On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 18:01, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: I saw it in a reliable source recently that would have passed muster. I personally don't care who's had an affair with whom, so I didn't think to use it, but it would have been policy compliant -- except in the sense that it was only one source and BLPs are safer with multiple sources for anything contentious. So yes, the sourcing policy (V, not BLP) -- specifically the concept of "verifiability, not truth" -- did work. And, as Seth points out, that means the superinjunctions worked too, because they're the reason we lacked verifiability until recently.

It is not up to us to decide that something is "private". If it's been published, then it is public. If it's been published in a reliable source, than it's useable in our project. We routinely suppress disclosure of private information. When do the details of an affair become public? And how? Decisions by media editors is the short answer, but what criteria do they use? If the subjects are mere celebrities, as opposed to persons with political responsibilities, does intense public interest transmogrify private affairs to public? Fred

Our BLP policy is pretty solid, and the editors that enforce it are pretty good at keeping out the crap :) We can always improve it, of course. And there are never enough BLP editors. (There are probably about 5 or 6 that specialise heavily in such content). Most of the outstanding issues are with current events (not to blow my own trumpet but see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ErrantX/Current_events_and_BLP), which tend to attract enough non-BLP experienced editors to "overrule" them (leading to articles with content that we don't really need/want). IMO it's far from the point that hosting BLP's is more harm than it is worth. Tom On 21 May 2011 14:21, Sarah <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 14:33, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: We could solve that by hosting only BLPs that have already had encyclopedic or extensive treatment elsewhere, i.e. have already been the subject of (a) an encyclopedia article; or (b) a book or book chapter from a reliable publisher; or (c) a profile or in-depth piece in a high-quality newspaper (one about the person, not about events the person was involved in). I know this has been suggested before, but it's coming time to consider it seriously. Sarah

On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 15:14, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote: Yes, it's similar to "dead tree standard," except not applied only if a BLP subject requests deletion, but applied across the board. It would solve our BLP vanity article issue too.

"Dead wood" has been suggested, but I strongly disagree with it. While there are issues and it needs careful work (nobody's denying that) I'm not seeing hard evidence that so many BLPs - even minor BLPs - are the train wreck that some represent nor as hard to manage as some portray. What I wouldn't mind seeing is one of three easy ways to improve BLPs: - *Creation limited to editors with some kind of non-trivial track record * (and a suggestion/request mechanism so IP users and newer editors lacking that record can contribute suggestions) - *Creation of BLPs always in some kind of [[Draft:]] namespace or BLP incubator* that's NOINDEXed and not allowed into mainspace until of a reasonable quality of sourcing and balance, with [[Draft:]] articles removed or blanked after 10 or 14 days of inactivity. - *Community support for the principle behind notability*, rather than the lazy version. Too many users still assume that verifiability + coverage = notability. Notability is a *proxy measure* for enduring or lasting significance -- not just brief coverage, promotional coverage, minor or transient coverage, coverage that doesn't speak to lasting human cultural significance. More emphasis on questioning whether a subject really has true historic significance as a reference item, and less reliance on a mention here or there, would probably help. We're in a world of changing data and information. We need to be responsive as well as high quality, and we do that best in the same way that the whole project was created - by innovating ways to achieve it. If BLP's are not satisfactory then we develop and learn how to do BLP's well. Not by merely refusing to host biographies under the same content standards as other content. Not really inclined to endorse defeatism. FT2 On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Sarah <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: