Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

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This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
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WP:LIVING WP:BLP
This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect subjects' lives. Biographical material must be written with the greatest care and attention to attribution and neutrality, particularly if it is contentious.

Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to our content policies:

Wikipedia policies
Article standards

Neutral point of view
Attribution
What Wikipedia is not
Biographies of living persons
Working with others

Civility
Consensus
No personal attacks
Resolving disputes

We must get the article right.[1] Be very firm about high quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.[2]

This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons in other articles. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material.

Contents

[edit] Rationale

Wikipedia articles that contain information about living people can affect a subject's life.

The Foundation and Jimbo Wales get well-founded complaints about biographical content on living people every day — people justifiably upset at inaccurate or distorted articles. The successful resolution of such complaints is a touchy matter.

The problem can be compounded if the subject tries to edit their own article to remove problematic content. Since they are likely not regular Wikipedians, they will be unaware of our policies, and will often be accused of vandalism or revert warring when they are in fact trying to edit in good faith.

Accordingly, editors must take particular care with writing and editing biographies of living persons, and biographical material anywhere on Wikipedia, with the following practice in mind:

  • The article itself must be edited with a degree of sensitivity and strict adherence to our content policies;
  • If the subject edits the article, it is important to assume good faith and deal with them politely (see Wikipedia:Autobiography for content decisions in this regard);
  • If an anon IP address or a new account turns up to blank a page about a living person, or a section of it, it may well be the subject. Try not to act aggressively, but instead engage the person in dialogue, and check that the article in question does not contain any unsourced or poorly sourced criticism. If it does, delete that portion.

[edit] Writing style

Shortcut:
WP:BLP#STYLE

Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted.

The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral, factual, and understated, avoiding both a sympathetic point of view and an advocacy journalism point of view.

[edit] Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Attribution, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source. Where the information is derogatory and unsourced or poorly sourced, the three-revert rule does not apply. These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel.

Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and controversial in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).

Jimmy Wales has said:

"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."[2]

He considers "no" information to be better than "speculative" information and reemphasizes the need for sensitivity:

"Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia."[3]

[edit] Exception

Although this policy normally applies to user pages, administrative actions that add negative material to user pages are not subject to BLP, only to the standards that normally apply to those administrative actions. For instance, an administrator may add a statement that a user is a suspected sockpuppet without having to source the statement to books, newspaper articles, or other attributable sources outside Wikipedia.

[edit] Reliable sources

Any assertion in a biography of a living person that might be defamatory if untrue must be sourced. Without reliable, third-party sources, a biography will violate our content policies of No original research and Attribution, and could lead to libel claims.

Material available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Material found in self-published books, zines, websites or blogs should never be used, unless written or published by the subject (see below). These sources should also not be included as external links in BLPs, subject to the same exception.

Not all widely read newspapers and magazines are equally reliable. There are some magazines and newspapers that print gossip much of which is false. While such information may be titillating, that does not mean it has a place here. Before repeating such gossip, ask yourself if the information is presented as being true, if the source is reliable, and if the information, even if true, is relevant to an encyclopedic article on that subject. When these magazines print information they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases. Look out for these. If the magazine doesn't think the story is true, then why should we?

[edit] Using the subject as a source

For more details on this topic, see WP:SELFPUB.

In some cases the subject may become involved in editing an article. They may edit it themselves or have a representative of theirs edit it. They may contact Wikipedians either through the article's talk page or via email. Or, they may provide information through press releases, a personal website or blog, or an autobiography. When information supplied by the subject conflicts with unsourced statements in the article, the unsourced statements should be removed.

Information supplied by the subject may be added to the article if:

  • It meets verifiability, NPOV, and no original research policies.
  • It is relevant to the person's notability;
  • It is not contentious;
  • It is not unduly self-serving;
  • There is no reasonable doubt that it was provided by the subject.

A blog or personal website written by the subject may be listed in the external links/further reading section, even if the subject is not used as a source.

[edit] Non-public figures

Shortcut:
WP:NPF

Wikipedia also contains biographies of people who, while notable enough for an entry, are nevertheless entitled to the respect for privacy afforded non-public figures. In such cases, editors should exercise restraint and include only information relevant to their notability. Material from primary sources should generally not be used unless it has first been mentioned by a verifiable secondary source (see above).

In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. It is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives.

[edit] Privacy of birthdays

Wikipedia includes exact birthdates for some famous people, but including this information for most living people should be handled with caution. While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. With identity theft on the rise, it has become increasingly common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information. When in doubt about the notability of the person in question, or if the subject of a biography complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth rather than the exact date.

[edit] Biased or malicious content

Editors should be on the lookout for biased or malicious content in biographies or biographical information. If someone appears to be pushing an agenda or a biased point of view, insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability.

Content should be sourced to reliable sources and should be about the subject of the article specifically. Beware of positive or negative claims that rely on guilt by association.

[edit] Critics

The views of critics should be represented if their views are relevant to the subject's notability and are based on reliable sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics' material. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article.

[edit] Presumption in favor of privacy

Biographies of living people must be written conservatively and with due regard to the subject's privacy.

[edit] Public figures

In the case of significant public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable, third-party published sources to take information from, and Wikipedia biographies should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out.

Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe." Is it notable, verifiable and important to the article? If not, leave it out.
Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. He denies it, but the New York Times publishes the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation may belong in the biography, citing the New York Times as the source.

Material from primary sources should be used with care. For example, public records that include personal details such as home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations and home or business addresses should not generally be used. Where a fact has first been presented by a verifiable secondary source, it is acceptable to turn to open records as primary sources to augment the secondary source. Material that is related to their notability, such as court filings of someone notable in part for being involved in legal disputes, are allowable, as are public records such as graduation dates, dates of marriage licenses and the like, where they are publicly available and where that information has first been reported by a verifiable secondary source. See also Wikipedia:Attribution.


[edit] Use of categories

Main article: Wikipedia:Categorization of people

Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for the category must be made clear in the article text. The article must state the facts that result in the use of the category tag and these facts must be sourced.

For example, Category:Criminals should only be added when the notable crime has been described in the article and sources given, and the person has either been convicted or has pleaded guilty.

Category tags regarding religious beliefs and sexual preference should not be used unless two criteria are met:

  • The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief or preference in question
  • The subject's beliefs or sexual preferences are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life

Caution should be used in adding categories that suggest the person has a low reputation. See Invasion of privacy#False light.

[edit] Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

While Wikipedia discourages people from writing new articles about themselves or expanding existing ones significantly, subjects of articles remain welcome to edit articles to correct inaccuracies, to remove inaccurate or unsourced material, or to remove libel.

Jimmy Wales warns other editors to think twice when encountering such attempts:

"...reverting someone who is trying to remove libel about themselves is a horribly stupid thing to do."[4]

Anonymous edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person should be evaluated carefully. When the individual involved is not especially notable, such edits usually are not vandalism but rather an effort by the subject of the article to remove biased or inaccurate material. RC patrollers and others who become involved should be careful to be sure whom they are dealing with in such cases, and the use of inflammatory edit summaries or vandalism-related talk page templates should be avoided.

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to the subjects of biographies, especially when those subjects become Wikipedia editors:

For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake.
—Arbitration Committee decision (December 18, 2005)[5]

[edit] Dealing with articles about yourself

Contact us
Contact us

If you have a query about or problem with an article about yourself, you can contact Wikipedia via email. Alternatively, please refer the editors on the page to this policy. If you need help in enforcing the policy, contact an administrator. See Wikipedia:List of administrators.

[edit] BLP noticeboard

If you're having problems with the biography of a living person, either as an editor or subject, you can ask for advice at the BLP noticeboard.

[edit] Templates

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons applies to all living persons in an entry, not merely the subject of the entry.[1] Template:Blp may be added to the talk pages of articles with living persons mentioned in the article. Template:Blp may be added to the talk pages of biographies of living persons so that editors and readers, including subjects, are alerted to this policy. Alternatively, if a {{WPBiography}} template is present, you can add living=yes to the template parameters.

For problems with people violating BLP, you can use these templates:

[edit] Legal concerns

If you are the subject of a biography and you have a legal concern, the designated agent for Wikipedia is:

Jimmy Wales, Designated Agent
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
146 2nd St N, # 310
St. Petersburg FL 33701
United States
Facsimile number: +1(727)258-0207

E-mails may also be sent to: info-en "at" wikipedia.org (replace the "at" with @)

More contact data

[edit] See also

[edit] Relevant policies

[edit] Relevant guidelines

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Jimmy Wales. Keynote speech, Wikimania, August 2006.
  2. ^ a b Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 16, 2006 and May 19, 2006
  3. ^ Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
  4. ^ Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
  5. ^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude, Mercy 3) Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, a guideline, admonishes Wikipedia users to consider the obvious fact that new users of Wikipedia will do things wrong from time to time. For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake. Passed 6-0-1

[edit] Further reading

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