The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Closing comments
This has been one of the largest and most complex requests for comment within the community for some time, with 470 editors producing over 200,000 words of commentary. The majority of views and comments are clearly the result of thoughtful contemplation on the part of editors who have taken the time to inform themselves of the issues, and everyone should be applauded for considering this matter seriously. Those who have taken part have the best interests of the encyclopedia and the project at heart, and there is a good deal of merit, based on policy, practice and practicality, in each of the major positions put forward. It is also important to note that the majority of those who participated did so relatively early in the RfC, and are unlikely to have reviewed some of the later views and proposals; therefore, it is not possible to accurately assess consensus on these views. After reading this RfC, I can say categorically that Wikipedians are dedicated to the ongoing development of a comprehensive, accurate, and constantly improving encyclopedia; however, there are very diverse views on how this can best be achieved.
There appears to be a broad consensus that:
Unreferenced BLPs are only a small segment of potentially or actually problematic BLPs.
There are reasons to place additional emphasis on the sourcing of BLPs, and that this category of articles is more sensitive to inaccuracy than others (although opinions on the degree to which they are more sensitive was subject to a broader spectrum of opinion).
Deletion decisions should be made with human input, and should not solely rely on technical methods.
Article creators, wikiprojects dedicated to improvement of unsourced BLPs, and wikiprojects dedicated to various topics should all be alerted to the existence of said articles, and be encouraged (and supported) in sourcing them. Several views discussed methods in which this information could be disseminated, some of which have already been put into place, and there was no significant opposition to this position.
Related to this was some discussion of whether there should be a significant site-wide campaign to involve a larger segment of the editing community in a BLP-sourcing project, which also did not meet with significant opposition.
A smaller number of individuals pointed out the difficulty of maintaining and improving the constantly-enlarging encyclopedia while the number of regularly active contributors has remained relatively static in recent years; this view, while not very widely discussed, did not meet with significant opposition.
In this same vein, others pointed out that quality expectations have changed significantly over the years, and that there was no simple method for editors to identify articles they had created and/or significantly edited which required referencing. Proliferate editors who have remained active over several years are just now discovering the extent to which they are being asked to improve and reference unsourced BLPs, many of which were created some years ago.
The three major positions presented were:
Mass deletion of all articles identified as biographies of living people that had no reference sources, with varying views on how this would be accomplished. Most related views implied that all unsourced BLPs would be deleted over a very short period (days to weeks), with minimal or no attempt to improve the articles.
No change in current deletion practices and no special deletion practices for BLPs, with most related views supporting sourcing unreferenced BLPs or at a minimum reviewing them to ensure they were properly categorized
Special PROD processes for BLPs, with widely diverse opinions on duration that articles would remain prodded, criteria for de-prodding, and the number of articles being prodded at any given time
Related to all three of these views were concerns about how to best manage the reviewing of unsourced BLPs to (a) ensure they were actually unsourced, (b) prevent overloading of the relevant processes, and (c) prioritize which (subgroups of) articles would be reviewed, with soft or hard deadlines for various checkpoints, and a clear objective for completion of the reviews.
Consensus
Of these three broad categories of views, there is a surprisingly clear consensus that some form of BLP-PROD is the preferred method of addressing unsourced BLPs. The majority of opposition to each of the views proposing a BLP-PROD variation related to the length of time an article would be prodded (which ranged from 2 days to over a month), or some other factor specific to that proposal. A notable but small minority opposed the basic concept.
There was also a robust consensus that a separate process should be developed to address newly-created unreferenced BLPs, in order to prevent further accumulation of unsourced BLPs; however, fewer editors commented specific to this point, which arose in several views.
Develop consensus on the details of a BLP-PROD process, most critically on the duration of a BLP-PROD
Develop a timeline with specific objectives to ensure that the current backlog of unsourced BLPs is reviewed and improved or otherwise addressed. Factors to consider include how to prioritize subgroups of articles within the process, development and centralisation of tools and resources for editors to identify and improve articles, and methods to involve the larger editing community.
Develop consensus on standards for newly-created BLPs. Factors to consider include tools and processes to support new editors, integration of the process with new page patrol, and time frame for sourcing of new articles.
It is clear that our editing community has started to address the issues raised in this RfC, as several tools have been developed to assist editors in identifying and improving these articles; the number of unsourced BLPs has already been reduced by more than 10%. Continued effort to involve and support an even broader segment of the community should be considered an important priority; several communication tools have been discussed in the RfC.
Please address any questions or comments on this close to the adjacent talk page in order to centralise the discussion. This close is submitted under my own signature, independent of any other offices or permissions I hold. Risker (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a request for comment regarding biographies of living people.
Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight. If a user wishes to re-create the biography, they may request undeletion (or simply re-create the page) as long as they provide adequate sourcing.
Bali ultimate (with the caveat they don't need to nor should they request "undeletion." Unsourced means nothing worth working from. Just start from scratch with sources).Bali ultimate (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Unsourced means nothing worth working from?" I guess you've never tried to source an unsourced article. Or did it never occur to you to use key words and quotes as search terms? Rd232talk17:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Questioning the wording or logic of an RfC !vote hasn't, though. :-) Rd232 didn't say Bali Ultimate was wrong to comment in favor of the BLP enforcement change, or malign B.U. in any way. If editors are immune from critique or question of their publicly stated views on a matter of ongoing community decision making, just because they happened to express them in an RfC bullet point instead of any of various other ways of formatting comments on a talk page, then WP is in big trouble, since what we'd have is a full-on voting system, not a consensus-forming system any longer. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Only in principle, per WP:V. I'd support such a WP:CSD for new BLPs, but for the thousands of old BLPs, who are more likely to be correct by virtue of natural selection (having survived thousands of eyeballs for years), a prod-based system such as proposed below is vastly better than just pressing the "nuke" button. Sandstein 18:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Straightforward and to the point. Clean house, start any notable article again from scratch or from a copy provided to someone's userspace on request. There is no guarantee or certainty that "thousands of eyeballs" have seen some of this tripe. Tarc (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but mainly for the "completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight" part, as the former could be seen as a subjective evaluation and might need more discussion than summary deletion. Cirt (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Particularly for new BLP. All BLPs need to have ref to support the claim of notability and core identifying information. Core WP policy has always required content to be sourced from reliable sources. Raising the standard by deleting unref content is the best way to increase the quality of new articles. FloNight♥♥♥♥21:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please. It's bad enough we practically give bad articles (OR/SYNTH plagued, sprawling unreferenced messes, and so on) a free pass and cheerfully smile on the preservation of bad and unsourced information with refrains of "but WP:PRESERVE". When it comes to the lives of real people, it is time for that game endlessly holding bad content in stasis to go out the window. Vassyana (talk) 21:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is part of an admin's function; ethical admins should be using their access to perform this task as they have the time and inclination to work on the problem. Jack Merridew21:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The same should apply to all articles, really, although we should be more relaxed in enforcing it for non-BLPs. You shouldn't be writing an article unless you have a source in front of you (nobody should write articles from their own memory), so there is really no significant extra work involved in writing down what that source is. It doesn't need to be done nicely with ref tags or anything, just a plain text URL or the title and author of a book would be fine. The great thing about a wiki is that other people can come along later and tidy it up. --Tango (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted on-site, and anyone restoring them without references should be blocked as well. This is a defining issue for the project. UnitAnode01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support - if the delete button is issued to everyone. The so-called sysops already have the right to delete, so there's no need to state the obvious. NVO (talk) 11:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - If a BLP hasn't been sourced in more than 6 months, what's the likelyhood it's ever going to be sourced? There may be no deadline, but there's also common sense with regard to comments about a living person that have no sourcing. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - This sort of deletion spurs improvement. We don't need to delete all 50K all at once, and we need to not fool ourselves that this solves everything but we need to get ahead of the backlog, and we need to also do the other needful things that need doing to address the growing BLP problem. It is regrettable that a shock to the system was required. Those of you that have your heads in the sand about this: Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c16:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse citations are an absolute requirement upheld by the community in many process(WP:FAC, WP:GAC), its a requiremnt for all articles BLP have greater potential for harm to our community as such we should take greater steps to protect ourselves. Gnangarra16:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Putting up an article without a single reliable source (and in many cases, not even an unreliable one) is not acting responsibly. Throwing an article up without sources and expecting someone else to do the sourcing is just rude. If you can't meet the basic requirements, leave it in the sandbox. In any BLP, unreferenced material can be removed on sight. If none of it is referenced, then it can all be removed....hence it is deleted. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, so long as MZMcBride's phrase "Any biography..." is limited to "any biography of a living person". We need a Draconian remedy for WP:BLPs. I want unsourced, unreliable and unverified stuff out too. But in a BLP, it should be dealt vigorously, on sight. David in DC (talk) 22:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse This is essentially what current policy implies, and if we actually start acting on it the situation will improve. Not only will we get rid of unsuitable biographies, but also once editors realise that is what they can expect we will get fewer unsourced biographies written in the first place. Many of the other suggestions are unworkable, because they involve a lengthy process of going through countless articles and giving time to each one, which is a job which in practice will never be completed. This one, though, is workable. It also means we never deliberately leave stuff which may be libellous on Wikipedia. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse This is the start of setting a standard for Wikipedia. Maybe then the 'administrators making accounts for themselves' circle-jerking phenomenon will at least slow down. Notability does not mean a caption with your name on it was in the paper. Cerealsman (talk) 04:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, with the caveat that if there are "external links" or "further reading" sections, literature in there should be checked if it isn't actually a source. Reasons: (1) Redlinks have merit. If someone wants to have the subject covered, they are more likely attracted by redlinks, bluelinks give the impression that everything is alright. (2) In most cases, it is less time consuming to write an article from the scratch with sources at hand than to look for sources to match existing prose. Skäpperöd (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the essentials with the caveats mentioned elsewhere previously; 1) that editors who are interested in fixing individual articles are given a chance to do so, 2) that care is taken that articles which are mis-tagged rather than unsourced do not get deleted. I would also like to add that there's many more thousands of non-BLPs articles on Wikipedia that would be better off being deleted and started from scratch.radek (talk) 23:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Endorse I dislike the idea of a mass delete without consideration of an individual article. It doesn't help that there are so many. I like the part about being able to recreate the articles with refs.-- iBentalk/contribsIf you reply here, please place a talkback notification on my page. 03:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This is the gist of my suggestion over at CSD. Deletion is not permanent. If people genuinely care about these, then they can source them adequately, at least enough to establish notability. As usual, nobody cares about them until someone wants to delete it. If the status quo is retained, then the vast majority of these will simply remain unreferenced or poorly referenced for another 3 years. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Far too destructive and WP:BITEy. Likely to lead to the deletion of many valuable and easily-sourced articles. At the very least, a good-faith effort to find sources should be made prior to deletion per WP:BEFORE, but this proposal seems designed to discourage even that. And the "poorly referenced" wording is far too vague and open to interpretation. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ArbCom is who called for this RfC. The ArbCom doesn't make policy, even if in this case they arguably said too much about it such that their ruling is now being mis-cited. All their ruling, summarized at the link above, actually did was arbitrate on the user behavior issues (wihch is all ArbCom can do) - did the deletions-on-sight violate policy, did the blocks for the deletions violate policy, did the wheelwarring over the blocks violate policy. Their answer was no in all cases and a "general amnesty" for both sides on the issue for actions taken up to that point. One shouldn't read into it any more than that. There's a whole RfC section here about this now. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. The fixation on unsourced but noncontentious BLPs is thoroughly misguided. Do I like unsourced BLPs? Absolutely not, I detest unsourced articles of any kind and BLPs in particular. But the essence of BLP policy is in quick removal of unsourced contentious and controversial information. The great majority of unsourced BLPs are entirely peaceful and non-controversial. Many of them are easily improvable and in fact are improved over time. I have seen no evidence that unsourced BLPs are causing significant complaints to WMF, OTRS etc. In as much as BLP articles cause real controversy, is where sources are in fact available and cited in the article, but the subject of the article is still unhappy with the situation. The urgency of the problem seems to me to be artificially manufactured here. I don't see any reason to abandon the existing deletion process in deleting with such BLPs. E.g. the users who are terribly distressed by their existence could send these unsourced BLP to AfD or PROD them and have them deleted through regular means. Why in the world not do that? One of the explanations I have seen is that, in theory, something contentious might be hiding behind outwardly benign language. This strikes me as rather theoretical: is there any evidence that this sort of thing is a significant problem? On the other hand, unilateral on-the-spot deletions of unsourced BLPs by particularly militantly-minded admins is fraught with all sorts of problems. It is far too easy to make a mistake and delete an article on a notable subject, there are no notification provisions, no discussion, no adequate opportunity for interested editors to improve the article. As D.E. mentioned, "poorly sourced" is too subjective and easy to misapply and abuse. If an article is PRODed or AfDed, often new sources are added and the article is improved and kept as a result. This happens because people follow various deletion sorting lists and are likely to see the article there even if they were not aware of it before. An unwatched BLP which is summarily deleted on the spot often simply does not have a chance to attract this kind of attention, which prodding or afd-ing it would bring. The argument about there being a chance that contentious info is hiding behind some benign language in an unwatched BLP and that is why we should summarily discard the regular deletion process (CSD, PROD, AFD etc) is based on an irrational panicky reaction and an exaggeration of the extent of the problem. This reaction rather reminds me of the arguments here, in the U.S., in the aftermath of 9-11, that suddenly we should throw out of the window a well established judicial process (you know, little things, like right to counsel, prohibition against indefinite detention without charge, and so on) and that we should just summarily lock away all suspected terrorists without trial and through away the key because, god forbid, the federal court system might make a mistake and let one of these bad guys go. In relation to unsourced BLPs, I see no reason at all why existing deletion mechanisms (like PROD and AfD) should not be used or are inadequate. You know, even for no content and pure vandalism articles we have a well defined set of procedures and criteria, namely WP:CSD. Even in those cases the process involves at least two sets of eyes: the person placing a CSD tag and the admin doing the deletion. Like I said, the entire urgency of the crisis seems to be artificially manufactured. People who are obsessed with the unsourced BLP problem should learn how to place a PROD tag instead. There is no reason to go back to the Wild West days of Wikipedia when admins pretty much did as they liked. The project has gotten too big and too complicated, with too many people involved in it, for those kinds of cowboy tactics to work. Nsk92 (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Completly disgusted This RFC came about by the mass deletion of over 500 articles by Scott MacDonald (who self-blocked himself to avoid a block), Lar, and Rdm2376 (who was blocked three times).[1] Ironically, we are rewarding the behavior of administrator Scott MacDonald who holds consensus in "utter contempt"[2], with a Requests for comment to build consensus. We should not reward such disruption. Ikip00:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose Many, IME experience most, outsourced BLPs are both accurate and non-contentious, and are sourcable, some with more work that others. Many were created by relative newcomers who did not know why or how to add sources, many were created before the sue of inline citations become common, when EL sourcing was normal. To delete these without a serious attempt at sourcing, or at least an individual review, is to discard good information, thereby harming the project, without any corresponding gain. Moreover to apply the same rules to newly created articles will simply WP:BITE, further restricting the influx of new editors ojn which the project ultimately depends. A very very bad idea. DES(talk)04:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Terrible idea - (I generally don't like to add "oppose" votes to an RfC but some are doing it) it goes against pretty much everything we have by way of deletion policy. We improve problems, we don't delete them. This does little to serve the purpose or letter of BLP, and much to waste time and encourage capricious administrative behavior. Wikidemon (talk) 04:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I could support if (a) the subjective "poorly referenced" were removed, and (b) we had a search tool or some function/tally/record of all the BLPs removed, so that they could be located, sourced and readded when sourced. The primary purpose is the building of an encyclopedia. Casliber (talk·contribs) 05:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Super-Duper Strong Oppose, as other state above, this will only damage the encyclopedia. The vast majority of BLPs are not the cause of any trouble. PROD, AfD, protect BLPs from IP edits if necessary across the board, but "shoot on sight" is a bad bad bad idea.--Milowent (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Even if you made an argument for deleting all unsourced biographies which is a really bad idea (as we've already seen how much gets lost in the shuffle when people try to do that), what constitutes poor sourcing is precisely the sort of thing that requires careful community discussion. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Just use some common sense. This type of blanket statement is what drives away authors from Wikipedia before articles can be fleshed out. A more reasoned approach is needed if we are going to save Wikipedia from what could become mass destruction of valuable information.--Modelmotion (talk) 05:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous Conflating articles lacking proper references with BLP violations is silliness. One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other and this campaign is not constructive. It's far more likely that an article with references will be used to smear someone and our focus should remain on fixing the problem instead of deleting articles that need improvement but that were created in good faith. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per David Eppstein and Nsk92. Even now, articles are often prodded when they already have decent references, and it is inevitable that "poorly referenced" will be interpreted as "not visibly in 3 seconds referenced according to my preferred scheme" even if every statement is derivable from references provided. If a fraction of the energy used for BLP drama were used in thinking of ways to deal with real blp problems and to support and realize ideas already proposed, serious BLP problems would already be a thing of the past.John Z (talk) 06:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Yet more BLP madness. For sanity's sake, the entire wiki's consensus on policy should not be controlled by a cabal, nor should the ArbCom have blatantly ignored policy and guidelines and offered amnesty to admins who had done so. The statement even states that policy was breached, and yet those breaking policy were rewarded. Poorly sourced articles occur outside of BLP too. Might as well just delete all articles on site, lets WP:BITE everyone. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers07:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose diametrically the wrong approach. Many of these are for truly notable people and without problems. Of the ones I have worked on, at least half are easily sourceable and probably notable. What we need is to get people to source in putting in new articles, and it will not help do this by throwing out improvable old ones. Certainly let us get rid of the old and non-notable added when standard were lower; certainly let us add sources to articles that need it, but this approach detracts from paying the proper attention. I echo what John Z says above that about 10% of the prodded articles did in fact have sources, though not necessarily a reference section. These were supposed to have been screened out of the unsourced BLP list in the first place, but if the bot didn't do it right, that is no excuse for humans to act equally unthinkingly. DGG ( talk ) 10:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I would say no. This is not the right thing and the right place to do it. There should be some new standards or procedures on monitoring new biographical articles instead of deleting them. If articles were unsourced, then source them. Deletion wouldn't solve things up. It would only discourage people from editing. Arteyu ?Blame it on me !11:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Speedy deleting poorly referenced or unreferenced BLPs is an OK idea in theory, but I don't trust all admins are able to make these unilateral decisions correctly. "Poorly referenced" is subjective, and I have seen several articles speedy deleted today that I believe had adequate sources. Epbr123 (talk) 11:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Suggest that Sysops be restricted of their power on deleting articles. Articles should be brought to attention first before it can be deleted. I've gone through some issues where some Sysop delete articles that has never been tagged with PROD or BLP templates, or never been brought to AfD. It is simply not the right thing to be done since users never get the chance to protest or to fix it. Arteyu ?Blame it on me !12:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. No evidence that unsourced bio stubs and bios with one source are actually causing legal or other problems in such a large number that we should be this concerned. The fact that anons can, at all, is a far greater source of potential liability (this is not an argument for banning anon edits; I'm just pointing out that the feature has its risks). "Poorly sourced" is far too vague, otherwise WP:RS would be a policy not a guideline and no one would substantively edit it any more. The extant deletion procedures are sufficient. This all started because someone was deleting source-problematic BLPs that were abandoned for 6+ months. The odds of prods on them being responded to seem low. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The Law of Unintended Consequences accompanies all such dicta. WP has current processes set up for deletions, and I have seen no reason to unilaterally destroy them. Collect (talk) 12:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I agree with the principle, but we have due process for a reason. It should be tagged with some yet-to-be created BLP PROD and deleted if that remains in place for one week. This way actually seems to discourage due diligence, rather than encourage it. HJMitchellYou rang? 12:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We have policies to deal with this already: the CSD for contentious bios and attack pages, and the deletion process for the others. Side note: I'll never support a policy of speedy-deleting articles that are "poorly sourced" as it leaves far too much to discretion of the editor, and too much is at stake. Ivanvector (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Poorly referenced or unreferenced bios that contain no potentially libellous statements are not our main problem, and - unless an editor states a specific reason to delete them (e.g. dubios date of birth or whatever) - these article should be tagged with an appropriate warning, but editors should be encouraged to find sources and to expand them. If a short survey indicates that a BLP is not notable, the article should be deleted. A much bigger problem, in my view, are sourced BLPs, when information from sources has been used in a selective and biased fashion. Also, we need more eyes on the bios of those people who are not held in high esteem by the mainstream of society. (For an example, see Mahathir bin Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia.) Cs32enTalk to me14:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deleting unsourced BLP's on sight are going to create more problems than it solves. It will chase away users and destroy wikiprojects. First, it is overly bity as some people may have worked hard to write these BLP's, but simply failed to do so correctly. We need to educate not punish those editors. Second, when we do wholesale deletions, the projects and people who are interested in a subject may not know or realize that various articles have been deleted. This will create gaps in our coverage that nobody knows about---eg think of it this way, a wiki project took the time to write articles about all of the heads of state for a given country. They know that is done. What they didn't realize is that 2 of the articles were unsourced BLPs. Suddenly those articles are deleted without notice. The project may never realize this and when may have to start from scratch. We need to clean up the BLPs, not delete them blindly. I find it a little disappointing that seems to be the push of this RfC and the 5 or so other forums where this issue has been brought up.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, but only for the reason that "should be deleted on-sight" is too imperative. It might be taken as grounds for admonishing an admin who viewed such an article and did anything else reasonable, e.g., prod. If it said "may be deleted...", I would weakly support: not the best solution, but one which in the long term would improve the project. In the short term it would create some problems. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, BLP is too often overextended by over zealous people for a "delete on sight" approach. I would like to see a community review of an article before it is deleted. Chillum(Need help? Ask me)15:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - The current PROD and CSD processes work. The unreferenced BLP backlog is steadily decreasing. This is unnecessary and the wrong way to approach the problem. Jogurney (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose They'll start with these, then move on to all unsourced articles, as some have said they wanted to do already. Destroy 60,000 now, and hundreds of thousands later on. Too much mindless destruction on Wikipedia already. If you want something deleted, you use Google news and book search first, then if there is no reference found there, send it to AFD. Many times someone tries to delete something, others come in and say delete, and then someone takes the time to click on Google news search, and prove that the person is notable, and the article gets saved. DreamFocus18:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the majority of unsourced BLPs have references available if you're prepared to actually look. Deleting articles is not a substitute for doing actual work, and does incredible damage in the process. The minority of articles that might actually damage the subject can be fixed under current policy. This proposal is like cleaning streets with a thermonuclear weapon. Hut 8.520:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous. For all the previously stated reasons and evidence that regular editing and editing processes is all that is needed here. If Wikipedia was less of a battleground and more of an educational institution where we *gasp* actually encourage and welcome newbies and work with one another to improve articles rather than trying to see all issues as adversarial. -- Banjeboi20:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There's CSD G10 for the contentious ones, and there's no reason to insta-delete something that is not clearly harmful. I've been chastised for using G10 on unsourced stub biographies that are not 100% negative, but only 25-50% so. I think that when an unsourced article has only a few sentences, and one makes a negative BLP claim it should be deleted as a precaution. Perhaps the language in G10 should be adjusted that way. Pcapping20:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Horrible!. What's the point of crowd-sourcing an encyclopedia if we're going to delete everything that's not already perfect? If we adopt this, I say we delete the whole stupid Wikipedia and just go buy a perfectly-edited, perfectly-sourced Britannica. Isn't that where this is really headed? BenRussell (talk) 20:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If unsourced, remove any contentious material and slap a unreferenced tag or inline cite needed for the rest. Or, simply find the refs. The "cleaning the house with a bulldozer" comparison is perfect. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is an encyclopedia that works because different people work together. Any unsourced BLP should be sourced and fixed, not deleted. We delete articles that fail to meet the notability guidelines, not articles that meet the guidelines but lack the sources for it. WP:BLP is founded on protecting living people from harm but it's also based on the editing policy, something people often seem to forget. Regards SoWhy21:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Attempt to source it first; if no sources exist online make a note to that effect. Wholesale deletion on sight solves nothing. Plenty of BLPs that fall under these restrictions could be salvaged with a little sourcing, and while the onus should fall primarily on the contributor to fill the gap, if he's not done it, or done it insufficiently well, an attempt should be made by the deleter to source before deletion. Failing that, I see no need to delete an innocuous article that establishes a few very basic and uncontentious facts. Deletion should be a last resort, and should only occur once all other avenues of resolution have been exhausted. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.22:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Erm, I think the best solution here (as do a lot of other people) is to source them and possibly add more information. Deleting them would sort of ruin things (and if all articles are deleted that is just completely ridiculous). RoryReloaded22:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – I have two real issues with this proposal. First, Llywich's phrase rings true; for all the BLP violations mass deletions will remove, there will be much more collateral damage in terms of lost articles that are not controversial. Other proposals here would at least keep such damage to a minimum. Second, what is the intended definition of "adequate sourcing"? Is it one or two cites that establish notability? Or is it sourcing an entire article? The proposal is very unclear in this regard, and begs the question of why unsourced BLPs are that much worse than BLPs with very minimal sourcing. Uncited info is uncited info no matter the article, and the potential for libelous content is there either way. Also, David in DC's comment in the support column about misleading language regarding the scope is accurate. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 22:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - completely unreferenced BLP's yes, though most are pretty innocuous. But "poorly referenced?" According to who? Almost every BLP contains one or more unreferenced statements, and these statements should be sourced or removed rather then deleting the entire article. Deleting articles because any one editor arbitrarily decides that it contains a single unsourced or "poorly referenced" sentence is a nonsense. As someone pointed out in an earlier discussion, the article on George W. Bush would fail this test. So would every other BLP that is not a current FA. I appreciate the proposer of this statement would intend that common sense be applied in exercising it, but as thuis debate has shown, what is or is not common sense is not always a universal understanding. What's wrong with - "When an unreferenced BLP is discovered, the first step should be to reference it, and remove any content that cannot be sourced. If there's no notable content that can be sourced, the article should be deleted." Euryalus (talk) 00:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The vast majority of unsourced info in Wikipedi is useful and valuable and correct. Even if it's not correct, it's easier to confirm something you see here than something you research from scratch. It's ridiculous overkill to delete unsourced articles wholesale. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose - This is being too quickly, too much, and is overwhelming our system. BLPs should be eliminated one at a time, or 100 at a time, not 60,000 at a time. Bearian (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose - tag/prod articles that are source-weak, don't wholesale delete. Too subjective as proposed - admin tools should not mean unilateral power in their hands. And what happened to flagged revisions for BLPs? Tvoz/talk00:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - The potential problems with an unsourced BLP are exactly the same as with a sourced one. The presence of sources doesn't magically make something accurate. If a sneaky vandal (the thing we are scared with to begin) wanted to get this all they'd have to do is add any "source" (which wouldn't have to actually validate the statement). Mass deleting unsourced articles encourages sneakier fraud while discouraging inexperienced editors from contributing anything. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible oppose, I don't think that a mob of fundamentalists should be setting our priorities. There are non-destructive ways to solve this problem. Blurpeace03:13, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Silktork's comment below is apt. Unsourced, accurate biographies are not harmful. Sourced, libelous ones are very harmful. The thing that matters is not an arbitrary sourcing requirement (especially not "poorly referenced", which could mean anything). — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - reading the comments made after this week's bold action, I no longer trust the judgement of some admins to decide what is "poorly sourced". --NeilNtalk to me04:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose Many stubs, BLP or otherwise, are unsourced. That does not mean they cannot be improved. If there is unsourced defamatory information, remove it. If the entire article is unsourced and defamatory, it qualifies for C:SD. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Too broad I'm afraid. An article that is simply poorly referenced should be tagged for reference with a "citation needed" tag. It would make it even easier if the editor who added the unreferenced material could be notified by a bot, but this might be hard to accomplish (perhaps a tag for the addition of a completely new unreferenced paragraph on a BLP article would be a good place to start). If a BLP article is completely unreferenced, it is my understanding that that article should at least be nominated for deletion as failing WP:Notability. In my opinion it should be speedily deleted due to the real possibility it could be libelous. If it's a significant BLP it should not be hard to recreate with proper references. I will note that bots sometimes do incorrectly think that an article is unreferenced (see edit history of Henry Bramwell) and therefore oppose deletion by bots of articles that were tagged by bots as unreferenced.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Vehement oppose Perhaps it is wrong that the backlog of unreferenced BLPs has been allowed to build for years, but most of these articles were created in good faith without controversial content and have existed peacefully for a long time without causing any specific harm - unlike summarily trashing thousands of articles which took a lot of time and effort to build and include a great deal of genuinely useful information. This is not only intolerably bitey but impedes progress: if we (the editors without mops) can't see what's broken, how can we hope to fix it? I also have grave concerns about decisions based on one person's interpretation of "poorly sourced": this is far too subjective, particularly if assessment of the situation is cursory. If an article which does not meet any existing CSD is to be considered for deletion because of questionable sourcing, we should use the old-fashioned methods of discussion and consensus. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Rather than deleting the article, delete any unsourced statements that appear to be problematic, and tag the article as needing sources. Instant deletion is not a good solution to the problem of an otherwise viable article that lacks sources. This proposal is fundamentally contrary to Wikipedia's nature.--Srleffler (talk) 05:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This isn't the way Wikipedia was built, and it's not the way Wikipedia will continue to grow (except perhaps at a snail's pace). It violates the spirit of AGF and penalizes various editors (e.g., newbies, editors who build articles incrementally, and editors who rely primarily on offline sources not close at hand when inspiration strikes to write an article). Is there any evidence beyond the anecdotal and the theoretical to justify such a drastic proposal? Rivertorch (talk) 06:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It's so simple - just delete the unreferenced parts of whatever bio. No one can really challenge that action, and you don't need a new policy to do it. Why bother deleting the whole page? All Hallow's Wraith (talk) 07:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Oppose (meaning that I will support the deletion of those articles which are not verifiable or sources can't be found or are of dubious notability but only after an assessment by the person viewing it via google search etc) Agreeing fully with what 2. User:Nsk92 said above I think the solution to just nuke every article without even looking for sources is overkill and dare I say it, the lazy option. Roberta Flack was a BLP vio yesterday until I found some sources, you think the encyclopedia is better off deleting all articles which are unsourced, even decent and clearly notable articles like Flack which could be quickly sourced? That in my view is more damaging to building an encyclopedia. Rather, I think the best option would be for everybody to chip and whittle down that 50,000 BLP list and look for sources for each article. Unsourced info within article can always be removed. I do sympathise with the idea of this, yes it would be nice to rid of this huge workload and get this long standing problem out of the way but with a bit of effort from everybody to quickly look for sources and source them I think we could salvage a lot of notable content. However I am well aware that we could do with deleting a few thousand non notable bios which are not verifiable or clearly not appropriate for wikipedia and I endorse the deletion of those, in fact I have speedied and voted delete on a few AFDs recently of BLPs not because they are unsourced, but because no sources exist online to expand them and are not verifiable. So I think each articles should undergo a quick assessment and if no sources can be found delete but if they can, add them, providing the subject is within our guidlines. I am happy to contribute to whittling down this big list as often as I can to get it down to zero. But this is gonna take work folks. And by no means is deleting them all going to prevent the possibility of recreated BLP vios by newbies and by no means does it means that existing sourced articles are not widely open to potentially libellous material. While I see this as a project priority right now to rid of all BLPs gradually I think the sense of urgency that we are about to be sued is a little exaggerated. The reality is that most of the these unsourced BLPs do no contain contentious material but just need backing up/expanding. But lets deal with this the sensible way and check each article first before nuking. Also their seems to be an (incorrect) assumption that all unreferenced BLPs contain false information. This is not true. Most I've found are accurate and fully correct but are just in need of sources.Dr. BlofeldWhite cat10:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest Possible Oppose. There are people who work very hard on articles. Deleting it in a swoosh is highly disrespectful to their efforts and is a, as somebody said up there, bad, bad, bad idea. Appropriate articles are not created overnight. They take a very long time with everybody building upon the previous version. Some references are hard to find. If the content is not potentially defamatory or insulting or something that not may be possibly challenged should be kept. Hamza [ talk ]11:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There is a number of serious problems with this proposal, most of which have been already pointed out above. The net effect would - more likely than not - be harm to Wikipedia, instead of benefit. Finally, what's so special about unsourced, but otherwise uncontroversial BLPs? Why not extending this policy to all articles? GregorB (talk) 11:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I can see the general principle here, but, as phrased, I don't this is workable. Any Criteria for Speedy Deletion needs to be precisely phrased, so you would need a very specific definition of the meaning of "poorly referenced", leaving no reasonable doubt as to where the dividing line is, and this proposal doesn't provide one. Until that is fixed, I don't think we can even look at any other merits the proposal might have (and I'm far from convinced there). Anaxial (talk) 12:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think it's silly to delete an article of non-contentious information just because it has no sources at the time of reading. All it needs is for the article to be brought to our attention so that a group of editors can make an effort to source the article. If the material canno be sourced, then deletion is a course of action that must be considered. A delete on sight party is far too heavy-handed to work in practice. TomBeasley (talk) 18:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per so many before me. I would guess that often, in the time taken to tag and delete a BLP as such, a good reference could be found and sourced. Arbitrarily0(talk)15:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Brambleclawx Those who have contributed to the page significantly should be informed first; they should be given a chance to reference it first. 16:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I would have supported this except for the phrase "poorly referenced". The determination what constitutes poor referencing varies widely among admins. Binksternet (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I know of many old biography articles of Croatian people that contain information widely known locally as well as internationally that would inevitably be deleted with this kind of a policy in place, even though they actually exhibit no serious problem other than a lack of explicit references. There is little proof that this kind of a knee-jerk policy would actually deter vandals, whereas I'm pretty sure it would deter people from contributing useful content. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I am in favour of using common sense; withholding content until "cleared", and helping to find references. But against the madness of mass deletion of entire articles on sight. Esowteric+Talk21:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - at least for old articles. For new articles, it may be worth considering making a new speedy deletion criteria. RamiR22:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - There is no reason to completely delete older articles which perhaps have vital information. Perhaps we should, as editors, go through the said unreferenced articles and perhaps find sources to enhance their credibility? Ashwin N 03:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - Draconian solutions are seldom good ideas. The goal should be to instigate improvement, not to eliminate content that in the majority of cases is perfectly OK. All too often, an unsourced article is unsourced for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the content. For example, sources get removed in undetected acts of vandalism, or because an eager and well-intentioned user found a dead URL and wiped out the entire reference citation related to that dead URL. --Orlady (talk) 05:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for now This isn't the way to cleanup the existing BLPs, although I would encourage this to be a speedy criterion in the future to prevent further abuse and to up our standards. ThemFromSpace20:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - I am not sure what the positives are supposed to be here: in my experience, unsourced/poorly sourced yet uncontentious BLPs are often the most rewarding articles to work on. Obviously, copyvios, attacks, hoaxes etc are quite different as they are detremental to WP. However, where no such problems exist I cannot see any issue. Just tag the article as normal or source it yourself and move on. Or userfy or incubate as appropriate and notify concerned editors. This proposal just sounds like a lazy solution to the non-problem of a large number of unref'ed articles: why not just delete all unref'ed articles and be done with it (the precedent suggested by this proposal)? But that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it...? --Jubilee♫clipman20:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - This is way too severe. Editors should be given some time to add sources; most of the unsourced BLP articles can be fixed with two minutes of effort. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 22:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Holy &@%# bad idea - This is more deletionist madness. Uncontroversial content doesn't deserve removal for lack of immediately available sourcing. Unless it's libelous or likely to icite flame wars, leave it up. Let people get it in shape. TREKphilerany time you're ready, Uhura 23:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is simply too extreme. This is what happens when "anyone can edit". That doesn't mean the articles are not worthy of keeping and fixing. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Although tempted. Think there are better ways to handle this - and some other options on this page are closer to optimum. --Dweller (talk) 15:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This view would turn into a categorical statement of policy, which someone would then implement mindlessly rather than operate by judging on the merits of the individual case. Right now, this view is deletionist. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Agree w/the overwhelming majority that this is a non-starter. This would lead to more problems than it would solve, resulting in a net negative for wikipedia.--Epeefleche (talk) 12:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is undoubtedly a problem and a pattern of abuse but this solution is over-broad. I can think of a multitude of notable and uncontroversial people worthy of a BLP which could be written more or less from memory (with sources added later) and would cause no harm. I doubt I’m alone in this regard and it is this dynamic capability to add contemporary content that so adds to the real-time nature of Wikipedia. To be fair, those on the polar extremes of society would be more challenging to write about in a neutral way. In any event, Wikipedia is well protected by U.S. law but British law (as it currently stands) is another question. That is a far more risky environment. At this point I’d say we do all that we can to reasonably police erroneous or defamatory content without automatically deleting the majority of BLP submissions that are useful and not a problem. user:SBmeier
'Oppose I feel that this solution is too wide. Unsourced BLPs in themselves may not be a problem - it is if they contain material which would be negative. If there was an unsourced article which read "Aibee See is a politician for the Yellow Party who represents the WikiTown constituency" with no sourcing, under this suggestion it would be deleted on sight. If the proposed deleter were to look for a source, if this article was accurate then this could be found in seconds. WP:BLPDEL clearly says If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page as an initial step, followed by discussion. Page deletion is normally a last resort. If a dispute centers around a page's inclusion (e.g., due to questionable notability or if the subject has requested deletion) then this is addressed via deletion discussions rather than by summary deletion. Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to a version of an acceptable standard. (emphases mine) - this seems to show that if you want to delete an unsourced article, you should actually try to find some sources first. The argument "If people are too lazy to find sources, why should we do it" does not hold up - many people who submit these articles are newbies, who may not know anything about reliable sources, etc - after all, they come along to find information on someone, see there's no article about them, and then creates one (after all, they know that Wikipedia is the article that anyone can edit, right?). I feel that this is too BITEy to newbies. And the old hands will just add a reference that looks feasible - after all, if the deleting admin can't be bothered to find a reference themselves, they probably wouldn't be bothered to look up a current reference for accuracy, will they. In fact, reports have suggested this (see du Plessis, Deon. "South African Wikipedia: "half of facts are incorrect" report finds". Daily Sun. Cape Town, South Africa: Naspers.). Yes, the issues of BLPs needs to be addressed, but this isn't the way to do it. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any form of "deleting on sight" that isn't vandalism or illegal content, etc. An article should at least be given the chance to prove notability before it is deleted. And this suggestion seems to say that any poorly-sourced articles should be deleted on sight, not just ones with notability issues —Mr. MetalFlower·chat·what I done did do16:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose any form of "deleting on sight" that is not motivated by specific concerns, and does not take the merits of the article into account. A very non-constructive proposal that shows disrespect for projects and editors and that also would mean giving admins far too much leeway in going on individual rampages without inputs from other editors. Would probably mean deletion of a massive amount of articles that would never be able to reach consensus as PRODs or AfDs. Tomas e (talk) 17:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unreferenced material is a useful first step to producing a good article. Keep it unless there is a good reason, such as likely libel, to discard it. Certes (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If people could focus on addressing the issues that they have with articles rather than tagging or deleting, We'd have far more editors and an even better encyclopedia.Mighty Antar (talk) 22:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Well I have to give you credit for being straightforward, however, such an approach is far too excessive. Deleted on sight....out of curiosity, would you be consider notifying the editor after such a deletion?Smallman12q (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: wholesale execution of entire categories of articles, without looking at them individually, considering their merits, or trying to fix them, seems CRAZY to me! (Especially since there are lots of alternative to this answer to the problem). --Mdukas (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OPPOSE: 1) Too many articles are tagged with incorrect unreferenced tags. My quick survey of the category of unrefernced blps shows about 1/3 of tagged articles I looked at are actually sourced. Why? Drive by taggings? Perhaps the editors writing them are often such newbys that they don't know to change to a refimprove tag? 2) Define poorly sourced. 3) Wikipedia editing is a learned process and quick deletion protocols of any kind bite newcomers and drive them away from Wikipedia. I believe that anyone who requests depetion of any legitimate article by an editor with less than 1000 edits to their credit should be required to their own personal editing time available to help the newby editor bring it up to standards.Trilobitealive (talk) 04:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Extremely Strong Oppose - Speedy delete already serves this purpose the only thing that this proposal does over that existing policies is bypass discussions. Without discussion deletion is clearly open to abuse and this proposal is a slap in the face to Wikipedia which supports an open community. Deleted articles just go missing with no discussion and there is no way to to retrieve the article without requesting for it. The current policy recommends deletion as the last possible measure which means that whenever we find a terrible/unsourced article should try to improve it by finding sources (which many don't do though I don't think editors should be obligated to do) and notifying/giving people a chance to improve/source an article through talk pages and/or an AfD (which is the very least that they should do). The article Kō Ōtani was an article that was a poorly sourced until very recently [3]. --Sin Harvest (talk) 11:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose a disproportionate proposal which would remove much useful information without disucssion or the opportunity to improve.--Smerus (talk) 15:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I normally wouldn't vote "oppose" on an RfC of this style, but since people are doing it, and I'm sure someone will try to use these numbers for something, here's my oppose. Gigs (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Deletion of any article should go through a rigorous process which evaluates the article across a set of common criteria, offers opportunities for the article to be improved rather than be deleted, and allows enough time to pass so that slower-moving sentient beings can still be involved in the process. This proposal meets none of those requirements. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 03:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: This proposal has good intentions, given the fact that libel lawsuits are probably going to be on the increase as people fall sway to shifty lawyers. But this proposal is too harsh because it makes no distinction between articles that are truly made up of lies and articles that just need to be improved. If someone finds a BLP article that is unsourced, perhaps the WP:RESCUE process is the way to go, or some sort of expedited AfD in which the need for references is given priority. DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 23:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: vehemently. Way too extreme without need. The articles just need a little bit of work, not deletion, and there is no time limit. Maedin\talk07:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely oppose. Wikipedia already has far too many trigger-happy deletionists, who often tag articles for speedy deletion without bothering to read the contents, resulting in mass defections of good, valuable editors from the project. What is needed here is more collaboration; if there were more editors willing to add sources, expand text, upload free images, correct grammar, spelling, etc., we'd have fewer articles tagged for deletion and the quality of existing articles would improve dramatically.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. There should be a reasonable period of time before deletion after an article is flagged so that any interested parties can take the time to fix it. Not every editor works every day/week/month. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The worst kind of bathwater-and-baby disposal, burning down a whole forest that includes beneficial wildlife and uninfected trees, just to kill off a pest... that also lives underground. It pisses on WP:AGF and it's incredibly WP:POINTy - Jason A. Quest (talk) 18:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Way too extreme and absolute. It's painful just thinking about how much damage this would cause both in the short and long term. It wouldn't solve the problem. Swarm(Talk)04:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above comments, particularly those of David Eppstein, Nsk92, and DGG. This proposal is a case of the cure being worse than the disease, and will likely create far more problems than it solves.--JayJasper (talk) 05:19, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - People above have already said it well. In practice the benefits (less BLP issues) will not outweigh the drawbacks (lack of oversight on admins and the loss of valuable content). Camaron · Christopher ·talk22:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Some people are new to Wikipedia when the start articles and don't know the importance of sourcing. Some just forget. To allow this would just lose the encyclopedia knowledge and would damage it as a whole.Alex (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I've been editing here since 20042003 (yikes!) A significant number of articles that I've created are currently unreferenced, but it's not that I'm not following the current rules in my current editing — it's that I've been around for aeons and the rules around sourcing have evolved over time. Shameful as it may seem, there was once a time when it wasn't considered important to directly cite references in the article itself, as long as you could provide one if somebody challenged you on it later on. Then for a while, the primary method of sourcing an article was to provide a long list of web URLs in an article's external links section, and then there were different forms of "stick a web URL directly into running article text", and then eventually the current ref-tags standard was adopted. Yes, things change, I'm not taking issue with that. But this isn't an issue with a one-size-fits-all solution, either. Yes, some unreferenced articles include contentious claims. Those should obviously be removed. Some are about people who don't actually meet our notability standards as they now exist. Looking on it now, I would never have created Alana Kainz, for example, under our current notability or sourcing standards, and in fact I'll quite happily throw it onto the prod pile myself. Gary Malkowski, on the other hand, is an example of a person for whom all that needs to happen is the conversion of a couple of links that are already present in the article to current standards. There are other articles that consist of little more than a statement to the effect of "So-and-so is a politician who serves in the Legislative Assembly of Foo," and don't actually contain anything contentious — while they're certainly not as no-brainer notable as, say, Barack Obama, deleting them would be unduly disruptive to a coordinated project that impacts a sizeable number of articles. So yes, there are certainly some BLPs that should just go into the garbage disposal. But "delete all on sight" isn't the answer, because many are salvageable and do belong here — and we certainly would be worse off having to rewrite a large number of those from scratch. I would support immediate deletion of new unreferenced BLPs. I would support immediate deletion of old unreferenced BLPs which also violate one or more other policies or guidelines (such as current notability standards, contentious claims, etc.) But unreferenced BLPs which don't actually contain any problematic content, concerning people who do meet our notability guidelines, and which are quite easily salvageable, should not be subject to a "kill on sight" rule. Bearcat (talk) 03:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - any policy that just unilatterally says "No source = Delete" is trying to drain the lake beause a few people cannot swin. Uncontentious material should not be deleted on sight, just use the processes already in place with PROD and AFD. Not a fan of giving Admins this draconian authority. MPJ -DK 09:59, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be sourced. It's more difficult, and it takes longer, but is a more positive attitude to take. Unsourced material is not in itself harmful to Wikipedia, either in terms of legal actions or of reputation for reliability, it is contentious material that is harmful - and if there is a cite doesn't mean that the cite is correct, it just means that people are less likely to challenge the statement. Contentious material which is not appropriately sourced should be removed. SilkTork *YES!20:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An anon made this statement in support. It's not really a support. "Support - Following this approach will remind users that this encyclopedia is the domain of an ever-dwindled cabal of petty bureaucrats, and will thereby help prevent the misconception that the project is meant to be useful.71.203.125.108 (talk) 2:32 pm, Today (UTC−8)" - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Prodding should proceed at a reasonable rate to allow interested editors the chance to add sources. The volume of proposed deletions should not be unreasonably large. Discussion can establish what is a reasonable pace.
After five seven days, any article so tagged may be deleted, or moved to the Wikipedia:Article incubator if it shows promise.
Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references risks a block for disruption.
All editors are invited to participate in this BLP cleanup campaign.
--Dirk BeetstraTC 16:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC) - Adding: similar as below, keep the number of tagged articles low (~500 max), keep the time at 5 days, fill by bot if <100 left over, no bot-deletion, strictly by hand to see if there are mistaggings by the tagging-bot). --Dirk BeetstraTC16:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about correct or incorrect interpretation of policy, but what works. Policy says absolutely no unreferenced BLPs, but we have a backlog and we have a certain amount of ongoing management of newbies to handle. A hundred a day, say? It needs to be of that order of magnitude to fix the problem before the heat death of the universe. Guy (Help!) 16:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, with emphasis that the timing really does need to be at least 5 days. Some otherwise productive editors (like me) don't log in on the weekends, or are gone for several days for RL issues.. Karanacs (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is the first reasonable proposal on the page, ergo it shall be the one to pass.... it's mostly details which separate it from several others, and the details can be hashed out at the next step. Question though: there was substantial opposition to using WP:PROD in this way; so wouldn't a separate BLP-PROD process modelled on it avoid that issue? Rd232talk17:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Though the details of the implementation of 5 should be discussed at WT:PROD or use another process and we should stress that in light of the reasonable rate clause (3), the prodding should be done in priority on articles 'needing to be dealt with most', for example those which remained unreferenced for a long time or are suspected to contain potentially harmful content; while prodding recently-created stubs such as those with only basic info is much less useful. Cenarium (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Immediate and instant deletion on sight is irresponsible to say the least, as we lose the opportunity for interested persons to source the problem articles and chances are they won't be recreated. (Plus it's against policy, but that doesn't seem to matter these days.) This proposal is reasonable and would be effective. Tony Fox(arf!)17:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sensible approach. Though I'd prefer it if it were clarified that in the event of any disagreement about whether the sourcing is adequate the article shall be referred to AfD for discussion. Sandstein 17:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, with a nod that deletions on sight are technically allowed per the passed ArbCom motion (and yes it has passed with 9 in majority). Using common sense would apply here, as doing process for the sake of doing process doesn't always help. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do not support Jehochman's recent clarification that allows anyone to remove PRODs without improving the article. Any removal of a PROD template without adding sources is disruptive. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 04:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Along with the usage of various cleanup listing bots and the engagement of Wikiprojects, a suggestion such as this can mitigate or resolve the issue in a much more satisfactory manner than an indiscriminate nuke will. Resolute18:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse if done properly. What is the point of 5 days (or fewer) rather than the usual 7? This is material that has mostly been here for months or years, without actually causing any critical problems--just hypothetical possibilities of them. The shorter the time, the less chance of sourcing. People who might be specialists need to have a chance to see the articles. We should also make it clear in deletion policy that we do not accept arb com's change of policy. They depend on community support, and I do not think they have it. DGG ( talk ) 18:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An acceptable solution, although ArbComm should be censured and/or recalled (if they allowed that) for their motion as encouraging disruptive actions. — Arthur Rubin(talk)18:46, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I tried this weeks ago, but my prods were undone as "notable". I can gowith this if there is clearly a ban on removing without sourcing, and any such undoing can be reversed.--Scott Mac (Doc)18:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Scott MacDonald after deleting hundreds of BLP articles, which prompted this RFC, wrote: "Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[4] Why are participating in a process which you "hold in utter contempt"? IkipFrank Andersson (45 revisions restored):an olympic medallist for f**k's sake23:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can do some tweaking, but this is akin to what I proposed on WT:PROD so obviously I like it (I think it should be 7 instead of 5 days as the former is now standard for all deletion discussions). I also draw editors attention to Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs which is a variation on this proposal that would not require us to change PROD policy (I'm fine with either approach, but some who objected to the proposed change to WP:PROD might be happier with the latter). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs19:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like the best option I've seen thus far. I'd prefer to create a special "BLP prod" of some sort, but I hope it's something everyone can live with. Masses of grandfathered, unsourced content have been the skeleton in our closet for some time, which is an especially serious problem with BLPs. If these articles are really so important, what better path to veracity than recreation with sourcing? – Luna Santin (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems more likely to get wide support than the proposal to speedy on sight, because there are a lot of editors who can and will find sources for unsourced BLPs, given the time. I have a pagescraper that checks the G10 (db-attack) cat every 5 minutes, and that experience tells me that you can't tell just from reading the words of a page whether it was meant to embarrass a living person or not. Sometimes "He's so cool!" is an insult. I'm very happy with the current enthusiastic push to delete unsourced BLP articles, but only if we prod them, and not more than roughly 1000 per week, to give everyone a reasonable chance to source them. - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I supported this change in policy yesterday and do again here. No deletion discussion on WP English should end with the claim of notability and core identifying information remaining unreferenced. So, removal of a prod tag should not happen on an unref or poorly referenced article. FloNight♥♥♥♥21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support — I'm in favor of expeditious approaches, and this is good approach to the Large Problem. Time should be *two* days, as the Backlog is Large. Jack Merridew21:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - we had our old friends Artie and Wanda round for dinner this evening, my wife had made a lovely pie, and we were talking about the exciting developments in the BLP issue that have been going on. Both Artie and Wanda, as well as my wife, are big followers of what's been going on here, and I told them the different solutions that had been presented. Wanda used to be a bit more pro-inclusion a few months ago when we first discovered the wiki, and we talked around both the sides. I have to say, although MZMCBride's suggestion was just as good (me and Artie had a bit of a cut and thrust about that, I can tell you!), we all plumped for this one as a compromise to keep everyone happy. So, wishing you all the best with it! This is one of the best things that's happened on here for ages. See ya around! Hands of gorse, heart of steel (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Supporting only in the weakest fashion possible. The clause for a "reasonable rate", as expressed, begs for a long term struggle, arguments, and disruption ala the previous pushes for notability enforcement and non-free content tagging. Anyone who was around for those two previous site-wide conflicts ought to remember that even the arguments about what was a reasonable rate (not including appropriate to tag, sufficient sourcing/license info, etc) stretched over nearly the entirety of those disputes and produced sprawling megabytes of acrimonious argument. Expect a swift repeat of all that nonsense and disruption if this is implement "as is" on that clause. Also, I prefer five (or even three) instead of seven daysm though I understand views to the contrary. Otherwise, I think this is a reasonable approach and middle ground. Vassyana (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support seven days for the current "backlog" as an extra few days doesn't matter, at a reasonable rate of 100-150/day; however, reduce it to two to five with a new BLP-PROD template for newly created BLPs. -SpacemanSpiff21:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest any BLP with any significant amount of unsourced negative content (so much that removing it would not leave an acceptable article) be deleted, but not so strongly that I wouldn't support this as is. Mr.Z-man22:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I had supported this already. I have no problem with some sort of prod system to delete articles, I do have a problem with wholesale speedy deletions. If the article existed for several months to years, a few more days won't hurt and will give people a chance to salvage the articles. RE Z-man's concerns. If the article has a significant amount of unsourced negative content, then it is already eligible for speedy deletion per BLP as an attack page.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!22:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm withdrawing my support as I fear that we will only be looking at numbers here... and I think the people who are pushing for this will take the numbers counter to the way many would like to see it. We need a systsem that offers people a realistic chance to salvage the articles... this means notifying the people who care and allowing adequate time to fix the articles. Slapping 50K prods on articles the day after this RfC is over and then deleting them next week is counter to what most people are thinking... but it is what the BLP'ers want.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!03:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I worry about the quality and extent of the referencing that will be added to individual articles just to get rid of the prod tags (you can bet that some editors will just slap a URL somewhere and then delete the prod tag), but this is better than nothing. Deor (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
PROD is the wrong name. What's being suggested is in effect a delayed CSD, as used for images.
The default should be for most of the articles not fixed in a week to go into the incubator. I presume it would then need an admin to let them out again. They should be allowed to stay in the incubator for at least up to six months, because it may take some time for the right people to come along to fix them.
I would also like to add that in my view the present hysteria about "unsourced" BLPs is hugely overdone -- from what I have seen, the unsourced BLPs are not typically any less reliable than most BLPs that do have some sources. Most of the material is entirely anodyne; much of it is in fact often directly verifiable from the subjects' own academic CVs, or the subjects' books / films / records that are already identified in the article. There is usually no material that could be construed as BLP-problematic. Generally, the fact that the article has existed untouched for so long is testament to how anodyne it is. So in my view there is no need for panic, and no need to be precipitate; we need to set a realistic timetable to work through and fix this material, because most of it is entirely non-problematic, and useful to our readers. Most of the articles are harmless; some are over-inflated; vanishingly few are libelous. Those that are potentially risky can be pretty well identified with filters (Betacommand already has filters); but even then, most hits are "false positives". Those which ping the filters are the ones we should start with, and if that means that others don't get got around to for some time, actually it almost certainly doesn't matter. Jheald (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Prod is the right way to allow time for watchers of old articles to notice the request for sources. In the absence of actual contentious unsourced material (which our policies already allow for the immediate removal of) I don't see the need for any quicker process, nor do I see a need for the instruction creep of a fourth deletion process on top of prod, csd, and afd. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm endorsing this as a clear and reasonable process, but not necessarily the only process to be used, to deal with the problem of unsourced BLPs. It's long past time to deal appropriately with these dangerous pieces of unsourced material masquerading as articles. --TS23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A good solution: should help to get rid of this mass of greatly problematic articles without doing it so fast that they can't easily be sourced by those with access to good sources. Support Scott MacDonald's proposal that sources must be added for these articles to avoid being deleted. Nyttend (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's a reasonable compromise, though I'd not like to see articles getting shunted to Incubator and then forgotten. They should also be tagged with a similar 'kill by' date - Alison❤03:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can support this with the reservation that this should be a process separate from but essentially similar to WP:PROD as mentioned in the discussion below. (WP:BLP PROD). Also, I favor incubation rather than deletion when the BLP-PROD expires. Time limit should be at least 7 days because some people only edit on weekends or other specific days of the week, and they should not be precluded from sourcing after a prod is placed. if Incubation is not used, a 14-day period would be more appropriate. Notifications to creators and major contributors should be made when articles are BLP-PRODed. DES(talk)06:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support This seems to be a sensible approach - would be good to ensure that article creators are notified of the prods (and the requirements for removing them) - I may well have created a few unreferenced BLPs earlier in my editing history and have no problem referencing them if I know what they are! пﮟოьεԻ5709:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support , providing reasonable pace is defined as a max number of prods per day, Id suggest 10, and that if the number of prods exceeds the limit mass de-proding should be allowed with no risk of a block. FeydHuxtable (talk) 10:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. However can I point out that this is already supported by current policy? I also noticed today that there is a bot notifying editors that pages they have worked on are tagged as unreferenced BLP's, and pointing them towards the BLP policy and the current backlog count. Ivanvector (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, in light of the clarification provided by the proposal's author here[5]. Really, I don't see why the current PROD system is not an adequate enough tool for proposing BLP deletions. But if it will help some people obsessed with the unreferenced BLP issue sleep better, Jehochman's proposal is a reasonable compromise. I would still like to see an option added to it, where a user contesting the PROD may request an automatic remand to an AfD. Nsk92 (talk) 14:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support in general. Point 5 should be considered point by point. There's a difference between just following someone around and removing all their prods, and a good faith prod removal where the intended sourcing doesn't happen. One may be dissruption, the other isn't.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can support the general idea of this. If people don't like it under the "PROD" label, it could just as well go under the system of timed CSD queues, like those we have for unsourced or non-free images. Same principle: safe prospect of deletion after grace period, not to be interrupted unless it gets fixed. Fut.Perf.☼15:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a very reasonable idea in line with the spirit of the project and of BLP. Per objections, the language about deprodding could be tightened; mentioning the importance of BLP in such language would be an improvement. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Good compromise. As long as we realize that PRODding something will lead to it being fixed or deleted. No other choices. Keeping unfixed is unacceptable. Removing notices without fixing should be blockable (perhaps a new sort of notice is needed). ++Lar: t/c16:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse mostly -- sanity needs to rule. For example, I had a really hard time finding truly reliable sources to establish notability for Tom Smith (filker), but he's one of the most notable filkers out there. Filk isn't a topic that is hugely covered in RS, though. I like the idea of tagging with BLPPROD, rather than confusing the issue of whether you can remove a PROD tag or not.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Allows users to fix articles in a timely amount of time, which IMO is a must to deal with unsourced BLPs. As for the brought up issue of not being able to remove the PROD template, I feel that we could make some sort of a "sibling" to the PROD template; it would work like the PROD, except that it cannot be removed without good reason (which in this case would be adding reliable sources), and could fall under another name to avoid confusion. ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs16:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this exactly the right idea. I think we need a specific BLP PROD template but this is the kind of path we need to be going down- due process an reasonable numbers so we can keep what is salvageable but clearing out the tens of thousands of articles in Category:Unreferenced BLPs, many of which have been there for years, attract no attention and may not even be notable. HJMitchellYou rang? 16:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This still gives people the chance to fix articles while providing a kick up the backside without which, realistically, not much would happen. And if some PRODs expire where the pages could have been fixed - well, it's only a website. Olaf Davis (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support with the caveat that it should be called something other than PROD, to avoid confusion or at least use a different template that makes it clear which ones can and can't be removed. Other than that, its a good, solid compromise. I would also want to have the BLP PRODs that expire be logged somewhere by a bot, so that way we can see what is being deleted and maybe undelete later if we find sources. Also, as I understand it, Arbcom doesn't make policy, so this would seem to overrule that motion. The WordsmithCommunicate18:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a very sensible solution. But with the caveat that not ony the principle contributors but also the relevant projects are contacted. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This sums up our current best practise. It is what considered consensus has arrived at over the years - a sensible, appropriate and helpful approach, which is what Wikipedia is about. If it is not working then we need to be examining intelligently why it is not rather than arbitrarily replacing it with a destructive approach that is going to cause disruption and conflict. SilkTork *YES!20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the most reasonable and easy way to deal with unsourced BLPs and will likely clear up the backlog quickly now that since we will finally have a process to deal with the issue. Ridernyc (talk) 20:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very weak support. Sounds good in theory, but I suspect the devil is in the details (what is a reasonable pace), and the inviting people to reference random biographies seems unlikely to attract qualified editors. A more sensible approach is what User:CBM has done: provide WikiProjects, on request, with a list of unreferenced biographies that interest that particular WikiProject. See this or this list/thread. See also my comments to MZMcBride's proposal for a more proactive use of CSD G10. Pcapping 21:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC) This RfC has already been abused to edit war over a fully protected WP:PROD policy to impose a WP:BOLD approach to mass deletion. I barely supported it before due its promise to clarify the details later, but those details have become abundantly clear now. Switching to oppose. Pcapping10:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse A sensible proposal that provides scope for salvaging worthwhile content, does not threaten to overwhelm volunteer resources, and at the same time bites the bullet on the serious problem of unreferenced biographies. I am concerned that in implementation it might be abused, but it is important enough that the principle be supported for that discussion to be left to a later date. Skomorokh 22:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. And introduce flagged revisions, so anything added by an IP only becomes a part of the article once it's been sighted by a Wikipedian. --JN46623:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support While I doubt the sense of immediacy here, I can see this (as clarified) being acceptable if we kept BLP PRODs to no more than 100 per day--a reasonable uptick that can be handled without cratering the PROD balance of efficiency and administrator review. Note: as far as I know, I'm one of the more active admins in PROD handling over the past month or two. Jclemens (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support per DGG, Jclemens et al.. A quota of 100 or so must be placed on mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs per day, and a full 7-day waiting period, to avoid over-burdening the system of sorting out ProDs. Bearian (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support as an improvement over the previous proposal, but per DGG give people time to actually provide the sourcing. And what happened to flagged revisions? Tvoz/talk01:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as best option. Deals with the problem, but does so at a reasonable pace, and allows lots of "outs" in case an article is tagged for deletion that can be rescued. --Jayron3206:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support Per DGG, et al., this proposal needs further discussion. A per-day quota has to be included to avoid misuse by tagging far more articles than the community can handle and it should not be included in WP:PROD but into a separate process (like the WP:DUB proposed by Fram) because it's not really a PROD if there are conditions for when the tag can be removed. Regards SoWhy11:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support – A much more common sense approach than immediate deletion of all uncited BLPs on sight, which will hopefully lead to the sourcing of all BLPs (a worthy goal no matter what side of the debate one is on). Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support with the additional comment that I think BLPs should be, as a matter of course, semiprotected. I agree that misinformation can be a problem, which routine semiprotection should help with. Tigerhawkvok (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - seems like a reasonable approach. I would hope that both people adding prod notices and people removing them would use good sense, though. Robofish (talk) 03:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC) Given how this proposal has already been misused before this RFC is even over, I'm starting to think it will cause more trouble than it's worth. I'm withdrawing my support. Robofish (talk) 13:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, I do agree though that you should be able to remove the notice, and that it shouldn't be called PROD or AfD. Maybe we could have something like a BLPD (BLP deletion) page for this purpose? Samwb123Please read03:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, this will do. Obviously there are some issues, as have been pointed out by the opposes, but nothing that can't be worked out once the framework is agreed to. With this in place, we move in the right direction and lower the drama level.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial support - would be open to the idea that a prod tag should not be removed under some conditions, but do not see a need for a separate process to proposed deletion for biographies. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. I would probably endorse this rather more strongly were the "clarifications" not confusing the issue so much. The idea seems a good one, but I'm no longer really clear on how it is intended to be implemented. Anaxial (talk) 12:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Endorse - Would prefer the extra eyes of an AfD to just a PROD, but this is a considerable improvement over the initial suggestion. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Attack pages should certainly be deleted as soon as they are recognized as such. The rest of the proposal is measured and considered, a reasonable solution. Binksternet (talk) 18:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wikipedia needs to have a strong policy on Attack Pages. It takes more time and effort to clean up badly written BLP articles which have libel or unreferenced content than to start fresh with a clean article. I think its a very reasonable proposal and I strongly endorse it. Radiantenergy (talk) 20:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I like what Editor:Bradjamesbrown says; "A nice balance". Also Editor:DDG's comments regarding ample time (7 days) for an editor "do-over".--Buster7 (talk) 20:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - makes sense. If no one adds a source in 7 days, it's doubtful how notable the individual is to begin with. And even if it takes more than a week to find a source, the article can be trivially undeleted/recreated. RamiR21:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Unsourced BLPs aren't much help to anyone. Deleted articles can be begun anew with sources, by editors who care about them. Maybe the template and its name can be tweaked for this job, but BLPs must be sourced. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, using a BLP prod template, staged by year of article creation. Some stay of execution, maybe one month, for articles where assertions of notability that include reliable sources are posted. Novickas (talk) 23:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, given much effort is made to rescue the articles during the prodding discussion. The ARS should not have to be mobilized, as this would indicate that those otherwise participating are not making enough effort to validate the unsourced information. —Akrabbimtalk03:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Although I somewhat prefer #1, this one is good too and seems the most likely to gain traction. If people genuinely care about these BLPs then they can source them adequately, at least enough to establish notability. If the status quo is retained, then the vast majority of these will simply remain unreferenced or poorly referenced for another 3 years. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Luke-warm support with only the misgiving of wikilawyering over "mass-deprodding". Would prefer any removal of a BLP PROD without adding sources (unless the article is already sourced) to be prohibited. Fritzpoll (talk) 07:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support This appears to be a more reasonable way of dealing with BLPs which are unsourced. I think a further step should be added though "1.5 Try to find some sources" -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. With this as the baseline, future discussions as to adjustments to policy, or fine-tuning of process, might become more reasonable and practical. In combination with flagged thingies it might contribute to reducing the problem to something manageable in the longer term. The procedure is not infallible or anything like, but no one is offering a surgical solution as of right now. PRODs have the good property that they are not ratchet-like, and therefore this is the right place to push the envelope. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Seems like a sensible approach that would allow focus to be put on problematic biographies without handing out complete discretion to admins. However, the balance between point 3 and 5 is important. Consider the perspective of biographies where sources in other languages may need to be used, and only a few active editors are available per language. Tomas e (talk) 20:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. If you AfD or PROD an article that is simply unrefed the PROD is removed and the AfD gets very ugly. A great many people oppose forced cleanup by XfD (including me) and lack of sourcing is not a criterion for deletion (yet): in fact it is a reason to edit. --Jubilee♫clipman 02:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC) Addendum Just to clarify: where attempt to source have failed or the article cannot possibly be sourced (because it is a hoax etc) then deletion is an option. However, when the article is merely unreferenced, there are no grounds for deletion until sourcing has been attempted and has failed. The proposal ignores this fact. --Jubilee♫clipman02:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I like the procedrual basis of this proposal. In addition to the Article Incubator, we could consider the WP: RESCUE process as well. This proposal would prevent the immediate deletion of articles that need help but are not necessarily contentious or libelous. Also, one could argue that the first two proposals on this page pretty much sum up the two basic options in this controversy, and most of the other proposals are variations with some new ideas on tweaking the basic process. DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 23:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support on the whole - I think this is a reasonable solution to a big problem, but I would hope that articles that showed promise would indeed be moved to the article incubator to be worked on and not just deleted because nobody could be bothered to source them. (And articles moved to incubator or flagged for rescue should be given a limited time to improve). This proposal should be used in conjuction with strong encouragements to actively work on these articles. We also need to find better ways of eliminating unsourced contentious material in articles not tagged as being unsourced.--BelovedFreak00:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. 1, 2, 5 and 6 sound good. 3 seems unworkable as tagging seems to get done whenever an article is found, we don't want editors to have to wait and forget about it just so the volume of prods is not unreasonably large. As far as 4 goes - there should be a reasonable period of time (say a month instead of a week?) before deletion after an article is flagged so that any interested parties can take the time to fix it. Not every editor works every day/week/month. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This is generally something I would support. A few suggestions however would be that it be a seperate process to prod, the time perhaps should be slightly longer (i.e. fourteen to a month), and the meaning of "proper references" needs to be made clearer to avoid conflicts and edit wars. Camaron · Christopher ·talk22:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A prod that cannot be removed is not a prod at all. If you want to implement this, go ahead and invent whatever tools and templates you need to do it. But don't co-opt, and break, a tool that was invented for some other purpose, and is meeting that purpose fairly well. Hesperian06:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I would strongly support most of this proposal, but the idea that "Prod notices should not be removed ... unless proper references are added" is not acceptable. This would mean that an editor who believed that good sources were available, but could not immediately provide them, would not be able to indicate the fact, and have a chance of slowing the deletion process to allow for sources to be provided. In an AfD such an editor would be able to give a comment, but with a prod there is no facility to do so. (Of course it is possible to put a comment on the talk page, but that does not stop an uncontested prod from leading automatically to deletion.) We could, of course, change the definition of a prod to avoid this problem, but then we are in "sort of prod, but not actually prod" territory, so why not admit it. The version at Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs is more clearly thought out than this "prod that you are not allowed freely to remove" idea. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Withdrawn: I have changed my mind about this.[reply]
Prods may still be contested as always, just not en mass. Things that are normally allowed, turn into abuse of process when done indiscriminately in order to make a point. Likewise, somebody who repeatedly proposes deletion of articles that are not eligible (such as those previous proposed or sent to AfD) could be sanctioned for abuse of process as well. JehochmanBrrr16:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused - the proposal says "Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added" - but your reply to James suggests that a PROD can be removed in the "I have sources but not quite yet" sort of situation he mentions, as long as it's not done en-masse. Could you clarify which you mean, Jehochman? Olaf Davis (talk) 16:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was about about to support (after the deletion of the clarifications), but then I saw this. The idea that an unsourced BLP can be deprodded and sent to AFD contradicts the first sentence of point 5. There is already enough confusion from describing a not-quite-prod process as a prod. Kanguole14:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It was a great ideas until the part about not being allowed to remove a prod tag. Prod is not meant to be forced onto a page until certain criteria is met, it is meant to be put there to see if anyone objects. There is too much room for debate regarding what is a reliable source and if the source does cover the content of the article. Perhaps a new tag that is not prod would be better. Chillum(Need help? Ask me)15:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Sounds good in theory, but the prodders have shown they can't be trusted, so all that's left is mass reversion. If they could be trusted, that would be another matter. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. On the surface this sounds great except that Prod is just as abused as other avenues. If only articles that sources were extensively sought and not found were prodded this wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately many many prodded articles are indeed exactly the ones Wikipedia should have. -- Banjeboi20:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, in response to Durova's comment above which implies this RfC is a "select only one option" choice. There have been a number of other thoughtful comments below which should be taken into consideration before any final action or decision is made. -- llywrch (talk) 07:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This RfC has already been abused to edit war over a fully protected WP:PROD policy to impose a WP:BOLD approach to mass deletion. I barely supported it before due its promise to clarify the details later, but those details have become abundantly clear now, so I'm opposing. Pcapping10:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I largely agree, but where a prod is clearly inappropriate I see no reason why it shouldn't be removed before sources are added. An edit summary indicating why the prod was removed should be sufficient. If no improvement has been made after a day or two it can go to AFD - there's no reason to make prod anything that it isn't already.--Michig (talk) 11:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose After expressing support for motherhood and apple pie, this proposal puts, as always, the devil in the details. No deprodding without adding "proper sources". And of course, prods are never put on already well-sourced articles. One can form an idea of some mass blp-deleters conception of "proper sources" from the diffs I posted here. Maybe out of 3 million articles there may be a few which have always fit these procrustean strictures. There can't be many which shouldn't have been deleted according to these amusing rules. This is an extreme? - well, as Pcap notes, there's already been an attempt to change the longstanding consensus at WP:PROD according to this proposal, and even an arbcom case beginning about it Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#WP:PROD_wheel_war. Finally, see Peregrine Fisher's comments above.John Z (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is quite a lot I agree with in there, but there are too many vague terms and it is not even handed. What is a reasonable rate to procede with prodding depends on the number of people doing the prodding and the number of articles in a project that are prodded at the same time. Mass prodding is as disruptive as mass-deprodding can be disruptive. If an editor wanting to fix the problem of unreffed blps is taking a WP:SOFIXIT route, trying to find sources and prodding those for which no sources are apparent, that is good faith conduct. But a pattern of prodding without accompanying fixing by the same edit is WP:POINTy.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any proposal that doesn't include some sort of requirement for anyone who wants an article deleted to try and reference it. We currently have people happily deleting Olympic medallists, prime ministers and presidents. The last thing we need is a policy that endorses or condones such behaviour. Hut 8.500:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose PROD should be left alone - hijacking it for ideological purposes is simply not acceptable. I agree with several points above including Hut's. Orderinchaos07:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I largely agree, except with the 5th point - I would rather have those who would delete the page be the ones sourcing it, not having them add a tag to force someone else to. Prodegotalk18:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Debresser and Power.corrupts, mostly. Mass-prodding is a serious concern and I doubt any rate will help (even at the current rate many articles die unnecessarily by the PROD mechanism). --Cyclopiatalk20:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. (Mis?)use of prod makes this a lite version of the MZMcBride's view. I dislike the forced, gun-on-the-forehead nature of the cleanup process: provide references, or else. Like many similar suggestions, it does not even attempt to describe what actual problem it is supposed to solve. GregorB (talk) 00:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, I don't think that most supporters understand that this is a proposition to mass-prod, which I feel would be disastrous. It disrespects the good faith efforts of many, many Wikipedians. Unsourced content still has a source: the contributor. While not the most reliable or sources, I feel that it is wrong to unilaterally decide that unsourced BLP content "isn't good enough" for Wikipedia. Perhaps we should change the main page to say "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone with a good source can edit"? ...but what do you think? ~BFizz04:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial Oppose I'm not against the idea, but I fear that implementing this will result in some automated prodding followed-up by a series of automated deletions or very casual deletions by people who are overly eager to delete what they don't like. Any proposal that doesn't incorporate a means to notify those interested in the subject (namely wikiprojects) needs to proceed with caution. The various Wikiprojects will undoubtably be the ones most outraged if their projects are deleted en masse with minimal or no notification and seven days may not be enough time to clean up the project's BLPs. This is an issue, but hasty actions will lead to more problems down the road.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!04:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have yet to see a convincing explanation of why BLPs with zero references are a bigger problem than BLPs with one reference. DGG's comment below, that time spent sourcing an unproblematic BLP is time that could be spent on a problematic BLP, is of relevance here. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 08:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you don't mind me rephrasing your question as, "how can we find problematic BLPs?" One thing that I'm surprised to not see more emphasis on here is trying to improve the thoroughness of RC patrol. Another thing we should be doing is engaging the press to ask article subjects to either fix their articles or notify OTRS. Groan, can of worms, yes, but it would be effective. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose in the strongest way possible if you want articles referenced, then use Google and add the damn references. Deleting the whole article is ridiculously unproductive. Grue 10:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (switched from Support) - this isn't a bad idea as such, but other proposals on this page are better; that this proposal has already been misused convinces me that it's likely to cause too many problems. Robofish (talk) 13:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - PRODing (and XfDing, for that matter) to force cleanup is almost always frowned upon, in my experience. Anyway, the whole wording is far too wishywashy to be useful. Who is supposed to discuss the "reasonable pace"? Consensus? Among whom? Projects? Admins? Any interested party? How do we stop mass uBLP PRODing (as opposed to "de-prodding or undeletion") where the pace is unreasonable? Who decides whether an article goes to the incubator rather than the bin? Will there be a guideline to help with this decision? (I don't see one, so I guess "consensus" rules again (see above)?) My comment below (concerning colusion and subterfuge) has been revoked, BTW. The proposed policy I refer to there (Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs) is far more workable and detailed and I can't for the life of me understand why it isn't proposed for discussion here. I still oppose much of that too, BTW, but we should at least be discussing it, surely (unless I missed it somewhere)? Anyway, UBLPs with no other issues are not per se a bad thing: they are often very rewarding to work on and contain much invaluable information. Simply deleting them would be detrimental to the spirit of WP and frighten off far too many new editors if handled badly. --Jubilee♫clipman02:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose-ish The terms and timeframes need to be clearly specified. For example "proper references" means what exactly? How many is too many? And I think a reasonable option should be to deprod but send to AfD. For example I found that the jp wiki had references for an article, but I couldn't read them. AfD seems like a good place to add eyes in (fairly rare) cases. Hobit (talk) 18:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Abuse of prod, easy to misunderstand the requirements, difficult to enforce the made-up rules, and still yet another unworkable, off-target "solution" (for a problem that doesn's exist). Maedin\talk13:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who are neutral about or partially endorse/oppose this summary
Oppose prod should be kept as it is now and not used as a non removable tag. On images we have sime di- notices that give a seven days. But in any case seven days is not enough time. An effort should be made to provide references, or to ask someone who will actually do the job before a time out to deletion is attached. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional/partial support: Per the two first opposes above, and some discussion below, this a) should have a different name, and b) needs to either be deletable or have some other means of slowing process down because one wants to source the article or to argue that it is already adequately sourced. An "undeletable prod" would be problematic. Otherwise, this proposal has a lot of merit and is less extremist that deletion-on-sight. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all but first line. Blatant attack pages should be deleted on sight per CSD G10, but the proposed deletion process is next to worthless. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Seven days is a ridiculously short period, it is unlikely that the average editor will see the prod in that span. One year would be more reasonable. Moreover the person proposing the deletion must first do the following (a) do a quick search for a reliable source (eg. by google) that at least shows that the person exits, and (b) delete any text that is not supported by that source. Only if (a) fails, or (b) leaves an empty article, should the article be posted for deletion. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
Jehochman's proposal looks more reasonable than most things on this page, but in its present form it is still problematic. I would be fine with this proposal if it allowed for an automatic remand to AfD in contested BLP-prod cases. As it is, under the proposal in its current form, it may be that after being BLP-prodded the article is reasonably improved (at least to the extent of no longer being BLP-prod eligible), but it may still be deleted without discussion by the admin closing the BLP-prod. Then such a decision would have to be contested (presumably at DRV), adding an extra layer of bureaucracy. Basically the current version of the proposal, by disallowing anyone to remove the prod tag prior to its closing by an admin, cuts out the possibility of a more substantive discussion at an AfD where multiple editors can comment and the matter can be explored in greater depth; IMO that's not good. I think there needs to be something like a provision stating that if at least one verifiable reference is added (even to a primary source) and at least one editor contests the prod, then the prod-closing admin has to either decline the prod or send the article directly to AfD. Or something along these lines. Nsk92 (talk) 05:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal says "Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added." I take that to mean that any editor who adds "proper references" may remove the tag. (It does not specify what constitutes "proper references".) If that is not the case it should be made explicit. DES(talk)06:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In that case I may just be misreading the proposal. I had understood it to mean that only an admin may remove a BLP-prod tag. Perhaps the author of the proposal could clarify this? Nsk92 (talk) 11:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While this proposed mechanism is very similar to the existing WP:PROD it is different enough that I think a different name, set of categories, template, etc should be used if it is implemented. {{BLP Prod}}, WP:BLP PROD and the like. That will allow differeign time periods and rules to be separately tweaked for the two processes. DES(talk)06:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It does not seem to be getting a lot of attention, but a proposal was recently started basically along the lines of what you are looking for, see Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs. Pretty much prodding (call it "dubbing" instead) but just for BLPs, and without functioning under WP:PROD. It could well be the process we end up with and it might not be a bad idea to continue to work on the proposal even as this RfC runs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs07:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the proposal lacks a step before #2: "try to fix it yourself" per WP:ATD. If you simply say "prod them", it will just lead to some people running a script tagging hundreds or thousands of articles without any attempts to fix them. Regards SoWhy21:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The thing that impresses me most about Jehochman's proposal is that it has the qualified support of User:DESiegel who in my experience can take a lot of persuading on deletion matters. I think the way forward is for us to follow his lead: let us discuss what constitutes "proper references". I also agree without reservation with DESiegel when he says that this new process we're talking about isn't PROD. PROD is the "easy add, easy remove" tag, and that isn't what we're discussing here. Call it BLPPROD or whatever you like, it's sufficiently different from any other deletion process that it needs a new name and a new locus in project space. --TS23:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The support for Jehochman's proposal (currently above 95%) is not only impressive, but demonstrates that the community can indeed come together and enact solutions by consensus. Durova40303:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some BLPs are hard to source even though the individual is notable. Take for instance most of the 60s 70s 80s artists, and scientists etc. Their biographies typically predate the internet. While those references are valid in the real world, they are very hard to verify on the net. --Magicus69 (talk) 14:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting articles is destructive--I elaborate elsewhere on this page. In the course of a quarter of football on TV, I've gone through the list of articles listed as unreferenced chronologically. I found five articles that fall into my domain of knowledge, most of them well written and non-contentious, BUT potentially subject to deletion. These were recognizable, famous people that deserve their article here on Wikipedia. One of the articles I had just linked to one of my own articles created last week. It took me a few minutes to easily find references and even much elaborate information about these people. If more people would spend some time working on articles, rather than trying to find ways to delete them, we wouldn't have this controversy. And if you say you don't know the subject, then YOU don't belong in the decision to delete that article.Trackinfo (talk) 22:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it just me, or does it feel like this whole issue has been decided from the beginning? Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs is almost exactly what Jehochman has proposed and is exactly contemporaneous with his proposal. Instead of this present RfC, why not just send people over there to debate the implications of the (almost-certainly-to-be imposed) proposed policy? Hate to cry "foul", but it feels like we are being hoodwinked here, especially with such proposals as "[a]ny article deleted via this process and then recreated is subject to speedy deletion under criterion G4" in that proposed policy. I do hope I am wrong and this whole RfC isn't just a Red Herring? --Jubilee♫clipman22:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've had had no contact with Jehochman about this or anything related. I presumewe both started from the BLP discussion athe the ProD pages: it certainly is the place where I got the idea about Deletion of unreferenced BLPs (WP:DUB for short). I started that proposal because many people felt that ProD should stay like it is, and that a similar but different process should be separate from it. I had no idea, when I started it, that Jehochman would propose something similar here (or had already done so, I haven't checked the dates), and of course was not aware that it would get so much support. Fram (talk) 08:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Fram. That clears it up for me. I did wonder if the RfC was just a ruse, but that seems unlikey now. Sorry to imply any subterfuge and collution! I take back my comments. --Jubilee♫clipman02:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone considered that a long BLP with one reference is more likely to contain contentious material than a stub with no references? Jehochman's proposal does nothing to fix this. -M.Nelson (talk) 01:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's intended to fix one problem. That it doesn't attempt to fix all possible problems is not a fault. --TS11:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Jclemens
BLPs have certainly been abused in the past, but the simple fact remains that most BLPs, even those that are unreferenced are innocuous, provide useful material, and do no harm. The issue with the status quo hasn't been the wording, but the implementation: page protection (as it exists today, leaving alone discussion of future technology) has been applied too stingily to BLPs, even in inexcusable cases like Joseph Farah where he's both a vandalism target and an Internet journalist who's been critical of Wikipedia. The choice set before us is a false dichotomy. Do we really need to delete every unsourced BLP? If we do that, we're cleaning up the 80% of them that are only 20% of the problem, and we're not touching the issue of false information appearing in sourced articles.
The risk reduced--and let's be clear, there certainly will be some--is insufficient to justify the widespread deletion of accurate, useful, and innocuous information, sourced or not, and ultimately damages Wikipedia without helping BLP vandalism subjects.
Agreed, but the ratio is more like 95%/5%, and we ought to find an orderly way to improve the 95% and delete the other 5% rather than preserving the status quo. Wikidemon (talk) 20:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The case that the encyclopedia will suffer more for having the occasional contentious, unsourced content than for deleting all unsourced BLP content, regardless of whether it's contentious or not, has not been made in any convincing way. Some numbers would be useful. I can see how the Foundation and Jimbo are annoyed that they have to deal with reporters delighted to find that "OMG! Wikipedia was wrong on something!", but I don't see a direct link from the Foundation public relations argument to the encyclopedia quality argument. - BanyanTree02:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Generally support. There's CSD G10 for the contentious ones, and there's no reason to insta-delete something that is not clearly harmful. I've been chastised for using G10 on unsourced stub biographies that are not 100% negative, but only 25-50% so. I think that when an unsourced article has only a few sentences, and one makes a negative BLP claim it should be deleted as a precaution. Perhaps the language in G10 should be adjusted that way. Pcapping20:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We often use "sourced" as a proxy for "accurate". For BLPs, we need to do better than that. Ignore the proxy, and look at the actual article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because this doesn't fix the problemm. Most of these articles were created in good faith, without any intention of harming someone, they just didn't source it because it wasn't necessary. Where has assuming good faith gone? Few people at all write stuff here to harm other people. Secondly, unsourced isn't immediately a problem, inaccurate is the problem. By giving an article sources, the stuff in it doesn't magically become true. The sources can be wrong, or one can make claims of existing articles. My two cents about the unsourced BLPs: Get a bot which contacts all creators of unreferenced BLPs, telling them the problem which you have with unreferenced BLPs and ask them to fix it. Then, look on every article on a case by case base, find sources and if there are no, then do something about it. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly agree with JClemens, and specifically with The Evil IP Address' comment that "unsourced isn't immediately a problem, inaccurate is the problem." If it's true, it belongs, even if a citeable source cannot be found. -- BRG (talk) 16:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Support -- not that we should ignore this problem, but that it is not our highest priority. i think some people have concentrated on it specifically because it is so much easier to fix this and pretend to be accomplishing something important than to find a way to deal with the actual priorities. DGG ( talk ) 01:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support generally, but you've understated your case -- it's more like 5% of biographies are 95% of the problem, while the other 95% of biographies are 5% of the problem... AnonMoos (talk) 12:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree There is nothing wrong with information being unsourced. As long as it is potentially verifiable and non-slanderous, of course. Just as present policy says. Debresser (talk) 13:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Debresser and especially AnonMoos. The problem articles are few and far between; the deletion proposals not only remove what are largely beneficial articles, but focus editor time where it would better be spent elsewhere. And I say this as a deletionist! CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree As it says, it's a view, and does not specify what exactly should be done. All unsourced bios need to be tagged with a template informing the reader about the lack of reliability of the content. Cs32enTalk to me19:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Just threw some refs into a bio missing them and cleaned it up a bit. Would not have worked on if it had just been deleted. Motivate people, don't delete otherwise innocuous articles that just need some refs. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong, enthusiastic support. Do not throw out the baby with the bath water. If a BLP has negative unsourced statements, add sources, remove the negative stuff, or delete if nothing can be found. But deleting any unsourced BLP on sight is not only lazy, it harms the casual reader who is deprived of non-negative info. And to the opposes below, I agree that do nothing is not an option. But it's not like our only options are do nothing or delete. Get a grip.--Fabrictramp | talk to me05:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Stong Support Agree with Trekphiler. I can't believe all the screaming for such a simple, commonsense approach. Ready, fire, aim is not a valid approach. King Pickle (talk) 02:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The importance of citing sources cannot be emphasized enough, but most of our unsourced BLPs are in fact innocuous and created in good faith. decltype (talk) 06:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The way I see it, unreferenced BLPs deletion policy might damage Wikipedia it at least three ways: 1) harm to content (loss of useful and uncontroversial articles), 2) harm to editors (this is one more wall against the newcomers, and I don't think many people here fully understand how dangerous this is for the future of Wikipedia), 3) harm to policy (so far, forced actions, such as speedy deletions for attack BLPs, were reasonable - in fact, necessary - solutions to acute, concrete problems with BLPs, whereas this purports to solve potential, abstract problems, and thus sets an unsettling precedent for the future). GregorB (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support On balance, most material does more good than harm, and we already have ample procedures for deleting the exceptions. Certes (talk) 22:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I've taken a run through a few dozen of the nearly 400 articles that fall within the Comics Project remit and a few don't seem notable (so I flagged them up), quite a lot showed plenty of promise and a disturbing number where overwhelmingly notable (and important, including winners of prestigious awards). Just deleting the unreferenced BLPs where I saw none that could be classed as "attack articles" would cause far more problems than it fixes. They clearly need work (and often it is purely a matter of editors just not focusing on that angle) but we already have the tools to deal with such problems and it seems unwise to go around threatening the removal of swathes of articles, when the collateral damage is going to be so high. (Emperor (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC))[reply]
Support. I would note, for example, that the biggest BLP issue that I encounter in my day-to-day editing experience is not unsourced articles; it's that some determined vandals have noted that if they add anything that looks like a valid source it's less likely to be challenged even if it's fake. For example, the fact that sources are unequivocally required on List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people hasn't prevented inappropriate names from being added there — people frequently add names whose sources (a) don't exist, (b) don't support the claim that they're queer, or (c) are just copied and pasted from another name that's already included in the list, and don't mention the new person at all. And then somebody else glances at the edit, sees that it looks like it's in order, and lets it pass without checking the source. And that's not a problem that can be solved by this discussion. Bearcat (talk) 04:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - It think it would be very unfortunate if BLP's were singled out for deletion because of poor sourcing, which is a problem among ALL varieties of articles on the wikipedia. David Straub (talk) 16:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
This is the kind of milquetoast "oh, they're not hurting anything" approach that has led to the current mess. Spines have been found, backbones have been formed, time to get work done. Tarc (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, an unreferenced BLP left neglected for years is bad; adding references to it shows that someone is willing to make necessary improvements. BLPs left unreferenced for years cause headaches for WP and for the subjects of these articles. I agree, though, with the statement that deleting unsourced BLPs won't help incorrect sourced articles. That's another issue that should be addressed, though. Firsfron of Ronchester08:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I assume that "we're cleaning up the 80% of them that are only 20% of the problem" is intended to mean something like "only 20% of them are a problem, we would be getting rid of teh other 80% as well": if not I should be grateful for clarification. Taking it in that sense, even if it is true (which needs justification) then that means there is a huge number of unacceptable biographies around. We have an obligation to avoid publishing libel: a moral objection as well as a legal one. We cannot sit back and allow the 20% of unacceptable ones to remain, whether or not this means the 80% suffer too. How do I know when I look at an article whether it is one of the 20% or one of the 80%? If we had a simple "no sources = no article" rule then the acceptable ones would become 100% instead of 80%. Unfortunately such a rule cannot, in practice, be quite as simplistic as that, so the question is "what modified rule, essentially based on no sources = no article, will work best?" The question "do we need such a rule at all?" is not appropriate. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with a "no sources, no article" policy being enforced from now on (perhaps not as CSD, but this can be discussed). What I can't agree with is deleting what are the most probably good faith efforts of thousands of editors in the past, when rules/practice were much more relaxed, only to get rid of a few problematic articles; what I can't agree even more is this is indeed a solution to the so-called BLP problem, while the problem is bias, libel and vandalism, not sourcing per se. No one has still provided hair-thin evidence that unreferenced BLPs are more of a problem than referenced ones, nor has anyone provided evidence that deletion is better than semiprotection. All I see here is moral panic justified with handwaving or, in some cases, odd infantile cortical hyperostosis. --Cyclopiatalk12:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose I concur that in many or perhaps even most cases there is no problem. I disagree with the prioritization that the other cases is less of a problem than starting from scratch. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Head in the sand view. Better safe than sorry where real people are involved. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c16:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can't live without repeating that quote every five minutes,isn't it? Well, I prefer to quote "Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct." ,at cost of falling under our favourite lawyer's law.--Cyclopiatalk16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While much of what Jclemens writes is true, adopting this stance does nothing to advance a solution. Saying "this problem is not as it seems" or "there are other worse problems" is not a compelling response to the very real problem here. Skomorokh 22:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The point behind this proposal is to state that not everybody agrees with the notion that having unsourced BLP's is the end of wikipedia... many of the articles are decent quality articles that should be saved, not deleted on sight without thought as to how their deletions will affect projects and various users. The delete on sight mentatility will cause more problems than it solves.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!23:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An excellent summary of my position, Balloonman. Other editors should note that I've endorsed a number of other positions that speak to different solutions. By focusing on the problem's severity and the consequences of "solving" it in a draconian manner, I haven't put my head in the sand, or advocated anyone else doing so. Rather, I've looked while we're busy getting ready to leap. Jclemens (talk) 23:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I can sympathise with this view, but I don't feel that "do nothing" is likely to fix the issue, either. As such, I can't support the proposal as stated. Anaxial (talk) 12:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Because anybody can write anything here, an article is only as useful as the references behind it. Because of this we should do something about the issue of having unsourced articles laying around in bulk, especially BLPs. ThemFromSpace20:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Poor quality, unsourced articles in general do nothing to improve our standing with the world at large, poor quality and unreferenced (or poorly referenced) BLPs are downright damaging. If some moderately-known journalist goes to his or her article and reads a paragraph that someone inserted saying they love eating lemon drops and eat 20 boxes every day, and then they write an article about it or go on some talk show and bring it up, how does that make us look? One of our goals as an encyclopedia is to be factual, and proper referencing is a primary step in that direction. Just because something isn't a deliberate attack or libelous doesn't make it harmless. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that, whilst I understand the sentiment, this is essentially a statement in favour of the status quo - to paraphrase Jimbo, that ship has sailed. Fritzpoll (talk) 07:55, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as it's the status quo. While I can understand a reluctance for mass deletions, totally ignoring the problem doesn't help. Some effort needs to be undertaken to at the very least prevent new unsourced blp's from accumulating. -- Bfigura(talk)00:34, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. A large backlog of unreferenced BLPs does cause harm, as Wikipedia should be the first place to look for notable people, but without references readers must wonder whether the people listed are actually notable, as well as fending for themselves should they wish to do further research. This is one of our main advantages over traditional encyclopedias--we can point you in the right direction to go next. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Controversial or contentious material with no references should be deleted on sight. Existence of a person is not, however, controversial nor contentious. WP has policies for deleting articles lacking notability, and no Draconian policy of automatic article deletion should pre-empt the orderly functioning of processes already existing. Collect (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, and I think it would be appropriate to extend the definition of controversial or contentious material as it pertains to living people vs as it might pertain to a video game. I see no reason whatsoever to delete, for example, a BLP that states simply "Person X is a New York Times best-selling author." and then provides a list of books. This generally falls under the "common knowledge" exception of WP:V. Karanacs (talk) 16:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with same proviso as above. The key word is "draconian" - we should have an orderly, organized, agreed-to improvement-and-deletion campaign. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can support this, but the word "Draconian" might have different scopes for different people, so my support here should not be taken to be inconsistent with my supporting more aggressive alternatives. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously controversial material should be removed. Material that is not actually controversial or likely to cause harm (for example, the school where someone went to college, in 99% or article) is a different matter. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. A policy of blindly mass-deleting existing BLPs would seriously weaken the encyclopedia and would create a caste gap between administrators and non-administrators, as administrators would then be the only ones able to access a large amount of useful, non-controversial and factually accurate material hidden from non-privileged editors. Robert K S (talk) 20:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - This appears to be the policy we have now—controversial or contentious material is flagged or PRODed or AfDed or SPEEDYied etc anyway. We don't need more. --Jubilee♫clipman22:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support – I review untold numbers of articles at FAC/FLC, and persons' names are rarely cited by themselves, unless there is some debate over them. Coming from places where strong referencing is a must. this tells me in itself that such information is generally not contentious. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree this is what one of the speedy delete criteria is, however, we could add that instead of deleting, supporting references could be added instead. Or negative material can be edited, however perhsp the bad revisions need deleting. Do we need a program to spot this sort of article sooner? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I can't help thinking that if all the effort editors are spending on this discussion (either supporting or opposing the various viewpoints) were to be spent on finding some references for currently unsourced BLPs, a lot of those BLPs would no longer be unsourced! -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 15:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I believe the Wikipedia community can reach the right consensus on what is "controversial or contentious", then remove the offending phrases without discarding valuable articles wholesale. Certes (talk) 22:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support A lot of effort is being expended on the question of all unsourced BLPs, most of which are stubs consisting of harmless text. We should only be worried about statements that would be defamatory if false. Ntsimp (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - let's restrict automatic, on-sight deletion to articles which deserve that fate due to the presence of controversial or libellous material. Equating slanderous attacks to neutrally-worded biographies (even if the referencing or factual accuracy leaves a lot to be desired) is ridiculous and sensationalist, and smacks of assuming bad faith. SuperMarioMan (talk) 05:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support We have NPP to catch new unreferenced/POV articles. Multiple articles including BLPs have references, just not inline. Attack articles are more likely to have faked, misinterpreted, or attack references. Articles with a remaining tag are not the problem, and forcing people to turn all their attention to trying to save them in large numbers undermines the entire collaborative basis of the encyclopedia to no good end. It also likely deletes good content that some actual user wanted to look up. This is bad for our reputation, not good, and is already driving away editors. It gives the strong impression the admin corps have forgotten they are janitors, not managers. Also the continuing failure to adequately advertise this issue and the initial sneaky action during Drama-Out leave me feeling extremely disrespected. I find myself disinclined to help this project right now, and I am sure I am far from the only one. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Let's focus on real problems rather than unproblematic articles. WP:BOLD prodding (and, if needed, AfD) is still allowed if there is contention. But mass deletions aren't helping. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - we should definitely be focusing on contentious material. A completely non-controversial but unreferenced stub about an actor which merely states what films they have been in is far less problematic than a long partly- (but inadequately) sourced article that goes into detail about someone's private life or criminal activities or political views or whatever. The former is not ideal, but can be verified by a reader fairly easily. I would like it to be widened to include not just contentious/controversial material, but any unsourced personal information about a person.--BelovedFreak22:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Anything that is unsourced, even a date and place of birth, is potentially contentious, even if it turns out to be a typo made in good faith. --Kudpung (talk) 12:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Agree that "controversial or contentious material with no references should be deleted on sight", but do not automatically delete articles that are unsourced. Just excise the controversial parts, which is pretty much the policy now (or the general editing practice of most editors.)David Straub (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Too subjective a viewpoint. Making a special case for "Controversial or contentious material" is practical, for who would decide what is or is not covered by this category? This is just another restatement of WP:IKNOWIT. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)09:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Um -- what precisely do you find fault with? I cite the current policies and procedures, and state that using orderly process is good. Yet your argument deals with an argument for deletion discussions only? I note your opposition to almost everything under the sun on this page, and would be pleased to deal with any constructive criticism. Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It seems perfectly clear to me precisely what Gavin.collins finds fault with: the subjective nature of "Controversial or contentious". As for the ad hominem comments about Gavin.collins's objections elsewhere, they are completely irrelevant: what matters here is the value or lack of value of his comment here. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose What is "Controversial or contentious" is entirely subjective. I think particular material is controversial, so I delete it: you think it wasn't controversial. Not a workable proposition. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right -- if you, as an editor, feel that some material is controversial or contentious, then, by all means, delete it. The process is then that according to existing policy it is up to the person who wants it in to furnish appropriate referencing, and to discuss the matter on the article talk page. Just like any other editing dispute in a BLP. The issue here presented is, moreover, a short-circuiting of the extant processes. Rather like seeing a burnt-out bulb on the tenth floor of a building and deciding to cut all power lines to it. Collect (talk) 12:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nor is it obvious that most statements in a BLP or elsewhere are true, even if sourced. And even when sourced, it isn't always easy to get to the source. And even a well-sourced statement can be libelous. This whole encyclopedia, to a great extent, floats on trusting anonymous strangers to be honest and upright, and nothing will ever get us around that. Deleting unsourced BLPs may be the way to go to solve some of the most egregious problems, but its a blunt instrument that removes a lot of good information with it. So it's better not to bring God into this. We've already had enough crusading and human sacrifices for one controversy. What to do about a problem like this is a judgment call, best made calmly. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, your statement would apply equally to almost every single article where there has been no dispute over contents - I have found a great many references which do not say what they have been claimed to say. Perhaps all articles should be subject to summary deletion on the basis that the references may be false? Interesting concept, that! But using the Raleigh solution is, I fear, worse than using existing processes. Collect (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are potential problems with any article and doubtless there are perfectly true BLPs without references. My point is that the gray area is wide, so let's think about where we're going to draw the line and what we do when we draw it. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC) What's a "Raleigh solution"?[reply]
I do think we need some kind of automatic deletion for BLPs with no sources, so I can't support this. It'd be better to give editors plenty of chances to identify BLPs in areas they're interested in so that they get a chance to save good material, but we should be doing something, more and I don't think this statement addresses that well enough. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Unsourced material can be removed on sight. No sources=no content that can be kept. Besides, who says they even exist? Are we going to start allowing what you or I "know" to be exempt from WP:V? Niteshift36 (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even something that looks positive can be potentially damaging if false. Existing processes have been failing here for years, we need something new. Mr.Z-man23:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal conflicts with the verifiability policy. It's an encyclopedia. Don't put any old crap into it just because you kinda remember hearing about it somewhere. Go back, check your sources, then cite them. If you don't do that then you're not writing an encyclopedia, you're just inflicting your hobby on everybody, --TS01:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This seems to be broadening the existing policy on attack pages without providing a clear definition of the proposed replacement. If a clear and unambiguous definition of "controversial" were proposed, we'd have something to look at. As it is, I think is too vaguely worded. Anaxial (talk) 12:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose based on wording. It's not always easy to define what is contentious or controversial. Existing policy with respect to attack pages seems to cover this ground sufficiently. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While in complete accord with the basic tenets of "orderly functioning processes", it's the controversial and contentious part that is too ambiguous. Editors will still be in dissagreement. The last sentence is clear enough. I suggest you leave it at that (in which case I would support)--Buster7 (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the preamble, but not what follows. Isn't it painfully obvious now, if it was not before, that unsourced BLPs are controversial and contentious? Vassyana (talk) 05:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, problematic content should be immediately removed, all other content should be sourced or removed after a reasonable time. It's better not to have a number of articles than to have them in such a poor state for years and years. Tagging them as unsourced and then letting the Wikipedia editing process work isn't really a solution, until the kickstart last week the backlog was only growing. We have no deadline that states when Wikipedia has to be complete, we lack hundreds of thousands of articles on notable subjects anyway: to have a few thousand extra lacking articles is not a major problem. Fram (talk) 08:38, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Runs completely contrary to the ethos of sourcing. We have something like 1000 new biographies every month without sources (I think). The existing processes aren't functioning in an orderly manner. Quantpole (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Controversial or contentious material with no appropriate references should be sourced, but if that is not reasonably possible, then it should be removed. SilkTork *YES!20:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The notability requirement is absolutely not a consensus among editors, in spite of what the WP: pages say. It may well be the most contested "rule" in wikipedia. Every editor who has worked on an article that has been deleted by "non-notability" criteria alone is an emphatic vote against the notability requirement. Anyway the problem is not articles on non-notable people; it is defamatory material in biographies of *notable* people, which often have many refs.
Proposal by Aymatth2
This proposal does not cover the issue of preventing the pool of unsourced bios from growing, but suggests an approach to cleaning it up.
A great deal of the content in these articles may be valid and useful information about notable people, with a lot of work put into creating the content, but there are no sources to verify the information or establish notability.
Some of the articles provide significant and valid information about notable people that should not just be arbitrarily deleted unless it is defamatory.
But as they stand, none of the articles meet the criteria for retention.
This proposal is to create a mechanically ranked list of all unsourced BLPs, so editors who want to remove inappropriate articles can work up from the bottom of the list, and editors who want to retain valuable content can work down from the top.
Obvious ranking criteria would be:
Positive: Number of inbound links, number of unique editors, size
Negative: Number of days since creation, number of days since last edit
The values would be given weightings in a ranking formula such as:
(inboundlinks x 100) + (uniqueeditors x 150) + (sizekb x 50) - (agedays x 1) - (lasteditdays x 0.5)
With this formula, an orphan article created three years ago, never updated, 1k long would score -800. A 3k article created a month ago, updated by five editors, with 10 inbound links would score 850. It would take experiment to get weighting factors that give reasonable results. More sophisticated measures could be added if needed. The basic goal would be:
Most of the articles at the foot of the list would qualify for speedy deletion after a cursory review
Most of the articles at the top of the list would deserve review and improvement.
With this list, the clean-up could proceed fairly systematically.
Comment - As a sorting system I endorse the idea in principle. However, it's complex, so it should not consume years of debate over its possible implementation. page hit stats are a major consideration for the ranking.--Kudpung (talk) 12:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The formula: "Negative: Number of days since creation, number of days since last edit" assumes that Wikipedia articles are never finished :) Aarghdvaark (talk) 12:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Disagree that older articles should be considered less important to fix than newer ones. To provide one example, I recently added some cites to an article on a champion race car driver, whose page was created in January 2005 and tagged since December 2006. It also hadn't been edited in three months. Presumably the article would have finished well down on such a scale, when it was clearly on a notable subject and deserved sourcing efforts. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I think some variation on this formula sounds like a decent idea for a bot/script to use to rank things, but not for actually tagging them. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Number of edits and time since last edit have nothing to do with quality, correctness, importance, whatever. Besides robots often touch articles automatically. Ditto for number of incoming links. Anyway the problem is not "unsourced" articles, not articles about "non-notable" people, it is false information in biographies of *notable* people — which usually contain plenty of refs.
Strongly Oppose - I think that problem with this proposal is that at certain times there will be certain subjects that are more likely to edited than others. Specifically, when someone’s name makes it into the news or an event occurs. Therefore I think the main problem is that there will be editors who spend their time trolling through wikipedia looking for older articles to delete, but there is unlikely to be many editors seeking to update those articles. Wikipedia will then become a "what is relevant today" source, rather than a unique source that covers subjects over a broad period of time. Academia in general shares many of the same problems as wikipedia. There are certain subjects that are in vogue and people write about them and then they go out of vogue and hardly anyone touches them for decades. Also, the problem with wikipedia is that most of the sources are internet based. I maintained a website daily from 1996-2001 that was most link based and I can say from that experience that roughly 30% of all links went dead per year, even those to well sourced sites such as the BBC or NYtimes. Thus if we start deleting articles based upon how many links are dead then we are creating a near certain formula to delete most articles, except the most edited over time.David Straub (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
My proposal was obviously either not well-worded or was dumb. I did not mean a bot would make a decision, just that it would make an ordered list that could help editors focus on articles in the WUB (Wikipdia Unsourced Bio) pool with common characteristics. Presumably some of the articles are sort of trivial, will never meet standards and maybe should be weeded out. Others are perhaps not well sourced, but seem to have useful content, a lot of interest, and are worth an attempt at salvage. Two other editors have identified other criteria: how many time are the pages viewed, which indicates public interest, and which pages have links to external sources that indicate they may have been tagged incorrectly, or that they were improved after the tag was placed but the editor did not remove the tag. All articles need review. Mechanical sorting may speed up the process. The essence of the proposal is to develop mechanical tools the can assist editors in the clean-up process. Aymatth2 (talk) 03:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion on sight for completely unsourced bios is IMO a good idea at this stage. That said, errors are far too easy. Articles replaced with an unsourced version, references vandalised, etc - there's a bit much that can go wrong.
I suggest a PROD-like template - call it BLP-PROD - which says "Find references for this article or it DIES." Five days seems too long, make it two days. Notices to creator and all major contributors as for an AFD. This would also serve as warning to casual readers that the article is really not up to scratch and should not be considered at all quality content as yet. Perhaps a big red STOP sign icon.
--Dirk BeetstraTC 16:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC) - adding: 2 days is too short, 5 days, I would say that no more than 500 articles be tagged at one time, strictly by a bot. Prods be removed (for mistagging by bot or for resolved when sources added) or articles deleted (after the 5 days, by hand, not by bot, again to find mistaggings), if there are less than 100 left then (and only then) the bot should refill the cat to 500. --Dirk BeetstraTC 16:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Adding more: I would also suggest that human tagging should be discouraged, and that hand mass-tagging should be treated as a form of disruption as well, just to keep the situation handleable. {{NOINDEX}} suggestion of Jehochman is indeed a good one, though for those 5 days not really necessary (in the very first 5 days, the majority of the other thousands will be indexed, so it does not make a difference). --Dirk BeetstraTC16:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As with Jehochman's proposal, this seems like a good way to satisfy both those who want to see process and those who want to eliminate the risk of unreferenced BLPs. keɪɑtɪk flʌfi (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, subject to Beetstra's suggestion that the period should be 5 days, and the bot's activity rate-throttled to something that humans can follow (perhaps a couple of hundred proposals/deletions per day?) Jehochman's idea of {{NOINDEX}} tagging is good too. -- The Anome (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This works too, for the same reasons as Jehochman's proposal. The crucial factors are that any deleted article should not come back without sources and the PROD tag must not be deleted without sources being added. A separate template has merit due to the different conditions. Guy (Help!) 17:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial endorse, but the time spent will need to be much longer than 2 days. Not everyone works full time on Wikipedia. The current 7 days is appropriate. I can work very fast at sourcing, but I cannot work that fast. If they have been here for years, why the hurry? It's enough of an improvement that we do get to them promptly. Shortening the period is biasing against being able to source. And we need to remember that the authors of the older problematic articles are in most cases no longer active. DGG ( talk ) 17:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Equal preference to Jehochman's proposal, also with the suggestion that any disagreement about the quality of the sourcing should lead to an AfD discussion. Sandstein 17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this, but I think we need at least 5 days. Lots of editors (myself included) don't edit on weekends or for several days in a row if there are RL issues at play. I also think we have to work slowly through the list - nominating 50k at once for this special prod is not the right solution, because we won't be able to fix many in that timeframe. Karanacs (talk) 18:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me. I think 5 days would be reasonable. This system and template would work with Hochman's proposal, and/or NJA's clarification below. JamieS9318:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse with the already stated caveat that two days is far too short. Especially if someone goes on a tagging run that creates a large backlog for an editor or project to handle. Resolute18:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse variation on a good theme - but wait period should be 1 week, especially if failure to source means deletion rather than incubation. Better with incubation as an option than deletion - but hey. Rd232talk18:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Rd232. All proposed deletions other than some (but not all) speedy's were recently (in the past few months, anyway) changed to be one week, to allow time for consideration. If the period were 5 days, addition of any legitimate source should stop the procedure for at least one additional week. — Arthur Rubin(talk)18:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed but no, 5-7 days for old articles and near-immediate/speedy for new unsourced articles, and article processing is done on a set schedule over the course of a few months in conjunction with a real effort to improve the articles or userfy / incubate them. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Two days is being nice. If we limit this to a thousand a day, we could get done in a reasonable amount of time; i.e. two months. Jack Merridew21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support especially for new article because new editors need to be reached soon after they write the article so they don't repeat errors in sourcing. And it needs to be clear that the prod tag can not be removed. I like the red stop sign idea for during the time the article is on site and unsourced. FloNight♥♥♥♥21:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days might be good for new articles, but for older ones where the creator is gone, 5-7 is better. Some of these have been sitting around unsourced for years, another couple of days won't be that bad. Mr.Z-man22:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, I like that it does not corrupt the existing prod system. I would suggest more than 5 days, at least 7, perhaps 14(after all it is a time to look for sources). Chillum(Need help? Ask me)15:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like this idea. I think 2 days is too short as well but that is not a deal breaker. Normally I would quote WP:BUREAU as a drawback, but in this case we have a serious problem which has come to a head, and if it takes a new solution to be a really good solution, so be it. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Any halfway sensible, halfway workable proposal is better than where we are now, I'm not fussy. This one isn't bad at all. ++Lar: t/c16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I could go with this if done in conjunction with other ideas that would encourage editors to work on the article. If it can be identified as falling into an area covered by a wikiproject, it's more likely to find editors willing to try to save it, and maybe an animal shelter could be set up for the rest before they get put to sleep. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as sensible. But... it's a good idea, essential really, to contact relevant projects too. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I could live with this. 2 days is plenty of time, especially since many of these have had months, even years without anyone caring enough to add them. Why the big concern? If it was that important, where were you for the past year? Other things seemed more important you say?....yeah, that's kind of the point. Funny how an article can go years without a single source....throw a PROD or AfD tag on it and all of the sudden, someone cares about it.Niteshift36 (talk) 22:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. At least it gives a chance for the article to be improved on. Instituting a "kill on sight" method I think would only cause more problems (due to public reaction) than it would fix. Tabercil (talk) 23:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the creation of the BLP-PROD template, but with the same rules as a regular prod. Otherwise, seems like a reasonable solution. --Jayron3206:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support - I endorse a BLP type PROD, but I strongly feel that 2 days is just simply not enough time for sources to be gathered, especially if 50,000 BLP's are all PROD'd within the space of a few days, we just won't have enough editors or time to gather sources and what was originally intended to be a rather large cleanup turns into a mass article extermination. 7 days is too long IMO so I'd say 5 days, so support the PROD idea but let's make it longer than 2 days please. Jeffrey Mall (talk • contribs) - 02:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We can quibble about the amount of time to be allowed - I would favour rather more than a week, perhaps a fortnight - but the general principle seems to me to be the correct one. Angus McLellan(Talk)21:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems good, and would mean less biting in cases where it's impossible to tell between an A7-able mess and a good article where the author is going to add the other half after her lunchbreak. As others have said above, for an article that's not obviously negative in tone we might allow more time. Pseudomonas(talk)13:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support, with 5 days rather than 2. I'd be happy with MZMcBride's original "deleted on sight" proposal, but there seems to be considerable demand for a slower approach, and this should allow some time for salvage on what few articles deserve it. The {{Impending Doom}} template suggested by SB_Johnny looks like a good model, but it should be specific to BLP articles so that this mode is not conflated with regular normal deletion procedure; ideally this should be considered a termporary procedure to get over the 50K article backlog, after which normal AfD process should return. / edg☺☭15:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but would prefer a 5–7-day limit. It's worth noting that not all unsourced BLPs are created equal: one about a prominent speaker on a hot-button issue is more of a problem than one about an obscure (but notable) history professor at a tiny university in the middle of nowhere, and there shouldn't be as much urgency about the latter, assuming that those BLPs are accurate. I think that there are more non-contentious BLPs than people would believe.. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose Many, IME experience most, unsourced BLPs are both accurate and non-contentious, and are sourcable, some with more work than others. Many were created by relative newcomers who did not know why or how to add sources, many were created before the use of inline citations become common, when EL sourcing was normal. To delete these without a serious attempt at sourcing, or at least an individual review, is to discard good information, thereby harming the project, without any corresponding gain. Moreover to apply the same rules to newly created articles will simply WP:BITE, further restricting the influx of new editors on which the project ultimately depends. A very very bad idea. DES(talk)04:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is way too short. Even with five days, this would remove any unsourced BLP regardless of merits. With no throttling, the PROD queue will fill with hundreds, even thousands, of unsourced BLPs. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has no deadline. 2 days is too short. 5 days is fine. Think of it this way: if 2 days is short enough for it to have no large negative impact, what are the chances that someone would come by and NOTICE the article is up for deletion? Not high. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers08:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two days is a crazily short period - have supporters actually done such source finding work? It can take thought and time in hard cases. On the order of 1000 per day would completely overwhelm current resources and result in the deletion of vast quantities of our Long Tail of articles, our most valuable in toto.John Z (talk) 08:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sensible proposal, but is too case specific, as it assumes that content is not malicious or biased. To protect living persons, all unsource articles should to be deleted. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)09:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Per Zed-man. Happy with 7 days for existing articles, speedy deletion for new unsourced bios after the date when we inform new article writers that bios must have sources. ϢereSpielChequers13:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I like the idea of PRODing, however, two days is just too short for my liking, as said above. This would not be enough time, especially for the less active contributors, to fix up an article. ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs15:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like the principle but 2 days is far too short a time- it's entirely conceivable that anybody notified of this would not have time to make improvements, especially if they were templated at a weird time in their time zone. It also risks being very bitey, as mentioned above, of new editors, who may not know how to put references in. I also think there needs to be more consideration given to userfication or incubation of articles on notable, verifiable subjects which just lack sources. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 17:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ridiculous. Inventing a new level of of prod is a step backwards and as pointed out is actually missing the real BLP problems which mostly are not unsourced BLPs but BLPs used disparagingly with sources. -- Banjeboi20:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is essentially the same statement as that of MZMcBride above. AfD runs for 7 days for a reason, so there's no reason to nuke from orbit non-contentious material. Having said that, CSD G10 is interpreted too literally by some admins, who refuse to delete and even restore the full text of un-sourced biographical stubs that are "only" 25-50% negative. A negative BLP statement in an unsourced stub should be red flag sufficient for a G10 deletion. Pcapping20:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the problematic BLPs cited in favor of deletions are from a time when WP:V was not enforced and references were not often used. The people who created them did not do so in bad faith but more to the point, they are mostly not active anymore. Sending someone, who created an article in 2007, a message now that the article has 2 days to live...how many articles do you think will be saved? 0.1%? Less? Those articles exist for years now, there is absolutely no reason to start rushing now instead of taking some time to fix them. Regards SoWhy22:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partly oppose - I love the idea of a different BLP-ProD template, but I hate the 2-day waiting period before deletion by a single sysop. 7 days' minimum are needed to avoid a mass slaughter of perfectly good, but unreferenced BLPs. Bearian (talk) 00:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman's approach is better. Getting BLPs right is not a synonym for deleting them, particularly when they can be recreated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A few days doesn't make that much difference. Why something that has been ignored for years has suddenly become something that needs special measures today is not explained.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - seems too drastic to me. I'd rather give people longer to provide sources; this is rarely ever a problem that urgently needs to be solved. Robofish (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can support elements of this proposal but 2 days is ridiculous. There is no deadline here. What harm will an extra 5 days do? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, difficult for people to know what is happening to articles that they care of. If they have the weekend off, lots of articles could be deleted in the meantime. Geschichte (talk) 08:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose - What's the rush? Why only 2 days? Far too impulsive and only just short of the original "blitz the lot proposal" by a tiny margin. Big Red Stop Sign on this proposal... --Jubilee♫clipman23:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing all proposals to mass-delete unreferenced BLPs solely for being unreferenced. See my comments on FloNight's view for why I do not see unreferenced BLPs as being a good target. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although this would slow down the attrition of the encyclopedia by a few days or a week it does not really address the real problem with is libel included. In my experience more referenced articles get libel added than un-referenced ones, it depends more on the ratio or trouble makers to checkers, rather than whether the source was included. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Two days is not enough time to allow an article's creator time to see the 'prod'. 5 days is nearer the mark, but in that case, why not just allow unsourced BLPs to go to AfD - if the closing admin can see that searches for sources have been unsuccessful, it can be deleted. If searches for sources have been successful, and they have been added to the article, then it can be kept (or just the few unsourced statements can be removed). -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 16:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Not against the general idea of gradually prodding uncited BLPs, but this proposal offers no precautions against mass prodding at a given time. Also agree with the others that a two-day period before deletion is too short. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I like a BLT-PROD, but there has to be a reasonable period of time (like a month?) before deletion after an article is flagged so that any interested parties can take the time to fix it. Not every editor works every day, week, or even month. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose - The problem with this proposal is that the older articles are much less likely to generate positive edits and are more likely to generate the attention of those seeking to delete them. Wikipedia will then become a "what is relevant today" source, rather than a unique source that covers subjects over a broad period of time. I think the notability tags as they are now is sufficient and deleting unsourced controversial materials, rather than the entire article, is sufficient.David Straub (talk) 17:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Seven days is the minimum time period that I am willing to support, with fourteen days to a month being my optimum. If a page has been lying about for years the impact of giving a little bit longer will be negligible. Camaron · Christopher ·talk12:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
Jehochman's approach, above, is more considered. I understand the viewpoint behind this, though Jehochman covers more angles in more detail, and better reflects current procedures which have been developed through considered discussion and actual use over the years. What is needed is just a little more effort to pay attention to problem areas. We don't need to change our process, just advertise the issues and the solutions more vigorously. SilkTork *YES!20:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose five days is ridiculous, the editors who could care for that bio will never have a chance to see the prod. One year is more like it. Ayway the editor who wants to delete an unsourced BLP must first make a minimum effort to find a reliable source. If that succeeds, he can delete any material that is not supported by the source. He can list the article for deletion only if that attempt fails, or the entire aricle gets deleted. "Non-notability" is not a valid excuse to delete a BLP; that "rule" never was a consensus in any sense of the word.
A significant minority of editors are unwilling to let unsourced, but likely uncontentious biographies remain in the encyclopedia. Deleting content makes the text available to only a select few, and makes fixing the articles a significantly harder process. I suggest an alternative to tackle the backlog of the roughly 50k articles in question:
We institute a process to hide the contents of unsourced biographies, using a template developed for the purpose.
We provide clear instruction that sourcing must be instituted before the template is removed (easily checkable by automated means)
Those articles which have remained in this hidden state for a reasonable, but fairly long, amount of time, but which have not been fixed are deleted.
This allows us to work towards preserving the content of these articles, while maintaining respect for the potential harm unsourced biographies may cause.
(Partial endorse) Per my suggestion elsewhere - give a header saying "This article has not been reviewed for accuracy." Or thereabouts. Collect (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, hide the contents. This prevents potentially damaging information from being live on Wikipedia, while preserving existing text for future use. Ucucha17:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but consideration must be given to what is a reasonable time for the large number of older articles, which could be many months. DGG ( talk ) 17:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I suggest setting a time limit of one month prior to deletion. Not everyone is around on Wikipedia every day or every week. I'd like to add that the introduction of bogus material, either unsourced, or based of sources that actually do not support the content of the article, seems to be a much bigger problem. Cs32enTalk to me18:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse hiding, noindexing, and penalties for removing the tag without adding sourcing, but without a rapid deadline. If it's good enough for potential copyvios (which could clearly cause damage to Wikimedia), it should be good enough for potentially potentially potentially (repetition intentional; there are about that many steps between unsourced and libelous here) libelous material. I think a month should be adequate if hidden, if no more than 1000-4000 articles are in the queue at a time. However, it should be clear that this does not exempt the article from deletion for being an attack page, or exempt it from conventional AfD discussion suggested by an editor who actually looks at the article and believes the person non-notable or that the potential notability is not from reliable sources. — Arthur Rubin(talk)19:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support templating but we should have a deadline and a schedule, and also not hide articles in the meanwhile - that does temporary damage rather than permanent damage. Better yet, have a flag so that the template functions in two ways, keeping but flagging the good ones, and disappearing the stinkers. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and create a template as a trial balloon. These articles have been around for months and years. It won't kill anyone to keep them around for three more months while we improve them. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done! - {{UBF}}. If you set the parameter "action=collapse" it makes a collapse box. With "action=hide" the text is completely hidden except when editing. See Ninety-nine (owarai) for an example of the new template in use. It still needs some work but what do you think? - Wikidemon (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see the potential for something like this being added for drafting of WP articles from articles on other language wikis. Sometimes the material is not ready for main space. But we can not let it be a long term solution or a place for attacks or contentions material to remain. FloNight♥♥♥♥21:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorta; this is Flagged Revisions after a feature request: an article draft that is visible to editors but not to anonymous readers or Google. Jack Merridew22:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a sensible alternative to deletion, and a good back-up proposal in case the community rejects the PROD or BLPPROD proposals. This would not be my first choice, though. Firsfron of Ronchester08:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A clever and reasonable compromise, and for sure better than deletion: it allows BLP concerns to be mitigated but does not remove information for improvement. I like it! --Cyclopiatalk17:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good sense. The time allotted must be long enough to ensure that competent editors have inspected and given up on the article, per DGG, many months will be sometimes appropriate.John Z (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support per DGG. I am against mass deletion all at once. This has to be done in a methodical fashion, not by eliminating 60,000 articles in two days. A feature to "hide away" or "no-index" such BLPs might work. Bearian (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support Has some merit, but needs work. Theres some good ideas here that need fleshing out, and should be carried through in any discussion of how to deal with the BLP problem, but not the only/best solution on the board. --Jayron3206:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support By the time the things go through speedy, speedy is contested and declined, then through AfD, the content can be all over the mirror/clone sites. Hide until "cleared" would be great. Esowteric+Talk18:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See the draft statement by ArbCom for the reason I oppose any solution that does not enforce referencing of all biographies by a defined deadline. No ambiguity. What looks uncontentious may in fact be problematic, we cannot know without reliable sources. I ave handled OTRS tickets, I can think of several examples of text that looked quite innocuous but actually wasn't. Temporary history undeletion for referencing on request may well be a good idea, but I think we should be entirely unambiguous that the default outcome for any unreferenced biography - and ideally any unreferenced article, it's not like WP:V and WP:RS are new - is removal. Guy (Help!) 17:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adding a deadline to any proposal that is adopted is a good idea. Providing a schedule, even better. If the BLP cleanup is a success we can repeat the experiment on a far broader scale with all articles. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Putting these nonnotable unreferenced BLPs in a hidden state will not help them. Most of these potentially harmful BLPs have surely been sitting for years. How long is "fairly long"? Reywas92Talk01:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An unsourced article is contentious. What is or is not contentious beyond this definition is a matter of WP:IKNOWIT, which is not a rational basis for inclusion. Henrik's proposal is sounds good in theory, but can of procedural worms in practise. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)10:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unfortunately "unsourced, but likely uncontentious" is totally inadequate. What do you mean by "likely uncontentious"? Whatever you mean the word "likely" indicates that you may be wrong, and out of hundreds of articles for some of them you will be wrong. It is not acceptable to allow libellous material to remain on the grounds that we do not know exactly which ones are libellous and which are not. The onus is on the writers of an article to demonstrate' that it is not libellous. If a libellous article about me appeared I would not regard it as a defence that "the article was hidden, which means a member of the public couldn't see it unless they clicked on a link marked history first", and neither would any judge. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose. Unworkable by itself. There may be some good ideas here worth further investigation after one of the more effective proposals gets put in place, though. ++Lar: t/c16:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is basically a deluxe incubation of sorts which in itself is a mass prodding. We do need to coordinate a clean-up as if that would actually appease that small minority but again these unsourced BLPs are generally not the zomg! alarming problem this entire dramatic episode has spelled it out to be. -- Banjeboi20:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I don't think hiding unsourced articles from general readers is the answer, given that they're probably the group most likely to provide sources. Robofish (talk) 03:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tagging with no fixed deadline for deletion and pretending to hide (or otherwise disclaim) content (e.g. collapsing, as does {{Unsourced BLP flagged}}) is simply another way to indefinitely postpone work on articles—more foot-dragging WP:BURO that solves nothing. Material in article space that is viewable to non-admin editors is viewable to all readers, and (as Gavin Collins says above) unsourced articles are automatically contentious. That said, NOINDEX would be a feature worth adding to the fixed deadline templates proposed above. / edg☺☭03:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I agree that there needs to be a reasonable period of time between when an article is flagged and deleted (if not fixed), but hiding the contents do noone good. If the editors are such that they didn't know how to reference the first time around they probably won't do well with hidden text-templates, and if they do know how to work Wikipedia then they can un-hide the hidden text anyways. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I am not certain how "hiding" this will work, since anyone who visits the site could be a potential editor, thus who is it hidden from and how can they find it and know to edit it?David Straub (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
I like this idea as it would preserve some good content (and yes, some of those unsourced BLPs are fairly extensive well written articles on quite notable people - just whoever wrote them was sloppy/didn't know about sourcing). But I cannot support it as written for the following reasons: 1)The copy vio template which hides article text is still around and occasionally used... and often misued (to essentially blank an article somebody doesn't like on the pretext that there is a line or two of copyvio text in it). I can anticipate that a similar template can become a POV pushing tool. As long as there's policy and awareness of this potential problem this should be ok. 2) The use of the copy vio template has not led to a significant improvement in the copy vio problem on Wikipedia (which is probably second only to the unsourced BLP problem) mostly due to understaffing. Fixing copyvios is hard, mundane, work and not that many editors have lined up to assist Moonriddengirl in this endeavor. Potentially same thing could happen with templedted BLPs - and the problem won't get fixed. To address this I think Henrik should specify a definitive time limit for how long an article can stay behind a template before it's deleted. 3) The scope of the problem is huge; 50000+ unsourced BLPs behind a black template means Wikipedia's gonna end up looking...very embarrassing. Wait, that may be a plus if it actually leads to improvement.radek (talk) 23:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing that stops me from wholeheartedly supporting this proposal is the idea behind WP:NODISCLAIMERS. We shouldn't need to hide the material, because every single page has a link to a disclaimer that says in big capital letters: "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY". ...but what do you think? ~BFizz04:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is definitely better than deletion. However neither proposal addresses the problem, which is NOT "unsourced BLPs" or "BLPs of non-notable people". The problem is malicious statements in the biographies of *notable* people. Those articles usually have refs, and if they don't the prankster will simply add some. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:39, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Hidden" depends on the behavior of the individual brower. The issue is whether we should permit unverifiable content to remain in articles, contrary to our policies. Obviously we shouldn't, even though (sadly) we have turned a blind eye for nearly a decade. --TS17:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by WereSpielChequers
Apart from thinking of a timeline of a few months rather than weeks I'm not all that far from MZMcBride. I broadly agree with the destination, but disagree with the route to get there. But I would rather start with all new articles, whilst giving the authors and various wiki projects a set time to source all existing BLP articles. I would rather that this was done over a period of months than that we rush this as I think rushing it would risk mass sloppy partial referencing to rescue articles.
I'm not convinced that old low traffic BLPs that are tagged as unsourced are really our biggest BLP problem, or that starting with our oldest supposedly unsourced BLPs is the best approach. A lot of the "unreferenced BLPs" are really under referenced ones, and I suspect the sneakier vandals have the sense to at least partially source their cyberbullying. Also, in my experience when you search userspace for badwords you find more personal attacks, cyberbullying and {{G10}}s per hour than looking at Category:All unreferenced BLPs, and the worst bits of mainspace vandalism I've ever encountered have not been in BLPs. So despite the current fashion for deleting old unsourced BLPs, I'm not convinced that this is the best or fastest way to improve the pedia or address our BLP problems.
We also need to remember that Wikipedia is a very complex system, and one should always be cautious about making multiple simultaneous changes to complex systems as the interactions between different changes can be unpredictable. Earlier this month User:DASHBot started gently chiding the authors of unsourced BLPs. I think we should wait a couple of weeks to see what effect that has on Category:All unreferenced BLPs, or if people want to give DASHBot a hand, look for retired/inactive/blocked users who DASHBot has spoken to and help them fix or delete their unsourced contributions. Alternatively or as a next step, can someone write a Bot to inform wikiprojects of unsourced BLPs in their remit in the same way that DASHBot has been informing authors? Flagged Revisions is also supposedly on the way, so I think we have quite rapid change taking place on the old BLP front even without admins deleting articles without attempting to fix them or inform the authors.
To my mind treating our oldest BLPs more harshly than our newest is like rounding up escaped rabbits and putting them back in the run without first moving the run away from their escape tunnel. Rather I would suggest that for new BLPs we introduce "delete new unsourced BLP" as a speedy criteria; provided that we very clearly inform article creators that from a particular date this is the new rule, and that articles created after that date with information about living people must be reliably sourced. I think this would stop the problem growing and then there is just a mammoth maintenance task to improve or delete the crud .
After starting with the new stuff, and seeing how much DashBot can improve the crud, and seeing if flagged revisions can protect the rest, and then proding the unreferenced residue in batches over a couple of months, then I agree with delete unsourced BLPs on sight as the policy we should be able to enact in say 6 months. But with the following provisos:
An unsourced biography should at the very least have its history checked to see if reverting a bit of vandalism won't restore it to a referenced article.
Good faith contributions should never be deleted without the author being informed and given an easy route to getting their article restored for their next editing session.
We also need an exception for articles being restored and referenced - some sort of template such as prod that can be added to a restored article so that the person requesting its restoration has at least a few hours to do so.
Any user should be able to request, and any admin permitted to restore an existing article deleted under this process, provided the requester is promising to reference the article ASAP.
This process seems much more fair. Standards were quite different 2 or 3 years ago. DashBot notified me recently that 2 of the very first articles I ever created (in 2006) were unreferenced BLPs, and I promptly fixed them. Let's at least give these types of methods a chance to work for older articles while tightening the noose for newer ones. Karanacs (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse except for the flaggedrevs bit, which I disagree on. All unsourced BLPs have equal weight and we should be progressing towards a speedy criterion to take care of incoming ones. ThemFromSpace17:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse in principle, but we must take account of the fact that authors of the older articles are mostly no longer available, and it will be necessary to recruit sufficient people to work on them to process them properly. DGG ( talk ) 17:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The backlog has been declining steadily for some time now thanks in part to DASHBot and these efforts should be given time. There are probably a pile of unreferenced BLPs that no one will ever (be able to) source so deletion may be needed in the future. Jogurney (talk) 17:48, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the bit about the new speedy deletion criteria in particular. I worked on a bunch of bio articles on little known African rebel leaders five years ago or so and it seems draconian to have bio stubs that have been pretty much untouched, outside from bots, be mass speedy deleted because a citation system that wasn't invented when the articles were created isn't in use to solve a BLP concern that wasn't on anyone's mind at the time. No such excuse now. - BanyanTree02:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A responsible and thoughtful proposal. What is being obscured in much of the discussion over deletion is that the circumstances under which removing access to troublesome content from readers (i.e. deletion) are very different from those under which that access ought to be denied to editors. Skomorokh 22:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Very Weak support as with Henrik's ideas above. Theres some nuggets of wisdom here, but this is unworkable as a full solution. I like the idea of keeping these ideas on the table going forward, but this is not a complete solution to the problem. Some interesting stuff here.--Jayron3206:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of common sense here. The BLP issues need to be fixed one way or another but they don't need to be fixed in a few days. More effort should go towards preventing new unsourced BLP articles from being created, while fixing the backlog, which is already underway, takes place. --Michig (talk) 11:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Some good thoughts. And yes the proposal needs fleshing out, but if we accept the principle that what has been wrong for years can be fixed in months rather than needing to be fixed today, then we can spend a little time sorting the mechanism.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Agree"We also need to remember that Wikipedia is a very complex system, and one should always be cautious about making multiple simultaneous changes to complex systems as the interactions between different changes can be unpredictable."Zenexp (talk) 01:24, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WereSpielChequers's proposal appears reasonable, but is too bureaucratic. Why invest so much time and effort in unsourced articles which are deletion candidates? Better to get rid of them in the quickest way possible, and focus on improving more marginal articles. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)10:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you spot an article that meets the speedy deletion criteria then tag it as {{A7}} or whatever deletion criteria it meets, this RFC is for tens of thousands of unsourced or poorly sourced articles that many editors don't think meet the deletion criteria. ϢereSpielChequers13:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with much of what WereSpielChequers says, but I think the problems mentioned above of taking too much time and work and being bureaucratic are too serious. In fact I would go so far as to say that the amount of work would be so great that in practice the task would never get completed. Also, some of the articles in question are libellous. We do not know exactly which ones, which is why there is problem, but a proportion of them will be. Do we have the right to knowingly allow libel to remain for six months (an optimistic estimate, I think)? Also the onus is on writers to provide sources: if we make it clear that from now on failure to do so will result in quick deletion we will get less unsourced biographies written in future, whereas if we convey the message that such an article will be put through a long and very likely incomplete process that may eventually lead to deletion, then we will continue to get loads of them. JamesBWatson (talk)
In less than a year as an admin I've done over 3,900 deletions, many of them of unsourced libels. If you spot an article that meets the criteria for {{G10}} tag it as such - I may even be the admin who deletes it. This proposal is not about changing the way we treat articles that already meet the A7 or G10 criteria. ϢereSpielChequers13:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
weak oppose. Unworkable by itself. There may be some good ideas here worth further investigation after one of the more effective proposals gets put in place, though. In particular the older articles have been problems longer and shouldn't get passes. Do this for new articles while also doing something about older ones. ++Lar: t/c16:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is much more holistic and realistic and thus likely to have some constructive ideas. Realistically however a new BLP bot misses the mark in that often we don't know if a new article is a BLP and even non-BLPs can easily contain BLP violations as they disparage people in context of the subject. In this light a basic new article bot - even if temporary - to place an unambiguous note about BLP issues including (i) BLPs that have no sources are likely to be deleted and (i) any statement about a living person that is seen as controversial or negative must be sourced reliably might be a good option. -- Banjeboi20:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even in six months rather than now, I don't think instituting a speedy deletion criterion for unreferenced BLPs is the right answer. Robofish (talk) 03:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose. I like the idea of working backwards and at least slowing down the influx of new unsourced BLPS, but I don't think it would work with new editors. I also simply disagree with the delete on sight proposal. Maybe this is what you meant by proding in batches, but there needs to be an extended effort to get interested parties to clean up the older articles since not every editor works every day or week. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose Kudos for a very sensible and right-minded presentation. However I cannot endorse because I believe that this variant, like the original proposal, is barking at the wrong tree. An editor who finds an unsourced BLP must make a minimal effort to look for a source and then delete any test that is not supported by the source. Only if that effort fails, or all content gets deleted, should the article be listed for deletion. Deleting the article (speedily or through some process) without making this effort is counterproductive; it will be a bit less work for the deletor, but much more work for other editors. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 05:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Essentially what Jehochman suggested, but with some modifications (tying in what I think is the best of the other views noted above). Everyone seems to agree we need a new BLP PROD template.
Support all three points. The latter two points are compatible with most any PROD/CSD style approach proposed here and are wise additions. Vassyana (talk) 21:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This seems similar to David Gerard's proposal above. This is a good idea. I note as well that the assertion about the acceptance of such a template is not obvious to me, although that does not affect my opinion of the proposal itself. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, as I did with David Gerrard's proposal above. The {{Impending Doom}} template suggested by SB_Johnny looks like a good model, but it should be specific to BLP articles so that this mode is not conflated with regular normal deletion procedure; ideally this should be considered a termporary procedure to get over the 50K article backlog, after which normal AfD process should return. / edg☺☭15:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
This seems like kind of random commentary. It includes a false assertion "(Everyone seems to agree we need a new BLP PROD template" - in point of fact, many have disagreed with this, instead calling for deletion-on-sight), an incomplete proposition ("reduce the time from five days"... to what?), a repeat of common comments to Jehochman's proposal (that the new tags have their own name, categories, etc.), and a new (that I know of) edit filter idea that could simply have been added to Jehochman's or most other proposals here. I actually agree with that final idea, but it doesn't need to be proposed here since it's not a solution/approach to the overall issue under discussion, it's just a minor technical detail that can be fixed at the filters page. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some editors only edit at the weekends or on a particular day of the week. We have a longstanding tradition of running non-urgent things over 7 days to ensure we include such editors. A problem that has built up over years cannot be suddenly turned into something that has to be run in less than a week - and if it were then much of the response would be botched. Only when editors come across articles that genuinely meet the speedy deletion criteria should deletion take less than a week. ϢereSpielChequers13:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, I would go with Jehochman, but expand it to 7 days, and place a limit of 100 or 200 per day for ProDs. 2 or 3 or 5 days is not enough time to find the vandalism, find the gems to rescue, cut the cruft, etc. That short time would overwhelm the system we have right now. I agree with the idea of a BLP-ProD template, but I am certain that this is not yet the consensus here - more discussion is needed. Bearian (talk) 01:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing all proposals to mass-delete unreferenced BLPs solely for being unreferenced. See my comments on FloNight's view for why I do not see unreferenced BLPs as being a good target. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - They need more time, especially those working in good faith and unsourcing because of lack of knowledge are likely to log in infrequently. 2 weeks to 1 month. Setreset (talk) 14:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. As Setreset said, many of these articles are the children and interest of infrequent editors. There must be a longer time span available to notify and engage them in cleanup. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:42, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Five days is ridiculous, interested editors will hardly have a chance to see the prod. Anyway those articles are not the problem, deleting them will waste far more work by the Wikipedia editor community than fixing them. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose I agree with VernoWhitney. There seems to be an army of deletionists on wikipedia who go after certain articles, while the editors who create articles are much less likely to visit the site and defend/improve the article. I've made several thousand edits since 2005 and created a fair number of articles, but because of my studies, I may not edit wikipedia for a few months. I just think this is a bad ideaDavid Straub (talk) 17:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
David Gerard's proposal looks good to me. I'd just like to emphasize that any bot activity on this will need to be intensively supervised by humans for some time to avoid serious loss of useful articles. For example: numerous articles are currently tagged as unsourced BLPs when they have references: see Hermann Zapf (from which I've just removed a {{BLP unsourced}} tag) -- any bot would need at the very least to detect this sort of error, and I can think of many other scenarios that might cause errors. -- The Anome (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, the potential for bot and AWB damage here is enormous. Another related issue is that innumerable articles actually have multiple sources, just in the wrong place and not used inline with <ref>. See for example the vast majority of Category:Snooker biography stubs' articles. Almost all of them cite at least an official World Snooker bio page and often another one, but do so in the "External Links" section because the handful of authors who created most of these stubs (or copied other stubs's formatting in creating new ones) seem to have wrongly assumed that "References" have to be print publications and that online sources have to go in the EL section. I see this, of course, outside of snooker bios all the time, I just use that as an example because of the problem's prevalence in that category. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with the part that many of the BLPs tagged as unsourced are not, actually, unsourced. Note that the existence of an external link causes an article not to be "unsourced". — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly agree with the comment that "numerous articles are currently tagged as unsourced BLPs when they have references." I was notified that several articles I worked on were "unsourced." When I went to edit them, I found only one that was truly unsourced (though I added a few references to some of them by way of emphasis). Carl's comment that "the existence of an external link causes an article not to be 'unsourced'" needs to be emphasized here; some of my articles had "External links" rather than "References" so I changed the section headers, but why should I have needed to? -- BRG (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Agree in general that bots shoudl be supervised, but do not agree that a bot (or any other new mechanism) is necessary. Unsourced BLPs are not the problem, the problem is malicious statements in *sourced* bios of *notable* people. There is no easy cure for that, and proposals to speed up the deletion of "undesirable" BLPs will merely waste a lot of work, make wikipedia worse, drive newbies away, and irritate old edtors. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds that opposed David Gerard's proposal. I think the main problem is that there will be editors who spend their time trolling through wikipedia looking for older articles to delete, but there is unlikely to be many editors seeking to update those articles. Wikipedia will then become a "what is relevant today" source, rather than a unique source that covers subjects over a broad period of time. David Straub (talk) 17:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by DGG
For old articles, a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless. Of course we should we should work on them, at the pace at which we can manage it, with the special problem that the author is generally no longer be around to help. What I think is extremely dangerous is people nominating them or any article for deletion without first looking for sources, because it takes no more work to try for basic sourcing. We might even have a priority category for "I tried, but further help is needed." -- that's the sort of think I'd like to work on. What is even more dangerous is deletion without looking. As a related example, let me give the 40 prods of this nature I worked on in the last two days, about 10 were easily sourceable. About 5 were a real challenge--for some I too needed some help to do it right--and trying and not succeeding with them is not something anyone should be blamed for. The other half I decided could not be sourced in any reasonable way, or were so unlikely I at least wasn't going to bother, and I let them stand. But since they were prods, anyone else could look at them and try. Frequently I see ones I've given up on done easily by someone else. Some of the ones I found easily were ones where I can understand another person in perfect good faith might not think were likely enough to be worth the bother. That is the reason summary deletion is inappropriate--there are only a few special classes of things where one or two people can securely decide. Among the articles listed for deletion, and which could be deleted under the proposed ruling was one which was easily verifiable that the person was an ambassador, and one a member of a state legislature--things said on the face of the article. . In both cases, it took about a minute to source them. With respect to the arbitrary deletions we are concerned with, I note what Rebecca said above--deleting an article that is on its face probably notable without checking is about as destructive to the encyclopedia as one can get.
The offer to undelete on request in ludicrous as a solution--for most editors cannot see the articles to tell. For those of us who can, we would of course be able to check and see if we could source, and undelete if we could. I certainly would not undelete in this circumstance unless I could source, But relying on a few of us to check is only practical if the people deleting are more responsible than some of them so far have been.
An RfC as far-reaching as this requires more than one day;s consideration. Very few people have been heard from, except those with one particular view on BLPs. I shall a little later today propose a substitute suggested policy. DGG ( talk ) 17:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Sometimes the best & simplest solution is a lot more work than what appears at first glance. Which I've suspected has been the case with BLPs all along. -- llywrch (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's just common sense. In spirit with llywrch above, we have a lot of answers already and it's hard to connect the dots when rushed to action like this. ♪daTheisen(talk)07:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More reckless than unsourced biographies? I don't think so. Look at this week's breaching experiment for an idea of why reckless is not really the term to apply to deletion of unsourced biographies. Guy (Help!) 17:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat agreed. Nuking all the old unsourced BLPs without even looking at them would be vandalistic. But they do need to be looked at within a reasonable period of time and be either sourced or deleted. And speedy deleting new BLPs that are created unsourced in spite of a big flashing editnotice - no objections there. Sandstein 19:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This matches my experience as well, some articles i can readily find sourcing for - others not so much but someone else could. This is how Wikipedia works, we each bring to the table different skills, knowledge and experience and generally improve articles effectively. Meanwhile I had to report to the BLP board just yesterday a very sourced BLP that was again highjacked for soapboxing. Clearly old ignored BLPs is not the biggest or main BLP issue by a longshot. -- Banjeboi20:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. While many of these articles will be unsourced because they are non notable and thus unsourceable', PRODding without even trying to look for sources is reckless. I came across Nadine Garner yesterday which had been unsourced for three years. 20 minutes later, I'd found enough coverage from the Google News archives to verify most of what was in the article. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 14:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support As long as serious efforts are being made to largely fix the problem by the end of the year, there is no need to take precipitous action this month.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
'Agree. - campaigns of mass deletion are reckless. They are a high cost / low benefit method of accomplishing this important work, maintaining the integrity of BLPs, in terms of their effect on the community.Bryan HoppingT 06:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Having an automated process for deleting these sorts of articles means that one person with little motivation to source can do a lot of harm to the project, even if they are following procedure in good faith. Whilst unsourced and untrue biographies are harmful, permanently losing unsourced but correct ones is not much better. WFCforLife (talk), Help wikipedia. Make the pledge.06:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree -- Seems the most sensible approach. And of those who have voted on the various proposals, this one appears to have the closest to overwhelming support of any proposal. I'll add, the number of prods and AfDs where the nom has apparently failed to spend five minutes checking for sources on google suggests that that is serious problem. Not an issue to be tackled here, but at some point -- perhaps those noms with the worst record in this regard should have their ability to nom articles for AfD tempered.--Epeefleche (talk) 12:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Best summary so far, though I've several more yet to read. Thank you for recognising that most Wikipedia users are not admins or even regular editors. Certes (talk) 00:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support A very sensible approach that encourages greater cooperation and participation among editors. I also agree with Cs32en that a specific warning template for unsourced bios could be a useful tool.--JayJasper (talk) 05:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very well said. Deleting an article (or proposing it for deletion) must be the last resort, and before using it the proposer must have tried to source it and/or clean it up. Any proposal that streamlines deletion without requiring this prior work will harm wikipedia, drive new editors away, irritate old editors, and in the end waste far more time by everybody than the work saved by the editor who triggered the deletion. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, though similar to other views it is realistic regarding editor involvement and offers comparison to existing PRODs. ♪daTheisen(talk) 11:07, 30 January 2010 (UTC) ...Been so long I apparently forgot I already supported this above, 18. ♪daTheisen(talk)11:12, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that "For old articles,a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless". The older the article the more chance there has been to find sources, and so the less likely that the article is notable. Also I think the time and work required to check everything would be excessive, and in practice the job would not get done. Unfortunately, despite the collateral damage to good but unsourced articles, the only realistic solution is the Gordian one of deletion by default. If anyone can quickly produce sources, then good, but if not, we cannot hang on forever. In many cases the retentionists have had years to find sources, and now that they see a real threat of deletion they start asking for more time. Yes, a summary deletion process will lead to loss of some good but unsourced articles, but the alternative of putting in the vast amount of work to check every one of them is, unfortunately, not feasible. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest oppose. 1) Quality review of articles is a necessary part of maintaining Wikipedia. Once articles have been tagged as needing significant clean up then deletion may be a reasonable outcome for a subset of them if no improvements are made. 2) Quality review and improvement processes on Wikipedia are too time consuming and ineffective resulting in a significant number of poor quality articles. 3) Most people do not spend a significant amount of time working on improving articles of low interest. This lack of attention has left a large back log that needs to be addressed. 5) Many of the poor quality articles of low interest were written in no more than a couple of minutes by one person with few improvements over years time on site, so a deletion discussion that take hours of many editors time to complete does not make sense. 6) Improvements in the deletion process to make them more efficient and effective in managing poor quality articles is needed now. This could include speedy deletion for a subset of articles. 7. Speedy deletion, prod, and Afd needed to be improved so they enhance and not hinder content improvement. FloNight♥♥♥♥16:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
we should we should work on them, at the pace at which we can manage it - At the pace we can manage it, without significant deletion (or at least the threat of deletion to get people to work on articles they might have an interest in), we'll catch up with the backlog in about ... never. Mr.Z-man21:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - this is status quo. I agree that it would be nice to source all the current unsourced BLP's, but wishing doesn't make it so. (And I'm not convinced we have enough editors interested in sourcing old articles to prevent the backlog from increasing, much less shrink it). --Bfigura(talk)00:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - basically, DGG and his supporters simply want to keep things the way they are. Whatever the outcome of this time-wasting RFC, the status quo will change. UnitAnode16:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hardly want to keep the status quo: I want to change what we do very radically. i want people to take responsibility for their actions, by having some basis for them. That will be an enormous change for some people. DGG ( talk ) 18:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who are neutral about this summary
I agree that there are drawbacks arising from any proposed summary mass deletions, although one may or may not think it "reckless". That said, in the long run the project would still be better off, although less harsh options exist which are significantly better. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the bit about proper deletion habits, oppose the lack of any timetable mentioned. We need to get on this quickly, and the problem is beyond the scope of our current deletion procedures. ThemFromSpace20:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the sum of what DGG is saying is that we should make the effort to first source something before deleting it, then Jehochman's view, above, encapsulates that, and the appropriate process (which we already have in place) for handling the situation. I support any thinking that is about dealing appropriately with contentious and problematic material, which is to first of all make a reasonable attempt to ensure that the material has appropriate sources. SilkTork *YES!20:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SilkTork that Jehochman's proposal takes care of this (mostly), but (as I indicated above) I think a longer time scale (a month or more) is required in order to actually see the community as a whole work on these articles as opposed to just the editors who are here every day. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Resolute
I am reminded of all of the drama with Betacommand and FU images back in the day. Like this problem, his unilateral actions set off a firestorm. That in itself is not an issue. What was then was his (and his supporters) unwillingness to consider any view but his own as being correct. And since only his view was correct, only his decided course of action was correct, and he felt free to disregard everyone else's arguments, right up to the point he was banned. Well here we stand again with another issue. And likewise, a certain group has determined their actions are right and damned be the view of anyone else. Not acceptable.
A lot of people are viewing this as an all or nothing argument. I don't buy false dichotomies. As with the image problem, suggestions that were grudgingly accepted (and only after much gnashing of teeth) helped mitigate the problem. It did not solve it entirely, and a lot of images were still deleted, but many were also saved. When "deletion is the only option" was finally rejected as the only solution, things became much more productive.
This is a case where Wikiprojects can help. User:WolterBot has a function that generates a cleanup listing by project. Using tools such as this allows the community to break the overwhelming scope of this issue down into manageable sizes. If we repurpose this function as a mandatory listing for all projects - either as a one time run or a quarterly listing - we can at least begin to tackle this problem. I can't speak for all projects, but from the perspective of my primary, WP:HOCKEY, when presented with notifications regarding the image issue, we took as much action as we could. For many active projects, I think the same would happen here. Will this solve the entire problem? Nope. There are a lot of bad articles that have no project banners that nobody watches. Are they useful? Probably not. Can they be deleted? Probably. But at least by developing and utilizing tools that better inform Wikipedia's editors of articles needing such cleanup, we can take steps to save as many as we can. Coupled with a deletion system such as Jehochman proposes, we can begin to address this in a much more productive fashion than by taking a flamethrower to a powder keg. Resolute17:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but there does need to be a system that results in more or less speedy deletion if a BLP is not fixed within a reasonable time. We slowly seem to come around to the consensus that eventualism is not an entirely adequate approach to the problem. Sandstein 18:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think many editors are overwhelmed by the scope of the problem. I'd be much more likely to work on articles in the topics that I already have some knowledge of - I just don't always have a good way of figuring out which articles those are. This would be a good first step, and, as Sandstein says, should be for a predetermined amount of time (2 months?). Karanacs (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ucucha18:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Yes, and ideas like this are why it is a bad idea to continue deleting those articles now. We've probably achieved a consensus that unsourced BLPs have to go in some form or another, but we're still getting ideas as to what would be the most efficient way to achieve that.[reply]
Endorse (though I feel you're failing to recognise that an unsourced BLP is an affront against God, and that any attempt to institute a process to tackle them is WP:CREEPy process wonkery. Flamethrowers are go!). Bah. Rd232talk18:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I believe Resolute's statement touches on a tension which has existed in the Wikipedia community for some time -- at least as long as the Userbox wars back in 2005/2006. On one side are those who consider themselves "clued", & consider anyone who disagrees with them insufficiently informed about Wikipedia & treat them with a lack of respect. On the other are those acting in good faith yet have a disagreement based on information or experience that the first group lacks, but aren't being listened to. Things -- & Wikipedia -- change. Except for one example (that one on Siegenthaler), I am unfamiliar with another biographical article about a living person which is unduly problematic. Yes, there are errors -- in some case serious errors -- in this group of articles, but are they any worse or more common than the errors in other groups of articles? Making a single solution fit all cases will only harm the content of Wikipedia in the long run as well as discourage the contributions of new volunteers -- another problem which we do not need to worsen. -- llywrch (talk) 22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Similar in some ways, but the most important difference was that, in the case of nonfree images, trivia/in popular culture, & this instance, the anti-party did have a point whereas the presence of userboxes posed no serious threat in any way to Wikipedia. They're still around, Wikipedia is still around, but there are long term project members who think userboxes was the Beginning of the End. Some of whom are participating in this RfC. -- llywrch (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The proposals that call for deletion are only one step of the process. We need to find a way to figure out which articles are worth keeping and which should be deleted. Mass deletions out of the blue is not the proper course of action.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!02:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Especially agree with what's Resolute's said below as well as above in this section. Having a useless list around isn't going to solve the problem. The vast majority of editors willing to work on cleanup are either only willing to do it for specific topics, or they're already doing it as part of some other process like new pages patrolling. Projects exist for a reason. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Qualified Support I do not agree with some of the characterizations and commentary, but if someone wants to build such a tool I can see it being helpful if done well. I reemphasize a very important point made in passing: this solution need not be mutually exclusive to some other proposals. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
exactly, I suggest however that a heads-up unsourced BLP bot run every 10 days with the 10-20 oldest listed or something similar to keep the work chugging along and yet not overwhelm. -- Banjeboi20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. There's a lot of heat around with editors stating that nothing has been done about the problem for years, but I am only recently seeing meaningful attempts to inform editors and projects of unsourced BLPs that need attention. Let's have a few months of trying to find a constructive solution before just zapping these articles. Notifying all projects of articles would be a good start. --Michig (talk) 11:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is nothing wring in fixing something that has been wrong for years over several months rather than acting recklessly now just to be seen to be doing something.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wow this is a great proposal, nice job! 22:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Support. This sounds perfect (in conjunction with some additional changes). I mostly work vandal patrol and come across recent changes where I'm unsure about where I just ignore them because I have no interest in the topic to check whether it's a legitimate change or not. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly support. Sensible and right-minded words. I only disagree with the assumption that the original proposal was trying to solve a real problem. But unsourced BLPs are harmless. BLPs of non-notable people are harmless. One thing that harms wikipedia is malicious statements in *sourced* bios of *notable* people; but I don't believe that any change in procedures will help us with that. Another thing that harms wikipedia is deletion of valid contents, whether sourced or not: it makes wikipedia poorer, it drives new editors away, it irritates old editors, and in the end it wastes far more work by everybody than it would have taken to clean up those articles. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:34, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
There is no false dichotomy here: unreferenced biographies are a violation of policy and have been for years. I will support triage, working groups, limits of x hundred per day, WP:PROD, all sorts of compromises around implementation, but if we have learned nothing else in the last three and a half years since WP:BLP was made policy it's that any solution that requires people to bring shrubberies before allowing deletion of unreferenced BLPs is functionally indistinguishable from mandating that nothing is done. There are too many. There have been lists of unreferenced BLPs around for literally years, the inclusionists have always had the option of fixing them, they didn't. If the policy had been on display in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard" I might have some sympathy, but that's not the case. Drama? Shame. It was time. Fair use is different, it is ambiguous and subject to judgement. Sourcing is binary: either sources are cited or they aren't. This process does not cover poorly-referenced biographies, that is for AFD. Guy (Help!) 20:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"unreferenced biographies are a violation of policy and have been for years." this is simply inaccurate. It may be that they are about to becoeme agaisnt policy, but lets not rewrite history here. DES(talk)21:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unreferenced contentious biographies are a violation of policy, not simply unreferenced biographies. That said, the false dichtonomy I refer to is the either/or of "we have to live with it" or "we have to delete everything". I am not proposing the former, but rather looking for a way to avoid the latter. Ultimately, I expect that a large majority of such articles will be deleted. But answer me this: are we harming Wikipedia by giving projects the chance to clean up the mess? Like FU images a couple years ago, this issue is coming to a head. But, we've existed in this situation for three years. What harm is there in giving editors the opportunity, even if under the gun, of fixing at least some of the mess? If we save only a small percentage of BLPs by giving each project a manageable listing of problem articles under their bailiwick, then we have done this project a far greater service than the indiscriminate deletion of all problem BLPs would constitute. I am not proposing that we ignore the problem any longer. We cant ignore it any longer. I am proposing that we give editors the tools to find a solution that does not involve summary execution. Resolute21:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No shit. Don't play the rube, Guy, I already know you aren't very good at it. You know full well I am talking about ways to clean up the mess. But yes, anyone who's seen you on AN and ANI knows that your favoured solution is destruction. Frankly, in the case of a lot of these BLPs, that is very likely to be the answer. But it isn't the answer for every problem article, and your attempts to stand in the way of rescuing those are worth rescue is counterproductive. Resolute22:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And to pointedly respond to your one argument: Yes, lists of unsourced articles have existed for years. Great. Category:Unreferenced BLPs is utterly useless to me, as 99.9% of that category tree involves articles I don't have the knowledge or resources to deal with and offers me no way to sort out articles I can deal with. Unfortunately, we haven't yet gotten one of WolterBot's cleanup listings for the hockey project, while WP:Canada doesn't appear to even be signed up for it. So at present, I do not have a functional list with a scope that lies within my areas of expertise. Give me that, and I can take more direct action on the problem rather than randomly picking articles as I have in the past. Make the creation of that cleanup listing mandatory for all projects (excepting WP:Biography, obviously), and all groups will then have a much better place to start. Couple that with the message that it either gets fixed, or it burns, and we will be much farther on our way to fixing this mess. Resolute23:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Guy - sooner or later we have to enforce policy. Keeping older unsourced articles on the grounds that enforcing policy will put off new editors ignores the fact that policy exists to empower new editors to create articles in the first place. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)10:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Too big, don't bother" is the attitude of a defeatist. The simple fact is, we *have* to check every article regardless. Any admin who summarily deletes an article because he sees a template but does not check the article itself needs to be desysopped in a hurry. Destruction through laziness is not a good solution by any stretch of the imagination. Giving projects and concerned individuals the ability to check and fix the few hundred articles within their baliwick spreads the workload and helps reduce the size of the backlog that requires checking and, if necessary, deletion. Resolute15:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You and Guy are representative of the attitude I mentioned in my initial comment: The "all or nothing" view of cleaning up the BLP mess. Outright destruction may be your preference, but I maintain that it is the lazy solution. I have little doubt that a very large majority of these articles will be deleted, and others have proposed methods by which to organize that aspect of the cleanup. However, as should be obvious to you by now, "delete it all and let god sort it out" has no community support whatsoever. The only thing you accomplish by stubbornly hanging onto that argument is to obstruct progress towards a real solution. The community has recognized that deletion is the ultimate result for articles that are not cleaned up and improved, but your knee-jerk opposition to proposals designed to help coordinate efforts to save articles worth saving are counterproductive. Resolute18:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect you are confused. Review my talk page and then come back. Characterizing my efforts as "knee jerk" shows a profound lack of understanding. There's a problem with BLPs. Deleting unsourced ones won't solve the whole problem. But it's a start. If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. And that's precipitated this action. ++Lar: t/c20:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with your with-me-or-against-me stance is that you fail to recognize that there are multiple solutions to the issue that can be enacted concurrently. The need to prune low-value, unsourced articles on marginally or non-notable BLPs does not preclude the need to source high-value articles on clearly notable individuals. If your opposition is not knee-jerk, then by all means, please tell me on what grounds you oppose the suggestion that we seek to engage groups that are most likely to help source, and keep sourced, Wikipedia's BLP articles. Resolute21:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as the false analogy to the Betacommand issue is worse than the false dichotomy noted. The Betacommand issue was never about enforcement of the Fair Use policy, that was a red herring thrown about to mask the real problem, which was refusal to communicate civily and effectively. I too dislike false dichotomies, but this proposal started off on a bad foot by bring up the wrong issue from the start. --Jayron3206:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We can start asking WikiProjects and individuals to look over the unreferenced BLPs in their areas of interest right now. I've called for volunteers to spend a few weeks on this here [6] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Power.corrupts
The real problem is unsourced contentious info, not unreferenced articles. The proposal will do nothing or little to the real problem, and at the same time incur tremendous costs. I examined a sample from Category:Unreferenced BLPs from November 2006. Results are reported at Wikipedia talk:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs#What problems will the proposal solve, what will it create. If the articles are deleted there is no gain on the alledged "BLP problem", because the articles hold no contentious info, but we will have lost a number of articles on head of states, academics, artists, etc. etc. This proposal is completely misconceived .
While there is overlap, the problem is throwing out the good with the bad. Unsourced BLP's are not, in and of themselves bad, the challenge is separating the wheat from the chaft. The proposals from the BLP regulars (and now ArbCOM) is that we should throw everything out at one. This is, IMO, not optimal as I suspect that we are going to end up creating more confusion/problems in the long run.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!22:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An article being sourced or not has no bearing on its likelihood to contain or attract libel. Those who are claiming it does are making an exceptional claim without any evidence to back it up. Gigs (talk) 22:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is probably a pretty good amount of bathwater being tossed with the babies, so I wouldn't put the matter as strongly as Power.corrupts, but I mildly support the statement. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. There is a certain element of this debate who seem to feel that the best way to clear dead branches is to burn the entire forest down. While that is the simple way to clean up this one problem, it will create namny more. The indiscriminate deleters are looking for the lazy way to "fix" the problem. Their desires are no better than ignoring the problem is. Resolute15:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The real problem is unsourced contentious info, not unreferenced articles" - Indeed. The proposed "solution" does almost nothing to address the problem. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely - I've seen unsourced BLPs tagged as such, prodded, but the one line of unsourced derogatory material left in, and there are undoubtedly plenty of sourced BLPs that have content that shouldn't be there. The point is being missed.--Michig (talk) 11:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly support -- The idea that "sourcing" mitigates "contentiousness" is hard to fathom. One can find sources for the most malicious slanders, while it is hard to find sources for some articles that do no harm to anyone. -- BRG (talk) 16:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tremendously strong support - Quoting Balloonman: "The problem is throwing out the good with the bad". Precisely. What makes it more difficult is that there's so much that passes for "good" at this point. Any wholesale mass deletion must needs destroy an incredible amount of worthwhile information that could be saved merely by adding a source to it. Or is that no longer enough? Will we begin nuking things that have no inline citations, even if there's a source or two at the bottom of the page? There are ways to deal with this problem, yes - wholesale deletion is not among them. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.21:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libellous statements as well as stuff that is just plain wrong and harmless to the subject can be found in apparently sourced articles as well as in unsourced ones. It is good that projects are being encouraged to look over their stock of articles, but this campaign doesn't fix the real problem. When are we going to at least move part of the way that de.wikipedia has on managing new problematic content? If we made serious efforts to stop the mess getting bigger, then projects can be encouraged to steadily work through all that is there already and we would be solvign most of the problem for good rather than indulging in gesture politics.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is another ploy to give people excuses to delete valuable information from the database. You are dead on, it is the contentious material that we should worry about, not merely referencing.Trackinfo (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't fully agree with this, but ThaddeusB above puts it right. I did find some contentious statements in unsourced biographies; see my talk page for the kerfuffle when I tried to G10-blank them, and an admin restored in full! But clean-up to a decent article was possible in 2/4 cases. I found far more rubbish in sourced biographies in Wikipedia experience though. It's way easy for someone to transform blah blah blah blah blah blah>ref< to blah blah blah mypov blah blah blah>ref<. Unless you are intimately aware with the reference, or at least have immediate access to it, and you are watching the article, it easily goes undetected. Pcapping19:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree - The problem is not that they are unverifiable but that they are unverified. Where they remain unverifiable after reasonable attempts, they become AfD candidates anyway. --Jubilee♫clipman23:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There's no overlap whatsoever between unsourced BLPs and ones with contentious unsourced statements? Given the sheer quantity of unsourced ones, I highly doubt that. Mr.Z-man22:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any evidence? Have prior problems with actual BLP violations had any relation to the article being unreferenced? Can anybody point to a list of prior BLP problem cases, could be interesting to examine. Power.corrupts (talk) 23:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say there was a direct relation, just that a total lack of overlap, as you claim based on a non-random sample of 0.04% of unsourced BLPs, was incredibly unlikely. You're claiming that while there's 50,000 unsourced BLPs, not a single one of them has any contentious content. Based on your experiment, I took a random sample of the January 2010 pages (there are over 1200, so I couldn't check all of them), assuming that older articles that had truly defamatory claims were more likely to have been weeded out by now and found a couple questionable ones. Cilia Flores is an article that makes unsourced claims about someone's political views as well as containing unsourced criticism of those views. Mr. criminal, besides being terribly written, claims that he was arrested and convicted several times (though to be fair, it did have a link to a myspace page in it at one point). Mr.Z-man00:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would also point out that problematic content is not always obvious. I recall one email to OTRS from a CEO of a company in the UK, who claimed that our article made false statements about him that he was concerned could be damaging to his image. The statements were unsourced (the article itself may have been partially sourced), but unless someone was really familiar with that person or had read the email, it would have looked entirely innocuous (see also JzG's related statements elsewhere on this page and the current ArbCom motion). Mr.Z-man00:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no "alledged 'BLP problem'"; only a BLP problem. I cannot agree with the statement that it's ok to have unsourced bios "because the articles hold no contentious info". They may or they may not, and the best way to find out is by finding sources for the material. Firsfron of Ronchester08:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An unsourced anonymous contribution is not an article, at least not in an encyclopedia. And yes, there really is a BLP problem. Kanguole12:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I find the statement "If the articles are deleted there is no gain on the alledged BLP problem, because the articles hold no contentious info" quite astonishing. Are we expected to believe that none of these articles contain unacceptable material? That I do not believe: some of them do. The problem, unfortunately, is that we do not know which ones do: requiring sources is Wikipedia's method of telling which do and which don't. Also "alleged BLP problem"? There is a problem, and we need to discuss the best solution to the problem: denying that there is a problem is not helpful at all. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If I claim I find any unsourced statement in any BLP contentious do I get to delete them all? Claiming that someone won a golf tournament is pretty hard to reasonably label as contentious. Hobit (talk) 01:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds that it is impossible to know what may be contentious or not without sources. As noted by Coren in the arbcom decision, even something as boring as "place of birth" or "birthdate" could be contentious. There are LOTS of ways to damage someone's reputation, and to be an unwitting partner to that is unexcuable just so some private individual with a tenuous claim to notability can have an article maintained about them; especially where we have no assurances that anything in that article is even "right". --Jayron3206:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. The premise of Wikipedia is that non academics can write an encyclopedia because the content is based on verifiable reliable sources. The material in an article without sources is completely unreliable and should either be promptly backed up with sources or removed. The problem with having false, stale, or poor quality content is intensified because Wikipedia is usually a top search result for internet search engines, and the content is often mirrored on other web sites. So there is urgency in verifying the material and removing unsourced or poorly sourced content. FloNight♥♥♥♥20:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. While unsourced contentious info is a worse problem than unreferenced articles, without references how is one to even begin to judge what may be contentious info? VernoWhitney (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal will make the BLP situation worse, not better. Wikipedia has 50k unreferenced BLP articles and 400k referenced BLP articles. Examining the 50k articles at AfD over a year will roughly amount to 1,000 articles per week, about the same amount of articles currently debated at the already strained AfD circuit. This considerable additional workload will necessarily deprive the attention given to identifying unsourced contentious statements (i.e. the real BLP problem) in all BLP articles, not least the 400k referenced articles.
Logically, this is the checkmate for the deletionists: they're explicitly making their problem worse. Unfortunately, they will never understand it. They take too much instinctive pleasure in their moral crusade. --Cyclopiatalk14:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Even a deletionist must see that solving the real problem is a greater priority. Let's discuss the next step again later, once we've eliminated the unsourced contentious statements. Certes (talk) 00:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea, but as it stands there's almost no work being given toward reviewing BLP articles, so this isn't really true. And where did anyone propose sending all 50,000 to AFD? Mr.Z-man21:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I haven't seen any proposal to AfD everything, but a mass deletion (even allowing plenty of time for fixers get things looking better) would allow editors to focus their attention on verifying references that are in articles. Again, I support your goal but I think this is going about it backwards. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My solution would be to create a sort of "holding tank" for all uncited BLP articles. This could be a separate project space altogether, or the subpages of a WikiProject. Each uncited BLP would then be automatically moved out of the mainspace to this holding space where it would not be indexed by Google. Each of these articles would then be considered a work in progress (and could be tagged as such) until they were moved back into the mainspace. Once we have the whole lot protected from sight, editors would then be able to take their time looking for sources, tagging them for deletion (by the usual methods) or moving them back into the mainspace on a case-by-case basis when they are fixed. This solution preserves the material on wiki while sheltering it from the eyes of most casual readers. No content will be deleted out of practice, but none would be publicly visible as a "wikipedia article". I think this is a fair compromise between the hard core eventualist and deletionist proposals given above.
Hmm, I figured this was out of the incubator's scope but they can go there if appropriate. My main point is that I would like them all to go someplace away from the public's eye at once and then be let back on a case by case basis. ThemFromSpace22:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The incubator is currently for articles where a specific editor has indicated and intention to improve the article, as I understand it. That function might be overwhelmed by this proposal, so keeping them separate but parallel might be a good idea. DES(talk)03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we must remove them from public sight, then let them be sent to a holding area such as this, so that others beyond the (shrinking and overworked) administrator corps can help resolve them. Jclemens (talk) 03:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fundamental problem is unsourced, unverified claims about living people written by anonymous and unaccountable people on the intertubes and advertised as being factual, accurate and fair entries in an encyclopedia. Automatic move to the holding pen is not a bad idea.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1)I agree that this would be an entirely new level of bureacracy. (2) The amount of work entailed in checking every article one by one would be so great that the job wold never get done. I have seen other well-meaning projects to clean up particular classes of articles. Lists have been made, and for a while an group of enthusiastic editors have beavered their way through the lists. The lists are still around, years later, with a small percentage of the work done, and no active work being continued. (3) "Once we have the whole lot protected from sight, editors would then be able to take their time looking for sources" is nonsense. If an editor can see the article to edit it then any member of the public can see it. Maybe it isn't listed on Google, but that doesn't mean that the information isn't public. If a libellous article about me ever appears on Wikipedia and is not deleted as quickly as is reasonably possible I will not accept as a defence "ah, but members of the public had to click on a link labelled WikiProject unsourced BLPs, otherwise they couldn't see it. Nor would any judge. Even if access were restricted to registered Wikipedia users, would I accept "ah, but only about eleven and a half million members of the public could read the libellous material", and other people would have to do something called "registering" before they could see it? Of course not. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - I think this supposed compromise is really the worst of all worlds. It keeps the bad articles around, but in a place where they're unlikely to get enough attention to fix them. Robofish (talk) 03:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. Seems like a good idea—I'd suggest using Wikipedia:Article Incubator for this—but attempts to move articles to such a space would be met with footdragging drama (just another form of deletion/prod/incubation), so this solves nothing and adds complexity. Anyway, 50K articles moved to such a space would mostly be ignored, not fixed. / edg☺☭16:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Good try, but unsourced BLPs are not the problem. While not as damaging as the original proposal, this one still has a significant cost (waste of editor's time) and no benefit. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who are neutral with this policy
Such a proposal has significant merit, but the complexity and consequences would be problematic. As there are other proposals adding procedures but which are significantly better, I cannot support. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Arthur Rubin
Any deletion by an accelerated process (taking less than a week, or with more than 1000 active at a time), such as most proposed here, should, after deletion, restore a (locked, if needed) stub stating something like:
This article was deleted as being an article about a living person without sources. If you wish to create an article about the person, you may
Request temporary undeletion or userfication so you can find reliable sources to verify information about the person. (You will have no more than one week to find those sources.)
Discuss finding such sources on the talk page, and/or
If mass deletion does win a consensus, the deleted articles should give clear instructions as to what can be done to restore them. (More than a short blurb in wikispeak). ThemFromSpace19:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was just suggesting that any and all articles deleted in a process with limited review be deleted and stubbed. The details shouldn't have been in my proposal. — Arthur Rubin(talk)20:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. I don't think we need to encourage editors to use deletion review, so I would leave this part out. People who don't have an account and never have edited the encyclopedia before would probably need a much simpler template: "You may ask for the text of this page at [[appropriate page|this page]]." Also, new editors need to know that they can simply replace the entire template with sourced text. Many would probably hesitate to edit on such pages, so we need to (a) encourage new editors to edit on such pages (b) provide the relevant links to WP:RS, WP:BLP and WP:V. Cs32enTalk to me19:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Up to a point. I think we should amend the UI text around the deleted article to make the restoration procedure explicit, and we should have a separate subpage of WP:DRV with a template or wizard that allows you to identify the article and the sources which you intend to use to support it. Guy (Help!) 20:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a good way of tracking some notable articles which will likely get deleted. An admin can always restore the article for an interested editor on hte proviso of future addition of sources. Casliber (talk·contribs) 01:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support in principle, although I share the notion with other endorsers that some of the details can be revisited and fleshed out thoroughly. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But only as a rescue anchor if consensus really emerges in favor if mass deletion (I really hope it doesn't). And in this case I see no reason to delete those messages ever. It would be like WP:RA on those articles, informing editors that previous content exists that could be restored if they are willing to work on it, which will probably make it more interesting for some editors to create them again. But again, supporting this proposal does not mean I support deletion itself. Regards SoWhy22:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, as with any other deletion that does not involve a discuss, any admin could undelete individual articles upon request. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since it looks like a special procedure for dealing with unsourced BLPs will come out of this RfC, I support this proposal as a reasonable compromise between WP:PRESERVE and the assumption that anything un-sourced is contentions, which is held by ArbCom, Jimbo, and about a third of the voters in MZMcBride's proposal. Pcapping13:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems a reasonable safety net, should some of the other proposals be enacted, and assuming that it is technically feasible.Anaxial (talk) 13:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support while it does have the problem that people don't know whetehr the old article is worth seeing until they see it, having something which makes it easier for people to know how to access deleted information is useful.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems like a good idea, it gives a little bit of time for people to try and fix a problem in the "less than a week" period. Might be a problem though if you have 1000+ articles to go through though. --Sin Harvest (talk) 12:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposed:
Opposed. This is still mass deleting and doing several processes that are likely unneeded in the first place. The energy required should instead be applied to simply adding sources and using our already established processes to fix, redirect, prod and delete articles accordingly. -- Banjeboi20:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Per Peter cohen above, article stubs don't show up as redlinks, which makes the need for improvement harder to notice. A re-creation warning message already exists for deleted articles; perhaps this can be tweaked to make the undeletion and userfication options more clear. / edg☺☭16:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as locked stubs sounds like a class of mainspace page that does not serve Wikipedia content policies directly. Once a failed article has been deleted, it should stay deleted, not rise again in Zombie form, or persist like a tombstone.--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)16:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Edgarde and Gavin.collins said it well. I think the articles need to remain readable and editable (and without an accelerated deletion process) but once deleted (if deleted) stay gone. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This proposal is not as damaging as the original one, but it still has a significant cost (lots more editor work) and no benefits. As many have pointed out, unsourced BLPs are not the problem, the problem is malicious statements in *sourced* bios of *notable* people. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Sandstein
The Arbitration Committee has the authority to settle disputes by applying accepted Wikipedia policy and guidelines, but it has no authority to make policy. For this reason, the motion (permalink) about to be passed in the current BLP deletions arbitration case only settles the dispute about the specific mass deletions, blocks and other actions at issue in that case. The motion is not to be understood as changing or superseding general deletion policy and process as applied to the biographies of living persons, and it should be considered void if and insofar as it might have been intended to have that effect. Instead, any policy change should be decided by community consensus, starting with this RfC.
Endorse. The ArbCom (a body appointed by supreme fiat, although based upon the results of a non-binding poll) has no authority to put forth decisions that do not comply with our guidelines and WP:5P. Consensus can always overturn any ArbCom decision, and it would be far more approriate to allow the multiple discussions to be completed before issuing any decision. No policy, guideline, or principal allows for the deletion of non-contentious material. Jim MillerSee me | Touch me20:36, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, Sandstein is full of clue; I'm honestly confuzzled by the number of comments suggesting that the Motion is anything other than an acknowledgement that editors with good intentions got over zealous and the community should sort things. Shellbabelfish20:44, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only valid source for editorial policy change rests with the editors according to precedent. If we truly believe that we are competent to write encyclopedia articles, we ought similarly be competent enough to determine which articles on a case-by-case basis ought to be deleted as a matter of policy. CSD currently allows for gross violations of BLP to be deleted quickly, but the current ArbCom position vis-a-vis endorsing deliberate violation of set processes was ill-advised, and ArbCom should forthwith state that the authority to set policy rests with the editors. Collect (talk) 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is how much i trust ArbCom in this matter. We have to find our own comprise and not let ourselves be imposed a sort of decree from god. --KrebMarkt14:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCOM rushed to a verdict and the resolution actually does not represent the views of all the members. A number of people who supported the resolution actually indicated that the mass deletions were not the best thought out path---but they still supported the statement that praised the action?---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Without endorsing or condemning the statement, if S's proposal means that statement applied there and need not apply (or not apply) in any future case, but any future case will have to be made in the context of the result of this RfC and any ensuing consensus policy changes and implementations, I fully agree. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom does not dictate policy. Period. Anyone or anything claiming otherwise and acting upon it could be seen as just short of a Wikipedia Coup d'état, overthrowing the community and basic concept of consensus, and is indeed in opposition to the deepest roots within WMF:Values that we are a community-lead collaborative project. ♪daTheisen(talk)19:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With an inverted paraphrase of Lar's comment, anyone on the Arbitration Committee who thinks the community hasn't sent a clear signal here is fooling themselves. At their peril. Durova40323:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. However, the issue is that those in favor of deletions are intentionally misreading the current policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
not that it matters. Could we get a list of the arbs who commended/praised this disruption? It seems to be hard to find the motion now. . .R. Baley (talk) 05:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While my hasty statement at the RFAR late last night was misinformed, as I somehow completely overlooked the fact that arbcom had in effect handed this issue back to the community to resolve via this RFC, for the record I still endorse this motion. The community makes policy decisions, not arbcom, and any attempt to read arbcom's motion last night as carte blanche for ignoring community consensus would I believe be misconceived. Gatoclass (talk) 08:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Quite true. Arbcom's actions have not been optimal in this case and I believe they have gone beyond their remit to put the views of some of their members before the view of the community. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. As I said at RFAR, the committee has a power on individual users but it has no power on the community. They wanted to give themselves 'good conscience', or for petty political reasons, being seen as 'acting' on the BLP issue, but it is not in their capacity; only the community can. In doing so, they overstepped their boundaries, lost their objectivity, and alienated a huge number of users, even the most faithful to ArbCom and several ex-arbitrators, subcommittees' members, and maybe, even current arbitrators. Cenarium (talk) 17:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Further: In some later, calmer times, the community should review the actions taken by this committee and take appropriate measures to address the issue. I expect the next big RFC will be upon ArbCom. Cenarium (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the face of it an uncontroversial of the correct policy situation. However, making this statement has the tendency, and perhaps the intention, to reduce the authority of the decision. I have read the Arbitration Committee's decision carefully, and I do not see anything in it which could reasonably be interpreted as a change in policy. However I do see much which is a reaffirmation of existing policies which recently a good many editors have been denying, minimising, or trying to explain away. The ArbCom decision's reaffirmation of the existing policy is an important answer to those editors who have followed that line, and a statement seeking to reduce the impact or authority of that decision is unhelpful, even if the actual wording of the statement is technically correct. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks as if it were a clear indication that ArbComm believes the word "contentious" in WP:BLP is (or should be) meaningless. That seems clearly false as an interpretation of policy, and (effectively) removing it is a change of policy. — Arthur Rubin(talk)15:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For one thing the inclusion of the word "contentious" is being debated. For another, any content to which someone objects could be regarded as contentious. Otherwise who decisdes what is contentious? Contention is purely a matter of what people contend, and therefore entirely dependent on subjective judgement. If I disagreee with something you agree with then there is contention. Thus I do not see ArbCom's decision as implying that "contentious" is meaningless. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think anyone who thinks that ArbCom hasn't sent a clear signal here is fooling themselves. At their peril. ++Lar: t/c16:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Their views are noted but since Wikipedia is not an oligarchy, their views carry no more weight in this discussion than yours or mine. Resolute18:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to try that out. Go do something blockable, or even something worth losing your bit over, then after the block (or arbcom case), see if you don't get blocked (or debitted), and then tell me again how the views of those we elected to make these decisions carry no more weight than yours. Disregarding policy is fundamentally a behavioral failing, and it's exactly what ArbCom has a mandate to address. ++Lar: t/c20:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am suprised to hear such threats from a steward. Are you imaging youself a (deputy) king of this project? Your arrogant behavior is unbecoming for a steward. Ruslik_Zero20:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean this as any offense to you, but the fact that you are surprised only means you havent been paying attention, at least to certain things.--Cube lurker (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom's function is dispute resolution, in particular interpersonal disputes. It has no mandate to force changes in policy. If the members of the committee wish to participate in these discussions, they should do so wearing the hat of an editor. Using their position as arbitrators to try and influence or overrule the community's will is cowardly. Resolute20:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I said already, ArbCom has a (limited) power on users, but it has no power on the community, and has no way to force the community to align on their views. I definitely can't see to which 'peril' we are exposed to here. True, they could start to arbitrarily sanction people with diverging political views, yeah, but how long would they keep this up ? Anyway, it's hopefully not going to happen. Cenarium (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Like the message they sent with BLPSE ? It had no positive noticeable effect, whatsoever, on the BLP issue. They wanted to 'act' on the issue for giving themselves good conscience or political reasons, but they just showed they had no way to really act on it. Oh yes, it generates major controversy and so, but nothing useful gets done with this; it's time to realize that only consensual solutions can be effective in this domain. Cenarium (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. the arbitration committee sets policies regarding a number of contentious issues all the time. Any policy can be changed. Often they ask for policy to be discussed and decided without their participation. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
per Lar, BLP stems from a foundation resolution folks, you know, the guys that run the servers. If you want to maintain thousands of potentially libellous and hurtful BLPs feel free to transwiki them somewhere else and take your own legal risk but until such time the landlords get to set some rules and the BLP situation is way overdue resolution. SpartazHumbug!05:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given neither Mike Godwin nor the Foundation itself have come out and said "delete these or else" your strawman is without merit. Resolute01:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mealy-mouthed tripe. Arbcom in settling disputes necessarily makes news policy, and always has done. --TS17:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
My reading is that the motion called for this RfC, and that ArbCom have not taken upon themselves any authority to make policy - rather, that they are commenting on policy, and the implementation of it. I'm not sure I see anything deeply troubling in the motion, though "unsourced biographies of living people may contain seemingly innocuous statements which are actually damaging, but there is no way to determine whether they do without providing sources" is a statement worth examining closely - I'm not entirely sure of the deeper implications of what it is saying. I would welcome an open discussion on that statement. SilkTork *YES!21:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how anyone thinks they can tell the ArbCom where to stuff it and continue violating this clearly-worded statement. Do admins plan on ignoring ArbCom and continue to edit war to restore deleted BLPs? Woogee (talk) 22:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unpopular ArbCom decisions may have ramifications in future ArbCom elections. I, for one, applaud SirFozzie's rational and principled oppose to the motion. Jclemens (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Foundation has Section 230 immunity. All this talk of lawsuits is tedious b.s., the phantom lawsuit that will bring down Wikipedia if Something Is Not Done has been 'around the corner' ever since I've been here. It is activist propoganda, nothing more, nothing less. The reason the policy actualy exists, is one of ethics, not law. There is a difference. Namely, what you might think is ethical, others might not. As for arbcom making policy, what are people smoking if they genuinely believed before this motion that it was either community or indeed admin consensus that the simple existence of material, whatever it said, was 'contentious' as regards the BLP policy, or that under any previously imaginable interpretation of IAR/admin discretion/aggressive enforcement, this brief episode of Total War of the cabal against the community, was justified, let alone excusable. The wording of the motion is a pure retcon of the actual events. Go and read the evidence if anyone doubts it. MickMacNee (talk) 06:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by NuclearWarfare
It has been agreed upon that blatant violations of the most important policies of the site, such as the copyright policy, are incompatible with adminship. Just last week, we had an administrator who had repeatedly violated that copyright policy resign under pressure, and there is a pending Arbitration case over a similar matter. It would probably be commonly agreed upon that the copyright policy and the BLP policy are the two most important policies on the site. Creation of unsourced biographies of living persons has largely been agreed upon to be a violation of WP:BLP. Therefore, the repeated introduction of unsourced BLPs or the failure to clean up unsourced biographies of living persons that one had created a while back after a reasonable amount of time is a violation of WP:BLP. I would submit that the community cannot fully trust administrators who violate the BLP policy.
To clarify, there are indeed multiple administrators who I had in mind while writing this. However, to avoid making this about personalities rather than generalities, I shall refrain from listing the names here.
Yes, however I would also fully support the notion that such an admin can redeem himself and this cloud be considered lifted after a time period of contributions without issues. MLauba (talk) 10:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue of problematic BLPs is the largest problem facing the project, and will remain so going forward. Any admin on the wrong side of the issue shouldn't be an admin, and any prospective administrator should have to demonstrate a grasp of why this is such a large problem before being granted the bit. In short, this idea is a good first step. UnitAnode12:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to block any regular editor (as a last resort and after patient explanation and due warning) who persists in adding unreferenced material on living people.--Scott Mac (Doc)12:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is the problem with this proposal. If this proposal were what you said, then I would support it. The problem is that this proposal is intended to work retroactively on articles that people may have written YEARS ago. It places responsibility on them to clean up articles that they may not have touched in 4-5 years, and if they don't clean up the articles that they haven't worked on, then they may be desysoped!---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adminship is not a permanent gift. If circumstances change, and an admin acts in ways contrary to current policy, eventually, after sufficient discussion, warnings, and milder remedies, loss of adminship is entirely appropriate. This view of NW's is not a new idea, it's merely a restatement of existing principle and policy. ++Lar: t/c16:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this description of the simple implication that administrators are editors who can demonstrate they can be trusted. I point out that there is a continuous spectrum of this kind of distrust and my support of this statement should not be taken as a support of some codification of a deadminning policy. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't know to which admins this refers, and I'm not certain this should mean immediate resignation, but yes, of course this is incompatible with adminship. Per Jack Merridew, admins who create unsourced BLPs should be accountable for some clean-up. / edg☺☭16:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Again, this proposal is not referencing articles recently, but articles that were written five plus years ago and were written in full compliance with standards in place at the time! This places an ownership burden on the article creator and has a chilling effect on Wikipedia. You can no longer write an article and walk away from it. If this were to pass, it would place an obligation on article creators to forever maintain the articles they created to ensure that the articles complied with BLP and any other expectations that may come down the pike. The next step is to place the same obligation on anybody who has made significant edits articles!---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
I have to Strongly oppose this based upon NW's comments at WP:BN today. NW felt that a former admin should not have the bit restored because she had 35 unreferenced BLP's that she wrote that she has not even begun to fix. I looked at the first ten items from an automated tool that were give to her a week ago. Of those first ten unreferenced BLPs 4 of them did have in fact have references. One of them her last edit was last year; 3 of them her last edit was in 2008 (2 in Feb of 08)---but on most of them her last edit to the article was in 2004/2005/2006---when our expectations were much different. Heck, I think there was only one article where her last edit the article had been tagged as not having references! Instituting this criteria on articles that one may have written and last edited four, five, or even six years ago is ridiculous. If she hasn't edited the article in 4 years, she probably doesn't care about the article anymore (I've written ariticles that I don't care about.) To say that she should be denied or stripped of her adminship over that is just dumb---especially as expectations were existing at the time. Heck, to expect her to clean them up might be a stretch. Most of those articles have been adopted by Wikiprojects, contact those wikiprojects and let them know about the problems, we'll probably have better luck.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!23:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is just one criteria by which a RFA could be voted on by someone. In it self it is not a reason to desysop. As yet there is no policy on when to desysop. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also oppose any such ex post facto rules. If the rules do in fact change as a result of this RfC, then an amnesty for actions taken prior to the RfC must accompany such changes. No one should be penalized when their previously-accepted behavior later becomes impermissible. Jclemens (talk) 03:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When I posted this, I did not mean for it to become a new rule used to desysop people or anything of the sort. I just felt that administrators should not be actively refusing to source articles that they themselves introduced to the encyclopedia as BLP violations. Also...weren't we going to move the oppose sections to the talk page? NW(Talk)03:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So where else in Wikipedia do we make people deal with their previous contributions? I seriously know of no precedent where a user's standing (administrators included) can be adversely affected by a requirement to maintain previous articles on which they've worked. To be sure, many do feel some sense of pride, connectness, or whatever, and editors who're still around often do maintain the articles they've helped. But a positive, elective ongoing association is different than a negative (punitive?), mandatory ongoing association. Jclemens (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We make people cleanup their own copyright violations oftentimes. I would consider the introduction of unsourced BLPs to be just as damaging as copyright violations. NW(Talk)11:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I will agree with that... if the proposal had a time frame or something, it would be more than reasonable. The problem is, that you would use this proposal on people who haven't edited an article in YEARS. My writing an unsourced BLP today is a lot different than my ignoring an unsourced BLP I wrote five years ago and haven't touched in 3.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!21:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
as worded this would appear, indeed, to be ex post facto and therefore contrary to common sense. The rules at the time the acts occur ought to be the determining factor, although I fear the motion adopted by ArbCom arrogates powers to ArbCom not reasonably foreseen. As the plenum for WP, it is, moreover, up to the users to prevent such arrogation, and this proposal does not do so. Collect (talk) 11:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This would be a purge of admins for old mistakes. To make creating unsourced BLPs retrospectively a policy violation severe enough to deserve desysopping is not reasonable. Fences&Windows22:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We should basically never desysop people for failing to do things (unless it's, say, failing to respond to an ArbCom case). Creating unreferenced BLPs is problematic, but it is not worth desysopping anyone over - let alone failing to reference BLPs created years ago. Robofish (talk) 03:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There's a certain comparison to be made about admins who recklessly contravene deletion policy. From the point of view of a non-admin, deletion policy is one of the most important policies on the site, as, for all purposes, deleted content is gone. Data that took a contributor time to compile, words that took time to carefully craft and put on the page, are gone in the blink of an eye. How do you think that author would feel? How do you think a lover of knowledge feels about such an act? Book burning is reviled for a reason - and there has never been a book burner who didn't feel that the books he was burning were trash, the world being better off without that nonsense. A certain basic respect for the time and effort of contributors demands that, at a minimum, their work is given the consideration enshrined in our procedures. If we're going to be forgiving of that magnitude of offense, then creating an unsourced BLP with no libelous issues, and hence no identifiable victim, seems to be quite a small issue to me. RayTalk04:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Delete the old unreferenced BLPs, admonish any user currently violating BLP, admin or not. If an admin or anyone else continues to violate policy it shouldn't take an extension of the BLP powers to remove them. Weakopedia (talk) 20:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't desysop people because they haven't caught up after the rules changed. Writing attack pages or violating the previously understood version of the BLP policy (where "potentially controversial" statements needed to be sourced) would get anyone desysopped as things currently stand, so I don't see a need for a change here. Nathan T 15:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Those that try breaching experments over and over and over again should probably have their bit removed. And hopefully will. But this proposal is silly. Hobit (talk) 14:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose. Administration has little to do with editing, and admins are not above being warned if they edit in violation of policy. Restrict warnings (or other reactions) to current violations, not old ones. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the reasoning that unsourced BLPs can be deleted because they contravene Wikipedia policy. The last sentence is highly disputable, and the first is a non sequitur.
Real violations of Wp policies must be fixed, but deleting an article that lacks sources is not "fixing" it, is damaging it further. In any case, unsourced BLPs are *not* the real problem. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 06:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea that admins can be desysopped for violating the rules now. But no, admins should not be desysopped over work they did three or four or five years ago, which was consistent with the rules as they stood at the time, violating current standards. As an administrator who's been around here pretty much since Moby Dick was a minnow, who actually held the status of the single most prolific human editor on the entire project for a time last year, and who consequently had over 200 unreferenced BLPs flagged by DASHbot last week, I'm certainly not refusing to deal with them — but they're mostly old stuff that I've more or less forgotten that I even did in the first place, and I can't promise that I'll have them all up to snuff by Valentine's Day. But that doesn't make me a bad administrator who's refusing to deal with my "violations" of Wikipedia policy. It just makes me a guy who's got a pile of crud to clean up, mostly left over from another era when the rules weren't what they are now — and far bigger than I would ordinarily care to deal with all by myself. Bearcat (talk) 04:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
Very vague statement there I generally agree with it but to be honest no one gets to be an administrator without most of their activity being in good-faith. Just because someone does something wrong doesn't mean they know they have done something wrong, maybe something happened and they just forgot about the article they were creating. good faith doesn't expire just because you've been an editor for a long time or because you've become an admin. There is a problem however if there is a continual string of bad activity even after being warned.
An admin isn't a special person we warn them of any activity that we perceive as wrong, if necessary we discuss, we get to a consensus, we enforce consensus and we can continue to discuss but follow consensus until a new consensus is reached. --Sin Harvest (talk) 12:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by OrangeDog
As far as I can tell, the only problem with BLP articles that other articles don't have is that of libellous statements. However, an unreferenced article need not be libellous and a libellous article need not be unreferenced. From a technical perspective, not every article with {{unreferenced blp}} is an unreferenced blp and not every unreferenced blp has {{unreferenced blp}}. Therefore, judging whether a blp article requires special treatment cannot just be a check of unreferencedness and should not be done automatically without proper human oversight.
Not every user checks Wikipedia every day. Many will only have access at weekends, or deliberately restrict themselves to weekends due to having real-life work to do. Therefore, no process that assumes or expects the input of other editors should take less than 7 days to complete.
Any article (including blps) that is entirely libellous can be deleted using WP:CSD#G10. Any unreferenced article on a non-notable person can be deleted using WP:CSD#A7. Libellous material on any article is already removed on sight, and WP:OVERSIGHT can be requested if necessary. Articles subject to repeated addition of libellous material can be protected. Unreferenced articles on notable living people that contain no contentious material (including, but not limited to a large number of stubs) should be treated the same as any other article, noting that they provide useful information and provide a mechanism for the encylopedia to grow.
In conclusion, I do not see any reason to create new deletion processes to circumvent or abuse those that we already have. Especially not ones that involve automatic and unsupervised mass deletion.
The present policies permit the removal of libel. However, this is not adequate, and a system such as flagged revisions is preferable to help prevent libel from being added, even when it is sourced. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:45, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC) my point of view exactly. in response to Baccyak below, inaccurate information is bad in all articles - I'm sure the harm done by inaccurate info in our medical articles, for example, is far greater than that in our blps, but we're not deleting unreferenced medical articles...[reply]
Support - But knows people are unhappy with current policies (and would prefer an adjustment or additional policies) and I am open to change with discussion. --Sin Harvest (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I am spitting hairs, but I regard inaccurate information, even if innocuous, as a problem in a BLP. There clearly is a need to improve the BLP issue, even if it's only flagged revisions (but even that would not have totally prevented what started this dramorgy). Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain, Lars. He makes perfect sense to me, & makes the point I have with the BLP issue -- if an article about a living person is not contentious or damaging to the person's reputation, & the person is clearly notable, what harm is the article causing if it lacks sources? -- llywrch (talk) 21:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of what you wrote, except that you don't seem to see a need to cleanup these articles at all. If an organized cleanup effort is started it would overwhelm our established deletion system. ThemFromSpace20:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I think cleanup is necessary if any article has issues. I just didn't mention it because I was talking about deletion, not cleanup. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 00:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Baccyak4H. Unsourced content for living persons is a big problem, not just attack pages. Most "afirmative" bio content tends to be created for vanity purposes or to promote spam, and mass deletion of it makes good sense. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs)16:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unsourced BLPs are a problem. They are more of a problem than other unsourced articles. But the best possible way of countering this problem is not deleting all the articles but sourcing all of them. To date, there has been very little attempt to source all of these articles. I have fixed a number of them recently, and this has convinced me that a large percentage of these articles can be sourced, most with very little effort. There are many reasons why this hasn't been done so far - it's fairly tedious work with little recognition, to name the most obvious two. But this is a problem that can be tackled.
I propose that we set up a wikiproject to source unreferenced BLPs. The issue has now become high profile, so such a project will probably attract quite a few members. Perhaps the project could involve other wikiprojects in the relevant fields, as has been suggested elsewhere. If, a few hundred editors are prepared to source just one or two articles per day then within a few months there will be a significant impact on the backlog. If little progress is made then, perhaps, we could come back to the drawing board and consider mass deletions. But at least this way we could try to retain some baby when we throw out the bathwater. Hut 8.520:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Referencing BLP articles (and others) is highly useful, but in practice it wont have any impact on the BLP concerns at all. What is needed is an intelligent bot (likely a human) that can locate problematic BLP statements in the body text. It's a monumental task to reference BLP articles (which basically is a veiled WP:N issue), it's a wholly impossible task to source all sentences with uncontested material in an article. Power.corrupts (talk) 21:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. They should be done by category so editors skilled at and interested in sourcing (or even just in a narrow category of articles!) can proceed with doing exactly that. Orderinchaos06:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I personally have seen Hut at work on the problem this week, and believe this is a good-faith effort to fix a serious problem. I remain skeptical that this will solve all of WP's problems with BLPs, but encourage editors to try to source these articles. Firsfron of Ronchester08:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this idea. If another process for deleting unsourced BLPs gains enough community consensus (such as developing a PROD tag, etc.), this project would work nicely with it, as users could sort through these PRODed articles and source them. ~SuperHamsterTalkContribs16:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not. But not at the expense of not doing something. Every BLP needs fixing, and the time for dithering is past. As an adjunct to some other more concrete proposal, sure. By itself? no. ++Lar: t/c17:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as written by Hut 8.5, and per SuperHamster and Baccyak4H. I also agree to plan it as possibly as a working group of the BLP, as SMcCandlish suggests. Bearian (talk) 01:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing wrong here. Although the WikiProject would have to be very prominent and coordinated. The current WikiProject Living Persons is mostly inactive. ThemFromSpace21:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. As Lar said, involving projects (new or old) is great, but there must be more than that or we wouldn't be having this problem right now. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the analysis. Not sure a project will make any difference, though.
The recent and ongoing activist campaign of out of process and unsupported deletions was and is a disgusting abuse of power by a small band of rogue admins. Despite what the proposed arbitration motions says, they are condemned by their own words. They did not really care if they had policy on their side or not, what motivated them to abuse their tools in this way was a contempt for the community, and their best attempt at an explanation was a variation of 'I'm fed up and have the power to do something' and 'IAR allows me to do what the hell I want'. The ends justify the means? Well, we'll see what the next campaign might be, maybe it will be something you don't think 'just needs doing'. One thing is for certain, you won't receive any warning on Wikipedia.
Support I am outraged at the Arbcom decision. Normally I get on fine by ignoring wiki-bureaucracy but this is too big and too awful to ignore. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not so much IAR as admins intentionally misreading policy pages after not getting their way in discussions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but at the same time, I think it's funny. Here we are denouncing the administrators for stepping out of bounds (And they did step out of bounds, deleting articles with no warnings, etc) when they were inspired by frustration with the lack of community self-direction necessary to actually do anything about problems like BLP. Ironically, it did take their swift kick in the ass to get us talking about the BLP problem on such an open-minded plane.
We can denounce them all we want for what are very real transgressions, but we can't ignore the funny fact that here we are, finally setting down some big plans on how to deal with unsourced biographies of living persons. It certainly wasn't the intent of the admins (their intent was to do whatever they darn well please) for this to happen, for their actions to kick off the consensus process yet again. But so they did.
In conclusion: I am very glad we are having a discussion instead of a dictatorship, and very upset with the administrators who decided they wanted to play legislator-president-judge-jury-executioner. But that it took their abuse of power for us to finally focus on this particular big problem and getting this big problem fixed, is an interesting commentary on the validity and legitimacy of their frustrations (though not their condemnations) with/of the consensus process. -Lyc. cooperi (talk) 11:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - A bit stronger than I would put it, but I agree with the spirit of the complaint. The admins may have done what they did in good faith, but that does not make it right, and the attitude displayed by some of them I have found rather disturbing. The statement by ArbCom, while I'm sure it also had the best of intentions, was also rather confusing and problematic. Camaron · Christopher ·talk13:15, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User who oppose this summary
I strongly disagree with the "delete on sight" idea for improperly referenced BLPs, and lean toward the "new variant of PROD" solution. But I can't assume bad faith about the admins who were doing the deletions. I can assume chutzpah, but that's actually kind of encouraged around here (BOLD, IAR, BRD, etc.) ArbCom only found their approach problematic for being "chaotic" but agreed that it was within policy and commendably motivated. The admins were not borderline vandals or something, they were editors whose good-conscience interpretations of iron clad policy led to them what they saw as the only option to take to protect the encyclopedia and its subjects. One does not have to kick them in the virtual groin to disagree with the specific approach they took and propose a different one. If you want to tell the ArbCom they are full of crap, try WT:ARBCOM; that's not what this RfC is for. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that just cemented my position on the matter. The admin is question is exercising IAR as a matter of strongly-held ethical principle, and is willing to be desysoped for it if necessary. A bit melodramatic, and certainly polarized, but not crazy or vandalistic. I don't agree with his proposed solution of deleting everthing but the best 20% of BLPs, but I can respect his reasons for wanting to do so. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 23:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with this more strongly than anything else I have read so far on this page. MickMacNee has ignored both WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, and the policy on no personal attacks. However much MickMacNee may dislike the actions of the people in question, to be so contemptuous towards them is totally unhelpful. Furthermore I do not see this as a "disgusting abuse of power": on the contrary, they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy. The fact that there is a significant number of editors who disagree with the existing policy does not invalidate that fact. If you don't like the policy, the thing to do is to argue in favour of changing it, not to make angry and uncivil accusations of bad faith against those who take efforts to implement that policy. As for the comment by Cyclopia, the fact that one of the administrators in question has made a rather intemperate and intolerant comment does not justify an abusive attack on all those involved. Also even if MickMacNee had confined his attack to Scott MacDonald, the comment by Scott MacDonald linked by Cyclopia, although extremely ill-judged and unhelpful, would not justify MickMacNee's remarks.
When editors flagrantly violate our policies as Scott MacDonald, Lar, and Rdm2376 did, the faith and confidence that editors have in the rules and in our system is damaged. JamesBWatson, your condemnation of MickMacNee not following policy, with your accompanying acronyms, seems rather meaningless given the disgusting history of this RFC.
"they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy." is so utterly false I am shocked.
Scott MacDonald, who was blocked three times wrote:
"Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[8]
Lar protected an editor war on WP:BLP, protecting it on his "friend"s edit which deleted the word "contentious" from "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive"[9] Before this edit, the edit had stood for 3 years. A couple of hours later, Lar was deleting non-contentious articles. Clearly Lar knew the policy, protecting BLP on his "friends" edit, and yet Lar blatantly ignored policy.
Arbitor SirFonzzie warned that the next editor who edited the protected page WP:BLP would lose his adminship, Coffee, the editor who began the wheel war when Scott MacDonald was blocked his first of three times, reverted the page anyway.
Coffee has since proceeded to threatened to block editors for following the rules established for removing PRODS. User_talk:Power.corrupts#Warning
This complete disregard for our community rules is a portent of the disruption that the deletion of 50,000 articles will bring: bullying and abuse of administrator powers on a grand scale. MickMacNee was right, this was a "disgusting abuse of power"
If editors repeat an untruth long enough, editors unaware of the real history will believe it. Statements such as "they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy" should be quickly condemned as a complete and dangerous fabrication, because it teaches editors that disruption and "utter contempt" for our rules will be rewarded and that "disruption" will be forgotten. IkipFrank Andersson (45 revisions restored):an olympic medallist for f**k's sake08:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we have more inciviity, and more failure to assume good faith. If the above had said that "they have used their power to enforce existing Wikipedia policy" was a mistake, then it would simply be a difference of opinion. However, instead we are told that it is a fabrication. It is not: it is a sincere statement of what I believe to be the situation. Does Ikip have any grounds for thinking I did not write that in good faith? As for Scott MacDonald's comments, I have already said that he was wrong: that, however, is completely different from saying that all the actions of all the editors in question were wrong. JamesBWatson (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on the grounds that this misses the point entirely. If there needs an RFC started about actions by specific admins, be our guest. This in no way addresses the issue of how to manage BLPs. --Jayron3206:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: It appears as if there was a offwiki "forum that was dedicated to tightening up BLP practices".[10] which Casliber asked the arbitration committee to investigate in October. To my knowledge no formal statement by the arbitration committee has been issued.
Addendum:Wikipedia:Petition against Ignore all rules abuse
This RFC came about by the mass deletion of over 500 articles by Scott MacDonald, Lar, and Rdm2376.[11]
We are rewarding the behavior of administrator Scott MacDonald who holds consensus in "utter contempt"[12], with a Requests for comment to build consensus.
This RFC was created MZMcBride, who in response to "The deletions are well out of process, if the current process isn't working then it should be changed but the community should be involved in making that decision." stated, "The community is incapable of such a conversation and decision."[13] If MZMcBride believes that the community is incapable of decision and supports disruptive behavior in violation of consensus, why did MZMcBride create this RFC?
Some of the same editors who supported Scott MacDonald's, Lar's, and Rdm2376's "utter contempt" for consensus are now trying to build consensus. The irony and hypocrisy is overwhelming.
User:Coffee unblocked User:Rdm2376 after he was told to stop deleting articles with no consensus, unblock reason: "no breach of policy here"[14]
Jennavecia/Lara: "The "community" is irresponsible. Consensus, like perfection, is unattainable. As always, if people are opposed to the idea of taking out the garbage because they can make art out of it, get to making or take your seat."[15]
Trac: "if the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ten ignore them (sic)...It is rather unfortunate that admins chose to block other admins for improving the Wikipedia in this fashion, and they should be dealt with accordingly."[16]
JBsupreme: "I applaud the bold actions of these editors who stepped forward and did the right thing."[17]
Three cheers to editor Sandstein, Jehochman, etc. who support the end deletion result, but still beleive consensus is necessary first.
I ask that MZMcBride remove his statement, allowing Jehochman's statement, which supports MZMcBride's views, be the first on this page. Jehochman at least consistently acknowledges and respects consensus. It is hypocritical for MZMcBrideto selectively support consensus only when it supports his viewpoint.[18]
As Scott MacDonald and Tarc stated, should we hold the results of this RFC in "utter contempt" and "ignore them"?[19][20]
The first thing to say is that, while many of us have conflicting views, there are a lot of highly respected editors here and a lot of very sensible suggestions being raised. The views that struck cords with me personally were those of MZMcBride, WereSpielChequers Jehochman and DGG, however I cannot fully endorse any of those. First of all, userfication is a very good idea for articles which show promise, but it could easily be abused and we risk just moving the problem elsewhere. However, it seems there is a community will to do something about these ~50,000 unreferenced BLPs once and for all. My proposal would be thus:
Obviously, anything which serves no purpose but to threaten or disparage somebody should be obliterated or tagged as G10 on sight (regardless of whether it's 5 years or 5 minutes old)
Any BLP more than a week old with no references (official websites and look X up on IMDb, Facebook, Myspace etc do not count as references.) should be proposed for deletion
Someone who, unlike myself, is not completely incompetent in template space should create a "sub-template" of {{subst:prod}}- something like {{subst:prod|BLP}} which would add the article into a category that can be patrolled by editors willing to seek sources.
The {{subst:prod|BLP}} should not be removed unless at least one reliable source has been provided to verify the subject's name and reason for notability at a minimum
If said tag remains in place for one week (7 days) the article can and should be deleted by any administrator
Articles which are questionable (for example, somebody who appears more than marginally notable) and lack sources should be taken to AfD and this should be a default option for admins dealing with expired BLP prods- it's better to clog up AfD than to throw the baby out with the bathwater
Mass drive-by prodding would be discouraged and attempts should be made to limit the number of "BLP prods" at any one time to ~1000
A log should be created where editors must record the removal of "BLP prods" after proper sourcing or report others who improperly remove the tag (similar to special enforcement)
Administrators should be willing to email the code of any deleted article to any editor who requests it in good faith
BLPs which ahve been sourced but could be tagged with {{refimproveBLP}} should be userfied at admin discretion
The creator of any new, unreferenced BLP (most will be new/inexperienced) should be welcome (if applicable) and asked to add sources to the article and warned in a friendly manner that the article is at risk of deletion or userfication if said sources are not added.
However, see way-above issues raised, under multiple "View by..." sections, about the idea of an "undeleteable PROD". It has to be something "PROD-like" but different or people will flip out about it and it will be redundant with other process. Agree with the overall flow presented, though. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that view- the hope is that we can have a separate system that works in a very similar way to PROD but I'm not clever enough to do something like that- I'm utterly useless in template space. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 17:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partial support. I am not sure how 8 will be implemented in a nonbitey way (new editors will wind up forgetting sometimes), and I am not sure 7 is a good thing (we want the backlog fixed sooner then later), but much like DG's proposal and a couple other similar ones this has promise, after the details are worked out better. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 16:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support as with others, good ideas to carry forward here towards solving the problem. Not the sole solution, but a start. --Jayron3207:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. I disagree about the amount of time listed in #5 (should be more) and the small limit of BLP prods in #7 (should be more), I also am unsure how #8 would work or if it couldn't be done better automatically somehow. Overall I think this is a good start though. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. Overall I think most of the points here are good and should be considered thoroughly as a start. I disagree with #2 and #5, largely because I think the one week grace period before deletion is too short. We don't have enough active editors, and there aren't enough of those who are able to devote extensive time to cleaning up the backlog. I also think Baccyak4H had a good point about #8 -- Wikipedia has lately become policy-heavy for new users, and I fear that adding this (and the inevitable "biting" that would occur) might discourage newbies from contributing. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!19:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this statement
Brambleclawx I'm afraid something in this just seems... less than ideal. I think this will result in massive amounts of deletion, as there may not be enough people to handle all the BLP's. 01:38, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by LeadSongDog
Lets just keep a simple hard line for new articles. If the stub isn't referenced the very first time that it is saved with {{blp}}, {{blp-stub}}, Category:Living people or any equivalent, it should immediately be wp:userfied to the creating editors space by a bot, much in the way of user:CorenSearchBot's handling of gross copyvios. The creator should be advised why it happened and invited to correct their omission. By doing it up front, we avoid having editors grow greatly invested in articles that must eventually be deleted for lack of any WP:RS to establish WP:N. This would even be worth considering for non-BLP articles.
The concerns with BLPs are not solely with libel. We've also got the whole band of selfpublishing editors seeking to use WP as part of their personal social networking scheme, or wp:advertising their own books, music, artwork, business etc. The same approach would limit those to the presently extant.
Worth discussing further. As ever.. gooooo.... Incubator! as collaborative userfication, with eg less risk that useful things started get abandoned and no-one ever sees them. Rd232talk20:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I disagree about the need and utility for rapid cleanup of a problem that's existed for years, I agree that the first thing we should do is enforce these or similar restrictions against NEW BLPs. Jclemens (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the first thing to do is to get a grip on new unsourced BLPs rather than starting with with articles tagged in 2006, or else we'll just be chasing our tail. If the 'encouragement' to source articles had been more apparent in 2006, we probably wouldn't have anywhere near as many articles to deal with here.--Michig (talk) 12:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A good idea, although some sort of deletion procedure should be initiated if the articles are never worked-on. This would just shift the problem to the userspace. ThemFromSpace21:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. I'm hesitant about them being not easily accessible to other users, but some kind of forced incubation seems like a good idea for new BLPs. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
Userfying unreferenced BLPs is a bad idea - it makes it less likely they're going to get sourced, not more. I do a lot of tagging of BLPs, but I would stop doing that if doing so removed them from articlespace as well. Robofish (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After its been userfied, then unless the user advertises for help, he/she will be the only one adding refs, as opposed to leaving it there where others will add to it as well. Maybe there should be a References WikiProject much like the Guild of Copyeditors?
This is intended as a clarification, consistent with many specific procedures: No articles should be deleted using automated tools. There is no reliable automated method for recognizing whether references exist, so every article must be viewed at least once before being deleted.
I'd make various exceptions, including for certain types of G7s. But I agree that it isn't an appropriate solution for allegedly unreferenced BLPs. ϢereSpielChequers13:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with a bot deleting articles after they have been looked at by a person, but a bot should not be the first pass. Karanacs (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Should be nearly absolute -- "empty articles" (under, say, 100 words) and those with clearly problematic words (not needed to be enumerated) might reasonably be deleted otherwise Collect (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bots are helpful for many tasks, but they can't do everything. We don't want a bot to delete what was originally a good BLP simply because it's been vandalised to an unreferenced state. Nyttend (talk) 05:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The statement is based on a falsely general premise. If no tool presently exists, one can certainly be produced to address a large subset of unreferenced BLP articles. Any article that has long been tagged as unreferenced despite having a history of edits by multiple editors could reasonably be considered by automated tools to actually be unreferenced, at least when there are neither ref tags nor external links in the text. The few exceptional BLPs that are referenced but are incorrectly tagged as unreferenced are obviously not drawing very much editor interest. A year-old {{unreferenced}} tag would seem to be a sufficiently safe threshold to use. LeadSongDogcome howl17:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Balloonman/technical option
Background:
I am personally opposed to any speedy deletion option as this bypasses all other considerations on the project. It denies people the opportunity to respond or fix the articles before they get deleted. Some may say, but they've sat for years un-referenced... and that's just my point. They have sat for months or years without a reference. A little while longer won't hurt (unless it is already a candidate for CSD.)
I am very invovled in WP:POKER. I have very little doubt that there are articles under that umbrella that are unsourced. There are possibly articles on my watchlist that are unsourced as well---I've been adding to it before BLP was even an issue. I know that if there was a wholesale deletion without there being some sort of notification, that the project wouldn't be happy, especially if those deletions occured on people the project sees as important. I can't help but think other projects would be upset if a score of articles under their purvue were suddenly deleted and those projects were not notified. Today I saw a template that was sent to a user that listed all of the articles that she had created that were unsourced BLP's. (NOTE: I checked 10 of the unsourced BLP's for that user, and 4 of the 10 had references!)
My proposal:
That we create a tool that can notify these projects and key editors what unsourced BLP's exist under their purvue. This could be done in two ways:
First, if a project is concerned about the article, there is an assumption that they have tagged the article on the article's talk page. This is standard practice. The tool should be able to identify unsourced BLP's and cross reference them with the projects in question. Those projects would then be notified, just as the author was.
Second, the tool could look to see if there were any significant editors. (EG somebody who edited the article more than say 10 times, and notify them as well.)
Let me spell out the logic
WP:BLP has what 25 active editors, there are an estimated 50K articles that have been tagged as unsourced BLP's. In order for WP:BLP to review each of these articles, each of the active editors would have to review (on average) 2K articles. There is no way that these volunteers can do an adequate job identifying the articles that are worth keeping and those that are not worth keeping.
The proposal coming out of WP:BLP is wholesale deletions. This would result in many articles getting deleted that should not be---and has been roundly criticized by people who are interested in CSD and PROD. It goes contrary to trying to improve the encyclopedia as many good and important articles would be deleted under that proposal.
We are not going to get enough people interested in biographies of living persons to start haphazardly looking through the haystack and cleaning it up---and even if we did, they might not be able to adequately assess the articles they are reviewing.
We can contact the articles creator and ask them for help, this has apparently been done in some cases already. But this method fails as many of those creators are no longer active on WP and those who are still active may not care about the articles---their interests have shifted. Thus, contacting authors may not get more people tackling the project.
Wikiprojects will tag articles that they are interested in. Articles that fall into their purvue. Some articles are tagged by multiple projects. Often times Wikiprojects will work on completing a series or theme (EG all of the Lt Governors for a given state.) Many participants at these projects do not have every article on the project tagged (and may not know about all of them.) Asking a project to help is not giving them ownership, but rather asking them for help. By tagging the article, they've already indicated that they would like to know about issues like this. It is a courtesy thing, not ownership.
The best way to get the backlog cleared, without wholesale deletions, is to get as many people as possible working towards clearing it. This can be done by tapping into the resources that are wikiprojects. WP:BLP CANNOT do it by itself, and you will not get enough people to make the commitment to WP:BLP, but I can guarantee that if you let many of these projects know that there are unsourced BLP's under their purvue, you will find volunteers to help clean them up and identify the good from the bad. Especially, if we combine the project notification with a PROD of some sort.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!01:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This was my idea also - the projects don't own articles but they have the ability and the editors to know what to do with them. Certainly if someone handballed me a list of Australian BLPs meeting the criteria I'd find some way to get the list out to 16-20 Australian editors who would undoubtedly be able to either fix them or decide they needed deletion. I'd assume ones within other big projects such as Milhist, Canada etc would probably figure similarly but I can't speak on their behalf. Orderinchaos04:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is one of the best thought out ideas listed so far. It brings the articles to the attention of those who most likely want to fix the article. Definately has my support. - TaintedConformitySCREAM06:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a good idea to me. And I really suggest that Sysops be restricted of their power on deleting articles. Articles should be brought to attention first before it can be deleted. I've gone through some issues where some Sysop delete articles that has never been tagged with PROD or BLP templates, or never been brought to AfD. It is simply not the right thing to be done since users never get the chance to protest or to fix it. Arteyu ?Blame it on me !11:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with WereSpielChequers's and Resolute's related proposals. I also not that this is not directly antithetical to various other proposals, e.g. for a PROD-like way to deal with bad BLPs more quickly. I.e., don't let this polarize any further. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC) PS: I don't mean "edit this page right now to merge the sections", I mean combine forces as things progress. Just to be clear. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this should be one of the first steps in addressing this problem. When I was notified by both that several articles I created in 2006 were unreferenced BLPs, I got those articles fully referenced within an hour of getting the notification. I'd be happy to help with the same effort for the project in which I'm involved, but it's very difficult to find the UBLPs in those areas. Karanacs (talk) 14:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, I would be happy to work on the poker related articles, but I'm not going to tredge through 50K articles to find them, nor am I going to tredge through the thousands of Poker articles looking for them. This gives the people who care a chance to help out. Which we are currently missing---and is a much better option than going straight to the delete button.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Same with me and hockey, though it would take time given the number of bios we have. This is something that we can easily implement now, in advance of any consensus on a deletion policy for such articles. Resolute15:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely think this idea has potential. Most WikiProjects have bot-driven alerts that notify the project to AFDs (and PRODs, I think). These can be very useful tools for getting a marginal article up to speed. Guettarda (talk) 16:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If implemented well, this certainly can help, especially in conjunction with other proposals here about what to do when even the project members do not fix the issues. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. It's virtually impossible to pick out suitable articles to source and prioritize from the morass of Category:All unreferenced BLPs. As I said above, it's essential that not ony the principle contributors but also the relevant projects are contacted. Not only are their members more likely to 'care', they often have access to specialist literature to help with the sourcing, and can provide language help with non-English sources. Voceditenore (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
wow, what a great idea. To bad it is so far down it will be largely ignored. See below. Ikip. 21:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Excellent idea. Deletion sorting greatly improves the quality and accuracy of deletion debates. Getting knowledgeable people involved will be highly beneficial here too.John Z (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree entirely. I will happily deal with any unsourced BLPs in projects that I'm a member of, but if these could be pointed out it would be a hell of a lot easier. --Michig (talk) 12:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is how to do it correctly (clean up articles) but only if you can make it work. There is no easy way to fix an article, and deletion certainly isn't it. Prodegotalk18:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree about letting Wikiprojects know about their affected articles, but I don't think this should be the only solution. Some Wikiprojects have different standards for inclusion than the encyclopedia as a whole, and others are aren't very active at all. ThemFromSpace21:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. It's not going to completely solve the problem, but I think that people will definitely be more motivated to help out with articles that they are interested in. Also, there are probably people who are not really aware that these discussions are going on who might want to help out, and might be alerted by discussion at the Wikiprojects.--BelovedFreak22:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Absolutely. One of the most sensible suggestions on here, and will not only get interested parties involved in sourcing BLPs, but will also bring the problem articles to the attention of people who know more about a subject. This means that they will be a better judge of the notability of the individual, and will probably know of and have access to more sources than the average editor would flying through a mass cleanup of unsourced BLPs. Like others, I do not think this is a complete solution, but I certainly think it should be a major component of any solution devised. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!19:46, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Useful part of the solution. Projects are also best able to judge where deletion is the best solution, which it often will be. Note the numbers are not as large as stated - currently more like 48K, of which nearly 17K may or do already have usable refs, presented as refs or external links. Of course it will be tough on the sports, porn & tv projects. Johnbod (talk) 18:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not giving ownership to the projects, but it is giving them a chance to salvage the articles. They have tagged the article as falling under their purvue because they care about the article. If they want to salvage them, then notify them. This is probably the best bet to get people to work on the issue. Notifying a person who wrote an article 4 years ago is unlikely to yield results. Notifying a project that is attempting to create a comprehensive encyclopedia that a dozen of their articles will be deleted if they don't provide sources will get their attention. Here is a case in point, John Eren is the incumbent for the Victorian Legislative Assembly in Australia. Wikiproject Australia apparently uses a success template to show who the politician was preceded by and who followed the politician. The article is unsourced. The author of that article has not worked on the article in almost a year. But if we notify the wikiproject, they can then act. There might be people who are CURRENTLY interested in keeping that succession path entact. If we delete the article without notifying them, we may set their efforst back... especially if the project has numerous unsourced BLPs. If the project chooses not to add sources, then they cannot cry foul get upset. The goal of this endeavor should not be to delete every article, but only to get rid of those that should be deleted. If we can get people to salvage articles, we should.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!23:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unless your proposal is to notify some other organization, or place, or person, or whatever, only notifying the project gives them final say in the matter, if there's nobody in the project who will do anything about it, then the BLP will just sit there unmodified. Woogee (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Baloonman's idea is exactly what I am proposing, and what User:WolterBot tries to do. here is an example from the Tennis project of what it looks like. This isn't a case of giving a project ownership of the articles, but rather directing problem articles towards the people most likely to have an interest in fixing them. But you are right that this is also only a partial solution. If you combine the notifications with one of the BLP-PROD suggestions being raised, then you have not only a process for immediate cleanup, but also a mandate to delete if that fails to happen. Resolute00:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my tool, alas. B. Wolterding operates the bot that generates those lists every couple of months when new database dumps are made. You can subscribe a project here and get the list next time he runs it. We tried this for WP:HOCKEY but got the template parameter wrong and only got an error. :/ Hoping the next run bears more fruit. In the meantime, an attempt at engaging the hockey project on this has led to the revelation of another tool that might help identify some of these articles, though not nearly as well. Resolute01:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The notification is part of a process, you notify them that the article is in danger of being deleted if the articles are not cleaned up in a certain time period. The catch here is that there would need to be a way to make this window more than 7 days... say a month because some projects will have huge lists. And ideally the solution would have a means to extend that month if the project is making a legit effort to clean up it's mess. The goal is to get others to help find sources and figure out what needs to be kept/deleted. If we just tag the article for deletion, then you are going to open up a whole ball of wax and really piss people off... people who have no idea that these articles are in danger of being deleted.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!01:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Similar discussions about notifying Wikiprojects and editors have been made elsewhere on this page. Let's take it to the next step: We can start asking WikiProjects and individuals to look over the unreferenced BLPs in their areas of interest right now. I've called for volunteers to spend a few weeks on this here [21] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
User:Ikip Technical option building on Balloonman's idea
addendum: Let the experts in each topic decide whether these unsourced BLP articles are notable, while removing them from main space and search engines. Ikip22:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with moving an article is what do you do with the articles where a half a dozen projects want to help out? Many articles have multiple projects that would need to be notified.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!22:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good question, and thanks for the wonderful idea again balloonman (I loved, absolutly loved your study on CSD). I am sure someone else can answer better than me. Ikip22:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! I'm agreeing with you twice in one day! This suggestion is one of the most sensible I've seen here. Sorting by topic is much better than just chronological and alphabetical order. It also makes it easier for editors to get involved as they can clearly click on a link to articles sorted by a topic that interests them. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 22:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Balloonman/no index
Another step that can be taken that is less drastic than deletion, is to modify the template for unsource blp's so that they are not indexed. This will help keep them off of various search engines.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!17:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Even if we miss it at the get go, eventually it will drop out of the search engine caches. Which is better than staying there forever, so this seems an obvious one to me. Good idea. ++Lar: t/c20:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support this, if it is technically feasible. Ikip.
Support By the time the things go through speedy, speedy is contested and declined, then through AfD, the content can be all over the mirror/clone sites. Hide until "cleared" would be great. Esowteric+Talk18:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Oppose on technical grounds - Google indexes articles as soon as they are created (literally fast enough that I have trouble seeing the lag. Try searching an article in NEWPAGES in google, it almost always comes up). Since the page has already been crawled before any tags can be added, it's not as helpful to place a no-index tag as a solution. -- Bfigura(talk)18:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that while it would get captured by the various search engines, if we put a no index tag on it, the search engines would eventually drop them? EG if an article is left unattended for a week or two... or heaven forbid, a year it would not show up.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!22:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Articles exist for readers. If we don't want people to find an article, we shouldn't have it on the site. At best this will only be a temporary delay until enough mirror sites pick up the article to appear in Google results. Mr.Z-man18:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose sounds plausible at first , and would solve some problems, but would discourage fixing the articles, because the first step, is to encourage people to findthem and work on them--even those who do not usually edit Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 06:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As they have been abused in the past, I propose that protection is added to all biographies and user's accounts would have to be of a certain age or they should make a set amount of constructive edits before they can edit biographies. ToxicWasteGrounds (talk) 15:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
STRONG Oppose Never! That is just like inviting all the World Book editors to Wikipedia and kicking US out!-- iBentalk/contribsIf you reply here, please place a talkback notification on my page. 03:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll skip the eyebrow-raising behavioral aspect of what's happening and go straight to a proposal.
Proposal to establish schedule
This is in several parts, and you might agree with some and disagree with others.
We work to create a bot that finds and tags all unreferenced BLPs with a special template relating to its status.
The template could be based on or incorporate aspects of one I just created, {{UBF}}, that hides articles from viewers but preserves the text so that it can be reviewed and improved
The template is not to be removed by anyone (other than in cases of error) until the procedure is followed for clearing it.
Ideally someone could program a more sophisticated bot that flags articles sourced only to sources known to be unreliable, e.g. businesswire, blogs, facebook, IMDB, etc.
We set a schedule and a deadline for processing all of the articles
I would propose we do 4,000 per week for 3 months, either alphabetically or thematically (e.g. politicians, then athletes, etc.)
The bot / template will set a field for when the article's time is up.
Anyone is free to improve the article before then, but if it's not up to snuff by the due date it gets deleted
We can probably include another flag to indicate that the article has been improved, checked, and/or improved and found good enough to keep
Any article can still be speedied, prodded, or nominated for deletion at any time if it looks irredeemable, as long as it is done in good faith and not as a process fork - just like copyvios, clear BLP viols should be blanked or deleted on sight
I'm deliberately omitting from the proposal the question of who decides whether the article is worth keeping, and what the criteria are. That's a different issue. This is just about the schedule.
We create a "BLP brigade" project and socialize it as a noble pursuit on Wikipedia.
We should include userboxes, barnstars, achievement badges, praise, etc., and use it as a way to train serious new editors who want to improve their Wikipedia skills (and old ones who enjoy it)
We probably need 100-500 active editors to be doing this. If we can't get enough that's just tough luck then, we gave it a try and the articles not improved will be deleted (probably at the discretion of a reviewing administrator)
Favor in general, not sure at all that schedules and deadlines will work, and they might be counterproductive in demoralizing participants; making it a common practice for WikiProjects to deal with unsourced BLPs in their fields would build on existing brigades -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The template idea in particular is awesome. It removes the "problematic" material from immediate public viewing, satisfying the "do something now!" crowd, while retaining the information in the history so that the original contributions are preserved, and people working to source data are not rushed or at risk of burnout as they work through the backlog. I think your schedule is excessively ambitious, and do not support that part of the proposal. Neutral on the last part, as well. RayTalk04:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support. Auto-tagging with a deadline sounds good. I'm not sure about hiding the content or the specific numbers and I couldn't care less about a BLP brigade, but still seems like a good way to make people fix it or let it die. The catch would be in getting notice to people who would care about the articles up for deletion. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Bearian. 4,000 a week is way too much to be manageable. Many of the currently-tagged articles were tagged by bots, often incorrectly, missing plain links or non-inline references. I don't support a new deletion process for these at all. The "BLP Brigade" idea is a good one though, and is already happening.--Michig (talk) 12:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting idea. You say the bot would flag 4000 per week, but you don't suggest how long a given article would remain flagged before it became deletable. Some suggestions if this is to fly:
The bot should also notify the article creator and any major contributors when it flags an article. A "major contributor" being anyone who edited more than, say 5 times, and whose edits increased the size of the article by more than 20%, say.
The bot shpuld look for not only inline refernces but for external links. It shoud remove any existing BLPunreferenced tag (or repalce it with BLPrefimprove) if it finds references.
There must be human review at some point before deletion. It is not acceptable to delete things after a fixed time period based only on the taggign by a bot -- bots are just not smart enough to trust for that.
Most of the articles at issue in this debate won't even have 5 editors much less editors with more than 5 edits. And percentage doesn't mean much. 20% of a two-sentence stub is a couple of words or a DAB hatnote. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with DESiegel that some questions are unanswered, but overall it probably will be necessary to have deadlines, regardless what the overall solution is. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 13:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting proposals that have merit. I agree with others that some details might need tweaking but there might be something useful to come out of this. Note these proposals are not mutually exclusive to some other proposals made here. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with others that there are some very good ideas here. I do think some sort of timetable is essential, or this debate will be in vain and little will be done. However, I too wonder whether it is "too much, too fast", as Bearian stated in his opposition. 4,000 a week seems unrealistic. It might work with 500 editors, but can we really count on recruiting that many who will consistently reference 8 articles every week? I think the lower figure of 100 editors might end up being more realistic, especially after the initiall "let's fix it" craze dies down. And that would mean every one of those editors would have to fix 40 articles a week. Many people regrettably don't have the time to do that.
I think the template idea is fabulous -- every BLP affected at a given time should have a template explicitly stating that it is unreferenced, and may therefore not be accurate, and that it will be nominated for deletion on x/x/x if valid references are not added by then. Note that I said nominate -- I agree with DESiegel that there must be human review, either through AfD or a separate program as is most reasonable (though any such program would have to be highly efficient). Automatic deletion could cause problems.
The "BLP Brigade" idea is excellent. I am in full support of that, and I agree that it is a good and useful way to train new editors and get them involved in the management of the project. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!20:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Martin451
I suggest that if articles are prodded by one of the above methods then:
No bots should be used, semi automated prodding is ok.
The person prodding, should judge the notability of the person and article, and apply a parameter to the prod accordingly, marking the most notable few for extra work. Prods could then be listed by notability.
An admin (and only an admin) reviewing the expired prod can extend the life of the prod for the most notable people.
This would hopefully mean that a few of the most notable unreferenced BLPs would be saved.
As an example, I have just found Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking in the list of unreferenced BLPs. He was a top UK politician, and held the position of Home Secretary, one of the four top political offices in the UK. Whilst a lot of unreferenced BLPs are boarderline notability, it would be a shame to loose ones like this.
Don't agree with 3, but I do have concerns about automated processing here. A quick review of some of the articles tagged showed me that 4 of 10 articles I reviewed had sources. An automated process might simply delete those items.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!19:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Prodding should not be done by bots. Ideally, it should also highlight the articles most in need of sources or likely to have them. Robofish (talk) 03:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
This is pointless. The amount of work it would take to establish notability - i.e. to find multiple instances of non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources is precisely what it would take to source the article! If AfD often takes a week to decide if something is notable then a PROD-like process isn't appropriate for it. Even the notability aspect of WP:CSD is cut-and-dry: Does the article at least assert some kind of notability, sourcedly or not? (No one has to do anything but read the article to decide that.) — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 14:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While not in such harsh terms, I agree with SMc above: this puts too much onus on the prodder, when one considers the best place for this onus is on the article creator. It is not a big deal to undelete and article. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 18:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would indeed be a shame to lose it. However, if someone puts a 'delete per unreferenced BLP' tag on the article, I'm pretty sure someone will come along sharpish and put in requisite citations. Ohconfucius¡digame!02:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I can agree with no automated short-term prodding, but giving a longer deadline and appropriate notifications (to creator/editors/projects/whatever) seems like the perfect job to be done by a bot. The manpower involved in establishing notability before prodding just wouldn't work. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion or sourcing of all of our 50,000 unreferenced BLPs would, if achieved, solve only a small part of the BLP problem. We have over 400,000 BLPs in total, many of which are still of marginal notability and are waiting to collect libel. In a similar manner to the Targeted flagging proposal, unwatched BLPs should be indefinitely semi-protected. ⇌ JakeWartenberg02:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLP issues are about content generally, not articles specifically. An article can have ten sources but twenty unsourced libellous statements. Take this disgraceful piece of rubbish about a prominent politician: a lengthy article with a number of thinly used sources, combined with a number of blatant unsourced POV claims that amount to libel and an unsourced "these are the great awards that this great man has won" section. These problems are probably worse than harmless unsourced BLP stubs. --Mkativerata (talk) 02:54, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that sourcing is irrelevant to the concerns being expressed, the lack of watchlist coverage is a much better indicator of risk. I said it before and I'll say it again here, sources don't prevent libel, editors do. Gigs (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another excellent piece to add to the puzzle. It would be good to see other proposals that also help address other aspects to this entire situation. As this view correctly notes, the unreferenced articles are but a fraction of the sum total. The remainder are largely poor referenced, underwatched articles about individuals relatively close to the notability bar for inclusion.Vassyana (talk) 07:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Regrettable, but sound. It's a core WP idea that wherever possible anyone should be allowed to improve anything. But unwatched (and also lightly watched articles, probably) do need special care. Another alternative would be a patrollable list of edits to lightly watched articles. Jheald (talk) 10:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
All BLPs should be protected while we wait for this mythical flagged protection to arrive. Semi-protection is useful, but it most definitely is nothing more than a stop-gap measure. After flagged protection is available, we should switch to that. NW(Talk)02:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Iff the semi-protection is done manually, with review of each article before applying it. Semiprotection without review is worthless. Mr.Z-man18:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that all unwatched (or possibly all, period) BLP articles should be semi-protected (ie that anonymous/IP edits cannot be made) - and it's unrelated to whether an article is sourced or not. I am not in favour of semi-protection for all articles, just for BLP. I'd guess that at bad times, probably about 1/3rd of IP edits in general are vandalism or otherwise unwanted - but that means that 2/3rds are good, and we want to keep them. But with BLP, the vast majority of IP edits seem to be vandalism, non-notable, fandom, POV, or are otherwise inappropriate and need to be reverted. By semi-protecting BLP articles, we would prevent a lot of bad edits (and block very few good ones), avoid organised edit-wars from fans, minimise libel, and free up anti-vandalism resources that could be better used elsewhere. Oscroft (talk) 13:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
Oppose. I feel strongly that protection should be the last line of defense against vandalism and the majority of the BLPs simply don't require that level of protection. Also, deleting/sourcing all unreferenced BLPs is at least a small step in the right direction and so should be made. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments:
Just so we're clear, this is a proposal to remove from anons the ability to edit all "unsourced BLPs", however that is determined. I just have to point out that the extremely controversial "get rid of anon editing" camp would get a lot of what they want, and be in a strong position to move forward. PS: Probably the only want to enforce such a topical ban would be to prevent anon bio article editing at all, since a BLP with one source today might be a BLP with no sources tomorrow, for any of a number of reasons. I will not offer an opinion pro, con or neutral on changes to anon editing privileges. I'm just noting that this proposal goes in that direction, in strong favor of one side to a years-long controversy, yet this is supposed to be a discussion about BLP enforcement not the future of anon editing, so this shouldn't go unnoticed in the shuffle. Adopting this proposal would have consequences far outside the this unsource BLP issue. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀContribs. 14:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While the proposal to semi-protect BLPs seems appealing on the surface, I'm not sure it would actually help. Sure, anons add nonsense to articles. And a lot of it is removed by bots before any human editor gets to it. But anons also fix articles, and remove obvious smears. Semi-protection eliminates anons, but it's fairly easy to circumvent for any determined person. Each new controversy brings a flood of editors who haven't edited in a couple years. These aren't (usually) sleeper socks, they're people who registered a username long ago, and never edited. Most people determined to smear someone need only dredge up the account they registered in 2007.
And, of course, this presumes that unsourced articles attract more troublesome edits than sourced ones. I can't say this has been my experience. Guettarda (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure how one determines an "unwatched BLP". That said, if one could make that determination, I have mixed feelings about such a harsh default, but on the whole I think I would weakly support it. But I certainly will admit it would be weak, and that I may very well change my mind in the future. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much too imprecise and inconsistent with the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" idea. Most BLPs never need protection, but many articles that are not biographies but contain sensitive BLP content do. A selective flagged revisions approach is much more discriminating and would be preferable. Sandstein 19:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that sourcing all these articles is not going to have much of an impact, but I think a better way of dealing with unwatched BLPs is to put them on someone's watchlist. I would be happy to stick some on mine, and I'm sure a number of other editors would as well. These articles aren't edited regularly so it wouldn't put too much of a burden on anyone. Hut 8.518:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure this will help. Firstly, because anon IPs will be unable to improve these articles (and they often do so at the moment). Secondly, just because an article is on someone's watchlist doesn't mean they're paying active attention to it - I speak from experience here. Robofish (talk) 03:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More correctly identifies that the problem isn't just unsourced BLPs - but a system like flagged revisions would be more in spirit with an encyclopedia anyone can edit than wide swathes of semi-protection. This is exactly what people were afraid semi-protection would be misused for when it was implemented. Prodegotalk18:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Politicians talk, leaders act. Those who oppose these initiatives have had years to acknowledge the problem and show at least some willingness to address this. Opt-out was shot down, semi for BLPs was shot down, flagging was shot down and then stalled. We're not waiting any longer. This is gonna happen and by repeatedly opposing the far less radical solutions that have been proposed in the past you've shown that you cannot be relied upon to take this seriously. BLP incubation and ridiculously low throttles on how many articles can be dealt with per day are all just more ways to stall this. We're not buying that anymore. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 07:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with User:Baccyak4H. Why do we have core policies in the first place if we're not going to follow them? It appears that the core policies themselves would fail if put up to the community today. If the core polices aren't going to be enforced across the board, then they are just another set of guidelines, and we should so designate them. - BilCat (talk) 04:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this statement
If they were shot down, have you ever considered that the community Opposes them? What makes your opinion worth more than that of others? True, Politicians talk, and leaders act. But Leaders act on what their populace wants in a polity, monarchy, or aristocracy. Leaders act for their own interests in a Tyranny or Oligarchy. (definitions taken from my AP Gov book) ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers08:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the comment that those opposing summary deletion of unreferenced BLPs have done little to solve the backlog. The truth is that thousands of unreferenced BLPs have been sourced in the past few months (I've done thousands myself) and the backlog has been steadily declining at least since November (probably longer, but I wasn't paying as much attention). If the backlog is only reduced by 1,000 articles per month, it will take a long time to eliminate, however, the pace has clearly picked up since DASHBot's notices. I agree that there are plenty of unreferenced BLPs that should be deleted (I've PROD'ed over 100 by now), but the current processes work well for this. Jogurney (talk) 12:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused because you didn't qualify your statement about opponents of these initiatives to summarily delete unreferenced BLPs. As I stated, progress on the backlog is being made and the current article deletion procedures are working. There is no need for such drastic action. Jogurney (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Those who oppose these initiatives have had years to acknowledge the problem : Proof that unreferenced BLP are a problem per se is still lacking. We had years to acknowledge a non-problem? --Cyclopiatalk13:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ask OTRS how much time is spent on this issue or ask Oversight. Alternative, spend some time going through the articles tagged as unsourced and see for yourself. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Been there,done that. Turns out that a pessimistic estimate is ~0.2% of all BLPs (sourced or not) being actually problematic. And anyway there is still no proof in sight that unsourced BLPs show an higher rate of OTRS-related incidents. Waiting for data. --Cyclopiatalk14:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! Of course! All we need is a strong leader who tells us what to do, preferably by shouting at the top of his voice at a huge rally of awe-struck followers, who then grab the torches and crowbars and do what must be done! It's so obvious a solution to any problem, I wonder why nobody ever thought of that before! Sandstein 19:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein's comment is both apposite and humorous. Suggest Vyvyan Basterd revisits the wording of their view to note that the amount of rhetorical statement might impede a neutral reading of the material content. SilkTork *YES!22:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Most 'leaders' usually deliver eventually, or finally figure out that they themselves are the problem and step down, or ultimately they get shot in the back of the head. Failure after failure, for five years? You are no leader, you're incompetent. MickMacNee (talk) 03:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not that people do not "acknowledge the problem". The issue is that it is difficult to arrive at a solution, but certain admins lack sufficient patience. These admins should ask themselves if their temperament is compatible with a collegial project. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Some claims in this view are false. Opt-out has nothing to do with sourcing and reliability. Flagged Revisions were not shot, they were approved, but stalled due to the circumstances that lie outside the control of Wikipedia editors. These circumstances are mainly technical. If you want to accelerate FR implementation you should learn how to write code in PHP. Ruslik_Zero18:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Those who support the urgency o fsourcing these articles had years to do it. We all share the blame for not having improved the articles, in the meanwhile. To the extent we failed to do so, I don;t think it's fair to try to evade the problem by removing the traces of our failure, but rather set to belatedly do what we should have done earlier. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC) .[reply]
Oppose - Just because other peoples' ideas aren't working (some might even say wrong) doesn't make yours the right one or the one we should take. --Sin Harvest (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above. Also this is a collectively written encyclopaedia. If you want an example of how to effectively improve BLPs look at User:DASHBot not at the recent deletionist spree. ϢereSpielChequers15:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - While past failures are clear, progress is now been made, and some things like flagged revisions are outside the control of the community. Consensus is what Wikipedia was built on, and bulldozing it will cause more harm than good, no matter what the intentions are. Camaron · Christopher ·talk13:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support, with the caveat that this is a moral support only. Lacking a concrete way forward towards solving the problem. --Jayron3207:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Problematic" is a loaded word: there are still no proofs whatsoever that being unreferenced is a problem (or at least a problem of such magnitude to require mass deletion). So, we had years to fix them? Yes. Were we in a rush to fix them, were them a priority? Not at all, despite today's moral panic. --Cyclopiatalk17:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only people who are legally and morally responsible for any given problematic BLP are its author and, under certain rare circumstances, the Wikimedia Foundation. You, I and "the community" are unpaid volunteers of the Foundation's project and are not responsible for problematic BLPs that we did not write. That does not mean, of course, that we shouldn't do our best to fix them anyway. But as long as this is a volunteer project, people can do whatever work they want, and if they don't want to source or delete other people's bad BLPs, we can't force them to help out with that. Sandstein 19:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's not my point, though. I'm not arguing that we should force anybody to do anything they don't want, but if they choose not to help clear the unsourced BLP backlog, they don't have much room to complain when other people do so themselves. –Juliancolton | Talk19:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sandstein, not exactly... I'm in a LEGO club. It's run by volunteers, and we all work on what we want to work on. But we have scope, and rules, and regulations and the whole schmeel. If someone turns up and says "I want to display fingerpaintings at your layout" we say "no, thanks, that's not what we are volunteering about". So, if we WPians want, we can say to all our volunteers "THIS is what we are working on today... not that and not this other thing either". We can (if we wanted to be drastic) say "either you help fix BLPs the way we outline, here, or don't do anything at all" or we can (less drastically) say "you can help the myriad problems with BLPs get fixed, or you can work on something else entirely but we've disallowed creating any new BLPs" or (even less drastically) say "any unsourced BLP is subject to deletion... you can fix it, or you can not participate at all in this area, but you can't add more unsourced material and you can't remove the tags that flag it as unsourced."... None of that says that any particular volunteer has a responsibility for something they didn't write, but it does demonstrate we can constrain volunteer activity as needed to address the problem. We may lose a lot of volunteers. Or a few. Or none. Or gain them. Who knows. ++Lar: t/c19:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the proposal you endored above for NW does just that... it says that if somebody wrote an article a "while back" they are now responsible for it, even if the article no longer resembles the one they originally wrote or are no longer involved with the article.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!23:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with Bearian; I think the issue is that "unreferenced" is a completely inaccurate proxy for "problematic", and removing the unreferenced ones only buys a false sense of confidence. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Responsibility in this case, would be to get out your Google, and start sourcing away, not start deleting useful biographies just because we weren't strict citationists back in 2006. RayTalk03:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The term problematic is ambiguous. I suspect that Juliancolton considers any unsourced BLP "problematic" per se. I do not. I think this term can useful be applied only to those that have actual problems, for example those that might plausibly be considered defamatory were some of their statements inaccurate. In short, BLPs with unsourced, or possibly incorrectly sourced, contentious statements, particularly negative statements. Those are indeed problematic, and identifying them and dealing with them, by either sourcing or removing the problematic statements, should be an urgent matter. If we can source uncontentious BLPs along the way, so much the better, but that should not have nearly as much urgency, in my view. I also suspect that by "be responsible" Juliancolton delete promptly, or at elast not oppose such deletions. If so, i disagree. I think that deletion of unsourced non-contentious BLPs without actively searching for sources is in fact quite irresponsible. DES(talk)05:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support the statement taken literally but oppose what I infer from it. The community has had years to improve BLPs but it will have many more years, because there is no deadline. It's always time to be responsible, but I do not consider the mass deletion of useful content to be responsible behaviour. Certes (talk) 14:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Collaborative views
How to edit here: if you can tweak an existing proposal for clarity, or add an additional argument that strengthens it, do so. If you agree with the basic idea but would prefer different parameters, say so in your endorsement.
BLP incubation
A big part of the problem is that the stream of new unreferenced BLPs is never-ending. Unsourced BLPs should be incubated after a time (or in some cases userfied). Articles in the incubator are automatically {{noindex}}ed and in general are deleted after a month of incubation.
Proposal:
New unreferenced BLPs (new = created in 2010 or later), if they are more than 1 month old, get tagged with {{prod|newunrefBLP}}. The tag may not be removed without the article being sourced to the minimum standard. If at the end of 1 week of being tagged they're referenced to the minimum standard, the tag is removed. Otherwise, the article gets either incubated, userfied, at admin discretion (in consultation with the creator).
minimum standard is demonstration of notability with reference to reliable sources which are independent of the subject.
in the incubator, articles have around a month to come up to minimum standard (as standard for the incubator), or risk deletion. This period could be extended for BLP incubation, particularly if the volume of articles suggests it's necessary. (It's at admin discretion anyway.)
Old unreferenced BLPs (pre-2010) go through basically the same process. The difference is that because of the backlog, the rate of nomination has to be kept low enough to be manageable. Starting point for discussion: max 1000 old articles tagged for BLPincubation at any one time (i.e. max 1000 in Category:Old unreferenced BLPs proposed for incubation).
in part. Some approach like this is needed, but 1 we could do higher quality work with smaller numbers, such as 500 a week maximum. 2, I do not see the point of waiting 1 month for new BLPs--the time to deal with them, and other unsourced articles, is right at the start when the editor who placed them is available., and 3 the minimum standard is not enough RS to show notability. The minimum standard is an RS to show that the indication of plausible notability is real . DGG ( talk )17:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with allowing them to be fixed up outside of the mainspace but I don't really support the use of a prod system here. See my proposal for my full opinion. ThemFromSpace19:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fits almost everything we want: NPP loses its biggest stress factor, removes the content from mainspace and indexing, non-bitey, minimal policy changes, automatically categorizes everything we're worried about, if openly listed can cut down on duplicate articles, makes it easy to start a editor group like... WikiprojectBLPstubs tasked with contacting the publishing editors to inform about BLP and at least get the article to stub-class so it can safely rest in the mainspace soon or eventually. Does need more details, but it can hit every one of these troubles at once. Seems too logical to ever be implemented, I fear. ♪daTheisen(talk)06:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
cautious support, Incubator shouldnt become a dumping ground for blp articles, deletion from incubator should be a quick process as extended time to address sourcing has already been given Gnangarra16:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a new process that invites gaming. It's better I think to work with smaller numbers but a more definite process. The idea that people will patrol an "incubator" but won't be prepared to patrol the deletion category is puzzling to me. I've always wondered why more inclusionists don't patrol WP:PROD, I rarely see a prod tag removed by any editor who is not already active on that article (and it's usually the article creator). Guy (Help!) 17:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. How does it invite gaming? If you think the numbers are too high, fine, suggest lower ones (or an extended period in the incubator). And the point of incubation is that people get two bites at the cherry: once at the nomination for incubation (1 week), once in the incubator (c 1 month, or more if agreed necessary). Rd232talk17:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The differences between mine and Jehochman's proposal are minor, aside from mine going into more detail, partly as a result of prior discussion at WT:PROD. And by the by, the perennial question: who's to know (especially in a mass deletion scenario) whether something's worth the bother of requesting? Rd232talk18:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. We admins can do it, and we will do it if we need to, but if we're going to do anything else we need the participation of all the other good editors to do the screening also. Most good editors are not admins. DGG ( talk ) 11:16, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At minimum, new unsourced BLPs need to be deleted. If everything is just moved to the incubator, working through the backlog will be much harder. Mr.Z-man22:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But not through CSD. I can support deleting them through PROD, but a new editor may not know or realize that they need references. This does not mean that A7/A10 are over writtent... just that we shouldn't CSD new articles without giving the author a chance to get the sources.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!23:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse idea but it's far too lax. I think we should simply allow for speedy deletion of new unsourced BLPs, and best if done immediately and with a little friendly counseling to the editors who create them. Of course you can game that, you can game anything here. But a good faith editor who really wants to do good around here will probably react to their first BLP article being deleted by learning how to source articles properly. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:24, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, because we are so good at friendly counseling new users as is. Speedy deleting new unsourced BLPs is a really, fantastically bad idea. Prod might make sense or something like this. Or even you know, flagged revisions which would go a long way to dealing with a lot of these issues. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can write a really friendly templated notice with lots of bunnies and unicorns on it. But seriously, I think a quick correction as soon as someone creates something that we've decided is deletable is a lot less BITE-y than letting their creation sit around for a long time, or dragging them into a difficult deletion process. The new page patrollers are already pretty bitey to begin with, and often generate false positives. I don't think expanding their duties to include policing unreferenced BLPs would make that problem any better or worse. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why cannot people just write the article offline, find sources (even if it takes months) and then create the new BLP? I concur with others that it will create more problems than it will solve. This is not so much the fault of the proposal per se, but of the lack of understanding of some empirical features of the project itself. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
People can, but typically don't/won't do that, particularly newcomers. Attempting to force it will simply reduce the flow of new valid articles and of new editors on which the project depends. DES(talk)21:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly the rate of creation of new unreferenced BLPs is a problem, but we need to cut it down rather than design structures to accommodate it. Yes, this will be more trouble for newcomers, but we must be more upfront about our core values of sourcing and respect for living people. (Nor is it just newcomers: many of these are created by established users, at a faster rate.) Mixing in notability is also unhelpful – there are already processes for assessing that. The issue here is whether whether the things an article says about a living person are sourced in the article. Kanguole15:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Following Henrik's suggestion above, I have created {{UBF}} (short for "unreferenced BLP flag") that can be used in place of {{BLP unreferenced}}, the primary difference being that this flags and hides the text of any BLP. By setting a parameter you can decide to show the article anyway, put it in a collapse box, or blank it for the viewer. If we can get people to hide all of the unreferenced BLPs for now that should take the pressure off while we consider different approaches to improving or deleting them. The template could use some more work, and I invite people to play around with it and help me over at the template page. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, the NOINDEX magic word and templates that use it does not work in the main articel namespace, and this cannot be easily changed. I could be mistaken abut thios but I don't think so. To have the effect of noindexing, pages would need to be moved into project space, as the Incubator does (the incubator template includes the noindex function. Aside from that this template might be useful. DES(talk)02:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I noticed that. The __NOINDEX__ magic word, and the {{NOINDEX}} template that calls it, are disabled on Wikipedia's instance of the software. I'm wondering if there's a WML hack that will get around that, e.g. inserting an HTML noindex tag directly into the article.- Wikidemon (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't try. They are off for a reason, not just because of lack of care. They do work in other namespaces, they are specifically and deliberately disabled in the article space. Circumventing both the developer's intent in disabling them and the previous community consensus to not ask devs to make them work there would be bad. Gigs (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't that suggest then that the content should remain indexed? Alternately we could move all the articles to a different namespace and leave just a placeholder and a link in main space. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
BLPs are the sharp end of a problem that potentially affects all articles. Also referencing alone, while important, is not sufficient to ensure high standards.
In parallel with other ideas, I would urge the creation of a "Draft:" namespace as follows.
Clearly defined working space - Provides a communal space where new BLPs can be posted (instead of mainspace and user space) while being worked on and prior to being ready to meet the requirements of WP:BLP. The namespace can also be used for any other article being drafted. Makes draft articles more visible and easier to collaborate and patrol. Also note user space and mainspace are INDEXed; this space would be NOINDEXED and not linked from articles so drafts would be much less harmful.
Benefits for in-work or substandard BLPs - BLPs ready for mainspace can be moved to mainspace; conversely BLPs in mainspace that are in an unacceptable state but may be capable of fixing can be moved to Draft: without redirect. This prevents BLPs doing harm while the wiki process of improvement and collaboration is in process, and is less WP:BITEy, giving a fair chance to improve the problems. The author or major editors are notified of the page move.
Easy to patrol - Bots can automatically patrol for mainspace articles that are in BLP categories and also have major content issues such as no referencing or NPOV tags, and move them to Draft: (basically page move without redirect). As with BLP itself it's better to move a dubious and tagged article out of mainspace upon suspicion without redirect, and then discuss the content issue at leisure, which makes moving a BLP to Draft: less contentious. If consensus agrees the article is okay, reinstate to mainspace afterwards.
Easier to "banner" - all draft pages can be given a banner stating clearly the article below is not an encyclopedia article, it is a user draft and should not be relied upon. Similar to {{user page}}. Also explains how what to do if there are concerns and how to request deletion of a Draft:.
Gives fair time for fixing before deletion - Pages in Draft: that have not been worked on for more than a given period are automatically {{PROD}}ed.
Compatible with current process - Egregious bad BLPs that would still be a problem in draft space can still be redacted or deleted as usual.
Changes onus on new BLP creation - At present BLPs are created in mainspace by default. If AFD is needed, or there are discussions about referencing and balance, it often still gets its 5 days in mainspace by which time it's comprehensively linked and spidered. If there were a Draft: space, then it might be possible to move to a position where a new BLP doesn't get linked or spidered in the first place, until it meets WP:BLP.
Advantages: - solves the brunt of the bad BLP problem; BLPs of unacceptable standard are immediately removed from the encyclopedia on better terms than userspace drafts; much reduces window for questionable or bad BLP spidering (including new BLPs); less BITEy and encourages fixing where able; idea scales to other articles and to drafting in general if it works; sustainable; no more edit-warrable than current process; probably a good idea anyway (userspace drafting is both INDEXed and hard to patrol).
I wouldn't quite go so far as to say that I endorse every word of this, but it's certainly an interesting idea. It could be blended with the whole "articles for creation" model. Guettarda (talk) 16:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Provided that once adequately sourced, drafts are allowed to become articles and this is not seized by those who would have it be a place where articles go to die and new contributors are dissuaded from participating. A logical extension of the incubator that addresses important issues beyond this particular debate. Skomorokh 18:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Flagged Revisions! by far the best middle path resolution to this issue. Tell Mr. Wales and the others who oppose it to please let us have something that will allow for reasonable fixes to this serious problem. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not quite flagged revisions, as once moved to mainspace future edits would be applied at once, and would not need anyone's approval to go live. Also, IP viewers could read (and edit) such drafts, provided they know how to do so, which is not true with FR as I understand it. This is rather a much enlarged version of the incubator, as user:Skomorokh says above. Moreover, it need not even use a new namespace (although that would be good). Pending creation of such a new namespace, all such draft pages could simply be subpages of Wikipedia:Article drafts or some such page. Not a bad idea at all. DES(talk)20:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see the harm in a Draft: namespace, and for new articles at least, it would certainly resolve some of the issues we now have. It wouldn't be my first choice of solution to the problem, but it is better than many of those proposed. Orderinchaos15:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong endorse. I think this idea is complete brilliance. Right now our deletion process has to choose between Keep or Delete. Good articles will always be keep, pure bad faith articles will always be delete, but what about the gray in between. A draft namespace would let us keep substandard articles for reference but acknowledge they're problematic. --Alecmconroy (talk) 01:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the idea is not to have poor quality material floating round eternally. Articles in draftspace would be there on the basis they are being worked on (and notified to the author) in order to move to mainspace. FT2(Talk | email)15:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope we will implement flagged revisions soon, and in such a way that unsighted biography stubs remain invisible to search engines, mirrors and the general public. Invisible, that is, until and unless Joe Public tries to create the same article (in which case they can be told that there already is an unapproved draft they can make use of) or asks to see "an unapproved draft article", with a warning that this was created by an anonymous or not yet trusted user and may be unreliable. --JN46617:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The mainspace is already a draft namespace. Per WP:General disclaimer, we do not guarantee that anything in mainspace, including BLPs, is correct at any given time (although of course we try to make it so). Such is the nature of an encyclopedia that anybody can edit. We should continue to educate the public that despite our efforts to the contrary our articles (including BLPs) may at any time be wrong and should therefore not be relied upon for any important purpose. Your proposal would give the opposite, and untrue, impression that mainspace BLPs can be presumed to be reviewed and correct. Sandstein 11:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is. And that's the problem. As a top 5 website should mainspace be the first port of call for any new-draft BLP? BLP policy, the recent mass deletion and Arbcom's endorsement of admin actions related to substandard BLPs, suggests that mainspace is not the appropriate place for drafting BLP articles. A BLP article simply should not exist in mainspace until/unless already of a high quality. Educating the public runs alongside that, but it doesn't replace it or excuse its absence. FT2(Talk | email)12:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a much simpler solution for that. The original, unmodified Flagged Revisions as they exit on de.wikipedia prevents a new article from appearing to non-registered users until it has been patrolled. This not only serves the same purpose as this, but further also prevents the other major issue of having new copyvios on display until an admin has time to work down the backlog at WP:SCV. And it could be turned on immediately. MLauba (talk) 11:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
the first step, though, is to try the proposed experiment. Then we can see how it works and whether we want to proceed further along that line. I think everyone agrees it would go far towards solving the problem, if it proved practical, and did not discourage new users. Making over-extensive changes in the meantime is introducing too many variables and destroying the validity of the test. DGG ( talk ) 12:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Everything can change. But just because everything can change, it does not follow that everything is acceptable as an article. Some drafts are not acceptable as articles. FT2(Talk | email)15:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing because a much simpler solution exists which would do the same thing: Simply NOINDEX all BLPs by default until sourced/checked by a human editor. Similar to patrolling. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Hmm, after reading above that my alternative might not be workable (and admitting I do not know either way), I am striking my opposition. However, it still strikes me as being overkill ("everything is a draft"); I feel a less complex way can certainly be found. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the reason some people are up in arms against unsourced BLPs is that there have been some nasty instances where BLPs have done harm, and that the problem of unsourced BLPs has not gone away. The reason some people are up in arms against deleting them is that many of the articles are on undisputably valid subjects, e.g. I just went ahead and sourced an unsourced BLP about an Olympic gold medalist.
Just a wild suggestion: What if all editors must contribute to source at least one of the BLPs in Category:All unreferenced BLPs for each comment made on this RFC? That would at least force people to see both sides of the issue, crap articles which should be deleted and valid articles which should be sourced. Perhaps that will create some empathy for the opposing viewpoint and lower the temperature. It really would be better if everyone makes a small contribution to make the matters better instead of just complaining about it. Sjakkalle(Check!)15:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That BLP articles have the biggest potential to create an adverse impact on Wikipedia and The Foundation and that the community needs to take action to mittigate any such potential by ensuring that all BLP articles are sourced inaccordance with WP:BLP by properly utilising verifiable and reliable sources to support any facts. BLP articles that are unsourced need to be sourced or delete in a timely fashion any deletion should occur after editors have had an opportunity to address sourcing.
Wikipedia has been and continues to be a work in progress and that community standards have continued to be adapted to address issue as they arrise. The need for citations was not a primary concern during the early developement of Wikpedia the community has since 2007 focused on ensuring that all facts are sourced. This change in standards should be taken into account when considering how to address the number of unsourced BLP articles. Gnangarra15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly. While I think it preferable that an opportunity be given to address sourcing before deletion, I do not think it necessary in that if the community decides to go with delete-on-sight, I do not think it a bad thing, only not the best thing. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This summarizes my position very well. I'd wager the majority of unsourced BLPs are/were created out of ignorance of community standards, or because the standards at the time of creation were very different. We've finally got better tools to help editors clean those up (the bot that was informing creators was a BIG help for a lot of users); let's work on improving those tools and see if perhaps we can get the backlog reduced. Karanacs (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A good summary of my own thoughts, especially "any deletion should occur after editors have had an opportunity to address sourcing"
those who oppose this summary
Our policies have never required all facts to have a source cited, only the contentious ones and ones likely to be challenged. This view is way down the page so less people see it, but I think it's clear from the views above that there's no consensus to require all facts to be sourced, even in BLPs. Gigs (talk) 13:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen far more damaging stuff in articles not tagged as unreferenced BLPs than in the articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs. By all means try to focus Wikipedian effort into problematic parts of the pedia, but be prepared for that not to be longstanding BLPs. ϢereSpielChequers20:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
Initially article processes like WP:FAC, WP:GAC or project A class assestments could take a lead in addressing the sourcing problems by adopting a requirement that any BLP linked to a nominated article needs to sourced before the nominated article can be promoted, which is similar to requirement of licensing and/or fair use rationale for media.
Deletion should be in reverse cronological order allowing a greater time frame for older articles which were created under different standards any such process should have an active notification process at or before an article is listed for deletion even to the point of emailing the creator of the article where possible. Gnangarra15:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As an FAC delegate, I would not enforce this provision at all. Those processes exist to analyze a specific article, not all the articles that it links to (and what about the ones those articles link to?). There could be any number of serious problems with some of the articles that are linked (including blatant POV, copyvios, plagiarism, other vandalism), but these are not in the remit of the FAC/GAC processes. This would discourage people from nominating articles and certainly discourage people from reviewing them. Karanacs (talk) 21:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If a BLP is significant enough to warrant inclusion in an article thats at FAC then thats person inclusion is supported by a reference, so we have a situation that an unsourced article is left unfixed when we have an editor(s) with sources to address the problem. How can we call an article our best work when it relies on articles that violate our policies to provide additional information. Gnangarra01:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because it's not a particular article's fault that another article has problems, unlike with pages containing FU images that have poor rationales. To use your analogy, that would be akin to not promoting an article because a linked article has a problematic image. There's also an issue of practicality. Every major content review process is dealing with backlogs as it is. As a site, we're having trouble finding reviewers for them. I doubt the reviewers we have are going to go for clicking on every BLP link in an article when they're busy enough as is. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
short poorly sourced stub articles a re common feature of links from FA and GA it caused by the process that discourages redlinks in articles, FA/GA need to recognis that their processes are a contribution factor to the problems and accept the burden of cleaning up the issues caused. Gnangarra13:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why not stop/ban all FA/GA work for a month to encourage work at the end other end of the quality pile? Why polish the silverware when the foundations are crumbling?The-Pope (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Gnangarra, if you feel that strongly that linked BLPs should be sourced/expanded, I suggest that you bring up the issue on the projects' talk pages. Many of the leading content reviewers are likely not following this RfC that closely. As for the suggestion that the review processes should be shut down, this is a volunteer website and people are going to edit what they want to edit. Obviously we haven't spent enough time with uncited BLPs as a community, but I don't see how shutting down the review processes would change editors' priorities; they would just be angered that they couldn't get their work reviewed. Oh, and red links are much more an issue for featured lists than FAs. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I never said shut FAC or GAC that was a suggestion by The-Pope all I is raised in this forumn an alternative approach that would assist in the cleanup of BLP and which will have an ongoing affect. If a FAC has reason to link to BLP then surely while checking the link to ensure its the right person they could add their source to an unreferenced article thus removing some of the backlog which addresses the greatest point of contention which is that unref-BLP's should be sourced rather than deleted. As an indication of the willingness of the community to accept some the burden the responses to this discussion only strengthens the case that deletion of unsourced BLP is the best solution because community isnt willing to take on any cleanup activity that will put onus on them to do something. Gnangarra16:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by SarekOfVulcan
Since obscure unreferenced BLPs may require offline work to source, no period shorter than 7 days should be used. If an article is tagged on Sunday night, an editor who needs to wait until the weekend to go to the library will be out of luck.
In fact even seven days is likely to be excessively short in many cases, unless the result is not true deletion but incubation or some similar holding area. Fourteen days seems more like a good minimum to me. Several people suggest that an editor can instead ask for undeletion. This works when a single specific article is being worked on by a particular (knowledgeable) editor. It will not work when an editor is trying to keep up with lsits of articles proposed/tagged for deletion. It also does not work if the editor is not an admin and has not already examined the article, because without examining the article's text an editor cannot determine if it is a good candidate for sourcing, nor even what search terms might be useful. It also does not work for relative newcomers to the project, whoi will not know where to find deletion review nor how to ask for undeletion/userfcation, and will find such processes threatening, with the probable result that they simply abandon the effort, and we lose a potentially worthwhile article, and perhaps a potentially useful editor. DES(talk)20:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, although I would not be opposed to blanking or otherwise hiding the text while the article is tagged or otherwise waiting deletion. That would remove the potential problem while still preserving the content for nonadmins. Karanacs (talk) 21:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
At the same time, when someone tags a BLP as unreferenced, they should remove dodgy statements simultaneously. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While certainly seven days will work and in fact seems reasonable to me, I would not object to other intervals. I do not think article falling through the timeline cracks is that big a deal—if an editor comes back from vacation say and finds an article gone, there are options available. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 17:30, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. There are other options to that editor; they can simply recreate it, ask for it to be userfied, or request undeletion once they've acquired sufficient sources. Opposing an RfC statement is silly, though, so I'll just comment here. –Juliancolton | Talk19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Badger Drink
I see no reason to distinguish between unsourced, non-contentious BLPs and any other unsourced junk article. Perhaps all articles should be included in a plan like Jehochman's. Unsourced misleading information about a small town in Arkansas is just as damaging to the end-reader as unsourced misleading information about the Duke of Hull's seventh illegitimate daughter's tennis instructor.
Absolutely, I think all new articles should have reliable sources. We need to make sure, though, that any method we choose gives sufficient time - and motivation - for cleaning up older articles created when sourcing was not the norm. I'll also note that many articles about topics other than people actually discuss living people and pose just as much of a problem as an article specifically about a person. Karanacs (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually largely agree, for some definition of "plan like" and the caveat of being a long time from now. I view the issue raised (BLPs aren't special as BLP-material can show up in any article) as a reason to not do crazy things with deletion tools, but I could see you could reach the viewpoint that we lock down the whole thing and only keep the good articles or a number of spots in the middle of those two stances. I don't think that having sources in the article is what we need, rather we need a way to "mark as verified" by a trusted user that every single sentence in every single article is sourced. Then we need a way to make sure multiple trusted users verify each sentence. I think that's actually doable (and where we'll end up) but not for a decade or two. Hobit (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although BLPs do hurt real people more than other articles, this is the type of standards which I want to see Wikipedia progressing towards. Not now, not tomorrow, but some sunny day in the future when we are ready for this. ThemFromSpace02:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You've got to draw the line somewhere. Being unsourced is one big indication of possible irresponsibility; libel is more likely to be found at BLPs, so this is the lowest hanging fruit and a good place to start. I'm not opposed to some process that would gradually delete unsourced articles. But we need to stress the gradual part. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not for now. BLPs are a special and urgent case because of the legal risk they pose to the project and the harm they can do to the subject. However, unsourced BLP material in a non-BLP article is a problem that none of these proposals would address. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In line with this proposal, I nominate the article on the Solar System for deletion. After all, there exist no high quality reliable sources independent of the subject. Clearly, all our information is biased and of poor quality, coming as it does from rabid partisans addicted to living in the subject locality. RayTalk01:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. Maybe every word should have inline reference too, and a bot should check if it really comes from the source. But what to do about WP:SYNT? Wait! Strong AI has just been invented. Pcapping01:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think people would be so up in arms if it weren't already? This isn't about 50,000 articles or even 400,000... nearly every article has statements that BLP policy applies to. Rewriting it to require sourcing on all statements will fundamentally change the nature of the site. Gigs (talk) 13:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion by Bigtimepeace
It's too far down the page so no one will read this, but I have a simple suggestion as we eventually embark on cleaning out the category of unreferenced BLPs. In the process of doing that, editors who come across BLP violations in the articles should log that fact on some central page. Not the BLP violation itself (obviously), but either the article where it was present or even just the mere fact that a BLP violation was found (basically making a tick mark somewhere—I think the former is better). Why do this? Because there are some editors who claim that there are not all that many BLP violations in our articles (thus little or no need for reform), and it could be useful to have some data one way or another from a given sample of BLPs. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs20:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For this to be useful, editors should log all unreferenced BLP articles reviewed and whether they did or did not contain contentious or false statements. Reporting only the violations found without at least the number of non-problematic articles reviewed give not data on the ratio of problems to non-problems. With that change there is some value to this. I will start a personal log, and if such a central log is created, the data from my personal log can be merged in. DES(talk)20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Although I agree in theory with this proposal (data is GOOD), in this case I don't think it will make a difference. Those arguing to delete all unsourced BLPs on sight have repeatedly stated that one violation - one actual person harmed - is too many. They have a valid point. (I also think that some of the arguments against this are very valid points.) So the statistics, in the long run, will be disregarded because it is not possible to measure the actual or potential harm. Karanacs (talk) 21:45, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Karanacs I definitely see your that point, and indeed that's the primary argument against doing this (i.e. it won't affect debate so why bother). Really I'm just throwing this out there as a suggestion since it theoretically could be useful. And DESiegel I guess my thinking was that we know how many unsourced BLPs there are as of right now (50,000 and whatever), so if we keep track of how many more pop into the category over the course of cleaning it out (let's say 5,000 more) and then log only the ones where there were problems (obviously not everything would get logged as people would forget), we could end up with a number like "1,000 out of this 57,000 articles tagged as unsourced BLPs had BLP violations" (the assumption would be that anything not logged did not have a BLP vio). It doesn't even matter that a good percentage of those articles are wrongly tagged as is certainly the case (i.e. they did have sources), the point is we'd be looking at a defined (but large) chunk of the full set of BLPs and seeing what percentage had problems, which I'm not sure we've ever done before. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs22:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we do track, I would recommend noting the types of problems, for example - negative POV, positive POV, generic vandalism, false information (or info that cannot be quickly sourced), contentious material. Karanacs (talk) 22:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How can we track how many new articles are added to the unreferenced BLPs category? Some are being removed constantly, and some are being added - there is simply no way to tell how many go in. Jogurney (talk) 00:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If a BLP is unreferenced and contains a serious BLP violation then it should be speedy deleted. It should be quite easy for a bot to chart how many attack pages and vandalism pages we are deleting per week, and calculate whether the current process is increasing or reducing the number of such pages being identified and found. I would really like to know whether our current focus on old supposedly unsourced BLPs is distracting editors from other areas of the pedia and making it easier for the vandals to get away with things on more frequently viewed parts of the pedia. ϢereSpielChequers01:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems a good idea to collect data on this. For reference I collected data on how many requests for semiprotection we got, and how many were done versus not needed. It was anecdotal but it was also eye opening. ++Lar: t/c02:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of deleting all those poor BLP articles (60 000 to be exact), why don't we just clean them up, add some sources to the sourceless ones and add more information? It would be a shame to get rid of 60 000 articles. And what about the ones (any that may be under the 60 000) that are beautifully crafted, with many sources in them, well written and that can keep a reader busy for a while? What about the ones which students might use for help on a test or something? It just doesn't add up.
So, if all else fails with the sources and things like that, deletion may then be considered.
You forgot the most important reason this won't be taken seriously: this is far too reasonable an approach to this matter. (Reminds me of another problem: how do we reduce the percentage of stub articles? Why not improve them so they aren't stubs any more? Instead, there are people who want to delete them -- or prevent any more stubs from being created.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly endorse - There are many articles in this category that should be saved. After more than 12 months of sourcing footballer BLPs, I noticed yesterday that there are still many two-time World Cup players that were unreferenced (there are still several more). Many of these articles are well-written and are about very notable people, but they were created years ago when sourcing wasn't a big focus. They have only recently been tagged as unreferenced (many with the past month or two) so editors like myself didn't even realize they were unsourced. I have yet to see any evidence that the current processes for deletion don't work (in fact, the steady decline in the category:unreferenced BLPs is evidence that they are working). Jogurney (talk) 00:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Much too sensible an approach. After all, about 200 editors have commented here. If every one of these editors committed to sourcing 300 or so of these articles over the next year (less than one a day!), the backlog would vanish. So far today, I've rescued an article on a prime minister of a mid-sized country, a Holocaust survivor who became a major general, a professor who won a Guggenheim fellowship, and a popular singer whose audiences regularly draw more than 100,000 people. And I've reviewed fewer than 50 bios. The error rate on these mass deletion proposals is simply too horrendous to be believed. RayTalk01:01, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
support What's been fun is that I sourced a few from Nov 2006. Not well, but I found minimal sourcing to meet WP:V. The result was AfD for a fair number of them (where all but maybe 1 will be kept). I spent more time dealing with Prod/Speedy/AfD stuff than I did sourcing because of all that... Hobit (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In principle, I agree... in practice though, some of these unreferenced BLPs are causing problems. Still, improvement is always preferable to deletion where possible. Robofish (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
so do it, there should be some accountability to ensure that the processes doesnt get railroaded by a status quo solutions which achieve nothing. I'd rather lose a few articles temporarily then lose WP and The Foundation permamently. Gnangarra13:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I read it! Mass deletion is not and ideal solution by any means, but many of these articles have other serious, fundamental problems besides references (or lack thereof). A lot of those have been unreferenced for over three years because they are simply not notable, thus there are no references to add to it. Care needs to be taken to ensure that only those which cannot be referenced are deleted as opposed to this which are not referenced. That's where due process proves its importance. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 00:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Humm, the oldest backlogged articles are largely easy to get at least basic sourcing for in my experience. I'd say of the 30 I looked at, only 1 or two may have met a speedy criteria and 20 or so were clearly notable (many currently making it just fine in AfD, 2 snow kept. Now those may have already been prodded/speedied to the bone so perhaps not a good random sample. But I suspect a slim majority of these articles meet our inclusion guidelines. Hobit (talk) 03:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Concrete suggestion by Scott MacDonald
Unsourced biographies must not be left lying around. If we are to avoid having to speedy delete them (which is not the best option), we need something workable. Something that gives a newbie a chance to source it, or get help from others, but still does not leave long-term unsourced articles.
I suggest:
For new BLPs, as has already been suggested, we have a special BLPprod. This will state that the article needs sourcing and if not given at least rudimentary sourcing within 7 days is liable for deletion. The prod notice may not be removed unless the article is sourced. If the article is deleted, it may be undeleted by any admin if someone is willing to source it.
For the backlog - we don't want several thousand BLPprods with a seven day deadline, so we do this stage by stage.
Initially, we BLPprod all unsourced BLPs which have been tagged as such for over 2 years. These articles are given one month's grace. During that time the tag can be removed if the article gets sourced (or is already actually sourced). After one month, any remaining articles can be deleted (but again undeleted if anyone is willing to source them.
When that month is over, we BLPprod all BLPs which have been tagged for over 1 year. Rinse and repeat.
When that month is over, we do the same for the remaining backlog.
In three months the entire backlog is gone, and no unsourced BLP remains in Wikipedia for any more than 7 days. I strongly suspect that the number of articles deleted (other than those that should be deleted for other reasons) will be fairly minimal.--Scott Mac (Doc)02:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WorksForMe(tm). I will support ANY halfway sensible approach to this. This one is a lot more than just halfway. ++Lar: t/c02:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
3 months more is not too long to wait. It's fairly clear that we need to treat the backlog differently from new articles. Kevin (talk) 02:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
potential support at a much slower rate. Say 2 months of backlog per month. Still done in about 2 years (given time to catch up) and much less likely to delete things we should keep. The issue has been with us for years, let's acknowledge that fixing it is going to take a while but still set a deadline so it _does_ get fixed. I'd also like a good faith pledge that those pushing so hard for deletion are going to help source. Say each of the 50 or so pushing for this promise to do 30 a month. I'll be happy to pledge the same thing. Hobit (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good ideas, and better than either of a) the traditional neglect of the BLP issue to the detriment of Wikipedia; or b) mass deletions by fiat. Gives people a realistic, but not indefinite, chance to address problems with articles. Euryalus (talk) 03:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely a good proposal. Coupled with improved methods of notifying interested editors of articles in need of saving, we can help the project considerably. Resolute05:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Similar to other proposals but basically with a time frame. Sounds great to me, so long as we build in a little bit of flexibility (not a lot) if we're finding we can't quite work our way through (i.e. at least attempt to source) all the articles in a month. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs06:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. There are some tweaks we can work out if this is the top contender - for example, I think it should be phased in smaller weekly chunks rather than big monthly ones so that there isn't a huge crush once a month. Also, there is no reason we can't tag all the backlog articles right now (and whenever we catch one it can be tossed into the pile), just give them different due dates. But overall I think this is the best approach. We might want to combine this with an incubation / move to alternate namespace, stubbification, and/or content hiding for all the articles awaiting rescue or deletion. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support the general concept of having a schedule to manage the problem, though I think the specific schedule may need to be tweaked a bit. --Jayron3215:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The summary deletion of quality articles or those with potential is disastrous for the encyclopaedia; although I share the misgivings about whether or not this process can respsonsibly achieve its goal of clearing the backlog in the timeframe specified without overwhelming volunteer resources, it does address the problem in a measured way that provides scope for salvaging good content. Skomorokh 20:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a definite timetable for handling the backlog is necessary. Staging by age rather than subject matter spreads the work across the various projects that are involved. Kanguole14:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. A staged prodding could conceivably allow more articles be saved, but I suspect articles that have lain unreferenced for 2 years will remain unfixed. / edg☺☭03:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
conditional support but as some of the opposers say, the backlog should be cleared over a larger period of time. (2x-3x as long seems good to me). Likewise, recent articles should go through the "get source soon" process first. Also, previous editors should be made aware that the article is going through this process, and the process should be put in a prominent place in the community portal. Finally, i think there's no need to make the delayed-delete of new pages longer than 7 days: the template could just include "if you can't find a source in a week, make a copy of this page now and recreate the page when you have a source" -Lyc. cooperi (talk) 10:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's a good plan. The month, with a good effort from admins, should work as a time frame. I have spent a significant time clearing notability tags and significant progress can be made by one editor (this will be similar). The prods will not be as high a percentage as some may feel. The editors to do the initial work are out there and can be brought to the task by proper publicity. However; they must be made aware of the task. Stormbay (talk)
Support as an imperfect but practical approach to a problem that has gone unaddressed for too long. I wouldn't oppose a modest increase in the time periods to deal with the backlogs, but think that a hard and fast deadline is appropriate. XymmaxSo let it be writtenSo let it be done17:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Unsourced articles over 2 years old - that's 5,000+ articles, which is too many to deal with in a month. The next month's set of articles is even more unworkable. I have no problem with the proposal for new articles, but since there are editors already trying to fix these older articles to avoid deletion, more time is required. Better to look at each article individually and see if it needs to be deleted by existing means or improved. Now that the issue has become so apparent, editors are already working to fix these articles, one way or another. This proposal wouldn't really give this effort a chance to succeed. A few months of tagged articles have already largely been dealt with, mostly in an appropriate manner - give it a chance to continue amd concentrate on halting the creation of new unsourced BLPs.--Michig (talk) 12:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose, Scott MacDonald wrote: "Community consensus" is something I have learned by bitter experience to hold in utter contempt. The ONLY way to change wikipedia is direct action. If you block me, then that will cause drama and disruption. That's your choice. But drama and disruption is far more likely to do some good here than more waffle with an irrepsponsible community."[22] This was after deleting hundreds of BLP articles, which prompted this RFC. Scott then blocked himself to avoid being blocked like the R... who was blocked three times. Scott why are you participating in a process which you "hold in utter contempt"? The way this RFC was created is a precursor and example of the way this policy will be implemented: with "drama and disruption". As Scott's supporters alienates thousands of editors. Ikip21:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The unsourced bios are not our major problem, and any major effort we spend on them is a waste. To the extent they are a problem, the work going into these discussions could have been better spent on continuing a routine cleanup of them. What we need to do is find some way of isolating and working on the ones sourced on unsourced that actually do pose problems. Probably the best way for this is wider participation in AfD, so we get better discussions, and so more Wikipedians know what the problems actually are. DGG ( talk ) 03:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose per DGG and David Eppstein. I've been looking at the intersection of Category:All unreferenced BLPs and Category:All articles proposed for deletion for the last day or so, and the interesting thing I've noticed about articles PRODed for being unreferenced BLPs: a very large fraction have been fixable, if one is willing to spend the effort. It's a target-rich environment out there: eminent academic who has been head of a learned society, a recipient of a major fellowship, a Prime Minister and other major government officials, a pop star with over 100k in her live audiences, a Holocaust survivor who became a major general. And those are just the most memorable of the ones I put in the 5-15 minutesto source, all in the last two days. There are many others, and literally dozens of others I could've sourced, but where my interest or knowledge in the subject was small and I chose not to, life being too short - but were all articles I suspect would've been snow-kept at AFD. So far, I have encountered precisely one such article that I would've considered a borderline libelous BLP issue, which turned out to be salvageable anyways (thanks to DGG, who is much better at this sort of thing than I am). And this is before any sort of formal process, just with lots of people PRODing before reading. You turn on the spigot formally at your proposed pace, we'll burn out, and end up default-deleting, sight unseen, many articles like these. I have not the words for the sort of reckless and stupid atrocity that would be. RayTalk03:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - this looks like it would create too much work too quickly to manage. I like the idea in theory, though - just spread it out over a longer period of time, like a year. Robofish (talk) 04:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose- as good as this sounds articles created since 2008 where created within a community frame work the required sourcing these should not need an extend period before deletion, any deletion should be focusing on the more recent first Gnangarra08:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per David Eppstein below and Ray Yang above. Time frame much too short and designed for deletion rather than salvage. The current hectic and exhausting emergency-inspired pace of referencing and saving is unsustainable.John Z (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that sounds good. I think three months is okay but we could stretch it out to six or even nine if this is an issue. Setting a timetable is good, leaving time for salvage operations is good. --TS02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal seems designed to produce the following results: (1) so many articles get tagged at once that it discourages anyone from seriously working through the backlog, almost exactly matching the current situation with the unsourced BLP tags; (2) most of the articles don't get fixed; (3) big bang when they all get deleted. Unless the intent really is to delete as many salvageable articles as possible, I think it would be much better to use a standard 1-week prod period (I prefer standard prod to avoid new process but BLPprod could work) with a much more steady rate of moving articles from unsourcedBLP to prod, maybe enough to get us through them all in a year. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:42, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In principle, I can agree, but in practice cleaning up 50K articles in 3 months is nigh impossible. Just putting tags on the articles isn't going to be enough... we need to make sure people know about this process---eg it needs to be advertised at various projects AND the Signpost. We also need a mechanism to make sure that people who care about the articles, the various projects, know which ones need cleaned up. Getting the projects involved is, IMHO, the best way to tackle the problem. Get people who know and care about the subject to help out with their areas of expertise. If we don't have a means to notify people, we are just going to end up deleting articles.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!19:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As an alternative we could PROD them all now, and then delete the newest ones after a month, the 1-2 year old ones after 2 months and the oldest after 3 months. If it turns out that a concerted effort to source articles is being made, and the time is still too short then it could be extended. Kevin (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My question (already alluded to above) is: "who reviews all the PRODs?" Basically, we have thousands upon thousands of articles to review, checking for (1) mistagging, ie those already sourced (2) later sourcing (3) hoaxed sourcing and several other things besides. Can a bot achieve those accurately and effectively? I think not. Anyway, PRODing/XfDing to force cleanup is usually frowned upon isn't it? --Jubilee♫clipman01:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently created the template {{BLP unverified}}, which allows one to stub an article down to just its sourced material, while leaving a pointer to where to find the unsourced material, for sourcing at a later time. Here's an example of it in action: [23].
If just enough sourcing were added to unsourced BLPs to establish basic notability, then the article stubbed with a link to the remainder of the content provided via this template, I think this would expedite the processing of the backlog via any of the other methods proposed here.
Sounds like a great idea, and certainly complementary with the other proposals. I don't think this needs any new consensus given that removing unverified content from BLPs is de rigeur as is. Nice work, Father Goose. Skomorokh 20:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - As Skomorokh said, this doesn't really need any further consensus than what is already at the BLP page. However, I really like what you came up with, great job. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 20:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by otherlleft
Wikipedia has clear processes for deleting articles, which involves (in most cases) a community discussion to determine the merits of the individual article. There is no clear reason to either develop a new process or backlog prod and afd in this manner. If this is a legal concern, the Wikimedia Foundation can make a determine that overrules how the community functions. Otherwise, the process works just fine.--otherlleft12:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The process does not work fine. It's the major thing I work on here, at its various levels, and I think it goes wrong about 10 to 20 % of the time, and perhaps about equally in both directions. An high proportion of new articles escape adequate screening at NPP,; a high proportion of older ones are seriously wrong, if only from being out of date. The quality of community discussions is very variable, and the participation insufficient. The number reviewed at Deletion review is inadequate, many admins quietly use the criterion of" I don't think it should be in Wikipedia" without making enough of a splash to be noticed, there is no regular audit,and there is almost nothing that is really done as well as our policies pretend it to be. There is not even recognition that the best we can hope for in our system is probably about 5% error. The only positive thing I have to say is that it was even worse when I joined 3 years ago. Given all this, we need to concentrate on the truly major problems. How we can do this is not actually clear, but emphasizing the older forgotten ones is probably one approach which is almost sure to be wrong. DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well it sounds like we have different standards for "fine," but I'm willing to work with that. If there's insufficient community participation in our current processes, then certainly introducing a new community-oriented system or glutting the current ones makes even less sense to me. I find that the level of participation varies based on the ownership of articles and other unwritten, emotional criteria like nostalgia; probably couldn't do much more than that end as long as Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Any decision which decides to make this site into a bureaucracy should be made by lawyers. Wikipedia has a tremendously high accuracy rate for a self-recruited volunteer community, one that will never be perfect. I think our present system is much, much better than a group of editors aggressively prodding thousands of articles, adding to the likelihood that they will not be properly reviewed before being deleted. Again, if we really need that sort of fear response it should come from the Wikimedia Foundation. Let the community find a sensible way to focus community energy and let the lawyers keep the Foundation from harm. If they say remove all unreferenced BLPs, it can be done by a bot in a few minutes. If they don't, then this RfC isn't necessary, or rather its urgency is being given undue weight.--otherlleft11:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by The-Pope
Can I first state how appalled I am that the actions of the few editors admins in arrogantly and in direct opposition to the established deletion process, used a process that had been rejected many times before to highlight this problem to the wikiworld. I agree that it's a major problem, but how about highlighting it to us, the common editor, first, before you bring in the big WP:POINTy stick next time?
You claim that three year old unreferenced BLPs have no right being here, and we all had three years to fix them. Well, unreferenced BLPs is just one of the 108 cleanup categories that are listed on the current Wolterbot Cleanup list. Sorry that I wasn't aware that #82 on the list was the one area I really should have been working on, or that it was those 2000 articles, out of the 17000 articles with clean-up tags on them, that were the real problem.
Since this mess has begun, no actually, even before this mess had begun, back in early January, another overly enthusiastic editor moved a long-term unreferenced BLP into the WP:Article Incubator. After working out that this wasn't really what the incubator was meant to be used for, User:Gnangarra told us about the task force that had been set up to deal with the 50,000 unreferenced BLPs. I then created a list of Australian related ones - about 2028 of them. This morning, I suggested to WP:Australia that this should be our Collaboration of the month. So far, in about a day or two, we've got it down to 1811 pages. Maybe it's an initial rush, maybe were more organised that other projects, but 10% in a day or so by a few people shows that it's possible. So my proposal:
1. Make it known that this is the site's current main priority. Most users have their own priorities - whether it be new page creation or patrolling, improvements to get to FA/GA (maybe stop FA/GA assessment for a month to get everyone to work on the bottom end, not polishing the top end), DABing, stub sorting, vandal fighting, etc. We don't sit around wondering what to do next. Get the banner/talk page spam/ whatever to tell EVERYONE that unreferenced BLPs are to be our priority. I mean if it's OK for three admins to invent their own CSD category, delete a bunch of articles and then be commended for doing so, it has to be the #1 item for all of us, right?
Also get Wolterbot to change the order of the cleanup list to highlight what are the real problem areas, and which ones are "nice-to-haves" (ie MOS type ones).
2. Get ALL of the projects on board. Get a bot/code/something quicker and smarter than me to auto-generate the lists based on the intersection of Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:WikiProject XYZ articles It needs some smarts, cause the project cats are on the talk pages, but the unreferenced BLPs are on the main pages, but I can do it for a project at a time using WP:AWB, so it must be able to be done. Then create a Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Unreferenced BLPs page for EVERY project. Update the list daily. Hold a competition to see who can zero their list the quickest - winner gets money/fame/links on the main page for a month/etc. Create a hall of fame for most removed each week. Do whatever, but get the projects on board. As the BLP Task Force page says The BLP Task Force should not be encumbered with fixing individual biographies. The Arbcom/Crats/Admins aren't going to do the grunt work to fix this problem, we are. Projects are. Get them onside.
3. Review the progress after a couple of months. If it isn't working, then either up the profile/rewards for the projects that are doing well, or then bring in some of the more dramatic suggestions by others. And how about the BLP Task Force actually publish something, or is that just another death by committee organisation? I note that one of the rogue admins who did, or strongly supported, the deletions is actually a member of that task force. Nothing like jumping the gun, or trusting that they might come up with a solution, heh? -The-Pope (talk) 13:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Users who endorse this summary
I wholeheartedly support this approach. The only part which makes me uneasy is "I mean if it's OK for three admins to invent their own CSD category, delete a bunch of articles and then be commended for doing so, it has to be the #1 item for all of us, right?" I do feel that responding to such tactics by prioritising this problem over other important work is basically rewarding bullying and blackmail, which establishes a dangerous precedent. If the admins involved had tried more constructive and community-based initiatives in the first place, I would feel far more comfortable supporting their cause. The-Pope has entirely the right idea: change should be encouraged through community effort, not forced with threats and tight deadlines which could be detrimental to efforts to deal with more serious problems such as vandalism on high-profile BLPs. I also agree that in general we should shift the emphasis on improving Wikipedia to the lower end, making poor and potentially problematic articles acceptable rather than making already good articles better. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: This is not very glamorous work but I for one would do a few every day if the project was set up the way the Pope suggests. In my opinion the articles should not be deleted if it can be helped.--Diannaa (talk) 18:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, excellent, excellent ideas. I'd been thinking along the same lines, but not with this much detail. One editor, by the way, has brought this up at the talk page for WikiProject Math. We have a BLP problem, it takes a lot of interested editors to deal with it if it's going to be dealt with in a constructive way at all, and WikiProjects are probably our best resource. I understand your frustration, Holy Father, but I suggest that you politely go to the talk pages of each of the editors you're frustrated with and ask them to help out in setting up some of these suggestions you've mentioned. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
NEWSFLASH: I found a discussion about this at the Bot requests page. [24] Apparently there are at least three bots that Wikiprojects can work with to find unreferenced BLPs in their subject areas right now: WP:AALERTS, and this one, the User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings bot (which produces, for instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Arkansas/Cleanup listing) and this one is something even individual editors can work with to create lists. [25] I did a little missionary work over at the Wikiprojects Council talk page. [26] I suppose people could also leave similar notes at the talk pages of Wikiprojects. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wholly support both the ideas, and the statement that the behavior used to provoke this RfC was unacceptable, even if I share that admin's ultimate aim. While it has been proposed as a result of a very different proposal, the bot request here very closely ties in with what your second point is trying to achieve. WFCforLife (talk) 03:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorsed. Part of the problem with this current discussion is that even this RFC is only likely to be seen by a tiny minority of our readers and editors. Given the large-scale changes and work that is being proposed, this absolutely must be publicised to as wide a section of our readers and editors as possible. Robofish (talk) 04:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In all seriousness, we should have that kind of banner about this, because this situation causes a lot of disruption in the project. Since the foundation, Jimbo and ArbCom are all concerned about libel in BLPs, I would think they'd be fine with some kind of banner. It should probably wait until we get some definitive new policy on this (or figure out that the community isn't going to be able to adopt one, although it looks like Hochman's proposal is on its way to passing). -- JohnWBarber (talk) 04:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good summary from a user who has taken active and practical steps to assist the WikiProject I'm in to take charge of unrefd BLPs in our purview. I have always been of the belief that WikiProjects, while *not* in charge or ownership of their material, but containing a variety of collaborative individuals with knowledge / interests specific to the WikiProject's scope, are the best way to get things done around here - it evades drama, it invites local participation and as long as the tasks are specified correctly, can be quite effective. Orderinchaos15:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse the sentiments of this we need a community approach to a resolution the community needs to take seriously the potential for harm that arises from BLP's. Unsourced one are only a small part of the problem and focus on fixing the problems isnt a bad process but we also need to set some time limits before admins are empowered with heavier methods,and maybe in this circumstances we should look to wikiprojects to take a lead on articles within their scope as to whether deletion or time to source is the appropriate course. Gnangarra09:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WolterBot is doing some useful work and it would be great if more projects signed up to it. But this is only part of the solution, not least because it relies on these BLPs all belonging to at least one active project that has signed up to WolterBot; I suspect we also need to take this opportunity to try and revive some of our less active projects, and to make sure all these articles are tagged for at least one active project. It also continues the whole mistaken approach of concentrating on old content rather than starting by raising the standards we expect for new articles. ϢereSpielChequers01:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'm trying to figure out why I have been wasting time tagging articles for projects in order to keep track on PRODs and AfDs when I see what happened here. Tomas e (talk) 21:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, I agree with this idea, which has been proposed in several places elsewhere on this page. Now let's take it to the next step (we don't need anyone's approval, just some time and effort, and not an enormous amount of that): We can start asking WikiProjects and individuals to look over the unreferenced BLPs in their areas of interest right now. I've called for volunteers to spend, maybe, a few weeks on this here [27] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View and proposal by Cenarium
The issue of sourcing for biographies of living people is vast and cannot be resolved without a large and concerted effort by the community, which can only be engaged and organized through consensus. Opening this request for comment seems to be the best way to start it, regardless of how it came to be opened. While remarkable efforts have been made by various users on the broad issue of BLP enforcement in the past few years, no major initiative have been launched so far to tackle the problem of backlogs for unsourced or undersourced BLPs, which would require the work of a large number of editors for sensible progress. So, while we should attempt to find a consensual solution to the question of deleting unreferenced BLPs, we should also strive to address the rout of the problem: the insufficient sourcing. Thus it is proposed to create a site-wide initiative aimed to source unsourced and undersourced BLPs, and also maybe let more users know ('sensibilising') about the general issues surrounding BLPs and how they can help. This initiative can be summarized on a dedicated project page and advertised through the use of notices, for example the watchlist notice or a dismissible sitenotice for all registered users. The project page should be well though-out and consensual, free of drama, accessible and comprehensive. The page should link to the category of unsourced BLPs and undersourced BLPs (stressing on the former), but if possible in a way to attract interest, for example by dividing the category by topics (musicians, writers, etc). Editors should also be encouraged to better source or review any blp they encounter, and general advice can be given on how to help for the blp issue. Cenarium (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Endorse
Oppose
Discussion
Comment. All our bios could be sourced to the hilt and Wikipedia would still be vulnerable to libel and vandalism. 'Sourced' statements may fail verification or come from poor sources, and new changes will not always be spotted immediately by the article watchers or recent changes patrol. This moral panic over unsourced BLPs misses the point entirely. Fences&Windows21:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I mostly agree with this, but it still became, even if not entirely justified, a big deal, and it seems to me that the threat of deletion is used as a leverage to improve their sourcing. It would be futile to source BLPs without reviewing them further, and so we should encourage doing more than just finding (good) sources: reviewing for compliance with BLP, bringing to the BLP noticeboard in cases of concern, etc. However, I still think a large initiative to review our BLPs, starting by the backlog of unsourced ones, would be very beneficial and de-dramatize the situation. Cenarium (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I checked a sample just now of every BLP mentioned on the main page, and there were literally none of them free from unsourced statements. Many of those statements were problematic in some way, being such things as matters of critical opinion. In most cases I think they could be sourced. By our very own definitions of adequate sourcing, every non-featured articles is inadequately sourced. (I'll refrain from comment on how much better the featured ones may actually be, but at least they are claimed to meet our standards.) In working with contentious bio articles and BLP problems, the usual difficulty is not that they are unsourced, but that the sources are selected or used from a non-neutral POV. We have real problems, many of which cannot be solved in a project like Wikipedia with open editing. What we need to deal with are the worst problems, not those which seem the easiest to fix. Every effort I make making sure there is at least one acceptable source for a unproblematic BLP is time I could better spend on the problematic ones. DGG ( talk ) 03:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right, the lack of proper sourcing is the problem, not simply lack of sourcing, and I agree that the hardest problems are not found in the many uncontroversial one-sentence stubs but in the kind of articles you mention. But it's always a good starting point for an article to have one good source (if only for future expansion), and a major initiative to improve sourcing in our BLPs would also allow us to find problematic content, and people can do what they think is best or they like doing most, as long as we're general enough. We shouldn't say: that is what you should do, but rather: you can help in a multitude of ways, feel free. Cenarium (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment before this all blew up User:DASHBot was 14,400 messages into a 17,400 message well thought-out, consensual, free of drama, comprehensive program of gently chiding the original creators of these 50,000 unsourced BLPs. That is a major BLP improvement project going on this month and its a bit early to see how much improvement it will make. But several people are already talking about the next stage - seeing how many such BLPs are left a couple of weeks after DASHBot has informed the authors and informing wikiprojects of unreferenced BLPs that have been tagged as of interest to those projects. Obviously in the meantime editors can help this by either cleaning up after long-retired wikifriends, or making sure that unreferenced BLPs have relevant project tags. ϢereSpielChequers14:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a very good initiative indeed, in particular working with wikiprojects, but it could be even more important, with site notices and all, and would gain in being centralized. It could be called the "2O1O BLP initiative" or whatever, it rejoins the proposal by Jayron32 and others. I don't think we should insist on deletion at this time in this campaign, to achieve a maximal support and reach, but this doesn't preclude the adoption of other proposals like stricter prods either. Cenarium (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well the first phase doesn't need site notices or central organisation, I'd agree that the wikiproject approach would benefit from some of that. I tend to associate centralised approaches with inefficiency and drama whilst decentralised approaches have the advantage of usually working better because they work with the grain of the community. If we are going to have site notices I think the best way to use them would be to plea for longstanding users to visit the talkpages of long retired wikifriends and clean up any unreferenced BLPs that Dashbot has just reminded them of. You could even have "adopt a retired user" as a site banner with click here to get you to the talkpage of someone who hasn't edited in more than a year and has left us some unreferenced BLPs. But as a gesture of respect to DashBot, WolterBot and all the other work that has gone on amongst the hundreds of millions of edits to this site in recent years, could I ask you to change your "no major initiative" comment to "no few major initiatives". ϢereSpielChequers16:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by The New Mikemoral
Although, orginally, I was never a fan of FlaggedRevs, after learning the usefulness of them on Wikinews, I feel that for BLPs FlaggedRevs will be a good measure for Wikipedia to be responsible. --The NewMikemoral♪♫02:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a long term editor I've run up against flag revs on Wikinews and find them a difficult impass to substancial contributions, though it may be because of the number of eds available to review rather then the system itself, but either way its a process that offer more for WP:BEANS and WP:OWN than it does solutions Gnangarra13:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A special effort to add sources to BLPs will increase their revision rate temporarily. Testing flagged revisions at the same time will hurt both projects by hindering the editors and invaliding the test results. Certes (talk) 19:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
Where's the beef? Do we know what the scope of the problem is? If so, do we know that it cannot be handled under current BLP policy? This is an enormous page with endless impassioned comments about a problem of which we seem to be making lots of assumptions with little hard data. Deletion on sight, holding tank, flagged revs—are any of them really necessary? Rivertorch (talk) 07:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I must say deletion on sight is way far-fetched and would probably not be best. Holding tanks are a bit if-y, but FlaggedRevs gives the opportunity for trusted and experienced to "validate" and "verify" BLP edits from constructive to pure vandalism. --The NewMikemoral♪♫18:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But is there an actual need for them or is it a solution in search of a problem? This was also my question about flagged revs, back in the day. Because a number of editors, including Jimbo, announced there was a crisis, it became accepted that there was a crisis. I wasn't saying then, and I'm not saying now, that there isn't a crisis; I'm saying that I have yet to see any evidence of a crisis. What I have seen is lots of hypotheticals, anecdotes, and alarmism, and I don't think those form a good basis for making profound shifts to the way Wikipedia operates. Rivertorch (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Crisis!? I know of no crisis. Honestly, the idea of a crisis is just plain outrageous. FlaggedRevs would let this wiki be more responsible regarding BLPs before any actual crisis develops and affects the integrity and well-being of Wikipedia. --The NewMikemoral♪♫23:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal by BilCat
After so many years of sqabbling by the Inclusionists, Deletionists, Moderatists, and the other factions, why not Fork all of EN-WP? The first fork would have policies that are completley enforced, flagged revisions enabled for all articles, and possibly even the dreaded mandatory registrations. The other main fork would have only one basic policy, IAR, and the rest would be just guidelines. The current WP would remain as-is. All forks would start with the same 3 million-plus articles. Then allow the forked WPs to run side-by side for 2-3 years, and then the Foundation can look at both, and see which of the 3 versions is worth keeping, perhaps all 3. I'm deadly serious, as I don't see that the differences here are reconcilable anymore. The difference between this and past splits would be that all would remain under the control of the Foundation, and in the end, the Foundation would decide the fate of the forks. - BilCat (talk) 04:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that this isn't a "take your ball and play on your own court" proposal, but a chance for varaious solutions to problems that WP faces to be tried conncurrently, and see what happens, and what works. Peraps it could be tried on a smaller scale too, such as with BLP ariticles. - BilCat (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Just far, far more effort than it's worth, so far as I can see. And deeply confusing for just about everyone, I'd have thought. Surely a part of wikipedia's strength is that it is one site? Just no. Anaxial (talk) 13:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How is this workable? It would create several different versions of the same 3M+ articles at once, in effect EN-WP-1, EN-WP-2, EN-WP-3... Which page do users look at for any particular article? What happens in 3 years when all those pages need to be merged?! I can see other problems, but these are enough to go on with... --Jubilee♫clipman21:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I can see the attraction in this idea, the relative failure of Citizendium, which was set up to be a variant of Wikipedia with higher standards (though not a fork), suggests that it wouldn't be effective and might not even end up with higher standards (for example, many of Citizendium's FA-equivalent approved articles wouldn't be considered B class here due to a lack of references). Nick-D (talk) 11:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
CZ has a different policy on references. It doesn't require them in general, because it's supposed to be based on expert knowledge, rather than on verifiability as with WP. In fact verifiability is a fraud anyway, because the existence of a reliable source saying something is no guarantee of the non-existence of others disagreeing. Peter jackson (talk) 17:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The proposal talks of 3 versions of WP:
Full enforcement of policy.
IAR
As is.
[Note: if anyone knows how to reformat this to return to the outer list after the end of the inner list please do so.]
What I'd like to know is what the difference is between 2 & 3. As policy isn't enforced, in practice you have IAR anyway. I'm all in favour of enforcement. Under the existing sysem large swathes of Wikipedia are dominated by propagandists. In a few cases they may cancel each other out to produce a neutral article, but many articles are biased & the system has no effective procedure for dealing with this. Peter jackson (talk) 11:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unindex all BLPs, and reindex individually once they have been checked. In layman terms; block access to BLPs from search engines, until we are sure that an individual BLP is not problematic. Whatever that means.
If flagging (maybe this kind, maybe this kind ) is the way forward, then a clean sweep of all content up until now is the logical complimentary step. Doing it this way, time is less of a concern, but a large part of the problem is solved. This would not prevent us simultaneously adopting a solution to deal with unreferenced BLPs.
I am aware that the software does not currently allow a mainspace article to be unindexed. But if this is such a big problem, then we should have the proverbials to go for a radical solution. WFCforLife (talk) 05:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed a lot of !voting elsewhere on this page. As this is a request for Comment, please can we keep this as a qualitative discussion, rather than supporting or opposing? WFCforLife (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not your standard RFC. It is actually in large part a set of competing proposals, and the degree to which such proposals are supported, and opposed, by members of the community (as well as the reasons for support or opposition) is perhaps the most important aspect of this discussion, IMO. DES(talk)08:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Since this page pops up on everyone's watchlist now, here is a suggestion for handling the unreferenced biographies in your area of interest. Find them, and post a list of them to the relevant WP:WikiProject. How to find them? You need to scan the Category:All unreferenced BLPs, almost certainly with an automated tool. Two that I used succesfully are:
Cat Scan (Wikipedia:CatScan). Pros: You can scan by either a category of interest (recursively using subcats to a specified depth), by the templates used to mark stubs, or by the WikiProject template used on article's talk pages. Outputs ready-to-paste wiki text which also tells you why a page matched. Cons: it does not scale to more than a couple-a-hundred results; you will get a blank result page in that case.
Intersection search. Pros: You can only do a category intersection with this tool (for the purposes on this dicussion), but it's more scalable. Cons: It does no scale to more than a few thousand results. The output has live HTML links, but not wikitext, so you need to write a simple script or editor macro to pros-process the output before pasting it on the wiki.
You can also subscribe your WikiProject to User:WolterBot, which will generate a list of unreferenced BLPs tagged by your WikiProject. It appears to work only by looking for WikiProject templates, so its list is likely to be less complete than the category scanning methods above. Compare this bot result with this cat scan. A discussion is here.
There's no need to endorse this suggestion (just do it) or oppose (just ignore it). Additional tips or technical comments are welcome though.
Is this essentially what you advocate for using the results?
Arnaud, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesar of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own."[Catharism#Massacre]
Perhaps I misunderstand your suggestion and intent. If so, I imagine others will also and some clarification is needed. As you state, "this page pops up on everyone's watchlist now." Moss&Fern (talk) 13:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, I agree with this idea, which has been proposed in several places elsewhere on this page. Yes, let's take it to the next step (we don't need anyone's approval, just some time and effort, and not an enormous amount of that): We can start asking WikiProjects and individuals to look over the unreferenced BLPs in their areas of interest right now. I've called for volunteers to spend, maybe, a few weeks on this here [29] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Debresser
I think that present policy needs no change. BLP's are no different than other pages, in that being unsourced is no reason for deletion (by prod, speedy or Afd). Changing this would remove a lot of true and potentially verifiable information from Wikipedia with no gain. Debresser (talk) 13:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
endorse. What is this even about? All the policies we need are in place. Use prod, speedy deletion or AfD. No change in policy is needed. --dab(𒁳)14:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
endorse View of Debresser that present policy needs no change. Also, "What is this even about?" perhaps inadverantly raises an issue I was going to create a new section for. "This is a request for comment regarding biographies of living people." should be considered void for vagueness as a meaningful title, IMHO. It doesn't describe any specific topic within BLP and the discussion on the page seems to be on a variety of topics. I see this as unproductive and discouraging participation by editors who aren't involved in the internal politics of Wikipedia but may have valuable things to say or at least want to comment on changes of policy/policies that will effect them and WP. Perhaps this is time for us to share a nice big cup of STFU and think before we talk. Then let the people who want policy changes restart however many discussion pages are appropriate with titles at the top that clearly state the topic of discussion. And for us lowly newbies, it would be nice if there was some prominent pointer to an explanation of the green "Click 'show' to participate in the discussion." sections. Their purpose, how to use them and so on. Moss&Fern (talk) 14:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
endorse (I think). See my proposal immediately below. I have an uneasy feeling that my Big Idea is just a restatement of existing policies like WP:BEFORE. The more special rules and processes we have, the more likely that nobody will follow them. Keep it simple is always a good approach. I'm not convinced the process is broke and needs fixing. Aymatth2 (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I express no opinion, but part of this statement is factually inaccurate. Being unverifiableis a valid reason for starting an AfD. That doesn't mean that the AfD will be successful. Indeed, if enough people cry about the need to look for sources, the article will be kept even if no-one actually looks for them. WFCforLife (talk), Help wikipedia. Make the pledge.20:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree - I am not sure what the positives of mass deletion are supposed to be: in my experience, unsourced/poorly sourced yet uncontentious BLPs are often the most rewarding articles to work on. Obviously, copyvios, attacks, hoaxes etc are quite different as they are detremental to WP. However, where no such problems exist I cannot see any issue. Just tag the article as normal or source it yourself and move on. Or userfy or incubate as appropriate and notify concerned editors. However, if the policy must be changed then JW seems to have the best solution, below. --Jubilee♫clipman21:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree Under our current norms and processes, we have a large number of poor-quality articles that we cannot maintain. Given the potential for damage – both to the subjects of articles and to the encyclopaedia – we cannot responsibly allow the current situation to continue. It would be best if we could preserve problematic content somewhere so that it is easily restored in proper condition, but we cannot tackle it with our current resources if nothing changes. Skomorokh 20:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
slightly disagree We should be more cautious about BLPs than about other articles, and I would at least like to see the new article creation process changed so that we required sources for new BLPs. ϢereSpielChequers19:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Basically endorse The primary exception I would make for immediate deletion is for BLPs which are primarily of unsourced or poorly sourced controversial or contentious material (posit a BLP of a High School principal making strange allegations about him). We have the policies, we have the procedures. We ought to use them with all deliberate speed. Collect (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal by Aymatth2
There are about 6,800,000,000 people in the world.
Wikipedia has unsourced articles on 60,000 of them.
Some of the people are notable, some are not.
Some of the bios are harmless, some are not.
I don’t know the right process to define a policy, but mine would be something like:
When reviewing unsourced biographies of living people:
If the article has unsourced content that you consider potentially harmful (e.g. libellous or damaging to the subject), delete the unsourced harmful content at once. (Maybe needs a clearer statement to this effect in WP:BLP)
If the article has been around for more than a month and a quick search for potential sources does not turn up any, flag the article by adding {{nosourcebio}} so a bot can move it to the creator’s user space. (a softer version of user:LeadSongDog's proposal)
If the remaining content seems harmless, and the search did show some potential sources, either fix up the article to conform with the sources, or at minimum note the sources as external links. (Minor modification to WP:BEFORE). If you have taken the trouble to check for sources, it just takes a few minutes to add them to the article.
This is not perfect.
Harmful content is still there in the article history, and some content that looks innocuous may in fact be harmful.
But it seems a simple way to solve most of the problem without mass destruction of content that could be valuable.
Borderline cases can be handled by the routine AfD process.
With the caveats from Mr.Z (below) that A) it goes to the incubator and B) At some point it gets deleted with an entry in a list saying it used to exist and a WP:REFUND-like scheme for restoring to the incubator on request. I'd prefer about 6 months in the incubator (as my concern is just having too many articles floating around there to be manageable) Hobit (talk) 10:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In theory this is great, but it has a few problems that make it unworkable. 1) It forces the people who want to see BLPs cleaned up to do pretty much 100% of the work, which is what's gotten us into this situation. "It just takes a few minutes" times 50,000 = several hundred days. 2) As you note, material that looks harmless may not be. 3) Moving it to userspace means that at best, one user will end up working on it. At worst, it will sit there forever. If the articles are moved somewhere, it should be to an incubator, and only temporarily. Mr.Z-man23:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'll point out that the other schemes that involve "source it or it dies" require those favoring keeping it around to do all the work. I view that as even more problematic as I always hate the "*you* need to fix this" mentality. Both working toward solving the problem would be best and this manages that. Hobit (talk) 10:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Esowteric
By the time the things go through speedy, speedy is contested and declined, then through AfD, the content can be all over the mirror/clone sites. Their crawlers may not obey HTML noindex tags when they scrape content. Esowteric+Talk18:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Edit: I am in favour of withholding content until "cleared" and helping to find references, but against the madness of mass deletion of entire articles on sight. Esowteric+Talk19:32, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
If you come across unsourced and controversial content in any article, just delete it right away. Chances are nobody will object, since the content is not sourced. Bios that attract harmful content may well be of notable people. Better to improve the article than delete it - if a search shows there are available sources. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of FloNight
1) Quality review of articles is a necessary part of maintaining Wikipedia. Once articles have been tagged as needing significant clean up then deletion may be a reasonable outcome for a subset of them if no improvements are made. 2) Quality review and improvement processes on Wikipedia are too time consuming and ineffective resulting in a significant number of poor quality articles. 3) Most people do not spend a significant amount of time working on improving articles of low interest. This lack of attention has left a large back log that needs to be addressed. 5) Many of the poor quality articles of low interest were written in no more than a couple of minutes by one person with few improvements over years time on site, so a deletion discussion that take hours of many editors time to complete does not make sense. 6) Improvements in the deletion process to make them more efficient and effective in managing poor quality articles is needed now. This could include speedy deletion for a subset of articles. 7. Speedy deletion, prod, and Afd needed to be improved so they enhance and not hinder content improvement. 8) The growth in both the usage of Wikipedia, and its public importance, make verifying the content in BLP articles increasingly critical.
For these reasons I support proposals that identify unreferenced BLP articles, allow interested editors the opportunity to add references for the identifying information and reason, and set a deadline for accomplishing the reviews. FloNight♥♥♥♥19:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Agree - I agree with this sentiment. It's ridiculous to be expecting a small number of active editors to immediately be able to go back and reference all BLPs that people have created without sources over the past 10 years. It's important that we do it, but it's also important that a reasonable timeframe is permitted. matt91486 (talk) 19:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Half agree. I think there are two quite different issues: cleaning up the mess and stopping it from getting worse. There is no real urgency to cleaning up the mess, apart from obviously defamatory content, and there probably is quite a lot of good stuff out there. Maybe a project could define and build a bot to separate out the clearly junk, clearly interesting and stuff in between. For example, maybe "less than 10 words" would indicate clearly junk, and lots of inbound links would indicate "interesting". It would take some experiment to get a good scoring mechanism. Then they could recommend a clean-up approach. That takes some research, but there is no real urgency. Stopping it getting worse is more urgent, and I like the idea a few editors have mentioned of fairly quickly userfying unsourced bios, then maybe automatically deleting them if nothing is done for a few months. That way the unsourced bio quickly moves out of mainspace, but the creator is encouraged to clean up and add sources if there are any before putting it back in. The problem does not get worse. Aymatth2 (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree, If an article is poor and needs improvement, it needs just that. Deletion is not an improvement. Deletion destroys what was already there, some of which could very well be meritorious. Be selective in your destruction. Define, rework, tag, possibly even delete JUST THE CONTENTIOUS MATERIAL.Trackinfo (talk) 21:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In general, agree, particularly with the last sentence. I'd like to point out that in addition to policy changes, there are several threads in this RfC making much the same point: We need to get WikiProjects involved in evaluating unreferenced BLPs. Look at the threads above started by Resolute [30], Balloonman [31], The-Pope [32] and Pohta ce-am potit [33]. There is no technical problem in identifying unreferenced BLPs by subject area (see The-Pope's discussion for links to the programs for that). Individuals can even do searches to find unreferenced BLPs in their areas of interest and post the search results on a WikiProject talk page if the list isn't too long. It requires some organization to get Wikiprojects notified of the problem and the search problems that can help identify the articles they may want to save, and probably some publicity to alert individual editors. Any real solution to a big problem like this will require getting a lot of hands involved. Where I disagree: You say that there are many unreferenced BLPs quickly created and of little value. But there are many that are not. I've run across Ira Joe Fisher and Maxim Shostakovich, which I minimally "fixed", and those might have been deleted. Let's get editors with an interest taking a good look at the unreferenced BLPs over the next several months. That's an uncontroversial, constructive approach that can work with any future policy. And we can organize it now. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC) EDITED TO ADD: I've made a proposal to do this and stuck it on the RfC talk page, here [34] -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FloNight raises some really valid points here, in that we need some efficient way to address poor-quality low-importance articles. I'd be a lot more comfortable if this discussion was more focused on solving this problem instead of being focused on trying to justify solutions. Unreferenced does not mean poor quality, and it certainly doesn't mean low-importance. Many poor-quality articles have 1 or more sources. Adding a source to a poorly-written article does not make it better-written. Maybe what we need is a change in PROD and AfD standards to allow poor quality to be a criterion for deleting BLPs even if the subject is notable. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 08:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposed. Fundamentally contradicts WP:PRESERVE policy. If we delete all that is "low quality", we'd be left with a few thousand FAs and GAs. And some of the old FAs and especially GAs are also of low quality, and rate of those is decreasing; see Wikipedia:100,000 feature-quality articles. The average Wikipedia article is mostly crap, per our UK media representative, David Gerard. Wikipedia has become a top hit on Google because of the low entry bar for new contributions and contributors. Now that the brand is established, the self-appointed content leadership wants to change the editorial policies in fundamental ways. I've seen this happen with some newspapers in Romania, e.g. Evenimentul Zilei gained a huge readership by starting out essentially as a tabloid, and then became one of the top "quality" newspapers in the country by a change in editorial staff. This would be an acceptable change for Wikipedia too if: (1) the self-appointed content leadership—the ArbCom and its band of activist admins—actually owned the site, and (2) if the previous contents did not matter, like in the case of a newspaper. Unfortunately neither of these holds true for Wikipedia. Live with it, or move to another project. Pcapping10:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this edit clarifies my BLP editorial policy. I'm obviously not in favor of keeping contentious material around unless it can be sourced. I even tried to G10-blank some fairly negative articles that were on less well-known figures (to me, anyway), with mixed results [35][36][37][38] (see my talk page for the kerfuffle that resulted). So, please, don't try to paint me as the libel dude. Pcapping12:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, ArbCom's protegé, Lar, has been busy prodding the following as "unsourced": [39][40][41][42][43][44]. Honestly, he has a worse track record than Miami3xxxx, but then ArbCom found nothing wrong with that guy either. Presumably this is the drive to quality, led by editors that only delete stuff. Pcapping14:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Far too many biographies in WP now read like hagiography or self-serving press releases, with no hint of disinterested, dispassionate objective discussion.
Therefore items which differ from this — and which some could call contentious — should be labelled or indicated as such but otherwise left in place. Varlaam (talk) 21:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who endorse this summary
Comment
Going light on unsourced material judged not "controversial or contentious" (proposed several times above) will bias BLP's toward the sanitized and promotional. Removing unsourced complimentary material is a better solution than preserving unsourced negative material. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability if we need a policy to go with that. / edg☺☭03:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Loosmark
I have 2 things to say about this topic: 1) anonymous IPs should not be allowed to create new BLPs 2) everybody is concentrating on biographies of living people however biographies of people who aren't alive anymore suffer from similar problems. that problem should be addressed too. Dr. Loosmark22:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This project has acquired a culture of letting WP:PRESERVE dominate the strict application of WP:V ('strict' as espoused in Jimbo Wales' quote here), and that wider coverage of content is more important than that information's integrity.
Although this culture has most potential to damage Wikipedia in BLPs, it is an issue over all articles. If any change is to be made it will need constant and consistent enforcement and support at all levels from policy documents, administrative enforcement, all the way up to the foundation.
The accumulation of unverified information in articles has happened for one reason alone: it arrives at a faster rate than it is removed. Currently, the inclusion of unverified material is usually unchallenged or unnoticed, but most removals have to be struggled over; this situation will persist with no intervention.
The relative value put on volume and integrity needs to be determined, by making it crystal-clear to every editor how and where WP:PRESERVE is to be enforced over WP:V. Having to have these same arguments again and again at every single article is the limiting factor on the removal of unverified information. Knepflerle (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who endorse this summary
Absolutely agree. The ability to add endless volumes of content without any systematic method to review it has permitted an accumulation of stale, unverified information. A systematic method of quality review is needed to clean up all areas of Wikipedia with BLP being the priority. FloNight♥♥♥♥00:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly endorse. This is an accurate explanation of how we dug ourselves into this mess in the first place, and because of this we should have a stricter standard of quality for our incoming articles. ThemFromSpace04:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. If this initiative galvanizes more referencing, WP readers (and editors) would take it with a smaller grain of salt. Nice discussion of quality v. quantity. Novickas (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Mostlyharmless
As usual, the deletionists are using their favourite weapon in the fight against poor quality content. There's a saying that "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail", and that is unfortunately the case here. This is the nuclear option, and far inferior to having a considered effort to improve content and verifiability. Mostlyharmless (talk) 23:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, absolutely. I've been watching things around here enough to see a disturbing culture of "tag for deletion first, ask questions later" developing - I can cite a couple of examples where I suspect an otherwise-viable contributor who ought to be welcomed has been scared off because people aren't willing to take the time to a.) find out whether his information is notable, and b.) explain to him some of the processes. I'm disturbed by the very thought of up and deleting anything without making an attempt to source it. And again, as someone just down the page asks - what constitutes "valid sourcing"? What if that sourcing's offline? Not likely for a BLP, but it's possible. What if it's decided that the sourcing isn't valid enough?
I have drafted a set of varying proposals regarding our coverage of living persons at User:Vassyana/BLP. Please review the proposals, express your opinion, and discuss them on the proposals talk page. I built the subpage and accompanying talk page to avoid bogging down this already quite long RfC with a long set of proposals. We seem to be making headway regarding the deletion of unsourced BLPs, but (as others have pointed out) there are many more issues left to address that can substantively affect the broader issue. Vassyana (talk) 23:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Poeticbent
There’s a major problem with most of the above proposals. They all lack definition of what is adequate or inadequate sourcing, and leave it to interpretation. I’m a subject of an AfD, already a third one, conducted by the same political lobby connected with the most recent ArbCom case.[45] The many Eastern Europeans who partake in it, jump from one AfD to the next, with the same subjective claim that the sources of information are poor. For example: a full page article in a newspaper with the local distribution of 18,000 copies sold in kiosks, suddenly becomes a carrier of free advertising on the coffee table in any hotel room. A casebound book of poetry is not enough and neither is a prominent anthology, nor a publisher, to merit the inclusion. A poetry review is not significant enough to be mentioned among the many refs, and neither is the participation in a national exhibition of paintings by the most prominent professional artists; literally, nothing is good enough for the lobbyists to merit the presence of the article in Wikipedia in spite of its long list of reference points. Not only that, the existing references are being thrown out and lied about by aggressive lobbyists who tag them ... in a never-ending display of behavioral problems. I understand, that this request for comment on BLPs is an attempt at trying to upgrade the quality of information in Wikipedia away from the social network sites, where people write about themselves for the amusement of their own peers. However, if you want to have the insider’s view before you make up your mind, please talk to people with BLPs first. I’m one of them, and I’m telling you: this is a Pandora’s box of potential abuse by disgruntled lobbyists and partisan groups, claiming inadequate sourcing for articles about their political opponents, and thus trying to delete them on the basis of a far-reaching policy. -- Poeticbenttalk02:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. There are administrators and editors on Wikipedia with a point of view, who ACT impartial but delete or tag content with a level of advocacy for their point of view. It happens to me and I do not deal in significantly controversial subjects. Some people believe they are so right that the end justifies the means. If a BLP flag means an entire article, a subject, is delete-able, then this gives such people additional tools to conduct censorship of opposing points of view--exactly the opposite of the intent of this site.Trackinfo (talk) 02:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is the problem with most of the "no consensus default to delete" proposals, that political edit warriors find achieving a "no consensus" fairly easy, and their goals have nothing to do with protecting the article subject. --GRuban (talk) 23:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support This is a very important point. Individual editors should not deem sources unreliable or unacceptable unless there has been a clear consensus of their BLP-unacceptability (e.g. some dude's blog); all the types of sources Poeticbent mentions above should pass the cut. Poorly sourced is often used to describe "poorly formatted" or "not my favorite referencing format". Many of these articles are one or two sentence stubs. An External link or two or an offline reference can be adequate referencing then. If it takes minimal effort to start fact - checking, comparable to that of following inline cites, deletion as (purportedly) unsourced is utterly irrational.John Z (talk) 11:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I agree that standards should not be "gamed" by opponents seeking article deletion. But the thrust of your comment seems to be as a BLP subject with a wish to have an article and frustrated at its removal, which is very different.
If Wikipedia doesn't have an article on someone, that's fine. Wikipedia is not anyone's promotional platform and arguing "but I should have an article" doesn't really work. Your argument is more about evidence of notability (ie, what kind of sourcing would force opponents to admit an article should exist) rather than in-article sourcing. Not quite the same although they overlap. Sources within articles should be reliable, and attest the facts in the article. FT2(Talk | email)15:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is it any more "junk" than tagging for deletion a totally uncontroversial article whose entire content is "Dick Forsman (b. 1953 in Helsinki) is a Finnish ornithologist. He is considered one of the world's leading authorities on the identification raptors, and is the author of The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East."? That prod removal doesn't even come close to Scott MacDonald's idiocy for tagging it in the first place. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Was it reliably sourced? Is it sourced now? If it wasn't sourced by the remover, that prod removal was vandalistic in intent, IMHO. (hints: no, and yes it is now, but not by the cowardly and lazy anon who removed the tag... thanks to Edward Vielmetti et al. who worked hard to fix it up). The end result of that prod tagging is that we have a better article now. ++Lar: t/c12:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that a decent rationale should be given for de-PRODding, and that such de-PRODs should be disregarded as vandalistic. Which doesn't mean necessarily that it needs to be absolutely fixed before deprodding: it may be the case that one has a reasonable suspect that reliable sources exist but, for example, are in a foreign language, and thus the article should be best discussed at AfD. --Cyclopiatalk13:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bah. If people are going to PROD massive numbers of articles without themselves doing a search for sources, I don't see any reason others shouldn't remove the prod. I'd be a lot happier if those prodding were following WP:BEFORE. Hobit (talk) 14:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone even know just how many "innocent BLP victims" there are? Has anyone compiled a log diffs of evidence of harm done to innocent peoples biographies? I dunno if there is evidence besides the major cases like the siegenthaler incident or if it's all just suggested or assumed, maybe we're just kicking up a huge shitstorm over something that isn't such a major problem to begin with. -- Ϫ07:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IAR is policy, Edgar, whether you like it or not. And right after the bolded part you were using to support your erroneous claim is this nugget (emphasis mine): "This excludes removals that are clearly not an objection to deletion, such as page blanking or obvious vandalism." No, we're not required to respect PROD removal of someone clearly making a joke of the removal ("Tories never win!") and bullshit like that. UnitAnode05:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The basic argument is "whose job is it to fix these". You seem to think it's those that want to keep it. I think it's those who find unsourced BLPs to be problematic. I'm willing to compromise on "both" by requiring those wishing to delete to follow WP:BEFORE and make a real attempt at sourcing before PRODing but then requiring those that want to remove the PROD to source else in 7 days it goes off into the incubator. You seem stuck on the "someone else should do the work I want done," which strangely, others don't care for. Hobit (talk) 10:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Practical suggestion by Edward Vielmetti
One practical way to deal with AfDs for living people that get contested is to use the {{rescue}} tag to pull them into the rescue project. This brings it into the realm of a group who are looking to improve articles. Generally uncontroversial but poorly sourced and non-encyclopedic as written articles that need some love and attention to get them up to snuff (but that reference notable people) are well handled by this approach. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 03:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Would-be proposal by B Fizz
Personifying a BLP as a person, assume innocent until proven guilty. If verifiable sources can be found that contradict information in a BLP, then the BLP should be proposed for deletion; in this case the BLP is "proven" to be harmful to the project.
But in such a case, deletion due to incorrect content is ridiculous. Just change the information, and cite the source. So my would-be proposal for a deletion process of BLPs defeats itself, and invites us to improve articles rather than throwing away the contributions of countless Wikipedians, simply because said contributions cannot prove their own innocence. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz04:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is completely backward. If you have sources for information that could go in the article, it's probably notable and should not be deleted. Just delete the information that is contradicted and insert the sources. Gigs (talk) 15:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As we can see by the huge amount of dissent between all the views above, it can easily be concluded that BLP's are indeed extremely complicated to address. However, our talks could move much faster if we came up with a set of criteria as to what makes an BLP without sources unreliable. I believe a new page is required where editors can put together a list of things that makes a BLP unusable so that others can peruse the website, correcting or deleting said articles.
I was skipping this proposal with a grin on my face when a thought hit me. No one has yet explained why this problem has suddenly become urgent enough for us all to stop doing other useful work so we can deal with it immediately. The most sensible policy may be to do nothing until we all calm down, though I hope this will take much less than 120 years. Certes (talk) 22:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The question has recently come to a head of what to do about unreferenced biographies that have remained unreferenced for a very long period of time. There have been different views put forward by reasonable people of good faith - and an unfortunate lot of heat besides.
I think, though, that it will be valuable to assess the points of agreement - which I believe among those reasonable people of good faith are much greater than the differences.
1. Biographies ought to be of high quality, and one valuable but imperfect tool for improving quality is to make sure that all or most non-trivial claims in a biography are referenced to a quality source. I don't think anyone disagrees with this.
2. We ought to have a process for improving these biographies - leaving them unreferenced permanently is not a viable solution.
3. We have, so far, failed to do so. Those in the "fixer" camp note that it often doesn't take long - 10 minutes or less in many cases - and those in the "deleter" camp don't disagree with that, but note that it is easy to say we could fix them, but the fact remains - these things have been sitting around forever.
4. Deleters point out, correctly, that articles deleted as unreferenced can always be recreated whenever someone wants to write a new and properly references article.
5. Fixers point out, correctly, that it is harder to write something from scratch once it has been deleted, rather than fixing it. Problems include both "having a list to work from" and "having to write everything over from scratch, discarding work that was often not that great but a valid starting point".
Here is what I propose we do:
1. Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 3 years, a three-month notice time starting February 1st, before they are deleted on May 1st.
2. Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 2 years, a three-month notice time starting May 1st, before they are deleted on August 1st.
3. Starting with everything which has been unferenced for more than 1 year, a three-month notice time starting August first, before they are deleted on November 1st.
In all cases, biographies deleted for being old and unreferenced should be put onto a list for those who wish to come behind and work on them further.
Additionally, biographies which are in the queue for potential deletion are of course subject to being speedied if they are merely attack pieces or for other routine speedy-deletion reasons.
After that, we can consider how long is a reasonable life span (I would say one week, but one month could be fine as well) for new biographies to exist in a sad state before they are deleted.
The point of the problem does not lie in the particular timings I have suggest, but the idea of a methodology which attempts to balance the concerns of both sides.
I acknowledge that there may be some who believe that unreferenced biographies should be kept on the site permanently, even if no one is willing to improve them. But that battle has been lost. This is a proposal for a way forward for the "fixer and deleter" debate, not the "should Wikipedia keep low-quality biographies" camp.
I'd love to host a discussion here, but I'm going to make a special request for maximum civility. Insults of any kind should be removed immediately from this discussion by anyone who notices them. I'm not interested in snark and anger, I'm interested in a productive way forward.
The-Pope: Agree, with one big proviso - if this is so important get your smartest Bot/Code writers to fully automate the lists. If it's got no refs and a Cat:Living People or the BLP project tags then it goes on the list - every day, not once a month like the Wolterbot from the database dump. If it has a project tag on it, it goes on the project's Unrefed BLP page. If we are to fix the problem, we can't waste time compiling and maintaining the lists.The-Pope (talk) 15:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse The three months time limit is an excellent idea. It puts pressure on the creators and active editors of the unreferenced articles, in a positive way. It also forces them to put in some effort in finding references and improving the quality of the articles. There'll probably be more FAs and GAs coming soon. _LDS (talk) 16:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Provisionally endorse, but also expressing the same concern as The-Pope. As a second proviso, I would expect a strict no-tolerance stance on lazy deletions. I'm coming across several articles that have some references - either a couple inline, a general ref section, and/or misplaced as part of an External links section that are tagged as BLP-Unreferenced. If the people doing the deleting aren't checking for this, they will be damaging the project far more than helping it. Resolute16:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I said in my statement, I support proposals that identify the unref and poorly referenced articles so that they can be reviewed with a deadline set for when the work must be completed. The exact time period is less important than developing a plan to get the quality improvement work completed. FloNight♥♥♥♥16:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional Support I have no problem with this, assuming that we incorporate some mechanism to notify people of this endeavor in very noticable manner. Peregrine is correct that if it was up to the people who have participated on this RfC, we don't have the manpower---which is why we need to get others involved. We should add a banner to the top of Wikipedia and notify affected projects that there may be a massive purge coming. If the relative projects don't want to save the articles under their purvue, then they sacrafice their right to complain about unreferenced BLPs.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!17:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a reasonable plan -- the time frames seem approximately right, just as long as the lists are maintained after the end of the process in case someone wants to go back and rescue a deleted article next year. Consider smaller and more manageable chunks, though -- perhaps four months' worth of articles a month instead of one year a quarter -- and be flexible about speeding up or slowing down the process based on early results. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 17:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse As with all of the other similar proposals like this. Balloonman's proviso above is good too. We need a site notice or similar notification of this massive campaign to reference BLPs. --Jayron3217:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. This seems like a workable way forward, especially if we involve the WikiProjects. I also endorse the comments of The-Pope (BLP violation?) and Balloonman (ditto?) as sensible practical points. If I might suggest anythin, it is that a list of deleted articles will never be looked at by anyone. Anyone can recreate a referenced version of a page deleted under this proposal without running foul of G4, yet many people here seem to be trying to add extra safeguards: they are unnecessary IMHO. Physchim62(talk)18:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - I don't think the timing needs to be set in stone from the beginning, but the idea of "there is no deadline" has really not worked out so well for us here. While it may only take 10 minutes to fix one of these articles, we have 10 of them, that's nearly a full year of effort just to fix the ones that currently exist. Mr.Z-man18:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonable. If the BLPs cannot be fixed within a reasonable time frame – three months plus the time they have already exited – then we should not have them on the project. NW(Talk)20:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support An excellent proposal. Make it four or five months for those below complaining about the lack of time, but this is a solid, workable solution. Reywas92Talk01:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support This is the first deadline-based proposal I've seen that seems remotely credible, and not likely to result in mass deletion by default. The longer than 3 years part of the backlog is close to being done already, and the subsequent deadlines look reasonable. I note that a good half of the backlog (measured in number of articles) was accumulated in the past year, however, and no deadline was set for that. Might I suggest that we take a look at what kind of backlog-clearing rate we can sustain on the first few batches, and then set deadlines on that basis? As far as new articles go, there are two rates of interest: the first is the rate at which editors creating unsourced BLPs source them upon being admonished to do so (I think we already have a bot set up to do this, or at least a bot which can be converted to do this), the second is the rate at which a yet-to-be-activated task force can get to them and source them if the author chooses not to, for whatever reason (I expect the rate of newbie alienation to be high). Both are rates we can measure before setting a hard deadline (say, for a period of a month or so), while we work at clearing the backlog. I caveat that this is a conditional support - I really do think this focus on unreferenced BLPs, with their very low "truly negative uncontroversial" to "merely unsourced and quite decent" ratio, is misguided, and chilling on the atmosphere of openness which has helped Wikipedia thrive. But this is the "least bad" of the options I've seen coming from the other direction. RayTalk02:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Provided #1 or #2 are ultimately rejected. I disagree with certain editors repeatedly trying to insert their personal crusades regarding "lost editors" and "bitten newbies" into every discussion. This issue has nothing whatsoever to do with bitten newbies or lost editors. Unreferenced BLPs have been around as long as Wikipedia has. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support this. Would prefer shorter time frames. For the point on it being easier to improve than create from scratch, we have the ability to restore. Lara13:34, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support & agree with The-Pope's suggestion. Would also suggest a page/bot where editors can automatically get a page that's been deleted under this policy Userified to a sub-user-page. The Admin's would likely be overloaded with undelete requests otherwise. Bazj (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit, before reading your view I didn't expect I'll support it, based on your support of the deletions that started all of this. I think it is a reasonable proposal. Sole Soul (talk)
Support / Comment "In all cases, biographies deleted for being old and unreferenced should be put onto a list for those who wish to come behind and work on them further." Does this mean that content will be still available but no longer "published live" to the masses, or just a list of subject titles? I'm all for being able to work on content that is hidden until cleared. Esowteric+Talk17:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with general approach, though not necessarily the exact timeline/figures given. Would also suggest the list of deleted articles include a few choice details if possible (e.g. when person was alive, WikiProjects it was tagged with) --Cybercobra(talk)02:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support – I've done some basic number-crunching in regard to the final proposed deadline. As of now, there are about 48,000 unreferenced BLPs and 277 days until November 1 (please correct me if my figures are wrong). If we can source/otherwise handle 175 articles per day, they will all be done by the end of Jimbo's suggested period. As long as enough people are willing to continue working like they have been since this RfC started, we should be able to meet or exceed that figure. My only question is what happens to the BLPs less than a year old as of November, but I assume we would deal with them then. Overall, the proposal acknowledges that we have a problem while giving us ample time to fix it. Of the few proposals I've read in-depth so far, this would be my first choice. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That would be fine if we hadn't lost so many editors in the past year or two. Every suggestion on this page ignores that we just don't have the manpower anymore. A three month deadline will probably result in 95% deletion. A deadline that takes our decline into consideration might have my support. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the entire focus on "unsourced" BLPs as a proxy issue for the real issue of "low quality and unmonitored BLPs" is going to lead us to a sub-par solution that won't really address the problem. There's plenty of high quality unsourced BLPs. There's plenty of BLPs with a source or two that no one is keeping an eye on. We need to make sure the problem is framed correctly so that we get a solution that actually addresses real concerns and not just window dressing. Gigs (talk) 16:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but a bot cannot reliably determine whether an article has sources not tagged as references (or, for that matter, with the exception of articles not edited for a number of years, whether sources not tagged as references had been there recently). If found reasonable by Wikipedia consensus that WP:BLP be changed from "unsourced material be removed" to "material not tagged with <ref> tags be removed", then I might consider this a reasonable compromise. Under normal circumstances, I'd put this as "agree, with a proviso", but these circumstances are not normal. I think we may even have a few articles dating back before <ref> tags worked reliably, so that the sources are noted by other means.
To piggyback on to this: I'd be in favor of this idea, so long as we establish what, exactly, constitutes "sufficient sources" for this purpose. One reference? Two? Three? I know of plenty of articles that can be sourced from a single reference, but would that be allowed? --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.16:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For the many reasons above, and also for the reason that indiscriminately deleting such a large volume of material would essentially create two Wikipedias (one accessible to regular editors, and a larger, more useful one accessible only to administrators), I respectfully oppose Mr. Wales' suggested course of action. Robert K S (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the above view is closest to mine. There is not supposed to be a deadline. PROD has already been an awkward exception; we have always trusted administrators to use it wisely. We have also seen a recent experiment in making New Article Patrol people move faster and show more good faith. The effect of that has been to decrease the scrutiny that unreferenced articles get at the one point when the hoaxes, attacks, and non-notables could most sensibly and easily be either deleted or PROD'd. That's the choke point where those who are very concerned about unreferenced articles could most usefully focus their attention, in my view. Not older articles that in some cases precede the referencing policy, and in many cases are being slowly edited in the untimed, collaborative manner the site works in. Or so I thought. Frankly, this initiative to mass-delete articles, and the way concerns have been responded to, have turned me off editing for a while. I like the thrust of Jimbo's suggestion, but I have received the impression that many admins don't realize what an obstacle getting something that has been deleted userified is. Even pushing the edit button is an obstacle - more and more as policies increase and are referred to more and more by arcane abbreviations. The vast majority of these inadequate or non-standard references were added by people who didn't know how they were supposed to help, but tried. Heck, I'm sure I've added references to articles and left the "unreferenced" tag, feeling that I probably hadn't added enough references, so it would be polite to leave the tag. Sad to think I and all the rest of the inexpert might thereby have wasted the effort. And finally . . . an encyclopedia is for those who look things up, not for those who edit it. There has to be a point at which we admit that we can't read the minds of the end-users about what they might find useful or interesting. That is one of the biggest differences between this project and a print encyclopedia: it has a functionally infinite reach. So I would ask that so far as possible, this continue to be an encyclopedia edited by (any) editor willing to work within its framework, for a general audience; not a project to satisfy the preferences of admins. I would prefer us to return to not having deadlines at all. If 3 months is the best we can get, I will still have lost a lot of my trust in the project, but it's better than an impossible deadline Yngvadottir (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. 3 months seems fine, but it is just going to end up being done in the last week... or not, and many which are possibly sourceable are going to be deleted because we did not do anything about it in this period. Keep the period short, 5 days, a week, like the existing prod-process, which will keep the pressure high, which, in the end, is going to be more productive. We've had years, we've not done anything for years, if not done in a week, then also not done in 3 months. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, get your ass in gear fixing the problem then. You've got 5 days to fix 50,000 articles. Or are you the type who talks tough but doesn't follow through? Resolute16:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I expressed some conditional support on Jimbo's talk page, and I could reconsider it if articles are not deleted but indefinitely kept in a separate namespace. My main concern is the loss of good startpoints and, as Gigs says, being unsourced is not a good proxy for being libelous/vandalized/completely inaccurate. --Cyclopiatalk16:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe there has ever before been evidence of such a concerted effort as we have now to deal with these articles. The number of articles tagged as unsourced BLPs has already decreased considerably in the past week without any changes in policy. The will is certainly there now. Let the community deal with this issue without arbitrary deadlines hanging over them, and please encourage constructive working to achieve consensus on this issue, and be clear that acting against the community is not the way forward. If we can slow considerably the rate of new unsourced BLPs being created (please concentrate on this as a first priority), we can deal with the backlog without deleting valid articles based solely on time limits. If the pre-2010 list of unsourced BLPs hasn't decreased considerably in a month's time, we can revisit the issue, but give the efforts currently taking place a chance to succeed.--Michig (talk) 17:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That battle has not been lost, as you can see by reading some of the other discussions here. By all means, delete libelous (referenced or unreferenced) BLPs. If you've found an unsourced BLP, spent some time trying to find sources and failed, then use PROD. Even better, organize a drive to clear the unsourced BLP backlog, without imposing any artificial deadlines. I might support a compromise where unsourced BLPs are stubbed (with full history preserved and viewable by all editors) if that were on the table. But I strongly oppose mass deletions of any kind as a way forward. TotientDragooned (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the battle is lost... while we may not all agree that unsourced BLPs are by definition bad, WMF/Jimbo have spoken. They don't want unsourced BLP's on wikipedia... the question becomes how to handle them. I think Jimbo has shown that he is listening to the community when the community rejects the knee jerk reaction to delete everything speedily and has made a proposal with a reasonable time frame. As Z-man indicated above, we may have to adjust that time schedule, but this is a reasonable approach going forward.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!19:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My point is, it was a post on his talk page meant to open a discussion that someone else cross posted here. If this is a policy declaration that goes against the massive consensus (or lack thereof) expressed above, it needs to be made clearer. Gigs (talk) 20:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I debated if I belonged in the oppose or support catagory. I think this is a good starting point but A) I'd prefer longer than 3 months. B) I think those not sourced should be kept in a different namespace with NOROBOTS to allow a starting point for recreation C) It would be helpful if there was a way to get the deletionists involved in the actual fixing. D) Someone needs to recognize that unsourced BLPs aren't the problem and fixing them shouldn't be the priority. The priority should be dealing with BLPs that have false statements and simply sourcing the BLPs isn't going to fix that in any way at all. This is not a solution to the problem, rather it is solving a problem we can easily identify rather than solving the actual problem. Hobit (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose It is within JW's power to impose this solution, but I regard such an imposition as being unwise as it undercuts the basic principles of WP that policies are set by the editors, and not set from Mount Sinai. It is certainly possible that an ordinary RfC would have reached a similar position, but I would prefer to think that us mere editors can reach lofty decisions on our own. Collect (talk) 20:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Jehochman and others have given much better resolutions than this. Moreover, it is very clear that this sort of proposal doesn't address the fact that the vast majority of unreferenced BLPs are perfectly harmless. This is much too much an extreme kill it with fire approach that we don't need. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman's solution is going to result in mass deletions. It will likely result in 50K articles getting BLP tagged in rapid order followed by massive PROD Deletions pointing to this RfC as justification, but still creating the chaos we'd like to avoid. This solution has a built in time frame that is workable. Cleaning up that many BLP's will take time. Jimbo's comment here also undercuts the urgency with which the BLP crew seems to think we need to act. Jimbo's willing to do this right, even if it takes 9+ months to do so.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!22:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose In my view, the reason the backlog of unreferenced BLPs is so large (and so many articles have been unreferenced for years) is because the community wasn't focused on sourcing them. Tagging articles for unreferenced BLPs just started in earnest in Nov./Dec. 2008, and notifying editors of new unreferenced BLPs was even more recent. However, since November 2009, we've seen a large decrease in the backlog of unreferenced BLPs (the backlog was at least 54,000 at the end of Nov. 2009, and now it's under 49,000). I don't think artificial deadlines for deletion are helpful or needed. Tools to prevent new unreferenced BLPs (those in place are good, but I'm sure we can make better ones), tools to help Wikiprojects and interested editors source the backlog (these are generally pretty recent developments - and far from perfect) and a clear indication that this is a important goal of the project (to get more manpower) are the things that will eliminate the backlog in the more cooperative and efficient manner. Jogurney (talk) 23:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to the idea, but right this right now is probably not going to fly well - there's too much insistence on deletion (which brings tensions, so hinders large-scale collaboration). I'm in agreement with Jogurney; in perspective only a small number of users have been involved in 'cleaning up' BLPs so far, and we need to involve a much larger part of the community. In my view, I propose a vast initiative to cleanup BLPs, unreferenced ones in particular; and while deletion should always be an option when reviewing BLPs, it should not be the main focus of this campaign. I can support stricter PRODs for BLPs, I support Jerochman's view, but it seems to me that any large scale attempt should not be deletion-centered, for now at least, to achieve a maximal level of cohesion, so collaboration and efficiency. I think we should try this first, and depending on the results, consider going ahead with an initiative with more insistence on deletion - what you propose is very similar to other proposals on this page. Cenarium (talk) 15:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Enables further procrastination. The deadline will be anounced. Nothing will be done to clean up the articles, and then when the mass deletions start there will be howls of protest. By doing rolling deletions, some every week, we give people a more manageable number of articles to focus on in the short term, and we keep the cleanup effort going continuously, rather than having quarterly purges. JehochmanBrrr17:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Jehochman - this is just a weaker and worse version of his proposal that doesn't really have any advantages. (Still, better than nothing)-- Bfigura(talk)20:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, though I must say this is a surprisingly reasonable solution, and probably my second most favorite I've seen thus far (status quo would be #1). I see no need for this. What worries me is that hostage-taking will become the way to solve other backlog issues in the future. ("Wikify this by August 31, or the article gets it!"). GregorB (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. Three months warning time for mass deletions is of course a lot better than no warning at all, but I can't support mass deletions that don't take the actual contents of articles into account and setting deadlines when it is hard to assess what the consequences will be of choosing 3 months as opposed to 2, 4, 6.3 or any other arbitrary value. I also have a feeling that proportionally more biographies about people from the non-English speaking world will be deleted, leaving an English-language Wikipedia more unbalanced than today, which could serve to make it look worse rather than better. Tomas e (talk) 21:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because Wikipedia:There is no deadline, even for BLPs. Obviously, an article containing unsourced statements that would be defamatory if false is something different, but that's really not what we're talking about here. The tens of thousands of unsourced BLPs that don't say anything bad about their subjects ought to be improved, but they don't need to be prioritized any higher than the hundreds of thousands of other Wikipedia articles that ought to be improved. Ntsimp (talk) 03:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I request you read and consider, "Fresh Eyes Say 'What are you thinking??'" which seems a practical way to encourage volunteers to be more active "fixers", gives readers, as well as editors, a prominent "question of quality" warning in the meantime and doesn't trash articles, editor morale and possibly Wikipedia's reputation needlessly. If there's a better tool for the job, this one will do good work and won't cause irreparable damage before the better tool is identified. Refrigerator Heaven (talk) 08:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose a) what makes us think that 90 days will allow a real fix (50,000 articles), esp. if they have been around 3 years without a fix? 90 days seems like a sham, not a solution. b) why is it that only BLP articles are at risk? Is there no harm done in bios of dead people that are unsourced? seems like a phony distinction. --Mdukas (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I find this proposal not only totally detached from the work of writing Wikipedia, but appallingly arrogant in its assumptions. First, there are large portions of Wikipedia which have few if any eyes, where the articles lack references or sources, yet their content is otherwise unproblematical if not accurate. Second, many active Wikipedia editors simply aren't in a position to drop everything to simply add sources to a bunch of otherwise satisfactory articles. In my case, for example, I work on all aspects of Ethiopia-related articles: medieval history, modern history, geography, culture, fauna & flora & so forth. I tend to jump back & forth between topics to keep my interest engaged, which means I may write a very detailed article in a given category, but be ignorant in another, be unprepared to jump to another, or lack immediate access to sources for areas I worked in weeks, months or years ago. Further, although I consider myself well-informed in many areas, I am hardly able to jump in & fix biographical articles about people in areas I know nothing about -- & I suspect many other editors are in the same situation. Lastly, since this seems to be such a significant problem, may I suggest that Wales lead by example? That he start sourcing old biographical articles lacking sources, & thus not only show to us how important this is but encourage (or shame) the rest of us into doing our share of the work. -- llywrch (talk) 21:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unrealistic. We dont have the manpower. I encourage you, Jimbo, to actually go through some of the articles that were deleted and PRODed (as a proxy of those that will be mass deleted) and see for yourself what will be lost, and the innocuous nature of the overwhelming majority of those articles. Also, please spend some time sourcing a Mexican politician or businessman, Cambodian military leader, Hungarian Broadcasting notability and acquaint yourself with the actual accessibility limitations and other difficulties of online media (in particular non-English). Then, please do move on into difficult territory, with different alphabets, go for a Ukrainian author, a Japanese entertainer, a Korean businessman, a Hindu or Chinese notability of your choice. Please do so, because many of the BLP alarmists wont lift a finger to actually fix articles. Also, please keep in mind that you are asking unpaid volunteers with heavy family and work commitments to do this. We need a different BLP strategy than deletion at the threat of gunpoint. Power.corrupts (talk) 10:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose If we start setting deadlines for the deletion of unreferenced BLPs then it needs to be done on a much smoother schedule that doesn't involve particular days when thousands of articles might be deleted. If we have three dates in the next 6 months when over 10,000 articles are scheduled for deletion we risk hurried slipshod salvage work in the 24/48 hours up to those deadlines. If we must set a schedule for referencing these articles then it needs to be a fine grained schedule where after say the first of March on each day the oldest week's worth of unreferenced BLPs get deleted. ϢereSpielChequers00:45, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose With all respect, I must reiterate the statements made by Cenarium, Peter Cohen, and Yngvadottir -- I dislike the focus on deletion rather than improving content, and I think the ultimate conclusion of this RFC (and the policies and edits that come out of it) ought to be having a much more cohesive, well-referenced, and comprehensive encyclopedia with as much content as possible (provided, of course, that it meets the inclusion criteria in WP:NOT). I fear that taking the road of "fix it or else" will lead to a diminished encyclopedia and the wholesale discouragement of new editors. I also think the timetable is unrealistic, as many have mentioned. While three months is much better than the one week ideas being touted in a lot of the earlier proposals, I think the three-month periods are a little short, and are spaced too closely. The three-years-unreferenced articles ought to be wholly or mostly cleaned up before we move on to the two-years-unreferenced ones. This would break it down into manageable phases, and help keep everyone involved focused. I also think that a larger grace period should be given to articles newer than one year. Perhaps not three months, but one month for new articles would be advisable and allow for both new and experienced editors to take infant articles and improve and reference them. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!20:37, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, but could support an amended version I don't think the timescale is realistic for the amount of work involved in satisfactorily sourcing these articles, and I resent the sudden imposition of deadlines for work which has been allowed to accumulate for years. We are talking about many thousands of articles here: the figure of 48,000 has been quoted but the exact number is unknown because some have been mistagged. However, it's safe to say it's a lot, and the impressive rate of progress achieved thus far is probably unsustainable since editors are naturally starting with the easiest articles to fix. However, I could support the proposal if articles which missed the deadline could be userfied or incubated, or otherwise moved out of mainspace and noindexed to allow extra time to work on them. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 23:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
Comments - This won't really solve the problem just sweep the problem under the rug so to speak. The problem is that we need to stop new unsourced BLP articles from occurring otherwise we will either get these constant build ups of unsourced BLP articles which we periodically clean out every so often like with the current proposal, or in the event where we don't get consensus to do a mass clear out like in the current proposal we get an ever increasing build up of unsourced BLP articles which we can never clear out because there just isn't enough people.
If we deal with the build up of new unsourced BLP articles then it means we can take our time to clear up existing unsourced BLP articles and prevent a further build up like we have now. I personally would prefer slow action on old/existing articles but swift action on new articles when the author of the article is around who should really only be creating articles with at least one source (and archiving the source but one thing at a time right?). A new article is much easier to deal with then an old one when the author has disappeared. --Sin Harvest (talk) 01:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is certainly more reasonable than some of the "zap everything on sight" views with which this rfc started. However, I have anumber of issues with it:
I am sceptical that whether a blp is referenced or not is a good proxy for its being libellous, promotional or otherwise misleading. Not all unsourced articles are inaccurate and not all sourced articles are accurate. for example the initial author of an article may slant it by only using sources that support their point-of-view or later editors can insert material that is unsourced but appears to be sourced because there is already a source sitting at the end of a sentence or paragraph. And these are just good faith examples. If I am right then we are substituting the appearance of addressing the problem in the place of actually addressing it with aome accurate bypoorly constructed articles being deleted when people could have been addressing the real problems.
There is a simple workaround for the lazy editor who doesn't want to be caught by this. Inserting one or two references which he knows covers the subject. In fact, if he's really lazy, he can just invent false references.
Anything that automatically gives leave to delete without the tagger or deleting admin havign to check for potential sources is likely to be WP:BITEy. Newcomers need to be educated into how the Wikipedia community expects material to be sourced, not given an immediate bad experience as their work is flagged straight away for deletion.
Carrots are better than sticks. The potential of getting your article mentioned on the front page and getting a nice logoed message from DYK is a much bigger motivator to produce referenced material than the threat of having whay you've just done thrown away.
Those who are working on unreffed articles say the backlog is being reduced. In which case why do we need to introduce measures that panic everybody else and potential make the experience of being a Wikipedia editor less attractive.
The prevention of new malicious or misleading material should be the priority. When I first went to a meetup two or so years ago, I was told that there would be this new mechanism to prevent edits going live until trusted editors had approved them. It is several months since the press reported that this would be happenning to BLPs. A filter that restricted the creation of new crud, whether in the form of new BLPS or changes to existing ones, would mean that those specialising in working on the backlog would be reducing its absolute size more quickly. --Peter cohen (talk) 18:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About that "new mechanism", what happened was this. The proposal was submitted to general discussion & a vote -- which failed to get enough endorsements. Instead of examining the objections & talking to those individuals to address their concerns -- in short, build a consensus -- the proponents threw up their hands (probably muttering something about "why do they let the clueless get an account here"), & looked for some strategy of getting their way which didn't require them to talk to the average Wikipedia editor -- like having a bot delete 500 unsourced biographical articles about living people. I find this sad because there was a missed chance not only to actually make that change happen, but by actually talking & listening to people it would have strengthened the community. Instead, we have a deepening slough of Despair before us. -- llywrch (talk) 04:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It may be true that many unreferenced articles can be sourced in 10 minutes. However this statement needs to be balanced with the view that articles that can be sourced in 10 minutes are that way because information on the subject is easy to discover, and Wikipedia is of most value when it is providing information that is not easy to discover. That's what we're here for. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This idea looks to be setting up a factory to find sources. However it need to be staffed with workers the attach references, setting a deadline may not be enough to get people working! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:55, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for reminding us that we have so much in common despite our opposing views. It is a relief to find that the sudden impetus for mass deletions did not come from the top. However, even with the three-month interval, any automatic process raises the serious issues explained by Llywrch and others above. Certes (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Cs32en
I disagree with the disruptive way in which some editors have forced the issue, i.e. taking action while ignoring a significant number of other editors who urged to discuss things first, and in some cases attacking these editors at the same time. I also think there are much more important issues with regard to BLPs than unsourced BLPs, e.g. the apparent tolerance with regard to poorly sourced negative statements on the BLPs of off-mainstream people.
I suggest the following policy on unsourced and poorly BLPs:
Two definitions: "Unsourced" means the BLP contains no sources at all. "Poorly sourced" means that core content of the BLP is not based on reliable independent secondary sources.
All unsourced and poorly sourced BLP can be tagged for deletion, and in this case, can be deleted after a reasonable time, e.g. after 3 months. (Jimbo Wales (talk) has proposed a time schedule that can be used to cope with the backlog of BLPs, and the time limit may depend on the date of the creation of the article. Initially, setting an earliest "non-AfD" deletion date of July 1, 2010 for BLPs older than 2 years, January 1, 2011 for BLPs older than one year and July 1, 2012 for all other BLPs may be appropriate.)
If the article indicates that it's within the scope of WikiProjects, the editor who is tagging the article must notify these projects immediately. The article can only be deleted as an unsourced biography if the projects have been properly notified. Admins should always contact the relevant Wikiproject if an article indicates inherent notability (e.g. members of parliament), or if the content is substantial and categories indicate which projects are relevant.
Any unsourced or poorly sourced BLP can be sent to AfD by any editor who gives a reason that is specific to the article, and should usually be deleted in that case if left unchanged (e.g. if the reason for the concern is not being deleted). Any doubt about any content of the BLP, or doubt about the main editor of the BLP would suffice, a mere statement that the BLP is unsourced would not be enough.
Tagged BLPs are marked with a template such as {{UBF}} (see the section Template by Wikidemon). The template may indicate the day on which the article will be deleted, if it remains unchanged.
To avoid cluttering the AfD pages with unsourced BLPs, all BLPs tagged by admins should be deleted after 3 months by a bot, if they have not been edited at all in the meantime, and they should be deleted by any admin, if they have not been properly sourced in the meantime. Non-admins cannot tag BLPs for automatic deletion, but a tag added by a non-admin can be "approved" by an admin, thus leading to automatic deletion after 3 months (if the article doesn't change).
Of course, finding appropriate sources for a BLP is always better than tagging or deleting, but admins and editors who are addressing the problem of unsourced and poorly sourced articles often do work that is in the interest of the project as a whole, not in their personal interest in any way. While everyone is encouraged to find sources, this is therefore not an expectation that should be placed on admins or editors.
The main advantages of such a policy are:
Readers are informed about the BLP problem by the use of a specific template.
The process can bypass AfD in most cases, in exchange for a longer time between tagging and deletion.
The problems arising from the backlog of BLP can be addressed without overwhelming our resources.
Note: After I have seen that completely unsourced biographies are not necessarily composed of two or three sentences, but can also look like this one, I am changing "should be tagged for deletion" to "can be tagged for deletion" and added an item on WikiProjects. Cs32enTalk to me05:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is beyond the resolution of JW, and ignores the premise that it is the responsibilty of all editors, recalling that admins first and foremost are just editors, to improve the contents of the encyclopedia. It also appears to further short-circuit the idea of consensus for any processes and procedures on WP. And it wholly rewrites by fiat AfD and XfD rules and procedures. There is sufficient controversy already about fiat policies, and adding this without full RfC discussion separately appears, to me, unwise. Collect (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I made the distinction because the tag can lead to automatic deletion by a bot after 3 months, if the article is unchanged. Non-admins should not be able to delete article, whether directly, or by directing a bot to do so after some time. Cs32enTalk to me21:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Jayron32
There seems to be too much politics involved in what should be a rather non-controversial goal: The goal should be to have the highest quality articles at Wikipedia. What I propose is to organize this effort as the BLP Referencing and Improvement Campaign. Big splashy site notices. Invitiations to Wikiprojects. Subprojects organized on topical lines. Get everyone involved in referencing all of the BLPs. There's lots of complaining on both sides that no one is doing this. Well, its time for both sides to pick up some shovels and get digging. Let's combine Jimbo's timeline above (3+ year old unrefed BLPs deleted on May 1, 2+ year old unrefed on August 1, etc) and lets refocus this as a "Save the BLP" Campaign. Everyone can agree that having high quality referenced articles is far better than either alternative (unreferenced articles or deleted articles). Lets take the third path here and make this a concerted, 'pedia-wide campaign to fix the problem. We can do this!!! --Jayron3218:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
KrebMarkt unsourced view
What's is not negotiable: Unsourced BLP articles will be dealt one way or another and once for all
We need a new procedure that leave no ambiguity something like BLP-NSD for BLP Not Sourced Deletion or whatever you like to name it.
What BLP-NSD would do is simply cease or desist be sourced or be deleted withing 7 days. Editors removing the BLP-NSD tag without sourcing should be warned first then blocked for repeated abuses and BLP-NSD tag put again. Projects, articles creators and others relevant contributors have to be warned of any BLP-NSD to maximize chance of sourcing.
For newly created unsourced BLP article a 24-48 hours delay friendly pre-warning message must inform the article creator that its article must be sourced or will be BLP-NSD after the delay. Users who fail repeatedly to source their created BLP articles could be article creation blocked if they demonstrate a "don't bother attitude" toward sourcing their created BLP articles. The 24-48 hours delay is for two reasons give some breaths to BLP articles creators and give time to potential concerned projects to fix them sparing us the whole process. Articles creators may be ignorant but are not delinquents and Projects assessment teams have brain you know.
Modalities of the clean-up starting from the oldest unsourced BLP articles, we tag 100 old articles. It seems no much but unsourced BLP articles 1 or 2 days ago are also de-facto tagged (see just above). We will never lag behind. The big move should start 5-7 days after the conclusion of the RFC to give time for projects to get organized and do some PR to inform the world outside Wikipedia because it a real big change no one should be caught off guard.
Least point that no one mentioned so far is we have to give proper recognition to editors who source/will source those articles. If we could have a specific barnstar for this unique clean up campaign it will be Grand. --KrebMarkt18:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support a tough approach on new articles, where the creator is still around to fix it up. It they don't have any sources, they should not add the article. But give them a reasonable time to fix the article before deletion - maybe a month. On old articles there is a case for a more careful review / clean-up. The person who created the article may have moved on, and the article may hold useful information on a notable person. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Durova
The people who advocate the BLP issue ought to have written editorials for Signpost. They ought to have started a community discussion on the issue rather than trying to force matters and set the community's agenda with administrative tools.
Disruptive tactics interfere with other important encyclopedic work and exhaust the patience of fellow Wikipedians. We are all volunteers here.
An excellent summary of the long range harm is found in a statement posted today by Seb Chan of the Powerhouse Museum about why his institution decided to collaborate with Flickr instead of Wikimedia Commons.[46]
Whilst Wikipedia and Wikimedia are, in themselves, exciting projects, their structure, design and combative social norms do not currently make them the friendly or the protected space that museums tend to be comfortable operating in.
Examples of editorials at Signpost are here and here.
Agreed. Even if this effort fails, there will be some idiots who take the proposal as policy and act upon it. There will be unnecessary damage done MERELY BY THE PROPOSAL.Trackinfo (talk) 18:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support one very sad thing about this kerfuffle is that it took place during User:DASHBot's messaging of the 17,400 authors of these articles. I think it is very disrespectful of those who dismiss dashbot's work as "everything else failed" or to claim that the recent reduction in the number of unsourced BLPs is due to their overly bold deletions rather than the influence of DASHBot. ϢereSpielChequers19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. The problem with zealotry is that it generates a fog of war. The people who have started this battle have lost sight of the bigger picture. Resolute19:49, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
supportMore to the point, I have to wonder if the opposers to this statement have actually read it. Scott for example in oppose number 1 says that the sign-post doesnt't take Op-eds, when the statement by Durova which he is opposing to explicitly links to multiple of them. This shows exactly the sort of problem we're dealing with here when people right knee-jerk opposes like this and don't bother to even have minimal respect for other community members to read what they have to say before they register their opposition. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC) Well, this individual point apparently doesn't fit but the general problem is clear. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In fairness, I added those examples after he posted. When I originally wrote the statement I mistakenly supposed that people would remember them. Durova40321:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. I am astounded that this RFC was a redlink until after the kerfuffle, that no serious attempts at measuring the extent of the problem seems to have been made, that there has been few serious attempts to pull together a group of volunteers to actually help fix the problem. I know there has been a lot of grumbling for a long time, but I am unconvinced that the kind of disruption displayed was necessary or unavoidable, or that all possible avenues of discussion and persuasion had been exhausted. henrik•talk22:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, The reason that Scott MacDonald, Lar, Rdm2376 did what they did was because the community had reject them, again and again, so holding community consensus in "utter contempt" they decided to break the communities rules. Even if Jehochman's proposal passes, they still have broken the rules. Durova, I appreciate you adding more evidence of bullying and bad behavior, this is added to Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation#Journalists, Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion and User:Ikip/AfD on average day. All of this evidence of bad behavior these same editors dismiss, because they are the editors giving Wikipedia a bad reputation, much, much more than any occasional BLP issue. Scott MacDonald, Lar, Rdm2376 deletions Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/BLP add a couple hundred more editors who are disgusted by the deletions. A small sampling: New York Review of Books: "a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come...There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work"[47] The Economist: "The behaviour of Wikipedia's self-appointed deletionist guardians, who excise anything that does not meet their standards, justifying their actions with a blizzard of acronyms, is now known as “wiki-lawyering”.[48] The Guardian: "And then self-promoted leaf-pile guards appeared, doubters and deprecators who would look askance at your proffered handful and shake their heads, saying that your leaves were too crumpled or too slimy or too common, throwing them to the side."[49] The Telegraph "The rise of the deletionists is threatening the hitherto peaceful growth of the world's most popular information source. It's on the discussion pages of articles nominated for deletion that anger creeps in. Policy documents are referred to only by abbreviations...the favourite of the deletionists WP:NOTE (notability)...The notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash."[50] PC Pro magazine: "For an example of the dark side running out of control, though, check out Wikipedia...It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire" Los Angeles Times"...if even a small number of useful articles are being deleted in the name of keeping Wikipedia clean, isn't that like allowing a few innocent men to hang in favor of a lower crime rate?...Wikipedia's community has become so rushed, so immediatist, that it is not willing to allow embryonic articles even a tiny modicum of time to incubate"[51] The Telegraph:"Wikipedia should delete the deletionists"[52] "Wikipedia: A Quantiative Analysis", PHD: "the Wikipedia community needs to rein in so-called deletionists -- editors who shoot first and ask questions later."[53] This is the face of wikipedia that Scott MacDonald, Lar, Rdm2376 and there supporters show the world when the have "utter contempt" for our rules, and by extension, dismiss new editors good faith contributions, our as the LA Times said: "like allowing a few innocent men to hang in favor of a lower crime rate"Ikip00:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Editorials are better than IAR being used as an excuse for disruption. And since this is only the start (per Lar aying he wants to take one bite at a time of the elephant), it is imperative that we not have only a couple hundred people statung their positions, we should have as many people as possible stating how they feel, Unless, of course, all this is really set from above. In which case, we should be told our discussions have the value of a high school debating society. Collect (talk) 11:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This issue has highlighted the paucity of communication with the community as a whole. When we're trying to raise money we get a banner at the top for all editors asking them to contribute. When we have over 50,000 articles that a few editors want to delete, we get discussions hidden away in what, to most editiors, are obscure locations. More effort needs to be expended in involving the vast number of contributors that we have here in more than just editing their own area of interest. Until that happens, major changes will continue to happen based on the 'consensus' of a small minority, or worse, a small minority with no regard for consensus.--Michig (talk) 12:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, absolutely, and full kudos to Ikip to have demonstrated how deletionism is not only a content disaster, but also a PR disaster for Wikipedia. --Cyclopiatalk12:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We may not be able to agree on anything else, but it should be obvious that the way this issue was brought to the community's attention was highly disruptive and unhelpful. Such behaviour gives Wikipedia a bad reputation, and makes a less friendly editing environment for everyone. Robofish (talk) 13:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree in the following sense. Those users could have open a request for comment if they genuinely wanted the community to address the issue more actively. I'm sure we'd had just as many users commenting and proposals put forward, just with less drama and more hopes for consensual solutions (and only those can be effectively enforced around here - at least in this domain). It's been obtained now as a result of actions - many of them being otherwise individually warranted - intended to cause widespread disruption to force the attention of the community, but at which price ? Many users have been disgusted from helping in the area as a result of those actions, so much time wasted, and even more harmful drama due to ArbCom's motion which is a blow to this project (and calls for rectification). Cenarium (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well stated. The extreme end of all sides needs to be toned down. This encyclopedia is a long-term project, which seems to go unrecognized too often, recently. -- Quiddity (talk) 09:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse - Shows well the wider consequences of the combative environment of many parts of the English Wikipedia and other Wikimedia consequences and why making it worse is not a good idea. Camaron · Christopher ·talk14:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Signpost doesn't take op-eds to my knowledge (happy to write one if they do)- and some of us have been writing essays, and engaging in discussions on mailing list, wiki, etc for many many years, so I'm not sure what Durova's point is. Those who say "this was the wrong way" to get something done should explain what the "right way" was, and how it would have been effective. I've been on the BLP case for over three years now, I've invested far too much time in it, and if there is some method for getting the community to address this that I've missed I'd be happy to hear it. My conclusion at the moment is that everything else failed, and as a last resort we took direct action and it worked. Civil disobedience it may have been, but as one historian has already flatteringly said, that has a long and exhalted tradition. The case of BLP reform is nobel, and if we can't do it by playing nice, then we repudiate nice. Show me another way and I'm all ears.--Scott Mac (Doc)18:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If Jehochman's proposal passes, and Scott MacDonald, Lar, Rdm2376 then deleted several hundred articles as they did before ([[see #View_by_Ikip List of articles: Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/BLP), they would be BLOCKED again. Because what they did was and will always be outside of normal community consensus which Scott MacDonald holds in "utter contempt".[54]
Scott Macdonald taking credit for these changes is like someone breaking the law, then taken credit for the new laws which were put in place. Like a vehicle manufacturer building a bad car, then taking credit for legislation which clamps down on the auto industry.
No amnesty will ever change the fact that what Scott MacDonald, Lar, Rdm2376 did was complete and "utter contempt" for consensus, and intentional "drama" and "disruption" which will always be against the rules the community inacted.[55]Ikip00:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there any reason to believe that a Signpost editorial would have worked when RfCs, community discussions, mailing list threads, etc. had all failed in the post? Nothing significant had ever come of them, and the backlogs that had existed about this time last year (when we were having or just recently had that big RfC on flagged revisions and BLP) still exist and are much longer as well. While I don't think that Kevin, Scott, Lar, etc.'s actions are the right thing to do for all unsourced BLPs, at least they got the ball rolling. Nothing else seems to have been able to. Also, why on Earth have we been voting support/oppose during this RfC? It's a request for comments, not a request for votes... NW(Talk)20:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A SignPost editorial probably wouldn't have changed much - except it could have triggered a RFC, but there's been no recent noticeable RFC on the issue of unsourced BLPs, or lack of sources in BLPs, or the whole issue of BLPs; only the same regular but isolated proposals. I agree that's an issue which needed more light and proposed a sitewide initiative to deal with them (idea I had back in September 2009, fwiw), but it could have been achieved through normal means. A RFC on this issue would have immediately generated lots of discussion and proposals - except it wouldn't have had the side effects of the brute force approach, and we'd be better off towards our common goal. Cenarium (talk) 17:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is perhaps the worst suggestion in this whole RFC. What the hell would "writing an editorial" accomplish? This issue has been discussed to death, and nothing's been done. The time for talking is long past. The time for taking action to solve the problem has begun. UnitAnode21:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This view is not helpful. And endless hand-wringing over the media's portrayals of Wikipedia in opinion pieces has no business here. Some editor at The Economist is not the one who will become a laughingstock of the reference media world for having a lot of crap articles/stubs about people that may or may not contain many factual errors or outright nonsense inserted as a joke (whether negative or not). <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 06:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see how discussing what a few of us should have done in the past helps the community decide what to do with this issue in the future. Kevin (talk) 08:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not a helpful view. I'm also concerned about Durova's tendency to inject herself into disputes and then bring up not highly relevant points about how much work has been done in other areas. ++Lar: t/c21:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
Signpost does publish editorials. Above are examples of an editorial and an open letter that Signpost published last year. The negative effects of the disruptive approach are far-reaching. Flickr and Commons are competing to become the standard venue where cultural institutions go when they share their collections with the public. Last year Noam Cohen of The New York Times wrote a piece about that competition[56] and within the next year one site or the other is likely to gain dominance. For a lot of reasons, free culture would be better served if Commons wins. Please do not pursue the BLP issue with a disruptive extremism that sets back our shared goals in other areas. Durova40319:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I didn't know that about signpost. But are you saying a signpost editorial would have worked where years of discussion, mailing list posts, essays, and such had failed? That's really not credible. As to the rest, your logic escapes me. Wikipedia's attitude to BLPs is extremely irresponsible and potentially PR destructive. Focusing on unreferenced bios is NOT extreme - it is a very very small step. As for the competition stuff, that's plain nonsense. If WP gets competition, that brilliant. It might cause it to focus more on improvement rather than keeping unreferenced articles on nobodies. Anyway, if my efforts were damaging WP is some meta sense, I suspect Jimbo would be aware of that (more than you are), and wouldn't be thanking me. You're realy scraping for an arguement here, aren't you?--Scott Mac (Doc)19:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the essay you are pointing to. Reasons for prefering Flikr include: "The requirements of verified user accounts and personal information all work to reduce the negative effects of anonymity – critical in building a positive sense of community, even if they exclude some users as a result." - "community managers who are employed specifically to ensure the community ‘plays nice’ and there is a hierarchy of escalation should it become necessary." "Uploaded images as well as any user generated content such as tags or comments can be removed at any time." and it would be better "if Wikimedia were ‘less democratic’". This article does not in the least support your argument.--Scott Mac (Doc)19:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed; I am engaged in that discussion on a level which exceeds the scope of an RfC on BLPs. Are you aware that Commons recently implemented a tagging and comment system which Seb Chan's comment appeared to be not fully aware of? The part of this picture where you can help most is by using your stature as an administrator to lead the community by example. Consider the impression you create, please, and act in WMF's best interest. Durova40320:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your brand of leadership repeatedly called me a troll last month. It might set a good example to withdraw that. Other individuals who are not the Wikimedia Foundation's most prolific contributor of featured content might be intimidated by such a pejorative and inaccurate label. Less WP:BATTLE, please. Durova40320:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I rather think the point is that the 'excellent summary' quoted above, really doesn't represent what Seb was saying very well. To the point, in fact, where it's reasonable to view your quote as somewhat dishonestly selective. He seemed to me to be saying that for a variety of structural and philosophical reasons, Wikimedia is not a rational, reasonable place to engage - he goes a step further to suggest that User:Witty lama's work could go further where wikimedia 'less democratic' - whilst this isn't exactly 'hold[ing] the community in contempt', it's pretty close, no? I would have thought you'd know this from your discussions on a different level, but either ways, you really should do your homework, D - in my view it makes you look silly otherwise. Privatemusings (talk) 20:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Privatemusings, I have done my homework to the point of being quite aware of your freelance attempts at negotiation with the Powerhouse Museum. Suffice it to say that the result was not a positive one. Perhaps it might be germane to withdraw the accusation? Durova40320:27, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please post within the collapsed section, thank you. I may be slow to respond to further comments. A member of WMF Netherlands is working with me to develop a followup proposal to last fall's partnered exhibit with the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam. That show received national news in The Netherlands and a visit from the president of Suriname. There are timelines for this sort of thing and it's getting toward late evening in Europe. We need to complete a discussion before he goes to bed. Durova40320:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
heh... I have an important meeting tomorrow too, with elected representatives of several areas including constitutionally formed members organisations - we're due to discuss possibilities of partnership and consultation with various projects at a level so ridiculously high, we're due to take oxygen masks along just in case. The president of Suriname is unfortunately not on the guest list, an omission I am sure to raise ;-) Seriously D - go read the article again, it's really good, and full of interesting points - it's particularly important given Seb's final note that he expects the upcoming conf. in Denver 'will surface many of these issues. They are complex and many.' - I don't think your use of Seb's words to support your argument is a good idea really. Privatemusings (talk) 20:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Durova is one of the most important and influential people in the Wikimedia Foundation because of the work she does. She has provided me and others who approach GLAMS with courtesy copies of digitally restored work. Her blog is seen as a "blog of note" at Blogger and consequently has a growing audience. Durova is quoted in the press. The digital restorations by her and the community of people that are restoring material are awesome and they are typically featured, they get respect by the people who I have shown it to, they include people managing some of the most important photo collections in the world. We are preparing a meatspace exhibition about digital restorations and, I can tell you it is because of the inspiring, knowledgable and enthusiastic input of Durova that projects in Europe are doing increasingly well. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 21:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's stop the Player vs Player here. We're all trying to find a solution to issues that are of interest to all.. it would be better to focus on that rather then let it dissolve in internal bickering. Focus on the issue, not the personalities. SirFozzie (talk) 01:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Seb Chan's comment have very little to do with this issue at all. Anyone interested in his issues with Wikipedia, on a different but related issue, should read the talk page of WP:GLAM - Wikipedia talk:Advice for the cultural sector (Chan is Witty Lama's "contact" etc). They wanted an environment where they could place large quantities of material on their terms and without anybody else able to control or affect what was added and how it was presented. This is fine but is not WP, or even Commons. They rightly decided to go elsewhere. Nothing to do with this issue. Johnbod (talk) 09:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reading some of the opposes, I can't help but wonder if any of them actually understand how Wikipedia works. Hint: it involves consensus, which requires competent communication. Even Jimmy Wales appears to have forgotten this, with his clumsy endorsement of Scott McDonald's brash deletions. If BLPs are a such a problem, then explain to the rest of us how & why it is one -- even unsourced biographical articles which contain nothing problematical. Stop trying to explain why the policies are written they way they are, & all of the people selflessly donating their labor will eventually leave. Well, most of them: the kooks, vandals & tendentious editors will stay, no matter how stupid & arbitrary the policies become. -- llywrch (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Trackinfo
A bad, bad idea. The concept of "Delete on sight" is deadly. The amount of damage this can do could destroy Wikipedia. An overwhelming majority of the biographical content I see on Wikipedia, well referenced OR NOT, is quite accurate and well composed. Maybe I don't delve into the political arena too deeply. But these ARTIFICIAL rules apply across the board and there WILL BE some idiot administrator who will use an Unreferenced BLP excuse to delete tons of good content--most of it in a subject that person DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT. Referencing is not always possible. All of the world's knowledge is not readily available on Google, but if the referencing can't be googled, an article will get attacked as unreferenced. The AfD process, mentioned above, deletes valuable content far too rapidly, far too often. How many geeks are there monitoring the vastness of Wikipedia on a regular basis? A couple thousand, maybe. Compare that to the Millions of hits Wikipedia gets every day. If an article survives any length of time, other people who DO KNOW THE SUBJECT see the article and have the opportunity to correct the article. The majority of our great content here has been the product of many eyes seeing and correcting. Once an administrator deletes an article, whether it can still be seen by handful of backroom people or not, its gone from the public view, the opportunity for it to be corrected by the public. A small minority can and does sway the content on Wikipedia, based on what little they know collectively and what little is available on Google. Folks, our strength is in our numbers, if only we keep things open. The delete key should be used sparingly and ONLY BY PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.Trackinfo (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An addendum: The concept of referencing here on Wikipedia is being carried too far. If you look beyond the root article to the internally linked articles, many supporting statements are, in fact, referenced. Maybe that referencing has not been transferred to all the articles that apply to it, BUT IT IS THERE. So somebody or some BOT goes through the labor to place an unreferenced BLP on an article, which by this definition would then make it grounds for deletion, but they haven't looked into the subject deep enough and certainly have not applied the labor to move that referencing around to all articles that it applies to. This is a jigsaw puzzle. An intelligent person sees where the parts fit and where they don't. We must allow for sub-referencing before attacking an article, before a BLP tag is placed. You can easily attack and destroy, who is going to do the labor to satisfy these needs? Well why don't you get busy?Trackinfo (talk) 19:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Further addendum: The best way to deal with contentious material is the inline "Unsourced" reference. 1) That shows the reader that this statement is potentially contentious. 2) It show the editor (or potential future editors in the public) what, specifically, needs correcting. Most people who place the generic unreferenced BLP tags don't take the time to express what is objectionable.Trackinfo (talk) 19:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An even further addendum: I've now spent my free time over the last day locating unnecessary BLP tags in my own area of expertise. Finding them is kind of a random act. I am astounded at the quality articles that are "accused" of being unreferenced. Some are beautifully written and contain up to dozens of references (one had almost 50). And still some IDIOT, or possibly a BOT has placed a BLP unreferenced tag on there. Yes, now I've removed it, because now, what was an obnoxious or innocuous notice, puts an article in jeopardy. As I said elsewhere, some idiot WILL act upon this as though it were policy. BLP articles will get destroyed on the whim of one idiot Administrator.
I will add strongly, the articles I am saving SHOULD NOT BE QUESTIONED. I've been going through people with automatic notability honors. Famous people with tons of material available in google and in genre specific sites. Nobody has any business trying to delete them.
Yes, there are many stub articles where the full depth of an individual's accomplishments have not been fully articulated. Is this a war against stubs? Incomplete does not mean incorrect, contentious or libelous.
Some of these people are DEAD!! but their articles still get unreferenced BLP tags.
Yes, some well written articles didn't contain references, or proper references. I've fixed those and removed the BLP tags. Some editors don't know the nuance of wiki coding--there is a lot I don't know. I still don't know the keyboard shortcut for the often used "|" symbol. Many people are afraid to remove the tag after adding references--look in the discussion pages, they ask "is that enough?" as if the tagger (that's a good phrase for them in the vandalistic sense) will return and remove their tag. The instructions here on wikipedia are obtuse at best--if one can even find them. You are not going to magically improve the quality of all editors with a destructive policy. You will piss a lot of people off, most who don't know how to reply. And if the complainers were to spend half the effort fixing articles instead of writing destructive proposals we might get some progress.Trackinfo (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
I am strongly in favor of "delete on sight" with unsourced content that seems defamatory, leaving the rest of the article. Much of the unsourced BLP content is probably accurate enough and does not need such a drastic approach. But WP:V and WP:N are fundamental to the project. Give the author and other editors time to find and add sources, but if none shows up, the article has to go. I prefer AfD to speedy. Surely articles on truly notable people will survive. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adding {{fact}} tags has its place, but defamatory content may be highly damaging to the subject as well as libelous. Better to take it out fast. Then take a bit more time to improve / discuss the future of the article itself. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree I am all for trying to find references first rather than heading off down one or other route to deletion. Some articles I've created required a hell of a lot of digging to find references, yet in the end those references were in place. Esowteric+Talk19:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Newyorkbrad
I was offline for real-world reasons for a few days last week and have been playing catch-up ever since, so I apologize for the fact that my views here will substantially duplicate suggestions by others on this page. But I think it still makes sense to pull some of my ideas together in one place. I would like to see us evolve toward a consensus of doing something like the following:
(A) That for new content, pages substantially constituting the biography of a living person and lacking reliable sources, which (i) contain negative or unsourced controversial statements, or (ii) contain no reliable sources at all after a 48-hour (or some other agreed-upon time period) warning to the creator, be made a speedy deletion category. This is to be implemented in as user-friendly a fashion (particularly avoiding biting the newcomers and other contributors more than is absolutely necessary) as possible.
(B) That the sitenotice that appears when an editor creates a new page be modified to emphasize to editors that BLPs without reliable sources are subject to prompt deletion and to urge that they include reliable sources for all articles, but especially BLP articles, at the time of creation.
(C) That appropriate templates be created to tag existing BLPs that lack reliable sources and advising that such BLPs are subject to deletion if reliable sources are not added within an agreed-upon period of time. Notification should also be provided to the creators and anyone who has edited such pages.
(D) That a reasonable transition period, perhaps 30 to 60 days, be accorded in which existing BLPs without sources may be upgraded by the addition of reliable sources before being subject to speedy deletion, and possibly allowing for a reasonable extension of the transition period for noncontroversial BLPs that are actively in the process of being sourced (e.g. groups of articles being improved through a wikiproject). However, no transition period should not be accorded to pages that were already subject to deletion for other reasons, such as unsourced negative statements in BLPs with no compliant version to revert to, no or insufficient claim of notability of a BLP subject, attack pages, or other existing criteria for deletion.
(E) If feasible in conjunction with developers, that the
implementation of the Wikimedia software on EN-WP be modified to provide that newly created pages shall be excluded from indexing through application of a robots.txt or "noindex" parameter, thus excluding them from search engine searches and mirror sites, until they have been reviewed by an administrator or other experienced editor for compliance with basic policies, including the BLP policy as modified above. The noindex code to be applied in a fashion that remains intact if a page is userfied at an editor's request for improvement outside mainspace. (Too often, inappropriate pages, including blatant attack pages, survive just long enough on Wikipedia to be picked up by mirror sites and search engines, lasting long after we have made a correct deletion decision.)
(F) That all of the above, and any other changes that may exist either in policy or de facto in light of current community discussions, be carried out in a manner that is as collegial and user-friendly as possible while protecting the quality of the
encyclopedia as well as the interests of subjects of BLP articles. In particular, emphasizing that the goal is neither adding perfunctory references to sources for the sake of technically satisfying the requirements, nor deleting potentially valuable articles for the sake of deleting them, but rather to upgrade the quality of our encyclopedia while simultaneously eliminating questionable pages that could be misused to harm living persons.
(G) Not fooling ourselves into thinking that any or all of these steps, by themselves individually or collectively, will address all BLP issues, and recognizing that the implications of the growth of the Internet and search engines in general, and Wikipedia in particular, on the reputational and privacy interests of members of the general public. No written policy or guideline can address all the scenarios that can arise, and balancing the competing interests that arise in many such instances is among the most challenging and most important ethical imperatives confronting both Wikipedia and society at large.
Just a note to all readers, when PM made this comment, there was no content in this section. It was a (good) attempt at making a joke. PM: Well played. (X! · talk) · @912 · 20:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed; when I saw this appended to my "placeholder" section, I thought about stopping there, thinking that for once I wouldn't hear "tl;dr", anyway. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support anyway now Well, mainly the part about new BLPs being automatic "noindex" if feasible as it is compatible with the idea of a warning banner I proposed elsewhere. I would prefer if it made clear that the concept of a rolling deadline, as set forth by Jimbo, is not contradictory to this proposal. I also would prefer if it made clear that editors acting as a plenum have been the judges of policy in the past, and that this current system works. Collect (talk) 21:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with A, C, D, F, G. That said; B that will be more confusing than that it will help (see results of the usability study about confusion due to information overload). I prefer to just shut the door for IPs if this is such a serious concern. E is just not possible in my eyes. We discussed this a while ago, and there is no way to predict how that will affect the development of articles such important articles as 2010 Haiti Earthquake. E is an unfortunate side effect of this being an open website. A related unfortunate side effect is that attack pages can be picked up by archive.org by chance. I do not see it as our responsibility, though I would favor an option whereby we auto inform Google about any pagedeletions that we execute trough a dedicated private feed. I'm not sure however if Google has such functionality. (a priority reindex feed you could say). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly support this idea, particularly the speedy deletion aspect, as well as the 30-60 day time frame proposed. This problem has been building over the years, and needs dealt with in an expedient manner. UnitAnode22:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A plan is needed to get a handle on the full range of problems with BLP. This idea addresses another aspect of the problem and is the beginnings of an idea to manage new BLPs that are poor quality and unref, and therefor of low value. FloNight♥♥♥♥22:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with A, C, D, F, G and support the general approach. A 30-60 day time frame would be good. E is problematic. Review by "an administrator or other experienced editor for compliance with basic policies" just creates another bureaucratic niche. I note the reader is never mentioned, but ultimately it is the viable of the encyclopedia as a work of reference which is key here. --Kleinzach22:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support any half way reasonable approach to this problem. This approach is way more than half way reasonable and works for me. We now have lots of reasoanble approaches. Let's pick one (or a blend of the best) and get on with it. ++Lar: t/c01:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This all sounds pretty good at first read, though I think the 30-60 day timeline for working through the backlog of unsourced BLPs is probably unrealistic. I'm not sure how much time we'll need to do that (it's already started which is good), but I think we should see how much we get through in a month or a couple of weeks and use that to estimate how long it will take to clear the whole backlog. While we'll have to set time limits in some fashion (and there are multiple proposals for how to do that), a bit of flexibility and adjustment along the way will probably be needed. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs17:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support as second choice to Jehochman's proposal. Both are concrete and reasonable, which are the most important criteria to me in this discussion. 30-60 days doesn't seem likely to be enough time for cleanup of extant articles, but this would not be such a problem if it was clear that the deletions were without prejudice to cited recreation. I would prefer that, as proposed by Jehochman, promising and utterly uncontroversial articles could be moved to the Article Incubator for some period of time such as a month. I'm not sure what I think of the 48-hour speedy deletion. It seems at first like it might too little time to ensure that someone other than the author would look at the article, but if there were no backlog of unreferenced BLPs beyond two days it might not be unreasonable. --Opus 113 (talk) 04:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Some great ideas in A,B,E,F,G. The suggested rough-timeframe for dealing with old BLPs (C+D) seems unrealistically rapid, though. Per other supporters above. -- Quiddity (talk) 09:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Strongly oppose any solution that includes automatic deletion of unreferenced BLPs (item C) just because they're unreferenced. I do think B is a great idea, though. TotientDragooned (talk) 21:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose Any unrealistic "transition period" such as 30-60 days to source upwards of 45k articles. I'm getting close to burning out on Wikipedia for an indefinite time, and I've only been chasing mass prodders for 3 days or so. Quite frankly, I think the problematic to innocuous ratio (as in, actually negative controversial unsourced BLPs versus articles on notable people with decent content) ratio is running so low that the entire rush on this thing is misplaced: in the last 3 days, I have come across 2 (count them, 2) articles that could have been considered genuinely problematic (neither of them falling into the dangerously libelous category - one was a BLP issue, the other was a copyvio), versus upwards of 30 articles I've personally sourced and deprodded, and dozens of others I've not bothered with, not for BLP-style issues, but just issues of notability, or time/will limitations. Going ahead with that kind of transition period guarantees burnout of editors and the unnecessary deletion of many good articles. Too many of the "proposals" around here seem to come from people who prefer to create a scorched desert and call it a success. RayTalk02:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose to short window to work things out. Some of the other ideas are good, but something like a 30-60 day window would be the part latched onto and lead to a massive removal of notable bios. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose On the specifics. I support speedy deletion for (A)(i) but not for (A)(ii), I think prod is more suitable here. On (C) I don't agree on notifying all those who edited an article. I think it is difficult to source 50 k articles even in 30 days. For different reasons, the priority for some users is to delete unsourced BLPs articles rather than source them. Make no mistake about it, those users will not help with the sourcing.
Oppose. Speedy deletion criteria are supposed to be conditions which any reasonable editor will agree merit deletion, and every reasonable editor will agree on when they have been met. This is neither. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson21:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as per Hobit, Septentrionalis, and to a lesser extant RayAYang. Most unsourced BLPs that I have examined are obviously not contentious and do no harm. Many of them are obviously or probably notable. Some are spam (although most spam seems to be referenced, although not well). Many are clearly contributed by newcomers or relative newcomers. Summarily deleting them will only discourage such people from further contributions, which will only harm the project. We already have policy to delete attack pages and to remove unsourced contentious statements. Applying those policyies is quite sufficient to deal with the actual problems. Collaboration to source unsourced BLPs as a priority is possibly helpful -- any variant of shoot-on-site, either for the backlog or for new articles (which are different problems needing different approaches) is IMO profoundly harmful to the project. DES(talk)23:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
NOINDEX is not a cure. Sites that mirror Wikipedia are often designed to bring in web traffic that generates ad revenue. Operators of such sites will not include the NOINDEX when they copy the content because no-indexing would defeat their monetization strategy. For this reason it is essential to actually remove bad content, not just NOINDEX it. JehochmanBrrr00:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
30-60 days is nowhere near long enough; you might as well say delete them all now. 6 months would be more like it. If they have been around since 2007 or whatever without actually causing any trouble, is there really a great rush? Johnbod (talk) 16:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They may not have caused trouble to us, however we are not the only stakeholders here. We have no idea what trouble they may have caused the subjects. Kevin (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Most people can work out how to remove stuff from their own article, or find someone who does. If it gets reinserted & a dispute or edit war breaks out it is liable to come to wider notice. The most frequent issue with unreferenced BLPs imo is that they are self-written & often technical copyvios of some "official" website bio. Johnbod (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That logic scares me. "I've no idea what trouble this may have caused, so we should get rid of it" could apply to anything. In general we fix things that we know to be broken or have a strong reason to believe to be broken. Not things we "have no idea" about. Hobit (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm taking a middle-ground stance here. I do not believe that all unreferenced BLPs should be deleted, nor am I advocating the "keeption" of them all. (neologisms ftw). I am, however, suggesting that there are certain BLPs which are, let's face it, shit, and there are other BLPs that are worthy of becoming a very good article. As such, outright deletion of them all is disruptive, and removing all PRODs on unsourced BLPs is just as disruptive. As such, I think that collaboration is the solution to this problem. I'd like to bring about an earlier proposal to attention: a wikiproject. I can see a group of editors working in an organized fashion to gradually reduce the number of unsourced BLPs would be beneficial for the project. If done correctly, all this drama could be settled and everyone would be made happy. (Yeah, that'll be the day).
Pcap asked on wikiproject software. Of the 5 articles that have been looked at, all five of them had inherent notability even though they were tagged with "unreferenced", some even already had citations. Obviously some people are too dogmatic to actually read the articles in question and find out that the people were notable or that the missing citations were due to an error in Manual of Style. Shows again why blind deletions are bad. (Ex. Thomas Knoll, lead programmer of Photoshop was marked as unreferenced (he is the developer, I don't give a damn if it is original research if I open up photoshop and read the credits page), Brian Fox which had citations on the page under the title "external links", John_McAfee who founded McAfee antivirus. Seriously all notable people who would have been deleted for blind deletions).ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers00:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If they are an American software developer or porn actress, then yes. If they are a third world non-English-speaking-country government minister (say), then perhaps not, in English anyway. Johnbod (talk) 16:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, they don't have to be non-Western and non-English speaking: many notable contemporary composers are exceptionally hard to source even though their music is played in important events and on primetime radio. The problem is that national neswpapers just don't bother reviewing classical music any more and biographies are not (usually) published until someone is very notable. Futhermore, paper encyclopedias are not edited often enough to keep up with them and radio broadcasts are not always easy to track down. The best you can do often is cite a few recordings and passing mentions, but these are not usually good enough to firmly establish notability. --Jubilee♫clipman02:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We've been getting flak about Biographies for ages. Yet time and time again, the community by consensus has rejected mass deletions or draconian measures. Sure, it's one thing to look at the articles, research them, find them wanting, and then nominate for deletion. That is careful and responsible. But to advocate the mass deletion of articles on the assumption that the editors were acting in bad faith, not only goes contrary to policy, but is inherently detrimental to the project. To take a few rotten apples dramatized by the media and loop in everything else with them is not just deletionism, but disruptive vandalism.
Case in point:
Today, I looked at five random articles of people I did not know tagged with Unreferenced BLP from a list at Wikiproject Software. Guess what? All five were notable, and they even included the basic research needed to add citations (either the externals links were really citations, or the article itself sources to find citations). Clearly, the taggers were too lazy to do such basic research (not that I don't sometimes either).
Thomas Knoll the lead programmer of Photoshop was marked as unreferenced. Wasn't had to open up Photoshop and look at the credits, nor hard to google him.
Brian Fox, author of multiple Open Source software was too. His page had citations under the moniker "external links". The tagger was too lazy to read the article and notice that it had sources.
John_McAfee who founded McAfee antivirus was tagged as unreferenced. Really, a bio on McAfee!
Wayne Bell, founder of WWIVBBS was tagged as unreferenced when the article itself mentioned that it was sourced from a documentary.
What the above example shows is that the "problem" of BLP is exaggerated. What project does not have vandalism? What project does not have hoaxes? Heck, Colonial history of new jersey which is on my watchlist hasn't had any positive contributions in months! Why should we de facto delete articles that are tagged as "unreferenced" when doing so is contrary to policy (WP:CSD), and as evident in practice, counterproductive? New articles are already patrolled on Special:Newpages where a great deal of problem articles are eliminated. Recent changes at Special:Recentchanges. Wikiprojects are doing their best to update articles, as is Wikiproject BLP. The fact is, these actions of blind deletes are not done out of a will to help wikipedia, but rather out of inherent laziness in combating a humongous problem every wikiproject faces. Blind deletions are (in my opinion) the lazy way out instead of doing research or even read the articles in question to notice that they had references to fix the problems. It is the "destroy them all" solution to a problem that requires a careful and precise solution.
Out of this controversy, we have seen ArbCom side with admins who violated policy (for if they did not do so, why would they need an amnesty?). We have seen proponents argue that arbitrary tags and standards be used to delete articles without even considering them in context. (WP:RAP), We have seen admins scoff at the notion of "consensus", feeling that regular editors aren't worthy to voice their opinion.
What needs to happen is not WP:IAR in deleting and violating the principles of What I Know Is..., but rather following policy, in tackling the problem through the right channels (ex. wikiprojects), and if needed, WP:IAR ArbCom's decision to sanction such disruptive deletions. I wonder how many articles like the ones I listed above were already deleted in such a manner.
Seriously? In the section above you suggested that if a person is notable, citations are just a style issue, now you're trying to lecture people on the correct application of policy? The issue is not notability. If they're not notable, then the article should be deleted regardless of whether or not its unreferenced. The problem is not just "a few rotten apples" - OTRS gets multiple emails every day with legitimate complaints about BLPs. Since 2005, we've probably hosted 10-20 thousand problematic BLPs. Mr.Z-man03:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Noian. Half the time the real problem with unreferenced BLPs is that they turn out to be copvios of the person's own "official"/self-written bio on a website somewhere. Johnbod (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About what? That people who tag unreferenced BLPs for deletion are vandals? That the BLP problem is exaggerated or imaginary? That blatantly false information in a bio isn't a big deal because it happens all over the place? The conflation between notability and verifiability? Despite the claims in it, much of this statement is directly contrary to existing policy. Mr.Z-man21:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, that blind auto deletionism promoted on this page is bad. I never said tagging or deleting was bad (re-read the first few lines on responsible tagging/deleting). Incidentally, at least one of the articles I listed above that HAD sources in them was tagged as unreferenced bio by you Mr. Z-Man. You'll understand why I'm reluctant to support automatic deletion of articles with the tag. My entire post is about why I oppose blind, systematic deletions. Not about rectifying errors.ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers23:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Clarify I never meant citations were a style issue (where the heck did I say citations are merely due to style and they are an optional accessory?). I meant that in many of the articles I listed above, CITATIONS WERE MISSING DUE TO A STYLE ISSUE WHERE THE CITATIONS WERE MISLABLED, which goes to show that auto deleting based on the criteria that a single tag is there is detrimental to the community. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers23:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Who is proposing automatic deletion based on the presence of the tag (note that the absence of sources is different from the presence of the tag)? Even MZMcBride's proposal, which is probably one of the more extreme ones does not mention a tag as being a requirement for deletion. I did not tag the article I think that you're talking about. My bot updated the tag to use the correct one, the original {{unreferenced}} tag was added in 2008 by an anon. Mr.Z-man02:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, having a hoax on a BLP is significantly worse than a hoax elsewhere. Besides the ethical issues, if the false content is potentially defamatory, it could be considered libel. It is not just a problem for us, it is a problem (arguably a much bigger one) for the hundreds of thousands of people that we have articles on. Mr.Z-man02:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, proposals for policifying BLP tag=criteria for deletion in previous mass deletions sure seem like blind deletion to me. After all, if your bot mistagged a page as unreferenced, who knows what horrors a bot carrying out the actions of proposed BLP tag=delete would do? Also, I never said hoaxes weren't a problem. However, is the blind deletion of multiple credible and non-hoax articles the best option when on this page there are better ones? Does the "scope" of the problem justify the deletion of many articles that positively affect wikipedia? ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers07:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be intentionally misreading the proposals. They require that the article be unreferenced. That is different from being tagged as unreferenced. What are the better options? Most of the ones I've seen that don't involve deletion at some point in time seem awfully similar to the status quo. Mr.Z-man21:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Update
Out of 10 random articles I edited that were unreferenced BLP today, I have come up with the following statistics:
1/10 was redirected to a more notable article.
2/10 were sent to AfD for non-notability.
4/10 were mistagged.
2/10 had citations on a related page/product page wiki-linked in the stub relevant to the person.
1/10 was notable and unreferenced.
0/10 had contentious, libelous, or false information.
Can someone point me to proof that a majority, or even a significant amount of unreferenced BLP's are harmful to wikipedia, cause my experience says otherwise, as does the amount of articles deleted in the mass deletion that sparked this and subsequently rescued. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers07:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing more or less the same thing... errors in tagging, articles of clearly notable people, neutral articles which if anything are too complimentary to the subject. I have yet to stumble accross one that is negative.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!21:26, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are you an expert in the subject of the articles you're reviewing? Unless we can verify the material is true, simply looking complimentary is not enough. And before you ask, yes, I have seen complaints from subjects that material that looks positive (but happened to be false) was potentially damaging. 10 articles is a 0.02% sample size. A couple days ago, I looked at 12 articles, and 2 of them had clearly contentious unsourced information (one had content, including criticism of someone's political views, the other had unsourced information about arrests and criminal trials). So if we assume both of our results are potentially correct, that could mean nearly 50% that are either non-notable or containing clearly contentious info (I wasn't checking for notability in my test). Mr.Z-man21:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am confident of the sources for the articles I didn't sent to AfD. The ones I sent to AfD I wasn't sure of (although one seems to be a keep). The material was true for the 10 articles I looked at after I compared them tocitations (either already there, or added). Either way, arguing that all unsourced BLP's are problematic when de facto deleting results in an 83% error rate (by your statistics) is very very disturbing. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers22:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the list of articles mass deleted by the admin earlier on Wikiproject Article Rescue, you will find that a supermajority of them have been restored and "fixed" in terms of a "citation" requirement, which again shows the scope of the collateral damage of actions proposed by deletionists on this page. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers22:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what statistics you're referring to. If you mean the 12 articles I checked; that's little more than anecdotal evidence. Besides the tiny sample size, I was only looking for obviously contentious material in completely unsourced articles (I skipped any article that had anything that could possibly be construed as a citation, even if it wasn't used as one or wasn't a reliable source). All it shows is the huge margin for error (potentially >20%) when using such a tiny sample size. Mr.Z-man22:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Ohconfucius
There is a problem with unsourced biographies, there are also severe problems of vandalism, attack and strong bias at sourced biographies. However, for the unsourced biographies, a new prod tag as suggested by some above seems an excellent idea, as it would add the necessary sense of urgency. AfDs are known to provoke a flurry of activity to source articles without sources, and citing activity should increase with the mandated non-removable prod-blp tag. The prod process is now open for two weeks, which should be adequate to cope with the newly tagged articles, although I'd be inclined to limit tagging by bot to say 500) prods per day so that human effort to screen and address the tagged articles does not get overwhelmed. Ohconfucius¡digame!02:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal by SmashTheState
My proposal to cut the Gordian Knot is this: leave everything as it is with the simple addition that the subject of any BLP has the right to veto its existence. That is, if the subject does not wish the article to exist, its sole text should be a statement that the subject does not wish hir biography to appear on Wikipedia.
As an activist attached to a controversial organization, someone wrote a deliberately insulting biography about me. It sat for months this way, and I didn't much care, since much worse has been written about me by the mainstream media and I consider it par for the course as an organizer. When a few individuals attempted to fix the article by making it factual, suddenly there were all sorts of accusations of "vanity" and POV and non-notability. Eventually the article was PRODed, deleted, recreated, redeleted, rerecreated, then reredeleted and locked. My experience is that biographies of controversial subjects inevitably turn into either libellous hatefests or fawning paeans (see: Ayn Rand) depending on which side happens to have more fanatical followers. While giving veto power over an article's existence to the subject won't help when the subject is no longer in existence, it will certainly allow the only person whose opinion matters to decide whether or not the biography is harmful to hir interests. SmashTheState (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support
I support that except for the "leave everything as it is" part; your proposal's a worthwhile pound of cure, but we could use a few ounces of prevention, too. Steve Smith (talk) 01:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, of course. Opt out is a great idea. Its one problem is technical, and that is identifying to WP's satisfaction the identity of the person who asks to be removed. I propose it could be done by making a credit card donation of $1 to WMF in that name. This will look like making people "pay to be unlisted" but you can adjust the amount to 25 cents if you like. A bank wire transfer is even better, since they do a third-party physical ID check at the bank before you can do that. Another possiblity is a fax of a signed request which has been notarized, which requires the public notary check the ID of the signer. SBHarris21:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Sorry to hear such a thing happen to you. However, then we run into this theoretical problem:
If Hitler or <insert your favorite infamous leader> were alive at the time of Wikipedia, he/she could remove their bio due to this. Articles are meant to be NPOV. Not satisfy their subjects.ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers00:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that's really a problem. If Adolf Hitler was alive today (a brain in a jar hiding somewhere in South America probably doesn't qualify) maybe he SHOULD have the right to decline have a biography about him on Wikipedia, as long as he's alive. Who else should have the right to decide whether a biography is potentially harmful than the person about whom the article is written? SmashTheState (talk) 01:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The use of Hitler as an example is ironic since your argument places the issue of censorship front and centre. George Bush and Barack Obama, as two examples, really have no right not to have a biography given they are very public figures. A tightening of the notability criteria and some of our "do no harm" guidelines would help alleviate most of the concerns along the lines of what you are hoping for. Resolute01:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The argument of when subjects can opt out is a separate issue that has been discussed a lot and the community has not come to any consensus. See for example, this essay on various common views about BLP opt-out. However, this is an intrinsically separate issue. Many subjects who try to opt-out have no actual problems in their articles. Moreover, allowing greater opt-out won't deal with the vast majority of BLP problems. Unsourced biographies have potential to do harm well before a subject sees them. Indeed, biographies in general have this problem (as do other articles as well that aren't biographies but discuss biographical issues). This simply won't solve any of the problems and raises other cans of worms. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The subject of a biographical articles is not "only person whose opinion matters", and if this were true we would have no articels on people whose reputations are negative, even if they are well known and the negative reputations impeccably sourced. The general principle of libel law is that the truth is never a libel. However, revealing the truth can sometimes harm people, but in at least some cases deservedly so. Current policy says that in marginal cases we defer to the wishes of the subject, and i am dubious about even that. Now I grant that cases where false and misleading info stays in an article over objection, as described above are a problem. We already have ways to deal with that -- i don't know if they were tried in this case. If those ways fail to work we may need to improve them, but this proposal does not deal with the amtter in a helpful way, IMO. DES(talk)22:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A basic tenet of anarchism is that a person gets precisely as much say in any decision as sie has a stake in that decision, this being a corollory of the basic premise that all relationships must occur by consent. I know Wikipedia is actually the fiefdom of Emperor Jimbo and his merry Randroids, but there are larger principles to consider than "Teh Pr0j3kt." To wilfully force a person to be subjected to public scrutiny against their consent is unethical. If there are specific subjects which are within the public domain, then they can be covered in an article not directly about the subject. So, for instance, how a politician votes may be relevant, and it's quite possible to have a Wikipedia article about this; private information about the politician's life, who sie fucks, what hir religion is, and so forth, is not a subject on which the public has an moral right to intrude, and the subject should have the right to have such information remain private. SmashTheState (talk) 02:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
SmashTheState points out a problem that is far bigger than unsourced biographies: that the biographies of off-mainstream people are often treated as if the BLP policy would not apply to them. I don't think, however, that the number of fanatical followers is decisive; what is more important is the ability of the followers of one side to portray the followers of the other side as POV-pushers or otherwise disruptive editors (sometimes with the help of some members of the other side, who actually fall into that category), and to gain credibility in the eyes of other editors/admins who are uninvolved and in some cases don't take the time to read the sources and evaluate the situation. Opting out may be one possibility, but I would suggest that a wish to opt out must be approved by either ArbCom or a committee set up by ArbCom to take effect. Cs32enTalk to me01:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also sorry to hear of your troubles, but I'm taking a wild guess and thinking that your biography was not unreferenced, in which case it just illustrates how this discussion misses the real issues with BLPs. If it had been unreferenced it would not have bounced to and fro as you describe - I'll bet it was heavily referenced to the "much worse" the "mainstream media" had written about you. Generally completely unreferenced bios don't give much trouble - the problemmatic ones have loads of refs. So what's the relevance here? Johnbod (talk) 02:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you could distinguish between those who put themselves into the public domain (politicians, artists ...) & those who've made no such choice (crime victims, politicians' families ...). Peter jackson (talk) 11:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To wilfully force a person to be subjected to public scrutiny against their consent is unethical. - What about free speech? Should every media stop coverage of living people? I understand your concerns, really, but I also keep in mind that everyone has a right to write and talk about everyone else (privacy and libel notwithstanding, of course). The problem is that Wikipedia is commonly held as being somehow generally reliable, while unfortunately it is not always as much as it is. Perhaps we need more a disclaimer on BLPs than anything else. --Cyclopiatalk14:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Free speech" is not an issue here. I am not attempting to force Wikipedia to stop publishing, I am attempting to remind Wikipedia that it, too, is subject to categorical imperatives -- such as treating people as individuals unto themselves and not as a means to an end. Whether or not Wikipedia provides aspies with the ability to note every instance of a given subject's mention on Family guy comes a very, very distant second to the well-being of the subject. One would hope that those who participate on Wikipedia would willingly recognize this. SmashTheState (talk) 19:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Passing thought by Promethean
Firstly, bravo to those who had the ego to start this shit storm, your boldness is highly commended. The core principle is that unsourced BLP's have GOT TO GO, that much is within policy. I feel that any BLP that has substantial unrefferenced material in it, or that lacks RELIABLE sources qualifys for immediate deletion if its still tagged as needing additional sources for more than 2 days. I also agree that if the subject of a BLP article wishes, their article should be deleted and salted...doing so is only morally decent. «l| Promethean ™|l» (talk)07:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
if the subject of a BLP article wishes, their article should be deleted and salted...doing so is only morally decent. Not in general; would you delete Barack Obama if he asked it? This only applies, therefore, to articles on the non-notable - which we should delete on those existing grounds even if (as often) they have written the article themselves. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson21:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Pmanderson. We are not here to be moral; we are here to provide facts. A person is certainly allowed to request that vandalism or libel be removed from their article, because our policies declare that such things are absolutely unacceptable. Similarly, if I wrote an article on my neighbor John Doe, he would be perfectly in the right to request its deletion, as he isn't notable and thus, by our own rules, does not merit an article. But if Tiger Woods (or more likely his attorneys) contacted us requesting that the section about his marital infidelities be removed from his article, we would have to respectfully refuse, because, though controversial, it is clearly notable information and necessary for a comprehensive treatment of the subject. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!21:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal by lfstevens
The philosophy is to hold editors accountable for their work, and to encourage people to do quality work, especially at the moment when they're paying attention. It isn't limited to BLP, except in notification phasing.
Notify creators, and recent editors and relevant projects of problematic content. Phase notifications by age and BLP/non-BLP. Do most-recently-edited BLP first, assuming that recent stuff is more likely to hold someone's interest and that BLP is the biggest issue.
At a decent interval after notification, userfy (to the creator or the most recent known editor) where possible, otherwise delete.
Add alert to edit page for article with problematic content that it's on the userfy/delete list.
Hide problematic paragraph (or section between prior ref and flag) in larger article, and cite it on the talk page.
Mark all living people-related articles with a prominent coloured logo or symbol which, when clicked upon, takes the user to a list of Living Persons resources: WP:BLP, WP:BLPHELP, anonymised case studies, online tutorials for BLP editors, etc.
Look into the feasibility of incorporating interactive training resources for BLP editing in Wikipedia, with sample scenarios and explanations of BLP-compliant editing actions.
Make clear that BLP policy applies not just to biographies, but to all groups and activities of Living People (LP).
Introduce flagged revisions as soon as possible for all LP-related articles, including all presently active companies, organisations etc.
Within flagged revisions, withdraw the ability to approve LP-related article versions from editors who repeatedly violate BLP policy (3 strikes a year and you're out, or similar).
Put LP-related edits and new articles contributed by IPs and novice editors beyond the reach of mirrors and clones, until sighted and approved by a trusted user.
Make editors aware that they are legally accountable for their edits (they can be traced and get sued if they add libellous content, and some editors have been sued already). Consider adding a note pointing out editors' legal accountability to all LP-related articles' editnotices. Publicise the results of lawsuits. --JN46602:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Flagged revisions, comment by Nathan
I think we should quickly revisit the proposed implementation of Flagged Revisions, working with Werdna, to come up with a version of the software that can be both quickly switched on and limited to articles in BLP. If it can be made to hide new articles until they have been patrolled, and we have a policy on not patrolling or flagging revisions of BLPs until they are referenced... then all the policy reforms and gyrations discussed above would be moot and we would see a much more robust improvement in Wikipedia's BLP problem as a whole than anything else proposed could accomplish. Nathan T 15:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support
Agreed. Exactly. Unreferenced articles should not be "sighted" (= approved by a trusted user). Unsighted articles/draft versions should be visible to logged-in Wikipedians in the normal way, but remain hidden from the public, as well as from mirrors, clones and search engines. They should only appear as a "draft" when someone attempts to create the same article. (They could receive a message like: "You are trying to create an article for which we already have a draft.") An IP or novice editor should only be able to see the unreferenced or unsighted draft when trying to create the same article; in this way, prior work is not lost. --JN46615:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only version of FlaggedRevs that can be switched on quickly is the current version, which would be something similar to the German system. Anything that requires new development is not going to be quick. I also disagree that FlaggedRevs is some sort of panacea for BLP issues. Flagging cannot be done in any sort of automated way, or it risks defeating the purpose. If it takes 2 minutes to review an article, applying FR to all BLPs will take more than a year and a half of combined effort. If we prohibit flagging of unreferenced articles until they're referenced and abandon plans to create a deadline that they must be referenced by, then we're pretty much stuck with the status quo for unreferenced BLPs. (As an aside, Werdna would probably be a poor choice, as he's currently working on other things and probably doesn't have much experience with the FlaggedRevs code) Mr.Z-man22:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The proposed (trial) implementation of FR on en.wp includes a second level sighting mechanism and other details that push back the potential implementation date; the major technical hurdle, if we dispense with those unnecessarily complicating details, is enabling FR on a limited subset of articles. Werdna has been involved in this process, but we could just as easily work with Aaron Schulz or William Pietri on reducing the developer resources necessary for the en.wp FR implementation and thus speeding up the timeline to live use.
FR isn't a "panacea" for the BLP problem -- there is no such thing. But it would certainly alleviate a great deal of the pressure - if unreferenced or poorly referenced BLPs weren't available for viewing, they would pose a relatively minimal risk to subjects. Sighting all BLPs for public viewing might indeed take a long time, but in the interim period they would not be viewable. I don't see how this is a problem, nor do I see it as an argument for just deleting all of these articles out of hand. The simple fact is that a BLP without bot-recognizable references is not necessarily any riskier than a BLP with a complete list of references in ref tags. Just deleting tens of thousands of articles by script isn't the answer; requiring a human review before any BLP can be read by the public removes the potential risk but retains the potential value of these many articles. Nathan T 23:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If its not a panacea, then why do you propose we drop all the other ideas once its implemented? "Deleting tens of thousands of articles by script" is also not an explicit part of any proposal, at least not one that I support, and definitely not one that the community will. I don't see scripts mentioned anywhere in Jehochman's proposal. If there's no threat of deletion, then improvement of unreferenced BLPs will probably occur at the same rate it is now (i.e. incredibly slowly), if not even slower due to the lessened chance of harm. Mr.Z-man02:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is that unsighted BLPs would be hidden from the public. So, if unreferenced BLPs are not sighted without adding references first, they will remain hidden from the public (solving the problem of potential unreliability); yet they will appear as soon as someone tries to create the article, or as soon as someone expresses an interest in seeing an unapproved draft (solving the problem of how not to lose existing work). All the effort above is about finding a way to work through the mountain of unreferenced BLPs, is it not? What we are suggesting is that this would be an elegant solution to the problem. It is not a panacea, but it enables the unreferenced BLPs to be worked through in an orderly fashion, without loss of prior work, and without harm to BLP subjects. That is all that the best proposals above promise (and some promise less).
I am aware that in the German implementation, brand new, as yet unsighted articles are visible to the public. I do not know if this would be difficult to change, but it is worth checking. I've asked the question. --JN46621:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And by "an orderly fashion," you mean at the glacial pace that they're being cleaned up now? As it stands, we're barely breaking even as there are new unsourced BLPs being created every day. Mr.Z-man22:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If they ended up staying in draft space forever, only visible to people with a Wikipedia user account, I wouldn't have a problem with that. --JN46623:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
re:Z-man, I don't think that "applying FR to all BLPs [taking] more than a year and a half of combined effort" is a problem. A significant amount of effort (1.5 years) may be required to manually approve all BLPs, but I see that as preferable to losing a significant amount of content, which mass-deletions, prodding, etc would result in. In 5 years, the community would look back at the 1.5 years as an cleanup process that significantly improved the encyclopedia, and that would (through FR) ensure the maintaining of "clean" articles in the future. -M.Nelson (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it will be a net benefit, I'm merely suggesting that we don't put all of our eggs in one basket. What happens if we find that it takes 5 times as long to review articles and it takes 8 years instead of 1.5? What if we flag only a few thousand BLPs and realize that we can't keep up with the backlog of new edits to flag in a timely manner and need to come up with a new system? What if Aaron (the lead developer for FR) gets hit by a bus and it takes an extra 6 months to get implemented? Mr.Z-man02:15, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
This is an intriguing idea... But what happens if there is one unreferenced edit and then a referenced edit after that? Can nothing be approved until everything in the "queue" is referenced? Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It needs to be understood that a "sighter" (= trusted user, e.g. user name registered for 60 days or longer, 300 edits that were not subsequently deleted, no blocks) only ever approves an article version, not any individual edit. So if you are sighting an article, the onus is on you to check all changes made since the last sighted version. (You get a diff display which enables you to do that.) Any change you don't like you revert before flagging the article as "sighted". To see how this works, have a look at Wikinews, or at this discussion, which explains how it works on the German side. Several language versions of Wikipedia (not just German) now use flagged revisions across their entire mainspace. --JN46617:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View from Phantomsteve
I think that the issue of unsourced BLPs is of more importance at this moment in time than improving other articles to FA/GA status, so I think that we should cancel this year's WikiCup immediately, and ask that the 146 contestants actually turn their attentions to unsourced BLPs and seek sources for them (and other editors also seek sources for unsourced BLPs). If no sources can be found, then there presumably will be no verification of the notability of that specific individual, so the article can be PROD'd or AfD'd.
Even if no other editors were involved, if each of the 146 contestants sourced 1 BLP article per day during the remaining 9 months that the WikiCup will run, that would be almost 40,000 articles which would have been sourced out of the 50k currently unsourced.
Comment: Although I do not believe in the wholesale "on sight" deletions mentioned by other editors (as can be seen by some of my comments on this page), I think if sources cannot be found after a reasonable amount of time, then the article should be deleted. My problem hasn't been the deletion of unsourced BLPs per se (as others have commented, who knows what may be a contentious statement to the subject of an article), I also don't think they should be left indefinitely. Your approach would appear to be "if sources are hard-to-get, then leave the article in" - which is against WP:V and WP:N. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 19:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I'm not a participant in theWp:WikiCup this year though I was last year, but I think this sort of proposal misunderstands the voluntary nature of this site (it also as an aside misunderstands the Wiki Cup which is an elimination contest that will only have 64 contestants left a month from now and that number will halve and halve again long before the end). If we want to involve other projects in this it needs to be done by persuasion and by making this task relevant to other people. WP:Wikiproject Equine has done sterling work upgrading the BLPs of assorted jockeys and I'm sure other projects could be persuaded to work on articles of interest to them; Wikicup contestants might well fix more unreferenced Bios if the judges were persuaded to tweak the Cup rules to incentivise this. ϢereSpielChequers23:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
View from SirFozzie
In discussion with various folks, I sense there are at least some editors who are trying to "run out the clock", so to speak. By that, I mean hoping that they can tie things up in this RfC and elsewhere until the urge to do anything passes, and then go back to the old rules via the backdoor, as obviously "nothing else has consensus".
I would urge those editors to realize what they're doing has a big flaw to it. If there's no consensus to any of this, it doesn't mean that we will go to what it was even three weeks ago. It means that the situation post-BLP Motion will be restored.
I personally prefer orderly and rational discussion and process to the chaotic, shoot-on-sight situation that the BLP motion was attempting to prevent. Call me a policy wonk, I guess.
So, I say to those I classify in the first paragraph. Find something you can live with, and find it soon. Show that you can be part of a solution, and not just a part of a discussion of a problem. Sitting down and not accepting anything will mean that the situation will just go on without you. SirFozzie (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. "lead, follow, or get out of the way" (lead, as in, work constructively to find a good compromise process and work to find similar good compromises for the rest of the BLP mess... follow, as in, once these processes are worked out, help out, don't obstruct... or get out of the way, as in, if neither of those is your cup of tea, fine, no problem, that's OK... just edit elsewhere, there is plenty to work on that is of interest to many and that isn't BLP related) ++Lar: t/c19:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please. Shoot on sight is NOT the way to go - a proper community agreed process that really adresses the issue and doesn't try to imagine it away it. We really don't want to leave here without an agreed system or chaos WILL ensue.--Scott Mac (Doc)19:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Quality improvement of BLPs is a must. Removing the unreferenced material from BLPs is an obvious priority and must be accomplished in the near future. FloNight♥♥♥♥19:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We know where were are going - to a situation where there are no unsourced BLPs. Whichever path is chosen has to arrive there in the end. Kevin (talk) 20:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear; a good orderly process is preferable to systematic summary deletion. Systematic summary deletion is preferable to having those BLPs remain around unsourced. — Coren(talk)21:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we need to continue to make some sort of progress on this issue. Hence my suggestion at the top that we have a defined end to this discussion, at which point this all gets summarized into a "by type/theme" rather than the current "by author" approach. -- Bfigura(talk)21:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really could not agree with this more, and like others I've been stressing this point throughout the past week. I don't see any blackmail at all here, merely a statement of the facts—ArbCom is elected by us to arbitrate disputes and decide whether editors have behaved appropriately per policy, and the reality is that they have ruled that summary deletions are an acceptable (if undesirable) way to deal with the problem of unsourced BLPs. That's a done deal. To me summary deletion is highly undesirable and there are a number of perfectly fine options for fixing the problem without deleting en masse (indeed we're working on the problem right now—like others I've already sourced several BLPs that were tagged), so there's really no excuse for us to not get this done. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs23:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is an accurate description of the present state of affairs - a consensus must be reached. No consensus = no change, and that is no change from the situation pre-RfC, which is outlined in the Arbcom motion passed. Really, this is less of a support/oppose view - SirFozzie is simply making a statement of fact and we all need to band together to reach a consensus on how to handle this better than the endorsed summary deletions. If this means taking the good ideas with reasonable support out of this page and onto a new one, do it, and close this RfC - start discussions and consensus-building on a specific proposal ASAP, please. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is precisely why "consensus" and other so-called "policies" must be trashed - as soon as arbcom felt free to trash the deletion policy as it stood "three weeks ago", the whole house of cards fell apart, past tense. What started exclusively as a BLP issue now applies to any biography, tomorrow they will burn dead trees. "They" who? I don't know. Who are "we", SirFozzie? NVO (talk) 19:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've put the tools away for a minute, but as SirFozzie said, if there is no consensus found here, I'll be more than glad to pull out my tools again. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 04:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Editors who oppose this summary
Ultimatums to do not help the process. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:53, 26 January 2010 (UTC)Comment not opppose - I think you've got a point, and we need to resolve this with consensus, and soon. We don't want to go back to how it was. I think my original statement was overly strong; sorry about that. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What does it mean that If there's no consensus to any of this, it doesn't mean that we will go to what it was even three weeks ago. It means that the situation post-BLP Motion will be restored. ? Do you mean that if there is no clear consensus, "shoot on sight" is to be explicitly endorsed? Since when, if there is no consensus to change a policy, then a green light is given to admins to behave like the policy changed anyway, and not even in one of the most endorsed views? I am sincerely confused: you "prefer orderly and rational discussion and process": yet you are basically warning of admins using force to impose their views against the community, if consensus does not endorse them? Please clarify. Sincerely. --Cyclopiatalk19:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I say exactly what I said above. If we fail to come to an agreement as to a reasonable process here, that the prior, chaotic, enflamed situation will be restored. As for your comments about whether "shoot-on-sight" was explicitly endorsed, I urge you to re-read the motion that was passed by the Arbitration Committee, specifically the line that The deletions carried out by Rdm2376, Scott MacDonald, and various other administrators are a reasonable exercise of administrative discretion to enforce the policy on biographies of living people.. Despite the fact they were urged to do things in a less chaotic manner in the future, I think that this would be pretty explicit.
As far as the link to Scott's post you bring up, I think you are using a loaded term there as a perjorative. How does his comment that "if we do not come out of here with a reasonable process, chaos WILL ensue" qualify as blackmail? He states nothing more then what many other editors (including myself) have stated previously. SirFozzie (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About "blackmail", well, Scott MacDoc was one of the admins who participated in mass deletions, and there was a short post of him on WR which promised "direct action" again if consensus was not reached here. He then redacted it when I linked to it in the ArbCom case, so I guess it can be officially ignored now, but that's why I used that term.
About the rest, well, you're basically endorsing shoot-on-sight as the lesser evil, in case of no consensus, if I understand correctly. You're in ArbCom and I'm just an editor, but please consider that doing that you're setting a precedent that frees admins from consensus, process, everything just because they think their action "enforces BLP". Please consider the consequences of that. Please. --Cyclopiatalk20:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia, SirFrozzie is inviting us to make our own policy proposals. There are many more administrators, Arbators, and veteran editors who support the deletion of so many thousands of articles, so they write long summaries on the talk page (Risker), they probably wrote the newsletter article, they wrote a policy they want to make into a guideline(ironically Scott MacDonald), in other words, they know how to work the system. This proportion of editors who support the deletion of thousands of articles is by design, by Jimbo himself, we can't forget his thank you for Scott Macdonlds "utter contempt" for consensus. Even the administrators who are accused of supporting saving articles voted for Jehochman's proposal, which really disappoints me. I am not trying to get you down, I am just trying to say, we need a concrete alternative too. Don't wait for these unsympathetic bitey editors, some who have "utter contempt" for consensus to write these alternatives for you. You will be disappointed. A good number of editors here are angry at what is happening here, including a handful of admins. Ikip01:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a lesser evil, yes. I would MUCH prefer something like a dated BLP-PROD as discussed above But without trying to be over the top, the situation has gotten bad enough that action IS required.. not only to resolve the 50,000+ unsourced BLP articles that is commonly put forward as a reason for this, but to make sure we are never put into such a position again. It's like discussing health issues.. it does not pay to ignore symptoms of a problem, nor treating the symptoms without treating the cause. SirFozzie (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia: Read my support. Think about it. Then either lead the effort to resolve this problem, follow along and help when tasks get asked of folk, or get the heck out of the way. You are being obstructionist. The time for that is over. ++Lar: t/c20:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lar: No, I will not "get out of the way", at least not until there is a firm consensus. I am only trying to bring my arguments to the table. I am not doing anything: I have nor mass-deleted nor mass-restored articles, I have not mass PRODded or mass de-PRODded (I only deprodded a bunch of already sourced articles) etc. I am actually doing nothing else than discussing (unfortunately: I should definitely do some actual editing too!). I am only trying to make people understand that getting rid of unsourced BLPs does nothing to solve the BLP problem and that endorsing admin out of process behaviour is an extremly dangerous precedent. You can disagree, but you cannot ask me to "get out of the way" only because I stand by my position in a discussion. And, judging from the supports to Jclemens, Power.corrupts, DGG, Durova and Collect's positions, for example, I may not be in the majority, but for sure I am not alone. Get out of the way? You're not the only one in this way, Lar. Get used to it. --Cyclopiatalk00:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Returning to the original posting. Amen Peregrine Fisher, with no disrespect to SirFonzzie, he probably can predict what will happen better than anyone, and his words are probably not meant as an ultimatum, (maybe you can strike that Peregrine Fisher?) but as a good faith warning. Remember, SirFonzzie, Carcharoth, Rlevse, and Steve Smith voted against the amnesty. Ikip00:41, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly believe we need a clean up mechanism, if for no reason other than to reduce the drama. So I agree with you on that score. That said, are you claiming ArbCom has the power to override consensus? If not, exactly on what basis are you making this claim that we'll revert to some policy that has no consensus? That issue is much more worrying to me than the BLP issue itself. Hobit (talk) 20:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which stated nothing at all about auto-deleting unreferenced but non-contInuous BLPs correct? So I guess I'm not sure what you're saying. You're claiming we'll default to "shoot-on-sight" correct? I ask where you think consensus was formed to do so. Proposals like that have failed many many times in the last 6 months. To me it sounds like "Arbcom will make policy if we don't like the consensus". I'm hoping that's not what you are saying. Hobit (talk) 22:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We have just had those in the real world who claim "the situation has changed" and now there are new rules which permit them to do whatever sweeping thing they see fit; they were, at length, driven out. This is a community of equals. Any sysop who engages in shoot on sight should be immediately desysopped - and that will stop it. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson22:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose. The current WP:BLP policy authorizes only the deletion of contentious unsourced or poorly sourced BLPs. It at least implicitly forbids any other deletion except through normal processes. Making "unreferenced BLP" a speedy criterion clearly does not have consensus, indeed it doesn't even have majority support among those who have commented here or on WT:CSD, and it has been proposed and failed several times. It is clearly against the deletion policy. ArbCom does not have the authority to change policy -- to impose a new CSD by fiat would require intervention by Jimbo, and the last time he did that (WP:CSD#U1) the community eventually overruled him. if the arbcom decides to effectively make policy by sanctioning anyone who blocks people violating existing policy by making unilateral out-of-process deletions, then the whole place is broken. Don't do that.
And I might ad that IMO mass deletion of unsourced but uncontentious BLPs where there is no speciifc grounds for concern harms the project and is a far greater evil than retaining the status quo. And i have seen no persuasive evidence or argument to the contrary, merely unsupported assertions. DES(talk)22:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What this says is "if the community doesn't like what we've done, we'll just do it anyway, so they better decide they like it." I don't think that's the way to go. I suppose I fail to see the absolute urgency that has suddenly attached to this problem, as if we'd recently been inundated with horrifying news reports of all the terrible damage done to BLP subjects. DASHbot has begun notifying people of their unreferenced BLPs; any minute now the WMF should be announcing an implementation timeline for FlaggedRevisions. Is the idea that now that we've begun making some progress, some progress isn't enough? We should just proceed to the endpoint, immediately, regardless of what all those poor peons might think or how much they might protest? With arbitrators propounding the strategy that administrators can force the community at gunpoint to resolve aproblem to their satisfaction, where do we go from here? Perhaps we should abandon the idea of consensus for policy decisions altogether, or take a roll call prior to participation in RfCs like this one to ensure that only people willing to "lead, follow or get out of the way" are allowed to weigh in? That way we eliminate any of those pesky disagreements. Unfortunately, I think opinions like mine will be dismissed as obstructionist, as if I don't understand the BLP problem or prefer it not be solved. The truth is I do think its a serious problem, and I do think it ought to be solved (I'm even being sued for 50 million euros over the subject), but I'm just not in the "the ends justify the use of any means necessary" crowd. Nathan T 23:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I see more than a couple editors hoping the process stalls specifically so they can go back to their preferred solution of unilateral deletions. I find it disappointing that, once again, an ArbCom member is threatening to hand free reign to the people who wish to destroy the project to suit their personal beliefs because the community isn't acting within your time line. I'm sorry Fozzie, but you and your compatriots need to seriously re-evaluate your stance on the value of the community and consensus or you risk doing far, far more harm to this project than the BLP issue ever could. Your threat here, backhanded as it was, does the entire process a huge disservice, and is far below the standard of conduct I would expect from an arbitrator. Putting a gun to the community's head does nobody any good. To steal from Lar's lone argument: "Lead, follow or get out of the way." Like it or not, the debate will take several weeks, but we will arrive on a process that has majority support. Even if that does not form a true "consensus" as is typically accepted, you are in a position where you can help influence the community's acceptance of that process and/or help gain a decree from the WMF to make that process into policy. Right now, you are following the people who have lost sight of Wikipedia's mandate of being a community driven project. I suggest you either take the lead in upholding that virtue, or get out of the way and let us do what we are volunteering our time to do. Resolute23:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Read my statement above about 5/5 random articles that were tagged with unreferenced BLP I found which had citations poorly styled or were notable and easily researched (2 minutes tops). Blind, systematic, automatic deletions (which the obstructionists want actually) are more harmful for the project than helpful. It's like using a nuclear bomb on Iraq or any other place with terrorism: you eliminate the problem, but to considerable collateral damage. ηoian‡orever ηew ‡rontiers23:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the arbcom decision was the worst one I have seen in my entire 4 years here. Arbcom is responsible for this post Arbcom chaos. I didn't support your end conclusion Sir Fonzzie, but I HIGHLY respect that you didn't vote for the amnesty like the other Arbcom members. Just as I don't support Jehochman's resolution, but I support that he is working within policy, unlike the other editors above. Again, it is very important to emphasize for the second time: even if Jehochman resolution passes, what these four administrators did will STILL be against our rules. Arbcom can't simply wish away drama by unpopular decrees, and in this case, those who voted for this resolution only exacerbated it. Ikip00:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
oppose Absolutely not. I'm in favor of some BLP-Prod form and think that we'll end up with one by the end of this. Jehochman's proposal has strong support. But this is nothing less than a threat of the worst sort, completely ignoring the actual community consensus on what BLPs are problems and where we need to focus our effort. I invite SirFozzie to take a look at MZMcBride's proposal for allowing shoot-on-sight with as of this moment, 53 supports, and 133 opposes. The vast majority of the Wikipedia community thinks that even if we don't get a BLP prod or similar reaction, that any form of shoot-on-sigh is a really, really bad idea. Moreover, this sort of statement by a sitting ArbCom member if anything gives the people who want to shoot on sight an incentive to refuse to help come up with an actual solution since then they get their birthday present for free if they just keep hardlining. Indeed, I've already seen far more failure to cooperate on that end than on the other end of this discussion with comments including one of the deleting individuals saying that he holds community consensus in contempt and engaging in sexist remarks that sound like something out of 3rd grad. The ArbCom has created enough of a problem without this sort of inflammatory remark that clearly goes against community consensus. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Joshua, but you're not saying anything I've said before, privately, and publicly (not to mention who was the first person to oppose the ArbCom motion?) Quite frankly, I'm hoping this was a wake cup call for folks on both sides of the issue, that unless BOTH sides come into the table, we're due for another confrontation, a bigger one. It may not be worse then the first one (I think the dark irony of it happening during the Great Wikipedia Dramaout says something, don't you?), but it will be bad.
I had one person explicitly tell me by email that they figured if one side said no enough times, things would eventually go back to the way they were, prior to when this whole thing kicked off. I want both sides in on this, as much as possible. If one side refuses to understand a fundamental fact, that going back to "the way we were" is not an option and not going to happen. they will be left behind. I want to make sure that doesn't happen and that all sides get their say in what the policy will be going forward. We all have ideas on how to get to the goal of improving the encyclopedia. I haven't put my proposal forward, because quite frankly, at 850K bytes, it's large enough already.
If you look at the edit summary when I posted my view, I stated firmly this was an attempt to make sure we didn't get bogged down in process and pointless bickering. We had forward momentum.. but there were people trying desperately to throw the airbrakes in an attempt to stop it, and I was making it clear that as much as a portion of the community may wish that it wasn't so, the "way things were" is not where Wikipedia is going. I urge all sides to move expeditiously to keep that momentum going, and as I said, to find something you can live with, and quickly. SirFozzie (talk) 03:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, I know exactly what you've opposed before. That doesn't make this any less of a problem. And it doesn't change the fact that in your above you made a clear pointer to a single side winning in event of this process not working(oh how I detest the fact that we have "sides" "winning" or "losing" but that's a separate issue). The fact is that it doesn't take an expert in game theory to know who has an incentive to muck with this process. Moreover, the fact is that I have seen close to zero effort by the people not favoring shoot-on-sight to muck with this. Indeed, they come up with a large variety of proposals above, most of which shoot-on-sighters have simply responded with by labeling not good enough. I have seen almost zero evidence of anyone against shoot-on-sight trying to disrupt this RfC(and I've be very curious to point to what evidence you have that they have tried to do so) The fact is that the community overwhelmingly is against any form of shoot-on-sight, and anything that remotely even gives the possibility that that will be the result in a week is so clearly against community consensus that it isn't even funny. Meanwhile, if you do have a proposial that you think is minimally likely to be useful, then by all means propose. The point of this is brainstorming and trying to work out some sort of amicable solution, not mutual reincriminations, as fun as the tribal feeling no doubt feel to many. In the meantime, if you aren't going to do that, I suggest that you spend your time making sure that the people who are actually interfeering with this RfC, the same people who hold community consensus in contempt and think its fine to edit through a protected policy page, stop trying to waste time and insult both the community as a whole and individual members in what certainly appears to be a deliberate attempt to not get anything useful done in this RfC. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We have actually been making useful progress and would continue to do so even if the deletionist spree and the current RFC hadn't happened. But I hope we get a consensus to do something that will speed up the improvement process. However if we cannot get consensus for a change I would be sad if we started to do policy changes by simple majority; If Arbcom imposed change against a majority view let alone against a consensus for no change then I would consider it a mistake, even if it were my own somewhat deletionist proposal being implemented. ϢereSpielChequers16:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we need to come up with something with consensus, but disagree with what you try yo imply. There is a strong consensus against summary deletions, as can be seen in the responses to the first view, which thus supersedes the committee's finding that the deletions were within admin discretion, much like constitutional amendments or new laws can supersede prior decisions by supreme courts. Admin discretion stands in the no consensus zone, it is clear from the RFC that they are against consensus, thus cannot be within admin discretion. Further, the view by Sandstein which is quasi-unanimously supported, reaffirms that the community has the final word in terms of policy (excepting the wmf), and not ArbCom. However you do have a point that the tensions make more difficult the development of consensus to more actively address the issue (which I stated elsewhere), they are for the most part due to the actions which forcefully precipitated this (the deletionist vs inclusionist argument is not dominant here, the drama generated from the deletions is). If a RFC on the issue had been opened instead of a brute force approach, we'd be much closer to reach consensual solutions at this point. Cenarium (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the implication that the "default" outcome would/should be using a policy imposed by ArbCom. I do agree that not coming to any consensus on this should be strongly avoided, and also agree that any deliberate obstruction of the consensus-making process by being an immovable extremist partisan ideologues would be shameful. --Cybercobra(talk)03:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of an arbitrary deadline, we should prod them as fast as we can check to see if sources exist. People who want unreferenced articles deleted can work as quick as they want. The people who don't want them deleted were going to work on them anyways. We can work together, with some sort of master list, or by project list. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If none of the well supported proposals that are more likely to be effective goes forward (which would be a damn shame) we could try this for a while but see SirFozzie's view, above... as soon as this voluntary system stops working, then we may well find that we go back to deletion first with restoration afterwards. ++Lar: t/c20:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hell no... this would simply result in somebody using an automated tool to tag them all in a matter of minutes---and voila seven days later, you would simply delete 50K articles because they were prodded? No. That is the problem with Jechoman's proposal... it is not realistic in scope. Researching and salvaging 50K articles may take time. Mass deletions is a sure fire method to create chaos and animosity.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!21:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this might actually be workable as long as any prod requires that you actually make a serious check for sources. Those that clearly aren't get told they may not PROD and/or blocked. Seems actually workable. Puts the work on those who believe there is a problem, with follow up by those who don't. Gets everyone involved... Hobit (talk) 22:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there were a clear policy that articles not be proded or otherwise proposed for deletion without an actual attempt to check for sources as per WP:BEFORE) I could support this, but I can't see how any such rule would be enforced. But I would favor such a rule, or at least such a principle, being included in any mechanism created here. DES(talk)22:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If someone was prodding large numbers of articles without checking for sources I suspect they would be spotted quite quickly. If we revert to the system where you don't prod unless you've checked for sources and not found them, then I suspect we will still have large numbers of articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs this time next year. I'm confident we'd have made a big improvement in overall quality in that year, just as we have in each of our previous years; But I predict our less patient brethren would not be happy with this. ϢereSpielChequers00:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing view from Septentrionalis
This, as often when a bunch of Wikipedians jump up and down demanding that Something Must Be Done Now, is a solution to the wrong problem.
What is the real problem? Inaccurate biographies of real persons. Will this solve it? Will it help?
What are the causes of inaccuracy?
Vandalism of well-sourced articles on LPs, which leave the footnotes in place. Ted Kennedy has 266 footnotes; when a vandal had him die some months early, it had almost as many.
Articles which misrepresent their sources.
Articles which reflect false or libelous sources, often because the contributor believes them, or as opposition research on political candidates.
This proposal will do nothing about the first and the last of these, and little about the second.
Back in 2005, we were indeed vulnerable to somebody making something up, and positing it as a new article; we answered that by preventing anons from posting new articles at all.
On the other hand, we have hundreds or thousands of articles on minor sports figures and minor academics which were unsourced in 2005 and are still unsourced, because nobody has looked at them, but are as accurate now as they were then. Losing these is a small but real cost - then again, I think it small because I don't use WP to look up minor sports figures.
The wording of the BLP tag is contentious unsourced material on a living person may be removed immediately; I support that, even if it means blanking a article - and this proposal does not: it does not stop to look if material is contentious, merely whether it has a footnote.
Paying a real cost for a doubtful benefit is a foolish idea; I am distressed to see several editors I respect support even a modified version of this silly idea. The other supporters have lost my confidence. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson21:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. If a featured BLP such as Barack Obama had no sources, it would be deleted under some of the proposals above. A lack of references is not the problem in BLPs, it is contentious material. Though contentious material is more likely to appear in unreferenced articles than referenced ones, a longer article with a single source is more likely to include contentious material than a stub with no references. Though some of the less heavy-handed solutions proposed may help improving unreferenced BLPs, any automated deletion system will both incorrectly identify the articles most likely to be contentious, and delete articles with no content issues other than having no references. -M.Nelson (talk) 00:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support This whole kerfuffle is over a problem, sure - it's always better to have sourced articles than unsourced articles. But is a lack of sources a big problem? Bigger than other problems with our articles? No. The real problem is potential libel and (to a lesser degree) potential inaccuracy. No matter what the outcome of this debate, it will not solve the real problem. And it comes at a huge cost. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the true problem are highly visible BLPs that are vandalized rather than low-notability, unsourced ones. We still have a problem that those latter BLPs exist and need to be sourced. But it's by far not as much of a problem than those mentioned in this view. The proposals in favor of deletion are mostly relevant to pages that are not covered by them - e.g. Ted Kennedy (before his death). Regards SoWhy18:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support, if for no other reason than PMAnderson puts his finger on an interesting point here: all of a sudden there is a problem that must be fixed, by any means necessary. (Except, odd to note, actually alerting the general editorship that there is a need for them to help out with. Oh well, we all know that bots do much better work than human beings.) -- llywrch (talk) 04:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is the true BLP problem (with the exception that major public figures like Ted Kennedy are not really susceptible to the kind of harm that less-notable people are). However, besides sitting down and reviewing each and every BLP manually, there's little we can do to directly address it. Hence we go for the low-hanging fruit first. Mr.Z-man02:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still looking for evidence that unsourced BLPs are more likely to have problems than sourced BLPs. It's just as easy to add bogus stuff to one as the other. So it's just low-hanging stuff, but no idea if it's fruit or not. Hobit (talk) 03:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts exactly. The people advocating harsh deletion rules don't seem to be basing the argument on tangible data, rather it seems based on their personal experience. Granted, there's also that on the opposing side. There isn't a lot of proper analysis here. So what we end up with is a lot of unsupported assertions flying around, a huge amount of commentary, and many accusations of impropriety. To try to participate in all this is becoming increasingly pointless.
At the same time, a link to this continues to appear on top of the watchlist, attracting more attention. How about generating a list of all unreferenced BLPs that are *on* each of our watchlists, so that we can actually go do something useful about it? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 12:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even if they're just as likely to have problems as sourced ones, a concerted effort to review and source them, or remove them, will have a far bigger impact on the problem than continuing to do nothing. If you're going to oppose something based on the idea that we could be doing something more useful, that's fine, but please at least give some tangible suggestion as to how we might be able to better. Mr.Z-man18:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What tangible proof do you have that people will ultimately respond positively to uncontroversial old articles being deleted en masse just because they had no references? We can reasonably guess that at least some will do so, but if we end up with even <50% of flamewars because of this, that's still a net loss.
At the same time, pointing the people who are expressly watching articles to the fact that they lack references sounds to me like an eminently tangible way to get them looked at by interested editors. FWIW, my watchlist currently has over eight thousand entries, and I'd would really find it helpful if something helped me find those UBLPs that I would probably want to fix (one way or another). --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Brambleclawx
I like the ideas of several people above, and I've already indicated which ones I support. To summarize my thoughts:
1. Create a {{PROD BLP}} template which could be used along with {{BLP sources}} and;
2. Create a WikiProject Referencing, or a task force of some sort under WikiProject living people, similar to the Guild of Copyeditors who fix articles with the {{copyedit}} tag.
Keep everything as it is and ban the editors in question who deleted the hundreds of articles that started all this. Editors need a chance to build their article before it is deleted.
And on those that I deleted there was at least 6 months to do that, and over 3 years for the ones that Scott deleted. How long do think is appropriate? Kevin (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
|}
Why Unreferenced BLPs are problematic
It is often said "But the BLP problem is not made of unsourced biographies. It is made of libelous, vandalized, biased, etc. biographies." (Quoting Cyclopia)
This is a common fallacy.
Certainly, the BLP problem cannot be reduced to unsourced biographies, but it is not true that the problem is simply libelous articles. If it were, Wikipedia would delete them all and have done with it.
The BLP problem is the inability to identify biased and libellous biographies or biographical material where these exist among its other biographies.
The vast majority of slurs, libels, and indeed bias that are added to BLPs are quickly removed. This is because they are added to articles that are well-watched by people who know enough about the subject to challenge credible falsehoods, one-sided contributions and POV.
However, most of Wikipedia's BLPs do not fall into the category of "well watched by people knowledgeable about the subject" - they fall into the category "fairly obscure". With these articles, at best only obvious vandalism is caught by those watching RCP - and the rest simply sits there until someone stubbles across it.
The basic BLP problems are:
Wikipedia has more biographies than it can sensibly maintain (and the numbers keep growing whilst the community is static at best).
Many biographies are special interest and as a result attract little interest for years on end, allowing bad stuff to raemain.
People claim "Notability is not temporary" - perhaps not, but interest in an article is, and as we move further from the news cycle interest drops the motivation for anyone to maintain an article decreases.
Wikipedia's basic quality control measure is its readers or editors spotting any untruths. But the less notable the bio, the less chance anyone will.
As for unreferenced statements, they are dangerous because
there is a higher chance of a libel being unreferenced than a libel having a false reference. Most libellers don't know Wikipedia's hatred of unreferenced material enough to play the system (granted some do)
if a statement is unreferenced, there is less chance that someone will be bothered to check it. There is a higher chance of someone checking a claim is well-founded if the foundation is there to easily check.
an unreferenced article is an unloved article. If no one has bothered to reference it, then there is a higher chance no one has bothered to check it, thus a higher chance of it being wrong, it is also more unlikely someone will maintain it going forward.
In short, the BLP problem is that:
Wikipedia does not take maintainability into account when deciding whether to keep or delete a biography. That is could be maintained is enough - regardless of the structural reality is probably will not be. We are idealistic, but not realistic.
Wikipedia has many more biographies than it can maintain (growing cleanup backlogs show this).
Wikipedia has too low a threshold for inclusion, resulting in too many biographies underwatched by knowledgably people (and this includes knowledgeable casual readers who will point out mistakes)
Removing unreferenced biographies would certainly help - but it, I agree, no panacea. But we need to start somewhere.
These are articles that have not even had basic maintaince in three years. Yes, any individual one could be fixed, but we don't have the resources to do this for all of them, and we need to say "if we can't do even this in a reasonable time, then we are not going to be able to maintain this."--Scott Mac (Doc)01:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Comments in Support
Partly true. The other part of the BLP problem is inaccurate BLPs that aren't heavily watched. Something with a few refs that has some libelous or other language inserted. But the issue is that for this other part, there's no easy solution other than total manual review (at least until someone turns on flagging or some such). So easy ones first -- Bfigura(talk)02:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments in Opposition
Of all articles, BLPs are least likely to retain nonsense over a long period because they have at least one person who cares about the subject, namely the subject himself (who let's face it, probably wrote the thing in the first place). The great majority of people are now aware they can edit WP & will just remove stuff they don't like. If nobody else cares it will stay that way. How often does a fully unreferenced bio (as opposed to a part-referenced one not tagged) actually cause real trouble? I suspect 5 refs on a single sentence are a better indication of likely trouble than an unreferenced tag. Johnbod (talk) 02:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I am deeply concerned with Scott MacDoc's recent actions and even more so with some of his statements about the WP community, I must say this is probably the best thought "deletionist" (for lack of a better word) view in this RfC. I agree that maintainability can be, and is, a problem. However I find myself opposing this summary for two reasons. First, the numbers (see here) seem to indicate that at the very, very worst only 1-2% of unsourced BLPs are problematic in a given year. Which is not nice, but given the editing model of WP and their state, it is a reasonable number: it means that 98% of articles are probably good enough. So we are in a situation where we throw away 98% of babies for 2% of bathwater. Second, getting rid or source all of these articles does not significantly help the maintainability issue, and if many of them get sourced (I hope no one wants to delete them if properly sourced and notable!) the maintainability issue does not change. Therefore deleting unreferenced BLPs seems to me a very poor start, with a high collateral damage coupled with little or none improvement. Semiprotection, incubation, etc. are better alternatives, that would limit the BLP concerns without generating irreversible collateral damage. --Cyclopiatalk14:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Few responses. 1) Any encyclopedia or newspaper which had 2% of its content problematic (with a libellous possibility) would and should be shut down. 2) Setting a deletion deadline does two things - it may remove some of the uncared for BLPs, which aids maintainability but it also forces those wishing to maintain the articles to source them - the act of sourcing them will involve checking the content against the sources and thus removing any problematic material. Leaving them, in the hope that someone would verify them, hasn't worked - now we need to change the onus and force people to verify them. If they won't or can't in a reasonable period, they are obviously systemically unmaintainable.--Scott Mac (Doc)15:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like you want higher notability standards because we have finite resources. That's fine with me. I've thought that for a long time. I think what passes notability under joke guidelines like WP:ATHLETE is a big problem. I am also a supporter of making something like WP:MILL a part of our notability standards as well. That said, I see very little correlation between "unreferenced" and "problematic". If you want to get rid of non-notable articles or raise the notability standards, then I'm all behind you. What I've found while actually going through BLPs that are tagged as totally unreferenced is that many of the subjects are indeed notable, and clearly so. Contorting WP:V and WP:BLP into a draconian tool to remove every sentence without a footnote as some kind of end-run around actually fixing the notability standards is a big mistake. Gigs (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have still to see *any* evidence that tunsourced BLPs are a real problem. One of the earlier commentators actually did a survey and concluded that the claim was false. My experience confirms that: I must have looked at thousands of random articles over several years, and can recall only one case of libel and one of intentionl libellous prank: both in *sourced* articles about *notable* people — and one of them was not even a biography, technically--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Unconvincing. At this point in the debate there should be substantial evidence comparing biographies with zero references to biographies with one reference, and I'm not seeing any evidence at all in Scott's statement. I'm seeing a reasonable explanation of why unsourced statements are a problem without acknowledgement of the fact that both referenced biographies and unreferenced biographies contain them. And of course non-biographies contain them too. The last few times I removed BLP violations were from articles about killer whales. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fresh Eyes Say "What are you thinking??"
I have had a login here for a while, but have never used it. Never felt I had anything to contribute, and the feeling has only grown over the years. I've written internal wiki documents, but never had to deal with so much weight of penny ante rules on a volunteer project.
You have no problem marking articles that have no sources as such. As a user, I have no problem reading that as a "YMMV, take this with a grain of salt". Some of your articles have sources, but not "references" inline. Some sources have bit rot.
What bring people here is data. It would not be difficult in the bios to go through and, instead of deleting them, note in big, red letters, that there are "No outside references cited, the information may not be accurate". After all, people still buy the Enquirer with less disclaimer, and believe it!
If you delete the article, it will probably not get recreated, even if it had sources and/or references that were just improperly formatted. While I am familiar with some wiki formatting, many fans and other would-be contributors aren't, and early in their learning curve may have fine references, just not have their tags all spiffy. You want to throw away all of those hours of work to get rid of 10% of bogus articles? Bathwater =/= baby, people.
Yes, mark the machine identified suspect articles as suspect, put them on a list for human review like you do with others, but don't arbitrarily set a dealine for volunteers to do a massive "Fix It Or Else!" - because you will lose a lot of otherwise acceptable, but poorly formatted, content, and a lot of disgruntled volunteers.
Heck, you could even present such a list of easy clean up targets to new editors, along with HowTo's, so that they can get used to the style and requirements. That would help get new volunteers up to speed, plus address your human review problem.
Support This is the most sensible and realistic suggestion I've read. Perhaps "No outside references cited, the information may not be accurate" could include an explicit request like "You are encouraged to improve this article with accurate references" if that wouldn't be counterproductive for some reason. I believe this suggestion by RavanAsteris both gives people a heads up and encourages improvement by people most likely to have knowledge and motivation to improve a particular article. It also doesn't give vandals any aid. Refrigerator Heaven (talk) 08:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support If this problem is really so severe that we have to have a change in policy, this is probably the best justification for cluttering pages with warning templates. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Completely Very sensible and rational. I think RavanAsteris has struck to the core of what brings people to read Wikipedia, and what convinces them to create an account and start editing. We are, remember, "The Free Encyclopedia", where free means liberated and unsubjugated. We should not be "The Bureaucratic Encyclopedia". Some level of control and administration is of course necessary on a project of this scope; I am no wiki-anarchist. But we will not encourage new users to contribute and become involved by swamping them with massive amounts of policy. The statistics say that we are losing editors faster than we are gaining them. We must therefore encourage a new wave of editors to come in and revitalize Wikipedia, if we want this project to not only continue but improve. –The Fiddly Leprechaun·Catch Me!20:55, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thank you for speaking up and jelling it down. I'll emphasize Paragraph 4: Not only will a deleted article not get recreated, but the title is put on a watchlist that will speedily delete it in the future. You not only lose the information and its potential, useful development, you piss off and turn off a potential future contributor. For what? The satisfaction that you have sanitized information the world could use? And P1: penney ante rules, it couldn't be said better.Trackinfo (talk) 04:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Threatening to delete thousands of articles unless everyone drops everything to work on one's pet WikiProject is an unacceptable level of arrogance. Certes (talk) 17:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing Views
Oppose - the problem here is that this literally does nothing new. We already have the general disclaimer, which says the basically the same thing as your disclaimer. And we do in fact already tag and note articles that have no references. The problem at present is that we have 50k of them, and the list is growing not shrinking. I've been fixing as many as I have time to, but it can take a surprising amount of time to even minimally source some articles. I'm not saying we should break out the nukes and zap them all, but we do need a way to force articles to be cleaned up, even if only via a BLPPROD (and nomming some managable # / week). -- Bfigura(talk)07:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why Unreferenced BLPs are NOT problematic
I agree with User:Scott MacDonald above that "The BLP problem is the inability to identify biased and libellous biographies or biographical material where these exist among its other biographies." However how do the various proposals above to treat unreferenced BLPs as vermin help this problem? I don't normally do any work at all on BLPs so I thought I should look at a sample after seeing this debate. The 6 remaining "unreferenced from 2006" are all Japanese or similar, so I moved on to mid-2007 ones. Unfortunately I didn't count all I looked at, and my choice of articles was not systematic or random, but I think I looked at maybe 25-30 in 20 minutes. About 20% were actually referenced with inline cites, sometimes many, so the tag was just wrong. About another 20% (mostly actors etc) had good refs under external links for key stuff, but usually not the whole article. By swopping "References" for "External links" they are now no worse than most WP articles. One, Benedict Nightingale was to my certain knowledge (and that of most British WP editors) 100% accurate. Only one of the short ones (there were a few very long sports ones I didn't read through) had anything that the subject's mother or press agent could not have written, a statement that "His cousin was a world-renowned opera singer who would perform in various stages of undress", added by an ISP in 2007, not long after the article was tagged. [57] The sentence had originally begun "his cousin" but some thoughtful editor or bot had added the capital.
Obviously this is not a significant sample, though the % that were just wrongly tagged is alarming - they included two fairly famous people in Britain. "Whispering" Bob Harris (radio) gets over 50 hits every day, but has been wrongly tagged since last July. Any bot-led approach that doesn't check if the tag is actually correct would have removed his lengthy & well-written bio, and that of the conductor Sir Philip Ledger (only about 12 hits per day).
In all the discussions above, or at Wikipedia_talk:Volunteer_response_team#info-en_.28Quality.29_.E2.80.93_how_many_a_day.3F I have not seen any specific examples quoted of cases where BLPs tagged as unreferenced have actually caused a difficult problem to the project. They are the most vulnerable of all WP articles, and at the first complaint are cut or deleted. SmashTheState gives an interesting account of his problems with his own biography above, but it seems clear that this was not unreferenced, or it would not have survived as it did. He says "much worse has been written about me by the mainstream media". Surely this is typical? The difficult problems are caused by referenced articles, often very heavily referenced articles, reflecting contentious material in the world outside WP. I propose Johnbod's Law: "5 refs on a line is an almost sure sign of trouble". SmashTheState says he was aware of the initial problem, but did not bother to fix it. Most BLPs, or their family and friends, surely don't take this line - grandchildren, I find, are the most agressive in removing anything critical, or perhaps the most likely to know how to edit. At least all BLPs have by definition one person who cares about the subject.
Until evidence is produced showing actual examples of serious problems caused by BLPs that are tagged as unreferenced I will be unconvinced by arguments for drastic solutions. Johnbod (talk) 03:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support With the caveat that many of the solutions proposed here (such as Jehochman's and variants thereof) do not strike me as drastic. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I've seen a lot of hysterical statistics thrown around about OTRS complaints from BLP subjects, but no one has ever noted how many of those come from unreferenced articles. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'd like us to actually figure out what causes problems. It sounds obvious, but we don't really know. An article on a footballers without refs is unacceptable, but an article on a footballer with a ref to a tabloid about his affairs requires a lengthy AfD? It's plain silly. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support the proponents of this have made remarkably little effort to demonstrate that unsourced BLPs are significantly more problematic than other BLPs. Hut 8.508:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Actually the thread linked above gives some anecdotal evidence that unsourced BLPs could indeed be slightly more troubling than sourced ones. But the numbers seem to indicate that the worst case scenario is 1-2% of these articles having created trouble so far. While I am open to semiprotection/blanking/incubating as options, I see no compelling reason to throw away 98% of babies with 2% of bathwater. --Cyclopiatalk14:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support:This is far down the page, but it makes an awful lot of sense and does help disambiguate the real problem in a way that a lot of the less subtle and less well reasoned comments have failed to do Ajbpearce (talk)
Support. Even the most ardent supporter of summary deletion has failed to provide evidence of why such an action is justifiable at this point. decltype (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to Support as nom, if we're counting. A further point: I'm much more sympathetic to tough measures for new unrefed BLPs. Johnbod (talk) 12:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Five refs on one line is an almost sure sign of trouble in my experience. The idea that sourced BLPs will have fewer issues than unsourced ones seems completely false to me. The focus on "unsourced" is a diversion from the BLP issues that actually matter. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is precisely the sort of examination which should have been done before this proposal was ever made. If Johnbod had found that there were several unreferenced BLPs that were seriously inaccurate, then there would be a case for the sorts of solutions which are being proposed here. But he didn't; there is no bomb - and those who claim there is should provide evidence or return to sites more suited to undocumented hysteria. My compliments to Johnbod. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson00:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The great reassuring thing about this whole process has been that the BLPs we were most worried about have turned out to be less problematic than we thought, indeed a large proportion are at least partially referenced. Yes Wikipedia is not yet finished and there are many areas that need work - but unreferenced BLPs need not be our highest priority, as there are bigger problems elsewhere. ϢereSpielChequers00:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Just because a live bomb hasn't gone off yet doesn't mean it won't ever. The problem needs to be fixed permanently, the status quo is no longer acceptable. Burpelson AFB (talk) 04:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Bomb or otherwise, your example shows another problem. Perhaps all British football fans know all the information about Benedict Nightingale already; if I have never heard of him, I have no idea whether this article is accurate or whether it is a complete fiction, and with no references that makes it utterly useless as an encyclopedia article. Hal peridol (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Football??? The article reads, in its entirety: "Benedict Nightingale is a Britishjournalist and the regular theatre critic of The Times newspaper." This may not be very useful, especially if you knew that already (he is also quite often on tv), but is it a problem? If so, why? Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The overwhelming majority of the articles tagged as unreferenced BLP need a human to examine them and correct significant problems in them. If that does not happen then they need to be removed from articles space by either deleting them or another option that keeps them from being published for reading. FloNight♥♥♥♥18:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View of Joe Mabel
Not so much a proposal as a couple of remarks.
I completely agree about the importance of citing possibly negative material in BLPs, but we need to make sure that we don't hold innocuous material to the same standard of reliability and verifiability that we apply to potential sources of libel.
Most of the older, unreferenced BLPs simply date back to a time when we did not have nearly such a high standard of citation as we now have. For example, six years or so ago, I was above the prevailing standard simply by providing a set of references at the end of an article and explicitly citing quotations and those statements that I might reasonably expect would surprise someone. I happen to be still around, and I didn't write a lot of BLPs; still, in some cases I would no longer have access to the documents that I might have been working from, especially if they were paper periodicals or books borrowed on interlibrary loan. Things like this may be a lot more difficult when the original author is no longer around & did not provide any citations.
Finally, the PROD process all on its own seems insufficient. At the very least, there needs to be a central registry of articles that are undergoing this process, and I think we should try not to have more than about a hundred or two added to the list daily, or no one is going to be able stay on top of it and form an independent opinion of what deserves the work to keep it. I realize many people maintain watchlists. I used to, but I've worked in literally thousands of Wikipedia articles and I'm not as active here as I used to be, and I don't have a prayer of following every article I had a hand in. - Jmabel | Talk06:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One other thing: especially in older articles, people tagging these need to keep an eye out for Harvard-style inline references, which don't leap out as much as footnotes. Remember, hundreds of thousands of articles were written before the reflist mechanism became available. - Jmabel | Talk06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another thought (sorry): any chance of triaging out the ones that are obviously notable (I just noticed Sylvain Sylvain on the list) and, conversely, the ones that don't show much indication of notability in the article as currently written? - Jmabel | Talk06:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Kusma
The reason why BLP was made policy is that Wikipedia articles can do real harm to real people. We must try our best to prevent us doing unnecessary harm. However, the vast majority of unreferenced biographies seems to do no harm at all, rather the contrary. Additionally, the problem of doing harm is not limited to articles that are biographies. Speaking from my limited experience, the worst libel I have seen was in various articles about high schools, where people would claim that teacher XY is a pedophile etc. Such statements are far more likely to cause real harm than an attempt at a biography of the teacher -- we would delete it instantly. In non-biographical articles, BLP violations (or other things that do harm to real people) are less likely to be spotted. We need to watch out for untrue harmful statements in all articles (referenced biographies are a problem as many of them contain WP:UNDUE statements that come from a single non-representative source), not delete good articles that happen to not have references tags. We need more watchers, and perhaps less articles about non-notable subjects that are not likely to be watched. That, however, is not a problem of referencing, it is a problem of maintainability. The presence or absence of references by itself is not the problem, and not worth the massive disruption and annoyance the recent deletions have caused. —Кузьма討論12:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the unreferenced article contains no negative data, it harms nothing to leave it in article space until it is handled by an interested editor who either expands the stub or RfD. The main harm that can be caused by automatic deletion is that a needed article can be deleted. An unreferenced stub at least might be helpful, and it might spur a new contributor at some unknown future date. Just flag the article with a no references template and let it be.Jarhed (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another reason to refrain from automated deletion is that there are pages that have had references inserted subsequent to the application of the BLP unreferenced template, and the editors were not aware of their responsibility in deleting the template. I have just seen that on a page that I will be working on, the Terry Bozzio page.Doc2234 (talk) 02:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly my point. The number of editors who understand the format for WP articles are far fewer than the number of editors performing work. Sure we have some standards to adhere to, but deleting information as a penalty, particularly like a very informative article for Terry Bozzio would be a criminal miscarriage of justice. Anybody can edit contentious material from an article. If nothing else, that then will spur discussion about that PART of the content. I'm in a minor skirmish right now with a commercial interest that wants to delete documented negative information about an industry (not a specific corporation or even a BLP). And it has been good, I have done some minor rewordings to make the point clear without finger pointing. We all have to learn and work with reality. We are working with words and words are where corrections need to be made. Delete everything is absolutely not an answer.Trackinfo (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, we already have too many routine deletions and reversions by humans (editors and admins); we don't need more from bots. I once started writing an article and decided to "stage" it by releasing it first as a stub, then adding to it over an hour or two. Within a minute or two of my first release, it was deleted due to a claimed BLP issue that didn't actually exist. I had to take time out to argue with the admin over the supposed issue. If I weren't a very experienced WP editor, I would have quit editing in disgust. So an additional risk in permitting deletions by bots is making editors quit. I see that likelihood as a disadvantage in terms of the goals of WP. David spector (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View from fizbin
a. No auto-deletion of uncontroversial unsourced BLPs without prodding.
b. Notification to interested parties prior to deletion of uncontroversial unsourced BLPs for two weeks prior to deletion (I saw one recommendation of two days – way too short a period).--Fizbin (talk) 23:28, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Views by Sin Harvest
There is a build-up of unsourced BLP and it has become a problem. I would pretty much think this is unilateral agreement to this but just incase may as well clarify once again and hear any objections.
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Support
Oppose
Comments
A policy for new BLP articles is necessary to prevent a further build up of unsourced BLP articles and attack the heart of the problem.
Regardless of how we deal with the current backlog if we don't do something to stem a further build up we will either get another build up in a few years time (if quickly clear the current backlog) or we will ever growing backlog that will never clear (if we slowly clear the current backlog).
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Support
Key point - In my opinion a lot of the proposals aren't dealing with the problem and are a band-aid and is a temporarily fix. They are not useless though but they are just missing a final nail in the coffin to try and seattle the problem for a prolonged period of time. --Sin Harvest (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Oppose. There is no evidence that unsourced BLP articles are a problem. The backlog exists because the decision to delete such articles was taken by a handful of "deletionist" editors, and now they find that the "inclusionist" editors do not help them, keep creating such articles, keep complaining about the deletions, and are a majority of the editors. The 50,000 unsourced BLPs are 50,000 votes against this proposal.
The backlog was already declining, the quality of our BLPs was already improving without this. Any growth in particular statistics such as articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs was due to a decline in the number of unreferenced BLPs not tagged as such and editors reluctance to remove an enreferenced template from a partially referenced article. We should be suspicious of any proposal that asserts the problem is stable or growing and uses that assertion to argue for intemperate action. ϢereSpielChequers15:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
Recommending a speedy delete for articles with no sources, but only for new articles. In other words this only applies to articles created from when (admittedly if as well) this new criteria becomes active.
This should prevent a futher build up of unsourced BLP articles if we choose to quickly remove the current backlog and will mean that if we choose to instead slowly clear the current backlog then the backlog will actually start shrinking instead of constantly growing
Click "show" to participate in the discussion.
Support
Weak Support - A very rough way of dealing with the problem I discussed earlier. It defintely could use with some fleshing out to make it more clear. It is probably too ambigious in some areas and open to abuse. --Sin Harvest (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support although I would rather see new unsourced BLP's tagged with a PROD insttead of speedied (unless of course the article fits an already existing criteria.) The reason why is because the problem with speedy deletions is that they often delete articles WHILE the user is writing them. If this were made into a Speedy Criteria, we would have more cases of newbies writing articles, saving a draft, and having it deleted before they have a chance to add the references.---BalloonmanNO! I'm Spartacus!15:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The idea is that it gets the author to just shove a reference/source in to the article, it doesn't even need to be a strong reference/source or done properly just something everyone can work with. I personally prefer a slower approach rather then a quick approach but I don't think some people would be happy with that and would consider it another "keep the status quo" approach. Also would a PROD be quick enough to ensure a backlog doesn't keep growing. According to Jogurney the backlog is shrinking as is so maybe a PROD would be more appropriate. --Sin Harvest (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
Comment
It is no longer the case that the backlog is constantly growing. It has been shrinking constantly since at least November 2009 (probably earlier). We've reduced the backlog by at least 6,000 articles in the past two months. Yes, the backlog is huge, but the old claims that it is constantly growing or impossible to eliminate are no longer accurate. Jogurney (talk) 04:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is hard to jump into an argument like this considering how much history there is to catch up on and still be in time to participate. I always gathered the problem was that the backlog wasn't clearing but if it is then I don't really see a need for this heavy handed approach and I think I'm missing the whole "problem" in this saga. --Sin Harvest (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think everyone interested in this matter noticed the rapid growth in the backlog over the last 14 months (but I believe this was largely due to improved tagging and less stringent efforts at notifying editors of the backlog). Since the tagging was pretty comprehensive in the summer of 2009, there aren't many old unreferenced BLPs that are untagged (except when people newly remove them by accident or through vandalism - which isn't common). Also, many editors and Wikiprojects understand the problem and have been working hard to reduce the backlog. Thus we continue to see the backlog shrinking. However, the people advocating the heavy-handed summary deletion approaches have not acknowledged the progress or they believe that the only reason for the progress is their approach. I think they're wrong. Jogurney (talk) 21:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I support the policy that says that an editor should not edit a page about themselves. But I do think that it's acceptable to add citations without changing the text of the article, and I think that changes to the BLP policy should explicitly state that. --RussNelson (talk) 02:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that most problematic BLP articles actually fall into one of the following categories:
Articles written for the purpose of promotion - these mostly can be speedy deleted under CSD G11 (spam) or CSD A7 (unimprotant person); the few which slip through this should probably be improved, not deleted.
Negative unsourced BLPs - these can be deleted under CSD G10 (attack pages). I think that us admins should even delete border line negative cases here; including things which, while aren't actually negative, are likely to be viewed as such by the BLP's community (such as a haredi with homosexual tendencies).
I believe that any BLP article which doesn't fall into any of the above criteria should be deleted through PROD/AFD, like any article. Also, a "no consensus" closure for a BLP article could mean delete, based on the admin's own judgement.
The other big problem with BLPs is the ones which don't land in Category:Living people. We definitely need some way of finding these. This is probably a bigger problem than pages which are categorized in Category:All unreferenced BLPs.
Support Especially the {{NOINDEX}} suggestion, though I believe the number of overlooked A7 and G10 candidates amongst the 48,000 articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs is very small. ϢereSpielChequers13:15, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, this seems like the a correct assessment, no new deletion criteria are required, admins just need to consider their existing options more carefully. Don't forget that article that will not improve by virtue of being abandoned can be deleted through PROD. JeffBurdges (talk) 16:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose your sense that most of the unsourced BLP fall into one or another "bad" categories is, so far, unsupported by any empirical evidence or data. Many other editors have indicated they believe that only a small percentage fall into the problematic categories, such as the ones you have identified. Why don't we try to know the facts before acting on assumptions? --Mdukas (talk) 15:26, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I find problematic type 1 quasi-promotional articles vastly outnumber type 2 negative articles. Some type 1s are fine - neutrally written about notable subjects. But many are peacocky and/or cover people of dubious notability. Johnbod (talk) 14:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Allow a special PROD on unsourced BLP articles, but only after the prodder has followed WP:BEFORE and made a reasonable attempt to source the article.
That PROD can only be removed once at least one source is added (primary or otherwise).
After 7 days if the article isn't sourced the article is moved into the incubator.
If not sourced in some reasonable time (3-6 months?) it is deleted with a list maintained of all such deleted articles so that someone wanting to work on an article on that subject can request undeletion.
This scheme would probably result in the fastest clean up with the least number of deletions because it provides both "sides" motivation to fix articles. The only tricky part is making sure people follow WP:BEFORE but I'm willing to AGF that few will abuse that and those that do can have their "privilege" of using the special prod yanked. Hobit (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who endorse this summary
I dont think Before is enforcable. That said, I like how you take Jehochman's idea about not removing prods. Important distinction between incubator and the way things are is the involvement of wikiprojects, which are alerted to the article by a category in the template. How would the list be maintained? I dont know if I agree with this. Editors could create a bot to scrape the list. I think something that everyone would like, is that the article would, immediatly (or maybe within 3 hours) go to this incubation. Otherwise, lets say an editor is working on an article, after 4 minutes it is moved. Ikip23:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment
This would I consider be one of the slowest clean up proposals, and an outright defeat for the deletionists as it would rule out the prodding of articles without first trying to salvage them, and would accept an article as salvaged if it was only partially sourced. I could support that part of the option as a solution for the backlog, provided we also had tighter standards for new articles, and this proposal was accompanied by some targeted level of improvement such as "for as long as the 50,000 articles marked as unsourced BLPs in early January 2010 have been cleaned up at a rate of over 1,000 a week". Also I dislike incubator solutions as they take articles away from the mainspace where they benefit from links and collaborative editing. ϢereSpielChequers15:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about projectfication (userfication) in which the tag adds a category which alerts wikiprojects about the article? Each project can have a list like this (uncollapsed):
WikiProject Australia incubated articles
Category Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Australia not found
The "deletionists" will be satisfied because the article is off of main space quickly, (within 3 hours) with a noindex tag added. Unreferenced, non-notable articles will be deleted, (in a certain time, lets say even as little as a week, as Jehochman proposes) but not after a wikiproject looks them over. Ikip17:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy with proposals to bring problematic articles to the attention of relevant editors, whether the original author, or projects that the article genuinely belongs to. I'm also happy with ideas that would {{noindex}} problematic articles. But I don't think we should be userfying articles other than ones that really belong as a newbies userpage or sandbox. ϢereSpielChequers17:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't support regular userfication either, because the larger community would not be able to see it and work on it. Moving an article to WP:WikiProject Biography/Unreferenced BLP with a category to alert the wikiproject would make sure more people see the article right away. thoughts? Ikip20:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"No consensus" means that community-determined policy will not change.
Currently, there is no policy to support prodding or deleting simply unreferenced BLPs; without consensus, policy will stay that way.
Per WP:CONSENSUS, "When editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, the process of reaching consensus is furthered on the relevant talk pages."
I understand this to mean that when there is no consensus, debate proceeds to talk rather than in the article space. No related changes should be made to the article without consensus (to be derived from debate).
CONSENSUS allows editors to continue debate and discussion (whether it be on talk, AFD, or RFCs such as this), but changes should not be made to the article— this includes speedy and PROD, which are clearly not "the process of reaching consensus".
Therefore, editors (particularly admins, it seems) deleting or prodding simply unreferenced BLPs would be (and, if they still are, are presently) violating WP:CONSENSUS, though rather than returning to SirFozzie's free-for-all, debate (such as this RFC) can and should continue. Hopefully, after enough tries, we'll figure it out.
I understand that WP:CONSENSUS can be bypassed by WP:IAR, but I hope that editors (and especially admins) are not intending to ignore all rules in order to make such controversial decisions.
Support To the extent that arbcom was interpreting current policy and what it requires, this RFC shows that they were wrong. There is consensus that the actions endorsed by arbcom are disapproved by the community. If there is no further consensus here, we don't revert to Scott MacDonald rogue admins. If the foundation wants to intervene, so be it, but the arbcom has no authority to dictate policy. Neither do a handful of admins. Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:40, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support The rest of this page shows why keeping harmless BLPs is correct in spirit; this proposal proves that it also obeys the letter of the law. Certes (talk) 17:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
I think SirFozzies point is that ArbComs tacit endorsement of prodding and deleting (as well as the majority support for some sort of BLP-PROD) has changed what the status quo would be in a no-consensus case. It wouldn't be a return to the the situation of (arbitrarily say) a year ago. It would mean a return to a period of a bunch of people wanting to do something about the BLP problem, unwilling to do nothing, and with a tacit arbcom endorsement for putting BLP over normal deletion protocol. Clearly this would be bad, if only from the amount of chaos it would produce. -- Bfigura(talk)22:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
SirFozzie is saying that simply because there's an RFC on this issue, it doesn't mean that what comes to or doesn't come to consensus here will stand. If there is consensus found to actually do something about the BLP problem in a way that actually fixes it then there won't be a need for more drama; on the other hand, if no consensus is found to change the way things were working previous to the RFAR, ArbCom and the admins will have a responsibility to invoke WP:IAR and get the job done. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 04:53, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, "I hope that editors (and especially admins) are not intending to ignore all rules in order to make such controversial decisions." I would not object to overriding consensus through any of the means described at WP:Consensus#Exceptions (note that the third bullet applies to current BLP policy), but ArbCom and bold admins cannot override community consensus. If this RFC results in no consensus for anything and Jimbo declares that action must be taken then so be it, but ArbCom's authority on such matters is debatable (see Sandstein, above), and admins themselves have no more authority to override consensus than editors do. -M.Nelson (talk) 05:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, there is only policy authorizing deletion of unsourced "contentious" material. The criteria for "contentious" is very broad, but is still different than "all" unsourced statements. Articles that are composed entirely of such deletable material can be speedied (for example, G10 for attack pages), but just as there is no policy to delete unsourced non-contentious material, there is no policy yet to delete non-contentious articles. -M.Nelson (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by James F Kalmar
The policies governing biographical articles on living people should not be different from the policies governing other articles. There is no compelling legal or ethical distinction between the following:
An article about a living person
An article about a recently deceased person
An article about a well-known currently-operating company
In all cases, there is a reasonable potential for damage in a situation where inaccurate information is disseminated. The legal standing appears to be indistinguishable.
In my view, none of these cases justifies summary deletion of all unsourced material. However, even those editors who believe that summary deletion is justified must agree to the logical conclusion that such treatment must be the same for all articles, not just articles about living people.
I think the legal and ethical positions are more complex than that. While the site itself operates under US law, presumable editors based in the European Union are still bound by the law where they live, and apart from in Spain, European Data Protection Law gives extra protection to data on living individuals (Spanish Data Protection law as I understand also protects the dead); There is a view that this law is an ethical stance based on Human Rights. There is also an ethical view that one should not speak ill of the dead, and that the dead should be at least as effectively protected as individuals. As for whether businesses are legal entities whose reputation should be as well protected as individuals, I suspect that ethical view is probably more common in the USA than in some other parts of the world. However as well as looking at this from the perspectives of ethics or law there is also the practical pragmatic approach, are these articles more or less likely to contain errors than other parts of the pedia? At the start of this RFC I was prepared to go along with the meme that we should prioritise BLPs tagged as unreferenced as one of the most contentious low quality parts of the pedia; I now accept that these articles are not as problematic and error strewn as we feared, and therefore improving them need not be as high a priority as I had previously thought. ϢereSpielChequers12:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
These potential legal problems have no relation whatsoever with the person's notability or the existence of references in the article. So what is the point? --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This RFC is about whether we should pay more attention to unreferenced BLPs than we do to other unreferenced articles. Notability is not relevant to this RFC, as almost nobody seems to be suggesting that we alter the notability policy for living people. But laws and ethics are, as I and many others consider that for either ethical or legal reasons we should be more concerned about vandalism to biographies of living people than to other articles. It is only because when referencing these articles people are finding fewer problems than I feared that I have been reassured by this RFC. ϢereSpielChequers16:35, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Jeanne boleyn
A simple resolution to the problem would be to expand the current unsourced template so that it reads as an advisory: "This article lacks reliable sources and inline citations, therefore the veracity of the information presented cannot be determined", or something to that effect. This template could be used on all articles, not solely on BLPs. It would serve to protect Wikipedia's reputation as well as encourage other editors to provide the necessary references. As I commented earlier, one of the major problems we have is the nonchalant attitude and lack of collaboration between editors. Everybody seems to be interested in just "doing their own thing", and not contributing to articles which are outside one's field of interest that are in sore need of improvement.
There are a number of things that divide the community re BLPs, one is whether it is acceptable to have suspect biographical information on the pedia. Making it clearer that something might be incorrect or libellous would not be making any concession to the view that this data should no longer be tolerated. Changing the template in a way that encouraged more readers to fix the article would be useful - but in my view that would require testing of various versions and analysis of the results. As for the idea that editors don't collaborate or improve articles outside their field of interest, that is not entirely my experience. Looking at many of these articles tagged as unsourced BLPs I see collaborative editing with many of these articles improving over time; though we are often reticent to downgrade an unreferenced BLP template to an underreferenced one. However I see it as a positive that many editors concentrate on stuff within their particular field - what would be unhealthy would be if editors only edited articles they had started. Having wrestiling fans edit wrestlers bios and poker fans edit poker players bios has various advantages, not least familiarity with and access to sources. ϢereSpielChequers12:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately there are many editors who prefer to only edit articles which they have created. I admit that I tend to mainly edit historical articles, however, I do edit in other areas. What needs to be implemented at Wikipedia is that new registered users should be required to state their fields of expertise and/or interest, thus enabling other editors who need work on certain articles to ask specific users for help. I believe that information on BLPs that could be potentially libellous and lack proper sources should be deleted, although the articles remain.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The other day I spent several hours editing a dozen articles about K-12 schools in Winnipeg. I had no personal interest whatsoever in those schools and got there through "Random Article". Those articles had been edited by several other people; in all they probably represented 10-20 hours of bona-fide work. Then one deletionist noticed those articles and deleted them all as "non notable", without even bothering to prod or list them in the AFD. So I woudl reverse the claim: unfortunately there are many editors who have no respect whatsoever for the work of other people. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The deletionists with trigger-happy fingers are indeed a pet peeve of mine, which is why I suggested expanding the unsourced template, to help stave off the deletionists. There is nothing more counter-productive to the project than to have editors work hard at editing articles, providing refs, etc. only to have a gung-ho deletionist decide arbitrarily that the articles aren't notable, which causes many to defect from Wikipedia altogether. This is largely based on the fact that the deletionist has just never heard of the person/subject rather than the lack of sources.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The immediate problem with this proposal is that it envisages a warning as solving the problem. The problem is more often that such an article may include information more suited to a tabloid, or unbalanced, or inaccurate but attention-getting. Having it presented to the world is itself the concern, tags often won't help that. FT2(Talk | email)15:21, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be clearly stated on all BLPs that tabloids such as the British Sun and American National Enquirer, etc., do not qualify as reliable sources. Anything that could be construed as libellous in a BLP should be removed ASAP unless multiple, and reliable sources are provided.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"This article lacks reliable sources and inline citations, therefore the veracity of the information presented cannot be determined" The 2nd is quite separate from the 1st. RSs often contradict each other, so citations don't establish veracity, even in the sense of representing expert opinion. Peter jackson (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A similar idea was put forward above by User:RavanAsteris. Their proposal envisages it as a warning to readers. I think in many of these deliberations we are blurring things between what we need editors (in particular article creators) to know and how we intend to inform and be responsible toward readers. I have already said I think this is a good idea, but no, it can't help with libelous or inaccurate sources, or faked-up sources. However, it's lack of (sufficient) sources that has been taken as reason to delete articles. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When wading through a whole heap of towns and villages in India, I came across a great many articles that only had one source: rainfall or geographical location, and more often then not these weren't listed under "Notes" or "References" but simply noted at the bottom of the page or in "External links". Quite often there are valuable references to be found in "External links" or "External links and sources" (and variations) as many older articles tend to use. Yet these articles deserve a place in an encyclopedia.
I'm currently working on books by a highly notable and influential historian and yet some of the books that he's published feature in just one academic journal (though they may be well cited according to google scholar and often referred to on .edu and .ac.uk web sites). Some of the links don't show up in google, but do in yahoo!. I'm prepared to "dig" long and hard to source an article and work on subjects "for Wikipedia", even if I don't have a particular interest in a subject , but I wouldn't expect others to go to that much trouble. Esowteric+Talk16:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Nefariousski
Proposal:
Admittedly similar to proposal by Jehochman but with further governance and restriction.
In addition to the prod a rescue tag should be added to the page to notify the rescue team that their assistance is requested.
Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references risks a block for disruption.
After seven days and due diligence on the part of the rescue team and interested editors to find Reliable Sources the article should be assessed. If the burdon of proof for notability or sourcing isn't met it should be deleted on the spot without further discussion.
Brightline standards should be defined for BLP notability as well as reliable sources. A clear "This not That" list of what is considered to be a reliable third party source needs to be established.
Self Published sources (including those published by the subject of the BLP article in question) should not EVER be considered Reliable Sources unless there is independent third party sources to verify information. This prevents the creation of vanity articles where the vast majority of information is from the subject's own pages. If they're not notable enough for biographical information about them to be written by someone else then they're not notable enough for inclusion. This also prevents the subject of an article from self publishing false information for the sake of skewing an article through controlling it by proxy if there aren't enough independent sources through which to find information.
A BLP review team should be established to patrol new BLPs and perform some standard tests for common issues WP:COPYVIO, WP:GOOGLE, WP:RS so that obvious problem articles can be dealt with before they linger too long.
All editors are invited to participate in this BLP cleanup campaign.
Weak support. I agree with 8 of 9 points. I think, as a practical matter, "Self Published sources" do have to be considered. Otherwise, great ideas. Bearian (talk) 01:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this summary
Let's keep to the original point here: the main issue regarding unsourced (or allegedly unsourced) BLPs is verifiability. If, for example, a subject's own website tells me where and when s/he was born, frankly I'd rather take their word for it than that of some shoddy tabloid. One of the major concerns I have about rejecting self-published sources even for uncontroversial information is that if secondary sources such as newspapers are considered more "reliable" it gives them credibility in many cases well beyond that which is deserved. Let's not unduly elevate the status of the gutter press. If a press report is fairly positive we often have no way of knowing whether it's self-published: journalists under pressure of tight deadlines (the same sort of pressure you would exert on Wikipedia editors who don't even get paid for this shit) would generally rather trim or pad out a press release to the length required than write an original piece. In other cases, they will print information sourced from subjects' own websites and even from Wikipedia. When original research is involved in media reports, it's often little more than gossip. We may use the closest things to reliable sources that we can find, but let's not delude ourselves: verifiability is not the same as truth. Reliability of sources, whether self-published or not, has to be considered on a case-by-case basis within flexible general guidelines. If notability is the main concern, I would suggest first tagging the article for improvement, and if this doesn't happen, existing procedures should apply: if someone dePRODs an article without improving it, it can go to AfD. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 22:28, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is where Verifiability and Reliability and Notability tie together in my opinion. If the only place you can find biographical information about a person is on their own personal webpage or in their own book and said information isn't backed up by a secondary source then we have a Notability issue. If simple biographical information isn't present in any source other than one written by the subject of the article then it's an indicator that they may not be notable enough for anyone to really care about. And by Verifiability standards parroting information from a self published source into a BLP is more or less the subject of the BLP being the author of said BLP by proxy which is definitely frowned upon for many reasons, verifiability being one of them. Nefariousski (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Oppose - Let's start with the proposal. "Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight" - This is a completely subjective stance. What is "poorly referenced"? Does this mean an article that largely comes from one source? Or are we going to evaluate each source on its merits?
'Oppose- I don't have problems with adding prods and rescue tags, but 7 days to clean up an article is far too short. I think we should be thinking in terms of months. Often articles, including very well written ones, are primarily written by a single user who may not be a regular user of wikipedia. I also have a problem with the "self Published sources" aspect. What about using quotes from a book? Also, other than obituaries, you won't find much on a persons upbringing, such as where they are from, what school they gradaute from. David Straub (talk) 18:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as this leaves open the option for an over-enthusiastic admin to quietly insert thousands of PROD tags, then delete a substantial part of the encyclopaedia the following week. Certes (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Pointillist
There have been several proposals for handling new/infant BLPs, e.g. WereSpielChequers proposed addressing the first few days of article creation, NewYorkBrad made further suggestions on these lines, and FT2 thinks that new BLP articles should be created in a non-indexed "draft" namespace.
These are all useful insights and it would be a shame to let them get buried under all the stuff about long-standing articles: shepherding current contributors to improve their recent work is more strategic than repairing broken old stuff on behalf of inactive editors. Anyway, once the leaky pipes are repaired, we'll all feel more motivated to clean up the historical mess.
I suggest that we have a separate RfC about how to raise the bar for recently created BLPs, considering the need for extra advice, education and/or tools to help editors create properly-referenced articles (e.g. per Trackinfo's concerns that some editors don't know the nuance of wiki coding and you are not going to magically improve the quality of all editors with a destructive policy) and the possibility that {{Uw-sofixit}} should have lower priority in new BLPs, etc. - Pointillist (talk) 00:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dealing with new BLPs should be a different process than dealing with old ones. While contributors are still around to help, they can do a lot of the work and can be educated about our policies. Though I am vehemently opposed to most deletion proposals for old BLPs, I think new BLPs can be held to higher standards, as long as we develop good processes to encourage article authors to do the necessary work. Calliopejen1 (talk) 16:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support provided you change the article creation process and not just the new page patrol process. I think the main objection to my proposal was the use of speedy deletion for new unsourced BLP articles. I now think it would be much easier to get consensus if we used a 7 day "sticky prod" for new unreferenced BLPs that could only be removed if a source was added. ϢereSpielChequers20:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Zenexp
Think of the people: the billions of users and millions of contributors. We do not all have the special skills and talents of Wiki Editors.
Wiki Editors have awesome powers and serious responsibilities. But there is a growing perception in the wider (internet) world (unsourced) (from what I have heard myself) that some Wiki editors have become over-confident with their powers.
Wiki Editors work tirelessly at an endless challenge, often rewarded only with the satisfaction of contributing to the greatest knowledge resource in the world as we know it.
We acknowledge your efforts. I salute you. You create the world.
Please take your responsibilities seriously. Show some compassion for the little articles. From those tiny little unsourced, unreferenced stubs, decent articles may someday grow.
02:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Comment by llywrch
That sounds neat. I'd like to have special skills & talents, but I'm just a guy who reads books, finds interesting facts & contributes them to Wikipedia. Can I become a Wiki Editor too? -- llywrch (talk) 05:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What;s true here is that we do need to show a greater degree of responsibility; we are the major world-wide general information source, and whether or not they should, people do rely on us. But we need to show our responsibility in dealing with articles generally. We need to insist that articles have sources from the beginning. We need to add them to all articles without them where they can be reasonably found. We need to check and improve them for all articles where they are inadequate. We need to delete the articles where they can not be found. All of these are part of it. Some people will concentrate on different parts, but they must be aware of the need for others: I concentrate of saving whenever possible, but I delete more than I rescue. and it isn't only the articles that have some sort of a source that need the rescue, or the deletion. DGG ( talk ) 18:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Triage Proposal by Trackinfo
There is a list called "All articles tagged with BLP unreferenced in order of popularity" on the Talk page of this discussion. That list proves very revealing as to what is tagged as an unreferenced BLP. #4 on the list (as of December 2009) was William Shatner. Who of this crowd would think an article about William Shatner should be deleted? Relate that to other subject matter, any other subject matter. Within an area of expertise, many of the articles under attack (the only way to phrase it after some of these harsh, deletion oriented proposals above) would be equally important or significant. They have no business being subject to deletion. All articles might have room for improvement--that is the good the wide number of editors can bring to wikipedia. So our issue is not the unreferencing--get that out of your thought process. The issue is libelous or contentious statements WITHIN an article.
We have "information police" roaming the pages of wikipedia. I don't know who these self-appointed police are, but they exist. These people CAN'T POSSIBLY be experts in all subjects. They might not recognize libelous from completely truthful. Give them a method to notify interested, knowledgeable editors about potentially libelous or contentious statement within their subject or field of expertise. The only place I can think of is the portal managers. A page can be placed on the portal home page that calls attention to articles that should be reviewed. By breaking these 50K of articles into manageable bite sizes, experts on a subject can review an article and will better be able to understand how it fits with other existing knowledge on the subject. This is a jigsaw puzzle, things that don't fit will stand out. You want action fast? Within the small domain of experts, they can review and fix articles quickly. If the initial sort (kind of like the Post Office) is in the wrong place, they will recognize that fact and can forward it to the right place, which will probably be a somewhat adjacent portal. And if there is a single statement within a huge article that you think needs attention, use an inline flag to direct people to look at the statement. All this calls for is a procedure change, rather than establishing another method for overzealous censors to remove useful information from wikipedia.
I have previously pointed out that the average wikipedia editor does not have the understanding of a lot of wikipedia methods: coding, format, points of contact. Certainly they won't find a list hidden on a portal page either. But good Portal managers FIND THEM. In subjects that I have made many edits in, I was found and contacted by the Portal Manager quickly. Portal managers want the help from experts who are willing to get their hands dirty to clean wikipedia.Trackinfo (talk) 19:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to see WP have a Reversibility policy: any procedure, tool, or bot that can edit, delete, or revert edits in articles, logs, etc., must be reversible. For example, suppose someone edits an article to include a private cell phone number for the President of the USA. Clearly, this should be expunged immediately, whether the number is genuine or not, just in case it is genuine. There should be an easy-to-find link, button, or page that allows anyone to request emergency intervention, then any of a dozen or so trusted individuals should have to power to edit out the phone number (even if the page is fully protected). Suppose that later it turns out that publication of the phone number was deliberately requested by the President in a public telecast. The same small group of trusted people should have the ability to reverse their emergency action. For any apparent malicious action, there might be a subsequent reason to reverse. For this reason, all urgent edits, deletes, and reversions must be reversible. David spector (talk) 02:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by sbharris (Steve Harris): Sprotect them all!
While we all wait around discussing this, please consider my proposal to simply semi-protect (sprotect) all BLPs automatically, as they are categorized as such.
Why in the world would anybody want to leave something as sensitive as a BLP open to IP-editing?
It takes 4 days and 10 edits to get a name-user (auto-confirmed) account. A person without the patience to do this should not be editing BLPs anyway.
Consider how easy it is for an IP to vandalize. You log on at your school, or some Wi-Fi hotspot you find with your portable, do your damage, and leave. If it’s a school IP, nobody will block you for fear of damaging the poor other little tykes’ abilities to edit. Same if you do something nasty from any other large portal. If they block Starbucks, that’s their problem, not yours.
If you behave yourself, that 4-day wait for confirmation is the first and last you ever have to endure on WP, but if you vandalize as a nameuser, you have to wait it out (or keep accounts maturing in parallel, with passwords and notebooks) every time you’re blocked, which will be early and often. That gets old. Vandals like immediate gratification. So sprotection is a strong deterrent to stay IP if you vandalize, and thus to stay away from sprotected articles that you can’t edit anyway. Thus we’d keep many vandals out of BLPs.
And for those who argue that sprotection takes away the ability of people to edit who can’t get email, that isn’t true. You don’t need an email address to autoconfirm and become a nameuser who can edit sprotected articles. Email helps only if you forget your password, but is not required. Unless you’ve got memory problems, you don’t need it. For example, I have an open alternate account (user:sbharris2) where I never gave an email address. I can edit sprotected articles from it just fine. SBHarris06:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support A very good and practical idea that had been seemingly overlooked in the discussion thus far. Thanks for putting it out there!--JayJasper (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Balance!!! It's probably Wikipedia's greatest achievements. An article starts with a few lines, it expands, and expands, and expands... until it reaches a certain level of "balance" where all the information involved is accurate (at least to a maximum extent). I started an article about 6 years ago, it was just a few lines... Now the article looks like it is written by a large committee of rocket scientists. And it's kind of magical how it happens...
With this said, a BLP starts the same way: someone will start the article with a couple of lines, it will get edited, and re-edited, and re-edited... it will look, for some time, like an on-going war between two parts... but then the article will reach a certain "balance" of accuracy that no other source can reach.
If you read an article about a living person on another source than Wikipedia, it is most probable that the article is written by one person... Can you really trust one person's opinion when you can learn what millions think???!!!
Don't take this away from Wikipedia... give the article its time and I'm very sure it will eventually reach its accuracy...
WE CANNOT START LOSING OUR TRUST IN THE EDITORS... IT IS WHAT MAKES WIKIPEDIA ALIVE, DYNAMIC AND BETTER...
Support Every article has to start somewhere. Even the acknowledgement that someone exists, is notable and deserves a decent biography is a useful contribution. Let's not bite the newbies by making deletion of their work the automatic default. Certes (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Opt-out" question posed to Fareed Zakaria (BLP subject) by Proofreader77
(via email) "If Wikipedia offered 'opt out' for bios, would you choose to opt out?"
On the November 29, 2009 GPS, Zakaria commented to Eric E. Schmidt (CEO of Google):
“
But I can tell you, my Wikipedia entry has many mistakes in it. [58]
”
Proposal - Provide opt-out, then relax.
Let us not pretend there are enough volunteers and hours in the day and energy to do it, to solve the BLP problem, which, despite what many may think, produces an exposure to a well-designedclass action suit — unlike the last noise (which produced a false sense of security in such matters), one based on the solid footing of undue burden placed on subjects to watch their Wikipedia article in perpetuity.
While Zakaria may likely not choose to answer my emailed question :-) ... the idea of "opt out" is one that should be seriously considered at this juncture in Wikipedia history.
Support, of course. Opt out is a fine idea. Its one problem is technical, and that is identifying to WP's satisfaction the identity of the person who asks to be removed. I propose it could be done by making a credit card donation of $1 to WMF in that name. This will look like making people "pay to be unlisted" but you can adjust the amount to 25 cents if you like. A bank wire transfer is even better, since they do a third-party physical ID check at the bank before you can do that. Another possiblity is a fax of a signed request which has been notarized, which requires the public notary check the ID of the signer. SBHarris21:57, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? If anyone with a button can delete any article pretending that it's unreferenced, then granting the same courtesy to article suspects won't hurt too much. I seriously doubt that really notable people will abuse the opportunity; this is the lesser threat. As for the rest - talk show hosts, shady lawyers and their DUI clients - good riddance. NVO (talk) 23:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who oppose this view
Strongest conceivable oppose. WP is not Facebook, it is not a social networking, it is not a site for flattering people, and it should have no bias. It's not something where you come in, nor something where you step out. WP:COI anyone? Wikipedia is meant to give coverage of notable subjects, among them notable living individuals. Do you imagine a paper encyclopedia, or a newspaper, or a book editor, to bow to every subject request? Do you imagine such self censorship? Do you imagine the Encyclopaedia Britannica being said: "Excuse me guys, could you please avoid talking about me?". It is complete nonsense. We have the duty to make the coverage of living people as truthful as possible. We also have the duty to actually make such coverage in an objective, non biased way as a whole: allowing for opt-out means that only people with flattering profiles will be happy to have such profiles. Apart from being completely against our concept of being an encyclopedia, this would make Wikipedia a sad joke. --Cyclopiatalk22:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It defeats the purpose of being an encyclopedia in the first place to give article subjects the choice of whether to be in an encyclopedia or not. We also have had problems with being unable to properly verify the identity of a person claiming to be the article subject. And here's a thought: if Fareed Zakaria is so concerned that there are errors in his Wikipedia article, instead of just complaining about it why doesn't he advise us of what he perceives to be errors so that we can attempt to fix them? Bearcat (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
View by Bearcat
I want to stress right off the top that I do recognize that we have a problem with unreferenced BLPs, and I'm not opposed to the notion that deleting many of them should be an option. What I can't support, for reasons that I'll explain here, is the idea that an immediate and/or automated mass deletion of all unreferenced BLPs, with no consideration given to context, would be the right solution.
As I've stated elsewhere, I've been editing here since 2003. Almost all of the unreferenced BLPs that I created date from that time, a time when referencing standards weren't what they are now. However, until DASHbot did its thing a couple of weeks ago, there wasn't any easy or straightforward way for any editor or administrator to generate a list of articles they created which were still unreferenced, other than happening to come across one in the course of a new edit. And I certainly can't be expected to have a perfect steel-trap memory for every single article I created six or seven years ago — watchlisting didn't exist yet, either — or to have exhaustively checked every last one of them again each and every time referencing standards were upgraded. So it's not appropriate to hold editors responsible for the fact that something they did six years ago, which was fully in accordance with the standards that were in place at the time, violates current standards.
And neither is it appropriate to accuse editors or administrators of refusing to deal with their unreferenced BLPs just because they didn't magically get their list down to zero within 24 hours of being alerted to it in the first place. I am dealing with my backlog, but it takes time — and any other project that involved that many articles at once, I'd be able to ask WP:CANADA for help completing. It seems a bit odd to me that if I created two unreferenced articles in 2003, one of them has had references added to it by a variety of editors over the intervening seven years and the other one has been edited as often and by as many different people but without sufficient referencing, that I should somehow bear sole responsibility for getting Article B up to snuff, and/or sole fault for the fact that it's not adequately referenced to Wikipedia-in-2010 standards, when I wouldn't be able to claim sole credit for the fact that Article A is now well-referenced. So being schoolmarmish over how big any individual's unreferenced-BLP queue is — and yes, I do mean the person who singled me out for special comment in the Wikipedia Review thread on this — isn't appropriate, and neither is applying some sort of speed test to how long it takes anyone to get theirs cleaned up.
As I've also stated elsewhere, unreferenced BLPs aren't the entirety of the BLP problem as it stands. We also have a significant problem with inappropriate material being added to referenced BLPs and not caught promptly, either because the article isn't being watched very closely or because the sources aren't being checked very carefully. We have a significant problem with BLP subjects objecting to material that is sourced (and sometimes even absolutely accurate) because it's inconvenient to their attempts to personally control what's being said about them on the internet. We have a problem with BLPs which were well-referenced being replaced with unreferenced boilerplate bios copied and pasted from elsewhere. We have a problem with BLPs which are referenced according to old referencing formats and haven't been upgraded to the current standard. We have a problem with the fact that there's no easy way to hold editors — especially anonymous IPs, given that they can't be permanently editblocked — individually accountable for inappropriate edits. Unreferenced BLPs are certainly a problem — but they're not the entire problem. In the past few years, for example, the biggest BLP problems in my sphere of expertise have involved POV issues and/or outright falsehoods in articles which are referenced, and would therefore be entirely missed by this process — such as Cheri DiNovo, Warren Kinsella and Michael Bryant.
What's important to realize is that there are several different types of unreferenced BLPs. Some are problematic, and some aren't. Some meet our current notability standards, and some don't. Some are easily salvageable, and some aren't. Some are wholly innocuous as written, and some aren't. So what's necessary here is a multipronged solution, not a one-size-fits-all kill switch.
One of the reasons that tagging BLPs as unreferenced hasn't worked until now is that there hasn't been an actual hard deadline for references to be added — so editors haven't had to make it a priority, and could just appeal to eventualism. Another is that the process has relied on users either happening to come across an unreferenced BLP or choosing to review Category:All unreferenced BLPs for names that they recognized well enough to know where sources could be found — there hasn't been a way for active wikiprojects to consult a comprehensive list of all unreferenced BLPs that fall within their purview. And at least part of the backlog does result from the fact that editors have added references without knowing or remembering to remove {{unreferencedBLP}} once references were present.
So my suggestion would be as follows:
Going forward, all new unreferenced BLPs are subject to a delete on sight rule. (Added for clarity's sake: old articles which didn't get tagged as unreferenced BLPs until after such a rule is in force — and we do still have some which haven't been tagged at all — would not be considered "new" BLPs for this purpose. It would go by date of article creation, not necessarily by date of getting noticed.)
Old unreferenced BLPs can be speedied or prodded if they meet certain additional criteria, such as (a) failing to meet our notability guidelines as currently constituted, or (b) actually containing one or more statements that could constitute a libel claim if found to be untrue. (For example, getting a birthdate wrong or just giving the wrong name for an elected politician's district wouldn't be subject to a libel suit — whereas a claim of criminal behaviour obviously would.)
Old unreferenced BLPs which aren't actually problematic other than the lack of references are brought to the attention of the relevant Wikiproject, and given a reasonable amount of time — two days ain't it, sorry — for cleanup. Set a hard deadline for this, following which an article will then be subject to immediate deletion if it still hasn't been improved. Don't rely on prod as the initial method of flagging an article for a "fix in X amount of time or it goes" queue, however, as that relies on the assumption that every Wikiproject actively monitors prod on a regular basis — create a process whereby each project is given a complete list of all unreferenced BLPs that fall into their area. Since most such queues will be quite large, the deadline needs to be at least two to three months, but preferably something like six — the difference from things as they stand now is that there would finally be a real consequence to not dealing with the issue.
Similarly, wikiprojects should also be specifically notified of unreferenced BLPs within their purview which are either deleted or nominated for such, so that if we do accidentally delete an article that either shouldn't have been deleted or could have been salvaged instead, it can still be salvaged and/or improved. This may not require a separate process, though — it may just be a case of watching the project's unreferenced BLPs list to see if redlinks start popping up.
Permanently sprotect all BLPs to minimize anonymous vandalism. Drop the notion that requiring editors to have a registered login name before they can make mainspace edits somehow constitutes a violation of the "everyone can edit" principle — because if the same subset of "everyone" that currently has editing rights (and it's already not everyone, considering that we have banned users) maintains the right to register, then it's really not a radical change. It's just a slightly less anarchic version of the same principle.
I'm flexible about how such a compromise might be implemented, obviously — but I'm offering it as food for thought. I guess mostly what I'm asking for here is that we make some adjustments to improve the responsiveness and efficacy of processes that we already have. We don't need to reinvent the wheel here — we just maybe need to make some fuel economy improvements to the existing engine. Bearcat (talk) 22:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Click "show" to participate in this discussion
Users who endorse this summary
Support
I feel the same way about old, unproblematic BLPs. Also there is a problem with editors removing references they don't agree with from BLPs, a problem that could leave a previously good article in jeopardy of this proposed process. There's no way I could endorse an expedited deletion process for unreferenced BLPs unless it was limited to newly created articles. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a semiregular at WP:BLP/N, I'm not particularly surprised to find this RFC and what set it off. It was inadvertable. So first, and I suspect this is going to quickly result in some opposes, the actions of Lar, Scott MacDonald et al were perhaps an unfortunate but necessary catalyst to actually fix the problem. Sadly I see no other way. The problem has been there for a long time, no one has bothered to outline a proposal to fix it. Had someone attempted an RFC like this one, I suspect it would have been more or less as fiercely contested yet had received less attention and even if some plan had been agreed upon, when that was actioned people would be yelling 'we didn't know/you didn't tell us'.
But whatever. Now we have the catalyst, where do we go from here?
First I agree that it's resonable that we treat new BLPs differently from the backlog. In particular some sort of strongly enforced BLPprod tag where an article must be deleted if it is unsourced after a certain amount of time. There should be no expectation that someone adding this tag needs to try to source the article. It's good when other editors are willing to work hard to fix up a mess someone created (and yes an unsourced BLP is IMHO by definition a mess), but there should be no expectation of such and if editors want to avoid their mess being deleted (which is a way of fixing the mess), they should not create it in the first place. Some people may think this will scare off new editors, but I think allowing unsourced crap on wikipedia particularly on BLPs is even more likely to scare off editors.
I'm fine with leaving clearer notices, perhaps even when creating any article, that a BLP needs to be sourced so that people fully understand this expectation. Also I would point out that while people like to point out that have your new article deleted is discouraging, it's even more discouraging to spend a long time working on one and only then have it deleted, which is liable to happen if we allow unsourced articles to stay for too long. Clarity is often helpful to new users even if it isn't entirely what they would like.
Okay now to get to the hard bit. Rather about the 50k backlog?
Well I agree that requiring some manual intervention rather then automatic is a good idea due to mistagged articles and the like. However as with new articles, I disagree that there should be any expectation that the person intervening has to try to source the articles themselves first. Again, it's unresonable to expect someone who may have no interest in the subject matter to fix a mess that someone else created, beyond tagging it and guiding it thorough the necessary processes to see it removed if necessary. Yes it's good if they do, but not an expectation. Unfortunately with a backlog it's possible the person who created it may no longer be around and it's true that at the time they created it, it may have been marginally acceptable so some may see some unfairness. Sadly though, there's no other solution that would work and be fair to all, particularly they who the article is on.
Of course we can't get thorough a 50k backlog in a month and it with be unresonable and unfair to try. So I'm willing to accept a long timeframe, perhaps a year or more. Some may feel this is too long given how long the problem has been ongoing but while I have sympathy for the view, I feel the only way this will work is if the goals don't seem insurmoutable and we avoid alienating as much as possible those who may contribute while still setting out a process which will achieve a meaningful outcome. However I do think a definite timetable is needed as it's the only way we can ensure we will get thorough the backlog, rather then just continually putting it off. And while it may be okay to revisit it when needed, we should be wary against continually relaxing it if we are falling behind, or in other words creating an indefinite timeframe in all but name. Wikipedia has no deadline, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to leave potential BLP problems until they are no longer BLP problems because the person died.
However while a timetable a necessary way to ensure we get some action, the way we should handle the backlog is for people to attempt to source them and upon failing tag them appropriately. When that happens, I don't think it's necessary to wait until we hit some deadline. In fact clearly suddenly deleting 10k articles (for example) would be shocking to many and create no end of management difficulties and ill feeling. And it's also result in the backlog seeming to remain insurmoutable until this happens. In other words, we should not treat the timetable as some sort of fixed line in the sand and we'll suddenly deleted everything then but rather as a target of when we should fix things by.
The precise way this is to be handled would need to be fleshed out and resonably well defined. It would be harmful if we spend lots of time arguing whether the deletion was proper or not. One option would be to require more then one person attempting to source the article before it's put up for deletion. There is clearly going to need be trust and good collaration and plenty of editors working in good faith with one another. And clearly those who harm the process, e.g. repeatedly claim to have attempted to source an article but failed but others easily find sources, or trying to indefinitely stop a proposed deletion when multiple editors have attempted to find sources and they themselves can't find any, should be dealt with in some way.
We also need to set up some way to attract editors to deal with the problem. E.g. the proposals to bring the articles to the attention of the various wikiprojects and probably the article creator. And is fine that these are a requirement before an article can be deleted.
In addition there clearly needs to be a quick and well defined way to deal with real problem articles people come across while sorting thorough the backlog. E.g. articles which are likely libellous. These shouldn't sit for several weeks while we wait for someone to try and reference. Either the article is deleted or at the very least the problem info be removed immediatly. While this is already resonably well handled, it's likely we'll hit quite a lot more of these as we start to deal with the backlog and people need to be clear that they won't be handled in the same way as the rest and we shouldn't push the existing structures, e.g. WP:BLP/N past breaking point.
And one final thing. As I mentioned above, automatically deleting any article tagged as unsourced is not a good idea because of potential mistags. However that highlights another point, one touched in the talk page. What is an unsourced article? I think we need to resonably clearly lay out what we're referring to here since again, having people arguing over whether this article should be deleted because they don't agree whether it matches the criteria we agreed upon isn't going to help matters.
P.S. As said, I'm a BLP regular so I appreciate there are additional BLP problems we need to deal with. But since we're largely discussing unreferenced BLPs here and my comments are already so long, I've restricted myself on how to deal with them.
Click show for an explaination of why I hold my views above
Some may disagree with the views of those like me who think that these articles need to be fixed one way or the other so if no one can be bothered to fix them by sourcing, then deletion is the best option but while they are entilted to their views, I disagree and think deleting the mess we currently have is a necessary evil and worthwhile goal to make wikipedia a better and more inviting place, even though we will likely lose some articles that are worthwhile keeping if someone could be bothered fixing them. And this is completely in accordance with WP:BLP and other policies. (We are an encylopaedia and don't want junk and it's inevitable we will delete some non-junk as part of our efforts to remove junk as long as we have more junk then we can handle.)
In regards to my point about encouraging new contributors, people like to make a lot of fuss about why people are leaving or don't stay long and while it's unfortunate when we lose good contributors, it's important to not lose sight of those people who never contribute but may one day, if only they could be convinced. Making wikipedia a more inviting place is not simply about making people feel welcome without being intimidated by rules, but it's also about making people interested in contributing by making wikipedia seem a worthwhile and useful thing to contribute to. If a lot of what people see are unsourced junk, particularly unsourced junk on living people (who they may like, or at least feel sympathy for when reading the article) and if a lot of what people hear about on wikipedia is these cases of unsourced junk and when they go spectacularly wrong, they're a lot less likely to have any interest in contributing.
I know a lot of people who don't take wikipedia seriously and are unlikely to contribute as a result, improving our standards will very likely attract these sort of people who are reluctant to contribute to us because they think we're a joke. It's a well known fact that in some academic circles wikipedia is treated with disdain and while some editors might like to automatically dismiss this as snobishness, a better thing is to actual consider whether their views have any validity and sadly sometimes they do.
Let's face it, coming across a crappy unsourced article on yourself (or someone you know well)is almost definitely and quite legitimately going to generate a lot of ill feeling. And if there is an article on yourself on wikipedia, you're likely to come across it since any internet search on your name is likely to see it as one of the first few results (a reason why people are often much more annoyed about finding crappy articles on them on wikipedia then they are on some obscure source you can find in page 98 of an internet search which a lot of people don't seem to understand).
And let's be clear. Telling people they should fix a poor article on themselves rather then complaining or getting angry is an incredibly silly idea. People have the right to demand we get articles on them right and to be angry when we don't and it is ridicilous to expect them to have to intervene in most circumstances. In fact, I'll go as far to say that if they have to, it means we've failed. (And yes, I acknowledge many people get angry and try to intervene even when we do get our articles right, it's obviously inevitable but it doesn't downplay the problem when that anger has some legitimacy.)
Of course a sourced article can still be crappy and unsourced article can be good, but there's a good reason why we require sources, which is because it's a lot easier to tell if an article is crappy. Letting people know that you can't just add random things you heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, who... to an article is a worthwhile goal, and doing this by more rigorously enforcing our sourcing standards were they matter most is surely an equal worthwhile goal as looking for sources. And yes, I think this is a worthwhile goal and cleaning up, by identifying and guiding thorough the process of removing when necessary those articles which don't meet our requirements should be part of the goal and given the backlog and extent of the problem should not be scoffed at.
Let's not forget we required registration for article creation for a reason. However an unwatched and unsourced article is a ripe target for what people may have formerly been able to do by creating an article. And an odd statement is a lot less likely to stand out if the whole article is unsourced. Yes indefinite semi-protection of BLPs or even better flagged revision for all BLPs would help a lot but we don't have either so we have to work with what we have.
Users who largely agree with these opinions and suggestions
Users who largely disagree with these opinions and suggestions
Oppose Neither reason nor evidence support the claim that unsourced BLPs are a problem, or that deleting them will reduce Wikipedia's risk. Those BLPs are not the problem. The "backlog problem" is an invented problem: it only exists because some editors decided that "something must be done" about unsorced BLPs. That problem can be instantaneouly solved by simply ignoring it. Let's stop wasting time with this non-problem, and concentrate on the real one: wich is damaging statements in *any* articles, especially in *sourced* biographies of *notable* living people. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 00:18, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Additional comments
Views by Jorge Stolfi
This page is one megabyte long, and I am still unable to see why it was started in the first place. What I have learned from it is that "unsourced BLPs" are not a real problem, and the "damage" that they are causing to Wikipedia is purely imaginary. The costs and risks that have been mentioned, including the fear of a class action above, are not due to usourced BLPs, nor to bios of non-notable pople; they are due to malicious content, mostly in *sourced* bios of *notable* people. Deleting all unsourced BLPs will have a negligible effect on those costs and risks. On the other hand, such a policy has many concrete costs and risks --- begining with the fact that it violates the fundamental Wikipedia principles of mutual respect and equality of all editors.
Basically, the proposal and its variants have been justified by the argument that a BLP without explicit references may turn out to be of a "non-notable" person; plus the "axiom" that articles on "non-notable" people must be quickly deleted; and the "axiom" that the burden of proof on this question rests with the authors, contributors, and readers of the article, not with the editors who want to delete it. However, these two axioms never were a majority opinion, much less a "consensus". The length of this page (and of dozens other pages where this topic has been discussed) proves it. Those 50,000 unsourced BLPs clearly prove it. Indeed, each of those articles must be counted as one emphatic vote against the original proposal, or any proposal that would lead to their deletion.
Since Wikipedia now has much fewer than 50,000 regular editors, it should be clear that the proposal, and indeed deletionism in general, is a minority view among Wikipedia editors. Unfortunately the current Wiki tools made possible for the deletionist minority to impose their views on the majority: because deleting is a hundred times easier than creating, and because deletion, unlike creation or editing, cannot be undone by ordinary users.
So the proposal sounds to me like "fat people may commit crimes, keeping watch on them is too much work, so we need a law that will authorize us to kill fat people on sight." In other words, a couple of non-sequiturs used to justify a rule that would would give official blessing to a minority wish that most people find totally unacceptable.
What we need is just the opposite: scrap the notability requirement, and pass a rule that an *article* can be deleted only if it is redundant, if it cannot possibly have valid content, or if the *mere existence* of an article on that topic is *definitely* harmful to Wikipedia. In particular, an *article* should not be deleted merely because its content is incomplete or sub-standard, or because its topic is "non-notable".
Support mainly, but biographies of non-notable nobodies should still be deleted. We don't want a BLP on every casual editor and his school chums. Certes (talk) 00:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
If we decided to scrap the notability requirement, such that "an *article* should not be deleted merely because its content is incomplete or sub-standard, or because its topic is non-notable", in a nutshell, we'd basically be losing our ability to delete any article for any reason at all. If somebody wrote an article about the hangnail that fell off my big toe yesterday, we'd have to keep it. If somebody wrote an article about reasons why Barack Obama is a big poopyhead, we'd have to keep it. If somebody wrote an article about the flaming homosexual bakery clerk who overcharged me for bagels last week, we'd have to keep it. You'd need to reason this one through a bit better if you think it's in any way compatible with the goal of actually being an encyclopedia rather than a whiteboard on which anybody can write absolutely any random thing they want. Bearcat (talk) 00:53, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note by proposer: Not at all. First, valid *contents* will have to be factual, verifiable, relevant to the topic, etc., just as now. Because of these (truly) uncontroversial principles, there is hardly any chance that the hangnail article will ever have valid contents; therefore it can still be deleted on sight, even under my proposal. The other examples fall under "articles whose mere existence would be damaging to Wikipedia" and therefore could be speedily deleted too. In any case, articles that have clearly malicious intent can be deleted under the (quite uncontroversial) rule that malicious activity of any sort will not be tolerated. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
