User:Cyclopia/On the BLP problem

There is a problem with BLP. But it is not what most of people seem to think.

The Seigenthaler incident was kind of the 11/9 of WP. It was painful, but it made it much more self-aware, especially of its influence on the real world. This, by itself, is a good thing. The increased measures of protection for biographies are mostly a good thing. More measures of protection for biographies would be a good thing (see below).

Unfortunately, as in many cases, good intentions go too far. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, so to say. And now the good intentions surrounding BLPs are, in some cases, begin to border on paranoia (no offence intended: it is a common human reaction), and that is beginning to harm Wikipedia. The problem is that entirely reasonable articles on notable subjects are being deleted for reasons that not only have no ground in notability/inclusion criteria grounds, but even do not match the BLP policy. Also, reliable and sourced and neutrally presented information is being prevented to enter articles for the very same reasons. What happens, and not sporadically I am sorry to say, is that people are overzealous on BLPs, to the point of preventing legitimate, sourced, neutral information to be added.

What follows is a discussion of many points that are often brought at AfD discussions and other discussion on BLPs.

"There is a big BLP problem"
Problems in maintaining BLPs are undeniable. And they are of course especially delicate, being capable of harming other people. But how big is this problem? How should we worry about that?

To consider this, one can look at pages like this, maintained by a good-intentioned user who clearly thinks that there is a serious problem in maintaining BLPs. Now, as of 24 September 2009, she lists exactly six cases of harm being done by BLPs, on a grand total of (also as of 24 September 2009) 405.719 articles in Category:Living people.

It is clear that 6 is an underestimation, a tip of the iceberg. Let's guess that the real number of such articles is much higher: let's say, 100 times higher: 600 actually harmful BLPs.

It means that the chances of a single BLP to do harm are of a bit less than 0.15%. This is a monument to the capability of WP of being able to manage BLPs (I admit such a number is way lower than my more optimistic estimates). Errors may slip here and there and things do happen. But do not happen nearly often. Of course, if numbers are so low, is because there is control. But there is no hint in sight of a "BLP emergency". We don't need to begin to send BLPs out of existence to avoid a marginally existent scare.

Better estimate in talk page in WP:BLP thread

"Do you really think there's no BLP problem? See $EXAMPLE then"
This is really not an objection. It is factual that there are BLPs which created troubles to their subjects.

But the fact that there are examples does not mean that there is a problem. Every year someone dies because a parachute doesn't open: this doesn't mean that there is a "parachute scare". It only means that incidents can happen.

One cannot judge rationally something as plain harmful because it can harm and "it has happened before". Nearly everything can harm if misused or if it fails. One must guarantee it is as secure as possible, but one must balance advantages and disadvantages: see below.

"Even one is too much"
To say so, one has to justify.

Think of cars: Cars are affecting real people's lives: whenever you go and drive one, you are subjecting people (including yourself) at the concrete risk of dying or being profoundly injured, because of your driving. For this reason, we have regulations, traffic lights, and a lot of things like that. This helps a lot, but cars are still dangerous. After all, there is always the possibility that someone does not play by the rules and jeopardizes the life of other people. And it in fact happens with grim regularity.

Because of that, one may think that cars should be strongly regulated -so regulated as to prohibit their use if not for very serious reasons: emergencies, urgent work commuting etc. and to force most people to use public transport for everything else.

Yet that's not what happens: we are entitled to take our car also for theorically trivial things: go to shopping, or just having a ride with friends.

The point is that the overall quality of life of people is increased by them having the freedom of using cars for whatever they like, even if this measurably increases the risk of deaths on the roads.

The same is for BLPs. Having a BLP collection of the vastity of WP is a benefit which is incredibly slight for each BLP, but becomes valuable when considered in its entirety, just like using a car one time to go to a ride is trivial, but the overall freedom of using cars to go to a ride is important. That is where one must calculate balance, and that I am willing to accept a (low) rate of incidents related to BLPs to enjoy this overall freedom. I know it could happen to me, just like I know I can be hit by a car. Yet no one thinks of removing all cars from the streets.

"This is not a game. These are real lives."
Sure, and for sure dealing with BLPs has to be done very seriously. What has to be done also is consider the benefit of having encyclopedic content on living people. The two things must find a balance and must be approached rationally, not emotionally.

"What if it was you/your $RELATIVE?"
This is a typical, and also a truly irrelevant argument. Such arguments try to make you empathize with the BLP subjects.

The problem is, we cannot afford to be emotional. We are here to build an encyclopedia (or at least try), and whenever we login here we have to stay cool and think objectively. How would I feel dealing with an article on myself is not part of building an encyclopedia. I must take care of the big picture: if a "delete-on-sight" response problems with BLP can be more harmful than useful on the long run, for example.

We may have victims in this process. There may be errors. But the overall objective -open, free, reliable content on all notable knowledge for all of humankind- is too big to refrain to pursue it. For this reason, we should take steps slowly and take all possible precautions. But we cannot be scared to the point of slashing down articles or unreasonably raising the notability bar. We should treat BLPs like any other article on WP, only giving them more protection.

"We don't need a biography on every $SUBJECT"
I am an inclusionist, I admit it. I am not a ruthless inclusionist; I think that notability and reliability have a strong place on WP. Our notability criteria are actually based mostly on reliable sources. There is a reason for that: articles without RS are, usually, not maintainable, because there's no way to know what's reliable and what's not. (I think notability is not only that, but that's another problem)

But once we have RS and due third-party coverage, there is no reason to avoid covering a subject. That we don't need it means that we won't be scratching our heads and staying awake at night trying to write such articles, but once an article there is, about a notable and sourced subject, we need it to stay unless very serious reasons for the contrary. We may not be an indiscriminate collection of information, but such a collection of human knowledge we are. We have criteria (WP:N, WP:RS, WP:NPOV). Once these are satisfied, along with other policies, the article should stay. Deleted articles are, in most cases, gone forever, and deletion is not to be taken lightly. See below.

"We cannot protect the articles reasonably, so we must default to delete"
I understand this kind of reasoning but there is a fundamental flaw behind that. Wikipedia already has (or will soon have) the tools needed to counteract vandalism etc. We can semi-protect, protect, watch articles. We, in fact, should semi-protect BLPs almost by default. But why to condemn ourselves to remove perfectly fine information just because of the possibility of harm being done by vandalism? This does not only means to surrender to vandalism: this is overreacting to a non-existent problem. (...)

FIXME: BLP policy talks of "possibility of harm" that must be considered. Discuss that.

Useful (while working) links/refs
Relevant AfDs:
 * Articles_for_deletion/Rachel_Uchitel
 * Articles_for_deletion/Diana_Napolis
 * Articles_for_deletion/Esther_Reed
 * Articles_for_deletion/Miriam_Sakewitz

List deletions:
 * Articles_for_deletion/List_of_disbarred_lawyers
 * Articles_for_deletion/List_of_women_who_have_murdered_their_husbands

Miscellaneous
 * Articles_for_deletion/Google_Watch