Wikipedia talk:Sensitive wildlife locations

RfC: Comments requested on this proposed guideline

This proposal has been introduced by user Jimi 66. My real name is James Blake. I am not a professional conservationist or biologist, or an employee of any conservation body; I am a librarian based in London with a deep interest in conservation matters.

In particular, my knowledge of both the exact threats faced by wildlife and the thinking of conservationists is limited to the situation in Britain, and I would welcome an international perspective.

This is the first time I have proposed a guideline or policy, or contributed to a discussion about any proposals. As such, I also welcome comments on how to bring this proposal to attention of interested members of the Wikipedia community, how to aid the process of reaching a decision about this proposal, how to judge if and when sufficient consensus has been reached - and indeed anything else you think I need to about contributing to discussions about Wikipedia policies and guidelines.Jimi 66 (talk) 11:23, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not think this is a good idea. Firstly, remember that Wikipedia is not censored. Secondly, it does not seem this would be effective, as Snowmanradio pointed out at WT:BIRD. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's Snowmanradio's comment:

Similarly, I guess that sites can not be protected, if few people know where the they are. I doubt that this proposed guideline will do what is intended, because I doubt that this will stop miscreants. Everything on the wiki has to be sourced and so there should be no original information on the wiki. At first inspection this proposed guideline does not sit will with "The wiki is not censored". Will someone else come up with a reason for another wiki guideline saying that we should not write anything to do with animal hunting, shooting, or illegally taking creatures from the wild? Snowman (talk) 14:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I can understand the reasoning behind this proposal, but I think it's is an unnecessary guideline, and therefore a bad idea (see WP:CREEP). If conservation authorities have successfully kept the location of a rare species out of published reliable sources, and it ends up on here through word-of-mouth, we can easily remove it by reference to existing policies and guidelines e.g. WP:VERIFIABILITY. If a location is in the public domain, I do not believe it's our role to decide whether it should be. James, you need to do more to convince me that this proposed guideline adds anything of value. SP-KP (talk) 17:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, all. Some responses:

It's not exactly true that Wikipedia is not censored. According to Biographies of living persons, for instance, people's private addresses should not be included on WP. That policy seems to me a precedent - though not an exact precedent - for this proposal.

This also applies to much wildlife information. For example, before publication on WP, the most public place giving the location of the Lady's-slipper Orchid was a very obscure, apparently privately distributed book - so obscure it is marginal whether it can be described as being 'in the public domain' at all. Placing this information on Wikipedia makes it vastly more visible than before.

The bodies responsible for conserving rare species and preventing wildlife crime - i.e. conservation bodies and the police - do on the whole believe that even if information of this kind has been made public or semi-public, limiting its further dissemination does help to protect the organisms concerned. This is presumably why the police approached WP sometime ago about the inclusion of location details for the Lady's-slipper. I don't have details of this interaction, but it's mentioned on the location page. In judging whether this guideline would be likely to help protect any vulnerable wildlife, I think we should look to the opinions of the relevant professionals. In fact, I drafted this proposal after email discussions with employees of wide range of conservation bodies. There was almost complete consensus among these organisations.

I did hesitate about bringing forward a guideline which applies only to a limited subject area on WP and would probably need to be invoked in rather rare cases. However in this matter I would like to see WP follow the practices which are pretty much universal among professional conservationists - at least in the UK, the only country I have detailed knowledge of - and a new guideline does seem necessary to do that.Jimi 66 (talk) 12:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that firstly, this guideline is too specific and is not something that will be used often; secondly, it seems it would be a rather restrictive rule; thirdly, in the example given (of that European lady's-slipper) and for most if not all articles I find it very important that distribution and habitat information be included. If a plant is found only in one spot, more so. So I feel the comparison with addresses is irrelevant. Also, remember that Wikipedia's standard for information is that it be found in reliable sources, so a privately distributed book probably makes a statement verifiable, wheras personal experience or word-of moth is not. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 14:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur with the general opinion that verifiability standards render this suggestion moot. In most instances if the location of a rare species is readily verifiable to the standards we require then the cat is already out of the bag anyway. If the locationis only posted in some topic forum or by word of mouth it can be removed quickly for being unverified. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all for the further comments. Sabine's Sunbird's comments have made me realise that yes, the number of instances this guideline would be needed to cover would be pretty small. Nevertheless, there are some few, doubtless unusual, occasions in which a location has been given in a source that is verifiable, but has still not been widely known. This orchid provides a case in point: the book Wikipedia references has always been little-known and hard to get hold of, and thus contributed little to wider knowledge of the orchid's whereabouts. As far as I am aware, republishing this information on Wikipedia represented a huge and unprecedented increase in the visibility of this information. On the talk page for the location, user Eden black, a member of the team looking after this plant reported a noticeable increase in people attempting to find the plant in 2006, coinciding I think with publication of this information on Wikipedia. Some of these people, when questioned, apparently gave Wikipedia as their source.

These cases - there has been a verifiable source for a sensitive wildlife location, but an extremely obscure one - are not very common. Yet it seems clear to me that nevertheless Wikipedia needs some way of dealing with problems caused by them. If a new guideline is not an appropriate way to doing this, are there any alternatives? I'd welcome suggestions here.

I agree with Innotata that habitat and distribution information is vital for any article about an organism. However I disagree that knowing the location of a single plant or animal is that important. When a species is that rare, I think biologists would agree that in many, perhaps most, cases the last place it hangs on is to a large extent due to chance. Lady's Slipper survived in this one wood, rather than a whole range of other limestone woods in Yorkshire and Lancashire, largely because plant collectors just happened to miss it there. The information that would be highly relevant and useful in the article would be far more detail about past pattersn of distribution and habitat use, and patterns of decline.Jimi 66 (talk) 21:03, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a policy of occasional exceptions to rules. It seems to me that there could be grounds for an exception in those rare cases where verifiable information is nonetheless not widely known, and making it known more widely could lead to bad consequences. The lady's slipper might have been such a case, though the beans are now spilled. If the experts in a field are largely keeping quiet about something (such as the location of a rare and collectible species), that would strengthen the argument that we should too.

Unlike Innotata, I'd have no problem with "In Britain it was formerly a reasonably widespread plant across northern England. By the late 20th century, it had declined to just a single plant, discovered in 1933 and still alive in 2003. A reintroduction program has led to a population of hundreds of plants as of 2003.[2]" (That's an edit of what's at Cypripedium calceolus now.) If there's a real risk that collection will extirpate the British population, I don't see that any advantage of giving the exact site makes up for it.

On the other hand, has any problem resulted from disclosing the site of this lady's slipper? More visitors are okay as long as they're not collecting it and not straining conservationists' resources. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not aware of any actual problems occurring at this site, although the chance of any new seedlings surviving must be lessened by the number of people walking around - and there is a current programme of introducing seedlings there. Rare orchids at many other sites have been either accidentally trampled until dead or removed - I know of examples in the last few years from Lancashire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Norfolk, and i am sure there are quite a few more. There are also many recorded examples of rare breeding birds either having their eggs stolen, or being disturbed by careless birdwatchers to the point where they deserted their nests. In at least some of these cases, a particular piece of unwise publicity is known to have been to blame, So far WP has not been implicated in any of these losses: I'd like to keep it that way.Jimi 66 (talk) 18:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I like this proposal. We already enshrine a presumption in favor of privacy for living people in policy, and this would extend it to other living creatures, at least at the level of vulnerable species or populations. I used to be strongly against any censorship of Wikipedia content, but let's be realistic. Wikipedia is censored; the question is just where to draw the line. We do not have to publish information just because it appears in reliable sources. Indeed, we choose not to in some cases. (See much of WP:BLP.) We could equally choose not to republish details of vulnerable organisms, where this seems likely to put them at further risk. Wikipedia is much more widely available than most reliable sources, and we need to take this into account when deciding what we should do. So I don't find the argument that this guideline would be moot convincing. And it does not preclude describing the range of the organism in broad terms, which would be all that most readers require. (It's analogous to saying "Celebrity A lives in Los Angeles", instead of "Celebrity A lives at 123 1st Street.") Should we add something to make this explicit? -- Avenue (talk) 11:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

So far I've been trying to focus my comments in opposition to this project in terms of precedent. Now I would like to make it clear that I, for one, am strongly opposed to this proposal in both its nature and substance. I think that if an organism is globally found only in a single locality or a few, it should be of greatest importance to clearly state what and where these places are, if possible. Only this would properly explain its rarity. I also find this would be unnecessary and restrictive. In any case there are very few cases where this would apply outside of plants, and it would certainly not apply to birds, since there are no birds of such restricted global ranges that such a guideline would be of any application. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

A few birds in New Zealand alone have recently been restricted to a single offshore island: the Black Robin, Stitchbird, and the North and South Island Tieke subspecies come to mind. I'd be surprised if there are no current examples elsewhere. I know of snails with very limited identified ranges (e.g. one hillside) in NZ. This is not just about plants.

I don't see why it should be necessary to identify precisely where an organism can be found to convey its rarity. We can explain that it is only found on one island (say) without specifying which one. -- Avenue (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Melomys rubicola, an Australian rodent, is only found one very small island. Ucucha 20:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Another issue is that while the stated purpose of this policy might well be to exclude mention of only the very rarest and most threatened species, I can see how it could be misused to justify removal of even relatively harmless information. As we saw from Eden Black's contributions to the Lady's Slipper discussions, the people involved in protecting rare species can get very emotional and protective of 'their' plants/birds etc. and the level of emotion (and the desire to keep information secret) is not necessarily well correlated with the degree of threat or rarity (I remember once being asked by a member of the public how he could ensure that he could get protection for the colony of Common Spotted Orchids he had just 'discovered', without anyone else finding out about them...) If a consensus emerges for a policy on this subject, we'd need to think very carefully about how to ensure it's only used when absolutely necessary. SP-KP (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support - a worthwhile idea. --Blargh29 (talk) 06:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• comment. Precise geodata for places with high-res public sat maps, as is the case of UK, is clearly unacceptable. But relying on others' opinion for setting a higher threshold (just how high? county or country or?) brings in more firewood for wikidramas. Too high "level of emotion" there in RL (thank you SP-KP for your excruciatingly careful formula). Setting the threshold and use of oversight (when necessary) should remain case-by-case decisions. I am also concerned with a slippery slope potential - same sort of censorship may apply to any vulnerable heritage. Abbey ruins on a hill? Oversight it, or those bloody tourists ... NVO (talk) 08:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for very same reasons as WP:IHC and censoring the Rorschach blots. We're an encyclopedia, our mission is to convey knowledge. What is done with that knowledge is beyond our concern, control, and ability to accurately predict. See also On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives by Kant. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose having an extra policy about this. If the locations feature in multiple reliable sources, there's no good reason to censor them here. If the locations aren't featured in reliable sources, they can be removed as failing verifiability, not by an extra censorship rule. —Кузьма^討論 12:24, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• I think we could have a guideline about "widely published". If the location of a plant is widely published, then we should not censor it. On the other hand if it is only mentioned in one obscure book somewhere, then we should not spread it either. This is similar to how sensitive information of a person should not be repeated here if it is generally withheld, but published in just one newspaper article. We can still have a more general location of course. --Apoc2400 (talk) 12:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Very strong oppose, now it is coming to a sort of poll, for reasons given above. If this guideline has support, I for one will not follow it. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:13, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Extremely strong oppose WP:CREEP and WP:NOTCENSORED come to mind. This also seems the first step down a slippery slope by which all sorts of things could potentially be removed on moral-scare grounds. Besides, it's plainly unnecessary anyway: if the location of a rare plant hasn't been covered by reliable sources, it can be removed per WP:V, and if it has been covered by reliable sources then the cat is firmly out of the bag and we have neither the ability nor responsibility to undo it. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, vehemently. We've been through a similar kerfluffle involving the Rorschach ink blots, and the resulting consensus was strongly in favor of publishing the images of the ink blots over claims that their revelation damaged the value of the test and could be used for various nefarious purposes. And besides, as noted above, if this information is referenceable in sources, the secret is already out. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose for reasons described in my contributions above (although I may change my mind if good solutions can be found for the issues raised). SP-KP (talk) 18:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andrew Lenahan.  Sandstein  19:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Weak oppose, although I think this poll is premature. NVO and SP-KP make good points above. The Lady's-slipper orchid case is interesting but ultimately unconvincing because the species is widespread outside Britain. But I don't think we've tried hard enough to find better examples. And while our policy requiring sources should mitigate the risks we pose, I'm not convinced it completely avoids them. I oppose per WP:CREEP, but only weakly because I don't think the issue has been researched and discussed thoroughly enough. I might change my !vote if better examples are found. -- Avenue (talk) 20:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'm sure that why the proposer used it as the example. Abductive (reasoning) 21:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Some comments about how to ensure a policy such as this was only used when necessary:

firstly, presume that publicity is OK: an editor who wishes to remove a piece of information has to convince others of his/her case

secondly, don't base decisions on the opinions of individual biologists or conservationists, who, as pointed out, may be over-protective or over-emotional, but on the policies of established, reputable conservation bodies who are accepted as having responsbility for the conservation of the organism concerned. In the UK at least, I'd say it is very easy to establish which bodies are established and reputable, which bodies are concerned with which species and populations, and what their policy is. For instance, there are a number of botanical and conservation organisations which have an interest in the Lady's-slipper, and I think I am right in saying that none of them has ever given a more detailed location for the plant in question than 'a wood in West Yorkshire'.

Of course, editors should also be free to make the argument that in an individual cases there is a good reason for ignoring the policies of such organisations.Jimi 66 (talk) 21:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment The information can be removed by applying the WP:PSTS policy. If a piece of information is found only in primary sources, it can and should be removed. If it is found in secondary sources then the cat is out of the bag. Abductive (reasoning) 21:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Strong oppose per Andrew Lenahan. This is a terrible idea. Knowledge that Wikipedia is regularly being censored for political purposes would destroy the credibility of the encyclopedia. Clear and immediate danger to living people or the need to obey the law is one thing - this is something else entirely. Ray^Talk 22:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• Question If this proposal is about plants, why is it entitled "wildlife", since we normally use that word to mean "wild animals"? I understand the points of the nominator, but I think this proposal is going against the goal of Wikipedia not being censored. Nyttend (talk) 23:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Wildlife, according to our article, means both plants and animals, as well as other organisms; this article also covers more than just plants. Ucucha 23:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
• WTF? Is this serious? This is nuts... totally Opposed
  — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 00:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose per Ray above. If the information in our articles is subject to censorship or filtering based on such-and-such a thing being a really great idea, then - even if everyone agrees it is a really great idea - we would soon cease to be an encyclopedia. — Gavia immer (talk) 03:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

An observation: I wonder if the reason this proposal is attracting so much opposition is because it is so directly in conflict with Wikipedia's core purpose? The reason behind Wikipedia is to bring reliable knowledge freely to as wide an audience as possible, instead of that knowledge being available to just a privileged few. In other words, the fact that Colin Twist's book is so difficult to get hold of is what makes the information in it such a good candidate for inclusion here. Just a thought. SP-KP (talk) 09:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is the sum of reliably sourced human knowledge. If a reliable source has given the location of a plant, then we do not operate a censorship policy, we provide the information. If the source is not reliable then existing guidelines and policies are sufficient to have that information removed. However, if there are justifiable concerns about potential damage to the plant through people viewing the page history then a request may be made via Wikipedia:Oversight to have the information removed. If it is felt that it would be helpful to have an appropriate clause added to Wikipedia:Oversight, then that should be brought up on Wikipedia talk:Oversight. I would support such a clause being added. SilkTork *^YES! 11:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Especially considering you just invoked it even though it doesn't exist yet... --Cybercobra (talk) 16:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• Notwithstanding WP not being censored, I support common sense restriction on what sort of information we keep. We don't keep instructions on how to crack safes either. It is good citizenship not to reprint this stuff. Even if we by rights "can", we shouldn't. Maybe this policy isn't the way to do it, exactly, but the spirit... we should embrace. ++Lar: t/c 22:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone is arguing that we should just include this sort of information because we can, are they? I think you need to give people a bit more credit - I'm sure that at least some of the contributors to this discussion are making intelligent judgments about the relative merits of the disseminating versus witholding the information. One person's 'good citizenship' is another person's overcautiousness, so let's discuss this on merits rather than just resorting to assertions. You're right that we don't have articles with instructions on safe-cracking, but surely that's because we don't have any "how-to" articles. If there were reliable sources which discussed safe-cracking methodologies, I'm sure that, between us, we'd have the ability to write an encyclopaedic article on the subject, without actually including the instructions. Likewise, while many contributors above support inclusion of the site information, I'm guessing that none of them woudld support an article which says "make sure you take some wirecutters and some chloroform along when you visit the Orchid site in West Yorkshire". Good things, analogies, at least they are when used correctly :-) SP-KP (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. My concern about this is that the sourcing policy is WP:V, which calls for reliable sources. If the location of, say, a rare orchid is included in a reliable source, I don't see how we could cordon it off and say it can't appear. I wouldn't mind a guideline that called for high-quality reliable sources for material like that, or that made extra clear that self-published sources were not allowed, but to say we couldn't publish it even if multiple academics or high-quality newspapers did -- that is problematic. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 19:52, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment - I think that this could be made into a useful essay outlining best practice on this subject. That would give people a rationale for not including this info if it has the potential to be damaging, and something to which we could direct new editors. The potential exists to elevate an essay to a guideline, if it comes to be common usage. Guettarda (talk) 22:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

• I've redrafted the proposed guideline to give a clearer idea of the particular circumstances in which I think it might sensibly be used. Comments please! One thing I've realised is that in the case of information being in the public domain, I don't think it's simply a case of a cat being in or out of a bag - for instance there is a huge difference between publication in a very obscure, privately-distributed book on the one hand, and one of the web's most-visited sites on the other. I'd also like to comment that I don't think adoption of this guideline would mean WP was no longer a proper encyclopedia, or was likely to lose credibility. All encyclopedias and serious wildlife reference books I am aware of follow guidelines like these: every major work on British orchids, for instance, deliberately refrains from publishing location details for some species and populations. If Wikipedia does refrain from reprinting details of a particular wildlife locations, I think it would often be appropriate to mention why. For instance the secrecy surrounding the location of a famous orchid, the bodies that came to that decision and their reasons, and any public controversy since, would all be legitimate and valuable parts of the article about the plant. While details of the location would be suppressed, debate about the issue of secrecy would be promoted.Jimi 66 (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Marked as failed

I've marked the current proposal as {{failed}}--opposition here has been pretty overwhelming. Just because the proposal in its current state is untenable, however, does not mean that there might not still be worthwhile discussion leading to an essay or a similar outcome. Jclemens (talk) 01:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

It does seem to have failed, but I think some sort of recasting this as an essay, as some suggest above, might be a worthy endeavour. ++Lar: t/c 23:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

{{Failed}} was added less than 5 hours after Jimi 66 tightened the requirements for this proposal to be invoked, in response to concerns raised at this talk page (rewrite, failed). There was no discussion here subsequent to Jimi's rewrite. It is misleading to anyone viewing this proposal to have {{failed}} appear on a version that not only was not discussed, but was specifically modified in light of past discussion. Accordingly I've replaced {{failed}} with a custom banner ([1]), and added Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals manually (the category is automatically added by {{failed}}). Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

A decade later, nothing has changed. The {{Failed}} template now provides instructions about how to re-approach an old proposal. The custom notice no longer serves a purpose, other than to imply post-2010 development that did not happen at all, so I have reverted to the standard {{Failed}}, as normal maintenance.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:00, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thread on revision deletion

If you have this page on your watchlist, you may be interested in Wikipedia_talk:Revision_deletion#Environmentally_sensitive_locations. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:38, 1 January 2011 (UTC)