| Revision as of 16:00, 25 July 2015 editLegobot (talk | contribs)Bots1,668,592 edits Removing expired RFC template.← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 00:16, 1 January 2025 edit undoSome1 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers16,018 edits →Proposed addition to BLP guidelines | ||
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| == Proposed addition to ] == | |||
| == Court records, question? == | |||
| I originally raised this at ] but TransporterMan wrote: | |||
| "This isn't the right place to ask questions about how to apply Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines; this page is for discussion of how to change or improve this rule. For questions of that sort use the reliable sources noticeboard or, in this case, the biographies of living persons noticeboard." | |||
| So, this is a general question about the use of court records, but for concreteness, with a specific example. | |||
| I wrote: | |||
| This is a question about the usability of court records. | |||
| Misplaced Pages has pages for me, ] and Edward Wegman ]. | |||
| I have never edited either of these pages and have zero intent to do so, but I am interested in getting clarification, as the generally well-intentioned Misplaced Pages rules sometimes seem to forbid rock-solid real-world factual evidence. | |||
| My blog post is itself obviously not RS, but it attaches copies of online court records of lawsuits related to events described in both Misplaced Pages pages above. | |||
| Those are the files named 1-1.pdf - 20.pdf. pp.15-18 of (not RS of course) summarize the chronology, but also explain how to find the online records via PACER. | |||
| Of course, claims in court files easily may not be correct (and indeed, some of them are not), but ] is even stronger: | |||
| "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. '''Do not use''' trial transcripts and '''other court records''', or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." | |||
| That seems to mandate that even the following sentence would absolutely be disallowed. Is that true? | |||
| "Edward Wegman filed a $1M lawsuit against John Mashey 0n 03/10/14 in Fairfax Circuit Court in Virginia and his Wegman Report coauthor Yasmin Said filed another there 06/12/15. Both were removed to Federal Court 04/15/15, and on 04/30/15 they submitted voluntary dismissals of the combined case." ] (]) 06:04, 23 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Yes, that's correct, if there's no source meeting ] and the intent is to use only the court record itself, then it should not be included. Previous discussion at BLPN: . ] (]) 06:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :: Thanks. ] (]) 21:23, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| == Defining the term Contentious == | |||
| There have been a number of disputes, including one recent one at ] that have resulted from different interpretations of what '''Contentious''' means. This is particularly important as it applies to the ] section, because that section authorizes edit warring and ] admin actions where the material is contentious, when it would otherwise be prohibited. Because the definition is not clear, we end up with situations where some people believe an editor or admin has committed a serious policy violation, while others believe they followed policy. This RFC seeks to clarify the meaning going forward. While references to past conduct may be necessary for the discussion, the discussion is about how to resolve the issue moving forward, not the past conduct. ]] 15:53, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ===Proposed definition from Monty845=== | |||
| A claim about a living person should be considered contentious in either of two cases. First, if the claim is negative, or could be interpreted as being negative by some, it is contentious. Second, if there is a good faith dispute about the factual accuracy of the claim, it is contentious. | |||
| ;Discussion | |||
| * '''Support as proposer'''. This would cover anything that is potentially libelous and that could possibly be an attack on a living person. It would also give extra teeth to ] as applied to BLPs. But, when it comes to authorized edit warring, and ] admin actions, it would not apply to cases where someone is just demanding a source, but is not asserting that the claim in the article is factually inaccurate. ] would still permit the removal of unsourced material without a dispute over factual accuracy, but would not authorize the special enforcement mechanisms of ]. ]] 15:53, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' using this as the basic guideline (which I thought was already the guideline) and using ] for petty things that harm no one but just need sourcing for verification. ] - ] 16:12, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support'''. I'm not happy about "or could be interpreted as being negative by some", since as we well know, there are people who will push that envelope to include nearly everything, but agree with the thought behind it, and can't think of a better way to phrase it. So supporting lacking better alternative. --] (]) 16:23, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *:"or could be interpreted as being negative by some" to "or could be interpreted by a reasonable person". "Reasonable person" is a pretty standard measuring stick and doesn't require everyone agree, only that disagreeing could be seen as "reasonable". ] - ] 16:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::I considered phrasing it negative or inherently controversial, but you run into the same problem of creep as to what is inherently controversial. What I wanted to avoid was leaving room to argue that a term that was effectively an attack, was not negative. So for instance, as a community we would not consider homosexuality to be "negative", but if someone makes the claim that a living person is homosexual, it should be covered by BLPREMOVE, because such claims are often intended as an attack, and some people would consider it a negative trait, even if most of us wouldn't. ]] 16:38, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *I'm OK with this, but may propose something else. It isn't negative that someone has strong opinions on politics or religion, but in most circles those topics are controversial. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> | |||
| *I also think this is ok if it is changed to "or could '''reasonably''' be interpreted as being negative by some" (addition bolded) ] (]) 17:04, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' although I may suggest some tweaks to the wording later. ] ] 17:32, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Comment''' - this is reasonable, but ultimately, you can't legislate for cases where people are being unreasonable or acting in bad faith. ''Whatever'' gets written, the same problems with inevitably occur. ]<font color="FF8800">]</font> 17:36, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Nice try but''' I think it's way off the mark. First, being negative does not equate to something being contentious. The negativity is a potential source of contention, but it is not the same thing. ] is extremely short, and has a high ]. Such things are arguably negative, but not contentious. Someone might be described as gay, or straight, or Roman Catholic. Those things are not considered negative, but they may well be contentious. A good faith dispute over factual accuracy definitely does not make something contentious. It would have to be a fact that, if true, would cause harm to the person's public perception (or something like that). A dispute over a minor fact with neutral implications, or a dispute that though in good faith is not plausible and has no credence, does not make a fact contentious. - ] (]) 01:43, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * I think this is too sweeping. Undisputed, but negative, facts aren't contentious. For example, "] is a convicted criminal" is definitely negative, but it's not contentious, because nobody who has ever heard his name would ever disagree with that statement. ] (]) 03:36, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ** You're opposing something that goes halfway to where you want, because you want it to go further, and because of this will get nothing. --] (]) 13:30, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ***No, I oppose it because it goes six times as far as I think it should. ] (]) 23:50, 29 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''' the first case "if the claim is negative, or could be interpreted as being negative ...". '''' and ''negative'' have quite different meanings. (If you really want to keep it, the BLP section name should be "Remove negative material that is unsourced or poorly sourced".) ] (]) 12:30, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Comment'''. I've been reverted by people who had entirely unreasonable rationales. One person said, among other things, calling a notable Wikipedian an "active contributor" to the project was a BLP violation because "active" is impossible to quantify. I think we need some kind of protection against baseless claims of BLP violations, but I also think we need to set the bar a little lower for a contentious claim. There are contentious claims that are not negative. For example, unsourced personal details, such as birth dates, are regularly added to BLPs, and I have no clue whether the claim is true or not. I challenge more because it's unsourced than because I specifically think it's factually inaccurate. ] (]) 06:48, 27 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''strong oppose''' policy is clear that "contentious" ALSO applies to ''' "positive, neutral, or just questionable"''' - this would clearly gut policy. -- ] 00:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' defining ''contentious'', though I would like to remove "neutral." It sounds odd for something to be both contentious and neutral, and following it with "or just questionable" seems repetitive. I would prefer: "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive or just questionable – should be removed immediately ..." ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 00:53, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' per TheRedPenOfDoom.] (]) 17:27, 5 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' - per SlimVirgin ]<sup>]</sup> 😜 01:58, 8 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Strongly Oppose''' ditto ] (]) 07:53, 10 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Suppose'''. I understand why people are reluctant to define the term. However, I think that this is a pretty good, simple definition: negative or disputed. ] (]) 16:43, 10 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''' - per SlimVirgin and TheRedPenOfDoom - ] ] 00:04, 16 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose'''. It's a highly subjective test. What's negative? Is having a drug habit 'negative' or just neutral? How about being gay or being married to a person of a different race? There are people who think both of those are terrible evil things. What is 'negative' is extremely context specific—both at a societal and a personal level. To say that someone drinks a lot of alcohol would be 'negative' if it were, say, an evangelical Christian preacher, but pretty much expected for a professional stand-up comedian. I'm tempted to say that trying to solve this problem is close to impossible. Wikipedians have this curious habit of thinking that ]—but it just doesn't work like that. —] (]) 09:36, 17 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ===Proposed definition from Alanscottwalker=== | |||
| . A claim about a living person is usually considered contentious, where there is a good faith dispute that: the content is ]; the quality of the sourcing is sufficient/insufficient; or high quality sources are in disagreement concerning how to express the claim(s). (See also, ]). In addition, remember to avoid puffery and unfair or unsupported critique, and that 'getting it right', includes exactly how content maybe expressed. Also, keep in mind that ]. ] (]) 16:35, 25 June 2015 (UTC)] (]) 18:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)] | |||
| ;Discussion | |||
| *It's difficult to say all the ways something maybe contentious (which is probably why it's not been done) but the above gets to them better, in a way better suited to multiple contingencies. ] (]) 16:42, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''', as it comes closer to expressing the issue of poor sourcing.—](]) 16:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Strongly oppose''' Unless there is good-faith doubt as to accuracy, mere poor sourcing should not make a statement contentious. Remove "the quality of the sourcing is sufficient/insufficient" and this looks better. ] ] 17:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Mere poor sourcing should not make a statement contentious? Mere 'poor sourcing' already makes any BLP claim unsuitable, unverifiable, OR. There is little difference between, 'I know this is true' and 'this blog says, it's true'. But perhaps you read the proposal as 'only sources in the article' and not 'all high quality sources' but that seems either fixable, or that reading is not intended. ] (]) 17:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::Poor sourcing is sufficient cause for removal using normal processes, but not using the tools authorized under ] or ]. Those tools are for specific problems that reasonably can be expected to cause harm to a subject. We had an editor who kept insisting that a particular actor was divorced from his real spouse and now married to what I presume to be the stalker. That's not "X molests puppies" level of allegation, but it's still both untrue, unsourced, ''and hurtful'' to boot. ] (]) 17:58, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It's 'hurtful' to tell potential disinformation about living persons -- we guard against that by having 'high quality sources' - without a high quality source, it should never be there - so preventing it from being there, without a high quality source is just common sense. ] (]) 18:04, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Right, but the problem with this proposal is that you're defining '''known-accurate''' information as "contentious" with this statement. Under this proposal, if I write "Barack Obama is the current President of the United States", and I source it to some lousy blog, then you've defined the fact of Obama being the president as being "contentious". Using a lousy blog is a sourcing problem, but the claim that Obama is the current US president is not actually contentious, even when unsourced. ] (]) 03:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::No. It does not, define known accurate information as contentious See, "ususally" and "good faith dispute" ] (]) 23:28, 27 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I believe that you don't intend for it to be interpreted that way, but in practice, "usually" on a definition gets ignored. Also, under your exact wording, the good-faith dispute needs to cover only whether that source is sufficient, not whether the facts are accurate. ] (]) 23:53, 29 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Added potential bracket info to address the issue. ] (]) 18:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Oppose''' - contentiousness is a property of the fact about the person that is proposed for inclusion, not a property of Misplaced Pages editors disagreeing on how to edit an article. Undue, and interpreting the sourcing, are their own content rules. This particular section of BLP is about demanding high quality sources for claims that might hurt a person. If you collapse that to a requirement of having high quality sources it repeats the first half of the condition again, and it collapses into a simple sourcing question. - ] (]) 01:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Oppose''' Largely as per DESiegal and Wikidemon. But also, if people want to replace ''controversial'' with ''unsourced'' then they should make a case to do that. Otherwise we would be left with a misleading BLP policy, and misleading policy leads to bitten newbies. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 21:56, 28 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''oppose''' more wordy, more contorted and not any less subjective. Does anyone have a "good faith" meter? -- ] 00:51, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. Unnecessarily wordy and convoluted. Regretfully, as this from an editor I hold in high esteem. Perhaps it can be simplified? ] (]) 16:44, 10 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * ''' Oppose'''. This proposal obfuscates rather than clarifies. - ] ] 00:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ===Already existing essay that speaks to the matter from ]=== | |||
| * ] | |||
| <!-- ] 18:01, 31 December 2024 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1735668071}} | |||
| Mind you, that's five years old now, and I suspect, but don't have time to check, that the wording of ] has changed enough so that the underlying goal--avoidance of harm to real people--has been lost. Exactly how a possibly incorrect acting award could cause material enough harm to real people for an existing admin to justify edit warring in the name of BLP is a mystery to me... except that it's not, as we will always have rules lawyers here at Misplaced Pages, which is why I wrote the essay 5 years ago, before I was elected to Arbcom, and nothing that's happened in the intervening time, including serving on OTRS and handling dozens of BLP complaints from subjects, has changed my mind about the need to restrict BLP exemptions to edits that do actual or at least reasonably foreseeable harm. ] (]) 16:57, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| I propose the following text be added to WP:SUSPECT: | |||
| :''Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned on the ] of the encyclopdia until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal. Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law." | |||
| I have decided to post this as an RfC as this would involve a non-trivial amendment to ] and the issue has become a contentious point of debate involving several nominations at ]. -] (]) 17:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Clarification''': This proposal only applies to the main page of the encyclopedia, not to any specific articles. -] (]) 18:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' Misplaced Pages is not a news blotter and we have no need to be first to cover a story. Anything we can do to protect the presumption of innocence for BLPs is a good thing. Furthermore a clear and unambiguous policy regarding how to handle suspects of crime would avoid tedious debates about who constitutes a public person. ] (]) 17:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ;Discussion | |||
| *:One small question though: by the main page do you mean a BLP's article-space or do you mean the en dot wikipedia dot com landing page? ] (]) 18:09, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::I am referring to the ]. -] (]) 18:12, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::I see. I'd still support it but somewhat less enthusiastically. I would like us to stop reporting on in-process criminal proceedings altogether as inappropriate to the scope of an encyclopedia. Don't suppose you'd be willing to expand the proposed policy revision accordingly? ] (]) 18:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::I think that if somebody is actually convicted and it's major news, posting it at ITN is fine. I supported posting Donald Trump's conviction in the New York case. My objection is to putting unresolved allegations on the main page. There is a huge difference between mentioning widely reported criminal charges in somebody's BLP article and putting them on the front page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. But if you have a specific change in mind feel free to suggest it. -] (]) 18:23, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::Here's my pitch: replace the current text of WP:SUSPECT with, {{tq|A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal.}} | |||
| *:::::{{tq|Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law. If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, include sufficient explanatory information.}} ] (]) 18:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::::I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. But you can always add it as separate proposal for discussion underneath this one. -] (]) 18:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::::::Rather than having dueling RFCs could we suggest your text as an option 1 and mine as an option 2? That way, in cases like mine where I would support either but have a preference it's all in one place. ] (]) ] (]) 18:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::::::We already have several comments so I would be reluctant to materially alter the RfC. But I will add your suggestion below this. for discussion in its own right. -] (]) 18:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::::::The notion of appellate proceedings not having any bearing on the proceedings below is on its face contradictory. Also there are a variety of types of appellate proceedings, levels of appeal, and legal systems in which all these things play out, some of which of course don't even presume innocence or otherwise derogate from the general presumption. | |||
| *::::::You'd also, if you went forward with your green texted pitch, need an additional comma: after "criminal proceedings". ] (]) 22:26, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' Such allegations are going to be included in the BLP article in any such case where the conditions are in line with BLPCRIME. It makes no sense to then say that we should hide that from the main page if they are in the news, as long as the blurb is clear that they are only allegations or charges and not convictions. It ''does'' make sense to avoid including news items around such allegations when they are less news and more a due to the spectical around it (eg some of the jadedness editors have around Trump rings true here), but that's something that current ITN guidelines should handle, not a special exemption on BLP. <span id="Masem:1732644684600:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNBiographies_of_living_persons" class="FTTCmt"> — ] (]) 18:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)</span> | |||
| *'''Oppose''' - we can presume innocence while mirroring the reliable sources that choose to cover a story (or do ''not'' choose). Editors of main page processes currently have appropriate leeway to decide whether a legal case is prominent enough to be mentioned. ] <sup>]] ]]</sup> 18:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. The ongoing legal proceedings against Trump make clear that there are circumstances in which unresolved legal allegations are clearly ]. —] (]) 18:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''' Criminal allegations and proceedings are normally major points in an individual's life and they should be covered, whether on the MP or not. As long as the wording is appropriate (ie provides context and makes clear it's an allegation or part of a proceeding), and not giving any indication of guilt or innocence, there is no reason not to have information on the MP. - ] (]) 18:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''', though this is without prejudice to the policy in ] that we should tread very carefully when publishing negative information about ''non''-public figures. Major public figures, however, should not have that protection: where newsworthy allegations have been made against them, they should be reported objectively and as accusations, following ]. '']'' <sup>]·]</sup> 18:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' (invited by the bot) Since everything "in the news" violates wp:not news, there's no strong argument for inclusion of anything and IMO so no argument agains setting a bit higher bar. Criminal charges vary from meaningless to meaningful depending on the particulars (such as who is making the charge, the nature of the charge) and there's nothing wrong with setting a bit higher bar for the front page of Misplaced Pages. <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 19:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *{{Strikethrough|Very, very weak oppose}}, though I support the spirit of this proposal. There are absolutely circumstances in which unresolved proceedings are quite notable, though. @{{u|Ad Orientem}}, I don't too much follow ITNC, might I ask which specific instances of BPPCRIME on the main page have conflagrated? Changed to '''support''', and thanks to whomever signed my post (the reply tool has spoiled me). <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 19:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)</small> | |||
| *:There have been a number over the years. The most recent would be Jair Bolsonaro's indictment in Brazil. That discussion is still open and currently looks pretty deadlocked. In the past each of Donald Trump's indictments were nominated. At least two and possibly three of them were separately posted. I am pretty sure the last one was turned down. We posted his actual conviction in New York, which I supported. It's also worth noting that all of the Federal charges have since been withdrawn, albeit for purely legal reasons. In theory he could be reindicted when he leaves office. A proposal to post the withdrawal of those charges was going nowhere the last I looked. -] (]) 19:57, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::As for those, I'd argue they have little impact on the world stage. A conviction might be. Changing my vote to '''support''' <span style="color: #1a237e; background-color: #fff176; font-weight: bold;">]</span> <span style="color: #fff176; background-color: #1a237e; font-weight: bold;">]</span> 21:42, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::@] You should strike your oppose comment to avoid confusion. -] (]) 22:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' ]s, ]s and ] are common in many jurisdictions and often used against opposition politicians. We should therefore have a high bar for promotion of such, per ] and ]. ]🐉(]) 23:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:This is an argument ''against'' the change. Convictions can easily be obtained in such cases. Similarly, cronies of the leader in many jurisdictions may be protected from convictions for crimes they very clearly have committed. The result is really that legal decisions should not as a rule trump wikipedia's own processes for handling verification. We should be exceedingly careful, but convictions/acquittal should not be a bright shining line. ] (]) 11:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::Doesn't the brightness of the line here completely depend on the system in which the charging and/or conviction has been made? It's for sure a bright shining light to most rational people in the real world in well functioning democracies. ] (]) 22:38, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' the blanket prohibition, as there still may be ''limited'' circumstances where an arrest made or formal charges against a very prominent person cannot be ignored (I am thinking ]-level celebrities, or current or former heads of state), that grab the international consciousness that ITN is designed to capture. --] (]) 01:51, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. If someone has been accused of a crime and we properly state such has occurred, I fail to see the issue. It is factually correct. I'd like to believe our readers are smart enough to believe and trust us to "report" (or what you wish to call it) on these things properly. ] (]) 05:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:A (1) charging addressed to a court, in a decently thoughtful legal system, by a properly-acting prosecutor (think: Jack Smith) is more significant and important to readers than (2) a mere accusation by eg a private individual (think jilted ex-lover). Reporting (1) as such (not as guilt, but as a charging), is quite proper, indeed the open, non-arbitrary nature of justice proceedings (a value in many rule of law systems) relies upon the public nature of that information broadly. Reporting (2) is usually just third hand defamatory distraction. ] (]) 22:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' This proposal would create a prohibition that goes far beyond breaking news. Criminal proceedings can take years and sometimes even over a decade. – ] (]) 18:39, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Comment''' It's not clear what the "contentious point" is that the proposal is seeking to resolve. Saying that someone is indicted ≠ guilty.—] (]) 05:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Strongly oppose''' - The proposal is misguided and arbitrary. It would prohibit mentioning the cases of ], ], ], ], ], the ], and any criminal charges that do not result in either a conviction or acquittal. {{pb | |||
| }}The proposal wrongly supposes that the publication of criminal charges would be harmful to the accused and the legal ]. Public scrutiny ensures that the rights of the accused are protected against abuses of judicial and prosecutorial power. Suppressing that can shield those in power from accountability and create an environment where ]s are more likely to occur. {{pb | |||
| }}The proposal would suppress well-written and reliably-sourced articles that are deemed to be of wide interest to readers and editors. There is a high bar for publishing on the ]. Events published on ] are reviewed case-by-case. This proposal aims to preempt that review. It leaves no room for context and nuance. ] (]) 21:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:**I think the proposal as worded is only for the “proceedings”, which would not prohibit mentioning the publication of criminal charges. That wording only speaks to court cases while they are in progress. It would seem to me that excludes only intermediate events within the courts which would be the ] guessing or gossiping about a specific days sensationalist testimony and those seem worth excluding. Personally, I think the restraint specified is little and limited but that some restraint is necessary. Cheers ] (]) 09:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:**:If the goal is to avoid gossip and minutiae on the main page that should be addressed through policies against that. There's no need for a special policy on criminal cases. We don't want to be in a perverse situation where it's easier to have a ITN about someone being accused of having an affair than being accused of murder. ] (]) 12:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Not an issue -- again, as worded it would allow mention of the start of trial for either murder or an affair, it only says to exclude the "proceedings" of day-by-day trial (or divorce) coverage. Cheers ] (]) 05:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Question''' {{ping|Ad Orientem}} Are there any examples of items that (1) were published on the ] that should not have been, and (2) would have been prevented by the proposed amendment? ] (]) 23:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:Well, we individually posted at least two, and possibly three (memory fails) of Donald Trump's indictments. The fourth one I do recall we decided not to post. Trump's sole conviction was posted, quite properly. The Federal charges have now been dismissed. In theory they could be revived, though for obvious reasons (he will be in control of the DoJ for the next four years, and he could attempt to pardon himself) this is exceedingly unlikely. So we repeatedly posted unproven charges against a very prominent and controversial person, followed by a single conviction. As for the the Federal indictments, the community pointedly declined to address their dismissal in the same way we posted them when issued. It goes w/o saying that this sort of thing gives ammunition to those who claim that Misplaced Pages has a leftwing bias where the subject touches on politics and/or culture. But it goes beyond that. We are also posting unproven charges against non-Trump figures, on the main page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. And yeah, I think that is deeply problematic, and I say that as someone who detests Trump. -] (]) 01:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::There is a bright line between unfounded accusations, as can happen in the case of sexual misconduct accusations, and charges that have been made by an official law enforcement agency after a lengthy investigation. The former, that is the type of stuff we should even be careful of posting in the BLP's own article, public figure or not, and only really include that info should there be significant coverage in high-quality, non-tabloid sources. The latter, particularly with those that are or were sitting world leaders, those charges are not being thrown around without the agencies understanding the weight of said charges, and would know there would be heck to pay if they were filing those without any chance of prosecution. Add in the weight that we get from long-term enduring coverage of such charges (not just for Trump, but now Putin and Netanyahu and Bolsanano), and these are far beyond the line where we'd normally take caution with those accusations. ] (]) 02:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::If charges are filed without any chance of prosecution, I think Buffalkill's point about potential prosecutorial misconduct is a good reason for why this type of blanket prohibition could actually benefit those who bring those types of charges. – ] (]) | |||
| *'''Support with edits''' The guidance for restraint is generally a good idea, but the issue here should not be limited by ‘Given the legal presumption of innocence’, as that is not the only reason or desirable limit on the guidance about star coverage. Yes, Misplaced Pages is not a news blotter and we have no need to be first to cover a story - and that is to be reputable and avoid ], ] or ] rather than only the legal concerns for libel or affecting a case during prosecution. For ITN, the restraint would be to avoid posting something that is simply accusations as it seems simply rumors about sports or entertainment figures is ubiquitous and not actually deserving a headline mention unless it escalates beyond that. Similarly, it is not just the ‘presumption of innocence’ or just the initial accusation — ITN should avoid covering every single daily step of a trial for a star even if the daily press covered it - it would just seem obviously gossiping over trivia at some point. Cheers ] (]) 11:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Question''' since the proposal would prohibit even mentioning allegations absent a criminal conviction or acquittal, would it prohibit mentioning the ], since the charges against ] haven't been adjudicated? How would the proposal have applied to cases like ], who was not criminally charged but was given an unconditional pardon? How would it apply to ], who also was given an unconditional pardon for any federal crimes he might have committed during the past decade? ] (]) 20:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. This would mean that even the warrants against Netanyahu c.s. couldn't be posted on ITN. As long as we have ITN, such worldwide news about clearly notable people should be postable. ] (]) 11:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :'''Strongly oppose''' Presumption of innocence is a judicial standard, not a journalistic or academic one. Harm mitigation and legal responsibilities to avoid slander are appropriate considerations but writing someone probably did a bad thing is simply not the same as sending them to jail for it. Thus presumption of innocence simply does not apply from a philosophical viewpoint. ] (]) 11:52, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Support''' - er? I agree with the essay. I'm not quite sure what you're actually proposing though. Boil it down to a specific text change to WP:BLP, please. --] (]) 17:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Furthermore this is unworkable and unethical considering the diversity of legal systems and criminal codes. For example this grants a high level of protection to powerful individuals in corrupt jurisdictions who can control their legal system, and no protection at all to persecuted individuals. Precisely the opposite of what we want. ] (]) 11:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:I'm too retired to have a strong opinion on how it should be actually worded, but "reasonably foreseen as possibly causing harm to a living person" seems like a good starter phrase, better than 'contentious', when talking about material that falls under ] and ]. ] (]) 18:00, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * ''' |
* '''Oppose''', per Fangz, Masem, and Buffalkill. For example, if WP had been around during the Nuremberg trials, it would have prevented mention of those truly significant trials. ] (]) 17:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | ||
| :'''Oppose''' - | |||
| *I think it has value, but I think it misses the fundamental issue of getting it ''right''. Does it do someone harm to claim he was born on a different day than he actually was, or is vegan when he prefers steak, or likes to play pinochle on Saturday afternoons? Probably not, but it certainly irritates our subjects when we get things like that wrong. As for the harm in claiming that person A won an award and depriving the actual winner of the credit he is due? I'll grant that getting false credit for something you haven't earned isn't generally all that harmful, but the actual winner might want to have a chat with you about it. The core issue is that we are very liberal with our use of unsourced and incorrect material and very tolerant of editors that include it. There's an allowance for newbies, and there's an allowance for grandfathered material, but there shouldn't ''be'' an allowance for an experienced editor edit-warring to force unsourced material into a BLP. That's why ] and ] insist that the sources be supplied prior to restoration of challenged material. In a very real sense, we shouldn't be here arguing about special exemptions for BLPs, we should be questioning why we tolerate the restoration of unsourced material. Why are we worried about 3RR violations when such restorations so clearly violate our other policies?—](]) 02:35, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :blanket prohibition unwise; | |||
| :the presumption of innocence is not applicable in all countries or all systems or all cases; | |||
| :chargings are often important for Misplaced Pages readers to know about; | |||
| :good high standards journalists and publications routinely report on chargings, but they do it ''as such''; | |||
| :complete prohibition on mentioning will delay or prevent relevant information getting to wikipedia readers, and articles will thus be misleading by incompleteness; | |||
| :confidence in legal and political systems is founded on transparency, and transparency and information is a value of wikipedia; | |||
| :open justice requires some knowledge of what the actual system is doing, people knowing that certain people are being brought, and certain litigants/defendants need that openness to win their legal/broader case. ] (]) 22:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''', absolutely not. Trials can go on for years, sometimes decades, and can often be central to the subject; by this standard we wouldn't have been able to, for instance, mention the OJ Simpson trial anywhere on his article while it was in progress. We are not a news channel but we have an obligation to write an ''up-to-date'' encyclopedia. And this isn't even practical - how would we cover long-running cases against politicians, when they become massively relevant politically? Netanyahu's legal troubles are central to writing about Israel politics; major events going back ''years'' would make no sense at all if we tried to write around them. What happens if an accusation is central to someone's bio for a long time, with extensive ] academic coverage, and we write the article around it, only for it later to go to court - would we suddenly remove it? But on a more basic level this is saying that we could ignore coverage and write an article that ignores sourcing (no matter how strong and overwhelming) based on the gut feelings of a few editors that ongoing trials are never encyclopedic. That is not how we write articles - we reflect sourcing and coverage. If you want to try and demand higher sourcing for recent events, sure, that's something we can argue; but an ''absolute'' ban like this goes against core policy (which is not subject to consensus) and is therefore not something that can be considered. --] (]) 15:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''' per Buffalkill, Aquillion, and others. BLP is already sufficient to guide editors in whether or not something should be featured on the front page. ] <small>(])</small> 21:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Oppose''', we have to balance privacy vs censorship and this seems too far into the area of censorship. Our current way of doing things already greatly favors privacy when it comes to living people, I see no pressing need for the proposed addition. ] (]) 23:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Alternative proposal=== | |||
| ===Proposed definition from WhatamIdoing=== | |||
| From {{u|Simonm223}}. See discussion above. | |||
| Material about an identifiable living person is contentious if: | |||
| * the material is considered controversial in the real world, including when reputable sources disagree with each other about the material, or | |||
| * editors are likely to dispute the veracity of the material. | |||
| {{tq|A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal.}} | |||
| '''Discussion''' | |||
| {{tq|Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law. If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, include sufficient explanatory information.}} | |||
| A few comments: | |||
| *<s>'''Support''' as proposer. I think this would not only eliminate the question of crime reporting on marginally public people but would also, generally, be a great service toward supporting ]. Our website isn't for breaking news and we should consider the balance of public good between extreme inclusionism and respect for presumption of innocence. Yes, that should be applied by Misplaced Pages even for distasteful politicians.</s> ] (]) 18:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * I'd rather see this as a footnote. | |||
| *'''Withdrawing proposal''' I no longer stand by this as an appropriate response to the problems I want to solve. ] (]) 15:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * A quiet link to ] might be an adequate replacement. | |||
| *'''Oppose''' as long as the person is a public figure and the documentation of any allegations are from reputable reliable sources, there is zero reason to not include them. For example, taking this to heart, it would mean that we'd have to scrub out all of the convictions Trump faced for J6, which is in a lot of articles, including the SCOTUS case (he wasn't convicted or acquitted). We just need editors to keep their writing impartial and neutral, and work in writing summaries of legal proceedings rather than write to the level of detail the news gives (Wikinews can be used for that) <span id="Masem:1732647080481:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNBiographies_of_living_persons" class="FTTCmt"> — ] (]) 18:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)</span> | |||
| * This supports the "get it right" position: if editors sincerely doubt that the material is right, then the material is contentious under this definition. In fact, if you think it's ] (i.e., >50% chance) that some other editor will doubt the veracity of the material, then it's contentious under this definition. | |||
| *:A key part of my contention here is that Misplaced Pages has really strayed from the spirit of ] in that a vast array of the articles on the website are just news aggregation. I'm honestly not of the opinion that we need to be talking about the indiscretions of contemporary American politicians unless they turn out to be historically significant. ] (]) 18:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * The point of this is to emphasize the distinction between "an edit so obviously dispute-inducing that I can't believe anyone would add it without a good source" and "really, it's best if everything about a living person has an inline citation, but whether that happens today or next week isn't a big deal in this instance". | |||
| *::I am 110% behind you on the NOTNEWS issue, but it affects more than just accusations and trials of BLP. It is a far larger problem that needs to be addressed at a much large venue, one that I have been brewing how to start in the back of my mind. The over details coverage of news absolutely impacts BLP negatively, but changing just BLP isn't the way to resolve it.<span id="Masem:1732647581590:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNBiographies_of_living_persons" class="FTTCmt"> — ] (]) 18:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)</span> | |||
| * This definition excludes questions of due weight, style, etc., that involve ''only'' uncontroversial material. A detailed explication of what color tie the US president wears is pure ] ] that does ] belong in an encyclopedia, no matter how many sources I provide for it (and there are a lot of them), but it's still not "contentious" material. You can remove that through normal dispute resolution processes, without invoking BLP. | |||
| *:::This is touched upon at the guideline ]: {{tq|It may take weeks or months to determine whether or not an event has a lasting effect. This does not, however, mean recent events with unproven lasting effect are automatically non-notable.|q=yes}} —] (]) 02:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * "Being contentious" is not the only quality that requires removal. Defining ''contentious'' in a sensible way does '''not''' revoke or weaken the other rules about stuff requiring removal: "...that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); that relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see below); or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet Verifiability standards." I'm not trying to include all the other stuff that requires removal as being "contentious" in addition to requiring removal for the other, unrelated reasons; stuff that should be removed because of NOR or SPS or whatever should be removed because of NOR or SPS or whatever. Editors should not first (and pointlessly) re-categorize NOR and WP:V violations as "contentious" before fixing them. | |||
| *::::Unfortunately, if you ever try to get some BLP errata revolving around a crime on the basis that it has not been demonstrated to have a lasting impact the response will be that it definitely will and should not be removed because it is so very important. ] (]) 12:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * Examples (real) to show what I see this as covering: | |||
| *:::::Yes, it's easier to trim (or even AfD) once the topic has died down. I've yet to see a realistic solution on how to manage the excitement before then. —] (]) 00:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** Professor ] wrote a book called '']''. {{cross}} – Normal WP:V rules apply, because this fact is uncontroversial in the real world, and no editors in their right minds (and who spend ten seconds talking to their favorite web search engine) would disagree with this. Someday, somebody ought to add an inline citation, but there's no possibility of anyone being harmed if this sits around uncited. | |||
| *::I feel like "strayed" implies we were ever doing anything else. If it was written one way it was clearly never obeyed, and trawling through old talk page archives I find we have actually gotten far more strict about NOTNEWS than we used to be (which is probably for the best, but I take issue with "strayed") ] (]) 02:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** The pop-science book described different psychological aspects of femininity in men, including an approach that divides male-to-female transsexuals into two groups, based on their sexual orientations. {{cross}} – Not about any particular living person, so normal WP:V rules apply. | |||
| *:Wikinews is dead and dysfunctional and should have never been started. Quite frankly the wiki format does not gel with news. Propose what you want to deal with the NOTNEWS issue but any proposal that says "go to wikinews" is a ''no''. ] (]) 02:39, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** Some transsexual activists, who disagreed with his portrayal of transwomen as being "really men" or as transitioning to fulfill sexual urges in that book, filed formal complaints that he abused his position as a researcher. {{tick}} – You bet this allegation would need sources (here's one by the way: ). | |||
| *'''Comment''' Support in spirit but this is too complicated and US-centric on the details. <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 19:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** He was cleared of all charges. {{tick}} – Ditto. | |||
| *'''Oppose''' - absolutely not. As I said for the other proposal above, we can presume innocence while mirroring the reliable sources that choose to cover a story (or do ''not'' choose). This is not a solution to the larger problem alleged by the proposer. ] <sup>]] ]]</sup> 19:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** Bailey supports ] and ]. {{tick}} – Some editors (depending on their POV) might sincerely dispute whether any person who holds a POV so odious to transwomen could accurately be described as "supportive" of trans rights; others would label this as contentious matter because a political position in favor of the rights of sexual minorities and sex workers is controversial in the real world. No editors are likely to consider this a statement about an uncontroversial subject. | |||
| *'''Oppose''' for the same reasons as above. Criminal proceedings against ''public figures'' are often ] and should be covered. Additionally, the presumption that all proceedings end in conviction or acquittal seems misguided; cases are often settled without advancing to those stages but may nevertheless be DUE. —] (]) 21:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * I think this covers all of the basics. It could always be adjusted later, as we get more experience with it, but I think it would be a sufficient starting point. ] (]) 06:19, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' as explained by David Eppstein. If there are problems with "In the News" blurbs, perhaps this issue should be discussed there (perhaps with a discouragement to accept blurbs that are about an early part of a criminal proceeding, recognizing that this could not be a hard and fast rule). --] (]) 21:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''oppose''' "is considered controversial in the real world," is no clearer or less subjective than the current wording. -- ] 00:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Comment''' If the subject of a bio was removed from a public role over an allegation before criminal proceedings completed, or perhaps even started, the proposed change would prohibit any substantive NPOV explanation from being given in the bio.—] (]) 02:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ** If something's controversial in the real world, then you'll be able to find sources that use words like "controversial" to describe the subject. ] (]) 19:20, 2 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Lawsuits''' What about a (civil) ] (e.g. sexual assault), which has a lower burden of proof than a criminal case?—] (]) 02:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **The current wording is unclear in that different people are reading it in different ways, our differences are as as broad as "everything about a BLP is controversial so controversial means unsourced" to Controversial means negative, so the policy is a long way to say that negative BLP material needs to be sourced. Considered controversial in the real world is still subjective, but much less so than the current situation. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 13:57, 4 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' This proposal would create a prohibition that goes far beyond breaking news. Criminal proceedings can take years and sometimes even over a decade. – ] (]) 18:39, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' This is close, but not in my view a sufficient improvement on the current situation. "the material is considered controversial in the real world, including when reputable sources disagree with each other about the material, or editors are likely to dispute the veracity of the material." In my view puts too much emphasis on the scenario where editors or sources disagree about something. In reality the most common scenario is that we are making judgment calls about unsourced information that new editors are writing. "Sometimes works shifts in the brothels of Nevada" is something we would hopefully all treat as requiring a reliable source and unlikely to belong in any BLP other than that of a pornographic actor. "unusual amongst ISIS commanders for being gay and also for not taking sexual advantage of female captives" would be positive, but it really needs a reliable source. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 07:51, 5 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''', no matter how hysterically funny I think it would be to have to retroactively remove all the Trump trial stuff from this site. Also doesn't make any logical sense - "or acquittal"? Given the principle this proposal operates on, innocent until proven guilty, for consistency if someone gets acquitted we should simply never mention it. Which obviously doesn't square with a lot of notable topics - plenty of politicians can be highly notable for being involved in alleged things which they were never found guilty of, see Matt Gaetz. Newsy events have an awkward tension with encyclopedic-ism, but unless we want to restrict article content and creation to a point twenty years in the past (the only real way to solve the NOTNEWS issue) there is no way to put this into policy without severely, severely hampering our coverage of encyclopedic topics. We're always going to be dealing with news sources and new things happening, unless we ban current events entirely - which I don't think would serve us or the readers. If we're talking about ITN/the front page, I'm less bothered by that proposal because it does make some sense to be stricter for the front page, but that also won't work too well in practice. ] (]) 02:49, 29 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' Sorry, but what the heck does 'in the real world' mean? As opposed to what? I think people may be losing sight of the need for clearly-worded policy here. ] (]) 08:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''', imagine how confused readers would feel with a ] article only covering him as an investor who was friends with many famous people. He died before his most notable cases could be "{{tq|resolved either by conviction or acquittal}}". ] (]) 03:55, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' per AndyTheGrump - ] ] 00:06, 16 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Clarification''' {{ping|Simonm223}} The difference between the original proposal, and the alternative proposal, is (a) the addition of: {{xt|"A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction"}}, and (b) the removal of: {{xt|"on the ] of the encyclopdia"}}. The former is simply an affirmation of the ] of the ], and the latter affirms the proposed prohibition on mentioning unadjudicated criminal charges on the ], and extends it to all of Misplaced Pages. Is that correct? Thanks. ] (]) 00:43, 1 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:No, my proposal would suggest we should not discuss unproven allegations of crimes made against living people without conditions. ] (]) 00:54, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::So, is it correct that your proposal would forbid us from saying on ] that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman" (currently in the lead) because bin Salman is alive and has never been taken to justice? Given that the assassination happened in Turkey, despite being at a Saudi embassy, I assume this would be considered a crime under Turkish law. —] (]) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:::Not to mention cases where individuals are being tortured, held incommunicado or driven into exile for alleged "crimes" like "insulting the president" or "promoting homosexuality" or whatever. ] (]) 15:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' as less clear than the earlier proposal whether it is for ITN or all WP. I also have view that there is a sharp separation between what is accusations and what has become official charges. Accusations and investigations often turn out frivolous or fleeting with no impact, but legal cases are a notable point where it becomes official with enduring and significant impacts. Cheers ] (]) 11:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:Sometimes accusations and investigations are a notable point with enduring and significant impacts, and sometimes legal cases are not. There is too much variation in individual circumstances for either of these blanket prohibitations to be useful. – ] (]) 18:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::Accusations *often* turn out frivolous or fleeting, and only if it turns into something enduring - such as the sharp distinction of when it becomes actual official charges which are *not* frivolous - would it be mentioned. An accusation that creates enduring impact has an enduring impact worth mention, but it is the enduring impact that deserves a mention - the accusation alone never would be. Cheers ] (]) 06:45, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' per {{u|Rjjiii}}. We (sadly) have a whole bunch of people like Epstein and ] who escaped trial for their crimes by dying before they could be tried in court. There are also perpetrators of suicide attacks, and school killers who kill themselves rather than face trial. This is well-intentioned, but it would cause far more trouble than it would solve. ] (]) 19:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:Neither Epstein nor Savile are BLPs even when considering the "recently deceased" note. As such statements about living people would not affect them. ] (]) 19:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::Epstein was a BLP when the accusations came out and Saville was recently deceased. Everyone will eventually become a non-BLP. Turning the issue into "how long should we wait after they die" doesn't seem helpful. – ] (]) 19:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. Worse than the first proposal. It would make a mockery of e.g. the ] article, if all crimes he was accused of but not convicted for would have to be removed completely. ] (]) 11:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose'''. That doesn't mean that half an article about a person has to be taken up by a minor DUI charge, but imagine the ] article without any mention of his current legal trouble. In that case, it is well-sourced and it is clearly significant to writing a biographical article about him, even though the charges have not yet reached disposition. We just need to be very clear in the article that the individual has been accused, indicted, whatever have you, but not convicted. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 14:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Strongly oppose''' As this is much broader, it's even worse than the original proposal. There are significant criminal cases where there is neither conviction nor acquittal, including those where the person dies while awaiting trial and it suddenly becomes possible to discuss the case only after death (as notwally notes), those where the person is pardoned (as with the legally significant case against ], where it would prevent discussing the reason for the pardon, since he is still alive), and those where crimes are alleged but never charged because the person is too powerful (as David Eppstein notes). It's also unclear about the implications for civil suits (like the huge opioid case involving the ]), since those result in liability rather than conviction/acquittal. ] (]) 17:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Oppose''' This is a well-intended proposal, but it has not been fully thought through. There are (at least) two problems. First, it follows that if material were excluded from any part of wikipedia on the basis that a person has not yet been convicted of an offence, then it could never be included if the person were in due course found not guilty. Yet it would plainly be unacceptable to censor all mention of charges followed by not-guilty verdicts since sometimes these events will have significant consequences and be notable of themselves. Imagine a politician is charged with a specific financial offence and resigns as a finance minister, then markets collapse and social cataclysms follow. There could be no mention of the alleged specific offence for the years it might take to come to court? Then, following a not-guilty verdict, there could never be mention of the specific detail which led to the social cataclysm. "In 2025, '''something happened''' in Xanadu which resulted in the temporary collapse of the financial system there, causing riots, mass deprivation and large scale refugee movement"? Second, it would be unwise for Misplaced Pages to validate verdicts in places like Iran and North Korea, whether guilty or innocent. Such a validation would be the consequence of treating verdicts differently for the purposes of inclusion at Misplaced Pages, even if only limited to the landing page. I appreciate the sentiment behind the proposal, and that's a decent one, but the response to bad actors putting in bad content is to apply present policies, frustrating as that might sound to the proposer. ] (]) 16:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Proposed definition from ]=== | |||
| * '''Oppose in strongest possible terms'''. This solves none of the problems with the mess of a suggestion above. Sometimes accusations are central to a biography, or even to related articles; sometimes the legal process can go on for years or even decades without a resolution. Our obligation, per ] and ], is to follow the sources, and to cover things that are treated as significant in them; we are not permitted to ignore some of them based on poorly-considered gut instincts. I have some sympathy for suggestions that we shouldn't rely on breaking news sources (though I disagree with them); but this suggestion, I have zero sympathy for at all - it is deeply foolish and short-sighted, and I hope the proposer will take the sharply negative reaction to heart and ] on anything resembling it, here or elsewhere. As mentioned above, by completely ignoring sourcing and making no exception for coverage of any degree or quality, this proposal would contravene core policy and is therefore not implementable by consensus. --] (]) 15:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| "Footnote: In the context of this BLP Policy, 'contentious' stuff is stuff that is actually causing or apt to cause disagreement from reliable sources and/or objections from at least one Misplaced Pages editor who is relying in good faith upon Misplaced Pages rules, and/or arguments from reasonable Misplaced Pages readers, and/or some combination of the three." | |||
| *:Yeah I'm happy to withdraw the proposal. I will say that I remain frustrated with the breaking news mentality we see on BLPs but I will agree that this approach was half-baked and wouldn't solve the problems that really concern me. ] (]) 15:58, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ===Alternative proposal 2=== | |||
| ;Discussion | |||
| This is actually going the complete opposite direction of the proposal. | |||
| *'''Support''' as proposer. We should keep the context in mind, so here it is: | |||
| <blockquote><span style="color:orange;">ontentious</span> material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion….Remove immediately any <span style="color:orange;">contentious</span> material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); that relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see below); or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet Verifiability standards….Similarly, "See also" links should not be used to imply any <span style="color:orange;">contentious</span> categorization or claim about a living person…. Disruptive and offensive usernames (for example, names containing <span style="color:orange;">contentious</span> material about living persons, or that are clearly abusive towards any race, religion or social group) should be immediately blocked….xtensions would apply particularly to <span style="color:orange;">contentious</span> or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime…. If the entire page is substantially of poor quality, primarily containing <span style="color:orange;">contentious</span> material that is unsourced or poorly sourced, then it may be necessary to delete the entire page....</blockquote> | |||
| ] (]) 17:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| Reword to | |||
| ===Proposed definition from Username=== | |||
| {{font color|green|A living person accused of a crime is legally presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Misplaced Pages is not a court or a legal system, so an article about a person accused of a crime does not have to be written as if they are innocent, absent a conviction, if the consensus of reliable sources is overwhelmingly otherwise. However, with the aim of minimising harm or slander, especially to individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests such persons have committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction.}} | |||
| ;Discussion | |||
| {{font color|green|While Misplaced Pages must comply with United States law, as a project the content on Misplaced Pages is independent of any local national government and does not represent an official or judicial mouthpiece.(]) While the decisions of local courts should have a strong weight in writing an article, depending on the circumstances other reliable sources should also be included even if they contradict the official verdict, as per ].}} | |||
| ===General Discussion: Contentious=== | |||
| I'm a bit at a loss, as I think the issue that spawned this RFC isn't so much about what is and isn't contentious, it is more about what is an appropriate reaction by the admin making the determination; Their judgement in handling the contentious edit. ] - ] 16:11, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :While I agree the issue could be resolved through editorial/admin discretion, this isn't the first time someone has argued that contentious means pretty much what ever they want to dispute. I'm not sure if its been an admin before, but others have certainly claimed edit warring exemptions on similar grounds. I think a clearer definition would provide needed direction to that discretion. ]] 16:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree. Lots of people throw the word "contentious" around when they really mean "you disagree with me", instead of "arguably false or impossible to substantiate", which is a better definition. This does dilute the word to being almost meaningless. ] - ] 16:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::Particularly in Misplaced Pages parlance since anything unsourced is open to challenge, and therefore, by definition, contentious. ]] 16:24, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::: ''Definition'': {{tq|Contentious – "causing or likely to cause an argument."}} Thus, anything that leads to an argument is literally "contentious". Perhaps we need a different work here... --] <small>(] • ])</small> 18:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :If the edit in question had been "Movie star in question rapes puppies" or something akin to that, no one would have questioned my actions, and my BLP defense would have been applauded by most. If the statement had been "Movie star in question has appeared in movies", no one at all would have listened to my defense, and I would still be blocked as being obviously disruptive. This question really is key: I saw the edits as being BLP violations, and the editor making them as intentionally violating both BURDEN and BLP with no intention of stopping, and that reverting those BLP violations did not make me involved. Others say that they were not contentious at all and did not constitute a violation, making me a rogue admin in violation of ]. Whatever my fate, getting a more precise definition of when BLP kicks in for a removal will help future admins and editors. | |||
| :My personal take is that "contentious" is pretty much the opposite of "common knowledge". Does anyone need to source that a famous movie star appears in movies? Certainly not. That they starred in a particular movie or won a particular award? Those get much closer to "contentious", but may not cross the line. Won an obscure award that few have heard of? Got his start in underwear commercials? Did something 20 years ago that doesn't correspond to the things he is known for? None of those is ''negative'', but they are not things that anyone should be expected to take on faith.—](]) 16:29, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::The trite answer is that the opposite of contentious is uncontentious and the opposite of common knowledge is arcane knowledge. Wiktionary has "" and that broadly has been how I understood the policy. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 16:58, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::So, a hypothetical, ]: someone adds (sans sourcing) that someone won some particular award. A search online finds no trace of the awarding organisation, and another editor removes it on that basis. That certainly gets into ] territory, but is the material now "contentious"? Or is there some particular level/kind/intensity of discussion that is required before we can say the issue is "marked by heated arguments or controversy"?—](]) 17:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::"Contentious", if you'll review the evolution of the phrasing, was never about Misplaced Pages editors like or dislike of the edit in question, but about real world impact to the person. Any contentious (disagreed upon by editors) material anywhere in article space has always needed a good source, per V, and you rightly cite BURDEN. However, something that's disputed by wikipedia editors is not the same as something that might arguably cause harm to a living subject by its presence in our article. THAT is the sort of 'contentiousness' that triggers out of process reverts, blocks, revdel's, and the like. Failure to understand the difference is unfortunate, although looking at the mess of the wording now, I can see where people get screwed up about it. But back to you: what do you think is special about BLP enforcement that allows admins essentially unlimited discretion to do whatever it takes to keep contentious material out of a BLP? ] (]) 17:49, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Hi KWW, it depends a little on the award, and the awardee. It would be controversial for a Saudi architect to win an Israeli award, or for anyone to win an award as an adult performer if we didn't already have them reliably sourced as being an adult performer. But assuming that the award is uncontroversial then yes Burden kicks in on this one rather than controversial content it is content that others have not been able to verify. Not necessarily hoax material but one where it would be reasonable to require the challenged editor to only restore if they can find a source. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 13:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::"Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative,''' positive, neutral, or just questionable''' – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." The issue is not and should never be is negative. Claiming any type of "award" would fall under "'''negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable'''" -- ] 00:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Well that's certainly how some people are reading it, but if that was the correct reading then the word contentious would be redundant. I would say that claims about people's political or religious views, sexual orientation or sexual activity would be contentious whether "''' positive, neutral, or just questionable'''". But I accept that the phrase is misleading, different people are interpreting it in very different ways and it needs to be clarified - hence this discussion. However I would agree that we should not replace it with the word "negative" as many contentious things are positive to some and negative to others. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers''</span> 08:24, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Here's a fact: The former US President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize. | |||
| :::::::], do you think that specific statement is "contentious"? What might cause people to ] (aka "dispute", "struggle", "fight", "debate") with each other about that sentence? ] (]) 19:24, 2 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :If anyone is interested in reading previous discussions had at this talk page about defining "contentious," click on . The most recent previous discussion we had on this issue is the 2014 one: ]. And not all of the interpretations of "contentious" made sense to me. Some of the "remove that unsourced text" attitudes left a bad taste in my mouth. '''That discussion also shows how "contentious" came to be added to the WP:BLP policy.''' ] (]) 16:35, 25 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *Sorry if I'm raising a point others may have raised, but do we really need a definition? There is one in the dictionary. "Controversial." Good enough? ] (]) 18:29, 10 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *All this discussion seems to be slightly pointless. Seeking to formally define words used in policy doesn't really help solve the problem, as I've ]. BLP will always be rather subjective and rely on hunches, judgement calls and a fair amount of gut instict. Trying to rules-lawyer a rather arbitrary definition of 'contentious' into of a policy whose intention is to reduce harm may end up doing exactly what we shouldn't be doing: turning BLP compliance into a narrow, legalistic checklist rather than attempting to gut check whether we are being cruel or unfair towards article subjects. —] (]) 09:50, 17 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' as proposer. This I think is an important clarification. Presumption of innocence is a thing in legal systems. It's not a thing in encyclopedias, academic works, and so on. It's reasonable that we should be more careful, but it should not 100% trump wikipedia's usual processes. If a guy shoots up a school and there's 100% incontrovertible video of him doing it and every reasonable source says he did it, but the guy escaped from prison before his trial, it would be perverse to write in the consideration that he is innocent of both the shooting and the prison escape until a conviction is obtained. It's okay to say "avoid using words the express an excessive certainty that they did it", so "alleged suspect" is often better. (Though in the case of the prison escape, would we really expect any editor to write "he allegedly escaped prison"?) But referring simply to the legal principle creates a false expectation. The standard of proof on wikipedia, even in BLP, is quite different from that in a court of law. ] (]) 11:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Dates of birth and info boxes == | |||
| ::A corollary is that we should also not encourage editors to write as if an individual is guilty simply because a conviction was obtained. You can write that factually, the guy was convicted, but e.g. human rights groups say it's total rubbish etc. ] (]) 11:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Currently, the subsection of this policy know as ] says, in part: "{{xt|Misplaced Pages includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object. If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.}}" However, many infobox prototypes in documentation pages indicate that date of birth should be entered using {{tl|birth date and age}}, which requires a full date. It appears that many editors follow this guidence pretty much automatically. I have recntly changed the doc pages of {{tl|infobox person}} and about a dozen specialized infoboxes that call it to mention ] and advise using {{tl|birth year and age}} unless the exact date is widely published. It seems to me that in almost all cases our encyclopedic purposes are fully served by specifing just the year for living people. | |||
| *'''Vehemently Oppose''' ] ] both apply here. While Misplaced Pages may not be censored, such a policy would open flood gates for attack pages and coatracks as well as adding further ripped-from-the-headlines recentism to the project. ] (]) 13:25, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:This does not overrule those other policies. Rather the opposite: the point is that those policies apply and should not be overruled by "the X government says this guy is guilty/innocent". The current text gives the appearance that criminal charges (criminal where? According to whom) are an overly special case. Attack pages should be prevented by rules against attack pages. If you think individuals should get attack pages dependent on whether their local government (which, lest you forget, includes anywhere from North Korea to ISIS) handed them a guilty verdict or not, that's a ridiculous state of affairs. By what metric or logic should we handle differently writing about someone's bigamy allegations vs them having an extramarital affair? ] (]) 13:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::Put it this way, in a legal context the reasoning for a presumption of innocence is easy to understand. The State must refrain from applying harm (punishment) undeservingly. In a Misplaced Pages content, the harm is reputational damage, but the thing is, reputational damage is essentially unrelated to the criminal nature of accusations. When a "crime" could depending on jurisdiction be anything between a major crime against humanity to smoking some weed or being a homosexual, while non-criminal allegations could include child rape and again major crimes against humanity... if you just want to avoid recentism and attack pages etc, it's a meaningless distinction to make. ] (]) 14:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::Yep. ] (]) 19:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Comment''' - I think revision of that section is worth discussing, and I agree with the overall sentiment, but am not sure how I feel about the proposed wording. It's clear that WP articles do not always treat criminal allegations as if the person is innocent absent conviction. For example, the article on ] says that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," even though the agents haven't been convicted (and won't be, as Saudi Arabia refused to extradite them to face the charges), and bin Salman will never be charged. For that matter, WP can discuss the possibility of wrongful conviction even if a conviction hasn't (yet) been overturned, as in appeals brought by the ]. I'm not convinced that the section needs to be modified, and if it is modified, I also wonder whether it should be revised to apply to significant civil suits as well as criminal ones. And US law is not the only legal system that is relevant. ] (]) 18:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| What would people think of my firing up AWB (which i haven't used in quite a while) and replacing <code><nowiki>{{birth date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}}</nowiki></code> with <code><nowiki>{{birth year and age|YYYY}}</nowiki></code> on a number of BLPs? ] ] 18:07, 28 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Support''' For the reasons I give at the end of the first alternative proposal (NB: I accidentally put that comment here until alerted by ] | |||
| :We went through an exercise fairly recently to make sure that all the {{tl|birth date and age}} uses have the proper date in them or they were changed to {{tl|birth year and age}} so I dont see why {{tl|birth date and age}} should be changed to remove the dates without a valid reason. ] (]) 18:16, 28 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::That is good, {{U|MilborneOne}}. I have seen quite a few articles recently that used the full date with no sourcing to indicate that it was appropriate. Most of them, perhaps all, were in fairly recent articles which probably hadn't been created at the time of the exercise. How recent was it, may I ask? and what standards ae we using to determine what is a "proper date"? Were any lists of pages checked maintained? | |||
| ::Also, any opnions on the changes to the template documentation, and whether it would help reduce the issue going forward? ] ] 20:55, 28 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::For 99% of our BLPs, I have trouble imagining what value we provide with exact birth dates, once you've excluded the tiny subsets of readers who ought to send a birthday present (and who therefore should already know the date) and astrologers. I think this would be fine. However, if it weren't too complicated, then tagging them all with {{tl|fact}} for a month first might be appropriate. A unique string in the {{para|reason}} would make it ery easy to find uncorrected/unreverted DOBs. ] (]) 00:01, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::A few random checks of articles transcluding {{tl|birth date and age}} indicates that 3 out of 4 had no citation for the birth date at all, nor any mention of it on the talk page. This isn't big enough to be a representative sample, but I have to wonder if "{{xt|make sure that all the {{tl|birth date and age}} uses have the proper date in them}} meant merely making sure that their parameters were valid, not that their content was cited. {{U|MilborneOne}}, could you provide a bit more detail on what was done when this was reviewed previously? ] ] 02:30, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Sorry should have been clearer the task was done in March and April 2015 to make sure that the correct template was used, mainly missing or corrupt dates per using ]. If the full date was available or corrupt then it was replaced by a less demanding template. No check was done on the quality of the data. I dont have a problem with fact tagging "birth date and age" or even "birth year and age" as these should only appear on living person anyhow but it may be an issue when it is referenced in the article but not the infobox, I dont think it is a requirement to cite infobox stuff when it is a repeat or summary of stuff in the article. As a fairly fundemental fact in any biography then I have a problem with removing them from the article if they are properly cited except as has been said for living person where it may be a privacy issue, so I cant see why it should be shortened in the infoboxes. ] (]) 12:59, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::{{U|MilborneOne}}, I quite agree that a citation of the info anywhere in the article is fine, it need not be immediately adjacent to the template. Furthermore I am talking '''only''' about use on articles about currently living people. The doc for {{tl|birth date and age}} says that it should only be used for living people, but I wouldn't make the assumption that all uses are in fact on BLPs. I am mtalking mostly about cases where the date is compeltely uncited, although cases whre it is cited only to a fairly obsucre source also implicate the privacy aspects of ]. Note also that I am not talking about total removal even in those cases, but mearly trimming to the year. Under thjose limitations, would you ahve a problem with trimming of month and day info? do you think it needs to be tagged for a period before trimming? Does anyone else? ] ] 13:17, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::{{U|DESiegel}} thanks for explaining that I dont have a problem with year-only under those circumstances. ] (]) 13:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::''"The doc for {{tl|birth date and age}} says that it should only be used for living people"'': well that's because for a dead person the calculated age would be incorrect. Eg someone who lived 1950-2010 would display as 65 years old. ] <small>]</small> 22:14, 30 June 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::I did understand that, {{U|Stickee}}. I also understand that it will sometimes be used incorectly. For example it may be added to a BLP and not changed when the subject dies. I just wanted to indicate I wasn't going to assume that an article whjich transcludes {{tl|birth date and age}} '''must''' be a BLP, rather I would double check. ] ] 02:42, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::The criterion introduced , for example, that birth dates must be "cited to a source which makes it clear that the date has been '''widely''' published, or else published with the subject's approval" seems to me to be wildly unrealistic - most of the secondary sources from which we get our information do not specify where ''their'' information comes from, or explain how widely the information has been publicised (nor would anyone expect them to). I understand the general point over privacy and the need for birth dates to be sourced from reliable sources, but to set out new criteria to exclude widely published information, if that is what is intended, seems to me to be an extreme position. ] (]) 07:49, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::The position is taken directly from the existing policy page, which says: "{{xt|Misplaced Pages includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object.}}" A source may demonstrate wide publication without saying where it got its info from. If a source is itself a major news venue, or is otherwise widely published, that pretty well indicates wide publication. If there are multiple separate sources, that indicates the same. The nature of the discussion of the fact in the source might also indicate the same. If the source was self-published by the subject, or was an interview, that would indicate that the subject approves. I am not trying to exclude widely published information, but to exclude '''non'''-widely published information, and to say that if it is widely published, the source(s) must indicate that. How would you word this policy-based requirement? ] ] 12:08, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::OK - I think the problem is in your wording, which I interpreted to mean that our source needed to indicate that a date had been widely published, elsewhere. But that doesn't seem to be quite what you mean - you are saying that if the source itself is demonstrably reliable ''and'' widely published, that suffices. So, I suggest that instead of saying "cited to a source which makes it clear that the date has been widely published, or else published with the subject's approval", you should be saying "cited to a source which is demonstrably reliable and widely published, or else published with the subject's approval". Is that right? If that is your view, I'll reinstate the birth date back at ], with one or two of the sources I listed on the talk page there. ] (]) 12:39, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::I meant to say that i the source is '''itself''' widely publishde, '''or''' if the source or sources allow us to relaibly determine that the information is widely published, '''or''' that the subject has consented to its publication, then the info may be included, but not otherwise. How would you sugest that I word a notice to indicate that? Should I include a link to this thread? ] ] 12:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Well, the wording you've just written above makes sense to me! ] (]) 13:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| {{od}} Thanks. You can see the record of my checks on this at ], by the way. I have just reworded my prototype notice in acocrd with this discussion. Does anyone else have a comment? ] ] 13:20, 1 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| *support efforts to transition from the highly problematic, BLP laden, birth date to birth year. -- ] 05:45, 11 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Comment''' before any birth date is trimmed to its year there should be good faith efforts to establish a suitable source. Simply bludgeoning articles to conform to policy is unconstructive. All the best: ''] ]'',<small> 16:13, 12 July 2015 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| *:], did you mean your response to be placed at the end of ''Alternative proposal'' rather than at the end of ''Alternative proposal 2''? (It seems so, based on the content.) ] (]) 20:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::You are correct! :-) Oops. Moving now. Thanks. ] (]) 16:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| * '''Support'''. This is the way. We must follow the sources wherever they lead; we can urge ''caution'', we can set criteria for what good sources are, which are well spelled-out in policy and referenced here, but ultimately it is not up to editors to second-guess the sources or to create their own byzantine rules about when we can report what the best sources say. If an accusation is central to a biography, and there is ''clear and unequivocal'' agreement among the sources, then as an encyclopedia, the encyclopedic thing to do is to reflect that; likewise, if there is clear and unequivocal agreement among the sources as to guilt, we have to reflect that in our article regardless of legal processes (though of course the legal processes would, I'd expect, be covered in the sources and therefore mentioned.) The legal process is important but is not the be-all-and-end-all or the final word when it comes to writing an encyclopedia; we must summarize ''all'' coverage, with weight according to its significance - giving legal processes (which are, in many countries, highly politicized) final say is inappropriate. If the legal process is worth so much deference, then the highest-quality sources will defer to it; in cases where they do not, we should not, either. Beyond that this proposal would put a well-deserved stake in the heart of the awful suggestions above and would block people from trying to present them on talk, which is badly-needed given how damaging they would be to Misplaced Pages's mission if not totally shut down. --] (]) 15:45, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *'''Strong Oppose''' - this is factually wrong and morally improper. If a person has not been convicted, it is simply wrong to use of legal language that means someone who is convicted, a distortion of facts. You can mention video evidence and such, or say they died before there was a trial, or whatever the actual events are -- but the simple fact is if they were not convicted, they are not convicted and so it is incorrect to use language as if they were or to include such incorrect statements from third parties based on "reliable sources should also be included even if they contradict the official verdict, as per WP:DUE." | |||
| * '''Comment''' if you ask Google "When was Motomu Kiyokawa born" (just the usual web search not "OK Google") you will get the expected answer. So the date is widely known (and there are many search results that show that it is widely published). We still should have a reliable source. The Japanese Wiki suggests {{Cite book|author=和書?|year=1999|title=声優名鑑|pages=430|publisher=成美堂出版 (Voice Actors and Actresses)|id=ISBN 978-4415008783}}. Personally I am inclined to trust that my Japanese colleague has checked the date, rather than spend £18.96 buying a tankoban I will probably never refer to again. All the best: ''] ]'',<small> 18:48, 12 July 2015 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| :It's also morally wrong to invite a libelous judgement based on casual volunteers and limited information. This is not going to be about incontrovertible evidence and some well-defined metric of "consensus" in RS -- it is going to wind up in situations of partial knowledge from media coverage and limited volunteer looking time and arguing over whether this is "enough" or whether I have 10 sources versus you have 9 contrary ones so that's a "consensus". I don't even see it as wise editorial policy to go something that would lead to more disputes. Cheers ] (]) 06:19, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::], what is your opinion about the lead in the article on ]? The first paragraph says that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," even though the agents haven't been convicted (and won't be, as Saudi Arabia refused to extradite them to face the charges), and bin Salman will never be charged. It doesn't mention conviction, but it's implying that they're guilty (though not using that word). I think that's what's meant by {{tq|an article about a person accused of a crime does not have to be written as if they are innocent, absent a conviction, if the consensus of reliable sources is overwhelmingly otherwise}}. ] (]) 22:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::] - Uh, I think you missed that there were convictions? And that article isn't {{tq|an article about a person accused of a crime}}, which in this case would be ] ? Otherwise -- my immediate impression of that lead is that it does a very poor job of summarizing the article and his life, as if he had never lived or done anything. It does somewhat summarize USA coverage limited to October thru December 2018, excluding later events and his prior life. Kind of an example of an issue with ] and when a story drops off the mainstream, although the sensation did lead to expanding the article content from what it was before (). Otherwise, the language seems a bit unsupported where it was phrasing things as if certain and proven fact, when the articles did not, and missed simply reporting what the coverage is instead of declaring a judgement using wikivoice. Misplaced Pages declaiming Truth and Guilt instead of just reporting positions and coverage is the two ways I said this proposal is factually wrong and morally improper. The articles on the Prince and on the Assassination do a better job of things, for what that's worth. Cheers ] (]) 04:36, 29 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::You're right, I was thinking about the criminal charges in Turkey and had forgotten the criminal convictions in Saudi Arabia in secret proceedings, and I was thinking about all BLP statements regardless of whether the accused person is the subject of the article. The article about bin Salman certainly includes suggestions that he's guilty of ordering Khashoggi's murder, though it doesn't use the word "guilty" itself. ] (]) 14:37, 29 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Public figure == | |||
| *'''Suggestion''' | |||
| Is ] really needed? All living persons with Misplaced Pages articles are public figures, and it’s really vague how does one determine who’s a public figure.--] (]) 18:00, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Replace: | |||
| :"All living persons with Misplaced Pages articles are public figures" is not true at all. – ] (]) 18:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::Unless we stop talking about crimes then, yes, ] is absolutely critical. Furthermore please remember that, to be a public figure, a person needs to be independently notable for something other than an unproven accusation of a crime. ] (]) 18:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::It's not true if we have a clear definition on what a public figure really is. WP:PUBLICFIGURE links to ], which is in terrible shape and lists only the legal definition in the United States. What about the legal definitions in other countries? If there's no universal legal definition about a public figure, the easiest way to go is with the general meaning of the term, that is, a person known in public. Therefore, one has to be a public figure so that biographical information is available in reliable sources, and that's what is required for a stand-alone Misplaced Pages article.--] (]) 20:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::No, I don't believe your argument is accurate at all. "Biographical information is available in reliable sources" is not the standard for a public figure in any legal code, nor in any discussion I have seen on Misplaced Pages. Further, ] links to the explanatory essay ], which provides additional guidance. Clearer guidance would be helpful and making that guidance part of actual policies or guidelines would probably also be helpful. However, I'm not aware of any discussion that has ever concluded that notability for Misplaced Pages purposes is the same as being a public figure, and in some cases, that would be obviously not true. – ] (]) 22:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::You're talking about legal codes, but ] only lists the legal case in the United States. Could you please expand the article with the legal codes of all countries or find a universal legal definition? A policy linking to an orange-tagged article in terrible shape cannot be a good policy. Furthermore, ] isn't a reliable source or a legal code, but just an essay which is chiefly advisory. Low-profile (or non-public) figures are unlikely to suffice stand-alone articles, so it really gets to the point that all living persons who merit articles are public figures. Persons notable for single events don't have stand-alone articles, and the articles on the events typically contain their biographical information (e.g. ], ] etc.).--] (]) 07:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :I agree that our definitions of public figures and low profile individuals is quite vague and imprecise. I do also agree that this distinction is important. - ] (]) 19:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| {{C quote|With ] a serious ongoing concern, people increasingly regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Misplaced Pages includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object.}} | |||
| :Yes, it advises editors that being neutral does not necessarily mean the exclusion of negative material for public figures. —] (]) 04:11, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::That's not the point. All material in reliable sources is eligible for inclusion, unless specifically restricted by other policies. We ] to encourage editors not exclude negative material from reliable sources. Moreover, this policy isn't written in an efficient way as there's not a systematic list of legal definitions about "public figure" in all countries in the world. The only thing we have is a link to ], an orange-tagged article with information on the legal situation in the United States. How does this policy help editors from other countries in the world discern who's a public figure? --] (]) 07:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::There's almost 1,000 links to WP:PUBLICFIGURE, so some editors apparently find it useful to reference. Are there specific instances where there was a conflict over ''public figure'' that we can reference to consider opprtunities for improvement? —] (]) 08:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If we acknowledge that "public figure" is a real thing on Misplaced Pages that needs to be singled out, then we need to make sure that anyone gets the right meaning. Otherwise, we involuntarily put our editors at risk in case there's a litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation. This policy explicitly calls for adding biographical information that may be deemed defamatory, but it doesn't legally protect our editors from any unwanted scenario. In general, all relevant information in reliable sources should be included, but there are countries in which editors have to weigh their contributions against their personal safety. Misplaced Pages is neither a lawyer nor a platform for human rights activism. It should promote, but not mandate, full transparency. I find this policy redundant.--] (]) 09:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::If you're referring to ], I'll leave it to WMF lawyers. As for individual editors, if they want to be more strict and not add the information themselves, ] they are not comfortable with. —] (]) 09:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :PUBLICFIGURE is really more used in the negative sense, in that people that are clearly not public figures (by any definition) should have added BLP concerns related to privacy and other information. A person can have an article but not be a public figure if they are not regularly in the spotlight, as I would consider most academics and professors, many authors, and some business people, all whom might have a good deal of coverage to be able to be notable, but to the extent that we would not include a random accusation within their BLP if only a single source covers it. ] (]) 21:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *Yes, ] is needed, both as editorial guidance to what is proper and as legal cover so WP is not guilty of fostering libel. No, all people with articles are not public figures, as said in ] at “regardless of whether they are notable enough for their own article”. Functionally WP article cannot be the criteria as that would circularly open PUBLICFIGURE to be a hack of just create an article on the person to get around the policy. I think it is clear enough that a public figure is a high government official, a listed royal, or a person who sought public prominence. I think there is even a division between those whose actions directly seek prominence via speeches and personal press conferences, and those who are simply famous by dint of notable performance in sports or entertainment. I would tend to try and respect the individuals life choices for personal privacy where reasonable and supported. Cheers ] (]) 07:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *I do not think every holder of a named chair in a univeristy, or several other criteria that we have make people public figures. Someone who won a medal at the olympics 30 or more years ago, or even less, may or may not have been a public figure then, and notability always holds once it is reached, but I think people should have the right to privacy if they chose it, especially those who were thrust into the public spotlight as children or young adults in many ways not by themselves, many gymnastics medalists are minors, so I think it does not make sense to assume all holders of articles are actually public figures.] (]) 13:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Djair Parfitt-Williams Official Name Change Update == | |||
| with: | |||
| http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=2&assoc=1&newsid=63984 | |||
| {{C quote|Misplaced Pages includes full names and dates of birth that can be verified by a reliable source, and have either been widely published or have been published by a source linked to the subject.}} | |||
| i am Djair Terraii Parfitt , i have been advised to raise discussion here . I have legally changed my name to “Djair Terraii Parfitt” … i no longer go by Williams . Can you please update the Misplaced Pages Page | |||
| # Lets not confuse the issue with identity theft and privacy. | |||
| # The ] constitutes "widely published" but is not terribly reliable. We do not serve any purpose by trying to suppress this date. However for encyclopaedic reasons we need a reliable source. | |||
| # The sources linked to the subject may not be reliable, but they imply consent. | |||
| Regards ] (]) 00:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| I'm still not happy with the blanket permission/instruction to remove on subject request, we should not remove the birth date of Barack Obama, even if he does object, for instance. | |||
| :] | |||
| All the best: ''] ]'',<small> 00:13, 13 July 2015 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| :this page ^ ] (]) 00:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Where do I direct queries from BLP subjects? == | |||
| == Andy Goodenough == | |||
| Is there a forehead-slappingly obvious central place where a subject of a BLP may go for help? If I were Sylvester Stallone, and I had an issue with my recent coverage, where would I send such queries? On the talkpage of the article certainly. Not to the BLP noticeboard. Public AND Private, as a sysop what are the best places to direct such inquiries or concerns? ] (]) 12:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Hello, can I have your opinion on ], do you think it passes ]. Should this article be PROD'ed? Thanks, ] (]) 22:09, 2 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :], ]? ] (]) 13:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :Needs more sources. There are two on his resignation, and one that covers a later appointment. All the best: ''] ]'',<small> 00:39, 13 July 2015 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| == A discussion of interest? == | |||
| == ] == | |||
| Folks, see ]. Primarily concerns organizations/companies and biographies. BLP is an issue in some cases, obviously, given the very topic... <sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</sub> 09:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Recently I worked on a couple BLP pages, where BLP-compliant sources demonstrated that the article-subject seemed to have a propensity for lying; in one case the news stories were specifically about how they fabricated much of their life story. This seemed like a scenario where common sense would dictate that we be less trusting of self-published sources, but where the current BLPSELFPUB does not address. | |||
| == Reconsidering the third point of BLP1E == | |||
| Covering this scenario specifically would be instruction creep and a slippery slope, but I was surprised it didn't at least have a sixth exception for where independent, secondary sources conflict with the article-subject's narrative, which would cover cases like this in-spirit, as well as many others where we should show preference to independent sources. ] (]) 06:44, 7 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| Currently, the 3rd point of BLP1E states: {{green|The event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented. John Hinckley Jr., for example, has a separate article because the single event he was associated with, the Reagan assassination attempt, was significant, and his role was both substantial and well documented.}} I know what this is getting at, but I think that we need to make this a bit stronger in its wording based on how many keep !votes there were at ]. <br style="margin-bottom:0.5em"/>Part of the issue is the fact we have a huge amount of trouble getting editors to recognize the bounds of WP:NOTNEWS, that every tiny news detail is not necessarily appropriate for a summary article. As such editors conflate a massive amout of news coverage with being notable or significant. That's itself a wholly separate issue that needs a broader venue to tackle, its not just a BLP problem, but it is affecting how BLP1E is read.<br style="margin-bottom:0.5em"/>In terms of BLP, whether Mangione's roll in the killing is going to have the same type of long-term analysis and investigation as there was for Hinckley or someone like Lee Harvey Oswald, we simply don't know yet. There's tons of news coverage, but right now nearly all the coverage related to Mangione is also covered in the killing article; what little there is unique to him is superficial biography stuff like DOB, schooling, and career (none which would be notable). Because of this, the article for Mangione is nearly duplicate of the kiliing article, or mixing up the details such as the trial which should be part of the killing article (that event clearly notable). The article for Brian Thomspon (the victim here) also had some of the same problems too, and that's more rip for eventually merging due to this.<br style="margin-bottom:0.5em"/>I don't know how to change the BLP1E wording here, but it should emphasize that we should be looking at the ''long-term'' significance and coverage of the person's role in the event, and not flash-in-the-pan type coverage. Simply having massive cover in the short-term news should not be considered sufficient to meet BLP1E.<span id="Masem:1734793882643:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNBiographies_of_living_persons" class="FTTCmt"> — ] (]) 15:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)</span> | |||
| :"Independent, secondary sources conflict with the article-subject's narrative" would necessarily mean that "4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity", so the former would be redundant. ] (]) 12:49, 8 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Given that AfD, I'd suggest that any attempt to change BLP would be an action against consensus. The real issue here is recentism in general, rather than BLP, and anyone trying to get anything deleted within a month of the sentinel event faces a steep uphill battle, likely fraught with charges of political bias or other suspect motivation. Better to let editors continue editing that article as long as and until it proves that no sufficiently detailed analysis exists or is going to exist. But I think that may border on a fool's errand as well, since we still have ], who appears to have the smallest amount of information known about him of anyone on planet earth (hyperbole...) and yet we still have an article just because with the Internet, there is now nothing to stop or throttle ongoing coverage of topics that pique the public's interest, as assassins and assassinations seem to. ] (]) 18:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::I take it that you mean in such a case there '''would''' be reasonable doubt about the authenticity of the self-published account, and so ] would say not to use it. Have I understood you corectly, {{U|Mitch Ames}}? ] ] 13:03, 8 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| * I mean, it was a SNOW keep. I don't think you're going to successfully find consensus for any change that would have allowed that article to be deleted. I wouldn't be totally opposed to "lacks long-term significance" instead of just "not significant", but it's important to understand that the overwhelming majority of Keep !voters there are just going to tell you that they think that yes, it's sufficiently significant in the long term. (But if your argument is that actual long-term ''coverage'' should be required, ie. you're trying to make it impossible to cover anything until enough time has passed for that coverage to exist, then that's a nonstarter because there clearly are things, including articles about individuals only famous for one event, that are required immediately for encyclopedic completeness - if someone eg. successfully assassinates a major world leader, there is no question that we'd need an article about them immediately, even if that's the only thing they will ever be known for.) --] (]) 19:30, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **There is a massive problem across WP that editors rush to create and expand articles on breaking news, without following what NOTNEWS, GNG, and NEVENT all stress. That's not the purpose of an encyclopedia. As I said, there's a need to re-establish NOTNEWS and stop editors from jumping in to creating articles on breaking news topics just because there's a large mass of news coverage. I am not saying that there could never be an article on Mangione, in this case, but we should strive to avoid that much expansion and detail until it is warranted by longer-term sources rather than news coverage; the details about Mangione being wholly appropriate in the existing event article; we should be striving for comprehensiveness and appropriate summarization in one single article than massive detailing across multiple different articles. Otherwise we get tons and tons of articles that duplicate the same information from other articles, creating possible POVFORKS (a key problem for BLP), and other problems. Adjusting BLP1E's 3rd point to make it clear that its not just short term news coverage but long-term sourcing is a desparetely needed step. Note that likely won't stop article creation, but it is a necessary tool as to reassess articles after the rush of coverage has died down and then to determine AFD or merging or other processes.<span id="Masem:1734810109932:Wikipedia_talkFTTCLNBiographies_of_living_persons" class="FTTCmt"> — ] (]) 19:41, 21 December 2024 (UTC)</span> | |||
| **:{{U|Masem}} I respect your contributions here and your take 99.5% of the time... but this is wrong. {{tq|For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage}} is the core of NOTNEWS, and has been (with some wording updates) for more than a decade. I recommend seriously contemplating what NOTNEWS ''actually says'' and not just what people who throw it around as a bare policy reference think it should mean. ] (]) 19:52, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **::But, NOTNEWS as well as NOT itself stresses that we are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Keeping topics up to date is reasonable, but we shouldn't be going as overboard as we are doing now in covering immediately current events. We write in far too much detail for what summary style that we should be aiming for, and editors frequently claim important and long term significance without any clear sourcing towards this which is both against NOTCRYTSTAL and NOR. And this leads to problems that can arise with BLP, such as excessively personal details that would not be included if one were creating an article about that same person but a few years later after a major event. Eg with Brian Thompsin, editors were scrapping any detail about his life to support that article, leading to several BLP violations. This type of editing also leads to common duplication and poor separation of content. We have the Killing article which seems the obvious place to discuss all facets including a arrestt and this trial, and it's clear that event article isn't going anywhere. But the Mangoine is heavily duplicating the Killing article, which is not helpful for future editors and to readers, from an encyclopedic view. We need to reign this in and get editors to write for a encyclopedia, because we are not Wikinews, which is far better suited for the type of constantly updated news style articles. ] (]) 17:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| **:::I 100000000% endorse this. ] (]) 14:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***Again, the RFC was a snow keep with overwhelming attendance; trying to immediately rehash it is mostly a waste of time. If you want to argue that such articles should be written in a ''specific way'', there might be something to discuss, but sometimes we have to just look at an event and, based on the tone and content of an existing flood of coverage, go "yeah, there's clearly going to be books, biopics, academic papers, etc. about this person in the long term." And people can disagree about that! But I think it might be more useful to think about what it would take to convince you that a particular event was significant in the long term, or at which arguments were decisive ''in that discussion'', and calibrate any suggestion for that, with the acknowledgement that the community clearly believes Mangione is on the "definitely needs an encyclopedia article" side of the line and that you're not going to succeed at drawing a line that would exclude it. To me, stuff like eg. long-term projects focusing on someone being announced is a major factor, since it means that your argument goes from "you're just speculating that it will be important" to, essentially, you yourself speculating that the announced projects won't be completed or won't be significant. See eg. - to me that's the sort of source that we'd look for to see if someone passes the BLP1E line. If you don't find that convincing, why not, and if so, how ''would'' long-term significance be demonstrated to your satisfaction? --] (]) 19:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ***I can see the value in adding something to emphasize the importance of long-term sourcing to ]. After requirement #3, the next paragraph starts with, "{{tq|The significance of an event or the individual's role is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources.}}" Maybe that line should be incorporated into the first sentence of #3, such as "The event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented, which is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources over time."? ] seems to be worded more strongly, and is certainly worded far stronger than it is implemented in practice, especially when it comes to news reports about living people. – ] (]) 01:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ****I've never seen wikipedia publish a news report about a living person... Perhaps you're simply misinterpreting NOTNEWS? ] (]) 16:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *****There are so many examples that I assume this is just a bad faith argument by you because we disagreed in another thread. Please leave me alone in discussions unless you have something substantive to add. – ] (]) 18:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ******I've never seen wikipedia publish a news report at all, about a living person or otherwise... Even The Signpost is technically published by an external entity and thats the closest we seem to come. ] (]) 01:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *There is no way to write a rule that covers events like ] (yes, I said ''event'', not ''person''). I can't define art but I know it when I see it and there will be an article on this person. ] (]) 02:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *"Simply having massive cover in the short-term news should not be considered sufficient to meet BLP1E." and it wasn't in this case, next please. ] (]) 16:26, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *:All the coverage related to him right now is short term. We are still in a burst of news coverage, not where enduring coverage would start. ] (]) 17:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| *::BLP1E isn't required, its a "generally should" not a "must" which means that being kept doesn't mean that it meets BLP1E. ] (]) 01:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :I'm just not seeing the problem. In this specific instance, the {{tqq|event is significant and individual's role substantial}}, and what is known is {{tqq|well documented}}. Remember, it's an {{tqq|or}} in the current BLP1E text, so either the event they're involved in is "significant" '''''or''''' their role is "either substantial or well documented". I think the current guidance is working as intended, and the community recognized that with the result we achieved. I don't see that a change here is necessary as we'd only be preventing articles about subjects our readers are looking for from being produced. —] • ] • ] 02:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::: Oops. What I meant was "independent, secondary sources conflict with the article-subject's narrative" would necessarily mean that "4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity" <u>is not satisfied</u> (because there ''is'' doubt as to its authenticity if other reliable sources conflict with it) so BLPSELFPUB would say not to use it. ] (]) 13:11, 8 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :As someone who edits in this kind of field ''but'' avoids breaking news, our inconsistency on BLP1E/BIO1E drives me mad, even though I tend to be more lenient towards splitting articles like these. There is no rhyme or reason to who does or doesn't. It's not the policy's fault - I think the section is well written, this is just inherently a very finnicky topic area. Given this specific case I would find stronger cause for not keeping it, as he has not been convicted and he is not otherwise notable. But people have... strong feelings, and that results in bad decisions in this topic area. | |||
| ::::{{U|Mitch Ames}} Maybe I'm confused. I thought the reference to "authenticity" was regarding whether there was doubt that the site was actually published by the article-subject, as oppose to doubts over whether the article-subject's statements are accurate. For example, say johnsmith.com claims to be written by John Smith, but isn't actually. That would not be an authentic self-published website. ] (]) 04:56, 11 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Avoiding the breaking events thing, I really just think it's generally more of a NOPAGE question. After the dust is settled, will it benefit the reader to have more than one page? For a fully comprehensive telling of events would it be most logically covered with a separate article? If cases are widely known, historically significant and have very in depth coverage the answer tends to be yes. Or are you making an article for the sake of having an article? I think these are better questions to ask. ] (]) 05:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::WP:BLPSELFPUB says that such material 'may' be used - we aren't under any obligation to use it, and if we have serious doubts regarding its veracity, we shouldn't. This isn't really any different from the normal situation where an otherwise-reliable source has clearly got something wrong - we always have editorial discretion to reject such sources (and can, within reason engage in 'original research' to determine that it is wrong - ] is expressly limited to article ''content''). What we ''can't'' do is include our own opinion that it is wrong in the article. The editorial process consists of more than a blind accumulation and regurgitation of 'reliable sources' - or at least, it should, if we are to avoid becoming the 'transcription monkeys' that Jimbo once warned about. There is more on the subject of rejecting sources because they are 'wrong' at ]. ] (]) 05:39, 11 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::I think one of the challenges our community faces is that BLP sets a high bar for creating a page about a living person, but there is a tendency for editors to want to create pages about individuals (especially individuals connected with a high-profile crime) and there is a tendency to quickly try to delete BLP articles while the event is in the news (so passions are high). - ] (]) 15:46, 24 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Indeed it should be obvious in some cases that the subject has a history of fraud and/or lying. I sympathise with ], we do get editors who support the subject's interpretation out of an excess of Good Faith, over what the RS (including newspapers, professional bodies and court records) say. We then have to dance around BLP in order to convince these editors not to rely on what are clearly unreliable sources. But having said that it's pretty rare, and does not need a special exception, per Andy. All the best: ''] ]'',<small> 16:22, 12 July 2015 (UTC).</small><br /> | |||
| :::I agree with this, those two challenges are why we're instructed to not rush to creation *and* to not rush to deletion however contradictory that may seem at first glance. ] (]) 21:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ::::It's just there are no gaurdlines on creation, and once a page gets loaded with references (even if they are principle primary sources, from short term news coverage, and which fail to demonstrate notability beyond a single event, it becomes near impossible to merge or delete such articles because editors that vote to keep frequently equate massive news coverage with notability, which is not always true. I don't want to see us suppress article creation, but we need to have better ability in policy to handle cases once it has been shown no long term coverage exists and merging into a more comprehensive article makes more sense. | |||
| ::::I'll also add that both BLP CRIME and Victim suggest a stronger form that what the current third point of BLP1E offers, in the cautionary aspects about creating articles separate from a notable event article for previously non notable victims or suspects/convicted individuals. ] (]) 21:21, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| :::::I don't know about that... I would be interested to see some hard statistics on deletions but it seems much more doable than "near impossible" ] (]) 21:24, 26 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == |
== Name Change Profile Update == | ||
| Can you please update the Misplaced Pages Page | |||
| Maybe I'm missing something, but is there anything in the policy that explicitly states that contentious material should not be restored to an article without first getting consensus if it has been removed on BLP grounds even if it is well sourced. The policy is clear that the content shouldn't be restored in situations where it is "unsourced or poorly sourced", but what about if there are concerns other than sourcing (such as ], ], etc)? In the section about deleted articles, the policy says, "When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Misplaced Pages's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first..." which would be broad enough to cover the situation I'm describing but this doesn't appear to apply articles that haven't been deleted through a ]. ] (]) 12:08, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Deleted articles have reached a consensus that the content should be removed, but deleted sentences do not. Per ], it's enough that the editor restoring the content believes in good faith that the references are valid to support the contentious material, though other editors may then disagree and remove it again on BLP grounds. In that situation, it would take a rough consensus (though not unanimity) of editors agreeing that the content is well referenced, neutral and due weight before it can be restored. ] (]) 12:24, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ] | |||
| ::Thanks for the quick response. Regarding "In that situation, it would take a rough consensus (though not unanimity) of editors agreeing that the content is well referenced, neutral and due weight before it can be restored", is this something that is written in policy or is it just common practice? ] (]) 12:49, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::I was referring to ] as the criterion used by administrators in formal discussions when there's a need to tell if a discussion has reached consensus. Adding a reference when there was none may count as a significant change that allows the content to be restored (since the ] would be met), but if that addition is challenged again, the next step would require consensus. ] (]) 14:14, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :] says (with my emphasis added): | |||
| {{quotation| | |||
| When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Misplaced Pages's content policies. ''If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first,'' ...}} ] (]) 12:56, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::That quote is in a section specific to articles that have been deleted entirely. Does it also cover partial text of an article that hasn't been through an article deletion process? That's the core of my confusion. ] (]) 13:58, 14 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::I don't think it's specifically refers to deleted articles otherwise retain, restore, or undelete would have been replaced with simply undelete.--] (]) 13:50, 15 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::While it's true that BLPREQUESTRESTORE is a subsection of "Deletion of BLPs", the paragraph I quoted says "material" rather than "article", so I read it as applying to material deleted from an article, not just whole deleted articles. In the absence of anything explicitly to the contrary I would suggest that it ''would'' apply to material that had been removed from an article, even if the article itself was not deleted. Such an application would be consistent with both the ] of the rest of BLP. ] (]) 09:56, 16 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Fellow editors, I concur with {{u|Mitch Ames}} & {{u|67.68.29.1|"67"}}. While this section explicitly & specifically discusses page deletion, I do not believe that it is specifically limited to page deletion; it covers restoration of any material removed under WP:BLP. The lede sentence of the section is clear here: {{tq|Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed}} is not limited. | |||
| :::::Consequently, I respectfully disagree with {{u|Diego Moya}} on the question of restoration. If material is {{tq|to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first}}. I do agree that additional sourcing is a significant change as is meant in this section. | |||
| :::::Finally, I think a restructure/rewrite of this section of the policy to improve clarity would be advisable; and will look to provide a draft in the next week or so. Hope this helps. - ] <sup>]</sup> 23:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::Thanks, all, for the clarifications. I agree with ] that a restructuring of the policy as related to this discussion would be helpful. ] (]) 12:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| == Question on compliance with US laws == | |||
| http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=2&assoc=1&newsid=63984 | |||
| A question was on the WP:BLP main page by {{u|Fighting Poverty}} regarding the requirement to comply with US laws only. | |||
| {{talkquote|What about laws in the ] and other English speaking nations?}} | |||
| Moving that question here for discussion. - ] <sup>]</sup> 08:03, 18 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :Use of English Misplaced Pages is governed by the Wikimedia Foundation's ]. I presume the reference in this policy to "all applicable laws in the United States" is a simplified reflection of the wording in Terms of Use ] regarding jurisdiction: "If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you agree to file and resolve it exclusively in a state or federal court located in San Francisco County, California. You also agree that the laws of the State of California and, to the extent applicable, the laws of the United States of America will govern these Terms of Use ...". In other words, requiring content to adhere to "all applicable laws in the United States" is an attempt to prevent successful legal action against WMF in a state or federal court. However, there is another point raised in ]: "... we warn editors and contributors that authorities may seek to apply other country laws to you, including local laws where you live or where you view or edit content."<br />A case could be made for the BLP policy to alert people to the full complexity regarding jurisdiction. If so, rather than complicate the main flow of the policy, perhaps we could expand upon "all applicable laws" in a footnote, with a link to the Terms of Use? <small>(My opinion only, not professional advice. I do not represent WMF.)</small> <span class="nowrap">– ] (])</span> 17:02, 18 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| i am Djair Terraii Parfitt , i have been advised to raise discussion here . I have legally changed my name to “Djair Terraii Parfitt” … i no longer go by Williams . ] (]) 20:02, 27 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| If you live in an area governed by laws which may apply to you, you should make yourself quite aware of them. Generally such laws would apply to all edits made by you (and not specifically by other editors) and generally only with regard to topics reasonably under the coverage of such laws (in the case at hand, generally this means "if the living person is covered by specific laws which also apply to you, follow them.") Thus if you live in Thailand (one example) and write about the King of Thailand, it is ''likely'' that Thai law regarding such material applies to you. | |||
| :Done. ] (]) 20:57, 27 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| It is, moreover, clear that EU laws and decisions apply to anyone living in, or with a nexus to, their jurisdiction. There is no reason to assert that EU laws and decisions apply to people ''not'' under their jurisdiction and with ''no'' nexus to that jurisdiction (in the Google case, the EU found such a nexus). IANAL, but this has been the case now for many years, and has been discussed by ] among others. Cheers. ] (]) 09:40, 22 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| == Proposed addition to BLP guidelines == | |||
| == Author template == | |||
| There have been some cases where AI-generated images of living people have been generated for their articles (for example, ] plus others I've encountered but cannot remember specifically). I think this already clearly fails ] as the images are not real, but I think BLP guidelines should make it abundantly clear that this is misinformation and cannot be used to illustrate living people (except for rare exceptions like ] where it's used specifically to illustrate misinformation about the Pope). ] (]) 23:05, 29 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| Hello all- Does anyone know if we have a standard template for an article about a living author? Motivated principally by laziness, I'd like to find a framework with sections set up that I can populate easily, e.g. bio, works, film adaptations, etc. I've scoured WP and can find only the guideline ]. I realize that I can simply pick an author bio and mimic it, but I thought there might be a canonical guide hidden somewhere. Thanks in advance for any pointers. ] ] 16:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :I agree that there should be some sort of guidance (either at WP:BLP or at WP:OR, or somewhere else) regarding AI-generated images of living people. Unfortunately, I don't think anything actionable will come from regular talk page discussions like these, so I recommend starting an RfC. ] (]) 03:09, 30 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Does "archiving" an alleged BLP violation make it moot? == | |||
| ::I see that another user has started a discussion at the Village Pump after your post: ] ] (]) 13:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| ==Discussion at ]== | |||
| I have recently seen the use of "restore claimed violation to talk page and instantly archive it" as a proposed solution to what may, or may not be, specific violations of ]. I fear I regard "archive pages" as currently falling under the policy, but suggest this is a new method of dealing with violations - is it proper to do so? I am making no assertions as to any specific BLP violations here, but only discussing this novel approach. Cheers. ] (]) 09:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ] You are invited to join the discussion at ]. ] (]) 00:16, 1 January 2025 (UTC)<!-- ] --> | |||
| :Functionally there is no difference between 'archiving' and deleting the BLP violation in question, the primary concern is removing any BLP violations from public/easily accessible/search engine crawlable view. Archiving performs that function as well as deleting/removing the info in question. To completely nuke something either rev-del or oversight is required, and the standards are higher to invoke those than merely consensus that something is a BLP violation. Which may explain why people do not try very hard to completely remove all record of a BLP violation. Too much effort. One approach could be to try and change policy so that anything that after consensus discussion is found to be a BLP violation, automatically qualifies for revdel/oversight? ] (]) 09:44, 22 July 2015 (UTC) | |||
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| BLP issues summary |
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Proposed addition to WP:SUSPECT
I propose the following text be added to WP:SUSPECT:
- Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned on the main page of the encyclopdia until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal. Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law."
I have decided to post this as an RfC as this would involve a non-trivial amendment to WP:POLICY and the issue has become a contentious point of debate involving several nominations at WP:ITNC. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Clarification: This proposal only applies to the main page of the encyclopedia, not to any specific articles. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Support Misplaced Pages is not a news blotter and we have no need to be first to cover a story. Anything we can do to protect the presumption of innocence for BLPs is a good thing. Furthermore a clear and unambiguous policy regarding how to handle suspects of crime would avoid tedious debates about who constitutes a public person. Simonm223 (talk) 17:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- One small question though: by the main page do you mean a BLP's article-space or do you mean the en dot wikipedia dot com landing page? Simonm223 (talk) 18:09, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I am referring to the front page of the English Misplaced Pages. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:12, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I see. I'd still support it but somewhat less enthusiastically. I would like us to stop reporting on in-process criminal proceedings altogether as inappropriate to the scope of an encyclopedia. Don't suppose you'd be willing to expand the proposed policy revision accordingly? Simonm223 (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I think that if somebody is actually convicted and it's major news, posting it at ITN is fine. I supported posting Donald Trump's conviction in the New York case. My objection is to putting unresolved allegations on the main page. There is a huge difference between mentioning widely reported criminal charges in somebody's BLP article and putting them on the front page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. But if you have a specific change in mind feel free to suggest it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Here's my pitch: replace the current text of WP:SUSPECT with,
A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal.
Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law. If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, include sufficient explanatory information.
Simonm223 (talk) 18:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)- I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. But you can always add it as separate proposal for discussion underneath this one. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Rather than having dueling RFCs could we suggest your text as an option 1 and mine as an option 2? That way, in cases like mine where I would support either but have a preference it's all in one place. Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- We already have several comments so I would be reluctant to materially alter the RfC. But I will add your suggestion below this. for discussion in its own right. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Rather than having dueling RFCs could we suggest your text as an option 1 and mine as an option 2? That way, in cases like mine where I would support either but have a preference it's all in one place. Simonm223 (talk) Simonm223 (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- The notion of appellate proceedings not having any bearing on the proceedings below is on its face contradictory. Also there are a variety of types of appellate proceedings, levels of appeal, and legal systems in which all these things play out, some of which of course don't even presume innocence or otherwise derogate from the general presumption.
- You'd also, if you went forward with your green texted pitch, need an additional comma: after "criminal proceedings". Djpmccann (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. But you can always add it as separate proposal for discussion underneath this one. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Here's my pitch: replace the current text of WP:SUSPECT with,
- I think that if somebody is actually convicted and it's major news, posting it at ITN is fine. I supported posting Donald Trump's conviction in the New York case. My objection is to putting unresolved allegations on the main page. There is a huge difference between mentioning widely reported criminal charges in somebody's BLP article and putting them on the front page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. But if you have a specific change in mind feel free to suggest it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I see. I'd still support it but somewhat less enthusiastically. I would like us to stop reporting on in-process criminal proceedings altogether as inappropriate to the scope of an encyclopedia. Don't suppose you'd be willing to expand the proposed policy revision accordingly? Simonm223 (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I am referring to the front page of the English Misplaced Pages. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:12, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- One small question though: by the main page do you mean a BLP's article-space or do you mean the en dot wikipedia dot com landing page? Simonm223 (talk) 18:09, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Such allegations are going to be included in the BLP article in any such case where the conditions are in line with BLPCRIME. It makes no sense to then say that we should hide that from the main page if they are in the news, as long as the blurb is clear that they are only allegations or charges and not convictions. It does make sense to avoid including news items around such allegations when they are less news and more a due to the spectical around it (eg some of the jadedness editors have around Trump rings true here), but that's something that current ITN guidelines should handle, not a special exemption on BLP. — Masem (t) 18:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - we can presume innocence while mirroring the reliable sources that choose to cover a story (or do not choose). Editors of main page processes currently have appropriate leeway to decide whether a legal case is prominent enough to be mentioned. Ed 18:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. The ongoing legal proceedings against Trump make clear that there are circumstances in which unresolved legal allegations are clearly WP:DUE. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose Criminal allegations and proceedings are normally major points in an individual's life and they should be covered, whether on the MP or not. As long as the wording is appropriate (ie provides context and makes clear it's an allegation or part of a proceeding), and not giving any indication of guilt or innocence, there is no reason not to have information on the MP. - SchroCat (talk) 18:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, though this is without prejudice to the policy in WP:NPF that we should tread very carefully when publishing negative information about non-public figures. Major public figures, however, should not have that protection: where newsworthy allegations have been made against them, they should be reported objectively and as accusations, following WP:V. UndercoverClassicist 18:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Support (invited by the bot) Since everything "in the news" violates wp:not news, there's no strong argument for inclusion of anything and IMO so no argument agains setting a bit higher bar. Criminal charges vary from meaningless to meaningful depending on the particulars (such as who is making the charge, the nature of the charge) and there's nothing wrong with setting a bit higher bar for the front page of Misplaced Pages. North8000 (talk) 19:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
Very, very weak oppose, though I support the spirit of this proposal. There are absolutely circumstances in which unresolved proceedings are quite notable, though. @Ad Orientem, I don't too much follow ITNC, might I ask which specific instances of BPPCRIME on the main page have conflagrated? Changed to support, and thanks to whomever signed my post (the reply tool has spoiled me). — Preceding unsigned comment added by JayCubby (talk • contribs) 19:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)- There have been a number over the years. The most recent would be Jair Bolsonaro's indictment in Brazil. That discussion is still open and currently looks pretty deadlocked. In the past each of Donald Trump's indictments were nominated. At least two and possibly three of them were separately posted. I am pretty sure the last one was turned down. We posted his actual conviction in New York, which I supported. It's also worth noting that all of the Federal charges have since been withdrawn, albeit for purely legal reasons. In theory he could be reindicted when he leaves office. A proposal to post the withdrawal of those charges was going nowhere the last I looked. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- As for those, I'd argue they have little impact on the world stage. A conviction might be. Changing my vote to support JayCubby Talk 21:42, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- @JayCubby You should strike your oppose comment to avoid confusion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- As for those, I'd argue they have little impact on the world stage. A conviction might be. Changing my vote to support JayCubby Talk 21:42, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- There have been a number over the years. The most recent would be Jair Bolsonaro's indictment in Brazil. That discussion is still open and currently looks pretty deadlocked. In the past each of Donald Trump's indictments were nominated. At least two and possibly three of them were separately posted. I am pretty sure the last one was turned down. We posted his actual conviction in New York, which I supported. It's also worth noting that all of the Federal charges have since been withdrawn, albeit for purely legal reasons. In theory he could be reindicted when he leaves office. A proposal to post the withdrawal of those charges was going nowhere the last I looked. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:57, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Support Political trials, show trials and lawfare are common in many jurisdictions and often used against opposition politicians. We should therefore have a high bar for promotion of such, per WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:NOTSCANDAL. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- This is an argument against the change. Convictions can easily be obtained in such cases. Similarly, cronies of the leader in many jurisdictions may be protected from convictions for crimes they very clearly have committed. The result is really that legal decisions should not as a rule trump wikipedia's own processes for handling verification. We should be exceedingly careful, but convictions/acquittal should not be a bright shining line. Fangz (talk) 11:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Doesn't the brightness of the line here completely depend on the system in which the charging and/or conviction has been made? It's for sure a bright shining light to most rational people in the real world in well functioning democracies. Djpmccann (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is an argument against the change. Convictions can easily be obtained in such cases. Similarly, cronies of the leader in many jurisdictions may be protected from convictions for crimes they very clearly have committed. The result is really that legal decisions should not as a rule trump wikipedia's own processes for handling verification. We should be exceedingly careful, but convictions/acquittal should not be a bright shining line. Fangz (talk) 11:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose the blanket prohibition, as there still may be limited circumstances where an arrest made or formal charges against a very prominent person cannot be ignored (I am thinking OJ-level celebrities, or current or former heads of state), that grab the international consciousness that ITN is designed to capture. --Enos733 (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. If someone has been accused of a crime and we properly state such has occurred, I fail to see the issue. It is factually correct. I'd like to believe our readers are smart enough to believe and trust us to "report" (or what you wish to call it) on these things properly. DarkSide830 (talk) 05:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- A (1) charging addressed to a court, in a decently thoughtful legal system, by a properly-acting prosecutor (think: Jack Smith) is more significant and important to readers than (2) a mere accusation by eg a private individual (think jilted ex-lover). Reporting (1) as such (not as guilt, but as a charging), is quite proper, indeed the open, non-arbitrary nature of justice proceedings (a value in many rule of law systems) relies upon the public nature of that information broadly. Reporting (2) is usually just third hand defamatory distraction. Djpmccann (talk) 22:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose This proposal would create a prohibition that goes far beyond breaking news. Criminal proceedings can take years and sometimes even over a decade. – notwally (talk) 18:39, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Comment It's not clear what the "contentious point" is that the proposal is seeking to resolve. Saying that someone is indicted ≠ guilty.—Bagumba (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose - The proposal is misguided and arbitrary. It would prohibit mentioning the cases of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Slobodan Milošević, Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby, the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and any criminal charges that do not result in either a conviction or acquittal. The proposal wrongly supposes that the publication of criminal charges would be harmful to the accused and the legal presumption of innocence. Public scrutiny ensures that the rights of the accused are protected against abuses of judicial and prosecutorial power. Suppressing that can shield those in power from accountability and create an environment where malicious prosecutions are more likely to occur. The proposal would suppress well-written and reliably-sourced articles that are deemed to be of wide interest to readers and editors. There is a high bar for publishing on the main page. Events published on WP:ITN are reviewed case-by-case. This proposal aims to preempt that review. It leaves no room for context and nuance. Buffalkill (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
- I think the proposal as worded is only for the “proceedings”, which would not prohibit mentioning the publication of criminal charges. That wording only speaks to court cases while they are in progress. It would seem to me that excludes only intermediate events within the courts which would be the WP:CRYSTALBALL guessing or gossiping about a specific days sensationalist testimony and those seem worth excluding. Personally, I think the restraint specified is little and limited but that some restraint is necessary. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 09:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- If the goal is to avoid gossip and minutiae on the main page that should be addressed through policies against that. There's no need for a special policy on criminal cases. We don't want to be in a perverse situation where it's easier to have a ITN about someone being accused of having an affair than being accused of murder. Fangz (talk) 12:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think the proposal as worded is only for the “proceedings”, which would not prohibit mentioning the publication of criminal charges. That wording only speaks to court cases while they are in progress. It would seem to me that excludes only intermediate events within the courts which would be the WP:CRYSTALBALL guessing or gossiping about a specific days sensationalist testimony and those seem worth excluding. Personally, I think the restraint specified is little and limited but that some restraint is necessary. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 09:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Not an issue -- again, as worded it would allow mention of the start of trial for either murder or an affair, it only says to exclude the "proceedings" of day-by-day trial (or divorce) coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- Question @Ad Orientem: Are there any examples of items that (1) were published on the main page that should not have been, and (2) would have been prevented by the proposed amendment? Buffalkill (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
- Well, we individually posted at least two, and possibly three (memory fails) of Donald Trump's indictments. The fourth one I do recall we decided not to post. Trump's sole conviction was posted, quite properly. The Federal charges have now been dismissed. In theory they could be revived, though for obvious reasons (he will be in control of the DoJ for the next four years, and he could attempt to pardon himself) this is exceedingly unlikely. So we repeatedly posted unproven charges against a very prominent and controversial person, followed by a single conviction. As for the the Federal indictments, the community pointedly declined to address their dismissal in the same way we posted them when issued. It goes w/o saying that this sort of thing gives ammunition to those who claim that Misplaced Pages has a leftwing bias where the subject touches on politics and/or culture. But it goes beyond that. We are also posting unproven charges against non-Trump figures, on the main page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. And yeah, I think that is deeply problematic, and I say that as someone who detests Trump. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- There is a bright line between unfounded accusations, as can happen in the case of sexual misconduct accusations, and charges that have been made by an official law enforcement agency after a lengthy investigation. The former, that is the type of stuff we should even be careful of posting in the BLP's own article, public figure or not, and only really include that info should there be significant coverage in high-quality, non-tabloid sources. The latter, particularly with those that are or were sitting world leaders, those charges are not being thrown around without the agencies understanding the weight of said charges, and would know there would be heck to pay if they were filing those without any chance of prosecution. Add in the weight that we get from long-term enduring coverage of such charges (not just for Trump, but now Putin and Netanyahu and Bolsanano), and these are far beyond the line where we'd normally take caution with those accusations. Masem (t) 02:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, we individually posted at least two, and possibly three (memory fails) of Donald Trump's indictments. The fourth one I do recall we decided not to post. Trump's sole conviction was posted, quite properly. The Federal charges have now been dismissed. In theory they could be revived, though for obvious reasons (he will be in control of the DoJ for the next four years, and he could attempt to pardon himself) this is exceedingly unlikely. So we repeatedly posted unproven charges against a very prominent and controversial person, followed by a single conviction. As for the the Federal indictments, the community pointedly declined to address their dismissal in the same way we posted them when issued. It goes w/o saying that this sort of thing gives ammunition to those who claim that Misplaced Pages has a leftwing bias where the subject touches on politics and/or culture. But it goes beyond that. We are also posting unproven charges against non-Trump figures, on the main page of one of the world's most heavily trafficked websites. And yeah, I think that is deeply problematic, and I say that as someone who detests Trump. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Support with edits The guidance for restraint is generally a good idea, but the issue here should not be limited by ‘Given the legal presumption of innocence’, as that is not the only reason or desirable limit on the guidance about star coverage. Yes, Misplaced Pages is not a news blotter and we have no need to be first to cover a story - and that is to be reputable and avoid WP:GOSSIP, WP:SENSATION or WP:TABLOID rather than only the legal concerns for libel or affecting a case during prosecution. For ITN, the restraint would be to avoid posting something that is simply accusations as it seems simply rumors about sports or entertainment figures is ubiquitous and not actually deserving a headline mention unless it escalates beyond that. Similarly, it is not just the ‘presumption of innocence’ or just the initial accusation — ITN should avoid covering every single daily step of a trial for a star even if the daily press covered it - it would just seem obviously gossiping over trivia at some point. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 11:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Question since the proposal would prohibit even mentioning allegations absent a criminal conviction or acquittal, would it prohibit mentioning the September 11 attacks, since the charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed haven't been adjudicated? How would the proposal have applied to cases like Richard Nixon, who was not criminally charged but was given an unconditional pardon? How would it apply to Hunter Biden, who also was given an unconditional pardon for any federal crimes he might have committed during the past decade? Buffalkill (talk) 20:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. This would mean that even the warrants against Netanyahu c.s. couldn't be posted on ITN. As long as we have ITN, such worldwide news about clearly notable people should be postable. Fram (talk) 11:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose Presumption of innocence is a judicial standard, not a journalistic or academic one. Harm mitigation and legal responsibilities to avoid slander are appropriate considerations but writing someone probably did a bad thing is simply not the same as sending them to jail for it. Thus presumption of innocence simply does not apply from a philosophical viewpoint. Fangz (talk) 11:52, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Furthermore this is unworkable and unethical considering the diversity of legal systems and criminal codes. For example this grants a high level of protection to powerful individuals in corrupt jurisdictions who can control their legal system, and no protection at all to persecuted individuals. Precisely the opposite of what we want. Fangz (talk) 11:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, per Fangz, Masem, and Buffalkill. For example, if WP had been around during the Nuremberg trials, it would have prevented mention of those truly significant trials. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose -
- blanket prohibition unwise;
- the presumption of innocence is not applicable in all countries or all systems or all cases;
- chargings are often important for Misplaced Pages readers to know about;
- good high standards journalists and publications routinely report on chargings, but they do it as such;
- complete prohibition on mentioning will delay or prevent relevant information getting to wikipedia readers, and articles will thus be misleading by incompleteness;
- confidence in legal and political systems is founded on transparency, and transparency and information is a value of wikipedia;
- open justice requires some knowledge of what the actual system is doing, people knowing that certain people are being brought, and certain litigants/defendants need that openness to win their legal/broader case. Djpmccann (talk) 22:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, absolutely not. Trials can go on for years, sometimes decades, and can often be central to the subject; by this standard we wouldn't have been able to, for instance, mention the OJ Simpson trial anywhere on his article while it was in progress. We are not a news channel but we have an obligation to write an up-to-date encyclopedia. And this isn't even practical - how would we cover long-running cases against politicians, when they become massively relevant politically? Netanyahu's legal troubles are central to writing about Israel politics; major events going back years would make no sense at all if we tried to write around them. What happens if an accusation is central to someone's bio for a long time, with extensive WP:SUSTAINED academic coverage, and we write the article around it, only for it later to go to court - would we suddenly remove it? But on a more basic level this is saying that we could ignore coverage and write an article that ignores sourcing (no matter how strong and overwhelming) based on the gut feelings of a few editors that ongoing trials are never encyclopedic. That is not how we write articles - we reflect sourcing and coverage. If you want to try and demand higher sourcing for recent events, sure, that's something we can argue; but an absolute ban like this goes against core policy (which is not subject to consensus) and is therefore not something that can be considered. --Aquillion (talk) 15:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Buffalkill, Aquillion, and others. BLP is already sufficient to guide editors in whether or not something should be featured on the front page. Gamaliel (talk) 21:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, we have to balance privacy vs censorship and this seems too far into the area of censorship. Our current way of doing things already greatly favors privacy when it comes to living people, I see no pressing need for the proposed addition. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:15, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Alternative proposal
From Simonm223. See discussion above.
A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. Given the legal presumption of innocence, criminal proceedings including those against prominent public persons, should not be mentioned until the cases are resolved either by conviction or acquittal.
Any appellate proceedings shall have no bearing on whether or not to post the initial findings of a duly constituted court of law. If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, include sufficient explanatory information.
Support as proposer. I think this would not only eliminate the question of crime reporting on marginally public people but would also, generally, be a great service toward supporting WP:NOTNEWS. Our website isn't for breaking news and we should consider the balance of public good between extreme inclusionism and respect for presumption of innocence. Yes, that should be applied by Misplaced Pages even for distasteful politicians.Simonm223 (talk) 18:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)- Withdrawing proposal I no longer stand by this as an appropriate response to the problems I want to solve. Simonm223 (talk) 15:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose as long as the person is a public figure and the documentation of any allegations are from reputable reliable sources, there is zero reason to not include them. For example, taking this to heart, it would mean that we'd have to scrub out all of the convictions Trump faced for J6, which is in a lot of articles, including the SCOTUS case (he wasn't convicted or acquitted). We just need editors to keep their writing impartial and neutral, and work in writing summaries of legal proceedings rather than write to the level of detail the news gives (Wikinews can be used for that) — Masem (t) 18:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- A key part of my contention here is that Misplaced Pages has really strayed from the spirit of WP:NOTNEWS in that a vast array of the articles on the website are just news aggregation. I'm honestly not of the opinion that we need to be talking about the indiscretions of contemporary American politicians unless they turn out to be historically significant. Simonm223 (talk) 18:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- I am 110% behind you on the NOTNEWS issue, but it affects more than just accusations and trials of BLP. It is a far larger problem that needs to be addressed at a much large venue, one that I have been brewing how to start in the back of my mind. The over details coverage of news absolutely impacts BLP negatively, but changing just BLP isn't the way to resolve it. — Masem (t) 18:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- This is touched upon at the guideline WP:LASTING:
It may take weeks or months to determine whether or not an event has a lasting effect. This does not, however, mean recent events with unproven lasting effect are automatically non-notable.
—Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)- Unfortunately, if you ever try to get some BLP errata revolving around a crime on the basis that it has not been demonstrated to have a lasting impact the response will be that it definitely will and should not be removed because it is so very important. Simonm223 (talk) 12:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it's easier to trim (or even AfD) once the topic has died down. I've yet to see a realistic solution on how to manage the excitement before then. —Bagumba (talk) 00:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, if you ever try to get some BLP errata revolving around a crime on the basis that it has not been demonstrated to have a lasting impact the response will be that it definitely will and should not be removed because it is so very important. Simonm223 (talk) 12:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- This is touched upon at the guideline WP:LASTING:
- I feel like "strayed" implies we were ever doing anything else. If it was written one way it was clearly never obeyed, and trawling through old talk page archives I find we have actually gotten far more strict about NOTNEWS than we used to be (which is probably for the best, but I take issue with "strayed") PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
- I am 110% behind you on the NOTNEWS issue, but it affects more than just accusations and trials of BLP. It is a far larger problem that needs to be addressed at a much large venue, one that I have been brewing how to start in the back of my mind. The over details coverage of news absolutely impacts BLP negatively, but changing just BLP isn't the way to resolve it. — Masem (t) 18:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Wikinews is dead and dysfunctional and should have never been started. Quite frankly the wiki format does not gel with news. Propose what you want to deal with the NOTNEWS issue but any proposal that says "go to wikinews" is a no. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:39, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
- A key part of my contention here is that Misplaced Pages has really strayed from the spirit of WP:NOTNEWS in that a vast array of the articles on the website are just news aggregation. I'm honestly not of the opinion that we need to be talking about the indiscretions of contemporary American politicians unless they turn out to be historically significant. Simonm223 (talk) 18:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Comment Support in spirit but this is too complicated and US-centric on the details. North8000 (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose - absolutely not. As I said for the other proposal above, we can presume innocence while mirroring the reliable sources that choose to cover a story (or do not choose). This is not a solution to the larger problem alleged by the proposer. Ed 19:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose for the same reasons as above. Criminal proceedings against public figures are often WP:DUE and should be covered. Additionally, the presumption that all proceedings end in conviction or acquittal seems misguided; cases are often settled without advancing to those stages but may nevertheless be DUE. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose as explained by David Eppstein. If there are problems with "In the News" blurbs, perhaps this issue should be discussed there (perhaps with a discouragement to accept blurbs that are about an early part of a criminal proceeding, recognizing that this could not be a hard and fast rule). --Enos733 (talk) 21:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Comment If the subject of a bio was removed from a public role over an allegation before criminal proceedings completed, or perhaps even started, the proposed change would prohibit any substantive NPOV explanation from being given in the bio.—Bagumba (talk) 02:11, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Lawsuits What about a (civil) lawsuit (e.g. sexual assault), which has a lower burden of proof than a criminal case?—Bagumba (talk) 02:19, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose This proposal would create a prohibition that goes far beyond breaking news. Criminal proceedings can take years and sometimes even over a decade. – notwally (talk) 18:39, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, no matter how hysterically funny I think it would be to have to retroactively remove all the Trump trial stuff from this site. Also doesn't make any logical sense - "or acquittal"? Given the principle this proposal operates on, innocent until proven guilty, for consistency if someone gets acquitted we should simply never mention it. Which obviously doesn't square with a lot of notable topics - plenty of politicians can be highly notable for being involved in alleged things which they were never found guilty of, see Matt Gaetz. Newsy events have an awkward tension with encyclopedic-ism, but unless we want to restrict article content and creation to a point twenty years in the past (the only real way to solve the NOTNEWS issue) there is no way to put this into policy without severely, severely hampering our coverage of encyclopedic topics. We're always going to be dealing with news sources and new things happening, unless we ban current events entirely - which I don't think would serve us or the readers. If we're talking about ITN/the front page, I'm less bothered by that proposal because it does make some sense to be stricter for the front page, but that also won't work too well in practice. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:49, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose, imagine how confused readers would feel with a Jeffrey Epstein article only covering him as an investor who was friends with many famous people. He died before his most notable cases could be "
resolved either by conviction or acquittal
". Rjj (talk) 03:55, 30 November 2024 (UTC) - Clarification @Simonm223: The difference between the original proposal, and the alternative proposal, is (a) the addition of: "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction", and (b) the removal of: "on the main page of the encyclopdia". The former is simply an affirmation of the legal doctrine of the presumption of innocence, and the latter affirms the proposed prohibition on mentioning unadjudicated criminal charges on the main page, and extends it to all of Misplaced Pages. Is that correct? Thanks. Buffalkill (talk) 00:43, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- No, my proposal would suggest we should not discuss unproven allegations of crimes made against living people without conditions. Simonm223 (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- So, is it correct that your proposal would forbid us from saying on Jamal Khashoggi that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman" (currently in the lead) because bin Salman is alive and has never been taken to justice? Given that the assassination happened in Turkey, despite being at a Saudi embassy, I assume this would be considered a crime under Turkish law. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Not to mention cases where individuals are being tortured, held incommunicado or driven into exile for alleged "crimes" like "insulting the president" or "promoting homosexuality" or whatever. Fangz (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- So, is it correct that your proposal would forbid us from saying on Jamal Khashoggi that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman" (currently in the lead) because bin Salman is alive and has never been taken to justice? Given that the assassination happened in Turkey, despite being at a Saudi embassy, I assume this would be considered a crime under Turkish law. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- No, my proposal would suggest we should not discuss unproven allegations of crimes made against living people without conditions. Simonm223 (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose as less clear than the earlier proposal whether it is for ITN or all WP. I also have view that there is a sharp separation between what is accusations and what has become official charges. Accusations and investigations often turn out frivolous or fleeting with no impact, but legal cases are a notable point where it becomes official with enduring and significant impacts. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 11:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Sometimes accusations and investigations are a notable point with enduring and significant impacts, and sometimes legal cases are not. There is too much variation in individual circumstances for either of these blanket prohibitations to be useful. – notwally (talk) 18:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Accusations *often* turn out frivolous or fleeting, and only if it turns into something enduring - such as the sharp distinction of when it becomes actual official charges which are *not* frivolous - would it be mentioned. An accusation that creates enduring impact has an enduring impact worth mention, but it is the enduring impact that deserves a mention - the accusation alone never would be. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:45, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Sometimes accusations and investigations are a notable point with enduring and significant impacts, and sometimes legal cases are not. There is too much variation in individual circumstances for either of these blanket prohibitations to be useful. – notwally (talk) 18:57, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose per Rjjiii. We (sadly) have a whole bunch of people like Epstein and Jimmy Savile who escaped trial for their crimes by dying before they could be tried in court. There are also perpetrators of suicide attacks, and school killers who kill themselves rather than face trial. This is well-intentioned, but it would cause far more trouble than it would solve. John (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Neither Epstein nor Savile are BLPs even when considering the "recently deceased" note. As such statements about living people would not affect them. Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Epstein was a BLP when the accusations came out and Saville was recently deceased. Everyone will eventually become a non-BLP. Turning the issue into "how long should we wait after they die" doesn't seem helpful. – notwally (talk) 19:16, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Neither Epstein nor Savile are BLPs even when considering the "recently deceased" note. As such statements about living people would not affect them. Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. Worse than the first proposal. It would make a mockery of e.g. the Mohammed Deif article, if all crimes he was accused of but not convicted for would have to be removed completely. Fram (talk) 11:28, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose. That doesn't mean that half an article about a person has to be taken up by a minor DUI charge, but imagine the Sean Combs article without any mention of his current legal trouble. In that case, it is well-sourced and it is clearly significant to writing a biographical article about him, even though the charges have not yet reached disposition. We just need to be very clear in the article that the individual has been accused, indicted, whatever have you, but not convicted. Seraphimblade 14:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose As this is much broader, it's even worse than the original proposal. There are significant criminal cases where there is neither conviction nor acquittal, including those where the person dies while awaiting trial and it suddenly becomes possible to discuss the case only after death (as notwally notes), those where the person is pardoned (as with the legally significant case against Michael Flynn, where it would prevent discussing the reason for the pardon, since he is still alive), and those where crimes are alleged but never charged because the person is too powerful (as David Eppstein notes). It's also unclear about the implications for civil suits (like the huge opioid case involving the Sackler family), since those result in liability rather than conviction/acquittal. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose This is a well-intended proposal, but it has not been fully thought through. There are (at least) two problems. First, it follows that if material were excluded from any part of wikipedia on the basis that a person has not yet been convicted of an offence, then it could never be included if the person were in due course found not guilty. Yet it would plainly be unacceptable to censor all mention of charges followed by not-guilty verdicts since sometimes these events will have significant consequences and be notable of themselves. Imagine a politician is charged with a specific financial offence and resigns as a finance minister, then markets collapse and social cataclysms follow. There could be no mention of the alleged specific offence for the years it might take to come to court? Then, following a not-guilty verdict, there could never be mention of the specific detail which led to the social cataclysm. "In 2025, something happened in Xanadu which resulted in the temporary collapse of the financial system there, causing riots, mass deprivation and large scale refugee movement"? Second, it would be unwise for Misplaced Pages to validate verdicts in places like Iran and North Korea, whether guilty or innocent. Such a validation would be the consequence of treating verdicts differently for the purposes of inclusion at Misplaced Pages, even if only limited to the landing page. I appreciate the sentiment behind the proposal, and that's a decent one, but the response to bad actors putting in bad content is to apply present policies, frustrating as that might sound to the proposer. Emmentalist (talk) 16:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose in strongest possible terms. This solves none of the problems with the mess of a suggestion above. Sometimes accusations are central to a biography, or even to related articles; sometimes the legal process can go on for years or even decades without a resolution. Our obligation, per WP:NPOV and WP:V, is to follow the sources, and to cover things that are treated as significant in them; we are not permitted to ignore some of them based on poorly-considered gut instincts. I have some sympathy for suggestions that we shouldn't rely on breaking news sources (though I disagree with them); but this suggestion, I have zero sympathy for at all - it is deeply foolish and short-sighted, and I hope the proposer will take the sharply negative reaction to heart and WP:DROPTHESTICK on anything resembling it, here or elsewhere. As mentioned above, by completely ignoring sourcing and making no exception for coverage of any degree or quality, this proposal would contravene core policy and is therefore not implementable by consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 15:38, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah I'm happy to withdraw the proposal. I will say that I remain frustrated with the breaking news mentality we see on BLPs but I will agree that this approach was half-baked and wouldn't solve the problems that really concern me. Simonm223 (talk) 15:58, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Alternative proposal 2
This is actually going the complete opposite direction of the proposal.
Reword to
A living person accused of a crime is legally presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Misplaced Pages is not a court or a legal system, so an article about a person accused of a crime does not have to be written as if they are innocent, absent a conviction, if the consensus of reliable sources is overwhelmingly otherwise. However, with the aim of minimising harm or slander, especially to individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests such persons have committed or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction.
While Misplaced Pages must comply with United States law, as a project the content on Misplaced Pages is independent of any local national government and does not represent an official or judicial mouthpiece.(WP:NOTCENSORED) While the decisions of local courts should have a strong weight in writing an article, depending on the circumstances other reliable sources should also be included even if they contradict the official verdict, as per WP:DUE.
- Support as proposer. This I think is an important clarification. Presumption of innocence is a thing in legal systems. It's not a thing in encyclopedias, academic works, and so on. It's reasonable that we should be more careful, but it should not 100% trump wikipedia's usual processes. If a guy shoots up a school and there's 100% incontrovertible video of him doing it and every reasonable source says he did it, but the guy escaped from prison before his trial, it would be perverse to write in the consideration that he is innocent of both the shooting and the prison escape until a conviction is obtained. It's okay to say "avoid using words the express an excessive certainty that they did it", so "alleged suspect" is often better. (Though in the case of the prison escape, would we really expect any editor to write "he allegedly escaped prison"?) But referring simply to the legal principle creates a false expectation. The standard of proof on wikipedia, even in BLP, is quite different from that in a court of law. Fangz (talk) 11:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- A corollary is that we should also not encourage editors to write as if an individual is guilty simply because a conviction was obtained. You can write that factually, the guy was convicted, but e.g. human rights groups say it's total rubbish etc. Fangz (talk) 11:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Vehemently Oppose WP:NOTNEWS WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE both apply here. While Misplaced Pages may not be censored, such a policy would open flood gates for attack pages and coatracks as well as adding further ripped-from-the-headlines recentism to the project. Simonm223 (talk) 13:25, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- This does not overrule those other policies. Rather the opposite: the point is that those policies apply and should not be overruled by "the X government says this guy is guilty/innocent". The current text gives the appearance that criminal charges (criminal where? According to whom) are an overly special case. Attack pages should be prevented by rules against attack pages. If you think individuals should get attack pages dependent on whether their local government (which, lest you forget, includes anywhere from North Korea to ISIS) handed them a guilty verdict or not, that's a ridiculous state of affairs. By what metric or logic should we handle differently writing about someone's bigamy allegations vs them having an extramarital affair? Fangz (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Put it this way, in a legal context the reasoning for a presumption of innocence is easy to understand. The State must refrain from applying harm (punishment) undeservingly. In a Misplaced Pages content, the harm is reputational damage, but the thing is, reputational damage is essentially unrelated to the criminal nature of accusations. When a "crime" could depending on jurisdiction be anything between a major crime against humanity to smoking some weed or being a homosexual, while non-criminal allegations could include child rape and again major crimes against humanity... if you just want to avoid recentism and attack pages etc, it's a meaningless distinction to make. Fangz (talk) 14:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. Emmentalist (talk) 19:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- This does not overrule those other policies. Rather the opposite: the point is that those policies apply and should not be overruled by "the X government says this guy is guilty/innocent". The current text gives the appearance that criminal charges (criminal where? According to whom) are an overly special case. Attack pages should be prevented by rules against attack pages. If you think individuals should get attack pages dependent on whether their local government (which, lest you forget, includes anywhere from North Korea to ISIS) handed them a guilty verdict or not, that's a ridiculous state of affairs. By what metric or logic should we handle differently writing about someone's bigamy allegations vs them having an extramarital affair? Fangz (talk) 13:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Comment - I think revision of that section is worth discussing, and I agree with the overall sentiment, but am not sure how I feel about the proposed wording. It's clear that WP articles do not always treat criminal allegations as if the person is innocent absent conviction. For example, the article on Jamal Khashoggi says that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," even though the agents haven't been convicted (and won't be, as Saudi Arabia refused to extradite them to face the charges), and bin Salman will never be charged. For that matter, WP can discuss the possibility of wrongful conviction even if a conviction hasn't (yet) been overturned, as in appeals brought by the Innocence Project. I'm not convinced that the section needs to be modified, and if it is modified, I also wonder whether it should be revised to apply to significant civil suits as well as criminal ones. And US law is not the only legal system that is relevant. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Support For the reasons I give at the end of the first alternative proposal (NB: I accidentally put that comment here until alerted by FactOrOpinion
- Emmentalist, did you mean your response to be placed at the end of Alternative proposal rather than at the end of Alternative proposal 2? (It seems so, based on the content.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- You are correct! :-) Oops. Moving now. Thanks. Emmentalist (talk) 16:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Emmentalist, did you mean your response to be placed at the end of Alternative proposal rather than at the end of Alternative proposal 2? (It seems so, based on the content.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- Support. This is the way. We must follow the sources wherever they lead; we can urge caution, we can set criteria for what good sources are, which are well spelled-out in policy and referenced here, but ultimately it is not up to editors to second-guess the sources or to create their own byzantine rules about when we can report what the best sources say. If an accusation is central to a biography, and there is clear and unequivocal agreement among the sources, then as an encyclopedia, the encyclopedic thing to do is to reflect that; likewise, if there is clear and unequivocal agreement among the sources as to guilt, we have to reflect that in our article regardless of legal processes (though of course the legal processes would, I'd expect, be covered in the sources and therefore mentioned.) The legal process is important but is not the be-all-and-end-all or the final word when it comes to writing an encyclopedia; we must summarize all coverage, with weight according to its significance - giving legal processes (which are, in many countries, highly politicized) final say is inappropriate. If the legal process is worth so much deference, then the highest-quality sources will defer to it; in cases where they do not, we should not, either. Beyond that this proposal would put a well-deserved stake in the heart of the awful suggestions above and would block people from trying to present them on talk, which is badly-needed given how damaging they would be to Misplaced Pages's mission if not totally shut down. --Aquillion (talk) 15:45, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose - this is factually wrong and morally improper. If a person has not been convicted, it is simply wrong to use of legal language that means someone who is convicted, a distortion of facts. You can mention video evidence and such, or say they died before there was a trial, or whatever the actual events are -- but the simple fact is if they were not convicted, they are not convicted and so it is incorrect to use language as if they were or to include such incorrect statements from third parties based on "reliable sources should also be included even if they contradict the official verdict, as per WP:DUE."
- It's also morally wrong to invite a libelous judgement based on casual volunteers and limited information. This is not going to be about incontrovertible evidence and some well-defined metric of "consensus" in RS -- it is going to wind up in situations of partial knowledge from media coverage and limited volunteer looking time and arguing over whether this is "enough" or whether I have 10 sources versus you have 9 contrary ones so that's a "consensus". I don't even see it as wise editorial policy to go something that would lead to more disputes. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:19, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- Markbassett, what is your opinion about the lead in the article on Jamal Khashoggi? The first paragraph says that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," even though the agents haven't been convicted (and won't be, as Saudi Arabia refused to extradite them to face the charges), and bin Salman will never be charged. It doesn't mention conviction, but it's implying that they're guilty (though not using that word). I think that's what's meant by
an article about a person accused of a crime does not have to be written as if they are innocent, absent a conviction, if the consensus of reliable sources is overwhelmingly otherwise
. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)- User:FactOrOpinion - Uh, I think you missed that there were convictions? And that article isn't
an article about a person accused of a crime
, which in this case would be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ? Otherwise -- my immediate impression of that lead is that it does a very poor job of summarizing the article and his life, as if he had never lived or done anything. It does somewhat summarize USA coverage limited to October thru December 2018, excluding later events and his prior life. Kind of an example of an issue with WP:WEIGHT and when a story drops off the mainstream, although the sensation did lead to expanding the article content from what it was before (here). Otherwise, the language seems a bit unsupported where it was phrasing things as if certain and proven fact, when the articles did not, and missed simply reporting what the coverage is instead of declaring a judgement using wikivoice. Misplaced Pages declaiming Truth and Guilt instead of just reporting positions and coverage is the two ways I said this proposal is factually wrong and morally improper. The articles on the Prince and on the Assassination do a better job of things, for what that's worth. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:36, 29 December 2024 (UTC)- You're right, I was thinking about the criminal charges in Turkey and had forgotten the criminal convictions in Saudi Arabia in secret proceedings, and I was thinking about all BLP statements regardless of whether the accused person is the subject of the article. The article about bin Salman certainly includes suggestions that he's guilty of ordering Khashoggi's murder, though it doesn't use the word "guilty" itself. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:37, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
- User:FactOrOpinion - Uh, I think you missed that there were convictions? And that article isn't
- Markbassett, what is your opinion about the lead in the article on Jamal Khashoggi? The first paragraph says that he "was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," even though the agents haven't been convicted (and won't be, as Saudi Arabia refused to extradite them to face the charges), and bin Salman will never be charged. It doesn't mention conviction, but it's implying that they're guilty (though not using that word). I think that's what's meant by
Public figure
Is WP:PUBLICFIGURE really needed? All living persons with Misplaced Pages articles are public figures, and it’s really vague how does one determine who’s a public figure.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:00, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- "All living persons with Misplaced Pages articles are public figures" is not true at all. – notwally (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Unless we stop talking about crimes then, yes, WP:PUBLICFIGURE is absolutely critical. Furthermore please remember that, to be a public figure, a person needs to be independently notable for something other than an unproven accusation of a crime. Simonm223 (talk) 18:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- It's not true if we have a clear definition on what a public figure really is. WP:PUBLICFIGURE links to public figure, which is in terrible shape and lists only the legal definition in the United States. What about the legal definitions in other countries? If there's no universal legal definition about a public figure, the easiest way to go is with the general meaning of the term, that is, a person known in public. Therefore, one has to be a public figure so that biographical information is available in reliable sources, and that's what is required for a stand-alone Misplaced Pages article.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- No, I don't believe your argument is accurate at all. "Biographical information is available in reliable sources" is not the standard for a public figure in any legal code, nor in any discussion I have seen on Misplaced Pages. Further, WP:PUBLICFIGURE links to the explanatory essay WP:Who is a low-profile individual, which provides additional guidance. Clearer guidance would be helpful and making that guidance part of actual policies or guidelines would probably also be helpful. However, I'm not aware of any discussion that has ever concluded that notability for Misplaced Pages purposes is the same as being a public figure, and in some cases, that would be obviously not true. – notwally (talk) 22:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- You're talking about legal codes, but public figure only lists the legal case in the United States. Could you please expand the article with the legal codes of all countries or find a universal legal definition? A policy linking to an orange-tagged article in terrible shape cannot be a good policy. Furthermore, WP:LOWPROFILE isn't a reliable source or a legal code, but just an essay which is chiefly advisory. Low-profile (or non-public) figures are unlikely to suffice stand-alone articles, so it really gets to the point that all living persons who merit articles are public figures. Persons notable for single events don't have stand-alone articles, and the articles on the events typically contain their biographical information (e.g. Killing of Gabby Petito, Arrest of Randal Worcester etc.).--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- No, I don't believe your argument is accurate at all. "Biographical information is available in reliable sources" is not the standard for a public figure in any legal code, nor in any discussion I have seen on Misplaced Pages. Further, WP:PUBLICFIGURE links to the explanatory essay WP:Who is a low-profile individual, which provides additional guidance. Clearer guidance would be helpful and making that guidance part of actual policies or guidelines would probably also be helpful. However, I'm not aware of any discussion that has ever concluded that notability for Misplaced Pages purposes is the same as being a public figure, and in some cases, that would be obviously not true. – notwally (talk) 22:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that our definitions of public figures and low profile individuals is quite vague and imprecise. I do also agree that this distinction is important. - Enos733 (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it advises editors that being neutral does not necessarily mean the exclusion of negative material for public figures. —Bagumba (talk) 04:11, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- That's not the point. All material in reliable sources is eligible for inclusion, unless specifically restricted by other policies. We don't need policies to encourage editors not exclude negative material from reliable sources. Moreover, this policy isn't written in an efficient way as there's not a systematic list of legal definitions about "public figure" in all countries in the world. The only thing we have is a link to public figure, an orange-tagged article with information on the legal situation in the United States. How does this policy help editors from other countries in the world discern who's a public figure? --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- There's almost 1,000 links to WP:PUBLICFIGURE, so some editors apparently find it useful to reference. Are there specific instances where there was a conflict over public figure that we can reference to consider opprtunities for improvement? —Bagumba (talk) 08:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- If we acknowledge that "public figure" is a real thing on Misplaced Pages that needs to be singled out, then we need to make sure that anyone gets the right meaning. Otherwise, we involuntarily put our editors at risk in case there's a litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation. This policy explicitly calls for adding biographical information that may be deemed defamatory, but it doesn't legally protect our editors from any unwanted scenario. In general, all relevant information in reliable sources should be included, but there are countries in which editors have to weigh their contributions against their personal safety. Misplaced Pages is neither a lawyer nor a platform for human rights activism. It should promote, but not mandate, full transparency. I find this policy redundant.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- If you're referring to Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation, I'll leave it to WMF lawyers. As for individual editors, if they want to be more strict and not add the information themselves, no policy obligates editors to add anything they are not comfortable with. —Bagumba (talk) 09:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- If we acknowledge that "public figure" is a real thing on Misplaced Pages that needs to be singled out, then we need to make sure that anyone gets the right meaning. Otherwise, we involuntarily put our editors at risk in case there's a litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation. This policy explicitly calls for adding biographical information that may be deemed defamatory, but it doesn't legally protect our editors from any unwanted scenario. In general, all relevant information in reliable sources should be included, but there are countries in which editors have to weigh their contributions against their personal safety. Misplaced Pages is neither a lawyer nor a platform for human rights activism. It should promote, but not mandate, full transparency. I find this policy redundant.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- There's almost 1,000 links to WP:PUBLICFIGURE, so some editors apparently find it useful to reference. Are there specific instances where there was a conflict over public figure that we can reference to consider opprtunities for improvement? —Bagumba (talk) 08:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- That's not the point. All material in reliable sources is eligible for inclusion, unless specifically restricted by other policies. We don't need policies to encourage editors not exclude negative material from reliable sources. Moreover, this policy isn't written in an efficient way as there's not a systematic list of legal definitions about "public figure" in all countries in the world. The only thing we have is a link to public figure, an orange-tagged article with information on the legal situation in the United States. How does this policy help editors from other countries in the world discern who's a public figure? --Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 07:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
- PUBLICFIGURE is really more used in the negative sense, in that people that are clearly not public figures (by any definition) should have added BLP concerns related to privacy and other information. A person can have an article but not be a public figure if they are not regularly in the spotlight, as I would consider most academics and professors, many authors, and some business people, all whom might have a good deal of coverage to be able to be notable, but to the extent that we would not include a random accusation within their BLP if only a single source covers it. Masem (t) 21:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, WP:PUBLICFIGURE is needed, both as editorial guidance to what is proper and as legal cover so WP is not guilty of fostering libel. No, all people with articles are not public figures, as said in WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE at “regardless of whether they are notable enough for their own article”. Functionally WP article cannot be the criteria as that would circularly open PUBLICFIGURE to be a hack of just create an article on the person to get around the policy. I think it is clear enough that a public figure is a high government official, a listed royal, or a person who sought public prominence. I think there is even a division between those whose actions directly seek prominence via speeches and personal press conferences, and those who are simply famous by dint of notable performance in sports or entertainment. I would tend to try and respect the individuals life choices for personal privacy where reasonable and supported. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I do not think every holder of a named chair in a univeristy, or several other criteria that we have make people public figures. Someone who won a medal at the olympics 30 or more years ago, or even less, may or may not have been a public figure then, and notability always holds once it is reached, but I think people should have the right to privacy if they chose it, especially those who were thrust into the public spotlight as children or young adults in many ways not by themselves, many gymnastics medalists are minors, so I think it does not make sense to assume all holders of articles are actually public figures.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Djair Parfitt-Williams Official Name Change Update
http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=2&assoc=1&newsid=63984
i am Djair Terraii Parfitt , i have been advised to raise discussion here . I have legally changed my name to “Djair Terraii Parfitt” … i no longer go by Williams . Can you please update the Misplaced Pages Page
Regards 2A04:4A43:892F:F797:F1AC:BB2C:9658:8426 (talk) 00:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- Djair Parfitt-Williams
- this page ^ 2A04:4A43:892F:F797:F1AC:BB2C:9658:8426 (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Where do I direct queries from BLP subjects?
Is there a forehead-slappingly obvious central place where a subject of a BLP may go for help? If I were Sylvester Stallone, and I had an issue with my recent coverage, where would I send such queries? On the talkpage of the article certainly. Not to the BLP noticeboard. Public AND Private, as a sysop what are the best places to direct such inquiries or concerns? BusterD (talk) 12:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Article_subjects, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Help? BusterD (talk) 13:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
A discussion of interest?
Folks, see Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Suggestion_to_rename_many_criticism/controversies_articles_to_include_both_concepts_in_name. Primarily concerns organizations/companies and biographies. BLP is an issue in some cases, obviously, given the very topic... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Reconsidering the third point of BLP1E
Currently, the 3rd point of BLP1E states: The event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented. John Hinckley Jr., for example, has a separate article because the single event he was associated with, the Reagan assassination attempt, was significant, and his role was both substantial and well documented. I know what this is getting at, but I think that we need to make this a bit stronger in its wording based on how many keep !votes there were at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Luigi Mangione.
Part of the issue is the fact we have a huge amount of trouble getting editors to recognize the bounds of WP:NOTNEWS, that every tiny news detail is not necessarily appropriate for a summary article. As such editors conflate a massive amout of news coverage with being notable or significant. That's itself a wholly separate issue that needs a broader venue to tackle, its not just a BLP problem, but it is affecting how BLP1E is read.
In terms of BLP, whether Mangione's roll in the killing is going to have the same type of long-term analysis and investigation as there was for Hinckley or someone like Lee Harvey Oswald, we simply don't know yet. There's tons of news coverage, but right now nearly all the coverage related to Mangione is also covered in the killing article; what little there is unique to him is superficial biography stuff like DOB, schooling, and career (none which would be notable). Because of this, the article for Mangione is nearly duplicate of the kiliing article, or mixing up the details such as the trial which should be part of the killing article (that event clearly notable). The article for Brian Thomspon (the victim here) also had some of the same problems too, and that's more rip for eventually merging due to this.
I don't know how to change the BLP1E wording here, but it should emphasize that we should be looking at the long-term significance and coverage of the person's role in the event, and not flash-in-the-pan type coverage. Simply having massive cover in the short-term news should not be considered sufficient to meet BLP1E. — Masem (t) 15:11, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Given that AfD, I'd suggest that any attempt to change BLP would be an action against consensus. The real issue here is recentism in general, rather than BLP, and anyone trying to get anything deleted within a month of the sentinel event faces a steep uphill battle, likely fraught with charges of political bias or other suspect motivation. Better to let editors continue editing that article as long as and until it proves that no sufficiently detailed analysis exists or is going to exist. But I think that may border on a fool's errand as well, since we still have Thomas Matthew Crooks, who appears to have the smallest amount of information known about him of anyone on planet earth (hyperbole...) and yet we still have an article just because with the Internet, there is now nothing to stop or throttle ongoing coverage of topics that pique the public's interest, as assassins and assassinations seem to. Jclemens (talk) 18:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, it was a SNOW keep. I don't think you're going to successfully find consensus for any change that would have allowed that article to be deleted. I wouldn't be totally opposed to "lacks long-term significance" instead of just "not significant", but it's important to understand that the overwhelming majority of Keep !voters there are just going to tell you that they think that yes, it's sufficiently significant in the long term. (But if your argument is that actual long-term coverage should be required, ie. you're trying to make it impossible to cover anything until enough time has passed for that coverage to exist, then that's a nonstarter because there clearly are things, including articles about individuals only famous for one event, that are required immediately for encyclopedic completeness - if someone eg. successfully assassinates a major world leader, there is no question that we'd need an article about them immediately, even if that's the only thing they will ever be known for.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:30, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- There is a massive problem across WP that editors rush to create and expand articles on breaking news, without following what NOTNEWS, GNG, and NEVENT all stress. That's not the purpose of an encyclopedia. As I said, there's a need to re-establish NOTNEWS and stop editors from jumping in to creating articles on breaking news topics just because there's a large mass of news coverage. I am not saying that there could never be an article on Mangione, in this case, but we should strive to avoid that much expansion and detail until it is warranted by longer-term sources rather than news coverage; the details about Mangione being wholly appropriate in the existing event article; we should be striving for comprehensiveness and appropriate summarization in one single article than massive detailing across multiple different articles. Otherwise we get tons and tons of articles that duplicate the same information from other articles, creating possible POVFORKS (a key problem for BLP), and other problems. Adjusting BLP1E's 3rd point to make it clear that its not just short term news coverage but long-term sourcing is a desparetely needed step. Note that likely won't stop article creation, but it is a necessary tool as to reassess articles after the rush of coverage has died down and then to determine AFD or merging or other processes. — Masem (t) 19:41, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Masem I respect your contributions here and your take 99.5% of the time... but this is wrong.
For example, routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage
is the core of NOTNEWS, and has been (with some wording updates) for more than a decade. I recommend seriously contemplating what NOTNEWS actually says and not just what people who throw it around as a bare policy reference think it should mean. Jclemens (talk) 19:52, 21 December 2024 (UTC)- But, NOTNEWS as well as NOT itself stresses that we are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Keeping topics up to date is reasonable, but we shouldn't be going as overboard as we are doing now in covering immediately current events. We write in far too much detail for what summary style that we should be aiming for, and editors frequently claim important and long term significance without any clear sourcing towards this which is both against NOTCRYTSTAL and NOR. And this leads to problems that can arise with BLP, such as excessively personal details that would not be included if one were creating an article about that same person but a few years later after a major event. Eg with Brian Thompsin, editors were scrapping any detail about his life to support that article, leading to several BLP violations. This type of editing also leads to common duplication and poor separation of content. We have the Killing article which seems the obvious place to discuss all facets including a arrestt and this trial, and it's clear that event article isn't going anywhere. But the Mangoine is heavily duplicating the Killing article, which is not helpful for future editors and to readers, from an encyclopedic view. We need to reign this in and get editors to write for a encyclopedia, because we are not Wikinews, which is far better suited for the type of constantly updated news style articles. Masem (t) 17:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- I 100000000% endorse this. Simonm223 (talk) 14:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- But, NOTNEWS as well as NOT itself stresses that we are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Keeping topics up to date is reasonable, but we shouldn't be going as overboard as we are doing now in covering immediately current events. We write in far too much detail for what summary style that we should be aiming for, and editors frequently claim important and long term significance without any clear sourcing towards this which is both against NOTCRYTSTAL and NOR. And this leads to problems that can arise with BLP, such as excessively personal details that would not be included if one were creating an article about that same person but a few years later after a major event. Eg with Brian Thompsin, editors were scrapping any detail about his life to support that article, leading to several BLP violations. This type of editing also leads to common duplication and poor separation of content. We have the Killing article which seems the obvious place to discuss all facets including a arrestt and this trial, and it's clear that event article isn't going anywhere. But the Mangoine is heavily duplicating the Killing article, which is not helpful for future editors and to readers, from an encyclopedic view. We need to reign this in and get editors to write for a encyclopedia, because we are not Wikinews, which is far better suited for the type of constantly updated news style articles. Masem (t) 17:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Again, the RFC was a snow keep with overwhelming attendance; trying to immediately rehash it is mostly a waste of time. If you want to argue that such articles should be written in a specific way, there might be something to discuss, but sometimes we have to just look at an event and, based on the tone and content of an existing flood of coverage, go "yeah, there's clearly going to be books, biopics, academic papers, etc. about this person in the long term." And people can disagree about that! But I think it might be more useful to think about what it would take to convince you that a particular event was significant in the long term, or at which arguments were decisive in that discussion, and calibrate any suggestion for that, with the acknowledgement that the community clearly believes Mangione is on the "definitely needs an encyclopedia article" side of the line and that you're not going to succeed at drawing a line that would exclude it. To me, stuff like eg. long-term projects focusing on someone being announced is a major factor, since it means that your argument goes from "you're just speculating that it will be important" to, essentially, you yourself speculating that the announced projects won't be completed or won't be significant. See eg. - to me that's the sort of source that we'd look for to see if someone passes the BLP1E line. If you don't find that convincing, why not, and if so, how would long-term significance be demonstrated to your satisfaction? --Aquillion (talk) 19:56, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- I can see the value in adding something to emphasize the importance of long-term sourcing to WP:BLP1E. After requirement #3, the next paragraph starts with, "
The significance of an event or the individual's role is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources.
" Maybe that line should be incorporated into the first sentence of #3, such as "The event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented, which is indicated by how persistent the coverage is in reliable sources over time."? WP:NOTNEWS seems to be worded more strongly, and is certainly worded far stronger than it is implemented in practice, especially when it comes to news reports about living people. – notwally (talk) 01:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)- I've never seen wikipedia publish a news report about a living person... Perhaps you're simply misinterpreting NOTNEWS? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- There are so many examples that I assume this is just a bad faith argument by you because we disagreed in another thread. Please leave me alone in discussions unless you have something substantive to add. – notwally (talk) 18:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- I've never seen wikipedia publish a news report at all, about a living person or otherwise... Even The Signpost is technically published by an external entity and thats the closest we seem to come. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- There are so many examples that I assume this is just a bad faith argument by you because we disagreed in another thread. Please leave me alone in discussions unless you have something substantive to add. – notwally (talk) 18:27, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- I've never seen wikipedia publish a news report about a living person... Perhaps you're simply misinterpreting NOTNEWS? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Masem I respect your contributions here and your take 99.5% of the time... but this is wrong.
- There is a massive problem across WP that editors rush to create and expand articles on breaking news, without following what NOTNEWS, GNG, and NEVENT all stress. That's not the purpose of an encyclopedia. As I said, there's a need to re-establish NOTNEWS and stop editors from jumping in to creating articles on breaking news topics just because there's a large mass of news coverage. I am not saying that there could never be an article on Mangione, in this case, but we should strive to avoid that much expansion and detail until it is warranted by longer-term sources rather than news coverage; the details about Mangione being wholly appropriate in the existing event article; we should be striving for comprehensiveness and appropriate summarization in one single article than massive detailing across multiple different articles. Otherwise we get tons and tons of articles that duplicate the same information from other articles, creating possible POVFORKS (a key problem for BLP), and other problems. Adjusting BLP1E's 3rd point to make it clear that its not just short term news coverage but long-term sourcing is a desparetely needed step. Note that likely won't stop article creation, but it is a necessary tool as to reassess articles after the rush of coverage has died down and then to determine AFD or merging or other processes. — Masem (t) 19:41, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- There is no way to write a rule that covers events like Luigi Mangione (yes, I said event, not person). I can't define art but I know it when I see it and there will be an article on this person. Johnuniq (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- "Simply having massive cover in the short-term news should not be considered sufficient to meet BLP1E." and it wasn't in this case, next please. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:26, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- All the coverage related to him right now is short term. We are still in a burst of news coverage, not where enduring coverage would start. Masem (t) 17:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- BLP1E isn't required, its a "generally should" not a "must" which means that being kept doesn't mean that it meets BLP1E. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- All the coverage related to him right now is short term. We are still in a burst of news coverage, not where enduring coverage would start. Masem (t) 17:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm just not seeing the problem. In this specific instance, the
event is significant and individual's role substantial
, and what is known iswell documented
. Remember, it's anor
in the current BLP1E text, so either the event they're involved in is "significant" or their role is "either substantial or well documented". I think the current guidance is working as intended, and the community recognized that with the result we achieved. I don't see that a change here is necessary as we'd only be preventing articles about subjects our readers are looking for from being produced. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:14, 23 December 2024 (UTC) - As someone who edits in this kind of field but avoids breaking news, our inconsistency on BLP1E/BIO1E drives me mad, even though I tend to be more lenient towards splitting articles like these. There is no rhyme or reason to who does or doesn't. It's not the policy's fault - I think the section is well written, this is just inherently a very finnicky topic area. Given this specific case I would find stronger cause for not keeping it, as he has not been convicted and he is not otherwise notable. But people have... strong feelings, and that results in bad decisions in this topic area.
- Avoiding the breaking events thing, I really just think it's generally more of a NOPAGE question. After the dust is settled, will it benefit the reader to have more than one page? For a fully comprehensive telling of events would it be most logically covered with a separate article? If cases are widely known, historically significant and have very in depth coverage the answer tends to be yes. Or are you making an article for the sake of having an article? I think these are better questions to ask. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think one of the challenges our community faces is that BLP sets a high bar for creating a page about a living person, but there is a tendency for editors to want to create pages about individuals (especially individuals connected with a high-profile crime) and there is a tendency to quickly try to delete BLP articles while the event is in the news (so passions are high). - Enos733 (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with this, those two challenges are why we're instructed to not rush to creation *and* to not rush to deletion however contradictory that may seem at first glance. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- It's just there are no gaurdlines on creation, and once a page gets loaded with references (even if they are principle primary sources, from short term news coverage, and which fail to demonstrate notability beyond a single event, it becomes near impossible to merge or delete such articles because editors that vote to keep frequently equate massive news coverage with notability, which is not always true. I don't want to see us suppress article creation, but we need to have better ability in policy to handle cases once it has been shown no long term coverage exists and merging into a more comprehensive article makes more sense.
- I'll also add that both BLP CRIME and Victim suggest a stronger form that what the current third point of BLP1E offers, in the cautionary aspects about creating articles separate from a notable event article for previously non notable victims or suspects/convicted individuals. Masem (t) 21:21, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know about that... I would be interested to see some hard statistics on deletions but it seems much more doable than "near impossible" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:24, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with this, those two challenges are why we're instructed to not rush to creation *and* to not rush to deletion however contradictory that may seem at first glance. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think one of the challenges our community faces is that BLP sets a high bar for creating a page about a living person, but there is a tendency for editors to want to create pages about individuals (especially individuals connected with a high-profile crime) and there is a tendency to quickly try to delete BLP articles while the event is in the news (so passions are high). - Enos733 (talk) 15:46, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Name Change Profile Update
Can you please update the Misplaced Pages Page
http://www.islandstats.com/sport.asp?sport=2&assoc=1&newsid=63984
i am Djair Terraii Parfitt , i have been advised to raise discussion here . I have legally changed my name to “Djair Terraii Parfitt” … i no longer go by Williams . 188.29.223.128 (talk) 20:02, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Proposed addition to BLP guidelines
There have been some cases where AI-generated images of living people have been generated for their articles (for example, Special:Diff/1265915790 plus others I've encountered but cannot remember specifically). I think this already clearly fails Misplaced Pages:Verifiability as the images are not real, but I think BLP guidelines should make it abundantly clear that this is misinformation and cannot be used to illustrate living people (except for rare exceptions like Artificial intelligence art where it's used specifically to illustrate misinformation about the Pope). Di (they-them) (talk) 23:05, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that there should be some sort of guidance (either at WP:BLP or at WP:OR, or somewhere else) regarding AI-generated images of living people. Unfortunately, I don't think anything actionable will come from regular talk page discussions like these, so I recommend starting an RfC. Some1 (talk) 03:09, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
- I see that another user has started a discussion at the Village Pump after your post: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Guideline_against_use_of_AI_images_in_BLPs_and_medical_articles? Some1 (talk) 13:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy) § BLPs
You are invited to join the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy) § BLPs. Some1 (talk) 00:16, 1 January 2025 (UTC)