Category talk:Living people/Archive 3

WPBiography

Should every article in this category have {{WikiProject Biography}} on their talk pages? Thanks - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. With the "living=yes" parameter added as well. Fram (talk) 11:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion.

So how do I nominate this category for deletion? --98.232.180.37 (talk) 05:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

To nominate something for deletion, you need to have an account here, and a good reason to do so. I nominated this category for deletion in October 2008, and it was overwhelmingly (and correctly) kept. This category is needed to track all changes to articles about living people, where extra care is needed (vandals stating that soccer team X sucks are just a nuisance, but an article stating that senator X is a paedophile are a very serious problem, both morally and legally). If you can suggest a better method of tracking these articles, then you may have a chance, but otherwise, I wouldn't try nominating this for deletion again. Fram (talk) 07:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Category idea: Left handed people, eye color, etc

Lets make a category for all the left handed people, and another for people with green eyes, another for people with brown, blue, etc. I mean, might as well, right? If we're going to have this amazing piece of work, we might as well come up with others.. --98.232.180.37 (talk) 05:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you really get the point of the category: it's for marking out those articles that need to have a higher level of verifiability, and not for any other purpose. It does its job well, really. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 09:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

not alive?

according to this list both me an everyone with my surname doesnt exist >.< soo someone shud add COLIN WOODIWISS to the list =D

Yeah, but no-one alive with your surname has their own article of Wikipedia, do they? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 12:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hiding this category

I'd like some more opinions on whether this category should be hidden or not. For me, the answer is pretty simple: This is a maintenance category (the category page says so quite clearly). All maintenance categories are hidden. Ergo, this category should be hidden. Others disagree, apparently, but I don't find the arguments presented in the discussion above or in the edit summaries compelling.

• "It's harder to learn about our BLP policies when this cat is hidden"
  • Are our readers supposed to learn about the BLP policy? If our readers want to find out about the workings of our encyclopedia, they click on the talk page, where they are greeted with the BLP-template which explains everything a lot better than "Category:Living people" does.
• "the effect that hiding the category will have on one of the primary purposes of having a "living people" category in the first place--to prevent the insertion of unfounded, potentially libelous statements into the article."
  • I fail to see how the category prevents, in any way, the addition of uncited, problematic material to our articles.
• There was also the argument that the category is useful for searching. It might be, but that's true whether the category is hidden or not. And I strongly doubt that there are a lot of people who use URLs like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Living_people&from=Rodrig to search for articles. If they know how to use URLs like that, they know how to find the category, even if it's hidden. Or they just use Google, like most people.

Are there any other reasons to not hide this category? --Conti|✉ 20:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe this category is not hidden precisely because related categories such as Death in XXX are not hidden. In other words, it wouldn't be consistent if we hide this but didn't hide the others. Also, this was probably discussed before, so you might want to dig into the archive. (I don't mean to take a side. I'm only trying to give what I know.) -- Taku (talk) 01:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed above in the section "Hiddencat". I am still of the opinion that the category would be better hidden, since the argulents to the contrary are not convincing to me (showing it will not stop vandalism or even the simple insertion of unsourced material at all; searching through this category, even though done by some people, is a most unproductive way of searching, and can still be done even if it is hidden; and consistency works both ways: it should be hidden as a maintenance cat, it should not be hidden compared to the "birth" and "death" cats...). Many of our articles have too many categories, making them useless to our readers. The indication if a person is living ornot should already be in the lead of the article (and/or in the infobox), not hidden somewhere at the very bottom. The category is not used to inform people, and is not used for looking for comparable articles (hey, who would have guessed, Wikipedia has a few other articles on living people as well!). It is only of use to editors, and then mainly through tracking recent changes or as a cat that's picked up by bots and so on. Fram (talk) 07:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have read the above discussion (albeit after I made the edit), and I haven't found any compelling arguments for keeping this category visible. I don't think this category can be compared to the Deaths/Births by year categories, either, since the purpose of those categories is a different one. A "death by year" category is for the reader, it is not intended to be used by our editors for maintenance or something similiar (at least as far as I know). The "Living People" category on the other hand is not for the reader, it is for our editors, and solely exists because with the category we can use Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Living people. If there would be another way to check the recent changes of all BLPs at the same time, this category wouldn't exist in the first place. So, once again, this category should be hidden because it is a pure maintenance category, and is not intended to be used by our readers. --Conti|✉ 11:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

So, what is the purpose of the category anyway? My understanding is that it belongs to the same category as death by year and birth by year cats. Those categories are not really for the reader, either; their usefulness as a navigation tool is as poor as that of this category. In general, we don't hide cats just because they are useless. If the sole purpose of this category is for maintenance, like clean up cats, for example, then the cat should be hidden, of course. But I don't think this is so. I think that this category exists for basic categorization just like any other categories. -- 01:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If categories are useless, we delete them. If categories are only useful for maintenance, we hide them. There is no such thing as "basic categorization", else we would have categories for male vs. female as well (and a cat:dead people). There is a category tree, so that every category can be found, but articles should be in the most specific categories possible, not in the most generic, as these are the hardest to use afterwards. I have no opinion yet on the birth and death year cats, these may warrant a separate discussion. But what we do with category X has no bearing on what we do with category Y: there is no reason that these should necessarily be treated the same way as the cat:living people. Fram (talk) 08:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of this category can be found on the category page: "Because living persons may suffer personal harm from inappropriate information, we should watch their articles carefully. This category exists to help Wikipedia editors improve the quality of biographies of living persons by ensuring that the articles maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and are properly sourced." As far as I can see, the births and deaths by year categories do not have this purpose, or any purpose remotely similar to it. They are purely navigational categories, like most others (once again, someone correct me if I'm wrong). I agree that they're not too useful for that purpose, but that's a discussion to be held another time. As Fram said, we don't do "basic cateogrization" (the German Wikipedia does, tho). We might one day, when we can intersect categories, but we don't yet. --Conti|✉ 12:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I don't really know the function of hiding cats, my opinion may not be relevant to this; but, JIC. Since there is a large scale operation underway (BLP uncat .. and to a lesser extent the whole Flagged revisions thing), I'd think it best not to hide this. My reasoning is that the more exposure we have, the more likely it is that folks will be encouraged to help out. Oh, and if anyone wants to give me a brief rundown on the "hide" function, and how it applies to admin. or non-admin. - perhaps I'd have to re-evaluate. I'm not really looking for a tldr or "link-click-read, and repeat" thing, just curious. — Ched :  ?  18:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

help?

I am alive but I am not on this list. This is an error as I am quite sure I am alive. Sincerly yours, Hector —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.208.47 (talk) 12:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

You need to have your own WIkipedia article, then that article will be included in this category. It's not just a directory of all the billions of people alive today. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 10:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

He has not asked us to include him in the list of notable people. The list is titled "Living people" and he is living. I think he may have a point. Maybe we should rename the list as "Articles on living people" or something like that.Civilizededucation (talk) 15:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Would we apply that rule to every category? - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 15:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I bet it would be cheaper to rename the namespaces – Inventory of articles on:Living people / Talk related to the inventory of articles on:Living people. — the Sidhekin (talk) 16:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC) PS: ;-)

I don't think Wikipedia needs to involve itself in the ridiculous movement to label things with the obvious. "Do not drink" on the side of cleaning solvents, for example. Unnecessary. I think it's probably an uncommon expectation of readers to believe that Category:Living people is a repository for all the names of the world's 6.8 billion people. لennavecia 13:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

dups?

Should Category:Biography articles of living people be a redirect to this cat? — Ched :  ?  19:40, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe that that category holds talk pages, this one articles. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 19:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahhhh ..OK .. thanks Jarry, appreciate the help. ;) — Ched :  ?  02:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

duo

I recently added this cat to Kerry and Kay Danes. It appears that both are still alive, but we may want to discuss how to deal with the Living people issue when a pair of people are involved. Comedy duos, singing couples, etc. I'd think we'd still want to monitor a remaining BLP for standards, even if one of them has died. I don't know if the "Living people" is going to be a part of flagged revisions, or "liberal protection" to BLP articles in the future - but I can envision that possibility. Thoughts? — Ched :  ?  18:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The category at the moment (should) contains all groups and duos with one (or more) living member, if that helps. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep, helps a lot. Appreciate the feedback as always. ;) — Ched :  ?  22:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Wait a second - am I supposed to be tagging bands as "Living people"?? I took that first line This is a category for all articles on individuals currently believed to be living persons. to mean individual as opposed to groups. If I was supposed to be adding it (this cat) to the items I'm reviewing - then I need to revisit about 30 edits or so. Not that I tagged any as wrong, but there are a few that I let get by me if this is the case. Need some feedback here folks. — Ched :  ?  01:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, time out. We've not been adding this cat to groups. I've only added it to biographical articles on couples, which are few and far between, but existent where notability is shared between them. However, this does not include musical duets and such. This for sure needs further discussion. لennavecia 12:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

My strong preference is for this cat only to be applied to individuals, and not extended to duos or other groups. (One possibility of course would be to introduce another category for living duos, etc.) The birth year, death year & living people cats are currently the most reliable way to find pages about individuals rather than groups of people on wp (since the biography wikiproject includes bands etc.) It would be a shame to break this. Dsp13 (talk) 13:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

• Right now, I'm of the understanding that groups, bands etc. should not have this (Living people) cat. I've never viewed categories as a "keywords" thing. While the "Paul McCartney" article should have this - as a measure of monitoring possible BLP violations, the article on "The Beatles" should be documenting what the band did - not BLP info. I think if we look at a duo: If they are famous enough to be WP:N, then they'll likely have a corresponding BLP article which should have this. There may be a "Donnie and Marie" (Osmond) article, but I'd be willing to bet there are individual articles on each member as well which would have the BLP info that I understand this category to be for. I'd think it likely that the Kerry and Kay article is a rare instance, but something that should be judged on an individual basis. Conclusion? I'm right with Jenna and Dsp - but open to information input should I not be understanding something. — Ched :  ?  13:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

(This is not a reply to Ched, I just want to clarify.) I apologise if I gave the misleading impression that bands should be tagged with living people; when I said "groups" I was thinking octuplets (that sort of thing) rather than musical groups. Having never written an article about a band, I have little idea about that but the above helpfully clarifies. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I have very little preference as to whether they should be tagged, but they are routinely tagged like that. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 16:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

events

1. Kidnapping of Alan Johnston
2. Kidnapping of Shannon Matthews

Since there is so much BLP info in these, I added this cat to these articles after discussion with MZM and Jennavica. Is this a topic we need to expand our discussion on? — Ched :  ?  18:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

My preference would be for another cat, Category:Events involving living people or something, rather than adding this cat. Dsp13 (talk) 13:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Category surely requires diffusion

I have just skimmed some of the above comments, and tend to agree that this is too long as a category to be a "stand-alone" one, and also far too diverse. Rather than recommend its deletion, my recommendation would be that it gets categorised in the "Category requiring diffusion" category. Then, people might work hard to have sub-groups within this category, such as "Living writers", "living musicians", "living scientists", "living politicians", "living philsophers", "living religious leaders" and so and so forth. If even such categories as those would require diffusion, this could be done by nationality. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Why?

Is There Really Any Need For A Page That States Every Living Person That Has A Wikipedia Artical? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.239.167.188 (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Reading through WP:BLP may help explain many of the issues involved. — Ched :  ?  13:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

how about changing the cat name?

how about to "living humans" or "living individuals" - - -? Dr. Eme (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC).

Not that it isn't good wording, but it would likely be a solution in search of a problem at this point. — Ched :  ?  13:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Living people v Possibly living people

Why should people of 90 or less, where there is no information regarding them still being alive, be put in the Living category. Surely they should be put in the Possibly Living category, unless it is proven (or reasonable) that they are still alive. I don't see BLP concerns as long as Cat:Poss Living is monitored just as Living. Otherwise there can be confusion if someone's article has the Living Cat, they could incorrectly be assumed to definitely be alive? Eldumpo (talk) 16:31, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I posted a similar sentiment with a longer explanation on the possibly living ppl category page (under my old username which I was still using at that time). Basically I think it should be for people who have no documentation for 10 years and the age limit should be lowered to 75 (since the average lifespan is below 75).Schnapps17 (talk) 22:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

BLP and Bands

There is a thread here about whether bands should have the WPBio template on their talk pages. All input is appreciated. — Ched :  ?  21:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

"Children" or "issue"?

This is probably a topic for discussion on a higher level than this category, but I figured in my wiki-inexperience that I should raise it somewhere in the first instance. Does anyone else think that the term "children" (when used to describe the offspring of a person in their respective Wikipedia article), should be replaced with "issue" - in accordance with recognised biological/genealogical terminology? Thank you in advance for your thoughts Mjsp rn (talk) 13:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not really the right place but eh.. "John Doe is married with Jane Doe, together they have five issues". No way! In normal language nobody says "issue" instead of children". Garion96 (talk) 19:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Morton Marcus

{{editsemiprotected}} Morten Marcus is a non-unique name. For purposes of disambiguation, please change the current "Morton Marcus" Living People entry to "Morton Marcus (economist)", so that a new page can be added for a well-known poet with many published books: "Morton Marcus (poet)". Thanks! Jmekis (talk) 05:09, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

 Not done Wrong venue. The content of the list is determined by the title of the page (Morton Marcus in this case). Please create a page at Morton Marcus (poet) first, and then we can work out what needs to be done for the naming. Timotheus Canens (talk) 05:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

123 years

Surely this should be dropped to a lower threshold? I would cite this diff (which I agree with) as an example that in practise this threshold is not adhered to. In that example, while the year of birth is unknown, the person in question could be as young as 110. WFCforLife (talk) 00:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Hm... this is a tricky case. The threshold is 123 years but for example we know all the veterans of WWI so I would remove Living people from a stub article about a flying ace of WWI. I think for people over 110 we should also use common sense. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Multiple people

Should this category include multiple people, e.g. Gundecha Brothers ? The argument for excluding them, which I've always argued for in the past, is that it allows greater category consistency. The argument against is practical usefulness for BLP purposes. Another possibility would be a category Category:Multiple people who are all alive or similar.Dsp13 (talk) 14:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

If we are talking about twins we should add Living people if at least one of the twins is alive. We don't add Living people to musical groups. So, afaik not for musical duos. PS Addition of Living people has nothing to do with WPBiography|living=yes. Other rules apply there since Musical groups are within the scope of the project. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I take your PS. I don't really understand the rationale for adding Living people to pages for twins at least one of whom is alive, though.Dsp13 (talk) 16:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

User pages

Since WP:BLP policy applies to all pages, shouldn't user subpages be included as well? Or is there another category for BLPs in userspace? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that active article drafts shouldn't have WP:BLP shouldn't be heavily patrolled; user pages get used as scratch workspace a lot. On the other hand, inactive pages, those that haven't seen edits recently, should have the policy applied. On the third hand, we shouldn't tolerate blatant defamation, even briefly. On the fourth hand, userspace pages should not have mainspace categories, except briefly during active drafting. From time to time, I insert a leading colon in such stale userspace articles that have found their way into Category:Living people and caught my attention; however, I don't patrol systematically and it's an ongoing problem. We need a bot of some kind for that. Not much help, am I? Studerby (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps another category? Something like Category:Living people draft articles? Maybe the BLP talk page is a better place. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 75.51.166.182, 25 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} The entries for Rhiannon Argo all start with: User:Underscore fever/Rhiannon Argo This looks like a mistake and is incorrect Please change to: Rhiannon Argo 75.51.166.182 (talk) 02:55, 25 April 2010 (UTC) 75.51.166.182 (talk) 02:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

 Not done "Rhiannon Argo" is neither on this page nor is it an article. Nothing links to User:Underscore fever/Rhiannon Argo. Goodvac (talk) 06:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Please add Eunice Bowman to the list!!!

Eunice Bowman born in 1898 is currently the oldest person in Britain; she now has an article on her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hohho56oy (talk • contribs) 03:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

New notice?

Can we replace the {{notice}} at the top of this page with something that isn't the same color as every other header template? This would make it stand out somewhat so people, like myself, who come here wondering why this category is extant can see immediately that discussions have taken place, without really having to sift through the talk page/archives before (maybe) stumbling across the notice? I was hoping for something a little brighter, but this is the best I could come up with:

The code in this example is:
{{ambox|2=type=notice|text=<center>'''This is ''not'' a typical category!'''</center><br>Please read the archived discussion and reasons for its existence before commenting about the "point" of having this administrative-style category.}}
The </center><br> and related codes can be removed obviously to collapse the box somewhat; bold text is pushed back to the left. Anyway, just a suggestion. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Two of these categories?

Category:Wikipedia_indefinitely_semi-protected_biographies_of_living_people – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

André Galvão in the wrong place

Resolved

André Galvão's name is now situated between Rolles Gracie Jr. and Rorion Gracie. It should be between Ana Galvão and Filipe Galvão. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.126.107 (talk) 17:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

There was a false DEFAULTSORT in the article. Now fixed. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk)

Abe Vigoda

Are we sure he's alive? I've heard that he's dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.247.3.230 (talk) 18:07, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Zz

The end of the list has this:

l Rostam Mirlashari v Vibe Squad Š User:PrJ 27/Jan Šebek ほ User:星野らいむ

To my knowledge, neither L, nor V, nor Š come after Zz. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 13:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Thank you. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Ö comes after Zz either. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 02:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 122.224.60.118, 8 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}}

122.224.60.118 (talk) 11:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 13:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

If he's dead, we don't care..

A deceased person can also be harmed by false allegations. The person has relatives that does not like that such things are written (I would be very angry if I was the widower of a woman who suffered from false allegations at Wikipedia, even after her death).. I propose it to be changed so the BLP policy also applies for persons 20, 30, 40 or perhaps 50 years after their death. This should be discussed. The purpose of this is to avoid false allegations on deceased people, to avoid harm to their relatives. JustEase (talk) 09:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

no, western law says that the deceased cannot be harmed by false accusations. however, the case of a widow harmed by false allegations against their deceased spouse, is actually being harmed by false allegations against them directly, unless the allegations cant possibly relate in any way to them (say, something allegedly done by a spouse before their partner was BORN). However, i am curious how administrators keep track of articles which are not about a living person, but which include information about living people, such as an article on charlie chaplin which may mention a descendent disparagingly.(mercurywoodrose)75.61.141.60 (talk) 03:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Here is something I don't understand...

It says the purpose of this category is "[...] ensuring that the articles maintain a neutral point of view, maintain factual accuracy, and are properly sourced."

Isn't that a requirement for all articles on Wikipedia?

So how does this category benefit anyone? 92.228.0.17 (talk) 05:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC) BugBunnySan

It doesn't. Like the multitude of other pointless categories and protocols on this site, a handful of people want this around for "bots" and the like. -Anon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.59.8.189 (talk) 21:38, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

List in German?

Is there an appropriate list of living people corresponding to German Wikipedia? I don't see a link to something like this on the left.

No. The German Wikipedia rejected this category several times; the two most recent:

de:Kategorie:Lebende Person at de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Kategorien/Diskussionen/2010/Juli/8#Kategorie:Lebende Person (erl.) and

de:Kategorie:Wikipedia:Artikel über lebende Personen at de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Kategorien/Diskussionen/2010/August/5#Kategorie:Wikipedia:Artikel über lebende Personen (gelöscht).

A workaround might be to list all articles which use de:Vorlage:Artikel über lebende Person, e.g.: de:Spezial:Linkliste/Vorlage:Artikel über lebende Person. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification! --Nurutdinov (talk) 20:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

One more question please. Do you know whether it is the case with the lists in fr, pt and nl? --Nurutdinov (talk) 21:17, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything about where those Wikipedias stand in regard to this category. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)