Bharatpedia:Biographies of living persons
This page is a policy on Bharatpedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard idea that all users should follow. When changing this page (except for minor errors like typos), please check that other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to suggest a change. |
Report problems about particular biographical material on Bharatpedia to the biographies of living persons noticeboard. Template:Xref |
This page in a nutshell: Material about living persons added to any Bharatpedia page must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoidance of original research. |
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Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Bharatpedia page, including but not limited to articles, talk pages, project pages, and drafts.[lower-alpha 1] Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity, and must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, to this policy, and to Wikipedia's three core content policies:
- Neutral point of view (NPOV)
- Verifiability (V)
- No original research (NOR)
Bharatpedia must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—must be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[1] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing. Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Bharatpedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Bharatpedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages.[b] The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores the material.
Writing styleEdit
- Tone
BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Summarize how actions and achievements are characterized by reliable sources without giving undue weight to recent events. Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking. BLPs should not have trivia sections.
- Balance
Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints; the views of small minorities should not be included at all. Care must be taken with article structure to ensure the overall presentation and section headings are broadly neutral. Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and biased, malicious or overly promotional content.
- Attack pages
Pages that are unsourced and negative in tone, especially when they appear to have been created primarily to disparage the subject, should be deleted at once if there is no policy-compliant version to revert to; see #Summary deletion, creation prevention, and courtesy blanking. Creation of such pages, especially when repeated or in bad faith, is grounds for immediate blocking.
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- ↑ Wales, Jimmy (16 May 2006). "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information". WikiEN-l (Mailing list). Bharatmedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
Wales, Jimmy (19 May 2006). "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information". WikiEN-l (Mailing list). Bharatmedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 June 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.If you see an unsourced statement that would be libel if false, and it makes you feel suspicious enough to want to tag it as {{citation needed}}, please do not do that! Please just remove the statement and ask a question on the talk page.
Wales, Jimmy (4 August 2006). "Archives/Jimbo Keynote". Bharatmania 2006. Bharatmedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 8 August 2006. Retrieved 22 June 2018.One of the social things that I think we can do is BP:BIO [...] I think social policies have evolved in recent years, I mean the recent months, to actually handle this problem a lot better. A lot of the admins and experienced editors are taking a really strong stand against unsourced claims, which is always a typical example of the problem. [...] And the few people who are still sort of in the old days, saying, 'Well, you know, it's a wiki, why don't we just... ', yeah, they're sort of falling by the wayside, because lots of people are saying actually, we have a really serious responsibility to get things right.