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Reliability of claims about oneself

A notable person has reported via social media that they "think" they came down with COVID-19 and they recovered. They were not tested, they did not mention consulting a health care professional, they simply made a prudential determination that they suffered from the coronavirus, and brought up the subject in public. This social media report has been carried by normally reliable news outlets. Is it prudent for us to mention this in their biography? What about categories, lists of people with COVID-19? How far can we stretch credulity of people making claims about themselves? Elizium23 (talk) 06:21, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd suggest skipping it for a couple of weeks and then see if reliable sources are still talking about it. My guess is that by that time, succumbing to the pestilence will become even more commonplace than it is now. The effort put in to writing up relative trivia about individual celebs would be better spent on the members of Category:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory. (I've looked at a small number of these and have been very impressed by what I've seen there.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:36, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
No, not unless a secondary source has commented on the significance of the claim, that is, what real-world event was influenced by the claim. The person can (and apparently has) make claims on social media but an article is not another social media outlet. Johnuniq (talk) 06:12, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Secondary sources are few and far between in BLPs. Most BLPs are composed entirely of primary news reports. Elizium23 (talk) 06:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Primary sources are ok for core facts such as birth date, academic qualifications, employment, etc. When wondering about an issue like the one in question (should someone's thought bubble be added to the article?) a primary source is not adequate because not every factoid should be in an article and primary sources are obviously going to report any space-filler. Johnuniq (talk) 06:33, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Most commonly, we are getting details on a person's life because they have been interviewed by a reliable source and given that information to that source. This has been argued at other boards whether that interview (whether a Q/A format or a summary) is a primary or secondary, but I will argue it meets our secondary meaning given it is transformation - it is the BLP giving a summary of their life to the interviewer. We'd prefer this form as the interviewer will give focus on the most relevant details (eg they may skip over the half-year a person worked as a bagging clerk before college as irrelevant to being a politician for example). Where there are interesting non-subjective facts as Johnuniq points, then direct information from the BLP themselves is fine, but this should be seen as the glue to fill in spaces left by the secondary sources, not the foundation to build a BLP's biography on. If we're doing the latter, that begs the question if the person is really notable. --Masem (t) 18:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
My basic view is that this is too frivolous to include anywhere (WP:INDISCRIMINATE), and I suspect the RS coverage you mention probably consists of frivolous celeb-gossip level non-news. However I might reconsider if the coverage was big enough and serious enough, likely for some reason not included in the question here. And in that case 'claims about oneself' would be pretty much irrelevant, as we would be summarizing whatever significant things the sources were saying. Alsee (talk) 19:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Tjalf Sparnaay

I happened across this article on realist artist and painter Tjalf Sparnaay and was startled to read in the lede: "stripper"? The tense "is" does not support this term; and by all means I cannot find anything in the article or online to suggest the BLP to be a stripper. Is there something being "lost in translation"? Maineartists (talk) 01:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

It was vandalism so I've reverted it. Woodroar (talk) 02:10, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Woodroar. But now there seems to be 2 Early life sections? Maineartists (talk) 02:35, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The text was identical so I removed one of them, too. Woodroar (talk) 03:09, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Joshua Ip

The subject's name has been repeatedly edited to his real name rather than their better known and more page-relevant pen name "Joshua Ip". This violates the following policy on privacy of living persons' names:

"Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. When deciding whether to include a name, its publication in secondary sources other than news media, such as scholarly journals or the work of recognized experts, should be afforded greater weight than the brief appearance of names in news stories. Consider whether the inclusion of names of living private individuals who are not directly involved in an article's topic adds significant value. " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Desapar (talk • contribs) 07:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Jimmy_Dore

extremely biased defamatory comments https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Dore&type=revision&diff=947879083&oldid=947627022 SeventhHarmonic (talk) 01:09, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

This was vandalism which was quickly reverted by another editor. Feel free to revert this type of thing yourself. Neiltonks (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Dating material at the Raven Goodwin article

Some back and forth on dating stuff going on at Raven Goodwin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

This seems to be a case where IPs were probably improving the article, but unfortunately reverted. See talk. (The earlier edits were problematic since they were clearly unencyclopaedic but in some ways were also an improvement since it seems more likely they were correct about her fiancé's name.) Although to be clear, I'm not complaining about any editor's actions. I understand how easy it is to check one source and assume that the others say the same thing, especially since some of the edits were fairly poor and the IPs just said stuff like do a Google search etc rather than noting the source discrepancy. Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Elizabeth Tan (English actress)

Long term ownership by promotional accounts; at least one edit in the past was by an IP claiming to be the actor's agent, but it's fair to say that the COI involvement has been more widespread. I've cleaned this up a bit, but more eyes and critical faculties will be welcome. 2601:188:180:B8E0:DC8C:D31D:1DDB:9A1A (talk) 21:05, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I've edited it to cut back on the puffery and name-dropping, and watchlisted it. Neiltonks (talk) 12:22, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Neiltonks. JJMC89 also blocked the most recent disruptive account. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 14:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Gwenno Saunders

Small dispute with @Iridescent: - should Gwenno Saunders be described as 'Cornish' in the lede? I say no per WP:MOSETHNICITY - we do not describe people by their regional heritage/origin (she was born & raised in Wales but has Cornish heritage). Lots of people are famously associated with a city/region, that does not mean we describe them as such in the lede. GiantSnowman 20:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

No idea what this is doing here - this is just yet another case of GiantSnowman being disruptive for the sake of being disruptive - bus as I've already explained (and had ignored) WP:MOSETHNICITY doesn't say what GS thinks it says. "Unless it is relevant to the subject's notability" applies here; as I've already said on GS's talkpage, her notability derives almost entirely from Y Dydd Olaf (partly in Cornish) and Le Kov (all in Cornish), and she's almost certainly the most famous Cornish artist in any medium. If not for those two albums she'd just be "the one who was in a couple of incarnations of the Pipettes". Removing the fact that a Cornish artist famous for Cornish-language work is Cornish is straightforward tendentious editing. ‑ Iridescent 20:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
I note the article was created on 26 November 2006 and didn't become "Cornish" until this edit on 18 October 2019. She was notable in 2006 as a musician; the fact she is now also known for recording music in Cornish language is irrelevant. GiantSnowman 20:44, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Oh and for the avoidance of doubt - I have nothing against mentioning her Cornish-language music in the lede. What I oppose is describing her as "Cornish" in the lede. GiantSnowman 20:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Barack Obama is notable for being the first African-American President. However, he is (rightly) described as "an American politician" in his lede - and his article is a Featured Article! GiantSnowman 20:52, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
He is also (rightly) described in the lede, in the very next sentence, as: A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president of the United States. Now what, GiantSnowman? Mr rnddude (talk) 17:12, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
'Gwenno Saunders is a Welsh/British musician, known for being a member of The Pipettes and for her Cornish-language solo albums' or similar would be appropriate, would it not @Mr rnddude:? Now some other questions to answer: If she is only notable for her Cornish, why did she have an article for 13 years before she was described as Cornish? How come she only 'became' Cornish in October 2019? What happened that month to change the situation? Did Cornwall gain independence from England? GiantSnowman 17:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Appropriateness of the redirect Barack Osama

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
WP:SNOW -- an obvious "no", via the discussion here in combination with the previous results. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:17, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The redirect Barack Osama and its lowercase form Barack osama were deleted 8 times in total, always per G10 or a similar rationale except for one G1 in May 2007, before being salted in June 2008 and March 2009, respectively.

On the other hand, this typo is common enough (example 1, example 2) that it may actually warrant a redirect despite this, like its counterpart Obama bin Laden/Obama Bin Laden/Obama bin laden that have been kept three times at RfD.

In brief: Should Barack Osama/Barack osama exist as a redirect to Barack Obama? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:59, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Absolutely not. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 05:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Seems like an effort to make a political point. At this point, people know his real name. The primary valid redirect would be a misspelling of Barack (like Barrack) or Obama and Osama is not a misspelling, it's pejorative. Liz Read! Talk! 05:07, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose even if we ignore political considerations the fact fact that it appears that after being salted no one contested either of the deletion for over 10 years strongly indicates that people aren’t misspelling Obamas name in that manner making the redirects pointless.--69.157.252.96 (talk) 05:44, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Please don't waste editor's time with nonsense like this. Johnuniq (talk) 06:59, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose How do you accidentally type that? “B” and “S” aren’t even close to one another on the keyboard. You know what I’m gonna have to call on this one. ~ HAL333 05:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
    "B" as in "B", "S" as in "S"? Elizium23 (talk) 05:24, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Nah, even if someone accidentally types Barack Osama into the search field, his name still appears in the search results, along with other results, let them choose the article they want based on the search results. And also, once you start to type in the name Barrack and the letter O...the first suggestion is Barrack Obama. And also agree with Johnuniq. Isaidnoway (talk) 13:12, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose: This strains credulity. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:08, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per HAL333. If a reader somehow managed to genuinely innocently confuse Obama's name as Osama, showing them the search results would do more to help them recognize their mistake than a redirect, so the lack of redirect would be doing them a favor. Sdkb (talk) 18:05, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Can't see how "Osama" could be anything other than a politically motivated nickname that we shouldn't recognize for Obama. There's no logic to consider it a type or a misunderstood/phonetic misspelling. --Masem (t) 18:08, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the above and it's time for a withdrawal of the proposal or a WP:SNOW close. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:09, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: I tend to agree that this is probably just some politically motivated crap-slinging just to, I don't know, get a laugh, but I do seem to be missing one valuable bit of info that is actually factual, and that is just how many hits does this redirect get on any average day? I tried checking, just to satisfy my own curiosity, but apparently the new pageview tool doesn't allow me to check redlinks anymore. (The old one did.) That would seem helpful to know for a question like this. But that aside, it's really not necessary to have redirects for every possible misspelling of a word or name. I can see using them for commonly misspelled names, like Mississippi or Tennessee, but I wouldn't go out of my way to think of every possible typo, and on those grounds alone I also oppose. Zaereth (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Sdkb: if a reader genuinely confused the two, it would be much better for them to see it corrected in the search results than to assume that it was correct because of a redirect. Kohlrabi Pickle (talk) 15:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Raquel Dancho

This is the Wikipedia page of a recently elected Canadian Member of Parliament, and it essentially reads like something out of her campaign ad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.161.170.219 (talk) 23:06, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. This article needs a lot of work to make it encyclopedic. It reads like an autobiography, with telltale signs that it was likely written by the subject or someone close to the subject. For example, most of it is unsourced, it contains info only the subject could possibly know, and is written from an egocentric spatial-perspective that turns it into a first-person narrative. The tables showing election stats are extraneous and should be cut. It focuses more on her personal life than on any political stuff. (Not too different from whatever that is someone posted one section above this, that I just deleted.)
I don't have time to fix these issues myself, but you most certainly can. Just find some good sources, add what relevant info you can, and whittle away everything that's not found in them anywhere. I hope that helps. Zaereth (talk) 23:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
It's a copypaste of [1]. I've reverted and revdel'd it. Connormah (talk) 23:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Kit Harington

this page keeps being vandalized with gossip, defamatory, and unnecessary edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.54.252.192 (talk) 00:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Given Kit Harington's status, I suspect a request for indef semi-protection at WP:RFPP might be more constructive. The page has been subject to rumour-mongering and other BLP violations since at least 4 June 2017. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

See this edit. I am very tempted to simply blank the content: whoever wrote/updated it in 2013 (the access date) was apparently working under the assumption that such a situation would never change, which makes me skeptical enough to think they may not have even checked the content of the source but merely checked that the link was still live, which it is not anymore.

And yes, I know that a red notice is not the same as an arrest warrant, but as far as Wikipedia is concerned the issue of citing a primary source for such a claim is just as bad regardless of peripheral issues like how I word my BLPN comment.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:48, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

There's definitely better ways to source that there's an Interpol warrant out on him. At late as 2017 USA Today reports it was still there but I'm doing a bit more peaking to try to scope out when it was placed, whom, etc. as to avoid the use of the first-party Interpol source. --Masem (t) 15:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Even better found this Vanity Fair (French) from last month to confirm its still on, so no need to touch the 1st party source.
In generally, we want to avoid the use of court and police records like Interpol in the first place for BLP; the only time I would consider it acceptable is if there was notable 3rd discussion of legal action taken against the BLP, but after many many years, no followup to that from 3rd parties, and you would have expected some resolution by then. Then turning to court records to, say, find the person was proven innocent, or settled out of court, or matter resolved without incident would be fine. That's obviously not the case here: Polanski is still a major figure and the case from his past still haunts his present life. --Masem (t) 15:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Masem: Gee... thanks! I'm kinda disappointed that those sources appear to basically agree with the poorly sourced content I had tagged, but it's good for the encyclopedia. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:56, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't have the time or good knowledge (along with the language issue), but there's clearly more about Polanski's plight of late that could be written about, the fact the 2017 attempt to get rid of that Interpol warrant failed, etc. There's a sympathy out there among journalists that can be used to build upon neutrality/impartially. --Masem (t) 15:03, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

William A. Tomasso

William A. Tomasso (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hello, I've submitted a request here to delete the William A. Tomasso Wikipedia article on his behalf. Would editors here be able to look and see what they think?

As an employee of the Tomasso Group, I'm aware I have a conflict of interest here and I've disclosed it on my profile page and within the deletion discussion. I've reviewed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion and believe this pseudo-biography about a low-profile individual should be deleted per WP:BLP1E and limited secondary coverage. I know editors will make the final decision but I wanted to see if there was any input people here could provide since this noticeboard is about biographies.

I'd appreciate if editors here were able to review the article, reasons for deletion, and available sourcing. Thank you. SHtom5916 (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, I think people over at AFD are being a little rude in basing their answers on the "obvious COI". Of course it's obvious; you stated it directly, which is what a person is supposed to do in this type of situation. I thank you for taking steps to do this the right way. Part of the problem is that this case is involved in politics, and like all media Wikipedia is an extremely politically-motivated place, so getting this deleted is going to be very difficult at best.
I tend to agree that the sourcing is all about this one incident. There's really nothing much about him aside from a few personal details gleaned from primary sources. Mostly, the article reads like this hodgepodge collage of cherrypicked tidbits, but is missing any of the major details that would tie it all together into a coherent article. It almost looks like we're trying to create a false sense of balance. This case would obviously have a large impact on his life and career, but not so big as to be life altering and there is really nothing else about that life and career, so as a reader I'm left wondering "what the hell was that?" Zaereth (talk) 17:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I think at minimum the name is still a searchable term perhaps to John G. Rowland, as his white-collar crimes (tied to Rowland's chief of staff) were part of Rowland's reason for resignation and can be mentioned there. --Masem (t) 19:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Question about people whose existence is disputed

Quick question, hoping for some clarity. I was working to expand the category of "People whose existence is disputed" with more modern entries, and one of the first notable individuals that came to mind was Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin. However, upon simply adding the category I was reverted, with the contention that it was not his existence that was in question, but his identity.

My question is, I'm completely off the mark on not seeing the difference here (and maybe I am)? If a particular person did not have a true, known identity (Satoshi has been posited to be an entire group of people, for instance) would that not be tantamount to having a disputed existence? This is the heart of my question, and to be perfectly clear, I am not trying to go behind anyone's back in asking this here. I don't care to "win" anything about this pretty trivial issue, I'm just very confused and want to be sure that I understand the issue properly before starting a potentially contentious talk section about any of this.

For further comparison, consider someone like Sun Tzu (who is in the "people whose existence is disputed" category). Clearly some real person created a work under that name (just like Satoshi did) and his actual existence is disputed (just like Satoshi). Is there meaningful difference here that I'm not seeing? Can anyone help me understand what I am missing about this that makes it potentially contentious? Thank you for any insight into this! Buddy23Lee (talk) 07:19, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

With traditional works like The Art of War (and perhaps more famously the Tao Te Ching) there's a not-insignificant possibility that they were not created by a single author but rather a composite of the work of multiple, mutually unrelated, authors over many years or even centuries. A lack of evidence for the existence of a specific individual, in such cases, is more likely to be taken as evidence that such a person never existed. If the assumption is generally that a single individual did the things attributed to Nakamoto, under an assumed name, that is, IMO, substantially different from a historical figure who may or may not have actually existed. If it the people who think that the inventor of Bitcoin was not named Satoshi Nakamoto universally, or almost universally, attribute the actions of Nakamoto to a specific named individual, such as (totally random name) Al Gore, then a case could be made that Nakamoto, like "Jeanna F. Gallo" was a person of disputed existence but since Gallo doesn't have a standalone article and we don't seem to have a generally-accepted "real" identity of Nakamoto, it would seem that that analogy of mine is irrelevant, but no more than the above Clearly some real person created a work under that name (just like Satoshi did) since the claim that "some real person" created The Art of War is not only not "clear" but it is rather very much in dispute. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The description "People whose existence is disputed" is too ill defined. Anyone can dispute someone else's existence. Even if you restrict that to scholars, the list could include Shakespeare, Homer, Moses, Jesus, pretty much any biblical figure, and many others from antiquity. Categories like this can become a tool for expressing an opinion about the subject of an article without a mechanism for good sourcing and review.--agr (talk) 15:12, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I suppose I will just leave it alone. It sounds like its going to be a matter of opinion rather than something with a more clear/obvious criteria. Buddy23Lee (talk) 07:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Juan Branco

The page Juan Branco, equilibrated in its French version and consensual in its English version until mid-january, has been modified in the last weeks in the EN WP as to become libellous and not consensual by two contributors who have systematically been adding negative elements, including accusations of criminal behavior, distorting sources when needed to do so, and deleting anything that could be favorable to him. Juan Branco is implicated in heavy political wars in France, and there is clear suspiscion of bad faith in the behavior of an SPA contributor, with systematically negative modifications, deletion of factual elements and systematic addition of unilateral negative elements, sometimes accurate, sometimes through source manipulation. Basic biographical elements like studies or employement are being deleted with no reasons, as weel as primary legitimate sources (Reuters, AP, The Guardian), for no reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Branco&diff=947974881&oldid=947963474 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Branco&diff=944533150&oldid=944520998 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Branco&diff=943222267&oldid=943220163 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Branco&diff=943220163&oldid=943219147 (and so forth)

A single purport account defaming with (maybe) ingenious support of D.Lazard has been participating, and waging a systematic revert war in violation of WP rules. D.Lazard, an interesting contributor in the scientific era, has nonetheless in good or bad faith participated in this WP war, and proposed himself to serve as a sockpuppet to XInolanIX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:XInolanIX#Juan_Branco. Juan Branco has been a contributor in WP FR for 15 years, and participated on his own and other's pages, and has stopped since this happened, letting unilateral accusations be brought on him. This is a SPA too, as I want to remain anonymous. This is a sensitive subject Elahadji (talk) 18:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

This user seems to be the subject of the article himself. His habit of using Wikipedia as a PR-tool and to threaten and denigrate perceived enemies has been well documented by the press as can be seen in the article and it's French version (e.g.: he once wrote a threatening letter to the employer of another Wikipedian claiming to be a "Wikipedia administrator"). The self-congratulatory article was rewritten after the revelations by the French press. Last Sunday a number of SPAs and IPs started rewriting the article into a hagiography. Things have escalated from there and Elahadji has been flinging allegations and insults left and right. XInolanIX (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
References for further information: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Brancojuan and Wikipedia:Administrators_noticeboard#XInolanIX XInolanIX (talk) 11:31, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Telly Savalas

Question about date of birth: A recent edit by an IP broke the birth/death date templates by introducing "21 or 22" as the birth day. The references given are [2] and [3] which both look like dubious primary sources to my eye. Any thoughts on how to handle this? Normally I would remove the birth date as poorly referenced but maybe someone here can find a suitable reference for such a notable figure. Johnuniq (talk) 08:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Good catch. The birth year was wrong according to the reliable source I added. --Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 11:30, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Should this be buried? [4] (EDIT: The diff not the page) I'm not entirely sure about how or where to report... Carl Fredrik talk 19:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
    (Edit: Carl Fredrik talk 07:32, 4 April 2020 (UTC))

This seems like an article that is ripe for deletion. Springee (talk) 21:30, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
It could certainly stand some judicious pruning. - Ryk72 talk 21:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I think the media has blown this thing way out of proportion like they always do (but that's the problem with crying wolf all the time). Likewise, I tend to think they're the ones who keep fueling racism, because it just makes for good headlines and sells copies. In doing a quick read through, I can't tell if all of this is actually racism or xenophobism by the psychological definition, or simply germaphobism. I think it's way too soon to be putting together an article like this, because someone with a degree in psychology should be assembling all this info. For us to do that creates a false narrative that these incidents are all somehow linked as part of a larger conspiracy or something, when in fact in many cases it may just be that people are scared of getting sick, and when people are scared they often do irrational things. Therefore, I'm with Springee that we should probably delete it, and at least wait until reliable sources have time to study and print something more comprehensive about it. Zaereth (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
There is the whole mess around calling it the "Chinese virus" and implications of that which can be/should be documented somewhere, but I agree that documenting all these little crimes across the globe just because they are in the midst of this pandemic as being related to this is too far. That list needs to be focused on major stories and not the little cases like that Texas one --Masem (t) 22:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I think probably somewhere in the pandemic articles that can certainly be covered, but it's too soon to really know all the implications of that. One problem in reporting on other cultures is that we can't judge them by European/American ideologies. You really have to understand their culture and ideologies to be able to make an informed assessment.
For example, in the study of the history and development of steel, European's tend to impose their own ideologies onto Asian cultures when trying to understand just why their iron-making technology developed so differently. With very rare exceptions, European ideology was based on the notion of "purity" as being the greatest value, so when looking at things like Damascus swords or Japanese swords, it's natural to assume that creating a pure metal was their goal as well. But Asian ideology is based more on the idea that a combination of extrmes can work together to create a stronger whole. (This is even evident in other technologies such as the Mongolian bow, or religious concepts like chi (the combination of yin and yang) although it's unclear whether the ideology influenced the technology or the other way around.) The Japanese, for example, had the ability to fully homogenize their steel, but purposely chose not to, relying on the combined properties to increase strength.
Likewise, when it comes to racism in Asian cultures, that's a completely different thing than racism as we understand it by American or European ideology. It's actually central to the plot of just about every kung-fu movie ever made, but it's difficult to understand by our own ideology. Zaereth (talk) 00:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I meant the diff

I was concerned with the specific diff when I posted here. You're all very welcome though to take part in pruning the page, or creating an overarching non-list article, which I've suggested many times now. The list is in my view pointless, because it is indiscriminate and as has been said here includes trivial examples. But what is more egregious is that it include the trivialities, while missing really major things (due in part to anglophone bias). The presence of a list without an overarching article makes it out to be the defining list, i.e. if its not here it isn't notable – which it isn't and frankly goes against the notion of a Wikipedia list. It's mostly a random collection of primary sources. Carl Fredrik talk 07:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Yungchen Lhamo

A lot of unsourced and promotional content. Also wondering if most of this is a copyright violation of multiple sources, particularly [5]. Thanks, 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 01:53, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Mike Causey

The edits to this page on 3/31 and 4/1 are hitpieces. Causey participated in a sting operation resulting in the conviction of billionare Greg Lindberg for bribery. These edits appear to be based off a fake countersuit from Lindberg against Causey. Can we roll these back or apply an authentic biography? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:182:C900:D80:83F:B11D:6901:9C18 (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Anonymous editor, the Biographies of Living persons policy says: All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. This means that negative information that is reliably sourced is acceptable. Whatever the merits of the countersuit, it has been reliably reported as has the campaign finance violations. There is other information that is not reliably sourced and I will be removing it shortly. I am not sure what you mean by "authentic biography" but I would be remiss if I did make you aware of the Conflict of Interest Policy; it is not up to an article subject, their organizations, or their supporters to decide what is "authentic" or not. I hope this helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:19, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Looking further into the actual sources cited, the characterization of the edits by the anonymous IP editor were substantially correct. Sources were twisted and badly misrepresented. As just one example, an article in a RS that was quite laudatory about the subject was cited to support an accusation of minor agricultural good issues - an accusation that didn't appear in the cited article at all. I have removed the worst misrepresentations and added statements that more-closely match the sources that were already cited. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:09, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
And thank you to Indy beetle for picking up where I left off in removing the excesses from the article. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
@Eggishorn: There has been a problem of paid editing at the Greg Lindberg article by attempting to minimize his bribery conviction. That editor was stopped, so I wouldn't be surprised if they (or someone related) were trying to evade me and other responsible editors by trashing the Causey page. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:04, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

John Merrill (American Politican)

John Merrill was the first married SGA President at The University of Alabama. This is very significant. Yet, despite my editing the wikipedia article with the correct date of his marriage, the admin reverted back to the incorrect date. The date currently listed on wikipedia is off by two years. And it makes it look like he got married after college, not during. So it is simply a sham for correct information to have been removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Belledoll (talk • contribs) 02:50, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

What's your WP:BLP-good source? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:13, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Belledoll:, as Gråbergs indicates, we need good quality sources for all significant claims in all biographies of living persons. You can find out about sourcing requirements at this link and about the Biographies of Living Persons Policy at this other link. All that said, the marital status of a politician during their student government career doesn't strike me as especially significant or important to understanding the article subject. I suggest that you use the talk page of the article to discuss the inclusion of this with other interested editors and what sources are acceptable for establishing this. I hope this helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Dear Eggishors, no, your comment does not help. As if you had bothered to actually look at the sources I cited you would see that they were wedding announcements from newspapers of the time period. Which are considered valid research tools.

A wedding announcement would establish that he is married, but would not establish the significance of being the first married person to be SGA President at The University of Alabama. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:28, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Indy_beetle: The wedding announcement was to establish the date of the wedding as they were refusing to believe me when I said their wedding date was incorrect by two years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Belledoll (talk • contribs) 23:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Controversial material?

What is the proper way to deal with an editor who appears to be the article subject removing a claim that they worked in the sex industry in the past? The claim is sourced by one item: an interview where the subject reveals this. Reposting this from WP:COIN. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 06:36, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

The material should be left out, or a better source that actually mentions the subject should be found. The material seems to violate WP:BLP. - MrX 🖋 11:34, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Leave it out. What she said in an interview comes under Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves: unly unexceptional claims about which there is no doubt can be included. Even if a reliable secondary source can be found, WP:REDFLAG and WP:BALASP would favor exclusion, unless it was routinely mentioned in detailed accounts of her career. TFD (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. Pinging Jooojay so that they can see this advice.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 15:44, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to clarify, this is not a self published source, it's a mainstream art magazine. Are you claiming that an interview with the subject Xandra Ibarra in a magazine is a "primary source"? Or somehow it is questionable source? Also what about the rest of the text that was removed by this editor - this went beyond the removal of "participation in the sex work community" and included information about education/training. I accept if we want to remove the sentence about any connection to sex work, esp if there is a controversy now. What I am confused about is if we are allowing possible COI users to edit their own articles and remove other content as well. Jooojay (talk) 21:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the overall point is that if you are going to say someone was a "sex worker", WP:BLP requires excellent sourcing, and the item needs to be widely reported. I see it widely reported that they worked for some sex industry organizations that helped sex worked, but only one source that says they were a sex worker. I'm not an expert in this area, but I think WP:BLP is there to point out that we are not here to promote potentially damaging stories (i.e. "she was a sex worker") based on a single source. If the story is out there in multiple reliable sources, then it is OK. Re: the COI issue, that is separate.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The language used did not say anyone was a "sex worker" and neither did the citation - the citation used the term "participated in" and the WP edit read "active in the sex-worker industry". The artists entire career is built on exploring sex, queer sex work culture, and power around sex - I don't think there is anything controversial about her "participated in" but like I said earlier I understand the consensus here. This still doesn't answer the question about the other content removed. Jooojay (talk) 00:04, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I see now that this conversation about the other content removed is on the WP:COIN now, so I will use that to go forward. Thank you all for your time and feedback! Jooojay (talk) 00:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Heiko Julien

Heiko Julien article has been repeatedly vandalized since 2013. See talk page. False claims calling subject a "sex offender" are being repeatedly posted with no citation. Propose deletion of this poorly sourced article about little known, apparently inactive individual. Article does not meet notability standards and relies on minimal, insignificant sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Healthyjanitor (talk • contribs) 01:03, April 7, 2020 (UTC)

@Healthyjanitor:, I have restored to the last version before the addition of the BLP violations starting in September. Your last attempts to remove the contested material broke the page and removed most of the content, which I don't think was your attention. My revert has removed some data from the infobox but it looked similarly unsourced. If unsourced or poorly sourced allegations continue, then you can request page protection at WP:RFPP. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 06:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
The IP who added the content has been at it since 2018 so probably should be blocked if they try again. Frankly from the current sourcing the article should probably just be deleted. Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Nominated for deletion after closer inspection. Courtesy pings to Healthyjanitor, John B123, Nil Einne Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Rick Harrison

Edit warring over place of birth, without a definitive WP:RELIABLE source. Needs more eyes, and better research. 73.186.215.222 (talk) 03:02, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Ezra Miller -- choking incident

Ezra Miller (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hi - at Ezra Miller, I just removed some content which said in Wikipedia's voice that the subject was the person in a currently-trending video, whereas the only supporting source said merely that it looked like Miller, but that this was not confirmed. There had also been some recent vandalism, presumably inspired by the video, so I have semi-protected the page for two days. Bringing it here for review, comments about level/duration of protection would be welcome. GirthSummit (blether) 15:27, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Girth Summit:, semi-protect looks entirely justified but can I suggest that two days would be too short, based on our prior experience? Viral lynch-mobs rarely dissipate after just two days and that seems to be what's driving this. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:36, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Eggishorn, thanks - that was the Twinkle default setting, but I have no problem with extending it if others think necessary. GirthSummit (blether) 15:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I added "-- choking incident" to the heading above as to clarify what this matter is about and hopefully get the attention of more editors. I also added a link so that editors can easily click on the article history.
To anyone reading this, we need more opinions on this matter: Talk:Ezra Miller#Choking incident. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I would also think it should be extended, for the reasons Eggishorn gave. As for the editwarring at the article, I agre with Girth Summit (and Flyer22, over at the article talk page) that the sources do not demonstrate that the person is Miller, but simply say it looks like Miller, so per WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:NOR, etc. we are not in a position to be reporting that it is Miller.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:41, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
OK - I've increased the protection level to Extended Confirmed, and extended the duration to two weeks. If decent sources emerge about this incident, a discussion should take place on the talk page about whether/how to cover it. If anyone thinks I'm over-stepping the mark here, please let me know. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 13:52, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

#wikipedia-en-revdel Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud

  1. wikipedia-en-revdel

Hi. I would like to delete the edit summary of the last two edits as they reveal personal information of the editor that I did not think would be published. (Redacted) Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Overlord1256 (talk • contribs) 06:13, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Marie Lenotre

Linking Marie LeNôtre for reference. --GRuban (talk) 13:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

This article is negative and defamatory to Marie Lenotre. Please tell me how I can edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CIL Marketing (talk • contribs) 00:14, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like some vandalism that for some reason was allowed to remain for way too long. We even have what appear to be good faith editors reverting the removal of the vandalism and even correcting spelling and capitalization, which seems odd to me. I have reverted the article back to the last good version. If the problem persists, I'd suggest your next stop be WP:ANI.Zaereth (talk) 00:29, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Zaereth, I was just going to do the same thing, but you were just a bit faster. @Minorax and Jeremydas: folks, I'm sure you meant well, but please be more careful and don't actually restore vandalism. This was not subtle, this stood out.--GRuban (talk) 00:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Meanwhile, to answer your question, User:CIL Marketing, in most cases, as a marketing company, where the edit you are asking for is a standard one - add some information, correct some information - you should ask someone else to edit the article for you, by placing a {{Request edit}} template on the article talk page, as described there and in Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#COI editing, and someone should respond in a few days. This was a rather extreme case of vandalism, though, and posting at a high traffic noticeboard like this one is perfectly appropriate, and as here, you'll likely get a response in hours or minutes. Thank you. --GRuban (talk) 13:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry. It was a technical error, I'll be more careful.--Jeremydas (talk) 09:46, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of The Washington Free Beacon for what looks like a BLP violation on an article about a political candidate

Kimberly Dudik is a Democratic candidate for Montana's Attorney General. In August CharlesShirley (talk · contribs) added an article from the Free Beacon about a local Democratic committee member named McWilliams who offered a campaign tracker a free vibrator from his sex shop as a source for her being a candidate, which seems somewhat bizarre at best. Over time he's changed his use of the source so that it now sources this statement: "In August 2019, a local Democratic committee member and supporter of Dudik, Billy McWilliams, who owns a sex shop, was working a parade event for Dudik and started harassing a young, female tracker for America Rising, offering her a "free vibrator" and throwing her a kiss. Dudik claims McWilliams has no formal role with the Dudik Attorney General campaign.[1]" Note that the bit about "supporter of Dubik" was recently added.[7] Ah, the more I look at it the worse this is. What Charles Shirley has omitted (while calling McWilliams a supporter) is that he said "McWilliams also said he has no affiliation with Dudik. "I have no relationship at all with Kimberly Dudik, just saw her at the parade," he added. "Please don't make this a reflection on Ms. Dudik. That was my comment, and mine alone." It also doesn't say that he apologised for the comment. Note that I can only find this story on two sites, the Free Beacon and a site that links to it and includes a video. This seems both a BLP violating misrepresentation of a dubious source and of course WP:UNDUE. Doug Weller talk 09:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Removed. Bias in a source is not necessarily a problem, but that story is just ... well, a total non-story written to try and place Dudik in a poor light. It's the sort of thing we'd expect from some of our better known deprecated sources. I note that CharlesShirley has re-introduced that text at least twice now. Black Kite (talk) 13:07, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Scher, Brent (August 22, 2019). "Montana Democrat Offers Female Tracker a 'Free Vibrator,' Blows Her a Kiss". The Washington Free Beacon. Washington, DC. Retrieved August 22, 2019.

William A. Tomasso

William A. Tomasso (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Sorry, I was unable to reply here before the discussion was archived. Previously, I came to this noticeboard seeking feedback from editors familiar with biography guidelines after I nominated William A. Tomasso for deletion, which I argued is a pseudo-biography about a low-profile individual which should be deleted per WP:BLP1E and limited secondary coverage. I've been fully transparent about my conflict of interest as an employee of Tomasso Group. The result of the deletion discussion was to keep the article. I understand the community has made a decision here, but I'm hoping editors here could answer a few questions for me about what to do next.

@Zaereth and Masem: Thank you both for replying to my last post here. User:Zaereth agreed press coverage was about a single incident and User:Jonathan A Jones saw no evidence of Mr. Tomasso being a public figure, but other editors suggested there's sufficient media coverage and seemed bothered by my conflict of interest despite my public acknowledgement. I am curious, if editors believe this level of detail about Mr. Tomasso is appropriate for Wikipedia, but there's limited coverage and no content to add, is merging the content into an existing article possible? A couple of you had mentioned that option and I wondered if it's still possible at this point. Alternatively, if a merge is not possible and new media coverage becomes available, can I come back and ask for help adding neutral information? I want to understand all my options here without going against community decisions or standards. Thanks. SHtom5916 (talk) 17:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have weighed in over at AFD, but I rarely comment over there and I just had other things on my plate. This article is far more about an incident than it is about a single person. Just because a person is in the news doesn't necessarily make that person notable enough to have their own article, even if the incident was highly notable. For example, we have no article about Casey Anthony, even though she was the center of a high-profile murder trial. We do however have an article about the incident itself. If we removed all of the primary sources and left only the good secondary sources, all we would have in this article is a few paragraphs about this incident. To me, that just doesn't cut the mustard for a stand-alone article. There should at least be enough info out there to make a decent encyclopedia article, so if we keep the info then merging it someplace seems like the best alternative.
That's why I said it seems like we're creating a false balance. It's as if someone wanted to make an article about this incident, but didn't have enough info for it to stand on it's own, so starting digging for biographical info on this person from primary sources just to help fill it in. That's my impression from the way it's assembled.
COI is often one of those arguments that's in many cases a very valid concern, but too often it's also used as more of a distraction from the real points, or simply as a default because they couldn't think of anything better. I again thank you for doing this the right way. COI is important because you have an intrinsic bias that can't be helped, so we have to be wary of that, but it's no reason to dismiss a valid concern.
Consensus is not the end of the world. It just means your job isn't going to be as easy as all that. Consensus can always change, but you're going to have to garner support. The general process for you now would be to start a discussion on the article's talk page. There really no limit to how much we can discuss thing (although people will get worn out after a while if consensus can't be achieved, or if it continually goes one way and others just don't know when to drop it). If that doesn't help, then you can go to WP:RfC and try to get some comments from uninvolved people. The next step is mediation or even arbitration. But you have to try to get people to see things your way and agree with you, and in most cases that won't be those who've already made up their minds. This noticeboard is really for egregious BLP violation, which this doesn't really fall under. Zaereth (talk) 19:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I dont have anything substantive to add: Zaereth puts things well. Though I hope that Masem might say a bit more about why he commented the way he did. I have taken the liberty of fixing the piped link in your text above. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:13, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert F. Hyde

Robert F. Hyde (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - a new editor, Rfhyde1 has appeared to edit this article.[8] The added text doesn't seem to be backed by the sources (and the Connecticut Post article[9] probably needs more use) and has been subject to IP whitewashing recently[10] as well as apparent vandalism by Alternativealternativefacts (talk · contribs). Note also that the article states as fact that he was deployed twice to Iraq, something not even mentioned in the 1st source and stated as his claim in the second. I'll also fix that. Which makes me wonder about the rest of the article. Doug Weller talk 13:53, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Marek Kaminsky

This article contains excessive amounts of unsourced and promotional material. In one instance, a claim is made that Marek Kamiński received a prestigious award. The name of the award links to a Wikipage, which then lists award recipients who do not include Marek Kaminski. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drsharps53 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Ian McNeice

The list of Ian McNeice's credits should include the fact that he played the character of George (no last name) in an episode of Liverpool 1 (1998). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.18.145.142 (talk) 04:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Assistance Requested

Hi. I am a fellow board member with Abdul Haqq Baker on a non-profit focused on reducing violent extremism.

The page about Mr. Baker was left in an awkward state, after it was converted from being a page about his "Convert's Cognitive Development Framework" to a biographical page about him, without changing the content of the page itself.

I put together a proposed proposed draft rework of the page that would implement a proper biography and shared it on the Talk page. I was hoping someone here with an interest in biographical pages would be willing to review my draft and let me know if it's ok to put in. Tsociprof (talk) 19:29, 9 April 2020 (UTC) @Tsociprof:, you might get a better response at the Wp:Teahouse. Gleeanon409 (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Disappearance of Don Lewis, Unofficial theories section

Hi! I’m hoping someone experienced can have a look through Disappearance of Don Lewis, he’s the first husband of an animal rights activist pretty much smeared in the hit murder crime mystery Tiger King.

I feel I’m not very impartial towards the conspiracy theorists so hope someone with a keen eye can help with what I think are at least borderline concerns. Gleeanon409 (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

See the central discussion at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film#Should_all_actors_have_ILL_links_if_their_articles_are_on_a_foreign_language_wiki_but_not_ENwiki_no_matter_what?

Original discussion: Talk:Blue_Is_the_Warmest_Colour#In_most_circumstances_ILL_Links_should_be_present_when_possible

At this discussion another party challenged the inclusion of interlanguage wiki links for French and French-speaking actors and actresses. The rationale is that the French Wikipedia articles linked from the ILL Links have relatively little content and/or a lack of sourcing. A counterargument is that there are ENwiki articles that are also relatively undeveloped but one wouldn't remove blue links from those. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:30, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Brien Taylor

Brien Taylor is a notable person as a draft bust in baseball. Aside from failing to reach his potential as a baseball player due to a career-altering injury that he suffered in a bar fight, he has gotten in trouble with the law. Herostratus has deleted a significant amount of text relating to his legal troubles under the "presumption of privacy". Diff here. These are sources that have been removed.[1][2][3] I do not think Herostratus understands WP:PUBLICFIGURE. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Also pinging Buidhe, who has been involved. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:57, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Muboshgu that these should be covered in the article. They've been published by reliable sources and are a matter of public record. buidhe 18:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Man charged with cocaine trafficking". Jacksonville Daily News. March 1, 2012. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
  2. ^ Glanville, Doug (June 29, 2012). "Dream to Nightmare". The New York Times. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
  3. ^ "Former Yankees pitching prospect Brien Taylor sentenced to 50 months in prison on drug charge". Fox News. November 7, 2012.
Brien Taylor is, essentially, a private citizen. He was a minor league baseball player, and minor league baseball players don't usually have articles. Taylor does rate an article tho mainly because he was a highly touted prospect and made the news for that, and secondarily because he never made the majors (he got hurt) which is somewhat unusual for such a highly touted prospect and that also was remarked on. And that's it. He's just a guy. He's a private citizen. He's a bricklayer in Bumfuck Carolina who has some stories about his minor league career. He's not Madonna, he's not Justin Truedea, he's not Phillip Roth. He's not even Richard Hell or Jenna Bush or Tom Carper or anybody else whom people know. He's just some private citizen who, in spite of not accomplishing anything, happens to have an article.
Anything else he might have done -- raised pumpkins, married a Chinese girl, had a brother who was a stock car racer, served in the Army, or anything else like that -- it's entirely peripheral to what we are trying to do here: describe a baseball player. Peripheral, but there's nothing wrong with noting trivial tidbits like that. Unless there is. And here, there is. There is.
(I'm entirely aware that some people here are unable to differentiate more shades of grey than NOTABLE/UNNOTABLE (or pretend to be). It's apparently a GAY/STRAIGHT, NICE/NASTY, YOUNG/OLD, RICH/POOR, SMASH/PASS world for these people. But for most of us, reality (of which the Wikipedia is a subset) doesn't work that neatly. It just doesn't, and we can't help people who aren't able to understand that or won't. We don't have to pay them much mind though.)


Hm, just came across this article "30 Greatest Baseball Players Who Never Played Major League Baseball" in Bleacher Report.[11] If fair use allows, I'll paste in the segment on Brien Taylor:
That's how you do it. That is how you inform people. That's how you give the reader the germane information she's looking for without going off into gossip, titillation, or character assassination. Bleacher Report can do it like that because they are not The Tattler and don't want to be. I'd hate to have private for-profit information sources show better character than us.
Leave the poor guy alone for goodness' sake. He's just a little guy, a private citizen. You're a great big website, your page comes up first in a google of his name, and will long persist, and so you largely define how how the world sees him. How would you like it? What'd he ever do to you?
Or if that leaves you cold -- not a good look IMO, but it takes all kinds I guess -- how about if I quote your own rules to you? Here's what WP:BLP (a core rule here, and a page that you ought to have a passing familiarity with if you want to work here) says:

Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page. Such material requires a high degree of sensitivity... Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be 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; the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment... Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether... even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject... Many Wikipedia articles contain material on people who are not well known, even if they are notable enough for their own article. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability... Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care. [emphasis added]

If you don't like the policy, go ahead and get it changed. Til then, we're not supposed to blow off core policies just because you don't like them (or haven't even read them). This board is a backstop for keeping up the reputation of the project. The rest of the community depends this board to do its job and enforce the policy. Herostratus (talk) 03:03, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
This is why we shouldn't have so many articles on so many obscure players. However, even then Taylor would still have an article. And once he has an article we have to follow the sources. So when RS like the LA Times nd Wall Street Journal (both listed at WP:RSP as reliable) cover a story so should we. Even when a sports source like ESPN covers his playing career they mention the conviction. This doesn't mean that we needed as much detail as had been in the article but at some level it needs to be covered. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 10:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
No we don't have to follow the sources. Who told you that? We practice editorial discretion all the time. No we are not the Los Angeles Times etc. and we aren't even similar to those entities. We don't have to do what they do. If we did we would print comics and horoscopes and be used to line birdcages.
Those entities print the news of the day. We present lasting information. We use them as sources to the extent that it fits our purpose, not theirs or anyone else's. One of our rules here is not to follow people around and make their lives miserable. The Los Angeles Times etc. can't worry about that: they have to make a profit, every quarter. We don't.
We are very large and very much read. Our article on this person comes up first on Google search. Our article on this person will probably persist for many decades at least (even if we don't). Because of this, we are strong. It's easy to for us harass and bully the weak. Let's don't.
I'm not getting what part of "Many Wikipedia articles contain material on people who are not well known, even if they are notable enough for their own article. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to the person's notability... Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care." is unclear. Do I need to keep the repeating this? Let's hear a refutation that this means the opposite of what it says, or some other reason we can ignore it. Anyone? Herostratus (talk) 02:57, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Except, Taylor is well known as a number 1 pick that didn't pan out. He's well known enough for newspapers and ESPN to continue to write about him long after his playing career. There's your refutation. You ignored WP:BLPPUBLIC: "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" Again, just because his career didn't pan out like projected doesn't fit him under WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE. Morbidthoughts (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Even if you argue that he is not known enough, WP:BLPCRIME covers this scenario "For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured." He was convicted and did his time. Morbidthoughts (talk) 05:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:NPOV tells me that we follow the sources. You're right that they don't dictate what we cover (though even this isn't true, see GNG) but for what we cover we look to reliable sources to tell us how to neutrally convey information. Positive and negative infromation alike but only in as much proportion as is necessary. And we're choosing to cover Taylor of this we all agree. As for who is a public figure, many of the articles we have on professors cover non-public figures. Someone whose career is covered years later, as in that ESPN article, is a public figure. Someone whose arrest and conviction is covered not because because the crime is particularly notable but because who they are is a public figure. Taylor is a public figure whose crime should be mentioned to comply with our policies, including BLP but also not in as much encyclopedic detail as what had been there. In that we agree. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of court records in a BLP

@Errantius: wishes to make extensive use of Australian court records in the article, and claims an exemption to WP:BLPPRIMARY: "Citing the High Court judgment "augments" the media reports already cited, which are based on the High Court's summary of its judgment." Elizium23 (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

No case to answer. I am citing a new judgment by the High Court of Australia, which in terms of WP:BLPPRIMARY is to "augment" those media reports. Only the judgment itself is a fully reliable source. There is no "extensive" use. I doubt that this is the sort of "record" or similar that is contemplated by the policy. Moreover, the article concerns a very public figure. Errantius (talk) 07:36, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Using a court case to verify that somebody was found guilty or not, and if guilty what sentence they got? Fine. Trying to use legal arguments from a court case in an article? Absolutely not. GiantSnowman 07:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
GiantSnowman, why would anyone need to use court documents for that when all the news outlets report on the verdict and sentence? Elizium23 (talk) 07:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Because not every case is reported in the media. Obviously different with Pell - I was talking generally. GiantSnowman 07:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, hypothetically here, then, I would question the WP:DUE treatment of court cases that received zero media coverage. Probably not worthy of inclusion in a hypothetical article. Elizium23 (talk) 07:56, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm definitely with Elizium23 here. Doug Weller talk 08:10, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23 and Doug Weller: I'm generally opposed to any use of something sourced solely the court documents, which yes includes judgments, in BLPs. And I believe BLPPRIMARY supports that view. I'm also generally strongly supportive of the view that if secondary sources didn't cover it, then it's not significant per DUE etc. So it's fine that we don't mention it. No matter how some editors may try to argue it is significant.
That said, out of fairness for the parties concerned I think at least with BLPs we have to WP:IAR in cases where an initial decision is covered enough for us to mention, but some followup judgement (probably an appeal) significantly changes things but we can't find any secondary sources. While I'm not aware of any examples off hand, I'm fairly sure I do recall cases which seemed like this 10 years ago. Possibly most cases there is some coverage of the appeal somewhere and it's just hard to find, and maybe it's easier now than it was 10 years ago due to improvement in search engines and better indexing of local news sources. But even if it is simply a failure of our part to find the secondary sources, IMO this still applies. And I'd suggest it can happen since often the media can go nuts about some case for some reason, and then over time as other stuff attracts their interest, forget about it over the long grind of appeals etc.
In other words, we shouldn't remove some very limited coverage of the subsequent judgement which significantly changes things even if we don't find secondary sources. We should keep it no matter if the reason is the secondary sources don't exist or we failed to find them. (Noting that the fuss above seems to mostly be about the appeal, I'm not surprised if User:GiantSnowman was thinking of this here.)
I did say "significantly changes". I'm not so fussed if, for example, someone's sentence was reduced from 20 years to 19 on appeal although still probably wouldn't remove it just for being sourced to court documents. But if a conviction was overturned for some charges, then I don't see how we can continue to mention a conviction for these charges without mentioning it was overturned.
The alternative is we have a good look at the secondary sources for the initial conviction (or whatever, this could also arise with civil judgments) and consider whether they are really enough to merit inclusion. Although my experience is that trying to remove significant convictions recorded in reliable secondary sources will lead to someone saying you're "whitewashing".
Nil Einne (talk) 08:44, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

In this instance the court decision is used, not extensively in my opinion, to provide a quotation that reads better than the choppy phrases found in the secondary sources. I note also that the policy in question says not to use court documents to "support assertions about a living person". The court decision is being used to provide a clear account of what the court did and its reasoning. It makes no assertion about the living person. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 13:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Bmclaughlin9, the court is not composed of living persons? Elizium23 (talk) 08:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
I am concerned that if court documents are used directly and carefully in such a BLP now that they will creep into some other usage without very much oversight. Those refs are hot potatoes. Why take the risk? What gain from going outside the primary news sources? Elizium23 (talk) 08:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@Nil Einne: I agree that if something like a conviction that we report in an article is overturned we must find way of showing that, and in extremis that might be a court judgement. Doug Weller talk 11:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Bob Dylan

A recent edit of the Bob Dylan article contains allegations about Dylan and alcoholism. [[12]] All the information is cited but has been written imho in a questionable way. I have reverted it and suggested a discussion on Bob Dylan Talk page. Mick gold (talk) 06:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I would say removing that is the correct thing to do. It looks like synthesis. I'm just judging by how many refs are used for single paragraph, which is usually (but not always) a dead give away. I have to ask myself, why is there a source for every sentence, often two? We're supposed to be summarizing the source, so that many refs for a single paragraphs looks unusual. This looks like a bunch of bits and pieces taken from multiple sources to form this collage of info, to create some narrative that may not be supported by the individual sources.
I don't have access to the books, but I would expect to see some page numbers. The one source I could look up was Rolling Stone, which all it says (quoting a friend of his) that in 1994 he just stopped drinking "on a dime". No indication of why. All it says is he just stopped. The second source for that sentence possibly may say something about his kids being an influence on that decision, I don't know, but we've omitted the "on a dime" part and made it look like something bigger than it may in fact be, which is a classic example of synth. Zaereth (talk) 22:35, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Zaereth. A discussion is now under way at: Talk:Bob_Dylan#Alcohol. I quoted your comment which agrees with my own view of this allegation. I can access the biographies cited and I agree with you that there should be page paste your com. I shall try to construct a more detailed reply today or tomorrow. Mick gold (talk) 08:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Here's the deal. This paragraph is implying that Dylan has a problem with alcoholism. Now every rock star back in those days drank and did drugs, so it's no surprise that he did too. That in and of itself does not make one an alcoholic or addict. Addiction has as much to do with a persons personality as it does with use, even more in fact. We need a single source that gives that conclusion (not implication) that he has been struggling with alcoholism. The only source I read actually gave opposite implication. Alcoholics do not just quit. They struggle with it, usually for the rest of their lives. Unless we have a source that goes into all this info and gives us that conclusion, we can't just pull a bunch of bits and pieces together that imply it.
And even if it is all legitimately sourced, then we have to put that into balance with the rest of the article. We need to show that this has had a significant impact on his life and career and give it due weight, by a preponderance of reliable sources. What's next, a section on pot use; cocaine; sleeping pills? If any of these things have caused a significant impact on his life and career, then they most certainly belong in the article, but we need sources that demonstrate that and come to that conclusion on their own, and we need to give it it's due weight and no more. Since nearly all rock stars were doing it at the time, it's just a collection of trivia unless sources (and our summary of the sources) demonstrate otherwise. Zaereth (talk) 17:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Zaereth. I shall paste your comments onto Dylan Talk Page discussion at Talk:Bob_Dylan#Alcohol. I shall add my own suggestions there, based on my scrutiny of the sources. Please make further comments there. Thanks, Mick gold (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll keep an eye on the discussion, but keep in mind I'm very busy in real life and may not reply quickly. For now, I'll give you the tools you need. As an example, see this similar situation over at Talk:Potential energy/Archive 1#The gravitoelectric potential energy, also known as rest mass. It was all well sourced ... a little too well if you know what I mean. But none of the sources came to the conclusion of the author. It was a novel theory presented by the author (and not a very good one either) about gravity, not potential energy. This looks strikingly similar. Zaereth (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Veronika Cencen

In the edit history it is visible that edits have been made specifically to make the person seem worthless . Inaccurate information about level of education and lowering of elite athlete status were repeatedly made Ronicencen (talk) 19:00, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

John Horton Conway death?

His death is now confirmed by cnn.com. EdJohnston (talk) 19:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some talk right now about the death of mathematician John Horton Conway (of Conway's Game Of Life fame) today due to COVID19. e.g. https://twitter.com/SamWangPhD/status/1249132655737790464

Not sure where's a good source for the news. I see the same tweet was picked up in a guardian news round-up

-- Harry Wood (talk) 08:31, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Leave it out until something more substantial is available. Conway is/was a giant and there will be no shortage of confirmation. WP:NOTNEWS applies and there is no problem if the article is a couple of days behind Twitter. Johnuniq (talk) 10:22, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
The news articles, of course, will all be based on Tweets. That's all journos do nowadays: trawl social media for stories and reprint posts. Like Ice-T and his bagel. Elizium23 (talk) 12:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I second the notion to wait until we have something substantial. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Being discussed here too: Talk:John_Horton_Conway#Death -- Harry Wood (talk) 16:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Marianne Williamson

Good evening,

After reading Ms. Williamson's bio on Wikipedia, whoever wrote this biography has filled it with very negative material. It is subjective and full of untruths, misconceptions and inaccuracies. Please have someone from your staff erase this page.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:6000:1527:c467:6d04:cbb3:3691:9a8 (talk • contribs) 01:07, April 16, 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles aren't written by "staff". Almost all editors are volunteers, such as yourself, and clicking on the View History link on that page shows me that dozens of editors have contributed to that article. Wikipedia articles are also required to be cited to reliable sources. If you scroll to the end, you will see 207 sources used for it. (That's a lot!) Of course, Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, so you are also free to contribute. HiLo48 (talk) 01:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I might also suggest that, rather than leaping straight into editing the article, you take you concerns to the article's Talk page where you can discuss them with other editors interested in the topic. HiLo48 (talk) 01:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Dir En Grey members' real names

Hi! I was advised to ask here regarding the addition of the real names of the members of Dir En Grey: Kaoru, Kyo, Die, Shinya and Toshiya. They're provided on ASCAP as writer's credits, but I'm not entirely sure how trustable this website is. This was previously discussed here. I'd basically like to know if I can add them with ASCAP as a source or not. Seelentau (talk) 12:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

No, as was said at the earlier thread. It's a matter of WP:BLPPRIVACY and WP:BLPPRIMARY. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Craig Murray

Please refer to the 'Section: "Blaming Israel for Skripal Attack"' discussion on the talkpage of the article on Craig Murray.

At the bottom of the article, a section states that Murray blamed Israel for the nerve agents on the Skripals. This is a misrepresentation of the sources and comparison with Murray's actual blog articles shows it to be untrue.

I removed the content and initiated a talkpage discussion about it. Even though one other editor agreed with the removal, another editor has re-instated the content exactly as it was.

    ←   ZScarpia   04:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

There is clear BLP violation here. First, the text does not accurately report what the sources say (even though one of them is a fairly useless rant). Second, balance demands that the subject's own words on the subject are brought to counter the charges against him. Zerotalk 05:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I think a reliable, well-sourced re-analysis of the subject's views would not be out of place in an encyclopaedia, much like it is done in articles about, say, philosophers. However, the section as it stands, based entirely on two newspaper headlines, is as far from a reliable analysis as possible. Addding Murray's blog into the picture won't help much in my view. — kashmīrī TALK 10:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The section is not based on headlines. The Times sources clearly states ""Craig Murray has written on his blog that Israel was more likely to be behind the Salisbury novichok poisoning than Russian agents", not in the headline. I hope no one here is suggesting that the Times is not a reliable source. We can tweak the exact wording, and add the subject's response, but there is no BLP violation in reporting what RSes say about the issue. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Murray's comments were made in the context of discussing the British government's blaming of the attack on the Russia government without either providing conclusive evidence or a convincing motive. Really, he was discussing what appeared to be a conspiracy theory of the British government's rather than creating one of his own. He was not trying, as the Wikipedia article made out, to pin the blame on the Israelis, merely showing that there were alternative suspects. You can, if you like, reintroduce the material, re-written to properly represent what the sources say and attributed to the sources. However, if you do that, I will add content quoting from Murray's blog pieces which will allow readers to decide whether what the sources say is fair or not. I think they will decide that it is not. At the end of the day, it will be a big waste of space. The sources may be generally reliable ones, but note that, even if sources are reliable, we're not obliged to include everything they say.     ←   ZScarpia   15:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
this is your opinion, based on your analysis of his blog - but it is not what reliable sources say. We go by reliable sources, not editors' opinions. I will reintroduce it with phrasing that matches what teh Times article wrote, and you can add Murray's response. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 15:52, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Murray's blog articles are reliable for what Murray actually wrote.     ←   ZScarpia   16:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
ZScarpia, but in this case may well violate WP:UNDUE, since they border on conspiracy theories, so let's stick to independent reliable sources. Guy (help!) 17:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The quote from Murray appears to be a rhetorical device — i.e., it's unlikely that the Russians were behind the attack — rather than the invention of a conspiracy theory. But it's hard to evaluate this without more text / context. -Darouet (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Links to Murray's blog articles are given on the talkpage of the article. It would be more accurate to say that his cental argument was that the evidence available was insufficient to pin the blame difinitively on the Russian government, that there were too many missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and that the Russian government would have reasons for not trying to kill the Skripals, rather than that it was unlikely to be the Russian government (of course, there's always the possibility that the attack may have been carried out by Russians other than the government itself), I think.     ←   ZScarpia   16:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
There's certainly not enough in these sources to support the assertion that was in the article - none of them say that he blamed Israel for the attack. They do say that he suggested that Israel was more likely than Russia to have been behind the attack, but that's not quite the same thing. JungerMan Chips Ahoy, please be cautious about anything you base on the Times - while generally agreed to be a reliable source, is also a biased source (as all news outlets are, to a greater or lesser extent). The Times is a conservative, centre-right Murdoch-owned paper, reporting on an address by a left-leaning supporter of Scottish independence to the SNP - we shouldn't be taking their interpretation of his words as balanced or authoritative. There obviously some controversy over what he said, but as always we need to shouldn't be putting words into his mouth, or allowing others to do so because they write for the Times. GirthSummit (blether) 16:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
As you say, all source are biased, so the Times being conservative or owned by Murdoch is really neither here nor there. But I agree with your comments re: accurately reflecting what the source says. I'll rephrase to something like "he suggested that Israel was more likely than Russia to have been behind the attack, and was criticized for that". JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 16:33, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, WP:BIASED. It's not 'neither here nor there', it's something you need to bear in mind when considering what they say about someone on the other end of the political spectrum. So long as we keep it factual though, and covers any rebuttal he might have made afterwards, we're probably OK. GirthSummit (blether) 16:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
What WP:BIASED says is "When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering." - The Times easily meets all those requirements. We don't exclude news reporting from The Guardian (even on Right-leaning people or issues) even though it is left-leaning, and we're not going to apply a different standard to conservative-leaning reliable sources. But I agree - we'll keep it factual, and provide rebuttals if he made any. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 16:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
JungerMan Chips Ahoy!, does The Times have a particular editorial line on this? As a generally reliable source I'd only normally exclude it if there's a credible and reasonably specific reason. And I'd only provide rebuttals if they are published in reliable sources. Anyone is free to publish bollocks then argue the toss when a newspaper calls them out on it, we need the filter of independent sources to work out whether a denial - be it rebuttal or mere repudiation - is plausible or not. Guy (help!) 17:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't know if they have an editorial line on it, or what it might be. The source in the article is not an editorial page, but news reporting. I agree with you that excluding The Times would requires a credible and reasonably specific reason, and simply having a general conservative-leaning editorial bent is not enough. JungerMan Chips Ahoy! (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Considering this article, cited sources in its WP article, and the fact that political bias doesn't become a factor unless it is evident in the editor's choices of RS and the published material they cite, the latter is the process we expect to be compliant with NPOV, not whether or not the source is biased. I agree with much of what Guy stated as far as finding corroborating sources but keep WP:NEWSORG in mind and exercise caution. Online news today is not the same quality of news your grandparents read, and not necessarily because a source leaned right or left. It's either factual news, or it's political news, and the latter is riddled with bias all the way around. If a source is known to publish innaccuracies, stories from anonymous sources that are never corroborated, and/or stories that were later proven to be inaccurate, be wary of their reliability. We have entered the age of opinion journalism, and it even touches how a journalist reports a fire, shooting, mass killing. Propaganda is also tricky to spot because it's subjective, and appears to be trending of late. The most neutral news publications will publish all prevailing political views - allegations, denials, origin which is what we're supposed to be doing, too. Atsme Talk 📧 17:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not simply a left/right thing either - there's also the Scottish independence thing - the Times is pretty unionist. That was partly news reporting, but it looked like a bit of 'look at the looney the SNP have got speaking to them' reporting to me. Which is not to say that we can't use it,so long as we're cautious, which I think we're all agreed on. GirthSummit (blether) 17:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
This bears no relation whatsoever to how RS and DUE have been interpreted in the past. Anyone arguing that The Guardian or The Independent should be given less weight when they write about Conservative MPs or supporters would be on a fast track to a DS topic ban. --RaiderAspect (talk) 03:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
RaiderAspect, I'm not suggesting that it should be given less weight, I'm saying that we should be cautious, and stick carefully to the factual assertions, which our original content wasn't doing. GirthSummit (blether) 10:22, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
ZScarpia, well, apart from the obvious fact that critics of the Putin regime have a tendency to turn up dead of poisoning, anyway. And no, let's not include Murray's blog pieces: he has a rather obvious axe to grind. Let's stick to reliable independent sources. Much safer, much less likely to give udue weight to something. Guy (help!) 16:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
The Skripals weren't notable critics of the Putin government, but, in any case, criticising Putin isn't the only reason why people are killed. Murray's blog articles are reliable for what Murray wrote and the subject of the article is, after all, Craig Murray. Perhaps the authors of the sources also have axes to grind themselves? As far as reliability goes, the sources we're talking about may be reasonably good as far as newspapers and political journals go, but they're not the Proceedings of the IEEE or the British Medical Journal. As I wrote, material from the cited sources may be re-added in a more accurate form if desired, but if so, on the grounds of neutrality, I will also add material, which will quote the articles of Murray's which have been criticised.     ←   ZScarpia   17:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
ZScarpia, I have no idea of the motive, but the MO is consistent and of course it's now moot because regardless of any uncertainty at the time, it's no longer in serious doubt that it was the GRU.
But you'll see on the Talk page that I think the NS does not in fact corroborate The Times' claim, so the whole thing is a single source and thus undue. No need to speculate on the motives of the authors (see Hanlon's Razor for example).
Guy (help!) 17:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
However, the point at issue isn't who actually was behind the poisonings, but whether the cited sources were misrepresented, whether the use to which they were being put was neutral and whether, in the interests of brevity, it would be better to forgo using them. (On the last point, I think it would save a lot of tedium if we could have two templates for displaying messages at the head of BLPs, one stating, "this person has been accused of antisemitism by supporters of Israel," and the other, "this person has been accused of racism by supporters of the Palestinians.")     ←   ZScarpia   18:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Zero0000, not necessarily - see WP:MANDY for my take on why not - but in this case it may be moot, if the accusations are not in reliable sources. Guy (help!) 16:38, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
JzG, the situation is not the same. In this case, the subject is accused of writing something that he didn't write, and we know he didn't write it because what he actually wrote is there for us to read. It isn't just an automatic denial like in the Profumo case. Zerotalk 00:11, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Zero0000, but not by us, and that is not our problem to fix, because doing so requires WP:OR. However, it's probably moot since the entire thing seems WP:UNDUE anyway. Guy (help!) 08:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
JzG, I agree with you that it is undue and thanks for stepping in there. Incidentally, I think your essay does apply, but the other way around. The subject did suggest that Israel was a suspect, alongside Russia, USA and UK. From this information alone, one knows the backlash against against him, including misrepresentation and worse, without reading it. Well, they would write that, wouldn't they? Zerotalk 14:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Paul H. O'Neill

Please review and remove the first paragraph of the "Bush Administration" section. There are numerous misspellings and nonsensical sentences, and an obvious bias toward belittling O'Neill and elevating George W. Bush.
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1a0c:44c4:69c9:d777:380d:2ad7 (talk • contribs) 15:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Martin Tripp

Martin Tripp is a WP:BLP1E: accused of wrongdoing but has apparently not been convicted in a court nor criminally charged (according to a cited WP:BLPPRIMARY).

The accusations are properly sourced (except maybe for the WP:BLPPRIMARY) and as such the whole article has only the effect of being defamatory for this living person.

As such, it should be discussed if the article should be deleted, or with what content it can be kept. Lklundin (talk) 12:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Delete it. Tripp isn't notable other than being a victim of Tesla. The company or Tesla fanatics have an ugly history of attacking those they see as enemies. This article was created by a brand new account and seems to only tell the Tesla side of the story. Not a good sign. Springee (talk) 15:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I've added a deletion nomination to the page. Springee (talk) 15:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Boycott against Xiao Zhan Incident

The article uses unverified rumors as a sources of information which violates the biographies of living persons policies, specifically the Neutral Point of View section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dadadr (talk • contribs)

All sources that are being claimed to be invalid in what's being removed are valid RSes for us, and there's no sources presented to challenge the validity of their claims. Continued removal is disruptive. (However, I don't understand why this is a separate article from the main Xiao Zhan page, there's no size issue here... --Masem (t) 23:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Joe Biden sexual abuse allegations

Issues relevant to this board have been resolved for now. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

These are being used to include them in Media blackout (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) despite the lack of sources using the term. I've raised it at WP:RSN#Media blackout - what sources do we need to include something in this article? but it's also clearly a BLP issue. Doug Weller talk 05:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

This looks like WP:OR to me. Here are some sources where it's reported, but it's not in more weighty sources, therefore it's a media blackout according to... er... Rush Limbaugh? I don't know. Some of the other examples look like they have the same issue of Wikipedia-editorial interpretation of what constitutes a blackout. Guy (help!) 08:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Independent of that, the Joe Biden article is to be expected to become a honeypot for wild accusations now that he is the Democrat President candidate. For some unfathomable reason, people in that position have attracted fantastic stories depicting them as monsters or frauds in the last few decades. (It is probably just a coincidence.) But I guess all of you already know that and have the article on your watchlists. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Hob Gadling, I know, right? It's almost as if there is a media bubble in which factual accuracy is irrelevant as long as a story supports your tribe or attacks the other one. Someone should write a book about it. Guy (help!) 14:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

←::@Hob Gadling: The allegations were mentioned in the Washington Post and New York Times after the above comments were made, and the allegations are now written into the Joe Biden Wikipedia page. So I guess NYT and WaPo are part of the vast right wing conspiracy from the last few decades? Or perhaps a more reasonable explanation could be that Wikipedia is biased by people who want to exploit the idea of a vast right wing conspiracy to ignore what they don't want to see, even credible sexual assault allegations. I wouldn't stop with twenty years ago! Go back and defend LBJ from the right wing conspiracy theories on the 1948 United States Senate election in Texas page! Or perhaps it's more likely that power corrupts all people every time. Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:21, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I explicitly said "independent of that". But people just do not listen. Instead, they invent crazy stories about what they think I meant. Sigh. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pratiksha Apurv

This page contains many highly subjective paragraphs and fails to keep a neutral point of view. Additionally it provides many unsourced statements and claims seeming to be the result of original research. Additionally this contains much self promotion reading as an advertisement.

Got the worst of it out, and most of what is there is now supported by cites. Some of it was already in the references, they just had not been used very well. Curdle (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

BLP and comments on various talk pages

I'm opening this discussion as I want to raise the question. As part of their argument of a position, JzG added a comment about people who would be covered by BLP. Elizium23, removed the BLP references[[13]]. Were they correct in doing so? Both are experienced editors so I figured it was worth asking. My feeling is this was a BLP violation (though I suspect evidence to support the claims is not hard to find). Are comments such as the ones removed BLP issues? Springee (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

BLPTALK allows for the inclusion of names and discussion of issues that would otherwise NOT be appropriate on mainspace, for purposes of article improvement. So the removal seems against the spirit of BLPTALK (eg JzG adding them was fine as part of the discourse of trying to discuss the NPOV aspects). Obviously, this is within certain reason. BLPTALK doesn't give me the talk to level unsourced accusations against a BLP willy nilly. It should be based on what sources might say and how we're including those sources. --Masem (t) 23:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Masem, what if I want to drag names into a conversation just to slander 'em like crazy (so to speak), and then edit-war to keep them there. Elizium23 (talk) 23:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
The names JzG includes are very much public figures, and very much figures that there's no question where they sit on various leanings (in at least, how we will treat them on WP). While it's probably not good behavior in the long run to keep equating "crazies" to these two specific people, this is no different from how people regularly jest/insult/demean Trump/Boris Johnson and numerous other people on a routine basis, as long as they are public figures. It would be wise to try to avoid them but we can't admin-action those. On the other hand, bringing up a random non-public figure for such purposes would be against BLPTALK. --Masem (t) 23:42, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Short of publishing direct factual falsehoods that defame, it's virtually impossible to libel a figure as public as POTUS. Referring to someone of that lofty a public stature as crazy (for example) could never be libelous. Saying falsely they had been incarcerated in a mental hospital would be. John from Idegon (talk) 04:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Calling Dinesh d'Souza "genuinely insane" may be a direct factual falsehood, I see that JzG told loupgarous that the basis was "reliable sources" but wasn't clear what the source is for Dinesh d'Souza. BLPTALK does not appear to say that is okay, I do not see how calling him insane could improve the Dinesh d'Souza article or help the discussion whether to call someone X or far-X. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Joe Biden#Allegations of...sexual assault

Joe_Biden#Allegations_of_inappropriate_physical_contact_and_sexual_assault Contentious, poorly sourced material has been restored into the article.[14] RS report that Tara Reade filed a police report alleging sexual assault in 1993 which Reade stated was about Biden. Most RS do not state that the "police report" does not name him.  The "police report" is confidential; it is the redacted "public incident report" which does not name Biden.  It is only the AP story which contradicts the other RS.  The article now again states that Joe Biden was not named in the "police report".  Please revert this edit until we finish the discussion at Talk:Joe_Biden#Why_the_police_report?. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Kolya Butternut that this is a BLP issue, and it's unfortunate that User:SPECIFICO wants to allow misleading text to remain while we have a lengthy debate which is unlikely to be resolved soon. if SPECIFICO had remove the whole thing, that would be one thing. But allowing the misleading text to remain, while we discuss whether to remove the whole thing is simply not on. Nil Einne (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I've launched an RfC to hopefully clear things up.  petrarchan47คุก 19:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, the RfC does not discuss the text, so this will still need to be addressed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
The text that Kolya Butternut has repeatedly removed -- calling it "poorly sourced" is verified by Associated Press, New York Times, and Washington Post (all familiar to those editing this article) among other references. SPECIFICO talk 12:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
The AP is actually contradicted by the New York Times and WaPo.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Please specify the contradiction. SPECIFICO talk 14:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:ONUS.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:22, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Our BLP policies apply to all persons, both Ms Reade and Mr. Biden. We report what the multitude of reliable sources report. Quite frankly, there should have been a consensus about what to what text to use concerning the allegations before anything was added. The RFC "Should Tara Reade's sexual assault allegation against Biden be included in the article?". closed with "Rather than focusing on whether the allegations should be discussed in the article, the discussion should now shift towards how the allegations should be discussed in the article. Relevant policies include the biographies of living persons policy, especially the subsection on public figures. In my view, there is no consensus yet within this discussion over any specific wording to be included in the article." Instead we have (predictably) a small handful of editors edit warring over their preferred text. Some of us are trying to work toward a consensus on the issue and IMO this edit warring is disruptive to the process. CBS527Talk 03:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
That's somewhat of a mischaracterization.  I'm removing text which we had no consensus to add, not changing it to my preferred version.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
If you want to completely remove any mention of the allegation go ahead. I won't oppose although you may find strong opposition from other sources. The fact we don't have agreement on what to say doesn't mean it's acceptable to say something which is very likely misleading in the interim while we hash it out. I will say it even strong this time. Anyone who thinks it's acceptable to say something misleading while we hash out what to say, should not go anywhere near BLPs. Nil Einne (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Nil Einne, what statement do you think is misleading? And do you think it is unverified by the sources or that it is SYNTH or otherwise a misleadin use of verified content? K.B. declined to answer, above. I think we can sort this out if we are specific about the content and sources. FYI, I have favored removal of the entire mention of the police filing, since I think that the essential content is the allegation itself and not a report that can have no official standing, per Reade's acknowledgement it is outside the statute of limitiations. SPECIFICO talk 19:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, if you want something in the article you have to contribute to the discussion.  What you're doing, asking other people to do all the work, feels like sealioning.  The WP:ONUS is on you.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

First I should apologise since I got a bit carried away in my annoyance. In my earlier comments, I said "most likely misleading" or similar to indicate there was uncertainty, but in some of my later ones I did not include that important qualifier.

Anyway I am referring to this statement which you re-added [15]. It claimed Biden was not named in the police report. The problem with this text is, as discussion on the article talk page showed, this was very likely misleading. Some sources did appear to make this claim. However other sources only said he was not named in the public release. They didn't comment on whether he was named in the police report. At least one source IIRC the Washington Post, specifically said he was not named in the short public information release, and they were trying to obtain the entire police report. (To be clear, I'm putting aside Business Insider since I've always found it a questionable source. I never even read it.)

And here's a key thing, no source specifically said they had obtained the whole police report. The AP did say "she filed a report" ..... "a copy of which AP obtained", which under normal circumstances may lead one to believe they obtained the whole police report. However given that most under sources simply obtained the public release, there was good reason to doubt whether they actually obtained the whole police report, and they didn't specifically say they obtained the police report in it's entirety. And they gave no real indication how they were special over other sources which only obtained the public release e.g. how they obtained it.

There was therefore a very good chance that those sources like the AP which seem to imply that Biden was not named in the police report had simply chosen a poor wording, and did not know anything more than those sources which simply said he was not named in the public release. In cases like this when there is uncertainty as sources potentially contradict each other, we need to be conservative. Adding the potentially misleading claim that Biden was not named in the police report unqualified, was not acceptable. It is sad that attempts were made by you to keep it in. Now we more or less have confirmation from NPR that Biden was indeed named in the police report, so the claim was indeed misleading and hopefully you can see the harm of your approach.

We cannot simply say "it's the sources fault" when we already knew sources were contradicting each other, and the sources making the claim gave no real reason to think they were correct over the other sources. In fact there was good reason to think they had simply chosen a terrible wording.

While we sometimes say "sources differ" or something of that sort and offer both versions, I think most people would agree that was wholly unnecessary here when the simple solution was to remove the text which was likely misleading and wait and see if there was further clarification. I mean even if it was really true that Biden was not named in the police report, would it really matter that we didn't mention this for a few days or weeks? Frankly, while him not being named in the police report seems to be somewhat more significant than the fact that Biden is named, I'm unsure it's significant enough to mention even if it were true unless it becomes a big deal in continued media reports.

Especially on the main article of Biden, as things stand I'm unsure whether we need much detail. And you seem to agree given your opposition to the section point blank. So your insistence on keeping text which was likely misleading is even more perplexing to me.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:41, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology. I was surprised, because I've always seen you be very substantive and an excellent communciator. This whole thing is frustrating because there really, is at this time, missing information that's led editorial OR to fill in the blanks. As you know, I supported removing the whole bit until we have a complete picture of it. To reply directly to your comment: It would have been better if I'd removed the mention of the report, but at the time I thought that would be inflammatory. But to err on the side of BLP caution does support the "Biden not in the report" verified by at least one RS, as opposed to erring on the side of giving the impression -- the truth of which is currently unknown -- that he was accused of a crime in the official document. I think there's a valid argument that key BLP detail in the police report text fails WP:V. At this point, I think WP:ONUS is out the window. That's not the issue for this particular concern.
Most unfortunately, however, focusing on the police report is a distraction from Reade's serious allegation and concerns, and I can't understand why such a distraction would persist on the article page. SPECIFICO talk 17:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

NPR has confirmed that the police report does indeed name Biden: "NPR obtained confirmation of the police report from a law enforcement source. A record of the report names Biden. NPR has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the full report."[16] Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Wrong - A "record of the report names Biden" is not the same as "the report names Biden". - MrX 🖋 18:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
What record of the report is the obvious question. Are we going to nit pick the minutest details? Our job is not to censor material that clearly belongs in a WP article when it meets our standards of WP:V and WP:PUBLICFIGURE. My concern is that doing otherwise is treading into OR territory, because it appears that we are looking to find "truth" to justify censorship. Our job is simply to SAY WHAT RS SAY - state what they say using in-text attribution. It is unambiguous and simple enough that my grandchildren were able to deciphere it, and the youngest is 9 yo. Atsme Talk 📧 22:38, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, this would be a detail we would want to get right and not just write our own version of the facts. I'm glad I was able to point out that two editors were mistaken about what the source wrote (SAY WHAT RS SAY), and that we were able to correct it (WP:V) twice. Of course, no one tried to censor anything, so I'm not sure how that even entered into the discussion. - MrX 🖋 00:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I didn't see you giving a quote from NPR that we should use, just pointing out how what we had was wrong. The difference is that it felt like you were preventing the information from entering the article until we got it right, rather then helping. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
This discussion seems to have jumped the shark. It's simply dumb to suggest a record of the report named Biden but that the report did not. We now have good evidence that those who thought it was acceptable to edit war to preserve the claim that the police report did not name Biden [17] harmed Wikipedia by doing so. As the prior discussion at the time strongly suggested, and we now have confirmation from NPR, it almost definite that the police report named Biden and it was simply the public information release that did not name Biden. It seems likely more confirmation will emerge over time that the police report did indeed name Biden. Note that AFAICT, no one is suggesting we add to the article that the report named Biden. I'm not sure if it's ever needed, since it's a fairly pointless diversion which says more about the media (and Wikipedia) than anything else. It really has nothing to do with the complaint or Biden. Nil Einne (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
A record of the report does indeed name Biden. The record names the complainant and the suspect. Biden is the suspect and is named in the record and report. They are looking to get the full report through FOIA rather than just the fields. But the record names Biden as does the report. The record will also list what statute was allegedly violated. ConstantPlancks (talk) 03:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Matt Gurtler

I am concerned this page has been edited in an effort to smear Mr. Gurtler. A lot of the information about his early life has been deleted and replaced with a arrest charge that has been dismissed below I have put edits that existed on a previous version of the article. Also it exhaustedly goes into a random event, it is one of many arguments that have taken place on the house floor and I am not sure why it would be included other than to try to paint Mr. Gurtler in a negative light. If the incident must stay, I have added here the full quotes from the citations already cited, which paint an entirely different picture than what is currently written. Towards the end of the article they purposely miss name a well-known bill to try to make it sound negative. I don't know how to correctly edit the article and I'd appreciate any help.

Suggested edits to early life and education:

Gurtler graduated from the University of North Georgia with a bachelor of Arts in 2012 with his B.A. in History and a minor in Sociology. During his graduate studies Gurtler also participated in R.O.T.C for 2 years at UNG while living in barracks on campus. UNG is one of only a handful of senior military colleges in the United States. In his college years is where his interest in politics first began. During his first run for office in 2016. He ran on the Republican ticket and labeled himself a "Limited Government Conservative Republican." (arrest charge was dismissed so it is unnecessary to include in the early life portion of the article)

Suggested edits to political career: edit 1: (In regards to the budget vote)

In a statement right after the budget vote, Gurtler said, "Growing the size of government and harming the free market goes against the values and principles I believe in and was one of the reasons I was elected. While I agree that there are times for compromise, I believe someone had to take a stand. That is why I voted NO." (this is important to add because it is a primary quote about one of the main topics of the article) [1]

edit 2: (In regards to the incident with Mr. Riley)

Days after Rep. Gurtler told the press he was threatened by Governor Deal's Chief of Staff, Chris Riley, to vote YES to approve the budget a dismissed arrest charge was aired on WSBTV. In a written statement regarding the incident Rep. Gurtler stated: "This incident occurred four years ago," Gurtler said, "After requesting a jury trial to clear my name, the district attorney dismissed the charge, (If information about the arrest charge is left up, I especially think this quote should be included.) [2]

edit 3: (Also in regards to the incident with Mr. Riley)

Rep. Gurtler further criticized the appointees actions to an elected official stating; "I am appalled by Mr. Riley's actions and bullying tacticsof an elected official," he said. "His actions were wrong and unethical, and this type of behavior goes against our system of separation of powers..." Gurtler also stated Mr. Riley's actions were also directed at his district; "Not only did Mr. Riley threaten me, he threatened my entire constituency, some 50,000 plus Georgians in the 8th District," said. Gurtler (This should absolutely be included because it gives the entire quote of a quote mentioned in the article) State Sen. Josh Mckoon, a Columbus Republican who has also infuriated Deal's office, defended Gurtler in the state senate on Tuesday. He said Gurtler was victim to a "sick and twisted" culture at the Capitol.

[3]


edit 4: (Constitutional Carry)

Gurtler has gained much attention following his re-election bid after he pre-filed HB-2, otherwise known as Constitutional Carry. With the backing of Governor Brian Kemp. Rep. Gurtler believes in HB-2 and Gov Kemp's backing will help; I'm just really thrilled that we actually have a governor that has gotten behind constitutional carry," said state Rep. Matt Gurtler (R-Tiger) who introduced the bill to eliminate the gun permit requirement. "I don't believe it is radical at all. I think it's conservative. It's constitutional," Gurtler told 11Alive News. "In the constitution it says (the right to keep and bear arms)'shall not be infringed.' We believe that's a no-compromise statement." (This is important because it addresses a bill written about in the article by its real name and adds a direct quote about the subject."[4]

References

  1. ^ https://ajc.com/blog/politics/gop-lawmaker-says-top-aide-nathan-deal-threatened-him/cs6GieeA8kTvN9iiJavnvk
  2. ^ https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/new-lawmaker-settled-2013-arrest-last-month/xtadt2ltAiANnKWjGXdPyL
  3. ^ https://ajc.com/blog/politics/gop-lawmaker-says-top-aide-nathan-deal-threatened-him/cs6GieeA8kTvN9iiJavnvk
  4. ^ https://www.11alive.com/article/news/ga-bill-would-end-need-for-gun-carry-permit

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Chasie19 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh my gosh. No offense, but that looks just awful. First, it's way too newspaperish. This is an encyclopedia, so what we need is just a summary; the gist of it. The style in an encyclopedia is also very different from a newspaper, and this reads like a newspaper. Second, blogs are not reliable sources. Third, what the hell is HB-2? Doesn't the original read better, where we leave out the political jargon and just say what it is? Fourth, the grammar is bad. Some sentences run on into each other, so you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Capitalizations and syntax errors everywhere. Fifth, in many places it's too closely paraphrased to the sources. Sixth, there is some OR going on here, such as doing your own reporting from blogs as your sources.
Look, we don't need a bunch of quotes. It doesn't matter to the rest of the world about trivial info like what the official name of a bill is. Wikipedia is really not here to detail every little dispute between politicians, or to try and carry on these conflicts via the web. We just need a summary of this person's entire life and career, jammed into a nutshell.
Now I agree, the article needs work, because as is much of it is still too newspaperish. The arrest is one example of totally trivial info that just needs to go, not be added on to. What does it tell us about the subject. Nothing. It boils down to "he was arrested, never charged, and nothing happened". Nothing. Same with much of the little beefs between colleagues. What we need to know are things about him. What are his views? What are his accomplishments and failures? Who is this person? Those are the things we need to answer in order to make this a decent article. All these little details are beside the point. I'd suggest looking at how articles about other politicians are written and presented, such as Obama, Reagan, or Nixon. You want to try to go for the same style and format, not like sources. I hope that helps, and good luck. Zaereth (talk) 01:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree with you about the arrest charge. I've expounded further on the article talk page. Note that the OP's summary seems to be misleading. While it's true the charge was dropped, this was only after Gurtler completed pre-trial diversion (I suspect community service of some sort) and paid a costs/fee/fine/whatever. The relevance of Gurtler requesting a jury trial is unclear, Gurtler seems to be the only who who keeps bringing that up and while I have no idea about the specifics in Georgia or whatever, AFAIK diversion is often offered based more on whether it seems to be a good fit for the person and the charge than for any fuss the person makes. Also AFAICT, Gurtler was charged. Charges are generally part of diversion since the idea is generally that the charges will be dropped or at least reduced if the person completes diversion, and from what I can tell, even Gurtler agrees he was charged. Otherwise he couldn't have got the prosecutor to drop the charges after he "requesting a jury trial" and completed diversion. Nil Einne (talk) 17:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm just going by the info as written in the article. It doesn't say anything about all of that. It basically says nothing about this person. If we can expand on it in a way that gives us some insight into him, then by all means. Zaereth (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I might tell you, since you're obviously new, that using multiple accounts will get you blocked, so you may want to pick one and ditch the others. Please read our policies, in particular WP:Reliable sources, WP:Verifiability, WP:No original research, WP:Conflict of interest, and perhaps throw in WP:Manual of style. And sign your comments by typing four tildes (~) at the end, so people can tell who is talking. I also hope that helps. Zaereth (talk) 01:53, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
And WP:BLP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Kylie Minogue

It appears that editors are constantly readding Kylie Minogue's DOB from a completely unreliable source - Hello Magazine. It's not clear also why they even need to note down her full date of birth. I am concerned that we are violating BLP quite egregiously here. Getting a second opinion in the appropriate area to do so. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 06:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Her birthdate is well and truly in the public domain, as can be verified by impeccable sources (Billboard, BBC News, Newsweek, Metro, the joint exhibition run by the Manchester Art Gallery and the Melbourne Arts Centre, The Telegraph, and of course Kylie Minogue herself, and that's just from the first page of Google results on Kylie Minogue birthday). There's no possible way this isn't widely published by reliable sources, and as such WP:DOB doesn't apply. ‑ Iridescent 06:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
See Talk:Kylie_Minogue#DOB_unwise. Chris is out on a limb here. If the sourcing is OK, it is OK to include it.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The sourcing was not OK. If the consensus here is that the information is widely known in reliable sources, then I’ll bow to the consensus. But the sources provided have so far been dreadful, you admit it yourself on the talk page. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I've just given you six sources that are impeccable by Wikipedia's standards, and those are literally from just the first page of a Google search; this is one of the most famous people in the world we're talking about here, and I could probably find a hundred reliable sources with minimal effort. You can't just dismiss every news organisation in the world as "dreadful". I really don't get what point you're trying to prove here, but I strongly recommend you read WP:DOB which doesn't say what you appear to think it says. ‑ Iridescent 07:46, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Given I'm deeply uncomfortable violating someone's privacy by revealing their full DOB, are you ordering me to add those sources you've provided myself? is there any reason you haven't added them? Not sure what point you are making here. Or are you saying that you believe that because other reliable sources are available it's ok to only quote unreliable ones? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh hold on, I think you misunderstood me. I don't have an issue with your sources. I was saying the existing source was unacceptable. I have already said I will bow to consensus, which is why I took this here to the BLP noticeboard for a second opinion. I, personally, refuse to participate in an edit that puts in the full DOB, but won't oppose a decent source on someone who is sufficiently in the public spotlight. - - Chris.sherlock (talk) 09:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
This isn't a rerun of Jim Hawkins (radio presenter), where the full DOB was removed after Hawkins himself objected. Kylie Minogue is a hugely famous pop star and little would be achived by removing the full DOB.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I remove uncited DOB:s myself if I notice them, but with sources like [18] I don't see a problem. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Just a side comment, I wouldn't describe Metro as an unimpeccable source. Their video game reporting is good (or at least used to be), but I wouldn't want to use that on its own for anything BLP related. Obviously not the case here though. Scribolt (talk) 15:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Neither is Newsweek, according to WP:RSP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
It's only unreliable for celebrities born after 2013 ;-) Scribolt (talk) 16:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
So to clear the air, IMO it is a violation of WP:DOB to remove a reliable source for the person’s DOB and keep only an unreliable source. Editors should take care not to do this. Does anyone disagree with this observation? - Chris.sherlock (talk) 00:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
The intent of the BLP rule is to protect a person's right to control their own personal and private information, but we can't force that control upon them. It's acceptable when the full date is so widely published that we can reasonably infer the subject does not object to its publication. (If they did, then one would expect them to have had the sources redact that info themselves, which most reliable sources will upon request.) Here, it has been demonstrated that the date has indeed been widely published. While I would argue that the most reliable source should be used in all cases where those sources provide adequate info, it seems at this point to be a distinction without a difference. Does it change the end result? Zaereth (talk) 01:10, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
It does, it encourages others to rely on unreliable sources, brings us into disrepute, violates the quite strict BLP, and makes a mockery of WP:RS. It actually always matters, but especially so for articles about living people.
It also matters because anyone who comes along and sees it, under WP:BLPREMOVE must remove the source. Most wont go digging through the history to find that previous, reliable sources were provided, which is exactly what happened here. I almost (almost!) consider removing reliable sources and leaving unreliable sources vandalism, but I acknowledge that sometimes incompetence trumps maliciousness. I certainly didn’t enjoy being taken to WP:AN/I because I didn’t notice another editor just removed the reliable sources because of sheer bloody-mindedness. - Chris.sherlock (talk) 05:51, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
The thing is, no source is reliable for all types of information. For example, a book on auto mechanics is likely perfectly reliable for info on engines and transmissions, but would be unreliable for, say, info on atomic physics, and visa versa. If all sources agree on the date, then one can easily infer that they must all be reliable for that particular information. As such, it doesn't really seem like a violation of BLP, but something to work out on the talk page. Now if the source in question is full of a bunch of unreliable info that would only serve to mislead the readers, then I would worry a little more, but just going by what I've read here it doesn't seem like something to lose sleep over. Although, since they all agree, it seems an obvious solution just to add one or two more sources, although I wouldn't go past three in total for a single line. Zaereth (talk) 17:10, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devra_Davis

This article has a host of defects and really should be removed until they are corrected. Major issues 1. Puffery: "first of its kind in the world"; "major media outlets"; "cutting-edge studies" 2. Many vague and unsubstantiated claims; examples: "has held a number of posts at universities around the world" - no names and no evidence. "a founder of occupational medicine in 1988" - no reference. "She also has advised Green America, Environmental Working Group, the Green Guide, and Healthy Child—non-profit organizations that promote environmental health." - no reference. 3. Multiple (about a dozen) cases of using the subjects' CV as a source. This is not an academic reference - it's essentially "original research" and it's quite likely that the subject and/or close associates of the subject wrote much of this material.

Welp, I just took a ride on the Wonkatania through the sources: 1 part staff bios, 1 part academic blogs critical of her work, and 1 part book reviews/sellers, with a smattering of local TV news coverage. What's interesting to me is that, buried in all of the appointments, awards, accolades, etc...this person is really (probably) only mostly notable for her borderline fringe theories about cell-phone radiation and cancer conspiracies. Ditch ∝ 01:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Infobox officeholder has a residence field

I thought we didn't include specific details about where people live in BLPs. See Firhad Hakim as an example. Doug Weller talk 17:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

A residence field of some sort is not-utterly-unreasonable, as it reflects whether the politician actually lives in their constituency, or where a national politician hails from. But it should be at the borough level at most, not used for a street address, as in your example. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Isn't it often unclear where they actually reside? Most MPs have a residence in the London, one in the provinces and one in their constituency, and might spend most of their time somewhere else. TFD (talk) 02:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Frederico Lapenda

Anyone who has some time on their hands can clean up Frederico Lapenda; an editor with the same username has been editing it and other articles that link to it. ElKevbo (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Nova Scotia killings, map and listing addresses

This article is not a biography, but I presume some WP:BLP policies may apply to it. We had a rather helpful map included. I am not sure about the sourcing for it yet. Anyway, it purports to show addresses of properties owned by the perpetrator and victims. This certainly could be relevant, particularly if this is where the shootings took place. I removed it because I was concerned about the sourcing and whether it runs foul of BLP policies, but would very much appreciate input from others about whether that is actually the case, and how we have dealt with similar things in the past. The talk discussion is here. Thanks--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Addresses of victims - except to the level of township or zip code - would be too much detail. --Masem (t) 00:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Anthony William

This entire article is written to undermine the work of its subject. Almost all data included is intended to discredit the subject, and the tone is contentious from beginning to end. It is not objectively factual, neutral, or helpful to either supporters of the subject or those who disagree with his claims and his work. It is not balanced. I request a review and edit of this article so that it is more in line with the encyclopedic tone that Wikipedia is known for - otherwise, this article just feels like a somewhat veiled but poorly disguised attempt to smear its subject, which I do not expect to find on Wikipedia. Thank you.

I think a thorough parsing of the sources could result in the length and breadth of this article being significantly reduced. However, if what you mean by "balanced" is 50/50 content given to "supporters of the subject" and "those who disagree," then I don't think that's going to happen, because just a cursory look at freely available independent sources shows that most tend to fall on the critical side, so it would be expected that information would be more prevalent in the article. Ditch ∝ 03:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Joe Biden's mental health.

This discussion has run its course -- the OP has received extensive advice (even if not the advice he/she was hoping for). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Is it a BLP violation to discuss sources which speculate about Biden's mental health?  Discussion here:[19]. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think in past situations, we have avoided adding such details unless it has been from an official medical and authorized for release by the subject per the doctor/client relationship. I always argue against including arguments that question the mental capability of anyone based on opinions made from afar.--MONGO (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm just asking if it's ok to discuss on the talk page.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Seems there was a discussion but has been closed. I wouldn't go so far as to say it is a BLP violation, but past precident for such things, even when talking about the average Wikipedian's worst nightmare, seems to reject inclusion of such material as happened in this Rfc.--MONGO (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

To answer the question as asked, no it is not a BLP violation to discuss sources in and of itself. The discussion which you link to does have BLP violations though. The way the question is phrased asserts the content as being true, and that's not the appropriate way to discuss sourcing questions about health issues. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I'm far from an expert in this area, but my instinct is to agree and say that it's not appropriate. I'm not aware of any ironclad rules, but when it comes to page after page editors have declined to allow for such speculation. As stated above, it would be another thing if an official medical report was being discussed. Otherwise, I don't think such talk page debates are right even if they're not technically BLP violations. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Any attempt to add such would end in a huge discussion and ultimately be rejected. The sources for this are nothing compared to the huge number of psychiatrists and psychologists that have said more than this about Trump. O3000 (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I feel that the entire discussion should not have been collapsed, especially not the link to the Trump RfC which would answer the question.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think this header is just as much of a problem as the previous one. It's a time-honored disinformation technique --- "XXX doesn't look well. Just sayin'..." It's also on its face not a noteworhty factor in his biography. This section should be archived. SPECIFICO talk 19:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

That sounds awfully close to casting aspersions.  I'm looking for something constructive about how to discuss this, not censorship.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
There's nothing constructive about repeated BLP smears. It's inappropriate to insist over and over that it's a legitimate topic, based on minimally sourced opinion. SPECIFICO talk 19:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The Goldwater rule applies here. Much as the media might like to ask medical experts to give a diagnosis of a person that they have never met, it is unprofessional to do this. It also fails WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The Goldwater rule doesn't say the Goldwater rule cannot be discussed.  It feels like unequal enforcement of policy to allow so much discussion of Trump's mental health and not allow two sentences asking about Biden's.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I would like to have uncollapsed comments such as "I question whether we should add information about the media's discussion of Biden's mental health.  I see that we have a recent RfC (with link) about Trump which may offer policy interpretation.". Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on this but found this news article. Like it or not, it has become something of a standard tactic to question the mental health of politicians. The problem is that it is not reliably sourced and is basically a form of gossip.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
That's exactly correct. These columnists don't follow the BLP rules we do. Discussing someone else's mental health outside of the professional context is abhorrent. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
  • r.e. Biden v. Trump, it's not really appropriate to compare two different pages maintained by different editors and try to set up a sort of "sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander" situation. A great many will find fault with discussing potential mental health issues in terms of both articles. If there are sustained issues with Trump's one, then we can start a new section on the related talk page. Otherwise, two wrongs don't make a right. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 20:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I am concerned about Biden's mental health, and I have heard many sources discussing similar concerns. I feel that it is stigmatizing to say such discussions are "abhorrent". That Independent article itself discusses Biden's mental health, so it does not support the argument that we should not discuss it, only that we should not make assumptions or diagnoses. I am not suggesting we follow the same rationale as the Trump talk page discussions, only that we try to learn from them. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Kolya Butternut, I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and based on my professional ethics, I do find the practice of armchair diagnosis to be abhorrent. What is there to "discuss"? Trying to insinuate that Biden has dementia? It's just as wrong on Trump's page as it is on Biden's. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Your concerns about Joe Biden's mental health, while touching, mean nothing to the project of building an encyclopedia. This sounds to me as though you may have ulterior motives--I would encourage some self-reflection on the matter. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:03, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. I wonder Kolya if you have the same concerns about Trump's mental health. Enough has been written about that subject, but you haven't referenced it. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
My motives at the moment are to avoid censorship.  I was surprised to see the current state of Trump's article.  I am not discussing diagnosis.  I feel like I am being strawmanned and accused of alterior motives.  Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I honestly am not making accusations; I am the first to admit that sometimes my own motivations are not exactly what I think they are. It just strikes me that starting with "I am concerned about Biden's mental health" does not make it sound like censorship is the main issue. I don't mean to straw-man you and I don't think any action should be taken against you, I just think Socrates was on to something when he advised us to know ourselves. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Please do not discuss what you think I am thinking. My main concern is absolutely censorship. I have a concern about Biden; I see that the media are discussing it; I see that it is not in the article; I discuss it, and now I feel I am being censored, which is now my main concern. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Particularly as mental health falls under MEDRS, I would say 1) its fair if an editor in good faith brings up questions related to a public figure's mental health per BLPTALK to ask if its appropriate to include/towards improving the encyclopedia, but 2) can be rapidly closed down by uninvolved admins if the sourcing clearly is not meeting MEDRS-type requirements for that and clearly not appropriate to include at the time. (To contrast, Trump's mental health has been brought into question by medical professionals of MEDRS caliber). Same with physical health or the like. --Masem (t) 21:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
God I really hate political season. Let the mudslinging and hypocrisy begin. You know, I've never really paid much attention to it until shortly after I first started here, when McCain and Palin were running. It was the exact same thing from the other side. Do you remember how desperate people were to put McCain's mental health into question within the article, using the exact same dubious sources? I even remember news anchors saying things like, "Now that we have a candidate, we have to start building a narrative around them". That's what most of the so-called news is these days, creating narratives, which is a literary term for fiction. For example, "a new normal" is not news, it's a narrative, and that's what you have to look out for. (My old journalism teacher is probably rolling in his grave.)
Look, were are allowed to discuss things about living people on talk pages, but we have to take great care not to assert things. Everything rides on how things are phrased. And it takes a lot more care and time to do so, so people will make mistakes, and we have to have some forgiveness for that, to a certain extent. People may have their own opinions they can't help themselves but to express, and as long as they're clearly opinions and not assertions, I can't see it as a violation of BLP. (However, those opinions never help that person's argument, but just the opposite, and they tell you far more about them than anyone else.) We have to be able to discuss things about people just to establish whether it's reliable and worthy of inclusion or not.
That said, those same things should be off limits in mainspace. There are certain lines that the media will cross during election season that we should not, and rank speculation about a person's health, mental or otherwise, is one of them. So is another pet peeve of mine, and that is going after someone's children. I don't care what side they're on, as an encyclopedia, we're supposed to be better than the media sources we use. Zaereth (talk) 21:32, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
So could I write in the talk page that Biden's physician has stated that Biden is a "healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief", while "Critics of the former vice president’s age often suggest the septuagenarian is mentally and physically too old to be president"?[20]. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
For me, this phrasing would run afoul of WP:WEASEL. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
To Kolya's benefit, what they have in the first set of quotes (the WEASEL wording) is a direct quote attributed to the physician, not Kolya's own words, from the linked NBC article. We'd not be able to change that but whether to use the whole quote depends heavily on context why its needed. --Masem (t) 22:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
His doctor has examined him. His critics have not. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I think you just answered your own question. The "So could I write" means that you questioning it, not asserting it. Without that, or something similar (ie: I heard somewhere ... but don't know if it's true, or This sources says ... is it ok to include), then I'd say no. Zaereth (talk) 21:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I find this frustrating. I feel like I'm not getting any suggestions for how to discuss what the media is saying on the talk page. You're saying that I cannot discuss what this NBC article says? If so, what would be an example of a way to discuss on the talk page what the media is discussing? Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:09, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
My suggestion, is simply that unless there is sufficient weight (DUE) of appropriate sources that believe Biden's physical health is poor, there's really no reason to bring up the issue as we will generally default to presume any BLP is healthy in both body and mind when writing about them. I did try to search for sources on Biden's critics about his physical health and the only recent immediate hit was the Washington Examiner which is NOT an RS, so in your shoes, there's no point to bring up his physical health. But that's a 2-3 minute search. Now, how you raised the question on mental health on the Biden talk page seems fair - both WaPo and Politico are RSes, so as I said, that's reasonable fair game to ask in good faith. But is there weight to add that criticism yet? Especially without MEDRS backing, not really. So the quick shutdown of that thread was fair. Just use common sense, think a few steps ahead knowing the environment around the article. --Masem (t) 22:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
To add to my comment based on what SPECIFICO says below: if you don't think about how you approach the discussion around a BLPTALK issue, making sure you demonstrate the sourcing and weight that makes it a necessary issue to bring up, you should not be too surprised if the discussion is closed down quickly. BLPTALK is a reasonable allowance to build an encyclopedia and I believe you are acting (currently) in good faith, but its an open invitation to allow bad faith actors to throw accusations. So admins are going to be very quick on the trigger to close down unproductive discussions touching on BLPTALK. You should not take that as an insult to you as an editor or your ideas, its just keeping WP from becoming a political time bomb. --Masem (t) 22:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Masem above. In particular to the NBC article, you are talking about a throwaway line from the "Meet the Press" blog, used simply to set up a rhetorical contrast to Biden's physician, and not specifically cited. You can certainly discuss this, but by my lights, it is thin gruel indeed for inclusion in any article. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Kolya Butternut, this board is not the place to enlist others to help you bend the rules or state your personal concerns artfully enough to avoid sanctions. It's very troubling to hear you say your main concern is Biden's health. Previously you were very concerned about the exact words Michael Bloomberg denied having spoken to a female employee. Etc. As Dumuzid and Masem have eloquently stated, Wikipedia editors are here to survey the range of RS reporting and summarize it proportionate to its weight. These insinuations -- some of which it turned out were due to the vestiges of Biden's childhood stutter -- these insinuations do not reflect any prominent narratives in mainstream RS reporting. There is a very diverse group of editors on this thread. There is a clear consensus in response to your question. SPECIFICO talk 22:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
There are too many problems with what you've just said for me to care to respond to, and it's a violation of your sanctions, so I'll move on. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

As I said, my main concern is the censorship, so I would like to unhat part of the talk page discussion and move on. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

We know about your censorship concerns; I think it would be helpful if you explained what your concerns were about Mr. Biden's mental health? It might help limn the conversation. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I said "I am concerned" to say that this is not an attack on Biden; I feel that it is no more abhorrent to discuss Biden's health than it would be to discuss the health of a loved one. That is a digression. As I said, I've seen this in the media. I've seen headlines such as "Trump attacks Biden's cognitive health in possible general-election preview",[21] and I was surprised nothing is in the article about this conversation, and now I feel censored, so I would simply like to unhat part of the conversation where I simply raise the topic, add some sources, and link to the Trump RfC. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
This is not about censorship. I mean no offense, but I really wish people would look up the definition of the word before using it. "An official who examines material that is about to be released, such as books, movies, news, and art, and suppresses any parts that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security". This is not censorship. It is protecting the subject against possible libel and misinformation that is unfortunately common practice in political campaigns (and quite frankly to protect Wikipedia on several levels). Wikipedia is not here to spread campaign rhetoric, and there just isn't room for all of it. We just need to have an article about this person's entire life and career, and give every bit of information its due weight. And anything medical is under extreme scrutiny. This requires the highest quality, peer reviewed sources, because people rely on what we tell them. There are no officials here, and this has nothing to do with anything more than basic human decency. And I would say this regardless of who the subject may be, be it a presidential candidate or some college professor nobody has ever heard of. Zaereth (talk) 02:08, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I feel like nothing of what I just communicated was addressed. I find getting sidetracked by pedantry to be frustrating, but for the sake of accuracy I want to point out that what you've given is just one definition of the noun "censor", which is found in The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words. The common definition is "To examine and expurgate",[22] but what is more relevant is the policy WP:NOTCENSORED, which I would think extends to talk pages, provided WP:BLP is not violated. Please focus on what I am actually asking for. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:40, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Kolya Butternut, I would respectfully suggest that you have asked and the question has been repeatedly answered. Moving on at this point might be wise. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:14, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. I have asked a very specific question and for some reason we're talking about everything else. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Is it a BLP violation to discuss it? No, as we have been doing here. The discussion at the talk page was a bit more inflammatory and so was hatted out of an abundance of caution. It is not censorship if consensus is against you; it simply means you haven't carried the burden of persuasion. It seems to me the outcome thus far is pretty clear. Good luck either way. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:46, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I hope I am correctly inferring that unhatting the part of the talk page conversation which is not inflammatory will be permitted, and I may add to it, taking into consideration what we have discussed here. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
My apologies if I am misinterpreting--but please don't infer that from me. I am in favor of the hatting and, perhaps more importantly, have no particular influence. To the extent you're inferring that from elsewhere, best of luck and have a good evening. Dumuzid (talk) 04:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I hear you say that my question has been repeatedly answered, but I continue to ask for more precision, and perhaps that is unfair. I will be bold and use my best judgement. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Short of writing your comments for you, I don't know what else to say. It seems like you're not getting the answers you want to hear, and just keep pushing, but that doesn't change policy. It's not difficult to do. But unhatting only part of a discussion is likely not going to happen. Start a new discussion if you like, but be careful how you phrase your comments, and be mindful that you're almost assuredly wasting everyone's time per WP:SNOW. There is nothing else to add here. Zaereth (talk) 05:18, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I think that MASEM's comments in particular offer the most helpful guidance, but most other comments I haven't found helpful, including your characterization of my behavior here. Especially derailing for me were the personal attacks by others. If I haven't understood and have tried your patience I apologize. Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Barbara Bollier NPOV discussion

I'm posting to request some eyes on the Brabara Bollier article and the related Susan Wagle article. I'm concerned that some recently added material in both articles fails DUE and IMPARTIAL [[23]], [[24]]. The talk page discussions have stalled so I thought additional eyes and guidance would be helpful. Thanks! Springee (talk) 01:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I would agree that most of those additions is not due. The Medicaid expansion information for Bollier looks more relevant, but I think it would need to be revised if included. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 18:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm watchlisting both. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging: Springee, Wallyfromdilbert, Muboshgu, Missvain.
Springee asked to me to chime in after I reviewed Paul V. Malloy for the New Pages Patrol. All these discussions have been caused by the work of User:Activist. This user was also confronted by Missvain in an Admin role at the talk page for Don Young. I would like to stay out of the ongoing arguments between Springee and Activist.
Nonetheless, my impression is that Activist is properly citing all additions to these articles from reliable sources, but the material is written in a conspiratorial way with loaded word choice. All of Activist's bad news about the dark sides of these politicians can be verified, but I see reasons for concern about the way it is all presented. This has resulted in articles that are almost entirely about allegations of misconduct with very little else about these politicians. This is absolutely a problem under WP:UNDUE, leading to articles that are leaning away from Wikipedia's crucial WP:NPOV. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 17:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I've got a substantial amount of obligations that greatly constrain the time that I can devote to Wikipedia. I'd much rather edit that argue, which latter seems unproductive. I've also been awake for 30 hours or so and given that I don't even drink coffee or tea, I sorely need to get to zzz's. However, I think the analysis here is the forest is being obscured by the trees. I'll respond to all this this evening. Thanks to those of you who have patience. Activist (talk) 20:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The question of DUE continues. In a recent edit comments about Susan Wagle's campaign were added to Bollier's article [[25]]. It's not at all clear why this mention of Wagle should be in the Bollier article. Springee (talk) 13:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Bollier is the only viable Democratic candidate running in the Kansas U.S. Senate race, and the one whom state senate president Susan Wagle has singled out for such a vicious and false attack, the details of which you've deleted. The chairman of the Kansas Republican party has just urged Wagle, and former JoCo Commissioner Dave Lindstrom, to drop out of the race because their fundraising has been substantially lower than Bollier's, who has raised over $2.5 m. The chair indicated he was concerned that both candidacies would "dilute" the chances of the party's favored candidate being nominated, though it did not name who that would be, and I don't think the party has endorsed anyone. It's notable because it's so unusual that the party would do this, encourage such a high profile candidate who has over a half million dollars in funds, to end her campaign. Of course, I don't expect you to actually read the cited sources that you scrub from articles while you're canvassing and Wikihounding me (or others). Activist (talk) 16:55, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
If you are referring to the material you added today, that change was reverted by Ryk72. Please consider the issues that are being mentioned by uninvolved editors. Springee (talk) 17:01, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

carole baskin

Wiki claims her business, Bic Cat Rescue, is a non profit organization.

News outlets have repeatedly reported this to be false, and that she has made over 8 Million since her husband died and she took over the park alone. That is profit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.13.125.163 (talk) 01:51, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

This is not really the place for this complaint, but to indulge for a moment, I think there may be some confusion as to the term "Not for Profit Corporation." It does not mean no money is made. You can go here: [26] and verify for yourself that to the State of Florida, at least, Carole Baskin's enterprise is a Not for Profit Corporation. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Alessio Bidoli

The english biography is absolutely wrong built and with a lot of uncorrect source citations. So the task is to remove this page and to write a new one.

Maxxdetom (talk) 08:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Sandy Mändly

Hello,

For the beginning, sorry for my bad english, I speak French and Italien, and my english is poor

I'm the "president of the club Servette FC Chênois (https://www.servettefc.ch/index.php/effectif-feminin) and a friend of the sandy's father. The correct name is Sandy Maendly and not Mändly. It's a mistake of the swiss football association at the beginning and they correct it now : https://www.football.ch/fr/ASF/Equipes-nationales/Equipe-feminine-A/Team.aspx/t-41650/p-129027/

Can you rename the page ?

Thanks a lot --SFCCF (talk) 21:56, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Done, I think. Fixing it here in en:Wikipedia was easy; the trouble is that the error had spread to both Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. I tried to fix them too, but I don't spend much time at either and may have made a mistake in one or the other -- I invite more experienced editors to check to see that I haven't made a mistake. -- Hoary (talk) 22:30, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Imran Ahmad-Khan

Imran Ahmad-Khan

Please edit: - the name (Imran Ahmad Khan not Imran Ahmad-Khan) - add website link (imranahmadkhan.org.uk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tofty122 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Richard Pusey

The main focus, which the article describes, is the recent deaths of four Victorian Police officers. They died on 22 April 2020. The article ignores too many of the policies at WP:BLP for an individual user to fix. It needs to be looked at immediately and whole sections removed, if not the whole article deleted.shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 05:39, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm worried that too much ignoring of WP:BLP occurs in this article. The subject was arrested yesterday for an incident, which occurred the day before. Some sources are not reliable. Reliable ones, which are cited, use phrases like "allegedly" or "accused of", such caveats are missing from this article. It needs to be severely re-editing or even deleted.shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 06:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

  • I've removed that name for the time being. As regards the article, all the sources are now RS, so the only thing that remains is "is he notable apart from this accident"? There's some prior coverage of him, but I'd say it's borderline. Black Kite (talk) 13:51, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
The article still violates WP:BLPCRIME per For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. He has not been convicted of any of the most recent allegations, which are shown under the subHead of 2020 Eastern Freeway crash. This puts forward information as if it is undisputed fact rather than claims/allegations/accusations. His presumption of innocence has been violated: the subject has not had a chance to defend himself, in a court of law, on these charges. It smacks of trial by media, in this case by WP itself.shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 23:03, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Jussie Smollett

Half the lead is about his allegedly false assault report. Anyone care to take a trimmer to it? Gleeanon409 (talk) 04:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Kiki Camarena

A host of high-quality academic sources discuss the possible or even probable role of the CIA in killing the DEA agent Kiki Camarena, back in the mid-1980s. There's an academic review that summarizes other academic and journalistic writings on the topic, titled "Spies, Assassins, and Statesmen in Mexico’s Cold War", published in Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (Amsterdam Iss. 103, Jan/Jun 2017, pp.143-155) and written by professor Wil Pansters, head of the Department of Social Sciences of University College Utrecht:

In May 1984, the influential journalist and columnist Manuel Buendía was brutally shot in the back in the centre of Mexico City... In a painstaking investigative process, the authors along with other journalists in Mexico and the U.S. became convinced that the Buendía and Camarena killings were linked, and much of the book is about the Bartleys trying to put the different pieces together. The most important element is that the interests behind both killings go beyond criminal interests and reach into the political domains on both sides of the border. In the mid-1980s, Mexico's one party regime confronted serious challenges, while the Reagan administration was deeply involved in a Cold War battle against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Buendía and DEA agent Camarena had each separately discovered that the CIA was running a dark network, which involved Mexican and Central American drug traffickers that imported cocaine into the U.S. and facilitated the movement of arms to the contras. Nicaraguan contras were trained at a Mexican ranch owned by one of the country's most notorious capos. CIA pilots flew many of the planes. The DFS functioned as the go-between, and hence involved the Ministry of the Interior. The Mexican army provided the necessary protection, and got a bite of the pie. Since the overriding concern of the CIA was the anti-Sandinista project, it trumped the DEA's task of combating drug trafficking, and covertly incorporated (or pressured) parts of the Mexican state into subservience. Buendía had found out about the CIA-contra-drugsDFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network. They knew too much and were eliminated on the orders of the U.S. with Mexican complicity. Later official investigations attempted to limit criminal responsibility to the dirty connections between drug traffickers, secret agents and corrupt police, leaving out the (geo)political ramifications.

The review quotes from "Eclipse of the Assassins. The CIA, Imperial Politics, and the Slaying of Mexican Journalist Manuel Buendía," by Russell H. Bartley and Sylvia Erickson Bartley, University of Wisconsin Press, 2015. That book concludes,

The preponderance of evidence... persuades us beyond any reasonable doubt that [journalist] Manuel Buendía was slain on behalf of the United States because of what he had learned about U.S.-Mexico collusion with narcotics traffickers, international arms dealers, and other governments in support of Reagan administration efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Camarena was... killed for the same reason.

When I tried to add this information to Camarena's biography, over a year ago now, the content was reverted with promise of discussion. No discussion has occurred. Help would be appreciated. -Darouet (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Just put it back in. This isn't a BLP issue -- he is long dead... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
@Nomoskedasticity: it's done, here [27]. -Darouet (talk) 15:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Still unresolved

The content is again being removed [28], and without any explanation other than "fringe sources." But the sources being removed are academic and also from the mainstream press, and the Justice Department has reportedly opened an investigation into the issue. Jaydoggmarco can you please comment? -Darouet (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe the CIA are the ones removing the content..?

Firejuggler86 (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

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