Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

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Contents 1 Protection of an article for BLP's rumored to be dead or in grave situations 2 "The late X" or "X (deceased)" 3 Can we put back the material that was removed? 4 titilate 5 Assistance with policy interpretation, please 6 Categories that are unsourced or irrelevant 7 Deceased persons

[edit] Protection of an article for BLP's rumored to be dead or in grave situations

When the news was starting to spread that he was in the hospital, Michael Jackson was fully protected with the rationale "Jackson reportedly taken to hospital with heart attack - make sure that the page doesn't get swamped". Especially with high profile individuals in the midst of controversy or in such a situation, should we require that a BLP be protected until there are reliable claims available about the situation? ViperSnake151  Talk  00:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

"Require" is probably the wrong word. "Allow to protect preemptively" is probably a better formulation. In the case of deaths, it's better if we're later to report the event rather than early.   Will Beback  talk  00:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Concur absolutely. Not everyone is as sanguine as Samuel Clemens when their death is prematurely reported. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)c

I admit to an assumption of a stereotype, the propensity of persons of a certain age to vandalize, but I think that such articles should be protected to two levels above the highest degree now possible.

Wikipedia purports to be an encyclopedia. It should not be a source or target for unconfirmed or scantily referenced information.

When an incident such as the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett or the alleged infidelity of Mark Sanford the relevant articles should be protected and the {{current}} template should be edited to inform users that information about the incident is not yet verifiable and is not yet to the point that it is valid as a subject for analysis.

The talk pages should be left open for editing. Give the vandals and the trolls an outlet.

JimCubb (talk) 01:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. Wikipedia is not an outlet for vandals and trolls. We don't cater to them. Period. Dr. Cash (talk) 03:36, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Concur with Will Beback. Actually, I'd go with "have it become an expectation that" such articles would be fully protected and handled appropriately by interested admins. Jclemens (talk) 03:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary or desirable to word it that strongly. The vast majority of dead people with articles pass on with virtually no comment or controversy. It's only when someone famous (as opposed to merely notable) dies that we have a problem with incessant editing. Powers ^T 12:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Whatever we do, we should use the terms "high profile" and "major impact" within this. I think it should be placed within the protection policy as an additional criteria for full protection:

An article that is the subject of a high-profile occurrence (such as a major scandal, incident, event, or the rumored death of its subject) can be temporarily full-protected in the occurrence's early stages in order to protect it from potential vandalism and the introduction of unverifiable or unreliable or unsourced citations, especially in cases when the article will potentially be viewed by a large number of users, or the article is a biography of a (presumed) living person ("presumed", used as the incident may be rumors of the subject's death). The encyclopedic impact of the event on its subject and how high-profile the subject is should be factored in when deciding if an article should be full-protected under this doctrine. Articles protected under this doctrine should be clearly marked with a template indicating the situation. Once a sufficient amount of reliable information has been obtained, the protection of the article may be reduced to semi-protection.

Feel free to tweak. This would also be accompanied by a special {{Current}} template:

The subject of this article is currently involved in a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. In order to prevent the introduction of inappropriate or unverifiable information about this event into the article, it has been temporarily protected from editing. Please discuss any changes on the talk page; you may use the {{editprotected}} template to ask an administrator to make the edit if it is supported by consensus or is uncontroversal.

Nice? ViperSnake151  Talk  13:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. I just want to note for the record that while I fully support the ability for anyone to edit an article, this revised guidance would simply head off the inevitable "he's dead"/"not confirmed; take it to talk"/"I heard he died"/"Not yet; see talk" back-and-forth as everyone and his brother comes to Wikipedia to see if they can be the one to flip the proverbial switch on the article. Allowing anyone to edit is one thing; going through this whole rigmarole every time a famous person dies is another thing entirely. Powers ^T 13:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep, completely appropriate template. Good work. Jclemens (talk) 18:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "The late X" or "X (deceased)"

Sorry if I can't find anywhere this has been discussed previously, but I think in general the above forms should be avoided as in most cases it will be apparent whether X is alive or not. Is there any support for adding these to this guideline as deprecated usages? Rodhullandemu 18:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether a specific guideline is required for this (WP:CREEP). Is it a big problem? Can't you just edit the affected articles and remove the unnecessary words? Also, WP:BLP really deals with living persons, so I'm not sure this is the right place for such a guideline. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Can we put back the material that was removed?

What do you guys think of this? There are some downsides to keeping policy text on a separate page and transcluding it in. - Dank (push to talk) 18:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:VPP#Removing text from a policy page and then transcluding. - Dank (push to talk) 18:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Material now reinstated (possibly with a change, which I'll go stick in the Update). Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 23:27, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• (Dank beat me here) The minor changes are the result of merging the two slightly divergent texts (that once were identical). Numbered instead of bullets. Wiki-links to policy. Caution paragraph at the bottom, with example (from WP:COP).
• Sadly transclusion of subpages is not frequently used, despite the support for <onlyinclude> in the software. Therefore, to avoid textual drift, put all our eggs in one basket, and watch that basket here!
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't put the addition of the links into WP:Update, since they're the pages people would expect given the terms. I'll be happy to add more detail to the Update on this if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 00:21, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd add that the example was merged from Wikipedia:Categorization of people. I'm often looking back through histories for precedent, and knowing where to look is useful to me, so it might be useful to somebody else.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:56, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never included information at WP:Update other than how the page has changed, that I can remember. I'd prefer not to start, that would open the door to a whole new set of things to argue about (the relative importance of the commentary). I see the point that someone might revert thinking the language is "brand new" when in fact it's been around for a while, on another page, but if that happens, we can always point them to this thread so they'll know. Glad to have another informed experienced editor chipping in. - Dank (push to talk) 01:54, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] titilate

In, out, in, out, shake it all about. To titilate or not to titilate. In the context it is very fitting, there are press reports that are designed to titilate and these reports are citable but not worthy of insertion in an encyclopedia. (Off2riorob (talk) 12:17, 2 July 2009 (UTC))

Yes. There is no reason for us to have a problem with being the world's number one site for finding out the date of some famous person's death; but we should not be where people turn to find out what random sex rumors have circulated about somebody. WAS 4.250 (talk) 05:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

As was said in the edit summaries, "titilate" in this context serves grammatically to limit the sorts of original claims forbidden. Removing the word clarifies that ANY original claims, titilating or not, are not proper for Wikipedia inclusion. I believe that to be correct, but wouldn't mind if "titilating" or similar wording was kept in as an example. Jclemens (talk) 16:59, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand. WP:NOR clearly indicates that "original claims" are against the rules. This sentence about "titillating" claims refers to sourced claims, not original claims. Apparently you are the first person to not get that. If I am wrong about that and it is unclear to many people, it should be made more clear. WAS 4.250 (talk) 05:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Assistance with policy interpretation, please

[edit] Categories that are unsourced or irrelevant

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 July 6

• Template:Category unsourced – has no verifiable, reliable sources.
• Template:Category relevant? – both unsourced and irrelevant (unsupported by even a passing mention in the text)

I've nominated them for deletion, as they present an attractive nuisance. Editors may think it's a good idea to leave an unsourced or irrelevant category on an article, simply because these templates exist. Something like {{fact}} for categories, except these present a large block of text.

In both cases, the category should be removed entirely – especially in the latter case. These have been used on biographical articles. In one case, the unsourced WP:GRS category has been left on the WP:BLP article for nearly two years! When I've removed the category, was reverted with the edit summary (revert: the fact that a maintenance item has been outstanding for a long time is not a reason to remove it.)

Please join the discussion.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 12:23, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to have the discussion here, since I think this page is watched by many more editors than the TfD discussions. By arguing that any unsourced category be immediately deleted from BLP articles, you are holding categories to a much higher standard than any other information in a BLP article (this policy requires only contentious unsourced information be deleted). This standard would lead to removal of Category:Living people and many other non-contentious categories from many thousands of articles where there are not (yet) sources for those categories. I think a better alternative, one much more consistent with building a better encyclopedia, is to alert editors and give them an opportunity to identify sources for the non-contentions categories, just like the {{fact}} tag does in the article text. I do agree that the appearance of the {{Category unsourced}} text block could be improved, but I am confident that editors more skilled than I can make that improvement. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That would violate the intent of centralized discussion. And of course, you were the editor that restored the unsourced WP:GRS category left on the WP:BLP article for nearly two years! Hardly an uninvolved editor.... Let's have the discussion about the template in the proper place. After that discussion has concluded, see whether there's consensus to consider alternatives.
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 10:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Deceased persons

"Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Dealing with articles about the deceased" currently reads as follows:

In the case of deceased individuals, material must still comply with all Wikipedia policies and prompt removal of questionable material is proper. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material, applying not just to verifiability of sources, but to all Wikipedia content policies and guidelines.

This seems to be causing a bit of confusion to some editors: see "Talk:Incidents at Disney parks#Should victim's names be included in Wikipedia?" The problem seems to arise from the fact that the guideline states that "material must still comply with all Wikipedia policies", which could be taken to mean that WP:BLP continues to apply to deceased persons. There was previous consensus that this was not the case: see "Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 21#Dealing with articles about the deceased". I would suggest the following rewording to avoid doubt (I have underlined the modified text):

This policy only applies to living persons. Nonetheless, material concerning deceased persons in articles must still comply with all other Wikipedia policies, and prompt removal of questionable material is proper. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material. This applies not just to verifiability of sources, but to all Wikipedia content policies and guidelines.

Thoughts? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Sound good to me. Davewild (talk) 17:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Counting myself as one of the confused parties Jacklee is referring to, the change does make it more clear that BLP is strictly for living folks. But what is still unclear -- at least, to me -- is whether BLP is one policy that is to be thrown out the window once someone dies. Using BLP1E for example (as it is a subset of BLP), does this mean that once a person who would not qualify to be named in WP under normal circumstances would suddenly be eligible for inclusion just because they died? This was a part of the aforementioned discussion (sidenote: the consensus in that discussion appears to be that the people specifics were not relevant to the article in question anyway, which is not a BLP item, but merely a content decision). Maybe I'm just being dense (hey, it's possible), so I figured I'd ask. SpikeJones (talk) 17:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Note that the notability guideline - Wikipedia:Notability (people)#People notable only for one event - has a section on people notable for only one event which makes no distinction between whether a person is living or dead. So for dead people who would come under BLP1E that notability guideline seems to be to be the relevant guideline for whether they should have an article or not. Davewild (talk) 18:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Davewild that for deceased persons the relevant guideline is "Wikipedia:Notability (people)" and not BLP. If editors wish to create a separate "Wikipedia:Biographies of deceased persons" guideline I have no objection. But it would be confusing to have guidelines relating to deceased persons in BLP. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Works for me. Thx. SpikeJones (talk) 18:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Although this policy specifically applies to the living, material about deceased individuals must still comply with all other Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Prompt removal of questionable material is proper. The burden of evidence for any edit rests firmly on the shoulders of the editor adding or restoring the material. This applies to verifiability of sources, and to all content policies and guidelines.

Tweak – more active voice and positive tone, instead of negative "nonetheless" and "not just" – remove needless repetition of "Wikipedia".
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 10:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Y Done. Looks good. I've updated the guideline. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)