Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I've written an essay incorporating some of the ideas expressed here by David, Carcharoth, Charles and myself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ADAM I've also posted a link to the essay on WT:BLP, and suggested that it might be helpful to get the no eventualism principle anchored more firmly in BLP policy. Could we continue that part of the discussion there? Andreas On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 7:07 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.comwrote: On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: No eventualism is one principle that I would like to see spelled out in BLP policy, in the Writing style section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Writing_style People do tend to treat biographies like a research pad for all the things that an author might justifiably want to include in a five-volume, 2,000-page biography. The problem is, the other 1,999 pages never turn up, leaving something – often something trivial, titillating, or unflattering – that might be worthy of mention on page 1,547 as the biography's main point. That's a good point. I recently edited a BLP to help clean it up, and was struck by two points: 1) It was difficult to know where to start and when to stop, as there is a need to not leave a BLP in a half-finished state, even if you are stubbing it down and slowly expanding, as even slow expansion can still leave it somewhat skewed and looking 'unfinished' (even if better than before). Those making subsequent additions need to bear that in mind as well. 2) If no-one else has written substantially about that person, it is a very uncomfortable feeling that you might be the first person to be doing that, and you start to wonder what right *anyone* has to write about a living person without working with that person to make sure it is accurate. This veers into the realm of discussing authorised and unauthorised biographies. Doing an unauthorised biography of a famous person and getting it published can make the author money, and most publishing firms will only publish if it is accurate and non-libellous. But doing short pages on non-notable or borderline notable people is something entirely different, and the motivations are often entirely different. Motivation is something that should be looked at as well. In my case, the articles are people working in science and that interests me. But is that enough of a reason? What about someone who wants to write about the leader of some small obscure country on the other side of the world? (And then you have the classic case of the motivation being to do a hatchet job on someone). Sure, the mantra is to use reliable sources and be faithful to the sources, but it is still very different (and difficult) writing about a living person who can (in theory) turn up and object to what has been written. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I've been skimming the arguments on this matter and I'm trying to get a handle on it. One thing I don't understand is why Mr. Hawkins feels so aggrieved. Everyone is talking in abstract principles but I haven't seen where someone details what specific wrongs have been done to Mr. Hawkins. Not an abstract violation of an asserted right to not have an article, but actual publishing of incorrect or defamatory information. This is a case of someone we've done specific wrong using Wikipedia: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/she-was-a-librarian-but-the-internet-said-otherwise/. Have we done something similar to Hawkins? From the AFD I read that one particular editor appears to have a particular interest in Mr. Hawkins that allegedly crosses the bounds of propriety. I don't know if these allegations are true or not, so I won't repeat them in detail here, but if they are true, and an editor or editors violates policies and crosses lines in zealous pursuit of, shall we say, overdocumenting a BLP, can't this matter be dealt with by enforcing existing policies on article content and editor behavior? One allegation is that this editor wanted to file the UK equivalent of a FOIA request to unearth records about Hawkins. Isn't this simply prohibited by OR? Can't we just trout slap someone who suggests this and be done with it? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 6:00 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 27 March 2012 17:20, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: So you have been arguing that without the BLP policy, and without the noticeboard set up to help compliance with the policy, just the same close investigations of the actual reliability of sources that nominally fall within RS would be going on? I don't agree, and I wonder if anyone else does. I'm not the biggest fan of noticeboards, qua unchartered processes; but in this case it seems to be working, and having WP:BLP there fairly clearly has something to do with it. The key point to remember about BLPs is: no eventualism. If an article about someone dead 200 years says something nasty and wrong, that's not great, but it's not urgent. If an article about a living person says something nasty and wrong, that is urgent, and we can't just assume the wiki process will on balance fix it in the fullness of time. It's the simplest possible way of doing it and it's a vast improvement over the previous situation. It's not perfection, but calling it a failure is hyperbolic. No eventualism is one principle that I would like to see spelled out in BLP policy, in the Writing style section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Writing_style People do tend to treat biographies like a research pad for all the things that an author might justifiably want to include in a five-volume, 2,000-page biography. The problem is, the other 1,999 pages never turn up, leaving something – often something trivial, titillating, or unflattering – that might be worthy of mention on page 1,547 as the biography's main point. Andreas ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: No eventualism is one principle that I would like to see spelled out in BLP policy, in the Writing style section. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Writing_style People do tend to treat biographies like a research pad for all the things that an author might justifiably want to include in a five-volume, 2,000-page biography. The problem is, the other 1,999 pages never turn up, leaving something – often something trivial, titillating, or unflattering – that might be worthy of mention on page 1,547 as the biography's main point. That's a good point. I recently edited a BLP to help clean it up, and was struck by two points: 1) It was difficult to know where to start and when to stop, as there is a need to not leave a BLP in a half-finished state, even if you are stubbing it down and slowly expanding, as even slow expansion can still leave it somewhat skewed and looking 'unfinished' (even if better than before). Those making subsequent additions need to bear that in mind as well. 2) If no-one else has written substantially about that person, it is a very uncomfortable feeling that you might be the first person to be doing that, and you start to wonder what right *anyone* has to write about a living person without working with that person to make sure it is accurate. This veers into the realm of discussing authorised and unauthorised biographies. Doing an unauthorised biography of a famous person and getting it published can make the author money, and most publishing firms will only publish if it is accurate and non-libellous. But doing short pages on non-notable or borderline notable people is something entirely different, and the motivations are often entirely different. Motivation is something that should be looked at as well. In my case, the articles are people working in science and that interests me. But is that enough of a reason? What about someone who wants to write about the leader of some small obscure country on the other side of the world? (And then you have the classic case of the motivation being to do a hatchet job on someone). Sure, the mantra is to use reliable sources and be faithful to the sources, but it is still very different (and difficult) writing about a living person who can (in theory) turn up and object to what has been written. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, Charles Matthews wrote: Reading what you have written above, and then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Chris Butler_(private investigator) and other serious discussions on that page, I'm unconvinced that you actually have a point here. Why? I clarified what I didn't think worked: BLP rules which say do what you are required to do anyway according to other rules, but try really hard this time. How exactly can such a rule ever being a benefit, and how did it bring any benefits in this case? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 27 March 2012 15:52, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, Charles Matthews wrote: Reading what you have written above, and then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:Biographies_of_** living_persons/Noticeboard#**Chrishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Chris Butler_(private investigator) and other serious discussions on that page, I'm unconvinced that you actually have a point here. Why? I clarified what I didn't think worked: BLP rules which say do what you are required to do anyway according to other rules, but try really hard this time. How exactly can such a rule ever being a benefit, and how did it bring any benefits in this case? So you have been arguing that without the BLP policy, and without the noticeboard set up to help compliance with the policy, just the same close investigations of the actual reliability of sources that nominally fall within RS would be going on? I don't agree, and I wonder if anyone else does. I'm not the biggest fan of noticeboards, qua unchartered processes; but in this case it seems to be working, and having WP:BLP there fairly clearly has something to do with it. I note we had a silly onsite discussion on WP:COI recently, based on a similar and quite fallacious style of argument that the COI guideline was in effect vacuous. It isn't, and BLP policy isn't, and it seems to me that to argue that these things make no odds at all fundamentally misunderstands two things: (i) that pages that express a single and clear idea in the policy area really are needed; and (ii) the way enforcement actually works is by decentralisation. We have to do things in a way that scales, and looking at (for example) NPOV in different places in different ways makes sense. Or putting it another way, unpacking our ideas is worthwhile, and we have gone a long way since saying five pillars was enough. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 27 March 2012 17:20, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: So you have been arguing that without the BLP policy, and without the noticeboard set up to help compliance with the policy, just the same close investigations of the actual reliability of sources that nominally fall within RS would be going on? I don't agree, and I wonder if anyone else does. I'm not the biggest fan of noticeboards, qua unchartered processes; but in this case it seems to be working, and having WP:BLP there fairly clearly has something to do with it. The key point to remember about BLPs is: no eventualism. If an article about someone dead 200 years says something nasty and wrong, that's not great, but it's not urgent. If an article about a living person says something nasty and wrong, that is urgent, and we can't just assume the wiki process will on balance fix it in the fullness of time. It's the simplest possible way of doing it and it's a vast improvement over the previous situation. It's not perfection, but calling it a failure is hyperbolic. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, David Gerard wrote: The key point to remember about BLPs is: no eventualism. If an article about someone dead 200 years says something nasty and wrong, that's not great, but it's not urgent. If an article about a living person says something nasty and wrong, that is urgent, and we can't just assume the wiki process will on balance fix it in the fullness of time. It's the simplest possible way of doing it and it's a vast improvement over the previous situation. It's not perfection, but calling it a failure is hyperbolic. Anything which is *different* between BLP and policies for other articles, such as a no-eventualism policy, could conceivably be a benefit. My complaint is about BLP rules that do not do this. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 27 March 2012 18:05, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: Anything which is *different* between BLP and policies for other articles, such as a no-eventualism policy, could conceivably be a benefit. My complaint is about BLP rules that do not do this. No sloppiness applied with rigour is a quantitive difference that makes a qualitative difference. You seem to be arguing mathematical logic when the issue is how to motivate humans to behave a particular way. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 27 March 2012 18:05, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: On Tue, 27 Mar 2012, David Gerard wrote: The key point to remember about BLPs is: no eventualism. If an article about someone dead 200 years says something nasty and wrong, that's not great, but it's not urgent. If an article about a living person says something nasty and wrong, that is urgent, and we can't just assume the wiki process will on balance fix it in the fullness of time. It's the simplest possible way of doing it and it's a vast improvement over the previous situation. It's not perfection, but calling it a failure is hyperbolic. Anything which is *different* between BLP and policies for other articles, such as a no-eventualism policy, could conceivably be a benefit. My complaint is about BLP rules that do not do this. I'm reminded of a story told me by a friend who used to work in PC support, back in the day. He was once called out by a guy who'd deleted all the files whose purpose he didn't understand, and wondered why his machine didn't work. Please don't try this at home. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
If we have this in place, cool to have a link... My thinking is that a constructive and asymptotically approaching perfection (hopefully as rapidly as humanly possible) way of doing a good bit of easing of some of the tensions, would be to start compiling a list of criterions which make someone absolutely 100% a chinch to need a wikipedia article about them, no matter what. Not a list of articles every wikipedia should have or anything like that, but a list of no-brainer wikipedia inclusion criteria, and add to the list of criteria as fast as possible. If something is blindingly obvious it is often very easy to get consensus, and a great deal can be achieved in a very short amount of time. Once the low hanging fruit have been collected, the experience of working on that part of the task, often makes for a much more congenial atmosphere to hew out some modus operandi for the cases where things are not so clear as to be universally agreed upon by the editorship. Here are some I can think of: * Heads of states of all countries which are official full members of the United Nations, after they have been admitted. * Actresses/Actors who have star billing in a movie released by Universal, MGM, 20th/21th Century, Lucasfilm, (... purposefully leaving this list short to be absolutely ironclad not to step into any point of contention or cheap shots ...) * Nobel Prize winners. * Fields Medal winners. * Medal winners in the Modern Olympics in those sports that currently are part of the Olympic Games, in either winter or summer games. * Military leaders of the armed forces in any conflict between two countries who are currently official full members of the United Nations. * All Popes the Holy Roman Catholic Church currently recognizes as having been valid popes. * All winners of the Booker Prize. * All winners of the Turner Prize. * All presenters of the Royal Society Christmas Lecture. * ... * ... * ... You get the idea...? -- -- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]] ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 27 March 2012 21:39, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: My thinking is that a constructive and asymptotically approaching perfection (hopefully as rapidly as humanly possible) way of doing a good bit of easing of some of the tensions, would be to start compiling a list of criterions which make someone absolutely 100% a chinch to need a wikipedia article about them, no matter what. What would the benefit of that list be? Surely no-one is contesting any of the BLPs that fit that description. If something is being contested, then that means it isn't 100% obvious that the article should exist. There's no point trying to fix the articles that aren't broken. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.com wrote: My thinking is that a constructive and asymptotically approaching perfection (hopefully as rapidly as humanly possible) way of doing a good bit of easing of some of the tensions, would be to start compiling a list of criterions which make someone absolutely 100% a chinch to need a wikipedia article about them, no matter what. Not a list of articles every wikipedia should have or anything like that, but a list of no-brainer wikipedia inclusion criteria snip The problem with such lists is that other publications and other websites don't do it like that (unless they are specialist ones attempting to cover their entire field, and that is what some people see Wikipedia as, a collection of specialist areas, but there aren't really encyclopedias of modern radio presenters, are there?). What would be easier is to look at the field of biographical writing as a whole, and ask what criteria other publications use to compile their entries. Encyclopedia Britannica has (online) entries on living people. Where do they draw the line? And so on. The critical thing, though, is to look at the *length* of the sources used in the biographies. Some are book-length sources, some are only a paragraph or two. The critical difference is between: i) Summarising book-length sources to produce a Wikipedia article shorter than a book ii) Replicating article-length sources to produce a Wikipedia article of about the same length iii) Aggregating shorter sources to produce a Wikipedia article that is longer than its sources [Summarising, replicating and aggregating, are deliberate word choices there.] Those three approaches are all, to some extent, valid, and all have their problems and advantages and disadvantages, but it is crucial to be aware of the breadth and depth of the available sources to have an idea what sort of coverage Wikipedia should have and how to condense and/or aggregate the sources. I should also mention here that some topics (even biographical ones) produce more than one Wikipedia article. Some biographies are split into sub-articles. Not very often, but some people have made that approach (sort of) work. The main problem with writing about *living* people, is that approach (i) is rare. Those who are living and have published book-length biographies are clearly already notable by anyone's measure. Those who are living and only have article-length sources it is usually possible to write about. Those who are living and have only scraps of information floating around in various places are practically impossible to write about, other than to produce poorly maintained stubs. That is the entire BLP problem in a nutshell. If the sources aren't there, the articles are placeholders that will only be short and stubby until someone out there writes more about that person, and if that never happens, then is it ultimately worth maintaining such articles? Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, 24 Mar 2012, Andreas Kolbe wrote: In almost all cases, a stub with the basic information is better than a loose aggregation of factoids. The problem is that well-meaning people (and sometime less well-meaning people) come along later and try and 'expand' what is there. I'd be in favour of locking down BLPs once they reach a certain stage of development and requiring a very high standard of sourcing for new additions. These sound like sensible ideas. Doesn't work. Since we already require a high standard for sourcing for everything, this doesn't actually put any additional requirements on BLPs. For some reason a lot of BLP policy is like that: here we have the same policy we use for everything else, but we really mean it this time. This never works, of course. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 26 March 2012 16:17, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: On Sat, 24 Mar 2012, Andreas Kolbe wrote: In almost all cases, a stub with the basic information is better than a loose aggregation of factoids. The problem is that well-meaning people (and sometime less well-meaning people) come along later and try and 'expand' what is there. I'd be in favour of locking down BLPs once they reach a certain stage of development and requiring a very high standard of sourcing for new additions. These sound like sensible ideas. Doesn't work. Since we already require a high standard for sourcing for everything, this doesn't actually put any additional requirements on BLPs. For some reason a lot of BLP policy is like that: here we have the same policy we use for everything else, but we really mean it this time. This never works, of course. That's an overstatement, of course. In several ways. Anyone would think that we have no BLPs that are respectable. I know of some that aren't - there are a couple of troublesome ones I have babysat like that - but the issues there do seem to come from setting the bar too low for sourcing (either of laundered gossip that is negative, or dubious positive stuff, do come up). If we set an academic type of standard, rather than a mainstream media, some of the problems would go away. Of course a proportion of the BLPs would also go away also. So it's no good pretending it's not a trade-off; and the community still decides whether the bar should be raised. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 26 March 2012 16:17, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: For some reason a lot of BLP policy is like that: here we have the same policy we use for everything else, but we really mean it this time. This never works, of course. I think that's an overstatement - it sometimes doesn't work, which is quite distinct from never works. If we'd tried putting in BLP rules that *weren't* just our usual rules only without the eventualist element, it would have failed to take with the people actually doing the work, and resulted in lower quality articles. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Mon, 26 Mar 2012, David Gerard wrote: For some reason a lot of BLP policy is like that: here we have the same policy we use for everything else, but we really mean it this time. This never works, of course. I think that's an overstatement - it sometimes doesn't work, which is quite distinct from never works. The policy doesn't work doesn't mean that all BLPs are bad, it just means that they are *as* bad as they would have been without the policy. The cases you refer to as it working are cases where other policies work and these polices provide no extra benefit.___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 26 March 2012 19:11, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote: The policy doesn't work doesn't mean that all BLPs are bad, it just means that they are *as* bad as they would have been without the policy. The cases you refer to as it working are cases where other policies work and these polices provide no extra benefit. You are ludicrously overstating the case. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Mon, 26 Mar 2012, David Gerard wrote: The policy doesn't work doesn't mean that all BLPs are bad, it just means that they are *as* bad as they would have been without the policy. The cases you refer to as it working are cases where other policies work and these polices provide no extra benefit. You are ludicrously overstating the case. I'm not claiming the entire BLP policy provides no benefit. I'm claiming that clauses which basically say do what you're supposed to be doing all the time anyway, but we really mean it here bring no benefit.___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: I think a serious position paper on BLP is possible. There are several aspects: * We are currently not very good at recognising when biographical information is indiscriminate (see [[WP:INDISCRIMINATEhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDISCRIMINATE ]]). We could get better at that, as a way of addressing what Andreas is calling ADAM. *We can certainly look at special notability guidelines for classes of individuals (e.g. politicians, employees of the media, entertainers, sportspeople, reality TV stars). Some divide-and-conquer to understand the more problematic areas in their own terms would be good. *We are currently lousy at judging ephemeral notability, and issues around it seem to be classic time-sinks. There is a bigger picture here, and digging around in older biographical dictionaries can help to explain what is going on. *Certainly extending control of revisions to all BLP pages is an option to consider; naturally this is a major step requiring wide community support, and that in turn probably requires a reasonable amount of preparation, not phrased in too much immoderate language. There is currently another Pending Changes RfC underway at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes/Request_for_Comment_2012 Andreas *Tools and techniques. I'm a fan of the idea of using Related changes on chunks of BLP, so that patrolling say 1% at a time becomes easier. Hiving off BLP into its own community isn't a solution that is clearly going to work, let's say. Technical concentration on the material, on the other hand, might do quite a lot to highlight the difficult cases. Charles ___ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:48 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 March 2012 14:04, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jim_Hawkins_%28radio_presenter%29 This is a rather broad and (as I've noted) hideously vague proposed solution to a very specific problem, viz. someone who is apparently well within notability guidelines wanting an article deleted because he doesn't have control of it, and is abusive towards anyone who tries to help. That's a bizarre statement – and quite untrue – as well as absolutely appalling PR. I see someone linked to that comment of yours on Hawkins' Facebook thread yesterday. http://www.facebook.com/jimhawkinsltd/posts/303015339764646 (Not sure if that link will work for people who aren't on Facebook.) As for notability, Carcharoth posted a salient analysis of the article's sourcing: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FJim_Hawkins_%28radio_presenter%29diff=483663317oldid=483632586 Andreas ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.comwrote: ii) Be respectful of the article subject and be prepared to work with them if they raise concerns, and don't needlessly antagonise them. I wrote a couple of essays about this a while ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hazing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notable_person_survival_kit I got a pat on the back from Jimbo on my talk page, but other than that, they never really caught on. Of course, what's in those essays only goes as far as it does. The systemic problem with notability and the accretion method is bigger than that. Andreas ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I would second this. In addition, I believe we should allow borderline-notable people to opt out of having a biography, to prevent the sort of drama we are currently having with the Hawkins biography. Otherwise, we are digging our own graves. As we all know, editor numbers are stagnating, or positively diminishing, while the number of biographies rises daily. We are already too stretched to look after biographies. Johann Hari's slurs remained in the vandalised biographies for days and weeks on end. In addition, for little watched biographies, our biography writing process is often little more than dirt accretion – anonymous people who have no interest in producing a balanced biography adding derogatory information, or random stuff they read and found interesting. The results are not pretty: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_M._Blowoldid=482965680 More than half of a biography about an alleged religious slur? This stuff is typical of the anonymous dirt accretion method (ADAM) of biography writing. It's the sort of process that's resulted in a 1,500 word biography about a US politician of which 1,250 words were about alleged complicity with Scientology (because she had once looked at a Scientology drugs rehabilitation programme), or a BLP of a UK member of parliament that was 50 per cent about expense investigations and cherry-picked to create the false impression he had financially profited to the tune of over £10,000 from an error in his expense claims. That's the sort of thing that will really endear Wikipedia to legislators. - We need fewer biographies. - We need to give borderline-notable people (people like Hawkins; not MPs) an easy opt-out. - We could probably benefit from making real-life name registration mandatory for BLP editing, and hosting them on a different project, or at the very least introducing flagged revisions for BLPs, and making the right to approve BLP changes one that requires familiarity with BLP policy, and a commitment to uphold it. - We need to abandon ADAM and make sure, somehow, that biographies are fair and balanced. We can't do that with the amount of biographies we currently have. Andreas On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.comwrote: I'm posting here an argument I made in a recent AfD, explaining why I think more stringent notability requirements are needed for biographical articles: The right point to assess someone's notability and write a definitive article about them is at that point (or sometimes when they retire). Any BLP is only a work in progress until that point is reached. [Some say] Notability, once attained, does not diminish. That might seem true, but what is being assessed is not the subject's true notability, but a fluctuating 'notability during lifetime' that can wax and wane over time, with the true level of notability not being established until someone's career or life is over. Some people gain awards and recognitions and have long and diverse careers and have glowing obituaries written about them, and pass into the history of the field they worked in. Others have more pedestrian careers. The point is that it is rarely possible to make an accurate assessment until the right point is reached. What you end up with if you have low standards for allowing articles on BLPs is a huge number of borderline BLPs all across Wikipedia (heavily weighted towards contemporary coverage [...]), the vast majority of the subjects of which will not have prominent (or any) obituaries published about them, and in 50 years time or so the articles will look a bit silly, cobbled together from various scraps and items published during the subject's lifetime, but with no proper, independent assessment of their place in history. It has been said before, but that is why specialist biographical dictionaries often have as one of their inclusion criteria that someone has to be dead before having an article. I'm not saying we should go that far, but there is a case for many BLPs of saying 'if there is no current published biography, wait until this career/life is over and make an assessment at that point', and until then either delete or have a bland stub. The above is why I rarely edit BLPs. It is far easier (and more satisfying) to edit about a topic once it is reasonably 'complete', not ongoing. The latter statements applies to more than BLPs (biographies of living people), for example it applies to any 'news' topic, but it does apply especially to BLPs as they are a minefield because they require careful maintenance. To give some examples of articles I've edited or created that are BLPs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mestel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lieberman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_W._Moore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._M._Hedges Those aren't very good examples. What I'm really looking for is a way to illustrate how some people become
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 23 March 2012 15:06, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@gmail.com wrote: snip - We need fewer biographies. - We need to give borderline-notable people (people like Hawkins; not MPs) an easy opt-out. - We could probably benefit from making real-life name registration mandatory for BLP editing, and hosting them on a different project, or at the very least introducing flagged revisions for BLPs, and making the right to approve BLP changes one that requires familiarity with BLP policy, and a commitment to uphold it. - We need to abandon ADAM and make sure, somehow, that biographies are fair and balanced. We can't do that with the amount of biographies we currently have. I think a serious position paper on BLP is possible. There are several aspects: * We are currently not very good at recognising when biographical information is indiscriminate (see [[WP:INDISCRIMINATEhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDISCRIMINATE]]). We could get better at that, as a way of addressing what Andreas is calling ADAM. *We can certainly look at special notability guidelines for classes of individuals (e.g. politicians, employees of the media, entertainers, sportspeople, reality TV stars). Some divide-and-conquer to understand the more problematic areas in their own terms would be good. *We are currently lousy at judging ephemeral notability, and issues around it seem to be classic time-sinks. There is a bigger picture here, and digging around in older biographical dictionaries can help to explain what is going on. *Certainly extending control of revisions to all BLP pages is an option to consider; naturally this is a major step requiring wide community support, and that in turn probably requires a reasonable amount of preparation, not phrased in too much immoderate language. *Tools and techniques. I'm a fan of the idea of using Related changes on chunks of BLP, so that patrolling say 1% at a time becomes easier. Hiving off BLP into its own community isn't a solution that is clearly going to work, let's say. Technical concentration on the material, on the other hand, might do quite a lot to highlight the difficult cases. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: *We are currently lousy at judging ephemeral notability, and issues around it seem to be classic time-sinks. There is a bigger picture here, and digging around in older biographical dictionaries can help to explain what is going on. This is an excellent point (along with the rest of the posts from Charles and Andreas). I was thinking explicitly of the sense you get of what constitutes a 'proper' biography when reading how it was done in the past (especially the 19th-century Dictionary of National Biography and the 2004 update/expansion/revision of that, the ODNB). If you spend your time reading and looking at numerous biographies across a wide range of subjects (as I do, both on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and as Charles does), then you get a good sense of what sources are used for a genuine biography, and what sources are features of more ephemeral biographies. Other biographical sources I'm familiar with include the Australian and Canadian dictionaries of national biography, the Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society journal, the similar publication in the USA, produced by (I think) the National Academy of Sciences for their members, and the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. The point about Wikipedia (for BLPs) being ahead of the proper sources to use is another excellent one. There is a natural progression to biographical sources that (for obvious reasons) parallels the subject's life. People record their own lives at first (diaries, letters, CVs and the like), and then gradually others start to write about that person and you get short descriptions such as author and contributor biographies, and short news items. Then, as someone becomes more prominent, you get more considered material, such as interviews, feature articles, and so on. Very prominent people get official and official biographers that document that person's life (e.g. US Presidents and some other politicians). Towards the end of someone's career, you may get tribute articles and the like. Then, when the person dies, you get obituaries, and then (possibly) entries in the histories relevant to that person. Very prominent people get entire books written about them. Others get less. If Wikipedia jumps into that natural progression too early, and tries to establish, or maintain, a biography before there are sources to support one, the result can be a mess. Even if done carefully, it can still be a problem. I mentioned the example of Robert E. M. Hedges, who's article I've just been updating. If I hadn't updated that article, it likely would have remained without an update until more material was published. In all four cases I've given as examples of BLPs that I've created or edited extensively, I've felt uncomfortable at times that I was doing what should, properly, be left until the right moment for those people's colleagues and peers to do - write that person's life story (in some ways, the difference between an authorised and unauthorised biography). That is why it is important to have the foundation of a proper biographical source to build on, not go too far, and to be clear that BLPs are always a work in progress, waiting for the definitive accounts to be written by others (and then summarised and incorporated into the Wikipedia article). There are other examples, but I'll leave those for another time. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 11:25, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: *We are currently lousy at judging ephemeral notability, and issues around it seem to be classic time-sinks. There is a bigger picture here, and digging around in older biographical dictionaries can help to explain what is going on. This is an excellent point (along with the rest of the posts from Charles and Andreas). I was thinking explicitly of the sense you get of what constitutes a 'proper' biography when reading how it was done in the past (especially the 19th-century Dictionary of National Biography and the 2004 update/expansion/revision of that, the ODNB). If you spend your time reading and looking at numerous biographies across a wide range of subjects (as I do, both on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and as Charles does), then you get a good sense of what sources are used for a genuine biography, and what sources are features of more ephemeral biographies. Other biographical sources I'm familiar with include the Australian and Canadian dictionaries of national biography, the Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society journal, the similar publication in the USA, produced by (I think) the National Academy of Sciences for their members, and the Dictionary of Scientific Biography. The point about Wikipedia (for BLPs) being ahead of the proper sources to use is another excellent one. There is a natural progression to biographical sources that (for obvious reasons) parallels the subject's life. People record their own lives at first (diaries, letters, CVs and the like), and then gradually others start to write about that person and you get short descriptions such as author and contributor biographies, and short news items. Then, as someone becomes more prominent, you get more considered material, such as interviews, feature articles, and so on. Very prominent people get official and official biographers that document that person's life (e.g. US Presidents and some other politicians). Towards the end of someone's career, you may get tribute articles and the like. Then, when the person dies, you get obituaries, and then (possibly) entries in the histories relevant to that person. Very prominent people get entire books written about them. Others get less. If Wikipedia jumps into that natural progression too early, and tries to establish, or maintain, a biography before there are sources to support one, the result can be a mess. Even if done carefully, it can still be a problem. I mentioned the example of Robert E. M. Hedges, who's article I've just been updating. If I hadn't updated that article, it likely would have remained without an update until more material was published. In all four cases I've given as examples of BLPs that I've created or edited extensively, I've felt uncomfortable at times that I was doing what should, properly, be left until the right moment for those people's colleagues and peers to do - write that person's life story (in some ways, the difference between an authorised and unauthorised biography). That is why it is important to have the foundation of a proper biographical source to build on, not go too far, and to be clear that BLPs are always a work in progress, waiting for the definitive accounts to be written by others (and then summarised and incorporated into the Wikipedia article). There are other examples, but I'll leave those for another time. Carcharoth Zee problem with this standard is that it would preclude having an article on the person currently running mali (admittedly the article isn't up to much but I think it could be argued that we should at least try). -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 11:37, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 24 March 2012 11:25, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: snip The point about Wikipedia (for BLPs) being ahead of the proper sources to use is another excellent one. There is a natural progression to biographical sources that (for obvious reasons) parallels the subject's life. People record their own lives at first (diaries, letters, CVs and the like), and then gradually others start to write about that person and you get short descriptions such as author and contributor biographies, and short news items. Then, as someone becomes more prominent, you get more considered material, such as interviews, feature articles, and so on. Very prominent people get official and official biographers that document that person's life (e.g. US Presidents and some other politicians). Towards the end of someone's career, you may get tribute articles and the like. Then, when the person dies, you get obituaries, and then (possibly) entries in the histories relevant to that person. Very prominent people get entire books written about them. Others get less. If Wikipedia jumps into that natural progression too early, and tries to establish, or maintain, a biography before there are sources to support one, the result can be a mess. snip Zee problem with this standard is that it would preclude having an article on the person currently running mali (admittedly the article isn't up to much but I think it could be argued that we should at least try). Oh, there's definitely a knack to this business. Imagine that we wanted to hive off the Internet meme etc. stuff from WP to some hypothetical sister project (there is a genuine argument along the lines that historians of the future will be grateful to have at least some of this stuff on record); and leave the material of which it could be said this guy is just a footnote now ... but it's a footnote we should have. Now try to translate what that means into the kind of language our policy documents tend to use (all universals and epistemology). Doesn't work easily (cf. the GNG). We'd have to get a bit sophistimacated about our content, in terms at least of current versus permanent interest. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 11:37 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: Zee problem with this standard is that it would preclude having an article on the person currently running mali (admittedly the article isn't up to much but I think it could be argued that we should at least try). There is nothing wrong with having brief 'biographical notes' on the person currently running Mali. The problem comes when people get the idea that they need to turn such notes into fully fledged biographical articles and start scraping around for material and 'running ahead of the sources'. Sometimes this is done with the best of intentions (I'm effectively doing this for the four examples I mentioned earlier). But when this involves biographies of living people, the standard that should apply is: i) Have a *clear* way for the article subject to make contact and raise concerns. Currently, this is OTRS, but I suspect many people who are the subject of biographical articles are unaware of the articles. ii) Be respectful of the article subject and be prepared to work with them if they raise concerns, and don't needlessly antagonise them. For some editors, who chose to remain anonymous, this will be problematic, as some people (understandably) will want to work with a known person, not some anonymous screen name. iii) Use very high standards of sourcing and be aware that limited or restricted coverage in sources almost certainly results in errors. Better to keep the article short and precise, rather than write too much (your 'we should at least try') and run into problems. In almost all cases, a stub with the basic information is better than a loose aggregation of factoids. The problem is that well-meaning people (and sometime less well-meaning people) come along later and try and 'expand' what is there. I'd be in favour of locking down BLPs once they reach a certain stage of development and requiring a very high standard of sourcing for new additions. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I should add that on re-reading, I see the irony in suggesting working with the article subject when that person is someone who has just taken over a country. Handling stuff like that is more difficult, I admit. And some people are famous enough that the question of working 'with them' is silly (US President, the Pope, stuff like that). The famous people have lots of other stuff out there about them, so are not that worried about their Wikipedia article. The borderline notable people, though, have their Wikipedia article as they number one resource about them on the internet. That is the problem in a nutshell - which comes back again to running ahead of the sources. If there is not one single source out there of comparable length and type, then Wikipedia is 'getting there first' (by aggregating separate sources to create the next level up) and that is nearly always a bad thing. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: The famous people have lots of other stuff out there about them, so are not that worried about their Wikipedia article. The borderline notable people, though, have their Wikipedia article as they number one resource about them on the internet. That is the problem in a nutshell - which comes back again to running ahead of the sources. If there is not one single source out there of comparable length and type, then Wikipedia is 'getting there first' (by aggregating separate sources to create the next level up) and that is nearly always a bad thing. Carcharoth I agree with Carcharoth, and I think we could fairly easily determine who counts as notable enough so that an opt-out option wouldn't apply. The moral issue is that people ought to have the right to say I want Wikipedia to leave me alone. We're a group of anonymous or unknown people writing the number one Google hits for people's names, with none of the training, editorial oversight or legal responsibility that traditionally came with that kind of influence. We probably do come across as a bunch of stalkers to some of our BLP subjects. Sarah ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
The problem's with biographical information range from undue weight to the accumulation of dirt from the tabloids. But some of the solutions offered would fix the wrong problem and possibly make things worse. Generally in my experience the bios of sportspeople rarely get hostile edits, at least not unless they fall out with the fans of their team or country. But these are some of our youngest retiring celebrities, so a policy of only writing their bios after death would simply drive many sportswriters off the pedia. Politicians tend to be older by the time they are notable and would be less extremely effected by this, at least a large proprtion would be still in the public eye when they died. But we would still have the next unintended consequence, the good neutral editors would have been driven off and we would have fewer editors around to take the nasty BLP violations out of articles on films, companies, political events and crimes. In my view if we want to improve our BLPs we need to work with the community not against it. That means coming up with better tools to identify and check hostile phrases and other problematic edits. It also means better anti-vandalism tools - I'm keen to see flagged revisions introduced on EN wiki the way it is on DE, but I suspect that first we need some convincing research to prove which method is more effective at removing vandalism - the one that ensures every edit by a non-established user is screened by an established user - or the en wiki system where most edits are looked at by many but some slip through completely unchecked. If the WMF were to commission such research, and the research established that some wikis had a more effective anti-vandalism approach than others, then if the difference is significant it would be reasonable for the WMF to tell the communities using less effective anti vandalism methods to either upgrade or stop hosting BLPs. WSC ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I think it is important to remember why we're doing this. Our purpose isn't the judge people's notability. Our purpose is to provide useful information to people. It is clear from the page views they get that BLPs are useful to people. As long as there are sufficient reliable sources to write more than a stub about someone, then I don't see why we shouldn't have an article about them. That is basically what the General Notability Guideline says. I do think we have a problem with writing about things too soon, but it isn't so extreme that we should wait until people are retired or dead to write about them. I did have a policy proposal prepared a few years ago that I never really proposed because I thought it was too unlikely to be successful. It was to set a limit on how recent something can be and still appear on Wikipedia. I can't remember what the limit I was going to propose was, but it was about a month - if something happened less than a month ago, don't write about it on Wikipedia. Write about it on Wikinews and either link to it from an existing Wikipedia article or create a redirect to it if the subject is new or newly notable. Then, after a month once everything has settled down, we can write a decent article (as opposed to one where every paragraph starts As of). I think that kind of policy would be useful for BLPs, particularly 1EVENT cases. It is often much easier to tell after a month whether something is really notable for an encyclopaedia than it is straight away (how many AFDs have we all seen where people are saying This will almost certainly be notable. - much better to wait and see rather than try and predict notability). ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 16:23, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I do think we have a problem with writing about things too soon, but it isn't so extreme that we should wait until people are retired or dead to write about them. I did have a policy proposal prepared a few years ago that I never really proposed because I thought it was too unlikely to be successful. It was to set a limit on how recent something can be and still appear on Wikipedia. I can't remember what the limit I was going to propose was, but it was about a month - if something happened less than a month ago, don't write about it on Wikipedia. Write about it on Wikinews and either link to it from an existing Wikipedia article or create a redirect to it if the subject is new or newly notable. Then, after a month once everything has settled down, we can write a decent article (as opposed to one where every paragraph starts As of). You're not going to get that through for general events (natural disasters or revolutions), because they've long been heralded as one of en:wp's great strengths. It *might* be swingable in the case of BLPs. The question then, of course, is: in a quickly-written article about a disaster or a revolution, are you allowed to name anyone who's alive? And you *know* there are Wikipedia rules lawyers who will say no and try to enforce it. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 17:51, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: You're not going to get that through for general events (natural disasters or revolutions), because they've long been heralded as one of en:wp's great strengths. But they *should* be one of Wikinews' greatest strengths, not Wikipedia's. I know it isn't likely to get adopted, which is why I never bother proposing it, but I still think it would be a good idea. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 18:13, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 24 March 2012 17:51, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: You're not going to get that through for general events (natural disasters or revolutions), because they've long been heralded as one of en:wp's great strengths. But they *should* be one of Wikinews' greatest strengths, not Wikipedia's. I know it isn't likely to get adopted, which is why I never bother proposing it, but I still think it would be a good idea. Wikinews suffers sufficient gatekeepers that it doesn't attract a froth of contributors the way Wikipedia does. It could do with some statistical and experimental loving from the Foundation, if anyone feels up to putting a proposal together. But trying to channel volunteers in this manner strikes me as a way to kill motivation rather than channel it. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 18:18, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Wikinews suffers sufficient gatekeepers that it doesn't attract a froth of contributors the way Wikipedia does. It could do with some statistical and experimental loving from the Foundation, if anyone feels up to putting a proposal together. But trying to channel volunteers in this manner strikes me as a way to kill motivation rather than channel it. My hope with this proposal was to encourage contributions to Wikinews. I think one of the main reasons Wikinews has never been particularly successful is because it is competing with Wikipedia's current events coverage. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is important to remember why we're doing this. Our purpose isn't the judge people's notability. Our purpose is to provide useful information to people. It is clear from the page views they get that BLPs are useful to people. For low-level BLPs, a large proportion of the views may be Wikipedia editors. As long as there are sufficient reliable sources to write more than a stub about someone, then I don't see why we shouldn't have an article about them. That is basically what the General Notability Guideline says. But what if that is all the reliable sources there are? And there are no more and no more likely to be forthcoming? We are effectively bequeathing to future generations a large number of stubby articles that may never have any more sources written about them. Would you like the job of (in 50 years time) sorting through these articles and deciding which ones to try and ascertain year of death, and which ones to expand from obituaries (if any exist), and which ones to delete because they turned out to have sunk back into obscurity and only dedicated research in primary documents (mostly not allowed under WP:OR) will be of any use? I do think we have a problem with writing about things too soon, but it isn't so extreme that we should wait until people are retired or dead to write about them. snip It's not just writing about things too soon, but poor choices of what to write on. There needs to be some judgement that goes something like this: (1) The longest biographical coverage of the subject in sources is of such-and-such a length. (2) Our article should not attempt to go beyond that length until the next level of biographical coverage is written. (3) If the subject has dropped out of the public eye and that next level of biographical coverage is unlikely to be reached, then delete. If you don't follow something like those guidelines, you get people pulling together different sources to create the next level of biographical coverage, and being the first to do so. Wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of attempting to write biographies of a new type (aggregating existing sources) where nothing similar has been done before. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 19:42, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is important to remember why we're doing this. Our purpose isn't the judge people's notability. Our purpose is to provide useful information to people. It is clear from the page views they get that BLPs are useful to people. For low-level BLPs, a large proportion of the views may be Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia editors count as readers too. As long as there are sufficient reliable sources to write more than a stub about someone, then I don't see why we shouldn't have an article about them. That is basically what the General Notability Guideline says. But what if that is all the reliable sources there are? And there are no more and no more likely to be forthcoming? We are effectively bequeathing to future generations a large number of stubby articles that may never have any more sources written about them. Would you like the job of (in 50 years time) sorting through these articles and deciding which ones to try and ascertain year of death, and which ones to expand from obituaries (if any exist), and which ones to delete because they turned out to have sunk back into obscurity and only dedicated research in primary documents (mostly not allowed under WP:OR) will be of any use? I did say there needs to be enough to write *more than* a stub. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 24 March 2012 16:23, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: I think it is important to remember why we're doing this. Our purpose isn't the judge people's notability. Our purpose is to provide useful information to people. It is clear from the page views they get that BLPs are useful to people. As long as there are sufficient reliable sources to write more than a stub about someone, then I don't see why we shouldn't have an article about them. That is basically what the General Notability Guideline says. One of the more obvious problems with WP:NOTE is that it has been fairly unclear whether it is a necessary or a sufficient condition for notability. As currently written it is phrased as a sufficient condition, which somewhat surprises me. (Not the confusion itself, which explains why a thread like this can contain diametrically opposite opinions.) But for reasons internal to what we think guidelines are there for. Guidelines, after all, function best when they give editors a clear idea of what Wikipedia expects of them, personally. Like it says ,a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow. Editors should attempt only to create articles on notable topics, in other words. Reading the guideline the other way round is obviously possible; and the way the main text is phrased might suggest it. But, and here's the point of the thread in fact, it is perfectly possible to argue that reading the GNG as a sufficient condition for anything is flawed. Wikipedia is a wiki, and wikis do give you permission to edit. Saying that verifiability from enough reliable sources is a sufficient condition that an article can exist carries its own assumptions. In particular the salience condition for biographical facts gets lost. I see that whatever we used to have written about this concept has become hard to find onsite, which is troubling. Non-salient facts from dodgy sources added to biographies is almost a definition of tabloid writing, so I think we should be concerned. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I'm posting here an argument I made in a recent AfD, explaining why I think more stringent notability requirements are needed for biographical articles: The right point to assess someone's notability and write a definitive article about them is at that point (or sometimes when they retire). Any BLP is only a work in progress until that point is reached. [Some say] Notability, once attained, does not diminish. That might seem true, but what is being assessed is not the subject's true notability, but a fluctuating 'notability during lifetime' that can wax and wane over time, with the true level of notability not being established until someone's career or life is over. Some people gain awards and recognitions and have long and diverse careers and have glowing obituaries written about them, and pass into the history of the field they worked in. Others have more pedestrian careers. The point is that it is rarely possible to make an accurate assessment until the right point is reached. What you end up with if you have low standards for allowing articles on BLPs is a huge number of borderline BLPs all across Wikipedia (heavily weighted towards contemporary coverage [...]), the vast majority of the subjects of which will not have prominent (or any) obituaries published about them, and in 50 years time or so the articles will look a bit silly, cobbled together from various scraps and items published during the subject's lifetime, but with no proper, independent assessment of their place in history. It has been said before, but that is why specialist biographical dictionaries often have as one of their inclusion criteria that someone has to be dead before having an article. I'm not saying we should go that far, but there is a case for many BLPs of saying 'if there is no current published biography, wait until this career/life is over and make an assessment at that point', and until then either delete or have a bland stub. The above is why I rarely edit BLPs. It is far easier (and more satisfying) to edit about a topic once it is reasonably 'complete', not ongoing. The latter statements applies to more than BLPs (biographies of living people), for example it applies to any 'news' topic, but it does apply especially to BLPs as they are a minefield because they require careful maintenance. To give some examples of articles I've edited or created that are BLPs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mestel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lieberman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_W._Moore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._M._Hedges Those aren't very good examples. What I'm really looking for is a way to illustrate how some people become notable, and then fade into obscurity, while others maintain notability and accumulate coverage in reliable sources throughout their lives, rather than only briefly. The latter are good topics for encyclopedia articles, but the latter tend not to be. Is there a way to argue for more stringent notability requirements that won't get shot down? Essentially, what I'm saying Wikipedia needs to avoid is bequeathing a lot of stubby articles to future generations of editors who will get stuck trying to find out anything more about people who have faded back into obscurity and for whom it is often difficult to ascertain if they are still living. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
I'm posting here an argument I made in a recent AfD, explaining why I think more stringent notability requirements are needed for biographical articles: The right point to assess someone's notability and write a definitive article about them is at that point (or sometimes when they retire). Any BLP is only a work in progress until that point is reached. [Some say] Notability, once attained, does not diminish. That might seem true, but what is being assessed is not the subject's true notability, but a fluctuating 'notability during lifetime' that can wax and wane over time, with the true level of notability not being established until someone's career or life is over. Some people gain awards and recognitions and have long and diverse careers and have glowing obituaries written about them, and pass into the history of the field they worked in. Others have more pedestrian careers. The point is that it is rarely possible to make an accurate assessment until the right point is reached. What you end up with if you have low standards for allowing articles on BLPs is a huge number of borderline BLPs all across Wikipedia (heavily weighted towards contemporary coverage [...]), the vast majority of the subjects of which will not have prominent (or any) obituaries published about them, and in 50 years time or so the articles will look a bit silly, cobbled together from various scraps and items published during the subject's lifetime, but with no proper, independent assessment of their place in history. It has been said before, but that is why specialist biographical dictionaries often have as one of their inclusion criteria that someone has to be dead before having an article. I'm not saying we should go that far, but there is a case for many BLPs of saying 'if there is no current published biography, wait until this career/life is over and make an assessment at that point', and until then either delete or have a bland stub. The above is why I rarely edit BLPs. It is far easier (and more satisfying) to edit about a topic once it is reasonably 'complete', not ongoing. The latter statements applies to more than BLPs (biographies of living people), for example it applies to any 'news' topic, but it does apply especially to BLPs as they are a minefield because they require careful maintenance. To give some examples of articles I've edited or created that are BLPs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mestel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lieberman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_W._Moore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._M._Hedges Those aren't very good examples. What I'm really looking for is a way to illustrate how some people become notable, and then fade into obscurity, while others maintain notability and accumulate coverage in reliable sources throughout their lives, rather than only briefly. The latter are good topics for encyclopedia articles, but the latter tend not to be. Is there a way to argue for more stringent notability requirements that won't get shot down? Essentially, what I'm saying Wikipedia needs to avoid is bequeathing a lot of stubby articles to future generations of editors who will get stuck trying to find out anything more about people who have faded back into obscurity and for whom it is often difficult to ascertain if they are still living. Carcharoth We can delete articles whose subject had only ephemeral notability. In such cases nearly the only notable event, viewed in perspective, is that they once had a Wikipedia article. That is no reason to not have an article while there is public interest in them. We determine notability by information published in generally reliable sources which is not that difficult to ascertain. Fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 23 March 2012 14:04, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: It has been said before, but that is why specialist biographical dictionaries often have as one of their inclusion criteria that someone has to be dead before having an article. I'm not saying we should go that far, but there is a case for many BLPs of saying 'if there is no current published biography, wait until this career/life is over and make an assessment at that point', and until then either delete or have a bland stub. Define published biography. Two paragraphs? A page on a notable website? A news media article? A detailed criticism with life story mixed in? A whole book on them? (Define book.) You've come up with a criterion that seems cut-and-dry to you, but is actually horribly subjective and will be a matter for endless irresolvable disputes. It's not like arbcom is in *need* of more work ... - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
n Fri, 23 Mar 2012, Carcharoth wrote: [Some say] Notability, once attained, does not diminish. Unfortunately, WP:N says that too. What you're saying makes sense, but it is contradicted by our policies. If someone can meet the requirements for notability at one moment in time, they are notable according to our rules. Good luck changing the notability rules. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
n Fri, 23 Mar 2012, Carcharoth wrote: [Some say] Notability, once attained, does not diminish. Unfortunately, WP:N says that too. What you're saying makes sense, but it is contradicted by our policies. If someone can meet the requirements for notability at one moment in time, they are notable according to our rules. Good luck changing the notability rules. What we need is better procedures for changing rules. I've been bogged down anytime I tried lately. One or two folks come along and the situation is little better than one of these discussions. No close. fred ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 23 March 2012 14:04, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: I'm posting here an argument I made in a recent AfD, explaining why I think more stringent notability requirements are needed for biographical articles: And I see that the specific example you're talking about is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jim_Hawkins_%28radio_presenter%29 This is a rather broad and (as I've noted) hideously vague proposed solution to a very specific problem, viz. someone who is apparently well within notability guidelines wanting an article deleted because he doesn't have control of it, and is abusive towards anyone who tries to help. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 4:48 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 March 2012 14:04, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: I'm posting here an argument I made in a recent AfD, explaining why I think more stringent notability requirements are needed for biographical articles: And I see that the specific example you're talking about is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jim_Hawkins_%28radio_presenter%29 This is a rather broad and (as I've noted) hideously vague proposed solution to a very specific problem, viz. someone who is apparently well within notability guidelines wanting an article deleted because he doesn't have control of it, and is abusive towards anyone who tries to help. I've written on this topic before, well before this AfD. If you want, I can dig up the diffs, but I'm looking at the general case here, not this specific one (I'll post a response to your previous post that I had been drafting). I should have made it clearer that this is a proposal intended for all BLPs, not any specific one (but I thought that was obvious). And yes, I know any concrete proposal will have to be proposed on-wiki. I just wanted to bounce ideas around here. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 2:18 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 March 2012 14:04, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: It has been said before, but that is why specialist biographical dictionaries often have as one of their inclusion criteria that someone has to be dead before having an article. I'm not saying we should go that far, but there is a case for many BLPs of saying 'if there is no current published biography, wait until this career/life is over and make an assessment at that point', and until then either delete or have a bland stub. Define published biography. Two paragraphs? A page on a notable website? A news media article? A detailed criticism with life story mixed in? A whole book on them? I know that this is the critical point, and I never said it was cut-and-dried. It would need discussion, but let's actually discuss it (with examples) instead of dismissing it. What I would say is that Wikipedia biographies should have at least one source that 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Mestel For Leon Mestel, the qualifying sources would be his entry in Who's Who and in Debrett's People of Today. Those are UK-specific sources. What would the equivalent be in the USA? 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lieberman For Philip Lieberman, you have brief biographical paragraphs in lists of the contributors for volumes he has contributed to, plus the pages published by his university that summarise his career. I haven't been able to find anything else, but this will be the situation for a lot of academics. While they are still actively engaged in research, you often won't find anything beyond their university pages and brief biographical summaries for conferences they speak at as invited guests and in publications they contribute to. Ironically, his son has an entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, but he doesn't: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1798503/Daniel-Lieberman 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_W._Moore For Norman W. Moore you have an entry in Who's Who, an entry in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, biographical information in books he has published. The example of this in the article is now a dead link, but it can be seen here: http://www.nhbs.com/oaks_dragonflies_and_people_tefno_117959.htmltab_tag=bio You also have the example of a festschrift (this is a form of tribute, which would in most cases count as a solid biographical reference). 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._M._Hedges The final example, Robert Hedges, is more difficult. There will likely be suitable material out there, but I haven't been able to find anything that would really satisfy me yet. By the way, having some suitable level of biographical material published doesn't mean someone is automatically notable in terms of Wikipedia inclusion criteria. But what I'm saying is that if someone *doesn't* have some level of biographical material published, then that (and the type of material it is) should weigh heavily in whether to keep an article, how to treat deletion requests from the subject of an article, and how to edit articles that are kept. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 23 March 2012 17:10, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: For Leon Mestel, the qualifying sources would be his entry in Who's Who and in Debrett's People of Today. Those are UK-specific sources. What would the equivalent be in the USA? Who's Who might say this guy is notable, but the actual content is completely self-sourced. It's effectively a sponsored blog entry. This still looks way like you're saying We must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this. And that doesn't make a bad idea (which this really strongly resembles) into a good one, at all. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:16 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 March 2012 17:10, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: For Leon Mestel, the qualifying sources would be his entry in Who's Who and in Debrett's People of Today. Those are UK-specific sources. What would the equivalent be in the USA? Who's Who might say this guy is notable, but the actual content is completely self-sourced. It's effectively a sponsored blog entry. You miss my point. What I'm saying is that if someone who *could* have a Who's Who entry doesn't have one, then we should be asking why. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: What I would say is that Wikipedia biographies should have at least one source that I knew I should have finished the draft before posting it... That sentence was meant to say something like should have at least one source that is recognisably biographical. But really just delete that unfinished sentence. I also forgot to say that it would be simpler to just forbid the use of news sources on BLPs that lack non-news sources. It is the aggregation of factoids from various news sources to make a biography that is really unprofessional. No reputable biographer would do that. I'm trying to remember what I said in an earlier discussion (years ago now): if no-one else has attempted to write a biography, Wikipedia shouldn't be the one to attempt it first. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 23 March 2012 17:20, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:16 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Who's Who might say this guy is notable, but the actual content is completely self-sourced. It's effectively a sponsored blog entry. You miss my point. What I'm saying is that if someone who *could* have a Who's Who entry doesn't have one, then we should be asking why. Oh yes, it's definitely missing articles list stuff. Agreed. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 6:25 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 23 March 2012 17:20, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 5:16 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Who's Who might say this guy is notable, but the actual content is completely self-sourced. It's effectively a sponsored blog entry. You miss my point. What I'm saying is that if someone who *could* have a Who's Who entry doesn't have one, then we should be asking why. Oh yes, it's definitely missing articles list stuff. Agreed. No, I'm not asking why those with Who's Who entries that lack Wikipedia articles lack Wikipedia articles. I'm asking why those who chose to opt out of Who's Who (by not sending in an entry) are not allowed to opt out of Wikipedia. Sometimes the reasons for not wanting to be publicly listed in a publication like Who's Who are the same as for not wanting to be listed in Wikipedia. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On 2.3 March 2012 18:45, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: No, I'm not asking why those with Who's Who entries that lack Wikipedia articles lack Wikipedia articles. I'm asking why those who chose to opt out of Who's Who (by not sending in an entry) are not allowed to opt out of Wikipedia. Sometimes the reasons for not wanting to be publicly listed in a publication like Who's Who are the same as for not wanting to be listed in Wikipedia. Because Who's Who is requested self-written entries, and the people it covers are a large part of its market. Wikipedia is third-party coverage for the benefit of third-party readers. That is, they're a completely different species of thing. It's not clear to me how your comparison of the two actually makes sense. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] More stringent notability requirements for biographical articles
On Fri, 23 Mar 2012, David Gerard wrote: This is a rather broad and (as I've noted) hideously vague proposed solution to a very specific problem, viz. someone who is apparently well within notability guidelines wanting an article deleted because he doesn't have control of it, and is abusive towards anyone who tries to help. He's not well within notability guidelines, he falls under BLPs of marginal notability. Marginal notability BLPs are supposed to take the wishes of the subject into account with respect to deletion. Moreover, this BLP has been violating BLP policy for years. It doesn't matter how abusive he is off-Wiki; Wikipedia has failed here. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
