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I recently requested the deletion of an article on myself. The community kindly obliged that request. A number of commenters cited WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE, which I appreciate the sentiment behind, but I don't think was actually correct as the policy is currently written. It says Discussions concerning biographical articles of relatively unknown, non-public figures, where the subject has requested deletion and there is no rough consensus, may be closed as delete (boldfaced emphasis added). By my reading of the infopage WP:LOWPROFILE, I am probably not a non-public figure, since I have voluntarily been the subject of media coverage several times as an adult.

And yet, I think the AfD reached the right result. Including the requirement of "non-public" in the policy creates a higher bar than there should be. A person like me, who might technically be a public figure but is still dreadfully obscure, should still have the right to request deletion of their BLP. Agreeing to do interviews sometimes isn't the same thing as consenting to be famous. The obvious concern here is that we shouldn't allow a well-known person to have their article deleted at will. But fortunately, BLPREQUESTDELETE already has language to handle that, with its "relatively unknown" requirement. Furthermore, the policy just gives AfD the option, so a request can always be declined if keeping the article is obviously in the encyclopedia's best interest.

Most people in my position won't happen to be Wikipedians who can advocate for themselves effectively and are liked by many of their AfD's participants. We should be consistent: If my article could be deleted even though I'm probably (if just barely) a public figure, that's the standard we should apply across the board. We should not treat strangers any worse than we treat our colleagues. Thus I propose we remove "non-public" but keep "relatively unknown".

(This is an unusual policy in that it appears in two separate places, here and at WP:BIODELETE, part of WP:DEL. I will leave a cross-link at WT:DEL, as well as at WP:BLPN and the closed AfD's talk.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 03:31, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think of public figures as folks that are famous, such as politicians and celebrities. Some googling reveals one definition of public figure to be A famous person whose life and behavior are the focus of intense public interest and scrutiny. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:50, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but that's not the way the term is used in Wikipedia policy. WP:NPF links to WP:LOWPROFILE, which uses a much broader definition. If the intended definition here is "famous person", then it's still not necessary, because we already require "relatively unknown". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 04:01, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Novem. Also, WP:LOWPROFILE doesn't say someone who has been the subject of media coverage several times as an adult is high profile and media attention is only one of several ways to distinguish high and low profile on that page. I don't think any change is needed here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:01, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49 When I encounter LOWPROFILE in the context of BLP1E, it is definitely interpreted as "giving any interviews = not low-profile". This is used to argue that a person noted for one event no longer needs to meet SUSTAINED if they've given interviews on the event, which is a separate problem. JoelleJay (talk) 17:26, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because one has been reported on the media doesn't make them no long non-public. I'd consider a public figure one that generally has a role that requires them to be a public face or that they have actively seek public attention. Masem (t) 04:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the definition intended here—as you and NL and Barkeep all seem to feel—then this page should stop linking to LOWPROFILE, which says Persons who actively seek out media attention are not low-profile, regardless of whether or not they are notable. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 04:52, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That definition is then put in context by the rest of LOWPROFILE. If anything needs changing it's that sentence in LOWPROFILE. It could be changed to better reflect the rest of the page. For instance it notes that someone can tried and failed to be high profile and still be low profile. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• The term non-public probably comes from the libel law world, and even if not that means it's important to have it in there. I'd prefer editing LOWPROFILE instead. SportingFlyer T·C 05:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've interpreted WP:BLPREQUEST and WP:BIODELETE in that way. The essay Wikipedia:Who is a low-profile individual does seem to cast a wider net. Others above note that it's a legal term. After a brief scan of legal sites, they do not seem to cast such a broad net:

Public Figures vs. Private Figures: Which one are you?

"Private figures are those ordinary individuals who have not sought out the public spotlight or thrust themselves into the discussion of highly public and contentious issues."

Defamation of a Public Figure vs. Private Figure

"While there is no set list of jobs or professions that would qualify as a public figure, generally speaking politicians, celebrities, and other professions that place someone in the public eye are considered public figures. A private figure is the opposite: someone who has not sought out the spotlight or public attention."

Defamation of a Public Figure vs. Private Figure Explained

"Public figures are celebrities or high-profile individuals who have voluntarily thrust themselves into the public spotlight. On the other hand, private figures are everyday citizens who have not voluntarily sought publicity."

US law seems to make a distinction between "general" and "limited purpose" public figures:

Defamation and Privacy Law in The United States of America

"The Court later expanded the category of defamation plaintiffs required to prove “actual malice” to non-governmental “public figures,” including persons with the power to command the public’s attention to rebut false charges (general public figures) and those who had voluntarily become involved in a public controversy to influence its outcome (limited purpose public figures)."

Defamation

"Limited-purpose public figures "have thrust themselves to the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved.""

I doubt that outside of Wikipedia giving a single interview or speaking at a single event would make someone into a public figure. Several sources explicitly mention that part of being a public figure is having the media access to rebut negative characterizations.[1][2] And so for example, the essay might apply to this person who has spoken on behalf of "deaf and hard of hearing people", but that person almost certainly does not have any kind of access to the media that would allow them to rebut negative characterizations, even to the extent that say Beth S. Benedict does. Actual lawyers edit Wikipedia, so I'll bow out and hope that one of them will offer more clarity, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:00, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should just amend the first criterion at WP:LOWPROFILE so it only applies if the person is the primary or a major focus of the interview/article. A low profile subject matter experts giving a quotation or some background information that isn't a major focus of the article even a few times shouldn't make them high profile in and of itself for Wikipedia's purposes. If they do so repeatedly to the extent that they're some sort of public intellectual or a known commentator in the field that's different. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 07:52, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is ironic that giving an interview could be considered more public, whereas using a unique alias on social media cannot be linked here for risk of violating WP:OUTING. I think the wording of WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE could be more explicit, but the wording of WP:LOWPROFILE shouldn't inversely define a broad standard of "public figure". ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Simply having one's name and associated personal details that are nominally associated with the format, being published in publicly available records, is not what makes a person high profile. As the above common definitions say, being a high profile figure is one where they have voluntarily thrust themselves into the limelight.

So simply being interviewed for a publication doesn't make that person high profile. and in terms of OUTING, we're talking information that is not normally associated with the format, eg, most people go by a pseudonym on social media, and maybe very different ones on different platforms, but things like real names or how those pseudonyms are connected are not part of the standard details published in social media, so that's where OUTING comes into play. Masem (t) 14:32, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should just amend the first criterion at WP:LOWPROFILE so it only applies if the person is the primary or a major focus of the interview/article. ← I would support that. For now I'll add an {{under discussion}} and a note on the essay's talkpage. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:26, 8 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with removing the ambiguous public-figure language. But I think there's a broader problem here, which is that BLPREQUESTDELETE has somehow come to be both a procedural rule for the closing admin (i.e., what it literally says) and also a reason for a !voter to support deletion in a borderline case. These two things really ought to be disentangled; we shouldn't expect the right wording for one to line up with the right wording for another. My view is that the procedural rule (the admin can delete when there's no consensus) should apply anytime the subject has requested deletion, whereas the actual standard for deletion should be set somewhere else, like when "notability is ambiguous". But wherever we draw the lines, there shouldn't be a gap between what the policy says and what it means. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:55, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that could also solve the problem of this policy being essentially duplicative of BIODEL. I could see leaving BIODEL as is, and replacing BLPREQUESTDELETE with something that reflects current practice. I would suggest something like

BLP subjects may request deletion of their articles through Articles for deletion. In general, if a BLP subject does not clearly pass the general notability guideline (GNG), such a request should be granted; exceptions should be justified by clear arguments as to why deletion would harm the encyclopedia. Even when that does not apply, editors should seriously consider honoring a request for deletion, especially if the subject is not a public official or well-known figure. Per the deletion policy, if there is no consensus to keep or delete after an article's subject requests deletion, an administrator may close as delete.

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 03:28, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds about right to me—I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 09:21, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds, right but I'd suggest a caveat (perhaps through a footnote) that this doesn't mean we wouldn't redirect/mention them in other articles as appropriate (e.g. an Olympian might be noted in an article about that country's Olympic team for a given Olympics even if they don't qualify for standalone article).Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:49, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Extraordinary Writ @Barkeep49: Not to argue with a "yes", but I just had a long drive back from Philly to think about this, and came up with an alternate wording that says roughly the same thing but maybe a bit more clearly (and a bit more wordily). I'm still happy with the first but I'll present this for your consideration:

BLP subjects may request deletion of their articles through Articles for deletion. Editors should seriously consider honoring such requests; factors weighing in favor of deletion include the person being relatively unknown (i.e. not someone famous or a public official), a history of failure to promptly address BLP violations in the article, real-world harms identified by the subject, and the subject being only minimally notable. If the subject does not clearly pass the general notability guideline (GNG),^[1] a request should almost always be granted; exceptions should only be made based on clear and convincing arguments that deletion would cause exceptional harm. Per the deletion policy, if there is no consensus to keep or delete after an article's subject requests deletion, an administrator may close as delete.

With either the first or second wording, this could be added, probably as a brief second paragraph that the current last sentence would also be moved to:

Deletion under this section does not prevent a person from being mentioned in other articles, nor prevent a redirect being created from their name to somewhere they are mentioned, although this policy's privacy section may apply in some cases.

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 01:23, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like the revised wording better but would suggest changing a history of failure to promptly address BLP violations in the article to the history of the article for two reasons - an article that is constantly having to be OS'ed should be citable as a reason to delete when accompanied by a subject's request even if those suppression happen quickly and article subjects often think things are BLP violations that aren't and this doesn't cue an article subject to die on that particular hill (which might distract and detract from the request). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:39, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point, but everything else in the list is framed in terms of a potential reason to delete. Can you think of a way to describe what you're saying with that framing? a history of BLP violations or other problematic editing comes to mind but doesn't seem great. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 01:50, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted part of my thinking is that "a history of BLP violations" I think will lead article subjects astray but if you want to put an adjective "problematic article history" is fine. I think problematic is a bit of a fad word and if I were phrasing I'd have gone with a "troublesome article history" but either gets at my point. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:00, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"problematic article history" works fine for me. Huh, Troublesome Gulch, one of my favorite place names, is a redlink. Not notable, but I wonder if it could redirect somewhere. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 02:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"clear and convincing arguments that deletion would cause exceptional harm" is maybe a bit too high a bar: there are situations (e.g., new state legislators who meet NPOL but are iffy on the GNG) where I could see most people readily opposing deletion even if "exceptional harm" is kind of a stretch. But I'd happily support either version, though if this requires an RfC, there might be an argument for keeping things vague/flexible for now (à la the first version) rather than hard-wiring specific factors into policy. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:40, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not married to defining a standard for exceptions; it's already established that for any policy provision exceptions exist. My goal in including that language was to avoid people deciding that "I worked hard on this article" or "It would mean turning a bluelink black in some list" are sufficient reasons to override "Generally". But the change from "generally" to "almost always" between the first and second versions might be enough to accomplish that on its own; that makes it clear to any closer that an exception should not be made for a routine objection like those. So maybe the exceptions clause is unnecessary. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 09:12, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a change that gives BLP subjects more control over whether they appear on Wikipedia if they're not widely-known figures, including the "clearly pass GNG" standard. But that aspect could solve itself if we improved our notability requirements for biographies so those borderline cases are removed anyway. Keeping minor biographies about randos places a massive maintenance burden on us, probably more than anything else on the site. I'm hesitant to say we should have biographies where it's necessary to compile disparate sources about different things the person did rather than sources about the person themself. But WP:NBIO says If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability, which defies the usual standard that we can't synthesize notability. An encyclopedia doesn't need an article about John Doe who taught at a university for a few years, wrote a book that sold a thousand copies, and started a small online business just because each of these got mentioned in a few different sources. Even if an independent secondary source about his new business mentions his academic career and his book, it's still a stretch to say this guy should have an article. Likewise, we might consider reversing "WP:BLP2E", as simply doing two (or three, or four) unrelated insignificant things shouldn't make someone notable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability. What a strange sentence. This goes against my understanding of notability and WP:GNG. Is this even followed? Perhaps I will start a talk page discussion about it. Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Basic criteria, bullet 1. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this not just a clarification of how WP:GNG applies to people because of how people are inherently less likely to be a primary focus of a reliable source at similar levels of notability than things such as events or published works? By contrast, businesses can very easily be mentioned in reliable sources, so WP:CORPDEPTH pushes the guidelines in the other direction.

"Significant coverage" is already defined at WP:SIGCOV as: addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. and could have been used at WP:BASIC if it was trying to say that "substantial [coverage]" = SIGCOV.

The following line at BASIC says trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not usually sufficient to establish notability and the accompanying footnote seem to be basically saying the same thing as how SIGCOV defines significant coverage. To me this is saying something like a person don't necessarily need to have a biography, book chapter, academic paper, longform article, etc. written about them to be notable as long as non-trivial (i.e. SIGCOV) exists in multiple sources. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:48, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BASIC is invoked at AfD solely to get around the requirement that any single source contains SIGCOV. So while the consensus at GNG has long been that a given source must contain IRS SIGCOV to count toward GNG, [it is argued that] we only need a couple IRS sources that are each more than a directory listing to achieve BASIC. JoelleJay (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine sending this to an RfC if needed, but so far there's been no opposition, so first I'll take a stab at getting this done by regular consensus.

The following was drafted above in consultation with Barkeep49 and Extraordinary Writ. The goal is not to make any major change in how BLP deletion requests work in practice, but rather to update the policy to reflect current practice, since the current policy wording is actually just about closing instructions for admins and duplicates WP:BIODEL.

BLP subjects may request deletion of their articles through Articles for deletion. Editors should seriously consider honoring such requests; factors weighing in favor of deletion include the person being relatively unknown (i.e. not someone famous or a public official), a problematic article history, real-world harms identified by the subject, and the subject being only minimally notable. If the subject does not clearly pass the general notability guideline (GNG),^[1] a request should almost always be granted. Per the deletion policy, if there is no consensus to keep or delete after an article's subject requests deletion, an administrator may close as delete.

Deletion under this section does not prevent a person from being mentioned in other articles, nor prevent a redirect from being created from their name to somewhere they are mentioned, although this policy's privacy section may apply in some cases.

Would anyone object to this change? Does anyone have proposed wording improvements? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:58, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally the subject should have to jump through as few hoops as possible, and we have to assume that they won't even know what AfD is. We might want to make it clear that any expression of not wanting an article on them, whether onwiki or offwiki, should be enough to invoke BLPREQUESTDELETE. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• through Articles for deletion could plausibly be read to mean a BLP subject blocked from editing Wikipedia does not have a way to request deletion, which I think is not the intended the meaning.
• a problematic article history, real-world harms identified by the subject, could plausibly be read to cover edit-warring by the subject or editors familiar with the subject attempting to remove negative coverage if they are primarily known for something negative, which again I think is not the intended meaning

I support the clarification in general, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 22:32, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re #1, definitely could change it to by opening an Articles for deletion discussion or requesting that a member of the Volunteer Response Team do so. Re #2, if you look above you'll see I originally had a history of failure to promptly address BLP violations in the article, but Barkeep had concerns about that. I don't have strong feelings on how the clause should be worded, just that there should be something in there about the history of the article. For a lot of BLP subjects (myself included, when I briefly was one), the question of how promptly and consistently the article is kept clear of violations is the biggest concern. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 22:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For #1, yes I think that would resolve the concern. For #2, I'm not sure about the best way to phrase that. Maybe something like "a history of unresolved errors in the article". "Harm" seems subjective enough to provoke rather resolve an argument at AfD. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:28, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rjjiii: I'm not necessarily opposed to that wording, but I worry it might be too narrow for a kind of orthogonal reason to why Barkeep felt "BLP violations" was too narrow. Some of the worst things that can wind up in articles aren't per se errors, but misrepresentations or NPOV violations. I even have a kind of silly essay, "Wikipedia is a lambskin condom" about how we're much better at catching big errors than little ones. So if there's an article on John Doe, where for a year everyone fails to remove the sentence "John Doe was arrested for rape in 1990", where that's technically true but omits the part where he was let go the next day based on a case of mistaken identity... I mean, that's not an error, and may even be sourced to a highly reliable source, but that would still be a better case for our Mr. Doe being upset over his article, than someone like me who was, by the end, mostly upset over a fairly small nuance being missed in my article. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 05:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I held off replying while other folks were discussing below, but am now circling back to this. Maybe "issues" are better than "errors". Even with the potential for confusion, I think the proposed changes are an improvement over the current page. When it comes to the John Doe example above, there are several different possibilities that could be broken down as:

1. Doe was let go based on mistaken identity, WP:RS reported it, but the Wikipedia article does not use material from those sources.
2. Doe was let go based on mistaken identity, no news coverage exists, WP:PRIMARY source documents do show he was not charged, but the Wikipedia article does not use the material from those sources.
3. Doe was let go based on mistaken identity, WP:RS misrepresent the situation, the WP:PRIMARY documents contradict the news coverage, but the Wikipedia article uses only the published news articles.
4. Doe says he was let go based on mistaken identity, no sources show he was convicted, Doe has no sources showing he was let go, and the Wikipedia article only covers the conviction.

Imo, all of those situations are a reason to delete the article. In any of the 4 situations, a more public person would be able to put out a statement that WP:RS would either print, summarize, or comment on. For example, Benji Madden had multiple newspapers print their rebuttal to even being present at a party where a girl alleged SA from not connected to Madden in any way. I think the proposed wording could cover all four scenarios.

Folks like Graham Hancock^[3] and Larry Sanger^[4] would describe their biographies here as having a problematic history, but I don't think either person would have any shot at getting the articles deleted. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This may not be as significant a change to practice, but it is an extremely significant change to the guideline. The current wording of the guideline does not make the decision of whether to honor such requests part of the discussion of whether the subject is notable. Rather it expects such discussions to focus on determining whether the subject is notable, as usual for all AfD discussions. The way it differs from other deletions is not in the discussion phase but in the discretion of the closing admin to close as delete in borderline or no-consensus cases.

I'm worried that the new wording encourages all participants to automatically agree with BLPREQUESTDELETE cases, regardless of notability. The guidance that it should only be for borderline cases has now been buried in the fine print of things that participants might want to think about, rather than being front and center. This leaves the system much more open for abuse by people who are clearly notable but in a negative way and who wish to hide their misdeeds from public view. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I get what you're saying but do want to point out that it explicitly excludes people who are clearly notable and so Wikipedians looking and examing that feels appropriate to me and not as likely to lead to the negative outcome you're suggesting? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:20, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm late to the discussion (as usual), but here's a slightly different take on whether or not a BLPREQUESTDELETE can be done - If the article is deleted, is it likely to be independently re-created? To give an facetious example, if somebody deleted Donald Trump and every admin and experienced editor spontaneously thought that was okay, any number of editors you've never heard of would quickly bootstrap the article back up again. Or, to give a real-world example tangentially related to BLP, I seem to recall the article UEFA Euro 2016 riots had at least one duplicate article on the same topic, created around the same time by different editors, that was merged. Or an WP:A10 speedy might be example of something that is well-known enough to be independently created.

By contrast, we're not going to get random new editors re-creating Tamzin's BLP, because she's well-known enough in the Wikipedia community that anyone aware of her is also aware of the BLP and deletion policies, but no so well-known that somebody who doesn't know those policies would have the idea of re-creating it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Elsewhere, Tamzin mentioned that BLPs, after the initial creation, have a risk of deteriorating by well-meaning editors acting in good faith. Consider Murder of Zara Aleena, which I created but didn't stick on my watchlist. I just looked at it now and my jaw dropped at what I read, being completely incompatible with our BLP and neutrality policies. So there is a very real risk that if you create an article, somebody else will make it worse. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:28, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I just saw this, and it generally looks good. I have a question about the parentheses i.e. not someone famous or a public official may need some work. Famous is in the eye of the beholder, and while I do agree with the public official, I would like to add current or former before elected or appointed official to alleviate any confusion that BLPREQUESTDELETE does not apply to a current or former elected official that passes WP:NPOL. --Enos733 (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In rereading, I am concerned with the blanket language in the same way that David Eppstein does. My suggestion is to move some of the language around:

BLP subjects may request deletion of their articles through Articles for deletion or requesting that a member of the Volunteer Response Team do so. Unless the subject clearly passes the general notability guideline (GNG) or is currently or was an elected or appointed official, editors should seriously consider honoring such requests. Factors weighing in favor of deletion include a problematic article history, real-world harms identified by the subject, and the subject being only minimally notable or notable for only one event.^[1] Per the deletion policy, if there is no consensus to keep or delete after an article's subject requests deletion, an administrator may close as delete.

Deletion under this section does not prevent a person from being mentioned in other articles, nor prevent a redirect from being created from their name to somewhere they are mentioned, although this policy's privacy section may apply in some cases.

--Enos733 (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've ran across articles over the years that have an author, actor, or otherwise public person making somewhat controversial statements about either a specific person or an anonymous third party while promoting a book or new project, and have wondered if we have a clear answer on if they are allowable or not when the only person speaking on it are that individual.

A few examples-

• Bodyguard for a well known celebrity writes a tell-all book, states in multiple interviews that the celebrity would routinely host parties that involved sex trafficking and drug use.
• Actor writes a book and states during interviews that they quit their well known role due to harassment from the rest of the cast for their sexual orientation, which led to long term harassment from people associated with the cast.
• Actress goes on a podcast to promote her new film and states that one of the producers on an older film of hers had her blacklisted in Hollywood due to her denying their sexual advances.

In all of the above scenarios, the end result being that secondary sources don't mention the allegations and it receives no outside coverage other than the interview, including not being in the book they are promoting.

Where on the policy spectrum would this land? My personal opinion is that it wouldn't be WP:DUE to include if it never gets covered by a secondary source, and it would fail WP:BLPSELFPUB in the fact that it is making a claim about a third party while also using the allegation in a self-serving manner to promote their new work.

One of the latest (real) examples I can think of was regarding a memoir by a politician's ex-wife which alleged he was a heavy drug user, corrupt and took bribes regularly, and had several same sex affairs. During the lead up to the book release the author appeared in several interviews stating the above. However, other than her interviews, there was zero coverage for the allegations. It came off as gossip thay secondary sources didn't care about, and was excluded from the article.

Awshort (talk) 05:28, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, BLPSELFPUB only allows material if

it does not involve claims about third parties

The WP:SPS policy also says

Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

—Bagumba (talk) 09:43, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, most interviews don't fall under BLPSELFPUB, as the interviewee is seldom the person who publishes the interview. The interview might or might not be self-published by the interviewer. I do think that we should treat interview responses as if they're BLPSELFPUB by the interviewee, and I'd support adding a line to that affect somewhere in WP:BLP. I'd be more inclined to add it to the BLPSELFPUB section than the PUBLICFIGURE section. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:58, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is an area where we need clarification… my feeling is that DUE WEIGHT is an important factor in determining when and how to cite SPS claims about other people.

When an SPS makes a comment/allegation about someone else, I think it is UNDUE for us to mention it - UNLESS the allegation has been reported on (or commented upon) by reliable, independent secondary sources (which we can cite).

However, WHEN this is the case, I think it should be allowable to ALSO cite the original SPS source - to verify that the secondary sources are accurately representing what the SPS actually says.

In other words… we need to first establish that the comment/allegation is DUE by citing independent (non-SPS) sources… and, once that is established, then we can cite the SPS to support those (non-SPS) sources. Blueboar (talk) 15:59, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is similar to how we handle primary documents with BLPPRIMARY, in the Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, which will sometimes have someone listing what a secondary source said while also providing the court document to anyone interested. The situation itself tends to pop up often whem Person A makes a statement about Person/Group B on a podcast or YouTube interview, and it is added by an editor later to the article as a statement of fact since the sourced video/podcast has been cited before. Top of the head example would be VladTV interviews where a quote about a seperate person (not interviewee) is made, which are then picked up by blogs or gossip sites.

Awshort (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think too much of this depends on the specific situations and allegations. – notwally (talk) 03:12, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As the title says. If not, would they fall under a specific WP:SNG, such as WP:NENTERTAINER? guninvalid (talk) 02:11, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. And No. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

VTubers yes, vocaloid mascots no. —Alalch E. 20:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To elaborate on what Alach said: a VTuber tied to a specific human performer falls under the WP:BLP protections of the performer in roughly the same capacity that any character performed by a specific actor would. E.g. we can't use self-published sources to say that the English performance of Jotaro Kujo is bad because that's a BLP claim about Matt Mercer even if he's not named specifically.

But fictional characters don't get BLP protections by themselves because they're not living people. BLP protections exist for two reasons: the possibility of real-world harm to specific living people, and legal liability for libel. Fictional characters can't suffer damages and can't sue us so there's no reason to protect them. Loki (talk) 21:13, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

VTubers have human performers (or in the case of the AI-driven Neuro-sama, a programmer/creator) so BLP protections would apply to them similar to other entertainers.

Entirely fictional characters like Hatsune Miku don't get BLP protections for themselves, but related content that is about identifiable people related to the character might just like any other BLP case (e.g. making claims about the CEO of the company behind Hatsune Miku, about the voice actress sampled, etc.). -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:19, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all, as a recently dead individual can I please ask for input on the matter under discussion at Talk:Gene Hackman#Cause of death necessity?. It is being debated whether Hackman's cause of death - natural causes, but unusual circumstances and the subject of numerous secondary sources - should be listed in the Template:Infobox person infobox. Thanks! U-Mos (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello editors. An edit of mine on Brandon Carlo was recently reverted for including the name of the subject's wife, as well as the years in which his two children were born. Both of these pieces of information are reliably sourced and broadly available, but the names of his children (which are also easily available online) were not included, and neither his wife nor his children are independently notable. I have never run into this problem before with BLPs, but the rules as written could be interpreted in my favor or in the other editor's. In the interest of not sparking a pointless edit war, I would like some clarification on how to proceed from the larger community regarding (1) the inclusion of a BLP's non-notable spouse's name, and (2) non-name information on a BLP's child(ren). Thank you. — GhostRiver 21:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In general, names of living persons who are not themselves notable should be kept off of articles, see WP:BLPNAME and WP:BLP1E. This is in large part to preserve a person's privacy. As an example, I am a private individual, and I would prefer to be left alone. If one of the people in my life became notable for doing a thing, I would not want my name on the article and potentially causing me harassment.

Additionally, birthdays and birthyears in particular are almost never worth putting in an article unless the person is exceptionally notable, as this can make it easier for persons to commit identity fraud. guninvalid (talk) 00:39, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the case, guninvalid, people are not fairly reading the very policy you cite (WP:BLPNAME): "The names of any immediate, former, or significant family members or any significant relationship of the subject of a BLP may be part of an article, if reliably sourced, subject to editorial discretion that such information is relevant to a reader's complete understanding of the subject." Names of most non-notable minor children must be excluded per the accompanying footnote. To me, there's no policy-based reason to immediately revert the addition of a reliably reported spouse's name, but there is a policy-based reason for a disgruntled party to start a talk page discussion. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 02:54, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We can include her name per policy, we don't have to. I can read relevant to a reader's complete understanding to indicate "meh, no reason to incldue", local consensus could go either way. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:54, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in this particular case I'm seeing a variety of news sources that name Carlo's wife. If the article actually had content on his hockey career between 2022 and 2024, I imagine that the story of her giving birth to their child during a playoff series would be another place where she should be named. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:01, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I've gone ahead and restored the wife's name given the coverage mentioned above. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, Jessintime. This might have been an interesting discussion if the name had only come up on Brandon's social media feeds, for instance, but that's not the case, and to me this isn't a particularly close call. The name is freely, easily, and reliably available via a large number of sources. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:06, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]