Wikipedia talk:Material concerning living persons in non-article space

Should WP:BLP really apply as written to talk pages etc? I think that this is subject to abuse, and that a modification is needed. Herostratus (talk) 01:53, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Introduction
I'm proposing this policy for these reasons. The WP:BLP policy specifically states that it applies everywhere on Wikipedia, not just article space. And several editors have confirmed that this is so and they intend to enforce it. There's a WP:BLP section, although there are references to non-article space outside that section.

However, I'm not sure if the people discussing and adopting BLP all really thought through the implications of applying the policy without modification to non article space. So I thought it would worthwhile to discuss some modifications.

For instance: according to WP:BLP, it is absolutely forbidden to write "This person is not notable..." in a WP:AFD discussion. "Not notable" is both an opinion and probably defamatory. (It would be permissible to if you could link to a reliable source saying, in basically so many words, "So-and-so is not notable", but how likely is that?) You wouldn't write "Person X is a non-notable scientist..." in an article (absent a good ref), so you should not write it anywhere in Wikipedia. This is what the policy says.

In fact, if you come across "So-and-so is not notable..." anywhere in Wikipedia, you are not just allowed but basically beholden to delete the material without discussion.

Similarly, you cannot write anything but the most anodyne statements about any living person unless you provide an in-line ref to a verifiable reliable source, even if the material is in an AfD or on a talk page or even in an edit summary.

How the hell are we supposed to carry on collegial research and discussion and so forth under these conditions? Are we supposed to pepper our talk pages with in-line refs?

Now, I know what you're saying: no one would be so pedantic as to actually enforce a policy so rigidly.

Oh, wait. (And that's just today's wire.)

Well, people on Wikipedia wouldn't be that pedantic. I mean, come on - a Wikipedian, being pedantic? Ridiculous!

Well, maybe so.

But then consider the potential -- hell, the reality -- of abuse. It's always a Very Bad Thing when practice and policy are not in sync. Because then policy can be applied selectively. Of course no one is going to hassle you for BLP violations that are generally accepted and ignored. As long as they like you, that is. (As Bill James once said, "That's how it works in a fascist state. Everything's against the law. Piss off the wrong person and bang, you've just broken six laws before breakfast.")

Oh, lots of fun can be had with BLP. How about if someone calls an article an "abomination" (not that I generally recommend that); this could be met with the (willful? or just stupid?) objection that you have called the subject of the article an abomination, which is a serious BLP violation (and may be removed without discussion). This could be fun in an AfD on an article you are determined to defend, for instance.

Anyway: main point is, that I said, policy and practice should be in sync. I think it shouldn't be too controversial that a number of major exceptions to BLP need to be carved out for non article spaces. I mean cripes, this is real censorship, or at any rate the potential for it, we are talking about, censorship of scholarly inquiry and communication.

The controversy will probably be over the details, where to draw the line, should there be different standards for article talk pages and user talk pages, etc etc. This I have left blank, it's up to you guys to work this out. I would just say, as I basically said on the proposal page: Few thing are utterly impossible, but if a reasonable person would be likely to conclude that your writing is vanishingly unlikely to result in in exposure of the Wikipedia to harm, you should be not be forbidden from writing it on BLP grounds. (You may be forbidden on other grounds, if warranted.)

Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the community will decide that BLP applies, without modification, everywhere. In that case, prepare for a great cleansing and great exodus, I guess. I would prefer a straightforward NO BLP policy to that, myself.

One final note. This policy does not address tone and appropriateness of material for scholarly discourse.

For instance, suppose someone writes on their talk page "As that idiot Jimmy Carter once said...". Now, this may be (is, in my opinion) generally inappropriate. It is inflammatory. It disses a person other editors may admire. It is probably not necessary or helpful. It may violate other policies. And so forth. There is recourse for all this. The editor may be ignored, or answered with a snarky comment, or slapped with a trout, or warned, or even subject to RfC and sanctions if they keep it up and it gets to be a problem. But this is not a BLP issue. You can't say You called President Carter an idiot, no ref given, I am removing your entire post On BLP grounds. Right? I hope most everyone is with me on that, at least. Herostratus (talk) 05:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I see Herostratus's concern here. I would hope that people are using common sense here. (problem being that what common sense is to one person is different for another, but.. yeah..) If one Joe Shmoe says on a Wikipedia talk page that someone is a "talentless train wreak" that has "no business being in front of a camera", and it's obvious that is simply one person's comment, then I honestly don't see an issue and don't think such comments should be censored. If the discussion over-all is getting off topic (regarding building the article, etc) then that would be another issue. No one's feelings are going to be hurt if one person says something that's not overwhelmingly positive on the talk page. No one is going to mistake it for encyclopedic content, or something that has any real backing than being a comment from a single person. -- Ned Scott 02:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Granted the bit about personal information will always apply. (possibly other elements as well) -- Ned Scott 02:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

BLP is not simply about legal liability, it is about basic respect. I don't think you will find any real support for the idea that doing no harm is a secondary or subsiidary part of BLP. I cannot see how calling someone non-notable is a BLP violation, it is a statement of opinion that is neither disrespectful or libelous, not once you actually go and read WP:N. Similarly, I cannot see how calling an article an abomination is disrespectful to the person. One admin might be stupid enough to confuse the two, but not several. This type of attempted gaming would go the same way as most other types. On the issue of liability, IANAL but I would have thought Wikipedia's liablity extends to all pages, despite the various measures taken to hide them. So no dice there for any exceptions imo. And any BLP is going to find any damaging material very quickly if they are actively looking. I am struggling, really struggling, to think of a theoretical example where adhering to BLP would stifle anybody's ability to express themselves clearly and properly wrt to what they actually need to say about a living person in project space to be able to complete something correctly, without feeling 'censored'. This seems to be akin to those editors who defend their apparently inalienable right to ignore CIVIL if they feel the need to call a spade a spade in a particular dispute. The problem there is not CIVIL, it is the person's own inability not to be able to express themselves properly, or to view anything in a way that is not from their own perspective. Only its worse, because the subject will not have the ability to respond straight away, if at all, and will likely be reading the comments months if not years later. Saying what you like to or about other editors is one thing, but in the case of BLPs, who in many cases have never even consented to being discused on Wikipedia or not, it's a whole different ball game. As written and described, I see zero chance of there ever being any exceptions made to BLP for non-article space. I think this proposal is heading for a tanking. MickMacNee (talk) 03:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it would be highly unfortunate if what you say comes true. Just look at the bottom of this talk page, and in a conversation between me and another user you'll see a slightly disparaging remark about Kim Kardashian.  Should the person who put that there be blocked for a minor comment like that?  Obviously not- it has very little to do with the actual article, and it's simply making a point without being WP:POINTy.  Yet, there are some people who would say that such a comment would be a BLP violation.  My understanding was that BLP was to prevent the Siegenthaler incident from happening all over again, not to brandish it as a weapon against someone you don't like.  It shouldn't go beyond the former, and I'm disturbed that it's rapidly headed towards the latter.  People scream and fight mercilessly about images not being censored, but the moment its text, it's all out warfare on the person who made a small remark.  It makes no sense- the image policy and the BLP policy shouldn't be that disparate.  Images can be far more damaging than text- reading, "Brittany Spears was seen drunk in a bar" is not nearly as graphic as seeing a picture of her in that state.  And yet, it's so much easier to put up an image of that than it is to write it in words.  How does that make any sense?  I like this proposal, and I think Herostratus has legitimate points here.  If this passes, we hopefully won't have another person pillorized the way Herostratus has been, which is unfortunate to say the least.  Does anyone at least see the logic in what I'm saying?  The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk) 19:47, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This proposal is not a good idea. Giving unsourced negative criticism or opinions of people on talk pages, AfDs, or project space is not how Wikipedians should be conducting themselves. Whether "the exposure of the Wikipedia to liability or embarrassment is vanishingly remote" or not is impossible to judge and wholly irrelevant. We should treat subjects of articles with respect, regardless of whether they or the media are going to find out about it. Our BLP policy is not and should not be based on whether we're going to get caught out or not. Our own opinions of article subjects are of no use in improving Wikipedia so there is no justification for providing them. Fences  &amp;  Windows  14:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Our opinions aren't valuable to improving Wikipedia? In response, why do you edit certain articles?  I do because I enjoy editing them, and because I care about the subjects.  And, shockingly enough, I actually have an opinion on them, and I will add information I came across because I read certain types of information on subjects.  For example, being a Yankee fan, I'm somewhat inclined to edit that article.  If I wasn't interested in the Yankees, I wouldn't.  If we didn't have opinions on anything, we wouldn't edit articles.  And sharing those opinions, which may be unsourced by you, may lead to someone else digging up a source you didn't know about, and being able to improve the article. The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Our opinions of the articles are valuable. Our opinions of the subjects are not. Saying "The John Doe article sucks" is perfectly fine (or at least not a policy violation, its not especially helpful). Saying "John Doe sucks" is not helpful in any way, and it is also a BLP violation. Take the example given in the extended justification above regarding Jimmy Carter. What possible value to the encyclopedia does a comment calling someone an idiot have? If you're just discussing him as a person, its useless. If you're discussing his opinion on something, there are non-insulting ways to get the same point across (like perhaps providing some evidence as to why his opinion is not helpful). Mr.Z-man 23:24, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with you, except that sometimes that line can become incredibly blurred. Saying " is an asshole" in and of itself wouldn't be constructive, true.  However, making that comment in the context of " was such an asshole at the Emmy Awards this year, how can we work this into the article in an NPOV manner", if it's significant to the subject, is different - it's summing an opinion up in fewer words.  There has to be some distinction between BLP in articles and in talkpages.
 * And, believe it or not, our opinions of article subjects are important in the sense that we edit the articles because of our interest in the subject. To deny that would be absurd.  Like I said above, I edit the New York Yankees article because I'm a big fan (I'm watching the game now) and to say that my opinion on the subject has no sway on my editing is wrong.  It dictates the kind of sources I come across, and the kinds of content I add in.  That goes for everyone here- what we think of a subject will determine, to some extent, the type of information we add in about it.  It's better to work with that than against it.  The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk) 02:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * " was such an asshole at the Emmy Awards this year, how can we work this into the article in an NPOV manner" - except that the "asshole" part is completely extraneous. As with the "idiot" comment, its entirely possible to phrase it without being insulting. The news manages to get by just fine without calling people assholes, and that's likely where any source for that would come from. This is getting a little off-topic though. Insulting the subject is bad, but BLP covers much more. Things like original research combined with negative statements is a much more serious issue (and I've seen it before on BLP talk pages). Perhaps I wasn't as clear as necessary with my earlier comment. Our opinions of the subjects are necessary, but they are not relevant to actually building the article and it is not necessary to share them. Mr.Z-man 03:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I suppose. Now I see what you're saying.  I'd have to agree with you on that part, but I do think BLP could be loosened a tiny bit on talkpages- which is generally the case anyways, as it's sometimes hard to discuss certain people without bringing up potentially controversial things.  But yeah, mixing OR and attacks can be seriously damaging, I'd agree.  I just misread your first comment, in hindsight you were perfectly clear.  The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk) 16:35, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Exceptionally bad idea. Libel law is libel law, bad PR is bad PR, and civility is civility - there are no rules that say Wikipedia space is exempt from either the law or from the eyes of PR-hungry enemies of the project, and morality based on the likelihood of getting found out stinks. I think the proposer should fess up to having breached WP:BLP, accept that an admin doing so could cause serious harm to the project, and not try to get out of it by this ridiculous attempt to change policy. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As Mick MacNee and Fences&Windows both write, the primary purpose of WP:BLP is not about avoiding lawsuits. It's about not hurting our subjects unnecessarily. If it helps avoid lawsuits, so much the better, but we can't avoid lawsuits, there is no way to avoid being sued. What we can do, is try to behave the best way we can, and we should. There used to be a quote by Jimbo Wales in WP:BLP that seems to have been removed, but it was something like "Wikipedia is not here to hurt people." That's what WP:BLP is about. Is part of it pedantic, and is it a pain do be dancing around offending our subjects unnecessarily? Yes. But it's better than being pedantic the other way "we may offend our subjects on article talk pages", and have them turn into uncensored cesspools. Believe me, there will be pedants on that side as well, if given a chance. --GRuban (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Here we go. Jimbo Wales's email, 2006: I believe it may predate WP:BLP, but if it does, you can clearly see the policy's origins in it.

Wikipedia is not here to make people sad... This article is making someone unhappy. We want to make sure that it is a thoughtful, fair, neutral article. We need GOOD editors to pay attention to it, and help us make it good... The subject of the biography (and really, these are most often biographies) is either made happy (because a horrible error was corrected, a troll was vanquished, or whatever) or made at least satisfied (the story of the negative thing he or she did once is now placed in appropriate context, properly cited, including citations to his or her own response and defense).
 * That's what WP:BLP is all about. Not "we're doing it because we're afraid of lawsuits", but "we're doing it because it's the right thing to do." Naive, rather than cynical. And that applies to article talk pages. We absolutely have to discuss whether a minor politician is notable. But we can do it without calling him names. --GRuban (talk) 20:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. If I make an offhand comment that I consider such and such [politician or what have you] an idiot, or, in an example more similar to Hero's intro of "not notable", I should not have to worry about getting blocked/banned/desysopped immediately. I also should not have to worry aabout saying "such and such person has been shown to be clearly involved in criminal acts" and then have to debate over whether the evidence is even strong enough for me to stay that. Immediate sanctions for derogatory statements does indeed skirt the line of censorship. Outright personal attacks are bad form, impolite, and should be discouraged and deleted when necessary, but they are not the end of the world, and it seems that people are making a mountain out of a molehill. The possibility of a lawsuit is indeed remote and probably even impossible in the jurisdictions I'm aware of. II  | (t - c) 07:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, we really shouldn't call people idiots. (Even politicians. If nothing else, it's redundant.) Calling a specific public figure an idiot shouldn't be grounds for an immediate lynching (I'm supporting Herostratus against recall), but neither should it be sanctioned. It's wrong, we all recognize it as wrong, and so should our rules. --GRuban (talk) 19:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You are apparently not familiar then with the US, where frivolous lawsuits (which can be extremely expensive even if they don't go to trial) are almost encouraged by the legal system, or the UK, where defamatory comments are presumed to be false until proven true and where private individuals only need to prove negligence (rather than malice) to collect compensation. Mr.Z-man 23:32, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't know much about the UK (although "Warning to chatroom users after libel award for man labelled a Nazi" confirms my impressions), but libel lawsuits against hosting organizations for internet comments by users are as far as I know quite rare and usually unsuccessful. See Wikimmunity: Fitting the Communications Decency Act to Wikipedia. No offense - you may know more about personal injury torts than I do - but I kinda doubt it if you haven't heard of 230(a) of the CDA. II  | (t - c) 00:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikimedia is protected (legally, technically) from lawsuits, but that doesn't mean that a defense against a frivolous one would be cheap, to say nothing of the PR-issues. Section 230 though just protects the foundation by shifting liability onto editors. It may protect the site, but individual editors are still open to lawsuits. I can recall at least one instance where users were almost sued in the US (though by a company rather than an individual) for edits that they claimed were to damage their reputation. They were only protected by their ISP's refusal to hand over customer records without a court order. But as noted elsewhere, protecting subjects from defamation is the primary purpose of BLP; protecting us from lawsuits is just a bonus. Mr.Z-man 01:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Essentially, Oppose (with caveats). WP:BLP applies everywhere, with good reason; if a comment would be seriously insulting or defamatory in article-space, it would be no less insulting or defamatory on a talk page or elsewhere. However, I think it does make sense to take a slightly laxer view towards BLP on talk pages; there are comments which wouldn't be permitted in articles but which should be on talk pages. This is obvious when you think about it, otherwise we couldn't have discussions like 'is it a BLP violation to describe this person as a criminal/antisemite/whatever?'. So, there is a difference, and comments on talk pages and elsewhere should be given greater leeway than statements directly made in articles; but BLP does still apply to them, and highly negative comments are inappropriate everywhere, whether they are likely to provoke legal action or not. Protecting us from legal action is not the primary purpose of WP:BLP. Robofish (talk) 15:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose as stated, essentially per GRuban. I actually think practice and policy on BLP is fairly clear, and by and large gets the balance right. No-one seems to be seriously advocating that we should not be able to sensitively discuss BLPs as necessary to make editorial decisions. But for better or worse all Wikipedia discussions happen in a public and intensely followed forum, and so all such meta-discussions should be phrased by all participants so as to be minimally hurtful. Martinp (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose because I support the current BLP policy, although I'm in total agreement that it causes discomfort and risks muzzling people; it's just a discomfort we have to live with. More often than not, when I see opposition to the current BLP policy, I get the impression that it's because people are applying lessons learned from all around the Internet to Wikipedia ... and Wikipedia isn't "the internet", it's arguably the world's current top information source.  When you're a 500-pound gorilla, it hurts when you step on people.  And in practice, the current policy seems to have mitigated the problems of the previous policy. - Dank (push to talk) 21:31, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose per reasons above. -- Rockstone  talk to me!   23:50, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose per various comments, particularly Robofish's. Maybe - just maybe - a small change could be reasonable, but this isn't it. In its current form it goes much too far and would do a lot more harm than good. Alzarian16 (talk) 11:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Support I've clearly misjudged community viewpoint on this so I will concede. This being so there are alot of dickheads, asswipes, chicken chokers, stupid bastards & ignorant sluts out there.  Guess it's time to get me some on the talk pages.--Cube lurker (talk) 12:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There's no need to get all snarky. It's a good faith proposal. You shouldn't !vote in ways opposite to what you believe, nor imply that it's unacceptable to even discuss these issues. Herostratus (talk) 03:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Random break
OK, how about this: In what way, shape, or form is the following statement not a clear and actionable violation of WP:BLP:


 * "I believe that this article is a conflict of interest..."

I mean, what does this statement say? It says that the subject of the article created or edited the article (or had his minions do it for him). Doesn't it? This is a pretty serious charge, isn't it? If I recall correctly, a few people have been profoundly embarrassed and had their reputations severely damaged just for exactly this, editing their Wikipedia bio. I can dig up cites if you don't believe me.

How on earth is this not serious defamation. Sure, the statement is couched in ostensibly anodyne terms -- it doesn't say "I think this article was created by the subject or his flunkies..." but so what? The accusation's the same, isn't it? Is it OK to call a person an "ailurophage" but not to call them a "kitten-eater"? If so, I don't get why. Could someone explain this to me?

And if the counter-argument is made "OK, sure, BLP says X but it actually means Y", I would call bullshit. No policy can be perfectly written or cover every case, but why should we put up with situations where the "real" policy is significantly different or even diametrically opposed to what it written? How is this a good thing? It's the mark of a mediocre organization in my mind. Herostratus (talk) 03:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)


 * An article is not a conflict of interest. An editor may have a conflict of interest. Often this is very easily verifiable. If the editor is anonymous, not much defamation can happen. If he isn't, then it is often easy to see the COI. WP:OUTING is more of a problem than the claim that staying that someone has a COI is a BLP violation. That people have been embarassed when their actions and reasons for them became public is not a BLP violation, and it is relevant to discuss Wikipedia edits on Wikipedia. Discussing someones actions outside of Wikipedia however is mostly irrelevant. However, allegations of any kind about editors (COI, sockpuppetry, ...) should be supported by diffs or other good evidence. For the discussion of Wikipedia edits, Wikipedia is a reliable source. If a COI accusation is supported by evidence, it is not a BLP violation, even when the editor is linked to a real life identity. Fram (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On unrelated business, I came across the Jim Bell article, and I found an amazing thing from about December-January (I was still an IP). As sooon as User:James dalton bell popped up, people had no objection to expressing some incivility towards him.  I've got no objection to said incivility, as his tl;dr rants were quite impressive in length and vitriol.  However, as soon as that's carried over into an article talkpage, it's a BLP violation.  Why can we talk about those users so freely, yet the moment it's an article talkpage someone screams BLP BLP, CALL THE WIKICOPS!!!!  (I do know why that double standard exists, it's more of a rhetorical question)  The line has to be drawn somewhere, so that someone making an exasperated remark about, say, this guy (never interacted with him myself, I'm just using him as an example) doesn't inadvertantly run afoul of BLP.  I know that's not quite what this proposal is, but it's something to think about.  The Blade of the Northern Lights (talk) 13:45, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Because, when it's about an editor, it's a discussion, not a platform to state things about people who are not around to react? When you edit Wikipedia, you subject yourself to the scrutiny and comments of other Wikipedia editors, as long as these remarks are related to their editing here. If someone systematically acts like a jerk here, then one can hardly use BLP as a defense against being called a jerk (I'm not claiming that it's a good thing to call every editor you are in conflict with names, but to describe a serial vandalizing or abusing sockpuppeteer in such terms is understandable and acceptable). Imaginary example: if Ricky Martin had been an editor here before he outed himself as a homosexual, it might have been allright to call him e.g. a poor editor with a serious COI, but it would have been a BLP violation to call him "probably gay", no matter if this happened in his article or anywhere else on Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 14:06, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Stating that "I believe that this article is a conflict of interest..." is simply not a BLP violation. All the attendant assumptions and expansions that have been added might make it appear so, but that's the issue, the BLP violation comes precisely when you start adding these assumptions and allegations and slurs to a statement which, when stripped back to its essential Wikipedia meaning, is simply stating 'I've read the COI guideline and I believe you've broken it with your involvement/interaction/interest in this article, see diff 1, diff 2, external evidence 1, external evidence 2, etc, etc'. It is simply not a BLP violation to express the opinion that someone is not following our policies. It never can be. It becomes a BLP violation when you add the insults and the slurs and the 'backstory' to support what is essentially just a run of the mill routine Wikipedia-ese statement. This is similar to the earlier example - 'this subject is not-notable' is not a BLP violation, 'person xyz is a total nobody, his career has never amounted to a hill of beans, therefore we should delete his article for being non-notable' absolutely is. Sure, people probably aren't blocked for it, but it is, and citing this as evidence the policy allows people to go even further, as long as they have references, is no justification. People might argue that alleging a conflict of interest without evidence in the form of refs comes under the BLP sourcing requirement, and therefore alleging a COI without refs makes it a BLP violation. Well, it doesn't, this just comes under basic civility, namely, don't accuse anybody of anything without evidence, on pain of redaction or blocking. You might think there's no real difference in my interpretations, and this is all just splitting hairs, but the principles behind tham are the same reason why we (hopefully) block people who would like to be able to revert vandals with the edit summary 'fuck off you vandal!'. Nobody has yet asked for a relaxation of the civility policy if you are dealing with vandalism, and there is a parallel to this appeal for a relaxation of BLP. MickMacNee (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Aargh, whatever, this is going nowhere so I'll close it. In fact, I got a great deal of flack that it was very wrong of me to open it, based I guess that discussions like this should not even be allowed. Sheesh.

I also got a lot of flack on the grounds that (I have been away for two years) "You don't understand how BLP is applied around here now". Well, gee, it would help if the practice or something at least close to it was, you know, stated in the policy. I may have been away for two years, but new users coming here have been away since time began. If they can't read the policy and figure out what to do, what good is it? Maybe for their benefit we should write "We won't say how BLP is actually applied, but if you violate it, we'll let you know".

Meh. I'm all about protecting the Wikipedia, and of course being kind to people, most especially marginally notable people (as opposed to people who have sought the public eye), especially in article space. But I'm disappointed that the reason for BLP is, in most people's mind, that the Wikipedia should be a respecter of entities. The Wikipedia should not be respecter of entities. Herostratus (talk) 04:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)