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Archive 23
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Valjean. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REACTION IN TRUMP CAMP TO RECENT NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AND LIKELY RESULTING TACTICS GOING FORWARD
9
18-19; 20 October 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/136
RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER DETAILS OF TRUMP LAWYER COHEN’S SECRET LIAISON WITH THE KREMLIN
10
20-21; 22 August 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/105
RUSSIA/UKRAINE: THE DEMISE OF TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER PAUL MANAFORT
11
22-24; 14 September 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/111
RUSSIA/US: KREMLIN FALLOUT FROM MEDIA EXPOSURE OF MOSCOW’S INTERFERENCE IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
12
25-26; 14 September 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/112
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN-ALPHA GROUP OPERATION (SEPTEMBER 14, 2016)
13
27; 14 September 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPROT 2016/113
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE PRIOR ACTIVITIES IN ST. PETERSBURG
14
28-29; 12 October 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/130
RUSSIA: KREMLIN ASSESSMENT OF TRUMP AND RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
15
30-31; 18 October 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/134
RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER DETAILS OF KREMLIN LIAISON WITH TRUMP CAMPAIGN
16
32-33; 19 October 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/135
RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF TRUMP LAWYER, COHEN IN SECRET LIASON WITH THE KREMLIN
17
34-35; 13 December 2016
COMPANY INTELLIGENCE REPORT 2016/166
FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN, AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE
...and at Trump-Russia dossier article
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
What's a bit curious is that the bans of the group of disruptive Trump POV editors greatly improved the environment for a few months and that new problems arise in their absence. I wonder how that happens. With your long experience here, you may have seen this time and again. Maybe it's just nature abhors a vacuum and NPOV editors are the vacuum. SPECIFICOtalk14:52, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I suspect that explanation, rather than socks. I AGF in a poor situation. As long as editors are not required to take and pass a test on their vetting abilities, we will always have editors who consume junk sources in real life, and that will affect their editing here. We really should have a WP:WikiProject RS where a WP:RS vetting test can be developed. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe15:03, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Note that listing restrictions on the talk page is a good practice but not required. The article already has a civility restriction placed on the required pages (article and DS log). --NeilNtalk to me16:27, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Oh. If you're so inclined, perhaps you could have a peek at that talk page. SPECIFICOtalk 16:54, May 2, 2018 (UTC)
DS change suggestion
Latest comment: 6 years ago17 comments5 people in discussion
These are questions for two admins.
NeilN and MelanieN, you both have started me thinking about an occasional problem I've noticed for a very long time. Both NeilN and MelanieN have touched on a subject which could mean we need to improve the DS instructions regarding this wording:
Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). If in doubt, don't make the edit.
This should only apply to newly-installed content, not to long-standing content. Occasionally individual editors, or groups of editors, game the system(*) by exploiting this to remove (sometimes large amounts of) content on very dubious grounds. This serves their purpose to weaken and destabilize the article, and to remove content they don't like, even if it's not a permanent removal. Deliberate or not, it's disruptive and hinders development and improvement of the article.
As NeilN implied, consensus should also apply to removal of long-standing material. That wording should be explicit in the DS notification at the top of talk pages.
Here is a suggested wording, obviously subject to improvement:
Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before making potentially controversial changes. This applies to:
removing long-standing material; if someone removes long-standing material and someone restores it then it should not be removed again without consensus.
reinstating any new edits that have been "challenged" (via reversion). Note that not all reversion is a challenge.
If there can be any doubt, don't make the edit. The goal of these discretionary sanctions (DS) is to promote article stability. Obvious gaming the system using spurious arguments can be reverted by any admin and the offender(s) sanctioned per DS rules.
It is best to use the normal process of article improvement described at PRESERVE, rather than constantly removing large chunks of content. If it's controversial, then work on it on the talk page to avoid edit warring and removal of stable content.
The fact that an aspect of the subject may not be covered well, does not justify removing existing content. Instead, make up the lack by adding more content. Often the lack is because good sources are lacking for that POV. This may be a signal that the "missing" part is actually a fringe POV found only in unreliable sources and thus has little weight anyway.
(*) If they aren't gaming the system, the result is still the same, and that's what counts, so we should still make a change.
I asked the same question on NeilN's talk page here. You might want to check it out, basically he confirms if longstanding material is removed and then restored consensus is required to remove it again. It is not you must obtain consensus for the initial removal of long standing material. PackMecEng (talk) 15:22, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
He writes: "If someone removes long-standing material and someone restores it then it should not be removed again without consensus. The goal of that restriction is to promote article stability." -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe16:21, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Is there an easy way to find out when removed material was added? We know when it was removed, but it may be that it involves only a portion of a section. Does that mean we have to go through a week of edits in the edit history just to find out when it was first added? Atsme📞📧15:43, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
NeilN, I have now tweaked my suggested wording. What do you think? Let's brainstorm here and see if we can come up with something better than what we have. Your thoughts on this are important and it's something which I hadn't seen before. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe16:23, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Individual admins are responsible for the wording they use to implement restrictions and I won't be using yours, sorry. We covered this in 2016. "Edits" covers everything - additions, deletions, modifications - and more words lead to more opportunities for editors trying to find loopholes. --NeilNtalk to me16:29, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Editors do not know about what was covered in 2016. All they can see is the words, which clearly only apply to "reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion)." It should not be necessary, or up to, individual admins to explain this. It should be plain in the notification. Editors should not end up in trouble because they followed the instructions and still got in trouble because of what was "covered in 2016". If the wording is plain, it will prevent a lot of problems, and prevention is a good thing. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe16:53, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
The thing is, the current wording is significantly more plain then your proposed wording. "long-standing material" - what's that? "Note that not all reversion is a challenge" - I didn't think that revert was really a challenge. I should also point out that while an admin can add restrictions, they cannot remove or alter another admin's restrictions. Many of the present AP restrictions were placed by Coffee and I'm not touching those without a specific okay from Arbcom. --NeilNtalk to me17:04, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Okay. If I were to bring this up at village post or elsewhere, would you stand by your interpretation that this also applies to removals, not just reinstatement? You are the first one I have ever heard that from, and it makes total sense, but I don't think this is common knowledge or a common interpretation. Maybe it is, but I've never seen it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:09, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Page through the AE archives and you'll see it's been mentioned before. I don't know of any admin placing that restriction that considers it applying to additions only. The key phrase is "reinstating any edits". A deletion is an edit. You are reinstating a deletion. Don't narrow the definition down to apply to only additions. --NeilNtalk to me17:27, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Then the wording and italics need to be changed, because the way they are used limit the "any edits" to "reinstating". Parsing is important, and correct grammar guides the parsing.
Consensus required: All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion). If in doubt, don't make the edit.
Your personal meaning might be unambiguous, and I like it, but the wording is muddled and undermines your interpretation. That's unfortunate, and it should be fixed. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:37, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
BR, Neil's explanation was unambiguous. Each admin is responsible for their own wording and interpretation. I'd say it's kinda pointless to expect editors to change how admins phrase their DS restrictions. Quite frankly, a bigger concern is determining what is or isn't considered long standing therefore stable, and how admins can logically consider an article that needed DS restrictions in the first place was ever "stable". It's an oxymoron. Atsme📞📧17:31, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
That is indeed an important thing to keep in mind, but instead of some bright line (like 3RR), we should think twice "before making potentially controversial changes". That would prevent a lot of problems. We should start a thread, copy (not delete) the content in question to the thread, and then collaboratively develop a better version and then install a consensus version. This is a smoother method with less drama, while promoting article stability.
Collaborative editing needs to be encouraged, rather than drive by editing, or POV edit warring by various factions. We should be focusing on improving content, not attacking it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:46, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
BR, I don’t have time to get into this (and in any case I defer to more experienced admins in interpreting the DS). But FYI this was discussed rather extensively at my talk page last year,
here and
here. You might see if there are any insights or possible wording there for you. I know there have been subsequent discussions at more general boards but I don’t have a link. --MelanieN (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion
The biggest disruptions are you're own creations, BR. I liken it to Trump tweeting. Just look at how you attempted to malign me here on your TP and at NeilN's TP by casting aspersions, and taking my discussion with MastCell out of context. All anyone has to do is read the full discussion at his TP to see how you deceitfully formulated your ridiculous POV case against me. It's the same pattern of editing I've seen you use in political articles and then try to pass it off as NPOV while accusing others of not understanding NPOV and needing lessons. For the record - I have always enjoyed my discussions with MastCell because he intelligently explains his perspective - I may not always agree with him and vice versa, but I do appreciate our exchanges and consider it productive dissemination - just not in the way you recently pooped all over the last one (and that includes your buttinsky interference and stalking of me which has become quite freaky). Editors whose user pages are as pedantic and polemic as yours have no business accusing others of acting on their biases and not understanding NPOV. Like what Drmies suggested, if you think you have a case against me, then do what you have to do, but stop your goading/lying/misrepresenting/taking my words out of context/casting aspersions and stalking me. Atsme📞📧02:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Atsme, you're getting kind of, what shall we call it, agitated? Don't get mad. Get even. If you have a grievance take it to one of the behavior modification venues. SPECIFICOtalk02:29, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Nope, not agitated at all, and I'm not the kind of person who "gets even". His obsessive stalking of me is creepy - not good - admins are aware. Atsme📞📧03:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
No, "agitated" isn't the only problem. It appears that paranoia is involved. A failure to AGF can cause it. "Stalking", now that's really bad. Evidence please. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe03:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Paranoia? No, concern over your creepy stalking and the comments you make about me that are just not true. You wanted some diffs to show how you've been stalking me, following me around - well, here they are, and I added 2 of my polite requests to you to stop, trying not to make it a big deal, but the stalking continued, and here we today.
- Tony Ballioni March 23, 2018 - I said to you: “WP doesn't need hall monitors, so you can stop following me around. People might start thinking we're an "item”.”
- Talk:NPOV April 24, 2018 - I said to you: “BullRangifer, I disagree with your perspective on so many different levels that I really would appreciate it if you would stop following me around all over WP. I prefer to hear from editors I have not had prior exchanges with - I know your views so you really don't need to keep reminding me. I don't want folks to think you and I are an item, which may result in rumors plastered all over the front page of the SignPost!! [FBDB]”
And there are more - what you did to me on your TP and on Neil's TP has gone beyond the stage of [FBDB] requests for you to stop. It has escalated to creepy, and you need to stop obsessing over me like you do the Trump articles. Stop casting aspersions and spreading misinformation about me like you just did on your TP, on article TPs, and on the TP of NeilN. - you have been warned. Atsme📞📧04:49, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
"Creepy stalking"? You do realize that "stalking" implies a bad faith interpretation of events and imputes a deliberate and nefarious intent on my part? That's on you. That's bad faith on your part. Both the "creepy" and "stalking" ideas are in your head.
There is exactly ONE item on that list which was not already on my watchlist. ONE. That's all. I did notice that you edited an article about lizardfishes, a very interesting subject, and I noticed there was an extra blank line. That's all I fixed. Is that a crime? You seem to think that is a horribly nefarious thing for me to do. That's on you. That's bad faith on your part. It's not stalking.
You do realize that around here everything we do is open to scrutiny and easily gets noticed, even when there is no intention to scrutinize. Right now my watchlist says this: "807 pages on your watchlist (excluding talk pages)." For me that's a very small watchlist. Not too long ago I had over 10,000 pages on it, so I pared it down. Around here one inevitably runs into all kinds of editors when one has a large watchlist.
As far as asking me not to comment on articles where you also comment, well you have no right to do that. It is not stalking when that happens. (BTW, MastCell and I go way, way back to far before you started here. We're both medical professionals and share many POV in science and medicine.)
You appear on articles where I'm commenting all the time. So what? The difference between us is that I don't accuse you of stalking me. Grow up. AGF. I have no interest in stalking you. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
I find it ironic when you provide a diff at NLT for supposed stalking by me, and two edits later you thanked me for my attempt to help you. You thanked me (!!) at the time for my attempt to help you, but now you claim it was stalking? Now that really is "creepy". Your failure to AGF turned my effort to help you into an evil deed. That's sad. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
WP:HOUND - Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. Your behavior toward me is textbook hounding (stalking is redirected to hounding) and a policy violation. You were blocked for disruption in January after you cast aspersions and became highly disruptive over an article I nominated for AfD that was eventually redirected despite your disruption. I actually did AGF with you at first, but when you kept showing up at my discussions to inject your blatant POV with intent to disparage me, and then showed up at Synodontidae, a topic you don't edit, and did so within 20 min of my edit only to (rmv extra blank line), that's when I knew you were stalking me. The final straw was your passive aggressive posting of my discussion with MastCell, your censorship and dismissal of my comments so you could represent the entire discussion out of context, I knew exactly what you were doing. The evidence against you is overwhelming. Atsme📞📧05:52, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Wow! You've really lost it. You haven't even read what I just wrote about that NLT diff. You owe me a big apology for that one. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:55, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Trump's dubious relationship to truth and facts
This is a very small portion of what's available on Trump's notorious relationship to truth. There is enough material for a very large article. Every single day provides new material. There are plenty of opinions about the subject, but then there are the facts. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Lies are easily fact checked, and what fact checkers say should not be confused with opinions.
Trump's dubious relationship to truth and facts
As president, Trump has made a large number of false statements in public speeches and remarks.[1][2][3][4] Trump uttered "at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days" in office according to The New York Times,[1] and 1,628 total in his first 298 days in office according to the "Fact Checker" analysis of The Washington Post, or an average of 5.5 per day.[5] The Post fact-checker also wrote, "President Trump is the most fact-challenged politician that The Fact Checker has ever encountered... the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."[6]
Glenn Kessler, a fact checker for The Washington Post, told Dana Milbank that, in his six years on the job, "'there's no comparison' between Trump and other politicians. Kessler says politicians' statements get his worst rating — four Pinocchios — 15 percent to 20 percent of the time. Clinton is about 15 percent. Trump is 63 percent to 65 percent."[7]
Maria Konnikova, writing in Politico Magazine, wrote: "All Presidents lie.... But Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent.... Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true, and 11 percent mostly true."[8]
Senior administration officials have also regularly given false, misleading or tortured statements to the media.[9] By May 2017, Politico reported that the repeated untruths by senior officials made it difficult for the media to take official statements seriously.[9]
Trump's presidency started out with a series of falsehoods initiated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he proceeded to exaggerate the size, and Sean Spicer backed up his claims.[10][11][12][13] When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures,[14][15][16]Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts".[17] Todd responded by saying "alternative facts are not facts. They're falsehoods."[18]
Social scientist and researcher Bella DePaulo, an expert on the psychology of lying, stated: "I study liars. I've never seen one like President Trump." Trump outpaced "even the biggest liars in our research."[19] She compared the research on lying with his lies, finding that his lies differed from those told by others in several ways: Trump's total rate of lying is higher than for others; He tells 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies, whereas ordinary people tell 2 times as many self-serving lies as kind lies. 50% of Trump's lies are cruel lies, while it's 1-2% for others. 10% of Trump's lies are kind lies, while it's 25% for others. His lies often "served several purposes simultaneously", and he doesn't "seem to care whether he can defend his lies as truthful".[20]
Dara Lind described "The 9 types of lies Donald Trump tells the most". He lies about: tiny things; crucial policy differences; chronology; makes himself into the victim; exaggerates "facts that should bolster his argument"; "endorses blatant conspiracy theories"; "things that have no basis in reality"; "obscures the truth by denying he said things he said, or denying things are known that are known"; and about winning.[21]
In a Scientific American article, Jeremy Adam Smith sought to answer the question of how Trump could get away with making so many false statements and still maintain support among his followers. He proposed that "Trump is telling 'blue' lies—a psychologist's term for falsehoods, told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen the bonds among the members of that group.... From this perspective, lying is a feature, not a bug, of Trump's campaign and presidency."[22]
David Fahrenthold has investigated Trump's claims about his charitable giving and found little evidence the claims are true.[23][24] Following Fahrenthold's reporting, the Attorney General of New York opened an inquiry into the Donald J. Trump Foundation's fundraising practices, and ultimately issued a "notice of violation" ordering the Foundation to stop raising money in New York.[25] The Foundation had to admit it engaged in self-dealing practices to benefit Trump, his family, and businesses.[26] Fahrenthold won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for his coverage of Trump's claimed charitable giving[27] and casting "doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."[28]
In March 2018, The Washington Post reported that Trump, at a fundraising speech, had recounted the following incident: in a meeting with Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau, Trump insisted to Trudeau that the United States ran a trade deficit with Canada, even though Trump later admitted he had "no idea" whether that was really the case. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the United States has a trade surplus with Canada.[29]
Here are a few of Trump's notable claims which fact checkers have rated false: that Obama wasn't born in the United States and that Hillary Clinton started the Obama "birther" movement;[30][31] that his electoral college victory was a "landslide";[32][33][34] that Hillary Clinton received 3-5 million illegal votes;[35][36] and that he was "totally against the war in Iraq".[37][38][39]
Fact checkers
Here are a few of Trump's notable claims which fact checkers have rated false: that Obama wasn't born in the United States and that Hillary Clinton started the Obama "birther" movement;[30][31] that his electoral college victory was a "landslide";[32][33][34] that Hillary Clinton received 3-5 million illegal votes;[35][36] and that he was "totally against the war in Iraq".[37][38][39]
Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things. The Star's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump's campaign for months. He has fact checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods. 11/4/2016[49]
President Trump lied more than 3,000 times in 466 days. 5/1/2018[50]
Trump, his supporters, and fake news
Trump's supporters are especially affected by his false statements and attacks on the media and reliable sources. The effects of his attacks on truth are boosted by their uniquely high consumption[51][52] of dubious sources, junk news, and actual fake news. Like him, they have a disdain for reliable sources and seem unable or unwilling to vet sources for reliability. Unfortunately, their reaction to sources and fact checking which reflect poorly on Trump and expose his falsehoods is not to believe them and move away from untruth, but instead to label it "fake news" and move deeper into a closed loop of delusion.
Their definition of "fake news" is a novel, Trumpian,[53] interpretation, as it is totally unrelated to the factual accuracy of the source.[54] It is also an especially pernicious interpretation because these exposures of Trump's falsehoods are actually very real news and truth. By contrast to liberals, most of Trump's supporters are conservatives whose media bias limits their news sourcing to a very limited number of unreliable sources.[55] Instead of being enlightened by reliable sources, they believe his falsehoods, considering them "alternative facts".[56]
A 2018 study at Oxford University[57] found that Trump's supporters consumed the "largest volume of 'junk news' on Facebook and Twitter":
"On Twitter, a network of Trump supporters consumes the largest volume of junk news, and junk news is the largest proportion of news links they share," the researchers concluded. On Facebook, the skew was even greater. There, "extreme hard right pages – distinct from Republican pages – share more junk news than all the other audiences put together."[58]
A 2018 study[51] by researchers from Princeton University, Dartmouth College, and the University of Exeter has examined the consumption of fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The findings showed that Trump supporters and older Americans (over 60) were far more likely to consume fake news than Clinton supporters. Those most likely to visit fake news websites were the 10% of Americans who consumed the most conservative information. There was a very large difference (800%) in the consumption of fake news stories as related to total news consumption between Trump supporters (6.2%) and Clinton supporters (0.8%).[51][52]
The study also showed that fake pro-Trump and fake pro-Clinton news stories were read by their supporters, but with a significant difference: Trump supporters consumed far more (40%) than Clinton supporters (15%). Facebook was by far the key "gateway" website where these fake stories were spread, and which led people to then go to the fake news websites. Fact checks of fake news were rarely seen by consumers,[51][52] with none of those who saw a fake news story being reached by a related fact check.[59]
Brendan Nyhan, one of the researchers, emphatically stated in an interview on NBC News: "People got vastly more misinformation from Donald Trump than they did from fake news websites -- full stop."[52] (Bolding added)
NBC NEWS: "It feels like there's a connection between having an active portion of a party that's prone to seeking false stories and conspiracies and a president who has famously spread conspiracies and false claims. In many ways, demographically and ideologically, the president fits the profile of the fake news users that you're describing."
NYHAN: "It's worrisome if fake news websites further weaken the norm against false and misleading information in our politics, which unfortunately has eroded. But it's also important to put the content provided by fake news websites in perspective. People got vastly more misinformation from Donald Trump than they did from fake news websites -- full stop."[52]
We have really never seen anything like this. Former acting CIA director Michael Morell says that Putin has cleverly recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation. I'd prefer another term drawn from the arcana of the Soviet era: polezni durak. That's the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited. That's a pretty harsh term, and Trump supporters will no doubt be offended. But, frankly, it's the most benign interpretation of all this that I can come up with right now. -- General Michael Hayden[1]
This quote is especially interesting because it's Michael Hayden who quotes Michael Morell and then offers his own preference.
Both top intelligence men share secret knowledge about Trump's relationship to Russia. Hayden considers the descriptions rather "harsh", but also "benign" under the circumstances. They know far more than we do and that the reality about Trump is much worse than their descriptions. It's not often one finds such a unique example of contemporary usage of the term "useful fool".
If one tried to create an anonymized example of a classic use of the term for use in the Useful idiot article, one could not create a better example than this one. It uses the concept in two different ways; it's coming from two top intelligence officials; and it's about the most notable example in modern times. No wise or informed world leader would allow themselves to get into this situation, but it's happening right now.
This is both quotes from their original sources:
Michael Morell, former acting CIA director, wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."[2]Michael Hayden, former director of both the US National Security Agency and the CIA, described Trump as a "useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."[1]
"Clinton Watts, a former FBI special agent on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, earlier this year explained: Russian influence of Trump most likely falls into the category of what Madeleine Albright called a “Useful Idiot” – a “useful fool” – an enthusiast for Putin supportive of any issue or stance that feeds his ego and brings victory....As a “useful idiot,” Trump not only benefited from this influence effort, but he urged Russia to find Hilary Clinton’s missing emails...What’s more, the Kremlin now has useful idiots in the persons of Fox News hosts, right-wing American bloggers, talk show hosts and Stephen K. Bannon."
"... a far more grim consensus is developing in the topmost circles of the U.S. national security establishment: The president has become a pawn of America’s adversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin."
"James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, virtually called Trump a Putin puppet. The Russian president, Clapper noted, is a former KGB “case officer,” or spy recruiter, who “knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president. That’s the appearance to me.”
“POTUS is a [spy] handlers’ dream,”
he may be the ultimate unwitting asset of Russia.”
“Everyone continues to dance around a clear assessment of what’s going on,” says Glenn Carle,...“My assessment,” he tells Newsweek, “is that Trump is actually working directly for the Russians.”[5]
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out. If the subject has denied such allegations, that should also be reported.
Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe." Is the divorce important to the article, and was it published by third-party reliable sources? If not, leave it out. If so, avoid use of "messy" and stick to the facts: "John Doe and Jane Doe divorced."
Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. It is denied, but multiple major newspapers publish the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation belongs in the biography, citing those sources. However, it should only state that the politician was alleged to have had the affair, not that the affair actually occurred.
EMPHASIS ADDED:
In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out. If the subject has denied such allegations, that should also be reported.
A few things to note about this:
There is a difference between how we handle public figures and relatively unknown persons. Wikipedia follows normal practice in real life, especially libel laws, where public persons are less protected than others. In the USA, a public person can rarely win a libel lawsuit; the bar to overwhelm the First amendment is set very high.
Added to that is the unfortunate fact that Barrett v. Rosenthal protects the deliberate online repetition (not the original creation) of known libelous information found on the internet: a "user of interactive computer services" is "immune from liability [certain conditions follow]". The internet is the Wild West, where a law actually protects the spreading of proven lies.
This is sad, and we do not participate in the spreading of lies, unless multiple RS have documented it. That's where we are forced to get involved, but here we also include more details and denials, and we label them as "allegations" until proven true.
If the conditions are met (noteworthy, relevant, and well documented), "it belongs in the article".
"even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." The subject has a COI and has no right to have it removed from Wikipedia or to stop us from covering it. By being a public person, they have relinquished the right to privacy, even of negative information. The WMF legal department will rarely side with such attempts where editors are properly following this policy.
Allegations must be labeled "allegation". Important.
If they have denied the allegation, their denial must be included. Important.
Many editors cite BLP, and even WP:PUBLIFIGURE, as if it means that negative and/or unproven information should not be included. No, that's not the way it works. That would be censorship, and that would violate NPOV. Just treat the allegation(s) sensitively, and neutrally document what multiple RS say.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Before you study this subject, you MUST see this short BBC video (4:41 min.). Prepare to have your mind blown. This is not a conspiracy theory. At the end of the sources is a search on the subject.
BBC Video. Tweeted Aug. 13, 2017. Project Alamo: Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Google, and YouTube worked hand-in-hand with the Trump campaign.
Then read this:
Why the Trump Machine Is Built to Last Beyond the Election. October 27, 2016[1]
They started with bragging at their efficiency, success, and collaboration with Facebook, et al. The Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica (CA), Facebook, Google, and YouTube were working very closely together all along. I was dumbfounded at the time with how open they were about it, and wondered how that could be legal.
According to recent sources (below), their tune has changed to denials and a cover-up, but those historical sources show they knew and colluded together, and CA is now under criminal investigation. Both CA and FB are pointing fingers at each other, and this paints a pretty clear picture of damage control and cover-up (using a false "data breach" story).
In contrast, POV forks generally arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion.
Since what qualifies as a "POV fork" can itself be based on a POV judgement, it may be best not to refer to the fork as "POV" except in extreme cases of persistent disruptive editing. Instead, apply Wikipedia's policy that requires a neutral point of view: regardless of the reasons for making the fork, it still must be titled and written in a neutral point of view. It could be that the fork was a good idea, but was approached without balance, or that its creators mistakenly claimed ownership over it.
The most blatant POV forks are those which insert consensus-dodging content under a title that should clearly be made a redirect to an existing article; in some cases, editors have even converted existing redirects into content forks. However, a new article can be a POV fork even if its title is not a synonym of an existing article's title. If one has tried to include one's personal theory that heavier-than-air flight is impossible in an existing article about aviation, but the consensus of editors has rejected it as patent nonsense, that does not justify creating an article named "Unanswered questions about heavier-than-air flight" to expound the rejected personal theory.
The creator of the new article may be sincerely convinced that there is so much information about a certain aspect of a subject that it justifies a separate article. Any daughter article that deals with opinions about the subject of parent article must include suitably-weighted positive and negative opinions, and/or rebuttals, if available, and the original article should contain a neutral summary of the split article. There is currently no consensus whether a "Criticism of..." article is always a POV fork, but many criticism articles nevertheless suffer from POV problems. If possible, refrain from using "criticism" and instead use neutral terms such as "perception" or "reception"; if the word "criticism" must be used, make sure that such criticism considers both the merits and faults, and is not entirely negative (consider what would happen if a "Praise of..." article was created instead).
New content sandbox. Needs work.
We aren't allowed to create, or use, articles as WP:POVFORKs. Relevant content belongs in the relevant articles, and not be banished to "somewhere else, just as long as it's not here". That's the essence of the attitude we want to eliminate, and why we don't allow POV forks.
The first phase of research was sponsored by Republicans. In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, The Washington Free Beacon, an Americanconservativepolitical journalism web site primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer, hired the American research firm Fusion GPS to conduct general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.[5] For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016, The Free Beacon stopped funding research on him.[3][6][7] The Free Beacon has later stated that "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier."[8][9]
=== Research sponsored by Democrats produces dossier ===
The second phase of research was sponsored by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton presidential campaign and produced the Steele dossier. In April 2016, Marc Elias, a partner in the large Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie and head of its Political Law practice, hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research on Trump. Elias was the attorney of record for the DNC and Clinton campaign.[10] ... (Rest is totally unchanged.)
^Cite error: The named reference WaPo-paidresearch was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Sandbox
== History ==
There were two phases of politicalopposition research performed against Trump, both using the services of Fusion GPS, but with completely separate funders. Only the second phase produced the Steele dossier.[1][2][3][4]
=== Research funded by conservative website ===
In October 2015, before the official start of the 2016 Republican primary campaign, The Washington Free Beacon, an Americanconservativepolitical journalism web site primarily funded by Republican donor Paul Singer, hired the American research firm Fusion GPS to conduct general opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.[5] For months, Fusion GPS gathered information about Trump, focusing on his business and entertainment activities. When Trump became the presumptive nominee on May 3, 2016, The Free Beacon stopped funding research on him.[3][6][7] The Free Beacon has later stated that "none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier."[8][9]
=== Research funded by Democrats produces dossier ===
The second phase of research was funded through Marc Elias, a partner in the large Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie and head of its Political Law practice. In April 2016, Elias hired Fusion GPS to do opposition research on Trump. Elias, as the attorney of record for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton presidential campaign, was acting on their behalf.[10] ... (Rest is totally unchanged.)
Comey interview
The full transcript of James Comey's five-hour long interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. Only one hour was shown on April 15, 2016:
"ABC News' chief anchor George Stephanopoulos' interviewed former FBI director James Comey for a special edition of "20/20" that aired on Sunday, April 15, 2018 ahead of the release of Comey's book, A Higher Loyalty. The following is the transcript of the interview:"
Notable quotes (very abbreviated to avoid copyvio)
JAMES COMEY: I worry that the norms at the center of this country--... Most importantly, the truth. ... if we lose tethering of our leaders to that truth, what are we? And so I started to worry. Actually, the foundation of this country is in jeopardy when we stop measuring our leaders against that central value of the truth.
JAMES COMEY: I honestly never thought this words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the-- the-- current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible, but I don't know.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you thinking, "President Trump's a liar?"
JAMES COMEY: Yes, ... he is someone who is-- for whom the truth is not a high value. And-- and obviously, there were examples of that in the dinner.
...But yes, that he is-- that sometimes he's lying in ways that are obvious, sometimes he's saying things that we may not know are true or false and then there's a spectrum in between.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You say the president didn't laugh.
JAMES COMEY: Yeah, not at all. ... I've never seen him laugh. Not in public, not in private.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You write that President Trump is unethical, untethered to the truth. Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?
JAMES COMEY: Yes. ... I don't think he's medically unfit to be president. I think he's morally unfit to be president.
A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person's not fit to be president of the United States, on moral grounds. And that's not a policy statement.... our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country. The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.
The term Lügenpresse came into use during the 2016 US presidential election cycle under the moniker of fake news, first largely online in reference to inaccurate or false reporting on social media. The term fake news was later used by the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.[1] At October 2016 political rallies in the US, Trump supporters shouted the word at reporters in the "press pen".[2] Trump himself often referred to the assembled press at his rallies as "the most dishonest people" and "unbelievable liars".[3] American alt-rightwhite nationalistRichard Spencer used the term in an NPI meeting in Washington, D.C. after Trump's victory in the election.
Trump and his followers have often attacked the press, calling them "corrupt", "outright liars", and "the deceitful dishonest media."[5] During the 2016 presidential campaign, the press at Trump's rallies was ridiculed, and sometimes the old Nazi slur Lügenpresse, German for "lying press", was used to attack them.[6] In 2017, Trump labeled The New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, and CNN as "the fake news media" and "the enemy of the American people."[7]
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
....followed by an appeal.
"Do the right thing"? Forget it here. That is not allowed. Practice on Trump articles and talk pages show a clear use of the Wikipedia:Trump exemption. I knew it existed, but proof of its existence was finally formalized by an editor with this comment, which contains a redirect to WP:IAR. It was a clear admission that, when dealing with Trump, it was allowable to ignore all PAG. Censorship is allowed in service of his thin skin. It appears that Trumpipedia is part of Wikipedia, with its own rules.
Drmies recognizes that a section (in each biography article) on the subject of Obama's and Trump's relationship to truth and facts would be radically different because they have radically different understandings and practice, and that's the picture painted by RS. Whether one agrees with Obama or not, he at least recognizes that truth is important, whereas Trump has never given it the time of day. He is the most extreme example of affluenza.
I have researched the subject and it's fascinating. Right now, even a few sentences in a short paragraph in any Trump article is pretty much forbidden. I have enough (over 300 very RS) for a rather long article about Trump, but I know that such an article would never be allowed. His supporters here would successfully game the system through wikilawyering, exploiting the DS requirement for a consensus to restore contested content, RfCs, and AfDs.
Such an article would be labeled an "attack page", even though it's only a documentation of what RS say, and that is what's supposed to dictate our content. The "Trump exemption" (endless wikilawyering) has become a policy here, used successfully to violate numerous policies.
The consensus among RS is that Trump is a "serial liar" in a class by himself, far beyond anything they've ever encountered before. It's a very well-documented character flaw, not just opinions, and yet the dominant view here is that Trump should be given a much longer rope than anyone else and be protected from what RS say. He has that much power here. That's the way it is, and too many admins support that view. These articles should be monitored by numerous admins who are willing to promptly issue DS warnings and topic bans for such obstruction.
Latest comment: 6 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion
I have created the following in response to this call for the creation of this type of content by BD2412: "I absolutely agree with that proposition. The paragraph can be fleshed out a bit further to indicate the common reasons which were given for declining representation. It would be nice to find a reliable source saying how unusual it is for top firms and lawyers to decline to represent the President."[1]
This subject is especially important because Trump himself has mentioned it in connection with the "Russia case" (this article's subject) and labeled this view a "Fake News narrative". That makes this content directly on-topic here. Naturally many RS have responded to his accusation. I suggest it get its own section, as these attorneys are not part of the Trump team.
If there is an interest in shortening my version below, the last quote could be tucked into the reference so it only appears in the references' section, but it's important because it mentions the deeper moral and ethical implications, important aspects of the subject which are often ignored.
When considering the many RS which mention this subject, I settled on these legal sources because the lawyers and authors on legal websites are subject experts who tend to have a much more informed and less sensational way of expressing themselves than popular pundits found on TV and popular news sources. That keeps this a serious and sober discussion of the issues. When dealing with such opinions, we could choose to include speculations from non-experts, and our policies do allow that, but I prefer to use expert opinions when possible. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:26, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Error: No text given for quotation (or equals sign used in the actual argument to an unnamed parameter)
@Awilley: I'm dubious about this result of that AE discussion. IMO it was a vexatious gotcha filing, and closing it with a warning seemed unnecessary to me at the time. Opinions can vary, of course. I'm not asking you to change your mind, but would you mull over it, please? Bishonen | talk17:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC).
Bish: You've been adminning politics for at least a couple years now. The whole area's worse and it's about to get a lot worse with the midterms. Maybe a new team with a new approach isn't the worst idea. My 2¢ 2A01:4A0:4A:52:0:0:0:E2DA (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Bishonen, that's not the only reason for the sanction. One of the other reasons, that I didn't mention above, was
that essay in their userspace that has been the cause of much bickering between factions, with some editors misinterpreting the essay as saying Trump supporters are unfit to edit Wikipedia. While the essay does contain some good arguments, I wanted to make sure it didn't again find its way into Article Talk space [2]. I would have very similar concerns about User:Lionelt (apparently on wikibreak) pushing that userspace scorecard purporting to show that admins on Wikipedia are biased because among other things they haven't topic banned Volunteer Marek despite him being frequently reported to administrative noticeboards. There is probably a place for material like that, but it's not on article talk pages where things work best when editors focus on content instead of each other.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from BR. If they intend to do all the stuff in the sanction anyway then the formal sanction and logging might not be necessary. ~Awilley (talk)20:24, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Awilley, I take note of your comment: "I wanted to make sure it didn't again find its way into Article Talk space [3]." Don't worry. Even though it was a SNOW KEEP (opposition to the essay is thus against Wikipedia's interests), because the essay is very relevant to Wikipedia and accurately describes a systemic bias and constant problem (read the comments at the MfD), I don't think I've mentioned it since that diff in April. I have also revised it since then. Practically no one knows it exists or looks at it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe00:45, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm in no condition to reply right now, as I'm recovering from severe jet lag and 28 hours without sleep. At my age that's tough. I will provide this diff showing the result of the MfD on my PRIVATE essay was a Snow keep. When I'm feeling better, I'll try to reply here. I'm still in a state of shock, having discovered this on my cell phone during a moment while waiting for our baggage. Needless to say I have no idea why this appeared and what or who motivated it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe20:52, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
Will do. Thanks. Knowing you, I'm sure you put some thought into this, and I'll consider your good intentions when studying what this is about. I'm sure there's some good advice in there. Can't get too much of that! -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:01, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree with Awilley striking these sanctions. I'm fairly convinced that you would abide by them of your own accord in any case. You've always been one of the "good ones" and the incident which sparked this was very much the exception, not the rule. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.20:49, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
Notice
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This seems to be a recurring problem for you. To avoid it, follow the advice you have received from many and refrain from editing controversial topics until you know how things work here and know how to vet sources. You currently think unreliable sources are reliable, and RS are unreliable. That's a competence issue.
If you aren't trying to get me in trouble, then why did you file a report at AN/I? I won't believe you unless you withdraw it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:50, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments2 people in discussion
I dont think an organisation has to be legitimate to be classified as a mental health organisation. It's concerned with mental health, however misguided it is. In the same way we would include proponents of other discredited theories.Rathfelder (talk) 17:50, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Hmmm. What are the criteria for being considered a legitimate "mental health" organization? Do they claim to be such? Are they legally registered as such? -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
If we don't have proof from independent RS (should also be used in article) that it is, then we shouldn't include it in the category. Otherwise we can. That's my opinion. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:24, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
The sources clearly show it is concerned with autism. They don't talk about legitimacy. But nor do the sources for other articles in the category. Rathfelder (talk) 07:49, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
We can either have strict inclusion criteria, or unsourced OR inclusion criteria. We can be sloppy or keep a tight ship. I'd support that RS are still the determining factor. If they are registered as such an organization, that should be good enough. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe08:00, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
I think a list compiled by the American Hospital Association doesnt confer legitimacy. The National Register of Health Service Psychologists issues credentials - but I think there are other rival bodies issuing different credentials. My point is that as far as Wikipedia is concerned to classify an organisation is not to legitimise it.Rathfelder (talk) 22:09, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Warning - Inappropriate use of Rollback
Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
Your first edit sure looked like typical drive-by IP vandalism to me, so rollback was proper. Your edit summary doesn't seem to be true at all, considering this: "Why Have So Many Daily Caller Writers Expressed White Supremacist Views? Revelations that Daily Caller writer Scott Greer also published material on a site founded by white supremacist Richard Spencer aren't the first of their kind." Snopes ref.
With 60K edits you know damn well headlines aren't citable. Now that that's straight my edit sure don't look like typical drive-by IP vandalism does it? Look dude just don't let it happen again and if it does don't lie about it because that makes it worse. 199.127.56.115 (talk) 07:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I only cited the headline for you to quickly demonstrate the subject of the Snopes article. Just that headline shows your edit summary wasn't right. Red flag. Upon further examination of the contents, it turns out that, like most good headlines, it accurately sums up the content of the Snopes article, and that the content added by VM is pretty good. You have no case, so drop the attitude. You now have three experienced editors who disagree with your deletions. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe13:53, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I checked the articles again and the several past writers claim isn't in either so it's OR but that's a discussion for the talk page. I posted here to remind you that using rollback to revert legitimate edits isn't allowed. The right response is yes, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. 199.127.56.120 (talk) 20:12, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Again, drop the attitude. We try to keep a collegial atmosphere here. We are supposed to be on the same side, all trying to improve the article, therefore the adversarial tone isn't appreciated. Also AGF. From all appearances, your first deletion did appear like typical drive by IP vandalism. You must be able to see that. What might be some deeper issue was not apparent at the time, and in fact has not been made clear yet. Multiple experienced editors aren't buying your edit warring over this.
Next, deletion is against the WP:PRESERVE policy. Period. The content is properly sourced, so the proper approach is to tweak the wording to match what the sources say. If you think the wording and the sources aren't in sync, and the sources obviously do touch on a very similar theme and are suitable for use, then you should have tweaked the wording, not edit warred over it. Your job is to seek to use the sources and preserve the good faith efforts of fellow editors. Now the article is semi-protected, and that's good. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe02:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Snopes wrote an entire paragraph each (with headers!) about four different writers for the Caller who turned out to have WS chops. I guess you missed that entire page's worth. Oh, and the note that this wasn't the first time in the opening paragraph. And the two other mentions. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.20:40, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
199.127.xx, it's interesting that you edit war on the article to keep your version, without setting foot on the talkpage — and somehow you think it's appropriate to come here (one minute later) and try to hector BullRangifer about his one revert and about "a discussion for the talkpage" (really?). Please use a different tone, and log in to your account. Unless it's blocked, of course. Bishonen | talk20:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC).
Jane Mayer edits
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Response to BullRangifer: Have you posted a similar message on the pages of users who keep reverting edits on the same page? As you can see, they persist in posting information that is contradicted by the primary source: the Pulitzer organization. No, wait, you yourself are one of those editors! I've asked repeatedly that people take this to the talk page instead of continuing to post the unfounded (and apparently inaccurate) information.148.75.126.156 (talk) 03:14, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
LOL! We watchlist a lot of the same articles. I need to prune my watchlist again. It's crawled up to 1,076. It used to be over 10,000. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe15:22, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
Adam Smith (October 3, 2018). "Wikipedia Bans Breitbart as Source of Fact". PC Magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2018. The right-wing site will still be a source for opinion-related content, but all other citations will be removed. Wikipedia did the same with British newspaper The Daily Mail.
Marcus Gilmer (October 3, 2018). "Wikipedia demotes Breitbart to fake news". Mashable. Retrieved October 5, 2018. Wikipedia, the internet's crowd-sourced encyclopedia, has declared "fake news" on far-right site Breitbart, deeming the outlet an unreliable source for facts.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, you reverted my edit to CNN controversy, saying it was not reliable or neutral. Could you please explain how so in the CNN controversy talk page? --1.136.107.10 (talk) 08:43, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Verifiability
Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments2 people in discussion
I will take your talk page comment as sufficient at least for not WP:STONEWALLING, but you MUST provide a citation for the sentence you restored after I challenged the verifiability of that line. Pick a reliable source, ANY reliable source, that supports the definition on that line and cite to that. I've used my one revert already today, so I will not violate 1RR to revert you, which means I have no choice but to go to WP:ANI if you don't self-revert or provide a citation. -Obsidi (talk) 03:58, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
You've been around here for a while, but with relatively few edits for all those years. You're not a newbie, but you're acting like one. That's disappointing.
Don't you understand that you aren't just adding something, you are removing something as well? You are replacing wording (based on properly sourced content in the body of the article) with wording that means the opposite. You can't just do that without a strong consensus, and no matter how right you might be, and backed with a thousand RS, you must not do it without a strong consensus, and you don't have it.
BTW, in the lead we don't need to use the sources, since they are in the body, so I don't need to satisfy your failure to read the article.
You're trying to push your belief in this conspiracy theory, and as a believer you really shouldn't be editing the article, since you obviously can't do it neutrally, so be careful. Some admins here will topic ban you. Beware the boomerang
You have the deep state article where you can add this stuff, and the article about the NYT op-ed. That's where you need to go. That you believe the conspiracy theory is a factual reality is against what the RS we use in the article say. You're welcome to believe that personally, but you must not allow it to affect your editing. Unfortunately you're allowing it to control your editing. That's not right.
Did you notice that I did use your source, and did it in a manner which does some good, without changing the direction of the article? It's important to document that so many Americans believe in this conspiracy theory. That doesn't make it true. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't care if you used my source or not, I care that we comply with WP:V. Per: MOS:LEADCITEThe lead must conform to verifiability, biographies of living persons, and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation. I wouldn't have a problem with the definition, if it was somewhere else in the article cited to a RS, but I do not see that. Specificlly that line talks about it being used in "Republican and conservative political messaging" which is not mentioned elsewhere in the article. Likewise it defines the term as "influential decision-making bodies believed to be within government who are relatively permanent and whose policies and long-term plans are unaffected by changing administrations" which is not elsewhere used in the article. In fact, the first line of the section entitled "Definition" is defines the term as "a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process." Do you want to change it to that definition? I don't care whatever definition it is right now, but whatever it is needs to be based on a RS. -Obsidi (talk) 04:33, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Don't you get it? The lead summarizes the body, IOW it literally synthesizes it. The body is not about the normal definition of "deep state", but about conspiracy theories about it. That makes it rather different than a normal definition. That's why it talks about it as a GOP and right wing POV, mostly after Trump. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:45, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
The definition you're pointing to is the normal definition of deep state, so it's in the body for explanatory purposes, but the article isn't about that concept, so it doesn't belong in the lead. That type of definition is found in the deep state article, where it's properly used in the lead. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:49, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Well if that is the case we should make that clearer in the text, because it doesn't say that right now. But still the definition as "influential decision-making bodies believed to be within government who are relatively permanent and whose policies and long-term plans are unaffected by changing administrations" is nowhere else in the article. I'm not saying it isn't correct, but we must have a cite to a RS for it. -Obsidi (talk) 04:56, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I see your point. I saw no problem since the two definitions are really very similar, but since the second one, in the body, does have a ref, why not just substitute it, with the ref, so this problem won't arise again? Probably best to wait 24 hours. I won't object. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:25, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
Feel free, but beware that I'm pretty opinionated, and some see that as somehow evil. I trust you'll be wise in your choice of what to quote. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe15:09, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
The best was back during the Bush Administration when someone accused be of being a Republican stooge. When your own party hates the way you mop, you are probably mopping well.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:05, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
We all know that you are the biggest fringe far-right alt-right fascist POV pusher on the site! Now I have proof for my various web forums about you! PackMecEng (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Saved here:
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once said:
"Wikipedia’s policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately."
"What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn’t.[5][6]"
"Throughout President Trump's first 100 days, the Fact Checker team will be tracking false and misleading claims made by the president since Jan. 20. In the 33 days so far, we've counted 132 false or misleading claims."[9]
"Fact-checking President Trump's claims on the Paris climate change deal"[10]
President Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading claims[11]
The Star's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Dale, has been following Donald Trump's campaign for months. He has fact-checked thousands of statements and found hundreds of falsehoods:
"Donald Trump: The unauthorized database of false things."[12]
Trump's effect on editorial perceptions of reliable sources.
Latest comment: 6 years ago17 comments4 people in discussion
The "Trump effect" isn't just a "reverse Midas touch", alluding to the fact that whatever he touches turns to crap, whoever he associates with gets their reputation and credibility damaged, and themselves become (more) corrupt and compromised. No, it also has another meaning of special relevance to Wikipedia, and that's a serious problem.
Trump's war on the media has negatively affected some editors' perceptions of reliable sources and fringe sources. Many editors have lost faith in all the media and don't see the huge difference between sources like ABC News, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times on one side, and Fox News, a partisan propaganda network, on the other. They think they are all equally biased. Even worse, a subset of Trump supporters completely distrust and demonize mainstream media, which are reliable sources, and place their trust in a limited number of very fringe and unreliable sources, most of which are so unreliable that we don't even allow them as sources here.
The Trojan horse in this slippery slope away from reliable sources is Fox News, which they trust, because Fox consistently supports and enables Trump, rarely reports anything negative about him, and parrots one-sided stories from fringe, fake, and Russian sources which defend Trump's and Putin's nearly identical POV and agendas. Wikipedia is complicit in this situation because we refuse to deprecate Fox, even though its unreliability and partisanship is well-documented.
Trump has said he attacks the media so people won't believe them when they report negative stories about his (dubious) actions,[1] and we have editors who are incompetent enough to fall for that tactic. They are fringe editors who lack the competency needed to edit and comment on political articles. They should be topic banned.
Sources
^Cite error: The named reference Mangan_5/22/2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
While I'm sure you know I'm in complete sympathy with your general attitude, I'm afraid I must disagree with your call for a topic ban for these fools, because even fools have something to offer. I'm going to suggest that you read Chapter II: OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, but if you're in a hurry, here's Mill's own summary:
We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any object is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.
EEng, I love it! Mill is so right. There is much wisdom there. How that translates to Wikipedia is another matter. What editors believe is one thing, and we allow plenty of divergence there, but when they start advocating fringe views, without using RS, and start endlessly disrupting articles and discussions, we can't tolerate such disruption for long. That is when we use topic bans. That's all I'm talking about. Editors don't get topic banned for their political POV, or for their personal beliefs. They get topic banned because of disruptive behavior.
Elsewhere I'm developing what I saved above, and it will become part of an existing essay, where this part about disruptive behavior is already described. In that context things will be more clear. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:05, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
If he was disruptive, he would indeed. I've even helped get a Nobel Prize winner blocked here. We don't tolerate disruption. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
The "Trump effect"[1][2] isn't just a "reverse Midas touch", alluding to the fact that whatever he touches turns to crap, whoever he associates with gets their reputation and credibility damaged, and themselves become (more) corrupt and compromised. No, it also has another meaning of special relevance to Wikipedia, because Trump's war on the media has negatively affected some editors' perceptions of reliable sources and fringe sources, and that is a serious problem.
Trump's supporters completely distrust and demonize the mainstream media, and some editors don't see the huge difference between credible sources like ABC News, CNN, NBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times on one side, and Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which are partisan propaganda networks, on the other. They may say the media are all equally biased, yet they completely trust a limited number of very fringe and unreliable sources, most of which are so unreliable that we don't even allow them as sources here.
The Trojan horse in this slippery slope away from reliable sources is Fox News, which they trust, because Fox consistently supports and enables Trump, rarely reports anything negative about him, and parrots one-sided stories from fringe, fake, and Russian sources which defend Trump's and Putin's nearly identical POV and agendas.
Trump's motives for attacking the media are clear. Before a 60 Minutes interview, while Lesley Stahl and her boss were sitting with Trump, he began to attack the press. She then asked him why he kept attacking the press, and she later recalled his answer: "You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you."[3] We actually have editors who are fooled by his tactic.
Worse yet, Wikipedia is complicit in this situation because we refuse to deprecate Fox for political subjects, broadly construed, even though its unreliability and partisanship is well-documented. We should send a strong signal to Fox News that Wikipedia will not lend its support to their deceptive reporting, and also a strong signal to Trump-supporting editors that they need to sharpen their crap detection skills. They should know better than to use crappy sources. Those who don't understand this are fringe editors who lack the competency needed to edit and comment on political subjects, and they should be topic banned if they get disruptive.
What editors believe is one thing, and we allow plenty of divergence there, but when they start advocating fringe views, without using RS, and start endlessly disrupting articles and discussions, we can't tolerate such disruption for long. That is when we use topic bans. That's all I'm talking about. Editors don't get topic banned for their political POV, or for their personal beliefs. They get topic banned because of disruptive behavior.
(Placing a full ref here so it shows up below.[3])
Thank you for providing the citation; I have now read it. It has Lesley Stahl paraphrasing something from memory that she says Trump said to her about 18 months earlier. There is no independent corroboration; I doubt she made the whole thing up, but we are relying completely on her memory of Trump's words and her interpretation of his meaning. Nevertheless you accept it as gospel, as undisputed fact, framing it as "Trump has described why he attacks the media:"—and presenting Stahl's paraphrasing as if it were a direct Trump quote (since that's how you see it). Quite unintentionally and unconsciously, but as a result of your political leaning, you are guilty of the very same careless use of sources as you are condemning Trump-supporting editors of. It's highly unlikely it's an isolated occurrence. ―Mandruss☎05:01, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
If it were for an article I would word it differently and attribute it, but I can do that here as well, even though it's just an essay. No problem. I'll work on that. BTW, Trump supporting editors of the fringe type don't just use sources carelessly, they depend on views coming from unreliable sources. They start from a faulty foundation and things go even further downhill from there.
There is no reason to doubt her as she is infinitely more trustworthy and credible than Trump. To quote the famed MPants: "The president is possibly the single most unreliable source for any claim of fact ever to grace the pages of WP." -- MPants04:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
We've discussed Fox briefly before. Unless and until you can sell the Wikipedia community on the idea that Fox is generally unreliable, your claims about about that are no different from Trump's "fake news" claims. I guess you're free to say it all you want in user space, which is easily ignored, but without the rigorous examination of a full public hearing—complete with objective evidence—it will forever be just another biased viewpoint in my book. As far as I've seen, you've been wise enough to keep it off article talk pages for the most part. ―Mandruss☎05:30, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it's my viewpoint, one shared by many esteemed editors and admins here. Generally only fringe editors and strong Trump supporters disagree. Some day we should get it deprecated for political subjects, but I'm not pressing the issue, just expressing it as my personal POV. I do have that right. It's not a fringe POV, but one which defends the mainstream media and POV found in RS. That you don't see Fox's clearly partisan agenda (the ONLY reason it was created by Ailes!), as described in RS and by fact checkers (it rates last in reliability), as a problem, is worrying, but you also have a right to that POV. If you do see it as a problem, then I sure wish you'd express those doubts, because you're on the same side as fringe partisan alt-right conspiracy theory pushing hacks when you defend it, and I know you aren't such a person. You just aren't. With the exception of Shep Smith, it isn't even on the same playing field as normal journalistic sources. Fox Entertainment Group is even honest enough to classify Fox News as "entertainment", not news, and they did drop their deliberately misleading "Fair and Balanced" motto. Keep that in mind. They don't even pretend anymore, and yet they do.... -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:52, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
My biased viewpoint about Fox is pretty much the same as your biased viewpoint about Fox. To me, that's completely beside the point when it comes to Wikipedia editing. It matters little to me how many editors share our biased viewpoint. I want to see all available objective evidence—I'm too old, lazy, and apathetic to do that legwork myself—and I want the opposition to have equal opportunity to provide theirs. If the evidence clearly supports our viewpoint but fails to get Fox marked unreliable, then Wikipedia truly is doomed as a neutral source of information, the whole thing is an enormous group fantasy, and it isn't worth fretting over. ―Mandruss☎06:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I share that concern. If Trump's attacks on the media succeed in getting good sources equated the same as bad sources, then Wikipedia, and America, are screwed. Keep in mind he's carrying on a war against the very concepts of credibility and truth.[7][8][9][10][11] If he can get enough people to think truth doesn't exist (that's the situation in Russia), then he succeeds in his goal and democracy, republicanism, a free press, and personal freedom are doomed. That result is Putin's aim for America and the world, a goal Trump shares. These are autocratic, authoritarian tactics. They are not new. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe06:34, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure Trump has any such goals, or any goals at all. I'm serious. His only goal is gratification of his own ego – being able to say, "I won!" I don't think he cares what it is he won at. EEng11:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
You may well be right, and the fact he's friends with world leaders who do have these goals has no effect on his goals. Those consequences may just be the end result of an egomaniac with no restraints, as the system of checks and balances, and separation of powers, is no longer functioning as it should, and he likes it that way. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe14:02, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
For the avoidance of doubt I should say that Mill's philosophy applies here at Wikipedia to the discussion about articles (so that, ideally, all voices help decide what goes into them) not to the content of the article (because it's not the goal of Wikipedia to have its articles present the thoughts of the foolish on equal footing with those of the wise). Also note my use of ideally: it may not always be possible to extend fools unlimited opportunities to show themselves fools, because time and resources are limited and we cannot allow the functioning of the project, or any corner of it, to be jeopardized. But we should keep Mills' ideals in mind as a touchstone to which we aspire. Thus endeth the lecture. EEng11:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Good points. Yes, we should allow various views in discussions, but they need to be based on RS. If they aren't, then that part of the discussion needs to be discouraged. That's when we usually do things like hatting fruitless comments from editors who won't stop. My attitude for varied views in discussions is expressed in the box at the top of the page (with the image): "The best content is developed through civil collaboration between editors who hold opposing points of view." That's been my attitude for years. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe14:02, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Just stopping by to check in
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Other than dealing with grumpy patients (people in severe pain don't act rationally), and those who are nearly dying, and then some back pain, a pretty good day. I survived! Here there are just the current stresses of trying to defend a new article from spurious attempts at deletion, even though it's a very notable subject. (Psst... Trump isn't exactly "honest" all the time. Who'd a thunk? Some editors think it's so minor a matter as to not deserve an article.) Some people persist, against multiple other editors, in insisting that their interpretation of policy is the only right one, even though a large consensus is against them. They can indeed start an AfD, and that's very disruptive. Let's hope they don't. If they do, well, their career at Wikipedia will be shortened. A boomerang (with notches they have put in it) may well do it. So yes, another day....
Man, Trump articles are way to scary for me! Really I haven't had much time for extensive article development due to real world time commitments. Extensive rewrites like the Ford Pinto article (the last big one I did) take more time than I can give. It's that much worse when dealing with some of the hyper political topics. Anyway, I may start going through some of my personal library and see if any of those books have interesting stuff that could be added here. I'd like to do some race car related work but that again is hard due to sourcing. For instance, even though the Swift DB-1 was one of the most influential race cars of all time I would have only limited sources that would count as WP reliable (The car effectively obsoleted all Formula Fords that came before it and marked the start of the fall of FF as a starter series for professional greats). Most sources would be web pages published by those who were involved directly or as competitors. I would have few published books/magazine articles on the subject. That's too bad since there is a lot of good information out there and for at least a few people it would be very interesting stuff. Anyway, glad things are going well. I would wiki stalk your edits but I don't even want to enter the Trump debates! :D Springee (talk) 01:45, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Synthesis
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Read the section, which is based on RS. What you deleted is an accurate summary of those sources. That's perfectly acceptable practice here. The summary does not violate the sources. If it really bothers you, you can add the sources. They're right there.
I'm not going to edit war over it, but the section is poorer without it. One editor created that content in threetwo edits, and when I read it I thought: "That's pure genius. Good prose." I've read many reviews, and it sums up their collective essence quite well, but in a general way which wisely avoids getting lost in the weeds of nitpicking speculation, or limited by the opinion of some particular critic. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe07:48, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
Combining sources to come to a conclusion not found in any of them is the very definition of synthesis. Please read the linked policy: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. In other words, I'm challenging that this is an accurate summary of the critical consensus. Once I've challenged the unsourced analysis, it needs a citation. You can't just restore unsourced content and say, "I think it's true." NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm very well aware of the policy. I'm no newbie. We just have a difference of opinion about what's in the sources, and whether the deleted content summed them up properly. I think it did a very good job. Each little part of that deleted content could be traced to one or more of the sources, and the sources cover a lot of territory. That summary did not "imply a conclusion not explicitly stated" in the sources, just as little as a good lead does not "imply a conclusion not explicitly stated" in the sources used in an article. At the time the content was added, that certainly seemed to be the case. I had read the sources that were in, or had been in, the article, and even more, and it rang true to the sources. I can't vouch for it now, so will let it lie as is. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe15:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
For the record, this is the disputed content:
"Bohemian Rhapsody received mixed reviews from most critics, but a more positive response from audiences; as many praised Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury and the Live Aid sequence, but criticized the film's real-life inaccuracies and direction."
Let's analyze each part of it:
"Bohemian Rhapsody
received mixed reviews from most critics,
but a more positive response from audiences;
as many praised Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury
and the Live Aid sequence,
but criticized the film's real-life inaccuracies and direction."
Every one of those points is true and is (or was) covered in the sources. This was my only edit related to this content. I have no ownership feelings about this article. My only other edits (three) were reversions of vandalism.
If I had followed the method described in my essay, I couldn't have written that content better than SizzleMan did. If I had done it, I would probably have used the sources in my summary. That's just my style (and we wouldn't be here).
SizzleMan's addition of that very nice introductory summary made that section better. Now the section immediately starts with a jolting tit-for-tat listing from a jumbled mess of sources. The section is poorer without that intro. We're encouraged to use good prose and writing style here. That's what was done, and what you rejected. It's not our fault that you were unfamiliar with the individual aspects told by the sources. We saw the summary as an accurate and faithful description of the sources, and you didn't. All you saw was an unsourced SYNTH violation. We have a difference of opinion that is seemingly based on knowledge or lack of knowledge of the sources. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe15:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
Hello
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Gandydancer, please AGF and spare me the vitriol. I don't need the grief. I've got more than enough for several lifetimes. Right now nothing in life for many thousand people, my family included, is functioning normally, and won't for a very long time, maybe never. We're alive, barely. My memory is totally out of whack, and I was being polite. I finished my comment, and then later realized I hadn't pinged you. If you activated your email, I could explain. I have done so to Cullen328 and Mandruss. They understand. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe05:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
You did nothing wrong--I was being overly sensitive. BR, I want you to know that some of us really do appreciate what you have done to keep WP's political articles honest and unbiased for the past two years. I watch over certain articles, MT's for one, but you have been down in the trenches fighting the battle for all this time while I have stayed on the sidelines working on less difficult articles. In fact someone recently gave me a brownie for one and upped it to "a nice glass of whiskey" when I complained about how meager just a brownie was. OK, just hang in there while I go shopping for some fine whiskey...or perhaps there is something else or a special brand you prefer??? Best, Gandy Gandydancer (talk) 16:42, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. All of the above sounds good. Would that brownie have any "herb" in it? After 15 years here, that would be nice. (Actually, I haven't touched pot since 1973.) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello, BullRangifer. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
I don't know what happened, BR, just that something did - and I hope it has nothing to do with this issue. I stopped by to wish you the best, and I hope that whatever pain and sorrow you're dealing with now will soon pass. Kindest regards...Atsme✍🏻📧20:52, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Fortunately that issue was handled and I seem to be in the clear. It's a very different type of issue. I'll explain by email. Thanks so much for your concern. You have a good heart. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:56, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Not sure how to say "thank you" for your impressive work at List of Trump–Russia dossier allegations? Template:Trump Barnstar has, well, Trump on it. If you you like tea (or coffee), or maybe something with ethanol? Wiki-snacks? Or maybe Template:Curious cat, or even something less dignified and muckraker-ish (Hopefully you don't find it offensive, but as intended): Cool Cat Award: I know the evidence is in here somewhere.X1\ (talk) 01:04, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Love it! We have two dogs and one cat. The latter is missing in the Camp Fire (2018). We hope he survived and will be reunited with us soon. Life's a bit of a mess right now, but we're alive. Cats are one of those things that make life more special. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:24, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Holy shit! I am glad to hear the rest of you are together. Cats are semi-wild, really they domesticated us. They are smart (except for string and laser pointers), so if your cat wants to re-domesticate you, they'll show-up. Again, I am so sorry to hear of your intense challenges. Thank you for continuing to edit here. X1\ (talk) 23:40, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Editing here preserves my sanity. I just don't have as much time right now. Things will return to normal at some point in the distant future. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe02:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Being homeless is a busy situation. Time flies with seeking aid, meeting appointments, and waiting in long, long lines. If this were a normal "lost their home in a fire" situation, we'd be able to buy another home quickly and get on with our lives. In this area there is absolutely nothing available. Dumping 45,000 plus people, within a few hours, into a city of 90,000, just doesn't work. Every single rental, home, and storage container was immediately taken, with most people left without proper shelter. Many have left the area to stay with family elsewhere, but many are forced by other circumstances to stay in the area. We are among those. It's more difficult for us. We're safe, warm, and okay for now. This nightmare will end someday. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe02:19, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Merry Merry
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Happy Christmas!
Hello BullRangifer,
Early in A Child's Christmas in Wales the young Dylan and his friend Jim Prothero witness smoke pouring from Jim's home. After the conflagration has been extinguished Dylan writes that
Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim's Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, "Would you like anything to read?"
My thanks to you for your efforts to keep the 'pedia readable in case the firemen chose one of our articles :-) Best wishes to you and yours and happy editing in 2019. MarnetteD|Talk08:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
History and Charges
Latest comment: 5 years ago11 comments2 people in discussion
Hi. A thought experiment. You are charged today with 10 felonies. On Monday, you are tried, and convicted of zero felonies. Do details of your charges appear in a BLP? I argue no. On the law side, American prosecutors follow RPC 3.8(f) and other rules, which make them say familiar lines: "These charges are only accusations and the subject is innocent until proven guilty in court." On the WP side, a BLP is a conservative account. A person known for crimes, as this Dutch man is, is only fairly known for crimes he committed. The encyclopedia shouldn't even mention charges that weren't proven. I recently removed 11,000 characters from Suge Knight's BLP of lengthy speculation about how he might have killed Biggie and Tupac. While a wiki is a powerful place for such speculations, none of them belong on Wikipedia. Maybe there's some kind of reach about "Folk tales about involvement in murders" but nope, I don't even think that fits here. Some facts don't go in the encyclopedia. In criminal matters, removing the pre-verdict noise helps history and the reader understand what the person is known for. Mcfnord (talk) 14:15, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
What you left in the section "Murders of Tupac Shakur" is totally unacceptable. It makes no sense and is unsourced. Actually look at it.
You deleted very public history. Millions of people know about it. Per WP:PUBLICFIGURE, notable accusations, including false ones, must be described, and denials (per my change to that policy) must also be mentioned. When accusations are so publicly known, their resolution is important to document, and the dropping of charges, clearing, declarations of innocence, etc. are just as important, maybe more so, than the convictions of guilt.
Yes, due weight applies, and sometimes some paring is in order, but you have trashed the hard work of numerous editors and deleted many RS. Follow WP:PRESERVE and WP:PUBLICFIGURE. We document the good and the bad. We document all aspects of the roller coaster ride, from start to finish. Yes, some of it can be summarized better, but get a consensus for such drastic changes. If your arguments are reasonable, other editors will welcome skillful reductions of fluff. Use the talk pages to show how a "before and after" actually looks, then get consensus for your proposed "after" version(s).
Right now you look more like a rogue, solo-editing, blind butcher than a skilled surgeon who works collaboratively and through consensus. You no doubt have thought about your edits and know exactly why you're doing it, but others need to be involved and understand your process. They are not obligated to accept it all on faith. Exercise caution when deleting properly sourced content. Look at it as the property of someone else, so remove or alter it gently and wisely. Of course it doesn't "belong" to anyone, but it represents the good faith hard work of other editors, so show some respect. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe16:21, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
Editors work hard on good faith mistakes all the time. Amazing how I haven't thrown a single word away on Wikipedia, due to its advanced tracking system. But what belongs in a BLP?
I re-read BLP rules and it generally doesn't say what you're saying. Suge Knight, a notorious criminal, is known for many crimes (and some productive deeds). Speculation about who he murdered is outside the scope of BLP, unless perhaps contextualized that these are unsubstantiated claims. Where does Wikipedia allow unsubstantiated claims? And in a BLP?
To leave the factual statements about two men related to Death Row murdered is a better outcome than leaving speculation that a BLP murdered them.
That's my position, but I'm new. Regrettably, you haven't dissuaded me of much. WP:PRESERVE applies well everywhere except to BLPs. I expect together we'll be examining BLP brass tacks in the near future. Here we are, involved together to reach a consensus. Throughout WP, the details of a legal matter accumulate as they are discovered by the press. Where can I find a non-crowdsourced encyclopedia these days? And how will its coverage of 10 criminal charges resulting 1 conviction be covered? Not like a police procedural play-by-play, I imagine. So there's a typical pattern that requires routine culling after verdicts and plea agreements are established. To some degree, the matters of state, as represented in the Mueller investigation, may be different, but unproven claims simply aren't handled properly without modification by, say, some rogue. You can, roguely, if you wish, review my entire history of changes and roll back every last pattern of unsubstantiated claims removal, if you're that sort of rogue unpersuaded by my appeals to BLP rules. In time I hope we reach consensus about this particularly strict WP policy. Mcfnord (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
The burden of evidence rests with the editor who adds or restores material. That's you. Regarding speculation that Knight murdered two men, is the work you reverted written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. This also applies to the unproven accusations you restored about the Dutch man. Call them charges or whatever you like. Mcfnord (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
"Where does Wikipedia allow unsubstantiated claims? And in a BLP?" Very specifically in WP:PUBLICFIGURE, which ignores privacy. Public figures get little protection, unlike private persons, who are treated much more daintily.
These principles are also found in libel laws. Public persons can be libeled nearly at will in the USA, and they can rarely succeed in defending themselves in court, if the person making the injurious claims believes them to be true. Even worse is claims made on the internet. A specific law was made for that which protects anyone who republishes the libelous statements, even if they know them to be libelous. Only the originator of the false statements can be sued, and then still with difficulty. (See Barrett v. Rosenthal for more about that. It's an unfortunate ruling, IMO.) Many public persons just ignore the matter, and Presidents NEVER sue for libel (well, rightful presidents...IOW not Trump).
If the conditions mentioned at PUBLICFIGURE are fulfilled, then the claims, charges, rumors, libelous statements, whatever, should be documented here, but then your other words come into play (contextualize, write conservatively, attribute, etc.). Unfortunately for Suge Knight, his privacy is not respected, unlike non-public persons. If multiple RS have made the claims, then we are supposed to document them. That is from BLP. We are uncensored in many ways. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe01:30, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
We might not agree on how libel and criminal law work today, but at issue is how PUBLICFIGURE works. Also at issue is the neutrality of prosecutor statements themselves, and how they relate to court conclusions. Nine times out of ten, the court's conclusion is the best, most neutral summary of events, so much so that inclusion of unsubstantiated charges post-conviction violate UNDUE. I'm still not decided about non-conviction details (like arrests and charges) of PUBLICFIGUREs, but see many problems with their emphasis as neutral explanations of alleged crimes. I don't think PUBLICFIGURE changes that much for me. Mcfnord (talk) 01:41, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
This man's not PUBLICFIGURE due to having one sole involvement in public discourse. I'm sure we can agree to collapse his noteworthy facets into the Mueller narrative. Or let's quibble about your preference for listing his criminal charges. We can start there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcfnord (talk • contribs) 01:48, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
Joe was charged with Foo.
After conviction, reflexively change to:
Joe was charged with Foo, but the court found Joe not guilty of the charge.<citation needed>
Charges are clouds you might want in front of your clarity. If you want them, then after conviction, each charge should be challenged, if indeed it feels important to keep. You can go look up whether the charge was substantiated. Until you do that, or someone does that, it's conservative to doubt the claim. This seems like the logical progression of conservative biography. Maurice Clemmons is a subject I want to fold into his singular claim to notability, the 2009 Lakewood shooting. Take a look at the 2009 shooting page, under Accomplices. I've been trying to finish that, but unless the topic is prosecutorial miscondict, it's critical in that mess to find conclusions rather than mistrial after mistrail. Fundamentally, listing charges without immediately connecting to resolutions of those charges (when known) is not conservative. We cover the conclusions, and can't let interstitial claims and views (especially claims of fact untested by trials) get in the way and mislead readers about what history, not the various daily speculations, substantiates.
You have written quite a bit, and clearly have developed informed views. At some point you'll return from real life to attend school here with me regarding conservative BLP magic. Accept my Alex van der Zwaan change because it's on the money. That private man, notable for one thing and not deserving of a page, deserves conclusive, rather than speculative and often sensationalist, coverage of his criminal deeds. Prosecutors can be sensationalist, too. Courts, not prosecutors, qualify as NPOV sources in biographies. Mcfnord (talk) 00:29, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
Debates about the Truth are debates with no possible resolution except for a count of the number of editors on each side; i.e. a democratic vote. Truth has no basis in Wikipedia policy—for good reason—and by going there you validate a lot of the other extra-policy arguments that occur in these discussions. I just stick to RS and leave the word Truth out of it. ―Mandruss☎18:37, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree. We go by verifiability, not truth, but with this subject, we're dealing with verifiable, RS, documentation of falsehoods debunked by the facts, and that produces the hard data statistics which we get from fact checkers. So yes, I understand what you're saying, and it's certainly something to keep in mind, but I'm not fighting for "the truth", but for our daring to properly use the abundant verifiable documentation of his falsehoods. We have been far too reticent to use them to actually state that Trump "lies". We've even created ad hoc, non-policy-based, special exceptions for Trump, rules we haven't used for other presidents, to avoid using the words "lie" and"liar", even though RS were using them. That's completely non-NPOV editorial behavior. We should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing fringe Trump editors, who don't follow RS, to trump our practices in their efforts to protect him. That's simply BS. We are not Trumpipedia. We are not Alternative Facts Central. Chuck Todd was right: Trump's alternative facts are indeed falsehoods.
The "misleading" statements are obviously a bit of a gray area, but like the outright lies and falsehoods, we stick to the RS and their choice of wording, whether it's falsehoods, lies, liar, misleading, exaggeration, gaslighting, etc. The days of refusing to call Trump a "liar" are over. If he should and can know better, then we don't care if he actually does know. We don't care about determining his motives anymore, since his main motive is to do whatever, no matter how dishonest, to deceive in order to win. That's all he cares about. Truth is never a factor in his thinking. If he repeats a lie again and again, then we call him a liar, and that's what he does all the time. Fact checkers even created a new category because of him (and he's the only one who inhabits that region, as normal liars don't go there), the Bottomless Pinocchio. Wow! That's reserved for someone who has zero credibility, no moral compass, "no external reference points" (Comey's description), and no respect for truth.
BTW, I want to thank you again for your help in the situation we're in. You have no idea how much that means. Things are starting to look up. There is hope ahead. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe19:38, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Dossier
Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Hi, BR. About that essay-sized edit you were proposing to make to the dossier article (and I admit I didn't read all of it, and probably nobody did; it kind of defines TL/DR): I am willing to see if it can be trimmed down to a usable section in the article. Where do you propose I do that? Not at the talk page, certainly, but someplace where we can both work on it and talk about it. How about putting it in a user space draft under your own name? Might you consider first trying, yourself, to look at it with a critical eye toward trimming it?
P.S. Oh, I found it: it's in sandbox 5, right? Where we can see that it would add another 30 kb if added to the article. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:10, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
As you can see I have been working today on trying to trim some of the bloat from the article, which at 225 kb is much, much bigger than it should be. For comparison the entire Donald Trump article is 386 kb. There is a lot of unnecessary detail, and some redundancy because the same subject is discussed in several places. I'm inclined to continue working on that, a section at a time, and maybe tackle the conspiracy theories material later. -- MelanieN (talk) 01:08, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I think we need to keep something in mind when comparing article size. Trump has a million subarticles, whereas this is just one article to cover a very notable subject that's still mentioned every single day. It is the key and roadmap for the whole Russia investigation. Just keep that in mind. It's very important. Also try to save the references. Such BLP sensitive stuff must have multiple sources, per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. Otherwise, simplifying is often welcome. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:15, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
Annual DS alert refresh - American politics
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have recently shown interest in post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor. Just getting you current!
Look, you insulted me here at Wikipedia, and I didn't want to do this publicly. It's your choice, so next time you say I have a tendentious editing history, at least notify me and back it up with evidence. I would love to improve, and if I've violated any policy in my editing, I would really appreciate help to improve. That's part of what collaboration is all about. We should try to help each other, so your aggressive response really isn't helpful. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:18, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
For context, here's my email, which included this diff, which won't work in the quotebox:
Wow! (Diff)
That's quite the accusation. If you find me editing tendentiously, IOW using bad sources, cheating, not following RS or Wikipedia's policies, please contact me and help me improve. It takes editors who differing POV to create the best content. We need each other.
It's been quite some time since anyone accused me of tendentious editing, and they were fringe flakes who have long since been banned. Please don't go down that road. You're better (or used to be) than that. I'm worried about your slide more and more toward defending the fringe side of things.
All I can do is await your next insult and wait till someone takes you back to AE where it will be summarily swept under the table all because you have struck it. Last thing I do is defend anything fringe.--MONGO (talk) 00:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Between the two of you, MONGO, you're the only one calling the system corrupt because it failed to see things their way. That constitutes a disdain for Wikipedia's version of rule of law, and that's all I need to know. ―Mandruss☎16:31, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Mandruss, no idea why you keep following me and commenting with your insults. But if this is your standard operating procedure, since I do not watchlist many userpages, how about you ping me or show up at my talkpage and have a discussion there, rather than chiming in places such as this.--MONGO (talk) 00:45, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
That isn't how it works. Any editor is allowed to chime in on any user talk page, for any non-disruptive reason, unless the page's "owner" has asked them not to. There are few private conversations on-wiki, certainly none on user talk pages, and to take it to your talk page would have taken it out of context—and made it a bigger deal than it needed to be. You're hardly the arbiter of what editors say on BullRangifer's talk page. I hardly "keep following you" anywhere, criticism is not insult, and I daresay you dish out more than you receive. Have a great day! ―Mandruss☎01:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
MONGO, if you were to check the interactions between me and Mandruss, you will find that Mandruss doesn't always agree with me or my actions, and their constructive criticism is very treasured. I hold Mandruss in high esteem as a good editor, a collegial and collaborative editor, and a compassionate human being with good values. When Mandruss speaks, I drop everything and listen! From my experience, I suggest you do the same when they speak. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe01:38, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm not going to check your interactions with anyone except me. Same applies to this Mandruss character. You all should be reading what a FA level writer has written about how we use RS, what constitutes a BLP and what qualifies and quantifies a FA rather than a self appointed arbitrator that has performed 3K edits to an article that remains far below par for even a GA rating, much less FA. Mandruss stifles discussion at the Trump article because he basically has arguments with everyone yet has nothing substantive on his wiki resume to lead me to believe he has any idea what it would take to get such an article to a high level. Why would I waste my time listening to him? I proofread the Hillary Clinton article at FAC 5 times before I agreed that it met FA standards and I could have easily roadblocked that article but I didn't. That's a level of commitment and nonpartisan participation I do not see you doing BullRangifer but sure do hope you prove me wrong.--MONGO (talk) 15:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
MONGO, unfortunately(?), being coy isn't part of my nature. Maybe it should be! Seriously, I'm well aware that being tendentious comes in many flavors and shades, some truly serious, others much more subtle, and some that are simply differences of opinion. Like assholes, we all have them, and it's okay to have opinions, as long as we don't violate, or work against, policy. OTOH, expressing opinions against our policies and/or contrary to what's found in RS, or not bowing to the wisdom of the community's decisions is tendentious, and I don't think I've been doing that.
I truly need your insights on the matter. I'm not in the best position to understand myself. We all need to "see ourselves as others see us," and when someone like you expresses a concern, my first reaction is to take it seriously and ask for more insight.
Collaboration here would be great. Please help me. What things about my editing are tendentious? Are they just irritating, or are they against our policies? (I'd like to know about both.) I hope you can enlighten me so I can do something about it to become a better editor and human being. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe16:50, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway. You crossed the line with the Rusf10 comments, and it appears you accept that. Outside of behavior complaints and user talk pages, we can't personalize things even when we're right (I'm not claiming to be perfect in that regard). (That's not saying that I think you were necessarily "right" in that case; I know very little about Rusf10.) I think you and others make too many comments presenting your views as fact (Trump is...), when we need to stay completely focused on sources (RS says Trump is...). I disagree with you on a few things about editing and policy issues, but I generally don't see these things in black-and-white. Most important to me, you appear to make an attempt to collaborate and follow the rules, and I take your openness to criticism as sincere. ―Mandruss☎17:23, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm sorry BR - I wish I could offer some"constructive" criticism, but I can not as I've been unable to follow all of the contentious Trump articles closely as I'd have little time to do much else. But I continue to follow them to some degree. I will say this: Many times I have been very appreciative to have such a hard-working editor diligently working on our Trump articles in an attempt to keep them truthful and unbiased. It concerns me that too many good editors will just cave in and let bias take over... Gandydancer (talk) 17:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
That's okay. If you at any time feel I'm stepping outside our behavioral guidelines or editing in a tendentious manner, feel free to shoot me an email. I'd really appreciate it. The advice of experienced editors is always appreciated. None of us deliberately do these things. We just get caught up in the heat of the moment, get tunnel vision, or otherwise lose track of the big picture, and then we do less than the best work. We need each other's POV on these things, so friendly, constructive, criticism is welcome to bring us back on track. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe18:47, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
I have mixed feelings about this "we need each other's POV" philosophy. I don't think it's necessarily a bad way of approaching things, but I also don't think it's the best. Certainly encountering the points of view of others can help you discover your own blind spots, and making the effort to actually understand and empathize with multiple points of view besides your own will enable you to better write neutral content. But I think it's a bit idealistic to expect editors in American Politics articles to say "Here's my POV, now you tell me your POV, now let's find a compromise that will fairly and proportionately represent all our points of view." I mean, that would be nice, but I don't think it's very practical, and there are more direct paths to writing good articles.
It is far better, in my opinion, for editors to completely set aside or compartmentalize their own points of view and, for the purposes of Wikipedia editing, to try to adopt the points of view of high quality sources. The best sources—particularly the academic peer-reviewed ones—tend to write from a dispassionate neutral point of view, so if you manage to channel that into your writing (both in articles and on talk) then you will also be following NPOV. I feel like most editors in this area dig up and use sources to support their own POV, using sources like game pieces or playing cards, trying to collect the best or the most. You make a contentious statement on a talk page, somebody challenges it, so you do a quick Google search and post links to the first 4 sources you find that support you. The other side does their own Google search and links their sources and you continue fighting it out. I would prefer to have that turned on its head. I'd prefer that you start by searching for the very best sources, absorb them, adopt their POV as your own, and then let that guide your editing. Become a POV pusher for a POV that is not your own. I've tried it before and it's actually quite satisfying because you tend to win a lot of arguments...not because you have the best sources on your side, but because you're consistently on the side of the best sources. ~Awilley (talk)02:38, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
100% agreement regarding editing and sourcing, which seems to be your main focus. My comment isn't about that, but is a repetition, using other words, of my comment up above: "I truly need your insights on the matter. I'm not in the best position to understand myself. We all need to "see ourselves as others see us," and when someone like you expresses a concern, my first reaction is to take it seriously and ask for more insight."
While it's true that because of the fact we all "come from different places", and are thus more likely to be familiar with different sources, and in that sense "need each other's POV" so we get acquainted with good sources we may have missed, I'm not talking about that there. I'm talking about my need to see other's POV about my actions. If constructive criticism enlightens me to my blind spots, I truly appreciate it, because I certainly have them. Otherwise, your view about editing and sourcing is completely in harmony with my thinking. We are just talking about two different things. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe03:06, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Dear BullRangifer, we have been interacting for a long time, so I believe you know me well and I know you well, at least in the limited terms of our usual styles of editing and argumenting on this wonderful encyclopedia, and mutual respect has been established and confirmed repeatedly. As you are specifically asking for feedback on your personal behavior, I'll make an exception to my usual stance of refraining from commenting on editors. What I have found disappointing is your almost total predictability. Every edit of yours is perceived as pushing the narrative that one side is right and the other is wrong (and by the way here are 15 sources backing the "truth"). You're probably old enough to know that the world is not that black-and-white. Take a longer look at what your "opponents" are saying before dismissing them out of hand because "bad sources / bad people / bad reasoning / bad bad bad". The WP:POVFIGHTER section of WP:TEND describes your attitude very well when it asks "How often do you edit against your own bias?" Try it, surprise me, and perhaps you will surprise yourself! — JFGtalk14:47, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
You're right that my talk page interactions could be improved, and I will take your wise advice to heart ("Take a longer look..."). Thanks for your honesty. Much appreciated.
BTW, my editing for the opponent may not always get noticed, but it often takes the form of quietly letting properly sourced content get added that I may initially find offensive, but allowable according to our policies. That's what we're supposed to do. We may not find such sources and content, but when someone does find such content and adds it properly, our duty is to protect and improve it, not just delete it because it goes against our personal beliefs. That's whitewashing, which is an egregious violation of NPOV. (I deal with this in my essay NPOV means neutral editors, not neutral content.) I'll even tweak it to make it better. In fact, if it's from RS, such content tends to modify my existing views and gets incorporated into my core beliefs, IOW I let my views be guided by the sources. It may take time (even though I'm a scientific skeptic, I have the natural, conservative, tendency to resist change), but I'm duty-bound to follow the evidence and allow new evidence to change my understandings. Others may not notice it happening, but it does happen. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:44, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Nunes' folly
Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
As the story went viral and the popularity of the defendant accounts soared, quickly exceeding followers of Nunes' own account,[1] observers began citing this as a prime example of the Streisand Effect.[2]
The public response included a summary by Brad Heath, DC Justice and Investigations Editor for USA Today, who described the suit: "Rep Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, is suing Twitter because a fake cow was mean to him on the internet. (He's also suing the fake cow.)"[3] Numerous others mocked Nunes on the internet.[4]
Other commentators noted the irony of Nunes having previously co-sponsored the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act,[5][1] with the Editorial Board of The Washington Post considering the suit "part of a dangerous trend":[6]
"Much of the speech against Mr. Nunes is likely protected under the First Amendment. But as troubling as Mr. Nunes's apparent determination to chill criticism from private citizens is his interest in bending social media sites' moderation policies to his will. Mr. Nunes has accused Twitter of negligence for allowing what he believes was a coordinated online smear campaign to proceed on its platform. Essentially, he wants Twitter punished for allowing people to be mean to him on the Internet."[6]
Latest comment: 5 years ago11 comments4 people in discussion
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.
I would be very careful with trying to promote conspiracy theories about why Roger Ailes created Fox News or what his intentions were. [13] That's a BLP violation and consider yourself warned.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:31, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Ailes is dead, so no BLP. You should do a bit of reading. This is old history, not conspiracy theories:
Yes, that's true. If these were undocumented or unusual claims you might have a point, but this is old stuff, from the Nixon library and is relatively old knowledge which has been discussed many times here at Wikipedia, with no one raising any BLP objections. You're the first one to raise such an objection, possibly because you weren't aware of this history. Ailes worked for the GOP. He was their chief message manager, so to speak. He had ambitions and, even if some of the ideas were from other members of the Nixon administration, he quickly ran with the ball, and after several attempts with GOP controlled "news" channels, he got together with Rupert Murdoch and they created Fox News as the fulfillment of his dream. The rest is history. Read all about it. Fox was never intended to be a normal "news" channel, and it has a very well-documented GOP bias, to the point of twisting facts and refusing to report on real news which was unfavorable to the party line, and now Trump, at least not without massive spin. Them's the facts, and pretty common knowledge here. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe21:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Again, you are so blinded by your own bias, you have no idea what you are talking about. No one is disputing Ailes was a Republican. Just like Ted Turner (former owner of CNN) is a Democrat. But statements like "he deliberately chose to side with the criminals" are not appropriate.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:38, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, we'll have to disagree on that. My position in this case is based on known history and RS. It's a fact that Ailes chose to side with the Nixon administration (proven and convicted criminals) and made war against The Washington Post, the ones who had uncovered their crimes. I doubt that was accidental, do you? Ailes has always fought the Post, and he has used Fox News in those efforts. This is pretty obvious history, and hardly controversial. Start noticing. Fox and Trump ALWAYS oppose the Post as a source. Trump literally wages war against it. IIRC, he even uses the word "war" about it.
You will note that this battle against the Post as a source is carried on here at Wikipedia by editors who side with Trump/GOP/Putin and get their misinformation from Fox "News" and even worse sources. That too is an undeniable fact. Those who fight against the Post, which is considered one of the most reliable news sources in the world, are fighting against our RS policy and thus deserve to be labeled tendentious editors. We don't tolerate such editors well because they are fighting against the basis of all our content, which is RS.
Another, rather automatic, side to that story is, when they defend the misinformation pumped out by Fox News, they are also engaged in undermining our RS policy by supporting Fox News when it misinforms us.
My modus operandi in such cases is this: To be on the safe side, whenever we find good information on Fox News that's worth including here, we should stop and double check it with more RS. If it's not there, it's not worth including. If it is found in such sources as The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, etc, then use them as the source and don't use Fox News as the source. That's the safest procedure. My priority is to use good sources and avoid bad ones. I hope you share that goal. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe01:25, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
The Washington Post is "one of the most reliable news sources in the world", don't make me laugh. Even the liberal Huffington Post has called out the Post for bad reporting. [14]--Rusf10 (talk) 18:54, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Try taking that attitude toward the Post to WP:RS/N and see what happens to you. You don't like the Post's factual reporting and POV? That's one thing (when it's at a personal and unvoiced level), but dissing them publicly like that? You're fighting against our RS policy and showing an unfortunate attitude toward a major RS.
Yes, every single news source can make mistakes, but they have an excellent track record and they correct their errors. They don't make a habit of spending most of their time on an unfactual propaganda path, like Fox News.
Rusf10, while I don't dispute that BLP applies to talk pages, common practice is to only sanction the most egregious violations. Why? Because the community needs to be able to engage in reasoned discussion that isn't chilled by the threat of administrative action. BullRangifer's comment was perfectly reasonable and appropriate. Notice that you're the only editor who complained. Your warning reads as more as a threat than as a constructive comment. You've been involved in a shit ton of drama compared to your edit history and I suggest in good faith that you lay off the admin reports and threats for a while. Your batting average is low and at some point the pattern might be seen as disruptive and boomerang back at you. R2 (bleep) 23:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
L'Origine du monde again
Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
Just letting you know that L'Origine du monde may need to be watched again. I already knew that the editor was unblocked; the community has agreed to give the editor another chance. As you may remember, the editor would repeatedly spam penis and related articles with urination and urolagnia material, and make other problematic edits. I just reverted this. I don't think it's standard to include "commons category" like that. I also left a recent message on the editor's talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:41, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Sigh... I feel we're dealing with a fetish and/or OCD here. I doubt this will end well, but how much disruption will we have to deal with before they get stopped? I'll keep my eyes open. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe04:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Latest comment: 5 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I don't want to misunderstand any of you, but to avoid doing so in further discussions, do you believe/deny that:
there was Russian interference in the election?
that it was for the purpose of helping Trump win?
that there were numerous secretive meetings and connections between Trump family/campaign members and Russians/Russian agents?
that they (including Trump himself) lied again and again about these meetings?
that several have been convicted for doing so?
that these meetings and lies were sufficient to justify strong suspicions of (a) conspiracy/collusion, (b) that it might have affected the election results in an unfair manner, and (c) that Trump might be a witting or unwitting Russian asset?
and that it would have been very negligent of intelligence agencies (American and foreign allies were doing this) to not react by starting perfectly proper investigations of the (a) interference, (b) roles of Trump campaign and Russians, and (3) whether Trump was (and still) is acting just like a Russian asset, wittingly or unwittingly?
What's your position on these very well-established facts? Feel free to use the relevant numbers for your answers. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe17:35, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
LOL. Do YOU believe anyone read anything on social media and decided to vote for Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton? Provide a reliable source that shows evidence of this happening because the concept is truly unfathomable.Batvette (talk) 05:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Hi Batvette. It's been some time since I've seen you. We don't edit many of the same articles.
The idea of social media affecting people's opinions is hardly unfathomable. The opposite would be the case. Advertising, targeted media campaigns and such like would not be used if they didn't work. Plenty of sociological and psychological research has proven that beyond a doubt. (I could easily provide you with some references, also including the effects on the 2010 election.)
That specifically the 2016 election would exist in a bubble where that didn't apply would indeed be unfathomable. It's not a question of IF it had an effect, but of HOW MUCH of an effect it had. That we don't know. The final result with the electoral college was so close that only a few votes swung the election, giving Trump the victory, for, as we know, the popular vote doesn't elect the president, although there is usually harmony between the electoral college result and the popular vote result. This was the fifth(?) time it didn't happen.
Was it Cambridge Analytica, the Russian media campaigns, the Russian support of Bernie and Stein to draw votes away from Clinton, or something else that did it? Again, we don't know, but it all must have had some effect or they wouldn't have done it. When someone convinces people that Hillary is a horrible person who had Seth Rich murdered, and that she misuses the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund for personal use (something Trump has been proven to do with his bogus Trump Foundation), and other unsavory things, those beliefs would be enough to turn people away from Clinton and toward Trump. Right? If you think about it, you have the answer to your question, unless you're just here to troll me. I doubt that. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe06:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
