Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Note added under deleted section

I've added a note in the reminder to administrators deleting articles here. Basically, it makes it clear that this only applies to articles created after 18 March 2010. I've just fallen foul to this rule whilst tagging an article - It makes it clear in the prod template and on the policy template so it should be made clear to administrators deleting pages. Feel free to discuss here. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 23:31, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Once twinkle is up and running it'll have an automatic check. Extra warning in the policy is fine by me though. Gigs (talk) 02:52, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

When is the Twinkle mod supposed to go live? <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 05:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I keep asking or hinting at that too and getting no response. The trial period is useless without it.--Kudpung (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

When the bickering calms down enough that Amalthea thinks he won't get a lot of flak for turning it on, I suspect. We might be there. Fingers crossed. Gigs (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and once he returns from his Easter vacation.
It's now turned on for all, you might need bypass your browser caches to get it. Amalthea 14:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

added->presence

I changed "a source must be added" to "a source must be present", reverting someone who had changed it the other way. The reason for it to say present instead of added is to provide for the case where an article that has at least one good source has been mistagged. So it's more precise and correct to say that at least one source should be present, rather than one added. Gigs (talk) 03:22, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Initial results

I screened the first 20 today at WP:PROD. About half were in fields where I think myself competent to search. Almost every one of those was either actually sourced, or very easily sourceable. Most are in my opinion actually notable, though a few might possibly not pass AfD. This seems to have the net effect of switching the work from article authors to the more conscientious among the reviewers. Agreed that we screening admins know how to do am adequate job of sourcing, but we should develop the skills of the beginners, not do it for them. Ridiculous amount of fuss for the meagre results. I doubt I will be discussing the details here; I am better suited to help people cope legitimately with whatever the rules may be. I cannot control the community when it is foolish, but I can assist towards reasonable solutions in as many individual instances as I have time and energy for. DGG ( talk ) 07:21, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Well said DGG. I think those who have taken an active, continuous, and serious interest in the development of this sticky prod, and/or contributed to its making, would want to follow the results of the trial period very closely at least from the same perspective as yours. During this period, the creators and the taggers need to be observed closely to see the effect of the new prod. I for one, will probably not be making such a systematic effort however - I am neither an admin nor an NPP; thus my main interest in being here is to help us get a tool that I, for one, can use on the BLPs in the projects I work with in the capacity as a content provider rather than as a regular housekeeper - notwithstanding the fact that I have an ecclectic list of a couple of thousand entries on a regularly edited watchlist.

One of the ways of switching the work to article authors, and to develop the skills of the beginners, is to ensure that the prod taggers notify the authors/major editors that their new article(s) has/have been tagged. Any any automation shouldbe welcome, and wouldalso reduce the workload of the more conscientious among the reviewers.--Kudpung (talk) 08:31, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I was going to wait until all the fuss died down then propose something a little more pedantic, like summary userfication (no 10 day waiting) of new BLP articles written without sourcing (heck, why not all articles?) together with a very friendly directive to the new editors to try to source them. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be interesting as a potential solution, but the big problem is that once something is out of article-space, it becomes much harder to track. Also, since users are allowed plenty of leeway with drafts in their own userspace, it would be harder to get the bad ones deleted at MFD. The Wordsmith^Communicate 13:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting WD, but slowly, slowly, catchee monkey. - let's get this one on the road first.--Kudpung (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday I WP:BLPPROD fifty articles that where tagged as {{BLP unsourced}} and meet the criteria of having been created since March 18. I sent a {{ProdwarningBLP}} to every one of the creators of the articles. Within a few hours and much to my surprise(and a little dismay) found DGG(and others) referencing them. I don't see it as a good thing that DGG and others spend time immediately referencing them. My intention was and still is, that the article creator takes some responsibility for having created an article withOUT any references. I'm tempted today not to WP:BLPPROD any articles but instead send the creators a {{ProdwarningBLP}} or something similar. What do you think? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:39, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think its a good thing that DGG and others referenced these articles. I suspect that many of them were written by newbies, perhaps some of them will look at how their articles have changed and thereby learn how to reference an article. Remember our priority is to improve the encyclopaedia, deletion is merely one tool in that process, . Ϣere SpielChequers 00:28, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm okay with it. Would it be fair to say that you were hoping to do those 50 as a test, in order to have a better view into how effective the new process was at working at prodding new authors? If I'm hearing you right, I completely share your interest in finding that out, but I think even if folks here refrained from referencing BLPPRODed entries that we really wouldn't have much useful information, because the balance between work done by existing editors and by new articles will shift (I hope towards new authors) when BLPRPOD goes "into production" and the volume of articles increases greatly. I'm anxious to see how all of this will work, but I'm cynical about reading too much into results from small tests, and want to head directly to a full-scale deployment. In a few months, we'll have a much better idea of just how well this is working out, and we'll have had time to make minor corrections along the way as well. --Joe Decker (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it's premature to talk about "meager results." When only a few articles have been tagged, it's possible for article reviewers to fill in the sources on those few articles. The existing backlog of unsourced BLPs suggests that over time there may not be enough existing reviewers to accomplish that task. How many article creators would have actually filled in those sources for you in the 2-week time frame if you hadn't sourced them yourself? We have no idea. Only when we do a larger-scale deployment will we really get a sense of how this will work in progress. Thus, my preference that we get to it, and then (in due time) take a good, serious look at what has been accomplished, and at what cost. I don't mean "turn a blind eye to data for a few months", by the way, I just think that we should expect the effectiveness of BLPPROD to vary quite a bit for the first couple months.--Joe Decker (talk) 00:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

About policy development

WP:POLICY Includes:

"Policies have wide acceptance among editors ..."
"Policy and guideline pages should ... maintain scope, avoid redundancy."
"Policy pages are seldom established without precedent,[6] and always require strong community support."
"New proposals require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy."
"Ending a discussion requires careful evaluation of the responses to determine the consensus."
"The following points are important in evaluating consensus: ...
- "There must be exposure to the community much beyond just the authors of the proposal."
- "Is the proposed guideline or policy, or some part of it, redundant with an existing guideline or policy?"

I submit that no version has been shown to have consensus from the community. It is at best unclear whether any version even has consensus among people recently participating here.

I acknowledge that the version that I originally posted on the project page, and that I helped distribute, has not been shown to have community consensus. I also acknowledge that those details had no exposure to the community beyond the authors.

But before anyone accuses me of not practicing what I preach, I'll point out that I did not act alone, and that at the time, no objections were known to the details I distributed. (Support for the principle was established in the RFC.)

Now objections are known.

Decreeing something to be policy does not make it so.

Also, I am not suggesting that use of the sticky prod be stopped. Maurreen (talk) 16:21, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty clear it will be a procedural policy soon. A bit hasty, we should wait for the end of the week for more comments. But there isn't a whole lot of harm yet from jumping the gun, only a few dozen nominations so far. The full-scale effort will likely not get underway for a little while. What on Wikipedia is ever a perfect clean start? We'll work it out:) - Wikidemon (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I gave my rationale but didn't make my point clear. My point was against several statements that indicated the policy had been set, if not settled. Maurreen (talk) 06:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

About gauging community consensus

Some people have objected to my canvassing. I was transparent about what I was doing. I have been told that my wording was not neutral. I suggested that it would be helpful to propose other wording. No other wording was suggested.

People have objected to my side-by-side comparison of proposals.

No suggestion was given for a better way to compare. Do these people prefer edit warring? Do they prefer an alleged policy that is always in flux?

All of this lends the appearance that some people want to stop discussion at a point that is agreeable to them, or that they do not wish to know the consensus of the community.

Again, before anyone accuses me of not practicing what I preach, I have at no point tried to discourage discussion. One thing I have tried to discourage is the discounting of previous discussion -- especially the idea that whatever happened before a given person joined the discussion was somehow improper or worthless.

Also, I am not suggesting that use of the sticky prod be stopped. Maurreen (talk) 16:21, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I object to polling, especially at this point, and especially regarding basic points. We are working toward consensus through editing and discussion. This is the way that non-disfunctional policy creation should happen. A fascination with polling is a surefire way to ensure that consensus never forms. Gigs (talk) 16:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

We already know the consensus of the community. This talk page and the earlier workshop have had significantly less participation than the 2 phases of the RFC. You say that you are trying to discourage the discounting of previous discussions, but this thread and the one directly above it look like exactly that. They look like an attempt to discard the results of the RFC and hold yet another big community "discussion." Mr.Z-man 16:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the prior RfC's were successful in establishing the broad brushstrokes: there is consensus for some for of sticky prod. The devil is in the details, which will be sorted out via the normal consensus mechanism over time. While it's somewhat messy, I'm not sure that a managed, top-down approach is the best (or even all that viable) here. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 17:36, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Well as one of those Maureen "canvassed", my opinion (& what I believe was the general community consensus) is that as long as this "sticky PROD" process thingy is only used on new problematic biographical articles, & sufficient time is given to the interested folks to work thru the existing problematical biographical articles & fix them, everyone's happy. As for just how this "sticky PROD" process thingy is done, as long as it solves the problem of unreferenced biographical articles on living people with as little WikiDrama & hurt feelings as possible, the details don't matter. However, it would be a kind thing for the tagging editor if she/he were to drop some kind of note to the author of the original article that there is a problem -- especially if the author is a newbie who doesn't have an adequate grasp on our increasingly complex rules & policies. (And if people want to quibble over when & how this should be done, maybe they ought to get their noses out of the policy pages, put away the automated editting tools, & interact with other Wikipedians as if they were the human beings that they actually are.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I rather agree. Let's just agree something and get it started. I'd rather have something a bit weaker that's live and can be improved as necessary on the basis of real experience, than endless discussions about what might or might not be better. So for instance requiring only a relevant source, rather than a relevant reliable one, does weaken the process - but only experience will show how much, and only that experience can provide a foundation to try to work out something stronger that's actually workable, in terms of both policy development and later practice. Rd232 ^talk 22:10, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Goodness yes, please. How big an issue several potential concerns are, and how they can be addressed, will be much easier to resolve once we have some actual data and experience. --Joe Decker (talk) 00:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Do these people prefer edit warring? Do they prefer an alleged policy that is always in flux? yes absolutely. why are you surprised people want a win rather than consensus, keep going, you're doing fine. Pohick2 (talk) 02:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Trying to clarify:

People go in and out of discussions. As a rough analogy, if a discussion goes on for a week, and if there is a consensus on any day that doesn't take into account the previous discussion earlier in the week, than any consensus on that day is no more valid than that on any other day.

About consensus through editing -- I don't think consensus should be gauged by persistence, by how often a party repeats itself. I'm not saying it should be gauged through polling.

Mr.Z-man, I'm a little confused. You say, "This talk page and the earlier workshop have had significantly less participation than the 2 phases of the RFC." (Indicating that more participation is better than less.) But you also say that two threads I started "look like an attempt to discard the results of the RFC and hold yet another big community 'discussion.'" (Apparently indicating that there shouldn't be too many participants.) Maurreen (talk) 08:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It isn't a binary decision like that. At this point, now that we have fairly wide community approval for the basic ideas, having another huge discussion just to iron out the wording would be counterproductive. You might be able to get 1000 users to agree on the general principles, but you're never going to get them to agree on the wording. Any large community discussion would inevitably turn into a poll on the whole thing, making the RFC pointless. Mr.Z-man 14:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, based on Maureen's comments I have the impression that my comment is being misunderstood. What I was trying to convey is that as long as existing articles aren't affected by this new policy/procedure, most of the Wikipedians who you should listen to aren't going to complain if you apply some new policy/procedure to new biographical articles on living people. It was a grant of freedom, not further restrictions. And if you don't get it right the first time or two around, just be willing to adjust as needed & everyone will be willing to accept your apologies & move on to issues which truly matter. (Like the case of the latest jerk/misunderstood visionary to be mentioned on WP:AN/I.) As for the plea for treating other editors more humanely ... this is something desirable which should not be solely the concern of this group; if you don't achieve it, you won't be worse than any other group on Wikipedia, but if you do, you might become a model for all of those other groups which should do better. Now stop trying to second-guess what the rest of us want & just get stuff done. As nicely as possible, of course. -- llywrch (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Llywrch, sorry for any confusion. My comments were not related to anything you wrote. Maurreen (talk) 06:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Userfication?

I see a suggestion to incubate or userfy has been added to the policy. Do we want to recommend userfication? I've seen several concerns expressed above about user space making unsourced BLPs harder to track and harder to delete. Gigs (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I would oppose a recommendation to userfy. Incubation is fine, since it has a defined process, but userfication has a tendency to just leave things scattered around in userspace forever. About a year ago I did a quick study of userfied articles and found that even after a couple months, only ~10-15% ever make it back into mainspace and most of the ones that don't are never deleted. Mr.Z-man 16:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I would say that we most certainly do not want to recommend userfication, unless a user requests it and has sources. When I undelete a BLP upon user request, I ask that the show me one source first. Once they do, I restore it to mainspace, or their own userspace if they ask for that so that they can work on it. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Changed it to only recommend incubation, if appropriate. Gigs (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I still think userfication is a good idea but it would need its own side procedure. Userfication shouldn't prolong the 10-day PROD process, but would instead be a little jolt for brand new editors, done as quickly as possible after they create their first unsourced BLP, to give them a little more time to try again... kind of a "nice try, but please try again" thing. If done that way, and if they remain tagged with a deletion notice with a defined due date (so they don't linger), I think it avoids the problem. But I don't think we have to consider it at this time. We have enough on our plate right here. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:30, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That's basically what incubation is, except it puts the article in a place with more monitoring and where more people can work on it. Mr.Z-man 19:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that userfication should be done only when requested. As inexperienced users in most cases don't know how to handle and it results in the article being forgotten. Incubation is much better. Cenarium (talk) 21:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

This was my edit, and dropping the userfication mention is fine by me. Incubation will generally be preferable unless the user requests it, and even then there's nothing actually wrong with incubation instead. The main thing to make it useful, of course, is letting the relevant people know about the incubation. Twinkly incubation could do that automatically, and I did a while back ask for incubation to be added to WP:Twinkle (on the back of the userfication RFC), but the queue of people developing Twinkle is quite short... Rd232 ^talk 22:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Undeletion

We currently have: "The undeletion can be requested through an administrator or at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion. Where the deletion has not gone through requests for undeletion the admin carrying out the undeletion is expected to check that a reliable source has actually been added."

I don't see why any checking should be different based on where the undeletion request is made. Why not make them consistent, one way or another?

And if we do want checking, how much time should we give the person to add the source? Maurreen (talk) 06:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

One way to do it is for the undeleting admin to re-ad the BLPprod tag. That way, if no sourcing is added, the article will be redeleted in 7 days. As soon as sources are added the tag gets removed.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes that's the easiest way. From experience of the restoring and referencing of some of the articles from the January deletion spree, I think we also need to spell out what to do if in an attempt to reference an article you realise that the sources aren't there or the ghits are of someone else of the same name. I would suggest the neatest solution there would be to revert the article to where it was when it was deleted, with an edit summary to the effect of "Not sure I can reference this after all". That way the article reverts to being an expired sticky prod and will doubtless be deleted quite quickly. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we'll often find that the user doing this is a newbie and is either liekly to ask someone, or just to do nothing. The undeleter watching and tiding up later is probably the best bet. Avoid instruction creep.--Scott Mac (Doc) 14:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

What else needs to be done?

What other details need to be hammered out? Can we please just agree to go with the current incarnation for now, and then see if it needs to be changed at the 3-month review (now just two months away)? Please? Or must we keep bickering and redebating everything? Consider this a motion to close discussion (for now) and use the current version, if we can live with it for now. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Strong Support - Took the words right out of my mouth. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 18:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me. This seems to be a reasonable compromise, and it would be nice to get a stable version ~~so that this can be implemented in twinkle~~. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:34, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Apparently now live in twinkle :) -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't get it to work in Twinkle. Regular prod yes, but the BLP prod says coming soon, and won't let me click on it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

You might need to clear your browser's cache, close all browser windows and try again. I checked and it was working for me. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 03:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Will try that, thanks. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:49, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That worked, thank you. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 04:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

May I restart tagging?

I appreciate that debate continues on some details, especially poorly sourced articles. But does anyone object if I or others start applying this tag to completely unsourced BLPs created since 18th March 2010? If no-one objects in the next 48 hours I will resume tagging. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind. I expect that, as long as the tagging is confined to unsourced articles, most people won't mind. Maurreen (talk) 11:26, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I strongly object. Please see the above section from today: Unresolved. To continue applying this tag in the circumstances in my opinion is inappropriate. –Whitehorse1 11:31, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I've seen that section, but as far as I could see it only added to the contentious items the issue of the same admin tagging and closing a sticky prod. I've no intention of closing any of these, whether I tagged them or not, so if I commit to not closing any that I tag as deleted under this mechanism would you be willing to withdraw your objection? (For the avoidance of doubt, if I tag something as a sticky prod and someone then points out to me that I've missed a blatant hoax etc I may well delete under a different criteria, but I will not go through expired sticky prods and close ones that I started whilst doing so is contentious). I hope that covers your concern, if not please tell me what else you consider to be in dispute. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I've commented there. I'm now being called names in edit summaries to this page as well. –Whitehorse1 13:55, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Given that we don't have consensus on any particular procedure as yet, or on the wording of this page, there is no valid sticky prod process as yet - so the tag is not applicable. So I think it's a bad idea. Why not wait until there's a real procedure in place? The world won't end before then. In the meanwhile it may be useful to attach a tag that notes that as an unsourced BLP it may be subject to a procedure under consideration. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I've already seen the tag in use and there seems consensus on the key points, so I see no reason not to continue. It's only by using it that the finer points will be ironed out e.g. how good the source needs to be, but I can't imagine that being much of sticking point (or even a sticky one). :) If it stays at the theoretical level it'll never get sorted out. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 16:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

On that specific point, my prediction is that we won't have much disagreement in implementation. Someone who adds a weak source would be in a hard position to argue that, although inadequate, it has met the bare minimum to escape deletion. They could spend their efforts finding a better source, or concluding that there are none so the article isn't viable. Nevertheless, as a process matter it's hasty to declare consensus on a major holiday within 24 hours of a compete redraft and markup of a procedure page. We ought to make sure there's significant input and wide acceptance. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:25, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that we have sufficient consensus for the current wording for me to resume tagging. I appreciate that some editors are opposed to the whole concept, but challenging the original RFC close is probably best not done here. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As an update to my last comment, the week is more than half done and although I don't think all the strings are tied down on the exact wording it's clear we are very close to something that has or will gain consensus. I see no harm in getting started. Could you please start a little slow, maybe a few dozen per day, to see where this takes us? Once everything is up and running we have to be prodding unsourced BLPs at least as fast as new ones are being created. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

One thing that would save time is if editors could use the unsourced tag only for BLPs that really are unsourced, or sourced only to myspace and similar. I've been finding quite a lot tagged as unsourced which do have sources, but perhaps in the EL section and not properly formatted. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Points of contention

It appears that the main points of contention are:

Whether the sticky prod deletion should be completely confined to new "unsourced" WP:BLPs or whether some other standard for sourcing is to be used.
Whether to make any mention relating to unilateral deletions by admins.
To a lesser degree, how long the tag should stay on the article before the article is deleted.

To simplify the discussion, I suggest tacking the different points of contention in different sections. Maurreen (talk) 11:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the time frame has settled at 10 days. Maurreen (talk) 08:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Level of sourcing

The RFC resulted in consensus for a sticky prod for new "unsourced" WP:BLPs.

I don't see a compelling reason to extend that. I don't see any evidence that the community supports broadening that.

If it is extended, the line needs to be bright and open to as little interpretation as possible. Maurreen (talk) 11:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

No refs only - I don't see any compelling reason to complicate matters, and it would open the process to interpretation. A clear-cut "unsourced" is simple. OK, we might miss out using the process on blatantly self-sourced junk, but I don't think the loss warrants the complexity and potential misunderstandings - ie interpretation of what is and is not a primary source. The other deletion processes exist (viz prod, AfD), and can handle the fallout. In many ways, I see this sticky prod as similar to CSD - for 'blatant' problem articles. Chzz ► 06:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

A simple "unsourced" is fine with me for the BLP prod, but wouldn't the article have to get a reliable source eventually or face deletion on notability grounds just like any other article? -kslays (talk • contribs) 15:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That's my own dilemma with it all. If a new article has no sources and you can't find any, then it's CSD A7. If you can find 'em, you should add 'em and fix it.

OTOH, we have thousands of unsourced BLPs out there, and no sign on people fixing 'em (or checking if they pass notability, and if not, using a deletion method) - which leaves us open to a great many problems. That's the whole argument in a nutshell. Chzz ► 16:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That's not what A7 is. Any plausible claim to notability, sourced or unsourced, is enough to fall outside A7. Sourcing has nothing to do with A7. Gigs (talk) 16:17, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. A single unreliable source that does nothing but provide some evidence that the subject might actually exist isn't really better than having no source at all. An unreliable source isn't sufficient to pass WP:V for the subject, so it can't even prove that the article isn't a hoax. If we allow unreliable sources, we might as well just say that any article that isn't an orphan can't use this process, as incoming wikilinks are an unreliable source (other Wikipedia articles) that the subject exists. Mr.Z-man 16:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

See my point 2 below. We can only see from practice how problematic allowing unreliable sources for removing the tag is. And only then, with substantial problems demonstrated, do we have a chance of figuring out and agreeing on a minimum RS standard (eg, independent of the subject, avoiding Wikipedia or clones, maybe avoiding obviously self-published sources). Let's just get the process going and get what benefit we can, and then improve. Rd232 ^talk 14:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral deletions

Any mention of unilateral deletions does not belong here. It would make as much sense (none) to add that material to the pages on deletion policy. It would make slightly more sense to add it to the page about speedy deletions, which it has much more in common with. But that idea has not now gained consensus.
Such deletions are based on only the judgment of a sole admin and do not follow CSD, PROD, or AFD. I can't imagine that anyone thinks these are supported by consensus. Thus, another reason not to spread the idea. Maurreen (talk) 11:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Conclusions

As the progenitor of this PROD For New Unsourced BLPs, I'm going to try and cut through this clusterfuck of proposal this and proposal that and shouldn't-we the other.

Notification is not required, but encouraged. That was the RFC position, it's the majority view here, and it makes sense. Most prodding will anyway be via Twinkle, and that will automatically notify the creator. If there is a specific concern about automated prodding not via Twinkle (AWB?) then that can be addressed specifically, not via a general injunction to notify.
Only a relevant source is required, not a reliable one. This process is for completely unsourced BLPs; adjudicating reliability introduces too much complexity into what should be a very simple process. Where a relevant but unreliable source is introduced, discuss with the editor, remove the source if they agree and if necessary re-prod as again being an unsourced BLP. Otherwise, take to WP:RSN or WP:AFD.

That cuts through most of the issues. If there's a big problem with people adding unreliable relevant sources, then an amendment on that aspect can be discussed (I suspect it'll be too hard to agree anything though, except perhaps excluding self-published sources). In any case there's no call to hold up the whole process for that. What else is holding this process up? Can we get this show on the road already? Rd232 ^talk 12:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Rd232 could you review this conclusion. I don't see where anyone has put forward the point you have added to the conclusion part 2. Chzz, Maurreen and kslays's comments is about being unsourced before the wp:STICKY process is initiated. Mr.Z-man is against the use of an unreliable source. So your conclusion of 'Only a relevant source is required' does not make sense. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Curiouser and curiouser

BY the time we get to the latest diff mad this morning on on 6 April, in spite of some changes I made myself, and a whole string of further experiments by another editor, we now have totally conflicting instructions for the template users. I wonder if this is getting curiouser and curiouser, or just plainly sillier and sillier. To quote Monty Python sketches is now not far off the mark.--Kudpung (talk) 14:42, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It would help to be more specific. Gigs (talk) 14:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I presume this is a reference to SlimVirgin's changes about reliable sourcing. I've now removed as clearly possible the requirement that sources be reliable, and left that they need to be relevant. I strongly believe that attempting to insist at this stage on requiring "reliable sources" is going to risk derailing this process, because reliability is not clearly enough defined anywhere for the process to be as simple as it needs to be. In addition, the RFC was always about unsourced BLPs, not badly sourced BLPs. Of course sources so unreliable as to be ejectable on sight are a grey area, and in practice we might permit re-blp-prodding if unreliable sources have been removed; this should exclude eg Wikipedia and its clones at least. Finally, if someone is willing to add (only) unreliable sources and continue to defend the article after discussion about sourcing, that should be enough justification to use WP:AFD, where there can be discussion about sourcing, more eyes looking for more sources, and more people helping to educate the new user. Please, if we need to come back to this issue later on, then we can do that, and discuss exactly how to introduce a requirement that sources be reliable. Insisting on it now is premature at best. Rd232 ^talk 16:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer reliability, but I'm willing to compromise on this with relevant. We need to get this going immediately, and at the 3-month review (now 2 months away) we can discuss requiring an RS. Let's settle this for now. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the template to "relevant" rather than "reliable". I agree with Wordsmith that "reliable" is preferred, but we can revisit if there is any abuse of this change by authors. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 18:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The wording matters for authors, but it matters at least as much for established editors, in terms of how it influences them to deal with reasonable attempts to introduce sources which may be considered unreliable. Rd232 ^talk 14:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Reliable source

I've unclear why a few editors want to change "reliable source" to valid, relevant etc. Reliable source is the term we've used for years on WP to describe sources we regard as acceptable. The meaning is explain in the policy here, and it gives a wide latitude, so it's not referring to an unacceptably high standard. We shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel by using new terms, in part to avoid confusion, and in part because this policy has to be consistent with the other policies. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see your point, but reverting this back and forth is counterproductive at this point. I'm happy with either way, since I have no problem with nuking an unreliable source when I find it. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 22:50, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It's important to stick to the vocabulary editors are using elsewhere and have been using for years, or else it's going to raise questions about what kind of source is a "valid" one, or a "blah" one. No point in opening a fresh can of worms unnecessarily. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I see you've yet again changed this against consensus. I've reverted it. If it were up to me it would say reliable, but that's not what the consensus is. Gigs (talk) 00:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The consensus has been "reliable" to describe acceptable sources since about 2005. Can you explain this revert of yours? You restored the repetitive writing. It looks like a revert for the sake of it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a revert for the sake of all the people above who agreed that we would not put mention of "reliable sources" in the policy or templates. Gigs (talk) 00:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Who are all these people? People on this page are saying they prefer reliable, and anyway that's what the policies say. We can't have a tiny group of people on this page (one or two, it seems) trying to rewrite the core content policies. And you didn't explain this revert, which restored some of the writing I'd tidied, so please do, because it looks as though you're reverting for no reason. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can't be bothered to read the background on the issue, then I'm not going to explain it to you. I don't see any explanation necessary for that revert, the only "tidying" was directly related to changing it from "relevant" to "reliable". ~~To you, "tightening" apparently mean "changing to wording that I like better, consensus be damned" anyway.~~ Gigs (talk) 00:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

"Relevant" to whom. Lets not introduce some new term for people to war over. Reliable at least has some mileage in wikipedia. It is certainly hard to define, but at least we've got some starting points. We don't need to start a new vague vocabulary here.--Scott Mac (Doc) 00:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I was of the view in an above thread that "reliable" is hard to determine. But "relevant" is far more amorphous. I have trouble with applying a BLPprod to an article with an unreliable source, but I have no problem with requiring the insertion of a reliable source to remove a BLPprod. I therefore support the SlimVirgin version of this revert war. We can't tolerate the removal of a BLPprod because of a link to facebook. --Mkativerata (talk) 00:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Gigs, there's no point in having hundreds of people work on core content policies for several years to develop a certain vocabulary (e.g. "reliable source") that has strong consensus across the project, only for that vocabulary to be ignored whenever a new policy is written. "Reliable source" is not that high a standard, if that's your concern. It's the barest minimum. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

SV, that was my position as well. "Relevant" was a compromise designed to get BLPPROD up and running. It's not my concern at all, in fact I was one of the first editors to insert "reliable source" verbiage into the template, which was later reverted after it caused a row. If there is new consensus to change it to reliable, great. Just be aware that there are going to be at least a few people screaming loudly over this. Gigs (talk) 00:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, but it is up and running now, and most of the people who've commented prefer "reliable" because it's tried and trusted. And I think anyone objecting to "reliable" either isn't familiar with how low a standard it can unfortunately be, or is trying to destabilize things. But the important point is that policies have to be consistent with each other. We can't have new editors running from policy to policy seeing "reliable" needed by most, but suddenly "valid" or "relevant" needed by some other. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, SlimVirgin, you have always seemed to make great contributions and to write well. But you can't change this at the last minute to require "reliable" sources. That is a subversion of huge, long process so far. There is huge consensus for this to address entirely unsourced BLP articles. You might think that is not enough, but then you need to work in other processes to address under-referenced BLPs. This is a narrow tool, addressing just the completely unsourced BLPs. Of course it is easy to side-step and protect an unsourced BLP, by adding a trivial sourced statement. But that is to be addressed by other means. --doncram (talk) 01:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what huge process you're talking about, Doncram. We can't have processes that most people weren't aware of changing the core content policies. "Reliable" is the word that's widely accepted around WP. It's explained by the policy here. Also, I think you've misunderstood; it doesn't affect the idea that this applies only to entirely unsourced BLPs. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't see the issue. A WP:STICKY can only be applied to an entirely unsourced BLP article. Once WP:STICKY is applied it requires at least one reliable source to comply. Seems fine to me. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so if I may interject here, who are the people who don't want "reliable" in the template/policy? Seems like everyone who is arguing for "relevant" is actually in favor of "reliable". If we do use "relevant", then we need to define what relevant and irrelevant sources are, which is just a nightmare. quoting from WP:BLP, which is the basis of this process, "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." Based on this, I have to go with reliable over relevant. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 02:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

SunCreator - the issue is what happens to the BLPPROD when someone adds a myspace page or personal blog as the source? Does that satisfy the criteria for removal of the BLPPROD or not? —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 02:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Alone, it wouldn't satisfy it because the sourcing policy says that no article can be based on such sources. If the only source that exists about someone is a myspace account, then it's not compliant with V, NOR, BLP, or the notability guideline. I hope none of us would suggest that someone's opening an account on a social networking site is enough to allow them a bio on WP. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, to be clear, removal of BLP PROD is intended to be a much lower standard than notability, by design. If all someone has is myspace, then AfD will take care of them. Gigs (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

There's no point in having BLPprod if we're going to allow twitter accounts etc as sole sources. Imagine:

"SlimVirgin, the former Miss World, broke world records last night with the highest IQ score so far noted by Mensa. Miss Virgin, 21, will be appointed today as a special roving envoy for President Barack Obama, who calls himself her number one fan.

Surprisingly unsourced! You sticky-prod it. I create a myspace account that says the same thing and link to it. You therefore have to remove the sticky prod. Ergo, we've all just wasted our time. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The Objecting section deals with this. If there is a dispute over the reliability (not that there would be in this case...) then take it to WP:RSN. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 04:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) That's not how it would go. I would stickyprod it, and i and others would delete the myspace and twitter and other truly junk references that only a really vandal-like new user would try to add. For possibly constructive new users who created a new page, the conversation would go differently. Only if they added truly bad quality references would I introduce the other tags about non-reliable references, and begin a regular PROD process perhaps. The point with Stickyprod is that it labels unacceptable-for-wikipedia-because-truly-unsourced, and begins a process with new users about they need to get/build references up front. It won't work the same if it's not unanimously the wikipedia view, like when debating about whether IMDB is a reliable source for something or not. I believe it will help NPPers be very clear and effective, to label these clearcut cases with stickyprod. And not immediately get all twisted about whether some local newspaper is reliable enough. Let the new user try.

SlimVirgin, of course no one actually participating here wants made up sources. The tone/sense of your argument here seems disrespectful of the intent/interest/intelligence of a lot of people who participated in the RFCs and debates at stickyprod workshop and so on. I happen to think a clear label and process to deal with completely unsourced BLPs is helpful, and i am not stupid (i think). :) --doncram (talk) 04:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(ecx3)Joshua, That's not really the issue I see, I think the problems all arose because there was concerns that a Sticky process could be initiated against a BLP that is unreliably sourced. This lead to discussions of wording and we now have wording that says a Sticky can only be initiated if the article is unsourced. After the Sticky process has been initiated then it has to have a reliable source. This is preference of everyone so far as I can tell. There is a set of people who believe others would disagree with it, but I think all that is confusion over wording BEFORE the Sticky proccess is initiated and not related to AFTER it has been initiaated. So confusion seems only one of communications, not one of disagreement. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 03:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense. It is spelled out in Objecting point #2, so whatever adjective is added in the lead section doesn't really matter as long as the Objecting section remains as-is. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 03:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

When we talk of sources on Wikipedia, we mean reliable sources. There is some leeway in terms of what is considered a reliable source for a given piece of information -- even Facebook or a blog could be considered reliable if the person posting on it were considered reliable in the first place. But if the source isn't considered reliable, it's pointless to add it or suggest that we'd permit it.

The larger question is whether this template will end up dovetailing with WP:Notability. I'm inclined to say that's a good thing, since articles that don't meet the notability criteria are deletion-bait anyway. You can stave off {{prod blp}} by adding even one weak source, but what you really want to do is make the article defensible against every form of deletion. That said, I wouldn't want this template/policy to become a hard-edged expression of WP:N. But if it does end up compelling editors to satisfy WP:N right off the bat for their articles, I'd say that's a good thing.--Father Goose (talk) 04:21, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I have given my rationale previously. I am willing to compromise with "relevant." Maurreen (talk) 06:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm baffled too as to why we're using "relevant" instead of "reliable" - sorry if I missed the original discussion. Would someone care to succinctly explain or point to the original discussion? It's not that I can't be bothered, it's that I'm not sure where to begin looking. Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 07:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever is the original discussion might be a gray area. It was brought up here. Also, during the waning days of Phase II of the RFC, there was discussion. In my view, that discussion was inconclusive. There are also pertinent comments in other sections of this current page. Maurreen (talk) 07:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of previous discussion, it does look like we have an emerging local consensus here to go with reliable. I'm inclined to leave it for now. As you said, there was no clear consensus either way at the RfC, and the discussions there regarding this issue were generally limited to a similar number of editors as we have here right now. Gigs (talk) 13:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

arbitrary break

At the risk of repeating myself (er), I repost my reason for changing "reliable" to "relevant":

I strongly believe that attempting to insist at this stage on requiring "reliable sources" is going to risk derailing this process, because reliability is not clearly enough defined anywhere on Wikipedia for the process to be as simple as it needs to be. In addition, the RFC was always about unsourced BLPs, not badly sourced BLPs. Of course sources so unreliable as to be ejectable on sight are a grey area, and in practice we might permit re-blp-prodding if unreliable sources have been removed; this should exclude eg Wikipedia and its clones at least. Finally, if someone is willing to add (only) unreliable sources and continue to defend the article after discussion about sourcing, that should be enough justification to use WP:AFD, where there can be discussion about sourcing, more eyes looking for more sources, and more people helping to educate the new user. Please, if we need to come back to this issue later on, then we can do that, and discuss exactly how to introduce a requirement that sources be reliable. Insisting on it now is premature at best.

I would add that whilst reliability is a nebulous concept at best, and one which will often require discussion, relevance is generally bloody obvious. Either a source supports key parts of an article - enough to merit inclusion - or not. Sources may be ejected for being irrelevant or too unreliable (most self-published and open wikis - cf WP:SPS), but generally if some doubtful sources are provided and the article is defended, that ought to be enough to at least take the article to AFD for wider discussion, and not force deletion via blp-prod. Apart from anything else, this is more likely to lead to recreation, and more likely to lead to turning new users away. There is an irreducible education role we cannot neglect - it's not just about defending Wikipedia from junk. Rd232 ^talk 10:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you point to what a "relevant" source is in Wikipedia policy? "Reliable" is backed up by WP:V a core policy of Wikipedia. Also note that content in WP:BLPs must "strictly" adhere to WP:V. The continuing arguments for "relevant" are pointless, since I, along with many other editors here, will be removing any statements (and their sources) in a BLP that do not adhere to WP:V. WP:BLP leaves no wiggle room for a relevant source, only reliable ones. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 12:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeating myself again - "relevance is generally bloody obvious". I've given arguments why requiring "reliable source" to prevent deletion is a bad idea (at least at this point). What you've written above makes perfect sense - if you completely ignore the fact that (a) reliability is neither objective nor absolute, nor written down anywhere in a standardised way that newbies can understand quickly (b) Wikipedia articles are written via a process and not required to be perfect at point of submission - so reasonable hints that the article is worth saving should be followed up (c) new editors, who are the ones creating the articles in question, need educating and helping. It also ignores DGG's point about the sourceability of the early BLP PRODs. This would be less problematic if "reliable source" was written down somewhere in a well-defined way such that newbies can say "ah! no Wikipedia or clones, no Twitter, bla bla". But we don't - instead we have a concept which is contextual and fairly well understood by established editors. WP:BITE. If someone's trying to provide relevant sources which are not so unreliable that they need to be removed, then doubt about the source's ultimate reliability shouldn't allow the article to be deleted. Instead, that article should be subject to further scrutiny via AFD. There's no point trying to turn the decision-point about whether a blp-prod tag can reasonably be removed into an absolute quality-based choke point, which it wasn't intended for. All it's supposed to do is force somebody to provide a source worth having. Reliability is neither objective nor absolute, and introducing it as a criterion here is a bad, bitey idea, if we don't provide clear standards for it. The main issue people are talking about here is anyway not reliability per se but self-published sources. So why not specify that? "The article must contain at least one relevant source which is not self-published (eg Twitter, Facebook, Myspace are all self-published)." If an editor manages that, the article warrants discussion before deletion. Thus where a relevant source of questionable reliability (but not self-published junk or otherwise so useless as to require immediate removal) is provided, the article should be neither deleted nor thrown into the Wikipedia "somebody will get to it" heap, but AFD'd for a proper discussion. Rd232 ^talk 14:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a potential substantive sticking point (hopefully one soon resolved) that suggests we don't yet have a consensus version of the policy to implement - I'm not persuaded that the RfC was dispositive on the point or that "relevant" is a particularly good idea. How is "relevant" any better defined than "reliable"? I just don't see it. The problem is that insisting on a reliable source (which implies relevance perhaps) means that closures are not necessarily going to be automatic or uncontroversial. We open the door to the same sorts of disputes and misunderstandings we currently have about what a reliable source is. But if we don't insist that the source be reliable, we pass over a large class of deletable BLP articles - bios based on self-promotion, tabloid rumors, speculation, lawsuits, political advocacy hit pieces, etc. They will be deleted sooner or later anyway but they may linger, and we just postpone dealing with the problem. Further, given that we're catching newbie editors who need to learn how to write new articles, I don't want to teach them any bad habits by allowing them to add poor quality sources as a way of defending their new articles. Although I'd defer to consensus on the subject if there really is consensus, I'd favor using "reliable" because it is more in line with policy. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Relevant isn't any better defined than reliable, but it doesn't need defining - it's obvious in practice. In practice a source is generally about an article's topic (or part of it) or not. There are grey areas of course, but rarely any of genuine dispute. Your points about self-promotion and tabloid rumors and such, Wikidemon, only multiply my concerns that by insisting on "reliable" according to the standard of whatever established editor happens by we give carte blanche to use BLP-PROD as a WP:BITEy discussion-bypassing deletion tool for all new BLPs. Such a process is not intrinsically ludicrous but it's not what this was supposed to be; and if it's turned into that, it should be fully discussed. Reminder: this process is about deleting completely unsourced new BLPs. Once non-ludicrous sources (myfacetweetbook are generally deletable or can be defined as ignorable for this purpose) are provided, the article may well still merit deletion but it is no longer a case for BLP-PROD (deletion as completely unsourced) - it requires discussion. BLP-PROD should be as clear-cut as WP:CSD, with rejects punted frequently to WP:AFD. Rd232 ^talk 15:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It's also worth reminding ourselves that experience on these issues shows that as the number of people discussing it shrinks, so the proportion of people willing to delete with little or no discussion rises. As was very very clear from the RFCs, the wider community has a substantially different attitude from the editors most active in drafting policy - and we should not forget this. It's one reason I'd much rather start the process without a hard-but-vague "reliable" requirement - I do not think the wider community supports it. n any case, it would be easier to justify the need for it, and to figure out how to be clear about it, if we have some experience with how the process works in practice. Rd232 ^talk 15:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The inclusion of "reliable sources" determines the acceptability of contentious material, not whether an article is to be included.
This began with the mass deletion of unsourced BLPs. The ArbCom case was about that deletion of unsourced BLPs. The two phases of the RFC were focused on unourced BLPs.
The RFC resulted in finding wide community support for the expedited deletion of new unsourced BLPs. Whether people who supported that would also support any other standard, we don't know. The number of people now supporting another standard does not come close to the number of people who supported the unsourced standard in the !vote.
"Reliable" is too subjective to be decided by just two people (the person proposing deletion and the deleting admin). WP has many disputes about whether a source is "reliable" in a given context. Maurreen (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's an example. An Article for creation has been rejected, supposedly because "We cannot accept unsourced suggestions or sources that are not reliable per the verifiability policy."

The article cites The New York Times.

I am not saying the article should or should not be included. I am saying it shouldn't be rejected based on lack of a reliable source. I am saying that this example shows the problem of changing the standard from "unsourced," especially to "not reliably sourced." Maurreen (talk) 16:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Disputed reliability

Suggestion - remove the words "reliable" and "relevant" from the article as regards sources, except from the "Objecting" section, which I have just modified to have stronger language around rejecting a supposed unreliable source. This way we won't have the borderline deletions that we are concerned about, and we can move forward with this policy. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 16:26, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist), I appreciate your intent.

But to me, it would make more sense to send such articles to WP:AFD. How about the following:

"If a source is present but its reliability is disputed, you must refer to the WP:AFD to get consensus on the reliability of the source, or use the regular deletion processes." Maurreen (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC) -- I just fixed this; I had meant to say AFD, but I could live with RSN. Maurreen (talk) 16:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I did that too quickly. What I should have said was, "If a source is present but its reliability is disputed, you must use the regular deletion processes." That's what I prefer. But I can live with RSN if that is what the group settles on. Maurreen (talk) 16:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Just "Josh" is fine :). I don't have a problem with going to AfD in those cases, but I also would hate to send it to AfD just because someone drops a link to a wiki page. What can we do to try to remove that possibility? —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 16:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. You made a smart suggestion. :)

I admit I have a bias toward AFD over RSN at least because I am more familiar with AFD. The RSN idea is growing on me.

I don't think I've ever even been to RSN. I'll try to check it out.

If the group can settle on either of these for 24 hours, then maybe we can conclude. I'm thinking of 24 hours to be fair to everyone's schedules. Maurreen (talk) 17:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Checking back previous discussion of reliable source

There are various recent comments implying that a reliable source was not supported in previous discussion or at the BLP/RFC, but without any specific diff to backup those remarks. So I have been going over previous discussion. Here is what I found from the WP:BLPRFC closing admins summary:

"Many of the current members of CAT:BLP are not actually problematic, because a large number of them have been sourced since tagging (without the tag being removed) or have sources in a manner that bots don't recognize. Even many of them that actually are unsourced are factual and neutral, but overwhelming consensus is that BLPs have a higher expectation of sourcing, in the interest of preventing potential harm to living people. Sometimes libel may look innocuous, so having reliable sources is imperative."

Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Now compare the all the comments in the RFC about "unsourced" to those about "reliable" sources.

Also note that IMDB is pretty gray, as just one example. My point here is not about what should be the status of IMDB, just that it is gray. Maurreen (talk) 16:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

In fact that closing said, on BLP-PROD specifically, "The BLP PROD should, in general, not be removable without sufficient addition of sources. What "sufficient" constitutes must be determined by the community." The gist of various discussions (including some which seems to have mysteriously vanished) was that a BLP PROD would force people (specifically, newbie authors) to think about sourcing, and provide at least some sources worth talking about ("proper references" was a phrase used). The problem comes when you get down to brass and tacks and seek a definition. If people are going to insist on "reliable", they should at least start a new section around a proposed working definition. I suggest any such definition should focus on excluding self-published sources; but being both specific enough and flexible enough is probably why such a thing does not currently exist! Hence my preference for discussing reliability in context, and gauging consensus, rather than imposing unilateral judgements. I absolutely do not understand why people are unwilling to try this for now and see how it goes. On the basis of experience and evidence we can then develop some higher standards if necessary - and have some foundation for saying what they should be! Rd232 ^talk 17:12, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Admin-discretionary deletions

What is the rationale for including this: "This policy does not affect the discretion extended to administrators under the BLP policy to delete any BLP where the page's primary content is unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material; where there is no obvious way to fix it; and there is no previous version of the page that is policy compliant; see this section of the BLP policy for more details."

I note that policies should be concise and avoid redundancy. Maurreen (talk) 07:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I see this as nothing more than a helpful confirmation, to avoid doubt, that this policy does not operate to the exclusion of WP:BLPDEL.--Mkativerata (talk) 07:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I see it as typical Wikipedia verbiage.It can be shortened and remain just as informative.--Kudpung (talk) 07:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It can stay deleted. The page includes:

"This special proposed deletion for unsourced biographies of living people is an additional tool to be used in the interests of increasing the quality of BLP sourcing on Wikipedia. Nothing in this policy should be understood to affect the core content policies or existing deletion processes.

"Whether the BLP is subject to deletion or not, any unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material must be removed from the article immediately and without discussion, in accordance with the BLP policy." Maurreen (talk) 08:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that explicit references to WP:BLPDEL should stay removed. I brought up the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:CSD#Contentious_BLP_deletion and it seemed that the few people that commented rejected any idea that WP:BLPDEL represented any remit outside of G10 or consensus for summary deletions outside of CSD. Because this is a contentious piece of policy, it shouldn't be repeated here (or anywhere outside of WP:BLP) factually, until there's a more clear consensus about what, if any, consensus for summary deletions outside of normal CSD that it represents. This policy already clearly states that it doesn't affect any existing deletion policy or process, so it would have no effect on WP:BLPDEL even if we don't mention it by name. This policy is contentious enough without using it as a platform for "policy POV pushing". Gigs (talk) 12:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it - it editorializes, and in doing so misstates policy. This entire procedure arose after the community rejected the notion that administrators have certain discretionary powers. If, as the paragraph claims, this procedure does not alter core content policies or procedures, then disputed statements of what those policies and procedures are do not follow. I've also changed "should" to "must" in order to conform to BLP. We just got over an edit war over the difference between should and must with respect to notifying article creators. - Wikidemon (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Scott's addition was a little better, and I do understand his concern. If we could add something that is truly neutral regarding the discretionary deletion debate, that would be ideal. Gigs (talk) 16:20, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added "or practices" to "processes", is this sufficient? Gigs (talk) 16:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

What's the problem here. Admins can speedy delete articles which violate BLP in every version under G10. Arbcom has indeed indicated there's a wide latitude here. This isn't the place to debate that - we simply need to say that the fact an article has a stickyprod on it, in no way limits any action an admin might otherwise take. Why not be explicit? "Practices" leaves it vague. There's no need for that.--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Why not just be clear and adapt the WP:PROD footnote (my addition in italics): "BLP-PROD-tagged articles remain eligble for speedy deletion nomination in the usual way. When tagging a proposed deletion candidate for speedy deletion, the proposed deletion tag should be left in place in case the speedy deletion is rejected. A rejected speedy candidate is still eligible for proposed deletion. The {{blpprod}} tag may be restored if replaced with a speedy deletion tag." Rd232 ^talk 16:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Scott, what is the rationale for including anything about admin-discretionary deletions? We don't include everything related everywhere. To include this here is redundant. Maurreen (talk) 16:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

If we want to be explicit, then lets be explicit and say "or under any speedy deletion criteria" instead of invoking the controversial and poorly-defined idea of "administrative discretion". If you need to delete something outside of CSD, under IAR, then whatever's written here can be equally ignored. Gigs (talk) 17:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Quite. Let's just use the WP:PROD precedent of being clear that CSD-nominating can still take place, but a failed CSD nomination doesn't disrupt the PROD. Rd232 ^talk 19:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It's standard when writing policy to include how the policy interacts with other policies, so that people reading it don't think there are contradictions, or that one has superseded another. I'm worried that a few people here are trying to use the sticky prod to change the BLP policy by the back door. Before this page was created, Maurreen was trying to undermine that section of the BLP policy, removing the badlydrawnjeff ArbCom decision several times, and even going so far as to oppose having a subhead on the admin-discretion section. That's the only reason I became involved here.

Admins have been deleting unsourced or poorly sourced contentious BLPs that can't be fixed for years, and will continue to do so. If any of you or your loved ones ever have a policy-violating BLP created about yourselves you'll be intensely grateful for that provision. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

If there's anything policy-violating enough to require deletion the relevant text should be removed and/or the whole thing speedied G10. Once again: this process is about dealing with completely unsourced BLP articles, not with unsourced BLP content, or dubiously-sourced contentious content, etc. We don't need every policy noting "BTW, WP:IAR exists." Rd232 ^talk 19:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

And I am worried about you repeatedly presuming motives of other people. Again, I ask you to focus on content and not contributors. Maurreen (talk) 19:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC) -- Clarifying that "you" here was meant to indicate SlimVirgin. Maurreen (talk) 20:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c x2)It's standard when writing policy to pay attention to consensus as well. Your theory that there exist some extraordinary authority to summarily delete BLPs outside of the normal CSD and IAR has met with considerable controversy and resistance. You want to quote it here to give it more credibility. This policy is already controversial enough without you using it as a platform to push this idea. Gigs (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Maurreen, I've found your actions over the last few weeks to be very unhelpful, and I think it's important to point out to people that the section you're claiming here is merely "redundant" is one that you tried to undermine in the BLP policy itself. That's not a motive; it's a pattern. Yesterday, people here made it clear that there was consensus for "reliable"—the word used in every other policy and guideline to describe sources WP regards as acceptable—yet you today again removed that word from this policy without explanation. [1] That isn't helpful editing. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Further, SV, what about the following is unclear to you:

"This special proposed deletion for unsourced biographies of living people is an additional tool to be used in the interests of increasing the quality of BLP sourcing on Wikipedia. Nothing in this policy should be understood to affect the core content policies or existing deletion processes.

"Whether the BLP is subject to deletion or not, any unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material must be removed from the article immediately and without discussion, in accordance with the BLP policy."

That material accomplishes your stated objective of ensuring that "people reading it don't think there are contradictions, or that one has superseded another." Maurreen (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Why are you so keen on removing those additional sentences if you believe they make no difference? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

SV, you are welcome to open an RFC, given that you have so much objection to me. Maurreen (talk) 19:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Girls! Less with the hairpulling. Is there anything objectionable about the section after my reworking just now? Rd232 ^talk 20:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with that, Rd, thanks. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It still includes the controversial version of WP:BLPDEL. Compare with this version from mid-February before SV started editing it. Gigs (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Well then it's been there long enough to mention here. If the BLP policy changes, it'll change here. Rd232 ^talk 20:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

That's one precise reason why it's best not to repeat policy wording, because in practice people don't change redundant versions in real time, resulting in divergent forks. Another reason is that it creates confusion regarding which page is the master policy page and whether any embellishments and amplifications on the secondary page are intentional and represent consensus versus whether they are editing artifacts. And third, restatements of policy that are summarized, explained, etc., can be a backdoor way to enact something that is not in fact policy. That's a concern of mine across all policy space, nothing unique here. I tend to disfavor repeating policy sections on other policy pages. I know other people think repeating policy is useful, though. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Gigs, don't start that nonsense about my copy edit having changed it; you agreed elsewhere that it said the same thing. However you want to word it, admins do sometimes have to quickly delete BLPs that are bad and can't be fixed, as your February version says: "Summary deletion in part or whole is relevant when the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to a version of an acceptable standard."SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

If it says the same thing, then you won't mind reverting to the older version, right? Gigs (talk) 20:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It was poorly written. If you were to revert to that, it would be somewhat POINTy. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, apparently being "badly written" is now grounds for out of process summary deletion. Grammar nazis rejoice. This newly written "policy" enjoys no consensus. I don't know why we should summarize wording that is less than 2 weeks old that had no discussion prior to being introduced, and met with considerable objections after being introduced. Gigs (talk) 20:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think it is and always has been. I take "badly written" as a summary describing a whole family of reasons (including appropriate invocations of IAR) for administrative discretion, not a specific term enabling administrators to delete at will when they think something is written in poor English. We went through the RfC exercise, Arbcom, etc., and determined that merely being unsourced is not a valid occasion for IAR / out-of-process deletions of BLPs, absent a policy consensus on the subject. But there are certainly other IAR occasions for deletion, and we can't enumerate them - that's what makes them IAR, they're not defined. It's kind of like heading a paragraph that "In special circumstances, administrators may do X". That doesn't mean that administrators can declare everything a special circumstance, it's just a description. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the old version made that clearer, that it was a last resort for extraordinary and intractable cases where an administrator needed to act to prevent a tangible harm. The new version makes it sound like a god-given right to delete any BLP that isn't "policy compliant". This weasel wording can be taken to mean "just about anything" because no article complies with every policy fully. Gigs (talk) 20:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Rd232... regarding "been there long enough"... I merely picked one from mid-February as an example. The section was rewritten less than 2 weeks ago. Gigs (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine, then revert to the old version of that section at BLP. You acknowledged that I hadn't changed the meaning, but if having badly written policy will make you happy, I won't stand in your way. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I would rather work forward and readd some of the caveats and qualifications that the old version had, since pure reverting it would break the reorganization of the sections (that I agree with for the most part). We should talk about it on that page though. Gigs (talk) 20:42, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind discussing that, but I'd appreciate it if you'd stop implying that I changed something substantive, and that therefore what's there isn't really policy, and therefore it shouldn't be mentioned anywhere else. It comes to something when policy has to remain a dribbling stream of consciousness in case tightening it gives people the excuse to chuck it out. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

You did make substantive changes. They were objected to, and you edit warred to force them in. Unsurprisingly, editors might not accept policy changes that were done that way. Gigs (talk) 21:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

As I said, you're welcome to restore the old poor writing if you prefer it. No point in going on about it here, though, because both sections said the same thing, so there's no political capital in it either way. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:04, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Watch out for backdated BLP maint tags

I just gave a user an "only warning" for creating unsourced BLPs with backdated {{BLP sources}} tags. This seems to be an attempt to trick editors into not using BLP PROD on his articles. Something to keep an eye out for. Gigs (talk) 00:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

More likely is that the user copied an older article, and left the original tags in place. Kevin (talk) 00:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, he just screamed on my talk page. I think you were right. Go me for assuming bad faith. In any case, it is something to watch out for, accidental or malicious. Gigs (talk) 02:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

reliable sourcing (again)

(broken out of lengthy unrelated discussion above)

Cool. Then maybe you'll find the time to engage with my concern (expressed on this page above at least 4 times) that it's not a good idea to cite a need for a "reliable source", without a clear standard a newbie can understand being provided? Rd232 ^talk 20:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I know that was addressed to SV, but I'll give it a try. Newbies who create non-viable BLP articles based entirely on unreliable sources will have to be engaged sooner or later, and the articles either deleted or improved. Sure, RS isn't the easiest subject - it takes time to learn, it's complex, and it involves some judgment calls about which people may disagree. But anyone creating new article needs to know this stuff. For lots of reasons, better sooner than later. It puts more work on the shoulders of those doing PRODs, but will save lots of grief elsewhere. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:34, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's just restating part of the problem (that newbies need educating). Can we please address the issue I keep raising which is that "reliable source" is not an absolute or objective standard, nor is there anything clearly and concisely written on the subject. As I keep saying, we should either endeavour to agree a minimal standard (eg provide at least one source which is independent of the subject and published by a source with its own WP entry), or leave it as not part of the prod requirement but as something which will be discussed otherwise, either informally or as part of AFD. Alternatively, we could agree as a minimal standard "source good enough not to be removed on sight as useless". This would be closest to the intended spirit of this BLP PROD process. Rd232 ^talk 21:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

We have a working and widely accepted description of what counts as a reliable source in the policy in this section. It isn't rocket science, and it doesn't restrict us to that high a standard. On or offline peer-reviewed articles; university textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respectable publishing houses; newspapers; self-published sources (e.g. blogs) by experts in the field; and self-published non-expert sources (again, including blogs) so long as they're discussing themselves, and so long as no article is based primarily on such sources.

The phrase "reliable sources" and that description of it is accepted by every other policy and guideline, and by the featured article criteria. There's no reason to change it just to accommodate one new policy, especially when neither of the words you want to replace it with (valid, relevant) have been even vaguely defined. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Rd232, please no "source notability", that's a horrible road to go down. Lets just stick with "reliable source". It appears we have enough inertia to get that to stick, for now at least. Gigs (talk) 23:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I am frankly baffled by this dislike of a term that is well-defined and well-known (in Wikipedia terms), in favor of terms that are more vague and unclear than "reliable sources", and entirely undefined in Wikipedia terms. Rd232, if you cannot "educate newbies" regarding the meaning of a term that has a whole guideline devoted to explaining it, how on earth to expect them to understand an undefined term like "relevant"? Jayjg ^(talk) 00:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Most of the objections to "reliable" (not objective, not well-defined) apply just as much, if not more, to terms like "relevant" and "valid." I'm fine with this having a lower standard than notability for this, but allowing non-reliable sources as long as they're "relevant" (whatever that means) is setting a lower standard than WP:V and WP:BLP which are already the bare minimum standards. Unreliable sources should not be in BLP articles at all, and if they are used they should definitely not be the only sources used. I really don't think the spirit of this process is to allow articles that are entirely non-compliant with WP:BLP but meet some other arbitrary standard. If the author can't come up with some reliable sources, then that raises the question as to where the content actually came from. Mr.Z-man 00:45, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. I absolutely and entirely give up. I've made my point perfectly clearly, and nobody's listening. In summary: WP:V et al is NOT clear enough for newbies in this situation, reliability is neither absolute nor objective and where disputed requires discussion, and this process was NOT intended to act as a chokepoint for reliable sourcing in a way which in practice gives one or two people with no particular interest in the subject (tagger and deleting admin) the final say. It was intended to eject articles which are completely unsourced. Introducing sources which are so useless as to require immediate removal should not defeat the tag - agreed. But adding sources which might be somewhere on a continuum of reliability (it's not black-and-white) such that they might be usable at least within an article which includes indisputably good sources should not lead to deletion as "unsourced BLP article". It should lead to an AFD discussion, at least. That is my sole and entire point: ensuring that wider discussion, generally via AFD, takes place when there's a reasonable attempt to introduce some half-decent sources, such that the author is engaging with sourcing and a reasonable sign that good sources may be findable. I am NOT interested in establishing new standards, I'm interested in ensuring wider discussion takes place when appropriate. Rd232 ^talk 09:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

There might be other ways to do that, instead of insisting on removing "reliable" from the policy. Gigs (talk) 12:51, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Please take a look at the Objecting section. I've modified point 2 in an attempt for clarity. I think this gives you what you are looking for by allowing for removal of the most obviously bad sources, but putting the burden on the one who wants to keep the tag to prove that the source is bad. This also will have the effect of educating the one who is using unreliable sources. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

IMDB

I've been accepting this as a sole source for the purposes of the sticky prod e.g. this kind of link (meaning I've not been sticky-prodding articles that are sourced only to IMDB). It's not ideal because it's more or less entirely self-published, but the website does have editors who, at least in theory, vet submissions, though they allegedly don't interfere much. Do we have consensus on whether it counts as a reliable source on its own? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

What I've gathered from the various conversations I've been involved in: Rough consensus that the filmography listings are more or less reliable (and ultimately verifiable to on-screen credit primary sourcing), but nothing else on IMDB is. Gigs (talk) 23:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I've been accepting it where the article contains nothing more than a filmography. Any other biographical material and I consider it unsourced. Kevin (talk) 23:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Okay, thanks. I've been removing the unsourced tag when I see there's an IMDB source with film listings—there are sometimes IMDB entries that contain virtually no information, in which case I consider the article unsourced. I hope someone will let me know if that's the wrong thing to do. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Kevin, Why are you nominating articles that have just some unsourced material? Gigs (talk) 23:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Which ones are you asking about? Probably best to answer on my talk page. Kevin (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

You said you'd consider it unsourced if it had only IMDB as a source yet included information other than filmography. That's kind of strange logic, if you accept IMDB as a source for filmography, then it's no longer totally unsourced, and falls outside BLP PROD. Looking through your history, I only noticed one example, and to be honest I don't disagree with that one because the creator seems to be someone who needs a kick in the pants over irresponsible BLP sourcing anyway. Gigs (talk) 00:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

As I know from discussions around, IMBD is not a reliable source for any content, if I find it as a citation supporting any content I remove it. add a fact tag and move the IMDB link to the exrternal link section. Off2riorob (talk) 12:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I on the other hand know IMDB to be well accepted for cast listings drawn from the works themselves, but not for any other info (especially biographical). There are some users however that refuse to regard any portion of the site as reliable.--Father Goose (talk) 15:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

What are we arguing over?

As written, the policy states in the Nominating section "an article about a living person without references". No mention of reliable there. In my mind this is a bright-line rule. 0 sources == BLPPROD. After it's nominated, a source can remove the tag, but point 2 states "if a source is present but its reliability is disputed, you must refer to the reliable sources noticeboard to get consensus on the unreliability of the source, or use the regular deletion processes;". (emphasis added) All this back and forth over reliable is kind of pointless - if someone adds a patently unreliable source, we shouldn't hesitate to remove that source per WP:V, which would make the article unsourced again. Based on Objecting point 2, I would guess that the grey area cases will end up fixed, or deleted in AfD. This accomplishes the overall goal - having well-sourced articles about all notable living persons.

What are the objections to those portions of the policy? Nearly every procedural point boils down to those two statements. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) talk 23:53, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Well for one, we probably don't need to overburden RSN by having every newbie ask if myfacetweetbook is reliable, or random blog X, or whatever. In most cases newbies won't be raising genuinely problematic issues of reliability, and established editors will fairly well agree on whether the source is good enough for the statement(s) supported. So AFD is probably a better bet. But whilst established editors may agree, the written policy is not exactly easily accessible to the uninitiated. Maybe we just need to provide a decent essay on what reliable sourcing looks like, in addition to the policy links. (In general we should talk about "reliable sourcing", which is contextual for the statements supported, and not "reliable sources", which is misleadingly absolute.) Rd232 ^talk 09:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think educating a good faith contributor is at least as important as settling borderline cases. As long as the response isn't too bitey, I don't see a problem with it. Gigs (talk) 12:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Rd232 - The way I had read the policy, it would be the one who wants to keep the BLPPROD that has to demonstrate from RSN or policy/guidelines that the source is unreliable; it would be the more experienced editors using BLPPROD that would have to gain the consensus at RSN. I just modified it to try to make that more clear, and I also added that we can use existing policies and guidelines (such as where we specify that Wikipedia is not a reliable source). I believe that this gives latitude to keep the BLPPROD when an obviously bad source is given, but virtually forces keeping or AfD'ing the article in all other cases. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks, that gets us to the sort of approach I was arguing for. I'd still like to see a good essay linked. Wikipedia:Evaluating sources is not bad, but it needs a good introduction/overview, mentioning SPS issues and giving a clear list of things which are agreed to generally not be reliable sources. Rd232 ^talk 15:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:RS is our guide to identifying reliable sources, as the recent name change implies. Gigs (talk) 15:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if I should actually count how often I said on this page that I didn't think the policy was accessible enough to newbies. Of course it needs to be mentioned, but it really needs a simple explanation to ease people into it, like WP:COPYPASTE is for textual copyright. Rd232 ^talk 16:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The policy is WP:V, and its description of an RS is quite easy to understand; see this section. If you want to post something even simpler, the best place would be in the guideline that accompanies the policy, WP:IRS. I could maybe try to write a very simple summary for that page, if you like, though I may not have time for a couple of days. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

BLPProd vs normal prod where both are eligible

Suppose an unsourced, uncontroversial BLP article contains a vague claim of importance (enough to put it beyond A7's clutches), but a search for sources finds no evidence of notability. It's clearly eligible for BLPPROD, but also for normal PROD. The guillotine would fall sooner under normal PROD (assuming the tagging was uncontested) - in seven days, not ten. Which should you use? Apologies if this is covered above; couldn't find itGonzonoir (talk) 09:01, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

7 days. Common logic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is a different standard than notability. If it is non-notable, it should be deleted via PROD or AfD. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 15:50, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Related policies, guidelines and procedure documents

Now that debate seems to have slowed or stopped, it seems this version is becoming consensus. It would be helpful if the other documents that describe deletion would be updated to mention this policy. I looked at a few like WP:PROD#Sticky prod, WP:GD, WP:DELPRO and WP:DELPOL#Sticky PROD, as well as templates such as {{deletiondebates}} and they don't seem to give a correct description or mention of this policy. I don't want to charge forth and change them all, but I thought I would mention it. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 13:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean don't seem to be correct? They look good to me after a quick look. Gigs (talk) 14:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Just some minor stuff, "a certain number of days", in WP:DELPOL no mention on WP:DELPRO. I went ahead and fixed them. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 17:26, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Prod categories

Could someone familiar with template coding please modify {{dated prod blp}}? It's apparently causing problems with the daily prod categories — for example, Jose Jiminez (singer) (tagged on 2 April, and thus not supposed to be deleted until the 12th) is in Category:Proposed deletion as of 2 April 2010, which should only contain articles that are eligible for deletion on the 9th. If you're the someone from whom I'm requesting help, could you modify it so that it goes in a category for three days after it was actually tagged (i.e. if my request had already been implemented, immediately upon being tagged, this article would have been in the 5 April category), so that we don't have articles in the PROD category that shouldn't yet be deleted? Nyttend (talk) 22:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

This could be done, but what is the rationale? It seems like it would be confusing to put them into the wrong date category. In any case, expired PRODs of all kinds go into Category:Expired proposed deletions, and BLP PRODs go into Category:BLP articles proposed for deletion. Perhaps we could get get User:Tizio to modify DumbBOT to make separate individual day categories for BLPPRODded articles, but there do not seem to be enough articles being BLPPROD tagged to warrant that.

We could remove the dated categorization from {{dated blp prod}}. Any thoughts on that? —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

If you look at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, just above the "Pages detected by the edit filter" header, you'll see a section for "Category:Proposed deletion"; it notes if there are any categories for PRODs more than five days old. Without a modification to the way that this template works, we'll always be two days behind; it's going to be confusing to those of us who delete expired PRODs. Nyttend (talk) 03:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted or removed PRODs from all of the articles in Category:Proposed deletion as of 2 April 2010 except for Jiminez. Because there are no sources, I can't remove the PROD, and because it's not expired, I can't delete it yet. You'll notice that the header says that admins can delete an article that's been tagged for at least seven days and gives the current date, thus making it obvious that articles in the category are up for deletion when that's plainly not true. It's quite confusing, and as more articles are tagged with sticky prods, we're going to have this happen more and more if we don't change something. Nyttend (talk) 03:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Done You should look at Category:Expired proposed deletions to see the articles that are ready for deletion. This includes the regular and BLP PRODs. Maybe it should be added to the Category:Candidates for speedy deletion page? —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:59, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I've created a separate category for the expired BLP PRODs, called Category:Expired proposed deletions of unsourced BLPs, and added it to the list on Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. Hopefully this is OK, it seemed too awkward to try to shoehorn it in with the normal PRODs, since they have different timeframes. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 05:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, LiberalFascist. I generally access the expired PRODs via CAT:CSD, because it has a notice about categories whose members are up for deletion. Nyttend (talk) 12:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Sorry if I seemed a bit obtuse, I had never seen that page before, so I wasn't aware that there was a nice central location for all the stuff up for deletion. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 13:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

working on backlog of unsourced BLPs

There are 940 articles in Category:All unreferenced BLPs.

As of 28 September 2011: 141, all of which are in a deletion process. In other words, 0.
As of 23 August 2011: 997
As of 6 August 2011: 1,780
As of 2 July 2011: 3,623
As of 30 May 2011: 4,905
As of 17 April 2011: 7,328
As of 6 April 2011: 8,300
As of 3 March 2011: 9,999
As of 29 December 2010: 15,505
As of 24 May 2010: 29,995.
As of 22 April 2010: 36,879.
As of 3 April 2010: 38,742.
As of 22 March 2010: 39,802.
As of 5 March 2010: 40,942.
As of 22 February 2010: 42,231.
As of 25 January 2010, total was 49,096.
As of 4 January 2010, total was 52,760
(e)

Is there a project page about working on the backlog of unsourced BLPs?

Issues for such a page include:

Estimates of actual status (currently 38,000 identified specifically, estimate where there are more?)
Estimates of additions and of resolutions by deletion or improvement or tag removal
Systematic removal/revision of BLP unsourced tag, where sources are present as ELs or otherwise
Dealing with those tagging inappropriately, encouraging those properly tagging
Coordinating with wikiprojects to tag, take ownership over BLPs in their topic areas
How dates are being used (for when article was created, or when tagged)
Three month review coming up
Who is actually working on reducing the backlog, and tactics for doing so

I ask because i followed the stickyprod workshop for a while which seems mostly ended, and i watch the overall count perhaps stalling in its rate of change, but i am otherwise lost about where is the center of activity/coordination on actually dealing with the problem. Perhaps a link to such a project page, from the Proposed deletion of BLPs guideline page is warranted, too. --doncram (talk) 15:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know where the centre of activity is; the normal Wikipedia way is to have things decentralised. There is much activity going on with a number of people referencing unreferenced BLP's. Dashbot is checking User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects, although the process is a bit haphazard it is encouraging numerous WikiProjects to reference BLP's related to there project. A check of some larger projects show a reduction of about 5% to 10% so far. My own estimate of the total number of unreferenced BLP is around 86K, that breaks down into the 38K known and a further 48K unknown(unknown figure based on the number found each month and a rough distribution looking at creation date). This new WP:STICKY process is already resulting in more unreferenced BLP being referenced, a likely additional reduction in the order of 500 to 1200 articles each month. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:19, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. Rd232 ^talk 17:08, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

There has not been a post there for over 20 days. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 17:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's the centralised place to discuss, provide resources/helpful links, collect stats, etc. Like any wikiproject it has the Catch-22 over needing to overcome the "there's nobody here so I won't participate" hurdle. Rd232 ^talk 17:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I reject the idea that the reduction has "stalled". I have graphed it and the decline is surprisingly linear, with a drop rate of about 80-100 per day. [2] Gigs (talk) 17:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Suncreator, it's not an effort that requires much active coordination or discussion. You just get out there and do it. Gigs (talk) 17:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you graph it back to January using the figures here, it does seem that the reduction was steeper at first. So far as I can tell it's the action of lots of editors that are referencing articles not the 16 members of WP:URBLP. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 17:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll integrate the additional data. You are right, it's through the actions of dozens or hundreds of editors, not just the people who signed the wikiproject page. Gigs (talk) 17:42, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

updated graph It is important to keep in mind that this is just the delta between tagging and untagging. I'm pretty sure tagging efforts stepped up during the same time frame. Gigs (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the graph. It's easier to summmarise then the figures. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I and a few others have just joined Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons, (shortcut WP:URBLP ) Please consider following discussion at WT:URBLP and/or joining, too! --doncram (talk) 20:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, although I've managed to update my list almost every day so far, I can't guarantee that I'll keep doing it regularly -- somebody should really write a bot or script to take over from me, since sooner or later I'm going to go on wikibreak.--Father Goose (talk) 03:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to correct the assertion above of only a "5% to 10%" reduction, WP:Aust has had a net reduction of 66% from over 1600 in Jan to around 530 now - and it was well under 400 until the re-tagging commenced on a bunch of IMDB-only actors.The-Pope (talk) 08:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, that's easy to address. IMDB is a source, so those are to be addressed by removing BLP unsourced. Maybe an AWB sweep through the BLP unsourced category would identify a few thousand where IMDB is present, and the erroneous tag can be removed. --doncram (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, there is no consensus on the reliability of IMDB as a source. At the very, very least, any article with IMDB only as a source should have {{BLP sources}} replace the unsourced template. The better course of action would be to add better sources. Reso lute 16:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, BLP unsourced applies only to unsourced articles, and the RFCs and the development of stickyprod were about addressing unsourced items. Perhaps a different prod process should be started to address all Wikipedia articles whose sources are questionable; I doubt there's consensus for that. There is broad consensus to fix or delete unsourced BLPs, however, and this stickyprod and the BLP unsourced category should be used only for that. It is justified to address inflation of the perceived BLP unsourced problem by simply removing the BLP unsourced tag from where it does not apply. --doncram (talk) 16:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I think {{BLP unsourced}} -> {{BLP sources}} is a reasonable approach when a bio has only IMDB as a source. One should change the unsourced tag to refimprove on any article unless everything in the article is sourced. IMDB is adequate for cast info, which takes an article out of the unsourced category, but given that a bio should have actual biographical info (which cannot be sourced to IMDB) switching to {{BLP sources}} is apt in most cases. And I am inclined to say it is ineligible for BLP prod at that point -- though regular prod, AfD, and even some kind of speedy may still be on the table.--Father Goose (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is some more data for the graph. It has been logging the number of unreffed BLPs every day since February 20th (thanks to Betacommand for setting that up for me). The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:52, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for that, that is the primary data source for my graph for more recent data points. I have supplemented it with my own and Father Goose's data for earlier points. Gigs (talk) 12:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

External links on template

External links have been added to the template. We are discussing whether this violation of WP:ELNO #9 is permissible. Please see Template talk:Dated prod blp#links on template. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

How many so far?

Huh, I've only just noticed this process had gone active. Must have been out of the loop... anyway, out of curiosity: is there a record anywhere of how many articles so far have been deleted under this process? I'm not asking for an actual list of the articles - that would probably be unwise - merely an idea of numbers. A look at Category:BLP articles proposed for deletion suggest it's been fairly widely used, though nowhere near as widely as WP:PROD is. Perhaps that's because of the greater limitations on it, or because some editors (like me, until a few moments ago) are still unaware it exists. Robofish (talk) 21:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I've followed the nominations and I don't think any article has reached ten days yet (nor when it was at seven days); it would have to be added on 2 April, at the time the policy was not established. The oldest article is Jose Jiminez (singer) at 8 days, see User:SPPatrolBot/lists/all. Though in a few days deletions will start, so we need a standard delete reason, hence my post above. Cenarium (talk) 22:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

None have been deleted so far. The WP:STICKY started on 2 April(and more fully from 4 April) and with 10 days notice none can be deleted until 12 April. Many that have been prodded have been sourced however I estimate about 200 articles. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right. Good to hear it's working well, then! (I've just been through and sourced a few myself.) Ideally, if this worked perfectly, no articles would be deleted under it at all... as it is, I'm sure some will, but it seems like an impressive job has been done on sourcing them so far. Robofish (talk) 23:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Isn't there a transclusion on Special:Newpages that can be used to advertise this to the target demographic... new page patrollers? Gigs (talk) 01:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, i'm sure there is a MediaWiki: page somewhere. It would be an excellent idea for someone to put it up. I would volunteer if I knew how, but unfortunately my Mediawiki namespace experience is very little. The Wordsmith^Communicate 01:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be MediaWiki:Newpages-summary. It's not one of the key MediaWiki messages in the template at the top of Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages; I found it from Category:MediaWiki messages with interface explanation, which has only 128 important messages (out of 6400 MediaWiki messages total). Anyway, someone can propose changes at Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages and on the relevant talk page. Rd232 ^talk 12:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MediaWiki_messages#BLP_PROD_.22Ad.22_in_MediaWiki:Newpages-summary Gigs (talk) 13:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Tag and policy don't match.

The policy says "Do not remove the {{prod blp}} until at least one such source has been identified in the article.: but the tag says "Please do not remove this tag unless the article has at least one such source." One or the other needs changing so they match. something lame from CBW 13:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've taken a stab at it,[3] but I don't see how the two differ. Could you explain - is it just a wording thing or do they say different things? - Wikidemon (talk) 14:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

When you tag the page it's asking you not to remove it, but the policy is ordering you not to remove the tag. The policy is worded stronger than the tag is. something lame from CBW 06:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Something to do with the word please. Nitpicking.--Kudpung (talk) 14:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Amazon

Question, can we use Amazon as a source for purposes of removing the BLP tag? It's not helpful for notability, but it is clearly a reasonable way to verify that the subject wrote the book and thus a source for the BLP of the author. I'm still unclear on where we are drawing the line here. (I removed the BLP tag and then sent it to AfD). Hobit (talk) 02:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Maurreen (talk) 03:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's in Amazon, it's probably in WorldCat too. Using the template {{oclc}} will give you a link to the WorldCat record, which seems to meet WP:V in the same way an Amazon link would, but also avoids linking to a commercial site. cab (talk) 07:05, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, make sure to google the publisher name to ensure it's not a vanity press before sending to AfD. Many people don't realize that you can get vanity press stuff in Amazon easily these days. Gigs (talk) 12:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(Agreeing) You might also note that modern books which do not even get ranked for sales on Amazon are almost invariably vanity press ones. That aside, some vanity press books actually eventually do become important. Collect (talk) 20:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

For WP:N sure, but vanity press or not should be irrelevant for BLPPROD, we just need sources right? Hobit (talk) 23:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If the claim is merely that they have a published book, then an amazon link to their vanity press book listing would be a sufficient reference I'd say. I was referring more to making sure to note that in the AfD nomination. Gigs (talk) 12:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, it doesn't matter what else the article has as far as BLPPROD goes right? That source is enough to remove this process? I'm not saying I wouldn't send things to AfD or use a normal prod of course. Hobit (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion reason

Let's agree on a standard deletion reason for BLP PRODs to add at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown. Example: 'WP:BLPPROD: Nominated for ten days with no sources added' . Cenarium (talk) 14:51, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Your proposed wording seems most parallel to the PROD entry, which is a great start. --Joe Decker (talk) 22:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea and I doubt there'll be any objections, so I've added it into the drop down reason. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 01:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Please modify it to "no sources present in the article". I've been beating on the added vs present drum a while here. It's an important distinction that we shouldn't let slip. "Added" carries an implication that if the article was tagged with one or more sources in it, then someone must add yet another source. Gigs (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Good call Gigs - thanks for spotting that and notifying me. I've changed the drop down reason to reflect this. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 14:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Cyril Spottiswoode Moy Hopkirk

I wrote an article on my father for the Vetscrip New Zealand in 2007.This was published, and can be accessed at Page 28 November 2007 on www.nzva.org.nz/files/shareimages/November_lo-res.pdf Th accuracy of the information can be verified by other members of his family 121.74.121.232 (talk) 08:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC) John Hopkirk

Hello. Please note that this isn't the correct place to talk about articles. You need to add a reference to the article. You can do this by using a site like this one, and plugging in the URL. This will give you code that you can copy and paste into the article at the end of a sentence that is supported by the linked reference. Please see our help on references for instructions on referencing offline sources. The proposed deletion tag can be removed once a reference is added. Gigs (talk) 12:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It is not a living person anyway. The above pdf link is currently not available. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Not really fixing the problem

The BLP-PROD process doesn't seem to be working, in that those active editors who go around trying to reference tagged articles, in many cases, aren't doing it properly. You'll have an article on a musician with 12kb of text, and the editor will add a single Amazon reference which shows that yes, she did release an album. It references none of the other information, leaving the problems that led to the creation of this process unsolved. Is there no burden on the person removing the PROD to ensure that the article isn't just referenced, but properly referenced? Ironholds (talk) 11:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

My experience has been the opposite, I've seen some articles incorrectly tagged as unsourced when actually they need a {{primarysources}} tag and or {{refimproveBLP}}. But the article rescuers on the whole seem to be abiding by the rule of adding "at least one reliable source that supports at least one statement made about the person in the article." Often they go well beyond that. Can you give examples of people adding a poor reference, and are we talking about newbies who need explanation or old hands who might merit a trout? Ϣere SpielChequers 12:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Hobit, for example, referenced Kana Yazumi, which reads "Kana Yazumi (矢住夏菜, Yazumi Kana?, born August 13, 1985 in, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture), is a popular Japanese female singer-songwriter. Her second single "Be Strong" was used as the first opening theme of anime series Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple", with an Amazon link which shows Yazumi released an album but verifies none of the prose, justifying himself with the above discussion where it was decided Amazon pages count as reliable sources. User:DGG referenced 3kb of prose with a reference which verifies only a tiny portion of the article. Both are experienced and somewhat respected editors. Ironholds (talk) 12:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This was never about producing fully referenced articles. Gigs (talk) 12:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem that led to the PROD is that we were having entirely unverifiable articles on living people where harmful and libellous information can be inserted. We've now got almost entirely unverifiable articles on living people where harmful and libellous information can be inserted. I'm not asking for GAs; I'm asking for prod removers to make sure the references provided verify something. The Hobit example, f'rinstance, says jack all about any of the article's prose. Ironholds (talk) 12:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If an article is perfectly sourced one minute, harmful and libellous information can be inserted in the next minute, and we wouldn't necessarily know.

The Hobit example verifies a fact indicated in the article. If that fact were given in prose instead of a list, then the reference would verify some of the prose, but the change would not be meaningful.

Do you have in mind to change what is required to remove the sticky prod? Maurreen (talk) 13:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a heightened requirement; that references verify the majority of the article, say. Not sure how practical it would be, though. Ironholds (talk) 13:23, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed Kana Yazumi WP:V aspect, now whatever this BLP would meet our inclusion guideline is another issue. As for verifying most of the article point, editors are mostly inclined to jury rig a lot of unsourced BLPs rather than well sourcing just one when running against time. Editing time and good will aren't unlimited resources. For the fun of it, it took me over 5 hours to source over 90% of Ai Shimizu article. --KrebMarkt 13:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand that there is a time issue, but this isn't a jury rig; jury rigs work. Thanks, by the way, for the proactive attitude you've taken to the prods you've removed. Most tagged BLPs are one-line articles on athletes/singers; they take as much time to properly reference as they do to reference cack-handedly. Looking at Yazumi, for example; Hobit provided a reference which verified she'd released an album. In that situation, one reference is also all that's needed to verify the text of the article. The same amount of time could have been spent on verifying the prose; it was instead spent on Amazon. In many cases I don't see it as a time issue so much as an issue of focus. Ironholds (talk) 13:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you'd do better trouting people still creating unreferenced BLPs. I know it was brought up at some point to have escalating warnings similar to the uw- series. Any interest in that still? Gigs (talk) 13:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That would definitely been excellent; I've been trouting people by hand with jury-rigged warnings, but the wording is a bit off and I've got no idea how to code it, turn it into something formal, and so on. Any volunteers? :P Ironholds (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice work

I hadn't realized BLP prods had gone "sticky" until today. I believe I'd !voted against this at some point. Anyway, I've just gone through most of the articles currently prodded and it seems to me that this tag is working. I've only come across one example where I felt that sourcing clearly demonstrated notability, no doubt there are other editors sourcing the articles that can and should be saved. Looks good. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Shawn. That raises the point that if didn't know about it until today, then perhaps there are many more that don't know about it yet. Maybe it could be highlighted as Village pump or some visible places. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It's supposed to be added to the New Page Patrol message - Wikipedia:MediaWiki_messages#BLP_PROD_.22Ad.22_in_MediaWiki:Newpages-summary. Comments there. Rd232 ^talk 16:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. Rd232 ^talk 14:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Does scope need to be clarified?

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#All-time Long Island Rough Riders roster.

The dispute concerned the application and removal of a sticky prod from a list with a source. The tag was applied two minutes after the article was created. The author just wanted time.

But I noted that the tag wouldn't belong regardless of how much time was given. Maurreen (talk) 06:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

I did try during the discussion to avoid these being applied in the first minutes after an article is created, and while I have been using these tags I personally have not done so until an article is at least an hour old. If we made this like A1 or A3, not something to apply to articles in their first few minutes then this sort of problem could be avoided. Ϣere SpielChequers 17:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Where BLP does and does not apply "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, images, and categories." So by extension the PROD must also apply to any material including lists. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 19:58, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Repeating what I said at ANI: The BLP PROD process was created to deal with unsourced biographies of living people, the consensus which led to its adoption was that it would be used only on unsourced biographies of living people and the policy reflects it. There is no question on this; and any extension of its scope would require community consensus.

The extent of applicability of the BLP policy itself is of no relevance to the extent of applicability of this specific process. Your suggestion to allow it being used on any page would be completely unworkable. Cenarium (talk) 20:48, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Given that there was a consensus to use this on only a narrow set of articles, Biography vs Wikipedia:What is an article?, I'm surprised that it is not reflected in the policy page. Reading through Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people will not inform the editor that wants to use the PROD, like myself, that it can't be used on lists or any other article recently created that contains unsourced biographical material. This is especially true given that it links to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, which I already pointed out includes all articles. Also, {{Prod blp}} does not mention that it should not be used on articles other than biographies.

I would suggest that on Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people every instance of "article" be changed to "biography" and a section be added that reflects the consensus and explains that it it has restricted usage. At the same time both the {{Prod blp}} and Template:Prod blp/doc should also indicate the intended usage. With out that editors will continue to accidentally continue to tag non-biographies with the PROD. By the way Template:Prod blp/doc should probably include the Twinkle warning and the "see also" section that is included with Template:Prod/doc. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 23:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Just remembered can you give me a link to where the consensus was formed? I'd like to see why people think it was unworkable on articles other that biographies. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 00:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll change "article" to "biography" here.

The consensus was formed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. Maurreen (talk) 00:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Well yes, now I can see that it may not have been totally clear on this point. Cenarium (talk) 05:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks folks that helps. Would it also be useful to add a new section under the heading "Scope" saying something like;

Scope

Although Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Where BLP does and does not apply covers all types of biographical material, the use of this policy is intended to apply only to actual biographies. This policy does not apply to such things as lists of people or biographical contained in other articles.

That way it's quite clear what it covers. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 17:31, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I added it but tweaked it a little. Maurreen (talk) 17:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I didn't change any templates. But anyone else is welcome to do so. Maurreen (talk) 17:37, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That makes it very clear. I added to the Template:Prod blp/doc but I didn't change the template as I think it could do with more input and will post at Template talk:Prod blp later. The highly esteemed CBW presents the Talk Page! 18:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Maurreen (talk) 18:49, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Corrected escalation process

If a BLPProd tag is objected to, the solution is NOT to readd it, but to send the article to AfD. Apologies for this being my first contribution to this discussion page, but it wasn't until someone had actually done that to something I'd deprodded that I see this page was enabling the mischaracterization.

1) PRODs can be contested by anyone. If BLPProds are different, call them something different and move them out of WP:PRODSUM.

2) If something is sent to AfD, G10 and BLP still apply. If there's an egregious error that can't wait until the closing of an AfD, then any editor still has the right to remove objectionable material or tag it for speedy.

3) The volume of PRODs contested in good faith seems sufficiently low that there's nothing really to be gained by allowing a tag to be readded if it was removed in good faith. Jclemens (talk) 16:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about biographies with a source given? Maurreen (talk) 16:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

3) only follows if you assume the fact that BLP PRODs cannot be contested without providing a source has no effect on people's actions. Also it's not clear what you mean by "contested in good faith" - please clarify. Rd232 ^talk 16:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Hi Jclemens. There was at least one person in the workshop who made a similar point - as all other prods can be removed by anyone it would make sense to call sticky prods something else. I'm fairly neutral on what we call sticky prods as long as the existing stickyprod template continues to work as a redirect to whatever the new name is. But the stickiness, the duration, and other features do make sticky prods very different creatures to normal prods. As for going to AFD, I think we will get some borderline cases, there was one I saw recently where we had no year of birth or death and the guys career was in the early 20th century, I've also removed a sticky prod from a fictional character, and merged two duplicate articles one created before and the other after the 18th March. But if it is a BLP, and is completely unsourced when tagged, then it needs a reliable source for the tag to be removed. Ϣere SpielChequers 16:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a problem taking disputed sources to AfD, as long as the prod can be readded if there's obviously no sources. Gigs (talk) 17:56, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

So in this case, here's what happened, and why I think this was a sub-optimal process outcome:

1) I patrolled BLPPRODs, saw one that had a source that looked legit as an EL, and deprodded it. I'm finding that about 20% of BLPPRODs do, in fact, have legitimate sources as ELs, so this isn't too uncommon a situation. I was in error, as the link wasn't sufficient.

2) Another editor noticed that error, and reinserted the PROD with the original date, per the process as it was written at the time, and deleted the inappropriate EL.

3) Another administrator came along and deleted the PROD.

So by readding the BLPPROD in step 2, there was no particular time for me (or anyone else who might have skipped over the PROD since it had a seemingly legit EL) to go through and research real sources. It became a de facto speedy at that point, and, in fact, was deleted before I got back to the article to see if I could source it. I've probably handled 200 BLPPRODs by now, and this is the first one where this has come up.

Thus, I would rather we send contested BLPPRODs to AfD to give it a chance. I think we've all moved past the point where people are challenging the legitimacy of the process itself, and if there have been people who've been mass-deprodding BLPPRODs without any attempt to source or scrutinize, I haven't seen it and agree that any disruptive mass-de-BLPPRODding should be reverted. I don't dispute that there needs to be follow through on PRODs removed without adequate sourcing, but I do believe that the "follow through" most appropriate to any removed PROD is AfD. Jclemens (talk) 23:25, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the update.

I can't see how anything about the BLP prods would lead to a de facto speedy.
As long as there are checks and balances, I'm relatively open about how to handle contested prods (that is, other than the standard procedure of adding a source and the source being accepted).
Maybe we need to clarify somehow that appropriate external links count as sources. Maurreen (talk) 06:01, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

By "de facto speedy" I meant that since the BLPPROD 10 day counter had already expired, anyone who set out to delete such PRODs would not see (absent looking back in the history--a step I commonly skip myself) that at least one editor had thought that a source was present and acceptable, and that a subsequent editor had disagreed (then removed the insufficient EL, in this case) and readded the PROD per the previous directions. The 10 day, already-expired clock doesn't get reset, and *poof* goes the article, absent herculean sleuthing by the next admin to process the BLPPROD queue. If at least one editor who was going through the prods said, "Eh, I think this one isn't completely unsourced..." if the article vanishes before the editor gets back to the article, that's not helpful. With an AfD debate, we're pretty much guaranteed it will still be there, absent a very aggressive SNOW close. Jclemens (talk) 06:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I see now. I hadn't realized the prod was already expired when you got to it. Some kinks will arise, and this all seems reasonable.

Clarifying "contains a source"

Jclemens said above that "about 20% of BLPPRODs do, in fact, have legitimate sources" as external links. Does anyone have thoughts on what might be the best way to clarify that those are acceptable (not prod material)? Maurreen (talk) 06:29, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've just been looking for them while processing the BLPPROD queue. My current processing goes something like this:

1) Does it have an EL in it? If yes, does it clearly look applicable? When in doubt, check to verify that it does, in fact, mention the subject in some substantial way.

2) If not, can I find the subject as a quoted string in Google News Archive search?

3) If both those things fail, is it worth me looking farther? Do I see a unique enough name that I won't get clogged with false hits, and enough other context that I can add more words to a Google web search? At this point, I also look hard at the actual content of the article--is it really worth keeping in its current state? Will it make a good stub if I slap a source on it?

4) If nothing found or not worth bothering, delete it.

I have absolutely no idea how to automate that. Jclemens (talk) 06:42, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't clear. I would have thought that it would be clear that legitimate external links make articles ineligible for sticky prods. But your 20 percent figure makes clear to me that I was wrong.

So, what I meant was, do we need to clarify this page or the template, or somehow try to notify new-page patrollers? What is a good way to notify new-page patrollers? Maurreen (talk) 07:07, 3 May 2010 (UTC)