Multiple signatures of living people – Undelete all. As the "undelete" !voters have pointed out, there is no consensus for mass deleting signatures like these, as evidenced by the discussion about WP:BLPSIGN. Such deletions are not inherently supported by WP:BLP policy, and so the images should be considered individually should anyone wish to delete them. – King of♥♦♣ ♠ 22:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
I'm listing these files, all deleted at Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2011 May 12#Signatures of living persons. In my first DRV, the files were not undeleted, with no consensus. In the July 4 (second) discussion, Master of Puppets (talk·contribs) undeleted the files and said that the option to relist remains. In my third DRV, it was suggested that I take WP:BLPSIGN to RfC, and the third discussion was closed pending RfC. Now that the RfC has been rejected with the proposed policy being turned into an essay, I request these files be undeleted. Avenue X at Cicero (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Question Could you clarify, please? Are these signatures ones where there is consensus that they should be included in their owners' articles or are you seeking undeletion so that future talk page discussions can be better informed and lead to effective action? I realise these requests hark back to a particular multiple deletion of signatures of living Indian citizens (which it has been asserted are copyright in India). What about File:Signature of Amitabh Bachchan.svg which does not seemed linked to even in Amitabh Bachchan? I realise you are not seeking undeletion of this file because it has already been undeleted[1] (!) but is this case in any other way different? Thincat (talk) 21:10, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I want to refer to the position I took in Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 August 2. My view is that the risk of harm to a living person through misuse of their signature far outweighs the very small encyclopaedic value of using it in an article, and therefore our WP:BLP policy requires us to keep deleted.—S MarshallT/C 14:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment the RFC was closed as no consensus for making BLPSIGN policy or guideline, with the comment "Concern raised about potential misuse and general low encyclopaedic value, though there is a loose acceptance for some limited use in some instances - and this can be worked out on a case by case basis on the article talkpage". i.e. there was some sort of consensus there against general allowance of these. This request for a mass undeletion is not in line with "limited use" and "worked out on a case by case basis". --82.19.4.7 (talk) 15:39, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Restore files I've yet to see a good argument that hosting signatures on Wikipedia causes any harm to anyone. Anything important must be notarized, any forger will already have access to these signatures whether or not they exist on Wikipedia (and/or make their own), and the U.S. laws for repudiation of a signature favors the repudiator. Jclemens (talk) 22:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
These people are Indian, and Wikipedia's perfectly visible from India. Are you under the impression that our BLP policy only applies to US law?—S MarshallT/C 22:18, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Florida Law is all we're really concerned about. Plenty of our content is illegal in other jurisdictions. BLP has little to do with the law, however, and far more to do with ethics: BLP doesn't demand we remove encyclopedic content when the removal won't reduce harm to anyone. Jclemens (talk) 00:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody's saying it's illegal under Indian law. The concern is that harm to a living person could arise under it if someone's signature is duplicated on a document of some kind, and if that's possible under Indian law, then we have a potential BLP issue, even if it isn't under Florida law. You imply that a copy of someone's signature is "encyclopaedic content", but I don't see anything encyclopaedic about it. What I do see is an avoidable risk.—S MarshallT/C 18:25, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but that hypothetical harm is simply not convincing to me. The encyclopedic value is not something for DRV--the applicability of special BLP considerations, on the other hand, does concern me. Jclemens (talk) 03:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, what? Why is DRV not allowed to consider the encyclopaedic value of the subject under review?—S MarshallT/C 13:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Undelete all The proposed policy to remove them was not approved as a policy, but only as an essay. It is clear from this, that a mass deletion of such signatures would be invalid, and they should therefore be restored, and be discussed individually. The contention that they would in general violate BLP policy was not accepted. If one person thinks otherwise, it carries no weight over a general consensus. The way to interpret policies is always subject to consensus, and the consensus was that any possible violation would have to be discussed case by case. DGG ( talk ) 15:40, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn the original FFD close. The nomination for deletion at the original FFD (incorrect statement of licence) was made moot. Even at the time of the nomination, WP:BLPSIGN did not mandate deletion. In the discussion the reliability of the source (I think all came from a single source) was questioned but no discussion ensued over this. Signatures being copyright in India (the only files remaining in the nomination were of Indian signatures), was agreed to be irrelevant. I do not see the original close as justified by the discussion.
Other deletion arguments could have been presented. WP:CSD#F11 could have be cited — no evidence the (Indian) copyright holder has agreed — was not raised at all but could have been rebutted (to my mind unconscionably) by arguing the subjects do not hold copyright in the US. The matter of the files being unused (I think at that time they were) as a deletion rationale was not discussed but for free images this is regarded as a weak criterion on its own. Reliability of source could have been pursued. I do not think that these arguments would have necessarily altered anything.
The subsequent DRVs tended to continue discussion rather than analyse the FFD. WP:BLPSIGN and its RFC provide evidence of the view of the community but do not provide formal policy or guidance and do not address the hosting (rather than linking) of signature images. These discussions seem to have assumed publicly-available signatures of notable people which I think applies to all in the present batch. Whether some signatures are an unreasonable invasion of privacy (regardless of security concerns) seems to have been regarded as a matter for individual decisions and I can find no such discussions anywhere. Commons accepts signatures of living people unless the uploader or possibly the subject requests deletion, very notably for Jimbo.[2][3][4]
Out of this I conclude that consensus has not changed and we should undelete all these files. I am unhappy about things and I have commented at WT:BLPSIGN. Thincat (talk) 22:26, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep deleted - this is not a hobby project - worthless autographs with no verification of reliability. Off2riorob (talk) 14:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think we all would love some elaboration/justification to your comment. Avenue X at Cicero (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
I inadvertently recreated this page, which had been deleted. The original deletion rationale is "(Mass removal of pages added by Cnrail37592114)". I'm not sure its creator per se is a reason for the subject not to be covered by an article, even if said creator created bad-quality articles. The article is no less worthy of inclusion than, say, Qinghuayuan Railway Station. QuentinSmith 11:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That user was blocked [5] apparently because of bulk article creation of some sort. Deletion of articles is not a never ever for the topic, so assuming you created a brand new article (rather than just restoring a copy of the original) then it's ok. It'll stand or fall on it's own merits but shouldn't be redeleted because of the original deletion. --82.19.4.7 (talk) 11:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So what's the problem here? No one is clamoring for a deletion of this file, as far as I can tell, and just because a banned user created a file once, and it was deleted for that reason, doesn't mean that you have to request permission at DRV before creating it as a non-banned user. Jclemens (talk) 00:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
