Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

Everyone who changes articles on Wikipedia must take extra care when making changes to biographical material about a living person. These pages must be written carefully. Changes to these pages must follow all applicable laws in the United States, and all of our content policies, especially:

Wikipedia policy
Global principles
What Wikipedia is not
Ignore all rules
Content standards
Neutral point of view
Verifiability
No original research
Biographies of living persons
Working with others
Civility
No personal attacks
Harassment
No legal threats
Consensus
Dispute resolution
More
Full list of policies
List of guidelines

Pages about living persons must be made carefully, with care for the person's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid paper (newspaper); it is not our job to be sensationalist (Oh my! Look!), or to be the primary place for the spread of interesting claims about people's lives. The possibility of harm to living subjects is one of the important factors to be considered when using editorial decision.

We must get the page right.[1] Always use high-quality references. Heated, arguable, material about living persons that is unsourced (without references) or poorly sourced—even if the content is negative (bad), positive (good), or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.[2]

  1. Jimmy Wales. Keynote speech, Wikimania, August 2006.
  2. Jimmy Wales. "WikiEN-l Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", May 16, 2006 and May 19, 2006