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Pages about living people

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This draft policy is based on the English Wikipedia's biographies of living persons guideline.
Summary: Biographies of living people must be written conservatively and with due regard to the subject's privacy.

Wikians must take particular care with writing pages about living persons, which require a degree of sensitivity.

If you are writing a factual article, be careful about citing high quality references — particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should be removed immediately from both the article and the talk page. If you are writing a parody, be sure the page or site makes it clear to readers that the information is not meant to be factual.

Contents

[edit] Rationale

Openly editable sites lead to complaints about false, or unwanted, information. People are justifiably upset when they find inaccurate or distorted articles, and the successful resolution of such complaints is a touchy matter requiring ongoing communication.

The problem may be compounded when the subject attempts to edit their own article to remove problematic content. Since such people may not be regular editors of the wiki, they are unaware of the wiki's policies, and are often accused of vandalism or revert warring when they are in fact trying to edit in good faith.

Accordingly, editors must take particular care with writing and editing pages about living people with these key areas in mind:

  • The article itself must be edited with a degree of sensitivity and adherence to the wiki's content policies,
  • If the subject edits the article, it is of vital importance to assume good faith.
  • If an anon IP address or a new account turns up to blank a page about a living person, or a section of it, it may well be the subject. Try not to act aggressively, but instead engage the person in dialogue, and check that the article in question does not contain any unsourced or poorly sourced criticism. If it does, delete it.

[edit] Writing style

Biographies of living people should be written responsibly and conservatively. While a strategy of eventualism applies to some other subject areas, where a weak article is seen as a starting point, badly written biographies should not be written and when found, should be stubbed or deleted.

The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what credible third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral, factual, and understated, avoiding both a sympathetic point of view and an advocacy journalism point of view.

[edit] Reliable sources

Any assertion about any person, which would if untrue be libellous, must be sourced.

Information available solely on partisan websites or in obscure newspapers should be handled with caution, and if derogatory, should not be used at all.

[edit] Role of the subject as a source

In some cases the subject may become involved in an article. They may edit it themselves or have a representative of theirs edit it. They may contact Wikians either through the wiki's discussion pages or via email. Or, they may provide information through press releases, a personal website or blog, or an autobiography.

When information supplied by the subject conflicts with unsourced statements in the article, the unsourced statements should be removed.

Information supplied by the subject may be added to the article as long as there are no copyright concerns.

[edit] Public figures

In the case of significant public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable, third-party published sources to take information from, and Wikipedia biographies should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reputable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If not, leave it out.

Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe" — is it notable, verifiable and important to the article? If not, leave it out.
Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. He denies it, but the New York Times publishes the allegations, and there is a public scandal. This is a public figure and there are multiple, credible third-party sources; the allegation may belong in the biography, if it is made clear it's an allegation and not established as fact, linking to the New York Times article as a source.

If writing about a negative incident, redemptive factors should not be overlooked. Strive for balance at all times.

[edit] Non-public figures

Wikia sites may also contains biographies of people who are not public figures. In such cases, editors should exercise restraint and include only information relevant to their notability.

For non-public figures, even well-sourced information should be left out of the article if it is not relevant to the public activities of the subject. For example, public records are reliable sources and include personal details such as home value, outcomes of civil court cases, traffic citations, arrest records, and vehicles and real estate owned. Such information is generally not relevant even for public figures and should be removed from any articles on non-public figures.

In borderline cases, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm." Wikia aims to develop communities around shared areas of interest, not to be a newspaper, not to be sensationalist, and not to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives.

[edit] Privacy of birthdays

Exact birthdates for living people should be handled with caution. While many well-known living persons' exact birthdays are widely known and available to the public, the same is not always true for marginally notable people or non-public figures. With identity theft on the rise, it has become increasingly common for people to consider their exact date of birth to be private information. When in doubt about the notability of the person in question, or if the subject of a biography complains about the publication of his or her date of birth, err on the side of caution and simply list the year of birth rather than the exact date.

[edit] Steps to take

Any user may remove any unsourced or poorly sourced negative material in a page about a living person. It is useful to explain the reasons for removal in the edit summary or on the talk page so others do not confuse your action for vandalism.

Administrators encountering articles that are contentious, unsourced and negative in tone, may choose to delete the article when there is no appropriate version to revert to.

[edit] Malicious editing

Editors should be on the lookout for the malicious creation or editing of biographies or biographical information. If someone appears to be pushing a point of view, insist on reliable third-party published sources and a clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability.

[edit] Opinions of critics, opponents, and detractors

The views of critics can be represented so long as the material is relevant to the subject's notability, is based on reputable sources.

[edit] Use of categories

Caution should be used in adding categories. Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for the category must be made clear in the article text. The article must state the facts that result in the use of the category tag and these facts must be sourced.

[edit] Dealing with edits by the subject of the article

Unlike Wikipedia, which discourages people from writing articles about themselves, there is no overall Wikia policy against this. Individual wikis may choose their own policies, and these range from mirroring Wikipedia's approach to encouraging all users to add an article on themselves (in addition to their user page). Whichever policy is used, subjects of articles should always be welcome to edit those pages to correct inaccuracies or to remove inaccurate or unsourced material.

Anonymous edits that blank all or part of a biography of a living person should be evaluated carefully. When the individual involved is not especially notable, such edits usually are not vandalism but rather an effort by the subject of the article to remove biased or inaccurate material. Be careful to be sure who you are dealing with in such cases, and avoid the use of inflammatory edit summaries or vandalism-related talk page templates.

[edit] Contact us

If you are the subject of a page on Wikia and you have a concern about it, please contact us using the form at Special:Contact.

[edit] Relevant policies and guidelines on the English Wikipedia

Smallwikipedialogo.png This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Wikia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Retrieved from "http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Pages_about_living_people"

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