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Not questioning notability on this one. The issue is much bigger: the article has been, by a court order, made to go against WP:NPOV, which is one of the pillars of Wikipedia. In this case, I believe it is better to have no article at all than to have an article that can only be written in a biased way.
That is still the case even if there is an orange tag warning about it: tags are supposed to be for fixable issues, and an article that cannot be improved beyond this tag is not an article worth having.
Replace with some kind of community statement. I agree that, if we are not allowed to have an article that complies with our own policies, we should not have any article at all; furthermore, editors risk liability in editing it now. However, if we're going to be so greatly departing from standard practice, we might as well take a stand. Putting together a note explaining the situation and our position would be better than just deleting or redirecting it. I suggest something like
Parts of this article were removed by the Wikimedia Foundation, which maintains Wikipedia's servers but is not responsible for its content, pursuant to a Portuguese court order. Wikipedia's volunteer community of editors has chosen to fully blank this article, as the court's order prevents us from complying with our own content policies and we do not wish to expose editors to liability if they inadvertently restore material that was ordered removed. The English-language Wikipedia community objects to the Portuguese courts' interference with our editorial independence and our mission to bring free knowledge to the world. A censored list of this article's past versions can be viewed in the history tab.
That would be a great way to direct further court cases to the person who owns archive.ph, who seems to be an individual. We also don't want to burden the Internet Archive, which has already seen its fair share of legal cases. —Matrix(!)ping onewhen replying {u - t? - uselessc} 20:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of "The English-language Wikipedia community objects to the Portuguese courts' interference with our editorial independence" we should do "We, the members of the English-language Wikipedia community, object to the Portuguese court's interference with our editorial independence". Mikeycdiamond (talk) 22:36, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Blank and banner. This is an encyclopedia and when we are stopped from maintaining one, we are not going to transition into a PR agency. ꧁Zanahary꧂03:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think we create poor incentives if reliably sourced articles of notable individuals can be removed by a favorable court ordering the removal of a few lines from the article. If we delete I think we disincentive the foundation from spending the legal resources they should to defend articles that should exist and should have content which fully complies with our policies and I think we'd rather incentivize others to sue to see if they can't get their article removed by even a small victory. I want to spread reliable information as much as I can and so I would rather have an article, which provides lots of information (including information about this controversey and information we know the article subject would prefer to be deleted), serving our readers as much information as we can. Our articles are often incomplete, and while the reasons for this being incomplete are galling and (thankfully so far) unique it's hardly an unknown state of affairs for our articles. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:55, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your framing here. If all content they consider defamatory has been removed, the individual has already won; putting a scarlet letter like this on their article is, if anything, getting one last small victory over them. I also don't understand why you anticipate that blanking an article in protest like this would discourage the WMF from trying to rectify the situation we'd be protesting. —Compassionate727(T·C)01:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am against blanking this article, not as I have written above and below, making a statement. I worry that if we say "if a court order us to take down any part of an article, we'll just bury the article" we're doing two things. 1) We make it more inviting for other people to get entire articles deleted, or effectively deleted (going to an article's history is an ELITE action many of readers won't know how to do) 2) we make it so that if the WMF loses in an initial round the WMF has to consider whether it's worth the resources to appeal, knowing that we're going to just put up some statement in response if they don't ultimately pervail. We are, in effect, asking the WMF to more stand by article contents than we're willing to do (if we delete and/or bury it in the history) and since historically we're more in favor of those things I would guess the WMF would quickly decide to spend its resources elsewhere thus creating this situation where we might have otherwise won on appeal. best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:21, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The other information would still be available in the history tab, and Tamzin's message would tell people to look at it. grapesurgeon (seefooddiet) (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By all means let's make a statement. That's not incompatible with continuing to do our mission of spreading high quality information by keeping the article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's plenty of high quality information left and think there is every bit of liklihood that we could create new high quality information with what happens to DePaco in the future, which hiding information in the history would prevent. I am by no means anti-statement - it's why I created a template to advertise the fact and why I would support something along the lines of what Tamzin has written - but that's not incompatible with keeping this article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Replace with banner per Tamzin. The page as it stands right now is a legal land mine for any contributor who wishes to edit it - what content was suppressed? Is an editor who re-adds that content unknowingly suddenly legally liable? At the same time outright deletion would simply (a) sweep the issue under the rug and (b) leave a redlinked land mine for a good-faith editor thinking they've found a notable, uncovered subject to step on. Replacing with a banner demonstrates that we, the community, are not okay with this, indicates why, and also leaves the content-as-is available in the revision history. - The BushrangerOne ping only01:08, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict × a bunch) Preemptive thank you to the closer.
I don't have the answer to this one (and I will be curious to see what the community can come up with). Some unique alternatives to deletion here:
We have to make sure all aspects of his life are balanced accurately: the good, the bad, the neutral. We can't have the bad, so we should remove the good—most of the information about philanthropy. I already removed some BOLDly, but there is more that could be removed.
We can add Tamzin's banner regardless of what we do with the rest of the article
The community should ask the WMF to black Wikipedia out in Portugal (if the ECHR has the ability to overturn the judgement, then complying while the judgement is being appealed would be a necessary evil, in my opinion)
We could try to do number (3) ourselves via a gadget
We can also do multiple things. Finally, I suspect that some editors might question whether this belongs at AFD, especially if this turns into a discussion of which ATD(s) are appropriate. I'll point to the fact that deletion should be on the table. Personally, I think I support removing most of the good + a banner + leaving the rest of the article intact. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they)01:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Replace with community statement per Tamzin. It would be one thing if there were a clear limitation on what the article was allowed to contain, but right now editors must either give a wide berth to anything related to accusations of past crimes, an organization he was alleged to have founded, and his resignation (or dismissal) from a civil service post, or expose themselves to further legal risk. This chilling effect would extend beyond what the Foundation has directly removed, and we should not let editors unknowingly wander into this area where the WMF's privacy commitments no longer seem to hold. jlwoodwa (talk) 01:17, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We actually don't know whether or not there will be clear limits available. It's entirely possible when we get an answer to that question we will find out it is possible. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:22, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I agree with Barkeep49. Deleting or replacing the article with a banner would be setting a bad precedent. We can deal with this without depriving our readers of what remains. MediaKyle (talk) 01:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would make us complicit in SLAPP censorship. The WMF fucked up here. The only people depriving our readers of "what remains" are the WMF for agreeing to this office action. Trying to deflect blame on the editors is absolving the WMF of their ultimate responsibility for agreeing to this office action in the first place. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!02:36, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tamzin. Keeping, deleting, or redirecting would mean yielding to the unfair rule. A community protest banner is the least what we can do. — 魔琴 (Zauber Violino) [ talkcontribs ] 01:22, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless someone at WMF Legal says it's a bad idea, perhaps what makes the most sense is to add a banner (without deleting the article) explaining that it had been subject to a Portuguese court order to remove material concerning [quoting directly from a translated version of the order] acts of a criminal nature allegedly committed by the plaintiff, which occurred in 1989, and their subsequent procedural processing, dismissal of the plaintiff from the post of honorary consul of Cape Verde, and that the plaintiff was prevented from obtaining any Portuguese document. While that might sound "pointy", I'm mainly thinking about how to ensure other editors do not incidentally restore material that was deemed to be illegal, and secondarily about how to present an article to readers that we know to be noncompliant with wikipolicy. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 01:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That seems to be the best way to go to me as well. I share everyone's worries about precedent, but the fact is that the precedent itself has now been set by the judgement (pending appeal/escalation to ECHR hopefully), and that whatever response we choose will do little to change this reality. For now we should treat this one as a one-off, and in this specific case citing the judgement directly is the best way to protect editors while reducing censorship to a minimum. Choucas0 🐦⬛⋅💬⋅📋09:22, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
2. Lock article forever or until legal issues no longer exist.
3. Now replace the entire body of the article UNDER the template with a link to the last visible version of the article, with "Click here for the final exposed version of..." This is the one just locked; every page under here now carries a big warning template. All final locked versions.
4. Lock the talk page with a similar setup. Lock any talk archives.
5. Never touch it again unless WMF legal stuff mandates or clears it.
Anything the community has consensus for, and where that consensus is reached in an appropriate venue, is allowed (not the least because Consensus can change). I think preventing ourselves from covering any new exploits DePaço might get up to - things we would know are not covered by the court order - would be a mistake. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:34, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I may have misunderstood--was Tamzin's proposal not to flat convert the page to the template and lock it? Was it to just leave the template forever as a marker but allow open editing?
If the former, my modified suggestion is to have the locked page link to the entire page history, essentially, and final version, like:
So the live active locked version is JUST the banner with a link to history, and then the NEXT "finale" version of the article also carries the banner. So working backward: Live/only banner/locked > live with banner > whatever the next to last version. Lock > add template > erase everything under the template and replace with links to history and announcement etc. > never touch "article" again.
He doesn't wish it removed, he wishes it memory-holed. There is a distinct difference. Removed implies he's fine with others knowing about it in some form, "memory-holed" implies he wants this buried for good so that nobody knows about it. —Jéské Courianov^_^vthreadscritiques01:44, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: do you not see how keeping the article at all is basically us bending over to his desires? If we cannot provide full information on a topic, we should not provide any. It is a disservice to our readers to provide them an article that is whitewashed with a statement at the top that 90% of users are going to scroll past in the first place. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!02:49, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I firmly believe removing the entire article does more to bend to his desires than keeping the article. He doesn't want a lot of information available about him on the internet, including information that remains in our article after he sued to get rid of it. I can't help but wonder if he won't want information on the internet about actions not yet taken, which this consensus would prevent us from covering. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:27, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this is allowed, but the community statement proposed by Tamzin could include a link to the archived version of the Wikipedia page (the Wayback Machine has a snapshot of the June 20, 2025 version of the article). Some1 (talk) 03:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can use the banner to provide archives and older versions. We can also add news reports and community pages to the blanked page. — 魔琴 (Zauber Violino) [ talkcontribs ] 03:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: I would say that it's not about which action would do the perpetrator more favor, but rather which action would do ourselves (the wiki) the favor. I am in agreement with "we cannot provide full information on a topic, we should not provide any". If he somehow likes that more than a whitewashed article then shrug? 2600:1012:A024:21CA:4689:AE31:E7E4:87BC (talk) 05:51, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is actually what he wants more, complete removal of the article. That is his first claim. His alternative claim is to remove the offending parts. Techie3 (talk) 11:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't about his desires. It's about our reputation. If we continue to serve the public a page that has been scrubbed of well-sourced, truthful information just because it is negative, we are not adhering to a NPOV. It does not matter if the rest of the information is good. It doesn't matter if the rest of the information is NPOV. The article by definition cannot be NPOV because we cannot publish part of the information. And if we leave it up in any form, even with a notice, we are misleading our users. Because 90% of people ignore the tags at the top of articles. If you go pull any article that's tagged with {{NPOV}} and send it to one of your friends that knows nothing about Wikipedia, they're almost certainly going to skip right past it. Hell, tags don't even show up on the mobile website - I don't know about the apps/etc. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!06:16, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The page has not been scrubbed of of well-sourced, truthful information... this hyperbole bears little resemblance to what actually happened here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Honorary Consulate of Portugal, Florida; I agree with the "replace with banner" !votes on their reasoning (that it's better to say nothing than to say a biased version), but we may as well heal into a consistent state given that rather than deliberately leaving a visible sore (I'm aware this is a minority position, as it's the same logic that led me to delink the ANI article when it was forcibly taken down, so the community is welcome to disagree, but that's still my position) * Pppery *it has begun...01:57, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tamzins suggestion, blank and place a banner. This would protect future editors, as WMF is unable to guarantee anonymity of editors. If Wikipedia is serious about editor retention, it needs to do more to protect us all. Knitsey (talk) 02:00, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I am from Portuguese Wikipédia and here we don't know exactly what the office changes means. As far as we can understand, there is nothing stopping any editor from mentioning the facts again. Are we getting this wrong? Personally, I believe that the banner proposed is not bad, however, but more as a way of sending a message of collective discontent than a totally practical decision. Augustresende (talk) 02:09, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but that's because the WMF office action didn't remove it. They strictly removed the content stated in the court order. It was probably more broader removals here in the english wikipedia because the terms were more vague than the excerpts from the portuguese one. Just a guess, though. Augustresende (talk) 02:29, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think about adding Tamzin's banner and instead of replacing, but reducing article info to absolute essential so that it does not break NPOV? Augustresende (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first sentence of WP:NPOV states that maintaining a neutral point of view means representing "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic", and this is expanded upon in the WP:DUE section. There is no version of the article that can meet npov now that the inclusion of such information has been prohibited. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 06:51, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the court has ruled it defamation then they're no longer reliable sources are they? This is the circular issue we get into... Even if there was no office action WP:BLP would have required the removal of the content based on the court's finding. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do what Tamzin said, or at least delete it. The only readers we have to serve are those who respect WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR. (First explained on the Chinese Wikipedia's Village Pump (Article affairs) to argue against unsourced fancrufts, but it applies to a much larger scale, that we are not here to serve all people in the world, and our only readers would not like to read anything breaching our pillars.) So now NPOV is breached, and the article is ruined that no legitimate readers would like to read it. Therefore, from a sane reader's perspective, having the entire article gone would not be any more harmful than having parts of the content gone. A banner would be needed to explain what happened, and for this purpose, the page is better not deleted and should be replaced by the banner, though deletion is acceptable if adding the banner is not. The above points are made purely from Wikipedia's ideology. If that's too hard to do (because there are readers, under a loose definition, who don't strictly respect the pillars), or if a consensus cannot be reached on this method, stubtify might be a choice. We can keep only the basic descriptions, i.e. something like "César Manuel Cardoso Matos do Paço (born 21 September 1965), also known as Caesar DePaço, is a Portuguese businessman. He is the chief executive officer of Summit Nutritionals International, a food-industry company." (and that's it), and add a banner to the bottom telling both readers and editors why this article is shrunk. Stubtify is my routine job when I meet articles (esp. BLPs) that look nothing like a Wikipedia article due to serious violations of the three core content policies, and this article is violating WP:NPOV like hell. And in response to Barkeep49's concerns, I believe that "just putting up some statement in response" would not discourage WMF. But instead, having a strong statement on the page would draw public attention to the issue, and keeping the contents would be effectively staying silent. We have done protests in the past, such as the one that blanked the entire Wikipedia but one page, and drew public attention. Knowing that we would nuke the article in case of an enforcement (which would be going against the goal of helping everyone to "share in the sum of all knowledge"), the WMF may put more effort into maintaining the integrity of articles. And MediaKyle's concerns are addressed in the first paragraph, that we are only supposed to serve those who respect our core values. As this page uses a level-3 heading instead of a level-2 one, I may not receive notifications from this page. Feel free to ping me, or leave a message on my Chinese Wikipedia talk page if something has to be answered as soon as possible. 1F616EMO (talk) 02:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, the reference "ionline 2021" is not defined in the current version. I am asking the WMF to check the suppressed version and restore that tag if it was accidentally removed. 1F616EMO (talk) 02:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, add a banner, oppose replacing with a statement - whether an article is kept or not should be based on WP:N, not on editor sentiment about the extent to which English Wikipedia should be subject to various countries' laws and court orders. I am opposed to throwing out our own policies and guidelines in order to make a statement that we disagree with a court order. This is an encyclopedia, not a platform for activism... not even activism in support of online encyclopedias. We can put the statement on the main page if we want, but we shouldn't mess with article content to further our own political goals. We need to have integrity -- we need to follow our own policies and guidelines, not use article space for political statements. I support adding some kind of banner to the article noting that some content was removed due to court order; readers should be made aware. (BTW, I don't know the details of what was removed or why, but unless and until we know, we should all keep open at least the possibility that the content that was removed actually was defamatory and it's a good thing it was removed. I'd prefer it were removed through the regular editorial process rather than court order, but without knowing the details, I'm not ready to decide that the removal was or was not justified.) Levivich (talk) 02:30, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allowing the remaining content to remain would be akin to allowing a subject of an article, through a clear SLAPP lawsuit, to dictate the content of their article. If we allow this to stand, we are doing a disservice to our readers by allowing the subject to dictate what remains public or not. If the WMF is going to bend over and take a bum-fucking by an obvious SLAPP lawsuit like this, we should not tolerate that by allowing any content about the subject to remain on the wiki. In other words, the subject FA'ed. Now the subject needs to FO that enwp isn't going to allow them to choose what content is available or not. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!02:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To add: I'm not particularly concerned with the exact wording of the banner, including whether it should be phrased as telling readers that content has been removed, or telling editors what content not to add. I support an edit notice in addition to, or instead of, a banner, telling editors what content not to add. I'm not opposed to ECP, it kind of makes sense to restrict editing of this article to (somewhat) experienced editors due to the unique challenges posed by the court order, but I oppose full protection as overkill. No need to add work for admins, I trust experienced editors can handle things appropriately. I'd support full protection only if lesser protection were first tried and proved to be ineffective. Levivich (talk) 19:09, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's a fairly good chance the closer will stop at keep/delete and refer discussion on the details of banner and protection to the article talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:19, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, that would probably be a wise approach. Which reminds me: support the closer, God bless the poor bastard who volunteers to parse this one. Levivich (talk) 19:22, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner, per Tamzin. If the person does not want certain content about them to be in the public view, we are under zero obligation to post any content about them. This is something that enwp needs to send a message to WMF and the public even more than the SOPA/PIPA blackout did. The WMF has failed all wikis they operate with this decision. And we should not stand by and allow the WMF to force BS office actions on enwp with BS reasoning. The WMF is requiring we do not republish the specific information. The WMF cannot, however, require us to publish any information. I would support any banner that is substantially similar to the following: The English Wikipedia maintained an article on Caesar DePaço that complied with our content policies - including that all information, especially potentially negative information, was sourced to reliable secondary sources. This complies with our policy on biographies of living persons. The subject of this article did not like some of the information that was included in this article about them - and they were able to perpetuate a successful SLAPP suit against the WMF that the WMF believes requires some information to be removed from this article. In protest of both the lawsuit and the WMF's compliance with it, the English Wikipedia has chosen to blank this article - the prior content can be found in its history.The banner needs to make clear three things - 1) this was an illegal SLAPP attempt. 2) the WMF should never have complied with it. 3) ENWP is not going to tolerate the WMF bending over and taking the bum-fuck that this office action shows they're willing to do. If nothing changes, this may very well be my last comment/edit to any WMF project before I scramble my password. This is absolutely absurd. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!02:35, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and add a banner, giving as much of the judgement as we can legally quote to make it clear the sort of thing that's been removed. I'm sympathetic to Tamzin's approach but we're an encyclopedia, and I think our duty to our readers is to give them the information we can give them, as well as to let them know about the legal obstacles and censoring. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our duty to our readers is to provide an encyclopedia article. If we cannot do so because of a court order, it is a disservice to our readers to only provide information the subject wants provided. As such, we should not provide any information until we can provide full and complete information. Otherwise we are allowing a subject to whitewash their article to what they want it to be. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!02:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Tamzin's solution. I've sat with this a bit. I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should have an article, but in the present state we can't write one that conforms with our policies. Mackensen(talk)02:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner per Tamzin, full protect: An article whose contents are dictated by its subject is fundamentally incompatible with WP:NPOV. It would be against policy to keep it. There is an additional concern that if an editor were to unwittingly re-add information that the Portuguese courts has deemed illegal they may be exposed to an acute legal risk. Blanking, bannering, and locking the page protects the integrity of Wikipedia's neutrality, and protects editors. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 03:14, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, add Tamzin notice, but quote the court order's description of the removed content in that notice, if WMF legal doesn't prevent it. Otherwise, how will any editor know what not to add? --tony03:44, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Why are we censoring Wikipedia just because some judge in other country said so? Tell them to eat shit. What are they going to do? Wikipedia doesn't have servers in Portugal why are we listening to their stupid demands? Yilku1 (talk) 03:50, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Yilku1: When people are voting keep (including "keep with alternative banner" suggestion) they are voting to keep the censored version, to my knowledge. Keeping the whole thing is out of the question. There is a legal binding order from a judiciary of a sovereign (and democratic) country. You do not ignore that just because you don't like it. (My vote is replace with Tamzin's banner, for context.)
Blank and banner and full protect, delete if WFM says we can't do a banner. I have very little faith that the WMF is going to continue its mission to avoid censorship if it's giving into a slap suit. LakesideMinersCome Talk To Me!12:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and banner per Mike Christie. I would suggest that we not blank the article, just add a tag on top as Tamzin suggested, but something more limited and more similar to other tags used in articles with issues. Something like
This article may be incomplete and its neutrality compromised as parts of it were removed by the Wikimedia Foundation pursuant to a Portuguese court order. Editors seeking to add missing information should make sure they are in compliance with the legal requirements.
Editors seeking to add missing information should make sure they are in compliance with the legal requirements.
How do you comply with legal court orders of what not to add, if you can't list what you can't add on Wikipedia for people to know what not to add to be legally compliant? -- Very Polite Person (talk) 03:45, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't figure it out, you don't edit the article, just as an average editor wouldn't edit advanced maths or physics articles. The point is to let readers know there's issues with the article and to let editors know to be careful. It's not intended to be a perfect solution. — Usedtobecool☎️03:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Misunderstanding an equation does not carry a risk of having your personal information being exposed to the Portuguese legal system, and litigious persons utilizing it. I understand this is an analogy, but it is a poor one that is nowhere near representative of the actual risks involved. Asking editors to just "figure it out" when there are serious demonstrated risks is entirely inadequate. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 04:06, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, add banner, and protect: Per Tamzin and fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four. We clearly can't keep the article the way it is now, since it would send a message that subjects can sue the WMF to get what they want on Wikipedia. Additionally, this is now a legal landmine and locking the article would protect unaware editors from being sued by malevolent parties. ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:34, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I am from Indonesian Wikipedia and highly endorse Tamzin suggestion. As that article also available in id.wp, I strongly oppose WMF decision and they must doing more better to us as "backbone of the movement". Without us, what they can do? --Nohirara (talk) 03:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, add banner, and protect. Removing material critical of the subject simply because they do not like it compromises our purpose, and I would rather have no article than a censored one. I give no weight to arguments about the "rule of law": there are a large number of countries in which the law itself is antithetical to our purpose, and we have quite intentionally chosen as a movement to ignore it. We should do the same here. We are restricted to publishing information that is in the public domain in reliable sources. If and when we have strayed from that article subjects are entitled to some redressal, but that is clearly not the case here, and moreover we have processes for that. I am sympathetic to the argument that we have a duty to our readers and ought to present what information we can, but there is a point at which censored information is worse than none, and I would rather draw the line in the sand where it is clear, rather than engage in debate about which articles are compromised and which not, which increasingly appears to be the direction we are headed in. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Tamzin, with a comment - to help accommodate the concerns of those who said keep, maybe instead of a lengthy paragraph that makes it sound like a protest, instead make the description more technical that we're just following both internal and external requirements. 1) We can't include all information because of a legal order, and 2) we can't include a cherry-picked information because of a core guideline comprising the mission of the website. The solution is to have neither.
Blank and add community statement per Tamzin Was on the fence about this, but then came to the conclusion that an article that is forcibly altered (in this case, censored) by court order is not an article worth keeping. Some1 (talk) 04:40, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and banner per Barkeep, Levivich, and Mike Christie. There is enough information available about the subject, even without certain details, that he qualifies for a Wikipedia article. It's true that this article is no longer NPOV, but if we removed all the other information about a subject just because he has a dispute with Wikipedia, that wouldn't be NPOV either. The article should stay, and we should let readers seek the information elsewhere so that the Streisand effect can run its course on its own. I support Usedtobecool's banner idea, particularly its statement that the article's neutrality may be compromised. I believe this would communicate the point just as well as blanking the page would, while still maintaining some encyclopedic information. I would also consider adding a very conspicuous link to a news article about the case (as a one-time exception to WP:LINKSTOAVOID), as long as that wouldn't be considered contempt of the court or anything. Alternatively, keep the article, and add a paragraph in the "Career" section that's just "█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ."[Humor]— Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs)04:51, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know this is a joke - but I actually think that's quite a good idea. If we black out the locations where text was removed it makes it very obvious that there was censorship if/when a reader ignores the banner.
It supports the secondary goal of trying for a Streisand effect to discourage future SLAPP suits, while fulfilling the primary goal of making a NPOV encyclopedia article within the bounds of legal possibility. — Spacepine ☆ talk03:14, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Either delete or banner per Tamzin with no text visible front-facing (aka in history tab only) a la the ANI case. I am opposed to keeping this article in a state where the text is visible to the reader. Especially with the tag - maintenance tags are supposed to be temporary, and this would not be. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:57, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maintenance tags are there until the issue gets fixed. Legal battles take years but we have plenty of completely unsourced articles from the early 2000s. Any tags we add may very well become unnecessary in the future if the foundation gets a favourable outcome from the ECHR. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:16, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, add banner and protect per Tamzin. in my small history of editing, this is the most chilling thing I have seen. as a Portuguese editor, I feel shame for our courts and symphathy for my fellow editors that were held liable for exercising their right to free expression. a protest blackout in Portugal and in the Portuguese-language projects would receive my support. thank you to Quark and Tamzin for your thoughts and swiftness and thank you to the future closer. Juwan (talk) 05:26, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strongest possible keep, with a section appropriately covering the court case and quoting the court on what, exactly, was required to be removed from the article. We could even cite the sources we had before the ruling (dug up from the Internet Archive as needed) without repeating the claims made. Those who see more censorship (blanking) as the correct response to censorship have got it backwards, and I strongly oppose any outcome that prevents us covering the court ruling in usual, encyclopedic style, per WP:NOTCENSORED. Toadspike[Talk]05:49, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The court's and WMF's decision supersedesWP:NOTCENSORED. The article is already censored in its present outcome of cutting certain parts of the article, fait accompli. The question is which solution minimizes more losses of Wikipedia necessities, and there's an argument made here that the "losses" here don't mean mere quantity of text content: no article is better than censored version of article. 2600:1012:A024:21CA:4689:AE31:E7E4:87BC (talk) 05:55, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, protect and add community statement per Tamzin is the best way to go. There is no way such actions have to go "unpunished". If this Caesar wanted to "clean up" his tarnished name, let us "assist" in making his name scrubbed clean. If we didn't take action today, some people would take the same path as this guy, and many will gladly follow his path. It is better for Wikipedia to NOT have an article on someone than having a censored version of the article. Imagine if <insert your hated politician here> succeeded in forcing Wikipedia to clean about <his past misdeed>. It would be very terrible. We should also "reword" the community statement to nudge the public to "seek information elsewhere". ✠ SunDawn ✠Contact me!06:14, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with Barkeep-style prominent banner warning in header. The Streisand Effect will frustrate DePaco's attempt to censor his article, and it's best for all concerned if we allow that to happen.—S MarshallT/C06:50, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner per all the above. Anyone arguing that this is allowing him to 'win' would be well placed to remember the Striesand effect, keeping the article or a simple BLAR will allow this to fade away, a banner will make people want to look into exactly what was removed and why. CoconutOctopustalk07:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, protect, and banner per Tamzin with a comment: Is there no way we can link to the last uncensored version hosted on, for example, the Internet Archive? Does that break the court order if Wikipedia wouldn't be hosting the content? I fucking hate that Wikipedia has been put in this position, and would rather no article at all vs a censored version with all the legal danger it puts editors in - but feel like linking to the last "clean" version so that readers at least see something..? qcne(talk)07:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little curious on what article content was actually lost, it doesn't seem to be the Chega thing, Chega is mentioned 6 times. Perhaps the Spanish WP-article is less censored, it's much longer atm. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:04, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that the article must be considered on its own merits. As the subject seems to be notable, deleting it would be contrary to our mission. The arguments that it can not be made neutral do not seem valid to me, I am sure it can be made neutral.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:32, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we're modifying articles based upon court judgements they are, by default, non-neutral and incompatible with the goals of this project. —Locke Cole • t • c19:38, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why, has he said something? My understanding is that the man loves attention, and it probably pissed him off that he was only the 5th mostly viewed article last year.
Blank and replace with statement/banner per Tamzin and others above. Wikipedia has clear guidelines about neutrality, and if the page cannot abide by our policies then we should not host it. Additionally, taking a stand on this and removing the page would show other people/entities that SLAPP suits aren't going to get them more favorable coverage. ArtemisiaGentileschiFan (talk) 10:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Do not blank without considering the image problem. He wanted to close the page in the injunction. The courts rejected closing the page. He will claim victory if the editors effective does it for him anyway. Techie3 (talk) 11:00, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the court said, in paraphrase, "Some of the facts complained of are false. The applicant showed evidence to the Court that they were false." as one of the reason it decided the case. It is probable wrong about balance, but this is much harder to work with. Techie3 (talk) 11:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Maybe we can stubify it instead of blanking it, leaving something like
César Manuel Cardoso Matos do Paço [...] is a Portuguese businessman. His lawyer threatened legal action if Wikipedia did not remove information DePaço considered fraudulent; this included the mention of a one-time donation he made to Chega, a right-wing political party in Portugal.
DePaço subsequently sued Wikipedia and editors. This is a strategic lawsuit against public participation.
Keep, banner and protect per Very Polite Person. They are right: any person who wants to edit this article in its censored form will be walking a legal minefield, and it is essentially the community's and the Foundation's duty to protect people from further court actions. --Deinocheirus (talk) 11:49, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner Having thoroughly checked the last pre-redaction archived version on the internet archive from the 20th of June and the WMF redacted version, the changes to the English Wikipedia article are overall minor and do not fundamentally compromise the article's neutrality. Blanking the article would just be giving DePaco what he wants. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:55, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I was hoping someone could be arsed to check and tell me. To lazy to do it myself atm. We (non-admins) have lost article history, but it's possible earlier versions actually did have some seriously false info. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:04, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Glad someone brought this up. There's actually a lot more that can be added to the article too, specifically about his nutrition company. I encourage folks to go translate the Portuguese article and read it. If someone is brave enough to do some translating, this page could be very informative while still dancing around the very specific information barred in the court order. MediaKyle (talk) 12:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How does this protect future unaware editors from being sued and their data exposed in Portugal if they unwittingly add again the "bad information"? We aren't even allowed to discuss or explain what the bad information is now on-wiki. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How does this protect future unaware editors from being sued and their data exposed in Portugal if they unwittingly add again the "bad information"? We aren't even allowed to discuss or explain what the bad information is now on-wiki. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tamzin's suggestion Blank the page and replace it with a banner. If we are incapable of making a neutral article about this subject then we should not have an article about him. Instead we should indicate just that he has used lawfare to prevent us from having a neutral article. Simonm223 (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - no immense loss to the project if this article doesn't exist, and the banner seems pointless to me, since in 10 years, nobody is going to give a rats ass about this whole incident.Isaidnoway(talk)12:45, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually disagree with the premise that no one will care in ten years, this and ANI seems like the type of thing secondary sources would write about as issues involving outside interference that mattered to the Wikipedia community. But I've been reading books like Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality lately so that might influence my knee jerk reaction to this a little bit. We're not always navel gazing, people do care about what we do behind the scenes. Clovermoss🍀(talk)17:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, protect aka Tamzin's solution, although I could also support a similar solution where we stubify instead of fully blanking. I looked at what the court ruling removed and what the article now looks like, and this is a blatant NPOV violation. This article's neutrality has been compromised and we would be doing readers a disservice by keeping it up. I sincerely hope this doesn't become the new norm, but until the legal issues disappear, I don't believe we should retain this article. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:23, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - stubify, banner, link to external archive of article before SLAPP, EC lock. As far as I can tell, this court order merely directs the removal of information on that specific page, and not the directing to it anywhere else on the Internet. If Mr. DePaço doesn't have anything to do other than suing everyone, he can try. On the other hand, I really don't see a reason to full lock the page. The stubification would involve basic info, no detailed pre-2025 info, and mentioning the controversy + any future developments. The point of this is to tell readers who aren't familiar with all this that they're on the correct page, with slightly added hassle of clicking on another link to see detailed pre-2025 info on the subject, due to the unfortunate circumstances. As a compromise with concerns of legal risks, maybe an extended confirmed lock is not a bad idea, to prevent newbies from making legally precarious rookie mistakes. However, I must disagree with full blanking, and full protection. Afaict from the discussions, Mr. DePaço's ideal outcome is removal of the article, so we especially shouldn't do that, although we shouldn't be setting such a precedent regardless. The article is compliant with our policies, so it should exist in at least some satisfactory form; this should be non-negotiable. Basic info + no detailed pre-2025 info would ensure NPOV is not violated. In case we cannot link a third party archive in the body, we should inform readers how to obtain such material independently. To be clear, this would come in the form of an External links section, with slight needed modifications. Dege31 (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's got to be at least EC-protected. You see, there's a very toxic combination here: (1) There are things we can't say; (2) We can't tell our editors what those things are; and (3) Mr DePaço has a history of forcing the WMF to reveal identifying information about people who say those unspecified things. Therefore it's irresponsible to allow the article to be edited by inexperienced people. Personally I'm in favour of full protection.—S MarshallT/C13:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I could be wrong, but it appears to me we only cannot include that content on the specific page. However, if we simply forbid and remove any detailed info about him pre-2025, as I proposed, that should solve even this potential issue. Dege31 (talk) 14:41, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said above, I would be willing to support stubification as an alternative to blanking, as long as the article is restricted to a max of two paragraphs (one for basic info and one for the WMF court case). QuicoleJR (talk) 14:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and add a banner per Tamzin. I would advocate for a banner to include both a link to the "most recent acceptable version" based on the WMF redactions and a link to the legal judgement itself. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me!13:42, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, and fully protect per Tasmin. Wikipedia cannot possibly allow an article to be modified using the law as a weapon. FaviFake (talk) 14:15, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and banner per Barkeep, Levivich, and Hemiauchenia. Including a banner recapping the situation is important for acknowledging that the article content is compromised, but blanking the article feels a bit POINTy to me; the legal judgment was fairly specific in what it prohibits, so I feel the best approach would be to write a high-quality article where we can and be explicit about identifying the places where that standard is unable to be met. To that end, I would also propose that the article or banner include, as much as is safely possible, descriptions of what type of content was removed pursuant to the court order. Perhaps by quoting the legal judgment itself, if that's permissible? But I'm not a lawyer by any means, so I can't offer more than general opinions here. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:24, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and banner on talk page, not in mainspace: Servers are hosted in the USA, I don't see that a Portuguese court ruling affects America. but I'm not a lawyer. Oaktree b (talk) 14:29, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Oaktree b: The court order has already been complied with as an office action. This discussion is on whether to keep the whitewashed version of the page or remove the page entirely in protest. Disregarding the court ruling is not an option here. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:43, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure AfD is the proper forum to be discussing this, shouldn't this be an admin discussion? Sticking a banner on an article isn't really arguing notability is my point. Oaktree b (talk) 14:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We'd have to pretty much semi-protect the page, otherwise some random editor can just happen upon the article in the future and add the information that was removed by the court order. If we're going down that road, you'll need to somehow put up a warning sign/flag/something for future editors... I'm frankly amazed this hasn't been appealed; a French court tried something a few years ago about a military listening post and the information was retained. This would seem to go against acceptable speech limitations in Europe, should be appealed to the European court by Wikimedia corporate. I'm not sure putting up a banner sends the right message. Keep something on the talk page and semi protect the article, but a banner in main space sends the wrong message. Oaktree b (talk) 15:12, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete & replace with banner as per Tamzin. This would provide transparency to the readers while not infringing nor contempting the court order. EmpAhmadK (talk) 14:35, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, protect. Seems like there is now precedent for editors' identities to be exposed if they get involved here, so it seems like the best thing we as the community can do to keep ourselves safe and in compliance with content policies. WindTemposthey(talk • contribs)14:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Status Quo The current banner on the article seems sufficient to me. Having compared the archive.org archive of the article from June 2025 with the Office-redacted version (note the previous edit to the article before the redatcion was in April), I find that most of the information described in the VPWMF thread was already not present in the article; all I see removed are one sentence in the lead and a corresponding sentence in the body relating to the ending of the Honorary Consulship (although they left in a suspiciously specific denial, In late January 2021, DePaço's attorney Rui Barreira told Macao newspaper Ponto Final that DePaço was not dismissed from his position, but resigned on his own initiative 😀), and one other removed sentence that probably has to do with "the existence of the AB Foundation". I don't see that Office had to remove anything about crimes since 1989, or anything about "the claim that the applicant was barred from obtaining any Portuguese document". OTOH, I would support an addition of the direct quote from the judicial order about what must be omitted, if that's ok with WMF Legal. Anomie⚔14:55, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How does this protect future unaware editors from being sued and their data exposed in Portugal if they unwittingly add again the "bad information"? We aren't even allowed to discuss or explain what the bad information is now on-wiki. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 15:01, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Very Polite Person: how does blanking the page protect future unaware editors from being sued and their data exposed in Portugal? I don't think that such protection is possible but we'd also have to blank Chega (political party) and a half dozen other pages just to deal with this single incident... But the issue here isn't limited to the individual its related to the Portuguese courts so we'd have to blank every page related to Portugal or a Portuguese citizen. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:18, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's far from clear at this point. It's quite possible that we could quote the judicial order on the talk page, since only en:DePaço and pt:Caesar DePaço were subject to the order. It may even be possible to quote the order in the article, but that's a question for the lawyers. P.S. You may want to check WP:BLUDGEON, as you seem to have added this same comment in replies several times here. Anomie⚔15:23, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, protect per Tamzin and others. Editors cannot be guessing at what to add or edit under threat of exposure, and so we will never have a complete article. LizardJr8 (talk) 14:56, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(reedit) Keep but also keep a visible statement at the top per Tamzin and others (which makes sense given the unprecedented actions being taken without discussion by the WMF). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:07, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, delete & replace with banner just feels childish and petty... I also can't square it with policy or guideline, even IAR. I would also note that as others have said we are allowed an article on the court case (and if the subject disagrees they can get another court ruling...), its still due for coverage somewhere on wiki even if we can't do it directly here. I would also note that most of the people voting here have no skin in the game but are making decisions based on what they think would be safest for other editors, I have 30 edits to the page... Censorship in the name of safety doesn't make us safer, it makes us easier targets for this sort of thing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also can't square it with policy or guideline
Well, the other option is also hard to square with our policies. The 1st sentence of WP:NPOV says that maintaining a neutral point of view means representing "all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic", and this is expanded upon in the WP:DUE section. No version of this article can meet npov now that we can't include such information. FaviFake (talk) 15:18, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It says that we strive for NPOV... But NPOV is a theoretical goal, there isn't a single truly NPOV article on wiki. No article *ever* truly meets NPOV. As a longtime editor of this article I'm convinced that most people here don't actually know what was removed or its significance. What we have now is more or less NPOV, a lot less was cut than some seem to think. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: From a PaG standpoint: Wikipedia:Notability#Why we have these requirements says the purpose of Notability is to ensure every article that we include can eventually meet our content policy and guidelines based on the current information available. For example, We require multiple sources so that we can write a reasonably balanced article that complies with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, rather than representing only one author's point of view. If it is impossible for the article to comply with NeutralPointOfView, I would say this article violates the spirit rather than the letter of Notability. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:25, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"If it is impossible for the article to comply with NeutralPointOfView" having done a lot of NPOV work on this article pre-court ruling (mostly to remove pro-DePaço fluff) I would say that its not impossible or even difficult. Anyone who has done more work on the article than me is welcome to challenge that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the content via the Wayback Machine and it was a major portion of the article. I disagree with Hemiauchenia's assertion that the redactions are overall minor and do not compromise the article's neutrality. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:39, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you comparing to the current version or the version immediately after the office action[4]? Most of the changes between the archived and current version is the result of edits other than the office edit. What was removed was not a major portion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly understand this viewpoint, but I believe the removed and highlighted connections of several of its leaders to the DePaço Foundation is very important information. (Hopefully it's fine to quote removed content as discussed below.) Aaron Liu (talk) 15:59, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't seem to have a source for that... This one[5] goes the most in-depth on the connections to the DePaco Foundation but while they connect multiple political figures to the foundation only one of those named, Diogo Pacheco de Amorim, is from Chega. The other figures connected to the foundation in that reporting are Nuno Melo, José Cesário, and Carlos Gonçalves who are all from other parties. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's just the advisory board sentence. The article goes into six paragraphs' worth of detail on José Lourenço, the leader of the party's chapter in Porto (the second-largest city in Portugal) and executive director of DePaço's foundation. As the article mentions, this person had enough influence to oust a critic, the leader of the chapter in Madeira (a trade and resort autonomous region). I think the removed phrase is a good way to succinctly summarize the ties to the assembly's Vice President and another prominent leader. There is an argument that this alone should be "two" instead of "several", but with the court ordering the removal of the entire phrase, there's no way to cover this information that is a major part of the Chega scandal.Also, I'd expect similar coverage in the other removed citations to the original news report video and Visão print article (both of which I of course don't have the Portuguese knowledge to check). Aaron Liu (talk) 20:52, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically it appears that the court ordered removal of the existence of the DePaço Foundation ("existência da Fundação AB"), which is probably why that sentence was removed. If sources support a statement of a connection of Chega leaders with DePaço himself without us mentioning the existence of that Foundation, the order wouldn't seem to cover that (unless it's part of the 1989 crimes, I guess). Anomie⚔18:29, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I was only looking at the Constitutional Court ruling and trying to figure out existência da D.; I'm guessing D is the Foundation. The order mentions the right to be forgotten.In that case, my opinion is conditional keep, condition being that we mention the connections in some way. Looking at the Lisbon Court of Appeal judgement you found, it seems the court refused to order the removal of things about a proximidade do requerente a dirigentes do Partido DD, so we can say this. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:48, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just thought of something: Is what I mentioned possible? The WMF office action did the edits while removing a bunch of sources, including the ones we're looking at. These sources mention the foundation. Are we prohibited from citing these sources? If so, I'm not sure if satisfying my condition is possible. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:00, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My best guess is that they simply deleted the citations at the end of the statement being deleted without looking at the details too closely, much like how they originally hid all the edit summaries for all the revisions without considering whether any were actually violative. You might get an answer if you ping them in the VPWMF discussion with a specific question like "were the sources deleted in the Office action part of that action and should not be used for anything else either, or were they ok themselves and were only removed because the text they were attached to were deleted?" Absent an answer on that, my own baseless personal opinion is that the order only said that certain things had to be removed from our page at en:DePaço, without saying we can't link to sources mentioning any of it. Anomie⚔20:19, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question is there an option to retain our normal rules, but withdraw access to en-Wikipedia in Portugal until the matter has been properly resolved? The fact that anyone editing this article in future (or indeed other contentious articles about people and businesses associated with Portugal) can be outed and prosecuted is rather unsatisfactory. Even Tamzin's banner could be seen as defamatory, as it implies that there's negative information about the subject. Elemimele (talk) 16:05, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is being prosecuted, this is a civil lawsuit brought against wikipedia and these private parties by a private party not a criminal action brought by the state. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:09, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
true, but if someone puts the information back into the article, it's presumably in the realms of contempt, which is not a great place for an editor to find themselves. Elemimele (talk) 20:50, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on what Portuguese law considers Wikipedia as, a platform or a publisher. In the ANI case, while the Delhi High Court judge's order was wrong, it seems correct in India law that WMF can be held in contempt if the article on the court case wasn't blanked. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:49, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The WMF is a party, it doesn't matter whether its treated as a platform or a publisher. The court in this case has not ordered the article blanked, people want to blank the article to protest the court's much more limited action. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:39, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank per all others. I would even go so far as to explicitly state in the banner that the article was blanked because Portuguese courts have made it impossible to write an article that follows NPOV. Resolute16:18, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but I prefer the {{Legal order}} template Barkeep created last night over Tamzin's. It's informative yet concise. It looks like this:
Content from this article was removed following a court order and must not be restored. Consequently, this article may not meet Wikipedia's standards for neutrality and comprehensiveness. Additional details, including a description of the prohibited content, may be available on the talk page.
I think this also gets the point across without sounding overly soapbox-y. Most readers come to Wikipedia to read our content and don't nessecarily care about every single legal issue we face. I don't think further censorship is the answer here. I also think broader conversations need to be had elsewhere about the role WMF takes in its approach to such requests but people are already doing that. Clovermoss🍀(talk)16:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, add a banner similar to {{Legal order}} that also includes a link to the court order(perhaps an optional parameter can be added), and place it under WP:FULL protection. If he doesn't want anything that is disparaging, albeit factually correct, then he shouldn't have anything at all. We need to WP:DENY this troll the recognition that he wants. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk)17:33, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He wants the information removed. We know that based on what has been filed in the court proceedings. So keeping the article denies him what he wants. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:40, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He wanted much more than has been removed removed... Barring that he seems to have wanted deletion, so yes this would be giving him what he wants. The background here is immense and scattered but I recommend [6]. What we "have left" isn't a whitewashed stub, its still a serviceable article and in terms of NPOV still talks a great deal about Chega. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd imagine he wants an article, just one that doesn't make him look bad. I would agree that full deletion would give him what he wants, as nothing Wikipedia-related would come up in online search results anymore. But I like Tamzin's banner idea a lot. Caesar DePaço would still be a page on enwiki, it would still come up in online search results for Caesar DePaço, but it would be a very unusual page with an unprecedented banner explaining how there used to be something here, but for legal reasons, there's not anymore. I also like that Tamzin's banner invites the reader to look at the past revisions of the page for further reading, while also acknowledging that the revision history has been heavily censored. The last thing that DePaço would want is something that would make his page stand out and make readers curious why. Vanilla Wizard 💙18:22, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There's something posted on the Administrator's Noticeboard/Village Pump about this [7], I don't really think this is an AfD issue at this point. It's more of a Wikipedia administration issue. I'd perhaps close this until it gets solved there. Oaktree b (talk) 17:57, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – If the consensus is to keep the article, then I would propose that the article have an edit notice in place explaining what was removed and cannot be restored and place the article under indefinite WP:ECP. This would still allow editing of the article by editors who are presumed to be competent enough not to get in trouble. If ECP is found insufficient, then full protection to require and admin or 'crat to review proposed edits. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk)18:32, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support banner, weak support blanking. My understanding is that there isn't really a non-acquiescing option here that still lets this get appealed to the ECHR. Sesquilinear (talk) 18:43, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Banner. Many excellent arguments above, but ultimately, we can't write a neutral article, and we are not here to do PR for him. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:24, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Above, I voted to blank the page and add a banner, but I now have an alternative suggestion to consider: Perhaps make an article about the lawsuit when it gets enough secondary coverage, then turn this page into a redirect to the lawsuit page. ArtemisiaGentileschiFan (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (do not blank and/or apply a banner). Like everybody here, I am very concerned about this situation, but I don't see how deleting, blanking and/or bannering the article helps our mission and our readers. The guy is apparently notable, so our job is to write a neutral article about him, to the extent we are able to do so. This situation is not novel in that we are very often unable to write a comprehensive article for reasons outside our control - most often for a lack of reliable sources, and here because of an office action. But that should not stop us from doing our job to the extent we can. Blanking and bannering the article would be a case of the community as a whole disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, and using articlespace as a soapbox, which our policies forbid. It is more helpful to readers to cover this case of censorship - to the extent we are able to - in the context of the article, which we should be able to do more fully as soon as more sources pick the story up. Sandstein 19:28, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sandstein: I largely agree with you, but I was wondering if {{Legal order}} counts under your definition of "banner". I don't think simply stating that information has been removed is soapboxing. No worries if we disagree about the best solution, I just want to understand your own position better. Clovermoss🍀(talk)20:06, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Clovermoss, on consideration, I agree that something like {{Legal order}} would be appropriate to inform editors why certain edits are not possible (maybe semiprotection is also needed). My opposition was primarily to the more soapboxy banner Tamzin proposed. Sandstein 07:51, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our articles also require neutrality, hence WP:NPOV, and they forbid original research, hence WP:NOR. An article that cannot comply with either of those core policies due to external factors does not have a place on this project. WP:NOT is a policy about the type of content we typically allow (or disallow), but NPOV and NOR are non-negotiable. —Locke Cole • t • c20:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does that mean we need to delete any article which is technically incomplete without the addition of legally restricted, classified and/or secret documents? Nobody is saying that they're negotiable, but they've always been bounded by the courts in one way or another. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:18, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't agree that state secrets are comparable to known material that's been intentionally censored through SLAPP suits. There's not much risk of editors accidentally introducing unknowable info. However, editors that contribute to this page going forward are at risk of unintentionally violating a court order. The risk is especially high because we can't even say, or see, or link to what exactly it was that we're not allowed to write in the article. We can say "content was removed that must not be restored", but if editors cannot know what content Template:Legal order is talking about, how can that template help to prevent the reintroduction of that material? That would be problematic not only because it puts the editors at risk of having their personal information leaked without their consent (as the Portuguese court already did to eight editors of this page), but also because failure on Wikipedia's part to comply with the Portuguese court order would jeopardize the Wikimedia Foundation's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Vanilla Wizard 💙21:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is it reasonable to expect all editors will know this when they cannot view the revision history and links to these past versions are not allowed? The only (on-wiki) place I can see what topics are listed as needing to be avoided is the Village Pump statement a few paragraphs down, which notably mentions his resignation (or dismissal) from a civil service post. Without reading the old version that cannot be linked to, it's too ambiguous what this is talking about. The current revision mentions his resignation from a civil service post for the Portuguese Republic, so if an editor managed to find the one place on enwiki that says what can't be said, they could reasonably assume that the current revision is violating that part of the Village Pump statement. It's only because I've read a version that I am not allowed to link to that I know this is more likely referring to his dismissal from a civil service post for Cape Verde, not Portugal. Even putting the ambiguity aside, I can't stomach self-censoring against our policies and pillars, forbidding even the mere mention of well-documented controversies and scandals. Vanilla Wizard 💙22:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
SLAPP only applies to meritless cases and/or when the intention is to impose will through financial dominance not the court's ruling and here the court says that the case has merit and has ruled in DePaço's favor. Until a higher court says that the case does not have merit or rules against DePaço that is where we are. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the difference here is that it's not a matter of classified/secret documents which would also not be available to anyone else, but rather a court ruling targeting Wikimedia directly and EN/PT projects. This is direct and intentional meddling by an external force. —Locke Cole • t • c21:15, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a sovereign nation, this is a legal action by a recognized court in a democratic nation in which we operate. If the decision gets upheld by the EU courts then maybe some sort of protest or action is due but why do that *before* exhausting judicial options? Especially as the EU level court is almost certain to side with us/the foundation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:07, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We're going in circles here. I never said anything about Wikipedia being a sovereign nation, and I fully comprehend the outcome was a legal one. This does not change that the ruling puts any efforts to produce an article on this subject with our WP:PAG in place as they are is impossible. Another PAG is WP:NOTCENSORED, which this ruling from the court also undermines. —Locke Cole • t • c22:37, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"This is direct and intentional meddling by an external force." would only make sense if wikipedia were sovereign... Otherwise any law or regulation which is outside PAG is "direct and intentional meddling by an external force." We've never operated outside of existing legal frameworks and PAG have always acknowledged that, take for example the special rules we have for BLP and COPYVIVO. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:45, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also just to be clear as the person in this discussion with the most experience improving the page "This does not change that the ruling puts any efforts to produce an article on this subject with our WP:PAG in place as they are is impossible." is completely false. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because the net result of deleting the page on those grounds would be more censorship not less. The court has asked us to censor a very small amount of information, in response parties like Locke Cole want to self censor the entire article. Their argument is also vapid, we aren't "forbidding even the mere mention of well-documented controversies and scandals" its still more than mentioned. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:29, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People clearly find the content offensive in the context of the court order, thats why you have many editors not only calling for a permanent blanking of this page but a temporary blanking of all pages related to Portugal. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:49, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You slightly have a point, but will WP:NPOV (which Locke mentioned earlier) not apply here, which makes it non-circular? How can we meet NPOV by writing a summary of the sources when we cannot write that summary due to legal action? LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 00:28, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There has never been a requirement to cover the information in sources which are unavailable to us for legal reasons. I would also note that if the court had just found the news articles to be defamatory and had nothing directly to do with wikipedia BLP would require us to not use those sources anyway. NOTCENSORED obviously has big exceptions, and BLP is one of them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:38, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can access them; we cannot, because of legal reasons, write based on them. From my understanding, the judgment did not find the sources defamatory, only the Wikipedia text using it. That means the sources were not "found defamatory, thus are unreliable, thus cannot be used per WP:BLP". LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 01:05, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Same difference... If we accept the legitimacy of the court the ruling means that the content violates WP:BLP and has to be removed. Even if the office action hadn't been taken someone would still have removed the content on legitimate BLP grounds. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:32, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep; extended confirmed protect; add banner; add custom edit notice describing the three forbidden topics in a bulleted list and an external link to the judgment and warning editors their personal information may be forwarded to some court or lawyer in Portugal. This is the best way to prevent future editors from triggering invasions of privacy. It's a bit like the kindergarten teacher writing all the words the children will get punished for saying in the top left corner of the blackboard. It's farcical. But that's where I think the subject has put us. JFHJr (㊟) 20:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep; add an edit notice; add a banner I think the solution put forward by various editors here on potentially having two actions here; one that is to have an edit restriction and/or notice to protect editors, and one on a banner conveying the strength of feeling in the community's views, seems justifiable here. I also echo the view that the page should stay up per the reasons people have set out involving the context around desired deletions and revisions, and the long term consequences and precedent if we delete here and who benefits from such a decision. I also can't help but wonder if the case itself will become more notable and could warrant a page that could be a natural home for e.g. a redirect from this page in future, but that's a discussion for another time. Greenleader(2) (talk) 22:54, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrary break 3
Blank with banner The stakes of someone misunderstanding the scope of this court order are severe. Per the discussion at Talk:Caesar DePaço, even the WMF cannot definitely say what content additions will get future editors in trouble. Multiple keep votes here misunderstand that editors outside Portugal are still at risk because DePaço can compel the WMF to reveal identifying info. Even if they cannot be extradited to face Portuguese defamation charges, DePaço could HYPOTHETICALLY dox them, and they may be conversely unable to hold him accountable. Per Vanilla Wizard, giving DePaço the opportunity to claim that defamatory material has been re-added weakens the WMF’s appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which will dictate the broader survival of Wikipedia’s independence in EU countries. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 23:00, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think its you who misunderstands... These aren't criminal charges. They've been named as parties in a lawsuit, not charged with crimes. All edits to wikipedia come with legal risk for the editor, the risks aren't reduced by not having this page. I also think you misunderstand Vanilla Wizard's point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:07, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't aggression, I'm a top editor of the page... People who have never edited the page are telling me that its too risky to edit the page. What grounds would that be on? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:31, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They would seem to mean a great deal if the legal risk really is as great as some are saying... Both can't be true, either I'm in great danger and so my opinion matters a great deal or I'm in no danger at all so my opinion does no matter in any special way. The claim is after all one of safety, but it is not a claim being made by the people who apparently need protection. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:08, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And how would you avoid them taking on such risk? Blanking the page doesn't do that, you'd essentially have to blank all pages even tangentially related to Portugual in order to remove the risk. This sort of thing is exactly why we have a big red banner that pops up when you edit the bios of living people, to let you know that more risk than normal comes with editing such topics. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:15, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"And how would you avoid them taking on such risk? Blanking the page doesn't do that..." The blanking is not for that, the page-locking is."...you'd essentially have to blank all pages even tangentially related to [Portugal]" Not just Portugal, this can also happen with other countries and their legal systems... but that is what makes this situation severe. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 00:41, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IMO thats what makes this situation ordinary, this does pretty regularly happen... There was a very comparable case in India earlier this year which eventually did end up with the final court ruling out way. I think most people severely underestimate the risks that come from editing wikipedia in general, especially as our semi-anonymity is only temporary. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that if a foreign editor fails to attend a Portuguese civil defamation trial, then the Portuguese government can bring criminal charges for failure to appear, hence why I referenced the possibility of extradition. Regardless, my point is the bigger doxxing risk for adding sourced content. While you may be happy to assume that risk, a) with semi-protection, an editor making their 11th edit is likely to misinterpret this amorphous risk and b) we must consider how this affects the ECtHR appeal. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 23:38, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that you would be required to attend in person. The doxxing risks are real but they exist either way, the foundation is going to hand over your info whether or not you choose to appear. Extended confirmed protection would be the best option IMO. The only actions that will impact the ECtHR appeal are those taken by the foundation and they already took those actions. The foundations is good on this, the problem comes later when the foundation says "Our community follows a set of policies and guidelines" and the very easily counter that no you clearly don't the page was blanked in retribution in a way that conforms with nothing other than perhaps IAR. Oh and many people were 100% open that it was retribution for some reason and even proposed blacking out all pages related to Portugual. Does that sound like a mature rule abiding community to you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:46, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner our purpose is to be an encyclopedia, so we should have the informative content that we can. However the banner should also warn editors that their user info may be outed if they edit this page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:09, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Notable, revised article clearly outlines what he did to Wikipedia, and I think it accurately conveys information that will allow people to know what is missing. No need for special message box. Note I am referring to the article as it is as of the time of my signature. If there is consensus for notice, I think the {{Legal order}} template is best. — rsjaffe🗣️23:58, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - the WMF has posted a response to questions here. While this satisfies me that the WMF was (speaking frankly) given a shit sandwich and making the best of it, it doesn't change the fact that the article, as it stands legally, has no hope of being conformant with Wikipedia's fundamental policies and thus my !vote above stands. - The BushrangerOne ping only00:04, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The subject is notable. Deleting the article via self-censorship is counterproductive to several editors' stated goal of preventing censorship. To avoid addition of content barred by the court's judgment/office action while the WMF pursues the case before the ECHR, we can create an editnotice and indefinitely EC protect the page. Weak oppose the {{legal order}} template and any sort of banner. This guy has already Streisand effected himself. I'd be fine with an ordinary {{POV}} template. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:41, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner indicating scope of removal With the recent addition of what the court order required removal along with the significant coverage of the lawsuit itself in the article of I believe that is sufficient for readers to understand what happened. An edit filter can also help in preventing future editors from accidently creating content that is against the court order. However, if either the banner, the scope of the court order, or the lawsuit is also ordered to be censored from the article, then I would support immediate deletion and salt. JumpytooTalk01:48, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, protect, banner I am sympathetic to the blanking arguments but I don't think it's really necessary; relevant information is still mentioned by proxy, as it pertains to the legal case. If further information is ordered to be removed, then delete. Windfarmer—talk01:54, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner – notability is clearly met, but readers should be notified of issues with the page, as is the case with missing sources, other biased coverage, etc. I think listing the specific items not to mention in the banner is a bit dicey (it could come across as thumbing one's nose at the court's intent), but they should be listed somewhere, such as the talk page or an edit notice. RunningTiger123 (talk) 02:02, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What Tamzin Said We cannot have any substantive textt on an article where we're prevented from including any piece of it per NPOV, so the solution here is no article, and a tag that lets people seek alternate sources of information. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner is my !vote, having mulled it over: I think we have to avoid being emotive about it, and stick to our function, so we can't avoid having articles on notable people. The banner is necessary to warn readers that in this instance they need to treat our article as potentially incomplete, and to warn editors that they should proceed with extreme caution. Unfortunately if editors can't know what was removed, they can't know what not to put back in. It is very important that the foundation fight this ferociously, but that's not a matter for AfD. Elemimele (talk) 09:16, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner - notability is met, amount of text removed does not appear substantial enough to justify blanking the whole page. For banner most appropriate is {{Legal order}}, with link to the court order and explanation about the scope of removals, as can be seen in this version[8].--Staberinde (talk) 10:28, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, protect, banner, but don't blank It would be contrary to our mission to remove useful information from the article, but I definitely think out of an abundance of caution nobody should be editing it either. I'm not so sure about the banner on the page currently, as it seems to say a little too much for my comfort. Perhaps the proposed banners should be cleared with WMF legal if that's possible. Pinguinn🐧10:35, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think it's a good set of instructions to leave on the talk page or editnotice for the community. I'm just not sure about putting it front and center for all of our readers. Perhaps a compromise would be to include a briefer blurb on the banner and add "for more information, see the talk page". Pinguinn🐧11:17, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner. Articles must be neutral, including mentioning, with due weight, all relevant and well-sourced information. If some relevant and well-sourced information cannot be added to the article which otherwise would belong there, no matter how little or how much, the article cannot be neutral, so there cannot be an article. SeraphimbladeTalk to me11:08, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Seraphimblade: BLP means that this content wouldn't be there even if the court's ruling hadn't been directly about wikipedia... We wouldn't be able to include a source or information which a court had ruled to be defamatory. Post court ruling the sources are no longer reliable sources and so are useless for our BLP purposes, the information ceases to be relevant and well-sourced. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:07, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't read the court ruling yet, but from what's been said so far in the discussions around it, I do not believe the court ruled that what the sources said was false. The EU has restrictions on publishing even truthful information in some cases. Even if that were the case, a ruling by one court in one jurisdiction would not necessarily foreclose use of the information, it would just be one factor to consider. SeraphimbladeTalk to me15:18, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BLP does not give us that sort of wiggle room... Other topic yes, but not BLP. We would have to reject the legitimacy of the court, which is something we only do with places like North Korea and Tajikistan... Not modern liberal democracies. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:29, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, if there were a finding of actual defamation against the original publishers, I'd tend to agree. But this != that. It seems the court is not particularly concerned with whether the information is true, but whether it's "damaging to honor" or the like. If a court would prohibit publishing of truthful information because someone doesn't like it, I would question both the legitimacy of doing so, and would also argue that such a practice is fundamentally illiberal, in the classical sense of that term. SeraphimbladeTalk to me18:56, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm missing something the court did actually rule on the truthfulness of some of it... One of the things we realized upthread is that there is a bit in there which was removed which does actually seem to have gone a bit beyond what was in the given sources. Again I would agree with you in general, but when it comes to BLP we are required to err on the side of caution and that means we've at least got to have affirmative talk page consensus to include the material... It would have to by policy be removed until such consensus was achieved. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:33, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seconded. This is a case where our BLP rules apply, albeit an unusual case. A lot of people in this discussion have the argument that, if we remove the information, then the article would fail NPOV. To that, I say, why is that different from all of the other information we remove from BLPs? As a point of comparison, I once edited an article about someone who had been "cancelled" on social media, and there were reliable sources discussing this, so one could consider it an important viewpoint that should given due weight. I did not include the information as I believed it bordered on defamation, and I doubt that many people would say that this violated NPOV. I think the same applies in the case of Caesar DePaço, where we can say with certainty that this information meets the legal definition of defamation. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs)23:54, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner. I oppose blanking the article, as it would allow the article subject to suppress coverage of not only their past actions, but also their future actions. I believe extended confirmed protection is sufficient; any editor who contravenes the office action may be subject to a response from the WMF, but any greater restriction (such as full protection) would unnecessarily impede editing.The content in the article, specifically the Caesar DePaço § Wikimedia legal affairs section, can be expanded to cover the content that was removed by the court order (to the greatest possible extent allowed by relevant reliable sources – and I would include court documents as appropriate primary sources), as long as the article text is phrased as a set of claims attributed to Wikipedia instead of a set of claims in Wikipedia's voice. — Newslingertalk12:59, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe WP:PROPORTION allows the article Caesar DePaço to describe the removed claims with the same amount of detail that would be used to make these claims if there were no court order enforcing the removal of the claims. (Any coverage specifically focusing on the court case and the content removal would be in addition to the coverage of the claims themselves.) The only difference is that we would be citing sources about the court case and the removal instead of the sources the article originally cited about DePaço himself, and that we would be describing the claims as content that was removed per a court order. — Newslingertalk13:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this could cause proportion issues. Surprisingly, I have not seen press coverage of this turn of events, which would be needed. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:55, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Since WMF legal has removed content, they should really be explaining what we can and can't add to the article. They've made the decision to remove content, but want us to "police" the article from this point forward, which I don't think is appropriate action (for the simple fact that there should be ZERO involvement from the WMF over what goes into ANY article). I feel like our hands are tied and like it or not, editors are at risk now.Oaktree b (talk) 15:11, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They've offered generalizations, not specific guidelines. Unless I've read it incorrectly over there. Editors are still at risk, which is more concerning. Oaktree b (talk) 15:32, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Editors are always at risk... Editors will never not be at risk. Its like how they say that when you shoot a gun every bullet has a lawsuit attached... When you edit every edit has a lawsuit attached. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Correct, we're all at risk. It's no longer a hypothetical, but an actual threat. Edit accordingly I suppose. Don't complain when the lion bites you later. Oaktree b (talk) 20:33, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't remember a time when there was no lion... Its also been an actual threat that whole time, but then again I haven't been editing as long as many here have. I've gotten both legal and death threats for my editing, is that abnormal? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:43, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, do not blank, banner, protect. The way I see it, our primary obligation is to provide as much neutral information to our readers as we can, without getting in WMF Legal's way – and providing more, rather than less, information has the additional benefit of not rewarding the SLAPP suit. So I want to keep the page (insofar as we can) and I oppose blanking. I think a banner at the top, along the lines of Template:Legal order with the formatting that is on the page now (permalink), is the way to go, and it tells our readers what we can about what the censorship is. And I like the idea of protecting future edits by full-protecting the page, and having edits made via edit requests on the talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:51, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn’t thought of the possibility of indefinite full protection but I think it’s a good idea, although I don’t think it’s been done before. Doug Wellertalk17:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, extended protect. This allows most of the project's purposes to be met, while protecting the least savvy editors and informing them of risks. It also tends to push enquiring minds to use other resources, which are lesser targets for litigation, to find out more information out there on the great big web. While not the primary purpose, it does also "Streisand" the notable subject of the article, hopefully acting to dissuade others from similar actions.☣︎ Hiobazard ☣︎17:45, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner per Barkeep49, but with more information about where the removed information was so that readers can tell easily if the section or paragraph they are viewing contained affected material. This could be done with additional section tags, inline tags, or most visibly by adding black bars (e.g. a block of text that appears to be solid black, as though in a partially redacted report[removed due to court order]) where the banned sentences would be placed today if we were allowed. This would of course be done in a way where you could not recover the text and need not necessarily be exact to the length of the missing text. 3df (talk) 18:48, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I’m not suggesting keeping the text, just that we should indicate where text would have been in the current article with censor bars. 3df (talk) 21:02, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No but it will make it very evident (in a way that the polite and timid court order template barely does) that the article has been censored. For comparison, The Economist edition for India has an evident blank page whenever its normal content would otherwise contravene the Government of India order not to include any map that does not match the GoI's view of its borders with its neighbours. It has a polite rubric too, but Indian readers are left in no doubt that everyone else can see it but they can't. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:41, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is turning into a circus... WMF needs to step up and say we're locking the article, or give some sort of direction. They made a decision and left it to the community to deal with. Oaktree b (talk) 20:32, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not even sure why we're not discussing notability, this is articles for DELETION, not articles for PROTECTION. The stuff has already been deleted. Oaktree b (talk) 00:18, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An effective choice in forum insofar as whelming participation and consensus building. And some have indeed advocated or !voted for deletion. That seems to have been the nominator's question after a contested WP:BLAR though: whether to delete or have another outcome that we can offer at AfD like BLAR. After that, it went other places. It should eventually be closed as an AfD. JFHJr (㊟) 03:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, notice, protect per Tamzin - I think this is the best of a bad bunch of options, and the one that puts our community at the lowest risk going forward. There are a lot of well-intentioned but legally very problematic ideas being put forward here, and I think if we keep an article we will have constant drama as people try to fence around the edges of what they can or cannot include. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:57, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank with the current banner: I like the NPOV tone of the banner and the implication it comes from the legal office, with links to the court order. I don't think we should editorialize anywhere as "the community", only state facts and let readers interpret. It's how we write our articles, and I think even our notices should be the same. Just checked the history and the banner was added by an editor after WMFOffice edited; I think if we go blank-and-banner we should have the legal office agree to the wording of the banner, sign it themselves, and fully protect the page. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs)20:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply] Actually, I support keep now and no opinion on banner, this whole thing to me seems like an extension of the standard BLP processs. The subject of a biography objected to possibly-libelous information, the on-wiki process failed, so it went to court. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs)21:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I only mean in the sense of assenting to the fact that the banner itself doesn't (hopefully) violate the order, since they didn't write it. I don't know what the removed information is and I don't speak Portuguese to read the order. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs)21:44, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
delete Having gone through the history of this article, there has been a promotional quality to it from the start. It calls him a businessman, but in fact this is disposed of in a sentence about a non-notable company, and that has been the case all along. The whole "honorary consul" thing seems to me to be a nothing-burger. For a long time there was a lot of very promotional material about his philanthropy which is now all gone, I would say probably deservedly. So that leaves the political issue we aren't supposed to talk about and really is probably not very important unless the fellow is important, and the other allegations which suffer under the same lack of consequence. And the current dispute with WP, which I suppose is very important to us, but probably not that much to anyone else. So I'm really having trouble seeing keeping this; it probably should have been deleted way back when for lack of notability, and I think this is still a justifiable outcome. If he were someone of some consequence I would probably support the blank-and-a-banner approach, but I dispute his notability and think the article should have been deleted years ago. Mangoe (talk) 21:00, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I originally supported keep and banner, but after another look the notability of this subject doesn't seem to be as strong as stated, especially with the removal of content where most of the supposed notability came from anyway. Windfarmer—talk22:27, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That arrangement would still be problematic as good-faith editors can request edits about his "1989 criminal allegation", his "foundation", etc. to the talk page and the court orders also forbid us from doing that as well. ✠ SunDawn ✠Contact me!04:23, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The court orders forbid what, exactly? As far as I can tell in a brief look, it affects only en:DePaço and pt:Caesar DePaço. While there is detail that talk pages and other pages like this one exist, in the end the restriction says "the content of the pages (described in the facts proven 6 and 7)", with 6 being pt:Caesar DePaço and 7 being en:DePaço. Anomie⚔13:04, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, and protect. As an administrator, if somebody were to offer me money to use my tools to give them favorable Wikipedia coverage, I would tell them to pound sand, and I have faith that my fellow administrators — people chosen for integrity — would do the same. The same is true of all the non-administrators editors I know well. This isn't because we hate having money, it's because we believe in the integrity of the project, and that letting people throw around wads of dosh to make themselves look better on here substantially endangers the utility and worth of the project. It is not something we can permit to happen by way of paying off our editors, and it is not something we can permit to happen by way of paying lawyers to send us snitty letters. People have a right to access information that is trustworthy and reliable, and I move to oppose with manly firmness all invasions on this right. jp×g🗯️23:23, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, fully protect, no banner. The article banner is redundant to protection in alerting editors to the potential safety issue and is unfair to the subject with undue emphasis on the removed information. It unduly draws focus on one aspect of the topic, out of a usual and logical order of presenting information in a biography and is therefore contrary to WP:BLP. We don't put tags to tell readers "this article is bad" but to tell editors "this needs to be taken care of". And here we know that editors cannot restore the removed content so this is not a problem that editors could take care of to need being alerted in this manner. Protection should be temporary (for a period measured in years). The totality of the remaining content does not at all constitute such an inappropriate version of an article on this topic that deletion would be required. The topic is a notable person. A topic meeting a notability guideline does not guarantee that a stand-alone article will exist, but there is a policy preference toward preserving appropriate content. Whether content is appropriate—and here, the concern is that it may be inappropriate because it is not WP:NEUTRAL—is a matter of careful weighing, but biographies of living people must be written conservatively, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment. Some kind of harm was asserted. When I excercise my editorial judgement while respecting the possibility that some manner of harm might be involved (and Portugal is a liberal democracy with rule of law and its courts also took a position on that, giving some additional credibility to the idea that there was harm), I find removal of this content to be editorially excusable and compatible with BLP. I do not find that the article has been made critically non-neutral through this redaction. It has especially not been made promotional or anything of the sort. The best thing to do for Wikipedia is to stubbornly stick to its policies and tested practices and not try to look for novel approaches to this predictable situation (even if a case exactly like this has never happened before). Additionally, and in some sense separately from my thoughts above, I agree with Barkeep and S Marshall (but not about the banner). The idea that the subject controls the article and that Wikipedia is compromising its foundational principles by hosting such an article is more of a feeling then a rational view of the situation.—Alalch E.01:53, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank with banner per Tamzin. If we can't follow our content policies, the only thing we should say is "we can't follow our content policies about this person". Loki (talk) 03:22, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I popped back in to see if there's been any updates to this whole saga, and I'm appalled at the WMF's responses still. But I figured before I close WP for who knows how long I'd pop in to say that while we've had our disagreements, you say this perfectly. If we cannot have a compliant article, then we shouldn't try to have any article at all. We should, however, inform people that we believe we should have an article but are not able to do so at this time for reasons outside of our control. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!07:49, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem of course with this circular logic is that nobody has actually demonstrated that we cannot have a compliant article... Not a single line of P+G has been cited which this article can't comply with. Such P+G may exist, but if it does nobody has mentioned it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't what happened here, we still talk about the notable events... We still say "but left the position after a past donation to the hard-right anti immigration Chega party was revealed, which also coincided with the resignation of the Cape Verdean foreign minister." in the lead and go into detail in the body. What notable events in the subject's life are you saying legally can't be included? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:19, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's one event. There are two others that, as far as I can see, have not been included in the article since the OFFICE action. And both of those meet the standard for inclusion based on reliable sources. We cannot include DUE information that is negative. Thus the article can never be NPOV, because information that is DUE is being prevented from being included. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!05:26, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to assume that you're not being intentionally dense - but there is literally a template on the page that lists the three things we are prohibited by OFFICE from mentioning now. You only referred to one of them - leaving the public service position (which we can I guess still say since we aren't talking about the allegations he was dismissed). The alleged crimes and organization he founded also met DUE weight. And we are prohibited from mentioning them, without a workaround. Furthermore, the DUE weight is not just that he left the position - it's that he was allegedly dismissed from it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me!03:22, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 1989 events were not mentioned on the article pre-office action so hard to argue that it was always due, the foundation is not an independent event from the scandal we cover... Pre-office action the foundation was noted in a single sentence and that sentence was actually inaccurate, it said several but the source only identified two, it was in fact a BLP violation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:20, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I notice that you haven't actually answered the challenge... Pull out the lines you feel are being violated, you can't just handwave to a bunch of uppercase letters like you just got here. You're an experienced editor, make a complete argument. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrary break 5
blank + banner + full-protect per Tamzin et al. - without the removed material, this article is on principle essentially a PR piece for this guy. and thinking practically, if we keep the article but don't full-protect it, then the Office and oversighters will have to permanently watch this article and repeatedly remove the material, due to unknowing editors adding it back in good faith. if it's kept and full-protected, it will likely forever be out of date. we simply should not have an article if by court order we cannot keep it NPOV & high-quality. i don't like the slippery slope argument but what message does this send to both our readers and other would-be litigants against the WMF? that one can sue wikipedia into having an article written the way they want? we don't need to be passive here. this guy isn't special and we ought not to break our own policies for him - per Mangoe's analysis above, he's barely notable in the first place. ... sawyer * any/all * talk03:30, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sawyer777: But it isn't written the way DePaço wants... DePaço wants no mention at all of Chega and thats not what he got, he got maybe 25% of what he wanted maybe less. Very little actually ended up being removed overall and the vast majority of what was removed was removed on PTwiki not ENwiki. I have more experience dealing with DePaco and his lawyers and their socks than I think anyone else on ENwiki (although not as much as a number of PTwiki users)... Deleting the article is giving him what he wants and its so frustrating that people with zero experience with this issue are hellbent on giving him what he wants in the name of not giving him what he wants. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:50, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, I actually don't care either way what this guy wants. If we can't have an article that complies with NPOV, we shouldn't have an article, regardless of whether or not Caesar DePaço would prefer that outcome to having an abridged article that still contains some negative information about him. Loki (talk) 07:04, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly my thought, too. This is not a punishment for DePaco. Rather, it's a question of "Given these circumstances, is it even possible to have a neutral and complete article?" As the answer is "no", that is what it is, even if that's exactly as DePaco would like it. SeraphimbladeTalk to me11:15, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In order to demonstrate the answer is "no," one would first have to demonstrate that the omitted information is a significant WP:ASPECT or is WP:DUE, and to show that, one would have to show that the omitted information is treated as significant by RS. What I haven't seen yet from anyone arguing "we can't meet NPOV with this article" is a demonstration that the omitted information is not just "isolated events" (WP:ASPECT) or "minority views" (WP:DUE), but rather that the omitted info constitutes "widely held views or widely supported aspects" (to quote DUE). If we're talking about something that appeared in one newspaper article once, then omitting it isn't an NPOV problem (and omission may in fact be required by NPOV or BLP policy, especially if it's a criminal allegation); if we're talking about something that is widely reported, then and only then would we have a problem meeting NPOV. So I'd be convinced by the can't-meet-NPOV argument if someone showed that the missing info is widely reported in RS. Levivich (talk) 18:16, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given these circumstances, is it even possible to have a neutral and complete article? is not our criteria for deciding whether or not to have an article. I think an article that can never meet NPOV should be deleted; [[WP:DELPOL says If an article on a notable topic severely fails the verifiability or neutral point of view policies, it may be reduced to a stub, or completely deleted by consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion. I do not think this article fails to represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. which is what NPOV asks of us. The significant views of reliable sources remains present and sourced in this article, it's just that not all the events we would consider significant are there. "An article that can never be complete" is not, however, a concept we find in policy or guidelines as a reason to delete. We accept that an overwhelming majority of our articles are not complete (only about 0.1% are complete) without any crisis and so it will be here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:46, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep Frankly, this guy's notability does seem pretty borderline, but we're probably past that now (though this is a pretty good advertisement for deleting non-notable BLPs imo). I'm also not convinced that blanking is the right move here. Whether or not the article requires some level of protection, or if a banner of any kind should be placed on it, can be discussed on the talk page. CarringtonMist (talk) 12:36, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, protect I do think that the coverage meets the standard for notability. Blanking seems premature, and protecting the article (possible with notice of what could be added) will provide guidance to editors. --Enos733 (talk) 21:23, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, edit notice, ECR protect . From my understanding, deletion or blanking would be giving the subject what they originally sought. We should strive to do our mission but at the same time make it clear to readers that we are constrained by court order which a banner would accomplish. The edit notice and ECR protection would prevent editors from accidentally getting tangled up in this. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions01:36, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank with banner and protect. Delete if we can’t do banner. It’s now impossible for the page to maintain NPOV, it should not continue to exist. Legal minefield for editors who can’t rely on being protected. Driftingdrifting (talk) 20:38, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner & full-protect per Tamzin and the Bushranger. We are again in a Framgate scenario, action has been taken by the office and we have to live with it despite not being allowed to know what the suppressed information is. I could see a case for reviewing this if legal were allowed to advise on a simple and robust edit notice that could advise future editors as to topics and sources to avoid. But at present it just isn't fair to our editors to enable normal editing of this article. ϢereSpielChequers21:33, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WereSpielChequers: Check your facts, please. Any admin (including you) can currently click through the "unhide" link at Special:Diff/1304247477 to see exactly what was removed, as Office reduced the "oversight" to normal "hidden"-level revdel when they restored the visibility of the edit summaries. WMF Legal also told us what's not allowed to be included (which itself is basically a summary of the publicly available court order), which we currently have in a box at the top of the page and in an edit notice. Anomie⚔02:03, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult when the facts change. I knew the edit summaries had been restored, not that the edits had been changed from oversight to revision deletion. If the information still exists in other published sources, but we are not allowed to use it, then our normal editing methods are constrained, and anyone editing this article is somewhat at risk. In particular a good faith editor trying to update the article in accordance with their understanding of the edit notice, could windup in a surreal discussion with an admin who has access to the deleted edits. ϢereSpielChequers06:44, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tamzins suggestion, blank and place a banner: Until such time that any court orders are lifted. If it is not possible for this article to comply with WP:NPOV it should not exist. TarnishedPathtalk02:35, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and protect - Court orders are very annoying for a neutrally written article. No platform is above the law, so the WMF and we, the editors must comply with the ruling. Ahri Boy (talk) 03:01, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, protect and Tamzin's bannerify: I'm with the other people who argue that we shouldn't have a article controlled by the subject. Any removal of the bad of the subject just feels like we have an advert article in my opinion. ~/Bunnypranav:<ping>03:53, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner: This is a disturbing case of censorships by the subject and the courts, and we should not keep an article up that violates NPOV because of external censorship. Nil🥝04:10, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Collapse bannerI am against blanking the article in it's entirety but I think collapsing it could be a good idea as unlike going into its history pressing show is much easier and more comprehensibleSquawk7700 (talk) 10:33, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After reading the article again I think if I'd prefer blanking but am still open for the collapsing idea. Additionally I think we need to make it crystal clear what is happening and therefore am supportive of a banner more like the one proposed by Tamzin.Squawk7700 (talk) 22:13, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even more information, opinions and reflection have conflicted me so much that I can't reasonably descide on whether or not to blank or not even what banner to prefer, but one shuld be there. Squawk7700 (talk) 23:14, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank and banner - I first came across this article the other day on Reddit, and as a great example of the Streisand effect, I couldn't help but keep coming back to the article to see what would happen. At first I thought that it would be better to keep the article but no blanking, and explain the controversy, but seeing that there is a viable alternative, I think the blanking and and putting a banner on there is a great strategy, both for this article and for future articles that might be affected by (and I hate to use this wording) activist courts. While the European Union might have a right to be forgotten on the internet, Wikipedia is a global entity, and much like the ANI case in India, decisions made regarding one article could affect the entire website. I think the blanking is a good message, in the interest of preserving truth and verifability for everyone around the world. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:10, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner -- while obviously the suppressed content is important and necessary to have, that doesn't mean that the content remaining isn't worth having. The discussion of his support for Chega losing him honorary ambassadorship reflects negatively on him and is a story worth telling. All the meaningful discussion of him shouldn't have been removed just because some has been suppressed, and a banner is enough to point out that, hey, we haven't been allowed to talk about some subjects because of a court order. Mrfoogles (talk) 19:12, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The remaining contents are worth leaving behind, but that doesn't mean they should be. Though the remaining contents still add up to an encyclopedic article, the article is violating NPOV due to enforced censorship. As Wikipedians, we cannot act against Wikipedia's goals, which include the three content policies, and we should not tolerate the existence of an article inevitably violating our values. 1F616EMO (talk) 01:14, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Demostrating how Legal Order is displayed on mobile devices. I think we have come to a consensus that at least a banner (or some form of a stronger statement) has to be put on the page. From a technical point of view, we cannot use Ambox to do that, as Amboxes are collapsed on mobile devices, where a majority of our traffic is coming from. We have to use a custom template, i.e., one that won't be collapsed by any means, to deliver the message. Fmbox might be a good choice, as it is meant to be used in headers (where our banner is most probably going to be) and footers. 1F616EMO (talk) 01:37, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fwiw, it's more visible than banners on a talkpage from the mobile view and is not unlikely to catch the eye IMO. Whether more people will read it if it's uncollapsed, who knows, but forcing an expansion somehow can't hurt. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:25, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support enforcing expansion if the "keep-and-banner" approach is agreed upon, and this would be mandatory if we opt for the 'blank-and-banner' way; otherwise, it would look awkward. 1F616EMO (talk) 09:03, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like one fairly straightforward way would be to add a custom TemplateStyles sheet to {{legal order}} like
/* Override collapse-to-two-lines styles from [[mw:Extension:WikimediaMessages]] */.client-jsbody.skin-minerva.mw-parser-output.ambox.box-Content_removed_following_legal_order.mbox-text-span{height:unset;max-height:unset;}
This afd isn't clear consensus for anything atm. If the article is kept, details on banner, protection etc can if necesary continue at the article talkpage. You can be WP:BOLD and see what happens, but there is no clear consensus on this giant page. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:11, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Goes beyond the scope of this AfD, but from a technical point of view: Should we generalize this code, by e.g. writing it into the TemplateStyles of Ambox, so other Amboxes that need to be always expanded can opt-in by adding a class (instead of copying the styles)? This would simplify maintenance if there are multiple such templates (in the future). 1F616EMO (talk) 06:05, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner and protect after reading the details of the case and the different opinions on the matter, I came up with the conclusion that: 1) self-censorship is going against the pillars of Wikipedia as a principle - which, for me, makes the option of deleting the article as a whole as less acceptable; 2) the legal case is definitely worthy of mention in the article as well, and provides a certain additional degree of notability; 3) emptying it would literally just wipe out all the events surrounding the subject and the case from Wikipedia itself, which, in my opinion, is going against the interests of this community and this project. On the other hand, it is legally required to ensure the parts of the article requested to be removed would not come back through future edits which is why full protection is indispensable. Angelo (talk) 08:45, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. One danger of blanking articles like this is it may incentivize people to sue Wikipedia. "I want my article removed" -> "Sue Wikipedia for libel/defamation" -> "Office action removes some stuff from article" -> "Enwiki local consensus is to remove the entire article in this situation" -> "Original litigant gets exactly what they want". The litigant getting exactly what they want is bad, since they are being rewarded for meddling with our editorial independence. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:08, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, do not full protect per my comment above. The banner does a good job of legally mentioning what the litigant doesn't want mentioned, which is the best we can do to disincentivize this kind of thing in the future. The quickly growing section on the Wikipedia lawsuit is also helpful. By the way, what's the idea behind the full protection? As long as the banner stays and the Wikipedia litigation section stays, the reason for full protection is not immediately obvious to me. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:19, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the worry is that per banner blindness or whatever, people might unwittingly edit the article in a way that could get them into legal trouble despite there being a banner.
Keep, banner, ec protect. Tempting as blanking is, a compliant banner which provides as much information on removed material as legally possible and an expurgated article is sufficiently POINTy. One of the goals of the court case appears to have been aimed at removing mention of a donation to Chega (political party) (described as "on the far-right of the political spectrum" in its article). Blanking would reward DePaço with removal of that. ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~13:30, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have to admit this idea is pure genius. Probably too late in the discussion for it to gain consensus (and it'd have to wait until sufficient reliable sources became available), but perfect poetic justice. -- Avocado (talk) 01:25, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner, protect: My sentiments were best summarized by Sawyer777. The WMF took the action they had to in order to protect the project's survival, and we should take action to protect its integrity. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:07, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, protect. I do not see how a deletion would conform to any of the deletion criteria given in WP:DEL-REASON. We do not delete articles because we lost a court decision. However, we need to serve our readers by informing them that relevant information has been removed for legal reasons. Therefore we need to keep a banner. Finally, we need to protect the article against attempts to re-insert the deleted information. --AFBorchert (talk) 16:14, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, Banner, Full Protect – There can be no compromise on WP:NOTCENSORED, and a censored page is not a legitimate page. I do believe that blanking the page sets a bad precedent, but keeping it sets a worse one. WMF dropped the ball here. Their statements on geoblocking seem to focus on showing a different version of the page or not showing the page in Portugal, which is impractical. A more extreme stance is warranted. If English Wikipedia's policies do not comply with Portuguese law, Wikipedia should not be made accessible in Portugal. Portugal is a functioning democracy in which the government is accountable to the will of the people. WFM has the power to present the ultimatum of uncensored Wikipedia or no Wikipedia, and chooses not to. However, that is not something we can do as editors. What we can do as editors is refuse to allow censored content, and publicly hold those accountable who stand in the way to Wikipedia's mission. This could mean adding to the banner information about who is responsible WFM's decisions to address the lawsuit the way they did, and also directing readers to where they can find the information being censored for themselves. If we allow Wikipedia to be censored, then we have lost the core of Wikipedia. It is up to use to fight to uphold Wikipedia's values, through any means possible. Not using this as an opportunity to rally around and fight against would be a great moral failing of our community. – Ike Lek (talk) 01:50, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NOTCENSORED says "Content will be removed if it is judged to violate Wikipedia's policies (especially those on biographies of living persons and using a neutral point of view) or the law of the United States." so it clearly already makes room for legal and BLP exceptions. Portugal is a functioning democracy in which the government is accountable to the will of the people... The people vested that will in their courts of law and the courts have spoken, so this ruling *is* effectively the will of the Portuguese people. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:08, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then, as far as I see it, the will of the people has decided they shouldn't get Wikipedia (without a VPN). Portugal is not the United States, and their laws should not have the power to censor Wikipedia. Sure, there is an argument to be made for just complying, but I don't find it super persuasive, and I don't like the precedent of allowing a government to moderate Wikipedia's content beyond what is absolutely necessary for Wikipedia's continued existence. I believe we should do everything in our power to fight against this, even if the WMF is falling short. Ike Lek (talk) 03:47, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But American laws should have the power to censor wikipedia? I don't see how that isn't any less a compromise on the absolute uncensored Wikipedia or no Wikipedia position you took in your first post... Its also an odd position to take because wikipedia as it currently operates is censored wikipedia... Regardless of what we do in this case we're still censored, and apparently you're OK with that despite your strong words earlier... "beyond what is absolutely necessary for Wikipedia's continued existence." is after all a compromise, so even you compromise your own values not even a day after stating them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has to be based somewhere. Currently, it is based in the United States. I do take issue with it being censored by American laws, but that is what is necessary for its continued existence as things stand now. It is bad enough to be beholden to American laws without voluntarily submitting ourselves to litigation under Portuguese law. My strong stance on non-censorship is certainly moderated by the practical demands of hosting a project this large, but that doesn't mean we should be making unnecessary concessions. Ike Lek (talk) 20:09, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're beholden to the law both were you're based and were you operate... The only way to be beholden to US laws alone would be to solely provide services to Americans in the US. Respecting courts other than American ones is a necessary concession to operating outside of America. I agree that there needs to be a line drawn somewhere... But drawing that line at a modern European democracy which ranks higher than the US on most metrics of freedom and rule of law seems off. My own line is much more countries where a genuine rule of law is absent like Russia, China, and Eritrea. Out of curiosity what nation's courts other than the US's do you feel we can make concessions to if any? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:38, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ultimately I don't think we should make any legal concessions not in the United States, although I'm sure I could find exceptional cases. That is not to say the United States has the best laws or legal systems, but it is where Wikipedia is currently based. I believe that blocking access to Wikipedia for countries would be impactful enough to create backlash against such court decisions. Currently, the thought process is that we have to comply with local laws to allow Wikipedia to operate in a given country, but this can be reframed to say the countries must allow for Wikipedia to operate under our own policies if they wish to have access to Wikipedia. I know this may sound naïve, but we are the ones providing the service, so we should be the ones with the leverage here. Ike Lek (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking the time to explain your position, its certainly a reasonable one even if we draw our lines in the sand on different stretches of beach. I think we would actually have the leverage if the other big American tech semi-monopolies (and we are a big American tech semi-monopoly even if we're the "good one") hadn't rapidly eroded the world's good will when it comes to that argument... We are in some ways paying the price for the BS that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc all pulled. On a related note some point we stopped being the underdog and started being the 600lb gorilla, but a lot of editors here still identify with when we were the underdog not the 600lb gorilla. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blank, banner and protect per Tamzin et al. While I see the point raised above by Novem re: incentivising litigation, after reading the article as-is, the NPOV issue is fairly evident. While I'm not sure any of the options here are bulletproof, I can't in good faith support keeping an article where the only legally acceptable version conflicts with our policies ... as things stand, that seems like even more of a slippery slope than blanking would be. Emma (chats ✦ edits) 02:27, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My first thought is that the current banner emphasizes the relevant information to a greater degree than the original version, even if the exact details are not included. As a result, one may argue that neutrality has not in fact been compromised, as long as the banner is present. Readers are immediately informed about several unflattering facts, in advance of the article's first paragraph. They can also find the details relatively easily, with the further unflattering context that the article subject wanted the information hidden.
Therefore, it is actually still possible to write an appropriate article while complying with the court order. Arguably, the current version might even be an overcorrection. Perhaps in another case it would be different, but there is also sufficient flexibility to decide exactly what the banner says and what precise wording would best restore neutrality. Sunrise(talk)04:16, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, and full protect, and to save repeating too many of the arguments for it, per Barkeep49 and his {{Legal order}} banner, and per Graeme Bartlett, Ymblanter, Stwalkerster, Donald Albury, Angelo, and per Doc James: Notable but it needs to be kept clear that we are not able to tell the entire story, and per Novem Linguae: One danger of blanking articles like this is it may incentivize people to sue Wikipedia, and per all others who have proposed this solution. In other words when this issue hits the media Wikipedia will be swamped with demands to remove content - we must not allow issues like these to open possibilities to errode our policies of publishing notable, well sourced, neutral but accurate content - so on that last note, the 2014 Bangkok career claim in the Expresso clearly needs a far more detailed source (e.g. at least a faculty listing), or it either has to go or be commented out. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:40, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, blank and banner -- I think Tamzin is absolutely right. If our current article doesn't meet our policies, and we can't rewrite it for fear of exposing editors to legal harassment or danger, we should not have an article at all. TNT would normally be an option, but as notability is not in question here, I think the banner is a better solution. UndercoverClassicistT·C10:02, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, banner, and protect Not the first person to employ censorship. Wikipedia has plenty of articles on people who have disappeared sources about themselves (some have probably been effective enough that we don't know some/all of the dirt on them). It is not an NPOV problem to have an article about them. Rolluik (talk) 19:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support banner, unsure on whether to blank or keep, support keep the banner is a no-brainer to me and it'll clearly explain the situation, but I'm not sure on whether to support a blanking or keeping the article, as both have flaws (such as either setting precedents or compromising a core pillar of the project). I'm sure the rest here will be able to develop consensus on that though After some consideration, I've changed my mind to keeping the article per Kudpung กุดผึ้ง and the various users mentioned in that reply. DarkRevival(Talk / Contributions)20:02, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
my concern is less the breadth of consensus than the procedural issues that come with resolving multiple simultaneous proposals. CaptainEek seems to have a good handle on it however, so I will specify that I oppose blanking and prefer barkeep’s template, but it could stand out a bit more (maybe with red or another “danger” color). Some readers may have grown accustomed to scrolling past these sorts of templates. The graphic in Tamzin’s version is not very legible and doesn’t, in my view, match the seriousness of the message. —Rutebega (talk) 16:52, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relisting comment
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: By my count the votes are close, and this is no regular AfD. It has taken on aspects of a broader policy discussion (which usually run longer than a week), and is still drawing many new participants. Another week would not hurt here.For what its worth, there is a clear consensus that he is notable. There is also clear consensus that the article should include a banner which should note that content from this article has been removed as a result of a court order. There is a consensus against outright deletion. The remaining question is whether to blank the article or not. For the ease of closing, I request that folks either vote to keep, or blank, but not both (or some other option) going forward. Voting to keep and blank is somewhat confusing and will make the final vote tally much harder. Thanks! Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓01:16, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"By my count the votes are close"—WP:NOTAVOTE. I'm doing a reading of the rationales of this discussion, and while there is no objectively correct way to gauge consensus, that is one way to do it objectively incorrectly. BarntToust01:48, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@BarntToust Yes, obviously it is not a vote. But in a discussion with hundreds of comments, the votes and arguments for each side must be considered. I had considered outright closing it, and even drafted a close, but after doing so I realized the discussion really needed another week. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓01:53, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's something we say but it's not strictly always true. It'd be more accurate to say it's "not just a vote", rather than "not a vote". This discussion is more a vote than !vote at this point. After so much participation, with few to no !votes that can be outright discarded, no closer is going "this side is in minority but I like their argument better". If they feel that way, they should !vote rather than close. Usedtobecool☎️02:13, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While there's a clear consensus for some banner, I don't know if there's a clear consensus of which banner - the more statement oriented one offered by Tamzin or the current one which is a more typical content banner. Or at least it's not a substantially different consensus than whether to blank or not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:00, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It indeed is clear by this point there is a consensus to allow the readers warning that what they are about to see (if they see something at all) will not be a Wikipedia article with a guarantee to be neutral, nor will it be something, that as a fact, that would be editorially independent.
It is also clear that allowing public editors to edit the page will always open them to the possibility of liability, because they could always add in the bad thing—and we cannot tell them just what it is they cannot add in (apophasis fallacy). Therefore, allowing public edits to the page is out of the picture.
As to if we will present the reader with text that will not be a Wikipedia article with a guarantee to be neutral, nor will it be something, that as a fact, that would be editorially independent, we have not yet drawn a consensus on if we will retain content hindered by editorial conceits that intrinsically fail one of the five pillars, and would draw irreconcilable question to another. BarntToust03:23, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Shoot, IDK if I can come to parts of the consensus and not the whole thing. I clearly cannot outright close this single-handedly. Anywho, the first of the five pillars is a fail due to the article being implicated definitively by a party in conflict-of-interest. The second, it is clear that we cannot guarantee neutrality. BarntToust03:26, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is also prudent to note that while there is consensus on limiting public edits to the page in a way conducive to keeping laymen from accidentally violating Portuguese law, there is indeed conflict on what protection to give; ie GOLDLOCK, BLUELOCK. The consensus provides that measures must be taken to eliminate feasible possibility that someone adds in damning content that could mean they are implicated, but just what level will be taken is not hatched out. BarntToust03:31, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
and we cannot tell them just what it is they cannot add in The banner already on the article (which is also in an editnotice) does tell them what they cannot add in: 1) crimes allegedly committed by DePaço in 1989 and associated proceedings, 2) an organization DePaço allegedly founded, and 3) his alleged dismissal from a civil service post. Prevention of editing IMO would be more for stopping people who want to cause trouble by ignoring that or who are so careless as to ignore the clearly posted messages.that intrinsically fail one of the five pillars I note that editors to the article prior to redaction had apparently already considered (1) not worth mentioning, while (2) was mentioned only in passing (the removed bit was "and highlighted connections of several of its leaders to ████████"); there's some brief discussion above about whether the sources would support mentioning a direct connection to DePaço without violation of (2). While (3) had one sentence in the lead and one in the body removed, we were allowed to keep the suspiciously specific denial ("In late January 2021, DePaço's attorney Rui Barreira told Macao newspaper Ponto Final that DePaço was not dismissed from his position, but resigned on his own initiative"). That seems very little on which to hang a claim that the article is so intrinsically flawed that we must delete it, particularly when the current version with the banner arguably brings more prominent attention to the removed content, Streisand effect style, than our pre-redaction article did by noting the censorship.As I see it, Tamzin's original !vote came before anyone had determined just what was removed and what the bounds were, while many later !voters didn't read farther to find out about those later developments. It will be hard for someone to separate those uninformed-reactionary !votes from the blank-as-protest !votes. For example, I can't tell which of those groups you fall into from your comment. Anomie⚔12:54, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ChildrenWillListen the article currently has a banner, which has evolved with editor input. Ostensibly, the banner would need to change some if the outcome of this discussion is to blank. As a side note, the current version lacks a permalink to Jroger's comments or an archive link to the court order and thus is vulnerable to linkrot. If necessary, a follow-up RfC could be held on the wording of the banner should folks disagree about it.As for protection, I won't stop any admin from full protecting it in the interim, but I'm not ready to say that there is a consensus for full protection. Many folks have just written "protect", which is a bit unclear given that the page is currently protected, and some folks are arguing only for ECP. That is another aspect that could use additional commentary. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓03:20, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wish you'd left "counting" to the closer and not bothered with a relisting. It's very likely that all arguments have been made at least once and numbers are only part of it. Relisting at this point is borderline disruptive. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree and support the relisting, since this is self-evidently not a normal AfD. “Borderline disruptive” has me shaking my head. The relisting in my view was an excellent move, allowing more Wikipedians to become aware and weigh in on what is likely to be a precedent-setting decision by the editing community. I’ve been considering how to !vote here for several days, and I have no clear decision yet: therefore I highly appreciate the extra time. Jusdafax (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Justafax. I agree with Eek that there seemed to be no consensus at the time of the relist. This was evidently not a finished discussion. And you can see just how much the trend shifted after the relist with fresh eyes here. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrary break 6
Blank. One major issue with keeping this article is that it puts future editors at risk of violating the court order. There is no practical way to omit what the court requires Wikipedia to omit and also warn future editors to continue omitting those things. If the page is fully protected, this will not prevent future admins from editing it, nor will it prevent non-admins from proposing edits. Some fully protected pages have highly-watched talk pages with edits frequently proposed, such as Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors (for the main page) or Help talk:Citation Style 1 (for Module:Citation/CS1). Why would we leave that door open here? Rjjiii (talk) 02:44, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In what way is the banner currently on the article and its edit notice not a practical way to warn future editors to continue omitting those things? (serious question) Anomie⚔12:57, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment — if the eventual consensus provides for this page ending up where it is left with the ability for people to make edits to encyclopedic content, how should we impart properly upon the editors that could be at risk what they need to know about the content that is restricted (without running afoul of what we are allowed by PTlaw to display about it)? Do we implement an edit filter on this page that flags stuff, like for instance: a year that is relevant to the disallowed content, a place that is relevant to the content, specific terminology that is relevant to said content, stuff like that? If so there could be false positives, so how to deal with that? BarntToust03:40, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This was a pretty obscure article before all this... Genuinely hard to imagine someone just chancing on this and making these very specific edits which actually aren't easy to find the sources for (especially as most of the sources aren't in English)... Note that the content regarding purported events in 1989 was never included here, that was only ever on the PT wiki... Same actually goes for much of the stuff removed across wikipedia, it was never added to enwiki so the idea that it will in the future without such an addition being pointy just seems unlikely to the point of being silly to plan for. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:58, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well shoot, we have to worry about this potentially being left in the canon of "Wikipedia lore" for genuine trolls to mess around with. People who don't know anything about how we work could be messing around on an online rabbit hole could honestly figure out something from a reddit thread about this dude, and without understanding what the implications are they could FORUM up the talk page wondering why "the forbidden fruit is forbidden" or whatever, or they could just come across unsolicited comments on an online forum detailing the content and they could just copy and paste in.
Editors who don't have a clue what they are doing on Wikipedia can find a lot of ways to do things so simply and yet so bafflingly. The added intrigue now that this guy has "forbidden knowledge" associated with him, man people could just edit this page as a joke not comprehending the fact that The Legal System of Portugal might be on their asses. And if we just let this stuff slide by as it is, without giving anyone any warning, it would be just like if we were government types figuring out how we warn the future generations of nuclear waste that we're buried. Do we give them indication that there is bad stuff here? Do we chance just not doing anything about it because maybe they won't dig around enough, dig around in the right area? Do we have an ethical responsibility to address the risk we pose to them by just having this big nuclear waste pile existing, nothing we can do about it? BarntToust04:08, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We aren't forbidden from discussing it on the talk page beyond the normal BLP restrictions. Its not forbidden knowledge, it just can't be in the article. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:11, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That totally makes sense. The bad stuff being discussed in a nuanced way relevant to the encyclopedia is something we're all doing here. But it's a context methinks when editors who don't know better just bring it up all willy-nilly here or there. BarntToust04:22, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And why would that be a problem? We have plenty of pages where people just bring stuff up all willy-nilly here or there and nobody has ever argued for deletion based on it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:24, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, this is not going to be canonized in the lore of intriguing stuff to have drama'd out on Wikipedia like that one admin who came up with about a million redirects to Breasts, nor the one bloke who ran with a bunch of mocky-Scots parody language and wrote a heavy Scottish accent's worth of an encyclopedia, but I can see all too easily some Iceberg YouTuber covering the dish on this legal drama and then some person with internet access doing "monkey see monkey do" on this in ten years when all the Admins or editors hawk eying this page have eventually dissipated. I would frame a critical discussion of this in Murphy's Law. BarntToust04:15, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And how would your desired course of action prevent that? If the editing restrictions have dissipated they can disruptively add the info to the main page and if the editing restrictions haven't dissipated then they won't be able to edit the page no matter what its form is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:22, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really desire any course of action, I conclude that there not being any course of action for anyone on here to take on the subject for as long as needed is the best way to ensure that Wikipedia is not serving content that is what the encyclopedia is not meant to serve, nor will there be the possibility for anyone to put themselves at any risk by adding the bad stuff in or bearing witness to it. BarntToust04:33, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some people think this is an existential battle of the editorial integrity of Wikipedia, some people think it's not actually that deep, and some think we should be pragmatic and consider this a battle of keeping legal repercussions to the encyclopedia at a minimum possibility, some people think this isn't a discussion about a Portuguese businessman but actually represents how we as an encyclopedia deal with our mission to provide open knowledge being challenged. I looked at this from the perspective of "is what we have now qualifying as encyclopedic content under our content principles? no. do we serve that kind of food here? no. should we be a Japanese sushi restaurant and when we can't serve legally sushi serve Gimbap and still say we are a sushi place? no." but then some people will say we should just bite the bullet, or some people will say the inability to serve what we do in a raw way does not actually mean we have failed and that what we do have is totally fine to serve despite what is being served not actually being what we advertised. Some people are fine with us disclosing that we can't do what we are meant to do and doing something else entirely, and being completely honest with the reader about failing to live up to what we ought to be doing. BarntToust04:49, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, nobody seems to yet have attempted a satisfactory final beg-of-the-question (a close). It is frankly time for, when in the case of high-profile decisions like this, rules to be put into place that disqualify carbon repeat !votes—there is no reason why this AfD should be this long. BarntToust14:01, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A close should never beg the question, you genuinely seem to believe that a close is a supervote. Carbon repeat !vote do not contribute significantly to the length of this AfD. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Editors who don't have a clue what they are doing on Wikipedia can find a lot of ways to do things so simply and yet so bafflingly." - if you're worried about that I'm not sure why you think anything proposed here would help. They might just post it in one of the other 7 million articles out there which AFAICT, proposals here don't really try to address. Nil Einne (talk) 08:37, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With execption for maybe posting it at the teahouse, an editor just posting it some random article could not ammount to anything other than blatant disruption, frankly, and I don't think anyone here would die on the hill for a troll. We're talking about casuals who stumble on this rabbit hole not understanding about it seriously and try to add the concerned stuff back in because they've seen that stuff "is being hidden". Miss Streisand can tell you all about the voraciousness of people when there are things being hidden. BarntToust14:08, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with the banner, with minimum of indef XC protection, and an edit notice to specify what not to be included in future updates, alongside with a banner and a non-archived pinned section (for the mobile users) on the talk page for further information. While there is a recency effect that editors now know what not to insert, we do what we can to alert future editors to the potential liabilities as much as possible. – robertsky (talk) 09:47, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just clarifying that my earlier !vote should be read as: (1) Barkeep-style banner; (2) Keep text; and (3) Indefinitely fully protect, to prevent uninformed people from adding any prohibited content. No objection to Robertsky's proposed edit notice. Any lesser protection would be my second choice.—S MarshallT/C10:07, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@S Marshall I agree with the banner but not one that describes the nature of the removed content point by point as a top tag, and includes the word "crimes" etc. That is bad. Maybe an abstracted one at the top (something was removed due to, etc.) and another one as a section tag. That section tag can be like the current tag. —Alalch E.01:13, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep + XC protection + banner (Barkeepish) + blanking out out of censored text within the article eg. █████. We know that many people don't read the banner and for the average reader an obviously censored section makes it crystal clear that parts of the article are missingand hopefully inspires them to check the wayback machine. I think this balances the dual interests of providing as balanced/neutral article as possible, while protesting/complying with the lawsuit. — Spacepine ☆ talk11:54, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, do not blank, banner, protect. This wouldn't be the only article on the Portuguese Wikipedia (or perhaps this wiki) with intentional content gaps, although the case cited here was forced to delete content by court order. Deleting the page or keeping it blank sets a terrible precedent for other figures to obtain similar decisions through legal channels. Jardel (talk) 15:16, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Barkeep49 banner and indef ECP protect given Levivich and Newslinger's explanations (oppose full protect as overkill since ECP is already routine for extremely contentious topics like the Arab–Israeli conflict and post-1992 US politics). And besides, NPOV isn't an issue if any non-neutral claims can be neutrally worded or removed outright and the basic biographical facts can be written as, well, basic biographical facts. FWIW the similar office blanking of Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation doesn't seem to have caused an uptick of similar incidents. ミラP@Miraclepine16:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with banner and some form of protection. I don't have strong feelings about the particular wording of the banner, but it should make it clear that: a) reliably sourced (and thus probably true) material was removed contrary to community consensus, pursuant to a court order, b) as such, the article has been stripped of key information critical of its subject, and thus c) the article is likely to be biased. I oppose blanking because that rewards the subject for their legal action. The banner, without specifying what information was suppressed, should make it very clear that the subject has enforced suppression of information that reflects poorly on themselves -- and thus make it clear they have something they think is worth suppressing... and hopefully inspire readers to go search out that info on their own. Let's Streisand Effect the heck out of this. -- Avocado (talk) 19:38, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep with notice and XCP (prior argument struck). The argument that keeping the article but noting content was removed due to court order will have more of the intended effect is becoming more and more persuasive compared to just blanking the article, and I'm willing to give that a try. My concerns in re legal peril for editors remains a thing, hence my arguing for XCP if this is the end result. —Jéské Courianov^_^vthreadscritiques20:36, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do not blank but put a banner with either full protection or XCP, doesn't matter to me. Every day I pray for the destruction of this project. I'm not trolling. I really feel that way. But I can still contribute productively when I am in a good mood. Throwing a temper tantrum and saying if we can't have the article the way we want it, then there will be no article, is a great way to destroy this project, one article at a time. I know there is an argument that the article fails NPOV in a way that cannot be cured. So, too, do thousands of other articles fail NPOV at this very moment, and although "there is no deadline," as a practical matter there has not been one instant millisecond in the last twenty years when the entire website was true to the NPOV policy across all articles. My other point is that people will be able to get information about this person from page history or other sources like content mirrors and forks. I see no reason to make it more difficult for people to find what is already out there; you may as well just link to it from the page itself or have the information on the page itself. So yeah, blanking the page is not the way to go. Chutznik (talk) 03:16, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Content from this article was removed following a court order and must not be restored. Consequently, this article may not meet Wikipedia's standards for neutrality and comprehensiveness. Additional details, including a description of the prohibited content, may be available on the talk page.
