[WikiEN-l] Bio and BLP opt-out thoughts; "BLP People"

[David Gerard]

On 24/05/07, Joe Szilagyi <szilagyi at gmail.com> wrote:

> I saw ideas tossed about previously of a group of "senior BLP analysts" for
> lack of a better term--people that have demonstrated to the community their
> fair and common-sense take and approach to BLP matters. OTRS people,
> perhaps. The group would need to be a mixed grouping of people. I'll call
> them BLP People from here.


This is pretty much what happens already. #wikipedia-en-admins was
actually set up by Danny as an emergency BLP alarm service when he was
working for the Foundation, and is still used this way by WMF staff
and board.


> If the subject of a BLP article demonstrates/illustrates that they have
> suffered harm from their article, they can submit it for review by the BLP
> group. Note, this means that they demonstrate/illustrate the article itself
   [...]
> What could qualify? The person needs to demonstrate or illustrate harm that
> Wikipedia has caused them. "I don't want an article on me," doesn't count.
> Wikipedia itself in it's role as a Huge Ultra Mega Site With Stuff On You
> needs to be causing you harm counts--show us and tell us what happened, and
> we'll help you if we can. If you drove drunk, embezzled money, or are a
> notable whack-job, and we simple report on that, no, that doesn't count.
> You're a notable drunk or whack-job already.


This is sorta what happens already. This is why bios of the
minorly-notable are paid the severest of attention. And why one-shots
like Crystal whatsit should be mentioned in the incident article, not
subject to a gruesome living dissection.

(Hard part in practice is when someone is pretty clearly notable, and
is a dick. There are so many living bios I've desperately wished I
could just zap "not notable, it dies" rather than keep around and risk
having the person call me ever again. Then you'll tend to see me
putting a note on WP:BLPN asking for the harshest of loving BLP
attention.)


> Streamlined process:
> I believe my article on Wikipedia has caused me harm. I mail the BLP People.
> They ask, "What harm? We want to help, please show or tell us," and I do.
> They then verify I'm really me. Variety of ways this can be done, and they
> can sort that out. If the BLP People collectively agree that I'm me, and
> yes, my article did indeed cause me harm, they consider if I meet the
> criteria for Opt-Out Deletion. If I don't, they let me know why I don't, and
> that's that. If I'm unhappy with that, I can always take it up publicly
> on-Wiki, go to Jimbo, ArbCom, whatever. If the BLP People do agree that I
> qualify, one of them writes up a neutral public detailing and posts the
> following:


This is all a bit procedural. A Wikipedia article is way too likely to
be the first Google hit on someone's name. We can't be demanding they
fill out form 17-QXZ-3 and fax us a notarised copy of their passport
before we can officially give a shit. We zap bios of unimportant
people by default.

Basically: Wikipedia doesn't suffer for the lack of those articles
anything like as much as many victims of drive-by attack bios suffer
by their presence. So acting proactively keeps Wikipedia up to an
expected standard on this sort of thing.


- d.