Wikipedia:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey/Eliminate disparate treatment of BLP articles

Eliminate disparate treatment of BLP articles
We have the Five Pillars. We have policies on neutrality, verifiability, sourcing, and vandalism. We shouldn't be in the business of maintaining a special class of articles upon which the rules are applied differently. This creates a situation where it is trivially easy to remove information from a biographical article, but confoundingly difficult to add it. We're here to write an encyclopedia, not delete one.

I've essentially given up on the one BLP effort I attempted: It wasn't the vandals that drove me away, as I could handle them. It was the well-meaning but ultimately undermining efforts of editors (including admins) who would rather have nothing said than risk offending the subject, regardless of the sourced facts.

My proposal is this:

Eliminate WP:BLP and every other policy difference between BLP articles and others. --SSBohio 21:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) Strong support - As the one proposing the change, I'd better. :-) --SSBohio 21:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose. Your own experience notwithstanding, BLPs do have the potential to be more harmful than most other types of articles. "Richard Baker (chronicler) had an affair" is not likely to impact anyone's career or personal life, but "Richard Baker (Scottish politician) had an affair" certainly could (not to mention libel laws). We should be more careful what we say about living people. This is an ethical issue as well as a legal one. That said, if it's reliably sourced and relevant, current policy allows it, no matter how negative it is. The difference is only in how aggressively we deal with stuff that isn't reliably sourced. -kotra (talk) 02:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC) Change to neutral as per Aseld's comment below. WP:BLP does serve as a reminder to enforce the rules for BLPs, but maybe that's not necessary. -kotra (talk) 08:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I see where you're coming from, but I want to raise a couple of points with regard to your example. First, we've already expanded the BLP policy to apply potentially to any biography, not just one of a living person;  Second, adding the mention of an affair could just as well be policed under general policies as to verifiability, notability, and the like.  A special case doesn't exist here; It is instead created by the BLP policy which recursively uses the special case to justify itself.  In my case, for example, I had an AP article reporting the information, and the information concerned the incident that made the person notable. However, an admin removed it.  BLP makes those kind of misuses possible by lowering the bar for removal of otherwise compliant information. --SSBohio 04:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Support - all Wikipedia articles need to be well-referenced and unbiased. I don't see why we need a different policy for BLPs, especially one that just says "follow the normal rules, but actually obey them". -- Aseld  talk  00:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Support - While Kotra brings a good point that it is very important that living person's have truthful information - as others have said those are encompassed within the existing verifiability/NPOV/et al. policies. -- Brianrusso
 * 3) Support - "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Paul Beardsell (talk) 10:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Support - We already have a tool to deal with chronically vandalized articles, including those about people, semi-protection. The usual methods of vandalism detection are enough, especially since the articles that people want to post inaccurate information on are almost always high-profile and therefore they have the protection of constant checking of editors and admins, and many already seem to be in semi-protection, as well. In addition, no news organization is going to base a scandalous article on some stuff that someone made up and posted to Wikipedia. This limits the damage to Wikipedia alone, and that damage is limited to the time it remains on Wikipedia, almost invariably, not long.
 * Also, since the high-profile articles are quickly reverted and often semi-protected, as well, the most likely people to have their article's vandalized for long enough for more than one or two people to see it are the less notable people on Wikipedia. These people are less likely to both have anyone to read the false information (less notable = less traffic) and to have people who care whether or not they have had an affair (less notable = smaller fan base). They are also less likely to get an article written about them, even if some reckless journalist took the unverified information as fact. The lesser notable are also less likely for people to even blog or write emails about scandalous information. Unverified, scandalous information is unlikely to even do any significant damage, no matter how many people read it or who reads it (including loved ones), given Wikipedia's reputation in this area (63-year-old woman gets home from work as president of a prestigious university, husband says, "According to Wikipedia, you give blowjobs to hobos on the street!"). Wikipedia is not the place where scandalous stories get broken and people know from news reports, personal experience on Wikipedia and from the social web (friends, blogs, websites) that anyone can enter false information into Wikipedia.
 * Even most visitors to Wikipedia know not to trust unverified, scandalous information that appears on Wikipedia, and smart people know not to believe such information whatever the source. If a vandal did insert that someone had an affair, and someone believed it despite all of the previous stuff I mentioned, the first thing that anyone who has any interest about the person (fans, friends, loved ones) would do is to search the Internet go to online news organizations for more information. When these people find nothing about the affair anywhere else, they will realize that they information was false. Granted, a person who is not very bright and has not heard or read about the nature of Wikipedia or the Internet may read some scandalous information on Wikipedia about their spouse and believe it, but it is not very likely. If the same scenario plays out, but it is not a loved one or close friend, then there is not going to be any trauma, and I've already stated how such information is extremely unlikely to spread.
 * Finally, in the eight or so years that Wikipedia has been running, I have yet to hear about any damage that false information about a person has done, beyond making the subject of the article, or someone close to him or her, upset. I have never heard of a situation where a friend, colleague or spouse has "bought" the information. Although, I would not be surprised if that has been claimed by the subject of the article in a complaint. However, if such a thing has ever actually happened, it would get talked about by those involved and would eventually get around to the media who would investigate the incident and write an article or do a TV segment about it. This would occur even with the less notable because even if the person is not very notable, Wikipedia is. A news report of emotional trauma would be much more credible than a claim in a complaint letter. It is one thing to lie in a complaint letter. It is quite another to get your spouse or friend to lie to a reporter that they believed some stuff that someone made up on Wikipedia. Even if the reporter is not conscientious to interview the spouse or friend and just talks to the subject, the person is much less likely to lie than in a complaint letter. First, the subject may not know whether the reporter is going to interview the other person. Second, the other person is likely to be quite upset if they read a newspaper article saying that they believed something made up on Wikipedia. -- Kjkolb (talk) 11:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In answer to one point, I know of direct commercial damage done to an individual running a small business as a result of an article created by a new editor and enhanced by an IP directly linked to a competitor. It did not assert anything false, it just (a) lacked balance, and (b) was the *only* article in that category, although theoretically it passed WP:N and so would other incidents or subjects of a similar kind. It and other mirrors of the article dominated the search engine hits for this small business's name, and the owner-operator's name. In sum total, it was pretty easy to see Wikipedia should not have this article. I'd love to elaborate more, but I came to the matter through OTRS, so I can't - but I'm sure if I did a poll of other OTRS volunteers I'd find 100 more cases where more than just "upset" was involved. Orderinchaos 00:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Support - I think the Five Pillars should be enforced just as strongly on all Wikipedia articles. The policies are fairly strict already. Any unsourced information can be removed by anyone, and that should be the case for all articles. Having the BLP policy implies that's not the case for the rest of the articles. All Hallow&#39;s Wraith (talk) 07:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Support This BLP business alone has been responsible for tremendous upheaval, bureaucracy, etc. even though it's redundant. Wikipedia's basic rules already forbid the stuff that BLP seeks to stop. And the only way "defamation" on Wikipedia could possibly harm someone would be if people believe what they read on the Internet. That's ridiculous. Ntsimp (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait ... so you mean that during the last few months while I and many other users have been spending hours and hours agonizing over what is the best way to mitigate the problems caused by attack pages, drive-by vandalism, and privacy violations in Wikipedia articles about living people&mdash;articles that almost invariably become the highest-ranking search engine result in a search under the person's name&mdash; without compromising the nature of the wiki more than necessary ... it turns out there was never a problem at all? And the various reports about people not getting jobs, being arrested, filing lawsuits, and the like as a result of attack material inserted into Wikipedia articles are all phony? Geez, silly freakin' me, what the heck was I thinking? *shakes head despondently* Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the nom wasn't saying that there isn't a problem, just that WP:BLP is redundant with existing policies, particularly WP:V and WP:OR. Nobody appears to be saying that WP:BLP is wrong, just redundant. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with that view, but there it is. -kotra (talk) 01:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Support.  I agree with each Support above, word for word.  Thanks.  --  Iterator12n   Talk 03:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Support, for reasons others have articulated. JonStrines (talk) 15:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 3) Support A cluster of Wikipedians have become insecure about high-profile negative media attention surrounding temporarily inaccurate information and this is the only reason we're even discussing BLP. Get over it! We're so open its occasionally scary! That's who we are!Yeago (talk) 21:32, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 4) Oppose This proposal doesn't have any serious chance of success, given BLP came to us from the Foundation, not from the community, although I actually agree with some of the sentiments above. Having dealt with some particularly contentious situations as an OTRS volunteer dealing directly with subjects or other affected persons, in situations where BLP was needed and other policies would not have ensured the outcome, I can appreciate its value. Orderinchaos 00:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think WP:BLP was actually a Foundation directive. Reviewing the history of the policy, it was first proposed by WAS 4.250 back in December 2005 as a response to the Daniel Brandt situation, which has graced the pages of the Administrators' Noticeboard more than once, and fomented an ArbCom case.  Nothing I've seen shows that the Foundation brought us BLP. --SSBohio 04:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Not Sure. Wikipedia is meant to be easily editable, but allowing random edits of BLP risks starting the Seigenthaler affair all over again, with its lawsuit threats and whining. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 18:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Support I've seen WP:BLP abused by vandals as a guise to remove "controversial material", there is enough rules in place to sufficiently solve the problems, and the problems are not unique to BLP's. Remember: WP:RAP. In many cases, WP:BLP just defers to WP:V/WP:N. We don't need a redundant policy. &eta;oian   &Dagger;orever &eta;ew &Dagger;rontiers  06:19, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Um, Oppose? BLP exists for a very good reason. (Several very good reasons, actually.) I wonder whether, if any of the people supporting this had articles about themselves on Wikipedia, they might think differently. Robofish (talk) 04:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment I believe Wp:RS, WP:V, WP:NOT, WP:OR, and many other policies sufficiently cover your worries, being a notable person does not shield you from legitimate controversy. &eta;oian   &Dagger;orever &eta;ew &Dagger;rontiers  02:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)