User:Cullen328/sandbox/WWE

Template:Infobox professional wrestler
The underlying issue came to my attention at Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. The issue was the birthplace and the height of a former professional wrestler. The birthplace issue was resolved and my concern is with the associated height (and weight) issues, which apply to many professional wrestler BLPs. Discussion of this issue is ongoing at Talk:Dave Bautista and at User talk:InedibleHulk and User talk: Cullen328. It seems that this template allows display of "Billed height" and "Billed weight" parameters, which are routinely cited to web pages controlled by the WWE or other professional wrestling businesses, which are pretty much the opposite of reliable sources, since they routinely exaggerate height, weight and every other fact about their performers. So, living people have false heights and weights cited to sources known to lie constantly. Professional wrestling is an entertainment subculture built around the concept of kayfabe, which means that people who make their living from professional wrestling are expected to lie constantly and consistently about personalities, backgrounds, rivalries, heights and weights. That's an interesting sociological phenomenon but it cannot possibly be acceptable to present this type of "in universe" content in a neutral encyclopedia, cited to sources that all sane people know are unreliable. When were unreliable sources ever acceptable in a BLP? Well, back in the Wild West days of fourteen plus years ago when the BLP policy hadn't yet been written, and this policy violating template was created. The problem emerged only when the representative of a living person called the matter to our attention. I think that we need firm consensus that professional wrestling articles are not exempt from Wikipedia's core content policies of WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR, and that all unreliable sources and any content cited to unreliable sources should be removed promptly from professional wrestling articles.