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2009

Question - unreferenced BLPs

I'd be seriously interested to hear your proposals on what practical, and workable, steps we can take to reduce unreferenced BLPs in particular, and the damage we do to BLP subjects in general. There is no perfect solution here, but I doubt you are blind or callous enough not to acknowledge that we have a substantial problem that needs action. It seems to me that the "inclusionists" need to reflect a little more on the structural problem - yes, any particular article can be fixed into a neutral and verifiable form - and yes, there ought to be no (pertinent) objection to a neutral and verifiable BLP. However, with very little effort I can find dozens of serious libels (and no obvious vandalism) and unreferenced attacks on out database every day. We are not acceptably maintaining our growing number of BLPs. What's your response? It surely can't be that people like me should run about fixing things, or learn to ignore the problem? What would you propose?

I ask because the continued stalemate over this issue is not good. Is it possible for thoughtful people to work together on this, rather than play the current game of "I propose, you point out the downside and oppose" - sure any change will have some downsides, but it is the matter of finding effective changes which have less downsides or advantages. Can I ask you to turn your mind to what you could propose that might be effective?--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for moving this to a better level. Rapid dialog has its point in critique, but not usually in constructing something. I am not an inclusionist on BLP--my view depends on the subject field, where I think we have very uneven standards and coverage, partially due to people's interests, partly to available sources. I would, in fact, like to get rid of the inclusionist/deletionist labels altogether in favor of a more fine-grained approach to problems. I too see an unacceptable amount of abusive BLP, and certainly there is vandalism; but I think sighted revisions for BLP will be the way to deal with that, if they prove workable. (If it does not prove workable, as I fear, then we have a problem with finding a substitute. The trial should show the practicality. If we do need a substitute, I think I'd go with permanent semi-protection as the last recourse, discouraging as it would be to new editors.) The new BLPs that bother me are the spammy self-promotional ones, and they usually do have a source, though not necessarily a really good one. New attack BLPs are already dealt with summarily as vandalism or G10--I delete on sight, and so does every responsible admin. But this is all on existing articles. I am not convinced there is a major problem with new unsourced BLPs in this regard.

In terms of getting articles sourced, I think the key problem is the inefficiency of New Pages patrol. First, too many escape the first pass, because there is no set system--I would support something like a division into 1 hour sections, possibly even with individual people or pairs of people taking responsibility for one hour a week. Second, it isnt being done right a good deal of the time. I see serious undertagging and overtagging also, and almost nobody follows up. I see too many new pages just tagged for notability when they really should be immediately sent to prod. I see too many articles tagged for unsourced when a trivial Gsearch would find them & solve the problem then and there. We need some way of instructing the patrollers, since this is an activity frequently done by beginners.

More basically, we don't deal with new users properly. The response to a spammish bio,or a unsourced bio of a minor criminal, should not be a tag, but an explanation. This is obviously harder, and I too do not do this as much as I like. But at least when there is someone repeatedly submitting such articles, they need some serious help. I try to catch the people with many level 1 warnings or speedy notices when I come across them. Looking at the older ones too, I see they tend to be batches. People doing batches should do it properly. (there's a problem here with a few very well established editors who think it not just acceptable but desirable to create unsourced stubs and let others do the subsequent work. There's a particular problem with people doing this by translating just the lede from another language Wikipedia, but not carrying over the refs, or carrying over the unsourced articles so frequent on many of them.)

I really do not see the problem. I just checked 20 BLP articles from NP. Four of them were harmful. They had already been tagged. i speedied them. I saw nothing at all that was truly a problem that your proposal would remedy. Abuse caught immediate can be dealt with already; abuse later wont be caught. A non abusive BLP, sourced or unsourced, for someone marginally notable is not an urgent problem, though we do have to catch it. A nonabusive unsourced BLP for someone clearly notable is even less an urgent problem, though it should be fixed

My overall feeling to the BLP problem is to see what flagged revisions do before we start changing things in major ways otherwise. DGG (talk) 18:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

my current view of blp

collecting some things I have posted elsewhere, to get the argument together while I think I have the wording right for what I want to say

Every unsourced article is harmful to the concept of a reliable encyclopedia; every inadequately sourced article is too, and every unbalanced and promotional article. The false nature of the problem is the mistaken idea that the unsourced BLPs are in some way exceptionally hazardous. We are trying to conduct a serious project--a project that now has worldwide influence and probably the key substantial information resource that everyone uses as a matter of course . There is a certain amount of pure junk and pure advertising that has gotten submitted and not removed. But the amount of this is more than we can cope with immediately, so instead of honestly confronting with the way to cope with it, which is the difficult and slow process of attracting more editors, people have focused on a particular part they can more easily comprehend: the possibility of individuals from unsourced articles that nobody looks at. The real BLP problems are the bias and error and sometimes defamation in the much larger number of sourced articles.

This BLP hysteria could almost be mistaken for a deliberate attempt to avoid calling attention to what we know is wrong, but cannot fix, by diverting attention to what isn't much wrong, but we might be able to fix if we ignored the harmful consequences of ill-thought out fixes. I'm not that cynical. It's rather an attempt to cope psychologically with the knowledge there are major faults in something we love that we cannot immediately do anything about--and where doing something about them will mean stopping the idiosyncratic and hostile behavior of some of our established users.

The situation leads itself to quack remedies. The principal class of such remedy is to to try to fix something that it looks like we can fix by simple drastic indiscriminate action , however unimportant, and however irrelevant they may be to the actual problems of the site. The BLP situation is just that. The rare serious problems attract attention, for the same reason that individual troubles attract tabloid readers--people identify with them, and ignore the much greater problems of the actual world. The current unsourced BLP issue is a tabloid approach to Wikipedia--sensationalism rather than sense.

I am glad to see that the previously uninvolved users now commenting at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people are beginning to realize this. As of this afternoon, the only part that really has consensus is the part presented as part 1, with the exception that there seems to be disagreement on the nature of the "sticky" prod. DGG ( talk ) 01:49, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I fear the current flagged proposal will do nothing but generate backlogs and create pointless work. The root of the problem for me is that we need to start asking questions not only about what a wiki-system can create, but also what it can maintain, and maintain in a non-harmful (by which I mean "not unfairly harmful") way. Wikipedia's driving engine has been "anyone can edit" (and I am not a fan of anti-vandal protection), inclusionism and eventualism. I want to affirm those principles - that's also why deletionism/inclusionism is unhelpful - I'd keep every pokemon stub and half-inch meteor you'd care to verify. Notability generally sucks. My problem is that this amazing engine has negative side effects, and in these areas we need to be willing to use gears and brakes to get to where we want to be. With BLPs "anyone can edit" means "even your disgruntled ex-employee", and eventualism means "in the meantime you may be libelled". Shite articles, written by POV pushers, existing in the short term, are an acceptable downside in most fields of wikipedia, however they are clearly not with BLPs. BLPs are different.

Obvious vandalism is not the BLP problem. The harmful stuff is the lesser notable BLP that is full of credible untruth, half-truth, or of verifiable facts (even sourced ones) spun to create a false impression. Now, the problem is that all such articles CAN be cleaned up and COULD be written in a fair way, but they often WON'T be. Wikipedia has been around long enough that we know what happens - we don't need to be theorists or idealists. We should be willing to say "we can't actually maintain this class of article without an unacceptable level of harm, so we should stop keeping it". We also need to look at structures, because any solution that says "this won't be a problem if people will only do..." is doomed. We know what people do, and wikipedia is too big to think we can change enough people by conversation to make them do things differently. We've got the people we've got, we have the range of new users we have, and we need to structure ourselves to use that in a way that mitigates harm.

My big problem is that given the number of people we have who are willing (and able) to read articles and spot the not so obvious harm we simply cannot maintain the current level of articles without significant numbers of real people being harmed. The options are a) to reduce the number of low notability BLPs (high notability ones are watched by thousands of well-informed people) to a maintainable level. b)to increase the number we can maintain by changing the system, that is by 1) making the creator do more of the work of sourcing so it is easier for the reviewer to check the facts. 2) lower tolerance of BLP negative POV pushers - such people should be banned on sight. 3) At very least some tools to prevent problems re-occurring when someone has been libelled (I'd suggest that all BLPs which have been the subject of a BLP violation that has remained unreverted for over 12 hours should be permanently semi-protected - these are articles that open editing has demonstrably failed to maintain).

If we don't want to cull tens of thousands of BLPs (by radically lifting the notability threshhold) - then we have to make it easier to maintain articles better. I am roughly opposed to general flagging, because general flagging means loads of reviewers (not high quality ones) doing speedy reviews - the really bad plausible stuff will generally sail through that. We should deploy flagging on the articles we are struggling to maintain (BLPs with less than 4 substantial contributors?) - and keep the quality of the reviews high.

Anyway, that's my longer (and less polemical) rant.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

how we can most efficiently deploy flagging is something we shall have to find out by experience., and the same with semi-protection. I tend to be more willing to semi protect and for longer periods than many admins--BLPs or anything else where anons are causing difficulties. Otherwise, the solution is the same as for most problems here: greater hospitality to incoming editors, and recruitment of knowledgeable people in particular, along with training the less skilled. DGG (talk) 21:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not working. And after 8 years, I think we can safely say it will not work.--Scott Mac (Doc) 21:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Many of our orphaned articles and other poor quality articles including those about living people were started by people that made a single article or a few articles on a topic and then left. That is a large part of the problem with the articles. They were started and then abandoned. Welcoming them and inviting them to continue to edit is goodness. But we should not jump to the conclusion that they are leaving because their article was deleted since many of these short term contributors left quickly, leaving behind low quality content that was never improved. We need to find new solutions because our past approaches have not given us an encyclopedia with high quality content. I find it unacceptable to continue on the current path. We can do better. Nothing is stopping us expect clinging to unworkable ideas that limit our ability to produce a high quality product. FloNight♥♥♥

(butting in) I guess I am always mindful of exclusive rather than inclusive editing practices and the poor outcomes they have eol (Encyclopedia of Life), citizendium, and encarta being examples. it is extremely difficult to have both. You can't have masses of qualified responsible people - most are just too busy. I do hear the concerns, I beleive more liberal use of semiprotection is helpful in many cases. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Criteria for speedy deletion (unsourced BLP)

I appreciate the extent of your participation at WT:Criteria for speedy deletion#Concrete proposal. I put in my 2¢, but don't have the time or stamina to engage in the running conversation. Your efforts and insights are appreciated. TJRC (talk) 19:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and the more people who speak up the better, to avoid a small number of people thinking they have immediate general consent. DGG (talk) 21:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

BLP challenge

I've spend the last month reviewing articles. We are doing a lousy job writing BLP. Much of the information is unsourced, outdated, unencyclopedic in tone, and does not provide neutral unbiased information about the person. The only way that I know to fix it is to delete the content that is not sourced and demand sources for all content. Some of the articles can not be easily fixed because there are no English language sources available about the person. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Having a source there does not necessarily prevent any of these. Much of the sourced bio for relatively minor figures is equally bad. If you've been reviewing them, surely you can find the 1% of unsourced that is actually harmful--or even show that there's a greater percentage than in the sourced. And what do English/nonEnglish language sources have to do with WP:RS, except to make your proposed 90 day deadline for finding them even more unrealistic? DGG (talk) 19:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC) DGG (talk) 19:07, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that some of the sourced work is horrible. You will not get an arguement from me about that. But if there are sources then the next editor can fix adjust the material to match the source or remove the content if the material is wrong. Without sources, then we have no reason to think that the content is true.

I'm also in favor of narrowing our inclusion criteria so we do not have a massive number of poorly written articles about people with minor notability. I think strengthening both of these criteria will give us a group of articles to work with that we can improve to a quality level that is acceptable for reputable reference work.

If you look through articles about athletes, you will find many short articles that are outdated and inaccurate, and some without any good links to check the content. I can't fix them because I don't read the language where I could find the information. I think the material is best covered in an article about the team, event, or affiliated organization until some writes a comprehensive well sourced article about the person. There is no advantage to the reader to have a separate article that is not accurate. The chance that the content will be updated in larger if the material is included in a central article. Additionally, if the entry is having vandalism or harmful edits added, then it is going to be caught faster if it is not in a stand alone article. So, we kill two birds with one stone by requiring that all entries have sourced to make a article before they have an individual entry. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't propose a 90 day time period for fixing the articles. I might support it, but prefer that all current content that is unsourced be removed. To address the language issue. I don't think articles need English language sources, I'm commenting about why some articles are hard to correct and expand. I think that there is a better chance the information will be updated from foreign language sources if the content is in fewer articles because it decreases the workload on the editors that need to do the work. FloNight♥♥♥ 19:36, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

then my earlier challenge holds: show me the problems in current content for the addition of unsourced BLP articles that can not be handled by existing speedy criteria. I do not think such article exist in significant numbers. The problems lie elsewhere.. (I recognize you have access to material I do not have, but at least I can see the New pages as they come in as well as anyone with higher rights.) DGG (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

This is the English language wikipedia - that means that our workforce largely reads only English. That means our ability to do quality control and harm spotting on articles with non-English sources is severely limitedly. That means it is harder to maintain such articles. The ability of the community to maintain articles should feature in decisions about inclusion/exclusion - it is not all about notability. The problem with the current discussions is that maintainability is seldom considered. --Scott Mac (Doc) 19:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no, but we can always ask others who speak a language to check as part of the process. We have a pretty diverse community. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Again, generally fine. But that does not upscale for checking edits and allegations on BLP's where our only quality control is an editor quickly saying "no, the source does not say that". Eventualism is not appropriate for BLPs--Scott Mac (Doc) 20:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The editors here come from essentially everywhere--as I know because I frequently work here late at night and see those from opposite side of the world a good deal. There are probably uniquely here at the enWP a remarkable number of people able to edit effectively in almost any language. I think we get readers from those countries too, though I do not know the figures. And I think we already have better quality control than most of the other Wikipedias. There are problematic statements in BLPs and there are nonproblematic statements. The questionable ones can be deleted while one checks. The reasonable, non abusive, but currently uncited or poorly cited ones can be kept while someone checks. But your answer shows why this proposal is unnecessary and irrelevant to actual BLP problems: you are talking about material in cited BLPs. I do not think that eliminating uncited BLPs will help us deal with the problems in the cited BLPs. True problem, irrelevant solution. DGG (talk) 21:09, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I identify outdated, poorly sourced articles about athletes as one greatest area of concern. Our ability to improve BLP content depends on us checking and finding sources. Many of the articles on professional athletes were created all at once to complete a roster of a team or event. They have no one monitoring or updating them. Most editors can not verify or update them if they want to because there are not available English language references about them. This really concerns me because I know that these articles have the potential to be BLP problems because of crazy fans. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, we have something to focus on. I see them also, and I'm not happy with them either. Some of them seem to be Olympic level athletes, and it should be easy enough to get a task force to systematically verify them. Then the other group I see are the various footballers from national level teams. If there are pertinent published material, it should be possible to verify them as far back as necessary. How much material is necessary? enough to verify their presence on the team rosters and their records. That's enough of a source to take them out of the unsourced category.

Whether there is any point in having individual articles about them if nothing more can be easily found is another matter entirely. Personally, I'm a mergist about some of this. which I think the relevant solution. Now, not knowing or caring much about sports, I'm not about to take on the sports people on this, but if someone wants to make the proposal, I'll support it. The question then is people in other fields about whom nothing more is known than the entry in a standard biographic encyclopedia that gives the bare facts about their lives. In fields I do know, sometimes i know there is in fact material behind that encyclopedia, even if the source gives no clear entry to it. Sometime I know in fact that there is actually nothing more, but often there is, and its hard to tell from the face of it. I am not necessarily opposed to combination articles until someone actually works to expand them: our debates have become too much focused on articles, rather than content. And this is equally true about the deceased as the living.

But here's the problem having the source for the basics won;t really solve the problem of fans writing nonsense. the articles will be just as troublesome with the source, unless someone fact-checks every detail. We can only do that for major figures, or areas where there are in fact a large number of fans who know the details. The proposal at WT:CSD does not help in the least here. Unless there are people to actually check all the sources in detail, not even flagged revisions will help. Not even semi-protection. DGG (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

After reviewing BLP content problems for the past month, I came to the conclusion that the only practical way to solve the problem of low quality BLP content is to remove the content until it can be improved (my reason for supporting an expansion of the speedy deletion policy). This can be done in a variety of ways depending on the exact nature of the content. For some of the content, deletion is the right choice because it is very poorly sourced and adds no value to Wikipedia. If no or very little sourced content exists on the page, then I think deletion is the best choice because it solves the problem AND eliminates the need for us to maintain the article; such keep if free of vandalism, nonsense, or updating work (eg. categories). The amount of effort that goes into maintaining articles is not trivial. Merging the content with a redirect, or deleting the content and creating another article about the event or team is a good choice in many instances. I absolutely agree that the focus has been too much on articles rather than content. That is the reason that I do not see deletion of unsoruced or poorly sourced content, even whole articles, as a big deal. I hope that you will reconsider your objection to speedy deletion criteria that removes unsourced or very poorly sourced content.

For BLP articles I feel that we have an ethical obligation to create high quality reference work for the person. This goes beyond our commitment to create sourced articles with reliable sources. I firmly think that BLP articles must be written from a neutral point of view. This is next to impossible to do for most living people because most people do not have a variety of independent comprehensive references written about them for us to use. The majority of our BLP content comes from sources that do not attempt to thoroughly research the subject in an effort to give an unbiased comprehensive profile of the person. Usually snips from newspapers, web sites, magazine articles, databases are combined and a brief disjointed entry is written that does not come close to explaining who the person is. This lousy content is taxing our resources since we are not able to keep it free of vandalism, nonsensical and malicious edits. Reducing the number of articles that we need to maintain by deleting unsourced or poorly sourced articles will help us maintain our good articles.

The athlete articles are a good example of why the problem can't be quickly fixed by drive-by editors. There are many other types of entries where problems exist as well. Authors and Academics are two categories where we have too many stubs or poorly sourced start level articles that have no hope of being expanded from independent references. They currently meet our inclusion criteria and don't get deleted since internet searches will show mentions in media. So we keep unsourced or poorly sourced content (often taken from persons own website), or sometimes the article is stubbed, when in reality there is no additional quality content for an article so it will remain in the same state forever.

I agree that we need more people with an interest to do deep review and research. Currently, we are not attracting enough people that want to write comprehensive articles. I don't think keeping poor quality articles on site fixes the problems since people that are interest in producing high quality work will likely be deterred from contributing if they think our standards are low. So, I think a more liberal deletion policy will help since it clears Wikipedia of lousy stuff and opens the door for people that want to add a better quality content. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

My opinion remains that the remedy is not fitted to the disease. As someone else said-- perhaps on the list,--you're proposing remedies that won't work because you can;t find one that will. The current more urgent problem is with the existing articles, and this does not touch that. You are basically arguing that even while we figure out how to deal with that, we can prevent problems in the future by watching more carefully what we add. That is certainly true in general, so the question is how to do it: whether by rejecting articles or by sourcing them. I know my choice, and it does not seem to be the same as yours'. I will support any scheme you can think of for persuading users to source them, and for getting reviewers here to source the ones they do not, and then having admins review for sourcing before deletion if they appear non-notable. I will not support any scheme for deletion of any article, BLP or not, merely because it is unsourced, and speedy most certainly of all. There are good reasons for deleting many incoming BLPs, and no indication of notability is an excellent first screen--that we already have in speedy.

A search in likely places,and finding no sources to support notability, is another. We already have in in prod and AfD. I have too frequently seen sources found for articles that the person thinks absolutely non-notable and unsourceable to think speedy is appropriate for this.

In any case, your proposal is not speedy, since it takes 5 days. What I would suggest considering is a rule that the author of an article may not remove a prod. This will have essentially the same good effect of preventing the wanton removal of prods. An even simpler way would be a way to track removed prods. Many people try to track their own, but a built in general way would be good. (& for speedy as well), I would support either of them very heartily.

The essential question isn't whether or not it's speedy, but whether or not to remove articles for being uncited, as distinct from being uncitable. A proposal to do this in general was rejected by the community about a year ago. You are basically proposing it in a more limited way, for incoming BLPs. I do not support it, and I hope the community will not, but the best thing to do is to bring that up for discussion in a general forum, not the talk page of speedy. I do not want to argue it again right now, for I have I think said sufficiently already. I remain unconvinced that the unsourced ones are worse than the sourced.

as for dealing with the existing athletes and academics. WP:PROF can be met by showing sufficient well-received publications to show a major influence on the field. Anyone can do this for most people in the humanities using WorldCat and Google Books. It can be done for scientists active into the 21st century with Google Scholar. These are not difficult sources. Scientists in an earlier period, and some people in the humanities from some non-English countries, they do require specialists with access to the necessary databases. What I have found the worst problem, is people from non-Western traditions who do not publish in the conventional way, and whose positions do not correspond to the Western academic system. Since there are no good online resources for most of the areas involved, and US libraries are very poor for most Asian countries, there's a major problem even verifying existence. And it takes people who know the scripts. But even at face value, I can see no way of mapping our usual standards of notability onto this area. But I'm not an area specialist for India or the Near East. As for athletes, there are dictionaries; they would be best done en masse as a series of projects for the various sports. Where they are not available on line, any enthusiast will have access to them. For some countries and periods, this will be a problem, but not for most. WikiProjects are the way to go for all of this--wikiprojects focusing on sourcing, not deletion.

I think I'm being reasonably positive here. DGG (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia was based on the idea that encyclopedic quality content could be written by non-experts using appropriate references. We clearly have not accomplished this yet for most Wikipedia articles and I see no reason that we suddenly will unless we make changes to the way we work.

I can't support disallowing the creator from removing the PROD tag because the intent of PROD was to be a friendly process where non-controversial deletions are done. If the author thinks that the articles belongs on Wikipedia then it should be discussed at Afd (unless it additionally meets SD criteria). I feel I need to be true to the process as it was created because it was made this way for good reasons.

I don't think that there is good support for our current way of handling deletions of articles in general, and I know that there is significant concern about keeping BLP articles in the poor state of many of them now. Being aware of this, I'm going to keep pushing the idea that the standards for sourcing BLP be improved and use SD as a way to remove poorly sourced BLP articles. If you want to work on getting the articles sourced, either directly or by finding groups of people to source them, that will be fantastic. But as we both noted, many of the articles that are not sourced can not be brought up to a high quality article by either of us, and most editors don't have either the interest or ability to do the work. In these situations, I think deletion, or merging into an article is the only practical choice. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree half-way,. Our standards for sourcing articles should be improved; I oppose deletion for being unsourced, ever, BL:Ps or not. And especially speedy. What we both want is well-sourced articles. The way of doing that is to take poorly sourced or unsourced articles, and source them. Most of the technically unsourced BLPs are easily sourceable, and you have not after repeated challenges shown one unsourced BLP that is harmful and not reachable by existing speedy rules. I can't build the encyclopedia by myself. What I can try to do is give others the opportunity to do so. DGG (talk) 00:57, 4 April 2009 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Janet Allison

Hi DGG, the outcome of the above debate surprised me, due to the RS. As I respect your judgement, I would like to hear your opinion on that matter. thanks Power.corrupts (talk) 06:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I commented at the closer's talk page. It is almost always wrong to cut off an AfD in this manner before a range of people have a chance to contribute. If he does not revert his close, & I doubt he will , the only possible course under our policy is to take it to deletion review, and you should think carefully. BLP policy is essentially OWNed by those who use it as an excuse for overly deletionist interpretations of NOT NEWS. They can sometimes be combatted if it is only NOT NEWS, but when BLP is involved , they usually win, because people stop thinking clearly when they hear that phrase. This is in my opinion not BLP1E one event, because it is a continuing major international story, with implications on public policy. BLP is based on do not harm, and this article does no harm. I would take a look for additional international stories, as the most likely approach, or for its inclusion in a book--even if it takes a while, before going to del rev. DGG ( talk ) 07:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I simply dont get the BLP argument, which relates to contentious info not sourced in RS. IMO, being a victim of sex offender registration legislation is not contentious; and even if perceived as such, when referenced in a leader in the The Economist, this exceptional RS would trumph it all. I likewise fail to see BLP1E when The Economist consider the case relevant for national policy in many countries. The RS span at least two years, this is not NEWS. Being nominated for speedy and PROD within a few days I was not exactly taken aback by the AfD nom. But the pile-on of delete votes by editors who I respect, and the repeated rapid snow closures was a real so-called qualitative surprise to me, and I think it reflects group think. As this has flabbergasted me, I would like to ask for your opinion, if my reasoning is flawed. I dont have the time this week to dig into what human rights organization have written about the case. But could you line up some reasons, why a DRV could possibly fail. Power.corrupts (talk) 08:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI. I have jotted down some refs that might aid your assessment of DRV chances , even though I really should spend my time otherwise. User:Power.corrupts/Sandbox/Allison sources. Power.corrupts (talk) 10:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Just adding my $0.02 here. DGG is right in that AfDs should generally be kept open for the full seven days, but BLP violations (which this article was IMO) need to be dealt with differently. Therefore I endorse Tiptoety's early closure, and if I had to guess, I'd say consensus at DRV would likely say the same. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(I asked Julian to comment, btw). In practice, I agree it will be an uphill fight and I consequently continue to advise waiting for more material--additional material is the most frequent reason for permitting re-creation of an article. I share Power.corrupts' surprise at the rejection of his arguments without any attempt to refute them,, and am further astounded at refusal to permit normal discussion by good faith editors. "It is a BLP-violation because we say it is" strikes me as the sort of non-argument that must be based on something other than reason, but I can only speculate about what it might be based on. I am unfortunately too involved with some other things here to take the lead in dealing with this, much though i would like to. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Question from Grsz (re BLP/AfDs)

Hey David, thanks for commenting on my RfA, which I have just withdrawn. I was wondering if you could clarify what you meant in your comment; I am unsure how my response to Question 7 is off-base with regards to policy. Thanks, Grsz¹¹ 01:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I need to apologize about this, for I was really responding not just to that question, but the general approach to BLP/AFD. And this too was influenced by the weird coincidence of the same problems with several closely timed RfAs. For that particular article (David Shankbone), even the admin who closed the DRV & sustained the AfD close, said the closer at the AfD should not have closed it. I'm not going to repeat my strong opposition to both closes, and my view that both were outrageous misstatements of policy. (the only reason the matter was not taken further was the realization that it was embarrassing DS, but I don't think either admin would pass an RfA if they had to run again). Had I been asked about that particular AfD in a situation like yours', i would have replied "please pick another example--that one was too much involved with wikipolitics". So, yes, my response was unfair and too brief. However, the other issues raised were equally my concern, and no doubt i would have gone back and expanded my comment if there had been time, even had you not asked--I usually do realize when I've said something unfair, & return to modify or explain. If I thought it would have made any difference to the RfA I would now ask you to un-withdraw, or ask a bureaucrat to do so--if, for example, others had followed my lead. But as you see the general feeling was pretty clear, that you needs some more experience in wording things both in terms of accuracy and tone. DGG ( talk ) 03:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the response. I do understand that that was not the best example to use. Do you feel I was on the right line with the weight given to arguments, or is there an more appopriate way to break a wiki-tie, in your opinion? I mean, if I gauge your opinion correctly (and forgive me if I'm wrong) but you feel that all "no consenus"es default as a keep, but is there leeway for a closing admin to consider the weight of each side? Grsz¹¹ 03:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

the basic principle of consensus is to continue discussing until there is a resolution. When there is no clear consensus , it often helps to close as no consensus and try again in a month, especially with something that becomes emotional or gets involved with side issues. People often do better the next time around. For an example of discussions which do continue until consensus is reached, look at AN/I. (It has some other problems, but it does generally reach a consensus, be it right or wrong).

I disagree with admins making decisions on content issues. Our only role is to execute what the community wants us to do. We just need to determine what it is that they want. (When we decide by speedy, we're essentially assuming that we are sure what the community would say, and the CSD criteria are limited to those where we reasonably can do that.) At AfD, we do two things only: we remove the views of those who are not really in the community, such as sockpuppets and SPAs, and we discount arguments clearly not based on policy, such as ILIKEIT, under the assumption that the community wants those not counted. Most of the time, it's pretty clear. What we should not do is weigh one argument against another, or decide which of two conflicting policies that have been cited should rule. If the people there disagree on things like that, then they disagree. I know many admins do these things, and I will always vote to overturn at deletion review when that is the basis for a decision--even if I personally like the decision.

It is not "my opinion" that no consensus defaults to a keep for all articles, it's policy. Attempts to change it have repeatedly failed. Asserting otherwise is the sort of non-policy based argument that should be discarded, as an instance of IDIDN'THEARTHAT. There's a minority of people who think it should be policy, and that question can be re-discussed every year or so, out of the context of an individual case. I see their basic argument as not trusting the community to have a clear consensus when something should be deleted, & I think that incompatible with the basic way Wikipedia works. But they have the right to argue otherwise. Some of these people , though, seem to think the way to get it adopted is to boldly assert it at all opportunities, hoping we will get used to the idea through hearing it a lot. That's a propaganda technique, based on the assumption that the rest of us are fools. When I give a !vote on the basis that something ought to be policy, I say so, because the policies can be changed, and one of the ways of doing so is through repeated consistent decisions on individual cases. But for me as an admin to close that way, would be unequivocally wrong. If it were that clear, the community would have said so. If those at the AfD cannot decide what to do, we are not to decide for them. There's a very good reason for that: there are over 700 active admins, each with their own individual idea of what ought to be policy.

There is a role for admin discretion in deletion debates, which is why admins need to be sensible people as much as to have experience at Wikipedia: we use discretion in deciding if some opinion has no basis in policy,; we use discretion in deciding whether consensus is clear enough; we use discretion in saying whether a decision is so wrong it must be reversed; we use discretion in deciding whether to salt. And there is an occasional AfD once every few months where we must use discretion to say that IAR is necessary for the protection of the encyclopedia or for avoiding insoluble conflicts or to reach an obviously desirable end. DGG ( talk ) 04:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

2010

BLP RFC

Hey DGG, I've made a response to you over on the talk page of the BLP RFC---I'd like to see what (if anything) needs to be done so that you can move support.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I have replied, with some suggestions. DGG ( talk ) 17:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Contest

Hi, the contest rules have been revamped with your suggestions in mind. I would welcome your input as to how it currently stands. J04n(talk page) 02:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

good work. I like the revisions. Less work with the mechanics means more work with the articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Curious

Since you were strongly opposed to a CSD criteria for unsourced BLP deletions, do you have any comments on the ArbCom's imposition by motion of this rule? (I know my question is a bit loaded, but that's how I see their action.) Pcap ping 15:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

yes, I do. Expressed them at [1], and at the RfC [2]--Rd232 has a good proposal there. One of the advantages of Wikipedia is that it can move very fast when necessary. One of the disadvantages is that it can move very fast without thinking. To take a situation that has been a real problem for years, and try to solve it in one day, is not reasonable. To endorse arbitrary action by admins is a very dangerous way for arb com to proceed. They have often moved too slow before, but this is beyond ridiculous. There's a good proposal The term I use for this is BLP panic. DGG ( talk ) 17:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

List of deleted BLPs

I have made a list of those unreferenced BLP articles that got deleted a few days ago. User:Apoc2400/Deletion list. Feel free to use it or send it on to anyone who might have use for it. I have not really followed what happened on the issue since the RfC started, but it seems you have. --Apoc2400 (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope someone else is working on this, because I am fully occupied with preventing yet additional ones to slip through WP:PROD if they can be sourced. DGG ( talk ) 00:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I am working on it, and some others are also. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem BLP

DGG, you asked me about the BLP violations I saw while going through Kevin's deletion log. The worst of them was actually undeleted (after I looked at it) with its problem statements intact: Bounleut Saycocie. When I went looking for it just now and realized it had been restored I removed the worst of it, but I still think it's a serious problem--it covers potentially controversial material and based in large part on sources that would not normally qualify as reliable. My general position has been that the deletions were abrasively done and not necessary, as I've said in several places. But there were certainly serious problems in some of those articles. Chick Bowen 21:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• This is precisely the core of the problem. There is no relation between an article being unsourced and an article having (possibly) problematic statements. The right thing to do is to fact tag such a statement or to delete it, depending on the gravity of the statement. Power.corrupts (talk) 23:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
  • What are exactly the pressing libel and slander concerns here. That he continued to fight the communists after the communists won?, that he remains politically active today (whatever "active" implies), or that he seeks asylum in the US (which was fact marked)? Power.corrupts (talk) 23:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Reinserted text, with refs. Power.corrupts (talk) 00:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

looking at the Dec 14 version of the article, I would consider immediately problematic--the give away is the "now seeking asylum" the last sentence. Looking at the history, the "now" was added in 2003. By 2009, there ought to have been some developments. I would consider it equally problematic no matter how well the article was sourced, unless there was a reference for that fact from 2009. It represents the problem with our older articles, sourced or unsourced: they have not been updated. We set out to build an encyclopedia, without recalling that encyclopedias get revised regularly. Many editors worked on it in 04, 05 06 07 and 08 without noticing. it was marked as unsourced BLP by Fram, an excellent editor, on Feb 3, 2009, apparently without realizing that just marking it that way was insufficient. That at the latest was the time to have caught it. When tThe Cunctator added refs on Jan 21,2010 he apparently found nothing to source that statement, for he correctly marked it with a fact tag. On Jan 24, Chiuck saw it, and the first thing he did was remove that sentence. I assume that was after he too could find nothing. And neither can I.

There is another indication of problems: the article was added by an ip editor back when ips could start articles. Perhaps these among the unsourced BLOPs should get first priority. Perhaps the ip added BLPs would have a higher yield of problems sourced or unsourced, than just the unsourced ones.

what we need, as I said somewhere among the twenty of so different places this discussion has been taking place, is to treat BLPs carefully in every respect. This was in front of the eyes of many editors, but never critically looked at. Every one of them is at fault--probably all of us are, for if Fram was careless in handling a BLP, who is likely to have done better? DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this entirely. There is no substitute for care: even deletion, in this case, did not work, because the article was undeleted and sourced with the asylum claim intact. Chick Bowen 03:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Had not seen the IP involvement. Cleaned out more, and will copy this discussion to article's talk page. Power.corrupts (talk) 07:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I also found some problematic un-sourced BLPs, mostly dealing with Romanian soccer, pretty much in the same vein as the above issue: [3] (said the guy was famous making bad referee decision in a given match) [4] (one line article that said the guy is currently unemployed). You can check the details of the rest even if you are not an admin because these articles haven't been deleted: [5] [6] [7]. Pcap ping 07:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

LOL-- Scott's crusade

Scott's BLP crusade almost took in some collateral damage: Ernley Blackwell, who you deprodded, died in 1941. Fences&Windows 00:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

his prod was without reference to BLP, just as not-notable. Both he and others who are going through the bios are recommending for deletion on such ground, and it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, if you check about it first, instead of going by the guess that the article is complete: if the notability had been no more than the article asserted, I would not have deprodded, but he was central not peripheral in the Casement affair and in many other things. There were a few articles in the current campaign where it turned out the person was dead, but that affects neither the need for sourcing nor the notability. . A project to check all BLPs once a year to see if any have died would not be a bad idea. It is not the unsourced BLPs that are most of the problems. They may have a somewhat higher rate of major problems than the sourced ones, but there are so many more sourced ones, bad in various ways, some fixable, some not. I have no objection to projects to remove junk, if done right. DGG ( talk ) 00:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Discussion invitation

Click here to automatically add this project to your watchlist

Hi DGG/Archive 0.7, I would like to invite you to A discussion about Biographies of Living People

New editor's lack of understanding of Wikipedia processes has resulted in thousands of BLPs being created over the last few years that do not meet BLP requirements. We are currently seeking constructive proposals on how to help newcomers better understand what is expected, and how to improve some 48,000 articles about living people as created by those 17,500 editors, through our proper cleanup, expansion, and sourcing. These constructive proposals might then be considered by the community as a whole at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. Please help us: >> User:Ikip/Discussion about creation of possible Wikiproject:New Users and BLPs <<

Ikip 05:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not wish to participate in closed projects at Wikipedia ; I have always opposed this way of doing things here. I'm not even going to watchlist it. DGG ( talk ) 05:11, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Bravo! This sort of thing truly pisses me off. "By invitation only": what a bunch of horseshit. BillWvbailey (talk) 16:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(refactored template) DGG, I'm sorry for any perception that I wished the discussion to be exclusive. I welcome input from any concerned editor. Ikip 18:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion, I think you will really like my response! User:Ikip/Discussion_about_creation_of_possible_Wikiproject:New_Users_and_BLPs#Organize.21 Ikip 15:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

You may have missed the response:

User:Ikip/Discussion_about_creation_of_possible_Wikiproject:New_Users_and_BLPs#Organize.21

I would respond myself, but you are better with words :) Ikip 03:16, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Biographies of Living persons solution?: Projectification

As someone who commented on the BLP workshop I created, please review this proposal to see if it is something that the community would support.

Harsh constructive criticism is very welcome!

Better to figure out the potential objections now. I am looking to remedy any potential objections by the community.

Thanks. Okip (formerly Ikip) 03:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Please stop trying to poison the well

Look, you and I come from different perspectives and have honest disagreements about all content. But there really is not any excuse for your recent assumptions of bad faith and attempts to undercut the arguments of others by attributing nefarious motives to them. It is frankly incredibly annoying.

If you look at the edit summary here you will see why I removed the material. I considered it disingenuous to suggest that the Associated Press article was a "long term impact" of his death, given that he was only one of twenty cases cited in the article. It is likely that the article would have been written on the strength of the other 19 anyway. Suggesting that being one of twenty cases cited in a newspaper story indicates a "lasting impact" is tenuous at best. My argument, and reasoning are obvious from the edit summery. You disagreed and reverted me. Fine, I can live with that. I think you are clearly wrong, but can see it as a good faith disagreement.

What is unacceptable, indeed a personal attack, is your comment on the AfD that my removal "shows pretty clearly he recognizes how much it undercuts his case" and that this is "why he does not mention it". I recognise no such thing, and if I did then removing it would clearly be dishonest. Please do not attribute dishonesty to people. Indeed, it is generally best that, if you cannot attribute good faith motives to people, not to attribute any at all. Clairvoyance is obviously not among your giftings.

This is the second time in a few days that you've attempted to argue your case, not by refuting the arguments of the other side, but by attributing motives to them. Ad hominem is a poor way to put your case, and I honestly expected better from you.--Scott Mac (Doc) 01:33, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

what was unacceptable was the edit you made. If you do not see why, I will hardly convince you. For those who don;t know the circumstances:. The AfD discussions was dealing with a US soldier's criminal acts . The argument for deletion was BLP one event. The argument for keeping was that first the event was widely and responsibly reported & was of historic interest, being used as an example, and thus had a long term effect-- which, if true, takes it out of the sphere of BLP1e. You removed the entire well-referenced section on its subsequent use as an example--the very point the discussion hinged on--an edit I noticed at the time and reverted, with the rather neutral edit summary "(better to keep it during the discussion, as this particular point being discussed at the AfD.)" . As the discussion was continued, and focussing on the importance of the long term effects, I called attention to it , in my opinion very gently. . The pejorative terms you think I imply, I did not use; don't talk as if I said them. I think the motives speak for themselves, and anyone who wants to , can judge for themselves also. DGG ( talk ) 02:04, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Being used as one of 20 examples in a single article does not constitute a "long term impact". But that's beside the point - you are quite entitled to disagree with me. You may even convince others you are correct - that's how debates work and honest disagreement is usually possible. We disagree on many things. Until now I've always assumed your positions to be a good faith disagreement. It seems, however, that you are willing to attribute bad-faith and dishonesty as being my motivations, and to insist on such even when I explain them. I'd hoped you might have had the grace to realise why that was poor form. But, fine, think what you will, doubt my integrity, and assume my evil intentions. You've just dropped 19 points in my estimation - although since I'm untrustworthy I doubt you'll care. Sad really.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:22, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I seem to have been being irritable yesterday, more than my usual, and I apologize for that. DGG ( talk ) 02:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Apology accepted.--Scott Mac (Doc) 17:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Removed prods

I noticed you removed prods I placed on both Matthew Avara and Derek Atkins. I assure you that I did look for sources establishing notability for both of these WP:BEFORE prodding them. Is there anything in particular you feel that I should do with regards to these pages before I list them at AfD (or any reason why you feel at this point in time why they are, in fact, notable)? Thanks, VernoWhitney (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You must not have looked very hard [8] Ridernyc (talk) 19:38, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate at least a little benefit of the doubt. The top google results are him commenting on Katrina and the cleanup, and there are also google news results with comments from him during his time as mayor, but the only articles about him seem to be local papers about him as a local businessman. Maybe I'm just not seeing how his 11 paragraphs for msnbc establish notability. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

in general, if you do look for sources, it helps very much to say so specifically & say where you looked--it is by no means the case that everyone who prods does this and that it can be assumed. . Otherwise, when the prods are reviewed, the reviewer will either have to duplicate your search to confirm they are not notable, or remove the prod, as it is not policy to delete for merely being unsourced--not even BLPs.

As for Avera, had you found the sources and not been sure, you should have added some of them at least, so the article could have been reviewed more easily. For anyone likely to have been a public figure, G News is the easiest: among the 225 Google News items for Avara, [9] including CNN and USA today, not merely the customary local newspapers.

As for Atkins, I found some NYT articles also in G News & added a key one. His role however was quite possibly not enough for notability, which would then depend on the importance of his later work, something I have not yet looked at.

Agreed, it is always the primary responsibility of the person writing the article to add good sources, and all contributors need this to be explained to them, and we need to emphasize and insist on it. If they wrote the article in the first place, they had at least some source at hand & could easily have said what it was. But if they do not, it is the job of everyone who has looked at the article and sees what it missing, for we all have the responsibility to improve Wikipedia. That means in particular the person who nominates for deletion--as explained in WP:BEFORE. If the prodder as well as the author does not, I do as a reviewing admin, because it is my responsibility not to delete articles that can be fixed. there are certainly a great many that are hopeless--so far since I have become an admin I have deleted over 9600, about 10/day. The job is telling them apart. DGG ( talk ) 20:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your reply and explanation, I will begin including brief search notes in any future prods. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Political candidates

Hi there. I noticed you participated in the Articles for Deletion discussion for Graham Jones (politician). I have started a discussion regarding a consensus position for candidates in legislative elections (by way of amending WP:POLITICIAN, in case you are interested in putting forward your views there. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Politicians

Of course I do a quick source check first. However, Wikipedia also already has an established rule that normal coverage of the election doesn't constitute sufficient sourcing to claim notability for the individual candidates — which means that politicians that I tagged don't have very strong evidence of notability that can be added, because they don't have significant coverage as topics in their own right.

I certainly don't think that being elected to office is the only way that a politician can obtain enough notability to merit an encyclopedia article. There are plenty of unelected politicians whose articles I'd completely defend, as well as several that I came across during the same batch that you noticed, but didn't tag either because sources were present or because the article made a stronger claim of notability beyond just being a candidate — such as being the leader of their party, or being involved in a controversy which garnered them more than just brief mentions in generic election coverage.

I certainly don't disagree with the principle that in an ideal world Wikipedia could be a place where we actually had articles about every candidate in a major election whether they were elected or not. But the problem is that such articles are usually written as generic profiles, and quite often cut and pasted directly from the candidates' own campaign brochures at that — they're rarely written in properly encyclopedic style or referenced to actual media. And even if we wanted to, we just don't have the resources to actually maintain well-written, well-sourced articles about every person who's ever run for office in every country on earth. Bearcat (talk) 06:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not interpret the established rule to mean that material about the election is not sufficient--I would accept that material giving the election results without more than mention of the candidates is insufficient. Excluding material about the election for politicians is like excluding material about sports events for athletes.

I think it is accepted that the routine uncontroversial unchallenged biographical facts about a person can be taken from material of which he is the author, if presented in some medium that gives evidence that it is not fabulous entirely, such as an official web site, and I would extend this to official campaign literature. (obviously this refers here as always only to facts, not to opinion about the virtues and importance.)

If we have people writing the articles, we have sufficient people. Maintaining this is no more or less of a problems than with other articles--even if we used sighted revisions, as we probably should, we would still have the problem of updating--a problem none of the current BLP discussions mention much, because we have no way of solving it for any sort of article, unless we restrict Wikipedia to the famous.

I'm nowhere as comfortable about election candidates in Canada as the US, because it is not really a two party system, and which parties are the major contenders seems to vary from election to election. (I am in particular unwilling to assume that the Greens are at this point a viable major party.) Additionally, at this point the G News coverage for Canada seems not as thorough as for the US, and very few US libraries have adequate printed material. I try to work in areas where I can help offset systematic bias, but this aspect of it is too large a problem for me. DGG ( talk ) 20:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

BTW, you seem to have missed a few by your criteria, such as Bruck Easton, but with such a large number of nominations, I cannot check them all. DGG ( talk ) 23:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course a self-published source such as a campaign brochure can be used to support basic biographical details. But an article can't rely only on a self-published source if the person doesn't actually meet any notability guidelines (the most basic one of which is that the person has been the subject of substantial coverage in sources independent of themselves), and an article can't just be copied and pasted directly from a self-published source without substantial revision and outside sourcing.

As for Easton, I really don't believe there's ever been any sort of consensus that being the president of a political party (or the chair of a government agency, for that matter) automatically qualifies somebody for an article if the person themselves hasn't actually been the subject of substantial coverage in their own right, any more than being CEO of a notable company automatically qualifies a person for an article if the only sources we can add are their own biographical profile on the company web page and a few cursory mentions in 300-word news briefs. While it's certainly legitimate to have a difference of opinion about whether that, in and of itself, should suffice as a claim of notability, there isn't currently any consensus that it actually does — so that comes down to a difference of opinion, not to me being objectively wrong somehow. The party president is an internal bureaucrat whose role is to manage the day-to-day operations of the party's office, so it's a role that exists largely outside of the public eye; it's not the same thing as being a party leader. Bearcat (talk) 00:19, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that about politicians, it's a difference of opinion; i too recognize that the notability of politicians is unsettled--based on what happens at afd, there does not seem to be a consistent consensus. But I really do not agree at all, though, about being head of a notable company or organization, though it could be argued whether his NGO is a notable one. I certainly think that managing the affairs--even the internal affairs--of a national level political party is notable. DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I've thought a few times in recent weeks about doing a bit of a rewrite on WP:POLITICIAN — I don't think the consensus is actually inconsistent, so much as it isn't as well explained as it could be. Bearcat (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I've actually started working on an update of the current notability criteria for politicians, which is meant to provide more detail than is currently present at WP:POLITICIAN. I'd actually welcome your input and/or suggestions if and when you have some time. It's at User:Bearcat/Whatever for now, though I'll move it to another title eventually. I'd stress that I'm not attempting to invent new rules here, but simply to codify in more detail where consensus currently stands for various types of politicians. Bearcat (talk) 01:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Attrition and selectively choosing consensus

Sigh:[10]

I am so tired of this, and that is what many editors are hoping for. Okip 14:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The actual state of BLP consensus is undeterminable because of the complexity of the discussion. As I see it, there was agreement at first that a Prod process was desirable, rather than anything more drastic; various changes to prod were suggested, but it gradually became evident that most were just minor tinckerings to try to tighten it up, or discussions of how fast to do them. the only substantial change, that a prod could not be removed without adding sources, did not have consensus. Overall, it was never agreed that any of the changes were better than the normal way prod is done at present.

there are people at Wikipedia who are willing to do productive work, and people who prefer to discuss how other people should do the work. The people who participate in policy discussions tend to be largely from the second group. As many of them so much prefer that other people do the work that they themselves have no conception at all of what is actually involved, it is futile to argue with them, and I now rarely attempt it. So of course do most sensible people, with the inevitable result that the zealots lead the way, and the ignorant follow.

We will still be able to keep Wikipedia from falling in the ditch, because whatever rules are passed, my experience is that it is possible to adapt to them. DGG ( talk ) 19:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

And the more out of sync with community practices the rule is, the more likely it is to be ignored. Bad rules do damage, certainly, but the community is still able to find its way through a minefield of bad policy.

I've been mostly ignoring the BLP RfCs because I was watching the problem actually get solved while everybody jawed at each other. Miraculously, most people involved at the RfCs seem to have caught onto that fact as well, and have accepted that the best solution is not telling people how to fix it, but just letting them fix it.--Father Goose (talk) 04:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that a great number of people are working on these articles, thus proving that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, no matter whether the rest of the wagon is coming apart , but more quietly. Less cynically, projects and campaigns are generally an effective way to get people interested. DGG ( talk ) 06:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Geoffrey A. Landis

I mentioned this on its talk page, but you brought up the point that his notability as an author is justified by his receiving of a Nebula and a Hugo award. However, there are no sources to verify this. Thus, his notability is still in question, is it not? Per WP:BOLP, biographies of living persons "...must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States and to all of our content policies, especially: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research." Considering that absolutely nothing in that article is verified and that the only three references listed at the bottom are all invalid (one's a primary source, one's a list of patents, and one's a broken link), we cannot assume that Landis even received the awards to begin with. Please share your thoughts on this; since I'm considering putting the article up for WP:AFD, I will include Notability as an issue if it still is one. Cervantes de Leon (talk) 00:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Cervantes de Leon. Sorry to butt in, but have you looked for sources yourself, per WP:ATD and WP:BEFORE? You should do so. If you did you would find this and this. Seems like a lot easier to put those in than going to the trouble of an AfD that would certainly result in the article being kept. Also better for the encyclopedia. ^Bongo_matic 00:58, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

First look for sources, & if not found, only then nominate for deletion. We accept an official bio as meeting WP:V for details, but in the case of awards , they should definitely be sourced, because such awards are sourceable. But normally it our practice even there to accept the authors own statement, unless we have some reason to doubt it. If you do not look, and he does have the awards, someone will find then, the article will be kept & you will have wasted everyone's time., including your own. If you do look, and fail to find them, then you can say that at the afd; someone will undoubtedly check, just to make sure you didn't miss it. And if you do look, & find them, then you can add the source and rescue the article.

I consider it people's obligation per WP:BEFORE to check before putting a deletion tag on an article. It is not a formal requirement, but it ought to be, and I hope the BLP discussion will result in our including it as a requirement. The author should absolutely have done it themselves, and we must educate our contributors accordingly, but most Wikipedia articles have started out uncited altogether or poorly cited.

btw, to spare both you embarrassment --and to spare me embarrassment also, I have just checked , and the awards can be verified. DGG ( talk ) 00:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Understood. I rest my case for lack of further evidence to proceed on, though I'm still left slightly irritated at the complete lack of citations in that article, especially with regards to the categories the page is listed in (*coughWinnetka, IL*cough*). Back to work, anyways. Cervantes de Leon (talk) 01:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm at least as irritated as you are--much more so in fact--because I deal with many articles of this sort, and many much worse, without even a specified primary source--there appear to still be several tens of thousands BLPs in that state, which should never have been tolerated. the job, however, is not to remove them, but to source them all if they can be reasonably sourced. There can be expected to be half of them that cannot be, and that will be deleted. I primarily work here trying to save articles, but since I have been an admin I have needed to delete 9000 articles that could not be rescued. DGG ( talk ) 01:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I have a bridge you might be interested in buying

this was less than helpful. This is, presumably, a BLP. At least, we can give it the benefit of doubt of being a BLP, we don't even know the subject's first name, nor if he is alive, or if he ever was. On account of the article giving zero references, not even dodgy googled ones. Just none.

Seriously, how long have you been on Wikipedia? Not long enough to realize that people will make things up as they go along? Especially if the topic has anything to do with India? Here, Mr. Sambasivan is "Neuro Surgeon & President of World Federation of Neurological Societies". That's funny, because there must have been a mix-up at WFNS, because their website claims their president is one Peter Black of Harvard.

You are not doing the project, or anyone, a favour, of extending the benefit of doubt to absolutely every piece of trash people park in article namespace. Thanks. --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I use my own judgment & experience about what is likely to be sourceable. Sometimes I am wrong, but not often. We'll see on this one--I am perfectly open to the possibility that I might be in error. If what were asserted were harmful in any possible way, I'd have deleted the article myself. I am not the least reluctant to delete articles--if you check my log, I have deleted so far 9815 articles in my three years as an admin patrolling prod and speedy. I asked for the mop in the first place so I could delete the actual trash that I found while trying to save articles.

I was in a bit of a rush yesterday, but I have just now verified it in PubMed, where he has 18 articles--considering the generally weak PubMed coverage of India, this is significant. I will of course add it to the article. You could have done the same. It is rather common for academics to use only initials for their first name, especially in some countries--it seems rather common in articles about people from India in all subjects; I do not take it to mean they are imaginary. In fact, that's how PubMed lists him, and how he is listed on his papers. I did find his first name in Scopus, which makes an effort to add them, & added that also, along with citation counts to show notability (Scopus, alas, is not freely available, so perhaps you could not have done that part, but I'll check there on request for any article). I am aware of the possibility of exaggerated accomplishments. He may have been president in an earlier year--or he was an officer of a branch of the society. I'm looking for a complete list, not just a current one, but I may find the position in one of the papers in pubmed. since this is a major medical school, it does not sound implausible. The university web site does not seem to be working except for the main page, or it would be much easier. BTW, I do not understand your suggestion to merge to the college page, because if he is not in fact notable, we would not include him there. WP is not a faculty directory. If he does have an article, only then do we list him as one of the distinguished people from the university. I look at a lot of university pages, & one of the things I routinely check is additions of people without articles or not obviously qualified for one, & I always remove them.

Confirms my position: First look for sources, & if not found, only then nominate for deletion. The opposite approach, delete if nothing is visible on the face, is what does not help the project. I would word it much more strongly than that if this were a general discussion. DGG ( talk ) 18:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

thanks for the additional item. I think your removal of currently unsourced information about his honors was inappropriate, though, as was your hypercriticism that the links showing him at the medical school and hospital did not specify his exact position. One could dissect almost any bio article except the FAs in that manner. DGG ( talk ) 18:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

BLP discussion

Hi DGG, whether we have always agreed on various issues or not, I can't remember, but I have always appreciated the quality of your comments. I notice that you have contributed a few times to the BLP discussion. In an attempt to keep it on an even track, I have proposed splitting the discussion into its true component parts, because the scope of the original discussion starting from Phase 1, was too broad, and has fostered not only confusion, but some incivility; some users of the kind we need in such discussions have even abandoned ship in exasperation. One user has gone ahead on my suggestion and created the first of these workshop pages. Whichever side you are on, you may wish to visit this page at WT:BLP PROD TPL and judge it on its merits. It would help keep irrelevant stuff off the policy discussion and talk page, and help a few of us to move this whole fiasco towards a decision some kind or another. Cheers. --Kudpung (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

my personal view is that we ought to decide something, even if it is something without very much real meaning, such as a repeated commitment to sourcing articles. Perhaps, though, we should take advantage of the opportunity to assure that articles do not get unreasonably deleted beyond the present precautions, such as a requirement for BEFORE. I have made some comments that might help that along. DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

BLP template workshop

Hi DGG. Your comments are some of the most valued and most mature in this entire BLP issue, but I think we may be interrupting the workflow by discussing policy, particularly that of the technically unenforceable WP:BEFORE, on the workshop page. I have suggested we create a new sub-page for this kind of discussion. What do you think? --Kudpung (talk) 03:10, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it belongs where I put it, in the section on finding a compromise. The discussion is about which of the proposals to include in the compromise, and this is my suggestion. If a previous suggestion for compromise suggested leaving it out, I can suggest leaving it in. If people do not like the suggestion, they can say so. I have no objection to discussing it elsewhere as well. How we would enforce it would be another matter. I can think of several ways,though i would not want to have any of them drastic as the way proposed to deal with people who remove tags. DGG ( talk ) 03:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

You are not the only person who wants BEFORE. I do think it will get in the way of compromise.

I think group can decide not to decide about people removing the prod prematurely.

But it's better for me to discuss all this at the workshop, not personal talk pages. Maurreen (talk) 05:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

:) Maurreen (talk) 05:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Would a redirect be appropriate here?

I'd like to get your opinion about the article Kevin Foster (murderer). (Not real fond of that title, BTW). This is classic BLP1E to me. The crimes did get national attention and there was a book written about it, but the young man was completely non-notable prior to his crimes and since he is under a death sentence, probably won't become notable for anything else. I also think he falls short under WP:PERP because there wasn't "persistent coverage of the event". Like most of these, there was coverage for a little while, then life moved on. 10 years later, someone wrote a book, so Dateline did a piece on it, then it dropped off again. Even though he is a convicted murder and will die in prison, he is currently living and still falls under BLP. Would you mind taking a look and see what you think? I'm thinking this should be redirected to Lords of Chaos (self-styled teen militia), particularly since the only information it provides that isn't in the Lords of Chaos article is his birthdate. Other than that, it's merely a sorter version of the LOC article. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I consider this an editing question, not BLP. It would make more sense to merge the articles, and possibly to remove some of the trivial detail-- like the song --from the group article. I personally think the only BLP concern is not having an article under the name of the victim. The application of BLP is still subject to common sense; some people's privacy I just cannot get concerned over. DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not concerned for his privacy. I'm saying that the article fails the applicable notability guidelines and was asking if a redirect seemed like a better choice than taking it to AfD. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not think it fails the notability guideline. Given that he is substantially discussed in the 2 books and the NBC video about the events, I think it might well hold. The question is whether merging is a better decision. there is at least one thing that needs merging that is not in the original article: The subsequent conviction of him and his mother. So the thing to do is to go ahead and merge it, it's the safe decision. DGG ( talk ) 02:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

BLP sticky prod

Hi DGG. I saw your recent comments on Maurreeen's talk page. Don't jump to conclusions - it should have appeared clear by now that your comments are among the most valued, and I am an avid supporter. However, one of the problems on the workshop page, was that some people were still attempting to turn it - in good faith - into a discussion on poiicy, while others appear to be simply peppering it with eloquent but cynical remarks in order to have something to say. I've now split off most of the long threads purely on policy to a new discussion page so that we can get on with the template design, while development of policy can take place unhindered in its own space. When the functions are finalised, we can then merge the policy bits into them. Also, although I've been bold with the moves, I've actually been quite conservative in shifting the content, so if you see anything else that can be collapsed or split please don't hesitate to go ahead. Now that Maurreen has definiotely left the project, I don't know anything about programming bots or template actions, so rather than just do page housekeeping tasks, I might be the next one to run away, not that it would make much difference if I did  ;) --Kudpung (talk) 06:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I will take a look, but I am now too demoralized by the bitterness at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MichaelQSchmidt to do anything substantial. I trust you to arrange the content fine--that's not the important part. the important part is to realize, that out of two samples each of 20 new BLP articles, 80% of the unsourced BLPs I found were deletable by speedy--and they have been either deleted or tagged accordingly. It will be easy enough to deal with the 10 or 20 a day that actually do need rescue no matter how we do it. DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

As I've already said somewhere else, I don't really care whether the deletionists or the inclusionists win the day. My concern is to know what to do with the 500 unsourced BLPs on my projects, and what to do about the new ones that will arrive, without trying anyone's patience, and getting scolded by some twit of an adolescent, self-appointed, Wikipedia policeman. I will help to implement the design, set up, and launch, of whatever policy is adopted. Nevertheless, that policy has been decided and adopted and work is going ahead to make all the required templates, warnings, and bots. IHMO, I think what has been decided is fairly middle-of-the-road, and has something in it for everyone: The newbies who don't understand the rules, the trigger-happy edit count freaks, the rescue squadron, the CSDists, and thse who feel that unsourced BLPs must go sooner or later. The sad thing isn that after an RfC that had over 400 participants, only FOUR users are left who have actually volunteered to do the dirty work, and none of us are template or bot programmers.

I understand your feelings on on the MQS RfA. It's not an RfA, it's an inquisition, worse even than a Desysop discussion. The whole thing is a disgusting fiasco including the the contrived questions in the first part. The whole thing should be taken to Arbcom or whoever is the authority on such crap, with a request to delete the enire RfA from the records so that not even admins can see it, start over, with a ban on anyone (and that means of course also, unfortunately the supporters) who voted or commented, from re-voting.--Kudpung (talk) 12:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

as for the re-run, it would be enough to limit everybody to a single vote and one or two replies. I think something like that would help many of our processes.

as for the BLPs. as I understand it the existing unsourced BLPs are not what is at issue here, this part of the discussion is about dealing with the incoming ones. They are different, and need different approaches. The incoming ones don't really need limits to prevent it clogging up the process and keepable articles deleted from lack of time and attention. I'm doing a larger survey, and it seems we get somewhere around 50 unsourced BLPs a day that would not be dealt with under speedy. The first problem, is to make sure absolutely none of the hundreds of speediable ones escape, because they're the ones that really do damage. Then the remaining ones basically need to be returned to the authors for sourcing, on the grounds that this is the time when they are around, and can do it best, with the backup of a period for the rest of us to look at them and see what's worth trying. One particular problem I've been seeing a lot of is people carrying over the lead paragraph from another Wikipedia, but not the references. (a harder one is those in the WPs that have not been insisting on references for things they think can be obviously sourced)

The existing ones are on the other hand a matter not for a rush to keep up, but of patience and persistence. To say, we've tolerated this for years, but now were going to get rid of them all, is not rational, but perhaps more of an attempt to hide the shame of having permitted them in the first place. But i see from your work here that you deal partly with one of the most difficult areas: the countries where the web is not as developed, and where such online materials as available only go back one or two years. I can help source things rather generally, but not with this sort of material. DGG ( talk ) 19:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

You may find funny a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Death, which asks its members to discuss what to do with living people within the coverage of their project :-) Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that I also deal with some topics that are extremely difficult to source - to the extent perhaps that my contribs there look very much like OR. However, I look upon the fact that they have not been contested as a positive sign. Anyway, they have got nothing to do with BLPs. I agree with all your points above, and somewhere else I have mentioned that you can reply on my support for WP:BEFORE.

I've had another look at the Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/MichaelQSchmidt. MQS was finally bullied into withdrawing in spite of still having nearly 30 more supports than oppositions. Under the circumstances I think I would have done the same. However, this was an extraordinary RfA with a lot of deliberate muck-raking, and silly, irresponsible, off-topic questions to the candidate by a clan of users from a specific conviction. I can oly assume that something had been going on behind the scenes. I seriously think this RfA should be brought to the attention of whichever authority is competent for this kind of bullying and character assasination. You can't do it, DGG, because you are an involved party. I don't know Schmidt or his work at all and didn't vote or comment on his RfA so I have no reason to be biased. Perhaps I could be instrumental in getting something started; not necessarily for Schmidt's sake, but for the sake of Wikipedia policy and clean debates across the board. It's the danger of crap like that that prevents me from accepting a nom for RfA, and maybe a lot of other potential admins too.--Kudpung (talk) 03:37, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

BEFORE question

Hello D - what is the standing of WP:BEFORE, in your view? It's not described as a guideline; I've never seen any AFDs that were speedily closed after an editor posted multiple reliable, online sources in the AFD itself, or pointed to a topic's inherent significance (e.g. Nursing in Pakistan). I also haven't seen that adding refimprove, no refs, etc. templates to an article can prevent or end an AFD, despite BEFORE's wording. The deletion process does sometimes galvanize editors into improving articles. So then it might be framed as a means v. ends issue. If this has been discussed elsewhere, pls let me know. Sincerely, Novickas (talk) 01:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I know what WP:BEFORE ought to be--it ought to be a very strong guideline about how to proceed before nominating any article for deletion by PROD or AfD. It ought to be enforced, by delisting , & returning such nominations when there is no evidence of prod to the listers for proper searching and reentry if necessary. every nomination by either method should require ea statement of why merge, redirect, or stubbify is inapplicable, and , when relevant, where sources have been looked for. There so far has not been sufficient consensus to adopt it firmly as a requirement, but I think there now might be, and if not yet, that there soon will be.

I think many AfDs have been closed when people find sources and bring them up for discussion during the afd. Usually this occurs when the nominator see the material, and withdraws. Otherwise, if sourced or added during the discussion, I would disagree with a speedy close, for I think it would be normally less subject to abuse to let the discussion run the full time, or, if added late in the discussion, be relisted.

I think also many good people who challenge an article do refrain from nominating when sources are added. The problem is with those who do not. A few careless nominators can make for a lot of unnecessary work and trouble. DGG ( talk ) 01:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC) .

Excuse me for butting in on this thread DGG , but you have my every support for a stricter implementation of WP:BEFORE, even if it's not technically easy to enforce. Please let me know if have any ideas how it can be done.--Kudpung (talk) 02:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be possible to have the number of Google News, Books and Scholar hits of prodded and/or AfD'd articles reported somewhere. Abductive (reasoning) 05:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

If nothing else, having it as a guideline would cause the closing admin to give weight to arguments along those lines. I support the concept, as well.--~TPW 18:05, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a first step. After all, we have many rules we have no real way of enforcing. But what I had in mind was something like what Abductive suggested, to have a nomination process which would require the the listing of the standard search in Template:Afd2 using Template:findsources, devised by PhilKinight back in 2007, but using it before , rather than after, the AfD is actually entered, with a place to confirm that the nominator wants to proceed with the nomination. (not that the standard search is particularly good, if applied mechanically, but it's at least a start to weed out the obvious) -- see [11] where an ed. objected to even including it in the template with the wording, " Anyone who wants to link to Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL for an AFD can do so. " I think we've come a good way since then, and it's time to do the next step, moving this to a stage before the nomination gets entered on the page. . What I'm not competent to figure out, is how to program this. DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, DGG. Why don't you have a chat to Kingpin about it?--Kudpung (talk) 07:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Sticky prods

Hi DGG/Archive 0.7'! You participated earlier in the sticky prod workshop. The sticky prods are now in use, but there are still a few points of contention.
There are now a few proposals on the table to conclude the process. I encourage your input, whatever it might be. Thanks. --Maurreen (talk) 06:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I screened the first 20 today at WP:PROD. About half were in fields where I think myself competent to search. Almost every one of those was either actually sourced, or very easily sourceable. Most are in my opinion actually notable, though a few might possibly not pass AfD. This seems to have the net effect of switching the work from article authors to the more conscientious among the reviewers. Agreed that we screening admins know how to do am adequate job of sourcing, but we should develop the skills of the beginners, not do it for them. Ridiculous amount of fuss for the meagre results. One of its proponents, recognizing the minimal yield, justified it as having deterred the people who would write unsourced articles. If it persuaded those editors to source them, good; if it scared them into not even trying, not so good. The higher we make the barrier to entry, the sooner we will die of attrition. DGG ( talk ) 06:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Sticky prods have arrived, and I strongly doubt there's any turning around on that point.

But you can help pick whichever proposal you think is best, or give suggestion at the talk page. Maurreen (talk) 07:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

What i shall do, is what I am required to do by the role I volunteered for, just as before: to see that unsourceable BLPs get deleted by this process as they ought to be, and to do my best to see that the sourceable ones do not, as is appropriate for them, while dealing appropriately with the ones that may be sourceable but should be deleted for other reasons. The community has often adopted things which make proper work here more difficult, just as happens in the outside world, and I am used to coping with such things, while continuing to make people aware of the situation. Much of my career , after all, has been devoted to helping people find reference material legally, despite the efforts of copyright law to interfere--while simultaneously arguing for the slow process of change. Free access to information is how and why I came here, and I will help people add it legitimately, despite the efforts to interfere. I give you my highest tribute for your efforts to try to attain the least unreasonable set of rules despite the extraordinary difficulties, but it is what we do with them that counts. DGG ( talk ) 07:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and best wishes on your end! Maurreen (talk) 01:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

update on of blp prod

As a follow up to a discussion above, I was curious to see how the sort of blp prods I do not usually work on were doing, so i picked three athlete blp prods about to expire, Mustafa Tiryaki, Romana Tabaková, & Jamie Phoenix to try to source them minimally. I managed to do it for all 3 in about 6 minutes, using just plain Google on their name or the team name, --one from a good newspaper, 2 from their team's official website. I recognize this does not prove WP:N, and I have strong doubts on at least one of them actually meeting that standard. It does however provide WP:V for their existence, the existence of their athletic career, and the spelling of their name. For all three, additional sources are of course needed--I did not try to verify all the points in the article, but leave this to those interested in the sports involved, who can undoubtedly do it better. But why did the original prodders prod them instead of looking even the the most basic of places? Even more, why did nobody --in the 9 days they've been listed on WP:Prodsum --try to work on them? Sometimes I feel like I am almost the only person who actually does care in a practical way about sourcing articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've processed about 12 so far, and declined the BLPPRODs on about three which had sources in ELs. A 25% decline rate is about 5x what I experience in standard PRODs, which lends credence to the fact that more careful scrutiny is needed on BLPPRODs than standard PRODs, because on a standard PROD, you know at least one editor approached the article; on BLPPRODs we aren't guaranteed even that. Jclemens (talk) 04:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the proportion I get also that do in fact have refs. Question is, do you search for sourcdes for the ones that do not if you think that the person might reasonably be notable? DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well if it's any help, I BLPProded 50 articles on April 4/5. It was new to me so I made the mistake at first of not checking for sources before prodding. Subsequently I think only 3 where actually deleted. So I think checking is working. Btw since my initial rush of prods I been finding sources. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 06:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I remember our earlier discussions, and I'm glad you've realized. DGG ( talk ) 16:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I did 14 additional BLP Prods today. 8 were easy to source or already sourced... and five I didn't even try because the names looked like they would generate an unreasonable number of false positives and/or the notability asserted was so tangential I would have been deleted them had they been tagged A7 to begin with. So for today, I'm keeping 89% of what I actually look into. This is just one data point, but I wonder if it will prove to be a trend, and/or whether someone had already gone through and taken the truly terrible PRODs and left the marginal/salvageable ones intact. Jclemens (talk) 21:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

further thoughts on prods

(message to an editor, placing it here as it will apply to a number of others as well, and it will serve as their answer should they come to comment)

I have just been checking prods, and I checked 10 of the articles you prodded in the last day or two. For 9 of them I quickly found references, generally in the obvious places in the googles. One was an obvious copyvio, and I marked for speedy accordingly. Of the 8 others, a few have dubious notability, and were so marked. But at least three or four of them were extremely notable, and will certainly hold at afd. This is not careful work. The point of blp prod is to remove unsourced articles, while keeping the ons that can be sourced. I would blame nobody for not trying to source articles that looked clearly non-notable--most editors would not think it worth the work, though I myself always check if there is anything likely at all, because the article does not always express the notability very well. But any careful editor would, I think, do at least a quick g-check on the ones that, based on the information presented, would certainly yield a good source. Otherwise, you're throwing the work on others who do care about both deleting and keeping articles according to the merits and sourceability.

You will probably argue that it is by prodding that we give the authors incentive to source--but we need to be nice to newcomers, or we will not replace the editors we inevitably lose by attrition, and almost all will source if the need is explained to them without the threat of deleting the articles. For the others, the deletion processes may have a role, but that's the exception.

Myself, I did not support the current blp prod policy, because I thought it both unnecessary and harmful. Since it has become accepted, I of course enforce it as an admin, as I do all policy. I delete unsourced BLPs that have been prodded if I cannot find a source--I deleted 4 or 5 of them today. But the method you are using is a very strong argument that the policy as adopted is a mistake, at least without the requirement of WP:BEFORE. I unfortunately can't stop you from prodding without checking, but I certainly can and will use the prods you have been making as an argument for why BEFORE should be a requirement. If you disagree with me that it's needed, as you probably do , why not give me less material? DGG ( talk ) 03:35, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Playmates

Hi, I saw a couple of your comments. You were involved in the lengthy discussion at the notability noticeboard in which a lot of editors commented and passed opinion, the result of which discussion was the removal of the all playmates are notable clause. In regard to that your comments that there is a long standing agreement that they are all notable anf that some limited votes in an AFD is a sign that community consensus opposes the discussion at the notability noticeboard. Considering the discussion went on for over a months there and was a RFC and yet you assert that discussion has no value, why is that? Off2riorob (talk) 08:43, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

a discussion among specialists in a subject has to be accepted by the general community, and the afds show they are not accepted. We have one Wikipedia, and there are many examples of local consensus that i have supported not achieving general consensus, and also of vuiews that failed to gain the necessary local consensus still being accepted generally, as for schools. Speaking for myself, I cannot possibly follow more than a few percent of the discussions here, but when they turn out to impinge on many articles or on matters of general interest, then I will notice them. I might perhaps have not noticed this, had you not nominated such a large number all at once. I seem to remember arb com has commented on the inadvisability of trying to overwhelm Wikipedia processes, but it's also just common sense. The distinction between the sensible people and the zealots is that the sensible people work carefully, one step at a time. The zealots are generally the ones who fall into the ditch. (I have quite consciously mixed a few allusions here, but I think they are compatible with the original.) DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Notability

Just fyi about this push to overturn a DRV/AfD, with editors still trying to prove notability with exactly what WP:BIO seems to identify as non-notable categories such as "popular" or "well-known"; thought you might have some input for that discussion. I don't see how any of the links provided show notability per WP standards, what's she done that's notable? (e.g., she didn't even win this one, another one really about her sister again - and how does this even come close to proving she's a 'household name', if that really means anything either. Do we need to tighten up WP:BIO, or is it sufficient for cases like this? Dreadstar ☥ 23:20, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

unfortunately, under our present rules, the links do not have to show notability; if they discuss the person in a substantial way, they are assumed to show notability. I agree with you that this makes very little sense, but it is standard practice here. I'd like to change it, and I gave my opinion accordingly at the AfD--but very briefly as this did not seem a very clear cut case; it out of my usual field, may not be totally unnotable to the extent some similar article have been, and is also a BLP with the additional complication that the subject has wishes for deletion that may optionally be taken into account (I don't really like that rule either, but it too is sufficiently accepted that I generally argue about restricting its use rather than trying to remove it.) I think this one is too ambiguous to make a good test case.

As for your more general question, I do not think we need to tighten up the WP:BIO criteria--I think we need to rework them entirely. The proper approach would define what bios we included based on the importance of the people, the possibility of writing an encyclopedic article, and the BLP considerations of doing no harm. The GNG guideline at this point is more confusing than helpful, and is continually becomes yet more confusing and irrelevant-- what I would do with it is mark it "historical." DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Javier Aquino BLP Prod -- Notability

Notability has no relation to the sticky-prod. Please do us all a favour and learn the policies you cack-handedly attempt to enforce. Ironholds (talk) 13:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

no, it has a relationship to how to deal with an unsourced BLP article. When the article indicates something really significant, like being a member of a national-level sports team, or a member of parliament, it's unconstructive to BLP Prod rather than try to source it, because sourcing is in such cases so very easy. (When something is difficult to source, then I can understand people tagging it and relying on people who better know how to try to find them.). When someone is not going to be notable in any case, I usually do not go to great efforts working on it. And when someone has no plausible claim to importance at all, and I see it on the BLP Prod list, I speedy-delete it. I am not the least reluctant to delete: I've done 11,000 speedy deletes by now.

what you say is true, though, that an editor is still acting within the rules if they routinely ignore WP:BEFORE. I have two things to say about that: first, the most general rule of all is that we're here together to build an encyclopedia so such behaviour is not cooperative, and second, it came very close a few months ago to being required, and I certainly hope it will be soon; I've been working on this for 3 years now as an important part of my major goal for improving quality by getting everyone to help source articles, and it's progressively getting nearer.

I enforce the policies as they exist, and tell people what they are accurately, whether or not I approve of them. In this context, I delete expired BLP prods that I cannot source myself. I do not remove a tag without adding a source. I do not tell people that BEFORE is actually required, or give them formal warnings leading to blocks if they do not use it. But I am perfectly free to offer advice on how best to work here, and I do so. That you do not like the advice is no reason not to give it. I have always been optimistic that people tend to come to agree with me. You are equally welcome to disagree with me, and tell me so. Some admins here sometimes stretch things to enforce policy as they think it ought to be, knowing they will usually get away with it--people do not usually call them out on it, because up to a point it's important to maintain good relations even at the cost of tolerating errors. I try to resist this temptation, so I do get a little annoyed when someone tells me incorrectly that I do not follow policy. DGG ( talk ) 18:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You removed the sticky with the rationale that the person is notable. You admit that this has no relation to the prod itself, although you claim that it does have a relationship with how the prod is treated. You claim that this is a BEFORE-type relationship, then claim that BEFORE is not meant to be followed. "Some admins here sometimes stretch things to enforce policy...I do get a little annoyed when someone tells me incorrectly that I do not follow policy". Applying BEFORE when you admit it doesn't apply outside of a pipe dream inside your head, removing a tag due to notability when the only link between the two is BEFORE... tell me again, oh mighty lauded one, how you so successfully resist the temptation to twist things. You are acting as if the BEFORE push you made was successful, or that it will be in the future because you're certain it will eventually get through and help turn the wiki into some kind of utopia led by your principes. That's policy twisting, and that's bullshit. Ironholds (talk) 18:58, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ironholds you might want to look again at that edit. DGG removed the sticky prod, added a reference and started his edit summary "+ ref". You may not agree with DGG's subsequent comment about notability, but describing his action as "removing a tag due to notability" whilst not mentioning the reason why the tag was removed is emphasising your differences. ϢereSpielChequers 19:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

yes, that's the sequence. I removed the stick because I added a source to it. I went to the work of adding a source to it because the person is clearly notable, unless I have misunderstood the level of the team, which I doubt--& I checked that he did actually appear in games. I indicated they were multiple other sources to add, and where to find them. It is indeed a BEFORE type relationship, and BEFORE is meant to be followed, but not required to be followed. Many good practices are in the rules that are there as strong recommendations not requirements. We are for example recommended to use on-line references, but not required to; we are told not to add unsourced articles, but are none the less permitted to. We are strongly told not to write with COI, but articles are not deleted on that basis. We are told to use good grammar and spelling, but we do not reject people who do not or can not. Telling people they ought to use BEFORE is not against policy. Telling people they must use BEFORE would be against policy, & I have never done so--you seem to still confuse the two. I've tried to explain the relationship between apparent notability and how much to work on a defective article, but that's advice, not policy. I apply it to other other things than BLP prods, such as whether to rewrite copyvio or spam--I'm not going to bother doing that unless the subject is important. Seems common sense to me, to work where it will be productive. It seems equally common sense to me to not delete when there's a easy way of fixing the problem. If your view of common sense differs, I can not make you work the way I do. I still advise you to. In my view, the admins who stretch rules almost always do it in a negative way: to over-delete or to over-bite newcomers. There's a temptation to balance the scale, but I resist it. You ask how I'm able to resist it: the main technique is to admit mistakes, not try to defend them. I do not twist policy--I try to change it. It's slower, but more honest and more effective. I will admit one temptation I feel very strongly--in a case like the above, to remove the prod as obviously sourceable without myself adding a source. I've never done that, so far. DGG ( talk ) 19:24, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't say it better myself (editors who write unsourced BLPs)

This was very well said and summed up my feelings as well, except that I've already moved onto to the "it is taking too much of my available time here to do your work for you,when there are so many other things that need fixing" stage. I don't want you to do the fixing, I want the original contributor to do it.

Do you think we are at the stage where we should start preventing people like this (or another one (User:Saint Samuel) who I think you've come across - or may do soon (actually just noticed you've posted the same message there already!) from starting new pages? Is that even possible to remove that right? It's a bit of a joke that amongst JRR's many warnings for Prods and UBLPs are a barnstar and the annoiting of him with "Reviewer" status! I know it's over a long time, and standards have changed, but is there something absolute to be done about serial UBLP creators (and I admit that JRRobinson, with only 3 recent ones is at the bottom end of the scale.. St Sam on the other hand...) Do you think a proposal to restrict or remove the "uploading status", to prevent certain people from directly creating articles without going through a pre-posting review stage would fly? Has it been proposed before? Cheers, The-Pope (talk) 16:53, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

update on blp prod

As a follow up to a discussion above, I was curious to see how the sort of blp prods I do not usually work on were doing, so i picked three athlete blp prods about to expire, Mustafa Tiryaki, Romana Tabaková, & Jamie Phoenix to try to source them minimally. I managed to do it for all 3 in about 6 minutes, using just plain Google on their name or the team name, --one from a good newspaper, 2 from their team's official website. I recognize this does not prove WP:N, and I have strong doubts on at least one of them actually meeting that standard. It does however provide WP:V for their existence, the existence of their athletic career, and the spelling of their name. For all three, additional sources are of course needed--I did not try to verify all the points in the article, but leave this to those interested in the sports involved, who can undoubtedly do it better. But why did the original prodders prod them instead of looking even the the most basic of places? Even more, why did nobody --in the 9 days they've been listed on WP:Prodsum --try to work on them? Sometimes I feel like I am almost the only person who actually does care in a practical way about sourcing articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've processed about 12 so far, and declined the BLPPRODs on about three which had sources in ELs. A 25% decline rate is about 5x what I experience in standard PRODs, which lends credence to the fact that more careful scrutiny is needed on BLPPRODs than standard PRODs, because on a standard PROD, you know at least one editor approached the article; on BLPPRODs we aren't guaranteed even that. Jclemens (talk) 04:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's the proportion I get also that do in fact have refs. Question is, do you search for sourcdes for the ones that do not if you think that the person might reasonably be notable? DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well if it's any help, I BLPProded 50 articles on April 4/5. It was new to me so I made the mistake at first of not checking for sources before prodding. Subsequently I think only 3 where actually deleted. So I think checking is working. Btw since my initial rush of prods I been finding sources. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 06:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I remember our earlier discussions, and I'm glad you've realized. DGG ( talk ) 16:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I did 14 additional BLP Prods today. 8 were easy to source or already sourced... and five I didn't even try because the names looked like they would generate an unreasonable number of false positives and/or the notability asserted was so tangential I would have been deleted them had they been tagged A7 to begin with. So for today, I'm keeping 89% of what I actually look into. This is just one data point, but I wonder if it will prove to be a trend, and/or whether someone had already gone through and taken the truly terrible PRODs and left the marginal/salvageable ones intact. Jclemens (talk) 21:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Giovanni Arlexis Vilomar Renteria Prod/Hoax

You deprodded Giovanni Arlexis Vilomar Renteria. Upon cleaning up the page, I attempted to find references, but I cannot. I feel as if the creator, Rueni Renteria (talk · contribs), has invented this boxer. Rueni Renteria inserted into Saint Paul, Minnesota a huge block of unreferenced POV text. At Jorge Arce, the user added Renteria as between Yo-Sam Choi and Jorge Arce as the "WBC Light Flyweight Champion". At the roster at Dominican Republic at the 1992 Summer Olympics, the user inserted Renteria's name. At Yo-Sam Choi, the user reordered the events, claiming that Yo-Sam Choi, Renteria, and Jorge Arce were successive champions when originally Renteria never was in the list. Considering the above, I believe this article is a hoax, but I thought I'd check with you since you deprodded it as being notable. If you cannot find references, should this be taken to AfD? Please advise. Protector of Wiki (talk) 05:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The sources and the external links don't find him, http://boxrec.com/index.php doesn't seem to list him, I can find no evidence he's chairman of Valspar [12], Jorge Arce was Junior Flyweight Champion at the time this guy is listed as champion, etc, etc. The only reason I haven't speedied this as a hoax is respect for you, DGG, but if you can't find evidence for him, the article should be deleted and the editor probably blocked. Dougweller (talk • contribs) 07:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

He's added this to a number of articles, some of still living people. [13] is an example (although the subject is dead), clearly contradicted by [14]. I've now reverted all this edits except this article.

Your edit summary said "Really reckless prod. Please look first." My efforts suggest to me it was not reckless and that the editor probably did look first. What did you find that led you to such a critical edit summary? Did you notice the changes made to the articles of other boxers? Dougweller (talk) 08:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I came here to say much the same: given that it was a BLP Prod added when the article was like this, I don't think the PRODder deserved your criticism; and though references were added later none of them, when checked, actually mentions the subject. Searches find absolutely no confirmation, so I have taken it to AfD here as a hoax. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 10:29, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

see my comments below. I would have been more likely to have checked it properly if the prodder had nominated it as a hoax, but, just like me, he seems to have missed it--BLP prod is a rather crude instrument and should not be used if more profound reasons exist. DGG ( talk ) 15:30, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the prodder suspected a hoax - he just, correctly, tagged it as a BLP with (at that stage) no sources. That wasn't reckless. You may feel he should have done more than that, but you can't criticise him for doing that. JohnCD (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Not checking for sources before prodding is careless. Not checking for sources when very strong notability is asserted is reckless. (as for the hoax, both he and I were equally at fault for missing it, but errors like that are inevitable due to limited knowledge and discernment) DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

BLP prods

I admire your zeal to save worthy content. But your removals of some recent BLP-prod tags have been careless and bureaucratic. When you reviewed them you removed the prod tag but failed to carefully scrutinize the substance of the articles themselves. In each case you seem to have adopted an extremely narrow interpretation of the policy requiring at least one reference--without considering whether the article was actually worthy of being saved. The result in each case was, at best, unworthy but improvable content, or at worst, unimprovable content that should have been deleted.

• Here, you kept an obvious resume on the subject on the basis that you verified "one key point"--that he wrote a masters thesis at Oxford. The "reference" you inserted is a database citation of the thesis itself and in my opinion should not save the article from blpprod deletion. Fortunately, this is a moot point: As is the case with so many resumes, the article is a copyright violation and deletable on that basis. I shall tag it as such shortly.
• Here, you called the prodding of an apparently referenced article about a purported Olympic boxer "reckless." But it may prove to be a hoax. The only "references" in the article were a Youtube video and external links that were about Yo Sam Choi, a legitimate boxer apparently unrelated to the subject. So the BLP prod was technically correct. Had you taken more than 3 minutes to scrutinize the article and its "references," you might have been led to look for legitimate sources and even to discover for yourself that it might a hoax.
• Here, you saved yet another resume on the ground that "the cited journal articles are third party references." Surely not. They are third party references about something--but not about the subject of the prodded article, who co-wrote them. Even though you yourself doubted the subject is notable and thought the article read like a press release, you took no further action.

Per IAR, the goal here is not to make sure rules are followed correctly, but to improve the encyclopedia. I do believe that process is important, but in these cases you stretched an ambiguous policy to keep unworthy and unimprovable content. 160.39.212.104 (talk) 14:37, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I delete only those articles that certainly ought to be deleted; anything in doubt should go as an AfD. I do not necessarily support keeping weak content when I remove a BLP prod; I merely disapprove of deleting it as a BLP prod. Indeed, I regularly check the list of BLP prods to see which items ought to instead be rapidly deleted via speedy, and I delete them.

1)being a resume is not cause for deletion if notable. Had it not been checked as being a copyvio, I was keeping track of it, and intended to reprod it as not "not amounting to notability"

2)It is reckless to delete an article on a apparently olympic boxer with checking whether or not it can be sourced or, alternatively, is a hoax. If one thinks it a hoax, it is reckless to not actually investigate. I verified at least part of his career. I saw additional articles beyond those cited, and I notice a world championship as well as an olympic title was claimed. Clearly, either you or I need to check to see what the status actually is. Some such articles are indeed hoaxes, but I was sufficiently burned in my early days here for trying to delete what seemed to me to be obvious hoaxes but instead turned out to merely be unusual careers. Normally, I do check further the first time, but was unable to do so today as I was interrupted by the need to leave for a meeting.

3)The cited journal articles are third party references that the person listed as author published them. they may or may not show notability, but they do amount to verification of claims of importance. In fact, I have my doubt about notability here, I have seen a considerable number of srticles on plastic surgeons, and am somewhat skeptical about claims to their notability , as some members of that professions seem much given to self-advertising. I intend to investigate this one further, because a check for citations is necessary to show as authority in his field, which i have not yet done. If I decide it probably does not meet wp:prof, I will nominate for AfD, as i have for many other such articles. Again, normally I do check further the first time, but I was interrupted by the need to leave for a meeting.

As for the general question of deleting to improve the encyclopedia , I have personally deleted as an administrator over 11,000 articles by now. I do not delete on my own authority unless I am sure, or I am sure I see explicit consensus at a AfD. Declining to delete a prod does not result in keeping the article forever.

As for the usefulness of BLP prod, I have deleted over a hundred BLP prods, but never seen an article that could be deleted by BLP prod without being deletable for other reasons also. DGG ( talk ) 04:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Heh. Anon IP, all you've managed to demonstrate is that DGG follows the rules appropriately and correctly. Jclemens (talk) 05:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I still think that removing the BLP prod on an alleged hoax, when he didn't have time to check whether there were BLP violations, and accusing the prodder of being reckless and not checking, was a bad idea which if I hadn't noticed it would have left at least one other BLP violation and some deliberately inaccurate statements on other biographies. There was no urgent need to remove the prod, right? And a quick click on one of the links would have shown the link, whatever it was, didn't back the claim. DGG, I can understand your reluctance to delete without further checking, but no one was asking you to delete it and unless an Admin had determined it was a hoax, it wasn't in danger of being deleted immediately. Not only that, your edit summary suggested that you had checked and verified his notability, as you wrote 'highly notable'. As I said, I respect your edits generally, but in this case you were evidently in too much of a hurry and it would have been better to do nothing and leave it for later or someone else. I'm not clear why you thought the editor who did the Prod hadn't checked it. And I still don't understand how you could have verified part of his career, he doesn't seem to exist. Dougweller (talk) 06:05, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, Doug, the burden of proof on a PROD of any sort is very, very low. It's not the reviewing admin's job to make sure a PROD is notable or not--it's his prerogative, duty even, to de-prod something that looks like even one good faith editor would object to the PROD. Jclemens (talk) 07:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

That's in order to protect the encyclopedia against the loss of good information, but it also needs to be protected against acquiring false information. If a BLP Prod is removed, the article will already have been marked patrolled, and it is then released, with no particular reason why anyone should check it further; so I think anyone removing a BLP Prod should at least click one of the references to make sure it actually mentions the subject. DGG, I think you probably mistook the boxer one for an ordinary PROD, which in view of claims of an Olympic career would certainly have been inappropriate, but as it was actually a BLP Prod applied when the article had indeed no references, I think the PRODder deserves an apology for being called "Really reckless." JohnCD (talk) 10:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Jclemens, I take your point, but DGG actually wrote 'highly notable' in his edit summary (as well as his 'reckless comment'. So he was commenting on his notability, another reason why no one might have checked it further, at least until someone stumbled upon the editor's other edits. Which reminds me... Dougweller (talk) 10:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I accept that I was a little careless by my own standards with this group of three articles. Normally I do finish what i start; normally I do check further, rather than postpone it (I postponed it, not ignored it, I even kept the tabs open on the academic ones to work on them some more) As for the time pressure of prodding, normally I work from ProdSum a day or so before they come due, in the hopes that the author or some other patroller will check at least some of them first, which usually does happen, and in the other direction in order to leave myself a margin of time before deletion; in this case I was working from the Category for the sake of variety, and because prodsum has recently been somewhat incomplete, though I think it is fixed now, and it is probably better to work from prodsum--it also has the advantage that prods made by the same editor at about the same time can be checked together. I also intended to come back to the boxer, for I had a feeling there was something incongruous. But the prodder made the same error I did, for had they suspected it was a hoax, they should have said so, as that is a much more serious matter than just unsourced. And one of my reasons for dissatisfaction with BLP prod is that it discourages checking for other aspects of the article--it is too crude a tool. DGG ( talk ) 15:01, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:BEFORE ought to be applied to de-prodding?--Scott Mac 15:14, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

it is quite true that if people were more careful in nominating articles for deletion it would be possible to check them more carefully. DGG ( talk ) 15:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but is there any reason to let the AfD run any longer? As I said, if I'd seen the PROD after my research I would have speedy deleted it. The hoaxer needs blocking also. Dougweller (talk) 15:21, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It would be useful if an article could be PRODded on other grounds while it still has a live BLPPROD - otherwise the article may be rescued from BLPPROD by the addition of a reference, while a previous editor had other concerns about it which have not been resolved, but they couldn't PROD it as it was already under BLPPROD. I've tried adding a 2nd PROD to an article with a BLPPROD, and it was immediately deleted. I don't know whether this aspect of BLPPROD had much or any discussion, but I'm finding it a drawback of the new system. PamD (talk) 17:42, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It can be done. It can not be done with twinkle, but it can be done manually. For an example, I just added a prod to [15] where this is quite relevant, for there seems no point in looking for references, because (unless I misunderstand the article) there is zero likelihood of notability. However, I have the impression it messes up the listing at PRODSUM, which does not seem able to resolve conflict of dates in the prods. What I sometimes do instead, is remove the BLP prod first, and then substitute the other prod. Technically, this ignores the rule for not removing BLP prods, as well as the rule against re-prodding an article, but I think it a valid use of IAR, for it's a situation the available mechanisms do not cover.

In looking at new articles at NP patrol, my suggested sequence is:

preliminary, for admins : Is the article clear vandalism or abuse: If so, delete & warn the editor as strongly as necessary--block immediately if outrageous; for any other speedy reason, just tag & let another admin confirm.

1Is there a reason for speedy deletion? If so, add a speedy tag & warn the editor.

2If not a speedy candidate, is the article clearly unacceptable and unlikely to be readily fixable, mergeable, or redirectable? If so, add a PROD tag, notify the editor, & watchlist to follow up. (if it is also an unsourced BLP, tag as unsourced, but do not add a BLP prod tag unless the PROD is removed without a source being added.)

3If the principal problem is that the article is an unsourced BLP and a reference is not findable with reasonable effort, add a BLPPROD tag, notify the editor, & watchlist.

4Does the article appear unfixable & suitable for deletion, but not so clearly that a Prod is appropriate, (or is a prod likely to be contested or the article previously prodded or afd'd)? If so, send to AfD & notify the editor.

5 Is there a serious other problem that is not easily fixable, (such as an unsourced non-BLP that not readily sourced)? If so, tag, notify the editor, and watchlist for follow-up if not fixed.

and, obviously, if readily fixable, fix instead of going through any of this, but alert the editor to the problem that you fixed. DGG ( talk ) 00:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your response. I'm heartened by your assurance that you intended to follow up on these articles. Jclemens, my main point was about the importance of IAR, and I want to re-emphasize it because you've completely missed it. The first and third examples above involve blp-prodded articles about subjects of extremely dubious notability. When an admin comes across such an article he has three options other than to immediately delete:

1. to leave the blp-prod tag in place and do nothing else
2. to investigate whether significant sources exist, adding them to the article if yes or sending to afd if no
3. to remove the blp-prod tag, justifying the tag's removal by easy appeal to a trivial source that arguably brings the article just outside of the letter of blp-prod

Option 1 is neutral. Option 2 is ideal. Option 3 is the worst. It allows bad and likely unimprovable content to stay until a more industrious editor happens along. Yes, Jclemens, DGG followed da rules correctly. No, he did not follow them appropriately. Per IAR, an editor's goal should not be to make sure rules are followed correctly, but to improve the encyclopedia. To decline deleting bad and likely unimprovable content because it falls just to one side of an ambiguous policy is the epitome of mindless proceduralism, and should be discouraged. I am encouraged that DGG said above that he did intend to follow up on these articles. Had he followed up before I commented here, I would of course have had no beef with his actions. But Jclemens, your defense of "following the rules correctly" is contrary to IAR's idea that an editor's first job is to improve the encyclopedia--not to follow rules. And your appeal to burdens of proof is contrary to the idea that editors should view themselves as collaborators in this effort of improvement, not adversaries playing games with da rules. 160.39.212.104 (talk) 00:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

One cannot improve an article that does not exist. Truly unworthy articles are speedyable, and should be speedied. You overestimate the importance of BLPPRODs, because they are on the wrong side of the Pareto on BLP issues--they're the 80% of the massive pile of BLPs that generate at most 20% of the problems. Treating them like they're actual problems instead of potential problems is ultimately more pernicious and harmful to the creation of a full encyclopedia than the unsourced BLPs themselves. Jclemens (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Option 1 may be neutral, but not always helpful, for somebody must decide, either to delete, or not to delete--the part that is helpful is that it is better not to work on those which others can work on more effectively--I prefer not to work on sports or music or film unless there is nobody better suited available. There is , unfortunately, also a need to decide fairly quickly, because there are a great many articles that need checking, and it is not really practical to spend more than say 15 minutes on each of them--anything needing fuller investigation must go to AfD , but , again, we can not add too much to AfD or we will be unable to deal with them satisfactorily either. The only answer to this and other problems is more people helping find sources, at every stage of the process, which will either support keeping the article or clarify & facilitate the deletion of it. And, even better, more people helping educate the new editors about the need to do it themselves in the first place. (It was reasonable to hope that the placement of the BLP prod tag would be sufficient, but that slone does not seem to be doing it very successfully.)

In the case where there is a source, but not a fully satisfactory one, there is a tag for the purpose, {{refimproveBLP}} , for the special case of IMdB sourcing , {{BLP IMDB refimprove}}, and {{improvereferences}} for non-BLPs. We want to avoid finding an unsatisfactory situation, tagging it, and doing nothing further. In case where there are sources, but notability remains very doubtful, the source(s) should be added and a regular prod tag used--as I explain above, I do not consider this to be an irregular proceeding such as the ordinary replacement of a prod tag would be. The reason for great caution in deletion is both to avoid losing content, and of much more critical importance, to avoid losing potentially good editors. The intent of what Jclemens said, which is to follow the rules, but also deal appropriately with the articles. (I do not imagine he meant to fulfill the most minimal requirements, and do nothing further; he's a much better editor than that) And in his comment just above, he is correct that we often make the mistake of spending the most time on the least important of the articles; we should let the barely passable pass, and concentrate on making sure we deal with the serious problems, and properly consider the difficult cases. DGG ( talk ) 01:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Jclemens, Douglas Glynn Bolitho, MD is not an actual blp problem. Heck, I'll go you one better--it's not even a potential blp problem. The problem is exactly the opposite--it is a likely unimprovable CV. Although blp prod was invented to easily delete biographies that may harm their subjects, there is no reason why we cannot use blp prod to address the opposite problem--puff autobiographies/CVs--which I daresay are even more common than actual blp problems. Do you really think that Douglas Glynn Bolitho, MD is improvable? 160.39.212.104 (talk) 14:22, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Not only do I think it improvable, but I improved it, including refs to Scopus and WorldCat. Anyway, I have never seen a CV that cannot be improved; the question is always whether it can be improved enough, how much work it will take, and whether, after improvement, it shows sufficient notability. I am doubtful about the notability here--see my comments at the AfD . Given the rather low citations, I am not at all certain this was worth improving, and I might not have bothered except that there is no way of finding out the notability without checking for citations. Puff autobios are a problem--I've deleted literally thousands; but if the person is notable enough, they are worth using as the basis of a real one. Puffery is usually fairly easy to remove--the question is what is left after removing it. Checking further, you and I both made an error--the original article could have been speedied as a copyvio, by going deeper into his website than the first page. (But in removing the puffery I have now rewritten it). This is an excellent example of using the wrong deletion method leading to extra work for everyone concerned. Almost all BLP Prods are the wrong deletion method. Most of the time, they should be checked for refs, and, depending on what is found, either kept (about 50%), or deleted for notability at either speedy or prod or AfD (the other 50%).

Would we be better off without BLPprod? That depends how it's used. Prior to it, we probably were letting too many non-notable bios pass without sufficient examination. With it, we are letting too many notable ones get deleted. DGG ( talk ) 17:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

By informing Wikipedia's hapless readers how many times Bolitho's articles have been cited, you've no doubt improved the article as a puff piece for the good doctor. But nothing other than meaty, significant, independent coverage about the subject can serve as the basis for a proper encyclopedia article. If professor/doctor X writes article Y about topic Z in a peer-reviewed journal, then article Y will help build either a Wikipedia article about topic Z, or a CV about person X. It won't help build a Wikipedia article about person X. 128.59.179.252 (talk) 17:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

My friend, every article referring to a person's work is in a sense intrinsically writing about him; normally about half discuss it it a substantial way. Consequently, the GNG guideline in this field leads to absurd results, which is the reason we have WP:PROF; otherwise most assistant professors or post-doctoral fellows, & many graduate student could be shown notable. A researcher's published work is what makes him notable, not the facts of his biography, which is just background, no matter how much may be written about it; this is exactly parallel to other professions--an artist's notability is proven by the presence of his work in major museums; an athlete's, by his competition in international events; a politician's, by being elected to significant office. A person is notable for doing something. Essentially, we use the same criterion the profession itself uses in judging the importance of people: the extent to which they are published and cited. And putting in verifiable facts from third party sources is not promotional, but informative. An academic cv differs from an article primarily because an academic CV lists everything possible, including book reviews and committee service and whatever else, whereas an article discusses only the work which leads to notability, which consists of books written and peer-reviewed articles published. The importance of the books is judged by where they are published, book reviews, and citations; of a journal article, by where published, and by citations. If you don;t like WP:PROF, consider the alternative, which is uselessly wide inclusiveness. If I bothered reading in detail the articles discussing his work, I could undoubtedly technically prove him notable by the GNG, but, as I discuss at the AfD, he isn't. DGG ( talk ) 17:45, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Your critique of the GNG is rooted in your misunderstanding of it. More specifically, you might want to explain how a journal article merely citing Prof X's work (as opposed to substantially discussing it) can be used to write a wikipedia article about Prof X--or about his work. GNG says nothing about coverage that is "in a sense intrinsic[]" (whatever that means). Plain old (extrinsic?) coverage is what GNG clearly requires, and what is required to write a proper article. 128.59.179.252 (talk) 18:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Read the second half of my first sentence. WP:N is a guideline, one of the many notability guidelines. It is appropriate in a great many circumstances, but not all. Looking at this and other discussions, you seem inclined to apply it literally in all cases whatsoever. Many people apply it very often, some like me less often, but nobody sensible applies it mechanically. Wikipedia can not be edited satisfactorily in a mechanical way. Writing articles takes judgement; deciding what articles are worth writing takes judgement also. The discussion here has gone as far as is useful. If you want more of my comments, I've already written them: See my user talk archives on notability and on Academic people & related issues. DGG ( talk ) 18:47, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

wp:before

sorry to drag your name into it. your voice seemed one of the sane few in the BLP nonsense. the slippery slope is troubling to me: first BLP, now BDP, what next? i think the "before: ignore at leisure" was sarcasm, surely? i keep finding examples of honoring in the breach, if people won't follow Before, then better to historicize, and stop the pretension? the fellow really thinks, that a comment to edit the article and not tag and delete, is an insult. so there is some pride to build on, he is superior; i worry more about the others who for instance say User:Starzynka should register with the bot committee Bots/Requests for approval/Town bot because "Cut-and-pasting a boilerplate template is semi-automation as far as I'm concerned". pure cynicism. Accotink2 talk 00:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE is limited to nominating articles for deletion. For content it's trickier. The policy is WP:V "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. " The less innocuous the content, the more it applies. The basic problem is the accepted policy of BRD--do whatever you want, if someone doesn't like it they can revert, and then you discuss. This only works when people are willing to discuss with the intention of reaching a good faith agreement on who is right or else a compromise. That does happen here, but those are not the ones I tend know about. Personally, I think the basic BRD policy is a mistake, and promotes aggressive responses--I would make it PDE, Propose--Discuss--Edit. That is however not likely to happen. DGG ( talk ) 01:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Biography of an academic

• Michael G. Horowitz (AfD discussion)

You and your lurkers may like to give this nearly invisible AFD discussion the love and attention that it deserves. Uncle G (talk) 12:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• until about a year ago I was able to systematically check every AfD. But then the BLP wars began,,,
  • Well you can clearly put that one down as BLP work on your timesheet, given events. ☺ It was sitting, unloved, right at the bottom of a per-diem page. Uncle G (talk) 14:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes; one of the problems I have with the BLPprod procedure is that I see it used when it is more appropriate to use speedy. DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Just for clarification: Do you mean that you see a few biographies retained longer than they should be? Uncle G (talk) 10:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I have a quick look at most BLPprods, categorise many of them, decline at least 10% and occasionally delete some as speedies. I would say that a steady trickle of borderline not quite notables pass through the process, yes this means they last ten days as opposed to either being deleted A7 in hours or AFD in 7 days, but I see no great harm in that, they still get deleted and if I were one of their subjects I would rather my Wikipedia article was deleted for being unsourced than because I was unimportant or not notable. I also occasionally delete unsourced negative BIOs per G10, probably between 1 and 2 % of the BLPprods - usually unsourced bios of pornstars as opposed to blatant attack pages, but from the dearth of people coming back to me and offering to source them I suspect many are attack pages or unsourceable. ϢereSpielChequers 11:25, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Perhaps the problem is that people can't add a Speedy template and a BLP Prod at the same time. I sometimes find something while stub-sorting where I'd love to be able to say, in effect "I reckon this merits speedy deletion, but as it's also unsourced BLP it would qualify for that process if it fails speedying." Speedy is better as it gets rubbish out of the encyclopedia faster, but BLP Prod is perhaps more reliable as it's more easily and incontrovertibly demonstrated. Yes, I could watchlist the article and come back and BLP prod it when the speedy fails, but life's too short and watchlist's too long: I'd have to remember what the problem was. Ah, an idea: perhaps a commented-out {{BLP prod}} alongside a speedy? Might try. PamD (talk) 11:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
          • I would hope that anyone declining a speedy on an unsourced BLP would either tag it as an unsourcedBLP or BLPprod it. If you are in doubt as to whether A7 or BLPprod applies then in my view it is better to use BLPprod. If you want to be safe re A7s then you could add both an A7 tag and an unreferencedBLP, There are lists of newly tagged new unreferenced BLPs and people watching them to make sure they get BLPprods, so unless someone simply detaggs it I'm fairly confident that it won't last long without being referenced or deleted. ϢereSpielChequers 15:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
            • I'm still interested in what DGG meant. (And don't forget to look down ⇓ if you want a change of pace.) Uncle G (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I very much hope that when declining a speedy or prod, whoever does this makes sure that appropriate problem templates are present, and, ideally, that the ed. who started the article is notified that problems still remain. Unfortunately, this is not the case and, as WereSpielChequera says, we need to rely on their being caught by others. (to quickly see some that needed secondary catching but were caught, look at Prodsum for articles despeedied even by admins, without the necessary tags being added) But I do not share the confidence that we actually do catch all or nearly all of them, something which is not easy to determine. The only related measure of this is the number of BLPs that are sourced, but poorly sourced. These are articles that have been tagged, though not fully followed up, and I suppose a favorable sign is that the number is constant, not increasing.

As for how to deal with articles, the most serious problems should be dealt with first. If an article should be speedied under A10 or G12, and is incapable of a quick fix, that should take precedence. (Any carefully written laudatory article needs a check for copyvio.) Therefore, the errors I am most concerned about is failure to remove abuse or copyvio, and the prods , including BLP prods, that I am most concerned about are those done when either of the above is in question, for they leave actually harmful material in the encyclopedia longer than necessary. After that, every option needs to be considered. I deplore the use of excessive problem templates, but the failure to use necessary ones is probably even more harmful. (While we're on this, I consider the use of prominent templates for minor problems a very bad error, and I am in particular thinking of the orphan template. Yes, we need to build the net, but there are a lot of other things more important, such as sourcing and NPOV. Placing minor problems at the head of an article diminishes concentrating on those major ones. Problems that need not be called to immediate attention but serve mainly to put the article in a category for further work should go on the talk page.) DGG ( talk ) 00:11, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

2011

Osama Ali Gasm Alla

I removed the speedy tag for Osama Ali Gasm Alla because the subject passes WP:ATHLETE. However, because he is from Sudan, there is a severe lack of reliable sources about him. I looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sudan but none of the members are active and the talk page has been inactive for months. I am afraid that someone will place a {{subst:Prod blp}} tag on the article. What can be done to rescue this article? Cunard (talk) 11:03, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I see very many like this on prod, and I can often source myself the ones from some countries, and sometimes I do, but Africa almost always defeats me, & I rarely try. I notified the author on his talk p. using a variation of my usual notice, that unless he completes it, it will not be kept. We simply have too few people from the area who are willing to work on articles like this. Perhaps the best course is to merge the information into an article for the team, but it would still need some kind of source. The dream is that we can do everything--and perhaps we can, but not right now. DGG ( talk ) 21:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC) .

It is unfortunate that sources for African articles are difficult to find. It only furthers the systemic bias on Wikipedia.

Thank you for your comment on the author's page. I wonder how s/he found the information. Perhaps there were some Arabic sources or offline sources about this person? Cunard (talk) 08:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yael S. Feldman

Might I suggest:

1. Using a proper citation - surely you know how to do that
2. Ensuring that, when referencing an unreferenced BLP, you actually reference it rather than simply adding more data
3. Clear your talkpage. It took me longer to scroll down the contents page than it did to tag the article you just "saved" pointing out how many problems you've not only left it with but created.

Regards, Ironholds (talk) 04:00, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Let me explain how I work. I am working exactly as I said I would at my RfA three years ago--trying to rescue as many rescuable articles as possible, while deleting the hopeless ones I encounter along the way. In order to do this, I most often do the minimum for each article to make it acceptable for other people to develop further.

In rescuing BLP prods, I add one or two references to verify the essential elements of notability. Since any citation format is acceptable, I give the minimum information needed to find the item in print format if it exists as well as online. (When I add to an article with an established form, I do it the way it was done there, but with the sort of articles I mostly work with, that's rarely the case. I know it may seem odd for a librarian not to care about citation format, but then as a librarian I know what is enough to unambiguously identify the material, and I certainly know not to do more work than necessary for the purpose. If fewer articles were nominated for deletion without any attempt to search them, I could spend more time on the details, but it's all I can do to keep up with the essentials. The expired PROD list is backing up, both regular prods and BLP prods, I've been checking as many as I can , and, as usual, deleting about half of them. For the Feldman article , I first checked his publications in a RS enough to show he would likely meet WP:PROF, and added the major ones. I verified their existence and that he wrote them from the standard source for the purpose, and gave a reference to it. Since his publications are the basis of his notability, I did enough to keep the article. It does need reviews of the books, & the addition of his papers and the cites to them, & I hope someone will do them. You could, for example, instead of complaining that I didn't.

as for my talk page, you're absolutely right. But you didn't have to scroll through--you can select the bottom item on the table of contents and jump to the end. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Yael Feldman is a "she". ;-) The article should be OK now. I've expanded and referenced it. There are multiple reviews of her work in journals, but JSTOR is down at the moment. Even so, I've managed to get hold of some journal articles about her work elsewhere and added them as references. I think the original author had lost heart after starting the article. Ironically, her final version before she blanked the page and tried to move it unsuccessfully to her user page was referenced, albeit with only a primary source. See [16]. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• No, DGG, you're misunderstanding. That's what I did - the content's section is over 200 entries long. Scrolling past that took me a while. In regards to your "do as little work as necessary" approach, our goal is not to rescue every article that can be rescued; it's to rescue every article that can be rescued and strive to hold those articles to a certain standard. An experienced administrator not only failing to reference any of the information in the article at the time he found it but instead adding new information and referencing that with a single raw URL (and WorldCat, of al things?) is not you protecting articles for Truth, Justice and the American Way, it is you being lazy. It would have taken you 2 seconds to pull out refTools and format that properly. And yes, I could clear up after you without letting a single comment escape from betwixt my lips, but despite your Inability To Ever Be Wrong, I still have a tiny vestige of hope that you might learn something. "Work Smart, Not Hard" is not an invitation to work lazy. Ironholds (talk) 13:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Both of our goals are to rescue any article that can meet "a certain standard". My goal defines that standard as" the potential to be improved enough to keep in Wikipedia." I make no excuse for not trying for a higher goal. I've chosen to do the rough work of cleaning up the lowest layer because of the occasional raw gem that is there. If I can get the gem out, others will do the polishing. There are a great many who are willing to work on an article once the article is out of the muck, but not that many willing to go down in the muck in the first place--and most who do go down there concentrate primarily on getting out the muck, & only secondarily on rescuing what might be in it. I concentrate on pulling out what's possible, and secondarily removing a great deal of real junk that surrounds it. As for that article, the only critical thing about for articles on professors is that there is verifiable evidence of possibly passing WP:PROF as an expert in their field--in this case, the minimum is that he wrote several books from first rate academic publishers. That's what needed immediate Verification, & that's what I did. First I had to find what books he wrote, since the article omitted even that, and then prove he wrote them. I then put in the WorldCat link to the books he wrote. It was not a bare link to WC, but the specific one to his books. The footnote just had the url, but it was clear from the in-text attribution -- see WP:INTEXT -- that it was from WC and referred to the books. As for ref style, the guideline WP:CITE says ", While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed." and "Editors are free to use any method for inline citations " My only real fault was I should of course have given the link for each book individually. Otherwise, citation was correct as written except I didn't include the ISBN in the data, & should have added the word "WorldCat" in the external link brackets so it would be visible. The current version by Voceditenore also puts everything except the ISBN in the text, and uses the ISBN as an internal link to [[[Book sources]]. It's an excellent alternative that some people prefer. I prefer to always link directly to the bibliographic record instead, thus saving the user a step. And what's wrong with worldCat for that--it's the most useful of the various single bibliographic at this point, because it gives extensive holdings, thus providing information about the perceived importance of the book . Some don't like it because the listings have an Anglo-American bias, but it does list some holdings world-wide. I could link to the LC record (which is where the world-cat record generally comes from) but that doesn't give any indication of how many libraries hold it. I could link to Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, including WorldCat as one of the searched libraries, but it does not go to a single unique record. If one wants fuller holdings in other countries, the worldcat ISBN is enough to find items in the other union catalogs. There is no single place which provides total world holdings everywhere. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Re blp prod at Sulev Kannike

Hello DGG. Having read your statement above I'd like to point out that for one I see nothing wrong in prodding unsourced BLP articles and thus informing the author of the relevant WP policy – even though I could have searched for sources myself. That way the authors of such articles who are most often new to Wikipedia are told in a friendly but consequent way that there are certain standards to obey. By inserting missing sources myself and afterwards telling the author that such sourcing is actually required there is always the risk that new editors regard this as a free service and won't care too much about writing profound articles themselves. Moreover I like to think that I'm experienced enough as a WP editor to decide what to prod and what to accept without comment while patrolling new pages.

The real problem in this matter are automated scripts like Twinkle or Huggle that regularly keep missing non-standard sections like "Sources" or "External links" in BLP articles and slap a prod on it even though such articles may have valid sources. Regards, De728631 (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Response

1 I absolutely see a good deal wrong in BLP Prodding unsourced articles when the person is specified as a public figure of sufficient importance that they will have easily findable sources. (This man is Latvia's ambassador to NATO, & there were dozens of excellent sources under his name as given, in English, in Google News Archive, which is as easy as it gets in finding sources ) This is especially true because some admin feel they have no obligation to check , either, before deletion. This reduces the human work on BLP prod to the dimensions of two particularly dumb bots, checking an article for the presence of formal elements without reading it, let alone understanding it. That's fine for placing a notice; it is not fine for deletion. WP:Deletion Policy applies to all deletion procedures: deletion is the last resort. The very best alternative to deletion for unsourced articles is to source them, and everybody working here has a obligation to help in doing this at al least a little as occasion offers when they see an article, and as resources and time permits. I don't consider everyone has anything like the obligation to do this the way I do: it is the main thing I do here, and an important one of the purposes for which I joined in the first place was to improve WP's referencing; I have access to a little more resources than some people; I can work at least minimally in a number of languages; I have greater skill in using even elementary resources than most and certainly have greater patience in using then; and I have the librarian's ability to make an accurate guess whether or not sources are likely. An appropriate minimal effort anyone can do is looking in Google News Archive or whatever similar search engine might be appropriate under the name given--it's even built into the automated notice.The way I work on the problem BLPs:

In some fields I no longer attempt to source some fields because they interest me less, and a very large percentage of the unsourced articles in those fields are in fact unsustainable even if sourced: popular entertainment, and sports. At the start of BLPO prod i tried to do them all, but I found myself without time to do anything else.

People writing an unsourced bio are often here to add the one article with no intention of doing anything else. They;'re not even likely to see the notice, and if the person is important, but not very important, it offers our one practical chance to get the article . If someone looks like they intend to continue, or their edit history indicates they intend to continue, they need instruction. Instruction is best administered in a friend but firm manner, not by threatening people. The automatic template does an altogether wrong job of it--though it makes an attempt to be informal and positive,it is still obviously an automated notice,with the expected negative connotations, and people have learned to ignore them beyond grasping the general import--I doubt anyone ever reads it through. If I think it will be of any actual value, I leave a message explaining that while I did it, they must do it properly in the future, telling them what is needed, in terms focussing on their particular article to show I have indeed read it personally, and making it clear that otherwise the articles run a considerable risk of deletion otherwise--it seems to communicate properly about half the time, which is pretty good for any sort of notice. For sever cases I have something stronger, for example:

Advice and Warning

As the reviewing administrator for these deletions, I need to offer you some advice. We are very glad to have articles about footballers from all countries, but they MUST have references. If they have appeared in games on the highest level national league---which is the basic requirement for them to have articles in Wikipedia-- there should always be references in the relevant national newspapers --usually easily findable in Google News and Google News Archive. There should also be a discussion or at least a listing of them in the web site for their team, and a listing in the general football web sites. These references need to be added, and they need to be added at the very beginning.

Sometimes I have been able to check articles like these before deletion and add at least one necessary reference, but I cannot promise always to have the time to do so--and football is not one of the subjects in which I have the most personal interest. It is not my responsibility to do this, nor the responsibility of anyone here but yourself. If you can write the article in the first place , you surely have the references in front of you when you are doing so, in order to get the names right and add the key statistics. That's when to do it! It is unfair to expect others to fill in what you can do so easily. I expect that you will start doing this, otherwise you may find that you are wasting your efforts, because the articles will get deleted. I have other responsibilities, and it is taking too much of my available time here to do your work for you,when there are so many other things that need fixing. In particular, I am not going to work further on the currently nominated articles. If you want them kept, work on them yourself.

Sometimes it doesn't work and they continue. Then I'll give a formal 4th level warning, which usually stops them. If not, I have blocked if they add so many that it amounts to disruption.

2. I am also concerned with developing new editors and removing the barriers to increased participation. One of the foundation priorities this year, at general request, is increasing the number of editors, Not discouraging them at the initial entry is critically important--the foundation's research surveys as well as individual complaints have shown that having an article rejected is extremely likely to prevent any further attempt, no matter what reassuring messages are sent. It is unreasonable to expect most new editors to get everything right initially. Therefore they must be taught, but taught in such way that everything practical is done to get their articles improved if improvement is possible—and in cases where it is not, that personal non-threatening actually helpful advice is given. The existing BLP Prod process , and all other deletion processes, is neither friendly nor helpful. In cases where it appears an article is possible, the new editor needs help in doing it properly, not just a warning to do it. In cases where it appears the article is hopeless, the editor needs an explanation why--with respect to that particular article, not in general terms--and guidance in finding more useful work to do here,

I find, as do most teachers, that a very good way to provide help is by example. In case of unsourced articles, that means adding at least one reference and explaining that more are needed., and where to find them. Nobody can be expected to understand initially either why we need sources, or what we consider acceptable sources, especially for biographies. Those of us with experience here need to share it. This is a community project.

The problem is primarily the people here. We can expect bots to be stupid. DGG ( talk ) 18:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment

Thanks a lot for explaining your thoughts on the BLP process. It seems that we have two oppoosing views on the benefits of templates here. Let me note that in my opinion the current BLP prod template message is by no means a threatening "warning" like the standard vandalism messages ("please stop or you will face consequences"). Instead the BLP prod message is a neutral notification that has even a disclaimer included not to take anything personal but to improve the article in question and how to do it. It has also an icon which makes it more noticeable than a text-only message written by an editor. Therefore I see it absolutely fit to serve as a helpful means in improving the skills of new editors. Of course we can address anyone without any templated messages but as you put it I mostly "find myself without time to do anything else." My approach is to mark problematic new articles while patrolling the new pages list and then leave the rest of the work to the experts and/or the author. Of course not without giving advice to the new editors but mostly in form of the standard template message. And I have in fact gotten feedback to various template messages where people asked for further guidance. That's the usual point where I start "personal" communication. Speedy deletion messages on the other hand are something else. E.g. for insignigicant bands or recordings I tend to add an explanation to the template message in the line of "WP has certain rules on the importance of musicians and albums. Please see WP:Music" etc. And from my experience this is either understood and people do come up with sources (of any quality) or they choose to ignore every communication. De728631 (talk) 17:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

In many respects we are both trying to do the same thing. & often use the same methods. We both do, yo often personalize the existing messages, which is a reasonable solution in many cases; I wish more people would do this, and what you say encourages me to try to personalize them more often--and to do it by shortening them--the longer the message, the less of it people read. Improved ways of communicating like sre important but are not what this discussion is basically about.

What I said I find myself without time to do, is to personally source all the new unsourced BLP articles--another order of magnitude entirely. The only good solution as we all agree is for people to source their own. Responsibility asides, they usually have the source in front of them at the time they write, for they usually add specific details that nobody really memorizes except when doing shameless autobio. Nobody else can match this later--what would take anyone else time to find, they have immediately. And even if they have only an inadequate source, it's at least a good starting point. Where I differ from you is in two areas fo emphasis:

First, we need not to reject articles on really important people, even if unsourced, but to source them. I usually patrol 24 to 48 hours before the ending time. The ed. has had 8 or 9 days, and if by that time they haven't done it I decide whether it's worth trying--which depends upon the stated importance. So you might have a point in giving them the window first--but this would only be so if all admins actually checked and sourced where important or necessary at the end; however, of the ones who patrol BLP prod, most do not--they work mechanically. using justifications such as yours. There's a level of importance where sI do not take the chance of that happening--where if I find an article on someone important enough at any point, I add at least a single decent source to keep the article alive. I do not want to miss such people: they're too important to our users. I yesterday added an article on an exceptionally distinguished member of the National Academy of Sciences who had received a major appointment, but nobody had written an article about. This does not surprise me any longer, but right after that I saw an article on BLP Prod about another member of the NAS reach the 8th day.

The 'second point is even more important--more critical than having or not having any article, is retaining a contributor. More basic even than educating them, is to keep them around long enough to be educated. Surveys have shown that most people who get a negative notice never return again, and I think it would almost as bad if we had the politest possible negative notices. This is spiraling us downhill into disaster--at least the disaster of stagnation, though we should have enough people to avoid total extinction. True, it's necessary to eliminate junk--but it is so much easier to remove junk than to retain a contributor. I've deleted 12,000 articles so far in 4 years as an admin, and saved only about 10% of that, while all that time I've been able to rescue at most 100 ,(about 1% of that number) of contributors, contributors whom other editors and admins have discouraged. I work in outreach also, but my chapter is happy when we can reach the goal of one new active contributor per meeting. And only a few percent of those who take classes in the Ambassador program continue, And that's with most teachers having their class write offline in order to avoid the negativity. Such is not a method of communal writing, and does not teach the wiki way way working, where the goal of communal writing is everyone who sees an article doing something to improve it, not just to tell someone else to improve it.

My priority is people: first the people already here, because being here we must cooperate, and second the newcomers, and only then articles and article content.I think for too many people its the other way round, that they think tolerating borderline articles to keep the contributors so they'll stay with us and write better articles to be improper. I must live with them here, because they are unfortunately a majority, no matter how destructive i think them. The hope is that new people will be increasing aware of this and dilute those. we won't be able to eliminate.

I accept there are more than one valid way to make an encyclopedia , and to look at articles. No one has to agree with my way, & I think none the less of them. But I do not accept working in a way that discourages newcomers for the sake of quality, which will leave us a nice clean fossil, and those who would do that I cannot agree with and I will try as hard as hard as I effectively can to diminish their influence. DGG ( talk ) 13:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

BLP Youtube personalities

Hey, am back with query once again, are youtube personalities notable enough to get on WP ? Please help me out over here GloZell_Green and check this message. Thanks. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 18:12, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

it depends , as always, on references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Almost always all material about them is on the internet in the form of blogs of some sort; the question is then what sort of blogs count as reliable for the purposes of notability. In the past, Wikipedia has been notably restrictive in this, but as more and more other responsible sources appear in this format, things are changing. There's a subsidiary question in each particular case of whether the coverage in the references is substantial, but that's essentially the same question as with references in any media, and amounts to a question of judgement. Such judgements can depend not on the merits but on what one wishes to prove, since often each position can be justified. The prevailing attitude, which to some measure I share, is extreme skepticism. I summarize it by saying that for someone to be notable, they have to have actually done something notable -- in the ordinary meaning of the word.

but this case is simple with respect to notability: the deleted article on Green had no third party sources whatsoever. I doubt anyone who understands Wikipedia would support it at an AfD unless better sources could be found. However, it was deleted via A7, and the criterion for A7 is not notability, nor is it whether the article would be accepted into Wikipedia, but some reasonable indication or claim of importance. The question is whether the claims there are such. I consider them borderline. The person certainly thinks what they've done is important. I do not, but I can recognize that a person might think so in good faith. Myself, I might or might not have A7'd. Given that I know I have a prejudice against such careers, I might have passed on it & let some other admin decide. In any case, I have a standard practice for a questioned A7 speedy like this: first I give the fairest advice I can, which in this case is that without real sources it will surely be rejected in its present form, so it would be best to submit it again once there are sources; and then, if the person still wants me to, I undelete and send it to AfD (they rarely do, if I give the advice clearly enough). It's easier than arguing. If I was right, it'll be deleted, and there will be grounds for a G4 in case of the almost inevitable re-creation. (The only problem is that sometimes it might not be a good faith article, in which case the subject deserves to be protected against the negative comments at AfD. That's not the case here--they want the publicity. The previous speedy of a much sketchier version was deleted on A7 and G11, something I also do a good deal. I might have done that here.)

The case is not helped , of course, by the comparison that's made to Jenna Marbles, which has several good third party sources, and would almost certainly pass AfD. When someone says , but X has an article, there are three possibilities. Most commonly, X is famous, and then almost always the proposed subject is hopelessly non-notable & the claim is absurd—naïve but well-meaning editors argue this a lot, often for self-published authors. Also common, is that X is in fact borderline notable at best, and quite possibly should be deleted also—spammers often use this argument & there's an obvious course to follow, which usually stops their questioning, though it will hardly satisfy them. But, rarely, it is a reasonable protest: either we are generally inconsistent in the area involved, in which case it should go to AfD, to take its chances in the coin toss, or there actually was an error in evaluating X. DGG ( talk ) 00:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

2012

Your thoughts

Hi.

Per my recent comments at user talk:Jimbo Wales, I'm considering starting a discussion to create a new Wikimedia Wiki solely for persons (BLPs). The basic definition would be that a person is included if they are/were a human being who was alive at some point upon the earth. This would also include categories and templates which specifically deal with persons.

Some things I've already considered:

• We'd need a follow up RfC to consider how to handle people of legend and/or antiquity.
• We'd need to define the difference between a group of individual persons and the group as an entity: e.g. Members of the Beatles. And the "entity" the Beatles.

What would you see as the negatives and positives of doing this? - jc37 00:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

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there is no more reason for doing this for BLPs as for any other subject. If anything, there's less, because of the implication for fairness and undue weight & our other BLP considerations--and, carried to the extent you suggest, for privacy. (Though I suppose this could be alleviated by removing any article the subject objected to, or even requiring their consent--but this raises the problemsof NPOV, as subjects would only want to stay in if the article were favorable). I have supported a Wikipedia Two - an encyclopedia supplement where the standard of notability is much relaxed, but which will be different from Wikia by still requiring WP:Verifiability, and NPOV. It would include the lower levels of barely notable articles in Wikipedia, and the upper levels of a good deal of what we do not let in. But even notability would be relaxed, not eliminated. For people, since this is your example, it would include such as college athletes and political candidates and vice-presidents of notable companies. It would, in return, apply a higher standard for those in the main Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 00:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Motivations for doing this split aside, what would you see as the positive or negative effects if this was indeed implemented? - jc37 00:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was clear from what I said. I used "reason" not to mean motivation but to mean rationale or justification. To expand, we did this , the negatives are so destructive that they overwhelm any positives: First, there is the opportunity for violations of privacy, undue emphasis on the negative, and unfairness--all of which can be counterbalanced only by abandoning NPOV and letting individuals approve their own articles. We would have either an attack site, or personal advertisements, not an encyclopedia. The justification for some standards of notability include having articles limited to what people are interested enough in to keep neutral. We have enough problems of this sort already, and extreme difficulty in handling them. We should not try to do what we cannot control. NPOV is more important than inclusiveness. The advantage for the existing encyclopedia would be having a place to put the barely notable, but there would be just as many arguments over whether people pass the line wherever it was located. The advantage for the world in general would be provision of information, counterbalanced by the fact that it would be unreliable. The additional argument is that there is no reason for doing this for people as distinct from other subjects--if we were to reduce the notability standard to zero it should be in another field where the loss of NPOV would not be as important to individuals. A much more rational approach is more realistic and more inclusive standards based on observable facts, not details of sourcing. And even for this, the limiting factor is RS and NPOV and V. Some think even our current standards so low they make these a danger; I don't agree that they have a general case, but they have had one in more than a few specific instances. DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC) .

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I think I may have miscommunicated something here. When I was speaking of the criteria, I meant criteria for what should be split from here, not what would be the criteria for inclusion of new information. Sorry for the confusion. Of course NPOV/V/NOR would apply. And also with BLP in place, the inclusion criteria of information would be at least as stringent as it is here on en.wp.

What I'm asking for are your thoughts on the effects of the split. Sorry for the confusion. - jc37 01:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, I totally misunderstood!

What you are suggesting is to remove BLPs from WP and move them to a co-ordinate project. I've read the relevant section of Jimbo's talk p., which is talking about the difficulty with admin and editor recruitment and retention. I do not see the connection with your proposal, and at that point you do not explain the suggested benefits. Myself, I see none at all. I don't even see the possibility of avoiding damage to individuals. I deal with school articles, where individuals can be damaged just as much on articles not avowedly about people. (and, as we know, therefore the special BLP guidelines apply to all articles whether or not primarily about an individual). and I deal with many promotional articles, where it;'s become routine for the PR editor to write an article about both the company and the person, sometimes with almost complete duplication of content. Remove the one on the person, and there is still the promotionalism. Or take articles on bands: though I do not work there, I know our current N:MUSIC rules says to cover the musician in the band article if they were only in one band, so with this as an example, I don't see the point about groups of people being any different from people. I can't say I see any specific harm, except the artificial split where people tend to look for both sorts of topic. I know I do, and I know that in working here i work on articles in the same way regardless of the type of subject. There is an advantage in having one big encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 03:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've done a fair amount of reading of the reasons behind SUL, and I think we may see more splitting, not less. Right now, the goals are to clean up the other projects (there's a lot of left over messes at meta, for example). But once that is done....

See, the idea is that all the same-language projects should be more interconnected. After all, all it takes to wikilink to en.wiki is wp:.

All the rest of your concerns can easily be dealt with in the new project's own policies/guidelines.

As for blp information that's in articles, I think much of that is due to mergist/notability sentiments ("the person isn't notable of their own accord, so let's put the info in another article" aka BHTT/BTTH). And with a separate wiki, I think we'll see more of that there, than here. And of course we would still have WP:BLP here.

As you may have guessed, I've literally spent years thinking about this. But I am just one person. And I'm a firm believer in many eyes. the more people looking over something, the better : ) - jc37 04:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The reasons for SUL are pretty obvious, to encourage people to work cross project. (It had the downside of preventing us from requiring roman alphabet usernames, but that's a relatively minor consideration.) The other en projects are a problem. I agree they should be more connected, but what they need most is to be of higher quality. I have never understood the reason for the distinction between Wikibooks and Wikiversity--and to be the intuitive meaning of the names is the opposite of the actual only: to me __university implies the project with the more advanced material. Wikinews needs a clearer role--it is more of a newsmagazine than a newspaper, because for actually breaking events, Wikipedia does it better because of our much higher participation. Wikiquote has a special niche, but there is nothing there which could not be integrated here. The distinction between Wiktionary and Wikipedia strikes me as artificial: words have meanings, and meanings are suitable subjects for articles--we should be able to write a valid article for every word in Wiktionary. Wikisource has a role, overlapping non-WMF projects, but it needs to be integrated with discussions of the works included. If anyone wants to combine any of these, I'll support it.

But I still do not see the basic reason why you should want to separate the information on people: you have not yet given anything which I would consider a reason or an advantage. If we start doing that, perhaps we should separate the information on places, and the information of works of art, and the information on products, and the information on companies, and on sports, and on chemicals, and biological organisms, and medicine, & so on until we have an encyclopedia of only very general articles on very general topics -- which I suppose would amount to an encyclopedia on philosophy. I don't see a reason. It defies the very concept of an encyclopedia, to encompass all of knowledge.

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(edit conflict)As a pure coincidence, schools, colleges, bios (especially the sport ones that are allowed to be 'notable' based on a single listing on a club website, where notable academics have to fight for their existence on Wikipedia), and rappers, are the bane of my work here too. My private thought for a long time has been that all those one-line, one-ref sport bios should be split off to a WikiSport site. Corporate spam masquerading as articles also makes me furious, especially when it written by paid-for PR people or even our own editors. We as volunteers should not be providing fee help for adverts.

However, such splits will never happen, and there is no technical argument for them. Moreover, keeping everything in one place will at least help ensure that whatever criteria we do have are upheld and maintained by a diversity of experienced editors and admins. What needs to be done are three things:

• Bring the different BLP notability standards into alignment.
• Insist that NPP is wholly carried out by suitably experienced editors.
• Provide a proper landing page for newly registered users that clearly and concisely tells them what we want or can accept here. Unfortunately, the Article creation Work Flow that was promised by the Foundation over a year ago has been shelved as being of little priority. The last news several weeks ago was that it is being 'revisited'. I can't really understand why such as project is of such low priority because it would largely resolve all these issues in one sweep - including editor retention..

The problem is that once the Foundation adopts (or even usurps) a community driven project, although the volunteers are allowed to voice their opinions, they have very little real say in how the program advances. This is particularly true with the issues surrounding the NewPagesFeed, and the community's NPP Survey that was designed to shed some light on the actual quality of page patrolling. Among the tens of thousands of regular editors are many competent professional computer programmers, and it does not help community relations when the Foundation claims, as it did yesterday, that the only 'proper' devs are those who are salaried by the WMF. IMHO, those paid individuals might well be highly skilled coders, but they may have very little actual experience of editing and policies and knowledge of the true needs of both editors and readers. We've seen this with all the fuss, time, and funds dedicated to AfT - the results of which have not in any way contributed to an improvement in the current issues. All it does is feed the minds of the stats obsessed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I have my own wishlist also. It is different from yours, though there are some overlaps. At this point, I'm concerned more about process than content. I would enforce WP:NPA as the first step: we need good people who combine writing and subject ability with the qualities necessary to work in our cooperative environment--the place for even the most knowledgable people if they want to work otherwise is elsewhere. . I would require notifying people of things that affect their work. I would require explanations. I would require personal messages, not templates. I would require if I could some way of showing that someone read an article before commenting on it. and, as something actually feasible, I would devote WMF funding to making all available sources available to Wikipedia editors in all languages, as the most critical use of their surpluses. (& as a practical matter, if the WMF won't do it--as I doubt they will, for they seem indifferent or unaware of the method of Wikipedia, which is to have sourced encyclopedic content--I intend to help raise the money elsewhere) Most radically, I would ban promotional editors even at the cost of giving up anonymity, for I se no other practical way for continuing to enforce NPOV. As that's not very likely, I'd instead enforce higher standards on the articles they are most likely to write about, standards that few of those currently here have any likelihood of meeting. And I'd no longer fix their articles, but treat them like we do copyvio & work of banned editors, as things to be done over by someone else.

In terms of content, most of the things I would improve coverage on are those in which I am interested, and most I would restrict those I do not care about. I can give good reasons, but such an exact match makes me aware of my need to examine my motivations. I would start, as I've often said, by discarding the GNG as obsolete, being suited only to the state of the internet 10 years ago & the limited research abilities of most of then active Wikipedians. I would then as much as possible establish abstract quantifiable standards. I've said enough elsewhere of what I would like them to be, but I'd accept almost everything as better than a process where the actual distinction depends upon quibbles of what we want to consider a RS.

Ideally, I'd rework the concept of "article" into re-assemblable chunks of information, thus eliminating the concept of notability entirely, for there would be no distinction between articles and subarticles. We have not yet realized the possibilities provided by our being hypertext, not paper. I'd see us expand into a fully semantic wiki, with multiple displayable versions (the problem here is that this requires a manner of writing that few here have mastered).

And I'd hold at all costs to our principles, such as freedom from censorship, and verifiability, and covering all of human knowledge. I wouldn't compromise these, any more than I would compromise the ultimate purpose of an educated public. I'd encourage derivatives, including peer-reviewed expert derivatives--I'd refound Citizendium the way it should have been done, as an expertly reviewed revision of Wikipedia articles. I see WP not as an end in itself, but a demonstration for what can be done by free culture. As the truly fundamental concept, I believe in developing human freedom and capabilities. DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

and now it's time to go to bed again, but I'm glad I woke up to respond to this. I'm human, and if I do more, it will have to be tomorrow. ` DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)