"Is there a discussion happening on Commons somewhere about the implications of this resolution? - John Vandenberg"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Resolution:Media_about_living_people Jee On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 10:24 PM, John Vandenberg <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Craig Franklin > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Jane, > > > > I am concerned about the issue surrounding the comment "the real BLP > >> problems happen when heavyweight (in edit count terms) Wikipedia users > >> swing their weight around" > >> > > > > I think the problem is that if you ask ten different people about the > > reason why we have BLP problems, you'll get ten different answers. All > ten > > would probably have some truth in them, but any one in isolation would be > > inadequate. > > The list of problems becomes even longer for images. > > The 2009 resolution on biographies of living people was about > identifiable people, given they were the subject of a biography. This > new 'media about living people' resolution doesn't make any such > distinction for media, which I guess will result in lots of confusion > about whether the scope includes images of unidentifiable people. It > should, but ... > > This resolution appears to be asking for verifiability regarding > images of living people. We are going to need some clarity around > what the board considers to be verifiability (how do we prove the > photo was taken at a public event and it is real? etc), and whether > that includes unidentifiable people. > > "Ensuring that all projects in all languages that describe or show > living people have policies in place calling for special attention to > the principles of neutrality and verifiability in those articles;.." > > On English Wikipedia we have some guidance regarding photos of living > people, but I can't find anything relating to verifiability or > neutrality. > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Original_images > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Images > > Wikimedia Commons has a policy which rejects 'neutrality', and it > doesnt have a verifiability policy. > > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Project_scope/Neutral_point_of_view > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people > > Is there a discussion happening on Commons somewhere about the > implications of this resolution? > > > My own point of view is that our policies and procedures are actually > > pretty good on paper, but they're just very unevenly and inconsistently > > applied in the real world. The "Tier 1" biographies, such as those of > > Messrs Obama, Cameron, and Abbott are pretty safe from BLP hijinx, but > > there is a massive underbelly of poorly defended BLPs on minor > celebrities, > > local politicians, and the like, which are not watched consistently and > > where hagiography or defamation can take root. This is why, while things > > like the BoT's declaration are not unwelcome, I feel that they don't have > > any practical effect in fixing the problem. All it takes is for one > > negatively written bio to slip through the net to do real harm to someone > > in the real world. > > I agree with you Craig up to here .. > > > My preferred way of dealing with this on en.wp would be to massively > > tighten the notability criteria where they related to biographies of > living > > or possibly living people, but this would no doubt be met with cries of > > "deletionism!". > > And agree your preferred approach could help. On English Wikipedia, I > think we have an article/editor ratio problem, which is only getting > worse as articles increase and editors leave, and is meaning > watchlists are less useful to scan for problematic edits. > > The test for this is what is the average length of time between an > edit of an old page (e.g. created in 2005) to the point in time that > the edit a) appears on a watchlist, or b) is viewed as a diff, or c) > is loaded as a page view, or d) leads to another edit. Then compare > those averages with the averages from a year before, to determine > whether edits are slipping past watchlists and recentchanges. I'm > guessing that the length of time from edit to (a) or (b) is > increasing, while (c) may be decreasing as Wikipedia readership > increases. > > A smaller Wikipedia scope means there are less articles, with more > editors watching and editing the pages the BLP problems appear on. > > I think it is necessary to add here that FlaggedRevs (Pending Changes) > also helps, as any BLP problems are held in a queue. The 'volume of > edits' can be a problem with FlaggedRevs in practise, but a) the > 'size. > > > Indeed, I don't think it's possible to adequately address > > the issue on large projects like en.wp or commons without a massive > > cultural shift and sweeping changes to policy that would cause immense > > disruption in the community; something the BoT is understandably > reluctant > > to do. > > Another way the board can get serious about this problem is to mandate > that each project write a BLP management strategy that needs to be > approved by the WMF board, which would involve some type of periodic > review of all content. The strategy would differ for each project > based on their policies, scope and the size of the project. e.g. > Wikisources would need to review only unpublished sources added each > year; Wikipedias using FlaggedRevs could do spot checks annually; > Wikipedias which have chosen to not use FlaggedRevs would be required > to come up with feasible alternative solutions to verify the existing > BLPs are clean of significant BLP problems. Projects which failed to > complete their periodic reviews of the content would be put into > maintenance mode(s) until they have completed the review. e.g. The > devs might be asked to disable 'creation of new pages in mainspace' on > the wiki as a first step measure to focus the community on the task. > > More generally, we should have tiers in the notability system, by > which we agree that not everyone is as notable as Barack Obama, and > therefore their 'living' bio should not contain every detail that is > ever published. The lowest tier is bios about people with > questionable notability or low notability and avoid publicity, such as > (most) referees, sports people who only played a few matches, most > academics, which should only include facts that are relevant to their > notability and their brief appearances into 'public life'. On English > Wikipedia, those articles should all be put under FlaggedRevs, and > edits that increase the scope of the biography are > rejected/held/not-approved until there is consensus on the talk page > that the subject is notable enough that other aspects of their life > are of general interest to understanding their achievements or actions > which have become notable. > > Perhaps not just yet, but Wikidata should bring new solutions to this > problem. We may have more consensus to remove classes of living > people biographies from Wikipedia as the basic details of their life > can be placed into Wikidata. > > For example, only a few of these referees deserve a proper 'biography' > - for the others, their bio exists on Wikipedia only because it is > useful to have a unique identifier for the person, and we like to > record a list of a person's public appearances. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Australian_soccer_referees > > In a few of those articles, there are unsourced claims that the > referee made a significant mistake. Besides official honours awarded, > there is not similar commentary describing all of the times that > sports commentators spoke highly of the referees decisions. i.e. > these articles are either BLP problems now, or will be in the future. > A referees decisions are usually only relevant within the context of a > match, and don't belong on their bio. > > In almost every case, the details in those articles can be moved to > claims in Wikidata once a few Wikidata properties are created, and a > non-editable page could be automatically generated on Wikipedias to > describe the subject and list the events the person appeared in. > > -- > John Vandenberg > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
