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New Motto

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This is going nowhere. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 02:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

On Talk:Misplaced Pages, someone proposed to change Misplaced Pages's motto to "providing a way to see the big picture". I am in support of that. Will you please change it? Us441 (talk) 15:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

one person doe not consensus make....Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

IF it was me, the moto would be changing the world one edit at a time! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 17:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest Misplaced Pages where the deplorable community is totally irresponsible and deserving of nothing but ethical contempt.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Please no name calling or slander! We are doing our best to remove incorrect infos! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 18:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages: All your knowledge are belong to us! Blood Red Sandman 22:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

DANGER! DO NOT ENTER. DEMOLITION IN PROGRESS. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I am highly upset by all the motto suggestions except my own and "Changing the world one edit at a time". Stop slanderous and offensive motto suggestions THIS INSTANT. Us441 (talk) 13:06, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Your motto? THat's mine! You must at least credit me for it! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 21:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

My bad. --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 00:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's close the discussion. I take back my proposal, but you are welcome to make suggestions. Us441 (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages: Libel and slander all wrapped up with a few good gay porn pics. Who doesn't like gay porn! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.226.104 (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The ONLY porn is added by vandals! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 02:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

BLPD2010

How does deleting articles like this one improve the encyclopedia? Also, if you're going to give Gregory Kohs a role in running this community, don't you think he should at least be unblocked so that he can participate in discussion on the site? I know a lot is done via e-mail and with a lack of transparency, the recent arb voting system is a testament to that, but don't you think we should encourage policy discussion to take place on Wiki? ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This sort of conspiracy-mongering makes zero sense, and am sure that if you believe it, you must find this all incredibly frustrating.

As to the question of how it improves the encyclopedia, I would regard that as being at this moment transparently obvious. For over a year the article sat with zero references of any kind. Now it has 5 references, and people appear to have checked the facts carefully. I think that's delightful progress. Those who are saying "Oh, it's so easy to fix these, don't delete them!" have a very easy path to success: {{sofixit}}.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:21, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Please clarify. You seem to be accusing those who disagree with you of being some sort of meatpuppets for Kohs. UnitAnode 04:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

There's no conspiracy mongering involved. The recent spate of attempts to speedy delete unreferenced biographies, even ones that have been here for years and have been checked over by numerous good faith editors, was instigated in large part by Gregory Kohs in a collaboration organized off-wiki. My suggestion was that if Jimbo is going to have Kohs play an active role in setting policy, it might be nice to have the discussions take place on wiki so members of the Misplaced Pages community can take part in them.

Jimbo's argument equating improvements to articles and the addition of sources to articles after they're discussed by the community with efforts to speedy delete those same articles without any review is completely illogical nonsense. An article that is speedy deleted does not get improved and does not get sources added, obviously. That's the point. Deleting things without looking at them is stupid.

Maybe Jimbo needs to spend less time in meetings and hanging out with his buddies at the New York Times and more time getting a grasp of how things work here? Sources can't be added to articles that are speedy deleted without any review or discussion. I thought that was fairly well understood. Jimbo are you confused about that?

And by the way there are several well organized packs of editors who use Misplaced Pages for propaganda purposes and to push their personal biases, including by disparaging biographical article subjects that they disagree with. Maybe taking a stand on that would be more construcitve than taking a great big dump on many of our best contributors by disregarding their work and trashing tens of thousands of articles without any consensus or discussion. Just a thought. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Until you're ready to stop insulting me, please stay off my talk page. This tantrum of yours is neither useful nor truthful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

He is accurate on the point that 99% of editors cannot just fix something that's already been deleted, nor is it particularly their fault that these articles are here in the first place, so probably don't appreciate the tangible feeling that in this debate, there are two camps, the fixers and the deleters. MickMacNee (talk) 11:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that a lot of people who are concerned about unreferenced BLPs would consider themselves fixing a problem no matter what their preferred solution is. 'Fixers' and 'deleters' is only one way of categorising the people involved in this debate, and not particularly useful as it views the debate from only one point of view. Dougweller (talk) 12:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

You find me a single person in the 'fixing' camp as you want to see it, that has even acknowledged, let alone acted on, the fact that 99% of the articles they are deleting are unproblematic and were created in good faith. If Jimbo now wants to change the ideals of this site, fair dos, it's his perogative. Recognising this change would be the moral thing to do, to let people know what conditions they are now working under. He might think this information he himself solicited over many years is recoverable after being destroyed, but he is frankly dreaming. He might think he is just uniformly expunging unreffed articles in this campaign, he is again dreaming. Look at the recent deletions... Not so much 'unreferenced' as 'not heard of'. Welcome to ignorant Yank pedia, full of shit like Tony DeVito, yet you won't find a single biography on any person that has actually done something notable outside of dumbville USA. MickMacNee (talk) 15:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It would've taken me one button press to delete that article. It took me about three minutes to do a Google search and place a reference to confirm everything in that stub. But I guess it's easier for people to do the button press than to, y'know, actually improve an article on a formerly prominent provincial politician. Now, the argument I know will follow is "why won't people do it for these articles" or "why don't you go do it?" or something. Yes, these articles need sourced. Deleting them will not get them sourced, and we wind up losing articles that could have been saved by one quick Google search and three minutes of work (most of which was finding the "cite web" template again). Tony Fox (arf!) 03:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

And, if someone comes across the redlink, and is willing to rewrite a short stub, with references, the problem is solved. UnitAnode 04:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That's great. But who's going to do that? Thousands and thousands of articles have sat unsourced for three+ years and nobody's done anything about them. –Juliancolton |  04:26, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe there are over 50K+ of those articles. At a rate of 3 min/article, that's over 2500 man hours of work. UnitAnode 04:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Ugh... –Juliancolton |  04:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, we might as well just forget it, then. Deleting them is easier than, say, starting a WikiProject to identify the articles in question and improve them before they're summarily torched. Right? Well, whatever. I'm just sayin'. Tony Fox (arf!) 04:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not even that it's "easier", Tony, it's that it's right. Unsourced BLPs are a magnet for trolls, vandals, and other problems that could truly damage the subject's reputation. If any deleted articles are sourceable and relevant, they'll be recreated properly, with sources. If not, they won't. UnitAnode 04:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

But again: if these articles haven't been dealt with in months or years, what makes you think it'll be any different if we start cracking a whip? I'm all for making an effort to improve articles before deleting them. In fact, I've been working since noon on clearing out Category:Unreferenced BLPs from January 2007 through adding sources, amending maintenance tags, removing unsourced info, and using the admin bit occasionally. I realize though that even if we have hundreds of active editors working every day, it'll take years to clear out the backlog. And we know that's not practical. So, for me, the only option going forward is through selective deletion and systematic recreation. –Juliancolton |  04:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We will have to disagree on the point of summary deletion; it's really not worth further debating it, obviously. Have fun. Tony Fox (arf!) 05:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Create a project to fix the problem, you say? Brilliant idea! Surely if you build it, they will come. Lara 05:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Lara, unreferenced biographies have nothing to do with BLP violations. Smears are far more likely to occur in articles with references since when they appear in something unreferenced they are easily removed and the article itself usually deleted. Misuse of references is a much greater problem as sources can be misrepresented or their content cherry picked. The articles being deleted seem to all have been created in good faith. This campaign is completely misguided and doesn't do anything to improve the problems with BLPs (and other articles) being used to disparage and smear, and it doesn't address the other problems of bias, promotion, advocacy and other distortions of the encyclopedia's mission. This campaign is doing enormous damage to the encyclopedia and the community by creating a huge rift. I haven't seen anything contentious in the articles I've looked at that have been targeted, and a far greater portion of them seem to have been created and edit in good faith than the rest of our articles. If they weren't clean they would be easily deleted. This contrasts with the problems I come across with our sourced content every day. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"Smears are far more likely to occur in articles with references since when they appear in something unreferenced they are easily removed and the article itself usually deleted. " Oh really? I have deleted articles which stated (completely unsourced) for years that person X was a nazi prison camp guard, person Y was a porn star, person Z was a yakuza member... Some of these may have been correct (although no easy references were found when checking), some of these were probably incorrect, but all of them had had these extremely negative unsourced statements for years. I have just deleted a page on a supposed transsexual for whom no decent sources existed (youtube, myspace, blogs...). It was tagged as BLPunsourced, that's how I found it. Fram (talk) 08:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The rules on unsourced negative or contentious content are clear. So there's no issue with deleting those articles. It's the other 52,900 that's a problem. ChildofMidnight (talk) 17:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We've become complacent in our blind faith in WP:DEADLINE as an excuse for not actually fixing things. It used to be that taking an article to AfD would almost always result in many improvements to it, if it was worthy of rescue. But the indiscriminate efforts of the WP:ARS and of foamy inclusionists who say "it's fixable, KEEP!!!" without always actually fixing it have diluted that beneficial effect. Sometimes a shock to the system is what is needed. Deleting these articles may be the best thing that ever happened to them, in many cases. I've had a stream of people turning up on my talk page, asking for articles to be userified, or telling me that they found sources and restored the articles I deleted. Bravo! I never wanted all the articles deleted in the first place. It's just that the vaunted COMMUNITY had 3 years to do something, and did bupkus. Well, something was done, finally, and good things happened. That's what needs focus here, the outcome. The ends don't often justify the means, but once in a while they do. And the means, in this case... were entirely within policy as written. Those fomenting insurrection need to get a grip. And get fixing. ++Lar: t/c 12:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That might be fine and all, but per the same deadline, I don't see why the admins in question couldn't have spent the last 3 years sending this stuff to AfD. All of a sudden, we have to speedy all this per IAR and BOLD ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Lar and his friends had 3 years to do something themselves too, had 3 years to properly discuss such stuff. They didn't. They just waited for the right circumstances to make hell break loose. That said, AfD is not meant for fixing articles (even if I've done it successfully sometimes when dealing with AfD's). Being fixable has always been more than enough, read WP:ATD. Deletion is for unfixable things. --Cyclopia 12:56, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, Cyclopia, actually we (me and my friends as you put it) HAVE been doing things. We have proposed policy rewordings, we participate in all the processes, we take baby steps, we try to find ways to fix it, incrementally. But each time we do, the rabid foaming inclusionist-at-all-costs types shoot whatever we do down. (I'm an inclusionist, but people like you, and A Nobody and a bunch of others with similar mindsets make me embarrassed to admit it, frankly... do you need a catalog of all the things you've thwarted, or can we take it as understood?). I'm sorry that your feelings are hurt that something is at last being done, but just get out of the way, please. A precipitate action has galvanized some positive change... the RfC is proposing a number of good solutions (any of which I would be happy with) to how to improve process in this area and move this aspect (unsourced material) of the larger BLP problem forward. This isn't the final answer to the BLP problem, in fact it may well make some other aspects worse, but it's a start. More work is needed. Other aspects need addressing, But your approach is to stand athwart and yell STOP!, foamily... Well, no, sorry, we're not going to take that for an answer. Lead, follow or get out of the way. ++Lar: t/c 15:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We have proposed policy rewordings, we participate in all the processes, we take baby steps, we try to find ways to fix it, incrementally. But each time we do, the rabid foaming inclusionist-at-all-costs types shoot whatever we do down. - Here another mask dropping. It's funny to see how much people like you care about subjects of biographies, but don't give a fuck about fellow editors. Since you failed, continuously and repeatedly, to get consensus, -per your own admission- now you got what you wanted by mere force. What can I say? Enjoy your coup d'état and have a happy time in your junta. --Cyclopia 15:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Consensus doesn't trump core policy, Cyclopia. The sooner you wrap your head around that, the better off you'll be. UnitAnode 15:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Consensus is core policy. If consensus and core policy aren't agreeing, why that is should really be looked in to, and the policy changed. See Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines. Prodego 15:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently making such statements is still dangerous despite the recent developments. I've now been threatened with an indefinite block for saying something simular on the RfC. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 15:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• My experience with the PRODings I've done has been much the same as Lar's with deletion. While some have gotten snippy in their edit summaries removing the PROD (I was even "trouted" for the first time, in one), most of them actually have taken the time to add sources when they remove the PROD. As Lar said, sometimes it takes large actions to affect large change. Like it or not, the events of the last couple of days are affecting large changes -- or at least larger changes on this issue than we've yet seen on the project. UnitAnode 12:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We can not toss out the fundamentals of the site to try to avoid incorrect statements in BLPs. Misplaced Pages is based on the assumption that people are contributing in good faith, until we know otherwise. We should not make the assumption that because something is unsourced it is wrong - especially things that are not negative statements. Frankly I don't believe an unsourced article is any more likely to contain incorrect and negative information than a sourced one. Flagged revisions and proposals like this actually do take steps towards solving the problem, by having articles reviewed - and at least on a basic level checked over. It isn't proper editing and fact checking, but it is a step. Another practical step would be to raise notability standards to make sure that article subjects truly are verifiable - which they often are not. Deleting articles that are unsourced does not get us closer to solving this problem, since all it does is remove information that may be useful to our readers, and information that there is no reason be more inaccurate than the many unsourced statements in a sourced articles. Do not let arbcom pull out the principles of the site in to protect us against something that is simply impossible to eradicate so long as we have articles. Do not let something be done under the logic of 'at least its a start' without taking that start to its logical conclusion. The only Misplaced Pages free of incorrect information on living people, is Misplaced Pages, the empty encyclopedia no one can edit. Prodego 15:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The presumption of good faith ends the moment they irresponsibly place unsourced claims about living people on one of the most heavily trafficked websites in the world, then simply disappear from Misplaced Pages. Remove all such. Good faith contributors will confine themselves to verification, reliable sourcing, and a modicum of responsibility for what, in most cases, can only charitably be described as their work.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:21, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Remember that new editors do not know the rules, do not know the syntax, and do not know who to ask for help. If you delete everything they write, they are going to leave. And even if claims are sourced, we still have to trust that they are not misrepresenting sources or cherry-picking sources to write a biased piece. We don't ask people to write finished articles, we ask them to write what they want, and others will add what they want, and in the end we get an encyclopedia. If we require perfection, we will get nothing. Prodego 15:24, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. We need to help new editors along if we want to keep the project alive. That doesn't mean we have to walk on eggshells and deliberately ignore problematic BLPs, though. Misplaced Pages is approaching its 10th year of operation, and it's continuing to make the transition from an experiment into a more professional and responsible project. That means we need to start backing away from the internal bureaucracy and worrying more about quality, particularly with regards with BLPs. We don't have to make it perfect, since that would be impossible barring a click of Special:LockDB, but we should put effort into reducing as much incorrect and harmful information as possible. And, FWIW, the articles I think most people want deleted are years old, so their authors are very unlikely to still be around; if they are, they're probably now administrators who would be more than happy to fix them up. –Juliancolton |  15:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

@prodego. Hogwash. The vast majority of these articles were created by people who left immediately after creation. But who cares? When i was a new editor i read the rules and guidelines. That is, I took responsiblity. People who can't be arsed to do the same don't need to be coddled by preserving unsourced, unverifiable claims about living people for years (most of us have been working off BLPs tagged as unsourced since 2006). You seem to confuse a request for enforcement of "minimum standards" with a demand for "perfection." It's just another roadblock to starting to fix the problem. Are there other problems with our BLPs. Of course, big ones. To argue against addressing one of the problems because other problems exist is juvenile. If you can't see the difference, then there's not much to talk about. You just don't get it.Bali ultimate (talk) 15:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

@Juliancolton: Exactly. But we aren't going to solve problems with blanket deletion - and mostly because unsourced BLPs aren't the problem. The problem is incorrect (and harmful) statements in BLPs. The proper way to handle these unsourced BLPs is to see if they are verifiable, and if so, source them, and if not, delete them as such. But these unsourced articles themselves are not the problem, and I don't think they are any more likely to contain problem statements than unwatched, rarely edited sourced BLPs. A system like flagged revisions would implement for both sourced and unsourced BLPs at least some level of editorial fact checking - and editorial fact checking is the system every other encyclopedia has used for quality control. @Bali: If every rule had been thrown at me when I was a new editor, I would have been blocked, and would absolutely not be here today. That is what I do understand, if not for the welcoming environment I got back in 2005, I wouldn't be here. That environment, even then, was dieing and without it, so will Misplaced Pages. That experience is why I believe that WP:AGF is the most fundamental policy. There are more fundamental principles - we are building an encyclopedia, for example - but as far as policies go, Misplaced Pages really is built on an assumption that people are good. After all this site is built on what these people wrote. Prodego 15:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:AGF absolutely is at the center of what we do here (I really could not agree more), and most people are here to help. But WP:BLP says (in part) that, when we do come across edits made by people who are not acting in good faith and are trying to harm others, we need to act quickly and forcefully. The argument you are making is, I think, specious because assuming good faith 98% of the time and rigorously enforcing BLP are not at all mutually exclusive. Your suggestion that combing through the unsourced BLPs, sourcing most of them (as would happen), and deleting those that do not get sourced somehow defiles AGF and creates an unwelcoming environment is not remotely convincing to me (and you just assert those things, without offering evidence). In the process of doing the cleanup we can warn authors of all these articles that they will be deleted if they are unsourced (giving them sufficient time to do the sourcing), and explain why it is we need to do that (a friendly, detailed, and standard note to be placed by a bot would be easy to write). I have no doubt that most contributors would not have a problem with that or think the wiki-environment had gone to hell because they were asked to source an article (why on earth would they?).

To your first point, no one knows whether sourced or unsourced BLPs contain (per capita) more incorrect or harmful statements. There's been a lot of back and forth about this but it's a silly thing to argue about in the absence of data. Clearly both of those categories of BLPs do have problems, and what has been proposed of late is a systematic means to deal with one of the categories (the smaller one, since there are hundreds of thousands of sourced BLPs). In the process we would be sourcing a bunch of unsourced articles, which is a good encyclopedic practice whether or not it's a BLP. The fact is that up to this point there has been no agreed upon and collective effort to work on even some aspect of the BLP problem. We seem on the verge of one now, and while it does not solve everything and other solutions will need to be put in place, I'm mystified by the "unsourced BLPs are not the real problem" comments. Obviously they are a part of the problem (no one can credibly deny that), so why we would we not start working on them since it seems we will come up with a consensus based way to do that? Aside from dealing with a bunch of problematic bios via cleanup or deletion (which is the most important thing), we'll have come together collectively to address a portion of the BLP nightmare, and that itself is quite valuable. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm more agreeing with you than disagreeing BTP. What I'm saying is deleting them outright is contrary to the principles of AGF. Combing through them sourcing what can be verified and deleting what can't is exactly what should be done. Prodego 21:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

We're definitely in agreement then, because like you I do not support outright deletion (though if we literally could not agree on how to go about combing through and sourcing them—which would be insane at this point since it seems like we're about to do just that based on the RfC—I could see it being necessary as an option of last resort). I think the fact that full-on deletion was pursued initially made some people feel (understandably) that it would continue, but hopefully the outcome is that it only stirred up enough trouble to force us to come up with a process for a longstanding problem (which we clearly were not doing). I actually think the vast majority of editors basically agree on what we need to do now (it's what we are both saying) and are pretty flexible about how to do that, it's just that the heated arguments of the last few days have muddied things a bit and prevented people from seeing the extent to which most of us are on the same page. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:DEADLINE is a false argument. It cuts both ways. We're not on a deadline to continually be hosting unsourced BLP articles, many of which have been around for 3, 4, even five years or more. If anything, we're on a deadline to get rid of these things quickly before we expose ourselves to even more bad press, or worse. JBsupreme (talk) 20:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyone who prods any article must show evidence of having looked for sources prior to prodding per WP:BEFORE. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yet another bureaucratic hurdle that can be safely ignored if there is sufficient necessity, which this situation certainly warrants. Tarc (talk) 20:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Not looking for sources before prodding an article is just plain laziness. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You may want to see about getting that explicitly incorporated into WP:DEL#REASON and the Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion policy page then. Personally I feel that if an article has been lying around for three to five years without sources with a questionable edit history there isn't much to be lost. JBsupreme (talk) 20:19, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Any good faith editor who cares about his colleagues would always check for sources before prodding an article or nominating it for deletion. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That is where you and I, and many others I take it, will disagree. If an article has remained unsourced for five years then it should be summarily deleted. Its not my job to fix it for you. JBsupreme (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not your right to unilaterally rewrite policy. Frankly, your actions are far more damaging to this project than letting these articles sit around for a little while longer while the community attempts to form policy is. You are not above the community, no matter how full of yourself you are. Resolute 20:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Conversely, "the community", no matter how many gather in gaggles here and there to pontificate, is not above and cannot alter basic BLP policy. Leaving these articles around does far more harm than you can comprehend, apparently. And to A Nobody, reductio ad absurdum statements do not a sound argument make. Tarc (talk) 20:36, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced BLP articles should be sourced. Removing unsourced material from BLPs without showing evidence of attempting to first source them is not within policy. An admin should make a good faith effort to find sources and discuss with article creators before unilaterally deleting per WP:BEFORE. Outright libelous content should indeed be removed and any specifically libelous edit can be deleted, but the articles themselves (barring they are hoaxes or articles for which no sources exist and for which the deleting admin can demonstrate he thoroughly checked for sources prior to deletion and could not find any) should remain if even as stubs. Moreover, those who seek to reduce this discussion to name calling only enflame the situation or diminish its level of mature academic discourse. Blanket denigration of 331 editors and admins cannnot be considered productive. Yes, I should probably just ignore it per WP:DENY, but others viewing this discussion should be aware who is approaching it maturely and seriously and who is not. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) To Resolute, your statement gets right to the heart of the argument and points to a lack of understanding of the spirit of BLP that I see in far too many editors. "Letting these articles sit around for a little while longer" could lead to real-life consequences for one or more people (damage to reputation, loss of current or prospective employment, simple emotional harm at reading lies about yourself online, etc.). The whole point of WP:BLP is that we cannot be cavalier about letting possibly harmful material just "sit around" because we don't know who it will hurt and when. If you disagree with that, then you're not in step with one of the most critical policies on this entire project. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that argument is that almost any article could possibly contain information which could cause adverse real-life consequences for someone. If we are prepared to delete articles based on the risk, however remote, that such material could be present then we should shut down the project entirely. Hut 8.5 21:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec - though you can never be 100% sure one could reasonably assess prior to deleting something whether it is potentially harmful) Also fundamental to the project is that it is a civil, collaborative, consensus-driven, non-hierarchical crowd-sourced free content site. If you lose that, you have no content at all good or bad. We have standards for content, and one article a day is deemed to have met those standards. The vast majority of articles, though quite informative and perhaps better en masse than any other encyclopedia in the world, are very far from that standard. Most facts in the encyclopedia are not specifically sourced. We all agree, I think, with the proposition that all statements of fact should be sourced or at least sourceable. There is disagreement as to whether uncontroversial unsourced statements about people should be removed until a citation is found. There is a great difference of opinion on how to go about improving unsourced articles about living people, even if people agree on the end goal. All of these things get decided by discussion, debate, and sometimes bold action. Imperious unilateral rule-flaunting is not one of the better ways to muster editors for a widespread improvement campaign. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly! I have reverted personal attacks on real people made by vandals in articles on fictional things, just as I have seen editors refer to real people as such insulting things as a "shit disturbing creationist" on a discussion page and arguably worse in edit summaries and on user talk pages (I am holding back the diffs, but we all know they exist). Everything from our user talk pages to edit summaries do indeed contain occasional damaging and insulting material on real world people. We react to these by reverting them, oversighting them, etc., i.e. the specific edits, not the articles, talk pages, discussions, etc. themselves. And we certainly do not delete articles that can be sourced because we are too lazy to look for and add sources ourselves. Even when I argue to delete, I still make a sincere effort to check Google News, Google Books, J-Stor, Amazon.com, and Academic Search complete for sources before I comment, no matter how much the article seems unsourceable to begin with. I check for myself and then I indicate as much in the relevant AfD with at a minimum a link to Google showing that sources are not available. If no sources really do exist, then, sure, the article should be deleted as I argue in such instances as at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Haya Hisayo. I am not opposed to removing unsourceable content that is potentially libelous; I am opposed to lazily removing content that can be sourced. Besides, the only way to be sure that we do not cause adverse consequences for people would be to not have a website anyone can edit in the first place. Surely that is not what some are after? Sincerely, --A Nobody 21:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

@BigTimePeace: Quite the contrary, actually. WP:BLP said (before an admin protected it in their preferred version) that contentious unsourced material needs to be removed immediately. You already have the mandate to deal with material that has the potential to harm, and nothing is stopping you from wading through the backlog to search for such problems. But don't sit here and tell me that the indiscriminate deletion of articles in part or in whole is anything but destructive. My issue is that "fuck the community" is not a valid argument for anybody but the Foundation itself, and allowing individual editors to act under their own personal opinions of what they think policy should be is the surest path to anarchy. You can't save something by destroying its core. Resolute 21:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Tarc and Bigtimepeace et al are the embodiment of why nobody ever rushes to fix the BLP problem, and why it will never be fixed the proper way, by the effort of the entire community without doing the dumbest thing ever, deleting and recreating the same content using 3 or 4 people each time, and creating policy by breaching experiment or militant action. And this is their plan for the unlikely cases, never mind the real sources of trouble, which are reffed and usually indistinguishable from the claims in an unreffed blp. It's a real shame these people have zero self perception as they go around dolling out the truth. I find it hilarious that the biggest obstacle to fixing the BLP problem are the people who, if you were that gullible, are apparently the only people concerned about it. Leave it to them I say. I'm sure the seemingly less than 20 people that so vociferously care about BLPs will be able to handle it themselves. Either that or Misplaced Pages will die the predicted death of a thousand retirements, as the truthers gradually gain control and hey presto, problem solved, no new articles to worry about, and all the old junk deleted without cause or care, because apparently all you need to delete articles is to believe that the only reason anybody would ever have created an unreffed bio stub would be for the most nefarious of intents, and an ability to call anybody who disagrees a moron, as you ask them to help out anyway. Too much of a risk, have to delete them all immediately, without even looking at them. Even if it turns out 99.9999% pose no risk at all, and they were only created because someone asked people to contribute to a user generated encylopoedia way back when. MickMacNee (talk) 21:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Obviously you're a bit worked up, but I'd stipulate that you know essentially nothing about me or my views. I've had nothing to do with "breaching experiments" or "militant actions," I've never called any Wikipedian a "moron" in any forum anywhere, I could not remotely be classified as a "deletionist," I myself created unreffed bio stubs in the past and thus certainly do not think they're generally created for nefarious reasons, I did not think it was wise for admins to go on a deleting spree (though I understood the reason and think it has led to a good discussion) and asked them to stop, and my main involvement in this entire argument has been to try to help come up with a consensus based solution where we could begin systematically fixing the unsourced BLP articles and then deleting them if and only if the fixing does not happen (and I think the only way to get folks motivated for the fixing is to put those articles under the deletion gun, so to speak). There is far too much extreme rhetoric on both sides of this debate, and unfortunately I think you are engaging in it yourself above. Honestly I don't even know what your exact view is (and you presumably don't know mine), but it's entirely possible that we would largely agree if you would stop e-yelling. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) Who is this "Gregory Kohs" that kicked off this particular discussion. Why is he important to the BLP issue? -- I'm not that crazy (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Thekohser. Hut 8.5 16:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted articles on notable people can be started again but with refs, its very simple really. We even have a friendly User:DASHBot to let us know if we create blp articles without refs so this situation actually seems in hand; if you dont like an article having been speedy deleted if it isnt locked you have the rihgt to start it again. Thanks, SqueakBox talk contribs 13:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you, merci, gracias, grazie, شكرا. Thank you for giving babies the chance to find all the humains knowledge in this encyclopedia--196.12.242.146 (talk) 01:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

ty&crissie

hello there —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ty&crissie (talk • contribs) 20:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC) Hi! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 02:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Ironic section--Just a joke.

Welcome!

Hello, Jimbo Wales, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 02:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

No offense but what was the point of that. Haveing read just this page (not the archives) it appears that you are bent on getting jimbo to say something to you. Look, he's just a regular guy like you and me (who happened to be the founder of the 7th most visited site on the web) Im sure that he does not like haveing his talk page cluttered with this kind of stuff.--Coldplay Expért 03:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Anyways, just wanted to give him the welcome message myself since nobody welcomed him, not that this is needed ;) --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 08:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

"Fixers" and "deleters" - a way forward

The question has recently come to a head of what to do about unreferenced biographies that have remained unreferenced for a very long period of time. There have been different views put forward by reasonable people of good faith - and an unfortunate lot of heat besides.

I think, though, that it will be valuable to assess the points of agreement - which I believe among those reasonable people of good faith are much greater than the differences.

1. Biographies ought to be of high quality, and one valuable but imperfect tool for improving quality is to make sure that all or most non-trivial claims in a biography are referenced to a quality source. I don't think anyone disagrees with this.

2. We ought to have a process for improving these biographies - leaving them unreferenced permanently is not a viable solution.

3. We have, so far, failed to do so. Those in the "fixer" camp note that it often doesn't take long - 10 minutes or less in many cases - and those in the "deleter" camp don't disagree with that, but note that it is easy to say we could fix them, but the fact remains - these things have been sitting around forever.

4. Deleters point out, correctly, that articles deleted as unreferenced can always be recreated whenever someone wants to write a new and properly references article.

5. Fixers point out, correctly, that it is harder to write something from scratch once it has been deleted, rather than fixing it. Problems include both "having a list to work from" and "having to write everything over from scratch, discarding work that was often not that great but a valid starting point".

Here is what I propose we do:

1. Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 3 years, a three-month notice time starting February 1st, before they are deleted on May 1st. 2. Starting with everything which has been unreferenced for more than 2 years, a three-month notice time starting May 1st, before they are deleted on August 1st. 3. Starting with everything which has been unferenced for more than 1 year, a three-month notice time starting August first, before they are deleted on November 1st.

In all cases, biographies deleted for being old and unreferenced should be put onto a list for those who wish to come behind and work on them further.

Additionally, biographies which are in the queue for potential deletion are of course subject to being speedied if they are merely attack pieces or for other routine speedy-deletion reasons.

After that, we can consider how long is a reasonable life span (I would say one week, but one month could be fine as well) for new biographies to exist in a sad state before they are deleted.

The point of the problem does not lie in the particular timings I have suggest, but the idea of a methodology which attempts to balance the concerns of both sides.

I acknowledge that there may be some who believe that unreferenced biographies should be kept on the site permanently, even if no one is willing to improve them. But that battle has been lost. This is a proposal for a way forward for the "fixer and deleter" debate, not the "should Misplaced Pages keep low-quality biographies" camp.

I'd love to host a discussion here, but I'm going to make a special request for maximum civility. Insults of any kind should be removed immediately from this discussion by anyone who notices them. I'm not interested in snark and anger, I'm interested in a productive way forward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)