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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP. AfD closed as out of process. This Afd arose from a request from a legal authority to delete an article and should have been referred to the WMF, whose legal counsel can determine whether or not it is legally necessary to comply with the order. The advice from the WMF was that no order had been made, this was just a request from a UK police force. Closed without prejudice to a further nomination relating to Wikipedia policy. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:52, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Death of Sian O'Callaghan

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AfDs for this article:
Death of Sian O'Callaghan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Law enforcement in the UK has requested deletion of this page in order to mitigate pre-trial publicity and ensure a fair trial for the defendant. The page can be restored later if the event remains notable. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support This request seems reasonable. Specific details may be both wrong and prejudicial. I note no editing of the article for 6 months; it seems public interest in the matter is negligible. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment Your nomination counts as your !=vote, so you should strike your second post of support for the deletion. Edison (talk) 22:13, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Reading through it for a second time I see there is information that could cause issues which I missed during my first pass, so I completely agree it should go. I know here is not the place for such a discussion, but I wonder if we shouldn't have some rules to cover this sort of thing as a lot of these types of articles tend to get created, and a good deal of them appear while legal proceedings are still ongoing. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • This can be discussed in some appropriate forum, whatever that is. I did not feel comfortable simply stiffing them when it is a perfectly reasonable request. If it involved political corruption it would be an entirely different, and unacceptable, thing. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – and strongly object to reguest. Thank you Fred Bauder informing us of the the request.
    <rant> I did not know British law enforcement had the right to censor the Internet. Or, in fact I did: just recently an article that used a photo by me disappeared from the on-line version of Daily Mail. I have been wondering how the request, most likely originating from Mart Laar, reached the editorial staff of Mail Online. I now see that "British law enforcement" was part of the chain. I am not arguing against censorship, I can well imagine living in a world where censorship is the rule of the land. What I most object to is sneaky censorship done under a imaginary cover of "freedom of speech." For this freedom we have given up a number of other rights. Let's stick to it! </rant>
  • If the suspect is convicted, this would be a case of a serial killer. British serial killers are notable. I cannot see this story going away anytime soon.
    Britain places sever restrictions on reporting of crime cases before or during the trial. A moral dilemma often encountered is when foreign media publishes details that would be illegal to publish in Britain and this information reaches Britain over the Internet or by other means. I can see no such problem in this case; all the sources used are high quality British sources.
    If something really needed to be done in this case then a possible solution would be courtesy blanking with possibly locking of the article or even hiding the version history for the duration of the trial. There is absolutely nothing in Wikipedia policy, that would allow deletion of the article. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:18, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What they actually requested was removal of information about the investigation during a certain time frame. I've put it up to the community for consideration. Blanking and protection is one possibility. Hiding of the history goes beyond deletion, even administrators could not see it, but like deletion is reversible following trial. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Wikipedia should never fall for pressure from outside requests for censoring of material. Also its notable and within WP:GNG so to delete it would go against Wikipedia policys that has been placed there by the community. And is the user who placed this AfD here really suggesting censorship of sourced information already available all over internet? Soon we will have thousands of requests by people who are mentioned on Wikipedia wanting to do some censoring about their lives.--BabbaQ (talk) 17:54, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Easily meets WP:GNG. Tough if someone outside WP wants it removing. Lugnuts (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Lugnuts has it right. If this alleged "law enforcement" (sounds fishy to me) has a real reason, they'd be contacting the foundation. Nothing in policy supports removal of this article. Toddst1 (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - wait, what? Seriously "Law Enforcement"? Juries are directed not to read up on cases, and if they do then there are untold sources for which Wikipedia is not responsible. If there was prejudicial material, it should be removed, and if it was being edited by those pushing POV then it should be protected / locked - no more. Koncorde (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Nothing in the policy supports removal of the article. It should not be "censored" David J Johnson (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy keep. This is not a deletion rationale. It is possible that there are problems with specific details in the article, but these should be brought up individually. It is also more than possible that the event is not notable, but that would have to be discussed in a new AFD, I believe. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:01, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As the suspect is charged with another crime I wonder if this is not an issue of the need for a news blackout so as not to prejudice the outcome of a second trial - if, indeed, they intend to try the two cases separately. Previous similar instances of this have meant a ban on reporting until all legal proceedings are complete so the suspect is seen to receive a fair trial. As Wikipedia is a media source like any other the same rules must surely apply, and if I am right then presumably they'll be asking all British based media with online content to take it down.
I know I appear to be in the minority on this, but my gut feeling is that we should remove this content as requested with a view to restoring it at a later date, perhaps also liaising with the agency concerned for advice in that respect. We can either do that by deleting the entire article, or at the very least the information they are concerned about. However, I understand this would set a precedent and potentially open the floodgates for other similar requests.
This is actually the second high-profile suspicious death to attract controversy recently, so as I hinted above there may be a need to develop a long-term strategy for dealing with articles of this nature, though I have no firm ideas on what we could do. I think the place for that could be BLP, though I'm not entirely sure. I'll investigate today and perhaps open a discussion there later. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:56, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Crime_perpetrators would apply. I would hate to see this guy go free because he can't get a fair trial. User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:35, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Crime_perpetrators does apply. The article and its talk page have been edited to conform to its requirements. User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Have opened a discussion here so feel free to add your thoughts guys. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okey so you just simply censored this article without considering not doing it until a consensus had been reached on this discussion? It makes me wonder were Wikipedia is heading.--BabbaQ (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
People may also find this and this of interest. Paul MacDermott (talk) 11:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No gag order, no secret injunction. However, once there is a secret injunction there is a much harder problem, including our inability to discuss the matter even in our confidential forums. User:Fred Bauder Talk 13:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that would make things more difficult and I wasn't suggesting either of those are currently in place because, as you say, we wouldn't be able to discuss the topic. But I think that everyone who's screaming censorship should read these articles because there are very good reasons why information is sometimes suppressed. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This kind of thing happens quite a lot. By way of example here are a couple of recent cases that have been subject to reporting restrictions. [1] [2] Paul MacDermott (talk) 11:51, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and restore previous text. The original article remains accessible through the Google cache function, and spot-checking of the references, including some from the BBC, indicates that UK news media reporting of the case remains online. Absent some credible explanation from the party requesting this suppression of factual information here while comparable local media accounts are not suppressed, the request appears unsupportable. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 19:09, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I checked the 20 references in the previous version of the article, five of them have just recently gone off-line; two from the Guardian two from The Telegraph and one from SKY News. The sources that are missing seem to be the ones that suggest link between this and another murder case. It is of some concern to me that the article on Censorship in the United Kingdom makes no mention of the mechanism at work here. It should certainly be covered in that article. <rant>An automatic mechanism that enables the government to take down any story could easily be misused, and I believe it has. </rant> -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment and futher objection to the way this is now handled. The locked and censored page now states This page has been indefinitely protect in order to conform to the requirements of Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Crime_perpetrators, giving at least a very strong impression that this is community decision or at least follows community guidelines. This is NOT the case. The policy cited does not mandate this drastic form of censorship nor does it make any mention of special treatment of British crime suspects. Do we start bowing to legal demands form every country? Should we delete Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 because it is a collection of criminal hate speech and misinformation? The hat note on the page should clearly state that the decision to censor the page lies with Wikimedia Foundation of the oversighters. It should also explicitly mention the request with a reference number or at least a date, so that the censorship could be challenged in a British court of law. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:12, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A living person accused of a crime is not guilty unless and until convicted by a court. For people who are relatively unknown, editors must give serious consideration to not including material in any article suggesting that the person has committed, or is accused of committing, a crime when the person has not yet been convicted.[1]Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Crime_perpetrators

User:Fred Bauder Talk 01:04, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You do know that currently there is no information only speculation, innuendo, and bullshit ... Oh wait a second ... a perfect combination of wikipedia BLP material - carry on. John lilburne (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#UK_law_enforcement_requests_article_removal. JN466 16:05, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • And ANI discussion regarding whether full protection is appropriate. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Are they kidding? There's no policy or guideline reason for deleting this article. Can anyone see the damage that could be done if we delete this article for that reason? We'd have dozens of articles being nominated on the whim of the nominator based on non policy arguments. Unless there is a good policy reason why this article should not exist, then this should be dropped. JOJ Hutton 17:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete / keep but without restoring content. We shouldn't be slaves to our policies and guidelines. The reason to temporarily remove this article (either completely or at least the majority of the content) is a matter of common sense. Ensuring someone gets a fair trial is important. We don't have to remove the content, we don't have to acceed to the request to do so - but in my opinion it's still the right thing to do. WJBscribe (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Having a BLP article running during a UK murder trial or police investigation is fertile ground for disaster, as Murder of Joanna Yeates and Death of Baby P have shown. These articles survived despite all the attempts to add material with libel, privacy and contempt of court issues. At the moment, the deaths involving the man CH are probably not notable enough for a full article, but the UK police request to suppress material available in reliable sources is unacceptable.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:51, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all articles are worthless. Night Ranger (talk) 18:09, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete With the opinion that "allegations" make for very bad encyclopedia articles, especially when they impact living people (WP:BLP). And with the hope that this will be a precendent dor other such "allegation" articles entirely, especially ones which attract POV editing. Collect (talk) 18:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is silly. The coverage on this subject is very, very more than enough to meet notability requirements. And the request from the police is pretty much worthless. We're getting our information on the investigation from reliable sources. Us putting that information here or not doesn't affect the fact that the information is still being stated in those sources, so it is already out there and everyone is already reading it. SilverserenC 19:02, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, the information is stated in those sources – as in yesterdays newspapers or as in WP:RS. Many of the on-line versions of those sources are however fast disappearing because of this censorship action. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:37, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We're not censored and we should not encourage requests like this by acting on them. If we do, we're going to get people wondering what's been deleted, and trusting us less. And Fred Bauder takes too much on himself.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, restore, unlock in whatever order you like. Information can be suppressed on WP either by WP:OFFICE or by community consensus. But, since barely any information has been given to the community about who is asking for this action and why, a community consensus can hardly be expected. FormerIP (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and restore There has been according to Fred Bauder, a request from some officials in the UK to censor a Wkikpedia article, which was previously sourced to reliable sources. The servers are not in the UK, and I have seen no indication that such requests have the force of law. There is no more reason to comply with it than if officials in any other country made a request to censor some article. BLP concerns can be handled by requiring reliable sourcing of any controversial statements, and by using terms such as "alleged" rather than making factual statements of guilt. Edison (talk) 20:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - We are not answerable to those who requested the article's deletion. There are not reasonable grounds here to censor WP in order to quell the unreasonable fears of trepidatious officials. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:46, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I had not heard of this murder until I saw this discussion, and I have since poked around on the internet and learned a lot about the accused--so this has the potential to kinda backfire, as censorship usually does. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Notes

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  1. ^ Generally, a conviction is secured through court or magisterial proceedings. Accusations, investigations, and arrests on suspicion of involvement do not amount to a conviction. BLPCRIME applies to low profile individuals and not to well known individuals, in whose cases WP:WELLKNOWN is the appropriate policy to follow.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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