Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

This page documents an English Wikipedia policy.

It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcut

[[:|WP:LIVING WP:BLP]]

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles can affect real people's lives. This gives us an ethical and legal responsibility. Biographical material must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality and avoiding original research, particularly if it is contentious.

Editors must take particular care adding biographical material about a living person to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to our content policies:

We must get the article right.^[1] Be very firm about high quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,^[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.

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.

If you have concerns, either as editor or subject, about biographical material about a living person on any page, please alert us on the BLP noticeboard.

Rationale

Wikipedia articles that contain material about living people can affect their lives and the lives of their families, colleagues, and friends. Wikipedia is a top-ten website, and with this prominence comes a measure of responsibility. Biographical material must be written with sensitivity and a strict adherence to our content policies, and the subjects of our articles must be approached with compassion and understanding.

The Foundation and Jimbo Wales receive well-founded complaints about biographical content every day from people who are justifiably upset about inaccurate or unfair articles. This policy outlines the minimum standards our subjects can expect when we write about them, and when they complain about us.

Writing and editing

Shortcut

[[:|WP:BLPSTYLE]]

Writing style

Biographies of living people should be written responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone. While a strategy of eventualism may apply to other subject areas, badly written biographies of living persons should be stubbed or deleted (see #Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material).

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, factual, and understated, avoiding both a sympathetic point of view and an advocacy journalism point of view. Biographies of living persons should not have trivia sections. Instead, relevant sourced claims should be woven into the article.

Criticism

The views of critics should be represented if their views are relevant to the subject's notability and are based on reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics' material. Be careful not to give a disproportionate amount of space to critics, to avoid the effect of representing a minority view as if it were the majority one. If the criticism represents the views of a tiny minority, it has no place in the article.

Content should be sourced to reliable sources and should be about the subject of the article specifically. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association. Editors should also be on the lookout for biased or malicious content about living persons. If someone appears to be pushing an agenda or a biased point of view, insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability.

Sources

Reliable 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.

Material available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all. Material from self-published books, zines, websites, and blogs should never be used as a source about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below).

Editors should avoid repeating gossip published by tabloids and scandal sheets. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject. When less-than-reliable publications print material they suspect is untrue, they often include weasel phrases. Look out for these. If the original publication doesn't believe its own story, why should we?

Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research). Where the material is derogatory and unsourced or poorly sourced, the three-revert rule does not apply. These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel.

Administrators encountering biographies that are unsourced and negative in tone, where there is no NPOV version to revert to, should delete the article without discussion (see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion criterion G10 for more details).

Jimmy Wales has said it is better to have no information at all than to include speculation, and has emphasized the need for sensitivity:

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.^[2]

Using the subject as a self-published source

Self-published material may never be used in BLPs unless written by the subject him or herself. Subjects may provide material about themselves through press releases, personal websites, or blogs. Material that has been self-published by the subject may be added to the article only if:

it is relevant to the subject's notability;
it is not contentious;
it is not unduly self-serving;
it does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject; and
there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it.

These provisions do not apply to subjects' autobiographies that have been published by reliable third-party publishing houses; these are treated as reliable sources like any other, because they are not self-published.

A blog or personal website self-published by the subject may be listed in the external links/further reading section if not used as a source in the article.

Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

In some cases the subject may become involved in editing the article, either directly or through a representative. While Wikipedia discourages people from writing new articles about themselves or expanding existing ones significantly, subjects of articles are welcome to remove unsourced or poorly sourced material.

Jimmy Wales has warned editors to think twice when encountering such attempts: "... reverting someone who is trying to remove libel about themselves is a horribly stupid thing to do."^[3]

Anonymous edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person should be evaluated carefully. When the subject is of ambiguous notability, such edits should not be regarded as vandalism in the first instance, and RC patrollers should bear in mind that they may be dealing with the subject. The use of inflammatory edit summaries or vandalism-related talk-page templates should be avoided.

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to the subjects of biographies who try to remove what they see as errors or unfair material:

For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake.
— Arbitration Committee decision (December 18, 2005)^[4]

Presumption in favor of privacy

Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalism, we are an encyclopedia.
— Jimbo Wales^[5]

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

When writing about a person notable only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems, even when the material is well-sourced. In the best case, it can lead to an unencyclopedic article. In the worst case, it can be a serious violation of our policies on neutrality. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic.

Well known public figures

In the case of significant public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable, third-party published sources to take material from, and Wikipedia biographies should simply document what these sources say. 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. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out.

Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe." Is it important to the article, and has it been published by third-party reliable sources? If not, leave it out.

Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. He denies it, but the New York Times publishes the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation may belong in the biography, citing the New York Times as the source.

Material from primary sources should be used with great care. For example, public records that include personal details such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses, as well as trial transcripts and other court records, should not be used unless cited by a reliable secondary source. Where primary-source material has first been presented by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to turn to open records to augment the secondary source, subject to the no original research policy. See also Wikipedia:Verifiability.

People who are relatively unknown

Shortcut

[[:|WP:NPF]]

Wikipedia also contains biographies of people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known. In such cases, editors should exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability. Material from third-party primary sources should not be used unless it has first been published by a reliable secondary source. Primary source material published by the subject must be used with caution. (See Using the subject as a source).

Articles about living people notable only for one event

Shortcut

[[:|WP:BLP1E]]

Wikipedia is not a newspaper. The bare fact that someone has been in the news does not in itself imply that they should be the subject of an encyclopedia entry. Where a person is mentioned by name in a Wikipedia article about a larger subject, but remains of essentially low profile themselves, we should generally avoid having an article on them.

If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted. Marginal biographies on people with no independent notability can give undue weight to the events in the context of the individual, create redundancy and additional maintenance overhead, and cause problems for our neutral point of view policy. In such cases, a redirect is usually the better option. Cover the event, not the person.

Privacy of birthdays

Wikipedia includes dates of birth for some well-known living persons where the dates have been widely published, but editors should exercise caution with less notable people. With identity theft on the rise, people increasingly regard their dates of birth as private. When in doubt about the notability of the subject, or if the subject complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth.

Privacy of contact information

Wikipedia biographies should not include addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, or other contact information for living persons, though links to websites maintained by the subject are generally permitted.

Privacy of names

When the reliable sources used as references for an article about a living person or about an event involving one or more living persons refer to such individuals by name, the article generally can as well. On the other hand, when the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed (such as in certain court cases), it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. When evaluating the inclusion or removal of names, their publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories.

Editors should take particular care when considering whether inclusion of the names of private, living individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value. The presumption in favor of the privacy of family members of articles' subjects and other loosely involved persons without independent notability is correspondingly stronger.

In all cases where the redaction of names is considered, editors should be willing to discuss the issue on the article's talk page.

Preventing BLP violations

Semi-protection and protection

When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is sourced, neutral, and on-topic. Admins who suspect malicious or biased editing, or who have reason to believe that this policy may otherwise be violated, may protect or semi-protect the page after removing the disputed material.

BLP deletion standards

When closing AfDs about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, the closing admin should take into account whether the subject of the article has asked that it be deleted. There is no consensus as to the weight that should be placed on the subject's wishes, so this is left to the discretion of the closing admin. When a BLP is deleted, moving data to another article should be given serious consideration, but bear in mind that this policy applies to all pages of Wikipedia; material should never be moved from a deleted BLP as a way of thwarting the point of the page deletion. Also, if content from a BLP is to be merged, the edit history should be preserved due to the GFDL.

Disputed deletions

Administrators should obtain consensus before undeleting material that has been deleted citing this policy, and wherever possible, disputed deletions should be discussed with the administrator who deleted the article. The deleting administrator should be willing to explain the deletion to other administrators, by e-mail if the material is sensitive; administrators and other editors who object to the deletion should bear in mind that the deleting admin may be aware of issues that others are not. Disputes may be taken to deletion review, but any protracted public discussion should be avoided for deletions involving sensitive personal material about living persons, particularly if it is negative.

Courtesy blanking AfDs after deletion

If a biography of a living person is deleted through an Articles for deletion debate, the AfD page and any subsequent deletion review that fails may be courtesy-blanked, or deleted if there was inappropriate commentary.^[6] After deletion of a BLP, any admin may choose to protect the page against recreation.

Blocking

Editors who repeatedly add or restore unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons may be blocked for disruption. See the blocking policy.

Templates

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons applies to all living persons in an entry, not merely the subject of the entry.^[7] {{Blp}} may be added to the talk pages of articles with living persons mentioned in the article. It also may be added to the talk pages of biographies of living persons so that editors and readers, including subjects, are alerted to this policy. Alternatively, if a {{WPBiography}} template is present, you can add living=yes to the template parameters.

For problems with people violating BLP, you can use these templates:

{{blp0}} and {{blp0-n}}
{{blp1}} and {{blp1-n}}
{{blp2}} and {{blp2-n}}
{{blp3}} for when a block is issued

{{BLPC}} may be used on pages needing attention. {{BLPsources}} may be used on BLP pages needing better sourcing.

Dealing with articles about yourself

If you have a query regarding an article about yourself, you can contact Wikipedia via email. Alternatively, please refer the editors on the page to this policy. If you need help enforcing the policy, alert us on the BLP noticeboard, or contact an administrator; see Wikipedia:List of administrators.

Designated agent

The designated agent for Wikipedia is:

Jimmy Wales, Designated Agent
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
146 2nd St N, # 310
St. Petersburg FL 33701
United States
Facsimile number: +1(727)258-0207

E-mails may also be sent to: info-en "at" wikipedia.org (replace the "at" with @)

More contact data

Notes

^ Jimmy Wales. Keynote speech, Wikimania, August 2006.
^ ^a ^b Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 16, 2006 and May 19, 2006
^ Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude#Mercy: "3) Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, a guideline, admonishes Wikipedia users to consider the obvious fact that new users of Wikipedia will do things wrong from time to time. For those who either have or might have an article about themselves it is a temptation, especially if plainly wrong, or strongly negative information is included, to become involved in questions regarding their own article. This can open the door to rather immature behavior and loss of dignity. It is a violation of don't bite the newbies to strongly criticize users who fall into this trap rather than seeing this phenomenon as a newbie mistake. Passed 6-0-1"
^ Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 19, 2006
^ "...In the meantime, it is my position that MOST AfD pages for living persons or active companies should be courtesy blanked (at a minimum) as a standard process, and deleted in all cases where there was inappropriate commentary. This is not the current policy, but currenty policy does allow for deletions of material which is potentially hurtful to people." --Jimbo Wales 01:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden: "WP:BLP applies to all living persons mentioned in an article"

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

Rationale

Writing and editing

Writing style

Criticism

Categories

Sources

Reliable sources

Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material

Using the subject as a self-published source

Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

Presumption in favor of privacy

Well known public figures

People who are relatively unknown

Articles about living people notable only for one event

Privacy of birthdays

Privacy of contact information

Privacy of names

Preventing BLP violations

Semi-protection and protection

BLP deletion standards

Disputed deletions

Courtesy blanking AfDs after deletion

Blocking

Templates

Dealing with articles about yourself

Designated agent

See also

Notes

Further reading