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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 84.46.53.140 (talk) at 07:47, 15 April 2019 (→Do no harm: gr +3). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This has been a long trend, so maybe this page is not the right page to talk about it, but we need to correct this. It basically is what happens when editors are trying to focus on negative elements related to a BLP within the lede. I'm bringing this up over the news related to George Pell which I'm certainly not saying needs to be buried outside the lede, but the first sentence is the last thing, which currently reads George Pell is an Australian prelate of the Catholic Church and the church's most senior official to be convicted of a sexual offence. There is no question that somewhere in the lede structure that the offences has to be mentioned, and if restructured, certainly within the first paragraph of the lede (a lede-up to the lede). But to stick it at the end of the first sentence after objectively describing Pell in a neutral manner feels extremely partial and non-objective. Similarly with Bill Cosby where it reads is an American stand-up comedian, actor, musician, and author who was active for over five decades before being convicted of a number of sex offenses in 2018.

That lede sentence is critical to setting the tone for the entire article and it should be written without excessive hyperbole. Nearly every other BLP, that first sentence usually states the person's name (given name or nicknames), nationality, and broad occupation. Unfortunately I've seen the logic that if a person is notable for negative aspects in addition to other things, such as these crimes, these have to be included in that first paragraph. There is no policy that requires the lede sentence to spell out why someone is notable. The lede should within a few sentences get there, but that first sentence needs to stay objective and impartial, otherwise we have a tone problem. Of course in the case of a person who is only really notable for criminal activity (eg Charles Manson), that's something that cannot be hidden and has to be in the lede.

This is generally part of WP editors' trend of following the media to closely when they focus much more on the negative about public figures that I believe causes editors to write like this. We have to cover the negative elements but it not required to be a callout in the lede. But exactly how to get editors to recognize that is difficult. Arguably, BLPSTYLE already warns against some of this, but I feel it needs to stress more than the leading sentence of a lede needs to be most carefully constructed to stay objective. --Masem (t) 14:46, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]


In short, WP:NPOV is no longer regarded as being important in too many articles entirely. Precisely. And this is becoming more common as polemics surmounts journalism. Read User:Collect/BLP tp see more displays of such attitudes. Wikipedia is a place to furnish encyclopedic material, neither to demonize "evil people" or sanctify "good people." Collect (talk) 15:00, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In general I would agree. However, for Pell specifically, one could argue that this is what he's primarily notable for. It's not just media - we have a full length book by Melbourne University Publishing. It definitely deserves significant placement in the lede. Icewhiz (talk) 15:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Our media today loves to erase any accomplishments of any person at the faintest hint of potential criminal or unethical activities. That's just a symptom of the current culture war, and we're not going to solve that at WP, but we can be aware it exists and not use the same attitudes as the press as we are better then they are; our goal is cover topics from the long-term POV rather than the immediacy of gaining viewership. Unless someone is only known for their criminal activities, these always should take a backseat to an objective description of what the person did before hit with criminal charges. --Masem (t) 15:49, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
While I concur that we should be depending, in general, far less on newsmedia than we do, particularly to establish notability or remark on unfolding situations, I would dispute that it's within Wikipedia's mission to white-wash the behaviour of a bad actor just because they did some other notable thing before whatever bad behaviour they got caught out for eclipsed the rest of their career. We don't need to preserve the legacy of abusive priests. Simonm223 (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I know what you're saying but that's the "righting great wrongs" attitude that does not help neutrally develop BLPs and persists to those BLPs of people that have not been convicted of any crime but are seen as "bad" in the eyes of the press. This is not anything about whitewashing but making sure that before we jump into laying out negative elements or criticism of a person, we should at least start objective. We are not here to tell the reader what to think, which is unfortunately what the press's role tends to be nowadays. --Masem (t) 17:48, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Wikipedia's first mistake was commenting on living people at all. Simonm223 (talk) 17:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. It's not a problem with Wikipedia, but how a good proportion of editors have come to see how articles on persons that have negative public perceptions are development, and repeat that across the board. It is very easy to cheer on someone you hate - that's human nature. We need more people aware of this and try best to play down any personal feelings to develop BLP better. --Masem (t) 18:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a really profound misunderstanding of neutrality—and back-asswards framing—at play here. The assumption seems to be that negative material is inherently "non-neutral", while positive material is "neutral" or "objective". Material is either well-sourced and relevant, or it's not. This is Masem (and others) trying to put their thumbs on the scale because they believe that reliable sources have gotten due weight wrong.

    It is one thing to argue that our articles misrepresent the emphases of reliable sources—that is a legitimate, policy-based argument. But that's not the argument being made here. Masem (and others) are arguing that reliable sources are wrong in their emphases, and that we as editors need to apply our own personal filters before presenting well-sourced material to readers. (For whatever reason, in practice this seems to always involve minimizing negative coverage of white supremacists, Gamergaters, convicted pedophiles, alt-right figures, and so on, so it's hardly an effort to tackle systemic biases across the board). That is completely counter to policy. Masem is trying to right what he considers a great wrong, and then moralizing to everyone else as if they were the problem. (There also seems to be some confusion about specifics; Masem complains that we are unfairly vilifying "people that have not been convicted of any crime", but Pell is in fact a convicted child molester). MastCell Talk 20:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • And sometimes, it can be very clear that someone committed a crime, but aren't convicted, either by getting off on technicalities or reaching a settlement. It doesn't mean they suddenly did not do the crime--Fradio71 (talk) 20:58, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Positive material is also non-neutral, and actually in most cases I've tried for people known for greatness, that lede sentence in those articles rarely describe that greatness and still stick to an objective description of the person. The next lede sentence may be about their greatness, but that's the same premise above. (The only cases I've seen otherwise is describing Nobel Laureates where the first sentence will mention this.) Its far less rare editors tend to put BLPs on pillars (though it can happen) and that usually doesn't happen in the media either, but it is very easy to write condescendingly about a person with negatives. Too many of our articles are written in an approach of "How many negative things have been written about this person from RSes that we can include" which is absolutely the wrong way to be developing BLP.
    • And a key facet here is that UNDUE is about weighing opinions, but it does not state opinions should outweigh facts (Separately, we have far too many editors that want to treat opinions in RSes as factual content despite that being against NPOV) The lede should avoid as much opinionated content as possible, unless that is the reason a BLP is notable or an essential part of the influence of the person. We value objective facts far more than opinions, much more so in the lede where there is limited space to cover the topic. This is not to whitewash away elements that have significantly impacted a person's career - this isn't about hiding Pell's conviction out of the lede, but just making sure that the lede starts off in an impartial, dispassionate tone to give use the fundamental who-what-where, and avoid a tone that is accusational that will filter through the whole article.
    • (And I didn't say Pell's was a case of "people that have not been convicted of any crime", but instead that the attitudes on developing articles like Pell's then spreads to articles on "people that have not been convicted of any crime" but otherwise seen as wrong or an outside by the mass media- those are people that may or may not be wrongly vilified and we shoudl be even more careful on.) --Masem (t) 21:01, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: "George Pell is an Australian prelate of the Catholic Church and the church's most senior official to be convicted of a sexual offence" seems to be entirely neutral to me. That's what the subject is notable for. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a RECENTISM view, which prevails too much. Maybe Pell will appeal and be cleared. Maybe he will serve time and then turn around to be a well-known advocate in this area. Maybe he does end up being know primarily as being that high-ranking priest that went to jail. We can't tell, and won't be able to tell for years. We can say he was well known for being a priest, that won't change. But trying to force the recent conviction in the lede sentence is just unnecessary. Somewhere in the lede, obviously yes, but not in what should be the most objectively, neutrally worded sentence in any article. --Masem (t) 20:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Some minor refinement to the Pell lede might help, but all the generalizations and hand-waving seem to support MastCell's concerns. --Ronz (talk) 20:44, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Let's compare this to how things in the press which want to rush to judgement work out, like #MeToo accusations, the situation around VA Governor Northam, or the Indigenous Peoples March incident. The press typically report these in manners that then consider all formal contributions of the person should be discounted and only focus on the accusations. Some of these do pan out (like with Weinstein), some don't as the media rushed to judgement (as with the students at the Indigenous Peoples March ) and some we don't know because not enough time has passed. WP should not be rushing to make these judgements per BLP policy. Thats not saying we can't include those accusations, but they should not be given undue weight over years of prior contributions. Give the situation time, and should it become essential, then it can be promoted higher up in the lede. Until then, we need to be careful on how we present material and not get in the same hysteria that the press does. --Masem (t) 21:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And just to highlight yet another example Jenny McCarthy (which is already being discussed at BLP/N). An encyclopedia is not out there to catalog every negative thing about a person and then decide there's some objective stuff later. We're in a very broken state right now. --Masem (t) 01:16, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Jeez, I don't think we're broken. I tend to agree with you, User:Masem, but I think cases like Jenny and Cardinal Pell and so on, both sides have reasonable points. I mean for McCarthy and Pell, I really only know them for that (anti-vaxxing, sex crimes); that's just me, but I bet the same for a lot of people, and if so that's what makes them notable, so it's in important part of answering the question "what is this entity?". And they are notable.
However, even so, I agree with you; we need to be super super vigilant re BLP matters, dammit. When there's a reasonable question, as there is here, it basically has to be decided in favor of not hurting the person's feelings or reputation. The spirit of BLP is "We are not here to make people sad" -- and we're not. So let's bend over backwards to make sure of that, people.
But I mean there are worse problems. The biggest BLP problem is with people who aren't very notable. In those cases, we are the primary entry into the person's presence in media, not only for now, but for a very long time in the future. Victoria Sellers for instance... article should not exist (but survived AfD), but since it does, it's just egregious to include stuff about crimes committed by this unnotable person (altho it's not in the lede, anymore). However, I don't know how widespread that problem is -- not very, I hope. Herostratus (talk) 10:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLPPRIMARY vs. WP:BLPSTYLE on primary sources.

These policies seem to contradict each other; BLPPRIMARY says Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources and encourages us to Avoid misuse of primary sources, whereas BLPSTYLE flatly said Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Some people have apparently been interpreting the latter to mean that primary sources are strictly banned on WP:BLPs, which obviously is not and has never been policy (and which contradicts WP:BLPPRIMARY.) I made a bold edit to WP:BLPSTYLE to try and rectify the difference, but this probably requires more discussion and refinement. Obviously primary sources must be used with extreme caution on BLPs, and secondary ones are preferred for controversial statements, but I don't think "use only secondary sources on BLPs" is intended or workable. (On reflection it is also possible I went too far in saying that there should be a "strong preference" for secondary sources, which isn't precisely what WP:BLPPRIMARY says, but I've been bold enough already and will wait to see what other people say.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think the issue is not really a policy one, its an essay (Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources) (and this is one reason why it may be somewhat confusing). Is there not some simpler way to avoid using celebrity gossip and tittle tattle (which is what I assume the intend mainly is) without creating having an essay that is (in effect) a recipe for subjective dismissal (as happened recently) any source a user thinks is attacking their favoured topic? Without that this would not have been an issue. We need to decide what constitutes (in terms of news media) a primary (as opposed to secondary) source. This (then) is what the policy would be (rather then relying on a rather unhelpful essay).Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 2 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on restructuring the Michael Jackson article with respect to child sexual abuse allegations

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Michael Jackson#Request for comments on restructuring the article. A permalink for it is here. Restructuring has been suggested in light of the recent Leaving Neverland documentary. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on BLPCRIME

I have noticed some tension around the Christchurch mosque shootings with adding the name of the suspected attacker. Can we form a consensus on whether it is appropriate to add names to such articles. This seems to be a conflict over whether such names should/should not be mentioned due to presumption of evidence, and due to notability WP:WELLKNOWN. It would be good if we could flesh this policy out more on this issue. Thanks!Mozzie (talk) 21:26, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To change policies you would need to discuss it at the Village Pump. I think the reason to not mention accused people is for privacy. TFD (talk) 16:13, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contentious versus controversial

You reverted my edit. I understand that e.g. Edward Snowden is a very controversial person, but (probably) not contentious at all. However, when we are not talking about people the two words are synonyms. See dictionaries:

controversial: Cambridge Oxford Longman
contentious: Cambridge Oxford Longman

I also made some Google search (option: "verbatim").
The results are shown in the following format:  Searched phrase, All results, Results in books

"controversial issues" 6.39m 1.34m     "contentious issues" 1.55m 180k
"controversial statement" 1m 19k     "contentious statement" 30k 3.6k
"controversial article" 634k 24k     "contentious article" 30k 3.2k
"controversial claims" 332k 15k     "contentious claims" 58k 6.6k    See also here
"controversial material" 290k 24k     "contentious material" 428k 3.3k
"controversial comments" 2.6m 6k     "contentious comments" 22k 1.8k
"controversial opinion" 252k 7.5k     "contentious opinion" 13k 1.6k

As you can see, "controversial" is much more common, which increases readability. If you still believe that the two words are not synonyms, please give me an example of a statement that is contentious but not controversial or controversial but not contentious. Vikom talk 21:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nope, SV was right to revert. We're worried about contentious material - material which may be right or wrong (a disagreement of sourcing), which would include controversial material. For example, BLP should cover the case where some sources claim John Smith was born in Leftsville while some claim Smith was born in Rightsburg. Neither statement is controversial, but without sourcing, either statement is contentious. BLP is a strong policy to make sure even relatively trivial but unclear statements of affirmation about a person are sourced or to be removed. --Masem (t) 21:44, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • But according to the official recommendations I have every right to restore my version because I have the best possible sources - the highly respected dictionaries. All I need is to cite them, right? What are your sources? Your brain? Intuition? Vikom talk 22:51, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not the way it works. Any substantive change to policy requires a very strong consensus, usually reached through an RfC or at the Pump. You're an inexperienced user; I'd ratchet down the rhetoric if I were you.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:02, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree that an article like this does deserve a special attention, and I have nothing against a very strong consensus when we are changing our policy; but my edit was not meant to change the policy. All I wanted to do was to replace a word with its synonym, easier to understand by non native English speakers, kids etc. But --Masem is questioning my sources! As for "an inexperienced user" - I have been editing the English Wikipedia for over 10 years, and have about 2000 edits under different IP addresses, which is not very impressive but enough to call myself a Wikipedian. You, as an admin and checkuser, may feel outraged by my audacity to change anything here. But the rule referring to reliable sources applies to every article and every user. So why should I "ratchet down the rhetoric"? Unless I ratchet up tensions between Wikipedians ;-) But back to the topic. According to Google search results the phrase "contentious but not controversial" practically does not exist; same with "controversial but not contentious" Vikom talk 02:24, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • WP policies are not meant to be treated as hard rules or laws; it is the spirit of the policy that is important. As I've explained, "contentious" covers a much broader span of potential information than "controversial", and we want editors to use BLP with a huge amount of caution, suggesting the use of "contentious" over "controversial". Heck, using the dictionary entries above, "contentious" includes cases of materials that may be potentially controversial, and we want BLP to cover these possibilities. Hence why the wording is as it is. --Masem (t) 02:37, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • A couple of points:
    • As Masem has said: 'Contentious', as used in this and related policies, encompasses information that may be questioned on-wiki due to contradictory sources, questionable sourcing, or simply lack of (reliable) sources. Such information need not be 'controversial' in the real-world sense. For example, BLP would prescribe removing a birth-year from a biographical article if we cannot (based on available sources) confirm if the subject was born in 1972 or 1973. This is true even if there is is no off-wiki 'controversy' about the issue.
    • To a certain extent, 'contentious' is an accepted term-of-art on wikipedia and therefore should not be casually replaced even if 'controversial' were an exact synonym ('Notable' is another such term with a specific on-wiki meaning).
Abecedare (talk) 07:07, 10 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Do no harm

On WP:BLP/N#Doug_Ericksen (April 9, archived soon) Nearly Headless Nick quoted a historic ArbCom decision: Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. In cases where the appropriateness of material regarding a living person is questioned, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm." This means, among other things, that such material should be removed until a decision to include it is reached, rather than being included until a decision to remove it is reached.

It took me a few moments to figure out that this is over ten years old and matches the policy as is, but could be added to the #Arbitration cases section:

old
new

–84.46.53.140 (talk) 07:42, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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