Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

This page is for discussing edits concerning the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy page. For assistance with concerns about an article relative to this policy please utilize the biographies of living persons noticeboard.

Archive index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Reason for distinction between living vs. dead people?

Sorry if this is an obvious question but what's the reason for treating living and dead people differently? Does Wikipedia have different responsibilites under the law?

Thanks, nyenyec ☎ 20:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

In a word, yes. Also, dead people complain less. SBHarris 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue also came up in Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_5#Biographies_of_Dead_People and, strangely enough, Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Archive_5#When "living" is disputed. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Verifying an identity?

How does one go about identifying an identity? An admin claims to be contacted by a extremely well know conspiracy theorist on his talk page. The person posts solely from an IP address, that is not from the college they are known to be at, but a DSL line in another part of California. The admin has been in edit wars over the article, and the article ended up protected. One could even say the admin has been arguing that people that believe in conspiracy theories are "not all there." Which makes them an odd person to have been contacted if the theorist was looknig for a sympathetic ear. The admin edits the protected article according to the request the anon left. Oddly enough the anon did not leave any proof, register an account with their known email at their affiliated college or anything. Do you remove the paragraph? is this a COI? How does one go about verifying this, its kinda odd timing, and the persons homepage and articles they write on a known site have not been updated to reflect this "new view" they claim to have. While I am sure people change their ideas, how do I verify this? is an anon message enough to edit a protected article you had been in edit wars over? --NuclearZer0 21:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Diffs

• 21:43, 16 February 2007
• 21:47, 16 February 2007
• 22:15, 16 February 2007

Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Admins have no special protection from following the same edit rules we all follow. Being "contacted" by person x personally is not a reliable source. I'm fairly sure the admin is not a "widely-known journalist". Feel free to revert and file a complaint against the admin if you feel they are acting improperly. Wjhonson 07:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Does WP:BLP justify the removal of talk page sections where someone expresses a personal opinion?

I would like to hear input on the following question. Suppose someone on an article talk page expresses a personal opinion that a particular public figure is "crazy and bad". That's it. There are no facts being alleged, which could be right or wrong, or well-sourced or poorly-sourced or unsourced, it's simply one person's opinion that that public figure is "crazy and bad". I will stipulate, by the way, that article talk pages are not for the sharing of such opinions and that someone who posts them should be gently informed to save such opinions for a personal blog or some other forum; the poster in question was in fact so advised.

My question is this: Is an editor who sees someone expressing a personal opinion of this nature entitled to remove the entire talk page section, or even just to edit the other editor's words to eliminate any reference to the public figure, claiming that WP:BLP entitles them to do so immediately? I would appreciate hearing opinions on this. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Any unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons, whether opinion or purported fact, should be removed from articles and talk pages. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Are Wikipedia editors considered to be living people for the purposes of this discussion? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I would consider the action to be on a par with the redaction of a personal attack - possibly appropriate but only to be done with caution and only for the most serious of inappropriate comments. Rossami (talk) 02:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

A distinction should be made between notable LPs and Wikipedia editors as it pertains to the application of various policies. For the former, WP:BLP applies for articles, talk pages, etc. For the latter, as Rossami says, WP:NPA applies, and WP:REFACTOR is always an option. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

It's appropriate to remove the offending words, but only the smallest amount should be censored, and not a whole section, if it's not necessary. We shouldn't let people use a few bad words, as an excuse to wipe out an entire thread of mainly legit conversation. We should try to preserve the historical record of our discussions on talk pages, to the extent practical, and safe. --Rob 03:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would say so, Antaeus. If you mean can we removed unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about ourselves, yes we can, certainly if someone uses our real names. If someone were to write "SlimVirgin's a moron," I'd be less inclined to claim BLP if I removed it, and anyway there aren't enough hours in the day. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:14, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it time to Make WP:SEMI the rule for WT:BLP?

I've noticed a lot of anon vandalism on BLPs lately. Since we have this policy that holds those articles to a higher standard, I wonder if it's appropriate to make semi-protection become the norm for BLPs. Users that aren't logged in could still post new info to the talk page, but not touch the bio itself. I don't think it's too high a barrier to ask someone to create an account before they can edit BLPs.

I don't want to create a bunch of work for admins here, so maybe I'm asking for a template that nonymous editors can use to tag an article as being a BLP and automatically protect it against anonymous edits. And that implies that a logged-in editor could also remove that template. But doing so would leave an audit trail, and unless there was a good reason to do it (the subject of the bio died, or the template were originally applied in error), it would affect the reputation of that editor, so it isn't something many people would do lightly.

There. I said it. Now tell me why anonymous edits to BLPs should be allowed. The Monster 05:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think that from the perspective of legal liability, anons are less problematic than editors with handles. If an IP-anon defames someone, they can see the IP directly, which takes them one step closer to finding them for retribution. semper fictilis 04:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed courtesy deletion for persons of borderline notability

Please review and comment at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability_%28people%29#Proposed_courtesy_deletion_for_persons_of_borderline_notability . Kla'quot 07:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Changed the main policies to reflect change to WP:A

Since attribution is not the result of merging WP:V and WP:NOR, I believed it to be prudent to update this page to reflect that. DanielZimmerman 23:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Blogs

I've added to the section on reliable sources that self-published sources should not be added as an external link in BLPs, unless written or published by the subject. We already say that self-published sources should not be used as a source unless published or written by the subject.

I added this because I've noticed in a few articles (e.g. Patrick Holford) that, when prevented from using criticism in a blog as a source, editors are adding it as an external link instead, so I feel we should close that loophole. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But the wording could use help. See if this sparks some ideas for improving the wording: Self-published books, zines, websites or blogs should never be used as sources or included as further reading (external links), unless written or published by the subject. WAS 4.250 21:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That would work, WAS. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:08, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I, too, agree. semper fictilis 04:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Public vs. Non-public people

Further to This discussion on the Daniel Brandt article, WAS posted this bit from Florida law (where the servers are...):

[1] says "One who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that (a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) is not of legitimate concern to the public." Seperating people into public versus nonpublic is for convinience. Privacy issues are actually decided by the specific encroachment of privacy alledged. But we should get nowhere near the line, so simplifying by dividing people up into private vs. public will work most the time. Anything contraversial about a private living person that is "not of legitimate concern to the public" should not be in Wikipedia.

There is also now this hidden message on that same article up top. At first it was publically visible. The question is should the BLP policy take into account a person's status as public individual vs. private individual? to go with that, a 'private person' would have even some un-controversial material removed, while the public people would not. The problem is... who decides who is public vs. non-public? is Ben Affleck public or non? is Bill Gates public or non? is Scooter Libby public or non? is the Unibomber public or non? since it's all so subjective (our take, the media's take, the subject's take)... who decides? A famous actor deciding everything is private? What is a private person becomes the textbook def of public, then tries a 'take back'? Or someone that fate makes famous... who decides?

I think we should have a section on this in the BLP policy, and a distinction of who is which that will hopefully non-edit-warrable... simplifications are bad (agreeing with WAS there on the Brandt page) but at the same time, people really either are or aren't. My thought was that if you meet x, y, and z criterion, you are public and we can add a {{PublicBLP}} or {{PrivateBLP}} template that links back to the appropriate section/rules. George Bush and Oprah Winfrey for example are clearly public... and once info is out, it can't really be taken back. thoughts? - Denny 23:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Brandt is unequivocally a public figure, as are all the examples you cited. As such, any verifiable information about them is fair comment. It seems to me the BLP policy covers this pretty well already. Jokestress 23:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

my concern based on the chat with WAS is that 1) we need perhaps something different (more stringent?) for non-public people should be considered, and 2) that we need a clear policy definition of what makes someone public vs. private, and 3) a criterian for changes to those conditions (public to private, and private to public). To avoid messes like this ever coming up again. - Denny 23:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you may be misconstruing what "public" means in this legal sense. Plenty of public figures are reclusive or would prefer to be private, but that has absolutely no bearing on their legal standing. Someone who is not a public figure should not have an article. If they do, it will be deleted. There is no doubt that Brandt would meet any legal threshold for being a public figure, and this "non-public" argument is being advanced by people making groundless claims based on a misinterpretation. If someone is notable enough to have an article, and they are doing something that gets them mentioned in the national news many times, they are almost certainly a public figure. Since we already have a reliable source requirement, anyone following that policy is writing about a public figure. Whether they are "notable" is another matter and is a more arbitrary and non-legal definition used internally. Jokestress 00:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that distinction. One thought I had come up with was that it might make sense to only include bios of people when there is enough material in secondary sources to build a proper and encyclopedic biography of the person's entire life. That is surely a higher standard than we have now but, seems to me, might not be a bad idea. So, in this case we'd definitely "lose" Daniel Brandt but we'd keep Google Watch. Lots of links to individuals would be broken but I think WP would survive and would be stronger in the long run. Making articles about living people of marginal notability can really piss them off and engender an incredible amount of focused bad will.MikeURL 22:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Fixes

I have fixed links to WP:V so that these point to WP:ATT and its different sections, where applicable. Another pair of eyes could be useful to check that I have not missed anything. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Cause I fixed 2 of them myself! I guess I needed more eyes as well!DanielZimmerman 04:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

has to be shown contentious to remove without discussion?

I haven't looked at this page in a while, and I'm surprised to see that the edits one should remove immediately and without discussion are now described as "unsourced... contentious material, whether negative or positive". Is this a change of policy? Does this mean that we have to demonstrate that an unsourced negative claim is contentious before removing it? Thanks. --Allen 01:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

It used to say "unsourced negative" material. This change just points out that contentious material does not have to be negative. When did it only say "unsourced"? In any case, if it's merely unsourced, this policy doesn't apply. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doc glasgow for an examination of this very issue. -- Jay Maynard 04:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

(to Allen) You have to demonstrate that unsourced positive material is contentious before removing it, if you want it protected by this policy. Unsourced negative material should be assumed contentious, so you don't need to. -Amarkov moo! 04:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

One needs to make some kind of reasonable argument for it being contentious - such as it is negative or self serving or you don't believe it or it seems unlikely. If others accept it as a reasonable argument then no problem. The problem is we had one person insist that every unsourced claim was contentious and the point is use reasonable judgement on a claim by claim basis or at least on an article by article basis as when stubbing a whole article due to some article-wide concern. WAS 4.250 10:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. So if I'm reading things right, all three of you agree that negative material on living people is assumed contentious. I can understand this, but I feel like the article could use clarification. As it stands now, I think it opens the door for people to argue, "No, you can't summarily delete that sentence I wrote, because while it is negative and unsourced, everyone knows it's true, and therefore it isn't contentious." Though it would be awkward in terms of prose, how about adding a parenthetical "(All negative material is assumed to be contentious)" to the article right before reference #2? --Allen 17:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

"negative material on living people is assumed contentious", if unsourced or poorly sourced. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:BLP courtesy deletion

I've created the first (very rough) draft of a proposal to delete some BLPs if the subject requests it. Input, suggestions, and help with the writing would be much appreciated. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

First sentence

"Editors must take particular care when writing biographies of living persons". Perhaps add, to emphasize the point off the top: "or adding biographical information about a living person to any Wikipedia page." Marskell 13:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The most problematic articles aren't really biographies anyway, but instead are notable things organized on a page with the title of a living person's name. How about this for the first sentence: "Editors must take particular care adding biographical information about a living person to any Wikipedia page." WAS 4.250 14:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've tried that. The page is actually something of a misnomer. It should be "Biographical information" and not "Biographies of living people." Marskell 14:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's rename it to "Biographical information on living people" and keep the existing shortcuts. WAS 4.250 15:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, but let's wait for a third and fourth opinion. Marskell 15:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"Biographical" is redundant. How about "Information on living people" and "Editors must take particular care when writing about living persons". Kla'quot 17:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, redundant. But I hate killing the "B" in BLP, given how widely used the shortcut has become. Hm. Marskell 19:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Biographical information on living people, looks good. Support the move. Let's not change the wording of the policy, and discuss possible implications of any changes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

the B is redundant? how about the L? How is it acceptable to have bogus claims in articles about dead people? And how about the P? How is it acceptable to have bogus claims in articles about anything? I am sorry, but this whole page is just a glorified corollary of WP:ATT. We can well have a "living people" taskforce for people who are interested in the living in particular for some reason or other, but I really don't see why this should have the status of a separate policy. I know this is a consequence of the Siegenthaler case. But then, why not be honest and call it "biographies of influential US media people who have the power to give Wikipedia hell if we mess up their articles"?? dab (𒁳) 17:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The L is not redundant; the point of it is that Wikipedia must be protected from accusations of libel. Under the law of the US and many other nations, negative information about a living person which is false or unproven may be classed as libel. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charity, and can't be expected to deal with expensive lawsuits from offended biographees. I agree that having "bogus claims" in other articles is not acceptable either; but false or unsourced statements in articles on dead people or non-current organisations are much less likely to cause offence. This is why unsourced controversial claims in BLP articles must be deleted immediately, while such claims in non-BLP articles should be tagged with a {{fact}} tag. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 09:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Personal websites

Yesterday, within the articles for deletion, I have found an article about a businessperson that had My family's website under external links. It is surely not my duty to protect others from their own lack of brain, but due to problems with stalkers, identity theft and others I want to propose that websites of that type should be deleted ASAP if they are not within the scope of notability of the person. Alf^Photoman 15:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If the business person put up that personal website online, and it can be found via Google or other search engine, what would be the problem linking to it from a WP article's EL section? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

We don't have to be aiding and abetting , besides, we would take the word of that person that it is in fact his family which would 100% fail WP:ATT Alf^Photoman 15:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Ideas from Wiki mail

Wiki mail gave me two ideas.

1. The application of this policy to Essjay's user page could have been interpreted to mean he must remove or source his Ph.D. claims if anyone contested them,
2. The application of this policy to things like "this user is a vandal" on a user's talk page could be interpreted to require a link to evidence. 4.250.138.162 18:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC) (WAS 4.250)

Ehm...why did this not occur to anybody before? Elemental my dear Watson Alf^Photoman 18:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Situation 2 is already solved by the link on the user's page to his/her contributions. Anyone may review that history and confirm or challenge the assessment of the user as a vandal for him/herself. Rossami (talk) 00:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Designated Agent

This page contains a section explaining "designated agent" of Wikipedia.

But if I understand it correctly, it is the point of contact for deletion request based on copyright concern (DMCA takedown notice), not for libel or other legal problems that biographies of living persons tend to have.

CDA 230 gives pretty good immunity to Wikimedia Foundation when it comes to libelous posts on Wikipedia, as I understand. I am not sure if it is a good idea to give impression that the designated agent will take care of non-copyright legal concerns. I am not saying that libelous stuff should remain in the article or such complaints should be ignored. But I suppose if Jimbo or others act to remove libelous or other objectionable material, that is out of courtesy and their sense of moral obligation, not out of some legal duty.

So why not simply offer contact address?

Tomos 14:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)