Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Archive 3

Another Dashbot run to the authors?
I don't think we are going to do this just by working through the projects, especially with people like me project tagging more UBLPs to projects and some projects already having over a thousand UBLPs in their purview. I think we should also send a reminder to the authors of these articles.

Back in January Dashbot sent a message to the creators of the UBLPs asking them to reference their creations. I think it has been long enough since the first Dashbot run for it to be worthwhile to do a second one; Especially as the first run omitted authors with redlinked talkpages and articles not yet tagged as UBLPs. We will never know how many thousands of articles were referenced from the first run as the deletion spree started before it finished, but I think that now would be a good time for a second run.

However User:Tim1357 has not unreasonably said he wants someone else to take on the consequent hatemail responses, last time the deletion spree started during his run and as the deletions were done without informing authors some people assumed the deletion of their article was a result of the Dashbot message. So:
 * 1) Do people think that another run would be worthwhile?
 * 2) Are people willing to have this project be the talkpage Tim1357 can redirect any responses to.
 * 3) Should we aim for different messages, one for people he messaged last time and who still have UBLPs, and another for people who weren't messaged last time but have subsequently had articles they wrote tagged as UBLPs, or had their talkpage go blue.
 * 4) Should we go for a slightly more urgent message "Wikipedia no longer accepts new Biographies of living people unless they have a source, and we are working to source or delete all the old unreferenced biographies of living people"
 * 5) Should we include something along the lines of:  "PS If you no longer think it will be possible to find a source for an article that you created, you might consider tagging it for deletion by putting db-author at the top of the article."  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  10:55, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the idea is good. The responses can be directed here. I'm still thinking about wording. Maurreen (talk) 13:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm in agreement with all these points, but I'd like to know how many responses Tim1357 received. We may want to set up a subpage to avoid overwhelming the discussions here.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 13:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Good idea for another run. With 2000+ new UBLP's a month it's well useful to get a few more of those article creators educated/informed in this area. I suggest we create a new page inside WP:URBLP where User:DASHBot links to. The page could perhaps have some FAQ and a place for people to ask/comment. I'm not sure if we need two messages or one, but I do favour a more more urgent message, after all for many people this will be the first time that they learn of the Newish WP:BLPPROD process. Yes, to the db-author option, but maybe we can add that to a FAQ landing page rather then the bot template. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 13:31, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * We totally don't want them directed to here! What are those wikiprojects having thousands of unreferenced BLPs, which you refer to?  I hope the Dashbot could be smart enough to direct editors to the appropriate wikiproject, or choice of wikiprojects, relevant for the given article.  And, we should right now be contacting whatever are the big wikiprojects (WikiProject Sports?  WikiProject Actors?) that would be getting many inquiries, and ask them how they would want the editors to be directed, to their main Talk page or to a different page where WikiProject editors of that subject area are willing to work with them.  I am absolutely NOT willing to deal with arriving editors here, which will swamp / drive out our ability to have meta-discussion about the problem, of how to get the articles associated with wikiprojects, and how to get the wikiprojects to take on responsibility for their un-referenced and under-referenced BLPs.  Bluntly, wp:URBLP's interest is about removing articles' BLP unreferenced tags, and then it is not our problem, we want nothing to do with any further specifics about any article.  I think that work needs to be done on a wiki-project by wikiproject basis.  A Dashbot run could be a good thing, if it pushes wikiprojects towards absorbing editors and pushes editors to get hooked up with other editors of similar interests.  The work you have been doing to assign many articles to Wikiprojects is very important.  We totally need to be dividing the problem, and building lasting connections, patterns of productive interaction, among editors and wikiprojects.  Seriously, what wikiprojects are you talking about, which are possibly over-loaded?  I would be willing to ask WikiProject Canada (which covers 1% of the URBLP problem now) how it would like to receive inquiries and work with editors, if only editors of Wikiproject Canada-tagged articles were going to be directed to them.  What other wikiprojects would address bigger chunks? --doncram (talk) 14:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * At least two problems I see with that. For many articles you can't determine a WikiProject, not even if you had lots of bot intelligence(which we don't) as many artilces are not tagged to any WikiProject, indeed quite a few do not have a talk page or any categories. Direct them all to WP:BIOG maybe? Next issue is that some of the WikiProjects have opted out of the DASHBot WikiProject listing for whatever reason so connecting with them is a bit against the opt-out process. I do think directing here is the appropriate thing to do in this situation. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Which are the Wikiprojects you are talking about that opted out? Which one or two or three of them have a lot of URBLP articles?  Certainly we should be communicating most urgently with them, and coming to an understanding of what are their needs/concerns, why they would want to turn away new members/editors.  We cannot step in to do their work of welcoming and working with newbie/inexperiened editors in their subject areas.  The Dashbot run should perhaps be limited to only those articles (how many?  about half or 2/3 of the remaining? that do have Wikiproject tags).  Or, can we split this discussion to talk about a Dashbot run for those that do vs. those that don't. --doncram (talk) 15:59, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Opted out are here, they all have none or few UBLP's. Some of the biggest lists of UBLP's are:
 * WikiProject Biography/Sports and games/Unreferenced BLPs 5387
 * WikiProject Biography/Arts and entertainment/Unreferenced BLPs 3465
 * WikiProject Biography/Politics and government/Unreferenced BLPs 3166
 * WikiProject Musicians/Unreferenced BLPs 2925
 * WikiProject Football/Unreferenced BLPs/Full list 2000
 * WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Unreferenced BLPs 1798
 * This list is incomplete, many WikiProjects are missing, many WikiProject lists are incomplete due to them not having tagged articles. In short WikiProject is not a complete option for DASHBot to link to. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 16:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. To go forward:
 * a Sports liaison here should go thru the 5387 in Biograph/Sports and Games and try to ensure they are all assigned to a specific sport like WikiProject Baseball, and should be working with those specific wikiprojects. Asking them how do they want to deal with newbie/inexperienced editors who may be directed to them, and about their tagging more articles related to their sport, too.  For example using what-is-that-cross-category lookup tool, or AWB or something, to search thru the UBPLs that have a baseball category or the word "baseball", to add the project tag
 * a Football liaison is sort of in place, isn't there someone? who could be encouraged to work on all aspects of the problem
 * a Music liaison should do similar
 * an Actors liaison should do similar (and talk to me about their tagging more articles in their area by AWB going through IMDB categories)
 * I don't imagine that WikiProject Biography can take on anything, that wikiproject label seems more a descriptive tag.
 * To address the general problem of getting subject-area-based wikiprojects to take on bio articles in their subject areas, start up liaisons to more wikiprojects. Like, editors in WikiProject NRHP, to which I belong, has in the past assigned just WikiProject Biography to articles about architects and famous persons whose houses are historic sites, rather than attaching WikiProject NRHP, which, upon consideration, I realize they should.  All the WikiProjects should be encouraged to go out and tag more of their own, out of the untagged UBLPs.  How best can they be counseled to do that.  Suggest a specific AWB / Friendly / Twinkle-based approach to do it.  Give them tools.  Ask them to expand their wikiprojects, nicely.  Then later we'll go back to them more and more about their UBLPs.  Then later later we'll go back to them about their under-referenced BLPs.  What are the biggest wikiprojects that could be encouraged to further expand?  Perhaps those are different than the ones with the biggest UBLP problem now.
 * About the remaining ones that have no WikiProject, use a Dashbot run to contact their editors only to ask them just to add their article to a relevant wikiproject or two. Don't ask them to fix it up or threaten to delete it.  We have no perspective on their article's topic, no business threatening them that merely because it hasn't been developed, that it should be deleted by them or it will be by us.  Focus on the first step, getting them to connect to a wikiproject.  I believe that active subject-specific wikiprojects are actually the harshest judges and would do a far better job arguing an article does not meet standards for their subject area, than we could ever do.  And they could involve the editor productively, in a mutually rewarding way, which we surely cannot. --doncram (talk) 17:02, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's my understanding that association football-related UBLPs are included in DASHbot's listing if there is no project tag, but the article has either a football-related category or a football-related stub template. There are likely a few association football UBLPs that are outside of the DASHbot list right now, but I doubt it's a huge number. There is another bot (User:AlexNewArtBot/AssociationFootballSearchResult/archive) that has run daily for the past several years which lists every article that seemingly involves football, and the project members tag most of these as the bot creates it's lists. Jogurney (talk) 01:39, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've gone through the Talk history of both Dashbot and Tim1357, and the number of queries resulting from the thousands of bot messages in the last message run to 14,000 authors of unreferenced BLPs was fairly minor. I'd be tempted to volunteer for it myself but there will be a few days soon when I won't be around. The problem came during the January deletion spree when some editors assumed that the DashBot message was somehow linked to their article being deleted, I think that with the number of regulars on this page we should be able to easily handle a few queries, but we will need to make the message about as gentle as last time (and stop the Bot immediately if someone resumes deleting articles without notification). I think it would be much less work to handle the queries here on this talkpage than to persuade a bunch of projects to take them on, even if we could segment the posting by project.
 * The UBLPs with no Wikiprojects are in hand - of the 1885 I've already tagged about a fifth. I suggest that we wait for the projects to clear a bit more or the Dashbot message to have its effect before trying to give a more precise project tag to some of the big umbrella ones like sports. I did have a quick unscientific look and a large proprtion already have more specific sports tags like basketball or tennis, if someone could come up with a list of sports articles that don't have an individual sports project tag it would be worth going through that.
 * As for the projects with large numbers of UBLPs I think we need a signpost article to discuss the project, the progress we've made and the size of the task that some projects face - both the large ones and perhaps some of the smaller dormant projects that have no-one to pick up their unreferenced BLPs. If a signpost article can't put life into a project then perhaps the projects subject isn't notable :)    Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  20:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * 1885? No way!! (Backtracking as Xenobot Mk V has been checking today). Where did that figure come from? IS it including the red links? You are not counting the tens of thousands that are only marked with WPBiography that is to apparently so big a WikiProject it doesn't get a UBLP list. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * 1885 was the figure I quoted at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Unreferenced_Biographies_of_Living_Persons. Yes it only covers UBLPs with redlinked talkpages, I don't know how many others have talkpages with no project tags or only the BLP one, or how to get a list of either of those. But I consider this list a good place to start. And with only 36,000 UBLPS I would be very surprised if those with no project were in the tens of thousands, though I suspect more than 10,000 could have at least one extra project added.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * About I think that with the number of regulars on this page we should be able to easily handle a few queries, i would consider each query received here to be 1) a bother, 2) a failed opportunity to get them to connect with an appropriate wikiproject on their subject of interest, and 3) an invitation to completely unqualified people to come and weigh in on policy and strategies for dealing with idiots like themselves. Of these, if we get just one idiot who wants to rant and disrupt, we will surely deserve to suffer their bright ideas.  It would be like inviting newbies to hang out at wp:ANI for a while, before they write their first article, so they can get the spirit of contention, first.  I have enjoyed conversing here with you others here to work productively on an important problem.  This is not a help-the-newbies welcome center, and if the purposes get confused here i will certainly leave myself. --doncram (talk) 22:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Having looked at the talkpages concerned I wouldn't describe the authors involved as necessarily newbies, most were very longstanding editors who'd created articles years ago and were still around; Though admittedly one just needed to be told how to type db-author. I think that the effort in dealing with them would be trivial compared to the gain for the project of having another Dashbot run to the authors, or the overhead of trying to set a bot up to refer a few responders to any one of scores of projects. We as a project have benefited enormously from Tim1357's DASHBOT services, and I think it would be a great shame if we declined this opportunity over such a minor request. I do appreciate that we could setup a subpage, but the norm on Wikipedia is to go to the talkpage.
 * As for the suggestion that the DashBot run to the authors omit articles without wikiprojects, please remember many authors have nothing to do with projects. The idea of this bot is to gently suggest that these editors reference some unreferenced BLPS that they have created, whether these articles have also been tagged for wikiprojects is not relevant to that exercise.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:59, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with WereSpielChequers. Although nobody owns articles, the creators seem at least as likely as projects to be capable and interested in referencing the articles they created. Also see Diffusion of responsibility. As far as where editors might respond, seeing as we're driving this overall, it makes sense for us to respond to them. I don't expect that to be a problem. But I'm open to having a subpage. Maurreen (talk) 01:00, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay i grant that i don't have experience with it and did not familiarize myself with previous responses. I was just concerned about getting overwhelmed here when it seems like we have a nice group working productively, unlike some previous forums relating to the BLP issue.  If others think it won't be a problem i'll go along with whatever. --doncram (talk) 02:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Getting back to the actual message contents, I don't think it should mention db-author, as that implies some "ownership" by the original author. What we want is for the original author to take responsibility, but not ownership.   I think the wording should include phrases like "your assistance to reference is requested" or similar.  It probably also needs to get back to basics, and state that the articles have been tagged with an unreferenced template by others, which may or may not be appropriate.   I think a lot of the hatemail was of the "it has references you stupid bot" style, which of course is either the tagging editor's fault for mistagging or the referencing editor's fault for not removing the template.  To spread the feedback load, we could come up with a list of appropriate forums, such as here, the Reliable sources or Verifiability talk pages etc. The-Pope (talk) 03:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Having trawled through Tim1357 and DASHBot's talkpage archives I think I can summarise it in three waves. Initially there was discussion about various anomalies, most of which I think were resolved (the only one that I suspect may be unresolved is what happens when someone creates a redirect that someone else expands into an unreferenced BLP). Then there were positives, with people thanking Tim for the reminder, then people started complaining that in one case someone was 40% through referencing their list when they started being deleted. Tim stopped the bot in mid flow because of the deletion spree, and only restarted after I and others started stalking his page and explaining to people that his BLP improvement campaign and the deletion spree were totally unrelated.  I would hope that if we go with a wording as innocuous as the one below we will get a trivial amount of feedback here. But if people are nervous we could get the bot to do this in batches. Also if you look at the version emerging below I've parked my db-author suggestion as that has proved contentious.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  07:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Wording
I got one such message myself in January. This is what it said: "Hello Maurreen! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 35,977 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the tag. Here is the article: (article name). Thanks!"

My initial thought when I read that was, "The article has nothing controversial, so no biggie." Only after I learned of the deletion issue did I add references to it. (I had been away from WP a few years and came back in February.)

I agree with The-Pope about encouraging creators to take responsibility but not ownership.

Maybe we'd like something like this? "Hello (Name)! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot notifying you that (number) of biographical articles you created was earlier tagged was being unreferenced. I'm a dumb bot, so I can't tell whether the tag is appropriate. If the tag is wrong, please remove it and I'll be out of your hair. If the article contains no sources, would you please add some, so readers can see that the information is verifiable? If you have any questions, please see (pages). The article(s) are: (article titles). Thanks!"

Just in case any recipients are unaware of the deletion issue, I'd prefer mentioning that. But I won't press it. Maurreen (talk) 05:04, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I like that approach, but remember we as a project need to take responsibility for this. How about:

"Hello (Name)! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot notifying you on behalf of the unreferenced biographies team that (number) of biographical article(s) you created has at some point been tagged by someone as unreferenced. I'm a dumb bot, so I can't tell whether the tag is still appropriate. If the tag is wrong, please remove it and I'll be out of your hair. If the article contains no sources, would you please add some, so readers can see that the information is verifiable? If you have any questions, please see (pages). The article(s) are: (article titles). Thanks!"
 * NB the bold only appears whilst its on this page.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  06:26, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea, I liked how you worked in that we're responsible for the bot. Maurreen (talk) 06:38, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Are we done? I suspect Tim will need a bit of time to get this running, but I think we have consensus to do this, so unless we have further input in the next 48 hours I would suggest we use this wording.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  09:14, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm ready to go when you are. Tim 1357  talk  05:33, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Signpost article?
We talked a little above about getting a Signpost article. Should we compile some fodder here, and then contact someone?

Maybe:
 * General progress
 * Updates on sticky prod
 * Contest
 * People who have taken care of a lot
 * Projects that have made good progress
 * Other?
 * Maurreen (talk) 09:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Please, do get a Signpost article into the works somehow. It is / should be big news that the BLP PROD process got finalized well enough and launched.  It should be big news that the total for April never reached 1,000, for the first time in a long time, esp. compared to months exceeding 4,000 last year.  April topped out at around 830 i think.  And the number for April is dropping now that it is getting no more adds and some are being dealt with.  Also worth mentioning is the in-my-view legitimate, constructive tactic of zapping the incorrectly characterized IMDB ones, which is helping us get closer.  It could be mentioned that this is controversial or a change with some editors, who have for some years used "unreferenced" category and statements like "IMDB is not a reference" to mean what they meant it to mean (jargon or insular speak, as i think WereSpiel(?) commented,  that is/was confusing to newbie and other editors who would tend to view the "unreferenced" tag as a mistake).  Clearer language should help direct attention to actually improving those articles by adding additional non-IMDB references.  The word is not out yet though;  there are articles being added still that way, and being zapped by me in the April and May current categories.  About wikiprojects that have made good progress, I personally know of no wikiproject that has taken responsibility and/or made good progress.  I was myself trying to get started helping one wikiproject (Canada) to take more responsibility over its unreferenced bios, but it has not had a significant effect, numbers-wise, yet.  There was mention above of one editor who, on his/her own, was addressing 1000 out of 3000 unreferenced football articles (meaning world-wide type of football not American football i think).  It is worth mentioning the many additions going on, added by SunCreator, of unreferenced, translated articles.  Also progress by others in reducing orphan-type articles not claimed by any wikiproject.  That's what i note as newsworthy from discussions above.


 * Note, we're going to fail to meet the June 1, unless a lot of wikipedia editors help by adding at least one source to articles in the BLP unreferenced category, and change the BLP unreferenced or unsourced tag to BLP refimprove. Ask, via the Signpost, for help!


 * Also mention of the great effort to get bot running to inform wikiprojects of how many they each have. Also, with or without a contest being announced, a table of top wikiprojects' numbers of unreferenced BLPs should be included in the Signpost.  I think you have to go to the wikiproject list at the bot page and browse, to find the numbers one by one. --doncram (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a list of each project's progress - I'll stick it up somewhere soon. Also, in relation to comments like "and change the BLP unreferenced or unsourced tag to BLP refimprove" I think we have to remember that the aim here is to reference all BLP articles, not just change tags.  Yes, it's useful, focusing and important to have and meet targets, but excessive focus on the 30,000 target will cause some editors to think we're just removing tags without proper reason - the IMDB tag issue is a case in point.  I'm about to add another 20 or so WikiProjects to the Dashbot lists before the next run, so there'll hopefully be some more interest.  I think it's fair enough to remind each of the wikiprojects once a month of their lists and comment on how they are going.  The-Pope (talk) 13:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the main focus should be to encourage WikiProjects or members of WikiProjects to get active in adding/clearing an UBLP list for a project and encouraging others also. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 13:49, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with SunCreator but suggest that subtlety can be a virtue here, so lets not try and make this the bulk of the article even if it is the main message we want to get across. I suggest we get a few examples of projects that have done well on this and some examples of projects like football who are struggling, plus some dormant projects that need help - I wonder how Beauty pageants are faring as I've tagged loads of unreferenced articles to that project. It may also be worth mentioning the message to article authors, the project tagging of untagged UBLPs and the possibility of messaging specifically the authors who use IMDB as a source.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:58, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree about subtlety. I tagged several pageants in the last few days. WikiProject Beauty Pageants is inactive, has no DASHbot run(sorting out now), no DashBot communications and many articles not tagged. In short an area in need of attention. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 14:10, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If it will help for the piece, WikiProject Metal articles/Unreferenced BLPs is completely finished and WikiProject Musicians/Unreferenced BLPs has knocked off 500 in a little over a month. J04n(talk page) 14:33, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that's great. I think WikiProject Australia had done quite a bit of work also. Maurreen (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A bit of a brief history on the origins of the lists - Football has been running their list for almost a year - User:Rettetast made it. I then started the Australian one in my userspace back at the beginning of Jan when an article was moved to the Incubator for only being unreferenced, then moved it into project space after the Lars/Scott Mac/Kevin deletion spree in mid Jan. Metal and India made up their lists around that time, then Rugby and a few others were done as well.  Then eventually Okip got Tim to come on board and his DASHBot made it all possible to get every project listed and regualarly updated - we had a few hiccups along the way, but after this latest batch that I added tonight gets updated, we should go back to each project, give them an update on where their list is, and how many is on it, leave them to it, and start working with WSC on the tagging of the unproject-tagged articles. The-Pope (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Drafting tip to Signpost
OK, here's a first draft to submit to the Signpost suggestion box (or maybe we could write the article ourselves).

The English Wikipedia is nearing its first goal in eliminating unsourced biographies of living people, or "BLPs".

The goal is to have no more than 30,00 "old" unreferenced BLPs on June 1. There had been about 50,000 at the start of the year.

The June 1 goal is the first of series, spread over a year, based on an RFC earlier this year. WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons is helping coordinate efforts. Project members are adding sources and removing outdated tags.

The project is also working to encourage editors to help in their areas of interest. Other Wikiprojects are being notified of unsourced BLPs that apply to each project.

Some projects had been working on this effort for quite a while. Football has been running its list for almost a year -- User:Rettetast made it. The-Pope started a list for Australia in January, and India made up their lists around that time, then Rugby and a few others were done as well.

Then eventually Okip got Tim to come on board and his DASHBot made it all possible to get every project listed and regualarly updated -- we had a few hiccups along the way.

One editor who, on his/her own, was addressing 1000 out of 3000 unreferenced football articles. Other efforts include a contest, pledge page, and the sticky prods. Maurreen (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I added a little info and submitted a suggestion here. Maurreen (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * New Signpost for week of 5/17 is out, with no mention. There's mention of other drive, which frankly sounds like lower priority:  "Join the May 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive and help clear an 8,000+ copyedit tag backlog. Participating editors receive barnstars and other awards for their participation. The drive runs from 1 May to 31 May."  Oh, well.  Is there any way to tell if they will give any announcement in 5/24 issue? --doncram (talk) 19:08, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

MySpace only pages
User:Tim1357 has very helpfully provided a page of MySpace only BLP's: here. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:56, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And, looking at several, it seems WereSpielChequers tagged these. Maybe that is technically appropriate, but...Grrr.  That perhaps explains why BLP unreffed count went back up over 34,000 for a while yesterday, at the same time as i was zapping some IMDB-sourced ones.  Well, the collective downward forces are strong enough to overcome that!  Whatever others are doing has brought it down to 33,886 right now.  Nyah! --doncram (talk) 17:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hehe, I'll be back checking mis-tags soon, I'm into the Ds. Don't forget though that it is important to tag the unreferenced ones so they can be taken care of.  The goal is to get down to 30K articles that were tagged as of March (IIRC), so new tagging, while increasing the overall number, won't interfere with that goal.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 22:03, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's my understanding as well. We need to know which articles need attention, and tagging certainly helps focus our efforts. We're well on our way to meeting the first goal. Jogurney (talk) 01:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I tagged the Myspace only ones as refimproveBLP and self published, someone else then went through my tags and changed them to unreferencedBLPs which then put them into the unreferencedBLP pool. I do tag articles as unreferenced BLPs, but I only do so when they are completely unreferenced - if they have primary or self published sources I use the appropriate tags.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yikes. Sounds like that retagging was less helpful than it could have been.  I'm not looking at who did what exactly there, but it sounds like the angry editing style of many previously regarding IMDB ones, where it has been adamantly stated "IMDB is not a source", when it clearly is a source.  For IMDB-only-sourced ones, i think the source is arguably reliable for at least some information, so putting the IMDB ones into "refimprove" broad category status seems correct.  For Myspace-only ones, I think the consensus is that the sourcing is so unreliable that they should stay in "unsourced" broad status though.


 * How about we create a clearer tag, following the BLP IMDB refimprove example, which provides more specific labelling? Call it something like BLP personalwebpage refimprove or BLP Myspace refimprove and create redirects from other variations like "BLP Facebook refimprove" and "BLP blog refimprove".  And the message displayed should use a few sentences with the usual BLP refimprove statements, plus clarify that "As this article is sourced only to source(s) that may be entirely self-published, it is considered Unreferenced", or something like that? --doncram (talk) 15:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that a myspace only tag would be useful and would enable specific messages to be sent. I personally don't care whether that tag is itself counted in the refimproveBLP or unreferencedBLP category, but I suspect it would be less contentious if we did the latter. If so it wouldn't directly help reduce the backlog, other than having an accurate tag might prompt more people to source the article. I'm concerned that three different things are being conflated in all this tagging. Quality of sources, presence of sources and how clear it is as to what facts are supported by each reference. I don't have a problem with people arguing that various sources should not be used, or should only be used to verify facts but not establish notability, but I am concerned that we get meaningful tags on articles. In particular I dislike unhelpful and confusing ones such as saying a sourced article is unsourced (with the unwritten presumption that if you were a wikipedia insider you'd know that that particular source doesn't count). I think that more specific tags such as "this article is only referenced to MySpace, which is a problem because anyone could have created the MySpace entry, so please don't use it to source a Wikipedia article" are more likely to get newbies to understand what is wrong and what they need to do differently. I'd also like to have nofootnotesBLP as a version of nofootnotes so that you don't need to put both nofootnotes and refimproveBLP on the same article.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  16:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to avoid a myriad of different .  I'm OK with the IMDB, since that is a contentious issue, and there's not enough consensus that it's unreliable, so it seems to be a special case.  Perhaps what we need is a unified BLP unreferenced and primarysources tag, which would state explicitly that primary sources do not count for a BLP?  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 16:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Duh, now I see that doncram suggested the same thing just above... 40 lashes for me. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 16:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * How about something like "Only self-published sources"? Maurreen (talk) 16:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, call it BLP primarysources:


 * Maybe we could also have a "source" parameter, so


 * Given the kickback from the IMDB templates, we should open an RfC on these before applying them. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 22:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should be naming specific WP:SPS sources. Today we have Myspace, tomorrow Facebook, next day Twitter then Bebo. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that we shouldn't have multiple templates to cover them, but are you against having a BLP primarysources tag, or just the source parameter to it? --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 05:09, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * "Primary source" is not synonymous with "self-published source". For example, primary sources include diaries and court documents. Let's keep the scope for this at "self-published sources."
 * Also, I would change the wording, from of "... articles may not be based solely on such sources..." to "articles should not be based solely on such sources ..." Maurreen (talk) 05:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, according to WP:V they cannot be based solely on self-published sources. See WP:SELFPUB.  The policy states that self-published sources are OK as long as 5 points are met, and point #5 is "the article is not based primarily on such sources".  How about  for a name?  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatever you do, you must keep articles tagged with this new tag in the All unreferenced BLPs and Unreferenced BLPs from May 2010 cats, not the ref improve cat, or else others will think it's only a trick to get the numbers down, which I assume it isn't, it is to more clearly explain to other editors what the problem with the article is. --User:The-Pope
 * Yes with the last and several other points noted further above. I agree with Maurreen's clarification of wording (we can't assert that articles "may not" rely entirely on self-published sources when, clearly, there are many many thousands of articles that do!  So "should not" is correct.  BLP selfpublished sounds good for name to me, and it must keep such articles in the larger unreferenced BLPs categories.  I think with that we don't need to open a big RFC before starting this;  it should not be controversial really, as a matter of renaming/clarifying labels.  How about draft the template and apply in a few cases, then invite comments here about its wording/implmentation from those who spoke up in opposition at first to BLP IMDB refimprove (at the template RFD, and also Off2rio(?) who i mentioned at template talk:Multiple issues and any others).  Maybe that is an RFC, and you could add formal RFC accouterments, but keep it focused on refining the wording and extras, not on whether to have such a BLP selfpublished tag.  It's obviously valid and helpful, IMHO. --doncram (talk) 11:34, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think we need to think about the dating some more. If we put them in the "Unreferenced BLPs from May 2010" category, that can look like we are aiming to change the date, good or bad, which is not our point.
 * Also, although self-pub sources are not supposed to be used as the only source to write an article, to say that they are "unsourced" is definitely stretching the meaning. Why don't we put them in their own category? Maybe there could be an umbrella category for "Sourcing problems" or somesuch.
 * If we do have an RFC or something similar, let's first go as far as we can among ourselves. Maurreen (talk) 13:09, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I suggest leaving the date as it is. As for whether they are "unsourced" or not, we are dealing with two very different meanings of unsourced here. Many Wikipedians consider MySpace such a poor source that articles sourced from it are effectively unsourced, by contrast many of our readers and casual editors have yet to learn why MySpace is not an acceptable source for an encyclopaedia. A compromise whereby we tag the articles with an explanation that MySpace or self published sources are not reliable enough for them to be used to source a wikipedia article, whilst including these articles in the unsourced BLP category, would IMHO address both camps.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  14:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with WSC that two camps of people are using the word differently and with the suggested explanation on the tag. But including them in the Unref'd category could lead to them being deleted for lack of sourcing.
 * The current sticky prods are only for articles that were unsourced when tagged. Note that the requirement for tagging is no source, but the requirement for deletion is nor reliable source.
 * The RFC focused on unsourced articles. Late in the RFC, there was some discussion about whether IMDB-sourced BLPs (and by extension, these BLPs) were "unsourced." I didn't see a consensus on either side.
 * I think it could be good to focus any sourcing or deleting first on BLPs that are indisputably unsourced. The general thrust of the overall issue of BLPs and sourcing could work in stages. Maurreen (talk) 14:38, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * About dates, i don't think there's any disagreement amongst us. The ones tagged previously as unreferenced should keep that original date.  When i have been converting IMDB-sourced ones to BLP IMDB refimprove, i have been leaving the original date of tagging by BLP unreferenced, unchanged.  REfining the tagging of Myspace-sourced ones should be done the same way, leaving any older reference-focused-tag date in place, just now applying to a more refined tag.  No one wants to shift these thousands of articles into the May 2010 month category.  Not sure if showing a May date would open them up to it, but it would indeed be inappropriate/unfair to open them up to the new BLP PROD which applies for post-March 2010 ones only.  About any brand new Myspace-only sourced articles, those can be tagged as "effectively unreferenced" by this new tag, and also they can be put up for BLP PROD.  That's the point of the BLP PROD, to inform current editors that they must include reliable sources or their articles will be deleted, shifting responsibility to them, which is proper IMHO.  But whether or not BLP PROD applies to articles sourced by Myspace, can be left to others, it is separate issue to creating this template for more accurate labelling of the articles' problems. --doncram (talk) 14:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

(I like outdenting) (edit conflict) BLP selfpublished is created. I believe that this template should categorize under the same categories as BLP sources. I also don't like changing the date, we should leave it the same when changing from BLP unsourced. The primary purpose (if I'm reading everyone correctly) is to communicate to editors that independent sources are required, not to directly reduce the backlog. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 15:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! The current text of the draft there is:

This biography of a living person cites only self-published sources; articles should not be based solely on such sources. Please help by adding reliable, independent sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately.
 * I think that we need to create two versions, the above text for one to be named BLP selfpublished-only, and another under "BLP selfpublished". Like for the 2 versions of IMDB tags.  Otherwise, it is too easy for anyone to add any small reference, even to IMDB say, and then remove the tag.  Perhaps the wording needs to be clarified, here and in the IMDB ones, to assert that some material in the article which needs reference improvement is currently only supported by self-published sources.  Note, there could be both "BLP unpublished" and "BLP IMDB refimprove" applying to the same article.  Thanks for creating this so quickly, Joshua Scott, and others for rapidly developing this idea, BTW. --doncram (talk) 16:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. The BLP selfpublished-only version should categorize under BLP unsourced, clearly.  The BLP selfpublished version could apply to articles that do have some legitimate sources.  I think some different names for these are needed then.  Maybe clarify as "BLP selfpublished unsourced" vs. "BLP selfpublished refimprove"? --doncram (talk) 16:27, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a related set of issues about how editors are supposed to mark an entirely unsourced section of an article. I come across articles where there is "BLP unsourced" at the top of a section, which currently puts the entire article into the BLP unreferenced categories.  There is some provision for "section" option in one or more of the main tags for refimprove and/or unreferenced tagging.  How are those supposed to work?  I have no idea, really. --doncram (talk) 16:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec x2)Articles, even BLPs, are allowed some self-published sources in limited cases, so theoretically a well-sourced article might have some self-published references. I'd just tag an article with too many self-published sources as self-published and BLP refimprove, no need for a special tag for that (IMHO).
 * From reading the template, there's no section parameter for BLP sources BLP unsourced. Looks like there was consensus about adding it last year, but it never happened. I'll see about getting that done.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 16:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not familiar enough with tagging to know what's likely to be most useful, in terms of having BLP selfpublished refer to those with only vs. some selfpublished sources and needing improvement. If there was a section option working on each of "BLP unsourced", "BLP selfpublished", and "BLP IMDB-only" and/or "BLP IMDB", that might be very helpful though.  When i have seen BLP unsourced at the top of a section recently, it has usually been in an IMDB-sourced article (because i am only looking at those found by AWB search) at the top of a personal information section which is either not at all sourced or selfpublished-sourced.  While other sections about an actor's screen credits are in a section sourced by IMDB.  It would be nice to be able to tag the personal info section as either entirely unsourced or as only sourced by selfpublished info.  If BLP selfpublished at the top of an article means the article is entirely selfpublished, it belongs in the BLP unreferenced arena.  But if it's applied to a section then the article should be categorized into the BLP refimprove arena, right? --doncram (talk) 21:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Discussion started at BLP --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Project page.
Reading this this message on the Mathematics Project Talk Page, from User:The-Pope, I'm wondering about the list of articles that we are supposed to be paying attention to. WikiProject Mathematics/Unreferenced BLPs is currently a redlink - so I'm not sure where we're supposed to be looking. Are we waiting on the bot to create the page or should someone on the Mathematics Project be doing something? (I'm very much in favour of what you're doing over here and I hope you'll be pleased to see that we're already looking into the small list given in that message). --Paul Carpenter (talk) 13:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The bot runs each day at around 5:00 AM UTC. If you "clean out" the list I gave you, then the bot will create a page with just a header and a message saying there are no UBLPs.  Otherwise it may find some.  There is something strange with your template - WP:AWB didn't seem to find anything linked to it, so I hope it works.  Bottom line is that unless I missed some, or more get tagged in the coming days, I don't think your project has much of a BLP problem.  Feel free to help out on another project's list though!The-Pope (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Other projects
Judaism and fencing don't seem to be on the list.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  19:15, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Deceased
I came across a biography where the person was suppose to be deceased. On closer inspection there was no verification of this, in fact there was information that implied the person was still living. It occurred to me that it is possible to avoid the BLP tags by claiming a person is dead. I thought I'd mention it here as it seems relevant. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 12:35, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * He's dead, Jim. "НЕЗАБУТНІЙ ЮРІЙ НІКОЛАЄВСЬКИЙ", мс Юхим Лазарєв / «Спортивна газета», 18.02.2007. ("The Unforgettable Yuri Nikolaevsky", Sports Newspaper.) Even if you can't read the Ukrainian, you can see Юрій Ніколаєвський (1937—2004) pretty prominently. The Russian article seems to be off by a year, I'll go fix it. --GRuban (talk) 14:21, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Its a difficult area, I'm finding a fair few incorrect tags where people have been born in the last 120 years but also have an unsourced death date, though that edit summary quoted a source even though it didn't add one to the article. I suspect that most people who were born in the first quarter of the twentieth century are now dead, but we have lots of "BLP"s from that era where we don't yet have a death date. This is one of the areas which highlights the problem of focussing on unsourced BLPs rather than on areas that are higher risk.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And I found one where a search of the local cemetries website shows a person with the same name and right age died in the 70s. But as that is WP:OR and I have no evidence, despite the unusual name, that it is the same person, I left it out. BLP vs dead works both ways. And I think we all should realise that this whole focus on UBLPs should be considered just the first step in fixing all of the hundreds cleanup cats.The-Pope (talk) 13:53, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I'd rather describe it as one major cleanup drive, first step is a little disrespectful to all previous cleanup work. I'm hoping that before we start another such major drive we have a discussion on wiki as to what backlog or similar project we should prioritise, as one of my concerns about prioritising uBLPs was that increasing the amount of attention on one fairly uncontentious area meant less volunteer time was available to address other areas. I doubt if I'm the only person whose found fewer attack pages in the last four months than I did in the previous four months.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  19:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough point about not being the first, you can get blinded by the present. I disagree a bit about finding less attack pages recently - I think there have always been plenty of people checking recent changes and new articles, this at least has put some focus on some of the old and dark corners of the wiki.  Hopefully at the end of this, there will be 50,000 vandalism free articles.. but of course once they fall off our lists, I doubt many of us will keep an eye on them. And there are still 400,000 more BLPs out there to check.The-Pope (talk) 11:40, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that those who have been patrolling new pages and recent changes have still been finding loads of attack pages, but my experience of the unreferenced BLPs is that very few met either G3 or G10 criteria. I agree with the idea of starting a new initiative when this has finished, but I think we should run it in an area where there are more problem articles to fix. If someone has some good sources for obituaries then "BLPs of people born before 1920" would be a possible project as I have a strong suspicion that a lot of our 1930s sportspeople are long dead. Alternatively we could focus on high risk BLP statements, and check through all allegations such as murder and child abuse to make sure they are all reliably sourced. I've started dabbling in this area and I think a small amount of work could achieve more results per hour than going through unreferenced BLPs. I'd also point out that this project will not achieve 50,000 vandalism free articles, some of the articles we have referenced or partially referenced will have subsequently been vandalised, some may even have unspotted vandalism in with the sourced stuff; also quite a few of the 50,000 have been deleted - it would be interesting if someone has a list of the 50,000 as they were in January to see how many have subsequently been deleted or redirect to another article. From looking at my deleted contributions and watchlist I'm conscious that when I categorise or project tag articles that sometimes results in them being prodded or taken to AFD; I think that it is a good thing that those who care about a subject and know it well enough to tell the hoaxes and wannabees from the genuine and notable make such calls, and that one good thing that has happened as a result of this project and specifically your outreach work to other projects is that thousands, possibly tens of thousands of currently unreferenced BLPs have been eyeballed for vandalism, hoaxes and notability.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  08:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Stubs
I've just put together a list of stub-length unreferenced BLPs at User:LiberalFascist/Unreferenced_BLP_stubs. There are 3,143 of them as of now. These should make easy pickings for: 1) Quickly referencing and removal of the unreferenced tag; 2) Expanding the article (DYK, anyone?); 3) sending to AfD if it's completely un-sourceable. In any case, it should be fairly quick to burn through.  If you want to move the list to a subpage of this project, feel free. Please remove articles from the list when you do them so that others can get right to the remaining articles.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 00:20, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I moved this list to WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Unreferenced BLP stubs. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:41, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for making that. Maurreen (talk) 07:04, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Under 35,000
Whew, we've come a long way. Keep up the good work everyone! — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 23:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm buying a virtual round for all of us! Maurreen (talk) 07:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Under 34,000 right now! I noticed that User:Lvklock, who has been helping in AWB-based IMDB-zapping, has done the good work of providing references for all 23 of WikiProject New York's BLPs that were lacking them.  Also from the table report of performance by wikiproject (which does not yet show the New York accomplishment), WikiProject Opera's eliminating its 36 stands out.  Also Joshua Scott has been helping fix a glitch with Template:Multiple issues that was interfering with categories relating to IMDB-zapping.  In passing, I noticed Joshua Scott has been taking care of the BLP ref issue for a lot of non-IMDB-related articles, too.  Looking good / possible to meet the 30,000 goal! --doncram (talk) 22:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll update the table later today (including a new # done and rank for the past week), but we've got almost 500 projects listed. It provides an interesting example of the 80/20 rule - the 10/40 rule!.  There are about 50 projects with between 100 and 1000 UBLPs.  Another 40 between 50 and 100.  Then 140 between 10 and 50 and 236 below 10 - half of the total that are being tracked.  Some of the articles will be in multiple projects across these levels, but when you look at the number of articles, rather than number of projects, it raises an interesting point about where we should be targeting our "encouraging" efforts.  Ignoring the 7 projects with >1000 articles (football, music, actors and the Bio sub projects), the 50 project in the hundreds have almost 13000 articles, compared to the 240 projects with under 10 have a total of less than 900.  The 40 projects above 50 articles and the 140 between 10 and 50 each have about 3000 articles.  I've already notified most of the top 50 last week, I'll notify the next 40 today, but the small ones are almost not worth worrying about - at least if it takes up our time and effort that could be spent elsewhere.  Of course, this can all change if/when we assign projects to the thousands of articles without projects.  For those who work better with tables, than text, here are the numbers:


 * One thing I notice is that these were net changes, and many of the projects I knew existed are the ones which have had an increase in the number of their articles - I've tagged several hundred articles to various projects. I suspect that the more specific the project tag the more likely we are to get people from that project to either reference or prod an article. But an alternative way to work this would be to identify the projects that are handling their BLPs and find articles for them from the 34,000. So if we knew that Wikiproject cricket had done all their unreferenced BLPs, a query across the 34,000 unreferened BLPs for all articles containing the word cricket would be likely to find a bunch of cricketers who might be tagged for their country but not for their sport - tagging the ones who play cricket would be a quicker way to get BLPs referenced than tagging the untagged ones.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  16:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Another good idea. I think Australia, India and soccer have been especially active. Maurreen (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Australia India, football, Sweden and Ireland have all been active, but already have more articles tagged for their projects than they are likely to do by the end of the month at current rates. Heavy metal, Cricket and New York are ones that have cleared or pretty much cleared their unreferenced BLPs, so a query through the 34,000 tagging more for those projects is likely to result in more articles being referenced this month.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  07:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Under 33,000 as of now, although its been going over and under. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:54, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It took only 4 days to go from 34,000 to 33,000, nice work everyone. J04n(talk page) 21:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And now we're under 32,000. ~5 days for that thousand.  We just may squeak in there!  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 05:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Now under 31,000, specifically at 30,975 right at this moment. My tally of IMDB-zapped ones just went over 2,000.  In the months not yet checked for IMDB as a source, there are probably another 500-1000 which could be zapped, too. --doncram (talk) 16:23, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Congratulations doncram, Joshua and others working to bring this total down. A few week back I didn't think it was going to happen, but now all is rosy! :) Regards, SunCreator (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Signpost update
I have now asked directly about getting in the next issue, and copied our text from the "suggestions" page to the Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom. Maurreen (talk) 08:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The publication time for the next Signpost is "Due for publication at 3:00 UTC on May 24". I don't know what their internal deadline would be, for them to announce in that issue, but how about our pushing to get to the 30,000 target by then?  It would be great to beat the date deadline and then by June 1 be significantly below 30,000.  Tally is 30,995 right now.  I'll do what i can, would expect to deliver 500 more IMDB ones, probably, by May 23.  I was off for several days;  it is others who have made the most progress recently. --doncram (talk) 18:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Have mass deletions started up again or are we all just getting on with fixing these?
I've noticed that the rate of shrinking of the unsourced BLP category appears to have increased recently, with almost 400 articles dropping out of the category on some days. I'd love to think that this is because people are going through and adding sources, but given that the numbers at PROD and AFD are not even in this ball park, is there something else going on?--Michig (talk) 09:25, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe the pace of the sourcing has picked up with the June 1 'deadline' approaching. J04n(talk page) 09:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's a combination of the many Wikiprojects working through their individualised Dashbot generated lists and the imdb templates, probably more the latter.The-Pope (talk) 11:08, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As part of the mistagged cleanup drive, I've removed tags from over 1000 articles, and about 900 of those were in May, so I would guess it's just as The-Pope & J04n say: increased urgency. We should easily meet the goal at the rate we are going. Taking a quick look at the deletion log, it looks like all the recent deletions are AfD or BLPPROD.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 17:47, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Not too sure about that if you take a look at for example 's recent A7 deletions. I found Takeji Tomita as a redlink in WikiProject Sweden/Unreferenced BLPs - existing in three other language versions, and as far as I can tell deleted without a PROD, together with a number of other articles. Tomas e (talk) 20:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked through his last 250 deletions, and the only other one I saw like that was Seishiro Endo. Some admins don't always leave an accurate description of a deletion (I've seen quite a few PRODs that I've tagged be deleted 7 days later under an A7 or A3).  He seems to be deleting a lot of articles, so he's probably working NPP and Deletion backlogs.  Doesn't seem suspicious to me.  I'd recommend dropping a note on his talk page if you have a question about a deletion though.  I don't want to see a repeat of the BLP deletions fiasco.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 01:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Looking at the google cache versions of those two pages, and admittedly not knowing anything about the aikido sport, they seem like probably acceptable A7 deletions. Maybe being an 8th dan is notable, I wouldn't have a clue, and wouldn't have A7'd them myself, but everyone has different standards.  Maybe you should take it to the martial arts project for their take on it - and re-emphasise the UBLP project list.  We have to realise that this project isn't for inclusionists only.  A lot of pages don't belong here.  We just want to ensure that all pages are given a chance to be referenced or deleted according to the current agreed CSD/PROD/AfD standards, not some imagined UBLP criteria that some admins/arbcom/Jimbo tried to force on us 4 months ago.The-Pope (talk) 01:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * They were also CSD tagged before deletion (presumably by someone else), so it wasn't unilateral. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 01:53, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, good then. Tomas e (talk) 10:21, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Still a bit of a mystery how they are going down so fast. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 10:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are definitely others making progress, but I've indeed been zapping IMDB ones, have done a couple few hundreds in spurts recently. Trying to keep track of how many and when, at User:Doncram/IMDBzap.  Only 500 left to meet the 30,000 goal right now.  Any chance we could do that still today? :) --doncram (talk) 18:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

what was the target, anyhow?
. Was the target 30,000, because we just reached that? Or was it to be below 30,000? I forget... Anyhow, at 30,000, exactly, right now. --doncram (talk) 03:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yippee! Congratulations!
 * I've only done a little, but I'm glad I could help. And I enjoyed working with you.
 * My timing works out. WP has been distracting me from real life, and I need to turn my attention there.
 * Good luck hitting all the goals for the rest of the year. And have a wonderful life! Maurreen (talk) 05:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Maurreen! You have been a voice of reason, here and elsewhere.  Your constructive involvement got me interested in participating here, and it's been great. It's been a real pleasure doing this together with you.  Good luck with your RL goals. --doncram (talk) 15:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah! Down to 29,995 today. Dances on table ;) Domcram I think the target was 30,000 plus those found afterwards so around 31,500. But 30,000 is a figure no one can argue with. We are ahead, let's keep the momentum going especially with getting others involved. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 11:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the RFC specifically said 30,000 inclusive of approx 1000 per month being added, not 30,000 + the new ones. But it now doesn't matter now either way.  Well done everyone, I just hope that when you are doing the IMDB zapping, which enabled the target to be met, you are at least checking each article for BLP violations or likely-A7 candidacy.  Otherwise I can see us doing the same thing next year on the BLP Refimprove list.  I wonder if anyone has any stats on how much that cat has increased in the past 6 months? The-Pope (talk) 12:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are currently 27,383 in Category:BLP articles lacking sources. I can't remember what it was 5 months ago, but I suspect it wasn't that big. I don't think that the ones I've tagged into that category should be speedy deleted, and I hope that having a meaningful tag is likely to get them improved. Also I think there are at least two opportunities to improve those articles in the future, one using DashBot to message the authors of IMDB sourced articles and the other to send a message to the authors of the remaining articles in that category.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  13:10, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * For stats on the IMDB effect upon refimprove, check out Category:Articles sourced only by IMDB and Category:Articles sourced by IMDB. These show 1,095 IMDB-only and 1,577 IMDB+others, as of 5/24/2010.  Almost all are reclassified from BLP unsourced to there, by me and by a few others.  (And, constantly updating, the current category totals are: ' and '. )  In the next few days I'll finish out AWBing thru the very last portion of the BLP unsourced category that i haven't yet processed, but that will add only about 50 more. --doncram (talk) 15:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * During the IMDB-zapping, i removed without comment just a few passages that seemed like gross BLP violations that i happened to notice. But i did not check systematically "each article for BLP violations or likely-A7 candidacy".  You'll have to sample the categories now to assess how much of a problem there is, yourself, which should now be relatively easy to do.  It would be best if someone with decent reference sources on actors/film-makers could review and fix them. --doncram (talk) 15:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that systematically reviewing all unreferenced BLPs was an efficient or effective way to tackle our problems of gross BLP violations. I did find a few whilst going through large numbers of BLPs and project tagging them. some I deleted as G10s and some I removed the comment with an edit summary saying that such statements require a reliable source (in a couple of cases that promptly appeared). But there are much better ways to find that sort of thing, I have one in alpha test.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  15:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * My concern is that those who were in the "delete them all" camp might consider the IMDB zapped articles to be still really unreferenced. Personally, I don't - I think that they do belong in the refimprove cat.  Secondly I know how long it takes me to either reference, PROD, assign projects to or cleanup articles, so when I see the number of articles that you've done, I hope that there aren't too many, if any, that have significant BLP violations in them.  I understand that we all can't check every fact in every article we edit - I'm sure I've missed some too - but this sort of mass movement from one list to another can be seen as a bureaucratic exercise if we miss too much of the real issue.  I agree with WSC that this isn't the best way to solve the root-cause problem of problematic BLPs, but it is a way that 50,000 BLPs should/could be looked at by fairly conscientious and experienced editors.  Anyway, we have another week to go, so lets see if we can knock off another 1000 or more by then! 29924 at the moment, even at the "last week" rate of 200/day, 28### is a good aim. The-Pope (talk) 16:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Lists of uBLPs not allocated to projects
I've created a couple of pages that might be useful: User:The-Pope/UBLPs by WP is a list of all of the lists created by User:DASHBot from the projects listed at User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects or User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates. It shows that about 24,000 of the 3X,000 total are being tracked. This excludes those just use a WP:Biography cat. So I then created User:The-Pope/UBLP WP not listed for those articles not in a WikiProject list that is being tracked by DASHBot. Thanks to the database list from MZ above, we have a list of those pages without a talk page at all, but there are still more than 10,000 either without a wikiproject, or are in a wikiproject that isn't on the DASHBot/Wikiprojects list yet. How we will find them, without random trial and error or bulk updates to the lists... I'm not sure, but I'm open to any suggestions! The-Pope (talk) 02:56, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 24092 unique pages you have listed in the WikiProjects. Quite good really. And 10173 as Biography only. Making 34265, so are the remainder red links? I think that would add up. Suggest that:
 * More project tagging is done - especially the big WikiProjects usin the template method. Most projects have only about 80 to 90% of there articles tagged therefore only 80 to 90% of them can show on the projects BLP listing.
 * It's possible to find active WikiProjects without lists from WikiProjects, e.g. WikiProject Aviation have no listing. Can those be identified and listings created.
 * Contact the WikiProjects with a listing where it seems no communication has ever taken place with them e.g. WikiProject Business, it's not surprising the list here gets bigger as they don't know it exists. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 03:45, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * For your point 2, the Projects not on the Dashbot lists yet, I have a fair bit of info on that, so to save us duplicating each other's work, leave that to me and I'll look to improve the coverage over more projects in the next few days - I don't get much time on weekends for this sort of thing though, so it might be a few days. The-Pope (talk) 04:09, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are WP:BIOG sub-groups like WikiProject Biography/Politics and government, this work group has 77,000 Bio in its scope but no mention on the talk page. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 12:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yesterday I started working on the list of articles from Database reports/Untagged and unreferenced biographies of living people by allocating them to one project or another. I just want to check with you guys that this is actually helpful before I carry on. (We've pretty much finished the UBLPs in the Children's Literature Project, so I thought I could offer my assistance here).--Plad2 (talk) 06:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes please! One comment, though, looking through a random sample of your tagging, you haven't added WPBiography.  This is a key one, especially with the living=yes parameter (and other workgroup tags - see the documentation for details), as I think it is used by some bots to ensure it is added to BLP cats and not the non-BLP ones.  All your other tags looks great.  I hope that MzMcB can update the list soon, as I find picking a "group" based on the category list, whether it be by country, occupation etc, makes it easy to tag many with similar tags, rather than trying to work out what the relevant project tag is.  Thanks for your work on Children's literature too... I just realised that WikiProject Literature isn't on our lists though! The-Pope (talk) 12:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Doh! Thanks for pointing that out. Will add WPBio tag from now on.--Plad2 (talk) 22:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me as though we've finished the list. (At least until the bot runs again...)--Plad2 (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

What we've done
I've just found a text file that I saved from WP:AWB on 9 Feb, with 45,316 unreferenced BLPs listed. 26,363 of them are still in the unreferenced BLP cat. 3,561 have been added to the list, leaving 18,953 articles have either been deleted, referenced or tags removed. Not bad for 3 1/2 months. Of the 18953, 7862 are now in the ref-improve cat (41.5% of the 18953 that have been dealt with). Of the remaining 11091, 1064 are redlinks (5.6% of the 18,953) meaning that 10027 articles have been referenced in about 105 days (plus some of the ref-improved ones would have been partially referenced). As this is simple text comparison, page moves would be missed, but I'm surprised at how many - in excess of the 2700 IMDB ones tracked by Doncram - have been moved into the ref-improve bucket.The-Pope (talk) 17:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't removed a refimprove tag unless the article is fully inline cited, so I know that at least 1200 of the 7862 were from me. I'm planning on going back through them to remove the tag altogether if appropriate.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Joshua Scott (and perhaps others) have done a great job going through the bot-identified articles seeming to have sources, to improve and recategorize those. I say because in my last couple thousand of articles scanned by AWB, looking for instances of "IMDB", i found only a couple where the imdb information was not even in an external link, when before I would have been finding over 10% having IMDB as a source.  So I assume this other effort fixed the IMDB ones at the same time as fixing others.


 * I've finished going through all the BLP unsourced subcategories by month, zapping 33 just now from recent additions to the May 2010 subcategory. The current totals in the IMDB-only and IMDB refimprove categories are 1,129 and 1,618.  The total which my tally of retagging by me and another editor is 2,752.  Note, some others have also added IMDB tags and some articles have been fixed up and the IMDB tags removed.  But 2,752 is my best estimate of what was done directly by me and one helping editor.  And, there will be no more IMDB zapping to help out further!  Total in BLP unsourced is now 29,569. --doncram (talk) 21:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Everyone has been doing a fantastic job, and watching the numbers dwindle is certainly satisfying. That being said, with many of the mistagged and IMDB pages now corrected I think the true grind work begins. You know the articles I'm talking about - wall of text articles about obsure artists/scholars/luminaries that read like a CV of their "most glorious" accomplishments and...wrestling articles. We have to really roll up our sleeves to plow through the next 29,558 articles. --Jezebel's Ponyo shhh  13:44, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think the true grind work has been going on already, though.  The-Pope's interesting analysis asserts that over 10,000 articles have been properly sourced.  Some editors keep on chipping away, apparently: at 29,405 now. --doncram (talk) 00:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with the "now we're into the tough areas" idea... WP:Aust dropped from 1600 to 600 very easily, but it's taken forever to get into the low 300s. For me the best thing is uncovering the hidden BLPs... those with no projects, few cats, that have just been sitting there ignored.  Great work by MZB making up the list and WSC and Plad and probably others assigning the 1000 articles to projects.  Now we are left with the 10000 or so that are only in the WP:Bio project, plus the 1000 or so in each of the musician/sportsman/actor workgroups, but not in a specialised or regional project.  And unless there are a bunch of un-tagged wrestler articles, they are down to about only 60 articles left to reference!  I find it was the soap opera "stars" (until the IMDBzap came along) and the minor politicians and sportsmen from minor sports, especially from third world countries, that will be the problem going forward.The-Pope (talk) 01:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced that things are necessarily going to get tougher. If WP Australia has been struggling to get from 600 to 300, part of that is down to me and others tagging lots of untagged uBLPs as Australians, any project that has managed to keep reducing their uBLPs during the recent project tagging phase has actually done better than they might think. We still have the option of getting Dashbot to do a followup broadcast to the authors of these articles, we are still identifying projects that have not yet been invited to help and told about their uBLPS (and the recently identified ones have hundreds of uBLPs between them), and we now have bots project tagging lots of articles. Also I'm still finding lots of articles that are partially or fully referenced, as well as quite a few non BLPs that are simply mistagged. Yes there is a huge amount still to do, and if the current backlog of uncategorised articles was to be cleared I suspect we might even have a small increase in uBLPs, but we have made great progress, have learned how to do some of this faster and I don't think it impossible that we could continue to make good progress on this - I'm still finding low hanging fruit out there.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  16:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Where are those low-hanging fruits? I would help a little towards trying to meet The-Pope's suggested goal of 28,999 by end of tomorrow, if i knew how.  At 29,1XX now.  Also, who has been plugging along emptying the May 2007 category?  Whoever you are, kudos.  There's no lowhanging fruit in there, but it's perhaps the most salient / most important subcategory to address. --doncram (talk) 16:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well if you can find a way to pick out a list of all the articles tagged as uBLPs that contain the words dead or died, I think you'd find a lot of them are dead people incorrectly tagged as living. Alternatively a list of articles tagged as uBLPs but with links to sites such as the BBC, NYTimes or other well known reliable sources would be likely to contain a lot of articles that are fully or partially referenced, and where the tag is no longer correct. The latter would be a really useful exercise if we are thinking of doing another dashbot run asking people to reference articles tagged as unreferenced - I'm not greatly fussed if such a run includes some articles "sourced" to selfpublished sites and primary sources but its a bit embarrassing if the list still has lots of articles with impeccable sources. PS if you or anyone can create such lists just post them here, I'd be willing to put an hour or so into trawling through them.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  18:47, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * URBLP/Possibly deceased all URBLPs that have "dead" or "died" in the text. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC) I have to re-do this, the list was too inclusive.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:52, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've now replaced the list at URBLP/Possibly deceased with a better one. There are currently 566 pages with the words "died" or "dead".  I at first got a lot of false positives because of the infobox parameter "Died".  I've tried to exclude those.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, sampling about 10 of those i found only cases where it mentions someone else died. I did score one, Robert Knights, a film director, by myself adding an IMDB reference to it (and then i left it tagged with "BLP IMDB-only refimprove").  I think it was in fact sourced from IMDB.  Perhaps a similar search on ("actor", "actress", "director", or "writer") plus ("television" or "film") would yield more that could be IMDB-semi-zapped like that.  I dunno why i'd want to spend more time with such articles, but Joshua if u could make such a list i would plug away at it. :) --doncram (talk) 22:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've done one section and found several dead people - oldest so far Eadwig of England, any advances on a 959 CE death?  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  22:47, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Doncram, WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/imdb has a list with the text "imdb" in the article. It also has the list matching "actor" "actress" "film" or "television". There's over 5,000 on the possibles list. --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 00:17, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Some of the 349 with text "imdb" are correctly left as unsourced from my AWB pass through all unsourced, but it is good to check and i am finding many to recategorize, of which some are new, some are inexplicable as to how i didnt get them before.  After that, great, 5,000 more actor articles to wade through! :( --doncram (talk) 02:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Converting cats into project Tags
I've noticed during the project tagging I've been doing that I have a competitor, User:Xenobot_Mk_V is offering a service to project tag  articles with a particular category for a particular project. Now as Xeno is a bot and operates at Bot speed I think we should try and take more advantage of that. This is very much an opt in service that Projects such as Serbia and Toronto have opted into. Can I suggest that those of you who are involved in projects try to persuade your project to opt in? Of course this then puts more emphasis on categorisation, and we currently have a backlog of more than 4,200 articles tagged as uncategorised, many of them BLPs.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  08:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Xenobot_Mk_V just ran it's first run for me... WP:BOXING now has 4,770 more members! Just have to wait and see how many more uBLPs that translates to... I think over 100, but we'll wait and see.  Xeno and others have also been standardising the project templates to WikiProject XYZ, but this seems to cause a problem/delay with the DASHBot lists.  I'll monitor it over time, but it seems to struggle with template name changes and redirects. The-Pope (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

28946
Well done everyone. I'll assume that we're using the toolserver/betacommond daily counter as the official total, and it reads 28946 as of 1 June. Now only 97.5 to do each day until 1 September! The-Pope (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Strong work everyone, there was a point that I didn't think it would be done but it was. I want to point out that this was truly a team effort with different folks doing very different things all for a common goal.  Now let's get the 97.5 done for today and look forward to tomorrow. J04n(talk page) 13:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Dead People
I've worked through WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Possibly deceased and dealt with quite a few where the subject is dead or never should have been tagged as a BLP. For the ones in the English speaking world you can usually find a newspaper obituary quite easily. I suspect that we have lots of dead people in the remaining 28,000, if someone can make me a list of BLPs that were created over 12 months ago and where the subject was born in the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s or 1920s I will try out checking for obituaries.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  11:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The created over 12 months ago bit is not feasible, as far as I can tell (I'd really love to know how to do this if it's possible). I did grab the URBLPs born 1880s-1920s, and put the back on that same page.  I excluded any that were already in that older list that you went through.  There's 1047 articles in that list.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 23:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You could probably do it if you download the stub-meta-history.xml.gz file from the most recent database dump - or at least that would enable you to construct a list of articles created more than 12 months ago. The download size is 12.7 GB after compression though. Hut 8.5 14:26, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

RfC & Status update
FYI, an RfC opened to determine the status of the BLP problem. It's at Requests for comment/Biographies of living people --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

new ideas?
Hey, do we need some new ideas or what? The count was at 28177 on June 12 and has since crept back up a little, for the first time in a long time. See Graph using data from Unref BLP count. Any ideas towards getting the count below 20,000 by September 1? What would be easiest is what we should do. How about a campaign to nudge all the WikiProjects every week or two? --doncram (talk) 04:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, first, there's clearly quite a bit of recent UBLP tagging of older articles going on, which will account for some of the increase (91 just appeared on the Database reports/Untagged and unreferenced biographies of living people report, for instance, and that will only be the ones with empty Talk pages). I don't think that is actually a cause for concern as we always knew there would be a number of previously invisible UBLPs. Second, if we are going to nudge Projects, I would like to suggest that we focus on the Projects where the total of UBLPs seem to be going up. Projects where the total is going down could perhaps be given a pat on the back. Perhaps a barnstar or two might encourage more people to get involved.--Plad2 (talk) 05:48, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I suspect a few people have shifted focus or taken a little break after the intense effort to make the June target. The backlog of uncategorised articles has been reduced from 8,000 to a little over 3,000 - so no surprises if a lot of new uBLPs have been found, and still some more to come from that source. Also I'd noticed that a lot of stickyprodded articles were being deleted without ever being tagged as uBLPs and I've been tagging some of them so that the projects will have a chance to rescue them. So there are various reasons why in the short term things might appear to be slowing.
 * The new ideas that we've been working on include: identifying more dead people, bot project tagging the unproject tagged and identifying more projects with uBLPs. But I suspect the biggest extra win we could get in the next couple of months would be to do another dashbot run to the authors. I think we got consensus to go ahead with that and I'd suggest we aim to get this done once the uncategorised backlog is cleared - (I suspect this will be more effective in the first message to authors of uBLPs that hadn't been tagged as uBLPs in January than it will be as a reminder to the authors who ignored the message in January).  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  07:27, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * When I did a WikiProject notification about 2 months after Okip did the original one, I was queried on a couple of projects as to "why I was hassling them" so often, so regular notification is unlikely to be warmly received. So instead, I've been focussing on getting as many articles allocated to relevant projects as possible, and then we can do some notifications.  We still have only 17289 articles on the specialist WikiProject lists, excluding the jumbo WPBio ones.  Include them (Filmbio, Sport-work-group etc) and you are up to 21189, leaving just over 7000 pages that either have the WPBio tag only, without any work groups or other project tags, or Projects that we haven't put on the DASHBot list yet.  A DASHBot run to the original authors even on this list might be useful, but I would guess a lot wouldn't be around any more.  From my scans, I'd say that there are a lot of US/Canada/British politicians, activists, martial artists and racecar drivers who aren't in any projects yet.  Music, Sweden and Football continue to do the best in reductions, but often due to the work of only a few people.The-Pope (talk) 12:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Is the list of 7000 WPBio only UBLPS available anywhere? If we could get them allocated to Projects, that would be a start. My other suggestion is that we ask the Projects which have got their UBLPs under control if any of their active editors would like to help.--Plad2 (talk) 12:27, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I hear the concern about not wanting to seem to be hassling the WikiProjects. What about using the output of WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/WikiProjects to at least commend the top-performing WikiProjects each week, though?  Is there any wp:BARNSTAR that is relevant to praise WikiProject Musicians and WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers and WikiProject Sweden for their 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-ranked efforts in the last report?  (Will that update, by the way?)  Even if the praise is not wholly deserved (because maybe just a few of us here did the work on their behalf), it would be a way to make a positive buzz and could encourage some editors out there to help.  Or, what would be the next Signpost mention to arrange for, if we can (following up on the 5/24/2010 mention of our meeting 30K goal?  All publicity is good, probably. --doncram (talk) 14:04, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * User:The-Pope/UBLP WP not listed is the list of UBLPs with either no WikiProjects at all, WPBio only (without any taskforces nominated) or a WP that DASHBot hasn't be told about yet. Probably should move them out of my userspace into somewhere under this project, and I also need to update the list mentioned by Dancram above.The-Pope (talk)
 * Thanks! How about creating a WikiProject-specific "5 random unreferenced BLPs, updated daily" feature, like that appearing in our main page wp:URBLP (currently showing "Kerri Irvin-Ross | Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim | Pita Nacuva | Rick Ferraro | Trevor Gaylor")?  Maybe Wikiprojects would be glad to receive a customized-for-their-wikiproject version being added to their main page, and it could provide also a handy link to the WikiProject's list-page of all unreferenced BLPs? --doncram (talk) 14:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There's Template:The BLP Barnstar and Template:The Biography Barnstar either of which might fit the bill or could perhaps be adapted--Plad2 (talk) 06:26, 17 June 2010 (UTC)