User:Collect/BLP

WP:BLP, WP:BLPCAT, WP:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines This essay represents actual posts and indicates the necessity for editors to fully enforce the policy WP:BLP..

A living person may be categorized and identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) only if they themselves publicly identify as such.

Note: TMZ has been the subject of a number of noticeboard discussions:

1. BLP/N: If including such a claim, TMZ should certainly NOT be used as a reference.
2. We should not be using TMZ as a BLP source, especially for information like this. I have removed it from the article and asked for indefinite pending changes protection
3. Obviously the authentic US Magazine and TMZ are marginal sources at best (although IMO TMZ has proven itself reliable for deaths),
4. Not in the least. TMZ is never a reliable source for anything
5. Doesn't matter what consensus is: TMZ is not a reliable source for negative or unflattering content in a BLP and shouldn't be cited even for neutral content. Moreover, TMZ text cited to support neutral text on en.Wikipedia may have negative or unflattering content: Citing such text to lead readers to that kind of content is also a violation of BLP.
6. What would be the procedure to get TMZ on a blacklist? i cannot think of any situation other than the TMZ article where it would be an appropriate link anywhere in wikipedia
7. The text is pathetic gossip that belongs nowhere on Wikipedia, and particularly nowhere near a BLP—the subject declined to do something, and Wikipedia should not be used to make a smear out of the non-incident (based on TMZ)
8. RS/N: I wont bore you all with the further progression, but my point is that it seems obvious to me that TMZ is copying Wikipedia. I wasn't sure if this was common knowledge and wanted to alert people that these profiles on TMZ are not reliable sources

And in multiple places it is noted that TMZ uses Wikipedia as its "source" for celebrity biographies. Licensed, of course. But not something we should ignore. Current trend on BLP/N is don't use TMZ for biographies or for contentious claims proving the validity of this essay.

Sometimes I wander about in WP -- and sometimes I seem to strike gold. In one old BLP (dates etc. and names are mainly hashed up) one can see precisely why the rigid enforcement of BLP and all BLP-connected articles is essential. How better than to use the posts of one editor, long gone. From Notepad -- some stress is added, and most of the comments are removed. This demonstrates a concerted effort by a departed editor to insert clearly scurrilous material into a BLP. Ooops -- the article has all the gay stuff in it now. One very big argument for genuine enforcement of BLP standards.

"Confessions why an editor seeks to add contentious and poorly sourced material to a BLP"

Addendum I had hoped all the nonsense listed below was done with -- but I guess not. Now I found a current editor who is quoted here:

It's a real exposé, in the classic sense. If the report were bogus, X would have sued TMZ loooong ago. Excluding it is simply censorship, plain and simple.

So he's allowed to have a family and we are not allowed to add that fact to the encyclopedia because he would prefer people not to know about it? Is that your position?

Until I came along and started editing the page, which was virtually static and had been for ages, it was little more than a third-rate hagiography. Wikipedia is not censored, and the data I am adding is allowable. The lawsuits are notable and dealt with briefly. The data is not "sensationalistic".

My motivations are immaterial, but if you have to know, I delight in adding frank and full details of misbehaviours to pages on so-called "celebs", many of whom are absolute scoundrels or hypocrites, or worse, under the glossy veneer. But I welcome people like Y, who are on the subject's payroll or close friends with the subject, as long as they add properly sourced puffery to the page. What puzzles me is that there seems to be some unspoken sentiment among a lot of wikipedia editors that no matter what the celeb does in real life, we need to hide it unless the facts were reported by Moses on the tablets brought down from Mount Sinai. Wake up, my fellow editors! We are not paid to shield these people from the consequences of their own misdeeds. Free your heads from the American celeb-worship cargo cult religion.

More of his rationale:

Wrong, Z. We all have motivations for researching and editing certain pages, whether it be because we are fans, or we have political leanings, or we dislike someone, or we have a special interest in someone or some subject ... the list goes on. People freely admit to editing because of political motivations, which is of course a form of COI, but instead it is welcomed. I suggest you study the page WP:COI and find out what a real COI is. On this page the only people with COIs are the ones working for X and/or running his fansite. These people, who by rights should be extremely circumspect about the edits they do to the page, are in fact now dictating the tone of the page and making extensive edits to the page, even to the extent of including ticket prices for visits to his resort(!), all without a peep from the so-called "editors" monitoring what's going on here. The only person who has done any research here on X is ME! The rest of you are either X's gophers, or X fanboyz, or net-nannies brought here by Collect's tattle-taling on the noticeboards (and whose chief contribution to the debate has been to finger wag and head shake). It's pretty discouraging; it makes me feel that wp has been co-opted to an extent wherever celebs with deep pockets are in frame. And while I agree with Policy about tabloids in that you should not directly quote them, 'I see no problem with saying something vague about the "mistreatment of females" allegations, and about the concealed family, since the report was clearly accurate, based on his lawyer's responses to the Enquirer and other websites (see link above where his lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to a blog site that published the info, saying that this is info X was keen to suppress).

Note: The allegations that editor insisted on placing in a BLP have all been dropped, and the accuser herself now charged with crimes. Meaning the accusation should not have been so strongly insisted upon by any editor. As I note elsewhere: Allegations make for bad BLPs.

An editor's view on why "allegations" belong in a BLP

'If it were lies, the litigious X would have sued them sooner than you could say "Abracadabra!"

Listen, S, I'm not disparaging other editors but just calling it like I see it. A fanboy is a fanboy, etc. This issue will never be closed. Consensus changes over time. I await other editors arriving here who will support the re-insertion of the TMZ link to the page, and I have no doubt that will happen eventually. If I find other sources for the children data, I shall insert, you can be sure.

Original positions taken by a genuine WP editor

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck (ha!), and smells like a duck ... it's probably a duck (your peregrinations in gay bars notwithstanding). )

d is a conservative commentator with a lot of motivation to hide his sexuality from his conservative readership. Perhaps he is another F, closeted away. Is it our duty to help him in this endeavour? Why is his sexuality notable? Easy. He makes explicit and implicit moral judgements about people and their sexuality. The public deserves to know where he's coming from on this topic.' fbe they'd see his defence of F, (COMMENT REMOVED BY y PER WP:BLP), in a different light if they knew he was accused of being a closet homosexual. dmade huge play of J and L touching each other during the last presidential campaign, implying they were girly-men, even queer. Again, anyone who makes public such aspersions can justifiable be scrutinized on these ground himself.

Really, this has been a rather shameful display of bias and poor judgement by the wiki-ites here with veto powers. I have been accused of making stuff up, of having an axe to grind, of wanting to label someone as a "Jew" and a neocon, and of gay-baiting - all false and vicious libel against me. The descriptions in published books of x's behaviours and predilections are dismissed as trivial slander, when living people (B, Z) either had sex with him or were propositioned by him, on the record. Z said he'd sign an affidavit to that effect. B has the emails. The dearth of countervailing voices here, the lack of people without conservative agendas, is appalling. What's happened, has wikipedia been taken over by Bush-bots? It seems likely. Since all edits that cast what f be construed by the most myopic editors as a poor light on our GOP white knight are summarily and haughtily dismissed, with only a cursory attempt to "debate" the issue (including veiled threats of legal action, personal attacks on me, the building of an army of straw men and wilfully deliberate misinterpretation of what I have attempted to do), I am left with no alternative but to publish a web page elsewhere covering these issues.

He's a Libertarian the same way he's heterosexual - only in his own fantasy of himself. In real life, he sleeps with men What rubbish! Something published in a well-known public figure's autobiography is not "unsourced or poorly sourced". Secondly, stating that a person is possibly homosexual, according to verifiable third party accounts, is not libellous, since homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is not a crime, so no harm accrues to Mr x. We are not disclosing debate or accounts of whether or not d is a pedophile, rapist or Peeping Tom. The fact that you view gayness as litigable tells us more about you than it does about the American legal system or the true definition of libel. Note: The autobiography was not of the person being accused, but the autobiography of the accuser) WP:BLPCAT etc. now serve as a reminder that this ar=ttidude is no longer sanctioned by policy in any way, thank goodness.

Here's a good Early Life description from WP: Albert Einstein. It shows a level of detail that seems unacceptable here. Why is detail being expunged unnecessarily? None of this stuff is legally actionable under any circumstances, so you are not right to revert on the basis of your (slanted?) idea of what "notable" means. If you are convinced I'm trying to make the subject look bad, why not balance that by inserting positive, but true, data? Build the article, don't stunt it! You do not make the subject seem better than he is by suppressing data available elsewhere, which is thus far your modus operandi. (And Cp, it was waaaay more than "rumours"). Nobody gives a tinker's cuss for your thoughts on the matter, whether you "care for" dor not, how long you've signed up at WP, or whether you think the terms liberal or conservative or pejoratives or not. All of that adds nada to this page. As for the gay issue, it is highly relevant given the man's use of (supposed) homosexuality as a weapon against public figures (J) and conversely, his defence of a fellow conservative (F) who engaged in sex talk with under-age boys by blaming the boys. In light of these actions, his own obvious homosexuality is very germane, especially when it is public knowledge to anyone with a scintilla of intelligence, or anyone who reads widely. However, WP treads very gingerly with facts in the biographies of living people, for legal reasons.

I've stopped caring, because this has all the hallmarks of a madhouse.

I do not agree with your view, V. The tangential reference to x's homosexuality is not "gossip published by tabloids and scandal sheets" but information contained in an autobiography by a well known person (aaaa), and it is moreover public information that has not been challenged by x himself.

Libel? It was published years ago and no libel ensued. Moreover, the link to that article has existed on the dpage of WP for years without comment, until now. y has decided to include the link in his/her sanitization drive. Now suddenly it's untouchable? I don't think so. The "nasty faggot" jibe is quite in keeping with the sort of dirt, scandal and innuendo dhimself dishes out all the time; thus it is in perfect juxtaposition.

V, I personally do not care about the gay thing per se, but I do think that any allegation, if made repeatedly in published books, especially best selling books and autobiographies, ought to be at least mentioned in the article, especially if these allegations were neither denied nor attacked legally. Gayness is a very political issue in the US, and it's of great interest and concern to most politically-motivated people, and these would be heavily represented in the readership of this page. If Mr d simply linked to news articles on his page and no more, an argument could perhaps be made for excluding the information from the wiki page, but since d actually enters the fray and inventively uses the sexuality of others as a weapon, his own sexuality becomes extremely germane. Surely you can see that? I also think the M article is pretty well written, if a bit acerbic for some tastes. Having said that, I'm prepared to trade the M link for a proper inclusion of this information on the WP page. Now, how do you suggest we include the gay allegations in the article? If you like, I can come up with a suitably cited sentence or two.

Again note: WP:BLPCAT and other sections saying we do not describe a living person by ethnicity, religion or sexuality except where there is some self-identification.

We are not "outing" x, others have already done that. We simply report it. And we report the denial. Why is it noteworthy? 1) Because it is out there, in books and newspapers, and 2) because of his attack on a gay journalist. So it does have bearing, it goes to his character and trustworthiness, and it represents (I'll say it again) the most common reverted edit to the dpage. Let's report the facts as we should, and so discourage all the vandals.

And where a person denies rumours of his or her sexuality - the current rules say we do not assert the rumour.

The Toronto Star article says "d has some nerve, since he's a gay man himself". Pretty good source, IMO, although dforced them to withdraw that statement (this is notable in itself, must add it to the edit or edit footnote). I have no problem seeing the abstract for that article.

And where a newspaper retracts an article, it is not sane to use the retracted article to make the claim which was the cause of the retraction!

Well spotted, they are the same stories but I was fooled by the different URLs. As for the comment on "hypocrite", I removed that after you pointed it out, didn't you notice? There is a disjunction between the W thing and the gay aspects, but the Toronto Times's retracted sentence would have linked them nicely. I f have to use it as a link. Forced retraction? Papers only retract and apologize when it's demanded of them, rest assured. But I'll change the footnote to say simply "retracted".