Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Biographies of Living Persons
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The Arbitration Committee has enacted remedies that apply to all editors who make edits related to living or recently deceased subjects of biographical content on Wikipedia articles (the "contentious topic"). The contentious topics procedure applies to all pages and edits related to this contentious topic.
 | This page documents and supplements decisions of the Arbitration Committee concerning a contentious topic. |
Arbitration Committee decisions
Contentious topics
All living or recently deceased subjects of biographical content on Wikipedia articles are designated as a contentious topic.
- Passed 10 to 0 with 1 abstention by motion at 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Subtopic of Zak Smith
The topic of Zak Smith is placed under the extended-confirmed restriction. This restriction is set to lapse automatically one year after the enactment of this motion. If an editor believes this restriction should be extended, they may request the Committee consider an extension by posting an amendment request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment in the final month of the restriction's timeframe.
- Passed 7 to 0 by motion at 07:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
Guidance for administrators
- This contentious topic designation is designed to support the application of the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy, though administrators may take action to enforce that policy without using the contentious topics procedure.
Standard set of restrictions
Any uninvolved administrator may impose the standard set of restrictions in this topic area for up to one year:
Individual restrictions
- sitewide and partial blocks,
- topic bans and page bans (from the entire contentious topic, a subtopic, or specified pages within the topic),
- interaction bans,
- revert restrictions,
- word limits per discussion
Page restrictions
- page protection,
- revert restrictions,
- the "consensus required" restriction,
- the "enforced BRD" restriction,
- word limits for all participants in a specific discussion
Clarifications and amendments
Templates
The following templates may be used in this contentious topic:
Alerting editors
{{subst:Contentious topics/alert/first|blp}}– mandatory for an editor's first alert{{subst:Contentious topics/alert|blp}}{{subst:Contentious topics/alert/DS|blp}}
Editnotices
{{Contentious topics/editnotice|blp}}{{Contentious topics/page restriction editnotice|blp}}– mandatory when a page has active page restrictions other than page protection
Talk page notice
{{Contentious topics/talk notice|blp}}{{Contentious topics/talk notice|zs}}– to indicate that the subject falls under the subtopic of Zak Smith