Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

Welcome – report issues regarding biographies of living persons here.
This noticeboard is for discussing the application of the biographies of living people (BLP) policy to article content. Please seek to resolve issues on the article talk page first, and only post here if that discussion requires additional input. Do not copy and paste defamatory material here; instead, link to a diff showing the problem. Search this noticeboard & archives Sections older than 7 days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. Additional notes: Edits by the subject of an article may be welcome in some cases. For general content disputes regarding biographical articles, try Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies instead. Editors are encouraged to assist editors regarding the reports below. Administrators may impose contentious topic restrictions to enforce policies.

Richard Rawlings

User 172.56.9.59 is repeatedly vandalizing Richard Rawlings. I have gotten close to WP:3RR before, so I am reporting the edits here. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: Clear 3RR exemption, don't worry about it. Mdann52 (talk) 17:05, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Note: The page has been semiprotected for three months by Huon; also I've blocked the static IPs 172.56.9.59 and 172.56.9.82 for a week. (You might think blocking the tiny little range 172.56.9.0/25 wouldn't cause any collateral damage, but you'd unfortunately be wrong.) Bishonen | talk 16:02, 29 August 2015 (UTC).

Philip Baker (obstetrician)

Is this person notable per se? This BLP appears to focus on a single event at length, and I do not think this is notable in itself. Collect (talk) 15:29, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I've trimmed it a bit. I think he might meet WP:NACADEMICS. Gamaliel (talk) 15:35, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

He easily meets WP:PROF, e.g. #6. Out of curiosity, Collect -- how did you come across this article? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Universe to look at is limited - and I find my every comment and edit carefully tracked, it seems. Why did you ask and why did you note this fairly neutrally phrased question? Collect (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

As you know, I participate frequently at BLPN. And I'm sure you also knew that I created this article... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:00, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually - not. I very rarely (actually exceedingly rarely) give any concern as to who started any article at all. I tend to look at maybe a range of 50 edits in histories as that rather seems a default setting on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 00:29, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

request for attention to Ali Khamenei

A large amount of content cited to the New York Post and a "Muslim Conspiracy" blog was recently added by a disruptive SPA, Iran nuclear weapons 2 (whose User page says it is a valid alternate account because he's afraid of being assassinated by Iran ... srsly), who was previously cautioned by Anders_Feder regarding this statement, and others, where he denounced "Iran's worldwide campaign to murder." [1] I have removed it and started a RfC here. BlueSalix (talk) 15:38, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not believe I have cautioned him specifically, but I requested that the off-topic question be held out of AfD. Regardless, it seems valid to question the reliability of at least some of those sources you point to.--Anders Feder (talk) 15:50, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Please point to evidence of "disruptive" behaviour on my part, or strike. Additionally, please correct your characterization of what my user page says. Thank you. Iran nuclear weapons 2 (talk) 17:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Iran Bulletin

Is "Iran Bulletin" ([2]) RS for information pertaining to Iran? BlueSalix (talk) 15:50, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like a question for RSN... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

While this is obviously a question for RSN, it is also obvious that this is a reliable source. It's an academic journal with an editorial board consisting of people prominent in the field of Iranian studies. You don't get much more reliable than this. Brustopher (talk) 22:55, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

You're right, this should have gone to RSN. But, no, it's not an academic journal. An online website that has an editorial statement on its masthead that ends with an exclamation point ("No to the theocratic regime!"), an "editorial board" consisting of a bunch of people with BA degrees in political science, affiliated with a political party (Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran), not collected by any academic library, is not an "academic journal." And yes, you absolutely do get much more reliable, see: Iranian Studies (journal). BlueSalix (talk) 16:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with that. The subtitle says "political journal", among other things. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I may have overstated its reliability, there clearly are some things which are more reliable, but it's still a reliable source. Per WP:BIAS "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." Per the logic above the highly influential strongly Marxist leaning history journal Past & Present, would have to be considered an unreliable source for history articles. The editorial board includes Aziz al-Azmeh (PhD in Oriental studies) and Hamid Dabashi (professor in Iranian Studies). The writer of the article removed as unreliable [3] is Ervand Abrahamian, a heavily cited historian of Iranian history. Even if you don't view the journal as reliable, the writer should be considered reliable per his own expertise. Brustopher (talk) 23:30, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, you may have overstated its reliability. BlueSalix (talk) 06:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

He has a point about Ervand though, I wouldnt think twice about citing him as a reliable source in his own right. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Creflo Dollar

States: Some sources report that Dollar's real name is Michael Smith,[3] which Dollar has called an "urban legend".[4]

We have had discussions about assigning names to living persons where there is reliable source for the other name. In this case, it seems someone elided that procedure in order to include a name which not only has no strong sourcing, but where the person states the claim of his "real name" is false. The source used to assert that it is his "real name" is an opinion column which provides no other sources for this claim made in August 2001in Salon (website) . We usually state that contentious claims need strong sourcing - is an opinion column a "strong source"? As an aside, I found no strong sources for this claim at all, so am uncertain why this claim was added to this BLP. "Creflo Dollar" gets mentioned 20 times in the NYT - zero times saying "Smith" as his name. In fact the Salon source seems the only source remotely making the claim - and it fails our standards. Lord knows why anyone found this contested trivia to be usable. Collect (talk) 16:07, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree; if this belongs anywhere in the article, it certainly doesn't belong in the lede. I've removed it pending discussion on the talk page as to whether or not this, as you rightly say, "contested trivia," should be there. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:00, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

David Coburn (politician)

Contains a waffle claim:

In April 2015, a Wikipedia account operated by Coburn's office was blocked indefinitely for edit warring over his own page. Coburn's office confirmed the edits were by them, and some, but not all, news outlets, attribute those edits to Coburn himself'

Several possible issues - are "blocks" by an administrator a significant event in a person's biography where the evidence educed does not imply the person himself committed any wrongful act or tort ("edit warring" does not appear to be a statutory offense AFAICT) ? Does "some but not all news outlets" imply stronger sourcing for the belief the person directly edited Wikipedia? Is the weight given for what appears to be a minor event excessive in a BLP? The Guardian source appears to be from Wikipedia. In past, BLPs did not contain "Wikipedia connections" vide editors who have BLPs whose connection to Wikipedia is never allowed. Collect (talk) 16:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The Guardian, an The Scotsman are reliable sources. If they found the subject to be notable, I see no reason to omit. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:45, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

IIRC, The Guardian has used "contacts" among Wikipedia editors in the past - in one case apparently "being aware of a block before it occurred." The query here was to whether Wikipedia itself is newsworthy on Wikipedia, and past practice has been, for example, to disallow mention that a noted person edited Wikipedia at all. The wording in the BLP, alas, strongly implies specific wrongful acts by a person, when the apparent reason was "COI" only. ("edit war" is a meaningless term for a person with few edits - unless they instinctively looked up all the terminology at the start) By this token, ought we add all cases where COI has been found to all articles edited by such a person? Just would like consistency here. Collect (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The newspapers specifically claim, in the piece-titles, that Coburn personally was 'banned' from wikipedia. I'm assuming the actual case, in actual wiki-jargon, is what our article says: that a wikipedia-username, making edits in the name of Coburn's office, was indef-blocked. Suggest we have a footnote attached to the indef-blocked-bit of our prose, that explains the distinction between a-specific-human-being-indef-banned (and that Coburn-the-human actually isn't banned-in-the-wikipedia-sense), and the case of a username-being-temporarily-but-indef-blocked-from-all-but-their-talkpage-for-requesting-unblock (and that this applies only to the human *personally* making such edits). I realize that this distinction is probably too much for body-prose, but part of the reason that newspapers NEVER get the wiki-jargon right, and always conflate block and ban, is that we try to avoid navel-gazing... and thus don't usually explain the wikijargon, even when obviously it needs explaining for the sentences in mainspace to be properly understood by the readership, some of whom we must presume, write for the newspapers. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

allegations of multiple-mispronunciations of the name of the political opponent , with intent

FWIW, the "using funny names about the other candidate" allegation was made by the opposition candidate herself, not by outside reporters - and is a contentious claim. I doubt that the candidate is a "strong source" where claims in election campaigns are concerned . Collect (talk) 12:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The candidate herself is not the source here -- instead, the source is the various newspaper articles that ran the story. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:24, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The source says this is what the opposing candidate said about Coburn - it does not make the claim in its own voice. Suppose "George Gnarph" was running against "Mary Marph" and she said "George Gnarph called me a xxxxx" and there is no other source for that claim. It is a contentious claim ab initio,and as such it requires strong sourcing - a single person in a political campaign ,may not always be a paragon of veracity. Collect (talk) 15:30, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The Guardian is a perfectly good source. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:57, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

And the Guardian specifically does not state it as a fact that he misspoke a name - in fact it carefully ascribes the claim to the person's opponent. I assume you have never ever heard a politician stretch a fact or three about an opponent? Thus a claim made by a political opponent without confirmation by others is a weak source.

Now it has been claimed that during his successful European Parliament campaign, Mr Coburn routinely muddled the first name of Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, an SNP candidate.

Ms Ahmed-Sheikh said: "During last year's European election campaign, I was faced with David Coburn's ignorance as he repeatedly got my name wrong.

"During the days and weeks of the campaign he called me Pashmina, Jasmine and Tamzin before eventually settling on a combination of 'love', 'dear' and 'honey'.

"I found his remarks sexist - and possibly racist.

"We need to be doing all we can to encourage women and people of black and minority ethnic origin into politics.

Note The Guardian only attributes the claim to a single person - who is using it as a backing to a claim of the gay MEP as being "sexist and possibly racist." I suggest that this is possibly political rhetoric and not a strongly backed allegation here. As such, it is violative of WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. Collect (talk) 17:11, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

It's attributed, Collect. We're okay here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:13, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

It is attributed per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, as long as we take Coburn's political opponent to be an expert on linguistics, speaking as an expert in linguistics, and not merely a political opponent, speaking to sling mud. Similarly, the rebuttal, which wikipedia also quotes at length, is somebody from Coburn's political party, who is speaking as if they were present every single time Coburn made an utterance during the campaign, and wikipedia is also quoting them without commentary, as if they may actually have been present, and are not merely slinging mud in return. Here is what we say now:

• According to SNP candidate Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, Coburn repeatedly muddled her name at hustings during the European election campaign, when she was standing against him, referring to her as "Pashmina, Jasmine and Tamzin before eventually settling on a combination of 'love', 'dear' and 'honey'."[7][8] UKIP's Scottish chairman Misty Thackeray responded by saying "How humourless and thin-skinned are these people trying to make faux outrage stories about a slip of the tongue over a name? ... It wasn't mispronounced throughout the entire Euro campaign. It was mispronounced once; if memory serves me correctly, David called her Jasmina."[7]

Here is what I suggest we say, cutting the quotes entirely per WP:NOTDEBATE, and just summarizing the bare facts of the accusation and counter-accusation, with gory details left to the churnalists newspapers to which we link, for interested readership to clicketh upon should they see fit to do so:

• In 2015, Coburn's political opponent accused him of purposely mispronouncing her name multiple times; Coburn's party said that mispronunciation happened once, and by mistake.[7][8]

References

With the back-n-forth WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV quotes currently in mainspace, we have 362 total words in David_Coburn_(politician)#Political_career, of which 98 words are about the alleged-multiple-not-singular-mispronunciation-incident, aka wikipedia is implying that 27% of his political career revolves around that incident. My trimmed version cuts that 98 down to 24 words (not counting my 8-word-footnote due to Thackeray being a redlink at present), which works out to around 8% of wikipedia's mainspace body-text-verbiage of Coburn being about the mispronunciation-allegations-and-response. Improvement? p.s. By contrast, the weight we give to the Humza Yousaf, and the relatively-brief quotes, seems likely to be more appropriate, since there was actually a WP:LASTINGEFFECT that a UKIP member changed parties, not just some newspaper-articles with the soundbites. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Lennart Hardell

Lennart Hardell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This past February, a lot of less-than-flattering information in this article about a scientist was removed. I wanted to know if the information that was removed violated WP:BLP. Everymorning (talk) 23:43, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Not that I can see. - MrX 23:54, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Neither I do. Restored material that was properly sourced, and watch listed.- Cwobeel (talk) 00:42, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

B. Alan Wallace

B. Alan Wallace (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

None have helped with my different requests so far, I have entered as responses to alerts, or within the material submitted. So the team at present seems rather impotent. Nevertheless all the info I would like to convey here is on those pages, and after all this time of pure abuse it should be. I suggested that two lines of text should be removed. Please comply with this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DynEqMin (talk • contribs) 18:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

That article was is very poor shape, with a lot of unsourced material, and longs lists of publications, article and essays. I have pared it down to a stub and whatchlisted it. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Sent to AFD. - Cwobeel (talk) 03:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Article was poor in quality - but the person has multiple books published by Columbia University Press , holds PHD from Stanford, translated the Dalai Lama's book, and is an expert on Tibetan Buddhism. I suggest that he is notable at the AfD. Collect (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

James Randi's spouse

In our article on James Randi, there is a question as to what to call Randi's spouse. Possible choices:

• "José Alvarez"
• "José Luis Alvarez"
• "Deyvi Peña"
• "Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga"
• Two of the above with an "also know as" (but which name comes first?)

Note that in Randi himself calls his spouse "Deyvi Peña"[4]

At issue is the fact that Deyvi Peña was convicted of stealing New York resident José Alvarez's identity in 1987 to obtain a fraudulent passport and used that name until his conviction in 2011.[5][6] most notably as the person behind the "Carlos hoax".[7]

This means that a lot of our Australian readers will have heard of him under the Alvarez name, and indeed that is how we list him at List of hoaxes#Proven hoaxes of exposure. Related: Redirect from Deyvi Peña to James Randi, no link from the José Alvarez disambiguation page.

So, what name should we use for this individual? Whatever we choose, we should be consistent across the encyclopedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:41, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting question. As an aside, for folks that might not know, the reason that "Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga" is being shortened to simply "Deyvi Peña" has to do with Venezuelan personal-names having the form FirstName MiddleName PaternalLastName MaternalLastName, whereas in the United States and American English FirstName PaternalLastName is the typical style. Also, I have seen the 2014 documentary about this, not sure if that makes me biased or not.  :-)     There are eight personas involved here (to date!), but only three humans.

#1. Randi (everyday), The Amazing Randi (stage), Randall Zwinge (birth) ; #2. Alvarez (real) ; #3. Peña (everyday), 'Alvarez' (false), The Great Carlos (stage), Peña-Arteaga (birth).

persona#1A. James Randi (professional magician and skeptic), bluelink persona#1B. The Amazing Randi (stage-name of a professional magician), redirect to the person above persona#1C. Randall James Hamilton Zwinge (birthname of the above), redirect to the person above persona#2A. José Luis Alvarez (full legal name of the innocent New York resident aka the REAL José Alvarez), redlink presumably -- and per WP:BLP1E likely to remain a redlink, unless they are wiki-notable for reasons unrelated to the spouse-of-James-Randi persona#3A. Deyvi Peña (spouse and former hoax-participant), currently a redirect under Deyvi Peña-->>James Randi as the spouse thereof, which is prolly appropriate since most people searching for that name "Deyvi Peña" will be interested in the human-as-revealed-to-be-not-the-same-as-José-Alvarez-of-New-York, and because whilst "José Alvarez" was in the WP:RS for various things "Deyvi Peña" is mostly not in the public eye, that I'm aware, in terms of being featured in the WP:RS by name, with the exception of the WP:NOTSCANDAL stuff directly related to the identity theft of the human from New York, and the WP:NOTINHERITED stuff about being the spouse of Randi. persona#3B. 'José Alvarez' aka 'José Luis Alvarez' (false identity used by Deyvi Peña), should be a redirect to the article on the human who is the spouse of James Randi (whatever name that article is... right now we just redirect to James Randi methinks). This persona#3B -- as very much distinct from #2A -- should be listed at the DAB-page for Jose_Alvarez, which right now it is not so listed. Something like, "Deyvi Peña fka 'José Alvarez' (born YYYY), spouse of James Randi and participant in the Carlos Hoax" seems appropriate, but we could also go with two DAB-entries, which I think some annoying WP:MOS rule mandates because one-bluelink-per-DAB-entry, which means we need one DAB-entry for "Deyvi Peña, aka Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga, fka 'José Alvarez' (born YYYY), spouse of James Randi, used a false identity to immigrate from Venezuela to the United States" and then another DAB-entry saying "Deyvi Peña fka 'José Alvarez' (false identity), participant in the Carlos Hoax" or something along those lines. persona#3C. The Great Carlos (stage name), which is a redirect to the Carlos Hoax. Since 99% of the WP:RS on the Carlos hoax call the faux-psychic by the stage-name The Great Carlos, and call the person behind that stage-name 'José Alvarez' , wikipedia should stick with what the sources actually say. However, the first time we *use* the now-known-to-be-false-persona-name 'José Alvarez' in the article about the Carlos hoax, we should have a footnote or a parenthetical mention or something, which explains that the REAL human named José Alvarez is a relatively-unknown resident of the great state of New York, and the REAL human named Deyvi Peña was actually the person with the stage name of The Great Carlos and the false identity of 'José Alvarez' ... but that at the time, this false identity was still fully intact, and thus almost all the wiki-reliable sources refer *incorrectly* to José Alvarez as the man behind The Great Carlos, when it is *correct* to refer to 'José Alvarez' as the man behind The Great Carlos (not addition of scarequotes). persona#3D. Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga , the full legal birthname of Deyvi Peña , and almost certainly (though I've not read them all so I don't know) the most commonly-found name in the WP:RS. There are conflicting guidelines here; WP:COMMONNAME says that *article-titles* should be the most common name of the topic as used in the WP:RS, other things being equal. However, in this case, there *is* no dedicated article for the human Deyvi Peña aka Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga fka 'José Alvarez' fka 'José Luis Alvarez' fka The Great Carlos. The other guideline, is that when it doesn't matter, defer to what the BLP wants, aka the human named Deyvi Peña, and to a lesser extent, the human named James Randi. Nowadays, if the BLP themselves wants to call themselves by the name Deyvi Peña, then that is what *we* should call that human, per the WP:BLP rules of being nice to humans when we can, see also WP:NICE which is similar in ultimate nature. There are undoubtedly a lot of WP:PRIMARY court-documents, which refer to only the full legal name Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a court-recording-service. Similarly, there are undoubtedly WP:109PAPERS that mimic the court-documents, and use the full legal name, but wikipedia is an encyclopedia and WP:NOTNEWS. In other words, I think the case can be made that wikipedia should, in articles and/or subsections-of-articles where it makes sense, use the everyday name Deyvi Peña, as preferred by James Randi, and presumably as preferred by the human-sometimes-called-Deyvi-Peña-et-cetera. (See the example of The artist formerly known as Prince for a case where the preferences of the BLP-in-question were trumped by WP:COMMONNAME, by contrast; wikipedia does not call the article about the singer some unpronounceable un-type-able symbol, though we *do* have the symbol listed there, and I believe we even have a redirect somehow implemented ... is there a unicode-codepoint for the Prince-symbol? Anyways, methinks Deyvi Peña is a case where we can use the everyday name, even if we have a lot of primary-court-docs and a lot of churnalism-newspaper-reports that use the full legal name of the defendant aka the accused, because "encyclopedia".)

So, with the redirect mostly covered, in terms of our *textual* use of names, in the prose of articles (as opposed to redirects and titles), I recommend the following: in the article on Carlos hoax ... and holy WP:42 batman, why don't we even have a dedicated article about that incident, there must have been hundreds of newspaper reports and television coverage and all that stuff, sheesh ... in the hypothethetical article Draft:Carlos hoax about the incident, we should refer to the stage-name The Great Carlos when we are giving details *about* the hoax-persona, aka "According to the hoax-paperwork, The Great Carlos claimed to be a psychic that performed at The Majestic Theater in Woodstock New York, when in reality no such theater actual exists." Elsewhere in the hypothetical article about the hoax, we can say that the WP:RS at the time reported that the person behind the stage-name was 'José Luis Alvarez' with scarequotes explicitly included, and then parenthetically mention that it was later discovered that the REAL unscarequoted José Luis Alvarez was not involved at all, but that the human actually behind The Great Carlos was Deyvi Peña ... and then give a fuller explanation, of exactly why Peña was using the 'Alvarez' persona, with all the extended details, over at the appropriate linked article. Most of this is hypothetical, all wikipedia has right now is a one-liner at List of hoaxes#Proven_hoaxes_of_exposure which says this:

• Carlos, a fictional spirit medium created by James Randi and Jose^(sic) Luis Alvarez.

My long-term suggestion is that we use the documentary and the 60 Minutes footage and all the other coverage, and write a dedicated article about the Carlos hoax, but for the short-term-moment, I suggest we revise the one-liner like this:

• The Great Carlos, a fictional spirit medium, created by James Randi and 'José Luis Alvarez' (who also played Carlos), in an attempt to show the gullibility of the mainstream media.

References

We can leave the details out of the hoax-article (and the DAB-page and redirects and such), and concentrate on getting all the details right in our main article. Now, at the moment, we have no dedicated article on Deyvi Peña the human (under any article-title), nor on their various personas and stagenames used at earlier dates. What we do have, is a redirect to James Randi, their spouse since 2013, and also their co-worker and friend since 1988 in the skeptic-investigation-slash-debunking-business. Thus, the "main article" that wikipedia has about the human-sometimes-known-as-Deyvi-Peña, and thus the main article that we have about persona#3A thru persona#3D, is in fact the James Randi article (which also necessarily covers the human behind persona#1A thru persona#1C of course).

suggestions for what exact human-monikers ought be used in 3 specific sections of James Randi , which is also the 'main' article currently about Peña-fka-'Alvarez'

In the context of the James Randi article, we generally refer to "Randi" and in rare cases to "James Randi" ... in other words we use abbreviated and full-length instances of persona#3A to refer to that human ... because that is the title of the article, and that is what 99% of the WP:RS call him, and that is what he calls himself nowadays. We *also* refer to him by his full legal name at birth (persona#1C), thrice plus the infobox, and we also mention that he was a magician with a stage name (persona#1B) at least a dozen times, e.g. in the bibliography-discography-section and in the paragraphs on his career as a magician. So that all seems to be done properly, in my eyes.    We cannot do the same thing for Peña fka 'Alvarez' fka 'Carlos' because he has been using the 'Alvarez' persona most of his adult life, rather than his birthname. In a way, though, the situation is very similar to Randi; the exact same reason we call him "Randi" instead of his birthname "Zwinge" is simply because, per WP:NPOV, the vast majority of the WP:SOURCES call him "Randi". Wikipedia needs to reflect what the sources say, for all encyclopedic topics, and the bulk of the sources refer to magician and skeptic as Randi, plus the human refers to themselves in that fashion, so wikipedia follows suit. Most of their lifetime, 'Alvarez' referred to themselves as 'Alvarez' at all times, and thus the vast majority of the WP:RS about 'Alvarez' follow suit, and thus so must wikipedia follow suit... in the appropriate sections of our articles on the topic.    Taking it section by section: when we are covering the subtopic of the Carlos hoax in the appropriate place, which right now is paragraph starting with "In February 1988,..." under the James_Randi#Skeptic subsection, we need to refer to 'Alvarez' with scarequotes... since per WP:THETRUTH we now know that the unscarequoted-Alvarez was NOT actually involved. The first time we so refer to 'Alvarez' in the James_Randi#Skeptic section, we need a footnote that explains the truth: Randi described 'Alvarez' by that name, and said he was a friend, at the time, and 'Alvarez' described himself by that name, also at the time, and thus so did all the WP:RS at the time... but later, it turned out they were more than friends, and later it also turned out that from 1987 through 2011 'Alvarez' was the false identity being used by Deyvi Peña (born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga).    In the James_Randi#2010s subsection, where the 2014 documentary I saw is briefly covered, we currently have the following sentence-fragment: "...focuses on Randi's life, his investigations, and his relationship with longtime partner José Alvarez, a.k.a. Deyvi Peña.[75]" First off, this is not an NPOV-compliant description of the film. The focus of the film, as evidenced by the title thereof, is on the seven distinct personas jointly utilized by Randi and by Peña-fka-'Alvarez', plus on how those personal personas are related to their joint work skeptically-investigating-and-debunking. The goal of the skeptic is to seek truth, and the goal of the debunker is to reveal fraud. Randi and 'Alvarez' perpetuated a falsehood known as The Great Carlos in an attempt to reveal truth, that the mainstream media is gullible and won't fact-check a juicy story. There was a deeper falsehood hidden within the overt fraud of Carlos: it turned out that 'Alvarez' was not really Alvarez, and that 'Alvarez' and Randi were not mere friends. Randi's career as a magician (aka an honest liar) is also covered; Randi's use of a stagename, rather than Zwinge that he originally used for his magic act, is also covered. But the core of the documentary, is that Randi has been forced to be a liar his entire life: about his work (professional magician), about his sexuality (non-heterosexual), and about his spouse's legal name (not 'Alvarez')... yet at his core, Randi is still an *honest* liar. It's a good documentary, I highly recommend it; try the veal. So what is the neutral boring cold hard just-the-facts prose, which wikipedia should use in wikipedia's voice to summarize the focus of the film, and more broadly, to summarize the real-world-events that the film is a documentary about? Currently we say that the film is: ...focuses on Randi's life, his investigations, and his relationship with longtime partner José Alvarez, a.k.a. Deyvi Peña. I suggest instead we ought to say something like this: ...focuses on Randi's name-change from Zwinge to The Amazing Randi early in his career as a magician, his later skeptic investigation-and-debunking work (including the Carlos hoax with 'Alvarez'). Additionally the film focues on Randi's relationship with Deyvi Peña, both since their overt marriage at a federal courthouse in 2013, as well as their earlier personal and professional partnership since 1987, when Peña (who was born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga in Venezuela) began using the false identity 'José Luis Alvarez' to illegally remain in the United States (convicted in 2011 and assigned NNN hours of community service but allowed to remain in the country as a non-citizen). That is obviously quite a mouthful, and should probably be chunked up into a triplet or quadruplet of sentences. But, it cannot be cut by much, if we want to neutrally cover what Honest Liar is ACTUALLY about. We cannot be vague and weasel-worded; the documentary is not about Randi's "life and investigations and relationship" the documentary is very specifically about lies, and liars, and which ones are "honest liars" (e.g. James Randi per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV at least), and which ones are not (e.g. Peter Popoff per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV at least). Similarly, we cannot simply replace every instance of Alvarez in wikipedia with the name Peña, because that's not what happened (and it's not the name that the WP:SOURCES actually use). What we *can* do, with wiki-honor fully intact, is replace every unscarequoted use of Alvarez ... except when referring to the New York resident who is the REAL Alvarez o'course... with the corrected 'Alvarez' using explicit scarequotes, and in a footnote explain that the real Alvarez was not involved whatsoever, but that the real Peña was involved, though at the time he was impersonating the real Alvarez and calling himself 'Alvarez' while never calling himself Peña. Make sense? As simple as possible, but no simpler.    Finally, when we are covering the |spouse= portion of the infobox on Randi, we can simply say "Deyvi Peña" since that is what Randi *calls* his spouse nowadays, and then in a footnote attached thereupon, explain the details: namely, that Randi has been living with his spouse since 19xx (not sure what year exactly... I believe 1987... but the recent 2014 documentary mentioned that specific factoid, methinks, if no other WP:RS does), and that due to the laws related to marriage, they did not *formally* get married until 2013. Furthermore, go on to explain that during most of their decades together, 1980s/1990s/2000s but not 2010s, both of them publicly referred to Deyvi Peña (born Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga) by the false name of 'José Alvarez' aka 'José Luis Alvarez' which moniker was in turn related to a different bunch of laws revolving around passports and legal immigration and identity theft. Might also mention the Carlos hoax and the stage name of The Great Carlos which Peña fka 'Alvarez' briefly assumed during the late 1980s, since that hoax involved international travel to Australia under the now-known-to-be-falsified passport, or might leave that bit out of this particular spouse-specific-footnote; depends on whether we want to combine everything into a single big footnote, or have a set of three or four footnotes for different subsections of the "main" article about Deyvi Peña.

Apologies for the length of my reply. The BLP-conundrum is an interesting one, partly because the real-world-topics-which-led-to-this-BLP-conundrum are in fact real-world-interesting; I think wikipedia should treat it (the real-world-topic) correctly, and as neutrally as possible, but without varnishing nor censoring the cold hard facts. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 20:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Malcolm Gordon

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

This article, about a longtime prep school hockey coach from around 1900, has no sources of any kind. It was created in 2004 but only has about 30 edits. Besides having no sources, the article includes an extraordinary claim that Gordon wrote what is regarded as the first set of hockey rules in the United States. Without that (unsourced) claim, it seems that Gordon perhaps is not even notable. I read WP:BLPPROD which explains about placing a BLPPROD tag for BLPs with no sources, but I am hoping that a much more experienced editor with BLPs could review the article and take whatever action is most appropriate. Lootbrewed (talk) 03:51, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The article was created before the BLPPROD policy came into effect, so I have sent it to AFD here.--ukexpat (talk) 14:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

One - he is dead. Two he is in the US Hockey Hall of Fame. Three he is mentioned in NYT. Four he gets in the list in the NHL official record book. [8] also a Hobey Baker connection (he was coach at the time). [9]. Collect (talk) 14:48, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Reggie Wayne

Can the profile image be changed to one of reggie wayne in a Pats uniform for accuracy's sake or is that not possible — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolpack Gaming (talk • contribs) 12:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

There are no suitable images at Creative Commons that we could use, and I did not find any free license image to upload to commons myself. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 16:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Vincent D'Onofrio

Reliable sources about Greta Scacchi's marriage to D'Onofrio are being removed again. The primary user doing so, User:Cvanderdonk, implied here that they are D'Onofrio's current wife, Carin van der Donk. If they are, this is a clear conflict of interest. If they aren't, that's another problem. Anyway, would appreciate others involving themselves in the discussion at Talk:Vincent D'Onofrio, as I believe I am not going to get far. Thanks all. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Union of Opposites ‖ 14:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation guidebook on biographies - seeking volunteers for review

Hello all, The Wiki Education Foundation is creating a handbook for student editors who will write biographies as part of a classroom assignment. We'd love to hear feedback from editors familiar with these policies, including BLP. The draft is here. Feedback posted before Wednesday, Sept. 2 would be most helpful. Thanks in advance for your help! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Hayden Black

The page contains no information from any reliable sources, has a heavily biased point of view and was probably written entirely by the person the article is about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.53.158.111 (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It does have reliable sources, but there are some issues with the article. Feel free to jump in and help improve it. - MrX 14:17, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Richard Ling

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

Hi,

I see on the page for Richard Ling that there is a notice about potentially libelous material. I fail to see it. I am Richard Ling and I do not have any problems with the material on that page.

Is there something that I am not seeing?

Please let me know.

Rich Ling riseling@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richling (talk • contribs) 02:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Are you talking about the alert box at the top of the talk page? This: "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous."

What is your concern? - MrX 14:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

My concern is the box. I am honored to have my bio on Wikipedia, but the box seems to suggest that it might be removed. You note that it would be removed "if" there is libelous material. However, I don't see anything that is a problem. Thus, I wonder why the warning was placed there. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richling (talk • contribs) 21:52, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

There is a standard-warning-notice-box, placed on the talkpage of all biographical articles, including on Talk:Richard_Ling. (There is no tagging of Richard_Ling in mainspace, at present.) User:Richling, there is a good reason for that box to be where it is. Because wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, at any time, it is possible that libelious material violating the warning in the box, might someday (in the future) be inserted, by a badguy. The standard-warning-notice-box, on the talkpage, is not there to PREVENT the badguy from inserting libelous material... the badguy won't even see that box when they edit the biographical article about Richard Ling, right? The box is there, to tell some hypothetical goodguy, who *sees* the newly-inserted libelous material, but is not sure whether they should be WP:BOLD and instantly remove that libelous material, to just go ahead and please remove it, rather than *asking* whether or not it should be removed. In other words, the box is there as a preventative measure: if a badguy inserts something bad, and a goodguy wants to remove it, but feels like they should talk about removing it first, the goodguy will click the 'talk' button ... and find that their question has already been answered. Before the standard-warning-notice-box was put on all biographical pages, there were supposedly a lot of cases where goodguys would not have the self-confidence to click the 'edit' button and would instead click 'talk' and say something like "hey this looks bad should somebody remove it?" The answer is, yes somebody should, and that somebody is YOU.  :-)     Anyways, hope this explains what the box is for. It's to give hypothetical goodguys, the self-confidence to thwart hypothetical badguys, should someday in the future the hypothetical badguy insert libel into Richard Ling. p.s. Can somebody create a redirect from Rich Ling to Richard Ling, please? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Jess Greenberg

Can someone please take a look at Talk:Jess Greenberg and help decide whether the thread "Reasons for Popularity" is a violation of WP:BLP. (see [10] for reference.) The thread has been removed three times by Tuesdaymight ([11], [12], [13]) because they feel it's a serious BLP violation that warrants immediate removal. There does not seem, at least to me, to be anything at all in that thread which is contentious and a BLP violation; It is just a discussion of relevant Wikipedia policies and how they might apply to any adding of content about Greenberg's physical appearance to the article. None of the editors who posted, outside of the original OP, proposed the adding of any such content to the article. No inappropriate or lewd comments about Greenberg were made. All that was posted was simply that such content could only be added if it was something which has received significant coverage in reliable sources. I have reverted the removals twice and tried to explain things at User talk:Tuesdaymight#Jess Greenberg, but there still seems to be a serious disconnect regarding what constitutes a BLP violation. Attempts were made to make the thread "more neutral sounding" by changing its name (Arthur goes shopping with this edit) and striking a word from a post (Dontreader with this edit), but still Tuesdaymight insists on removing the entire thread. It would help if some others could take a look a see if this thread is really something that should be removed per WP:BLP. Thanks in advance. - Marchjuly (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It was inappropriate for an editor to remove the section; there is no BLP violation there. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely not a WP:BLP violation. Not even close. - MrX 14:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Marchjuly, this small section (on Talk:Jess Greenberg) began with the heading “Mammaries”, and with a discussion of a particular woman’s breasts, and with the suggestion that the reason she’s popular is because of her mamary glands. That is really, truly inappropriate, and questionable, but really even beyond questionable. It’s offensive. And it is specifically forbidden, thank God, by the guidelines found in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Changes to this section were made in a retrograde manner to try to make things better, but the section is still clearly about a particular woman’s breasts as the reason she’s popular. Marchjuly, your suggestion that it is okay for a WP page to contain a section with matter that is forbidden by Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (because as you say, it might be helpful to other editors), seems to be an issue that you have with Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. I suggest that you make that argument on that talk page. Also when you suggest that apparently it’s okay to discuss Jimmy Durante’s nose (on User talk:Tuesdaymight#Jess Greenberg), that really doesn’t support the section you’re defending, because Jimmy Durante unfortunately isn’t living anymore, and references to him are not covered by Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. And your concern about “the entire thread” — well, it’s difficult to remove offensive material without altering the meaning or the comments of other editors — but offensive material needs to be removed and other editors will have to be appealed to for their understanding. The problem is that when guidelines of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons are not followed, and this gets compounded by violations of the guidelines found in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, (by altering a conversation after it has already been posted) it all gets worse and worse, and difficult to deal with. I stand by what I said above, and I don’t think we’ve met the “burden of proof” which the guidelines require of the editor intending to reinstate offensive material. Tuesdaymight (talk) 14:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

"Offensive" is not a reason for removal. Discussion is needed in order to determine how to edit the article. It's likely that the article will not be edited to say that her appearance is the main reason for her popularity. But individual editors may not decide that the matter may not be discussed, to the point of deleting others' posts. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Just to be clear, and to respond to the above comment by referring to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons: information about living persons on any Wikipedia page, if it's contentious material that is unsourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – it should be removed. Tuesdaymight (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is NOTBUREAUCRACY. Talk pages are for discussion about potential article content. As the question posed by the OP was speculative, and Wikipedia is NOTCENSORED, it was perfectly legitimate and should not have been removed. - MrX 15:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that this is inappropriate, as were previous comments on that page and edits to the article. At one point a blog was being used to support that kind of material, in violation of BLPSPS. Sarah ^(talk) 16:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize that the blog was still in the current version, so I've removed it. Sarah ^(talk) 16:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Agree with Nomos and MrX here - not a BLP violation. Offensive, probably. The argument that its overly negative (no one likes to be discussed based on their looks) does hold some weight, but I dont see anything there that is a BLP violation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• If the subject is primarily known for being well-endowed, then that is certainly a discussion that editors can hold on the talk page. Here's the trick; try to discuss it without being crass. This was a proper edit. This was not. Tarc (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Hi Tarc, I disagree that the former was appropriate. However expressed, the issue is being viewed through the eyes of certain heterosexual men only, and now that's the default on the talk page too. There's a mention of her appearance in the article, so the issue is dealt with. There's no need to go on about it on talk. Sarah ^(talk) 17:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• The first link I provided was to a diff of an editor changing a juvenile section title to something more neutral, what was wrong with that? The discussion itself, while dumb and probably pointless, did not rise to a level that necessitated outright removal. Tarc (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Tarc, that section and previous ones like it have made male the default on that talk page. There is no content issue, because her appearance is already mentioned in the article, so it's pointless locker-room talk. Sarah ^(talk) 17:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Ok, I see your point. If it was already mentioned in the article, then the discussion in quesiton seemed to want to discuss the specific...parts, it seems, that led to the subject's popularity. I'd still probably prefer hatting to deletion, if only to make it easier to find and reference in the future should the matter ever escalate into ANI or further. Tarc (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Tarc, hatting would be an appropriate compromise. It has the added benefit of not removing the material for future researchers to see. Tuesdaymight, I think the sexism on Wikipedia is going to be of interest to historians, so hatting or archiving may be better than removing, unless the material is clearly harmful to a living person. Sarah ^(talk) 18:37, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• Tarc nailed it. The BLP issue was resolved by removing the unnecessarily insensitive wording. There is no BLP justification for removing the thread altogether. VQuakr (talk) 17:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

To respond to MrX, I’m not sure what you mean by "censorship", because while you seem opposed to material being removed from WP, you then link to a site that says: “Content will be removed if it is judged to violate Wikipedia policies — especially those on biographies of living persons”. Those are the words you linked to on NOTCENSORED, not mine. Are you being contradictory? I don’t know what distinction you’re thinking of between WP policies and your idea. Or perhaps you didn’t read the link you linked to? Or maybe you have an argument with the WP policies In that case your thoughts belong on another page. If that last possibility is the case, MrX, you’re not alone in preferring your own ideas to the guidelines of Wikipedia. This applies also to Tarc’s comment when Tarc says: “If the subject is primarily known for being well-endowed, then that is certainly a discussion that editors can hold on the talk page", etc. Tarc, you con’t cite any policies, but the truth is you’re not free to talk about a person with questionable or controversal unsupported comments. That’s the issue, and that’s the WP policy found here: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons Tuesdaymight (talk) 17:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

"... if it is judged to violate Wikipedia policies" is the operative phrase here. We are the judges. Not all of the judges agree about the interpretation of the policy. The discussion about the subject's fame and its relationship to her breasts may be awkward, and it may even be trolling, but it is a reasonable proposition for a talk page discussion. The appropriate response would have been to ask for sources, and when they were not forthcoming, simply archive the discussion. - MrX 17:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source that states authoritatively that Ms. Greenberg’s breasts, rather than her music, are the source of her popularity? Is there a reliable source that discusses her breasts at all? Are Ms. Greenberg’s breasts demonstrably notable? Even arguably notable? If not, this discussion is very unlikely to contribute to the article, and discussion of this topic casts Wikipedia in a very poor light indeed. ≥ MarkBernstein (talk) 17:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The relevant question is: is it reasonable to have such a discussion on an article talk page? There are sources that suggest that it is a reasonable discussion.

• "Fortunately – and despite the inevitable comments from viewers – her fondness for low-cut tank tops is ultimately overriden by her musical talent,..."
• "Sexy Cover von Metallicas ‘Enter Sandman’"
• "Moltissimi l'accusano di utilizzare il proprio corpo per far conoscere la propria musica"
• "Finché un giorno non Jess Greenberg non ha cambiato angolazione alla videocamera e ha indossato una maglietta più scollata."
• "It's sad that her boobs are valued more than her talent."

- MrX 17:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The reliable sources should come first, we should not engage in pointless and potentially offensive speculation without them. Keeping this discussion open without them was inappropriate. Gamaliel (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Ideally, perhaps. I think we're fortunate that the IP editor had the good sense to raise it on the talk page rather than add it to the article. Simply deleting the thread was an unhelpful overreaction in my opinion. - MrX 18:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Tuesdaymight, you wrote that the section began "with a discussion of a particular woman’s breasts". There was no "discussion" of her breasts. A question was asked, and I merely said that in order to include the breasts issue in the article, a reliable source that discusses the matter is needed (and better yet if she herself addresses the topic in a reliable source). Per WP:TALK#USE, editors are allowed to ask questions and to voice their opinions on talk pages, in order to try to improve the respective articles. That question was relevant. In fact, several of the article's sources mention her physical attributes, such as the article entitled "The Breast 'Highway To Hell' Cover Of All Time". Yet you don't seem to have a problem with such sources. Finally, you are misinterpreting Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. It says, "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page." That's exactly what you will find in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Maintain Wikipedia policy. The key part of that sentence is "adding information". The person who created that section did not add information. It was simply a question. I did not add information about the living person either. If someone asks a contentious question or expresses an offensive (but relevant) opinion about a living person on Wikipedia, you cannot invoke Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and expect the person to provide reliable sources, or else erase a comment or an entire section, as you did. Questions and opinions don't have "sources". However, if a question or an opinion provides contentious information about a living person, then a reliable source must be provided. For example, if on the talk page of a living person, someone writes, "Shouldn't we include in the article the fact that this actor kills babies for satanic rituals?", then the editor must provide a reliable source, or else the material must be removed immediately. Dontreader (talk) 21:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• The thread was not inappropriate, nor even arguably offensive, aside from the initial title, which was changed early on. Even that was not a WP:BLP issue, as it made no statements or claims, nor added any information to the page. Removal (and edit warring to enforce it) was a clear violation of WP:TALK. As my comment was one of those removed (and now hatted) I am at least arguably involved, but should the thread be removed again, or I become aware of similar removals of other editor's comments by the same person, i would be inclined to take the matter to ANI or AN3. DES ^(talk) 22:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Dontreader, don’t sweat the nomenclature — whether it’s a conversation or whatever, call it what you want. I’m sure it will be fine. And nobody wants to censor anybody. And about any new issues that you might come up with, both of you, it’s okay, I think instead, it might be better to find common ground. After all, Dontreader and DES, you both feel that there was something on the talk page that needed to be changed, and that the talk page was then altered to “clean it up”. I think that a number of editors have expressed that they were bothered by what was on the talk page, too. Let’s just agree that we should respect Wikipedia and it’s guidelines, and when we edit we should try to make it the best that it can be. My only issue has been about adhereing to the guidelines, and I will continue to hold to that, as I hope you both will also -- in our different ways. I was very pleased to hear that the offending passages are gone and the whole section has been hatted. I think Sarah did that, and thank God. The experience of participating on a notice-board was different than I expected. Maybe I expected it to be more deliberative, but instead it turns out to be way more random and anarchic - more like being in a mosh pit or something — certainly nobody’s finest hour. But the result may be the best we could have done. Cheers. Tuesdaymight (talk) 03:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Lou Pearlman

• Lou Pearlman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Could someone please take a look at material that has been added and beefed up regarding Pearlman's sexual practices? There are several IPs and one new editor involved, and I don't think the material is egregious enough for me to continue reverting. It was first added on August 30 here. Thanks.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It is close enough to using innuendo where no charges have been filed for this over-zealous person to view it as a significant problem per WP:BLP. It is on the order of "XXX in a radio interview said YYY engaged in illegal practices No one else backs these claims but an author referred to anecdotes which might pertain to the allegations. No one has made any formal charges or allegations at all." Collect (talk) 14:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Concur. Especially since the same author says he could find absolutely no record of any person who would confirm it. Using a source to bring up negative information (seemingly unfounded allegations in this case) and then using the same source to say 'but there is no evidence of this' just seems like an excuse to smear. Undue rather than an outright violation I feel. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:37, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Adam Carolla

• Adam Carolla (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Is the Guinness World Record still standing? It was in 2011... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.251.94.128 (talk) 18:16, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I can't find a source that says otherwise. Even if the show doesn't currently hold the record, the page seems fine as-is, it's will always be true that his podcast set the record in 2011. — Strongjam (talk) 18:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Date added in lead to prevent any confusion. Collect (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Chaplain Farris Robertson, Author, Founder of Recovery Chapel

Collapsing draft article text.--ukexpat (talk) 14:03, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Chaplain Farris Robertson (https://twitter.com/farris41), born in 1953 in Los Angeles, California, is an author and the founder of Recovery Chapel (www.RecoveryChapel.org) in Springfield, Missouri. He wrote his first book at age 28, The Unelected Elite". He married his wife, Ruth Litman Robertson, in 1991, and they relocated from Los Angeles to Springfield, Missouri that same year. They coauthored two books in 2013 and 2014, Executive Summary of the Bible and Recovery for the Christian Family. His father died when he was ten years old, he was baptized at age fifteen, had substance abuse issues until May 21, 1985, and founded Recovery Chapel in 2004. He operates recovery residences for men recovering from substance abuse issues. He was the Missouri Delegate for National Recovery Month in 2010. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.20.161.225 (talk) 20:49, 1 September 2015 (UTC) References

• I'm not sure what you're asking for here. He doesn't appear to have an article on Wikipedia nor does his church, so if you're looking to request an article be created you can do so here. I do have to caution you though, you should make sure that he'd pass notability guidelines prior to requesting this. Offhand I'm not seeing much to show that he's received coverage in WP:RS to where he'd pass notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Orangemoody

At Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody/Articles we say:

In this specific case, however, in order to prevent article subjects from continued shakedowns by bad actors who are causing significant harm to the reputation of this project, the articles are all being deleted.

This text is being reproduced off-wiki by various parties, and the sense of it by many more, including generally reputable journals.

Clearly a shakedown is an act of extortion, illegal in most countries, and unethical everywhere. It is claimed that simply becasue we are not naming those involved, this does not constitute a BLP infraction (or libel).

I respectfully disagree for the following reasons.

1. A significant number of those blocked, if they are different people, operated under named accounts, and therefore can be considered named, notably Orangemoody, the eponymous account of the case.
2. It is quite possible that either the IP addresses, or the named accounts are easy to associate with natural people. It is not uncommon for people to use the same account on many services, to build an on-line reputation.
3. As far as WP:BLP is concerned it is material about a living person there is no requirement that the "real world identity" be linked.

It is certainly worth while blocking these accounts, and I would have no issue with them being prosecuted for violating WP:TOS. However we need to curb this extravagant use of language.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC).

Shakedown is probably too strong a word. Coercion may be more appropriate. - MrX 00:45, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

We are not mentioning any specific accounts. We are making clear the motives for deletion based on information we have had that these shakedowns have been occurring, at no point is it suggested that every single account is doing this. It is not extravagant language, it is very accurate language. When you tell someone "pay us or else" that is a shakedown pure and simple. I suppose we could use less colourful language like "extortion", but that is hardly a distinction relevant to BLP. Coercion as MrX suggests is accurate, however extortion means the same thing except refers to "obtaining something, especially money" which in this case is more accurate. Chillum 00:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

My concerns are not abated. Firstly if we were saying ""bad actors, who are some of the people who run the accounts, the others are all perfectly nice" then there would perhaps be some wriggle room, but the obvious reading is the group as a whole (assuming there is more than one). Secondly we require that such claims be verifiable, which at present, as far as I can see, they are not.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:02, 2 September 2015 (UTC).

Oh and by the way, being, presumably, not public persons, the mens rea requirement is much lower if it ever does come to liability (in the US), so extreme caution, rather than merely caution is advised. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC).

My reading is that we are deleting to avoid shakedowns being done by bad actors. At no point do we call anyone a bad actor or suggest that all articles were made by bad actors.

We are saying that bad actors are engaging in shakedowns, "prevent article subjects from continued shakedowns by bad actors". We are not saying that any account or person is a bad actor or engaging in shakedowns. We are saying that this has happened and that deleting these articles will prevent that. It is like if we say "We delete harmful statements about living people" we are not saying "If we delete your stuff it means you are being harmful". Chillum 01:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Chillum, there is a conflict here between what wikipedia should say to alert AfC-queue-workers, admins, and other long-haul wikipedians ... and what wikipedia should say *about* the specific accounts being blocked, and *about* the specific articles being deleted (and the topics of said articles which are typically corporation-articles or BLP-articles or product-articles). The distinction is important, albeit somewhat artificial. For instance:

we are blocking a bunch of accounts, a lot of them are bad actors, there was some undislosed paid editing, there were shakedowns/extortions being used, thus we are deleting all the articles in scorched-earth policy, as a warning to future bad actors, all good apples please be aware that this situation could recur and may not be over yet

Phrasing such as my somewhat-contrived example above, as Rich pointed out, is pretty easy to misconstrue, especially if one is a lawyer, that actually know what mens rea even means. Compare with the phrasing below, functionally equivalent but somewhat-artificially segmented, that is a longer-winded description of the exact same situation:

we are blocking a bunch of accounts for socking and for meatpuppetry, since this is not permitted per wiki-policy, in some cases the ToU policy against undisclosed paid editing was violated, and there were allegations that some of these blocked accounts (but not all of them) were off-wiki-contacting some of the corporations and humans -- usually the subject-matter of the corporation-articles and BLP-articles in question -- then allegedly demanding payment and/or allegedly threatening article-deletion, if financial compensation was not forthcoming. Because of the troubling circumstances, we are mass-deleting the articles involved; this is not because the articles themselves are necessarily poor, nor the article-topics are necessarily non-encyclopedic ... indeed a small percentage do appear to pass WP:42 once the puffery is cleaned out. Most importantly, this mass-deletion is certainly not because the off-wiki victims of the bad-apple-socks, which is to say, the corporations and the biographical-subjects, were in any way at fault: quite often, in fact, some innocent good-faith COI-encumbered wikipedian would be diligently following wiki-policies, working in the AfC queue on their autobiography for example, or working in the AfC queue on a corporation-article about their employer, and in the course of receiving a (proper&correct) AfC decline, with instructions for improvement, these good-apple-COI-wikipedians would (allegedly) be approched off-wiki with cash demands and (allegedly) threats of draft-deletion, by some of the bad apples involved in this socking-ring. The topics of these articles, who are often themselves wikipedians, should be treated kindly; they are the victims here, not the perpetrators of the alleged bad-apple-actions. GOING FORWARD: all admins and wikipedians are advised that any sort of shakedown, coercion, or similar tactics -- which might theoretically be attempted by any bad apples in the future -- any such tactic being used against good-faith COI-encumbered wikipedian editors, or being used in real life against the corporations and biographical-subjects of wikipedia articles, will be treated most harshly.

Probably my overly-verbose rewrite could be cut down, trimmed for brevity, made as simple as possible but no simpler, but the point is, we need to clearly separate the allegations about what happened in the past, aka the accusations of shakedowns/extortions/etc (I personally witnessed one specific case where such allegations did occur), and keep them firmly in the alleged-category. Hypothetical *future* shakedowns/extortions/whatever, by hypothetical *future* bad apples, should be the main target of harsh expressions and intransigence.

    To be clear, I don't think the blocking was done poorly, and don't think (most of) the mass-article-deletions were an incorrect strategy, either. I thank those involved for their hard work, and offer kudos for a job well done. This language-suggestion is "merely" a question of phrasing-in-the-aftermath, and of PR-for-wikipedia, and of making clear whom is whom -- with precision. Such phrasing-things are not as important as the actual sock-investigations, and the actual sock-blocking, and the preparations for preventing (or at least mitigating) future such attacks on wikipedia's very core tenets. But phrasing does matter, and in particular, I have a hunch that at least one of the meatpuppets involved with the 381 blocks, got roped into the socking-ring without understanding what they were getting into. More crucially, it is *very* likely that if future attacks of this nature occur, they will be more sophisticated about it, and attempt to entangle good-faith editors into the hypothetical future scheme, so as to better obscure their wiki-illicit activities, and so as to make harsh responses less feasible. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sylvester Turner

There is consistent sock puppetry occurring on the Sylvester Turner page. The same edits are made by different editors and are meant to negatively impact the individual's biography.

Here are the statements consistently added by two of users, Saq2015 and Bogg5576:

Huon has noted this apparent bias editing : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sylvester_Turner and removed the information. The page was protected on August 11 but now that the protection has expired, a new user — Preceding unsigned comment added by Princessbabylove3 (talk • contribs) 17:31, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, a lot of the BLP looks as if it were written for a campaign brochure, while the negative material now removed was certainly also pretty bad. I would blow this one up and stick to ascertainable fact, and avoid mentioning bills a person "authored", being "elected senior class president by his peers", and a section on "criminial justice." The meat of the BLP would easily fit in three easy-to-read paragraphs. (opinions applicable to a huge majority of BLPs for all countries entirely - if an item is not of major import, generally it is better to remove it rather than keep adding to it in the attempt to bring "balance" - almost invariably the best "balance" is by deletion of the entire litany of good and evil.) Collect (talk) 17:42, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

(Asserting that these comments are not "political" for those following my edits and that this noticeboard is not a "political page") - the libel suit results make clear that this stuff under no circumstances whatsoever belongs in any BLP - the suit was won by Turner, and later thrown out due to the requirement of "actual malice" for a public person and not just "deliberate falsity." Collect (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)