Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-01-25/BLP madness

RFC again: Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

A graph of current opinion can be found here: User:Peter cohen/BLP RFC stats. The two opposing views which have the most support is: Ikip 04:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Jehochman, who currently wants deletion policy to be more strict,  with 139 people supporting, and
 * 2) Collect, who feels existing policy is satisfactory, has 51 editors supporting.


 * The whole referencing problem stems from a decline in the number of editors. The more draconian we get, the less newbies will turn into valued editors.  So, we've got a vicious cycle. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:17, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * True, see my comments (hidden) on how the media feels about what is happening at wikipedia: At the Durova it is not pretty. These 7 journalists and one PHD dissertation are the canary in the coalmine about how many wikipedians are treating new editors. Ikip 04:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is there nothing happening on Wikipedia that is not somehow resultant of editors picking on newbies? Give me a break. The reason BLPs remain unsourced for months, if not years, is because many of them are about people who are not well-known to the general pupulation, many people are generally apathetic (or not knowledgable) about doing sourcing work, and because lots of people are basically lazy. It's easy to write something that you know is true and leave it than it is to go dig up the book where you read it and create a proper citation. The vast majority of newbies aren't even familiar with WP:RS, much less our citation styles. Please stop pushing this agenda everywhere. &lt;&gt;Multi‑Xfer&lt;&gt; (talk) 06:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I am a relatively new editor and a significant problem I have in following the chain of events in this news article is the extensive reliance on abbreviations, jargon and code words that only the more experienced members of the editor community can easily follow. For example: ANI, PROD, RfC, CSD, AN, ArbCom.  This article sounds like a Pentagon briefing, it is not English, per se.  It would be more "open" and "transparent" for the community, especially for newer members, if the prose used in the "newspaper" used common vocabulary and complete words, that anyone could understand.  Thanks for listening.  --Mdukas (talk) 06:41, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * FYI:
 * AN = Administrators' noticeboard
 * ANI = Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
 * ArbCom = Arbitration Committee
 * CSD = Criteria for speedy deletion
 * PROD = Proposed deletion
 * RfC = Requests for comment
 * The Wikipedia:Glossary has more. — Athaenara  ✉  07:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Athaenara, thank you. I wish the author of the article could have simply done the same thing.  We don't all speak or understand "wiki".  thx.  --Mdukas (talk) 01:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Happy to help! — Athaenara  ✉  11:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Just great. Deletionists are taking over. Wikipedia is going to hell in a handbasket. It's people like User:Rdm2376 who need to be deleted on sight, not the articles.  Grue   10:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Eaten by a grue? Sorry. Couldn't resist. — what a crazy random happenstance 11:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Two Years here and still a novice I admit, but my entire two years work has now all been deleted and and a huge gap in the progression of digital technologies now exists in wikipedia through a flawed AfD process. No wonder Wiki is losing good editors, I know I wont be spending time on it anymore when all I'm trying to do is to accurately make an article and reference it properly. Bring on the multitude of Biographies for Horses that win minor horseraces!!  I'm sure my kids would really like to know about Mr Ed than living pioneers and inventors! --Cafejunkie (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * (LOL)--I'm afraid right now I think we should just get rid of admins. We pretty much only need them to undelete stuff other admins have deleted. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

2 opposes = solid opposition?

 * Where is the "solid opposition" to wholesale introduction of flagged revisions, as proposed by User:TheDJ? All I saw at the linked discussion were two (2) Opposes by people who do not seem to have any experience of how flagged revisions work on Wikinews and German WP. Have I missed another discussion elsewhere? If this is all the opposition expressed, TheDJ's idea is worth looking at. -- JN 466  11:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have amended it to state that the proposal saw little response. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 12:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. (I am still tempted to add a "citation needed" tag to the statement that it "might be impractical due to en.wiki's size." If it works well for a Wikipedia that has 1 million articles, it'll likely also work for one that has 3 million.) -- JN 466  13:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't flagged revisions get a 60 - 40 vote with Jimbo deciding that we would have it anyway, and that most policies usually need at least 70%? Ikip 05:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Misleading account of events
This account of events is inaccurate. The deletion spree was started by Gregory Kohs, a banned editor, who coordinated off-line with at least one administrator to do a "test" introducing vandalism to unwatched and unreferenced biographies. I believe there was also something about the purchase of an admin account (user:Cool3?). The conspiracy was exposed and blocks issued, but deletions followed with support from the Wikipedia Review crowd where Kohs is active, until a consensus of Wikipedia editors objected (see voting results on proposal that unreferenced biographies can be speedy deleted). How do we get this misleading depiction fixed? ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It's my understanding that the Kohs issue was unrelated; MZMcBride apparently provided Kohs with a short list of unwatched BLPs, and also the Cool3 account was apparently purposely compromised. See Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2, but except for also being about BLPs, I don't think the two issues are related.--ragesoss (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The short list was 8,000 articles wasn't it? An Arbcom used an alternate account to add them to a watchlist. And the deletion spree that followed was very much related and driven by the same activists on Wikipedia Review, was it not? ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The list that was given to Kohs, it seems, was 20 articles: User_talk:MZMcBride.--ragesoss (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh. And then an Arb set up an alternate account to watch 8,000 that were unwatched? Is that how it happened? I'm not an expert which is why I was disappointed that there wasn't a better account of the events. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not totally versed on all this either; there's just so much discussion in so many places that it's hard to get a clear big picture view without having been following it all along. But where did this 8000 article arbcom watchlist come in?  I hadn't seen anything about that.--ragesoss (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There were 8,062 unwatched BLPs identified by MZMcBride and subsequently forwarded to Arbcom after they discovered that he had offered to supply them to a banned user. The Kohser said he'd only received a small sample, and after User:Newyorkbrad requested the sample, MZMcBride listed the twenty articles on the 18th Jan. The mass deletion of unsourced Biographies without notification to the creators started a couple of days later. Apart from the chronology and the fact that both seem to have been planned on Wikipedia Review, I'm not sure what connection if any there was between the deletion of BLPs  without attempting to source them or inform the authors and the vandalism of BLPs experiment.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  01:36, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Does this have anything to do with Casliber's claims.

Are you talking about this: The BLP offwiki forum dedicated to tightening up BLP practices any bets how quick this will be deleted? Ikip  05:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The first I heard of it was when it had been linked to ANI and whoever was running it promptly replaced the contents of the site with the goatse picture. I don't know if it had been used for offsite canvassing by deletionists in AFDs and other !votes. But I don't trust anyone who is prepared to use the goatse in that way.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  12:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * What did the Arbcom do about it? Ikip 13:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know if its been to Arbcom or who if anyone has admitted being part of it.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  15:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Both Durova and Casliber seem to have talked to members of the group, or been alerted in some way about this group. Ikip 16:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I would argue the lack of references on BLPs (and all articles, in general) is partially a result of Mediawiki's unfriendly editing interface. We need to make it easier for new users to add references when there's a "Citation needed" at the end of a sentence or a big unreferenced tag on the article. How about a series a screenshots or even a short video clip? We need to teach these same users to add references instead of having a very limited number of experienced editors fixing it for them.  Mahanga Talk 19:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Ikip/ref is a start on how to reference. Ikip 20:11, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Without getting into the larger issue, I applaud ArbCom for making a simple, classy decision to declare an amnesty. That's the kind of low-drama forward looking approach we need more of around here. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Way back when...the 'External links' section was used for references for the entire article. Obviously that wasn't the best idea in the world, and it became the common practice to provide separate citations for each statement. I can understand putting these older articles into some sort of 'purgatory' where they can be fixed up, but I certainly can't agree to deleting non-controversial articles about various elected congresspeople, including those no longer in office (which means the Project Vote Smart et al material is no longer available, which means it would be difficult to re-create the article from scratch). I'm sure there are similar stories in other areas. If there are specific problems with specific articles, fine. I just don't believe that one size fits all. (And yes, those who can't figure out how to copy and paste a ref from another article to use as a template of sorts are at a disadvantage with new articles. However, I think many are just too lazy to bother doing anything at all with refs.) Flatterworld (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)