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Can Operating Companies be considered Living Persons from Misplaced Pages's POV?

Moved here from WP:BLPN. - Jehochman 03:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I am in mediation with someone regarding the policies of ‘Biographies of Living Persons’ (one of many issues). The rules are very clear about how extreme care must be given to in writing biographies of living people. I believe the spirit of this policy is to prevent the possibility of libelous lawsuits against Misplaced Pages. Can this policy be extended to cover active operating companies and on-the-market company products that are compared with each other on a Wiki page (they may not wish this), or is there another policy that covers such issues? There is also the possiblity of lawsuit from a company as well, simular to a Living Person. I'm suspecting something this serious must be covered someplace. Looking for more the statement of the policy, rather than opinions in this matter. Thanks. Dinkytown (talk) 00:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

No. The spirit of this policy to to have special respect for individual living human beings. Misplaced Pages:Libel is our policy "to prevent the possibility of libelous lawsuits against Misplaced Pages. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
BLP is NOT simply about the WMF being sued. BLP is about making sure we don't libel people, because libel is a BAD THING regardless of the legalities. BLP is in the end an heightened application of NPOV and WP:V - i.e. we are a factual and neutral encyclopedia. Whilst BLP doesn't literally apply to corporations, NPOV and V still do. If there's information that looks non-neutral, or is not verified it can be removed. If you remove information, it must not be put back unless the one wanting it in can produce a reliable source in support.--Doc 00:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It is time that the strictures in BLP be extended to all subjects. Quatloo (talk) 02:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
BLP has added restrictions, IMO, because real people have feelings and may also have a right to privacy. A person can feel insulted in a way that a chemical element can't. Maybe that means a lawsuit, but maybe it just means emotional ill-will. Additionally—and this is where WP:N starts to kick in—not all people, or all facts about people, deserve to be in an article. In the extreme, a living person's social security number should never be in an article, even if a picture of their card got plastered onto the New York Times. Other identifying information like birthdates may not be appropriate for inclusion. Now, if somebody runs for public office or poses in Playboy, then they've reasonably put themselves into the public eye and can expect a lot of information about their background to make it into newspaper articles and books (and from there, possibly ultimately into Misplaced Pages).
Even though corporations may legally qualify as people, I don't think they fall under the BLP criteria. A corporation can't feel insulted. (Though a comment insulting its board or management would be about living people...) A corporation doesn't have a right to privacy—I'm not a lawyer, but I would expect that, for a fee, you could get a copy of a company's articles of incorporation.
That said, there's still no excuse for shoddy writing. If it's not verifiable and not neutral, it doesn't belong in an article—regardless of whether it's the article for newsprint, the Chicago Sun-Times, or Conrad Black. —C.Fred (talk) 03:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for your input. I can agree with you completely about the libel aspects of it. The problem is not that he is trashing any company products - it’s the way he wants to use it. He wants to compare certain company products on a page that might damage reputations of some companies, and that I think his trying to promote his own favorite product. It can very quickly boil down to an advertising war, which in my POV is not in the best interest for Wiki and I'm trying to find some policies that could counter this. In my POV I think it’s irrelevant to the page. But that’s another issue that we’re fighting over.
I don’t want to divulge too much here because we’re in mediation, but I was looking for any policy that this might fall into. Dinkytown (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
A company can in a sense be embarrassed, and that can be a lot more expensive than when a person is. A common stock corporation can suffer from bad press-- sometimes in ways that can lose a company hundreds of millions in market cap and benefit those selling the corporation's stock on naked short sales. The entire Overstock.com bruhaha is about that, and one of the problems was the allegation that deliberate attempts to smear the company were being made on Misplaced Pages. The company was so overzealous about trying fix the well-sourced but also very negative reporting on its finances, that its' Com director and his entire ISP (Broadweave) got blocked from editing (but guess what-- the negativity on Overstock didn't get reverted). None of which is really nice. As I pointed out at the time, no matter how badly Overstock is run, if that kind of info got stuck into the Wikia article (say), it would get removed as being defammatory to the company (and Wikimedia Foundation, in particular, is about to suffer from exactly that type of well-sourced but bad criticism, in the way it is run as a company). So let's have no double standards in this. I don't like BLP as it is, and would be happy if it disappeared (except for paper-encyclopedia-famous living people), and all that now applies to BLP, instead applied to private companies, enterprises, corporations, etc. Leave market-analysis up to market analysts, and leave the Investor Report crap out of Misplaced Pages. It's a quagmire. Do we really WANT to assimilate it?? Summaries of Q4 reports and all?SBHarris 04:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Libel is our policy "to prevent the possibility of libelous lawsuits against Misplaced Pages. WAS 4.250 (talk)
I am against this expansion of BLP, which seems creepy. I agree with the point made above that WP:V and WP:NPOV should be sufficient for companies (and I think even for people too - we would not even have BLP without the Seigenthaler controversy, IMHO). To the concern that "Investor Report crap" will clog WP, I think WP:NOT should be sufficient to prevent that. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Normal sourcing rules and other policies should apply to corporations. If we apply BLP to companies, next it will be private groups, then military groups, then whole countries... if negative press comes up and is sourced about a company, it's different than if it's about a living person. Business entities aren't people, and neither is a national military, or a paramilitary group, or a terrorist group, or the Red Cross, or the Wikimedia Foundation, or the Internal Revenue Service. We have fine sourcing rules for those already in place. If BLP applied to "anything" involving living people in this regard, it would be a can of worms and a half. What happens when a company like Overstock decides it doesn't want an article? Opt them out? Nonsense. Lawrence Cohen 17:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I am the other party in the request for mediation. The controversy is about a table of specifications for a type of tent known as lavvu. The table contains information about the canvas weight, pole height, etc for different designs. As source I have used whitepapers from a manufactorer. The problem seems to be that it may be controversial whether one of the designs is a lavvu, and that the manufactorer may therefore sue Misplaced Pages since they are mentioned in the same article as a possible controversy. To make things interesting the same table has also been accused of being an advertisment/spam for that company, and not being entirely translated to english. For all the details refer to: RfM Table. Labongo (talk) 14:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that existing core Misplaced Pages policies, directly address the issues in the lavvu article. Misplaced Pages should not take a position on whether a particular tent qualifies as a lavvu or not. If there is notable controversy about this, we should mention it in terms of who is saying what, e.g. "Zorch Camping Ltd. sells a line of tents it calls lavvu, however the International Lavvu Association says several models do not qualify as a lavvu because they have a center poll. " It's hard to see why much more than that is warranted or how Zorch could sue assuming the quote is accurate.--agr (talk) 17:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree that all of the issues in the article can be solved by applying the core Misplaced Pages policies, since all the controversies are about which sources can and should be used. However, it has been really hard to get anyone to comment on the issues, and it should not have been necessary to bring these issues to formal mediation. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have attempted to provide a summary of the issues at the end of this RfC: Talk:Lavvu#RfC:_Can_a_lavvu_have_a_single_pole. Sorry for the OT comment, Labongo (talk) 20:34, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


  • Thank you all for your input.
Since we are in mediation, I did not want to expand this discussion back into a RFC. I was only looking for input as to if there was a policy that similar to the WP:BLP policy. It looks like other standing policies can be addressed. However, since Labongo spilled the beans on this whole matter (see above), claiming that “…it should not have been necessary to bring these issues to formal mediation...” I have to respond and straighten out the facts here...
It has been preaty well documented through primary historical sources that the Sami multi-pole lavvu has been around for hundreds of years, however there are no historical sources that show a "single-pole lavvu.” The ancient Egyptians have never used the tipi - the Sami never used the "single-pole lavvu” - simple as that... However, this single-pole tent design has a long history as a bell tent, which was used by many European and American militaries - but had nothing to do with the Sami. Many tent manufacturers have correctly been calling this single-pole tent design bell tents, but within the past few years, a few erroneous companies have been calling - and selling, these bell tents as a 'lavvu’. Labongo would like to put all these tents together in a table and compare them to each other - each with their company's website (“whitepapers”) right next to each tent. In fact “...feel free to add specifications from other vendors to the table…”. I would call this free advertisingat Wiki's expense - even if these tents are not even lavvus.
Labongo’s sources for his "single-pole lavvu” have only been from commercial websites (“whitepapers”) from these erroneous companies and blogs, which conflict with Reliable Sources, Weblogs, and Advertising policies of Wiki - just to name a few. He has not provided any other sources to support his argument.
This is the reason why I enquired if other policies, such as WP:BLP would come into play here, since some companies may not want to be involved in this kind of comparison.
I realize that this issue is outside this subject of this page and for this I apologize, but I felt I have to respond to this. Dinkytown (talk) 00:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


Removing discussion of articles in major newspapers from talk pages

Recently, an admin (who I will avoid naming in an attempt to keep this less contentious) edited and protected the talk page of a living person's biography, in order to remove a discussion of whether a newspaper story should be mentioned in the article, citing WP:BLP as the reason for the removal and protection. The newspaper story in question was clearly unfavorable to the subject of the biography, and arguably of minor relevance to the biography, but was published in a reliable source (The Guardian). The discussion was civil and had not settled down, in that the most recent edit was only minutes before the admin's actions. Is this an appropriate use of this policy? It seems to contradict the wording within the policy that "New material should generally be discussed in order to arrive at a consensus concerning relevance, availability of sources, and reliability of sources." —David Eppstein (talk) 05:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I did some digging and found the talk page in question. Due to the issues you mention, I will not name it here. After examining the situation, I feel comfortable stating the following:
  1. Throughout the course of the discussion, the negative information had been presented in the context of discussing the relevance of the material, and no negative personal comments about the subject had been made.
  2. Per WP:UNDUE (and associated sections in WP:BLP), the information likely does not merit inclusion in the article.
  3. The blanking of the section at this time (i.e. while the discussion was ongoing) is not supported by the BLP policy. Indeed, it contravenes the principles set out in the policy, and hinders consensus-building.
  4. The page protection, if at all appropriate, is not a long-term solution, especially since the article itself is also fully protected.
– Black Falcon 06:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I will not attempt to point any fingers at anybody. However, for a full discussion there's got to be something more specific than some vague reference to some unnamed article. The page in question is Talk:Carl Hewitt (see also its page history). I guess am completely clueless about something, as otherwise I don't see anything in that page worth protecting, nor the need to talk about this in general without referring to the specific situation. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
This is what the admin who protected the talk page said when I asked for explanation:
"Hi Jitse, people keep posting links to the article about the subject's supposed relationship with WP. It's self-referential, arguably quite insulting, and it's unlikely to be regarded as relevant to the article, which is anyway closed to editing. Therefore, there's no need to keep posting it on talk. Because it seemed gratuitous, I protected the page."
I have no time at the moment to reply in detail, but I will say that I disagree with protecting the talk page and I agree with what Black Falcon says. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't be mleive merely mentioning the article on the talk page would harm the subject in any way. As there seemed to be a consensus to not include the reference in the main article protecting and blanking the talk page seems counter-productive. —Ruud 17:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I have asked the admin involved to remove the protection.DGG (talk) 18:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I protected the talk page because people keep adding links to the Observer article, which was not entirely pleasant (and the newspaper was almost certainly tipped off by a Wikipedian), and as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned, is self-referential and unusable as a source. Given that it can't be used, and given the article's protected anyway, there's no good reason to keep adding links to the talk page, so it seemed somewhat gratuitous.
This man has complained, rightly or wrongly (I've not followed the details so I really don't know) that he's the target of a campaign of harassment by Misplaced Pages. I think we ought to make it clear that we're not focused on him in any way by backing off him a little. That's why I protected the page. If any other admin wants to unprotect, then of course there's nothing I can do about it, but I would request at least a short period of protection to give the guy some breathing space. SlimVirgin 18:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to argue that this particular news story should be used as a source in this particular article. But can you explain your "unusable as a source"? Even when a newspaper story refers to events within Misplaced Pages, it is still a newspaper story, and can be used as a source whenever the events it documents are appropriately noteworthy, I'd think. How does this differ from any other situation where a newspaper documents events that one has other sources of firsthand knowledge about? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
David, what I meant is that the issue is too self-referential to be used in the Misplaced Pages article. A Wikipedian clearly tipped off the freelancer who wrote the story, so Misplaced Pages using that story as a source in its own article, is close to OR. It isn't in fact OR because the Observer is a reliable source, but on this occasion, it's a source that we created. There was a Supreme Court ruling on this in either Canada or the U.S. that I'm going to try to find -- basically, it said that publications have to distinguish between information gained through journalistic effort, and information gained via complaints to the newspaper from people who've been written about. The case was triggered by a newspaper writing about someone, who complained about the story, and then writing about them again with details of their complaint. The Supreme Court ruled against the newspaper.
I'm not making a legal point here about Misplaced Pages, just a moral and editorial point. SlimVirgin 19:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Which it seems that many people disagree with, me included. The Observer is A+ as a source and while we might decide that it's not suitable for inclusion in an article, locking the talkpage so people cannot discussed it is out of line. The page should be unprotected ASAP. In addition, your claim that it "is close to OR" is neither here or there - it's NOT OR as defined by wikipedia and that's all we are interested in. --Fredrick day (talk) 19:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Isn't your claim (much as it is "clear" to you that they were acting on a tip off from a Wikipedian - let's not get into the separation between editors and their works, one is a person, one is a writing, I didn't realize you could claim that anyone who has edited on Misplaced Pages becomes Misplaced Pages and therefore self-referential?!?) original research in itself? It's not established fact by any means, just your opinion, and you've offered little evidence to back it up other than "it's pretty obvious". Is that the appropriate standard? Achromatic (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

In delicate situations, a graduated series of increasingly delicate solutions should be used. In a normal case, the talk page conversation can be allowed to go its normal course. In an extreme situation, it may be deemed necessary to hold the conversation in private, but making sure to invite both sides and have someone play devil's advocate to make sure all appropriate facts come to light. In between, one could notify relevant parties, unlock the page for a one hour debate at an appropriate time, then archive the debate at the end of the hour. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of discussing and repeatedly linking to it on talk, Frederick, given that it's not suitable for inclusion in the article, which is anyway protected from editing? SlimVirgin 20:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


But others might disagree that it's suitable for inclusion and should be allowed to argue their case - locking the talkpage prevents that. The amount of times it is linked is a complete red herring, once something is linked, it's linked - regards if it occurs once or ten times. Currently YOU have decided that it's not suitable for dicussion and have locked the talkpage to enforce your view of events - that is the crux of what we are discussing. --Fredrick day (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

No, what I'm saying is that the article is locked for editing. Admins may edit protected pages if requested, but only if the changes they make are uncontroversial. This would be a controversial change. Therefore, it won't be added until protection is lifted, if at all. There is therefore no need to discuss it on talk until then, and no need at all to link to it on talk. We see this a lot with BLPs -- where people can't get the link they want into an article, they post it to talk instead, in the hope of making it appear higher on Google. It's that practice that I protected the page against. I'm not implying that any of the editors who kept restoring the links were definitely doing that, but I've seen it happen a lot before, and I was concerned that it was happening here. SlimVirgin 20:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the notion that there is no need to discuss controversial changes to an article while it is protected. That is precisely the time when such discussion should take place! Indeed, protection often comes about because of controversial edits made without adequate prior discussion. As I've noted above, I do not necessarily object to blanking the section once discussion has finished, and I do not support inclusion of the information in the article; however, I feel that preventing any discussion of the matter in the first place is not justified. When information is published in a source like The Guardian, it's unreasonable to act as if it doesn't exist. – Black Falcon 20:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree that the protected pages are the ones for which it is the most important that the talk pages remain unprotected. Otherwise, how could anyone make an {{editprotected}} request? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd ask you recurse yourself from this matter as you are currently using your administration powers to win a content dispute on a talkpage - this is not an article in the world weekly news, it's in the observer and there is no suggestion that it is incorrect, so waving BLP around is another red herring. I'll be posting this on the AN to get wider input from the community. --Fredrick day (talk) 20:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Frederick, I'm not involved with this article and have no interest in the content dispute. I took an administrative action on BLP grounds. If an uninvolved administrator disagrees strongly enough to undo it, so be it, but my own view is that the page should stay protected for a short time. SlimVirgin 21:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I concur with SlimVirgin here ... she has not significantly edited the article and all her edits on the talk page have been with regard to this issue. I don't agree with all of her actions in that respect, but I don't think she could be considered to have a vested interest in the article. – Black Falcon 21:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Having read Black Falcon's suggestion above, would that be a compromise? The talk page is unprotected to allow a brief discussion about the Observer article, and then after a few days -- say, three days? -- the discussion is blanked. Would people agree to this? SlimVirgin 21:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
That would be fine with me (I assume the page would remain unprotected after the discussion is blanked...), though I should note I intend to limit my involvement in this particular case to the policy level only. So, the opinions of the people who intend to involve themselves at the article level (i.e. discuss at the talk page) should probably have more weight. – Black Falcon 21:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
(ec)I agree with Black Falcon here. People need to be able to discuss possible changes to the article on the talk page especially when the article itself is protected. Preventing any discussion about what should go into the article is counterproductive. Aleta (talk) 21:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
The suggestion presented by Black Falcon, and supported by others above seems to be a good compromise. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
SV, any objections to unprotection based on the proposed compromise? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
No objection, and thanks for the suggestion, Black Falcon. I've unprotected and I'll leave a note on talk. Also, to answer BF, I currently have no plans to reprotect once the discussion is over. SlimVirgin 21:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Happy to help and thanks, respectively. Cheers, Black Falcon 21:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

one event

4.3 reads "If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted." This is not sufficient guidance--it would depend on the event and the sources. If major national newspapers of record of a serious non-tabloid nature, (The NYT and the WSJ come to mind as examples) cover an event in major stories, then perhaps the event is notable enough that a separate bio is justifiable. Any ideas for more exact criteria.?DGG (talk) 14:53, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Page names

Crossposting something mentioned at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (people)#Subject-preferred format

Shouldn't we have someting on article naming conventions in the BLP policy? - "... do we have a BLP-like "ethical and legal responsibility" when choosing page names? Suppose k.d. lang (or an agent on her behalf) walks in and says that the way we name her article (capitalised: K.D. Lang) is insulting or something in that vein. How should we react?" --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:COMMON would probably just be applied. It's a good thought, but such situations are rare enough that we wouldn't have to worry about them enough to have to spell out an explicit policy. AFAIK first letter article capitalization is still a software limitation; tough luck for pen and stage names such as mr. cummings and ms. lang. -- Kendrick7 18:19, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Re. technical issue: no, and that's easier to resolve than a move over a non-redirect, the page is now at k.D. Lang. The magic is performed by {{lowercase}} (compare eBay).
For all the examples I could find thus far I think this one the most troubling (bolding the current actual page name): Steven Demetre Georgiou → Cat Stevens → Yusuf Islam. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the template hint. Good example too; the third choice is probably the correct one per this policy. -- Kendrick7 07:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales quotes

I think we've gone overboard with the Jimbo Wales quotes here. Any objection to deleting them? Sarsaparilla (talk) 05:57, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#BLP_deletion_standards

The paragraph currently states in relevant part that

When closing an AfD about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article being deleted has asked that it be deleted. There is no consensus about how much weight editors should give the subject's wishes; in that matter the closing administrator exerts discretion.

However, many subjects, being relatively unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages, request that articles concerning them be deleted for the sole purpose of preventing vandalism and defamatory editing. If such deletions are effectuated, they result in the gratuitous destruction of encyclopedic content, since the placement of permanent full protection on such articles, and any content transcluded into them, would essentially prevent malicious edits. As subjects of articles do not own them, Misplaced Pages has no duty to accede to the request of a subject that bears no rational relationship to the prevention of a tangible harm. Deletion of articles upon request, then, should only occur where it is reasonably asserted that the requested deletion is necessary to prevent a substantive harm, namely, that the very existence of the article provides publicity concerning a non-public figure which is harmful -- see, for example, the sort of articles that formed the basis of the dispute in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff. I therefore suggest that the relevant paragraph be modified as follows:

When closing an AfD about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, and it is reasonably asserted that the requested deletion is necessary to prevent a substantive harm to the privacy of a non-public figure, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article being deleted has asked that it be deleted. There is no consensus about how much weight editors should give the subject's wishes; in that matter the closing administrator exerts discretion. Note that full page protection, but not deletion, is an appropriate response to concerns relating to malicious editing.

John254 16:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What happens if someone disagrees? Normal DRV process? There needs to be some sort of definable cut-off when someone reaches a point of notability that they can't simply opt-out. Could a US congressman opt out? Could a film actor? A recognized authority in a given field? What is the line that determines if someone is a public or private figure? Lawrence Cohen 17:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Basically, if there is a consensus that the subject of an article is notable, the BLP deletion standards paragraph doesn't apply, and the article can't be deleted upon request. There's no bright-line rule as to where the threshold of notability is, however. Here's the problem with the way the BLP deletion standards are applied presently: even if the subject of an article is a notable public figure, some editors participating in an AFD discussion will claim that the subject isn't notable, based on purely subjective assertions of non-notability. Then, if the subject of the article has requested that it be deleted, the administrator who closes the AFD discussion can delete the article, even if the only basis for deletion was to prevent vandalism and other malicious editing. This results in the needless destruction of content, since fully protecting the article would prevent defamatory editing at least as well as deletion. John254 17:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The proposed additional wording, appears to be instruction creep. The previous wording seems to adequately cover the additional scenarios described in the proposed change; and the original version is more concise and is easier to read. Dreadstar † 18:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The revised paragraph would be instruction creep, if we could apply this policy in a non-bureaucratic manner. Since some administrators insist on applying the letter of this policy, even to situations in which it is counterproductive, it's necessary to expressly enumerate those situations in the text of the policy itself. Would you believe that at this AFD discussion, an article was deleted for the sole purpose of preventing malicious editing, and that this action was upheld on deletion review? John254 18:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I think that's somewhat of a misstatement of the deletion reasons as well as of the reasons the deletion was upheld. ++Lar: t/c 22:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not a misstatement at all. Let me quote in relevant part from the statement by the administrator who closed the AFD discussion:

Mr. Finkelstein's concerns are very valid; a Misplaced Pages article is a prime target for trolls who want to anonymously defame the subject. Now that Misplaced Pages has become one of the highest-visited sites on the Internet, we have to take into account that things said on Misplaced Pages articles can and will affect the subject's life. We've seen this happen before; only recently, a professor was detained in an airport because his Misplaced Pages biography falsely stated that he had ties to a terrorist group.

In other words, the article was deleted for the sole purpose of preventing malicious editing, a purpose far less destructively accomplished with full protection. John254 22:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with John that a change should be made to avoid such silly deletions. However, I don't think changing the paragraph is necessary. I think a footnote could acomplish the same thing, without the instruction creep. Putting

Not all reasons for requesting deletion are reasonable and hold merit.

(subject to rewording) as a footnote should acomplish the same thing without cluttering up the paragraph. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 18:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
That's an excellent idea. John254 18:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've reduced the paragraph of some meandering language. Hopefully I haven't changed the underlying meaning anywhere. -- Kendrick7 19:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a splendid idea and fully support it. I wish I could write more, but there's not much more to my position. User:Krator (t c) 20:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this reword is necessary. I wonder what prompted it? ++Lar: t/c 22:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This proposal was prompted by this AFD discussion, in which an article was deleted for the sole purpose of preventing malicious editing, an action which was subsequently upheld at deletion review. Many users who commented in the deletion review opined that the Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#BLP_deletion_standards should be upheld exactly as written, no matter how how counterproductive in actual practice, until the policy was changed . So, here we are. John254 22:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Based on discussion here, including concerns relating to instruction creep, I propose a revised version of the BLP deletion standards. It is written with great economy of language, increasing the word count of the paragraph by only one. Deleted languaged is shown in strikethrough text, while new wording is denoted by italics:

When closing an AfD about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article has asked that it be deleted and may exercise his or her own discretion in fulfilling that a reasonable request. If the biography is deleted, editors may merge material to another article, if that does not thwart the point of the page deletion. Also, when merging content from a deleted biography of a living person, administrators should preserve the edit history to comply with the GFDL.

This language avoids unjustified deletions by requiring that a request for deletion be objectively reasonable before an administrator may exercise discretion. John254 23:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

As long as we're here, I have no idea what "thwart the point" means. -- Kendrick7 03:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

In this context, "thwart the point" means to merge material to another article in a manner that creates a harm that the deletion of the article was designed to prevent. For instance, if an article concerning a non-public figure is deleted due to the claim that privacy concerns prevent the mention of the subject's name in any encyclopedic content, it would "thwart the point" of the deletion to merge the deleted material to any other article. John254 03:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Religous Beliefs and Sexual Orientation

I think we should generalize this:

Category tags regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation should not be used unless two criteria are met:

  • The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief or orientation in question;
  • The subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.


It's not only related to category tags. It should be explicitly written for every claims regarding religious beliefs and sexual orientation. Hessam (talk) 18:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Contradictory information

Is it acceptable to include information where the subject of an article has said one thing in published RS, and later contradicted himself (i.e. a public admission of prostitution that is later denied)? Aleta (Sing) 18:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I will just say that in this particular case, where he has admitted it in interviews with several media outlets/hosts but is now trying to cover his tracks since he's taken on the ex-gay Republican U.S. Marine persona, it's justifiable inclusion in the article. The man has said "yes, I was a prostitute", the overwhelming evidence (here, here, here and the tons of hits on Google) confirms it. Simply because he's denying it to save his ass, doesn't mean he can re-write history. I'd also point this out and say it's rather unfortunate that Misplaced Pages is assisting in the censorship of sourced and admitted to details. I point out this particular article because it is the one that has brought this question by Aleta, but it should apply to all BLP articles, hence why I agree with it being here instead of at WP:BLP/N-- ALLSTARecho 19:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Even if the information removed here wouldn't ordinarily be considered original research, it is original research within the meaning of Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material, since it employs an extrapolation from primary sources to make a controversial claim concerning a living person. In the context in which they were employed in the article, the interview with Salon magazine, and subsequent interviews, are considered to be primary sources, since they involved direct quotations of statements by the subject of the article himself, which were not verified by the sources publishing them. Misplaced Pages is not a tabloid newspaper or political scandal sheet; it is not our purpose to publicize every conceivable controversy concerning the subjects of our articles that may be derived from the examination of primary sources. Editors are cautioned not to reinsert this information into the article once the protection expires. John254 20:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
When one's whole being of notoriety is because one is claiming to be a Christian Republican U.S. Marine on a crusade but got found out to be a prostitute and a gay porn actor, it's nolonger tabloid or political scandal but worthy news.. at least worthy enough that media outlets across the country covered it. Is Misplaced Pages any better, or worse in this case for not covering/including the info, than FOX News or the Associated Press or The Marines Times or The Army Times? All of those fine news organizations covered the story or were told the story by Sanchez. What makes Misplaced Pages better than them? I say nothing. And I say in the interest of truth and fairness that the material be presented as sourced but also include the fact that Sanchez now denies that he was ever a whore. That way there is no BLP policy to apply. -- ALLSTARecho 23:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
If the controversial material has been covered in third party reliable sources, which actually assert its truth, then it can be included in the article, provided that appropriate citations are furnished. For instance, Matt_Sanchez#Adult_entertainment is supported by third-party reliable sources (though cited elsewhere in the article), and is acceptable for inclusion. The problem with the information removed here is that, as it stood prior to removal, it constituted an extrapolation from quoted statements, whose truth the sources reporting them did not assert. If better sourcing can be provided, then the disputed paragraph can be restored, as insofar as objections based on the biographies of living persons policy are concerned. However, as I am not a member of OTRS, I cannot evaluate whether they would be amenable to restoration of the paragraph in any event. Since the article was protected at the request of the OTRS member Mercury, you should contact him for clarification of this issue. John254 02:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, now I'm thoroughly confused because one of the refs in the Adult Entertainment section is an interview with "Rod Majors" that was posted on a porn site message board. How is that any better than a radio interview with Alan Colmes or an article penned by Matt Sanchez himself?
The prostitution allegations were verified by Max Blumenthal, the first mainstream journalist to write about Sanchez's porn career. In an article titled CPAC's Gay Porn Star Honoree, Ann Coulter, and the Politics of Personal Crisis. Blumenthal included a link to a cached version of Matt Sanchez's escort site hosted at Internet Archive. The escort site was viewable back then, but it's now being blocked with robots.txt. For some reason the original Blumenthal article that brought national attention to Matt Sanchez has been excluded as a reference. The Blumenthal article was the basis for a Countdown with Keith Olbermann segment titled "Strange Bedfellows."Reelm (talk) 03:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Matt_Sanchez#Adult_entertainment is supported by third-party reliable sources elsewhere in the article, even though some of the references provided in the section itself aren't reliable. To the best of my knowledge, the article by Max Blumenthal wasn't present in any part of the article at the time of this edit. Note that when controversial information concerning a living person is inserted into a Misplaced Pages article, third-party reliable sources to substantiate it must either be provided at the same time, or already present in the article. Controversial information may be removed due to its present lack of acceptable sourcing, even if sufficient source material can later be found. John254 03:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

So you don't think the Salon.com source is reliable? It was written by Sanchez himself and in that article he admitted he used to be a male prostitute. I think that's quite reliable. And you don't think that Youtube source is reliable? It's the actual recording of his interview with FOX News' Alan Colmes where Sanchez, in his own voice, not once but twice, admitted he used to be a male prostitute. In that edit you refer to, both sources are quite reliable. -- ALLSTARecho 03:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The sources are reliable. The manner in which they are used in the disputed paragraph, however, constitutes original research for the purposes of enforcing the biographies of living persons policy, because Salon and FOX News do not assert the truth of the statements they quote. John254 03:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Sanchez wrote the Salon.com article himself. Sanchez used his own voice and made the admission in the FOX News interview. How more truthful that he wrote it/said it can you get? -- ALLSTARecho 04:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The mere fact that a claim is true does not render it acceptable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages. You may have brilliant original research that conclusively proves a controversial claim concerning a living person; however, per Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#Remove_unsourced_or_poorly_sourced_contentious_material, as well as Misplaced Pages:No original research more generally, you may not add it to Misplaced Pages. John254 04:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)