[WikiEN-l] BLP, and admin role in overriding community review

[Fred Bauder]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen at gmail.com]

>I have a few different suggestions. They're just brainstorming of a
>sort, so I'm not even necessarily saying they're great, but they might
>make a good starting point. They're also not all necessarily mutually
>exclusive, a lot could probably be used together.

I'm treating these ideas as brainstorming, so considering the possibilities...
>
>1. Set up some kind of secondary arbitration committee, which deals
>solely with BLP-type issues.
>
>Pros: This won't put more load onto an already heavily-burdened ArbCom,
>and could be a good way to resolve such matters without them blowing up
>(like they tend to do now.)
>
>Cons: Since we do have so many living bios, a body like this could still
>become overwhelmed if it's responsible for all such disputes. It also
>takes a lot of decision-making out of the hands of the community at
>large, which I imagine a lot of people would object to.

We want to move toward more responsibilities for users and administrators, away from the arbcom bottleneck. Administrators naturally form committees by their choices of what to attend to. What I would look for is development of a group of administrators who actively monitor BLP problems.

>
>2. Leave it as-is. (That's always an option, after all.)
>
>Pros: Doesn't really require any change at all. We can always hope the
>community will, with time, come to some sort of agreement or consensus.
>
>Cons: "As-is" seems to be causing a lot of heated disagreements between
>very sincere editors, and many argue that it's also resulting in (take
>your pick) the retention of a lot of unacceptable BLP articles, or
>alternatively in the deletion of a lot of perfectly acceptable ones.

Some of the invocations of BLP, including mine, are not really a good fit with the policy. If BLP doesn't apply we need to rapidly determine that and not use it to solve problems it's not fitted for. Rather focus on whatever the real problem is and discuss it.
>
>3. Ask OFFICE (Jimbo or the Foundation) to take a more active role.
>
>Pros: These are people who are generally highly-trusted for good
>judgment, and really do have the authority to act unilaterally if they
>believe it to be necessary. When OFFICE takes an action, there's
>absolutely no doubt-you don't touch it until and unless you talk to them
>and they say it's alright.
>
>Cons: Wouldn't scale well. Those responsible for implementing office
>actions have a lot of other responsibilities as well, and it would
>probably become an inordinate demand on their time to ask them to deal
>with all such cases. Also takes a lot of decision-making power out of
>the hands of the community, which again, may become controversial.

Doesn't scale well at all unless more people were hired and they took an active interest in details. I would much rather focus on improving user and administrative handling of these issues.

>
>4. Clarify the BLP policy. There seems to be a serious dichotomy between
>those who interpret it largely as written ("unsourced or poorly-sourced
>controversial information about a living person should be removed
>on-sight, and if that's all there is and has ever been to an article, it
>should be deleted at once") and those who seem to interpret an extended
>version of it ("we shouldn't have negative biographies of living
>persons, even if that really -does- reflect the balance of coverage by
>reliable sources.")
>
>Pros: I think, no matter which one of the other solutions we choose, we
>should do this. More than anything, the problem seems to be between
>those who say "BLP means what the BLP page says it means" and those who
>say "Well, there's more to it than that." If there is more to it than
>that, it should lay that out explicitly.
>
>Cons: Such a discussion would probably be a heated, difficult one, as
>we've seen. However, I think it's necessary, even so-better to have one
>such discussion than rehash it again and again every time such an issue
>comes up.

We need to focus on the issue BLP was intended to address, poorly sourced controversial information. We can't write a balanced article about a life marred by tragic error.

>5. Change AfD to default to "delete" if a discussion on a BLP comes out
>no consensus and the nomination was based on BLP concerns. A clear
>consensus to keep would be required to keep in such cases.
>
>Pros: This was suggested before, and seemed to have at least a decent
>degree of support. Could ease some concerns about marginal bios being
>kept. Leaves the decision in the hands of the community (it just changes
>what the default is if the community comes to no clear decision).
>
>Cons: Might not be able to achieve a genuine consensus. Could also
>result in good bios being discarded, especially when (as often happens)
>an article is greatly improved midway through an AfD, resulting in
>earlier arguments leaning toward "delete" and later ones toward "keep",
>and the whole thing coming out with no clear consensus.

If BLP is mentioned in a deletion debate the closer needs to consider whether the policy applies, and if it does apply it.

>
>That's a start anyway. As I said, any of these may be anywhere from
>helpful to utterly stupid, but I hope they'll at least be a good
>starting point for the thought process.

Some responses to your thoughtful suggestions,

Fred