Wikipedia talk:Identifying and using primary sources: Difference between revisions
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:BLP is for living people only, you can use court documents for dead people (but you shouldn't typically). [[User:Traumnovelle|Traumnovelle]] ([[User talk:Traumnovelle|talk]]) 20:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
:I assume that the editors who worked on this page understood that there are inevitably “occasional exceptions” to all our policy and guideline “rules” - sooner or later there is bound to be a situation we didn’t think about when we wrote the “rule”. It is better to avoid “never” and to instead say “usually don’t” instead. That way you don’t have to rewrite “the rule” when those occasional exceptions crop up. [[User:Blueboar|Blueboar]] ([[User talk:Blueboar|talk]]) 21:02, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
::Blueboar, the problem is that then you have newer editors arguing that it only says "usually," so it's really OK to use this court document that they want to use as a source for a living person (which happened today, leading me here to read the text). Personally, I'd rather say that it's never acceptable for living persons (recognizing that there may be an IAR exception that gets OKed through consensus), and that they're usually not acceptable for people who have died.
::Traumnovelle, thanks for pointing that out, I'd totally overlooked that. I think it would be good to distinguish between people who are/aren't living in this text. [[User:FactOrOpinion|FactOrOpinion]] ([[User talk:FactOrOpinion|talk]]) 21:39, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
:::Anyone who is arguing that an explanatory essay says "usually", and so that overrides a core content policy saying "Do '''not'''" has a losing argument, and they probably know it. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 21:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
::It's simpler than that.
::* First it says that some primary sources are acceptable: "The person's [[autobiography]], own website, or a page about the person on an employer's or publisher's website ... can normally be used..."
::* Then it says that some other primarily sources are not acceptable: "Many other primary sources...are usually not acceptable...".
::The "usually" applies to "Many other primary sources", not to the example of birth certificates. (Though, as Blueboar notes, there are inevitably "occasional exceptions", and you can use even a birth certificate if, e.g., it is published by the person in question.) [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 21:42, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
:The BLPPRIMARY bit is about BLPs. The first part is not. Don’t think you would get a social security death index about a living person. [[User:PARAKANYAA|PARAKANYAA]] ([[User talk:PARAKANYAA|talk]]) 21:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
::PARAKANYAA, yup, I wasn't thinking. The biographical content that I work with usually involves living persons, and the exchange that led me here was on the talk page of an article about a living person ([[Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia]]), so I just had "living person" in mind. I decided to walk away from the exchange, as this other editor wants to use totally unacceptable court docs (posted to a Dept. of Homeland Security webpage as part of a smear campaign to try to justify their illegal act).
::Thanks to everyone for the quick clarifications. [[User:FactOrOpinion|FactOrOpinion]] ([[User talk:FactOrOpinion|talk]]) 22:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
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