2008/4/30 David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>om>: It's a little more complex, really; there's two different things we're discussing here, but the "censorship!" end of things tends to get all the attention. It's unhelpful that we use the phrase "BLP" to mean a number of subtly different things, but context is key. Basically, we have BLPs as a special class of articles; and then we have BLP as a policy on what we put in them. ---- In the context of the posted article, we're talking about the first one - the idea that BLPs as a class are more risky for routine vandalism, because whilst they may get no more of it than other articles, the impact of "normal" vandalism is higher. There's a real person out there to suffer - and to complain! It has *always* been accepted by the community that biographies of living people need more care and attention, in the routine way of things, than the average article. The reason they have this special status is that vandalism to them can do more damage than other vandalism; potentially far more serious damage, but in general terms just... well, generally ickier. To all intents and purposes, "BLPs are a vandal risk" is not so much a proposition as a physical law. So we don't say that special things need to be done because of what they are, just that they [should] get a higher priority, perhaps dedicated monitoring, etc. More of the same thing we're doing already. ---- However, much of the time, we deal with the second issue - the problem that these articles have their own *types* of abuse. BLPs as a class don't just get normal vandalism; they get explicitly targeted defamation and they also get highly motivated whitewashing. As such, we get a policy on how to deal with these special kinds of abuse, and we call that BLP. This policy is hotly debated, mainly over to what degree we should allow it being a BLP to influence our editorial decisions - *those* questions are the core of what passes for our "BLP policy", they are open discussions. "Do no harm" is... perhaps not the best summary of this policy, shall we say. ---- But whilst this second aspect is related, it's not really relevant to the original post, because we're not talking about editorial decisions on the article. We're talking about plain and simple janitorial process, routine observation and maintenance, and how we can drop the ball a little less. And when *just* dealing with vandalism, "do no harm" is a pretty fair summary of what we need to do. Clean it up quickly, discreetly, and neatly; the reader (and the subject) need never know. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk