Should “modern” profiles of dead children be set private?

Question

This is a follow up question to the thread posted there:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1148415/can-a-disclaimer-be-added-to-certain-profiles?show=1149027#c1149027

I’m wondering if these murdered children should not simply be set private or even unlisted? The pros and cons should be discussed.

Pros: 

These children should never have been added considering the right to privacy both to them and their living relatives. 

They can not be connected to parents/trees anyways because they are born within the last 70 or so years.

The gruesome details of their death, which is usually the only information on the sources for them and websites that shows up searching for information would be hidden from view protecting sensitive and/or young readers.

Cons:

Duplicates might be created if the profiles are unlisted or private.

Someone has to manage the profiles, and if so who?

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I personally wouldn’t mind to take them on as manager but people might think I added them and have some sort of fetish for murdered children. Would be better if RTC could be set as managers, but for that to happen it would have to be made into a full on project. Since it is likely that they was created in connection to the notable project maybe they should be set as managers, but I’m sure they have enough profiles under their wings.

All in all I think there are more pros than cons to making them private, even though I might not have thought of all the pros and cons in this post. 

Comments

I would support RTC becoming a "full" Project, but have no idea what that would entail.

Answer 1

Antonia -- Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention.

There was a discussion in the spring about this topic, and it resulted in the creation of this help page: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Recently_Deceased_Strangers

After reading that, I set all of the profiles to Red privacy, and they will be managed -- for the time being -- by the WikiTree Admin account.

Comments

Julie! Thanks for “popping in” ;)

I wouldn’t mind seeing these categories closed if that’s what the categorization project thinks is best but before that happens I hope someone will give a heads up so we can go through the profiles and find these that should be privatized. Could we maybe do that and send you a list for those profiles that qualify for the same treatment as these four?

I got a link to a wikitree+ list for profiles of people who died young post 2000 and I see a lot of dead babies in this list, someone seems to have gone though find a grave cemeteries and added everything they could find. These babies can not be connected to parents, probably not for years to come. Should also be managed and set private even though no crime was committed?

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Antonia, if you would send me or another Categorization project leader a list of categories to delete, we can work through it and see if some can be directly marked for deletion (any that you created recently and that were not used by others could probably be deleted, unless there are too many profiles in them).

We can't delete "Murder Victims" unless there is community approval, it's far too much used.

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Google search for 'WikiTree with:murder' results in page after page.  These non-mission related categories are family-unfriendly and did not, apparently, go through a community agreement before they were added.  Most are 'open' profiles.  I'll research the rules, again, about what to do next.

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"If you would like to delete the category itself, put {{Delete Category}} at the top of the category page. Write a reason for deletion on the next line, followed by four tildes ~~~~ to leave a timestamp. This will help Categorization Project members determine what to do if further action is needed. For example:

{{Delete Category}}
Deleting due to misspelled word. ~~~~"

So I will add "Manner of death does not further the mission of WikiTree and is family-unfriendly, in my opinion."

From: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Category_Creation_and_Removal

-- Update: "Warning: This is category will be Deleted and should not be used."  Then, "This Category is waiting on BOT to delete it."  So, someone else already did the good deed.  To whomever it was:  Thank you.

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So what is to happen to assassinations?

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I have gone through the Murder Victim category now for profiles of the age 0-20 who also was orphaned and removed them from the category. I have saved them in a temporary category under my WT-ID so someone with admin access can do what Julie did to the profiles in question.

The ones that aren't orphaned is a different story. I suppose a good step is to at least remove the Murder Victim category all together, at least the profiles will be a step harder to find without knowing what to look for.

I am seriously a bit damaged after going through all these profiles, because it seems like whoever added them also added sometimes very detailed information of their deaths copied from Find a Grave or the "Tiny Victims" website which apparently lists murdered children.

So.. in other words.. lets leave the murdered children out of WT until their parents or other close relatives feel like they should be added.. shall we? Oookay thanks.

As for the categories, I haven't added any new one, besides the one for the four Japanese girls, which can be removed as well. It was just a way to move them out of the faceless mass of Murder Victims, but if that is gone then it serves no purpose. These profiles should be private by now anyways.

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B.Britain, one person doesn't usually unilaterally decide to delete something UNLESS they were the creator of the category in the first place. Murder victims used to be included in a category called "Causes of Death,"

In categorization, we delete things from time to time, but it's often a matter of finding a better name or deleting categories in organizational levels of the category structure. Other times, categories are entered with incorrect names or misspellings, etc. When we deleted "Causes of Death," there was discussion in g2g first.

Also on the page: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Category_Creation_and_Removal, you will see, "Because you are not the only user of these categories, deleting and renaming categories other than any just created in error, need to be coordinated with the Categorization Project, and the topical project associated with the category, if there is one."  

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Just to clarify, what B.Britain has done is make a request for deletion of the category, giving a reason. As they then said, the rationale is that "This will help Categorization Project members determine what to do if further action is needed." It's now up to the project to decide what to do next.

B. also noticed that after the request the page said "This Category is waiting on BOT to delete it." That message is generated by software, and it leaves out the important point that deletion will be conditional on approval by the Categorization Project, and BOT will not go ahead without that approval. As Natalie pointed out, people can't unilaterally delete widely used categories by themselves without due process. They are, of course, free to make a deletion request, as B. has done.

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Adding {{Delete Category}} is not really a request except that it won't go through EditBot if we do not confirm it. Some WT'ers are "whitelisted" and their deletions go through without review (there are further stipulations, outlined here:https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:EditBOT#Delete_a_category

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"whitelisted" would not be me.  I have as much power on WikiTree as a grapefruit.

Answer 2

I fully agree, Antonia. Since they have been created erroneously and we do not delete profiles, the best thing is to make them private.

Note that none of the profiles in question seems to have a manager at the moment. I hope some project will take this on.

In the short term, maybe several of us could adopt one profile each and make it private, then hand it over to a project when possible. I'd be willing to do this for one of them.

Comments

Since no argument against this idea has been presented, I've adopted one of the profiles Antonia categorised and made it private. This is only intended as experimental and short-term. I'll reverse it if strong reasons to do so turn up.

In the longer term I hope to hand over management of the profile to a suitable project; or perhaps to utilise the deletion process referred to by B. Britain in another answer.

If people think this a good approach, maybe they could consider doing the same with one of the three remaining profiles.

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Jim -- there are far more than just 3 profiles.

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I'm referring to the four in the category mentioned by Antonia in her earlier post, Melanie.

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In her opening post Antonia referred to the children in a specific category.  She then went on to mention ONLY four of the children, because those were the four she'd added to a specific sub-category, and those four were not created by the  person that caused this matter to be brought to me.

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Maybe we needn't focus on the numbers here. It would be good to make all  the child profiles of this kind private. I started with one from Antonia's (sub-)category that I knew about because it had been explicitly mentioned.

Answer 3

Just a note on the legal situation:

In principle, deceased persons are no longer subject to privacy protection. This means that personal data (including pictures) are no longer protected by data protection laws.
This is at least in the area of the European Union according to the European Data Protection Regulation law.

However, everyone has a post-mortem personal right.  This arises exclusively from human dignity. In general, this personal right applies up to 10 years after the death of the person. Therefore, in many countries archives, for example, are not publicly accessible until 10 years (in some cases 30 years) after the death of the person. Of course, every state has its own special regulations.
Of course, this does not apply to newspaper articles or obituaries that are generally accessible to the public.

Comments

Thanks Dieter for the information, but I'm not sure it affects us here. Of course we must follow privacy laws as far as they go. But even when they no longer apply (e.g. it's more than 30 years since these cases), we can still choose to be sensitive on WikiTree.

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I agree with you, we should handle all data sensitively and regardless of the legal side, consider the moral side of publishing

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Well said, Dieter!

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It is good to know the legal situation no matter what we might choose to do from a moral point of view. Thank you so much for your reply!

Answer 4

There is a special form for deletion of child profiles containing sensitive information: "This is generally only appropriate if highly sensitive information is being revealed, e.g. if it's a profile of a young child."

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Delete

Add:  Looks like murdered fits here:  https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/773341/should-we-delete-category-causes-of-death

Comments

Thanks for the information, B. I didn't know this. Profile deletion using this process does look like one possible option, at least as a last resort.

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My reading of the special delete is for living persons, not those who are deceased.

Sensitive information about living people, especially children, should never be added to WikiTree.

We may not like the content of these particular profiles, but they did exist, and they did die.   It was the particular way many of the profiles were created that has raised concerns.

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I went back to the page and read more:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Deletion_FAQ#What_if_sensitive_information_was_added.3F

Then to here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy_Conflicts

On this 3rd page there is another optional form: Take-down requests (it represents a child under 13)  And, remember, over here (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1148415/can-a-disclaimer-be-added-to-certain-profiles) we have to consider what our grandchildren will [sic: might] see.

When all is written here, I'm for setting the profiles to RED privacy, then notifying info at wikitree to please advise.  I'm often surprised at answers management gives, sometimes something I never would have thought, on my own.

Answer 5

Perhaps for those children, but not for all children. The problem is that their relatives aren't involved, so we have little chance of determining lineage. Connecting people isn't hard, with the right sources. I have no clue how to search Japanese databases or news articles.

Answer 6

Victims of heinous crimes often go without tribute they always are subcategories in popculture during events of injustice. To put them in a pile of censorship/ sheltered profiles would just push the victimizer back into the spotlight and fame. Yes all humans are equally important in saying give them without hesitation similar treatment that our Wikitree intends. We didn't make them famous and even if nobody is watching at least they will be be up on the platform their lives will speak from for future referencing.

Comments

I was asking myself about the fact that when you look their names up there is only hits for the murderer and the way they died. A hit for their profile on WT which is theirs and a place where we can honor them, is just positive. Privatize them would mean removing a place where we focus on them and not the way they died or the murderer which would be a shame. But how can we offer that without other sources?

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None of us exhausted all our resources we just found out recently you decided to pick them up and I for one am not only going to tell you I am not judging you for that but I applaud and appreciate your gesture and willingness to go beyond updates. I only wish we could find a way to not add sensationalized news reports as sources and other gossip style reports as well because I see a real goal here would be to remove the abuser away from the predated minors as far as we can push it on this site while keeping focus on their lives- not his.

Answer 7

I am strongly against any profile being added for a recently deceased child who died under age, however they died, without the clear agreement of someone in the close family. To me this is not primarily a matter of the legal situation, but of ethics and sensitivity. I ask myself how I would feel if, as a parent, I stumbled across a profile of a child of mine who had died: I know I would be shocked. Some parents may welcome such profiles as recognition of their child: others will have similar feelings to what I would have.

Where children have died gruesomely as a result of a crime, the sensitivities are even greater. Grief in those circumstances usually takes years to come to terms with, if the parents ever do come to terms with it. If a profile relies on newspaper reports or what is on another website, the information about how the child died may not be entirely accurate. Relatives of both victim and the criminal may be named who are still living, which does raise legal issues about privacy on top of further issues of sensitivity. Details of the death may be unsuitable reading for younger website visitors.

In terms of WikiTree privacy rules, even a living criminal has a right to privacy, however much we abhor what they did. Some convictions are unsound. There is a long history of convictions being overturned, quite often years later.

So if we must retain these profiles, my firm view is that they should be private, and preferably unlisted, with a Project managing them. But Unlisted is not currently an option for non-living people - see https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy#Unlisted.

i would want myself to discourage the creation of further profiles like these.

Comments

Very well put Michael. You are touching everything I’ve been thinking about this last week having had these profiles on my mind non-stop since I updated them.

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Yes these four are only used as an example of the sort of information that are on these murdered children profiles. But I think Jim just wants to make sure no one gets damaged by unintentionally coming across these profiles by making at least one of them private and managed.

I am just waiting to see how people feel about it. But if no other things are decided I am likely to take on the other three and any other profiles I come across like these, and make them private until further notice.

At least until sources that doesn’t link to the murderer can be added.

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Thank you, Antonia. I looked at some of the Remember the Children profiles some months ago. They were harrowing for me as an adult age 70 and a non-relative, and I doubt I could have faced doing anything significant on them.

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I agree. I think these profiles should be made private or, better yet, unlisted. Creation of such profiles should be discouraged and guidance about this should be expanded.

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I did not look at the profiles, trusting completely the description by Antonia and others.  Does the person who created the profiles have a closed account?  If so, then info at WikiTree should be able to do a 'clean-up' based upon that.

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The profiles were not all created by the same person.  We should be presuming good intentions on the part of the creators of the profiles, even if we disagree regards the content.

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I agree. I think these profiles should be made private or, better yet, unlisted. Creation of such profiles should be discouraged and guidance about this should be expanded.

commented by Traci Thiessen

Unlisted is "not an option for mom-living people".

The best we can do is red lock, or maybe use <!-- to hide the more distressing parts of the biographies if we leave the profiles open enough on yellow lock* that we might be able to, one day, connect them to their families.

*

 Private with Public Family Tree

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Michael, I fully agree! And as a Certified Thanatologist and member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, I doubly agree!

Answer 8

Can someone explain what is meant by "modern profiles" ?

A profile recently created is modern?

Or a profile of someone who lived in 'modern times'?

I believe WT says a person who died less than 70 years ago can be private.

Are we only discussing children that died in horrible circumstances?

As the parent of a child who was in a near fatal traffic incident 25 years ago, (I refuse to call it an accident) No the child was not the driver and yes the child survived with permanent disabilities

I was horrified by the way it was covered by the press. Yes the child is still living so could not be on a open profile.

If the child had died the only information available to a researcher would be the press coverage which was inaccurate and inflammatory.

What is the benefit of describing such events in detail?

I'm sure many of us have ancestors whose children died of disease and true accidents, what I have put on their profiles is died at ~3 years of cholera, and on their parents profiles, 7 of their 10 children died of cholera within 2 years. Or 'little Billy' was hit by a runaway horse.

Surely we are or should be past the point of what is in essence glorifying the criminal or criminally stupid acts of the perpetrators.

If you are researching causes of child death in 1860s England or something similar that is completely different and does not require details of individual deaths or the child's family.

And while I am commenting, can we please request that photos or pictures of 'angels and cherubs' etc are not attached to the profiles of dead children. Not everyone is Christian. And not every Christian is enamoured of such images.

Comments

"Modern" refers to profiles of people born within 70 or so  years, these profiles probably still have living relatives who might not want the profile public. Unfortunately people can usually be searched 10 or so years after their passing. Sooner if they end up on a website like Find A Grave.

I don't think anyone here thinks their deaths should be written about especially not in any sort of detail. 

I don't think it is wrong to add cause of death on older profiles, say turn of the last century and before. It is a part of their life's story. But it should not be the only thing recorded on their profiles. 

Regarding the photos of cherubs, I don't think that's commonly added. Perhaps you are thinking of the Died Young sticker, it has been discussed before, and although similar it is clear that the image on the sticker is not depicting an angel/cherub. 

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"Can someone explain what is meant by "modern profiles" ?"

People born less than 150 years ago and/or died less than 100 years ago. From here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy

That is the closest I can find.  Maybe someone else has a better help link.

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There several cherub/angel/christian images on the 'Remember the Children' page. Plus the died young sticker is an angel/cherub with wings.

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The Died Young sticker image -- which existed long before Antonia began RTC -- is not a cherub.  A cherub traditionally has a chubby baby's face, not a child's face.  The sticker image is a child's face, surmounted with wings.  The person who uploaded the image called it a "flying baby", not a cherub, and it was chosen because it does not have religious affiliations.

Wings are often used to depict a "passing from life".  Sometimes  attached to birds (such as hummingbirds), but also to butterflies.

If people see a cherub in a stone face of a child, then that's them seeing it.  I have never seen it as a cherub.

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Just because there are pictures people are free to use on the project page doesn't mean that they are added on stranger's profiles.

And as far as the sticker goes, that is your opinion, but again, the creator has made it clear that it is not an angel, but a cropped picture from a monument if memory serves me right.

You are free to look at the old post I made regarding the pictures and the sticker is brought up in the same post thread: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/888715/portrait-pictures-representing-children-passed-categories

You can also see on our project page that the image that is (loosely) promoted for use on children's profiles is that of an empty swing in a tree.