was trying to add the edit all users in the talk agreed to, including Ross and Sole. This is it:

Finkelstein has expressed solidarity with Hizbullah, saying that their politics are irrelevant, and that the "fundamental principle" is that "people have the right to defend their country from foreign occupiers."

But Wayne of course removed it only because I edited into the article. I called him on this numerous times - 1 and 2. No response. Instead we have this.

After reading the source, it seems I made an error and unintentionally attributed an email sent to Finkelstein as Finkelstein's own response. But the real issue here is taking the content dispute to enforcement boards to avoid real discussion.

If you want to nail me for BLP issues all right, but Wayne's edit should be hit as well (recognized as OR an administrator) and hopefully the originally revision we all agreed to well be added to the article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 18:19, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

"But the real issue here is taking the content dispute to enforcement boards to avoid real discussion." The chutzpah is overwhelming. I had to take you here to force you to discuss that Finkelstein didn't say your proposed quote. I'm tired of reading non-sequiter arguments and WP:HEAR. If this were an isolated incident it wouldn't be a big deal. It's not. And then you try to justify your history of libelous, unsourced material by claiming Wayne does the same thing and it's out of context? What context justifies gross violations of BLP? This has nothing to do with the RFC and everything to do with a sustained and disruptive distortion of material in a BLP and general tendentiousness. Sol (talk) 18:44, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

As has been shown on the article talk page, WLRoss has invented nothing, and has accurately quoted an analogy made by Finkelstein. But Wikifan persists in falsely claiming that WLRoss made this up, and now absurdly describes the citation as "libellous". It is also worth noting that, on the talk page, Wikifan stated that the false (and in this case actually libellous) assertion that Finkelstein supports Hamas is so self-evidently true that it does not need a citation. For too long now, this editor has been acting in a vexatious manner, arguing against a consensus of at least six other editors, and single-handedly filibustering in an attempt to turn this article into an attack page. If he is allowed to continue, no progress will be made in the article, as other editors will be sidetracked into apparently endless disputes. RolandR (talk) 18:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• - If these additions from Wikifan have been false that is an extremely serious violation of BLP and every other wiki policy. If it is correct he should stop editing the article and contributing to the talk page. This topic area is the subject of arbitration and restrictions, possibly he should be reported there. Off2riorob (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This issue indeed falls under arbcom restrictions, and I'd be surprised if Wikifan12345 hasn't received notification under the I/P case long ago. The Finkelstein talk page should carry the notification as well. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok then, so I guess I take it to AE? So let it be written . . . Sol (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I figure it's a simple question of asking a knowledgeable admin to step in. Also: perhaps this isn't the right place to ask this, but I'm pondering the possibility of whether Wikifan12345 (talk · contribs) is a new incarnation of Dajudem (talk · contribs). The timing of the end of Dajudem and the beginning of Wikifan12345 is suggestive, as is the overall approach to editing. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

No need for Wikifan12345 to receive notification of the case -- that was done the day after he/she started editing: [3]. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikifan12345's pattern of POV paraphrasing is not limited to the Norman Finkelstein article. The same is occurring on the Hamas page and the most recent problematic edit can be seen in this talk discussion. After three weeks of unsuccessful discussion to get his edit to actually say what the source states it was found that Wikifan's source was misquoting the original news report anyway (ie it had changed "Palestinians" to "Hamas militants" etc etc) but he still insists his source is more accurate and continues to revert to his version. Wayne (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

"Between 2000-2003, Saudi Arabia transferred $55.7 million to the families of eight suicide bombers through a committee run by the Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz. despite the source saying The family of each listed terrorist received $5,340, according to the Saudi Committee documents...including [to] eight that lost their lives while perpetrating homicide bombings." Yeah, this needs to stop. I guess I file this at AE, if you have any more creative rephrasings to add, lemme know. Sol (talk) 22:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Sole, what inspired you to create this biased incident report? I've already spent ample time defending my edits in the discussion and exposing Wayne's serious lack of understanding of basic BLP laws. The disputes that occurred weeks ago never spilled over into serious BLP arbitration issues. IMO, editors here are trying to avoid the fact that Wayne's uncontrollable habit of removing all my edits (not just here, but other articles he has followed me to) was demonstrated clearly after he removed the edit we all agreed to.

If you look above Sole, I asked you and Wayne explicitly if you still endorse Delia's revised edit to replace the current introduction. I asked you in talk. No response. Instead we get this.

It begs the question why Sole and Wayne remain active in the article. It is about preserving the integrity of the article or removing editors they personally disagree with? If we truly care about content naturally they would honor the RFC that led a strong consensus about revising the introduction with Delia's edit. Why they continue to dodge the issue in talk and here is suspect.

While my edits are routinely removed, Wayne's tend to remain largely untouched even when they are blatantly fabricated. Wayne invented an analogy between Palestinian/Lebanese fighters to the Soviet resistance during WWII. Finkelstein never, ever made this analogy. He never even mentioned Palestinian and Lebanese fighters in comparison to Soviet resistance forces. An administrator recognized the edit as original research (a far worse crime than unintentionally misquoting a sentence or two or replacing Palestinian militant with Hamas militant). If BLP laws are universal, and Sole truly values the integrity of the article, naturally we should all agree the on-going dispute is a shared responsibility.

It's difficult to collaborate with Wayne when he removes entire edits under rationales like "POV" or "anti-Hamas" reasoning. This was most notable at Hamas where a lot of his edits were reverted by several users.

Accusations of sock-puppetry are serious and libelous without evidence. It poisons the discussion. There must be rules that punish editors for making false accusations right? Wikifan12345 (talk) 23:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

We are now so thoroughly disconnected from a common frame of reference that I'm having trouble thinking of what to say. No one is accusing you of sock puppetry, nor have I objected to anything but un-sourced material in that article recently. I created this because you seem to have a very serious problem with misusing sources, a problem that has taken up countless man-hours on talk pages as you push for your take on things despite reasonable opposition. You refused to engage in the argument against your sources, not the first time that's happened, and have so far offered no explanation why you feel it's ok to misrepresent where source material comes from, what it says, or who said it. No amount of subject changing or obfuscation is going to change that. And why am I now Sole? Who told you I'm a fish?! Sol (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this being raised to WP:Arbitration Enforcement ? Off2riorob (talk) 00:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup, there we go. I'm just crazy slow with formatting things properly. Sol (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Sole, do you even read my edits Sole? Let's forget me for a second. Do you or do you not support Delia's edit? Yes or no? This is crucial because Wayne removed the addition even though he agreed to it. You supported his decision. But wait, both of you supported Delia's edit. So why did you remove it? Was it because I am the one who added it to the article? And because Wayne is more concerned about removing my contributions rather than actually focusing on the content itself, he mistakenly removed the version he agreed to in the RFC. But to cover this up you start an unwarranted and selective BLP noticeboard. Why wait until now? We are talking about edits made weeks ago that ran into pages of discussion. It is not uncommon in I/P disputes to see editors take content disputes into noticeboards when they cannot participate in good faith. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I try. But your post shows us the problem: I didn't remove anything. At all. Period. I just didn't do it. I support Delia's edit (at least the one I said I supported on the talk page) and I oppose you adding a quote from someone who is not Finkelstein. I find the brunt of your accusations bizarre, the rest unfounded; this isn't about me or Wanye or Delia so forgive me if I forgo refuting spurious claims. Sol (talk) 01:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikifan above again repeats the untrue claim that Wayne "invented an analogy". He did nothing of the sort; he quite correctly pointed out that Finkelstein had made such an analogy. In an interview in March 2010, in reply to the direct question "Is it possible to oppose the actions of Israel without supporting Hamas", Finkelstein stated It has nothing to do with what Hamas’s ideology is. Take World War II. Stalin was repressive. I don’t think rational people will dispute that fact. You could even say Stalin was tyrannical, but who would dispute the righteousness of the Red Army’s resistance to the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union? It has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with the regime. It is the fact that in the case of Hamas — and here distinctions need to be made — Hamas was the democratically elected government of the Palestinians. In January 2006 there were elections. Jimmy Carter, who was one of the international monitors, called the elections completely honest and fair. So it was a democratically elected government. Israel, along with the United States, immediately tried to impose economic sanctions on the Palestinian people in order to get them to reject and repudiate Hamas, and then eventually launched an attack. In my opinion Hamas had very few options because Israel broke the cease fire that had been implemented on June 19, 2006. Israel broke the cease fire, as Amnesty International put it, on November 4 when it invaded Gaza and killed six Palestinians militants. Up until the end of December of 2008, Hamas was saying that it wanted to renew the cease fire but only on condition that Israel implement the original terms of the cease fire. Those terms were that Hamas would stop its rocket and mortar attacks and Israel was supposed to lift its illegal blockade of Gaza, a blockade that Amnesty International called a flagrant violation of international law. A blockade which Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said was “destroying Gaza’s civilization.” Israel refused to lift the blockade and demanded a unilateral and unconditional Hamas cessation of rocket and mortar fire on Israel. If you think the rocket and mortar fire by Hamas was wrong, or even a war crime, or even a crime against humanity, what else was Hamas to do? The blockade was, and is, a flagrant violation of international law. It was destroying Gaza’s civilization and the international community was doing nothing. Are you saying Hamas, or I should say here the Palestinian people in Gaza, had a moral/legal obligation to lie still and die?"

I have quoted this at length in order to show clearly the context. It is abundantly clear that Finkelstein is here making the analogy denied by Wikifan -- that Hamas has the right to resist the Israeli army, just as the Soviet Union had the right to resist the Nazi German army. He is not comparing Hamas to the Soviets, or Israel to the Nazis, but he is comparing the situations in order to explain the legitimacy of Hamas's resistance. No-one is insisting that Wikifan like or agree with this analogy; but s/he cannot deny that Finkelstein made it. To repeatedly claim, several weeks after this has been pointed out on the article talk page, that Wayne invented the analogy is disruptive, is a denial of good faith, it is near-obsessive "I didn't hear that" behaviour, and it is a breach of countless other Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

This discussion has clearly gone beyond the bounds of a BLP dispute, and I too think that it needs to go to an admins noticeboard or to arbitration enforcement. RolandR (talk) 00:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Way to hijack the discussion Roland. Thankfully I took the liberty of comparing Wayne's invented analogy to what Finkelstein actually said in the source he linked to in the original discussion:

My parents went through World War II. Now, Stalin’s regime was not exactly a bed of roses. It was a ruthless and brutal regime, and many people perished. But who didn’t support the Soviet Union when they defeated the Nazis? Who didn’t support the Red Army? In all the countries of Europe which were occupied – who gets all the honors? The resistance. The Communist resistance – it was brutal, it was ruthless. The Communists were not… It wasn’t a bed of roses, but you respect them. You respect them because they resisted the foreign occupiers of their country. If I am going to honor the Communists during World War II, even through I probably would not have done very well under their regimes… If I’m going to honor them, I am going to honor the Hizbullah. They show courage, and they show discipline. I respect that.

Here is what Wayne wrote:

Finkelstein has expressed support for Hezbollah and Hamas, comparing his support for the rights of the Lebanese and Palestinian people to that of World War II support of the Soviet Union against the Nazis whilst not supporting the Stalinist regime itself. He has called for the United States and Israel to join the rest of the international community and abide by international law to resolve the conflicts.

Finkelstein said nothing about Palestinian or Lebanese people in parallel with those who fought Nazi Germany alongside the Soviet Union though not actually "supporting the Stalinist regime itself."

Long discussion includes same edits and explanations. Notice how Wayne's edit is no longer in the article? Tell me Roland, why is that? This is precisely why noticeboards like these are not helpful and are abused by editors looking to remove other users in content disputes. Spreading misinformation and distorting legitimate content disputes into a behavioral problem while ignoring the actions other users is simply unacceptable and not cool. The integrity of this incident report is tainted and it should be regulated to a more neutral, fair environment. I direct Sole and Wayne to my post above Roland's, I really do want to know why he removed Delia's revised introduction when he first agreed to it - that is the principal on-going dispute here. Wikifan12345 (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Just so you cant say I dont reply to your claims. Finkelstein used the exact same analogy for both Hamas and Hezbollah in separate replies to questions. I see no problem with merging them both for brevity. That edit was to replace your edit Finkelstein has expressed support for the militant Islamist movements Hezbollah and Hamas which no one accepted. Following your complaints and a long discussion, Delia replaced my edit with Finkelstein has expressed support for the legal right of the Islamist movements Hezbollah and Hamas to act in self defense where Israel violates International Law., an edit accepted by consensus to avoid an edit war, not because my edit was wrong.Wayne (talk) 13:03, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't do that one. This is the one that I changed. As a general comment, I will confirm that I have seen a problem with Wikifan's handling of quotes, which tend to distort Finkelstein's comments in order to present him in the most negative fashion possible. Delia Peabody (talk) 15:02, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

• - It appears there is now a AE report here. Off2riorob (talk) 01:31, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

One has to wonder if there is grounds for an AE. I guess it would be fair to move this to the AE unless we're dealing with two incident reports? Wikifan12345 (talk) 01:48, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

It's one incident but I was advised to take it to AE, I'm not very savvy on these things so I have no idea which is better/worse etc. An admin said it was under the AE jurisdiction so it's now over there if anyone wants an admin to see anything. Sol (talk) 05:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

• - At the AE report here - Wikifan12345 (talk · contribs) is banned from all articles, discussions, and other content within the area of conflict, as defined in WP:ARBPIA#Area of conflict, for eight months. Off2riorob (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"If someone considers themselves atheist they are atheist"

The above sentiment is often expressed, I think, when compiling blps. But how quick should WP be to document an individual's expressions of belief. For example, a young C. S. Lewis had left the Church of Ireland as a young adult, going through phases where he was an atheist to where he henceforth became a believer in a type of mystical paganism (according to his autobiography Surprised by Joy). If WPdia had been around when Lewis was 26, should it have said (imagining a 1925 Wikipedia, lol), "Lewis is an atheist" and then "Lewis has more recently self-identified as pagan"? What brings me to this question is the case of famous web entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg mentioned in an on-line forum that he doesn't believe in God and now his blp states that he was raised Jewish but now says he's atheist. What is the best way for responsible Wiki biographers to handle this issue?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 22:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

How about not mentioning religious beliefs (or lack of) at all unless they are actually relevant to the reasons for the notability of the person in question? According to WP:BLPCAT, it is specifically forbidden to add a living person to a religion-related category unless it is:

"Inclusion must be specifically relevant to at least one of the subject's notable activities and an essential part of that activity, but is not required to be an exclusive interest. Moreover, inclusion is not transitive to any other activity."

I'd say that with specific regard to C. S. Lewis, there are good enough grounds to discuss his religion in a biography (actually, it would be bizarre not to), but this needs to show how his beliefs changed over time.

AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful to have the sentence from the Zuckerberg article quoted: "Zuckerberg was raised Jewish, including having had a Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13, although he has since described himself as an atheist." The sentence is in the section called Personal life, which essentially describes his early life, college life, and then some stuff after college. Many articles about living people discuss their ethnicity, religion, etc., as background information without it being controversial. I don't believe that the policy on categorization applies to a discussion in the article itself. We say that someone is American without insisting that their Americanism be related to one of their notable activities. We talk about where they went to school in the same way.

The main issue in the article (discussed at some length on the Talk page) has not been about whether to include the information, but, rather, (1) whether to juxtapose his Jewish upbringing with his later statements about atheism and (2) whether we should say "describe" or "consider" instead of "is" when addressing his atheism. With respect to the first issue, someone challenged the "although" in the sentence (at that time, it was a "however" or a "but", can't remember, but same idea) because you can be Jewish without believing in a deity. I - and others - maintained that the "although" doesn't imply that he no longer considers himself ethnically Jewish or that he necessarily believed in a deity when he was a child, it's just a natural way of expressing a change in his views. With respect to the second issue, I just wanted to stick to the sources (one says "consider" and the other says "describe"), and I thought the language flowed better and was softer. Also, with the final wording, if we used "is", we would have had to say "he has since become", which isn't necessarily accurate and, in my view, goes too far. The main challenger on these two issues, an editor named Gilisa, seemed okay with the final wording, although I probably shouldn't speak for someone else.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Nonetheless the information is included in the second paragraph without any indication as to how it relates to the things that make him notable. Why are his religious beliefes given such prominence? This question, I know, may be better raised on the talk page for the article concerned, but it does raise issues relevant across Wikipedia. There is a tendency to place great prominence on the ethnicity, race, religion and/or nationality of subjects, regardless of whether these topics are relevant.Hobson (talk) 09:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

...I suppose that if Wikipedia had existed in 1925, when Lewis was 26--the same age Mark Zuckerberg is now--it could conceivably have said during that year, "The notable Oxford lecturer in philosophy C. S. Lewis has said he has not believed in God since about the year 1913, when 14 years old." Then, someone might conceivably have updated the blp four years later in 1929 to say, "Yet, Lewis more recently said he has become a believer in some kind of universal God entity, having expressed an abiding interest in ancient Northern European folk beliefs, etc." Then, in 1931, a theoretical, then-contemporary Wikipedia could state, "In the current year, C. S. Lewis re-converted to Christianity, writing extensively on the subject." But, if he was then known (in 1925, when still an atheist) to attend his Anglican services at Easter, fast a bit for Lent, etc., would it be a theoretical 1925 Wikipedia's place to say he was not Anglican by culture? or should it finesse the issue and simply say he was an Anglican (Church of Ireland) by birth who in youth nonetheless had come to disbelieve in God......?--Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden (talk) 00:58, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

This discussion has been going on at disproportionate length in the Zuckerberg page (and many others...). As per BLP policy, living persons' religious beliefs are private, unless relevant to the subject's notability; IMHO, so are people's early religious backgrounds - perhaps even more so. If we are in a dilemma because somebody's beliefs are not in accord with his or her background, and we do not want to mention the former (because of BLP policy), that is yet another reason for not going into the latter (that is, to avoid misconceptions). If somebody's "ethnicity", however constructed (surely Zuckerberg is not a Yiddish speaker from late 19th century Moldavia?), involves implications as to his "true" religion, that is yet another reason for not going into that. Feketekave (talk) 13:35, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov and Steven Weinberg as well as Yuval Ne'eman, all are Jewish atheists who considered themselves very Jewish nonetheless. There are many more such examples. Jews don't usually cease from seeing other Jew as Jewish because he/she's became self declared atheist, most observant Jews have one or more in their close family circle. I agree that it's different from one culture to another or from one religion to another. Judaism, for instance, is very different from Christianity simply because being Jewish doesn't only refer to the religious aspect, but also to the ethnic one. Interestingly, while this bundle of ethnic origin, culture and religion was emphasized before by those who seek the harm of Jews-today radical anti Israeli activists try to describe the Jewish people as nothing more than religious group (that include secular people as well)-as people who share no common history, culture and certainly not origin. This is all very far from the main stream scientific view. There are exceptionals within the Jewish people because of the importance of religion. That is for instance, one can convert to Judaism without having any common origin or history with Jews what so ever and to be considered by very most of the Jews as Jewish. According to the Jewish faith, conversion is not reversible so if he then decide he's an atheist, he's just a very secular Jew from the Jewish law view. But most Jews were born Jewish so it save us the dilemma: I honestly think that you can't define any group by its exceptionals. I agree that there is a difference from other religions, because German atheist is simply German, not Christian-and former Christian is not longer Christian because Christianity and Islam and other religions are not accompanied with certain ethnicity. As for Zuckerberg, he was member in Jewish fraternity while he was student and for the matter of this discussion it wouldn't be too much to assume that he was atheist already then. He identify himself as Jewish at present (though I wasn't able to find English source), oh, and look on this.--Gilisa (talk) 07:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, the term "atheism" itself may be outdated in the Western world. Maybe it fit better in 16th century Europe when the term was apparently created. Naturally, when 99.9% of the population belonged to some religion, it was reasonable to put a label on the 1 out of a 1,000 who opted out. But the Ages of science, industry, space, communication, and cyberspace, have changed things a bit. Not everyone must belong to some -ism ("doctrine or belief") anymore. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 08:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Very good point. Also the word "exist", as in "does God exist", is much more complex today due to the understandings of modern science. Jaque Hammer (talk) 20:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I think we should say somebody is an atheist if, but only if, he or she has said so him- or herself. A topical case in point is the new UK Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband, who has explicitly identified himself in interviews as both Jewish and an atheist. -- Alarics (talk) 13:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Maggie Della Rocco Griffin

Resolved

This article is in the process of deletion. Ms Griffin herself did not know she had an article and is upset that she does. The "votes" are now 4 to 0 for deletion. Can someone "speedy" up the process please? Jaque Hammer (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

• Sorted. Let me know if you need anything else on this. Probably best to email. Guy (Help!) 21:53, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Jaque Hammer (talk) 00:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The article's now been deleted and the AfD courtesy blanked - believe there's nothing more to do here. Gonzonoir (talk) 12:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Peta Toppano

Resolved

 – Article overhauled, tags removed, but could still use some work

Could someone please have a look at Peta Toppano (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) please, it is in a poor state but the subject would really like the maintenance tags gone. It's full of laundry lists of shows in which she had bit parts, it needs tweaking into some kind of prose narrative that looks less like her agent's PR pack. Thanks, Guy (Help!) 21:50, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I worked on it a little bit, and will let others take a crack at it now. How about you, Guy? Anyway, I think it's good enough to remove the tags. Not ready for a Pulitzer though.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:06, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Jenny McCarthy

In the lede of Jenny McCarthy, BullRangifer has added the word "false" to the sentence "Most recently, she has written books about parenting, and has become an activist promoting (false) claims that vaccines cause autism." [4] The word originally read "controversial," but BullRangifer's stance according to his edit summary is that "Scientific mainstream is unequivocal on this matter. She's making false claims. There is no "controversy" within medical circles. Only fringers support her POV. MEDRS rules here."

I have no stake in the matter one way or the other, but it certainly seems POV to include the phrase "activist promoting false claims" to the lede of the article. On the other hand, if this matter has already been settled medically, I certainly don't want to revert. Further opinions on the matter would be appreciated. Dayewalker (talk) 07:59, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no reputable medical research supporting that link, and I think "false" is appropriate. There are some activists who continue to push it -- but they have lost the wind in their sails since Andrew Wakefield crashed and burned. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that if we describe her to be 'promoting false claims' as opposed to 'promoting claims which are not supported by medical consensus', we imply she is lying as opposed to merely incorrect. That's the difference between misguided activism and fraud, and we should carefully phrase it to choose the right one. How about this: McCarthy is an activist in the controversial area of vaccines, and she promotes the view--not held by the medical establishment or scientific consensus--that vaccines cause autism and that chelation therapy can help cure it.

Good point. We shouldn't make it sound like she's deliberately lying. Something like "promoting (false scientificaly disproven) claims that...." would be okay.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should soft-pedal this one. To the extent that there is public confusion in this one, parents refrain from getting their kids vaccinated and then children die from measles. Shall we invoke WP:HARM in that regard? I'm not sure why this particular person would get any more consideration than someone who falsely promoted the view that the Holocaust never happened -- I don't think we would use "disproven" for that, and I'm not sure why we should do it here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:15, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I once got in big trouble for accusing someone of telling a "falsehood" when I should have said "falsity". These two words mean very different things. Surely, there must be a way to clearly state that she's wrong, without implying a deliberate lie.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomo, at the least, you'd have to balance the risk of medical misinformation against the BLP risk. I think we can phrase it so that neither innocent children nor McCarthy are ill served. Ocaasi (talk) 10:05, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's really my point: in considering how to balance McCarthy's "BLP risk" against the harm that might come from confusion on the vaccine/autism (non)link, I think it's much better to use bold and simple language here, and I really doubt the notion that this will harm McCarthy. For one thing, "false" does not imply she is deliberately lying -- it merely makes it clear that she is wrong. I genuinely think we're doing something wrong if we base our editing regarding this issue on "BLP fundamentalism" -- that would be a distortion of what is actually important here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:09, 2 December 2010

If the reliable sources that discuss the subject's views about autism use the word "false" then we should too. Otherwise, don't.

According to my dictionary, the word "false" sometimes means insincere. If the reliable sources don't indicate any lack of sincerity, then why should we suggest that she may be insincere? Words like "incorrect" or "debunked" or "disproven" are perfectly adequate words, the only difference being that no one will infer dishonesty.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

And there we go with the BLP fundamentalism. I thrust with "children are dying from measles" and you parry with WP:RS. Shameful. It's just one more step to "NPOV means we have to present both sides"; sure, you haven't taken that step yourself, but this sort of approach makes it easier for those who would. If we're simply going to invoke WP:RS, then I'm minded to add "McCarthy received an award for promoting measles", ref [5] -- hey, that's what the source says. For now, I've simplified the language to try to reduce the soft-pedaling inherent in "not supported by medical consensus". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

By your own "logic", you yourself are endangering children by merely referring to the subject's view as "false" instead of "vile, evil, and criminally insane."Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:25, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree with Anythingyouwant's perspective here. I do not believe that WP:HARM (which has a limited scope confined to the damage that biological articles can do to their subjects) obliges us to position our articles to ensure optimal medical outcomes. That's why we have the medical disclaimer - our readers should not be encouraged to rely on Wikipedia when forming opinions about medical treatment. I believe that a phrasing like "contrary to medical consensus" is a perfectly adequate way of characterizing her views. Gonzonoir (talk) 12:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, hey, no problem. I mean, my kids are already vaccinated, so I'll sleep well tonight regardless of what happens with this article. As for others who might see "contrary to medical consensus" and nonetheless have doubts about whether doctors can ever agree on anything anyway -- well surely they'll check out the medical disclaimer and then do some *real* research, where they will learn the facts. And as long as everyone else is adhering to Wikipedia policy to the letter, then no doubt we'll all sleep well -- especially Ms McCarthy, secure in the knowledge that her BLP isn't doing her any harm. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:59, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Just because medical scientists declare something "false" or "true" don't make it so. They could change their minds tomorrow. So, stating that medical science disagrees is factually verifiable. Saying it's "false" is editorializing, and doesn't belong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:34, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

BB, spare us the post-modernist epistemology. Should we say that scientists disagree with the claim that the earth is round? Is it merely a "point of view" that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

While I fully agree in principle with Nomoskedasticity, I think that "disproven" is as good as "false" in this case. I mean, Jenny is probably in good faith. Lots of people who believe in fringe and wacky theories are in good faith, also per the Heinlein's razor. We shouldn't be soft in clearly declaring that the vaccine-autism link is declared bullshit by all academic consensus, but no reason to imply she's lying. --Cyclopia^talk 10:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

While I would prefer "false" (and do not think it implies she is lying), I think "disproven" would be acceptable. Unfortunately, someone has now reverted to "not supported by medical consensus". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The cited source relies on Dr. Bruce Cohen of Cleveland Clinic: "Dr. Cohen, of the Cleveland Clinic, said the government should provide the resources to study the current immunization methods. Maybe the proof we need is a study where a large group of children are vaccinated with the current vaccine schedule and another large group treated with a modified schedule, he said. After two or five years you look at how many children were immunized in each group and whether the autism rates have changed." He's not sure, and wants more study.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer

Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article contains untrue and defamatory misinformation about the parents of Charles Spencer: John Spencer and Frances Roche. It has been removed at least four times by an editor in the U.S., but someone reinserts it on a daily basis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.21.131.116 (talk) 12:16, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I was reverting the deletion because nobody was attempting to explain the deletion, it is difficult to distinguish this sort of thing from vandalism. If someone states that they regard this information to be "untrue and defamatory" that does get us a bit further, I susgest that further discussion be carried out on the article's talk page. PatGallacher (talk) 15:38, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The talkpage is available but as we have a thread reported here, this is as good a central discussion location as any. I have removed the disputed content anyways as it was uncited and disputed and contentious, imo.Off2riorob (talk) 15:48, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Content was added recently uncited by this IP 59 ... dynamic - I have had to revert other contentious BLP violations from the address at another BLP Same person is the IP59 .. in these BLP violating additions to this article, Harsimrat_Kaur_Badal - which I think were also reported here, yes just here above .. I have left him(IP59..) a message at his most recent IP59 .. appearance. Off2riorob (talk) 15:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Ong Teck Chin

Ong Teck Chin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hello, Please could an administrator remove the evidence of this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ong_Teck_Chin&diff=prev&oldid=400102267

in which an anonymous editor introduced allegations about a living person by means of wikilinking from the phrase "inappropriate behaviour" to a particular article. "Inappropriate behaviour" is all that the cited sources say, so clearly that is all we can say in WP.

I removed it in this later edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ong_Teck_Chin&diff=next&oldid=400104947

but of course the edits remain in the history.

Thank you -- Alarics (talk) 12:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

• - I think this is the correct location for such a request. Wikipedia:Requests for oversight - Off2riorob (talk) 15:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

List of pornographic movie studios

List of pornographic movie studios (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Ok, these aren't people, but everyone associated with them is living, I hope. Loads of redlinks, for a start - is that a BLP violation? I'd say it is. Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the redlinks could be moved to the talkpage, so that until there is an article that asserts they are primarily a pornographic movie studio they are not just induced without verification. Off2riorob (talk) 15:11, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Ingrid Daubechies

Ingrid Daubechies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Biographies are meant to record notable work done by the people concerned, not about the many awards won/ speeches given. Someone please edit this article; it is written more like a homepage than a 3rd party objective article about the person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Daubechies (comment unsigned from User:Pratik.mallya - added by Off2riorob (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2010 (UTC))

I agree that the article could use improvement, but it is an article about a notable person and has clearly been edited by quite a few others --- not a "homepage" vanity site by the subject. betsythedevine (talk) 15:22, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Ingrid Daubechies is one of the most notable women mathematicians alive today. The article is poorly written, although evidently well meaning, and has a number of biographical omissions. The extensive quote from the prize citation should simply be removed and summarised. Written in 1997, it is seriously out of date. But it would seem that this is something for WikiProject Mathematics, since articles like this normally give a detailed account of scientific contributions. Women mathematicians of equal stature are Karen Uhlenbeck, Claire Voisin and Marina Ratner. The article on Daubechies is actually slightly better than the others if anything. Mathsci (talk) 21:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Mario Kleff

Mario Kleff (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Mario Kleff (AfD discussion)

The only sources I have been able to find so far are from Thai real estate magazines local to the city the subject now lives/works in. Would appreciate input from other editors to see if additional sources can be found. Also, I have been unable to find any independent corroboration that the subject worked at BBDO or Hakuhodo (& in what capacity). Shearonink (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Barbara-Rose Collins

Barbara-Rose Collins (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is certainly not neutral - it describes her behavior as "bizarre" and repeats relatively trivial anecdotes about Collins. I don't know why the fact that she wore a tiara to a city council meeting is discussed at greater length than either her accomplishments or ethical lapses, while in congress. Also, the discussion of her ethical lapses needs to be attributed. And "negro" is not considered an appropriate word in the 21st century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.84.118 (talk) 16:18, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It's been cleaned up; the vandal (who used a much nastier word than "negro" on the talk page) has been permanently blocked after years of racial and sexual vandalisms. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:11, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Benjy Bronk

Benjy Bronk (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• - Spedial:Contribution Rockypedia

Rockypedia continues to post and edit and vandallize to make article intentionally misleading and libelous and slanted. scroll down to second area in yellow to see the particularly libelous postings Rockypedia is making and see cited source to see he is writing it in an intentionally misleading and loaded way. [[6]] - [[7]] - Brazil4Olympics (talk) 18:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

This is complete nonsense from yet another sock puppet of a malicious user (originally Archhow) that has had numerous sock puppets already blocked from editing due to his behavior. Consider the following timeline:

In August of 2009, Archhow (talk · contribs) begins editing the Benjy Bronk page. From then on, this user only edits the Benjy Bronk page and several other related pages, always editing info on Benjy Bronk. Some of the edits involve changing Bronk's birthdate to reflect an age 4 years younger, attempts that were previously made from anonymous IP addresses until on the Howard Stern show, it was revealed that Bronk himself was making these anonymous edits to seem younger than he actually is.

Then, in the past week, more attempts were made to change this birthdate, and to remove one entire section of the page (which was not even originally added by me, I simply noticed the deletion) until Archhow was blocked from editing temporarily. This user then moved on to sock puppet Oonaphi (talk · contribs), which was also blocked, and then sock puppet Esthergilan (talk · contribs), which was also blocked as well - both sock puppets made nearly exactly the same edits to the Benjy Bronk page, and no other edits.

The user then moved on to using another long-dormant sock puppet, whose entire contributions consisted of a series of Bronk-related edits from 2006-2007, BlessYes (talk · contribs), and only after the other three accounts were blocked did this account begin making edits again to the Benjy Bronk page. Having this sock puppet exposed as well prompted this user to create yet another sock puppet, the above Brazil4Olympics (talk · contribs) who made a series of useless edits to the Phobos page in the space of 9 minutes and the Danielle Staub page in another 7 minutes (12 edits in all). Obviously these edits were made in a clumsy attempt to mask his true intention, which was to edit the now-protected Benjy Bronk page, as he probably found he could not edit a protected page until he made at least 10 edits and had to wait 4 days. Since achieving auto-confirmed status, this sock puppet has also been editing only the Benjy Bronk page.

During my attempted reverting of vandalism on the Bronk page, I have noticed that this person probably does not even rise to the level of notability required in the first place. There are many staffers on The Howard Stern Show that get only a mention on The Howard Stern Show Staff page, and no page of their own; some of whom have far more verifiable info available about them than Benjy Bronk. Most of the info on the Bronk page is superfluous minutiae that isn't even cited by anything more than a Howard Stern fan site. I propose that the relevant, cited info, what little of it there is, be merged into The Howard Stern Show Staff page and this article deleted for non-notability. In the meantime, the latest sock puppets Brazil4Olympics (talk · contribs) and BlessYes (talk · contribs) should also be at least temporarily blocked from editing.Rockypedia (talk) 19:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking at it, with the citations so far provided, I also don't see much individual notability and would support merging to the best location and deletion at AFD. Off2riorob (talk) 19:57, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I would nominate the article for merge and deletion myself, but I have to admit that I have no idea where to even start such a process (I'm relatively a wikipedia neophyte). Some help here would be appreciated; if another more senior editor would take on the process, I would be happy to take part in the discussion afterwards.Rockypedia (talk) 03:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I think I figured it out, but I'm not sure about step 3: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NominationName - where does that go? Other than that, I think I did it right, off now to notify others that have edited the page.Rockypedia (talk) 06:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

• - *Benjy Bronk (AfD discussion)

Michael Cartwright (artist)

Michael Cartwright (artist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Could someone give this article the once over it's an autobiography which I consider has a lamentable number of references and unclear notability.Teapotgeorge^Talk 19:45, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is up for deletion. You can help zap it here (or unzap it, of course). Meanwhile, let's put this BLPN discussion on hold.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:32, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Mad Lion

Mad Lion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The Name and other Biograpic information is incorrect and unable to change. Mad Lions Name is NOT Oswald Priest it is Dallion Preece.

Thankyou —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mlissa910 (talk • contribs) 20:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

• - You are going to need some kind of WP:RS to support that , this google book result confirms the name currently in our article. Off2riorob (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Darren Levine

Darren Levine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Similar to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Krav_Maga_Worldwide, POV, Advertising, Censorship, Conflict of Interest. Contributor is subject of article; Contributor removes cited information conflicting with his/her point of view with no justification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.45.250 (talk) 23:14, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

There don't seem to be any ongoing edit wars at Darren Levine, and the article's contents seem to be pretty uncontroversial (there's some link rot to address with the inline cites, but none of it strikes me as hugely problematic) - I'm not seeing an ongoing BLP issue here. Can you tell us exactly what the problem is?

Otherwise, the sentence you quoted was the rationale in an Afd discussion that ended with "delete" two years ago - if you think this article too should be deleted then you'd need to go to WP:AFD. I haven't assessed the sources from the perspective of establishing notability so have no comment about the likely outcome there at this point.Gonzonoir (talk) 11:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Nataliya Berkut - I want to post my biografy on my Wikipedia page.

Resolved

 – articles already exists - Nataliya Berkut - feel free to improve and expand - Off2riorob (talk) 12:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Nataliya's Bio

Born 05.30.1975. Education: Chernihiv National Pedagogical University. TG Shevchenko: Gold Medal, Master Degree. Married. Husband - honored coach of Ukraine in Track and field. In business since 13 y.o. Professional carrier since 1998. My sports successes achieved: 5000m–14.59–national record;10 000m–31.08–national record;5km -15.13–national record;10km–31.14–national record;15km–48.49–national record;20km–1.05.42–national record;25km–1.24.09–national record;Half Marathon–1.10.24;Marathon-2.32.15;2004 Olympian 10,000m;2008 Olympian 10,000m;7th 1998 European Cup 5000m;2nd 1999 Euro Cup 5000m;1st 2001 Euro Cup 5000m;1st 2008 Euro Cup 5000m;1st Ukraine Championships 10,000m–1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008;1st Ukraine Championships 5,000m–1998,2000,2001,2004,2006,2007,2008;2001 Edmonton World Championships 10,000m;2nd 2003 Holland Half Marathon;1st 2003 Poland Half Marathon;13th 2003 New York Marathon;2003 Paris Word Championships10,000m;9th 2004 Puerto-Rico World’s Best 10k;3rd 2004 Holland Half Marathon;1st 2004 Tula (Russia) 5000m;3rd 2004 Russia Championship 10000m;3rd 2004 Nagano (Japan) Marathon;1st 2004 Dusseldorf (Germany) 5km;1st 2005 Poland Half Marathon;6th 2005 Philadelphia Half Marathon;1st 2005 BAA(Boston) Half Marathon;1st 2005 Greensboro,NC 5km;1st 2005 Baltimore Half Marathon;4th 2005 Okayama (Japan) Half Marathon;3rd 2006 Manchester (UK) Road Race 10km;5th 2006 Peachtree Road Race Atlanta, GA 10km;2nd 2006 Freihofer’s Run for Women 5km Albany,NY;9th 2006 Puerto-Rico World’s Best 10km;5th 2006 Circle of Friends (Mini Marathon)10km NY,NY;8th 2006 IAAF World Road Championship 20km Debrecen (Hungary);5th 2006 New Delhi (India) Half Marathon;1st 2006 Puerto-Rico 10km;5th 2006 Sanyo Half Marathon Okayama (Japan);2nd 2007 Backon to Beach 10km;4th 2007 Flamouth 10ml;4th 2007 Delhi Half Marathon;1st 2008 Jakarta (Indonesia) Road Race10km;1st '08 Peachtree Road Race10km;1st '09 Cyprus World Championship on police in command. Etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.0.107.179 (talk) 01:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

? Nataliya Berkut already exists! --Orange Mike | Talk 01:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Dani Johnson

Resolved

 – speedily deleted by Administrator:OrangeMike

Dani Johnson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article is pure self promotion. It was tagged for notability in December 2009 and has not been refimproved since. I have researched it and the only third party ref is SourceeCommerce.com, which actually advertises this article "for more information on Dani Johnson". Her one book, "Grooming The Next Generation For Success" is published by Destiny Image, whose stated mission is to;

...to accurately represent authors who have a call to share God's present word to His people and to make these authors easily accessible to the Christian body around the world in every form of media possible. Ultimately, we desire to help and encourage Christians everywhere to deepen their relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ by allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to their hearts and change their lives.

which would seem to suggest that Gore's publication, and this article, are more to promote the Faith than the article appears to suggest, a case of evangelising. lhis article is effectively being used to promote Gore's book.

This is a flagrant breach of wiki policy and I have tagged it for speedy deletion. Mark^Dask 10:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

• - Speedily deleted Wikipedia:CSD#A7 and salted as article has been repeatedly created. - Off2riorob (talk) 15:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Amen to that Rob - I knew it was suspect but was unaware it had been previously deleted when I proposed it. Mark^Dask 16:32, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I once asked how to check for that and it is a bit hit and miss and trial exploratory searches that I don't think its worth attempting to find previous deletions - It could well be easier for Admins as they can see deleted content. Basically if it is rubbish now it doesn't matter if it was low notability rubbish before, it needs improving or nominating. Thanks for you assistance. Off2riorob (talk) 18:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I used the name Gore, above, I meant Johnson. I dont care for wiki policy here, only that wikipedia aint used by evangelists. All I care about in this instance is that Dani Johnson aint allowed to use Wikipedia to sell her wares in the future on this site. orangemike appears to have achieved that - bye bye Dani Johnson - thank you orange guy. Mark^Dask 19:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

BLP violation in a page title?

Resolved

 – deleted

Could someone take a look at my tagging [redacted] of an article for speedy deletion per G10 - I believe the title alone is a BLP violation (the person involved has not been convicted of any such crime). Is there any way to oversight the existence of this title entirely? Gonzonoir (talk) 10:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Page has been deleted; going to put this question straight to the deleting admin. Gonzonoir (talk) 10:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

And now I've taken it to requests for oversight... Gonzonoir (talk) 11:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Dancing with myself - indeed sometimes it seems that way. Thanks for your work. Off2riorob (talk) 11:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem :) I'll update this section with the oversighters' response for the benefit of any interested parties. Gonzonoir (talk) 12:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's that update: an oversighter has now repressed the deletion action, which has reduced but not entirely removed the visibility of the pagename. The oversighters also found the question a bit of a curveball :) Gonzonoir (talk) 14:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Henci Goer

Henci Goer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have tried to improve this article but the more I researched it the more fragile it became. One "award" is from a body I cannot find any evidence of - let alone verify the award itself, while the second award, from Lamaze, is from Ms Goer's employers - ie - in their own commercial interest. The only 3rd party reference is one I provided - that being the ISBN for one of her books. To put it simply - the only online info I can find regarding Ms Goer is either stuff she wrote herself, or her bosses award to her for 10 years employment. Perhaps it should be deleted as not noteable. Please let me know what you decide. Mark^Dask 22:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I proposed speedy deletion of the Henci Goer page, and the tag was immediately removed. I had previously prodded it but, for the reasons given above, I thought it qualified for speedy deletion. I have now reverted to the prod tag - with reasons - in the hope of finding concensus among administrators over the next 7 days. I hope thats okay. Mark^Dask 11:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

A prod template is not supposed to be removed and replaced, if its prodd-ness is disputed, best is to move up to AFD.See detail here Wikipedia:Proposed deletion - Off2riorob (talk) 12:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that - simply a matter of inexperience on my part - the prod is not in fact yet disputed. I will let it run its course. Mark^Dask 14:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for clearing that up. Off2riorob (talk) 15:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Shayne Corson

Shayne Corson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

In the Personal LIfe section, 3rd paragraph it is falsely stated that I had an affair with teammate Alex Mogilny's wife. That was a rumor which began on an online blog and was widely talked about, but untrue.

Please remove this immediately.

In 2003 during the quarter-finals of the playoffs I left the Maple Leafs roster due to medical issues regarding panic and anxiety. I have never in my career sat in the Toronto press box. Alexander Mogilny had taken a personal leave of absence earlier in the season due to a completely independent issue, he did miss some games during the playoffs, but due to a physical injury. The reports that speculate that I was asked to leave the team in order to persuade Mogilny to return, who had left due to the circumstances at hand is untrue. If you require further information to verify this you may contact the Toronto Maple Leafs organization, Coach Pat Quinn, Dr. Brian Shaw of the NHLPA and/or Alex Mogilny. Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter. Shayne Corson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.198.87.119 (talk) 17:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The unsourced contentious material has been removed. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 17:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Francis Moriarty

Resolved

 – G5'ed it--no sources, no real substantial contributions by others. Jclemens (talk) 02:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you guys take a look at this? It's not terrible -- not a hoax, not factually incorrect. But I don't know if it deserves to be there. The subject is one among many longtime journalists in Hong Kong. There are many of similar or greater stature who don't have wiki pages. This isn't a criticism of his work, but he's not a celebrity, public figure, prominent TV personality, etc. We don't have pages on everyone who's worked long and well in a field. This page was written by a user banned as a "sock puppet" among other violations. So it makes me question the page. Pumpkin888 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pumpkin888 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 3 December 2010 (UTC) (----)

Bernard d'Abrera

Bernard d'Abrera (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An editor is insisting on citing material to (i) a notorious WP:FRINGE blog (evolutionnews.org, the blog of the Discovery Institute) & (ii) this legal complaint (for the truth of claims that the complaint alleges, but also for a number of claims that the complaint does not even make). The former would appear to be blatantly in violation of WP:BLPSPS. The latter of WP:RSN consensus (e.g. here) that complaints and indictments are only an RS for the fact that an allegation has been made, never for the truth of the allegations. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 18:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

• - *Bernard d'Abrera (AfD discussion) - as a side issue it is at AFD - Off2riorob (talk) 18:40, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

• - It seems also to me after looking at the discussions and links provided that this http://findforms.com/single_form.php/form/307140/Notice_Other_District_Court_of_Federal_Claims_District_federal is not a reliable source to support any content from. It is basically just a primary report of a court doc... and this is no better than an opinionated blog http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/11/pickpocketed_by_the_smithsonia040041.html - Off2riorob (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

As I noted on the talk page, a court submission by a plaintiff is effectively a self-published source. Except that as it forms part of the permanent record and is a part of legal proceedings, it is more reliable than say a note on someone's personal webpage. It is quite acceptable to use a self-published source for information about that person within normal parameters.

I note that the complainant (Hrafn) is being rather tendentious in making edits such as changing 'research' to 'visit', in the context of d'Abrera's life's work studying butterflies (the context of which should be understand that d'Abrera is a creationist which is causing some controversy). I do not see any reason to doubt Mr. d'Abrera's account of his life work, as it seems to be supported by his published body of work, and as such I do not see any problem with the 'findforms' cite supporting what should normally (absent editors seeking to cast doubt on Mr. d'Abrera's credibility) be considered uncontroversial biographical detail such as how many photographs he has taken or where he took them. Sumbuddi (talk) 19:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't use court submissions as self published sources, they often contain content about other living people and no notability is asserted. If you want to cite how many butterflies he has caught today and its notable then find it in an independent WP:RS that is reporting that and use that to support your desired addition. Off2riorob (talk) 19:10, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue is this. The OP states 'The latter of WP:RSN consensus (e.g. here) that complaints and indictments are only an RS for the fact that an allegation has been made, never for the truth of the allegations'

I have no argument with that. The point in this case is that the source is NOT used for any allegations at all, that's a blatant misrepresentation by the OP here, it is used for biographical detail provided by Mr. d'Abrera. Specifically:

• • • • the museums he has worked with/in
      • the fact that he spent 37 years photographing butterflies in the Natural History Museum
      • the number of images and species he has photographed
      • that he has described over 100 new species and subspecies and several new genera
      • and NO ALLEGATIONS ARE MADE ABOUT ANYBODY

If you can point me to the consensus that says we can't use the court documents provided by a person as a source for noncontroversial information about that person, well I'm all ears. But otherwise, there clearly is no logical difference between someone's website (which could quite possible contain offensive material about third parties) and someone's legal submission about themself. Sumbuddi (talk) 19:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

In addition, as I already noted on talk, the complainant is quite happy with creating hatchet biogs: [8] that are based on information published by the Discovery Institute, and likewise has in the past made similar objections to creating balanced biographies [9] as against WP:BLP-violating hatchet jobs. The Discovery Institute is the publisher of the source, I don't see that it qualifies as a blog. Sumbuddi (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

• - note - I haven't had much of a look at the diffs presented with allegations of hatchet jobs, if there are issues with another article best is to report it separately and the report can be more easily investigated. Off2riorob (talk) 20:01, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a blog to me, no obvious editorial control, don't see independent publishers quoting it, opinionated blog. The legal doc is out anyways, you can take the other Discovery site to the Wikipedia:RSN and ask them there if you can use it to support your content....

In 2010 he received a settlement from the Smithsonian Institute of $120,000 after they reused 1,352 of his butterfly images with seeking permission for a book on moths of Burma. Thomas Emmel of the Florida Museum of Natural History has said [5][unreliable source?] "He is a controversial biologist," "but one whose remarkable lifetime accomplishments publishing an illustrated catalogue of butterflies of the world must be admired for a unique contribution that will likely never be duplicated."

If this is notable you should be able to find it in a better source, it is a BLP article for which we are looking for high quality reliable citation to support such claims, if it is notable it will be in other source? The legal link you are trying to use includes the living subjects address and should not be added again. Off2riorob (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

This is not the correct forum for this discussion; I have started a thread on RSN regarding the court document. Sumbuddi (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Take it to any location you want , you won't get any different answer. Off2riorob (talk) 20:12, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Ed Miliband

• Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Ed Miliband

Concerns have been raised in the course of a request for formal mediation that attempts have been made by the party who filed that request to add misleading or false content to the Ed Miliband (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article. I have rejected the request for mediation, and am deferring this matter to this noticeboard in the hope that an uninvolved administrator will review the situation and ensure that no violation of our BLP policies have been made. The article is, clearly, a high-profile one (it concerns the leader of the opposition of the UK parliament), and so there is a pressing need for only verifiable facts to be added by our editors; my worry is that other content is being added.

AGK 23:55, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

• - Thanks for the notification, but without a specific unresolved dispute this issue seems to be stale now. Off2riorob (talk) 02:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll go take a look and see if there's anything we might be able to sink our teeth into.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I was under the impression that this resolved itself. He's does not self-identify as Jewish or atheist so neither word is used in infoboxes or categories to describe him and he doesn't find himself on any such lists either. Case closed.Griswaldo (talk) 03:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've now taken a look, and can confirm that this is yet another dispute about how to describe the religiosity or non-religiosity of the Milliband brothers. Now, in the Ed Milliband article, religion is described as "none" in the infobox, plus there are two categories: "British Jews" and "British people of Jewish descent". All of this may not be 100% precisely accurate, but it seems to be 99.9% adequately sourced, which is good enough for me. There's no need to split hairs about it. The only possible problem I see is that two categories about this may be redundant overkill. Ethnically speaking (which is the only type of Jewishness in question here), how would someone be a "British person of Jewish descent" but not a "British Jew"? I'll investigate that a little bit.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

As I suspected, "British Jews" is a subcategory of "British people of Jewish descent".[10] Accordingly, only the subcat should be at the bottom of the Ed Milliband article. I'll fix.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Erm, what is the difference? (I have a feeling this may need explanation by three Rabbis, a geneticist, a genealogist, and a passing Nobel laureate just to explain. Why couldn't God have chosen a people less prone to confuse the goyim?) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:58, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there has been considerable editorial support for leaving the religion field out of the infobox. I for one have flip-flopped on the issue. I want to throw my weight fully behind leaving the religion field out of the infobox. We are considering subject matter that isn't subject to summation in one word. Subject matter of that nature should be handled in the body of the article. Fields in an infobox are up to the task of reporting uncontested and straightforward attributes. The body of an article is much more attuned to finding the wording—probably including more than one quote from Miliband himself—that consensus feels presents an accurate picture of these aspects of the individual. Bus stop (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Faith (or the rejection thereof) isn't something that deserves to be reduced to a single word. (And BTW, I hope nobody takes my remarks above as anything other than a light-hearted attempt by this particular Goy to get his head around a complex subject. I wondered whether to delete it, but hope it is taken in the spirit intended) AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

All lighthearted comments are automatically construed as lighthearted at BLPN, regardless of practice elsewhere.  :-). I've removed the unnecessary parent category from the Milliband article. As for whether the infobox contains a religion entry, I don't care, whatever consensus says, either way it's no BLP violation, IMHO. See generally Who_is_a_Jew?.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

An extremely long discussion produced a compromise: use the category "British Jews" (as per the subject's repeated self-identification) together with Religion=none in the infobox, given his repeated declaration that he is Jewish but not religious (i.e., believing or observant). It would be unfortunate to have this issue take off again (and I'm glad to see the mediation request rejected). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree.Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomoskedasticity—I think they are different sorts of things—"Categories" and "Infoboxes". One has search functionality and is inconspicuous; the other doesn't have search functionality and is conspicuous. I think that the religion field in the infobox is sufficiently inapplicable to be left out. Bus stop (talk) 11:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as a novice - I can't see what place so private a matter as a man's religion has in so public a forum as wikipedia. Ed Milliband is - factual for public consumption as per his public role - but his religion - even his religious heritage - is irrelevant to what is of public use - or should be. There should be no reference to a person's religion in the infobox - but that's only a novice' opinion. I think Ed Milliband would agree with me.Mark^Dask 17:40, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the religion - none , helps to balance out the Ed Milliband is Jewish claims. Makes it clear so to speak that he is only Jewish from his genetics and was brought up in a secular household and didn't have any of the usual Jewish life attachments, or upbringing, like speaking Jewish or celebrating Jewish festivals or mixing in Jewish circles and such like. No association with Judaism at all. I don't support the compromise as I don't see that Milliband is representative of what people would expect of someone described as a British Jew, but that he is more honestly reported as a British person of Jewish descent. Off2riorob (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

"speaking Jewish"?? Whatever could you mean? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me - Hebrew language or Yiddish - for example - Off2riorob (talk) 19:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

None oe which should concern us about a living person. Mark^Dask 21:14, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Larger category problem

Upon digging deeper, it looks like there's a fairly clear categorization problem. Category:British Jews is a subcat of Category:British people of Jewish descent. However, Category:Jews is NOT a subcategory of Category:People of Jewish descent So, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:03, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this may have arisen because of continuing (sometimes heated) debate amongst the Jewish community itself (loosely defined) as to 'Who is a Jew?', and may indicate that any simple categorisation here is unavoidably drawing Wikipedia into taking sides in the debate. To an extent this will occur in any large ethnicity and/or faith, but it does seem to be exceptionally convoluted in this case. If there is a solution (not involving OR), I cannot foresee it. AndyTheGrump (talk)

My first impression about the whole thing is that the "Jew by descent" categories should be subcategories of the "Jew" categories, just like the "Jew by religious faith" categories should be subcats of the "Jew" categories. So, for example, in the Miliband article, only the "British people of Jewish descent" category would be used.

I have not commented (and am not now commenting) about whether these types of categories should be used at all.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Your comment about sub cats seems completely correct Anythingyouwant, there is no reason for someone to be in both these cats at all. Off2riorob (talk) 22:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Milliband should not be categorised in respect of his ethnicity/religion. He has said so himself and wikipedia should respect his wish in the matter. Milliband is politician - end of categories. Mark^Dask 22:28, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

If you have any evidence for your statements, then please produce it. This has been discussed to death on the article talk page, and you can find there a number of links to the things that he has actually said about himself (look in the archives), which formed the basis for the approach adopted on this article as noted above. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

• - I think if users look at British Jew and British person of Jewish descent they will agree - in the first the emphasis is on Jew and in the second the emphasis is on British, it is clear that Miliband's life is more reflected in the second than the first. Off2riorob (talk) 22:40, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to fix the cat problem.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, send in the dogs. - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 23:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

No, no. I'm just a brave mouse. All I've done is this, for now (i.e. put "people of Jewish descent" into the category "Jews"). Now I'll see what the reaction is before doing anything else.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

You may well regret that. Brave, yes. Wise, I'm not so sure. Be prepared for a long and confusing debate on whether you are (a) Jewish because your mother was (even if neither of you knew it), (b) Jewish if both parents were, and knew it, or (c) Jewish because you say you are. And they are just the easy cases... AndyTheGrump (talk)

I think most everyone agrees that people who are of Jewish descent are --- at least in some sense --- Jews. The more difficult question is what it means exactly to be of Jewish descent, which is a matter of self-identification.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:44, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

FYI, there's a discussion about this at WikiProject Judaism.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant, that's hardly the case. There are hundreds of millions of people "of Jewish descent" in the world, but only around 14 million Jews. Not everyone with a Jewish great-grandparent is a Jew; in fact, they're typically not. Jews are generally a sub-set of "people of Jewish descent", not the reverse. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:56, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess it depends what is meant by "Jewish descent". Anyway, British Jews are currently being categorized differently from Jews generally, and I hope that gets fixed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

"Of Jewish descent" means someone who has Jewish ancestors, of course. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Two out of fifty known ancestors?Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I have proposed that the religion field be removed from the BLP infobox at Village Pump/proposals following some of the views expressed above. I hope that helps. Mark^Dask 08:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought this had been resolved? BLPCAT is pretty clear; there is nothing asserting that his religion is particularly notable to his career or public life, so the categories and the infobox notations will have to go. There really is not other solution here. Someone should remove them ASAP :) --Errant ^(chat!) 14:41, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Removed ethnic category per WP:BLPCAT and WP:UNDUE. --John (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

John, as you know, BLPCAT doesn't apply to ethnicity, and UNDUE is irrelevant. In addition, Miliband has self-identified as Jewish. Please stop making already refuted assertions about policy, it's unhelpful. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Where does it say that exactly? --John (talk) 04:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Where does what say what exactly? Jayjg ^(talk) 04:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Unresolved

It has been reverted back in; I'm not going to enter into an edit war but more BLP experts with knowledge of BLPCAT would be useful to enforce policy and explain to the editors what BLPCAT means and how it may be satisfied. --Errant ^(chat!) 23:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

It has already been explained to you, but you haven't listened. Miliband has strongly self-identified as Jewish; denying him his self-identity is itself a BLP violation. If you want to actually enforce BLPCAT, go remove the category from the dozens of articles in Category:British Jews where the individuals don't actually meet the requirements. Or go get the category deleted. Either solution would be better than this. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I can't understand why this has become an issue. He's a Jew by any definition. He has said he's a Jew. The secondary sources say he is a Jew. He's a Jew. He's a British Jew, and a Jewish Brit, and a Brit of Jewish ancestry. He is all of these entirely unproblematic things. I personally don't care whether he's in the category, because I think these cats are a bit silly, but I can't see why anyone would go to the bother of removing him either. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Slim is right. He's a Jewish Jew. Just like me. I have brown hair too (what's left of it), but such a category might not be any more helpful than these Jew categories. BTW, I'm not a member of any organized religion, though I admire many of them. I'll stop there before I give myself away.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

"He's a Jew by any definition." Not if the definition is 'a follower of Judaism'. Which is where the problem occurs with categories. They make 'definitive' statements about things that are often themselves ambiguous and/or contested. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe Grump, but consider this. A person can be "hot" if that person is very attractive, and can also be "hot" if that person is exposed to high temperatures. To be "hot", one need not be both attractive and craving an air conditioner; either will suffice.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should add the category 'hot of not' to infoboxes? Would that be cool? ;-) Actually, I've just thought of an answer. When the playwright Jonathan Miller was asked whether he was a Jew, he replied "No, but I'm Jew-'ish'!". I think Miliband might fit in the same category. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Category:Jewish people.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• BLP says that in cases of doubt we do not include information. The amount of debate this has generated indicates there is reasonable doubt about including the category. We would need a strong consensus to include it. Meantime we may need some uninvolved admins to warn or block those edit-warring against BLP to include it. This is a high-profile article and it needs to err on the side of not including info that may be controversial. --John (talk) 04:32, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

For starters, I think User:Plot Spoiler could do with a rest from editing. Any takers? --John (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the person who has reverted 3 different editors in under 12 hours without a single Talk: page comment is rather more in need of a rest. And that person would be you, John. Plot Spoiler (talk) 05:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

• • When a person says "My Jewish identity was such a substantial part of my upbringing that it informs what I am", insisting he's not Jewish is itself a BLP violation. You cannot claim that any and every edit you make regarding a living person is justified under BLP; there must actually be a real controversy over this. And there is absolutely no controversy that Miliband is Jewish. He's stated it himself, and multiple reliable sources have stated it too. We may, in fact, need some uninvolved admins to warn or block those edit-warring against BLP to exclude the category. Artificial "controversies" generated by Wikipedia editors based on personal bias don't actually create "doubts" about this. Find some reliable sources who make make this claim, and then you'll have an actual argument. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Your eccentric views on BLP and BLPCAT are already known, thanks. Stating something does not make it so. I stand by my previous position. --John (talk) 04:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
      • You're free to stand by your position, of course, but I think you'll find that claiming someone's views are "eccentric" isn't nearly as effective as quoting sources and policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
        • The sources and policies have been amply quoted from. What we are now talking about its a difference of interpretation of our most important rule. Our system here is that while we are talking about it, it doesn't get to be in the article. --John (talk) 05:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
          • Not when the person trying to keep it out can't adequately explain how precisely it violates the policy. Yworo (talk) 05:04, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
            • Actually, the onus is on those who wish to add it to demonstrate consensus that it meets our policies, not the converse. On an issue like this we would need a very strong consensus, almost unanimity. We don't have that, therefore it needs to stay out. --John (talk) 05:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
              • John, perhaps I've just missed it, and if so, I apologize, but could you quote the reliable sources that dispute that Miliband is Jewish, and also quote the part of WP:BLPCAT that refers to ethnicity, or excludes people who have self-identified as belonging to a category? Thank you. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
                • Again, you seem confused as the onus is on you to demonstrate why Miliband's ethnicity is germane to his notability. I agree with this comment as well. --John (talk) 06:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
                  • Jayjg, I'm not sure you are actually understanding the issue. No one is disputing that Miliband is Jewish at this stage (or at least of Jewish descent). The issue is the relevance of putting him in a category --Errant ^(chat!) 09:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
                  • Actually, John, the onus is on you to demonstrate how WP:BLPCAT relates to ethnicity. What it actually says is Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question; and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources. Note, there's nothing about ethnicity there. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
• Back in the real world. This is a category, what BLPCAT is trying to get across is the idea that the categories should be relevant to his aspect of notability. Lets be clear here; no one is saying he is not of Jewish descent. There is nothing barring such information from the article, but it is not relevant that he is Jewish (citing that this is a cultural thing and not about belief is something of misdirection/lawyering I feel). British Jew is misleading because for the layman (which we assume all wiki readers are) this is a religious category; so BLPCAT applies. So far there has just been vague hand waving "he is Jewish, this may affect his policy..." or "He would be the first Jewish PM since X" - which is all nonsense of course because we are no crystal ball. Some examples of what might be needed? I'd say a) in depth coverage of him being Jewish and how that might affect his policy decisions (no vague hand waving) b) he becomes PM, which would generate plenty of usable RS material or b) he stands by a policy that a RS attributes directly to being Jewish. Lets To be 100% clear you must find a RS demonstrating that being of Jewish descent is significant to his public life and career. Please provide this. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
  • • Back in the real world, WP:BLPCAT says nothing whatsoever about ethnicity, so it's irrelevant here. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it may indeed by relevant with respect to Israel. There are quite a few articles dealing with his Jewishness in relation to his politics regarding Israel, relating the hopes and fears of other Jews with respect to his policies. He has also (last link), issued an official Chanukah message on the Labour Party website.

• Ed Miliband prefers to avoid Israel (HaAretz)
• Ed Miliband keeps controversial anti-Israel campaign worker (The Jewish Chronicle)
• Miliband’s positions on Israel concern UK Jews
• Ed Miliband's Chanukah message

It certainly appears that his Jewishness is a relevant aspect of his notability. Yworo (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

No. Three of those sources are Jewish or Israeli, and the other one is a Labour pitch for the Jewish vote. I'd suggest the sources only show that his Jewishness is notable about among Jews sources. I suspect if I were to look at Polish commentary, it would comment on his Polish background, and if I were to look at Scottish sources they'd comment on his three speeches about Scotland. Sources have their own interests (unsurprisingly), but the fact that a source focuses on its own interests reveals not a lot. Irish sources commented on Obama's distant Irish ancestor - so what? If you want to show his Jewishness as notable, you need to show a prolonged focus by sources that wouldn't otherwise have focused there.--Scott Mac 00:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The same discussion has been going on on the article talk page, and nothing from the mainstream media has been found which indicates that Miliband's notability has in any way been related to his Jewish background. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Scott is correct. --JN466 15:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Gábor J. Székely

• Gábor J. Székely (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This fellow doesn't seem noteworthy enough to me. More importantly he seems to have injected links to his pet theories over a variety of pages on statistics. And some other mysterious user has classified the theory as high-importance.

I see nothing unsourced and contentious. Unless I'm missing something, this more like a notability concern or content issue. Jclemens (talk) 00:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

leslie ann jones

Leslie Ann Jones (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Forgive me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that there are only four Grammy Awards for recording engineers: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Engineering Classical, and Engineering Non-Classical. While Ms. Jones has engineered artists' recordings that have won Grammys( which do not qualify an engineer for a Grammy) , it is not clear that she herself has ever received a Grammy. At the very least a citation of an actual Grammy award should be cited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dwright230 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I inserted the following footnote: <ref>Hamlin, Jesse. [http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-02-09/entertainment/17231726_1_recording-engineer-spike-jones-solo-violinist "Grammy winner's sound advice"], San Francisco Chronicle (2007-02-09): "On Sunday night, she may score her third Grammy...."</ref>Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The first ref in the article, the SFGate one, calls her a grammy-award winner and gives details about what she is alleged to have won. If you have an RS that contradicts that, we've got something actionable to go on. Until then, nothing to do, really. Jclemens (talk) 05:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh. Looks like I was looking at a different version than what the OP was looking at--Good find, Anythingyouwant. Jclemens (talk) 05:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Like I always say, "Anything you want." By the way, what's an "OP"?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Original Poster. Jclemens (talk) 06:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Maer Roshan

Maer Roshan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Maer_Roshan#Radar.2C_Radaronline Need assistance to edit his page. Seems to be completely laudatory and need assistance with edits please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emetemet13 (talk • contribs) 04:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what the BLP issue is here. I'm sure the language could use tightening, but what specific edits do you have problems with? --Mosmof (talk) 15:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

stephen dale petit

Stephen Dale Petit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I believe that the birthdate given for this fellow is erroneous....I knew some people that worked with him on the mid 1980's in London when he was most certainly in his twenties ... this period has been conveniently left out and glossed over as has his glam rock days in Los Angeles. I would suggest that a lot of the content is intended to flatter to deceive and it would be nice to see him/them tell the truth ... what's wrong in that??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.88.34 (talk) 06:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong in a truthful Wikipedia article, except that we have to follow reliable sources even if we think they're wrong. In other words, Wikipedia strives mainly for verifiability rather than truth. Take Petit's age, for example. The only reliable source I can find says he was born in 1969, so we have to use 1969 as his birth year even if we think it's wrong.

See "Track Of The Day: Stephen Dale Petit", Classic Rock (magazine) (2009-05-20): "40 year old bluesman Stephen Dale Petit is a guitarist, singer and songwriter".

As for the rest of the article, it sure could use some work, and you're welcome to help.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I've removed lots of puffery from the article today.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Aaron Benward

Resolved

 – Unsourced info removed

Aaron Benward (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Mr. Benward was not a National Merit Scholar or Finalist. There were only two National Merit Finalists from BGA in 1991, and he was not one, nor a Semi-Finalist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.32.107.150 (talk) 21:46, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

This unsourced information has now been removed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Joseph C. Wilson

• Joseph_C._Wilson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I would like some guidance on whether the extensive quoting of (often unsigned) editorials calling the subject names (nobody, liar, etc) is appropriate. On the one hand, I understand its potentially appropriately sourced (Washington Post, New Republic, etc). OTOH, once we start playing this game, there is no end (I am sure I can find a somewhat mainstream source calling the Pope, or Mick Jagger, or Abraham Lincoln an airhead). Second question: I have found what I regard as a WP consensus that WorldNetDaily is not an appropriate Wikipedia source, so would like to delete or shorten an extensive reference to a (since withdrawn anyway) report on the site. Jonathanwallace (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

WND is indeed not considered a reliable source and anything relying on it ought to be removed. As for the rest, I would suggest consulting WP:UNDUE as a guideline for editing in relation to negative material like that. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your rapid response. I will look at WP:UNDUE. If you will tolerate one more question, which I probably should have asked first: The article had a blank Talk page until I posted, and an archived Talk page a year old. Joe Wilson is the subject of a Hollywood movie currently playing, so its a bit hard to believe that the page has fallen into disuse--I feel like there may have been a Wikipedia decision to lock the page that isn't communicated anywhere. Any enlightenment would be much appreciated before I put a lot of time into this. Jonathanwallace (talk) 22:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Allegations are generally fair game for inclusion in a BLP, if they are notable according to reliable sources, and fairly representative of what is said about the subject (i.e. no undue weight). If a reliable source has reported about what WND has said then it might be okay for inclusion.

You're the first person to edit that article talk page in more than a year. So, you ought to look at the archived talk page before proceeding with your proposed overhaul.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. Jonathanwallace (talk) 23:14, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Florence School

Florence School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I'm not 100% sure that the section I removed is a BLP violation. See diff [11] But I noticed that an anon had removed it before and had been reverted. I think it deserves a review in any case.

The article is about a historical landmark school, but it is still running as a school. In 2007 a teacher was arrested and convicted (?) of drug possession in the school. Her name was used and there are about 5 apparently reliable links (one broken). There is something about reversing the conviction if re-hab is successful. To me it is against WP:BLP because it is not relevant to the landmark school, and reads like old news now; but if the teacher involved turns herself around the article could haunt her forever. I suppose that somebody whose kids go there might view it somewhat differently. I'll leave it to the experts here, and will answer the inevitable questions, but no arguments will be forthcoming from me. Smallbones (talk) 03:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

You were quite right to remove it. The article is only two short paragraphs, so the removed stuff was a case of WP:Undue weight. If the article were much longer, a brief sentence might have been okay (perhaps not naming the teacher), assuming the teacher was selling drugs to the students rather than using them herself.

The school has been around since 1850. Any school that old is bound to have some teachers who have had brushes with the law. If a person breaks a law, and also happens to be connected with a notable institution, that doesn't usually make that person notable, in my opinion. Maybe it's different in Omaha (where the school is located).

Incidentally, when I remove something like that, I usually leave a very brief sentence or only a footnote, just to innoculate the article, to appease inclusionists, to enable interested people to find out more, and to prevent charges of coverup. But here the article is so short that I think you did the right thing.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Kenny Anderson

I'm just wondering if I could get some eyes on the Kenny Anderson article, particularly the "Personal life" section, which is full of info on ex-wives and divorce settlements and minors. The material is sourced, sort of, although there seems to be lots of confusion over the details. (As an IP pointed out on my talk page, articles like this contradict some of the statements made in the article.)

I'm pretty sure I'm the only regular user who's even occasionally monitoring the page, and I don't have the mettle to take on the issues myself, so any help would be appreciated. Zagalejo^^^ 05:28, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been bold and removed the section for the time being, but here's the previous version of the article. Zagalejo^^^ 06:23, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Jason Alexander Personal Life

Jason Alexander (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The following statements listed under "Jason Alexander personal life" are NOT TRUE: He once acted in a dramatic play in Toronto called "Pearson Ole." The play also starred Wu-Tang affiliate F Jady and CGO Shah. Alexander co-wrote the play with filmmaker Nicholas Leone. He is also the uncle and godfather of the Irish born actor Stephen Mullan, who appeared in movies such as She's All That and Tigerland. Furthermore: Jonathan Penner is his cousin-in-law. Married to Daena Title's cousin Stacy Title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtitle (talk • contribs) 06:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed the unsourced info, and put it at the article talk page for discussion.Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Harold Pinter

Resolved

 – IP blocked as a sock of banned User:NYScholar, who was originally blocked over ownership issues with this article.

The version of this article that User:Jezhotwells keeps reverting to has many violations of WP:BLP, WP:V, and WP:AGF, and faulty understanding of WP:MOS pertaining to how to present long lists of sources with consistency, acceptable formatting of citations, and proper use of quotation marks and proper punctuation of quotations. The reversions damage the reliability of this article. Please view the editing history from December 25, 2008, when these problems began. In the version that I supplied on December 6 to 7, I have tried to correct the previous errors made by Jezhotwells and a small group of others with whom he has been trying to control the editing of this article and to keep others from changing it. The "pruning" that he speaks of resulted in massive damage to sources and many inaccurate statements, which (in his latest reversion) are not factually accurate and are not supported by the sources. Please see the recent "contributions" for this IP address, for more information. The goal is to make this article accurate and to provide accurate sources: core Wikipedia policy requires doing that. The most reliable sources for an article are print-published, third-party, peer reviewed work by experts on the subject. Online sources from newspapers contain errors that one's knowledge of print sources enables one to perceive; without such knowledge and with over-dependence on online news articles, one is not going to be able to provide accurate content and documentation to meet Wikipedia's own core editing policies and style guidelines. The claims of "vandalism" by Jezhotwells are false. The editing history will bear that out. The changes correct errors in both content and documentation. They are provided so that other editors can examine them and work on maintaining the accuracy of this article. Due to frequent requests in editorial interpolated comments by some editors for "page numbers" when online sources are being cited, the links are provided; they are not really necesssary, however, because the information is already provided in the "works cited and further reading list"; however, if one wants such redundancy, it is there. It is important to have the correct source information; if one finds "dead links", please use the Wayback Machine if necessary to update them, or newer URLS. Thank you. --66.66.47.134 (talk) 10:42, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: After Jezhotwells reverted my version of this article, I found a typographical error in a page number; in note 209 (Coppa), I accidentally typed a 2 in front of 45; it should read "Coppa 45." Cannot now correct my version reverted by Jezhotwells to make that change. Provide information for benefit of those editing the article in the future.--66.66.47.134 (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2010 (UTC)]

• The article's not a BLP, Harold Pinter died in 2008. Related discussion at WP:ANI#Repeated block evasion by NYScholar sockpuppet. January ^(talk) 12:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC) Appears from IP's contribs that BLP issues referred to relate to living persons mentioned in the article. January ^(talk) 13:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Jamie Sorrentini - neutrality dispute

Jamie Sorrentini (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I encountered this article in what I took to be a non-neutral puff/peacock version. I de-puffed, but most of my changes are being reverted by User:Cirt, to restore it to what I think is a version designed to heap plaudits on this actress. Rather then edit war, can I get some new eyes on this and some input on the talk page. Thanks.--Scott Mac 19:07, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Odd, I was previously unaware that Scott MacDonald (talk · contribs) took out time in order to try to make BLPs more negative and remove positive sourced material from them. -- Cirt (talk) 19:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Was also previously unaware whether or not it is the focus of this BLPN board to target BLPs in order to remove positive material from them and make them more negative by the process. -- Cirt (talk) 19:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The noticeboard is for disputes concerning "biographies of living persons". Is Jamie Sorrentini a living person? Yes. Are the two of you in a dispute concerning the entry? Yes. As to Scott Mac's concerns I agree with them fully. Given how difficult I've found dealing with these types of concerns in articles you have authored given the ownership issues I will not get in the middle of this situation. But I do want to express my support for the puffery concerns. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Are we really going to now take up both the article's talk page and this BLPN page to waste the time of the BLPN board to discuss removing positive material from a BLP? -- Cirt (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

No, we don't need to discuss it here. But unduly positive material does need removed. I depuffed this, but you obviously have ownership issues. Rather than edit-war, I can here to get some neutral people to come and help make this neutral. There's no need for a discussion here,as people are simply invited to come to the talkpage. I simply posted a note, you opened the discussion with some ad hominem remarks about me. I suspect that, in the end, that will prove counter-productive as they tend to show there's an issue here, which I hope will encourage people look further and resist your replacement of obvious puffery.--Scott Mac 19:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The article contains positive material about the subject, yes. But "unduly positive", as asserted by Scott MacDonald (talk · contribs)??? No. It is not "unduly positive". Just sourced and relevant and noteworthy of inclusion in the BLP article. -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. That's our dispute. We need to ask others to look, so we can change our deadlock into consensus. If you can convince a consensus, then I'll withdraw.--Scott Mac 20:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

<Undent> As a general observation, I agree with Cirt that removing negative material that is inaccurate or inappropriate often should be a higher priority than removing positive material that's inaccurate or inappropriate. All the same, WP:BLP invites people to report both here, and says: "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." So, removing positive material is often an important BLP matter. Anyway, I haven't looked at the article yet, but will.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

You know, this really looks like a NPOV dispute, rather than a BLP dispute. The big difference in my mind is the lack of harm to the subject (or anyone else for that matter) based on the puff piece. I think the right spot for the article is somewhat more moderate than what Scott Mac took out, but still... BLPN? Really? Can't we just agree that this is an NPOV dispute about a living person on material that really doesn't pose a risk of harm to the subject? Jclemens (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Putting aside the question of whether this matter belongs here, and focussing on the most disputed issue using common sense, I see that the play Parade apparently won a Tony award in 1999 and then subsequently she was a cast member. Is that right? If so, I personally would not mention the Tony in the lead, given that she contributed nothing to attainment of that award (having it in the body of the article is fine though).Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Charges against Julian Assange

Could some editors more familiar with BLPs comment at Talk:Julian_Assange#Too much detail in sex crime reports? Up until now, it has been uncertain what he was accused of but now there are sources explaining. I'm not sure whether they should be included or not. (Any advice/help with the article in general is more than welcome). Thanks SmartSE (talk) 20:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not WikiLeaks. We don't have to help leak all the titillating details. Just summarize and provide a link in the footnotes. See WP:Tabloid.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:46, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not WikiLeaks." NSS. I'm here to ask whether or not it is appropriate to include details in this article, that we probably wouldn't normally include in BLPs. I don't think WP:TABLOID is too relevant, since the sources are based on legal accusations. SmartSE (talk) 23:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding weight, and the accusations being extremely accusatory, unsupported by anyone, I would support keeping any accusations to an absolute minimum. Off2riorob (talk) 23:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

It currently violates WP:UNDUE WEIGHT. The negative material dominates and is the single largest sect of the entire article's present contents. It needs to be significantly trimmed down. -- Cirt (talk) 23:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bit of a vomit pit. All cited of course, wiki seems to struggle to balance such issues in times of viral interest to its articles. I could write that massive section and include the actual specifics worth reporting in a single paragraph, involved and opinionated users seem to just add anything and they never stop to consider that through their additions creating a bloated section actually makes it less readable. Anyone fancy doing some work and getting reverted, dive in. Off2riorob (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Please, do so. -- Cirt (talk) 23:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

<Undent>I don't mind being compared to Sherlock Holmes, thanks.  :-) Assange is in jail in Britain, and his British lawyer says "the substance of the allegations [was] revealed to the press through unauthorized disclosures...." So there was leaking, and publishing all the leaked details would be more like something WikiLinks would do than we would do. Anyway, the section on this in the article is now very bloated, contrary to WP:Recentism if not WP:Tabloid.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

While I'm sure it can be trimmed, our policy on undue weight states that the article should be weighted relative to the amount of coverage. No one can deny that these charges make up the majority of secondary source coverage of Assange at this point. They should have a prominent role in his article, and to trim them too much gives undue weight to the rest of the article. Gigs (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've just had to remove the (dubiously sourced) alleged victim's names from the article (as inserted for the second time here), as a breach of WP:BLP. can people keep an eye on this? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That has continued, with better sources, but it still doesn't seem right to include it. It's currently been removed but I've a feeling it will continue. SmartSE (talk) 13:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Article seriously violates WP:BLP

The Julian Assange article and its talk page are serious violations of WP:BLP in my humble opinion. From everything I've read the charges against him are regarding condom use and that everything else was consensual according to the victim's lawyer. The article mentions the "R" word repeatedly and the talk page comments go even farther (which I won't repeat here).

I don't feel qualified to walk the fine line of WP:BLP on this article in order to fix it, but I do think somebody — preferably a BLP expert — should look in to this. -      Hydroxonium (talk) 09:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, this has been a failure of WP:RECENTISM from the start. The problem is that the article has troops of POV warriors adding as much positive and negative material as they can find. Any reasonable editing or attempts to reduce the section to something of more due weight and clarity is immediately pounced on by one side or other (often with various bits of abuse hurled as well). I quit editing the article because there is simply no way to stamp on the article properly till it dies down. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I would feel much more comfortable if the article was changed from semi-protected to fully protected and only edited by admins for the next month, specifically because it is a serious WP:BLP issue in my opinion. -      Hydroxonium (talk) 10:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You what?! Sorry, I totally agree that there it isn't fully BLP compliant, but suggesting it can only be edited by admins is a big mistake in my opinion. More eyes on the case should hopefully improve matters, but stopping most people editing it wouldn't help. Regarding RECENTISM, this is kind of inevitable, given the massive spike in interest in him. As far as I'm aware, all the details from older sources are already included. Errant, please have another go at editing the section, I'm sure that a better balance can be achieved, I for one would support attempts to do so. SmartSE (talk) 11:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed; semi protection seems fine for now. There is still a lot of content to go in. Smartse; if we could get a group of neutral BLP editors together to rework and propose the section on the talk page I would be willing to help, but the accusations being thrown by the more extreme editors were getting annoying, so I went back to my usual stalking grounds --Errant ^(chat!) 11:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

As a classic example; I see the article still has the long, extremely partisan and dubiously sourced quote from Greenwald that mostly just attacks the motivations of a New York Times' article about Assange (without addressing any of the actual article content). But, you know, that's crucial information... --Errant ^(chat!) 11:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That's been taken care of now. I'm not sure who you had problems with before, but the main contributor to the article before has recently gone on a wikibreak, if that makes any difference. SmartSE (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The fact that this relates to consensual sex, according to both Assange and the women involved, with friendly relations both before and after sex, and that the only thing that brings it within the purview of Swedish rape law is the question of condom use does need to be made absolutely clear. --JN466 16:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Consider that the Swedish authorities may base the charges on the consent ending when the condom is removed, or breaks, or is not used, and the intercourse then continues over the female's objections. "Consent" is not an irrevocable license for the male to do whatever he p[leases over the other person's objections, and "Stop" means stop just as "No" means no, in many countries, not just Sweden. Edison (talk) 18:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

RESOLVED - My issue with the article is resolved as it has been rewritten from a more nuetral point of view. Thanks very much for fixing the issues. I appreciate everybody's efforts. -      Hydroxonium (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, thanks for everyone's help. SmartSE (talk) 12:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Phil Dokes

Phil Dokes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Phil Dokes died on December 7, 1989 in Jacksonville, Arkansas of heart failure at the age of 34. Source is the book Relentless, The Hard-Hitting History of Buffalo Bills Football by Sal Maiorana, page 393. Sal Maiorana writes for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.246.21.90 (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The article is fixed now.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Nikki Yanofsky

We have a reliable source, The Jewish Tribune (Canada), supporting that Nikki Yanofsky is Jewish. We have an editor, Yworo, removing that material for reasons he provides here: Talk:Nikki Yanofsky#Religious Views. I don't think the reasons Yworo provides hold up under scrutiny. The Jewish Tribune (Canada) provides us with the following wording:

The title of the article is: "Jewish artist records Vancouver Olympic theme song".

That article opens with the following wording: "MONTREAL – Jewish jazz sensation Nikki Yanofsky’s career continues to blossom."

The above reliable source supports quite plainly that Yanofsky is Jewish. I don't know why Yworo is raising any objections. All that I have placed into our article is the following:

"Yanofsky is Jewishand was born and raised in Hampstead, a Montreal suburb and she now attends St. George's School of Montreal."

The above has been reverted by Yworo and it is hard to fathom what objection Yworo takes to this. I don't think it is the prerogative of an editor to block the inclusion of adequately sourced material. The statement that "Yanofsky is Jewish..." is wholly supported by the source provided, and the source is a reliable source—the source is not deficient in any way. Nor has any other source been brought to light that might cast doubt on the information that we get from the Jewish Tribune (Canada). It seems straightforward to me that the material added is in compliance with all of our policies. Bus stop (talk) 23:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you reading the same article? I did not revert it a second time, it's still in the article. I simply moved and clarified it. Yworo (talk) 01:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Unless there are objections I don't know about to the source, it seems Bus stop is right and we should trust that the source has its facts straight. It seems legit The Jewish Tribune (Canada). BE——Critical_{__Talk} 03:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Jewish sources are well-known for including people as Jewish due to ancestry who don't self-identify as Jewish. As an example, The Jewish Daily Forward identifies Andre Geim as Jewish, even though he says he does not self-identify and no other sources except those using the Daily Forward as a source call him Jewish. A Jewish source may be biased, and if the statement must be in the article without a self-identifying source, we should certainly alert the reader to the potential bias. Yworo (talk) 04:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yworo—you say that Andre Geim "does not self-identify," but nor does he deny being Jewish.

Yes, the Jewish Daily Forward says that Geim is Jewish:

"As of press time, Russian Jew Andre Geim shared this year’s Nobel Prize in physics with Konstantin Novoselov."

Scientific Computing World says of Geim:

"As he was Jewish he was regarded by many as someone who would simply leave the country after he received his education."

And Springer Science+Business Media publishes a PDF which says, "Geim came from a family of Jewish- German origin and as being Jewish was considered to be a nationality his identity documents carried this designation causing barriers in his receiving higher education."

This is not a discussion on Geim but I wish to point out that there are more sources besides the Jewish Daily Forward that allude to Geim as being Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 18:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The weakness of these sources and arguments has been extensively discussed elsewhere. Geim has made statements which implicitly indicate that he does not consider himself Jewish, despite having a great-grandmother who was and a Jewish-sounding name. Yworo (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

He has not "made statements which implicitly indicate that he does not consider himself Jewish." This is what you are referring to:

"My mother's grandmother was Jewish. I suffered from anti-Semitism in Russia because my name sounds Jewish."

How does the above "implicitly indicate that he does not consider himself Jewish"? Bus stop (talk) 22:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well in that case, and I do think you're right, it should be take out till a more specific discussion is found in an RS. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 07:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Joanna Rees - not adhere to notable Living Person

Encourage editors to grade and evaluate the Wikipedia Living Person page of Joanna Rees. Does not appear to adhere to notability guidelines. Investigation of User:Sanfran1276/Joanna Rees points directly to Joanna Rees page, which also falls under conflict of interest guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluestarfish88 (talk • contribs) 00:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

What exact problems do you have with this article? I don't see any glaring problems with it. Dayewalker (talk) 00:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Please help clarify if "notability" is indicated by secondary sources other than Joanna Rees' biographic profiles on her own pages including political web site, her own venture capital firm, and company bio (which Joanna Rees is on the Board of Directors of). Second, please help investigate the user page of Sanfran1276/Joanna Rees as being the same exact content as the Joanna Rees Wikipedia page which, if it does, qualify as conflict of interest. Bluestarfish88 (talk) 01:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, she's notable enough for Wikipedia, for instance this article. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 03:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Rabbi Pinto

Rabbi Pinto is a controversial leader who some think is very holy, and others dont, as any article about him cites. As the most basic example, while his current wiki page says he's this huge leader: The Forward article says Pinto, an Israeli-born rabbi of Moroccan descent, is little known in the United States. (http://www.forward.com/articles/128944/#ixzz17UWltlMZ) The Haaretz article says: “Pinto is not well known in Israel.” (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-rabbi-not-afraid-to-deviate-1.265442)

Those are their sources. Moreover, he owns a $28.5 Million building which is a historical building, and if the position is thats the organizations and not his, then why discuss the so called charity he did ? Pinto only became famous after a business dispute resulted in a mysterious death. All of the sources mention it - Why not the page.

There is no balance here @all. The page is biased and whitewashed. Should these not be added ?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Babasalichai (talk • contribs)

 Redundant - This has been reported to the religious conflicts noticeboard, the neutral point of view noticeboard, several other editors, and is being discussed on the talk page. Netalarm^talk 05:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ephraim Shapiro

This person is no longer living. His article however has a section on his son which is very negative although the person does not really seem to be notable. I'm not sure what WP BLP policies would say about this but it looks bad to me. Steve Dufour (talk) 05:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

removed. His son is simply not notable. The question is - is the subject notable?--Scott Mac 10:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a look at that. As I said it's not a concern for BLP. Steve Dufour (talk) 12:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It was nominated for deletion last year. I think it's kind of a borderline case. I might try nominating it again with a little different argument. Steve Dufour (talk) 13:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Now nominated: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ephraim Shapiro (2nd nomination). Not a living person but still a bad article. Steve Dufour (talk) 02:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thomas Esposito

This is a problematic article, and I have conferred with several administrators about it, and they seem to think that Mr. Esposito is notable enough for an article. I disagree because of sourcing problems and the fact that this article pops up as the first result on yahoo.com and really puts undue attention on a man who is now a private citizen. Check my talk page and the conversations with administrators I have had for the sourcing issues. The main source for the article would be either the Charleston Gazette or the Logan Banner, not the New York Times or the Washington Post. PACER probably has all the info one would need, but it's a password protected government database that is eyes-only and charges money to use. No direct link to it can be made, AFAIK. I have a PACER account, but I'm not about to go on there and get a bill from the Govt.

I propose the following if this information is essential and its availability is more important than a man's reputation in a small town: Change the article to something like 2004 Logan County Election Scandal and make Esposito the bit player that he was. Danny Wells and Sheriff Mendez were brought down by the sting, in addition to other people I dare not name. I mean, my parents have to live in that town, and to be perfectly frank, people have been shot or jailed for less there. I wash my hands of this, and I will not attempt to provide sources because I obviously don't think the article should exist and I am legitimately afraid of dealing with this any more. Please contact me by email only on this matter. I'm already using an anonymous proxy for my own physical protection, but I fear the repercussions of what I've already done. You don't know what these people can do. PBF1974 (talk) 15:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Well that's a pretty dramatic statement, not that I doubt your sincerity one bit. A four-term mayor of Logan, West Virginia certainly deserves a Wikipedia article. What goes in the article is another question. We mainly prefer secondary sources, not the primary sources that you can get from PACER.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that the best way to address your concerns would be to expand the Esposito article to describe his positive accomplishments as mayor. That will make the stuff about paying off the $6500 bar tab much less prominent and noticeable. Right now, that material may be WP:Undue weight.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The editor KillerChihuahua has now taken appropriate action at the article. I was in process, but had an edit conflict with her. Anyway, I've got it watchlisted.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments:

1. See the comments on the article talk page re: references.
2. I question whether a public official convicted of corruption can be considered a private citizen.
3. Logan, West Virginia is so small (<2000 people) that it's unclear Mr. Esposito would be notable otherwise, but I may be wrong.
4. The real notability comes from the FBI's unusual use of Mr. Esposito as a "sting candidate". That's why the national media picked the story up.
5. There may be merit to PBF1974's suggestion we switch to an article about the investigation, rather than Mr. Esposito.
6. I think we definitely need a verifiable, neutral article on this topic.
7. Logan County, West Virginia is a famously tough place; I don't think PBF1974's personal concerns are unfounded.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• • I wrote the following article: 2004 Logan County, W.Va. Political Scandal and redirected Thomas Esposito to that article, since his article had only one sentence. I'm not trying to hide info on Mr. Esposito, it's just that there isn't enough info on him that's positive, and what made him famous is the scandal. I put a link to the article on the Logan County page. Now I pray that I don't get a visit from the police or get shot. I'm trying to be brave about this. You may be wondering how I could be identified. The black fact is that I'm the only person in this area able and willing to intelligently write on this area. PBF1974 (talk) 19:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like this particular matter is taken care of now (I haven't read through the whole article but at least it's no longer similar to an attack article on one person).Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Bernhard Frank

A former SS officer who wrote a book on his experiences. He has recently been the target of a series of interviews in which he is said to have implicated himself in the massacre of Jews, along with spectacular claims that he might have committed the opening act of The Holocaust. I've removed the entire "Gould's Investigation" section, which was unreferenced and which contained extensive unattributed quotes. While references may no doubt be available, such claims must be properly referenced from the beginning and placed into context, particularly since the biographer, Mark Gould, has filed a lawsuit against Frank. In coverage by the New York Times and The Telegraph, the emphasis is less on Frank and more on Gould, as evidenced by the titles Nazi Is Exposed, but Did He Have Anything to Hide? [12] and Another day, another tall 'Last Nazi' story [13], which calls the claim "pure junk." Acroterion _(talk) 16:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

If your removals are contested, please let us know. You might want to remove some stuff to the article talk page instead of completely deleting it. Is there anything else we can do for you?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Greg_Davis_(American_football)

There is a statement regarding the person seeing visions and that their children had a disease, which is not true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greg_Davis_%28American_football%29&action=historysubmit&diff=401178751&oldid=401119443 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.179.208.36 (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Reverted and warned. Is it just me or does it seem like we are getting more people who register an account, make one test, unsourced and/or vandalizing edit and then never use that account again? MarnetteD | Talk 18:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

GEROVA

Robert V. Willison

There are users who are constantly posting false and defamatory information to this page. As soon as it is removed, it is re-posted. This may be an attempt to manipulate the stock price of a company called GEROVA Financial Group, Ltd., which is referenced in the postings. The information is not accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eliptis (talk • contribs) 18:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

On the three pages involved here, the user Eliptis and the other involved user have been reverting each other back and forth for a couple of hours. Both are well over WP:3RR. Instead of blocking I have given both 3RR warnings and protected all three pages for 6 hours to try to get some dialog going somewhere instead of all the reverting. I'm not going to be able to monitor the situation as closely as it may need monitoring over the next few hours, so any other admin is welcome to take different actions in this without consulting with me first.

As to the specifics of this BLP notice and the one right below, it is likely that some additional eyes will be useful. As a first step, if Eliptis could please lay out *exactly* what he is considering to be false in the three effected articles, instead of just blanket reverting, maybe we would have a starting point for a discussion towards a useful solution. - TexasAndroid (talk) 19:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I would point out that an eye needs to be kept on Gerova as well, just in case info about these people shows up there as well. The Eskimo (talk) 19:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This one, at least, is now A7 deleted. The other BLP page (listed below) and the company at the center of this dispute, are both still around. The page protection on the two pages will expire in a couple of hours. - TexasAndroid (talk) 23:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Jason Galanis

Users appear to be involved in a campaign of defamation against GEROVA Financial Group using Wikipedia. This is one of the pages on which they are posting false and defamatory information. As soon as the defamatory information is removed it is re-posted within a few minutes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eliptis (talk • contribs) 19:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

See also a related thread at WP:ANI. --Jayron32 19:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking at this, and discussing the content on Talk:GEROVA Financial Group. The information on Gerova is indeed defamatory, but most of it appears to be true. There are solid cites to Forbes and other reliable sources. The articles about the individuals need more scrutiny. Robert V. Willison probably doesn't meet the threshold for notability, but the Galanis family (father and son) have been covered extensively in the press. The father did Federal prison time between 1973 and 1998, so there's valid information available from reliable sources. We need some other editors on this. There's information to be dug up and properly cited. On the the other side, the blind page blanking has to stop. --John Nagle (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Jack Mcclellan

New article; severe concerns about negative info without true reliable sources, etc. Youtube and a wiki as refs.  Chzz  ►  22:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes it's bad, but he is notable. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I made a few edits and took out some POV language and bad sources. It should be able to go from there. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've nominated this one for Speedy under G10. The original article was, honestly, irredeemable. If he's notable, better to write an article from scratch. Ray^Talk 01:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena

Antonio Arnaiz-Villena (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Akerbeltz is continuously deleting a clear reference showing that Arnaiz-Villena results on Macedonians have been repeated by independent laboratories. A part of the biography (Litigations) is outdated,but the people who knows about this have been blocked (Arnaiz1,Virginal6)permanently .Akerbeltz,Dumu Eduba,Kwamikagami and Trigaranus have managed to conjointly and without any objective reason to do it. In addition,Akerbeltz is threatening to Symbio04 to be blocked unless he permits removing a factual scientific magazine reference, which Akerbeltz dislikes:he is reverting it and threatening Symbio04Symbio04 (talk) 23:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I put a note at the article talk page alerting the other editors about this BLPN discussion, and asking them not to delete reliable references without explaining a good reason. Symbio04, if anyone is "threatening" you, please provide a diff (i.e. a link showing exactly where that's happening).Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Arnaiz1 and Virginal6 were blocked as sockpuppets. Symbio04 is taken by regular editors of the page to be one and the same. This is not a BLP issue. It's an issue about whether one scientific study supports the findings of another scientific study. I actually don't follow the objections to the inclusion of this citation made on the talk page, but the best solution would be to get input from a relevant wikiproject, since regular editors only have access to the article abstract not the full text. Paul B (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Paul Barlow, this specific issue has nothing to do with BLP and shouldn't be debated here. But to answer your questions Anythingyouwant, the objection is that in the abstract of an article a reference is made to "other research that proven point X". That's not a good ref for the specific fact Symbio is trying to add so if he has access to that article, he should refer to that "other research" which supports his claim. It would also help if he ran a spelling and grammar check over his edits, I admit to getting curt with him as I'm so tired of mopping up after this persons unnecessarily careless edits. It's discourteous to say the least to rely on other editors to regularly do your spellchecking. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There are ways to deal with suspected sockpuppets, and that includes more than just assuming they're guilty and deleting their edits automatically. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet#Handling_suspected_sock_puppets.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding a reliable article abstract referring to other research, I think the burden is on you guys to refute it if you want to. Just because you'd have to pay money or go to a library is no reason to exclude a reliable source. Free online sources are preferable, but not necessary.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't follow what you are saying here. The debate is about the way the source is being interpreted: whether it can be stated that it supports the research of A A-V and his colleagues. Its reliability as a legitimate source is not in doubt. Having the whole article and input from expert editors would help to clarify the question. Paul B (talk) 19:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Mayhap you should look at the edit? Symbio added the following: The same results than Arnaiz-Villena (showing that Greeks are related to Sub-Saharans)have been obtained in a work published on Berber and other Mediterraneans genetics (2010) [14]. I never dismiss anything out of hand but as a ref for the "fact" he's adding, that is not a good enough source especially since the topic is controversial. THAT is what I objected to. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC) To clarify, I'm not doubting the validity of the publication. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll wait and see if Symbio responds here, but my first impression is that you ought to keep the reference but modify the interpretation. This article is a BLP, and the reference seems pertinent to whether the subject is right or wrong about something, so it may be a legitimate BLP issue.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you actually looked in the ref? The only thing that relates to Symbio's point is this The relatedness of Greeks to Sub-Saharans has been confirmed by other studies based on chromosome 7 genetic markers. No further source is stated. Given the controversy of that section and most things AAV has done and will do, it's not good enough. It's also repetitive I suspect, the opening of that section cites Hajjej et al, making the same point. So what's actually new about this edit? Akerbeltz (talk) 20:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Why do you need a further source for that statement? You say that the reliability of the source as legitimate is not in doubt. Moreover, if you get the full text, it will provide details. My advice is, put the controversial sentence in quotes in a footnote, and you can also say in the article that the quote is ambiguous if you really think it is.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Because as it stands, we can't even be sure if this is not quoting the same source twice? Akerbeltz (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you're suggesting that the "other studies" mentioned by Hajjej may be research by Arnaiz, that's possible. But the Hajjej abstract that Symbio wants to cite does not only rely on other studies: "This study indicates a higher proportion of Iberian than Arab ancestry in Tunisian Berbers, which is of value in evaluating the evolutionary history of present-day Tunisians. Greeks seem to share genetic HLA features (Chr 6) with Sub-Saharans". That idea is already contained in this BLP ("The Arnaiz-Villena study was confirmed with the same HLA (Chromosome 6) markers by Hajjej et al."), but maybe it wouldn't hurt to add an extra footnote to that sentence. Anyway, Symbio should clarify what the article says after the abstract, and whether it refers back to the research of Arnaiz who is the subject of this BLP.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

What happened to waiting? Great, we know have a sentence that reads ...was confirmed with the same HLA (Chromosome 6) markers by Hajjej et al ... See also Hajjej et al. That REALLY improved things. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

What the heck is wrong with having two footnotes to Hajjej instead of one? I merely added one.[15]Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Article A makes assertion A1. Fine. Article B mentions that article A makes assertion A1. Also fine. If you report assertion A1 and use Article A and Article B as a reference, you're cheating because they're based on the same piece of research. That's what's wrong. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

<Undent> I believe you are misreading the source. It says (emphasis added):

This study indicates a higher proportion of Iberian than Arab ancestry in Tunisian Berbers, which is of value in evaluating the evolutionary history of present-day Tunisians. Greeks seem to share genetic HLA features (Chr 6) with Sub-Saharans. The relatedness of Greeks to Sub-Saharans has been confirmed by other studies based on chromosome 7 genetic markers.

The last sentence pertains to confirmation of what is in this study.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry?? it says

The relatedness of Greeks to Sub-Saharans has been confirmed by other studies based on chromosome 7 genetic markers.

This is all in the Greek and Macedonians section, remember? Akerbeltz (talk) 22:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To "confirm" something in another article means to verify what is in this article. I am very puzzled by your stance here. All I did was add a footnote without changing the text of the article at all. Are you really asserting that the footnote I added (including a quote) is not relevant to the sentence it is appended to? We're merely trying to point readers to relevant resources here.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No it doesn't. What that quote above says is "we've done a study and showed that Tunisian Berbers are closer to Iberians than Arabs. Looks like (seem to) Greeks share features with Sub-Saharans. Other people have already proven that Greeks are linked to Sub-Saharans, so we're going to accept that as true". That's how I read it and I really don't see how you can read that as "We're not only showing that Tunisian Berbers are Iberians but also that Greeks are Sub-Saharans". Akerbeltz (talk) 22:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Nope, the numbers indicate that you're mistaken. The other studies involve chromosome 7. This study involves chromosome 6. In any event, what's the harm in enabling readers to take a peek at the abstract for themselves?Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Most people don't read that far. Anyway, you're still wrong. The PubMed article says that Greeks and Macedonians seem to share markers on Chr 6. The confirmation is based on Chr 7. You cannot therefore use stuff based on Chr 6 to ref a sentence that states that as a fact. 23:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, even if a reader doesn't click on the link to the abstract, they can see that the author is again Hajjej. The abstract's discussion of chromosome 6 buttresses the subject of this BLP, that discussion is not apparent in any other footnote, so for the sake of world peace I hope you will allow the new footnote to remain.  :-). Now I must bid you all adieu, to go play tennis. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Glenn Greenwald http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi

Number five in Google search engine's list of articles on this individual. The Wikipedia article on Greenwald itself does not list these last two claims. Appears to have been hacked

"Glenn Greenwald (born 6 March 1967) is a US lawyer, columnist, blogger, author, Marxist, and Anti-Semite.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.98.151 (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

From looking at the article history, this was rapidly-removed vandalism from some days ago. Scroogle seems to have picked up the vandalism, and not updated it's mirror copy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Michael Glaser (poet)

I'm new to Wikipedia so I do not know how to properly use this page. There is a grievance I'd like to report on the Michael Glaser (poet) page, where under the "Recent Controversies" heading, the article purports to have "documented evidence" of slander, then links to a highly partisan (i.e., misleading) website as "proof."

I'm not saying whether the information presented is right or wrong, but it is worded very accusingly. Such a loaded statement should at least be presented objectively and come from a more repudiable source. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.192.58.170 (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the wording isn't borne out by the source. I've deleted it for now, though it may get reinserted with more neutral wording if other sources confirm the story. Thank's for your help. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I've found another source which seems a little more objective here, but it seems a fairly minor issue to me. A bit of political name-calling that nobody will be able to independently verify anyway. Not really biography material. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Tapulous

Tapulous (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Anon appears to keep trying to paint a false controversy about some comments the head of this organization made. The only thing factual is that the person made the comments, the implication of adding it to an encyclopedia article is that the comments made were historically significant and a controversy was arisen. The author refuses to provide any other source that a controversy exists, but continues to add this material as a main section in the article about the organization. Brian Reading (talk) 02:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

What I can't figure out is what real relevance it has to the article. I'm guessing this guy wasn't hired. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 05:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Stefano Muscovi

Stefano Muscovi (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Early life

Stefano Muscovi was born in Trieste, Italy.

The article currently says he was born in Trieste. However, the article has no references, and was therefore put up for deletion on December 6. So, let's wait and see the result of AfD.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Mordechai_Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The section on "Negev Nuclear Research Center" has biographical information that violates the biographies of living persons policy An example is:

It is believed that at Dimona, Vanunu became increasingly troubled about the Israeli nuclear weapons programme on which he worked and possible Israeli nuclear strategies in the event of war. When he was laid off from Dimona in 1985, Vanunu left Israel. He arrived in Nepal and considered a conversion to Buddhism, later travelling to Burma and Thailand. In 1986, he travelled to Sydney, Australia. While there, Vanunu lived in a hostel in Kings Cross and worked in odd jobs, first as a hotel dishwasher and later as a taxi driver.

1. The statement "It is belived that..." speaks for itself.

2. The blurb about "and considered a conversion to Buddhism" is not cited. It also and casts doubt on the gentlemen's religious convictions. Being a convert from Judaism to Christianity who is so controversial, this paints him as being fickle with his religious beleifs. I admit this is speculation on my part, but, this is a proper forum for speculation and review.

The information quoted above assuredly should NOT be included in a Wikipedia article in its current form without proper citation.Wikihelper242 (talk) 08:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You've appropriately removed the stuff to the article talk page. Let us know if there are any further problems.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Guy Dollé

Previously unsourced BLP which came up when I pressed the big red button. Since the content's on the negative side, I'd appreciate a second opinion on whether the sources I came up with are solid enough. January ^(talk) 12:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Not a lot to the article, really. AfD? (and don't look at the talk page if you have a weak stomach). AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

That stuff on the talk page was in the article for two weeks in 2007. It even got copyedited!

I think he's probably notable although I don't like the article being that short as there's virtually nothing there other than the controversy. There's a better-developed article on the French Wikipedia, although unfortunately unsourced so I can't use anything from it. January ^(talk) 21:18, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Udhay Nadar

Udhay Nadar hails from Sethu Nagar village in the former Ramanathapuram District of TamilNadu, India and was born in the Nadar community to Ganesan Nadar and his wife in 1982. Udhay Nadar,is an Indian entrepreneur, Business magnetic, educationalist, bridge player, one of India’s leading business man and the Chairman and Chief Officer of Pooma Technologies. Udhay Nadar founded Icon Tech Machinery in the mid-2005s and transformed the IT Outsourcing company into an IT Enterprise over the next three decades by constantly reinventing his company’s focus. He is the Chairman and Managing Director of Udhay Groups of companies, which is the most profitable all kind of machinery, importer to India. he acquired pooma technologies which is the most profitable Outsourcing in India. While his Machinery, electronics peripherals and Gupvy Constructions are primarliy concentrated in India, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Udhaynadar (talk • contribs) 12:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

As there isn't currently an article on Udhay Nadar, I assume you are trying to propose one however this not the right place to do it. Please see WP:Your first article for information about this; also as you appear to be writing about yourself please see WP:Autobiography. January ^(talk) 16:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

David Alexander (author)

Resolved

 – speedy G4 - Off2riorob (talk) 17:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a vanity puff piece. Footnotes and references are false. Honors claimed cannot be verified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.12.91 (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep, doesn't seem to be a single source establishing his WP:NOTABILITY BE——Critical_{__Talk} 19:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The appropriate venue to discuss this may be WP:AFD. --Jayron32 19:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, contributors to the page appear to be several socks of someone who is probably the person himself. Just guessing of course. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 19:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Even so, AFD is an even better venue. Nothing sends the message better than unanimous consensus to delete! --Jayron32 20:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, see question below, maybe you can answer it. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• I first checked if had any actual published books on WorldCat. His non-fiction work, The Building of the Pentagon ISBN 9780760320877, is in 118 Worldcat libraries. That's enough to prevent a A7 as no plausible claim to importance. It's impossible to tell if the stories are notable without checking for published reviews. (The blurbs in the article are not RSs, no matter who said them). The article is highly promotional, but if the published works were important, the rest but be edited very quickly, so it isn't G11. And in fact, Hrafn, a very highly experienced editor, probably after seeing it here, seems to be currently taking the trouble to go through it in detail for sourcing--which is more than I would have done; and if he thinks it inadequate, as he probably will, he will not be at all hesitant to nominate for AfD. What he's doing is the highest standard for dealing with such articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Interestingly, it was deleted previously Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Alexander (author), mainly due to DGG's comments.--Scott Mac 16:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• 17:05, 10 December 2010 user:Orangemike deleted "David Alexander (author)" ‎ (G4: Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion) - Off2riorob (talk) 17:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Question

What do you do about articles like this? I mean, in my opinion they should be deleted till sourced. They shouldn't be put up till they are sourced, or given a grace period of a week or so. That one has been up since October 2005. But when the person might be notable, as in this case, you have to go through some debate. It makes cleaning these things up so hard, and I come across them so often that I know Wikipedia is just littered with articles without notability or without sources. Something should be done. I'm sure it's been discussed before, so could someone at least point me to the discussion, or else tell me what to do? BE——Critical_{__Talk} 23:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In this case, where the subject is clearly notable and easy to source, you source it. For more recent BLPs, WP:BLPPROD may be appropriate if you can't find sources. Ray^Talk 01:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay. That doesn't make sense because letting a BLP sit there unsourced for 5 years seems wrong. But obviously that's the system. Thanks. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 01:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't want to go there. There was a massive Wikidramafest about this about a year ago. For now, just source the ones you think are worth it, and propose for deletion the ones that aren't. Ray^Talk 03:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I just proposed it for deletion. Steve Dufour (talk) 07:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

... and I just de-prodded it. Politicians who have held sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office are notable per WP:POLITICIAN. WWGB (talk) 15:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

by the time the prod was put on, there was an excellent source in the EL, so the prod was not justified at an earlier state, for something like this, the proper course is just to find and add the source. If we just delete, we're removing material that could be fixed very quickly and be the basis of a respectable article. The question is whether it was even right to add the unsourced tag in the first place when sourcing is as trivial as this. Myself, I would not add the tag if I could source in less that a few minutes, DGG ( talk ) 16:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with DGG here, you should not add a unsourced template without at least doing a google search and looking for one, if one is clearly there then its just as easy to add as the uncited template. I know that these house of representative guys are considered notable even if they really are not and there is nothing to really write about them in independent sources, I don't much agree with that position as after five years the article is almost no life story at all and a link to the representative page would be just as informative. At least it wasn't full of vandal additions. Off2riorob (talk) 17:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Richard Stengel

 Done

The biographical article about Time magazine editor Richard Stengel is half-underwhelming, half BLP-problem. The first half is an mediocre career summary lacking in references. The second half is a disaster zone, having drawn the attention of those wishing to inflate recent, minor Time controversies into career milestones. If they belong anywhere, it's the article about the magazine, but I'm not certain they belong there, either. Few others have gotten involved, other than to add a collection of tags. Since the last flare-up in September, there have been just about a half-dozen edits on the entire article.

I have taken it upon myself to prepare a well-researched, carefully cited, restructured and ultimately much more informative alternate draft, currently available in my user subspace here: User:WWB_Too/Richard_Stengel.

It retains significant material from the first half, expands on it and adds quality third-party references. Among the current "Controversies" section I've retained just the part about the Iwo Jima cover, although I defer to other editors' judgment here. The main reason here is that I happen to work with Time Inc., and so I have a possible conflict to manage. Anyhow, I hope you'll agree that the current article falls short of Wikipedia's standards, and that my draft represents a significant improvement. Happy to discuss more here or on the Talk page there, where I've addressed these same issues. Thanks, WWB Too (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• - added, looks much better, mostly the controversy was totally tangential, thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 17:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for reviewing the draft and moving it over. Much appreciated. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Opinions in bios

The following thoughts were inspired by editing Joseph_C._Wilson. The article contains statements sourced to mainstream media that the subject is "pompous", a "nobody", a "blow hard", etc. If evenly balanced ("a hero! a goat!") I know this does not necessarily violate WP:Weight, WP:Undue etc. However, I would like to suggest a standard for deleting epithets which otherwise don't offend WP:RS or weight standsrds: Are they vague and therefore potentially universal? For example, everyone is a nobody until they are somebody, so quoting an assertion that Joe Wilson is a "nobody" doesn't really enlighten very much. The same assertion could be made about every public figure. For a thought experiment, try a Google search on "The Pope is an idiot". You will find some highly colorful, entertaining results that do not appear in the Wikipedia bio of Pope Benedict XV and would presumably be rapidly deleted if added. If you apply the rule I just suggested, "idiot" is vague and universal and could be applied to anyone, so does not belong in a bio.

Please excuse me if this has already been hashed out; I am fairly new here and haven't yet found anything similar in my searches. Jonathanwallace (talk) 15:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

meaningless material should no be included in any Wikipedia article, sourced or otherwise, BLP or not BLP. DGG ( talk ) 16:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Everyone repeat after me. Make it your mantra. "Appearing in a reliable source is a necessary but not sufficient condition to include something in an article". Wikipedia articles are designed to be well written, and that means making editorial decisions about which information to include, and which to exclude. Everything the in the article needs to be connected to a reliable source, but the converse is NOT TRUE. Appearing in a reliable source does not mean that it must be included. --Jayron32 17:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Usman Saleem Butt

Usman Saleem Butt is Studying in Pac For Chartered Accountancy(CA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Massiveshines (talk • contribs) 17:30, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing. --Jayron32 17:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

John C. Maxwell

The article (with the exception of the arrest incident) appears to be a self-promotional PR piece. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.203.124 (talk) 20:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The only secondary source used for this article (ignoring the subjects own website and book-jacket) is to a news story that is no longer viewable. So, on the face of it, this is an unsourced BLP concerning a non-notable (as far as I can tell) author. I'd say nominate it for deletion if that's what you want to do. --FormerIP (talk) 21:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Dave Hall (record producer)

Dave Hall (record producer) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Quick one. This edit added 'lesbian' to Wanda Sykes ("Dave Hall was married to lesbian Wanda Sykes from 1991 to 1998"). It's well known that WS is a lesbian, but do we use that descriptor any time she comes up, or is this context different because it involves her prior marriage? In short, how should this one be handled, and is there a policy that already addresses it? Maybe, Dave Hall was married to Wanda Sykes from 1991 to 1998, before she came out as a lesbian or just Dave Hall was married to Wanda Sykes from 1991 to 1998, period. Ocaasi (talk) 21:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No that needs removing, awful. Off2riorob (talk) 21:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you explain. She is a public advocate for GLBT issues, so it's not mean or anything. What's the policy on this--don't mention unless necessary? Could it be helpful here, since people might know that she is a lesbian but be confused by her prior marriage? Ocaasi (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The wording as it is gives the impression of trying to make some point or other (maybe that Sykes is not really a lesbian or that the marriage is somehow doubtful), regardless whether that's intentional or not. I'd say your proposed alternative is better. Then again, I have no idea who either of these people are, so maybe there's more to it than I realise. --FormerIP (talk) 21:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

No, there's no backstory. She was married. She's not anymore. She's an openly gay comedian. Just not sure how to phrase it here. I'll take it out, since it's not really relevant to Dave Hall either way. Ocaasi (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thats the point Ocassi, the fact that he married her is the point, her later sexual preference is irrelevant and people are people they are not gay john harrison or lesbian jane Pritchard, we don't identify people by their sexual preference. I removed it a few mins ago. Off2riorob (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Rob. It's a very short article, so this is undue weight. If the article were longer, then it might be discussed in context (e.g. did he realize when they got married what her orientation was).Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, since I don't know who they are, I suppose I have to say "whatever". I'd object to it being removed purely on the grounds that we shouldn't be including that sort of sordid detail, though. I'm not sure how we determine whether it's relevant to Dave Hall. I'm sure he found it relevant at the time. Is it relevant that they were ever married in the first place? I guess I'm saying WP:PRESERVE unless there's a good reason not to. --FormerIP (talk) 21:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

There's no need or benefit in including her sexual orientation as a descriptor and I agree with Off2Rio Rob's removal. --Jezebel'sPonyo^{bons mots} 21:48, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Yea, , we are not hiding it, if it was a notable part of their marriage then in context we could add something watching out for undue weight in the article. Off2riorob (talk) 21:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Scientology-related BLP issues

• Lee Baca (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Alexandra Powers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Barret Oliver (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have added a section to an ANI thread that dealt with use of a contested source to point out some BLP issues that were introduced by the removal of this source. See here. I expect that more will follow. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Help needed

A while back I created an article, Murder of Aristotelis Goumas, which was deleted by an administrator for BLP violations. Following an inconclusive deletion review, the content was e-mailed back to me, and after a discussion with an administrator, I understood that it would be ok for me to bring the article back provided I addressed the BLP issues and userified it first. I believe I have addressed the BLP issues, and have userified the article here [16], however, since I still unfamiliar with BLP issues and am very wary of the BLP minefield in general, I would be much obliged if someone with experience with BLP issues could go over the userified version and let me know if it's OK, or if there are still some BLP issues outstanding. Thanks, Athenean (talk) 23:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a problem with the repeated use of words like "allegedly" and "reportedly". This makes it sound like POV rather than fact. If those matters have not been proven they should not be reported here, or at least the person(s) making the allegations needs to be stated. Coming to this topic for the first time, I perceive a degree of bias in the article. WWGB (talk) 00:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Regarding the article, if you are looking for a general review, my feeling is if I saw this, it would end up at WP:AFD pretty quickly for WP:NOTNEWS reasons. Generally, many events can be found to have been covered by news outlets, and when I am looking for an event which has the sort of long-ranging encylopedic importance, what is generally needed is depth of time and place. That is, the event needs to be covered by sources which aren't local to the area where the event occured, AND the event needs to be covered by sources which are published some time after the event. Crimes are committed all the time, but until they become international in scope of coverage, AND so notable that people are writing about them long after the "news cycle" has died down, they probably don't get past WP:NOTNEWS. So far, every reference in the article is to news articles published by papers local to the event, and covering events essentially immediately after they happened. I just don't see where this event, as tragic as it may have been, yet qualifies for an encyclopedia article. --Jayron32 00:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I suggest that maybe this article is perhaps a little more significant than Jayron sees it, at least in terms of its political impact. It does seem (from the article at least), to have attracted more than local attention, and instead been commented on by both Albanian and Greek politicians of some stature. There are probably still POV problems, but I'd not dismiss it out of hand as lacking significance (least of all considering some of the crap one can find on Wikipedia, but that is another issue). AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The incident and the person seems to have had some significance if you google it. I don't have a really good source, but [17] [18] [19] [20] BE——Critical_{__Talk} 08:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for responding. While notability may be debatable, that can be decided later. The main issue for now is the BLP. WWGB mentioned that the words "allegedly" and "reportedly" are used too often, and that is something I can address fairly quickly. What I would like to know is if people see any other BLP problems in the current version. If not, then I can go ahead and restore the article, and the discussion about notability can continue in another venue. Athenean (talk) 21:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Charles Strouse

Charles Strouse was reported to have died on December 9, 2010... That is false... He has not passed away... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.141.203 (talk) 00:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I've removed this, as unsourced. I'd have though his death would have been reported in the media, given his fame, but I can't find any references, so I think we can assume he's alive until evidence to the contrary is given. Thanks for the input. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

johm turner, american footballer

john turner listed as an alumnus of Miami Norland High School is wrong. that guy is an english soccer player of the same name. the norland guy attended the univeristy of miami, i thnk and later played for the minnesota vikings.

also, another notable alum is the old, ugly german lady from the austin powers movies. she is a character actor is other moviea and tv shows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BigBillRedBird (talk • contribs) 03:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

In the article Miami Norland High School, I changed John Turner (footballer born 1954) to John Turner (American football). I'm not 100% sure that that's what BigBillRedBird had in mind. Maybe 92.346%. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:43, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Brandi Hawbaker

Tonight, a new account came to Brandi Hawbaker as BrandiRose's Mom (talk · contribs), and added more detail about her life and death [21]. It's all unsourced however, and the account of her death not only leaves out some sourced information, but also seems to put some of the blame for her death on some relatives (which is why I'm bringing it here to BLP, rather than at COI). I'm headed to bed, but would someone more familiar with BLP please help this woman to the right place and policy. Thanks in advance. Dayewalker (talk) 09:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I reverted the last edit and tried to explain at User talk:BrandiRose's Mom. Johnuniq (talk) 09:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Felisa Wolfe-Simon

Several editors are using the Felisa Wolfe-Simon biography to criticize GFAJ-1. Although there is already a criticism section over at GFAJ-1#Criticism, the criticism they keep adding to the biography article is self-published and has not been subject to peer review.[22][23] Per reliable source examples in physical sciences, mathematics and medicine it is not appropriate to use unpublished, non-peer reviewed blogs to criticize a biographical subject or the science. Please note, that in addition to criticizing Wolfe-Simon with self-published blogs and opinion pieces, they are also crticizing GFAJ-1 with only editorials and blogs. This is not acceptable for a biographical article nor for a science topic. Viriditas (talk) 14:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Bigger questions aside (I think that Zimmer's and Redfield's blog posts are important pieces for understanding GFAJ-1), they are self-published sources which clearly are inappropriate for FWS's biography. Whether they belong at GFAJ-1 is a separate question, and one that's less clear-cut. Guettarda (talk) 15:00, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Felisa Wolfe-Simon's notability is in large part due to the controversy over the GFAJ-1 claims. Consequently I believe citing the most notable criticisms of the claims made in her latest article is justified. Once published criticisms appear then these can also be added. Furthermore, an "in press" article keeps appearing in the publications section. This is not verifiable and should not appear in the bio until it is published. --Paul (talk) 18:54, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Justified despite the fact that it is forbidden by policy? How so? Guettarda (talk) 20:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. Am just catching up on WP:BIO policies. I hadn't realised blogs etc were verboten. I can see why for the greater good. I do think most people wont have heard of Felicia until the blog storm. Mentions of criticisms on the bio can wait until "reliable" sources are available. --Paul (talk) 21:36, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Assange_sex_charges_and_trial

Assange_sex_charges_and_trial (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This has just been created from the BLP, suggestions, does it, should it warrant its own article? Seems a bit excessive imo. Off2riorob (talk) 16:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

And further to that, given the clear linkage being drawn by many sources between these allegations and Assange's other activities, a separate article is going to make things difficult from a practical point of view.

Also, as far as I'm aware, Assange hasn't actually bee charged with any specific offence yet, and there certainly hasn't been a trial, so the article title is incorrect. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems OTT to me. If it turns out to be a 'storm in a teacup', a separate article might be high on speculation, and low on significance. These matters may appear weighty now, but look very small fry in a couple of years time. I think it is way too premature to hive this article off the existing one. Plus AndyTheGrump (above) is quite correct about the title. Any trial (if it comes to that) could be months, even years away. - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 16:52, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The section has become very large on the Assange page. There has been significant discussion as to whether the backgrounds of the two women should be discussed. Two points around that issue have been, confidentiality of "victims" and "relevance." The second issue is resolved by having a stand alone page for the trials. It also seems reasonable from the stand point of formatting to have two pages. The issue sexual charges are only becoming more relevant as their own stand alone topic. If and when Assange is transferred to Sweden will add a significant amount of information to the subject. Possible future sections for a page devoted to the charges and trial would be:

Background of Mrs. A and W.

Possible political motives. Political backgrounds of the prosecutors.

Controversy regarding the definition of rape in Sweden.

These issues are quite significant and cannot be fully addressed within the article on Assange. Tim.thelion (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC).

For a start, the 'Background of Mrs. A and W' is a dubious subject to include, given BLP policy on non-notable persons. Any comments on political motives will need proper sourcing - most of this speculation is going on blogs, and in other non WP-RS sources. I'm not sure there actually is a controversy regarding Swedish law. There seems to be a great deal of speculation based on third-hand report of the issue, but this isn't the same thing. Any article focusing on these issues runs the risk of becoming a POV-fork. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:49, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we are currently not naming miss A and miss W in any location, so that is not a good reason to move. He hasn't even clearly been charged yet, I think we need to avoid a complete article full of opinions and claims and so on. I suggest deletion as it will serve to further increase the size of content related to the issue when we have actually been trying to keep it slimmed down. Off2riorob (talk) 16:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• Redirected. There is no trial. The fork is unjustified per WP:UNDUE, and since when did we have BLP with surname only?--Scott Mac 16:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support the redirect at this time. Off2riorob (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. Guettarda (talk) 17:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Major problems with the name of the article, as Andy The Grump has pointed out - there has been no trial and, apparently, no formal charges. Beyond that, it strikes me as excessive at this point in time. Creating a properly balanced article would require reproducing a large part of the Assange article and the cable leaks article. The article is also sure to turn into a nightmare - as Tim.thelion wrote There has been significant discussion as to whether the backgrounds of the two women should be discussed. For example, the complainants have been named, and it's very likely that someone will argue for the inclusion of their names in this daughter article. The main Assange article probably has enough people watching it that issues like this can be dealt with by editors who are conversant with policy. The pool of watchers of a daughter article is likely to be that much smaller. While concerns of that nature should not be arguments for keeping articles out of Wikipedia, they certainly are worth considering when creating daughter articles.

As it currently stands, the article is inappropriate (per its name, etc.) And in a more general context, I think a properly-titled daughter article would be premature and the curatorial problems it would create would probably outweigh the benefits. Maybe later. Guettarda (talk) 17:05, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I still hold that we should have a sepperate article, and am somewhat surprised by the imediate negative responce to the idea. There ARE non blog sources about the subject. There is no shortage of legitimate reporting on the subject. While I agree that most of what has been said, even by supposedly legitimate news papers is simple speculation, there are also a lot of facts going around. I don't see why we should limit the depth of wikipedia. Off2riorob stated it will serve to further increase the size of content related to the issue when we have actually been trying to keep it slimmed down. To what purpose are we reducing the ammount of information availible on Wikipedia??? Tim.thelion (talk) 17:29, 11 December 2010 (UTC) PS. I concede in the issue of the name.

I think in the future there should probably be an article on it, but at this point almost all sources, even normally reputable newspapers, are based on speculation. There is very little unbiased information from original sources. With all the edit wars going on with anti-Assange and pro-Assange writers this article would probably turn in to a mess very soon. It's better to stick to the basic information that is known at this point, and wait with the fuller article until we have a better grasp about what is actually happening. 85.225.222.10 (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Ellen Kristin Dahl-Pedersen

Attempts are being made to link this person to the death of a relative, the article seem to have been created with that intention. Later more information has been added, to show wiki-notability as an author. Finn Rindahl (talk) 16:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ellen Kristin Dahl-Pedersen which I just started. No way this is a valid article, for all the reasons you cite. --Jayron32 17:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Farrah Sarafa

Farrah Sarafa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:35, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Upon browsing the directory of Palestine-related biographies, I happened upon the biography of a person named Farrah Sarafa. I'd never heard of this person before, and the biography claims that she is a poet or author of some sort with apparent recognition. However, upon searching for her on the Internet for more information and additional sources to bulk up the biography, it looks as though she is not a well-known person at all, and not worthy of a Wikipedia page. Furthermore, it seems as though the page was written by Farrah Sarafa herself, which isn't acceptable. I suggest that this biography should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.200.219.42 (talk) 22:15, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I have confirmed the lack of notability, proposed the article for deletion, placed a welcome message at the talk page of the IP who reported this here, and left a message for the user who created the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Michael Kors

Michael Kors (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

These two sentences startled me:

Kors left Celine in October 2003 to concentrate on his own brand, however, Brad and Zeenat stayed and now make six times what Kors makes. Kors launched his menswear line in 2002, which failed miserably without the help of his two former business partners. Brad and Zeenat also own all the diamonds in the world.

Has this article been vandalized? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.204.128.38 (talk) 02:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I just checked the article & you're right, it had been vandalized but the invalid additions have been reverted. Shearonink (talk) 03:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Carmel's Hope

User:Carmel's Hope, although in userspace, looks like a biographical article, has no references, and contains personal information (full name, date of birth, school name) of what purport to be living people who are minors. It also has some information that can be seen as controversial negative claims about one of them.

I'm somewhat puzzled by the whole thing but I'm sure it falls under NOTWEBHOST and various BLP issues. Should I;

• Edit the userpage to remove the problematic information, or;
• MfD the userpage (does this make sense as it then leaves the user without a userpage?), or;
• Politely suggest to the user that this is not what Wikipedia userspace is for, or;
• Something else?

The user in question does not edit anywhere other than in user space [24]

Related is User:Empress Diana which looks like a biographical article, has no references, and contains personal information, but not of minors.

And also User:JLP2010 which looks like a biographical article, has no references, and mentions a number of what purport to be living people who are minors (plus one dead one) giving their full names and (by implication) what school they intend.

--Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:User pages says: "Privacy-breaching non-public material, whether added by yourself or others, may be removed from any page upon request, either by administrators or (unless impractical) by purging from the page history and any logs by Oversighters. See Requests for Oversight....The best option if there is a concern with a user's page is to draw their attention to the matter via their talk page and let them edit it themselves, if they are agreeable. In some cases a more experienced editor may make non-trivial edits to another user's user space, in which case that editor should leave a note explaining why this was done. This should not be done for trivial reasons. If the user does not agree, or does not effectively remedy the concerns, or the matter is unsure or controversial, then other steps in this section can be taken including uninvolved user opinions or proposing the page for deletion.  If the material must be addressed urgently (for example, unambiguous copyright, attack, defamation, or BLP reasons, etc.), the user appears inactive, the edit appears unlikely to cause problems, or you are quite sure it is appropriate, then remove or fix the problem material minimally and leave a note explaining what you have done, why you have done so, and inviting the user to discuss if needed. If the entire page is inappropriate, consider blanking it, or redirecting the subpage to the userpage, or to the most relevant existing mainspace or project space page. Unsuitable pages, media and images in userspace may also be nominated for deletion or (if appropriate) speedy deleted, but special care should be taken as the user may be expecting leeway and take it personally, and there are a few exceptions. Users with a strong editing record and/or most of their contribution edits outside their user space should be given a little more leeway in this regard than users whose edits consist solely or mostly of user space edits or promotional-style activity. See Deleting user pages below. Editors may add {{noindex}} (optional "|visible=yes") to a userspace page that is a source of concern, which will remove it from search engines and can also provide a lightweight alternative to deletion, or prevent external indexing during discussion. It will not affect the page for legitimate userspace purposes or on the internal search engine, and should not be used to make a point, nor removed without discussion or consensus. See {{uw-userspacenoindex}} for a suitable user talk note template."Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

For the time being, while we figure out what to do, I've watchlisted the three pages, put "noindex" tags on all three, and put corresponding notices at the three talk pages. These are weird pages, and I wonder if there are more like them.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A very similar page was intentionally blanked a few months ago. We should probably do likewise. But we should probably also do something more, in order to stop the game of Whac-A-Mole.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:47, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Cameron Newton

Cameron Newton's father did not play professional football for the Dallas Cowboys. I corrected the error on his brother's page, where it stated that Cecil Newton Sr. played for the New Orleans Saints (he did not play professional football) but cannot correct Cameron's page because it is protected. Neither the Dallas Cowboys roster nor the New Orleans Saints roster (on Wikipedia) list a Cecil Newton as ever having been on either team. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baldeagl (talk • contribs) 05:38, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I removed that sentence, and mentioned the matter at the article talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Bass Musician Magazine

This article is (well) written by the publisher of the magazine. It is a public relations exercise - an advertisement. It is written in the first person plural (we/our) throughout. It is not notable - it cannot be referenced because there are no third party references available - I've searched. The publisher, Venus Imaging Education, LLC, cannot be referenced either, except through its own publications. They are using Wikipedia purely for their own purposes. I think it should be deleted but thought I'ld ask for concensus here. I've prodded it in any case. Mark^Dask 12:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Mechele Linehan

This article was written mostly by someone with too little factual knowledge of this case and of Mrs. Linehan because it contains errors. It also uses language that exhibits a personal agenda rather than academic or journalistic. Even the discussions concerning whether it should be deleted contain misinformation about her case, the overturned conviction, and where Mrs. Linehan awaits her new trial. Therefore, the article dumbs down and diminishes Wikipedia. The site should not be used for personal agendas or vendettas and it should be required to contain accurate information or be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akminister (talk • contribs) 13:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

What assertions are errors? The state of referencing on that article is not all that bad; some paragraphs lack references, but it does seem that the article was on the whole written on the basis of sources that would support the assertions made. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Russ Vandeveerdonk

Living Persons must have verifyable sources? Then is not media and newspaper articles, about a living person verifyable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RussJFK (talk • contribs) 13:58, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

This editor is referring to an article on himself, which was speedily deleted. Russ, no autobiographies, please. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Michael Doven - Scientology overload

Michael Doven (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Michael Doven is apparently a film producer, but his bio is laden with unnecessary detail about his connection to the Church of Scientology. See also here. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:16, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

DC, I don't see you making any attempt to address any concerns you might have on the article talk page. That should be your first port of call. Coming here instead for "help", when there is an on-going ANI discussion, seems to border on disruption, in my view. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:36, 12 December 2010 (UTC)