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Contents 1 Living vs. recently deceased 2 Potentially Libellous Situations 3 unreferenced biographical articles 4 Need Assistance Please 5 Privacy of personal information: Radio call signs 6 delete it, don't merge it 7 Unverifi(ed/able) claims about COI editing 8 Without Privacy, there is no Dignity

Living vs. recently deceased

It is my understanding that our BLP policy, as a practical matter, extends to recently deceased individuals as well as the living. However, I see nothing in the policy that reflects this. Have I got it wrong? Obviously WP:V and WP:NPOV apply at all times to all biographical articles, but do the additional special cautions spelled out in this policy cease to apply immediately following a person's death?--Father Goose (talk) 02:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the policy means what it says: it only applies to living people. Good editorial judgement might suggest we don't insert every salacious tidbit ever printed about a person as soon as their death is confirmed. And other living people mentioned in an article on a recently deceased person are, of course, still covered by BLP. But dead people aren't. In the U.S. at least libel law only applies to living people. (Here is an interesting NYT article on a proposal to extend libel protection to the recently deceased that, as far as I know, went nowhere: [1].) --agr (talk) 12:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

As Agr mentioned, the BLP policy per se only applies to living people but it's generally accepted as far as I know that the death of an individual doesn't mean we should suddenly start inserting things we wouldn't have if they were living. Libel law in various countries does extend to the recently deceased but libel isn't our primary concern with BLP. Nil Einne (talk) 20:09, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Potentially Libellous Situations

See User:Pernambuco Boy --Father Goose (talk) 03:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

unreferenced biographical articles

There is a page for articles lacking sources (Category:Articles lacking sources) and there is a page for living people (Category:Living people). Is there a page for articles about living people that are lacking sources? A lot of these biographical articles are stubs that may not meet the notability guidline either. Should these articles be put up for deletion? Or just marked as being unsourced?   — Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 08:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Need Assistance Please

User:Waccolon is stating that he is Willie Colon and continues to add unsourced info to the article. I lack the patience, finesse, experience, to tell him exactly whats going on with that. Can someone talk to him please? Thanks! Qb | ^{your 2 cents} 10:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Privacy of personal information: Radio call signs

There are a number of articles such as Steven L. Herman that list the persons amateur radio call signs and there is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox Person# Amateur radio call sign about adding a field in the infobox. I think that this falls into the same category as phone numbers and email addresses. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest it does not. Amateur Radio Licensee information (at least in the United States) is publicly and freely available from http://www.qrz.com/callsign , http://hamcall.net/call , or http://www.arrl.org/fcc/fcclook.php3. One can choose to publish an email address or a phone number. One's Ham call, and attendant licensing data (such as name, address, etc.), are a matter of searchable public record. (I would agree that just because you can find any licensed amateur's address of record, that does not give a prima facie justification to using that in an article, though.) LaughingVulcan 01:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree that ham radio call signs aren't a significant privacy issue. However, they will rarely be encyclopedic information. GRBerry 01:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

delete it, don't merge it

I am seeing a common problem with unsourced or badly sourced bios of marginal or non-notable people, is that instead of deletion, they're being merged/redirected, with all the problematic content being kept, unaltered. As I argued here, I strongly feel, that if an editor merges/redirects an article, they have to take responsibility for the content they're adding to the target article. I object to notion of moving problem material in hopes somebody else will fix it. I think some improved guidline wording is needed here, to clarify what should be done in merge/redirect of BLPs. --Rob (talk) 03:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that as a problem. We don't delete for resolvable content problems. If something was moved or redirected, it was because they weren't notable in and of themselves, but are notable in the context of something else, and that the article on that something else is more improved by having information on that someone. While the content problem is still there, its good that the information was retained rather than deleted. At that point, all that has to be done is o deal with the issue. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 03:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, that such merging defeats the whole purpose of our BLP policy. We have rules to stop certain types of material. By simply moving material to another location, where it's equally accessible (since the person's name redirects there automatically), there's exactly the same degree of harm. And finally, yah, we do now, delete "resolvable" problems with BLPs. We don't let BLP problems sit forever in hopes of fixes. We don't just tag "citation needed" anymore. Or that was the idea of this policy. If we are going to treat BLP problems like all other problems (e.g. we'll fix it one day, eventually), then we should scrap this policy. --Rob (talk) 15:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, there are currently about 20.000 BLPs with "citation needed" tags. I agree that this may be a problem. --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Don't the rules exists to keep out unsourced negative material? The rules shouldn't exist to preclude negative material that is well sourced and notable. The reason for the merge/redirect is to address WP:UNDUE issues. The merge and redirect puts the individual into the context of a larger event, thus giving it due weight. And then what do we do about the people who are notable only for well-sourced negative information, are clearly notable because of it, and have no sourced, notable, positive contributions to society? Sometimes we just need to call a spade a spade. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 15:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Unverifi(ed/able) claims about COI editing

I have started a deletion nomination for {{Notable Wikipedian}} at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 August 28, and one of the reasons is that I believe that it violates the BLP policy by making claims about living persons that cannot be verified in most cases (except perhaps by demanding that editors reveal and provide off-wiki proof of their real-world identities, see WP:OUTING).

However, a number of long-time editors are supporting retention of the template, which leads me to wonder whether I over-interpreting this policy and its relevance to claims about real-life identities made on article talk pages. Most of the comments that address the BLP issue (two do not mention it) call for higher standards of verification, but seem to offer no specific adivce on how to achieve this. Am I reading too much into the policy? Thanks, –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Without Privacy, there is no Dignity

I propose that all BLPs be removed. This would send out a powerful global message that Wikipedia respects the right to privacy as an ethical principle and a fundamental tenet of international law and the law of nation states.

Historically, encyclopaedias did not write articles on living people. Once a slanderous comment has been posted, it can no more be taken back than any other gossip or slander.Orthorhombic (talk) 19:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I propose that your proposal be rejected as impractical and contrary to Wikipedia's goals. Besides, if we follow the notability guidelines properly, then no figure will ever be contained in Wikipedia whose life has not already become public.--erachima talk 20:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) A less extreme proposal than this one (in the sense that it suggested the removal of a less than 100% of all BLPs) was proposed here a few months ago, and it was rejected as too extreme. Without commenting on the merits of the proposal itself, I think it's safe to say that it will not gain consensus. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to say, I was pretty skeptical of the claim that at one point encyclopaedias didn't contain biographies of the living. Nonetheless, the 1768 printing of Britannica does not appear to contain any BLPs, though there are quite a few in the 1911 printing. I won't search the intervening additions, today anyhow. WilyD 20:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

No. If you don't want to be written about in an encyclopedia, then don't do things that draw attention to you and get articles in RS written about you that can be used to write an article here. Those that don't have a choice in the matter are usually NOT#NEWS candidates. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 23:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. Privacy does not exist for Notable figures, in the sense that you mean. Notability, by its' very definition within Wikipedia, means that the subject has already been noted in reliable secondary sources (plural.) Thus, not private. Indeed, this may be the philosopher's stone in applying the WP:N standard in general: Where notability is already shown in reliable secondary sources is when the subject can have an article - living person, dead person, animal, vegetable, or mineral. At that point, the person is no longer a private citizen alone, but also a public figure.

I further disagree because Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. A BLP article can (and should and does change) with regards to BLPs when the publicly available information about the person referenced changes. Therefore, what has been historically done with paper encyclopedias is a guideline, but not the sole arbiter, of what Wikipedia ought to do.

Personally, I also feel that your interpretation of the ethics of privacy and that there are, "international laws," which protect privacy is inaccurate. And further you misunderstand the tools available at Wikipedia, in which libel and slander (more properly defamation,) can be permanently deleted from public view. LaughingVulcan 00:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

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