Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 1

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Contents

Blogs

Hi 4.250, your recent edit seems to contradict some of the stuff that follows, and WP:RS and WP:V, which says we may use questionable sources (for the want of a better word) as primary sources, but not secondary sources. You wrote: "They should never be used as primary sources: as sources of information about their authors. If the information can be verified by another source, use that other source as a more unbiased source of information. People lie and make mistakes."

Did you mean "never"? I was going to add a section about when it would be acceptable. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I think KISS applies here. "Don't use questionable sources" is a good and proper GUIDELINE. Distinguishing between primary, secondary, and so on is simply not necessary. Going into detail on EXACTLY when the GUIDELINE can safely be violated simply feeds into the over wiki lawyering we already have too much of. We want 17 year olds to understand this stuff, not just old hands. I do mean "never", as in if you aren't sure enough to violate a guideline to do it, just don't do it. WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Using an example that crops up regularly: do we call Stormfront "white supremacists" (which is how most people see them) or "white nationalists," which is how they see themselves? Most sources call them the former, so we do that too. However, we often also add that they seem themselves as nationalists, using Stormfront as a source. Under your edit, we would not be allowed to do that. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure you could. This is a guideline, not a law to be administered by anal-retentives with guns. I think you're forgetting the part where this is supposed to be fun. See quote on my user page, if you don't know what I'm talking about. WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Thinking out loud again, and just using this as an example: Nick Cohen, well known British journalist, is often regarded as a Jew in part because of his name, and in part because he has controversially supported the war in Iraq, and is accused of doing so because of his Jewish background. However, he says he isn't Jewish, although he has some distant Jewish ancestry. If he were to publish this in his biography on his blog, [1] which has become quite a well-known blog in certain circles, and supposing it was not published anywhere else, should we be allowed to say, in your view: "According to Cohen, writing on his weblog, his Jewish ancestry is distant"? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
If the data is ONLY on his blog, how is it "notable"? Suppose he lies or makes a mistake on his blog. "We are not a nrewpaper" We don't DO fact checking. Sounds like someone doing original research anyway. WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've restored the qualification that personal websites may sometimes be used, and I've listed the circumstances, but I don't know whether I've made it too complicated. I have a tendency to be wordy. On the other hand, I've been involved in editing a lot of biographies so I'm familiar with the issues that tend to come up, and I know what loopholes need to be closed.
This is a GUIDELINE. Loopholes don't exist if we Keep It Simple and just say "No". WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
The thing I'm trying to avoid is this: some blogs are currently allowed as sources according to WP:V and WP:RS — for example, a blog written by a professional historian could be used as a source of information about that person's field of expertise, although with caution because of the usual no-peer-review concern. But we could say "Professor Smith has argued that George Bush's analysis of the WMD situation in Iraq is self-serving" and we could link to Professor Smith's blog, so long as Professor Smith is a recognized expert on the WMD situation in Iraq. If we are allowed to do this, it strikes me as obtuse that we would never allow Professor Smith's blog to be used as a source on Professor Smith himself in his Wikipedia biography — saying, for example, "I am a Libran". I've therefore tried to list a set of circumstances in which it would be okay to use a weblog, and they are very limited (boiling down to: when it does no harm, and when no one objects). What do you think? If you think they should never be used, I'm prepared to be persuaded, but we need to think through the implications. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
We can say: Don't use questionable sources. Find a source that verifies the data and use it. See WP:V and WP:RS for possible exceptions. WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Saying "this blog says x" is different from saying "x is true (Source - blog)" further, there are blogs and there are blogs. I trust the people at slashdot to uncover the nitty gritty inside software code or to provide links to sources. some blogs have demonstated their value in some area of expertise. Hey, maybe we could say somthing about "area of expertise" being an exception? Nah, let's Keep It Simple. Just say "No" and refer them to WP:V and WP:RS for posible exceptions. WAS 4.250 02:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I see what you're saying about keeping it simple. My concern is that in saying no here, and referring people to WP:V, we're simply transferring the problem elsewhere. At some point, we need to pin down when blogs may and may not be used. It's becoming more and more of an issue, as lots of people are setting them up and are sometimes using them as alternative places to publish (e.g. academics and journalists are doing this). So the distinction between credible, third-party sources and non-credible self-published sources is starting to blur a little.
I'd like to leave this version up for a day or so at least, and ask other people to comment: for example, people who edit WP:NOR and WP:V a lot, people on the mailing list, members of the arbcom (who have ruled a couple of times recently about biographies) and editors who have Wikipedia entries and who've been on the painful end of trying to make sure their entries aren't full of nonsense. Would that be all right with you? SlimVirgin (talk) 02:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem at all. I like planting seeds and watching others water them. I do question dealing with blogs on a guideline dealing specifically about "articles about living persons". We SHOULD refer them elsewhere for detailed instructions about blogs if detailed instructions about blogs are to be provided. But I won't touch it for a while as per your request. I excell at NOT doing stuff ;) WAS 4.250 02:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Other issues

Well done - these look good. However, some suggestions

  • We need a section to cover where a book by an author such as Kitty Kelly makes claims or a claim that is not supported in other books by more reputable authors.
  • We need a section regarding claims made about other people that are not the subjects of the article and the need to be fair to them.
  • Finally, we need a section stating that biographies should aim to inform not titillate. We should also make sure our biographies where possible are appropriate for readers of all ages. Some biographies by necessity will contain adult information ie Linda Lovelace but we should make sure that the information is appropriate for an encyclopedia. Capitalistroadster 04:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

NO censorship. NO "think of the children". Information for FREE people, by FREE people. WAS 4.250 05:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV is policy, and non-crap writing is needed. I shudder to think of the misapplication of this policy by e.g. fans of pop stars. Our pop star articles read like hagiographies already - David Gerard 18:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Privacy issues

I think this page should include guidelines related to invasion of privacy issues. Many WP articles are about people who are (it seems) notable enough to warrant a WP article, but who nevertheless are (or consider themselves to be) non-public persons. I think WP policy should reflect deference to the privacy interests of such persons. --FRS 06:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree absolutely and totally ... and I have not the slightest idea on how to even BEGIN with dealing with this. In twenty years, will everything about everybody be known to anyone who cares enough (to search or pay X dollars)??? This is far far wider than Wikipedia. We must CARE. But the ratchet moves onward. WAS 4.250 06:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Good idea. How about Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons_deserve_special_sensitivity#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy? I've also created a shortcut for the page, which is WP:LIVING to make it easier to find, and this page is WP talk:LIVING. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:15, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Another point, taking into consideration the example presented about unfounded allegations that someone might have "touched" a child inappropriately, is that there would necessarily be more than simply the subject of the article involved. It would be absolutely paramount that no information could be included which might lead to the identification of any child alleged to be involved in anything like this. I'm tempted to say "particularly if it turns out to be a malicious hoax" but in actual fact it would be damaging to any such child no matter what the circumstances. This would obviously apply to other third parties, even those viewed as less vulnerable: this could so easily turn into a tool to cause maximal collateral damage. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Long Overdue

And well done to all involved in writing this. This needs to be policy. Agnte 10:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV needs a lot more prominence here

As it reads, this is far too easy to take as advocacy for Sympathetic Point Of View. Which is NOT NPOV, and is frequently in conflict with it. - David Gerard 12:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

You could look at it from this point of view:
  • in other articles we would be "neutral" in that all information might be included, but with hefty citation of sources to establish whether a given "fact" might be trustworthy;
  • in this kind of article we would be "neutral" in that we include only "facts" which can be established as trustworthy.
In other words, we err on the side of caution whilst remaining neutral. If this means that Wikipedians have to take extra care and expend extra effort on this type of article, then this is likely to prove A Good Thing ®. HTH (heck, hope it makes sense :-) HAND Phil | Talk 14:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've edited or commented out some of the more blatant SPOV in this proposal - David Gerard 15:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
No argument as far as the subject of any given article goes. I'm merely trying to point out that collateral damage should be avoided: we should not be including third-party names—which might cause real damage—without exceptional justification. In the theoretical example of the person maliciously accused of behaving inappropriately with a child, the fact of the accusation might be necessarily included to preserve NPOV: the name or any other details of the child should almost certainly not be. HTH HAND Phil | Talk 16:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
No "think of the children" arguments, if you please. What are the nonchildren? Chopped liver? What about the mentally handicapped? the physically handicaped? the poor? the elderly? the innocent? Error on the side of caution. Do no evil. We don't need to single out children as a special category. We are ALL special. WAS 4.250 21:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't please, actually. You would publish the name of a child involved in molestation accusation? Good grief. Children are a special category. Other societies cherish and protect their children. We don't, much, and exploit them shamelessly for corporate profit. So be it, but why Wikipedia should be in the van of that movement escapes me. I note that while neither Wikipedia, Brittanica, nor Encarta are written for childen, only the latter two are not actively hostile and grossly innapropriate for children. Not all Wikipedians are thrilled by that, I don't think. Herostratus 07:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Should go further

IMHO, this policy should go further towards placating potentially injured parties, even if that involves a minor violation of NPOV. We really, really don't want to be sued. If an allegation of sexual misconduct is published in one newspaper, and cited in WP, and turns out to be wrong, it's really not good. On the other hand, a widely reported allegation that has undergone due investigation (eg, Lewinsky) is obviously fair game. Perhaps we should require two independent sources for libellous claims? In any case, unless the allegation is really important to the person (as it clearly is with Clinton/Lewinsky), does it really matter? Does WP really lose much if an article about an astronomer is all about his work, discoveries etc, and fails to mention the credible but unproven allegation that he inappropriately touched a student once? Unless it had consequences for his work ("Smith was forced to resign from Uni of Zarba following unproven allegations of sexual misconduct"), what is the relevance?

Publishing anything defamatory without rock-solid proof (in the form of very credible sources) is little more than rumour mongering, and I don't think we should do it. Stevage 15:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to try to vote out NPOV, that'd be a Board matter - David Gerard 15:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
David Gerard: I fail to see anything in Stevage's remarks above that comes close to a suggestion of trying "to vote out NPOV." Did you mean to post your comment somewhere else or am I missing something? --FRS
"even if that involves a minor violation of NPOV" - you'd think it was a minor procedural matter rather than (say) the very first policy of the site. - David Gerard 16:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I take your point, and would not myself endorse the first sentence of Stevage's post. OTOH, I find nothing violative of NPOV policy, or overly SPOV to the living subjects of WP articles, in telling editors to be extremely careful about materials that are arguably defamatory or an invasion of privacy. The defamatory part of the equation can be dealt with by rigorous application of existing policies regarding reliable sources, citations, etc. Sensitivity to privacy issues is more of a judgement call, and is not well addressed by other WP policies, imo. --FRS 17:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I suppose it comes down to, is a rock solid belief in NPOV worth fighting a legal battle over? Members of my family have been involved in an ultimately (after 7 years) successful legal battle. They were in the right - but the cost of the thing was horrendous. So I'm just saying, we may end up "publishing" information which is technically not libel - but the closer we sail to the wind, the more likely someone is to get sued, and that will suck for everyone. Stevage 17:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
This page isn't going to decide that NPOV goes, and has no business even slightly implying that it does - David Gerard 18:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Then it should be reduced to the statement: "For biographies of living people, all potentially libellous or defamatory statements not sourced to highly credible verifiable sources should be removed immediately."Stevage 19:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
That's why weasel words were invented: so writers could disclaim liability, pretend "neutrality", and publish potentially defamatory text about what would otherwise be a prisitine and glowing reputation of a notable personage. Hence, "rumoured to be...", "questionable dealings", "alleged wrongdoing" etc. nobs 19:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Yep, pretty much. Start with that (i.e., the Clear Guideline to apply: "Be very hardarsed with references in living persons' bios"), then explain why. Then the guideline is the right way around. An editorial guideline should not have a preamble - David Gerard 00:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Parties in legal cases

Good work. Need to add policy that prevents people involved in a legal case from editing articles related to people in the legal dispute. There is documented bias in these cases.

People have the right to sue each other, but they have no right to edit Wikipedia.--FloNight 12:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This thing is about three times usable length

In its attempt at providing guidelines for all eventualities, it's too long to read and just enough to intimidate. Needs a severe tightening - David Gerard 16:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It's also backwards - it starts with a background, and ends with the "and therefore" bits. Great for an essay, wrong for guidelines. It should start with the "don't do this, that or the other", and possibly have a paragraph or two of background/justification. Stevage 17:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've asked Snowspinner to have a hack at it - he's currently trying to make the MOS into something a human might read, which it most assuredly is not right now - David Gerard 18:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I disagree that it's too long. If you leave out material, you introduce loopholes and confusion. As it stands, it's fairly comprehensive (though there are suggestions above for more sections), and the sections make it easy to get through. Policy pages are generally used as reference works anyway. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
All the blog stuff can go into a seperate guideline proposal for blogs. WAS 4.250 21:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Then it won't be something for people to read and take in, but as something to whack them with later. That's the problem with the MOS - the only people actually using it are (1) those writing it (2) the querulous. This proposal is too long to read, take in and apply simply.
Suggested rewrite: Start with "Be very hardarsed with references in living persons' bios" (the Clear Applicable Guideline in a sentence), then explain why. Then the guideline is the right way around. An editorial guideline should not have a preamble - David Gerard 00:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and please change the title to "Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons" - the title itself advocates Sympathetic Point Of View. Actually, I think that's my main problem with this guideline - David Gerard 00:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I've moved it. Hope that's okay with everyone. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Totally agree. Even if it made my trying to edit this talk page go through some interesting glitches. :) Stevage 00:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC) Though I find "persons" excessively formal. Is there at least a redirect in place?
A move automatically creates a redirect at the old title, but moves the history - David Gerard 00:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you :-) I've posted my suggestions to wikien-l as well. I'll calm down now, promise ;-) - David Gerard 00:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

slime-mold beetle

Perhaps the long contentious Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are now species of slime-mold beetles may be an appropriate test case for,

  • no sense of glee or excitement about negative material, no snide tone, and no undue laboring of the criticism

and other proposals to see how sincere we really are. Wikipedia:Biographies on living persons deserve a special sensitivity#Tone of the writing. nobs 18:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Bad writing on George W. Bush? I am shocked, shocked! - David Gerard 18:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

attempt at rewrite

I'm going to attempt a rewrite per my wikien-l message at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/temp - David Gerard 15:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, rewrite first draft done. I've taken Slim's version and more or less turned it backwards — start with guidelines and rationale, save long rationales for the end. I've also written it as tightly as possible, though there's probably a lot more that can be tightened up. Hack away - David Gerard 16:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I like the re-write. It gets to the point much faster and is reasonably clear. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 16:43, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Morven and Nobs01 have hacked at it slightly as well. I've just gone through the above talk page and added stuff based on it. I don't think we need to denounce blogs at length - anyone who thinks a random blog (as opposed to a high-quality blog, e.g. Groklaw) is a credible high-quality source isn't going to be swayed by a guideline. This is a "what to do" guide for editors that have a clue, because editors that don't will not take it in anyway.

Anything else important that should be added? I'd still like to make it shorter. In particular, the example of the academic is way too long - do we have a shorter real-life example we can remove the names from and use? - David Gerard 18:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

David, I've found that even editors without a clue, so long as there's a degree of good faith, will take the policies seriously so long as there are no loopholes. If it's nailed down, they tend to work with them. Regarding blogs, WP:V or WP:RS (I forget which) allows them only where the blogger is using their real name and is an acknowledged expert in the field he's being used as a source for, or is a well-known professional researcher of some kind e.g. political researcher or journalist. So anything on this page should be consistent with that. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
The problem is that covering every single possible loophole produces a guideline that is hard to read and comprehend.
Seems to me that you're talking about people with absolutely no social ability, and no ability to extrapolate using common sense, who are however able to comprehend even quite complex rules so long as they cover all eventualities - pretty much an Asperger's syndrome kind of mindset. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 22:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
"When self-published material may be used as a source" should include that the material is Referenced from that source, not just External link & Further reading. nobs 18:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Not clear what you mean, Nobs. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Well it says now that self-published material may be used as a source after certain exceptions have been met, then discusses how it may be listed in the further reading section or external links. But it does not specifically state that the self-published bio should be specifically cited as the source of content for the namespace. Also, should we presume after secondary sources become available, much of the self-published material should be replaced? Thanks. nobs 19:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Parallel editing is going to make things confusing. What say people if we either merge these versions or replace the current one with the one at /temp? — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 21:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the version at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/temp as a baseline for further editing.--FRS 21:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 21:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
The above is now on this page. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

a few comments

I think this is a very good idea to write this, so thank you to Sarah :-)

A few ideas or comments just boiling in my mind.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikipediAhimsa : i like this page, which is more than 3 years old. It reminds me very much of the introduction of the policy proposal, in particular in describing the point of the totally abashed editor trying to correct, sometimes in all good faith, an article about him. It reminds me of this music performer, listed months ago amongst homosexual performers, correcting the wp entry, being rebutted ... and discovering that possibly 30 mirrors were repeating the claim on wikipedia. He was most polite, but answering him "yes, we made a stupid mistake, and right, we are morally responsible of 30 sites claiming this, but we can not do anything"... must have been real tough to him. I wish that we avoid such things in the future. There is a reason why so many history books do not publish information on current people, but rather wait for 20 years before doing so :-) We can not do this, but we should be *super* careful in the information we add in our articles.

Second point is I think that the page may be too long. But I also understand that length. What I would recommend is also making a nice and gentle page, where this is summarized and things explained gently to the newbie. This one is too long for the newbie. The page for the newbie should also mention "contacts" nearly at the top of the page. When an editor edits his own biography, he should be given a link to the policy page (this one here) and to the shortened newbie oriented page, so that he understands a bit more what is going on here and what he should do in case things get hot !

I am not so happy right now with the paragraph called Legal threats. Here is why

Legal threats implies a certain stance. It implies that what is important is the fact the person is making a "threat". I do not think this is a good approach to the issue. It should be more "lenient", maybe rather be something of the type "contacts in case of the editor wants to go on legal grounds" or "legal contact" or something of that type. More neutral. Not a title implying the one complaining is already an "ennemy". He might be acting in all good faith and he might actually even be right in his complaint.

Of course, an editor trying to "save" the page from the *bad* and *dangerous* newbie will perceive this as a legal threat. So, it may be important to differenciate two pages : one intended to the editor trying to "keep" the page as is. And one intended to the "newbie" trying to fix his biography... Because the goals of the two pages are different. The first one (for the editor) will contain guidelines of policy for the editor, as well as strong recommandations about what to do in case of legal threats, as well as recommandations to be avoid biting newbies. The second one (for the newbie trying to fix is biography) should contain quick explanations of how the system work, explanations of what is gonna happen to him if he edits with too much "energy" and who he should contact in case he wants to raise the issue with non-involved people (mediation or legal approach).

The other point is this one. While it make sense to tell an editor to have a legal threat be forwarded to the foundation, there is a danger in saying this. First because it will imply that the Foundation is necessarily the entity to attack (in short, the legal publisher). The second because it might imply that the editor himself is not responsible of what he writes. Which is NOT true. If an editor here keeps writing someone is a rapist, and this is untrue, the Foundation should act as soon as possible to remove the lie, but the editor writing the lie is definitly the original author of the lie, and as such, the one legally responsible. So, I believe the text should be rewritten so as to avoid to imply the Foundation is the publisher and is legally responsible.

I would also personally recommand against putting the office adress here, as the more often it is mentionned, the more difficult it will be to update when necessary. There is a link which might be best : Wikipedia:Designated agent. I would also recommand against putting a phone number. Finally, adressing the correspondance to danny@wikia.com does not look very professional :-) please remove it. There is no reason to let an email adress with a first name, nor with the name of a firm unrelated to Wikipedia. It could frankly be very confusing. We are starting to receive emails adressed this way "Dear Wikia people". I do not think it is suitable.

That is all I can think of immediately. Thanks a lot for this. Anthere

Please edit as you see fit! In particular, as a Board member you're someone who should be diving into the legal section to fix it or remove it entirely - David Gerard 10:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Professor Molester

In this example, perhaps we could show the difference between an "allegation" made in print, and a sworn "allegation" made under oath, like a police report. nobs 20:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • If you take a look at the Warren G. Harding article - scandal section - you'll find an example on how Wikipedians have tried to deliniate legend from fact. Unfortuntaly, the legend seems to demand top priority rather than the explanation of how the scandals originated, whether they have been based on inuendo, if their existance is true and based up fact. OnceBitten 15:40, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Self-published material

I think this is a very well-written and thought-provoking page. I fully support it as a guideline to support editors. It speaks to two audiences simultaneously - the subject of the article (who may be an editor) and the rest of the community working on the article. This page does an effective job of communicating to both audiences. While it is longer than many of our pages, I don't think it is too long for the topic.

I only disagree on one point. I would like to change the sentence "Blogs, personal websites, and other self-published materials are usually not regarded as credible third-party sources..." to read "... are never regarded as credible third-party sources..." and to delete the entire section currently headed as "When self-published material may be used as a source". Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources, "... personal websites are not used as secondary sources — and as primary sources only with great caution ..." An encyclopedia is, by definition, a tertiary source. We may go to a primary source to fact-check a secondary source but we should never use a primary source to create content. To do so would make us a secondary, not a tertiary source. This section creates confusion and appears to allow the use of the self-published material as an allowable source for content. We should simplify this page with a strong and simple rule that self-published material is not a credible source. Let's deal with the rare exceptions as exceptions. Rossami (talk) 02:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I'm thinking particularly of bios of creators of encyclopedia-worthy subjects, where the creator's blog will often contain interesting and relevant descriptions of what they did. We have a lot of these. e.g. "Doe described his anthropological work on the Xists in a blog entry [1] as: 'A complete waste of money, brains and time.'" It's an editorial judgement call, not a "never".
We must be careful with guidelines such as this not to try to legislate clue. It's a waste of time and results in bloated guidelines the clueless won't read and the clueful find hard to use seriously - David Gerard 10:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a band-aid when Wikipedia needs surgery

You need to explore four additional areas:

1) Florida statutes and case law regarding invasion of privacy. Here's one place to start: http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/RHandbook01.nsf/1119bd38ae090a748525676f0053b606/dfc00ac22467b7f5852569cb004cbc2a

2) State and federal law that distinguishes and defines a private person as opposed to a public person.

3) Wikipedia as a special case: Anyone can come along and sabotage a biography, which means that biographies on living persons have to be locked down in some fashion. A court would take a dim view of Wikipedia's "anyone can edit anytime" if someone attempts to present this as a defense of Wikipedia in a legal proceeding. Remember, it is an open question whether Wikipedia would be considered immune from torts under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as an interactive Internet service provider. Even if it would be, there are more than a few legal scholars who already argue that Wikipedia is playing a completely different role than, for example, a provider such as BellSouth, and should be treated differently under this law.

4) Subjects should be notified that a biography is in progress, and they should be invited to participate, and if they prefer not to have a biography, then it should be deleted. This relates to the above point: Many subjects will not enjoy the prospect of checking their bio every day if it isn't locked down, and would prefer that it be deleted. Daniel Brandt 04:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

"Subjects should be notified that a biography is in progress, and they should be invited to participate, and if they prefer not to have a biography, then it should be deleted." I know you'd like this, but no, it's not going to happen - David Gerard 10:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

his source

http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/PI/RHandbook01.nsf/1119bd38ae090a748525676f0053b606/dfc00ac22467b7f5852569cb004cbc2a says

"One man's gossip may be another man's news, but distinguishing between the two is often the key in determining whether the press is guilty of "invasion of privacy." Whether an article or broadcast is newsworthy, whether the information was gathered in an objectionable fashion, whether truthful information is nonetheless highly offensive -- all are considerations in weighing individuals' claims against the news media. Invasion of privacy is a tort, a civil wrong, which can lead to jury trials and potential claims for compensatory and punitive damages. It also places judges in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable role as "editors" of last resort. The right of an individual to be free from invasion of privacy can be expressed in several different ways. Sometimes it is called the right "to be let alone." Cooley, Torts, 29 (2d ed. 1888). Often it is seen as a geographical area, "a kind of space that a man may carry with him into his bedroom or into the street." M. Konvitz, Privacy and the Law: A Philosophical Prelude, 31 Law and Contemporary Problems, 272, 279-80 (1966). Invasion of privacy is a relatively recent addition to American law. Rather than evolving from the English common law, as did libel, invasion of privacy can be traced directly to an influential article by Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, later to be a Supreme Court Justice [Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1890)]. They argued for the creation of a private remedy -- a lawsuit -- to vindicate privacy rights. Writing before the era of electronic eavesdropping, telephoto lenses, and other modern technology, Warren and Brandeis prophesied that "mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that `what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops'." Id. Not surprisingly, American courts today do not look kindly upon the media in these cases. However, the media's exposure to liability can be minimized through a grounding in privacy law. A two-step process determines whether the press is liable for invasion of a person's privacy: [...]" WAS 4.250 06:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

{{Notable Wikipedian}}

I've added a note to the new version suggesting that users identify themselves on the talk page of their biography using {{Notable Wikipedian}} (and copied it to Wikipedia:Autobiography. Assuming that violent disagreement fails to ensue, could someone please clean up my rather clunky prose? Ta muchly —Phil | Talk 11:43, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Defamatory statements

The policy reads:

Potentially libellous or defamatory statements not sourced to highly credible verifiable sources should be removed.

Andries changed this to:

Statements that are normally considered potentially libellous or defamatory not sourced to highly credible verifiable sources should be removed. However statements perceived by a person as defamatory or libellous, only because of his or her extraordinary claims about himself do not demand such a high degree of credibility. For example, if a person who has made the extraordinary claim to having invented a perpetuum mobile then questioning or criticism of this claim, though perceived as defamatory, by this person or his believers does not need to be sourced to a highly credible sources, but instead normal standards of credibility and verifiability apply here.

The above misinterprets what defamation and libel is. Defamation:false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions. Libel: a false and malicious publication printed for the purpose of defaming a living person. Criticism of a person is not libel or defamation. Making false accusations is. As we, as editors, cannot make value judgments in respect of the truth of falseness of a statement made against a person, we have to rely on the guideline of "reputable sources" and provide highly credible and verifiable information as it pertains to accusations.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

IMHO Andries' intent is fine, but it went into the wrong section. We simply shouldn't include any extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. For the special case of over-unity quack, it was recently noted [2], that an overly enthusiastic description of inventions may even lead to legal troubles with misguided investors. Perhaps somewhat far fetched, and in my POV lost investments in perpetuum mobiles are just another tax on stupidity. --Pjacobi 23:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
We simply shouldn't include any extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. That is a given. I agree 100% with this statement. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
But a person who has invented a perpetuum mobile may feel that questioning of his claims is a false accusation and hurts his reputation and is thus libel. I think that questioning of such claims does not need such highly credible sources when compared to e.g. an assertion that a scientist (whose notability is unrelated to his sex-life) had an extra-marital affair. I mean, in the case of Sathya Sai Baba questioning of his claims of materialization is seen by his followers as a false accusation and hurts his reputation and is thus libel. Following the current version of the guideline means that we can only write that Uri Geller is a fake if a highly credible source says so, not just the private opinion of Richard Feynmann? Should we remove Richard Feynmann's opinion from the Uri Geller article? This contradicts my common sense. In such cases, normal standards suffice. Andries 23:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
No, Andries. Libel has a component of malicious intent. i.e. a person knowing that the statement he is making is false and making it anyway with the purpose of harming their target. This comes to play not so much about claims of superhuman powers, but about allegations of sexual harassment against a person, for example. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
And how do you distinguish between malicious intent and non-malicious intent? I cannot distinguish. Several proponents of Sathya Sai Baba believe that the critics of Sathya Sai Baba (incl. me) have malicious intent by accusing him of sexual harassment. Andries 23:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, you can't. As editors cannot make value judgments in respect of the truth of falseness of a statement made against a person, providing highly credible and verifiable information is crucial in such cases. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, but the main difference is that this is related to his notability: he made claims of purity and attracted followers as a consequence. This claim is extraordinary and he has to provide extraordinary evidence for his extraordinary claims. The burden of proof is not on his ex-followers, who say that he has sexual relations as most people have (though some of them are abusive and constitute sexual harassment). So normal standars apply here, not extra highly credible sources. Andries 00:09, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Please, step back a bit. Perpetuum mobiles, miracle healings, spontanous materialisations and sexual harassments are extraordinary claims. It cuts both ways. --Pjacobi 00:12, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
No Andries, again you are confusing things. If a notable person was fired from his post because he was found guilty in a court of law to have been sexually harassing a subordinate, and we write about that instance in this person's biography, that would never be considered libel, would it? And why not? Simply because it is a verifiable fact that he was fired for that reason. What you are referring above is an issue that falls beyond this encyclopedia as defined by its three governing principles of Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that claims of purity are a lot more extraordinary than an assertion of having a sexual relationship. And I also think that sexual harassment is a lot less extraordinary than materializations and miracle healings etc. Andries 00:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I continue to disagree. Andries 00:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't follow... What claims of purity have to do with libellous/defamatory statements? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
For example, If somebody (such as Sathya Sai Baba) says that s/he is is always pure then even the accusation of the slightest taint of egoism may be considered defamatory by him/her or his/her followers. Of course when s/he makes such a claim then accusing him/her of sometimes being egoistical does not need to be sourced to highly credible sources, but instead normal standards apply. Andries 00:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

(outdent)Let me give you an example, If person XYZ says: "I am capable of levitating", I could argue: "please provide evidence that you do, by means of a report by an independent and reputable person witnessing that phenomena". I can then write in XYZ's biography at Wikipedia what this independent and reputable person witnessed. If a critic of person XYZ says, "XYZ is a rapist", I could argue, "please provide a reputable and verifiable source that confirm these allegations." If I get these, I can write this in the biographical article of XYZ. If there aren't such sources (even if I may believe this person's statement), and as I am as an editor working under specific guidelines, and to protect Wikipedia against accusations of libel, I will not write these allegations in the article. As Pjacobi succintlty put it We simply shouldn't include any extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:43, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that defamation is a "false accusation of an offense or a malicious misrepresentation of someone's words or actions", not the perception of such. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
It is not extraordinary that a man who is virtually untouchable and who has immense authority sometimes uses this authority to get sex from men that he considers attractive. It is not extraordinary to have sex, even if a person claims to be 100% pure. Andries 00:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
What has this to do with this discussion? We are discussing Wikipedia policy as it pertains to biographies, not morality. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Questioning extraordinary claims of a person, such as 100% sexual purity, does not have to be sourced to highly credible sources, but instead normal standards apply. Andries 00:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, but I fail to follow your logic. Questioning extraordinary claims is not the purpose of Wikipedia, is it?. Reporting on such questioning by reputable sources is. Nevertheless, we are discussing issues related to libellous and defamatory statements made in biographical articles in Wikipedia? please stay on subject. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

When does biography cease being a biography?

In reviewing other encyclopedic forms, biographies are concerned with the person, and discuss the merits which demonstrate the qualifications for entry. But does the policy address at what point does an entry cease to be about the person, and more about what brings that person the notariety? Two examples, (but not to be construed as comments on the following Wikipedia entries for either example):

  • At what point does a biography of Isaac Newton tip into an extensive explaination on the theory of gravity?
  • At what point does a biography of former British Secretary of War John Profumo tip into an complete explaination of Christine Keeler and the subsquent scandal known as the Profumo Affair?

I know that this is really rather subjective, but biographies are about the person and should be NPOV. OnceBitten 15:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I would argue that you cannot separate the one fromn the other. After all, a person's notability is based on the person's life-work. A summary of achievements of the person can be included with links to articles discussing these achievements if warranted. In the case of John Profumo, the article as it stands now, (one long paragrah about the affair, and very little about his lifework, makes the article not NPOV. I would summarize the long paragraph and provide a wikilink to Profumo Affair. I will try just that. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Its simply a judgement call about when one article should be two or two articles should be one and this editorial question comes up all the time, not just on bios. WAS 4.250 18:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking up the word biography, I find "An account of a person's life written, composed, or produced by another: a film biography; an oral biography." from the American Heritage dictionary.

When I want a biography on Abraham Lincoln, I don't need a complete run through of the Civil War, thats why there is an article on the Civil War. When I want a biography about Abraham Lincoln, I don't need an examination of Mary Todd Lincoln's eccentricties unless they impact the man and his administration.

My point is that an article promising to be a biography should be just that a biography, not an all inclusive missive. OnceBitten 22:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

This is not as hard as it may look. Most of the article on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was in Thomas Samuel Kuhn originally; but the work is easily separated from the main bio if it's notable enough to deserve its own article. Lesser works can be covered in a few sentences in the main bio - David Gerard 12:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Merged the draft one with this one

I've merged the two pages so we can start editing only one of them. I've left the draft more or less as it was, with the following changes:

  • I deleted the sentence "Strive for an article that both the person's greatest fan and greatest enemy could not reasonably dispute." I find the reference to "greatest enemy" problematic. I know it's qualified by "could not reasonably dispute," but I still worry it means we're aiming to cater to people who have exceptionally strong feelings about the subject of the biography.
  • I kept the arbitration ruling.
  • I deleted the sentence advising editors to send legal threats to the Foundation and not reply to them, following Anthere's point above.

Other than that, it more or less says what was on the draft page. Is everyone all right with this merger? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I've redirected the other page to this one. If anyone disagrees, feel free to revert me. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I've added subparts to the privacy section, to show a different level of deference to public vs non-public figures. --FRS 23:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
Excellent addition. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @
I agree. Thanks, FRS. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Opinions of critics, opponents and detractors

Echoing on-going discussions about this subject in various biographies I have added a section on this subject. It is very rough and needs refining, but I am sure the subject is well known, as some biograhical articles get overtaken by criticism of one of two persons. See Mother Theresa, as an example. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

A good example of a biographical article that avoids the minefield of "detractor vs. supporters" debate is Fidel Castro. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
In what sense it it a "good" example? Castro is on Wikipedia's List of dictators, but User:Comandante seems to have complete control of the Castro article and will not even allow the Fidel Castro article to describe Castro as a dictator. (see) --JWSchmidt 20:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
It is a good example as it is a biography, not a political piece against or for Castro. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:33, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I posted this to the policy site since it is terrible important if you decide to take this path it seems inevitable that it will lead to Wikipedia style control of the internet. For instance I wrote This is can very dangerous for doing this may make Wikipedia a mere tool of a totalitarian government, such as in the notorious Walter Duranty case [3]. I suggest you read the material in this citation very very carefully, e.g. from citation immediately above:

"Taking Soviet propaganda at face value this way was completely misleading, as talking with ordinary Russians might have revealed even at the time. Duranty's prize-winning articles quoted not a single one — only Stalin, who forced farmers all over the Soviet Union into collective farms and sent those who resisted to concentration camps. Collectivization was the main cause of a famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine, the Soviet breadbasket, in 1932 and 1933 — two years after Duranty won his prize." El Jigüey 12/25/05

In Castro's case he uses a number of reporters including CNN's Lucia Newman to whitewash his situation. It is said by reliable although sources that Newman has turned in tape of dissidents to the Cuban authorities. It is wise to recall that after Saddam fell CNN was forced to fire a reporter filing from Bagdad (Peter Arnett)for exactly this kind of reporting [4]. El Jigüey 12/25/05

We are discussing policy here, and not a specific case. The Fidel Castro article was submitted by me as an example of a biography that does not advocate for or against a person. Please continue the discussion about Fidel Castro in Talk:Fidel Castro. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:49, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Exceptions

Exceptions as the one suggested (which I deleted, in italics below), could be made to apply to not only religious leaders, but to government officials, heads of governments, politicians, etc

In principle, criticism sections should be reserved for ideologies, policies, political views, and philosophies rather than people. An exception to this rule occurs when a person is a proponent of a belief system that hinges around his reliability, such as is the case with many religious founders.

...I argue that that "exception" is not applicable, as assessment of reliability of a person, is not in the domain of possibility for Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia is not a place to assert the morality of a person, their beliefs or their orientation, neither is the place to advocate for or against a political or religious point of view. That's better left to to the soapbox, a pamphlet, a critic's blog, or an newspaper editorial. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:02, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Humbug!!!!!!!!! To remove this "exception" would insulate totalitarian tyrants of whom there a still a good number in the world from criticism in such a way the more they repress their people and the dissemination of information the better they will look. El Jigüe 12/25/05

I disagree, some belief systems hinge about the lives of their founders: it doesn't make any difference for communism whether Karl Marx was a rapist or thief, but it matters greatly in the case of Jesus for Christianity. Andries 11:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't know if WP can make the assertion one way or the other. It seems to me that frequently criticisms of politicians hinge on their personal lives or aspects of their behaviour not directly related to their time in office (eg, Bush or Kerry's war records). I don't personally see the relevance or agree with this sort of dirt-digging, but if there have been entire books written on the subject, it must be relevant to someone. If Karl Marx was a rapist, however, I would probably want to know about it if I was researching him. It may not be relevant if I was researching Marxism. Stevage 11:19, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course. Plagiarism, fraud, doping are aspects that can pass the test of verifiability, and if relevant to a person's life-work, these should be included. Other aspects, such if a person is an hypocrite, blasfemous, obnnoxious, etc, etc. cannot as these relate to value judgements that are not verifiable, and do not belong in our encyclopedia. Let's not confuse value judgements with facts. If person XYZ was put in jail for rape or theft, that is a fact that can be (and should be) included in XYZ's biography. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @
A good example is the article on Tom Delay. The article has a substantial amount of accusations and allegations by political opponents and detractors, but these are based on verifiable facts and reputable sources such as indictments by a Grand Jury. There is also some veiled criticism as in the report of the Cuban cigar photograph[5], but again this is a verifiable fact, and thus suitable for inclusion. Same in regard to the accusations of misuse of federal investigative agencies made against him by political opponents: these are verifiable [6]. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, hypocrisy may be a value judgement, but if a religious leader e.g. prescribes sexual abstinence for his or her followers then automatically his or her sex life becomes of interest for his or her biography, because deviation from his own asserted values are likely to be of interest to the reader, because of perceived hypocrisy. Andries 20:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
That applies to politicians, and to many public figures as well. See for example John_Profumo that was forced to resign because of an affair with a call girl. In the case of Tom Delay, he is a member of Congress and as such his reputation as a person is paramount for his political career. If Tom Delay was involved in corruption, this is definitively relevant for his biography. The only reason why we can include information about possible corruption in Delay's article, is that these are verifiable and from highly reputable sources. The litmus test is on the reputability of the sources and their verifiability. And even in those cases in which the sources are verifiable and reputable, a biography of a person does not need to be presented from the viewpoint of his critics/oponents/detractors,(neither from the viewpoint of his supporters). That is what this guideline is attempting to hopefully describe and assist with. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the reputable sources as long as no double standards are used with regards to including positive and negative information. Andries 22:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
The issue is not about "positive" or "negative" as these imply value judgements. The issue is about the verifiability and reputability of the sources we report. As long as we are committed to respect these Wikipedia guidelines we will be in safe territory. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
If we use the same standards for positive and negative information that we should omit the word "highly" from "highly credible" in the section about defamation. Andries 22:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Please note that your assertion that this applies for politicians as well, is an unjustified generalization: in many most countries the private lives of politicians are considered quite irrelevant. Andries 22:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC) (amended)
I wish this was the case... In the US and in the UK (where I have lived for the past 15 years) the personal life of politicians is always considered relevant, if one is to judge by the media coverage of these, that is. Have you ever heard of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky? :) ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Not here in the Netherlands. 22:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Yep. We must take our hats to the Dutch for their tolerance. I always admire them for that. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:50, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The "relevance" test is different for different contexts. If a politician plays a violin as a hobby, or has a mistress, it may not be relevant to his ability to govern, but it is relevant to his life and his biography. So long as as we stick with our usual standards of verifiability we should be OK. -Willmcw 23:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. We are not discussing relevance, but verifiability and reputability of sources. We are also discussing the need to stay away from value judgements. Wikipedia:Verifiability can help us in all contexts, including this one. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


request clarification of physicist example

On the section about people in this gray area between notable and non-notable, I think the example could be improved. Here it is:

An academic who has a Wikipedia article because of his work in physics is alleged to have touched a student inappropriately during a party. She tells her story to the university's student newspaper, and the story is picked up by a satirical magazine writing about sexual relations between academics and their students. No other newspaper repeats the claims, to which the academic has not responded. This allegation should probably not be placed in the article — it is not relevant to his notability, he is only marginally notable outside his work, it originates with a single witness and unsworn testimony, the sources are not particularly credible, no mainstream source has picked up the story and his life may be seriously affected if the allegation is spread.

Is the credibility of the source really a deciding factor? What if there were multiple credible sources? The allegations wouldn't be any more relevant to the person's notability, would they? --Allen 00:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Just stay within the boundaries of our main content polices: WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT and WP:NPOV and you will be in safe territory. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, I am of the school of thought that says that marital status and number of children (if known) should be included if it comes from a verifiable, published source. Such information is not really "personal" per se but helps provide a fuller picture of a person. In addition, many biographies, even of seemingly trivial people, published in a newspaper include that information in a fact box. Calwatch 03:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I see no problem in including that info, if it was published in a newspaper or other media. That fits within WP:V. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

When to name a person

What rules should apply about when to reveal the true name of a person known by an alias if they strongly try to keep it secret, and protest it's inclusion. This is brought up by Brandy Alexandre (porn star). Now in this specific case, I think revealing the name is ok *if* there are very good reliable sources. However, i'm posting this question here, as I can imagine other cases where we might have a tougher decision. For instance, what if it's illegal to reveal a name. For instance, Canadian courts regularly ban the publication of names of defendents (especially juvenille ones), but their names are published in US papers, and ultimately Wikipedia. I assume US courts sometimes issue similiar bans, which presumably effect the home of Wikipedia (but I don't know). Another case might be where a secret agent's identity is revealed, and it's not lawful to reprint it. Anyway, I'm just curious a) What is the current policy and b) what do people think the policy should be and c) maybe I missed the old discussion on this, and you can point me to that discussion. --Rob 23:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I had the same question, the article should address this. Examples include sollog, ashida kim, and Acharya S. Sam Spade 13:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
The issue has also come up at Brent Corrigan, another porn star. Zeromacnoo 13:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Divulging personal details. -Will Beback 19:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

No criticism allowed?

  • A biographical article should be about notable persons, not about their critics, unless these critics are notable in their own right. In these cases their criticism of other persons can be discussed in their own biographical articles.

This addition means that no criticisms of living persons can be mentioned in their biographies. That would seem to violate NPOV as it does not allow for all viewpoints to be covered. Thoughts? -Will Beback 23:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe the intent of "not about their critics" is that discussion of the views of critics should not dominate the article. Critics can be mentioned, but if there has been a huge amount of criticism it should go in a different article. --JWSchmidt 23:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
NPOV doesn't mean 'cover all viewpoints', it means 'cover all notable viewpoints'. Criticisms from notable sources or that have acheived notability independent of their source (e.g. good press coverage, widely held beliefs, etc) should be covered; but we don't have to achieve 'journalistic fairness' by giving equal time to pro and anti viewpoints if the anti viewpoints are not widely known. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 23:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both points, but the text in question is not clear about them. -Will Beback 23:32, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Beback. What JWSchmidt and Matthew Brown said here makes sense, but the wording of the policy should be clear; readers shouldn't need to ask questions on the talk page to resolve apparent inconsistencies in the article (see my question about the physicist example above). The second sentence quoted by Will Beback does seem to suggest that bios of living people shouldn't include criticism. (If criticism from notable critics belongs on those critics' articles, presumably criticism from non-notable critics belongs nowhere at all.) This can't be what it's supposed to mean... it's inconsistent with the preceeding paragraphs, which say bios can include criticism of the subject.
What if we just took out the two sentences Beback quoted? I feel like this might make the section clearer, without sacrificing anything that the preceeding paragraphs haven't covered.
--Allen 23:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Of course that criticism is allowed. Please read the complete section and not just that sentence, as it is very well explained:
  1. not to give a dispropotionate voice to detractors, opponents or critics as you could be representing a minority view as if it were the majority view;
  2. Their views can be presented in a biography providing that these are relevant to their notability, based on credible sources and do not overwhelm the article;
  3. Negative information related to a person's notability should be mentioned if solidly verifiable;
  4. Beware of claims that rely on Wikipedia:Verifiability#Guilt_by_association, or other generalizations.
  5. Wikipedia is not a place for editors to assess the morality of a person, their beliefs or their orientations, nor the place to advocate for or against a political or religious point of view.
≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Jossi, thank you for trying to explain this to me, but I still have concerns about the way this policy is articulated right now. I did indeed read the entire section; in fact, that's the basis for what I said above -- the sentences cited by Will Beback are not consistent with the rest of the section. Do you think those sentences can be removed? If not, why not? --Allen 01:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I have attempted to refactor that sentence in a way that better explains it. Let me know what you think. I think it is an important point. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Jossi's revision
  • If a person is notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia, their criticism of others can be discussed in their own biographical articles, not in the biographies of others. A biographical article should be about notable persons, not about their critics.
How about rewording it like this:
  • A biographical article should focus on the subject, not their critics. Non-notable criticisms of the subject should be excluded, or placed in the biography of the critic.
Would that convey the intent? -Will Beback 01:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
This is getting confusing... what about just saying simply:
  • The focus of a biographical article should be on the subject, not their critics.
≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
That'd work for me. -Will Beback 02:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Me too. Thanks, Jossi. --Allen 02:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I may have arrived too late, but it seems to me that if a biogrpahical article has a critic who has cited the extreme negative aspects of the subject's entry these should be noted, and not glossed over because they are produced on a smaller scale than those of the subjects pundits- this would be in the case of someone relativelyt unknown who fell into deeper obscurity, and during that time developed tendencies that could be construed as racist and or anti semitic.. and since the relative obscurity of the subject has cloaked their late in life negative behavior, not a whole lot of documentation exists on the subject... my point here is that by blanketing the entry with a no critics allowed clause, we may very well negate later aspects of a subjects life. It seems important to get all sides of a story, no matter how obscure, before throwing any and all criticisms away.216.244.7.12 05:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that we are not saying that criticism is not allowed. You may need to read and Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Reliable sources and finally you may need to read What Wikipedia is not, that says:
Wikipedia articles are not Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view. You might wish to go to Usenet or start a blog if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views.
What I am saying is that contrary to popular belief, we are not here to "get all sides of the story", but to tell the story within Wikipedia content policies That is all this guideline is attempting to clarify. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 06:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
≈ jossi ≈ t • @

Guideline

I have upgraded this from "proposed" to "guideline". If there are any concerns regarding this, please voice them here. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Privacy of birthdays

The section on Privacy of birthdays is unreadable. Kaldari 17:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I know what it means but could be said simpler. Kaldari, take a stab at re-writing it. --FloNight 17:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

What to do when a person is notable but no reputable sources are available?

Say a person is notable, but no reputable sources are available for a detailed biography, only hagiograhical material plus a lot of criticsm from reputable sources. Then how should the article on this person look like? See User:BostonMA/Mediation#Proposal_by_Jossi and User:BostonMA/Mediation#Suggestion_for_a_two_week_effort_to_add_non-critical_content. This mediation is about the article Sathya Sai Baba. Andries 19:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

One does the best one can with what one has. That's why this is a guideline, because it requires clueful editorial judgement - David Gerard 19:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Exactly, and that is why I requested mediation between you and editors opposing your POV: So that editorial judgement agreed by all parties can be applied to this specific article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
And what to do when there is a huge disagreement between editors that cannot be resolved with this guideline? Andries 19:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

What is "negative"?

This guideline mentions "negative", but what is negative? The assessment of a trait or event as negative is subjective. For example, some people consider homosexuality negative. Others do not. I would rather have this re-worded more objectively. Andries 20:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Negative in this context it relates to negative traits about a person, as per a value judgement vs. a fact. If a person sexual orientaton can be verified as homosexual, that is a fact, not a value judgememt. On the other hand, saying for example that a person has an "aggressive disposition toward others" is a negative value judgement. The difference between a verifiable fact andf a value judgement is very easy to establish. That is why the guideline states that "Wikipedia is not a place for editors to assess the morality of a person, their beliefs or their orientations, nor the place to advocate for or against a political or religious point of view." ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

False suggestion of NPOV based on number of adherents

This article falsely suggest that the weight given to opinions depends on the nr. of adherents. It is not the number of ignorant adherents that matter to determine the weight, but scholary and scientific and other informed opinions. For example, we do not allow the physics-related article on motion to state that an object makes a warped curve even if there are no forces on the ball, only if many people (I heard 30%) believe this. Does this mean that we allow 30% of the space in the Wikipedia article on motion to this clearly incorrect view? Of course not, because this is not an informed opinion, but the opinion of lay people. Andries 20:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you in some ways, but I think both expert opinion and lay opinion matter. For example, even though virtually all experts agree that species diversity arose by evolution, we still mention in that article that the idea is more controversial among the public at large. I think your example of the moving ball is interesting. I agree that we shouldn't mention in whatever relevant article that 30% of people hold this misconception. But that's because in the ball example, I doubt that 30% of people really believe this. It may be their best guess if you quiz them on it, but I suspect they'd be happy to accept the scientific view of the matter if they were reminded of it. So, in my opinion, it's not really a minority view in the same sense as Creationism. --Allen 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
As it applies to scientific articles and subjects, this is a no brainer an I agree with your assessment. The issue becomes more complicated when we are talking about value judgements made on living people. That is what this guideline was created: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
NPOV does not make a distinction between science and scholarship. Andries 19:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Value judgements can only be attributed to these that make them as per NPOV. Facts, if verifiable, are very different matter. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I have been thinking about it, and this is what I came up with: You speak of "ignorant adherents", but that it itself is a value judgement. A critic of Islam can claim that the billon Muslims are "ignorant" and if that critic is notable, or the criticism of that person is published by a reputable source, we could by following NPOV, describe his POV and criticism of Islam in the article about Islam. Every religion or faith has its detractors and critics. Same applies to the people heading these religions as their spiritual leaders. In many cases, the number of critics is infinitesimal in comparison with the number of people that not only don't criticize it, but that support it. When we describe that faith or write a biography about its spiritual leader(s), we ought to describe the criticism and opposing views, in proportion to the critic's notability. Now, if there is a critic that is not only notable for his criticism of others, and that notability implies a separate article in Wikipedia, we can then under WP:NPOV explore in detail the criticism he has levelled against a faith or a religious leader in his article. This is applicable not only to bioagraphies of religious leaders, but of politicians, writers, and scientists as well. That is what this guideline speaks of when it reads:
Many persons that are notable enough to have an article in Wikipedia about them are likely to have detractors, opponents and/or critics. Their views can be presented in a biography providing that these are relevant to their notability, based on reputable sources and in a manner that does not overwhelm the article. Note that for each detractor a public figure has, this person may have thousands that do not share these detractor's views and by default their views will not be represented in the article. We should be careful not to give a dispropotionate voice to detractors, opponents or critics as you could be representing a minority view as if it were the majority view. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that your interpretation of this guideline contradicts the basic principle of Wikipedia that is we do not allow multiple articles with different POVs on one subject i.e. article 1 with POV1, article 2 with POV2, article 3 with POV3 etc. Instead, we should make one article on a certain subject that is a weighted mix of POV1, POV2, POV3 etc. My question is how do we determine the weight given to POV1, POV2, POV3 etc in this one article? I have developed a methodology for assessing weight. What do you think of it?Andries 17:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
You are referring to POV forks. But I am not. My arguments are for the inclusion of critical viewpoints are explained above and below. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
And also I think it is incorrect to say that "ignorant adherent" is a value judgement. Nearly all adherents are neither social scientists nor religious scholars. I am ignorant about nuclear physics which is not a value judgement, but a fact. I do not blame adherents for being ignorant, but it is crazy, of course to use the nr. of adherents to determine to weight given to a certain opinion. Of course the beliefs of ignorant adherents of a religious leader should be described, but not in a biography, but under a section or article "Beliefs and practices". Andries 17:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
"Ignorant adherent" is most definitively a value judgement. Same as saying "blasfemous scientist" or "heretical scholar" from the opposing POV. I am not asserting to consider the number of adherents to determine weight, rather the number of critics and their notability. Consider this: if a religion has 10 milion adherents, and have have a dozen critics whose only notability is the fact that they are critics of that religion, what weight would you give them in the religion's article? I would argue for a small mention in the article. On the other hand, a religion with a billion of adherents but a highly notable person (e.g. a very notable author or scholar) making critical comments about that religion, you will expect that the article about that notable author or scholar to contain a high percentage of his criticism, and the article about that religion a very small mention, if at all. It all makes good editorial sense, really. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I continue to disagree with your statement that "ignorant adherent" is a value judgment. With regards to the latter statment, it depends if this person is considered an expert and if criticsm is cited often in reputable media, as per my proposed methodology to assess weight. Andries 18:18, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest you ask other editors to evaluate your assertion that calling adherents of a religion to be "ignorant".Can you imagine the uproar if you decide to label Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhist as "ignorant adherents" just because their beliefs are not supported by views of secular scholars? Spare me the Jihad, brother. As per your proposal to calculate weight, I wish you good luck with it. You can present it at the talk page of WP:V and WP:NPOV. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
There are also adherents of a religions who are not ignorant, but what I mean to say is that if scholarly sources assert that religious leader X did Y then this should be stated as such in the article, regardless if the religious leader has billions of adherents who think otherwise. Andries 20:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course, but the weight given to that scholarly source will depend on the notability of the scholar, and maybe be number of other notable scholars that share that POV. You can try this: try to get a scholar (journalist, author, etc,) that criticizes the Pope Benedict XVI to be featured prominently in his article. That would be only suitable if the said scholar has the notability and standing to warrant his mentioning in the Pope's article. Otherwise, at most, that criticism shoukd be a small mention or footnote in the Pope's article, if at all. That is why WP:NPOV includes the aspect of undue weight. It is there for a reason. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

(outdent) You say above: if scholarly sources assert that religious leader X did Y. In this case we will not be discussing a value judgement, as it would refer to something that leader X did. In this case, what is needed is simply to follow the policy of verifiability. That should be pretty straightforward to ascertain. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Ways to assess a proportionate fraction of criticism and controversy

The guideline does not discuss how we determine the fraction dedicated to controversy and criticism about a person. What methods do you suggest? Here is an example of a discussion about it. The basis that I use there is to calculate the unweighted average of the fraction of criticism in reputable media and scholarly articles. User:BostonMA/Mediation#Percentages_of_criticism_in_various_articles Andries 17:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

It does: Opinions of critics, opponents, and detractors. This is a general guideline. Ad hoc cases to be determined by editors in accordance with WP:NPOV as it pertains to undue weight. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course, I have read that, but you and I know that there is no way to determine undue weight. Andries 19:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Why not? Please explain. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
What fraction should be given to critics? How do you determine that? Andries 19:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
You can browse the Category:Living people and see how this is treated. In most biographical articles, critics of the person and their POVs are represented fairly as per WP:NPOV. See examples such as Al Gore, Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
So basically there is no guideline, just examples. What do we do when somebody argues that the treatment of controversy and criticism of Uri Geller should be confined to one sentence? Andries 17:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

It is unacceptable, IMO, to change the meaning of a sentence of this guideline to the opposite meaning, while the discussion has not brought any new arguments for changing it. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I would also refer you to WP:NPOV which states:NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each. . (my emphasis). ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:24, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The version was
  • "We should be careful not to give a dispropotionate voice to detractors, opponents or critics as you could be representing a minority view as if it were the majority view." which I changed in
  • "We should be careful to give a proportionate voice to detractors, opponents or critics as you could be representing a minority view as if it were the majority view.".
First of all I do not think that I made the sentence to its opposite. I think the first version possibly contradicts NPOV policy while the latter is always in accordance with it. Andries 00:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
If you though that, it would be incumbent upon you as an editor of Wikipedia to engage other editors in a meaningful discussion (that I thought we were having above) before you make a change that substantially modifies the agreed version made by other editors. So far, what you wrote have not brought any meanifularguments upon wich to build a consensus to the contrary. I am open to listen to other arguments that support your positionm but I would prefer to hear from other editors as well. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Jossi, well may be I should have done that, but I think it was clear from our discussions here and the many that we had elsewhere that I did not agree with the guideline and that I wanted to change it in a way that gave both a minimum and a maximum to the criticsm fraction. Now it gives only a maximum which I think is strange and somewhat diverging from the NPOV policy. Andries 01:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
To give an example why a minimum is necessary too. A long biography of Uri Geller with one sentence space given to detractors breaks NPOV policy, I think and this should be stated in this guideline. I admit that this is a difficult matter and that you have tried your best. There are no easy answers, I am afraid. Also I think that the guideline should explicitly state that witholding relevant negative information about public persons may be harmful too e.g. in the case of a politician who is running for election. It is not just that writing negative things should be limited (for obvious reasons), but also witholding negative aspects. Andries 01:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
That may be your perception, but no one is arguing for withholding negative information. The arguments made are for inclusion of critics and detractors POVs providing that these are relevant to their notability, based on reputable sources and in a manner that does not overwhelm the article and Negative information related to a person's notability should be mentioned if solidly verifiable. I am afraid that it is not possible to have a guideline that numerically quantifies proportions of criticism in articles. That would be an absurd and unattainable proposition. Rather, we ought apply the policies such as NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each., to the best of our abilities ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:10, 20 February 2006 (UT

Privacy of birthdays clarification needed

In the privacy of birthdays section, it says "it is more common for the public to know which year someone was born without knowing his or her exact birthday". I think this needs to expand/get clarified a bit. To say "it is more common" implies that only most of the time are people's exact birthdate not public information, which in turn leaves open for debate who's exact birthdate can be published or not. This issue came up in the Brian Peppers debate, and people were deleting his exact birthdate despite him being a sex offender and having his exact birthdate released as public information on his sex offender website profile. I think we need to clarify if it is ok or not to release the exact birthdate in cases of non-public figures who's exact birthdate has been made public by the government. I would certainly think there wouldn't be any problem with doing so. Thoughts? VegaDark 02:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

If such DOB was published by a reputable and public source, I see no reason for not including it in an article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I propose a rewrite of the section to the following:

Privacy of birthdays

Wikipedia includes exact birthdates for many famous people, but including this information for some 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 more common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information. When in doubt of the notability of the person in question, it is best to err on the side of caution for adding specific birthdates. It may be advisable to simply list the year of birth rather than the exact birthdate. Some things to consider when adding an exact birthdate are:

  • Has the person in question had mainstream media coverage?
  • Has the person in question taken action intended to increase their notability? (Given interviews, been a guest on a talk show, etc.)
  • Has the person in question's date of birth been published by a reputable and public source?

If the answer to all of the above questions is no, it is advisable to leave out the exact birthdate of the individual in question. Exceptions can be made in cases where the government has made the information publicly available, such as a sex offender or criminal. (crossed out due to addition of the last bullet-in such cases it will always be published by a reputable and public source)

Feel free to comment or suggest any changes. VegaDark 03:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Rather than list exceptions, we can simply add an extra bullet as follows:
  • Has the person in question had mainstream media coverage?
  • Has the person in question taken action to increase their notability? (Given interviews, gone on talk shows, etc.)
  • Is the birthday available from a public source such as a court judgement, government publication, etc?

I will make that addition. Let me know if this suffices. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I beat you to it. It was a good suggestion. VegaDark 03:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Good. Go ahead and do the honors :) ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Is 2 people enough for a consensus? I'd rather wait for a couple more comments just to be sure. VegaDark 03:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that this is a pretty easy one and would be surprised if there is no consensus. After all is based on WP:V. If there is no consensus, editors will let us know. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I'll add it. Thanks for the support. VegaDark 03:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ Are you saying that it SHOULD be published? WP doesn't need to publish every verifiable fact about a person, right? Especially a non-public figure. The scope of their article would be much more limited than a public figure right. A short balanced article that focuses on the whatever is encyclopedic about them. FloNight talk 03:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

  • (edit conflict - please give the rest of us a little time to react) I really like the opening paragraph. Privacy must be the default. I do believe that the sentence at the end should be changed to "If the answer to all any of the above questions is no, ..." We should have a fairly high hurdle against the inclusion for living people.
    I also believe that the original wording of the last bullet was better. The revised wording of the last bullet may be indefensible in some jurisdictions. My birth certificate is technically a public record since it is on file in the county courthouse where I was born and at the time, accessing it meant physically traveling to the courthouse, knowing enough to request the right record and paying a copying fee. With the advent of searchable databases and electronic security threats, courts and legislatures are making more nuanced decisions about privacy. Information that is "public" when fragmented can become "private" when aggregated into a database (such as Wikipedia) and placed in a context prone to abuse. The case of the Nuremberg Files comes to mind but that's an extreme example. I remember reading cases closer to our situation. Of course, this is an area with conflicting precedents and with strongly held opinions on both sides. In most cases, the exact birthdate is not necessary to the understanding of the biography. In those cases, we should err on the side of protecting privacy. Rossami (talk) 04:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    Ok, I've reverted the changes for now to allow more discussion. I have to disagree with changing "all" to "any" though, as I think that would mean deleting quite a few birthdates out of articles that we currently have that haven't posed a problem before. I wouldn't be opposed to rewording the last bullet to be less inclusive though VegaDark 04:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
    re: "all" → "any" - Can you give examples of biographies that would be affected? I couldn't think of any. Most of the examples that I could quickly find are entertainers and politicians who clearly do qualify for both the first two. (And if we can't meet the third criterion, well that's really a WP:V issue so the date would have to be removed either way.) Rossami (talk) 05:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Henry Earl - Fits last 2, but no mainstream media coverage. Tron (hacker) - fits 1st and 3rd but not 2nd. Those are just a couple off the top of my head. -edit- Ok, I just realized the second doesn't apply because he's not living, but my first example does. I'm sure one could scour through the living people category and find a bunch of stubs that shows no evidence of the person seeking out notability, and hence would have to delete their exact birth date. -edit2- just found Omar Abdel-Rahman, there is no evidence that person tried to increase their notability, unless commiting a crime automatically makes one elligible for that. VegaDark 05:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I just realized the implications if we had "Has the person in question taken action to increase their notability?". This should probably be rephrased to "Has the person in question taken action with the intent to increase their notability?" to clarify. VegaDark 05:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Just so you know, I tend to err on the side of more information, and birthdays are useful, especially if they are published. While it is probably crossing the line to go to a courthouse or a Zabasearch to look up an individual's birthday, many times so-called "non-notable" people will have profiles done of them, and sometimes they will have birthdays published in the newspaper. I like the original statement better, which allows the placement of said information. One example of people that would qualify are the many fashion models we have on WP. Their agencies publish profiles of them that often include their birthday (if not their birth _date_). I will continue to add that information as appropriate. Calwatch 03:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for a reply to the points I have raised. I have given ample time for discussion and I don't see much, I am about ready to put back in my changes unless someone else objects with a good reason. I also notified Jimbo of the discussion when I first posted this so if he wants one thing or another we won't know until he comments. VegaDark 00:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm putting back in the rewrite I made as nobody has refuted the points I have addressed. Even if you disagree with its inclusiveness, I think it is much better than the ambigious version that we currently have, and if someone wants to propose changes we can work from there. VegaDark 06:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Designated Agent?

What does a designated agent have to do with libel accusations? Designated agents are supposed to receive DMCA takedown notices. Superm401 - Talk 01:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Admins covering for each other

I added a section about admins maintaining their privacy if their wish to maintain their anonymity as Wikipedia administrators. Admins can also cover for each other in deleting articles about admins if those articles expose the identity of an admin that wish to remain somewhat anonymous. The obvious problem being managed is that a Wikipedia admin might be stalked by blocked users if their true identity is known. There has only been once such case so far and it is recent. The text reverted under a new sub-section name of Wikipedia Administrators under the Privacy section was:

Wikipedia Administrators who are notable persons in their own right are permitted to delete and otherwise block biographies written about themselves and their notable immediate family members if they feel that such articles compromise any anonymity that they wish to maintain as administrators, in particualr so that they can minimize being stalked by blocked users. Realistically, a Wikipedian administrator who is notable or comes from a notable family is likely to only remain somewhat anonymous. One administrator may take such a deletion action on behalf of another administrator.

AWM -- 199.33.32.40 04:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Major changes make to this guideline article need to be brought up here before being added to the article. I am therefore reverting your changes to the article. If you actually want to propose a change in the guidelines, please phrase your proposal that way, so that others have a better idea how to respond. Thanks. --Allen 04:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Any biography whose primary purpose or effect is to identify a Wikipedia contributor who wishes to remain anonymous is probably a case of bad faith editing. The problem is not limited to admins. -Will Beback 07:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
But by that simple-minded logic, any person who did not want their W article to exist (e.g. articles that show that the person has a prison record) could register an acount and then scream that they are a victim and insist that W remove their article. It would be a clever abuse. How do you prevent it? AWM -- 68.122.35.108 08:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
By conducting a civil discussion on the matter with other editors, and assessing the notability of that person. See Wikipedia:Notability. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

INSANE! Subject is presumed to not know their own birthday?

For example, the New York Times says that John Doe was born in 1955 but John Doe himself tells you this was a mistake and that his year of birth is in fact 1965. The Wikipedia article must reflect the published record, and not what John Doe has told you privately. If a correction is published, this is verifiable and hence usable. Since the claim has been called into doubt, it can be appropriate to write in this case "According to the New York Times, John Doe was born..." along with an appropriate citation of source.

You would think that John Doe would know his own birthday, Can we drop this paragraph with extreme prejudice? Kim Bruning 19:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Err, what about cases where John Doe might purposely attempt to conceal his true birthday? ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 19:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
WP:V is a core policy. We cannot have random editors, who claim to be notable subjects, asserting facts without providing a source. If they are indeed the subject then they should be able to provide a source for their information. If necessary, we can just delete info that we don't have undisputed sources for. Better to say nothing than the wrong thing. -Will Beback 21:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
It's only where there's a clash with the public record that there's a problem. If the public record says the actress was born in 1940, but she says 1950, we go with 1940. She, of course, is free to have the public record changed. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
She just told you it was 1950. We could of course demand a photocopy of her birth certificate? But seriously, that would be nuts. Kim Bruning 19:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
All of these people told everyone their birthday as well; that doesn't mean they were correct. —Kirill Lokshin 20:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
If they fabricate their age, that's their problem. Time to pull out ye olde turing test+conclusions. Kim Bruning 20:37, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
In addition to people lying about their own age, we also have to worry about impersonators. Just because someone claims to be John Doe is no guarantee that they are. Likewise, just because you claim to have spoken with John Doe is no guarantee to the rest of us that you're telling the truth. That's the essense of WP:V. We don't accept anyone's claims on pure faith. If the birthday is wrong, there should be an independent source showing it somewhere. If they lie about their age, we tell the truth as best we know it. We don't parrot their lies. Rossami (talk) 22:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Exactly right. This is part of the point of WP:NOR. I could say I've interviewed X and he told me A, B, and C, but (a) why should Wikipedia's readers believe me and (b) how do I know that I was really speaking to X? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. They should get mad at the person who published it originally. We are not a publisher of original thought. savidan(talk) (e@) 06:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Policy

I would like to change this from a guideline to a policy. There's nothing contentious in it that I can see, and all good editors do it anyway as it mostly reiterates the need to adhere to our content policies. Any thoughts? SlimVirgin (talk) 06:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the page should be made policy yet, as long is it continues to have meaningful changes made to it. I think the exact birthday issue (just removed) is a signficant change (not huge, but signficant). Also, I don't like proliferating policy pages to quickly. At some point it should be policy, but lets leave it for now. If it sits around, with not much change (beyond typos and grammar), then make it policy. --Rob 06:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to see this become policy as well, but as said above, things like the privacy of birthdays issue needs to be addressed and agreed upon. VegaDark 07:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the privacy of birthdays thing because it didn't seem to make sense. If a birthday has been published by a reliable, mainstream publication, it's no longer private. If it hasn't been published, or is published only in a disreputable publication, then we shouldn't be adding it anyway. So I couldn't see the point of the section, unless of course I misunderstood it. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
WP:V is our guiding star. If a biographical fact is so well-known as to be reliably sourced, then it is suitable for a biography. If it isn't then it ain't. "Living people" issues are sufficiently litigious that care is required. We've all seen what happens when the "Office" has to intervene. Making this a routine policy should help keep biographies "kosher" and out of the "press". I'm now done using "quotes". -Will Beback 09:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
There are also many that feel that it shouldn't be in the article even if it is found by a reliable source (in the case of a non-public figure). We need this section in there and discussed before it becomes policy. VegaDark 18:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
When you say "many," what do you mean exactly? Can you give an example of an article about a non-public figure, where the birth date had been published by a reliable source, but there was a dispute about whether to publish it on Wikipedia? SlimVirgin (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Also, whether or not the page becomes policy doesn't affect whether you can re-insert that paragraph. I can see you might object if there was something on the page you felt was inappropriate, but to object because of an omission makes no sense, because if enough people want it, it can always be added. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
During the Brian Peppers debate, his exact birthdate was published on his sex offender profile, which was released by the government - The most reliable source we can expect for this info. There were 2 administrators who were deleting his birthdate because he was a "non-public figure" and they didn't think we should be publishing birthdates of non-public figures. Needless to say I strongly disagreed with their logic, and so did many other editors, and there was a revert war over including it or not before Jimbo came in and deleted the page. That is why this needs to be in in the policy, so we either know it can be added or know it can't. I tried starting a discussion on it a while back but very few people participated. VegaDark 19:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I see. Thanks for explaining. It seems to me that this kind of example would be covered by the policy. If the information has been made public by a reliable source, we can use it. However, if a person complains, we should bear in mind that BLP recommends sensitivity, particularly for non-public figures. The question to ask is: is the date of birth relevant to the person's notability? Clearly, it wouldn't be unless it was an article about, say, a 50-year-woman who became known because she had an affair with a 14-year-old boy, and even then the exact date probably wouldn't be relevant. So I would say, in a case like Brian Pepper, that if he complains, we should remove the date; but if he doesn't, we should leave it in. Do you know whether he complained? SlimVirgin (talk) 19:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Someone claiming to be a relative of his complained that we had an article on him at all, not specifically mentioning the birthdate as far as I know. That is why there was such a fuss over it and the constant deletions/recreations of the page. VegaDark 19:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I've looked through the archives, and I can only see two people who argued very briefly that the date of birth should be left out. No one made a big deal of it, and I think they were just trying to pare the article down to the absolute minimum: the date of birth wasn't in itself an issue. I'd say the policies and this page are pretty clear: material may be published by us if already published elsewhere, but if someone complains, show a bit of sensitivity so long as the issue doesn't go to the heart of why they're notable. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I hope you're right. I am confident this is going to be an issue when the article is recreated, however, unless this becomes policy before then. VegaDark 19:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I remember birthdays coming up but in a completely different context. (I'm afraid I don't remember the article but I do remember the arguments which were made.) Technically, your birthdate is a matter of public record since it's recorded on your birth certificate. But it is sufficiently difficult to find the paper copies (since you generally have to go in person to the county courthouse where the person was born) that birthday is often used as a piece of data when authenticating your identity (for example, on a banking application). Given that it is commonly used for identity and that it can be used to commit identity theft and that identity theft is the fastest growing class of crime right now, we should use extra caution before publishing the birthdates of living persons. There are, of course, exceptions for people who are clearly public figures but people who have put themselves that far in the limelight already have to take extra precautions against identity theft. For the rest of us, if the article can survive without the birthdate, we should leave it out in the interests of privacy. I agree that if a birthdate is not reliably sourced, it should come out. But that's a minimum. Even if you do have a reliable source, it still may not be appropriate to include a birthdate in the biography of a living person. Rossami (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Very valid points. I would think that for anyone where this would even remotely be an issue, a birth year would suffice -- then people can figure out how old the person is but there's a much lessened chance of identity theft or other potentially damaging behavior. · Katefan0(scribble)/poll 18:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the issues addressed above by Rossami. Just because we can find a source for someone's birthday does not mean that we need to make the editorial choice to include it. SlimVirgin did not address these issues before removing the guideline. I think birth year only should be sufficient for marginally notable living people. We should put the guideline back in place. -MrFizyx 20:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I should give some examples of the type of things I'm concerned about. I'm a fan of many obscure singer-songwriters that play intimate shows to small groups of fans, but generally can enjoy having the same level of privacy of average citizens. Someone recently wrote an article for one such artist, possibly someone who knew him personnally, because the original version included an exact birthdate and the names of his parents.[7] I removed this, but now the cat is out of the bag and copies of the wikipeida article appear elsewhere.[8] In another example, it is here on wikipedia that I learned that Jeffrey Foucault and Kris Delmhorst are married--these artist don't publicly advertize this relationship. The only reliable source I found to back this up was a single article in the Boston Globe that said, "oh, by the way...," In our article on Foucault, his marriage is mentioned in the second sentence. I like the idea of wikipedia having a policy that says "hey some details aren't relevant and it's better if we choose to leave them out." (OK, not really that exact wording). -MrFizyx 21:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Designated agent

Hi Uninvited, it was Anthere, as I recall, who wanted that information to be included, so it might be a good idea to put it back. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

As there's been no response, I'll put it back. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the matter is deserving of more discussion particularly if Anthere was not editing in some sort of official capacity. The "Contact us" pages have been heavily reorganized with an eye towards catching WP:LIVING issues and redirecting them to OTRS; having a link to the "contact us" pages is probably sufficient. In general, WP:LIVING issues should be sent to info-en@ rather than board@ since they will usually end up in that queue anyway and since in most cases mail sent to info-en@ will get a faster response. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not see a specific link on Wikipedia:Contact_us that refers to WP:LIVING issues. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Contact us -> report a problem -> article about you They are on separate pages to improve the wheat-to-chaff ratio we get at OTRS, which is working splendidly. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I asked Anthere to look at the page and that was one of her suggestions, so I'd prefer to leave it. Perhaps you could add to it rather than deleting what's there? Something like: the best way to receive a fast response is to contact ... SlimVirgin (talk) 18:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Upgrading to policy

As sugested by Jimbo Wales in WikiEN-I, I would want to upgrade this guideline to policy. For that to happens, it needs some attention and more thought put into. Any suggestions on how to move this forward? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Privacy of birthdays

Jossi, an issue above that has a few people bothered is whether we should say something about not including birthdates, even if they're published elsewhere, because dates of birth are used in identity theft. Is that something we could sort out? I'm in favor of not publishing them: a year of birth would be enough in most cases. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I would argue that exact days of birth in bios of living people add little or no encyclopedic value. Let's find some suitable wording to address this. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Birth year only seems normal, like John Doe (1948-). An actual mention of birthday just seems silly from a stylistic view, regardless of the (real) concerns above about identity theft. - cohesion 02:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
In cases where privacy is not an issue (e.g. the person currently publicizes their birthdate on their web site), I like showing the exact date. One minor utility, is it helps disambiguate between people with similiar names. I find it handy when matching bios between different languages wikis. Maybe one day, we'll even be able to have software convert the birthdate into a current age. So, I'ld hate to see a loss (or failure to capture) the data. Basically, my rule is, if you have any reason to think the exact birthdate is being withheld by the subject, then we should withhold it. But, if somebody is giving it out, by all means show it. Perhaps for now, we should simply ask for sensitivity on the issue, without formulating an exact rule. --Rob 03:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Identity theft problems are relatively new and connected to very modern technology. Self release in the past, in particular to print publications, should not indicate a desire to self release personal identifying information on one of the largest web sites in the world. I think we should keep complete DOB off except for the super famous. FloNight talk 20:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
How do you feel about cases, where an "up and coming" actor/singer has their own web site, actively maintained, with a biography, which gives their date of birth. --Rob 21:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I would worry about their agent jazzing up their personal information. : ) Until they are famous enough to be under sustained media scrutiny, these facts can fluctuate. FloNight talk 22:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

these facts can fluctuate. Yes. Case closed. Good one Flo. WAS 4.250 23:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Hey Rob can you direct me to an example of an "up and coming" performer who is giving out this sort of information in the way you describe? I don't think we should avoid a sensible policy just because it might sometimes be OK to break the rule in some hypothetical situation. I also don't see how this trivial infromation on an "up and comer" is encyclopedic. I think the language contained in an early edit was reasonable and is a good place to start[9]. -MrFizyx 08:31, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that years of birth are enough, but I like the wording linked to by MrFizyx, although I'd add to it: "If the subject of a biography complains about the publication of their full date of birth, it should be removed." SlimVirgin (talk) 08:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
On this wording, I would replace "taken action intended to increase their NOTABILITY" with "taken action intended to increase their FAME". The people who need protection are notable non-famous people. Somebody who publishes a new cancer treatment in a medical journal is seeking notability, but not necessarily fame. Also, I object to the "Reputable and public source" wording. Things like the eSorn Sex Offender List, which list with Brian Peppers, is an example of a reputable public source, but the people on it, are argueably private figures. It's also redundant to say reliable, because theoretically all sources of information we use are suppossed to reliable. I suggest for living figures we could require an up-to-date online publication that is well known nationally or internationally. For instance, if a birthdate is pubished at CNN.com, we do no added harm by showing it. If somebody's birth was announced in a paper newspaper in 1985, then our use of the date *might* pose harm in a few cases. --Rob 09:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reinserted the text and made some changes to address Rob's concerns. Does this work for everyone? -MrFizyx 21:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) When I re-read the guidance, the bullets struck me as redundant. Can we try a version without those bullets for a while? I think that the first paragraph was very clear and that most readers will interpret it in the spirit intended by this and the prior discussion. If we see evidence that readers are misreading the section and being inappropriately restrictive, we can always add the bullets back.

My concern is that this page is already too long. Anything we can do to keep the wording tight will make it more likely that people will actually read it. Rossami (talk) 23:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Good addition, Fizyx and Rossami. I've made a few tweaks elsewhere, nothing major, all explained in the edit summaries I think. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:19, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why we should be especially concerned about identity theft: we are not a primary source, so we're not enabling anything that wouldn't have already been possible anyway. If the information is out there, is verifiable, was obtained legitimately, and is useful to the article content, use it.

The hyperconcern with adverse reactions by biographical subjects is a dangerous trend. --Saforrest 14:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain what do you mean by "dangerous"? Dangerous to whom? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Saforrest, as explained above, many people released their information years ago and under different circumstances than exist today. They did not realize that their private information might end up on an international web site read by millions of people. Also some people are notable for one narrow area of their life but are not overall famous people. Wikipedia guidelines reflect these different levels of notability and fame. --FloNight talk 17:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


You know, I think this issue extends past just birthdays. Would something like this fit in: wikipedia:personal information??

Policy or guideline

Getting back to Jossi's original point, should this be a policy? It is written as a guideline, meaning that it offers guidance but with many grey areas. The addition of unsourced critical information is handled by Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Biographies of living persons. Rather than making this a policy, I suggest that would be simpler all around if those aspects which we consider serious (birthdates perhaps) are added to the blocking policy, while retaining this as a guideline. -Will Beback 18:55, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

If judging by the comments made on the mailing lists, it seems to me that upgrading this guideline to policy (either in its current form or suitably amended) it is very much necessary, in particular as the profile of Wikipedia becomes more prominent. It will take one or two more snafus to compromise the project if we do not take action to curtail the use of WP to defame people who's biographies are featured in WP. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
It should be a policy. Midgley 01:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Dead people

Regarding categories, one issue/problem with having a living-specific policy, is we could have conflicts with regard to dead people. For instance, the policy says living people must be convicted of a crim Consider the wording:

For example, add only people convicted of a crime in a court of law to Category:Criminals, and make sure the conviction was not overturned on appeal. See Wikipedia:Categorization of people.

Does this also apply to dead people? If it does, we should say so explicitly here, and elsewhere. If it doesn't, we have a major consistency issue. Currently, there's a disagreement over sub-cats of Category:Criminals as to whether people famous for committing crimes, but who never were convicted, should be placed in the category. For instance, a renowned (lond dead) brothel operator, is known definatively to have committed a crime, but may never have been convicted. Since living and dead people go in the same category, some common approach seems warranted. --Rob 15:41, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue is resolved in the minds of competent editors who understand why we are careful in labeling living humans as criminals. No amount of detail in policy and guidelines can replace people actually knowing what they are doing when they edit. WAS 4.250 16:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, you feel you are the competetant editor, and I am not. Please, enlighten me, and inform me what the policy is in terms of dead people known to have done criminal activity, and not convicted of it. Do they go in the "Criminals" category, or are they excluded, as they would be if they are alive. --Rob 16:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Added: I think it's important to note a distinction between categories, and other claims within a biography. Those other claims are contained only within the biography article, so we can easily treat living bios with extra sensitivity, beyond that we would dead people, especially long dead historic figures. But, when a category has both living and dead people, it is not so easy to treat them differently. --Rob 17:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

you feel you are the competetant editor, and I am not You misunderstand me. I have no idea who you are or what you are good at. I am saying it depends. How long has he been dead, how much evidence is there he is dead, how much evidence is there he belongs in a category, is the category made irrelevant by time or other factors (Christ was executed for being a criminal, heads of state have been executed by conquoring kings as criminals), is defamation a factor, is a lawsuit a factor, does the category help people find things or is it just a way of insulting or is it mindlessly following a rule? As I say, it depends. WAS 4.250 17:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

For the record, the articles that spurred this inquiry are Phoebe Doty and Adeline Miller. We may as well throw Julia Brown in there, as well. These were well-known 19th-century prostitutes and madams, but none of them was ever convicted of anything. — BrianSmithson 17:52, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
These were the examples that brought this to light, but I don't want us to focus to much on specific cases (note: I did revert myself, and put back the category). My concern here, is the illogic have having different rules for inclusion in the *same* category. Treating one group better then another within the same category seems to be a form of bias. Where living and dead people are in the same category, we should go by the higher standard (e.g. one for living people) and use that standard for all people. If we want a lower standard for dead people, we should have a separate category for them (e.g. "Category:Deceased criminals"). Perhaps WP:LIVING should apply to all entries in a category, if any entry may be a living person. --Rob 18:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Have you forgotten about WP:V andWP:CITE? If a person, dead or a live has committed a crime and that crime is reported by a reputable source that is verifiable, then you can describe it and categorize as such. Otherwise you don't.

I would also argue that a category such as "Category:Criminals" is ridiculous as an encyclopedic category as it includes 'in the same category people that stole a pair of jeans at Wal-Mart and people that committed serial murders and rapists. A obvious case of guilt by association and I am sure a ground for POV pushing and demeaning both dead and alive people. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, according to the current wording, even if reliable sources have said somebody committed a crime, without a conviction, it is not ok for us to categorize them as a criminal. And you're right, its absurd to mix wildly different types of criminals. --Rob 19:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like you are describing a case where thoughtful knowledgeable people would use categories like "famous as prostitute", "convicted mass murderer", "famous as mass murderer" (or something like that) and put them in a larger "crime" category. I think your problem here is not being bold enough and using your abilities to the full, somehow being mislead that you are supposed to be following rules in situations where the rules don't make sense. No one is going to be sued over how we categorize what someone did 100 years ago. WAS 4.250 19:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
The individuals are already categorized as prostitutes, which is in turn categorized as an illegal occupation. That seems sufficient. Regarding the general principle, many people are known by historians to have committed crimes that they were not convicted of. Jack the Ripper, Jeff Weise, etc. -Will Beback 20:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

What is and what is not criminal varies widely. Maybe violent occupations, sex related occupations, etc? WAS 4.250 20:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Things are considered criminal here that are perfectly legal in other countries. Who are we to label them criminals? Unless we define criminals as people who violated the law of the country they were in at the time of committing the act. Then we get into arguments like having civil rights leaders (like Rosa Parks) in that category, and the debate can go on and on. Personally I think it is illogical to have such a broad category called "Criminals" for those reasons and the reasons listed above. VegaDark 05:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Please comment at Category_talk:Criminals#Use_of_this_category ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

"For example, add only people convicted of a crime in a court of law to Category:Criminals, and make sure the conviction was not overturned on appeal." ...what, by bribing the judge? --zippedmartin 14:21, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced material

The lead now reads: All unourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page.

I would argue that this needs tightening. People may add such negative materials by citing sources that are not reliable, such as a a personal homepage, USENET or a discussion forum. The current wording needs to refer to the appropriate policies to avoid this. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I added "or poorly sourced," Jossi, which might do it, as the policies are already mentioned in the intro. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I added a quote from Jimbo from WikiEN-L which makes the point quite forcefully. Just zis Guy you know? 09:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

And then I removed it because SlimVirgin had already web-cited ot fomr the list... Just zis Guy you know? 09:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Proportional weigth of criticism

I do not agree with Jossi's revert of my edit. The guidelines have to give two limits, not just one, to the space dedicated to criticisms. Otherwise I think this guideline does not properly reflect the NPOV policy of undue weight.

Here was my version

"Be careful to give a proportionate voice both to proponents and to critics to ensure that majority views and minority views are given due weight. For example, if the criticism represents a tiny-minority view then it has no place in the article."

And here is Jossi's version to which he and only he reverted repeatedly

"Be careful not to give a disproportionate voice to critics as you could be representing a minority view as if it were the majority view, and if the criticism represents a tiny-minority view, it has no place in the article."

See also Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/archive1#Ways_to_assess_a_proportionate_fraction_of_criticism_and_controversy for an old inconclusive discussion about this between Jossi and me. Andries 16:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with jossi. If it makes you feel better, consider half his reverts as coming from me. WAS 4.250 17:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Andries, you need to read that sentence in context with the first part of the section that reads" [critics] views can be represented so long as the material is relevant to the subject's notability, is based on reputable sources, and is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article, or appear to side with the critics' material. This is 100% compatible with the content policies of WP:V and WP:NPOV. You can read the last comment on that old discussion in which I addressed your concern regarding NPOV. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Also note that there is no such policy of due weight. The policy of NPOV refers unambiguosly to undue weight in this context. And lastly, this section is not about "proponents", but about "safe harbor" provisions needed to curtail critics and detractors POVs that are poorly sourced, or that represent minority views. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I also prefer Jossi's language. IMOHO it seems the more frequent error is with editors giving criticism too much weight rather than not enough (all-the-while claiming NPOV). -MrFizyx 18:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

CSD A9 now folded into A6

Hi. While reading the "Safe Harbor" section, I went to look up WP:CSD criteria A9 and couldn't find it. Eventually I discovered this edit, so I've edited this article accordingly. (BTW, A9 only existed for 9 hours!) Cheers, CWC(talk) 06:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Template

I've created Template:blp, which says:

This article should adhere closely to the policies and guidelines relevant to biographies of living persons.

The template can be placed on the talk pages of biographies, so that new editors know what to do, and so that subjects of bigraphies can see what policies apply and who to contact if something goes wrong. I also thought we could add to the page a list of editors willing to help subjects sort out biography problems, so they don't have to contact the Foundation as a first step. Any thoughts about doing that? SlimVirgin (talk) 02:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this whole template idea. I disagree with "adhere closely". If I had a better idea, I would give it. I only know this is less than optimum. We can do better. WAS 4.250 03:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Should be edited in accordance with? SlimVirgin (talk) 07:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
How about "This article must be edited in accordance with biographies of living persons; especially no unsourced accusations."? WAS 4.250 12:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
WAS 4.250, your wording is probably better because it more specifically spells out the problem that we are addressing. FloNight talk 13:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I think advice on what people should do about their own biographies, perhaps belongs in WP:AUTO (bio subjects are often sent there). I have suggested on Wikipedia talk:Autobiography, that people seeing negative unsourced statements should *not* wait for assistance from other Wikipedians, but should instead just remove such stuff. You're idea of a list of editors willing to help such people is still good (and can go in either/both places), but I don't want people to think they have to tolerate negative unsourced statements about themselves for one second. Hypothetically, if somebody says you were implicated in a Kennedy assassination (for a purely random example), please don't ask for help first, just remove the junk. Nobody should revert you, and if they do, then you can go to WP:ANI for some help (e.g. blocking the offender). --Rob 03:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I like the template. I think "adhere closely" is okay. Perhaps there is better wording, but I don't know what it is. Rob, I think we have to walk a fine line here. There are many people that start vanity articles about themselves and would love to dictate the content. We need to be careful not to give them the impression that they have the final word. I like the list of editors that are willing to help with BLP. FloNight talk 03:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Also, some real world people don't want to make the changes themselves. They expect us to fix it for them because we were the ones that messed up. FloNight talk 03:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify things: do you agree with my basic premise that a) anybody (including the bio subject themselve) is welcome to immediately remove any *unsourced* negative claims against themselves (or any living person); and b) another editor putting back those claims repeatedly without sources is a blockeable offense. I'm not clear if we disagree with what the policy is, or with how to present it. --Rob 04:41, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that repeatedly putting back negative unsourced claims could be a blockable offense. My concern deals with how to express our policy to real world people that are not editors. --FloNight talk 04:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

And there are different opinions among editors (and sometimes admin.) about whether the content is properly sourced! FloNight talk 04:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Rob, I agree that subjects should be allowed to remove unsourced negative material, but I've seen it happen several times that they end up being blocked for disruption or 3RR, or they make a legal threat and get blocked indefinitely. I think this is happening less and less because the Foundation has made it clear that it takes living bio issues very seriously, but even so, I think it's helpful if a subject can be directed quickly to WP:BLP where he can find information abour the policies and who to contact if there's a problem. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps there ought to be a template for the article itself as well? Living people with articles about them seem (from their statements in other media) to frequently arrive at Wikipedia with no idea how to use the site, and too upset to go through the documentation carefully, and they tend to either go away and say bad things about Wikipedia or mangle the article reporting what's wrong with it. Something like: "This article describes a living person. If you are this person and wish to provide corrections, please add to the discussion page". At least in the case of Jaron Lanier, his initial response was to add his discussion of the article to the article itself, where it was quickly removed (along with any changes to the actual article content he had made). I suspect that if there had been directions for him on a page he saw, he could have resolved the issues without the frustration. 66.92.72.41 15:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Be clear this applies everywhere

Currently we have:

Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page.

Logically this shouldn't be limited to the article and talk page, it should apply anywhere. Whether in the AFD, user page, user talk page, project space, whatever. If it's not ok to say something on an article talk page, its likely not ok on a user page or user talk page (if the bio subject is named there). --Rob 20:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree! FloNight talk 16:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I changed this section to include the wording that appears earlier in the article. See if this addresses your concern. FloNight talk 17:08, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Some advice please. There is a page about Z, the leader of a group. Editor A was a former member of Z's group and believes it is a cult. On the Z article talk page, A expressed his opinion that the "Z's group broke up my parent's marriage." Editor B, a current member of Z's group, removed the comment based on this policy. (I think that removal can be justified.) Would it be justified to remove the same comment from A's talk page discussion with editor C? (Neither A, B nor C are accusing others of violating WP:CIVIL, ie this is not part of a rant). Gimmetrow 17:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The argument that the rules which apply to article space "logically shouldn't be limited to" article space seems to me to fail to take into account the major differences between article space and non-article space. In article space, Wikipedia might be construed as endorsing any claims it repeats. In non-article space, where people are signing their posts, it is clearer that people are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of Wikipedia. I must confess I'm unclear on how such a major policy point came to be made during a "light copy edit"[10]; the post of Jimbo's that is provided as a reference [11] is clearly discussing article space (the only place where {{citation needed}} tags are used) and Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Biographies of living persons doesn't say "if the material is unsourced, or incorrectly sourced," it says "the material is unsourced, or incorrectly sourced, and may constitute defamation." (emphasis added).
I find Gimmetrow's example above to be a perfect illustration of why "this applies everywhere" is taking things way too far -- is Gimmetrow seriously suggesting that Editor A cannot express his own opinion about his own personal experience until a reliable source has published "Z's group broke up the marriage of Editor A's parents"? (For that matter, it's highly disturbing that a policy about "biographies of living persons" is being used to justify removal from the talk page of an article, not about living person Z, but about Z's group. Where exactly does this logic of "well, it isn't about a living person, but it's about something associated with a living person" stop?) -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:04, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
A signed post does not mean much, does it? Anyone can get an account and post potentially defamatory material about a living person (either on the persons' article or related articles.) Such material, if it is unsources or poorly sourced, can and should be refactored from talk pages. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Um, no, that's not what I was suggesting. In fact, I disagree with the removal of material from the talk page. Editor B has been using the policy (negative material about the living subject of a biography may be removed from the article and associated talk page) to delete all negative material, even items of a non-rant nature that relate to the other editors understanding their respective backgrounds. (Article is about Z himself, btw.) On no other controversial page I follow is similar, non-rant content deleted from talk pages. Nevertheless, it seems possible to support it based on the former policy, and in fact editor B has basically threatened other editors with violation of this policy if such discussion happens again. The "article and its talk page" part has been in place for a month, and while it does seem a bit much to extend to talk page, it's specific and applies to only two pages. Extending this to all wiki is a bad idea. Gimmetrow 20:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Gimmetrow, could you give a (simple) example of a legitimate edit about a living person that would be prevented by this policy? I didn't follow your example about A,B,C, and Z. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
SV is right. See the bit where it says "unsourced or poorly sourced"? Such material has no place on Wikipedia, especially where it applies to a living person. Well-sourced and referenced criticism is, and always has been, acceptable. Just zis Guy you know? 21:24, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
So are you saying that two editors may not discuss their own opinions about the subject of article, either on the article talk page or on their own user talk pages? One editor believes the subject is the leader of a cult, another related personal examples of specific incidents, and a third related how the group impacted his family. All of these comments (on the article talk page) were deleted by another editor, a member of the group, under this policy.
None of the editors have themselves been interviewed, so their specific opinions or experiences are not sourceable. Would it make a difference if it were verifiable that someone else claims he is a cult leader, or if newpaper articles existed describing events like the ones related by the editors? Gimmetrow 21:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Usual rules apply. If a reliable external source says that the person is a cult leader, then it can be discussed. If no reliable external source exists, then it can't. Just zis Guy you know? 22:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Gimmet, the point is that Wikipedia is a public website, so when we post material on it, we are publishing it. Anything false and harmful is therefore a potential libel; and the law apart, we also have a moral responsibility to be fair to people. User and talk pages are cached by Google along with articles, so which part of the website the material is published on makes no difference. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Talk pages are there to discuss the article and not the subject. You may want to read Wikipedia:Talk pages and WP:NOT in which it is clearly stated that WP is not a dicussion forum or USENET. While some exchanges are useful, I would argue that extensive use of talk pages to debate the subject of an article, it is not useful for the purpose of editing an encyclopedia. If people want to debate subjects, there are plenty of forums, bullentin boards, chatrooms and USENET out there. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Be kind to newbies. I'm trying to figure out the policies. I'm interested in this because on a few other pages, discussion that is much more negative and propagandistic is left on the talk pages. I'm fine that some things are not OK on an article talk page, but it seems that both me and AF have a problem with extending the policy to all of wiki. If you want to comment on my specific example, here's the diff. The discussion relates to the arbitration hearing on this article. Gimmetrow 00:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I think your example is exactly the type of thing we should remove, on sight, if unsourced. People with a personal involvement in something, who are saying somebody hurt them (or their loved ones) are particularly problemetic, because there's potential for a maliscious intent (I'm not saying that's the case here). If it's not published, it shouldn't be included. The one big difference between article space and talk space, which I'll concede, is that we shouldn't be "picky" about footnoting/detail in talk pages. For instance, if I say David Duke was with the Klan, I probably don't need to footnote every sentence, as its readily available in many authoritative sources. However, the same fact (and all related ones) should be thoroughly cited in the article, with footnotes galore (especially certain ones, that are disputed). --Rob 18:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate your response, and I'm glad someone responded. Yes I can see that it could be problematic. But sometimes these issues need to be discussed somewhere, and the editor in question won't even allow a link on the talk page to an external site set up to discuss these issues. If google caching is an issue, then it would seem obvious: prevent caching of user pages. Apparently Antaeus Felspar above also has some concern with "applies everywhere." Gimmetrow 17:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I am the one who posted the removed section in diff. My father filed and won an "Alienation of Affection" court case in Ohio against the man I claimed broke up my parent's marriage. For this reason, I would claim that my input in the article was not libelious. How fine is the detail on this. Does every negative comment on the talk page about a living person need a reference? If there is already a statement in the artilce claiming that the subject of the article breaks up marriages, could a person write on the talk page: "My parents are another example of what is referred to in the article." Bernie Radecki 00:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Needs clarification

The following two sentences are in the text, and they confuse:

Information available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Information found in self-published books, newspapers, or websites/blogs should never be used, unless written by the subject (see below).

Could this be clarified?-- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:35, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

This is my understanding.
  1. If a derogatory statement about Mr. Bar is made on www.anti-bar.com, don't repeat such derogatory statements in the biographical article of Mr. Bar.
  2. If Mr. Bar self-publishes a book or edits a blog called "Life in the trenches, by Mr. Bar", you can quote from that book or blog in the biographical article of Mr. Bar. '
  3. If Mr. Foo, a detractor of Mr. Bar, self-publishes a book or edits a blog called "My staunchest enemy: Mr. Bar", you cannot cite this book or blog on Mr. Bar's biographical article (but you could quote from these on Mr. Foo's article, if Mr. Foo is notable enough to have an article in WP).
Hope this helps. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
It seems that my reading abilities were not up to par at that moment. Thanks for the clarification. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
What if Mr. Foo says Mr. Bar is a pedophile? What if nobody else has ever made that allegation, and there's no evidence to support it. Do we allow it in Mr. Foo's article, just because it was said by Mr. Foo. In such a case, we would be the first independent publisher of the that allegation. Just because somebody has an article, doesn't mean they should be given a pulpit to preach from it. If Mr. Foo is truly notable, and people care about Mr. Foo's opinions on Mr. Bar, they'll be covered independently. For instance, we can easily cover the Dixie Chicks criticisms of Bush, because they're widely covered (and similiar criticisms have been made by countless others). Also an inherent danger of personal web sites, and blogs, is the author (Mr. Foo) can retract/reword anything, at anytime, with no explanation, with no record in archive.org or google cache, or anywhere else (archival against consent is copyvio). In such cases, one could never prove Mr. Foo actually said what we claimed he did. --Rob 20:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
If Mr. Foo is notable enough to have an article in WP, and Mr. Foo has an official website, and Mr Foo claims in his website that Mr. Bar is a pedophile, we can report that verifiable fact (on Mr. Foo's article only, and nowehere else), and we are not the first one publishing that because it is published on Mr. Foo's official (and public) website. If Mr. Bar aseesses this to be libel, he can file a libel case against Mr. Foo. He cannot file a libel case against the Wikimedia Foundation, as we are only describing Mr. Foo's opinion as stated on Mr. Foo's website. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 05:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
This is still only marginally allowable because this example would make Wikipedia a secondary source (Mr. Foo's website being the primary source). Encyclopedias are by definition tertiary sources and include primary and secondary source material only on a rare and exceptional basis. Rossami (talk) 05:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
You are right as the example I gave was not a good one, as it is related to a controversy (Mr Foo making a controversial statement abour Mr Bar). I was trying to give an example of WP:RS as it relates to WP:RS#Personal_websites_as_primary_sources.≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 10:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Following up on Rossami's comment, this is my understanding:

Not permissible as per WP content policies
Mr. Foo is notable enough to have an article in WP, and Mr. Foo has an official website, and Mr Foo claims in his website that Mr. Bar is a pedophile (an allegation that is not supported by tertiary sources), we can report that verifiable fact (on Mr. Foo's article only, and nowhere else), and we are not the first one publishing that because it is published on Mr. Foo's official (and public) website.
Permissibly per WP content policies
Mr. Foo is notable enough to have an article in WP, and Mr. Foo has an official website, and Mr Foo claims in his website that he has perfect pitch (a claim that is not supported by tertiary sources), we can report that verifiable fact because it is published on Mr. Foo's official (and public) website.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Are summaries of subarticles exempt from the reference negative opinions rule?

In article Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an editor has now removed twice {{fact}} tags I placed on negative views of this... unpopular... figure. His argument is that the info is sourced in the subarticle. Should I let it go, insist, delete the unsourced material? What do you all think? --CTSWyneken 16:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Could you provide a diff? Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure! my request for references, first revert, I restore request with further explanation, reverted a second time. I hope to get some clarification here if the folk working on the policy find references in a sub-article suffient, as far as WP:BLP is concerned. --CTSWyneken 23:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why not to include the refences available in the subarticle. Think of the reader: he/she may not malke the effort to go and read the subarticle. So we need to have that summary properly referenced as well as per WP:V. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
FYI, I reinserted the {{fact}} tags and a second editor removed them. The implication of what is being said is that this guideline does not apply, since the cites are in the subarticle. Since I'm not an admin, and I've reached my second revert, I need to back off. If others agree this guideline should be fought for in the case, Jossi and I could use some support. --CTSWyneken 12:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
CTS, could you perhaps copy the citations from the subarticle into the disputed paragraph? SlimVirgin (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I will do that. For the matter of principle, though, do we want to let this sort of thing go or insist on citations being in the article itself? --CTSWyneken 15:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Generally speaking, citations should be in each article, because as Jossi said, the reader may not want to have to search for citations in a sub-article; and if the citations exist in the sub-article, it's easy to copy them into the main article too. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I appreciate the opinion. --CTSWyneken 18:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Disputed statements from personal site as source

Mr. Foo's personal website says that Mr. Foo did X. This fact is not published in any other reliable source. The counter-claim exists, but not in a reliable source that can be used in a wiki article. Perhaps it's in a blog (not reliable), perhaps Mr. Foo has even admitted the contrary in person or private letter (not verifiable), or in maybe the source doesn't fall under fair use for some reason. Is the statement that "Mr. Foo did X" allowable in the article? What about "Mr. Foo states that he did X"? What, if any, notice should be taken that this is disputed in sources wiki considers unreliable? The point of this is to explore the limitations currently listed for use of personal sites. Gimmetrow 17:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC) (edited 20:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC))

Can you give a concrete example, Gimmetrow? I'm finding it hard to follow whether Mr. Foo is the source of the claim or counter-claim. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
You can simply say: "According to www.foo.com, Mr. Foo did this and that". That is perfectly acceptable if the "did this and that" does not implies defamatory statements about Mr. Bar. Meaning that you can use self-published sources for material about the publisher but not as material about any other article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
What if there is some contention whether Mr. Foo actually did the "this and that" that he claims on his website? Does Mr. Foo have free reign in using it in his article without any supporting source? It seems to give Mr. Foo a big advantage if he can make unsourced assertions in an article, but other editors of Mr. Foo's article cannot even make negative comments on the talk page unless they have an independent, third party source for the comments. Bernie Radecki 00:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC) Bernie Radecki 00:26, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I was imagining a situation where even the existence of a counter-claim is not yet verifiable except in blogs. I suppose in most cases, if it hasn't been picked up outside the blogosphere yet, it's either not pertinent, or not developed enough. Gimmetrow 00:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Again, an actual example would help. We can use X's blog as a source on X himself in an article about X, but not otherwise, and not as a source on any third party. See WP:V and WP:RS. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I tried to think of examples, but to fit the scenario I have in mind most involved such unimportant facts that they wouldn't have a place in an encyclopedia anyway. Best I could think of were Gimmetrow 01:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Mr. Foo politican says he never supported XYZ cause, blogs dispute it based on first-hand info, but no "legit" news organization has picked it up yet (possibly because opposing XYZ cause is not that central to why Mr. Foo is a notable politican)
  • Mr. Foo claims to have college degree X, blogs of people who knew him say he didn't graduate
  • Blogs dispute the early history of MRFOO.com, but the only verifiable source we can use is the FAQ from MRFOO.com itself, which doesn't acknowledge any dispute
Gimmetrow, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:V must be interpreted together with WP:BLP and WP:RS. No single policy/guideline can determine if the content is encyclopedic by Wikipedia measures. They must be used together. FloNight talk 00:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
In your example above, Gimmetrow, it is verifiable that Mr. Foo made or makes claims A, B and C. And that is what we can report in the article about Mr. Foo. We are not asserting that that these claims are true, only that it is verifiable that Mr Foo makes these claims. If a reliable third party source supports these claims, that can also be included. If a reliable third party source disputes that, it can also be reported as such. That is what FloBight is saying: WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR have to be all applied as a whole, with a little help of WP:BLP as Mr. Foo is a living person. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The scenario is that even the dispute itself is not reported in reliable source. Of these statements:
  • Mr. Foo did A.
  • Mr. Foo says he did A; nobody disputes it.
  • Mr. Foo says he did A.
  • Mr. Foo says he did A, but this may be disputed.
  • Mr. Foo says he did A, but this is disputed.
which would be ruled out by any of the above policies? Gimmetrow 15:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
It depends who disputes these claims. If the claims are disputed in a reliable source, it can be stated in the article that Mr, Food claims to have done A, but according to reliable source XYZ he didn't. On the other hand, if the claims are disputed in a source considered to be not a reliable source for material about Mr Foo, (such as MrFooSucks.com) then the last two on your list can be ruled out. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, you are missing an important point. As Wikipedia editors it is not our job to determine the truth or decide which point of view is most valid. Because we take this position, it doesn't matter if a particular fact appears in an article or not if it is not verifiable, notable information that is supported by reliable sources. If something is disputed by a non-valid source, editors without a point of view about the topic are not too likely to care one way or the other if the information is left out of the article. It is possible that harm can come to a living person if someone plants false information about him or her. For that reason, we need to be careful about repeating information that conflicts with that reported by an individual in this situation. The best course of action might be leaving the information out completely until the conflict is cleared up.

Traditionally, individuals self-report their educational and employment history on CV's that they give to outside organizations. For that reason, it is unlikely to matter if their college graduation is self-reported on their web site vs. another organization's web site. If we are lucky, we can find CV's posted on an employer's web site or the person might have a profile available from a business or professional organization. Often these organizations require people to sign statements that the information is valid and sometimes it is validated. Since self reporting is the most common method of getting this type of information, if I saw a conflict between self reported information on an individual's web site and information in a published profile, I might carefully explore the matter by checking publications dates, looking for corrections, or looking for more published sources to double check the information. Unfortunately, it is possible that an "opponent" is knowingly exploiting an innocent publishing error or even planted the error in a borderline reliable source, like an interview with a reputable news organization. For this reason, like I said above, completely removing the information might be the most appropriate response if a living person complains about the information in an Wikipedia article or if there is a conflict that you have not completely resolved. FloNight talk 17:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

FloNight, I understand what you're saying, I said much the same above - in most cases the facts involved would be too unimportant for an encyclopedia. The appropriate approach would be to either leave the information out, or perhaps to report it in the simplest way possible as "Mr. Foo says he did X". The other statements might appear in an article if supporters or critics of Mr. Foo get involved. The issue seems to be that there is only one "reliable source" here, a weak source that could be self-serving. Would the existence of blog-level dispute be grounds to exclude mention of Mr. Foo's claim as "contentious"? Even if the dispute were planted by an "opponent", it would mean some opponent finds the claim contentious enough to create a dispute. Gimmetrow 17:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
An important distintion, Gimmetrow. Statements of critics of Mr. Foo can be described in the article of Mr. Foo, if their POV is reported by a reliable published tertiary source only. A blog is not considered a reliable source (unless the blogger is a notable expert on the field which that Blog is about). ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Take it to an extreme and you may see this clearly. Imagine a blogger starting a blog "redmondSucks.com" by an ex-employee of Misrosoft, in which he writes that higher-up Microsoft executive XYZ is an alcoholic, based on the blogger's witness accounts. Would you consider adding that information to that excutive's article in WP? Of course not. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:59, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
That is not the scenario I'm talking about. I'm imagining a positive statement executive XYZ makes, perhaps that he donated $B to charity C, but which is disputed in a non-verifiable way. Not mentioning either claim or dispute would be fine. If the claim were mentioned, would it be considered self-serving or contentious or otherwise objectionable? Would it be contentious to say that "nobody disputes this"? Would it be contentious to say not that XYZ claims it, but that it did happen, since all reliable sources are in agreement on this? (I mention the latter because I recall a discussion where some editor was arguing exactly that - if all reliable sources agree the encyclopedia can state it as if it were "truth.") Gimmetrow 18:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
See my example:
Mr. Foo is notable enough to have an article in WP, and Mr. Foo has an official website, and Mr Foo claims in his website that he has perfect pitch (a claim that is not supported by tertiary sources), we can report that verifiable fact because it is published on Mr. Foo's official (and public) website. A blog claims that he has not such perfect pitch and that ths is a self-serving statement by Mr. Foo. As per guidelines, we can state Mr. Foo's claims of perfect picth, and we cannot state that it is disputed, as a blog is not a reliable source. Also, we cannot state that "nobody disputes this" as that statement is not not verifiable. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Gimmetrow, we only report what reliable sources say; or in an article about the executive, what he says about himself so long as (a) it is not unduly self-aggrandizing, (b) it is notable, (c) it is not contradicted by reliable third-party sources. If no one reliable reports there is dispute, there is no dispute as far as WP is concerned (and blogs can't be used as third-party sources). If you read WP:V and WP:RS, you'll have a better idea of what's allowed. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
It seems like you are saying that a self-serving statement is not "contentious" unless the dispute meets WP:V and WP:RS. That makes sense, although then the counter-claim could just be stated in an article anyway, and the "contentious" limitation seems rarely applicable. I was trying to ascertain if this worked like an adversarial court system, where once evidence is excluded the opposition can positively affirm that it doesn't exist. Gimmetrow 20:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
I think we'd need a real example, because these hypothetical ones may not be including all relevant factors. The opposition can't positively affirm that evidence is excluded. The way to write articles is simply to report what all reliable sources have said, and perhaps add "according to" if the source isn't very good. "John Doe, chief executive officer of Doe Inc, became a well-known contributor to Charity X in 2005, according to his website." Or if the source is the NYT, cite the article after the sentence, because they are regarded as a very mainstream, reliable source and so "according to" wouldn't normally be needed. But be careful not to use "according to" in a way that undermines what the source says. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
The problem with a "real example" is that the issue can get lost in the details. I thank you for the discussion. The only thing I have left is, when would the "contentious" limitation on statements from personal sites come into play? Gimmetrow 23:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello again Gimmetrow : - ) The term "self-serving statement" needs to be used with care. Remember that the real living people that we are talking about are much more than subjects of Wikipedia articles. It probably would never occur to them that someone would see the ordinary statements found on their web site as self serving. In the example I used above about the CV, many people would be insulted to have their CV labeled as a "self-serving statement." We need to be careful with the language we use. This something that experienced Wikipedia editors have learned over time and the reason that WP:BLP was written. A careful balancing act to make sure that the article is a balanced presentation of verifiable, notable information relevant per WP:BLP. Regards, FloNight talk 23:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The answer to that question, Gimmetrow, is well explained in the numerous examples and comments given by Slimvirgin, myself and others. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

FloNight's and Slim's responses have been helpful. I will think about the rest and move on to other things. Gimmetrow 03:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Please look at this article

G._Patrick_Maxwell Talk:G._Patrick_Maxwell This policyguideline should apply. There is a contentious section, which depends upon a single, primary, source. Midgley 01:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

3RR

I have some concerns about this sentence: "Editors should remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material from biographies of living persons and their talk pages, and may do so without discussion and without regard to the three-revert rule." First, just from a technical perspective, doesn't this mean that we have a guideline (BLP) trumping policy (3RR)? I understand that there is a push to make this policy but regardless of the merits, I would advocate taking out the invitation to violate 3RR until this is policy. Having said that, I think that it should not be policy, as it undermines the spirit of 3RR which is that if your reversion is proper, others will support it. What I find especially troublesome is the phrase "poorly sourced" as this is an invitation to POV, I think. If something is clearly defamatory -- well, let's say I restored the Siegenthaler article to its former horrid state, and continued to revert back to it. Would an individual editor need to violate 3RR to protect the article from me? I think what would happen is multiple editors would be elbowing each other out of the way to undo what I had done, and I would be swiftly blocked. Why is that not enough? Also: editors may make multiple “without discussion?” That seems utterly contrary to the spirit of WP. I would love to have everyone’s input. IronDuke 18:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. Sometimes open discussion is not desirable. The information must be removed ASAP. Everyone and his brother does not need to see and discuss some obvious problematic material. FloNight talk 19:11, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Since leaving the material in can cause real world harm, we remove the problematic material first and discuss it later. Deleting the material does not stop discussion and development of consensus. It stops the harm that may occur to real people and Wikipedia if harmful information is allowed to remain on the site. 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."
This means leaving it in Wikipedia is not an option. Everyone needs to step back and let negative, poorly sourced material be removed. FloNight talk 20:04, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
IronDuke, what you say is correct for pages that are watched a lot, but there are lots of bios that few people have on their watchlists, and for those pages, editors have to be able to remove unsourced or badly sourced negative material, even if someone else is constantly trying to restore it. The vandalism policy also trumps 3RR, as does the banned user policy, so we're not introducing a precedent here. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you both for responding so quickly. I see what you both are saying, but it seems to me that the only solution to someone inserting bad info on a BLP is to call for help. It isn't going to do any good reverting more than three times, not in the long run. And again: "without discussion?" That seems so contrary to everything else here. What do you think of this: a BLP notice board, monitored by admins, could be created and after a first reversion of bad info on a BLP, editors could leave a warning template on the other user's talk page and report it at the BLP notice board. That will solve the problem and get the bad info off WP a lot faster than silent, multiple reversions. Slim, as to your point: reversions in regard to vandalism and banned users are policy, not guidelines, right? I hope I'm not nit-picking here, but this is only a guideline and I think the issue is serious enough that it should either be policy or editors should not be encouraged to violate 3RR. IronDuke 22:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

How to interpret the above statement

"Editors should remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material from biographies of living persons and their talk pages, and may do so without discussion; this is also listed as an exception to the three-revert rule."

The essential phrase "Editors should remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material" occurs twice in this article, and it's badly writen because it's not clear. Does it only refer to negative material? Or is unsourced material meant to be singled out whether negative or not? It can be read in two possible ways:

Editors should remove any unsourced (or poorly sourced negative) material

or

Editors should remove any (unsourced or poorly sourced) negative material

This issue has actually come up, in the context of bio of a living person in which some editors seem to think that so long as material is not negative, it really needs no good source. Thus, neutral "info" material or stuff they have from private emails, they believe is includable, simply because it's not libelous. I would argue that for non-famous persons, it's an invasion of privacy. See the Talk page for Houston McCoy for more. Steve 18:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The original sentence was "unsourced negative material". "Or poorly sourced" as added to clarify "unsourced." Neutral "info" directly from the subject of the bio is generally includable if relevant, but privacy concerns could prevent inclusion. Truly unsourced material can be removed per WP:V, which is a major policy; WP:BLP is only a guideline. Gimmetrow 19:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we need to be citing sources. However, let's be realistic. WP:V does not say to remove all information that is unsourced. If we did that, a huge number of articles would completely disappear because they have no source whatsoever. I think it is clear that this BLP guideline is aimed at preventing libel. As such, there is no added imperative to remove unsourced positive or neutral statements from articles on living persons - no more so than our general desire for accuracy and sourcing, and clearly unsourced statements are allowed (not desired) in general. Johntex\talk 21:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely, the BLP guideline relates to libel. Unsourced neutral material often represents "common knowledge" of editors familiar with the subject - but if challenged by another editor in good faith, maybe it should be sourced? Gimmetrow 21:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I would generally agree with that statement. Johntex\talk 21:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Using a personal website to expound on a personal, unpublished theory

Let's say there is an individual who has an article in Wikipedia but who has had very little media coverage and coverage has been primarily negative (say it dealt with his denying the holocaust occurred, allegations that he embezzeled funds from a political party and numerous charities in 1988 and then again in 1994 and 2002, and his participation in starting a soup kitchen in 1996 but that he had to leave due to an allegation of misappropriation of funds. He was only convicted once in 1994). Let's say this individual has a website in which he denies the negative media allegations and claims that the media is against him due to his personal political view that President Bush is controlled by the Israeli state. No media outlet has ever published or mentioned the individual's thoughts on this subject. The individual would like the Wikipedia article on himself to expound on his political theory because he feels that is what he is known for. Further, he objects to the inclusion of the negative material since he feels it is his politcial theory that he is known for. Should the article be primarily about his political theory since his website serves him as a verifiable resource? Bernie Radecki 22:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, you clearly have a specific case in mind and it would be helpful if you told us what page you're talking about. However, speaking only in generalities, his personal website is not a reliable source for any but the most uncontroversial of topics. I might trust a personal website to pull an occasional quote or to correct an entry on hair color but would not rely on it as the basis for the whole article. Furthermore, the website would be a primary source. Citing it would make Wikipedia a secondary source. Encyclopedias, however, are tertiary sources by definition. In general, personal websites do not meet the requirements of Wikipedia:Verifiable. Rossami (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
For a person to have an article on Wikipedia, they must be notable in a Wikipedia specific encyclopedic way. This means that they must have verifiable reliable sources about their area of notability. We can use their own web site to help fill in appropriate background details about their life. Depending on their area of notability, we might also use it to expand or clarify their opinions on various topics. Agree that we need to know specifics of the biography to answer the specific issues raised in the question. FloNight talk 23:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
[Francis Schuckardt] is the article I am involoved with although my example above was contrived. In the actual case, there is media coverage on his starting a splinter group from the Catholic Church, allegations of incompetance to be in charge of a church, alleged drug and sexual abuse, allegations that he considers himself to be the Pope, and coverage on the unique or bizarre beliefs and practices of his church. The media coverage started in the early 80s and has occurred as recently as 2005 on MSNBC. Francis Schuckardt's unpublished religious belief is that the Catholic Church in Rome has lost the faith due changing its teachings after Vatican Council II in the late 60s. He considers himself as a bishop of the real Catholic Church. A member of his church started a website after the Wikipedia article was created and has now copied a lot of Shuckardt's unpublished material on the state of the Catholic Church from the website to the Wikipedia article. This case is now in arbitration One of the arbitrators has posted this quote: "If the subject or a their representative edits the article they may offer information correcting the article or that information may be available through a personal website, blog or other self-published material such as an autobiography. Such material should be used in preference to contradictory unsourced material". I am wondering how much of his unpublished beliefs on the state of the Catholic Church should be in the article. Bernie Radecki 23:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
To clarify through a somewhat contrived example, if I edit the article and say "The bishop's hair is black" but don't provide a source, you can look to the blog or personal website to overturn that edit and say "No, it was dyed in that picture. The bishop's hair is red". But if someone pulls up a New York Times article which says "The bishop's hair is really blonde", that takes precedence over the non-independent cite.
Of course, none of the sourcing has any bearing on whether or not the bishop's hair color is relevant to the article. The decision about what to include and how much of it to include is an editorial decision to be worked out on the article's Talk page. Your original question was "Should the article be primarily about his ... theory since his website serves as a verifiable resource?" The answer to that question, I believe, is no. The article should primarily be about the things which are independently sourced. Rossami (talk) 00:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Here is just one more question. What if the New york Times article reads: "His barber stated that the bishops hair is gray." Would this published statement that contradicts the bishop's website trump the bishop's website assertion or would you have to give both viewpoints like this: "Although the bishop's website shows him to have red hair, his barber told reporters that his hair is gray."Bernie Radecki 14:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Something like the latter would seem appropriate. Even if multiple independent sources agreed the hair was gray, it may be appropriate to also state that his personal website still says it is red. How much this dispute is covered would depend on how important the hair color is to the article. Gimmetrow 17:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
His website may be used as a source of information about himself in an article about him. How much of it should be included would depend on the article and the context. It shouldn't be so much that it crosses the line from being encyclopedic to turning Wikipedia into a platform for his beliefs. Where that line is drawn is a judgment call for the page editors. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I have been watching that article for a while and made comments in its talk page. IMO, the article as written is too long, tedious to read and incomprehensible to all but to insiders. Given that there is very little tertiary sources on the subject, that article needs to be reduced to a much shorter version. Less is more in these situations. As editors of this page are currently under arbitration, I am awaiting to see its result before commenting any further. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 05:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it is against protocol for me to even bring the topic up at this time. I was just curious, that is why I used a contrived example originally. My apologies for being over-anxious. Bernie Radecki 05:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)