User talk:The Wordsmith/BLP sourcing

Prepare to sign this

Anybody who endorses my opinion at the RFC may be prepared to sign this. Hut 8.5 10:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• The main task is to go through Category:All unreferenced BLPs, and to expand the articles with sources or nominate them for deletion as appropriate. Fences&Windows 14:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• Editors looking to expand (or delete if necessary) unsourced BLPs may also wish to scan the pages that have made it through the new pages patrol, see here. You can also stop any unsourced or poorly BLPs making it past the new pages patrol without improvements by helping with the backlog. Fences&Windows 14:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• Admins who are deleting unsourced BLPs on sight include Scott MacDonald and Rdm2376. Their deletion logs are here and here. Fences&Windows 14:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• I've saved the current contents of Category:All unreferenced BLPs to my computer, so if any more articles are deleted then we at least know what the titles were. I'll put it in my userspace later. Hut 8.5 14:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. Fences&Windows 15:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Now up at User:Hut 8.5/Unreferenced BLPs. Feel free to link to that page from anywhere you like. Hut 8.5 16:29, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• Rather than doing something useful, I've been pissing around using my rudimentary image manipulation skills to create an icon for BLP sourcing activities. Any good? Fences&Windows 15:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It's grand. I like the beard. We should all be required to wear one.

When de-unreffing (for want of a better term) old BLPs, I've been using an edit summary that links to The Wordsmith's page:

Add refs to previously unsourced biography of a living person. You can help!

The disambiguation wikiproject does something similar and I believe it's rather good at attracting the attention of interested editors. Gonzonoir (talk) 15:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Userbox if anyone wants to use it: User:Fences and windows/Userboxes/BLP rescue. Fences&Windows 16:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• User:Apoc2400/Deletion list lists some of the articles summarily deleted by admins. Fences&Windows 01:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Best practice

Please don't just add one source: source the article and expand it as well as you can (ideally leaving little if no unsourced content), so that we leave behind articles with substantial rather than cosmetic improvements. Fences&Windows 21:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you don't have time to fully source an article (or can't access the necessary sources), another option to consider is sourcing part of it and stubbing the remainder with {{BLP unverified}}.--Father Goose (talk) 00:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but have we come so far that it's an "all or nothing" when it comes to sources? that even harmless, uncontentions material is removed it if is not directly sourced? Have we not gone a smidge overboard here?  MPJ -DK  02:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Use a judgment call as to whether using the template is worthwhile. What I'm starting to understand is that it's especially important to get personal information right about any living subjects. Take a look, for instance, at the case of Emilie Autumn, who was reverted when she tried to correct her own bio.[1] She didn't go about fixing it the right way, but she can't be expected to understand what our "right way" is. I can see how reading untrue personal details about myself would be particularly upsetting.

I side with you in thinking that purging all information in a fit of BLP paranoia is wrong. But probating unsourced information about the person themselves (as opposed to info about their career or whatever it is that has made them notable) is probably for the best. My comment about "stubbing the remainder" was errant, but there are times when it's probably wise to stub at least part of it. Using {{BLP unverified}} makes it easier to circle back and restore the probated info at a later time.--Father Goose (talk) 09:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright I see your point there, paying attention to actual personal information I can understand.  MPJ -DK  09:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

We have company

Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles is also working on this area in general. Fences&Windows 21:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

500?

I've signed on to this and have already been working on BLP sourcing, but the enjoinder that one commit to 500 seems to me to be: A) Quite unrealistic, most who have signed on have said they probably cannot do that; B) Simply not necessary or desirable, since for a project like this we would want as many people as possible to offer their help, even if they can only work on a dozen or so articles in the weeks ahead. I think the language about committing to 500 should be removed, in part because more people are likely to sign-on if the "expectations" are more realistic. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd be willing to remove it if that's what people want. Notice as well that I never set a time frame, so if somebody sources 500 articles over the next year or more, that's still alright. The original thought behind it was that people were whining that nobody was interested in sourcing large numbers or articles, so I set out to prove them wrong. 500 was an arbitrary BIGNUM that I pulled out of my arse. The Wordsmith^Communicate 21:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I see, that makes sense in terms of why you put it there (I guess that's what was confusing me). It's up to you as to what you do obviously, and it is true that a number of people have signed on even if they don't think they'll get up to 500 articles. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Defying my expectations, a few people have done 100 or even 200 already. But I suspect that's the low-hanging fruit, such as athlete bios that need little more than a link to a stats page. That's still great, though -- a save is a save.--Father Goose (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Category talk:Unreferenced BLPs from February 2007

Also posted at User:Ikip/Discussion about creation of possible Wikiproject:New Users and BLPs

I have begun scraping all of the remaining 46,000 article names and matching them against google hits.

As you can see, there are a number of problems with my list now, which need to be ironed out before I continue.

I like this list (when completed and accurate) because it allows the editor to quickly, roughly, assess which articles are probably the most notable so the low hanging fruit, can be taken care of quickly. Ikip 05:47, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Doing the easy stuff first, however, will give a false impression of how quickly we can work through the backlog, and the "delete slowly" proposals (like Jehochman's) will start going faster than we can deal with the harder cases. On the other hand, while we're busy fixing things and they're busy delivering ultimatums, maybe they'll eventually notice that we're taking care of the problem in a reasonable way and back off. Chyeah, right.--Father Goose (talk) 08:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject created

Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons now exists, though it is still under construction. Hut 8.5 17:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought something as important as dealing with the BLP backlog should be a Wikipedia page owned by all, rather than in userspace (but kudos to The Wordsmith for getting this one going!). Feel free to take over, edit, point to, modify, move, rename or mangle as appropriate; the important thing is getting the bios referenced, all else is tools to achieve that. --Alvestrand (talk) 17:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

A big thank you

Since fixing up unreferenced BLPs isn't really my cup of tea, I just wanted to say thank you for the valuable work you are committed to doing here. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 07:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

WP:CONTEST

Maybe these two projects can work together or be combined? Okip 04:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)