Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 5

message: Ahem. If a person does not want their bio printed at all, then whatever you do to it, and no matter how you mess with it, you cannot be acting with the highest standards of love and respect for the dignity of others. In that case, these standards ("verifiable" writing, and love) are simply incompatable, even if you wish otherwise. At best, you may simply be an enabler or co-violator, who acts to mitigate the invasion of privacy, by acting to decrease the outrage. But that doesn't count if you give your assent to the whole process. Giving a drink in a torture chamber doesn't make you a saint if you assent to torture chambers. Being kind to a person in prison doesn't count if you assent to the imprisonment of a person who doesn't deserve to be there at all. If you've got two burglars in a house arguing over whether or not to steal just cash, but not an antique ring which might cause the owner some extra anguish, and one burglar starts talking about "standards of love and respect for the dignity of others," then you know somebody is mightily confused. People who care about love and respect for others don't violate their houses AT ALL. Nada. They don't engage in legalistic niceties about what's kosher to steal and what isn't. I hope that's enough metaphors for the day and that the point comes across. SBHarris 20:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you mean it's more like HITLER - David Gerard 12:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, the point seems to come across -- we should forget about being an encyclopedia, since an encyclopedia is really, really similar to a torture chamber, and repurpose ourselves as a press release service, since "the highest standards of love and respect for the dignity of others" means saying whatever they want us to say (even if what they want us to say is something akin to "each and every one of my alleged victims is a publicity-seeking liar", which does not show much love and respect for said victims who are now being publicly accused of wrongdoing.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is indeed a fascinating exchange. On one side we see a person with a vision in which human diginity plays an important role (and that IMO, is the reason why may of us dedicate so many hours of our time, effort, and yes, love) and on the other side a person that views this project as a torture chamber, as if that was a 'good thing. I am very glad that  the latter is not the modus operandi of this project, and that the vision of the founder is one that appreciates human dignity and respect, while maintaining the core of our mission to create a free source of human knowledge. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 17:24, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That does sound like a fascinating exchange, Jossi.  Can you tell me where on this page you'd find that exchange?  I've looked all over for it, and I can't find a single exchange where anyone expresses the view you attribute to "the other side".  Can you please tell me where I would find this fascinating exchange? -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry Antaeus, but your logic, argumentation style, sarcasm, etc, escapes me completely. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the understatement of the year, if you somehow read "we should forget about being an encyclopedia, since an encyclopedia is really, really similar to a torture chamber", with or without irony, as "on the other side a person ... views this project as a torture chamber, as if that was a good thing."  I mean, really.  Even if you manage to miss the irony, it doesn't come out as support for torture chambers or anything like them, and I surely would like to know how you came out with such a complete misreading. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: SB, you're violating WP:AGF here and I daresay WP:CIVIL too, suggesting that maybe people who don't agree with you "hate people who do do notable things so much, that they don't care about their privacy".  Your torture chamber analogy didn't work because it was a bad analogy.  Torture is a bad thing, so bad that (at least according to most civilized people) it should never be committed.  Can the same be said of negative press?  No -- frequently people deserve their negative press (such as, oh, someone who committed actual torture?)  Yet it is on the basis of this bad analogy that you suggest that, unlike any other encyclopedia on the planet, people should be able to opt out of having a biography in this one.  Why?  You say "I see that metaphors do not work."  No, they don't -- at least not the kind you have presented, which imply that anyone who doesn't support your proposed radical change to policy might as well be condoning torture, while your proposed change would protect actual torturers. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, that's a good game. I can play! Note that for you to suggest that there exists any such thing as an "actual torturer," violates WP:AGF by your above-suggested standards. I mean, who are you to question the motives of testicle-shockers or water-boarders?  Or to suggest that they are less than pure, and not of the highest caliber?  Assume good faith, my man. Some of these people historically have been worried about the destination of the immortal souls of their subjects. Some have been worried about national security and fighting terrorism. These arguments have even been made by the Bush administration. Which you must assume is acting in good faith, or else risk violating WP:CIVIL. That is, if WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL were actually designed to protect nebulous groups defined by their behavior from any criticism thereof, on Wikipedia. Which they weren't.  As for the rest of what you say, other encylopedias before now have been protected by space limitations from biographizing only the very most notable of living people--- people who have in nearly all instances sought notability, or who acted in ways in which notability would be a foreseen consequence. Even so, shorter enclycopedias play with fire. When persons of lesser notability are profiled by newspapers (as for obituaries) or by publications (Who's Who) they are given the kind of editorial control not seen here on Wikipedia. The NY Times even famously is courteous enough to send notable men their own obituaries years in advance, for editing. Wikipedia however, is large enough to be qualitatively a very different thing-- its size resulting in notability creap, which I have noted and don't want to repeat myself about. However, it's a real effect and not to be triffled with, since a personal bio is coming to a place near you. Why have you been so careful to protect your own personal information here on Wikipedia, if you don't want to extend this courtesy to others? Inquiring minds want to know. Perhaps you've been out there fighting injustice with such vigor, that evil people are after you?  Golly, me too. :). It's a common problem, don't you know. Wiki bios don't help. SBHarris 21:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Adolf Hitler is the Chancellor of Germany. He is noted for his work on the moral fibre of German society and stimulating the economy, notably through the Autobahn programme. Some have criticised aspects of his work." - entry written after Hitler's complaint and a rigid WP:OFFICE application of WP:BLP - David Gerard 21:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Frankly, that's exactly how the George W. Bush entry reads.  Without any personal
complaint by Mr. Bush.
24.59.105.229 12:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  Wonderful demo of Godwin's law in action here. I can only note that for every Hitler we miss the chance to "bio", while he lives, there are a lot other less notable and fairly ordinary people who don't get hurt. And the living Hitlers we miss, are bound to get their criticisms from other sources, if they're THAT famous. So we don't lose much. Wikipedia is hardly needed to help, in this regard. Wikibios are only really clearly morally justified in circumstances where they are superfluous anyway. SBHarris 22:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia_Watch - David Gerard 23:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Hi, SB.  I am a bit puzzled what "game" you believe yourself to be "playing".  Unless the name of it is "straw man", you don't seem to be playing it well.  "Note that for you to suggest that there exists any such thing as an "actual torturer," violates WP:AGF by your above-suggested standards."  If that's what you actually think, it only demonstrates that you don't comprehend the "above-suggested standards" that you nevertheless feel yourself competent to criticize.  There is a difference between saying "yes, there are people in the world who have committed torture" and "If you Wikipedia editors don't agree with me that Wikipedia should do something that no other encyclopedia on the planet does, it means that you hate notable people."  In fact, there is such a difference that the only question in doubt is whether there was ever any similarity. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, "torture" is a loaded word. It's like "pornography". One man's "torture" is another man's "interrogation pressure" or simple punishment or even re-education. It's hard to define. You may say you know it when you see it, but hey, that's what they say about porn also. But it's not Wikipedia's job to decide on who is a "torturer," or who's a pornographer for that matter (vs. purveyor of erotica). And while metaphors are compact ways of expressing thoughts, and are never perfect, I'm amused at the problems on this one. Who's to say whether people "deserve" their punishments, or their tortures, or their bad press, or their invasions of privacy?  These things that happen to people are not all just alike, or equally evil, to be sure. But none of them are good, and all of them are ungood, even if the perpetrators have the best of intentions. Why don't we just avoid all of them, here on Wikpedia?  As for hatred of one group by another, I threw it out as a possibility. You know there is hatred in the world. Celebritites do get hated for merely being famous. Ask one. Celebrities also routinely are subjected to invasions of privacy which you or I would find appalling. Sometimes by people who don't hate them or have bad intentions. Hoards of souvenier-seeking tourists stipped all the bark off the trees in Jackie Kennedy's front yard, after she moved out of the White House. I'm sure they didn't hate her, but the effect was the same and due to things of this nature she had to follow many an American celeb and flee to Europe just as though the intent had been bad. Let us not make Wikipedia the same kind of influence, whether the intentions are good, or no. SBHarris 23:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, "torture" is a loaded word.  Yes, it is.  Pity you didn't take that into consideration before you started comparing Wikipedia to a torture chamber and anyone who didn't support your proposal to someone who condones torture chambers.  Not that I think your proposal of "We should let anyone opt out of having a bio" had much to recommend it in the first place, but if those merits ever existed, they were masked by your own hyperbole. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  ONCE AGAIN, you don't have a bio up on Wikipedia. And you're very careful with your own personal information and your own privacy (on my own talk page you can find out exactly who I am, yet I wouldn't like a bio, either). Until this changes, you simply don't have enough experience to tell what's "hyperbole" here, and what isn't, and how much a metaphor holds in this area. An as anonymous editor discussing bio privacy invasion, you're sort of like a virgin discussing sexual techniques (hey, another metaphor; and not meant to be uncivil, merely humorously illustrative of the problems of inexperience and inexpertise). Let me know when get to the point that the public can show up at your door and look you up in the phonebook, AS THEY CAN ME.  BTW, I note that Angela Beesleys bio is nominated for deletion ONCE AGAIN (fifth time, now). Unless she's bothered in a major way by all this, her behavior is inexplicable. It's almost like this whole thing was some kind of torture for her. Silly me. SBHarris 17:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I strongly agree with SBHarris that an ordinary non-notable person should have the right to have their biography speedily deleted.  Whatever happened to privacy?  However, the right of persons to have their biography deleted decreases as notability increases.  So, if for example, one is marginally notable, one should be able to propose one's self for deletion as non-notable, and if one is slightly more notable, one should be able to argue for deletion on AfD.  Once one becomes a major public figure, one loses the right to delete one's self.  Ultimately, the goal is to fashion Wikipedia into a major reference work (which it is already), and major reference works don't contain biographies of non-notable people who do not want to be included.  69.140.173.15 18:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This discussion would need to result in a new policy. The current one does not extend to a right to demand the deletion of one's biography, only poorly sourced negative content. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: However this isn't specifically necessary. Biographies on non-noteable people are already disallowed and there is AFAIK nothing specific preventing the person who's biography it is from asking for it's deletion due to non-noteability Nil Einne 15:46, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Users who don't want their biographies here

message: I am trying to update an existing article regarding a national radio talk show host. The host has very little information in electronic format/internet sources.
I asked the host for material his publicist may have or other links that may provide more information and received an email from the host. Instead of providing links or third party information, the person provided answers to questions which were in the email (history, family, career, etc).
Is it OK to expand an article based on this as a source? If so, how would one cite it?
Jaymzyates 04:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: sounds like a private email, which is not publication. Negative on this. Rjensen 04:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When a subject publishes information about themselves 

message: :In cases where the subject or their agents have publicized their birthdates then we should feel free to include that information. -Will Beback 21:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense.  We ought to add that into the policy.  Any objections? -- 16:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have some implementation concerns.  While there are few legal or even moral concerns if we can meet Will's threshold, such a nuanced rule within Wikipedia will create apparent inconsistencies among our articles.  New users will see birthdates in some articles and not in others and are likely to feel an obligation to go find the "missing" birthdates without realizing that it was a deliberate choice to leave it out.  It would also seem to require explicit documentation of the source of the birthdate and confirmation that the source was in fact the subject him/herself or an authorized agent.  That seems like an awful lot of work for a data element that I think adds very little to the understanding of the subject.  It also adds complexity to our processes but I suspect would apply to only a small subset of all our biographies covered.  Rossami (talk) 20:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what inconsistency you're referring to. The current policy allows for birthdates in the case of well-known individuals. However some less-well known individuals have openly published their birthdates. One such instance is Jack Sarfatti , who includes it in his CV. -Will Beback · † · 21:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think there's any question about celebrities. The question is about marginal cases such as minor authors, barely notable professors, people who become slightly famous by accident, etc. -Will Beback · † · 03:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  a more general proposal (section break inserted to aid editing) 

message: Has there been any discussion here regarding the above category.  It seems to be designed to encourage editors to find the missing date.  Meanwhile our policy here indicates that for most living persons this information is best left out.  Should there be a statement on the category page to that effect? -MrFizyx 02:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a caution to the category page but I have to wonder whether that entire category will create more confusion than anything else.  I would encourage a discussion on the category's Talk page to decide whether the category should be deprectated.  Rossami (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Date of birth missing]] 

message: I have a question as to how WP:BLP handles a certain type of problem, that can be laid out this way. Suppose that there is a club called the Bunny Club, it’s a gentleman’s only club that is roughly a cross between a Masonic lodge, and Club Med. Many wealthy and influential people are club members; however, it is a private club, and does not make its membership lists public. Now conspiracy theorists spend a lot of time contemplating that all these rich and famous people getting together in private is not a good thing. So they, the conspiracy theorists, spend a lot of time tying to figure out who’s a member, and then spend more time “outing” them by making their names public. Now apparently nothing that bad goes on when club members get together, because some people out themselves, and leak it out that thy are members, and don’t seem to show a lot of guilt concerning their membership. Soon lists start to float around, some people on the lists are in fact members, even admitting it publicly, and other names on the lists are more speculative. 
One day someone starts a page here on Wikipedia concerning this Bunny Club, and all the information concerning the club gets dumped onto that page. The creditable, the non-creditable, and anything in-between; its all there with Wikipedia’s name on it.
Some of the claims are pretty wild by conventional standards, but to the crowd that wears tinfoil hats, the claims are entirely credible. Some claims are not only wild, but criminal. Being a gentleman’s only club, it starts making the rounds that the club supplies prostitutes to its members, and not only prostitutes, but under aged ones. Other things pop up, dark tales of conspiracies, etc. 
So now we have a page in Wikipedia that on the one hand contains a list of well known public figures, while a few paragraphs down you have allegations of prostitution, so forth and so on. No specific individual is said to have partaken, but it is implied that any or all could have.
Now if this was the end of the story, it would not be so hard to fix the problem, assuming that the above is in fact a problem to be dealt with. However, there is another angle to the story, the conspiracy theorists who accept the whole thing as gospel truth. Worse, some of them are editors right here on WP, and they will fight you tooth and nail, using most any pretense they can think up to keep you from removing their version of the “truth”. 
It seems that they see themselves as heroic figures in a David v. Goliath type battle. Goliath is more formally known as the Illuminati, the Globalist, the Trilateralists, -if you will “The Man”. It appears that Wikipedia is their sling-shot, a way to get the word out and awaken the masses; Wikipedia to them is a way to expose “The Man” and his sinister plots. And any editor who fails to see the greater good of what they are doing, and dares to challenge their sources, or whose version of the truth differs from theirs is either a simpleton unable to think for himself, or is secretly an agent of “The Man”.
The problem is that right now the claims made on the Bunny Club page do not tie directly to any one individual. It’s all done indirectly. So it is hard to get a lot of support for using WP:BLP for indirect claims; and its simply not worth the headaches of challenging the sources in order to remove the claims. Thus some of the claims will likely hang around for sometime to come. Some of the worst claims have been removed, but only after minor edit wars, and one edit war is still going on. Referring the problem to the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard has produced more giggles than results. 
Would it be possible to address indirect claims through a rewording of WP:BLP? Or am I overstating the role WP:BLP was meant to play?
Thanks, Brimba 02:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right that this is a combination case of multiple individuals, not a single living person as is typically addressed here. I am assuming that you are referring to this article, which I can see would be a magnet for all kinds of mayhem. I don't see however why we need any new rules or any rewording of WP:BLP.  Like any other sensitive article, it needs extra concern with and attention to source reliability and verifiability, as well as WP:BLP. As long as these criteria are met, along with the usual WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, etc., I think our goal of presenting neutral and verifiable information should be met. If you can identify one specific defect in the current body of policies, that would be helpful. Crum375 03:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added the BLP template to the article's Talk page. Crum375 03:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A not entirely hypothetical case 

message: Does wikipedia have a policy regarding pages that were created specifically so that editors can avoid following WP:BLP rules?  The page Views and controversies concerning Juan Cole has been the site of massive edit wars over material attacking Cole (much of it coming from blogs).  A couple of editors have insisted on including every scurrilous sentence published on any blog anywhere about Professor Cole on this page, while a couple of other editors (myself included) have had to go out of our way researching responses to these attacks (which in some cases get deleted and are only allowed to remain up after extensive edit wars).  The editors bent on attacking Cole make no bones about the fact that the page was created precisely to avoid having to follow the rules of WP:BLP.  Is there a precedent for such activity?  I am of the opinion that the page should follow BLP rules because the page is an offshoot of Juan Cole, and the subject of that biography is the central subject of this  page.  The anti-Cole editors, predictably, disagree.  Is there a process to get a ruling on this issue?  Or should the whole page be AfD'd?  Any suggestions are welcome.-csloat 05:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All articles must follow this policy, regardless of whether it is the main biography on the person. —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even a passing reference to a living person in an article on some other person or topic is subject to this policy.  Thus an accusation by Jane Doe that she was abused as a teenager by Richard Roe is subject to BLP so long as either of them are alive.  Absent a reliable source for a person's being dead, I would advise that we presume anyone born within the past 120 years (the limit of proven human longevity) to be alive.  Robert A.West (Talk) 13:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And per WP:BLP any controversial information about a living person, wherever it appears on WP, whether in a dedicated article or not, can be immediately removed by anyone, with no prior discussion needed, and with no WP:3RR limits, if it does not have high quality and reputable reliable and verifiable sources. Crum375 13:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pages created solely to avoid BLP policies 

message: I have made the following proposal on WT:CSD.
:Articles about living persons that cite no sources, cite non-existent sources, or that cite only self-published and/or notoriously unreliable sources, may be speedily deleted. It is not necessary under this criterion for the article to be defamatory.
Please comment. Robert A.West (Talk) 02:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed CSD Criterion 

message: Above is an interesting comment:
* "You'll find a very high proportion of only marginally famous people with articles. They may be notable in a particular field but that does not mean that they must be forced to give up their right to privacy - especially when many of them may not even know that an article exists in order to complain about it." Rossami 
This got me thinking. Maybe this has been discussed before, but in case it hasn't, here goes.
Proposition:
Shouldn't there be a policy that requires notification of the subjects of articles before the articles progress too far? This isn't for the sake of asking permission, but of common decency. They, of all people, should have a right to some say in the matter, or at least knowing that they should keep their eyes open. Articles can be started by fans, but can also be started by enemies who will gain an unfair advantage by editing "behind the back" of their intended victim, so the potential victim deserves to be forewarned. Such a policy could save a lot of time and grief, both for the subject, the involved editors, and for Wikipedia. -- Fyslee 21:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An interesting idea but it has many problems. First, we get some of the worst POV pushing on bios by their authors. Second, if the process is working it shouldn't matter whether there enemies have access to the article, neutral editors will push it towards conforming to WP:NPOV. Third, it would be hard to implement if we had difficulty locating an individual and it isn't clear how much work would be required. Fourth, making editors contact the people is unreasonable and making the foundation do it would put a large burdern on the foundation and possibly expose it to additional liability. Fifth, arguments of "decency" create dangerous precedents, the next step which would be deleting articles about WP:BIO-compliant people who don't like having artivcles. If this did anything it would create more edit warring and associated problems. JoshuaZ 21:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Fifth, arguments of "decency" create dangerous precedents, the next step which would be deleting articles about WP:BIO-compliant people who don't like having articles. COMMENT: Ohmygod! Then we must stop it then, before it gets out of hand and we can't find out the latest on Paris Hilton by reading Wikipedia. Surely, world economic slowdown would then be next, just from the information gap.If this did anything it would create more edit warring and associated problems. COMMENT: As opposed to the legal and bad-press and bad-faith problems which it surely has created and will continue to create? The German Wikipedia solution, BTW, which works just fine, is to simply prohibit bios (that is, per se dedicated articles on a single person) on living persons. It works well, and there's usually not as much edit-warring about who's dead, verses who's merely notable (We can take a consensus on Jimmy Hoffa.) SBHarris 19:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see plenty of biographies of living people on the German Wikipedia. de:Barack Obama, de:Shirley MacLaine, de:Lyndon LaRouche, de:Neil Simon, de:Paul Cameron, de:Louis Farrakhan, de:Harriet Miers, de:Kevin McHale, de:Angela Merkel, etc. It'd be odd for an encyclopedia to avoid biographies of major figures of the era, or even the previous era. -Will Beback · † · 23:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But they do have one on de:Monica Lewinsky. Where's this policy you're referring to? -Will Beback · † · 23:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ach du leiber, you're right. I had it on the best authority (just some German guy) this wasn't true. Perhaps it was once, but now isn't. Just because they don't have one on Monica Lewinski, I assumed they wouldn't have one on Paris Hilton. Wrong. They do. Well, the world is going to the dogs, es tut mir Leid. I spelled Lewinski wrong, too. Not my day, and I'm quitting. SBHarris 23:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: That IP resolves to San Antonio, TX, FWIW. Crum375 15:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: COMMENT: Thanks for sharing that. I myself live in the Los Angeles area and agree with the Texan sentiment. Perhaps if they dare to edit under a username, someone will suggest permabanning them, just as soon as a mighty Bureaucrat with the sacred Checkuser Power can feret them out? I have noticed that sarcasm, even when it targets no particular person and is therefore not uncivil, is itself close being banned on Wikipedia. Apparently it holds up bad policies here up to the kind of all-angles scrutiny you have to go to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to see done well these days. SBHarris 19:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The comment by 68.92.156.246 (probably Brandt) made me laugh. With wit, it summarizes why BLP was created in the first place (but not all the reasons it was expanded and kept). It puts the reader (the wikipedia editor) in the mind of the victim, I mean the beneficiary of our attention; to create the sensitivity demanded by this policy. In that, it does something the written version of our BLP policy does not do and thus would make a good footnote to it. (By the way, the most outrageous parts of it are direct quotes made to Brandt during his efforts to have his bio deleted before we had a BLP policy.) WAS 4.250 22:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, who doesn't ego-Google every now and then?  Googling my user name gives a number of results, including my Wikipedia user page at the top.  I suspect that if there were a bio under that name, it would come up with a high ranking as well  Changing the search to Robert West brings up a Wikipedia bio by that name on the second page, probably because of the large number of consultants, lawyers and suchlike with their own web pages and Google-enhancement strategies.  Its not as if Wikipedia bios are going to be on page 100.  Would notificaton actually serve any real-world purpose, even if we could do it accurately?  Robert A.West (Talk) 19:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy proposal: Notification of subjects of articles 

message: Dear English wikipedians,
we had a debate in persian wikipedia which i'd like to know your comment on. can we publish simple information (like places of study) on a person based on his autobiography? this person is an outlawed political activist (Ali Javadi) so he does not use his real name so the matter cant be checked with univeristies. I (the editor of article) have used phrases like "he claims to have studing in Newmexico state university". is that counted as "vefriable"? if not, how simple information on some one's background can be verified if he doesnt use his real name? isnt good to use autobiography as a refrence and then declare that these are only self-claims?
the translation of article is visible in "Ali Javadi". (altough in persin i have done some edits including adding "he claims..."). please give us your view on that.
--Arash red 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds verifiable that he claims it. "Asserts" would be better in English, btw, since "claims" suggests falsehood; I don't know about Persian. I would be cautious about clues to the identity of an outlaw, even if the authorities have his autobiography; first, do no harm. Septentrionalis 06:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  An autobiography published by a reputable publishing house is a perfectly fine source. A vanity press autobiography or personal web page is almost as good, you can use it for less controversial issues. For non-controversial issues, you don't even have to write "he claims". Where someone went to school is usually not controversial unless someone disputes it, or it seems highly unlikely ("eight year old claims to graduate Oxford"), but if he is hiding his name, then "he claims" seems appropriate for virtually anything. About the link, though, if he is a fugitive, and hiding his name, writing "He is know living in Los Angels with his wife and two daughters and is teaching at UCLA" would seem to be highly controversial, and needs a good source. However the article doesn't seem to say that he is hiding or that anyone is pursuing him. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  a debate on persian wikipedia-please answer 

message: "Defamation" is a legal term.  It does not mean, "any unsourced material".  Do not use templates to attack editors who place unsourced material.  Be very sure you understand what is, and isn't defamation before you use the templates. For example, "garbage smells" is not defamation, it is the truth.  It may or may not require a source depending on how much it is common-knowledge. Do not use blp1, 2, etc for removing or edit-warring over inocuous remarks.  "Paris Hilton likes banana pie" is not defamation.  It may be silly, but it's not slander.  Similarly "Bill Clinton was once arrested for jaywalking" is not defamation either, believe it or not.  The sort of "crime" if you will, has become mundane i.e. no one cares.  "Negative" is not the same as "defamation".  Do not accelerate a conflict by throwing lighter fluid on it. Wjhonson 15:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whilst to wrongly accuse someone of defamation may itself be defamatory.--Docg 15:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The BLP1 Template, and others 

message: Lately in an article I edit quite frequently, there has been a drive to include derogatory content based on a number of partisan sources. When asked for neutral, third party sources the editors who have been challenged have presented someone who's neutrality is suspicious. A simple google search leads to a number of websites which question his objectivity, although he works for a mainstream newspaper. My question is, when dealing with questionable content such as this and the only sources are either partisan or "dubious", how should I continue? Thank you. (Should I crosspost this to RS as well?) Kyaa the Catlord 21:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Need more details. The New York Times and Washington Post are almost the epitome of reliable sources, yet have been accused (by people including a few presidents of the United States) of being quite partisan. Reliable does not mean non-partisan. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It does mean non-partisan to some extent, but not based on whether people make political exaggerations about the partisanship. —Centrx→talk • 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The partisan websites in question are the Council for American-Islamic Relations's press release database and similar organizations which reprint their press releases, these are the epitome of partisan groups in that they are working towards a particular agenda. The reporter in question is Jim Ritter, who has been accused of being a mouthpiece of CAIR. CAIR has a habit of libelous name-calling in the press releases and the only news organization put forth by the people who seem determined to keep in a one-liner slur against Ann Coulter is Jim Ritter's 'article'. The actual press release takes one of Coulter's statements horribly out of context and bases its statement around it. Kyaa the Catlord 23:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sourcing concern that needs clarification

message: I started a biopgraphy on astronomer, William G. Tifft, and discovered one of the few sources of biographical information, and want to include it. But another editor disagrees. I would appreciate some input, described on the Talk:William_G._Tifft page. --Iantresman 17:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both your concerns and ScienceApologist's concerns need to be taken into account here; as it is a delicate matter to not mislead when the readership varies as widely as it does at wikipedia, and the subject is the physics of the universe; and data and minds have changed over the time period that the article's sources where written. I recommend you make multiple attemps at approaches or ways to phrase and maybe even seek third parties attempts at a mutually acceptable approaches or ways to phrase. I know you two can play nice if you try. WAS 4.250 21:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RfC: William G Tifft

message: The discussion on Wikipedia talk:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles seems to have stalled out with opposition to use of it as a general policy, but there was a recognition that BLPs need high standards for sourcing.  Would there be a support for a policy that biographies of living persons, even if they claim notability and escape a7, should be speedy deletable if they cite no sources?  No sources means nothing can be verified, and that's essential to know if what we write is true.  Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that speedy delete only makes sense if there are unsourced or poorly sourced controversial claims in a BLP related article. If the claims are not controversial, it makes sense to let the editors have some time to improve their sourcing, hence no speedy delete is warranted or desired. If the claims are controversial, we can delete them instantly per BLP, and if the article then becomes empty or nearly so, speedy would make sense. Crum375 23:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: You are correct. Some controversial statements may not appear controversial on the surface. In those cases we won't get a speedy but instead a normal delete, which may take a week or so. The difference is that we do want to allow a claim that is not explicitly controversial to be bolstered with proper sources during the AfD process. If there are still no proper sources by the end of the AfD period, hopefully the consensus will be 'Delete'. Remember that the most important inclusion criterion is notability, which will require sourcing to show the person is well known. Typically such sources will tell us if he's (in your case) democrat or republican and his claim to fame. Crum375 00:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Verifiability is far more important and fundamental than notability.  A verifiable article about a non-notable person harms Wikipedia much less than a non-verifiable article about a notable person.  Since, as Nyght Gyr pointed out, an inaccurate assertion about a living person can be harmful without being obviously so, we should strictly insist on sources for all statements in BLPs. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting unsourced BLPs on sight 

message: I assume that images of living people come under this policy if the caption makes an assertion, or the placement of the image invites an assumption.  Thus, a user placed an image of three young people in threesome with an assertion that this was a picture taken just before an encounter, but with no source cited.  I deleted as potentially a BLP violation.  Was I right to do so?  68.238.241.22 09:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  I doubt it was a libel issue, more likely someone joking around with their friends, but it's still an assertion about the people and not really any more appropriate to include than a picture of some guy you know in the article child molestor with the caption "probable child molestor." Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images of Living People 

message: This book, published by Doubleday and written by Hoover Institute research fellow Peter Schweizer, contains chapters entitled things like, "Hillary Clinton — Greedy Speculator, Corporate Shrill, and Petty Tax Avoider" and "Ralph Nader — Bourgeois Materialist, Stock Manipulator, and Tyrannical Sweatshop Boss".  Is listing these titles a violation of WP:BLP? // Lawyer2b 03:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that if they can be proven notable, per book notability criteria, then we may quote the titles, with a neutrally presented verbiage. Crum375 03:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

text: In any case when it is the title of a book I think we can report mention it as a book title as long as that is clear. JoshuaZ 06:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think I've ever seen a Wikipedia article that lists chapter titles. Kaldari 02:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are many of them. See for example Blaming the Victims. Isarig 04:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy]]

message: I have created a template, , for use in WP:LIVING disputes. It's analogous to templates like  and , in that it attracts attention to problem biographies, warns editors and readers of a dispute and provides a resource, in :Category:Disputed biographies of living persons, for collaboration in bringing articles in line with WP:LIVING. Any thoughts? szyslak (t, c, e) 06:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would disagree with this on principle. If someone can point to an item in a BLP-related article that is controversial, and is unsourced or poorly sourced, then that item should be deleted immediately, no prior discussion needed, only a simple edit summary. By inserting the template, we would be acting counter to policy, as policy requires us to immediately delete the item, not to prolong the problem by adding a template or discussing it at length. Crum375 23:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree.  If the dispute is sufficiently borderline to leave the material in (for example, if true and verifiable information is being given undue weight), the existing dispute templates should suffice.  Robert A.West (Talk) 23:14, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New template for WP:LIVING disputes 

message: Why should living people get precedence over dead people? Can't estates of the erstwhiles sue as well?  —  Rickyrab | Talk 19:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biographies of Dead People 

message: How does this policy apply when it is disputed whether or not the individual in question is alive? It's seems reasonable that it would continue to apply following unconfirmed (yet, perhaps, still notable) reports of a person's death. However, at the other end of the specturm, one can imagine Elvis Presley, etc. who some claim are still alive. Just thought it would be good for the policy to address this explicitly if some consensus can be developed. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The basis of this policy is common sense and standard ethical considerations and not legalistic lawyering. Treat people like you want to be treated and don't use "this is an encyclopedia" to treat people like you would treat a building or an idea. Detailed legalistic nit-picking over what is a person or what is living is not helpful; if you lack a heart and need to get advice from others on how to ethically behave, then ask for advice when a relevant situation arises. We have plenty of contributers with a heart who will gladly help you fake it if you can't tell the difference between when to apply BLP and when its ok to just add a fact tag and not delete a probably true but maybe not true claim on a guy who is probably dead but whose body was never found. WAS 4.250 05:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Elvis is dead.  Jim Morrison is dead as well.  And John Lennon is dead.  We don't have to support lunatic concepts in order to function.  In fact we function by ignoring them. If a reliable source has reported that person X is dead, then they are dead, until another reliable source reports that they are not dead.  In the case where two reliable sources conflict, post both to the article.  However Elvis is still dead. Wjhonson 05:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, come on, examples are everywhere. Catherine_the_Great#Personal_life for one. If this were a living person, people would strike this whole section, not a single in-line citation of clearly scurrilous gossip. Legends of Catherine II of Russia - the whole article is mostly about things considered untrue, and even more scurrilous and sensational. Henry_VIII#Henry.27s_mistresses -  "there is evidence to link" but that evidence is not cited. This is a Wikipedia:featured article, mind. These are just the first few monarchs I thought of. AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

text: But, the material is not controversial.  No one seriously disputes that these legends exist, and they have had significant influence on literature and culture.   Yes, they should be sourced, but they can be.  The difference between gossip and legend is, largely whether the subject is dead.  The former is unencyclopedic because we have no distance.  The type of speculative analysis that is PhD-level research into the life of Justinianwould be defamation applied to Brittany Spears, and Wikipedia should not repeat defamation.  That's why biographies of the dead should be treated just like any other article, and not accorded the special care due BLP's.  Robert A.West (Talk) 18:16, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

text: "BLP is [simply] a more vigorous enforcement of existing policy" is not true. There are two vital differences. The first is recognition of the legal and moral right of nonpublic persons to privacy. This is unique to BLP among WPs policies. Please don't sweep it under the rug. Second, the content policies that you rightly refer to as more agressively enforced in BLP are based on what is good and useful in the creation of an encyclopedia and as such were used in the past without regard to common human decency when dealing with the subjects of articles in terms of asking them to accept that eventually the article will be better, that the good off all outweighs specific harm to them, and in general treating them no better than a building because to do so would not be neutral. BLP is not based on law as much as common human decency. Please don't sweep that under the rug either. Saying BLP is just "a strengthened enforcement of existing policy" terribly misrepresents the entire reason for its esistance and thus encourages its misapplication - such as to dead people. The BLP policy means that we accept limiting the usefulness of Wikipedia as an all-encompassing encyclopedia in the case of living people in ways we do not accept for corporations or dead people. WAS 4.250 22:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When "living" is disputed 

message: Moved to Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest WAS 4.250 22:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  BLP policies regarding edits by paid assistants of the subject of an article 

message: Several times now I have seen debates erupt about the use of mugshots in articles about living people. Recent examples include Sultaana Freeman and Al Gore III. Would it be reasonable for us to state in the BLP guidelines, that for non-public figures, it is generally not appropriate to include police mugshots in their Wikipedia articles? This may seem obvious, but it seems that every time this comes up there has to be a debate before the image is removed. For public figures I think there is some wiggle room, but for non-public figures I think this is a pretty safe rule to go by. Obviously, very few people are going to be happy about having mugshots of themselves in their Wikipedia article, especially if they are not well known enough to be able to define their own public image. In many of these cases it seems editors are resorting to mugshots simply because they can't find any other images, or worse, to smear the person in question. Enacting a rule about this would help ensure respect for people's privacy and may even prevent a lawsuit or two. After all, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Kaldari 02:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of [[mugshot]]s 

message: I've always been planning to query this. Per above, I would actually go further since I'm of the opinion any photos should be used with caution. People have a right to privacy and if people aren't public figures, I would suggest we shouldn't include their photo unless there is a good reason why we would should be showing it. For example, I removed another photo from the Sultaana Freeman in agreement with some discussion on the talk page since I don't feel there is any good reason why we should be showing a photo of her and she clearly doesn't want her face to be seen by the general public. (The photo didn't have copyright information specified and given it was from a yearbook, I doubt it would come under a suitable copyright anyway). Given her specific case, the drivers license photo can perhaps say but everything else IMHO is unnecessary at the current time. (Obviously depending on how notable and publicly identifiable she becomes this may change)
Similarly, another case I'm familiar with is Amir Massoud Tofangsazan. This article had an image with uncertain copyright status for a while. While this has been removed a while back, I'm of the opinion even if we do get a suitably licensed photo we shouldn't include it. Although this guy's photo has been splashed all over the internet, he still IMHO is entitled to a resonable degree of privacy and given his limited noteability, I don't see any reason to include a photo of him.
We don't currently have a specific policy in BLP on photos but IMHO we should. (We do cover privacy in general of course). What do others think?
Nil Einne 15:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Strongly support. I agree with pretty much everything you've said. The bottom line is that non-public figures are entitled to a degree of respect for their privacy. People justify including these images by saying "Yeah, but they were published on smokinggun.com or CNN or whatever, so their privacy is already compromised, the images are already public, etc." The reality is, however, having an image included in your Wikipedia biography has far more impact on it's public exposure than it would being on pretty much any other website. If you have a biography on Wikipedia, it is almost guaranteed that that is the first match for your name in a Google search. Thus it pretty much defines you to the rest of the world (if you are not a public figure). This is a huge responsibility! We're talking about actually affecting people's abilities to get employment, date other people, live normal lives, etc. The fact that we even allow articles about non-public figures is somewhat amazing given the potential for harm that is possible. Just because someone was arrested for pot possession (Al Gore III for example), does not mean that they should live the rest of their lives being primarily identified by a mugshot or some other embarrassing image. I'm amazed at the lack of sensitivity to this issue displayed by most Wikipedia editors. I guarantee, however, that they would feel a lot differently if it was their own Wikipedia biographies that were being discussed. For non-public figures we usually have very little information available anyway to write a balanced article, so any image we include has huge potential to throw off the balance of the content. I think we need to err on the side of caution, respect, and civility, and stop letting tabloid-style editors control these articles. Kaldari 00:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not just mugshots but photos in general 

message: I was going through the archives and noticed someone said that we shouldn't worry about the privacy of birthdates because in California and some other US states, you can get anyone's birthday for a $75 subscription to some websites. As soon as I read this I thought it was a silly argument and I just wanted to raise this issue again to point this out. Really I don't think it matters if people's right to privacy is not respected in the US. It is in many other countries, often in law. Of course, if someone's birthdate is available from a reliable source, then obviously it isn't just about whether the information is already publicly available but whether we should respect people's right to privacy when they have limited notability Nil Einne 15:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthdates 

message: *List here the kind of bios we are talking about: Rachel Marsden, Daniel Brandt, Seth Finkelstein, Brian Peppers (deleted), Brian Chase (deleted), Gregory Lauder-Frost (deleted), Angela Beesley, Sam Vaknin (deleted), Stan & Frank Koebel, Kevin Federline, Christopher Michael Langan, Sollog, Dolores McNamara, Michael D. Brown, 
::I started the above list. Please add to it. WAS 4.250 20:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WAS, I don't want to add the cases I know about, because it'll give some people an excuse to discuss the details. I want to keep this on the level of general principles. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Applying general principles to specific test cases is a useful way to debug the verbalization of those general principles. Rachel Marsden is a perfect test case. WAS 4.250 21:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you in principle, but there are unresolved or sensitive issues in all the real cases, including Marsden's. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: O.J. Simpson? Monica Lewinsky? Absolutely not. This proposal was only intended to apply to non-notable individuals. EpicFantasyStory 01:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Let me be more frank: If you disagree with the inclusion of a test case, you can move it to a separate section or add a comment about why you disagree with it. Blanking other users' good-faith, policy-conforming contributions to a Talk page is rude, and I won't hesitate to give any editor a vandalism warning if it happens again. Kla'quot 16:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Test cases

message: ** I'm not yet sure whether I like this proposal and I agree that the current wording could be too easy to game but I do think that you've missed a key point in the argument.  Several times in this debate, you've said that this can be resolved through rigorous application of our sourcing and verifiability requirements.  That misses the principle of undue weight.  An encyclopedia article should be a biography - a summation of the person's entire life - not merely a news story.  Yet because of where and how we typically find our sources, we can get a preponderance of negative information that misrepresents the person's life.  A single negative fact can often be reliably sourced from a news article.  All the positive facts of the non-notable person's life, on the other hand, are more likely to be functionally impossible to independently source - they're just not newsworthy.  Do we really want biographies of non-notable people to be limited to what showed up in the police blotter twenty years ago?   Now, if we could convince editors to stop mistaking Wikipedia for Wikinews, the "sourcing fixes it" argument might hold up better.  But frankly if we could fix that problem, we wouldn't even be having this argument...  Rossami (talk) 07:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: BLPfd Comments section 3

message: **More importantly, "multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources" does not necessarily comprise "plenty of source material for a biography". — Yes, it does.  Every word in that formulation is important, as Wikipedia:Notability explains, including "non-trivial".As for your reiteration, you are missing the fact that this is an encyclopaedia.  The lengthy handwringing about "original biographical interviews" and "consulting the subject" is completely ignoring our Wikipedia:No original research policy.  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, a tertiary source.  That means that the journalists and biographers who have performed interviews and consulted the subjects are our sources.  Handwringing about a need to interview the subjects to check facts is missing the point.  It has always been the principle here that Wikipedia is not set up to perform fact checking.  Therefore we write, and only write, based upon sources where that fact checking (e.g. interviewing any necessary people) has already been done.  For further explanation, see User:Uncle G/On sources and content and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.As I have already written once above, all of the handwringing about narrative and interviews is moot.  If someone satisfies the PNC, there will be enough source material for a full article.  If someone does not satisfy the PNC, then we shouldn't have a biographical article in the first place, so any arguments based upon the premise of such articles being comprised of a sparse few facts pinned together are completely irrelevant.  In such cases, giving the subject its own article is the wrong way for Wikipedia to be presenting what information there is on the subject.So the proper course of action is to do some AFD Patrol and ensure that the PNC is properly applied at AFD, not to waste time and effort inventing additional deletion processes.  It isn't a lack of deletion processes that is the problem.To see the problem, note that not a single editor in any of the three AFD discussions of Rachel Marsden actually challenged it (or, indeed, defended it) on the depths and the provenances of the published works that cover the subject.  None of the editors who are here pushing for a new deletion process have actually applied our existing processes.  Uncle G 16:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: BLPfd Comments section 4

message: Some input on the above, in 3 areas:
Addressing one point made above by Jill and others, please go read Bodil Joensen for a biography I expanded (apologies, it's on a notable Danish porn star, but it's one where this exact issue came up). Go read it. She's dead, but the fact that a simple article discussing her porn career could be easily expanded to a balanced biography, based upon publicly available and citable sources, makes me sceptical that we really have a problem here. Also look at the article on Hani Miletski, a notable academic researcher in the same pornographic field. If someone is notable enough for a biography article, then there will usually be enough material to describe at the least their work and some basic personal information in a balanced manner (Miletski's article is an example) and often enough to do a full bio in a balanced manner (Joensen's article is an example), drawing on cited sources in each case. My point being, lack of sources doesn't necessarily seem to me to be causing huge problems for notable people's biographies in practice. FT2 (Talk | email) 00:52, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What if OJ doesn't want it in his article that he was found liable for the deaths? There's such a thing as negative information that we ought to include against the subject's wishes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But, that information would come from multiple trivial to search for and find sources.  Hence it would pass the test -- Tawker 06:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: BLPfd Comments section 5

message: I stopped by because of a situation in the Sathya Sai Baba arb case.  Take a look at Talk:Sathya Sai Baba/Comments.  Basically I think the restrictions on talk-page content are way too onerous, especially for articles about public figures.  They make collaborative editing extremely difficult.  The point of talk pages is to be able to assess claims and citations, chase down better sourcing for material that appears to be correct but you don't have completely solid cites for, ask people if they have access to works cited in bibliographies, etc. The link above shows someone hassling me over an arb restriction , for posting a link to a carefully researched bibliography that was written by a former Sai adherent who subsequently left the movement.  Keeping such discussion off of talk pages stops the articles from improving.  You end up getting groups of editors collaborating secretly off-wiki instead of openly on the talk page.  That is not in the wiki spirit, in my view.
The BLP policy in general should distinguish public figures from not-so-public ones.  At least for public figures, the rule for talk pages should be similar to the arb ruling in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Francis Schuckardt, which said don't remove stuff from talk pages unless it's actually libelous, rather than the current extremist practice which destroys the thoroughness and NPOV of articles.  If necessary, protect talk pages from Google indexing using a robots.txt tag, or even have restricted subpages that can't be viewed except by established users (initially let's say that means those who can create new articles, i.e. account is a few days old and they've made a few edits) that can be used for more open discussion.  That should totally stop search engines and slow down random snooping.  More serious snoopers will use Google and find everything on other sites anyway.  
Weirdly about the Sai Baba article, it extensively discusses very serious allegations about sex abuses that are not all that convincing, because those were the ones sensational enough to get attention from TV networks and big newspapers and so they're considered well-sourced.  This is about a guy who claims to materialize gold jewelry from thin air, a much easier claim to refute in scientific terms than allegations that someone did or didn't commit lurid sex crimes.  But those easy and straightforward refutations from Indian skeptics' journals are excluded from the article because of wikilawyering over circulation figures etc, and pointing out the obvious non-miraculous explanations of these materializations was not sensational enough to get made into TV shows.
67.117.130.181 19:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  talk pages 

message: Isn't labelling someone with this drawing a conclusion on that person and breaking WP:NOR and defamatory which would break BLP? Kyaa the Catlord 17:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category Anti-Islam sentiment 

message: The wikien-l links in the notes section currently  go to wrong posts. Will somebody find the right URL's? PrimeHunter 16:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now an editor has inserted "failed verification" instead of the links. Somebody should look at this. Sorry for not doing it myself, but I'm not familiar with wikien-l. PrimeHunter 14:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes links 

message: Concern has been expressed about giving the exact dates of birth of living people as it might assist in identity theft.  Surely this is even mor etrue of mother's maiden name.  I am constantly asked for this as a form of identification.  Also, maiden name of wife would assist in identity theft if there are any adult children, even if the subject of the bio is no longer alive.  I therefor epropose that maiden name sof mother and wife be excluded from all biographies where this may be a danger.--Holdenhurst 16:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be impractical.  Often the family connections are part of the story -- if Rose Schlossberg ever seeks a political career, the fact that her mother is Caroline Kennedyg is going to be an important fact.  Robert A.West (Talk) 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I feel like our need to worry about these things is more a symptom of the sad state of identification and security than a fundamental privacy issue.  These names are public record and relevant for cross reference and study;  I don't think it's an undue danger.Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother's maiden name 

message: Hi, I was contesting the inclusion of material from a blog posted on the article Benjamin M. Emanuel I had deleted the information saying it was poorly sourced contentious material that claimed the father of US Rep Rahm Emanuel was a murderous terrorist and also called for the speedy deletion of the article saying that it was an attack page.  My edits were reverted by Admin User: Mel Etitis, thankfully now another Admin has deleted the same things that I had. My question to the board is about Mel Etitis' claim on my talk page that I was “misinterpreting the guidelines concerning blogs”.
:The article at this point in the edits (which  can be found in that old version at this link )
listed three sources #1 being the reliable Washington-Times and #2-3 being from blogs, it stated
: “According to Steve Hendrix of the Washington Post, he was also a member of ‘the pre-independence Israeli underground’.[1]. Chicago-based independent investigator Sherman Skolnick has qualified this further[2], asserting that he was a member of the Irgun, a radical paramilitary organization that was a predecessor to the IDF, and, somewhat contradictory, to have participated in the assasination of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte in 1948 (which would have placed him with the rival Lehi, or Stern Gang). Skolnick is known not to document his sources; the matter was explored further by another independent investigator, Christopher Bollyn. While Bollyn's account is tinged with anti-semitism, and also does not cite all of its sources, Bollyn does assert to have actually called Emanuel at his home in Wilmette, Illinois; when asked about the Irgun, Emanuel said he has been "but a simple soldier",[3] having served under (but not having met) Menachem Begin. Emanuel then also denied having participated in illegal weapons shipments to Palestline, ‘despite press reports’, before terminating the conversation. Bollyn also speculates that Emmanuel Auerbach was related to Moshe Auerbach, who with Pino Ginzburg established an office in Berlin in the 1930s, in an attempt to establish a modus vivendi with the Nazi regime, whereby Jewish emigration to Palestine be allowed (followed by recognition of a Jewish state by the German Reich) in exchange for active opposition to British forces throughout the Middle East.”
I stated that “This page is in violation of wiki-standards concerning biographies of living persons, it cites three sources two of which are blogs which are not reliable sources by wiki-standards and therefor can not be used. The one reliable source mentioned does not claim association with Irgun but only the "the pre-independence Israeli underground" and so does not support the claims made in this article.”
User: Mel Etitis explained why I was mistaken by writing on the talk-page that “The article, however, is clear about the sources of the claims that it reports, and reports them in a dispassionate, disinterested, not to say sceptical way. Blogs, etc., shouldn't be used to verify claims made by articles, but they can certainly be referred to as the source of claims that are reported.” I wrote “The use of skeptical caveats does not allow for wiki-pages to use unsubstantiated charges that come from non-reliable unnotable sources." I received no direct response to that post, but at one point Mel Etitis wrote “WP:V#SELF simply doesn't rule out the reference to a blog, it rules out the use of blogs as (the sole) source for what articles say about their subjects. if the article said that he was a murderer, and cited a blog, that would be wrong; if it says that he's accused of murder in a blog, that's very different.” Is this true? Can an editor cite any claim from a blog as long as they cite that blog and add skeptical caveats? At first I thought he was just being biased because he was an early contributor to the article and had placed claims that Benjamin M. Emanuel “was a member of the Irgun, a radical Zionist paramilitary organization” on his son US Rep Rahm Emanuel’s page on 19:47, 9 January 2007 without any references. But as he is an Admin and as another Admin User:NawlinWiki had removed my request for speedy deletion at 18:44, 10 January 2007 and wrote on the title of that edit “doesn't seem to be an attack page, has sources”, I was confused. I went to the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability page and asked if this was acceptable and they seem split on the matter see discussion here. So the Question is: Can one cite a blog that claims someone is a murderer without evidence as long as one states that this information is from a blog?--Wowaconia 19:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In some cases, yes.  If the accusations are notable, relevant and add significant value to the article without giving undue weight to the claims a case could be made for their inclusion.  In this particular case however, I think the more pertinent issues are the lack of notability of the subject and the murder claims being the focus and majority of the article; if the accusations were notable and relevant to his son's political career, a short note on the son's article should suffice. Shell babelfish 19:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Sourcing is a judgement call, so the right answer is "It depends." But since anyone can edit, we create policies and guidelines to help; and saying "no blogs" is a useful rule of thumb. It is better to defer to the judgement of good editors like Mel Etitis rather than to blindly apply rules of thumb like "No blogs". When good editors disagree on things like this they should discuss based on the details of the specific case rather than the details of policy and guides. WAS 4.250 05:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can one cite a blog that claims someone is a murderer without evidence as long as one states that this information is from a blog? 

message: There is an article about Blackmore's Night vocalist Candice Night. There was a note about her given name. But then her management deleted it. What do you think about it? Is it right or wrong? Geevee (talk) 14:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the given name was sourced by The New York Times we would keep the name but if sourced by a legal document as part of a lawsuit we would allow deletion by her. But there is no evidence the anon was her management. But there is no source for the given name. And the article is so poorly sourced it could be deleted altogether. I'm inclined to let it be as is for now. WAS 4.250 14:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Private information concealment 

message: Are we now to police user page content to this BLP standard or just attempts to associate user pages with notable people's biographies? E.g. Jimbo's bio points to his web page (which looks OK) but maybe not every Wikipedia account holder who is notable wants to advertise his/her edits as being contributed with such gravitas. -- 71.141.231.234 23:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  User pages 

message: This page was vandalised at some point with three unnecessary occurences of the  tag. I have sorted it out, but watch out for that happening again. Jake95 17:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:AGF --PopPop PopMusic 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I discuss this above in "Notes links". I think it was improper application of "failed verification" (deleting the bad references with no mention on talk) but not vandalism. The best action would be to find the right URL's for the references. I remember reading them once, so they probably still exist with different post numbers. PrimeHunter 18:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

text: There should be tags there to remind editors that updated links are needed. --PopPop PopMusic 14:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it's not vandalism, but only use  if you keep the incorrect reference. It makes no sense if an article says "not in citation given" when no citation is given. And finding a right reference can be much harder (certainly in this case) if people don't know the false reference which may just need a minor correction, e.g. because a site reorganized URL's. I will try to nail the references before more time is wasted on this. PrimeHunter 14:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have restored the deleted references with corrected URL's which just added 7 to the post number at the end of the URL. I wonder whether similar wikien-l URL changes have caused problems in other places. PrimeHunter 15:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Once someone is deceased, BLP no longer applies. Shouldn't the WPBiography/BLP templates come down from the articles then? What is the proper way to handle this? F.F.McGurk 16:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just do it. If you see a template that is not appropriate then delete it. If you are viewing an article because a person just died, add their date of death with a source and remove the BLP from the talk page and the category "living person" from the article. If someone wants to fight about it, wait a couple of days to revert ... people get emotional about these things and it can wait while people mourn. WAS 4.250 16:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question re: deceased 

message: What is the policy on sourced rumors in general? Also here are a couple of particular instances I have questions about:
*What is Wikipedia's policy on properly sourced but completely unfounded rumors? Rumors which have absolutely no evidence to back them up, but nonetheless are well known rumors such as the insidious Richard Gere gerbilling rumor that people keep re-inserting into his article. 
*How about unfounded rumors which exist but are completely relegated to a small group of people. Such as the little known rumor that Michael Jordan retired in 1993 because he was banned from the NBA for a period of time for gambling? Quadzilla99 22:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a judgement call on what's "encyclopedic". We try to steal other's judgements by insisting on noteable sources for such things - so for example if the New York Times sees fit to mention it then we certainly can also. Ask why is it important enough to be mentioned. Imagine trying to justify it to the person you are writibg about. Do you say "Well people like to read dirt on famous people" ? If so leave it out. But some rumors get famous enough they need to be covered. Some rumors have consequences such that the whole sordid thing meeds to be explained for it all to make sense. But usually people make up lies, trash papers print trash, life goes on, and nothing encyclopedic has happened. WAS 4.250 01:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sourced Rumors

message: A recent discussion on the Village Pump about whether it was ever appropriate to list product endorsements in the articles of celebrities (consensus: yes) got me thinking about the potential problems with unsourced claims of endorsement.  Many jurisdictions have a distinct cause of action for false endorsement claims, i.e., making it look like someone has endorsed a product or service when they have not, and it's not extreme to imagine this amounting to libel in even ordinary cases of endorsement.
I propose that all claims that a living person was paid to endorse a particular product or service be expressly treated as inherently "controversial," so that they are to be removed if they are not reliably sourced.  Thoughts?  Postdlf 16:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course. All claims about living people should be sourced, and any claim that might be a problem should be sourced or deleted immediately. WAS 4.250 17:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Basically I want to add to this policy page something to the effect of "Unsourced claims that an individual endorsed a particular commercial product or service should always be removed on sight."  In other words, state that such unsourced claims are a problem as an absolute rule, rather than going into a pointless discussion over whether that endorsement might have negative implications.  Postdlf 18:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are at least two schools of thought in this regard. For example, I think it is best to give general rules and identify factors to consider while SlimVirgin likes to "nail things down" so admins have a useful tool in a dispute. So long as WP:IAR is a policy there is no conflict between those two divergent points of view. WAS 4.250 00:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the legal risk from even an ostensibly benign but false endorsement, I think this should be "nailed down" as an absolute rule, requiring removal of all unsourced claims of this nature.  Postdlf 16:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are thousands of such cases that could be itemized. Do we nail them all down? And what of WP:IAR? Doesn't that make "absolute rules" not absolute? WAS 4.250 18:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  I agree with WAS here. We cannot have wording on each exception. Editor's good judgment plays a role in this. I would delete an unsourced claim of product endorsement on sight, but that is just me. Others may ask for sources and wait for few days before deleting. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commercial endorsements by living people 

message: What should one do when you notice an editor that is adding things to a bio that seem to indicate a possibility of the user being a subject of that biography, or affiliated to a subject? I noticed User:75.80.55.135 adding some things that seemed to suggest just that. The way the user is adding things has got some of the edits reverted though (not because the edits were really malicious though). And I wanted to make sure that the user, if indeed a subject or affiliated with a subject, doesn't leave wikipedia with a bad experience, which is the general idea of WP:LIVING#Dealing_with_edits_by_the_subject_of_the_article I think. So I left a message on the talk page, and I just wanted to make sure if I handled that right. If I am not being too presumptuous, or on the other hand if I am not assuming too much here, and if what I did was at all needed. What do the rest of you think?--Codemonkey 03:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can place a notice at WP:COI/N or at WP:BLP/N, so that editors monitoring these type of articles can offer some assistance. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to do when you think an editor is the subject of a biography? 

message: For something to be controversial, by definition, it must have already caused a controversy. I'm pretty sure the idea of this policy is to prevent things from getting to that stage, so I think we should change it to "potentially controversial". -Amark moo! 02:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This could be problematic, because almost anything could be "potentially controversial".  I understand and share Amark's concern about preventing controversy before it happens, but we should also make sure that the wording doesn't open the door too far.  Instead of replacing "controversial" with "potentially controversial" throughout, perhaps it would be better to add a sentence or section about potential controversies, applying a reasonable person standard.  Something like, "Material does not need to have created a controversy to be removed under this policy.  If a reasonable person could be expected to find unsourced or poorly sourced material controversial, it should be removed."  How about that? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial -> potentially controversial 

message: There has lately been a bit of controversy and heated debates about including the dates of birth for certain articles. Here I would like to propose some sort of change to clarify matters further to prevent such wide interpretation of the policy as has been done. The current text is:
Wikipedia includes exact birthdates for some famous people, but including this information for most living people should be handled with caution. While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. With identity theft on the rise, it has become increasingly common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information. When in doubt about the notability of the person in question, or if the subject of a biography complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth rather than the exact date.
I would like to open up discussion on altering the bolded part of that quote. Certain possible ideas that have come up have been:
*Specifically mentioning that subjects of articles under 18 should not have their full birthday listed.
**An exception to this would be if the figure's birthday is readily available and the figure has voluntarily entered media coverage about themself.
*Specifically allowing both the month and year of birth, instead of just the year (as listing the month as well is already common practice, might as well amend the policy)
*Some sort of clarification as what qualifies as the notability of someone being in question: perhaps having a no consensus AFD debate? (This may lead to instruction creep, so perhaps not)
I'm leaving a note on the village pump to get some opinions about this as well, but I'd be much interested in opening up a discussion here about this. Cowman109Talk 16:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm agreeing on certain issues above.  First Month and Year would not facilitate identity theft and so seems fine.  Second if a subject has specifically told a media outlet (like Gales Author's Online for example) what their birthday is, evidently they do not care if everyone knows.  That is quite different from *finding* the birthdate in a public document like a court record, since that is not voluntary. Third I do not feel that a public figure *complaining* about their birthdate being present should at all influence wikipedia.  Next they will be complaining about us using their middle name, or saying the town in which they were born, and in what pissy movie they were. We're not here to mollify personalities, but to provide information. Wjhonson 18:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My two cents. If the persons birthdate is listed in a number of reliable sources, list it. If it can't be well sourced, don't list it. I am not buying into an identity theft problem issue. Cheers --Tom 17:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have e-mailed Brad Patrick for his legal opinion on the identity theft issue.  Otherwise, I am inclined to agree with Tom. --Aervanath 19:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: Brad Patrick gave me a very polite brush-off.  However, I don't want to drop this issue.  Can someone get a real legal opinion on this?  We don't want Wikipedia to get sued because of this policy.  However, my gut instinct is that if it's well-sourced, and the article subject is over 18, then there should be no legal issues with this.  However, I AM NOT A LAWYER, so this is something which should get real legal input, or at least some amateur legal research. --Aervanath 21:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Err on the side of being too conservate and do not hide behind a supposed protection in the law. CyberAnth 21:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to alter the criteria for listing dates of birth 

message: I fully support an interpretation that each and every statement beyond what is clearly common knowledge be cited in BLPs - especially in BLPs. 
Apart from such a standard, determining what is or is not "controversial" is clearly a subjective exercise. It is therefore inherently error-prone. Within the space of that proneness is risk - risk of liability. These are hard facts, folks. 
What is or is not "controversial" must therefore become a strictly objective exercise. The sole and exclusive way for that to happen is via strict adherence to WP:V. And even WP:V itself is very clear that any statement not cited may be removed. 
The perennial incantations of many editors and admins - "BITE" and "POINT" and "CIVIL" - are typically rouges to allow irresponsible editorship to go on.  "I like it" - "this is my nest" - "this may spillover to upset my articles" - these are the more likely causes underneath the incantations.
Yet it has all along been the responsibility of editors to know WP content policies before adding material to the project - especially with regards to BLPs. And they are forewarned of this at numerous turns, including when they sign up, and on BLP article Talk Pages.
It is time - far, far past time - to require real responsibility in editorship on BLPs. While this may cause some transitory upsetting of "nests", that is an entirely acceptable thing if it serves to produce the desired outcomes, and to alleviate even the potential for liability. And besides, the only reason it might be upsetting to some is that the culture here has been far too lax with BLPs.
A helpful analogy here is the mass deletion of replaceable fair use images by a cohort of admins. Yes, it upsets some editors' "nests" - editors who had a responsibility to know better in the first place. Yet given the GFDL, and despite the upsetting, it is for both the the long and short-term good of the project. If you are reading this, it is therefore in your interest as well.
Jimbo has well stated that "WP:BLP is essential the future of the project in every regard and must be taken very very seriously in all respects." 
I invite others to join me in taking these words to heart, and following it with commensurate actions.
CyberAnth 21:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:CK already exists so we need not debate here what is and is not common knowledge. Even so, how hard is it to cite http://www.otto-waalkes.com/ to verify he is a comedian and http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/11/the_man_who_beat_borat.html to verify his pre-occupation with comedic elephants? The bit about elephants could even be interpreted as vandalism without verification. CyberAnth 22:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was just an example, of course. It's of course not a problem at all to cite all this. But you're right, Wikipedia:Common knowledge is helpful. --Conti|✉ 22:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: CyberAnth weighs in

message: There is a problem at Boris Stomakhin with contributors edit warring. The problem is that the sources for the negative comments are all in Russian. Not only is it impossible for non-russian speakers to read them, we can't even tell if they are reliable" or not. For example, "death to all russians" is sourced to . So, what guidance is offered? In a sense, these sites fail "verifiability" for most of us William M. Connolley 12:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Being in Russian does not make it fail verifyability, it just means that only someone who can read russian and has good judgement on Russian sources has a useful opinion on whether the source is reliable or not. Sometimes a good solution is if both sides can agree on an english language characterization of the reliability of the source (that charcacterization can be summarized in the text and be provided in full in a footnote that includes the original russian text). WAS 4.250 22:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um. In this case, the two sides don't appear to agree on anything! Is there a default position in cases like this? How is an admin supposed to judge whether the BLP "opt-out" for 3RR is applicable, when its impossible to tell whether the source is good or not? William M. Connolley 22:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is an admin supposed to judge whether the BLP "opt-out" for 3RR is applicable, when that admin is not qualified to tell whether the source is good or not? Such an admin should not make a judgement when they realize they are unqualified. Aren't you an expert on some subjects? Do you have experience with admins making judgements in areas they lack an adequate background? Are you using this episode to illustrate a larger point? Or is that simply a lucky secondary point? WAS 4.250 04:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  The default position with WP:BLP seems to be to delete everything, then claim WP:BLP if challenged on it, possibly being quite rude to other editors in the process, then sit back and win applauds from various admins. Artw 22:41, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict) Have you posted a request yet to any of the folks at Wikipedia:Translators available#Russian-to-English or from any of the users who self-describe as fluent in Russian?  You could also compare the article with the biography in the Russian Wikipedia (which, admittedly, is in Russian but even a machine-translation can sometimes clear up points of controversy). Comparing the english biography to the foreign language version is particularly helpful because it's one of the few tactics which can address the "undue weight" concern. Even if you translate and verify the disputed facts, they may still present an incomplete or biased view of the subject. Our counterparts in the Russian Wikipedia are charged to uphold the same standards for NPOV and balance as we are here. Rossami (talk) 22:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Comment. I would like to note that Mikkalai participated already (although very little) in editing this article. Main problem: Stomakhin allegedly made comments which may be offensive for Russian nation. It is most important to have an impartial editor, and that would be a non-Russian who knows Russian language. I suggest User:HanzoHattori because he seems to be also well familiar with Chechnya and other subjects relevant to Stomakhin case. Biophys 18:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem here is that Biophys claimed some Russian sources to be unreliable because they contradict to other Russian source. Biophys failed to show the real contradiction. All interested may see how Biophys lied about controversy in citations  here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Points_to_answer_for_Biophys and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#quote_.22Death_to_Russia.22 Biophys claims the source to be unreliable since he believes in conspiracy theory that prominent Izvestia journalist who also was a reporter of NTV Russian TV channel wa shired by Russian government to defame Stomakhin. However this theory contradicts to obvious facts.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem here is actually not translation. The problem is that User:Vlad fedorov hates Boris Stomakhin. I also do not like Boris Stomakhin and can understand Vlad.  Vlad clearly should not be editing this article, as was noted by User:Jkelly. Biophys 17:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem here is that Biophys claimed some Russian sources to be unreliable because they contradict to other Russian source. Biophys failed to show the real contradiction. All interested may see how Biophys lied about controversy in citations  here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#Points_to_answer_for_Biophys and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boris_Stomakhin#quote_.22Death_to_Russia.22 Biophys claims the source to be unreliable since he believes in conspiracy theory that prominent Izvestia journalist who also was a reporter of NTV Russian TV channel wa shired by Russian government to defame Stomakhin. However this theory contradicts to obvious facts.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree. If there is a highly controversial article or a source that became a reason of edit warring, such as this: , one should provide a really good complete translation of the entire article to English. Then everyone can see what it really says and judge that citation was not out of context. This particular article has no date. So, we even do not even know when it has been  written.Biophys 20:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course the whole article should be translated for other users to see what Stomakhin was actually writing about - extermination of all Russians without mercy.Vlad fedorov 07:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is not. But I included this controversy in the last paragraph of article Boris Stomakhin to find a compromise without violating LP policies too much. I hope that resolves our differences. Biophys 16:26, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, it doesn't resolve our differences since you have deleted all the citations which should be kept for Wikipedia readers to judge themselves whether Stomakhin is extremist who called to commit terrorist attacks against Russian civilians and to exterminate Russians or not.Vlad fedorov 17:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wot about foreign language subjects and sources? 

message: I was wondering what kind of "warning" I should give a user who edits an article to state a person has passed away? See Jaco van der Westhuyzen. It seems like a pretty serious thing to be claiming. I did a search on google news and he seems to be almost certainly alive and well. - Shudda talk 23:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd use shiny new:   . You can also use uw-error2 or uw-error3 for stonger versions of the warning. The full set of warnings can be found at WP:UWT WJBscribe 14:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. - Shudda talk 09:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits claiming someone is dead 

message: Could some people please take a look at Banjee and then weigh in at Talk:Banjee#WP:BLP on whether  belongs on that talk page? One editor thinks it does, because the article has a photograph of an (unidentified) living person and mentions another living person by name. I think it doesn't, because the article isn't a biography of a living person, but rather an article about a group of people. —Angr 17:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is standard to put the BLP talk template on every article in the category living person which is what we are very loosely are calling "biographies", but many are merely encyclopedia articles on some noteworthy events organized in an article titled by the name of a living person rather than a real biography. It is very rare but not forbidden to put it elsewhere. Use good judgement and don't fight over it. WAS 4.250 20:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article in question is not in :Category:Living people because it's an article about a cultural phenomenon, not a living person. —Angr 23:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think whenever living people are involved the ethics of WP:BLP should be consulted. CyberAnth 20:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Banjee 

message: Do we really need the list of articles about living persons that have been contentious?  This looks to me to be irrelevant to a policy page, and I would suggest it is removed.  Enchanter 21:08, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd concur that it is irrelevant and should be removed.  It causes an undue focus on articles that have been problematic in the past but are now resolved, though the normal editing to WP:BLP standard. --Steve  (Slf67)  talk  00:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's a hold-over from when we needed some example pages to properly explain what the original BLP proposal was about and why it was important.  At this point, it has some minor value as a teaching tool but we'd probably do better pointing new readers to the Talk page archives.  Take it out.  Rossami (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the list --Steve  (Slf67)  talk  23:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of contentious articles 

message: Biography of Living Persons Administrators ("BLP Admins") carry out a specialized, narrowly tailored administrative role within Wikipedia. Please see WP:BLPADMIN to offer your thoughts on this proposal. CyberAnth 03:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:BLPADMIN|Biography of living persons adminship]]

message: Should they have their own articles?  There is a discussion about this going on on the living persons noticeboard.  I have complained but am not sure what to do next.  For one thing I am using my real name here and I don't know what kind of people I would be going up against if I made a big thing about this. Steve Dufour 18:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless there are extenuating circumstances (and none jump to mind for victims who are still alive), then not only should they not have their own articles but they probably should not be mentioned in other articles.  Child victims deserve a chance to grow and get on with their lives.  In fact in most jurisdictions that I'm familiar with, privacy of a minor victim's identity is required by law.  The other strong argument against a victim having a separate article is that Wikipedia is not a newspaper.  There are very few crimes that are truly of an encyclopedic nature.  For those that are, it's almost always the crime that's notable, not the victim.  (Note: The victim can be notable for other reasons and just happen to be the victim of a crime - in which case it may or may not be appropriate to cover the crime in the victim's existing article.)   Having said all that, sometimes the article about the crime is written at a pagetitle carrying the name of the victim.  Kitty Genovese is an example of such an article.  Rossami (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Kitty Genovese seems to be an exceptional case, as well as happening a long time ago. Steve Dufour 22:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Child victims of sex crimes

message: A CFD has been proposed to merge :Category:Ex-members of the Ku Klux Klan into :Category:Ku Klux Klan members, because categories for people shouldn't distinguish between past and present status.  However, I'm concerned that because "members" implies present status (something that a category's description can't ameliorate because that doesn't show up in the articles that are tagged) this could be libellous if they've in fact renounced the KKK.  I'd appreciate some other thoughts in that CFD.  Postdlf 18:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Past and present KKK members 

message: On my watchlist, I recently noticed on the article on Katharine McPhee that a controversial subject regarding a Sirius satellite radio show was added (tabloid gossip, perhaps?).
I am not sure what to make of it. It seems offensive but also kind of relevant. (Key phrase: kind of.) 
#It seems unnecessary / awkward to use the word "penis" in an otherwise innocent looking article. The subject is a mainstream act, not in the sex business.
#It might send out a negative message to potential fans- that if a creepy guy can find her number, then anyone can. Wouldn't want the site to promote stalking of a living person.
#Ms. McPhee may not want it on here, anyway, since she hates any mention of Sirius satellite now. 
I'm aware that articles are to be comprehensive to the person's life and career. Is this going too far or is it ok? I'm neutral- neither against or for inclusion. 
The guy has an article. Would the statement be more suitable on that article than on hers? Whatever the consensus is, feel free to make the changes. Or not, if it's perfectly fine. Elle Bee 19:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll take it out as unreferenced, unencyclopaedic drivel more suited to Stern or midget article  --Steve  (Slf67)  talk  08:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just bringing this to your attention 

message: David Barton is a controversial figure, for various reason cited in his article.  Please review the diff between myself and another editor.  We have been engaged in a reverting battle and I'd like other opinions. diff Wjhonson 20:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC: [[David Barton]]

message: I work on a lot of Bollywood actor/actress pages, and I see a great many edits concerning the stars' romantic lives. If the star is married and not known to be carrying on an immensely public affair, editors generally leave the star alone. We end up with "X married Y and they have two children." However, single stars are the subject of laser-like focus by gossip columnists, gossip which editors then insert in WP. It's the latest hottest stars who get this treatment; no one seems to care very much about the dalliances of Dilip Kumar. So we get statements like "X has had relationships with A, B, and C; X dumped B for C." Some of this is referenced to gossip columns and some of it is inserted without references and like kudzu, keeps re-appearing even after it has been weeded out.
A great many of the Indian editors seem to think that this is a proper use of WP and get irritated with me when I replace it with "X is single." Myself, I see it as a mis-use of WP. I don't think who dates who is at all notable, unless there's some huge controversy or the matter ends up in court. Or someone writes a tell-all roman à clef that becomes a best-seller. Retailing gossip is just so ... vulgar. So invasive. So unkind. 
I should perhaps note that my position on this has changed over the years. When I first started editing here, I would let that sort of stuff pass, as long as it was referenced. Over time, it has come to seem more intrusive and more irritating. 
I don't edit non-Bollywood star biographies, but I imagine that this happens in other places as well. (Not to all stars -- the Nathan Fillion article, which I do follow, is blessedly bereft of gossip.) Is there a policy that applies to salacious concentration on single stars' dating lives? Zora 04:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I support your position. Single people date other single people, it's assumed. It's also assumed they date people in similar social standings - so stars will generally date stars. Unless the relationship is somehow unusual (engagement; adultery; jumping up and down on Oprah Winfrey's couch :-) ) I would consider it no more notable than writing about which restaurant they've been eathing at or which fashion designer they have been wearing clothing by. (Note that gossip columns will cover restaurants and fashion designers.) That's not quite a policy, but it may be a useful simile. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gossip re dating