Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

Welcome – report issues regarding biographies of living persons here.
This noticeboard is for discussing the application of the biographies of living people (BLP) policy to article content. Please seek to resolve issues on the article talk page first, and only post here if that discussion requires additional input. Do not copy and paste defamatory material here; instead, link to a diff showing the problem. Search this noticeboard & archives Sections older than 7 days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. Additional notes: Edits by the subject of an article may be welcome in some cases. For general content disputes regarding biographical articles, try Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies instead. Editors are encouraged to assist editors regarding the reports below. Administrators may impose contentious topic restrictions to enforce policies.

Ongoing WP:BLP-related concerns

The following subsections may apply to any or all Biographies of living persons.

Category:BLP Check

→ In re {{BLPC}} template and WP:BLPC

I created this page as a simple category to flag BLP concerns quickly: WP:BLPC. It seems like a good idea. - Denny 21:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Watch it fill up. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully it clears even faster. :) - Denny 21:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Very good idea. Nice one. -- ChrisO 07:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Update on {{BLPC}}

From template page: "Note - this used to use Category:BLP Check, but now shares {{blpdispute}}'s category of Category:Disputed biographies of living persons."   [ Update added here by Athaenara ✉ at 02:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC) ]

Recent changes to BLPs

A link to Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Living people has been added to the RecentChanges page under the "Utilities" row, titled BLP. This can facilitate the finding of vandalism to biographies of living persons to avoid a "Sinbad (actor)-type" incident happening in the future. Cross-posted to WP:VPN, WP:AN, WT:BLP, #wikipedia, and #wikipedia-en. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 18:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

There are over 8300 articles on living people that have the {{unreferenced}} tag. This is a list of them. (warning: pretty big page) —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 00:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh shit, that's worse than I thought.--Doc^g 00:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Just looking through a few of them, they have the unreferenced tag at the top but with no indication in the text what the problematic unreferenced material is. It would be good if people could be encouraged not to use the general unreferenced tag, but to add the fact/citation-needed tag to the contentious issues. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, {{fact}} should NEVER be used on contentious issues on BLPs. Uncited contentious material should simply be removed.--Doc^g 02:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Aye, and originally the list was going to include {{fact}}-transcluders AND {{unreferenced}}-transcluders but the latter is a bigger priority, so let's do that first. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 11:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

For now, I have completed my search. The result: 17 lists of articles (16 of which contain around 1000 articles) on living people that contain {{unreferenced}}, {{unreferencedsect}}, {{more sources}}, or {{fact}}. Over 16,000 articles on living people that are not completely referenced. Let's get working. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 16:54, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Unreliable BLP sources

NNDB Notable Names Database

• Special:Linksearch/*.nndb.com

Is the National Names Database a reliable source? The Talk:NNDB page discussion leans against using it. One editor mentions that Jimbo is very against it, especially as a primary source. It seems to be used quite frequently on biographies. I've challenged it on the Paul Wolfowitz page, but would appreciate more input from others. Notmyrealname 20:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not a reliable source for any sort of controversial or disputed information. FCYTravis 22:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Is this an official policy or just an opinion? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Notmyrealname (talk • contribs) 19:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

From WP:RS: "Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." We do not know who the authors of the NNDB are, and thus we have no way of knowing how credible or trustworthy the information is. What we do know is that many of the articles (c.f. the NNDB article on Michael Jackson) are written from a clearly-biased perspective with the intent of generating maximum lulz. Our biographies of living persons policy demands the absolute strictest standards of sourcing and neutrality when we maintain a biography of a living person, and further requires that we use great caution in sourcing any claim which may be controversial, derogatory or disputed. Citing NNDB for something like a birthplace is one thing, citing it for a claim that someone was arrested for <insert scandalous crime here> is entirely another. Even then, it shouldn't be cited unless it's absolutely the last resort - and if it is, we probably shouldn't have an article on the subject anyway. FCYTravis 21:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I ran into one case where the NNDB said a person was born in 1954 but his WP article said he was drafted into the army in 1962. Steve Dufour 00:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's the quote from Jimbo Wales-Why on earth should we consider it a valid source? It seems to me to be riddled with errors, many of which were lifted directly from Wikipedia. To my knowledge, it should be regarded like Wikipedia: not a valid source for anything in Wikipedia. We need to stick to REAL reliable sources, you know, like newspapers, magazines, books. Random websites are a very bad idea.--Jimbo Wales 18:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC) Notmyrealname 02:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

NNDB is definitely an unreliable source, especially when it's about sexual orientation, risk factors and trivia. As for the newspapers, their reliability is often questionable. By principle, the tabloids must be considered most unreliable sources... Bachibz, 04 August 2007

Jewish Virtual Library

• Special:Linksearch/*.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

There seems to be a similar problem as above with the Jewish Virtual Library, especially as a source for biographical information. Sourcing seems to be very vague and often cites wikipedia itself. A few examples: [1], [2], [3], [4]. As with the NNDB, if a source is determined to be unreliable, shouldn't it be prohibited from being listed in the references section as well? It seems that this might be used as a way to sneak in information that otherwise wouldn't make it into the wiki article. (I've tried to raise this issue on the Talk:Jewish Virtual Library page and the Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources pages as well but this seems to be a particular problem for biographical info).Notmyrealname 12:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I would treat it as a convenience source, with great care taken about POV. The sponsorship is by "The AMERICAN-ISRAELI COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE (AICE) was established in 1993 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3), nonpartisan organization to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing the fundamentals of the alliance — the values our nations share." The material posted there is only as authoritative as the source or poster may be authoritative--it always gives the source, but only sometimes the exact link. Looking at their index [5] of biographies, the individual ones link to a variety of useful sources of varying reliability. It obviously cannot be used to prove anything contentious--but since it usually omits negative information, little contentious is likely to be found.DGG 21:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, one concern is that it's a back-door way of implying a person's religion when there isn't a proper way to do it that complies with WP:BLP. It's extremely rare for them to site any of their sources with specificity (I haven't seen any cases of it other than "Republican Jewish Committee" or "Wikipedia"), so there's no easy way to fact check them. I don't see how this resolves any of the concerns that Jimmy Wales raises above about the NNDB. Notmyrealname 22:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

f1fanatic

• Special:Linksearch/*.f1fanatic.co.uk

This site is being used as a reference on a number of Formula 1 biographies. It appears to be fan-run and self-published site, without the fact-checking and editorial oversight WP:RS requires, and as such may not meet standards outlined in WP:BLP#Sources. Most, if not all, of the links were added by the site's owner(s) and/or author(s), which raises additional WP:COI issues. The site has other problems, for instance displaying images with no copyright info (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wallpapers/) and linking to copyvio Youtube clips (http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2006/06/18/100-greatest-f1-videos-part-i/). There has been some prior talk page discussion about the link's appropriateness (f1fanatic.co.uk as a reference, External link - F1F biography). --Muchness 10:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP#Reliable sources policy section itself

• Edit warring, protection, unprotection, non-consensus changes, edit warring, protection by administrator involved in previously editing this project page. For contexts of problems affecting the protected current version of this section of the project policy page, please see Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons (and archives). Thank you. --NYScholar 00:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC) [strike out in response to reply below. --NYScholar 18:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)]
  • As the protecting admin, I'll leave a quick note regarding the part about "protection by administrator involved in previously editing this project page". First, there are probably relatively few admins who haven't edited a policy page, including WP:BLP. Second, although the page is on my watchlist, I have for the last month or so stayed away from the constant disputes that seem to plague it. My last edit, and the only one affected by the dispute which led to this page protection, was made 10 days ago (on August 18). It consisted solely of a minor rewording and did not constitute a change in meaning. As far as the two issues currently under dispute ... I don't feel strongly about either of them. Third, the version I protected, inevitably The Wrong Version, was the one that happened to be there when I noticed the escalating (both in the nature of comments and frequency of reverts) edit-warring. — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I appreciate the reply here. The problems do not seem, however, to be the kind that further discussion is going to change. Discussion of the same problems has been ongoing for over three months. I think some degree of non-editorial intervention may be necessary. So many of us commenting on the policy statement have strong views about it that it is hard to reach what Wikipedia calls "consensus" and changes to the page have not, in my own and some others' views, improved it, so that the currently-protected version does not state what it used to (pre-August 12) even though there is clear disagreement about some phrases that have been deleted from the current version. Many editors (including several administrators) have expressed the view that the phrases deleted should remain. --NYScholar 00:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Possibly (the length of the "External links" section on the talk page, combined with the absence of any tangible result, is certainly not a reason for optimism). However, continued discussion (even if it leads nowhere) is undoubtedly more productive than edit-warring. Perhaps it may be useful to invite some new participants to the discussion by posting notices to the talk pages of other policy pages? — Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Following your suggestion above, I have posted a message about these concerns in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Re: WP:BLP#Reliable sources (talk page of WP:V); Wikipedia talk:No original research#Re: WP:BLP#Reliable sources (talk page of WP:NOR), and Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Re: WP:BLP#Reliable sources (talk page of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view), and in WP:RSN#Re: WP:BLP#Reliable sources (WP:RSN). Thanks for the suggestion. --NYScholar 18:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

---

|}

The eXile section on Michael Wines

• The eXile (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Strange section on strange newspaper. The intent seems to be to humiliate Michael Wines. Reverted by editor who called me a "gentleman from New Jersey." (What does he know that I don't?) 24.127.156.41 01:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, just noting your IP address, I have no idea as to whether you are in fact a gentleman. :) Regardless of what you think "the intent" of the section is, it does conform to WP:BLP. It is verifiable from previously published news sources, and obviously not OR. If you think it's not NPOV, rewrite it without removing info. I have initiated discussion on the relevant talk page. Dsol 08:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This reasoning is pure nonsense. The only reference cited is the eXile itself - which is not reliable - it is a libel factory. 24.127.156.41 10:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Note the references to yahoo news (which I already noted in my edit summary), and regarding the bure case, the Moscow times and pravda. Please read before you blank. Please assume good faith. This discussion should continue at talk:the eXile Dsol 10:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"two vaginas", "equine sperm" "We shit on everybody equally" (sic). Please don't pretend that this is anything other than a classic BLP violation! 24.127.156.41 01:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The sources cited do not use such a tone. I suggest you consult previous discussion at talk:the eXile to familiarize yourself with previous consensus on what sources are valid. I am now reverting since you refuse to engage in a real discussion. If you continue to revert without discussing at the eXile's talk page, you will be promptly reported. Dsol 08:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that it is citing sources, but not giving a specific source. It's not enough, especially for such a grievous problem to say <ref>New York Times</ref>. It will be necessary to give a specific URL. The Evil Spartan 21:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, there is no policy that references to print media require URLs, simply none whatsoever. Second, both references do have URLs at the bottom of the eXile's page, presently numbered 10 and 11. Third, I copy-pasted direct quotes from both articles onto the talk page of the eXile, with links.Dsol 21:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

from WP:BLP "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. Biographies of living persons (BLP) must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy.

This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons in other articles. The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material." Three people, including a long-term administrator, have now deleted this garbage - Why don't you just give up re-inserting it? 24.127.156.41 02:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Because it's not "unsourced or poorly sourced." References 10 and 11. Direct quotes are available on [talk:the eXile]]. The two other users made brief edits believing the material not to be sourced, and have not edited for over 3 days after I noted the two sources. Dsol 09:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I have read up on the source, and it appears to be better than I thought. It does have a specific URL for the Yahoo news story, which should be enough. The link to the Medialife story is a bit more sketchy; I know nothing of the Medialife website, and it doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of website that would go out of its way to ensure the inviolability of its content. At the moment, I think we could probably include it in the article, but we most certainly ought to say allegedly until we can get better confirmation. For all we know, they could be making this up, and the Entertainment talking heads are just blissfully repeating it without concern. The Evil Spartan 19:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, reinserting and modifying as per your suggestions. Dsol 20:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is a name needed here? The article is about the eXile, not about the target of its attacks. Remember "do no harm". The last sentence you reinserted is simply false 'Media Life also alleged that the attack was retribution for Wines' "fawning coverage of president Vladimir Putin."' The eXile said that the attack was retribution - and why should this accusation be repeated here? - Media Life was simply paraphrasing what the eXile said, as was obvious in their article but not obvious in our article. A reader of our article might think that Media Life said that xxx been fawning. And why should we repeat a paraphrase of a single unreliable source? Please remember "BLP must be written conservatively" 24.127.156.41 20:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I am glad you are finally beginning to see that value of discussion.

• Since you didn't see fit to respond the the arguments I made on the article talk page, let me repeat them here. Wines' identity is highly relevant to the stunt, it wasn't like they just threw a pie at a random person or a random journalist. Both the eXile article and the media life magazine made it clear that the reason he was attacked was because the eXile thought he was a bad journalist. Repeating this obvious truth here is obviously not an endorsement of the eXile's views.
• I don't see how anyone could read "ML says eXile threw the pie because eXile believed his coverage was fawning" and understand "ML says his coverage was fawning," that's just a nonsensical argument.
• You also didn't explain why you removed the additional sentence and link to Freedom and Accuracy in Reporting, which was also directly cited as a reason for the attack in the eXile article.
• Finally, "do no harm" is being observed, does not mean painting public figures in a positive light. Wines is a public figure, and we are not publishing any information that is not already published elsewhere. If you do a google search on his name, this story comes up on the first page of results. We are only including what has already been published elsewhere, and I have followed the advice of user:The Evil Spartan and included "allegedly where necessary."

It seems you are less interested in observing policy or improving the article than you are in censoring information related to a particular person. That doesn't fly here. Dsol 21:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Salon also provides an additional source for the stunt[6], and the New Zealand print publication "Critic" names Wines specifically[7] Dsol 21:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Your sources state that the MW article was an example of "vicious personal attacks on reporters" (Salon) and the New Zealand student paper (is this the best you can do for reliable sources?) "The eXile: a Moscow-based English-language newspaper that transcends the boundaries of 'decency' ... The eXile has made itself (in)famous for its vitriolic attacks on Western journalists." Please do not pretend that repeating this type of personal attack in Wikipedia passes the BLP "smell test." Why is it necessary for you to re-insert a claim that A____ K_____ has 2 vaginas? I'll remove this material whenever it appears without further comment. 24.127.156.41 11:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Keep it up and you will get yourself blocked. Dont' question my motivation, follow policy and follow consensus. Your personal opinion that it doesn't "smell right" is valueless. We now have 4 sources, if you like we can add more. If Salon says it was a vicious personal attack on the reporter, well Salon is a reliable source, so that can be included. So add it instead of blanking. Dsol 11:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Also from WP:BLP: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." Dsol 12:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

---

Let's "do without the salacious details." Also, do you really have sources that say "A_K has two vaginas?" or that "M_W_ was smashed in the face by a horse_sperm pie?" No, you have sources saying that a tabloid (the exile) said that. There's no reliable source for any of this, no need to include names. Nothing here but sensationalism.

24.127.156.41 10:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok:

• First of all, let's stay on topic: we're discussing the Michael Wines incident here. I'll leave Kournikova's name out of the article for now, and we can come back to it later.
• Next, both myself, the Evil Spartan, and Kuru agree that the Wines incident should be covered in some form. What we need to establish here by discussion and consensus of those interested is what form the section should take.
• The exact thing that Kuru said is "Honestly, we could probably do without the salacious details, but that's something you two should continue to discuss." According to him our task is now "finding some language that both illustrates the events and does so responsibly."
• I insist you defend your repeated claim that "sources [only said] that a tabloid (the exile) said that." Do you really believe this? Then how do explain the passages:

1. "Times spokesperson Katherine Mathis confirmed to Media Life that Wines was hit by a pie, but se could not verify that the pie contained horse semen." This is not relying on the eXile, Media Life actually names their source reached by telephone at the NYT.[8]
2. From the Salon interview: "After I told Taibbi I read the paper, he excitedly pulled from his bag a foul-looking photograph of a man with pie all over his face."[9] Again, the writer saw the photo for himself, and is not relying on the eXile as a source.
3. The other sources, namely the New Zealand student paper and the NY Post, do not name their source. It could be the eXile article, or something else. In general there is no policy at WP requiring secondary sources to have bibliographies.
4. The photos, of which there are at least 5 showing Wines and other NYT employees, are still available here. Are you saying they are fakes? That the person in them is not really Wines?

• Obviously, Wines identity is highly relevant. One of the main things the eXile does is to criticize Western journalists' coverage of Russia, and it had extensively criticizsed him in the past, along with other organization such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting[10]. Wines' work as a public journalistic figure is the reason he was targeted.
• I have already provided a version which you did not like. So please write one, that includes all relevant information, and we can work on it together. Remeber that (from WP:BLP) "The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral and factual avoiding both understatement and overstatement."

Awaiting your reply Dsol 11:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting other editors, e.g. "the Evil Spartan, and Kuru agree that the Wines incident should be covered in some form." This is simply not true.

The AK and MW sections should be discused together - they are both clear violations of BLP. They both contain "salicious" material, as User:Kuru put it.

Your documentation re: AK is one chatty "entertainment" piece in the English-language website version of PRAVDA. "Poorly sourced" would be a compliment to this article.

In the MW section there are 4 references, 1) from 1990 that doesn't refer to the incident at all. Otherwise, 2) a cite from the eXile, a completely disreputable tabloid, which says they attacked a reporter; 3) an article that includes as a sidelight, a paragraph on the incident, on Yahoo, headed "Entertainment and Gossip" and 4) a short piece from media life that quotes the exile, and got confirmation from the NYTimes of only that MW was hit by a pie.

The Salon piece and the Otago (New Zealand) University Student Criticism "Journal" haven't been listed in the article at all as far as I can tell. A brief look at their contents tells you that they think the exile is totally disreputable.

Beyond the poor sourcing, the material is salicous and irrelevant to any encyclopedic purpose. Wikipedia is not a tabloid (see both WP:NOT and WP:BLP) 24.127.156.41 12:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said above I'm just adressing Wines right now. Pravda is fine and I will add more sources for Kournikova later but till then it can stay out, I'm not disputing that removal at present.

• The media life reference alone is enough to source the whole incident. You mention that it doesn't confirm the contents of the pie except by quoting the eXile. True, but why did you remove the whole section, instead of just the claim that the pie contained horse sperm?
• Also, note the extensive photo evidence of the horse and its sperm on the eXile site. Look, this obviously happened, lots of sources confirmed it, and no source has denied it. What more do you want?
• For the 4 sources I wasn't counting FAIR or the eXile itself. The 4 sources are the yahoo link, which is actually a syndicated new york post article if you follow the links, the media life link, the critic link, and the salon interview. Yes, two of these were not in the version you blanked, but we can put them all in now. To call the incident poorly sourced is just ridiculous. How many independent sources do you need?
• You mention that these sources think the eXile is disreputable, but that is 100% irrelevant to our using them as citations for some factual event that happened. If you want to add to the article that many people think the eXile is disreputable, go ahead and use these as sources if you think they support that claim, but that is not relevant to this discussion.
• Wikipedia is not censored. You can't remove something just because you or someone else thinks it's "salacious." The only question is whether the section relevant to what the eXile is/does and well sourced.

Please explain if/why you think the material is still poorly sourced with these 4 references. Do you still advocate removing the whole section, or just Wines identity, or just the that the pie allegedly had horse sperm in it?

If you think the material is well sourced but not relevant to the article, please explain why. Dsol 12:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• (Dsol asked me to comment.) I don't have a strong opinion on this—the sources are not the best, but I don't think they're unreliable, either. I don't really see the potential for libel here: is anyone claiming that the material is false; that the pie attack didn't happen? They published photographs, it was confirmed by the NY Times, etc. The context should make it obvious that the eXile's claim of it containing horse semen is not to be taken as fact. (Although probably there's no need to mention the alleged contents.) For comparison, our page on Noël Godin prominently features his pie attack on Bill Gates, which I don't think anyone considers to be defamatory. — brighterorange (talk) 16:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It's good to see that Dsol has given up reinserting the A_K_ double vagina nonsense. The reinsertion of the material on the attack of M_W_ is fairly easy to deal with.

From Brighter Orange above. The context should make it obvious that the eXile's claim of it containing horse semen is not to be taken as fact. (Although probably there's no need to mention the alleged contents.) If it's obvious that it isn't a fact then it should be left out. User:Slim Virgin has removed this material before and User:Kuru has called it "Salacious." It's tabloid sensationalism that has to go under WP:BLP policy. (Note that WP:BLP goes beyond WP:Verifiability)

There's also no need to mention the victim's name (following Slim Virgin).

Given the "sources" which clearly are just repeating the tabloid's claims, if they are to be included, then the context in which they mentioned the claims should also be included, e.g. them citing the tabloid's 'Vicious personal attacks on journalists." Rough cut on these needs will follow in the article. 24.127.156.41 15:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I haven't "given up" on including AK's name, I'm just not contesting its removal right now.

• Wines identity is 100% relevant to the incident, he was targeted specifically for the journalism he publicly signed his name to, and for his equally public position as Moscow bureau chief. The criteria for notability and inclusion in articles is what secondary sources found notable; if he had been some random schmoe it would not have been news. I keep making this argument and you keep ignoring it.
• The pie did have sperm in it. You can see photos on the eXile website of the horse, the bag of sperm, the baking of the pie, etc. Even if we don't use the eXile's photos as a source for this 100% true fact, we can absolutely include it as an unproven allegation. It is established policy to use sources of questionable reliability as sources about what they have claimed or published, see WP:RS. This issue has already come up in past discussion regarding the eXile and was decided by consensus, please see the archive of the eXile's talk page and read that discussion before arguing about this further.
• Regarding notability of the fact that the pie had sperm in it, again secondary sources have judged it notable, in 2 cases even referring to it directly in the headline (NY post and media life).
• I have already explained about 5 times that at least two sources, and possibly more, are not merely repeating the eXile's claims, but had other verifications as well (phone call and photos sen in person). The other sources state the incident as a fact, and do not disclose whether they read it in the eXile or learned of it some other way, it is not common practice for journalists to divulge their sources. The text of the article makes this clear as well. Stop repeating this totally false claim.
• As I have said, the criteria for inclusion is notability and verifiability. Stop repeating lists of other WP editors and their statements and make and actual argument based on WP policy, or stop reverting. The only time other editors even slightly agreed with you is in making subjective value judgments that info is not necessary to an article, not that an actual BLP violation had occurred. BLP policy is very specific about what is forbidden, and everything is well sourced. If you think the tone is not neutral, rewrite it without removing info. If you agree with myself and others that BLP is not being violated but it's your judgment that the information detracts from the article and is better off out, let's continue this discussion at the article's talk page, since it is no longer a BLP issue but merely an editorial issue.

Dsol 16:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If you insert either name, that edit will be reverted per WP:BLP quoted above, without discussion.

I think I need to repeat this loud and clear: WP:BLP is not just about verifiability. It requires, in part, a conservative presentation of material about living people, "do no harm", no tabloid sensationalism, AND exceptionally reliable sources.

Your reading of WP:RS is very inclomplete, in particlular please reread the following:

"Exceptional claims require exceptional sources

.... Exceptional claims should be supported by multiple high quality reliable sources, especially regarding ... material about living people.

....

Biographies of living persons

See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Sources

Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully. Without reliable third-party sources, a biography will violate the No original research and Verifiability policies, and could lead to libel claims.

Extremist sources

Organizations and individuals that are widely acknowledged as extremist, whether of a political, religious or anti-religious, racist, or other nature, should be used only as sources about themselves and their activities in articles about themselves, and even then with caution."

(end quote from WP:RS)

24.127.156.41 18:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I made extensive and specific arguments, and you have not adressed them even in passing. Copy-pasting from policy pages is not real discussion. Dsol 13:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/A

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/A is a featured list. However, there are several people listed who are not referred to as "gay", "lesbian", or "bisexual" in any listed source. The first example I found was Christina Aguilera. The source listed notes that she kissed a woman in a media event, and said women's lips were soft. The article did not refer to her as gay or bisexual, and she has never referred to herself that way. No source claims she is gay or bi, and no source claims she has ever had sex with someone of the same sex. I claim that calling her gay or bi is OR, and could be seen as slander by some people. I removed her from the list, but my removal was reverted, and the page was protected (with the unsourced allegation kept). There are probably many more people listed who were never called gay or bi in reputable sources. (Jane Adams, for instance, is listed; however the source given specifically does not say she was gay or bisexual, but only that she had a long-standing friendship with a woman which was probably non-sexual.) What should be done? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 19:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone should scrub these and delete everyone without a source. THF 19:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, they all have "sources" -- the problem is, some of them have sources that don't support the statement that the person is gay or bisexual. I've looked through the first 20, and Jane Adams and Christina Aguilera are the only problems I've seen so far. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 19:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Since lists are often used as an alternative to categories, I am inclined to apply the BLP criteria for the use of categories to lists. That might be considered a bit harsh by some. - Crockspot 20:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Lists should agree with the articles, IMHO. The issue is also popping up at List of bisexual people, so a solution is needed. Maybe WP:LGBT should be alerted too, since that list is sort of their major brainchild. Circeus 20:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It strikes me that sexual orientation is rarely related to the reason that a person is notable. Simply listing people by purported sexual orientation makes just about as much sense as listing people by hair colour. The only individuals who should be on this list would be ones whose corresponding article describes their sexual orientation, and the reason that it is noteworthy. I tend to agree with Crockspot, though; a category makes a bit more sense rather than a list. Risker 20:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Not being heterosexual is normally considered unusual enough to make such lists pertinent,but this noticeboard is not the place to argue over this. Circeus 20:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Risker's point, being Polish or Mormon is rarely related to the reason a person is notable, yet we have List of Poles and List of Latter Day Saints. In any case, I don't seewhat objective determination we could make as to whether a person's notability is related to their nationality, religion, race, sexual orientation, or other defining characteristics. So long as we have adequate sources I don't see a problem with these lists as they are. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, unsourced allegations should be quickly deleted, it seems to me, and especially so in sensitive topics like this. It's especially complex for sexuality. One British MP was apparently a closeted homosexual -- after his death it was revealed that several people saw him at gay bars with attractive men, and one man claims to have been his lover. But he never called himself gay, and his family objects to the characterization. Another comedienne had a romantic relationship with a lesbian, but calls herself "straight". Another actor claims "I'm a bisexual who has never been with a man". These are are actual cases, by the way. The source for one woman casually mentions that another woman is her "life partner", but doesn't go into any detail on what that means. It's very thorny, and it's especially difficult because of the negative stigma that many perceive. I've kept all those cases listed, but I don't know where to draw the line. The Christina Ag case is pretty clear-cut, but others aren't. Keep in mind this is a featured list -- the best that Wikipedia has to offer. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 20:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The Christina case is by no means clear cut or we wouldn't be having an argument on her talkpage. All of these people are sourced with reliable sources about their sexuality, yes it is "sensitive" to some, yes, it is complex, but you seem to think we just found the first available source and chucked it in, when we have spent months, literally, looking for the source that says it clearest and most succinctly. The cases you have all mentioned above are fine, people in relationships with same sex, people who have come out regardless of their relationships, someone happily mentioning their same sex partner without feeling the need to say "yes, she's my life partner, we're both gay and have gay sex together, because we're gay" (which as far as I am concerned is a good thing). If you wish to slaughter the article because of some perceived stigma, that's your problem, not the problem of the people on the list, and certainly not the problem of WP:BLP. We're not making accusations, we're not inferring, we are placing people on a list and providing a source for other people to look at, sources that WP:LGBT considered convincing. And as that's what we do on Wikipedia, I rather think we ought to be congratulated for hunting down 113 separate references, not hounded because not every person on the list didn't say "I'm here, I'm queer, and I'm fabulous!". We have to face the reality that it's precisely because people's sexuality can be a sensitive issue, something people don't want to explicitly talk about, we're not always going to get the perfect source, the interview with the Advocate, the news article covering a civil partnership, sometimes we get sources we might not be best pleased with, but that doesn't change the stark truth that it conveys. Of course we observe WP:BLP, you will not find Jodie Foster, Tony Slattery, or Kevin Spacey on our list, even though we all know who they are. Just because a source isn't as top notch as we would like it (and believe me, if every LGB famous person lined up to tell the Advocate they were LGB, it would make my life SO much esier) doesn't mean we're trying to make people gay. But if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and has a reliable source stating it to be a duck... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

So. . . Ms. Aguilera has never referred to herself as gay or bisexual. . . no reputable source has ever referred to herself as gay or bisexual. . . and no source has said that she has committed an act that would be unambiguously gay or bisexual (e.g. had a romantic or sexual relationship with a female). And yet she is listed as "gay or bisexual" in a featured list, due to some editor's interpretations of her comments. Am I the only one troubled by this? Isn't this just the sort of thing that could lead to a libel suit against the Foundation? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Quadell, you know very well what a fatuous statement that is. You know that as a host, as long as the Foundation promptly removes libellous material on request we can't be sued for libel. You know that being referred to by a different sexual orientation than one's own is not in any way defamatory. And you know that Christina Aguilera, even were she straight, would not be so utterly outraged by claims she is bisexual as to drag a not for profit to court for everything they have. That's just stupid, and you know it.

And you should know, to judge by the numbers of times I have now told you, that one does not need to explicitly refer to oneself as gay or bisexual in order to be so, or have a relationship with the relevant sex. Michael Stipe is bisexual, but refuses to define himself as anything in protest of labels. Similarly Jim Carroll. There is no difference in the eyes of Wikipedia between someone who says "I like both girls and guys", and someone who says "I'm bisexual". In terms of categorisation, they are the same thing. I have provided you repeatedly with quotes where Christina Aguilera makes explicit reference to being attracted to both men and women. The entry which you so abruptly and nonconsensually removed from List of GLB people/A was cited - and in fact that citation had been changed during the FLC to a more explicit comment in order to satisfy the FLC reviewers: and they were satisfied. So your gumpf about how we shouldn't be allowing this sort of thing in an Featured List is so much straw, because that entry was explicitly endorsed in the FLC. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You are factually incorrect on a number of statements. First, we absolutely can be sued for libel even if we promptly remove it when it's brought to our attention. WP:BLP does not allow us to keep potentially libellous information just until someone complains. Second, many people would find it defamatory to be called homosexual or bisexual, and there have been many successful defamation suits brought for that reason. And thirdly, just because FLC didn't spot the problem, that doesn't mean BLP should ignore it. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Where exactly does BLP says that that all information that could be construed as libellous, even when it is reliably sourced to the subject's own words, needs to be removed immediately? Please point that out to me, that's sounds a fascinatingly silly idea and for the life of me I cannot find it it anywhere in WP:BLP. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If you put it as "reliably sourced in her own words", you wouldn't list her as bisexual. I know two different women who look at soft-core pornography of nude women as a sexual turn-on, but both adamantly identify as straight. I know a gay man who has occasionally had sex with women, but would be quite offended if someone calls him bisexual -- and I don't think Wikipedia should be applying a sexual label to anyone that they object to, unless the use of that particular label is sourced. Look, here is an entire page of letters from gay men who like to watch cunnilingus porn. You or me or some random Wikipedian might judge "he's not really gay, since he gets turned on my watching a woman receive oral sex", but it's not a judgment that belongs on a Wikipedia page unless it's sourced. There's no source that applies the label "bisexual" to her, and we shouldn't be the first. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 21:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

As a further note, one could easily see Bob Allen or Larry Craig listed on the same list. Even though neither member of Congress has ever referred to himself as "gay" or "bisexual", and even though no reputable news source has ever said they were gay or bisexual, a Wikipedian could reasonably claim that "straight men don't solicit anonymous sex from men in public restrooms" and place them on the list. But this is the exact sort of thing that WP:BLP was created to prevent. How is the Christina Aguilera case any different? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 15:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Because they've both denied being attracted to other men! Larry Craig's article has a long quote from him specifically denying he is interested in other men! Bob Allen claims he was in that bathroom because he was scared of the other guys in the park - at what point in either of these men's lives did they say "I think it's hornier staring at men more than women", or "God, I love experimenting my sexuality - men are so hot"? Do you see either of those two men on the list? But Chistina Aguilera DID say that about women and I am starting to be utterly mystified why you're repeatedly ignoring that fact and babbling about lawsuits; Aguilera is not going to sue us for pointing out she said she is attracted to women! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Please, I know we disagree, but let's try to keep this civil. I think that we shouldn't call someone "gay or bisexual" unless they have referred to themselves that way, or unless a reliable source has referred to them that way. It's really very simple. I don't think it's prudent to put people on a list of bisexuals based on your interpretation of "these bisexual-sounding comments mean she must be bi". – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 21:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think "I find women more horny than men" is bisexual sounding at all, but then I've said this to you four times already and there's no point rehashing it again. I'm going to bring it up with WP:LGBT and open the debate on the matter. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, Quadell, you're saying that a person must use the words "I am bisexual" in order to be considered bisexual, right? The question Dev is asking is - how does "I'm attracted to both men and women" differ from "I'm bisexual"? Do they mean the same thing?

On that same issue, if we were to require the words "I'm gay", we'd have to remove everyone listed that lived before 1914 when the word was first used to refer to orientation. That doesn't seem right, as I'm sure most people would agree that Lord Byron was bisexual, even if he never said the word. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying that a subject must say "I am bisexual" in order to be listed. I'm saying that a reliable source must refer to someone as bisexual for the person to be listed as bisexual. If no reliable source says it, we shouldn't be the first. Even if you made exceptions for those cases where the person has had relationships with both woman and men (documented by reliable sources), Ms. Aguilera still wouldn't count. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 04:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Rosalind Picard

• Rosalind Picard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A crisis is brewing about Rosalind Picard. The basic dispute revolves around whether the New York Times is a WP:RS and WP:V source, and involves appearance on the Discovery Institute Dissent from Darwinism petition. User:Moulton is now threatening to publish in the outside media at least two articles which are critical of Wikipedia's handling of this matter. I have rough drafts of these articles as well as contact information for Moulton, and a large number of emails on this subject. Several administrators have already been involved in trying to resolve this. I need someone to assist and look into this matter.--Filll 14:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've offered to mediate on the talk page. THF 22:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The "Dissent from Darwinism" article is a great example of the obsessive coverage of the "creation/evolution controversy" here on WP. This is a petition with 700 signatures yet its article is much longer and better referenced than many on genuine scientific topics. On Ms Picard's article half of the space is taken up by the "controversy" about her signing it. The point of the controversy in her case is that her field is computer science, not life science. Steve Dufour 02:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

There are reasons for this, obviously. For example: (1) When I first came to Wikipedia, and tried to help on evolution, it was very clear to me that with the creationist trolls constantly attacking the real science articles, we would not be able to make progress unless we built up the articles on the creation-evolution controversy to deal with this onslaught. And so I helped make subsiduary articles and articles on various aspects of the controversy. (2) The articles are actually not so high quality if you look at them, except for one or two exceptions. The creationism article and the creation-evolution controversy article are in pretty sad shape for major articles. Intelligent design barely managed to make FA and this was through tremendous efforts. The other articles on intelligent design and creationism are in general not so high quality. (3) In addition, people are interested in this controversy, and therefore there is more input and more people helping. (4) It is an area where people are confused, and are badly in need of careful documentation. There are many good books on Biology or Genetics or Physics. There are very few that organize and sort through this confused mass of information on the controversy, and most of those are quite partisan and show only one side or the other, and it is something that is important in people's lives and something people are confused about. Conclusion There are obviously many other reasons. I suspect strongly that the progress made in the last few months on the evolution article and related articles is due in large part to the development of more and better articles about the controversy itself, deflecting attacks from the main science articles. A similar thing was done at dinosaur and creationist perspectives on dinosaurs. Without dealing with the creationist issues in another article, it would have been impossible to make progress on the dinosaur article. I will also note that there are many many articles on obscure parts of religion and philosophy on Wikipedia. These are just things that people are interested in, so they get articles and develop. Eventually the holes in our coverage get filled in...--Filll 02:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the perspective. I would like to see better coverage of real science here. On Ms. Picard's article, I still think 50% is too much of it to be taken up by her signing a petition that has nothing to do with her field of notability. Steve Dufour 03:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write that and it is now being looked at. Certainly the discussion in her main areas of interest should be expanded considerably. I might also note that people are drawn to controversial subjects; look at how much effort went into the Creation Museum article when it was first opened. I also might note that just a couple of months ago, before I and a few other editors busted our butts, the assorted petition articles dealing with the controversy were in disgusting shape. Look at the histories. They were all expanded drastically in the last couple of months. And they could stand a little more fleshing our and opposing views and citations in some cases. This is hard work, but I think it will pay off to have a suite of articles documenting this controversy, which in itself is an interesting sociological phenomenon. Could I edit in my areas of expertise like mathematical physics and physics and applied mathematics and statistics? Yes I could, but I wouldn't be learning so much, and then I would be butting heads with assorted morons who didn't know what they were talking about and who were over-ruling me. So I mostly avoid areas that I know something about. A friend who is an editor here and a surgeon has ended up being completely frustrated trying to edit medical articles; it is too awful to fight the people who do not know anything but revert everything you put in the article and use consensus to put in nonsense in an article. So I edit these things that I don't know much about, and I can learn and still contribute a little.--Filll 03:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Keep up the good work. (p.s. I have noticed that most of the people whose articles come up on this page are creationists, scientologists, or republicans. :-) ) (p.p.s. I forgot alleged closeted gays.)(p.p.p.s. I think the critics of creationism would be more effective if they focused more on scientific debate rather than criticism of individuals. There is already beginning to be a backlash against that.) Steve Dufour 03:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

What the assumption here is, is that being identified as a creationist is a bad thing. Not to most of these people, actually. Look into this a bit before you make that unfounded POV claim.--Filll 15:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

In some cases being identified as a creationist could be harmful to a person's career. Being identified as an evolutionist might be too, for instance for a professor in a fundamentalist Christian school. So we should be careful how we identify people. Steve Dufour 04:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that both sides are giving way too much importance to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a 32 word petition with 700 signatures which has its own article and a category for its signers. Steve Dufour 22:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Steve's observation that disproportionate weight is placed on both the petition and the NY Times story in relation to relevant biographical content for scientists like Rosalind Picard and James Tour. Perhaps the NY Times story itself should have a section within the main article on the Dissent Petition. See this (overdone) first draft. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Given the information that has been released by our editor with the WP:COI-violation problem, Moulton:[11] and on various talk pages, it is clear that there is no WP:BLP problem here, only the actions that are consistent with malicious trolling at this point. All the evidence published in WP:RS and WP:V sources, the statements of Moulton, the private email conversations etc strongly argue that Picard knew what the petition was when she signed it, knew what the Discovery Institute was, no fraud was involved, Picard meant to stay on the Dissent petition, Picard is proud of being on the Dissent petition, the "Do No Harm" provision of WP:BLP is not relevant in this case, etc. I am sorry for having wasted everyone's time with posting this notice here. Please feel free to close it if you feel this is appropriate.--Filll 16:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I take exception to the conclusions which Filll draws from the E-Mail exchange (which is not in evidence). I propose that Filll and I agree to release our private E-Mail exchange to a mutually agreeable trusted referee or Admin to render an unbiased opinion as to what conclusions can be drawn from the E-Mail. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that there could be major problems if people are trying to use WP to put pressure on people to take their names off of the petition. Steve Dufour 01:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have no objection to Filll or anyone else offering such a suggestion, but making that a condition of easing up on them in a WP:BLP seems a bit heavy-handed to me. In any event, only one person is known to have ever gotten off the list, and no one seems to know what it took. I have seen editors assert that it's "easy" to do, but I have seen no reliable evidence to support that notion. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. However, this case is more likely just a troll trying to jerk us all around. I am not happy about it. I no longer feel obligated to AGF in this case.--Filll 01:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be more of a case of a (self appointed?) go-between for someone who supports the petition but thinks ID isn't anti-evolution, so wants WP to apply higher "journalistic standards" than the NYT without any published source. .... dave souza, talk 16:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It's true that I acted independently. Picard had no idea I had attempted to correct the inaccuracies in her bio until Filll sent an E-Mail to an MIT staff person presenting his view that Picard should take the initiative to get her name off the list. I can't say this for certain, but I believe the reason Filll took the initiative there was because I had declined to disturb Picard with this issue.

I think WP should have higher standards than the NYT. Steve Dufour 18:41, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Different standards – see WP:NOR, and remember that we are not journalists. ... dave souza, talk 20:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll agree with that. The issue in question is calling the petition an "anti-evolution petition", as the NYT did in a headline but not in its story. Steve Dufour 03:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

A single ill-chosen word in the headline of a single story is not a very good basis for elevating that kind of label to the status of fact for the purposes of publishing an encyclopedia quality biography of a living person. The term "anti-evolution" (which is both inaccurate and inflammatory) did not appear in the article itself, nor did it appear on the web site that the story is about. It may or may not be Chang's personal opinion, or some headline writer's personal opinion, but that hardly elevates it to objective fact. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

After what I know now, this is a ridiculous claim, in every sense. It does no harm. It is not at all inaccurate. There is no fraud involved and there never was. There is NO and I mean NO evidence that the New York Times got anything wrong here. And this business about having higher standards than the New York Times is ludicrous.--Filll 21:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The NY Times is a daily newspaper. One daily newspaper carried one story. That's not a very good basis for what appeared in the biographies of James Tour and Rosalind Picard. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think "anti-evolution petition" is fine in a newspaper headline. It gets people's attention and gives them an idea what the article is about. However we can't use that headline in WP (if we are going to be really strict about our standards). For instance the NYT might have a headline that says: "Red Hot Mets Win 5 in a Row", but we can't start an article by saying: "The Mets are a red hot baseball team from New York." Steve Dufour 22:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Take another example. I wrote an essay in a blog on Media Ethics which I blandly entitled, Wikipedia and Ethics in Online Journalism. When it was picked up and reprinted in a university newspaper published by the School of Journalism and Communications, the senior faculty editor (who is also the Department Head) rewrote the headline to read Wikipedia makes for a nightmare in online journalism ethics. I had no idea he was going to do that. Nor did he ask me if it was OK. He simply exercised his prerogative to craft a headline that suited his notions of what a newspaper headline should look like. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, it is clearly obvious that the Dissent from Darwinism petition is anti-evolution. People on all sides characterize it this way: For example,[12]--Filll 22:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The reference you provided seems to say the the petition itself was not anti-evolution, but the way it was mentioned in a series of newspaper ads was. Unless I missed something. Steve Dufour 00:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Calling the petition "anti-evolution" is both inaccurate and harmful to the 103 scientists. For one thing, most of the technical criticisms apply to the models for macro-evolution, not to the models for micro-evolution. That's because there are better mathematical models for micro-evolution, since those models are more directly governed by the laws of physics and chemistry. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Then use that as a reference, not a NYT headline. (I also think the expression "anti-evolution" is kind of vague. Some people might think that the petition is against evolution itself and wants us to go back to being chimpanzees.) Steve Dufour 23:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The term "anti-evolution" appears in the title of the NY Times article, and therefore appears in the reference citation. Let the onus be on the NY Times to defend the accuracy of the headline. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Huh? One can find lots more... But you have produced very revealing comments. Thank you.--Filll 03:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Then find a source that says the petition is anti-evolution if you want to say that in the article. Even so the whole question has very little to do with the person who is the subject of the article and shouldn't take up such a big part of it as it does, even though that has been improved. Thanks. (p.s. I still think the expression "anti-evolution" is not going to mean much to the average person.)(p.p.s. I was joking about us being chimpanzees. They are humans (family Homininae).) Steve Dufour 03:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

If chimps are human are you going to put BLP tags on their articles?Redddogg 21:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That might not be a bad idea. The Bonobo article puts undue weight on their sex lives. Steve Dufour 02:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, sexual behavior is probably the most notable and unique trait of the species. - Crockspot 04:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they are "persons" anyway, even if they are in the human family. :-) Steve Dufour 06:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not the time or the place for such discussions. However, you are welcome to any of your own personal views, and you are welcome to try to build consensus for them, but maybe not in this space. I believe these sorts of controversial and extreme minority views are markedly flimsy and unsupportable for a number of reasons. But I will decline to engage you further on these issues.--Filll 14:42, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I still have a problem with the expression "anti-evolution." I think most people reading that would think that a person who is anti-evolution thinks the universe was created in six days. This is not at all what the petition is about and probably not the view of Ms Picard. Steve Dufour 15:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Not that my personal knowledge means anything here, but Steve's hypothesis is closer to the ground truth than Filll's. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

BTW the word "anti-evolution" is found on 166 WP pages. Steve Dufour 16:22, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

<undent> The creation-evolution controversy is rife with terms that mean different things in different contexts, not least creationism and evolution themselves. Use of "anti-evolution" seems to be not uncommon in recent news articles[13], and indeed is [14] used by a Grauniad journalist whose bio describes him as "an international finance and human rights lawyer." Its meaning is clear, even if it's as ambiguous a term as Darwinism which you'll have noted is used in the petition. ... dave souza, talk 16:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I still think that labeling a person a "creationist", an "evolutionist", or an "anti-evolutionist" could have an impact on their careers in some cases.Steve Dufour 17:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no need for an encyclopedia to attach a label like that to a living person, especially when there is no reliable published information on that. And attaching the wrong label can not only harm a living person, it can potentially leave Wikipedia open to liability for defamation. After all, there are 101 more scientists on that same list. If you label one, you've effectively labeled them all. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's over 700 signatories, stop with the 103.

These 700 folks signed of their own accord and knew what they were signing. Besides, it's a matter of pulbic record, not of digging anything up or making anything up or implying anything that is false, etc, etc, blah, blah.

Third, if signing the petition and thus being labled as anti-Darwinian, hence by extension anti-evolution or creationist has "hurt" their careers I suppose these shining lights of scientific knowledge should have used a small portion of their brains to ponder that possibility before signing.

Enough, this grows tiresome. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 11:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

The very use of the word "evolutionist" in this context reveals that you have a POV which is probably inappropriate for editing these articles on this topic. There is no way that any BLP on WP written by someone in the mainstream would ever label someone who subscribes to the modern synthesis would ever call someone a "evolutionist". Outrageous. Absolutely outrageous and completely telling. --Filll 17:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The example I gave above was that it is possible that labeling a professor in a fundamentalist Christian school an "evolutionist" might be harmful to his or her career. I will admit that this is not going to happen very often. Steve Dufour 17:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

MIT is not a fundamentalist Christian school. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely astounding and outrageous that this comment was completely misunderstood. I would ask you, for the good of the future and in the interests of NPOV, to please voluntarily sequester yourself from any further discussions or editing of anyone who falls in one or more of the categories of "creationist", "intelligent design" supporter, "anti-creationist" or supporter of evolutionary biology.--Filll 17:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Choosing to sign a petition then continuing to give it tacit support by not publicly dissociating oneself from the use of the petition to attack evolution theory and teaching might affect someone's career, perhaps positively with well funded foundations looking to fund such positions. The claim that "anti-evolution" means Young Earth creationism is similar to the tactic used by intelligent design proponents who deny being creationist while defining "creationism" as insisting on a young earth / biblical flood. It is not supported by the Grauniad link above, which is about the old earth creationist Harun Yahya, or this link about Stein's intelligent design martyrs movie. .. dave souza, talk 18:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Please note that saying, "she signed the petition and didn't retract her signature" and drawing the conclusion that she therefore supports everything the petitioners support would be OR. Maybe she didn't withdraw her signature because she doesn't like bullies and thought police. Steve Dufour 19:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I draw no such conclusion, but do note that her name and position provide support for intelligent design every time the Discovery Institute refers to the current petition. Who are these thought police? Are they people who demand religious commitment? .. dave souza, talk 19:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. So to "stick it" to some potentially-fictional "thought police" (do you have any source for the existence of such an organization?), a person signs and maintains their name on a petition for over 6 years supporting a cause they disagree with, in the face of potential damage to their career? Somehow does not make a very convincing story. In fact, it sounds like a psychotic delusion. However, you are welcome to champion this view of reality. I believe you might find some difficulty gaining consensus for this viewpoint.--Filll 19:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to gain consensus. Besides, wouldn't everyone having the same opinions and thought processes be a bad thing, evolutionally speaking? Steve Dufour 06:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I am against the thought police on both sides. I do have to say in fairness that the pro-evolution thought police have not burned people at the stake. Steve Dufour 20:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, the 32-word statement calls for individual critical examination. It doesn't say what, if anything, to believe. It says to examine the evidence with a skeptical eye, so as not to adopt an erroneous belief. That's a core feature of the scientific method. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

And we needed a 32 word statement signed by barely notable people just to remind us of this? Please, that dog just ain't gonna hunt. Hell, it don't even git off'n the porch. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 11:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I made the observation that this petition (A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism) is way over-covered here on WP. It has its own article and a category for its signers. Steve Dufour 04:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

So far I have not done any work on WP's articles on evolution. I will continue to take part in discussions on BLP issues. Steve Dufour 18:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Your concern for people's careers is appreciated, though I'd hope that employers would realise that Wikipedia is an unreliable source. More to the point, a signatory to Project Steve might find difficulty in getting a job at the Biologic Institute, or for that matter the Creation Museum, but by signing a petition you put your support for opinions on public view, and if you feel your own opinion is misrepresented by the promoters of the petition the onus is then on you to make that public or, of course, to provide an explanation to your prospective employers. Hardly a good reason to censor mention of properly sourced information in Wikipedia. .. dave souza, talk 19:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not about employers. It's about cranks who read all kinds of crap in the media and then send hate mail (and worse) to people. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. Wikipedia's mission is to compile what is in the RS and V literature. If we followed the suggestions made here, we would REMOVE all BLP from Wikipedia. With no exceptions. Remove all information. Birth places, dates, career information, pictures, biographical material. All of it without exception. Which is clearly ridiculous and something for which no consensus exists.--Filll 19:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

You would be safe if all BLP's received a stamp of approval from the subject, saying there was nothing in the article that was both false and defamatory. Moulton 18:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Or their POV or self-promotion was presented to their satisfaction. That's not how encyclopedia's work. Your idea is too easy to game so will never fly. FeloniousMonk 04:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

de vivis nil nisi bonum dicendum est ? Uh, no. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149; 11:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I just found out that Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design has 170 articles on the subject. That seems like a lot to me. Steve Dufour 02:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• The biographies in List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" should be checked for compliance with blp and due weight. Some of these look like coat-hangers for debunking creationism. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that advocates of evolution should not feel the need to make personal attacks on the handfull of people who disagree with them. Steve Dufour —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve Dufour (talk • contribs) 15:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Noting that someone signed the petition is not an attack on them. In fact, if you checked, you would find, for example, that articles like List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" were actually created by a creationist here. One has to realize that this is not some sort of slur on someone and in fact is a badge of pride for many. Why do you think this is bad necessarily? Consult the information about the staff at the Biologic Institute, and the fellows of the Discovery Institute and the fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design.

It is also a bit silly to claim that people who sign a public petition should not have their endorsement of that statement mentioned because it is potentially harmful to them. One cannot have it both ways; alignment with certain public political movements and publicity campaigns, and then claim that their participation is harmful to them so it should be hidden. By this token, we should hide all mention of people's Jewish heritage, and remove all lists of Jews from WP. By this standard, we should remove all mention of atheism or humanism or skepticism or religious or ethnic affiliation from WP biographical information, and all lists of atheists, humanists, skeptics, pseudoscientists, republicans, democrats, communists, socialists, etc. Followed to its illogical conclusion, we should remove all biographical material whatsoever, and all names of all living people (or even dead people, since they might have living descendents).--Filll 18:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is just as bad, or maybe worse, for the creationists to use the people on the petition for their purposes. Steve Dufour 01:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I just found out that the petition has another article: List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". Steve Dufour 06:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ben Domenech

• Ben Domenech (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Regnery Publishing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Article cites Wonkette, among other questionable sources and likely WP:WEIGHT violations. THF 21:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Everything seems well-sourced to me - this was a rather notable exposé of plagiarism and I think a good example of the effects of the intersection of journalism and the blogosphere. FCYTravis 21:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

A blog citing an "unnamed source" -- "Wonkette subsequently cited an unnamed source at Regnery who said...." is really appropriate under WP:BLP? It was also on the Regnery page. THF 21:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I put a notability tag on the article since he is only known for being fired for plagiarism. Steve Dufour 02:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

And I've removed it, because Domenech certainly meets WP:BIO. He is a prominent blogger who founded one of the largest conservative blogs - this would be tantamount to deleting Markos Moulitsas Zuniga because he's only known for founding DailyKos. FCYTravis 02:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The article doesn't talk about that. It is 90% about his being fired from a job because of college plagiarism. (I have never heard of his blog BTW) Steve Dufour 02:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Then the article should be expanded and edited, not deleted. The fact that you have never heard of his blog is not cause to delete the article. I have never heard of Stanley Fish either, or probably more than one million of the things on Wikipedia. FCYTravis 02:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

However if the article doesn't ESTABLISH that the person is noteable then it should be deleted unless someone edits it to establish the person is noteable, particularly when it is a BLP and currently it only attacks the person because of some past controversy. I haven't heard of Stanley Fish either, but from reading the article I know why he's noteable. Nil Einne 11:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't consider that a great analogy - Domenech is most definitely not of comparable notability to Moulitsas. JavaTenor 05:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree that we probably shouldn't use Wonkette as a source for that, because no other reliable sources have reported on the same issue. Out it goes. If other sources are found later, it can be reinserted. FCYTravis 02:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The same language is in the Regnery Publishing article, and needs to be deleted there. WP:BLP applies to all information about living persons, not just the information found in the main subject article. THF 10:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Wonkette cannot be used as a source for information on any individual other than possibly Nick Denton. And even that's iffy. Quatloo 17:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben Domenech Steve Dufour 03:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It was decided to keep the article. However 80-90% of it is still taken up by his college plagairism and the 3 days he worked for Washingtonpost.com. I don't think it would be right for me to be the one to work on the article since I nominated it for deletion. Steve Dufour 12:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Regnery Publishing

• Regnery Publishing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I've removed material and protected this over blp concerns. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Guettarda objects to my removal and protection.[15] Review appreciated. Tom Harrison ^Talk 15:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Because it's (a) from a reliable source, and (b) about a corporate decision, not a living person. And, of course, because it seems that every time I run into Tom it's because he is using his admin powers to win content disputes. Guettarda 15:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at the history of the article, and I see that Tom harrison never edited it prior to seeing a report (whether accurate or not) of a BLP violation made at AN/I, and going in as a completely uninvolved administrator, deciding (whether rightly or wrongly) that the complaint had merit, removing the passage, and protecting the article. I can't see how that's remotely similar to using his admin powers to win content disputes. And, as usual, he has brought it to the community for review. If he's wrong (and I don't know whether or not he is), then the only accusation that can be made is that his judgment in deciding that it was a valid BLP concern was faulty. Every uninvolved administrator who acts on a BLP report has to make a judgment as to whether or not it has merit. ElinorD (talk) 16:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the issue here whether Wonkette is a reliable source for WP:BLP-related stuff? MastCell ^Talk 15:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

If so, I hate to say it, but it's probably not a great source for this kind of thing. WP:BLP, as currently written, has a blanket prohibition against blogs as sources. I personally think this needs to be tempered with common sense, and I'd generally make an exception for a blog like Wonkette, which is in the top 1%, or 0.01%, of blogs in terms of stature and reliability. Nonetheless, BLP also enjoins us to "avoid repeating gossip". An unnamed source speculating about the reasons for firing an employee, reported in a blog (no matter how good of a blog), strikes me as repeating gossip. Because of that constellation of issues (blog plus somewhat gossipy nature of the content), I think BLP, at least as currently written, suggests that the passage in question should be removed. As to abuse of admin tools, I have not looked at that issue and this forum might not be ideal to do so. MastCell ^Talk 15:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It isn't a blog for those purposes. Similar to how the New York Times now has "blogs" written by some of their reporters that are fact-checked and have editorial oversight. Wonkette may be called a blog but it has fact checking, editorial oversight and is published by a major publisher. So it is a reliable source. Simply because something self-identifies as a blog doesn't make it off-limits. It is a blog only in name. JoshuaZ 15:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Wait, you're calling Gawker Media a "major publisher"? That is LOL, seriously. And you're claiming they have "fact checking"? A heartier LOL. If you read the drivel that frequently appears in their publications such as ValleyWag or Defamer, one thing you know it is not, is fact checked. Quatloo 18:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Wonkette seems to be fall under the category of a blog-that-isn't-really-a-blog, i.e., it has content that is similar to lots of other sources and appears to have a reasonable degree of editorial control. If it distributed on paper instead of Internet tubes no one would think of it as a blog. I'm more concerned about the shadowy unnamed sources on which the Wonkette article is based. This isn't the sort of thing we should rely on. Are better (preferably named) sources available? Raymond Arritt 15:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I would generally consider Wonkette a decent reliable source, but with the current BLP fetish and the "gossipy" nature of the content in question, I'd lean toward excluding it. Just my 2 cents, though. MastCell ^Talk 16:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Good reporters use anonymous sources all the time. If this were from a print publication I doubt that anyone would be still objecting to the use of an anonymous source. In any event, if this is all the problem is, it certainly isn't severe enough to justify Tom protecting the article while he is involved. JoshuaZ 17:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

He's not involved. He never edited the article before. He came to it as an uninvolved administrator after a complaint was made at AN/I. He judged that the complaint had merit. He removed the material and protected the article, in accordance with the BLP policy. He brought it here for review. I don't have any opinion as to whether his judgment was correct or not, but if it wasn't then it would be just like blocking someone you have no prior involvement in because you were acting on a 3RR report, and erroneously judged a particular edit to be a revert when it wasn't one — a mistake, not an abuse. ElinorD (talk) 17:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

No Elinor - Tom came in, reverted the page, participated in a discussion with Joshua (in which he conceded that Wonkette was a reliable source) and then protected the page. He said it was an acceptable source, but that it wasn't "good enough". So after admitting it was a content dispute, not a BLP issue, he then protected the page and raised the issue here. That's abuse of admin tools. Don't protect pages when involved in content disputes (much like that other rule he ignores "don't block when in content disputes"). Guettarda 22:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with JoshuaZ on this. Refining BLP to prevent content from being used solely because a reliable source uses an unnamed source is a little troubling to me and seems to start BLP down a slippery slope. If Wonkette is a reliable source, then the inclusion of the content should be taken purely from a content inclusion standpoint without a consideration of it being a BLP violation or not. The very nature of a reliable source means that Wikipedia should "trust" the content they include. To do otherwise would make the source an unreliable source, wouldn't it? --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Let me be clear that I have nothing against anonymous sources in general, and of course good reportage and reliable sources use them all the time. But we're not talking about Deep Throat blowing the lid off Watergate here - we're talking about water-cooler gossip about office politics. MastCell ^Talk 18:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Which is a NPOV decision, not a BLP decision. The undue weight claim may have merit for the very reason you say, but that reason should not be applied to to the BLP claim. It shouldn't really be up to Wikipedians to decide where the line is drawn in regards to what content from a reliable source is a BLP violation and what is not. The presumption is that a reliable source always acts reliably when reporting, even when it comes to water-cooler gossip. That, of course, does not mean that just because a reliable source reports something that it has to, or even should, be included in an article on Wikipedia. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 18:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not Wonkette is a reliable source, if we're going to decide that this is, in fact "water-cooler gossip" then that alone would call for its removal. See the third paragraph of WP:BLP: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. Biographies of living persons (BLP)s must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. And of course this would apply to biographical material in an article like this. If the information remains, it would clearly make us the primary vehicle for spreading this information about an old scandal, whether or not it's been reported back in the spring of 2006. Also, I think it's definitely a BLP decision because more than neutrality is involved -- the importance of the information to the Regnery article needs to overcome the mandate to write articles touching on biography "conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy". Is this information important in helping readers to understand Regnery Publishing better? I don't know, but I think the answer to that determines whether the information should go or stay. Noroton 19:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Correct - I was referring to the portion of BLP that enjoins us to "avoid repeating gossip". MastCell ^Talk 19:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

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BLP tag removed

Someone took off the BLP tag from this article: Category talk:Signatories of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism". As far as I can tell all people included in the category are living persons. Steve Dufour 01:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

But, the category isn't a biography. Is there any reason it should be there? ←Ben^B4 02:11, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The BLP tag does not say that the article that it is added to is a biography, just that it is subject to WP policies on living persons. As I said, all the people in the category are living persons. Their signing of the petition could be a sensitive issue with their careers, so I thought it was worth putting the tag on the category. Steve Dufour 02:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Blp says the tag can be used on lists, but doesn't mention categories. Steve Dufour 02:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Jean Godden

• Jean Godden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Jean Godden - Mikesmash, a campaign worker for the opponent challenging Jean Godden, keeps inserting irrelevant and controversial material about Jean that is either not sourced or sourced to improper sources (blogs, "community weeklies" produced by supporters of Jean's opponent, etc). He has been called out on this and the material has been repeatedly deleted, but he simply reinserts things verbatim. His insertions are just simply of no consequence and have no business on Jean Godden's wiki page. I'm asking for some help as he simply reinserts anything that is deleted. Thanks. // Landsfarthereast 05:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the other editor in this dispute. Yes, I've volunteered with the Szwaja campaign, but Landsfarthereast is the Godden campaign manager and he's consistently edited out any criticism of said subject, even when it's been well-cited. He's even tried to edit out the names of the three primary candidates challenging his opponents, while posting increasingly condescending messages on his edits and on my discussion page. The instance that he's talking about was recently looked at by a neutral third party. He is speaking of two quotes criticizing Godden by a prominent housing activist (Google his name "john fox seattle" if you like.) who is mentioned not in a blog, but in two local community papers with editorial oversight. The statements are put into a balanced context and set against the contrast of statements in the subject's favor, as in an endorsement list of local organizations.

Fox did endorse her opponent, but isn't uncritical of him in said editorial. Another editor: Lawrence Cohen said the following:

The sources that Mikesmash is adding to Jean Godden appears valid for reporting criticism of a politician. Real Change News and Beacon Hill News are both valid news sources with full editorial oversight. • Lawrence Cohen 13:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

While I've done volunteer work for Szwaja like doorbelling and some sign making, Landsfarthereast as the campaign manager represents a huge Conflict of Interest and continues to edit out well-cited comments that are unflattered to his candidate. I request a neutral third party review of the situation. Mikesmash 06:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Warned Landsfarthereast regarding incivility in edit summaries. Raymond Arritt 06:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Joe_Szwaja#Criminal_past_section

• Joe Szwaja (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Landsfarthereast (talk · contribs)
• Mikesmash (talk · contribs)

I have no idea what this all is. I added a few newspaper sources that a trivial Google search reported to this page, now these fellows are debating rather angrily (mostly Landsfarthereast) on my talk page and Landsfarthereast put this on this political canidate's talk page:

because he is a woman beater, mike, and that hits close to home. maybe shattering a place in a woman's face is no big deal to you, but it disgusts me. so much for you being a progressive. i guess you're only a progressive when it's convenient. when it comes to calling out domestic violence, you're nothing but an apologist.

i've known a number of good friends whose lives have been tremendously affected by dv, and it is not something to gloss over. his son, who was 7 at the time of this incident, will live with this for the the rest of his life. shame on you for diminishing its importance. it is also something that TOTALLY DISQUALIFIES anyone from ever holding public office.

Could an admin check this out ASAP? Thanks. I don't think I want to be dragged futher into this in any way, and it looks somewhat out of control with anonymous users referring to political canidates as wife beaters, and people apparently trying to out each others' anonymous handles. Thank you. • Lawrence Cohen 06:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Lawrence, I apologize for dragging you into this. I honestly didn't expect it to get this heated. My contention in the debate is that this isn't worthy of a full section the size of which dwarfs everything else on a person's site. I never edited mention or citation of the incident out of the article. I merely condensed it to a size to match its relevance to the subject's life. The other editor has posted derogatory things to my Talk Page which I invite Admins to check out where he taunts me in an off-topic way. It's gotten really old and I would like Administrator intervention. Thank you and I apologize to everyone who's gotten headaches over this. Mikesmash 07:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

User:201.240.31.236, IP that had earlier been blocked from editing this page because of a vandalism revert war with several editors has come back and is expanding the coverage of a negative lone incident in the subject's life to a ludicrous degree. He's already shown that he's incapable of neutrality. Please block him from making further edits. Mikesmash 18:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

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Romila Thapar

Romila Thapar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Romila Thapar is a renowned Indian historian. However, her approach & promotion of her ideology has made her a hugely controversial figure among Indian communities worldwide.

Please note that the current article on Romila Thapar does not throw any light on the criticism she faces or the grounds on which allegations are levelled against her. The only mention is that of an online petition which protested against her appointment to Kluge's Chair and even here the cause behind the opposition is not mentioned at all. All the more strangely, a political commentrator's views denouncing her opponents have been incorporated.

All attempts at putting a NPOV regarding the criticism she faces, have been negated by a few editors on what I feel, untenable grounds.

As of now, the entire article reads like a bio of a lady with huge achievements and strong liberal views at some point of time inconvenienced by a loony group who had no cause except that they had nothing better to do. Ankush135 13:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I tried putting the tag of NPOV thrice. The same was reverted all the times. Even discussion on this topic is being prevented now Ankush135 15:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Author of this complaint persists in inserting OR critical commentary or discussion sourced to non-RSes in a manner that would overwhelm this very short article. Talkpage discussion has pointed this out several times.Hornplease 18:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The response does not address the issue that any attempt to bring light to the fact that Thapar's approach to history has been subjected to heavy criticism by a large piece of intellectual opinion on the right-of-centre. All attempts at pointing out that rather than sitting on judgement on the truth/verifiability of each of such allegations, a profile needs to mention that the person is also subject to criticism from large quarters, have been stonewalled under the pretext of reliable sources, which has boiled down to passing judgement on the controversies.

A perusal of the talk page, under the heads of 'NOPV' & 'Is it Romila herself' and all other previous comments, would indicate that I have repeatedly attempted to bring about a semblance of balance in the profile by mentioning that the renowned historian has attracted a lot of criticism. My intent isn't or for that matter, never was to prove that Romila is wrong/incorrect in her approach. However, any notes which indicate that Romila has been subject to controversies is edited/reverted. My contention again is that the author is not a subject matter expert that he decides on the strenght of allegations, particularly when such criticism has only been reported from newspaper reports and articles and not displayed as a fact.

Even in that page, the heading 'Views on Revisionist history' itself does not sound very neutral, as this again is an issue which put all Indian intellectuals into two camps.

Finally, all my attempts to put the NOPV disputed tag on the page has been reverted by the responsee. While finally it may be decided that I have all along been totally incorrect, I do submit that till the issue is sorted, the tag should have remained, for the dispute about neutrality hasn't been solved till date. Hence, post this message, I am again putting the tag back on the page. Ankush135 05:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Somebody please explain to this chap what reliable sources mean. I have linked to the policy, explained that BLP in particular requires the best of sources, and he persists in this. Note that this historian's relatively peripheral engagement in public causes has been mentioned in the article, and the best-organised protest has been mentioned. I don't see how adding the substantive details of criticism of her academic work by non-reliable sources is permissible under BLP. Hornplease 07:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Are you serious? The fellow was on a proxy server yesterday. He knows all about sock templates. He is just an impersonator. 59.91.254.33 08:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You are shooting off your mouth without basis. I use a remote access card for accessing internet when I am not using the office network. And if you are not technologically challenged, you will know that Remote Access Cards provide a different IP each time they get connected. I have always signed whenever I have made any edit or insert. Anyways, a crony/sock of yours has already blocked me from Wikipedia on pretext of being the Sock of some South Asian Troll. On what basis have I been declared a sock of some South Asian troll? Simply the fact that my opinion on one page differs from some administrators here? And what language? What does DaGizza think himself to be? A beauty queen? If it doesn't register, please note that Ankush 135 is the only profile I have. It is disgusting that dDaGizza has simply blocked me and all ips I access (automatically) from contributing without even attempting to verify? Is this fair play or is this the way Wikipedians promote knowledge sharing by way of healthy debate? Is this what Wikipedians are all about? Shame

Also, while now I cannot sign my name, you, o sock, what prevented you from signing your valuable comments on this page?

I appeal to Wikipedia to save objectivity from clutches of the likes of Doldrums/Hornplease and their many socks, for not only do they revert any objective insert or stop at removing 'neutrality dispute' tags from pages, they don't bat an eyelid while abusing their admin rights to block users who have an opinion divergent from them. Ankush (unfortunately, cannot sign —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.161.19.165 (talk) 14:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

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Jehan Mubarak

This article is being vandalized by user 124.188.225.58 who is reverting it to previous versions which includes non-factual and irrelevant/potentially libelous information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Priyanfernando (talk • contribs) 08:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's not the only problem with this article. It's been tagged for lack of references (2 that I can see, one about him brawling with a ref, the other a woefully outdated stat sheet--The stats on the wiki are as of May 2006.)--Sethacus 15:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

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Tim LaHaye

• Tim LaHaye (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Talk:Tim_LaHaye#Gay_Son - There is an edit war occuring at this page, but that is not what caught my BLP-eye. There is material included that "outs" LaHaye's son as a homosexual based solely on a pair of blogs. This needs some BLP oversighting. Something to note is that the editor who keeps including this material threatens to "wikiscanner" those opposed to the inclusion of this BLP violating, WP:UNDUE material. LaHaye isn't particularly notable for his stance on homosexuality, unlike a Dobson or Fallwell, although prior to becoming notable for his fiction this was his main claim to fame. Regardless, it is not a key to his personal notability and should be saved for an article on his son himself, not the one for the father of the adult being, potentially, libeled. // Kyaa the Catlord 09:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have added a statement in support of your reading. Let's see how its received. --Moonriddengirl 11:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. :) This one should be a no-brainer. Hopefully she'll understand easily. Kyaa the Catlord 13:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

(Another Republican) About half the article is taken up by a criticism section for opinions of people who don't like his books and/or don't agree with his religious beliefs, some from people who don't think he is fundamentalist enough. :-) Steve Dufour 00:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

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Raul Julia-Levy

• Rauljulialevy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Raul Julia-Levy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• User:Rauljulialevy who may or may not be the subject of the article (Raul Julia-Levy) has blanked the article several times (latest diff: [17]). As this may be a good faith attempt by the subject of the article who may not be too familiar with the Wikipedia procedures to edit the article in question, I will report the issue here. The latest revision [18] cites references from NY Times, LA Times and Court TV which I believe are reliable sources and has a neutral POV in reporting the participation of Raul Julia-Levy in the recent Lana Clarkson murder trial. Even though it may be a conflict of interest for the subject matter (if User:Rauljulialevy is the same person) to edit his own article, I leave it to the admins in this board to decide if his changes (blanks) are permissible // Eqdoktor 17:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• I cleaned up the article a bit and asked the user to provide corrections if any. The concern is that most of the material in the article is related to a controversy about paternity, as well as claims made in a lawsuit in which he was supposed to be a witness. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• More help is needed from BLP patrollers in this article. The article itself was referred to in the press: Detectives noted that a Web site, Rauljuliaofficial.com, was removed July 11 and entries on Wikipedia describing his ties to Raul Julia and a wealthy Mexican family were scaled back. [19]. The article about this person may need to either be deleted and slted, or scaled down considerably and protected. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
• As of this moment, the article doesn't look too bad. Rather than delete, I would suggest full protection, and deletion of the edit history up to this last version. It's a little harsh, but less harsh than deleting the article. We'll just have to watch it when the protection eventually comes off. - Crockspot 23:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that your idea is a good approach. Go ahead. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wish I could, don't have that bit. - Crockspot 02:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed a statment about a man he says is his father. This is clearly a BLP problem, unless the guy is dead. Steve Dufour 00:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Raul Julia has passed on, I believe. - Crockspot 02:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is permissible to leave that in (and the widow's rebuttal) - with citations and sources. On his website (and his dealings with the press) - he makes a claim of notability of being Raul Julia's son hence it should be included in his Wikipedia entry. --Eqdoktor 09:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know the elder man had died. I still tend to think the information about a claim is too trivial for WP. Steve Dufour 10:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you are right on reconsideration. Its better to err on the side of caution on BLP issues. Reverting to your edit. --Eqdoktor 12:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Timothy Paul Baymon

• Timothy Paul Baymon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - A minor edit war with a previously anon account User_talk:140.241.0.20 that admits to having a WP:COI[20] has now apparently gotten an account (Special:Contributions/Jade2K) and apparently now a different IP (Special:Contributions/70.194.112.60) now says he's contacting the office (User_talk:Bill_Huffman#Archbishop_Timothy_Paul). I could use some help so that it doesn't appear that I'm somehow biased. Can someone PLEASE help out? I don't like the threats and someone else reverting would really help. Or, perhaps I'm wrong and the current puffery version with no reliable sources is better than this one[21]? :-) My perspective is that perhaps a reasonable alternate is to delete the article due to a lack of notability and therefore a lack of reliable sources. // Thanks, Bill Huffman 00:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Judd Bagley

• Judd Bagley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - An attack piece masquerading as a "biography". User:Phil_Sandifer is currently edit warring even though BLP issues have been brought to his attention. // 166.166.105.245 17:34, 7 September 2007

• Subject of a current arbitration - the reliable sources used in the article unfortunately document the behaviour Mr Bagley is famous for - David Gerard 18:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

But then so did the reliable sources in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I favor deletion of the article of this small-time corporate flack, and I've said so in the AfD and in the previous AfD. However, if there is to be an article, I don't see how you can put lipstick on this pig. Such is the reliable sourcing, as David says.--Mantanmoreland 23:23, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

And so does Qian Zhijun, yet we don't have an article making fun of "little fatty". See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff. Why the double standard? 166.166.216.21 18:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Can I just say, Phil Sandifer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has acted dreadfully over this whole issue, including the page protection, the links and sources and the AfD. He also reverted Tom harrison's stubbing of it, and reverted my reversion of that, with no explanation. He's wiping his talkpage with vile edit summaries - take a peep.--Rambutan (talk) 06:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Murray Waas

Murray Waas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Please see discussion posted in Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Example of a positive version, which provides related links to a contested contentious source still linked in user talk space--cf. User talk:68.33.206.74,User talk:Excessinfo, and User talk:Ovid Plastering--despite a complaint from (what appears to be) the article's "living-person" subject (anon IP user 68.33.206.74?), who contacted me via my talk page archive 15 (linked there [too]). I used the dialogue with that anon IP user as an example in Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons concerning current version and editing wars over previous versions of WP:BLP#Reliable sources (See top of this page as well). Thanks very much. (This is from a concerned Wikipedia editor; I do not, however, have time to participate in further discussion or disputes about this matter due to heavy work obligations. I am just bringing it to the attention of this noticeboard out of "good faith" editorial concerns. Thanks again.) I have to log out of Wikipedia to do pressing work. --NYScholar 23:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC) [tc: trouble posting correctly; sorry. --NYScholar 00:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)] [Updated. --NYScholar 07:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)]

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Nayef bin Abdul Aziz

• Nayef bin Abdul Aziz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I've removed some of the most egregious violations, but this still needs a lot of work. Jpatokal 03:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Aiken RfC

• Clay Aiken (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Months ago material was removed from the Aiken article by individuals who have not edited there before or since, on the stated basis of BLP violations. In the last couple of days a huge debate has suddenly developed over this, and now there is a RfC. If anyone would like to comment, please do.[22]. Thanks. -Jmh123 16:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think there need to be more clear standards about this issue. It seems to be one of the most common reasons for an article to be mentioned on this page. Steve Dufour 02:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, Steve Dufour. I'm attempting to launch clarification of these standards at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Sexual_preference. You are mentioned in my proposal; if you don't want to be, let me know, and I'll unmention you. :) --Moonriddengirl 19:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Mention me all you want. :-) Steve Dufour 22:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Malicious content: Ty Pennington Bio

• Ty Pennington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The following malicious information was placed in the Biography of Ty Pennington, replacing correct information.

"Pennington is gay and was considered an unruly child and had difficulty performing throughout school. It wasn't until he was seventeen years old that he admitted he was gay and was tested for AIDS and was diagnosed with HIV. He is now a spokesperson for the Organization of Celebrities With AIDS. Additionally, his mother, Dr. Yvonne Pennington, is a psychologist who focuses on the treatment of HIV."

This info cannot be edited, because upon going to the Edit page, the true information (that Mr. Pennington has ADHD, not AIDS) is still present.

Your assistance in correcting this will be greatly appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wordshop (talk • contribs) 14:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Ebyabe has cleaned out the vandalism. Looks fine to me now. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Sajeeb Wazed

• Sajeeb Wazed (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - User:Kapedkrusader adding controversial, non-neutral potentially defamatory material to this article, using one reference which I would not consider reliable. I have already reverted several times, and I would appreciate it if someone gave this a look over. Recurring dreams 05:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Libelous content: Jane Eaglen Bio

• Jane Eaglen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - A few editors have repeatedly changed the content of this article, and in doing so, in my understanding, insert libelous material ("...communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or *implied to be factual*, that may *harm the reputation* of an *individual*, business, *product*, group, government or nation")

These repeat edits inject unsupported statements which reflect a tone of preference. The personal bias shown in these statements is only provided to demean the subject and counter the biographic material included, as sourced from printed concert-program biographies and music institutional websites (e.g. Metropolitan Opera).

Unless the editors are prepared to contrast, in detail, the nuances of season schedules of every major opera house in the world, I do not believe they can make claims as to “career stasis”, “career decline”, “clearly documented fact[s]”, and compare the subject with competitors without detailed in-depth writing on vocal fach, roles, size of venue, etc.. – I do not believe Wikipedia is the place for this.

21 Feb 2007 “That said, it is a clearly documented fact that Eaglen has had less engagements with top opera houses around the world compared with the case in the past.”

10 Feb 2007 “That said, it is a clearly documented fact that Eaglen has had less engagements with top opera houses around the world compared with the case in the past. Some have attributed this career decline to the rise of other dramatic sopranos, such as Deborah Voigt, Susan Bullock and Karita Mattila.”

10 Jan 2007 “Yet, her career seems to be already in decline after 2005, and her appearances in the top opera houses have become rather infrequent. The rise of certain other dramatic sopranos like Deborah Voigt, Susan Bullock and Karita Mattila may have contributed to Eaglen's career stasis.”

3 Oct 2006 “Yet, her career seems to be already in decline after 2005, and her appearances in the top opera houses have become rather infrequent. The rise of certain other dramatic sopranos like Deborah Voigt, Susan Bullock and Karita Mattila may have contributed to Eaglen's career stasis.”

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Another BLP tag removed

From Talk:A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which is an article about a petition that was signed mostly by living people. Steve Dufour 07:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If there is a problem with this template then maybe there should be another one for articles which mention living persons but are not strictly biographies. Steve Dufour 13:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

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Johann Hari

Resolved

UK journalist. The subject of the article isn't happy about some of the rubbish that keeps being put back into the article. This one needs severely hard-arsed BLP attention for highest-quality sources. (Note that e.g. Private Eye, though responsible for some top-notch investigative journalism in the back, mostly runs industry gossip in the front sections, so some bits are good sources and some are much less so. If the page number's in single digits, I suggest treating it with a very jaundiced eye and looking for a better source.) Soonest attention possible to this one would be best, I've been meaning to get around to it for ages but haven't managed it. (I've also pointed Mr Hari at this notice.) - David Gerard 10:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The article also seems to give undue weight to his controversial political opinions. Steve Dufour 13:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the consensus is clear that Private Eye and the other websites are not acceptable as reliable sources for the criticism which it is proposed to include in the article. Sam Blacketer 10:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Estrada

I consider myself a neutral party here. I have no opinion on Joseph Estrada other than I wanted to learn more. I already wrote a comment on the discussion section of the article. I find the current article very biased against him. It lists all negatives and all accusations as if fact. It lists nothing positive that I could find. I would greatly appreciate it if the article could be rewritten so I could learn more about this controversial figure. Thanks very much. -Larry Freeman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.103.214.64 (talk) 12:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The article does have a very negative tone. I think it should be rewritten too. On the other hand, the statements made about him seem to be sourced. Steve Dufour 14:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

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Barbara Schwarz

• Barbara Schwarz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - There is a proposal to merge the FOIA aspects of this article into Freedom of Information Act (United States), and redirect the bio to the FOIA article. The discussion is taking place here. // Crockspot 16:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

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Altaf Hussain

• Altaf Hussain (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) -
• RolandR (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User: RolandR keep inserting personal opinions of different people in Altaf Hussain page. It is totally BPL violations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altaf_Hussain#British_Citizenship Neutral Ray 04:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The user was addressed at his talk page about the material on September 9th, and he has not re-inserted it since, though his contribution log shows he has been editing. It's possible that this situation has been resolved. :) --Moonriddengirl 12:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

This issue was also addressed on Neutral Ray's own talk page by the admin who blocked him for BLP violation on this article, and by a second admin who concurred and declined to remove the block. The comments have been deleted by Neutral Ray, but can still be seen at [23]. Following the expiry of his block, Neutral Ray has continued to add libellous material to this article, and has again been reported for vandalism and BLP violation been blocked for a further seven days . RolandR 23:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

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Daniel Passent

Daniel Passent (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) In the polish version of the article is a sections entitled "Oskarżenia o współpracę z SB". It is to a large extend based on speculations and hearsay and as such may lead to legal problems. Nirrod 13:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

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Deb Marlowe

• Deb Marlowe (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

What is the policy on listing the real names of people who use pseudonyms? I created an article about author Bess Marlowe, and listed her real name, which I found in a listing of authors and pseudonyms. She sent me an email asking me to remove her real name from the article. I know that other articles (such as Nora Roberts) list the real name of the author as well as her pseudonym. I'd be happy to remove references to her name if that is the policy here, but I don't want to remove it if we normally include that information. Thanks for any guidance. Karanacs 23:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have (and do you actually reference in the article) a reliable source (or multiple sources)? If so, I don't see the problem with including the name. --ElKevbo 13:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• • IMO, the subject isn't widely known (but notable enough to pass muster), so the information wouldn't be widely known. If it's a name she publically uses or her name has been printed (with her consent) in an article or biographical sketch, include it. If not, and if the subject has privacy concerns or other genuine BLP concerns, I don't think it belongs in the article.--Sethacus 16:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

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Bev Harris

• Bev Harris (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Bev Harris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

A subject appears to have edited an article about herself. Just quickly scanning it, I am a bit concerned about the statement and sources added about Jeffrey Dean and John Elder. The sources are primary court documents which are published on a website she controls. I'm not sure if this violates WP:SELFPUB or not, but it would seem to on a couple of points. The footnoted text that hyperlinks to these documents seems like it also violates WP:BLP, at least in tone. The statement that these primary documents supports says that she "broke the story", but there are no secondary sources cited. I'm cross-posting this to COIN and BLPN. - Crockspot 19:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sid Haig

Sid Haig (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A while back much of Sid Haig's article was removed because it came from Haig's official website, which was a primary source. I reinstated the article the other day, using interviews with Haig to cite the information and changing other areas. Another user, User:Quatloo, one of the article's more prominent critics, still has a number of problems with it. For example, much of the most recent section isn't cited, but that is only because most of the information is readily available. (Such as his role as Spaulding). This can be seen in the discussion page. My question is if this article passes or fails BLP standards.--CyberGhostface 00:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Much more information is available at the Conflict-of-Interest noticeboard at [24], wherein it was revealed that the author of the article was Sid Haig's publicist. All I have done thus far is remove unsourced information, yet I have faced resistance to even that (even though, as stated above, it was written by his publicist). Now for my question: Blogs cannot be cited for third-party information on living persons, that much is absolutely certain. I'm not clear on the rule as to whether interviews in such blogs can be used. Can they? Quatloo 00:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Even more information is available on the article's talk page. It was never a secret, as you seem to think, that his Publicist wrote the bio. She is the one who licensed it to Wiki and worked with two admins to improve upon it. She "revealed", as you put it, herself from day one, not just to users, but to the admins as well. Almost everyone who helped with the article knows that, and everyone, admins included, was fine with it......except you. Why don't you know all this if you're so very involved? Try reading ALL the dscussion before you go witch-hunting. This obsession with that page and how absolutely no source fits YOUR requirements is silly and tiresome. You constantly remove sources, vandalize info, and generally make a nuisance of yourself. Why is that? I would also like to know what the admins think about the sources you have deemed unacceptable, as GyberGhostface does. I would also like to know what they think about your consistant abuse of this page and the people trying to fix it. At this point, they are pandering to YOUR standards, not Wiki's. I would love to know how Wiki feels about this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.58.52 (talk) 04:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, removing uncited information is not "vandalism", even if you want to characterize it as such. As for removing sources, yes, I removed a source "wickedcoolstuff.com" that was a commercial site offering a bobblehead of Sid Haig. I don't think any sane person would consider that vandalism, either. Finally, if you think having a WIkipedia article written by the subject's publicist is a good thing, you're probably alone here. Quatloo 14:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Not much of a reader, eh? Try again. Almost everyone who helped with the article knows that, and everyone, admins included, was fine with it......except you. If you took as much time to read all the available info as you do removing it from the page, you'd see that. It's really quite clear...to most. As far as saying you only removed one source, I could laugh til morning at that. Your numerous removals of all types of sources, too, is easily noted by the history of the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.58.52 (talk) 04:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If I removed sources in the past it was because either (a) it was a message forum, which cannot be used in any circumstance, (b) a blog used for third-party biographical information, which is disallowed per WP:BLP, (c) a source which did not in any way vouch for the information it was sourcing, (d) a highly inappropriate source such as a commercial offering for bobbleheads[25]. Removing any such sources is not vandalism. Instead of waving your hands yelling "we was robbed", if you actually state which specific past source removal is peeving you, and the reasons why it was wrong, it would be more helpful. You probably will not find very many sympathetic ears on this noticeboard. Quatloo 10:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Interviews in blogs

I am severing this from the discussion above because it is an independent issue. Blogs cannot be cited for third-party information on living persons per BLP, that much is absolutely certain. I'm not clear on the rule as to whether interviews in such blogs can be used. Can they? Quatloo 16:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That particular BLP prohibition extends only to self-published blogs. A blog associated with a newspaper, for example, is not self-published. Also, blogs written or published by the person who is the subject of the article are citeable. Note that just above that language on the BLP policy page is a caution about citing "questionable" sources, and a prohibition where they are derogatory. However, you could argue that an interview is actually "written" (in a way - it's spoken) by the subject of the article. It's also not self-published material. I would say that if the interview is legitimate, accurately transcribed, and presented in full or large portion (as opposed to selective quotation, which could be biased), and it's not available from a more solid source, and you're not pointing to defamatory or otherwise inappropriate material by citing the blog page, then there is no reason not to include the interview. It's as reliable as an interview found at any other site. Wikidemo 17:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

My query is restricted to third-party information, so blogs by the subject are not under consideration here. As for newspaper blogs: Some newspaper blogs would be considered not self-published, I agree. I would not necessarily blanket-extend that to every newspaper blog -- there may be newspapers out there that are less selective about the persons they allow to blog under their domain name, in the current desperate climate of that industry. Comments attached to newspaper articles are de facto blogs, and surely those fall under that category as well. Finally, I also think it would be an error to accept on faith the statement that "It's as reliable as an interview found at any other site." -- that clearly cannot be right. This issue is complicated. Quatloo 17:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point. With that in mind there is only a small class of interviews on blogs that would be appropriate. If it's a totally self-published small time blog and the blogger managed to get an audience with a notable subject, the reliability of the interview could be challenged. Having done a number of interviews myself, I know that transcribing them is harder and involves more judgment than you would think. They are almost universally copy-edited and cleaned up because few interviewees speak in perfect grammar without stuttering, repeating themselves or correcting what they just said, making an aside, placeholder words ("like, you know, um), etc. If you printed what came out of their mouth verbatim they would accuse you of trying to make them look bad. But when you edit people's words you can intentionally or unintentionally introduce a bias. There's the issue of selectively quoting an interview, as I mentioned above. Plus some are probably just plain misreported / misquoted. Even serious journalists are often accused of that. That's why I qualified my statement by saying it should be a substantial section of (raw) interview, not an edited report of the interview. If the blogger is just reposting an interview then chances are it's a copyright violation, which is unciteable. What's left are blogs published by reliable experts, such as a newspaper columnist, a commentator, a recognized industry blog (e.g. techcrunch), etc. Maybe the answer is that people have to use some sense and judgment in deciding whether an interview is reliable.Wikidemo 17:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I was with you until you cited TechCrunch as a paragon of reliability! Quatloo 17:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Not the news part, the interview part. I don't know if tech crunch does it but some of these bloggers will do interviews. Maybe there's a better example. Wikidemo 19:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Is a biography posted on a person's website with a GFDL license a useable source? This answer will hopefully resolve this editor's issues, at least the ones with this site. That is what the article used to be, and it was acceptable to both admins CBD and Glen S (who helped the original poster edit it to fit Wiki standards), and rated a B class article. Then Quatloo came to town, and well, you see. So, once and for all, for Sid Haig's page (or anyone's, I suppose), is a licensed bio from the actor's own site ok to use as an article on here as long as it's edited to be NPOV? (Which was done with admin help) A lot of people know the story with Quatloo and what they regularly do to his page if anyone dares make an edit to it, and I'd like us all to be sure, finally, whether or not they have any right to have destroyed the page as they have. Thanks. Still waiting for an admin to weigh in on this.

The above diversion is off-topic and inappropriate inserted between a query and reply, so I have moved it to the end of this section. However: Such material can be used with certain caveats, specifically addressed in [26], which is official policy. Two of these caveats are highly relevant. First, "it is not unduly self-serving." And the second, "the article is not based primarily on such sources." In the case which the anonymous editor above is complaining about, the entire Sid Haig article was the biography written by Sid Haig's publicist. That author, Sid Haig's publicist, was exerting ownership over the article and maintaining defensive edits over a long period of time, which was why it had been brought to the COI noticeboard. Later a bizarre claim was made to revoke the irrevocable GFDL license over the material in the first place [27] For whatever reason, certain parties want a lengthy, in-depth article on the subject. Inconveniently, almost no established sources write about Sid Haig. Because of this, what citations that can be found have had to come largely from interviews in obscure or questionable blogs. Quatloo 11:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, first, I was addressing Wikidemo. Second, this is a perfect example of you restructuring Wiki as you see fit, although this was not as destructive as others...kindly keep your mitts off my posts and keep your little labels ("diversion") to yourself, dear. Third, I will repeat yet again, all of your removals are right on the history page. All one has to do, such as an admin, is LOOK. Since when is IMDB not an acceptable source? Dread Central? Fangoria? Oh wait, that's right - when YOU decided so.

I'm no exert or authority, I was just giving one editor's opinion. I've been talking about the problem in the abstract. It really boils down to what the interview is, where it comes from, and how it's used in the article.Wikidemo 07:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think just about everyone who reads this Noticeboard on a regular basis will tell you that IMDB is not a reliable source. Quatloo 15:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Then it should not be that difficult to wait for an admin to answer, right? My questions stand.75.82.58.52 02:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Administrators carry no more weight than others in content matters, but here you go: the only aspect of IMDB that can be considered reliable as a source are its film credits (and only those not marked as "Uncredited"), because they are not from IMDB at all, but from the Writers Guild of America. Everything else is unreliable. Regards, —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 03:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely incorrect. The WGA tagged films are a relatively small percentage of the films in IMDB, probably less than 20%, and probably much less if you include foreign films which are outside the dominion of that organization. And WGA only covers authorship of the screenplay, not the actors appearing in the films. No reliabilty whatsoever should be ascribed to their listings, as they are anonymous and user-contributed. Quatloo 04:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, then. I was under a different impression, and checked WP:RS/examples before posting, which seemed to back up what I thought I had read many moons ago. Perhaps some discussion about removing that from the page is necessary. —bbatsell ¿? ✍ 04:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Raphael Bergmann (closed)

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Kamau Kambon

• Kamau Kambon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) -
• SenseOnes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - has been edit warring to re-add poorly sourced self-published contentious material that clearly violates Wikipedias BLP policy. This material is unsourced, contentious, clarly negative, and is meant to push a certian view of Kamau Kambon. [29] [30][31][32] Sefringle^Talk 03:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• User warned. If he persists, please post a note here. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

He just restored it again. [33] Sefringle^Talk 03:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

SenseOnes just self-reverted. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Neal Winter

• Neal Winter (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - The information in the article was sourced from media reports and alledged incidents only. The authenticity of this article is debatable, this could be considered defamation. // 218.185.73.168 06:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Media reports, if from reputable publications, are generally the sort of sources we look for. The article is lacking inline citations, which makes it difficult to verify each allegation, however. I'll take a look at it. --Moonriddengirl 11:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I have gone through and sourced inline every allegation, tightened the language a little bit and replaced the single dead source with two new ones. Every fact is verifiable now. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. --Moonriddengirl 12:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The subject of the article is a criminal, now in prison, with no other notability. Should he have an article at all? Steve Dufour 03:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Nominated for deletion. - Crockspot 04:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Phil Hendrie Talk Page/Article

User 216.93.229.62 made an edit on the Phil Hendrie Talk Page, under section "Phil Hendrie Dead" link [[34]]. Although he claims "why would someone made wikipedia say it" even though he was the one who made that false edit link to the edit from August 18th [[35]]. This user hasn't learned his lesson. ELO MnLynx Fan77 12:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Shepard Smith

• Shepard Smith (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The subject is an anchor on the Fox News Channel. The biography was one of the articles that Wikiscanner revealed to have been edited by IPs belonging to Fox, and it has been mentioned by at least one news story covering the Wikiscanner revelations.[36] No one asserts that Smith himself made the edits, or that he is even aware of them. The subject is already covered in Fox News Channel#Wikipedia edits and in Fox News Channel controversies#Wikipedia edits, which I believe are sufficient. We don't normally mention editing by the subject of a biography, so I don't see a reason why editing by a co-worker is notable. However two users (one a single purpose IP) insist on including the information in the Smith biography. Additional input or guidance would be helpful. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Another alleged closeted gay person. There is a lot of discussion about this on the talk page which probably should be removed. Steve Dufour 02:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Tammy Duckworth wants to remove her maiden name and birthdate (closed)

Frankie Muniz (closed)

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Paul Laxalt

Could someone please look at recent edits to Paul Laxalt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). A user with no other contributions recently added some material to the article which seems mostly true though unsourced. I reverted the edits, in part because some of them were placed so as to appear that existing sources in the article are also sources for the new added information. But perhaps there is a better way to deal with this; the other editor is acting in good faith and I don't want to get into a revert war but I also am not interested in spending much time on this article. By the way, the subject of the article is a former governor of Nevada and former U.S. senator, who once was involved in a libel lawsuit against the Sacramento Bee. --Mathew5000 09:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Star Wars kid (I promise I'm not talking about the inclusion/exclusion of his name)

We have a bit of a dispute going on with regards to the deletion of material from the Star Wars kid (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) talk page. User:FCYTravis deleted some comments from the talk page here. An IP reported this deletion at WP:WQA - this report and the subsequent discussion can be found here. I responded to the alert and raised the issue with FCYTravis on his talk page here. After a great deal of discussion, it emerged that:

• FCYTravis's justification for removing the material was that it violated WP:BLP because it "maligned a living person";
• The three other people who commented at the Wikipedia alert (besides myself and FCYTravis) felt that the material did not malign a living person, and should not have been removed;
• FCYTravis was not prepared to accept this as consensus, partly because there were too few editors and partly because he felt that it ought to be brought up here, since in his view it had "nothing to do with Wikiquette".

In light of the above, I am bringing the issue here in the hopes that it can be dealt with and consensus reached. Sarcasticidealist 10:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The comments were inappropriate, disgusting and entirely unnecessary comparisons of a kid dancing on a video to the actions of a mass-murdering dictator. Wikipedia talk pages are not free speech zones and may not be used to make attacks on the subjects of Wikipedia biographies. It is up to you to demonstrate why the comments in question should be allowed to remain. FCYTravis 18:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The same point can be made without bringing up hitler or blowjobs. Fighting to include the original comment is just bizarre and a waste of time. Leave the comment deleted and do something productive. Unproductively, R. Baley 19:48, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly the same point can be made, and the point was a pretty inane one to begin with. Still, editors can't remove each other's comments from article talk pages solely for inanity. That's why we need consensus on whether there was actually a WP:BLP issue there.

As for productivity, I'm a WP:WQA volunteer, so I consider it productive to try to resolve the issues that were brought there. This was one such issue, so I'm trying (so far without success) to generate a consensus on it. Sarcasticidealist 22:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The day "Wikiquette" is deemed to require us to publish disgusting insults about living people is the day that Wikipedia dies. How many times do I have to tell you that the people we write about are not fishbowl subjects to be gawked at, but actual living, breathing, feeling human beings who deserve to be treated with our utmost respect? How on Earth can you claim to stand for "good etiquette" while defending someone whose borderline-slanderous post violated every single rule of good etiquette? Sad. FCYTravis 22:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be miscontruing my position: I understand, accept, and support that insults to living people can and should be removed per WP:BLP. If consensus finds that the material you removed made the Star Wars kid look bad in any way, then that consensus will also have found that you were right to remove it. My position is not and never has been that we should allow insults to living people to remain on article talk pages; my position is that the material you removed was in no way insulting to the Star Wars kid. And that question - not the question of whether it is permitted to remove material insulting towards living people, which is already very settled - is the one on which we need consensus. Sarcasticidealist 23:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The analogy in the comment was more than a little melodramatic, but it compared concepts, not people, so I don't see how it could be a BLP violation. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 20:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I honestly don't see what the fuss is here. There's no way this is a BLP violation or even a civility violation. It's clear from reading the post that the editor was talking about what's occurring in other articles and that the same principle should be applied in this article. Renee 01:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The civility complaint was against FCYTravis for removing the comment. 69.12.143.197 05:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Renee meant that the material that FCYTravis removed wasn't a BLP or civility violation, but I could be wrong. Sarcasticidealist 05:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The idea that a boy dancing in a video is even close to the same principle as a dictator's mass murders is the very insult I refer to. It is spectacularly out of line to consider the two to be remotely equivalent. I'm sure I could find something slightly embarassing that you did when you were a 14-year-old child and splatter it on the Interwebs if I really tried. Does wanting that part of your life to be quietly forgotten make you into Hitler, too? FCYTravis 06:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of things that I've done that I'd like forgotten, and I've had the good fortune to have very few of them turn up on the internet (and even for those that have - hey, my name is Steve Smith, just try to google me). And if any of them became internet phenomena, I'd be very grateful for people like you cracking the WP:BLP whip about how much really needs to be in the Wikipedia article about them. Whatever my opinions on whether Star Wars kid's name should be in the article (and, to be honest, said opinions aren't fully-formed), I think you're fulfilling a very important function by making the case for the no side as forcefully as you are. But suggesting that invoking Hitler's name is the same as likening the subject to Hitler is nearly as silly as invoking Hitler's name in the first place.

I have sincere admiration for the work that you do in upholding WP:BLP. But in this case, I think you erred, and User:Sxeptomaniac, User:Reneeholle, User:Cheeser1, User:Bsharvy, and User:69.12.143.197 agree with me. That's rapidly approaching consensus territory, if it's not there already. Sarcasticidealist 06:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite know how to put this to you, but that comment is not going back in. The fact that the person who posted it hasn't even tried, should have your clue-phone ringing off the hook. The comparison is not necessary to make the point. All of this is a battle being fought over a matter which is already settled; to wit, the non-inclusion of a then-minor's name in an article about an Internet meme. Talk pages are not free speech zones, and material which is not relevant to improving the article or which is libelous may be removed. I believe that it is both borderline-libelous and completely irrelevant to improving the article to claim that the actions of a 14-year-old are analogous to the actions of Hitler. It is uncivil and unbecoming of us to allow such vitriolic attacks to remain on Wikipedia - talk pages are not free speech zones. I invite you to take this case to ArbCom and argue to them that we must allow random, pseudonymous users to suggest that the acts of a dancing child are the same as, and thus deserve no more protection than, those of Hitler.

The burden of proof is on you to show why the comment should remain, and I've heard not a single cogent argument to that end. Why does it need to remain? What important point does the comment make which outweighs its inflammatory and insensitive nature, and why can that point not be made without reference to Nazis? FCYTravis 07:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

When you violate standard procedures on Wikipedia, Travis, the burden of proof is on you, not others, to justify your actions. The comment was stupid, inflammatory and insensitive; but so are millions of posts on talk pages. That doesn't give your, or me, the right to remove them. "I don't quite know how to put this to you, but that comment is not going back in."? Sounds like you need to read WP:OWN, among other articles. You cannot make that decision. --Orange Mike 15:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree with OM. R. Baley 19:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent and comment to both) I can't believe you guys are still arguing about this. FCY, please don't use BLP as a club. And SI, it was an inappropriate comment, about a settled issue, that does nothing to further the discussion or improve the page. Leave it out, move on . . .spend time constructively. You're both really good editors and should spend your time here more wisely. Really my last comment, R. Baley 07:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC) Guess not. . .R. Baley 19:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It was an overly dramatic analogy. It wasn't a BLP violation but I can understand the "how does it compare?" question being raised. The comment shouldn't have been made, it shouldn't have been removed, and it shouldn't go back in. We should leave this now. violet/riga (t) 15:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree with VR, R. Baley 19:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it was a bit melodramatic, but regardless of how effective an argument it was I am still able to grasp the underlying point that BlueLotas was attempting to make there. More importantly though, it in no way compared any living person to Hitler; I'll admit the wording was a bit dodgy, but I simply cannot understand how the comments could be construed that way. The point that BlueLotas was trying to argue was that regardless of what the subject of an article wishes, at a certain point the merits and notability of the facts outweigh how the subject might feel about them. Regardless of the merits of that argument, it's a perfectly rational argument all the same. There was no reason to remove it. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 01:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The user who originally posted the comment has apologised. He has shown far more grace and good judgement under these circumstances than anyone else here has. I consider the matter closed. FCYTravis 06:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

To quote FCYTravis:

Thank you for the apology - and just consider your words more carefully in the future. Words are powerful, and they can be easily - often inadvertently - misused. I appreciate your grace and good judgment on this matter. FCYTravis 06:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

True, and something we should all remember. Likewise, FCYTravis, please remember how serious removing others' comments from talk pages is, and be open to debating removals.

I know some people thought this was a waste of time, but there were lessons learnt, and hopefully they will make us better editors in the future. 69.12.143.197 08:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Mousepad

Mousepad (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) Talk:Mousepad (edit | [[Talk:Talk:Mousepad|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) In a longstanding dispute over who invented the mousepad, an IP is posting allegations of plagiarism on Talk:Mousepad and repeats (and reverts removal of) those allegations. He accuses editors who remove this material of "pushing plagiarism". I've already removed the material a couple of times, warned the IP, and raised this issue at ANI. I think someone with experience here might want to take a look at it. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 16:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed on the forign-language versions (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc), the same editor added the person as the inventor. Since the statements used the term "invented" from a source that did not properly substantiate the claim, they were removed. However, the Spanish version of the page had some resistance from regular editors who thought the change was potentially vandelous. --Sigma 7 07:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Mitt Romney (closed)

Herman Jay Cohen (closed)

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John Bockris

John Bockris is a tenured professor who has made many controversial claims, and I personally don't think much of him. But his article is an inadequately-sourced hatchet job, and I think it could invite problems in its current form. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 17:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I took out some of the uncited statements. There is still a negative tone which I don't think is needed. The facts about him speak for themselves. Steve Dufour 18:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Elizabeth Jane McDonald (closed)

Rick Law

Rick Law (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This article has been the subject of two recent attempts to insert material that is not meeting the WP:BLP guidelines. While the info has been removed in both instances, it appears these attempts have been made by a user who has only edited the one article to insert the concerning information (twice under user names and twice under IP addresses). This appears to be a deliberate attempt at vandalism.

Robbmartinez was blocked for 1 week by FCYTravis. FWIW, I think the IP should be watched as they're obviously the same person, even though the IP hasn't edited since the 7th.--Sethacus 16:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Phil Hartman

• Phil Hartman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - A gossip column is being used to source claims indicating that a living person is responsible for Hartman's death.[37] An editor revised the claim to leave out names, but still clearly makes the cocaine use claim, using the same unreliable reference that makes the problematic claims.[38] Am I correctly identifying this as a BLP issue? // Vassyana 13:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The material about Andy Dick was a clear WP:BLP violation, in my view, and it was absolutely appropriate that it be removed. I don't see any BLP issues (or mention of cocaine) in the current article, though - could you direct me to it? Sarcasticidealist 14:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It was removed.[39] Vassyana 14:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay. That latter bit doesn't fall under WP:BLP, as far as I can tell, because there are no living people involved. It may be a WP:V issue, though. Sarcasticidealist 15:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Christene LeDoux

• Christene LeDoux (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Singingchris (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Otheus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This might be an odd request. Ms. LeDoux (singingchris) is a dear friend of mine for whom I created this BLP article (it was properly sourced). Recently we had a "falling out": She's asked me never to contact her again. Correspondingly, it would be unwise for me to have anything further to do with her article. So I have listed myself under COI. I am requesting the article be on someone's watchlist. --Otheus 17:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like the type of article that would be in any great danger of vandalism, etc. Steve Dufour 05:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Aleksey Vayner bio page

Aleksey Vayner page should be deleted or seriously re-written using only quality sources such as New York Times, MsNBC interview, and his interview with the Yale Herald. Current Aleksey Vayner Wiki page fails NPOV, contains libelous material, has minimal verifiable information, and “references” are questionable – most are sourced from blogs, which is against Wikipedia policy for living biographies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.19.71.175 (talk) 02:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no Aleskey Vayner bio page. There is a page about the Internet meme he inadvertently started. The guy was caught faking an entire life history, and the incident became a worldwide phenomenon. It is all sourced, and solid. The anonymous editor who brought this up has apparently not done anything else on Wikipedia. Vayner has made all kinds of ridiculous legal threats and posturing on the issue. The chance of Vayner bringing and sustaining a defamation suit is zero. Wikidemo 03:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"Aleskey Vayner" redirects to Impossible is Nothing (video résumé). The article includes extensive information about Mr. Vayner and, of course, is subject to WP BLP policies even though it is not a biography. I haven't checked out all the sources however. (This article is kind of typical of WP, the Internet, our society (?) Someone does something, well, eccentric and it gets passed around, talked about, and made fun of. But is this the kind of thing that deserves an encyclopedia article?) Steve Dufour 05:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I have my doubts, Steve, but it was featured in Forbes and The New Yorker... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Would it make sense to remove the redirect from his name? The article is supposed to be about the Internet cultural phenomenon, not about the person behind it. Wikidemo 23:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I would say no. People are really looking for the phenomenon, so if they seek it under his name (not knowing what Wikipedia calls it) they will be properly redirected there. Dab pages, as they say, are cheap. --Orange Mike 23:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. And thanks for your work on the article Wikidemo. Based on my experience here the article is here on WP to stay. BTW it did occur to me that the only reason for the "meme" took off was that people violated Mr. Vayner's copyright by passing his resume on. (Hence, in the world of Internet geeks doing something uncool is considered much worse than breaking the law.) Steve Dufour 21:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Caroline Cox (closed)

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Alan Titchmarsh (closed)

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David Baltimore (closed)

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Jason Leopold

STOP POSTIN DEFAMATORY AND LIBELOUS STATEMENTS ABOUT LEOPOLD AND THINGS YOU CLAIM HE SAID. THERE IS A PUBLIC RECORD AND HE NEVER, EVER SAID HE WOULD OUT HIS SOURCES IF HIS STORY WAS WRONG. THAT IS A MYTH PERPETUATED BY THE BLOGOSPHERE AND BASED ENTIRELY ON SHODDY FACTS AND SOURCING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.240.83.153 (talk) 06:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment - seems to refer to this text currently removed by 76.240.83.153. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the section. It has good references, although it is a little biased in tone. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the specific bits saying he'll out his sources, which are not supported by the references. It all seems well sources, but the overall tone of the article is quite negative, especially with the controversies section. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Additional material was reverted again, and I restored it. Someone else please have a look. ←Ben^B4 22:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Adam Applegarth

The entry for Adam Applegarth has been vandalized several times via IP edits; also the same IP# have twice added him to the page Impostors. I suggest protecting these pages from IP edits. --Pleasantville 17:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The IP editors who have inserted this information (there are three) have been warned. Maybe this will address the matter. If not, protection may be appropriate. The article on the whole violates WP:BLP, however. It's completely unreferenced, and BLP requires that all information--neutral, negative or positive--in bios be sourced. I have very limited time at the moment, but will see if I can dig something up. :) --Moonriddengirl 17:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Referenced now, which also may make it easier to explain referencing requirements to any other editors who try to insert unreferenced, controversial information. --Moonriddengirl 17:54, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

John Stossel

I am reopening a WP:WEIGHT complaint in the John Stossel article after a new subsection has been added to the already very long Criticism section. The previous complaint is here. I have expressed my complaint here. I am hoping to get some input from neutral parties, especially an administrator. There has been no edit warring. I took my complaint to the talk page before attempting any edits. I fear any edits will result in an edit war. The debate has been civil. But again, I would like some neutral parties to look at the article. --JHP 03:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT refers to the quality of individual sources, not the balance of the article as a whole. What you have is a WP:NPOV dispute, not a WP:WEIGHT dispute. And the way to correct it is to add reliably-sourced information to other sections of the article to make it more comprehensive, not deleting material in a section you think is too big. It is perfectly reasonable to leave a {{POV}} or {{POV-section}} on the article until it is brought in to balance. ←Ben^B4 14:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT is a subsection of WP:NPOV. If the criticism is all sourced to a couple of partisan organizations, which may or may not represent a significant minority view, and that criticism dwarfs the rest of the article, then it is a problem of undue weight specifically, and NPOV in general. - Crockspot 19:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with that. If a criticism section grows out of all proportion to the main part of the article it ought to be trimmed back until and unless the rest of the article catches up. Sometimes, as in this case, the criticism section is so long that it's hard to imagine an article of any length about a living person deserving such a long section. There's no rule of thumb, and more controversial people probably deserve longer criticism sections, but here the criticism is half or more of the entire length of the article. Worse yet, the criticism is not over any unique or special issue, merely a laundry list of specific incidents in his professional career as a journalist in which he was accused of reporting improperly or inaccurately. If he is an upstanding, accepted professional who is still active and not fallen into great disrepute I would say that's worth about 10% of the total career at most, not half the article. And if this is run of the mill stuff for a journalist in his position, perhaps no criticism at all or at most a couple sentences. I'll take a further look after posting this and may or may not act accordingly. Wikidemo 18:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up. I redid the criticism section to overcome the balance problem (but without removing any specific examples). One big issue to address was that it read like a litany, trying to make the case for each incident of criticism. As relevant to his biography, the issue is that he was criticized for various incidents of controversial and allegedly/apparently faulty reporting - NOT to have mini-sections about each controversial subject. In the course of doing that I saw the whole article was sloppy so I cleaned it up, reorganized material, retitled sections, reformatted, etc., again trying to adjust the balance but not removing any broad points. I think it's much better now overall, so I removed the various article tags. There is still a heavy amount of controversy described in the article, but I think that's fair because his job at ABC is apparently to challenge conventional wisdom, which inherently makes him a controversial figure. Wikidemo 20:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I second Wikidemo's comments and also affirm him/her for the excellent job. The article definitely needs building and improving, but it's on the right track at the moment. --Maniwar (talk) 20:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

My WP:WEIGHT complaint has been resolved. Many thanks to Wikidemo, Morphh, Maniwar, and any others who have worked to fix the article. They have done great work. I do fear that there is still a very low bar set to prevent very minor criticism from being added to the article in the future. However, I feel this is not just a problem with the John Stossel article, but is systemic to Wikipedia biographies in general. Some biographies have entire articles devoted to criticism which, quite frankly, would never happen in Britannica or World Book. I believe it is an unbecoming feature of Wikipedia. --JHP 05:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Where's George? (closed)

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Artimus Pyle (closed)

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Johann Hari second entry

This is concerning allegations inserted by the user Felix-Felix. To give some context, as reading though the page's history will show, the user Felix-Felix has described the British journalist Johann Hari (recently named as journalist of the year by Amnesty International) as "a self-publicising careerist, and an especially unpleasant one at that", accused him of being in favour of "the destruction of Untermenschen" , inserted into his entry fictitious claims he went to the most exclusive public school in Britain when in fact his father is a bus driver, and, most crucially, inserted poorly sourced and legally disputed claims that he "fabricated" a story he wrote about. This is a pattern of falsehood and animus that really worries me.

Felix-Felix is currently arguing that he can insert a new section, designed by his own admission to suggest Hari's journalistic standards have been seriously impugned. He does not have BLP or NOTE standard sources for these claims, as three wiki administrators have now told him.

There are four 'sources' felix claims to have.

(1) Private Eye. This is a British scandal magazine, which Hari was attacked by literally a week after he criticised its editor in print. One wiki administrator has said on this page it should be viewed with "a very jaundiced eye", another has said it is "at best 50 percent accurate" and "well below the encyclopedic threshold", yet Felix is insisting on using it as a source. This fails both BLP and NOTE, since Private Eye attacks virtually all prominent journalists sooner or later, as Felix has been told repeatedly both by wiki administrators and other wikipedians who have intervened in the discussion.

(2) A website called Counterpunch, which meets BLP standards, but has an extraordinarily trivial charge against Hari. They complain that he repeated in an op-ed column a story that had been reported in hundreds of newspapers. Even they concede that once it became clear the story was fake, he published an immediate and unambiguous correction which included a link to their own article. This fails NOTE.

(3) A journalist called Nick Cohen, who was responding to a very critical review of his book by Hari. This is (rightly) included in the entry already, since it passes both BLP and NOTE.

(4) An obscure pro-war website, which is written by friends of Cohen, who simply repeated his charge. This fails NOTE.

I believe this is an inadequate basis on which to build a section suggesting Hari's journalistic standards have been seriously questioned by wiki-standard sources. Felix-Felix disagrees.

Several wiki administrators have reversed his proposed changes and told him they are unacceptable; one today told him to "come off it", but still he persists. Any outside comment posted in the discussion page for the article would be very welcome to clarify this once and for all.

// David r from meth productions 19:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello, dave beat me to this noticeboard, which user:Vassyana directed me to. There is a dispute on the Johann Hari page about the insertion of the following passage;

Hari has had quality of his journalism criticised in Private Eye and in CounterPunch . Similar allegations were made by the website Harry's Place,following the dispute between Hari and Nick Cohen, which they were forced to withdraw from the site following the threat of legal action from Hari and the Independent.

To deal with dave's passage above, in order;

• The personal attacks; dave keeps repeating a number of these personal attacks against me, which I won't deal with here (as it's a BLP board), but I dealt with here [42]

Every one of the quotes has been sourced on the discussion page.David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• Admin opinion on the WP:BLP of my suggested entry seems fairly in favour;no-one except dave has suggested that it's defamatory, or false. FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That is flatly untrue. Anybody looking through the discussion page can see that several wiki administrators have said exactly the opposite, saying he cannot use sources that fail below BLP standards. Indeed, one has actively reversed the passage, removing it altogether from the entry, on these grounds.David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The difference of opinion, unless I have it wrong, is that Private Eye (or the front sections, eg Hackwa tch/Street of Shame)may or may not be a reliable source. As these citations were used only to support the statement that allegations were made, I thought that they would be OK. Some admins agreed with this [43], others were not so sure [44]. FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

One admin agreed with it, on the basis of misunderstanding another admin's statements about the reliability of Private Eye. Three others disagreed, as a quick look at the discussion shows. One told Felix to "come off it", another reversed his changes stating clearly they breached BLP. David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• Private Eye is a British satire and investigative journalism magazine, which also prints industry gossip, notably from the media. Dave maintains that all prominent journalists get attacked by Private Eye, which is probably an exaggeration, but would make the inclusion of the Eye allegations unremarkable, except that they are both for the same thing, which is the same thing that the CounterPunch and Harry's Place allegations are for.FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Harry's Place were directly repeating Nick Cohen's criticism, which is already included. Counterpunch's criticisms was for something different: they complained that hari repeated a story reported in dozens of respected newspapers, that later turned out to be false. As soon as Hari was informed of this, he ran a correction and linked to the Counterpunch expose. Three unreliable sources making (very vaguely similar) claims doesn't make them suddenly reliable; you cannot add up unreliable sources and get to reliability.

• The 'hundreds of newspapers' assertion that dave keeps making is a baseless one. The story was carried originally by UPI and the Washington Times, and was picked up later (4 days later)by Hari, who is criticised personally in the CounterPunch article by Carol Lipton, which you can read for yourself, here [45]. Again, it is dave's assertion that this is 'incredibly trivial'. (Hari's "immediate and unambiguous correction" can be read here [46], the only place it ever appeared, which it did on September 25th 2003[47], 5 months after Lipton's story (qv) and only after a lengthy email exchange [48].)FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

A quick Lexis-Search finds that it was reported in: The Washington Times, the Washington Post, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Indian, the Mail on Sunday, Le Figaro, El Mundo... I could go on for a while here. Correct "hundreds of newspapers" to "dozens." It is bizarre Felix doesn't realise this: UPI is an agency which supplies thousands of newspapers, so the fact they put the story out is a guarantee it would get into many newspapers. On the other points: Hari did not have "a lengthy e-mail exchange"; he exchanged a few brief e-mails with a reader who e-mailed him randomly to inform him of the Counterpunch piece, which he obviously hadn't seen. Hari printed a correction as soon as he was made aware of the atory. (Amazingly, he doesn't read Counterpunch every day). 'Journalist repeats widely-reported story, corrects it when he's told it's wrong' is indeed an incredibly trivial charge. What could he have possibly done differently?David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• The Nick Cohen spat is indeed covered in the article; Cohen called Hari 'deceitful' for claiming that his book had said (fairly irrelevant) things that it did not. Hari retracted this claim in his reply.This is covered in a round about way in the article.FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is flatly untrue. Hari retracted nothing about that review, and I defy Felix to find a single sentence written by Hari in which he does. David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• Harry's Place an award-winning [49] pro-war blog that repeated the details of the Cohen spat, including Cohen's accusation against Hari. Hari (backed by the Independents lawyers) threatened legal action, with the result that the entire post detailing the spat was taken down. This is notable, not just because it involves an award winning blog, but that Hari himself used to contribute regularly to it, and that the allegation made against Hari was the same type of allegation made by both the Private Eye articles and the CounterPunch article. FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought that I was careful in the above para not to violate WP:BLP, and I still find it hard to see how it does. FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Then let me explain. You have gathered together unreliable sources that fail basic BLP criteria according to several wiki administrators, and bunched them together to, by your own admission, create the impression that Hari's journalistic standards have been seriously impugned. You are trying to create an impression for which you do not have wiki-standard sources.David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOTE doesn't apply to sections in articles, although I appreciate that the principles do-if the allegation was just one in the Private Eye, then i would be forced to concur that it probably constitutes trivia at the most. However, the allegations are all for the same thing, are from multiple notable sources and the events are at least partly current. The article's subject has made an ORTS complaint which is, (I assume) everyone is super twitchy about the article, but is the passage a WP:BLP vio?FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

By Felix's own admission, he is trying to create the impression that Hari's journalistic credibility has been seriously questioned. Three wiki administrators have now told him his sources fail basic BLP and NOTE criteria, and he cannot do it. Even he now admits the charges are trivial. The sources he is offering do not meet BLP and NOTE. Putting together three sources that fail to meet BLP and NOTE doesn't make them stronger. An unreliable source is an unreliable source. Adding them together in aggregate does not suddenly make them pass BLP criteria. People are not "super-twitchy"; they just don't want you to insert material that fails basic wikipedia rules.David r from meth productions 21:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Dave, I'm presuming that you're going to try and insert line by line rebuttals into this body of text. Please don't-it will quickly become impenetrable. I appreciate that on the talk page, I have been doing it too, but on this notice board, we're trying to get people who aren't familiar with the ins and outs of this to give an opinion and we should be as clear as possible, if we're going to ask them for their time.FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I can well understand that you do not want people to hear your claims rebutted, Felix. I think experienced wikipedians are more than capable of following this, and seeing what you're up to. Three wiki administrators have upbraided you for inserting non-BLP and non-NOTE standard sources into the entry. It is plain to see why you want to prevent the facts becoming clear. 86.157.118.58 21:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

FelixFelix ^talk 20:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Nina Totenberg

Someone has repeatedly removed material about her educationaal level, which is relevant to her ability to do her job, and which is routinely included in other wikipedia biographies of media personnel. E.g., for Sean Hannity: Education Hannity attended St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale in Long Island, graduating in 1980 with a high school diploma. He dropped out of New York University and decided to pursue a radio career.[2]

Kindly restored the deleted educational info on Totenberg. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.244.100.197 (talk) 20:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The information removed reflected badly on the article's subject and was not sourced. It was also worded in a very POV fashion. Removing it is entirely compliant with WP:BLP. Sarcasticidealist 21:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)