This page gives guidelines for the clean-up of 16,104 articles about living people started by User:Sander.v.Ginkel (SvG) and debated at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive941#User:Fram. The decision there was to give one week for rescue attempts followed by bulk deletion. The outcome of the follow-up discussion at User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up was less drastic:
- All the articles would be moved to draft space (this was completed on 25 January 2017)
- Over the next 90 days articles would be reviewed, problem articles deleted or turned into redirects, and other articles corrected and promoted back to main space
- At the end of the 90 day period (e.g. 24 April 2017) all remaining drafts would be deleted.
Comments on these guidelines should be made at User talk:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Guidelines.
Volunteers
Please add your userid to the list below if you plan to help with the clean-up, so you can be notified of project events.
Outline of process
Various lists of subsets of the BLPs are given below.
- Select one of the lists of subjects that interest you,
- Pick an entry and review it
- Either flag it for deletion, turn it into a redirect, or correct it and move it to main space.
- Pick another entry.
Types of problem
Any biography of a living person should reflect what reliable sources say about the subject, with these sources cited, and with no original research. Most of the articles are reasonably accurate, although SvG sometimes added original research, or information he "knew" was accurate, that was not supported by any source. There were errors in copying information such as birth dates. In some cases it seems that SvG created an article from a source that would not be considered reliable, then added citations to other "sources" to support the article, often without checking these "sources". Sometimes the "source" did not even mention the subject. In a few cases SvG confused one person with a completely different person, giving totally misleading content.
- Unfounded libel: The article asserts that the subject engaged in unacceptable behavior such as doping or fraudulent claims about age or nationality, but the claim is not supported by a reliable source. These are rare, but must be deleted immediately.
- Undue weight: The article gives undue weight to a single documented incident such as doping, with perhaps one sentence of a two-sentence article discussing the incident. The editor may consider toning down or even dropping the incident description and/or expanding the rest of the article to give more balance. This particularly applies to people who are relatively unknown.
- Unsourced information: " ... (born February 14, 1967 in Cheyenne, United States) ... " If the source does not give the birth date and/or birth place, drop it. Some articles contain several paragraphs of plausible but unsourced information added to the original stub. Drop them. A BLP should only contain information supported by reliable sources.
- Poorly sourced information: Blog sites, celebrity gossip sites and so on are not valid sources. Drop any material supported by sources like these.
- Incorrect information: The article disagrees with the source, perhaps due to a transcription error. Correct the article to match the source.
- Incorrect links. Nobody was born in Cheyenne, United States. Fix the link.
- Original research: "is a cyclist" or "is a former cyclist". We have no way of telling the subject is still active as a cyclist – they may have retired yesterday. But if the source does not say they have retired, it is wrong to say "is a former cyclist". They may be proudly competing in the Masters 70+ class. Just say what they did: "competed as a cyclist in the 1967 Tour de France".
- Notability: Whereas many articles are notable per WP:SPORTS (for example, every participant in the Olympics is notable), some are not. These should be notable per WP:GNG; check that the athletes are described in reliable sources, and, ideally, add these sources to the draft before moving back to the main space.
Bottom line is that although many of the SvG stubs are entirely accurate, many contain errors. All must be carefully checked to ensure the facts agree with reliable sources. As stated in Wikipedia: Biographies of living persons, "Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. ... We must get the article right."
Audit
The results will be audited after a few weeks. This approach will be considered to have failed if a significant percentage of the articles that have been moved to main space turn out to still contain BLP violations and/or to contain information that is not confirmed by a citation to a reliable source. We will then revert to the letter of the close at the ANI discussion. The decision there was to give one week for rescue attempts followed by bulk deletion:
- Editors whose restorations to mainspace were problematic will be banned from participating
- Other editors will be invited to move articles they want to save from main space or draft space to their user space
- After the bulk deletion, these editors may fix the saved user space articles and move them to main space.
See User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Audit notes for more detail.
Lists
The table that follow gives, in each cell
- A list of articles of a given type that have been recovered to mainspace
- A count of the total number of articles of this type
- A list of all the articles of this type in draft space, with redlinks for recovered articles
Category |
Any Gender |
Female |
Male
|
All
|
Mainspace complete list 16,096 results Draft complete list
|
Mainspace women 8,894 results) Draft women
|
Mainspace men 7,126 results Draft men
|
Cyclists
|
Mainspace cyclists 1,005 total Draft cyclists
|
Mainspace female cyclists 576 results Draft female cyclists
|
Mainspace male cyclists 426 results Draft male cyclists
|
Olympic competitors
|
Mainspace olympic competitors 2,073 results Draft Olympic competitors
|
Mainspace female Olympic competitors 1,002 results Draft female Olympic competitors
|
Mainspace male Olympic competitors 1,066 results Draft male Olympic competitors
|
Olympic cyclists
|
Mainspace olympic cyclists 152 results Draft Olympic cyclists Done
|
Mainspace female Olympic cyclists 101 results Draft female Olympic cyclists Done
|
Mainspace male Olympic cyclists 51 results Draft male Olympic cyclists Done
|
Archers
|
Mainspace archers 676 results Draft archers
|
Athletics
|
Mainspace competitors in athletics 263 results Draft competitors in athletics
|
Footballers
|
Mainspace footballers 2,264 results Draft footballers
|
Mainspace female footballers 1,922 results Draft female footballers
|
Mainspace male footballers 342 results Draft male footballers
|
Gymnasts
|
Mainspace gymnasts 3,168 results Draft gymnasts
|
Mainspace female gymnasts 2,009 results User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Female gymnasts
|
Mainspace male gymnasts 1,156 results Draft male gymnasts
|
Racewalkers
|
Mainspace racewalkers 56 results Draft racewalkers Done
|
Runners
|
Mainspace runners 126 results Draft runners Done
|
Swimmers
|
Mainspace swimmers 10 results User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Swimmers
|
Volleyball players
|
Mainspace volleyball players 4,379 results Draft volleyball players
|
Mainspace female volleyball players 2,154 results Draft female volleyball players
|
Mainspace male volleyball players 2,225 results Draft male volleyball players
|
Water polo players
|
Mainspace water polo players 1,070 results Draft water polo players
|
Weightlifters
|
Mainspace weightlifters 3,039 results Draft weighlifters
|
Mainspace female weightlifters 1,207 results Draft female weightlifters
|
Mainspace male weightlifters 1,762 results Draft male weightlifters
|