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People's names

What do you think about having a section on article titles? IMO it would be handy to address two common problems, which are "but that's not his legal name!" and "but in his non-English native language, that's not how he spells his name!" People who are opposed to using the common English forms usually cite BLP's need for "accuracy" (as if "Bill Clinton" weren't an "accurate" name for the former US President). What do you think? Would this help reduce misunderstandings? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - this is already more than adequately covered in WP:MOSPN:

Foreign proper names written in languages which use the Latin alphabet can include characters with diacritics, ligatures and others that are not commonly used in present-day English. Misplaced Pages normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters. For example, the name of the article on Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős is spelt with the double acute accent, and the alternative spellings Paul Erdös and Paul Erdos redirect to that article.

As for "but in his non-English native language, that's not how he spells his name!", that isn't a quote anyone has ever said and looks like an ill-informed (and quite insulting) caricature of the editing consensus of the en.wp BLP article creators who have contributed thousands of BLPs to en.wp with their names accurately spelled as WP:MOSPN sets out. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposal on date of birth

Change

• If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.

To

• If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth and the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.

--NeilN 05:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose in part We should, if and only if the date is on no pages under direct connection to the person, considering reducing the birth date to a year. Otherwise, the date is not only properly in the Misplaced Pages article, people would laugh at us for redacting it.

If a person complains about inclusion of a birthdate, and the date is listed on no web pages directly associated with the person, and the person is not of substantial notability or notoriety (WP:NOTABLE, then consensus of editors may reduce the date of birth to the year only. (extra emphasis added to show the import of the changes)

Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:47, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd change "web pages" to "reliable sources", but otherwise, I could agree with that. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good from here. Collect (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Everything works by consensus so how about trimming it to: If a person complains about inclusion of a birthdate, and the date is not listed on any reliable source directly associated with the person, and the person is not of substantial notability, then the date of birth may be reduced to the year only. --NeilN 15:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

• Suggestion: I would keep the current wording and add to it a clarification or exception in the case of public figures. Something along the lines of: "If the subject is a public figure (i.e. public official, major celebrity etc), the exact DOB should be included when it is reported in multiple reliable sources, especially if it is on the subject's official site." –Wine Guy~Talk 20:09, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support. This should satisfy all concerns. Gamaliel (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support so that we do not have a silly result such as a US Congressperson's official Congressional biograpy stating his or her birthdate, and then Misplaced Pages removing it because the Congressperson requests it, with this guideline cited as requiring such a silly bit of censorship. On the other hand, someone known only for one incident, who has sought a private life, should indeed be granted such a request. Edison (talk) 02:15, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Why is date of birth considered so essential information that it should ever override a biographied person's expressed wish? So that we can do their horoscopes?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:00, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Fair point. The revised wording proposed by Wine Guy makes it mandatory to include the full DOB - we do not do have a list of items that should be included in BLPs, so I suggest the use of the permissive may. --AJHingston (talk) 15:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support, and sympathetic with Collect suggestion that we should never redact it if there are sources directly connected to the person. -- cyclopia 15:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• oppose I think you guys are missing something here, which is that BLPs are biographies of LIVING people. Misplaced Pages shows up very high on search results, whereas other sources may be less so. There is such a thing as security-through-obscurity, and I don't see why having the actual date-of-birth is of encyclopedic value except in very specific situations. If the BLP in question goes out of their way to request removal, we should do so, and I don't see a need to change the policy on this point. Knowing the month/day of birth is a security issue, and if by removing it we make the BLP more comfortable, it's an accommodation we should be (and have in the past) be willing to make.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:39, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support proposed wording with "reliable source directly associated" and "may". It is a ridiculous situation when the person is highly notable (such as a US congresswoman) and the person (or their employer) directly publishes their date of birth, but we can't. --GRuban (talk) 18:21, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

It's not that we *can't*, its that we should "elect not to", in the interests of a minor concession to the wishes of a BLP. We're not talking about whitewashing the record of a congressman caught with an intern - we're talking about eliminating a very small piece of information that is not of encyclopedic interest in general.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:41, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Hence the "may". As is, we have people specifically saying that the way the policy is currently written, we "can't". So we need to change that. --GRuban (talk) 02:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - Why is this degree of precision necessary for BLPs? How is knowing someone was born on the 3rd of the month more useful to readers than knowing only the year of birth? "People would laugh at us" is not a sufficient worry to justify our deciding to act in a way that might do harm to the subject of the BLP, whose only "crime" that we are exposing is that he or she had the gall to be born on a specific date. Beyond that, there are problems with other aspects of the proposed changes. (One of them is also an issue with the policy as it is currently worded.) First, the meaning of "and the person is borderline notable" is unclear. Would it mean that the subject's request to withhold the info from the article should/could be followed if they ARE highly notable, or does it mean that their request should be followed if they are NOT highly notable? If the policy language is going to be changed, the new text should be written so that the answer to this question is crystal clear. Second, "and the date is listed on no web pages/reliable sources directly associated with the person" (emphasis added) needs some explication within the policy, if this change is adopted, or this language will be the source of additional conflict. What constitutes a source directly associated with a person? If a person's cousin mentions the info in an interview that is broadcast or published, does that qualify as a "source directly associated with the person"? If the person's former (or current) employer or former school/college publishes the info, does that count as a "source directly associated with a person"? Dezastru (talk) 20:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill. There are probably very few, perhaps a few a year, instances of this, where the BLP asks that we redact their birthdate. Most BLPs wouldn't even know how to contact wikipedia, or authenticate themselves. Why not just follow their wishes? And please don't make a slippery slope argument here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The concern is we shouldn't be choosing to not post information for privacy reasons when A) the subject is well-known and B) the information is trivial to get. We've got one such case right now and folks are arguing the policy is absolute and there should be no exceptions even in such a case. So here we are. Hobit (talk) 23:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support also okay with Wine Guy's proposal. Hobit (talk) 23:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support we are talking about high level public figures who are notable enough that they should have no reasonable expectation of this type of information being private. --rogerd (talk) 00:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support I'm surprised that this isn't already policy, since it's in spirit (if not the letter) with the rest of the BLP. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 01:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support (as proposed). I doubt the original intent of this rule was to allow members of Congress to censor their pages. There are people, especially lesser known ones with Misplaced Pages articles, for whom this might be an actual concern. But not public figures. Hot Stop talk-contribs 04:09, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. If I ever became famous I would hate to have the question of whether my birthdate is included in the WP article about me be based on the opinion of some group of WP editors about the question of whether I'm "borderline notable" or not. If someone goes to the trouble of requesting that we not include that information, what is the harm in publishing only the year of their birth? I think it's something we can easily do. There is potential harm if we publish - an no harm if we don't. Easy call. The current wording -- with the or -- has it right. --B2C 05:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

exactly. The whole discussion above and at her talk page is rather disgusting - it's like a contest to see who can be the most callous. Why can we not grant a simple request. Poor Duckworth has had this issue debated 5 separate times on her page I think. Why can't we just drop the stick? Do you know how many thousand of other bios are in need of assistance and expansion? No, lets focus on making sure we publish this one tiny bit of information a veteran and public servant has asked kindly that we omit. The mind boggles. This is a living person, who has chosen to Serve her country in two ways, and we repay her by denying the one piece of In formation our policy explicitly says we can omit, and instead try to change the policy to eliminate even that possibility. Sad, really sad.Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:58, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I find it ethically much more "disgusting" that we bow to every ridicolous whim of an article subject. There are many reasonable complains that a BLP subject can have and there are many things that we could improve in how we handle BLPs: but complaining of us listing a birth date that is literally one click away on an official document about the subject is not. When User:Born2cycle says I would hate to have the question of whether my birthdate is included in the WP article about me be based on the opinion of some group of WP editors, they forget that there is such a thing as freedom of the press. Note that we're not talking of allowing libel, we're not talking of sensitive private information, we're talking of something that is already in the open and officially connected, in a widely public document, to the subject. What is mind boggling is that we should self censor nonetheless.-- cyclopia 15:37, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

If the information is available just "one click away" in a widely available document, why is it so necessary that it also be available in Misplaced Pages? Is it solely a matter of principle? Freedom of the press? Let's not be Wikibullies. That we can do something does not mean that we must do it, or that we should do it. Dezastru (talk) 16:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

So now writing down a birth date which is one click away in a widely available document is "bullying"? If anything, the person asking us to self censor is bullying us. And yes, if it's widely available and publicly connected with a public person, it is necessary that we have it, for completeness of coverage. Or should we omit that Barack Obama is president of the United States because, well, everybody knows it? -- cyclopia 16:17, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Just because it's not libel or private sensitive information and we can publish the information does not mean we must publish it. It's not important, and we've been asked to not publish it. Why is that not good enough? --B2C 16:21, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Because article subjects do not own their articles, and this is because we're an encyclopedia, not a personal website host where subjects decide what has to be included and what not. Again: there are cases where such a request may make sense (when the information is not easily available, and/or not sourced from official documents connected directly to the person). But to require us to censor the obvious is not acceptable. -- cyclopia 16:28, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

(ec)This is a great example of a kind gesture (in this sense: "an action performed to convey one’s feelings or intentions"). The world is full of these - opening a door for someone, tipping your hat, letting someone go first, giving someone a pleasant smile, and so on, and we perform these for strangers dozens of times each day. I agree, the information is available to anyone who is seriously looking for it, and the security-through-obscurity provided therein is rather minimal. But acceding to a subject's wishes in this very minor case, where we literally don't need the information or have any obligation to display it, is a GESTURE that demonstrates that we have a heart, that we care about our subjects, and we don't just treat them as pieces of data to be displayed. I don't think it's a "ridiculous whim" as Cyclopia states, and in fact, such a whim is explicitly outlined in our policy as something we should be willing to remove on request. Weakening that facility, as this change proposes, will make Misplaced Pages a harder place, a bit less kind, a bit less understanding. Many of our BLPs have had much worse happen to them here, so in this case where we can perform a kindness and listen to someone's earnest (and now, in the case of Duckworth, repeated) request, again, why not? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's stop spinning this into some kind of "kindness", "understanding" or "respect" issue. There is nothing kind about a public person asking us to remove trivially public information. Nothing. There is just someone who is used to get things their way, and that someone this time doesn't like, for whatever reason, that we, of all websites, host an openly available official information. I think this is not kind at all, and it is instead insulting, bullying and demeaning to us to say the least. But even if it wasn't, and it was asked in good faith, it is still unreasonable. So we can give the asker a pleasant smile, and say "thanks for asking but no thanks, your request is not really reasonable because it is anyway a publicly available information, so we feel we can cover it anyway". If being gagged by strangers is your cup of tea among "kind gestures", well, to each one their own, be my guest, but do not try to sell it as a regular "kind gesture" we are bound by ethics to perform. -- cyclopia 16:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Wording

I think there's obviously enough support to change the wording. I think there are four different proposals:

1. If the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth and the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.
2. If a person complains about inclusion of a birthdate, and the date is listed on no reliable sources directly associated with the person, and the person is not of substantial notability or notoriety (WP:NOTABLE), then consensus of editors may reduce the date of birth to the year only.
3. If a person complains about inclusion of a birthdate, and the date is not listed on any reliable source directly associated with the person, and the person is not of substantial notability, then the date of birth may be reduced to the year only.
4. Add after existing sentence: If the subject is a public figure (i.e. public official, major celebrity etc), the exact DOB should be included when it is reported in multiple reliable sources, especially if it is on the subject's official site.

Preferences? --NeilN 04:27, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

5. Leave the longstanding respectful policy as is. --B2C 05:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Support #2. -- cyclopia 15:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Policy coverage on current relationships of subject

I monitor recent changes, and some of the most common edits I see to BLPs is an "update" to who the subject is currently dating, or who is their best friend, etc. While obviously there are some exceptions, this sort of stuff, even when well sourced, is not usually considered encyclopedic. From what I understand, this is not explicitly covered anywhere in our policies, and I feel given how popular these edits are perhaps it should be. Maybe touch on it in WP:TABLOID as well. The idea behind it being that if there is not significant coverage of the given relationship, it probably doesn't belong in the article. It's easy to explain this to an editor, but being able to link to a WP-namespaced heading would be helpful, such as WP:GOSSIP (which currently redirects to WP:SOAPBOX). What are your thoughts? Cheers — MusikAnimal 20:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree - unless this is a significant relationship that has lasted a fair amount of time and which multiple sources mention, we should not cover it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:51, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources that cover the relationship, I think it's fair to include it. If not, no. Hobit (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Reliably sourced trivia is still trivia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

exactly - the important question, is this material important in understanding the subject. Who they are married to, I think, is worthy of note in most caseS, but when rollingstone (normally a RS for the music industry) notes that X was now dating Y, why should we care? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:42, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I see a lot of this patrolling RCs as well, and I think WP:COMMONSENSE is necessary. There are also various bits of policy that speak to this type of thing: WP:NOTGOSSIP is one, another is WP:BLPGOSSIP, particularly "Ask yourself ... whether , even if true, is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject." Most importantly, the second lead paragraph of WP:BLP states: "BLPs must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid." If, for example, the NYT did a big feature article on the person, and devoted several paragraphs to the persons long relationship with so-and-so, that seems OK to include. If on the other hand we have a brief mention in Us Weekly that two Hollywood D-listers were spotted dining together and therefore must be dating—we don't want that in an encyclopedia. It should go without saying that anything regarding the subjects personal life should be deleted on sight unless it is very well sourced. That's my 2 cents. –Wine Guy~Talk 15:14, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Wine Guy, more or less my thoughts. Marriage is probably more often acceptable than not, particularly a celebrity marriage. The issue I have is that most of these edits I see read he/she is currently dating this person, which, because of it's likelihood of being mere here-say, or a potentially very brief courtship, it almost always doesn't belong in the article. This is what I'd like to specifically address, and sounds like WP:BLPGOSSIP is the best place. Our outlined policies tend to be somewhat vague to provide an umbrella under which many situations can pertain to, e.g. this X dating Y clearly falls under WP:BLPGOSSIP, but I feel when you the same exact type of edit over and over again, it's should be specifically addressed. Such is my proposal, and as Template:Policy denotes, any changes should reflect consensus.

And for the record, I'm terrible at writing copy, so perhaps someone could help me there. Thanks — MusikAnimal 15:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)