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Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 64

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Latest comment: 8 months ago by Herostratus in topic Request for input at Talk:2025 Anaconda shooting#Handling of suspect identification
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WP:BLPPRIMARY, WP:DOB, and WP:IAR

Latest comment: 9 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

This came up in an ongoing RfC which I am a part of, but I have also seen it come up in the past off and on in discussions for dates of birth and full names of living people - If a primary source (birth index, business registration website, etc) notes a differing date of birth for a public figure, should we be allowed to use it under WP:IAR to point to a discrepancy with their DOB?

Example: Secondary sources point to John Doe being born in 1950. A birth index for his country lists his year of birth as 1949, and a secondary source listed 'John Doe, born 1949, is doing ordinary famous people stuff'. Policy per WP:DOBCONFLICT is to include both dates, but BLPPRIMARY suggests we don't mention the primary source at all, correct?

WP:BLPPRIMARY seems more prohibitive than preventative in allowing primary documents to source personal details for a living person, and unlike other parts of BLP which urge caution before adding material into an article such as BLPCRIME, it seems to be an outright "don't do this". And if we were to mention it, we would need to add an inline ref to the primary source which seems like it would be an invasion of privacy of a living person for a trivial detail. Awshort (talk) 11:54, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

If a reliable secondary source cites the primary source, I would say that trumps the presumption against citing primary sources for DOBs. Not that it should be cited as objectively correct, but one can write A, B, and C say Doe was born in 1950. D, citing Ruritania's birth index, says that it was 1949. But if the secondary source doesn't mention the primary, I think still omit the primary. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 12:54, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
In the case of birth records, the problem with using them at all is that you have no verification that 'Joe Bloggs' you're looking at on the birth index is the same 'Joe Bloggs' of the article, there will in almost all cases be multiple people with the same or similar name born in a country in and around the birth of the subject of the article, the subject may also have been registered under a different name to the one we know them as, or even born in a different country; how do we know which facts are wrong? For example, if there is no 'Joe Bloggs' in the 1950 index, is he the Joe Bloggs on the 1949 births register, or the one on the 1951 births register? Or is he actually the 'Joseph Bloggs' on the 1950 register, or, with older records, when spelling was very much optional, the Joe Blogges, etc. etc.? The only way to identify which (if any!) of those birth records relates to the Joe Bloggs in question is through original research. JeffUK 13:21, 17 September 2025 (UTC)
I once came across two people with the same name buried at the same cemetery, both died in the same year and were close in age. You cannot be certain whether it is the same person hence why we rely on secondary sources instead of having editors playing detective, primary sources can have mistakes too Traumnovelle (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

WP:BLPIMAGE, again

Latest comment: 9 months ago72 comments12 people in discussion
Barbara Teller Ornelas, one example of a picture the en-WP community decided not to use in a BLP

Policy currently states "Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy." and "AI-generated images should not be used to depict subjects of BLPs."

However, as seen in discussions like

BLP:s sometimes get a USERG not-AI image, call it drawing, painting, whatever. For the purpose of BLP:s, consensus has afaict been that they don't fit. Problems include but are not limited to "Be very firm about the use of high-quality, reliable sources"; such pics will often by necessity include an element of WP:OR/artistic vision (while a photo will be assumed to be at least partly "reality based", but can of course have artistic qualities too); and WP:DUE, as in why should we give this netizen attention in this BLP? Also, sometimes they are derived from a photo and thus copyright-problematic.

So I suggest that the BLP-policy adds something like "Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy. However, user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP." Or stronger, like for AI.

Does anyone know of any current mainspace en-WP BLP use of such pictures? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:31, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if they're still being used, but there's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Digitally created images about portraits that were created digitally by an editor and added to several BLP articles. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:35, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Yep, I linked that one too in my OP (turned out it illustrated the derived from a photo and thus copyright-problematic aspect). However, the BLP aspect is much more narrow (and perhaps more important) than the whole WP:IMAGEPOL angle, so IMO it's reasonable to discuss that part of it separate. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:49, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Btw, on that particular set of pics, while I don't think any of them are in en-WP BLP mainspace atm, some are currently included on other WP:s. Which is not necessarily problematic, and if it is, it's SEP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:04, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
I think this discussion will get much higher participation at WP:VPPOL/WP:VPR; do you want to transfer the discussion there? Some1 (talk) 18:17, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
I'm not sure. This seems the right place for a (hopefully) small-ish policy change, it has 1,844 watchers (those other pages have more) and I WP:APPNOTEd at WP:BLPN. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:39, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
I don't think outlawing human-drawn images is a small-ish policy change. And it would need to be very carefully worded to avoid the problematic outlawing of historical (human-drawn) portraits and of many useful diagrams and charts, which are also often human-drawn. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
The topic is user generated non-AI sketches/drawings of living people. Diagrams and charts and (not too recently) dead people are not part WP:BLPIMAGE. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:13, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Or were you thinking of this wording:
"Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy. However, user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP living person."? I can't, off the top of my head, think of an en-WP BLP where this would be problematic guidance, but I'm interested to see a good example or two. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Najib Razak is a living person, portrayed in unflattering caricature in an image in Fahmi Reza. Should that image be outlawed? Would it make a difference if the artist, Reza, turned out to also be a Wikipedia editor? Why should that make a difference? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:24, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Might the image be WP:UNDUE? JFHJr (㊟) 20:34, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Looks due to me. JFHJr (㊟) 20:35, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
The difference I see, besides the USERG part (I can't prove Reza is not a Wikipedian, since I can't prove a negative) is that per article content the pic is WP:DUE. According to the user who uploaded this non-free image,
"To support encyclopedic discussion of this work in this article. The illustration is specifically needed to support the following point(s): The artist was arrested for creating this picture." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:36, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
There might be a reasonable difference in the treatment of subjects (namespace) main biographic images and other non-subject LPs that are visually referenced for relevance. JFHJr (㊟) 20:37, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
So the criterion should be DUE and relevance; USERG is irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:41, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Hm. User generated seems to be the cause, of at least common denominator, of these on-WP debates I listed, but I see your point, I think. What problems would something like However, non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for living people, unless they can be considered WP:DUE per article content." cause? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:53, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Noting that I was pretty much only thinking leadimages, since that's what has been debated in the discussions I've seen, but of course an article is bigger than the lead. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:42, 31 August 2025 (UTC)
Judith W. Rogers Official portrait on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Simmie Knox.

Cheers! JFHJr (㊟) 06:10, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

Like that but not that, more to the left with her hands on the shoulders of a girl. Not too unlike the drawing, I think. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:35, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
More like this? JFHJr (㊟) 06:45, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
That's the royal. Not great but usable and better than no image, which we are kinda famous for. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:55, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Btw, I never knew that Css Image Crop thing existed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:57, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. JFHJr (㊟) 06:58, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
And not great, you're right, but I think my crop contextualizes her closed-eyed laughing: the people around her are laughing, too. A closer zoom and tighter crop for the same image would come off much less flattering. JFHJr (㊟) 07:25, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, I wasn't critiquing your composition, just the material we've got to work with. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:37, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
I've also found something better than the wax. And I added it to Yayoi Kusama, moved the wax down. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:39, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
The image you replaced the wax with is also the same wax. The flickr source doesn't make this clear but see the caption at https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidalm/2016/08/22/at-87-yayoi-kusama-continues-to-create-spaces-of-wonder-retrospective-to-tour-us-in-2017/ and compare it with your image. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
Damn. While the first one was from UK, and allowed on Commons because of that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
@David Eppstein I've reverted my related edits on WP, Wikidata and DR:d on Commons (photo of artwork unlikely to be under usable license). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:53, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
  • There is an alternative reason why drawn/painted portraits of living people are rare. It isn't because there's something intrinsic about BLP that makes only a photograph a suitable format. It is because we are reliant on freely licensed or public domain images and have no budget to commission images. The majority of dead people in our project predate photography and so we have paintings or etchings or drawings that appeared previously in publications and are now public domain. Those that were photographed a hundred years ago or more are also public domain. Photography is simply the dominant medium for image making and portrait taking and has been for quite some time. Literally billions of photos are taken every single day. There's no need to speculate that it might be because a really great artwork is inferior to a snapshot. Clearly a rubbish artwork is rubbish, just as a rubbish photo is rubbish, and an image with copyright issues is already handled by other mechanisms.
This project is fundamentally a user-generated free content project. Our priority is actually the creation of free content, not merely the use of existing such. So any policy/guideline that suggests talented content creators are not welcome and their work is to be discouraged goes against our principles. I have no doubt that if a Wikipedian had created the image here for Svetlana Mojsov and donated it with a free licence, then editors at that page would select it. And if a better photograph was found then they might select that instead. Why on earth do we need a rule for this, saying to some potential artist: "Don't bother". For crying out loud, folks. We fill this project with billions of WP:OUROWNWORDS and deal with all the copyright/plagiarism/OR/VP:V issues that arise from that. We can surely handle a few paintings, should we be fortunate that someone might make them. -- Colin°Talk 09:35, 1 September 2025 (UTC)
Fr-WP may be ok with this leadimage in a BLP, but I don't think en-WP will be, if we get that article
I'm not seeing the correlation you see. That's a grand total of three discussions, which are mostly dealt with by the images having copyright issues (derivative works of a copyright photo), or are in a cartoon or modern style that isn't to some editor's taste. And yet we are being asked to make a wider guidance that user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP. The correlation I see is that paintings and drawing of people, with a genuinely free licence (i.e., not a derivative work of a copyright photo) are exceedingly rare. And quite separately that some editors dislike a cartoon or simplistic art style to the degree they'd rather have no image at all. The image above doesn't appear encyclopaedic in tone, which editors can judge for themselves, and I'd rather editors at individual bio articles judged for themselves, than we had a guideline that encouraged editors to go around removing images from articles they'd never before worked on. But then you read the French bio article and discover this person was a pioneer of computer graphics (e.g. 9600 bauds) and it could be quite possible that editors of their bio article love it. So I think you are inferring an awful lot from a tiny data set. Plenty editors have complained about student edits on Wikipedia, and their problems have generated far far more discussions than the above, but we don't have a motion to ban people in the 18-25 age group, as the major source of plagiarism and confused writing in our technical articles.
This made me think about Quentin Blake, who illustrated Roald Dahl's books in a distinctive style. If you Google for images with his name you'll see he's created several self portraits. I think they'd be wonderful to have in the article. Would we prefer a photo for the lead image? Maybe, but I don't think any editor would refuse to include his self portrait just because it was uploaded by User:QuentinBlake. But then I see the photo we do have likely is a copyvio. Someone cropped an image Sunday Times: The Interview: Quentin Blake, illustrator, and the photo is credited to Tom Pilston who is most certainly unlikely to have released it CC0. Should we create a rule that photos uploaded by users with redlink usernames are "rarely good choices for a BLP"? (I'll pop over to Commons to delete that later today, I'm out of time right now). -- Colin°Talk 13:08, 3 September 2025 (UTC)
  • I oppose this change. While examples of good user-made images for BLPs are rare, so are examples of bad ones, so I don't think this proposal is a net positive. I previously participated at the Northernlion discussion – aside from the fact that it was a copyright violation, the sketch in question was perfectly adequate. If, instead of picking one reference image, the artist had picked several frames from the subject's streams, it would've been entirely possible to create a sketch with equal quality and no copyright issues. At that point I'd strongly prefer the sketch to having no image, especially for a figure whose job is, ya know, showing his face on camera. Toadspike [Talk] 11:51, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
    I doubt that you would have gotten consensus for that hypothetical, but that's me (though I don't clearly remember what it looked like). Afaict, user-made paintings/sketches/whatever (not AI, that's forbidden already) of LP:s, good or otherwise, currently used in en-WP BLP:s are so rare they don't exist. Jashodaben Modi might count though, and if so, that's one. Ping to @Bluerasberry who uploaded it, perhaps you know others. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Allow art Art for portrait illustrations is rare, both good and bad. I do not think we have enough examples to make a general rule. In 2015 I commissioned an artist to make an original painting of the wife of the Prime Minister of India. I have production notes for that in the media description for Jashodaben. I took inspiration for this from a Wikipedia editor who was also a painter, and who uploaded two photos of artists. The painting of Bikash Bhattacharjee is in current use in the ENWP article. His painting of Satyajit Ray is excellent and was used for years in ENWP, but is now replaced with newly available photos.

Unrelated to any on-wiki discussion like this one, in 2022 in one brief pilot project the Wikimedia Foundation sponsored artists to create painting portraits in a program called Wiki Unseen, Commons:Category:Wiki Unseen. This was a bit odd for reasons including the Wikimedia Foundation itself spending money on content creation and making editorial decisions, when typically this is not something they do and which they instead delegate to community editors.

Bluerasberry (talk) 14:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Fwiw, the Satyajit Ray is still in the article. Could be considered "primarily decorative", but that's a discussion for that article (also used in several other en-WP articles). The Unseen pics were mostly kicked off en-WP per "we found a photo, so let's use that." Also was never about living people, neither was Ray or Bhattacharjee. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

RFC: Presumed innocent vs. Wikipedia neutrality

Latest comment: 9 months ago94 comments26 people in discussion

Should the following sentence in WP:BLPCRIME:

"A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law."

be replaced with:

"Wikipedia remains neutral on whether an accused person is guilty of a crime until a conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession (unless reliable sources report coercion or recanting or other reason for credible doubt)."

? -- Beland (talk) 19:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Survey on changing the current default from exclusion under presumption of innocence to default inclusion under neutrality

Closing as no per SNOW. Discussion can continue below. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:28, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • Yes. Snow_Rise made the excellent point in the preliminary discussion that the "presumed innocent until proven guilty" standard is designed to shape how courts treat defendants (for example with regard to bail and punishment), not how journalists cover crime. Ethical journalists don't describe the unconvicted accused as innocent, they remain neutral as to guilt. Conviction is relevant to whether an accusation is described as a fact, but not helpful when deciding whether to mention an accusation or name the accused. Courts do have rules for disclosure (especially with regard to grand jury testimony and minors), they differ across jurisdictions. Relying only on court proceedings leads to undesirable outcomes for articles where someone escapes arrest or conviction by flight or social influence or corruption or death or whatnot. We should probably clarify further in future RFCs about how to treat accusations and charges and indictments and questions raised by conviction review efforts like the Innocence Project, but some editors have said we need to clear up the fundamental principle on which we are making these decisions before getting into detail. -- Beland (talk) 19:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Ethical journalists don't describe the unconvicted accused as innocent, they remain neutral as to guilt. I don't think that's accurate. Ethical journalists don't say someone committed a crime (and describe every action of a person as "alleged") because they don't want to be hit with a defamation suit if that person is later found not guilty. That is, in effect, presuming innocence. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:40, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'm struggling to understand why you find this an inaccurate statement. When I say the press does not "describe the unconvicted accused as innocent", I mean that e.g. the NYT headline today reads "Texas Man Is Charged With Making Threats Against Mamdani" rather than "Innocent Texas Man Is Charged With Making Threats Against Mamdani". Changing "threat-maker" to "alleged threat-maker" is not "describing them as innocent", it's avoiding describing them as either innocent or guilty. -- Beland (talk) 00:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    With all due respect, this seems like a bit of a strawman argument (I refer only to the argument itself and nothing about your intentions for making it, which I am certain are entirely good faith). Has anyone, ever, interpreted that policy as "presumed innocent means we must describe Bo BLP as innocent!" I do not think that is a reasonable interpretation of "presumed innocent", and for our our purposes I think that the kind of language voorts describes is exactly what "presumption of innocence" means wrt journalists. Its scope is greater for juries. And I would think that any argument like the kind we are discussing, if actually made, would either be an egregious act of wikilawyering or a competence issue. 76.20.114.184 (talk) 08:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I was not arguing that anyone is misinterpreting "presumption of innocence" in that way, I'm just elucidating that it means the same thing as "remain neutral as to guilt". Though "presumption of innocence" is a legal term of art rather than a literal phrase, which does make it a bit more confusing. I think journalists tend to think of this sort of thing more as avoiding defamation, respecting the enhanced privacy rights of minors, and preserving someone's right to a fair trial by not drawing conclusions prematurely (even though publishing lots of evidence and accusations does inevitably affect the jury pool.) -- Beland (talk) 08:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No we need editors to work on the basis that until convicted we need to presume innocence. That doesn't mean we can't include any appropriate accusations or the like, but editors must consider the possible harm by including these if there is yet a conviction. And particularly with the media today, they may jump on claims before they are proven out. Masem (t) 19:53, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Yes. I won't repeat my verbosity in the previous discussion above (though I would say the entire thread is worthwhile reading for any respondent), but suffice it to say that the decision to import the ill-fitting standard of "guilty until proven innocent", a phrase which was designed to describe procedural protections in the administration of criminal justice, into the BLP policy was apparently undertaken by three editors with minimal discussion. It frankly was, and is, an extremely bizarre and irrational choice to try to contour the work of this project to legalistic terminology relating to the operation of a matter before a court to the work of building an encyclopedia. And this haphazard addition has led to needless debate and waste of community/editor time on a staggering scale. News sources (including many of the world's most ethical, cautious, and risk-adverse institutions) do not require a charging and/or conviction before they will consider discussing alleged crimes (or alleged acts that could feasibly be charged as a crime) that are relevant to informing the public. Published works of nonfiction do not. Other encyclopedias do not, and historically have not. It is only a peculiarity of how a rule can be promulgated within this project and then followed reflexively for a time that explains how this rule became to be a part of our workflow.
    And no one is saying that the floodgates should be opened to revealing the alleged perpetrator of every crime or including every random accusation made about the subject of an existing article. There will still be a robust body of advice in BLP general and BLPCRIME in particular detailing how to approach those nuanced decisions, to say nothing of the layers of restraint to be found in WP:V, WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS, and WP:ONUS, to name just a few of the more relevant policies that tend to skew conservative on the question of adding controversial details. All we are talking about here is doing away with a preamble that places the emphasis all wrong about how to contextualize our work here and how we should be going about determining how to meet our obligation to inform the reader while protecting against harm and filtering out misinformation. BLPCRIME does need refinement to balance those interests, not least to avoid platforming false an unsubstantiated accusations. That somewhat delayed reform is taking place right now. But this particular piece of verbiage is, imo, a no-brainer: it doesn't fit, it never fit, and it's a real problem in how it raises red herring factors into discussions about the appropriateness of inclusion of controversial content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snow Rise (talk • contribs) 20:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    As I stated above there's no evidence that this was added into the BLP policy ... by three editors with minimal discussion. That discussion appears to be about creating BLPCRIME, not adding that particular sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:38, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    If you have a more detailed explanation, ideally complete with links and diffs, demonstrating a broader community consensus to include this language, I'm all ears (eyes?). So far this is the origin point of the addition into WP:BLP. As I understand it, you pointed out that the wording had been previously used elsewhere, in MoS if I recall correctly. That may be, but if so it would give that recommendation not even a fraction of the force and influence it has under BLP, which is bar-none our most expansive and influential policy on limitations of content in biographical articles.
    I don't want to get into a lengthy discourse on where the verbiage came from unless someone can conclusively show it came from a robust community discussion authorizing it as a rational good-sense approach to how to contextualize our responsibilities as purveyors of information who need to keep an eye out for potential harm to non-public individuals. Because ultimately, even if there were such a robust previous discussion, I'd still be arguing for the removal of this bizarrely imported language into our process. But as far any of the previous discussion has illuminated, there was no community discussion of any scale or detail before it got chucked haphazardly into BLP. SnowRise let's rap 20:51, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. The proposal makes no sense. A person definitionally cannot be guilty of an offense until a court enters judgment against that person. Donald Trump could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, but that doesn't make him automatically guilty of murder. He could, for example, plead out to manslaughter, be found not guilty by reason of insanity, or have the prosecution dismissed if a court determines he's covered by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision. There's a distinction between committing an act that may or may not be criminal and being guilty of an offense. We may all know that Trump shot the person, but we can't know if he's guilty of a crime until he's actually convicted. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:33, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    This change would also give license to editors to start tendentiously adding "A murdered B" before a trial has happened, which is not just not true (until there's a conviction), but could open that editor and Wikipedia up to a defamation suit. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    voorts, I agree that wording is inartful in exactly the way you describe, and I may recommend that Beland voluntarily withdraw this for further tinkering before we get too far entangled in a morass that can only end in no consensus. But there is an underlying question here that I think any RfC on this subject must address, regardless of replacement language: should the "innocent until proven guilty" language even be leading this section under any circumstances. My position is that it is an absolute square peg / round hole situation that is the cause of unending drama that is unavoidable until it goes. Do you fundamentally disagree about that? SnowRise let's rap 20:43, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Editors should presume innocence, and state that actions are alleged, for the reason I stated above: if we state in wikivoice that "X shot Y and killed them" before a criminal trial, and that person is later found not guilty, we risk facing a defamation suit. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Absolutely, ok. We are in principle on the same page about how the contentious material should be handled. I still feel that the "Innocent until proven guilty" language muddies the water, especially as it is presently inserted into the section, but I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise at this point, and I don't want discussion from a handful of editors to overwhelm the start of this thread by trying. It suffices to me to know there is general agreement on the overall course of action the section should be urging, which is the most important thing for reforming it as a whole. SnowRise let's rap 20:56, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'm not sure why it muddies the water. If we all agree that several considerations should weigh on whether we name a suspect or not in an article, we should lay out those considerations in the introductory paragraph, including the presumption of innocence, the potential privacy implications, the dangers of defamation, the amount of coverage (assuming the other RfC ends in "yes"), whether the accused sought public attention, and any other factors editors think important. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:39, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Because we are not here to--in any way, shape, or form--guarantee a presumption of innocence for any party in the reader's eye. A presumption of innocence is an expectation of the operation of a criminal court and a justice system at large. Using it to frame the expectation of how we will cover the facts of an allegation is absolutely nonsensical, misleading as to our roe, and, as the community record has amply demonstrated (not least recently) lead to confusion and and needless dispute beyond description. Trying to assure that the reader is not affected by any discussion of any events for alleged crimes (or potentially criminal activity) absent a conviction, is an inherently and severely non-neutral way to approach.
    That's the part I believe we agree on, though we both also agree that whether to disclose certain allegations and how to cover them is a case-by-case call. Front-ending this section with this bizarrely in-apt, highly emotive, and just all-around problem- and discord-inducing language, implying we are in some way here to guarantee a presumption of innocence for these subjects, is just a magnet for issues that is not in any way justified by any positive benefit. It's borderline mumbo-jumbo nonsense when our role here is not to guarantee any view on the facts, but rather to summarize what other sources say on the subject.
    Yes, we should absolutely attribute clearly in every instance. Yes, our description must be scrupulously neutral in describing as to claims or allegations and the current standing of proceedings, if any, and the reception of unproven facts. Yes we should give serious consideration to not saying anything whatsoever if sources are few or weak, or accusations have indicia of being nothing more than rumor or conjecture that is not even being engaged with by high quality sources. In fact, I think literally everything else you list above is an important consideration that the policy should cover. But none of that work is any way helped, and is in fact heavily compromised, by conflating the roles of courts and the law with the roles of encyclopedia editors and accurate, neutral description of the facts. In fact, the frankly silly application of that phrase to this context is not just muddied water, it's blinding black ink. Getting rid of it will vastly improve the framing of the whole section and simplify and expedite the process of straightening out the rest of the section. SnowRise let's rap 05:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    If we take the words "presume innocence" literally, that means in Assassination of Charlie Kirk instead of writing "prosecutors charged Robinson with murder" we would have to write "prosecutors falsely charged Robinson with murder". What we are actually presuming is that the accused might be innocent, and remaining carefully neutral on that question. -- Beland (talk) 23:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I don't think a statement like "X is guilty of crime Y and should be prosecuted for it" is an abuse of the word "guilty". Someone can be responsible for committing an act of murder without being legally declared guilty of it. If it helps to replace "is guilty of" with "actually committed" or whatever else, I have no objection to a strikethrough of the old language and underline of the new language in this RFC as long as no one who has commented so far objects. -- Beland (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I agree that the statement you've provided isn't an abuse of the word "guilty". Colloquially, it makes sense. Legally (and thus factually), it is untrue in countries where there is a presumption of innocence. A person can act in a manner that results in another person's death (i.e., commit a homicide) without being found guilty of any criminal offense; in a criminal legal system that presumes innocence, they cannot be responsible for committing an act of murder without being declared guilty of murder. Accusing someone of a felony is defamation per se (if untrue). We should not remain "neutral" on whether editors can engage in potential acts of defamation. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    We also shouldn't have editors weighing whether the evidence is sufficient in a particular case to state in wikivoice that someone has or has not committed a potentially criminal act. Media outlets have policies written by lawyers and access to counsel to review prior to publication to ensure that they don't say something that can get them sued. We don't have that luxury. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I don't agree with everything you've written there, but I do agree that Wikipedia should say neither that a living person stabbed someone to death nor that they were found legally guilty of murdering someone without a suitable conviction or admission. I think we can probably agree on a rephrasing of "whether an accused person is guilty of a crime" that reflects that. What would you propose? -- Beland (talk) 23:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Beland, the statement "X is guilty of crime Y and should be prosecuted for it" is a personal opinion. I dare say that inserting our personal opinions in a Wikipedia article is worse than abusing terminology. -The Gnome (talk) 02:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I never said anyone should put such a statement or anything like it within 100 miles of a Wikipedia article. I was just using it as an example to clarify the definition of the word "guilty". -- Beland (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No The proposal ignores that WP:BLPCRIME already reads:

    ... editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime

    It does not say to always exclude any mention of charges before a conviction.—Bagumba (talk) 20:35, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No - what???? What the heck is a reliable court? I could see replacing it with "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law, they plead guilty, or they personally issue a public confession (unless reliable sources report coercion or recanting or other reason for credible doubt)." Not presuming innocence kicks open the door for all kinds of slanderous media opinions and probably puts Wikipedia in a legally precarious situation. I don't like it at all! Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:58, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    A reliable court is one that has a reputation of being fair and impartial. I would contrast that with, for example, courts in Russia, where the verdict is often pre-determined, evidence isn't always presented, and prosecutions are politically motivated. Or China, where defense lawyers are often punished for doing their jobs. In these places, I think Wikipedia should more carefully approach the question of whether people found guilty of crimes have actually performed them. -- Beland (talk) 23:55, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    But that opens up other problems. Who will be the judge on what is a reliable court? In todays climate different editors will look at liberal or conservative judges as unreliable, not just Russia or China courts. I agree that Russia or China courts are unreliable, but to leave it as vague as "reliable court" is unacceptable. It will cause way more problems than it will fix. I would guess the number of articles we have here on Russian court convictions is rather small. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    If we just say "court", doesn't that mean editors aren't following policy if they treat convictions as suspect when reliable sources say the outcome was pre-determined for political reasons? And if we allow editors to decide to sometimes treat a convicted person as possibly not guilty, doesn't that raise the same "who will be the judge" problem? The answer I would give is the same as for all other content questions: editors decide how to treat a given claim not by judging the facts for themselves but by looking at what reliable sources say (e.g. whether or not the conviction was suspect). An editor randomly deciding that a liberal or conservative court is unreliable without reliable sources saying so would be original research.
    It's also possible instead of focusing on the court, we should be focusing on the conviction - a court that normally does good work sometimes flubs a case or there is prosecutorial misconduct or new evidence comes in or new witnesses are found. Is a given conviction contested in reliable sources? We need to calibrate "contested" to ignore the usual "but I still didn't do it!" even after it's obvious they did, without ignoring convictions that are actually untrustworthy. -- Beland (talk) 19:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    A nonpolitical court case should always be taken at face value. For example I doubt China or Russia are framing people for murder for shits and giggles. Attribution to the court should be standard. Good day—RetroCosmos talk 19:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
    Bad verdicts can arise for entirely non-political reasons. In corrupt court systems, a verdict can be determined by a bribe from the accused or from an enemy of the accused. A guilty verdict can result from failure to pay a bribe where the police are essentially an extortion racket. People can also be convicted because police have randomly grabbed someone they don't like and decided they should be made a scapegoat for a crime that has become publicly known so that they meet their quota or they maintain the appearance of the government doing a good job fighting crime. -- Beland (talk) 20:26, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No You may as well just delete WP:BLP entirely if you make that change. That would, for example, allow us to state in Wikivoice that "x murdered y" or "x raped y" without it being a WP:BLP violation, yet if we said "x lied on his resume" or "x had an affair" that would remain a WP:BLP violaton. FDW777 (talk) 22:04, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    Saying "X murdered Y" would not be remaining neutral on the question of guilt, so it seems pretty clear to me that would still not be allowed before a suitable conviction or admission. I'm curious how you reckon otherwise? -- Beland (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Words to this effect, but not these specific words. Many of those commenting "no" above are assuming that this would allow us to say in wikivoice that someone is guilty before conviction, which is just not true but equally evidence that the wording needs more workshopping to avoiding giving that impression. What the words should convey is that Wikipedia does not state that a person who has been accused but not convicted is guilty or innocent. We state the facts - that the person has been accused but not convicted. Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    The updated wording would suggest that if a suspect confessed under police testimony they did the crime (but not yet have a guilty conviction), that we should say the suspect did the crime in wikivoice. Or a case where the suspect makes a guilty plea but also uses that to secure a reduced sentence that eliminates the primary charge, editors would be adding in wikivoice that the suspect did that major crime. (excellent example here being the E Jean Carroll case with Trump). We can still say, in the latter case that the subjected pleaded guilty to that crime without problem but can't jump to say they did the crime. Masem (t) 23:14, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'm not sure what you mean by "confessed under policy testimony"? Do you mean confessed to the police and the police are now saying they have a confession? That's not a "public confession" and the reason I wrote "public" there is to rule out such cases. If the police claim to have a confession on file but that's not been publicly confirmed by the suspect and especially if they are not formally pleading guilty, I think that's a bit early to jump to the conclusion that they're guilty.
    The E. Jean Carroll case against Trump was a civil case relying on preponderance of the evidence, not a criminal case that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
    If someone pleads guilty to a lesser charge, I don't see how the new wording would allow Wikipedia to write that the person was guilty of the greater charge - they wouldn't have been convicted or plead guilty to the greater charge. -- Beland (talk) 00:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I meant "police", but even if one made a public confession, we'd still not be able to say the person actually did what they claimed in wikivoice. And civil cases are just as critical as criminal, as most often we're talking about sexual misconduct violations. Masem (t) 17:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Sorry, the "policy" typo was mine. 8) -- Beland (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    What words would you propose? -- Beland (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. Hell No. What an utterly absurd suggestion. Wikipedia is not a court of law, and under no circumstances should it ever pretend to be one. And nor is it in the business of determining whether courts are 'reliable' or not. Or whether a confession has been 'coerced'. It appears to me that User:Beland has completely misunderstood the intent of the existing wording, and is somehow interpreting it to mean something wildly different. It places nobody under any obligation to state that a person accused of a crime is innocent: instead, it mandates that Wikipedia doesn't state (or imply) that they are guilty. A 'person of interest' is a person interest. A 'suspect' is a suspect, and a person charged with a crime is a person charged with a crime. All of which Wikipedia can state (given the necessary sourcing). What existing policy precludes is describing a suspect as a 'perpetrator', as a 'criminal' (in relation to the alleged crime), or as a 'murderer etc. Courts convict. Wikipedia doesn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:46, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
    The business of determining whether courts are reliable and whether confessions have been coerced is the job of reliable sources. What we shouldn't do is treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable. We can say "X dealt drugs in Florida in the 1990s" if they are convicted and their case hasn't been brought up for conviction review or questioned by the Innocence Project or anything like that. But "Y dealt drugs in Moscow in the 2020s" is problematic even if they were convicted, if there are reliable sources saying Russian police routinely coerce false confessions, and especially if there are allegations by Y or others that this happened in Y's case. -- Beland (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Existing policy doesn't require Wikipedia to 'treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable'. What it requires is that Wikipedia does not pre-empt the courts, and decide for ourselves whether someone is guilty, prior to conviction. You seem to be inventing hypothetical circumstances for which existing policy is irrelevant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'm not saying existing policy does require to "treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable". I simply added "by a reliable court" to avoid any perception that the new wording does that, trying to avoid changing anything. -- Beland (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Existing policy does not cover circumstances where an individual has already been convicted. We don't have to 'presume innocence' in such circumstances. Nor do we have to 'presume guilt'. And we sure as hell don't need to start shaping content around our own personal opinions regarding the 'reliability' of courts. Just how difficult is that to understand? If reliable sources state that they consider a conviction questionable, we can report that. Because that is what Wikipedia does. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I feel like I'm being yelled at for being stupid and am not going to respond to this. -- Beland (talk) 00:43, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • We can also note that a suspect has been arrested and charged without mentioning the name of that suspect. Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. I second basically everything that's been said against this idea, particularly Andy. I do not know how this would've gotten past an RFCBEFORE discussion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    This idea was proposed in an RFCBEFORE discussion; you can read it at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#General discussion. -- Beland (talk) 00:22, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. Right off the bat, the whole entanglement of Wikipedia with journalism is completely inappropriate. Who cares how "ethical journalists" report a criminal case? Wikipedia is not a newspaper nor an online news site. What and how the media reports a criminal case should not necessarily affect an encyclopaedic lemma. A person could be pronounced as not guilty in trial after trial, never getting convicted in their life, and, still, an honest and ethical investigative journalist could be, at the same time, hollering for that person's guilt and offering their evidence for the guilt. Some media could adopt the journalist's position; individuals who happen to contribute to Wikipedia might agree with the journalist, as well. Still, Wikipedia can only quote the allegations, if even that; in the encyclopaedia, the person is still denoted, explicitly or implicitly, as innocent. The whole BLP policy is built on this approach. -The Gnome (talk) 02:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    The new wording says that in this investigative journalist scenario, Wikipedia would remain neutral as to whether the person was guilty or innocent, because there would have been no "conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession". The same thing I said about "ethical journalists" is also true about Wikipedia. We do not describe people who have just been formally accused of a serious crimes as innocent, any more than we describe them as guilty. For example in Assassination of Charlie Kirk, we say "prosecutors charged Robinson with murder" because we are neutral as to guilt. We do not say "prosecutors falsely charged Robinson with murder" which would assume innocence. -- Beland (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of information, and we do have standards of how-we-write articles (being neutral), but we do also have an obligation to respect people's privacy, and while it isn't a primary principle, we do sometimes (and this is one such case) have to note the guiding light that Wikipedia is as an arbiter of news fact-checking. Especially in WP:RSBREAKING cases where reliable sources make mistakes, as the latest case clearly showed. And us including certain things in articles can have rapid impact on the Circular reporting cycle, as our WP:CITOGENESIS list can remind us of other past mishaps.
So, given the potential harm that us listing someone prematurely could have on a person, I think our current policy of protecting people's privacy under presumption of innocence is correct and is part of why Wikipedia's reliability reputation has dramatically improved over the past few years as compared to the wild west days of the past when things were often uncited. It also means we don't have to worry about whether we need to call WMF attorneys to make sure we're not opening Wikipedia up to libel issues, which is principally what the WMF Terms of Use remind us of with regards to privacy of people.
And it avoids opening the door wide open for people who are eager to defame someone they don't like, by broadcasting that they were accused of something in a lawsuit, whether frivolous or not. So, I think our current policy on how we handle BLP-related issues, such as in this case, naming of WP:BLPCRIME people are on point as WP:BLPN can sing songs about it. It often goes hand in hand with WP:NPF and WP:BLP1E, since in many cases people were not notable prior to the event, and if we change the handling of inclusion, we inevitably just pulled the rug out from under and people would be racing to create BLP articles about them, digging up all sorts of things that may, or may not, be due if they end up being found not guilty. We have to remember that while there are of course sometimes very high-profile crime cases, like the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, we also have many more run-off-the-mill crime allegations every other day of some lawsuit alleging a crime, on which we also apply BLPCRIME to and in most of those cases, the strength of the policy is what protects Wikipedia from being part of the WP:GOSSIP and WP:RUMOR cycle. Raladic (talk) 04:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. The phrase reliable court is entirely subjective. The United States legal system, for example, is notoriously biased. Court judgments sometimes get overturned. Court documents are also primary sources, whereas Wikipedia articles are based primarily on secondary and/or tertiary sources. The part about using a subject's confession unless reliable sources report coercion means – what? That if an innocent person is tortured into confessing, we describe them as guilty unless somebody happens to leak the details to the press? This proposal is a recipe for more bias as well as defamation of people who have been wronged by the justice system, not neutrality. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)
    The current wording says "until convicted by a court of law"...does that not mean that editors are currently supposed to use primary-source court documents to decide if someone can be described as guilty?
    Is there a phrase you would favor that could provide a non-subjective way we could distinguish between a random criminal conviction in Connecticut which we take at face value, vs. the conviction of a political prisoner in Russia where the verdict has been pre-decided by the Kremlin? That was my intention with "reliable court".
    If someone goes on TV and publicly admits to a crime, and no reliable sources report that they were forced to do this...how would we know that they were forced? Under the current policy, would we not just say that they admitted to the crime, with the implication they did in fact commit it? If reliable sources then start reporting that this person committed that crime, would we not believe them until a court agrees? That seems to be what's happening on e.g. Randolfo Pacciardi, who made an admission outside of court and was never charged with plotting a coup. (Though Pacciardi is dead.) -- Beland (talk) 06:41, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    That was a rhetorical question, and I stand by my arguments. You've had the chance to make your case, now let others make theirs. Constantly arguing with other users in what was supposed to be a "survey" section looks a lot like WP:BLUDGEONING. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'll go a step further: Beland, I think we are already seeing a WP:SNOW result here, because, while there may be some appetite for something like this, as evidence by the RCFBEFORE discussion, it is obvious that the respondents to this discussion feel that the wording proposed raises too many collateral issues around how the legalistic jargon is incorporated. Even as someone who advocated extensively for the removal of the existing language and its replacement with something else, I have to admit that I do think the 'No' !votes here have legitimate claims about this something else. I think at this point it is already clear that this proposal will not advance as framed. I would suggest that you withdraw the RfC, and once your above thread (which is getting nearly universal support at this time) completes in a month or so, we can revisit this issue (inviting everybody from both this and the RFCBEFORE discussion back) as we continue to tweak the language in the section, which will give plenty of time to workshop alternatives. Might you be amenable to that? I don't want the delay either, but it better to admit an error at this point than dig and argue with everyone and sour perspectives on the larger issues. SnowRise let's rap 07:50, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I think people are primarily reacting to removal of "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law." and the rationale behind the wording change is too philosophical for most people to grasp. People don't seem to understand that the change isn't meant to be a change in our standards, and most incorrectly interpret it as a complete reversal. That's probably what is making people too angry to respond in a productive fashion to offers to tweak the wording to respond to what they don't like about the new text. I would recommend abandoning this direction entirely. While I endorse your idea as a useful clarification, I would not have proposed it on my own, so I have no strong feelings about what you decide to do. -- Beland (talk) 08:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Well, as a formal matter it is your proposal enacted on your own initiative, so you would have to be the one to withdraw it, if that is going to be the solution. Either way, please believe I appreciate you making the effort. As far as why people are reacting as they have, I think the reasons are nuanced, but I think the responses in the RFCBEFORE discussion make it unambiguous that there is some need for change here. For whatever reason, this proposal just didn't speak to addressing the needs of the section. But there is WP:NORUSH to get this right. If you do withdraw this proposal, I think that the relaunch should wait at least until the above thread is resolved. Of course all of this might be subsumed into larger proposals suggesting more expansive redrafting of the section. But it is hard to say at this early juncture. SnowRise let's rap 09:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    I've dropped the RFC tag, and left the discussion open for people to respond to questions that might guide a future RFC toward something they would support. -- Beland (talk) 15:19, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Also, no, we emphatically do not use primary-source court documents to describe someone as guilty of crime, per WP:BLPPRIMARY. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    OK, then it seems either the existing policy should be changed to say "convicted by a court of law as reported in secondary sources" (and the new one rephrased in a similar fashion), or neither policy needs to say this because WP:BLPPRIMARY already says it? -- Beland (talk) 08:10, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    What new policy is that? The need for reliable, secondary sources is already covered under WP:V and WP:NOR. I don't see a need for more WP:CREEP here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    It should be obvious that by "new policy" I refer to the wording proposed in this RFC. -- Beland (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    It is not obvious. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:22, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No - Per AndytheGrump, who said pretty much everything I wanted to. Also good additional points by Sangdeboeuf and The Gnome. The existing wording is not broken, and the proposal is not an improvement. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. I think the opposition above makes several good points but it misses the most pernicious problem with this proposal - as written, this would actually forbid us from saying or implying that someone is innocent unless... well, actually, by a literal wording it would forbid us from ever implying that anyone is innocent under almost all circumstances. We'd be forced to remain neutral until a conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession, all of which can only be used to establish guilt; we could only say that someone is innocent under the extremely specific situation where they're coerced into a confession. I doubt that never say anyone is innocent ever was the intent, but even going by what I can infer to be the intent it's still terrible - while BLP applies to both positive and negative things, not everything is equally BLP-sensitive. If there's overwhelming, unequivocal, across-the-board coverage in high-quality reliable sources saying that someone is innocent, we can and should say so in the article voice, even if there's no formal court decisions pointing in that direction; the same is not true for guilt, because the risk of getting that wrong is higher. The idea that we should go for parity between what we need to state innocence and guilt in the article voice is fundimentially wrongheaded. (It is true that "not guilty" and "innocent" are not the same thing and some caution is needed around that fact, of course, sometimes even in cases where there's an actual not-guilty ruling; see eg. our article on O. J. Simpson, which makes it clear that he was found not guilty but also that many people remained skeptical. But if the sources overwhelmingly treat an accusation as fundimentially baseless then we must reflect that fact, which this proposal would actually, in most cases, forbid.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Good point. Though I'd add that the proposal seems in any case to be inventing some abstract (undefined, and probably undefinable) concept of 'neutrality' which isn't found elsewhere in Wikipedia policy: it certainly isn't in WP:NPOV for example, which instead mandates "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources". Not 'neutrality' in the abstract, but ('as far as possible', since we aren't infallible) proportional to sources. Which applies to the subject under discussion just as much as anywhere else, with the simple proviso that we don't set ourselves up as judge, jury and executioner: any source that is doing that (i.e. stating guilt as a fact before trial and conviction) probably shouldn't be cited anyway. Reputable sources generally employ legal staff to look out for that sort of thing and/or journalists who know what they are doing, and don't make that error in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:30, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Since we do have general policies which as you point out apply to crime just as much as other events, do you think it's worthwhile to have some higher standard for living people accused of crime, or do you think deleting WP:BLPCRIME entirely (as some have proposed) would be OK? -- Beland (talk) 16:44, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    No, absolutely not, as should be readily apparent from everything I've written. The policy is utterly essential and needs more enforcing, not deletion. As should be obvious to anyone who watches high-profile cases, blatant violations of the policy are common there (e.g. 'perpetrator' in an infobox prior to trial) though usually dealt with fairly quickly. In my opinion, the biggest issue with this policy (or rather its violation) lies in the less-watched articles, where guilt is assumed from charges, people are added to 'lists of mass murderers' and the like with no source for anything but a named 'suspect', and streams of articles (see e.g. Indian politicians for some prime examples), where 'subject was charged with corruption in 2006' is seen as legitimate content, without giving the reader any clue as to what happened since. With better awareness and enforcement of WP:BLP policy in general, and WP:BLP's position on legal matters in particular, we could get rid of an awful lot of this crap. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Thanks for clarifying. -- Beland (talk) 19:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Hmm, good point! It is very common that people who have in fact committed a crime are not prosecuted in the first place, are never caught, have the charges dropped due to lack of prioritization, have cases thrown out on a technicality, or have a court case result in a not-guilty verdict because the case wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt (even if a preponderance of the evidence favors guilt - sometimes proven in a follow-up civil lawsuit). Because of all this I wouldn't describe someone in Wikipedia voice as falsely accused or innocent just because of a not-guilty verdict; that would take reliable sources specifically saying that and for neutrality reasons that would have to be a fairly universal interpretation.
    Do you have any wording suggestions that would handle both guilt and innocence better? I'm wondering if something like this would be an improvement (also taking into account various other objections to specific turns of phrase):
    When a living person is accused of a crime and guilt vs. innocence is contested, Wikipedia must remain neutral on that question. Wikipedia assumes an accused person contests their guilt until reliable sources clearly report they have unambiguously indicated otherwise. A conviction reported in reliable sources as uncontested (including not on appeal to a higher court) is enough to assume in Wikipedia's voice that the convicted performed the actions they were convicted of.
    The second sentence still has a whiff of presumption of innocence, but I think explains what it means in plain language instead of importing a term of art from a different profession.
    -- Beland (talk) 16:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    That's still not quite right. For example, if someone is found guilty in a trial that all reliable sources regard as fair, we currently describe them as guilty unless and until they successfully appeal the conviction. The new wording would prohibit describing someone as guilty if they protest their innocence even after they lose their final appeal.
    It's possible that we do want to change the status quo in this regard, but the RFCBEFORE didn't really touch on that, and if we do want to change it I suspect it would be to somewhere between those points. It's also not clear to me what we would do if it is unclear from reliable sources whether they are contesting their conviction or not (and it's not at all uncommon for someone to not make the decision on whether to appeal a verdict immediately). Do we assume someone has accepted the verdict unless and until there is reliable sources to the contrary, or do we assume they haven't accepted it in the absence of sourcing to the contrary?
    Perhaps what we need is some sort of table, with rows for different stages of proceeding (person of interest, arrested, charged, on-trial, verdict, appeal, etc) with columns indicating the different possible responses (not known, implied acceptance, explicit acceptance, implied contesting, explicitly contesting, etc) with each cell giving suggestions for how to report that situation. This obviously couldn't specify every combination or circumstance, but almost everything would be similar to one or more and that would be the starting point for discussion? Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    A matrix might be helpful; we may agree more on specific circumstances than general philosophy. Sometimes I find people pushing fervently for "X except Y sometimes" vs. "Y except X sometimes" don't actually disagree on outcomes and are arguing for no good reason. -- Beland (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Oh, and I forgot to suggest that we be careful to take into account cases where people have escaped the justice system, outcomes like no contest and pleading to sufficient facts and not proven and miscarriage of justice, civil cases related to crimes, and where the justice system is corrupt or a political entity. -- Beland (talk) 17:46, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    How about no? So far, I've seen nothing approximating a clear explanation of what the actual problem is with existing policy. As for 'arguing for no good reason', you seem intent on making your proposal as complex as possible, which more or less makes Wikilawyering inevitable. Assuming of course that WMF legal don't step in first to prevent contributors running into contempt of court and/or libel issues through 'he's confessed so he's obviously guilty' reasoning and the like (and before you respond, coercion is by far the only reason why people make false confessions, or confessions obtained through improper means. The validity of confessions, like any other evidence, is subject to scrutiny at trial, and we don't get to guess whether they will be accepted, based on whatever limited press coverage happens to have come along). AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    Then feel free to respond in the negative when asked if the proposed table should be adopted. -- Beland (talk) 19:10, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
    There are also things like pleading guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder but still being tried for murder. Thryduulf (talk) 17:55, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. This opens the door far too wide to Wikipedia spreading baseless internet witchhunts, on the grounds that we're just being neutral by reporting all sides. Our policy should more proactively shut down unconfirmed accusations, and the presumption of innocence helps with that, regardless of whether the accusations are in a country whose legal system follows that rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No per above, and the idea that we must slavishly follow the daily news is a NOTHERE argument. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:18, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
    I'm curious where you get "slavishly follow the daily news" from in this proposal? Even the policy WP:NOTNEWS encourages editors to update Wikipedia with respect to notable current events, though not "slavishly". -- Beland (talk) 02:39, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
    Yeah, and too many users take that to mean we are running a news ticker, and they ignore the entire thrust of BLP and NOT, which is extremely careful, sober, long view encyclopedia writing, especially around living persons and sensational events, so policy that 'slows the roll' is essential to what Wikipedia is. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No I realise this is well-intentioned, but "reliable" court is a recipe for unending dispute. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 09:28, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No. This seems to be conflating the legal presumption of innocence with NPOV in ways that erode BLP protections. The sentence is there to explain the legal basis for the rest of the policy. It does not mean that a requiring that Wikipedia not say or imply that a person has been found guilty means we have to act a though we were defence counsel and write as though the person is innocent (which would obviously have BLP considerations for other living people associated with the case). This also opens the door to quibbling over what a "reliable court" is. If there are doubts about the independence of judicial convictions, the conviction, which is a fact, should be noted and the legal issues also included through coverage of such in RS (e.g. Alexei Navalny). Similarly, if a "unreliable court" returns an unexpected acquittal, this rewording could be a loophole to try and imply guilt nonetheless. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 16:40, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No Wikipedia should state the result of the court, and then layout any doubts found in reliable sources. If a person has been convicted Wikipedia should reflect that, if reliable sources consider the conviction to be based on trumped up charges then that should be mentioned as well but it shouldn't exclude the conviction. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
  • Hell no. A potential nightmare on every conceivable level. Apart from anything else, there are reasons why someone who actually did a thing might still be exonerated by the court (e.g. due to mental incapacity). We're not judges or triers of fact. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)
  • This actually depends on the jurisdiction. When someone's been found guilty of a crime by a British criminal court and has not subsequently been exonerated, then I have sufficient confidence in that to say that they're guilty in wikivoice. I view a conviction in the UK courts like I view a conclusion in a scientific paper. It's an evaluation reached by independent, competent experts who've explored and tested the evidence, so as far as Wikipedia's concerned, it should be the truth until proven otherwise. The same applies to most of the courts in other WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) nations. But there are certainly jurisdictions where the judge and/or jury don't have that independence so I wouldn't treat their conclusions as the truth. I do want to object to this idea that Wikipedians should take it on themselves to second-guess the verdict of a competent, independent court.—S Marshall T/C 08:40, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
    Certainly second-guessing reliable courts as a matter of course is not my idea. If verdicts are questioned at all, it should be because reliable sources indicate an unusually strong debate around or evidence for the possibility of a false conviction. -- Beland (talk) 13:58, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
    That's true enough. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
  • No in intent, and hell no in specific wording, which would say that we must be neutral about guilt even if charges are dropped, even if accusations are recanted, even if it is proven that some dead individual was the actual guilty party (as the dead person will not have a trial for there to be a conviction.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:43, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Further discussion

Editor @Beland: said above: "If we just say "court", doesn't that mean editors aren't following policy if they treat convictions as suspect when reliable sources say the outcome was pre-determined for political reasons? And if we allow editors to decide to sometimes treat a convicted person as possibly not guilty, doesn't that raise the same "who will be the judge" problem? The answer I would give is the same as for all other content questions: editors decide how to treat a given claim not by judging the facts for themselves but by looking at what reliable sources say (e.g. whether or not the conviction was suspect). An editor randomly deciding that a liberal or conservative court is unreliable without reliable sources saying so would be original research. It's also possible instead of focusing on the court, we should be focusing on the conviction - a court that normally does good work sometimes flubs a case or there is prosecutorial misconduct or new evidence comes in or new witnesses are found. Is a given conviction contested in reliable sources? We need to calibrate "contested" to ignore the usual "but I still didn't do it!" even after it's obvious they did, without ignoring convictions that are actually untrustworthy."

Again, you are just trying to open up a whole can of political whoopass by saying this. If you go by political sources you are going to get political answers. I would not be telling editors what you tell them at all. If it's in the United States I would treat the bios as guilty or innocent as rendered by a court of law in the United States. I would say they aren't following policy if they do otherwise. Now if there are sources that question the verdict rendered, that would be a separate sentence explaining about that source, but the overall theme of guilty/innocent would be the rendered verdict. No verdict is innocent until proven guilty. By throwing in your "flubs", until such time as those flubs are fixed, the person is still subject to guilty or innocent by a court of law. Sure there are rare exceptions, but that will be taken care of by a proper rfc to see if the exception is warranted. We don't need a rewrite that turns Wikipedia into a laughing stock of politics-infused justice. That makes it no better than facebook posts or a court of public opinion. We'd just be joining in the lynch-mob.
I placed this answer here because I was taught at Wikipedia by administration that we do not answer every single survey post. People get their say but you discuss it below, not in the survey... otherwise it looks like you are bludgeoning their responses and it also makes it tough for closers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
To this point, this is why even with a court conviction, we should say that the person was convicted of the crime, not that they did the crime. That accounts for court "flubs" as well as changes that result from appeals, etc., and stays to the intent of BLP. Masem (t) 21:42, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of it quite that way, but it makes some sense. In the same vein you could say the person was found guilty of the crime, not that they did the crime. I think you are correct that writing things in that style is in line with the purpose of BLP. Heck in Salem, people were found guilty of the crime of witchcraft. How would you word the fact that four people pleaded guilty of witchcraft? You can't say "John Doe and three others were guilty of witchcraft".. I guess we would say "John Doe pled guilty to witchcraft and was given 30 lashes", and then present any sources that said it was done under coercion. All that said, you would be hard pressed to find any editors (self included) willing to change the lead sentence of Sirhan Sirhan to "Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Jordanian man who was convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy." Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:42, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
Looking at Category:21st-century murderers, it appears that is not all what we currently do, and it would be difficult to have this category at all if we did. It wopuld also make e.g. Ramon Escobar (serial killer) read rather choppily. (There may be a BLP violation in the "Prison murder" section, which is an interesting example.) -- Beland (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

BLPPRIVACY

Latest comment: 9 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

@Sangdeboeuf:, you reverted my edit to WP:BLPPRIVACY saying that the previous version was "clearer before" and that "independent sources are always preferred". The latter is tangential given that ABOUTSELF explicitly allows non-independent sourcing for such information, while the current version can easily be misinterpreted to mean that a subject needs to self-publish a piece of information multiple times before it can be used, which it does not (there was a snow consensus to include a birthdate based on one ABOUTSELF source at Talk:Bonnie Blue (actress)/Archive 1, albeit the source account's since been removed and possibly by Instagram).--Launchballer 06:55, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Preferring independent sources and allowing ABOUTSELF sources are not mutually exclusive. Can does not equal should.
Not sure why you would bring up Bonnie Blue unless your goal is to justify your desired changes to that article by altering the policy itself.
I disagree that the current text of BLPPRIVACY is more likely to be misinterpreted. Are there any recent examples of that happening? If so, where? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Does WP:BLP apply to all content in a biographical article about a living person, or might there be some content that is not about that living person

Latest comment: 8 months ago19 comments7 people in discussion

In a discussion at the BLPN, Nil Einne claimed that "If it's not BLP content [content about a living person] then it doesn't belong in a biography of a living person," "BLPs [biographical articles about living persons] contain the information but it is implicitly about a living person and is covered by BLP [the policy]," "By including them in a BLP [biographical article], they inherently become about a living person and are therefore covered by BLP [the policy]. ... the fact you're presenting this information in a biography of a living person means you are making this information as information about a living person and therefore covered by BLP [the policy]," and "this thread has included a bunch of junk arguments like claims something in an a BLP is not about a living person."

JPxG and I disagree. We both say that WP:BLP applies to bulk of the content in a biography of a living person (specifically, content about the subject or about some other living person who is mentioned), but there may be content where it doesn't apply, as with content is about someone who is long dead, or content about non-persons (e.g., a book, an organization). Seems to me that the key differences is whether EXPERTSPS can be used: it cannot be used as a source for content about a living person, but it might be used for content about a long dead person or non-person.

An example: Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia involves multiple court rulings. One is a per curiam (unsigned) order from the Supreme Court. Many RSs called it a unanimous decision. Two EXPERTSPSs noted that unsigned orders do not specify a vote count (so we do not know for certain that it was unanimous), but there were no public dissents. That info was included in the article, because the order is not itself a person. In the Background section, there's a subsection about Due process in the context of immigration, and a couple of EXPERTSPSs are used there too. My understanding is that Nil Einne would object to that, though I don't know for certain that he'd consider this article to be a biography of a living person; the article has a great deal of content about living persons (especially Abrego Garcia), but the primary topic is the deportation and related court cases. I'd appreciate hearing others' views on this general issue. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:25, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that this is something with a clear-cut all-purpose answer. There's a few things that are red-line BLP issues (ie. stuff WP:BLPREMOVE applies to) but there's a much larger array of stuff that is potentially BLP-sensitive and which we have to consider in light of BLP's requirements, but which is not necessarily a strict red-line "run to AE immediately if someone restores it" problem. And there's lots of situations where reasonable editors might differ in terms of how or to what extent they think BLP applies. With something like the procedural details of a court ruling, it's easy to see how it can still have implications for the article's subject (or even for other living people), even if it's not directly a statement about them, and in that context BLP can apply. But more generally, most of BLP is just a stricter and more rigorous application of our existing sourcing policies, so arguing over whether BLP applies to a tangential thing like this is usually a waste - if you're acknowledging that whether BLP applies is decisive, that's the same as saying that the sourcing is weak (because it wouldn't pass BLP standards), which means your time would be better spent improving it. And if the sourcing does pass BLP standards then whether BLP applies or not... doesn't matter. --Aquillion (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
I think you're reading too much into off-the-cuff remarks that were made in the context of a specific dispute at WP:BLP/N#Nina Jankowicz. Any confusion should be hashed out there, not brought to the talk page of the policy itself in order to wedge your preferred interpretation in there. I agree with Aquillion that this is mostly a waste of time; ArbCom has specifically stated that edits relating to the subject of a BLP article fall within the contentious topic area. The example of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia certainly relates to a living person and should be edited sensitively and cautiously in accordance with BLP policy. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:56, 1 October 2025 (UTC) edited 06:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I disagree that I'm reading too much into it, and you're simply wrong that the remarks were made solely about Jankowicz's BLP. JPxG very explicitly brought up multiple other articles where this issue is in play, and Nil Einne disputed it. I just brought up another example from an article that has nothing to do with Jankowicz. And Nil Einne made his argument across multiple comments. I'll also ask you to AGF and not suggest that I'm doing this "to wedge [my] preferred interpretation in there." I'm asking about it because at least one of us has a mistaken understanding, and it would be good for all of us to have a correct understanding. I don't have any experience with ArbCom, but I have to wonder about the difference between the header and the statement in the 2022 decision. I don't know who I would ask about that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
Nil Einne already answered your question at BLP/N: BLPs contain the information but it is implicitly about a living person and is covered by BLP. That's why it's included. I ask that you stop wasting other people's time with this. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:12, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
Two of us clearly disagree with that explanation. I suggest that you allow other editors to decide whether or not they want to participate in the discussion. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
The question posed in the section heading shows an incomplete understanding of Wikipedia's procedures. Looking for precise rules that cover all situations is not going to work (see WP:BURO and WP:IAR and probably more). Material in a biographical article about a living person must be WP:DUE and obviously must relate to the person. For example, it would not be useful to argue that text could be added to specify the make and model of the car they drive with a claim on talk that BLP need not be satisfied regarding a car. That is because either the car is not due or is not relevant, or that some WP:SYNTH is being used to allow the reader to draw a connection between the type of car and the character of the person. Instead of this discussion, WP:DR should be followed which probably means an WP:RFC, but only if that would not be a waste of time. Johnuniq (talk) 02:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
There is no content in a BLP that WP:BLP as a whole does not apply to, because saying that that content is in some way relevant to the subject is a BLP-sensitive claim. However, that does not mean that all claims in a BLP receive the protection of all parts of WP:BLP. Most sections, including WP:BLPRESTORE and WP:BLPSPS, specifically refer to material about a living person, or to a narrower subset of that (e.g. contentious claims about a living person). There may be cases where something in a BLP doesn't directly mention a living person but could still be reasonably called "material about a living person", but in most cases it should be pretty obvious what's what. Consider "John Doe is the CEO of Acme. Acme manufactures puppy-murdering machines. Acme is headquartered in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts." The first sentence is explicitly BLP material. The second sentence is implicitly BLP material, because even though it doesn't mention Doe, a reasonable person would expect a company's CEO to have some moral responsibility for its actions. The third sentence is not BLP material, because no reasonable person would consider it to reflect on a person that their company is headquartered in Boston (except perhaps a Yankees fan, supposing any reasonable ones exist). But context is key. If it were "is headquartered in Tel Aviv", perhaps this would be seen as a reflection on him. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:06, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I do understand that some parts of WP:BLP may not apply to specific content in a biographical article (e.g., if the person is a PUBLICFIGURE, then WP:NPF doesn't apply), but I don't understand how there could be content in a biographical article that WP:BLPSPS doesn't apply to. Would you say more? Consider a different example: "John Doe is a member of the Questionable Organization. According to Ellen Expert, the Questionable Organization is a hate group," where the second sentence is sourced to Ellen's Substack. Under BLPGROUP, one can use an EXPERTSPS as a source about the Questionable Organization, but if I'm understanding correctly, since the second sentence is implicitly about John Doe, BLPSPS applies, and Ellen's Substack cannot be used as a source about Questionable Organization in the article about John Doe. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:24, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Well, BLPSPS is explicitly about "material about a living person". So in your Abrego Garcia example, the procedures of the Supreme Court aren't material about a living person, and that doesn't change because they're mentioned in a BLP—unless I suppose the BLP were talking about a living person involved in creating the Supreme Court's procedures on per curiam decisions—so BLPSPS doesn't apply. In my John Doe example, Acme being in Boston and Boston being the capital of Massachusetts aren't material about a living person, so BLPSPS doesn't apply. In your John Doe example, BLPSPS does apply to Ellen Expert's claim because the statement can be reduced to "John Doe is a member of a hate group". Whereas you can't reduce my Boston example to any claim about Doe; it doesn't even necessarily imply that he's ever set foot in the city. So I think that separability analysis is a good way to look at it: Can you make it a (meaningful) claim about a living person by joining the statements? If so, it's at least implicitly BLP material. If not, it isn't. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 13:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Arguably, the content about Boston isn't DUE. And perhaps that's the issue: in a biographical article, the content is either explicitly about the person or implicitly about the person or is UNDUE. FWIW, I don't think of the article about Abrego Garcia's deportation to be a biographical article; I consider it a non-biographical article with significant BLP content and significant non-BLP content. (I noted in the previous topic that people use "BLP" to refer variously to biographical articles about living persons, to the living person who is the subject of a biographical article, and to content about living persons that appears in non-biographical articles, and I think it's not always clear which meaning is intended when.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Ellen's Substack cannot be used as a source about Questionable Organization in the article about John Doe – this is correct. Not only because of BLPSPS but also WP:NOR, because the material about Questionable Organization serves to imply an unstated conclusion about John Doe. BLP policy should always be read in concert with WP:NOR and other core content policies. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
As a comment not directly to the question, a per curium decision without any public dissents is not a unanimous decision under obvious (non-SYNTH) understanding of the court's process. It's just that, a per curium decision without any noted dissents and that's how we should report it. That means for SCOTUS, it could have been 5-4 but the none of the four felt it was necessary to voice their dissent. It also could have been 9-0 or anywhere in between. Media is often sloppy on SCOTUS actions (particulary for headlines) and we should be careful to take what they summarize as when the record is very clear what the result is. (Eg: media are often state that SCOTUS has ruled for various cases off the emergency docket, but all they are issuing is an order, which is not a ruling) Masem (t) 13:00, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I understand the a per curiam decision might not be unanimous, but in this particular case, all of the non-SPS RSs were calling the ruling unanimous. We added a footnote sourced to an EXPERTSPS noting that per curiam orders do not specify a vote count. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:34, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
When you say non-SPS RS, are those sources expert on per curium decisions at the supreme court? And more generally, why does it matter to our BLP article to include "unanimous" in it, at all. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
It was a mix, some were sources I'd consider expert (e.g., the National Law Review, one of SCOTUSblog's articles) and others were MSM that I wouldn't call expert (e.g., the BBC).
Masem, I do understand that they were wrong in calling it unanimous, but I can't just add content that I know to be true if I don't have a source for it, and there was something of a slow moving edit war about it, so I let it go after getting agreement for a footnote. I'll look again whether there's a good source for your proposed wording. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:27, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
If we are talking about this specific document, that's not even a decision, that's simply an opinion related to an order, as described at as "Opinions may be written by Justices to comment on the summary disposition of cases by orders, e.g., if a Justice wants to dissent from the denial of certiorari or concur in that denial."
For example, a far better source if you are using SCOTUSBlog is from Amy Howe, which here states it as "an unsigned opinion without any recorded dissents", which is exactly the way it should be presented. Masem (t) 15:00, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I did use that source in the footnote. I encourage you to edit it as you see fit. I wasn't going to edit war, which was what would have occurred at the time, but it's months later now, and perhaps there won't be any pushback now. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:17, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
If they were calling it unanimous, they were flat out wrong. They are fundamentally not the same thing, and this is not like an matter of opinion. This would be like if they all reported 2+2=5. It should be left as just "per curium with no public dissents", which is factually true. Masem (t) 13:52, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Does PUBLICFIGURE apply to all content in a BLP or only allegations/incidents where there might be public figure privacy concerns

Latest comment: 8 months ago28 comments6 people in discussion

In a discussion at the BLPN, Nil Einne claimed that PUBLICFIGURE means all content in a biographical article about a living public figure must be supported by multiple reliable third-party sources, regardless of the nature of that content. I disagree with this interpretation of PUBLICFIGURE. At least one of us is misinterpreting the policy, and I'm hoping we can sort it out here and potentially make the wording clearer.

The main part of WP:PUBLICFIGURE says:

Public figures
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article, even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out.

My reading of this is:

  • It's a subsection of Presumption in favor of privacy and so only applies to the subset of content where there might be privacy concerns.
  • "there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say" applies to the living public figure's article as a whole, but does not imply that there will be / should be a multitude of sources for each bit of content in the article.
  • "If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out" is limited to allegations or incidents; it is not about all content in the article.

Additional evidence that contributes to my interpreting this as I do:

  • BLPSELFPUB content is an example of living public figure biographical content that might be sourced only to one source.
  • Significant biographical content about academics might only be sourced to one source (e.g., unless an academic prize is something like a Nobel, it may be that the only source for the academic having received a prestigious award is the organization that awards the prize, ditto for membership in a prestigious scholarly society).

(As an aside, I'll add that the ways in which "BLP" gets used by editors can complicate discussions. People use it to refer variously to biographical articles about living persons, to the living person who is the subject of a biographical article, to content about living persons that appears in non-biographical articles. Perhaps editors use it is some other ways; I haven't spent any time trying to chase that down. But I'm spelling things out above to make it clearer which I'm referring to.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your interpretation. Material that might be contentious, for example that relating to allegations or incidents, needs to be sourced to third party reliable sources, typically multiple although there might be exceptions to that last bit. For example if it is widely reported in RS that X was charged with multiple offences in connection with a particular incident we might only have a primary source (and maybe a single third party source) for what the specific charges are. Including the specific charges is going to be encyclopaedic and DUE in at least some cases so it should not be automatically excluded.
Whether material that is sourced to the subject themselves and doesn't make claims about third parties should be included is a matter for DUE not the BLP policy - even if it is negative. For example, a BLP subject stating that they were "a real troublemaker at school" does not require third party sourcing before it can be included (although obviously it shouldn't always be included).
Other material that is not contentious just requires reliable sourcing. Third-party sources will sometimes be preferable, but are not required. Note how WP:BLPPRIMARY starts "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources", not "Never use primary sources" and then goes on to list specific ways in which primary sources should not be used and a way in which primary sources explicitly may be used. Thryduulf (talk) 11:41, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
BLPPRIMARY says primary sources may be used to augment an existing secondary source. So third-party sources are still required (apart from WP:ABOUTSELF statements). —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
It says it may be used in that manner, it doesn't say that's the only way in which it can be used. Thryduulf (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment: The unspoken context here is an ongoing discussion of whether the Third Circuit upholding the dismissal of former Biden administration official Nina Jankowicz's defamation suit against Fox News needs multiple third-party reliable sources (see WP:BLP/N#Nina Jankowicz).
    Nil Einne's comment was a response to FactOrOpinion's argument that PUBLICFIGURE doesn't apply partly because "the court case and all filings are public" (which ignores WP:BLPPRIMARY). FactOrOpinion went on to dispute that the appellate court's ruling "qualifies as an incident".
    This is simply obtuse, and in no way justifies changing the wording of the policy. When fake news and AI slop are becoming even more prevalent, relaxing our standards for coverage of public figures is not the way to go. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:25, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
    Discussion of that specific case isn't key context. This page is for discussing the BLP policy itself (ambiguities, potential changes in wording, etc.), not for discussing a particular BLP article. My question is a very general one about the interpretation of PUBLICFIGURE.
    My question was prompted by Nil Einne's claim that "PUBLICFIGURE applies to anything we want to include [in a biographical article about a public figure]." I am disputing that PUBLICFIGURE applies to all content in a BLP article (regardless of whether the content involves a privacy concern, and regardless of whether it involves an allegation or incident). In response to Nil Einne's claim, I said "PUBLICFIGURE does not apply to anything we want to include. It's very explicitly about content that falls under "allegation or incident", where the info might be considered private (which is why it's a subsection of Presumption in favor of privacy). People distinguish between public figures and people who are relatively unknown in discussion, but not because PUBLICFIGURE applies to anything we want to include," and Nil Einne responded "You're mistaken. If you're going to question the interpretation it's on you to get consensus to support your view." So that's what I'm doing: checking whether there is consensus for my general interpretation, or if the consensus is instead for Nil Einne's interpretation.
    You've made similar claims: "Is [example source] the only reliable, independent source for this material? If so, we should still leave it out per WP:PUBLICFIGURE," and "Basically anything that happens is an incident and so is covered by WP:PUBLICFIGURE."
    I claim that if there might be privacy concerns (per the section heading), and there is an allegation or incident involved, then PUBLICFIGURE applies, and one needs "multiple reliable third-party sources." Otherwise, a single RS is often sufficient for sourcing, though whether the content itself should be introduced into the article also depends on things, such as whether the content is DUE (which is a distinct issue), and whether it meets the BLPSELFPUB restrictions (e.g., if the single RS is the subject's own blog or tweet).
    I am not calling for "relaxing our standards for coverage of public figures." I am calling for a discussion of whether there's consensus about how the PUBLICFIGURE standard should be interpreted (specifically: does it apply to all content in a biographical article about a living public figure), and if so, what that consensus is. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
    Once again you are ignoring the context. That BLP/N discussion is about a specific claim in a specific biographical article, and my comments were implicitly about that claim. In trying to distinguish between an allegation or incident in which there are privacy concerns and one in which there are not, you are in effect proposing to relax our standards of coverage of public figures. That's a bad idea. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
    No, I'm saying that that context is not important to my question here, as my question is not about any specific biographical article. Again, I'm not proposing to relax the standards. I'm trying to find out whether consensus is that my interpretation of this standard is correct (in which case yours is more stringent than the actual standard) or incorrect (in which case it's important that I understand the actual standard). And if your interpretation is correct, then I may also propose making the wording clearer. Right now in this discussion, there is no consensus. Hopefully some other editors will join in. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
    You say the context of the BLP/N discussion is not relevant, yet you keep bringing up comments that were made specifically in the context of that discussion, asking users here to simply take them at face value. That's misleading at best and disingenuous at worst. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    My interpretation of the policy is to accept the plain English meaning of the words: If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out. You are the one creating a distinction out of thin air regarding content where there might be privacy concerns. My reading is that PUBLICFIGURE is part of § Presumption in favor of privacy because that was the most sensible place to put it without repeating essentially the same guidance elsewhere on the page. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    That you and I disagree about what it means for PUBLICFIGURE to be a subsection of § Presumption in favor of privacy does not imply that I'm creating a distinction out of thin air. It would have been easy to make PUBLICFIGURE its own section rather than a subsection, and if your interpretation is right, that would make more sense, and we should just make it its own section. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:14, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    Disagree. Hair-splitting over whether this or that incident raises privacy concerns is pointless. Joe Blow is a public servant who was ticketed for jaywalking once. That information is probably WP:UNDUE in a biography, even if reported by a credible source. As Alanscottwalker states below, privacy is always a concern regarding living people. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
  • This is an intensely high-profile case that has attracted massive amounts of secondary coverage. If you can't find multiple high-quality independent secondary sources for something notionally central, something is terribly wrong. As a general rule, though, I would be generally against using WP:PRIMARY court documents in any BLP article, in any context whatsoever; the significance and meaning of legal documents often requires expertise to interpret; it is very hard to use them without inadvertantly carrying some implication that we'd need a secondary source for. I would be strenuously (revert-on-sight level) against using them for something this high-profile. It's nonsensical to suggest that multiple secondary sources wouldn't exist for anything important in this case, which immediately suggests to me that if you're trying to cite court documents directly (anywhere, in any context on this article, except as a courtesy link when backed by multiple secondary sources) and are unable to find secondary sources that could back your text, something has gone terribly wrong. Perhaps you just don't want to do the work of finding the sources that do exist, but I'd suggest just doing it, since in something this significant, very small changes in wording and focus can matter a lot. --Aquillion (talk) 17:53, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
    The district court case got a lot of attention. The Third Circuit appeal did not get a lot of attention. I found three RSs discussing it, but did not find other RSs (though there are additional MREL and EXPERTSPS sources). I did not suggest using court documents as sources. I mentioned them only in the context of our talk discussion of whether the appeal is/isn't a privacy concern. And this is why I did not go into that specific case here: it's beside the point for my general question, and I do not want to take the issue of that specific case up here when it's already being discussed at the BLPN. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2025 (UTC)
    Privacy is always a concern when it comes to living people. Think what we are doing to people, here, we are literally holding up their life to be examined by the world, often without the benefit of any RS biography. Now, whether the appeal is private or not may of course merge with whether it is DUE or not, as both rely on strength of sourcing and what we are doing with it -- how we are phrasing and placing it. (And DUE as with other content policies must be strictly applied in BLPs)
I assume we say in the article she lost some law case (litigation is perhaps the sin qua non of contentious matter), I hope we say why (and any response she has) otherwise it would not seem to matter to anything. The same goes for any appeal result (why did that happen?), unless the appeal overturned her loss. Otherwise, the appeal does not matter, she still lost the case and nothing has changed (the article is about her, it is not a case history article.) If your question is whether your 3 sources are enough, that's also a question for consensus. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:01, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I had thought I was taking sufficient care about people's privacy, but appreciate your point, and will be more thoughtful about it.
That said, I'm still not convinced that essentially everything is an "allegation or incident" and thus "multiple reliable third-party sources" are needed for all PUBLICFIGURE content, which Sangdeboeuf has argued at the BLPN.
As for the article, it does explain why she sued for defamation and some of why the judge dismissed the case. It does not say anything about her response, and the only RS reporting I found about that just now was a Washington Post article saying "she disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal it in the 3rd Circuit," said right after the district court ruled. The Third Circuit upheld the dismissal. She did have an extended commentary about that ruling on her blog, some of it set in a broader context of "the realities of violent political rhetoric in the digital age." Currently, there is no content in the article about the appeal. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:30, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
Once again you are twisting my words. It's almost like you are determined to misconstrue any comments that disagree with you. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:27, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I certainly wasn't trying to twist your words, and I apologize if I did. You said:

Incident means "an occurrence of an action or situation". Jankowicz filing an appeal of her case was an incident. Jankowicz losing her appeal was another incident. Basically anything that happens is an incident and so is covered by WP:PUBLICFIGURE.

What did you mean by "Basically anything that happens is an incident and so is covered by WP:PUBLICFIGURE." FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I have already stated that my comments were implicitly about a specific claim in a specific biographical article. In this instance I was responding to your boneheaded claim that somebody losing a court case doesn't qualify as an "incident". —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:36, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
If that is how it is, it sounds like the various legal steps (or rungs) don't matter, they are procedural minutia, and we should just go with, she brought her case for reasons, she lost her case, why, and her thoughts about it, her thoughts can be sourced to her primary substack as long as they are general -- in sum, it sounds like the case through appeal should be treated as just, 'the case'. This perhaps points up part of our problem with writing about 'what happened today', we now need to go back and write about it as over. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
I agree that WP:RECENTISM is a problem, but the Third Circuit ruling also just "happened today", as it were, and maybe we should just wait for more authoritative sourcing to come along eventually. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:26, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
? If all the third circuit did was affirm the trial court, then that's all it did, and there is not really more to say. In short, the case is over, and it's still over. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:11, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment - I am not sure we can answer this without discussing context. Or to put it a different way: I think context is a factor in determining whether some bit of information is or is not controversial (and thus whether multiple sources are required or not). Blueboar (talk) 13:44, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    Whether a given bit of content is, is not or might be controversial is indeed context-dependent, but that's not relevant to this discussion. This discussion is about whether (and if so how) PUBLICFIGURE applies to content that is non-controversial. Thryduulf (talk) 16:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    Without context, how do we determine whether something is non-controversial or controvercial?
    We have both been around long enough to know that just about anything can cause controversy here on WP. I am tempted to simply cut through the Wikilawyering and say everything in a BLP is at least potentially controversial… so assume it is and source it appropriately. Blueboar (talk) 19:59, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    You have completely missed the point again: There are three categories of information about living people we include in articles:
    1. Those that are controverisal
    2. Those that are might be controversial
    3. Those that are not controversial
    It is possible to determine, with context, which category a given piece of information falls into. How that determination is made is irrelevant to this discussion.
    PUBLICFIGURE unquestionably applies to information in category 1.
    PUBLICFIGURE is best applied to information in category 2 as a precaution. This is again uncontroversial.
    This discussion is about whether, and if so how, PUBLICFIGURE applies to information in category 3. What any specific piece information is in which category is not relevant here. Thryduulf (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    Thank you. You've worded the issue much more clearly than I did. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
    I am tempted to say that as far as WP is concerned, category 3 doesn’t exist. But, OK. I would treat this similarly to the way I treat ridiculous BURDON challenges to unsourced “bluesky” information. I would apply the principle of “Let the Wookie win”.
    IF I think some material in a BLP is non-controvercial, I can ignore the requirements of PUBLICFIGURE. If I am correct, no one will object.
    However, if someone does object - if someone disagrees with my assessment and thinks the material is in fact controversial… I don’t waste everyone’s time wikilawyering about it. I don’t try to convince the other guy that it isn’t controversial. I accept their assessment that it is controversial and apply PUBLICFIGURE, even though I think it is silly. Blueboar (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

Does BLP forbid calling living and recently deceased persons...

Latest comment: 8 months ago10 comments6 people in discussion

Does BLP prohibit Wikipedia authors from labeling living and recently deceased individuals who have demonstrably participated in an information war or spread disinformation as propagandists? I ask because two authors, by citing BLP, are preventing the article on Saleh al-Jafarawi from noting that he participated in the disinformation war in favor of hamas. See Talk:Saleh_al-Jafarawi#Propagandist. If that is true, there wouldnt be any article about living propagandists, wouldnt it? LennBr (talk) 20:02, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say about it? I see nothing to support the assertion beyond Israeli politicians accusing him, and therefore it should not be included in the lede, although there is argument for it to be mentioned the accusations in the body. GiantSnowman 20:21, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
@GiantSnowman See for example this article by Focus Online (german news). I recommend to use a page translator, like the google-translate-page. LennBr (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
'Propagandist' is a strong word to use in Wikipedia's voice, and it would need multiple sources, with no obvious partisan bias of their own saying the same thing to justify it. Attributed to a source who's opinion might be seen a significant, maybe justifiable, though one needs to be careful not to repeat mere name-calling. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
As for the specific source cited, it says (in translation) that "many accuse him of spreading propaganda for Hamas", which is a very weak source for anything at all, and cannot possibly be used to assert in Wikipedia's voice that he actually was a 'propagandist'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
i see the sourcing as german-language news sources, with very strong opinionated language. see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#German_language_newssources_on_Israel-Palestine_suggesting_that_most_Gaza_press_are_"hamas_propagandists", but as far as i can tell, we are relying on headlines from opeds to justify the inclusion of the language, some of which seem to imply all press in gaza exists to make money from hamas (With every bloodied child, terrorist organizations make money. Suffering as a source of income, better than drug trafficking and arms smuggling. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
As per Andy's translation, saying "he is accused of spreading propaganda" is NOT the same as saying "he is a propagandist and we should describe him as such". GiantSnowman 16:58, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
That Focus source seems really weak. It's mostly just "newsmagazine writer transcribes Twitter in lieu of doing real work." Simonm223 (talk) 18:23, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
this should really be moved to WP:BLPN, not this talk page. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
We should be reluctant to apply ANY label in Wikipedia’s voice. If sources say someone is an X, our default should be “He has been labeled an X” (or perhaps: “Numerous sources, such as A, B and C, have labeled him an X”) - NOT “He is an X”. In-text attribution is our friend when it comes to labeling. It ensures that our information is factual yet neutral. Blueboar (talk) 23:05, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Queen Camilla, outside the UK?

Latest comment: 8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Is Camilla queen consort of other countries (i.e. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc), besides the United Kingdom? An editor has raised concerns about her status. GoodDay (talk) 03:29, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Request for input at Talk:2025 Anaconda shooting#Handling of suspect identification

Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The discussion is in regard to the application of WP:BLPCRIME and if the suspect should be identified within the article. The discussion has also affected the articles Killing of Audrii Cunningham, Killing of Lily Peters, 2022 Brink's theft, and 2025 Montgomery shooting as an involved user has edited those articles as part of their interpretation of the guideline. Raskuly (talk) 10:52, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

At least for Lily Peters, it's been Fram'd out, because of course, per Wikipedia:SUSPECT. Besides which, common sense: does it add anything necessary to understanding the entity "Killing of Lily Peters" at our level of writing? No, it doesn't. Readers who want more detailed info can drill down into the refs if they wish. It's not a question, it's a matter of educating that editor. Herostratus (talk) 03:22, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
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