Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Archive 1

untagged unreferenced BLPs
While I agree that articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs are in general more problematic than the average article, I think that the unreferenced BLPs that we haven't yet found and tagged as such are probably even worse, if only because I assume the tagger has a chance of spotting some attacks and vandalism. No-one knows how many of our 3.1 million articles are unreferenced BLPs that haven't yet been tagged as such, but as we are still finding unreferenced BLPs created in 2005, and have found Category:Unreferenced BLPs from February 2010 455 so far this month, along with 2015 in Category:Unreferenced BLPs from January 2010. I think we should prioritise finding the remaining unidentified old BLPs over referencing the ones that we have already found, or at least broaden this project to include finding the full extent of the backlog. We also need to tighten the NewPage creation process to require new articles to have sources, I don't think we are getting many unreferenced BLPs after they've gone through newpage patrol - but we are still getting some.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the articles currently tagged as unreferenced BLPs were tagged by bots (or semiautomated processes) and may be full of problematic material. Even if the article was tagged by a human they probably didn't read or examine the whole thing. Hut 8.5 15:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a lot of people have already made the decision to "tag first and clean up later" - at least enough to create the backlog. (I once created an unreferenced BLP by an article split - it was tagged within 30 minutes of my creating it.) Just tagging them doesn't help that much - we've got to do something about them once tagged; this project is (I think) about doing something constructive to them once identified. A nice thing about Wikipedia is that multiple people with different preferences are working on it; some are very good at finding the URBLPs, others (like me) are dilletantes at finding them, but like the work of referencing them. I think we need both. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * While many were retagged by a bot as unreferencedBLPs, originally a human or humans had looked at them, tagged them as unsourced and categorised them as Living people. That doesn't mean we can be sure these articles are uncontentious, but it does lead me to believe they are likely to be less problematic than some of our other BLP problem areas. In particular I fear that the unknown number of unreferenced BLPs that have not yet been identified and tagged are likely to be more problematic than the ones that have been tagged, if only because the tagger had a chance of spotting libel. Remember we've had people go through thousands of these articles in the last few weeks, referencing or otherwise checking them, and I'm not aware of many contentious ones being found. The hundreds I've looked at have been reassuringly much better than I feared.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  17:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Even if they were originally tagged as unsourced by a human (not necessarily the case, we've had bots add both living people categories and unsourced tags) the tag may have been applied by an editor who had never heard of WP:BLP or possibly even before the BLP policy existed. Indeed I saw one editor propose an article for deletion as an unsourced BLP without noticing that the article contained unsourced contentious information. The fact that the article has been tagged doesn't do anything at all to indicate that the content is even vaguely acceptable. I agree the rate of BLP violations is low - about 0.5-1% - but there are definitely a number of BLP violations in this category. Hut 8.5 20:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It doesn't guarantee that the tagger will spot all problems, but it does help explain why these articles have turned out to be less problematic than some of our other BLP problem areas.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Projectification
This idea came up on a subuser page, wondering what others think of it:

Please comment  here about this idea. Thanks. Okip (formerly Ikip) 00:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Rewording "Mission"
I'm wondering if you might consider rewording the "mission" aspect of this project. It currently reads (in part):


 * People have suggested mass deletion of these pages, using an expedited process to get rid of the massive backlog. This Wikiproject is intended to make these measures unneccessary, by properly referencing the articles.

There's nothing wrong with the sentiment per say, but obviously this has been a very contentious topic where folks are unfortunately split into sometimes antagonistic camps. This part of the mission statement is worded in a more "we don't need to change anything" fashion. I think it might make more sense to make it clear (as it is in the following section on methods) that deletion will indeed still be necessary for some of these articles. I also don't see why this Project would set itself in opposition to some sort of "expedited process"&mdash;to me it should be supporting some sort of expedited process. In the RfC there did seem to be some consensus that a sort of "stick" (e.g. a special BLP-prod) was needed to make sure we keep working on this problem. I think it would make more sense to cast this project as, "we know that's going to happen, but the objective here is to save articles by sourcing, and only use whatever deletion process we decide on as a last resort." I think that's somewhat the spirit of what is being said already given the methods section, but the current wording is very likely to attract "Article Rescue Squadron" type folks (which is great) but probably not those who think we need a "stick" (basically the threat of deletion, for lack of a better term) to make sure we get the job done. I think a project like this will work best if we have folks from "both sides" working together, with everyone working on sourcing (perhaps ARS folks working harder than anyone), but also with folks who take a bit of a harder line on BLPs and are willing to BLP-prod (or whatever) articles that just are not getting taken care of in whatever we decide is timely fashion. Rather than just a page to save articles, I think it would be great if this project coordinated the overall clearing of the backlog (with basically everyone signed on) meaning we try to save as much as possible but admit at the outset that we're going to be doing deletions too and that's okay. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Good point - the point of this project is more that it's a place for those who think that it's good that a human looks at the page and decides something than for those who want to run robots over the backlog. I didn't spend that much time coming up with the formulation above - can you suggest a good formulation? It might be enough to change the end to ", by either referencing the articles or submitting them to normal deletion procedures, as appropriate". --Alvestrand (talk) 08:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Initiative
Glad to see someone finally took the initiative and created this wikiproject! Indeed, WereSpielChequers, there are probably tens (hundreds?) of thousands of untagged unreferenced BLPs... Many (most?) of these will either be new articles or old articles created when the policies were not clearly defined. They will be hard to track down, but someone will eventually tag them so they will show up in the stats. A lot to do but not unsurmountable. I am coordinator of WP:CTM, BTW, so my contributions here might be sporadic for the foreseeable future. A little goes a long way though—I hope. --Jubilee♫ clipman 01:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Countries and languagues
I know WikiProject India/Unreferenced BLPs is working on the problem. Should we check in with other countries, make sure they know what's going on and about appropriate tools? Maurreen (talk) 20:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge to Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles?
The existing project WikiProject Unreferenced articles is very simular to this project. Should this project be merged there? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * For the time being, I would lean against, because the unref'd BLPs are now under threat of deletion.
 * But I'm not a member of the project and do only a little similar work. So please take my view with a grain of salt. Maurreen (talk) 17:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * From a logical perspective, this project should be a task force of the general "unreferenced articles" project. However, it was created in response to a specific... shall we say, crisis that regular unreferenced articles are not facing.  It has an energy and purpose that is thus quite different from the relatively dormant general unreferenced articles project.  I wouldn't want to risk sapping its enthusiasm with any kind of bureaucratic interference -- such as a merge -- at this time.--Father Goose (talk) 08:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Both reasonable arguments against merge, I suggest we defer considerations of merge until the crises is over. I will remove the merge tag. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed with arguments presented. It would indeed be logical for it to be a task force ("sub-project" under WikiProject Unreferenced articles, but for the moment, I think it's best that it retain a separate identity. I would, however, be happy to see any advertising of this project on WP:URA possible - I started this page without any clear idea on how to advertise a wikiproject, and I think many interested people have not found this page. Help appreciated - I have far less time to devote to this project than it deserves! --Alvestrand (talk) 07:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Adding findsources template to the BLP unreferenced template
See: Adding findsources template to the BLP unreferenced template this will massively help with sourcing unreferenced BLPs. Okip  02:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Starting to look hopeless
What first looked like a grand collaboration to clear the backlog is now looking like an exercise in futility. If we don't renew our efforts in sourcing these articles we will prove our naysayers correct. Take a look at User:Father Goose/Unreferenced BLPs, the numbers don't lie. I personally challenge everyone who reads this post to source 10 articles today. J04n(talk page) 13:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The numbers do lie. Yes the sourcing of articles has been slowing down, but if you look at the newly tagged articles (Category:Unreferenced BLPs from March 2010) the huge majority is created a long time ago. That means that the number of unreferenced BLPs on wikipedia is going down even if the number of tagged articles is standing still. However I wont dispute that the progress is too slow at the moment. I am going to try to do 10 articles today. Rettetast (talk) 14:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

J04n - Don't get dispondant: articles are created every day, articles are tagged every day, but also articles are sourced every day and (some) articles are (correctly) deleted every day. The net total of all of that is going to be greater than zero simply because of the sum of the sheer number of new articles that are tagged as unsourced by the new article patrollers and the number of older articles that are spotted at random as unsourced and thus tagged by the editor that spotted them. If we can deal with the old articles then we are doing useful work. Perhaps this project ought to encourage more specific projects to source BLPs that come under their banners? The classical music projects had a mass drive to source theirs back in January/February: these projects now only have a small and quite manageable number of articles to deal with, articles that have either been newly tagged or newly created. The Unref'ed BLP project can then deal with any that are not bannered by anyone (or simply banner any individual article for a suitable project and let that project know). Do not give in to the deletionists! --Jubilee♫ clipman 14:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is hopeless at all. Maybe some of the initial interest in sourcing has dropped off, but the backlog from February 28, 2010 is now less than 40,000 articles (it has declined every week since at least mid-November 2009). I am disappointed by the pace of new unreferenced BLP creation, but once the new Sticky PROD system is implemented (hopefully soon), we will no longer have that impeding our progress. I've already dealt with more than 10 unreferenced BLPs today, and I will have dealt with more than 1,000 (since January 22, 2010) within the next week. Jogurney (talk) 16:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not an exercise in futility. We have to step up our efforts; we did during January and February, and we can again.  The backlog has to be tackled from two ends: older articles have to be sourced, and new BLPs will probably start facing WT:STICKY.  Although we're not making the progress we did in the first few months, that just means this project is more important than ever.


 * Roll up your sleeves.--Father Goose (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm glad that not everyone shares my pessimism, I haven't thrown in my towel yet. J04n(talk page) 02:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:Australia went from about 1600 down to about 400, but then we've had a few hundred more added in the past few days. Most "clearly notable" people are done, most that are left are minor actors or TV personalities. But we've also slowed down a lot.  The good news is that User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects is up and running and will update WikiProject specific uBLP lists each and every day.  This has to be a huge benefit, but we have to get the lists out there and publicised to the projects, so that they can be aware that the lists specific to their project exists and they don't have to trawl through 39,000 irrelevant articles to find the ones that they are interested in.  After stuffing up the publicity attempt at the Village Pump, I'll leave the spruiking to others, for now at least.  Is there a list of good, active projects out there somewhere?The-Pope (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm still positive about the outcome, even though I have just discovered a whole new list of biographies in our project which I didn't know was there!--Plad2 (talk) 07:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Bot lists 300 articles, tagged as an unreferenced BLP, which have 5 or more references
There is a new bot which I requested and Tim created:

Possibly around 20% of articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs have references

This bot lists 300 articles, tagged as an unreferenced BLP, which have 5 or more references. It is updated daily.

The bot output is here:

Thanks. Okip  02:43, 19 March 2010 (UTC)