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Please see WT:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC on birthplace, nationality, and citizenship parameters with matching values, an RfC opened after initial discussion fizzled out with too few participants. This isn't strictly about living persons, but BLP regulars are the sorts of editors most likely to have an informed opinion on bio infoboxes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
I propose that we make an exception to the WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSPS restrictions for court documents or other expert SPS for notable court cases involving public figures, at least in cases “Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source.”
Background: WP:BLP applies “when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.” Thus, in articles about court cases, material about living persons is subject to the BLP policy. However, BLP policies specifically reject court documents and expert legal commentary from SPS:
Many court cases involve living persons. Court records (motions, opinions, etc.) are central to court cases, but court records are both primary documents and self-published — by the government and/or someone’s lawyers — and so cannot be used, though a motion submitted by someone’s lawyers might sometimes fall under the exception for WP:BLPSELFPUB, if it meets the other characteristics (e.g., it doesn’t introduce claims about another party). Other government publications that are relevant to some court cases, such as the Mueller Report, may also be self-published (there’s actually a discussion right now about clarifying the meaning of “self-published,” here [1] and here [2]), in which case other relevant government publications couldn’t be cited for material about a living person either.
There is another statement in WP:BLPPRIMARY, “Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on [the primary source] to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies,” but both “the restrictions of [BLPPRIMARY]” and “other sourcing policies” (e.g., BLPSPS) still exclude court documents, other relevant government publications, and expert commentary in SPS.
And WP:BLPEL says that external links also have to meet these standards, so simply linking to a court docket might be disallowed for a court case involving a living person, since the court documents in the docket include a mix of statements about the person and other statements about the case.
I certainly understand that WP isn’t a tabloid, and court documents and self-published material can include all sorts of allegations, so there’s a reason to be wary about using them for sources of BLP material. I also recognize that for notable court cases, important statements in court documents and other government publications are often repeated in traditional news media, allowing us to cite those news sources instead. But I haven't seen evidence that that’s always the case. In addition, although op-eds from news media are allowed as BLP RSs (in the author’s voice), legal analysis from expert SPS (e.g., SCOTUSblog, the Volokh Conspiracy, Lawfare, Just Security) may be rejected as BLPSPS (pending resolution of whether they are/aren’t SPSs, per the discussion of SPSs noted above), and there’s definitely expert commentary from those sources that doesn’t appear in traditional news media.
WP:PRIMARY says “A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” Quotes are among the things that fall in this category, and the primary source is the most reliable source for confirming that “the wording of the quoted text … [is] faithfully reproduced” ( MOS:PMC).
As an example, I’ve been working on United States v. Flynn, which grew out of the Special Counsel investigation. This page was created recently, split off from Michael Flynn, and as I’ve been checking some of the existing text, I’ve run into statements about a variety of living people (e.g., Flynn, the judge, prosecutors, Flynn’s former counsel) where text would need to be removed because of the BLP court document / SPS exclusion. But this issue isn’t limited to that one page. It arises in articles for a number of well-known court cases involving living persons, including Supreme Court cases.
I tried searching for previous discussions of this issue. I did find some discussions of the two policies in the BLP/N and BLP talk page archives ( [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]), but I didn't find any discussion about modifying the policies for articles about court cases.
What do people think? -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 16:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Just an addendum that I've heard and accepted the consensus here about not changing the guideline, but it still seems to me that in WP edits about court cases where a living person is a plaintiff/defendant/key witness, the content of a specific edit may be about the case but not about the person. -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 12:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Another aspect to consider is that often, when a public person is sued, there will be plenty of secondary coverage of the fact that a lawsuit was started (and can thus be used in an article). But when the court case then drags on for a few years, the media loses interest, and the outcome is never reported.
So we now have a case where somebody has a "Mr.Famous was sued for doing xyz" in the article, but, since we cannot use the court document that was issued 3 years later, and which states that the case was dismissed, we have to leave just the accusation, but cannot insert the dismissal.
Frescard (
talk)
01:05, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
In the paragraph on
primary sources, there is a mention of "public documents".
It is not defined anywhere though, what a "public document" is. From the general gist of the guideline I would assume that we are talking about
Public records, so it might make things more clear if we used that definition, to avoid misinterpretation.
Frescard (
talk)
00:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Reliability of PETA. A permalink for it is here. Part of the discussion concerns the BLP policy. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:17, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I may have asked this question a year or two back, but I don't think it was answered. Is a published autobiography (by an respected academic press) considered as an acceptable source for a Wikipedia biography, or not? Is there any explicit Wikipedia documentation addressing this? Is there any noteworthy prior discussion on this topic? Thanks. Finney1234 ( talk) 18:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
After a charged suspect is acquitted by a court, is inclusion of their name still prohibited by WP:BLPCRIME (obviously with a statement that they weren't found guilty)? eg names at Central Park jogger case and Shooting of Sean Bell. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:50, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
"When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context."
There is a currently a dispute about the application/interpretation of
WP:BLPNAME on
Talk:Murder of Grace Millane. This is a somewhat unusual scenario where the name of the defendant has been "concealed" by the courts in New Zealand (where his conviction is currently under appeal) but has nevertheless been "widely disseminated" by certain newspapers in Europe, where New Zealand name-suppression laws do not apply. Perhaps Wikipedia needs to clarify or expand this policy.
Muzilon (
talk)
23:41, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Quick question for all you BLP geniuses: I know we don't use some forms of primary sources like public docs. If a person publishes their DOB somewhere, like tweets "Today is my 50th birthday!" Can that be used? My instincts tell me to treat it somewhat circumspectly, since people can and do lie about their ages. Thoughts? Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 16:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Can someone explain to me the rationale for preferring a secondary source over a primary source? If someone is convicted of a crime, why is a newspaper report preferable to a court document? Bdure ( talk) 22:41, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Public Data Digger was used as a source for this BLP edit (Tanya Callau). Are these types of sources acceptable? Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 23:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
The information available on our website may not be 100% accurate, complete, or up to date, so do not use it as a substitute for your own due diligence... Public Data Digger does not make any representation or warranty about the accuracy of the information available through our website...That's a "no" for mine. - Ryk72 talk 14:15, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
( Rajeshbm ( talk) 14:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC))Sir,can someone please help add this image https://www.thebillionpress.org/sites/default/files/person-images/Vappala%20Balachandran_%20NPA%20photo%20DSC_0006.JPG and help enhance the article /info/en/?search=Vappala_Balachandran Thank you( Rajeshbm ( talk) 14:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC))
After talking to many editors and 2 administrators, I found out that the policy for talk pages is more relaxed when expressing the editor's opinion about living persons with sources compared to articles. Unfortunately, this is not reflected very well in the statements. Statements like "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, lists, article titles and drafts."
can lead the editors to think that talk pages are treated in exactly the same way as articles. Als,o how far can editors go expressing their opinions about living persons without sources in the talk pages is not clear. Please refer to the following sections for more context:
Shouldn't the policy add more clarification about differences between talk pages and articles; and clarify the extent editors can express their opinions about living persons without sources? Knowledge Contributor0 ( talk) 05:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#The piece about the subject's sexual orientation being relevant to their public life. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:54, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
It partly concerns the WP:BLPCAT section of this policy page. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi! Please see the discussion here. There are sufficient examples cited within the discussion to show how WP:BLPCRIME can in itself lead to edit warring. Putting this here to initiate discussion. Thanks! Vikram Vincent 14:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ ProcrastinatingReader, Masem, and Tayi Arajakate: This is another case in hand with a whole set of editors at work :-) /info/en/?search=Arnab_Goswami#Abetment_of_suicide_case Vikram Vincent 13:12, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Could someone tell me whether Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Restoring deleted content is meant to be about Wikipedia:Deletion policy or about both deletion and also ordinary, zero-admin-buttons-involved removal of content from an article? Depending upon which sentence you focus on, the ordinary removal of a sentence may or may not be included in this section.
Useful answers probably sound something like these:
I don't need the answer to be any particular thing; I'm only trying to figure out what the regulars here can tell me about the current (or best) practice. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:15, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
My strong opinion: When an individual has one or more sub-articles, the main BLP should not include any information not present in any of the sub-articles (and that should have at least guideline status, which I believe could be accomplished at section level). I haven't read the whole page, but I don't see anything like that in the TOC. Any support for this concept? ― Mandruss ☎ 21:41, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Sometimes editors will add details to a summary section without adding those facts to the more detailed article. To keep articles synchronized, editors should first add any new material to the appropriate places in the detailed article, and, if appropriate, summarize the material in the summary section(bold added) (In the context of the page, "summary section" is referring to the summary in the parent article, and the "more detailed article" = child article) Schazjmd (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Recently, information reporting that somebody had died had been added to an article, and partially removed on BLP grounds. By the time I discovered the issue there were sources to confirm that he has indeed died, but the editor who added the information didn't include any source in the edit. Does this in itself constitute breaching BLP? Does the policy need to be explicit about this? Maybe something like: "Anyone born within the past 115 years (on or after 12 July 1909
) is covered by this policy unless a reliable source, cited in the article, has confirmed their death."I'm just trying to make sure there is no loophole whereby someone could try to defend such an edit with a comment like, "A reliable source HAS confirmed his death, just STFW!"
Furthermore, I'm made to wonder, if somebody edits an article to tidy up death information added by somebody else, and maybe adds death-related categories such as year or cause of death, but leaves the death info unreferenced, could this somebody's edit be considered a BLP breach?
Of course, it would be another matter if somebody close to the subject had edited the article to report the death, possibly before it has otherwise been made public news. — Smjg ( talk) 17:06, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Transsexual#Lead image. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Proposal to better address "The"/"the" in names of performers (etc.) and groups thereof
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
05:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
For details, please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Request for Comment. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 06:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Need clarification. Is describing a transgender as she when they identify as a he & vise-versa, no longer accepted on the talkpages of such bios articles??? GoodDay ( talk) 17:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm not looking to overturn anything. GoodDay ( talk) 19:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC: updating MOS:DEADNAME for how to credit individuals on previously released works
This potentially would affect a significant number of articles. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
02:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
What if a notable political dissident has been held in jail for a long time by a totalitarian state? Aung San Suu Kyi comes to mind. WP:BLPCRIME implies that we cannot talk about her house arrest because that would imply being charged with a crime but no conviction yet. If a WP:R says that some notable person is or was in jail, can we not report that?-- Sa57arc ( talk) 06:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
In WP:BLPPUBLIC it currently reads that a person should have "a multitude" of WP:RS about them to be considered a public figure. We should quantify that for easy conflict resolution. How about 5 or 10?-- Sa57arc ( talk) 21:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources and BLPs should simply document what these sources say.It is not defining a public figure; for that, see the explanatory supplement WP:LPI. Schazjmd (talk) 21:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
An exact number is not needed, it could even be detrimental. I would leave the original wording. PackMecEng ( talk) 04:43, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Sa57arc, this is a core content policy. It's important not to change it over objections. SarahSV (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
What is wrong with "at least 2" as the language? That is less ambiguous.-- Sa57arc ( talk) 06:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I am familiar with WP attitudinal problems with WP:EXPERT. I am just saying that licensed medical doctors are indeed experts and professionals and WP editors are just unpaid amateurs. Think of Essjay. Experts can evaluate WP:RS on a continuum. WP editors need a binary result to be worked out on the talk page, not through WP:EW.-- Sa57arc ( talk) 08:22, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move ( non-admin closure) ( t · c) buidhe 04:59, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons → Wikipedia:Biographies of living people – The world people is more common in spoken and everyday speech instead of persons. Interstellarity ( talk) 15:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@
Buidhe:, would you consider making an ever so slight modification to your closure, as to what the result of the requested move was? I think you likely did assess the result correctly, but you chose the wrong wiki jargon. Rather than 'No consensus for move', the result ought to have been 'Consensus not to move.' Despite apppearing to be two ways of saying the same thing, here they actually have different meanings, and they are two of the three possible outcomes for RMs.
I really, truly do not think there's any reasonably likely chance that any person would contend that this RM resulted in anything other than consent against move..and it would be a waste of time and resources to go through any formal closure review process or whatever, so this would be a fittingly proper application of IAR, if you were to just go in and change the text of the closure notice at up. With an edit note, striked out text, however you'd want to do it. Cheers Firejuggler86 ( talk) 12:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
The {{
top 25 report}}
tmbox at
Talk:Auld Lang Syne led me to
Wikipedia:Top 25 Report, and, as someone who's fairly new to editing Wikipedia, I'd like to ask: Why is Top 25 Report allowed to state (in entry #12) that some rapper went insane
, when this claim is supported neither with a citation nor, as far as I see, by
the article on the person? I see that Top 25 Report is tagged as {{
humor}}, and I can see that went insane
could be taken as jocular hyperbole, especially in colloquial speech, but I don't see any exception for humor in the
WP:BLP policy. Thanks, —
2d37 (
talk)
15:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Subjects_notable_only_for_one_event
The presentation here isn't the clearest. 1 and 2 are singular conditions, but 3 appear to be a list of 3 different options.
I'm wondering if it should be presented "both of two conditions" (1 and 2) and then "one of three conditions" splitting 3rd into three bullets. WakandaQT ( talk) 21:43, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
WP:BLPPRIVACY notes that birthdays are widely regarded as private, but I find uncited birthdays on mildly notable figures quite often. These days I usually just replace it with a year or remove it entirely unless I can find high-quality and reliable (or self-published) sources which provide the full birthday. Does this correspond with our current understanding, and if so, should this issue be more rigorously enforced? Ovinus ( talk) 13:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
It's widespread and acceptable practice on Wiki to use advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Innocence Project on BLP articles for controversial subjects. However, I'm concerned that under the language currently used on this page regarding BLP articles and self-published sources, editors might try to exclude anything from advocacy groups, think tanks and academic research projects on the grounds that they are "self-published" because there is no clear division between publishers, editors and writers.
I've seen editors repeatedly reject references to sources like the SPLC because they are "self-published". To be quite honest, I think this is sometimes used as a stonewalling tactic and as a tactic to bamboozle new editors. I don't believe that this policy was written with this in mind but I can see that the way this page is currently written could lead some to that conclusion. What do others think - perhaps this page should be reworded to make it clear that expert opinions, think tanks, advocacy groups etc are permissible? Or am I missing something? Noteduck ( talk) 23:47, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Where do birth announcements in newspapers fit in to this policy? If a birthday is reported by a reliable secondary source could such birth announcement be used to augment it when it obviously is the person? I'm not really familiar with bios so I would appreciate any clarity. Thanks, Heartfox ( talk) 13:40, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
When did it become allowable to add info to biographical articles citing only what the subject person h-self has published on the matter? Does Wikipedia now consider such sources carte blanche reliable? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 12:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Currently the WP:BLPPRIVACY header is "Privacy of personal information and using primary sources". I suggest it should be "Privacy of personal information". That was the original section header but SlimVirgin merged it with "Primary sources" on 07 April 2010 with edit summary = "Gigs, how about this?" (referring to Gigs). I didn't see the reasoning for this edit in the talk page around this time and do not believe the intent was to change the meaning. But on the Kelly Loeffler talk page, section Personal life (re record residential Atlanta real estate deal) is a suggestion, based on the header, that WP:BLPPRIVACY applies only if the source is primary.
I believe that interpretation is not natural, not intended, and not approved. I believe that removing "and using primary sources" will end it. Who agrees or objects? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 18:13, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Update: I made the change but Ohnoitsjamie declared "(1) you broke shortcuts to this (2) perhaps get more consensus first" and reverted. (1) is true and I apologize for not thinking about that. (2) is not likely and I regret that one seemingly didn't need consensus to add the words but needs consensus to remove them. But that's how it goes, consider this closed. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 20:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Alternative: split the heading, resulting in both "Privacy of personal information", with "Primary sources of personal information" under it. Looking at the old text from 2010, that seems to be a good choice about using primary sources, and there's already an earlier section about "Avoid misuse of primary sources".
William Allen Simpson (
talk)
01:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I am new to wikipedia. I would like your help in editing an article. It seems that you are already interested in the same article as I saw your name in the Dhananjay Munde's article history, hence I am seeking your help. I stumbled across an official affidavit which Mr. Dhananjay Munde submitted to the election commission. In this affidavit he only admitted having 3 daughters. His wikipedia, however, shows 4 children – this information is based on news articles references. It seems inaccurate. Since legally he only admitted having 3 daughters, I would like to make a change accordingly. Here is the link to the official document. [1] Also the link for the official website -[2]
https://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/AffidavitPDFs/MLC2016/DhananjayMunde.pdf https://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/Affidavits/LCMLA2016.aspx
Let me know if the change I am suggesting is constructive. Neha Kute (talk) 07:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)NehaKute
Neha Kute ( talk) 08:07, 9 March 2021 (UTC)NehaKute
A move request is underway, requesting that the article Killing of George Floyd be renamed to "Death of George Floyd". Your feedback would be appreciated at Talk:Killing of George Floyd/Archive 6#Requested move 1 April 2021. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 00:46, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Jason Schreier#Removal of parents' occupation. The discussion concerns this source, a wedding announcement published in The New York Times. As a wedding announcement, the text was written and submitted by a person close to Schreier (in this case, his father) and published in/by a reliable newspaper. WP:BLPSPS currently reads: "Never use self-published sources ... unless written or published by the subject of the article." Assuming that the source falls under SPS/BLPSPS, should it really be inappropriate to source uncontroversial elements—e.g. parents' names, spouse's name, marriage date—to a source written by the subject's parents? Courtesy ping to those involved in the aforementioned discussion: @ Spy-cicle, Masem, SnowFire, ImaginesTigers, and Woodroar IceWelder [ ✉] 13:57, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
On my user talk page, Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d pointed out Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9#Bias categories, which found support to exclude articles about individual people from such categories as Category:Racism and Category:Sexism, etc. The issue has come up at Talk:Nick Cannon, and Category:Antisemitism in the United States currently has a number of other BLPs in it. Seems like a pretty clear thing to avoid, based on WP:CATDEF, WP:IMPARTIAL, WP:LABEL, etc. Should we add a note to WP:BLPCAT to discourage this? I'm thinking something like the following (proposed text in bold):
Caution should be used with content categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). For example, Category:Criminals and its subcategories should be added only for an incident that is relevant to the person's notability; the incident was published by reliable third-party sources; the subject was convicted; and the conviction was not overturned on appeal. In particular, do not categorize biographies of living people under such contentious topics as racism, sexism, extremism, and the like, since these have the effect of labeling a person as a racist, sexist, or extremist.
Alternatively, would this be more appropriate for Wikipedia:Categorization of people? I bring it up here because WP:BLP is usually the first place I check for any contentious issues like this. Should it be applied to all biographies of individuals, not just those of living people? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 09:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Just want to ask why 115 was set as the amount of years that someone can be presumed dead by their DOB? According to https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy the average global life expectancy is 72.6 years. Of course this number is higher if you were to list each countries individual average life expectancies. Which according to https://www.farandwide.com/s/countries-live-longest-2b1e1e8a7f3045ab is Monaco with an average national life expectancy of 89.4 years. If anyone knows why 115 was set then please reply to this. Thanks. Slender ( talk) 16:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Executive Summary: Should we add text something like this:
Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s).
So it's not clear to me exactly how negative statements should be handled on pages other than articles. For articles, there's definitely a requirement of "an inline citation to a reliable, published source", and technically BLP (says it) applies to non-article pages. So it doesn't explicitly make an exception saying that the proximate-inline-citation requirement does not cover non-article pages.
But... it's an annoyance to have to copy in the ref everytime you want to talk about a person's crimes or whatever. After all, we are usually talking about talk pages or edit summaries. The refs are right there in the article. And sometimes we are talking about the BLP Noticeboard, or other places like that, user talk pages for instance, where the refs are in an article but not proximate to the page.
And WP:BLP does allow " This link has has serious allegations about subject; should we summarize this someplace in the article?" Anyone can easily access the ref and suss what the serious allegations are. It's not in our words, but maybe it's pettifoggery to overly worry about that. And that's if there isn't ref'd material in the article already. If there is, wouldn't "Joe Smith is an embezzler. Should we expand on that a little?" (without a ref provided right there) be OK?
If this is broadly acceptable, we could have something like a pointer to a footnote at the end of the paragraph that begins "We must get the article right...", something like this: "Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s)."
For my part I oppose this, and I have like seven reasonably good reasons which I can list. But I see the other side too. But the main thing it's my guess that the great majority of you would support it. Which, if so, fine (I suppose). But let's make it official. It's not functional to have a rule that says one thing and the community does another thing. It's better if they're brought in line. Otherwise you have confusion and contention. Herostratus ( talk) 17:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, just want to point out that as far as the Foundation is concerned, there is basically no difference between talk pages and article pages. They not only allow but expect talk pages to be publish downstream same as article, I am pretty sire They could have put in place a different licensing scheme for talk page contributions. But they didn't.
I get that as an editor this seems counterintuitive, even silly: "Of course they're way way different, article pages are made differently with different standards, and are what people come to here to read; talk pages are much more informal have an entirely different purpose and (although technically available to anyone) are only read by by editors mostly". That makes sense. It's also not true, according to the Foundation, I don't think.
And I mean that matters. If we decide "nah, we can basically gossip about anyone as much as we like on non-article pages as long as there's a ref somewhere" this is not something the Foundation is not going to like. Well if they decide that we can't do that I'm sure everyone will be all upset. But entities that are unable to govern themselves eventually get governed by someone else.
I don't know how much this is in play. It's not something to just handwave off, maybe.
OK, and just for background, it's my understanding that the impetus for creating, and the spirit and overall intent, of WP:BLP, was actually twofold: to protect the project from embarrassment and lawsuits, yes, but also to discourage our bullying private citizens. IANAL and I have no idea if judges be all like "You called plaintiff a grifter, and then you say your proof for that was off somewhere in one of the 20 million other pages you have. That there was a... shuffle shuffle... "wikilink" where a person could supposedly go to and then start pawing thru a page to find the ref. Right?" or if that matters. But even if that's not a problem and we can get away with it, why do we want to. Allowing and encouraging editors to play fast and loose with slurs (even if true) is not a good direction to go in. When editing the Wikipedia it's best to keep the beast restrained, I think. Herostratus ( talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
UPDATE: Hey speaking of slippery slopes, just saw a thread where an obscure private person (marginally notable, disputed whether he rates an article, and is not engaged in politics or anything like that) was repeatedly described as a pedophile, with details regarding ages of boys and so forth, with no ref whatsoever existing anywhere in the Wikipedia. (There were, briefly, refs in the article -- the Daily Mail and the Sun -- but they were deleted (of course). They are in the article history. But even to the extent they briefly existed on the Wikipedia, the Daily Mail is considered useless and the Sun pretty much so, particularly for vilifying private citizens.)
Well boy howdy. Slip sliding away. I might report this, but why bother? I don't expect to get anywhere. At least one admin was there in thread and she didn't seem to mind. So...
I'm curious whether the next step will be "[private person I dislike] is a pedophile and embezzler who murdered his own parents; everybody knows this, but there aren't any refs. How should we handle this?" Would this be ignored? I expect so. We'll suppose we'll find out sooner or later. Herostratus ( talk) 09:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Is Tom Convery notably he is the main star of the Netflix show Sweet Tooth? Dwanyewest ( talk) 03:31, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
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Please see WT:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC on birthplace, nationality, and citizenship parameters with matching values, an RfC opened after initial discussion fizzled out with too few participants. This isn't strictly about living persons, but BLP regulars are the sorts of editors most likely to have an informed opinion on bio infoboxes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
I propose that we make an exception to the WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSPS restrictions for court documents or other expert SPS for notable court cases involving public figures, at least in cases “Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source.”
Background: WP:BLP applies “when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page.” Thus, in articles about court cases, material about living persons is subject to the BLP policy. However, BLP policies specifically reject court documents and expert legal commentary from SPS:
Many court cases involve living persons. Court records (motions, opinions, etc.) are central to court cases, but court records are both primary documents and self-published — by the government and/or someone’s lawyers — and so cannot be used, though a motion submitted by someone’s lawyers might sometimes fall under the exception for WP:BLPSELFPUB, if it meets the other characteristics (e.g., it doesn’t introduce claims about another party). Other government publications that are relevant to some court cases, such as the Mueller Report, may also be self-published (there’s actually a discussion right now about clarifying the meaning of “self-published,” here [1] and here [2]), in which case other relevant government publications couldn’t be cited for material about a living person either.
There is another statement in WP:BLPPRIMARY, “Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on [the primary source] to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies,” but both “the restrictions of [BLPPRIMARY]” and “other sourcing policies” (e.g., BLPSPS) still exclude court documents, other relevant government publications, and expert commentary in SPS.
And WP:BLPEL says that external links also have to meet these standards, so simply linking to a court docket might be disallowed for a court case involving a living person, since the court documents in the docket include a mix of statements about the person and other statements about the case.
I certainly understand that WP isn’t a tabloid, and court documents and self-published material can include all sorts of allegations, so there’s a reason to be wary about using them for sources of BLP material. I also recognize that for notable court cases, important statements in court documents and other government publications are often repeated in traditional news media, allowing us to cite those news sources instead. But I haven't seen evidence that that’s always the case. In addition, although op-eds from news media are allowed as BLP RSs (in the author’s voice), legal analysis from expert SPS (e.g., SCOTUSblog, the Volokh Conspiracy, Lawfare, Just Security) may be rejected as BLPSPS (pending resolution of whether they are/aren’t SPSs, per the discussion of SPSs noted above), and there’s definitely expert commentary from those sources that doesn’t appear in traditional news media.
WP:PRIMARY says “A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” Quotes are among the things that fall in this category, and the primary source is the most reliable source for confirming that “the wording of the quoted text … [is] faithfully reproduced” ( MOS:PMC).
As an example, I’ve been working on United States v. Flynn, which grew out of the Special Counsel investigation. This page was created recently, split off from Michael Flynn, and as I’ve been checking some of the existing text, I’ve run into statements about a variety of living people (e.g., Flynn, the judge, prosecutors, Flynn’s former counsel) where text would need to be removed because of the BLP court document / SPS exclusion. But this issue isn’t limited to that one page. It arises in articles for a number of well-known court cases involving living persons, including Supreme Court cases.
I tried searching for previous discussions of this issue. I did find some discussions of the two policies in the BLP/N and BLP talk page archives ( [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]), but I didn't find any discussion about modifying the policies for articles about court cases.
What do people think? -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 16:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Just an addendum that I've heard and accepted the consensus here about not changing the guideline, but it still seems to me that in WP edits about court cases where a living person is a plaintiff/defendant/key witness, the content of a specific edit may be about the case but not about the person. -- FactOrOpinion ( talk) 12:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Another aspect to consider is that often, when a public person is sued, there will be plenty of secondary coverage of the fact that a lawsuit was started (and can thus be used in an article). But when the court case then drags on for a few years, the media loses interest, and the outcome is never reported.
So we now have a case where somebody has a "Mr.Famous was sued for doing xyz" in the article, but, since we cannot use the court document that was issued 3 years later, and which states that the case was dismissed, we have to leave just the accusation, but cannot insert the dismissal.
Frescard (
talk)
01:05, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
In the paragraph on
primary sources, there is a mention of "public documents".
It is not defined anywhere though, what a "public document" is. From the general gist of the guideline I would assume that we are talking about
Public records, so it might make things more clear if we used that definition, to avoid misinterpretation.
Frescard (
talk)
00:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Reliability of PETA. A permalink for it is here. Part of the discussion concerns the BLP policy. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:17, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I may have asked this question a year or two back, but I don't think it was answered. Is a published autobiography (by an respected academic press) considered as an acceptable source for a Wikipedia biography, or not? Is there any explicit Wikipedia documentation addressing this? Is there any noteworthy prior discussion on this topic? Thanks. Finney1234 ( talk) 18:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
After a charged suspect is acquitted by a court, is inclusion of their name still prohibited by WP:BLPCRIME (obviously with a statement that they weren't found guilty)? eg names at Central Park jogger case and Shooting of Sean Bell. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:50, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
"When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context."
There is a currently a dispute about the application/interpretation of
WP:BLPNAME on
Talk:Murder of Grace Millane. This is a somewhat unusual scenario where the name of the defendant has been "concealed" by the courts in New Zealand (where his conviction is currently under appeal) but has nevertheless been "widely disseminated" by certain newspapers in Europe, where New Zealand name-suppression laws do not apply. Perhaps Wikipedia needs to clarify or expand this policy.
Muzilon (
talk)
23:41, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Quick question for all you BLP geniuses: I know we don't use some forms of primary sources like public docs. If a person publishes their DOB somewhere, like tweets "Today is my 50th birthday!" Can that be used? My instincts tell me to treat it somewhat circumspectly, since people can and do lie about their ages. Thoughts? Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 16:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Can someone explain to me the rationale for preferring a secondary source over a primary source? If someone is convicted of a crime, why is a newspaper report preferable to a court document? Bdure ( talk) 22:41, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Public Data Digger was used as a source for this BLP edit (Tanya Callau). Are these types of sources acceptable? Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 23:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
The information available on our website may not be 100% accurate, complete, or up to date, so do not use it as a substitute for your own due diligence... Public Data Digger does not make any representation or warranty about the accuracy of the information available through our website...That's a "no" for mine. - Ryk72 talk 14:15, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GENDERID being used in place of WP:Article titles and for category arguments. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 20:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
( Rajeshbm ( talk) 14:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC))Sir,can someone please help add this image https://www.thebillionpress.org/sites/default/files/person-images/Vappala%20Balachandran_%20NPA%20photo%20DSC_0006.JPG and help enhance the article /info/en/?search=Vappala_Balachandran Thank you( Rajeshbm ( talk) 14:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC))
After talking to many editors and 2 administrators, I found out that the policy for talk pages is more relaxed when expressing the editor's opinion about living persons with sources compared to articles. Unfortunately, this is not reflected very well in the statements. Statements like "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, lists, article titles and drafts."
can lead the editors to think that talk pages are treated in exactly the same way as articles. Als,o how far can editors go expressing their opinions about living persons without sources in the talk pages is not clear. Please refer to the following sections for more context:
Shouldn't the policy add more clarification about differences between talk pages and articles; and clarify the extent editors can express their opinions about living persons without sources? Knowledge Contributor0 ( talk) 05:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#The piece about the subject's sexual orientation being relevant to their public life. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:54, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
It partly concerns the WP:BLPCAT section of this policy page. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 01:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi! Please see the discussion here. There are sufficient examples cited within the discussion to show how WP:BLPCRIME can in itself lead to edit warring. Putting this here to initiate discussion. Thanks! Vikram Vincent 14:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ ProcrastinatingReader, Masem, and Tayi Arajakate: This is another case in hand with a whole set of editors at work :-) /info/en/?search=Arnab_Goswami#Abetment_of_suicide_case Vikram Vincent 13:12, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Could someone tell me whether Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Restoring deleted content is meant to be about Wikipedia:Deletion policy or about both deletion and also ordinary, zero-admin-buttons-involved removal of content from an article? Depending upon which sentence you focus on, the ordinary removal of a sentence may or may not be included in this section.
Useful answers probably sound something like these:
I don't need the answer to be any particular thing; I'm only trying to figure out what the regulars here can tell me about the current (or best) practice. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:15, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
My strong opinion: When an individual has one or more sub-articles, the main BLP should not include any information not present in any of the sub-articles (and that should have at least guideline status, which I believe could be accomplished at section level). I haven't read the whole page, but I don't see anything like that in the TOC. Any support for this concept? ― Mandruss ☎ 21:41, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Sometimes editors will add details to a summary section without adding those facts to the more detailed article. To keep articles synchronized, editors should first add any new material to the appropriate places in the detailed article, and, if appropriate, summarize the material in the summary section(bold added) (In the context of the page, "summary section" is referring to the summary in the parent article, and the "more detailed article" = child article) Schazjmd (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Recently, information reporting that somebody had died had been added to an article, and partially removed on BLP grounds. By the time I discovered the issue there were sources to confirm that he has indeed died, but the editor who added the information didn't include any source in the edit. Does this in itself constitute breaching BLP? Does the policy need to be explicit about this? Maybe something like: "Anyone born within the past 115 years (on or after 12 July 1909
) is covered by this policy unless a reliable source, cited in the article, has confirmed their death."I'm just trying to make sure there is no loophole whereby someone could try to defend such an edit with a comment like, "A reliable source HAS confirmed his death, just STFW!"
Furthermore, I'm made to wonder, if somebody edits an article to tidy up death information added by somebody else, and maybe adds death-related categories such as year or cause of death, but leaves the death info unreferenced, could this somebody's edit be considered a BLP breach?
Of course, it would be another matter if somebody close to the subject had edited the article to report the death, possibly before it has otherwise been made public news. — Smjg ( talk) 17:06, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Transsexual#Lead image. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 03:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Proposal to better address "The"/"the" in names of performers (etc.) and groups thereof
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
05:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
For details, please see:
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Request for Comment. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 06:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Need clarification. Is describing a transgender as she when they identify as a he & vise-versa, no longer accepted on the talkpages of such bios articles??? GoodDay ( talk) 17:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm not looking to overturn anything. GoodDay ( talk) 19:56, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC: updating MOS:DEADNAME for how to credit individuals on previously released works
This potentially would affect a significant number of articles. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
02:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
What if a notable political dissident has been held in jail for a long time by a totalitarian state? Aung San Suu Kyi comes to mind. WP:BLPCRIME implies that we cannot talk about her house arrest because that would imply being charged with a crime but no conviction yet. If a WP:R says that some notable person is or was in jail, can we not report that?-- Sa57arc ( talk) 06:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
In WP:BLPPUBLIC it currently reads that a person should have "a multitude" of WP:RS about them to be considered a public figure. We should quantify that for easy conflict resolution. How about 5 or 10?-- Sa57arc ( talk) 21:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources and BLPs should simply document what these sources say.It is not defining a public figure; for that, see the explanatory supplement WP:LPI. Schazjmd (talk) 21:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
An exact number is not needed, it could even be detrimental. I would leave the original wording. PackMecEng ( talk) 04:43, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Sa57arc, this is a core content policy. It's important not to change it over objections. SarahSV (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
What is wrong with "at least 2" as the language? That is less ambiguous.-- Sa57arc ( talk) 06:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I am familiar with WP attitudinal problems with WP:EXPERT. I am just saying that licensed medical doctors are indeed experts and professionals and WP editors are just unpaid amateurs. Think of Essjay. Experts can evaluate WP:RS on a continuum. WP editors need a binary result to be worked out on the talk page, not through WP:EW.-- Sa57arc ( talk) 08:22, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus to move ( non-admin closure) ( t · c) buidhe 04:59, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons → Wikipedia:Biographies of living people – The world people is more common in spoken and everyday speech instead of persons. Interstellarity ( talk) 15:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@
Buidhe:, would you consider making an ever so slight modification to your closure, as to what the result of the requested move was? I think you likely did assess the result correctly, but you chose the wrong wiki jargon. Rather than 'No consensus for move', the result ought to have been 'Consensus not to move.' Despite apppearing to be two ways of saying the same thing, here they actually have different meanings, and they are two of the three possible outcomes for RMs.
I really, truly do not think there's any reasonably likely chance that any person would contend that this RM resulted in anything other than consent against move..and it would be a waste of time and resources to go through any formal closure review process or whatever, so this would be a fittingly proper application of IAR, if you were to just go in and change the text of the closure notice at up. With an edit note, striked out text, however you'd want to do it. Cheers Firejuggler86 ( talk) 12:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
The {{
top 25 report}}
tmbox at
Talk:Auld Lang Syne led me to
Wikipedia:Top 25 Report, and, as someone who's fairly new to editing Wikipedia, I'd like to ask: Why is Top 25 Report allowed to state (in entry #12) that some rapper went insane
, when this claim is supported neither with a citation nor, as far as I see, by
the article on the person? I see that Top 25 Report is tagged as {{
humor}}, and I can see that went insane
could be taken as jocular hyperbole, especially in colloquial speech, but I don't see any exception for humor in the
WP:BLP policy. Thanks, —
2d37 (
talk)
15:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Subjects_notable_only_for_one_event
The presentation here isn't the clearest. 1 and 2 are singular conditions, but 3 appear to be a list of 3 different options.
I'm wondering if it should be presented "both of two conditions" (1 and 2) and then "one of three conditions" splitting 3rd into three bullets. WakandaQT ( talk) 21:43, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
WP:BLPPRIVACY notes that birthdays are widely regarded as private, but I find uncited birthdays on mildly notable figures quite often. These days I usually just replace it with a year or remove it entirely unless I can find high-quality and reliable (or self-published) sources which provide the full birthday. Does this correspond with our current understanding, and if so, should this issue be more rigorously enforced? Ovinus ( talk) 13:48, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
It's widespread and acceptable practice on Wiki to use advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Innocence Project on BLP articles for controversial subjects. However, I'm concerned that under the language currently used on this page regarding BLP articles and self-published sources, editors might try to exclude anything from advocacy groups, think tanks and academic research projects on the grounds that they are "self-published" because there is no clear division between publishers, editors and writers.
I've seen editors repeatedly reject references to sources like the SPLC because they are "self-published". To be quite honest, I think this is sometimes used as a stonewalling tactic and as a tactic to bamboozle new editors. I don't believe that this policy was written with this in mind but I can see that the way this page is currently written could lead some to that conclusion. What do others think - perhaps this page should be reworded to make it clear that expert opinions, think tanks, advocacy groups etc are permissible? Or am I missing something? Noteduck ( talk) 23:47, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Where do birth announcements in newspapers fit in to this policy? If a birthday is reported by a reliable secondary source could such birth announcement be used to augment it when it obviously is the person? I'm not really familiar with bios so I would appreciate any clarity. Thanks, Heartfox ( talk) 13:40, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
When did it become allowable to add info to biographical articles citing only what the subject person h-self has published on the matter? Does Wikipedia now consider such sources carte blanche reliable? -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 12:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Currently the WP:BLPPRIVACY header is "Privacy of personal information and using primary sources". I suggest it should be "Privacy of personal information". That was the original section header but SlimVirgin merged it with "Primary sources" on 07 April 2010 with edit summary = "Gigs, how about this?" (referring to Gigs). I didn't see the reasoning for this edit in the talk page around this time and do not believe the intent was to change the meaning. But on the Kelly Loeffler talk page, section Personal life (re record residential Atlanta real estate deal) is a suggestion, based on the header, that WP:BLPPRIVACY applies only if the source is primary.
I believe that interpretation is not natural, not intended, and not approved. I believe that removing "and using primary sources" will end it. Who agrees or objects? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 18:13, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Update: I made the change but Ohnoitsjamie declared "(1) you broke shortcuts to this (2) perhaps get more consensus first" and reverted. (1) is true and I apologize for not thinking about that. (2) is not likely and I regret that one seemingly didn't need consensus to add the words but needs consensus to remove them. But that's how it goes, consider this closed. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 20:16, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Alternative: split the heading, resulting in both "Privacy of personal information", with "Primary sources of personal information" under it. Looking at the old text from 2010, that seems to be a good choice about using primary sources, and there's already an earlier section about "Avoid misuse of primary sources".
William Allen Simpson (
talk)
01:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I am new to wikipedia. I would like your help in editing an article. It seems that you are already interested in the same article as I saw your name in the Dhananjay Munde's article history, hence I am seeking your help. I stumbled across an official affidavit which Mr. Dhananjay Munde submitted to the election commission. In this affidavit he only admitted having 3 daughters. His wikipedia, however, shows 4 children – this information is based on news articles references. It seems inaccurate. Since legally he only admitted having 3 daughters, I would like to make a change accordingly. Here is the link to the official document. [1] Also the link for the official website -[2]
https://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/AffidavitPDFs/MLC2016/DhananjayMunde.pdf https://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/Affidavits/LCMLA2016.aspx
Let me know if the change I am suggesting is constructive. Neha Kute (talk) 07:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)NehaKute
Neha Kute ( talk) 08:07, 9 March 2021 (UTC)NehaKute
A move request is underway, requesting that the article Killing of George Floyd be renamed to "Death of George Floyd". Your feedback would be appreciated at Talk:Killing of George Floyd/Archive 6#Requested move 1 April 2021. Thanks, Mathglot ( talk) 00:46, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Jason Schreier#Removal of parents' occupation. The discussion concerns this source, a wedding announcement published in The New York Times. As a wedding announcement, the text was written and submitted by a person close to Schreier (in this case, his father) and published in/by a reliable newspaper. WP:BLPSPS currently reads: "Never use self-published sources ... unless written or published by the subject of the article." Assuming that the source falls under SPS/BLPSPS, should it really be inappropriate to source uncontroversial elements—e.g. parents' names, spouse's name, marriage date—to a source written by the subject's parents? Courtesy ping to those involved in the aforementioned discussion: @ Spy-cicle, Masem, SnowFire, ImaginesTigers, and Woodroar IceWelder [ ✉] 13:57, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
On my user talk page, Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d pointed out Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9#Bias categories, which found support to exclude articles about individual people from such categories as Category:Racism and Category:Sexism, etc. The issue has come up at Talk:Nick Cannon, and Category:Antisemitism in the United States currently has a number of other BLPs in it. Seems like a pretty clear thing to avoid, based on WP:CATDEF, WP:IMPARTIAL, WP:LABEL, etc. Should we add a note to WP:BLPCAT to discourage this? I'm thinking something like the following (proposed text in bold):
Caution should be used with content categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). For example, Category:Criminals and its subcategories should be added only for an incident that is relevant to the person's notability; the incident was published by reliable third-party sources; the subject was convicted; and the conviction was not overturned on appeal. In particular, do not categorize biographies of living people under such contentious topics as racism, sexism, extremism, and the like, since these have the effect of labeling a person as a racist, sexist, or extremist.
Alternatively, would this be more appropriate for Wikipedia:Categorization of people? I bring it up here because WP:BLP is usually the first place I check for any contentious issues like this. Should it be applied to all biographies of individuals, not just those of living people? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 09:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Just want to ask why 115 was set as the amount of years that someone can be presumed dead by their DOB? According to https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy the average global life expectancy is 72.6 years. Of course this number is higher if you were to list each countries individual average life expectancies. Which according to https://www.farandwide.com/s/countries-live-longest-2b1e1e8a7f3045ab is Monaco with an average national life expectancy of 89.4 years. If anyone knows why 115 was set then please reply to this. Thanks. Slender ( talk) 16:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
Executive Summary: Should we add text something like this:
Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s).
So it's not clear to me exactly how negative statements should be handled on pages other than articles. For articles, there's definitely a requirement of "an inline citation to a reliable, published source", and technically BLP (says it) applies to non-article pages. So it doesn't explicitly make an exception saying that the proximate-inline-citation requirement does not cover non-article pages.
But... it's an annoyance to have to copy in the ref everytime you want to talk about a person's crimes or whatever. After all, we are usually talking about talk pages or edit summaries. The refs are right there in the article. And sometimes we are talking about the BLP Noticeboard, or other places like that, user talk pages for instance, where the refs are in an article but not proximate to the page.
And WP:BLP does allow " This link has has serious allegations about subject; should we summarize this someplace in the article?" Anyone can easily access the ref and suss what the serious allegations are. It's not in our words, but maybe it's pettifoggery to overly worry about that. And that's if there isn't ref'd material in the article already. If there is, wouldn't "Joe Smith is an embezzler. Should we expand on that a little?" (without a ref provided right there) be OK?
If this is broadly acceptable, we could have something like a pointer to a footnote at the end of the paragraph that begins "We must get the article right...", something like this: "Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s)."
For my part I oppose this, and I have like seven reasonably good reasons which I can list. But I see the other side too. But the main thing it's my guess that the great majority of you would support it. Which, if so, fine (I suppose). But let's make it official. It's not functional to have a rule that says one thing and the community does another thing. It's better if they're brought in line. Otherwise you have confusion and contention. Herostratus ( talk) 17:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
Also, just want to point out that as far as the Foundation is concerned, there is basically no difference between talk pages and article pages. They not only allow but expect talk pages to be publish downstream same as article, I am pretty sire They could have put in place a different licensing scheme for talk page contributions. But they didn't.
I get that as an editor this seems counterintuitive, even silly: "Of course they're way way different, article pages are made differently with different standards, and are what people come to here to read; talk pages are much more informal have an entirely different purpose and (although technically available to anyone) are only read by by editors mostly". That makes sense. It's also not true, according to the Foundation, I don't think.
And I mean that matters. If we decide "nah, we can basically gossip about anyone as much as we like on non-article pages as long as there's a ref somewhere" this is not something the Foundation is not going to like. Well if they decide that we can't do that I'm sure everyone will be all upset. But entities that are unable to govern themselves eventually get governed by someone else.
I don't know how much this is in play. It's not something to just handwave off, maybe.
OK, and just for background, it's my understanding that the impetus for creating, and the spirit and overall intent, of WP:BLP, was actually twofold: to protect the project from embarrassment and lawsuits, yes, but also to discourage our bullying private citizens. IANAL and I have no idea if judges be all like "You called plaintiff a grifter, and then you say your proof for that was off somewhere in one of the 20 million other pages you have. That there was a... shuffle shuffle... "wikilink" where a person could supposedly go to and then start pawing thru a page to find the ref. Right?" or if that matters. But even if that's not a problem and we can get away with it, why do we want to. Allowing and encouraging editors to play fast and loose with slurs (even if true) is not a good direction to go in. When editing the Wikipedia it's best to keep the beast restrained, I think. Herostratus ( talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
UPDATE: Hey speaking of slippery slopes, just saw a thread where an obscure private person (marginally notable, disputed whether he rates an article, and is not engaged in politics or anything like that) was repeatedly described as a pedophile, with details regarding ages of boys and so forth, with no ref whatsoever existing anywhere in the Wikipedia. (There were, briefly, refs in the article -- the Daily Mail and the Sun -- but they were deleted (of course). They are in the article history. But even to the extent they briefly existed on the Wikipedia, the Daily Mail is considered useless and the Sun pretty much so, particularly for vilifying private citizens.)
Well boy howdy. Slip sliding away. I might report this, but why bother? I don't expect to get anywhere. At least one admin was there in thread and she didn't seem to mind. So...
I'm curious whether the next step will be "[private person I dislike] is a pedophile and embezzler who murdered his own parents; everybody knows this, but there aren't any refs. How should we handle this?" Would this be ignored? I expect so. We'll suppose we'll find out sooner or later. Herostratus ( talk) 09:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
Is Tom Convery notably he is the main star of the Netflix show Sweet Tooth? Dwanyewest ( talk) 03:31, 19 June 2021 (UTC)