A discussion at Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Joe_Klein appears to state that a consensus of three editor overrides the requirement of direct self-identification for religious categorization in a BLP, finding indirect statements to be sufficient. In order to accommodate such a consensus, should WP:BLP be amended to state:
- Categories regarding ethnicity, religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has
publicly self-identified directly or indirectly indicated any association with the ethnicity with the, belief or orientation in question, and the subject's ethnicity,beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources. 14:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Discussion
The issue arose about Joe Klein who has repeatedly been described in his BLP as "Jewish" and having both religion and ethnicity as "Jewish" based on sources which do not directly affirm that he uses the specific label on himself.
The indirect sources used are:
- Listen, people can vote whichever way they want, for whatever reason they want. I just don't want to see policy makers who make decisions on the basis of whether American policy will benefit Israel or not. In some cases, you want to provide protection for Israel certainly, but you don't want to go to war with Iran. When Jennifer Rubin or Abe Foxman calls me antisemitic, they're wrong. I am anti-neoconservative. I think these people are following very perversely extremist policies and I really did believe that it was time for mainstream Jews to stand up and say, "They don't represent us, they don't represent Israel
And
- Joe Klein, a centrist columnist for Time magazine (and himself Jewish) wrote that the neocons pushed for the invasion 'to make the world safe for Israel'.
- I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who...Happily, these people represent a very small sliver of the Jewish population in this country...I remain proud of my Jewish heritage, a strong supporter of Israel and a realist about the slim chance of finding some common ground with the Iranians. But I am not willing to grant these ideologues the anonymity they seek. When Extremists Attack
Of which the third is the closest to being an actual source, but only says "Jewish heritage" and a person might have Welsh heritage and not assert that they are "Welsh" , and a person with 1% African-American heritage might not call themselves "African American" as a self-identification. So should we adopt such indirect identification as being sufficient for categorization and description of living persons? (As "Jewish ethnicity" was also asserted, I suggest we well ought now include it here directly) Collect (talk) 14:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- This is a very odd RfC. If Collect's proposal passes, it wouldn't help Collect achieve the edit he wants to achieve on Joe Klein -- because this person quite sufficiently meets the self-identification and notability provisions of the proposed requirement. So I'm not opposed to it -- but it might help if Collect could clarify his agenda here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- (ec)(reply to removed post which asserted I should be sanctioned for claiming to have beencalled an "anti-Semite") As I have never said anyone called me anti-Semitic, what is the purpose of your post? I would like you to note that the Time source which MrX provided was sufficient for Jewish ethnicity but not for "Jewish religion" under the current WP:BLP wording, and that I did indeed make the edit at Joe Klein using that source which was finally provided. By that way, your charge that I said someone called me Anti-Semitic is likely sanctionable in itself. Collect (talk) 15:18, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- Wow! Your insistence on reviving a deleted post (the history on this thread condemns you), especially considering the edit summary there, reveals a severe attempt to assume bad faith. Just drop it. It was a misunderstanding, and policy requires that you AGF. You had no right to restore the deleted comment. That restoration was a dirty trick and an attempt to pick a fight. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- I used the state of the page at the time I had the edit conflict and my post already written - I did not then re-un-redact it - but noted why my post was made which might otherwise appear to be from Looney Tunes. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- All you had to do was to remove the part of your post that responded to a deleted comment. Even after the fact, you decided on a different course. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- The timing of the RfC aside, Collect doesn't adequately describe the sources, or even list them all. Moreover, he doesn't distinguish between sources serving to support "self-identification" and sources serving to support "notability as such", nor the context including interviews and exchanges of letters in the public realm, etc. This is not a question of ethnicity versus religious affiliation, because no specific distinction was ever made between the two, which would normally indicate both under the circumstances. Conversely, it would not be proper to simply categorize Joe Klein as only ethnically Jewish in this case, as that would be a forced misreading of his statements.--Ubikwit見学/迷惑 19:31, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- The RfC is about the policy wording, not about George Gnarph or anyone else as policies deal with all articles. I would hope you could keep personal commentary out of this. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
- No problem, I've categorized Joe Klein as "ethnically" Jewish, and maybe I should write George Gnarph a letter about the Misplaced Pages convulsions surrounding his BLP. He might not take kindly to what this project has to say (or not to say) about him.--Ubikwit見学/迷惑 21:34, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
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