[Foundation-l] Request for your input: biographies of living people

[Nathan]

This is the most prominent problem facing the English Wikipedia today in my
view. BLPs are easy to write and easy to get wrong, and there are always
newly famous people to write about - so this issue is only going to become
more important and more visible with time. Sue's point about the type of
people who are subjects of BLPs is important from a public relations
perspective; if we tick off people with megaphones, everyone is going to
hear about it.

A "report a problem" link (prominently displayed on BLPs in particular) was
my first thought as well, and seems like a straightforward way to improve
handling of complaints. I agree with Thomas that the article and revision
being reported should be included if possible in the e-mail automatically,
and I think we should have an OTRS queue specifically for BLPs to handle
these reports. I would also like to see the pool of OTRS respondents
expanded - some advertising on the need for queue minders, and maybe an
expansion of the potential pool (for instance, not being an administrator on
any project I wouldn't be eligible).

I would like to see Mike's opinion, though, on how deeply the Foundation can
be involved in establishing Wikimedia-wide policies on content like BLPs. It
would seem to challenge the notion that the Foundation itself hosts but does
not control project content. Tomasz' suggestion would be an especially
serious departure from past practice.

Nathan