Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Archive 2

Template:Rfctag-alt Phase I of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people is now closed. This is Phase II of the WP:RFC on dealing with unsourced WP:BLPs.

Table summary

submission	submission time	subject	Support (S)	Oppose (O)	Neutral (N)	%Support (%S)	Stance
MZMcBride	15:58, 21/01/2010	"Any biography that is poorly referenced or completely unreferenced should be deleted on-sight. If a user wishes to re-create the biography, they may request undeletion (or simply re-create the page) as long as they provide adequate sourcing."	55	157	1	25.94%	Stricter 0 days Delete immediately
Jehochman	16:14, 21/01/2010	Any article that satisfies the attack page criteria should be deleted on sight. Biographies of living persons (BLP) articles that are unreferenced should be proposed for deletion (prod). Prodding should proceed at a reasonable rate to allow interested editors the chance to add sources. The volume of proposed deletions should not be unreasonably large. Discussion can establish what is a reasonable pace. After five seven days, any article so tagged may be deleted, or moved to the Wikipedia:Article incubator if it shows promise. Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references risks a block for disruption. All editors are invited to participate in this BLP cleanup campaign.	163	35	8	82.32%	Stricter 7 days
Jclemens	16:22, 21/01/2010	"The risk reduced--and let's be clear, there certainly will be some--is insufficient to justify the widespread deletion of accurate, useful, and innocuous information, sourced or not, and ultimately damages Wikipedia without helping BLP vandalism subjects."	83	14	1	85.57%	No change
Collect	16:16, 21/01/2010	"Existence of a person is not, however, controversial nor contentious. WP has policies for deleting articles lacking notability, and no Draconian policy of automatic article deletion should pre-empt the orderly functioning of processes already existing."	83	20	4	80.58%	No change
David Gerard	16:17, 21/01/2010	"I suggest a PROD-like template - call it BLP-PROD - which says "Find references for this article or it DIES." Five days seems too long, make it two days."	64	48	1	57.14%	Stricter 2 days
DGG	17:10, 21/01/2010	"For old articles, a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless."	66	6	5	91.67%	No change
Power.corrupts	18:12, 21/01/2010	"The real problem is unsourced contentious info, not unreferenced articles. The proposal will do nothing or little to the real problem, and at the same time incur tremendous costs."	48	15	0	76.19%	No change
Sandstein	19:25, 21/01/2010	"The arbcom motion is not to be understood as changing or superseding general deletion policy and process as applied to the biographies of living persons, and it should be considered void if and insofar as it might have been intended to have that effect. Instead, any policy change should be decided by community consensus, starting with this RfC."	75	6	3	92.59%	N/A
Jimbo Wales	15:14, 25/01/2010	"Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 3 years, a three-month notice time starting February 1st, before they are deleted on May 1st. 2. Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 2 years, a three-month notice time starting May 1st, before they are deleted on August 1st. 3. Starting with everything which has been unferenced for more than 1 year, a three-month notice time starting August first, before they are deleted on November 1st. In all cases, biographies deleted for being old and unreferenced should be put onto a list for those who wish to come behind and work on them further. After that, we can consider how long is a reasonable life span (I would say one week, but one month could be fine as well) for new biographies to exist in a sad state before they are deleted.	36	25	5	59.02%	Stricter 7 days to 30 days
Aymatth2	13:39, 24 January 2010	This proposal is to create a mechanically ranked list of all unsourced BLPs, so editors who want to remove inappropriate articles can work up from the bottom of the list, and editors who want to retain valuable content can work down from the top. Obvious ranking criteria would be: Positive: Number of inbound links, number of unique editors, size Negative: Number of days since creation, number of days since last edit The values would be given weightings in a ranking formula such as: (inboundlinks x 100) + (uniqueeditors x 150) + (sizekb x 50) - (agedays x 1) - (lasteditdays x 0.5)					Technical
Henrik	16:24, 21 January 2010	"A significant minority of editors are unwilling to let unsourced, but likely uncontentious biographies remain in the encyclopedia. Deleting content makes the text available to only a select few, and makes fixing the articles a significantly harder process. I suggest an alternative to tackle the backlog of the roughly 50k articles in question: We institute a process to hide the contents of unsourced biographies, using a template developed for the purpose. We provide clear instruction that sourcing must be instituted before the template is removed (easily checkable by automated means) Those articles which have remained in this hidden state for a reasonable, but fairly long, amount of time, but which have not been fixed are deleted. This allows us to work towards preserving the content of these articles, while maintaining respect for the potential harm unsourced biographies may cause."					Technical
WereSpielChequers	16:57, 21 January 2010	Earlier this month User:DASHBot started gently chiding the authors of unsourced BLPs. I think we should wait a couple of weeks to see what effect that has on Category:All unreferenced BLPs, or if people want to give DASHBot a hand, look for retired/inactive/blocked users who DASHBot has spoken to and help them fix or delete their unsourced contributions. ...can someone write a Bot to inform wikiprojects of unsourced BLPs in their remit in the same way that DASHBot has been informing authors?" ...introduce "delete new unsourced BLP" as a speedy criteria; provided that we very clearly inform article creators that from a particular date this is the new rule, and that articles created after that date with information about living people must be reliably sourced. ...proding the unreferenced residue in batches over a couple of months ...I agree with delete unsourced BLPs on sight as the policy we should be able to enact in say 6 months. But with the following provisos: An unsourced biography should at the very least have its history checked to see if reverting a bit of vandalism won't restore it to a referenced article. Good faith contributions should never be deleted without the author being informed and given an easy route to getting their article restored for their next editing session. We also need an exception for articles being restored and referenced - some sort of template such as prod that can be added to a restored article so that the person requesting its restoration has at least a few hours to do so. Any user should be able to request, and any admin permitted to restore an existing article deleted under this process, provided the requester is promising to reference the article ASAP.	31	9		77.50%	Stricter Technical
NJA	16:53, 21 January 2010	reduce the time from five days devise a special PROD template specific to BLP's so that it can have a specialized category for monitoring and tracking (using NOINDEX) set out to add an edit filter to track BLP PROD template removals, as is currently done for CSD template removals for easier admin tracking	10	19		34.48%	Stricter 5 days
The Anome	17:11, 21 January 2010	Any bot activity...will need to be intensively supervised by humans for some time to avoid serious loss of useful articles...numerous articles are currently tagged as unsourced BLPs when they have references	10	2		83.33%	Technical
Resolute	17:59, 21 January 2010	...Wikiprojects can help. User:WolterBot has a function that generates a cleanup listing by project. Using tools such as this allows the community to break the overwhelming scope of this issue down into manageable sizes. If we repurpose this function as a mandatory listing for all projects - either as a one time run or a quarterly listing - we can at least begin to tackle this problem.	35	7		83.33%	Technical
Themfromspace	19:03, 21 January 2010	"holding tank" for all uncited BLP articles. This could be a separate project space altogether, or the subpages of a WikiProject. Each uncited BLP would then be automatically moved out of the mainspace to this holding space where it would not be indexed by Google. Each of these articles would then be considered a work in progress (and could be tagged as such) until they were moved back into the mainspace.	6	10		37.50%	Technical
Arthur Rubin	19:16, 21 January 2010	Any deletion by an accelerated process...should, after deletion, restore a (locked, if needed) stub...The stub should not be deleted for 6 months, unless a non-accelerated deletion procedure is followed.	22	7		75.86%	technical
NuclearWarfare	19:53, 21 January 2010	I would submit that the community cannot fully trust administrators who violate the BLP policy.	18	27	1	40.00%	N/A
OrangeDog	20:00, 21 January 201	Unreferenced articles on notable living people that contain no contentious material (including, but not limited to a large number of stubs) should be treated the same as any other article, noting that they provide useful information and provide a mechanism for the encylopedia to grow...I do not see any reason to create new deletion processes to circumvent or abuse those that we already have. Especially not ones that involve automatic and unsupervised mass deletion.	26	7		78.79%	No change
Hut 8.5	21:46, 23 January 2010	"I propose that we set up a wikiproject to source unreferenced BLPs."	21	0		100.00%	Technical Unanimous support
User:MickMacNee and User:Ikip		Anger at history of RFC					N/A
User:HJ Mitchell		Generally similar to Jehochman, except: Mass drive-by prodding would be discouraged and attempts should be made to limit the number of "BLP prods" at any one time to ~1000 A log should be created where editors must record the removal of "BLP prods" after proper sourcing or report others who improperly remove the tag (similar to special enforcement)	12	1			Stricker
User:LeadSongDog		"immediately...wp:userfied to the creating editors space by a bot, much in the way of user:CorenSearchBot's handling of gross copyvios"	7	3			Technology Userfication
User:Looie496		"No articles should be deleted using automated tools."	37	1			Technology
User:Balloonman		"...create a tool that can notify these projects and key editors what unsourced BLP's exist under their purvue. "	28	0
User:Balloonman		"modify the template for unsource blp's so that they are not indexed"	6	8
User:Jake Wartenberg		unwatched BLPs should be indefinitely semi-protected.	13	1
User:Rd232		Unsourced BLPs should be incubated after a time (or in some cases userfied).	11	8
User:FT2		creation of a "Draft:" namespace	11	5
User:The-Pope echoed by User:Cenarium		Make it known that this is the site's current main priority...get Wolterbot to change the order of the cleanup list to highlight what are the real problem areas, and which ones are "nice-to-haves" (ie MOS type ones). Get ALL of the projects on board. Get a bot/code/something quicker and smarter than me to auto-generate the lists based on the intersection of Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:WikiProject XYZ articles It needs some smarts, cause the project cats are on the talk pages, but the unreferenced BLPs are on the main pages, but I can do it for a project at a time using WP:AWB, so it must be able to be done. Then create a Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Unreferenced BLPs page for EVERY project. Update the list daily. Hold a competition to see who can zero their list the quickest - winner gets money/fame/links on the main page for a month/etc. Create a hall of fame for most removed each week.	14	1			Technical
User:SirFozzie		Find something you can live with, and find it soon. Show that you can be part of a solution, and not just a part of a discussion of a problem. Sitting down and not accepting anything will mean that the situation will just go on without you.	14	17			N/A
User:Johnbod		Why Unreferenced BLPs are NOT problematic	21	4

Summary of Phase I

Phase I closing summary

This has been one of the largest and most complex requests for comment within the community for some time, with 470 editors producing over 200,000 words of commentary. The majority of views and comments are clearly the result of thoughtful contemplation on the part of editors who have taken the time to inform themselves of the issues, and everyone should be applauded for considering this matter seriously. Those who have taken part have the best interests of the encyclopedia and the project at heart, and there is a good deal of merit, based on policy, practice and practicality, in each of the major positions put forward. It is also important to note that the majority of those who participated did so relatively early in the RfC, and are unlikely to have reviewed some of the later views and proposals; therefore, it is not possible to accurately assess consensus on these views. After reading this RfC, I can say categorically that Wikipedians are dedicated to the ongoing development of a comprehensive, accurate, and constantly improving encyclopedia; however, there are very diverse views on how this can best be achieved.

There appears to be a broad consensus that:

• Unreferenced BLPs are only a small segment of potentially or actually problematic BLPs.
• There are reasons to place additional emphasis on the sourcing of BLPs, and that this category of articles is more sensitive to inaccuracy than others (although opinions on the degree to which they are more sensitive was subject to a broader spectrum of opinion).
• Deletion decisions should be made with human input, and should not solely rely on technical methods.
• Article creators, wikiprojects dedicated to improvement of unsourced BLPs, and wikiprojects dedicated to various topics should all be alerted to the existence of said articles, and be encouraged (and supported) in sourcing them. Several views discussed methods in which this information could be disseminated, some of which have already been put into place, and there was no significant opposition to this position.
  • Related to this was some discussion of whether there should be a significant site-wide campaign to involve a larger segment of the editing community in a BLP-sourcing project, which also did not meet with significant opposition.
• A smaller number of individuals pointed out the difficulty of maintaining and improving the constantly-enlarging encyclopedia while the number of regularly active contributors has remained relatively static in recent years; this view, while not very widely discussed, did not meet with significant opposition.
  • In this same vein, others pointed out that quality expectations have changed significantly over the years, and that there was no simple method for editors to identify articles they had created and/or significantly edited which required referencing. Prolific editors who have remained active over several years are just now discovering the extent to which they are being asked to improve and reference unsourced BLPs, many of which were created some years ago.

The three major positions presented were:

1. Mass deletion of all articles identified as biographies of living people that had no reference sources, with varying views on how this would be accomplished. Most related views implied that all unsourced BLPs would be deleted over a very short period (days to weeks), with minimal or no attempt to improve the articles.
2. No change in current deletion practices and no special deletion practices for BLPs, with most related views supporting sourcing unreferenced BLPs or at a minimum reviewing them to ensure they were properly categorized
3. Special PROD processes for BLPs, with widely diverse opinions on duration that articles would remain prodded, criteria for de-prodding, and the number of articles being prodded at any given time.

Related to all three of these views were concerns about how to best manage the reviewing of unsourced BLPs to (a) ensure they were actually unsourced, (b) prevent overloading of the relevant processes, and (c) prioritize which (subgroups of) articles would be reviewed, with soft or hard deadlines for various checkpoints, and a clear objective for completion of the reviews.

Consensus

Of these three broad categories of views, there is a surprisingly clear consensus that some form of BLP-PROD is the preferred method of addressing unsourced BLPs. The majority of opposition to each of the views proposing a BLP-PROD variation related to the length of time an article would be prodded (which ranged from 2 days to over a month), or some other factor specific to that proposal. A notable but small minority opposed the basic concept.

There was also a robust consensus that a separate process should be developed to address newly-created unreferenced BLPs, in order to prevent further accumulation of unsourced BLPs; however, fewer editors commented specific to this point, which arose in several views.

Objectives for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase II

• Develop consensus on the details of a BLP-PROD process, most critically on the duration of a BLP-PROD
• Develop a timeline with specific objectives to ensure that the current backlog of unsourced BLPs is reviewed and improved or otherwise addressed. Factors to consider include how to prioritize subgroups of articles within the process, development and centralisation of tools and resources for editors to identify and improve articles, and methods to involve the larger editing community.
• Develop consensus on standards for newly-created BLPs. Factors to consider include tools and processes to support new editors, integration of the process with new page patrol, and time frame for sourcing of new articles.

It is clear that our editing community has started to address the issues raised in this RfC, as several tools have been developed to assist editors in identifying and improving these articles; the number of unsourced BLPs has already been reduced by more than 10%. Continued effort to involve and support an even broader segment of the community should be considered an important priority; several communication tools have been discussed in the RfC.

Please address any questions or comments on this close to the adjacent talk page in order to centralise the discussion. This close is submitted under my own signature, independent of any other offices or permissions I hold. Risker (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any such consensus on further steps. This closure should be retracted and the idea of a new Prod postponed until it gains consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Please note: Phase I was improperly closed, and only one position was advocated, which was against the agreed upon intentions of closing this RFC for phase II originally. Okip 12:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Stop beating the horse, as its dead already. Scottaka UnitAnode 13:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
  • WP:POT Okip 13:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Phase II

BLP PROD process drafting

Establish the details of a BLP PROD process. This should probably be based on Jehochman's view (the variation on that theme which had by far the most support) as a baseline for discussion. However a process of this type has already been drafted at Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs, and moving discussion there to develop that proposed process would save time and energy - as well leaving more space for discussion here in this RFC of the other issues. Rd232 ^talk 11:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Details from Phase 1

This is the detail of the proposal made by User:Jehochman.

1. Any article that satisfies the attack page criteria should be deleted on sight.
2. Biographies of living persons (BLP) articles that are unreferenced should be proposed for deletion (prod).
3. Prodding should proceed at a reasonable rate to allow interested editors the chance to add sources. The volume of proposed deletions should not be unreasonably large. Discussion can establish what is a reasonable pace.
4. After five seven days, any article so tagged may be deleted, or moved to the Wikipedia:Article incubator if it shows promise.
5. Prod notices should not be removed, nor should articles be undeleted, unless proper references are added present. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references being present risks a block for disruption.
6. All editors are invited to participate in this BLP cleanup campaign.

The major objections to this were:

• The WP:PROD process should not be altered, so some other name should be used
• It is open to abuse
• The timeline is not specified
• PRODding should not happen without an attempt to source the article
• Article editors need to be notified of a pending deletion
• Quality of references to be added is unclear
• Some editors disagree with deletion as a solution altogether

These objections will need to be addressed in order to create a broadly supported policy, and as Rd232 suggests, Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs is probably the best place for this to continue. Kevin (talk) 22:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

New vs. Existing PROD process.

I would favor using the existing PROD process, with the flexibility for any editor to remove one or several PRODs in good faith. Like the traditional PROD process, the next step is for the PROD nominator to see if the problem still exists, and send the article to AfD if it has not. If we have general consensus to use a PROD process, then mass-PROD-removal would be considered disruptive, just as it is today. Jclemens (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

WT:PROD got nearer rejection than acceptance of changing PROD in the necessary way (to prevent removal of tag without adding sources) as totally contrary to the spirit of PROD. I suggest the way forward would be to list Wikipedia:Deletion of unreferenced BLPs on WP:CENT and develop that process based on Phase I discussion (which it's very compatible with), leaving open the possibility that the process so developed can be merged as a special section of PROD. (I doubt that would be acceptable, but the point is it needn't be settled now.) Rd232 ^talk 16:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The seven day period wait is ridiculously short, it is the same as zero. Editors who create unsourced BLPs *in good faith* are probably newbies who have not yet read the guidelines, cannot be expected to check their watchlists every day, will not quite understand what the prod means, and will not be able to respond to it in that time frame. So the handling of those BLPs will have to be done by experienced editors who are willing to take time from their personal wikiprojects to do community service. Source-or-die is basically a hostage situation: "either someone does what I want done, or I will kill the work of a random newbie". Since the tagger must at least read the article before tagging it, we can assume that attack pages have been speedily deleted and potentially problematic contents has been deelted. In that case, allowing the BLP to live for another month or another year will be a negligible risk, will avoid lots of bad feeelings, and will actually mean *less* work for everybody in the end. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 17:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Newbies who actually create an article tend to come back and see what happens, I think, on a short time scale of hours/days, when BLP-PROD tags would be applied. In any case it is not merely "source or delete" - articles may also get incubated, with the creator getting a notice. Articles will live at least a month in the incubator, and there's no reason we couldn't agree longer timespan for incubated BLP-PRODs. Rd232 ^talk 21:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Well if the asking rate is high, I think some people, including established editors will just put in fake sources, or add a ref at a end of one paragraph but it only covers the last part of the sentence. People try this all the time at FAR and hope that a reviewer will just see a cite at the end of the para and assume everything is accounted for, when it usually isn't. And it's enough to catch a lot of people. I wouldn't be surprised if heaps of people did it everywhere else either, especially if they then go and cite a non-English book that nobody could catch onto. Once I even saw someone reference an uncited FA by circularly referencing a copy of Wikipedia somewhere and sometimes even cutting and pasting a copyvio to solve the BLP unsourced. Unless people get down to basics, rules are pretty irrelevant, let's be frank, many rules on Wikipedia are just used selective to operate a caste system; eg one guy (admins) deleting sourced info that they don't like and citing BLP even though it was sourced to a newspaper, because the info didn't suit them, because undue weight or whatever, true or not, then they go and rv some guy who blanks uncited negative info, eg criminal behaviour by an opposition politician. People shouldn't be fooled by metrics as lots of people have and continue to make wiki-careers by gaming stats and making themselves look better. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars photo poll) 07:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Details from Phase 1: an alternative view

This should have been included weeks ago, when this RFC was improperly closed and only one position was advocated:

This is the comments made by User:DGG, which received the highest proportion of editors (91.67%):

For old articles, a procedure of summary deletion is particularly reckless. Of course we should we should work on them, at the pace at which we can manage it, with the special problem that the author is generally no longer be around to help. What I think is extremely dangerous is people nominating them or any article for deletion without first looking for sources, because it takes no more work to try for basic sourcing. We might even have a priority category for "I tried, but further help is needed." -- that's the sort of think I'd like to work on. What is even more dangerous is deletion without looking. As a related example, let me give the 40 prods of this nature I worked on in the last two days, about 10 were easily sourceable. About 5 were a real challenge--for some I too needed some help to do it right--and trying and not succeeding with them is not something anyone should be blamed for. The other half I decided could not be sourced in any reasonable way, or were so unlikely I at least wasn't going to bother, and I let them stand. But since they were prods, anyone else could look at them and try. Frequently I see ones I've given up on done easily by someone else. Some of the ones I found easily were ones where I can understand another person in perfect good faith might not think were likely enough to be worth the bother. That is the reason summary deletion is inappropriate--there are only a few special classes of things where one or two people can securely decide. Among the articles listed for deletion, and which could be deleted under the proposed ruling was one which was easily verifiable that the person was an ambassador, and one a member of a state legislature--things said on the face of the article. . In both cases, it took about a minute to source them. With respect to the arbitrary deletions we are concerned with, I note what Rebecca said above--deleting an article that is on its face probably notable without checking is about as destructive to the encyclopedia as one can get.

The offer to undelete on request in ludicrous as a solution--for most editors cannot see the articles to tell. For those of us who can, we would of course be able to check and see if we could source, and undelete if we could. I certainly would not undelete in this circumstance unless I could source, But relying on a few of us to check is only practical if the people deleting are more responsible than some of them so far have been.

Okip 13:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Needed modification: Already sourced

 Done

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

A huge percentage of the tagged "unsourced" BLPs actually have a reliable third party source or sources and were just tagged wrong. Taking Jehochman's proposal literally would allow someone to be blocked for deprodding already sourced articles. We need to reword to take into account articles that already had at least one reliable third party source. I have started a mini-wikiproject to help purge the unsourced BLP list of these improperly tagged articles Wikipedia:Mistagged BLP cleanup. We are helping to reduce the scope of this problem, but you can see our list is huge. We have well over 10,000 potentially mis-tagged articles left to go through. On that note, any help is appreciated. Gigs (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

this would logically be the very first round. -- And I just did 10-- 2 had adequate refs, 8 had something, but needed better. DGG ( talk ) 16:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. As you can see, it doesn't take long to do them. There's just so many that need to be done. Gigs (talk) 18:00, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Your conclusion here is ridiculous. No-one is going to be blocked for de-prodding sourced articles. Any process involving deletion of unsourced BLPs is going to include a human check before deletion, so no sourced articles should end up being deleted. Kevin (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not fix the flawed assumption that's built into the proposal? I might have been more inclined to believe that no one would take "ridiculous" actions based on overly literal interpretations if it weren't for the events that lead to this in the first place. Gigs (talk) 22:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not hard to fix... "unless proper references are addedpresent. Anybody who engages in mass de-prodding or undeletion without adding references present risks a block". I think the spirit of the proposal remains the same. Gigs (talk) 22:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. This is the way I read the proposal. Kevin (talk) 23:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Done as specified above. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 20:14, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Possibility to cap the number of BLP prods

There is a possibility to technically cap the total or daily number of active BLP prods, using an expression check on the number of pages in the respective categories; if the specified number is exceeded, then the template won't work. This provides a way to control the volume of proposed deletions to make it manageable (e.g. no jump to 1000 in a day which would submerge the whole process) and steadier. As a note, we can also do this with standard prods. Cenarium (talk) 18:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

No. This is not the sort of situation where such arbitrary limits should be imposed by technical means. Gurch (talk) 03:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe. I just say it's possible, not necessarily supporting it. A rate for BLP PRODS was brought up at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Phase I#A reasonable rate, but it's meaningless if there's no way to enforce that rate; though a technical way would be the most radical of approaches, at least we're sure that it'll work. Cenarium (talk) 16:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit of back pressure (negative feedback)can be applied rather than a hard limit, suggesting that the prod tagger go and look for some sources themselves first. Also instead of preventing addition, a backlog indicator could pop up, particular for the different projects so that it could encourage project members to address the pending prods. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not have a three state outcome?

When I sort out old stuff to file, I create three piles: file, junk and "need to think about". The third usually gets left on the heap for my next sort out cycle N moths later. Why? because the cost of making up my mind on this "grey" stuff is greater than the cost / benefit of trying to force it into black or white. An analogy, but let me map it into this process:

• There is some process, some variant of the above, where unreferenced BLPs are tagged BLP_PROD.
• Any editor can "adopt" an article by replacing the BLP_PROD tag with a BLP_NOREF tag where the editor names him or herself (through a mandatory parameter) as a facilitator for coordinating efforts to reference the BLP from the adoption date.
• Any editor can replace a BLP_PROD or BLP_NOREF article by BLP_REF if the article is adequately referenced. (This last doesn't transinclude visual text in the viewed article).
• A bot polices the BLP_PROD -> BLP_NOREF -> BLP_REF, and reverts to last if modified.
• The BLP_PROD articles are sentenced as suggested.
• The BLP_NOREF flags are cleared by a bot after a fixed period -- say 3 months, and the article is them eligible for the next unreference BLP sweep. BLP_REFs are cleared if there are no references.

So why do I suggest this?

• The fact that an editor need to know that one can only replace BLP_PROD tags with BLP_NOREF or BLP_REF means that he or she has gone to the bother to read (and hopefully to understand the process).
• Some editor has to be willing to put his name an article to keep it grey. If no one does then its probably not a notable BLP anyway.
• With any process there will always be a 20% or whatever grey zone. Wikipedia will benefit far more if we focus editors on the 80% or whatever and sentence that properly, than getting into heated arguments about the 20%.

This isn't about making Wikipedia perfect in one go, its about a sensible minimum cost, minimum controversy step improvement. -- TerryE (talk) 20:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support: Yeah I think this IS a feasible idea. Harsh Mujhse baat kijiye(Talk) 04:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• No, this is basically article ownership and goes against the benefits of a wiki format, and has other problems as well. Gigs (talk) 03:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose: I also think this is article ownership and I think it is open to lots of potential abuse.-Schnurrbart (talk) 06:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Well we should not make it look as if no one else can edit or delete the article, but it should just look as if someone has offered to improve the article. The nominated user does not have to appear on the visible article display. Also instead of a user it could have a project or projects that have offered to lend a hand. I like the idea of BLP_PROD being different to the PROD, so that different action can be taken. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support -- If we're going to prod, this has a lot of potential. Maurreen (talk) 12:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC) And this has nothing to do with ownership. It's not taking anything away from anyone. It's a matter of claiming responsibility. Maurreen (talk) 12:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support -- This makes sense to me. If someone is willing to fix an unrefed bio, then it shouldn't be deleted willy nilly before they have a chance to do it. But there should be a time frame, perhaps a week or two, and then there needs to be a nudge, or reversion to the previous status. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support in principle Intriguing idea. Durova⁴¹² 02:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support -- This seems like a good solution. --Magicus69 23:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Backlog handling

Develop a timeline with specific objectives to ensure that the current backlog of unsourced BLPs is reviewed and improved or otherwise addressed. Factors to consider include how to prioritize subgroups of articles within the process, development and centralisation of tools and resources for editors to identify and improve articles, and methods to involve the larger editing community.

I would like to see the backlog cleared within 9 months at most. Before we have a discussion on theis, it would be useful to know roughly what percentage of articles tagged as unsourced are actually unsourced. I had a look at 50 random samples from 2009, and found that 80% were unsourced. If that sample is representative, then today we have 36000 articles to either source or delete, and 9000 to fix the tagging. In the past 3 weeks we have reduced the backlog by about 6000, so a target of 6000/month, or 6 months, seems achievable. Kevin (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I stand by my suggestion that 100/day be PROD'ed. That may only be 3,000 a month, but it's a number that's more sustainable over the long haul. Furthermore, I'd be in favor of some method of PRODding unsourced BLPs that emphasized ones with "target words", are unwatched or have the fewest watchers, and are higher traffic. A combination of these criteria should help us fix or eliminate the "worst" offenders first. Jclemens (talk) 04:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the priority on PROD'ing the most likely to be problematic based on "target words", low watch weight and high traffic. Selecting on these, then adding human review, should help to pinpoint our worst quality problems. But without the human review, and I don't mean a quick skim over, we deletion mania. -- RavanAsteris (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Some of that information is going to be difficult to obtain, and I am more in favour of starting with the oldest, for which categories already exist. Kevin (talk) 04:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• We need to deal with a certain number of these articles per day in order to work through the backlog in a reasonable timescale, but proposing articles for deletion is not the only solution. While the backlog is being reduced by editing and improvement, there's no justification for additional indiscriminate prodding - if anything it will divert editors away from sourcing the articles that they are individually best able to source.--Michig (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree there. Editors know best about where they can be the most effective. Forcing people to work on random articles should be a phase that happens after the "organic" improvement has stalled out or at least slowed down. See Alverstrand's proposal below as well. Gigs (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• Regarding timescales, 9 months should be reasonable I believe - if the backlog continues to reduce at anywhere near the rate that it has done in the last few weeks, the backlog should be cleared well within this timescale. I would suggest that progress be reviewed on a monthly basis, and that any sort of mass-prodding only be considered if it becomes clear that sourcing/manual reviewing and prodding isn't likely to clear the backlog.--Michig (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• I am a new user to Wikipedia in term of editing so forgive me for my ignorance, if any. I think, that mass deletion should not be an option. I would also suggest that a template be developed warning user AND prospective editors that such and such article is un-sourced. Also I would suggest making a WikiPrject for PROD articles so that they can be reviewed by editors devoted to sourcing of material in Wikipedia articles. --Harsh Mujhse baat kijiye(Talk) 04:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by Alvestrand: Edit first, with prod backup

NOTE: In the below, I ONLY speak of the backlog as it is today - that is, any article tagged after January 2010 (date debatable) should belong to some other process.

Let's set a timeline for the backlog, and start two processes to compete with each other to complete the timeline.

There's Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons which attempts to encourage editors to do the sourcing work. And there's the deletion process. this process is manual, and its speed will depend on the number and energy of the editors who do it. So there needs to be a backup plan.

I suggest that we aim for a linear reduction of the backlog to zero on Jan 1, 2011, or (extrapolating between 50.000 at the beginning of this year and zero a year later) a reduction by around 140 entries per day.

I suggest that every 10 days, a script counts the size of the backlog. If the backlog fails to drop to the target amount for that day, the excess number of random articles from the backlog are PRODed. (The reason for random is that some people work on specific places, others work on specific types. Random hits them all equally.)

The PROD process should be done 7-8 days later, reducing the backlog to the target number + any editor work done, and the cycle can start over. If the editors manage to handle 140 articles per day or more, no PROD will happen.

My thought. --Alvestrand (talk) 05:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

support

1. Great idea. It tackles the problem in a systematic way, and it pushes editors to take care of the problem. nice! Okip (formerly Ikip) 06:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
2. Strong support the backlog is falling, and falling fast. It was over 54,000 when we started, now it's at 45,402. If and when it flattens out, then we can take more extreme measures like mass tagging for deletion. Let editors prioritize the backlog, not a mechanical process of tagging. Once we get down to the "hard ones" we can start making ultimatums. Gigs (talk) 18:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
3. Kind of support. (I'd prefer no prods at all, but this so far is my favorite of the prod proposals.) I like this idea that there's an enforced pace, but editors can source the ones they want. It's nice that if we are making good progress, PRODs don't happen. This is good for morale. I also like that the tagging is random and by bot. This avoids drama and makes it so people don't get mad at taggers in some sort of twisted shoot the messenger way. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Per Calliopejen. Durova⁴¹² 02:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Agreed with Gigs. DotKuro (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

discussion

• I think it would be useful to get some measure of the rate at which the community is currently dealing with the backlog without any changes to policy being made, which currently appears to be a rate that's very encouraging. Editors judging each article on its merits, adding sources where possible, PRODding or taking to AFD if appropriate, is far prefereable to some automated mass PRODding regime. A log of how the backlog is reducing would be useful to measure progress, but unless it starts to look like the existing efforts are not working, I'm not in favour of this change. There is now a WikiProject looking at this issue, and I would encourage more editors to get involved. The project needs, I think, to decide on a systematic approach to dealing with the backlog, and the de facto strategy appears to be to start with those tagged earliest. Several months of tagged articles have already been processed, and there are now no articles that have been tagged as unsourced BLPs for more than 3 years - I believe that a couple of weeks ago, we had a substantial number from as far back as October 2006. --Michig (talk) 10:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I suspect that if someone kept the stats, you would see a logarithmic decline in the sourcing rate on that backlog for two reasons: 1. people lose interest after a brief burst. 2. Once the low hanging fruit is picked off, the challenge increases. Ultimately, I do believe this change is necessary, especially when you consider that this 50k backlog we began with was only the unsourced BLP's that have actually been tagged. That said, the 10% reduction in the known backlog is incredibly significant, and something I hope the indiscriminate deletors will take notice of. Resolute 15:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Someone is keeping stats, so we'll see if you're right (and you very well may be). To my mind, having the hard cases go to PROD is a reasonable outcome; they're hard because they're marginal. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

not only because they are marginal, but about as often because they are in fields that are relatively difficult to work with. ` DGG ( talk ) 16:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• The random prodding sounds a bit ugly to me. But the idea of feedback to encourage faster work is a good idea. If we can find a way to advertise, alert notices on peoples talk pages, we may be able to get renewed action when people lose interest. We probably also need to recognize those difficult fields that DGG has mentioned. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• If we can't find anyone who has kept stats, who would be willing to start taking them for the next month or so? DotKuro (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by Coffee; a means to an end

Taking notes from the previous RFC, probably the best way to solve this would be to somehow appease both sides. Why I agree with the gist of Jclemens' proposal, I don't see it going anywhere. So instead we should lay it out as follows:

Phase I

• All unsourced BLPs will be tagged at one time with a form of PROD, that is extended per where it falls in the category in divisions of 1,749 (45,489 / 26 [an arbitrary number per the number of letters in the alphabet, therefore providing the same allotted time while keeping the backlog evenly distributed]), this PROD tag cannot be removed until there are substantial sources added. Timeline is as follows:
  • Starting at March 1, 2010:
    • Articles between Aamani - Jensen Atwood will have until March 15, 2010 to be sourced.
    • Articles between Donna Atwood - Nabin Bhattarai Will have until April 1, 2010.
    • Articles between Aqueel Bhatti - Graham Burnett Will have until April 15, 2010.
    • Articles between Mikey Burnett - Agnieszka Chylińska Will have until May 1, 2010.
    • (etc.)

Option to Stubify:

• While waiting for sources to be added (which according to the timeline will take up to April of 2011) any article can be reduced to an easily sourced stub.

"Unsourced" Caveat:

• Any BLP that does not have reliable third party sources, is also considered to be unsourced and will be added to the timeline.

Phase II

• After March 1, 2010, any new unsourced BLP, or newly found unsourced BLP, will be incubated immediately (preferably by a bot if possible), therefore removing it from the Google results while allowing it time to be sourced and wikified; these articles will have no more than 2 weeks to be fixed, and will be deletable after the time expires.
  • Any WikiProject which the article might fall under may be notified of the article, to publicize the article's need for sources.
  • These articles would be at one easy to track location: WP:URBLP/Incubation.
• CSD policy still applies, of course, and therefore attack articles may still be deleted on sight.

The timeline provides for 124 articles to be sourced every day, which is a good average to work with. This type of timeline gives the editors more than plenty of time to source the articles that can be sourced, and at the same time assures that if they aren't sourced that they will be deleted without prejudice. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

• Support - As author. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 09:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support I appreciate Coffee's good faith efforts to amicably resolve this issue, where the entire community can work together. Okip 08:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Per my work in BLPs, as I wrote here. I still support moving BLPs to non-index project space, but with no time limit for deletion. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 12:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support I can find no fault. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - an excellent compromise with a firm basis is the opinions of all at the RfC Fritzpoll (talk) 11:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Sets hard deadlines with milestones for when this problem needs to be addressed, which is of vital importance to any successful solution. One controversial point may be that we have to review the dates as they approach so that if something is being done, but we won't hit the deadline, we could move the date so that we don't prematurely delete articles. The dates seem a little fast to me right now, but that's a knee-jerk reaction. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support the general concept, although I would suggest a couple modifications. I disagree (but not enough to oppose, as some below have) with using a simple alpha sort to set dates for blocks of articles, sorting by date created seems far more sensible. I've also seen suggestions that a bot could prioritize articles by "problem potential" (higher traffic, fewer watchers, keywords etc.); I think this would be best if it could be implemented. I think two weeks per block is reasonable, but instead of setting blocks of ~1700 articles every 2 weeks, why not set blocks of ~125 every day? Each block of 125 will still have 2 weeks; once we're two weeks into implementation, 125 PRODs will expire every day. This seems more manageable than having a possible mad rush around the 15th and 30th of every month when 1700 PRODs expire all at once. I hope at least some of that made sense. Wine Guy~Talk 09:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support It sounds well planned out to me. Very systematic. Brambleclawx 01:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support with qualifications -- Instead of being by alpha, it needs to be organized by creation date, and there needs to be more than 2 weeks. The other elements seem reasonable, especially if that would keep an unsourced bio k out of the google results and the mirror sites. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• 'Support - I'm actually supporting any suggestions that even vaguely consider a proactive system of deleting the deadwood and actively preventing more creations of unsourced BLPs.
• Support. You know you have a compromise when neither party is entirely satisfied! I would prefer it to go by creation date rather than alphabetically, but this is a realistic, sensible suggestion that deals with the problem while allowing time for it to be fixed. If an article is deleted that has the potential to be a decent, sourced article, it can always be restored, userfied or the text emailed by any admin. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 02:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Staging them by the date of creation, as Jimbo proposed, is far more sensible. Also, Jimbo proposed a far more realistic schedule, with 3 months notice for every year-worth of articles. Pcap ping 13:41, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• I support this in principle, but going alphabetically would mean poor Zebediah Zwicke would have his BLP unsourced for another year. I'm perfectly fine, however, with this proposal if we can randomly set a date for sourcing upon prodding. If we can randomly set a date for when the article must be sourced between two weeks and a year, that'd be better; we'd have a manageable and approximately uniform distribution of BLPs to sort out every fortnight. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  I can completely see where you're coming from on this, Sceptre. The problem is really that any dividing up of the BLP backlog into chunks is going to be relatively arbitrary. None of these biographies should be left unsorted for any longer than necessary, but someone's always has to be done last and any proposal can be opposed on that basis. You're free to disagree, of course and say that a different division is less arbitrary - but I genuinely think that this is the closest thing to consensus that we will get and if it is chucked out, we may have no process and no deadline. If you can live with the proposal in general, I ask that you reconsider your opposition. Best wishes, Fritzpoll (talk) 15:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  I like Jimbo's proposal more. It's more realistic since thousands of articles are in play and finding references is preferable to deletion; it's less demoralizing to the community and more productive. If every regular contributor tackles one article a day (which is not gonna happen) the task would still be enormous. We need more time and need to take in consieration the fact that this situation has arisen because the policy has evolved, not because of vandals or people who disprespect the project; thus this should not be a punitive process. I definitely think all unreferenced BLPs can be pulled from Google search with a bot immediately.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 21:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose unless modified This will only work if equal stress is laid on sourcing articles as deleting them. The simplest way of keeping this in proportion is that for each article placed on prod , the prodder must work on one article someone else has placed there, and make a good faith effort to source it with appropriate resources and say what they have tried. Alternatively, the person who places it on prod must place on the talk page a statement that they themselves have tried all reasonable sources, and indicate where and how they have looked. In either case the time proposed will be accomplished only if the people who have been nominating articles actually try to fix them too, and many more people also: that is highly desirable. Any article coming off prod without having been worked on a a statement than someone has properly looked will be considered reason to slow down the system, so this will give great encouragement to people willing to improve articles.
  
  additionally, this can't apply to presently poorly sourced articles, because my experience is that about half the existing bios have inadequate sourcing on significant points, at least by my standard. Every BLP is always problematic, for new material may develop, either in their life or in the writings about them. We should certainly improve the situation, but it will probably be an unending process. Normally, the person who adds an article cannot fully source everything necessary, and the articles take time to develoo. That can be checked by looking at featured BLPs: for the first one I looked , compare Elaine Paige with the version two full years after it was created: [hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elaine_Paige&oldid= 28728547], or Jarome Iginla with the two-year old [1]. The net effect of that part of the proposal will be to limit biographies to famous people. The proposal for new articles will similarly prevent most from being started, and discourage many new editors. I know there are editors who think we should have many fewer bios, and this may be the means to accomplish that end. DGG ( talk ) 16:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Are you honestly trying to say that 124 articles a day is too much to handle? That would only take 13 people adding sources to 10 articles a day, which is insanely easy. Another thing, there won't be random people adding these PROD tags to articles, a bot will do all of that work, therefore there won't be any of that "if you add a PROD tag, you have to remove a PROD tag" bullcrap. I seriously don't see how you can claim that 124 articles a day is too much to handle, especially with all the people at WP:ARS who love to save articles. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 17:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
    • 124 a day is actually quite a few. For comparison there are 576 articles currently proposed for deletion as I write this, which equates to only about 80 a day, and that number would probably have been less before the unsourced BLP controversy got going. Hut 8.5 17:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
      • You have to try to compromise; I have gone to extreme levels to make this as much of a compromise as possible, and even at that rate it's still going to take over a year to resolve just this one issue with BLPs. Postponing it any longer would be insane, if we waited longer we might as well sit on our hands and do nothing about the problem at all, which was the way we seemed to handle things for the past few years. As I said above and below 13 people sourcing 10 articles a day is not something worth complaining about. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Argue about changing the number / time period, sure, but I would caution that if no process whatsoever comes out of the RfC process, there is a nontrivial possibility/probability of IAR/out-of-process deletions, now implicitly ArbCom-endorsed, resuming and I think no one except the most hardline of BLPers wants that. I vote for this as a moderate compromise to avoid said far worse outcome. --Cybercobra (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Work in this area so far has found that the vast majority of unreferenced BLPs are acccurate and not BLP violations. It appears that no mechanism has been put into place to track which articles would be deleted this way or to recover the content lost. So the net result of this would be a substial loss to the database plus a substantial drain of volunteer time and goodwill away from higher priority BLP problems. Durova⁴¹² 02:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per DGG. Unless those pushing for deletion have a stick or carrot associated with actually doing work rather than just complaining nothing will actually improve. Hobit (talk) 03:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments above. Okip 13:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Given that letter frequency distribution is not uniform, this will cause some fortnights to have significantly many more articles threatened with deletion than others. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Aye, which is why it's smart to tag them all at once, therefore allowing fluctuation per the editor's discretion. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't see the advantage of over just getting a bot to do the math and determine the deadlines based on the number of articles. e.g. "The X number of unreferenced BLPs, Adam Adam-Ahmid Ahmid will have a deadline of Y. The next X number of unref BLPs Aijim Aijim-Aziz Aziz will have a deadline of Y + 1 fortnight. etc..." --Cybercobra (talk) 08:00, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Note taken, I'm getting results now. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 08:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Last comment tonight, I like Cybercobra's idea, which builds on your excellent idea Coffee. I think Cybercobra is on the cusp of supporting your idea, as I am. Okip 08:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
        • To clarify (it seems I might not have explained clearly enough), I had intended X to equal some number agreed upon beforehand as a "manageable" number of BLP-prods per time-unit, rather than just an arbitrary division by 26. Not that 1,749/fortnight is patently unreasonable, it just wasn't arrived at via the method I had meant. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
          • 124 articles per day seems a fairly reasonable amount to me, which is what the currently proposed system allots. Do you agree? — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 09:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

124 articles seems more than reasonable. Okip (formerly Ikip) 09:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• (dedent) No idea personally; I do conjecture that determining that number will probably be contentious and involve haggling. Now my only concern is the potential abuse of the "Separate Tagging for Possibly Problematic BLPs" provision; since there's the "Option to Stubify", I don't think it's necessary. Such pages can either be stubbified or probably fall under an existing CSD. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I think the current PROD rules already cover this adequately, so nice job removing it Coffee. Okip (formerly Ikip) 09:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, in its current form. There are many problems with this proposal. First, what exactly constitutes "unsourced" is not specified and subject to abuse. The vast majority of BLPs have no contentious or controversial material. A great many of them have, in the External link section, a link to the subject's homepage, that can usually be used to verify noncontroversial basic info (education employment, current position etc). This is an allowable form of using a slelf-published source per WP:V and such articles should not be considered unsourced, even if the link in question is listed in the External links rather than in the References section. There also needs to be a provision for dealing with abuse of BLP-prods, in cases where such prods are placed obviously incorrectly. Finally, there needs to be a provision for an automatic remand to an AfD if someone wants to contest a prod but does not have time or resources to look for sources. In an AfD such issues can be discussed in detail and with a more substantive participation of other users. Cutting of an AfD route by disallowing a prod removal without adding sources is bad because it artificially prevents a substantive discussion about the article from taking place. Also, the cases of incorrect BLP-prod placement could be dealt with in an AfD. Finally, I find the basic idea of mass indiscriminate prodding, based purely on the date of creation and "unsourced" status, problematic, as it will likely lead to deletion of a large number of easily sourceable and improvable articles on notable subjects. Those desiring clean-up should invest their energy in a more constructive clean-up endeavor. E.g. go through the list of unsourced BLPs (possibly even arranged by date). When you see one, do a few quick google searches. If it looks like the subject is notable, add a few sources yourself or add it to a clean-up list for an appropriate wikiproject page (many wikiprojects have. If the subject is not notable, prod the article, or BLP-prod it (whatever). But indiscriminately prodding a ton of articles without looking at them more carefully would result in too many unnecessary deletions, something that would do more harm than good to the project. Nsk92 (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • You're trying to argue something that would have been appropriate for the last RFC. There's no question that there are going to be tens of thousands of articles put up for deletion, the question now is how to go about doing that. IMO having 1,749 articles up for deletion every two weeks, is plenty of time for people to source the articles; it also provides motivation for the problem to get fixed, instead of just saying, "We'll get to it eventually after we do some google searches in few years.", which does nothing to solve the problem, it's instead only a way to try to postpone it. Can you honestly tell me to my face that having 10 or more people source 13 or so articles a day is too much work? — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 17:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I did argue this point in the RfC, but the RfC itself was something of a circus, and a free-for-all, with too much flag-waving and too little in terms of rational arguments. I am not at all sure that the RfC has actually resulted in any meaningful consensus on what to do and how to do it. Although I think that the idea of a BLP-prod is largely redundant, I would support implementing a BLP prod, provided it is properly designed. Even if one takes for granted that hundreds or thousands of articles will need to be BLP-prodded and deleted, there is still a question of how to do it in a sane manner, without too much notable and improvable material being lost and without too many editors driven away from the project. My point is that prodding an article without looking at it more closely and trying to do at least a cursory notability check is pretty dangerous and irresponsible, and not something that should be done indiscriminately and en masse. It is like playing with fire: you are hoping that someone else will have the time to check if the sources exist and add them; but people are busy, things could easily fall through the cracks and an easily improvable article on a notable subject may be deleted. If this happens on a large scale, this will cause way more harm than it does good. I think that a person placing a prod has the responsibility to do at least a quick notability check himself/herself. Often that takes just a few seconds. If you find that an article is unsourced but you see that the subject is notable, the correct thing to do is either add a few sources yourself or add it to a clean-up list for an appropriate wikiproject, but certainly not prod it. My other comment concerns how a BLP-prod is supposed to work. My point is that a user contesting such a prod should have two options: add sources and remove a prod, or remove a prod and list an article for an AfD. This will allow for a more substantive discussion, with a larger number of users involved, in complicated and non-transparent cases. Another point, which needs to be addressed under any version of a BLP-prod proposal, is the definition of "unreferenced"/"unsourced". This point needs to be clarified explicitly in any BLP-prod proposal if it is to have a chance of working. Nsk92 (talk) 18:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I can pretty much say for anyone on the BLP protection side of the debate, that this is as low as we're going to stoop for a compromise; so either this idea gets accepted, or back to the IAR way of mass deletions we go. We aren't waiting for people to randomly add sources to these articles, instead we're looking for a way to motivate people to actually get the job done not just more complaining about the fact that there will be a timeline. A bot or script will tag these articles, so your idea that a quick Google search be done is not sensible for quite a few factors; one of them being that it's going to take over a year per even this proposal, and meticulously looking over each article before even adding a PROD tag to it would stretch the timeline out so far it wouldn't be fixing the problem at all. Make a compromise, or don't expect us to listen at all. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Speaking in the "royal we" now? Gigs (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
          • The royal we would be a style of speech employed by the King of Bigdealistan to make sure that everyone knows he is an important fellow who wears fancy pants. Coffee was clearly not talking about himself, but rather says he is probably speaking "for anyone on the BLP protection side of the debate," thus he is using "we" not in the "royal" sense but rather the traditional "me and some other people" sense. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
            • My point was, when threatening to take disruptive actions against community consensus, Coffee probably only speaks for himself, and shouldn't invoke the false authority of a nebulous "we". Gigs (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the same rfc not a different one. It was repeatedly pointed out at the time that the rfc was paused that the pause was to allow information to be organised and allow people to have a better idea of the key themes without having to read through the mountains of text. Attempts to claim victory for one side or the other based on half an rfc are an abuse of the process.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Please, lets put aside coffee's take it or leave comments, which don't help further things at all. Keep in mind that I have consistently been the editor who advertised the disruptive actions of the parties probably more than any one editor. So why do I support Coffee's proposal?

Lets take Coffee's ideas at face value. Keep in mind that Coffee's idea here were not created in a vacuum. Coffee integrated many ideas which myself, Themfromspace, niteshift36, admin Hobit, and many other editors from all aspects have suggested in the past, too many editors to recognize here. Coffee's proposal builds on the work of arbcom Fritzpoll and ThaddeusB, who created WP:Article Incubator. It is a comprimise which will solve the backlog in a systematic non-disruptive way.

When this arbcom started at 21 January 2010, we were at 52,000 unreferenced BLPs, today we are at 45,000. That is 7,000 articles we as a community have referenced in 17 days, and the pace will only increase as more wikiprojects get involved. I can reference 40 articles in a day, 1/3 of the 124 proposed, this is very doable folks. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 22:12, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Mass prod tagging will lead to random passers-by untagging articles of clearly notable people without understanding what we are doing here. When people see that the leading person in their field is "proposed for deletion" they aren't going to understand the 100 pages of discussion that lead us to this seemingly irrational conclusion of proposing a clearly notable person for deletion. We should minimize the amount of time that any prod tags are on articles, so that the outside world doesn't freak out and unknowingly sabotage us. Gigs (talk) 18:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • A bot can easily place the tags back and warn the person if they remove the tags without adding at least some sort of reference. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 18:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
    • A bot can't determine whether an article is referenced or not. If one could then we wouldn't be working through the 10,000-15,000 potentially mistagged "unreferenced" BLPs by hand. Besides, can you imagine all the drama when drive-by editors get into edit wars with the bot? I can see the dozens of news stories now "Wikipedia thinks <prominent obviously notable> person shouldn't have an article! This proves their socialist/fascist/conservative bias!". You really want a lot of news stories like that? Gigs (talk) 18:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
      • To be clear, I'm not opposing the rate of 124 a day, or anything in that ball park. I oppose tagging them all up front. It will cause a lot of problems. If your proposal was to actually tag 124 per day, that would be fine with me. I still support waiting until the natural reduction of the backlog levels off before prodding anything. Gigs (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
        • A tag to delete something a year from now is actually beneficial. It puts everyone on notice. This will actually help editors sourcing faster. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 22:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Gigs, we can word the tag in such a way that it is very newbie friendly. This hasn't really been done before, but with editors such as yourself adding input to the tag we could make it very helpful, even linking to wikiprojects to help editors. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 22:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I may just be a stickler for keeping things tidy, but shouldn't "Phase I" be a separate proposal under the "backlog" subheading, and "Phase II" be a proposal under this heading? I'll leave it to the proposer to make the move. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• The third party sourcing issue needs clarifying. On one of the articles I have managed to source some important facts to third party sources, but some depend on the subjects personal website. More could eventually be sourced independently, but some good information may only be sourceable to the subject. If there is enough out there to establish notability, then material that is not puffery should still be acceptable from non-third party sources.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Coffee has proposed a good time scale. But I would contest that one person can source 10 articles per day. I have been doing some, and to do it properly, sourcing every statement takes far longer. I would also be unhappy with turning articles into stubs without a banner to announce that has happened. When sourcing such an article we really want to source the whole article, not just a basic stub. I also prefer Jimbo's method of breaking up the job by time rather than alphabetically. But we will also find that the job is broken down by project, and the problem will be the unclaimed articles. I would also suggest that the BLP unsourced banner has some buttons to click to say whether attempts have been made to source, and it now in the difficult basket, or the too hard basket. Also it could have a tick to say if it has been assigned to a project with BLP no source rectification taskforce. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
  • We don't need to source every statement. A single source is enough to make them not "totally unsourced" and put them outside the scope of the current efforts. Gigs (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - I don't support any mass PRODing effort like this one. The backlog is declining steadily through the use of existing processes, and any new process should help facilitate the reduction of the backlog in a meaningful way. Any new BLP-PRODs should be properly listed at DELSORT so interested Wikiprojects and editors can track articles in their field of expertise. An arbitrary tagging through the alphabet is the wrong way to go. Jogurney (talk) 23:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'd have to agree that if there were some form of mass staging, it would need to go by some criterion other than simply what letter of the alphabet it happens to fall under — because it's really quite arbitrary to decide that an unreferenced BLP of someone whose name begins with Z has six months more time than someone whose name begins with A, just because her name begins with Z instead of A. Bearcat (talk) 07:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Who cares? At least it would solve the current problems within a year. Sitting around complaining over the specific method that's used to clear the backlog, is just a way to try to tie up this RFC to no consensus. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 10:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Nonsense. Please read WP:AGF and consider that the backlog has decreased steadily since November 2009, and that much of the growth during 2009 was simply down to an organized effort to tag the unreferenced BLPs. People are making the backlog since insummountable when it is so clearly not. We need tools to facilitate the clearing of the backlog with existing deletion processes (which work perfectly well). Jogurney (talk) 12:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Well if you think that one year is too short to fix the problems, you're contradicting yourself. What happens after the RFC closes and nothing has changed? The usual shit of course, with people saying "we'll get around to it eventually"; that is a prospect I'm not willing to accept. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 13:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
        • I think you misunderstand me. I believe the first RfC has been very constructive and certainly drew more attention to the backlog (while thousands of artlces were removed from the backlog during 2009, the pace has picked up substantially since the first RfC). I understand that several editors have been working on tools to help Wikiprojects tackle the backlog. That is the kind of approach that is needed, not arbitrary deadlines and summary deletion. It's really silly to suggest that the usual stuff will happen if these RfCs result in no new mass-deletion process. Jogurney (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
        • (edit conflict) I find the ultimatumist rhetoric used by some parties in these RfCs rather concerning; I still see your proposal as the moderate compromise one, but such comments do not help reinforce that perception. --Cybercobra (talk) 13:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
          • oppose. I could support this if not for the arbitrary deadlines. And Bot Tagging? Srsly? On one hand you state that the proposed number of articles that need inproved is a reasonable workload for who is improving them(which is more time consuming than tagging) yet think that tagging manually is too time consuming???? that doesn't make sense to me. I could support removing the articles from the main article space by the deadline, but not deleting them.--Marhawkman (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose any sort of mass-prodding, especially by a bot. Too many mistakes have already happened, including by me. Bearian (talk) 15:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Far too many of the BLPs tagged as {{unsourcedBLP}} are actually incorrectly tagged and should have been tagged as {{RefimproveBLP}}. So rather than a bot it needs to be a human checking if the article really is totally unsourced, and also checking that the article hasn't simply been vandalised... I'm also concerned with the granularity of this, it isn't as bad as Jimbo's suggestion but I fear that every fortnight there would be a frenetic last minute salvage operation that could lead to last minute rushed and poor quality salvaging. I would be somewhat mollified if the prodding was Y articles prodded per day rather than 14xY prodded per fortnight. ϢereSpielChequers 12:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• oppose: I don't believe in mass prodding efforts like this and I also don't believe in one group of editors setting up ultimative deadlines for other editors to follow - thats not what the wikipedia I know and like is about. Coffee says that sourcing 124 articles in two weeks is easy - but somehow I don't have a feeling that he will be chipping many hours in himself towards that workload. The proposal then, is simply being generous with other peoples time. To me the issue boils down to that - we need to respect volunteers time if we want this encyclopedia to work: mass deletions and issuing ultimatums to editors is not the right way of going about that. Then comes the problems with doing it alphabetically instead of by creation date which is just arbitrary and not based on any reasoning.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:44, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Manus' phrase: "being generous with other peoples time" is really quite good as a characterization of one of the many problems we face.--Mdukas (talk) 17:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: I oppose the concept of mass prodding as a whole, but in particular, this proposal's timespans are entirely unreasonable. Furthermore, as above editors have stated, alphabetical prodding is entirely arbitrary. This seems to be a proposal with the intent of cleaning out pages tagged "Unreferenced BLP" rather than cleaning up the encyclopedia. -M.Nelson (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: I too oppose mass deletions, and mass proposals for deletion. E A (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to Coffee's proposal by Phantomsteve

I would propose that instead of having the order being decided by the surname of the subject, that it is based on date.

Here is my rough working out:

• Starting at March 1, 2010:
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Feb-Aug 2007 will have until March 15, 2010 to be sourced. (2084 articles = 139 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Sep 2007-Jan 2008 will have until April 1, 2010 to be sourced. (2398 articles = 160 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Feb-Apr 2008 will have until April 15, 2010 to be sourced. (2100 articles = 140 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in May-Aug 2008 will have until May 1, 2010 to be sourced. (2386 articles = 160 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Sep-Nov 2008 will have until May 15, 2010 to be sourced. (1880 articles = 126 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Dec 2008 will have until June 1, 2010 to be sourced. (1308 articles = 88 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Jan 2009 will have until June 15, 2010 to be sourced. (2112 articles = 140 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Feb 2009 will have until July 1, 2010 to be sourced. (1724 articles = 114 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in Mar-May 2009 will have until August 1, 2010 to be sourced (1 month). (5754 articles = 192 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in June 2009 will have until September 1, 2010 to be sourced (1 month). (5591 articles = 186 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in July 2009 will have until September 15, 2010 to be sourced. (2764 articles = 185 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in August 2009 will have until October 15, 2010 to be sourced (1 month). (5417 articles = 181 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in September 2009 will have until November 1, 2010 to be sourced. (2383 articles = 159 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in October 2009 will have until November 15, 2010 to be sourced. (2023 articles = 135 per day)
  • Articles tagged as unreferenced in November - December 2009 will have until November 15, 2010 to be sourced. (1875 articles = 125 per day)

Obviously, the precise figures/dates can be debated (because of the varying numbers of tags per month, the figures above mean having to deal with between 88 and 192 articles per day!)

The above timetable would mean that

• all of the articles tagged in 2007 would be cleared by the end of April 2010
• all of the articles tagged in 2008 would be cleared by the end of June 2010
• all of the articles tagged in 2009 would be cleared by the end of November 2010.

Assuming 2000 tags per month (which will probably be lower most months), and assuming we can source 4000 per months (i.e. 133 articles per day), we would be up-to-date by November 2011 (i.e. in November 2011, there will only be articles tagged in November 2011 which will be unsourced BLPs) -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 12:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. As proposer -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 12:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
2. While not as evenly distributed as my proposal, this one is also an option. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 19:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
3. for me, the distribution here seems a tad more comfortable than Cofee's above. Buggie111 (talk) 20:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
4. I like that this is going to deal with the ones which have had the longest time to be sourced first Shadowmaster13 (talk) 08:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. per above. Okip 13:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments

1. If this is going to be done, I think a better rate would be 100 per day, to the degree feasible. Maurreen (talk) 21:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
2. This is heading in a direction that I could support, but I don't like this for two reasons. First, it's too grainular---I'd rather not break it down to such nitty gritty. Third, the proposals should be written "from the end of the rfc" By the time the RfC is over, the timeline above is suddenly condensed. Third, I prefer a timeline more along the lines proposed by Jimbo.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by WFCforLife: Counter-prod if we dip below the current rate

I propose that we set a target rate, based on the rate the backlog has been reduced until now. If we continue sourcing at or above that level, we do not prod any articles on that day. If the rate dips on a given day, we prod as many articles as the shortfall. For simplicity, I'm going to pretend that the backlog has been reduced at 400 a day until now, and that this proposal is introduced today. If we source 500 today, no articles from the backlog get prodded. If however we only manage 300, 100 will be prodded, starting from the beginning of the alphabet.

This would allow editors to continue sourcing based on their strengths and interests, rather than worry about the arbitrary date it was tagged on. It motivates individual projects to stay ahead of the rest of the encyclopaedia, knowing that if they do so, their articles will not be up for the chop. It also attempts to draw a reasonable balance between those fearing that this process will stall if the backlog is not dealt with quickly enough, and those worried that the proposal will be too severe. WFCforLife (talk) 10:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support as author. WFCforLife (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Rather than trying to 'motivate' those who are constructively trying to improve these articles by threatening to delete articles, it would be better for other editors to lend a hand. The current rate may not be sustainable, so a lower target rate for next few months would be reasonable, but a target should be based on a realistic timescale, as discussed above. --Michig (talk) 12:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support But isn't this the same as alverstrand's proposal? Gigs (talk) 21:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Similar, but with an expected rate that's virtually guaranteed to see a lot of potentially good, encyclopedic articles deleted.--Michig (talk) 17:02, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

500 a day isn't unreasonable for the next few weeks, but the further in we get, the harder that will be to sustain because all the low hanging fruit (thousands that are already sourced and easily sourced in english using web sources) will be gone. Striking comment. Gigs (talk) 20:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• The contentious thing about this proposal would be in setting the rate at which the the backlog has been reducing. We have recently seen a huge amount of BLP improvement as a result of DASHBot and other initiatives. I doubt if the recent rate of improvement is sustainable and fear that if we set too fast a rate we will lose out both by having good but unsourced articles deleted, and also by rushed rescue jobs by editors for whom suddenly there is a deadline. However if the proposal was not overly hasty I think this sort of approach could be viable. There were 52,000 articles at the beginning of the year, if we set a formula of 1,000 a week then I could accept a proposal that if the remainder of the 52,000 still tagged as unsourced BLPs from 2009 or before drops below 1,000 times the number of weeks left in 2010; Then until the numbers drop back below 1,000 times the remaining weeks, those who wish to may start prodding thee articles for deletion without first trying to source them. ϢereSpielChequers 16:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment -- If these articles are going to be prodded, this is a reasonable rate way. I'm not sure how the limit would be imposed or whether it would be on the honor system. Maurreen (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC) But I would be more comfortable with a goal of 100 per day. I doubt the current pace is sustainable. Maurreen (talk) 16:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Reinventing the wheel?

I'm not entirely convinced that we actually need to create a whole new layer of bureaucracy and regulation here. In many cases, in fact, we already have the policies and procedures that we need to deal with a large portion of the backlog — we simply need to actually apply them and/or give them sharper teeth.

Just as an example that I come across frequently, WP:MUSIC already specifies that a musician who doesn't actually have independent notability for activity outside of one specific band should get a redirect to that band, rather than an independent article. Thus, we don't need a whole new complicated process to deal with an unreferenced BLP that reads Jack Bupkis is the current bass guitarist for the band Kiss My Grits — we already have a procedure in place to deal with it: redirect it to Kiss My Grits. We simply need somebody to actually do it.

Similarly, we already have the ability to prod or speedy articles which don't make credible notability claims. We simply need people to actually do it. And we already have the ability to speedy delete attack pages. We simply need people to actually do it.

I still stand by the position I spelled out in Phase I; the two principal problems with the existing process for dealing with unreferenced BLPs have been that (a) there hasn't been a way for editors to easily identify articles in their areas of expertise which were in need of referencing, and (b) there hasn't ever actually been a hard deadline in place for actually doing anything about it, so editors have been able to simply ignore the problem and appeal to eventualism.

DashBot's recent "listing articles by creator", while a good start, doesn't completely solve Problem A — there are undoubtedly a large number of articles that we can source up, and which do belong in an encyclopedia, that will fall through the cracks because the original creator isn't here anymore. And while I am making a good faith effort to work on my own backlog, unfortunately I can't devote all my time to that alone, as there are other tasks I have to devote attention to as well (e.g. keeping an eye on the Adam Giambrone situation; just because there are references present in that article doesn't mean there isn't still an extremely sensitive BLP problem, and an extremely determined set of vandals who aren't terribly familiar with and/or don't care about the niceties of BLP, to watch for right now.) So I can't be the only person with responsibility for the list that was posted to my talk page, either — the lists need to be made available to WikiProjects as a whole, not just to one individual editor each.

What's needed is a solution that's oriented toward the community, rather than placing all responsibility solely on the original editor. The first thing we need is improved tools which will allow people to identify unreferenced BLPs that fall within their areas of interest regardless of whether they were the article's original creator or not, such as a bot that will compile a list of "all unreferenced BLPs that are listed as being part of WikiProject Topic". The bot can of course also make educated guesses if there aren't any WikiProject tags, in much the same way as AlexNewArtBot already does. Then give the project a reasonable amount of time to work on that list as a group — with the understanding that once that deadline has passed, the article will then become eligible for the existing prod process if it still hasn't been sourced up. But that's not a matter of creating a complicated new process; it's just a matter of adding some teeth to a process we already have, and creating the tools that will enable the community to deal with it more effectively than any tools we currently have.

We really don't need to reinvent the wheel here; we just need to rebalance the wheel we already have so that it runs better. We do need a better notification tool, and we do need to impose some stricter deadlines on the current process — but we don't actually need to create any complex new policy that doesn't already exist. Bearcat (talk) 07:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

• You've said it better than I ever could. The community should be working on tools that help enforce existing policies, not summarily deleting articles so we don't need to develop tools. Jogurney (talk) 16:34, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support a handful of extreme editors feel that the only solution is a harsh one: threaten to delete 17,500 editors contributions. This is short sighted and dangerous to the future of the project. The reason that Wikipedia is so popular today is its collaborative roots. Building on the User:The-Pope's ideas from Phase I, I have suggested both a BLP referencing contest, and am working with others to build a bot which updates a list of unreferenced BLP's for projects daily. I warmly encourage Coffee and all editors to join and support these efforts.
  See also my comments on how the suggested "solution" is ineffective, about a nearly nonexistent threat.Okip (formerly Ikip) 17:04, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Generally support. The problem we have is that we have an imbalance between the numbers of editors who add or create unsourced content, the editors who help to source this content, and the editors who are only interested in deleting content. If more of the latter group worked to improve articles rather than delete them, and more of the first group put more effort into citing sources, then we could have a much better encyclopedia, and would attract and retain better editors. We do, however, need better communication so that editors who are prepared to help out are made aware of where perceived problem areas are (and the proposed BLP-PROD process would, I believe, help - if implemented with the aim of encouraging sourcing rather than deletion), and we do need greater efforts to make sure that new editors (and some older ones) appreciate the need/benefit of citing reliable sources. Mass deletions risk driving editors away from this project, potentially making the problem a lot worse. The fact that we have editors here who seem desperate to delete articles despite the fact that the perceived problem of unsourced-BLPs is being dealt with constructively, is not at all encouraging.--Michig (talk) 17:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support You've convinced me that this is the way forward even if it is a high-maintenance solution. We should be enforcing the existing rules properly before we try to create new ones or remove large amounts of content which deserves to be kept. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support in so far as "the way we've always done things" has already changed. I'm specifically not opposed to deadlines, but I'd prefer the deadlines to exist as a last resort, not as the driving force behind the effort. Gigs (talk) 20:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support This is a volunteer community and it works best when we try to collaborate to solve problems rather than have some central direction. Bringing articles to the attentions of projects is a great way to get extra collaboration. I've recently gone through the articles categorised as living people and year of birth but with no other categories, and most of them I've been able to add at least an occupational category. Looking at those articles afterwards some of them have since been prodded and some improved, many will be coming to the attention of projects and editors who care about those categories. We should be looking for more collaborative solutions to our problems. ϢereSpielChequers 12:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I agree to the extent that getting WikiProjects involved in a collaborative effort to solve this problem is a good way to go. While I am not entirely against a new PROD process, arbitrary deadlines are best avoided. Camaron · Christopher · talk 20:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with the spirit, not the deadline. But if there's going to be a deadline, this could help a lot. Maurreen (talk) 21:35, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• I support the idea, as an addition to other methods. Mr.Z-man 06:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Hut 8.5 13:57, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support as a reinforcement to existing methods. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Support - I agree that we already have the tools and rules, but have been extremely lax, passive, tolerant and/or lazy in implementing them. Combine these suggestions with time limits such as the suggestions to modifications to Coffee's proposal by Phantomsteve, and/or Jimbo Wales's proposed time limit scheme. Enlist the support of projects to do their bit for the tidying up - see: WT:WORCS#Biography of Living Persons. Create a bot to whack the offending articles out of existence when the time is up.--Kudpung (talk) 16:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support--Peter cohen (talk) 14:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Durova⁴¹² 02:58, 19 February 2010 (UTC)supp
• weak support needs to be more specific, but I agree with the general sense. Hobit (talk) 03:54, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support as a good solution to this phase, but we will need a further consensus on how best to implement these ideas. Certes (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• The Way We've Always Done Things™ has not worked, and won't work to resolve this issue. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 10:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

What part of the fact that I'm proposing adjustments to "The Way We've Always Done Things", and not endorsing the status quo, has eluded you here? Bearcat (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments

This is a good idea. It hits at the important points. The issue is, the status quo is unacceptable. All I see here is much of the same, with just a more focused "engage the community". I would have no problem with trying to source articles at a rapid rate, but if efforts start to dip off and the backlogs begin to grow or stagnate, then a new process must be established. We cannot just let things stagnate again. NW (Talk) 17:50, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

That's precisely why I'm proposing, for example, that we impose a hard deadline on the process. Until now, people have been able to just ignore the problem and leave things stagnating in the queue — so I am proposing that we add a serious "if this article hasn't been sourced up and removed from the backlog in X amount of time, it will then be deleted" cap to the current process. The current procedure is the metaphorical equivalent of the comedy sketch about the British cop who demands "Stop or I'll ask you to stop again!", because there's no recourse or consequence to failing to do anything about it. I'm proposing that we start letting the cop shoot to kill if he or she has to. Bearcat (talk) 18:13, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

So those people who are not prepared to help source these articles but just want to delete them are 'cops' and those of us that are trying to preserve content by sourcing it are what? Criminals? Seriously, we need to support the people who are making an effort to source these articles, rather than shooting at their feet to force them to dance. --Michig (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not what I said, or what I meant. I'm talking about the articles that don't get improved. Bearcat (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

If we are allowed to work through the backlog then all of the articles will eventually get either improved or deleted, and the more people contribute to this the quicker it will get done. If there's a deadline that we can't achieve, then we won't get a chance to improve a lot of these articles, and if it looks like an impossible task, I can see a lot of people giving up. Those people complaining about the unsourced BLP problem but just sitting there expecting someone else to fix these articles need to find something more constructive to do. The only articles that I see falling through the net and not getting improved are those that have a consensus to be kept at AFD but remain unsourced, but there are likely to only be a small number of these. Several months of tagged unsourced-BLP articles have now either been sourced or deleted - none from those dates have remained in mainspace without being improved.--Michig (talk) 18:38, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The backlog has existed for an extremely long time now without getting worked through to anything like the degree that was actually necessary, and a process that isn't working isn't going to magically start working 1000 per cent better just because we wish it so, if we leave everything the same and don't adjust the process somehow. But conversely, the very fact that putting a hard deadline on the process might seem unduly punitive if we impose it without ensuring that we make it easier for people to deal with the affected articles is precisely why I also proposed that we create improved tools to ensure that people have better access to a list of the articles they're most likely to be able to help with. Bearcat (talk) 18:48, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Pacing: Do 2 months backlog every month

Proposal -- Each month, take care of the oldest two months of backlog.

Support

1. If we're going to delete for the sole reason of lack of sourcing, this would be a moderated pace that would allow reasonable review without burning people out, etc. Maurreen (talk) 19:08, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

New unsourced BLP handling

Develop consensus on standards for newly-created BLPs. Factors to consider include tools and processes to support new editors, integration of the process with new page patrol, and time frame for sourcing of new articles. The View by Pointillist at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people/Content may be a relevant reference point for discussion. Rd232 ^talk 11:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

new CSD criterion for newly-created unsourced BLP

Given that my stance in the first phase of the RfC was placed into the "no change" category, my position may find different supporters here, but I fundamentally believe that in order to make progress on the backlog of unsourced BLPs, Wikipedia cannot effectively handle both the backlog and the influx of new, unsourced BLPs. Thus I propose a new speedy deletion criterion be added, allowing for any editor to tag and any administrator to delete any newly created (<24h old created since the implementation date of this new criterion) unsourced BLP.

• This should not actually be necessary in too many instances. In my experience with new page patrolling, I have seen most newly-created mainspace biographies fail an existing speedy deletion criteria--A7 (no assertion of notability), G11 (promotional), G10 (attack), or G12 (copyvio), in roughly that order. Thus, the new criterion would only apply to non-promotional, non-attack, non-copyvio, BLPs which asserted some notability and are unsourced.
• Because of its limited applicability, it will not unduly increase the difficulty new editors have in creating useful and retained Wikipedia articles.
• Wikipedia already has biographies for many, probably most, persons who actually meet our notability standards. The value lost by imposing stricter creation criteria will thus be minimal: if the BLP subject was really that important, odds are that some other editor will have already created an article for them.
• New page patrollers, who make rapid recommendations on the applicability of new content, generally differ in areas of interest from those who maintain existing articles. While there are certainly overlaps between any two groups of Wikipedians, this allows NPP'ers to slow or stop the spread of the problem without having to change their preferred editing habits.

Support

• As author. Jclemens (talk) 21:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support with the suggestion of adding a template for the author as discussed; perhaps it can link to WP:ARS or other place they can seek assistance from other editors.--otherlleft 23:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support with the first 2 addendums of Kevin and that of otherleft/myself. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:05, 8 February 2010 (UTC) (back to Neutral)
• Support As a reasoned compromise aimed at handling legitimate concerns. Collect (talk) 01:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support per nom. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 02:03, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Kevin (talk) 02:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. May seem a little WP:BITEy, but I see no alternative. We're not going to make significant progress otherwise. Unlike the speedy deletion of ancient articles, inherited from a time when Wikipedia had vastly different standards, and even technical capabilities, this proposal has the advantage that the creator of the new article is almost certainly still around, and the sources he used fresh in his mind. It's not too much to ask that he add them to the article as a basic form of WP:V education. Pcap ping 13:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support: as Pcap said, protecting people is more important than worrying about being a little bit mean to newbies. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Protecting people from what? If it is an attack page, then it can be deleted as such already. The fact that it doesn't have a source, does not mean that it is wrong or innacurate---heck, having sources does not protect people. Speedy deleting an article simply because the first draft doesn't have a source is not the right path to follow.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:00, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason why this viewpoint always has to rely on false dilemmas? Resolute 01:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support, but my second choice I guess. I'd be fine with this, but it clearly is unpopular, and I think simply using a new "BLP-prod" instead of creating a new speedy criteria would be fine. The article would hang around a bit longer (a week instead of a day), but if we have a big tag at the top saying "this is a problem!" I'm not too worried about that. We need to go with solutions that work and that gain a decent sized consensus, and I think BLP-prodding new unsourced BLPs will get the job done and be palatable to most people. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Sceptre ^(talk) 08:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support as a second option. I would prefer a less-speedy approach like a PROD process, but something has to be done to get rid of these pages as they come in so this problem does not recur. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I cannot see why this is so controversial. We do this for images many times each day. Images with no source are tagged for "speedy deletion" after 7 days and biographical articles can be the same. I have always regarded that speedy-delete refers to the decision process, not the timeframe. Peripitus (Talk) 20:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

  This is not proposing the seven day period you are describing with images. I have no problem with a PROD on new unsourced BLPs, this proposal is to make it a speedily deletable criteria. EG the article is written, it lacks sources, and voila it is deleted---no wait period is required.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:40, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

  • Did it get changed or did I read this wrong ?. I had though that this proposed a WP:CSD#F4 style imposed delay - without such a delay this is probably going have too many issues. New editors will not know about sources and perhaps summarily and immediately deleting their article is one of the worst ways to teach them. Much as I support nuking of long-term unsourced articles, this will not result in a good experience for the new editor - Peripitus (Talk) 20:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

    No, it did not. There was discussion of that, but the time-delay to source, else delete a la F4 is currently being considered as a "BLP PROD" process, which does indeed seem to have greater community support than an outright delete-without-waiting as I proposed. Jclemens (talk) 21:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Seems a good way to nip the problem in the bud for new articles, which may pass all the other various speedy criteria that BLPs fall under, but still are nonetheless unsourced. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support.--Fox1942 (talk) 14:58, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Brambleclawx 22:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• I strongly support this proposal. It's unclear to me how the hell we can know what is an "unoffensive" BLP when it doesn't have any sources. Newly-created ones should be nuked on-sight. Scottaka UnitAnode 14:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support very good idea. -- RP459 ^Talk/_{Contributions} 15:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Strong Oppose. Overwhelming consensus is against speedy deletion of non offensive BLPs - we just did this, something like 80% said so. The comment "Wikipedia already has biographies for many, probably most, persons who actually meet our notability standards" sounds a lot like the apocryphal patent office clerk saying "Everything that can be invented has been invented". :-) There are an endless number of notable people we have not covered yet, especially due to the issues noted by Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Source them, don't speedy delete them. --GRuban (talk) 00:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I think here a BLP-PROD tag should be applied, either the same as the general one, or a different kind. it's better for new contributors to have a stern warning on their article than to have their article just disappear. This also works better for articles that get built in several stages. Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose the largest support was for 7 days, speedy deletion would reduce it to 24 hours. This is not an effective solution, not supported by the community in any significant numbers, and many notable articles would be deleted. Note the articles which were already deleted out of process, administrators will delete articles just as notable if there is no deletion discussion. Okip (formerly Ikip) 04:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • You put such little trust in us. What is notable can only be decided by what is sourced, if it isn't sourced then how do we know? (and don't say Google search) — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

***Not putting words in Okips mouth, but I don't trust you Coffee. The comment you just made could be useful in justifying 2 prods a day, or 2000. Why don't you inspire trust, and say what you mean. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Strike. Crappy thing to say. Seriously sorry abou lack of good faith. I'm gonna take this off my watchlist, I'm not doing myself of the project any good with comments like that. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 18:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• • • • I just did below, take a look. Maybeh I can haz trust now? — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 07:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - there appeared to be some consensus for a BLP-PROD process from the first round of discussion, with a 7-day timeline having most support. Speedying, other than by our existing criteria, was a non-starter, and it seems pointless to raise it again here.--Michig (talk) 10:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Neither the first phase of this RFC nor any number of similar suggestions at WT:CSD have gained community consensus and there is a good reason for it. The community has expressed that a special PROD-like system for dealing with any unsourced BLPs (not only new ones) is preferable and as such we should discuss this. Speedy deletion was never meant for those purposes and should not be changed to do. So far no one has explained why speedy deletion is really necessary when a PROD-like process could be used which would allow people some time to fix articles. New users often don't read all information and some of them will continue to create such articles without sources because they simply don't know and who would be more than willing to fix it if one tells them about it. But they usually will feel bitten if we simply deleted the articles without giving them time to fix it. No reasons mentioned in favor of the proposal explain why we should BITE new users and can't wait a few days instead. A7 and G11 cover most articles like this already. The rest are good-faith creations about possibly notable subjects and should be treated differently than all the spam- and MySpace-kind of articles. Regards SoWhy 13:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose As already noted, speedy deletion has already been rejected by the community. It should already be obvious that a PROD type solution has community endorsement instead. We should focus our efforts on the accepted solution format rather than re-start discussion on rejected methods. Resolute 15:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • It has been rejected as a general method of dealing with new and old unsourced articles. This proposal is more refined. Pcap ping 16:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose If it fits A7 or A10, fine delete it. If it doesn't have a source, contact the creator and let them know that it needs one. Speedy deletion of quality good faith articles should be avoided at all costs. Use the opportunity to educate a new user about our expectations, don't create bad will and chase off new editors.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC) EDIT: This proposal would be a complete reversal of the current policy surrounding A7, The criterion does not apply to any article that makes any credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source. The threshold to avoid A7 deletions is explicitly lower because we want to give authors the chance to source and improve the articles to show that the individual is worthy of an article.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, if an article doesn't fail the existing CSD, we quite likely do want an article on the subject. Immediate deletion doesn't do anything to encourage the primary goal of improving the reference quality. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, too heavy-handed and easily subject to abuse and misuse. Even an unsourced BLP should be given a chance (even if not a very long one) to be sourced and improved. Lass drastic deletion tools should be sufficient here. As noted above, we already do have CSD A7 and A10, that should take care of particularly clear-cut cases. Nsk92 (talk) 18:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose There is no need for speedy deletion if there is prima facie evidence of notability. The editor who wishes the article should be deleted shoudl go through a process of searching for sources and only then prod the article on the grounds that the claim of notability is unsupported by search of news, academic and book sources.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose This will not allow enough time for the newby creator to find sources. Already for images we have templates like {{Di-no source}}, after the expiry time this will show up for administrator action, and also appear in a category for those that want to fix the situation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose any speedy process for non-problematic articles. There are plenty of existing criteria to delete articles that have problems (hoaxes, blatant attacks, promotional, etc.) and they should be used. If an article doesn't meet one of those criteria, then the normal processes are still fine. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 14:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. Current speedy criteria will still apply to remove problem articles. If the only problem is lack of sourcing, a new BLP PROD will be sufficient. Wine Guy~Talk 10:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose too strong and some admins will just delete any old thing. Secondly I bet people will only check on new users when tons of policy violations of all sorts including fake sources etc etc are done by old hands YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars photo poll) 07:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Why change CSD to make it fit this specific usage when BLP PROD would work at least as well? Alzarian16 (talk) 17:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Though I included this as part of my proposal in the first round, and arguably that proposal had consensus level support; I now accept that with the flaws in the current speedy deletion process we need to give 7 days rather than 7 minutes for people to add a source to their new article. So I will oppose this provided we go with a "sticky prod" that can only be removed if someone adds a source or makes it clear that the article subject is actually dead, fictional or nonhuman. If there were to be consensus to go ahead with speedy deletion of new unsourced BLPs, then I would be somewhat mollified if this was added to the A1 and A3 categories as something that shouldn't be tagged in the first minutes of an articles creation, but only after it had been up for an hour. Not that that stops many articles from being tagged and deleted before the editor has a chance to save their second sentence but it does save some newbies from being bitten. ϢereSpielChequers 11:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - A modified PROD process would be a much better way of dealing with unsourced BLPs, many of which are easily fixable. To give such articles a change, a seven day waiting period before deletion is the absolute minimum I will support. I also don't see why a new unsourced BLP should be treated any more harshly than an old one. If they had to be treated differently, I would say do the opposite, delete the old ones since they have been around much longer, with more time to fix them. Camaron · Christopher · talk 20:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Prod, maybe; speedy, no. Maurreen (talk) 21:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Speedy deletion is the wrong way. ·Maunus·ƛ· 08:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose speedy deletion for unsourced BLPs has been shot down again and again, with good reason. Speedy deletion should be used when there are large volumes of articles falling under a certain category which would almost certainly get deleted if they go through another process. Unsourced BLPs do not meet this requirement. Hut 8.5 14:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose speedy deletion is too speedy, among other reasons. Maurreen (talk) 12:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Per all the arguments above. (OK, most of them). --Dweller (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as bitey. I do see value in having a process for newly created articles that gets unsourced ones deleted in some reasonable time (30 days?) But this isn't it. Hobit (talk) 03:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Some form of BLP-Prod is sufficient. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - per all above. Kayau Voting IS evil 07:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose BLP-PROD is would be way more acceptable. --KrebMarkt 13:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as a waste of potentially good content and as an idea already rejected. Certes (talk) 17:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as BLP-PROD seems a better alternative. -Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 19:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Does not allow time for the article to be sourced or fixed. Most newly created articles by new users are poorly sourced; this would create more work both to tag and delete the articles, and undelete those for which sources are found. Intelligentsium 19:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• There ought to be a provision to require leaving an explanation template on the author's talkpage as they are likely to be newbies and not understand what happened and why. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• Another idea along these lines--the CSD template could specify that {{hangon}} (or some specific variant) should be used by the author to indicate that he or she had read the CSD notice, and was in the process of researching/adding sources. Admins can then treat that like any other hangon tag--cut the editor a credible amount of slack to allow them to do what they committed to, and delete it when good faith expires. Jclemens (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with CSD is that often times they occur faster than people can edit them, there is nothing worse than working on a legit article to have some over eager admin delete it within minutes of creation. Hangon only works if you happen to catch it in time.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, this isn't a particularly new problem--existing BLPs are deleted as A7 or G11 all the time before authors have a chance to rectify. It's a definite downside to the speedy process as a whole, but I genuinely don't think this makes the existing problem that much worse. Jclemens (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

then you're being foolish. A good faith effort from an author should not be summarily deleted because the author failed to include a reference. Making this a CSD criteria WILL create problems and will become bity. Sorry, I can't see how you can make the assertation that this wouldn't make the issue existing "problem that much worse." There is a reason why the CSD criteria explitictly states that it only takes a claim of significance to avoid CSD. This proposal would throw that policy completely out the door. No longer would the mere claim to significance be sufficeint, it would have to have a source. This is a complete reversal of existing CSD policy and would be a disaster.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

A disaster? Funny, that's what some of the partisans on the other side are saying as well. The conversation is probably not well served by such hyperbole. You seem to be placing a higher value on newbie editors feelings than the overall quality and integrity of the encyclopedia. The world won't end if we decide "no source? No BLP" and enforce it on new articles. It would absolutely be a change from the "assertion of notability" standard; it's supposed to be. Jclemens (talk) 22:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Can't we have both editor retention and a high quality encyclopedia? It doesn't necessarily have to be either/or. Don't the two go hand in hand anyway? 23:03, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree... there is no need to rush to the automatic position that an unsourced BLP is bad and contains misinformation, which is what this proposal is all about. It is not the case. An article which does not contain a source, does not equal wrong and motions to that affect received quite a bit of support in phase one as did the opposition to summarily speedy deleting unreferenced BLPs. An article which does not contain copy vios or attacks do not need to be deleted within minutes of creation---the fact that we've had thousands of unsourced BLP's for years is proof that we won't break the project if we leave one on here for a few days. At the same time, years of experience and hurt feels have gone into the crafting of our current CSD criteria. Years of knowing that often times these articles can be improved and the assumption of good faith on the articles creator. Based upon phase 1, I think it is clear that the camp which advocates speedy deletion of unsourced BLPs is clearly in the minority (MzM's proposal being shot down 3:1, Collect's comment passing 4:1, your own passing 4:1, Power.Corrupt's passing 3:1, Johnbod passing 5:1).---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 01:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you're overplaying the "is bad" part of "speedy deletion". Unsourced BLPs are no worse than your typical garage band, yet we delete those out of hand all the time. Something needn't be outright harmful to a person to be sufficiently impermissible to be deleted speedily. If you want to save people's feelings, get rid of {{db-band}}: it's used far more often than this would ever be. Jclemens (talk) 01:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

You are 100% correct, "Unsourced BLPs are no worse than your typical garage band" in fact they are often a lot better than your typical garage band... Lyle Berman was an unsourced BLP and he is clearly notable... as are any number of other unsourced BLPs of notable individuals that are reasonably well written. But you have missed a key part of the problem with this proposal. A7 has a very low threshold to keep---it only needs to make a claim to significance/importance. The claim does not have to be true or sourced, it just has to be a reasonable claim of significance. This proposal increases the expectation and requirements to the point where sources have to be provided. This is a complete departure from years of developing the CSD criteria. The criteria are currently written so that articles on people whom are clearly notable, ala Cyndy Violette, will not be speedily delete at the whim of a single individual, but will be prodded or sent to AFD where hopefully somebody will make an effort to salvage the article. CSD is the option of last resort, wherein the article is so bad that it's mere presence on the project does immediate harm and wherein the deletion of the article would be uncontroversial---that is a key factor in the . The fact that Johnny Chan (poker player) doesn't have inline citations does not make the this a clear case for deletion. Remember there are expectations to new proposals for CSD, Uncontestable: it must be the case that almost all articles that could be deleted using the rule, should be deleted, according to consensus. CSD criteria should cover only situations where there is a strong precedent for deletion. Remember that a rule may be used in a way you don't expect, unless you word it carefully. This proposal has absolutely zero consensus---oh wait, 25% supported MZM's proposal. As this proposal has essential zero support we are wasting our time discussing it.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 09:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if you look carefully, this proposal is hovering around 50% support, which is far more than MZM's proposal got. Why? Because there's a difference between throwing content out and keeping content out. You've made zero arguments that don't also apply equally well to {{db-band}}. If you'll look at my comments on sourcing, the proposed CSD criterion is to be drawn so narrowly as to be uncontestable: no sourcing of any kind. The only thing in contention, then, is whether or not the community expects new BLPs to be sourced in order to remain. Granted that this proposal finds split support and opposition--but the strength of support demonstrates that the concept isn't as easily dismissed as you imply. Jclemens (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Then you don't know db-band that well. An article can easily be written that can easily pass db-band, but would fail this criteria simply because it was deemed an unrefrenced biography.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree in principle, with the following suggestions. Kevin (talk) 22:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• The tags should be designed to emphasize adding sources rather than deletion, so as to appear less unfriendly.
• We do not restrict tagging to articles younger than 24h, but that were created after this becomes policy. This will eventually render whatever policy is dealing with the backlog moot.
• The deletion be after a period of time, in line with some of the image CSD tags.

• Kevin, I agree with the first two, but the last one (after a period of time) would render this functionally identical to the BLP-PROD process which is to be discussed above. Jclemens (talk) 23:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'd be happy with immediate deletion, but I think that the more moderate approach may garner more support. Kevin (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• So if it has any reference, no matter how unreliable, it must be deleted by some other process?--otherlleft 23:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

  That would be the implication, yes. Discussion of alternatives welcome. Jclemens (talk) 23:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

  If there's a debate about a source's reliability, we might as well cut to the chase and debate the article's existence. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  I think that there needs to some minumum quality of references to prevent deletion. I would say that at least one reference must not be one of: official/personal web site; blog not directly associated with a newspaper; IMDB; other user-submitted web site. There seems little point taking an article sourced only to a Myspace or similar page through AfD. Kevin (talk) 00:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  I asked to see if anyone would suggest such a standard. If that's what the community wants, I don't believe it falls properly into CSD criteria. You might consider suggesting a different proposal to detail your PROD-style suggestion.--otherlleft 02:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  I agree that if there's a judgment call to be made (this source is OK, that is not...) then a non-speedy process is the right venue for those decisions. Jclemens (talk) 04:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  Please bear in mind that many newspapers (seen by some as the only reliable sources) are either going away entirely or being hidden behind paywalls. It shouldn't cost money to be an editor. This will be more and more of an issue in the future. Coupled with the increasing trend away from pure news into slanted news, NPOV is getting hard to find even in what were presumed to be high quality sources. --04:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Re GRuban's oppose:
  • Yes, the consensus against speedily deleting existing BLPs is pretty large, and I'm a part of it. Thus it follows that if I think there's a difference between speedily deleting existing unsourced BLPs and new unsourced BLPs, others might as well.
  • If I came across as saying that there's no one left worth adding as a BLP, that's my misstatement. Rather: people who have articles newly written about them can and should be sourced immediately. There's no emergency to adding such people to Wikipedia sufficient to ignore sourcing concerns. Jclemens (talk) 01:10, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

There was no consensus for speedy deleting new BLPs. The proposal which had the most support was PRODs for 7 days, followed by no change. This is no "reasoned compromise aimed at handling legitimate concerns" this is a proposal far to one side.

A comprimise would be a proposal between

7 days (supported by 150+ editors) and

no change (supported by 80+ editors, including your proposal Jclemens).

The closest proposal to this proposal, the "deleted on site" idea by editor User:MZMcBride was nearly 3 to 1 against (55/157). Okip (formerly Ikip) 04:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Ikip, there's a fundamental difference between trashing existing content and keeping new content out. I favor the 7-day PROD process for existing content, but there's just no good reason to keep unsourced new content. I challenge you to go do some new page patrolling and find out how many articles per hour would actually be deleted by this new CSD criterion--and then let's take a look at them and see what the encyclopedia would really be losing. My bet? Nothing worthwhile, unless someone creates an intentionally unsourced BLP to make a point. Jclemens (talk) 04:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I have done new page patrol, and I have done unreferenced BLPs. The existing Criteria for deletion rules are enough.

RE: "unless someone creates an intentionally unsourced BLP to make a point." This is completely not the case. The problem is that to newcomers, our system of sourcing is not intuitive, which means more newcomers are going to be bit. Newcomers already get badly treated a lot anyway. This will only make retention worse.

In addition, as I mentioned above, this is not a comprimise, this is an extreme position, which was never supported by phase I. Okip (formerly Ikip) 04:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Given that newcomers are already getting bit, do you think this actually makes it appreciably worse? I don't. Fact is, there's very little probability a new article from a new editor is ready for mainspace--this doesn't appreciably change that. Note that I never said this was a compromise; my support for the 7-day PROD process is a compromise, this is my honest belief on how to best deal with new unsourced BLP's. Jclemens (talk) 04:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"Given that newcomers are already getting bit" LOL. thanks Jclemens. :) Disappointed and surprised :( Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:05, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

"Given that newcomers are already getting bit" that has to be one of the worst arguments I've ever seen... plus, you are ignoring the fact that there were numerous motions that garnered traction in round 1 that showed that your contention that no sources = bad was not held by the majority. Do we need to do something about unsourced BLP's? Yes. Do we have to push the panic button? No, one thing that was clear from round one is that most people do not see unsourced well written BLP's as a crisis that has to be fixed yesterday. This proposal clearly fails the 'uncontroversial' aspect of a new CSD criteria.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Allow me to repeat myself a bit, for those whose intransigence is bordering on "I didn't hear that":

• New unsourced BLP articles.
• New unsourced BLP articles.
• New unsourced BLP articles.

Nothing in the proposal reeks of panic, except perhaps the hyperbolic objections to drawing a line in the sand and saying "from this day forward, no more." Nothing in this proposed solution ignores the consensus that existing unsourced BLPs are not universally perceived as problematic. Do I need to repeat that a few times too? I sure hope not. Jclemens (talk) 19:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice attempted slight... let me repeat this... NO.

The purpose behind CSD to delete articles that would obviously fail at AfD and are uncontroversial. A new unsourced BLP does not need to be deleted five minutes after creation. There is no reason to do so. If it is an attack page or copy vio, we can already delete it. If it is unsourced, tagging it to be deleted is sufficeint. There is no crisis that says, "having a potentially accurate, neutral" article has to be IMMEDIATELY deleted. In fact, this is a 180 degree reversal on current policy. No only that, but it has the potential of having creep. "Gee, the article may be about an event, but I think it's really a biography, therefore I'm going to delete it because it is unsourced." Way too prone to be abused/misused.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Standard BLP-PROD for unsourced new BLPs

Proposal: a BLP-PROD process is (hopefully?) being developed to handle the backlog (see "BLP PROD process drafting" above). Simply use the same process, with perhaps slightly different criteria, for new unsourced BLPs. For example, all new unsourced BLPs (created in 2010 or later) may be BLP-PRODded on sight if they're more than 24 hours old. The same basic principle of only removing the PROD tag with sufficient sourcing would apply. The process should give enough time (1 week? To Be Decided) for a reasonable minimal sourcing effort - perhaps involving Article Rescue Squadron or other technical/organisational means to ensure the requirement isn't solely placed on the creator - and the creator of the BLP will probably still be around to help out. The related template messages should be as friendly, helpful and explanatory as possible. As in the BLP-PROD process discussed elsewhere, the idea is that deletion still requires a human decision, that alternatives such as incubation or AFD are available by discretion, and that the process ensures at least minimal sourcing of new BLPs. Keeping one process for both the backlog and the new BLPs has obvious simplicity attraction. Rd232 ^talk 10:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree. I just made a suggestion here of "tag new unsourced BLPs with a BLP-PROD tag. At any time before 7 days is up, the article can be userfied (at the Author's request, for a period of no more than 2 weeks, after which it gets deleted if it hasn't been sourced and moved into mainspace), or incubated (at the discretion of any user who genuinely believes the article can be sourced adequately). After 7 days if it is still in mainspace and unsourced, it gets deleted.", which is basically using existing procedures, except 'unsourced BLP' becomes a valid reason for the special BLP-PROD process. I would favour using this only for articles tagged as unsourced BLPs after this RFC reaches an outcome - the earlier ones can be considered part of the backlog. The 7 day timescale for the prod to stand before deletion appears to have most support from the first round of discussion. The 2 week limit on userspace is open to debate of course, but we do want to encourage new editors to create new sourced articles, and we need to be careful not to drive them away.--Michig (talk) 10:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be describing our currently policies already with User:Jehochman 7 day idea, #Details from Phase 1, if this is the case, maybe this should be moved to the discussion section of #Details from Phase 1? Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 11:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Again, this will only work if people actually try to source. (and in fact, our current procedures will only work properly if people actually try to source). A good way to do this is to require people placing a tag to try to source one others have placed. It's perfectly practical: I follow this rule myself. I speedy delete about 10 articles a day, & prod or AfD 2 or 3, and in the other direction I add at least one decent source to at least 10 or 15. There are about 20 people here taking the lead in stringent proposals to delete articles. Let them do the same, and perhaps the same number of those who want less stringent proposals, and we'll finish in 2 or 3 months, assuming an equal number can and cannot be sourced. I challenge the makers of each proposal to show that they are willing to improve articles as well as delete them. DGG ( talk ) 16:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • ? this seems to be confusing the backlog issue with the "new unsourced BLP" issue. The threat of deletion is intended to ensure that creators do the minimal required work of sourcing. Text is rarely created out of thin air; so just asking the creator to provide the source(s) relied upon and making it clear the article will be deleted without will achieve much for little effort. Where creators are unavailable, there is time for others to provide minimal sourcing; and potentially valuable unsourced articles can be incubated or AFD'd instead of deleted. Rd232 ^talk 16:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Agree, this is different from dealing with the backlog, and I don't think DGG should have the same concerns. We just cannot ask new page patrollers to source (or try to) every unsourced BLP they come across—that's just not realistic when we are putting a priority on identifying and tagging new unsourced BLPs so they can be dealt with, and relying NPPers to do that. It also isn't necessary, since we should be catching these right away and saying (very nicely) to the person who created the article, "hey, thanks for the new article, we just need to you to add some sources in the next few days so we can keep this in the encyclopedia, let us know if you need help." A lot of them will do that (indeed this is the kind of followup that will likely allow us to bring more editors into active editing, since most new folks don't get a message explaining about sources and the like), and for those who don't we'd still have a queue of newly BLP-prodded articles sitting around for a week, and anyone could stop by and take care of the sourcing. It should be pretty easy to deal with (again realizing we're talking about new articles and not the backlog), and I don't think we need to make the "tagger" of a BLP-prod check for sources first in order for this to work, though of course it's great if they do. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
    • "The threat of deletion is intended to ensure that creators do the minimal required work of sourcing." This statement is premised on the fact that it is: 1, easy to source articles on Wikipedia for new editors, and 2, that the danger of unsourced BLPs outweighs the deletion of several thousand good faith articles which have accurate information, which will further lower our editor retention rate.
      Lord, you truly know who is truly framing the tone of the debate when moderate editors such as Jclemens and yourself Rd232, echo and endorse Jehochman's extreme changes. I understand though, I was actually advocating a one week incubation time on articles, then they would be deleted last week, until I really started to clean up these "sewer" "crud" "crap" articles, and realized the entire underlying argument is a hoax, a fraud. The vast majority of these unreferenced articles, there only deficiency is they are unreferenced, most of the facts are correctly add by good faith editors. Please consider this Rd232. Okip (formerly Ikip) 23:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• Doesn't this increase the number of unsourced BLPs we have to deal with per day as the new PRODs would have virtually identical deadlines to the ones for existing articles? One way to avoid this would be to extend Jimbo's proposal and base the whole process on article creation dates. Alzarian16 (talk) 21:49, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• I would support if Wikiprojects are included in the process. If article creator fails at sourcing its newly created BLP article then this will most likely fall over the lap of concerned Wikiprojects at the condition that they get the information that a newly created BLP need to be fixed in due time. I'm skeptical toward how fast information travels through Wikipedia. --KrebMarkt 22:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

• I support this option as the last fallback, if the adoption of the other, more proactive measures for stemming the creation of unsourced BLPs fails. Pcap ping 17:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Yes, per Pcap. Jclemens (talk) 18:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Same basic idea as a new speedy criteria, except editors have a week to source the article. Much more likely to gain consensus so this would be my first choice, plus we probably only have to create one new process to clear the backlog and deal with newly created unsourced BLPs (I'm guessing we would maybe need a special "backlog" tag otherwise there could be some confusion as to whether an article was recently created or part of the backlog). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, but I don't think we need to wait 24 hours to apply the tag. The sooner the editor knows the threat the better IMO , because they're likely to see it right away and get to work sourcing. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:13, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support per my comments above. I agree that the articles should be tagged asap, but the text in the tag must be friendly, informative, and as encouraging as possible to new editors. This is, I think, a very reasonable compromise considering the input to phase I of the discussion.--Michig (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support best option put forth so far. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - I see this as largely the same as the CSD option as neither option necessitates immediate deletion. Per Calliopejen1 I think that the tagged should be added as soon as the article is seen to make sure that the editor knows straight away that there is an issue. The text of the notice and tag are most important to avoid driving new editors away. - Peripitus (Talk) 00:18, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support in principle. We can hammer out the details later. Gigs (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, though it might be wise to move the new and unsourced articles to the incubator so they don't get indexed by search engines until they become more complete and stable. For new contributors, this would convey a nurturing attitude instead of an attacking one. -kslays (talk • contribs) 23:15, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Brambleclawx 01:46, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• From this day, no more. That's a good way to think about it. The details can be worked out later. NW (Talk) 17:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 19:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• I think speedy deletion is somewhat too harsh; we should at least give users a chance to add some sources. Mr.Z-man 06:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - as a reasonable compromise. We really shouldn't be creating new unsourced BLP's, and a prod seems sufficiently non-bitey. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 18:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Since the CSD for new unsourced BLP suggestion is clearly not gonna pass. This idea is just as good. Whatever we do, the stuatus quo is not acceptable. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support this is a positive step for new BLP's, although if this passes, then we need to pass a parallel policy/guideline that makes including sourcing an explicit expectation on new BLP's.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I like this better than the speedy option above, as it allows reasonable time for sourcing. Kevin (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Strong oppose Because the underlying idea is not new, (Jerochman proposed nearly the same thing in phase I) and the underlying premise is that a good portion of unreferenced BLPs are potentially libelous, and detrimental to wikipedia, which is a complete and total hoax, peddled by extreme editors who label unreferenced "BLPs" sewers, crap, crud, etc. The reality is that an infinitesimally small percentage of BLPs are libelous, and most are done by good faith editors. Okip (formerly Ikip) 23:29, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Ikip, am I correct in saying that what you would prefer would essentially be the status quo? NW (Talk) 17:55, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
  • I/O-kip---there is a HUGE difference between this and Jerochman's proposal that I have concerns about, this one is explicitly for NEW BLPs. I have absolutely zero problem with adding this as a requirement/expectation for BLPs going forward---all articles should be sourced anyways---this is just saying that NEW BLPs need sources. If you can't provide the source within seven days then it may be deleted.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
    • It would appear so. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Unnecessary, and harmful to the encyclopedia. I have no confidence is anybody who supports this proposal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose There are plenty of other options which don't threaten novice good faith users with their work being ddeleted the moment they create it.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Weak oppose Although this has some merit it would increase the number of unreferenced BLPs up for deletion at any time during the process (as I mentioned above, and received no reply) and gives relatively little time for new editors to fix their articles. Alzarian16 (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • How long do people need to fix it? We're not asking them to write an FA, if its a new article they should presumably still remember what source they used for the content or where they can get one. Mr.Z-man 23:44, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Automatic userification of unsourced new BLPs

Given that a CSD criteria has been opposed by some on WP:BITE grounds, I'm proposing as an alternative that such articles be simply moved to the creator's userspace. This doesn't even require administrator rights, any new page patroller can do it (except for the deletion of the remaining redirect), and the article's author can still work on it. This policy should apply only to new articles, created after the date this proposal is adopted. The leftover redirect might have to be tagged with G6/R2.

Amendment: Gigs' concern about indexing is valid. {{Userspace draft}} would have to be added to the article as well, which transcludes {{NOINDEX}}. Given this issue, I agree that good Twinkle/AWB support will be needed for this to be a practical solution. But it does not seem excessively complex; Twinkle already handles more complex tasks, e.g. AfD nominations.

Support

• As initiator. Pcap ping 16:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• I'll support this one as well, with the caveat that I wouldn't do it this way unless there was a good scripted way to do this simply. Jclemens (talk) 17:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• So long as it can be written into Twinkle, this seems like a good plan. SchuminWeb (Talk) 03:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Speedy deletion by any other name is still speedy deletion. Not to mention that the problem isn't resolved, simply shifted into different project space. Resolute 17:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• User space is indexed in google, this accomplishes nothing. Gigs (talk) 17:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks for addressing this concern about indexing. My other concern would be the meaning of "automatic"... I don't trust a bot to make a call on referenced vs unreferenced... I am cleaning up a lot of BLPs mistagged by bot that do indeed have sources. Gigs (talk) 19:08, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
• per Reso.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose because this only shifts the problem and doesn't solve it, confuses the editor ("where'd my page go?"), and makes it so other interested parties that could help fix the article don't see it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
• Userfication usually only has a good outcome if the author agrees to it. Few understand it, so they will have probably lost their article when it is userfied. On the other hand I do userfy some autobiographies where the topic was non notable. Autobiographies that are notable could also be userfied. But that is as far as I support this idea: with agreement of creator, or for autobiographies. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
  • The redirect will still be there won't it? YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars photo poll) 07:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Fundamentally a good idea, and in good spirit, but unfortunately I think this will just end up with a lot of unsourced BLPs in userspace that will never be touched again. --Shirik (Questions or

Comments?) 17:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Per Resolute. --GRuban (talk) 21:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per Resolute. Putting the problem out of view doesn't help. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per Calliopejen1 and Graeme Bartlett (also Michig - see below). Userfication can be a useful tool for dealing with autobiographies or when the article's creator requests it in order to have time to improve the article. Automatic userfication, however, would only serve to transfer the problem from mainspace to another, less-patrolled, namespace. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 07:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, though I would probably support automatic incubation of unsourced BLPs, with notification to primary authors. That way if they sit around without being touched again they'll eventually get re-examined and deleted (unlike userspace, where they could sit untouched forever). -kslays (talk • contribs) 23:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose this is a collaboratively edited website one of whose great strengths is the ability to link and categorise articles. Moving draft articles to userspace would undermine that concept to no great benefit. I would support {{noindex}} for new articles, and I often userfy newbies articles as their userpage, but I don't think we should userfy pages that will be returning to article space. ϢereSpielChequers 20:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Userspace is poorly patrolled, and moving them to userspace drastically decreases the number of editors who will potentially work on the articles. Mr.Z-man 06:46, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose This creates far more problems than it solves, as it makes it much harder for editors other than the creator to improve a page. Then there's the issue that many new users don't understand the concept of userspace (it took me three months to figure it out, and I'm sure I'm not the only one). It feels like a 'delete on sight' proposal under another name. Alzarian16 (talk) 18:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• oppose too many reasons to innumerate, but particularly Z-Man's.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Previous discussion regarding Twinkle: WT:Twinkle/Archive 17#Adding userfication to Twinkle. Flatscan (talk) 05:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Also WP:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 53#Easier/better userfication, which became WP:Requests for comment/userfication. Flatscan (talk) 04:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose automatic userification, but per my comment above, I support userification at the request of the article's creator to allow more (but not unlimited) time for the article to be improved.--Michig (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD/MfD style forum for unsourced BLPs

Once the backlog is eliminated through whatever means, I propose that new, and newly discovered (previously untagged) unsourced BLPs be placed in a new AfD style forum, where they will have a listing for 7 days. Unlike PROD, which will give us only a category, this will allow centralized discussion about sourcing issues, and will give interested editors a centralized place to systematically work through these, unlike a category where efforts are much more ad hoc and harder to collaborate on. As well, this gives a more visible profile to the problem, instead of being hidden in tags and categories. It will allow editors to get more credit for their sourcing work, as the collaboration will be in a more visible place. Twinkle can get support for this for ease of listing. Depending on the eventual quantity, it could either be "all one page" MfD style, or by day AfD style. Administrators will close listings after 7 days as "remains unsourced - delete" or "sufficiently sourced - keep". Gigs (talk) 21:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. I would support this for the backlog also. Maurreen (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
2. As long as the discussion hinges on reference quality rather than notability. I've seen far too many bad articles kept at AFD because the subject was notable and "someone will fix it eventually." The worst part is when people dig up references to establish notability, but don't even bother trying to use them to source the content. Mr.Z-man 06:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the worse thing is when the nominator doesn't bother to look for sources, and when they are found in an AFD discussion, they then expect someone else to go and use them to improve the article. Anyone taking an article to a deletion forum should be prepared to fix it themselves when sources are found. Better to treat these newly discovered old BLPs as backlog part II in my view.--Michig (talk) 07:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The burden of sourcing is always on the person wanting to retain content. Mr.Z-man 18:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The burden of sourcing is on the person wanting to restore contentious content. Twisting that long-standing practice around to mean something it never used to mean is disingenuous. Gigs (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

That's not what WP:BURDEN says. It says that its good practice to look for sources yourself, but it sets the bar at "challenged" rather than "contentious." Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed Mr.Z-man 23:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

That line is not a license to ignore the rest of the policy, the currently running RfC, and the recent failed attempt to strike the word "contentious" from WP:BLP. There is little support for deletion of non-contentious content merely because it's unsourced. Gigs (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

What line? I'm talking about what the entire section there says. Are you seriously suggesting that unsourced content in BLP articles should be held at a lower standard because BLP uses the word "contentious"? What other part of the policy am I ignoring? The part that says This policy requires that a reliable source in the form of an inline citation be supplied for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, or the material may be removed? If someone challenges material, it needs a source. The policy is incredibly clear on that point. Mr.Z-man 03:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The word contentious is from WP:V originally. I'm not going to reargue everything from the other RfC about what is and isn't contentious and what is and isn't a valid challenge. Gigs (talk) 04:37, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

1. I'll give my support to this with the idea that the amount of labor involved to take an article through this process will be greater than the effort to search for sources and just fix the article. Only those articles that truly do not have available sources will actually get dragged through this process (an extreme minority). For an article to get to this stage, somebody, perhaps several people will have actually read the article. I have also proposed, perhaps through this step it can be accomplished, that the article could be forwarded to interested groups via portal managers. Since there are a lot of non-english native language subjects of these articles, perhaps the portals in their native language could also be contacted in this step. With this much attention, an article can stand up for its own merit, or lack thereof.Trackinfo (talk) 01:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. For newly discovered but not new unsourced BLPs, I don't see this being necessary as long as the will is still there to work through and process these as is being done with the current backlog. One the current backlog is cleared we can start on this new set of articles. PROD and AFD will still be available if an editor looks at an article and decides that they think deletion is the approrpiate course of action.--Michig (talk) 07:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

   It's easy to let categories balloon. The idea here would be to give it a higher level of visibility to keep us on top of it. Gigs (talk) 03:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose. A demand that people who might be ortherwise engaged in real life have to jump in a week to source everything is nto the way to keep people engaged in a volunteer community.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:12, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree with you on this AfD Rush to Judgement process. My support of this proposal is based on this being a more labor intensive action than simply adding the sources and fixing an article with problems once discovered by someone seeking action. I would certainly like to see the AfD process improved significantly--most particularly seeking input from people who know a subject, rather than the crowd that just wants to delete anything anytime any way, whether they understand its significance or not.Trackinfo (talk) 00:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• For new unsourced BLPs, some combination of PROD and AFD type processing would seem sensible based on the merits of individual articles. If we're going to insist on articles being sourced within 7 days, then a discussion which decides that they should be kept and sourced perhaps isn't going to achieve much. I think we would need to see how effective the BLP-PROD is in getting sources added to these articles first - AFD-type discussions can be very time-consuming, without sometimes achieving very much.--Michig (talk) 07:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Poorly Sourced BLPs

Proposal by WereSpielChequers

We currently have over 17,000 BLPs in Category:BLP articles lacking sources, and I suspect most of the supposedly unreferenced BLPs should have been tagged with this as they contain some references. If we also tot up articles categorised as living people and also tagged with {{morefootnotes}}, {{nofootnotes}}, {{primarysources}}, {{self-published}} or {{one source}} this will rise by hundreds if not thousands more, many no better referenced than much of the backlog we are currently working on. Though I hope that because these tags are more informative and accurate they are more likely to get newbie editors responding by improving the referencing, as opposed to poorly referenced articles being tagged as unreferenced, which I suspect just leaves the editors assuming the tag was wrong. But in any event these articles have been tagged as BLPS that don't meet the wp:BLP guidelines. need to be reviewed and if the tag is correct, improved or deleted. However I think it would be highly disruptive to even consider start a major deletion drive on these within months of the recent kerfuffle, so I propose that we schedule an RFC on "Poorly sourced BLPs" for February of next year, with a moratorium on out of process deletion drives in the meantime. That does not in anyway stop those who who want to improve these articles from doing so, or exempt these articles from our normal deletion processes. But it would give the community a decent interval between this BLP kerfuffle and the next one.

Proposal {{RefimproveBLP}} backlog to be discussed in February 2011, but no out of process deletion drives on these articles before then.

Support

• As Author ϢereSpielChequers 14:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• Having listened to this idea in person from WereSpielChequers, it makes sense to me to focus on one thing at a time. Camaron · Christopher · talk 15:37, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with new wording. Maurreen (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support new wording with the caveat that we probably should endeavor to address this backlog prior to 2011 but after the totally unreferenced backlog is clear. Gigs (talk) 19:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, but with the caveat that unreferenced BLPs must have have been sorted first. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support It's better to improve articles in a considered way than to panic and delete them to meet an arbitrary deadline. Certes (talk) 17:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

*Oppose. And then what? Every article about a band with living members? Every TV article that has actors that are still alive? Nearly every article on here has some biographical material about someone who is still alive. I will not accept this as a backdoor effort to change our general policy from "verifiability" to "verified", and delete every sentence that doesn't have an inline citation after it. Gigs (talk) 20:58, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• • Gigs, please reread his proposal, I maybe wrong, but he is suggesting a one year moratorium. Hopefully in one year we show how much we have cleaned up unreferenced BLPs, and no new rules are needed. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 18:16, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Okip has said it more clearly than I did. A 12 month moratorium does not schedule a further wave of deletionism for twelve months time, it schedules a minimum 12 month gap before the community even discusses such a further step. Much can happen in 12 months, we anticipate somewhere in the region of 80 million edits in that time, so as Okip pointed out the quality of these articles may be very different by then. More likely in my view, the focus of the community may well have changed to one of the bigger problems on the pedia. But without this moratorium there would be nothing to stop those who started the current kerfuffle moving straight onto Category:BLP articles lacking sources as soon as the unsourcedBLPs are resolved. ϢereSpielChequers 22:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
      • "But in any event these articles need to be reviewed and if the tag is correct, improved or deleted" -- I don't agree with this, not 12 months from now, not ever. Gigs (talk) 03:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
      • To expand on my last comment: This proposal doesn't make any sense. We don't delete sourced material because it happens to share an article with some unsourced material. This proposal is an extremist proposal that goes farther than even the strongest proposal on the "Content" RfC which proposes to redefine "contentious" to mean nothing. I don't know if you intended it to be that way, but the way you have written it, it is. Gigs (talk) 03:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Gigs, why not argue this in 12 months? You are letting your admirable firm principles cloud your commonsense, and I say that as a friend. One of the most beneficial and rare qualities on wikipedia and online is a person who changes their mind. Too often wikipedians do not change their position, they do not step back and reconsider. My position throughout this has changed, and will continue to evolve, that is not a weakness, that is an incredible strength. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 03:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
          • OK I've now rephrased that in I hope a more neutral tone to make it clear that I am proposing a moratorium before any further decision. I'm not proposing a further deletion round in 12 months. ϢereSpielChequers 16:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
            • OK, changed over to support. Gigs (talk) 19:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - A lot can happen in 12 months. A lot could have happened in the last 5 years. What did happen is we got a ton more unreferenced BLPs and little attempt to reference them. No moratoriums. We've already had a huge Phase I of this and now we're having Phase II. This issue needs to be resolved and dealt with in the current discussion cycle, when people are still energized and interested, not pushed down the line for another year after which time editors participating in discussion may become inactive, leave the project, or just lose interest entirely in what we're trying to accomplsh here. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 19:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

I just happened on to a string of quite famous people all with the "refimprove" PROD. Some of these articles had upwards of two dozen references (and more external links), yet nobody had removed the PROD. What kind of standards do we have for these supplemental PRODs, whose insertion essentially puts an article in jeopardy? Nowhere is a corollary requirement to describe what is expected to be added. Probably the majority of editors don't know these PRODs can be removed, while the initial PRODer is not bothering to watch the article. Their use is apparently totally arbitrary. These unnecessary PRODings embarrass an article and essentially WP itself.Trackinfo (talk) 07:48, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

A categorical solution

I would propose adding all unsourced blps with a special category which would somehow render them invisible to google and other search machines. The unsourced blps then would only be possible to visit via wikilinks. This would take some of the urgency off the issue and make the current processes of PRODding, AFDing, discussing and sourcing sufficiently efficient to continue. With the added awareness that this discussion has engendered and the creation of PROD/sourcing teams I think we'll get a long way towards solving the problem.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Maurreen (talk) 21:40, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• This has been discussed extensively. Consensus seems to favor not using NOINDEX in article space under any circumstance. One valid objection is that it actually makes libel more likely to remain in an article. I'm inclined to agree with that logic. Gigs (talk) 19:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Newly Found Old Unsourced BLPs

Proposal by WereSpielChequers

As well as the articles already tagged as {{unsourcedBLP}}s, and newly created unsourced BLPs there is a third group, unsourced BLPs that we have not yet identified. No one knows how many are out there still to be found, but I've tracked down several in the last fortnight, and User:Mr.Z-bot is busily tagging many more, so they definitely still exist. If we decide to deal with both the other groups it would be anomalous not to deal with these as well. I had thought that the backlog of unsourced BLPs was a static 50,000 or so, and if article was tagged as {{unsourcedBLP}} March 2007 that meant it had been tagged as an unsourced BLP since March 2007. I now realise I was wrong, and that if someone categorises an article as Living people, then Zbot will change the tag from {{unsourced}} to {{tl|unsourcedBLP} whilst leaving the tag date unaltered. This is positive news in that the rate of improvement of BLPs is greater than I'd thought, but it does mean that we will still have more articles being classified as January 2010 unsourced BLPs or earlier for some time to come. So we have to stop thinking of the records tagged as unsourced BLPs from January 2010 and before as a defined group that can only be reduced, and start thinking of them as a fluctuating category. I've also come to realise that these articles are generally far cleaner than I had feared, many articles tagged as unsourced BLPs are incorrectly tagged, and there are bigger quality problems on Wikipedia such as unsourced BLPs that have yet to be identified and tagged as such. So I no longer think that records tagged as unsourced BLPs should be as high a priority as I thought at the beginning of this year.

Proposal We continue to find and tag unsourced BLPs, and continue to work on these as we have been. when we've cleared the existing backlog we deal with the backlog of these in a similar unrushed fashion. When the backlog is cleared then anyone can prod new found unreferenced BLPS as follows:

1. Check that the article is genuinely unsourced as opposed to poorly sourced.
2. Check the history to see if the article was previously referenced and revert if appropriate.
3. (optional step) Try to reference the article.
4. Prod for deletion as unreferenced BLP
5. Inform the author and any major contributors.

Though we are in a position to change the rules for newly created articles with a view to no longer accepting more unreferenced BLPs. We don't have sufficient metrics to set a date for when those BLPs that have already been created will all have been brought up to full wp:BLP standards, nor do we have good reason to prioritise these articles ahead of other problems such as genuinely unreferenced but unidentified BLPs.

Support

• As Author ϢereSpielChequers 17:21, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
• I agree with the comment below about the crossings out being confusing but any supports or opposes can be udnerstood as post-dating this.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

• What exactly is this proposal about now? I don't think it would be out of line for you to refactor it without using strikeout, since no one has commented on it. Feel free to delete this comment if you refactor this proposal. Gigs (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Definition of "unsourced"

Whichever BLP-prod format is ultimately adopted, I think it is necessary to clarify (and include in the whatever BLP-prod configuration is adopted) what exactly is meant by an "unsourced"/"unreferenced" BLP. The term is sometimes understood to mean an article with an absent/empty "References" section. However, many BLPs contain an "External link" section with a link to the subject's homepage. Such a link can be used to source some basic non-controversial and non-contentious facts about the subject (such as education, employment and current position). This is in fact an allowable form of sourcing per WP:SELFPUB. While it generally cannot be used to prove notability, it can be used to source some basic non-controversial factual info in an article. IMO, an article containing such an external link should not be considered "unsourced"/"unreferenced" and thus should not be subject to BLP-prodding (although an ordinary prod or an AfD listing may, of course, still be used in such cases). This is my own opinion, but I'd like to have a discussion of this point, since it will be relevant to any BLP-prod format. Nsk92 (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• An admin has already been prodding articles as you describe, even when the external link qualified as a WP:RS, e.g. player profile pages at ATP (see [2] for a sample page) or other similar sports organizations. Such articles are sourced per WP:CITE#General reference. Of course, verifying that the material matches the citation is an issue with any article, but perhaps more so when general refs are used. But articles should not be BLP-prodded just because they lack inline references. Pcap ping 20:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed but it should be clear without any clarifications. An article is "unsourced" if it does not have sources. If sources exist - no matter where, what kind or which formatting they use - it's not unsourced. Even a primary source is a source after all - it may not be a source that establishes notability or satisfies WP:RS but it is a source, isn't it? Regards SoWhy 20:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Jclemens (talk) 21:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

No, if you think about it we have to have some minimal sourcing standards here, and really no one should have a problem with that. I agree that if the only source is a person's bio on their own web site, that would count as "sourced" (albeit horribly). But we absolutely cannot say "any source is a source." If we have an article on an actor named Suzie Jones, and the only "source" is Jack Nicholson's IMDB page (i.e. a fake source) or a link that has gone dead or was never live in the first place, that clearly does not count. Obviously "fake" sources and deadlinks are stuck into articles with some frequency, and surely we can all agree those don't "count" in the terms we are discussing. There could also be other times where the source provided is ridiculously unreliable, e.g. a comment made on a blog saying such and such is a great actor, singer, whatever, though even that might be debatable. As has been suggested in the past, I think the standard for "is the source good enough to avoid a BLP-prod" (assuming we are not talking about phony sources or dead links) should simply be whether there is any controversy over it. If there is, we go to AfD, period. If a BLP is "sourced" with a comment from a blog and someone says, "no way, that doesn't count" and no one objects, then the BLP-prod can proceed. This should be easy to codify but preserves a degree of flexibility by allowing us to handle these on a case by case basis, while also not putting us in the absurd situation of a BLP-prod "failing" because someone used an article in The Onion as a source. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:55, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify--if we're talking a speedy deletion process, then the threshold should be no sources, references, SPS's, etc. If we're talking a PROD process, then anything can be PRODed as unsourced--if the tag is incorrect, it should be removed, but there's far less that's black-and-white about PRODing. Jclemens (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Well if we allow that (anything prod) we should have a process to check that the prod is a good one, and a way to warn those who add prods without checking that references were provided. It would be unfair to just leave all the work to the deleting admin to check. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:14, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There are no such safeguards or work sharing for the admins who process prods currently, speaking from experience. Jclemens (talk) 07:36, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

That's because the current logic is "Well not one person cared enough to de-prod in 7 days, so it doesn't matter". If there are sanctions for de-prodding while remaining unsourced, it changes the game entirely. Gigs (talk) 15:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• Unsourced means no references and no external links and no notes. Bearian (talk) 15:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
  • and no "according to <specific source>"-style in-prose attributions. Unfortunately, you do have to actually read the content to see if it is unsourced. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 16:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure the threshold should be that absolute... but the arguments here do highlight why it is impossible for a bot to determine the sourcing status of an article. Gigs (talk) 17:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Yet we have many, possibly a majority of, BLPs tagged as unreferenced by a BOT that never is able to actually read the article. There are lots of pages of discussion on this issue, I keep trying to find where to write to try to stop this deletion oriented insanity. Before you delete, STEP 1: Open and read the article. STEP 2: If it is indeed unreferenced, use google--see if it checks out. STEP 3: If it is legit--Add the references. Case closed, another article rescued. If it still doesn't check out, if the person is not notable or a potential hoax, then we have AFD procedures in place. If its libelous, we have editing tools in place. IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE SUBJECT, don't decide on your own, forward the article to the attention of somebody who does understand--start with the portal manager of the subject in question. These are all individual articles and must be treated as such.Trackinfo (talk) 07:34, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
        • I had been of a mind not to blame the Bots, but rather to blame the taggers. My understanding was that the Bots simply tagged articles that humans had categorised as living people and as {{unreferenced}}, and retagged them as {{unreferencedBLP}}s. But Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Erik9bot_6 is a little vague, and the bot operator has subsequently been banned. So I guess we should accept the possibility that some of the bot based tagging of BLPs is suspect. There is also the issue that inexperienced editors may not be happy removing tags or changing categories even if they have added a reference, or indeed a date of death. ϢereSpielChequers 19:06, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
          • The vast majority of the articles I am referencing and rescuing were tagged by a BOT, most of them the same BOT, the same month--September 09. It seems the BOT found the same stream of unsourced (but all quite accurate) articles and left its mark. I feel like the graffiti clean up crew.Trackinfo (talk) 21:31, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Definition of "contentious"

I am wanting to know what - precisely - is meant by the word "contentious" in the BLP policies. Some editors seem to think that it means any material which refers to controversies or anything deemed "negative" or potentially damaging to a person's reputation. My understanding of the word, however, is that it refers to comments that are open to debate or interpretation regarding actual facts of a situation. If, however, it is a publicly known fact that a person has been charged with an offence - and this fact is simply stated in an article - should this necessarily be considered "contentious" and require verification or immediate deletion without it? I agree that facts about controversies *should* be verified, but my reading of the policies doesn't indicate that such facts are necessarily "contentious". Thanks. Anglicanus (talk) 15:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a whole RFC on this at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Content. Cenarium (talk) 17:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Contentious arises from the references supplied. If the reference source is from reliable publications, it is ok. Otherwise one has to argue the contents to verify if you fail to get another source to verify. The contents may be good or bad. Eventually they become contentious. Also how they are worded in the source makes it contentious.--kaeiou (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

No, you're referring to reliable sourcing. Contentiousness stems from the obvious possibility of real-world harm befalling a BLP subject if such material is incorrect. Jclemens (talk) 00:32, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Lets get this clear: contentious means disputed. To a fanatic, any party with a point of view, might look at an encyclopedic explanation of the facts as something that is disputable. We should be aiming at getting the truth presented. If we can reference our sources sufficiently, we can remove the representation that this is a point of view. That will not separate that information from being disputed, just that our editor did not say it of their own volition. If there is an opposing point of view, that also should be covered, but not at the exclusion of referenced reliable information. Of course, this all involves referencing. Unreferenced, we don't know. The vast majority of our unreferenced articles are innocuous, shallow bits of information. And from what I am finding, they are extremely accurate. Sources to verify the info are easy to find, its just that the original editor didn't put them in, didn't know how or what was expected.Trackinfo (talk) 21:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Do nothing

I think the results above clearly show only one thing: that we should not change anything. Each such opinion received around or over 80% of the votes. Why is it that whoever drew up this page didn't close the discussion yet, but instead pushes new proposals? Debresser (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

The status quo is unacceptable. Period, The End. Also, if you notice, Jehochman's proposal was most widely accepted (it received double the support of everyone else), which is actually how RfCs generally run – level of support, not percentage of support. NW (Talk) 18:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

His proposal has less support than most of the many proposals to do nothing. So sorry, but you seem to be pushing your personal opinion here. Debresser (talk) 21:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

What status quo are you referring to? The one where Wikiprojects and interested editors were largely unaware of the backlog (back in November 2009 or earlier)? Or the current status quo where the backlag has decreased by more than 10,000 articles since November 2009 (thanks to the first RfC and helpful editors rolling out tools and notices to interested editors who have tackled the problem)? I agree with Debresser because the current status quo is tackling the problem in a constructive and effective manner. Jogurney (talk) 18:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I am referring to the former status quo. I think it is wonderful that Wikiprojects and editors have been helping out with the backlog. However, let's face it, the pace we have been moving at is not sustainable. If it turns out that it is, I'll gladly eat my words. But I would prefer not to wait until things stagnate again to come up with a plan. NW (Talk) 19:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Articles needing cleanup or Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability, just to mention two that come to mind, are also coping with large backlogs. So? Debresser (talk) 21:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Those don't actively harm the encyclopedia. This has a much greater potential to do so. But if I have to argue with people that unsourced BLPs are bad for the encyclopedia, then there is no point in trying to gather "consensus" anymore. That ship sailed a long time ago. NW (Talk) 02:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

NW, that ship sailed? You're going to have to come up with a more convincing argument than that. How many of those unreferenced BLPs have you looked at? I'm now into the thousands and within the subjects that I know and understand I haven't found one that I can check out to be significantly inaccurate. I will say MOST articles on WP are inaccurate in that they hype one spectacular, notorious act at the expense of the deeper story about these people, because when they don't, people like you drag them through AFD. In most articles I read, I've hardly seen any that say anything negative toward the subject. Most are just incomplete, about the story, about the referencing. I have many other, much more high profile, referenced BLPs that I am "watching" that get vandalized and have more incorrect information than the ignored, stub articles that are at the heart of these huge numbers. Since the high profile articles attract vandals and thus inaccurate information, why don't you propose to delete all of them?

I'm also being responsible. I don't try to address subjects I don't understand. I give a pass to the Cambodian soccer player with a chart of his three international goals. Let the experts decide if he's legit, it doesn't say anything more, there is nothing I can see wrong with that article. I don't know where to reference a government official from Cameroon--its not my business to delete it. When I see somebody's article who's entire claim to notoriety is they were convicted of a murder--gee, that's pretty negative. Libelous, if inaccurate. No referencing? Delete it? How about googling the subject and seeing if the facts add up before taking drastic action? And deleting anything you don't actually check out is totally irresponsible.Trackinfo (talk) 00:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion removing the unsourced tag from biographies sourced only to IMDB etc ([3][4][5] is not helpful. At the very least you should leave {{refimproveBLP}} on those. Kevin (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Now you are talking quality of referencing. That is an entirely different issue. The tag said the article was unsourced--under the more extreme proposals that means the "kiss of death to the article." IMDB is a very valid source especially when the majority of (or in the case of [6] the entire) article IS just credits. Remember these are stub, incomplete articles. So yes, in removing the tag and saying the IMDB is a (viable) reference for those articles is absolutely correct, the article is not unsourced. Can it be better sourced, is every word absolutely checked out? No. But those articles do not deserve to die because they were not sourced, especially when they HAVE A SOURCE that the BOT didn't recognize. And you cannot claim virtually ANY article on Wikipedia is word for word sourced. All are subject to necessary interpretation and re-write or they would be copyright violations.Trackinfo (talk) 23:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You've missed my point - those articles are poorly sourced, and should be tagged as such. Your argument that incorrectly tagged sourced articles will be deleted is irrelevant to my comment above. Kevin (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point at all. I fully admit these are poor articles that not only need more sourcing, but more content. If a competent interested editor would pay attention and put some time into the majority of these articles or any other article on WP, the whole look of the site would improve greatly. But we aren't paid here, this is a volunteer workforce of editors. It ain't gonna happen! So the question is, are you going to forcibly apply high standards at the expense of a large amount of our content? I am looking at this as a life and death fight. If someone tags a BLP article with "unsourced" in any way, there are "expletive deleted" people here who want to kill those articles. So, given the choice between the article or the tags, the tags must be removed.Trackinfo (talk) 07:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you consider this debate to be a "life and death fight" then there seems little point in continuing with you, unless you can scale back the hyperbole. Kevin (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

All maintenance categories point to something bad. Unsourced BLP's do not necessarily harm Wikipedia more than other articles. As you say yourself, they have the potential to be harmful. That is a point that has been made in the discussion as well. Debresser (talk) 02:42, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that sourcing unreferenced BLPs or deleting non-notable and/or unverifiable unreferenced BLPs is a bad idea. The difference of opinion relates to those who want to manually source and/or delete the backlog of unreferenced BLPs and those who want to nuke them all without checking to see what's being removed. Given the amount of progress being made, I think the case for nuking is getter weaker by the day. Jogurney (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

A couple of points:

1. Given that the backlog is steadily diminishing, it would be reasonable to hold off any major changes for at least a few months and then re-evaluate the situation.
2. I have seen no evidence that an unsourced BLP is more problematic than any other article. If subjects of BLPs complain, they're not going to complain about whether sources are listed. They are going to complain about what the articles say.
3. A perfect BLP, with perfectly attributed sources, on one day, could just as easily be libelous and otherwise atrocious the next day -- and still have sources listed. Maurreen (talk) 06:29, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with this is that any time we have a big discussion about this, people are going to start working on it, since its the topic of the month™. If it stagnates again in a few months and the backlog grows bigger, we'll start a new discussion, and the same thing will likely happen. We're never going to have a situation where its both stagnant or worsening and being actively discussed. I would also disagree with your second point. If content is referenced to a reliable source and meets NPOV, etc., then any complaint from the subject is not going to result in a change because we know that the content is both factually correct and encyclopedic. If the content is unsourced, then a complaint means that it might be untrue and libelous. The 2 complaints are not the same. Mr.Z-man 06:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man said, "If content is referenced to a reliable source and meets NPOV, etc., then any complaint from the subject is not going to result in a change because we know that the content is both factually correct and encyclopedic. If the content is unsourced, then a complaint means that it might be untrue and libelous."

One point is that there is a difference between 1) whether the article lists a source and 2) whether a source is listed for any and all problematic statements in the article. Maurreen (talk) 08:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If the article doesn't have a source for problematic statements, its in violation of BLP. I was talking about subjects complaining about sourced content, I assumed you were too, as your comment doesn't make much sense otherwise. Mr.Z-man 18:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

User:Mr.Z-man, apparently we aren't understanding each other. What I mean is: 1) My understanding is that the current push and the deletion drive that started it distinguish either only or primarily between BLPs that indicate a source and BLPs that don't indicate a source. 2) The fact that one or more sources are indicated in the article does not mean that the sourcing is indicated for any and all problematic statements in the article. Maurreen (talk) 18:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, now I see your point. The main issue with something being unsourced is that if there's no source, we don't know if its problematic. Someone gave the example of an article that had an unsourced claim that the subject won a bronze medal at the Olympics. Most people would see that, read it as being entirely positive, and assume that even if its not correct, its not problematic. However, if the subject actually won a gold medal, it could be problematic. Are unsourced BLPs more likely to contain problematic content than BLPs in general? I don't know. I've yet to see a study that was sufficiently objective and covered a large enough sample to know for sure. The main reason that we're focusing on unsourced BLPs (at what I think it is) is that there really isn't a way to focus on the most problematic ones, since there's usually no way to tell if an article is problematic without reading it. The way I see it, we can review all 430,000+ BLPs all at once or we can review them in chunks. Given the scale of the issue, I think the latter has more of a chance at leading to a "successful-ish" conclusion. Mr.Z-man 23:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr.Z-man, That's reasonable. I think efforts against problematic statements can be spent in better ways. But we can agree to disagree. Maurreen (talk) 00:15, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

NuclearWarfare and Mr.Z-man defense of MZMcBride and breaching experiments

This is very important to point out, the editor who started this RFC, MZMcBride, is now a desopyed administrator. He had a "secret mailing list" and recruited a banned editor to conduct "breaching experiments", MZMcBride "gave this list to [a banned user] knowing that...the introduction of inaccurate information into these articles—even if done by K. inconspicuously and without malice—could have unpredictable real life consequences"

Both NuclearWarfare and Mr.Z-man have defended these breaching experiments and MZMcBride:

1. Mr.Z-man to Okip: "The banned user's vandalism was minor, limited, and I believe in most cases was self-reverted.""
2. NuclearWarfare to Okip: "Your constant posts about how MZMcBride manufactured this BLP crisis and is now trying to deceive the entire community into doing something or another is bordering on harassment."

If NuclearWarfare and Mr.Z-man are concerned about the libelous effects of unreferenced BLP's why are they vigorously defending a desopyed administrator who intentionally supported [introducing] "inaccurate information into [unreferenced living person] articles"?

In addition, Mr.Z-man repeatedly acknowledges, "I agreed that phase 2 only covered one aspect".

For full details see: Proposal: Close this manufactured RFC immediately

You have got to be kidding me. Is this how much of a battleground environment this BLP mess has become? Please focus on the real issue at hand and stop trying to distract from the main problem. NW (Talk) 16:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Maurreen (talk) 06:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

   Those were a few good point you made above. Debresser (talk) 07:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

   Thanks. You, too! Maurreen (talk) 20:29, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

2. I support do nothing. I don't know where my comments have gone, but I have previously outlined policies that are already in place that can address the BLP problem. Trackinfo (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
3. I strongly support do nothing. The only point really raised against it is that the present wave of improvement may be the result of the current storm, and will drop off when it does. This may be true; the solution will be to raise another storm if there is a drop-off. In so doing, Z-man and Nuclear Warfare will be useful to the project, so I do not support administrative action against the personal attacks below. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
4. Support Let people get on with producing content and sourcing it as they were before this attempt to bully them into doing things that might burn them out started.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
5. Support I'd honestly prefer to do something here, but I also honestly believe that those pushing this have reached far past all degrees of civility and violated good faith to a point that an honest and frank discussion is nearly impossible. I'd add Risker to the list of people who have brought us to that point. Hobit (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support "do nothing" in the sense of "continue to source as we have been doing, without adding bureaucracy, threats or penalties". (Obviously, any sane editor would oppose "do nothing" in the sense of "stop improving Wikipedia", but that wasn't suggested.) Certes (talk) 18:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• I oppose this strongly, as one of the worst ideas yet. "Do nothing"? That's not even close to an option anymore. The sooner the status quo proponents realize that, the better off they'll be. Scottaka UnitAnode 14:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Please explain why it's no longer an option. As far as I can tell, the current policies had led to a reduction in the backlog of more than 10,000 articles in about one month (which corresponds to probably 12,000 unreferenced BLPs being sourced since there are at least 2,000 new ones in the backlog - not to mention those that were added in January 2010 and already have been sourced). If you think the backlog is a problem, I think it's more constructive to source articles and develop tools to help other editors do it. Jogurney (talk) 15:49, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
    • The reduction is from the threat of deletion. The policies themselves have not significantly changed. I would bet money that if all the proposals that involved deletion failed, the decreasing of the backlog would stop rather quickly. Mr.Z-man 23:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
      • Yes, the threat of deletion achieved its goal. Now we're trying to reach a consensus on whether it is proper to use threatening behaviour to overturn a policy which has 80% support. Certes (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I'm not that cynical. Also, the evidence appears to point to a contrary conclusion. We know that unreferenced BLP tagging did not begin in earnest until late 2008 (I believe Fram was the first editor to do it manually on a large scale). We also know that the process was not automated until early 2009. The first automated notification to authors of unreferenced BLPs began in early 2009 (Larabot, I think), but the most comprehensive approach began with Dashbot in late December 2009. Wikiproject notifications were haphazard at best (WP:FOOTY was made aware of the problem in part because it was a big proportion of the problem) with many projects only being notified in the first weeks of 2010. We are still developing tools to track new unreferenced BLPs and slice the backlog into pieces that each Wikiproject can work on. Accordingly, it is little surprise that the backlog dramatically increased begining in late 2008, and rapidly expanded during 2009 (lots of tagging, not much notification). It is also little surprise that the backlog started dropping quickly in November 2009 (I know that the WP:FOOTY backlog decreased by almost 9,000 from May 2009 through the end of January 2010 - thanks to the focused efforts which took root in the summer of 2009). It is true that the against concensus deletions by certain admins in December 2009 caught people's attention. It is also true that the RfCs have caught even more people's attention. However, the biggest impact on the backlog in my view is the tagging, notification and tool development processes. Now that we are being effective at the latter two, I see no reason why the pace will slow down. I also think that imposing arbitrary deadlines now will frustrate much of the good work that's been done. Let's see how things look in 3-6 months, and if the pace drops off, I would be much more supportive of Draconian measures like those suggested above. Jogurney (talk) 00:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
        • There was a dramatic drop today. I think the word is getting out and lots of people are working on it. We should definitely do nothing about the backlog until the backlog stops dropping. Gigs (talk) 01:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The highest proportions of support were for doing nothing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• This isn't a proposal, just more attacks and evidence-less allegations by Okip. I would challenge him to find some diffs where I explicitly supported the breaching experiment, but I'm sure he could come up with some nonsense theory as to why there is none. Mr.Z-man 18:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - After all this people really just want to do nothing? You have to be insane. Let go of your comfort zone. And attacks on MZMcBride are pointless. Whatever he did (I didn't hear about this so maybe I'm in the dark), it doesn't have any bearing on the very REAL BLP issue. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 20:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The personal attacks have nothing to do with "Do Nothing." The host of bad ideas proposing deleting existing WP content simply out of fear that something (unread) might be erroneous are what "Do Nothing" proposes to avoid. We already have plenty of tools to deal with our problems, if only the complainers were to 1) Open articles and read them 2) Find the specific problems they say exist, and 3) Deal with each of those specific problems in the same fashion we deal with AfDs, or simply make editorial changes to the problem phrases. The only "problem" is the unknown--they don't know what is out there in these now 43K articles. I contend, from my large sampling of these articles, that they are mostly unattended, innocuous and highly accurate articles that could be easily verified if only somebody would take the time to make the effort. There is no reason for hysteria, or hysterical draconian rules.Trackinfo (talk) 19:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - Two RFCs on a longstanding proven issue leading to a "Do Nothing" (non-)solution would show en.wiki has an ungovernability problem much more serious than the BLP one.--M4gnum0n (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Incubate

Unsourced BLPs would be moved to Wikipedia:Article Incubator. Any moved en masse or systematically would have a year to come up to snuff. New and newly discovered such articles would fall under the normal incubator practices. Maurreen (talk) 23:51, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

1. Maurreen (talk) 07:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. Partial support. I support the first half, but I think if we ever want this to reduce itself to more manageable levels, we need to take a stronger stance on new articles. Mr.Z-man 23:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Incubate old articles

Unsourced BLPs would be moved to Wikipedia:Article Incubator. Any moved en masse or systematically would have a year (or possibly another period) to come up to snuff. New articles are not addressed here.

If we're going to get rid of articles for the sole reason of lacking sources (which I don't agree with), this allows a moderate pace and gives something to each side. Maurreen (talk) 12:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the incubator can handle more volume in its current state. There are several BLPs that have languished there since last year. Kevin (talk) 00:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Page organization

This would be better organized by sections focusing on specific elements, instead of more-fleshed-out proposals. For instance, it might have sections on automization, pace, defining "unsourced," general support or objections, etc. Maurreen (talk) 18:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Kevin (talk) 23:17, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to the above three objectives for discussion, or the 6 details for the BLP PROD process? If you see a better way to more concisely summarize and structure the discussion, try it below. The elements I can see which need discussion are: article age/date (ones after a certain date, or ones a certain number of hours old) - and backlog vs. new articles, automatization/bot directions, backlog pace, actions to take (deletion, userification, incubation), delay for that action (though it looks like for new articles 7 days is agreed), and others? But I think the structure of 1. backlog, 2. policy for new BLPs is pretty good. -kslays (talk • contribs) 00:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

for those who actually want to solve the problem

Those who want to help solve the problem, instead of discussing how other people should solve it, should go and work on some of the articles. Using myself as the most convenient example, I found I had a choice: I could either enter extensively into this and all the related discussions, or actually work on sourcing articles. At first I tried to combine both, but I decided I could do more real good by actually working on the articles. We have quite enough people giving opinions, and far from enough improving the present status. I do not call this doing nothing. I call this doing the only thing that will actually accomplish anything. I've been specializing in working on articles other people fail to source and put up for deletion as I se them on PROD or elsewhere; I find I can source half of the ones I work on, but I only work on the ones that seem likely to be notable and possibly sourceable. I'm by no means alone in this, and it's the others working on this whose example keeps me active. It will be more productive to just work under the current system, than figuring out how to improve it. If 200 people worked each on 3 articles a day, about two months would solve what has been put forth as the immediate problem. We've been arguing about that long about what to do. By now, we could have done it. DGG ( talk ) 01:45, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

DGG, I respect your comments so much, and I agree 100%.

The way consensus is usually formed, is a handful of veteran editors have an idea, they write the idea, they vote on the idea, then they impose the idea on everyone else. Our rules are set up to enforce this system.

The 17,500 editors, the vast majority who are good faith editors, will have no voice in this discussion.

The editors proposing radical change, many, including Mr. Wales support the editors who have "utter contempt" for "community consensus" (to quote Scott MacDonald) an offwiki mailing list was set up by the creator of this RFC to change BLP policy, MZMcBride.

Quietly fixing articles and setting a good example, while noble, is simply not enough in the face of such "utter contempt" for our rules. Okip (formerly Ikip) 03:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

This is just the usual bad faith, ad homium rant repeated ad nausium by Ikip. I'd respond to it, except he's content to take retracted post by me, and use them out of context to poison the well regardless of how many times he's told to stop. Ikip, I ask again, please deal with the issues not your hatred of the individuals.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:10, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• You can't unring bells. But even Don Imus came back, right?--Milowent (talk) 22:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

  What, particularly, were you trying to accomplish with this? It looks a bit like baiting to me, but if there were some other point you were trying to make, I'd be interested in hearing it. MacDonald's points about Okip/Ikip are well-founded, as O/I has been poisoning the well at every opportunity. Scottaka UnitAnode 23:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with DGG. Wikipedians spew so much text in these discussions its impossible for anyone except the most highly dedicated to follow and actually influence. I am enjoying sourcing random BLPs from the category of unreferenced BLPs and prods. If the outcome here is too odious, I'll just leave, and life will go on. What my work shows is that 99% of unreferenced BLPs are uncontentious.--Milowent (talk) 22:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• I also agree with what DGG wrote. I have been trying to read this long, long discussion but I just can't. Instead of arguing about drastic deletionist policies, constructive solutions should be sought instead. I consider myself a fairly typical editor and only found out about this discussion of the problem via a notice on my watchlist page. I think Wikipedia should find ways of making people more aware of the problem and show them how to fix it rather than implementing sweeping policy changes a relatively small number of editors hammered out. I found out about this through a notice on my watchlist page so something like that might be a good idea to help fix the problem.-Schnurrbart (talk) 07:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• I also agree with DGG. If your here to look and find fault with what's here fine go do it, if your here to build and work on articles, fine go do it. Stop talking start doing. Mlpearc (talk) 17:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• I'm pretty much the same as DGG: I gave up on this RfC ages ago. I have added few comments recently prior to closure but I found that actually working on the articles was far more important and satisfying. Anyway Okip's discussion was far more useful and constructive: User:Ikip/Discussion about creation of possible Wikiproject:New Users and BLPs --Jubilee♫clipman 01:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Problems" by topic?

Is there a listing, or is it feasible to get a list, of these "problem" articles by topic? For instance, entertainers, athletes, different nationalities, etc.? Maurreen (talk) 03:40, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Such lists can be generated via CatScan. The process could also be done via bots. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:05, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Examples, or links to examples, would help. I cross-matched the Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society and unsourced BLP categories for instance (that was four - doing it for "Fellows of learned societies of the United Kingdom", got 115!). But the problem is that some perfectly fine (and some atrocious) BLPs don't have enough categories to do this, so some effort also needs to be directed towards unsourced BLPs with only 3-4 categories, and I would also suggest the unsourced BLPs without birth years are a good general category to work with (again, not all of them are marked with the relevant category for lack of birth year, though many are). Carcharoth (talk) 22:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I recently went through all the BLPs where the only cats were living people and year of birth, almost all now have professional categories and most of those have a country as well. But I dread to think how many BLPs we have with just one category, and whilst there are very few articles in Category:Uncategorized pages, those that are there are because they have been tagged as uncategorised, not because someone has fond a way to query a list of articles without categories. ϢereSpielChequers 01:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete unsourced statements on sight

For what it's worth, after reading over the various solutions and arguments it seems like cracking a nut with a shotgun. There's no reason to ever delete a NPOV sourced statement; there's no reason to ever keep an unsourced statement of any kind that an editor objects to in good faith. Simply codify the rule that deleting unsourced statements (not entire pages) on sight is appropriate behaviour in BLPs, and that the onus is on editors adding material to source it at the time they add it. There's no reason ever to be adding material that you "think" is right or that "you think there's a source for" to the main article rather than the talk page; ergo there's no reason for unsourced statements to stand on a BLP page. If you're worried about it hitting a whole bunch of existing, unsourced BLPs, declare a one month state of grace before enforcing it to allow concerned editors to bring their articles up to the standard they should already be achieving. (The distinction between "statements" and "pages" is that undoing page deletes is much harder and more bothersome than statements and doesn't allow for constructive improvement during the delete time. It also forces editors to assess on a line by line basis rather than deleting a whole page without giving it thorough scrutiny.) - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:12, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support-If we simply deleted unsourced assertions in WP:BLP articles, on sight, and with the support of policy and therefore administrators, the unsourced article problem would be radically reduced. N2e (talk) 04:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Why not apply this to the whole pedia, and delete 95 percent of our content? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:14, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Because Living Persons are qualitatively diferent from all other information we post. David in DC (talk) 22:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the current policies in place are adequate to solve the problem. The issue is enforcement. See for example this well documented issue list with Michael Behe's BLP and the associated discussion on the notice board. Because his theories are WP:FRINGE, editors form a local consensus to ignore policy and no admin seems willing to step into the breach. Editors trying to clean up a coatrack like this are faced with tag team edit warring and who needs that grief? What is needed is a policy that is applied uniformly by folks with enforcement authority who are willing to use that authority whether the active editors want the hit piece to remain or not. JPatterson (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

All references to Living Persons must be sourced. Information about Living Persons is qualitatively diferent from any other information we post. These are our fellow beings, with lives affected by what we post. Everything must be verifiably true, from a reliable source.

If it's not, it should be zapped on sight, without prejudice to recreation in a proper fashion.

If the subject is genuinely and especially notable, I'd propose that the article must be pared down to a barebones stub. It should have a template up top with a forlorn plea, written in a blue and minor key, for some volunteer(s) to help create an article that's sourced verifiably.

Our editorial standards need not be the same as the tabloid press --- or the New York Times, for that matter.

Our standards about Living Persons, are better than theirs. We are stricter. We hold the bar higher before posting information about Living Persons. Good for us. David in DC (talk) 22:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You are singing to the choir but didn't address the issue. What about "jury nullification" where the active editors simply revert deletions of unsourced or poorly sourced material and the admins do nothing about it? JPatterson (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Many "sourced" statements are false, either because the source does not actually support the claim attributed to it or because the source is unreliable or dated. I have seen the last arise on BLPs in claims that the subject does not use her husband's name - sourced from articles written before the marriage.
• Similarly, many unsourced statements are true and uncontroversial: the teams to which minor athletes belong, for example.
• The use of an automatic blanket rule in cases where it will frequently be wrong is harmful to the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:29, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is not current policy, and nor should it ever be. Policy is that only 'contentious' statements have to be sourced: there's currently an RFC about what that means, but suffice to say it doesn't mean every statement. Unsourced, uncontentious material should be presumed to be accurate and left in until someone challenges it. Also, this proposal simply creates vastly more work: it's much easier to turn a biography from unsourced to sourced than it is to source every statement in the article. We should be concentrating on reducing the number of entirely unsourced BLPs for the time being, not finding more sources to those that have some already. Robofish (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose -- This is like shooting an ant with a bazooka. Maurreen (talk) 12:04, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose a) I fear that "unsourced" may be read as "not referenced inline". I don't want this to be scattergun. b) Even if it is genuinely unsourced material we are talking about, the first step should be to try to get them sourced either by looking for sources yourself ot flagging them as unsourced.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:26, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose this wasn't how the pedia was built, and I'm not convinced it would enable us to maintain it in a readable state without 80% being deleted and the rest being buried under citations. Also I see this as part of the same meme that articles are unsourced if they only have non-English sources, or they use primary sources such as a University Bio. ϢereSpielChequers 23:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose that becomes a matter of interpretation. A statement of fact lime, "Johnny Chan is a ten time World Series of Poker Bracelet Winner" may be deleted because the specific sentence isn't cited and somebody thinks it is necessary.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. There was a sitebanned user who tried to implement this by fiat a few years ago. It was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now. Durova⁴¹² 03:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. too drastic. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:40, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose At the risk of sarcasm, wouldn't "source unsourced statements on sight" work better? Clearly some statements should be deleted on sight for other reasons, and many of those will be unsourced, but please don't delete anything just because it is unsourced. Certes (talk) 18:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Absolutely Oppose The stupidity of this idea defies words.Trackinfo (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Noting that Jimbo's own BLP is almost entirely unsourced if one uses strict usage of RS. Collect (talk) 01:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Only clearly contentious material should be deleted. Are we expected to fully source the DoB, place of birth, and even the person's name? If so almost all BLP articles will have all that info removed! --Jubilee♫clipman 01:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose incredibly bitey. Okip 13:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A tool to help Wikiprojects spot new unreferenced BLPs in their field of experise

I don't know who created this daily Bot request, but it has been very helpful in letting the FOOTY Wikiproject spot new unreferenced BLPs within the project area and leave specific notes for newer editors that might not be aware of BLP policy. I recommend that other Wikiprojects try to develop similar bot requests to help minimize the inflow of unreferenced BLPs. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 15:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Technical tools

I have requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#BLP kertuffle help indicating unreferenced BLPs by country. This would help especially if sources are available in a language other than English.

Does anyone have related ideas or tools? We could list them all together. Maurreen (talk) 16:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You can use CatScan if the country is fairly small and there are not a huge amount of unreferenced BLPs of people from that country (e.g., run this to get the 37 Moroccan people in the unreferenced BLP category). I'm not sure of an easy way to deal with larger countries. Jogurney (talk) 18:24, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! That is a lot of help.

I know someone mentioned it above, but Jogurney simplified it. Maurreen (talk) 19:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a great tool to the extent that articles have already been properly categorized. Its a huge step forward.Trackinfo (talk) 01:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

CatScan has been a bit unreliable for me, but Magnus's Category Intersection has been working great. Only downside with that one is that it can't dig into the categories, so you will have to do them one by one. NW (Talk) 20:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The Category Intersection tool is extremely fast compared to CatScan, and seems far superior to me. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 21:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Mod MMG's View

Any change to policy needs more consensus than this. Give editors a chance, they will all references in their own time, all BLPs are works-in-progress as long as it remains a biography of a living person and not a dead one. I myself have fallen victem to the 'delete first, ask questions latter' syndrome, I got exactly 10 minutes to turn my work in progress into a full article, before the stupid administrator just deleted it (which he did in the end because he kept on doing minor edits to it so it threw up an edit conflict everytime I tried to improve it). I even had an {{underconstruction}} tag on the top of my page.
Mod mmg (talk) 21:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I wish we could have an RfC to measure concensus for the use of existing processes to address the backlog (i.e., no changes to PROD or CSD). Obviously, the backlog is a problem and tagging and notification processes can be improved. Most importantly, categorization and other tracking tools to help editors source the backlog can be improved. However, I believe that the community concensus is not to change PROD or CSD to permit summary deletion based on lack of sourcing. I just doubt this can be measured within this extremely broad scope RfC that few people could find if they wanted to. Jogurney (talk) 16:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Use existing tools had the highest proportion of support in the first RfC. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The proposals weren't mutually exclusive. Gigs (talk) 19:09, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

"I myself have fallen victem to the 'delete first, ask questions latter' syndrome, I got exactly 10 minutes to turn my work in progress into a full article, before the stupid administrator just deleted it (which he did in the end because he kept on doing minor edits to it so it threw up an edit conflict everytime I tried to improve it). I even had an {{underconstruction}} tag on the top of my page.
" Mod mmg, the only page of yours that was ever deleted was for a webgame that was, at the time of deletion, only in its second beta (and the article had been repeatedly deleted before this). Do you have another undisclosed account you are referring to here or are you just making up dramatic examples to strengthen your position? Fram (talk) 12:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

@Fram: That "webgame" was one of the first ever browser-based fps's that didn't require login and wasn't just a dodgey flash game. It quickely bacame an internet phenomenon and is now in its second beta stage. And, by the way, how did you know about that project of mine? You were not involved in that incident at all. For the record, at time of typing this, this is my only account however I have plans for several placeholder accounts so people cannot impersonate me. As a closing comment I would like to inform you that dredging up the past in such a way as to discredit my opinion on this issue is a childish way of showing the world that you just don't like what I have to say and would rather throw around slander than discuss the actual issue and my opion on it. The example of my past experience was just that- an example meant to support my argument- not form the basis of it.
Mod mmg (talk) 08:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I knew about that project because I am an admin, I can see a list of "deleted contributions" for every editor. You claim that "which he did in the end because he kept on doing minor edits to it so it threw up an edit conflict everytime I tried to improve it". This is a lie. You created the article (which had been deleted twice before, once after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phosphor (game)) on December 12, 2009 at 7:31, and edited it twice in the next two minutes. It was tagged for speedy deletion at 7:47 by user:Glenfarclas. You edited it once more on 9:19 the same day. No one else edited it before or after this. It was deleted at 12:54 by Nawlinwiki, i.e. more than three hours later, and without any intervening "edit conflicts". I can not respect the opinion of someone who lies about what happened to him to paint himself as a victim of a "stupid admin". Fram (talk) 09:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

@Fram:Now you still argue over petty details and ignore the point! I never new that the page had already been deleted, and also, it did throw up an edit conflict once. And, the page was deleted even though I contested and proved that it was noteworthy. The "stupid admin" you refer to just deleted my reasoning on the talkpage as well. So, stop accusing me of lieing when it is you who is to blame!
Mod mmg (talk) 10:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Your "reasoning" on the talk page was: "=Do Not Delete This Article Yet= reasons comming coon..." Nothing more, nothing less. Fram (talk) 11:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

@Fram: I was in the proccess of typing a couple of paragraphs on why it should not be deleted (I put the "Reasons comming soon..." to show I had not abandoned it and was planning a structured contest to the speedy deletion tag), but I got halfway and decided to upload what I had done so far but it threw up an edit conflict because someone had deleted the talk-page while I was typing my rational for it. So after all that I just gave up on the whole thing- but what I had done so far was moved to my sandbox here so I could improve it in my own time. Everyone is welcome to improve it here. I still want it back in the main-space.
Mod mmg (talk) 00:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

After having read this thread (and properly formatted it) I thouroughly agree that something ought to be done by the quick-on-the-trigger fly-past editors and sysops whose only agenda is to increase their edit count, barnstars and userboxes and look smart. (mature editors think they look stupid). However, all the more reason to prepare your creations and/or major edits in your sandbox or a special user page before posting it to article space, and as a mature editor, making sure that no one can have a reason for doing an AfD on it. Pure common sense really. --Kudpung (talk) 01:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

^^^^Complete agreement.
Mod mmg (talk) 02:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

I am fairly new to wikipedia, I just wanted to suggest something that some publishers used when dealing with grey areas about living persons in non-fiction. I propose some sort of template or banner attached to all new articles categorized as BLPs, possibly with some sort of grey or red border to clearly distinguish them from other articles. The template would mention that the article has been created by a user and the content has not been verified, mentioning the contents might or might not be factually accurate, followed by a straight forward legal disclaimer limiting the article from any responsibility to Wikipedia (similar to what a lot of social networking sites and user contributed sites use)- for any legal repercussion from libel charges. Once an article has been verified by a seasoned administrator and achieves a higher rating, it can have the above mentioned template removed, any new information or updates would have to be added to a new section with the same grey area/template and go through further consideration by admins.

That is an interesting idea, but there is long-standing policy against such disclaimers - I believe on the grounds that they would not relieve us of liability for those articles, but would suggest that Wikipedia's management endorses all articles without such disclaimers. But other articles are equally prone to simple vandalism and to error. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Anderson, the option I suggested above does not pertain to some new legal disclaimer, If you would have a look at the current disclaimers at the bottom of every wikipedia page [[7]] and [8] ,they outline what I am talking about, between the general disclaimer and the risk disclaimer it already outlines all the concerns. Excerpts from those disclaimer should be ample enough, modified only in context to relate that the following article is a BLP article, followed by excerpts from the current disclaimer. All articles already have that very same disclaimer including the BLPs, this wouldnt change the status of any of them, BLP being a controversial topic, it would merely be pointing out our position again through the same excerpts on top.--Theo10011 (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be held to any more stringent rules (legally at least) than other sites related to social networking or News aggregator who depend on users for content. User generated content is usually the responsibility of the user not the site hosting it, it has been established time and time again with even some of the largest copyright companies loosing out on multiple occasions to google, youtube, even torrent sites, the basic principle is the same here legally its all user generated, only thing expected of such sites would be removing any information if a Cease and desist order is issued, and even that has been successfully argued against. I know that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia unique in its existence and nothing like the companies I mentioned above but the principles in play are the same, publications whether magazines or newspaper are held for libel only for information they produce and publish, not for comments left on their forums or stories.--Theo10011 (talk) 04:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Precisely - and one of the ways we obtain that state is by not using article disclaimers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

But there is already one at the bottom of every page.--Theo10011 (talk) 05:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

No, there isn't. That's a general disclaimer, which does not lead to impicitly rating some articles above others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It could be considered a blanket or a cover disclaimer to all the articles on wikipedia maintained by the foundation, restating a point from that disclaimer for a controversial article would re-instate the foundation's position thats all, nothing new, nothing extra-ordinary above other articles. Also, I was referring to the risk disclaimer not the general disclaimer. --Theo10011 (talk) 05:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Might I recommend reading the applicable guideline on this topic: Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles --Cybercobra (talk) 06:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Might I point out the first line from the above article - "Actually, all articles should have a disclaimer, but it is already at the bottom of this page and every page. See the link on this page that points to Wikipedia:General disclaimer."--Theo10011 (talk) 06:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE

No article should be deleted for the sole reason having anything to do with sourcing unless the person suggesting the deletion has made a good-faith effort to rectify that problem. Maurreen (talk) 12:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

• As proposer. Maurreen (talk) 10:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• support --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support --Trackinfo (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• support as a general matter with reference to ad-hoc nominations. If you're not going to take the time to figure out if a subject is notable and sourceable, please don't take up other people's time dealing with a bad deletion nomination. However, please note that the scope of this RfC is to deal with the backlog of all unsourced BLPs, not ad-hoc nominations. In most of the proposals here every BLP without a (reliable, appropriate) source will get the same treatment. It will be flagged for rescue on some kind of schedule and, if not rescued, deleted. BEFORE simply doesn't enter the question in a 100% solution like this. Also, after we go through the backlog, there will probably be a zero-tolerance policy for new BLP articles without sources so, again, BEFORE is not part of the calculus. It's more like WP:AFTER. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• support I like it Brambleclawx 22:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. It doesn't make sense to have those proposing deletion (an easy task) pushing the burden of improving articles onto others, where the actual work needs to happen. This seems pretty obvious to me. -M.Nelson (talk) 22:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Absolutely. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 22:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support well said. Preserving relevant content is more important than making gestures which don't fix real problems..--Peter cohen (talk) 23:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - an editor should make a good faith effort to verify information in unsourced BLPs before proposing them for deletion. I see no reason to stop this practice except for a fear expressed above that if it's not suspended the backlog will never go away. The evidence points to the biggest hurdle for clearing the backlog was the lack of interested editors aware of the backlog and the lack of tools to help them source it effectively. As the community has developed awareness of the issue and tools to deal with it, the backlog has declined at a rapid pace. You can argue that this only happened because of the threat of summary deletion, and I'm sure it had some effect (positive and negative), but the decline began well before the threat was clear. I will certainly be disappointed (given the amount of effort I've made to source the backlog) if the apparent concensus against summary deletion is ignored. Jogurney (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• strong support at this point I think anything is possible. Those who want to radically change things for the worse here continue to say these draconian rules are inevitable. I believe a person usually says something is inevitable when there is strong, organized, threatening, opposition to their unpopular plans. It is a last gasp effort to try to discourage strong opposition. If there was such strong inevitable support for what is happening here, there would be no need to deploy some of these tactics. BEFORE is a way to guarantee that new editors are treated fairly and are not bullied. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 10:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Okip, don't you ever get tired of your "new editors" mantra? This has nothing to do with bullying new editors, these articles are years old and often created by experienced editors, and in many other cases by then-new editors who have never edited again afterwards. Fram (talk) 10:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fram, don't you ever get tired of your "this-has-nothing-to-do-with-new-editors mantra"? ;) I agree, there are many old articles which have been here for years. But we are also considering deleting articles immediately to a week after creation. There is ample evidence that new editors are the most affected by our bitey policy, and this has had an effect on editor retention. (WP:NEWT, AfD on average day, journalist's views, durova's example) There is a causal effect, some editors don't see it. I respectfully disagree, and posit, that, for many editors, no matter how much evidence if provided, they will never change their minds. Thanks again for moving this RFC Fram. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 10:51, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Strong support although not to forget WP:BURDEN. Maurreen's proposition is simple and unambiguous and does not need a lot of discussion. However, the burden on those of us who come along and do lazy editors' cleaning up will be much reduced if, as suggested further down, new rules and software constraints are introduced to make it impossible to create a new article without it having a citation. The proposal would also prevent those edit count fanatics from their infuriating fly-past PROD and AfD tagging.--Kudpung (talk) 10:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support WP:BEFORE does not conflict with WP:BURDEN. Those who think so forget that the latter includes the following sentence: "It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them." As such, WP:BURDEN clearly says that those in favor of removing such information should first try to source it, which is consistent with both WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD; WP:BEFORE is just a practical guide to applying those policies. Regards SoWhy 15:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support in principle I think this is a valid principle of Wikipedia, although I'm not sure I'm inclined to support this as some sort of enforcable behaviour guideline. We should all have a strong interest in retaining valid information. It should be our desire to preserve what can be preserved. I think it hurts everyone when articles are placed in deletion procedures that can be easily sourced. Again though I'm disinclined for this being used as some sort of hammer against good faith nominations that turn out to be sourcable.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • It's already a policy, the WP:Editing policy. Gigs (talk) 13:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support Too many wiki-editors are preoccupied with deleting material, too few contribute and help build material. Ottawahitech (talk) 00:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support true by policy and the right thing to do. No one should be deleting these articles without themselves first looking for sources. Hobit (talk) 04:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support this is already policy as well as a founding principle. There is no room for those who disagree with the wiki-process of incremental improvements of imperfect work. In the quest for perfection a wiki has to tolerate imperfection, that's how it improves. If people want an environment where articles drop out of the sky complete and referenced, then maybe some other project is better for them. Gigs (talk) 13:16, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"There's no room"? The editing policy, the one you use to support this, seems to disagree: "However, it is Wikipedia policy that information in Wikipedia needs to be verifiable and must not be original research. We demonstrate that information is verifiable and not original research through citation to reliable sources. Editors need to be aware that unsourced information may be challenged and removed (WP:BURDEN), because within Wikipedia no information is better than misleading or false information— Wikipedia's reputation as a trusted encyclopaedia depends on the information within articles being verifiable and reliable. Depending on the degree of its suspected inaccuracy or negative impact, the information may be removed either immediately or after sources have been requested and none has been provided for some time." Fram (talk) 13:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

That passage describes part of the wiki process I'm talking about, editors improving articles incrementally by removing information they suspect to be inaccurate. That's not the same as a systematic mission to eliminate all unsourced claims without any good faith doubts about accuracy or verifiability. There's good reasons to remove content, being merely unsourced is not one of them. Gigs (talk) 16:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support Most incomplete or poorly formatted articles are better than no article. We already have deletion processes to deal with the exceptions. Certes (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support as common sense. WP has procedures which have not been shown to be properly ignored. Collect (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Good Faith efforts should be made to source anything before deletion is proposed not just BLPs --Jubilee♫clipman 01:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Useless. The proposal is, basically, a statement against AGF, and an unenforceable one. Rephrasing: "deletion in not a good faith action unless..." and then what? And then nothing. NVO (talk) 03:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose because WP:BURDEN > WP:BEFORE. --M4gnum0n (talk) 09:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. The ones that need to source articles are the people that create or expand articles. And anyway, while deleting unsourced BLPs is not "deleted for the sole reason having anything to do with sourcing", but for the combined reason of sourcing and being a BLP and no one bothered to source it even though it was tagged for months or years, any support for the former proposed statement will be interpreted as opposition against the latter. Fram (talk) 10:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment - I think we can read into this the BLP bit -`after all, what is this entire discussion page about ?--Kudpung (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • It was about the best method of implementing a BLP prod procedure, and the best method of not having new unsourced BLPs (for long). But apparently a number of people want to restart the whole discussion. Fram (talk) 13:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not that it really matters, since no amount of "supports" will elevate a guideline (WP:BEFORE) over a policy (WP:BURDEN). This is pointless. Tarc (talk) 14:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Actually, enough support can demote a policy to a guideline or promote a guideline to policy. It's all about consensus after all. But I doubt anyone really proposes to do so. Those two are not contradicting each other if read correctly. Also, don't forget that WP:BEFORE is nothing but a continuation of WP:ATD which is a policy. Regards SoWhy 14:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Discussion in an RfC will not override a pillar of the project, sorry. Tarc (talk) 15:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• It's unlikely but not impossible. The project is based on consensus and if a discussion in an RFC involves enough of the community to reflect its consensus, it can change policy. But the point is moot since no one actually proposed doing so since WP:BURDEN is not in conflict with WP:BEFORE anyway. Regards SoWhy 15:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• And WP:BEFORE is part of WP:AfD, which discusses solely what to do before nominating an article for AfD, not before nominating it for CSD, ProD, or WP:DUB.Fram (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• As M4gnum0n notes, WP:BURDEN (a policy) overrules WP:BEFORE (a procedure, not actually a guideline). The burden for cleaning up BLP articles should not rest solely on the people wanting to clean them up. That is what led to the problems we have now. Mr.Z-man 16:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Mr.Z-man, would you clarify what you mean by "the problems we have now"? Maurreen (talk) 17:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Tens of thousands of unsourced and poorly sourced BLPs and nearly 50 BLP complaints to OTRS every week. Mr.Z-man 20:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• No, WP:BURDEN trumps WP:BEFORE. This smacks to me of the ostrich approach. "If we bury our head in the sand, maybe the problem will go away". It hasn't, and it won't. SirFozzie (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • That's a very poor characterization of the argument for requiring a good faith effort to source articles before deleting them. Jogurney (talk) 21:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
  • No poorer then saying WP:BURDEN doesn't apply to those adding unsourced, controversial information. SirFozzie (talk) 21:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Do two wrongs make a right? Jogurney (talk) 22:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Believe it or not, I have to oppose this proposal. The burden is on the person adding material, but this very proposal is why I do not support speedy deletions... give the article a chance.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Article quality improvement fails when the amount of work to clean up articles is outpaced by the volume of low quality content added. Under the scenario in this proposal, one editor can take a couple of minutes to add content that is poor quality or not encyclopedic at all, but multiple editors then must work for much longer in an attempt to improve it or remove it. For the overall quality of articles to improve on WP, more effective and efficient methods of Quality Improvement are needed. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 23:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• We should not saddle editors who want to clean up these unsourced BLPs with the work that should have been done by the person adding the material. Kevin (talk) 00:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Per Kevin, if the creator can't be bothered to source it, then why should the people coming behind be required to try and do so? Scottaka UnitAnode 00:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Real. People. How many times must we point this out? Especially if the unsourced information is about a living person, our ethical and legal commitments come before idiotic idealism. Besides, I never liked BEFORE. It's an excuse to keep shitty content on the encyclopedia which shouldn't be a part of the encyclopedia, and reverses the burden of proof onto the maintainers. Get rid of BEFORE and burn it at the stake. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• I can add a crap unsourced biographical article that cannot be sourced to online sources, do not add such sources, and it is other's task to search for them before the article can be deleted ? This sets the bar to deletion even higher and adds to the problems rather than reducing them. - Peripitus (Talk) 02:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose What about those articles that have been around for more than a year and despite much editing from other editors to make it reliable, is still not reliable? It would be quite pointless to try to make it reliable if much effort has already been done to make it reliable and there is just no more references left to make it a reliable article. BejinhanTalk 04:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose as this pretty much would invalidate all existing deletion protocols except possibly AfD. -- Bfigura ^(talk) 06:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose - WP:BEFORE needs to go, it is not workable. The effort to delete an article shouldn't be 1000x the effort to create one. ++Lar: t/c 03:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Per SirFozzie et al. PeterSymonds (talk) 21:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• OK then. In ten years time, tell me if you have gotten rid of the backlog yet. NW (Talk) 16:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Who the "bleep" cares about the backlog? If wikipedia survives and is the important source into the future, there will always be a huge lag between the work the editors have done and the work needed. Even if there were a full time paid staff, there would be no other way. Your dream of every article being perfectly written and perfectly sourced is impossible. Our print competitors have those same limitations, without the expanse of subjects WP is open to address. That is the beauty of this project, the door is open, the potential open-ended. Unless a few power hungry geeks ruin it.Trackinfo (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

And you tell us how much of a substantive problem these articles have ever had, in comparison with articles that did list any sources. Maurreen (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with WP:BEFORE is that it is fine in so far as anyone who is going to assert something is not-notable should check that it is really not notable first. If they don't then the AfD is a waste of time, because someone is bound to find out he's really the President of Kenya. But it doesn't apply to unsourced bios for a particular reason. This is a volunteer project, no one is required to do anything. In particular, I do not volunteer to contribute BLP material to Wikipedia. I don't believe Wikipedia ought to host most of the bios it does. Now, granted that's my view not policy. However, it does not disqualify me from saying that it is particularly unappropriate to host unsourced biographies and to list the same for deletion or for sorting. The onus has always been on people wishing to retain biographical material to demonstrate that it is verifiable, not the other way about. --Scott Mac (Doc) 16:56, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• I hope you don't mind me greatly generalising your views, but from what I understand, you would prefer to have all unreferenced BLPs deleted than have only those that are notable and factual (read: referenced) kept? Either that or you would prefer the second option, but you don't prefer it enough to put in the effort to achieve it. -M.Nelson (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
  • No, my view has nothing to do with "effort" whatsoever. I work very hard to improve wikipedia. I personally don't think wikipedia should have articles on anyone except highly notable people. We can't keep the "risk of harm" low enough except in the case of highly watched biographies. Further, I do not think that people (like me) who don't identify themselves in real life, should be writing about living people. That's a personal view, and it isn't policy. Therefore I personally never add material to BLPs - but I don't remove stuff that complies with policy. As to unsourced material, I find it particularly offensive that Wikipedia has unsourced material on living people, therefore I particularly work to remove such. That is also to the good of wikipedia - and in the direction of policy. If people source things, fine, they can stay. But I decline to do it. The onus is on those wishing to retain the material to source it - I'm happy to give them a reasonable opportunity to do so, but two or three years is beyond a "reasonable opportunity".--Scott Mac (Doc) 10:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr. MacDonald, an editor who attempted to source these articles within process, mirrored what other editors who attempt to work within process have said:

"I haven't keep strict totals, but I suspect I've added references to three thousand-plus articles since I recognized the amount of unreferenced football player biographies back in November or December 2008. I've found plenty that were non-notables that I've PRODed (easily 100-200) or sent to AfD (maybe 25). A few that I thought were non-notable, actually were and another editor came in to provide sourcing (oops!). Out of this population of biographies, only a few had controversial statements (usually blatant vandalism like "John Doe is a ___er"). I think there were no more than 5-10 which had a plausible but unsourced negative statement (like claiming someone committed a crime or intentionally hurt another player). There were more hoaxes (more than 20 but less than 50) which were easy to invalidate. Overall, these unreferenced biographies about footballers were low quality, but not harmful to anyone."[9]

Do 60 to 600 articles have to be deleted for every one "plausible but unsourced negative statement"? Isn't there a less disruptive way within process?

Since the risk of libel and contentious remarks is so low, and can be done in a much more effective and collaborative way, isn't your efforts to delete other editors good faith contributions more about your view that "I personally don't think wikipedia should have articles on anyone except highly notable people"?

And Mr. MacDonald, wouldn't these people, which you deleted out of process, fall within your "highly notable people" criteria, if so, why did you delete them in violation of consensus on how to delete articles:

1. Emmy winner
2. Grammy Award-winning American record producer
3. editor-in-chief of The Village Voice, credited for coining the term Brat Pack
4. Polish general, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army
5. United States Ambassador to South Africa during the Reagan administration
6. College football coach at DePauw University ,Penn ,Rice, and Temple
7. Film was submitted to the foreign films category in the 67th Academy Awards, the first submission from Guatemala
8. Author who created Where's Wally?, known as Where's Waldo in the USA and Canada
9. The Doobie Brothers member
10. Heavy metal drummer who played in the original versions of heavy metal bands Guns N' Roses and L.A. Guns
11. American climate scientist
12. Two-time World Champion in the Supersport World Championship in 2005 and 2006
13. Canadian ski jumper won a Ski jumping World Cup event at the age of 15 in 1980

In a further attempt to silence me, I know you will point to these comments as evidence of what you see as bad, a common tactic. That is not the case, I am simply trying to understand your views, which appear highly inconsistent to me. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 11:39, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Taking examples from one speficic category (sporting people) and extrapolating that for all of them is perhaps not the best starting point. I have deleted sixteen old pages (created in 2005-2008) today and yesterday as G10 unsourced negative BLPs already, including one very serious utterly incorrect and libelous article, and many possibly correct but very negative articles (claims of murder, financing 9/11, ...). I know that the articles I'm currently watching are also not representative of the whole unsourced BLP group, but there are more very, very problematic articles out there than you may be aware of, and a considerable portion of these are unsourced BLPs. I don't believe that temporarily lacking a few thousand articles on football players is worse than keeping such very bad BLP violations. We are threatening to delete the many innocent ones and the many incorrect but not really harmlful ones with the few potentially very harmful ones, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We have no deadline, articles on notable subjects can always be recreated, but this time we can check that they have adequate sourcing. Without the tagging of these articles, we wouldn't have known how many unsourced BLPs there were, and that the backlog didn't get tackled fast enough (despite individual and local efforts). Without the mass deletion of some hundred articles, there still wouldn't be a coordinated effort to improve these articles, nor an RfC that indicated that many people agree that this is a serious problem, and that if no effort is taken to source these articles, they should be deleted. Is there general agreement about this? Obviously not, and there never will be. But there is sufficient agreement that something (albeit less harsh than speedy deletion) needs to be done about both the existing backlog, and against the creation (or prolonged existence) of new unsourced BLPs. Fram (talk) 12:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Fram, I agree that Wikipedia is not well-served by harmful BLPs that are unsourced, however, your summary also shows that we can reasonably expect very few harmful articles in certain categories (e.g., footballers). I also understand that if we deleted 3,000 harmless unsourced footballer articles tomorrow (or pick another similar category with little potential for harmful BLPs), they can all be recreated once sources are found. I do have a concern with this approach when those articles are being sourced (another editor has tracked the sourcing of footballer articles from May 2009 and found that nearly 9,000 have been sourced since then). If a Wikiproject focuses on clearing the backlog (has editors making good faith efforts) and we know that the articles within their field of expertise have a very small risk of containing harmful BLPs, it seems unnecessary to delete them all now. If we look back in 6 months and there are still 3,000 or more unreferenced footballer BLPs, I would agree that the problem cannot be solved without more drastic measures. I would support an amnesty period of six months (or similar) for any Wikiproject that is making a good faith effort now and has little chance of having harmful BLPs. There are going to be articles that are not within the scope of any Wikiproject and that may be more likely to contain harmful statements, and an amnesty may be less justifiable for those. Jogurney (talk) 14:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

How does this proposal help us to clear the backlog in a reasonable period of time? We already have ample evidence that simply tagging articles and waiting does not work. Kevin (talk) 22:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

That assumes that "clearing the backlog" into the rubbish bin actually fixes a real problem in the firts palce.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course it doesn't help the entirety of the real problem. You'd need to get flagged or patrolled revisions on every BLP and then spend another couple of years cleaning up every biography on the project to do that, at minimum. But it's a start. NW (Talk) 23:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Before this blew up people were already dealing with the problem. Bots were informing individuals of their unsourced BLPs, projects were being provided with lists of articles tagged in various ways and they were proceding through those lists. (See e.g. [10].) Then some people decide to start following one of the bots around and delting articles soon after people are informed of them others indulge in vandalising unwatched articles to try to prove a point. And the people who were workign through things systematically have to drop what they were doing. A lot of heat is generated and several WIkipedians get closer to burnout. No way has this business been at all good for Wikipedia.--Peter cohen (talk) 00:05, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Bullshit. Before this "blew up" the number of unreferenced BLPs was growing daily - and hundreds had been sitting for 3 or more years. As for "following the bots around" please stop making false allegations (that's where libels start). I deleted more unsourced BLPs than anyone, I worked from the category of BLPs unsourced for over 3 years, and I was unaware of any bot. If you are going to make allegations, please have some evidence.--Scott Mac (Doc) 10:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr. MacDonald, I think Mr. Cohen deserves an apology: User:DASHBot, is a bot which worked within process to help solve this problem. Calling other editors views, "bullshit",[11][12], editors good faith contributions sewers,[13] and editors cowards,[14] does not help further the discussion.

I can't count the number of times editors have pointed out NPA and other user conduct issues in RFCs and talk pages. Unless you want to ban all editors from bringing up user conduct issues on RFCs and talk pages, I have broken no rules by pointing out your continued, consistent conduct here, especially since you called editors opinion bullshit on this very page. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 10:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't call anyone's view bullshit. Peter Cohen made two claims which are both factually untrue. People should not make claims about other editors without evidence - I think you fail to grasp that. I've no doubt dashbot was doing great work, and in process. That's not the point. It was alleged that people like me were "following" the bot to "prove a point". That is indeed bullshit. I'd never encountered the bot at that time. He also claimed the problem was being sorted before this "blew up" that is also false/bullshit. It is not a personal attack to call a false statement false. If you are going to criticise me, at least read what I've written and make your criticism pertinent. You are currently making a fool of yourself again.--Scott Mac (Doc) 12:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to clarify that Peter Cohen's claim about the problem being sorted is true, although I have no information about the second claim. I have paid close attention to the unreferenced BLP backlog since late 2008, and beginning in at least November 2009, the backlog has been declining every day (not growing every day). The problem was absolutely being addressed before this RfC (or even the deletion spree that went to Arbcom). I direct you to the WP:BLP talk page archives if you want further evidence, but it's true. Jogurney (talk) 13:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I dont recall inserted the words "that evil Scott MacDonald and friends" in my post and they don't seem to be there in the archive. Maybe they have been oversighted What does seems to be demonstrated by this thread is that the number of flagged unreferenced BLPs was reducing at the time you started your tub-thumping exercise and that you were both unaware of that fact and of the initiative that had caused this. And then when the deletions did start, dashbot received messages complaining of its having delted the messages and the bot was stopped. So the situation was improving and your ignorant behaviour led to the interruption of one of the measures that was improving things. Then, when people try to stop the chaos you were causing, you start sounding off about what you think of consensus. You need to retract rather more than one statement before I think that your assessment of the situaiton amounts to much. And if you read what I said again youll notice that it was M and G's little exercise which I refer to as proving a point.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If your comment "Then some people decide to start following one of the bots around and delting articles soon after people are informed of them others indulge in vandalising unwatched articles to try to prove a point." was not referring to my actions, then I do apologise. You were obviously not criticising to me at all. But given the unsubstantiated allegations and assumptions of bad faith I've endured recently, perhaps you can forgive me. However, you now refer to my "ignorant behaviour", which leaves me thinking you were criticing me. I can assure you my behaviour was not ignorant. I was not aware of the dashbot exercise, but in truth it would have made little difference had I been. When I heard Kevin was being criticised for deleting unreferenced BLPs, I made a careful study of the situation and was horrified to find that we had BLPs which had been marked for cleanup and left unreferenced for three years. I began to carefully examine the worst and longest of these and selectively deleted those that were indeed truly unreferenced. I understand many disagree with that stance, but it was not ill-considered and was certainly not ignorant. I suggest I cam better informed about BLP problems than most people - however, this being a big wiki it is easy to miss things. The dashbot initiative seems to be a very good one - although it was never going to sort the problem. The deletions were not going to either - but they now have us talking about finding a better way to really address the problem in a realistic timescale. That in itself I count as a success, since the discussion was not happening before that. Anyway, I'd suggest the point is not not to rehash what happened, but to seek a way forward that will address the issues in a realistic timeframe, and remove any justification for unusual actions. Can we move on now? Again, I apologise for any anger on my part. Unfortunately, this has all become somewhat personalised.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

• Define, "a good-faith effort to rectify that problem." Template? Finding the sources?? We're volunteers. -- Rico 20:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Response to objections

1. WP:BURDEN > WP:BEFORE. -- In context -- "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. ... Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but whether and how quickly this should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. ... It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them. ... Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living persons or organizations, and do not move it to the talk page.
2. WP:BEFORE "doesn't apply to unsourced bios for a particular reason." -- I have not seen that in any policy or guideline.
3. "The onus has always been on people wishing to retain biographical material to demonstrate that it is verifiable." -- Imprecise at best. WP:BLP says, "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."
4. 'Deleting unsourced BLPs is not "deleted for the sole reason having anything to do with sourcing", but for the combined reason of sourcing and being a BLP and no one bothered to source it even though it was tagged for months or years.' -- This is not established by guideline or policy. Also, that rational provides for not deleting unsourced BLPs that have not been so tagged for months.
5. "Discussion in an RfC will not override a pillar. -- A) "Content should be verifiable with citations to reliable sources. (Not "must be," and no mention of BLPs.) B) "That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. (Not "especially on BLPs.") D) "Find consensus." E) "Your efforts do not need to be perfect."
6. "WP:BEFORE is part of WP:AfD, which discusses solely what to do before nominating an article for AfD." -- Fair enough. So instead, [[WP:ATD} of the general deletion policy says, "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion." Maurreen (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

And in general, when an article is tagged as an unsourced BLP, the whole Wikipedia community, everyone wanting to keep these articles, has the chance to look for sources and add them to the article. Everyone, not just the person tagging the article. However, when it becomes obvious that the community as a whole is not doing this, when "regular editing" is not helping or not happening, deletion becomes the next step. Without the stick of deletion, not enough people are taking the carrot of sourcing. Fram (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Succinct and spot on - Peripitus (Talk) 02:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Research

Before undertaking any systematic deletion, compare unsourced BLPs with at least one other control group, sourced BLPs, to find out how much difference there is, other than the sourcing. Then we can make more-informed judgment. Maurreen (talk) 12:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Depending on the results of any such research, my stance about unsourced BLPs could change. Is anyone from "the other side" flexible in this regard?

This is not a rhetorical question. This could be a method of resolution that we conceivably could all agree on. Maurreen (talk) 18:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If you can suggest how such an experiment might work, I'm all for it. But since the core of the BLP problem is not bad, biased, or false material, but bad, biased, or false material that is not identified, I have no idea how one would run such an experiment.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

One possibility would be through John Limey, of the On Wikipedia blog, who's already researching WP biographies. He and a partner got random biographies and asked the article subjects about the articles.

The particular sample in this case is only about 25, but Limey said a larger sample is planned. Maurreen (talk) 03:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support There are also unsourced BLPs flagged as unsourced unsourced unflagged, sourced but flagged as unflagged etc. Given that most of the content of this page is based on opinion and anecdote rather than proper research it will be good to have some material on which to base an informed decision. Nother drastic should happen that involves throwing away content or harassing volunteers until the research should carried out nor should this rfc be closed with a no action decision unless this is sunstantiated by research.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

"The problem"

What is the root problem that needs to be addressed?

Please sign under any sections you agree with, and add sections if you see fit.

Deletions for insufficient cause

• Maurreen (talk) 12:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Peter cohen (talk) 23:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Certes (talk) 21:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Jubilee♫clipman 01:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Unverified contentious material

• Maurreen (talk) 12:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Kudpung (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Peter cohen (talk) 23:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Certes (talk) 21:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Jubilee♫clipman 01:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:BLPs with no sources indicated

• Kudpung (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The notability requirement

• Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Other

I don't understand this question. --Dweller (talk) 17:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

What I mean is, what's the goal?

For instance, what is the relative inherent importance of indicating a source, in comparison to the sourcing being a means to an end, such as verifying contentious material? Maurreen (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't get that either. Why do people care so much about non-contentious material?--Marhawkman (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well they do seem to care but you need one of them to answer.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The question is: are unsourced BLPs a real problem, or is the problem something else entirely? (For me, the statistics are crystal clear: unsourced BLPs are harmless, and the drive to get rid of them has been extremely harmful. But who cares about facts?) All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed.Trackinfo (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Jorge: The Internet is a very public place. If any of you have every been very public people, such as professors, politicians, writers, etc., you will now how easily reputations can be ruined by published lies. The Internet gives the traditonal laws and values of slander and libel a hard time (see also: character assassination, calumny, lscandalmongering, malicious gossip, disparagement, denigration, aspersions, vilification, traducement, obloquy, lie, slur, smear, false accusation; informal mudslinging, and bad-mouthing.) The problem at Wikipedia is: Who will decide what statements are contentious? And that's (OMG) another debate! --Kudpung (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The line may be fuzzy, but it does exist. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:44, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There are efforts to slander people all the time, usually increasing exponentially with their real current fame. Thus vandalism and articles with malicious intent are a serious problem. Referencing or the lack thereof is NOT the issue--its not even a flag to potential trouble. The majority of these unreferenced BLP articles--the ones under attack in this mass of proposals--are innocuous lists of the accomplishments of the barely notable: One line statements of their international athletic accomplishments, lists of the projects actors, musicians, writer and artists have worked on, mention of politicians or academics from every corner of the world. You don't know if there is anything in the article that is potentially libelous unless you open it and read it.Trackinfo (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Isnt the very fact that "we dont know" an issue? Active Banana (talk) 22:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

What should be done about editors who created 100 or more unreferenced BLPs but seem unwilling to help source them?

Is there something we can or should do about editors that are still active (made new edits in the past month) and received notifications from DASHBot of 100 or more unreferenced BLPs in December 2009, but appear to have done nothing to source them? Without making this personal, I've left messages on some of these editors' talk pages pointing them to the DASHBot message and asking their help. I am more comfortable with leaving them be if they are no longer creating unreferenced BLPs, but it seems like they *ought* to help out. Jogurney (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a volunteer project, you can't make editors do anything, you can only stop them from doing things. They didn't break any rules making those articles, so what's done is probably done. If they're still on some kind of unrefed BLP creating rampage, we can probably stop that. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing that part of the outcome here will be to prohibit creation of new unsourced BLP articles, so once we're done, they will be (politely at first) asked to stop, and they will need to source any new BLP articles they create under threat of deletion. They'll probably have amnesty for anything they did in the past, but eventually all their articles will either need to be sourced or deleted. Just a guess. But your effort to reach out is a great idea. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Its good to let editors know about the discussions going on, because I am sure than many don't know about it. I've seen veteran editors comment that of course they used sources when they made articles, but citation was rarely used at the time.--Milowent (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we cannot force anyone to reference old articles, and perhaps polite reminders about the DASHBot notice is all we can do. I do have hope because I remember one editor that created roughly 1,000 unreferenced BLPs did eventually come around and reference a chunk of them (after several hints). Jogurney (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Currently we allow people to create new unreferenced BLPs, so we shouldn't be entirely surprised that some do so. If we change article creation policy to no longer allow the creation of unreferenced BLPs then some of these editors may stop, some may start supplying references and others may shift to earlier centuries. ϢereSpielChequers 00:33, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If you think an editor is acting improperly, drag one of his articles through an AfD, based on the unverifiability of the claim of notoriety (due to no sources). Of course, you'll look pretty stupid if you didn't look for sources either. This small slap on the wrist will either wise up the editor, or just piss them off.Trackinfo (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If the *contents* of those bios is consistently inappropriate or malicious then treat that as any other mass malicious edit. If those bios seem to be valid, then he is doing nothing wrong, so do nothing. (If *you* think that all BLPs must have explicit references, then adding those references is *your* problem, not his.) All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm doing my part to add references. My question was intended to find what people think we should do to encourage participation from the people who have built the backlog, are still active, and yet show no sign of wanting to help clear it. I suppose there is nothing that can be done, but I was hopeful. Jogurney (talk) 03:45, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Jorge, your contention that adding references is not the responsibility of whoever adds the content is specifically and clearly refuted by WP:BLP - The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia rests with the person who adds or restores material and WP:V - The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Kevin (talk) 03:57, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a reharkening to NW's proposal from round 1, which basically says that if you wrote an article, you are forever responsible for it. This notion is completely contrary to the notion of WP:OWN. People write articles all the time and then move on. If we place a burden on editors to be responsible for content for future policies/guidelines, you will kill Wikipedia. People are not and should not be held responsible for "cleaning up" articles they wrote in the past and may not have any involvement since.

A comparison that I gave to NW, on his talk page, was that when a builder builds a property, s/he is responsible for ensuring that the property meets current safety and building standards. If the codes change, the builder is not responsible for retroactively bringing the builder into conformity with current laws. In fact, the building can continue to exist against the modern guidelines until there is a major renovation (and even then, it may not be required to meet current guidelines.) When the building is brought up to current standards (such as Americans with Disability Act) it is not the original builder's responsibility to shoulder the cost, but the property owner's responsibility. If we held the original builder responsible, then nobody would build anything for fear of what future unknown liability existed.

Now, if an author is currently creating unsourced BLP's and has been approached about them. Now that is something we can discuss. Do we want to codify a requirement that new BLP's have sources when created---I get the sense that even among those who oppose the CSD/PROD option, that this expectation could be passed if written properly.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that the whole point of the BLP-PROD proposal above? Kevin (talk) 22:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the PROD proposal above says that if you write unsourced BLP's that the article may be deleted. It does not lay the foundation for taking action against people who write the unsourced BLP's. In other words, if you were to take John Doe to ANI for writing a 100 unsourced BLPs in the past month, what policy/guideline would you point to to say that he was causing a problem? There isn't one. The PROD proposal says that new BLP's can be Prodded and deleted, but it does not codify the expectation or make doing so a violation of new expectations.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I should have been clearer, I was only responding to your last sentence. Kevin (talk) 22:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the way the last sentence, as written, you are correct. What I was intending to askg, is do we want/need to codify that repeated failure to provide sources to BLPs can be an actionable offense? Eg John Doe writes scores of articles that are unsourced BLPs, do we need/want to codify that this creates a disruption? Based upon some of the people who have commented here (and in round 1) it seems as if some people feel that way.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagreed with you on a similiar issue in Phase I when it was about past creations. However, I would think that we could agree that the community generally feels that unsourced BLPs are a bad thing for the project. There are those who disagree, but I believe it is fair to say that the vast majority of people do believe that. If someone continued to defy the wishes of the community by creating unsourced BLPs after being warned, I would say that is disruptive and therefore blockable behavior. NW (Talk) 23:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not opposed to making some sort of statement about NEW unsourced BLPs going forward... in fact, I think it is a topic that should be discussed and codified, otherwise, we might end up with another RfC when somebody is Blocked for violating a a policy/guideline that doesn't (yet) exist. But there is no way I can support your notion of holding people retroactively responsible.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting any punitive actions against editors. I am frustrated that there are editors who have created more than 100 unreferenced BLPs (and have been notified by DASHBot of this) and are continuing to edit without doing anything to help with the backlog. I've left polite messages to see if they are willing to help, and was hoping there was something more we can do. If not, that's okay with me. Jogurney (talk) 22:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, this is placing an ownership burden on those editors. In a perfect world, would we like to see them do so? Yes. But there are articles that I've written, that I've washed my hands of. That I haven't edited in years and if you aked me to help out with, I probably wouldn't... articles that if they were deleted I wouldn't care (not that they deserve to be deleted, but rather I simply couldn't get worked up about them.)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:30, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There are articles I've created that I've long taken off my watchlist, others I still keep an eye on after two years. What's done is done and it would violate wp:OWN and be retrospective for us to make editors responsible for bringing their old edits into line with new policy. However if we change the rules to require all new BLPs to be sourced then presumably the logical corollary is that people still doing so would merit trouting, warning and ultimately if they persist, blocking. Are we as a community prepared to endorse blocking people for good faith but out of policy creation of unreferenced new BLPs? ϢereSpielChequers 23:32, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Not if they have just done it once or twice, but it they have been warned about the proper policy multiple times, I would say yes, the community would be ready to endorse such an action. But that's just my view; perhaps I am misreading the tea leaves. NW (Talk) 23:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I think it would depend on how many article and how consistent they are. A person writing one or two articles a month probably would never be noticed, a person writing scores or hundred of them... that might be a different story. ---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

The guidelines surrounding the creation of new articles should be modified

The guidelines surrounding the creation of new articles (WP:BLP,WP:YFA,etc) should be modified to reflect that sources are expected when writing articles about living individuals. That failure to provide sources in a reasonable amount of time (as dictated above) on new BLPs may result in the article's being deleted. The revisions should indicate that repeated failure after adequate warnings/notification to provide sources on NEW BLPs might be deemed as disruptive. (NOTE: The exact wording and parameters of the statement would be dependent upon consensus being reached elsewhere in this RfC.)

Support

• support as nom. I think having a BLP Prod for New Articles needs to be tied to a revision in applicable policies/guidelines. Failure to make this modification creates a disconnect between two different functions of the project and fails to provide notication of the new expectations.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support as logical corollary of the proposed change to disallow new unreferenced BLPs, and of course only if that proposal does achieve consensus. However I would expect this to be preceded by a series of warnings, and in the first instance to be a very short duration block, and please no more jumping the gun and blocking creators of unreferenced BLPs until we finish the RFC and change the documentation on the article creation process. ϢereSpielChequers 23:58, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support this for sure. Not only is it reflective of current thinking, it is The Right Thing To Do™ to tell inform people of current standards so as few people as possible are unpleasantly surprised when the unsourced BLP they created gets tagged for deletion. NW (Talk) 00:01, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support per NW. Definitely a good idea to inform people of what they should be doing before they get it wrong instead of after. Alzarian16 (talk) 00:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong Susport - but even more: I would suggest making it technically impossible to submit a new article that has no references. (It can easilybe done).--Kudpung (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Helping new editors has to be a good thing. Kevin (talk) 00:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Good idea. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Would be willing to give a reasonable 5 day/1 week grace period time for this kind of thing SirFozzie (talk) 01:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support, as basic common sense. Scottaka UnitAnode 01:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Would be nice. Scieberking (talk) 02:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Sources should be expected for every article, but especially so for BLPs. Note that this does not say "properly formatted inline references" are expected, just sources. A bare URL or enough information to identify a print source are adequate. Mr.Z-man 02:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support- not to do so would give the appearance of enforcing rules that don't exist. We need to be careful not to put newbies off creating BLPs and editors would do well to note the distinction between sources and nice, perfectly formatted references. HJ Mitchell | fancy a chat? 03:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support policy should document practice of course, and it's pretty clear we need some level of sourcing on new BLPs. As has been noted elsewhere, any identifiable source should be accepted even if it's formatted wrong or provided as an EL without inline. My support would not extend to any policy change to allow systematic stubbing of unsourced content or any change that effectively nullifies the word "contentious" from BLP policy on content removal. Gigs (talk) 05:26, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support Reflects the change in the reality. If you warned repeatedly an editor that he/she is screwing up and nothing change then you had to sanction unfortunately. I'm going as far as article creation blocked for the most extreme cases. When you had to clean up a trail of messy BLP articles left by a such editor, you lost much amenity toward that editor. --KrebMarkt 10:00, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Yes - give people every encouragement.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support - but, picking up from the idea from User:Kudpung's comment, perhaps a tool can be developed to make it easier to add references. For example, if an unreferenced article is submitted, have a popup request a reference, with a box where the reference text can be added (similar to an edit summary) that would automatically be added to the end of the article. I realize that would require programming, but the easier it is to add a reference, the more references would be added. Rlendog (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Along those lines, I've often thought it would be nice if when starting a new page in article space, you'd get an empty skeleton with the standard sections like References followed by {{Reflist}} already inserted along with See also, etc. This would at least give people a hint about what a proper article looks like. Gigs (talk) 21:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong/wide/deep support. We must attract collaborative contributors and repel disruptive egotists. New editors who "get" the NPOV+RS+V model are amazingly valuable and in the guidelines we must make clear that any form of reliable, verifiable sourcing is acceptable, that articles can be userfied on request to allow more time for sourcing, and that help and advice are available from experienced editors. Personally I would prefer a model where (i) unsourced-living-person statements are progressively removed from an article as appropriate, (ii) user talk messages keep the original contributor(s) involved, and (iii) the article is only nominated for deletion if it is empty. This gives the original contributor(s) time to adapt to our way-of-working. Hopefully they will want to commit to Wikipedia on our terms, and our stricter rules will encourage them to take their work here more seriously. - Pointillist (talk) 00:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• support not having guidelines that actively support the policies/pillars is silly. Active Banana (talk) 03:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• This is just common sense. Support. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Support This is a nice basic overview of a good way to prevent incoming BLP-prone articles. ThemFromSpace 00:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose First, I have been working with a new editor, and the current way in which referencing works is hard for new users. This proposal assumes that unreferenced edits are bad edits. That is simply not the case. The majority of editors are good faith editors who get regularly bit by proposals such as this one. Okip 00:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  Let me get this straight. You oppose letting new editors know that they are expected to add sources when they write a new article about living people? This is just about giving them information. Kevin (talk) 00:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  It isn't hard to do <ref>Book</ref> or <ref>Url</ref>. That's really all we need; wiki pixie dust will sort the citations out. Sceptre ^(talk) 00:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  • >> "The revisions should indicate that repeated failure after adequate warnings/notification to provide sources on NEW BLPs might be deemed as disruptive." << Questions ? Okip 01:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, why is failure to follow policy after multiple warnings not disruptive? Mr.Z-man 02:49, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
      • WP:BITE. In addition, this is not policy. Okip 02:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
        • How on Earth would this "bite" any newbie? All this would do be to change the policy and information pages like so. Or did I misinterpret you? Do you believe that sources for BLPs are wholly unnecessary? NW (Talk) 03:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
          • Reference this article with really complex tools which are hard to understand, or we delete the article you created. To help you understand more, would you like me to create an illustrated graph? Okip 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
        • Would that not apply to anything that we give warnings for: image copyright, speedy deletion, test edits, etc.? That sounds more like an argument to abandon warnings for new users altogether. The user being new does not make their actions less disruptive, it just means that we should treat them with more care - as in, giving plenty of warning before taking any sort of harsher action. This being a proposal, presumably it would be added into policy once there's consensus for it, and before it is applied. Mr.Z-man 03:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
          • This is a strawman argument. I am in no way saying we should abandon warnings for new users altogether. I think "harsher action" sums up this proposal nicely, instead of collaboratively working with new editors, we give them them threats of "harsher action". WP:LASTWORD go ahead...Okip 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
            • Huh? I'm not saying that you are advocating that, I'm saying that your argument is not specific with regard to unsourced BLPs. Why is ignoring requests to source BLPs so different ignoring warnings about uploading images with no license or ignoring warnings about creating articles with no assertions of notability? I'm trying to have a constructive discussion with you here and understand your position, I am truly offended by your implication that I'm just trying to get in "the last word." That was completely uncalled for. Mr.Z-man 00:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Ikip/Okip just declare that WP:BLP "is not policy"? Scottaka UnitAnode 03:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  • "The revisions should indicate that repeated failure after adequate warnings/notification to provide sources on NEW BLPs might be deemed as disruptive" is not a policy. Okip 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

  There's nothing yet in WP:BLP that requires sources when adding information that has not been previously challenged as contentious. This proposal, I assume, would change that for new articles. Gigs (talk) 05:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  Spirit, not letter. Also, there is: BLPs "must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States and to all of our content policies, especially: NPOV; Verifiability; NOR." I failed to see how adding unsourced information is "strict adherence" to our verifiability policy. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  Verifiability only requires sources for information that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotes. Unsourced is not unverifiable. Gigs (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  Anything information in a BLP, by virtue of being a BLP, is "likely to be challenged". And while unsourced is not unverifiable, for biographies, we should remove unsourced information because, as we can't gauge the veracity of a statement without verification, we shouldn't use an unverified fact for ethical reasons. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  Not true... and contrary to basic sourcing expectations. The fact that Tiger Woods is a professional golfer will not need a source. It is common knowledge and isn't controversial. The allegation that he has x number of affairs, would require a citation. While it may be common knowledge that he has had affairs, the details would be controversial/negative. But even with BLP's if a piece of info is common knowledge, the expectation for citations is less, unless it is negative information, in which point WP wants to bass the buck on the liability issue.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 18:59, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  If Sceptre et al wants to change the policy to "all unsourced information should be removed" then they should establish consensus for that. So far such attempts have failed. In the mean time they should stop pretending that it's already policy. Gigs (talk) 19:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

  I encourage both Gigs and Ballonman to oppose this proposal. Okip 11:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

  I'm willing to accept a requirement for at least some minimal sourcing of new BLP articles, though. I think of it as "demonstrated notability". I don't think that view is inconsistent with the strong belief that editors should be free to add not-yet-sourced knowledge in general. So that is why I support this proposal, so long as it isn't the "camel's nose". Gigs (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

@ Kudpung, I don't see how we can implement that technically. Much better to allow references in any format at all and clean them up later. Kevin (talk) 00:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe the German Wikipedia now has a box for you to put your source into, of course that wouldn't prevent some newbies putting en.wikipedia.org or the search engine of their choice. But it would be interesting to know how well that has worked. ϢereSpielChequers 00:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Conditional oppose If we are going to do these things, we should warn new editors about them. But we should not do these things; they are not consensus, they are not good policy, and they are not based on any actual evidence on how false statements appear in BLPs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
  • How is expecting sources in an article "not good policy"? Mr.Z-man 22:19, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
  • These statements have been added recently to WP:BLP and WP:YFA, respectively: "Material about living persons must be sourced very carefully" and "Extra care should be taken to make sure that articles on living persons have sources". They might need to be more prominent but they seem to address the proposers concern. --Jubilee♫clipman 01:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Simplify?

This highly complex issue and discussion could use a little simplifying. If I see that there is no article on, say, Maureen O'Hara, suppose I create one. The first thing I would do is make a note on the newly created article page that this article is "IN PROGRESS", something like:

And I'd have a workpage in my Userspace where I would actually work on the article, writing it and sourcing it. To me, this is the ideal situation. So rather than deleting a BLP, I propose that the article in question be transferred to the original editor's Userspace, or to an editor who wants to adopt the article. A maint. tag would be placed on the original article page so nobody else would try to create the page. There would be a link in this maint. tag to the Userspace page where the original or adoptive editor is working on it. This in case other interested editors decide to help with the improvement and sourcing of the BLP. Userspace pages would have to be invisible to search engines, of course, and I'm not sure this is the case at present.

If a person is notable enough to be in Wikipedia, then outright deletion of the BLP would just eventually result in somebody else recreating the article. And if the person is notable, then deletion shouldn't even be an option. So, in short, deletion should be determined by notability or lack thereof, not by lack of reliable sourcing.
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  22:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem with putting things into userspace is that, even if we tell others they can work on it, a lot of people won't. Also, moving the content around will only hide it for so long; some mirror sites include userspace and enough may pick it up for the userspace content to show up in search engines. The purpose of deletion for deletion for unsourced BLPs is not to remove the subject from the site, but to remove unverified, potentially problematic content. If someone recreates it with a sourced version, that isn't a problem. Mr.Z-man 22:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Ultimately we have to run all that stuff through MfD as well once it becomes abandoned, so it creates process work too. Not a big fan of mass userfication for this. Gigs (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

No we don't. I delete whatever pages I want from userspace, and I don't bother with MfDs because they're typically from abandoned accounts. (Note: I'm not doing this for no reason; I'm damn careful about it.) DS (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You must be doing it carefully (or at least quietly) if there haven't been complaints. But it's still under IAR since there's no speedy deletion criteria for abandoned userspace drafts (though I would support one with a 6 month inactivity limit). If such a thing gets proposed, drop a line on my talk page so I could participate in the discussion. Gigs (talk) 23:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, Mr. Z. Another problem with beginning or transfering to U-space is that one might put a lot of work into an article, for example the supposedly notable journalist of Malta, Caruana Galizia, whose article is presently up for deletion, and then find out that the subject may not or does not meet WP notability standards. At least by building the article in the Encyclopediaspace, it might draw enough attention early and save the author a lot of work.

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  11:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to Close This RfC

Ok, based upon the comments on the talk page to my summary, I propose we close this RfC. I'm going to break my proposal to close into two parts. The first part deals with items where I feel that consensus has been reach. The second part deals with a compromise solution proposed on the talk page. For purposes of dates, I used March 1 as the end date for this RfC.

Part 1: Items where consensus seems to be clear

The first part being issues which I think the consensus is clearly defined. In supporting/opposing this, please do so based upon whether or not you agree/disagree that consensus supports the item in question---not whether you agree or disagree with it.

1. An acceptance of a "sticky" BLP-PROD for new unsourced BLP's written after the close of the RfC.
2. An acceptance of some sort of policy/guideline change to indicate that we expect new BLP's to have sources or they may be deleted. (I use "may" because somebody else may add a source or it may not be found.)
3. We want to recruit as many people/projects as possible to this clean up effort. This could include, but is not limited to, contacting projects directly, asking the Foundation to put a banner on the page, making announcements in Signpost, having a "clean-up" blitz, etc.
4. We do not want the clean up effort to be a haphazard mass deletion spree.
5. We want/need time to make this clean up a reality.
6. Many of the existing BLP tagged as "unsourced" are not problematic in that they actually do contain sources.
7. Many of the existing unsourced BLPs do not harm WP in that they are factual and neutral, but because they deal with living people the expectation is shifting related to sourcing.
8. Any proposal to speedy delete unsourced/poorly source BLP's has been rejected. This does not negate already existing criteria for CSD.
9. Any notion to automate deletions of old unsourced BLPs has been rejected.

Again, I am not asking if you agree/disagree with the above summary, but whether or not you agree/disagree that consensus seems to support the above.

Part 1 Agree

• Agree as nom---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Balloonman per: Consensus is forming: an alternative view why didn't you include Bearcat's proposal which can be summed up as:
    "I'm not entirely convinced that we actually need to create a whole new layer of bureaucracy and regulation here."
    Bearcat's proposal was one of the most, if not the most supported proposal on this page. Isn't many of your points simply a repeat of Jclemens proposal, which was soundly defeated by almost a two to one margin? There are many other questions I have about the validity of this consensus, which are on the talk page. Okip 14:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree Mlpearc (talk) 23:02, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree; this much at least seems clear. NW (Talk) 23:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
•  —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  23:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• --KrebMarkt 23:17, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• These all seem quite clear. Resolute 23:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• yup--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• - Philippe 23:57, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
• I can live with this. ϢereSpielChequers 00:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Fully agree. Jogurney (talk) 00:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. THF (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• That does appear to be the consensus --Jubilee♫clipman 01:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree J04n(talk page) 03:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• agree and I think the onus is on anyone who signs saying they disagree, to show WHY they think consensus isn't clear on these points, not just claim that it's not. ++Lar: t/c 03:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree - Kevin (talk) 04:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Good job, RxS (talk) 04:51, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree though it's unfortunate that this is about where things were 2 weeks ago. I and many others much earlier put up almost identical summaries but were all drowned out. A few sizable concerns aren't addressed, but that doesn't change the fact that I endorse this summary as a proper review of consensus. Let's get on with it, people. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 05:29, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• This resolves a good deal of the main issues. Mr.Z-man 06:06, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. Pcap ping 06:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree, but very disappointed that the one thing that can happen now, #3 above, has still been left in the hands of a few users and projects. Wolterbot hasn't done a cleanup list since December (not his fault, relies on the database dump). NOT GOOD ENOUGH. WP:Aust had 1652 listed then. We have less than 600 today. There have probably been 10-20 editors working on this for the past month. It takes me 5-10 minutes to do an update, or 20-30 minutes to do a fresh generation of our working list. Time that could done by a bot, but the only botmaker who was interested in currently banned. Lists of unreferenced BLPs from June 2008 don't interest me. Lists of unreferenced Olympians, or Engineers, or Politicians might. We don't need an RFC to do this, just some proper emphasis to be applied from above. Or is it really not that important to those running the show?The-Pope (talk) 06:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree - This seems to be what we've agreed on. Let's move forward. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree - but only as long as the perspective: not asking if you agree/disagree with the above summary, but whether or not you agree/disagree that consensus seems to support the above, is not lost.
• Agree seems to be supported by most (if not fully be me!) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• OK at least this helps us move in the right direction. Dougweller (talk) 14:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Wish that we could say more towards good sourcing, but of course, allowing anyone to edit Wikipedia will always let a few idiots in. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree, though I wish that #1 applied to existing articles as well as newly created ones. Deor (talk) 16:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree Looks about right. Some of it may not be so agreed upon yet though. Brambleclawx 18:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with points 1-5 and 9 in part. The others are unnecessary commentary and could be dropped, but are harmless. For #5 it doesn't matter if many or few do flagged BLPs contain sources, the proposal will deal with it either way. It doesn't matter whether sourced BLPs are problematic or not, that is beyond the scope of this specific proposal. For #7, it doesn't matter whether an unsourced BLP is harmless or not, we'll source it either way. It doesn't matter whether expectations shifted, this is a decision going forward. For #8, I think we agree that some special action is needed for new unsourced BLPs, and consensus isn't clear yet on the specific process. For #9, if you mean bot-driven or unconditional, yes, in approving this proposal we're rejecting a completely automated deletion process... but it is "automatic" in the sense that if a BLP cannot be sourced, it will get deleted, period. I don't think it hurts anything to add these points, but I think we have consensus even if people disagree with them, because they don't change the outcome. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Agree, wish that more could be done to have a timelined PROD, but consensus has not been for it. — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 21:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Part 1 Disagree

• Strongly Disagree with 1 and 2 only, for several reasons:

  First, Balloon's claim of consensus is simply not the case. Yesterday Ballonman posted a "consensus is forming" section on the talk page, which ignored some of the most popular proposals.

  Second, the harm some editors claim that unreferenced BLPs have is so out of proportion to the reality, that this unreferenced BLP danger promoted here could be called a hoax. There are much better, collaborative, less disruptive solutions to solving unreferenced BLPs, which editors have been working on, resulting in 10,000 less unreferenced BLPs.

  Third, Without any new bitey new rules and bureaucracy, the number of unreferenced BLPs has dropped, from 52,760 to 42,512, over 10,000 articles removed from the list. No new bitey rules are needed.

  Fourth how do we reconcile Balloonman's proposal, which at this writing, has 23 supports and does not mention the BEFORE requirement, with the WP:BEFORE proposal which has 19 supports above? I think there would be wider community support if a before requirement was put in, I may support such a proposal also. Also Bearcat's proposal, which has 16-1 above arguably the most popular proposal here? Okip 11:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The WP:BEFORE proposal has 19 supports and 16 opposes, it would be a bit of a stretch say that "consensus is clearly defined" there. Mr.Z-man 19:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Disagree. Gosh, the same folks who've been pushing this think they see consensus they agree with. Shocking. I certainly hope we get a formal proposal out of this and have a site-wide discussion about that proposal. Wearing people down!=consensus. If you think it does, let's hold a formal vote. Hobit (talk) 18:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Part 1 Neutral

At the moment, this page has consensus about what this page has consensus about. :)

But I'd like to suggest that this proposal to close remain open for a few days (such as through Monday).

Doing so would lessen any potential bias based on time. It would give more opportunity to hear from the self-proclaimed forgotten majority.

To some degree, we are ending where we should have started, with Balloonman's suggestion to align policy with deletion proposals (I recognize that we have some disagreement about interpretion of current policy).

But any tightening of standards should consider Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Content. Maurreen (talk) 12:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I also support some of Okip's points in the Disagree section. I think I would accept Prods that required WP:BEFORE. Maurreen (talk) 12:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Part 1 Discussion

• This is mostly a "fix" direction, and I'm worried about it lacking preventative measures. I know there's a "new unsourced 'may' be deleted" above, but even that isn't digging out the deepest roots: Educating needed at WP:NPP to keep the queue at zero, the need for more communication and less biting of new users, and closing loopholes within the article creation process. These gaps are what created the queue in the first place and we need to accept responsibility as the community as a whole to assure the pile ever stacks up higher again. It's fairly detailed and I admit it shouldn't be spelled out at length here, so could anyone suggest where I might seek further opinion on this? The pump? Separate RfC, as this could technically be considered a different problem? This aspect is at least low on drama and controversy. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 05:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this new "sticky" PROD tag going to be included in Twinkle? Any new prod tags definitely out to be included in all the pertinent automated tools because many, if not most, NPP folks make extensive use of them. This will ensure new, unreferenced BLPs will get the correct prod tag. I'm sure some will get through but nothing is perfect. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That would be covered in the second bullet point---NPP could be one of the pages that is alerted to this change---particularly as it relates to BLP-PROD. As for preventive---I think that is what this proposal is tackling in earnest. An agreement to implement BLP-PROD and make changes to key pages to indicate that new BLP's need sources. While we may or may not live up to the goal of cleaning up the project, I hope that these changes will put a stop gap on the problem increasing.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 09:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Datheisen the community has had years to educate new editors, and make our referencing policy easier for new users, the community has failed. The pile will not get higher again if this proposal passes, instead, new editors will get bitey notifications that basically say: "source this article or else"

If biting new users is your concern, you should oppose this proposal, because this proposal will have a very negative effect on new users. Okip 17:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Whether it's bitey or not depends on how the tag is worded, and how the NPP people behave. If it's confusing, cold, and bureaucratic, yes, new users will be turned off, as they already are when their first article gets deleted. But if we welcome them and give them an encouraging message, and guide them through the process, it's actually a positive in terms of making new article creation less scary. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

As we all now from WP:NEWT this is not currently happening, which unfortunately is a failure of the community as a whole.

Could we guide them through the process without the threat of deletion, or, in the alternative, requiring editors follow rudimentary WP:BEFORE? Okip 18:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Part 2: Where consensus isn't quite as clear

It is clear that something has to be done with old unsourced BLP's. While it is debatable as to the amount of harm/damage that can be and is done by having an BLP unsourced, the tide is clear---the foundation and Jimbo want BLP's to have sources. If we don't address the situation on our own, then the Foundation/Wales may come down and make us comply. To this end, I've pulled some of the compromise suggestions raised on the talk page to make this closing proposal:

1. We as a community are committing ourselves to cleaning up the unsourced BLP's within a year.
2. There is a lot of discussion surrounding whether or not old unsourced BLP's should be deleted. There seems to be a growing acceptance that if the community doesn't act, then this proposal may become unavoidable, but at present there is not a mandate to do so. Those who oppose it are pushing for a "clean up" option instead.
3. Based upon Scott Mac's compromise proposal on the talk page we will hold off discussion concerning codifying the deletion of Old Unsourced BLP's for 3 months. If reasonable progress is not achieved in cleaning up the the old unsourced BLP's during that 3 month time period, another RfC may be opened to revisit this item. Those people who are opposed to a systematic deletion of old BLP's are thus behooved to ensure that this action is not required.
4. For purposes of judging whether or not the community is taking this proposal seriously, J04n proposed the following metric. Currently, there are 42,621 articles in the Category:All unreferenced BLPs. The community commits to reducing this number to 30,000 by June 1, 2010 (3 month); 20,000 by September 1 (6 months); 10,000 by December 1 (9 months); and no unsourced BLP's tagged for more than one month by March 1, 2011 (1 year.) (NOTE: these goals recognize that roughly 1000 unidentified OLD BLP articles may be identified monthly. If this number increases, then the targets may need to be adjusted keeping in mind the 1 year goal. While 1,000 may be less than the average over the past six months, we will be addressing NEW BLP's with the BLP-PROD above.)
5. BLP-PROD may be used sparingly as an alternative to AFD, but only in cases where an effort has been made to source the article themself and it is fairly obvious that the article would fail at AFD in its current form. This does not mean that the community supports, at this point, wide spread use of BLP-PROD on OLD unsourced BLPs, but rather a recognition that atlernatives may be necessary to avoid flooding AfD.
6. If the community fails to make significant progress towards these goals, another RfC may be opened to consider other options keeping in mind the original goal of clearing the backlog by March 1, 2011.
7. After the clean up period is complete, newly identified "old" BLPs would be tagged with the BLP-PROD tag.

Again, you may not agree with each of the points above, but the question I have is "can you live with this compromise?"

Yes

1. Yes As nom I can accept this compromise and see if the community can live up to its obligations. While not part of the proposal, I think that we should hold "BLP clean up drives" during the last two weeks of each phase.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 22:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
2. Agree My concern is if future RfC's arise will the overall progress get "bogged" down again ? Mlpearc (talk) 23:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
3. Agree per below. NW (Talk) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
4. I really don't like it. But it is a fair assessment of where we are at, and I don't think more is possible now. I, for one, am willing to refrain from speedy deletions on unsourced and see if the clear-up can work. But there are limits to a "wait and see" policy. Reluctantly, I'll go with this.--Scott Mac (Doc) 23:52, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
5. I think it's important that we "freeze" the unreferenced BLP categories of Jan 2010 and earlier, so in future when people change {{unreferenced}} tags to {{unreferencedBLP}}s they change the date to the current month and year. Otherwise we will continue to get a false impression of the amount of work going on in fixing BLPs. ϢereSpielChequers 00:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
6. Conditional support. My view is that there is no concensus to use BLP-PROD for old unreferenced BLPs. Accordingly, I'd like to see a moratorium on its use on old articles until the point that the "progress targets" described in point 4 are missed. Otherwise, I think this is something the community can live with. Jogurney (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
7. Support, but I must say that I am uneasy about point 5, but I will assume good faith in that the BLP-PROD will be used "only in cases where an effort has been made to source the article". BTW, kudos to Baloonman for attempting to move this along. J04n(talk page) 03:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
8. I don't especially like this, as I think the timeline is overly conservative, but I can live with it, and like Scott I am willing to hold off on mass deletions for now. Kevin (talk) 04:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
9. Looks okay in general, but I don't think we need a BLP-PROD, as opposed to just PROD for the old BLPs that look hopeless or uncontroversial (point 5). It would make the wording for a BLP-PROD policy more complicated than it needs to be. Pcap ping 06:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
10. This is workable. Mr.Z-man 06:43, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
11. Yes I agree with the statement regarding existing unsourced BLPs. Okip has a contest going on and perhaps people can help him expand it, ir hopefully get the foundation behind it on a much larger scale. The more BLPs are cleaned up and sourced, the better. Let's all do this wile we're fresh and excited. <>Multi‑Xfer<> (talk) 07:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
12. Yes - I can just about live with that. What i can't live with is a lot more procrastination and debate, and I'm already doing what my non-admin tools permit to do to get rid/clean up/improve them. It's a drop in the ocean because I don't know how to address 500 articles an hour like some of you, but what I'm doing is working.--Kudpung (talk) 08:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
13. Yes -- I think the numerical goals might be too ambitious, but other factors counter that. Maurreen (talk) 11:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
14. Yes I'm in agreement with Doc above, and athough this isn't what I'd like to see exactly, it's better than nothing and appears to be something we can agree on. Dougweller (talk) 14:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
15. Yes. PeterSymonds (talk) 21:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
16. Agree (that this is a good summary of points not yet decided). The specific deadlines vary, but most support or accept that there will be a deadline, and the longest ones proposed are a year. The final will be somewhere between 3 months and 1 year, likely 6 months to 1 year. Point 2 is an illusory question. If an article cannot be sourced it's unverifiable, so it is deletable under current policy. If it is sourceable but nobody has bothered to source it, that's not what we want - but the premise of the emerging consensus is that after some process, at some point if the BLP remains unsourced it gets deleted. I don't see why we need to hold off 3 months or start from scratch with a new BLP, we can just have a slow-acting proposal... but holding off before implementing does address Okip's objections currently at the bottom of the page that this could be fixed without any action. I'm confused about BLP-PROD - AfD is a slow, labor-intensive process. I think we should leave the exact deletion mechanism for both the backlog and new unsourced BLPs open for a later stage of the RfC. Let's agree to do it first, then we can deal with implementation. We wouldn't prod tens of thousands of articles at once with identical deadlines, but either PROD-BLP on a rolling schedule, or all at once with different due dates. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
17. Yes — Coffee // have a cup // ark // 21:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
18. Yes As long as its reasonable. Brambleclawx 00:43, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
19. Yes Meta-consensus. Yay. Gigs (talk) 04:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No

• Strong no As unnecessary new bureaucracy. The community has already removed 10,000 unreferenced BLPs from the list, we are actively working to give editors more tools, such as User:DASHbot to clean up the mess even further. Okip 17:37, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Then you should be supporting this! This proposal basically says that if the community can get its act together and clean up its mess, then we won't be adding any policies/guidelines related to old unsourced BLPs. This proposal is basically, a status quo one, but that acknowledges that we as a project have made a commitment to clean things up and if they don't get cleaned up, then we might have to revisit the notion of deleting old unsourced BLPs.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 04:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Please, not another RfC. If reasonable progress (that in itself is in the eye of the beholder; it ought to be defined) isn't made in three months, just prod an equivalent number of articles to get to our pre-defined quota for that month. The rest seems acceptable as a reasonable compromise for all parties. NW (Talk) 23:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Put that in there as it was part of Scott's original compromise solution. I did, however, add a proposal to allow use of BLP-PROD with the caveat that the person applying it has to check for sources first. Eg if a person working the queue stumbles upon an article they can't source, go ahead and prod... but this shouldn't be deemed a license for mass prods of unsourced blps.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

As for reasonable progress, that's what bullet point 4 is about---defining what reasonable process is. I didn't want to leave it vague and in the eye of the beholder ;-)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Well I agree with you in spirit, but I don't think we need another RfC. I don't understand why Alverstand's proposal didn't get more support since so many people seem to want to wait until the current progress levels off before doing forced deletions. I agree, lets wait. But we can decide now what to do when it stops dropping. Gigs (talk) 23:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

head→desk. The rest of it looks good to me. And Gigs, I think the answer to that this is the most reasonable compromise. If it were up to me, we wouldn't be waiting at all. But I recognize the rest of the community has different views that I do, and so I, like most others, are willing to compromise and accept what we wouldn't have accepted otherwise in the name of progress. NW (Talk) 23:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

How can this possibly be "the most reasonable compromise" when some of the most supported and popular proposals where never advocated? Okip 18:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

This proposal is very confusing to me. Are people agreeing that consensus isn't clear on these points, or are they agreeing to the points themselves? Gigs (talk) 23:55, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think people are agreeing that consensus isn't clear on these points but we should follow them anyway, as a compromise we can agree with. NW (Talk) 03:18, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Heh, a sort of self-referential paradox. :) Well I'm on board with it anyway. Gigs (talk) 04:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose very notion of this meta-RFC

Best to leave it to one of those legendary uninvolved admins to gauge the consensus. Getting consensus on what there is consensus on (particularly with participation levels not much better than the actual RFC)...just seems plain backward. It seems to further the incorrect notion that these things are entirely vote-based. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Support

• Strong support, as the history of this RFC shows, and which is shown again yesterday, when Balloonman declared that "consensus was almost reached" touting his proposal, and ignoring other editors proposals, be VERY wary of editors who claim consensus. Okip 16:45, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong support. My feeling is that people are responding to personal experiences with constructive ideas of their own manufacture. Having been a webmaster for large online knowledgebases? These subjective perceptions of problems and remedies that are not founded in statistics just promote confusion. People are trying to "get a feel" for the problem, when analysis, formal analysis is appropriate. We need statistical leverage here. My guess is that 80% of the unsourced bio articles are actually encyclopedic — they simply lack proper sourcing. Equally, nearly all of the Wikipedia articles that have the top daily readership have been compromised by marketing sources, so that they are flimsy reports of unencyclopedic romantic relationships, deep trivia about one-off performances and bewildering unexplained recitation of remixes. Having an article source or not is far from an acid test resolving unencyclopedic material. Regards, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 04:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

I thoroughly agree with meta. I was gong to post more suggestions on the discussion but as it's completely lost it's track and has ended up chasing its many tails (endeminc most Wikipedia RfCs), yes: Best to leave it to one of those legendary uninvolved admins to gauge the consensus, especially as at a rough estimate, 90% of the comments have been made by about 5% of the contributors, and far to many of those were not about the topic title at all.--Kudpung (talk) 02:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You only really need an "uninvolved admin" if there is no clear consensus that has formed... which is not the case here. In an ideal world, consensus will be clear and we can all agree as to what the body has determined... if we can't agree, then consensus has not truly been met and we can try to resolve the outstanding issues. Plus, this way we avoid rulings from on high by people may have a stake in the game, but have been quiet. Finally, by getting everybody to agree to what has been agreed to, you avoid people crying foul or playing games down the road.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 03:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Balloonman, the consensus that you espouse is as one sided as the administrator's false "consensus" who closed this RFC and espoused only one side. Okip 16:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Balloonman, if there's consensus that there's a consensus, then surely that means there's a consensus (2 actually). Given the huge amount of discussion, the number of articles involved, etc., its rather hard for someone to be both qualified to judge such a consensus and completely impartial. Mr.Z-man 06:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you've summed that up perfectly Mr.Z-man. And that's the whole problem (as I hinted above) with all Wikipedia debates: everything needs a consensus for a consensus for a consensus ad nauseam... --Kudpung (talk) 08:14, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Currently the above discussions are near-unanimous. If it stays the same, it wouldn't take a consensus to figure out the consensus there. Mr.Z-man 16:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about Bearcat's proposal? Which was not addressed by Balloonman? And which has 16-1 in support? Okip 16:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not referring to that. Mr.Z-man 16:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that so far, this meta-RfC is doing a great job to both identify and further consensus. Why on earth would you want to shut the meta-RfC down, in light of that?--Father Goose (talk) 08:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm naïve, but I still have a problem with this idea of a consensus. I've been editing Wikipedia for many years, and the closest I've seen "coming to a consensus" simply meant that seven editors said yes, two editors said no, and the two naysay editors were expected to "come around". It's still Majority rule and screw the minority, so let's not kid ourselves, okay?

 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  11:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

To paraphrase Forest Gump, consensus is as consensus does. If someone wants to summarize people's views, and people seem to sign on, that's helpful. I've looked at the attempted summary. It looks pretty good to me. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy

Thanks to User:DASHBot, in one short month, 10,000 unreferenced articles have been referenced or removed, and the community is actively removing more.

I propose that we support Bearcat's proposal, which actually had the most support here when Balloonman wrote his proposal. We don't "actually need to create a whole new layer of bureaucracy and regulation here."

Support

• As proposer. Okip 18:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• This is fine. If the reduction of the unreferenced BLPs backlog continues apace, then when we review matters in three months, there will be (as you say) no need to do any more. We don't need to choose between the "do nothing" and the "do something", I think we've a consensus that we do nothing in terms of deletion with the backlog for three months, and then see. If you are correct that DASHbot and other initiatives will show a continuing significant reduction in the backlog then I'll be happy to agree with you in opposing anything further - it will simply be unnecessary. I don't, however, see how this is an "alternative" to the above.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:23, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for your support. It is an alternative view that the existing framework can address unreferenced BLPs. I would be happy to support Balloonman proposal, if that proposal includes rudimentary WP:BEFORE requirements to help insure new users are not bitten. Okip 18:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Well, if the existing framework seems on track to eliminate the backlog within a reasonable period (I suggest 1 year) then that's fine. I'm probably more pessimistic than you are, but time will tell. There's really not a lot of point in arguing about it. If we look back in three months and see a really significant fall, then it will be obvious that enough is being done and the "stick" of threatened backlog deletions will have proven unnecessary. If not, we can discuss what alternatives are needed at that point. I'm happy to "wait and see" for three months wrt the backlog. As for biting new users, no one wants to do that. If new unreferenced BLPs are prodded, then the notice should be very nice. "Thanks for this, but we are looking for references for biographies - can you offer some? If you need help ask here". We should also encourage other users to help out with references as they are able and willing (remembering this is a volunteer project). If the article is unsourced at the end of the prod time, it gets deleted, but perhaps another nice message to the creator saying "sorry about that, if you'd like it restored all you need to do is have a reference available and ask [here], if you'd like help just ask". There's really no excuse for this to be "bitey".--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support, clearly many editors are repelled by this muddling of one point after the next and are happy to help when given a reasonable chance to understand the issue without the drama and disruption. If there is strong support to make any changes then a specific effort to create a sticky prod - whatever that is - will likely still have strong support in a few months or whenever. I'm also unconvinced that rational ways of inviting people to solve the perceived backlog have been exhausted. Perhaps as part of this closing a concerted effort to point to the new efforts to address these concerns could be prominently placed and advertised so that those who aren't interested in the discussion(s) for whatever reasons may still be enticed to help the BLPs that need attention. -- Banjeboi 19:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

• No, we need to include something to deal with new unsourced BLPs. Letting projects deal with the backlog is fine, but at some point, projects are going to get tired of constantly having to maintain their BLPs. Additionally, if we can't keep up this pace of sourcing for a year, there needs to be some sort of procedure other than "start everything over again." I would point out that several people (including myself) who supported Bearcat's proposal did not do so in exclusion of everything else. Mr.Z-man 19:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Neutral

I agree with the proposal in and of itself and some of the rationale.

But timing has made things tricky. That is (and not just with this), it's hard, if not impossible, to gauge the difference between how much support any given proposal has among people participating at any given time, and whether any proposal is most representative of the community.

Further, as a compromise, I suggest giving something to the other side. One possibility is to agree to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people#Part 2: Where consensus isn't quite as clear but not Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people# Part 1: Items where consensus seems to be clear. In three months, we could re-evaluate the situation. Maurreen (talk) 18:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Newly created unsourced BLP issue isn't resolved by this proposal. Having editors fixing articles on one side while others editors create unsourced articles on the other side is suicide game. --KrebMarkt 19:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• I think the distinction between the closing proposals concerns new BLPs. User:Balloonman's proposal would change relevant policy pages to make stronger statements about sourcing, at least on BLPs. His proposal also provides for sticky WP:PRODs. User:Okip's proposal does not include these two provisions. Maurreen (talk) 18:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Isn't this a little out-of-process? A proposal to support another proposal? Why don't we just discuss this over at the section for Bearcat's proposal? I think there's a lot of good stuff Bearcat says, but it was an early proposal and people have added a number of good ideas since. I think we do need some additional resolve and procedural guidance instead of just saying we're going to continue as-is under existing policy, only enforce it this time. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:41, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Request to keep this RFC open until Monday night, 23:59 Wikipedia (UTC) time

Support

• As proposer. Okip 18:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
• Maurreen (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

Discussion

Indefinitely? Certainly not. Further, this seems like a poll to assume bad faith. If an uninvolved admin isn't to close this, who should? Ikip what do you want? Someone who agrees with you? What are the "views" Risker embraces, which you find so obnoxious? Are only people who give the result you want to be trusted? Oh, and how many polls do you want to start?--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

[re-factored out comments] Okip 18:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I know you never said "indefinitely" - I was asking how much longer you are proposing? As for bad faith, I'm assuming Risker acted in good faith and closed where she saw consensus falling, rather than imposing her views. I'm just not sure what you are driving at.--Scott Mac (Doc) 18:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

(re-factored) I changed it to Monday night, 23:59 Wikipedia (UTC) time, per Maurren's talk page proposal. Okip 19:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It is certainly reasonable to allow the close to be delayed until Monday night to allow folks who don't edit on the weekend to chime in. J04n(talk page) 19:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It would seem not unreasonable.--Scott Mac (Doc) 19:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)