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Categorizing people

On my user talk page, Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d pointed out Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 February 9#Bias categories, which found support to exclude articles about individual people from such categories as Category:Racism and Category:Sexism, etc. The issue has come up at Talk:Nick Cannon, and Category:Antisemitism in the United States currently has a number of other BLPs in it. Seems like a pretty clear thing to avoid, based on WP:CATDEF, WP:IMPARTIAL, WP:LABEL, etc. Should we add a note to WP:BLPCAT to discourage this? I'm thinking something like the following (proposed text in bold):

Caution should be used with content categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). For example, Category:Criminals and its subcategories should be added only for an incident that is relevant to the person's notability; the incident was published by reliable third-party sources; the subject was convicted; and the conviction was not overturned on appeal. In particular, do not categorize biographies of living people under such contentious topics as racism, sexism, extremism, and the like, since these have the effect of labeling a person as a racist, sexist, or extremist.

Alternatively, would this be more appropriate for Wikipedia:Categorization of people? I bring it up here because WP:BLP is usually the first place I check for any contentious issues like this. Should it be applied to all biographies of individuals, not just those of living people? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support, it seems to me that we should apply it to categorizing all people. Once upon a time, we'd thought that it would be best to be most restrictive on living persons. Editors have been exploiting loopholes, that then end up on pages of living persons, because the latest scripting tools don't know the difference between living and dead people.
William Allen Simpson (talk) 01:32, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Seems 100% obvious that BLPs (and even BIOs in general) should not be directly classified under categories where there is some subjective interpretation of the category term, like on Category:Racism. This does not rule out inclusion through subcats that are more narrowly defined. For example, we can properly label groups like the Ku Klux Klan somewhere under the racism category, and known members of the KKK like David Duke can be categorized under the KKK, which would ultimately have them under the Racism category branch. But in terms of having any BLP (and possibly BIO) names directly under these categories that should never be the case since we can't source category pages. There was a recentish discussion on this at one of the VP's in the last few months but I can't recall where now --Masem (t) 15:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You all may be interested in this discussion.--User:Namiba 12:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, WP:OPINIONCAT seems pertinent here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:51, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. I've added the bolded text above plus links to OPINIONCAT and WP:SUBJECTIVECAT. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:12, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned about aspects of this and have made a post here [1]. I agree that these labels are dangerous and have seen these labels misused many times. But an "anti-Roma" category seems appropriate for a politician who repeatedly and publicly refers to Roma as criminals, animals, trash, etc. Importantly, researchers may use these categories to navigate across far-right, xenophobic political personalities in Europe and elsewhere. -Darouet (talk) 18:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Is there possibly a way that we can frame such categories to be more about documentable behavior rather than subjective characterization? I can't speak to the Anti-Roma label, but say if we had someone classified as "anti-gay" because they have spoken out against gay rights/marriage, etc., could that be a category of "People that are against gay rights"? That's less of a label and now more about something that can be documented. I fear that may not be clean for every possible label, however. --Masem (t) 19:30, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great idea, Masem, and I'm going to think about how that would work, keeping in mind the far-right and neo-Nazi central and eastern European scene where I've been editing. -Darouet (talk) 19:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal (not a formal RfC) re need for citations outside article space

Executive Summary: Should we add text something like this:

Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s).


Extended text

So it's not clear to me exactly how negative statements should be handled on pages other than articles. For articles, there's definitely a requirement of "an inline citation to a reliable, published source", and technically BLP (says it) applies to non-article pages. So it doesn't explicitly make an exception saying that the proximate-inline-citation requirement does not cover non-article pages.

But... it's an annoyance to have to copy in the ref everytime you want to talk about a person's crimes or whatever. After all, we are usually talking about talk pages or edit summaries. The refs are right there in the article. And sometimes we are talking about the BLP Noticeboard, or other places like that, user talk pages for instance, where the refs are in an article but not proximate to the page.

And WP:BLP does allow "This link has has serious allegations about subject; should we summarize this someplace in the article?" Anyone can easily access the ref and suss what the serious allegations are. It's not in our words, but maybe it's pettifoggery to overly worry about that. And that's if there isn't ref'd material in the article already. If there is, wouldn't "Joe Smith is an embezzler. Should we expand on that a little?" (without a ref provided right there) be OK?

If this is broadly acceptable, we could have something like a pointer to a footnote at the end of the paragraph that begins "We must get the article right...", something like this: "Citations for contentious statements are not required on talk pages or edit summaries for that article, provided that proper citations exist in the article. And are also not required at other pages, provided that names of specific article(s) are given and proper citations exist in the article(s)."

For my part I oppose this, and I have like seven reasonably good reasons which I can list. But I see the other side too. But the main thing it's my guess that the great majority of you would support it. Which, if so, fine (I suppose). But let's make it official. It's not functional to have a rule that says one thing and the community does another thing. It's better if they're brought in line. Otherwise you have confusion and contention. Herostratus (talk) 17:26, 3 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"that does not mean that every discussion on talk pages requires inline references to support something that is already supported with references in the article". Yes it does.
Point being, you don't think so, I do. That proves that it does need to be clarified. Herostratus (talk) 06:49, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mnmh, that's not the intent, at all. The wording may be confusing. The intent is that, say there is a passage in the article "In 1987, Pruddle was convicted of statutory rape" and there's a good a source for that, in the article -- already existing in the article. So then, on the talk page, you want so say "Look, Pinckney Pruddle's a pedophile. Shouldn't we be emphasizing that more than the three games he played for the Dodgers?" or whatever. Fine. But do you need a ref right there in the talk page right after you say "...is a pedophile", which usually would mean checking the ref in the article yourself and then copy-pasting the cite from the article to the talk page?
An argument against that is "of course not, it's mindless extra work and pettifoggery, the ref is right there in the attached article." An argument for that is that you want to be conservative and careful here. Herostratus (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You say "which usually would mean checking the ref in the article yourself and then copy-pasting the cite from the article to the talk page" despite the fact that several experienced editors, including admins, have told you that this is not what the policy requires. Why are you still banging this drum? Mo Billings (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2021 (UTC) Striking comment by blocked sock, please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/World's Lamest Critic). --Blablubbs|talk 23:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I hear you. Let's leave some breathing space for other people to comment. Herostratus (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
1) Pages get separated. Non-article text is as visible and articles, is free to be copied and to move around on the internet same as articles. Sure if we've got a ref'd article that says "Joe Smith practices bestiality" and we have a good ref for that, somebody can copy it and remove or lose the ref. But that's not our fault; we did what we reasonably could. If it's taken from material where we didn't even provide a ref... well, that's different. (And pages that aren't talk pages for that article -- the BLP noticeboard, or someone's talk page, etc. -- are even more separated from the article, granted that a wikilink to the article is basically always provided... but then wikilinks only work when the material is in the Wikipedia.)
2) It's an extra step for editors to vet the refs. If a talk page thread has "Pruddle's an egregious embezzler and conman, why are we not putting that front and center?" you need to go to the article, find the material being referenced, find the ref(s), and access and vet them; you might have to look at a couple-few to find that one that actually supports the talk page statement. If they're proximate, you can skip the first parts. For stuff like this, you want making sure that there's an adequate source to be as easy as possible. And by not providing refs you're just offloading the work onto another editor.
3) And I mean what about the reader. Just plain ordinary readers can and do read talk pages. Are they supposed to try and figure out where the refs are and go digging for them. For anyodyne stuff, fine. For vilifications, not so fine maybe.
4) And it's not necessary, a lot of the time. It's so unnecessary. Usually. You don't have to say "Pruddle's an accused child rapist, let's put that in the lede", you can say "Let's put the accusation right in the lede" or something. See the difference? If it is necessary, then go do the extra 20 seconds of work to copy-paste the ref. If you want to save the effort, then maybe all of a sudden you'll realize that you don't need to throw around inflammatory smears as much as you thought (things that are true are still smears). The current rule (that you have to put refs proximate to the material) definitely serves as a governor on people's natural loosey-goosey inclinations. I don't mind that. Some of y'all need that it appears.
5) And I mean on that note, it's just not a slope we want to be going down. We want to find ways to be better and more careful people, not worse and more careless people. Any weakening of the intended protections provided by BLP should be seen in the context of the entire rule, considered quite carefully, and looked at with gimlet eye. "I'm lazy" may not be sufficient cause. Herostratus (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Couple other points (extended content)

Also, just want to point out that as far as the Foundation is concerned, there is basically no difference between talk pages and article pages. They not only allow but expect talk pages to be publish downstream same as article, I am pretty sire They could have put in place a different licensing scheme for talk page contributions. But they didn't.

I get that as an editor this seems counterintuitive, even silly: "Of course they're way way different, article pages are made differently with different standards, and are what people come to here to read; talk pages are much more informal have an entirely different purpose and (although technically available to anyone) are only read by by editors mostly". That makes sense. It's also not true, according to the Foundation, I don't think.

And I mean that matters. If we decide "nah, we can basically gossip about anyone as much as we like on non-article pages as long as there's a ref somewhere" this is not something the Foundation is not going to like. Well if they decide that we can't do that I'm sure everyone will be all upset. But entities that are unable to govern themselves eventually get governed by someone else.

I don't know how much this is in play. It's not something to just handwave off, maybe.

OK, and just for background, it's my understanding that the impetus for creating, and the spirit and overall intent, of WP:BLP, was actually twofold: to protect the project from embarrassment and lawsuits, yes, but also to discourage our bullying private citizens. IANAL and I have no idea if judges be all like "You called plaintiff a grifter, and then you say your proof for that was off somewhere in one of the 20 million other pages you have. That there was a... shuffle shuffle... "wikilink" where a person could supposedly go to and then start pawing thru a page to find the ref. Right?" or if that matters. But even if that's not a problem and we can get away with it, why do we want to. Allowing and encouraging editors to play fast and loose with slurs (even if true) is not a good direction to go in. When editing the Wikipedia it's best to keep the beast restrained, I think. Herostratus (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can talk all you want. Just take the 20 seconds to keep the vilification and the ref for it proximate. If you don't have time to do that, maybe work on articles about railroads or whatever.
Ugh, this is so dysfunctional. What I'm getting from a couple people like this is:
SOME PEOPLE: You need a proximate ref for every vilification. The text implies this altho its not completely clear, but if you interpret the rule broadly and in its spirit ("do the least harm you can commensurate with our encyclopedic mission") it does, and there's like six reasons above to do that.
OTHER PEOPLE: No. You're wrong. You're just interpreting the text wrong.
SOME PEOPLE: Maybe we are. If so, and most people think that, let's add this clarifying note so we're all on the same page.
OTHER PEOPLE: No. All we need is for everyone to be like us, and interpret things as we do. We're not going to cater to people who bullheadedly refuse to think like us.
ME: ... Herostratus (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Like, what is a specific reason to not add the note and just keep it vague? Herostratus (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: Hey speaking of slippery slopes, just saw a thread where an obscure private person (marginally notable, disputed whether he rates an article, and is not engaged in politics or anything like that) was repeatedly described as a pedophile, with details regarding ages of boys and so forth, with no ref whatsoever existing anywhere in the Wikipedia. (There were, briefly, refs in the article -- the Daily Mail and the Sun -- but they were deleted (of course). They are in the article history. But even to the extent they briefly existed on the Wikipedia, the Daily Mail is considered useless and the Sun pretty much so, particularly for vilifying private citizens.)

Well boy howdy. Slip sliding away. I might report this, but why bother? I don't expect to get anywhere. At least one admin was there in thread and she didn't seem to mind. So...

I'm curious whether the next step will be "[private person I dislike] is a pedophile and embezzler who murdered his own parents; everybody knows this, but there aren't any refs. How should we handle this?" Would this be ignored? I expect so. We'll suppose we'll find out sooner or later. Herostratus (talk) 09:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know exactly what threads (there were multiple) that you were talking about, and that's a situation covered by BLPTALK - in that while DM/Sun wouldn't be used for sourcing (and there was one user pushing for those hard), talking about the charges/conviction that were only sourcable to those two sources and why we couldn't use them is something very much covered by BLPTALK. It is not like "I have no sources for this person at all, not even deprecated ones, but this person should be labeled a pedophile", which would be a problem. --Masem (t) 13:31, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why 115 years for BDP?

Just want to ask why 115 was set as the amount of years that someone can be presumed dead by their DOB? According to https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy the average global life expectancy is 72.6 years. Of course this number is higher if you were to list each countries individual average life expectancies. Which according to https://www.farandwide.com/s/countries-live-longest-2b1e1e8a7f3045ab is Monaco with an average national life expectancy of 89.4 years. If anyone knows why 115 was set then please reply to this. Thanks. Slender (talk) 16:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The last discussion was Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 28#Maximum age of living persons in 2010. Then, before the change, it was at 123 (the maximum recorded age of a human being), but it was pushed down to 115 to be a bit more practical. We clearly have to assume well-beyond average life expectancy but we should not go beyond the handful of oldest recorded ages. --Masem (t) 16:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall, the "oldest living American" at the time died about a week ago around the age of 115. The next one behind them is nearly the same age. There will always be someone around that age waiting to die. The average life expectancy is, of course, an average. Half of the people die younger than that, but half live longer, and among those with the best combination of luck and medical care, reaching the 110s is quite reasonable. BD2412 T 17:26, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify: that is 100% not what "average" means. That's what a median life expectancy value would indicate. —Joeyconnick (talk) 03:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, tomato, tomato. BD2412 T 03:54, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At age 105 and beyond the odds of living another year are 50%. For women the odds of making 110 are 1 in 50,000. [2] I think we are very safe to assume 115 as a maximum lifespan, unless shown otherwise. There will be a handful of exceptions. These exceptions are so rare and so famous that we will know about them. Jehochman Talk 18:24, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tweets announcing "Happy birthday to me! I'm 21 today!"

CLOSING
There is consensus that a verified social media account of a non-minor article subject saying about themselves something along the lines of "today is my 50th birthday" falls within WP:ABOUTSELF. —valereee (talk) 13:32, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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.


Have we ever confirmed yes or no whether this represents a good enough self-source for BLP DOB? It looks like the question may have been asked several times and perhaps not settled? There's been ongoing discussion at Talk:James Charles (Internet personality) about whether this is sufficient proof that the subject is okay with their full dob being published. —valereee (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the account is verified, and it is not from a minor, I would argue that's fair to use. Obviously, we should be careful to make sure its not being sarcastic in nature "Today must be my birthday" showing like getting two or three parking tickets in a row in a picture. --Masem (t) 15:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It seems a perfect opportunity to knock a couple of years off (or vice versa) one's age and have it accepted by Wikipedia. ——Serial 15:31, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Masem, if it can be supported by reliable sources to remove the risk of fabrication that SN has pointed out. So, for example, an article about him in 2020 saying "20 year old James" (which gives a possible YOB of 1999 or 2000), and then his tweet confirming exact date. GiantSnowman 15:33, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some of the sources gathered. The independent sources are mostly reporting on birthday claims Charles made himself, and they're mostly in the form of "Charles turned ## on May 23". He has also posted two Tweets that quote or screenshot his Wikipedia article with the full birthdate (1, 2).
  • Independent sources:
  1. Teen Vogue: "James, who turned 20 on Thursday, May 23, began the video compilation by thanking his fans for their birthday wishes"
  2. Insider: "One of YouTube's biggest beauty gurus, James Charles, turned 21-years-old on May 23 – and to celebrate his birthday, he filmed himself getting drunk for the first time ever."
  3. Allure: "Charles, who turned 20 on Thursday, May 23, began the video compilation by thanking his fans for their birthday wishes."
  • Sources linked to subject (not exhaustive):
  1. Twitter Bio: "Born May 23"
  2. Tweet (May 23, 2020): "21"
  3. Tweet (July 5, 2017): "James Charles Dickinson (born May 23, 1999), known professionally as James Charles, is an American Internet personality and model. On Octobe" (Note: This is intro from Wikipedia article at the time)
  4. Instagram (May 23, 2021): "just wanted to say hello and thank you so so much for the birthday wishes and love, it means a lot 👋🏼💘"
  5. Instagram (May 23, 2020): "21 YEARS OLD 🤯💞 thank you all so much for all of the birthday wishes!! it’s insane what we’ve accomplished together as a family over the past few years... I love you all eternally 🌎✨"
  6. Instagram (May 23, 2019): "taking some business calls & washing away my teenage years 💧🧼💕 thank u all so much for the birthday wishes today 🥺 I’m not just a kid with some blending brushes anymore... I’m officially 20 years old!? growing up on social media has been such a strange experience - it’s amazing but also so scary to be a role model. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but being able to learn and grow along with you guys has made me such a strong person and I look forward to doing it more and more as the years go by. thank you for the love and support through everything. ily"
  7. Youtube: "Today, the day that I'm filming this, is May 23rd, and if you know me, it is my birthday, and not only is it my birthday, okay, it's my 21st birthday, which, obviously, is the legal drinking age here in America."
POLITANVM talk 15:41, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Serial Number 54129, to your comment about potentially fudging his age, the NYT covered him in October 2016 saying he was 17, and in April 2021 saying he was 21. Both of those line up with a May 1999 birthday, so the question is really about whether we can say the specific date. POLITANVM talk 15:51, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Serial Number 54129, oh, interesting point. There's been discussion somewhere recently re: La La Anthony where she/her assistant were asking that her dob be corrected. We just removed it altogether. —valereee (talk) 18:13, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly if there's conflicting information from other RSes - or plain obvious lies (some older person well past their 50s claiming they're 18) - that we should ignore then (tweets should always be considered lower-quality than most other BLP-appropriate RSes). But in absence of anything to contest that information, tweets like this are going to often be used by our RSes to established birth dates for celebs, and this should be fine for us. --Masem (t) 18:22, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, that's a reasonable point. My concern was primarily that so many people seem to think of tweets as sort of ephemeral. For minors, definitely I think we shouldn't use tweets. But maybe once someone's turned (whatever age is legally an adult where they are) and no other source is disputing the assertion, we should accept tweets as a self-source for the assertion of dob? —valereee (talk) 18:31, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Masem on the general and specific (how suspicious should we be) case. I think WP:ABOUTSELF supports this, and that stating ones age is not by default an "exceptional claim", even if the person is an actor. Noting that tweets like "Today is my birthday!" or "Thanks for all the birthday congrats!" doesn't give a full DOB. The first gives a date, but IMO it's weird to include date without year. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it makes sense to allow a verified tweet to be used to show that an article subject is fine with their birth date being made public. If there is a reason to doubt the veracity of the tweet (such as conflicting information from another source or context suggesting it is sarcastic), then that could be resolved in local talk page discussions. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:06, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with what appears to be the developing consensus that tweet-as-DOB is supported by WP:ABOUTSELF. I also concur that you should at least sanity-check it, and that not every notable person is an RS for their age, but broadly speaking I think this is an acceptable use. Vaticidalprophet 03:03, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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.

What about Tom Convery?

Is Tom Convery notably he is the main star of the Netflix show Sweet Tooth? Dwanyewest (talk) 03:31, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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