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WP:BLPIMAGE, again

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Barbara Teller Ornelas, one example of a picture the en-WP community decided not to use in a BLP

Policy currently states "Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy." and "AI-generated images should not be used to depict subjects of BLPs."

However, as seen in discussions like

BLP:s sometimes get a USERG not-AI image, call it drawing, painting, whatever. For the purpose of BLP:s, consensus has afaict been that they don't fit. Problems include but are not limited to "Be very firm about the use of high-quality, reliable sources"; such pics will often by necessity include an element of WP:OR/artistic vision (while a photo will be assumed to be at least partly "reality based", but can of course have artistic qualities too); and WP:DUE, as in why should we give this netizen attention in this BLP? Also, sometimes they are derived from a photo and thus copyright-problematic.

So I suggest that the BLP-policy adds something like "Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy. However, user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP." Or stronger, like for AI.

Does anyone know of any current mainspace en-WP BLP use of such pictures? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:31, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if they're still being used, but there's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Digitally created images about portraits that were created digitally by an editor and added to several BLP articles. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:35, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I linked that one too in my OP (turned out it illustrated the derived from a photo and thus copyright-problematic aspect). However, the BLP aspect is much more narrow (and perhaps more important) than the whole WP:IMAGEPOL angle, so IMO it's reasonable to discuss that part of it separate. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:49, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, on that particular set of pics, while I don't think any of them are in en-WP BLP mainspace atm, some are currently included on other WP:s. Which is not necessarily problematic, and if it is, it's SEP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:04, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this discussion will get much higher participation at WP:VPPOL/WP:VPR; do you want to transfer the discussion there? Some1 (talk) 18:17, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure. This seems the right place for a (hopefully) small-ish policy change, it has 1,844 watchers (those other pages have more) and I WP:APPNOTEd at WP:BLPN. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:39, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think outlawing human-drawn images is a small-ish policy change. And it would need to be very carefully worded to avoid the problematic outlawing of historical (human-drawn) portraits and of many useful diagrams and charts, which are also often human-drawn. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:00, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The topic is user generated non-AI sketches/drawings of living people. Diagrams and charts and (not too recently) dead people are not part WP:BLPIMAGE. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:13, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or were you thinking of this wording:
"Images of living persons that have been created by Wikipedians or others may be used only if they have been released under a copyright licence that is compatible with Wikipedia:Image use policy. However, user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP living person."? I can't, off the top of my head, think of an en-WP BLP where this would be problematic guidance, but I'm interested to see a good example or two. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Najib Razak is a living person, portrayed in unflattering caricature in an image in Fahmi Reza. Should that image be outlawed? Would it make a difference if the artist, Reza, turned out to also be a Wikipedia editor? Why should that make a difference? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:24, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Might the image be WP:UNDUE? JFHJr (㊟) 20:34, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks due to me. JFHJr (㊟) 20:35, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The difference I see, besides the USERG part (I can't prove Reza is not a Wikipedian, since I can't prove a negative) is that per article content the pic is WP:DUE. According to the user who uploaded this non-free image,
"To support encyclopedic discussion of this work in this article. The illustration is specifically needed to support the following point(s): The artist was arrested for creating this picture." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:36, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There might be a reasonable difference in the treatment of subjects (namespace) main biographic images and other non-subject LPs that are visually referenced for relevance. JFHJr (㊟) 20:37, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So the criterion should be DUE and relevance; USERG is irrelevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:41, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. User generated seems to be the cause, of at least common denominator, of these on-WP debates I listed, but I see your point, I think. What problems would something like However, non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for living people, unless they can be considered WP:DUE per article content." cause? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:53, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that I was pretty much only thinking leadimages, since that's what has been debated in the discussions I've seen, but of course an article is bigger than the lead. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:42, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Judith W. Rogers Official portrait on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by Simmie Knox.
Royal family on the balcony.JPG

Cheers! JFHJr (㊟) 06:10, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Like that but not that, more to the left with her hands on the shoulders of a girl. Not too unlike the drawing, I think. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:35, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More like this? JFHJr (㊟) 06:45, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Royal family on the balcony.JPG
That's the royal. Not great but usable and better than no image, which we are kinda famous for. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:55, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, I never knew that Css Image Crop thing existed. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:57, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. JFHJr (㊟) 06:58, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And not great, you're right, but I think my crop contextualizes her closed-eyed laughing: the people around her are laughing, too. A closer zoom and tighter crop for the same image would come off much less flattering. JFHJr (㊟) 07:25, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I wasn't critiquing your composition, just the material we've got to work with. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:37, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've also found something better than the wax. And I added it to Yayoi Kusama, moved the wax down. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:39, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The image you replaced the wax with is also the same wax. The flickr source doesn't make this clear but see the caption at https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidalm/2016/08/22/at-87-yayoi-kusama-continues-to-create-spaces-of-wonder-retrospective-to-tour-us-in-2017/ and compare it with your image. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Damn. While the first one was from UK, and allowed on Commons because of that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein I've reverted my related edits on WP, Wikidata and DR:d on Commons (photo of artwork unlikely to be under usable license). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:53, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is an alternative reason why drawn/painted portraits of living people are rare. It isn't because there's something intrinsic about BLP that makes only a photograph a suitable format. It is because we are reliant on freely licensed or public domain images and have no budget to commission images. The majority of dead people in our project predate photography and so we have paintings or etchings or drawings that appeared previously in publications and are now public domain. Those that were photographed a hundred years ago or more are also public domain. Photography is simply the dominant medium for image making and portrait taking and has been for quite some time. Literally billions of photos are taken every single day. There's no need to speculate that it might be because a really great artwork is inferior to a snapshot. Clearly a rubbish artwork is rubbish, just as a rubbish photo is rubbish, and an image with copyright issues is already handled by other mechanisms.
This project is fundamentally a user-generated free content project. Our priority is actually the creation of free content, not merely the use of existing such. So any policy/guideline that suggests talented content creators are not welcome and their work is to be discouraged goes against our principles. I have no doubt that if a Wikipedian had created the image here for Svetlana Mojsov and donated it with a free licence, then editors at that page would select it. And if a better photograph was found then they might select that instead. Why on earth do we need a rule for this, saying to some potential artist: "Don't bother". For crying out loud, folks. We fill this project with billions of WP:OUROWNWORDS and deal with all the copyright/plagiarism/OR/VP:V issues that arise from that. We can surely handle a few paintings, should we be fortunate that someone might make them. -- Colin°Talk 09:35, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fr-WP may be ok with this leadimage in a BLP, but I don't think en-WP will be, if we get that article
I'm not seeing the correlation you see. That's a grand total of three discussions, which are mostly dealt with by the images having copyright issues (derivative works of a copyright photo), or are in a cartoon or modern style that isn't to some editor's taste. And yet we are being asked to make a wider guidance that user-generated non-photo pictures like paintings and drawings are rarely good choices for a BLP. The correlation I see is that paintings and drawing of people, with a genuinely free licence (i.e., not a derivative work of a copyright photo) are exceedingly rare. And quite separately that some editors dislike a cartoon or simplistic art style to the degree they'd rather have no image at all. The image above doesn't appear encyclopaedic in tone, which editors can judge for themselves, and I'd rather editors at individual bio articles judged for themselves, than we had a guideline that encouraged editors to go around removing images from articles they'd never before worked on. But then you read the French bio article and discover this person was a pioneer of computer graphics (e.g. 9600 bauds) and it could be quite possible that editors of their bio article love it. So I think you are inferring an awful lot from a tiny data set. Plenty editors have complained about student edits on Wikipedia, and their problems have generated far far more discussions than the above, but we don't have a motion to ban people in the 18-25 age group, as the major source of plagiarism and confused writing in our technical articles.
This made me think about Quentin Blake, who illustrated Roald Dahl's books in a distinctive style. If you Google for images with his name you'll see he's created several self portraits. I think they'd be wonderful to have in the article. Would we prefer a photo for the lead image? Maybe, but I don't think any editor would refuse to include his self portrait just because it was uploaded by User:QuentinBlake. But then I see the photo we do have likely is a copyvio. Someone cropped an image Sunday Times: The Interview: Quentin Blake, illustrator, and the photo is credited to Tom Pilston who is most certainly unlikely to have released it CC0. Should we create a rule that photos uploaded by users with redlink usernames are "rarely good choices for a BLP"? (I'll pop over to Commons to delete that later today, I'm out of time right now). -- Colin°Talk 13:08, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I oppose this change. While examples of good user-made images for BLPs are rare, so are examples of bad ones, so I don't think this proposal is a net positive. I previously participated at the Northernlion discussion – aside from the fact that it was a copyright violation, the sketch in question was perfectly adequate. If, instead of picking one reference image, the artist had picked several frames from the subject's streams, it would've been entirely possible to create a sketch with equal quality and no copyright issues. At that point I'd strongly prefer the sketch to having no image, especially for a figure whose job is, ya know, showing his face on camera. Toadspike [Talk] 11:51, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I doubt that you would have gotten consensus for that hypothetical, but that's me (though I don't clearly remember what it looked like). Afaict, user-made paintings/sketches/whatever (not AI, that's forbidden already) of LP:s, good or otherwise, currently used in en-WP BLP:s are so rare they don't exist. Jashodaben Modi might count though, and if so, that's one. Ping to @Bluerasberry who uploaded it, perhaps you know others. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow art Art for portrait illustrations is rare, both good and bad. I do not think we have enough examples to make a general rule. In 2015 I commissioned an artist to make an original painting of the wife of the Prime Minister of India. I have production notes for that in the media description for Jashodaben. I took inspiration for this from a Wikipedia editor who was also a painter, and who uploaded two photos of artists. The painting of Bikash Bhattacharjee is in current use in the ENWP article. His painting of Satyajit Ray is excellent and was used for years in ENWP, but is now replaced with newly available photos.

Unrelated to any on-wiki discussion like this one, in 2022 in one brief pilot project the Wikimedia Foundation sponsored artists to create painting portraits in a program called Wiki Unseen, Commons:Category:Wiki Unseen. This was a bit odd for reasons including the Wikimedia Foundation itself spending money on content creation and making editorial decisions, when typically this is not something they do and which they instead delegate to community editors.

Bluerasberry (talk) 14:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fwiw, the Satyajit Ray is still in the article. Could be considered "primarily decorative", but that's a discussion for that article (also used in several other en-WP articles). The Unseen pics were mostly kicked off en-WP per "we found a photo, so let's use that." Also was never about living people, neither was Ray or Bhattacharjee. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Early life section

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Just found these - others probably know about them. On the website "Know your meme",[1]] I found this" "Early Life" Wikipedia Section" ""Early Life" Wikipedia Section is a section found in biographical entries on Wikipedia that describes events of a person's early life, such as their date and place of birth and their immediate family. Due to the information about a person's ethnic and religious background often being readily available in the "Early Life" section, it has been used to check whether a certain person is Jewish, often by those seeking to spread antisemitic sentiment. In the late 2010s, dog-whistle memes referencing the section received spread online, with the phrase "Early Life" being used to reference Jewish ethnicity." See also [2] about a Telegram account:"Other memes and shirts promoted by the account might confuse the average internet user, but people who are fluent in extremist online culture will clearly recognize them as antisemitic. For example, seemingly one of the more popular designs promoted by the channel is of a simple line drawing of hands clasping and the text “Early life.” On the store page for this design, which comes on t-shirts for $27.99, mugs for $15, and hoodies for $49.99, the description says: “A totally normal design encouraging you to wash your hands — definitely just about hygiene. Nothing symbolic here. Just good, clean habits… taught very early in life.”

“Early life” refers to a common section of biographical Wikipedia articles that would state whether the person is Jewish. As Know Your Meme explains, this is a “dog-whistle meme” often used to spread antisemitic sentiments. The clasping hands are of the antisemitic drawing of the “happy merchant.” " Doug Weller talk 12:36, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, and perhaps this is from not venturing to extremely hateful parts of the internet, I have only ever seen said meme in the context of what you could describe as radical social media users referring to it, without examples, and then claiming any Wikipedia article with an Early life section is inherently antisemitic, then encouraging people to section blank select articles. Again, perhaps I just haven’t seen the supposed dog whistle in action, but based on what appears in ‘mainstream’ social media, the meme’s existence seems to be limited to reactions to it and escalating to perceived harm caused by Wikipedia.
Also to note based on my experience is that while I have seen any and all users adding mentions of Judaism to BLPs it is - ironically, perhaps, in this case, but also in a way logically - more often those who want to promote Israel-centred Judaism that do so in a prominent shoehorn way. To wit, if you’ve ever ventured to the Hebrew language Wikipedia, if someone has even a bit of Jewish ethnicity this is mentioned in the first sentence of the lead (unless it’s a person they don’t want to claim; there’s been long discussions over hiding the Jewishness of those who support Palestine).
This is to say, I don’t think there’s anything here that Wikipedia needs to respond to in the slightest, and hopefully we can all continue using common sense for feeling out when edits relating to an individual’s (or any topic’s) Jewishness may be deliberate NPOV in any direction. Kingsif (talk) 22:59, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There was a loophole/hole in BLPCRIME that is now closed

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This edit:

To make this:

A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.

Into (new is BOLD):

A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.

This comment here on Talk:Killing of Charlie Kirk is what made me realize we had this big language-based loophole. It probably over-completes but now no one can use it thus. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 23:34, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunate, but needed. It's the sort of thing that feels like it should be obvious and not needed to spell things out in such an overdone manner, but clearly it is necessary considering the claims that this obvious original statement doesn't cover the obvious case it covers. Sigh. SilverserenC 23:38, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds reasonable until you realize the context is "The FBI is looking for a person of interest in this crime" whose identity isn't known. Denaar (talk) 00:07, 12 September 2025 (UTC) Typo fixed; in bold. Denaar (talk) 00:15, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The FBI or their equivalents in other countries don't get special clout against policy. The issue is users doing this and sharing images/names. Once the FBI says a name, it'll be all over news no matter what. Until that happens, it seems BLPCRIME (as it logically should) outranks everyone here, including the FBI. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:11, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistent application of WP:BLPCRIME

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Can someone explain how WP:BLPCRIME allows us to have an entire article about Luigi Mangione but bans any mention of the name of the apprehended suspect in the Killing of Charlie Kirk in that article or even on its talk page, Talk:Killing of Charlie Kirk? But why, on the other hand, it's permitted in the article on Charlie Kirk himself, yet there can't be a link to that page from the disambiguation page for the name of the suspected assailant? Other event articles where we name suspects include the 2025 Florida State University shooting and the 2025 Fredericksburg shooting. Largoplazo (talk) 15:37, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mangione has been officially charged and has been in court. The person of interest in the Kirk killing has not yet been formally charged, so far too early to be rushing to include the name per BLP. Masem (t) 15:39, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLPCRIME doesn't give being formally charged as a factor in this. According to it, we shouldn't mention someone's name even as a suspect till they've been convicted. Largoplazo (talk) 15:42, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just closed on surprisingly airplane-hangar sized loophole in the preceding section of this page.
If this is potentially one it should be discussed. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 15:44, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What loophole? Trade (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right above you: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3ABiographies_of_living_persons#There_was_a_loophole/hole_in_BLPCRIME_that_is_now_closed — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 15:59, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material[d]—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. Right now, the person for the Kirk shooting is still a virtual unknown, though likely will change in a few days. Mangione's history was thoroughly documented over the course of several days that he no longer could easily be taken as a "not a public figure". Masem (t) 15:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I understand that it might be premature now until there are formal charges (at which point coverage in the press will be such that no one will be able to argue credibly that the person hasn't become a public figure), but I'm not sure it's being taken that way, given the focus by at least a couple of editors at Talk:Killing of Charlie Kirk on conviction as being the benchmark. Largoplazo (talk) 15:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone on the talk page is just trying to quiet it down. It is an absolute clusterfuck at the moment Scaledish! Talkish? Statish. 15:51, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point was that we should wait until charge before even trying to gain consensus for naming him
Doing so beforehand is pointless Trade (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mangione meets the public figure criteria at this point Scaledish! Talkish? Statish. 15:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this interpretation in this case. The problem is, sometimes people are arrested, the charges are dropped, and new stories go viral about the arrest, with absolutely no follow up. People are in such a rush to get that initial viral report in... and if we justify it as "but but but it was reported" then we can never remove it from the page. It's also an issue of notability where an article is made specifically for an arrest and... charges are quietly dropped later with the same kind of media coverage.
In this case; the notable public figure is the victim of a crime; and naming their accused attacker... once it goes to trial... is pretty clearly going to be a notable event, even though it's technically premature to say so. I'm ok with holding the name until the charges become formal. Denaar (talk) 15:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's inconsistently applied because there are a significant minority of editors that will try and force inclusion of a suspect's name (often stating as fact they committed the crime) in violation of WP:ONUS and potentially WP:BLPRESTORE. FDW777 (talk) 15:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"X was arrested as a suspect" isn't a statement as fact that they committed a crime. I mean, this is why the news sources fall so far over themselves to stress that it's legally only an allegation that they give us absurdities like "Police say the suspect allegedly did such-and-such". No, police are saying that the suspect did do such and such. It's the police statement to that effect that's the allegation. But better to err on the side of caution, I guess. Largoplazo (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well how about this where you have Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who had fled her country because of the Russian invasion, was fatally stabbed by 34-year old [name redacted], a homeless man with a lenghty criminal history. That's not an isolated example from that page, see for example this version or countless others where BLPCRIME has been completely ignored. Or how about at the killing of Charlie Kirk where we have this where a person of interest (at the time, I believe he's upgraded to a suspect now but correct me if I'm wrong) becomes the "Perpetrator". Yet again BLPCRIME is an afterthought. People really, really need to understand what innocent until proven guilty means.... FDW777 (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My point was about saying that a suspect is a suspect. You responded with an example of where an editor declared a suspect outright to be the assailant instead of merely that he was a suspect. (In that example, even without the name, the following sentence, Her assailant was arrested upon exiting the train, is problematic. It should read "A suspect was arrested ...".) Largoplazo (talk) 16:47, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is: time. A long amount of time has passed for that case to play out; only a short amount of time has passed in this case. If you look at the Talk pages of that incident you will see very similar concerns and debates. For example: Talk:Killing of Brian Thompson/Archive 1#Suspect Socials. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a better example would be Killing of Austin Metcalf, which names the accused, who is also a minor (which realistically should give far more weight against naming?).
Also - noting that this is seemingly the only place I can express this view - what the hell is the point of having a talk page if the talk page is going to be 'protected' (gatekept) to admins and people who spend 24/7 on Wikipedia? Talk about a circle-jerk. Luminism (talk) 15:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Point of information: there was an extensive discussion and RfC on whether to include the name and it was determined not to include it at that particular time, early in the process. Talk:Killing of Austin Metcalf/Archive 1#RFC: Name of alleged killer. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if the name is not to be used, and if it keeps appearing on the talk pages, then I understand that it's mandatory to protect those pages as well. We can't expect 24/7 monitoring to jump on every use of the name and WP:REVDEL it. Largoplazo (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If a website as big as Wikipedia doesn't have the moderation facilities to add a name to an 'automatic censor' list, then.. wow lmao Luminism (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you familiar with WP:NOTCENSORED? There is an advanced content filter system, but it is for vandalism and not content disputes. - Fuzheado | Talk 16:03, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Has absolutely nothing to do with my point. Maybe you're getting hung up on the word 'censor'. For clarity what I'm saying is that clearly a small handful of people have decided that using the name of the accused is a violation of WP:BLPCRIME (which is selectively enforced anyways). My point is, the fact that Wikipedia doesn't have the facilities to automatically remove terms which violate their policies, causing admins/whoever to resort to just blocking all non-nolifers from talking on the talk page, is pathetic. Luminism (talk) 16:12, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One user laughs his ass off and finds it pathetic that Wikipedia, with limited resources, doesn't have every last feature one could imagine, including the ability magically to prevent very specific sorts of content additions without also preventing perfectly acceptable ones. Compelling story. Are you offering funding for this or your programming services to make this happen? Largoplazo (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
>limited resources to block certain words
>net assets of US$255,000,000 as of 2023
Very compelling story indeed. Luminism (talk) 16:31, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Meaningless commentary from someone who seems to imagine that the Board of Wikipedia sits there and it suddenly comes to them to discuss, "Hey, you know that guy who's gonna show up on Wikipedia one day with an idea for a feature we could have? Let's do that!" Largoplazo (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If a website as big as Wikipedia doesn't have the moderation facilities...
We're all hobbyist volunteers. If you wanted to elevate me to lifetime basic post-scarcity guaranteed income to death so I could do this 8x hours a day, I'd be happy to. So would others. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 16:21, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The naming of the accused on that page was a result of an RfC that is now at WP:AN for a closure review that very well might result in an overturn of consensus. I would suggest it is not a crystal clear example of adherence to WP policy. Simonm223 (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Considering the lead reads On April 2, 2025, Austin Metcalf, a 17-year-old American student at Memorial High School, was fatally stabbed by [name redacted] I'd say it's a crystal clear example of WP policy being completely ignored, and coupled with the examples from other recent article demonstrates why BLPCRIME should actuallly be beefed up to prevent this kind of nonsense. FDW777 (talk) 16:14, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People who have similar positions to you on BLPCRIME have gone as far as to propose that suspect names in source headlines be redacted or unused. Luckily, that proposal did not pass, but I’m worried that strict interpretations of this policy advance censorship, fail to serve the reader, and make non-editors and newer editors extremely confused. wizzito | say hello! 16:23, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The average social media or web forum user doesn’t know what an RfC is or even that BLPCRIME exists - they just see one article naming a criminal suspect and one that does not and start complaining in understandable confusion. This is why I suspect that the article to article inconsistency tends to ruin WP’s reputation among the public (even though we’re not having a particularly good reputation as of late, for various issues I will not unpack here). wizzito | say hello! 16:30, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really agree on the last part of this comment but I do agree that there will be confusion from some who don't know the rfc process. GothicGolem29 (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The inconsistent application is one of the things that really grinds my gears about BLPCRIME. When we need to have an RfC in almost every high profile case to debate whether the inclusion of a criminal suspect’s name meets the policy’s standards, the policy itself is fundamentally broken. There are also some articles where a criminal suspect’s name was added and there was absolutely no debate had about it. In a previous discussion about this exact policy, another editor noted that the wording in BLPCRIME dates back to 2012 and has not been majorly changed since. Trends in crime reporting by the news and the interest in true crime by the public has changed significantly since then, and the policy needs to start reflecting that. wizzito | say hello! 16:15, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The policy itself doesn't even set a standard. It just says that editors should "seriously consider" not including info about someone suspected/accused of/charged with committing a crime unless they've been convicted. What does "seriously consider" even mean? What about the page that I've already mentioned, which names the accused, who is pleading not guilty and is legally a minor? What about Killing of Jordan Neely which lists Daniel Penny, who was not only not convicted, but actually found not guilty? Calling it a 'policy' is to completely misunderstand the meaning of the word. It's barely even a guideline. Luminism (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly what I mean when I state that BLPCRIME is vague. Even worse is that BLPCRIME links to guidance on who a non-public figure is, and that guidance isn’t exactly oriented towards articles about crime. wizzito | say hello! 16:26, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I almost think putting a ban on news stories would be beneficial, even if it's just a 24 hour ban on breaking news. So much breaking news ends up being just plain wrong; the modern internet and 24/7 news cycle make it worse, and Wikipedia articles should really be accurately covering what we know happened after the fact. It would be easier to do if every breaking news tidbit wasn't immediately put into an article. Denaar (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is going beyond this section, but we absolutely need to get people to respect both NOTNEWS and NEVENT. Not that this event wouldn't be documented at all, but the rush to try to have any tidbit reported in any news story included as it drops hurts us for reasons like this. Masem (t) 16:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Daniel Penny went on news shows and talked about/defended what he did. He made himself a public figure after the event. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:31, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus to name him was before that, though. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:50, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to agree. Social media nowadays will jump on any photo, video, name, etc. and so will news sources for clicks. Presumption of innocence is already out the window on social media, and we really should not become part of that unfortunate trend. We have a reputation as an impartial source of truth, and I would not be surprised if we have influenced juries. If it were up to me, BLPCRIME would disallow any naming of a (alleged) perpetrator of a crime unless they have been convicted. Bowler the Carmine | talk 16:30, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If hard media have been reporting on evidence and statements and the progress of the trial for months and months, mentioning the suspect's name throughout, of what benefit would it be to the suspect for Wikipedia not to mention it? Largoplazo (talk) 16:34, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated earlier, I personally think that having a blanket ban on not naming suspects advances censorship, fails to serve the reader, and makes non-editors and newer editors extremely confused. What is the point of excluding the name of criminal suspects when the average reader can just go into references and sometimes just read the headlines of the cited sources? Even the most trusted sources on WP:RS/PS name suspects in high profile cases. wizzito | say hello! 16:36, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, in this and other high-profile cases like with Trump, we wait until the suspect is charged before including any names. In any low-profile cases, we really should wait until a conviction, but that rarely happens. Standalone articles should not exist until well after any event, if ever. All that said, I really dislike how Wikipedia has become a news update site for any and all US shootings. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've started an RFCBEFORE discussion below at #Let's put this to rest. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:29, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Please see w:Talk:Killing of Iryna Zarutska, where there is much discussion about topics also discussed on this page (e.g., the application of WP:BLPCRIME and WP:BLPNAME). -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's put this to rest

[edit]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Thanks to everyone who commented in this discussion! Voorts has given up on deciding what text to put into an RFC. To prevent us from getting stuck, I've decided to advance two simple questions that got some traction; see: Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#RFC: Amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources and Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#RFC: Presumed innocent vs. Wikipedia neutrality.

Other suggestions I saw were to:

  • Completely ban inclusion before conviction based on being non-central to the article, for non-felony crimes and civil infractions, and before indictment of a felony.
  • Require an RFC before inclusion.
  • Clarify that WP:BLPCRIME is in addition to WP:BLPNAME.
  • Consider the duration of coverage, a la WP:SUSTAINED.
  • Ban even using sources if they aren't to be named. (This was defeated in a recent RFC, I think?)
  • Add ProcrastinatingReader's verbiage

We may want to come back to some of these in future RFCs, but I think what to do about these suggestions depends (for at least some editors) on the results of the RFCs I've just started. -- Beland (talk) 19:25, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This is an WP:RFCBEFORE discussion, not a discussion for editors to share their particular views. Comments should be directed towards edits to the proposed wordings, not their respective merits.

I'm proposing we put two different options up for an RfC, representing the opposing sides that appear to have developed:

Exclusionary
−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—material that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime must <em>not</em> be included in any article, except where there is a strong consensus for inclusion that is not based on the mere fact of coverage of the person in reliable sources and/or the purported strength of the evidence against the person.
Inclusionary
−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—material that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime may be included in an article if such material is found in a significant number of reliable sources and receives national or international coverage.

Thoughts? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:22, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been involved in these disputes, but I have to ask: what could a strong consensus for inclusion be based on ~other~ than the mere fact of coverage of the person in reliable sources and/or the purported strength of the evidence against the person? Schazjmd (talk) 21:31, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The type of crime: assassinations of public figures, terror attacks, etc. For example, under the exclusionary proposal, editors could have argued for naming the Tsaranev brothers in the article about the Boston Marathon attacks or Luigi Mangione. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or, for example, if the low profile person put out a manifesto or a video or livestreamed the crime. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:34, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, interesting arguments. Thanks for explaining. Schazjmd (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
clearly beyond reasonable doubt? Kowal2701 (talk) 21:43, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's wise to have editors weighing evidence regarding potential or actual criminal charges. For example, someone could shoot someone dead in the middle of the day on Fifth Avenue without committing any crime at all, be found not guilty by reason of insanity, etc. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:46, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we should treat Wikipedia as a large jury. After all, most people on Wiki, myself included would already, for example, agree the killing was an assasination "beyond rresonable doubt". Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 14:04, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, if a previously unknown individual is suspected of killing their spouse and it becomes (inter)national news with their name and likeness everywhere, we'd likely exclude the accused's name, but if someone "assassinates" a small town mayor a fair number of reliable sources print the accused's name, that could argue for including the name in the article? Trying to understand the practical implications. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 00:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The recent discussion included people (such as myself) who suggested that there might be a better argument for inclusion if putting in the name served some encyclopedic purpose beyond just a name. Just stating my view, I could at least see the argument if, say, the person were connected to some other notable event, even if in a way that didn't make them a public figure (i.e., the person who was charged with shooting at Mayor McCheese was ten years ago convicted to shooting at the Burger King), if the identity of the person is particularly relevant and so specific that not putting in the name would not allow for it to be other individuals (the person who shot at Mayor McCheese was the Burger King), or if the name itself is somehow informative (the person who shot at Mayor McCheese was named Mare McGees.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:08, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not having someone's name makes it difficult to do any further research on them, which is sort of the point of suppressing it. They may have social media accounts people could look up, various media outlets may have written about them, there might be a public court case to follow, they might be that guy in Apartment 4B. -- Beland (talk) 01:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neither option are exhaustive of the many factors that are in interplay of a BLPCRIME analysis and both are too strongly worded. Also Schazjmd makes a good point as well. R. G. Checkers talk 21:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So propose a middle ground option. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:33, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures—that is, individuals not covered by § Public figures—editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. The presumption of innocence and privacy intersts of the individual should be carefully weighed alongside the level of dissemination and detail relating to the individual in reliable sources, as well as how exclusion or inclusion effects the readibility and quality of coverage in the article.
Probably somethging like this, but it probably needs some work and adding to. R. G. Checkers talk 21:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the readability issue is a bit of a red herring. It's not that hard to replace a name with "the suspect" or "the accused". Also, what does quality of coverage mean? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:58, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was also looking for language that was more of an explicit harm vs. benefit balance.
I agree that readabilty is not a big concern and "quality of coverage" is vague. What I think is more important is the research and information value of including the name. There are several tasks that are made more difficult by not knowing the name of someone accused of committing a crime:
  • More in-depth research. Looking up the court case, finding their crowdfunding page, getting more personal background information about the accused...these are things that Wikipedia editors need to do, but also crime researchers, curious readers, political activists, policy analysts and government decision-makers.
  • Describing throughlines. It's difficult to connect event A with event B that involves the same person if names are suppressed.
  • Personal safety. It's difficult to know if a potential employee or date or new neighbor or online or TV personality who has a story that sounds like that person in the news is or isn't that person if their name isn't given. Giving the name can remove such people from suspicion, and can also give people around them information which can be helpful to protect themselves.
This needs to be balanced against the harm that someone has been falsely accused and people will remember the "accused" and not "falsely" and this will cause unfair problems in employment, social relationships, etc. Publicizing the identity of a falsely accused person can subject them to online and in-person harassment, economic consequences, and violence. There might be harms specific to an individual context, such as outing or who knows what. -- Beland (talk) 22:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These seem like considerations for why we would adopt one version of the policy over another, not a viable way to write a policy. I don't think it's possible, for example, to weigh between [m]ore in-depth research and the potential for false accusations in an individual case without doing original research. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Balancing harm vs. benefit is not original research, it's a core task of exercising editorial judgement. I think there's a large and obvious difference between say, some random people seen in pictures of the Boston Marathon who were mistakenly accused of doing the bombing by people on Reddit (a real thing that happened) and let's assume whose names are mentioned on the TV news, vs. the people being hunted down by the police after throwing bombs at them, whose names are also mentioned on the TV news. Both groups are at the same stage on the criminal spectrum - "not yet arrested", but the totality of the facts would hopefully lead me to wait for further developments before inclusion in the former case but not the latter. I think there is a general presumption that Wikipedia is here to facilitate whatever kind of research people want to do, whether that's on factors in false accusations or factors in radicalization of terrorists. In this case, the harm side is radically different, especially given the news spotlight is going to move off the mistakenly accused, and the bomb-throwers are going to be the subject of intense attention, whether or not they were guilty of the original crime.
But I guess you're right we're getting into a debate on the merits of whether the balance approach is a good one. My main point is that I would suggest that if we're doing a "balanced interests" version, the language cover this type of public interest. For example, instead of "affects the readability and quality of coverage" maybe "affects public interests such as the information value in conducting further research, connecting multiple events, or making personal decisions". -- Beland (talk) 01:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That warning-people-about-the-accused is absolutely something we should not be seeking to do. Wikipedia is not in general in the "warning" business, and that should go particularly strongly when it comes to warning about a living person based on an accusation. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:19, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's a spectrum. I would agree Wikipedia shouldn't e.g. try to be like a sex offender registry and publish names and pictures and physical descriptions of everyone who has committed a given class of crimes. I disagree Wikipedia shouldn't document the bad behavior in an attributable way. I've added hundreds of notes about egregiously bad behavior of corporations and politicians because I want people who have dealings with them to have complete background information rather than only whatever information their PR people have seen fit to release. -- Beland (talk) 15:53, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, what factors are you referring to? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To sum up above: dissemination in RS, detail/focus on person in RS, readibility, and article quality impact. But I think there's something to be said about the confidence RS/authorities are placing on the situation needs to be considered as well. How exactly that should be done -- because I oppose a rigid tiering between person of interest and indicted -- im not sure. R. G. Checkers talk 21:44, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, I wasn't making a point, just asking a question. I know Voorts is much more experienced with these matters, and I genuinely wondered what other arguments for inclusion there could be. Schazjmd (talk) 21:36, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You ask a good question then. R. G. Checkers talk 21:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also add that the point of the exclusionary option is to make it basically impossible to include the prohibited information in an article unless there are exceptional circumstances. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:39, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my counter-proposal:
Veggies' Proposal
−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors may not add the names of any accused individuals if only tangentially associated with the subject, event, or act of the main article until a conviction in a court of law has been secured. Editors are also barred from adding the names of any accused individuals who are only charged with misdemeanors or civil infractions and no felonies until a conviction in a court of law has been secured. Editors will be permitted to add the name(s) of any accused who are central to the subject, event, or act of the main article if and only if the accused is formally indicted of a felony in a court of law and if and only if reliable secondary sources can be cited. Editors will not be permitted to add the names of any accused individual for any reason until a conviction has been secured in a court of law if the article in question is only a list or summary of many events, such as [[Xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic]].
-- Veggies (talk) 21:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I reject the misdemeanor-felony rigidity and the indictment rigidity. Editors will be permitted to add the name(s) of any accused who are central to the subject, event, or act of the main article... if reliable secondary sources can be cited. This part is acceptable I think. R. G. Checkers talk 21:53, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A few questions:
  1. if only tangentially associated with the subject, event, or act of the main article When would this situation ever arise? I can't think of a reason someone would want to include the name of a suspect in a "tangentially related article" or why even discussion of the crime there would be due.
  2. Why the distinction between infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies? Has there ever been a dispute about this issue?
  3. Why is indictment where you draw the line? (I refer you to Sol Wachtler's admonition that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich.)
  4. What do you take to be secondary sources? I don't see any secondary sources being cited in the Zarutska discussion, for example.
  5. if the article in question is only a list or summary of many events, such as Xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you please clarify what this means? Are you saying that editors can only add convictions to list/summary articles if there has been a conviction?
voorts (talk/contributions) 21:54, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also note that there was just an RfC that tried to draw similar distinctions that was roundly rejected. I think, like that RfC, this option is far too bespoke and consensus won't ever develop for it. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:56, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think (1) is conceviable. Imagine this scenario I articulated at Talk:Killing of Iryna Zarutska: John Doe, who is a billionaire public figure, commits a financial crime and his non-public figure secretary is also charged with aiding him in this crime, and Wikipedia is covering the subject on Doe's biography. The main focus in on Doe, and it may be warranted to briefly mention he had an secretary accomplice charged, but we should not include her name because she is only tangibly-related to the incident
Alos, there are secondary sources at Zarutska... The New York Times, for example, is a secondary source. R. G. Checkers talk 22:06, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Times story is news analysis about how the media is covering the event, which is still primary coverage IMO. It's not a secondary source about the event itself. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:08, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For question #1, I believe the intention is to prevent editors from naming the accused in articles like 764 (organization)#Incidents, where the accused aren't central to the main subject of the article. Some1 (talk) 22:10, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here are my answers:
  1. For example, in the Charlie Kirk case, someone was arrested for obstruction of justice. I consider them tangential. I don't know that there's a reason to name them until something comes of it. But the killer, absolutely. That is a central figure.
  2. I was trying to strike a balance between fairness and firmness when it comes to something. I'm not married to it, though. I was thinking: a killing where someone (not the killer) is charged was misdemeanor accessory after the fact (or obstruction of justice). Maybe they shouldn't be named? Like I said: just throwing out suggestions.
  3. Indictments are extremely important. I'm thinking of the "Bag Men" fiasco after the Boston marathon bombing. News organizations get things wrong with accusations. But once a grand jury indicts someone, it's public record and the state is putting their reputation behind it.
  4. Let me strike that and say "reliable news organizations".
  5. Yeah. Pretty much. That article is a compendium of events that have alleged to have occurred. But they are so numerous that it couldn't be reasonably expected that an editor would always follow up on whichever event they reported on to say whether the accused was convicted, released, or acquitted. Those kinds of articles with multiple, independent events that are not individually notable enough for a stand-alone article need stricter scrutiny given the brevity of information.
I hope that answers things. -- Veggies (talk) 22:11, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It does. Thanks. I still think the distinction between pre- and post-indictment is a non-starter for most editors though. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:14, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a revision with 2 and 3 removed would be good progress. (5) seems obscure but I think I'm okay with it. R. G. Checkers talk 22:20, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For Q1, I suppose if someone wanted to include it on Charlie Kirk itself. Though to be fair, I did just look up the definition of "tangentially". Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 13:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another example of a crime tangential to the main article would be Stan Rosenberg#Bryon Hefner scandal.
I think having a very strong presumption of not naming before official arrest or arrest warrant, charges, or indictment makes sense because that filters out most of the "accused by random people on the Internet" cases. The process of indictment in particular (at least here in the US) is meant to perform the same balance of the privacy rights of people who end up not being indicted with the public interest of justice, which is why grand jury proceedings are strongly sealed. The ham sandwich problem is why not everyone who is indicted needs to be named, but that does shift the needle somewhat in that once indicted, their name is a matter of public record.
I mention the other stages because not everyone gets indicted (and not all legal systems have this step for serious crimes, including some US states) and sometimes indictment is a formality (e.g. when someone is arrested because they were caught red-handed, or they've been on the run for years). -- Beland (talk) 16:26, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus required:
−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. Consensus must be obtained, normally through an [[WP:RFC]], before inclusion.
We know that adding such material is almost always contentious, and an RFC establishes a waiting period for things to shake out. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:22, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue here is that editors don't agree on what "seriously consider" means, which has lead to a ton of contentious RfCs on this topic. The purpose of these proposals is to actually settle on what we want the policy to do so that we can avoid these contentious discussions. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:24, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Also, many editors don't think we should regularly mention names until there's a conviction. For a high profile crime, 30 days isn't even close to being enough time for a plea deal or trial to occur.) voorts (talk/contributions) 22:27, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The addition can be tagged onto any text there's consensus for. I'm interested in halting the disruption that ends with multiple high profile articles full protected for edit warring, and it beats blocking a bunch of people as a CTOP action for violating BLPRESTORE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The editors who are edit warring over adding a name likely aren't familiar with this policy anyways. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:55, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Voorts is correct. Also, I don't think having a policy that pushes for RfC's--which are time consuming and contentious--is a healthy move to make. R. G. Checkers talk 22:26, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty much already the current state of affairs. Zero consistency across articles because editors have little to nothing to go on except "hey, consider not". It's absurd. -- Veggies (talk) 22:27, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer this over the other proposals so far, as it makes the need for consensus explicit. Every shooting/killing/murder/homicide, etc. case is unique, so it makes sense for each article to have its own consensus on whether to include or exclude the suspect's name. For instance, Talk:2022 University of Idaho murders/Archive 1#RfC: Suspect's Name found "strong consensus" to include the suspect's name, despite the "BLPCRIME!" "He has not yet been convicted!" arguments. Oxford High School shooting included the minor suspect's name in the article from the very beginning with very little debate (consensus was obtained implicitly through regular editing). Again, every case is unique, and imo, the more words that are added to BLPCRIME, the more unhelpful it becomes. Some1 (talk) 23:12, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If every case is unique, why are your rationales in the Idaho and Zarutska discussions identical? voorts (talk/contributions) 23:20, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One thing the two cases have in common is that they're both very high-profile cases. Some1 (talk) 23:26, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When does this issue not arise in high-profile cases? Your rationales in Killing of Austin Metcalf and Minnesota shootings are also the same. Have you ever used a different rationale in any of these discussions? voorts (talk/contributions) 23:49, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had created the Talk:Murders_of_Abigail_Williams_and_Liberty_German/Archive_1#RfC:_Suspect's_name RfC, but didn't participate because I was on the fence about the inclusion of his name. It was a unique one, because the suspect (well, now convicted killer) was arrested years after the murders had happened. Some1 (talk) 00:00, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that moreso would just be for more high-profile crime. I wouldn't have an issue with an admin or otherwise expereinced editor making this conclusion on their own, as long as it isn't concerning a case as high-profile as Kirk's. Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 14:00, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When we're talking about privacy, the stakes may be higher for low-profile crimes, given that names are more widely circulated in the press in high-profile cases. Though high-profile cases may attract more harassment from people far away. -- Beland (talk) 16:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure "a significant number of reliable sources and receives national or international coverage" is the right standard. I think the question is whether or not their name has become publicly known such that e.g. this Wikipedia article showing up if someone does a web search about them isn't going to make much of a difference because there are already plenty of other results disclosing the name. Sources don't need to be reliable to do that, but I suppose if no reliable sources use the name, either it's not a reliably known fact, or they have strong ethical reasons for not doing so and we shouldn't either. But certain names and events can become quite famous locally without generating national news, and I think satisfy the "negligible harm left to do by disclosure" standard. It's also possible local or niche sources simply go into more depth than national sources. -- Beland (talk) 22:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the question is whether or not their name has become publicly known ... The only way we can know that is if it's been covered in reliable sources. We shouldn't post names when all we have is speculation on X or 4chan; that would have opened the door to people trying to add the names of the random people who were being accused of the Kirk shooting, for example. Regarding local vs. national vs. international, I haven't seen anyone in any of these discussions defending adding a name based solely on local coverage. In any event, for the high-profile, notable crimes that this policy covers, it's highly unlikely that solely local media would name a suspect/accused. If there were such a case, as you noted, there's probably a very good reason that the name hasn't left the local sphere. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:03, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are certainly stories that are high-profile locally but not nationally or internationally. For example, the husband of the Massachusetts Speaker of the House of Representatives was involved in a major sexual harassment scandal that put his name extensively in the local press but not the national press. If we assume for the purposes of discussion that he was never convicted of anything due to disputed power and influence shenanigans, what is the metric by which we decide to name him vs. just call him the husband of the Speaker? He is now infamous in Boston, so Wikipedia naming him does not really have economic or social consequences here. If that's what we care about, extensive local coverage in reliable sources is sufficient. Do we care about his post-scandal name recognition in California? Does it matter if he has moved there and is trying to start his life over? Do we care about his post-scandal name recognition in the UK or what shows up when people there do a web search on his name? -- Beland (talk) 00:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how this hypothetical is relevant. A local political scandal that receives routine media coverage isn't notable and isn't something we'd have an article about on Wikipedia in the first place. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:32, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A local political scandal that receives routine media coverage isn't notable
That kind of depends on the scale and duration. There's one doozy I immediately thought of that doesn't have an article, and I could probably build one with 10+ SIGCOV trivially from different sources/venues, and have probably 50+ single cited sentences without too much effort (just time). If I just dropped that one shot (I often draft in word/notepad) into Article space, no one ever would AfD it. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:37, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This was a real, not hypothetical scandal, and we actually do cover it at Stan Rosenberg#Bryon Hefner scandal. The Boston Globe named the accused and printed his picture years before he was convicted, though our article also named him before the accusations. But we could easily imagine a scenario where the accused was a new boyfriend who was not as much of a public figure and not named in the press pre-scandal. -- Beland (talk) 01:38, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
National press is subjective too. What if it's a Greenlander? Local is national. Some districts in China have more people than other nations. California famous is more famous than like 50+ countries. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:33, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point of the inclusionary proposal was to capture what I took to be the position of the vast majority of editors who have recently supported inclusion of names of accuseds in articles. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:35, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. People were saying a given name had national press coverage as a way to indicate it passed the threshold, but that's not necessarily the only way to do so, is I think what we're saying now. -- Beland (talk) 01:40, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Saying "husband of the Speaker" should be considered naming him, for our purposes. It's specifying an identifiable individual. BLPCRIME as it currently stands and in most of the proposals currently here. does not limit that to identifying by name. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:46, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's a difference in the amount of harm done with an actual name vs. information that personally identifies someone, but you're right that personally identifying someone even without using their name can cause severe harm.
But my point was that local-only press coverage can matter. If we are looking for a realistic example, we can assume for discussion purposes it was a boyfriend who can't be identified from public records. -- Beland (talk) 02:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is, this was already put to rest. The presence of the name in sources being some special mitigating factor was indeed overwhelmingly rejected by the community, as evidenced by the failed proposal to add editors must carefully weigh factors such as the extent and quality of reliable sourcing to WP:BLPCRIME. It was already recently thoroughly rejected.
BLP policy needs to be enforced more strongly, as people are starting to get the impression that it's some kind of completely optional honor system due to the lack of enforcement on site-wide BLP policy.
To that extent, voort's Exclusionary/Inclusionary proposal in the opening post is good and concise wording. I prefer that. Ideally it would be Exclusionary/Status Quo so that a conclusion is actually reached. Symphony Regalia (talk) 23:16, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As noted in my opening, this discussion is not for expressing support or opposition to a particular perspective. The issue is clearly not settled as editors have continued to argue about it in increasingly contentious discussions. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:23, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I am referring to the use of the proposed wording in any additional RfC. Symphony Regalia (talk) 23:40, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is clearly not settled as editors have continued to argue about it in increasingly contentious discussions. I think the recent RfC was already quite clear, in that the effort to add an exception for presence in sourcing was rejected. Even if the entire section was replaced with "No." in bold font, whenever a crime is spread in political circles, editors will still repeatedly add it and endlessly argue on talk pages while ignoring WP:BLP. Accordingly, I see this is a failure of enforcement. BLP is already a CTOP so this should not be happening.
That said, to the extent that the wording can be updated to help, it's a good step. Symphony Regalia (talk) 23:48, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That RFC wasn't closed, and editors are continuing to argue that that RFC didn't settle anything. No admin is going to sanction someone for BLP violations when a large portion of the community evidently doesn't think the issue is settled. It's not the place of enforcement to settle disputes over PAGs. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:50, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like the majority of opposition to that RFC was against "editors should assess the stage of proceedings as a spectrum: person of interest < arrested < charged < on trial < convicted". The "weigh factors such as the extent and quality of reliable sourcing" part actually got support from some editors who opposed the proposal overall. So though the RFC was rejected, I would not conclude this idea has been rejected. The lesson I would take is that it needs an up-or-down discussion without being entangled with other changes, as voorts is doing. -- Beland (talk) 00:32, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was rejected. Only 2 out of 21 Oppose votes indicate any degree of lenience toward the sourcing consideration proposal. Symphony Regalia (talk) 02:43, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No admin is going to sanction someone for BLP violations when a large portion of the community evidently doesn't think the issue is settled in theory this will happen forever. At a certain point admins do have to enforce the policy.
Suppose it is amended to read straight-forwardly:
Do not include the name of a low-profile person who has not been convicted of a crime.
A crime happens and spreads in certain political spheres. Many editors want to "name and shame". Editors will still do it, start multiple RfCs, and start RfCs to change the definition of "low profile". Admins don't enforce BLP because the community doesn't think the issue is settled, so another RfC to amend it again starts. It now reads:
HEY. Do not include the name of a suspect who has not been convicted of a crime. Seriously, we REALLY mean it!
Happens again. Editors still do it, making detailed arguments about the true meaning of "suspect", more RfCs, and so on.
Updating the wording is good but it does need to be combined with enforcement. Symphony Regalia (talk) 03:16, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to suggest that your approach was a good idea but there's too many variations. Someone (hate to say this) should shove all the relevant discussions in the past however long, just copy/paste it all, into GPT et al and let it come up with stats on the top x most accepted options. If anything, that's the greatest strength of those tools.
Then, from that, a lesser RFC to see which are just going to be accepted, and then we're probably down to 1-3. Then a proper RFC+moratorium.
I had no idea this was so contentious till Killing of Charlie Kirk. Running it election style is probably the least ridiculous way given how dug in so many people seem. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 23:51, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason to deviate from our ordinary consensus-building exercises. I don't see how ChatGPT can give us new policy proposals that make any sense. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:54, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, not give us new ones. I was suggesting let it aggregate out what already are the most accepted ideas from prior discussions. At least then all the old stuff doesn't need to be rehashed, if it's stuff that's not going to be supported anyway. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:04, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't trust that analysis further than I could throw it. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:06, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was just a thought as this feels increasing time sensitive, and maybe it'd help skip a week of debates that already happened to move onto whatever already had broad support as options. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 00:10, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea how to solve this. Ideally, the current system would work, and administrators (or experienced non-admins) closing any discussion would discount any !votes that are not serious consideration - whether that's by specifically stating the factors they feel override the presumption to not include, or by explicitly referencing others' such arguments that have swayed them. But the current close review on AN shows that apparently that can't be expected of a closer to do such. There is very rarely anything encyclopedic that someone's name who is accused of a crime adds to the article. The few exceptions are when there's significance in their name either by relation to others involved, or relation to a public figure, or some other thing that's actually encyclopedic about their exact name. Wikipedia is here to be an encyclopedia, not a name and shame crime ticker, and we shouldn't be rushing to name and shame. If/when they're convicted of the crime, then there is no harm in reporting their name. Let the news media, social media, podcasts, and others do whatever they want to - it should not have any bearing on what we choose to do in our encyclopedia.
So I guess TLDR: we should be able to trust closers to adequately consider the "strength" of the considerations, and unless there is a clear majority of editors who agree that factors beyond just "well everyone else is saying it so the cat's out of the bag" are sufficient, after discounting any !votes that are not appropriate, to close the discussion at best as no consensus to include, which defaults to exclusion. That is, after all, how it worked for years and years until recently where such arguments started working and not being discounted. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:17, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My proposed wording would be to make no changes to what's already there, but add a short part about the role of the closer. For example: Any discussion which invokes BLP concerns related to naming someone accused of, suspected of, charged with (but not convicted of), or otherwise involved in a crime must be handled with extreme care by the person closing the discussion. Closers are expected, as always, to evaluate the strength of arguments as they relate to this guideline, and to discount any !votes that are based solely on weak arguments or do not contain any arguments or reference to others' arguments. Examples of weak arguments include "it's published elsewhere" or "the news is publishing it so it's out of the bag", as well as arguments based solely on things like "the article doesn't flow well with us having to say 'the suspect' or 'the accused' every time instead of being able to use a name". Only if there is a clear consensus to include the name after discounting such arguments should the closer find a consensus to include the name. In all other cases, including when there is potentially a weak consensus to include, the argument should be closed with a statement that there was no clear consensus to include and will default to continued (or new) exclusion of the name. I don't know how to make that a pretty diff example like others have done. Anyone should feel free to edit my idea of this sort of "closing advice" section to either improve how pretty it is or fix grammar/etc. if they think it's better. I'm not stuck on any particular wording. But I do think the best (and only good) thing to do is to add some closing instructions to clarify the types of arguments that should be discounted and to remind closers that only a clear consensus can override BLP concerns. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:23, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine with that too, but it just seems cleaner to actually amend the policy. Plus, if your version fails, that doesn't resolve the purported ambiguities in the current version of the policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your examples of "weak arguments" are subjective. Some1 (talk) 00:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, the same way basically everything we do here is subjective. It's subjective, for example, whether or not we should allow postnominals in the first sentence or not. Yet we have a guideline on that specifically. If we aren't going to define what "consideration" means, then this guideline is useless and should just be scrapped altogether as a big nothingburger if people can just override it because no closer is willing to discount arguments that are clearly weak. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:31, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I've ever seen a policy or guideline page explicitly label certain arguments as "weak" or "strong". Anyway, do you think all of the "Yes" votes in Talk:Killing_of_Charlie_Kirk#RFC_on_name_inclusion are based on "weak" arguments, then? If so, what would you consider to be a "strong" argument for including his name? Some1 (talk) 01:27, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would consider !votes like the following clearly weak:
  • At this point, waiting any longer has become ridiculous (no valid argument at all)
  • What is the point of waiting until he is formally charged on tuesday? He has already been named as the suspect by all of the media. (only valid argument is "well his name is there in the media" which is weak - WP:NOTNEWS and the plethora of other policies that we have that differ from what the news does).
  • It's everywhere, and hard to find even top quality sources that don't name it. I don't know why we are censoring something that's widely circulated, with no legal restrictions. Unlike the last two arrests, I see not one thing to suggest there's any doubt it's the right person - let alone reasonable doubt. (only arguments are "it's everywhere/widely circulated" and that there's no legal restriction on publishing it - which again, Wikipedia does not publish things just because it's not illegal to publish them).
That's literally the first 3 yes !votes on that thread. If you cannot see how those are weak at best, then you are ignoring this policy. None of those !votes show even an attempt to seriously consider it at all - just saying "well everyone else published it so we should too". I'll remind you of the adage "if everyone else jumps off a bridge, would you do it too just because they are". Wikipedia is by definition better specifically because we consider things that may have real world impacts on people before just publishing them because we can. Hence why it's not "publish it if it's already out there" in this policy but a specific imploring to "strongly consider" whether it really should be put in articles here.
And again, that's the whole reason we have administrators and consensus isn't a vote. If closing discussions was just based on what people put as their bolded answer and the closer was not expected to evaluate the strength of arguments, then we would just run everything as a vote and stop spending terabytes of storage space on WMF servers for people to explain their votes and reasoning. Providing two examples of clearly weak arguments that do not consider anything beyond "well it's been published elsewhere" and "article flow" does not lock administrators into discounting arguments 100% just because they include those things. But it does provide guidance on what does not qualify as "strong consideration".
I get that you don't like that part of the guidelines. Your recourse there is not to try and prevent administrators from evaluating it because you disagree with it. It's to either get approval to change every decision to a vote in the first place, or to get this guideline amended to no longer reflect a need for "strong consideration" thus allowing weak arguments. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:57, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I might have missed it, but what would you consider to be a "strong" argument for including his name? Some1 (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Something like them being a public figure already, so the benefits of the information outweigh the harm. For example, someone being charged with or accused of a crime who is already notable enough for their own article is never in any question (in fact, the WMF had to intervene following a court ruling they still disagree with because we did so).
Another strong argument is if there's significant notability in the name itself. For example, if someone went through a legal process to change their name to something relevant before committing the crime (ex: if Charlie Kirk's assassin changed their name to Fascist Trump or similar before they did it).
Lastly, if there is a large amount of information that is very WP:DUE that was self-published by the person in advance. For example, if someone published a manifesto under their name online before committing the crime.
These are just three examples of arguments that may be strong. I don't think it's useful to try and give examples of every strong argument. I haven't said this clearly so I know you probably don't see me as thinking this, but I prefer that arguments considered "strong" by default with two exceptions - the first is if there is significant disagreement over that argument in the discussion (such as multiple people opining how weak it is), and the second if it is based solely on the two examples I gave (i.e. already been published or needed for flow). Because ultimately, our article flow should not override BLP concerns. And other sites doing something doesn't mean we should.
Ideally we wouldn't need to specify those things, but given that the discussion closure that started all this clearly (and admittedly) didn't even make any attempt to discount arguments... -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:20, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like extensive press coverage can turn a low-profile person into a public figure against their will. I'm thinking of Monica Lewinsky and maybe Amanda Knox. How do you think about that? -- Beland (talk) 02:31, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:LPI: "A low-profile individual is someone who has been covered in reliable sources without seeking such attention, often as part of their connection with a single event". Everyone !voting "but there's lots of press coverage" in conversations is ignoring that guidance. Additionally, regarding Monica Lewinsky, I urge you to watch her TED talk on how she was basically the first person to be cyberbullied. These are the stakes involved when a bunch of editors show up to !vote to name and shame someone on wiki. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:53, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RE @Beland. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:55, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton stuff happened before the creation of Wikipedia though, so I don't see how that's relevant. Some1 (talk) 16:05, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Beland said It seems like extensive press coverage can turn a low-profile person into a public figure against their will. and used Monica Lewinsky as an example. My response was (1) LPI says that person is not a public figure for en-wiki purposes and (2) Monica Lewinsky is not a good example to bring up in what we should or should not cover on en-wiki. I think you should watch her TED talk as well, @Some1. There are human stakes to naming-and-shaming someone on the internet and, given that all of your prior !votes in this topic area are "there's lots of press coverage", I don't think you've seriously considered that. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that including the name of a key figure in an event or case (a name that's widely reported in nearly all, if not all, reliable sources related to the incident), in an article dedicated to that specific event or case, constitutes "naming and shaming"; but I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Some1 (talk) 17:16, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When it happened (and that Monica Lewinsky was not accused of a crime) is irrelevant to my point. I was just asking Berchanhimez about the low-profile individual vs. public figure distinction using real-life examples. Yes, the cyberbulling in the Lewinsky case is a good illustration of the real human consequences we want to prevent if possible, not a reason to ignore the example, if that's what you're saying, voorts?
Not all naming is shaming. As Thryduulf points out, naming someone on Wikipedia can help people find unbiased factual information about them. This is more likely to be beneficial to the subject if their name is already widely known. If they have been covered widely in reliable news sources, that means a record of reliable facts exists which Wikipedia can document, and that the subject also probably has a lot of misinformation about them circulating on social media and in the tabloid press which Wikipedia could help debunk. Of course, even people who have been named as public figures deserve some privacy, for example not publishing the address of their gym or the names of children uninvolved with anything of public interest.
Looking at the timeline in Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, I'd say she was certainly a low-profile person before the Drudge Report on January 17, 1998, but after being mentioned by the President of the United States on January 26 (if not before), she was nationally famous. The first reliable source (The Washington Post) seems to have mentioned her on January 21. Given that her name was constantly being repeated everywhere from front-page newspaper headlines to daytime talk shows, there would have been no privacy value in Wikipedia (had it existed at the time) suppressing her name in February, 1998. And that suppression would not have prevented the horrific cyber-bullying from people motivated by politics or slut-shaming or sexism or whatnot.
The emergence of Monica Lewinsky as a public figure did not happen because she voluntarily sought publicity (indeed she tried to avoid the press at first), but because of ubiquitous press coverage and a significant role in an event of public interest and international importance. A high-profile crime can have the same effect for an accused person.
I think our policies would benefit from some clarification: extensive public attention can involuntarily make a person into a public figure, including those accused of crimes. This means we treat them according to the high-profile person rules, and the third sentence of BLPCRIME does not apply (but the others still do.) This transition should be judged by coverage in reliable sources, including mainstream news sources that follow journalistic ethics around personal privacy (and are not engaged in tabloid journalism). If we're wondering if a news outlet has ethical privacy guidelines, we can see if they have a published policy, and if they have in the past suppressed identities to protect e.g. victims of sexual assault or whistleblowers from retaliation or innocent witnesses to a crime. -- Beland (talk) 17:45, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think our policies would benefit from some clarification: extensive public attention can involuntarily make a person into a public figure, including those accused of crimes. That would be a change in policy, not a clarification. See WP:LPI (which is linked to from the public figures section of BLP): "A low-profile individual is someone who has been covered in reliable sources without seeking such attention, often as part of their connection with a single event" (emphasis added). voorts (talk/contributions) 18:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to argue semantics, WP:LPI, as the banner at the top states, is not a policy, but an unvetted clarification of a policy. So what I am proposing is a meaningful change to the existing clarification of a policy. Regardless of what we call it, would that make a helpful RFC? -- Beland (talk) 18:38, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The policy WP:DETCON says "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." I would interpret "quality" there to mean arguments need to be evaluated as strong or weak or similar categories or spectrum. -- Beland (talk) 02:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, which is why we are having to discuss changing the wording here, since apparently it's not obvious to at least one administrator that an argument based on "well the name is published elsewhere so any harm is probably already happening from those publications of it" is, by definition, very weak. It's literally "well everyone else is jumping off a bridge so I should too". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 02:04, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know; that administrator is me. And yes, I think that's a strong argument, one that would be taken seriously in a professional newsroom. It recognizes that leaked information is not like punches. Disclosing a secret twice only does harm once, whereas administering two punches harms twice.
If you don't agree, that's fine; we're not supposed to be discussing the merits yet. But I'm also curious like Some1 what you would consider a strong argument in favor of inclusion. That might suggest some better wording. -- Beland (talk) 02:16, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One of the problems I have with the status quo is the implicit absurdity of its conclusions. The only real directive in BLPCRIME is: "editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime." The preamble to that is: "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction." If that is the case, how and on what basis can a consensus of editors decide, in an RfC or otherwise, that that presumption of innocence may be waived? BLPCRIME not just doesn't say—it flat out sidesteps the preamble with a very limp-wristed, unhelpful, and unclear "seriously consider not". The only logical outcome is a hardline prohibition which would leave an extremely conspicuous gap in extremely high-profile stories (like ones that make the ITN front page) and would be extremely unpopular with editors. -- Veggies (talk) 01:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not interpret "serious consideration" merely as editors having had a good-faith conversation about the question at hand and then recklessly doing whatever they want regardless of the real-world consequences. I think it also implies that there is a high threshold to be met for inclusion when considering competing factors, and potential for harm should be heavily weighted. This specific phrasing seems to be tripping people up, so maybe we could clarify that with something like "the strong potential for severe harm means editors should carefully consider the consequences, lean toward protection of subjects, and be skeptical of adding material...". -- Beland (talk) 01:23, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's about flaccid as what's already in BLPCRIME and it doesn't answer the question of how a consensus of editors can waive a person's presumption of innocence. There's zero actual standard to meet. Also, what are "the consequences", precisely? -- Veggies (talk) 02:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Wikipedia actually does or should "waive a person's presumption of innocence" for a living person unless they confess or are convicted or equivalent. Saying "police accused Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing with his brother, and arrested him after a shootout in Watertown" doesn't imply that Tsarnaev is guilty. The reader may draw that conclusion from the circumstances, but that statement would still be true if it later turned out the police had arrested the wrong person. But the question we are asking is not so much how to word that sentence but whether or not to include the name. Even an unnamed person would need to carry the same presumption of innocence to maintain neutrality and accuracy and whatnot.
Negative consequences from the initial widespread identification of a subject as a suspect in a high-profile crime or immoral act include harassment, loss of job, psychological trauma, doxxing, swatting, death threats, the need for the entire family including innocent children to relocate, suicide, and murder (based on real things that have happened to people accused of things they didn't do). -- Beland (talk) 02:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Wikipedia actually does or should "waive a person's presumption of innocence" for a living person unless they confess or are convicted or equivalent. If your standard is "negligent harm will be done by disclosing their name", how can editors meet that standard? Say there's a crime that doesn't make as big a splash, news-wise as a major event (i.e. Murder of Reese Bowman vs Charlie Kirk), but is still notable enough for a standalone article. How can an editor know when adding the name of an accused will result in "negligent harm"? Most criminals (of major crimes) lose their jobs immediately on arrest, are legally doxxed, suffer the trauma of arrest, etc. How do we parse that? Is it by the nature of the crime? -- Veggies (talk) 02:46, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point of BLPCRIME is to protect people against the unfair consequences of being falsely accused of a crime, and to protect the privacy of innocent bystanders. It is not there to protect adults who commit crimes from the consequences of their actions. It also takes into consideration the notion that juvenile and college disciplinary records should be private so young people have a chance to learn from serious mistakes.
I think the way for editors to perform the balancing is to presume that severe harm would occur from a false accusation, and look to reliable sources to find out to what degree accusations are credibly disputed (which is why randomly accused on the Internet vs. seen on video stabbing someone vs. arrest warrant vs. indicted vs. convicted matters) and to sources generally to know to what degree the identity actually is still private in a context that matters. -- Beland (talk) 15:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BLPCRIME itself says absolutely nothing about school disciplinary records or age. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:37, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
True, it doesn't explicitly say anything about that, but that's one of the reasons it's there, and in practice people have made arguments around age in related RFCs. Certainly "should we name a 13-year old accused of a crime in a sealed proceeding because their name has been leaked to a local newspaper" would get a lot more opposition than "should we name a 25-year-old accused of a crime in open court", including from me. I guess the question now is whether it's helpful to explicitly spell out that sort of thing, or whether to leave it up to editorial discretion what factors to consider. -- Beland (talk) 18:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
and would be extremely unpopular with editors. This isn't a popularity contest and the BLP policy makes clear that we should be conservative in what we say about living people. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except it is a popularity contest, whether we wish to admit it or not, because every high-profile case ends up with an RfC of editors, on two sides, waging rhetorical war over an unclear, unhelpful guideline. -- Veggies (talk) 02:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just realized that you left an important part of BLPCRIME out of your quote: "For individuals who are not public figures". Extensive press coverage can arguably make someone a public figure, in which case the "editors must seriously consider..." part doesn't apply. -- Beland (talk) 18:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Extensive press coverage can arguably make someone a public figure - no, absolutely not, not ever; this is completely and categoricially untrue (it's a common and annoying misunderstanding about public figures, but it is flatly wrong.) Per WP:LOWPROFILE, someone can only become a public figure through intentionally seeking the spotlight; it is not possible, under Wikipedia's policy, to "involuntarily" become a public figure, regardless of the level or focus of coverage. (To understand why, consider the possibility of someone who is famous for being harassed - no amount of harassment, no matter how high-profile and no matter how big of a megaphone their harassers hold, can make them a public figure.) Sometimes someone accused of a crime might choose to seek the spotlight for one reason or another and eventually become a public figure as a result; we might also reasonably argue they're a public figure if there is no question whatsoever that they committed the crime with the intent of gaining public notoriety. But the amount of coverage has no bearing whatsoever on whether someone is a public figure our not - it's their own actions and intent that matter. --Aquillion (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't align with the definition in the article Public figure, which says someone can become one "through no purposeful action of their own", with a citation there into US defamation law. I'm thinking of Monica Lewinsky, who I couldn't reasonably argue only went from being a non-public personality to a public personality when she published her book or gave her 20/20 interview. Also thinking of Whitey Bulger, who I don't think ever did media appearances or publicity events or charged admission for people to see him do bad things, the first three criteria of WP:LOWPROFILE. He's a public figure because of the last two - he had power, and his activities were high-profile. (That was magnified by having a famous brother.) I think the self-summary of WP:LOWPROFILE, which is labelled an unvetted essay and not a policy, is in error. -- Beland (talk) 04:56, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If WP:LOWPROFILE states that people who are very obviously public figures are not public figures then it is the essay that is wrong. Wikipedia follows reliable circumstances in determining what reality is and is not, whether someone is a public figure is no exception to that. Additionally, if you actually read the essay someone like the shooter of Charlie Kirk meets the following criteria in there of being a high-profile individual:
  • has participated in an attention-seeking manner in publicity for some other concern
  • Has sought or holds a position of pre-eminence, power, or authority in a field of research, a sport, a business market, a political sphere, or other area of human endeavor, usually at more than a locally-significant level. Such a position does not necessarily convey notability, but is evidence of projection of self-identity into the public consciousness.
  • As of the writing (or review/editing) of the article (or as of the article subject's death) is (or was) engaged in high-profile activity, as described above, with or without a lifelong history of such activities.
It's also worth noting that the original author of that essay, Jclemens, has strongly implied below that using that essay in the context of BLP crime is misusing it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:38, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The actual source being used there refers to a case from the 70s (Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 345 (1974)), which states Those classed as public figures stand in a similar position. Hypothetically, it may be possible for someone to become a public figure through no purposeful action of his own, but the instances of truly involuntary public figures must be exceedingly rare. For the most part, those who attain this status have assumed roles of especial prominence in the affairs of society. Some occupy positions of such persuasive power and influence that they are deemed public figures for all purposes. More commonly, those classed as public figures have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved. In either event, they invite attention and comment. Hypothetically it could happen, but it must be exceedingly rare. There's a difference between being a public figure and being notable.
From that same decision, Public officials and public figures usually enjoy significantly greater access to the channels of effective communication, and hence have a more realistic opportunity to counteract false statements than private individuals normally enjoy. Simply being the subject of media coverage doesn't provide greater access to the channels of effective communication to rebut claims.
All of that said, are we sure we want to rely on US legal precedence for the definition of a public figure? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's from the 1970s, though; these days it seems like a lot of random people become a lot more famous a lot more suddenly, and also everyone has great access to channels of effective communication.
If we're not basing our policy on this legal term of art, then maybe we should be using different terminology. It sounds like people want to differentiate subjects who are attention-seeking and power-exercising from those who are not, rather than people who are famous from those who are not? (Arguably, committing a crime like murder or theft is also an exercise of power.) -- Beland (talk) 15:12, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's the definition you cited from Public figure. That's where our prose about becoming a public figure through no purposeful action of their own came from.
It sounds like people want to differentiate subjects who are attention-seeking and power-exercising from those who are not, rather than people who are famous from those who are not? Being famous isn't being a public figure. Being a public figure is specifically putting yourself into the public sphere or exercising power for influence. There is a legitimate question if committing a crime is sufficient to cross that bar, but that also can be an unknown for some time after an act. If someone was found not culpable for their actions was it still an exercise of power? Santa Fe High School shooting, for instance, where the perpetrator was found incompetent to stand trial. Was that crime an exercise of power in such a way to make them a public figure? Is the suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk or the killing of Iryna Zarutska fit to stand trial or culpable for their actions? Do we know yet?
Almost all of these articles are going to have a number of considerations like this, which is why I don't think expanding any particular language about how to weigh what sources and if simply being sourced is a reasonable consideration. Each case is unique and will need to be discussed. What we do know is that inclusion of the name is almost always disputed, and addressing the disruption that comes from that dispute is the lowest hanging fruit. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:27, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we're getting deep into arguing the merits of whether the amount of coverage should be considered, or if it's sufficient on its own. It sounds like you're a strong "no". The point of this discussion so far is to determine how to ask the question. -- Beland (talk) 16:11, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(Personally, I'm not sure the attention-seeking or power-exercising criteria are particularly relevant to the privacy rights in question. They are part of the construct that defines a class of people in American law that are more difficult to defame under the First Amendment, which is very different from how many other countries manage these tradeoffs. But Wikipedia aims to never defame anyone; it tries to stick to facts that are true or at least reasonably believed to be true based on credible sources. I'd probably look more toward the treatment of privacy interest in Journalism ethics and standards. -- Beland (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2025 (UTC))[reply]
(Also, we're not doing original journalism, so it's not unreasonable to just follow the disclosures made by professional news organizations that follow those ethical standards.) -- Beland (talk) 16:23, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm definitely not a strong no, it's something that has to be considered along with the entirety of the situation. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:20, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so how would you ask the question? -- Beland (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't. I think this is already a decent sized time-sink, and an RFC would be even more when it will close as "no consensus" or "there is a rough consensus that sourcing is one of many parts of giving the serious consideration called out in BLPCRIME" and we'll continue with the status quo. Again, my driving concern is the disruption caused by edit warring over the inclusion of a name and the risk of including the name of a suspect that turns out to be innocent. We're not going to find consensus that sourcing is enough on its own, or that sourcing has no bearing on inclusion, so lets take care of the disruption and make it clear that if there is an objection affirmative consensus is required and set the expectation of an RFC, especially in high profile cases, to determine that consensus. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like the latter RFC outcome would be a major change to the status quo; people who say the amount of coverage in reliable sources can't be taken into account wouldn't be able to make that argument. There are people claiming that consensus exists that sourcing has no bearing on inclusion, so that is what we would be (I hope) putting to rest. -- Beland (talk) 20:03, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • A suggest is to integrate mention of NOTNEWS in this section more: that WP writes for the long-term and while we can and should cover breaking news events with significant coverage beyond a day or two, we still are writing these from an encyclopedic, long-term view. In that direction, there is never a need to rush to add in any names of non-public profile figures in crime-related articles, and should wait until it is very clear that those names are actually significant to the event. Masem (t) 01:00, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What about a simple ranking? I gave the example of a local scandal that I could make a big article out of. It went... a long time. I doubt it ever touched near national level.
    But something like, if international/national news, that day is probably fine; if state level probably a week, if local... ongoing/long term? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 01:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There is actually real value in adding information quickly - old information is not as useful in dynamic situations, and the vast majority of page views are going to be while an event is happening or while people are just finding out about it. This is not an excuse to rush so much that false information routinely gets incorporated. I think the right balance is struck by WP:RSBREAKING. Mostly because I wrote that text, but it is also a guideline. -- Beland (talk) 01:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. We should be trailing the news by a considerable degree rather than trying to be up to the minute, so that we are getting the facts correct and not propagating bad information that can come in the minutes after some event. Readers coming to WP to look for breaking news are very much in the wrong place. Masem (t) 02:33, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's why WP:RSBREAKING recommends waiting a day or two for facts to settle. The New York Times often does this, and as a result their stories are often more accurate and comprehensive.
    Personally, I do actually turn to Wikipedia for more information about breaking news - not necessarily minute-by-minute, but certainly day by day. I find it is often better to look here than to read any single news report, because we crowdsource information from all the news reports, and also have a lot of existing background articles. And we can also do a much deeper dive quickly adding background information that isn't news but is extremely useful at that moment in time. -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Props to voorts for attempting to get something done on this, but it's a tough nut to crack. My experience from the last RfC leads me to lean toward the status quo. I don't think there's anything wrong with the current wording. It's clear to me. There are editors who feel strongly that names should almost never be included, and I’m not sure how to craft language that improves on the status quo while still leaving some flexibility in WP:BLPCRIME without upsetting those who lean toward exclusion. Nemov (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • What I would suggest is specifically incorporating BLPNAME into BLPCRIME, since some people seem to be interpreting BLPCRIME as allowing a lower standard than BLPNAME (an obviously absurd conclusion given that BLPCRIME is a more specific case intended for situations where the name has more potential for harm.) Note that the "inclusionary" suggestion above is also unworkable because it would functionally codify this absurd result - clearly BLPCRIME must be more strict than BLPNAME; that's its entire purpose, to state that names in this specific context are more sensitive and require a higher standard. The other suggestions are all useless because they don't say what the standard is. Either just mention BLPNAME in BLPCRIME, or add something reflecting the key sentence that When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories. My suggestion therefore be a stronger version of BLPNAME, something like:
−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. In addition to the standard requirements of [[WP:BLPNAME]], for individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must <strong>not</strong> use news reports or related commentary as sources for text in any article that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. Sourcing used for such inclusions must reflect [[WP:SUSTAINED]] coverage and the named individual must be their primary focus.
This, I think, covers the main points of disagreement and sets a clear-cut standard that is easily satisfied in situations where the name must be included. Maybe mentioning "related commentary" isn't necessary, but opinion pieces and commentary are the other type of coverage that typically appears rapidly in situations where we fall into BLPCRIME situations, and we clearly don't want to use them for this, so I'd rather exclude them unambiguously. The key point here is that the real dispute (or at least the one that's useful / workable from a policy standpoint) isn't "should we include the name", it is "what sort of sourcing is sufficient to include the name." Excluding news reports via a completely unambiguous red-line rule, and requiring that the subject be the main focus of the non-news coverage that we do allow, sets two clear-cut standards that will prevent sensationalism, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:RECENTISM problems, letting us avoid names in contexts where they are likely to have the least value and highest risk, while nonetheless inevitably allowing the names we must include in time, as that dedicated secondary non-news coverage appears. (Note that of course public figures, those who have been convicted, and those outside the scope of BLP / BDP could still be covered via news reports and lesser sources, since they fall outside of BLPNAME's scope.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with the lines added to address SUSTAINED and getting towards NOTNEWS.
I do feel we need something that is more a justification for why we have BLPCRIME that's less instruction-y, and it may not be appropriate to have on the BLP page itself but likely as an essay, so that there is room to cover all the nuances around this part of the policy. Likely, in regards to my concern on the NOTNEWS angle, that holding off inclusion of a named non-public indivudal, besides supporting BLP, reflects on the long-term view we're supposed to take in encyclopedic writing. But again, that's something best for an essay and doesn't have to be immediately considered with this chance. Masem (t) 12:46, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's another benefit of requiring an RFC because it's obviously going to be contentious. We get a whole month to see where coverage is going. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:16, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that the distinction between BLPNAME and BLPCRIME exists due to different potential for harm. But how come that harm only ever seems to be "heavily considered" to argue AGAINST inclusion? Inclusion causes immediate damage to reputation, which is socially and legally reversible. Omission puts lives at risk while criminals are at large. Coincidentally, Luigi Mangione and the Charlie Kirk shooter (don't know his name, guess why) were both exposed by the same mechanism - ordinary citizens acting on potentially harmful information.
I get most of my news from here. Like it or not, wikipedia is a no-frills news source for many, which is probably part of why these policies exist in the first place. They set wikipedia apart from the profit-driven scoop-racing in the news, which is unencyclopedic and carries potential for harm - I greatly respect that. But why exactly do I know who Mangione is, but not who killed Charlie Kirk or Iryna Zarutska? I've seen this question drowned in (no doubt valid) technicalities, but let's think about why those technicalities exist. "Public" figures enjoy less protection from inclusion because any potential harm will have already been caused by mainstream media, or themselves. "Convicted" figures aren't protected because their involvement is considered a settled matter of fact in every way that matters, so no unjust harm can be done.
These policies are obviously about preventing potential harm caused by misinformation. That should be made very explicit, instead of being buried in technicality and vague morals that could permit arguing in either direction (as I did at the start). The current wording offers only one clear indication of when this harm grace-period might end; conviction. That supports my interpretation, since no further harm can be caused OR prevented by exposing a sentenced criminal. But, de facto, noone gives a shit. Mangione is not convicted. He's merely in custody as the only realistic perpetrator, and has been exhaustively identified by mainstream media. If those conditions are sufficient, write them down. If they aren't, why isn't this policy being enforced? Is it because wikipedia is a news site, despite its loud and frequent protests? 89.236.187.98 (talk) 13:40, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“But why exactly do I know who Mangione is, but not who killed Charlie Kirk or Iryna Zarutska”
I dunno, are you really bad at Google? It wasn’t hard to find the answers to this, tbh; is there something in particular you were struggling with? 173.177.179.61 (talk) 23:39, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's no need for a personal attack; the point was simply that anyone who relies on Wikipedia for news wouldn't know certain names because they have been suppressed. You can debate the merits of that claim as you like. -- Beland (talk) 23:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you proposing this as the inclusionary or exclusionary version? It sounds very exclusionary to me, as we'd have to basically wait for a conviction or a book to come out to name people who have admitted to committing a crime or who are world-famous for being accused of a given crime. That seems pretty overboard. -- Beland (talk) 16:00, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is, from my perspective, simply a slightly more firm statement of the existing policy; as I said, it doesn't make sense to suggest that WP:BLPCRIME somehow makes the standard for names in the context of criminal accusations lower than the general rule established in WP:BLPNAME (and I would obviously oppose any move away from that existing policy, which unambiguously disfavors news coverage for the purpose of names in BLPs - that's really the only BLP-specific guideline for the use of low-profile names that we have!) I don't think that it's that difficult of a standard - academic sourcing appears quite quickly in some cases, and other forms of non-news coverage exist. "Oh, well they admitted it", by comparison, would obviously be a terrible standard to use; plenty of people have been reported to have confessed to X or Y or Z only for it to later turn out to be coerced. --Aquillion (talk)
  • Oppose any change. None of these are any clearer than what we already have and do not solve the problem. If we have a rule that says "never, unless we feel like it," that is dumb. The RfC discussions will be exactly as disastrous as they are now, perhaps even worse. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:24, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do think that the current wording can be improved, but none of the proposals presented so far will be an improvement. The point of the BLP policy is to avoid harming a living person. The most significant purpose of BLP crime is to avoid causing harm by stating or implying that someone committed a crime they have not been convicted of - this is completely uncontroversial. The second purpose is to avoid causing harm by giving undue prominence to accusations and/or by unduly linking a person's name with a particular event. Contrary to the apparent views of some, is not inherently harmful to name someone before conviction, even if they were not previously a public figure. For example when a large number of high profile, highly partisan sources name X as being the only suspect in the murder of Y then it can be less harmful to name that person - because that makes it more likely that people will find neutral and balanced information about the events rather than biased information of sometimes dubious reliability. This means that how much harm inclusion of the name in Wikipedia will cause (which is a spectrum that ranges from extremely high to negative) many factors, including both the volume and nature of the coverage in reliable and unreliable sources, must be considered. The nature and extent of coverage on Wikipedia is also relevant. To this end what the policy should be doing is expanding on what "seriously consider" means - perhaps by giving examples of factors that commonly relevant and need to be considered (whether the suspect and/or those speaking on their behalf have actively sought out or actively sought to avoid publicity is another example). Care also needs to be taken to ensure that the guidance is not too closely tied to any one legal system - for example there is no felony-misdemeanour distinction in English law and civil law systems can work very differently to common law ones. tl;dr improvements can be made, but the proposals so far will not improve matters because they miss the point. Thryduulf (talk) 13:06, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we first need to decide as a community if we want a very strict rule (charges=name, anything less=no name) or somethiing with wiggle room (though not necessarily as much as it is now). Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 14:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Given that recent consensuses have been to include the name of Charlie Kirk's suspected killer but exclude the name of Austin Metcalf's suspected killer I think it's clear that a very strict rule (whether that is charges=name, anything less=no name or something else) would not get consensus. Imagine the case of two celebrities, both are adults, both are unquestionably notable and have had stand-alone articles for several years. Celebrity A is the shot and killed, celebrity B is the only suspect in the case, they have been extensively named as such in the media and have even held a press conference in which they explicitly discuss and deny the allegations. There is absolutely no question we would name celebrity B. We would not name a previously unambiguously non-notable minor who was accused of killing someone barely notable (e.g. mentioned by name once in an article about a group they are associated with) whose name appears in only a small number of low-circulation reliable sources and whose family have actively avoided publicity. Where you draw the line between the two is a matter of judgement depending on how you weigh the many different factors in the context of the individual circumstances of each case. Thryduulf (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    but exclude the name of Austin Metcalf's suspected killer The first RfC concluded with no consensus to include or exclude, and the second RfC ended with consensus to include. Some1 (talk) 14:51, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I hadn't seen the second RFC, but my main point was that discussions about different situations that were both at the same stage of the person of interest-criminal trial verdict sequence arrived at different outcomes so a single hard-and-fast rule would be significantly unlikely to gain consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 16:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The rule is not clear now, and I don't even think he's officially been charged yet. Some people even said to wait for conviction in fact. If the rule was clear, there wouldn't have been multiple massive RFAs discussing whether or not to include the name. Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 00:09, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The way I see it, there is a clear line between suspicion of crime and being formally charged with a crime. We should avoid speculation and rumor, even when the news media is full of such. However, once a suspect has been officially charged with a crime, we can report on that formal accusation. Blueboar (talk) 15:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do folks feel about an RfC that asks a single question:
    Should BLPCRIME be amended to generally favor inclusion or exclusion of information that suggests that a living person has committed a crime prior to conviction?
    Once that question is answered and consensus has been evaluated, we can then workshop a new wording and put it to an up or down !vote.
    Thoughts? voorts (talk/contributions) 16:01, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think a lot of people's answers, including mine, would depend on the exact wording, and I would be uncomfortable endorsing a direction without knowing where it would end up. The way this is asked is also confusing...I would not say that what you call that the "inclusive" option makes BLPCRIME more inclusive than it is now, and I would !vote against making BLPCRIME more inclusive. But your inclusive option is also the one I strongly favor, with some tweaks. -- Beland (talk) 16:34, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We now have, what, five proposals in this discussion alone? I think at this point if we start an RfC with several separate proposals it will trainwreck. If we have a discussion, a closer can then describe what the consensus was and what editors' reasons were for reaching that consensus. Once we know what the community feels are the most important values here, it will be easier to draft a proposal that matches that consensus. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:58, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    it’s essentially impossible to get consensus with multiple options. R. G. Checkers talk 17:27, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not necessarily. If there is consensus against the status quo then bartender could apply. CNC (talk) 17:40, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:BARTENDER. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:46, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I meant to link that obvs. CNC (talk) 18:11, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, in order to get a clear answer we either have to narrow down the wording change proposals here to one or two that most strongly represent the choice you are trying to offer, or more clearly ask the abstract question you are trying to answer. We might be able to avoid going off the rails with "depends on the exact wording" answers if we don't ask for an endorsement of an unspecified wording change. For example: "Should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a factor in considering whether to suppress information about a person accused of a crime, as described in WP:BLPCRIME?"
    A second RFC could then propose a wording change to document the answer. Or, perhaps less controversially, we could make no wording change and simply consider this a binding interpretation of the existing wording. That could be documented by linking to the RFC in an explanatory footnote. -- Beland (talk) 18:00, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a factor in considering whether to suppress information about a person accused of a crime, as described in WP:BLPCRIME? I'd be fine with a modified version of this question: For the purposes of WP:BLPCRIME, should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a valid consideration in determining whether to include or exclude information about an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime? voorts (talk/contributions) 18:13, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That seems clear enough. 👍 -- Beland (talk) 18:40, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:Suppress has a specific meaning. Might want to pick a different word. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:46, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I did. See my rewording. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think the BLPCRIME should generally favour either inclusion or exclusion, because which option is the least harmful (the goal we should always be striving towards) depends entirely on the individual circumstances and requires consideration of many different factors. Thryduulf (talk) 16:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It already favors exclusion as it's part of WP:BLP and is subject to WP:BLPRESTORE. That's why we should be aiming at making the process to include the name clear, rather than trying to pre-assign weight to different arguments. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:45, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    SFR, respectfully, I don't think you're really grasping what the issue here is. You and I may think (or even find it obvious) that it favors exclusion, but there have been several disputes recently with editors insisting that it allows for inclusion so long as there is sufficient press coverage. I think all of those disputes have had RfCs, and some of them have resulted in inclusion based on the aforementioned arguments. We need to have a broader statement of consensus to resolve this. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:55, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's also worth noting Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2025 August 29#Karmelo Anthony where the speedy deletion of a redirect from the suspect's name to the article about the crime they are accused of was overturned. The rationale for the speedy deletion was that inclusion of the redirect following a no-consensus RFD was a BLP violation. Thryduulf (talk) 17:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A discussion that ran 10 to 9 and where the closer made an explicit statement on a policy point that was argued in the discussion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:55, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As the closer explicitly pointed out it was not (and is not) a vote, and even if it were that wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to my point: community consensus about what should be removed on BLP-grounds is less exclusionary than some people would like it to be.
    Everybody agrees that BLP violations should be removed, the disagreement is about what constitutes a BLP violation. Thryduulf (talk) 19:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A discussion on a page with so few watchers it can't be displayed and with 10 editors supporting a point isn't "community consensus" of anything. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If a single DRV were the only discussion then your point might have some relevance (although do note that deletion review has over 1300 watchers), but it isn't and so it doesn't. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Favors exclusion" and "allows for inclusion with sufficient press coverage" are not mutually exclusive, and doing both of those things is exactly how I'd describe the policy. -- Beland (talk) 17:48, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's where I fall on it. The RFC is the serious consideration called for in the policy. That's why I think explicitly stating that it needs positive consensus in BLPCRIME would be an improvement. What we need to do is cut down on the edit warring and disruption around inclusion of names. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:57, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with that wording, is it still leaves the question of whether text like "Joe Bloggs has been reported to have been arrested" is, in fact, "Suggesting that Joe Bloggs has committed a crime". The debates around articles are normally around whether we include a name at all. JeffUK 16:18, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this question captures the main point of the current dispute:
For the purposes of WP:BLPCRIME, should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a valid consideration in determining whether to include or exclude information about an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime?
We don't need to answer every question at once. I think we can get this one out of the way and see how that affects these debates. If we need to come back after that, we can. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a good first question, as long as it is clear that it is not proposed to be the only consideration and that the existence or lack of such coverage does not automatically result in either inclusion or exclusion. Thryduulf (talk) 19:28, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is that clear from the above wording, or did you want to propose adding wording to make that clear? -- Beland (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
as long as it is clear that it is not proposed to be the only consideration and that the existence or lack of such coverage does not automatically result in either inclusion or exclusion. The question doesn't imply it's the only consideration; it says "a valid consideration", not the valid consideration. If the question is answered "yes", it would be a valid consideration, and the question doesn't ask what weight that consideration gets. If the question is answered "no", then editors could not argue that "John Doe is named in a lot of sources" as a reason to include. I think this would cleanly resolve the dispute that has arisen across the various article-specific RfCs. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Voorts @Beland The wording as presented is clear to me, but surrounding context can be important so I think it would be worth making it explicit when asking the question. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I intend to link to the RFCBEFORE discussion and provide a short summary of the dispute. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:52, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Thryduulf: It sounds like you would like to see a longer question; is there specific language you can propose? -- Beland (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would keep Voorts' wording as is, but add a sentence (maybe below the question) saying something like "it is explicitly not proposed that coverage be the sole consideration, the existence or lack of such coverage would not automatically result in either inclusion or exclusion." but there are better wordsmiths than me. Thryduulf (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How about just adding "(among others)" after "a valid consideration"? -- Beland (talk) 23:44, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:40, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that BLPCRIME requires an RFC update (having participated and closed such discussions over several years). The current language is not clear, and does not help editors make appropriate decisions on when to include or exclude names. Proposals above that do not directly tackle this issue are not sufficient: including language related to consensus doesn't help, and focusing any change on SUSTAINED is also not useful because BLPCRIME disputes are like half of the time not prolonged.
    R. G. Checkers's first proposal is the closest to a good one. I think we need to add two sentences providing guidance about the issues that must be weighed by editors in these discussions. That would reiterate and clarify the rationale for BLPCRIME, and allow consistent and specific discussions to take place. Then, the issue can be passed off to article-specific decision-making, which will likely be fact sensitive. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ProcrastinatingReader's proposal

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−
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime.
+
A living person accused of a crime is [[Presumption of innocence|presumed innocent]] until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations, arrests and charges do not amount to a conviction. Accusations reported in the media may be inaccurate or false, and the charges themselves may later be withdrawn or disproven. Because Wikipedia is widely read, naming can lead to broad dissemination and lasting harm. For individuals who are [[Wikipedia:NOTPUBLICFIGURE|not public figures]]—that is, individuals not covered by [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Public figures|§ Public figures]]—editors must seriously consider <strong>not</strong> including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime. In applying this test, editors should carefully weigh the potential for lasting reputational harm, against the depth, quality, and prominence of reliable source coverage naming the individual. Inclusion is generally only appropriate where the coverage makes the individual's identity a central and very widely reported aspect of the event, and where omission would unduly impair the article's accuracy or coherence.

A proposal to include language clarifying purpose, and provide a broad balancing test for editors to consider. IMO the lack of these things makes it very difficult for editors doing the 'serious consideration' and for closers. I think the rationale shouldn't require one to read through WT:BLP archives to and should be in the policy itself. Even including one of these things (rationale or balancing test) is an improvement over the current situation. I think it's somewhere in between the inclusionary and exclusionary proposals above, and is intended to reflect the de facto consensus I've seen form over BLPCRIME RfCs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If a name is reported in a lot of sources, then I think it definitionally makes the individual's identity a central and very widely reported aspect of the event. I think this proposal embodies the inclusionary approach. where omission would unduly impair the article's accuracy or coherence. As I noted above, I think "coherence" is a bit of a red herring, since it's easy to replace a name with "the accused" or "the suspect". As for "accuracy", how is it inaccurate to describe someone as "the accused" or "the suspect"? voorts (talk/contributions) 20:10, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
then I think it definitionally ... I don't think it does. With the Charlie Kirk shooting for instance, the individual's identity is not currently a central aspect of the event (their name is just widely reported), and is currently easily substitutable for "the suspect" without much loss. That can easily change, of course, and for this particular event I suspect it will.
With accuracy and coherence: if large chunks of the article are about aftermath that relates specifically to the accused's identity (eg a politically motivated crime with substantial political or societal consequences arising from the accused's motivations and background), then it may become incoherent to write an appropriate article without detailed discussion of the individual. Perhaps you could replace every instance with "the suspect". But in one case I recall, this became somewhat unreadable and RFC consensus was to just name the individual, as the level of detail and referencing becomes identifying anyway. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:29, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Noting here that the Killing of Charlie Kirk suspect naming RfC ended with consensus to include, with a well-written closing statement by the admin. No one in this discussion mentioned the WP:NPOV policy yet, so quoting from the close: a few linked this to the policy on neutrality, saying that not mentioning the suspect's name, contrary to how WP:reliable sources cover it (due weight), is an issue for neutrality. Some1 (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly if an article is incoherent that's a negative factor. I think we're normally balance against something more substantial, though - the information value of not naming. I'd probably express that as "where omission would unduly the ability of readers to find information about a person when searching by name or to find more information about the person involved in an event of public interest." Editors then need to decide what "unduly" means in each case. If I'm the subject of a statewide manhunt, it's reasonable for the public to be able to find that incident when searching on my name, and to use my name to find further information about me, the aftermath of the incident, and related public policy debates. If I am walking down the sidewalk and witness an assault and call 911 and then leave and that's the end of it, as a private person it's reasonable for Wikipedia to prevent that incident from showing up when future employers search on my name. -- Beland (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
where omission would unduly the ability of readers you appear to be missing a word here, presumably something like "hinder"? Thryduulf (talk) 22:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks. -- Beland (talk) 23:45, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the new question I've proposed above wouldn't require flipping through the archive. The result of the RfC could be easily incorporated by saying "The amount of coverage in reliable sources is (not) a valid consideration", depending on the outcome. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support this proposal. R. G. Checkers talk 20:22, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Accusations reported in the media may be inaccurate or false, and the charges themselves may later be withdrawn or disproven. Because Wikipedia is widely read, naming can lead to broad dissemination and lasting harm. I'm not sure anyone would oppose or disagree with this. I think you could probably boldly add this. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:03, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because I don't nessisarily see this being a quick RFC, I'd support adding this piece only for the moment and then figuring everything else out. Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 21:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am also fine with this portion. Symphony Regalia (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This would do nothing to solve the issue because it's already the logic being used by some editors to circumvent site-wide WP:BLP protections for low-profile individuals. A more concrete exclusionary option should be presented against the status quo. Symphony Regalia (talk) 21:07, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support - If we divide amendment proposals into generalized language vs strict guidelines, this one is a good example of an amendment with generalized language that makes sense. This is definitely on the right track. -- Veggies (talk) 01:04, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By my count, we have 8 separate proposals on the table at this point. (Please let me know if I missed any.)
I propose we have an RfC on the following question instead of presenting several different proposals to the community:
For the purposes of WP:BLPCRIME, should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a valid consideration (among others) in determining whether to include or exclude information about an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime?
Once this question is resolved, it will be easier to settle on consensus language. Any objections? voorts (talk/contributions) 01:47, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like a fair distillation. Suggest you add and duration to make it: For the purposes of WP:BLPCRIME, should the amount and duration of coverage... — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 01:51, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why? voorts (talk/contributions) 01:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Scenario A: for whatever reason, a named person gets a wall of RS naming them for a crime in a very short duration.
Scenario B: for whatever reason, a named person gets a constant ongoing stream of RS naming them for a crime over a long duration.
A is more likely, but B has happened. But it also can help on pumping the brakes when a likely BLP1E scenario is rearing up, by having duration also be a valid consideration. If some dude's name flares for a day or two and then vanishes, we shouldn't publish--and even if there's an OVERWHELMING volume in those <2 days, we now can say "Let's see how long this lasts". On the other side, if someone gets tagged in RS for a crime over time, it works inverse to justify inclusion based on the ongoing duration. It's dual purpose, a safety valve in both directions. Your wording is actually super clever, and you set it up perfectly for the duration add on. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:03, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's only a day or two of coverage, we have WP:RSBREAKING to advise us to wait. If it's been longer than that and there's a huge amount of coverage, reporters have had time to catch up with ridiculousness and it's clearly an event of public interest, so I'm not sure the fast timing is relevant. Likewise, if an obscure crime happens and obscure sources cover it over a long period of time, well...privacy interest does not inherently erode over time.
That said, "take duration into account" doesn't mean we have to weight it the way you're weighing it. And respecting RSBREAKING means taking duration into account is pretty much mandatory, so perhaps there's no harm in saying it should be.
I guess I'm just worried adding too many complications to this wording could muddy whatever answer comes out of this RFC. The point of adding "among others" is to allow people to say "X also needs to be taken into account" without making that a reason to answer the question in the negative. I think I've convinced myself adding "duration" to this RFC would unwisely entangle two questions. It's also unclear anyone is really disputing duration should be considered, despite my thinking out loud above, so adding a subquestion asking about duration separately might be overkill. However, if we're asking people to take the time to answer this question, we could save some thinking time by adding a second open response question, asking what other factors people would recommend taking into account, either instead of or in addition to amount of coverage. That could guide a follow-up RFC or just result in some undisputed crowdsourced additions to the policy. -- Beland (talk) 02:39, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(I forgot to say, I checked back and Osama bin Laden was on the front page of the New York Times by September 13, 2001.) -- Beland (talk) 03:30, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Let's deal with one thing at a time. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:31, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Voorts, let's do one thing at a time here. If there is consensus to add the language saying that amount of coverage is one factor that should be considered then it would be logical (although obviously not required) to have a second discussion to produce a list of other things to have a series of yes/no votes on. On the other hand if there isn't consensus for the first proposed addition then that discussion would be a waste of time. If we ask too much at the same time at first then that increases the likelihood of no consensus. Thryduulf (talk) 16:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I think we're ready to start the RFC with the 01:47, 14 September version, then. I would do so myself, but since Voorts started this discussion, I give them the courtesy of deciding when to move to the next step. -- Beland (talk) 18:48, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If some dude's name flares for a day or two and then vanishes, we shouldn't publish--and even if there's an OVERWHELMING volume in those <2 days, we now can say "Let's see how long this lasts". On the other side, if someone gets tagged in RS for a crime over time, it works inverse to justify inclusion based on the ongoing duration.
No offense VPP, but I think you are demonstrating precisely why this project and its community should not be in the business of coming up with ad-hoc criteria for when to discuss "sensitive" content, provided that it already meets general WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:WEIGHT tests. Because any factors, and most assuredly the "ongoing coverage" factor you suggest here, are subject to influences that have absolutely nothing to do with the reliability of the sources or the likely truth of the facts. In a given country at this moment in time, just being trans or of a certain ethnic extraction and being accused of a particular type of crime is a much, much more reliable predicter of the amount of social and media boosting and thus "ongoing duration of coverage" that the accusations are likely to get. SnowRise let's rap 02:27, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just my 2c: I'm personally sceptical about this approach, because the question above is worded quite generally, and some may want to oppose so as to not inadvertently "open the floodgates". Editors who would generally lean 'no' on that statement in the general case may well agree to compromise specific cases (like ITN-scale prominence ones, which are most typically contentious but are a very special case whereas the vast majority, where BLPCRIME is most important, are not). In other words, I worry that this question as-worded depends highly on interpretation. (OTOH, with Thryduulf's modification it is a bit clearer, so perhaps this concern will not materialise)
I personally thought it better to codify what past RfCs have shown the community's threshold to be. That may need some adjustment, especially the last sentence, but I feel like it's easier for a small group to bash that out and present to the community. I'd also worry that a drawn out process may well lose steam; these BLPCRIME issues are not new, and most previous clarification attempts just haven't taken off. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's worded that generally. All it's asking is whether amount of coverage can be a consideration amongst others. It doesn't ask how much weight it should get compared to other considerations, nor does it establish a brightline rule or even that inclusion should follow. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:55, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with ProcrastinatingReader. If the goal of your proposed RfC is to include this sentence: "The amount of coverage in reliable sources is (not) a valid consideration" to BLPCRIME (per your comment [3]), then you might as well ask upfront in the RfC:
Which of the following statement should be added to BLPCRIME?
1) The amount of coverage in reliable sources is a valid consideration.
2) The amount of coverage in reliable sources is not a valid consideration.
3) Neither of those sentences should be added. Some1 (talk) 22:07, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fine with me. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:08, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is a good question, especially without context for a broader audience. If there is no indication in the RFC that BLPCRIME currently has an inherent interest in protecting the privacy of a (non-notable) individual who is accused of a crime, then a certain number of editors may reflexively articulate that coverage in reliable sources should always trump any other interest, and it would necessitate subsequent editors to articulate reasoning behind the current guidelines. And secondly, unless as a community we think this language "The amount of coverage in reliable sources is (not) a valid consideration" is the best formulation, I would prefer a two step RFC - one with this basic question and a follow-up RFC with specific language to add. - Enos733 (talk) 03:27, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe something like "coverage in reliable sources should not trump privacy concerns" and want other editors to support that position, I think it's appropriate to voice that position in the discussion and argue for it, not attempt to bias the question to favor that outcome. It's up to editors to determine what the purpose of BLPCRIME is and how best to fulfill it; that's part of the question we're asking. -- Beland (talk) 14:57, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One small addition is at the line against the depth, quality, and prominence of reliable source coverage naming the individual I would add "enduring" or some equivalent as to capture the NOTNEWS aspect. I've seen past cases of a PoI's name spammed across reports and then quickly disappears after a few days because that PoI was clearly not the suspect, while in the case of the Kirk shooting, that name had remained well in the news as to prove enduring. Masem (t) 13:23, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree R. G. Checkers talk 19:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just jumping in now, but this or SFR's RFC proposal are the proposals I'm closest to supporting. My overall position is very exclusionary: I think the amount of times we should be saying someone who is not a public figure was accused of a major crime is essentially never. I'm not confident we should be naming the guy who's accused of killing Brian Thompson. There needs to be enough coverage to make the name known to the average person who hasn't read our article for us to name them without a conviction, or in other words they essentially have to become a public figure. Loki (talk) 16:42, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like Loki, SFR's proposal is the closest to what I could support. I would also like to see "enduring" added. Now if there was some way to determine what is a "major crime"... --Enos733 (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Enos733: SFR's proposal only calls for an RfC to be held. How would adding "enduring" factor into his proposal? I think adding "enduring" would be good in ProcrastinatingReader's proposal, however. R. G. Checkers talk 19:46, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My general sense is that only the most prominent of crimes should include the name of the alleged perpetuator (who is not already notable by our standards). This would include assassinations of public figures and mass terror attacks, but I know it is difficult to try to enumerate those. So, what "enduring" does is to really try to separate the routine from the truly significant, as if there is a collective sense that the crime is widely discussed months or years from the event (and there is not yet a conviction), then omission of a name might be glaring. - Enos733 (talk) 19:59, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

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  • There's no one place in the above where this is especially relevant, but personally I am absolutely and categorically opposed to any further strengthening of the already far too onerous standards for inclusion of details relating to accusations of criminal acts where said details otherwise already meet our general WP:V, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:RS standards. We have already seen a dubious increase in hurdles in this area--exploited by everyone from fanbases of celebrities to the press teams of politicians, to the detriment of community time and good will--in recent years. For the longest time, whenever someone brought up the "innocent until proven guilty" to support the concept of such extra burdens, the immediate and rational response from the community at large was "Well....1) we aren't a court and b) that phrase traditionally has related to procedural due process in very narrow context: it doesn't mean everyone on planet earth must give an accused individual the benefit of the doubt and seal their lips about the accusations." And yet somehow, this extremely questionable extrapolation and importation of a summary description of a packet of legal rights from of the courts in a particular legal system's criminal proceedings, all of the way to the content of an online encyclopedia, got codified into the BLP policy. I'm going to AGF that it was at least the result of a consensus discussion, but given the light in which the community used to view the transitive pseudo-logic behind this idea, I don't know how that happened. (If someone knows the very specific discussion which added the general provisions along these lines, I'd be immensely grateful for a link; I've made a couple of half-hearted efforts to find it in the recent past, but of course the edit histories and TP archives on this topic are complicated).
    In any event this project is a purveyor of human knowledge, and not a body charged with protecting the rights of individuals within criminal proceedings in particular court systems--which is all the "innocent until proven guilty" idiom has traditionally applied to: the press (and indeed, encyclopedias!) for example, can still discuss the details of most all criminal charges. Indeed, the phrase is most closely associated with the criminal justice system, legal procedure, and due process rights in the U.S., which simultaneously has one of the most robust sets of free expression principles which protect public discussion of those very same criminal accusations. "Innocent until proven guilty" means that, in the courts and in relation to the state's prosecutorial conduct, you benefit from certain protections regarding your substantive rights, who bears the burden of proof, and how available evidence will be handled. In no way does it mean "Oh, and also, the general public doesn't have a legitimate interest in discussing the accusations and may not do so--I'm on home base, I'm on home base--no taksies-backsies!"
    It is just mind-boggling to me that this square peg legal principle was allowed to be transported to the round hole context of this project, with its meaning seriously distorted in the process, given the mental gymnastics that had to occur to get from the mere existence of those legal rights to the notion that Wikipedia should not cover facts otherwise entirely compliant with our sourcing, verifiability, and weight policies. I'm especially confused by this considering this project's stated goals and the long history of battling to protect our content from unreasonable encroachment by both private and state actors seeking to control the narrative on a given subject. This rule encourages exploitation and is already the source of so many time sink discussions that would otherwise have not occurred or been much more manageable when they did, if not for the existing verbiage, let alone the further enhanced WP:RULECREEP versions being contemplated now.
    And what do we get in exchange? Not very much, really; any kind of completely fabricated or exaggerated claim can be addressed through other WP:BLP provisions and other relevant PAGs. And of course we should be concerned about that kind of attack page content, and apply our existing policies aggresively to constrain such abuse of the platform. But where accusations are well-sources and heavily discussed outside of the encyclopedia, it is not the role of this project or its community to play special arbiter of the facts and decide when the right time to recognize that accusations or formal charges of criminal behaviour rise to the level that society (or at least that portion of it constituted by our readers) should be aware of them--particularly when said accusations are already widely reported in other primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. It's an injustice when someone faces a false accusation, yes--but this isn't the Innocence Project. We're not here to generate the truth, but to disseminate knowledge, which unfortunately sometimes by necessity as-yet-untested claims.
    And for those who are coming at this from an WP:RGW or moral utilitarian standpoint, the actual pragmatic benefits are questionable as well, since the self-censorship scheme created by this rule is highly subject to editorial bias and uneven application. To say nothing of the fact that a strict application of any of the proposed extra verbiage further hardening the rule as discussed above would effectively bar any discussion of any number of criminal acts as a result of the perpetator simply outliving suspicion or being politically or institutionally connected enough to be shielded from formal charges. Think about this: do we really want a rule that says, had Jimmy Savile not been an entertainer but merely a garden variety volunteer working with children's charities an exploiting that access to abuse them, that Wikipedia should not discuss the crimes, despite their scale and severity, merely because he died before he could be prosecuted? What about war criminals who have no WP:notability but for that created by their crimes, but who are unlikely to ever face prosecution for them, due to the landscape of their home countries and the specifics of the conflict?
    This idea is so full of holes that already create so many headaches for the community, and that's just with the existing verbiage that says, in essence, "Editors should think twice about including details about accusations not yet 'confirmed' by a conviction." We should absolutely not be opening Pandora's Box further by making such criteria iron-clad mandatory, or even requiring a prior restraint style standard that the information needs a burden-shifting affirmative consensus result, rather than just using a normal consensus. With the greatest of respect to the proposers, who I generally hold in high regard, these are terrible, terrible ideas that just make an existing self-made problem for the project that much worse. SnowRise let's rap 02:00, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If someone knows the very specific discussion which added the general provisions along these lines, I'd be immensely grateful for a link I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but BLPCRIME was added after a brief discussion by three editors, two of which are now indef blocked, including a former sysop-turned-sock-puppeteer (which I find absolutely, utterly, and completely hilarious, btw). The rest of what you've written I completely agree with. There's a big difference between anonymous randos on the internet editing false and vile accusations against people and a reflexively obdurate editor base that refuses to allow the mention of someone's name when they've been formally charged with a crime and it's front-page news in newspapers across the world. -- Veggies (talk) 03:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    LMAO. What a fun origin story for this mess. I'll add that I agree with just about everything SnowRise said . R. G. Checkers talk 06:29, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I consciously chose to assume that the process was more robust than that, but to be honest, that explanation makes perfect sense considering how slapdash some of the wording of the section is, and how odd a fit it is to the context of this project. SnowRise let's rap 16:18, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I generally agree. The point of BLPCRIME should be twofold and very simple:
    • We must not state or imply that someone is guilty of a crime unless they have been convicted of that crime.
    • Just because somebody has been named in connection with a crime does not automatically mean that mention of their name in the article is necessarily encyclopaedic and DUE.
    Neither of these is a reason why we must not ever name someone, even if they are (or were previously) not individually notable, we just need to be careful about how we phrase inclusion (e.g. we do not imply someone has been charged with a crime unless they actually have, etc) and we must, in the literal meaning of the words, actively consider whether inclusion of a name is or is not DUE (without presumption of either) based on the usual considerations such as the volume and nature of coverage in reliable sources. Thryduulf (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree with this 100%. Nemov (talk) 14:04, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Precisely. Honestly, yet another frustrating aspect of the current rubric for how we handle these situations is that it can actually prevent us from providing context that actually sheds light on dubious accusations, counters misninformation out on the wilds of the internet or other media, or details exnoeration after the fact. But whether the information we have is likely to be percevied as flatterign or damning by the reader, you are correct: this should be a call that is made in light of other better-reasoned and more reliable policy considerations. There will always be room for an WP:ONUS-based analysis of whether the infromation is appropriate for an article (in addition to the even stricter WP:V and NPOV/WEIGHT, and RS requirements). There are any number of reasons why we might find even the large majority of accusation unfit for inclusion at a given stage of an article's life and development of the facts and sources.
    But what we very much do not need in any way, shape, or form is this nonsense standard of tying the decision 1:1 to the question of whether the person has been charged or convicted of a crime. Guilty or innocent, the large majority of people accused of an act that could be criminally prosecuted are not. That's just the reality of the world. It doesn't mean that act immediately becomes irrelevant to the subject of a given article. The actions themselves constitute more than just the basis for a criminal charge, and this community needs flexibility in making these determinations. Both for the purposes of producing accurate and complete content and for navigating. important ethical/BLP considerations. SnowRise let's rap 16:36, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I think the more important thing is that we should report on the perpetrator only to the extent that we can be certain. It is a balance; we should never say "A few people on twitter said that Joe Bloggs did it", or, even worse, "Joe Bloggs did it[1]" (citing an unreliable source) , but "NYT, BBC, and CNN named 'Joe Bloggs' as the suspect, although they have not yet been formally charged" would be fine in most cases; we're not confirming or denying the claim, only reporting it. JeffUK 15:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It sounds like it might be a good idea to replace (in a separate RFC) "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law." with something more appropriate to Wikipedia than the court system. How about something like: "Wikipedia remains neutral on whether an accused person is guilty of a crime until at least a conviction, guilty plea, or public confession." I say "at least" as a shorthand for what may or may not need to be said explicitly: "Neutrality must also be maintained if these are significantly disputed in reliable sources (e.g. the particular justice system is known for false convictions, or the confession or guilty plea is substantially disputed as coerced)". -- Beland (talk) 15:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that's an excellent idea. Once the community extracts this most problematic and ill-fitting aspect of the policy (which it seems was never authorized by anything like a real consensus in the first place), we will be better positioned to figure out a WP:WEIGHT- and WP:V-consistent set of standards for determining when accusations should included and how they should be attributed, characterized, and framed. SnowRise let's rap 16:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we're drifting further and further from the actual dispute here. We should be focusing on what we can/can't do, not what the prefatory section of the policy says. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:11, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm afraid I have to disagree. I think it's clear that the introductory clause was the product of very limited consideration by a trio of editors, that it is a poor, or indeed borderline nonsensical fit for our policy needs, that this tonal and pragmatic clash impacts how everything after it in the section is worded and interpreted for the worse, and that there isn't much, if any, sound argument for retaining it. But most directly relevant to your concern, I think that removing it would simplify and streamline discussion about what this portion of the policy should be saying in order to serve the needs of articles that have to navigate facts of criminal conduct (established or purported), while keeping any eye on the ethical and pragmatic concerns about such coverage that BLP policy must address.
    Now, should this be bundled with the proposal concerning whether or not augment later verbiage, and if so, how? No, probably not. When it comes time to actually RfC these issues, they should probably be separate proposals. But I'd argue that there are good reasons to make sure that the discussion about jetisoning the prefatory language should occur first. But either way, I think this is all very fruitful discussion for RFCBEFORE purposes, which should be looking at the larger context before we pare down to a proposal or proposals to put up for a formal RfC and !vote. SnowRise let's rap 19:36, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Frankly, I think that's a really dumb way to proceed. People are going to continue using the rationale that we shouldn't be naming people who haven't been found guilty, regardless of whether they frame it as the presumption of innocence or something else (privacy, preventing potential defamation, etc.). Having a meta-debate over the prefatory language is silly when we can just debate the actual issue: do we want to allow for inclusion based on a high degree of press coverage or do we not? That is the issue that has been causing endless debate recently, with pretty much half of editors appearing in these discussions and arguing "we should name person X because all of these media outlets are naming them" vs. "we should not because that's not a valid argument under BLPCRIME". voorts (talk/contributions) 19:45, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    (Also, and I don't really want to litigate this issue right now, that discussion that Veggie referred to appears to be about the creation of BLPCRIME, which just involved copying CRIME and modifying it into BLPCRIME. The word "innocence" doesn't appear in that discussion. Rather, those editors correctly stated that you can't be guilty until a court says you are.) voorts (talk/contributions) 19:52, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Frankly, I think that's a really dumb way to proceed."
    Well, with all due respect, you seem to be in a minority of one on that in this thread, at least insofar as those who have commented upon the advisability of keeping that non-relevant WP:RGW-adjacent language.
    "People are going to continue using the rationale that we shouldn't be naming people who haven't been found guilty, regardless of whether they frame it as the presumption of innocence or something else
    I don't doubt that some people will. But again, given the responses we are seeing here so far, it seems that most editors find that to be a wrong-headed approach.
    "Having a meta-debate over the prefatory language is silly when we can just debate the actual issue: do we want to allow for inclusion based on a high degree of press coverage or do we not?"
    I don't think that one question comes close to capturing the issues that people have with BLPCRIME, or that answering it alone stands much chance at all of resolving what is fundamentally broken with the current advice.
    "vs. 'we should not because that's not a valid argument under BLPCRIME'."
    Well that framing turns the problem on its head as I see it. The a priori question should be whether BLPCRIME should be creating such onerous standards based on such a peculiar starting point in the first place, not whether we should be creating minor carve-outs to those ill-advised principles.
    "The word "innocence" doesn't appear in that discussion. Rather, those editors correctly stated that you can't be guilty until a court says you are.
    It really doesn't matter whether the emphasis was first placed on the word "innocent" or "guilty". The point is that the idiom and concept of "Innocent until proven guilty" has never been about what should be permissible to discuss in the public sphere. Rather the phrase describes a package of due process principles, burdens of proof, and other substantive rights which specifically apply to and define the obligations of states and courts in the formal exercise of their systems of criminal justice. That this phrase somehow got imported by a tiny cohort of editors from the colloquialism's native context concerning criminal justice systems, and applied in this policy for the purposes of encyclopedia building is just weird and irrational in the extreme. And imo, Beland has the right end of the stick: that inane grafting of that concept into this policy simply has to go (ideally as the first order of business) if we are going to make any headway in untangling this gordian knot of non-sequitor reasoning. Because, as it stands, the language is, for some in the community, bootstrapping a false sense of legitimacy to the idea that we are beholden to never mention any act performed by any BLP subject which might conceivably be the basis for a criminal charge at some point, unless and until the subject has been expressly found guilty of that hypothetical crime.
    That is complete moon logic as far as I am concerned, and we're never going to replace the current scheme with a more cogent and stable standard until we eliminate those introductory statements as the first principles from which spring the rest of the dubious ideas currently in the section, which are the ultimate source of all of the inrtractable debates concerning BLPCRIME. When you discover that an old building's infrastructure has gone all kitty-wompus because it's foundation was laid bizarrely, the solution is not to keep building more tiers and outcroppings atop it and making superficial refurbishments to the facade. If you want a lasting solution, you tear it down and start again. You can always recycle some of the basic material in that effort but if you don't address the warped base, you will never end up with anything stable and fit for purpose. SnowRise let's rap 23:51, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • After reading through all these proposals, etc., the status quo of "must seriously consider not including material" (short and simple, and which I agree with you is in essence, "Editors should think twice about including details about accusations not yet 'confirmed' by a conviction."), still remains the best option. And as I said above, the more words we add to BLPCRIME, the less helpful it becomes and the more susceptible it is to wikilawyering. Some1 (talk) 11:29, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem we have isn't necessarily BLPCRIME, but the application of it. The Killing of Charlie Kirk article was full-protected because "People are violating BLPCRIME", which of course isn't true; you can't violate "Think carefully before adding..." as it's not an absolute rule or restriction. I do think we should add something along the lines of "Consensus is rarely achieved for adding a suspect's name to the encyclopaedia prior to official confirmation that they have been arrested and charged, and a living person should almost never be described as the perpetrator of a crime until they are convicted." JeffUK 15:48, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    BLPCRIME is part of BLP, and once something has been objected to there needs to be affirmative consensus to keep it. That's why I suggested my wording above so it's crystal clear to people just viewing the bit at the BLPCRIME shortcut. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The thing is, I think that is a slight misstatement of the standard. I assume you are referencing WP:BLPRESTORE here, as it is the only section of the policy that I can think of that roughly aligns with your position. But even that section does not create a per se requirement for consensus before discussion of a purported event can be included. Rather, it states that disputed additions must gain consensus (basically it's WP:BRD but with a somewhat heightened burden for the side advocating for inclusion).
    But the language your proposal would add to BLPCRIME makes it seem like there is always a mandate for affirmative consensus for inclusion before that information can be added in the first instance, regardless of whether or not there has been an objection. So I don't think that addition is helpful or advisable in the aggregate, though I understand the motivation behind it. SnowRise let's rap 16:55, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What about something along the lines of requiring people to check if inclusion of the name is being discussed and/or whether it's already been added and removed, before adding it? i.e. someone can still boldly add the name, and consensus may let it stand. TBH, I think the problem is that no-one reads BLP before editing the articles anyway, so whatever we put there might not help. Maybe we should create a template along the lines of 'This article does not include the name of the suspected perpetrator even though it's been widely reported, the addition is being discussed here : (link to the talk page)" seems to me this is more likely to solve the actual problem of a succession of editors adding the suspects name in good faith, which is generally what happens in these cases. JeffUK 11:02, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We have those types of banners and edit notices, but no one reads those either. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:21, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For an example, we have Killing of Charlie Kirk which has {{BLPCRIME editnotice}} as an edit notice and a few different talk page banners. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:30, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but the BLPCRIME edit notice does not specifically tell people how to handle the suspects' name/s, I'm thinking something more specific along the lines of Template:Under discussion but "Inclusion of suspect under discussion" to specifically acknowledge that the suspect is known, but that it's not in because it's been challenged under BLP, and to signpost people to the conversation instead. JeffUK 11:41, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't disagree with that idea, but I also don't think enough people read edit notices and banners for it to make much a difference. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    While I don't disagree generally speaking, it's worth noting that the edit notice for the Kirk article only appeared after considerable blp vios and full protection was implemented (30hr+ later). For all we know it might of prevented the suspects name being added repeatedly, especially if the template specified something along the lines of not adding the suspects name without consensus (but that's a discussion for another talkpage). Maybe that's a stretch of the imagination, but it'd be worth at least trying to prevent issues using such edit notices in the first place. Had I had known that one existed before I would of adding it and generally it's a failure of the community that no one thought to of added it given the situation. CNC (talk) 12:48, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sometimes HTML comments in places where something is likely to be added/incorrectly changed can help. Not an example directly related to this issue, but when Patrick Stewart who was awarded an OBE in 2001 was made a knight in 2010 multiple editors "corrected" OBE to KBE. The HTML comment I added (<!--Do not change this to KBE, see [[Knight Bachelor]]-->) inline after the mention of the OBE (then in the lead but now in the infobox) stopped that. Thryduulf (talk) 14:33, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Generally I find notes after sentences/paragraphs that have established consensus works well to avoid disruption (as well as leadcite comment for that matter). The issue with the Kirk article was that the suspect's name was being added in different sentences and paragraphs. Without riddling the article with such HTML comments (that in itself would be considered disruptive), they would be unlikely to be noticed imo. With more conclusive/decisive policy for blpcrime, I'd be keen on improving the editnotice for future events, even if only to add something along the lines of "Before naming a suspect, check the talkpage to see if consensus has been established". CNC (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, some sort of general policy (backed up by edit notices, etc) mandating that editors check the talk page for the existence of a prior consensus or ongoing discussion before adding or removing the name of a suspect probably wouldn't be a bad idea. If there is no evidence of either on the talk page then editors can add/remove as they can today. Thryduulf (talk) 18:40, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree, the problem is that BRD becomes BRBRDBBBRRBRBRDBRBRBRBRBRR... ad nauseum until the suspect inevitably gets named as such. I don't hold out much hope that we can actually do much better with policy changes; because people simply don't read BLP before editing. They will, in good faith, see that an article is missing the suspect's name which they've seen reported in reliable sources and add it in. JeffUK 08:13, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Snow_Rise and thryduulf's commentary above: Follow the RS'es, be circumspect about attribution, and so forth. If I'd known WIALPI would be dragged into this discussion in this manner when I originaly wrote it, I might never have done so; the original context was whether and how we should cover random people associated with Sarah Palin in the 2008 US Presidential election. Jclemens (talk) 06:33, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is absolutely no reason to supress well sourced public information that is significant to the subject of an article. Except in IAR territory. (Accusations of "random people" likely fails significance.) All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:02, 17 September 2025 (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.

Disputed Content in Political Views Section

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The Amanda Eliasch article’s “Political views” section contains potentially libelous claims based on a 2017 blog post (cited by Politico/BuzzFeed) that was hacked and deleted. Edits to tag/remove are reverted by a bot. Per WP:BLP, this content should be removed as unverifiable and harmful. Please review. [Link to Talk page discussion] 47.159.201.149 (talk) 00:06, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Public and low-profile individuals

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Having recently closed two discussions around naming suspects in articles. I found it most difficult to weigh arguments around public figure, given the ambiguity in our policy and essay text. In particular:

  1. WP:who is a low-profile individual says it is an explanatory essay on WP:BLP1E. It is linked however from WP:PUBLICFIGURE. If people believe it explains that bit of policy too, should its introduction be rewritten to make this clear?
  2. The same essay does not seem to cover people committing crimes. For instance, we could make a difference between those seeking notoriety and those who do not, in parallel with how we define those seeking the media vs those who do not. That would be contrasted to people committing crimes that could reasonably be expected to be low-profile.
  3. Some people interpreted the media subclause of WP:PUBFIG as defining a public figure: In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say.. That seems incorrect, given the grammar of that sentence. It is a characteristic of a public figure that there will be many reliable sources, but it does not necessarily define them. Or was a definition intended here? Some worth-smithing might make this clearer, or something could explicitly be mentioned in the explanatory essay if it's scope is expanded. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:23, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the essay ought to be substantially rewritten/revised. I have a draft on my sandbox (What is a low-profile individual) and am open to feedback. I do agree that as we think about individuals who are accused of a crime, there could be some consideration in the essay, as the policy is unclear. - Enos733 (talk) 18:28, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be better to wait and the the answer of whatever RFC comes out of Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Let's put this to rest and we have a better idea of the desired parameters of WP:BLPCRIME. -- Beland (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The person who, for instance, killed Charlie Kirk was "engaged in high-profile activity, ... with or without a lifelong history of such activities" and that person clearly and easily meets the definition of a public figure. The problem is that the person currently being charged with the killing is not yet "the killer of Charlie Kirk" from a legal perspective (and may, factually, not actually be that person). We do not, therefore, know that the person currently accused of the crime was actually engaged in high profile activities, and to call them a 'public figure' would be to assume they are guilty. JeffUK 08:24, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's incumbent upon us not to prejudge the outcome of the legal process, for a number of reasons. However whatsisname is a now a high-profile person, though they may be mostly forgotten soon, one way or another. Suppressing their name, even if I have forgotten it, does not really make sense. We are unlikely to have an article about them, regardless of the outcome. It's a different matter when someone is briefly detained and never comes into the story again, and is hardly mentioned by name in RS. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:21, 17 September 2025 (UTC).[reply]
This line of reasoning seems to lead to absurd conclusions, for example that someone becomes worthy of being named because they are convicted and not because they dominate news headlines for weeks. -- Beland (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that being arrested for a crime makes someone 'high profile' by the definition we currently have, they have not necessarily engaged in attention-seeking high profile activities. That doesn't mean we can't, with due consideration, name them in any article, we just have to weight it more carefully than someone who's already a high-profile individual. JeffUK 15:54, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
they have not necessarily engaged in attention-seeking high profile activities indeed, but some previously unambiguously low-profile individuals do engage in high-profile activities after being accused/arrested/charged, including actively seeking publicity. Such situations are qualitatively different to those where the alleged perpetrator actively seeks to maintain their low profile as much as possible. And that is different again to someone who admits (or does not contest) committing a crime that is guaranteed to be high profile (e.g. attempting to assassinate an incumbent national leader) but does not actively seek or actively avoid media attention . And that too is qualitatively different to crimes like the murder of Lee Rigby where the perpetrators committed the crime for publicity. No single hard-and-fast rule is appropriate for all of these cases. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLPPRIMARY, WP:DOB, and WP:IAR

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This came up in an ongoing RfC which I am a part of, but I have also seen it come up in the past off and on in discussions for dates of birth and full names of living people - If a primary source (birth index, business registration website, etc) notes a differing date of birth for a public figure, should we be allowed to use it under WP:IAR to point to a discrepancy with their DOB?

Example: Secondary sources point to John Doe being born in 1950. A birth index for his country lists his year of birth as 1949, and a secondary source listed 'John Doe, born 1949, is doing ordinary famous people stuff'. Policy per WP:DOBCONFLICT is to include both dates, but BLPPRIMARY suggests we don't mention the primary source at all, correct?

WP:BLPPRIMARY seems more prohibitive than preventative in allowing primary documents to source personal details for a living person, and unlike other parts of BLP which urge caution before adding material into an article such as BLPCRIME, it seems to be an outright "don't do this". And if we were to mention it, we would need to add an inline ref to the primary source which seems like it would be an invasion of privacy of a living person for a trivial detail. Awshort (talk) 11:54, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If a reliable secondary source cites the primary source, I would say that trumps the presumption against citing primary sources for DOBs. Not that it should be cited as objectively correct, but one can write A, B, and C say Doe was born in 1950. D, citing Ruritania's birth index, says that it was 1949. But if the secondary source doesn't mention the primary, I think still omit the primary. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 12:54, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of birth records, the problem with using them at all is that you have no verification that 'Joe Bloggs' you're looking at on the birth index is the same 'Joe Bloggs' of the article, there will in almost all cases be multiple people with the same or similar name born in a country in and around the birth of the subject of the article, the subject may also have been registered under a different name to the one we know them as, or even born in a different country; how do we know which facts are wrong? For example, if there is no 'Joe Bloggs' in the 1950 index, is he the Joe Bloggs on the 1949 births register, or the one on the 1951 births register? Or is he actually the 'Joseph Bloggs' on the 1950 register, or, with older records, when spelling was very much optional, the Joe Blogges, etc. etc.? The only way to identify which (if any!) of those birth records relates to the Joe Bloggs in question is through original research. JeffUK 13:21, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I once came across two people with the same name buried at the same cemetery, both died in the same year and were close in age. You cannot be certain whether it is the same person hence why we rely on secondary sources instead of having editors playing detective, primary sources can have mistakes too [4] Traumnovelle (talk) 20:49, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources

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For the purposes of WP:BLPCRIME, should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a valid consideration (among others) in determining whether to include or exclude information about an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime? 19:22, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Depending on the result of this RFC, one of these two sentences would be added to the end of the first paragraph of BLPCRIME, referring to low-profile people:

  1. The amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources is a valid consideration, among others.
  2. The amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources is not a valid consideration.
  3. No change

Future RFCs could clarify what other considerations should and should not be taken into account. This RFC is proposed because this argument has been used in recent RFCs on specific events, and it was hotly debated whether BLPCRIME does or does not mean this, and consensus for the existing wording has been challenged. -- Beland (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia talk:No original research, Wikipedia talk:Notability (events), Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey on amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources

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  • Yes (and agree there are other factors we should clarify later). Revealing an important secret the first time can be quite harmful, but revealing it a second time to the same audience is not. If an accused person's identity is well-known due to widespread news coverage, they have little remaining privacy interest and Wikipedia naming them will produce negligible harm. Privacy is balanced against the things the public can only do when a name is given in an article: find information about a person when searching on their name, do further research on the event or a person involved in an event using their name, making connections to the same person's involvement in other events and topics. Name disclosure can be beneficial to the subject if they are crowdfunding a defense or Wikipedia is providing objective, factual information that can debunk misinformation circulating about them on social media or in the tabloid press (which is a reason to take into account the amount of coverage in unreliable sources). Wikipedia does not do original research, and we must have a factual record in reliable sources in order to say anything, regardless of the amount of coverage in unreliable sources. If we rely on reliable sources that follow the principles mentioned in Journalism ethics and standards#Harm limitation principle, they will have done much of this balancing for us. Extensive disclosure in ethical sources means it's almost certainly ethical for us to disclose. WP:RSBREAKING should also influence our decision to name the accused, waiting a day or two to avoid spurious and easily debunked accusations. Named or unnamed, we must also continue to carefully distinguish between accusation, admission, conviction, etc., and fairly describe disputed facts. -- Beland (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes so long as the consideration is not given dispositive weight. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:35, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I generally agree with @ActivelyDisinterested, but it seems that many editors don't agree with WP:LPI's definition of low-profile as excluding individuals who have not sought publicity. I imagine that will be amended or clarified depending on the outcome of this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:51, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. The truth of the matter is that WP:BLP should always be interpreted within the constraints of pillar policies, and thus WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT should always be applied to such considerations. But in practice, every veteran editor (yours truly surely included) sometimes loses sight of this and is inclined to wave BLP talismanically around in a fashion that can abrogate the normal verification and weight testing process. And there are few areas where this been more problematic in recent times than in coverage of criminal acts (or acts which are perceived to have potential criminal liability even). I'm a little nervous about authorizing this change independently of the rest of the content of BLPCRIME, and as is often the case with a policy language RfC, I would have strcutured the changes slightly differently. But unambiguously, this is a change for the better. SnowRise let's rap 20:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We've had this conversation over and over again, and this is the best response in favor of it I've seen: "The truth of the matter is that WP:BLP should always be interpreted within the constraints of pillar policies, and thus WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT should always be applied to such considerations." It's a good reminder for all of us as editors.
    I think it's another version of what @Nemov argued a few months' back: "The intent is not to change the policy or principles. The goal is to make the guidance clearer and easier to apply." [1] Maybe we'll finally see this policy get the additional clarification it obviously needs. Penguino35 (talk) 15:45, 1 October 2025 (UTC) Penguino35 (talk) 15:45, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but... enduring coverage must be considered to make sure it wasn't a flash of coverage without any followup. Even if a hundred RSes article do umrnted something over one day but never spoke to the matter again, we shouldn't include, while in the same vein we had only 25 sources cover it but all over a two week period, that makes far more sense to include. It should not be just a straight numbers game. Masem (t) 20:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is more a problem with the amount of articles people rush to create when a high-profile crime occurs. Not every high-profile crime is notable, even if it gets some press coverage for a week. I think another major issue we need to address is NEVENT, which is long, bloated, and confusing. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:47, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes per Beland, Voorts and SnowRise. The ultimate point of BLP is that our articles should present neutral encyclopaedic information in the manner that causes minimal harm to living people. There are times when the amount of information present in sources (reliable and unreliable) means that naming someone prior to conviction is either completely neutral harm wise or even reduces the harm caused by unreliable sources. Thryduulf (talk) 22:52, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but... per Masem. I think that for many crimes the name of the accused is not necessary, and perhaps only necessary for the most noteworthy crimes. I also generally agree with Beland that we should hesitate to name any suspect (especially a minor) to avoid spurious and debunked accusations. I think there is often a rush to judgment in reporting that does not serve this project well. --Enos733 (talk) 00:03, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: it's unclear what a "yes/no" answer means in this discussion. Which of the three options presented above am I !voting for or against, exactly? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)[reply]
    The question is "should the amount of coverage in reliable primary news sources be a valid consideration", yes or no? There was no third option when I started the RFC. -- Beland (talk) 06:44, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case, No change. Wikipedia articles are based on reliable, secondary sources. Primary news coverage such as breaking news often contains errors and should not be used for contentious claims about living persons. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes (option 1) per Beland. When a name has been disseminated widely by reliable sources in the context of a crime, this should absolutely be a factor--even the primary factor--in considering whether to include the name of a perpetrator. Frankly, this is how the community has largely interpreted BLPCRIME in the most recent discussions about name inclusions. As Beland said, once a name is widely reported any privacy interests are essentially gone. R. G. Checkers talk 06:09, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What is the intent of the change here? Currently we don't refuse to cover accusations even for people who are otherwise not public figures. I feel like option 1 is basically the default. Consider the case of Kyle Rittenhouse. His name was quickly added, with extensive Wiki coverage after he shot people. It was clear the consensus of editors was not that we should wait and not mention his name until there was a conviction. Would we refuse to mention his name after his acquittal? Several change proposals have been made recently. I would like to have some examples of where the existing standards, in Beland's view, failed and in what direction (too much WEIGHT/not enough WEIGHT in Wikipedia). Springee (talk) 13:45, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The argument that WP:BLPCRIME, perhaps in combination with WP:BLPNAME, prevents adding the name of an accused low-profile person no matter the amount of coverage in reliable sources was fervently made in Talk:Killing of Austin Metcalf#RfC: Should the name of the indicted suspect be included in the article? and was the reason it is being reviewed. It was voorts who initiated the process of making a change to clarify this policy so that in future RFCs this argument can either carry the day or be clearly dismissed as a matter of policy; see Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Let's put this to rest. They may have more examples of previous RFCs where this was an issue, or the Metcalf RFC or review might as well. -- Beland (talk) 18:27, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I can see the concern. When thinking about these things I also like to ask, how would we have handled Kyle Rittenhouse differently in such a case. I haven't reviewed the old discussions but I suspect Rittenhouse's name was in the article within hours of his name going public. If we think that was the correct outcome, then I would ask how would this change in policy/guideline change that previous discussion. Personally I think the accused name could be included in Metcalf on several grounds. First, they said as much. Second, their family started doing interviews etc and raising money. Third, the coverage was very significant. In general the same three things applied in the Rittenhouse case. In my opinion, in both cases once the name was included the self defense argument should have also been included. My feeling is, if including information about Rittenhouse, including his name, was rule compliant, why isn't the Metcalf case also compliant? Assuming both inclusions would be rule compliant, why would we need to change the rules/guidelines? Springee (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a substantial faction that feels your third reason goes against BLPCRIME, and thus any opinion which relies on that justification should be ignored by closers and other editors as a matter of policy, and that this makes Metcalf non-compliant. If the community agrees with you that your third reason is legitimate, clarifying the policy would hopefully result in similar disputes being resolved more clearly, quickly, congenially, and predictably in the future (i.e. without having to call an RFC, much less having an RFC so acrimonious that it gets taken to closure review). -- Beland (talk) 01:47, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If that is the case, would they agree that Rittenhous's name shouldn't have been included or at what point do they feel Rittenhouse, who was not trying to be in the public light prior to his acquittal, should have been named? Basically, what makes the Rittenhouse case different? Springee (talk) 02:05, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My understanding of this argument (which I do not agree with, so feel free to correct me) is that if he was not seeking power or public attention, he should not have been named. -- Beland (talk) 02:16, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure where I think the line is on naming people. I wasn't trying to draw a line at only those seeking power/public attention. Rather I'm asking if we are being consistent. I'm not going to claim that I think naming Rittenhouse when Wikipedia did was right or wrong. To be honest I'm not sure. Rather, I'm asking if people who feel we shouldn't name the suspect in the Metcalf case approved of naming Rittenhouse early on? Basically I'm struggling to see a difference between the two cases or why we would name one vs the other. So, I'm not sure where the correct place to be is but I do think we should be consistent. My read of the current policy is that naming the accused in the Metcalf case is policy compliant already based on both the volume of coverage and the actions of those associated with the accused. I know this doesn't get to your question, should we change the wording. My feeling is, given the Rittenhouse case, editors already don't feel that a lack of conviction prevents naming names. Why Rittenhouse can be and the other person can't be is not clear to me. Springee (talk) 03:10, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, when I wrote "this argument", I mean that was the argument of the folks who interpret BLPCRIME as prohibiting inclusion regardless of the amount of reliable coverage. They would (if I understand correctly) consistently say that neither should be named because neither was seeking power nor public attention. Looking at the early history of Kenosha unrest, it appears this argument was not raised then; if it was, I would expect that it would not have carried the day. -- Beland (talk) 17:33, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You might find this BLPN discussion interesting.[5] It's clear we are inconsistent with house we apply BLPCRIME to otherwise not notable people. Springee (talk) 12:36, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it looks like the same argument being debated here was made at Talk:2023 Kingsessing shooting#Suspect charged with murder, and escalated to a very long discussion on this talk page. The proposed policy change is intended to prevent this from happening over and over again. -- Beland (talk) 17:47, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the case we should keep in mind is Richard Jewell, a security guard who was falsely accused of planting bombs in 1996. If Wikipedia had been around at that time, what would you have wanted Centennial Olympic Park bombing to say about him in the first days? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would have advised editors to follow WP:RSBREAKING and wait a day or two for the news media time to sift through eyewitness accounts and eliminate early misinformation. The New York Times on the next day had an accurate and fairly complete account of the series of events and the number of casualties, which mentioned "an AT&T security guard" but not Richard Jewell by name. TV coverage in the minutes and hours afterwords would have been less reliable. Apparently for several days thereafter, Richard Jewell gave a lot of television interviews about his heroic finding of the bomb and clearing the area, and his name could have legitimately made its way into the Wikipedia article in a positive light without BLP concerns, especially given he was actively talking to the press.
    Three days after the bombing, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the story that Jewell was a suspect, and TV news then started saturation coverage of Jewell's name and video of him after the bombing. He was put on leave from his job the same day. The FBI at that time had said they had a composite sketch of the bomber and gathered a voice recording and fingerprint and footprint evidence from the phone used to make the warning call. The NYT reported all this the next day, naming Jewell and printing a big picture of him. By that point, there would be no reason for Wikipedia to avoid naming him as a suspect. The next day, August 1, there was a "mob" of international reporters outside Jewell's house watching the FBI search it, and it would be about 3 months before he was cleared of suspicion.
    I think Wikipedia would have had to have been at least as careful as the NYT, emphasizing that the FBI had not charged Jewell, and relaying that they agency was also actively investigating other suspects. At one point the NYT reported acquaintances of Jewell said he owned a green backpack similar to the one used in the bombing, which may have been true but turned out to be spurious. The FBI was also questioning whether Jewell could have physically gotten from the phone booth to the bomb discovery site in the short time between those events. On August 1, the NYT did an in-depth piece where they disclosed his criminal record, that he lived with his mother, and other personal details. I'm not sure we would have wanted all that detail, but I'm also not sure after having been published in national newspapers and TV if there was any privacy interest remaining. Given there was some evidence that seemed to point to Jewell's innocence, Wikipedia having a lot of detail may have been helpful in creating doubt in the public that the FBI was doing a good job.
    Jewell sued some news outlets for defamation and got some settlements (I assume from those that were more reckless than Wikipedia should be), but the New York Times was not one of them. The The Atlanta Journal-Constitution won its case, apparently on the grounds it had reported truthfully that Jewell was indeed being investigated by the FBI, and they had also mentioned the problems in the FBI case against Jewell. The federal government apologized a couple times for leaking the fact that Jewell was a suspect, which not only caused a media frenzy that impacted his life, but interfered with their own investigation. This is probably the decision that did the most harm. Should an ethical press have exercised restraint in publishing details of an ongoing investigation? Arguably yes, though once the AJC published its story, it would have been difficult for any other outlet not to pick up the news. There might be a case for Wikipedia not covering details that were only in the AJC, but not for trying to keep secret details that were already on national television. -- Beland (talk) 17:08, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes Seems obvious and actively against the encyclopedic nature of Wiki if not. Although agree with other users it must not appear here first. IndrasBet (talk) 14:48, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 1

[edit]
  • Yes (1) - The intractability of high-profile crime articles demands that some serious change be made. The wording needs to be clear and concise, however. -- Veggies (talk) 02:43, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No/2 we should focus on high quality secondary sources as opposed to low quality primary sources more concerned with sensationalism than ethics and factual accuracy. Traumnovelle (talk) 07:46, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No/2 If a low profile person is "someone who has been covered in reliable sources without seeking such attention, often as part of their connection with a single event" then how can 'but they're covered in reliable sources' be a serious consideration to not include the material. If the person has sought media attention as part of the case then that would be different. However that media often repeats the name of someone, who at that point is just a random low profile individual, can't be part of a serious consideration to not include that name. Or alternatively what is considered a low profile individual should be changed to just be peole not once named in mass media. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:02, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the point of asking the question is so we know if there's consensus to rewrite the policy, not to ask how people currently interpret the policy. So I guess I'm asking, would you support option 1 if the connection to the existing definition of low-profile person were changed, or would that overall be a bad direction? -- Beland (talk) 20:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't support changing the definition of a low profile person, but if it was changed then I wouldn't have a reason to oppose the change to BLPCRIME. Overall I think that either change is a bad idea. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:43, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for clarifying. -- Beland (talk) 22:39, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to say that there is harm in publishing the name of someone who may well be innocent and have no further media exposure after 1E, that Wikipedia would only be repeating the harm already caused by other sources doesn't mean that there is no harm in doing so. Taking part in an event that ruins someone's life isn't lessened just because Wikipedia would be following other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes (1) So long as Wikipedia is not first to publish (and given BLP sourcing requirements, we should never ever be) the harm is zero. Good day—RetroCosmos talk 19:05, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. It's a valid factor, but it isn't the only factor, and in some cases isn't even the primary factor. Clearly, if two individuals are in exactly the same scenario in respect to a crime, but reliable primary sources mention one by name frequently and the other not at all, then our analysis of whether to include information should find that the former has a stronger argument for inclusion. At some point if there is wide enough coveerage of a person's name, then the cat is out of the bag, and the privacy implications of Wikipedia naming them are much lowered. However, other factors such as their role in the alleged crime (e.g. alleged accomplice, witness, investigating officer), how widely reported the crime itself is (e.g. local interest vs. national or worldwide interest), the nature of the alleged crime, how far the legal process is, etc are also important, if not more so..-- Patar knight - chat/contributions 01:56, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You mention other factors, what would your opinion be if the only factor considered was how frequent a name was mentioned? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:46, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ActivelyDisinterested why is this question relevant? That is explicitly not what is proposed here, and I don't recall anybody suggesting it. We currently uncontroversially weigh multiple factors, including what they are accused of (an accusation of sexual assault of a minor is much more serious than an accusation of shoplifting), the manner of the reporting, whether other people are also mentioned in connection with the incident (e.g. "the authorities have released a list of 20 people they would like to speak to in connection with the recent disorder, including X, Y and Z" is very different to "X is the only suspect in the murder of Y"), the individual's profile prior to the incident (in the real world, high or low profile isn't a binary, e.g. a regional TV news reporter is lower profile than an A list celebrity but higher profile than most primary school teachers) among others. The question here is only whether the amount of coverage is also a valid thing to consider, and it's being asked because there is significant disagreement about it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:05, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I was just asking for clarification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:44, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Its an argument seen quite often in such discussion, and I was wondering if Patar knight had any thoughts. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:45, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you share some examples of people making an argument that the amount of coverage is the only relevant factor to consider? Thryduulf (talk) 13:50, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In several of the recent discussions on this topic. See the WP:RFCBEFORE discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:32, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See, e.g., Red Slash's comment below. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:33, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Red Slash states it's "darn near the only consideration" (my emphasis). That's not the same as "the only consideration" Thryduulf (talk) 20:48, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    only consideration was emphasized by bolding in the original, rather than darn near. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:50, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but that still doesn't make it the "only consideration". If @Red Slash had intended it to be literally the only consideration they wouldn't have written "darn near". Thryduulf (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My final sentence was However, other factors...are also important, if not more so., so clearly I think that other factors are relevant too, such as those mentioned by Thryduulf above. I also don't think that anyone has argued that it is the only factor in play. Just commenting that the amount of coverage is relevant without additional qualifiers =/= amount of coverage is the only factor. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 15:57, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Patar knight. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:03, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, it's potentially a reasonable consideration. It's one of several reasonable considerations and should rarely be the decisive one. If a lot of reliable sources are discussing a death in a reasonable amount of detail, that's a good indication that we need to cover it somehow.—S Marshall T/C 21:45, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    However, there are lots of different ways TO cover that death without naming everyone involved. For example, in a murder, suspects can be referred to as “the suspect” or “the alleged killer”. Witnesses can be called “witnesses”. Family members can be referred to as “the victim’s wife” (etc). Not saying we should never include names, but we do have options that allow us to cover a crime event and still respect the privacy of those involved, and we should always consider those options. Blueboar (talk) 23:44, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the status quo we have already and it produces absurd editing logjams where high-profile cases with very widespread coverage name suspected perpetrators and editors can't add their names because of some reflexive belief that any name whatsoever violates BLPCRIME. It's ridiculous. -- Veggies (talk) 20:12, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why is it ridiculous? Blueboar (talk) 20:54, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, and frankly it is darn near the only consideration. We rely on reliable sources! If reliable sources are naming someone, then we name them. Red Slash 21:09, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. The call for this reflects the tendency to make Wikipedia a news-summary generator rather than the encyclopedia it is intended to be. We do not need to rush to be up to the minute on accusations, and the planned longevity means that if the name is included, Wikipedia's statement of the accusations could be in the longer term the first search result for that name. Our needs, goals, and effects are not the same as the news outlets. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:39, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This has essentially been the point of my resistance to the idea of clarifying this policy in favor of more leniency, citing WP:SENSATIONAL and WP:RECENT. We have to display caution in rushing to get that edit. Things that feel hugely notable today are often inconsequential a year from now, so much so that the details don't get edited out of the article (because no one is thinking about it anymore). It's a legitimate concern.
    That being said, I did convert to a revised version of clarity because we are too often at a stalemate often due to strict adherence to the niche policy in opposition to pillar-driven editing arguments, and additional clarification would be helpful. For me, The caveat to "weigh the extent and quality of reliable sourcing" provided by @Nemov in May covers my biggest concern, which was founded on WP:SENSATIONAL. I feel Option 1 in this RfC accomplishes the same thing. Penguino35 (talk) 16:04, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes I have yet to see a compelling "no" argument. If the amount of coverage in reliable, mainstream news sources is not a valid consideration, then what exactly are editors basing inclusion or exclusion on, vibes and the moon phase? Nemov (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They are basing it on potential harm. Blueboar (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The wording of the RfC specifically concerns coverage in reliable primary news sources, not news sources generally. Secondary sources are always preferred over primary. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:52, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whatever errs on the side of anonymity I admit I'm not quite sure what the options are or how this would be a change from existing policy. But we should always err on the side of not naming potential perpetrators, especially in the absence of conviction. We aren't a newswire service and we don't have to name every potential perpetrator the moment that the gossip rags name them. They're often wrong! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:13, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    None of these options would require naming anybody, nor change the presumption of whether to name or not, so all are compatible with anonymity. Option 1 would explicitly allow arguments like "nearly every reliable source includes their name, so there is minimal to no harm from us doing so too" and "the name is barely mentioned, with almost all sources choosing not to name them so we shouldn't either". Option 2 would explicitly prohibit both such arguments, and option 3 would leave it undefined. Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong No (3) - and sorry, somewhat longish details
First, there was a recent RFC in May about covering ongoing proceedings so this seems relitigating the conclusion about the basic intent of WP:BLPCRIME - to have some restraint and caution and say nothing about non-public figures until *after* there is a decision, protecting the presumed innocent and avoiding any chance for participating in slander or libel or harm to the person. The news does name people of interest, or arrested, or charged - but WP has a longstanding policy that it does not. People other than public figures get privacy.
Second, I object this is against WP:NOT, particularly WP:NOTNEWS. I discourage chasing whatever this mornings feed has as story du jour since initial coverage is commonly ill-informed, speculative, and chasing sensationalism - it simply takes more time than the morning breaking news cycle to see if the tale goes beyond a one-day flap or gets debunked or how much WP:WEIGHT it accumulates. There is WP:NORUSH, and letting 'breaking news' be the explicit consideration seems just going the wrong way. It also seems a backdoor to WP:CRYSTALBALL, because it's opening WP to press speculations just because they print such.
Finally - on a practicality level, making policy changes causes implementation difficulties that seem unjustified here. It sounds like a few individual articles had RFCs about this, it did not link to them or ping those, so I don't see it actually any pressing need at the level and width to support screwing with major policy for all pages. The practical issues include how much widespread impact it makes in *other* articles and lack of trust about policy stability because it moved results, and will it actually get done everywhere or have any benefit. Sparking a bunch of debates over what is the right "amount of coverage" or counts as "primary news" or "policy has changed, so all those closed RFCs are overturned'... is this going to actually get anything worth the consequences ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On (1), the main objection in that RFC seemed to be about the "person of interest < arrested < charged < on trial < convicted" spectrum, not consideration of the amount of coverage in reliable sources. (2) I agree writing about events in the same news cycle is usually not desirable, but that is why we have WP:RSBREAKING. (3) It seems like RFCs on individual articles have been coming out in favor of taking the amount of coverage in reliable sources into account? Those would be affirmed rather than have to be reconsidered, and instead of generating policy instability this would align policy with practice. Are you thinking of an example that's come out the other way? -- Beland (talk) 05:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hear you. And, cases that are truly in question of violating the parameters above will still ultimately come to RfC, which slows down the process. Our editing-for-consensus formula ensures we can't leap at every whim of WP:SENSATIONAL. And, I share your concerns. I've argued for both sides of these policy changes, including the one in May. I'm interested to see where consensus leads us today. Penguino35 (talk) 16:11, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes (1). Firstly, we follow reliable sources, not second-guess them. If the consensus among reliable sources is that it was ethical and acceptable to include a particular name, we should follow, not second-guess, that determination. (The same, of course, is true if most reliable sources have chosen to omit the name; we should then follow that as well.) Secondly, this is a privacy consideration, but we cannot protect the privacy of something that's no longer private to start with. If something was only mentioned in a local paper with a circulation of 2000, that's one thing, but if it's been heavily covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, and the AP has sent out widely-republished wire stories containing it, that information is no longer private or low-profile, and it does not matter towards that whether we also publish it or not. In that case, we should err towards including more relevant information, not less. Omitting a relevant fact should happen only under exceptional circumstances, and "Who was involved?" is almost always relevant to an event. "What do the best available sources say about it?" is always our primary question for determining what the article should say about it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Wikipedia is not a news aggregator and we generally do our worst work when people try to contort it into a news aggregator. The argument that "newspapers covered it and thus so should we" forgets that Wikipedia is not and should not be a news aggregator. Simonm223 (talk) 16:08, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair, but then I wonder what you would think if the wording were, "The amount of coverage in quality, reliable sources is a valid consideration, among others." And put the onus on editors to ensure our list of Perennial Sources is up to par. Penguino35 (talk) 16:17, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 2

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  • No. This is a situation where WP:NOTNEWS is most relevant; our priorities and goals are different than those of primary news sources. Wikipedia is used, and trusted, by a wide variety of places that use it as what you might call a staid, established encyclopedia; they do not use breaking news articles the same way, precisely because we're expected to show more caution. And this means that adding a name here does, in fact, have significant potential for harm (eg. it is more likely enter places that use Wikipedia as a dataset for established knowledge rather than breathless breaking news - most recently, though by no means uniquely, AI); Wikipedia is a potential vector where a name could shift from appearing only in transient news coverage to appearing in longer-term records. We absolutely should not be doing that; our purpose is to follow, not to lead. And the risk or cost of excluding the name of a non-public-figure until it has more substantial coverage than mere news reports is very, very low. People above suggest that a name could be used to "search for more information" but by definition little to no information exists when the coverage is only breaking news (and that, of course, can be searched using the name of the event); therefore, there is no real value to the name. If actual in-depth coverage has appeared, it would satisfy the non-news criteria; so the argument of "well they can use the name to search for more info" actually supports the position that the dividing line should be whether there is non-news coverage. On top of this, if the name is "all over the news", people can just read the news to find it; the only really practical effect to including the name in Wikipedia is to "spread" it outside of the breaking-news bubble, which we should absolutely not be the first source to do. Finally, WP:BLPNAME has long indicated that we should not weigh news coverage highly when deciding whether to include names; the idea that this restriction could be loosened in the contexts of accusations of crimes specifically (one of the most sensitive places where we might consider using a name) is obviously absurd. I would also note that many of the "yes" opinions above do not actually seem to be considering the distinction between primary news sources and other sources, instead apparently misinterpreting the question to mean whether we should consider sources in general. --Aquillion (talk) 18:04, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This "by definition" claim strikes me as odd. Lots of information exists about people apart from news coverage of their involvement in a breaking news event, which could be accessed by name. For example, social media accounts, voter registration records, news coverage of completely unrelated events, membership in social clubs with web pages, participation in online discussion forums, real estate records, marriage records, and information that could be gleaned by talking to or reading the writings of people who know them (like neighbors and family members). -- Beland (talk) 18:36, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I get the established knowledge concept, but what exactly is the established knowledge here? I see only 2 possibilities:
  • That someone did do something
  • That someone was accused of doing something
And if it were the second, then that someone was accused of doing something is established fact, even if the accusations are shaky. Good day—RetroCosmos talk 19:31, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, the amount of coverage in RS is a "valid consideration". It is not the only consideration, and to some, it may not be an important consideration, but it is a valid consideration. Some1 (talk) 22:33, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes and a suggested improvement. I've covered my opinion pretty extensively in responses above as well as the archives in previous discussions on the different variations of attempts to clarify this policy.
I propose the wording, "The amount of coverage in quality, reliable sources is a valid consideration, among others." This change puts the onus on editors to ensure our list of Perennial Sources is up to par, which includes both primary and secondary news sources. I wonder if editors who voted no would reconsider with this edit clarification. After all, we're trying to reach consensus!
We've had this conversation over and over again, and User:Snow Rise has the best response in favor of it I've seen: "The truth of the matter is that WP:BLP should always be interpreted within the constraints of pillar policies, and thus WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT should always be applied to such considerations." It's a good reminder for all of us as editors. Penguino35 (talk) 21:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

[edit]

I added "no change" as an explicit option, since it was a common position taken above and the wording of the RFC implied that that was somehow not an option. --Aquillion (talk) 19:43, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I intentionally left that off (people can of course always give a "none of the above" response) so I hope this does not result in a muddled answer. -- Beland (talk) 20:18, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There needs to be something about the enduring amount of coverage related to the crime. If there's a burst of cover that only lasts for a day and never mentioned again, likely not appropriate to include. Masem (t) 19:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not everything needs to be an option in an RfC. You can make that argument, others can adopt it, and the closer can see if it obtains consensus. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Including duration in the question was pre-discussed, and more editors found it was better to take things one step at a time. I do intend to ask about duration in a future RFC if this RFC is closed as "yes". If it is closed as "no", then this question is moot. -- Beland (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the policy WP:SENSATIONAL covers this concern and could be referenced in active discussions surrounding the application of this updated policy. The reality is that while this adaptation provides more clarity, naming of accused persons will still go to talk pages for consensus. This policy update implies very well that there are other things to consider. Staying away from making it overly wordy or prescriptive aids clarity when there are other policies which adequately cover this concern. Penguino35 (talk) 21:20, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Masem, and I think that "amount" is ambiguous here. For example:
  • There is a difference between 42 news articles on the same day that mention a person's name, and news articles on 42 different days that mention that person's name. The first could be a flash in the pan; the second is sustained coverage.
  • There is a difference between 42 news articles that happen to mention a person's name in passing, and 42 news articles that provide in-depth information about that person and their role. A passing mention of a person's name is not important; a detailed analysis probably is.
I think that the RFC question of "information about an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime" may be much broader than some respondents are thinking. Using Killing of Austin Metcalf as the example, "an otherwise low-profile individual who has not been convicted of a crime" would include at least all of these people:
  • the deceased's father
  • the deceased's brother
  • the accused's father
  • various police officers
  • the judge who lowered the bail
  • the accused's lawyer
  • various government officials
  • the head of a non-profit organization
  • the owner of a pizzeria, and
  • the founder of a donation website.
However, the real question appears to be less about whether to consider omitting the names of the many low-profile individuals affected by this death, and a lot closer to "Please change the policy to say that I can always put the accused's name in the article if it's in a lot of WP:PRIMARYNEWS articles". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Please change the policy to say that I can always put the accused's name in the article if it's in a lot of WP:PRIMARYNEWS articles" that is a gross mischaracterisation. The question is actually: "If the accused's name is mentioned in reliable sources, is the amount of such coverage something we are allowed to consider when deciding whether or not to include their name in a Wikipedia article?". It would explicitly not be the only factor considered, so the other things you mention can be taken into account if relevant in the individual circumstances. As for the other people you mention, I'm not sure why you think they are relevant as (to my knowledge) none have been accused of a crime in reliable sources and so BLPCRIME does not come into play. It is certainly not a BLP violation to state that e.g. the deceased's father is the deceased's father (if there is no dispute about this fact). Whether naming any of those people is encyclopaedically relevant is a standard matter and I'm not aware that there have been any disputes about this that need any policy clarification. Thryduulf (talk) 10:39, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because the existence of an accusation against the individual isn't the only way for BLPCRIME to be applicable. A person of interest can be an innocent witness, and BLPCRIME applies to them, too. The RFC question isn't limited to accused people. It is about any low-profile person to whom BLPCRIME could be relevant. That is potentially most of the people in that article.
And again, I ask: How does one measure "the amount of such coverage" in WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources?
Imagine that tomorrow, we wake up to a case of Missing white woman syndrome. All the news outlets have brief article saying that a blonde woman has been reported missing by her distraught boyfriend. The next day, all of them say the boyfriend is suspected of killing her. Since "all the news outlets" were saying on that he was a suspect, is that "a big amount of such coverage"?
Imagine that she turns up safe and sound the day after that. A few news outlets say something about her being safe. One or two mention it in their year-end wrap up. A journalism textbook uses it as an example of reporting dilemmas. None of them name the boyfriend, or only do so to explicitly say that he had been falsely suspected. Since few news outlets ever said anything about this again, is that "a small amount of such coverage" of him? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is impossible to answer those questions in the abstract because the answers require the whole context. That's why there is no proposal to say X amount of coverage = include <X = exclude, let alone any attempts to define X. Literally the only thing that is being asked here is whether the amount of coverage is a factor that can be considered, alongside other factors, when determining whether someone's name should be included in the article. That includes allowing arguments like "the name is barely mentioned therefore we shouldn't name them" not just the opposite. Thryduulf (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As written, BLPCRIME applies only to persons of interest and those accused. It does not talk about bystanders or judges or family members at all, nor witnesses unless they are described as a "person of interest" (which has the connotation of possible suspect, unless the investigators specify otherwise such as that they are only sought as a witness). WP:BLPNAME does create an enhanced privacy guideline for people only tangentially related to encyclopedic events, not limited to crime. The proposal does not change BLPNAME, only BLPCRIME, so the guidelines would not change with regard to the long list of people above, if they are not a person of interest or accused. -- Beland (talk) 00:17, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"All the news outlets" say that the boyfriend is suspected of murder after one day, with no body, and zero evidence that a violent crime took place? What? Domestic violence is not a new thing, so can you point to any example of such a thing occurring as you just described? -- Veggies (talk) 00:27, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 62#Request for Comment: Improving the wording of BLPCRIME

RFC: Presumed innocent vs. Wikipedia neutrality

[edit]

Should the following sentence in WP:BLPCRIME:

"A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law."

be replaced with:

"Wikipedia remains neutral on whether an accused person is guilty of a crime until a conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession (unless reliable sources report coercion or recanting or other reason for credible doubt)."

? -- Beland (talk) 19:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey on changing the current default from exclusion under presumption of innocence to default inclusion under neutrality

[edit]
Closing as no' per SNOW. Discussion can continue below. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:28, 28 September 2025 (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.

  • Yes. Snow_Rise made the excellent point in the preliminary discussion that the "presumed innocent until proven guilty" standard is designed to shape how courts treat defendants (for example with regard to bail and punishment), not how journalists cover crime. Ethical journalists don't describe the unconvicted accused as innocent, they remain neutral as to guilt. Conviction is relevant to whether an accusation is described as a fact, but not helpful when deciding whether to mention an accusation or name the accused. Courts do have rules for disclosure (especially with regard to grand jury testimony and minors), they differ across jurisdictions. Relying only on court proceedings leads to undesirable outcomes for articles where someone escapes arrest or conviction by flight or social influence or corruption or death or whatnot. We should probably clarify further in future RFCs about how to treat accusations and charges and indictments and questions raised by conviction review efforts like the Innocence Project, but some editors have said we need to clear up the fundamental principle on which we are making these decisions before getting into detail. -- Beland (talk) 19:23, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ethical journalists don't describe the unconvicted accused as innocent, they remain neutral as to guilt. I don't think that's accurate. Ethical journalists don't say someone committed a crime (and describe every action of a person as "alleged") because they don't want to be hit with a defamation suit if that person is later found not guilty. That is, in effect, presuming innocence. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:40, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm struggling to understand why you find this an inaccurate statement. When I say the press does not "describe the unconvicted accused as innocent", I mean that e.g. the NYT headline today reads "Texas Man Is Charged With Making Threats Against Mamdani" rather than "Innocent Texas Man Is Charged With Making Threats Against Mamdani". Changing "threat-maker" to "alleged threat-maker" is not "describing them as innocent", it's avoiding describing them as either innocent or guilty. -- Beland (talk) 00:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    With all due respect, this seems like a bit of a strawman argument (I refer only to the argument itself and nothing about your intentions for making it, which I am certain are entirely good faith). Has anyone, ever, interpreted that policy as "presumed innocent means we must describe Bo BLP as innocent!" I do not think that is a reasonable interpretation of "presumed innocent", and for our our purposes I think that the kind of language voorts describes is exactly what "presumption of innocence" means wrt journalists. Its scope is greater for juries. And I would think that any argument like the kind we are discussing, if actually made, would either be an egregious act of wikilawyering or a competence issue. 76.20.114.184 (talk) 08:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I was not arguing that anyone is misinterpreting "presumption of innocence" in that way, I'm just elucidating that it means the same thing as "remain neutral as to guilt". Though "presumption of innocence" is a legal term of art rather than a literal phrase, which does make it a bit more confusing. I think journalists tend to think of this sort of thing more as avoiding defamation, respecting the enhanced privacy rights of minors, and preserving someone's right to a fair trial by not drawing conclusions prematurely (even though publishing lots of evidence and accusations does inevitably affect the jury pool.) -- Beland (talk) 08:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No we need editors to work on the basis that until convicted we need to presume innocence. That doesn't mean we can't include any appropriate accusations or the like, but editors must consider the possible harm by including these if there is yet a conviction. And particularly with the media today, they may jump on claims before they are proven out. Masem (t) 19:53, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. I won't repeat my verbosity in the previous discussion above (though I would say the entire thread is worthwhile reading for any respondent), but suffice it to say that the decision to import the ill-fitting standard of "guilty until proven innocent", a phrase which was designed to describe procedural protections in the administration of criminal justice, into the BLP policy was apparently undertaken by three editors with minimal discussion. It frankly was, and is, an extremely bizarre and irrational choice to try to contour the work of this project to legalistic terminology relating to the operation of a matter before a court to the work of building an encyclopedia. And this haphazard addition has led to needless debate and waste of community/editor time on a staggering scale. News sources (including many of the world's most ethical, cautious, and risk-adverse institutions) do not require a charging and/or conviction before they will consider discussing alleged crimes (or alleged acts that could feasibly be charged as a crime) that are relevant to informing the public. Published works of nonfiction do not. Other encyclopedias do not, and historically have not. It is only a peculiarity of how a rule can be promulgated within this project and then followed reflexively for a time that explains how this rule became to be a part of our workflow.
    And no one is saying that the floodgates should be opened to revealing the alleged perpetrator of every crime or including every random accusation made about the subject of an existing article. There will still be a robust body of advice in BLP general and BLPCRIME in particular detailing how to approach those nuanced decisions, to say nothing of the layers of restraint to be found in WP:V, WP:NPOV/WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS, and WP:ONUS, to name just a few of the more relevant policies that tend to skew conservative on the question of adding controversial details. All we are talking about here is doing away with a preamble that places the emphasis all wrong about how to contextualize our work here and how we should be going about determining how to meet our obligation to inform the reader while protecting against harm and filtering out misinformation. BLPCRIME does need refinement to balance those interests, not least to avoid platforming false an unsubstantiated accusations. That somewhat delayed reform is taking place right now. But this particular piece of verbiage is, imo, a no-brainer: it doesn't fit, it never fit, and it's a real problem in how it raises red herring factors into discussions about the appropriateness of inclusion of controversial content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snow Rise (talk • contribs) 20:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As I stated above there's no evidence that this was added into the BLP policy ... by three editors with minimal discussion. That discussion appears to be about creating BLPCRIME, not adding that particular sentence. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:38, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you have a more detailed explanation, ideally complete with links and diffs, demonstrating a broader community consensus to include this language, I'm all ears (eyes?). So far this is the origin point of the addition into WP:BLP. As I understand it, you pointed out that the wording had been previously used elsewhere, in MoS if I recall correctly. That may be, but if so it would give that recommendation not even a fraction of the force and influence it has under BLP, which is bar-none our most expansive and influential policy on limitations of content in biographical articles.
    I don't want to get into a lengthy discourse on where the verbiage came from unless someone can conclusively show it came from a robust community discussion authorizing it as a rational good-sense approach to how to contextualize our responsibilities as purveyors of information who need to keep an eye out for potential harm to non-public individuals. Because ultimately, even if there were such a robust previous discussion, I'd still be arguing for the removal of this bizarrely imported language into our process. But as far any of the previous discussion has illuminated, there was no community discussion of any scale or detail before it got chucked haphazardly into BLP. SnowRise let's rap 20:51, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. The proposal makes no sense. A person definitionally cannot be guilty of an offense until a court enters judgment against that person. Donald Trump could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, but that doesn't make him automatically guilty of murder. He could, for example, plead out to manslaughter, be found not guilty by reason of insanity, or have the prosecution dismissed if a court determines he's covered by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision. There's a distinction between committing an act that may or may not be criminal and being guilty of an offense. We may all know that Trump shot the person, but we can't know if he's guilty of a crime until he's actually convicted. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:33, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This change would also give license to editors to start tendentiously adding "A murdered B" before a trial has happened, which is not just not true (until there's a conviction), but could open that editor and Wikipedia up to a defamation suit. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    voorts, I agree that wording is inartful in exactly the way you describe, and I may recommend that Beland voluntarily withdraw this for further tinkering before we get too far entangled in a morass that can only end in no consensus. But there is an underlying question here that I think any RfC on this subject must address, regardless of replacement language: should the "innocent until proven guilty" language even be leading this section under any circumstances. My position is that it is an absolute square peg / round hole situation that is the cause of unending drama that is unavoidable until it goes. Do you fundamentally disagree about that? SnowRise let's rap 20:43, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Editors should presume innocence, and state that actions are alleged, for the reason I stated above: if we state in wikivoice that "X shot Y and killed them" before a criminal trial, and that person is later found not guilty, we risk facing a defamation suit. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Absolutely, ok. We are in principle on the same page about how the contentious material should be handled. I still feel that the "Innocent until proven guilty" language muddies the water, especially as it is presently inserted into the section, but I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise at this point, and I don't want discussion from a handful of editors to overwhelm the start of this thread by trying. It suffices to me to know there is general agreement on the overall course of action the section should be urging, which is the most important thing for reforming it as a whole. SnowRise let's rap 20:56, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure why it muddies the water. If we all agree that several considerations should weigh on whether we name a suspect or not in an article, we should lay out those considerations in the introductory paragraph, including the presumption of innocence, the potential privacy implications, the dangers of defamation, the amount of coverage (assuming the other RfC ends in "yes"), whether the accused sought public attention, and any other factors editors think important. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:39, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Because we are not here to--in any way, shape, or form--guarantee a presumption of innocence for any party in the reader's eye. A presumption of innocence is an expectation of the operation of a criminal court and a justice system at large. Using it to frame the expectation of how we will cover the facts of an allegation is absolutely nonsensical, misleading as to our roe, and, as the community record has amply demonstrated (not least recently) lead to confusion and and needless dispute beyond description. Trying to assure that the reader is not affected by any discussion of any events for alleged crimes (or potentially criminal activity) absent a conviction, is an inherently and severely non-neutral way to approach.
    That's the part I believe we agree on, though we both also agree that whether to disclose certain allegations and how to cover them is a case-by-case call. Front-ending this section with this bizarrely in-apt, highly emotive, and just all-around problem- and discord-inducing language, implying we are in some way here to guarantee a presumption of innocence for these subjects, is just a magnet for issues that is not in any way justified by any positive benefit. It's borderline mumbo-jumbo nonsense when our role here is not to guarantee any view on the facts, but rather to summarize what other sources say on the subject.
    Yes, we should absolutely attribute clearly in every instance. Yes, our description must be scrupulously neutral in describing as to claims or allegations and the current standing of proceedings, if any, and the reception of unproven facts. Yes we should give serious consideration to not saying anything whatsoever if sources are few or weak, or accusations have indicia of being nothing more than rumor or conjecture that is not even being engaged with by high quality sources. In fact, I think literally everything else you list above is an important consideration that the policy should cover. But none of that work is any way helped, and is in fact heavily compromised, by conflating the roles of courts and the law with the roles of encyclopedia editors and accurate, neutral description of the facts. In fact, the frankly silly application of that phrase to this context is not just muddied water, it's blinding black ink. Getting rid of it will vastly improve the framing of the whole section and simplify and expedite the process of straightening out the rest of the section. SnowRise let's rap 05:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we take the words "presume innocence" literally, that means in Assassination of Charlie Kirk instead of writing "prosecutors charged Robinson with murder" we would have to write "prosecutors falsely charged Robinson with murder". What we are actually presuming is that the accused might be innocent, and remaining carefully neutral on that question. -- Beland (talk) 23:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think a statement like "X is guilty of crime Y and should be prosecuted for it" is an abuse of the word "guilty". Someone can be responsible for committing an act of murder without being legally declared guilty of it. If it helps to replace "is guilty of" with "actually committed" or whatever else, I have no objection to a strikethrough of the old language and underline of the new language in this RFC as long as no one who has commented so far objects. -- Beland (talk) 21:06, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that the statement you've provided isn't an abuse of the word "guilty". Colloquially, it makes sense. Legally (and thus factually), it is untrue in countries where there is a presumption of innocence. A person can act in a manner that results in another person's death (i.e., commit a homicide) without being found guilty of any criminal offense; in a criminal legal system that presumes innocence, they cannot be responsible for committing an act of murder without being declared guilty of murder. Accusing someone of a felony is defamation per se (if untrue). We should not remain "neutral" on whether editors can engage in potential acts of defamation. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We also shouldn't have editors weighing whether the evidence is sufficient in a particular case to state in wikivoice that someone has or has not committed a potentially criminal act. Media outlets have policies written by lawyers and access to counsel to review prior to publication to ensure that they don't say something that can get them sued. We don't have that luxury. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't agree with everything you've written there, but I do agree that Wikipedia should say neither that a living person stabbed someone to death nor that they were found legally guilty of murdering someone without a suitable conviction or admission. I think we can probably agree on a rephrasing of "whether an accused person is guilty of a crime" that reflects that. What would you propose? -- Beland (talk) 23:45, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Beland, the statement "X is guilty of crime Y and should be prosecuted for it" is a personal opinion. I dare say that inserting our personal opinions in a Wikipedia article is worse than abusing terminology. -The Gnome (talk) 02:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I never said anyone should put such a statement or anything like it within 100 miles of a Wikipedia article. I was just using it as an example to clarify the definition of the word "guilty". -- Beland (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No The proposal ignores that WP:BLPCRIME already reads:

    ... editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, is suspected of, is a person of interest, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured for that crime

    It does not say to always exclude any mention of charges before a conviction.—Bagumba (talk) 20:35, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - what???? What the heck is a reliable court? I could see replacing it with "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law, they plead guilty, or they personally issue a public confession (unless reliable sources report coercion or recanting or other reason for credible doubt)." Not presuming innocence kicks open the door for all kinds of slanderous media opinions and probably puts Wikipedia in a legally precarious situation. I don't like it at all! Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:58, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A reliable court is one that has a reputation of being fair and impartial. I would contrast that with, for example, courts in Russia, where the verdict is often pre-determined, evidence isn't always presented, and prosecutions are politically motivated. Or China, where defense lawyers are often punished for doing their jobs. In these places, I think Wikipedia should more carefully approach the question of whether people found guilty of crimes have actually performed them. -- Beland (talk) 23:55, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But that opens up other problems. Who will be the judge on what is a reliable court? In todays climate different editors will look at liberal or conservative judges as unreliable, not just Russia or China courts. I agree that Russia or China courts are unreliable, but to leave it as vague as "reliable court" is unacceptable. It will cause way more problems than it will fix. I would guess the number of articles we have here on Russian court convictions is rather small. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we just say "court", doesn't that mean editors aren't following policy if they treat convictions as suspect when reliable sources say the outcome was pre-determined for political reasons? And if we allow editors to decide to sometimes treat a convicted person as possibly not guilty, doesn't that raise the same "who will be the judge" problem? The answer I would give is the same as for all other content questions: editors decide how to treat a given claim not by judging the facts for themselves but by looking at what reliable sources say (e.g. whether or not the conviction was suspect). An editor randomly deciding that a liberal or conservative court is unreliable without reliable sources saying so would be original research.
    It's also possible instead of focusing on the court, we should be focusing on the conviction - a court that normally does good work sometimes flubs a case or there is prosecutorial misconduct or new evidence comes in or new witnesses are found. Is a given conviction contested in reliable sources? We need to calibrate "contested" to ignore the usual "but I still didn't do it!" even after it's obvious they did, without ignoring convictions that are actually untrustworthy. -- Beland (talk) 19:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A nonpolitical court case should always be taken at face value. For example I doubt China or Russia are framing people for murder for shits and giggles. Attribution to the court should be standard. Good day—RetroCosmos talk 19:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Bad verdicts can arise for entirely non-political reasons. In corrupt court systems, a verdict can be determined by a bribe from the accused or from an enemy of the accused. A guilty verdict can result from failure to pay a bribe where the police are essentially an extortion racket. People can also be convicted because police have randomly grabbed someone they don't like and decided they should be made a scapegoat for a crime that has become publicly known so that they meet their quota or they maintain the appearance of the government doing a good job fighting crime. -- Beland (talk) 20:26, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No You may as well just delete WP:BLP entirely if you make that change. That would, for example, allow us to state in Wikivoice that "x murdered y" or "x raped y" without it being a WP:BLP violation, yet if we said "x lied on his resume" or "x had an affair" that would remain a WP:BLP violaton. FDW777 (talk) 22:04, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Saying "X murdered Y" would not be remaining neutral on the question of guilt, so it seems pretty clear to me that would still not be allowed before a suitable conviction or admission. I'm curious how you reckon otherwise? -- Beland (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Words to this effect, but not these specific words. Many of those commenting "no" above are assuming that this would allow us to say in wikivoice that someone is guilty before conviction, which is just not true but equally evidence that the wording needs more workshopping to avoiding giving that impression. What the words should convey is that Wikipedia does not state that a person who has been accused but not convicted is guilty or innocent. We state the facts - that the person has been accused but not convicted. Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The updated wording would suggest that if a suspect confessed under police testimony they did the crime (but not yet have a guilty conviction), that we should say the suspect did the crime in wikivoice. Or a case where the suspect makes a guilty plea but also uses that to secure a reduced sentence that eliminates the primary charge, editors would be adding in wikivoice that the suspect did that major crime. (excellent example here being the E Jean Carroll case with Trump). We can still say, in the latter case that the subjected pleaded guilty to that crime without problem but can't jump to say they did the crime. Masem (t) 23:14, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure what you mean by "confessed under policy testimony"? Do you mean confessed to the police and the police are now saying they have a confession? That's not a "public confession" and the reason I wrote "public" there is to rule out such cases. If the police claim to have a confession on file but that's not been publicly confirmed by the suspect and especially if they are not formally pleading guilty, I think that's a bit early to jump to the conclusion that they're guilty.
    The E. Jean Carroll case against Trump was a civil case relying on preponderance of the evidence, not a criminal case that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
    If someone pleads guilty to a lesser charge, I don't see how the new wording would allow Wikipedia to write that the person was guilty of the greater charge - they wouldn't have been convicted or plead guilty to the greater charge. -- Beland (talk) 00:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant "police", but even if one made a public confession, we'd still not be able to say the person actually did what they claimed in wikivoice. And civil cases are just as critical as criminal, as most often we're talking about sexual misconduct violations. Masem (t) 17:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, the "policy" typo was mine. 8) -- Beland (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What words would you propose? -- Beland (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Hell No. What an utterly absurd suggestion. Wikipedia is not a court of law, and under no circumstances should it ever pretend to be one. And nor is it in the business of determining whether courts are 'reliable' or not. Or whether a confession has been 'coerced'. It appears to me that User:Beland has completely misunderstood the intent of the existing wording, and is somehow interpreting it to mean something wildly different. It places nobody under any obligation to state that a person accused of a crime is innocent: instead, it mandates that Wikipedia doesn't state (or imply) that they are guilty. A 'person of interest' is a person interest. A 'suspect' is a suspect, and a person charged with a crime is a person charged with a crime. All of which Wikipedia can state (given the necessary sourcing). What existing policy precludes is describing a suspect as a 'perpetrator', as a 'criminal' (in relation to the alleged crime), or as a 'murderer etc. Courts convict. Wikipedia doesn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:46, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The business of determining whether courts are reliable and whether confessions have been coerced is the job of reliable sources. What we shouldn't do is treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable. We can say "X dealt drugs in Florida in the 1990s" if they are convicted and their case hasn't been brought up for conviction review or questioned by the Innocence Project or anything like that. But "Y dealt drugs in Moscow in the 2020s" is problematic even if they were convicted, if there are reliable sources saying Russian police routinely coerce false confessions, and especially if there are allegations by Y or others that this happened in Y's case. -- Beland (talk) 00:05, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Existing policy doesn't require Wikipedia to 'treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable'. What it requires is that Wikipedia does not pre-empt the courts, and decide for ourselves whether someone is guilty, prior to conviction. You seem to be inventing hypothetical circumstances for which existing policy is irrelevant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not saying existing policy does require to "treat all convictions and all courts as unquestionable". I simply added "by a reliable court" to avoid any perception that the new wording does that, trying to avoid changing anything. -- Beland (talk) 00:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Existing policy does not cover circumstances where an individual has already been convicted. We don't have to 'presume innocence' in such circumstances. Nor do we have to 'presume guilt'. And we sure as hell don't need to start shaping content around our own personal opinions regarding the 'reliability' of courts. Just how difficult is that to understand? If reliable sources state that they consider a conviction questionable, we can report that. Because that is what Wikipedia does. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I feel like I'm being yelled at for being stupid and am not going to respond to this. -- Beland (talk) 00:43, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • We can also note that a suspect has been arrested and charged without mentioning the name of that suspect. Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I second basically everything that's been said against this idea, particularly Andy. I do not know how this would've gotten past an RFCBEFORE discussion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This idea was proposed in an RFCBEFORE discussion; you can read it at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#General discussion. -- Beland (talk) 00:22, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Right off the bat, the whole entanglement of Wikipedia with journalism is completely inappropriate. Who cares how "ethical journalists" report a criminal case? Wikipedia is not a newspaper nor an online news site. What and how the media reports a criminal case should not necessarily affect an encyclopaedic lemma. A person could be pronounced as not guilty in trial after trial, never getting convicted in their life, and, still, an honest and ethical investigative journalist could be, at the same time, hollering for that person's guilt and offering their evidence for the guilt. Some media could adopt the journalist's position; individuals who happen to contribute to Wikipedia might agree with the journalist, as well. Still, Wikipedia can only quote the allegations, if even that; in the encyclopaedia, the person is still denoted, explicitly or implicitly, as innocent. The whole BLP policy is built on this approach. -The Gnome (talk) 02:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The new wording says that in this investigative journalist scenario, Wikipedia would remain neutral as to whether the person was guilty or innocent, because there would have been no "conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession". The same thing I said about "ethical journalists" is also true about Wikipedia. We do not describe people who have just been formally accused of a serious crimes as innocent, any more than we describe them as guilty. For example in Assassination of Charlie Kirk, we say "prosecutors charged Robinson with murder" because we are neutral as to guilt. We do not say "prosecutors falsely charged Robinson with murder" which would assume innocence. -- Beland (talk) 02:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of information, and we do have standards of how-we-write articles (being neutral), but we do also have an obligation to respect people's privacy, and while it isn't a primary principle, we do sometimes (and this is one such case) have to note the guiding light that Wikipedia is as an arbiter of news fact-checking. Especially in WP:RSBREAKING cases where reliable sources make mistakes, as the latest case clearly showed. And us including certain things in articles can have rapid impact on the Circular reporting cycle, as our WP:CITOGENESIS list can remind us of other past mishaps.
So, given the potential harm that us listing someone prematurely could have on a person, I think our current policy of protecting people's privacy under presumption of innocence is correct and is part of why Wikipedia's reliability reputation has dramatically improved over the past few years as compared to the wild west days of the past when things were often uncited. It also means we don't have to worry about whether we need to call WMF attorneys to make sure we're not opening Wikipedia up to libel issues, which is principally what the WMF Terms of Use remind us of with regards to privacy of people.
And it avoids opening the door wide open for people who are eager to defame someone they don't like, by broadcasting that they were accused of something in a lawsuit, whether frivolous or not. So, I think our current policy on how we handle BLP-related issues, such as in this case, naming of WP:BLPCRIME people are on point as WP:BLPN can sing songs about it. It often goes hand in hand with WP:NPF and WP:BLP1E, since in many cases people were not notable prior to the event, and if we change the handling of inclusion, we inevitably just pulled the rug out from under and people would be racing to create BLP articles about them, digging up all sorts of things that may, or may not, be due if they end up being found not guilty. We have to remember that while there are of course sometimes very high-profile crime cases, like the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, we also have many more run-off-the-mill crime allegations every other day of some lawsuit alleging a crime, on which we also apply BLPCRIME to and in most of those cases, the strength of the policy is what protects Wikipedia from being part of the WP:GOSSIP and WP:RUMOR cycle. Raladic (talk) 04:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. The phrase reliable court is entirely subjective. The United States legal system, for example, is notoriously biased. Court judgments sometimes get overturned. Court documents are also primary sources, whereas Wikipedia articles are based primarily on secondary and/or tertiary sources. The part about using a subject's confession unless reliable sources report coercion means – what? That if an innocent person is tortured into confessing, we describe them as guilty unless somebody happens to leak the details to the press? This proposal is a recipe for more bias as well as defamation of people who have been wronged by the justice system, not neutrality. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:08, 19 September 2025 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)[reply]
    The current wording says "until convicted by a court of law"...does that not mean that editors are currently supposed to use primary-source court documents to decide if someone can be described as guilty?
    Is there a phrase you would favor that could provide a non-subjective way we could distinguish between a random criminal conviction in Connecticut which we take at face value, vs. the conviction of a political prisoner in Russia where the verdict has been pre-decided by the Kremlin? That was my intention with "reliable court".
    If someone goes on TV and publicly admits to a crime, and no reliable sources report that they were forced to do this...how would we know that they were forced? Under the current policy, would we not just say that they admitted to the crime, with the implication they did in fact commit it? If reliable sources then start reporting that this person committed that crime, would we not believe them until a court agrees? That seems to be what's happening on e.g. Randolfo Pacciardi, who made an admission outside of court and was never charged with plotting a coup. (Though Pacciardi is dead.) -- Beland (talk) 06:41, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That was a rhetorical question, and I stand by my arguments. You've had the chance to make your case, now let others make theirs. Constantly arguing with other users in what was supposed to be a "survey" section looks a lot like WP:BLUDGEONING. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll go a step further: Beland, I think we are already seeing a WP:SNOW result here, because, while there may be some appetite for something like this, as evidence by the RCFBEFORE discussion, it is obvious that the respondents to this discussion feel that the wording proposed raises too many collateral issues around how the legalistic jargon is incorporated. Even as someone who advocated extensively for the removal of the existing language and its replacement with something else, I have to admit that I do think the 'No' !votes here have legitimate claims about this something else. I think at this point it is already clear that this proposal will not advance as framed. I would suggest that you withdraw the RfC, and once your above thread (which is getting nearly universal support at this time) completes in a month or so, we can revisit this issue (inviting everybody from both this and the RFCBEFORE discussion back) as we continue to tweak the language in the section, which will give plenty of time to workshop alternatives. Might you be amenable to that? I don't want the delay either, but it better to admit an error at this point than dig and argue with everyone and sour perspectives on the larger issues. SnowRise let's rap 07:50, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think people are primarily reacting to removal of "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law." and the rationale behind the wording change is too philosophical for most people to grasp. People don't seem to understand that the change isn't meant to be a change in our standards, and most incorrectly interpret it as a complete reversal. That's probably what is making people too angry to respond in a productive fashion to offers to tweak the wording to respond to what they don't like about the new text. I would recommend abandoning this direction entirely. While I endorse your idea as a useful clarification, I would not have proposed it on my own, so I have no strong feelings about what you decide to do. -- Beland (talk) 08:07, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, as a formal matter it is your proposal enacted on your own initiative, so you would have to be the one to withdraw it, if that is going to be the solution. Either way, please believe I appreciate you making the effort. As far as why people are reacting as they have, I think the reasons are nuanced, but I think the responses in the RFCBEFORE discussion make it unambiguous that there is some need for change here. For whatever reason, this proposal just didn't speak to addressing the needs of the section. But there is WP:NORUSH to get this right. If you do withdraw this proposal, I think that the relaunch should wait at least until the above thread is resolved. Of course all of this might be subsumed into larger proposals suggesting more expansive redrafting of the section. But it is hard to say at this early juncture. SnowRise let's rap 09:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've dropped the RFC tag, and left the discussion open for people to respond to questions that might guide a future RFC toward something they would support. -- Beland (talk) 15:19, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, no, we emphatically do not use primary-source court documents to describe someone as guilty of crime, per WP:BLPPRIMARY. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, then it seems either the existing policy should be changed to say "convicted by a court of law as reported in secondary sources" (and the new one rephrased in a similar fashion), or neither policy needs to say this because WP:BLPPRIMARY already says it? -- Beland (talk) 08:10, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What new policy is that? The need for reliable, secondary sources is already covered under WP:V and WP:NOR. I don't see a need for more WP:CREEP here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It should be obvious that by "new policy" I refer to the wording proposed in this RFC. -- Beland (talk) 15:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is not obvious. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:22, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No - Per AndytheGrump, who said pretty much everything I wanted to. Also good additional points by Sangdeboeuf and The Gnome. The existing wording is not broken, and the proposal is not an improvement. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:47, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I think the opposition above makes several good points but it misses the most pernicious problem with this proposal - as written, this would actually forbid us from saying or implying that someone is innocent unless... well, actually, by a literal wording it would forbid us from ever implying that anyone is innocent under almost all circumstances. We'd be forced to remain neutral until a conviction by a reliable court, or guilty plea or public confession, all of which can only be used to establish guilt; we could only say that someone is innocent under the extremely specific situation where they're coerced into a confession. I doubt that never say anyone is innocent ever was the intent, but even going by what I can infer to be the intent it's still terrible - while BLP applies to both positive and negative things, not everything is equally BLP-sensitive. If there's overwhelming, unequivocal, across-the-board coverage in high-quality reliable sources saying that someone is innocent, we can and should say so in the article voice, even if there's no formal court decisions pointing in that direction; the same is not true for guilt, because the risk of getting that wrong is higher. The idea that we should go for parity between what we need to state innocence and guilt in the article voice is fundimentially wrongheaded. (It is true that "not guilty" and "innocent" are not the same thing and some caution is needed around that fact, of course, sometimes even in cases where there's an actual not-guilty ruling; see eg. our article on O. J. Simpson, which makes it clear that he was found not guilty but also that many people remained skeptical. But if the sources overwhelmingly treat an accusation as fundimentially baseless then we must reflect that fact, which this proposal would actually, in most cases, forbid.) --Aquillion (talk) 16:04, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point. Though I'd add that the proposal seems in any case to be inventing some abstract (undefined, and probably undefinable) concept of 'neutrality' which isn't found elsewhere in Wikipedia policy: it certainly isn't in WP:NPOV for example, which instead mandates "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources". Not 'neutrality' in the abstract, but ('as far as possible', since we aren't infallible) proportional to sources. Which applies to the subject under discussion just as much as anywhere else, with the simple proviso that we don't set ourselves up as judge, jury and executioner: any source that is doing that (i.e. stating guilt as a fact before trial and conviction) probably shouldn't be cited anyway. Reputable sources generally employ legal staff to look out for that sort of thing and/or journalists who know what they are doing, and don't make that error in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:30, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Since we do have general policies which as you point out apply to crime just as much as other events, do you think it's worthwhile to have some higher standard for living people accused of crime, or do you think deleting WP:BLPCRIME entirely (as some have proposed) would be OK? -- Beland (talk) 16:44, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, absolutely not, as should be readily apparent from everything I've written. The policy is utterly essential and needs more enforcing, not deletion. As should be obvious to anyone who watches high-profile cases, blatant violations of the policy are common there (e.g. 'perpetrator' in an infobox prior to trial) though usually dealt with fairly quickly. In my opinion, the biggest issue with this policy (or rather its violation) lies in the less-watched articles, where guilt is assumed from charges, people are added to 'lists of mass murderers' and the like with no source for anything but a named 'suspect', and streams of articles (see e.g. Indian politicians for some prime examples), where 'subject was charged with corruption in 2006' is seen as legitimate content, without giving the reader any clue as to what happened since. With better awareness and enforcement of WP:BLP policy in general, and WP:BLP's position on legal matters in particular, we could get rid of an awful lot of this crap. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for clarifying. -- Beland (talk) 19:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, good point! It is very common that people who have in fact committed a crime are not prosecuted in the first place, are never caught, have the charges dropped due to lack of prioritization, have cases thrown out on a technicality, or have a court case result in a not-guilty verdict because the case wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt (even if a preponderance of the evidence favors guilt - sometimes proven in a follow-up civil lawsuit). Because of all this I wouldn't describe someone in Wikipedia voice as falsely accused or innocent just because of a not-guilty verdict; that would take reliable sources specifically saying that and for neutrality reasons that would have to be a fairly universal interpretation.
    Do you have any wording suggestions that would handle both guilt and innocence better? I'm wondering if something like this would be an improvement (also taking into account various other objections to specific turns of phrase):
    When a living person is accused of a crime and guilt vs. innocence is contested, Wikipedia must remain neutral on that question. Wikipedia assumes an accused person contests their guilt until reliable sources clearly report they have unambiguously indicated otherwise. A conviction reported in reliable sources as uncontested (including not on appeal to a higher court) is enough to assume in Wikipedia's voice that the convicted performed the actions they were convicted of.
    The second sentence still has a whiff of presumption of innocence, but I think explains what it means in plain language instead of importing a term of art from a different profession.
    -- Beland (talk) 16:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's still not quite right. For example, if someone is found guilty in a trial that all reliable sources regard as fair, we currently describe them as guilty unless and until they successfully appeal the conviction. The new wording would prohibit describing someone as guilty if they protest their innocence even after they lose their final appeal.
    It's possible that we do want to change the status quo in this regard, but the RFCBEFORE didn't really touch on that, and if we do want to change it I suspect it would be to somewhere between those points. It's also not clear to me what we would do if it is unclear from reliable sources whether they are contesting their conviction or not (and it's not at all uncommon for someone to not make the decision on whether to appeal a verdict immediately). Do we assume someone has accepted the verdict unless and until there is reliable sources to the contrary, or do we assume they haven't accepted it in the absence of sourcing to the contrary?
    Perhaps what we need is some sort of table, with rows for different stages of proceeding (person of interest, arrested, charged, on-trial, verdict, appeal, etc) with columns indicating the different possible responses (not known, implied acceptance, explicit acceptance, implied contesting, explicitly contesting, etc) with each cell giving suggestions for how to report that situation. This obviously couldn't specify every combination or circumstance, but almost everything would be similar to one or more and that would be the starting point for discussion? Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A matrix might be helpful; we may agree more on specific circumstances than general philosophy. Sometimes I find people pushing fervently for "X except Y sometimes" vs. "Y except X sometimes" don't actually disagree on outcomes and are arguing for no good reason. -- Beland (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, and I forgot to suggest that we be careful to take into account cases where people have escaped the justice system, outcomes like no contest and pleading to sufficient facts and not proven and miscarriage of justice, civil cases related to crimes, and where the justice system is corrupt or a political entity. -- Beland (talk) 17:46, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How about no? So far, I've seen nothing approximating a clear explanation of what the actual problem is with existing policy. As for 'arguing for no good reason', you seem intent on making your proposal as complex as possible, which more or less makes Wikilawyering inevitable. Assuming of course that WMF legal don't step in first to prevent contributors running into contempt of court and/or libel issues through 'he's confessed so he's obviously guilty' reasoning and the like (and before you respond, coercion is by far the only reason why people make false confessions, or confessions obtained through improper means. The validity of confessions, like any other evidence, is subject to scrutiny at trial, and we don't get to guess whether they will be accepted, based on whatever limited press coverage happens to have come along). AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Then feel free to respond in the negative when asked if the proposed table should be adopted. -- Beland (talk) 19:10, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are also things like pleading guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder but still being tried for murder. Thryduulf (talk) 17:55, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. This opens the door far too wide to Wikipedia spreading baseless internet witchhunts, on the grounds that we're just being neutral by reporting all sides. Our policy should more proactively shut down unconfirmed accusations, and the presumption of innocence helps with that, regardless of whether the accusations are in a country whose legal system follows that rule. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:37, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No per above, and the idea that we must slavishly follow the daily news is a NOTHERE argument. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:18, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm curious where you get "slavishly follow the daily news" from in this proposal? Even the policy WP:NOTNEWS encourages editors to update Wikipedia with respect to notable current events, though not "slavishly". -- Beland (talk) 02:39, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, and too many users take that to mean we are running a news ticker, and they ignore the entire thrust of BLP and NOT, which is extremely careful, sober, long view encyclopedia writing, especially around living persons and sensational events, so policy that 'slows the roll' is essential to what Wikipedia is. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No I realise this is well-intentioned, but "reliable" court is a recipe for unending dispute. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 09:28, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. This seems to be conflating the legal presumption of innocence with NPOV in ways that erode BLP protections. The sentence is there to explain the legal basis for the rest of the policy. It does not mean that a requiring that Wikipedia not say or imply that a person has been found guilty means we have to act a though we were defence counsel and write as though the person is innocent (which would obviously have BLP considerations for other living people associated with the case). This also opens the door to quibbling over what a "reliable court" is. If there are doubts about the independence of judicial convictions, the conviction, which is a fact, should be noted and the legal issues also included through coverage of such in RS (e.g. Alexei Navalny). Similarly, if a "unreliable court" returns an unexpected acquittal, this rewording could be a loophole to try and imply guilt nonetheless. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 16:40, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Wikipedia should state the result of the court, and then layout any doubts found in reliable sources. If a person has been convicted Wikipedia should reflect that, if reliable sources consider the conviction to be based on trumped up charges then that should be mentioned as well but it shouldn't exclude the conviction. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hell no. A potential nightmare on every conceivable level. Apart from anything else, there are reasons why someone who actually did a thing might still be exonerated by the court (e.g. due to mental incapacity). We're not judges or triers of fact. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • This actually depends on the jurisdiction. When someone's been found guilty of a crime by a British criminal court and has not subsequently been exonerated, then I have sufficient confidence in that to say that they're guilty in wikivoice. I view a conviction in the UK courts like I view a conclusion in a scientific paper. It's an evaluation reached by independent, competent experts who've explored and tested the evidence, so as far as Wikipedia's concerned, it should be the truth until proven otherwise. The same applies to most of the courts in other WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) nations. But there are certainly jurisdictions where the judge and/or jury don't have that independence so I wouldn't treat their conclusions as the truth. I do want to object to this idea that Wikipedians should take it on themselves to second-guess the verdict of a competent, independent court.—S Marshall T/C 08:40, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Certainly second-guessing reliable courts as a matter of course is not my idea. If verdicts are questioned at all, it should be because reliable sources indicate an unusually strong debate around or evidence for the possibility of a false conviction. -- Beland (talk) 13:58, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's true enough. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:06, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • No in intent, and hell no in specific wording, which would say that we must be neutral about guilt even if charges are dropped, even if accusations are recanted, even if it is proven that some dead individual was the actual guilty party (as the dead person will not have a trial for there to be a conviction.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:43, 26 September 2025 (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.

Further discussion

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Editor @Beland: said above: "If we just say "court", doesn't that mean editors aren't following policy if they treat convictions as suspect when reliable sources say the outcome was pre-determined for political reasons? And if we allow editors to decide to sometimes treat a convicted person as possibly not guilty, doesn't that raise the same "who will be the judge" problem? The answer I would give is the same as for all other content questions: editors decide how to treat a given claim not by judging the facts for themselves but by looking at what reliable sources say (e.g. whether or not the conviction was suspect). An editor randomly deciding that a liberal or conservative court is unreliable without reliable sources saying so would be original research. It's also possible instead of focusing on the court, we should be focusing on the conviction - a court that normally does good work sometimes flubs a case or there is prosecutorial misconduct or new evidence comes in or new witnesses are found. Is a given conviction contested in reliable sources? We need to calibrate "contested" to ignore the usual "but I still didn't do it!" even after it's obvious they did, without ignoring convictions that are actually untrustworthy."

Again, you are just trying to open up a whole can of political whoopass by saying this. If you go by political sources you are going to get political answers. I would not be telling editors what you tell them at all. If it's in the United States I would treat the bios as guilty or innocent as rendered by a court of law in the United States. I would say they aren't following policy if they do otherwise. Now if there are sources that question the verdict rendered, that would be a separate sentence explaining about that source, but the overall theme of guilty/innocent would be the rendered verdict. No verdict is innocent until proven guilty. By throwing in your "flubs", until such time as those flubs are fixed, the person is still subject to guilty or innocent by a court of law. Sure there are rare exceptions, but that will be taken care of by a proper rfc to see if the exception is warranted. We don't need a rewrite that turns Wikipedia into a laughing stock of politics-infused justice. That makes it no better than facebook posts or a court of public opinion. We'd just be joining in the lynch-mob.
I placed this answer here because I was taught at Wikipedia by administration that we do not answer every single survey post. People get their say but you discuss it below, not in the survey... otherwise it looks like you are bludgeoning their responses and it also makes it tough for closers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To this point, this is why even with a court conviction, we should say that the person was convicted of the crime, not that they did the crime. That accounts for court "flubs" as well as changes that result from appeals, etc., and stays to the intent of BLP. Masem (t) 21:42, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't thought of it quite that way, but it makes some sense. In the same vein you could say the person was found guilty of the crime, not that they did the crime. I think you are correct that writing things in that style is in line with the purpose of BLP. Heck in Salem, people were found guilty of the crime of witchcraft. How would you word the fact that four people pleaded guilty of witchcraft? You can't say "John Doe and three others were guilty of witchcraft".. I guess we would say "John Doe pled guilty to witchcraft and was given 30 lashes", and then present any sources that said it was done under coercion. All that said, you would be hard pressed to find any editors (self included) willing to change the lead sentence of Sirhan Sirhan to "Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Jordanian man who was convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy." Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:42, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at Category:21st-century murderers, it appears that is not all what we currently do, and it would be difficult to have this category at all if we did. It wopuld also make e.g. Ramon Escobar (serial killer) read rather choppily. (There may be a BLP violation in the "Prison murder" section, which is an interesting example.) -- Beland (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BLPPRIVACY

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@Sangdeboeuf:, you reverted my edit to WP:BLPPRIVACY saying that the previous version was "clearer before" and that "independent sources are always preferred". The latter is tangential given that ABOUTSELF explicitly allows non-independent sourcing for such information, while the current version can easily be misinterpreted to mean that a subject needs to self-publish a piece of information multiple times before it can be used, which it does not (there was a snow consensus to include a birthdate based on one ABOUTSELF source at Talk:Bonnie Blue (actress)/Archive 1, albeit the source account's since been removed and possibly by Instagram).--Launchballer 06:55, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Preferring independent sources and allowing ABOUTSELF sources are not mutually exclusive. Can does not equal should.
Not sure why you would bring up Bonnie Blue unless your goal is to justify your desired changes to that article by altering the policy itself.
I disagree that the current text of BLPPRIVACY is more likely to be misinterpreted. Are there any recent examples of that happening? If so, where? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does PUBLICFIGURE apply to all content in a BLP or only allegations/incidents where there might be public figure privacy concerns

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In a discussion at the BLPN, Nil Einne claimed that PUBLICFIGURE means all content in a biographical article about a living public figure must be supported by multiple reliable third-party sources, regardless of the nature of that content. I disagree with this interpretation of PUBLICFIGURE. At least one of us is misinterpreting the policy, and I'm hoping we can sort it out here and potentially make the wording clearer.

The main part of WP:PUBLICFIGURE says:

Public figures
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article, even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out.

My reading of this is:

  • It's a subsection of Presumption in favor of privacy and so only applies to the subset of content where there might be privacy concerns.
  • "there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say" applies to the living public figure's article as a whole, but does not imply that there will be / should be a multitude of sources for each bit of content in the article.
  • "If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out" is limited to allegations or incidents; it is not about all content in the article.

Additional evidence that contributes to my interpreting this as I do:

  • BLPSELFPUB content is an example of living public figure biographical content that might be sourced only to one source.
  • Significant biographical content about academics might only be sourced to one source (e.g., unless an academic prize is something like a Nobel, it may be that the only source for the academic having received a prestigious award is the organization that awards the prize, ditto for membership in a prestigious scholarly society).

(As an aside, I'll add that the ways in which "BLP" gets used by editors can complicate discussions. People use it to refer variously to biographical articles about living persons, to the living person who is the subject of a biographical article, to content about living persons that appears in non-biographical articles. Perhaps editors use it is some other ways; I haven't spent any time trying to chase that down. But I'm spelling things out above to make it clearer which I'm referring to.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your interpretation. Material that might be contentious, for example that relating to allegations or incidents, needs to be sourced to third party reliable sources, typically multiple although there might be exceptions to that last bit. For example if it is widely reported in RS that X was charged with multiple offences in connection with a particular incident we might only have a primary source (and maybe a single third party source) for what the specific charges are. Including the specific charges is going to be encyclopaedic and DUE in at least some cases so it should not be automatically excluded.
Whether material that is sourced to the subject themselves and doesn't make claims about third parties should be included is a matter for DUE not the BLP policy - even if it is negative. For example, a BLP subject stating that they were "a real troublemaker at school" does not require third party sourcing before it can be included (although obviously it shouldn't always be included).
Other material that is not contentious just requires reliable sourcing. Third-party sources will sometimes be preferable, but are not required. Note how WP:BLPPRIMARY starts "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources", not "Never use primary sources" and then goes on to list specific ways in which primary sources should not be used and a way in which primary sources explicitly may be used. Thryduulf (talk) 11:41, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BLPPRIMARY says primary sources may be used to augment an existing secondary source. So third-party sources are still required (apart from WP:ABOUTSELF statements). —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It says it may be used in that manner, it doesn't say that's the only way in which it can be used. Thryduulf (talk) 16:49, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The unspoken context here is an ongoing discussion of whether the Third Circuit upholding the dismissal of former Biden administration official Nina Jankowicz's defamation suit against Fox News needs multiple third-party reliable sources (see WP:BLP/N#Nina Jankowicz).
    Nil Einne's comment was a response to FactOrOpinion's argument that PUBLICFIGURE doesn't apply partly because "the court case and all filings are public" (which ignores WP:BLPPRIMARY). FactOrOpinion went on to dispute that the appellate court's ruling "qualifies as an incident".
    This is simply obtuse, and in no way justifies changing the wording of the policy. When fake news and AI slop are becoming even more prevalent, relaxing our standards for coverage of public figures is not the way to go. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:25, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion of that specific case isn't key context. This page is for discussing the BLP policy itself (ambiguities, potential changes in wording, etc.), not for discussing a particular BLP article. My question is a very general one about the interpretation of PUBLICFIGURE.
    My question was prompted by Nil Einne's claim that "PUBLICFIGURE applies to anything we want to include [in a biographical article about a public figure]." I am disputing that PUBLICFIGURE applies to all content in a BLP article (regardless of whether the content involves a privacy concern, and regardless of whether it involves an allegation or incident). In response to Nil Einne's claim, I said "PUBLICFIGURE does not apply to anything we want to include. It's very explicitly about content that falls under "allegation or incident", where the info might be considered private (which is why it's a subsection of Presumption in favor of privacy). People distinguish between public figures and people who are relatively unknown in discussion, but not because PUBLICFIGURE applies to anything we want to include," and Nil Einne responded "You're mistaken. If you're going to question the interpretation it's on you to get consensus to support your view." So that's what I'm doing: checking whether there is consensus for my general interpretation, or if the consensus is instead for Nil Einne's interpretation.
    You've made similar claims: "Is [example source] the only reliable, independent source for this material? If so, we should still leave it out per WP:PUBLICFIGURE," and "Basically anything that happens is an incident and so is covered by WP:PUBLICFIGURE."
    I claim that if there might be privacy concerns (per the section heading), and there is an allegation or incident involved, then PUBLICFIGURE applies, and one needs "multiple reliable third-party sources." Otherwise, a single RS is often sufficient for sourcing, though whether the content itself should be introduced into the article also depends on things, such as whether the content is DUE (which is a distinct issue), and whether it meets the BLPSELFPUB restrictions (e.g., if the single RS is the subject's own blog or tweet).
    I am not calling for "relaxing our standards for coverage of public figures." I am calling for a discussion of whether there's consensus about how the PUBLICFIGURE standard should be interpreted (specifically: does it apply to all content in a biographical article about a living public figure), and if so, what that consensus is. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Once again you are ignoring the context. That BLP/N discussion is about a specific claim in a specific biographical article, and my comments were implicitly about that claim. In trying to distinguish between an allegation or incident in which there are privacy concerns and one in which there are not, you are in effect proposing to relax our standards of coverage of public figures. That's a bad idea. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I'm saying that that context is not important to my question here, as my question is not about any specific biographical article. Again, I'm not proposing to relax the standards. I'm trying to find out whether consensus is that my interpretation of this standard is correct (in which case yours is more stringent than the actual standard) or incorrect (in which case it's important that I understand the actual standard). And if your interpretation is correct, then I may also propose making the wording clearer. Right now in this discussion, there is no consensus. Hopefully some other editors will join in. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is an intensely high-profile case that has attracted massive amounts of secondary coverage. If you can't find multiple high-quality independent secondary sources for something notionally central, something is terribly wrong. As a general rule, though, I would be generally against using WP:PRIMARY court documents in any BLP article, in any context whatsoever; the significance and meaning of legal documents often requires expertise to interpret; it is very hard to use them without inadvertantly carrying some implication that we'd need a secondary source for. I would be strenuously (revert-on-sight level) against using them for something this high-profile. It's nonsensical to suggest that multiple secondary sources wouldn't exist for anything important in this case, which immediately suggests to me that if you're trying to cite court documents directly (anywhere, in any context on this article, except as a courtesy link when backed by multiple secondary sources) and are unable to find secondary sources that could back your text, something has gone terribly wrong. Perhaps you just don't want to do the work of finding the sources that do exist, but I'd suggest just doing it, since in something this significant, very small changes in wording and focus can matter a lot. --Aquillion (talk) 17:53, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The district court case got a lot of attention. The Third Circuit appeal did not get a lot of attention. I found three RSs discussing it, but did not find other RSs (though there are additional MREL and EXPERTSPS sources). I did not suggest using court documents as sources. I mentioned them only in the context of our talk discussion of whether the appeal is/isn't a privacy concern. And this is why I did not go into that specific case here: it's beside the point for my general question, and I do not want to take the issue of that specific case up here when it's already being discussed at the BLPN. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does WP:BLP apply to all content in a biographical article about a living person, or might there be some content that is not about that living person

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In a discussion at the BLPN, Nil Einne claimed that "If it's not BLP content [content about a living person] then it doesn't belong in a biography of a living person," "BLPs [biographical articles about living persons] contain the information but it is implicitly about a living person and is covered by BLP [the policy]," "By including them in a BLP [biographical article], they inherently become about a living person and are therefore covered by BLP [the policy]. ... the fact you're presenting this information in a biography of a living person means you are making this information as information about a living person and therefore covered by BLP [the policy]," and "this thread has included a bunch of junk arguments like claims something in an a BLP is not about a living person."

JPxG and I disagree. We both say that WP:BLP applies to bulk of the content in a biography of a living person (specifically, content about the subject or about some other living person who is mentioned), but there may be content where it doesn't apply, as with content is about someone who is long dead, or content about non-persons (e.g., a book, an organization). Seems to me that the key differences is whether EXPERTSPS can be used: it cannot be used as a source for content about a living person, but it might be used for content about a long dead person or non-person.

An example: Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia involves multiple court rulings. One is a per curiam (unsigned) order from the Supreme Court. Many RSs called it a unanimous decision. Two EXPERTSPSs noted that unsigned orders do not specify a vote count (so we do not know for certain that it was unanimous), but there were no public dissents. That info was included in the article, because the order is not itself a person. In the Background section, there's a subsection about Due process in the context of immigration, and a couple of EXPERTSPSs are used there too. My understanding is that Nil Einne would object to that, though I don't know for certain that he'd consider this article to be a biography of a living person; the article has a great deal of content about living persons (especially Abrego Garcia), but the primary topic is the deportation and related court cases. I'd appreciate hearing others' views on this general issue. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:25, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that this is something with a clear-cut all-purpose answer. There's a few things that are red-line BLP issues (ie. stuff WP:BLPREMOVE applies to) but there's a much larger array of stuff that is potentially BLP-sensitive and which we have to consider in light of BLP's requirements, but which is not necessarily a strict red-line "run to AE immediately if someone restores it" problem. And there's lots of situations where reasonable editors might differ in terms of how or to what extent they think BLP applies. With something like the procedural details of a court ruling, it's easy to see how it can still have implications for the article's subject (or even for other living people), even if it's not directly a statement about them, and in that context BLP can apply. But more generally, most of BLP is just a stricter and more rigorous application of our existing sourcing policies, so arguing over whether BLP applies to a tangential thing like this is usually a waste - if you're acknowledging that whether BLP applies is decisive, that's the same as saying that the sourcing is weak (because it wouldn't pass BLP standards), which means your time would be better spent improving it. And if the sourcing does pass BLP standards then whether BLP applies or not... doesn't matter. --Aquillion (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're reading too much into off-the-cuff remarks that were made in the context of a specific dispute at WP:BLP/N#Nina Jankowicz. Any confusion should be hashed out there, not brought to the talk page of the policy itself in order to wedge your preferred interpretation in there. I agree with Aquillion that this is mostly a waste of time; ArbCom has specifically stated that edits relating to the subject of a BLP article fall within the contentious topic area. The example of the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia certainly relates to a living person and should be edited sensitively and cautiously in accordance with BLP policy. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:56, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that I'm reading too much into it, and you're simply wrong that the remarks were made solely about Jankowicz's BLP. JPxG very explicitly brought up multiple other articles where this issue is in play, and Nil Einne disputed it. I just brought up another example from an article that has nothing to do with Jankowicz. And Nil Einne made his argument across multiple comments. I'll also ask you to AGF and not suggest that I'm doing this "to wedge [my] preferred interpretation in there." I'm asking about it because at least one of us has a mistaken understanding, and it would be good for all of us to have a correct understanding. I don't have any experience with ArbCom, but I have to wonder about the difference between the header and the statement in the 2022 decision. I don't know who I would ask about that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:15, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nil Einne already answered your question at BLP/N: BLPs contain the information but it is implicitly about a living person and is covered by BLP. That's why it's included. I ask that you stop wasting other people's time with this. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:12, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two of us clearly disagree with that explanation. I suggest that you allow other editors to decide whether or not they want to participate in the discussion. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The question posed in the section heading shows an incomplete understanding of Wikipedia's procedures. Looking for precise rules that cover all situations is not going to work (see WP:BURO and WP:IAR and probably more). Material in a biographical article about a living person must be WP:DUE and obviously must relate to the person. For example, it would not be useful to argue that text could be added to specify the make and model of the car they drive with a claim on talk that BLP need not be satisfied regarding a car. That is because either the car is not due or is not relevant, or that some WP:SYNTH is being used to allow the reader to draw a connection between the type of car and the character of the person. Instead of this discussion, WP:DR should be followed which probably means an WP:RFC, but only if that would not be a waste of time. Johnuniq (talk) 02:45, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no content in a BLP that WP:BLP as a whole does not apply to, because saying that that content is in some way relevant to the subject is a BLP-sensitive claim. However, that does not mean that all claims in a BLP receive the protection of all parts of WP:BLP. Most sections, including WP:BLPRESTORE and WP:BLPSPS, specifically refer to material about a living person, or to a narrower subset of that (e.g. contentious claims about a living person). There may be cases where something in a BLP doesn't directly mention a living person but could still be reasonably called "material about a living person", but in most cases it should be pretty obvious what's what. Consider "John Doe is the CEO of Acme. Acme manufactures puppy-murdering machines. Acme is headquartered in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts." The first sentence is explicitly BLP material. The second sentence is implicitly BLP material, because even though it doesn't mention Doe, a reasonable person would expect a company's CEO to have some moral responsibility for its actions. The third sentence is not BLP material, because no reasonable person would consider it to reflect on a person that their company is headquartered in Boston (except perhaps a Yankees fan, supposing any reasonable ones exist). But context is key. If it were "is headquartered in Tel Aviv", perhaps this would be seen as a reflection on him. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:06, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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