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I've been noticing there's some inconsistencies when it comes to articles for bands or music groups. There are some that will list the birthdates for members such as Angerme, Iris (Japanese band), Juice=Juice, Camellia Factory (and the editors are very adamant about keeping this format despite some information being trivia, such as member colors). But I noticed for other articles, particularly for Korean idols like Iz One, and other rock bands like Negoto, Luna Sea, Babymetal, the editors kept the birthdates off the page as the article should focus on group activities only. So my question is: do we keep birthdates on group articles, especially if some members aren't notable enough to have their own article, or remove them as the article needs to focus on the group? Are member colors considered BLP trivia? Thanks. lullabying ( talk) 16:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Reading {{Blpo}} you'd have no reason to think that it applies to "people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside." Shouldn't it make this clear? I added it to Talk:Terrorism in the United States as the article often mentions people who have originally died, and in particular it looks odd adjacent to the BLP DS notice which does say "people who have recently died". Doug Weller talk 15:12, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Is there a list of proposals that have sprung up over the years to tighten notability criteria for BLPs? I suppose like WP:BLP1E but that (obviously) failed.... Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 12:00, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
BLPCAT says [removing unrelated parts about religion] "Categories regarding sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the orientation in question, and the subject's sexual orientation is relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." This does not mention gender identity, which is a different thing than sexual orientation. I don't think we should apply the same standards to the usual gender binary distinctions: when we classify someone as male or female, and there is no reasonable cause for uncertainty over whether they are male or female, we shouldn't worry about finding reliable published sources describing how their gender relates to their notability. Nevertheless, I think that the same reasoning should also apply to gender identities that depart from the usual binary genders. I have in mind a particular case where another editor added Category:Transgender and transsexual women to an article without sources or textual support in the article, and I reverted. The subject in question had been identified by some past sources as male but currently identifies as female (under the same name). In the ensuing discussion, I cited BLPCAT and the other editor responded that BLPCAT does not cover this category because it's a gender identity rather than a sexual orientation. Should BLPCAT cover this category? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Labeling or categorizing BLP subjects as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists and comment. Halo Jerk1 ( talk) 02:51, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
Now it's an RfC. Found at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: Should we provide attribution when using "TERF" or "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" when describing BLP subjects?. Halo Jerk1 ( talk) 04:12, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
This has popped up again. See long thread at Talk:Carlos PenaVega#Names and birthdates of children.
User:Tenebrae claims that a 2015 RFC on an article talk page Talk:Brian Austin Green#RfC: Names and DOB's of children in a BLP means that it is now article whitewashing and against policy to remove non-notable children's names and birth dates from their parents' bios if the parents have announced the details.
The presumption in favor of privacy is strong in the case of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons. The names of any immediate, former, or significant family members or any significant relationship of the subject of a BLP may be part of an article, if reliably sourced, subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject.
I interpret that as meaning that such information should not be included unless there is consensus that such information is required for a complete understanding of the subject.
WP:NONAME, part of the essay
WP:MINORS, goes even further wrt to minors: This applies to someone who is incidental to an article, but significant enough to mention even without identifying them, such as the minor children of celebrities. Do not name or otherwise identify the person, even if good sources do publish the name, when a more general description will suffice.
So, is my interpretation of the policy wrong? Does the 2015 RFC supersede the current policy and mean that we are free to add the personal details of non-notable children as long as the parents have announced them? Meters ( talk) 23:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Categorization#RFC: Categories with committed suicide in title. A permalink for it is here.--- Coffeeand crumbs 20:10, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
RfC is open, concerning whether this should be removed: Blender magazine's ranking of Emerson, Lake & Palmer as among the 50 worst bands ever. A thread from 2009-10 is being cited as a consensus to remove its mention, and editors from that thread have been pinged in what appears to be a canvassing effort. So please chime in, especially if you have no emotional ties to the band's music and are more concerned with Wikipedia guidelines and policies and core values and so on. Thank you. Dan56 ( talk) 21:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Template:BLP others has been nominated for merging with Template:BLP. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PC78 ( talk) 12:16, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
As even the NYTimes can get it wrong. (See erratta - the whole to-do may actually never have happened). -- Masem ( t) 14:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Reuters: The EU court has ruled that the implementation of a " right to be forgotten" request only extends to services/servers in the EU, not globally. I don't know if we have ever had a BLP case that included someone that was requesting to be forgotten in this way, but as en.wiki is on US soil, this would mean we should not be legally bound to comply with it (though there would be plenty of other reasons to comply with such a request). -- Masem ( t) 14:14, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
After discussions spread over the last couple of years, we have finally updated Wikipedia:External links#Links in lists with some new advice about how to format external links in some stand-alone lists. This format is not mandatory, but it may be helpful in some cases. Please feel free to try it out in pages that you think are appropriate, and leave feedback on the guideline's talk page. Thanks, WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
The last time I can find that we discussed this here was back in 2008, but as the issue has come up again I was wondering if consensus still holds. Where do we sit with adding non-notable people to lists within articles, in particular to alumni? If they would not qualify for an article, either as an individual or as a significant part of a an event that is covered elsewhere on WP, should they be included in a list within an article? - Bilby ( talk) 09:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Many articles for British politicians such as Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Margaret Thatcher. These are generally unsourced and I don't think they add anything to the article. Although they take up a relatively small amount of space, they do take up a subsection without any obvious benefit. Should we keep including these subsections? Bellowhead678 ( talk) 09:26, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
I have been witnessing a major issue when creating articles about former squash biographies for which I am not unable to find their date of births. SquashInfo is the main website which has a collection of all the squash players like what Cricinfo has a collection about cricketers. SquashInfo usually had the data about the date births of players but as of August 2019, the website stopped displaying the date of birth for current and former players. It may be due to the GDPR which could have restricted SquashInfo to display the date of birth of squash players. Even if we try to create the squash players without their birth dates, will it be okay to do that. Abishe ( talk) 13:47, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I am creating a page for a person who is engaged in vegan activism, both as a healthy lifestyle and as an advocate for cruelty-free fashion. If her website and blog focus on these philosophies and benefits to society, can I use these sites as an External Reference? Or, a different type of reference that you can suggest? I don't feel that they are self-promoting. Sunshinedaydreamwiki ( talk) 12:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
I have a WP: COI for the article Alice S. Fisher as an employee of Latham & Watkins. There is a new discussion which may be of interest to members of this project located at: Talk:Alice S. Fisher#Fixing Unsourced Paragraph
JZ at LW ( talk) 20:50, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 November 29#Category:American_pedophiles. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 22:30, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
A case where identity theft occurred due to date of birth being on Wikipedia. [1] Moral: include only year of birth. Xxanthippe ( talk) 22:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC).
I would note that the info being available in registries doesn't mean it's available to the general public. In NZ [2], and England and Wales [3], and I think a lot of the US (to the extent it is often republished by third parties) it generally is. (Admittedly [4] disagrees on the US.) In Australia I believe it can be more complicated e.g. [5] [6] and Canada e.g. [7] [8] [9]. See also the earlier document from the NZ Privacy Commissioner. No idea about other countries but I believe it can also be complicated e.g. see these discussions for Germany [10] [11] or France [12] or Switzerland [13] [14]. Heck even in NZ, and probably England and Wales, the requirements to obtain the info would probably discourage some of those up to no good since it's likely to impose additional risks of being caught. And all of these countries are generally considered "first world".
Anyway more generally, I agree that with a lot of this, probably it is obtainable somewhere on the internet for someone who tries hard enough. However the level of difficulty may affect the willingness of those with sinister motives to do it, and also may slow them down so reduce the number of people they can target. In other words, the fact it may be in other non RS online doesn't mean we should ignore the effects our coverage of such material can have. I mean heck, even when it is published in multiple RS such that we probably would cover it, having it on Wikipedia often makes it easier. Of course if Google puts it in their smart search box or whatever that probably makes it even easier, still I suspect we're actually a big source for such info.
I would note that in the modern world, stuff originating on Wikipedia, isn't unheard of either. This would I assume have come from family or friends, but still, it doesn't mean it's okay.
And there are often cases where while it's technically out there, e.g. someone talks about celebrating their birthday on Twitter or whatever, it may actually be quite difficult to search especially if it's not text and could disappear at any time. (I know that technically if the subject has published it, it can be considered okay, but IMO if it's just someone with a picture of a cake or something then that isn't enough. Especially since people don't always celebrate their birthdays on the exact date.) Until some well meaning editor unfamiliar with BLP adds it to our article and than WP:Citogenesis means in a few years time it's all over the internet maybe even in enough WP:RS that we now have a reason to cover it.
So yeah, IMO we definitely should ensure we follow our standards in keeping such info out unless support by sufficient sourcing. And although identity theft concerns is one factor, IMO it isn't the only one anyway.
Is this vague statement, Miner currently records and produces projects, owns his own recording studio and lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and their two sons, a BLP violation? A vague statement about where the subject is living and that the subject has a wife (no name) and two sons (no name) does not seem to fit the "contentious material" bill, but of course, it is unsourced and could be wildly out-of-date. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 02:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Authors of creative works are both historically and currently disambiguated from other authors of the same name with their DOB, even living ones. As such this information is widely available from library catalogs and is an essential part of bibliographic metadata. I was wondering if we can add a note excepting published authors with their DOB in their bios, or whitelisting library catalogs / the library of congress as a source, since this information is both important for identifying them and also very widely available. At present it is not mentioned at all, one way or the other. Mvolz ( talk) 10:14, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
I was wondering if i was to write an article about someone, would a voice recorded one on one interview between me (the wikipedia article writer) and the person i'm writing the article about be a reliable source? Squishybaughman ( talk) 20:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
We seem to have a position with respect to self-publication and BLPs which if taken seriously would largely wipe out every watchdog group's authority in our pages. Anything from these groups is self-published, so nothing they say about a living person can be taken as authoritative, except apparently if someone else repeats that specific claim. Therefore, following the latter of our law, we can't state the truth about hate groups (if members are named) or medical quackery (associated with an individual) unless newspapers and other non-expert media sources repeat the claims of these expert groups. WP:SPS states that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications," which is a labored way of saying that if mainstream authorities rely on them as experts, we may do so as well. And really, we should do so as well, because those MSM sources are not expert and make the kind of mistakes that non-experts make.
What we are seeing, however, is that the sentence which follows about BLPs in practice is being used to force us to not tell the truth about organizations where the MSM haven't gone to the experts and cited them. We see this in fights over hate groups and now over medical quackery: there is a discussion on WP:FT/N concerning the widespread removal of Quackwatch as an authority because BLP is almost always brought into play since these dubious practices are advocated by specific people. What happens is that someone writes an article, and we have trouble getting rid of it over notability concerns, but it's also difficult to be able to tell the truth when the watchdogs have flagged the person/group/practice, but the MSM haven't specifically cited them in the instance in question.
The description of self-publication is problematic anyway: taken at face value, it conflates the NYT (which is technically self-published) with vanity presses and ignores the reality that every website is self-published. But beyond that, the deprecation of expert sites in favor of non-expert but nominally reliable MSM self-published material is really an inversion of reliability. We need to reword this somehow to reflect the actual merits of the sources, or someone needs to cough up a legal reason why we can't risk telling the truth. and If the latter prevails, then we need to WP:PROD material on problem people and their organizations and causes ruthlessly and on sight, because in practice what happens is that someone writes such an article and it takes too much work to get rid of it when it cannot tell the truth about the person, because the authorities cannot be cited. Mangoe ( talk) 14:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
At its heart the issue is this, should an expert be allowed to be used as a source about another living person if the opinion only comes from the experts own SPS? Slatersteven ( talk) 13:30, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Comment - I have seen problems previously with varying interpretations of the restriction on the use of SPS in relation to BLP content. To me the main problem is a tendency to treat all content covered by WP:SPS the same, as if material from a watchdog group or a university website, or the self-published work of an academic in their own field, ought to be treated the same as non-expert opinions published on a celebrity's personal blog or corporate puffery disseminated on a promotional website. It seems obvious to me that we collectively can make distinctions among sources with more or less reliability, and that the more reliable self-published sources are more robust and useful than op-eds and other material that does make its way into BLP content. Arguments against the inclusion of the more reliable types of SPS for BLPs tend to CRYBLP and be made when editors don't like the material, and not for consistent reasons of verifiability or reliability IMO. Newimpartial ( talk) 16:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
So do we have a proposal? Slatersteven ( talk) 12:54, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
In trying to resolve a single CN on Elizabeth Wurtzel's article to be posted at ITNC due to her recent death, there was a case of her publisher Penguin suing her for failing to deliver a book. *everyone* covered the initiation of the suit in 2012, but *noone* covered the conclusion. Obviously 7 years later, some action had to be done. After a big of digging I found the case record at the specific court, affirmed it had been dismissed, and such used that court record as a source to clear the CN. See my diff here.
I would to 1) verify this is an acceptable use of primary sources that is still in line with BLPPRIMARY - in that this is only closing the record on a notable case that had no follow up coverage for some reason, and otherwise not supporting any questionable facet of the BLP, and in fact should be included per NPOV (having an open lingering court case years since it was filed makes no sense) and 2) might suggest this as a possible example of where court records could be used assuming #1 is fine. -- Masem ( t) 22:17, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
I explained my proposed change at WP:Village_pump_(policy)#Improving_precision_of_definition_of_WP:BLPSELFPUB_and_WP:ABOUTSELF. Please dicsuss there. Xenagoras ( talk) 23:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
section (WP:BLPCRIME) applies to individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures
WP:BLPCRIME has been used to remove accusations of electoral fraud against an elected politician, Is this an abuse of the process or do the rules need to be rewritten? JorgeLaArdilla ( talk) 20:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
WP:BLPSELFPUB and WP:ABOUTSELF are similar. The 5 core rules have some minor wording differences to match the different areas they cover. But one difference which isn't a simple wording difference is the lack of 'exceptional claim' in BLPSELFPUB rule 1. The exceptional claim bit was added here [15] to the verifiability page. I couldn't find any discussion of adding it to this page since then. Although I find it hard to imagine a case of an exceptional claim that isn't unduly self-serving, perhaps it's worth adding anyway for emphasis?
Definitely we should if someone can come up with a scenario where it may be useful. Myself I can imagine stuff like someone saying they invented a time machine or solved the P versus NP problem, but those would also be unduly self-serving. Then again, I'm not sure it's any different for organisations and stuff, but I guess there is a wider area.
(The history of the 2 sections is complicated. I think they've been developed semi independently then semi synchronised on occasion. E.g. compare [16] with [17] and [18] [19] and [20] with [21]
BTW I have not said anything at WT:V. At the moment IMO we should just add 'exceptional claim' here, or not worry about the difference. I don't think it's worth removing exceptional claim from ABOUTSELF so I don't see that watchers there have a significant interest in this discussion. Still I have no objection if someone does want to leave a notice.
Nil Einne ( talk) 12:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Back in November I've made several changes under WP:BRD. Following reversal, I'm bringing them here for discussion. The first three changes are general CE changes, meant to standardize and streamline the section; [22] [23] [24] the fourth is an addition regarding the omission of identifying details when a person might be at risk of physical harm, following a discussion on WP:ANI (that's one sentence; the rest of it was moved in from another subsection). [25]
For your perusal. François Robere ( talk) 20:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Its publication may pose a serious safety or security risk to the person, their relatives, or anyone else involved in the subject being discussed.as superfluous in cases where the pre-existing
It has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations.applies, and, by virtue of being subjective, that it is open to wikilawyering and competence issues in cases where that pre-existing text does not apply. Note also that the stated impetus for the change appears to be a highly politicised case where the existing text does apply. - Ryk72 talk 11:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
It is often preferable to omit a person's name or other privately identifiable information omitted when ... Its publication may pose a serious safety or security risk to the person, their relatives, or anyone else involved in the subject being discussed.
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2020 January 22#File:CGP Grey stick figure.png. -- Marchjuly ( talk) 05:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
This RfC has been running for a while but input has dropped off, and right now it's about an even split between the guidelines a) saying nothing at all about the matter, or b) saying to avoid putting the same country in two or three infobox parameters (the other options in the RfC have attracted nearly no support). It's not going to be a useful outcome (just another RfC again some time later) if this closes with "no consensus", so this tie needs to be broken – with good reasoning, not with WP:JUSTAVOTE of course. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Are there guidelines about including a family tree ({{template:ahnentafel}}) in a biography, particularly a BLP? I haven't been able to find anything on when we should consider including one in an article so I thought I'd ask here. Schazjmd (talk) 22:29, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Newbie User:185.113.96.195 (apparently in Sweden) made 4 edits to BLP pages changing the nationality to ethnicity, i.e. Jewish, in the lede. All were reverted immediately by different editors including me. I posted a welcome on the user's talk page, and vainly looked for a suitable guideline to reference. Is there one? Wwwhatsup ( talk) 04:32, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
I thought this guideline was updated to explain that you should not use the full DOB for announcements of children births on articles. Govvy ( talk) 12:03, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like
John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.
)and turns it into something like
It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{ cite web}}, {{ cite journal}} and {{ doi}}.
I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
An RfC which might be of interest to watchers of this page has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#RfC about independent sources for academic notability to decide the following question:
Current wording: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable.
Proposed wording: Academics/professors meeting one or more of the following conditions, as substantiated using multiple published, reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subject and each other, are notable.Shall the wording in the section Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Criteria be changed to the proposed wording above?
Editors are welcome to join the discussion. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Netoholic ( talk • contribs) 23:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
I can't find the RfC on the link. Xxanthippe ( talk) 00:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC).
Most experienced editors know this important
policy. As it states, the policy applies to all "information about living persons" on "any
Wikipedia page". Most of us have memorized and frequently use the shortcut
WP:BLP when scolding educating other editors. However, less experienced editors—those most in need of understanding this policy—are misled by the title into assuming that it applies only to
biographies of living persons. Therefore, I propose that we rename the policy page as
Wikipedia:Information about living persons. That would require changing shortcuts and other redirect pages to point to the new title, to avoid double redirects. If this proposal is adopted, I volunteer to do this, in consultation with those of you who actively maintain this page.—
Finell
21:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
In reference to this: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." I find that wording very confusing. Does "self-published" mean, for example, an autobiography of the person? Or does it only mean something published, in this instance, by me? I think this would be much clearer: "Never use material published by editors of the living person page. Autobiographies and biographies about the person are acceptable as long as they meet certain criteria [with link to that]." Thoughts? -- PaulThePony ( talk) 21:05, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion about the removal of dating info from Korean artists, especially in this article: Talk:Kim_Hee-chul#Personal_life_section Please help us reach a consensus. This could become a precedent and affect all Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 22:03, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Hello, all. I'm newish to WP. I've turned my hand to improving articles on a couple of minor political figures here in Australia. And I can see I'm going to need to be able to give a reason for my edits.
My view is that the value of a Biography of a Living Person is so that we can understand the people who are affecting our world today. We should know where they have come from - their experiences, the things that may have shaped them. And, especially in the areas of public leadership, whether corporate, NGO, think tank, columnist or political figure, we should have some kind of overarching outline of the person's thought.
Am I on the right track? The Little Platoon ( talk) 23:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
What I'm asking for is a fair objective standard between Korean and western artists. The relationships section should be totally eradication even from western artists' pages or totally allowed (with dating and breakup info) on all pages included Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 12:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
A few days ago, there was an edit war on
Kim Hee-chul revolving around the Relationships section. We started a discussion about it whether to remove it or not. However, while discussing with the other editors, I came to the realization that the Korean artists' articles' editors hold different views on the matter and enforce removal of
verifiable and well-sourced information from
WP:BLP because they subjectively deem them insignificant or allegedly "harmful" and "sensitive information" (against
WP:CENSOR) as can be seen here
Here. Also, for years I have been told that when Korean artists' breakup the info of them dating should be deleted, and now I discovered that all that was decided without any proper discussion and a consensus as seen here
discussion 1 and
discussion 2, and many of pages lost the Relationships section because a couple of editors thought they are not necessary even thought they are usually well-cited.
What I know is that well-covered and confirmed news by both parties in the Relationships section do not fall under WP:BLPGOSSIP or WP:FAN, and instead are Neutral point of views, Verifiable, and are not an original research, so why should the Relationships section be deleted from some articles while kept on others when it is well sourced with even international news outlets covering it. Relationships section can be seen in almost all artists’ articles on Wikipedia, be it a Korean artist ( Park Shin-hye, Choi Tae-joon, Jung Eun-woo, Shin Min-a, and Kim Woo-bin, etc) or western artist ( Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, etc). What I'm asking for is a fair objective standard between Korean and western artists. The relationships section should be totally eradication even from western artists' pages or totally allowed (with dating and breakup info) on all pages included Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 18:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
From time to time I stumble across BLPs that label individuals in (IMO) unprofessional and unencyclopedic ways. For example:
Longstanding text with label | Improved text without the label | Diff |
---|---|---|
Andrea Rossi (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian convicted fraudster and claimed inventor. | Andrea Rossi (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud in the 1990s, and who claims to have invented a cold fusion device. | [26] |
Mary Wagner (born 1974) is a Canadian anti-abortion activist and convicted criminal. | Mary Wagner (born 1974) is a Canadian anti-abortion activist who has served prison sentences for sneaking into abortion clinics to harass patients. | [27] |
The construction "[Person's name] is a convicted criminal" [28] is problematic because "convicted criminal" is vague (was it a curfew violation or murder?) and gives no indication of whether/how the conviction is notable.
Currently the most applicable guidance I can find in this policy is a single sentence under Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Tone:
Do not use controversial or effusive descriptions unless commonly used by reliable sources.
The link on the word "controversial" goes to WP:LABEL (MOS:Words to watch) which specifically discourages using value-laden labels. So we obviously should avoid applying value-laden labels to people.
I would like to see that single sentence expanded to be a bit more explicit. Here's an example:
Do not label a living person with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless the person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking.
I'm definitely not married to this exact wording, and it could use some polishing. But I would like to gauge the support for something like this. Thoughts? ~ Awilley ( talk) 15:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, please see this ongoing discussion. Bus stop ( talk) 16:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
It's been a couple of days now...would there be any objections to me implementing the above proposal (possibly with tweaks for flow) into the policy? ~ Awilley ( talk) 21:11, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Please see: Template talk:Infobox person#Proposal: Repurpose and redocument the home_town parameter.
As I know that changes to major infoboxes are often controversial (and many to that template in particular have been WP:VPPOL RfCs in their own right), it seemed pertinent to notify broadly of the proposal.
Summary: We removed |residence=
, but kept this parameter for childhood non-birthplace residence, despite that being usually trivia. The proposal would repurpose this parameter for long-term residency places during the subject's period of notability.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
21:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
The policy states that we are to ask ourselves whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject.
And then what do we do with those answers? Clearly the source must be an
RS and the material must be given proper
WEIGHT, but does this policy mean that if material is not true it is gossip and must not be included? It's unclear how gossip is defined here, because unproven speculation may be included per
WP:BLPPUBLIC and disproven theories may be included per
WP:NFRINGE. I was unsure of where to find the original discussion about the origin of this policy, but I did find a
BLP/Talk discussion and a
Clay Aiken RfC about including a public figure's own response to speculation, where the consensus was to include his statements (which at the time were that he was not gay). So either gossip does not need to be true to be included, or gossip is no longer merely gossip once it is publicly addressed? But what if Aiken never addressed the speculation, but it was all the media ever talked about to the point that (as reported in RS) he was famous for the is-he-or-isn't-he speculation and no one even remembered he was a singer? But anyway, should we clarify the "whether the material is being presented as true" line?
Kolya Butternut (
talk)
15:03, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
In two recent cases, Death of George Floyd and Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, all which the victims and suspects failed initial public figure tests, the reliable media quickly dug up the past criminal and procedural histories of the victims and the suspects, and for us, both of these were made big cases at BLP/N because editors wanted to include these details for both sides.
Now, granted, there might be reasons these histories are important as the investigation of these stories develop. In the case of the death of Floyd, there is one officer now under arrest under a murder charge and this is the one that from the media it is know they have had several reported incidents of violence on their record. In the case of Arbery, the story involves the fact that the suspects appeared to have had a prior history with Arbery as part of serving as an enforcement officer in one of Arbery's past convictions. In these cases, the relevant records make sense to include But to take the case of Floyd here, the media have learned of his prior convictions (not in Minnesota) ( [31]) but these have no relevance to the situation as we best know at this point as there was no prior history between the victim and the officers. So at BLP/N, it was determined that we should not include Floyd's convictions despite the fact they are well sourced.
To that end, it feels like BLP lacks a statement to this end to avoid including this type of material unless it is essential. on the BLPN related to Floyd, I suggested a three pong test to determine when it is appropriate to include:
The last two points mirror NFCC#8 we use for non-free content as a means to encourage conservative/minimal use of non-free, so it should have a similar impact here. This is just one idea oh how to approach this. But I'd make sure we need this - does BLP actually does this and it's just not clear, or do we need to be more explicit about it? The fact many editors rush to add this type of information is a bit of concern, hence the need to make sure we are clear this is something to avoid. -- Masem ( t) 00:35, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
I have been examining the biographies of several controversial and conservative persons. The term "far-right" often seems to get used in the initial sentence describing the individual by editors who are very critical of those individuals, e.g. "Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian far-right author, clinical psychologist, and scholar", "Milo Yiannopoulos (/jəˈnɒpələs/;[7] born Milo Hanrahan, 18 October 1984), or pen name Milo Andreas Wagner, is a British far-right political commentator, polemicist, public speaker, writer and activist." I haven't been able to find any individuals who actually describe themselves as far-right, other than individuals like Richard B. Spencer, who are actually self-proclaimed Nazis. In most cases, the use of the terminology seems like a glorified form of name-calling that's being used to discredit a person based on the fact that a particular editor doesn't like what they say or their politics. For instance, it's a bit ridiculous to call Milo Yiannoupoulos far-right when the Wikipedia definition of far-right includes homophobia, and neo-Nazism, while he is a gay Jewish man married to a black man. Whether you like him or not, it's hard to conceive of the idea that he is homophobic. Secondary sources of journalists who describe these people as far-right are used as the sources, even though the label is also simply the opinion of the journalist. It seems to me that in general the use of this term should be discouraged as it's generally inflammatory and ill-defined, unless the person the BLP is about has actually described themselves that way in a verifiable primary source. Otherwise, Wikipedia becomes a vehicle for partisan politics and attacking controversial conservative figures.
Mekinna1 ( talk) 21:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm proposing that (emphasis mine):
When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems—even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. This is of particular importance when dealing with living individuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions.
Be changed to:
When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems—even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. This is of particular importance when dealing with
livingindividuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions.
The entire page is about living persons but with the provision that it also applies to the recently deceased. Going from not including the adjective "living" in one sentence then including it in another which starts with "This is of particular concern" is potentially misleading and one could wonder if this meant that recently deceased persons are not implied by this specific sentence. So I am proposing that we strike "living" from the sentence. —DIYeditor ( talk) 23:09, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
This is being used on an article I have been editing by another editor who has beef it out. It wasn't a well referenced article before the editor added a decent amount of sources and info. But Reddit? TIA Arnkellow ( talk) 10:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Is this something we should be doing in the cases of someone from Greece who lives and works in Canada who has a Persian name, which an editor insistes should be translated, or Ash Sarkar who is British with a Bengali name. Doug Weller talk 15:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Page watchers may be interested in a discussion about the title for articles for the death of a person. It's at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves § "Shooting of" or "Killing of". Izno ( talk) 01:31, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
More input would be much appreciated at the following RfC:
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: J. K. Rowling
Crossroads -talk- 03:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
It currently reads:
This section (WP:BLPCRIME) applies to individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures. For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction.
I am unsure as to whether it's intentional or not, but it is ambiguous as to whether public figures are innocent until proven guilty. I would consider it bizarre if the innocent until proven guilty clause only applies to non-public figures, so I suggest the following reorganisation.
A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured.
I would have no objection if anyone wants to retain the "relatively unkown" part, it seemed to largely duplicate the "not public figures" immediately before it. Equally I have no objection to many other changes people may consider, my main concern is to clarify that innocent until proven guilty applies to everyone not just non-public figures, assuming that is the case. FDW777 ( talk) 17:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Since there have been no objections raised, I have implemented the reorganisation. FDW777 ( talk) 10:03, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Golden State Killer#Requested move 30 June 2020. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 00:03, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I've started a WP:RSN discussion (here: [33]) [edit: it has since been archived, and the link is [34]] that has implications for WP:BLP guidelines about WP:BLPSPS and for guidelines elsewhere about WP:SOURCE and WP:SPS. In a nutshell, I'm asking how we determine what constitutes a SPS for online fora when it’s unclear whether the author and publisher are the same, for example, when those fora are published by scholarly organizations and have editorial boards, but aren't run by news organizations and so don't qualify for the WP:NEWSBLOG allowance, or when the online forum employs editors and includes both work by an author-publisher and work by many authors who aren't publishers. My question is about articles that are not a biography but where one or more living persons are sometimes prominent in the article's content. The question is prompted by an article about a legal case that includes content about the living defendant and Judge, where some references are to online legal fora, and where I'm questioning whether those fora should really be considered personal/group blogs, regardless of whether they self-identify as a "blog." However, the question isn't limited to that specific article or even to articles about legal cases and citing legal "blogs." I wanted to give a heads-up here and invite people to contribute to the discussion. -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 14:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Is there a reason that notable relatives should be removed from a “personal life” section of a BLP? NBA player Jarrod Uthoff is the son in law of US congressman Jim Jordan. I had noted this (with a source) several months back but for whatever reason there has been a lot of action removing it today. I was under the impression that notable relatives SHOULD be noted if sourced and not controversial. I have started a discussion at Talk:Jim Jordan (American politician)#Inclusion of son-in-law in “Personal life” section, but would love insight on this. Thanks. Rikster2 ( talk) 19:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Is there any guideline that addresses the “personal life” sections of BLPs or inclusion of notable relatives? I can’t find them if they exist. Rikster2 ( talk) 21:18, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, that may be over-dramatizing the case, and I certainly hope it is; but I'm not so sure. Hungarian pianist ""Bence Péter" seems to have changed his name to Peter Bence, due to confusion about what his real name is outside of Hungary; i.e., which is the given name, and which is the surname. The fact that the usual order for a Hungarian name in Hungary is the reverse (e.g., " hu:Orbán Viktor") just exacerbates the confusion, as does the fact that this young man's surname, "Péter", looks like a western given name (and is also a common given name in Hungary), and that "Bence" ("Vincent") looks to non-Hungarian eyes like a surname. Long story short, it appears that the young man has given up rowing against the stream, and has changed his internet domain, his website, and his name (legally? who knows?) due to the amount of insistence that his name just has to be "Peter Bence" and not his real birthname of "Bence Peter".
I'm just hoping that Wikipedia didn't play a role in worsening the confusion, given that we're #7 or whatever on Alexa, and this young man, who now does have notability enough for an article, but didn't when he created bencepeter ( talk · contribs) in 2008 at age 17, followed immediately by the article Bence Peter (now a redirect). The gory details are at Talk:Peter Bence#His name.
Is there some way we can monitor BLP page moves, or maybe moves accompanied by a near-simultaneous change of the bolded part of the WP:LEADSENTENCE, and send a notification about it? Or perhaps a BLP-name-change bot, or something, that scans BLPs and could flag the situation, or maybe even block or revert it, until it could be examined? Or maybe every BLP move needs to go through WP:RM#CM, and there should be no such thing as a unilateral page move for BLPs? I'm somewhat at a loss of how to deal with this, but I just have a sinking feeling about this case, and even if we weren't involved this time, I'm just wondering what we can do to prevent us from having a negative role in some future, similar case. Adding Largoplazo. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 04:27, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Suicide of Kurt Cobain/Archive 1#Requested move 27 July 2020. I figured that I might as well post on this talk page about it as well since how the family members feel is one thing being discussed. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:19, 30 July 2020 (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. |
I've been noticing there's some inconsistencies when it comes to articles for bands or music groups. There are some that will list the birthdates for members such as Angerme, Iris (Japanese band), Juice=Juice, Camellia Factory (and the editors are very adamant about keeping this format despite some information being trivia, such as member colors). But I noticed for other articles, particularly for Korean idols like Iz One, and other rock bands like Negoto, Luna Sea, Babymetal, the editors kept the birthdates off the page as the article should focus on group activities only. So my question is: do we keep birthdates on group articles, especially if some members aren't notable enough to have their own article, or remove them as the article needs to focus on the group? Are member colors considered BLP trivia? Thanks. lullabying ( talk) 16:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Reading {{Blpo}} you'd have no reason to think that it applies to "people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside." Shouldn't it make this clear? I added it to Talk:Terrorism in the United States as the article often mentions people who have originally died, and in particular it looks odd adjacent to the BLP DS notice which does say "people who have recently died". Doug Weller talk 15:12, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Is there a list of proposals that have sprung up over the years to tighten notability criteria for BLPs? I suppose like WP:BLP1E but that (obviously) failed.... Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 12:00, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
BLPCAT says [removing unrelated parts about religion] "Categories regarding sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the orientation in question, and the subject's sexual orientation is relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." This does not mention gender identity, which is a different thing than sexual orientation. I don't think we should apply the same standards to the usual gender binary distinctions: when we classify someone as male or female, and there is no reasonable cause for uncertainty over whether they are male or female, we shouldn't worry about finding reliable published sources describing how their gender relates to their notability. Nevertheless, I think that the same reasoning should also apply to gender identities that depart from the usual binary genders. I have in mind a particular case where another editor added Category:Transgender and transsexual women to an article without sources or textual support in the article, and I reverted. The subject in question had been identified by some past sources as male but currently identifies as female (under the same name). In the ensuing discussion, I cited BLPCAT and the other editor responded that BLPCAT does not cover this category because it's a gender identity rather than a sexual orientation. Should BLPCAT cover this category? — David Eppstein ( talk) 01:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Labeling or categorizing BLP subjects as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists and comment. Halo Jerk1 ( talk) 02:51, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
Now it's an RfC. Found at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: Should we provide attribution when using "TERF" or "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" when describing BLP subjects?. Halo Jerk1 ( talk) 04:12, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
This has popped up again. See long thread at Talk:Carlos PenaVega#Names and birthdates of children.
User:Tenebrae claims that a 2015 RFC on an article talk page Talk:Brian Austin Green#RfC: Names and DOB's of children in a BLP means that it is now article whitewashing and against policy to remove non-notable children's names and birth dates from their parents' bios if the parents have announced the details.
The presumption in favor of privacy is strong in the case of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons. The names of any immediate, former, or significant family members or any significant relationship of the subject of a BLP may be part of an article, if reliably sourced, subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject.
I interpret that as meaning that such information should not be included unless there is consensus that such information is required for a complete understanding of the subject.
WP:NONAME, part of the essay
WP:MINORS, goes even further wrt to minors: This applies to someone who is incidental to an article, but significant enough to mention even without identifying them, such as the minor children of celebrities. Do not name or otherwise identify the person, even if good sources do publish the name, when a more general description will suffice.
So, is my interpretation of the policy wrong? Does the 2015 RFC supersede the current policy and mean that we are free to add the personal details of non-notable children as long as the parents have announced them? Meters ( talk) 23:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Categorization#RFC: Categories with committed suicide in title. A permalink for it is here.--- Coffeeand crumbs 20:10, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
RfC is open, concerning whether this should be removed: Blender magazine's ranking of Emerson, Lake & Palmer as among the 50 worst bands ever. A thread from 2009-10 is being cited as a consensus to remove its mention, and editors from that thread have been pinged in what appears to be a canvassing effort. So please chime in, especially if you have no emotional ties to the band's music and are more concerned with Wikipedia guidelines and policies and core values and so on. Thank you. Dan56 ( talk) 21:31, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Template:BLP others has been nominated for merging with Template:BLP. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PC78 ( talk) 12:16, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
As even the NYTimes can get it wrong. (See erratta - the whole to-do may actually never have happened). -- Masem ( t) 14:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Reuters: The EU court has ruled that the implementation of a " right to be forgotten" request only extends to services/servers in the EU, not globally. I don't know if we have ever had a BLP case that included someone that was requesting to be forgotten in this way, but as en.wiki is on US soil, this would mean we should not be legally bound to comply with it (though there would be plenty of other reasons to comply with such a request). -- Masem ( t) 14:14, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
After discussions spread over the last couple of years, we have finally updated Wikipedia:External links#Links in lists with some new advice about how to format external links in some stand-alone lists. This format is not mandatory, but it may be helpful in some cases. Please feel free to try it out in pages that you think are appropriate, and leave feedback on the guideline's talk page. Thanks, WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
The last time I can find that we discussed this here was back in 2008, but as the issue has come up again I was wondering if consensus still holds. Where do we sit with adding non-notable people to lists within articles, in particular to alumni? If they would not qualify for an article, either as an individual or as a significant part of a an event that is covered elsewhere on WP, should they be included in a list within an article? - Bilby ( talk) 09:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Many articles for British politicians such as Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Margaret Thatcher. These are generally unsourced and I don't think they add anything to the article. Although they take up a relatively small amount of space, they do take up a subsection without any obvious benefit. Should we keep including these subsections? Bellowhead678 ( talk) 09:26, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
I have been witnessing a major issue when creating articles about former squash biographies for which I am not unable to find their date of births. SquashInfo is the main website which has a collection of all the squash players like what Cricinfo has a collection about cricketers. SquashInfo usually had the data about the date births of players but as of August 2019, the website stopped displaying the date of birth for current and former players. It may be due to the GDPR which could have restricted SquashInfo to display the date of birth of squash players. Even if we try to create the squash players without their birth dates, will it be okay to do that. Abishe ( talk) 13:47, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I am creating a page for a person who is engaged in vegan activism, both as a healthy lifestyle and as an advocate for cruelty-free fashion. If her website and blog focus on these philosophies and benefits to society, can I use these sites as an External Reference? Or, a different type of reference that you can suggest? I don't feel that they are self-promoting. Sunshinedaydreamwiki ( talk) 12:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
I have a WP: COI for the article Alice S. Fisher as an employee of Latham & Watkins. There is a new discussion which may be of interest to members of this project located at: Talk:Alice S. Fisher#Fixing Unsourced Paragraph
JZ at LW ( talk) 20:50, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 November 29#Category:American_pedophiles. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 22:30, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
A case where identity theft occurred due to date of birth being on Wikipedia. [1] Moral: include only year of birth. Xxanthippe ( talk) 22:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC).
I would note that the info being available in registries doesn't mean it's available to the general public. In NZ [2], and England and Wales [3], and I think a lot of the US (to the extent it is often republished by third parties) it generally is. (Admittedly [4] disagrees on the US.) In Australia I believe it can be more complicated e.g. [5] [6] and Canada e.g. [7] [8] [9]. See also the earlier document from the NZ Privacy Commissioner. No idea about other countries but I believe it can also be complicated e.g. see these discussions for Germany [10] [11] or France [12] or Switzerland [13] [14]. Heck even in NZ, and probably England and Wales, the requirements to obtain the info would probably discourage some of those up to no good since it's likely to impose additional risks of being caught. And all of these countries are generally considered "first world".
Anyway more generally, I agree that with a lot of this, probably it is obtainable somewhere on the internet for someone who tries hard enough. However the level of difficulty may affect the willingness of those with sinister motives to do it, and also may slow them down so reduce the number of people they can target. In other words, the fact it may be in other non RS online doesn't mean we should ignore the effects our coverage of such material can have. I mean heck, even when it is published in multiple RS such that we probably would cover it, having it on Wikipedia often makes it easier. Of course if Google puts it in their smart search box or whatever that probably makes it even easier, still I suspect we're actually a big source for such info.
I would note that in the modern world, stuff originating on Wikipedia, isn't unheard of either. This would I assume have come from family or friends, but still, it doesn't mean it's okay.
And there are often cases where while it's technically out there, e.g. someone talks about celebrating their birthday on Twitter or whatever, it may actually be quite difficult to search especially if it's not text and could disappear at any time. (I know that technically if the subject has published it, it can be considered okay, but IMO if it's just someone with a picture of a cake or something then that isn't enough. Especially since people don't always celebrate their birthdays on the exact date.) Until some well meaning editor unfamiliar with BLP adds it to our article and than WP:Citogenesis means in a few years time it's all over the internet maybe even in enough WP:RS that we now have a reason to cover it.
So yeah, IMO we definitely should ensure we follow our standards in keeping such info out unless support by sufficient sourcing. And although identity theft concerns is one factor, IMO it isn't the only one anyway.
Is this vague statement, Miner currently records and produces projects, owns his own recording studio and lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife and their two sons, a BLP violation? A vague statement about where the subject is living and that the subject has a wife (no name) and two sons (no name) does not seem to fit the "contentious material" bill, but of course, it is unsourced and could be wildly out-of-date. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 02:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Authors of creative works are both historically and currently disambiguated from other authors of the same name with their DOB, even living ones. As such this information is widely available from library catalogs and is an essential part of bibliographic metadata. I was wondering if we can add a note excepting published authors with their DOB in their bios, or whitelisting library catalogs / the library of congress as a source, since this information is both important for identifying them and also very widely available. At present it is not mentioned at all, one way or the other. Mvolz ( talk) 10:14, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
I was wondering if i was to write an article about someone, would a voice recorded one on one interview between me (the wikipedia article writer) and the person i'm writing the article about be a reliable source? Squishybaughman ( talk) 20:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
We seem to have a position with respect to self-publication and BLPs which if taken seriously would largely wipe out every watchdog group's authority in our pages. Anything from these groups is self-published, so nothing they say about a living person can be taken as authoritative, except apparently if someone else repeats that specific claim. Therefore, following the latter of our law, we can't state the truth about hate groups (if members are named) or medical quackery (associated with an individual) unless newspapers and other non-expert media sources repeat the claims of these expert groups. WP:SPS states that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications," which is a labored way of saying that if mainstream authorities rely on them as experts, we may do so as well. And really, we should do so as well, because those MSM sources are not expert and make the kind of mistakes that non-experts make.
What we are seeing, however, is that the sentence which follows about BLPs in practice is being used to force us to not tell the truth about organizations where the MSM haven't gone to the experts and cited them. We see this in fights over hate groups and now over medical quackery: there is a discussion on WP:FT/N concerning the widespread removal of Quackwatch as an authority because BLP is almost always brought into play since these dubious practices are advocated by specific people. What happens is that someone writes an article, and we have trouble getting rid of it over notability concerns, but it's also difficult to be able to tell the truth when the watchdogs have flagged the person/group/practice, but the MSM haven't specifically cited them in the instance in question.
The description of self-publication is problematic anyway: taken at face value, it conflates the NYT (which is technically self-published) with vanity presses and ignores the reality that every website is self-published. But beyond that, the deprecation of expert sites in favor of non-expert but nominally reliable MSM self-published material is really an inversion of reliability. We need to reword this somehow to reflect the actual merits of the sources, or someone needs to cough up a legal reason why we can't risk telling the truth. and If the latter prevails, then we need to WP:PROD material on problem people and their organizations and causes ruthlessly and on sight, because in practice what happens is that someone writes such an article and it takes too much work to get rid of it when it cannot tell the truth about the person, because the authorities cannot be cited. Mangoe ( talk) 14:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
At its heart the issue is this, should an expert be allowed to be used as a source about another living person if the opinion only comes from the experts own SPS? Slatersteven ( talk) 13:30, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Comment - I have seen problems previously with varying interpretations of the restriction on the use of SPS in relation to BLP content. To me the main problem is a tendency to treat all content covered by WP:SPS the same, as if material from a watchdog group or a university website, or the self-published work of an academic in their own field, ought to be treated the same as non-expert opinions published on a celebrity's personal blog or corporate puffery disseminated on a promotional website. It seems obvious to me that we collectively can make distinctions among sources with more or less reliability, and that the more reliable self-published sources are more robust and useful than op-eds and other material that does make its way into BLP content. Arguments against the inclusion of the more reliable types of SPS for BLPs tend to CRYBLP and be made when editors don't like the material, and not for consistent reasons of verifiability or reliability IMO. Newimpartial ( talk) 16:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
So do we have a proposal? Slatersteven ( talk) 12:54, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
In trying to resolve a single CN on Elizabeth Wurtzel's article to be posted at ITNC due to her recent death, there was a case of her publisher Penguin suing her for failing to deliver a book. *everyone* covered the initiation of the suit in 2012, but *noone* covered the conclusion. Obviously 7 years later, some action had to be done. After a big of digging I found the case record at the specific court, affirmed it had been dismissed, and such used that court record as a source to clear the CN. See my diff here.
I would to 1) verify this is an acceptable use of primary sources that is still in line with BLPPRIMARY - in that this is only closing the record on a notable case that had no follow up coverage for some reason, and otherwise not supporting any questionable facet of the BLP, and in fact should be included per NPOV (having an open lingering court case years since it was filed makes no sense) and 2) might suggest this as a possible example of where court records could be used assuming #1 is fine. -- Masem ( t) 22:17, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
I explained my proposed change at WP:Village_pump_(policy)#Improving_precision_of_definition_of_WP:BLPSELFPUB_and_WP:ABOUTSELF. Please dicsuss there. Xenagoras ( talk) 23:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
section (WP:BLPCRIME) applies to individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures
WP:BLPCRIME has been used to remove accusations of electoral fraud against an elected politician, Is this an abuse of the process or do the rules need to be rewritten? JorgeLaArdilla ( talk) 20:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
WP:BLPSELFPUB and WP:ABOUTSELF are similar. The 5 core rules have some minor wording differences to match the different areas they cover. But one difference which isn't a simple wording difference is the lack of 'exceptional claim' in BLPSELFPUB rule 1. The exceptional claim bit was added here [15] to the verifiability page. I couldn't find any discussion of adding it to this page since then. Although I find it hard to imagine a case of an exceptional claim that isn't unduly self-serving, perhaps it's worth adding anyway for emphasis?
Definitely we should if someone can come up with a scenario where it may be useful. Myself I can imagine stuff like someone saying they invented a time machine or solved the P versus NP problem, but those would also be unduly self-serving. Then again, I'm not sure it's any different for organisations and stuff, but I guess there is a wider area.
(The history of the 2 sections is complicated. I think they've been developed semi independently then semi synchronised on occasion. E.g. compare [16] with [17] and [18] [19] and [20] with [21]
BTW I have not said anything at WT:V. At the moment IMO we should just add 'exceptional claim' here, or not worry about the difference. I don't think it's worth removing exceptional claim from ABOUTSELF so I don't see that watchers there have a significant interest in this discussion. Still I have no objection if someone does want to leave a notice.
Nil Einne ( talk) 12:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Back in November I've made several changes under WP:BRD. Following reversal, I'm bringing them here for discussion. The first three changes are general CE changes, meant to standardize and streamline the section; [22] [23] [24] the fourth is an addition regarding the omission of identifying details when a person might be at risk of physical harm, following a discussion on WP:ANI (that's one sentence; the rest of it was moved in from another subsection). [25]
For your perusal. François Robere ( talk) 20:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Its publication may pose a serious safety or security risk to the person, their relatives, or anyone else involved in the subject being discussed.as superfluous in cases where the pre-existing
It has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations.applies, and, by virtue of being subjective, that it is open to wikilawyering and competence issues in cases where that pre-existing text does not apply. Note also that the stated impetus for the change appears to be a highly politicised case where the existing text does apply. - Ryk72 talk 11:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
It is often preferable to omit a person's name or other privately identifiable information omitted when ... Its publication may pose a serious safety or security risk to the person, their relatives, or anyone else involved in the subject being discussed.
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2020 January 22#File:CGP Grey stick figure.png. -- Marchjuly ( talk) 05:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
This RfC has been running for a while but input has dropped off, and right now it's about an even split between the guidelines a) saying nothing at all about the matter, or b) saying to avoid putting the same country in two or three infobox parameters (the other options in the RfC have attracted nearly no support). It's not going to be a useful outcome (just another RfC again some time later) if this closes with "no consensus", so this tie needs to be broken – with good reasoning, not with WP:JUSTAVOTE of course. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Are there guidelines about including a family tree ({{template:ahnentafel}}) in a biography, particularly a BLP? I haven't been able to find anything on when we should consider including one in an article so I thought I'd ask here. Schazjmd (talk) 22:29, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Newbie User:185.113.96.195 (apparently in Sweden) made 4 edits to BLP pages changing the nationality to ethnicity, i.e. Jewish, in the lede. All were reverted immediately by different editors including me. I posted a welcome on the user's talk page, and vainly looked for a suitable guideline to reference. Is there one? Wwwhatsup ( talk) 04:32, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
I thought this guideline was updated to explain that you should not use the full DOB for announcements of children births on articles. Govvy ( talk) 12:03, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like
John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.
)and turns it into something like
It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{ cite web}}, {{ cite journal}} and {{ doi}}.
I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
An RfC which might be of interest to watchers of this page has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#RfC about independent sources for academic notability to decide the following question:
Current wording: Academics/professors meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable.
Proposed wording: Academics/professors meeting one or more of the following conditions, as substantiated using multiple published, reliable, secondary sources which are independent of the subject and each other, are notable.Shall the wording in the section Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Criteria be changed to the proposed wording above?
Editors are welcome to join the discussion. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Netoholic ( talk • contribs) 23:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
I can't find the RfC on the link. Xxanthippe ( talk) 00:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC).
Most experienced editors know this important
policy. As it states, the policy applies to all "information about living persons" on "any
Wikipedia page". Most of us have memorized and frequently use the shortcut
WP:BLP when scolding educating other editors. However, less experienced editors—those most in need of understanding this policy—are misled by the title into assuming that it applies only to
biographies of living persons. Therefore, I propose that we rename the policy page as
Wikipedia:Information about living persons. That would require changing shortcuts and other redirect pages to point to the new title, to avoid double redirects. If this proposal is adopted, I volunteer to do this, in consultation with those of you who actively maintain this page.—
Finell
21:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
In reference to this: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." I find that wording very confusing. Does "self-published" mean, for example, an autobiography of the person? Or does it only mean something published, in this instance, by me? I think this would be much clearer: "Never use material published by editors of the living person page. Autobiographies and biographies about the person are acceptable as long as they meet certain criteria [with link to that]." Thoughts? -- PaulThePony ( talk) 21:05, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion about the removal of dating info from Korean artists, especially in this article: Talk:Kim_Hee-chul#Personal_life_section Please help us reach a consensus. This could become a precedent and affect all Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 22:03, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Hello, all. I'm newish to WP. I've turned my hand to improving articles on a couple of minor political figures here in Australia. And I can see I'm going to need to be able to give a reason for my edits.
My view is that the value of a Biography of a Living Person is so that we can understand the people who are affecting our world today. We should know where they have come from - their experiences, the things that may have shaped them. And, especially in the areas of public leadership, whether corporate, NGO, think tank, columnist or political figure, we should have some kind of overarching outline of the person's thought.
Am I on the right track? The Little Platoon ( talk) 23:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
What I'm asking for is a fair objective standard between Korean and western artists. The relationships section should be totally eradication even from western artists' pages or totally allowed (with dating and breakup info) on all pages included Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 12:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
A few days ago, there was an edit war on
Kim Hee-chul revolving around the Relationships section. We started a discussion about it whether to remove it or not. However, while discussing with the other editors, I came to the realization that the Korean artists' articles' editors hold different views on the matter and enforce removal of
verifiable and well-sourced information from
WP:BLP because they subjectively deem them insignificant or allegedly "harmful" and "sensitive information" (against
WP:CENSOR) as can be seen here
Here. Also, for years I have been told that when Korean artists' breakup the info of them dating should be deleted, and now I discovered that all that was decided without any proper discussion and a consensus as seen here
discussion 1 and
discussion 2, and many of pages lost the Relationships section because a couple of editors thought they are not necessary even thought they are usually well-cited.
What I know is that well-covered and confirmed news by both parties in the Relationships section do not fall under WP:BLPGOSSIP or WP:FAN, and instead are Neutral point of views, Verifiable, and are not an original research, so why should the Relationships section be deleted from some articles while kept on others when it is well sourced with even international news outlets covering it. Relationships section can be seen in almost all artists’ articles on Wikipedia, be it a Korean artist ( Park Shin-hye, Choi Tae-joon, Jung Eun-woo, Shin Min-a, and Kim Woo-bin, etc) or western artist ( Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, etc). What I'm asking for is a fair objective standard between Korean and western artists. The relationships section should be totally eradication even from western artists' pages or totally allowed (with dating and breakup info) on all pages included Korean artists' pages. ~~ CherryPie94 🍒🥧 ( talk) 18:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
From time to time I stumble across BLPs that label individuals in (IMO) unprofessional and unencyclopedic ways. For example:
Longstanding text with label | Improved text without the label | Diff |
---|---|---|
Andrea Rossi (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian convicted fraudster and claimed inventor. | Andrea Rossi (born 3 June 1950) is an Italian entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud in the 1990s, and who claims to have invented a cold fusion device. | [26] |
Mary Wagner (born 1974) is a Canadian anti-abortion activist and convicted criminal. | Mary Wagner (born 1974) is a Canadian anti-abortion activist who has served prison sentences for sneaking into abortion clinics to harass patients. | [27] |
The construction "[Person's name] is a convicted criminal" [28] is problematic because "convicted criminal" is vague (was it a curfew violation or murder?) and gives no indication of whether/how the conviction is notable.
Currently the most applicable guidance I can find in this policy is a single sentence under Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Tone:
Do not use controversial or effusive descriptions unless commonly used by reliable sources.
The link on the word "controversial" goes to WP:LABEL (MOS:Words to watch) which specifically discourages using value-laden labels. So we obviously should avoid applying value-laden labels to people.
I would like to see that single sentence expanded to be a bit more explicit. Here's an example:
Do not label a living person with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless the person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking.
I'm definitely not married to this exact wording, and it could use some polishing. But I would like to gauge the support for something like this. Thoughts? ~ Awilley ( talk) 15:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, please see this ongoing discussion. Bus stop ( talk) 16:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
It's been a couple of days now...would there be any objections to me implementing the above proposal (possibly with tweaks for flow) into the policy? ~ Awilley ( talk) 21:11, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Please see: Template talk:Infobox person#Proposal: Repurpose and redocument the home_town parameter.
As I know that changes to major infoboxes are often controversial (and many to that template in particular have been WP:VPPOL RfCs in their own right), it seemed pertinent to notify broadly of the proposal.
Summary: We removed |residence=
, but kept this parameter for childhood non-birthplace residence, despite that being usually trivia. The proposal would repurpose this parameter for long-term residency places during the subject's period of notability.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
21:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
The policy states that we are to ask ourselves whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject.
And then what do we do with those answers? Clearly the source must be an
RS and the material must be given proper
WEIGHT, but does this policy mean that if material is not true it is gossip and must not be included? It's unclear how gossip is defined here, because unproven speculation may be included per
WP:BLPPUBLIC and disproven theories may be included per
WP:NFRINGE. I was unsure of where to find the original discussion about the origin of this policy, but I did find a
BLP/Talk discussion and a
Clay Aiken RfC about including a public figure's own response to speculation, where the consensus was to include his statements (which at the time were that he was not gay). So either gossip does not need to be true to be included, or gossip is no longer merely gossip once it is publicly addressed? But what if Aiken never addressed the speculation, but it was all the media ever talked about to the point that (as reported in RS) he was famous for the is-he-or-isn't-he speculation and no one even remembered he was a singer? But anyway, should we clarify the "whether the material is being presented as true" line?
Kolya Butternut (
talk)
15:03, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
In two recent cases, Death of George Floyd and Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, all which the victims and suspects failed initial public figure tests, the reliable media quickly dug up the past criminal and procedural histories of the victims and the suspects, and for us, both of these were made big cases at BLP/N because editors wanted to include these details for both sides.
Now, granted, there might be reasons these histories are important as the investigation of these stories develop. In the case of the death of Floyd, there is one officer now under arrest under a murder charge and this is the one that from the media it is know they have had several reported incidents of violence on their record. In the case of Arbery, the story involves the fact that the suspects appeared to have had a prior history with Arbery as part of serving as an enforcement officer in one of Arbery's past convictions. In these cases, the relevant records make sense to include But to take the case of Floyd here, the media have learned of his prior convictions (not in Minnesota) ( [31]) but these have no relevance to the situation as we best know at this point as there was no prior history between the victim and the officers. So at BLP/N, it was determined that we should not include Floyd's convictions despite the fact they are well sourced.
To that end, it feels like BLP lacks a statement to this end to avoid including this type of material unless it is essential. on the BLPN related to Floyd, I suggested a three pong test to determine when it is appropriate to include:
The last two points mirror NFCC#8 we use for non-free content as a means to encourage conservative/minimal use of non-free, so it should have a similar impact here. This is just one idea oh how to approach this. But I'd make sure we need this - does BLP actually does this and it's just not clear, or do we need to be more explicit about it? The fact many editors rush to add this type of information is a bit of concern, hence the need to make sure we are clear this is something to avoid. -- Masem ( t) 00:35, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
I have been examining the biographies of several controversial and conservative persons. The term "far-right" often seems to get used in the initial sentence describing the individual by editors who are very critical of those individuals, e.g. "Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian far-right author, clinical psychologist, and scholar", "Milo Yiannopoulos (/jəˈnɒpələs/;[7] born Milo Hanrahan, 18 October 1984), or pen name Milo Andreas Wagner, is a British far-right political commentator, polemicist, public speaker, writer and activist." I haven't been able to find any individuals who actually describe themselves as far-right, other than individuals like Richard B. Spencer, who are actually self-proclaimed Nazis. In most cases, the use of the terminology seems like a glorified form of name-calling that's being used to discredit a person based on the fact that a particular editor doesn't like what they say or their politics. For instance, it's a bit ridiculous to call Milo Yiannoupoulos far-right when the Wikipedia definition of far-right includes homophobia, and neo-Nazism, while he is a gay Jewish man married to a black man. Whether you like him or not, it's hard to conceive of the idea that he is homophobic. Secondary sources of journalists who describe these people as far-right are used as the sources, even though the label is also simply the opinion of the journalist. It seems to me that in general the use of this term should be discouraged as it's generally inflammatory and ill-defined, unless the person the BLP is about has actually described themselves that way in a verifiable primary source. Otherwise, Wikipedia becomes a vehicle for partisan politics and attacking controversial conservative figures.
Mekinna1 ( talk) 21:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm proposing that (emphasis mine):
When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems—even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. This is of particular importance when dealing with living individuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions.
Be changed to:
When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems—even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. This is of particular importance when dealing with
livingindividuals whose notability stems largely or entirely from being victims of another's actions.
The entire page is about living persons but with the provision that it also applies to the recently deceased. Going from not including the adjective "living" in one sentence then including it in another which starts with "This is of particular concern" is potentially misleading and one could wonder if this meant that recently deceased persons are not implied by this specific sentence. So I am proposing that we strike "living" from the sentence. —DIYeditor ( talk) 23:09, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
This is being used on an article I have been editing by another editor who has beef it out. It wasn't a well referenced article before the editor added a decent amount of sources and info. But Reddit? TIA Arnkellow ( talk) 10:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Is this something we should be doing in the cases of someone from Greece who lives and works in Canada who has a Persian name, which an editor insistes should be translated, or Ash Sarkar who is British with a Bengali name. Doug Weller talk 15:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Page watchers may be interested in a discussion about the title for articles for the death of a person. It's at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves § "Shooting of" or "Killing of". Izno ( talk) 01:31, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
More input would be much appreciated at the following RfC:
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: J. K. Rowling
Crossroads -talk- 03:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
It currently reads:
This section (WP:BLPCRIME) applies to individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures. For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction.
I am unsure as to whether it's intentional or not, but it is ambiguous as to whether public figures are innocent until proven guilty. I would consider it bizarre if the innocent until proven guilty clause only applies to non-public figures, so I suggest the following reorganisation.
A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured.
I would have no objection if anyone wants to retain the "relatively unkown" part, it seemed to largely duplicate the "not public figures" immediately before it. Equally I have no objection to many other changes people may consider, my main concern is to clarify that innocent until proven guilty applies to everyone not just non-public figures, assuming that is the case. FDW777 ( talk) 17:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Since there have been no objections raised, I have implemented the reorganisation. FDW777 ( talk) 10:03, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Golden State Killer#Requested move 30 June 2020. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 00:03, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I've started a WP:RSN discussion (here: [33]) [edit: it has since been archived, and the link is [34]] that has implications for WP:BLP guidelines about WP:BLPSPS and for guidelines elsewhere about WP:SOURCE and WP:SPS. In a nutshell, I'm asking how we determine what constitutes a SPS for online fora when it’s unclear whether the author and publisher are the same, for example, when those fora are published by scholarly organizations and have editorial boards, but aren't run by news organizations and so don't qualify for the WP:NEWSBLOG allowance, or when the online forum employs editors and includes both work by an author-publisher and work by many authors who aren't publishers. My question is about articles that are not a biography but where one or more living persons are sometimes prominent in the article's content. The question is prompted by an article about a legal case that includes content about the living defendant and Judge, where some references are to online legal fora, and where I'm questioning whether those fora should really be considered personal/group blogs, regardless of whether they self-identify as a "blog." However, the question isn't limited to that specific article or even to articles about legal cases and citing legal "blogs." I wanted to give a heads-up here and invite people to contribute to the discussion. -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 14:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Is there a reason that notable relatives should be removed from a “personal life” section of a BLP? NBA player Jarrod Uthoff is the son in law of US congressman Jim Jordan. I had noted this (with a source) several months back but for whatever reason there has been a lot of action removing it today. I was under the impression that notable relatives SHOULD be noted if sourced and not controversial. I have started a discussion at Talk:Jim Jordan (American politician)#Inclusion of son-in-law in “Personal life” section, but would love insight on this. Thanks. Rikster2 ( talk) 19:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Is there any guideline that addresses the “personal life” sections of BLPs or inclusion of notable relatives? I can’t find them if they exist. Rikster2 ( talk) 21:18, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, that may be over-dramatizing the case, and I certainly hope it is; but I'm not so sure. Hungarian pianist ""Bence Péter" seems to have changed his name to Peter Bence, due to confusion about what his real name is outside of Hungary; i.e., which is the given name, and which is the surname. The fact that the usual order for a Hungarian name in Hungary is the reverse (e.g., " hu:Orbán Viktor") just exacerbates the confusion, as does the fact that this young man's surname, "Péter", looks like a western given name (and is also a common given name in Hungary), and that "Bence" ("Vincent") looks to non-Hungarian eyes like a surname. Long story short, it appears that the young man has given up rowing against the stream, and has changed his internet domain, his website, and his name (legally? who knows?) due to the amount of insistence that his name just has to be "Peter Bence" and not his real birthname of "Bence Peter".
I'm just hoping that Wikipedia didn't play a role in worsening the confusion, given that we're #7 or whatever on Alexa, and this young man, who now does have notability enough for an article, but didn't when he created bencepeter ( talk · contribs) in 2008 at age 17, followed immediately by the article Bence Peter (now a redirect). The gory details are at Talk:Peter Bence#His name.
Is there some way we can monitor BLP page moves, or maybe moves accompanied by a near-simultaneous change of the bolded part of the WP:LEADSENTENCE, and send a notification about it? Or perhaps a BLP-name-change bot, or something, that scans BLPs and could flag the situation, or maybe even block or revert it, until it could be examined? Or maybe every BLP move needs to go through WP:RM#CM, and there should be no such thing as a unilateral page move for BLPs? I'm somewhat at a loss of how to deal with this, but I just have a sinking feeling about this case, and even if we weren't involved this time, I'm just wondering what we can do to prevent us from having a negative role in some future, similar case. Adding Largoplazo. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 04:27, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Suicide of Kurt Cobain/Archive 1#Requested move 27 July 2020. I figured that I might as well post on this talk page about it as well since how the family members feel is one thing being discussed. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:19, 30 July 2020 (UTC)