How much detail should be included in questions about WW1 and WW2 service members?

Question

This question is prompted by the recent question where a new user asked how to find the burial place of his grandfather who was killed in WW2. I have singled it out for discussion because the topic is of special interest to me. I grew up in a Navy town, where many of my friends were military descendents, and my husband's father, grandfather, and brother are service members. I also have service members in my own family, although none of my immediate family members saw combat overseas.

There are a lot of military dependents, and descendents of those dependents, who might need the answers to these questions. So I want to make sure they feel welcome, and that we can give good answers to their questions.

How do we balance the privacy requirements outlined in the Help with our desire to have enough information to answer a question?

Those privacy requirements are currently stated as:

Please note: You must not include here in any circumstances information (including name, date and place of birth or any other details) that would allow identification of any living (or possibly) living individual by somebody reading this site. In practice, this means details about anyone born in the last 100 years, whether they are believed to be deceased or not, and whether or not they have given their permission.

For your review, I'd also like to add this link to the (USA's) National Genealogical Society's recommendations on Standards for Sharing Information with Others. I would like to see similar links from other genealogical organizations.

Answer 1

I did try and comment in "Comments" but they lose formatting, so with still more apologies here's my version of @PolyGeo's assistance:

How to ask questions about ancestors born less than 100 years ago

Our privacy policy is designed to prevent "identification of any living (or possibly) living individual by somebody reading this site" and is not intended to prevent you asking questions that may relate to someone born during the past 100 years. However, to ask such questions we ask you to proceed cautiously.

1. If you already know that your relative was born more than 100 years ago, simply by stating that means that the privacy policy will not apply so that you can provide details freely. Including the name, date and place of birth, etc is fine and usually very helpful.

2. If you already know (or suspect) that your ancestor was born less than 100 years ago, and you know that they are dead, then you may include identification details such as name, date and place of birth, etc., but you must also provide evidence to us that they are dead.

3. If you know (or suspect) that your ancestor is still alive, then under no circumstances should such identification details be included.

Acceptable evidence of death needs to come from some official or semi-official source such as an entry on a death-registration / grave / cemetery / obituary site. A website link (URL) should be provided wherever possible. Regrettably personal recollection is not sufficient to show that we have done our best to protect people's privacy.

If you are in any doubt as to whether your evidence of death would stand up, then hold back the identifying details, and describe the type of evidence so that other users can help you assess it via comments.

The figure of 100 years has been chosen as a "best-fit" with policies across the globe.

(end of my version)

1. Note change from "ancestor" to "relative".
2. I tried to reduce the number of steps at the expense of having an "AND" in there.
3. I removed the word "proof" and substituted "evidence". "Proof" seems too onerous, not to mention, freighted with significance in the world of genealogy.
4. The comment about 100y being a best-fit is there in case clever so-and-sos ask or help in finding themselves in the 1940 census. "If it's fine for Uncle Sam to include living people, why isn't it fine for us?", someone might say. Yeah, me probably if I were in it.

Answer 2

I would like to try and answer this in a more generic sense than just the two world wars but by incorporating the specific World War 2 example.

I will do so by describing my thought process whenever I see a question that either mentions someone who may have been born less than 100 years ago by name, or looks like that may shortly be the case.

At the moment, if there is a name and other identifying material, then I delete that name, leaving dates and things like regiments, and post a reminder about the privacy policy e.g. Finding service history of ancestor in Abwehr during World War 2?

If there is no name or birth date mentioned, but the question makes me think such an individual may be involved, then I simply post a reminder about the privacy policy e.g. Finding the burial place of British service members killed in WW2

Rather than change, or make any substantial changes, to the current policy I think we could instead direct them to some assistance on how to work within the policy.

I'll offer some thoughts on what that assistance might look like.

How to ask questions about ancestors born less than 100 years ago

Our privacy policy is designed to prevent "identification of any living (or possibly) living individual by somebody reading this site" and is not intended to prevent you asking questions that may relate to someone born during the past 100 years. However, to ask such questions we ask you to proceed cautiously.

1. If you already know that your ancestor was born more than 100 years ago, simply by stating that means that the privacy policy will not apply so that you can provide details freely. Including the name, date and place of birth, etc is fine and usually very helpful.
2. If you already know (or suspect) that your ancestor was born less than 100 years ago, then it is strongly advised that you do not include such details in your initial question. Unlike other genealogy sites, G&FH SE permits you to edit your question to add these data later, and in the meantime to clarify how to proceed with its users via comments.
3. If you already know (or suspect) that your ancestor is still alive, then under no circumstances can such details be included.
4. If you only suspect that your ancestor is dead, then under no circumstances can such details be included.
5. If you know (i.e. can prove) that your ancestor is dead, then the onus is on you to provide that proof within your question.
6. If you are in any doubt as to whether your proof of death would stand up, then hold back those details, and describe the type of proof so that other users can help you assess it via comments.

To me the hard part is defining what constitutes proof of death. Clearly a death certificate would, but I suspect that these cannot necessarily be posted here legally. Since we are a reputable website, then I think we should be able to rely on information available on other reputable websites. For example, if war dead are listed on a website, then providing that as a link that shows your ancestor's name should be proof enough. Alternatively, if a newspaper archive contains their death or funeral notice, obituary, or an article about their death then that too should be proof enough for our purposes.

To me, the above would constitute due diligence.

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Having now seen the wording of @AdrianB38, I now prefer that over mine, but I think this bit:

Acceptable evidence of death needs to come from some official or semi-official source such as an entry on a death-registration / grave / cemetery / obituary site.

should be changed to something more like:

Acceptable evidence of death needs to come from some official or semi-official source such as an entry on a death-registration / grave / cemetery / obituary site. Please do not just write that such evidence exists - you will need to include a website link (URL) and ideally a picture of a newspaper cutting, headstone, etc that enables independent verification to be quickly and easily performed.