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Wikipedia:Deletion review/Don Murphy

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Don Murphy

  • Don Murphy – Overturn: Honestly folks. Any editor may feel free to re-list this at AfD with a reasonable rationale. Any new AfD rationale should refer to specific Wikipedia policy and guidelines or provide a compelling case as to why those policies and guidelines should be cast aside in this case. A note to remember: Wikipedia is run by Wikipedians, and the decisions are made the Wikipedia community, even if the community make those decisions based on outside influences. Free access to the sum total of all human knowledge, for all time and without bias, is our goal. Whatever the outcome, let's keep that goal in view. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 01:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.
Don Murphy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|cache|AfD)
This discussion may get heated, please try and remain calm. Please do not post any material which is likely to contravene the Biographies of Living Persons policy. Links to Wikipedia Review are acceptable here provided they are directly relevant to the case. Nick (talk) 08:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Deleted by wheel-warring administrator Viridae after surviving several AfDs. He did not discuss this at all on-Wiki, and instead preferred to discuss it on a WP:BADSITE that I can't link to because it contains egregious personal attacks against many Wikipedians. Bongout (talk) 01:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you're being sarcastic with that "BADSITES" remark about Wikipedia Review (WR), because BADSITES was rejected by the community and it is allowed to link to threads in WR in the appropriate context. Cla68 (talk) 04:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't being sarcastic; the site in question is still a BADSITE, and I couldn't link to the relevant discussion from that site without also linking to vicious personal attacks, which would be in violation of policy. Bongout (talk) 04:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
, Er, do you see WP:BADSITES being described as policy on the top? Because I don't see it. Linking to WR is acceptable if there is a good reason. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: It would appear that Viridae is now canvassing for people to influence this discussion: here and here. Completely inappropriate. Bongout (talk) 02:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not interpret the diff at my user talk as canvassing. It was a relevant follow-up to an ongoing thread, and that thread was based upon a standing offer I've made to nominate BLP articles for deletion under certain conditions. DurovaCharge! 07:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With due respect, Durova... the fact that you've expressed interest in these issues doesn't change whether canvassing took place. Notifying two predictably opinionated users is by no means egregious canvassing, but it certainly doesn't meet the nonpartisan audience criterion. — xDanielx T/C\R 05:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The one to Doc looks lot worse. In that one Viridae explicitly says that Doc will "get" the reasoning and calls Doc a "BLP fanatic"[1]. At minimum, Viridae should have thought about what this looks like. Anyways, I doubt this is going to alter consensus much so we shouldn't worry that much about it right now. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment These are 2 admin users with a great track record whose opinions we should here in this case, hardly classic WP:CANVAS or inappropriate WP:CANVAS. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While the canvass page is clear, and the reason why I put a note on the talk page of this DRV. I see v did not. However, in that case, there is also another policy I'll keep in mind.<thoughtless comment reduced> NonvocalScream (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They are two admins who have strong opinions about BLP-penumbra issues. (Actually one has a strong opinion, the other has a known opinion that doesn't seem as strong). Both of those opinions are ones which would make them want to endorse this deletion. AGF has its limits. If Viridae did not intend to canvass, this demonstrates a lack of judgement. This is why Orthodox Jews have the concept of Marat Ayin. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was clearly canvassing, and clearly inappropriate, and should clearly be considered by whoever closes this.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The word "clearly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No no, you phrased that totally wrong. The word clearly is clearly doing a lot of work in that sentence. Learn from my example! :) --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Restore. I would encourage the deleting administrator to reverse his own action, where IAR did not apply, and cited BLP did not appear to apply. I did not see anything BLP violating. BLP process did not allow for this. It does not improve, so IAR does not allow for this. AFD would have been the proper action... not outright deletion. NonvocalScream (talk) 01:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion as we need to respect Murphy. If Murphy acts like a wanker and we act like honourable men and women this really helps the project and its BLP issues. This is a real no brainer and could set a good example/precedent. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unless a revision appeared recently that I did not see, there were no glaring libel, or mad BLP issues. How do ye address that? NonvocalScream (talk) 02:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To be perfectly honest I suggest you read the recent revisions (if you can) rather than make such an inaccurate comment). Thanks, SqueakBox 03:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • Keep deleted obviously Don Murphy is of limited notability by wikipedia's standards, he stands right on the edge and it is only his involvement in a handfull of semi sucessful movies that has gained him an article. However he is only a producer, not the very well known director of one of those movies (Oliver Stone). The producer features little in the movie production process in comparison to telelvison. The director gets all the credit - the producer just (to my knowledge) runs the financial and managerial side. While important to the production of the movie, its not that important to how the movie looks. Thus as non big name producer he is only notable for his connection to the movies he has directed, a link which is therefore tenuous. Murphy has strenuously objected to this article for a variety of reasons across a variety of forums including Wikipedia and The Wikipedia Review (which can by the way be linked to - BADSITES is a rejected policy). Wikipedia gains very little from having this article, Murphy has stated he is very unhappy with its existance, and as wikipedia is not here to make people sad (to paraphrase Jimbo), the article shoudl remain deleted or from WP:BLP "Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects", Murphys Dignity is not being respected as he considers himself a private individual, not one that is in the public eye, and I challenege anyone to prove that he is a significantly public individual. I might also point out that the only Wheel warring was by John Reaves (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) because WP:BLP, the policy i cited when deleting the article, specifically states "Administrators must obtain consensus before undeleting material that has been deleted citing this policy, and wherever possible, disputed deletions should be discussed with the administrator who deleted the article." ViridaeTalk 02:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Citing BLP doesn't cast your poor decision into undeletable stone. John Reaves 02:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, until consensus exists for undeletion it does. ViridaeTalk 02:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, I don't see where in BLP it permits you to delete in this manner. Please quote, because I think I'm missing it. NonvocalScream (talk) 02:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You did an end run around AFD on flimsy grounds. You know you did. NonvocalScream (talk) 02:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be mistaking the assumed power of three letters and a wikilink with the actual spirit of the policy. John Reaves 02:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As my link shows, you're wheel-warring as well, and that's something you've recently been warned about by respected administrator Georgewilliamherbert. Also, despite BADSITES being a failed policy, it is still against Wikipedia policy to link to attack sites, which is something that an administrator should know. Bongout (talk) 02:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you joking? Try to get your facts straight before you call unblocking someone with unanimous agreement (apart from george) for the unblock wheel warring. ViridaeTalk 02:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't call your unblock wheel-warring. I simply brought up the matter with George to show that you had recently been warned about it. Bongout (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you aren't accusing me of wheel warring in that case, why bring it up in an unrelated matter? Seems like an accusation to me. ViridaeTalk
BADSITES, in all its incarnations, is a meme which refuses to die, rising repeatedly from its grave like the undead in a bad horror movie. It's got more lives than a cat. *Dan T.* (talk) 04:01, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn as and as per nom. Endorse as per Alison. Bongout (talk) 02:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion without comment on the potential wheel warring issue. This deletion is in keeping with the precedents from Seth Finkelstein and Daniel Brandt, and with Wikipedia:BLP#BLP_deletion_standards. Mr. Murphy has requested deletion. Although Wikipedians have not reached general consensus on how far to extend courtesy deletions, for nearly a year now I have advocated a dead-trees standard. Since it is unlikely that Mr. Murphy has attained the level of notability that would give him an entry in a paper-and-ink encyclopedia about the film industry, any encyclopedic information mentioning him could be incorporated into Natural Born Killers and other relevant articles. DurovaCharge! 02:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • FYI the relevant policy clause is: When closing an AfD about living persons whose notability is ambiguous, the closing administrator should take into account whether the subject of the article being deleted has asked that it be deleted. There is no consensus about how much weight editors should give the subject's wishes; in that matter the closing administrator exerts discretion. DurovaCharge! 02:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Durova... Where is the AFD Viridae closed that was ambiguous? Surely you recognize the need for administrators to discuss first (AFD) rather than delete where no pressing BLP concern exists. What say you? Respectfully NonvocalScream (talk) 02:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There was no AfD. Bongout (talk) 02:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was thinking of starting the AFD myself. And as a procedural matter I wouldn't object to restoring the article for the specific purpose of running a regular AFD on it. DurovaCharge! 03:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say go ahead and do that right now. This deletion was improper and out of process, so let's just skip deletion review and move to AfD instead. I'd say an admin should be bold, restore the page, and start a third AfD. Let's save some time.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Can admins please review the revision I had written before it was reverted by sockpuppets of Mr. Murphy? There was substantially more content about him as independently reported by reliable sources -- both his personal life and his professional career. His notability is definitely not limited to Natural Born Killers. The reason I had expanded the article because on the surface, it seems that he is not very notable. However, I found plenty of evidence to the contrary, showing that he definitely has a reputation in Hollywood. RTFA (talk) 03:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Well if anyone reviews RTFAs edits they should mine too, we botyh edited heavily opver the last 24 hours. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment:I find it outrageous that RTFA would have the gall to sign in here. He is the entire cause of the latest explosion which has led to much wasted time, calls to Wales and other issues that are really just a part of a grudge match. Who is RTFA? He obviously knows Wikipedia but is a single purpose account designed to edit and push for edits for Don Murphy. He started a section called PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION which included aspersions and attacks that would affect livelihood and be problematic for Wikipedia. He did all of this to get back at Murphy. His comment is just chilling - who is he? Why is he doing this?TooManyTools (talk) 03:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Obvious sock/soldier of the subject of the article. First and only edit. SirFozzie (talk) 03:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC) [reply]
(Clarification point: user:RTFA in fact appears to be an alternate account used by a legitimate Wikipedian in apparent good standing, who is separating their edits in relation to this article from their other edits. There is no obvious abuse of multiple accounts in examining their edits, and judging by their other edits this is quite possibly genuine rather than "pov pushing". RTFA should therefore probably best be treated as a second account of an editor with a clean record who seeks to not have Don Murphy related issues intrude in his main account for whatever reason, and accepted as such. If any user has concerns that the edits would thereby be abusive, they may want to let me know any concern by email (for privacy of RTFA and others), and I'll check deeper. But for now I don't see a reason to treat this other than as a good-faith alt account.) FT2 (Talk | email) 03:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

— TooManyTools (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  • Overturn deletion. The idea that a Hollywood film producer with the credits of Murphy is of "borderline notability" is ridiculous. I do not think this was a valid BLP deletion and am very disappointed by Viridae's conduct in this matter. WjBscribe 03:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you please name the producers of the following 10 films without looking: Titanic, The Shining, Kill Bill, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, We Were Soldiers, Reservoir Dogs, Dr. Strangelove, Godzilla, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 50 First Dates.. my bet is if normal you can name one or two at most but name many of the directors. The producer simply isn't as responsible for the the final product as the director is and involvement in a notable film does not give automatic notability to those involved in it. ViridaeTalk 06:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      Fortunately, notability is not determined by my ignorance. I'm a ashamed to say I struggled to name the directors on a few of those. I also would struggle to name the senior government members of most countries, or the CEOs of the world's largest multinationals. Fortunately that's irrevelant - it's the positions they hold, not whether they are a "household name" that makes them notable. What would be the point of an encyclopedia that only contained topics people already knew about? What really bothers me here Viridae is that despite a previous community discussion where the consensus was to keep the article, and responses to Murphy's OTRS and Office complaints that he is notable, you decided to put your opinion on this topic ahead of everyone else's. WjBscribe 18:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Checking the producers for the first 4 movies, there are a total of 9 producers: James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, Jan Harlan Martin Richards, Lawrence Bender, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, and all appear to have an individual biography. Maybe we can delete some of those too? Also, I also don't think it's a good idea to start deleting things based on what average people don't know. Typically, people (the readers) are trying to look up things they don't know. I hate to appear snarky here, but I can't figure out a different way to word it, we could make our motto, "Wikipedia: the stuff you already know." R. Baley (talk) 07:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe a bad example, but I was working from the list Viridae provided. I was just noting that all of the producers of the first 4 films listed, had an individual bio. I take that as an indication that producers of popular films are likely to have a bio and thus are, in general, considered notable. R. Baley (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually it's a bad example because Kubrick probably won't attempt to manipulate Wikipedia's content with a frivolous deletion request, having died in 1999. — CharlotteWebb 20:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Viridae, is this a joke? Because most people don't know off the top of their heads the producers for very famous films means those producers aren't notable? That's like asking "Name the presidents/prime ministers of the 10 most southern African nations without looking. See? Heads of states aren't notable." And for your contention that the producer isn't important like the director is... WHAT? If there's no producer, there is no director. There's not even a film. When the Academy Award for Best Picture is announced, guess which person walks up to the podium to receive the award and give a speech... It ain't the director. --Oakshade (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore. Personally I approve of BLP practices being extended so as to make the subject's wishes an issue of consideration, but clearly this is going too far. Bypassing AfD in order to delete an article contra consensus should be reserved for BLP emergencies, not invoked whenever a subject expresses distaste. The article wasn't particularly good, but it certainly didn't call for such irregular treatment. — xDanielx T/C\R 03:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Outside comment on policy related issues - My understanding is that NPOV is our core mandatory content guide. Other policies all seem to acknowledge the primacy of NPOV for topics that will be included. I feel the above rationale, though good-faith, is flawed in several ways:
  1. If the subject is notable (sufficient suitable independent reliable sources) and appropriate (WP:NOT) with adequate sources allowing an article to exist, then an article may exist if someone wishes to write one. Doubts about notability are an AFD matter not a summary deletion issue.
  2. BLP says of privacy that "When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic". Not "deleted". It puts NPOV and sourcing as the priorities.
  3. Basic human dignity is cited in the context of "articles must not serve primarily to mock or disparage their subjects". It is not cited as grounds for summary deletion. Its thrust is not to write maliciously or carelessly when it's a BLP. It again puts quality of writing as the priority.
  4. BLP permits summary removal only for specifically non-compliant content, not ideally the entire article including valid content (unless the entire article is non-compliant and the problematic material is unable to be otherwise removed). Material that clearly does not breach BLP should not be removed. BLP says in several places the remedy is to par back specific non-compliant material.
  5. Content is subject to WP:NPOV, and BLP places NPOV and quality of sources at a higher level than itself. Its thrust is compliance with high quality editing.
This is a contentious topic hence views of DRV participants can be expected to differ. But the above may help as a plain reading of the words of the policy. Obviously communal norms may differ from policy wording, but I am not convinced there is a communal norm that a concern by any one of 2000 admins that the subject may not be notable or has expressed objection to having an article, is widely taken as good cause for summarily deletion for BLP.... especially when the notability issue has been decided by consensus before. Viridae cites consensus as needed to undelete, but has omitted that consensus is also needed to deem a previously-agreed notable topic non-notable, too. Overall, it is not for one admin to argue essentially that "I myself assert against consensus that the subject is non-notable, so that means I can delete it repeatedly even though there is an established consensus against my view". Apologies to Viridae, but that seems the thrust of the argument, and if so, it seems flawed. FT2 (Talk | email) 03:06, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break one

  • Overturn deletion because the argument for lack of notability is completely fallacious. Not only is he known for Natural Born Killers (there is likely more detail about him in Jane Hamsher's Killer Instinct), he has received significant coverage from The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, and LA Weekly about the producer in many different aspects, not just because he contributed to the controversial Natural Born Killers. Don Murphy has repeatedly warred against Wikipedia because the vandalism of Transformers fans to his Wikipedia article has made him feel invaded. He is not the only living person whose article gets vandalized often -- he just happens to have a computer and self-proclaimed stooges to harass editors like H. His opinion matters little because he has clearly been noted in the public eye as shown by some of the sources I've shared. RTFA (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC) I have struck out the !vote because while Mr Murphy is wrong about a lot of things, he is correct that a recently created alternate account shouldn't be casting !votes here. His arguments remain, however. SirFozzie (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteRTFA is a single purpose account, perhaps Murphy himself, designed to get WP in trouble. He showed up out of nowhere and created all this havocTooManyTools (talk) 03:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC) Multiple vote attempt from new account. SirFozzie (talk) 03:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC) [reply]
  • Assume good faith. While not available now, my expansion did far more justice to Murphy as a film producer, outlining his ambitions and reputation and accomplishments. In addition, this is a SPA because Don Murphy is known to have harassed editors -- please see his thread here. RTFA (talk) 03:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse - this falls into the category of not worth the trouble. --B (talk) 03:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and restore. I'm more than a bit troubled that inconvenient information is censored but happy to allow generous BLP latitude to remove material unsourced/unreported. Deleting the whole article though? Seems big brother-ish and serves to make the project worse. Trim the BLP-violating stuff and keep the rest. If vandals and SPAs are causing problems deal with those as needed. Benjiboi 03:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • overturn we've had multiple prior DRVs about this article, all of which ended as keep. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don Murphy and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Don Murphy (2nd nomination). As I've discussed at User:JoshuaZ/Thoughts on BLP when dealing with deletions requested by the subject, we should let the community consensus decide whether or not the BLP-penumbra issue overrides notability. In this case there were two AfDs where the consensus was clear. Admin wheel-warring in such cases is not helpful in the extreme. There are great many sources about this individual (RTFA's above comment should be read in detail- the fact that he is an SPA doesn't change the fact that he makes a very good point). And many other sources have been presented in the previous AfDs. This is a highly notable individual. There may be people where when they make a request for deletion we can reasonably consider it. This is not one of those individuals, as much as I'd like him to be (he might be inclined to go away and spend his time making good movies again rather than spending it trying to annoy us). JoshuaZ (talk) 03:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Deletes that were the result of a request are not the same as other BLP-related deletions, and do not require a DRV to be overturned. But since we're here anyways, overturn. When something has gone through multiple AfDs and been kept, you don't use the somewhat disputed and grey area rationale of "subject requests deletion". -- Ned Scott 03:27, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(My comment on RTFA has been moved higher up the page) FT2 (Talk | email) 03:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Inartful side discussion about the perverse incentives that this would create
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    • comment That's essentially endorsing terrorism. Harass and troll us enough and we take content out. That's a great message to send; "hey everyone! Trolling works!"JoshuaZ (talk) 04:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with that phrase is that it is used to justify things that made no sense whatsoever. That doesn't mean that the basic idea behind it isn't sometimes correct. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. Very much missing the point. The end result if we take that attitude is that our content will suffer. And the barrier wil l always go down and it will encourage more people to harass us. The proper response is to not let harassment figure into deletion requests(note not saying that deletion requests can't count but we shouldn't consider the fact that we've been harassed as part of that). Then leave dealing with such articles to the people who either don't care about harassment or have their real names well-guarded. Just stay away and let the thickskinned people handle it. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (r to Alison, ec with Joshua) I understand where you are coming from Alison, and your point is quite valid, but we also have to acknowledge the validity of the opposing view - namely that this sets a very dangerous precedent. Murphy is a person of some power, which is why he was able to get our attention (using, to put it mildly, questionable tactics). There are a number of other "marginally notable" people who may not like their article for whatever reason, but who lack the resources or wherewithal to yell at us enough to get our attention. So because of that we keep their articles but not Murphy's? That sends a message that people with relative power and a platform can force us to write the encyclopedia a certain way and severely compromises the integrity of the encyclopedia. The more important Wikipedia becomes the bigger the problem. Next we'll see a pressure campaign from supporters of a mid-sized city mayor who got blown out in an election and doesn't want people to know it, or from fans of a well known soap opera actor who is embarrassed about the shows he or she was in and wants the world to forget about her or his acting career. Eventually we're rewriting parts of history to suit the tastes of those with the ability to pressure us, and I don't want to be a part of a project that does that. I don't think I'm being particularly alarmist about this though I'm sure it might come off that way. The fact is that we know these kind of things will happen because it's happening right now. Thus how we respond right now is quite critical. Sorry for the length, and I really do respect and partially agree with your view Alison, but I do think this is quite important.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's a point to be made there, too, and I guess each deletion review needs to be regarded on its own merits. Still, I'm not buying into the fallacy of the slippery slope here, either. What we do need, and this illustrates this rather well, is some sort of policy to allow BLP subjects a certain redress here, and that's something we don't really have right now. It's all largely down the the individual case. As someone else said below, it may be valid for the subject of an article to wish to have their article deleted and maybe that's something we need to review - Alison ❤ 05:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course I am using a valid form of the slippery slope argument, not a fallacious one (or maybe that's just my opinion?...hmmm). I agree with you that we need to deal with these BLP deletion questions much more formally - as I said it's a problem that will only get bigger. It's the power differential that really upsets me here. I don't like the implication that Murphy's article gets all this attention because he has a bunch of folks who went to bat for him (in a manner of speaking). Not everyone is so lucky nor internet savvy enough to know how to go about talking to us. This is something we need to work on, and perhaps this situation will provide an impetus to do that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I have a problem with the "power differential" aspect of it, too. Might does not make right and I'm loath to "give in" to bullying. However, as you say, this matter may finally provide the impetus to make us address this overall issue once and for all. Because things are definitely not right as they are. So I think we're in agreement on the fundamental issue, but not about this particular deletion - Alison ❤ 05:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • JoshuaZ, besides making a manifestly stupid argument, do you have any damn idea what terrorism actually is? Do you know how asinine it is to compare Don Murphy to someone who would gladly turn your flesh into pulp? I wouldn't normally endorse, but your repeated obnoxious comments on this thread demonstrate that Wikipedia will not be able to maintain a biography on this subject. We're very bad at dealing with our critics. I endorse deletion as in Daniel Brandt and Seth Finkelstein. Cool Hand Luke 16:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Luke, I have a pretty good idea of what terrorism is (although I won't get into the fact that there have been over 50 different defintions of terrorism proposed - it is suprisingly hard to precisely define). And yes, I completely agree and understand that we aren't dealing with people who are killing civilians to accomplish political or religious aims or anything like that. The basic dynamic is the same however; giving to a type of threat and damage in one case sends the message that further threats and damage of the same class will be likely to succeed in the future. The end result is more problems not fewer. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The end result of letting marginally notable people opt out of a potential attack page doesn't seem remotely comparable to any definition of terrorism I'm aware of. I'm telling you that the exception should become the rule; problem solved. Cool Hand Luke 18:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, missing the point. I'm not comparing letting marginally notable people opt-out to terrorism; as I've stated before, some degree of opting out is not unreasonable. The issue I was objecting to in Alison's comment was different and much more problematic; weighing Murphy's harassment of Wikipedians as an additional reason to consider deletion. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • JoshuaZ: no one explicitly says that they're weighing his harassment, she said it's not worth the trouble, by whatever means. Polite trouble makers have also had their articles deleted. You often insinuate that we would treat particular living people better if they would play nice—in my opinion, that has greater potential to compromise our content than simply deleting unwanted articles. At any rate, comparing a living person to a terrorist for making (oh dear) mean comments to Wikipedians is monumentally stupid and prevents me from taking you seriously. Cool Hand Luke 19:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per WjBScribe. Anchoress · Weigh Anchor · Catacomb 04:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too conflicted to come to a coherent position. Don't want to give in to temper tantrums from people with unreasonable demands regarding their own bios, but don't want to be inappropriately influenced in the opposite direction either (defiantly refusing to delete something to say "So There!" to the tantrum-thrower is just as bad as giving in to him). Lots of people I like and trust are voting delete, but I still don't buy the ideology (popular over on those so-called attack sites) that subjects should have an automatic veto right. Don't know enough about the movie industry to actually have a position one way or the other on the degree of inherent notability to his position, though I think the various major-media features about him weigh somewhat in favor of keeping. Am concerned about the lack of proper process in the deletion, where Viridae (another person I generally regard as a "good guy") did the deletion without consensus as a unilateral action and then defiantly insisted that the deleted state was the new status quo which required consensus to change from, a reversal of the normal way things work here, and a tactic reminiscent of that used commonly by the "clique" that Veridae often opposes along with myself. I'm also concerned that once again, the noble WP:BLP policy is being turned into an all-purpose talisman by people wanting to get their way on things... or even a bludgeon to pound silly anybody who gets in the way. But if the article is kept, I'd also be concerned by the tendency on the part of an editor or two to keep inserting an unnecessary degree of irrelevant personal stuff, even getting into what books he likes and who his friends are... is that really necessary to do to somebody who is adamant about their own privacy? That he acts like a jerk on another site or two is no reason to give him either more or less consideration than anybody else. *Dan T.* (talk) 04:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - To me, this would seem a prescient point. Is there a problem with just having an article stating that Don Murphy is a film producer who worked on X, Y and Z movies, rather than aiming a microscope at everything he's done? Looking at the old revisions, one of the most recent had a flat-out biased negative statement of opinion masquerading as fact in its second sentence. Clearly unacceptable in a BLP. FCYTravis (talk) 04:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Murphy has his own fans and detractors unfortunately, some of whom really dislike him. That's a major reason this has been contentious (and that he wants certain easily googlable information about his history, including where he grew up, and any mention spat he got in with a certain highly notable hollywood figure that was reported in a many sources). Certainly if this is overturned it should be on indefinite semiprotection. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn there is no law that says wikipedia is illegal because anyone can edit it. Beware though
    "Murphy is the same scruffy, heart-on-his-sleeve guy as ever. It's still not a good idea to annoy him -- after all, his 6-year-old production company is called Angry Films. He'll happily post a response to the entire World Wide Web at http://www.DonMurphy.net -- or call his lawyer."[2]
    A careful BLP response to genuine content issues should be respected together with the right of people to talk openly about the public lives of celebrities. Ansell 04:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
  • comment Looking through the sources I notice that Murphy actually meets the fairly strong inclusion standard of "no original biograpies" - the idea that the way to draw the line is if someone has no biographical articles about the person and they request deletion then we should delete (this is a standard that is distinct from a number of other proposed standards such as willing public figure. See User:JoshuaZ/Thoughts on BLP). I think it is highly noteworthy that Murphy meets even this stringent standard. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, relist as an AfD if someone wants to. This was completely improper on Viridae's part, particularly given the last, extremely contentious AfD a little over six months ago. As others point out, the subject is not of "borderline notability" (a term with no real definition, which means we literally do not know what we are talking about) and using BLP as a justification for this deletion does not fly. Throw it over to AfD and let's thrash it out there before this goes any further, or at least make this a de facto AfD. But let me elaborate on JoshuaZ's point above re trolling and such. We all know why we are here. Don Murphy is a semi-powerful person with a website and a number of supporters, and he has used that platform and those supporters to foment a rather nasty campaign against Wikipedia and a number of its editors. I'm sure there are any number of people who would like their Wikipedia articles deleted because said articles contain details which said person would rather the world not know. By deleting this article, we are essentially saying that if you have enough money, time, and support and harass us enough we will change content. We are saying that powerful people can pressure us into deleting what is, by our standards, encyclopedic content. Murphy is not some poor teenager who was the victim of a nasty internet meme - I fully support those kind of BLP deletions. He is a completely notable person who has used his position of relative power to try to force us to write the encyclopedia a certain way. Endorse this deletion and we set a standard whereby any person of "borderline notability" (a completely subjective concept which is not made any more objective by Durova's non-policy based "dead-trees standard") who has enough power and enough chutzpah can pressure us into deleting their article. If you think that's fine, okay, but lots of luck with biographies of living persons in the future. Unless of course you think, as some do, that we should have no BLP's, in which case you should support this out-of-process deletion.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion Like User:Alison I am also sick of this whole thing, and believe it is just not worth it. In fact, I will endorse any request for deletion of articles about "semi-notable" people; be it Daniel Brandt, Don Murphy...or Angela. Regards, Huldra (talk) 05:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • And defining semi-notable how? Also, see above exchange with Allison in regards to deleting things we are personally sick of. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have a simpler test: if the subject of the article asks for complete deletion of the article, ad it can be validated that it is actually the subject asking, then just do it. Note I did not say change of statements in the article or removal of information from the article. I said removal of the entire article. If a living person wants to vanish, let them. We don't have to be paparazzi. There are enough of that nasty breed around without our volunteer contributions to the art. Loren.wilton (talk) 05:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Joshua: why not define "semi-notable" by asking: Does the subject have a biography in any other encyclopedia? If they do not, why should we be the first? And yes, I do see that some of the people who object (to their biography) have done so in a rather nasty manner, which (naturally) upset the community and makes us want to "get back", or punish, if you like, the subject by insisting on keeping that biography. As in this case. But I think this is an unwise and "short-sighted" behaviour. We all end up as losers: the subject by having an unfavourable article, and the WP community by coming under constant attack. Don´t get me wrong: I am willing to fight hard for what I consider important. I just do not think that the biography of some person who very few (relatively speaking) outside WP has heard of is important. (And Joshua: had you heard of Don Murphy before he appeared here? I certainly hadn´t.) Regards, Huldra (talk) 05:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Huldra, to answer your questions: first, I'm aware of the standard proposed by Durova of the using the deadtree standard. However, that standard has many problems; 1) unlike a variety of other proposed tests like the willing public figure, it has no underlying rational other than possibly convenience (the point of a willing public figure standard is that a) they are therefore people that society directly benefits from having NPOV descriptions of and b) willingly putting oneself in the public eye removes a lot of the privacy concerns as long as a biography is not invasive). 2) The deadtree standard is becoming increasingly unworkable as deadtree encyclopedias become less common (although I grant given your phrasing above it seems you would include nonpaper encyclopedias). 3) Such a standard rests on what constitutes an "encyclopedia" and this can lead to highly countertuitive results; as Durova has observed, under this standard pretty much any actor who was even a very minor character in Star Trek for a handful of episodes could not request deletion. As to your other points, I'm not advocating that we keep it to "get back" or "punish" Murphy. Far from it, that would be as bad as deleting in response to harassment or threats. The harassment should be simply ignored and we should evaluate this on the merits. The question then becomes is he notable enough that he we can't simply delete his article per a BLP-penumbra request? Well, first, I believe that he is sufficiently notable for that, and even if I were in much doubt, that's something that is properly decided by AfD, not DRV. As to the final inquiry; I'm pretty sure I had heard of Murphy after he had begun his campaign of harassment here. However, I heard about him in a non-Wikipedia context completely unrelated to this. It was only afterwards that I learned about his issues with us. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion (Are non-admins allowed to vote on this stuff? If not, ignore me.) Mr. Murphy is very close to a nonentity even in his chosen profession, so having an article on him is rather questionable in the first place. Mr. Murphy seems to have stated repeatedly, and taken actions matching his statements repeatedly, that would indicate that he does not want an article here. It would seem to me that if we considered ourselves moral human beings rather than tabloid photographers it would be a no-brainer decision. Since the article seemingly refuses to die despite the explicit wishes of the subject of the article, there must be some other form of decisions being made here rather than those based on basic belief (or assumption) of the existance of human dignity. Out of curiosity, why do we allow Wikipedians the right to vanish, but refuse a somewhat similar request from a living person? Shouldn't there be some moral equivalence here? Loren.wilton (talk) 05:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. As has been explained before, for certain classes of people, they have willingly become public figures and a reasonable encyclopedia would be incomplete without them. In this case, we are not in fact dealing with a nonentity but a major movie producer who produced Natural Born Killers and the recent Transformers movies. Nonentities don't have articles in the New York Times about them, among others. Oh, and while we're at it, the comparison to the right to vanish while superficially reasonable doesn't hold any water; even if this article is deleted there will be hundreds of sites about Murphy, and the right to vanish is applying to people who haven't interjected themselves into the public eye nor is anything lost by having their userpages blanked. JoshuaZ (talk) 05:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • The claim that "a reasonable encyclopedia would be incomplete without them" is absurd on its face (unless we define every encyclopedia except Wikipedia as unreasonable). We should really reconsider the low bar we set for BLPs. Cool Hand Luke 18:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is not that other encyclopedia are unreasonable, but that they are incomplete. They have much more serious restrictions about what they can reasonably contain due to lack of editors, hierarchical nature, expense of paper forms and a variety of other constraints. We have the opportunity to make an encyclopedia that is what a complete encyclopedia would be. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Wikipedia is not paper? You don't say. Here's the problem: Wikipedia is also not supposed to be a platform for defamation. We honestly don't have the resources to manage all of the BLPs, cf. Seigenthaler. If we're dealing with someone who is not paper-encyclopedia-notable, we should give considerable deference to their wishes when—as has been the case here—the article has previously been used for attacks. If you or someone else would like to make a proposal to perpetually protect some biographies, I think that would be a wonderful idea. Under such a system, I'd be the first person to want this restored. But implementing this in an add-hoc way is wasteful. Many biographies need this treatment. Cool Hand Luke 19:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • On the contrary, very few biographies would need this treatment. The ones that are heavily vandalized are generally ones like George W. Bush where a) vandalism will embarrass us, not the subject and b) have many editors looking at them. The fraction that are in this sort of case is very tiny, and in any event, the subject here doesn't seem to think very fondly of permanent protection either (indeed, from some of his comments I'm not sure he'd be any happier at all if we had a permanently fully-protected article). What might in the long make sense is a variation of semi-protection where one could protect so that someone can only edit if they are an admin or have more than x edits and have been around for at least y days. Then for articles like this one, we'd set x and y to reasonably large, say maybe y=30 and x= 500. But in the meantime, the attention this article has gotten makes it likely to be one of the safest from long-term vandalism for the foreseeable future. Another idea might be to have a special recent changes patrol that only looked at BLPs. But the overall issue does stand; we do have the resources to do this. The really serious problems only occur for a very small fraction of articles. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • I'm sorry that's completely wrong. Seigenthaler-like articles are the real liability because they don't have enough eyeballs to ensure that defamation is eliminated. These articles are the ones that could host defamation for months. Cool Hand Luke 20:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • I'm in complete agreement there; Seigenthaler situations are the worst-case scenarior; ruin our credibility(bad), make the foundation possibly vulnerable(very bad), and can ruin peoples' lives (very very bad). But deleting this article won't help deal with that sort of situation at all. We really haven't come up with a good way of handling those sort of situations (and I'd be inclined to argue that all the effort spent debating BLP-penumbra issues is wasting resources that should be spent looking at strict BLP issues). JoshuaZ (talk) 21:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse Deletion per Viridae and Alison. Ripberger (talk) 05:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse Deletion. I disagree with Durova that we should use a "dead trees" standard: I think that goes too far. However, this is clearly a very borderline case at best. Looking at the sources in the deleted article, there is only one actually about Murphy, a Reuters news profile. That would be enough for me normally but here (1) there's been a request for deletion from the subject, and (2) I doubt there is much out there that is any better than this, because of the level of attention these debates have received. Don Murphy gets mentioned a lot, but not much is written about him. He's actually pretty obscure, and I have no problem courtesy deleting articles on obscure subjects. Mangojuicetalk 05:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Look at all the sources listed including in the previous versions. We have in addition to the Reuter's article the New York Times and others. When there is an article about you in the NYT it is much harder to claim that we don't have much in the way of sourcing. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mr. Murphy has requested that the following statement be posted:
For the record, we have 154 articles in Category:Film producers, and another 357 tagged as "film-producer-stub", plus 8 listed under 'documentary filmmakers", plus 72 subcategories of "film producers by nationality". I'm not going to bother checking each of those subcategories, but each has at least 1 entry ("Irish film producers" has 9 entries, but "Cypriot film producers" only has 1... let's be conservative and say that every single other category only has 1 entry too, so that's another 80), for a total of 663 film producers on whom we have articles (not including Mr Murphy, of course). DS (talk) 15:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Responding briefly to Murphy's comment above, a variety of the sources are biographical, such as the reuters piece. And while the NYT website does focus on the website, it does contain a large amount of information about Murphy himself. And Amarkov, in the future, I suggest you think very very strongly before posting comments from banned users that contain borderline personal attacks. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
People have a right to defend themselves, whether or not they are banned. I did think very strongly about doing this, and resent the implication that I didn't. Or is that a veiled threat? -Amarkov moo! 03:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
People have a right to defend themselves and we have a simple mechanism for them to do so; it is called OTRS. He was welcome to email someone on OTRS and let them decide whether it was worth sticking his comment here. It isn't like anything he has said is at all new, other than that he's maybe decided that I'm going to be his next target. Frankly, I see that as less than helpful. As to threats, none were intended, if I had meant to make a threat it would be very clear; however, as far as I am concerned, if you've read Murphy's previous statements that we are all aware of that he made on wiki and you did think hard about this, you would have realized how little this comment adds to the conversation. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
People have a right to defend themselves and have their statement read by those who make a decision. Sending it to OTRS members who probably won't decide to post it does not accomplish this. I don't think it really matters if anything he said is new; there's no rule that says no statements may be repeated. -Amarkov moo! 05:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah I see, so you are saying you made the decision to post this knowing that if the decision were up to OTRS, who the community and the Foundation have entrusted with making precisely this sort decision they would not post it, and yet you post it anyways? Interesting. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Really? The community has entrusted OTRS to do this? I was never told about the OTRS elections; could someone inform me next time they come around? -Amarkov moo! 02:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OTRS is overseen by the communications committee which if you didn't notice has a variety of community representatives. I note that you ignore the matter of the Foundation approving OTRS. Given that we are dealing with a user who has made legal threats, letting actual policy, both .en and Foundation policy, rather than your own say so might have been a good idea. The bottom line is that we have an approved process for this which has been carefully thought out by the Foundation and you seem to be saying that you ignored that process because you knew that it would give a result you didn't prefer which involved posting information we were already aware of. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did indeed ignore that process because it would give a result that did not square with Murphy's right to be heard in a discussion about his own article. This is because I place ethics above process. -Amarkov moo! 04:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You mean you put your personal judgment over the judgment of the Foundation to add statements by a banned user that even you agree add no new data to the conversation. In any event, this is getting pretty far off-topic, if you feel any further need to justify your deliberately ignoring the set procedure and skipping the judgment of others because you knew you might not like the outcome, we can discuss this on my or your talk page. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We're all capable of reading the Wikipedia Review, there's no need to have a direct pipe of the tripe here. John Reaves 06:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in favor of keeping the article, but the very least we can do is allow the subject of the article to explain where he is coming from. I could not care less that this was originally posted on WR - it presents a perfectly reasonable argument, worthy of consideration, from a person who certainly has a right to be heard.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn deletion; list (if one likes) at AfD I don't imagine that I need to set forth the reasons for which Viridae malapprehends our BLP summary deletion standards (as I've often noted [and ought probably to note in an essay], WP:BLPUNDEL is not infrequently used in a fashion inconsistent with the principles and deletion standards of BLP upon which it is based—the ArbCom, after all, does not make policy, and so principles articulated in the decisions of the Committee follow from community-approbated guidelines and policies; decisions, too, are mooted where the community plainly interprets policy in a new fashion or gives it assent to overriding policy or practice), not least because they're not particularly relevant here; we need not to discuss whether our presumption with respect to BLPs is now against keeping (or against restoration after summary deletion; it's not, in either case), because the community already contemplated the disposition of this article under the present incarnation of BLP (that, that is, with the "Presumption in favor of privacy" and "BLP deletion standards" the absence of which in a few older AfDs has led to the DRV-sustained summary deletion of the underlying articles) and, having weighed the subject's objections, determined them (rightly so, IMHO) not to be dispositive, in view, one supposes, of his being well over whatever threshold of semi-notability the average editor might propound. It must also be noted that because there is no BLP1E issue here, summary deletion really ought not to be taken in the absence of a submission that every single version in the article's history was violative of BLP, and no one, at least as far as I can see, makes such a submission here; at the very, very most, stubbifying and protecting in order that an AfD might be had would have sufficed (even that, I think, would have been far too much overreach in the face of expressed community consensus). We have yet, AFAIK, to conclude firmly that there exist some biographical subjects whose articles necessarily would elicit such injections of inappropriate material (especially, in the case of those who are notable but who have not received significant treatment in secondary sources, of material in a form grander than that which it merits) that we simply must not permit those articles to exist, but the subject—who is, as Joshua notes, volitionally public—appears to suggest that do so here ("because no matter what you write in it, someone can come along tomorrow and start all over again"); because, at the very worst, we might simply maintain a stub that asserts the notability of the subject but doesn't go much further ("Don Murphy is an American film producer and screenwriter...") and then fully protect that stub (permitting the community to consider expansions on the article's talk page before requesting edits made to the protected page), I, for one, would decline to take that step, and would observe that there exists neither in our policy nor in our practice anything to suggest that the community as a whole are prepared to take, or are interested in taking, that step. Joe 06:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion After following this issue for sometime (I lurk quite a bit), I think that the right decision was made.--Toffile (talk) 07:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. This needs to go to AfD, I'm afraid. There is no speedy criterion which comes close. And I have to say that the subject's assertion that he is a private person is somewhat contradicted by his IMDB profile, which shows several appearances as "self" in minor documentaries. His view that Wikipedia having an article on him is somehow "illegal" is, I think, founded on the fact that we can't give him editorial control.Guy (Help!) 14:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn because there was no AFD discussion and the last AFD was a WP:SNOW for Keep. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion. We really have no moral right to have articles on living persons who request deletion unless we can be completely clear that it will never get vandalized by libel, or POV, or nonsense. We do not have an article about everybody that is notable. We can afford to wait until the subject is dead, then have an article. Every case of this kind is a distraction we can do without. --Bduke (talk) 07:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's quite the slippery slope, there. Any living person can get any article, about him or herself, deleted just by asking (because the assurance you ask for, perfection and protection, can't exist on a wiki). That position is not sustainable. . . at least Durova's idea has a dead tree theshold. R. Baley (talk) 07:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course it is sustainable. We wait until they are dead. In practice there are hundreds of articles on LPs such as scientists, academics and politicians, where they do not ask to be removed. It is the view that "it is not possible to ensure we will never libel you because this is a wiki, so just live with it" that is not sustainable. Someday, one is going to sue. --Bduke (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can see where you are coming from as this guy is famous in the US. I'm not sure we in Oz agree. However, yes, I would. He sounds just the sort of guy who would sue. However, as I noted before politicians do not seem to want their articles deleted. But if he does, then yes, delete it until he is dead. It is the price we have to pay until we can protect pages about living people from stupid dangerous vandalism. We are just a web site. If we want to be taken seriously as an encyclopedia, we have to properly protect biographies of living persons. Have you seen the stuff that I and others revert on Antoine Lavoisier. We can not afford that on bios of living persons. --Bduke (talk) 10:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • A standard of any requested deletion would at least be consistent but it is manifestly not what we have here and not what the community consensus has been in the past. Furthermore, this is again the sort of thing that should be dealt with on AfD not DRV. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore IF there are reliable third party sources for a NPOV article (I can't see if there were since the article is currently deleted). Take it to Afd if you want.--MONGO 07:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The last version prior to deletion (admin only) had reliable third party sources, yes (Reuters, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Yahoo movies). The version prior to some overzealous content stripping (admin only) had those plus the New York Times, LA Weekly, Houston Chronicle, IGN, Entertainment Weekly, and a book (Hamsher, Jane (1998). Killer Instinct. Broadway. ISBN 0767900758). It needed unsourced stuff removing, but a lot of baby was thrown out with the bathwater (chiefly by Runabrat and Curiosity Inc.) Neıl ☎ 10:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe Mongo is trying to emphasize the fact that he is not an admin and the above link will do him no good. Could somebody please paste the contents somewhere for the duration of this discussion? I doubt it's as problematic as some have suggested, but I too would like to know for sure. — CharlotteWebb 19:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn If we needed a good reason to eliminate the policy on respecting subjects opinions about whether they should have a article, this certainly gives it. It shows how it can be misused by otherwise good people. While we still have that rule in place, I agree with Ned's argument that this is not the sort of thing any admin can invoke against consensus. "subject requests deletion" is a borderline issue, not like removing libel and unsourced negative opinion in general. This is way outside what the policy was intended for. If someone wanted to obstruct the policy altogether, the best way would be to try to overextend this. DGG (talk) 08:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break two

  • Overturn It's a good, well-sourced article about a notable figure. Endorse as per Alison. Jeff Biggs (talk) 08:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse nobody is going to miss an article on Murphy, no one is going to come along and wonder why we don't have an article on him - he's asked for the deletion and the article is so close to the borderline of our notability guidelines it doesn't really matter either way. let's give the guy some peace and get some peace for ourselves. -- Naerii · plz create stuff 08:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor correction: he's demanded deletion because he asserts that our having an article on him is somehow illegal, and he and his supporters have engaged in some pretty unpleasant attacks because we have twice failed to delete it after lengthy debates. Guy (Help!) 14:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is not the right thing building an objective, comprehensive encyclopedia, rather than producing positive P.R. for very sensitive bunnies, and putting blinders on when that can't be done? --Badger Drink (talk) 05:17, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not trying to poison the well, but I doubt I'm the only one who sees the irony in saying that the producer of several blockbuster films is "close to the borderline of our notability guidelines" while simultaneously encouraging the creation of asteroid-stubs via the link in that hot-pink signature block of yours. You might want to dispassionately ask yourself whether that would make sense to anyone. — CharlotteWebb 19:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree in the strongest of terms, though respectfully. Don Murphy is currently a gaping hole in the fabric of our coverage while missing asteroids are an unfinished void on the outskirts of a general-purpose encyclopedia. Of course, missing information (whether it's about Don Murphy or 543 Charlotte) is always an obstacle to completing of the sum of verifiable human knowledge which, mind you, cannot actually be achieved unless time stops progressing but editing somehow continues (we will never be able be able to document knowledge at more than a tiny fraction of the speed at which it is created, not until "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" literally has everyone editing it, and even then I have my doubts). Do create stubs about asteroids, I'll fight to keep them on AFD. But please don't try to advance a lopsided standard of "borderline notability", whatever the hell that means. — CharlotteWebb 21:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that this argument is made by someone who has only recently been unblocked for being a vandal-only account. This is something that should be considered by the closing administrator. Jeff Biggs (talk) 14:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore this article on a clearly notable individual. This debate needs to refocus on the matter at hand, examining only the facts: The reason given by Viridae for deletion was that Murphy has "Borderline notability" and that in such circumstances where the subject requests deletion, this should be respected. Fair enough. However, the notability of Don Murphy has been clearly demonstrated, there's nothing borderline about it. He is a name producer, with credits on many high profile films, yes, but he's also received independent coverage in his own right, in string of reliable, notable publications, as the recent revision by RTFA shows. There is no ambiguity over his notability whatsoever; therefore, the article should be restored, where civil discussions can continue over the actual content. Should Viridae or another editor wish it deleted, it should be taken to a third AfD. All the best, Steve T • C 09:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, while I believe that Viridae sincerely acted in good faith, I also believe that he was sincerely wrong. I can see the last version of the article prior to deletion, and can state with assurance that there are no BLP problems in it. It's really, to tell the truth, very bland. It is well-sourced, and it's clear that Mr. Murphy is a figure who is not unknown. The only "BLP" problem here is that he doesn't want an article. In very borderline cases, I would possibly support "upon-request" deletion. However, this is not a borderline case. The subject of this article is clearly notable, well-covered in reliable sources, and a neutral, well-referenced article can be written. As to his tactics, they should not influence our decision one way or the other—we should not "punish" him by keeping the article, nor, especially, should we reward him by giving him his wish. The best defense against such tactics being used in the future is to ignore them today, and simply look at the article and ask "Does this article pass our content policies, or does it not?" In this case, the answer is "yes, it does", so the proper course of action is to undelete it, and in the future, to take it to AfD if deletion is desired. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, create a barebones article that states nothing but bland, referenced facts, lock it indefinitely, and throw away the key, leaving it "as is" forever. Taking it to AFD following the closure this DRV could also be appropriate (presuming the consensus is to restore the article). There was no justifiable reason for an arbitrary deletion. We do defer to the wishes of the subject if the subject exhibits borderline notability, but Don Murphy easily meets our biographical requirements. Viridae is usually pretty sensible, but - and I've said this before - quoting "WP:BLP!" in a deletion summary is not some kind of diplomatic immunity that allows an admin to delete what they like, and I think this wasn't an appropriate use of the delete button. Neıl ☎ 10:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I would like to note that since having a look for sources, I've even discovered that Mr. Murphy apparently is the subject of a real, published biography! [10] Discussing "borderline notability" is ludicrous at that point. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore and if necessary, put it under permanent protection, seeing that it's vandalism issues that seem to be causing the problems. I too can read the original article, and there's nothing remotely controversial or that could possibly be considered libellous. This is actually a pretty good "minor but important in their field" article. — iridescent 10:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn using Neil's proposal. Will (talk) 10:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. The two AFDs on the subject are about as clear a "keep" consensus as we can get. Murphy is a Hollywood producer who has produced famous movies like Natural Born Killers, and very clearly notable. Not "barely notable", not "notable after reading WP:BIO", but notable in the sense that people interested in film-making WANT an article. The suggestion that any public figure can demand the deletion of their policy-conforming and well-referenced biography has the capability of causing serious disruption to Wikipedia, and using BLP to justify this undermines the acceptance of the policy. Use BLP when there is a BLP violation, don't use it as a blank check to delete any biography you don't like. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore article. We really deleted an article about a guy who produced Natural Born Killers and the Transformers movie? Really? Weighted Companion Cube (are you still there?/don't throw me in the fire) 12:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Please take a moment to see Don Murphy established as a public figure by multiple reliable sources: User:RTFA/Sandbox. If my red color is inappropriate, please remove it. I think this is information relevant to Don Murphy's notability. RTFA (talk) 13:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Half-notable more-trouble-than-he's-worth individual. Some would call it courtesy deletion - I'd call it deny recognition. EconomicsGuy (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per comments made by Viridae and Allison. This has gone on long enough and it needs to be wiped clean. seicer | talk | contribs 14:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • By "wipe clean", do you mean "delete and start the article over, as if from a clean slate", "cleanly wipe him from the encyclopedia", or something completely different? — CharlotteWebb 20:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and restore versions without BLP issues, keep the rest deleted. I believe that Viridae acted in good faith, but BLP doesn't support the wholesale deletion of articles unless every version is a BLP violation. I've only seen the cached version, but it at least wasn't. As for the BLP deletion standards, they don't apply in this case; there was no AfD this time. I'm not going to mess with any of the other issues relating to this article, as they really don't apply. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 14:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • List at AFD The mechanism for BLP violations is to stub and rewrite the article if there is no safe version to revert to. Deletion only happens if its a speedy (which this isn't) or if the subject is of borderline notability after an AFD. So I guess we need the AFD bit here to decide how notable this bloke it. Spartaz Humbug! 14:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Was obviously not a pure attack page, and that's the only time it's appropriate to speedy delete a BLP. This should go through AFD if it's going to be deleted. --Tango (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Like Neil, I think we need to be creative in these situations and realize that there are other alternatives to outright deletion or outright live-and-let-live. I don't buy the argument that Murphy's notability (whatever that means) is dubious. Film producers have quite a bit of influence, especially in the early phase of a film project. Sure, they're not the public face of the film industry (unless their name is Jerry Bruckheimer) but if Wikipedia is to cover the film industry in any depth, we need these articles. If there are BLP concerns, let's just lock the article into a fairly bland version as Neil suggests. There is no need to really include information that goes significantly beyond what the IMDb has.[11] I understand that we need to respect the opinion of people who are uncomfortable with a Wikipedia article about their life, but I don't think we can accept their objection to a Wikipedia article about their career if that career is meaningful. If we need to closely monitor the article so that it doesn't drift in the wrong direction, then we'll monitor it. If that means protecting the article, we'll protect it. I don't care so much about the fact that the deletion was out of process, but the deletion was nevertheless a bad decision. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 15:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn deletion, the article was kept after two AFDs and the sources Neil mentions and the links in User:RTFA/Sandbox provide evidence that Don Murphy is notable, and a public person. "The Don Murphy board" is only further evidence that yes, he is a public person. We have protection for dealing with vandalism. --Pixelface (talk) 15:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn deletion Respect the initiative, and I sympathize with Don Murphy, but he's clearly famous and notable. We do thing by consensus and communal norms here, not by fiat by lone people and/or arm twisting from any or all directions. Overturn and send it to AFD for a proper review. Recommend that Viridae write the AFD and send it there--write a compelling, bulletproof deletion rationale under policy and I'm sure it will go. Lawrence § t/e 15:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Token, and half-hearted, keep deleted I actually don't think deleting on the subject's request is a scalable way to address our BLP problems or potential for privacy invasion, but that's another story. However, until we mature enough to work out a decent system that doesn't allow us to get to the place where we have such articles, I'll back this ill-formed principle. We don't need this, he doesn't want this, kill it with stones. And let's have a serious ethical discussion soon.--Docg 15:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion Barely notable. Not enough to warrant this mess. Eusebeus (talk) 15:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But why not deal with the mess? It's not like protection isn't an option. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 16:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and take to AFD as noted by Neil above. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:03, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I note that some of those !voting to overturn the deletion are doing so on the condition that it is restored to the state it was in a few days ago, before RTFA added the new content. This is fair enough, no problem with that whatsoever, but some are arguing further that it should essentially be locked in this state, to prevent further additions. I would urge these people to reconsider this position; we cannot have subjects of articles determining their content. To a certain extent, yes, where BLP violations exist, content can be excluded. But not simply because Murphy objects to something he personally doesn't like, but which doesn't harm him or defame him in any way. RTFA's version probably contained a line or two of information I'd have left out, but it was largely even-handed and was cited to within an inch of its teeth. As that version of the article showed, Murphy's belligerence is one of the reasons why he is notable in the first place; much of the coverage concerns his reputation, which has done him a lot of good in the industry. I hope you can all see that the decision made here will have the potential to have major ramifications on Wikipedia's treatment of notable living persons as a whole. Steve T • C 16:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • But leaving the article unlocked has led to serious defamation of Murphy, which is what attracted his attention to the article in the first place. And those defamations, or some of them, are in the history log. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. Protecting the article is not the preferred option, but it is a viable one, especially if Mr. Murphy feels that his privacy and reputation are at stake. That does not necessarily mean that the article will not be updated or developed: it just means we'll be extra careful in doing so. Yes, as a courtesy. In an ideal world this wouldn't be necessary but it seems like a very viable compromise for now. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 16:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn per Seraphimblade. If an AfD results in a "delete" outcome based on consideration of our content policies (and, to some extent, the subject's wishes), that's fine; however, we do not delete articles for the sole reason that the subject requested it. At most, the article should have been blanked and a third AFD started. Black Falcon (Talk) 17:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn due to lack of process; potentially relist on AfD. However, I am essentially in favor of having this article; I think that Murphy is too notable for us to delete his article. My preferred solution to this is basically the one expressed by Neil above: restrict the article to simple and uncontroversial facts and full-protect it for the rest of Murphy's life (or at least until he changes his mind about all this, or until he becomes substantially more notable). This should address Murphy's core complaint, which seems to be that "any kid with a computer can add anything" to the article. If it was indefinitely full-protected, we could have a somewhat adequate article while seemingly satisfying Murphy's objection (although I admit I'm not sure this would actually satisfy him). Everyking (talk) 17:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Then there's no point in even having an article. As I outline above, should the article be recreated and survive the inevitable subsequent AfD, Murphy should not be the arbiter of what it includes. The integrity of the encyclopedia would not survive if every subject of an article was able to pick and choose what it contained. Any content issues can be discussed civilly between the involved editors, on the article's talk page, and this should not be within the scope of the closing admin's decision. Steve T • C 18:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't see why an indefinitely protected article, covering all the most important things about Murphy, wouldn't be better than no article at all. I didn't argue to give Murphy control over the content—I doubt he would even be willing to exercise such control if we gave it to him, because he seems to hold our project in such utter contempt. The key thing in Murphy's case seems to be that he doesn't want an article that anybody can edit, so logically the matter should be settled if the article can no longer be edited. Everyking (talk) 03:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Viridae's speedy deletion was inappropriate, and should be overturned. As for another AfD, well, I don't really look forward to one at this point, since it will pretty much be a rehash of most of this page. So I believe we should restore the article, but with no mandate for an AfD. Although it is rather inevitable anyway. seresin | wasn't he just...? 19:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Overturn. The merits of the article are moot... WP:DRV is here to review whether the deletion was appropriate or not. This wasn't, since it occurred out of process. We don't delete articles over content disputes. If, indeed, the article is worthy of deletion, than the deleting admin should have taken it to WP:AFD. Justin chat 16:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break three

  • Overturn and relist shouldn't have been deleted like this - it wasn't a blatant attack page (the last version before deletion looks neutral to me), and it had survived two recent AfDs. People at the AfD can take the subject's wishes into account. Hut 8.5 17:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • overturn and keep article- lots of sources in this article, the comments about him personally were sourced, this was an in depth and thorough, balanced article. Deleter has an agenda which has been encouraged by other sites on which Mr. Murphy is participating and his actions tolerated despite them being like those for which he has been blocked here numerous times. As to limiting the article's content- nothing here isn't sourced, we shouldn't make it a paltry stub just to cow-tow to aggressive demands for which the person concerned has been blocked. Not that the person hasn't a right to be treated objectively- but this article is treating him objectively, and is sourced. I don't get what's wrong with mentioning the fact that he is/was married, with no other comment on that in the article, and mentioning reliable sources which mention other's experiences of him- modus operandi which editors here have seen to be accurate and been on the receiving end of themselves so we know to be fact- and sourced. The special, the random, the lovely Merkinsmum 17:53, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too conflicted to come to a coherent position. per Dan T. :) Ok, more seriously, there are some very serious issues here that are pulling matters in different directions. Anyone who is absolutely certain of either keep or delete ought to be looked at askance, really. (it's not that simple) I have great sympathy for the notion that marginally notable people should not have articles. If we adopted the suggested "is this person in 2 paper encyclopedias already" criteria I think this would be a clear delete. But I'm not really sure if Don is notable, straight up, or just "marginally notable", as I'm not familiar enough with Hollywood to be sure. I like what someone on IRC said (and what some have said above) ... make a 2 sentence article saying "Don Murphy is a producer who produced movies such as N and T" (for whatever values of N and T are appropriate) and then lock it down forever. Should Viridae have just up and deleted it? Probably not. But if it's an asserted BLP violation, it shouldn't be restored either, the safe thing to do, I thought we already established, was leave it deleted and discuss, not restore, and THEN act. There is no rush, after all. ++Lar: t/c 18:43, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Like this version (admins only). Thanks, SqueakBox 18:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yep. That's an approach I have some sympathy with, even if it's against our policy as written. ++Lar: t/c 19:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I get Murphy's annoyance; the article has been subject to vandalism in the past (though has never been the attack page he claims), some of which went unnoticed for a little while. But we're getting better at spotting that kind of thing these days, and this article in particular I'm sure will be watched by many people for a long time to come. But it's a bad idea to have a "locked-down" version; no subject of an article should be the arbiter of what that article contains. I surely don't need to spell out why. Steve T • C 20:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • As someone pointed out somewhere, the notability policy was built to keep articles "out"... using it to keep them in might be inappropriate. This isn't the place to discuss policy change but maybe we need to revisit policy again for marginably notable people. I am not convinced Don is marginably notable. I've argued before that he is too notable not to have a bio. But if we can't do a good job of keeping a larger one clean maybe a stubbed locked down one is the approach to take. Not just for Don but for other lower notability people subject to distortion too. ++Lar: t/c 13:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn Easily notable under any of our policies or guidelines we have as far as I can tell - can anyone say after checking all the sources pointed to in this discussion and in the deleted article they would have nominated this article for deletion if the subject of the article had not raised the issue? If not then it clearly does not meet any marginally notable standard which is laid down in WP:BLP. Regardless I cannot see any policy based reason for deletion for an admin deleting this article themselves. The subjects wishes can be taken into account in closing an AFD if they are marginally notable but as this article has easily survived two AFDs as keeps during which the subject's wishes were already raised - quite rightly due to substantial and significant coverage in reliable sources - there are no grounds for anyone deleting this page. If this article is allowed to stay deleted then we are basically just rewriting policy here at deletion review. (edit conflicted several times!) Davewild (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn - notability is clearly established and can be backed up with verifiable references from reliable sources (at least reliable by Wikipedia's definition). This isn't an "opt-out" encyclopedia - an article subject has as little right to have his article deleted as he does to create an article about himself - which is to say, only where our guidelines already support such actions. Content issues relating to BLP certainly should be dealt with as they occur, but by re-editing, not deletion. Behavior issues, however, are for dispute resolution, culminating in ArbCom if need be. Murphyites can be handled through sensible page protection where appropriate. The point being - we have plenty of processes to appropriately handle this article without destroying it or being cowed by the subject. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn as per FT2 who nails it. This was an out of process deletion contrary to policy and reiterated past consensus. If we want to give a subject a veto over whether to have an article, we'll change the policy. If the article as written violates policy, edit. It's not that I don't sympathize with the subject and the way Wikipedia apparently screwed him in the past, it's that we have an encyclopedia to maintain and we're capable of maintaining it in a way that does no injustice to him. Noroton (talk) 19:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it wasn't obvious from the deletion log, or my previous comments, I think this was an poor deletion and should be overturned. John Reaves 20:19, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn producer of several notable films Transformers, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film) , Natural Born Killers and From Hell (film) and more. He is notable and it was proven. It had reliable sources.— Ѕandahl 20:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn out of process deletion contrary to existing consensus. The community has not once, but twice already refuted the very arguments used to delete the article with overwhelming consensus. Also per FT2. (1 == 2)Until 20:58, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, delete BLP violations, relist at AFD. If we don't follow procedures then why have them? If we should take subject's wishes into account, then write guidelines to that effect. But don't make up new procedures for each situation. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. As others have said, FT2 nails it. I'm sure Viridae acted in good faith, but the decision was simply wrong and out of process. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Additional comment. I've taken the time to do a Factiva search and found many, many references to Murphy, including entire profiles of him. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that he meets the notability standard. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/Merge by whatever means needed. Information that should be in Wikipedia does not need to be in a faux biography that just causes trouble for the subject and us. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could you explain what you mean by a faux biography and could you possibly suggest merge targets? Because I'm not seeing any obvious ones. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • What I mean by "faux biography" is that because of NOR and the lack of substantial unbiased coverage of him, we can't really create a well rounded biography of him and are left with bits and pieces of his life strung together in a way that looks like a biography but really isn't as it is more a list of facts found on the internet. Balance, depth, and insight are missing. As or merge targets, see the talk page. WAS 4.250 (talk) 02:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are we looking at the same article versions and sources? Because I'm having a lot of trouble seeing what we're missing. I don't see any original research issues or any lack of balance and depth. As to a lack of "insight" you're going to have to define that erm more precisely because I don't know what you mean; indeed, I'd be inclined to ask after you define insight if you could kindly explain how that exists in our best articles like say today's FA? JoshuaZ (talk) 02:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • There are multiple versions of the article and none of them contain information that a professionally produced unbiased researched biography would have because we have the NOR rule and there is no such existing biography. Read that again. I am not saying the article has OR. I am explaining my use of the word "faux" and am comparing this article to non-wikipedia biographies, not to Wikipedia's FA. WAS 4.250 (talk) 03:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I see. So the claim being made is that since we don't have any biography that goes into every detail of his life (which would be impossible for all but a few individuals anyways. Obviously, Murphy is not Issac Newton or even Stanley Kubrick) that what exactly? If this is an attempted standard for "we should delete if they request if there isn't any non-faux biography" you'll forgive me if I see that as a less than clear and workable standard. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • Strawman. I explained my use of the word "faux", because you asked. Take the word "faux" out to read my actual argument without your confused take on it. Apparently you just like to argue. Goodnight, I'm done here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • Well, I'm sorry but I really am confused by this; it either seems to be extreme (i.e. the Newton example) or it seems to be a vague standard. I don't see precisely how one would apply this to other articles or tell where the line is. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. Many versions of the article are unspeakably crap, if not worse, but some seem to be in line with best practice. A problem then, but not an insuperable one. I don't find any "basic human dignity" issue here, or any other sort of BLP problem, which would require summary deletion. This is not comparable with Peppers, Doran, Schwartz, et al. Viridae's argument leaves me quite unmoved. The subject, while at best nearly famous, is likely to sail through an AfD, probably for all the wrong reasons. For that reason I see no point in having another AfD. I find WAS 4.250's suggestion interesting, but like JoshuaZ I am not seeing how this could work. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indeed, I suggested something similar here; a complex merge involving the creation of an article on Murphy's current production company. He rejected this idea out of hand, which was for the best really, as since then, RTFA's edits, whether one considers them out of line or not, have clearly demonstrated Murphy's independent notability beyond that of his production company. Such an idea may have been feasible had he been with the same company all his career, but as things stand we don't have that option (and that was before I read all about the Brandt affair -- wow). Steve T • C 23:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteNot sure what the point of all this is or why JoshuaZ feels so passionately about the situation, but to me it is very simple- I agree with Durova. The Thompson Dictionary of Film, The Maltin Film Guide, I checked 6 major Film Reference books in my library- the guy is not mentioned. Because, ummm he is not a major player in the field mebbe? Add to that his desire to be left alone and I have to agree, let it go.HydeDoctor (talk) 03:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)— HydeDoctor (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
    • And those books were updated last? Oh and by the way, I don't feel passionately about any of this; I think that we should have an article on this individual and that at minimum Viridae's deletion after two consensus AfDs of keep is not something that we should support. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • With absolute respect, you have more comments and more arguments on this page than anyone by far. While there is NOTHING wrong with that, it does mean you are either obsessed or passionate and I chose the least offensive adjective.HydeDoctor (talk) 03:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Or it means I have many things to say. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I have been on Wikipedia for some time, and have edited various articles. I am not a single purpose account. I am not a BIG man like you but you do not have to talk down to me. Thank you.HydeDoctor (talk) 04:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • You'll forgive my skepticism about you not being an SPA given your staggering total 25 edits most of which are related to the subject of Don Murphy or his films and the most recent one that is only marginally connected is taking part in an extreme personal attack on one of our most respected users. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • And again, there is nothing wrong with being passionate about something. You passionately think the page should be kept. Sure looks like you will be getting your wish based on the votes. To answer your previous question, sir, three of the books are 2008, one is 2007 one 2005 and one 2004. Cheers. HydeDoctor (talk) 04:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • Well, thanks, so we actually got some useful data about the presence of dead tree sources. Thanks for being useful. And again, I 'm not passionate; my interest is quite dispassionate, but if you are passionate and only have edited about Murphy that does make you an SPA so thanks for confirming that. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                  JoshuaZ, in reading this string I see some phrasing by you that gives me concern. "little SPA" is an inappropriate way to refer to someone, and "thanks being useful" is also not very calm. Please don't let your concern about this matter influence how you speak to others, whatever their status. Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 13:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Well, you are likely correct about the "little SPA"- I've removed that. The other part other than the missing "for" I have trouble seeing as problematic, he was helpful; the information he gave is very pertinent to those who favor the paper-encyclopedia standard. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Although your support is flattering, HydeDoctor, there have been so few edits on your account that JoshuaZ's concern is a reasonable one. Wikipedia does see an influx of single purpose accounts and sleeper socks at contentious discussions. It will be up to the closing administrator to decide whether to count your input. DurovaCharge! 04:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • HydeDoctor, I see nothing resembling obsession from JoshuaZ. I also think his concerns that your account was created for one purpose are reasonable considering the context. (1 == 2)Until 05:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and restore or relist, has survived two AFDs and didn't violate WP:BLP in any way based on the most recent edits. Consensus on those AFDs was that the subject was notable according to existing guidelines, and I see no reason to disagree at this point even if the subject decides he wants to bully users here into getting his way rather than use more constructive outlets. The concerns people are having here are nothing protection or oversight (or individual deletion of edits per WP:BLP) can't fix. If you want to talk notability, go to AFD, but I see no reason why another AFD would result in a delete outcome. --Coredesat 06:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore the stubbed-down version only, or else keep deleted. This should never be allowed to grow more than that stub paragraph again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think proclaiming 'never' at this time is a bit premature. Unless the subject completely retires from all public activities, the potential to add NPOV, RS'd material exists. TheRedPenOfDoom (talk) 19:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Restore/overturn deletion. Reviewing the arguments on this article, I find FT2, WJScribe & RTFA make the most persuasive arguments. Although Viridae meant well, he acted incorrectly here. The concept of "notable" is intended to kick out the cruft of articles written about someone's best friend, love interest, relative, or grade school teacher; if there is a reasonable expectation that a user will want to know more about a given person, there should be an article about her/him. Further, Neil's proposal, as interesting as it is, does not work in this case; were I to want to look up the article about Murphy, I would reasonably want to know objective or verifiable details about him like the year of his birth, education, & the details of his career. As for criticism about him, if it appears in a reliable source then that source should be creditted; if it is simply the gripes of an unidentified fan -- delete it. Otherwise, Murphy is well within his rights to contact OTRS to look into that part of the article. -- llywrch (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn and avoid BLP issues. The cached version is a rather simple straight forward biography with nothing negative. Is the subject of reliable secondary sources and was producer for wide theatrically released films. --Oakshade (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary section break four

  • Overturn Clearly the decision to delete was outside the community acceptable norms. The community is very hostile to unilaterla speedy deletion of articles, especially for reasons that were previously considered and rejected at a community discussion - and BLP + the subject's desire for deletion were considered in AFD2 and rejected there. Had the deleting admin wanted to change that consensus he should have nominated for deletion again. Looking at IMBD, there are about thirteen Don Murphys appearing in various credits, and this one may not be the most prominent one from an encyclopedic perspecitve. (Though from recentism bias... which we should try to combat...). GRBerry 20:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn, subject is obviously notable. If producers are notable at all, he is definitely among those who are (some might even call him "notorious"). The standard is not whether some random middle-aged person in the Midwest will recognize his name; we're a little more objective than that. Murphy meets the primary criterion in spades. He doesn't want an article because he cannot WP:OWN it, and this has become a pissing match for him. As for whether his article will be safe from vandalism, I'm playing the world's smallest violin -- I'm a fan and I have no more interest in touching his article because of his juvenile behavior on our site. Seems he can get people on his side for a deletion, but he can't get anyone to watchlist it? There's a logical conundrum there. I just don't buy it. ANY article on Wikipedia is subject to vandalism. That to him is justification for shutting the project down. Maybe he thinks he really can do that now; I dunno. But it isn't a reason to delete his article, which contained nothing libelous at my last glance. --Dhartung | Talk 21:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • So, he has a concern that his article will be vandalized. And instead of giving some reason why this concern doesn't matter, you belittle him, saying that his article doesn't deserve to be free from vandalism? -Amarkov moo! 02:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I belittle his behavior on Wikipedia, which has included harassment of other editors and posting of their identities and personal information on other websites as a way of asserting equivalence ("see how you like it"). Of course, we have never published his phone number, so there is no equivalence. He only stopped doing this in order to get OTRS to start listening to him again. As for his desire for a 100% vandalism-free article, obviously that is a goal for all of our BLPS, but the only way to guarantee it is full protection, which is directly contrary to the spirit of the project. Murphy believes he is entitled to this guarantee, and the fact that we won't give it to him means that the entire project should be shut down. I reject that. And if you like, belittle it.--Dhartung | Talk 03:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • To be accurate, he has NOT stopped what you say he has. There is a whole thread up there now reporting on his good friend Joshua which lists his home, birthdate and phone number as well as much mocking. HydeDoctor (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Here's a radical suggestion, and yes it requires a policy change... If it can be shown that a BLP article is the target of deliberate, persistent vandalism or egregious POV pushing, that isn't reverted in a matter of 5 minutes or less, every single time it happens, and the subject is of marginal notability (the two paper encyclopedia test, or whatever you like there but some standard) the subject of the article can request full protection of a stubbed down version which is automatically granted. That isn't policy now and it isn't an influence on how to vote on this, but I am tiring of people saying "we can't do anything about vandalism even if it stays around for a long time, BLP subject just have to tolerate that's the way it is"... We CAN do something about it. It just requires policy change. Or stable versions. However it doesn't require the entire project be shut down. ++Lar: t/c 13:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think that's a reasonable idea, not a radical one. Yes, it's somewhat at odds with the "anyone can edit" mantra but it's consistent with the "we're trying to be a quality encyclopedia" mantra, which is far more important. Open editing is there because of the belief that it's the fastest way to reach the quality objective. In cases where it gets in the way, open editing needs to be thrown out the window. Nevertheless, one of the main advantages of Wikipedia is its ability to get great breadth of coverage. Depth is, and probably will remain, a problem. Simple deletion of articles like this one hurt the breadth of coverage, with no apparent benefit other than helping Mr Murphy sleep peacefully. Locking a very "bare facts" version is a natural way to take his concerns into account without hurting the quality of coverage. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 13:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • Not to derail this thread, but given his editing history, I just can't accept at face value that Murphy really loses sleep over what's in his Wikipedia article. Except in that as someone who is himself unable to resist the urge to POV-push and turn BLPs into attack pages, he feels that everyone else is just like him. --Dhartung | Talk 14:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • I won't disagree with that, I've been the focus of some minor attention of his, but I do think we have a larger problem, and that we should not vary policy on whether we like or dislike a particular subject, and that we should not attempt to divine a subject's "actual" attitude, just go by what they say. Good point though. ++Lar: t/c 16:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                  • True, except my point is not that I dislike him (in fact, "utter contempt" may be too mild), but that by being a bad actor, Murphy has vastly complicated his own rather minor vandalism and POV travails. I would not be averse, for example, to a subject de-vandalizing their own article (and know of examples). But he can't even comment on Talk pages because he insists on behavior that gets him blocked. So we're to come up with a new bureaucratic process attached to BLP, just because he's an habitual ass and won't behave? --Dhartung | Talk 01:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I would not object and indeed might be in favor of having such articles fully-protected but any stubbing element would need to be temporary. Permanent restriction to a stub is not good even if permanent protection isn't by itself such a bad idea in such cases. And frankly, Murphy would not be happy with a protected article about him that actually used the available reliable sources, or indeed would be unlikely to be happy with a moderately stubbed protected article either. But as a general procedure, it isn't such a bad idea. JoshuaZ (talk) 16:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • To JoshuaZ: it sort of depends what you call a stub. What I had in mind wasn't a one line article saying "Don Murphy is a producer, that's all you need to know". One can easily write a couple of completely benign paragraphs about essential information: the films he has produced, the companies he's been a part of, and so on. Basically, an article which is just as (un)informative as the corresponding IMDb page. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 18:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Yeah, I'd be inclined to oppose that because the same result is occurring, we have an incomplete article when we in fact possess the sources to fill it out. In fact, one could argue that that's even worse because people going to the article won't even realize that their is material missing. So such stubs would be misleading. This also sounds similar to an idea that Fred Bauder floated as a trial balloon a while back of when a corporation objects to our article about them simply remove the material they want removed and add a tag saying that the subject had requested removal. This suggestion was loudly rejected by the community. I don't see this as substantially different. If anything it is worse since it won't even have the disclaimer attached. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                    • There's a world of difference between a company and a living individual. An individual has feelings. A company hasn't. An individual has a personal life. A company hasn't. An individual may have a legitimate interest in not being talked about in public in ways they can't influence. Applying only our "notability" and "verifiability" criteria to our treatment of biographies implies that we always have a moral right to talk about a human being and relate any and all facts about them that others have reported before us. We don't have that right. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                      • On the contrary, damage to a company is far more serious a possibility than damage to a single individual. A company that is damaged may need to lay off workers, cut back health benefits and other things. This is in some way similar to the comparison to our refusal to remove images of Mohammed or the Bahá'u'lláh. The distress caused by millions of religious adherents by the presence of those images cause far more pain and grief than any accurate BLP ever will. The only differences are 1) the BLP type pulls at certain heartstrings that are particularly strong in our culture and 2) There is a presentation effect that isn't appreciated when the damage is less personalized (no doubt if he were alive today my cousin Amos Tversky would have interesting things to say about this). JoshuaZ (talk) 21:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                    • To JoshuaZ (again): I hear you. See my comments at User talk:SirFozzie/BLP-Lock. We need to differentiate between information that can reasonably be considered "public", (as in "a significant part of the public life of this person"), information which, though publicly available, can reasonably be considered as an unnecessary breach of the subject's privacy and information that is editorial in nature (as in what people have said about the subject, or, if you prefer, information on how the subject is judged by his peers, how important a figure he is considered to be by notable commentator X and so on). Pascal.Tesson (talk) 19:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn (I just realized I had thusfar forgotten to "vote" as they say). We should seriously consider a close-to-zero tolerance approach to speedy deleting articles which have been kept in multiple AFD's, on par with self-unblocking, protecting pages to win an edit war, deleting the main page, etc. etc. Arguably harsh, but I doubt anything else will curb this ongoing and unfortunate trend. — CharlotteWebb 14:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. Seriously? Major Hollywood figure with tons of ink spilled about him in major publications. His business partner wrote a book about their work. Sorry about the vandalism, but the answer is to police the article and ensure that it adheres to BLP, not to delete it. Gamaliel (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn just from the pure word count on this page, leaves no doubt that the figure is important enough for people to become vexed. Seriously, the page on Don Murphy may have been prematurely deleted without adequate discussion. FWIW Bzuk (talk) 02:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • Overturn. Does not meet WP:CSD by any stretch of the imagination. ➪HiDrNick! 22:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn. As I understand it (this is my first participation at DRV), DRV is intended to act, not as a surrogate AFD, but as an evaluation of whether a deletion followed proper process or, if it didn't, whether it justified an out of process deletion. I can't answer yes to either question. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn I agree with subjects requesting deletion in borderline cases. I just don't see this as a borderline case. Garion96 (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overturn with permanent semi-protection, per Neil. I should also note that the request was made in bad faith. Blueboy96 01:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.
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