User:Cullen328/sandbox/Erpert

Here's the problem...when it comes to pornography-related articles, antis seem to always (purposely?) misinterpret the word "independent". WP:ARTICLE will clearly explain to anyone that the subject (or topic) of any article on Wikipedia is the title of said article. For example, Vanessa Veracruz is currently at AfD despite winning the award for Girl/Girl Performer of the Year, with the "delete" !voters not only claiming that the award isn't significant (which is also false, btw), but that the article doesn't have any independent sources. In other words, they're attesting that pornography is the subject of the article. The only article on Wikipedia where pornography actually is the subject is, well, Pornography.

Consider Adult Video News, the leading trade publication of the U.S. porn industry. This very page, WP:WikiProject Pornography, says "their porn star profiles are often copied from other sites and cannot be treated as reliable." A writer for the New York Times observed that it is a publication "whose articles are really more like infomercials", and that it is "about 80 percent ads, and is clearly targeted at adult-video retailers". If anything, other porn industry news sources have lower standards. They are the very antithesis of "sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject". Infomercials are not independent and sources that copy "profiles" from other sites without fact checking and professional editorial review are not reliable. Are there any good sources that counter this assessment of the porn industry trade press?

Consider a biography on the AVN site today, that starts out: "Jessica Drake has a beauty and provocative personality that’s helped her develop one of the most robust and acclaimed careers in adult. It’s a career that’s rising to a new level this year, as she continues creating big budget features with Wicked’s Brad Armstrong—she received AVN’s 2009 Best Actress and Best DP Sex Scene awards for Fallen—while branching out on her own as a filmmaker." Utterly promotional with no pretense of neutrality. That article ends by stating: "Bio provided by Wicked Pictures". I give them credit for honesty, but they disqualify themselves as a source for BLPs. The largest porn industry trade publication is most certainly not an acceptable source for BLPs on Wikipedia, because it is neither reliable nor independent.

Our policy on Biographies of living people is very important and cannot ever be ignored. It is not just a policy here on English Wikipedia but is an overriding policy imposed on all its projects by the Wikimedia Foundation. That policy states that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not meeting this standard may be removed. This policy extends that principle, adding that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable, and whether it is in a biography or in some other article. Material should not be added to an article when the only sourcing is tabloid journalism. When material is both verifiable and noteworthy, it will have appeared in more reliable sources." In addition, that policy states, "Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources." Porn industry sources are not high-quality sources and are much more like tabloid journalism, and their use in biographies of living people is therefore contrary to BLP policy. I hereby formally challenge every single BLP assertion cited to each and every unreliable porn industry trade publication. I am very firm about that, because policy requires me to be firm.

Erpert has an overly narrow definition of what an independent source is, derived from a narrow reading of a brief FAQ page which is neither a policy nor a guideline. That definition is entirely unsupported by Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Here is the definition, which is linked from the General notability guideline: "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a given Wikipedia topic and therefore is commonly expected to cover the topic from a disinterested perspective (i.e., a neutral point of view). Interest in a topic becomes vested when the source (the author, the publisher, etc.) develops any financial or legal relationship to the topic." Again, I am using AVN as an example, since it is the leading U.S. porn industry trade publication. A publication that consists of 80% paid advertising from commercial porn industry interests and reprints content written by commercial porn industry interests is not a reliable, independent source by Wikipedia standards, especially for biographies of living people. The problem with using porn sources in biographies of living people is that they either focus narrowly on the person as a commercial entity or they are fictitious. Industry insider sources describe film credits and awards with a garnish of promotional fluff, and those that fans read describe an ever-changing fantasy "biography" that is no more accurate than a purported biography of a Disney character.

Consider the biography of an indisputably notable porn performer like Ron Jeremy. At quick glance, I see about a dozen reliable, independent sources in that article. I doubt that anyone would try to delete it, but if they did, I would vote to keep it. Consider also a much more recent performer with a shorter career, Mia Khalifa. Her biography also has about a dozen references to reliable, independent sources. She is indisputably notable. Every porn performer BLP should at least approximate the standards of those two biographies.

Awards handed out by media outlets that are neither reliable nor independent cannot automatically confer notability, in my view. It is certainly possible that such an award could trigger coverage by reliable, independent sources such as those that have devoted significant coverage to Khalifa and Jeremy. But this is by no means automatic or predictable. Instead, it is relatively rare.

This is why PORNBIO in its current form is a complete failure. A special notability guideline ought to be a useful, non-controversial tool that editors can use to quickly determine whether or not a topic is likely to have received significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. PORNBIO does not work. A SNG that encourages the creation of large numbers of articles that fail the GNG is a failed and useless guideline. It must be deprecated by generalist editors until rewritten in a tighter form so that articles that meet the special notability guideline also meet the general notability guideline the vast majority of the time, with sufficient research.

This disclaimer should not be necessary but I will make it anyway: I have no moral objection to pornography, and have watched and enjoyed porn myself over many years. I consider myself neither a big fan nor an opponent of porn. I am a generalist editor. I want this encyclopedia to have plenty of well referenced articles about [|WP:GNG|notable]] porn topics. I oppose the presence of non-compliant BLPs of porn performers, locksmiths, plastic surgeons and kitchen remodeling contractors. Hold all people to similar standards.