Editing Eurovision Wiki:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard (section)

== Extremely negative descriptors over time in BLP articles ==

This is a thing I have encountered a few times, where an extremely negative / controversial descriptor was true in the past, and was extremely well sourced then, but over time the person has completely changed, but we have no reliable sources for the change. But we continue to describe the person as is as this ideology, even when we have no reliable sources for the person holding this ideology in the present day, even when a review of the primary sources (e.g. the person's own statements) shows they are no longer that way. 

So we have articles that say that someone currently is a thing, when we have no sources that say they are currently that thing - is it not, then, kind of a BLP issue to continue to describe someone this way when we have no sources that say they are ''still'' this way, only sources that say they were this way 10 years ago? I'm not sure. I know it is complicated. 

Some people may argue then we should delete the articles, but sometimes it is for people who are overwhelmingly notable and have connections in hundreds of pages. One case I encountered was an extremely notable person, who has dozens of chapters in academic press books about him in relation to the ideology he held several years ago. But then he completely changed in terms of ideology and then it was simply never covered - academia still covers him but only in reference to his activities from a decade ago, not who he is now or what he does now. And yet we are still saying, in the first sentence of his article, "x is [extremely controversial descriptor]", well sourced, to sources from a decade ago. Is this wrong? I don't know.

Any thoughts? [[User:PARAKANYAA|PARAKANYAA]] ([[User talk:PARAKANYAA|talk]]) 16:32, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

:This is a problem, and the most obvious solution is dating the statements. E.g., "X was frequently described as a white supremacist in Y year(s)." <span style="white-space: nowrap;">—[[User:Compassionate727|Compassionate727]]&nbsp;<sup>([[User talk:Compassionate727|T]]·[[Special:Contributions/Compassionate727|C]])</sup></span> 18:04, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
:Grammar, textual presentation of the claim, and context. First, to say that a living subject "has been" something (present perfect verb) is accurate even when the information is dated or outdated. It's not a past tense at all, and remains unstated or ambiguous about the present progressive state of things. Second, text presented around the claim in question lets us add "in (date)" or similar to provide temporal presentation. Third, surrounding context may be copyedited to present a similar impression while changing nothing per outdated sources (ie, doing the same but around the content, not on it). Hope this lends some copyediting ideas. Cheers! [[User:JFHJr|JFHJr]] ([[User talk:JFHJr|㊟]]) 18:05, 15 March 2026 (UTC)
::@[[User:PARAKANYAA|PARAKANYAA]], if you've got a few in mind, feel free to bullet and <nowiki>{{la}}</nowiki> them here. I'd like to see how this might be addressed practically. And I actually like editing. [[User:JFHJr|JFHJr]] ([[User talk:JFHJr|㊟]]) 18:25, 15 March 2026 (UTC)