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Unreferenced lists and porn stars RFC

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There has been an ongoing dispute about what requirements Biographies of living persons policy places on lists related to Porn stars. In particular, where a list is full of blue links to the articles of the personalities being listed and the linked articles do support inclusion in the list, does BLP Policy justify blanking those entries without inline citations? Monty845 17:03, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all list entries must be cited

Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed, and under BLP Policy, it may only be restored when properly cited.
  • Support We cannot assume an article contains the references required to be in the lists and any other approach wil result in BLP violations easily occurring and a level of trust towrds all editors that BLP does not show. If we dont require info in a listt article the next step will be not to require it in a bio either. In List of pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films some ditors argue we should allow the orignal research of editors who get to choose who has appeared in both porn and mainstream films with no need for citation but the reality is this citation is needed both for them being porn worklers and mainstream film workers, otherwise we are saying wikipedia standard of excellence is in its editors and not in its verifiability not truth approach to all information and particularly that about living people. IMO we need to be tightening up our BLP policy not weakening it. Adding a reliable source on the list works for everyone whereas the approach suggested in the No option seems to require every individual editor and reader to verify for themselves the veracity of these alleged reliable sources. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support: I don't even see the question. There's no doubt that being described as a pornographic actor has to be sourced, and a blue link is not a reliable source. It's not even close to being a reliable source. Using a blue link to source material is the same as using a Misplaced Pages page in an inline citation, a practice that we reject out of hand.—Kww(talk) 18:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support: because this is already the policy. See, for example, Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources which states Stand-alone lists are subject to Misplaced Pages's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. See also Misplaced Pages:Verifiability The citation must clearly support the material as presented in the article. Perhaps it's worth remembering that we are writing an encyclopaedia here. Verifiability policy isn't just an arbitrary rule to be gamed where possible, it's the only way to achieve our common goal. Deltahedron (talk) 20:45, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I actually support the title of this section as an eventual goal, but recognize that the project is WP:IMPERFECT and reject the blanking of the list when there's no doubt that the removed entries *can* be sourced instead. This is what is being discussed here - I think no one denies the need to remove unsourced, problematic content on sight, but this is not what this RfC is about.
We're not discussing content policy here but behavioral one - do we support the asymmetric process created when an editor removes *all content at once* without even reviewing it for verifiability and force others to check whether it was already sourced elsewhere? We didn't support that process when we reviewed WP:BURDEN and neither should we support it here. I say we must not remove content against WP:PRESERVE when even the people removing it agrees that it "would belong in a finished article". Diego (talk) 21:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Framed another way, you might ask if you need to reference a controversial claim made about George W. Bush in the article about him if its referenced in another article, say Jeb Bush. The answer becomes clear: the existence of a reference in another piece of content, in another context, does not remove the need to reference a claim made in a new context. If the article behind the blue link changes, there is no automatic cascade to the list. The reference must appear on the list itself. Nathan 16:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
@Nathan:, the question here is whether bulk removing such claims in that case is acceptable procedure, rather than merely copying the available reference from the first context to the second. Could you please clarify your position on that? Diego (talk) 16:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The question I see above says nothing about bulk removing. It's standard practice in BLPs to remove uncited information. It is the responsibility of someone adding controversial claims about a living person to ensure that they are adequately sourced; we do not allow that kind of thing to hang around until someone can be bothered to cite it. Nathan 19:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The question says "Any entry ... may be removed", which someone interprete as "any entry must be removed", thus bulk removing all entries which are not cited inline, regardless of their actual citation status elsewhere. The disagreement on this RfC lies on what is considered "adequately sourced", for information which has been already adequately sourced - just not on the format requested by the editors removing it. Again, nobody is disputing removal of information for which adequate references are not known, but the disagreement that prompted this consultation is not about that situation. Diego (talk) 20:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Don't even see why this is up for discussion. Sourcing for claims or categorization of living persons is required everywhere, especially in potentially problematic contexts. §FreeRangeFrog 18:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose unless all the "Support" folks here intend to review every freakin' list in wikipedia rather than only applying this rule to lists they are offended by. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
@Baseball Bugs: BB - this is not exactly new territory for BLPs, which have basically always relied on the subjective assessment of what constitutes a "controversial claim." Despite your attempt to label everyone as Puritanical moralists, it is clear to most that calling a non-porn star a porn star might be upsetting or objectionable, and therefore we should ensure that we only label someone that way when we know and can prove (in context, to the reader, and not relying on some other page that may eventually change) that the label is accurate. Nathan 19:42, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. After thinking this through, I think this is a poor way to organize information and a disservice to the reader. It does little or nothing to advance the aims of BLP, and in fact it may be harmful. The current BLP policy says that for a person to be included in a list, just like a category, "the case for each … must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." That means the article in question, as a whole, must contain adequate sourcing that the person qualifies for the list or category. Lists by contrast do not contain article text. Putting a single cherry-picked citation culled from each main article next to each list item does not make a case for anything, or explain much. The citation may or may not reflect the current state of the article, and does not give the whole picture. The problem for the casual reader is that when they see a single link by each name in a list they are expecting an authoritative and informative resource that says something useful about the person and perhaps why they are on the list. They are not expecting that the citation is a pro forma response to comply with a new policy we make here. They don't know that they they are in fact getting a less than full picture of the person by following the citation instead of following the article link. Giving the reader less than our best information about a personis not a good way to serve that person's interest. - Wikidemon (talk) 19:54, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
This seems to be arguing that providing verification by citing independent reliable sources is somehow less useful than providing no citation at all. This cannot be right. The choice is not between uncited mention and badly cited mention: it is between well supported mention and no mention at all. To insert a name of a living person in an article entitled "List of Foo", or "List of Foos who are also Bar", is to assert, in the voice of the encyclopaedia, that the named living person is a Foo, or a Foo who is also a Bar. That assertion, by WP:BLP policy, if challenged or likely to be so, "must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" and Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources makes it clear that the inline citation should be in the list. Further, normal WP:V mandates an "inline citation that directly supports the material". If the citation does not directly support the assertion that the living person is a Foo, or a Foo who is also a Bar, it should not be used. An aggregation of sources cannot be synthesised: the assertion must be direct. This is what the reader expects, and deserves, when they see the citation. If no such source can be found, then the assertion cannot be verified, and so should not be made, and hence the name should not be in the list. This is not a new policy being made up here -- it is how we construct an encyclopaedia. Deltahedron (talk) 20:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Correct, the argument you pose is neither valid, nor is it the argument made. You are conflating several issues. Current BLP policy is that the citation to support an item's presence in a list should be justified by the article about the item and verified by the sources there. Requiring a duplicate (or worse, new) source next to the list item is a step backwards as far as informing the reader, giving them a full picture of the person, and keeping the list in conformity with the article. Your point about synthesis is an orthogonal one that affects many lists and has been the subject of much debate about lists and categories. If someone is sourced as being French, and the same source also verifies that he is a chef, it does not necessarily follow that he is a French chef. Moving citations back and forth from the article to the link does not affect that question. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
"Current BLP policy is that the citation to support an item's presence in a list should be justified by the article about the item and verified by the sources there" does not appear to be correct. Requiring a citation to a reliable source is what policy demands, as quoted and it should be in the list per MOS, as quoted. Supporting the presence of the entry in the list by a citation to a reliable source in the list as required, and linking to an article for further explanation seems a step forward rather than backwards. Why would providing less information be better for the reader? However, whether or not this argument is correct (and I cannot see that it is) it is an argument for a change in policy, and this is explicitly not what this RFC is about. Deltahedron (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
No, current policy and prevailing interpretation is for the links to be in the article, not the list. The predominance of opinions here agreeing with that interpretation of policy supports that. At the risk of quoting the exact same material quoted elsewhere, the relevant section "Categories, lists and navigation templates" says that "the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources...These principles apply equally to lists". There is only one place that has article text and reliable sources (plural) to justify anything, and that's the full article. Adding a citation to the list would be a new step, and it's a legitimate question whether that is a step forward or backward. It probably depends on the list. I've worked some on the List of Internet Phenomena article, where I encouraged that as an inclusion criterion and it was a definite step forward. However, I do think it will be a step backwards if applied broadly to BLP lists. You'll have perfunctory compliance with digging a source out of the main article, but as I said that will be at the cost of possibly misleading the reader and providing less information if they follow that citation rather than the link, and having the list and article diverge. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
No, Wikidemon , current policy is that all articles have the same sourcing requirements. Lists are articles. Saying that some of the requirements for categories apply to lists as well doesn't somehow say that lists are immune to the requirements that apply to articles. It would be helpful if you didn't continue to repeat that fallacy.—Kww(talk) 03:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
No, current policy is that the sourcing for lists is found in the articles to which they link. To repeat your argument by assertion, saying that BLP means other than what it says about where the sources should be located is somehow saying that lists are immune to the requirements of BLP. It would be helpful if you didn't continue to repeat that fallacy. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:21, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
No, it is not. No, you haven't found a single line of text anywhere that would indicate that to be true. You repeatedly quote a line saying that requirements that apply to categories also apply to lists and keep discussing it as though it says "all other requirements that apply to articles don't apply to lists". BLP says "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". Note the lack of mushiness or vagueness about that direction: not a single "except for in lists" to be found. Your argument is without logical foundation: lists are articles. Articles are required to source contentious material with inline citations, not blue links.—Kww(talk) 04:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes it is. The BLP policy explicitly describes how to handle sourcing for lists, and that is "by the article text and its reliable sources". That is not only the line, verbatim, but also current practice and interpretation of the BLP requirement, and it also appears to reflect consensus on this page about what the policy means. Interpreting the text of BLP to say otherwise is wishful thinking; if it BLP or WP:V had intended to require in-list citations they would have said so directly instead of saying they should be handled like categories and templates. A couple pointers on interpreting rules: (1) the specific overrules the general, Lex specialis, and (2) where a passage is capable of two constructions, one of which will render parts of the passage invalid, contradictory, or otherwise meaningless, unnecessary, or void, the construction rendering the passage to have a valid meaning is preferred. Nobody has ever proposed sourcing lists by blue links, that is a straw man. The sourcing is contained in the references for the listed articles. - Wikidemon (talk) 05:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
A list of "People who are Foo" is an article; inserting a name in that list is an assertion that the person is a Foo. An assertion in an article text requires sourcing in that article. The text you quote refers very elliptically to BLP "principles" and how to carry those principles out in practice is explained in the MOS in an extremely clear and explicit requirement which I will not trouble to quote for a third time. BLP and V do not say that lists should be handled like categories. Lists are articles, and BLP and V and MOS are very clear about how to handle articles. Resort to arcane legal doctrines to support an interpretation must count as a prime example of Misplaced Pages:Wikilawyering . Deltahedron (talk) 06:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
The text of BLP is clear; calling it "elliptical" in order to ignore it doesn't work. It's fine if you consider the discipline of logic from antiquity to the present to be "arcane" and "wikilawyering" and would rather apply your own rules, but you'll have to realize that others who seem to be in the majority now and throughout Misplaced Pages's history of list creation interpret the policies differently. Bottom line, any factual assertions about living people are verifiable, sourced, and readily available in the encyclopedia. You and some others are now insisting that the location of that source has to be transposed to the list itself; others disagree. The question boils down on where to put the sources. We're having an RfC about that. We'll see which view prevails. If the outcome is to copy sources to the lists, then we'll muster our resources to make that happen in an orderly way; if not we'll leave it up to the projects and editors of each list, and perhaps the MOS, to make guidelines. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Sigh. I realise this is rhetoric rather than reasoned argument, but I'll spend some time unpicking it as an exercise. "The text of BLP is clear". Not on this point: if it were, there would be no debate, and certainly no need to invoke arcane rules of interpretation to understand. Calling it elliptical is not to ignore it but to draw attention to the fact that it needs interpretation. Fortunately, it is interpreted quite explicitly at Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources. "Feel free to do X" is a rather stale rhetorical device, strangely still popular on Misplaced Pages. It is usually deployed, as here, where X is something plainly stupid, something the opponent never did, and indeed something the proponent would not actually want to do either. Its purpose is to leave the casual reader with the impression that the opponent did do the stupid thing X but without the proponent ever having made an explicit assertion that can be rebutted. "Bottom line ..." usually introduces, as here, an assertion which is at best irrelevant, and probably incorrect, as here. It is extremely unlikely to be the case that all list entries which are not supported in the list article are actually correctly supported in the linked-to article. "You are now insisting ..." No, I did not say that. Please quote me correctly in future. Deltahedron (talk) 18:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
For goodness sake, the entire dust-up over the porn article is a clusterbomb, of rhetorical nonsense and process gaming. I put my original comment in this section to point out that a change in policy interpretation that would require source citations after each list item instead of the underlying article is not only a major change in Misplaced Pages practice, but in my opinion a disservice to readers and to the BLP subjects, and I explain why. That's important, I think we need to take a step back and look at the whole picture (that's what "bottom line" means, incidentally), is there actually a problem here that needs solving, and what would it mean for the encyclopedia one way or another if we adopted any of these solutions. I'm not lawyering things, I'm trying to work on the encyclopedia, but when the instigators of this latest in a series of BLP-related WP:BATTLEs chime in that there's no point discussing it because the policy is 100% clear on their side, they don't have to listen to other editors, and they can edit war against the community to have their way, I do think I need to school them a little on how to actually read a set of rules. That the exception trumps the rule is grade school logic, if they're teaching that anymore in school, but a common mistake people make. The fact that it has a latin name and dates back thousands of years doesn't mean it's too highfalutin for us to follow, quite the opposite, it's a 2+2 sort of thing. Whatever your favored interpretation, misquoting the policy page, calling the text of the BLP page "oblique", then using that know-nothing term "wikilawyering" against someone who's actually trying to use logic, accusing me of dishonesty, resorting to insults, threatening blocks, etc., as various editors have done, is not the way to support it. I haven't read the manual of style but I'll take your word for it. If that's its interpretation, it is on shaky ground and not something to follow. Most of the community does not and has not. My understanding is that someone wedged that into the style guideline in 2013 during a debate similar to this one. We should probably wedge it back out, depending on the outcome here. Indeed, this and all policies are subject to interpretation, and it takes two or three logical steps to go from the text on the page to either side's conclusion. I do believe that if you take those steps carefully, and look at what the policy says and means, and its purpose and context, it certainly permits sources to be either in the article or on the list. My point here is that always putting the sources on the list would have a negative effect. I have not quoted you, but as far as misrepresenting your position do you or do you not say that the source links should be found in the list rather than in the article? - Wikidemon (talk) 19:06, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
My assertion is that BLP policy requires the list article to have at least one citation to support the assertion that the person mentioned is a member of the class described by the list. Of course the article on the person, if there is one, should also be supported by reliable sources. Comments on other editors attitudes and education do not advance a discussion of what BLP policy is or how to implement it and are not really worth refuting further. Deltahedron (talk) 19:51, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
- List articles have always been treated differently than regular articles, being closer to categories, given their primary role in most cases as indexes ("hubs of links") rather than containers. See WP:LISTN for example - that's a case where Wikidemon's "arcane doctrine" also applies to policy; the general rules of notability for articles don't apply to lists, even though they're very clear rules. Saying that "list are articles, therefore all article rules apply to them" is ingenuous, there has never been a community-wide consensus to treat lists as articles with all its consequences. Now, BLP policy applies to all Misplaced Pages space; but that doesn't mean that the references must appear inline whenever BLP material appears, only that they exist - inline citations are not required at talk pages, for example.
Whether to have an inline reference in lists when the references are already in the linked article is a matter of style, not a requirement of BLP for the protection of the subjects - nobody has stated a clear case that the status of List of pornographic actors who appeared in mainstream films created a risk for any of the people that were listed there (which is the spirit of the BLP policy); all I see here is people debating about nit-picky, bureaucratic rule-following for the shake of compliance with rules, not for the benefit that those rules should bring up. Diego (talk) 08:26, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Wikidemon, at this point, I can only assume that you are intentionally misreading the policy in order to support your position. That's always been a shoddy debating practice. It's quite true that people creating lists have tried over the years to push their obligation for sourcing onto other editors, but it's a distortion of policy to say that policy supports that effort.—Kww(talk) 13:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
If I'm at a category, there are typically no citations. So I would still have to go to all the individual articles to confirm if they're cited. How is that any different from sitting at a list and wanting to confirm individual citations? By your logic, someone could change the list to a category and you'd be fine with that - despite the fact it's no improvement to the level of citations. I could just as easily categorize Mickey Mantle into "porn actors" as I could put him on a list of "porn actors". What's the practical difference? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Kww, it looks like you just lost the debate if you have to resort to insults rather than trying to understand policy. I won't stoop to that level, so I think we're done on this particular exchange. This is an RfC on how people interpret the policy. I'm part of the majority who interpret it differently than you. Leave it at that. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm with Kww here. The policy says that for a category to appear at the bottom of an article, there must be sources on that same page that justify the inclusion of that category on that page. The principles apply equally to lists, so for a contentious item to appear in a list, there must be sources on that same page that justify the inclusion of the item on that page.
The reason that I don't support this statement as written is because it covers non-contentious items as well, and the policy does not require inline citations for non-contentious statements about BLPs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
There are generally not citations on category pages, and a category page is just another type of list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:18, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
(ec, addressing WhatamIdoing) The phrases you put in quotes and italics are not found on the policy page. You're making an interpretation. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
You have edited long enough to know how to add an item to a category, haven't you? Can you explain a method for doing so that doesn't follow WhatamIdoing's "interpretation"? Her material certainly does follow WP:CATEGORY:"Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories."—Kww(talk) 19:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
There's no practical difference between the one kind of list and the other, yet you're taking contradictory positions on the one vs. the other. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:40, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm certainly struggling to see why we should have completely different policies about and , which both appear to the ordinary reader as lists of names. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Being as charitable to the deletionists as I can, it would be a fair bet that the rules for these two types of lists were developed separately, as in "the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing." Regardless, it makes no sense to have opposite rules between two types of lists. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
(outdent) Whether I'm tending a list or category as an editor, or looking through one as a reader, I would go straight to the article and examine its text and sources to see why and if the item belongs there, and not count on the presence or absence of a single citation on a list. The exception is where a highly notable subject is on an obscure list far removed from their reason for notability. If Barack Obama appears on a list of people of Scottish ancestry I don't want to muck through the entire Obama article to see why, it's better if there is a link and/or explanation there. In the more common situation where the person is of moderate notability, say Emerson Fittipaldi being on the List of Formula One Grand Prix winners, going to the article in question is clearly more useful. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose I really don't believe that List of burial places of Presidents of the United States would benefit from inline citations to prove that still-living US Presidents are still living and thus not buried. We have a few sky-is-blue perfectly uncontentious list entries involving BLPs. We should not require pointless make-work for these uncontested items, and we should not encourage people to make a WP:POINT by authorizing removal of such items. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is ridiculous. Oh no! Someone might theoretically add something to a list that isn't true, and you know all the big studios always check this list article before hiring anyone, since they don't want anyone who formerly worked in porn. In this case, their name is in the credits of everything they do. Articles for films, pornographic or mainstreaming, don't have a reference for every single actor they say is in the film. Do we remove all those cast members? Dream Focus 20:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - But per User:Deltahedron; I feel like this question is already pretty clearly addressed by Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Stand-alone_lists#Citing_sources. NickCT (talk) 16:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Hearty support - Statements about living persons absolutely must be sourced where they appear, according to policy. I agree with AndyTheGrump on this one - this list has no reliable sources (IMDb is not reliable, you all know that) and he was correct to blank the page; WP:BLPREMOVE (part of a policy, not a recommendation) requires us to remove unsourced contentious material about living persons. If Andy asserts that it is contentious, then it is by definition contentious. Encouraging editors to go out and find sources or pull them from bluelinked articles is all well and good, but that does not override site policy. Ivanvector (talk) 16:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Bugs, all categories are supposed to be verified/verifiable, too, and supported by the article's text. Per WP:Categories,
"Categorization of articles must be verifiable. It should be clear from verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories. Use the Template:Category unsourced template if you find an article in a category that is not shown by sources to be appropriate or if the article gives no clear indication for inclusion in a category."
That seems pretty clear. And, yes, I have seen various gnomes removing unsupported/unverified categories from articles. Happens all the time, and it should. Even more so if an unverified category might constitute a BLP problem. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
And I say there is no practical difference between the one type of list and the other. There's no justification for having one rule for one type of list and a different rule for another type. Either way, you can go to the linked item to see if it's a valid entry on the list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:14, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
The discussion is not about whether we should have different rules for lists and categories, but how to respond to the fact that we do. A proposal to change the policy would be a different RFC. Deltahedron (talk) 19:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
No, you either have a policy or you don't. You can't claim that a citation is needed in one type of list but not another. A list is a list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:39, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
"A list", otherwise known as "a list-article", is indeed a list, but a category is not a list. (A category is a navigation tool.) Compare, for example, List of World Heritage Sites in Africa with Category:World Heritage Sites in Africa: I believe that you will find that they are rather different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
No. A category is a list with links to individual articles. It is functionally identical to what you call an "article-list". There's either a policy or there isn't. You can't have it both ways. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:08, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
A category is not functionally identical to a list: the differences, and the advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed at length in Misplaced Pages:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, which begins "Categories, lists, and navigation templates are three different ways to group and organize articles". One of the stated advantages of a list is (7) "Can be referenced to justify the inclusion of listed articles". Hence the differences in policy to reflect the differences in functionality. Deltahedron (talk) 16:36, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for that gem. So all those saying lists are functionally identical to categories and therefore they could avoid their BLP responsibilities as editors were in fact ignorant of this point. There is now not a single valid arguemnt to not be sourcing list, as things should be to avoid lists being made up by editors who do not fel they are required to justify their inclusions by reliably sourcing. It also means that in the long term all lists should be made BLP compliant at the evry least. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
You're both missing the point. If you're sitting at the top of a category, there is no practical difference to sitting on a so-called "list article". Having one rule for one and a different one for the other is ridiculous. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:43, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
The guidelines I quote above list 17 eminently practical differences, so I think we can regard that as settled. Do I take it that we are now agreed that there are in fact different policies for lists and categories? Deltahedron (talk) 18:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
No. Lists and categories present the exact same BLP challenges due to very similar navigational structure, and a uniform approach to them as suggested by the current BLP section on the subject makes a lot of sense. The only relevant difference is that lists can have explanatory text or citations next to each list item, which is a lot different than establishing that they should or that they must. I mention in my opposition here that I don't think it's a good idea as a blanket requirement because there are cases where that would be a disservice to the reader and actually weaken BLP protection, but there are certainly other cases where it is helpful to have a list inclusion criterion that the list entry has a reliable source next to it. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
(ec)The core issue of this discussion is about requiring citations on lists for allegedly "contentious" information. There is no reason to treat one type of list different from another. Either way, if you're sitting at the top of a list, you can check the citations by lookin at the article - and for categories, that's the only way you can check it, unless you embed sourcing in the category, which I don't see the manual-of-style warriors arguing for. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
(ec) My question was directed at BB who said that having different rules "is ridiculous". That seems to me to imply that BB agrees that there are indeed different rules, although they have made it clear that they do not think there should be. Is that a fair summary? Deltahedron (talk) 18:34, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Oh, you have your work cut out for you if you hope to get BB to agree to anything. He's quite persistent in his opinions. Good luck :) - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I am trying to check exactly what BB's view is on this point (namely that BLP policy differs as between lists and categories) since it seems that we might actually agree on the point, if not on its ramifications. Deltahedron (talk) 18:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't see what you're unclear on. The complaint here is supposedly about the alleged risk of alleged BLP violations in "list articles". If you're not concerned about the same gaping citations gap in category lists, then there's no valid logical argument for being concerned about it in these "list articles". And if you are concerned about it, then you should likewise be arguing for applying the same standard to categories. Both, or neither. Any other way makes no sense. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:52, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Then let me more explicit, if I can. Is it BB's view that current BLP policy requires a different treatment of the citation of reliable sources for contentious inclusion of names of living persons in lists to the treatment it requires for the contentious inclusions of such names in categories? We take it as read that BB feels any such difference in policy to be ridiculous, the question I am asking here is whether BB agrres with me that the difference exists. Deltahedron (talk) 19:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
So far, no one has convinced me that there even is a requirement for a redundant citation within the "list article". Some are saying yes, some are saying no. The policy must not be as crystal-clear as Squeak thinks it is. Regardless, if this is a good-faith effort to fix BLP problems and not just to feed deletionists, then the BLP rules for lists have to be consistent. If they aren't, then you haven't solved anything. Oh, and squeaking of Speak, er, speaking of Squeak, there is a topic-ban discussion for him at ANI right now. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
That's clear, thank you. Your previous use of the indicative "is" rather than conditional "would be" conveyed the opposite impression. It is indeed true that various editors have expressed the opinion that, for example, "The BLP policy explicitly describes how to handle sourcing for lists" only for that explicit description to turn out to rely on tortuous rules of legal interpretation. So I can certainly agree that it is not as clear as might be desirable. Nonetheless I think it is definite, for reasons I have already given several times. The separate issue of verification of inclusion in categories, where it is not technically possible to give direct citations, is indeed problematic, but I do not think that situation likely to be improved by changing the policy to weaken the requirement elsewhere. Deltahedron (talk) 19:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Actually, there was a discussion on possible BLP issues with categories recently: Category talk:Antisemitism#RFC on purging individuals and groups. You might be interested, although the scope of the discussion was very narrow. Ivanvector (talk) 21:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - Yes, all BLPs included in a list should be supported by in-line citations per WP:BLP, WP:V and WP:RS. Frankly, so should all the dead persons who are included on any given list, too. Often, the real value to our readers of our list articles is not the list itself, but the citations that corroborate the information provided. Come on, people. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a sixth-grade book report. Everything in a well-written article or list should be supported -- why would you think otherwise? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • opposeThis is already the case per present policy. Any challenged content has to be supported with citations. ON the otherhand I think it is a very bad idea to agressively remove uncited entries as is being suggested here - many people seem to take great delight in removing entries without first making even the most trivial attempt to find a possible reference for the fact. This kind of attitude is frustrating and amounts simply to pushing the work onto others. I would support this suggestion only if it were coupled with an injunction that at least one good faith attempt to find a source should be made before removal. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. Per WP:BLP policy this is a requirement - and per common sense we should be referencing lists in the way that we reference any other article. If a list is worth having, it is worth referencing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Having references is a requirement, but removing unsourced content is not. I agree with Maunus that pushing work onto others when the references are available should not be allowed (and as I explained above, I think doing that is already not allowed now per WP:CHALLENGE).Diego (talk) 19:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
WP:BLP mandates the removal of unsourced content about living people which is contentious: 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.. WP:CHALLENGE is part of WP:V, which explictly defers to WP:BLP on this point. Deltahedron (talk) 19:11, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Well yes, as long as the material is contentious and without references. The entries in this list all have known valid sources. Diego (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
This section is discussing the general proposition Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed, and under BLP Policy, it may only be restored when properly cited and the assertion "Having references is a requirement, but removing unsourced content is not" contradicts BLP. If any specific list includes citations to independent reliable sources that supports the inclusion of a name in the list then that would be a reason not to remove the content. Deltahedron (talk) 21:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Precisely, this section includes the case of content for which good references are known, but are not inline - thus a matter of style, not of challenged content. WP:PRESERVE is also a Misplaced Pages policy; although people wanting to remove content routinely break it, it clearly says "As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the requirements of the three core content policies: Neutral point of view, Verifiability and No original research." So removing such content can't be done, by policy; and there's no contradiction with BLP: sourcing the content is compliant with policy, removing content for which references are known is not. So it seems we've arrived to the same conclusion. Diego (talk) 23:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Several people in this discussion have overstated the rule, probably because they're thinking of the specific list that prompted this. Having references for every BLP-related list entry is not "a requirement" per BLP. BLP requires citations if and only if said material is "contentious". For non-contentious material you should add citations, but you are not required to add citations. "Must" and "should" are not synonyms in our policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
As I pointed out just above, the first part of the proposition here is that "Any entry of a living person in a list that is not referenced with an inline citation may be removed", not "must". But if it is removed, then it becomes contentious to reinsert it, and BLP requires that it not be reinserted without a citation, and hence the second part, that "it may only be restored when properly cited". Deltahedron (talk) 16:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • oppose Lists and categories are generally interchangeable, and membership in the category is cited only by the citations in the article. When looking at the category page itself, no citation is visible. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. Comment - We can and so we should. BLP demands this and rightly so to protect living people from the excesses of editors. Otherwise our verifiability standard becomes whatever editors say and not citing reliable sources. Without reliable sources these lists cannot be verified. We cannot strat putting the needs of our editors above the needs of the livign people we write about. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Haven't you just !voted twice in this thread? Diego (talk) 19:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Apologies, wasnt trying to game the system, thought it was a different poll. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The proposal would apply to all lists of living persons, including things like List of Nobel laureates, which could be immediately blanked if this was the policy. In reality, this proposal, without limitation to controversial subject like porn, has never been policy in practice. It may well be our long term goal, though.--Milowent • 17:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - If the subject in question has an article that substantiates their inclusion on the list, this just creates unnecessary workload. If its a red link or just text, then yes of course it needs to be sourced. BLP policy is important, but so is common sense. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 21:03, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but only in the case of potentially contentious lists

Each individual item in any potentially contentious list, such as lists of allegations of criminality or historically divisive topics, should be cited and may be removed until it is cited to a reliable source. Inclusion in a porn-related list is inherently contentious as persons incorrectly included on this list may find this personally or professionally damaging.
  • Support. Visually , this page is a stark illustration of the currently polarized debate on this topic, with large numbers of comments above and below, and not a single comment in this middle section until now. But nothing will be accomplished until we bridge this divide, so I've tweaked the language in this middle section a bit. We need to be able to act on BLP-infringing matters but we don't want to blank many long-standing lists that are accurate and don't present any serious issues. Gamaliel (talk) 17:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - If someone doesn't belong on any given list, they can be removed. Comparing porn actors to gangsters is highly offensive original research. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • If I note that apples and oranges are both fruits, apparently I am equating them. Good to know. Would you care to substitute language above that you feel makes the case that these are both potentially contentious topics without comparing them to one another? Thanks. Gamaliel (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't know about gangsters here but there's clearly a stigmatization of pornography implied by mentioning criminals in the same sentence as an analogy for porn stars. I'll leave porn star pride out of it but there are certainly sex positive people who see this kind of judgment as oppressive and insulting. Refusing to be frank about sexual matters, for the supposed protection of the people involved, is among other things not an encyclopedic approach. That's a danger when declaring entire topic areas to be inherently contentious. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:04, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • As I said, I welcome alternate language to address these concerns. I have no desire to stigmatize anything, but it's not stigmatizing or being anti-sex positivity to note that there are people who would strongly object to being misclassified in such a matter and would find it personally and professionally damaging. Refusing to be frank about this will not help us address this issue. Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Happy to support this version. The BLP policy is intended to apply to controversial ("challenged or likely to be challenged") claims about living people. Nathan 19:45, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - It doesn't matter how obvious we think something is, Misplaced Pages content must be verifiable and this is particularly important when the content relates to the divide between a person's professional and private life. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:37, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support mostly. Contentious matter about BLPs requires inline citations. There are no exceptions to this rule. An item is contentious if anyone contests or WP:CHALLENGEs its inclusion. Whether some other editor believes that the challenge is based on ignorance or anti-sex bias is irrelevant: challenged is challenged, and the response should be inline citations, not complaining.
    What I don't support is the reason given for why inclusion on a porn-related list is contentious. The effect on the BLP is actually irrelevant to the determination of contentiousness. Something is contentious if it is (a) actually contested or (b) reasonably WP:LIKELY to be contested. It is the experience of our editing community that inclusion in a porn-related list is likely to be contested. We could say the same thing about a List of causes of climate change or List of health benefits from tobacco use, even though these subjects involve no BLP issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support For non-controversial lists like "People from X", blue links are fine for references as this data should be relatively easy to extract (such as a link from the infobox, etc). For anything where the data can be controversial, the blue links are not likely going to be sufficient because you'd have to read the whole article to determine if the controversial criteria is there or not. As such, inline sourcing (or in some cases, a single header source that encapsulates the whole list) is required for each entry of controversial lists. Ideally, one will be pulling a source or two from the blue-linked article for this, so it should be trivial to complete. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose If the information is the article linked to, then no reason not to have it on the list. Someone could just as easily enter false information in the main article as in on a list. They could easily have a reference to something else, since most won't click on the link in the reference to read the actual source. I don't really see this is something that is happening though, so its not really a problem. Dream Focus 19:59, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

No, unless there is a dispute over the factual basis

When a blue linked name of a living person is removed from a list for being unreferenced, it may be restored if the linked article supports inclusion and there is no factual dispute at that article over the characteristic supporting inclusion.
  • Support In my opinion, a reference is only required where there is a factual dispute about the characteristic justifying inclusion. Where a person's blue linked article clearly labels them with a particular characteristic, and there is no dispute there or anywhere else that the label is fair, than including them on the list is neither contentious nor likely to be considered contentious, which is the trigger under WP:BLPREMOVE for requiring a reference. The blue link is not a reference, but merely a way for someone to see that a reference is not required under policy. Again though, if anyone wants to claim that the label is wrong as a matter of fact, then BLPREMOVE does require an actual reference on the list. Monty845 17:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Agree. BLP does not require blue link item in a list to have a verification citation next to that list item. As User:Cavarrone points out BLP currently says the exact opposite: "the case for each content category must be made by the article text and its reliable sources...these principles apply equally to lists." Lists contain links to articles that in turn provide sourcing, a practice that is standard in BLP articles and elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Requiring citations next to blue link list items would be a significant change in policy that I think is beyond the scope of this RfC. However, editors may on a case-by-case basis decide that a particular list ought to have citation sources and I would support that requirement for this particular list. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support because of Misplaced Pages:COMMONSENSE as well as of WP:BLP which states in the Categories/lists section: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by THE ARTICLE TEXT and ITS reliable sources." Otherwise it is just a pointy sky-is-blue dispute. --Cavarrone 17:41, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:BURDEN and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY. The same principles at hand at WP:BURDEN that establish a responsibility prior to challenging unsourced content and forbid its blanket removal also apply here - one has to assert their good faith belief to make a case that the content is controversial and unverifiable, otherwise page blanking is considered disruptive (see also WP:MINREF - "section blanking may be vandalism, rather than a demand for inline citations"). Following the letter of policy while ignoring its intent, like when deleting content that is known to be true and verifiable, is not a good use of WP:BLP - given that this case is one of article style, not content substance; BLP material that is referenced one link away is not "unsourced or poorly sourced", it's just improperly formatted. The expected behavior of an editor who knows that the material can be sourced is to add the citation themselves. Diego (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support If the list is compiled from existing WP articles on these individuals where the assertion is being made that they indeed are a porn actor and that assertion is reliably sourced and there is no dispute about the sourcing that supports that assertion, then exactly what is contentious. The list itself is not making a contentious assertion about anyone, it's merely listing people who have already been identified through sourcing as being a porn actor. If someone wanted to dispute the sourcing making the assertion at that person's article page, then it would stand to follow that they would then be removed from the list as well. Isaidnoway (talk) 19:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • SupportUsing BLP policy to blank articles everyone knows is verifiable is just pointy and disruptive. Making 'contentious' assertion is just another excuse. Especially when you know your claims are false. There is no dispute about the sourcing, only the methods. Dave Dial (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support with reservation. The claim should be supported by the article about the list item, and the claim in the article itself is subject to the normal sourcing requirements. In other words, this does not in any way weaken RS or BLP, it simply allows latitude as to where the sourcing sits. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC).
  • Support - for all of the above reasons and the observation that its just not practical. Some lists can have 100's or 1000's of entries. If the destination of a blue link that contains references to confirm what is being listed exists, let it stand. Furthermore I'd like to add that this attribute could just as easily by a Category and there would be no recourse for adding a reference of any kind. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support It's ridiculous to have redundant sourcing just because two people want to take an overly strict interpretation of the words of BLP policy. Strict BLP policy is actually a good idea, and in theory prevents maybe Libel lawsuits due to unsourced information being regularly deleted from articles. In this case, the aforementioned articles in the list have the citations within them but it is expected by two editors (who have reverted more than 3 times under BLP umbrella) that we are to harvest sources from these articles and that it must be done in spirit of BLP policy. No, we are not a bureaucracy and do not have to bend to this specific interpretation of policy. Indeed, one of the pillars guiding Misplaced Pages is that we do not have firm rules. Tutelary (talk) 20:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
We've got redundant sourcing all over the place. Haven't you seen similar claims referenced in more than one article before? If I reference a claim about Marie Curie in the Marie Curie article, do I then not need to provide any references related to her in any other context where her life and achievements are described? If I add a reference in Columbia University to a claim about Dwight D. Eisenhower, do I then not need to source it on the Dwight D. Eisenhower article itself? Nathan 16:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Fairly clearly there are only a narrow set of circumstances where sourcing s required. In this scenario appropriate sourcing is present, and available with a little effort. Given that sourcing can be to, for example, a scarce book that costs hundreds, or requires a lengthy library trip to consult, sourcing that is indirected through a blue link should not to be considered "inaccessible". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC).
In what circumstance would a reference for whether or not someone is a porn star be found only in a scarce, enormously expensive book? That's a strange assertion. In any case, the principle holds - controversial claims must be sourced in each context in which they appear, lest we establish that "x is sourced somewhere, therefore we need not source it here" is the new and correct interpretation of WP:V. Such a strange outcome might lead some bot operator or script user to go through and remove a million "duplicate" references. Nathan 19:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - "where a list is full of blue links to the articles of the personalities being listed and the linked articles do support inclusion in the list, does BLP Policy justify blanking those entries without inline citations?"
No. What's been unfortunately going on recently with respect to many pornography-related articles is that a very few users (when they see Wiki-linked names on pornography-related articles) choose to blank those names entirely without any attempt to simply click on the blue-linked article names and see if there are reliable sources that those names are, in fact, associated with known adult industry performers.
"The expected behavior of an editor who knows that the material can be sourced is to add the citation themselves." Exactly...what those few users also unfortunately refuse to do (in almost all circumstances when not confronted by an administrator) is to simply copy those same reliable sources from the blue-linked articles over to the pornography-related Misplaced Pages article that was originally "in question" in the first place. This kind of "pointy" behavior is fundamentally disruptive to collaborative editing, and it unfortunately is a too common attempt to use phony "BLP concerns" as a shield for one's edits. Misplaced Pages BLP policy should not be used to push one's own agenda, no matter what that personal agenda is. Guy1890 (talk) 21:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - As long as doubt can be removed by a veritable source... I think anyone who was unfamiliar with Misplaced Pages would probably click the link to the article first; anyone familiar may check a reference. If there is no reference, I'd expect the regular to click the article on the person. Where the reference is placed is overly bureaucratic and it hinders the goals of list makers more than it helps the readers. If someone wants to add extraneous references to the list, I don't see any reason to object, but blanking a list because the sources are not directly on the page is ridiculous. It's like you're building a tower out of Legos, but half of the bricks you need are 5 feet away. Instead of scooting over to them, you just knock the tower down. moluɐɯ 22:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support BLP requires explicit referencing of controversial material Stuartyeates (talk) 00:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - If the article is BLP compliant and the claim is well referenced, then it is redundant to do the same on the list. There is no BLP issue whatsoever -the claim is meant to be sourced in the article. The list is just a pointer to the articles, which contain their individual sourcing. If someone wants to add such sources to the list as well, then by all mean do that, but as long as the article is properly referenced there is no reason to remove the entry.--cyclopia 17:35, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - For many of the reasons already stated. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 19:11, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose This leads to maintenance problems as pages get out of sync. I can easily imagine hoaxing this way: add a contentious statement and a ghost citation to the article about Joe Film, link it on the List of evil people, have your garbage reverted out of the first, but no one noticed your second effort. Even if you started off with real citations and reasonably accurate information, they can get lost due to editing and merging. The only reasonable safeguard is to require citations on every page that contains the contentious material about the BLP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose Sourcing for controversial information should be immediately available as an inline source. While it is likely that the fact is sourced on the blue-linked article, it requires some work to "extract" that. We don't do that with block quotes or other controversial facts, it should not be an allowance for list of persons grouped by a controversial aspect. --MASEM (t) 19:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Then categories should likewise have "immediate availability" without having to link to the individual article. Yet they aren't. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
      • We should not be using categories for contentious topics in the first place. Mind you, there is the hypothetical cross categorization of "port actors" and "mainstream actors", but either bit of information should be a thing readily verified on their page; it's the immediately cross relation page like this list that is the problem. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
        • Let me add that the hypothetical example that I am considering here is an actor that may have started in the porn industry but under a stage name but got a break and later got into real films upon which he used his real name; in such case, unless we have a BLP-quality source that equates the stage name to the real name, then we would have separate articles for these people (assuming both notable), and we would not classify the real name as someone previously working in porn. We would categorized the stage name article as a porn actor, and the real name article as a mainstream actor, neither which are contentious facts. But then making a connection between the two that a BLP reliable source does not provide is where the problem starts. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
          • That's not the complaint. The complaint is that the persons named in this specific type of list are lacking citations... which is false on its face. The citations are in the respective articles... just as they are on a category page. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:20, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
            • This may surprise you, but I don't even care what the situation is at the list that started this discussion. We've been asked what the policy should say for all lists, not just for one list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
              • Well, the outcome of this RfC is certainly going to apply to that list too, isn't it? So maybe you should educate yourself as to the effects of what you're supporting as a result of your positions for all lists, including that one. Diego (talk) 22:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Clicking on the blue link to the person's article is just as easy as clicking on a reference link. Stop being ridiculous. Dream Focus 19:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • SupportUser:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Masem's comment above: every list with BLP constituent list items should have in-line citations supporting the inclusion of individual list items. Why is this so hard, people? Do it -- it's the right and proper thing. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:14, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. However, adding a reference from the subject article, when restoring to entry to the list, should be encouraged. Likewise, no editor should remove a blue link entry from a list before at least spending 5 seconds reviewing the entry, absent exigent circumstances (e.g., mass vandalism suspected)--Milowent • 17:37, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

General Discussion

I really don't see that there is any room for debate in this instance - WP:BLP policy is clear that unreferenced contentious material on living persons must be "removed immediately and without waiting for discussion" (emphasis in original). A blue link isn't even remotely a 'reference', and an unreferenced assertion that someone is a pornographic actor is clearly contentious. WP:BLP policy doesn't have a get-out clause that says we can ignore the need for references if we think something may be true.

With regard to the more general case, as a matter of principle we should be encouraging sourcing for any article or list, and where lists include living persons it needs to be borne in mind that almost any inclusion has the potential to prove controversial. If a list is noteworthy enough to merit inclusion in Misplaced Pages, individual inclusions must be noteworthy enough to merit proper sourcing, I'd have thought - and the more potential for controversy there is, the greater the need is for strict enforcement of sourcing requirements. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

On a personal note I find it frustrating that people are more willing to criticize BLP enforcement than to fix the problem in the way BLP requires, which is to reliably source each entry of any living person on any list. Otherwise I could create a list of war criminals and put Barak Obama on the list because I, a humble editor) think he is a war criminal with no need to reliably source my claim. Having a blue link is not evidence that somebody is a porn star and I would have thought BLP is very clear that to include people in porn lists need reliably sourced references. If we make an exemption for porn we are breaking our BLP policy and our watermark of verifiability not truth. I personally do not believe a group of porn article editors can break our BLP policy so easily. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 16:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I invite you to not disrupt Misplaced Pages to make a point. Now, the difference between the example you're citing is that Barrack Obama's article does not say that he is a war criminal. Now, say the UN comes to a unanimous conclusion that he was, and it was added to his Misplaced Pages article (and wasn't contentious material or disputed by other editors). Then, he could be included and WP:BLP policy would not prohibit it. Now, on every single blue linked article on that page, the lead or the article itself demonstrates that they are/were a pornographic actor. It's in the article and isn't disputed. What you are doing on the article is that you are blanking the page and are not disputing any specific person on the list that you have a problem with, which we've already asked you about, but you have a problem with the lack of citations when there are already blue linked articles. Tutelary (talk) 17:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
There is clearly no BLP issue here current policy does not require citations on lists of wikilinks. Squeakbox, why aren't you helping to fix the problem you perceive instead of edit warring? - Wikidemon (talk) 17:23, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Well I could ask that question of you too, wikidemon. I prefer to wait till the drama has calmed down and it has been established that BLP must be enforced here. And BLP policy requires the removal of this material but it does not require its addition so I need to enforce BLP first and the get on with finding refs. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
BLP policy requires that unreferenced contentious material be removed, plain and simple. There is nothing whatsoever in it about Wikilinks providing some sort of exception to this policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Nor is there anything about worrying about being disruptive when enforcing BLP, and nor is enforcing BLP "making a point", its real editing to protect real living people. If all these articles demonstrate that these people are porn actors it should not be difficult to reliably source each one and return it to the article, Tutelary, problem solved. But of course the inclusions were disputed the moment I, a wikiepdia editor, disputed them. People dont blank pages citing real BLP concerns, they rempove BLP violations and claiming I was page blanking will not be confirmed by any diffs. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Please reread the policy page, it is not on your side. BLP does permit these lists. See the section on links, lists, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
BLP policy requires that contentious material be referenced. It makes no exception whatsoever for lists - it explicitly states that "These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and {{Infobox}} statements (referring to living persons within any Misplaced Pages page) that are based on religious beliefs or sexual orientation or suggest that any living person has a poor reputation". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Now back up 2 paragraphs to see the first of "these principles" is: "Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources." - Wikidemon (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Lists and categories are not the same thing. If an article contains a category, that article already should contain the citation to a reliable source to support the categorization as well. A list stands alone, and the sources for that list need to be contained within the list.—Kww(talk) 19:17, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
The policy page says that the same principles "apply equally to lists", that "the case must be made clear by article text and its reliable sources", i.e. at the linked-to article. If the policy intended to treat lists differently than categories it would say so. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
One statement in BLP related to inclusion in categories of people doesn't somehow magically erase WP:RS: Misplaced Pages is not a reliable source, and cannot be used as a source in other articles.—Kww(talk) 02:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
BLP does not say the Misplaced Pages article is used as a source, it says the sources are in the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Squeakbox, you clearly could not add Barak Obama to List of war criminals with impunity, because the article Barak Obama does not support his categorization as a war criminal. If it did it would require appropriate sourcing in the article. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 3 August 2014 (UTC).
And if I, say using a sockpuppet, add the name of some just notable enough blogger to a porn list. Where is the guarantee that person's name will be deleted if we cannot even be bothered to demand reliable sources for their inclusion? Or does every 3rd editor have to check back to the bio article in every case, creating far more work than adding a citation. And why? Because people dont want to do the tedious work of adding citations to porn lists. That is not a good reason to break BLP. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, duh! Because of people like you and Andy who are constantly patrolling for BLP violations, that's why it will be deleted. Along with the rest of us who just want the articles to have accurate information. As for tedious work, I spent 4 HOURS adding references that you reverted in about 5 seconds. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:39, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
You spent four hours without wondering whether IMDB was considered to be a reliable source?—Kww(talk) 20:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, with over 70,000 mentions of IMDb on this site, many of which are inline citations for the cast and crew of various productions, no I didn't wonder at all... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Scalhotrod, I actually dont spend all my wikipedia time patrolling for BLP violations but I can think of no more noble or useful thing to be doing on this project. I am not entirely conviced you do want accurate information because, according to my reasoning, if this were important to you and certain other editors, you would be fully supporting my BLP compliance attempts, as some editors have done, and you would not have made the false accusations that I am trying to undermine our porn coverage on wikipedia simply because I am asking for BLP compliance today. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Squeak, I am in full support of BLP compliance, I'm just not in support of your bizarre interpretation of policy or your disruptive efforts... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 21:02, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Scalhotrod, what is bizarre about wanting reliable sources for claims made in an article about living people? And how is removing those unsourced names disruptive? I cant see how one or the other could be so. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's not a good reason to blank the whole page either. I reject the idea that BLP should be enforced based on the article's status rather than the truthiness and verifiability of the knowledge represented. Had you and AndyTheGrump reviewed each entry in the list to challenge only those entries that have unreliable sources (or no sources at all) at their linked articles, thus detecting a real problem with sourcing, I would have a lot more respect for your position.
A challenge to the whole list because a of a defect in form creates a backlog of work for other editors, plus an urgency that the problem must be solved right now for fear of the risk that the content be lost to the article history. That is a good thing to do when there's an actual probability that it may risk someone's online reputation. But as it is with this case, where all entries have been already reviewed by the editors crafting the list and there's no one who actually believes there's a problem with the asserted facts, editors making the challenge should be expected to assume at least a fraction of the work to ensure that there's indeed something severe to fix. Under these circumstances, a requirement that others stop everything they're doing and fix the problem right now, just because now is when you've found about it is not the way that collaboration among editors should be set to happen. Diego (talk) 20:55, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
P.S. The morale would be that burn on sight all content without an inline reference, without bothering to check whether it's reliably sourced at some easy to find place elsewhere is NOT the way we want to go enforcing the BLP policy, as it's a highly asymmetrical way to go on reviewing the verifiability of possibly contentious material and thus a disruptive process. Go on challenging individual statements all you want after you tried *and* failed to verify each of them, but don't bulk delete when there's evidence that the references are at hand without checking them nor trying to add them yourself first - that has always been unacceptable, and certainly not in the spirit of neither WP:V nor WP:BLP. Diego (talk) 21:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Diego, I did indeed check every entry and only removed those without reliable sources, there can be no question that that is how I did it. And Andy merely reverted back to what I had done. If I had found entries with reliable sources I would have left them as my only concern here is BLP compliance. BLP does not require me to look for reliable sources before removing the names of living people and it is right that it does not require me to do so as the whole emphasis is on removing the offending material before even discussing the issue. The time tolook for reliable sources is later on, and I am sure i will be doing so once all the dramma has died down. But if not, others can do so, thematerial is all well stored int he history so reinsertion is technically easy once a ref has been found. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
And where exactly did you look, that you missed all the existing sources? WP:Verifiability does not require that the references are placed inline. And BLP may not require you "to look for reliable sources before removing" content, but WP:BURDEN certainly does ("When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that there may not be a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."). Diego (talk) 06:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists#Citing sources

"Stand-alone lists are subject to Misplaced Pages's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources. This means statements should be sourced where they appear, they must provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations". Contentious BLP material is of course one of the 'four kinds of material' where lists must be 'sourced where they appear'. No wiggle-room here, the list requires sourcing. On the list page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Then go on and add them yourself. What good do you expect will come from blanking the article? Diego (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Compliance with policy. And no, I am under no obligation whatsoever to clear up other peoples' mess. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
But you feel entitled to put others under obligation to fix yours? When you haven't checked that the material is contentious and unverifiable, you're not complying with policy by removing it, you're actually breaching WP:PRESERVE and WP:BURDEN. Diego (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Believe me, Diego, when I say I checked the material was contentious when I looked at the article's title. I then checked every person for a reliably sourced ref and when I found none I was forced to remove all the names. Nobody is claiming the material was or is unverifiable, merely that it was and mostly is unverified. So I was definitely complying with BLP policty and those other policies you are quoting at me do not trump an urgent need to remove non compliant BLP material about living people, in this case sex workers. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Then I feel pretty safe in calling Squeak a liar. It took me 4 hours to just copy/paste a reference for each entry on that list that I added here which was reverted 4 minutes later by Andy the Grump here, which I re-added 3 minutes later here.
It took Squeak all of one minute to revert it again here. Sure, you thoroughly checked it... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 21:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
LOL, "I checked every person for a reliably sourced ref and when I found none I was forced to remove all the names."! Here SqueakBox is just lying, and these are that kind of ridicolous, blatant lies which has no chance to be trusted here. It is sufficient to check the first name in the list, Abigail Clayton, and her article lists multiple RS attesting she is an adult actress. The same with the second name Aino Kishi, a bunch of RSs, the same with the others. Also look at his edit history: he blanked the page a few minutes after this bold removal in another sex-related article and just a dozen of minutes after this one. Cavarrone 22:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Of course I was not lying, Cavarrone. I checked the names of every person on the list in the article itself. It took me a couple of mins at most. I did not see any need to check the articles of the porn stars themselves and nor was I willing to start the long task of reliably sourcing these people BEFORE removing the BLP non compliant material and I fully stand by that decision. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Not lying, just playing word games. SB did not bother checking the list for sourcing, they just edit warred to delete it with a weird justification that few editors agree with. The "I am under no obligation to deal with messes I create on Misplaced Pages for other editors" attitude is toxic. If acted on, it becomes tendentious. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
No word games. You cannot expect an editor to spend an afternoon wading through 50 bios to verfy other editor's unsourced asserttions, BURDEN places that duty on those who added the material and to put that on me would require a change in policy as well as being unfair. And that would take hours whereas the BLP violations had to be removed prior to discussion, ie with some sense of urgency. And if I had verified the 50 bio. So what? The next editor would have to verify them to. Editors expecting this kind of ridiculously overtasking so they dont have to maka the effort of reliably souring is getting everythign the worng way round and in the emantime we are not guaranteeing our BLP polciy with a contentious subject like porn. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Okay — if we're talking about this edit then we can accept on good faith that SqueakBox did look at every reference, and because they were all to IMDB, concluded that none of them met the burden of reliable sourcing imposed by BLP, reverted to an earlier version that had only two names on it with different references. Cavarrone, I think there are some places in this discussion where twisting of the record does go over the line as far as lying, but this is not such a case, and it would be helpful if we can steer this discussion towards explaining editors' understanding of policy. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The person meets the Misplaced Pages notability requirement. An exception to this requirement may be made if the person is famous for a specific event, the notability requirement need not be met. If a person in a list does not have a Misplaced Pages article about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to: a) establish their membership in the list's group; and b) to establish their notability on either BLP1E or BIO1E. (emphasis added)
  • The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources.

Special care must be taken when adding living persons to lists based on religion or on sexual orientation. For further information, see Misplaced Pages's policy on biographical information about living people, in particular the category/list policy for living persons. Isaidnoway (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

I would say living people on porn lists are amply covered by sexual orientation as needing special care especially as some will almost certainly be involved in gay porn. So this should hopefully quieten those who are claiming that porn work is not by definition contentious as understood in the BLP policy. By saying it is contentious we are not claiming porn workers are contentious but that their profession means we need to pay special care to how they are portrayed as living people on wikipedia. So we should not be looking to change the policy to give some editors a way of avoiding BLP at the expense of the living people they are writing about. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I would say living people on porn lists are amply covered by sexual orientation as needing special care especially as some will almost certainly be involved in gay porn. I'm not sure how to respond to most of that without making a fool of myself. These people have sex for a living as actors. A man having sex with another man in a pornographic film isn't any more definitive proof that he's gay than The Terminator is for proving Arnold Schwarzenegger is a robot from the future. I'm not well versed on what weird exceptions, if any, there may for the LGBT WikiProject to include a person on a list by sexual orientation, but I do know that a publicized statement of sorts (such as openly stating sexual orientation or announcing a relationship) is generally, if not always, required. As far as porn is concerned, I can't consider an act performed for money on film to be a statement of orientation. I think citing "gay porn" is merely a strawman being set up that would just unnecessarily make involved an extremely sensitive issue. moluɐɯ 23:04, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
What you are saying may be true but even so it does not in any way lessen the care and attention these people deserve and nor must we forget the impact that wrongly placing someone on a list might have and these people wrongly placed would not be porn workers and might well not agree with your interpretation of what is or is not gay and might well be extremely irate at being wrongly accused by wikipedia of being a porn star. So sexual orientation is important because it is an important theme in all porn, its part of the sex act itself. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:19, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
If the people on that list are being culled from existing articles on WP that are already in compliance with WP:BLP, then by including them on that list, we are not making any new assertions about that person. You seem to want to carve out a niche for porn actors specifically and require that anywhere they are mentioned, a RS should be included to back up that assertion, regardless if the assertion has already been sourced and verifiable in their bio. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Nope, Isaidnoway , because while we can assume the bio article is BLP compliant we cannot assume it is a bio of a porn star. Not without checking the bio itself. What you have to do is rely on the editor who added it to the list or check yourself becuase not all bios are of porn stars on wikipedia. This belief that a blue link is evidence that someone is a porn star is patent nonsense and too many editors have been spreading it. Unless we trust 100% in editor judge3ment (which is a huge shift form current BLP policy) we have to rely on reliable sources. What you are propoing is that nay editor does not have to provide proof of his edition of a bio article to a list of porn stars and thatbthe burden is on the reader or other editors to check this information out themselves or trust the editor. I would rather trust relaible sources and so I think would the living people we write articles about as well as the WMF, who would have ot deal with the defamation cases. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
♫ SqueakBox talk contribs The article in question is now being rehabilitated to comply with all of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. It's also important to remember that this article is several years old and this is a mass undertaking, so I think good faith is being shown here by the editor's working on the article and a little time would be appreciated in the rehabilitation. A little collaborative effort is always welcome too. As far as your argument is concerned, it has been noted, and I will leave it at that, and defer to the consensus on this page pertaining to this issue.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 22:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Isaidnoway Collaboration is exactly what I am looking for. All hosde editors who add reliably sourced names are collaborating with me, ad lets face it if I hadnt done what I did the article would still have no reliable sources in it, although many an editor would not have dared givent eh incredible level of abuse I have had to put up with by editrs who had found something "better" to do than collaborating with my effort to get BLP compliance. In term of time the WikiPorn project had 6 months notice and as I was first enforcing BLP back in January on porn articles. When I remove non BLP complint entires the work is not detroyed, it is there in the history where it can very easily be pulled out agin, a source added and re-added t the live version. There is zero need to add any non BLP compliant names. Brad was right about tackiling the most important cases first and being cautious and this is behaviour I have stuck to all along, and when the furor dies down I will certainly be doing more BLP enforcement on porn articles and hope and trust others will collaborate then as well. If the wikiPorn team had been willing to collaborate back in January rather than fighting my proposals form the opening (how dare I enforce BLP on porn) there would not now be nay porn lists that were not 100% orn compliant. All I want is collaboration. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:44, 6 August 2014 (UTC) Isaidnoway
And help editing the article is exactly what I am looking for when I speak of a collaborative effort. And as I said above, I will defer to the consensus on this page, rather than rely on the opinion of one editor.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 00:00, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Whether or not an article is BLP compliant is not an indicator of whether it should appear in a porn list. How do you know the article asserts the person listed is a porn star and has appeared in mainstream films. It might be a BLP compliant article and assert no such thing. Seeing a blue link to an unknown name verifies nothing other than that this named person has a bio article. It gives no clue as to the nature of the article or the person. You are making 2 new assertions because you dont know what the bio says, or not without checking the bio pages out of each eprson on the list and that should not and must not be required in order to establish verifiability on a porn list page. Each wikipedia page must stand on its own. Othewerwise nobody knows whether your list is reliable or is pure original research without doing a massive personal checking process. We avoid such a cumbersome approach to verifiability by having reliable sources. Telling me I have to read 50 or 100 porn bios if I want to prove the verifiability of assertions other editors have made is not verifiability. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
What you are saying makes no sense. If you wanted to verify the reliability of whether every person that is included on that list should be listed, then you are still facing the daunting task of having to click through 50 or 100 reliable sources (citations) to establish that verifiability. Same difference of clicking through their bios. Isaidnoway (talk) 00:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's a bit of a loaded sentence, so I'm sorry if I can't fully comprehend it, but... The two things I see being mentioned are specific situations about care being taken to handle sexual orientation, and whether or not a film is porn. The issues can be dealt with as such for each question: "What is this person's sexual orientation?", what have they stated it to be? "Is this film porn?", is it (to put it politely) an erotic film meant to arouse its audience? The general case is pretty clear cut. Your focus is sounding to me like hypothetical specific situations where Misplaced Pages would be held accountable for libel, but I fail to see how these situations are particularly relevant to this sub issue of pornographic actors on lists with links to articles that contain reliable references, much less the main issue. moluɐɯ 23:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
But how do you know those reliable sources you talk about reference what you are claiming they reference? You dont cos you havent even seen them so you could not possibly know whether or not these claims are referenced in another article. Its pure specualtion on your part and because of this, you asset, BLP can be ignored. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
That's mincing words. If you can't be bothered to check another article that is clearly linked, how can you be bothered to check a particular reference? I'm not asking BLP to be ignored, nor is this speculation. If I have a reliable source on an article linked from a list, I consider that perfectly valid for verifying a statement. If the statement does indeed turn out to be false or not supported by the source, it's an entirely separate issue. It becomes a case of "This statement isn't verified by the source so I'm removing it from this article for now. As such, I am also removing this person from a list that was dependent on this statement and source." moluɐɯ 23:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Note:MOS is a guideline, not a policy. This wording was added in 2013 during a discussion on the talk page about this very question. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

Note

Since no proposal to revise WP:BLP policy requiring references for contentious material is being made here, and since WP:BLP policy does not state that a blue link is a reference, this RfC is pointless - we cannot reach a 'consensus' to ignore policy, regardless of what is decided here. Unless and until WP:BLP policy is revised, the removal of unreferenced names from the list is required under existing policy, and the inclusion of such names is a violation, end of story. If people wish to propose a revision to WP:BLP policy, they are free to do so (though the WMF might possibly have something to say on this). AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Is there any contentiousness about folks like Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy being porn actors? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:37, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
WP:BLP policy requires sources, end of story. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:40, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Without sources of course the answer is yes. After all they are living people and so entitled to protection under our BLP policy. Lets assume we havent heard of any of these people, I hadnt heard of Ron Jeremy till editing yesterday. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 17:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
You're wrong. The answer is NO. There is no contention whatsoever over Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson being porn actors, any more than there is contention that Mike Trout is a major league baseball player. Your ignorance of the subject, betrayed by only having ever heard of him yesterday, demonstrates that you're incompetent to be discussing this issue. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Have you checked the page we're on? This is the BLP policy talk page so a consensus on this page could indeed change the policy. However, current policy does not require citations for this sort of list, and this RfC is posed too narrowly to suggest an outcome of adding that requirement. In its more limited question, a consensus here that the article should or should not have link citations would certainly apply to this article. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Re "we cannot reach a 'consensus' to ignore policy" — It's not a matter of ignoring policy, it's a matter of correctly applying policy. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Yup - and policy is entirely unambiguous. Unreferenced contentious material concerning living persons must be removed immediately. Nowhere does it suggest that a blue link is a reference - because quite obviously it is nothing of the sort. We don't cite Misplaced Pages as a source. Ever. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:51, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
The dispute seems to be based on what the policy means by contentious material. My understanding is that contentious material are facts which someone claims may not be true. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
And you don't think that unreferenced assertions that people are pornographic actors might prove contentious? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:01, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it's a matter that they might prove to be contentious, it's a matter of whether they are contentious. I think that's what the policy pertains to when it refers to "contentious material" rather than to "material that might be contentious". --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
There are two halves to the question: are the assertions contentious, and are the assertions inadequately sourced. Neither is a sufficient condition for the other, so it's best to treat them as two separate issues. As to whether being a porn actor is contentious, that depends. If you said that about Paris Hilton because of her sex tape, perhaps. If you said that about Ron Jeremy, clearly no, that is not a contentious claim. In my opinion it would be a big mistake, as you say, to categorically regard all discussion of pornography as contentious because it might be contentious for some people but not others. The more direct question here is whether BLP and WP:V require citations for blue links of this type, if the sources are found in the linked article. A couple editors are saying yes, others (and Misplaced Pages practice) say no. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
The sources you talk about may or may not be in the subject article, this is why wikipedia has long rejected inline citations. Its best we assume nobody has even heard of Ron Jeremy and assume all porn work is contentious in nature when it comes to BLP. If porn work is not contentious almost nothing is and BLP would fall apart because everyone would be clamouring for a BLP exemption "just like the one the porn project has". ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 19:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting that a blue link is a reference, it is merely an indirection to appropriate sourcing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC).
But BLP requires explicit sourcing otherwise it is the editor who decides if someone should be in a list and not the reliable sources. And these appropriate reliable sources may not exist. Having an article, for instance, is not evidence of being a porn star. But a reliable source will indicate said individual is say a porn star without each and every new editors having to chase down the same sources allegedly found in the bio article, causing an endless cycle of unnecessary work AND violating BLP. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
If no one is challenging the fact that a person is a porn star, why would you challenge them being on a list of porn stars? Surely you're not claiming that they will be insulted by the Readers of Misplaced Pages knowing that they (aghast!) appeared in mainstream, non-porn, productions? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:33, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
You are presuming the answer. The question is not about any individual listing, it's about whether an unsourced statement that someone is a porn star can be allowed to stand (and again, a blue link is not a reliable source, for the very same reason that we don't permit citations to Misplaced Pages articles).—Kww(talk) 20:38, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
BLP requires a higher threshold than you are wanting. My plan is to check the verifiability of individual porn stars re BLP later on when I have the time. So either propose a policy change or accept our high standards for today at least. I am challenging these names because I want to see them reliably sourced, to protect their reputations as living people, to protect wikipedia's reputation as reliable and verifiable and to improve our porn coverage by making it BLP complaint as of today. Making the concerns of living people who are porn workers into a joke is not amusing, User:Scalhotrod. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 20:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
@Kww, if I understand your statement correctly you're saying that every time a (notable with an article) person is mentioned on Misplaced Pages and they are mentioned as being in the Adult industry and/or in association with their status as a performer in that industry that it should include an inline citation to explain why this claim is being made? So for example, when its mentioned in Charlie Sheens article that he is dating a porn star (and her name is given) or more recently that he got engaged to one, that a citation is specifically required, correct? How are we going to managed the cleanup of that? Ron Jeremy alone is mentioned over 5,000 times. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 20:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Each article certainly requires an inline citation to that effect. No need to repeat it every time the name is mentioned in the same article.—Kww(talk) 22:13, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
So there are several thousand articles that mention Ron Jeremy that may require updating by your assessment. I'll split it with you, care to start from the top or the bottom? We'll meet in the middle. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) 22:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I tell you what: since you want to include the material, add citations. That's what WP:BURDEN demands of you. I won't specifically search out the articles that mention him, but I'll remove the uncited material when I wander across it.—Kww(talk) 23:02, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
That would be pointiness in the extreme. Try not to make Misplaced Pages look stupid. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:44, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The core complaint is bogus. There is no contentiousness over Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson, for example, being porn actors. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, but WP:THATSBOGUSSOWECANIGNOREPOLICY appears to be a redlink... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Your argument is based on "contentious material". Jeremy and Jameson being porn actors IS NOT "contentious material". ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:52, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Without a source, it's a contentious statement. What you are basically saying is "since I already am familiar with sources, there is no obligation for anyone to provide one." That's ludicrous on its face.—Kww(talk) 00:14, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Why does Mike Trout not need a citation in lists that contain his name? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Sorry Kww, but this is where the zealotry of BLP enforcement is rather silly. There is nothing contentious about the statement that people like Jeremy, Jameson and Lords are/were porn stars. It doesn't become contentious simply because you say so any more than an unsourced statement that Wayne Gretzky played hockey becomes a BLP violation because someone chooses to dig their heels in the ground. The real issue with this list is the lesser known actors. Those are the ones where I agree that it is valid to make such a claim of contentiousness. However, we now have pages and pages of arguments because both sides have chosen to act stupid. This was a minor problem with an easy solution: Squeakbox blanks (or preferably, asks an associated project to source with the reminder about BLP and the likelihood of the material being removed soon). Interested editors unblank and source. Life goes on. Problem solved. Resolute 16:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't care much about the BLP issue, Reso. It's this peculiar notion that list articles don't require sourcing at all, so long as some other article contains the source. That's just runs so completely counter to WP:BURDEN and WP:V that I don't see how one small RFC started in reaction to an overstep by SqueakBox could somehow enshrine such a thing.—Kww(talk) 16:55, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

List of American scientists has not one single citation. Without sourcing, that list should be rubbed out. (Using Kww's argument.) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely it should.—Kww(talk) 00:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Do I have your permission to erase it until it gets proper sourcing? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:30, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
pokepoke moluɐɯ 00:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

All participants here should avoid disruptive point-making. In a perfect world, every statement in every article would be sourced, but that is not attainable anytime in the foreseeable future—and actually, that would not be a perfect outcome at all, as a footnote after every routine and non-controversial statement in every article would make the articles look like footnote salad. Anyone who can't see that there is a greater need for sourcing for the statement that someone is a pornographic actor than the statement that someone is a scientist, should not be editing articles on either. And even as to the article about the pornographic actors, priority of attention should be given to genuinely disputed or contentious statements—the ones that could be actually harmful to BLP subjects—as opposed to ones that are not subject to genuine dispute. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, when I began applying BLP enforcement on Saturday I was very aware, having had 6 months to think about the issue, that enforcing BLP on all porn would be far too big a task for a humble editor like me and therefore I chose to focus on articles which mention a lot of likely living people as likley being involved in the porn industry. I made list of my target articles, ie the ones I considered of the greatest urgency, on my user page. Beyond that my knowledge of who is famous in the world of porn is so poor that I was unable to distinguish within a list who might or might not be more controversial, so my picking was based on whole articles rather than praticing any discrimination within an article. Some editors could not believe I did not recognise the names of well known US porn stars but I am not an American. On the other hand many experts on US porn would doubtless not be clued into the stars of Japanes adult video, where I am working now, besides which expertise in a subject is not required to edit it for BLP compliance. One thing I have learnt is that lists of award winners are much less open to editor interpretation than lists such as porn actors who have appeared in mainstream films. When one works on a list one removes 50 or 60 possible BLP vios, much more than are liley in a bio article so I stand by the choices have made as to priority in BLP enforcement. We need to treat all unsourced or poorly claims that somebody living is or was in the porn industry as high importance BLP violations. Porn stars get their kids turfed out of kindergarten among other things for being outed as porn stars and yet we were claiming that people are porn stars without even bothering to verify the facts. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
"I was unable to distinguish within a list who might or might not be more controversial"...what "Squeak" is finally admitting to here is what has been unfortunately obvious for quite some time now. He never bothered to check any of the blue-linked names that he arbitrarily blanked from many articles recently. If he had simply clicked on those obvious links, he would have been able to see clearly that they were all associated with stage names of people that were involved in the adult industry. " When one works on a list one removes 50 or 60 possible BLP vios"...without really knowing if those removals are, in fact, based on actual "BLP vios" that is. There are plenty of facts (verified by reliable sources) in many Misplaced Pages articles that "Squeak" obviously doesn't know about or even care about, and that's unfortunately what this entire affair is all about. Guy1890 (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Based on that assesment, hopefully we can all agree that Baseball Bugs should not be editing bios and should just stick to "working" the drama boards. --Malerooster (talk) 02:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
It's important to avoid harm to living persons. There's no harm to Jenna Jameson in calling her a porn actress... because she IS (or has been) a porn actress. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:02, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Jenna who? You see I am NOT American Bugs and so have not heard of her. For all I know she might be a tennis player. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Yea, it's not like Jenna Jameson has a Misplaced Pages article written about her with literally dozens & dozens of reliable sources in it...ugh... Guy1890 (talk) 03:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Which means that it should be super-easy for anyone who wants to include that material to copy a source over. The WP:BURDEN is always on the person who wants to include it, not the person who wants to WP:CHALLENGE unsourced BLP material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
The problem is that one can't really challenge information (a simple blue-link to another Misplaced Pages article) in good faith on a list if, when going to that blue-linked article, one can easily see that the information is valid & well-sourced in the blue-linked article in the first place. If one thinks that other editors or readers might find the information on a list article to be "contentious" now or in the future, then one can simply copy the necessary citation(s) over to the list article that was originally in question in the first place. If there are obviously no reliable sources readily available for some conentious information on a list, then (and only then IMHO) should the information be removed. Guy1890 (talk) 21:10, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
ok, I'll keep it simple, how about calling somebody who is NOT a porn star a porn star. Is there ANY harm in that? --Malerooster (talk) 03:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Possibly. Did you find some examples in that list? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
How would I know? There were no citations. DOOOOOOHHHH. Does anybody else feel my pain :) Good night.--Malerooster (talk) 03:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
There were links to the articles, which presumably have citations. If they don't, obviously they shouldn't be on a list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:17, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The mere raising of the absurd complaint is a major exercise in pointiness. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Newyorkbrad@ deleting List of American scientists would be WP:POINT, suggesting that someone else's claim would mean it should be deleted definitely isn't. It is pretty clear that neither BBB or KWW intend to do the former. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:19, 4 August 2014 (UTC).
  • There doesn't need to be a change in BLP policy, it's clear that lists can be made with sourcing in the given articles. This RFC should be closed making that clear. Challenging a list just because you want to blank the page is disruptive, especially when you know there is adequate sourcing directed by blue links. It's disruptive and pointy to claim a BLP exemption to blank articles you know is sourced. If you want the list deleted, take it to MFD or wherever you go to have lists deleted. Don't edit war to blank the article and claim BLP exemptions. That SHOULD be the outcome of this RFC, those supporting the absurd point that lists need sourcing are just supporting further disruption to the project for no reason other than to make a point. Dave Dial (talk) 15:32, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

BLP policy modification may be needed at this point

Therefore, I believe that our existing BLP policy should be tweaked to encouage editors to try & find inline citations for list articles from simply visiting blue-linked names contained on any list (not just pornography-related lists - that's a red herring) and then simply add inline citations (if they exist) to the list in question from those other notable, well-referenced Misplaced Pages articles instead of simply blanking article content. This kind of policy change would, IMHO, conform with both the letter and spirit of many of our existing Misplaced Pages guidelines (including BLP) for collaborative & constructive editing.
I encourage others to propose specific policy language below, which others can tweak as necessary before implementing. I feel very strongly that's it past time to end the practice of allowing a certain few users to invoke "BLP" as a defense for editing articles in whatever manner that they personally see fit. Guy1890 (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
A PROD is not an attempt to have an article deleted but to have it improved, hence the name. Eventually is of course not good enough for BLP, non complinat material needs to be removed asap. So basically you proposing we change policy to entirely undermining our requirement to have reliable sources when living people are mentioned. And what about the needs of the living people themselves who are the subjects of our articles. Or should we just ignore their needs now? And why does removing the verifiabilty requirement help the encyclopedia, as that policy will also have to be modified. And why should we trust editors to add names to lists of living ´people if we dont impose the reliable sources constricts on them? Isnt that asking for abuse? Preventing editors from invoking or applying the BLP policy is to essentially destroy the BLP concept but I dont believe you will find it easy to gain a consensus for such a bold policy direction change. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 00:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
You will also need to modify the opening, Guy, which currentkyu explicitly calls for the removal of non BLP complaint material porior to discussion. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
You're inventing contentiousness where there is none. Your claim of a BLP violation is false. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 01:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
How is that, Baseball Bugs. Has the policy just been changed to allow unsourced original research about alleged porn stars on wikiepdia. or what piece of policy do you base your insights on. Claiming my claim is false is not an argument it is an assertion. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 01:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
How is borrowing properly and reliably cited information from a policy compliant BLP original research? Are you suggesting we can't use a source validly simply because it exists elsewhere on Misplaced Pages? Something like watching an inordinate amount of porn and compiling a cast for each film yourself would constitute original research. You're throwing policy names around without understanding the policy itself. It would help to read WP:OR before making these tangent claims. moluɐɯ 16:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
PROD obviously stands for Proposed deletion and competence is required when editing Misplaced Pages.
"you proposing we change policy to entirely underminj our requirement to have reliable sources when living people are mentioned"...far from it. If sources are readily available on notable, reliably sourced Misplaced Pages articles, then why not use them instead of blanking content & moving on? No one is proposing "removing the verifiabilty requirement" at all. Again, this kind of proposal actually enhances it because it encourages users to add citations when they are already readily available right here on Misplaced Pages.
"why should we trust editors to add names to lists of living ´people"...indeed, why should we trust anyone that edits Misplaced Pages?? Let's just delete the entire site & move on if that's really the way that everyone feels about everyone else on here. Guy1890 (talk) 01:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
we trust the reliable sources not the editors. if you dnt like it set up a fork where reliable sources arent required. it might be popular but nobody would believe a word it said, Guy1890. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
"we trust the reliable sources not the editors"...and we trust that editors on Misplaced Pages have the competence required in order to tell when there are reliable sources available for non-controversial Misplaced Pages content and when there aren't reliable sources available on Misplaced Pages for content which one may deem (in good faith only) to be controversial. Guy1890 (talk) 03:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
And as any competent editor knows from reading WP:BLP, when it comes to BLP issues, it's not good enough to find sources "on Misplaced Pages" somewhere. The source must be on exactly the same page as the contentious claim about the BLP. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
See my reply in the above section...what you're really doing here with this line of argument is encouraging the kind of bad faith editor behavior that started this whole thing in the first place. No one that I can see here is opposed to including citations for actual contentious information in any articles. Guy1890 (talk) 21:12, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I suggest that what WAID is "really doing here" is trying to uphold high standards of sourcing in the case of BLP, as one would expect of a serious encyclopaedia. On the other hand, quite a number of people appear to be opposed to including citations in certain articles, namely lists. Deltahedron (talk) 21:26, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
This makes sense as long as we make clear that this is a policy for new lists with a transition for old ones rather than an occasion for anyone to engage in mass content deletion. We should have a clearer bright-line standard, not just material that is contentious or likely to be challenged, because that leaves everything up in the air until people challenge it. This would time to develop list templates, for example, and update the existing ones, also it would need reasonably wide community input. Are you sure you want to limit it to BLP lists? The logic is the same either way, either the link target is a suitable place to find the source for verification purposes, or we expect a source next to the link itself. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm aware of the fact that using inline citations on all lists was apparently frowned upon long ago on Misplaced Pages (like they are now with categories), so it's no surprise to me that there are tons of lists on Misplaced Pages that have little to no inline citations at this point. I think it's also obvious that not every "challenge" can be made in good faith. The standard that I've always personally used for when to cite something inline is whether or not I could ever imagine that someone else could possibly find the facts that I've added to an article to be in serious doubt, and I personally try to err on the side of including a citation rather than not including one, if possible.
As for "limiting it to BLP lists", there's been a gaming of the system that I've unfortunately seen ongoing for years now when it comes to using our BLP policy to remove content at will that one might not find personally agreeable. We need to clearly state from here on out that that needs to end. BLP should not be a shield for poor or bad faith editor behavior.
A discussion from last July had a great quote in it: "But it is inappropriate, per WP:V, to remove a blue link that is not inline-cited where there is a reference on the linked page to support inclusion, since it is simply a matter of moving the reference across." That's the most reasonable position that I can imagine here, and our policies should continue reflect that...to the extent that they already do (or don't) right now. Guy1890 (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to agree for a blue link. The problem is these articles with hundreds or thousands of missing or inadequate citations where the people interested in the article contents refuse to provide citations and people uninterested in the article contents don't appreciate being forced to their work for them. In a case like that, the only reasonable thing to do is to remove the article contents until the editors working on the article live up to their obligation to provide inline citations.—Kww(talk) 02:59, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
On that list of scientists, I see the name Thomas Edison. Yet I don't see any citations in his article that properly source him being a scientist. Yet you wouldn't challenge that, because everyone who knows who he is knows he's a scientist. (Or are they wrong about that?) ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 03:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Don't give the Tesla crowd any ideas. Monty845 03:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
"where the people interested in the article contents refuse to provide citations"...I don't think that's a fair assessment at all. "and people uninterested in the article contents don't appreciate being forced to their work for them." Well, life is a two-way street my friend. People that have spent many, many hours of time working on list articles of all kinds don't like having their work wiped out in one swoop by editors that can't be bothered to click on a blue-link & move over real, live inline citations from that article for material that they personally happen to find controversial or contentious. We're supposed to be all in this group endeavour on Misplaced Pages together. Guy1890 (talk) 03:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
What makes it an unfair assessment? I don't see many of the authors of the lists in question working on providing citations to reliable sources, an act that would not have been particularly onerous if they had done so one at a time while building the list in the first place. The lack of sources may have been excusable five years ago, but it's not any more.—Kww(talk) 03:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
It's not required of them, and in times past it was actively discouraged. If anyone is interested in article content instead of playing wiki-cop they can help the effort, if the community indeed decides that effort is worthwhile. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
"I don't see many of the authors of the lists in question working on providing citations to reliable sources"...look harder. A lot of work has been done (both recently and over the last year or so) at List of members of the AVN Hall of Fame, as well as many of the other adult film-related award articles, adding sources. Is there more work to be done on other articles? Sure, but there's always going to be more work to be done on Misplaced Pages on a whole host of fronts, and, again, this is a collective project. It also helps if while some work to add sources & more reliable information to articles that others aren't waiting at their respective keyboards with their Delete key at the ready. Guy1890 (talk) 05:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Hear, hear; this is the whole crux of the matter. Editors wanting to properly challenge BLP content will always have the right to delete it and keep it removed for concerns that it is unreliable or problematic, but not when the policy is wielded merely to force others to comply with the MOS and check a bullet point in the style guides when there's no real BLP problem - only a problem of formatting. Diego (talk) 12:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I see that on ANI, the editor Squeak owns up to pushing this whole thing due to a personal agenda. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 02:40, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

What personal agenda is that, Bugs. Being in favour of porn workers? Thinking the living people we write about are more important than we are? ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Nope. Self-evidently untrue. Unless by 'personal agenda' you mean wishing to see WP:BLP policy properly applied. What's your agenda, Bugs? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Bugs, what are you referring to? Do you have a diff? In any event, complaints about editor behavior over this are better left to the AN/I discussion, which was originally brought to complain about SB's repeated page blanking. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
This bit of dialogue. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 06:04, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Baseball Bugs, you are certainly rightn about my bias towards the subjects of our articles. Perhaps you should report me for it, or try to get the community to topic ban me. After all it is simply not acceptable that an editor would place the living subjects of our articles as more important than editors. I really wish you would do one of these things so the wiser community can itself decide whether alle ditors who put living people we write articles about as more important than editors and then topic ban them all from enforcing BLP. A new wave of editor power. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
So you think that "defending the subjects of articles through enforcing BLP" is somehow wrong? Would you care to explain why? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
You're not defending BLP, you're only defending a manual of style sledgehammer. There's no BLP issue here. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Clearly some editors think those who defend living people need to be dealt with by changes to BLP policy to not allow them to enforce BLP, especially not against a consensus of editors, who some claim certainly should have the right to walk all over the rights of the living people we write articles about. If we change the policy in favour of editors not having to reliably source potentially defamatory statements (such as that somebody is a porn star) lawyers will have a field day if a person wrongly labelled as a porn star does sue because it would be clear eidence of an attempt to undermine the BLP policy to allow greater freedom for editors to label whoever they want as porn star, with no guarantees as tot he veracity of that claim and with attempts made to stop those attempting to enforce any reliable sources compliance. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
The harm to living people and the lawsuits to be avoided are entirely hypothetical, and in this case look extremely remote, whereas the aggravation and antagonism directed to the Misplaced Pages community is clear and real. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Changing policy is not needed. Content that does not meet BLP should be removed, if this leaves the article empty then it should be deleted or rebuilt and prod is appropriate. Lists do need to meet the same standards and a blue link is not even close to a citation. Inclusion in a list can and often does make a statement about a living person that violates BLP. BLP is not something that should be eventually attained, it is something we need to maintain at all times. The burden to meet BLP is on the person seeking to include the information not the person removing it. Just my 2 cents. Chillum 21:35, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

A different perspective, and a proposal

1. There has been been a longstanding, broadly supported consensus, reaffirmed during deletion discussions regarding lists of gay porn stars, that associating individuals with the pornography/erotica industries was contentious under BLP policies. I don't recall anyone other than the notorious Benjiboi seriously disputing the matter at that time.

2. Lists involving such contentious characterizations of individuals are particularly problematic. Not only do all significant assertions regarding the individual need to be properly sourced, as for a standard article, but we also need to verify that the list links to the correct individual BLP article.

3. Misplaced Pages continues to do a dreadful job of verifying entries in porn/erotica-relted lists. I've just removed four more spurious sets of links from List of Penthouse Pets, an article that's already had about two dozen bad links removed, if not more. I've had to take similar steps at quite a few other porn-related lists, even List of members of the AVN Hall of Fame, an aericle where such errors should be particularly easy to avoid. (Inadequate scrutiny pf porn-related articles is hardly limited to lists; check out Pornosonic, a set of fabrications that should have been stifled within seven days rather than hanging around for seven years.)

4. While SqueakBox's removals were more drastic than what I might have done, and might not have been the most prudent to make without advance discussion, they were consistent with BLP policy and practice. When confronted with a complex test permeated with non-BLP-compliabt assertions, it's better to remove the entire text and try to construct a clean build. "You can't sort jam and marbles".

5. Proposal. Lists of persons associated with the pornography/erotica industries should not be created or maintained unless the subject/defining characteristic of the list cannot be addressed adequately by a category. When the value added by list format is less substantial, the added risk of BLP violations in a sensitive field justifies limiting the treatment of such subjects to category format. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 04:39, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Disagree. It's based on a flawed understanding that BLP mandates it, it would be difficult to manage without significant removing of viable content, and it advances a contentious moral opinion to single out a single range of subjects having to do with human sexuality as something shameful and scandalous that we would essentially be censoring. I would not support forbidding lists in any subject matter based on the subject's being contentious. If we're going to require a different sourcing format for lists it should apply to all lists, or at the very least all lists of people, not lists based on sexual topics. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Nice idea but - the porn industry is not special. The wrong turning taken by a number of editors in the distant past was simply to attempt to use Misplaced Pages to compile relatively weakly sourced information about non-notable performers, something that did not then and does not now fit with the scope of the project. This is unconnected with the standard BLP type problems in the pornography articles. (Apparently not many editors are interested enough in porn... another demographic revelation.) If a list is checked (as it should be) that it links to the correct articles, that will, de facto provide a check that the claim is sourced in the article linked to. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

Reflection within this policy page

Given this RFC, what will happen once it's finished? Will it simply be closed and consensus used to restore the page? Or would this be effectively be written into WP:BLP policy? If so, we need to have the specific text that is going to be used for this. Tutelary (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Unless policy is changed, the RfC will have no effect anyway, given the requirement in WP:BLP for unsourced controversial material to be removed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
So you would disregard the outcome of the RfC? Wikidemon (talk) 17:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The contents of the list in question are neither unsourced nor controversial. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 17:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
A list citing no sources is an unsourced list, end of story. And unsourced assertions that individuals are pornographic actors are self-evidently controversial. If they weren't do you really think we'd be spending all this time arguing about it? Time which those who consider this distinctly trivial list actually worth keeping could usefully have put into actually adding the sources they insist are available. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The last time someone attempted this, they were immediately reverted. moluɐɯ 18:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
What's your citation for the claim that they are "self-evidently controversial"? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
There is no unsourced assertion being made here. Before a person is even placed on the list, they must meet the inclusion criteria to be placed on that list. That's the way it works for all the lists that are on WP, you must meet the inclusion criteria before being placed on a list. So in this instance, it had already been established that these individuals were indeed working in the adult film industry, therefore they met the inclusion criteria and were placed on the list. There is no new revelation being made about the individual, nor is there a controversial statement being made about the individual. They already have an article on WP where it has been established through reliable sourcing that they work in the adult film industry. You can certainly argue for inline citations, but saying that it is an unsourced assertion is false and misleading. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Since there were no sources in the article, any assertion made by the article was unsourced. Remember: a blue link is not a citation, and Misplaced Pages cannot use itself as a source. The only way for this article to make a sourced assertion is to have a citation to that reliable source.—Kww(talk) 22:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
If by "article" you mean the list, then you should likewise call for the abolition of categories which lack citations - which would be most of them. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 22:48, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
A category appears as text inside an article, and that article needs to contain a citation supporting the category. A list is a standalone article.—Kww(talk) 23:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
From a category, you have to link to the article if you want to find the citation. Same as with a list. There's no practical difference. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Except that one is a part of an article, and one is an independent article. That's an extremely important distinction when one is discussing the proper location for sources.—Kww(talk) 03:24, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
From a given article, I can go to "what links here" and get a list. Or I can go to "categories" and get a list. There's no practical difference. A list is not independent, no matter what form it takes. Without the links to other objects, there's no list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 04:10, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
A list is just merely a compilation of already sourced content. The assertion that a person has worked in the adult film industry is sourced in their bio article. The assertion that a adult film star has also appeared in a non-adult film is again in their bio article. The list is just a compilation of that already sourced content. There are no assertions being made by the list. Isaidnoway (talk) 01:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
A list is not merely a compilation of already sourced content: in general a list may contain items which do not yet or may never have their own articles, see WP:AOAL points 4, 8 and 15, where this is given as an advantage of using a list over a category. To insert an item in a list, whether or not it is a link to another article, is self-evidently an assertion, made in the voice of Misplaced Pages, that the item satisfies the criteria for incluson in the list. Deltahedron (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
It depends on the list, its inclusion criteria, and what it's for. In a list of porn actors it doesn't seem wise to include anybody who is not notable enough to have their own article, or to include them unless their article makes it clear that they are a porn actor and that it is relevant to their notability. On the other hand, if an article about a musical group lists current and former members it seems okay to include some that are not notable or that simply don't have an article, with due sourcing in the parent article about the group. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
What is the "it" here that "depends"? There were two assertions in the comment above: (1) that a list is not merely a compilation of sourced content; (2) that inserting an item in a list is an assertion. Which of these depends on the list, its inclusion criteria and what it's for? It's tautological that what a list is depends on the list. Deltahedron (talk) 19:17, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I really should've titled this 'What's gonna happen next?'. I didn't mean to get this into another heated discussion, just wanted to discuss solutions on what's gonna happen after this RfC closes. Obviously there's still some contention, but with support for one option...Gah. I'm just not sure what'll happen. Tutelary (talk) 01:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I seriously don't know where this strange notion that a list isn't an article comes from. It's an article. Its requirements for sourcing are no different than any other article.—Kww(talk) 03:24, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I think the reason this RfC was opened was to address some of these issues, was it not?-- Isaidnoway (talk) 03:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • In response to the question of what happens next, and without prejudging the outcome, IF the discussion is closed such that the list in question does not need references, I would expect the blanking editors to stop, and if they don't, they will no longer be able to claim exemption from edit warring policy on account of BLP Policy. If it closes the other way, the list stays blanked until such time as adequate references can be added to each entry as its restored, and we may see other lists blanked accordingly. Monty845 21:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Maybe someone could suggest a good general source to use with each name in the list, such as a list provided by the industry. I might be willing to do that work myself, as the deletionists clearly aren't willing to do it, but I wouldn't until that ridiculous RFD is closed. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:28, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Who will bell the cat?

Requiring references for BLP lists is a fairly good idea in theory. In practice, if it is approved, supporters of this measure will have to go around putting references for each and very entry on thousands of lists or risk having all of these articles summarily blanked and deleted. KonveyorBelt 00:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The complainers are the ones who will have to do that work. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I am confused as to what "complainers" you are talking about, since there seems to be ample whining from both sides, but if you mean people who want every list to have references you are spot on. KonveyorBelt 00:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Of course BLP lists should have references, and no doubt that's even more important in porn-related articles. (Its also great in high school notable alumni lists, too, which are rather prone to receiving baloney additions.) Solving this problem cannot be done by some drama-filled attempted mass blanking. We saw that in the Jan 2010 attempted mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs. Instead, that problem was worked on by creating BLP-PROD for new articles, and the Misplaced Pages:Unreferenced BLP Rescue project to review all unreferenced BLPS, which it did over a 14 month period, until there were zero entries. It takes work, but that's what an encyclopedia requires.--Milowent • 02:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing that up, I knew this latest all sounded familiar. If I recall, many of the participants here were part of that one as well. I hope there is a lesson to be found there. - Wikidemon (talk) 02:38, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm curious as to why "lists of people" were excluded from BLP-PROD. I also agree that wholesale nuking of content is not a productive or reasonable approach to addressing this issue. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying it's only a matter of time before another idiot comes across this hypothetical new policy and decides to take matters into his own hands to enforce it. KonveyorBelt 03:50, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Yep. I'm looking at the days of year articles like August 5. Nary a cite to be found. --NeilN 04:29, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
In which regard note that August 5 contains among the list of births "1987 – Lexi Belle, American porn actress". Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:20, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
The Lexi Belle article, to which the August 5 list links, has ample citation for her being a porn actress. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 14:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 16:14, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

List has been nominated for deletion at AfD

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Misplaced Pages's deletion policy. I thought this should be listed here as well. Discussion at AfD-- Isaidnoway (talk) 17:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

That seems a little WP:POINT-y, and at the very least a poor choice of timing while we're trying to have a discussion here. I'll probably go ahead and restore the list for now so that anyone participating in the deletion discussion can see the actual list that is under consideration. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Please do. The nomination argument is referencing the deleted content anyway, so it's best if we all can see it. Diego (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I found a better way, I just inserted a note pointing to the historical version so that editors can review the real version, not the trivially small one. Edit warring to blank or gut an article on supposed technical policy grounds, then nominating it for deletion, while threatening anyone who restores or even discusses the matter, is an old play from the deletionist playbook. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Update - the nomination has been decided as Keep per WP:SNOWCLOSE. Diego (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Article was under Full Protection

Article was fully protected with this message: Persistent disruptive editing: Figure out how to improve this article, people!!!

Just when a bunch of editor's jumped in to help provide references, the article gets protected. Go figure.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 23:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Never underestimate the zealous determination of deletionists. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:15, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Update:Protection has been lifted, so editing can continue in a collaborative manner.-- Isaidnoway (talk) 02:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Removed immediately

The lead to the policy says,

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.

This is all very well and good, but are we perhaps overlooking the possibility of providing a source? I'm thinking that it should actually say something like this:

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 either removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, or immediately supplied with an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material.

The way we've written this, you are required to blank the material, even if you're going to restore it and add suitable sources five seconds later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I generally support the change proposed above, and I find it to be in the spirit of the suggestion that I made early on August 4th that Misplaced Pages policy should be tweaked given recent events. I'd personally put the "immediately supplied with an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material" first though and maybe add a mention somehow of the fact an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material can sometimes be found by visiting blue-linked items in the original, supposedly contentious material in question in the first place. I think the goal should be to retain reliably-sourced information and not so much blanking content at will. Guy1890 (talk) 19:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, absolutely agree, and it is already common practice and logically follows from the rest of BLP. --cyclopia 20:26, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • How does this deal with the lazy editors who would rather blank information than read through the relevant article to find a source? moluɐɯ 20:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
    • It doesn't. Lazy blankers will still have the authority to blank the unsourced, contentious material, and (since we define them as being lazy), they will still do that. Also, POV pushers who are misusing BLP as a weapon to promote their POV will do the same (but, naturally, only if the unsourced BLP material has the 'wrong' POV). This change will not reform people's characters. However, it might encourage our much larger group of non-lazy and non-POV-pushing editors to try adding a source first, and it removes a bit of unintentional logical silliness from one of our most important policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I would make the last sentence "should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, or immediately supplied with an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material if one is available". That would make deleting the content when a reliable source is available not an option. Diego (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Diego, it isnt an option to remove a reliably sourced name right now. WE dont need any policy change there because it already si 100% the policy, its only unopsurced or unreliably sourced information that editors are empowered to remove using BLP. If I had been removing reliably sourced info form the porn actors in mainstream films editores would understandably have been agrrived and I would have been bloecked for violating 3RR.And NOBODY is proposing to change this policy of not being able to remove reliably sourced information either. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Switch the phrasing around (sourcing before removal) to give the more desired result first. Also, I don't think "mechanically" that immediate removal on an unsourced claim is necessary, if you are planning on spending 10-15 minutes to do some research to see if you can suport it. But if you look and can't find anything, yeah, that's a problem. (Eg common sense to allow for reasonable time to adjust edits, etc.) --MASEM (t) 21:09, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Hard to do now, since some busybody protected the page. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 00:21, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose because if you add a reliable source the BLP non-complaince does not apply any more. And getting an inline citation is more like 5 minutes than 5 seconds so if you have to choose between getting an inline citation and removing the offending item the offending item should be removed. But if you have it to hand the BLP issue will also cease to apply the moment you press the button. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
    because if you add a reliable source the BLP does not apply any more. What? That makes literally no sense. moluɐɯ 21:27, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
    whoops, meant to say the BLP non-complaince doesnt apply, didnt mean the policy, a typo, thks for pointing it out. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
mol, sourcing an inline citation is never a 5 second job. Perhaps you should be looking to change WP:BURDEN at the verifiability article with your talk of lazy BLP enforcing editors. Why in your opinion should our BLP policy "deal with" BLP enforcing editors and what message do you think that will send out to the wikiepdioa community and to those living people who we write about? ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Why aren't you also lobbying for the removal of categories, which inherently are not directly sourced - just like these other lists you keep griping about? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:35, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Categories should not be created on contentious topics. They should be "obvious", non-contentious categorizations so that we don't have to worry about the sourcing problem. --MASEM (t) 21:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
You're arguing for the abolition of category: because "porn actor" is automatically contentious??? That's absurd. Just make sure the linked article (from whatever type of list) is properly sourced. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Relying on editors to verify rather than on inline citations is exactly what BLP was written to avoid, especialy given anyone can edit. And rather than making 100 editors check that the category wasnt put in by a mischief maker or an overconfident fan (and after those 100 editors had verified this info it still wouldnt be verifiable). Do we want peopel to trust wikipedia isnt just made up on the basis of what its editors say or on the basis of reliable sources. Surely those editos supporiotnmg editor power who say we should trust all editors word and knowledge 100% as our guarantor of a quality encyclopedia that never harms living people should perhaps go and make a fork to an encyclopedia where anything goes as long as some editor says so.♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:04, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Chelsea Manning and the resulting ArbCom case has shown us that Women is a contentious categorization. moluɐɯ 21:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
No, someone that has clearly been identified as a porn actor is not contentious, I'm just saying that in general, we should not be creating categories that are based on a contentious concept, so that the aspect of the sourcing should not be an issue. --MASEM (t) 22:00, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
But an argument that has brought up here multiple times is that porn is inherently contentious. moluɐɯ 22:01, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Including (implicitly) by Masem. However, the real "contentiousness" here is not about the members of the list, it's a manual-of-style issue. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:27, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I would expect that there is a difference between porn actors - people that willing say they are actors in the porn industry - and actors that just happened to appear in a porn. Calling members of the latter "porn actors" is a contentious aspect. As long as the category "Porn Actors" defines it as actors that identify themselves as such, that's not contentious. --MASEM (t) 23:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Who is claiming that any members of the list are not actual porn actors? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:28, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
We have a list "Porn actors who became mainstream actors". I can see the case of an actor that might have done one porn film to put bread on the table, never calling himself such a porn actor, and then became big in mainstream films. In a such, I would never consider that actor to be qualified for this list, however, I can see an editor considering the factual aspect "well he starred in a porn film , therefore he is a porn actor, therefore he belongs on the list". If the actor himself has never really discussed that point and we're going by the credit of one film, that's what makes this list contentious, and why every entry needs sourcing right there. --MASEM (t) 23:41, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Why does that argument not apply to categories? In a category, you have to check the individual article if you want to see if they belong in the category. Why are you exempting categories from that standard despite the fact they are the same potential problem? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 23:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I think we're going to run into a BLP issue any time we call someone a porn actor who was never notable for being a porn actor, whether that's in a list, a category, an article, or anywhere else. Sourcing that someone has been in a porn film does not establish that they are a porn actor. That's going to have some serious implications for this list, I don't think a single citation to say that they have been in a particular porn film is enough. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
I never brought up that query... but I guess I'll respond. There's a difference between constructive BLP enforcement and arbitrary blanking of an article. Your sentence still doesn't make sense? Oppose because otherwise the article would be BLP compliant? If that's not what you mean, then I don't understand what you're even trying to say. You seem to want to enforce BLP as if Misplaced Pages's best interests are in mind, but wouldn't Misplaced Pages's best interests actually be a full article with citations? I never said it would only take 5 seconds, but it shouldn't take any more than a minute to copy paste a source from the article -- yes, that article linked in the list. Even if you disagree that citations existing only on the article is enough, you can't tell me you honestly believe that the list is a bad way to gather sources, especially since they already exist in the subject's article. And even if you believe blanking is appropriate while you take the time to add sources, you made no such attempt to add sources. You instead tagged it for deletion with the reason that it was uncited? Well, why was it uncited? Because you made no effort to add sources that were easily obtainable. Nor did you attempt to contact editors that added the entries or employ help in any other way. I saw no healthy BLP enforcement, just some "delete this because I don't feel like it". moluɐɯ 21:46, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
SqueakBox, the time needed to add a citation depends on the situation. mw:Citoid was pretty quick when I tried it out on a PubMed URL the other day, and sometimes all that's needed is to re-use an existing one. However, what I meant was that you would start adding a citation five seconds after you followed the absolute, zero-exception requirement to blank the material, not that every single editor would necessarily be finished in only five seconds. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The proposal makes the sentence kind of long, and people want to rearrange it. So how about this:

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 either:

  • immediately supplied with an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material (if one is available), or
  • immediately removed, without waiting for discussion.

Clear? Readable? Accurate? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd like a change to the second bullet that advises strongly for whoever blanks the entry to request a source in some way. Whether it be asking the editor who added it to supply their source or making a new section on the article's talk. moluɐɯ 22:28, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
I strongly oppose that suggestion, mol. That is nothing me than watering down our BLP policy which till now emphasizes removal as the required option and balances itself very strongly in favour of living people, which WhatamIdoing's proposal is not attempting to water down. And a talk page section is only appropriate after the BLP violation has been removed, anything else is unfair on the living subjects of articles. Approaching the editor who added the piece would also require us to change BURDEN at WP:V and that would not be a good move either. The idea that we should wait for the original editor to respond is not protecting the interests of the living person being mentioned especially when we cannot find any reliable sources and shifts the whole emphasis of BLP away from the living people we write about. I question whether anyone who does not put the needs of the living subjects first should be editing articles about living people. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
How is it watering down the BLP policy? I'm asking for the user who blanks to content to make sure an attempt is made at citing the claim if not by himself. I suggest it because of your actions where you immediately nominated a page for deletion after blanking it for lacking citations. That's an egregious interpretation of the policy because it opposes content simply because it is about a living person. If you can agree that these statements would be fine with a source, surely you agree that the content itself is not the problem? It is better to have content than no content. And I'm beginning to believe you don't agree. This would be perfectly fair to the living person because if it is decided that the person removing content truly can't find a source, it will remain blanked. But if we can cite it, should we not? How will it be readily known that this content needs citation if no one asks? There is no shift of the burden, it is simply asking the removing editor to remind the editor who added the content that the burden is theirs. moluɐɯ 23:12, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
If it helps, I can break it down into steps:
  1. User A adds uncited claims that exist on an article to a list
  2. User B notices this and cannot verify the claims himself because he can't find the sources within the linked page(s)
  3. User B removes the non-BLP-compliant material
  4. User B reminds User A that they have the burden of transferring this source over
Nothing I proposed should be controversial. It's just with some of this editing behavior, I believe it would help to remind users to put a little effort into actually fixing the article instead of using policy to justify arbitrary blanking. moluɐɯ 23:17, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
It watersdown the policy by suggesting alternatives to immediate removal. Alternatives to immediate removal are not fair on the living people we write articles about. And placing WP:BURDEN on anyone other than the editor who added the material is not fair on other editors and would perhaps discourage editors from enforcing BLP, because doing so places extra burdens on them that should be being carried by the editors who added the material. I proded th article, prodding is not putting it up for deletion and thta was not my intent. PRODS improve articles in my experience and can be removed by any user, and the reason I placed the PROD is because the article lacked info. It is not better to have content than no content when that content violates our BLP policy. If you added that statement to the policy it would cease to exist and so would the protection we offer the livng people who have articles written about them. And what you are proposal, far from being non controversial, would IMHO destroy all the work of many years in trying to protect the living people we write about and would have huge consequences for the encyclopedia. So hardly uncontroversial. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
My specific proposed amendment does not interfere with whether or not it is deleted immediately. It also doesn't put the burden on anyone else. It suggests that after you remove content, you remind the editor who added it that they need to provide a source. This is, actually, already an idea implied by other policies. Asking a user to provide a verification for their claim is not a new idea. I feel reminding users specifically will help prevent people like you from just performing this arbitrary blankings for the sake of blanking. If you truly have a problem with there being no source, you should be asking for whoever added it to find a source. Please also read all of the section that WP:BURDEN links to: If you think the material is verifiable, try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it. The policy does indeed suggest that whoever adds a claim is responsible for citing it, but it does not suggest that the remover should not put forth effort to verify it himself. moluɐɯ 23:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • "prodding is not putting it up for deletion"...yes it is, and that's already been pointed out to you above very clearly here. Stop lying "Squeak". "It is not better to have content than no content when that content violates our BLP policy." Reliable sourced content doesn't violate Misplaced Pages's BLP policy, period. Guy1890 (talk) 03:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
How is disagreeing with you lying? And no, reliably sourced content absolutely does not violate BLP policies, it is the goldmark we use to establish verifiability in articles nor do I ever, as I am sure you know, either delete or propose the deletion of reliably sourced material. The content only violates BLP when there are no reliable sources. Then the material must be removed, prior to discussion. So are we in agreement now? Can we start collaborsting as felow members of the wikiporn project as I asked for back in January, Guy1890? ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 03:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Repeating obvious falsehoods that you have clearly been notified of is obviously lying. What you've been trying to do recently here (and elsewhere) "Squeak" is "spin" your recent actions, which have justifiably come under scrutiny. As for what you were up to earlier this year, that was obvious as well ("Please dont ask me to verify or source the info myself as I am not willing to do so")...you were out to do what you've done recently...only on a much larger scale. Guy1890 (talk) 04:03, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Yep, there I was in January making articles more BLP compliant and getting lots of resistance by people who think their editing privileges are worth more thn the rights of the living subjects they right about. I asked for your help at wikiporn project, being transparent, and you turned me down. What have you got against making our porn articles BLP compliant when it comes to the contentious issue of porn work? I have never hidden or been ashamed of what I am doing demanding BLP non complaiant assertions. I feel that I am working for the living people we write about and to improve our coverage of porn by ensuring that we do not make contentious allegations about pórn stars. Now péople have even been opposing that I work on BLP compliance in an article that is not a list be made BLP compliant as if wikipedia RfCs were of more account than the living people we write about. They are my first priority and they should be the first priority of all editors. From there and with reliable sources we can make porn coverage on wikipedia not 100% perfect but one of the bst areas in wikipedia in terms of BLP and policy compliance. Entirely appropriate for such a contentious area, IMHO, Guy1890. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 04:16, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, what you were up to earlier this year is obvious "Squeak"...your own words back then speak volumes here now. I also I told you way back then to stop what you were doing (and further thinking of doing) based on your reasons given back then, and you obviously didn't listen one bit, but that's on you now...not anyone else. Guy1890 (talk) 04:41, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I dont want to see editors doing anything other than removing BLP violating material in the short term. For the sake of the living subjects we write about. Afterwards they can do whatever, add reliable source where available, remove BLP more BLP non compliant material or just go and edit their favourite subjects. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 23:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
You don't want to see any attempts made to have the claim verified by the editor that made them? That's a problem. moluɐɯ 00:10, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Whoops, forgot to add in the immediate term. Once the offending material has been removed it can be fixed. Must be getting tired with sll thi wikilawyering, sigh! ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 03:56, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose The intent of the original sentence is to give editors clear permission to remove unsourced contentious material from BLPs without further ado. It is the sole responsibility of anyone adding contentious material about living people to insure it is properly sourced. That is central to our policy. We want unsourced contentious material gone from BLPs as quickly as possible and that means no extra burdens on the removing editor. In the rare situation where an editor spots such material AND has a suitable source at hand, 99% of the time that editor will act sensibily. Per WP:CREEP "Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines should not address every possible problem, as that would produce hopelessly long and complex pages." The original proposal is a perfect example of such instruction creep.--agr (talk) 23:31, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • SupportUser:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:50, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - "User B notices this and cannot verify the claims himself because he can't find the sources within the page"...what User B really needs to be doing here is checking any blue-linked text in the original claim to see if there are any reliable sources in another Misplaced Pages article that can be easily copied over to the original article that was in "question" in the first place. Guy1890 (talk) 03:32, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
    By "within the page", I meant that User B checked the blue link, but, for some reason or another, was truly unable to find a source that backed the claim. Because he couldn't find a source in the blue link, he removed the material he believed was non-compliant. I fully agree that users should put forth a modicum of effort to help verify claims. I think it would be helpful as a catch-all, because I don't believe simple deletion is helpful; asking another user for a source, even if the material was temporarily removed, though is. moluɐɯ 03:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Given your clarification above of what you're proposing, I fully support your version of the above text. Thank you. Guy1890 (talk)
  • Comment - a truism, yes, and the policy ought to be clarified so as not to empower the occasional cowboy deletionist. However, this wording is too clunky and long. The point is that removing contentious material about living people on sight has to fit in with a hundred other policies and guidelines and should not be taken to extremes. n all acts on Misplaced Pages some dose of sanity, perspective, and reasonableness ought to prevail. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:51, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Try again

I'm confused by some of the responses above, which seem to be based on a discussion item rather than the actual proposal.

For reference, here's the actual proposal:

Let's change the current wording in the lead:

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.

to this:

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 either:

  • immediately supplied with an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contentious material (if one is available), or
  • immediately removed, without waiting for discussion.

Differences:

  • Right now, if you see unsourced contentious BLP material, you are supposed to blank it immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not add a source yourself, do not WP:PRESERVE it.
  • The proposal is this: if you see unsourced contentious BLP material, you have the voluntary option to supply an inline citation, if you happen to be able to do so immediately (e.g., without a long search).


Comparison
Current options Proposed options
  1. Blank it immediately. No further action required.
  1. Blank it immediately. No further action required.
  2. Source it immediately. No further action required.

The use case is this:

Imagine that you already know about a reliable source. In fact, imagine that you're reading the news, and you run across a great source, and you wonder what Misplaced Pages says about it. (We all do that, right?) So you go to the Misplaced Pages page, and you find an accurate, encyclopedic summary of what you just read... but there's no source listed. Per BLP, you are supposed to blank that material immediately, even though you have a great source for it right in front of you.

What we want in that case is this:

  1. Yuck, it's an unsourced BLP violation.
  2. Here's a source!

What we don't want in that case is what we've accidentally written on this page:

  1. Yuck, it's an unsourced BLP violation.
  2. I'll revert it in my role as a person enforcing BLP.
  3. Now I'll restore it with a source, in my role as a person meeting the WP:BURDEN!

The discussion above about whether you should notify someone is not part of this proposal (which, BTW, I oppose, because it adds time and complexity to the task of enforcing BLP problems. Feel free to do this if you want to, but let's not require it). This proposal is only intended to "authorize" immediate provision of sources as a voluntary alternative to first blanking and then providing sources.

I apologize for splitting this, but I recognize that this is a change to important sentence, and if I'm confused by who's supporting what, then other people in the future will be, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I agree with this, but what is the actual difference with the previous proposed wording?--cyclopia 20:18, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • How about "removed or sourced immediately, without waiting for discussion". There is no need to repeat the sourcing requirements in the middle of this phrase because they are the subject of the entire page. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Suggested change might be instead of "that is unsourced or poorly sourced" to "...that is lacks a citation or is poorly sourced, and cannot be improved by adding in a citation to a reliable source...". This eliminates case 2 being even concievable but still pushes for deletion of unsourced material. I also hope that suggests that if you see an unsourced claim that you can spend the 30 seconds to hit up Google to see if there's an obvious source to fix it before deletion. Mind you, I think there is something to be said between finding one unsourced claim, and finding a list that is chuck-full of unsourced claims. The latter is going to take a lot more work to fix and I do not expect a single editor, worried about the BLP issues, to have to fix it before removal. --MASEM (t) 20:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd rather Blank it immediately. No further action required. be Blank it immediately. Request a source on talk page/user talk of editor who added it. If we are going to be citing WP:BURDEN, we should be reminding editors that fail to add citations that the burden is theirs. moluɐɯ 21:06, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
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