Wikidata

Wikidata:Requests for comment/Privacy and Living People

< Wikidata:Requests for comment


THIS RFC IS CLOSED. Please do NOT vote nor add comments.

Introduction

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Wikidata is in the process of growing up given that it just turned five. Growing up means getting more mature. In it's policy for biographies of living people the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees called on the global Wikimedia community to "Ensuring that projects in all languages that describe living people have policies in place calling for special attention to the principles of neutrality and verifiability in those articles". Given that we are a project that describes living people it's time to do our part and also have an explicit policy instead of just informal decisions.

In addition, to fulfilling out duty, I consider this policy also to be valuable because it will make it easier to come to consensus around adding new properties. We had conflicts about new properties such as Wikimedia username (P4174) because some of us feared that having the property will lead to privacy solutions. With this policy, users that add a property like Wikimedia username (P4174) just because they know who's behind an account and who don't add a reference, will get an automated message telling them that their action is problematic. Not having an agreement about how privacy-sensitive Facebook username (P2013) and P2035 (P2035) happen to be produced controversy in the grant proposal for soweego that wouldn't need to happen when we implement the proposed policy.

By defining terms clearly and labeling privacy-sensitive properties with structured data we allow various automated processes that will help us to protect privacy. Having a clearly outlined processes of how individuals who see their privacy violated can complain will make it easier for them to engage with us and allow us to become more aware of issues we need to fix.

I created this RfC in the form that I consider to be best. To the extend that other people have different suggestions of how specific sections should be handled I invite everybody to add their own section to this RfC.  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by ChristianKl (talk • contribs) at 15:28, 30 December 2017‎ (UTC).[reply]

Issues

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

--  – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pasleim (talk • contribs) at 16:04, 15 May 2018‎ (UTC).[reply]

General acceptance of the Living People policy

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Wikidata:Living persons (draft), oldid=615522390 shall become policy of Wikidata and be moved to Wikidata:Living people. We will vote for the individual subpoints of the policy below.

Support

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Against

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  •   Oppose Wholesale adoption of that draft. While I agree that we need a proper BLP policy, and this is a good step towards one, it is not yet adequate, and some of the flaws could be damaging. Each part should be debated, improved, and adopted separately. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:26, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose I certainly do respect BLP resolution of the board, but IMVHO the proposed policy is way too restrictive. I'm reading this text as:
  • The policy applies to at least 2.5M LP-items with P31=Q5 and P570 not specified
  • Adding ANY claims to LP-items without sourcing (and P143 is not sourcing) is discouraged and can lead to your blocking
  • Removing ANY unsourced claims from any of LP-items is encouraged and considered healthy contribution
If that was NOT the intention, I suggest to soften specific wordings that I've misinterpret. If that was the intention and those 3 bullets reflects the consensus, I would stop creating new and editing existing LP items just to be on the safe side. --Ghuron (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • Huge black icons make the draft unreadable. I had to cut and paste the text elsewhere to read. Retired electrician (talk) 18:53, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • you do not have a section for "Addressing problems". when you lead with this section, you give the game away - that you are "solving problems" rather than systemically continuously improving quality. Slowking4 (talk) 12:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Without a policy to encourage and ultimately to enforce sourcing for all non-trivial statements, Wikidata will remain a repository of unusable information. This is a very welcome first step towards achieving a verifiability policy for the information curated here. --RexxS (talk) 13:49, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Pigsonthewing: As I proposed the text all the individual points have their own pargraphs in this proposal. This vote is for the general structure and introduction. There's one editor who tries to edit this point in a way that makes it untrue that all the points match paragraph of this RfC but this vote should be understood in the way I proposed it.

    Anybody who prefers another structure is free to make his own separate proposal. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:07, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is quite good. But I have a problem with requests for removal by the described subject ("When the information isn't of public interest, an administrator may revision delete it."). I'm not a fan of OTRS and their decisions. That they decide what is of public interest and what isn't is (most of the time, or at least often) not the way the community would decide this. A birthdate (at least the year) is of public interest - always. No matter what the subject writes/complains about to the OTRS-team and no matter what the wiki-cops think about it. --Mirer (talk) 02:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Definition of living person

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We will adopt Definition of living person in the form:

This policy considers an item to be about a living person if all of the following four criteria apply:
  1. item is instance of (P31) human (Q5)
  2. date of birth (P569) is missing, date of birth (P569) is completely deprecated, date of birth (P569) contains a value less than 115 years ago, or floruit (P1317) contains a value that is less than 10 years ago
  3. floruit (P1317) contains no nondeprecated value that's more than 115 years ago or floruit (P1317) contains a value that is less than 10 years ago
  4. date of death (P570) is missing, completely deprecated or has NoValue

Explanation

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This definition is written to be automatically interpreted by bots. This is benefitial because it allows bots to interact with items differently based on whether they are about living people. It also allows us to have statistics about items about living people.

The definition is written in a way that there's a presumption that a person is living unless shown otherwise because the harm of not protecting the privacy can be greater than the harm of mistakenly having higher sourcing standards for a dead person.

The number of 115 years is taken from the policy about living people on the English Wikipedia. While the English Wikipedia has a standard of requiring a source from the last two years to consider a person over 115 to be living I choose 10 years to be in the general spirit that there's a presumption of living. Having similar standards the English Wikipedia, means that bots that act on the English Wikipedia might use our classification of a living person in cases where it's currently hard for a bot to determine which people do live.

The definition is written to act appropriately for as many cases as possible. Even when some people hold the opinion that NoValue shouldn't be used for date of death (P570), I have therefore written into the policy that this means the person isn't dead.

Support

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Against

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  •   Oppose Well intentioned, but too easy to subvert. Simply remove the entry for instance of (P31) and voilà! But not really, because it's still an item on a living person. The definition should be based upon real world facts, not on actual data elements in the entry, which can be easily defaced. Lankiveil (talk) 13:37, 17 January 2018 (UTC).[reply]
    • Removing a valid instance of (P31) statement would be vandalism that's already against our rules for other reasons. We don't need this policy to deal with straight vandalism and can handle straight vandalism well without this policy. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:33, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • This does not account for incomplete or inaccurate entries. The policy should be based upon what is in the real world, rather than be based upon a data set that we know is incomplete and contains frequent omissions. Lankiveil (talk) 05:29, 6 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]
  •   Oppose That definition might be useful for some bot tasks, however it is unacceptable for a general policy. It fails to even address actual persons. Reducio ad absurdum, most persons do not have wikidata items. Are they not protected by the policy? I'd suggest substantially copying these two paragraphs from the EnWiki BLP policy. Alsee (talk) 13:59, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikidata does create items for persons about whom we make claims. Given different notability criteria Wikipedia quite often deals with people for whom it doesn't have articles but the same isn't true for Wikidata. The wording of this policy also doesn't say that people for whom we don't have items aren't living people. It says that if we have an item certain criteria can be used to decide whether the person is living. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:33, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • author name string (P2093) often deals with people for whom we have no item. It could be plausibly used to smear someone for whom we have no item, by adding their name to something embarrassing to them. We have items on duos and groups that include living people, for whom we have no individual items. Then there are comments on discussion pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:41, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • ChristianKl you've falling into tunnlevision. A name can be inserted into an item property that accepts text, on a talk page, in an edit summary, in an account name, or any other box on the entire website that accepts text. (In some cases it's even possible to subvert non-text fields to create BLP issues.) Some places (such as talk pages) may be handled somewhat differently, but fundamentally the policy needs to apply everywhere. Alsee (talk) 10:30, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't think that every case has to be explicitely regulated by policies. Policies are needed when there isn't a common sense solution to deal with specific cases and we need to decide on a specific policy to deal with cases. It helps resolving conflicts between different editors.
        • If you try to cover every possible case with policies, that makes policy documents longer and thus harder for new users to read and follow them. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 14:39, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • "I don't think that every case has to be explicitely [sic] regulated by policies" I'd be minded to agree, were it not for the fact that some people - admins, no less - use the absence of a policy statement as a reason to refuse to apply a common-sense solution, even when requested to do so. Here's just one recent example. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:50, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • ChristianKl, it doesn't make a policy much longer, or more difficult, to say that the policy applies everywhere. Copyright must apply everywhere, as must a Living Person policy. Alsee (talk) 07:29, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • The En-Wikipedia policy doesn't just say "This applies everywhere". The EnWiki policy does recognize that when it comes to dealing with conflicts of interests and other undesirable user behavior it's important to be able to exchange information about the user in question that would otherwise beyond what's allowed. But when it comes to the definition of living person it might be easier to clear that up with an extra sentence. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 10:15, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose per (and use the text cited by) Alsee. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   The world's most strongly oppose the principle of this section is terrible. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:55, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose Circular definition, no reference to the real world. An item is about a living person if its topic is a real world living (or that is likely to be living) person, whatever the statements are. Conversely an item with the criteria defined here can be a fake. For example : it has a sitelink with an article referring to a living person, or it has an identifier to an external database and the topic of the entity referred by this id in the database is a living human. At the very least the wording should be replaced by « An admissible item », which reminds the need to a connection to the real world. But in the end, why would we need such a definition ? Enwiki do not have one. Defining a living person seems a matter of references and of common sense. author  TomT0m / talk page 13:24, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    TomT0m, EnWiki does does have a definition. See these two paragraphs. Alsee (talk) 13:45, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose Too many false positives, certainly for a policy. Lymantria (talk) 05:27, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • 115 years seems to strict for me. According UNdata the worldwide share of 100+ aged is just 0.006%.--Jklamo (talk) 15:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Neutral per Jklamo, we should have clear boundaries, but 115 years is excessive. -- 徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 09:34, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • 115 years works well for (at least) en.Wikipedia. We need to recognise that items about other things than humans can have BLP implications; likewise those about the recently-deceased. en.Wikipedia's policy has good text on these issues, which we should lean from, even if we don't copy it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • puliing numbers out of the sky because we abhor vacuum and nuance. how about 36 x π ? Slowking4 (talk) 04:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Pigsonthewing, Alsee, Lankiveil: If we add the sentence: "People who don't have Wikidata items are considered living when the good-faith creation of items about them, would fill under the above criteria.", would that address your concerns? If there would be a single sentence added, how do you think it should look? ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 10:19, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that's rather bizarre and backwards. You don't post a bot model and tell people to imagine a policy existed. I stand by the suggestion in my !vote above. The criteria were clearly derived from EnWiki's BLP policy, just copy those two paragraphs with any minimal required adaptions. Alsee (talk) 11:13, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • ChristianKl I appreciate your good faith and willingness to discuss this. But I think a better way to approach this is would be to base something around points like this:
      1. The policy covers all living persons (confirmed alive, born less than 100 years ago and not confirmed dead, etc etc).
      2. The policy applies to all information in Wikidata, regardless of what property it is, and whether or not it is on the entity record that specifically refers to that person.
      3. Some parameters for which bots must treat the entity as a living person, notwithstanding that other entities may also refer to living persons or contain information about living persons
      4. Policy can be enforced through block, ban, or some other consequences.
    • Once we have some clear expectations around the sort of data quality that we require around living persons, then we can start coming up with technical guidelines about how to enforce that. But coming up with the technical guidelines without understanding precisely what we are trying to achieve is to put the cart before the horse. Lankiveil (talk) 02:55, 17 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]
  • I'm a bit reluctant about the threshold: 115 years seems like a weird precaution and even then, we can always have a case of a living person more than 115 years old (for instance Nabi Tajima (Q17686907) is 117 years old; there probably will be more and more supercentenarian in the future, not to mention that supercentenarian are more publicized than the average Joe). I understand the need of a number to do queries and checking but 115 is oth too low to capture all people alive while most people died before this age (generating a lot of false-positive). Why not use a number closer to the current life expectancy, for instance 80 years should cover most case without generating too much false-positive. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 21:17, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment Imho definition should be written in usual language (like in en.wiki BLP policy) and the bot instruction should be a derivative of this definition. Wostr (talk) 19:28, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Scope (alternate proposal)

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This policy applies to all items about living people. In addition, this policy also applies to statements not on items about living people but that concern living people.

Explanation

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This is ambiguous in the current draft. --Rschen7754 03:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support

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Against

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  •   Oppose Two problems. It repeats the error of restricting the policy to "items", and fails to provide sufficient guidance on "living person". The policy should adopt language similar to EnWiki, which is clear that the policy is relevant everywhere and which provides criteria for evaluating "living person" in potentially unclear situations. Alsee (talk) 00:31, 10 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Applicability (general) (alternate proposal)

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Anyone born within the past 115 years is covered by this policy unless a reliable source has confirmed their death. Generally, this policy does not apply to material concerning people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources. The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside. Such extensions would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime. Even absent confirmation of death, for the purposes of this policy anyone born more than 115 years ago is presumed dead unless reliable sources confirm the person to have been living within the past two years.

Explanation

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According to the suggestions some made on the previous proposal, I am adapting portions of the English Wikipedia w:en:WP:BLP policy and offering them as new proposals. --Rschen7754 03:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support

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Against

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Comments

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This policy does not normally apply to material about corporations, companies, or other entities regarded as a legal person (Q3778211), though any such material must be written in accordance with other content policies. The extent to which the BLP policy applies to edits about groups is complex and must be judged on a case-by-case basis. A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group.

Explanation

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According to the suggestions some made on the previous proposal, I am adapting portions of the English Wikipedia w:en:WP:BLP policy and offering them as new proposals. --Rschen7754 03:13, 9 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Labels, aliases and descriptions

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We will adopt Labels, Aliases and Descriptions in the form:

Labels, descriptions and aliases need to be neutral and well-sourced (ideally based on referenced statements on the item) and particular care should be taken in editing these for items about living persons. Derogatory names, even when used in reliable public sources, should not be added as aliases. Descriptions should focus on facts, not opinions.

Explanation

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The English Wikipedia considers neutrality to be about listing all significant points of view. Our descriptions, however, are supposed to be short and while we strive to cover all significant views in the statements, they don't have to be expressed in the description. Having derogatory names as aliases might help a person who searches for a person, but it's harmful to the person in question and as a result we shouldn't list them.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Statements likely to be challenged

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We will adopt Statements likely to be challenged in the form:

Almost any piece of data about a living person might be controversial; anything that's individually challenged or might be challenged should be supported by a reliable public source or may be subject to removal. In particular properties that are instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) should be supported by suitable references when applied to living persons. In the case of a dispute, the burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material.
The automatically updated list of properties likely to be challenged can be found at WikiProject Properties. In individual cases, information that's likely to be challenged might also be added to other properties and users who add information to the items of living persons should always think about the privacy implications of the data that they are adding.

Explanation

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While the list of what properties are covered here will be living and is subject to change it's intended to cover properties like:

For those properties we don't want to have people adding unsourced claims as wrong claims can be hurtful. When values such as the weight of an athlete however become part of the public record it becomes valuable to integrate the data in Wikidata and in those cases it's possible to source the claim.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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I copied the changes here given that they are only changes in presentation and not changes in meaning. I think fixing link formatting and spelling while an RfC is in process is okay but when it comes to content changes that should get it's own section and be subject to voting about what people prefer. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 14:41, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's no statement that things that aren't on the list can't be controversial. On the other hand having a list allows us to take extra care towards the properties in a structured way. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • some actors are concerned about their age and are actively trying to hide it. Is this something to consider?

Statements that may violate privacy

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We will adopt Statements that may violate privacy in the form:

Living individuals with records in Wikidata are for the most part not famous or celebrities; their privacy should be respected. Values for living individuals should generally not be supplied unless they can be considered widespread public knowledge or are openly supplied by the individual themselves (otherwise hidden supporting references are not sufficient). As an example, the fact that someone's address is accessible by looking at a domain name registration, doesn't imply that it's considered widespread public knowledge for the sake of this policy.
There is also a list of properties that may violate privacy at Wikiproject Properties, as above in individual cases it's also valuable to be mindful when using other properties.

Explanation

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This class is designed to be for properties like:

There are many cases where it's possible to find someone's address because it's used in a domain name registry or they donated enough money to a political party to be listed in official documents. While those sources are reliable and serious we still don't want to copy the information into Wikidata based on sources like that because of privacy concerns. In cases where a person however publishes their address on their own homepage for the public to see it's however no privacy violation when we also publish that information on Wikidata.

Support

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Against

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  •   Oppose we exist to document, not to serve and these properties aren't "privacy violations" if they are openly available. This is not to say that I support outing, but Wikimedia projects are a collection of (mostly) publicly available information where original research is heavily discouraged (well, on most wiki's) so the information here won't make it "easier" to doxx someone. If the information ℹ is here it probably was available on the internet prior, and these things should be judged on a case-by-case basis (no room for actual privacy 🔏 violations, but don't punish those that add public relevant information). -- 徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 09:26, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Adding and removing Q44597997 and Q44601380 from properties

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We will adopt Adding and removing Q44597997 and Q44601380 from properties in the form:

While it's okay to add the instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) or property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) statements to additional Wikidata properties without seeking consensus beforehand, such statements must not be removed from existing properties without consensus.
If a Wikidata property had it for fewer than 7 days, the statement can be preemptively removed but the person who removes it should open a new discussion on the talk page of the property and include the {{Ping project|Properties}}-template to discuss whether the property should have the statement.
To request the removal of the class from a Wikidata property that had it longer than one week, you must open a new discussion on the talk page that includes the {{Ping project|Properties}}-template. The removal of the class must only be done by an admin or property creator and only if least 7 days have passed since the request for removing the class was started and there is a consensus for removing the class.
It's also possible to request replacing property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) with property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) or vice-versa on a property through the same process.
Given that bots will rely on the data it's recommended to semi-protect the properties that subclass property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) or property that may violate privacy (Q44601380).

Explanation

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This section is designed to create a dynamic process for classifying properties into those classes. I think such a dynamic process is needed given that we constantly add new properties and data imports can add new concerns about certain properties being privacy violating. Having a clear and explicit process is very valuable because it makes it also clear for new users how they can engage with the our process in case they disagree.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Bot interaction with items for living persons

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We will adopt Bot interaction with items for living persons in the form:

Bots that create or add statements about living people or that edit their descriptions or aliases should be particularly carefully scrutinized. The Wikidata:Bots policy already requests sourcing for bot-entered information. For bots that will be editing items about living people, it's recommended to explicitly address the following concerns during the bot approval process:
  1. If the bot will add information to items about living people that contains statements that use properties that subclass property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) and property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) the bot approval discussion must explicitly address the issue of why it's in this case okay to add the information. Such bots should not copy data from closed databases or books of limited circulation for this purpose.
  2. If the bot is importing from a Wikimedia project, does that Wikimedia project have an adequate BLP policy? If not further steps to verify the data before import are warranted.
  3. If the bot is pulling information from another source, is that source a reliable source for this data? Note that this is also important when adding statements with properties that don't subclass property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) or property that may violate privacy (Q44601380).

Explanation

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This section voices general principles that would be good to follow. I however don't expect this to change much about the actual practice of bot approvals. Earlier drafts included a provision about a special flag for bot edits on living people. I removed the provision from the draft because of performance concerns.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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  • I am concerned about this statement "Such bots should not copy data from closed databases or books of limited circulation for this purpose." This could be valuable information ℹ if it doesn't violate the subject's privacy, it should be denied by default but not universally denied, maybe a bot-operator could ask for permission to import such data after a neutral party reviews it. -- 徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 09:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think having a BLP policy in another Wikipedia is a good requirement, but it would be better to not allow bots to add imported statements without additional sources from Wikipedia articles. Jc86035 (talk) 12:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Amending the blocking policy

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Wikidata:Blocking_policy should be amended by adding at the end of the list:

Repeated or egregrious violations of the living persons policy can lead to a ban

Explanation

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Given that we care strongly about the privacy of living persons, violations should also be ground for banning.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Note Wikidata does not have a ban policy, so the term "ban" is inappropriate.--GZWDer (talk) 19:18, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Allow alternative accounts to protect privacy for users who need the privacy for entering certain sensitive data into Wikidata

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On Wikidata:Alternate accounts replace the paragraph

Alternate accounts must be publicly declared, and the userpages of the alternate accounts must link back to the main account in an obvious fashion. Common ways of doing this include redirecting the user and talk pages of the alternate to the user and talk pages of the main account, using a template such as {{Bot}} that specifies the master account, or leaving a linked message in text at the top of the user page. If alternate accounts do not link to the main account, they are not considered legitimate alternate accounts.

with

  • *Privacy for adding sensitive information*: There's some information that's politically sensitive or violates social taboos. When a user's main account can be linked to their public identity, creating a second private account for making those sensitive edits can be warranted, provided the main account and the second account don't edit the same item or take part in the same discussion on a non-item-page.
Users are encouraged to publicly declare alternate accounts, and the user pages of the alternate accounts must link back to the main account in an obvious fashion. Common ways of doing this include redirecting the user and talk pages of the alternate to the user and talk pages of the main account, using a template such as {{Bot}} that specifies the master account, or leaving a linked message in text at the top of the user page. If alternate accounts do not link to the main account, they are not considered legitimate alternate accounts.

Explanation

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For many regular users of Wikidata it's possible to deduce their real life identity. There's some information that's valuable to be added to Wikidata but where the information itself is sensistive enough that the user that adds it can face repercussions. That's especially true for countries outside of the Western world. If a Chinese activist for example adds information about politicians he has a very high need for protecting his identity and he should be allowed to create a special purpose account to protect himself in a case like that. With tools like CheckUser we can still fight sockpuppets and the huge benefit of privacy in cases like the Chinese activist is worth it, to not have a blanket rule given that people who want to hurt our project can ignore rules anyway.

Support

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Comments

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Public disclosure means that the account can't be used to protect privacy. It's worth noting that EnWiki allows this usage of accounts "Editors who use unlinked alternative accounts, or who edit as an IP address editor separate from their account, should carefully avoid any crossover on articles or topics because even innocuous activities such as copy editing, wikifying, or linking might be considered sock puppetry in some cases and innocuous intentions will not usually serve as an excuse."
Our current policy doesn't allow unlinked accounts of Wikidata and I don't see a reason why we have a stronger need than EnWiki to forbid them. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 15:46, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that adds {{NoReferenceForStatementToBeChallenged}} to a users talk page whenever a user adds a new statement with a property that's instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) to items about living people, when the user doesn't provide a reference after a reasonable timeframe. It would be great if the template evolves into a user-friendly text that's automatically translated into many languages. This RfC won't specify the bot behavior in detail, to allow flexibility to adapt the bot as needed when it comes to timeframes and the amount of times a user might get the template on it's talk page.

Explanation

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Many users don't read policy pages on their own accord. Automatically messaging them when they make edits that might be problematic for the privacy of living people helps to create awareness of our policies and shows that we are serious about the policy.

Support

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Comments

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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that adds {{NoReferenceForStatementThatMayViolatePrivacy}} to a users talk page whenever a user adds a new statement with a property that's instance of (P31) property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) to items about living people, when the user doesn't provide a reference after a reasonable timeframe. It would be great if the template evolves into a user-friendly text that's automatically translated into many languages. This RfC won't specify the bot behavior in detail, to allow flexibility to adapt the bot as needed when it comes to timeframes and the amount of times a user might get the template on it's talk page.

Explanation

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See above.

Support

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Against

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  •   Oppose The content is not appropriate to be a part of the policy. Jklamo (talk) 16:06, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose automatic warnings implies you are not committed to enforcing the policy. need to create the team to reference statements and add quality, not delete lack of quality. Slowking4 (talk) 11:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Slowking4: I don't know what you mean with "you". Wikidata isn't an orgasm that has a single person who makes decisions. If you think you want to create a team to reference statements, go ahead and create your team. You seem to advocate this for quite a while without taking any action on your stated beliefs. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    it is your proposal: own it. you seem to advocate blocking people to show you care. but more generally, wikidata should be implementing quality control using quality control principles, not wikipedia rubrics. i do not have to act, to oppose an importation of rubrics that have harmed other projects. you realize just how toxic it is when new uploaders at commons are greeted by a wall of warning template? why would you want to communicate like that? are you going to respond to all the questions about your bot warnings? if not you then who? and i have written up an alternative that i would suggest you adopt. Slowking4 (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose things like this tend to create many false positive that scare new editors away from the project. More often than not good-faith editors add content only to have a bot automatically revert all of their edits on that page, call them "a spammer" or "a vandal" and then threaten lifelong banishment, yet everyone acts surprised that these communities aren't growing anymore. If the content violates privacy this should be explained how it violates the subject's privacy and try to explain to the editor that this is inappropriate, templates like this tend to use the lowest-denominator language that treats the editor like the worst offender. -- 徵國單  (討論 🀄) (方孔錢 💴) 09:18, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose per Jklamo. (What is seemingly intended here might be better achieved when the constraints gadget becomes part of core). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:12, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:01, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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Bot 3: Deletion of future property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) statements

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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that revision deletes newly created statements with properties that instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) on items about living people, when the user doesn't provide a reference for the claim and 30 days have passed.

Explanation

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The section is only focused on newly created statements because for statements that already existed before the creation of this policy, their creator didn't necessarily knew that the data might be deleted.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Bot 4: Deletion of future property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) statements

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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that revision deletes newly created statements with properties that instance of (P31) property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) on items about living people, when the user doesn't provide a reference for the claim and 30 days have passed.

Explanation

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See above.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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Bot 5: Deletion of past property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) statements

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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that revision deletes existing statements with properties that instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) on items about living people that were created before the passing of this RfC or before instance of (P31) property likely to be challenged (Q44597997) was added to a property (with a reasonable waiting period, to see whether it sticks).

Explanation

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The creator of this RfC doesn't support this option, but it's included given that's one of the possible options and it's valuable to have consensus about whether the old data should be deleted.

Support

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Comments

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Bot 6: Deletion of past property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) statements

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The Wikidata community would welcome a bot that revision deletes existing statements with properties that instance of (P31) property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) on items about living people that were created before the passing of this RfC or before instance of (P31) property that may violate privacy (Q44601380) was added to a property (with a reasonable waiting period, to see whether it sticks).

Explanation

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See above.

Support

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Against

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Comments

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

General Comments

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  • The policy must be clear that it applies to all pages. Note that is the very first thing stated in EnWiki BLP policy.
  • The second sentence from EnWiki should also be substantially copied, specifying that such content must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States as well as strict compliance with other policies. Living Persons Policy and Copyright Policy are not ordinary policies, they are both fundamentally grounded in law, and they then set a perimeter well clear of that law. That seriousness of the policy should be highlighted in the initial sentences.
  • In section Statements likely to be challenged the following sentence was copied from EnWiki policy: In the case of a dispute, the burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material. There are two problems:
    1. This must be moved out of the Statements likely to be challenged section. It addresses statements which actually are challenged. If a living person is described as dead/racist/nazi/whatever else, it doesn't matter whether or not it was in a pre-defined 'likely' category.
    2. The text was cut short. The two sentences after it must be included as well: If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Material that has been repaired to address concerns should be judged on a case-by-case basis. The entire point of the policy is that disputed Living Person content doesn't get treated like other content disputes. The content gets removed until the dispute is resolved. Without that, you don't have a Living Person's policy.
  • The crucial Definition of living person section is currently failing. As discussed in that section, replacement text should be substantially copied from EnWiki or a comparable BLP policy.

The items listed above are probably the most seriously flaws, and they are serious enough to render the policy worthless swisscheese. The entire policy should be reviewed in sentence-by-sentence comparison to EnWiki or other well established Living Person policy, with all relevant aspects copied or adapted as appropriate. Alsee (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Alsee: There was originally a section on application to non-item spaces - this was removed here. See also the draft's talkpage. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:43, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Why would US law take precedence, for a project hosted in Germany? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikidata:General_disclaimer#Jurisdiction_and_legality_of_content states that it is hosted in the US? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
News to me; but fair enough. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Andy Mabbett are you endorsing the general text once we establish and include the correct jurisdiction? Or are you opposing the text entirely, and raising an incidental question of jurisdiction?
I'm having difficulty finding information on the physical hosting of wikidata servers. However I did find M:Legal/Legal Policies Applicable Law: United States law is applicable to Wikimedia Projects. The Wikimedia Foundation is a U.S.-formed corporation, and, for that reason, Wikimedia complies with U.S. law. Alsee (talk) 13:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've given detailed comments throughout the rest of this page. My question on jurisdiction was just that; and not an objection per se. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The "In the case of a dispute, the burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material." sentence is not in the paragraph that votes on the individual point in question. It's also not in the policy that I proposed to be adopted when I created the RfC.
@Alsee: You can simply add your vote to the version that exists in this RfC (and which doesn't contain that sentence) is you think that version works.ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:42, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ChristianKl the above discussion cites your revert on the applicability of the policy. You apparently reverted on a rational that there is little applicability in prior-discussion before adding content. On Wikipedia almost none of the applicability is in prior discussion of content. Outside of articles, BLP generally arises in dealing with content after someone has removed something, and assorted issues not directly involving article content. If Wikidata's goal is to grow, then the expectation is that Wikidata will run into the wide range of issues other wikis experience. BLP issues can and do arise anywhere that somebody can enter text. That includes usernames, page tiles, edit summaries, and more. Not only should you revert your revert, you should convert ==non-item space== into subsection ===non-item space=== and put it back under the original section title ==Applicability of the policy==. That section should have this adapted sentence Living Person Policy applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikidata, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, items, and properties. Alsee (talk) 14:16, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are no images on Wikidata. While EnWiki does hosts it's own images, all our image come from WikiCommons and WikiCommons has it's own BLP rules. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The structure of this RfC appears to be flawed. While fluid, we currently have a majority in favour of adopting the whole draft, but majorities against adopting several parts of it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:47, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I understand "We will vote for the individual subpoints of the policy below." to be part of the general vote. To the extend that individual subpoints aren't accepted, we need to find an alterantive version for them that's get's accepted. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 16:28, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For my part, while I view the current proposal as flawed, it is still better than the alternative, which is nothing. Lankiveil (talk) 02:56, 17 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]
Don't let the perfect become the enemy of good. --Rschen7754 03:14, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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