http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP_Patrol
Shortcut: [[WP:BLPP]]
There's a talk page with lots and lots of discussion. I've just added to WP:BLPP an outline of the simple patrolling process we've been discussing on WP:BLPN and on wikien-l. I've broken it down into:
1. Simple edit patrolling (like RC patrol/vandal patrol, except for living bios) - catch suspect unreferenced changes - "related changes" on [[Category:Living people]] runs about 10 edits/minute. 2. Simple category maintenance (making sure every living bio in en: is in [[Category:Living people]] and has {{WPBiography}} on the talk page), so as to make 1. easier. 3. More difficult cases (possible problematic content it would take too long for a patroller to deal with on the spot)
1 and 2 could benefit from software assistance (hence this being cc'd to wikitech-l) - the edit patrolling could likely use similar tools to present RC/vandalism patrol, and a bit of javascript to add the category and template with one click would be useful.
Any ideas? Does this look good/bad?
On one end I haven't time to patrol and on the other I'm not a coder, but I have an interest in that this comes up in *every* media contact I've had recently ... so getting something effective into place that's simple enough to be workable would be very good for us and our readers!
- d.
On 8-Sep-06, at 9:34 AM, David Gerard wrote:
I agree, this is a major problem when working with press and also constitutes a large percentage of large-issue communications with the Foundation Office and with OTRS.
The [[WP:BLPP]] addresses many of the concerns, and is a great idea. However, this treats the symptoms of two fundamental issue which en.wp is not addressing: Who is noteworthy enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia, and what/how much should be said regarding living persons. These two issues cannot be resolved by a technical solution.
The Patrol is a reasonable stop-gap measure which will address the problems we have now, but it is unlikely to scale well, nor is it a solution for all wikipedias. I would encourage the en.wp community to create a few objective measures akin to the USA State of Florida judicial "Public Persons" test. It seems to me that any encyclopedic living persons biography must be about a person who is, at the very least, a public person (that is, someone reasonably well-known or in a position where they are likely to be addressing a general public audience, such as politicians for public office, newspaper editors, actors, radio announcers, clergy members, corporate spokespersons, &c.)
It is not reasonable to have large, in-depth biographies about living persons. Too much information makes is included, often with such detail that make an en.wp article a considerable risk to the subject's privacy and security (such as identity theft, among other things.) Deep articles are prone to bias, either showing the subject unfavourably or too favourably, and often give undue weight to some minor element of their life to push a point of view (a classic example are US Congressional members, whose articles almost universally contain extensive coverage of the most recent few years of public service - particularly perceived scandals - and may completely lack any mention of previous public positions or private careers.) Subjects can and do dramatically alter their lives and goals, and en.wp articles are not able to be relevant to these changes.
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
</rant>
Amgine
On 09/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
(removed developers from the cc:, as I can't see them caring about an editorial policy issue)
- d.
Well, I'm sure we could come up with a checklist for patrollers as to whether or not the article is notable, and I can code AfDing into the MWT version for BLP if there is such a need. In terms of quality control, we would really need the cleanup taskforce to take a look at the whole category for a week or so to bring articles up to scratch.
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 09/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
(removed developers from the cc:, as I can't see them caring about an editorial policy issue)
- d.
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I have attempted to add information about MWT to [[WP:BLPP]] along with a series of formatting edits.
Unfortunately, It appears at the moment I can't be bold in a proposed project/policy I started without quick reversion. I am beginning to wonder if some editors are confusing ambiguous (or bad) process and organization with all process and organization is bad.
Organization and readability == Good. Organization and readability == Good. Organization and readability == Good.
-Electrawn
On 9/9/06, Akash Mehta draicone@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I'm sure we could come up with a checklist for patrollers as to whether or not the article is notable, and I can code AfDing into the MWT version for BLP if there is such a need. In terms of quality control, we would really need the cleanup taskforce to take a look at the whole category for a week or so to bring articles up to scratch.
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 09/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
(removed developers from the cc:, as I can't see them caring about an editorial policy issue)
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 9-Sep-06, at 2:56 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 09/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
(removed developers from the cc:, as I can't see them caring about an editorial policy issue)
- d.
No, actually.
To give an example of what I mean:
[[Tom DeLay]]
{{infobox}}
'''Thomas Dale "Tom" DeLay''' (born in [[1947]]) is a former member of the [[United States House of Representatives]] from [[Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land]], [[Texas]], the former [[Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives|House Majority Leader]], and a prominent member of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]].
== Early life and education ==
DeLay was born in Laredo, Texas. He spent part of his childhood in Venezuela, due to his father's employment. He attended Calallen High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, and spent two years as a pre-med student at Baylor University. DeLay received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in biology from the University of Houston in 1970.
== Public service ==
In 1978, DeLay won the election for an open seat in the Texas House of Representatives. He was the first Republican to represent Fort Bend County in the state House. DeLay was elected to the federal House in 1984, representing the Texas 22nd congressional district, after his predecessor, Republican Ron Paul, declined to run for re- election.
DeLay was appointed deputy whip by then-Minority Whip Dick Cheney in 1988. When the Republican Party gained control of the House in 1995 following the 1994 election, DeLay was elected Majority Whip. After serving as his party's Whip for eight years, DeLay was elected Majority Leader upon the retirement of Dick Armey in 2003. After being indicted in Texas on charges related to campaign contributions, DeLay stepped down as Majority Whip.
On April 3, 2006, DeLay announced that he would not run for re- election. He also announced his resignation effective June 9, 2006, and that he planned to form a lobbying firm that would work to support conservative issues.
</example>
Compare to the extant article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay

At least its well referenced :) According to [[WP:V]], the excess content is acceptable, so there has to be a policy thats accepted and has been around for a while to challenge that. If there is (and there appears to be - WP:LIVING), then anyone with time can go through and cut out unneccessary stuff (get the cleanup taskforce on it, by any chance?).
On 9/10/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
On 9-Sep-06, at 2:56 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 09/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
(removed developers from the cc:, as I can't see them caring about an editorial policy issue)
- d.
No, actually.
To give an example of what I mean:
[[Tom DeLay]]
{{infobox}}
'''Thomas Dale "Tom" DeLay''' (born in [[1947]]) is a former member of the [[United States House of Representatives]] from [[Sugar Land, Texas|Sugar Land]], [[Texas]], the former [[Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives|House Majority Leader]], and a prominent member of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]].
== Early life and education ==
DeLay was born in Laredo, Texas. He spent part of his childhood in Venezuela, due to his father's employment. He attended Calallen High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, and spent two years as a pre-med student at Baylor University. DeLay received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in biology from the University of Houston in 1970.
== Public service ==
In 1978, DeLay won the election for an open seat in the Texas House of Representatives. He was the first Republican to represent Fort Bend County in the state House. DeLay was elected to the federal House in 1984, representing the Texas 22nd congressional district, after his predecessor, Republican Ron Paul, declined to run for re- election.
DeLay was appointed deputy whip by then-Minority Whip Dick Cheney in 1988. When the Republican Party gained control of the House in 1995 following the 1994 election, DeLay was elected Majority Whip. After serving as his party's Whip for eight years, DeLay was elected Majority Leader upon the retirement of Dick Armey in 2003. After being indicted in Texas on charges related to campaign contributions, DeLay stepped down as Majority Whip.
On April 3, 2006, DeLay announced that he would not run for re- election. He also announced his resignation effective June 9, 2006, and that he planned to form a lobbying firm that would work to support conservative issues.
</example>
Compare to the extant article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay

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Amgine wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
I think that way of putting it seems a bit extreme. In the example under discussion [[Tom Delay]], it seems pretty clear that the article is much stronger due to the inclusion of much more than some minimal set of facts.
I say this despite the rather obvious "hatchet job" nature of the bio there at this moment. This is one of the worst political bios I have seen in a long time in Wikipedia.
Tom Delay suffers from the problem of being unpopular with both the left and the right.
--Jimbo
On 10/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Amgine wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
I think that way of putting it seems a bit extreme. In the example under discussion [[Tom Delay]], it seems pretty clear that the article is much stronger due to the inclusion of much more than some minimal set of facts.
Yes. One bad example is not a reason to adopt a policy with the specific goal of making living bio articles as useless as possible.
I wonder what the readers want from Wikipedia bio articles.
- d.
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Amgine wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
I think that way of putting it seems a bit extreme. In the example under discussion [[Tom Delay]], it seems pretty clear that the article is much stronger due to the inclusion of much more than some minimal set of facts.
Yes. One bad example is not a reason to adopt a policy with the specific goal of making living bio articles as useless as possible.
I wonder what the readers want from Wikipedia bio articles.
Hard to say, but...
* Legally, can't be libelous/defaming. * Probably don't want to read like a tabloid journal * Probably don't want to be like a book biography... "Mr X took a number 2 on Nov 5th, 1985 in the 2nd floor bathroom...he usually goes to the 3rd floor bathroom."
Compared to a who's who or book biography.
* Shouldn't be completely Positive smiley happy happy - all negatives scrubbed. * Should touch on recent events/litigation - up to date as of now. * Learn something interesting or unknown - trivia. * Make the person look human - care.
That last one is the tough one...Not only do editors need to be civil with each other, they need to be civil with the subjects they right about. Underneath, they have families and bleed red just like you. Using [[Tom Delay]], you would think the guy belonged in the same class as Sadam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. (Not quite hitler or bin ladin).
-Electrawn
On 9/10/06, Jason Potkanski electrawn@electrawn.com wrote:
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/09/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Amgine wrote:
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
I think that way of putting it seems a bit extreme. In the example under discussion [[Tom Delay]], it seems pretty clear that the article is much stronger due to the inclusion of much more than some minimal set of facts.
Yes. One bad example is not a reason to adopt a policy with the specific goal of making living bio articles as useless as possible.
I wonder what the readers want from Wikipedia bio articles.
Hard to say, but...
- Legally, can't be libelous/defaming.
- Probably don't want to read like a tabloid journal
- Probably don't want to be like a book biography... "Mr X took a
number 2 on Nov 5th, 1985 in the 2nd floor bathroom...he usually goes to the 3rd floor bathroom."
Compared to a who's who or book biography.
- Shouldn't be completely Positive smiley happy happy - all negatives scrubbed.
- Should touch on recent events/litigation - up to date as of now.
- Learn something interesting or unknown - trivia.
- Make the person look human - care.
That last one is the tough one...Not only do editors need to be civil with each other, they need to be civil with the subjects they right about. Underneath, they have families and bleed red just like you. Using [[Tom Delay]], you would think the guy belonged in the same class as Sadam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. (Not quite hitler or bin ladin).
-Electrawn
right->write. Embarassing, but in retrospect, a good pun.
On 10/09/06, Jason Potkanski electrawn@electrawn.com wrote:
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I wonder what the readers want from Wikipedia bio articles.
Hard to say, but...
- Legally, can't be libelous/defaming.
- Probably don't want to read like a tabloid journal
- Probably don't want to be like a book biography... "Mr X took a
number 2 on Nov 5th, 1985 in the 2nd floor bathroom...he usually goes to the 3rd floor bathroom."
Compared to a who's who or book biography.
- Shouldn't be completely Positive smiley happy happy - all negatives scrubbed.
- Should touch on recent events/litigation - up to date as of now.
- Learn something interesting or unknown - trivia.
- Make the person look human - care.
Basically, what this seems to boil down to: we want a comprehensive, well-written, broadsheet obituary which quotes its sources.
IME, you can write surprisingly good biographies by taking two or three obituaries, using them to fill in each others gaps, and expanding on anything specialised. Of course, using that technique for someone who isn't dead yet isn't possible... but perhaps we can turn it around -
If the subject of this article died tonight, would you be completely shocked to open the Times or the Guardian or the Telegraph and find a copy of this, slightly fixed up, filling half the obituary section?
If so, it's a decent article. If not, why not?
On 9/10/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/09/06, Jason Potkanski electrawn@electrawn.com wrote:
On 9/10/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I wonder what the readers want from Wikipedia bio articles.
Hard to say, but...
- Legally, can't be libelous/defaming.
- Probably don't want to read like a tabloid journal
- Probably don't want to be like a book biography... "Mr X took a
number 2 on Nov 5th, 1985 in the 2nd floor bathroom...he usually goes to the 3rd floor bathroom."
Compared to a who's who or book biography.
- Shouldn't be completely Positive smiley happy happy - all negatives scrubbed.
- Should touch on recent events/litigation - up to date as of now.
- Learn something interesting or unknown - trivia.
- Make the person look human - care.
Basically, what this seems to boil down to: we want a comprehensive, well-written, broadsheet obituary which quotes its sources.
IME, you can write surprisingly good biographies by taking two or three obituaries, using them to fill in each others gaps, and expanding on anything specialised. Of course, using that technique for someone who isn't dead yet isn't possible... but perhaps we can turn it around -
If the subject of this article died tonight, would you be completely shocked to open the Times or the Guardian or the Telegraph and find a copy of this, slightly fixed up, filling half the obituary section?
If so, it's a decent article. If not, why not?
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
You don't think that some news organizations don't have that stuff ready to go? heh heh...
http://news.com.com/CNN+postings+send+some+to+early+graves/2100-1025_3-99736...
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cnnobit1.html
-jtp Electrawn
On 10/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
No, actually. To give an example of what I mean: [[Tom DeLay]]
Then that's an example of an existing policy not being followed. I don't see that adding more policy will make it be followed more. (c.f. [[m:Instruction creep]].)
I suggest that one needs to convince people that (a) this policy is a good idea (b) to do the hard work to make sure it's followed and *reasonably easy* to follow. I think we have (a), we're working on (b).
- d.
On 10-Sep-06, at 5:57 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 10/09/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
And, of course, [[WP:LIVING]] has pretty much from its creation said what you're asking for here: facts in the article need to be relevant to the subject's notability.
No, actually. To give an example of what I mean: [[Tom DeLay]]
Then that's an example of an existing policy not being followed. I don't see that adding more policy will make it be followed more. (c.f. [[m:Instruction creep]].)
I suggest that one needs to convince people that (a) this policy is a good idea (b) to do the hard work to make sure it's followed and *reasonably easy* to follow. I think we have (a), we're working on (b).
Well, that particular example was rather extreme, but so far as I can tell the vast majority of [[Tom DeLay]] would still be accepted under [[WP:LIVING]]. And with all due respect to Mr Wales's opinion, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a library of full human biographies (which might possibly be accepted under Wikibooks.)
Perhaps [[WP:LIVING]] could be altered to provide specific guidelines for notability (such as the Florida Public Persons judicial test, as previously suggested) as well as criteria for maximum information to be included. No BLP needs to have blow-by-blow, week-by-week, examinations of every possible legal or publicity scandal. Court decisions, indictments, or other publicly verifiable (NOT newspaper reporting) should certainly be includable, but "politician was visited by lobbyist So-and-so who was later indicted for corruption" is clearly innuendo and irrelevant.
I don't think you have clear enough guidelines to reach (b).
Amgine
BLP articles may possibly be too contrary to wikipedia eventualism to keep inside wikipedia. Perhaps a sister project on the meta and wikimedia project scale needs to be proposed? I have had the thought in the back of my head. Split BLP articles off to a "LiveBiography," merge them back to wikipedia when the persons die. This would allow the sister project higher levels of WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:RS for biographical articles. We could even allow POV criticisms, tiny minority views...via {{further}} in main biographies and related POV articles and criticisms. By acting as a sort of whos who directory rather than an encyclopedia, such a project could maintain both a high standard for biographies and a place for cranks and tiny minority views to have their say as well. Great steps would be taken to seperate biographies from the critics. Win/Win?
Ideas? Such a fork would run concurrent with Wikipedia until it is ready to take over.
Jason "Electrawn" Potkanski
On 9/9/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
On 8-Sep-06, at 9:34 AM, David Gerard wrote:
I agree, this is a major problem when working with press and also constitutes a large percentage of large-issue communications with the Foundation Office and with OTRS.
The [[WP:BLPP]] addresses many of the concerns, and is a great idea. However, this treats the symptoms of two fundamental issue which en.wp is not addressing: Who is noteworthy enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia, and what/how much should be said regarding living persons. These two issues cannot be resolved by a technical solution.
The Patrol is a reasonable stop-gap measure which will address the problems we have now, but it is unlikely to scale well, nor is it a solution for all wikipedias. I would encourage the en.wp community to create a few objective measures akin to the USA State of Florida judicial "Public Persons" test. It seems to me that any encyclopedic living persons biography must be about a person who is, at the very least, a public person (that is, someone reasonably well-known or in a position where they are likely to be addressing a general public audience, such as politicians for public office, newspaper editors, actors, radio announcers, clergy members, corporate spokespersons, &c.)
It is not reasonable to have large, in-depth biographies about living persons. Too much information makes is included, often with such detail that make an en.wp article a considerable risk to the subject's privacy and security (such as identity theft, among other things.) Deep articles are prone to bias, either showing the subject unfavourably or too favourably, and often give undue weight to some minor element of their life to push a point of view (a classic example are US Congressional members, whose articles almost universally contain extensive coverage of the most recent few years of public service - particularly perceived scandals - and may completely lack any mention of previous public positions or private careers.) Subjects can and do dramatically alter their lives and goals, and en.wp articles are not able to be relevant to these changes.
For these and other reasons, en.wp should develop policy limiting living persons articles to primary career facts and academic achievements, current positions held or endeavors, and minimal personal facts. By presenting a minimal set of biographic facts the community can circumvent a large number of internal and external conflicts, whilst avoiding maintenance issues and keeping the articles relevant until such time as the subjects may be viewed in historical context.
</rant>
Amgine
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On 9/9/06, Amgine amgine@saewyc.net wrote:
It is not reasonable to have large, in-depth biographies about living persons. Too much information makes is included, often with such detail that make an en.wp article a considerable risk to the subject's privacy and security (such as identity theft, among other things.) Deep articles are prone to bias, either showing the subject unfavourably or too favourably, and often give undue weight to some minor element of their life to push a point of view (a classic example are US Congressional members, whose articles almost universally contain extensive coverage of the most recent few years of public service - particularly perceived scandals - and may completely lack any mention of previous public positions or private careers.) Subjects can and do dramatically alter their lives and goals, and en.wp articles are not able to be relevant to these changes.
Was this intended as satire? I am reminded of "A modest proposal" by Swift. Of course Wikipedia must and will include relevant information about living people when it is well-sourced. Balance is desirable, but lack thereof should rarely be a criterion for "resetting" an article -- more for restructuring it and adding missing pieces.
The well-intended and necessary efforts to fight against libel and POV must not turn into hysteria and paranoia.