Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
I exactly agree with Brigette on this one. This is the way to treat all articles on their actual merits. But in many cases the subject himself will come to the afd and express an opinion, and we can not prevent that. On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Birgitte SB birgitte...@yahoo.com wrote: --- On Mon, 3/9/09, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, March 9, 2009, 4:59 PM 2009/3/8 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very strongly protective of their general right to retain even very marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to achieve better consensus on this issue. I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon subject request. So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite separate. Totally agreed, yes - thanks Nathan. In future I will separate these two points. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against this, I believe. Hm. That's interesting. As a basic principle, that makes sense to me - that article subjects shouldn't have control over the content of the encyclopedia. But -perhaps this is a little bit of hair-splitting- OTOH I don't think we should take deletion requests any _less_ seriously than complaints from disinterested observers. In other words - someone saying the article about me is awful and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia should be taken equally as seriously as someone saying that article about X is awful and doesn't deserve to be in an encyclopedia. In both instances, the article needs be assessed on its own merits. I say this because sometimes I think people may be tempted to refuse deletion requests _because_ they come from the article subject. If that indeed happens, I believe it's a mistake. That is why I think we should process deletion requests by the subject without any special notice if they have a chance being deleted. And if they are obvious cases where they will be kept, simply tell the person we don't delete on request. Putting these articles at AfD with a note that the subject requested deletion is going to make things worse most of the time. It will attract people to the discussion who are interested in putting on a show for the announced audience and who would not show up at a basic AfD. I don't think listing an AfD as a subject request will change the overall result of the discussion, but just make the path to that result more difficult for the subject. Birgitte SB ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
--- On Mon, 3/9/09, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: From: Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, March 9, 2009, 4:59 PM 2009/3/8 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very strongly protective of their general right to retain even very marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to achieve better consensus on this issue. I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon subject request. So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite separate. Totally agreed, yes - thanks Nathan. In future I will separate these two points. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against this, I believe. Hm. That's interesting. As a basic principle, that makes sense to me - that article subjects shouldn't have control over the content of the encyclopedia. But -perhaps this is a little bit of hair-splitting- OTOH I don't think we should take deletion requests any _less_ seriously than complaints from disinterested observers. In other words - someone saying the article about me is awful and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia should be taken equally as seriously as someone saying that article about X is awful and doesn't deserve to be in an encyclopedia. In both instances, the article needs be assessed on its own merits. I say this because sometimes I think people may be tempted to refuse deletion requests _because_ they come from the article subject. If that indeed happens, I believe it's a mistake. That is why I think we should process deletion requests by the subject without any special notice if they have a chance being deleted. And if they are obvious cases where they will be kept, simply tell the person we don't delete on request. Putting these articles at AfD with a note that the subject requested deletion is going to make things worse most of the time. It will attract people to the discussion who are interested in putting on a show for the announced audience and who would not show up at a basic AfD. I don't think listing an AfD as a subject request will change the overall result of the discussion, but just make the path to that result more difficult for the subject. Birgitte SB ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 11:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks, This is just a quick interim update on the BLP issue I raised here last week. First, there seems to be a general view that BLPs are a problem that is worth addressing. I won't recap all the reasons for that, because it seems there is ---happpily--- already consensus. With consensus or not the problem is urgent most of all because people with *poor* biography consider the cancellation an insult and would proceed in a legal point of view (I don't understand with which type of motion) (in Italian Wikipedia it's already a daily problem). Surely these people will not stop their activity after the acceptance of their biography and they are a potential source of legal problems connected with defamation or calumny. With consensus or not I hope that WMF, as legal responsible of servers, would proceed at least to awaken the communities to accept more strict rules for biography of living people. Ilario ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
Sue Gardner wrote: So .. that is my rough, quick recap of where I think we're at. In terms of next steps – as I said, I'll be speaking about this issue with the board in early April. This is just an interim note: Please feel free to help me further my thinking on all this -particularly #1 and #4 above- over the next few weeks. And thank you for your help thus far. Thanks, Sue Amen to this and thank you for the recap Sue. There were too many emails to follow, so I did not read it all. I am curious to know if there is a wiki page somewhere, summarizing the major points (and differences) between the different languages BLP policies (and actually, if there is or not a BLP policy...). Did someone create that comparison page ? Ant ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
2009/3/8 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very strongly protective of their general right to retain even very marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to achieve better consensus on this issue. I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon subject request. So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite separate. Totally agreed, yes - thanks Nathan. In future I will separate these two points. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against this, I believe. Hm. That's interesting. As a basic principle, that makes sense to me - that article subjects shouldn't have control over the content of the encyclopedia. But -perhaps this is a little bit of hair-splitting- OTOH I don't think we should take deletion requests any _less_ seriously than complaints from disinterested observers. In other words - someone saying the article about me is awful and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia should be taken equally as seriously as someone saying that article about X is awful and doesn't deserve to be in an encyclopedia. In both instances, the article needs be assessed on its own merits. I say this because sometimes I think people may be tempted to refuse deletion requests _because_ they come from the article subject. If that indeed happens, I believe it's a mistake. The other issue, of marginal notability and the risk it poses to Wikipedia, is much more relevant for this discussion. Yes. I would love to see it discussed more here :-) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 7:16 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote: I am curious to know if there is a wiki page somewhere, summarizing the major points (and differences) between the different languages BLP policies (and actually, if there is or not a BLP policy...). Did someone create that comparison page ? Ant Talk about a way to get involved in meta and win the eternal gratitude of the wikicommunity! I agree such a page would be super helpful. File this with my request to start a meta page summarizing the arguments on both sides of the licensing debate :) -- phoebe ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
We should take it as seriously as we would any other statement from someone with Conflict of interest--seriously, but with great caution. It does not have the usual presumption of encyclopedic purpose. On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 2009/3/8 Nathan nawr...@gmail.com: On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very strongly protective of their general right to retain even very marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to achieve better consensus on this issue. I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon subject request. So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite separate. Totally agreed, yes - thanks Nathan. In future I will separate these two points. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against this, I believe. Hm. That's interesting. As a basic principle, that makes sense to me - that article subjects shouldn't have control over the content of the encyclopedia. But -perhaps this is a little bit of hair-splitting- OTOH I don't think we should take deletion requests any _less_ seriously than complaints from disinterested observers. In other words - someone saying the article about me is awful and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia should be taken equally as seriously as someone saying that article about X is awful and doesn't deserve to be in an encyclopedia. In both instances, the article needs be assessed on its own merits. I say this because sometimes I think people may be tempted to refuse deletion requests _because_ they come from the article subject. If that indeed happens, I believe it's a mistake. The other issue, of marginal notability and the risk it poses to Wikipedia, is much more relevant for this discussion. Yes. I would love to see it discussed more here :-) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Biographies of Living People: a quick interim update
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM, Sue Gardner sgard...@wikimedia.org wrote: 1) There is a big unresolved question around whether, if marginally-notable people ask to have their articles deleted, that request should be granted. My sense -both from the discussion here and other discussions elsewhere- is that many Wikipedians are very strongly protective of their general right to retain even very marginal BLPs. Presumably this is because notability is hard to define, and they are worried about stupid across-the-board interpretations that will result in massive deletionism. However, other people strongly feel that the current quantity of BLPs about less-notable people diminish the overall quality of the encyclopedia, reduce our credibility, and run the risk of hurting real people. There seems to be little consensus here. Roughly: some people seem to strongly feel the bar for notability should be set higher, and deletion requests generally granted: others seem to strongly feel the current state is preferable. I would welcome discussion about how to achieve better consensus on this issue. I would quibble with this statement a little bit. There is a difference in my mind between raising the notability bar and granting weight to subject requests for deletion. There seems to be a growing agreement that marginally notable subjects make for bad biographies and greater risk; there is very little appetite for beginning deletion discussions or deleting articles upon subject request. So these two issues need to be separated, because indeed they are quite separate. One asks whether the subject of an article (be it a person, corporation, or any other entity with living representatives) should be afforded some control over encyclopedia content, even as little as the ability to request a deletion nomination; most Wikipedians would be against this, I believe. The other issue, of marginal notability and the risk it poses to Wikipedia, is much more relevant for this discussion. Nathan ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
