User talk:Dennis Brown/Missing person

This is a test bed to develop an essay for missing persons. The credit for making me realize that doing this may be worthwhile would go to Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, in his close for Articles for deletion/Asha Degree and in discussions.

Goals:
1. Do not make new policy. DO offer guidance on how the existing policy applies to missing person articles. This is an essay, not a guideline.

2. Keep it short and on point. It should only cover individual articles about missing persons and nothing else. Not categories, not lists.

3. Establish concensus about the existing BLP1E policies, if speedy delete A7 applies, and the threshold for inclusion beyond BLP1E.

4. Any editor can edit any part of the main essay. No invitation or permission needed. Being in my userspace is for convenience only, I don't own it.

5. When we feel it is ready for a larger audience, we all take it to BLP and open it up for discussion and further editing. Likely we should ask Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry to first bring it up at BLP because he is an admin and a key reason we are here.

Feel free to disagree, this is just the initial goals of mine. I don't own this essay, I just started it.  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C)

Two comments

 * 1) I didn't feel comfortable editing in your userspace, but the first paragraph includes the typo "guideance."
 * 2) My twisted sense of humor is satisfied by the fact that the shortcut is, at this point, missing.--otherlleft (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Both of these pages should be considered open to the public, and not my own. They are parked here in my user space only as a convenience. I changed some stuff back, and yes, it has spelling issues. Look at the time stamps, I have rushed to get it to this stage.  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 21:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

My tuppence
I'm keen to get involved in this - so here's my opinions so far:

Good phrases

 * "It is better to not have an article on a missing person than to have one that is inaccurate or not properly sourced." - I couldn't agree more. This is a fundamental tenet of my views on things like this - an unsourced article is of no use to anyone, as the information within cannot be verified as accurate. I applaud you for this one!
 * "For the purpose of Wikipedia, all missing persons should be considered living, so WP:BLP is the overriding policy regarding any content." - Again, another good statement. BLP is a keep policy here, it becomes even more important when dealing with missing people, as feelings are high - and unreferenced information, positive or negative, can adversely influence the search for the missing person.
 * I can't see applying this BLP rule to Judge Crater due to the passage of time, or Virginia Dare for that matter. other disappearances from the 1930's or earlier. Edison (talk) 23:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Phrases which need clarification or further input

 * "A missing person article is not usually subject to a speedy deletion for failing to meet notability under criteria WP:CSD#A7 if the article has at least minimal references, even if a primary source. " My concern here is that A7 states, "...does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources"'. If a person is missing, is that an assertion of notability in itself? Let us assume the article simply states: Lorraine has been missing since July 2004. Does that assert notability? According to A7, I don't think it does. However, let's say the article states: Lorraine has been missing since July 2004. You can find a picture of her in both the Picayune and the Times. That, in my eyes, is an assertion of notability, if barely. I recommend discussion of a 'missing persons' subclause to A7, because all too often A7 is taken much too liberally by administrators - sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly.
 * This is exactly why we need the folks at WP:BLP on board. I am confident they will have some ideas on this, including whether or not it should be excluded.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Other points
Thanks for creating this discussion, Dennis. I am interested in if you think all missing persons articles should be AfDed - or if that would cause too much distress to the people concerned, moreso than an AfD? In addition, should the office be informed? Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 22:14, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Please, please, please, make the edits in the article. If someone doesn't like it, they will be glad to revert it and discuss it here :) The article is so new, I think a little bit of free for all is good to get it going.  I will likely put off editing any more for a few hours at the least.  I know that my phrasing in most things sucks, I will not take offense in the least.     D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Next point, I do not think that all missing person articles should be AFD'ed. I think that if we set good examples in this policy, we can prevent some AFDs from happening (or speedy close keep where appropriate). We can prevent a few DRVs as well from speedy deletes. I do think that a missing person article shouldn't be speedy deleted for notability. And to be honest, I am really open to others telling me what THEY think, and maybe they will change my mind. This kinda makes us ask questions which haven't been asked before.  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:26, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing persons
It's my feeling that missing persons are inherently notable. Established cases that are listed by official agencies should be included in some fashion on Wikipedia. This seems like the right approach, although I don't think individual articles on each case would be proper, a clearing house for this information seems at least as important as "List of magistrates" (as was recently at AfD) or "List of UFO related entities" etc.. Appropriate redirects should be included so the information is easily accessed. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Established cases" is a good way of putting it, but a person who has been missing for two weeks, but it actually turns out he was just on holiday, and the small police hunt is called off when he returns... would that be included? Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 22:54, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This is why I think first, it must be missing as the police or other govt agency calls it (trying to keep this internationalized as well). Next, to even be considered, notice it requires extensive coverage, national or bigger.  This isn't a number, but I would imagine that most can't possibly qualify within the first 30 days, if for no other reason than wp:news.  My goal is choke these back to where only the most notable make it, which is what I think policy says.  If someone is missing in two weeks and then shows up, it probably takes care of itself as there isn't enough time to develop enough sources.  I wanted to use "overwhelming coverage" but that isn't in the guidelines and I want to be careful not to create new policy here.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * And for the record, using the definition at Wikipedia, I do not think all missing person cases are notable. Unfortunately it happens too often.  This is why we can't put them all, or even most, or even many here.  The key is BLP1E which says we are supposed to cover the event, not the person, and in missing person cases, this is why the don't meet criteria 98% of the time.  That and wp:news.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 23:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * There seems to be a view by the media that many persons go missing for good reasons, which are not newsworthy. Parents fighting over the kids, teens running away toward adventure or away from abuse, or adults leaving an uncomfortable situation come to mind. Without substantial coverage by multiple reliable and independent sources, these fail notability, however sad the circumstances. Edison (talk) 05:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Question
Would you support the idea that any article which covers an otherwise non-notable person over the event of their disappearance, and does not attempt to assert notability for that person, would qualify for speedy deletion as some form of (I know it's callous) advertising or vanity page? Thoughts welcome! Chase me ladies, I&#39;m the Cavalry (talk) 23:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you discount all notability issues, and it appears that the article fails in some other way, then it is likely to be speedy deleted. Of course, we have no authority to set speedy delete policy here, all we can do is determine what it already is.  If "missingpersonssearch.com" starts putting up missing person articles to get links to their site, then it is obviously spam.  As for a vanity page, er, man, that is almost painful to imagine.  I think the current delete policy would support "A7 applies only in the most obvious cases, all other criteria can apply at will".  That may even be pushing A7 a little bit, from my read, but this is an essay.  Admins can choose to ignore it anyway.  I just made changes, including about PROD, which is basically restating the purpose of PROD, and that it should only be used in situations where it is unlikely to be controversial, which is the policy.  I tweaked a couple of the criteria as well.  I think we are about 60% done with the first stage, maybe more.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 23:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thousands of people disappear each year in a large country such as the U.S. Many "disappeared" children and teenagers are custodial parental abductions (sometimes to rescue a child from a mistake by the court system) or teenage runaways,who sometimes are leaving a bad situation and sometimes are just displaying poor judgment) and even their own town does not get that worked up. Stranger abductions do get the nation worked up, but are relatively rare. If the disappeared is adult, or minority, little press coverage is likely. Edison (talk) 05:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The Disappearance of...
I have modified the header of the article to include "the disappearance of..." type articles as being included, since they are simply a onearound A7 and BLP1E. This may be problematic but is necessary or the essay is useless.  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 00:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "The Disappearance of..." is the way the majority of these articles should be formatted. In most cases the individual is solely notable because of their disappearance and the subsequent media coverage or events inspired by it. Only if the person is independently notable, eg Richey James Edwards or Lord Lucan, should the article be named after the individual alone. RMHED (talk) 00:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you feel that "the disappearance off..." articles need only pass GNG standards? This means a lot more articles on a lot of missing people. To me, 'the disappearance..." seems only like a way around blp1e.  Otherwise "disappearance" is automatically notable as long as it can be sourced.  That may be the case, but it doesn't make sense to me, as virtually all missing persons (at least in the US) get press, more than once, so we basically become a clearinghouse for missing persons cases.  And all you have to do is put "The disappearance of" in front of the name.  I am sorry, but that seems to be setting the bar a bit too low.  the article on Missing persons says 109,531 active and 834,536 total records in the US alone based on 2005 stats.  Extrapolate that to the world population at the same rate and you get 20,863,400.  20 million.  That is almost 8 times the total number of articles on the English version of Wikipedia.  Even if it was off by a factor, it would almost equal the number of existing articles.  I am not convinced that this is what the notability guideline was meant for.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 01:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd hold these type of articles to a much higher degree of notability than the basic GNG. I'd like to see international news media coverage at the very least for the article to be valid. Others though will disagree and say meeting the basic GNG guidelines is sufficient. I'd hope that AfD would weed out most of the weaker notability articles, but you never can tell how things might go. I don't forsee a problem with Wikipedia being swamped by articles about missing people, at least it hasn't happened up to now. RMHED (talk) 01:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the standard must be higher simply because of the number of missing cases. Instead of hit and miss AFDs, however, this is why I would like some clear criteria, which would hopefully reduce the number of AFDs.  I don't necessarily think that international press would be needed to pass the threshold, but we need to get a consensus at some level, whatever it is.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 10:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please note that in the US and the UK the round the clock coverage generally only occurs for females who are white. Note the difference between the Google News hits for "Elizabeth Smart" (white), age 14 at disappearance: 8790 hits in the 6 years since the disappearance, "Madeleine McCann" (white), age 3 at disappearance: 19600 hits in the 1.5 years since the disappearance and "Asha Degree,", age 10 at disappearance,(black) 75 hits in the 8 years since the disappearance . 75 news articles with substantial coverage, over an 8 year span, is still more coverage than most Wikipedia biographical subjects or most Wikipedia crime articles crimes show. Most child murders , kidnappings, or disappearances only fill one news cycle, unless they are stoked by the finding of a body, then the arrest, and finally the trial of the perp, spred out over the logical course of time. Edison (talk) 05:27, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I am aware of this, although I am not sure what this has to do with the current discussion, which is trying to establish a fair set of guidelines for inclusion. We can't make the media pay more attention to children who are darker than pale.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 10:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The Degree disappearance is at the heart of this proposed guideline, since the guideline emerged in the wake of the hasty closing of an AFD and deletion of the article about Degree's disappearance. My view is that any guideline should not call for deletion of a disappearance article which has the amount and quality of reliable sources documenting notability that the Degree case has, even though she did not get the full Natalee Holoway/Elizabeth Smart/Madeleine McCann 24/7 newschannel coverage and intercontinental press coverage. Edison (talk) 05:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I have made some more changes. This isn't going to be easy, as the only way to deal with these BLP issues is consider "the disappearance of" and BLP articles the same, since they are the same for all intent and purposes regarding relative content.  Simply adding a few words to say you are covering the event and not the person, doesn't change the fact that this is a BLP issue.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You are quite correct, adding a few words in front of the name does not alter the fact that BLP still applies. It does at least stop the pretence that the article is about someone's life, when in fact all it covers is an event in their life. Not an ideal solution to be sure, but one that at least has a significant precedent on wikipedia. RMHED (talk) 02:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Please state exactly what the BLP concern is. Do you think it is libellous or derogatory to say a living person is missing or thought to have been kidnapped, if there are multiple reliable sources stating that it is indeed the case? What are you going on about in this proposed guideline, anyway? Is it intended to screen out and justify deletion of nonnotable disappearances while keeping notable disappearances? There is nothing about that issue very closely related to WP:BLP. Edison (talk) 05:11, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The BLP concern is that most missing persons are children, who are usually victims of crimes, at least kidnapping, and often much worse. You have to assume they are alive until it is proven otherwise.  This means they must be held to the highest standards of WP:BLP for controversial and contentious material, including that which may implicate someone as the offender.  I don't think it stops you from making the article, but I do think these type of BLP articles hold the highest level of responsibility for editors to make sure we don't revictimize anyone, or create a new victim.  IE: don't say "bob smith is the main suspect" when the source isn't truly wp:rs reliable.    D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 12:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This essay applies BLP1E in a more restrictive way to disappearance articles than to other articles. Many disappearance article have been kept which this essay would delete, and that is just not the way Wikipedia works. A few people writing an essay does not trump the outcomes of AFDs which have much wider participation. Edison (talk) 05:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The essay isn't to trump anything, being an essay. The purpose is to figure out really what the concensus is and document it in an essay that focuses only this one topic.  And it can be edited by anyone, including yourself, so please do, and feel free to invite other to participate.  I would ask if you do, to invite a variety of viewpoints. This is NOT my essay, I just started it because we really need one.  Right now, there isn't much guidance on missing person articles.  The current essay is pretty reflective of my opinion, which is likely to be in the minority it seems.  Well, I started it, so obviously it would start that way.  The goal is to have it reflect the consensus at Wikipedia, even if it is counter to my opinion.  Then it will be useful.  Right now, it isn't.  What I want to do is get a solid start here, then take it to BLP, then take to main space, then it can offer some guidance during AFDs.  I would rather have a solid essay that is an accurate representation of consensus than not, even if I don't completely agree with it.  It still adds clarity, and if consensus change, it offers a place to discuss it.  We have just started.  And if people would rather move this out of my space, I don't have a problem with that either.  I understand that it may get ugly from time to time, and don't consider this "my" space anyway.  Either way, lets get going.     D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 12:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite
My last interpretation of the current policies may be too restrictive. I have rewritten it, and ask that others please jump in and help.  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 12:47, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

General comments
I have just read through both the essay and the talk page and I have to say that I don't find the essay in its current form particularly useful. It does not seem to provide much in terms of additional guidance on top of existing applicable policies/guidelines, such as WP:BLP, WP:NOT and WP:BIO and looks kind of redundant. Moreover, and probably more importantly, the focus on missing persons seems to me far too narrow. This topic is a part of a larger topic about crime victims, and an essay on that would be much more useful. There are some specific issues common to articles about crime victims (and which are applicable to missing persons cases) where the existing policies/guidelines are not very clear and where general AfD consensus is still developing (so that an essay would be useful). For example, there is an issue of what kind of coverage would constitute proof of sufficient notability for an article about a crime or a missing person case. Thus in many cases such a crime/disappearance does receive significant coverage but only in the local media. The question is whether some evidence of national/state coverage should generally be required to demonstrate notability. Also, probably there needs to be an explicit understanding that when a crime/disappearance is listed in FBI/other law enforcement databases, this fact alone does not constitute proof of notability and some significant newscoverage should be required. Another, little discussed, issue, is interaction with WP:NOT, which is an important although somewhat neglected, policy. Many crime/abduction/disappearance cases receive only brief (even if intense) amount of local coverage (e.g. related to Amber alert); and it is useful to have an essay discussing in more detail where (in terms of the time-span of the coverage) the line should be drawn regarding applicability of WP:NOT to such cases. I don't really see these issues addressed in sufficient detail in this essay, so at the moment it does look rather redundant and, as mentioned above, too narrowly focused. In fact, it seems to me that the subject of this essay is largely subsumed by the currently active proposal for a new notability guideline Notability (criminal acts). It may be better to transfer most of this discussion there. Nsk92 (talk) 17:12, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

90th birthday
Hey DGG, that looks like a logical addition, limiting BLP status until their 90th birthday. Is this a policy somewhere, or a best guess? I didn't see it at wp:blp, and it if is already in policy, I wanted to document it here either as policy or consensus decision. <span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"> D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 17:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Should pronouncements of Legally dead matter? Taemyr (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. Once someone is legally deceased, then WP:BLP doesn't apply directly. (it may as to survivors)  That wouldn't change the notability of the article, and would have to be sourced within the article.  One less likely but real example would be if there were more controversial material, it would be slightly more likely to be allowed in the article if the person was known not to be living.  When someone is alive, we tend to err on the side of deleting material like this, for good reason.  <span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">  D ENNIS B ROWN  (T) (C) 22:41, 23 November 2008 (UTC)