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

[Fred Bauder]

> 2009/3/4 Dominic <dmcdevit at cox.net>
>
>> Sue Gardner wrote:
>> > I am just clarifying - "default to delete unless consensus to keep"
>> would
>> be
>> > a change from current state, right?
>>
>> In terms of policy, "default to delete" is the current state for BLPs.
>> To be more exact, the important bit is: "If there is no rough consensus
>> and the page is not a BLP describing a relatively unknown person, the
>> page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or
>> redirecting as appropriate." However, that is at least somewhat new
>> (several months old, I think), and I am not certain how universally
>> administrators apply it at this point. The relevant policy is at
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:DP#Deletion_discussion>
>>
>>
> I'm confused. Doesn't the current (English) policy say "if there's no
> consensus ... the page is kept."  So, default to _keep_, rather than
> default
> to delete...?
>
> It's only the English policy, so I realize it's not necessarily
> representative/reflective of any of the other language versions,
> regardless.  But in general, my understanding is that "default to keep"
> is
> more-or-less standard practice Wikipedia-wide (as much as all language
> versions can be said to have a standard practice), and the English policy
> seems to support that.
>
> Recapping this piece of the thread: It seems to me that "default to
> delete"
> is not widely considered satisfactory, if it is interpreted to mean an
> automatic or near-automatic deletion upon request.  Human judgment needs
> to
> be applied.
>
>   Erik had proposed that articles which meet these three criteria be
> deleted
> upon request: 1) they are not balanced and complete, 2) the subject is
> only
> marginally notable, and 3) the subject wants the article deleted. This
> would
> shift the bar towards a more deletionist stance for BLPs, but would
> preserve
> articles which are either complete and balanced, _or_ which are about
> people
> who are clearly self-evidently notable.
>
> Assuming there is some consensus about what clearly self-evidently
> notable
> means, or that some consensus could be created ..... does that proposal
> make
> sense to people here?

Yes, however, the key words are "Human judgment needs to be applied."

Fred