Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons

Request for Comment: Improving the wording of BLPCRIME

This RfC proposes improving the wording of the existing WP:BLPCRIME policy. The intent is not to change the policy or principles. The goal is to make the guidance clearer and easier to apply. Below is the current wording followed by the proposed revision.

Current version

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.

If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, include sufficient explanatory information.

Proposed version

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 committing a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. If different judicial proceedings result in seemingly contradictory outcomes that do not overrule each other, sufficient explanatory information should be included.

When deciding whether to name a living or recently deceased person in connection with a crime, editors should assess the stage of proceedings as a spectrum: person of interest < arrested < charged < on trial < convicted. The earlier the stage, the higher the threshold for inclusion. Names should rarely be included for persons of interest. For convicted individuals, names are generally appropriate unless exceptional circumstances apply. For intermediate stages, editors must carefully weigh factors such as the extent and quality of reliable sourcing, whether the subject is a minor, and the person’s public status.

Please comment below. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Support

• Support as proposer – This revision does not change the intent or principles of WP:BLPCRIME, but it clarifies how the policy is applied in practice. The proposed guidance would be helpful in resolving future content disputes. The existing language has been repeatedly misinterpreted, often resulting in inconsistent enforcement. This update improves clarity while preserving the core protections of WP:BLP. Thanks! - Nemov (talk) 15:31, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support as proposed per Nemov and my comments at #Making BLPCRIME clearer and more consistent. Thryduulf (talk) 15:45, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support - I'm in favor of strengthening BLPCRIME, and I have to admit I don't really understand why anyone would oppose it. Currently, BLPCRIME simply requires that editors "seriously consider" omitting info that someone has been accused of committing a crime, but it doesn't say anything at all about how to seriously consider that, or what factors to consider, or when to exclude info, or what info to exclude, or anything. BLPCRIME doesn't actually require omitting anything under any circumstance. The end result, as we've just seen at Killing of Austin Metcalf, is "no consensus," because there is no guidance about when to include and when to exclude.

  I don't understand how anyone can think that a lack of guidance can somehow provide stronger protection than having guidance--I think it's the opposite. The proposed expansion is an improvement over the status quo because it provides some guidance where there is currently none, and in doing so, makes it at least somewhat easier for everyone to know when to include and when to exclude, and that in turn protects living people and strengthens BLP policy. Levivich (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

• Weak support. I agree with the idea of a spectrum and it does seem that clarification is needed. I do not like the part that implies convicted criminals should always be named. I am also concerned, like many opposers, that this will lower the bar for including names (though I admit I am not experienced in this category of discussion). And from a formatting standpoint, the < list is ugly. Toadspike [Talk] 10:49, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose on principle, as this doesn't feel like the claimed simple clarification, but a change to policy, changing e.g. the "convicted / not convicted" difference we had into a more gradual scale, which will only lead to more discussion and more calls for inclusions of the names of accused. Fram (talk) 15:52, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose, agree with Fram, the practical effect would be to more easily allow the names of people who should be protected by BLP to be named. A person who is arrested and charged (the two go hand in hand in many jurisdictions) is halfway along the spectrum, and this by itself may generate !votes for inclusion of the suspect's name. I see this as a change in policy, and a diminution of BLP protection. Wehwalt (talk) 17:05, 12 May 2025
• Oppose I don't think we should think of diminishing the impact of privacy for an individual based on how close they are to being formally convicted. We need more editors to ask if we really need to include names just because they were reported, and instead think in broader terms of if those names even matter in a ten year view of the situation. WP editors are far too eager to include negative news while forgoing encyclopedic principles, and this would further encourage this. Masem (t) 17:15, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per the above, while the proposal does attempt to clarify how we could potentially handle edge cases, it also leaves the matter largely open for discussion, leaving a lot of ambiguity - "rarely", "generally", "exceptional circumstances" (that last one made me laugh. Damn near everything ends up being an exception, especially when you bake them into policy), in addition to the above concerns that this change will result in more attempts to name individuals whom we otherwise would not, it also does not deliver the clarity it promises and in my eyes would likely not result in a reduction in debates over how the policy should be implemented.ASUKITE 18:21, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with editor Masem above. If it is really true that many in the WP populous have been interpreting and implementing this BoLP policy in this manner, then we need to re-educate that populous on why this policy was formed to begin with. Adding this sliding scale to our long-held standard of convicted or not convicted policy would seem to make it easier to allow names to drip into prose. Our policy was specifically made to create a wall of protection for living persons in our biography articles and this proposed change feels more like opening a window in that wall to allow some bad air inside. I'm not convinced that's the direction we should be aspiring towards. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:30, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. Innocent until proven guilty is not a spectrum. I would support a change to the wording to explicitly discourage adding information about alleged crimes by non-public figures. The current wording just says to seriously consider not adding such material, but does not provide guidance about what the outcome of that consideration should be.--Trystan (talk) 19:11, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

  This makes a lot of sense. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:45, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose Edge cases will always exist, whereever a line is drawn. I agree with Trystan, we should "explicitly discourage adding information about alleged crimes by non-public figures." --Enos733 (talk) 22:33, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I could at least see arguments that we should add such considerations as amount of coverage or whether the individual confessed (I wouldn't agree, but I'd understand), but as the point is that a person is not convicted until their convicted, and all these other steps are just the state making their assertions, this is a false spectrum. It is not a reflection of the guideline as it stands. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:36, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Although it seems like decent guidance, and perhaps this policy is in need of greater clarification, I don't think inclusion of a scale like this is particularly helpful, and parts of the guidance could lead to issues. Eg. It could lead to inappropriately including alleged crimes for non-public figures (if they are higher on the scale), and "Names should rarely be included for persons of interest" could lead to inappropriately excluding content relating to people with particularly high profiles (eg. politicians). --Tristario (talk) 03:47, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose This is going the opposite direction from what Wikipedia should be doing. Like it or not we are a very widely read website, and as the rest of the internet collapses into a gray sludge of AI glurge this is unlikely to change. But we're also not a news site nor are we a crime blotter. We should have far fewer articles about contemporary crimes than we have. "Ripped from the headlines" could easily be respelled "inappropriate for Wikipedia." We should not be posting the names of non-public people nor even of those who are vaguely public people in connection to crimes for which they have not been committed. Doing so is harmful to the innocent and is taking Wikipedia away from is mission of being an encyclopedia. However this sliding-scale of acceptability will to the opposite and would make it easier to name the innocent. The carryover effect is that it will make it easier to use Wikipedia as a true-crime repository, which is unencyclopedic and off-mission. Simonm223 (talk) 17:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Contrary to the preface to the RFC (which I've asked Nemov to remove below), this proposal is not consistent with the intent or principles of WP:BLPCRIME. The intent of BLPCRIME is that we should generally not include the name of an average joe accused of a crime in an article. This proposal would invert that, presumptively favoring inclusion of the name so long as a person has been arrested and charged. I also agree with @Wehwalt, @Masem, @Trystan, and @Simonm223. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not entirely sure whether this would increase of decrease the effective level of protection afforded by policy... I suspect it might do both depending on the context. I oppose this because don't feel that it is an improvement on what we have now, it just feels like more words for the sake of being more words. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:52, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. The added language makes the policy more confusing. And it makes "person of interest", "arrested", "charged", "on trial" a prominent part of WP:BLPCRIME, but that's not generally a major factor in deciding whether material about an alleged crime should be included. Adumbrativus (talk) 04:52, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

  This part of the policy is not relevant to determining whether material about a crime (whether alleged or otherwise) should be included. It is solely about whether to include the name of a living person associated with an (alleged) criminal act that is DUE for inclusion. If the (alleged) crime is not DUE for inclusion then this whole section is irrelevant because we obviously don't include the name of someone suspected/accused/charged/convicted of a crime that we have no coverage of. Thryduulf (talk) 10:35, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

  I'll clarify my position, since I appear to have caused misunderstanding about it: In deciding whether to name a particular person, the scale of "person of interest", "arrested", "charged", "on trial" doesn't and shouldn't have the major role that the proposed language prominently gives it. (My earlier use of the word "material" is not a reference to a binary choice between describing an alleged crime at all or excluding all coverage completely. Editorial choices about any portion or aspect of information are choices about material. The name of a suspect is one kind of material.) I oppose the proposed policy language which overall is more confusing than helpful. Adumbrativus (talk) 02:09, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose: The policy might benefit from revision, but this revision doesn't seem helpful. It adds length and detail but in a way that doesn't help significantly. One problem is that it seems to further entrench the idea of deferring to court-declared conclusions and the steps of the digestion process of the relevant law enforcement system – regardless of which government is involved. In some places, the government and its court system is a relatively trustworthy source of information and conclusions, and in other places it is not. The "person of interest" term is another sign of centrism to certain jurisdictions – it is a vague neologism that has no legal meaning and no clarity and is not used in most countries. As stated in the article on the subject, "While terms such as suspect, target, and material witness have clear and sometimes formal definitions, person of interest remains undefined by the U.S. Department of Justice." It's also basically undefined by anyone else. The suggestion goes into greater detail without fundamentally helping, and some of the extra detail is too obvious to bother with. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:49, 17 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose - first, seems like a typo where this lost the existing guidance wording at "convicted for that crime." to just "convicted." and it seems important to keep it specific that the conviction must be for the crime being mentioned. Second, the added content goes against showing restraint by doing things calmly, slowly, and modestly. I disapprove of chasing whatever this mornings feed has as story du jour, and consideration of stages "person of interest" or "arrested" when there will not even be a specification yet all seems to be chasing events and sensationalism. It also seems WP:CRYSTALBALL speculating that they are the criminal and of what crime, since until there are actual charges, it will not even be clear what - if any - specific crime is in question, so such an edit should also fail WP:V. Even after a conviction I would say give it 48 hours (I think somewhere I saw guidance for 72) because breaking news will not have had time to accumulate WP:WEIGHT or comprehensive content. At most, I would consider it appropriate to say that public figure charges or trials may be mentioned *after* they were dismissed, if and only if there is V support that the event made a major impact on their career. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. First, I'm not sure I agree that there's an underlying problem to solve here, at least on the "rewrite policy" level; there is sometimes disagreement, especially around edge-cases, but that's appropriate and trying to thoroughly settle every possible case by fiat is a mistake. Part of the reason why hard cases make bad law is because edge-cases (like the one that prompted this proposal) need to be handled on a case-by-case basis - it's the sort of thing best handled with a light touch by essays, not by trying to immediately rewrite policy. Second, I'll point out that the basic summary of this RFC is misleading to the point of being non-neutral - it says that the intent is not to change the policy or principles, but the only change being proposed here essentially invents a totally new "spectrum" policy for inclusion that was not even hinted at previously. Beyond that, though, as far as the actual proposal itself goes, this is moving in the wrong direction. If we were going to tweak this policy, then inclusion or exclusion should largely be decided by three things - first, how the sources cover the topic; second, the encyclopedic value the name has; and third, the risk of harm to the individual being named. The first two are inherent in our basic editorial process, and balancing them against the final point is core to BLP. The stage of proceedings they're in shouldn't factor into it, at least not directly - that's just a bad thing to use even as a guideline, since it's disconnected from both our core editorial principles and the principles behind BLP. Everything short of a conviction is up to prosecutorial discretion; in most cases, there's no actual meaning or significance to proceeding through the process until the point where an actual conviction is obtained. If we're going to set thresholds, they should be based on coverage, not on how determined the prosecutors are to bring something to trial. --Aquillion (talk) 14:07, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Let the sources handle it. If it can be sourced to a WP:RS and the information has been widely disseminated among them, include it .. if not then dont. MasterBlasterofBarterTown (talk) 15:08, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose Extending more protection to persons of interest contradicts the first paragraph and WP:PUBLICFIGURE, is a substantial change and in my opinion quite wrong. HourWatch (talk) 18:56, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose in its current wording. I'm actually open to the idea of improving the clarity of the policy based on the hairy RfC surrounding the Killing of Austin Metcalf. That being said, one of the difficulties in that RfC was some editors' interpretation of the policy in opposition to others', specifically Nemov, but really most editors who were in favor of inclusion, seeing their own interpretation of the policy as correct and those who opposed as "misunderstanding the policy." That skewed perception persists here in Nemov's presentation that this proposal doesn't change the policy. It does change the policy. It narrows the interpretation to align with an inclusion perspective. And I believe it goes a bit too far. Or, rather, too far into the weeds.

However, I also see that there is too much grey area in the existing wording. I particularly liked Nemov's choice, "Editors must carefully weigh factors such as the extent and quality of reliable sourcing, whether the subject is a minor, and the person’s public status." I'm on board with this addition. The caveat to "weigh the extent and quality of reliable sourcing" covers my biggest concern, which was founded on WP:SENSATIONAL. If this had been in the policy, it may have persuaded me to !vote yes in the referenced RfC. Maybe. Overall, I'm grateful for this discussion. Well done, here, Nemov. Penguino35 (talk) 16:03, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose as worded. A spectrum of increasing deference to privacy the closer a person is to the start of the legal process is obviously part of the "seriously consider[ing]" that BLPCRIME asks of us. This correlates with the person's increasing ability for defend themselves and avail themselves of the protections in the legal system, independent of any external factors. However, the proposal inappropriately makes this the primary consideration, when it reality it is just one of many factors that must be interpreted holistically and often in ways that are inversely proportional to one another. The proposal includes some factors: "...the extent and quality of reliable sourcing, whether the subject is a minor, and the person’s public status." and I would probably add factors such as the nature of the alleged crime, the person's alleged role, the person's legal position/defence, the person's media strategy, cultural stigmas associated with the alleged crime, the fairness of the jurisdiction etc. It would be helpful to have some guidance either here or in a subpage as opposed to "seriously consider" which can reasonable editors can interpret to mean literally anything.

Obviously conviction is a very important element, but going so far as to say "For convicted individuals, names are generally appropriate unless exceptional circumstances apply" is too far. Very ordinary circumstances could easily justify non-inclusion based on the other factors (e.g. a minor convicted after protesting along with thousands of others). On the other hand, in some cases the other factors might be so strong that that inclusion is justified even well in advance of conviction as is the case in many high-profile crimes.

Also, if we do expand on this, it would be helpful to also include some guidance on how to approach cases when someone is cleared/acquitted/has charges dropped, etc. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:13, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

• Just a note on Fyunck(click)’s comment: stating that this proposal changes our long-held standard of convicted or not convicted policy is a good example of why clarification is needed. That phrase is neither the standard nor actual policy. However, many experienced editors continue to cite it as if it is. Both the current and proposed policies state that editors must seriously consider not including material, but that language is vague. There are many examples of articles that include the names of individuals who have not been convicted. This proposal simply explains the spectrum of consideration, rather than relying on the generic and inconsistently interpreted "seriously consider" phrasing. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:22, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

  However changing it from "editors must seriously consider not including material" to treating it like a slide-rule is opening that window I talked about above. Instead of seriously considering not adding you have made it seriously considering some and lightly considering others. Even if not intended, the new wording would soften what we now have. I'd tend to go the other direction in protecting living people to heavily discourage usage except in extraordinary cases. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:24, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

  The last ten years of WP have seen an increase in how much extremely recent content that is added or created based only on short term news sources, which we need to reign in, but that's a separate duscuss. With that is that editors are compled to write to the truth but also there's an attitude that we must expose negative aspects that are reported as part of that truth (eg think about all the problems around covering American politics since 2016). Because editors are not working to distinguish good information that has encyclopedic permanence from fleeting newspaper coverage, we have been seeing editors to include names of suspects and the like against the principles of BLPCRIME. So while practice may suggest the sliding scale could be supported by practice, it's the fact the practice is wrong and needs to be refined in. Masem (t) 18:53, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  So while practice may suggest the sliding scale could be supported by practice, it's the fact the practice is wrong and needs to be refined in. I couldn't disagree more - policy is dictated by practice, not the other way round. Thryduulf (talk) 19:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  I would take BLP overall (not just BLPCRIME) as one of the few prescriptive policies, alongside NFC, due to legal issues that arise from them. The core content policies like V, NOR, and NPOV should absolutely be descriptive of practice, but when legal issues are involved, we don't want bad practice to leave us vulnerable to external issues. Masem (t) 00:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

• I can see how the proposed paragraph could be useful for "Killing of [X]" / "Murder of [Y]" / "[Z] shooting" type articles, but outside of those, not really. Some1 (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• Is there a big problem with naming of suspects who shouldn't be? In general, the current text reads to me clearly and easily, and my instinct is to trust the members of our community to know what to do. Of course i'm well aware that it is not always followed, but my feeling is that it is flouted more by vandals, people with a bone to pick, a point to make, or no knowledge of our standards and, frankly, such editors aren't any more likely to do the right thing if we change to the proposed text ~ Lindsay^Hello 15:34, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

  I know it may seem like this is an issue of inexperience, but in reality, it’s experienced editors who often cite BLPCRIME incorrectly. You can even see examples of that in the earlier discussion when this proposal was being developed. In a recent RfC about a high-profile killing, the alleged suspect’s name was left out of the article, even though every reliable source mentioned it. The RfC was closed as "no consensus," and several editors argued that BLPCRIME prohibited inclusion. Assuming good faith, it seems they simply misunderstood the policy. That’s exactly why clarifying the language would be helpful. Nemov (talk) 17:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

• @Nemov: per WP:RFCNEUTRAL, you should remove the preface to the proposal and replace it with a neutral statement, such as: "The following change to BLPCRIME is proposed." Editors can determine for themselves whether or not this proposal is consistent with the intent or principles of BLPCRIME. Presumably they will then use those determinations to !vote accordingly. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  I'm comfortable with the wording of the RfC. So far, none of the oppose votes have clearly explained how this proposal allegedly changes the policy. That seems to be a recurring issue with BLPCRIME, perhaps part of why it's so often misinterpreted and misapplied. Nemov (talk) 12:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  See my !vote. Also read RFCNEUTRAL. Starting an RfC doesn't give you license to declare that your proposal is consistent with policy. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  So in two posts, you have claimed that people in a previous discussion "misunderstood" the policy (the RfC went against your position), and in this discussion other people (again a clear majority) have not explained how your proposal "changes the policy", and that so often the current policy is "minsinterpreted and misapplied". Has it occurred to you that the policy may be clear enough to most, and that you are the one misunderstanding it, which would also explain why you don't see how your proposed text changes it? Fram (talk) 12:27, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  Nah. "Seriously consider not including" doesn't mean "should not include" regardless of how many people say otherwise. Silence doesn't guide us better than guidance, no matter how many people claim otherwise. Just like in the other discussion on this page right now, saying an LP is a Nazi's grandson is a BLP violation no matter how many people (half a dozen admins!) claimed it was a content dispute. On Wikipedia, numbers don't mean anything; you can get a dozen people to support or oppose literally any position, no matter how silly, no matter how clearly wrong. Levivich (talk) 12:57, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  Of course, but I’m confident in my reading comprehension, and when someone says "BLPCRIME prohibits" this or that, it’s clearly a misinterpretation of the current policy. As you noted in your vote, your opinion is that you "feel" differently. I can’t control how people feel or whether they speculate that this clarification will somehow make things worse. I’m not the only editor over the past couple of years who has voiced frustration with this policy. However, I took the time to draft a proposal and listen to feedback. If the community prefers to retain a vague and inconsistently applied policy, so be it.

  FWIW, this isn't about a recent RFC. I've been on both sides of these discussions. A clearly policy would be helpful. Nemov (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  "I feel" because I'm open to being convinced, by rational arguments, that I'm wrong in that the sliding scale, as presented, will not lead to more "we should include it because he is on trial, which is nearly a conviction, see the scale!" arguments, instead of the current "no, he isn't convicted, please leave it out" situation. Your proposal change a black-and-white situation (convicted or not) into a white-grey-nearly black-black situation, and "nearly black" will (in my opinion, hence "feel") lead to more "on trial is sufficient for inclusion" arguments. Now, you have declared quite confidently that your proposal is not a policy change, and that it is somehow clearer to have the scale than the two-situation guide we have now. It is not clear to me, nor apparently to the other opposers, why you believe this. Fram (talk) 13:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  Your proposal change a black-and-white situation (convicted or not) into a white-grey-nearly black-black situation the current situation is not black-and-white, no matter how many people try and claim otherwise. The policy does not say that individuals who have not been convicted may not be named, nor does is say that those who are convicted must be named. Current policy, current practice and this proposed policy are all greyscale. Thryduulf (talk) 13:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  when someone says "BLPCRIME prohibits" this or that, it's clearly a misinterpretation of the current policy. I agree, it's annoying but I also wonder how much of an impact the misinterpretation of BLPCRIME has in discussions or RfCs. Take Talk:2022 University of Idaho killings/Archive 1 § RfC: Suspect's Name for example (which you and I both participated in). The OP cited WP:BLPCRIME as a reason to remove the name, but everyone else overwhelmingly disagreed and voted to include it. So even if editors cite BLPCRIME incorrectly, I don't believe it significantly affects the outcomes of the discussions. Some1 (talk) 00:10, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  Misinterpretation of BLPCRIME was responsible for a significant proportion of the words in the Killing of Austin Metcalf discussion. Whether it significantly impacted the outcome is probably a matter of opinion, but it unquestionably significantly impacted the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 03:21, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  …none of the oppose votes have clearly explained how this proposal allegedly changes the policy… BLPCRIME as drafted doesn't provide any guidance on whether or when to name non-public figures accused of crimes, so adding any such guidance is necessarily a change to the policy. The better question is what that guidance should be.--Trystan (talk) 13:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  I feel like this discussion is drifting from this initial concern. @Nemov, are you willing to rephrase the question presented per WP:RFCNEUTRAL? voorts (talk/contributions) 14:26, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  I thought I answered you above. Responding to a RfC doesn't give you license to declare that a proposal is inconsistent with policy. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 14:33, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  And starting one doesn't give you license to tip the scales by declaring up front that your proposal is consistent with policy. Have you read RFCNEUTRAL? voorts (talk/contributions) 14:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

  This is all very silly, but I've updated the wording so the scales won't be tipped!! Nemov (talk) 14:52, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

• I voted oppose above a few weeks ago, and when I logged on today to revisit where this RfC left off, I wanted to add a point of clarification for anyone still invested. I now see your point, Nemov when you say you're not changing the policy. Tell me if I understand you correctly: The OG policy tells us to "seriously consider" whether or not to include a name, but then leaves that consideration open to interpretation. Your intent is to give clear parameters around what editors should be considering when they're seriously considering. For me, the didactic way you've gone about that clarification is why I would argue you're attempt is, in fact, to change policy. I believe if the wording were more suggestive, it would provide the clarification the policy clearly needs, but it would also be less prescriptive and narrow. See my "oppose" comment above for some of the elements I thought worked. We could also consider citing other relevant policies for editors to consider, like WP:SENSATIONAL. Penguino35 (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  That's a fair summary. Unfortunately, any attempt to update the policy now appears likely to face strong resistance from those determined to interpret it beyond its actual wording. If you look back at how it was drafted, efforts to address the issues were dismissed at every stage, with little acknowledgment of the underlying problems or constructive solutions. At this point, it seems we're left with a flawed version, and editors will likely continue to miscite it Nemov (talk) 14:48, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  Always a pleasure, @Nemov. I'm sorry for the failed collaboration. Thanks for trying. Penguino35 (talk) 13:35, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Content in lists

The section at WP:BLPLIST kind of has content about how this might apply to lists but could possibly be more broadly interpreted than the examples currently given. What led me here was coming across List of people with an anxiety disorder. I'm not sure how useful it is to create lists of people based on medical information (which may not even be accurate because it's not like we're the doctors of celebrities) and highlight that one aspect of their life in isolation. I'm uncertain how much of this is a kneejerk reaction on my part (because it just felt wrong seeing this) vs what is actually considered acceptable as list content. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 04:12, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: That does feels like a list that is crying out for a PROD or AfD... so I've just tried the former. To me, it falls under WP:SUBJECTIVECAT as it's both vaguely defined and a personal trait (as you hint at, "anxiety" could be quite broadly defined). There's also an argument that there is a WP:NLIST problem. On a quick search, I'm not seeing significant and reliable sources on lists of people with anxiety, and I believe it the content could be covered in each individual article. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 04:31, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I asked a friend and they mentioned that there are possible WP:DEFINING issues as well, even if there's a sentence that says In cases where a particular attribute about a topic is verifiable and notable but not defining, or where doubt exists, creation of a list is often the preferred alternative. I find that NLIST tends to be quite subjective at times so I was really hoping for something stronger from a BLP perspective. There's WP:DISABILITYCAT, which might be useful as an example in the section we have about lists/categories on this page. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 04:38, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

It's a little unfortunate that there are so many overlapping policies/guidelines, all of which seem to strongly hint—but not clearly state—that this is not an appropriate topic. We'll see where the PROD goes.

There's potentially a lot to be worked on if someone would be inclined to veer into lists of medical conditions with better grounding. For example, List of breast cancer patients by survival status has major scope issues vs. List of people with breast cancer. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 04:47, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

This is now at AfD. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 20:12, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion on Walt Nauta

There is currently a discussion regarding possible BLP concerns in the above linked article. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:40, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

'Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources'

What is this supposed to mean? It seems to be currently interpreted quite simply as 'never base any claim on a primary source (alone) in BLPs'. But it if this is really the intention of the policy, it should simply state exactly that: 'never base any claim on a primary source in BLPs'. Also, such a requirement would be a very bad idea. Yes, primary sources can be misused for original research, but outright banning all use of them for that reason means throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It also contradicts WP:PRIMARY, which explicitly gives an example where it is acceptable for a primary source to be used in an article about a person:

'A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a musician may cite discographies and track listings published by the record label, and an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source.' 78.154.14.90 (talk) 11:08, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

'Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources'

'Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. '

The question arises: why not? I get why trial transcripts could be a problem if someone were to quote a damaging assertion made in the prosecutor's case or the testimony of a witness rather than the final verdict, but extending this to all public documents and all claims seems extreme. At least the reasoning should be explained on the policy page.--78.154.14.90 (talk) 11:22, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

This gets discussed here occasionally, as recently as last month. You may find my answer responsive to your question. Daniel Case (talk) 02:57, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

'Certain occupations'

'Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context.'

It should be clarified whether the decisive thing is 'being discussed primarily in terms of a single event'; beginning the paragraph with it implies that everything following applies to that case only. A court case is a single event, but an 'occupation' is not. A case in point is 'Mxmtoon' - the subject of the article, who intentionally conceals her legal name, is a musician, which is an occupation, but it is not a single event that she is known for. 78.154.14.90 (talk) 11:29, 9 July 2025 (UTC)