- One of the key arguments that made me reach my decision was : "Wikipedia is not WikiNews". Minor subjects involuntarily dragged into momentary infamy due to some very forgettable actions committed against them should not be treated as the latest scoop. Jimbo's edit to WP:NOT, NYB and several other participants below have expounded this with detailed reasoning. The deletion of the Ben Ownby article is clearly endorsed. However Shawn Hornbeck's may be considered as a provisional one. If Night Gyr's laudable efforts to contact the Hornbeck foundation receive a favourable response, an appropriate article can be made for either the foundation or Hornbeck himself. In the meantime, a redirect will not cause any irreparable loss of information, After all, we aren't missing any deadlines. --Srikeit 04:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Shawn Hornbeck (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)
- Ben Ownby (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)
Procedural nomination, either the page should be salted to prevent recreation if the concern for privacy is so great, or it should have been listed for AFD instead of speedied. Personally I think that both Hornbeck and Ownby are non-notable by themselves, but I would like to see greater consensus amongst the community than an administrator's unilateral decision. Therefore, I call for an AfD on procedural grounds. Past AfD was a "no consensus". Calwatch 01:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Deleting administrator's response:
- The debate on this pair of deletions presents another opportunity for the community to provide input into whether and to what extent concern for the well-being and privacy of living persons will be taken into account in deciding on the content of the encyclopedia.
- The subjects of these articles are young people (Ben is 13 and Shawn is 15) who were living otherwise non-notable lives as American children until each of them was kidnapped and was mistreated in a horrifying way. One of them, at the age of 13, was subjected to more than a dozen sexual assaults over a period of several days; the other's kidnapping separated him from his family for more than four years of brutalization and abuse. The ordeals suffered by these young people are harrowing to contemplate; the only saving grace is that ultimately they were rescued alive; and any decent person must hope that they are now able to overcome what they suffered and lead successful lives.
- In doing so, one of the things that each of them will have to learn to live with is the pervasive publicity that they have now received in the mass media, including on the Internet. Ordinarily, the media, at least in the United States, do not report the names of victims of sexual assaults, and certainly not of victims who are minors. In this case, though, there has been massive publicity. This largely is an artifact of the fact that before these teens were known to have been sexually assaulted, they were "missing children" and therefore rightly the subject of publicity as their families and communities sought to locate and rescue them. Once that had occurred, perhaps the media and the families decided that the publicity when the boys were being searched for was already so pervasive that relevation of what had happened was a fait accompli and no steps to belatedly safeguard confidentiality could now be implemented. If that is so, it is a sad and troubling situation that raises a host of ethical issues for those media, but I see no reason that Wikipedia should knowingly make a bad situation worse.
- We strive to create a broad-based and comprehensive encyclopedia covering an enormous variety of subject matters. For what it is worth, I am firmly anchored well to the "inclusionist" side of the administrator corps and am hardly someone who routinely goes out-of-process and starts randomly deleting things. But encyclopedic breadth does not exclude consideration of other relevant concerns. We have a duty to take into account the predictable impact of our articles upon living subjects, and in my opinion at least, especial solicitude is owed in the cases of young teenagers who are the innocent victims of terrible crimes that already will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
- I do not contend that the fact that these boys' names and family circumstances have been publicized in other sources, and that they participated in discussing with journalists what had happened to them, are wholly irrelevant in deciding whether and how we should include such information. Yet, at the end of the day we have to decide what we believe is appropriate to be included in our encyclopedia, in which we hope that Wikipedia and our articles will be immortal. Whether today, or twenty years from now, if someone Googles (or whatever the then equivalent in later years is) the names of one of these people, should the first hit be what happened to them when they were 13? I would say no, and I would like to believe that a strong consensus of the Wikipedia community would agree. Note that I am not saying we shouldn't describe the general gist of what happened. The full story is still recounted in the article about the (alleged) criminal, Michael J. Devlin, although there is resistance to my editorial decision there to excise the victims' names. The question posed by these deletions is whether further publicizing these victims' names, geographical locations, and family circumstances will make us a better encyclopedia or make contributing to it more rewarding to any of us. My view is that it will not. See also my prior comments on related issues at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Doc glasgow#Outside view by Newyorkbrad and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/QZ Deletion dispute#Outside view by Newyorkbrad.
- Accordingly, I ask that the deletions be sustained. Newyorkbrad 01:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree - There should have been an AfD, per Calwatch. In addition, Newyorkbrad should be barred from admin actions for at least a week as a punishment. Wjhonson 01:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Either the community will endorse my action or it won't, but after the thought I have given to this entire set of issues over the past several months and in light of the ongoing community-wide discussion of these issues, I find your suggestion that I need to be "punished" to be ... well, I'm not going to characterize it, though I hope that other participants in this discussion might. Newyorkbrad 01:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Someone obviously does not understand Wikipedia, Wjhonson. We do not bar people like that from accidents (especially when this was no tan accident). Please read more about Wikipedia before commenting like that again. Cbrown1023 talk 21:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Undelete/keep undeleted Hornbeck, who's been featured in many mainstream places and is using his fame for good[1]. No current opinion on Ownby, although I'm leaning toward a listing for further opinion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I acknowledge that H is a closer call than O, although I am sorry to see back-pedalling from your initial understanding of this action expressed at User talk:Tony Sidaway#Another suggested deletion. Newyorkbrad 01:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- If we want to work that into existing policy, then that's fine, but I was also probably a little hasty now that I'm doing more research into this one. Even so, whether we draw the line or not is not a situation for one person to make. I may agree with your deletion of one or both in principle, but that doesn't mean we can leave the rest of the community out of the discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Agreed, especially when this "consensus" was made on the talk page of another administrator. While well-intentioned, it needs to go before the whole community. Calwatch 01:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Send to AFD, but
keep the article deleted meanwhile for BLP concerns. I originally deleted it as what appeared to be a simple copy and paste of the old contents, but it appeared to have been another administrator doing it, so I undid my recreation protection of the page, but deleted the poor copying.. Now is a good time for an AFD now that the news about him has vanished, so people can look at whether he is notable or not with a clear mind, hopefully. Cowman109Talk 01:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Per the cache, it's well-referenced and is not negative in tone - there's no BLP policy concerns here, and that should be noted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I will acknowledge that as well. If we are going to have articles on either or both of these two people, the articles were well-written and reasonably referenced. That type of concern was not the basis for my action in deleting them. Newyorkbrad 01:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Ah, in that case, my mistake. I think it would be best to send to AFD and restore, then. And my above comments were also in reference to just the Shawn Hornbeck article, I missed the fact that two articles were up for review here. Cowman109Talk 02:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Restore both articles and permanently remove Newyorkbrad as administrator for his disgusting, arbitrary and grotesque censorship. What are we going to do now-remove the names of all alleged crime victim's? This will be the end of Wikipedia as a serious source. John celona 02:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect both to a broader article about the incident. FCYTravis 02:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect This is essentially non-encyclopaedic material. If they grow up and write a book, then a case can be made for entries for these figures. Until then, the case for deletion is in my opinion open and shut. Agree with FCYTravis regarding the redirect. FNMF 02:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect Neither boy has done anything notable to warrant an article about themselves, but their names are out there and easy to find. People will come to wikipedia looking for the, but I think we should have minimal information about the victims. This incident is very sensitive, and in the past editors have argued that any and all information about these children should be printed. I find that deplorable. These are underaged victimes of sex crimes. We have a duty to not only record the facts, but to also be compassionate and discreet when appropriate. AniMate 02:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, Hornbeck has started a foundation and has a personal website dedicated to advocating on behalf of missing children. Therefore, he has chosen to use his fame for various causes. Ownby is pretty un-notable since many kids get abducted for a few days or even a week at a time and their cases don't make it beyond the local media, nor do they end up here. Calwatch 02:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Do we know for sure that Shawn Hornbeck started the foundation, and not his parents? FCYTravis 02:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Even if that were true, I don't believe it would be enough to warrant an entry. FNMF 02:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- List on AfD - these articles existed for months and one survived an AfD, so an out-of-process deletion was not warranted. The names are already mentioned on Wikipedia, so that's not an issue. As to Jeff's earlier comments about 'minors', it's clear those don't represent his real views. I personally don't think people's age should be an issue for this purpose (unless it were legally required).The way, the truth, and the light 02:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - For those unfamiliar with what the article had said previously. I've copied the contents to my own space at Shawn Hornbeck (at countyhistorian.com) for reference in this debate. Wjhonson 02:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Why? It is so unnecessary. Ever heard of Google cache? --Iamunknown 02:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- From the tactics that have been used so far, which attack every foundational issue of Wikipedia (and threaten the downfall of civilization and the extinction of the human race, not to mention the time-space continuum itself), it's necessary in this case. Wjhonson 03:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect both per FCYTravis, the current articles aren't biographies of the people, who aren't notable themselves. Yonatan talk 02:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The concern I have with a redirect is that the "what links here" feature from Devlin's article will make it obvious why they are mentioned. Newyorkbrad 03:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that's taking your concerns a little too far, given the ease with which the names can be identified from other sources. The question should surely be whether these figures are deserving of entries, not whether we can keep their identities a secret (we can't). FNMF 03:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the damage done by that isn't enough to merit the deletion of the article, unless the redirect starts showing up as one of the first results on Google, or something like that. In that case, we could get rid of the redirect as a Wikipedia search would probably get the Devlin article as [one of if not] the first result. Yonatan talk 06:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- How are you defining notability? --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure, that's a difficult question and merits a long response. I don't, however, believe that a person automatically becomes notable if he's involved in a notable\well-publicized incident. I also feel we need to take into consideration what effect this will have on the real lives of people. Yes, we have an admirable goal of creating an encyclopedia, but should this come at the expense of other people's lives? Does a person need to suffer their whole life just because of something that happened to them that was beyond their control? Obviously he will suffer anyway, but we should do whatever we can to lessen the effect this has on his life, as people's lives are more important than writing an encyclopedia. Primum non nocere. Yonatan talk 06:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Bring back the articles - I believe Newyorkbrad should be reprimanded for his blatant disregard for other people's work. Lots of people worked on those two articles, especially the Shawn Hornbeck one. Everybody and their grandmother knows the names of the two boys. They both had press conferences, so clearly they know their name is out in the public; nothing we do here is going to harm then anymore then Michael Devlin. Hopefully, he will be punished to the fullest extend of the law. Fighting for Justice 03:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Newyorkbrad erred only in forgetting to salt these deleted article. I endorse the deletion. --04:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tony Sidaway (talk • contribs).
- Redirect both per FCYTravis. As I am not an admin, I cannot see the deleted versions; however, when I was reading them last month, they were textbook examples of the pseudo-biographies that seem to bedevil non-notable people enmeshed in noteworthy situations. Risker 05:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect both per FCYTravis, or simply Keep deleted. Don't do anything to Newyorkbrad since this is not the venue for discussing such actions. Neither article was a biography, and as per my close statement on the AFD, Wikipedia is not Wikinews. --Coredesat 06:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]- List at AfD. At a personal level Newyorkbrad has my full respect, but there is an underlying issue that cannot be shoven under the carpet. Unless clear, new guidelines are set, either by community consensus or from above, I do not see how issues like this one, which keep popping up again and again, can be decided unilaterally by an admin, however well-intentioned s/he may be. Stammer 07:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Commentary on the underlying issues. (Striking neutrality, see below)
- Please do not misunderstand my intentions; I understand the reason for concern when handling these articles and all the other recent (controversial) WP:BLP applications. Obviously, when anyone — especially someone young — is made a victim in any way, special care needs to be paid to the manner in which that topic is discussed, if at all. And these concerns are compounded by the relative permanence of information via the Internet and caching.
- However, I approach the assertion that articles about such subjects cannot be written with trepidation. The undue weight argument seems particularly ill-formed; authors are not afforded undue weight if their non-writing achievements are not discussed, notorious criminals are not afforded undue weight when their articles focus on their crims, and notable victims are thus probably not afforded undue weight simply by a lack of other information. The "human decency" argument appears, on its face, more compelling: that as an instrument of public good, Wikipedia has a moral responsibility to shield victims of harrassment, abuse, and criminality from public examination. But there is a dangerous line here, across which lies the logical fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam.
- If we conclude that, for example, minor victims who are otherwise unknown are categorically unsuitable for inclusion, then we should probably likewise excise the following articles on a variety of topics:
- Feral children, including Genie (feral child), Oxana Malaya, Traian Căldărar, Andrei Tolstyk, Sujit Kumar, Rochom P'ngieng
- Child abduction, including Sabine Dardenne, Fusako Sano, Tanya Kach, Natascha Kampusch, Alex Griffiths, Elizabeth Smart (abductee), Erica Pratt, Paul Martin Andrews, Timmy White, Montana Barbaro, Sherrice Iverson, and perhaps Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
- Other crime and controversy: Baby M, Kara Borden, Jessica McClure, Ashley Wyrick, Amie Zyla
- Medical issues: Brooke Greenberg, Madeline Mann, Rumaisa Rahman, Amillia Taylor, Tiffany Yorks, Milagros Cerrón
- This list could be longer. Not only did I not search very thoroughly, I did not include nonliving subjects, nor subjects who had an active role in the controversy or crime involved. Obviously, some of these articles are better than others. Some probably should be deleted summarily at this point. Some are good as they stand. Most need more development and better citation. I'm not advocating for or against any of these articles at this point, but we need to consider that expanding application of BLP, notability, and undue weight in this fashion may have wider effects that initially considered. As to whether that is ultimately good or bad... I'm not certain that I could judge even were I inclined to try. Serpent's Choice 07:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
List for AFD. I've given this a lot of thought and a lot of Google. Wikipedia is not the only permanent media. Once any of these people have entered the media's eye, there is simply no way, short of dedicated Googlebombing to the contrary, that nationally-publicized child victims who do not achieve recognition in other ways will ever have anything other than their ordeals as the top result of Google searches, even excluding Wikipedia. Sabine Dardenne, kidnapped 1996? Crime Library, The Guardian, The New York Times. Alex Griffiths, kidnapped 1990? Many false positives but a BBC News story on Google page 1. Erica Pratt, kidnapped 2002? Time, CNN. Timmy White, kidnapped 1980? Crime Library, San Francisco Chronicle, WorldNetDaily. Ashley Wyrick, abandoned 1987? SF Chronicle, CBS News. Nothing that Wikipedia does can possibly erase modern media coverage. Nothing. We can argue from now until forever the morality of that, but we cannot stop it. What we can do, on the other hand, is apply our policies to ensure that this type of article is extraordinarily well sourced and respectful (something that not all media outlets take the time and caution to do). These people will find their tragedies at the top of Google 10 and 20 years from now, but the power of BLP and editors writing with respect for their subject at least means that the top hit will not be sensationalist tripe. We should ask ourselves: in the place of Qian Zhijun, would we rather the first thing Google returns be a mature, well-sourced and well-written article, or "Fatty - the face that launched 1000 clicks"? Serpent's Choice 10:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Interesting list there. I see that most of the articles do not cite sources or are poorly sourced. They also strike me as the equivalent of a freak show ("See the dog boy! See the chicken man! Only 25¢, Just one quarter!") I fail to see how those articles add to Wikipedia, and can think of ways in which they damage Wikipedia. My standards for adding an article to WP are pretty simple in most cases; there are sufficient reliable sources to establish notability. But living persons are a different issue. We should not be holding up living persons to public scrutiny, derision, pity or whatever just because they have made a mistake, had an accident or have been abused. Offering up these kinds of stories for the titilation of our readers is a real disservice. It reminds me of the original reason behind the movement to prevent cruelty to animals. The first animal protection activists were not worried about the animals, they were worried about the effect abusing animals had on the souls of the abusers. I think both sides apply here; it is wrong to subject these private individuals to public scrutiny that may increase or prolong their suffering, and it is wrong to pander to the prurient interests of readers. This is an encyclopedia, it is not The National Enquirer or whatever the equivalent is in other countries. -- Donald Albury 11:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, I didn't spend much time examining the quality of the standing articles when I assembled the topical list (and, clearly, I should have). With that in mind, though, I think the solution here is cleanup ... if the best that we can offer is a freak show entry, then the article cannot stand under BLP (or common sense, good practice, etc.). If we can offer a mature, properly sourced article about the subject — the person — then the same very power that Wikipedia has to top Google lists ensures that material of quality is associated with the name. Because regardless of our actions, people who "have made a mistake, had an accident or been abused" are going to have those events immortalized in Google. If we are going to argue that our action should follow from moral grounds, the action under our control that is likely the least harmful (and hopefully beneficial on the whole) to these people is to present a factual article that avoids devolving to prurience. I'll convert one of these sad excuses for a Wikipedia entry into something closer to what I think it ought to be in the next few hours, by means of example. Hopefully, it will be more illustrative than their current condition, which, again, is inexcusibly low in general. Serpent's Choice 11:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I won't pretend that its ideal, but I've ground-up reworked Erica Pratt. Why? Because this is (at least the start of) an example of what these articles could be. It presents minimal facts of the case. There is no need for lurid details, we are not a tabloid. It discusses what controversies and related issues are relevant — in this case, wider issues of media bias. It does not discuss other controversies and related issues that are not relevant and whose impact could be harmful — in this case, accusations that her family had gang and drug involvement. The sources are reliable and chosen, where possible, because they themselves made similar editorial decisisons. This young girl is lucky because, at the moment, her top Google hit (which isn't Wikipedia) is a pretty decent article. But, it could be dreck like this, which is nearly a hit piece, and is everything she doesn't want to have to deal with. Not all these victims are so lucky. Many face Google searches where the crap, not the cream, has floated to the top. We can't guarantee that Wikipedia will be the "I'm Feeling Lucky" entry, but we know this site has name recognition. The entire point of this extended discussion on BLP and its (proposed) use to delete whole categories of biographies is that we are doing the people a disfavor if we write about them. I suggest that if we exert the effort to write mature, competant articles, we do a bigger disfavor by remaining silent in the face of articles like that last one I linked (and many of these victims suffer from worse than that one). Because those articles are like Wikipedia in one regard: their online imprint is probably forever. Serpent's Choice 14:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion, but not salting. I was wrong. Unable to directly view the deleted articles, I approached this topic largely from a purely Wiki-philosophy standpoint. But after my effort to rewrite Erica Pratt to meet my own stated purpose of providing a mature, non-harmful commentary on a similiar subject of media scrutiny, I went back and paid closer attention to the caches for the two articles directly under discussion, to see how close they were to my own standard. I cannot support salting; I still think Wikipedia can represent the moral good best by writing an appropriate article. But ... those are not the appropriate articles. Even where cited by reliable sources, the way to address abuse subjects in a neutral point of view is not to detail a luridly clinical discussion of the methods and frequency of their abuse. That is a tabloid point of view. We can — we must — do better if we wish to retain articles on such topics. Serpent's Choice 06:33, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What's the point? The deletionists are getting away with it, and will continue to, because nobody will stand up to them. -N 07:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Procedural nomination? What kind of crap is that, then? We don't do process for process' sake, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. For shame. Nardma, I suggest that before you accuse "deletionists" of "getting away with it" you spend some time talking to people who field complaints from individuals concerned about their portrayal on Wikipedia. It's not a game any more. In truth, it never was. Guy (Help!) 09:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Let's take Barbara Schwartz as a very obvious example. She once sued every federal agency in existence, right down to the unit and office level in some cases, making for thousands of defendants--where in reality you are supposed to sue up at the much higher level, at the agency level (since for one thing individual offices wouldn't handle their own policy, external affairs, or legal matters). In the press, they dubbed her a "terrorist", and the Utah Supreme Court ruled that wasn't libel. No matter how neutral we word her article, it has a negative portrayal. She has a community ban from Wikipedia for consistently trying to get her article deleted or significantly altered when the weight of reliable sources are on the side of the current article. And yes, I have dealt with a hysterical editor, one who was livid we had his girlfriend's birthday in her article. He was extremely unreasonable and demanded to contact the Foundation, which then immediately removed the info from the article. (By the way, we need a better system in place to track Foundation actions in this regard. As far as I can tell, the only record the Foundation responded to his request was by having an administrator remove the information from the article...I asked at ANI and nobody seemed to know how a person would know for sure what their reply had been.) My point is, there is a line, yes, I understand this. Know why this case has victims' rights advocates crying for blood? It's because in this case you're erasing memories. Anne Frank is only well known because her diary was published post humously after she died to a horrible crime, right? If that had happened more recently you'd probably have deleted her article too. Point being, nobody has asked us to remove this article, so your argument about complaints is nil. In fact, in this case the person has started a victim finding organization to keep the memory going on. And still you delete the memory. -N 13:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Nice straw man. Seems like there's no point of contact here between us, or between your examples and reality for that matter. Anne Frank? Get over yourself, please! Guy (Help!) 17:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, Anne Frank. Under YOUR CRITERIA, you'd delete her article. She was a previously private individual only notable for being a victim of her government's racist policies and for having her diary published against her will. -N 21:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Leave them deleted I think I've stated my reasoning in my comment above. -- Donald Albury 11:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Other than this notorious incident there is nothing to do a biography on. I think procedural nominations are generally a bad idea. Let's not mutually stroke each other with process and procedure, let's do the right thing. Demanding either salting or AfD seems silly, as we don't salt unless something has been recreated multiple times. Per NYBrad's commment, the community does need to come to grips with this question of how "concern for the well-being and privacy of living persons will be taken into account". I think we have a duty to be ethical, as I have said before, and that trumps the need to include every possible factoid. That's a sentiment I think there is broad consensus for if it were checked for. We had some good outcomes recently in which we managed to preserve the information that was relevant in the appropriate article without creating additional negative notoriety for the victims. Let's keep that trend going, hm? endorse deletion with a suggestion that the relevant article on child abduction be reviewed to ensure that this case is included in the proper context. I oppose redirects from their names as that gives the spiders more to work with. As for the suggestion that NYBrad be "punished" that is at best, laughable, as he is one of our very sagest admins. Oh, and I'm no deletionist, by the way, see directly above. ++Lar: t/c 13:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't care less but we need to stop fighting over the articles of minor individuals who are only notable because of events outside their control. Time to make WP:DIGNITY a guideline and update the deletion policy to reflect that BLP concerns outweight notability criteria. The way to do this is via an RFC or something similar. In the meantime we need to stop throwing mud at admins who are cleatly wrestling with a difficult issue and try and deal with this like adults. Lets cut out the irrational accusations and have a mature debate. If we can't do this then the project really has serious problems. Spartaz Humbug! 14:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- But there aren't any BLP issues. A well-sourced, neutral article on a notable person does not violate BLP. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- But there is something about needing to recognise the impact that a wikipedia article can have on a minor figure and this is clearly what is driving this spate of deletions. What we are seeing is policy evolving by action. This is the reality of how policy tends to be devised anyway as policy is what the community does rather then what is written down. So the practise of BLP clearly is evolving to proscribe articles about minor figures who have only a single claim to notability and who were unwilling participants in that event. Like it or not this does seem to be the more humane way to go. :) Spartaz Humbug! 15:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- We write from sources, so there's no added impact. Even with an article, the Wikipedia article is not number one on Google, and there's certainly no consensus that this is a minor figure, given the attention. Let's not assume that administrators working outside of consensus is "policy evolving by action," and let's start by looking at what we're going with as opposed to assuming things (in this case, that there are BLP concerns) that aren't there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, we add impact. We add impact by taking tomorrow's parrot cage liner and immortalising it on the world's biggest information source. Like it or not, bbeing on Wikipedia is massively different to being in the press. This much we know, because people who've been included in Wikipedia against their wishes have made it very plain. Guy (Help!) 17:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Jeff: How are these guys notable, again? One incident. Why can't this go to WikiNews? We are an encyclopedia, not a tabloid, and we respect people and act ethically, not work to gain notoriety by increasing their discomfort. Perhaps we are talking past each other Jeff, as this seems blatantly obvious to me. And, I suspect, to many many others. Which is why I believe that there IS a shift underway in how policy views this and how things will be done going forward. ++Lar: t/c 18:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Lar, how are they not notable? There's no shift underway - brute force is not a consensus shift. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually now that I have reread the discussion and particularly Guy's latest contribution and a few bits on talk pages here and there and then looked at the articles again, I do care. Endorse Deletion Spartaz Humbug! 21:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Regardless of my view (which is that an article on these people doesn't have a place here), moving to wikinews isn't really an option as it stands right now, since wikinews is under CC-BY while we are under the GFDL. Yonatan talk 05:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and list at AFD. The article survived a lengthy AFD and no-one mentioned any BLP issues, which makes sense since I can not see any either. These articles could be merged to Michael J. Devlin, but that is not up to one admin, or two or three, to decide and enforce. There is one "living persons concern" here, though. That is those living Wikipedians who create neutral, well-sourced biography articles, and do not want to see them deleted unilaterally and out-of-process. Prolog 15:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Restore AfD optional. Hornbeck had already survived an AfD where these issues were discussed so a speedy was inapropriate in his case. That these boys are notable for so tragic an event is in itself tragic but also true. Wikipedia does not, and in my opinion should not, have a policy of refusing to report on tuly notable events or people with the goal of protecting them. Thus this case is very different from one pertaining to a transient internet meme. Eluchil404 17:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted, per Brad. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn, worries are not a speedy criterion. Potential libel is, but uncertain cases are to be decided at AFD, not on an administrator's whim. Plus, when the parents have been holding press conferences and publicizing the kid in the media, why are we suppressing information? Redirection and merging would have probably been accepted had this been discussed on the talk page first, instead of stirring up a shitstorm. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted unacceptable articles - no notability - good BLP deletions - we are not a newspaper, this stuff dies.--Docg 21:12, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What part of WP:BIO, A7 (speedy deletion for notability) or G10 (speedy deletion for BLP issues) did these articles meet? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete No one sensible gives a shit anymore. -Pilotguy hold short 21:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- OK, I have now gone back and re-read these articles. They highlight, to me, a fundamental problem with Wikipedia as it now is. We currently consider that anything covered in more than a small number of sources may be considered "notable" and therefore valid for inclusion. This ignores the fact that most cases of, say, missing children, will get quite a bit of coverage, but without ever rising above the status of generic missing child. Some become causes celebres, most do not. Tragic, but I think most of us agree that Wikipedia is not a memorial. Now, Wikinews can cover these stories well, because it;s a news site, so we'd expect to find news there. And news stories is what they are. Biographies are different from news stories. Biographies are supposed to be the life stories of culturally significant individuals. I think Wikipedia is ending up with a hodge-podge of activist-driven stories, court reports and the like drawn directly form news sources as primary publishers, most of which do not make it into the secondary sources (books of notable crimes, law reports, case law and so on). They are not actually encyclopaedic, as such, and most of them are subject to the age-old confusion between what is in the public interest and what merely interests the public. So: can anyone explain what the actual long-term cultural significance of this story is, and if so, whether it can be covered under a better title? Guy (Help!) 21:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This isn't the venue for your opinions on notability. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Nor is it a venue to nit-pick on the mis-followings of policy when an article should have been deleted. Whatever happened to "no useless bureaucracy"? Cbrown1023 talk 21:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Night Gyr, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to patronise me. Not sure if you noticed, but deletion review is not a vote (I do believe Jimbo himself made that edit), my comments above are about these subjects, their inclusion or otherwise in Wikipedia, and the grounds on which we might judge that - or choose instead to leave it to WikiNews. The closer of this debate can weigh my opinion, I think, and decide whether it represents a productive contribution to the debate. Guy (Help!) 22:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted. The articles seem to do nothing more than describe a sickening sequence of events in excessive detail. There may be an article to write on this topic, but these articles aren't them and should be nuked. Phil Sandifer 21:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted and protect names as deleted is the only option here acceptable under WP:BLP - even having the names as a redirect will make the article the first Google hit on their names - David Gerard 21:33, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted and salt or redirect and full-protect. These are articles about children and those who have a great injustice done to them, we do not need their article and they have done nothing notable in their lives. I had a problem with these articles too a while ago. They were not following the biographies of living persons and had to be locked down for a while. BLP is a very serious thing, and people need to understand that. People also need to understand that with this encyclopedia comes a responsibility to realize that this can ruin people's lives or, in the case of spam, make them better. Before you understand that, no one is fit to edit a living person's article. That being said, I applaud Newyorkbrad's actions and should have made the same ones. Cbrown1023 talk 21:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- KEep deleted -- drini [meta:] [commons:] 21:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted and salt the earth. Brad made a tough call and I'm grateful there are still administrators willing to do so. Mackensen (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Important Comment to closing admin If these articles end up being restored, please be sure that the edits removed per the BLP stay deleted. Thaks, Cbrown1023 talk 21:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted or if Redirect if it prevents the articles from being recreated though, for the same reasons as David Gerard, I'd rather the names don't appear in any article title. Nick 22:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- And a new addition from Jimbo to WP:NOT: [2] - David Gerard 22:17, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted and award Newyorkbrad with a barnstar. We have no business creating articles about minor crime victims. A violation of privacy and decency. Fred Bauder 02:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Discount all noms who refuse to acknowledge that Shawn appeared on Oprah. That's not a *minor crime victim*, nor is it a private person just trying to live unmolested by scrutiny. That's a public person, using their notoriety for some cause. Quite a different thing entirely. Wjhonson 02:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I don't think any commenters (I don't think you meant "noms") should be discounted because they give less weight to a particular fact than you do, but I again acknowledge that one of these cases is more clear-cut than the other. I'll respond to some of the other comments here tomorrow. Newyorkbrad 02:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Oprah is influential but the vast majority of those who appear on Oprah don't need Wikipedia articles. It does indicate that the subject and his parents consider that some degree of publicity is inevitable in this case and they'd rather it were positive and beneficial. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 13:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. My opinion on the deletion, I'm sure everyone can guess, so I'm not going to bother. I'm just going to say that I find this "redirect" stuff incredibly funny. Whenever someone tries to enforce an AfD redirect as if it must be followed, people complain "No, that's not a valid AfD outcome!" But we're willing to enforce a DRV redirect? -Amarkov moo! 03:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I honestly have no idea what your opinion on the deletion is, and I am sure that the closing administrator is not going to take the time to "guess," so if you have an opinion on the matter that you want considered, please share it with us. As for the redirect issue, different considerations apply to protecting redirects for BLP and related reasons as opposed to in other circumstances. More tomorrow. Newyorkbrad 03:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I personally think that redirect is a valid AfD outcome, equivalent to "delete, but then let's do something useful with the title". So you don't really need to convince me. I just find it funny that people will support letting deletion discussions enforce redirects now that it's something they think should be redirected. -Amarkov moo! 04:04, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Viridae's statement below reminded me to say something. Definitely kudos to Brad for explaining his reasoning instead of "OMG U R ALL ST00PID U MUST TAKE DIS 2 ARB LOLZ". I still oppose deletion, but at least I'm not being steamrolled over. -Amarkov moo! 04:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect to main article per someone saying we don't need a biographical article on every single person who gains brief notability (however notable they may be) I do belive they are notable for their involvement in this incident, but i don't believe they have shown continuing notability. Hopefully the articles can be successfully merged into a main article on the subject - however I do believe that going through afd would have been more appropriate, but unlike several adminsistrators who have made unilateral deletions on BLP grounds recently, Brad has explained his position very well, appealing to the decency of the community (not just forcing his decision down our throat - and for that he gains great respect). These children have been through horrific times and given the nature of their experience, I believe this is one of the times where decency should prevail over notability (which they undoubtedly are). ViridaeTalk 04:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I wonder if the Hornbeck family did anything substantive or notable in the four years that he was gone. Was he on milk cartons, America's Most Wanted, etc. The cached version just says they called some psychics and that was it. Right now it primarily focuses on his capture and aftermath and not much on the search. I would strenuously object to striking both Hornbeck and Ownby's name from the record, though, and I have been patrolling the Devlin article (which should be changed to something generic like 2006 Missouri kidnapping rather than a thin biography of Devlin) to make sure that it does not happen. Calwatch 05:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- List at AfD. The idea that someone would summarily delete an article without discussion speaks to no small amount of hubris. By any reasonable measure, deleting this article this article would have essentially no effect on a minor's privacy, given that Google, for example, gives over 100,000 hits for the subject's name. BLP is no issue as long as strenuous citation efforts are taken (which should be no problem, given the mainstream media coverage). zafiroblue05 | Talk 05:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - If the consensus is to keep them deleted so be it, I can respect that. However, I don't see why we can't have them considering we have an article on vaginal flatulence. I mean, if ever there was inappropriate article it is that one. IMO. Fighting for Justice 06:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment But that article doesn't name underage victims. The two articles under discussion here were not deleted because they were inappropriate, they were deleted because they are potentially damaging for underage victims of sexual abuse who are not notable for any other reason. -- Donald Albury 11:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Hmm, the more I read these discussions, the more I'm convinced that there needs to be a better way to develop consensus here. Is there any chance of a more widely-advertised note about this issue? Right now we're just dealing with individual pages as they come, but not developing anything overall. FrozenPurpleCube 07:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted. Two individuals (minors at that) who have no notability outside of the crimes committed upon them; there are few cases more clear-cut, IMO. If the crime itself is notable (it seems to have received a fair amount of press coverage) then there may be a case for keeping an article on the crime, but not these. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 13:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion - as Morven says, there are other ways of dealing with this other than the biographical, especially as according to the deleted article he did not set up this foundation, his parents did. Potentially damaging articles like this, that do not discuss people as people but merely as crime victims, are not needed in the slightest. Troutslap the people calling for Newyorkbrad's head: don't make fools of yourselves, this was the right decision and not an abuse of admin buttons. Moreschi Talk 13:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion. I think Newyorkbrad very eloquently lays out the issues here, and is making an appropriate judgment call, which I endorse. On a related note, I am very disappointed in those calling for him to be drawn and quartered. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that the judgment call he is making is wrong; it is absolutely unreasonable and shameful to accuse him of not acting in good faith. Nandesuka 15:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. It's a bit ridiculous to suggest that we can have an active non-profit called "The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation", which has ongoing activity (see here), and yet salting the earth for WHO is Shawn Hornbeck ? So Wikipedia becomes WikiCensorship and we have another scandal on our hands because we refuse to discuss a person who gets one hundred thousand hits. Are we suddenly the mind-police? Is this 1984? Are we going to start denouncing each other to the State? I hope so, because I have a long list already. Wjhonson 16:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This obviously isn't going to be closed as overturn now, so I suggest that we can close it as "deletion endorsed." If desired, the deleting administrator may consider salting either now or at some time in the future, should it become necessary. --Tony Sidaway 16:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- On the contrary, Tony - if we're simply going by weight of argument, there's certainly nothing in the way of the endorse arguments to suggest that this was proper. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- (edit conflict) Tony, thanks very much for the endorsement. However, the discussion here has been helpful in developing community views on some BLP-related issues. Some valid points on both sides of the issue have been raised. I intend to respond to some of those who have taken the opposite position from me this afternoon. I hope we can use this to develop some more of the community's thoughts on the broader issues. I'd prefer not to see the discussion closed as yet. Newyorkbrad 16:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Correct that, Shawn now gets one hundred and eleven THOUSAND Google hits. That's thousand. I recommend we merge this article with other wikiscandals. Wjhonson 16:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: Okay, this rhetoric is becoming offensive. Many in the Wikipedia community are concerned with the privacy interests of non-notable people who become temporarily famous through actions outside their control. Read my statement at the top of this page again. Maybe I made a good decision that will be endorsed, and maybe I made a bad decision that will be overturned, or maybe I made a decision that will be overtaken by additional information (see below). But if you really think that our showing greater sensitivity to this type of issue is a "scandal," then that is really, frankly, demoralizing. Newyorkbrad 17:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: As the person perpetrating the entire scandal in the first place I would hope you'd be "offended" when someone shows you what you actually did. The fact that you continue to support what you did is perfectly normal but exteremely offensive to those of us who believe in the process, and that the process should be allowed to play out. Shawn's actions were not "outside his control". The scandal is not "greater sensitivity" the scandal is that this story already exists, and you want Wikipedians to bury there head in the sand over your particular viewpoint of it. And you're willing to use your admin powers to compel that belief, instead of allowing the process to decide it. That is a perfect example of Admin Abuse. In fact I think I'd add a new chapter just for you. Wjhonson 17:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I have no objection to strong views plainly stated, but it would be worthwhile if you paid more attention to what is going on elsewhere on this page. Far from allowing the process to decide the issue, I have specifically urged that this debate be allowed to run to conclusion rather than close early; and far from urging that we bury our heads in the sand I've stated that I'm quite open to additional information that might come forward in this case. I don't know why there is this perception throughout Wikipedia that our arguments become stronger when we call one another various names. Newyorkbrad 19:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I've contacted the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation and informed them of what was going on here. She said she'll have the family take a look at the deleted article and get back to me with any concerns. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Hmm, apparently it's already gone from google's cache so they won't be able to see it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It appears that the article may still be available on Wikipedia mirrors, such as Answers.com, etc. Alternately, you could request that an administrator make the content available to the Foundation, if they would find that helpful. JavaTenor 17:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I endorse this approach and was actually planning to ask whether it would make sense for an OTRS volunteer to reach out to the Hornbeck Foundation and solicit their views on this matter (including the views of Shawn Hornbeck himself, specifically) as part of our overall effort to build sensitivity to the needs and rights of crime victims to our approach to this type of article. I would have no objection to temporary reinstatement of the article for a day or two so they can look it it, if that is requested. Night Gyr, I would also appreciate your drawing the attention of whomever you are in touch with to the reasons that I gave for the deletion. I think that in fairness they should know that the basis for my concern was the privacy interest of victims, especially minors, even if a given person victim might be prepared to consider waiving such privacy interest in this particular case. Newyorkbrad 17:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion and salt the earth per Brad's comments. I don't see why we need to be naming minors who have been victims of crime. Their names add absolutely nothing to the article. And I don't care what other websites and newspapers do. Thanks and respect to Brad for his wisdom, courage and strength of integrity. Sarah 17:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion. Let me say, though, that we are getting toward the borderline here. This is not Brian Peppers we are talking about; these are people who participated (albeit horrifyingly against their will) in a event that was deemed quite newsworthy by the mainstream media. We want to be careful not to move WP:BLP to include much beyond this point; but I think that these people basically remain private citizens overall and thus entitled to be not harassed (which is was it amounts to) by having a Wikipedia article on them. If there's any question of this it's definitely resolved in their favor by the fact of their being minors. Herostratus 19:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- How private can a citizen be if they've gone on Oprah to discuss it? Seriously. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't recall seeing "appeared on Oprah" in any of our notability quidelines. Appearing on Oprah is now part of everybody's fifteen minutes of fame. It is as ephemeral as making page one of a newspaper. Such persons in the past have sunk back into obscurity, and it is not the function of Wikipedia to prevent them from sinking back into obscurity as private persons. -- Donald Albury 20:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That's not the issue Donald. He's saying that if someone appears on Oprah, there are no privacy issues with mentioning their name. Notability is a totally different issue, but seeing as there's wide media coverage I don't see how they could be non-notable either. - Mgm|(talk) 11:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What would be enough for James Frey? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- On the contrary, being on Oprah shows an even larger interest than simple news observation. In terms of notability, however, there's no argument that these two are notable individuals. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- No, that is transient notoriety. Most people will have forgotten their names in a few months. These two boys are not notable in an encyclopedic sense, and deserve to return to private status. Permanently enshrining their names in Wikipedia is a disservice to them, and may cause them distress or harm in the future. Keeping the articles would in effect be punishing them for being victims. -- Donald Albury 22:15, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- There's no such thing as "private status" in cases like this, especially this one. Notability is not temporary, and parroting the "may cause distress or harm" line with no demonstration of it does not help the discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- 'Transient' is pretty subjective, and 'worth talking about' is a value judgement. WP:N goes by whether they're talked about, not if we think they should be. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:38, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion per Sarah/Brad/Herostratus. ⇒ SWATJester Denny Crane. 19:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - And how private is a person when they have an official website where the very issue is discussed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wjhonson (talk • contribs).
- Overturn. I think by the time you have a website and charity in your name, you're notable whether or not you intended to be. Oh, and I've found where I first heard of Hornbeck. He got an article in Reader's Digest, and I think it was the cover story. Why are we even debating this? -Amarkov moo! 22:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Restore the history, redirect and merge to Michael J. Devlin. A side note, one should not speedy something in which a rational argument for notability exists. That's the purpose of AfD. However, if it the assertion of notability is unsourced, it can be removed right away. Then it can be speedied.--Rayc 22:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Further comments and introspection by the deleting administrator:
- As I think has become clear, I have been following this debate with very close attention. Many valid points have been made and continue to be made, both in support of endorsing and overturning my deletions. Of course I especially thank those like Cbrown1023 and Fred Bauder and Lar and Sarah and Moreschi and Nandesuka and the others who have said kind things about me personally, which has helped counter some other remarks that were temporarily demoralizing. I want to respond to some of the comments that have been made, and I ask in advance for forgiveness if my comments prove to be lengthy, for the issues are critical and there is much to be said.
- My greatest regret from this affair is that there are editors who consider themselves advocates for the victims of crime and have inferred or implied that my deleting these articles shows an indifference or insensitivity to the welfare of victims. As I had hoped my opening comments would have made plain, that is far from the case; the whole point of these deletions, and the reason I handled them is I did, is precisely based on concern for the well-being of two teenagers who were subjected to horrific and criminal abuse. Editors of good faith may and often will disagree with the best means to balance the welfare of the subjects of our coverage with our encyclopedic mission, but I yield to no one in the depth of my concern for doing so.
- In general, I am concerned with how not just Wikipedia but the modern mass media in general treat crime victims and others who achieve notoriety or notability, fleeting or otherwise, as the result of events wholly beyond their control. The case of one of these article subjects, Ben, is illustrative. He was kidnapped and horribly abused for four days. When he was rescued, he participated in some media coverage, such as a press conference called to thank his rescuers. Beyond that, he may have lingering obligations to relive his ordeal, such as at court proceedings if his alleged assailant goes to trial. But apart from that we, all of us, owe him the precious opportunity to retreat into childhood to the extent that he can and to resume being a 13-year-old boy again, without reminding him unduly that what was done to him is known to the world, lest we join in adding violation by the crowd to violation by the crime. Perhaps not a day, perhaps not an hour, goes by when this young man can escape the memory of what happened to him, but he is certainly allowed to try; and above all we must not allow ourselves to define this individual, to the extent he is known to us at all, by the metes and bounds of the tortures that were inflicted upon him. We know little else about Ben beyond what has been revealed about his victimization; and it is not our business to know more. The Wikipedia article on him, by necessity, conflated the victim with the crime.
- If Ben, in future years, does not become a starting linebacker for an NFL team or a first-chair cellist at the Philharmonic or the senior senator from Missouri, but remains otherwise non-notable as we define notability, the Wikipedia article on him 30 years from now may remain more-or-less frozen and define the now-middle-aged Ben Ownby largely in terms of what happened to him for four days when he was 13. We owe it to him not to do that. For the adult Wikipedians, imagine that this were your child; for the younger Wikipedians, imagine, God forbid, that this were someone known to you—is the story of a kidnapping and a series of assaults upon a young victim how you want to define the life of someone you cared about, the most important fact anyone will ever know about him? I see from some of the comments in this AfD that I am not alone in finding the thought horrifying.
- Now unlike some people who think that the strength of a position is boosted by ignoring everything that is said on the other side, I want to concede the merits of, and frankly engage, the good-faith arguments in favor of keeping the Ben Ownby article. One argument that arises in discussions like this one, although it has been pressed harder in other BLP-related debates than in this one, is that the encyclopedic mission comes above all and that if a subject meets our standards of notability (an issue that in this case I have not addressed and is certainly debatable), nothing must stand in the way of immortalizing that person in Wikipedia, presumably forever. I have little to say to any Wikipedians who think in those terms, beyond commenting that their position has not prevailed in this community and I hope never will. We are proud encyclopedists and Wikipedians but also feeling human beings, and we are creating the encyclopedia for the benefit of the readership, and there must never be a class of innocent people whose lives are diminished simply because we exist. "Wikipedia," an influential editor once said, "is not here to make people sad." It especially is not here to make children sad. If I were a teenager and Wikipedia had a page about me that pretty much consisted of telling the world how I was unwillingly abused by a stranger for four days when I was 13, I would be sad.
- A second argument is that we demean the work of our contributors when we delete it. I value the editors of Wikipedia beyond price; they are Wikipedia, and I became an administrator to serve and assist them, not to demoralize them or destroy their work. But this argument proves too much; it militates against any deletion, and Wikipedia has long passed the days when we kept virtually any content that could be contributed here. Still, dealing with deletion-related issues in a sensitive and caring way is important, and because I see that my actions hurt some good-faith editors, I have come to regret that I deleted these two articles so suddenly and without any warning or discussion. Some of these editors' rhetoric on this DRV, in return, was a bit harsh and over-the-top; if I can say so myself, there was and is no decent argument that I deserved to be reprimanded, or "punished," or suspended, or desysopped, or made the subject of an essay on "administrator abuse," based upon the fact that in accordance with emerging community values I deleted two articles about living minors who were the innocent victims of sex crimes. But as I say, I see now that the way I handled these deletions demoralized and offended several good-faith editors on important topics. I urge upon certain editors some introspection on how essential and desirable it really is, or is not, to provide detailed information on the child victims of crime within our pages, and also would ask them to give some thought to the value of civility in deletion debates. But I have done my own introspecting as well, and have concluded that I did not handle these deletions as well as I should have, and I apologize to the editors of these articles for that.
- A third argument against deletion, emphasized above by Nardman ("N") in particular, is that we owe it to the victims of crime to preserve their memory. This contention may have some cogency in the case of well-known murder victims, where the victim has been lost and we, whether on or off Wikipedia, preserve the precious memory. The preservation of memory is less crucial in the case of living people who have survived brutal crimes, people restored to their lives and their families and who may very well not want society's memory of them to be the record of their victimization. The extreme example of Anne Frank has been mentioned, and I respond that if Anne Frank had survived the Nazi bestiality, it would have been well within her rights to decline to publicize her story until she was ready to, or to decline to do so in a personally identifiable way, and I for one would have fought to respect that. Now to be sure, different considerations may obtain where the crime victim chooses to speak out and be remembered as a pro-active advocate for the victims of criminality; but I see no evidence that beyond doing what he was practically required to do in the wake of being rescued Ben has done such a thing (in this regard, as I note below, Shawn may be a different case).
- A fourth argument against deletion is epitomized by Serpent's Choice's point that the standard I point to would require the deletion or rewriting of many other articles as well. I have waffled on this one; on the one hand, it says to me that we have much work to be done to live up to our BLP standards, but on the other hand, it says to me that further discussion is needed as we decide precisely where the lines must be drawn. But we are having enough trouble deciding what to do with these two articles, so I shall leave the broader questions for another day.
- The fifth and frankly by far the strongest argument for retaining these articles, and many others like them, is also offered by Serpent's Choice in this discussion, and harkens back to an argument that as far as I recall was first offered by User:Everyking in the otherwise unhappy context of the Brian Peppers DRV back in February, and has also been made by some contributors, particularly DeLarge, supporting undeletion in the "QZ" ("fat Chinese kid") deletion discussions. This is the point that once an individual, for whatever reason, attains a certain level of Internet presence and publicity, he or she is going to come up in Google or other searches for many years to come no matter what, and so the individual is better off if the most prominent Internet hit on his or her name is as the subject of what will hopefully be a well-written, sourced, accurate, NPOV, BLP-compliant Wikipedia article rather than what may be a half-baked piece or a hatchet job by a less reliable source. I generally identify with the BLP "hawks" (an exception to my otherwise "inclusionist" tendencies as an editor and an administrator), but for the most part we who have taken the lead on advocating against the articles against human "Internet memes," crime victims, and the like have not engaged with this argument. We need to do so, for it is a substantial and by no means a frivolous line of argument; and in some cases it might, after all, make a decisive difference. But in the case of Ben Ownby, my view is that this consideration does not outweigh the other, more powerful concerns I have expressed, and my view remains that I did the right thing by deleting that article and still urge the community to endorse that deletion.
- As I have said from the outset of these discussions, the case of Shawn Hornbeck presents a much closer question. Partly because his kidnapping lasted for four years rather than four days, and partly by his and his family's choice, it is now clear to me that he and his family have affirmatively chosen to be outspoken voices publicizing the plight of missing and abused children and teens. Whether that is the right choice for them to have made is for them alone to decide, but having looked at the website and the press coverage of the Hornbeck Foundation and the like, it appears quite possible that the existence of a Wikipedia article about what was done to Shawn, and how his and his family's life was changed as a result, and what they are now doing to try to spare other families from like fates, would be consistent rather than inconsistent with the goals of maintaining Wikipedia as an encyclopedia devoted to notable persons and noteworthy institutions without deliberately doing gratuitous harm to any living human being and especially not to a minor. As I have noted above, under these unique circumstances, I endorse Night Gyr's special effort to reach out to the Hornbeck Foundation and to solicit their views (not just those of their Foundation, but hopefully of Shawn himself) on the matter, because if Shawn and his family want an appropriate article to be here, obviously I would lack standing to argue that it shouldn't be here based on considerations of Shawn's own well-being; and I believe in view of the massive coverage that has been pointed to, our other criteria for notability would be satisfied. Absent comment from that quarter, I am still of the view that deletion would be justified, but I will admit that I am not at all as confident of this as I was three days ago and if I had it to again might well have brought that article to AfD rather than speedied it. Speedying is for clear-cut cases. Ben's article was probably a clear-cut case; Shawn's, as I look back on it, probably was not.
- I apologize again for having gone on at ridiculous length, and thank anyone who has read this far, but the issues raised here are of paramount importance to this project, and quite frankly to many members of the general public, and we need to get them right. They will continue to be hashed out on talkpages, and on deletion pages, and on policy pages, and on the mailing list, and it appears in coming days also in the crucible of what I hope will not be a bitter and contentious arbitration case (see generally, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Badlydrawnjeff, now teetering on the verge of acceptance for a hearing before the Arbitration Committee). If the participants in these discussions bring to the table the wisdom and good sense of most of the editors who have participated in this deletion debate, there is hope that we can move toward consensus on these issues without damaging our shared values of civility, community, and creating a reference work we can continue to be proud of. Newyorkbrad 01:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- And thank you for taking being willing to take your lumps and endure the withering criticism in this forum. Your civility and focus on keeping this discussion on-topic is very much appreciated. Calwatch 04:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think a weakness in the "it'll be on the Internet forever" argument is that Web pages do disappear (I keep having to deal with dead links that had been used as sources for articles). I certainly hope that Wikipedia will survive longer than most of what is on the Internet, and that could put us in the position of becoming the major factor in keeping attention focused on a victim who deserves the right to heal in obscurity. -- Donald Albury 08:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Undelete Shawn Hornbeck (at least redirect both). Their names can easily be found in the used sources for the article on the kidnapper, trying to hide them here won't add to their privacy and will make the relevant articles incomplete. On top of that, Hornbeck is actually looking to attract press attention, so deleting the article to protect his privacy when he (and his family) have no such qualms is not helpful. I'm suggesting redirecting because they're primarily notable for their kidnapping and not much else could be written about them (without sharing material that is private). - Mgm|(talk) 11:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I just read that The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation was contacted for input and I would ask administrators to wait closing this until we have that input. It will provide value opinions of the actual subject involved. - Mgm|(talk) 11:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Can someone tell me if there is some uncensored Wiki site running or being planned where sourced information cannot be censored at the whim of some moron's "moral values"? OJ's kids are traumitized by his being linked to a murder so you idiots need to take down his page too. John celona 14:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment You should really be careful about who you call morons (Wikipedia:No personal attacks). -- Donald Albury 15:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted It is impossible to write a neutral, encyclopedic article about a person's life when the only reliable sources relate to a single incident, no matter how well documented. How sad that problems of these people have been so well documented that for the rest of their lives, potential employers, co-workers, suitors, neighbors, and anyone with a purient interest in the private lives of other people will be able to discover every detail of the abuse they suffered, and how disgusting that some Wikipedians think we should be a party to this with our top-ten web site simply because there are enough sources to keep us clear of libel laws. Thatcher131 17:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Regardless of the extent to which I agree or disagree on any given point, well said, Brad. In part because I believe that I initially misjudged (that is, advocated AFD-listing) what should be done with these specific articles, I have been spending quite a bit of time looking into what could be written. I do not know how many of the commentors here carefully read the articles that have been deleted, but these articles were not the way to do it. Can we find a source for the number of times the police think a victim of sexual abuse was "forcibly sodomized"? Apparently, because we did. Does that have any business in an encyclopedia, whether the subject is living or dead? No. I think that all of these cases (Peppers, QZ, Hornbeck, Ownby) underscore the same very real problem. WP:BLP says that the things we say about living people must be sourced. It does not say, but should, that simply because we can source a thing does not mean that we should say it. I haven't spoken with Brad or the other editors involved in this issue, but I can say with certainty that is why these articles have been deleted. But I cannot agree that Wikipedia must remain silent — if we can speak in a way that does not fall prey to tabloid salaciousness. Shawn's four-year long kidnapping is unusual. It has raised substantial questions — evaluations of the accuracy or lack thereof of the concept of Stockholm Syndrome, questions about the procedural methods to search for kidnapped victims, questions about the role of law, and of the parents of vicitms in these roles, in addition to the news coverage of the crime itself. An article, I think, can be written from this. Ben Ownby? Not so much. There is nothing to say there outside of his role in Hornsby's story. That's why we have redirects. And I think that should be the standard. When we can write an article that does not devolve into taking base advantage of the horrors of an event, we should write it, with care, with caution, and with respect. When we cannot; we don't, we mustn't. I don't think there is any way remotely possible to write a mature, appropriate story about Brian Peppers, based on currently available material. I do think there is a way to write an article for QZ and one for Hornbeck. But for those articles to exist, we as a community need to recognize that, in a real sense, we are failing at more than WP:BLP. We are failing at WP:NPOV. At the time I write this, Wikipedia:Editorial discretion is a red link, and we should all be humbled and saddened for that. Serpent's Choice 19:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The two articles should not be considered as equivalent. Ben Ownby is a minor footnote in the history of kidnapped children. There is nothing particularly notable about him which raises the bar above that. Shawn Hornbeck is a completely different kettle of fish. The Foundation named for Shawn has had literally hundreds of public appearences. Bloggers don't seem to care that much to discuss Ben, however they all want to discuss Shawn. The subject of Shawn's four-year disappearence has been on dozens of forum discussion boards. Shawn has appeared many times more often in the media than Ben. Ben gets 41 thousand Googs, while Shawn get over a hundred thousand. Many more intimate details are known about Shawn, then Ben. Ben is a cypher. Therefore I recommend, that any further discussion should discuss the two articles seperately. Wjhonson 16:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep the two discussions together. That will only unnecessarily complicate the discussion further. Out of the last three opinions on both, we seem to be more in favor of deleting the both of them. Don't complicate this further for nothing. Cbrown1023 talk 20:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn with possible relist at AfD - per aboveWjhonson 16:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted Write an article about the foundation that briefly discusses why it was founded. Do not maintain a redirect from the person's name. Thatcher131 17:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted - as per Thatcher131, an article about the foundation might be appropriate. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted and start a new Wiki site where self-appointed censors can't delete legitimately sourced information based on their own "superior" moral values. If the source says that "11 year old Jimmy Jones, born March 1, 1990, got kidnapped and anally raped 654 times" the new site prints the information, in total. Let those who want the censored version go to Wikipedia-or the Chinese internet. John celona 23:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This is deeply sick, and I trust that you are simply trolling at this point. Newyorkbrad 23:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Elizabeth Smart, a child sex victim, still has a page complete with date of birth and photo. Get to work censors!John celona 13:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know that I see anything deeply sick about that, and I would imagine that to make the contention that John intends to make—viz., that the effects of editing and publishing on those in the real world ought not to be of much/any concern to those who write an encyclopedia (a perfectly reasonable argument, if not one that commands a consensus here at present)—one would want to choose an extreme example to illustrate the absoluteness of his contention. John's tone is, to be sure, probably unnecessarily confrontational, but only in its use of the appellative superior (and, of course moron, in an above comment) and its conflation of what some might perceive as the censorship by BLP with what most would perceive as censorship by the Chinese government (which, whether an accurate submission or not, is likely to serve to inflame more than to engender discussion), not in its putting forth an extreme (and to some off-putting) example. It is not, in any case, trolling for one to attempt to make a constructive point (or to protest that which he views as contrary to policy/good sense where he aims not to disrupt but to improve the project) in a substandard way, and I would likely submit that John's comment is more likely to be regarded as trollish than any equally unconstructively adversarial comment in this DRV that goes to a contrary proposition only because the latter should a principle that most will generally recognize as more moral than that suggested by, for one, John. Joe 05:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. This guy was a cover story in Reader's Digest. He has a foundation set up in his name. At some point, we have to say that someone's a public figure whether or not they intended to be, and this certainly passes that point. -Amarkov moo! 04:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted Even if other outlets violate journalistic standards by publishing minor sexual assault victims, wikipedia does not. --Tbeatty 05:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Yes Wikipedia must hold it's head high above that trashy yellow-press Reader's Digest. Can't sink to their level. Wjhonson 06:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted For the reasons I gave above. -- Donald Albury 10:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted per Newyorkbrad. --Aude (talk) 04:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and send back to WP:AFD, regarding Newyorkbrad's assertions, and the necessity of forging wider input and concensus. --Haemo 08:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and relist at AfD, as per my previous post above. Brad's reply to John celona is, in my opinion, unqualifiable. Stammer 10:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and relist at AFD We have an AFD process, and we should respect it. In an AFD I would probably favor deleting the two articles. But Wikipedia has guidelines and they should not be overruled by an individual's supposedly superior moral compass. Someone else's compass might say delete -out of process - articles contrary to their political or religious views. If we encourage admins to delete things which they find distasteful or which they think might cause embarrassment, we have made a dramatic change in the nature of Wikipedia. Policy changes should not be arbitrary acts by individuals, but should be done on the policy pages themselves. Put the new WP:POORTASTE provision out for debate and if it passes, fine. If there should be a provision in WP:N or WP:BIO which says that articles which could embarrass minor victims of crime (like these two) or minors in general (like QZ) than by all means add it and fight the battle there, so it is an enduring standard to cite in all future AFDs. In legal theory they say "Hard cases make bad law." It is better to alter the rules when cases such as this seem to dictate to some editors that changes are indicated. The goal was to prevent the individuals from future embarrassment as well as embarrassment while they are still minors, so you'd better run and delete (out of process) Lina Medina, an article about a girl who gave birth at age 5 (and was thus the victim of statutory rape). The fact that she is now 73 years old should not be a barrier, by that principle. Otherwise someone could mark their calendar and recreate the Hornbeck/Ownby articles the day they turn 21. Also, when did we start giving the subjects of articles veto power over the existence or content of the articles? Seems to fly in the face of WP:COI. Previously I have argued for deletion of such articles as the Hornbeck and Ownby ones on the basis that we are an encyclopedia, and the criteria which lead newspaper editors and TV news producers to include something as a story are not the same as those which encyclopedia editors use, and a failed guideline lingers on as the essay WP:NOTNEWS. Some of the views expressed here seem congruent with it. Just because something has substantial coverage in multiple independent reliable sources, we don't necessarily need an encyclopedia article about it forever. Edison 16:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I see now changes made May 28 in the policies WP:BLP and WP:NOT which allow greater latitude for deleting articles such as these two, on the basis that Wikipedia is not a newspaper and that we should be careful not to embarrass such youthful crime victims as these two. Not clear if that extends to Elizabeth Smart and other persons not previously notable who got news coverage because of some event beyond their control. But the policy toolnow exists for greater freedom to delete these articles. Seems like it could still be done via AFD, given that no irreparable harm is likely to occur during the 5 day AFD period, based on how long the articles previously existed. Edison 22:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It doesn't really give any greater latitude. There were also long-needed changes made to the deletion policy where you're gonna need more than strengtrh of numbers to keep this deleted - the arguments to keep this deleted haven't been strong so far. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted - per aboveWjhonson 16:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted per my above. Thatcher131 17:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 20:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted Even if other outlets violate journalistic standards by publishing minor sexual assault victims, wikipedia does not. --Tbeatty 05:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- See Elizabeth Smart. Where exactly in Wikipedia is it stated "minor sex victims cannot be named even if well sourced"? I await the answer. John celona 13:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted For the reasons I gave above. -- Donald Albury 10:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Then you are going to censor the Elizabeth Smart article also, which contains name, date of birth and photo of a child rape victim?John celona 17:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- In accordance with the ruling by administrator Newyorkbrad I have put up Elizabeth Smart for deletion. This article contains not only the name, but the birthdate and photo of a minor rape victim.John celona 23:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Keep deleted per Newyorkbrad. --Aude (talk) 04:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- CommentIs there a link to the previous AFD for this article? We are reviewwing an apparently out of process speedy deletion, so information about past judgements on the article would be helpful. Edison 17:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Response: There was no prior AfD on this article (there was for Shawn's, but not for Ben's). Newyorkbrad 17:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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