Wikipedia:WikiProject Living people/Implementation strategy

In order to effectively begin to resolve some of the issues surrounding biographies of living people, an implementation strategy is needed. This document contains a broad overview of what needs to be done. It also includes a degree of technical detail regarding implementation of some of the ideas.

Find and properly categorize most biographies
  • Rationale: Until we have a clear understanding of the scope of the undertaking and a means to effectively monitor biographies of living people (a specific unified category), no solution or set of solutions can be truly effective.
  • Method: Wikipedia:Uncategorized biographies of living people
    • List generation
      • Database queries
        • Articles in ____ births categories that are not in ____ deaths categories
        • Articles that have |living=yes on their talk page
        • Articles that use {{birth date and age}} or {{birth date}} but don't use a corresponding death date template
      • Better filtering system for already-checked entries (save separate files, etc.)
Mark all unreferenced biographies as unreferenced
  • Rationale: Marking the biographies as unreferenced provides a means to (a) effectively target them for improvement or deletion; (b) pay closer attention to sourcing issues (especially as a lack of sources is a fairly good indicator of a lack of broad interest in the subject, generally speaking).
  • Method: new project page
    • List generation
      • Bios using only en.wikipedia.org external links
      • Bios with 0 external links
Create and implement a tool to review biographies effectively (Sisyphus)
Implement a global biographies of living people policy
Re-examine and refine current notability guidelines
  • Rationale: Certain guidelines are ineffective and harmful
  • Method: A starting point is to look at the guidelines surrounding porn stars and criminals