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The main problems with Oscar Wyatt are the seas of unsourced sentences, and also the fact that editors tried to whitewash the fact that he served time in federal prison. WhisperToMe ( talk) 05:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
When should the prod blp tag be used? Would it apply to, for example, a band page if there are no reliable sources? Or should it only be used on a biography? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 20:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Articles on bands are not technically BLPs but they are what I call "high risk" articles. I've been thinking that they should be given some of the same protections as BLPs. (exemption from 3RR for unsourced content etc.) I might propose that on VPP but right now I would have to agree that BLP prods are only for individual BLPs.
Another example of "high risk" articles are companies currently in business. A marginally notable "mom and pop" restaurant can be damaged by unsourced negative information in its article (example, health and/or safety violations) just as a living person can. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 18:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
A user has objected to this material [ [1]] as trimed for reason of BLP (I am n ot sure what this is supposed to mean exaclty) is this material in breach of BLP? Slatersteven ( talk) 15:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
BLP1E has been cited in any number of deletion debates where WP:BIO1E is probably the more appropriate link. To recap, BLP1E, as a BLP page, should be focused on protecting people from undue, possibly harmful publicity, while BIO1E, as a notability guideline, should be focused on keeping non-notable people who don't object to their 15 minutes of fame out of the encyclopedia. The misuse I've seen is people talking about a de facto notability guideline, but using the "BLP" aspect of articles on individual living people as a lever in disagreements. In thinking over this, I think I see a few possible remedies:
Thoughts? Jclemens ( talk) 06:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I've nominated List of Indian muslims for deletion (Afd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Indian muslims). I'd like to request input comments from those close to BLP policy, as I think the topic has important BLP ramifications. I wasn't sure whether to put this here or at WP:BLPN, so feel free to move if that's a better location. Qwyrxian ( talk) 22:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be a division of opinion among the policy editors and also in a current RFA as to whether an unsourced negative Bio would qualify as a G10 if it might actually be correct. EG the unsourced bio of an alleged murderer. My view is that plausible sounding attack pages are worse than implausible ones, and the place to assume good faith is on the talkpage of the author of the article that you've deleted. - I have written some very non-standard explanations after I've deleted as G10 completely unsourced bios of alleged mafiosi. But others may think differently. So does anyone want to make the case for leaving up plausible sounding totally unsourced articles in case it is true that someone "killed many innocent people". Ϣere SpielChequers 12:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The current wording is:
I think this doesn't adequately reflect policy. We deal with what pages are, and the likely impact, not second guessing the purpose of the creator (which we should, where possible, assume was good faith). I suggest this wording should be:
I made the change ([WP:BRD]]), but was reverted on the grounds that ""appear to" is the critical wording - otherwise legitimate bios of criminals may be classified as "attack pages""". I'd simply point out that the key word is "unsourced". A sourced bio of a criminal should certainly not be speedy deleted , but an unsourced one should be regardless of the creator's intent (it is not, by our definition, "legitimate"). We can't allow unsourced articles claiming that a living person has committed crimes to hang about. (And indeed we don't!) I submit the wording should thus be updated to reflect policy.-- Scott Mac 12:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately it seems many articles on Wikipedia about individual Tibetan lamas usually look less like objective summaries of verifiable biographical material than they do mini-hagiographies or promotional material. Usually it turns out the main contributors are either disciples of the lama concerned or have some close involvement with that particular lama’s own religious tradition. While this may provide some “insider knowledge”, it usually heavily biases the content with a particular non-objective POV.
Often much of the material seems drawn directly from the Lama's website or that of a directly affiliated Dharma group. Usually these are full of totally unverifiable claims saying the lama is an incarnation or emantion of some historic holy person, bodhidattva, or Buddhist diety. If one tries to improve these articles to make them more objective they are invitably reverted or modified by devoted followers putting them back more or less the way they were before - often increasingly so.
Hope I don't get confined to some vajra-hell for raising this, but should devoted disciples (or disaffected former disciples) of a Lama be actively be encouraged to preclude themselves from editing articles about their "root guru" or "spiritual lineage" on grounds of conflict of interest? The goals of being a good disciple in the Tibetan tradition and those of Wikipedia often seem to be mutually opposed.
The same of course goes for articles on other "holy" or venerated religious figures of all faiths - but it seems safer to raise the issue with Buddhists.
Chris Fynn ( talk) 19:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates, different forms of bigotry are obviously relevant to categories that "suggest that the persons included in the list or template have a poor reputation." The categories below mostly list individuals and groups, as well as more general articles.
Some of those individuals are indeed bigots according to WP:RS, while some of them have worked against bigotry or been victims of it. Some of these articles have warnings that listing there does "not imply that the subjects of any articles in the category are" quilty of which ever form of bigotry the category deals with. Most of the categories have no comment at all. I didn't see any of the two templates which suggest that no names should be in these categories at all, located at Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Category_namespace_templates. Both refer one to WP:BLPCAT (this article), which is what I believe needs further clarification on this issue where category inconsistency and ambiguity is such a problem.
While I personally think the honest and accurate thing to do is just have categories of those against whom sufficient numbers of WP:RS have made allegations (if only to find and weed out those with poorly sourced or WP:unde allegations), I doubt that would pass BLP. The other alternative, as recommended after this Categories for discussion-Homophobia discussion would be to make it the policy “no articles for allegedly homophobic people (including fictional people), organizations, or media should exist in this category,” replacing the relevant category for homophobic.
This seems to be a policy issue that needs to be made here and not on a case by case basis at each category after long frustrating discussions. Thoughts? Otherwise I'll have some more. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 20:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
It was I who created Category:People accused of antisemitism and I actually thought Category:Anti-Semitic people still existed and wanted to a different category for actual confirmed antisemites than people merely accused of it. Earlier such people were all put into Category:Antisemitism with all the BLP problems that gives. // Liftarn ( talk) 08:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose the proposal. Regardless of the discussion about Latuff and Antisemitism, I can see a lot of harmful potential in this proposal. It could be an excuse for disruptive editors to arbitrarily remove categories on spurious grounds. A lot of categories on BLPs are disputed but given appropriate sourcing, they are included. This proposal seems to ignore both sources and consensus and says that we should simply remove the category if unsure. — Ynhockey ( Talk) 18:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Which looks like it hasn’t been updated in a while, including to comply with this year’s changes to Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_people#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates. Clarifications also needed. While most is cleanup, there are specific proposals to clarify cases where categories are using “Disclaimers” to try to get around the fact that inclusion of the category implies the person has a poor reputation. (For example see Category:Antisemitism and Category:Homophobia and Category_talk:Anti-Islam_sentiment) CarolMooreDC ( talk) 14:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I could use some more explanation of this sentence: "Do not use trial transcripts, other court records, or other public documents to support assertions about a living person, unless a reliable secondary source has published the material."
I understand why the rule applies to trial transcripts -- they're just testimony and they're not reliable sources. But does the rule apply to court judgments? I mean, suppose we were writing about Kristin Perry, the lead named plaintiff in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (the prop 8 case). And suppose it were somehow relevant to say that "Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier reside together in Alameda County, California and are raising four children." Can I not use the text of the case (where I lifted that quote from) to support that claim? Why is that?
It took me ten minutes writing and thinking about this post before I realized that Reason Three is the most likely reason. As a result, I think we're mistaken to categorize this advice as an example of "misuse of primary sources." The problem isn't citing to a primary source -- the problem is that we're citing to a source that contains embarrassing information that might have been intended to remain private, until years later it was posted online and indexed by a search engine. UPDATE: I've been bold and made a change to the policy to reflect this. Let me know what you think. Andrew Gradman talk/ WP:Hornbook 10:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Titillating newspaper reports should not normally pass the reputable sources smell test for a living biography. Rumiton ( talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
How about: In addition, trial court proceedings are written in a legal style that can easily be misinterpreted by non-professionals, intentionally or otherwise. They are therefore regarded as primary sources which require high quality secondary sources for their interpretation. Courts of Appeal are considered to be secondary sources, one step removed from the trial court deliberative process. Rumiton ( talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi Slp1 and all! To my fresh eyes, it seems the court rules are tangential to the paragraph's original intent, nominally to summarize WP:PRIMARY, which has a very good Policy set of rules that work fine to me if applied to the example of court documents. The rules on self-pub are also very applicable; court docs should be fine for unobjectionable personal details (I'd even say DOB), but not for controverted details. I'd move this graf essentially to WP:PRIMARY, then summarize the PRIMARY policy here better, both in general and with specific reference to court docs (no extra explanations as to why court docs are "less reliable"). Cautious Wikipedians should be able to use court docs with proper care as per the other policies. JJB 19:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I broadened the section to include other cases than court, and I added words to self-pub to make explicit that firsthand testimony may be included subject to the same harsh standards as other self-pub. Rereading the policy, it seems that it was pretty well-rounded already and only needed minor tweaks, and that nothing else is needed as policy tools to fight off POV. Noncontroversial facts are fine as defined by the self-pub policy in firsthand testimony, and it limitedly applies to firsthand testimony about others, because primary-source testimony by a hospital records custodian can be the best source for a DOB of a public person (or YOB of a private person). Adoption, marriage, kids and convictions might or might not have BLP consequences, but they are already handled by other parts of this policy. He-said she-said is WP:NOT Wikipedia unless noted by secondary sources. JJB 16:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
I only mean, if I say something noncontroversial about myself in court, that's an appropriate supplemental source. Yes (thanks), it's actually the court publishing it even though I'm freely testifying it, so there may be another way to angle the concern; but I think your version permits it, so whichever. JJB 18:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
At the Adnan Oktar-article, we have a discussion on blogs as sources for the article on this living person. One of the blogs used is the Pharyngula-blog, an Expert Blog of the well-known biologist PZ Myers. This blog Pharyngula won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog, and the science journal Nature listed it as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist.
A small search on Wikipedia learnt me that Myers's blog is used as a source in the articles of Cheri Yecke, Jonathan Wells, Richard Dawkins, Caroline Crocker Guillermo Gonzalez, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Kary Mullis, Michael Egnor, John G. West, Casey Luskin, Randy Olson, Richard Cohen, Carl Baugh, Christine Comer, Antony Flew, Ray Kurzweil, Stephen C. Meyer, Monica Crowley, Rom Houben, Hugh Ross, Jonathan Sarfati and Lonnie Latham.
And those people are all alive. According to the rules, "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control."
The problem here is that some authorities in different fields are hosting their own blog nowadays. The articles they produce in the blog-format are, according to the rules, banned from Wikipedia, just because they are blogs. That is quite a problem if better sources are lacking.
Obviously, there are two options: OR we rework the articles of the persons above, OR we should change the rules in favour of blogs by qualified experts. I would chose the second option, but I wonder what the rest of the people here would prefer. Jeff5102 ( talk) 08:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
The policy says: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, court documents, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person." I understand this means self-published sources can't be used to support something like "So-and-so once killed a man." What I'm not clear on is whether policy also rules out something like "The blog Such-and-Such described So-and-so's book as 'rubbish.'" The specific example I'm thinking of is the article on Nina Power, which includes quotations from blogs criticizing a book written by the subject of the page. Is including these blogs a violation of this part of the BLP policy (they might not be reliable sources in any case; but if they violate the BLP policy, it's more clearcut that they should be removed)? VoluntarySlave ( talk) 03:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
In a currently ongoing arbitration, the arbitrator Carcharoth has made the following comment on the talk page. I post it in full here (the paragraph breaks were added by me for readability) because I think it might be useful in clarifying this policy:
One observation I wanted to make here is that one of main problems I've observed with the editing of biographies of living people (BLPs), though it applies to other articles as well, is that people too often edit such articles piecemeal. Some new bit of information comes up, or someone thinks some bit of information would be good to put in or take out of a BLP (for whatever reason), and the article bloats in one particular area, and not enough thought is given to the overall state of the article.
Rather than edit parts of the article, or argue over a sentence here or a paragraph there, the aim when editing BLPs (or any articles containing BLP material) should be to (before hitting save) to put the small-scale considerations to one side, and to step back and consider the article as a whole. Whenever you edit a BLP and hit save, it is not the state of the bit of the article that you edited that should be of greatest concern, but the overall state of the article. If there is imbalance, distortion, irrelevance, or incorrect tone, then by saving the article without correcting that, you are contributing to the problem.
Probably the best state of mind in which to edit a BLP is a slightly disinterested state, but still thinking "if I was this person, would I be happy with the overall state of this article?". If, on the other hand, you are editing a BLP and thinking "how can I get this bit of information I just found in a news story to fit in the article", or "how can I get this snippet of information from this book or journal paper to fit in the article", or "how can I get this vital bit of climate change information into this article", and you do so without looking at the rest of the article or even trying to expand the rest of the article, and you then walk away from the article having successfully added the snippet of information you wanted to add, then you probably shouldn't be editing that BLP (by failing to consider overall balance, you may be distorting the article or even pushing a point of view).
In other words, those heavily editing a topic area can lose perspective on BLPs within that topic area, and it helps to ask others (who may have a more objective viewpoint) to assess whether the balance, tone and comprehensiveness of the BLP is as good as it could be.
This concern is one reason why I support the current emphasis on BLPs in the [Climate Change arbitration] proposed decision.
(Carcharoth 24 August 2010)
Thoughts on whether (and if so, how) these sentiments could be blended into the policy, please. -- TS 16:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Regarding this edit [2] I would say that documents filed by the parties are by definition self-published (to the extent they can be said to be published at all). The lawyers, acting as fiduciaries / agents of the parties, file the parties' factual and legal claims without benefit of editorial oversight, investigation, or accountability. They are claims designed to win cases. What we're trying to get away from is content like "Smith's boyfriend said in a lawsuit filed Monday that Smith is a 'habitual drug abuser, morally bankrupt, and utterly beyond all human decency'." A court's own statement aren't exactly self-published but they have some other BLP issues. - Wikidemon ( talk) 04:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
A court filing (by a party, as opposed to a judge's decision or order) is evidence that that party asserted a given fact or position as of a given point in time. It is generally insufficient evidence that the fact or position is in fact true, and without more it is insufficient evidence that the underlying dispute is sufficiently notable to be reported on Wikipedia (that would usually require significant coverage in secondary sources).
At least in the U.S., an increasing number of courts (including the entire federal judicial system) now require court filings to be available online. This has positive implications for accessibility and transparency, but also will substantially increase the publicity attainable by legal disputes that are about largely private matters, as well as the propagation of allegations that prove to be false or may even be malicious and defamatory. (Assertions in court papers are generally privileged and can't be the subject of a libel suit, even if they would be defamatory in another context.) We should be attentive to the BLP implications of technological change in this area. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
As the party reverted in the presenting edit, I'd continue pushing mildly for inclusion of "partisan court filings" or the like among "self-publications" (loosely understood) that should not be used without careful balancing; and the balancing appropriate to other selfpub seems just right. A public but obscure court document should not be used negatively in a BLP (nor unduly self-servingly), but the document may still be used (subject to OR and primary-source constraints) for neutral facts conforming to their context, or in non-BLP articles. Omitting this doesn't seem to serve much purpose. JJB 04:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Jclemens, I see you reverted my removal of this footnote:
It is important for editors to understand two clear differentiations of WP:BIO1E when compared to WP:BLP1E. Firstly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of living people. Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low profile individuals.
Unless I'm missing something, it just repeats that the BLP policy applies to living people, and that the "notable for just one event" doesn't apply to people notable for more than just one event. Is there a particular reason you want to keep it? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Based on the above discussion, #Carcharoth_on_editing_BLPs_as_a_whole, here a proposal, with the sentence to be added marked in bold:
Wikipedia contains
hundreds of thousands of articles about living persons. From both a legal and ethical standpoint it is essential that a determined effort be made to eliminate defamatory and other inappropriate material from these articles. This includes article maintenance to ensure that biographies are not overwhelmed by material added in response to ongoing media controversies: a biography article should always strive to present a balanced overview of the subject's life to date, without becoming unduly focused on recent controversies. However, but these concerns must be balanced against other concerns, such as allowing articles to show a bias in the subject's favor by removing appropriate material simply because the subject objects to it, or allowing articles about non-notable publicity-seekers to be retained. When in doubt about whether material in a BLP is appropriate, the article should be pared back to a policy-compliant version. Sometimes the use of administrative tools such as
page protection and
deletion is necessary for the enforcement of this policy, and in extreme cases
action by Wikimedia Foundation staff is required.
Thoughts? -- JN 466 14:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Per Tony's comment above, 21:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC), here a proposal for an additional paragraph, to be added after the "Criticism and praise" section:
When covering controversies in a BLP, or other articles involving living persons, care must be taken to ensure that this material does not overwhelm the article. While notable controversies should be addressed, a biography article must at all times strive to present a balanced overview of the subject's life to date, as available from reliable sources. Editors adding new material must be mindful of the overall state of the article when saving a new article version, ensuring that they do not leave the article unbalanced, or unduly focused on a recent controversy that has attracted media attention.
Thoughts? -- JN 466 11:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#African American category regarding the placement of the article about Kevin Durant in Category:African American basketball players. Comments and suggestions on what to do with the article would be appreciated. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 06:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
User:Berian added the following to the beginning of the "Reliable Sources" section: "BLPs require more cites, they should be inline cites, and they must be of a higher quality, than for most other articles." User:Rrius reverted at the same time I was reverting. I just want to add to Rrius's edit summary to say that I actually don't believe that the summary statement by Berian is correct. Nothing in policy requires "more" sources--it just strictly requires that everything be sourced. Similarly, as much as I like inline citations, I don't see anything in policy that requires them. And, finally, I think all sources on Wikipedia need to have high quality, not just those on BLP articles. Qwyrxian ( talk) 22:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
An image captioned "German Prostitute" and showing an identifiable female is, so far, being kept. We disagree on whether the Foundation has her consent; I say it has to be sent to the Foundation and be explicit, not implied from her maybe being an editor. We also disagree on whether it's sufficient to wait until she herself requests deletion, especially if she's not an editor and doesn't know of the picture. Names mismatch. A second deletion request is now pending for a few more days. Please take a look at Deletion_requests/File:0405.Annabell_002.jpg and scroll to the second request. Thank you. Nick Levinson ( talk) 12:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I propose to add the above lines to the BLP section. Comments, criticism would be appreciated. Wifione ....... Leave a message 04:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not. The whole point of BLP is that Wikipedia can get sued under American law for defaming living people. If you folks want a policy about dead people, it should be taken up elsewhere. - Rrius ( talk) 06:05, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
This is probably superfluous. We don't put crap into BLPs just because somebody has died. Somebody above says "The whole point of BLP is that Wikipedia can get sued under American law for defaming living people." That is a categorically false statement. The whole point is that we don't write harmful crap in Wikipedia. -- TS 01:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Let me repeat myself: The point of BLP is certainly NOT about Wikipedia getting sued. The point is about not having a careless attitude to material that may harm real people - and demanding sources so that we don't have untrue stuff in articles. Wikilawyering about whether a person is dead misses the point. No article should have unreferenced negative material at all. It is totally unacceptable in the biography of a living person and (by degrees) in articles that may affect living people. The recently dead are likely to have relatives that may be hurt or offended by untrue negative material - and so our vigilance must continue here. This doesn't stop at any arbitrary place like three months. The problem with this proposal is that it suggests that it may be OK to have negative unreferenced material in an article after the person has been dead six months. No, it is not. If living relatives may be hurt it is NEVER OK, and if anything we should be more sensitive with the bereaved. (And grief does not stop at three, six, or twelve months!!!!) Sure, on the biography of Henry VIII we can be a little more relaxed, because his descendants are not quite as emotionally attached to his reputation, but on any ordinary person who has been dead a year or ten negative unreferenced material ought to be removed immediately. This proposal is well-meaning but would be disastrous: a charter for people to be indifferent to harm and hurt. (emph added)-- Scott Mac 16:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I support JN466's reverted edit that clarifies that infoboxes should be treated like categories. The spirit of that section is that we have to be careful making classifications that are without context and without citation support. Infobox claims like "Religion: Muslim" are almost exactly like categories in that regard. We are binning people without any context or discussion, and such classifications should be pretty solid before we make them. Gigs ( talk) 17:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
supportI do support the edit however per gigs Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 18:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I wanted someone else to start this debate, so I don't look like I'm forum shopping but despite suggesting it elsewhere no-one has taken up the mantle. Several editors define "Jewish" to be a statement of Religion which by BLPCAT requires a self-identification, notably one editor Yair Rand has even suggested an edit to wiktionary that would set this as our defining definition. By Contrast most other dictionaries OED, Chambers Dictionary, Wordnet, and others start with a definition of Jewish as something similar to "of or relating to Jews or their culture or religion" and define a Jew as "a person of Hebrew descent or religion" looking at it this way would put ethnicity as the primary meaning of Jew or Jewish with Cultural identification or Religious identification coming after.
In terms of BLPCAT this is important particularly where we have categories such Category:Jewish atheists where we want atheism to be the individuals self-identified philosophy and Jewish to be the individual's ethnicity(or culture) identified through a consensus of secondary sources. However, this can also be important in any other Jewish Category or List where significant secondary sourcing identifies the individual as "Jewish" whilst no self-identification is available. I've noticed regularly that some editors will call for the removal of Jewish Categories when they believe "Jewish" to mean "Religion" and rightly so - we don't categorise by religion unless it's important to the person's notability. But the notability of many people may be in their ethnicity particularly if they are notable for a role which sits either for or against ethnic stereotyping. So with these facts, I would consider a wording change either to WP:BLPCAT or WP:EGRS specifically identifying that for "Jewish" categorisation when identified by secondary source consensus we include as as a statement of ethnicity or Culture and when self-identified we include as a statement of Religion. Ideally within a list we should use a note identifying which criteria of inclusion was used and any conflicting identification - i.e. where a consensus of reliable secondary sources identifies an individual as ethnically Jewish but the individual self-identifies as not religiously or culturally Jewish. For a category the ability to note is not available (though it could be boiler-plated) so it may be required to weigh up the reliability and number of sources on either side before deciding to categorise.
some of this was previously discussed at Self-Identification_versus_Verifiable_Fact. but that was designed to be a more general discussion about when an individual's self identification conflicts with reliable sources about them. The consensus from that debate is included within the proposal above.
So should we change the wording to cover the above situation, and if so where should we alter/insert the wording?
Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
As the same opposing views seem to be appearing here, I'd like to propose a potential wording to see if that would help? the Proposal is to add a sentence to the end of BLPCAT which reads:
Ideally I would prefer to keep a NPOV and remove the specific reference to Jewish - other examples exist that may highlight similar cases such an individual being categorised by a nationality or by an ethnicity when they don't fit the other but off hand being Jewish is one of the few cases where it is directly a self-identification versus a consensus of reliable secondary sources. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 14:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest to use "ethnically Jewish" to refer to the ethnicity (using whatever sources we require for ethnicity) and "of Jewish faith" or "follows Judaism" to refer to the religion, using the existing criteria for identifying a religion. -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 16:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Stuart.Jamieson, can I have a response (and from others) about the bit "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless... the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to his notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." There's no 'or' in our policy, that bit is vital. I raised this issue yesterday at Jimbo's page (his response is relevant to all this discussion). Dougweller ( talk) 15:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Now that the fork over to Jimbo's page has concluded, I'd like to continue here. There were a number of options put forward summarised as:
My personal position remains as above a combination of current sourcing policy and #4 I also agree with Jimbo that sourcing of this nature needs to be rigorous but look for discussion on equality for ethnicity and religion how that equality should be interpreted and implemented. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 17:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I think we need to improve the clarity around the use of non-English sources in a BLP article as a source for a negative comment. There needs to be some clearly defnied overlap between WP:BLP and WP:NONENG especially when it comes to potentially negative information.
I see that this has been mentioned at least twice here before: Once a number of years ago with varying opinions, and again in 2009 - which went unanswered.
I just removed these two comments from a BLP article, both of which were sourced with a foreign language reference which a) I can't read, and b) I am not sure if it is reliable even if I could read it. WP:NONENG mentions that non-English sources can be used, but that English sources are preferred. I think that WP:NONENG should be amended to require English sources for -BLP comments, or that WP:BLP should have a clause that overrides WP:NONENG... or better yet both.
Forgive the long L2 heading, but I am trying to make this topic easier to find if we don't get it resolved this time around.
Thoughts? 7 07:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
:I must say that I am against this proposal. Common sense and due diligence must remain as discussed above but a blanket restriction of non-English sources for BLPs would severely and needlessly restrict coverage of much of the world.
J04n(
talk page) 09:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC) see below.
J04n(
talk page)
15:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
We use the best sources, especially in BLP articles. In many cases the best sources are obviously those in languages other than English. There are some obvious problems with topics related in any way to nationalism or other fields in which the local majority POV is very different from the majority POV in the major English-speaking countries or the global POV. But in practice we have no problems dealing with the resulting situations. Hans Adler 10:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
( ←) Something should be added to the policy to caution editors against letting contentious claims about living people remain until an editor fluent in an obscure tongue can be located. We could simply define a list of acceptable foreign languages which are sufficiently common that many editors will speak them. However, machine translation renders this unnecessary: if software of reasonable quality to translate a language is readily available, then any editor can verify references written in it. Peter Karlsen ( talk) 07:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
There are two issues here: verifiability, and realistic quality control.
The "assume good faith" argument doesn't cut it here. Lots of people make good faith contributions - however we have a rule that then need to be sourced or we remove them. Why do we have that rule? It is quite possible that an unsourced negative contribution will be factual and neutral (and indeed verifiable), and a sourced one will be twisted and biased (and unverifiable). We have that rule so that it is easier to CHECK a contribution. Assume Good Faith is not enough. The same is true here, we may need to say "in order for realistic quality control, we need a more accessible source here". The only other option is to take even more significant risks of libelling living people. That is not acceptable - its bad enough with English-language sourced material that isn't checked and isn't true.-- Scott Mac 12:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
The public figures section explicitly calls for the inclusion of well sourced allegations in the relevant BLP of a public figure. What if that material is so large that it no longer fits in the main article and so is made into a spinout? Would that spinout be a violation of WP:BLP and subject to deletion? Please see...
Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 03:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}}
Engineer Dhanasekaran Basker is the inventor of "I Sig". He is born in India and is residence of Singapore. He is graduated from Madras University.
'I SIg' is a new product, invented to protect the environment and keep the people healthy. 'I Sig' structure consists of 1. pipe or tube, 2. filters, 3. flavor substance, 4. flavor substance wrapper. The details of the components are shown in the Fig 2. 'I Sig' is to Inhale through close mouth by place between the upper lip and lower lip or by nose. The function of the 'I Sig' is while inhale air through the mouth or nose by using 'I Sig', the air get purified by filters that filters the pollution particles (dust, carbon, etc) from air and the flavor substance mixes with this filtered air. People need purified air while inhale and get rid of mouth bad smell. 'I Sig' is the new invention product that provides the purified air to keeps the mouth / nose fresh with flavor smell that way helps to keep the people body & mind good health.
'I Sig' is most useful in air filtration, aroma therapy, dry salt therapy. 'I Sig' also used as personal, lifestyle, self-defence product against second-hand smoke air pollution problem.
Sendurgent ( talk) 08:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I specifically object to linking the essay Wikipedia:BLP Zealot (formerly "BLP Nazi") to this policy. This essay is apparently a humorous reflection on BLP extremes (I'm told it is akin to Soup Nazi), but isn't actually criticising any particular user conduct.
If you accept that, then I ask what particular use this essay is, and how it illuminates this policy? I'd say it is mocking and combative and not particularly helpful. More importantly, the fact is that there are many user essays on BLP. I have authored a few myself - (see User: Doc glasgow/The BLP problem WP:DOLT for two examples - although there are many better ones written by others). Some of these have been extensively commented on - indicating that they've caused community reflection. However, these are not directly linked from the policy page.
What is linked is the category Category:User essays on BLP, and I'd suggest that this particular "essay" should (at best) get the same treatment of being added to that category. I see no reason to give this bit of "humour" special treatment.-- Scott Mac 15:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree the essay can be improved, and so can the title (I don't think zealot is quite right because zealot does not necessarily convey excessively strict regimentation - I agree "overzealous" is better, but this is not the place to discuss the ideal name of that essay), but the purpose it serves even as is is to bring attention to the fact that it is possible to be overzealous with the application of BLP, and that that is not good for Wikipedia. Of course, it can only serve that purpose if people see it and read it, and linking to it here should help disseminate that caution within the community. Unless you think it's not possible to be overzealous with the application of BLP, I don't understand your objection to this link. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:33, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
"Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subject, and in some circumstances what the subject has published about himself."
Shouldn't that read "herself or himself" or something to that effect? I thought this article included women, too; or is there a separate one for us? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreamingiris ( talk • contribs) 13:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Looking around I found an interesting quirk that I thought people would like to know about. There are five states (Colorado, Idaho, Georgia, Louisiana, and Nevada) that have criminal Defamation statues that specifically cover the dead. In the case of Georgia Law 16-11-40 the wording is as follows: "A person commits the offense of criminal defamation when, without a privilege to do so and with intent to defame another, living or dead, he communicates false matter which tends to blacken the memory of one who is dead or which exposes one who is alive to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, and which tends to provoke a breach of the peace."
You have to wonder just how often they actually enforce that blacken the memory clause.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 20:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I've added links to all the above statues to the references on the defamation page. Florida's own libel laws are under Chapter 836 and some of what is under that leave you scratching your head (836.04 for instance) and at least one part (836.11) has been ruled unconstitutional (State v. Shank, 795 So.2d 1067 (Fla.Ct.App., 4th Dist. 2001). The five states defame the dead statues may be old laws that the states haven't gotten around to bring into the modern era or of the 'yes it's on the books but next to no one enforces the silly thing' category.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 10:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm involved in a discussion about legal cases related to the National Council Against Health Fraud, but I would like some general background about the sourcing issues related to official US court rulings that address living persons. This policy's section on misuse of primary sources is clear about where they are restricted; I'd like to know if there are cases in which court documents would be considered sources for BLP claims, either because the court is considered reliable or the court ruling is not considered Primary, or because a secondary source can corroborate the claim. So, does the general prohibition about using primary legal documents extend to published judicial rulings from US District and US Appellate courts as a source for any claim related to a living person mentioned in the documents, including plaintiffs or expert witneses? I can move this to BLP/N if necessary; I was looking for general background, so I put it here. Thanks, Ocaasi ( talk) 03:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
1) Do we need to make a distinction between court records (transcripts, motions, etc., possibly lower court findings) and court rulings (particularly higher court decisions) regarding reliability? Neither may be at all notable without secondary sources, but I think the first is substantially less reliable.
2) Should this section distinguish between using court rulings for verification of a fact (which would generally be a misuse of the primary source) vs. reporting on the findings of the ruling itself (in which case, the court document is presumably reliable but not noteworthy unless mentioned elsewhere).
3) Miscellaneously, sentence 2 of the 'misuse of primary sources section' says that primary sources should not be used to 'support' BLP claims, but later in the paragraph it says that if a secondary source exists a primary can be used to 'augment' it. I think it's slightly contradictory as written, because if I read it correctly, the first part intends that primary sources alone shouldn't support BLP claims. Is that correct? Ocaasi ( talk) 15:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with Hipocrite. The same thing could be said about scientific research, which is commonly viewed as the most reliable source for many claims. Well published high-profile primary sources are fine. What we don't want people to do is "dig up dirt" using primary sources.
If I go to your local courthouse and pull your real estate records and records of your traffic tickets and divorce and publish all that on Wikipedia, that would be inappropriate. If I cite a primary source for some information on Vince Offer's high profile arrest, then that's something else entirely.
So it's absolutely not about "cherry picking" or "inability to understand" since that can easily happen with any source, primary or not. The spirit of this prohibition is about protecting people from "dug up dirt" that was superficially public information, but was not widely known or covered otherwise. Gigs ( talk) 16:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
There's a section of this policy titled, "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material". I'd like to request that some additional material be added to this section: "It is much better to revert BLP violations immediately instead of waiting. While waiting might reduce the appearance that you are edit-warring, waiting can also get you blocked if you wait just past 24 hours to make a fourth revert; making a fourth revert just outside the 24-hour period may be seen as gaming the 3RR policy rather than a good faith effort to enforce this BLP policy." Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person... Note: although the three-revert rule does not apply to such removals, what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Editors who find themselves in edit wars over potentially defamatory material about living persons should consider raising the matter at the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on the exemption.
I will appreciate any comments concerning including this into the Jasper Johns article.
Is this discussion appropriate?:
While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a relationship, [1] as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art; Johns, Rauschenberg, Cage, and Cunningham were some of the gay artists and musicians of the 1950s who created what was later called post-modernism. [2]
I find that the first reference is dead and renders the statement unsupported. The second reference is art historically inaccurate as is the direct quote that can be read here at google books: [6] I am concerned that these statements are in violation of BLP guidelines, Thanks... Modernist ( talk) 13:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Based on recent comments on my talk page and some things I have observed I started a policy clarification discussion regarding the use of the BLP unsourced template at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Determination of usage needed for the BLP unsourced template. -- Kumioko ( talk) 20:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Virtually every biographical article starts with a sentence that includes the nationality and significance of the subject, e.g., "John Doe is an American athlete..." For people from most countries, this isn't a problem; but for people from the UK, there are some articles that say "X is a British actor," while others say "Y is an English musician" or "Z is a Scottish socialite." Why not standardize that somehow? Is there a guideline for that? I've seen some back and forth. I'm not from the UK so I don't really care, but I did notice this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashwinr ( talk • contribs) 09:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
There is currently a conversation at the village pump regarding a determination of usage for the BLP unsourced template. Your input and comments would be greatly appreciate. -- Kumioko ( talk) 17:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
The BLP policy has an explicit policy about using categories for sexual orientation, but shouldn't we also have an explicit article content policy about reports that a "closeted" living person is "outted"?
The current policy on categorization 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."
However, that categorization policy does not apply to article content. Take the Charlie Crist article, for example. It says: "In April 2009, Crist was one of the subjects of the film Outrage, which purports to expose politicians who are privately gay, except for politicians who have adequately supported what the film claims are gay rights." Crist has denied being gay. So, should we have a policy to explicitly keep crud like this out of BLPs? Anythingyouwant ( talk) 16:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Of note, a number of reputable news organizations (NPR, CNN, the Washington Post) have refused to name the politicans allegedly "outed" by the movie. The NPR reviewer, for example, wrote: "I'm proscribed from naming names right now, for example, by longstanding NPR policy on the subject." That reticence on the part of reputable news organizations should make us very wary about including these allegations in our biographical articles. We should be taking our cues from those organizations. MastCell Talk 19:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
In the subsection titled, "Avoid gossip and feedback loops" I would write this:
“ | Sometimes reliable sources may report an assertion about whether another person is straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered without presenting the assertion as true, in which case the unconfirmed assertion should be treated like gossip. | ” |
This seems like a reasonable step to protect the privacy of living people. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 03:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I have placed a notice of this discussion at WT:LGBT. Ladyof Shalott 02:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
@Anythingyouwant; yes this is a special case of WP:OC it is not a complete case because it's purpose is to discourage the use of categories that may be controversial on the basis that they are not relevant before there is any need to tackle the controversy its self. As for your points about Lists and Infoboxes, Lists were added to the policy in July of this year, and InfoBoxes about a month ago. The same relevancy reasoning applies even though these are not categories, but I don't think in either addition any consideration of the fact that this phrase was a special case of WP:OC was made. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 17:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
We're told:
Why the need for "unduly"? And if it is needed, how should it be interpreted?
"BLP" experts are also most welcome here on a BLP's talk page, where this issue arises (I think). -- Hoariness ( talkiness) 02:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
There has been a longstanding dispute over at Talk:Ed Miliband about whether to classify Miliband as an atheist. Miliband has said, "I don't believe in God, no. I have great respect for those people who do, um, and I think in a way it might make life on earth easier if you do, but I'm not someone who believes in God."
He has also been described as an atheist by press sources, which speak of his "declared atheism", or describe him as a "self-proclaimed atheist", based on such statements. Unquestionably, there are those within Wikipedia and outside who equate someone saying "I do not believe in God" with their saying, "I am an atheist".
However, statistics in reliable sources show consistently that only a small percentage of those who say they do not believe in God self-identify as "atheist":
What is the correct way to proceed here? Should we understand BLPCAT to mean that an atheist category label, infobox statement etc. is only appropriate if the BLP subject has publicly self-identified as "atheist"?
Or should we assume that a statement of "I don't believe in God", combined with a description as "atheist" in third-party reliable sources, justifies the application of an atheist category? -- JN 466 00:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
However, his statement(s) that he doesn't believe in God have been taken by many other reliable sources to mean that he is an atheist. Some examples:
No reliable sources that I am aware of seem to think this is an indication of anything else but atheism. Jayjg (talk) 04:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think there should be categories for religious affiliation at all -- mainly because it's trying to be very specific about something that in reality is never that specific and certainly changes over a lifetime. Notwithstanding, this problem could just be circumvented by renaming the various 'atheist' categories 'non-religious' (eg. rename
Category:British atheists to
Category:Non-religious Britons). What does the room think?
Donama (
talk)
02:19, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I think there is a difference between how sexuality is treated and how religious beliefs are treated, especially in terms of personal privacy issues. In particular, reliable sources seem to be much less likely to identify a subject's sexuality than their religious beliefs; so I suggest we do not use treatment of sexuality here as a guideline.
I also think that in the past there was more of a negative connotation associated with the label "atheist" than there is today, though it has not completely disappeared. Also, the use of the term to mean "against religion" seems to have dissipated. As shown in the citations above, use of the label to mean "doesn't believe in God" is now mainstream in reliable sources, and I suggest we're over reacting if we don't reflect that. That is, avoiding categorizing someone as an "atheist" who has publicly declared that he or she does not believe in God is silly, as would be renaming, say, Category:British atheists to Category:Non-religious Britons. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that many of the sources cited above are from the early 2000s, and usage of the term has changed significantly since then. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Given that self-identification is a requirement for categorisation by religion, what category are you going to put someone in if, in answer to the question "What are your religious beliefs?", he/she replies "I don't know" or "mind your own business"? At a minimum, you need two more possible categories here: "don't know", and "didn't say". Note that there is a difference between stating someone's religious beliefs are unknown, and saying that he or she doesn't know what they are. I think that this problem may be an illustration of why this topic is so awkward to deal with: It starts off with the assumption that a self-identified system of religious belief (or an active rejection of it) is a necessary attribute of being a person. Though this concept is deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian/Islamic cultures, I'd suggest that it is anything but universal: it is instead a social construct. It seems to me that another possible response to "What are your religious beliefs" is the reply "Don't ask loaded questions". None of this solves the problem of how Wikipedia should deal with attempts to categorise by religion, but that may well be because the it cannot sensibly be done. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
We need comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Gonzalez Jr..
Question: how come reviewers haven't shown up without an invitation? Student7 ( talk) 16:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I need one that says something link "this article contains a number of unsourced and/or poorly sourced allegations against individuals." I can't find such a thing at Wikipedia:Template messages. I can't even find: BLPdispute, BLPunsourced, or BLPsources templates there.It seems to me I saw a page of BLP messages at one point but couldn't find any link to Template messages in see also or else where in this article. (Unless it has another name??) Would improve article to have a relevant link in see also. Thanks. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 18:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The main problems with Oscar Wyatt are the seas of unsourced sentences, and also the fact that editors tried to whitewash the fact that he served time in federal prison. WhisperToMe ( talk) 05:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
When should the prod blp tag be used? Would it apply to, for example, a band page if there are no reliable sources? Or should it only be used on a biography? Everard Proudfoot ( talk) 20:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
Articles on bands are not technically BLPs but they are what I call "high risk" articles. I've been thinking that they should be given some of the same protections as BLPs. (exemption from 3RR for unsourced content etc.) I might propose that on VPP but right now I would have to agree that BLP prods are only for individual BLPs.
Another example of "high risk" articles are companies currently in business. A marginally notable "mom and pop" restaurant can be damaged by unsourced negative information in its article (example, health and/or safety violations) just as a living person can. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 18:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
A user has objected to this material [ [1]] as trimed for reason of BLP (I am n ot sure what this is supposed to mean exaclty) is this material in breach of BLP? Slatersteven ( talk) 15:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
BLP1E has been cited in any number of deletion debates where WP:BIO1E is probably the more appropriate link. To recap, BLP1E, as a BLP page, should be focused on protecting people from undue, possibly harmful publicity, while BIO1E, as a notability guideline, should be focused on keeping non-notable people who don't object to their 15 minutes of fame out of the encyclopedia. The misuse I've seen is people talking about a de facto notability guideline, but using the "BLP" aspect of articles on individual living people as a lever in disagreements. In thinking over this, I think I see a few possible remedies:
Thoughts? Jclemens ( talk) 06:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I've nominated List of Indian muslims for deletion (Afd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Indian muslims). I'd like to request input comments from those close to BLP policy, as I think the topic has important BLP ramifications. I wasn't sure whether to put this here or at WP:BLPN, so feel free to move if that's a better location. Qwyrxian ( talk) 22:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
There seems to be a division of opinion among the policy editors and also in a current RFA as to whether an unsourced negative Bio would qualify as a G10 if it might actually be correct. EG the unsourced bio of an alleged murderer. My view is that plausible sounding attack pages are worse than implausible ones, and the place to assume good faith is on the talkpage of the author of the article that you've deleted. - I have written some very non-standard explanations after I've deleted as G10 completely unsourced bios of alleged mafiosi. But others may think differently. So does anyone want to make the case for leaving up plausible sounding totally unsourced articles in case it is true that someone "killed many innocent people". Ϣere SpielChequers 12:31, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The current wording is:
I think this doesn't adequately reflect policy. We deal with what pages are, and the likely impact, not second guessing the purpose of the creator (which we should, where possible, assume was good faith). I suggest this wording should be:
I made the change ([WP:BRD]]), but was reverted on the grounds that ""appear to" is the critical wording - otherwise legitimate bios of criminals may be classified as "attack pages""". I'd simply point out that the key word is "unsourced". A sourced bio of a criminal should certainly not be speedy deleted , but an unsourced one should be regardless of the creator's intent (it is not, by our definition, "legitimate"). We can't allow unsourced articles claiming that a living person has committed crimes to hang about. (And indeed we don't!) I submit the wording should thus be updated to reflect policy.-- Scott Mac 12:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately it seems many articles on Wikipedia about individual Tibetan lamas usually look less like objective summaries of verifiable biographical material than they do mini-hagiographies or promotional material. Usually it turns out the main contributors are either disciples of the lama concerned or have some close involvement with that particular lama’s own religious tradition. While this may provide some “insider knowledge”, it usually heavily biases the content with a particular non-objective POV.
Often much of the material seems drawn directly from the Lama's website or that of a directly affiliated Dharma group. Usually these are full of totally unverifiable claims saying the lama is an incarnation or emantion of some historic holy person, bodhidattva, or Buddhist diety. If one tries to improve these articles to make them more objective they are invitably reverted or modified by devoted followers putting them back more or less the way they were before - often increasingly so.
Hope I don't get confined to some vajra-hell for raising this, but should devoted disciples (or disaffected former disciples) of a Lama be actively be encouraged to preclude themselves from editing articles about their "root guru" or "spiritual lineage" on grounds of conflict of interest? The goals of being a good disciple in the Tibetan tradition and those of Wikipedia often seem to be mutually opposed.
The same of course goes for articles on other "holy" or venerated religious figures of all faiths - but it seems safer to raise the issue with Buddhists.
Chris Fynn ( talk) 19:11, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates, different forms of bigotry are obviously relevant to categories that "suggest that the persons included in the list or template have a poor reputation." The categories below mostly list individuals and groups, as well as more general articles.
Some of those individuals are indeed bigots according to WP:RS, while some of them have worked against bigotry or been victims of it. Some of these articles have warnings that listing there does "not imply that the subjects of any articles in the category are" quilty of which ever form of bigotry the category deals with. Most of the categories have no comment at all. I didn't see any of the two templates which suggest that no names should be in these categories at all, located at Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Category_namespace_templates. Both refer one to WP:BLPCAT (this article), which is what I believe needs further clarification on this issue where category inconsistency and ambiguity is such a problem.
While I personally think the honest and accurate thing to do is just have categories of those against whom sufficient numbers of WP:RS have made allegations (if only to find and weed out those with poorly sourced or WP:unde allegations), I doubt that would pass BLP. The other alternative, as recommended after this Categories for discussion-Homophobia discussion would be to make it the policy “no articles for allegedly homophobic people (including fictional people), organizations, or media should exist in this category,” replacing the relevant category for homophobic.
This seems to be a policy issue that needs to be made here and not on a case by case basis at each category after long frustrating discussions. Thoughts? Otherwise I'll have some more. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 20:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
It was I who created Category:People accused of antisemitism and I actually thought Category:Anti-Semitic people still existed and wanted to a different category for actual confirmed antisemites than people merely accused of it. Earlier such people were all put into Category:Antisemitism with all the BLP problems that gives. // Liftarn ( talk) 08:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose the proposal. Regardless of the discussion about Latuff and Antisemitism, I can see a lot of harmful potential in this proposal. It could be an excuse for disruptive editors to arbitrarily remove categories on spurious grounds. A lot of categories on BLPs are disputed but given appropriate sourcing, they are included. This proposal seems to ignore both sources and consensus and says that we should simply remove the category if unsure. — Ynhockey ( Talk) 18:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Which looks like it hasn’t been updated in a while, including to comply with this year’s changes to Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_people#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates. Clarifications also needed. While most is cleanup, there are specific proposals to clarify cases where categories are using “Disclaimers” to try to get around the fact that inclusion of the category implies the person has a poor reputation. (For example see Category:Antisemitism and Category:Homophobia and Category_talk:Anti-Islam_sentiment) CarolMooreDC ( talk) 14:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I could use some more explanation of this sentence: "Do not use trial transcripts, other court records, or other public documents to support assertions about a living person, unless a reliable secondary source has published the material."
I understand why the rule applies to trial transcripts -- they're just testimony and they're not reliable sources. But does the rule apply to court judgments? I mean, suppose we were writing about Kristin Perry, the lead named plaintiff in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (the prop 8 case). And suppose it were somehow relevant to say that "Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier reside together in Alameda County, California and are raising four children." Can I not use the text of the case (where I lifted that quote from) to support that claim? Why is that?
It took me ten minutes writing and thinking about this post before I realized that Reason Three is the most likely reason. As a result, I think we're mistaken to categorize this advice as an example of "misuse of primary sources." The problem isn't citing to a primary source -- the problem is that we're citing to a source that contains embarrassing information that might have been intended to remain private, until years later it was posted online and indexed by a search engine. UPDATE: I've been bold and made a change to the policy to reflect this. Let me know what you think. Andrew Gradman talk/ WP:Hornbook 10:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Titillating newspaper reports should not normally pass the reputable sources smell test for a living biography. Rumiton ( talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
How about: In addition, trial court proceedings are written in a legal style that can easily be misinterpreted by non-professionals, intentionally or otherwise. They are therefore regarded as primary sources which require high quality secondary sources for their interpretation. Courts of Appeal are considered to be secondary sources, one step removed from the trial court deliberative process. Rumiton ( talk) 11:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi Slp1 and all! To my fresh eyes, it seems the court rules are tangential to the paragraph's original intent, nominally to summarize WP:PRIMARY, which has a very good Policy set of rules that work fine to me if applied to the example of court documents. The rules on self-pub are also very applicable; court docs should be fine for unobjectionable personal details (I'd even say DOB), but not for controverted details. I'd move this graf essentially to WP:PRIMARY, then summarize the PRIMARY policy here better, both in general and with specific reference to court docs (no extra explanations as to why court docs are "less reliable"). Cautious Wikipedians should be able to use court docs with proper care as per the other policies. JJB 19:05, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I broadened the section to include other cases than court, and I added words to self-pub to make explicit that firsthand testimony may be included subject to the same harsh standards as other self-pub. Rereading the policy, it seems that it was pretty well-rounded already and only needed minor tweaks, and that nothing else is needed as policy tools to fight off POV. Noncontroversial facts are fine as defined by the self-pub policy in firsthand testimony, and it limitedly applies to firsthand testimony about others, because primary-source testimony by a hospital records custodian can be the best source for a DOB of a public person (or YOB of a private person). Adoption, marriage, kids and convictions might or might not have BLP consequences, but they are already handled by other parts of this policy. He-said she-said is WP:NOT Wikipedia unless noted by secondary sources. JJB 16:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
I only mean, if I say something noncontroversial about myself in court, that's an appropriate supplemental source. Yes (thanks), it's actually the court publishing it even though I'm freely testifying it, so there may be another way to angle the concern; but I think your version permits it, so whichever. JJB 18:02, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
At the Adnan Oktar-article, we have a discussion on blogs as sources for the article on this living person. One of the blogs used is the Pharyngula-blog, an Expert Blog of the well-known biologist PZ Myers. This blog Pharyngula won the 2005 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog, and the science journal Nature listed it as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist.
A small search on Wikipedia learnt me that Myers's blog is used as a source in the articles of Cheri Yecke, Jonathan Wells, Richard Dawkins, Caroline Crocker Guillermo Gonzalez, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Kary Mullis, Michael Egnor, John G. West, Casey Luskin, Randy Olson, Richard Cohen, Carl Baugh, Christine Comer, Antony Flew, Ray Kurzweil, Stephen C. Meyer, Monica Crowley, Rom Houben, Hugh Ross, Jonathan Sarfati and Lonnie Latham.
And those people are all alive. According to the rules, "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control."
The problem here is that some authorities in different fields are hosting their own blog nowadays. The articles they produce in the blog-format are, according to the rules, banned from Wikipedia, just because they are blogs. That is quite a problem if better sources are lacking.
Obviously, there are two options: OR we rework the articles of the persons above, OR we should change the rules in favour of blogs by qualified experts. I would chose the second option, but I wonder what the rest of the people here would prefer. Jeff5102 ( talk) 08:37, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
The policy says: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, court documents, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person." I understand this means self-published sources can't be used to support something like "So-and-so once killed a man." What I'm not clear on is whether policy also rules out something like "The blog Such-and-Such described So-and-so's book as 'rubbish.'" The specific example I'm thinking of is the article on Nina Power, which includes quotations from blogs criticizing a book written by the subject of the page. Is including these blogs a violation of this part of the BLP policy (they might not be reliable sources in any case; but if they violate the BLP policy, it's more clearcut that they should be removed)? VoluntarySlave ( talk) 03:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
In a currently ongoing arbitration, the arbitrator Carcharoth has made the following comment on the talk page. I post it in full here (the paragraph breaks were added by me for readability) because I think it might be useful in clarifying this policy:
One observation I wanted to make here is that one of main problems I've observed with the editing of biographies of living people (BLPs), though it applies to other articles as well, is that people too often edit such articles piecemeal. Some new bit of information comes up, or someone thinks some bit of information would be good to put in or take out of a BLP (for whatever reason), and the article bloats in one particular area, and not enough thought is given to the overall state of the article.
Rather than edit parts of the article, or argue over a sentence here or a paragraph there, the aim when editing BLPs (or any articles containing BLP material) should be to (before hitting save) to put the small-scale considerations to one side, and to step back and consider the article as a whole. Whenever you edit a BLP and hit save, it is not the state of the bit of the article that you edited that should be of greatest concern, but the overall state of the article. If there is imbalance, distortion, irrelevance, or incorrect tone, then by saving the article without correcting that, you are contributing to the problem.
Probably the best state of mind in which to edit a BLP is a slightly disinterested state, but still thinking "if I was this person, would I be happy with the overall state of this article?". If, on the other hand, you are editing a BLP and thinking "how can I get this bit of information I just found in a news story to fit in the article", or "how can I get this snippet of information from this book or journal paper to fit in the article", or "how can I get this vital bit of climate change information into this article", and you do so without looking at the rest of the article or even trying to expand the rest of the article, and you then walk away from the article having successfully added the snippet of information you wanted to add, then you probably shouldn't be editing that BLP (by failing to consider overall balance, you may be distorting the article or even pushing a point of view).
In other words, those heavily editing a topic area can lose perspective on BLPs within that topic area, and it helps to ask others (who may have a more objective viewpoint) to assess whether the balance, tone and comprehensiveness of the BLP is as good as it could be.
This concern is one reason why I support the current emphasis on BLPs in the [Climate Change arbitration] proposed decision.
(Carcharoth 24 August 2010)
Thoughts on whether (and if so, how) these sentiments could be blended into the policy, please. -- TS 16:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
Regarding this edit [2] I would say that documents filed by the parties are by definition self-published (to the extent they can be said to be published at all). The lawyers, acting as fiduciaries / agents of the parties, file the parties' factual and legal claims without benefit of editorial oversight, investigation, or accountability. They are claims designed to win cases. What we're trying to get away from is content like "Smith's boyfriend said in a lawsuit filed Monday that Smith is a 'habitual drug abuser, morally bankrupt, and utterly beyond all human decency'." A court's own statement aren't exactly self-published but they have some other BLP issues. - Wikidemon ( talk) 04:25, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
A court filing (by a party, as opposed to a judge's decision or order) is evidence that that party asserted a given fact or position as of a given point in time. It is generally insufficient evidence that the fact or position is in fact true, and without more it is insufficient evidence that the underlying dispute is sufficiently notable to be reported on Wikipedia (that would usually require significant coverage in secondary sources).
At least in the U.S., an increasing number of courts (including the entire federal judicial system) now require court filings to be available online. This has positive implications for accessibility and transparency, but also will substantially increase the publicity attainable by legal disputes that are about largely private matters, as well as the propagation of allegations that prove to be false or may even be malicious and defamatory. (Assertions in court papers are generally privileged and can't be the subject of a libel suit, even if they would be defamatory in another context.) We should be attentive to the BLP implications of technological change in this area. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 22:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
As the party reverted in the presenting edit, I'd continue pushing mildly for inclusion of "partisan court filings" or the like among "self-publications" (loosely understood) that should not be used without careful balancing; and the balancing appropriate to other selfpub seems just right. A public but obscure court document should not be used negatively in a BLP (nor unduly self-servingly), but the document may still be used (subject to OR and primary-source constraints) for neutral facts conforming to their context, or in non-BLP articles. Omitting this doesn't seem to serve much purpose. JJB 04:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Jclemens, I see you reverted my removal of this footnote:
It is important for editors to understand two clear differentiations of WP:BIO1E when compared to WP:BLP1E. Firstly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of living people. Secondly, WP:BLP1E should be applied only to biographies of low profile individuals.
Unless I'm missing something, it just repeats that the BLP policy applies to living people, and that the "notable for just one event" doesn't apply to people notable for more than just one event. Is there a particular reason you want to keep it? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 19:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Based on the above discussion, #Carcharoth_on_editing_BLPs_as_a_whole, here a proposal, with the sentence to be added marked in bold:
Wikipedia contains
hundreds of thousands of articles about living persons. From both a legal and ethical standpoint it is essential that a determined effort be made to eliminate defamatory and other inappropriate material from these articles. This includes article maintenance to ensure that biographies are not overwhelmed by material added in response to ongoing media controversies: a biography article should always strive to present a balanced overview of the subject's life to date, without becoming unduly focused on recent controversies. However, but these concerns must be balanced against other concerns, such as allowing articles to show a bias in the subject's favor by removing appropriate material simply because the subject objects to it, or allowing articles about non-notable publicity-seekers to be retained. When in doubt about whether material in a BLP is appropriate, the article should be pared back to a policy-compliant version. Sometimes the use of administrative tools such as
page protection and
deletion is necessary for the enforcement of this policy, and in extreme cases
action by Wikimedia Foundation staff is required.
Thoughts? -- JN 466 14:53, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Per Tony's comment above, 21:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC), here a proposal for an additional paragraph, to be added after the "Criticism and praise" section:
When covering controversies in a BLP, or other articles involving living persons, care must be taken to ensure that this material does not overwhelm the article. While notable controversies should be addressed, a biography article must at all times strive to present a balanced overview of the subject's life to date, as available from reliable sources. Editors adding new material must be mindful of the overall state of the article when saving a new article version, ensuring that they do not leave the article unbalanced, or unduly focused on a recent controversy that has attracted media attention.
Thoughts? -- JN 466 11:03, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#African American category regarding the placement of the article about Kevin Durant in Category:African American basketball players. Comments and suggestions on what to do with the article would be appreciated. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 06:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
User:Berian added the following to the beginning of the "Reliable Sources" section: "BLPs require more cites, they should be inline cites, and they must be of a higher quality, than for most other articles." User:Rrius reverted at the same time I was reverting. I just want to add to Rrius's edit summary to say that I actually don't believe that the summary statement by Berian is correct. Nothing in policy requires "more" sources--it just strictly requires that everything be sourced. Similarly, as much as I like inline citations, I don't see anything in policy that requires them. And, finally, I think all sources on Wikipedia need to have high quality, not just those on BLP articles. Qwyrxian ( talk) 22:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
An image captioned "German Prostitute" and showing an identifiable female is, so far, being kept. We disagree on whether the Foundation has her consent; I say it has to be sent to the Foundation and be explicit, not implied from her maybe being an editor. We also disagree on whether it's sufficient to wait until she herself requests deletion, especially if she's not an editor and doesn't know of the picture. Names mismatch. A second deletion request is now pending for a few more days. Please take a look at Deletion_requests/File:0405.Annabell_002.jpg and scroll to the second request. Thank you. Nick Levinson ( talk) 12:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I propose to add the above lines to the BLP section. Comments, criticism would be appreciated. Wifione ....... Leave a message 04:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not. The whole point of BLP is that Wikipedia can get sued under American law for defaming living people. If you folks want a policy about dead people, it should be taken up elsewhere. - Rrius ( talk) 06:05, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
This is probably superfluous. We don't put crap into BLPs just because somebody has died. Somebody above says "The whole point of BLP is that Wikipedia can get sued under American law for defaming living people." That is a categorically false statement. The whole point is that we don't write harmful crap in Wikipedia. -- TS 01:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Let me repeat myself: The point of BLP is certainly NOT about Wikipedia getting sued. The point is about not having a careless attitude to material that may harm real people - and demanding sources so that we don't have untrue stuff in articles. Wikilawyering about whether a person is dead misses the point. No article should have unreferenced negative material at all. It is totally unacceptable in the biography of a living person and (by degrees) in articles that may affect living people. The recently dead are likely to have relatives that may be hurt or offended by untrue negative material - and so our vigilance must continue here. This doesn't stop at any arbitrary place like three months. The problem with this proposal is that it suggests that it may be OK to have negative unreferenced material in an article after the person has been dead six months. No, it is not. If living relatives may be hurt it is NEVER OK, and if anything we should be more sensitive with the bereaved. (And grief does not stop at three, six, or twelve months!!!!) Sure, on the biography of Henry VIII we can be a little more relaxed, because his descendants are not quite as emotionally attached to his reputation, but on any ordinary person who has been dead a year or ten negative unreferenced material ought to be removed immediately. This proposal is well-meaning but would be disastrous: a charter for people to be indifferent to harm and hurt. (emph added)-- Scott Mac 16:04, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I support JN466's reverted edit that clarifies that infoboxes should be treated like categories. The spirit of that section is that we have to be careful making classifications that are without context and without citation support. Infobox claims like "Religion: Muslim" are almost exactly like categories in that regard. We are binning people without any context or discussion, and such classifications should be pretty solid before we make them. Gigs ( talk) 17:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
supportI do support the edit however per gigs Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 18:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I wanted someone else to start this debate, so I don't look like I'm forum shopping but despite suggesting it elsewhere no-one has taken up the mantle. Several editors define "Jewish" to be a statement of Religion which by BLPCAT requires a self-identification, notably one editor Yair Rand has even suggested an edit to wiktionary that would set this as our defining definition. By Contrast most other dictionaries OED, Chambers Dictionary, Wordnet, and others start with a definition of Jewish as something similar to "of or relating to Jews or their culture or religion" and define a Jew as "a person of Hebrew descent or religion" looking at it this way would put ethnicity as the primary meaning of Jew or Jewish with Cultural identification or Religious identification coming after.
In terms of BLPCAT this is important particularly where we have categories such Category:Jewish atheists where we want atheism to be the individuals self-identified philosophy and Jewish to be the individual's ethnicity(or culture) identified through a consensus of secondary sources. However, this can also be important in any other Jewish Category or List where significant secondary sourcing identifies the individual as "Jewish" whilst no self-identification is available. I've noticed regularly that some editors will call for the removal of Jewish Categories when they believe "Jewish" to mean "Religion" and rightly so - we don't categorise by religion unless it's important to the person's notability. But the notability of many people may be in their ethnicity particularly if they are notable for a role which sits either for or against ethnic stereotyping. So with these facts, I would consider a wording change either to WP:BLPCAT or WP:EGRS specifically identifying that for "Jewish" categorisation when identified by secondary source consensus we include as as a statement of ethnicity or Culture and when self-identified we include as a statement of Religion. Ideally within a list we should use a note identifying which criteria of inclusion was used and any conflicting identification - i.e. where a consensus of reliable secondary sources identifies an individual as ethnically Jewish but the individual self-identifies as not religiously or culturally Jewish. For a category the ability to note is not available (though it could be boiler-plated) so it may be required to weigh up the reliability and number of sources on either side before deciding to categorise.
some of this was previously discussed at Self-Identification_versus_Verifiable_Fact. but that was designed to be a more general discussion about when an individual's self identification conflicts with reliable sources about them. The consensus from that debate is included within the proposal above.
So should we change the wording to cover the above situation, and if so where should we alter/insert the wording?
Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 18:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
As the same opposing views seem to be appearing here, I'd like to propose a potential wording to see if that would help? the Proposal is to add a sentence to the end of BLPCAT which reads:
Ideally I would prefer to keep a NPOV and remove the specific reference to Jewish - other examples exist that may highlight similar cases such an individual being categorised by a nationality or by an ethnicity when they don't fit the other but off hand being Jewish is one of the few cases where it is directly a self-identification versus a consensus of reliable secondary sources. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 14:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I would suggest to use "ethnically Jewish" to refer to the ethnicity (using whatever sources we require for ethnicity) and "of Jewish faith" or "follows Judaism" to refer to the religion, using the existing criteria for identifying a religion. -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 16:52, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
Stuart.Jamieson, can I have a response (and from others) about the bit "Categories regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless... the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to his notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." There's no 'or' in our policy, that bit is vital. I raised this issue yesterday at Jimbo's page (his response is relevant to all this discussion). Dougweller ( talk) 15:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Now that the fork over to Jimbo's page has concluded, I'd like to continue here. There were a number of options put forward summarised as:
My personal position remains as above a combination of current sourcing policy and #4 I also agree with Jimbo that sourcing of this nature needs to be rigorous but look for discussion on equality for ethnicity and religion how that equality should be interpreted and implemented. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 17:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
I think we need to improve the clarity around the use of non-English sources in a BLP article as a source for a negative comment. There needs to be some clearly defnied overlap between WP:BLP and WP:NONENG especially when it comes to potentially negative information.
I see that this has been mentioned at least twice here before: Once a number of years ago with varying opinions, and again in 2009 - which went unanswered.
I just removed these two comments from a BLP article, both of which were sourced with a foreign language reference which a) I can't read, and b) I am not sure if it is reliable even if I could read it. WP:NONENG mentions that non-English sources can be used, but that English sources are preferred. I think that WP:NONENG should be amended to require English sources for -BLP comments, or that WP:BLP should have a clause that overrides WP:NONENG... or better yet both.
Forgive the long L2 heading, but I am trying to make this topic easier to find if we don't get it resolved this time around.
Thoughts? 7 07:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
:I must say that I am against this proposal. Common sense and due diligence must remain as discussed above but a blanket restriction of non-English sources for BLPs would severely and needlessly restrict coverage of much of the world.
J04n(
talk page) 09:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC) see below.
J04n(
talk page)
15:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
We use the best sources, especially in BLP articles. In many cases the best sources are obviously those in languages other than English. There are some obvious problems with topics related in any way to nationalism or other fields in which the local majority POV is very different from the majority POV in the major English-speaking countries or the global POV. But in practice we have no problems dealing with the resulting situations. Hans Adler 10:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
( ←) Something should be added to the policy to caution editors against letting contentious claims about living people remain until an editor fluent in an obscure tongue can be located. We could simply define a list of acceptable foreign languages which are sufficiently common that many editors will speak them. However, machine translation renders this unnecessary: if software of reasonable quality to translate a language is readily available, then any editor can verify references written in it. Peter Karlsen ( talk) 07:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
There are two issues here: verifiability, and realistic quality control.
The "assume good faith" argument doesn't cut it here. Lots of people make good faith contributions - however we have a rule that then need to be sourced or we remove them. Why do we have that rule? It is quite possible that an unsourced negative contribution will be factual and neutral (and indeed verifiable), and a sourced one will be twisted and biased (and unverifiable). We have that rule so that it is easier to CHECK a contribution. Assume Good Faith is not enough. The same is true here, we may need to say "in order for realistic quality control, we need a more accessible source here". The only other option is to take even more significant risks of libelling living people. That is not acceptable - its bad enough with English-language sourced material that isn't checked and isn't true.-- Scott Mac 12:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
The public figures section explicitly calls for the inclusion of well sourced allegations in the relevant BLP of a public figure. What if that material is so large that it no longer fits in the main article and so is made into a spinout? Would that spinout be a violation of WP:BLP and subject to deletion? Please see...
Thanks. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 03:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}}
Engineer Dhanasekaran Basker is the inventor of "I Sig". He is born in India and is residence of Singapore. He is graduated from Madras University.
'I SIg' is a new product, invented to protect the environment and keep the people healthy. 'I Sig' structure consists of 1. pipe or tube, 2. filters, 3. flavor substance, 4. flavor substance wrapper. The details of the components are shown in the Fig 2. 'I Sig' is to Inhale through close mouth by place between the upper lip and lower lip or by nose. The function of the 'I Sig' is while inhale air through the mouth or nose by using 'I Sig', the air get purified by filters that filters the pollution particles (dust, carbon, etc) from air and the flavor substance mixes with this filtered air. People need purified air while inhale and get rid of mouth bad smell. 'I Sig' is the new invention product that provides the purified air to keeps the mouth / nose fresh with flavor smell that way helps to keep the people body & mind good health.
'I Sig' is most useful in air filtration, aroma therapy, dry salt therapy. 'I Sig' also used as personal, lifestyle, self-defence product against second-hand smoke air pollution problem.
Sendurgent ( talk) 08:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
I specifically object to linking the essay Wikipedia:BLP Zealot (formerly "BLP Nazi") to this policy. This essay is apparently a humorous reflection on BLP extremes (I'm told it is akin to Soup Nazi), but isn't actually criticising any particular user conduct.
If you accept that, then I ask what particular use this essay is, and how it illuminates this policy? I'd say it is mocking and combative and not particularly helpful. More importantly, the fact is that there are many user essays on BLP. I have authored a few myself - (see User: Doc glasgow/The BLP problem WP:DOLT for two examples - although there are many better ones written by others). Some of these have been extensively commented on - indicating that they've caused community reflection. However, these are not directly linked from the policy page.
What is linked is the category Category:User essays on BLP, and I'd suggest that this particular "essay" should (at best) get the same treatment of being added to that category. I see no reason to give this bit of "humour" special treatment.-- Scott Mac 15:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
I agree the essay can be improved, and so can the title (I don't think zealot is quite right because zealot does not necessarily convey excessively strict regimentation - I agree "overzealous" is better, but this is not the place to discuss the ideal name of that essay), but the purpose it serves even as is is to bring attention to the fact that it is possible to be overzealous with the application of BLP, and that that is not good for Wikipedia. Of course, it can only serve that purpose if people see it and read it, and linking to it here should help disseminate that caution within the community. Unless you think it's not possible to be overzealous with the application of BLP, I don't understand your objection to this link. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:33, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
"Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subject, and in some circumstances what the subject has published about himself."
Shouldn't that read "herself or himself" or something to that effect? I thought this article included women, too; or is there a separate one for us? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreamingiris ( talk • contribs) 13:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Looking around I found an interesting quirk that I thought people would like to know about. There are five states (Colorado, Idaho, Georgia, Louisiana, and Nevada) that have criminal Defamation statues that specifically cover the dead. In the case of Georgia Law 16-11-40 the wording is as follows: "A person commits the offense of criminal defamation when, without a privilege to do so and with intent to defame another, living or dead, he communicates false matter which tends to blacken the memory of one who is dead or which exposes one who is alive to hatred, contempt, or ridicule, and which tends to provoke a breach of the peace."
You have to wonder just how often they actually enforce that blacken the memory clause.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 20:27, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I've added links to all the above statues to the references on the defamation page. Florida's own libel laws are under Chapter 836 and some of what is under that leave you scratching your head (836.04 for instance) and at least one part (836.11) has been ruled unconstitutional (State v. Shank, 795 So.2d 1067 (Fla.Ct.App., 4th Dist. 2001). The five states defame the dead statues may be old laws that the states haven't gotten around to bring into the modern era or of the 'yes it's on the books but next to no one enforces the silly thing' category.-- BruceGrubb ( talk) 10:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm involved in a discussion about legal cases related to the National Council Against Health Fraud, but I would like some general background about the sourcing issues related to official US court rulings that address living persons. This policy's section on misuse of primary sources is clear about where they are restricted; I'd like to know if there are cases in which court documents would be considered sources for BLP claims, either because the court is considered reliable or the court ruling is not considered Primary, or because a secondary source can corroborate the claim. So, does the general prohibition about using primary legal documents extend to published judicial rulings from US District and US Appellate courts as a source for any claim related to a living person mentioned in the documents, including plaintiffs or expert witneses? I can move this to BLP/N if necessary; I was looking for general background, so I put it here. Thanks, Ocaasi ( talk) 03:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
1) Do we need to make a distinction between court records (transcripts, motions, etc., possibly lower court findings) and court rulings (particularly higher court decisions) regarding reliability? Neither may be at all notable without secondary sources, but I think the first is substantially less reliable.
2) Should this section distinguish between using court rulings for verification of a fact (which would generally be a misuse of the primary source) vs. reporting on the findings of the ruling itself (in which case, the court document is presumably reliable but not noteworthy unless mentioned elsewhere).
3) Miscellaneously, sentence 2 of the 'misuse of primary sources section' says that primary sources should not be used to 'support' BLP claims, but later in the paragraph it says that if a secondary source exists a primary can be used to 'augment' it. I think it's slightly contradictory as written, because if I read it correctly, the first part intends that primary sources alone shouldn't support BLP claims. Is that correct? Ocaasi ( talk) 15:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with Hipocrite. The same thing could be said about scientific research, which is commonly viewed as the most reliable source for many claims. Well published high-profile primary sources are fine. What we don't want people to do is "dig up dirt" using primary sources.
If I go to your local courthouse and pull your real estate records and records of your traffic tickets and divorce and publish all that on Wikipedia, that would be inappropriate. If I cite a primary source for some information on Vince Offer's high profile arrest, then that's something else entirely.
So it's absolutely not about "cherry picking" or "inability to understand" since that can easily happen with any source, primary or not. The spirit of this prohibition is about protecting people from "dug up dirt" that was superficially public information, but was not widely known or covered otherwise. Gigs ( talk) 16:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
There's a section of this policy titled, "Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material". I'd like to request that some additional material be added to this section: "It is much better to revert BLP violations immediately instead of waiting. While waiting might reduce the appearance that you are edit-warring, waiting can also get you blocked if you wait just past 24 hours to make a fourth revert; making a fourth revert just outside the 24-hour period may be seen as gaming the 3RR policy rather than a good faith effort to enforce this BLP policy." Anythingyouwant ( talk) 18:54, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person... Note: although the three-revert rule does not apply to such removals, what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Editors who find themselves in edit wars over potentially defamatory material about living persons should consider raising the matter at the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on the exemption.
I will appreciate any comments concerning including this into the Jasper Johns article.
Is this discussion appropriate?:
While in New York, Johns met Robert Rauschenberg, with whom he had a relationship, [1] as well as Merce Cunningham and John Cage. Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art; Johns, Rauschenberg, Cage, and Cunningham were some of the gay artists and musicians of the 1950s who created what was later called post-modernism. [2]
I find that the first reference is dead and renders the statement unsupported. The second reference is art historically inaccurate as is the direct quote that can be read here at google books: [6] I am concerned that these statements are in violation of BLP guidelines, Thanks... Modernist ( talk) 13:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Based on recent comments on my talk page and some things I have observed I started a policy clarification discussion regarding the use of the BLP unsourced template at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Determination of usage needed for the BLP unsourced template. -- Kumioko ( talk) 20:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Virtually every biographical article starts with a sentence that includes the nationality and significance of the subject, e.g., "John Doe is an American athlete..." For people from most countries, this isn't a problem; but for people from the UK, there are some articles that say "X is a British actor," while others say "Y is an English musician" or "Z is a Scottish socialite." Why not standardize that somehow? Is there a guideline for that? I've seen some back and forth. I'm not from the UK so I don't really care, but I did notice this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashwinr ( talk • contribs) 09:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
There is currently a conversation at the village pump regarding a determination of usage for the BLP unsourced template. Your input and comments would be greatly appreciate. -- Kumioko ( talk) 17:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
The BLP policy has an explicit policy about using categories for sexual orientation, but shouldn't we also have an explicit article content policy about reports that a "closeted" living person is "outted"?
The current policy on categorization 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."
However, that categorization policy does not apply to article content. Take the Charlie Crist article, for example. It says: "In April 2009, Crist was one of the subjects of the film Outrage, which purports to expose politicians who are privately gay, except for politicians who have adequately supported what the film claims are gay rights." Crist has denied being gay. So, should we have a policy to explicitly keep crud like this out of BLPs? Anythingyouwant ( talk) 16:31, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Of note, a number of reputable news organizations (NPR, CNN, the Washington Post) have refused to name the politicans allegedly "outed" by the movie. The NPR reviewer, for example, wrote: "I'm proscribed from naming names right now, for example, by longstanding NPR policy on the subject." That reticence on the part of reputable news organizations should make us very wary about including these allegations in our biographical articles. We should be taking our cues from those organizations. MastCell Talk 19:18, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
In the subsection titled, "Avoid gossip and feedback loops" I would write this:
“ | Sometimes reliable sources may report an assertion about whether another person is straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered without presenting the assertion as true, in which case the unconfirmed assertion should be treated like gossip. | ” |
This seems like a reasonable step to protect the privacy of living people. Anythingyouwant ( talk) 03:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I have placed a notice of this discussion at WT:LGBT. Ladyof Shalott 02:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
@Anythingyouwant; yes this is a special case of WP:OC it is not a complete case because it's purpose is to discourage the use of categories that may be controversial on the basis that they are not relevant before there is any need to tackle the controversy its self. As for your points about Lists and Infoboxes, Lists were added to the policy in July of this year, and InfoBoxes about a month ago. The same relevancy reasoning applies even though these are not categories, but I don't think in either addition any consideration of the fact that this phrase was a special case of WP:OC was made. Stuart.Jamieson ( talk) 17:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
We're told:
Why the need for "unduly"? And if it is needed, how should it be interpreted?
"BLP" experts are also most welcome here on a BLP's talk page, where this issue arises (I think). -- Hoariness ( talkiness) 02:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
There has been a longstanding dispute over at Talk:Ed Miliband about whether to classify Miliband as an atheist. Miliband has said, "I don't believe in God, no. I have great respect for those people who do, um, and I think in a way it might make life on earth easier if you do, but I'm not someone who believes in God."
He has also been described as an atheist by press sources, which speak of his "declared atheism", or describe him as a "self-proclaimed atheist", based on such statements. Unquestionably, there are those within Wikipedia and outside who equate someone saying "I do not believe in God" with their saying, "I am an atheist".
However, statistics in reliable sources show consistently that only a small percentage of those who say they do not believe in God self-identify as "atheist":
What is the correct way to proceed here? Should we understand BLPCAT to mean that an atheist category label, infobox statement etc. is only appropriate if the BLP subject has publicly self-identified as "atheist"?
Or should we assume that a statement of "I don't believe in God", combined with a description as "atheist" in third-party reliable sources, justifies the application of an atheist category? -- JN 466 00:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
However, his statement(s) that he doesn't believe in God have been taken by many other reliable sources to mean that he is an atheist. Some examples:
No reliable sources that I am aware of seem to think this is an indication of anything else but atheism. Jayjg (talk) 04:29, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I don't think there should be categories for religious affiliation at all -- mainly because it's trying to be very specific about something that in reality is never that specific and certainly changes over a lifetime. Notwithstanding, this problem could just be circumvented by renaming the various 'atheist' categories 'non-religious' (eg. rename
Category:British atheists to
Category:Non-religious Britons). What does the room think?
Donama (
talk)
02:19, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I think there is a difference between how sexuality is treated and how religious beliefs are treated, especially in terms of personal privacy issues. In particular, reliable sources seem to be much less likely to identify a subject's sexuality than their religious beliefs; so I suggest we do not use treatment of sexuality here as a guideline.
I also think that in the past there was more of a negative connotation associated with the label "atheist" than there is today, though it has not completely disappeared. Also, the use of the term to mean "against religion" seems to have dissipated. As shown in the citations above, use of the label to mean "doesn't believe in God" is now mainstream in reliable sources, and I suggest we're over reacting if we don't reflect that. That is, avoiding categorizing someone as an "atheist" who has publicly declared that he or she does not believe in God is silly, as would be renaming, say, Category:British atheists to Category:Non-religious Britons. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that many of the sources cited above are from the early 2000s, and usage of the term has changed significantly since then. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 19:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Given that self-identification is a requirement for categorisation by religion, what category are you going to put someone in if, in answer to the question "What are your religious beliefs?", he/she replies "I don't know" or "mind your own business"? At a minimum, you need two more possible categories here: "don't know", and "didn't say". Note that there is a difference between stating someone's religious beliefs are unknown, and saying that he or she doesn't know what they are. I think that this problem may be an illustration of why this topic is so awkward to deal with: It starts off with the assumption that a self-identified system of religious belief (or an active rejection of it) is a necessary attribute of being a person. Though this concept is deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian/Islamic cultures, I'd suggest that it is anything but universal: it is instead a social construct. It seems to me that another possible response to "What are your religious beliefs" is the reply "Don't ask loaded questions". None of this solves the problem of how Wikipedia should deal with attempts to categorise by religion, but that may well be because the it cannot sensibly be done. AndyTheGrump ( talk) 18:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
We need comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samuel Gonzalez Jr..
Question: how come reviewers haven't shown up without an invitation? Student7 ( talk) 16:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
I need one that says something link "this article contains a number of unsourced and/or poorly sourced allegations against individuals." I can't find such a thing at Wikipedia:Template messages. I can't even find: BLPdispute, BLPunsourced, or BLPsources templates there.It seems to me I saw a page of BLP messages at one point but couldn't find any link to Template messages in see also or else where in this article. (Unless it has another name??) Would improve article to have a relevant link in see also. Thanks. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 18:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)