User talk:Scott MacDonald

My name is Scott MacDonald (well, maybe) and I am a recovering Wikipediholic. For the sake of my work, family, and sanity, I have mainly given up this unhealthy addiction to a project of questionable ethics - and no desire to fix them.

Will I be back to full editing? I don't know. I hope not. Messages may be left here, and will be read periodically. However, I am unlikely to respond to most project-related messages.

--Scott Mac (Doc) 14:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of BLPs

Rationale.

Together with a number of other administrators, I am deleting biographies of living people which have been unsourced for considerable lengths of time, and have not improved. Currently, my deletion have been of articles unsourced for over three years.

I am doing this because it is the right thing to do, and is consistent with the BLP polcy that unacceptable unsourced material on living people should be removed from this project. This has nothing to do with the notability or otherwise of the article. Deletion is, naturaly, a last resort. It would be better if these articles were fixed. However, three years of tagging and waiting and improvement and this fixing has not happened for these articles. Three years or more of discussion and the community has put in place no other realistic remedy. Thus it is time for the last resort. I encourage other administrators to follow this lead - as I am following those who began this.

Of course, removing unsourced BLPs does not solve the BLP problem, but it is a start.

Objections

If you belive an article should be kept, you are at liberty to restore it, providing you properly fix the sourcing issues, and any other BLP issues it may raise. I do not object to undeletion if you take responsibility for this. If you are not an administrator, you can list the article below, note your willingness to fix it, and I, or another admin will restore it.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I am definitely just coming in to the middle of the debate here. Is not the key word surely Unacceptable. An unsourced BLP that has no negatives does not come under this at all and should undergo the normal process of notability. Polargeo (talk) 16:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

All material on living people ought to be vertified and referenced. It is the least we can do when we write about people - check there's sources toback it up. For a time it may be OK to to say "hey this is incomplete, someone will check it and source it later". What is unacceptable is retaining articles for years and years when it has become obvious that ain't happening. Notability has nothing to do with this - this is about verification and quality control.--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

E-mail

Please shoot me an email at laralovewiki(at)gmail(dot)com. Lara 19:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my e-mail is broken right now. Best thing is to message me through WR.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

G-gmail is a glory to behold, but I will pm you on WR. Lara 21:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Remember kids, PM's on WR are not necessarily secure. Use them only for things you are comfy with the management of WR knowing. ++Lar: t/c 22:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Rats!

You mean Badlydrawnjeff Part 2 just happened and I missed all the fun? I'm as sick as a parrot! Tony Sidaway, from my Skypephone which alas despite being the veritable canine testes is not equipped with BLP-sensitive RADAR. --Tasty monster 21:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, well played. Is this the first arbcom motion ever to pass that expresses the pivotal nature of Ignore all rules? In any event, congratulations tinged with envy! -TS —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tasty monster (talk • contribs) 22:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

I haven't reviewed the specifics of your recent article deletions, so I can't vouch for each and every one of them of course, but I wanted to fully endorse the principles that, as I understand it, you have used in your deletions: unsourced BLPs that have been around for several years are an easy and obvious first target, and your deletions, while unconventional and a bit exciting for some, were carefully considered and I consider this a valid application of WP:BOLD. You have my support.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh wow!! :o - Alison ^❤ 22:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo. That is indeed appreciated.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Doc for having the cojones to do the right thing regardless of potential cost ... someone had to get this ball rolling. ++Lar: t/c 22:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Sourced highly notable people deleted by you

Morton Gurtin is sourced and extremely notable in his field. He's a Timoshenko Medal winner. There are probably others but that's one I recognized immediately from a quick scan. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Notability isn't a relevant factor here. My deletions were not about notability. The article was not sourced, I think you are mistaken (unless I've missed something, which is also possible). If you can source it, you are welcome to restore it.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The point about notability is that the individual you deleted is basically famous. That's what we're talking about here. And simply reading the cached version in google it has lots of sources as you can see if you scroll down. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm missing your point. I did not delete it for lack of notability. I deleted it because we should not have unreferenced biographies of anyone - it isn't OK just because someone says they are famous. I'm still not seeing any sources. I see a "Selected publications" list, but no biographical sources whatsoever.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Also if you are going to continue on your course of action kindly userfy Steve Collins (ski jumper), Johnny Doran (actor), Matylda Damięcka, Christina Dieckmann. And that's just for start. So far every single deletion I've check it took about as long to find sources as it does to press the delete button. I wonder what that says. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm personally not volunteering to source biographies. It's not something I care to do. If you want to there are thousands more for you to choose from. I'll undelte those articles now if you undertake to source them properly within a few hours maximum.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Right, you are personally volunteering to do something which takes as much time as sourcing but doesn't help anyone. I understand that. Well know, I don't understand that. But yes, I want those restored. Obviously I'm going to add sources. See, because I actually spent 60 seconds on google and actually am interested in keeping content. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

SMD, you're going in alphabetical monthly reverse chronological order from tag date, right? I certainly am. It seems Nov-06 is done. People who want to rescue things should go to Dec-06 and start sourcing from the A's downward. Then people who are volunteering to source bios will stay ahead of the people volunteering to delete unsourced bios. Win Win! Hipocrite (talk) 22:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Or lose lose because many of the people trying to source and recover don't have access to things once they leave the Google cache. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually, I'm on Feb 2007 at the moment. I've only been deleting articles with no sources whatsoever. I've left things with incredibly poor sourcing (myspace, imdb, and personal websites) for the moment, although these could probably go too. Really, the Joshuas of this world have had 3 years to work through this stuff. If they so badly want it kept, and it is so easy to source, why haven't they done it? But now I start taking action, they tell me to do something they've failed to do? Any article I've deleted in this manner can be restored if someone wants to source it. (Personally I think most of them would be better left dead, so I'm not really keen to help here, but I will not hinder others.) --Scott Mac (Doc) 22:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

And it might occur to you that the main reason we haven't sourced these is that these articles really aren't the harmful part of BLP. We have far more of a problem with serious POV pushing and libel. And deleting this content doesn't actually solve that at all. It is like putting a bandage on something that may or may not be a paper cut while there's a massive brain tumor. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to keep talking or are you going to userfy or restore these articles like I asked? JoshuaZ (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Please also userfy or restore Eudaldo Forment, Allen Engel and Robert W. Corell. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

And the same for Sébastien Charpentier (motorcycle racer), Tom Busch. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

You're an admin, why don't you just do it yourself? ++Lar: t/c 22:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Er. Not exactly. Hipocrite (talk) 22:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

He's not? Was he ever? He sure talks like the stereotypical bad admin they like to make fun of on that BADSITE. ++Lar: t/c 22:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Your behavior has been brought up at ANI

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Administrator_Scott_MacDonald_self_blocking_to_avoid_a_block Ikip 22:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Funniest ANI subject header EVER! --TS 22:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)