Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive337

Lee Soon Ok

This is a very complicated, convoluted dispute so I've tried to summarize and organize it all the best I could to save others the time and energy of having to sort through it and make sense of it all, too. I've collapsed quite a bit of the information, however, so that it's compressed on the page.

There's a disputed edit which is based on sources that provide insufficient evidence for its claims. This is especially serious since it's a potential WP:BLP issue as it introduces highly negative information about a person who presently has a good reputation according to the article. Overall, this negative information seems to come from a fringe and to not accurately reflect the person's overall, actual reputation in the world.

The article involved is about Lee Soon Ok, a North Korean defector. After escaping from North Korea during the late '90s, Lee publicly accused its government of having prosecuted and imprisoned her for financial crimes that she didn't commit. These alleged crimes were related to her job as a government material goods manager.

The disputed edit would add unfounded, highly negative, and extremely vague and confusing claims against Lee Soon Ok. It would cast doubt on her innocence in the crimes she was accused of, but would be WP:OR because Lee doesn't have a tarnished or questionable reputation, and her story hasn't been substantially disputed or questioned in reliable sources. The few claims against Lee exist at the periphery WP:FRINGE, and not coincidentally, are of extremely poor quality, evidence-wise. It's difficult to even specify exactly what some of them are because the “evidence” is so vague, scanty, undeveloped and confused. Additionally, one of the edit's main sources, a South Korean news article from 2004, is being translated by machine, and it's hard to conclude with certainty what's being said and by whom.

This is the edit in question is here:

[1]

[2]

First, Lee has never claimed to have been a "political prisoner" -- a term generally meaning someone who has been persecuted by a government for taking a stand against it or for his or her beliefs. The article doesn't call Lee a political prisoner, either, so it's nonsensical to include a statement that claims to refute her claim of being a political prisoner because there is no such claim. There is, however, some debate about what the term "political prisoner” should mean (see political prisoner), and it's possible that Lee has been described that way by some third parties who employ it in a broader sense to mean anyone unjustly imprisoned by a totalitarian government, but that's irrelevant to the question of the truthfulness of her story.

Second, there's also no evidence backing up the claim that Lee is lying or has misrepresented herself. Chang says he knew Lee (probably through the defector community in South Korea, but there's no clarifying information provided anywhere), and he is quoted in an old South Korean news article (from Maeil Business Newspaper) as saying he doubts her story and that he knows that she was an economic criminal, not a political prisoner. After doing a second machine translation on that news article (using papago.naver.com rather than Google), it seems probable that it's Chang who additionally says that he was in the same prison as Lee, but the article doesn't say that he claims they were both there at the same time, or that he knew her there. Chang seems to support his claim that Lee was untruthful and was actually an economic criminal by saying that the prison, Kaechon, was an economic prison, not a political prison ("political prison" assumed from the context because the two machine translations both render the word, "cow"). There's evidence in reliable sources, however, that there are political prisoners in the Kaechon prison despite the fact it's part of the kyo-hwa-so system. And again, Lee has never claimed to have been a “political prisoner," anyway.

The disputed edit also alludes to a couple other claims about Lee from fellow North Korean defectors, and there's even less evidence to them than there is in Chang's case.

Additionally, most of these vague claims are tied to a single source, a blog/news article by researcher Jiyoung Song, which has been published in a few different forms and places, and which fails to adhere to proper journalistic standards in a number of ways, including that Song apparently never tried to contact the people accused in it of wrongdoing for comment.

Also, North Korea itself has apparently never commented on Lee's case or claims. If it had, then that would of course merit inclusion in the article, whether or not North Korea presented any evidence on the matter, given that it's the other party in the dispute. And the North Korean government is also the one that actually prosecuted and imprisoned Lee. It has her records and should actually know the truth about her case. She accused it of falsely accusing her. Yet, it's made no effort to give its side of the story since Lee made her claims public starting in the late '90s. It might have done so regardless of what the truth is, but if it knew that Lee was actually guilty, that would have been all the more reason for it to make a statement. One news article on Lee's testimony says its author attempted to contact the NK government for comment, but received no reply.

Overall, there's no evidence that Lee's reputation has ever been tarnished, or that there's a genuine dispute about her story as documented in reliable sources. Any “controversy” over her story only exists in a tiny, untested periphery, and for her Wikipedia article to suggest otherwise would therefore be highly inaccurate, even defamatory, and the product of WP:OR.

Lee's case generated some national and international media attention after her testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and it was included in the U.S. State Department's Religious Freedom Report in 2004. If her story genuinely had come into dispute – which would then merit mention in her article -- then almost certainly we'd see evidence that the media or some authority would have responded to objections about her claims by digging deeper into her story. And then, if anything substantial had turned up, the media would have gone to Lee for comment, and we'd have some response from her -- either statements she made in regard to the questions about her testimony, or else news that she had refused to comment. In short, we'd have some clear, incontrovertible evidence of a controversy, based on WP:RS, to include in her article and her response to it. But there is nothing like that in existence because there's been no general, documented controversy about Lee for Wikipedia to also document.

Notes for above

Maeil Business Newspaper. "U.S. State Department religious report... North Korean defectors 'absurd'," 2004, [3], Google Translate. "We acknowledge that North Korea's human rights are poor, but we cannot accept it from a North Korean defector's point of view," said Han Mo, a 39-year- old defector from North Korea . pointed out Jang In-suk, president of the North Korean Defectors Association, who had a close relationship with Lee, said, "Lee is a political prisoner (sic). He said, "I was engaged in sewing labor for about 8 years at the Gaecheon concentration camp, which is an economic prison camp, not a cow..." Jiyoung Song blog. "In the Making of North Korean Defector-Activists," July 23, 2015, [4] Jiyoung Song in Policy Forum. "Unreliable Witnesses," August 2, 2015. [5] Jiyoung Song in The Guardian. "Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart?" October 13, 2015, [6] Source: North Korea's refusal to comment on Lee Soon Ok. "Death, terror in N. Korea gulag," NBC News, October 24, 2003, [7] Efforts by MSNBC.com to reach North Korean officials were unsuccessful. Messages left at the office of North Korea’s permanent representative to the United Nations went unanswered... Soon Ok Lee, imprisoned for seven years at a camp near Kaechon in Pyungbuk province, described how the female relatives of male prisoners were treated. “I was in prison from 1987 till January 1993,” she told NBC News in Seoul, where she now lives. ”[The women] were forced to abort their children...

More information on Lee and accusing statements

1. Lee Soon Ok defected in the 1990s and accused the North Korean government of having tortured and threatened her for over a year so that she'd confess to having committed crimes that she says she was innocent of. The alleged crimes were related to her job as a material goods manager for the government. After defecting, Lee wrote a book, Eyes of the Tailless Animals, in which she describes in detail how she says corrupt officials falsely accused her and others in order to cover up for themselves, and also due to a power struggle between the public security bureau and the communist party. She says she endured torture for over year rather than falsely confess, but eventually gave in when she began to think confessing was her only hope of ever getting out alive, and her torturers promised to protect her family if she did. In 2002, Lee testified on North Korea's human rights abuses before the U.S. Congress along with fellow defectors Kang Chol Hwan, a prison camp survivor and author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, and Ahn Myong Chol, a former prison guard. 2. Besides Chang In-suk, the former head of the North Korean Defectors Association, there's another “witness” quoted in the aforementioned South Korean news article. Han Mo is also a North Korean defector, and he says that despite the country's poor human rights record, he can't believe Lee's claims. A third alleged witness is Choi Sung Chol, Head of the UK One Korea Association (an organization I've not found any trace of so far). Researcher Jiyoung Song says that she spoke to him in 2015, and he says that he also knows that Lee was actually guilty of the crimes she was accused of. The only basis for his claim, however, appears to be that he's from Lee's hometown in North Korea. His remarks are included in the footnotes of a blog post by Jiyoung Song. Finally, the alleged witnesses alluded to in the disputed edit also include nameless North Korean defectors from an internet discussion board who, according to Jiyong Song, also reportedly believe that Lee lied or exaggerated her story. Again, there's no actual evidence offered to back up the claim. 3. The South Korean news article mentioned above was written in response to the U.S. State Department's 2004 Religious Freedom Report, which quoted Lee's 2002 Senate testimony, which caused some shock, as has the testimony of other defectors. The comments by Chang and Mo were reaction-type statements in response to her testimony. a. These vague reaction comments never developed into a full-fledged controversy about Lee, however, suggesting that there was nothing substantial to them. For contrast, there's the case of defector Shin Dong-hyuk, subject of the book Escape from Camp 14, whose reputation has been affected after some of the details of his story were questioned, and he admitted to falsifying some of its particulars.

Jiyoung Song article quotes

"In the Making of North Korean Defector-Activists," [8] Shin’s credibility as a human rights activist was damaged but many still firmly believe that he was a victim of human rights violations. They are numerous other stories told by North Koreans that are later found unreliable even by North Korean standards. Lee Soon Ok offered testimonies for the US House of Representatives in 2004 about torture and burning Christians to death in hot iron liquid in a North Korean political prison, the account of which was recorded in the US Religious Freedom Report. Lee was, however, later found not a political prisoner but a petty economic criminal, the fact of which other North Koreans counter-testinomied.[3] Footnote: [3] Chang In Suk, then Head of the North Korean Defectors’ Association in Seoul, knew Lee Soon Ok and revealed that Lee was not a political prisoner. In an interview with the author in January 2015 in London, Choi Sung Chol, Head of the UK One Korea Association who is from the same North Korean city, Chong Chin, also witness that Lee was not a political prisoner but served a forced labour term for her forgery. Many former North Korean netizens in Seoul (www.nknet.org) and whom author has met or interviewed all agreed Lee’s accounts were fake to attract the US State Department and the foreign media.

Three versions of an article by Jiyoung Song

4. The disputed edit is also highly dependent on a single source, a 2015 opinion-style article by Jiyoung Song called, “Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart?” The impetus for Song's article seems to have been the controversy over Shin Dong-hyuk changing parts of his story. a. The article was first published by NK News in Korean and then republished in the UK Guardian. The Guardian has a section of North Korea-related stories called “North Korea Network.” It was also published in different forms on Song's blog and in Policy Forum of the Asia & the Pacific Policy Society. b. Even a casual reading of Song's article shows that it fails to meet basic journalistic standards for objectivity and ethics -- even in an opinion piece. Besides apparently not attempting to contact Lee or other defectors whom she asserts are lying or exaggerating their stories for money, she also makes a number of false assertions and mischaracterizations. She mentions Lee Soon Ok only very briefly in passing, bringing up the remarks of the aforementioned "witnesses," yet despite the fact that none of them have offered any solid evidence, she concludes that Lee's story was unreliable. Song also states that another defector, Kwon Hyuk, disappeared from public view after his testimony was questioned in 2004 -- yet he appeared in "Camp 14: Total Control Zone," a prominent documentary on North Korea, in 2013, just two years before Song's article (See ["The boy who grew up in North Korea's labour camp 14". And she implies that defectors Ahn Myung-chol and Chong Kwang-il have said that they either made up or exaggerated their stories, but offers no quotes from them and doesn't mention where these alleged remarks may be found. Song's article is also considerably one-sided. Other stories written on Shin Dong-hyuk and North Korean defectors are generally more balanced, suggesting that trauma or fear of repercussions might motivate some defectors to alter their stories, while Song's article suggests only negative motives -- that defectors merely make up sensational stories out of greed and it's "probably better than collecting rubbish or cleaning toilet in South Korea" (quote from her blog article). c. Song's article also appeared in two other places in 2015 in slightly different form and with different titles: first, in July, on Song's blog in its most extended form and with end notes (under the title, “In the Making of North Korean Defector-Activists”), and then in August in the Policy Forum of the Asia & the Pacific Policy Society (titled, “Unreliable Witnesses”). Some of the most detailed “evidence” against Lee offered by Song actually appears in a footnote to the blog article.

Two articles using Song's material

5. Since 2015, two academic articles have uncritically included and repeated Song's unsubstantiated material on Lee, without further investigation or elaboration. These are “Manufacturing Contempt: State-Linked Populism in South Korea,” by Joseph Yi, Joe Phillips & Wondong Lee, which appeared in Global Society in 2019, and, “Celebrity Defectors Representations of North Korea in Euro-American and South Korean Intimate Publics", from Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands by Adam Cathcart, Christopher Green, and Steven Denney. a. Overall, the sources for the disputed edit are: The Maeil Business News story from 2004. The three versions of Jiyoung Song's article, in which the material on Lee comes mostly from the Maeil article. And two journal articles in which the material on Lee comes from Song's article.

The following collapsed portion is from Fiwec81618, and also includes my response:

Sources and quotes on doubts about portions of Lee's accounts

Published academic RS sources (peer-reviewed journal/academic press book collection) "Manufacturing Contempt: State-Linked Populism in South Korea," doi:10.1007/s12115-019-00404-2. Mainstream media and academics, based in South Korea and other countries, have actively investigated and sometimes debunked the claims of defector-activists. Lee Soon-ok was “later found not to be a political prisoner but a petty economic criminal, a fact of which other North Korean defectors [testified]. "Celebrity Defectors Representations of North Korea in Euro-American and South Korean Intimate Publics", p. 537, Chapter 16 in Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands published by Amsterdam University Press, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1g13jn6 It is worth noting that Lee and her son were granted political asylum in the United States after providing key witness testimony. Both Lee Soon Ok and Kang Chol-Hwan’s testimonies have been called into question by South Korean researchers. The work of Jiyoung Song (2015) is noteworthy. News article Report from Maeil Business Newspaper, a mainstream South Korean newspaper (machine translation from https://papago.naver.com/, more details/quotes not included here) As Lee's testimony became known at home and abroad through the media, there has been controversy among North Korean defectors over the authenticity of Lee's remarks so far, as well as Lee's status and whether [s]he actually lived in a political prison camp. My response: a. On "Manufacturing Contempt": As far as I know, it only cites Jiyoung Song, and Lee's story hasn't been "debunked." And again, the whole "political prisoner vs. economic criminal" argument is a ruse. b. On "Celebrity Defectors": Again, the only source mentioned for its claims on Lee seems to be Jiyoung Song. And while the article says doubts have also been raised about the story of Kang Chol Hwan, the author of Aquariums of Pyongyang, I've been unable to find any of evidence of that, either. c. On the article from " Maeil Business Newspaper": the whole article should be read since its Song's chief source on the claims she makes about Lee. But the context for this particular excerpt is what was explained above: the article was written in response to the 2004 Religious Freedom Report which includes Lee's testimony. The Maeil newspaper talked to two defectors for their reaction to the report, which was considered shocking. And on this part, that there was controversy among defectors over "whether [s]he actually lived in a political prison camp," we can't even be sure what's meant there. First, there are the two types of camps (one usually called a camp and the other a prison in English), but also, does this mean that some defectors doubt that Lee was ever any type of prisoner at all? Because we're dealing with just a few comments on the fringe, there's a paucity of solid information to go on. In any case, Lee never claimed to be in the political prison camp, but in the prison for common criminals. From Kaechon concentration camp: "Kaechon concentration camp (also spelled Kaech'ŏn or Gaecheon) is a prison in North Korea with many political prisoners. The official name is Kyo-hwa-so (Reeducation camp) No. 1. It is not to be confused with Kaechon internment camp (Kwan-li-so Nr. 14), which is located 20 km (12 mi) to the south-east." Lee has claimed to have been in Kyo-hwa-so (Reeducation camp) No. 1. Perhaps when her story went from Korean to English and back to Korean again some of it was lost and confused in translation. I've seen evidence of that in parts of her story where there's clearly been misunderstanding and mistranslation.

Psalm84 (talk) 03:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm the other editor involved in this dispute. We have been discussing at length on the article's talk page. I have been trying to add a couple sentences on doubts expressed by others about parts of Lee's accounts, based on, from WP:PUBLICFIGURE: "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". This information appears to meet all of these criteria based on the coverage in the RS listed at the end of my post (I've added some additional South Korean news sources since the last time this was discussed in early March, though really the first two peer-reviewed, English language academic sources are enough on their own to source the proposed short mention about doubts in the article):

Noteworthy/relevant: Lee Soon-ok's notability comes from her accounts of experiences in North Korean prison camps, so it is relevant if there are well-documented and well-sourced records of doubts about some of her accounts.

Well documented: See sources below (peer-reviewed academic sources and articles in well-known newspapers).

Perhaps unlike User:Psalm84 I think the heart of this dispute is fairly simple—briefly: Whether or not we have quality RS that describe notable/relevant doubts about some of Lee's accounts. I think the answer is yes, and (in my understanding) User:Psalm84 thinks no.

Each of the sources below appears to meet the criteria for WP:RS (as third party coverage in either an established news source or a peer-reviewed work published by a well-known academic press), and describe various pieces of information on doubts about parts of Lee's accounts. So I strongly disagree with the assertion by User:Psalm84 that this is WP:OR. I also strongly disagree that this content is in any way WP:FRINGE as claimed above given the coverage in numerous RS (in fact it is rather the opposite). Above, User:Psalm84 extensively discuses work by Jiyoung Song, a source used by some of the newspapers and academic works below (though not the only source), and decides in opposition to those authors that Song's work is in large part not reliable, as well as making various other criticisms of these RS. But I don't see why this differing evaluation of one editor should even come close to outweighing the evaluations of multiple quality RS, both regarding their use of work by Song (who is herself an academic in Korean Studies) and their evaluation of other information/sources. The above editor seems to be taking the very difficult to defend position that the academics and news as cited below have actually got the situation all wrong (eg. WP:RGW).

Sources and quotes on doubts about portions of Lee's accounts (expanded)

Published academic RS sources (peer-reviewed journal/academic press book collection) "Manufacturing Contempt: State-Linked Populism in South Korea," published in Global Society (journal) (2019), doi:10.1007/s12115-019-00404-2. Mainstream media and academics, based in South Korea and other countries, have actively investigated and sometimes debunked the claims of defector-activists. Lee Soon-ok was “later found not to be a political prisoner but a petty economic criminal, a fact of which other North Korean defectors [testified]." "Celebrity Defectors Representations of North Korea in Euro-American and South Korean Intimate Publics", p. 537, Chapter 16 in Decoding the Sino-North Korean Borderlands published by Amsterdam University Press (2021), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1g13jn6 It is worth noting that Lee and her son were granted political asylum in the United States after providing key witness testimony. Both Lee Soon Ok and Kang Chol-Hwan’s testimonies have been called into question by South Korean researchers. The work of Jiyoung Song (2015) is noteworthy. News articles Report from Maeil Business Newspaper (16 September 2004), South Korea's main daily business newspaper (machine translation from https://papago.naver.com/, more details/quotes not included here) As Lee's testimony became known at home and abroad through the media, there has been controversy among North Korean defectors over the authenticity of Lee's remarks so far, as well as Lee's status and whether [s]he actually lived in a political prison camp. Report from Hankook Ilbo (7 February 2015), a Korean-language daily newspaper in Seoul, South Korea (machine translation from https://papago.naver.com/) In the past, North Korean defector Lee Soon-ok also testified in the U.S. Congress that North Korea killed Christians by pouring iron, saying he was a political offender from the 14th generation, but later it turned out to be false testimony. Report from Korea Economic Daily (2 April 2006), the second largest business newspaper in South Korea (machine translation from https://papago.naver.com/) Jeong Jang-jang, a researcher at Sejong Institute, said on the 2nd in the November issue of the policy report "Situation and Policy" published by Sejong Institute, "It is necessary to fundamentally review the investigation based on the North Korean Human Rights Act." Researcher Chung claimed, "To justify the need for the law, we cited the results of the U.S. Congress, and much of them were based on uncertain information or exaggerated introduction of North Korean human rights." He said, "After the inter-Korean summit, I encountered a number of cases of North Korean defectors in China after they were forcibly repatriated due to leniency and loose control," adding, "North Korean authorities are known to impose harsh punishment if they are forcibly repatriated." He pointed out that some North Korean defectors make exaggerated remarks to inflate their ransom, adding, "The testimony of Lee Soon-ok, who immigrated to the U.S. after defecting to the U.S., biological experiments on Christians iron injection murder are unrealistic enough to raise doubts among North Korean defectors. Report from The Chosun Ilbo (16 September 2004), a leading daily newspaper in South Korea and the oldest daily newspaper in the country (machine translation from https://papago.naver.com/, more details/quotes not included here) The controversial part of the report is the North Korean defector Lee Soon-ok (60. female).U.S. resident) who testified before the U.S. Congress last year about the murder of a Christian and a biological experiment. As Lee's testimony became known at home and abroad through the media, controversy arose among North Korean defectors over the authenticity of Lee's remarks, his status, and whether he actually lived in a prison camp for political prisoners. Han (39), a North Korean defector, said, "I admit that North Korean human rights are poor, but I can't accept it from the perspective of North Korean defectors," adding, "The U.S. government's inclusion in the report without going through confirmation procedures is very careless." Jang In-sook, chairman of the North Korean Refugee Association, who had a deep relationship with Lee, said, "Lee worked at a brothel camp, an economic prison, not a political prison camp, for about eight years," adding, "When I heard Lee's testimony, I got goosebumps because it was too different from the truth." Chairman Jang explained, "Lee is making too exaggerated remarks to raise his ransom," adding, "Even if it is a political prison camp, there is no case of killing people so brutally."

Fiwec81618 (talk) 04:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618 I have thought this issue was simple myself. The source material doesn't meet basic quality standards. All the complication comes in from going over the source material with all of its convolutions, and the fact that North Korea is complicated, and no less so when its issues are being dealt with in the West.

Now you've added other sources, and right now I don't have time to address them all, but on this piece of text:

"In the past, North Korean defector Lee Soon-ok also testified in the U.S. Congress that North Korea killed Christians by pouring iron, saying he was a political offender from the 14th generation, but later it turned out to be false testimony."

The whole article is apparently on Shin, so it's no doubt fairly recent and written long after Lee's testimony. Dates for these articles would be helpful. It didn't seem to translate.

But once again, on what basis has Lee's testimony "turned out to be false testimony"?

I have seen so many different translations from Korean of that incident that Lee says she witnessed. The reports about it all say different things, so it's not surprising that there's confusion about it. But Lee details it in her book, in fact. It was not a planned execution. According to her, she went to the ironworks in her role as a prison accountant (which was her work background) and she saw a prison supervisor become enraged at a small group of Christians working in the ironworks when they didn't answer him, and he then ordered other workers to pour molten iron on them to kill them after they were ordered to lie on the ground. It probably wouldn't have taken much molten iron to kill them. There's an illustration in the book that Lee likely approved, I would think. It shows only quite small amounts of the iron being poured on each prisoner. The prisoners who did the act did so on the basis that if they didn't, they'd be killed, too. So it wasn't a method of execution. It was the prison workers being able to kill the prisoners with impunity, which is something that other North Korean defectors have said.

Now, how would this incident possibly be proven false under the circumstances of North Korea being closed off as it is? The only thing I can think of is that this news report is likely repeating what's been said in the Maiel Business Report and by Jiyoung Song, concluding that Lee must be lying because she wasn't a political prisoner, but an economic prisoner. But again, she's never claimed to be a political prisoner.

Unfortunately, media can sometimes parrot a claim once makes it into the news.

And on this part of the quote, "saying he was a political offender from the 14th generation," I have no idea who or what that's referring, too, and I'm not even sure what that means, though I have some idea. What it means in this context, however, is even more puzzling. Psalm84 (talk) 05:15, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The incident as recounted in Lee Soon Ok's book, starting on page 116:

https://archive.org/details/eyesoftaillessan0000yisu/page/116/mode/1up?view=theater Psalm84 (talk) 05:24, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618

It seems like there's an error in the article from Hankook Ilbo.

When I searched on "the 14th generation" and "North Korea," Camp 14 came up.

So it seems like the article is saying that Lee claimed to have been a "political offender from the 14th generation (camp 14)," which is simply false. Lee clearly says that she was imprisoned in a resocialization center (pg. 8 of her book), just as Wikipedia also says in her article and in the article on Kaechon concentration camp. Wikipedia says she was in one of the re-education camps (Kyohwaso), Kaechon No. 1.

What's more, when I first heard that there were two types of prisons in North Korea (from hearing of Kang Chol-hwan's Aquariums of Pyongyang), I immediately recognized which type Lee was in--the type that was not Kang's--as I'd read her book and it was clear. For example, there were no children in her prison, and no three generations of relatives, either. I believe Lee mentions the other type, the camps, in her book more than once, however.

It could be possible, though, that the U.S. State Department's 2004 Religious Freedom Report either erroneously reported that Lee claimed to have been in Camp 14 (perhaps confusing the two), or perhaps it made it sound like she was claiming that, but from all I'm read, I'm quite positive she didn't. I looked for the 2004 report to see, but it doesn't seem to be online that I can see. Psalm84 (talk) 05:58, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I've added dates for the sources above. It looks like you're continuing to argue against the credibility/reliability/accuracy of the totality of the list of mainstream RS above (scholarly and news), this time covering the newly-added newspaper sources. Sure, media including RS sometimes make mistakes, but we aren't relying on one single source. Instead, we have many mainstream RS which are all telling us the same core point, which is that there are well-documented, noteworthy doubts about parts of Lee's accounts. Fiwec81618 (talk) 06:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I see a lot of irony in using material that seems to be playing fast and loose with the facts, without caring whether or not it's not getting the facts straight, when the issue at hand is someone else's veracity!

I'm going to have to leave this for right now, but I'll just note a few other things. I'll be closely going over everything else, too.

• I'm going to tentatively conclude that the Hankook Ilbo article erroneously says that Lee claimed to be a political prisoner in Camp 14, which of course isn't true. So it's not proof that she lied.
• The article from Chosun Ilbo is apparently the same one as the Maeil Business article. The text excerpted is identical.
• You seem to be continuing to argue that if something appears in a reliable source then that's all that matters. To save us both time and energy, I'll just copy here part of a disagreement we had on this subject after I pointed out to you serious journalistic flaws in Song's article:

Fiwec81618: "There is no Wikipedia convention which requires that all material on an individual's Wikipedia page must have been presented to that individual for comment."

Psalm84: It's implied. We're to make sure that source material itself meets objective quality standards. It's just proper journalism to seek out comment from news subjects who are accused of something. From Code of ethics in media:

Society of Professional Journalists' version

The Society of Professional Journalists created a code of ethics that are in effect today. The main mantra of the code is "Seek truth and report it."[1] The code also states that: "Journalists should be honest, fair, and courageous in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information. Journalists should:

"Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing."

Fiwec81618: No; we are not journalists, and we are not editing or publishing a newspaper. We describe what is written in RS. Why should your vote to exclude material outweigh multiple secondary RS describing the material as significant? The Wikipedia page you linked is not a page about Wikipedia policies and norms, but about journalists, and it isn't relevant here.

Reasonably questioning what's in reliable sources is part of editing. Obvious failures to meet journalistic standards shouldn't be overlooked. For instance, Song stating that defector Kwon Hyuk disappeared from public view after his testimony was questioned in 2004, when in reality he has spoken publicly after that, including in the 2013 documentary "Camp 14: Total Control Zone."

Why should alleged inaccuracies in Lee's story matter if you say that potential inaccuracies in critical articles about her don't? Psalm84 (talk) 07:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not proposing to write in Wikivoice that Lee's accounts are dubious or false, or to make a judgment on their truthfulness. Instead, the issue since the original diffs is that multiple quality RS have reported on doubts about some of her accounts (by both academic researchers and prominent North Korean defectors, named and unnamed), so it is appropriate for us to do so with attribution. If you are able to find RS supporting your position that doubts by these people about Lee's accounts have accuracy issues, then we should include those as well. Fiwec81618 (talk) 08:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618 Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources says this under Quoting:

"Editors should not rely upon machine translations of non-English sources in contentious articles or biographies of living people."

And just below that on the Verifiability page, under Other Issues, it says this:

"While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."

I'm beginning to sense that those news articles were based on false information that came from somewhere, possibly from all the translating that was done of Lee's story. I've seen that just going from Korean to English introduced a lot of relatively minor errors in her account. Nevertheless, though minor, minor errors can have great meaning.

In any case, it's an outright, demonstrable falsehood to say that Lee tried to present herself as a prisoner of Camp 14 or to have been in any of the political prison camps. It simply does not improve the article to include material that asserts something false which contradicts accurate information presented in the rest of the article.

I know I read somewhere recently in Wikipedia something along the lines that there isn't a specific policy or guideline for every conceivable situation as that's impossible. But there are serious issues here with the basis for this information being Korean news articles, and Wikipedia already acknowledges that machine translations for contentious articles and biographies of living persons (and this situation falls under both) are problematic. So problematic that it bans them.

If Wikipedia is going to record the claim that someone's testimony is inaccurate and likely to be a lie, then that should be demonstrably true in the source material. When I read an article on Wikipedia, I often go to the actual source material to learn more, and doing so clarifies the situation. In this case, the source material presents false information. It says that Lee claimed to be in one of the political prisons, and that's untrue. It's always been in reliable sources that Lee has said she was in a reeducation prison, Kaechon No. 1. That's why she's listed that way in Wikipedia itself.

There are significant issues with reliability with foreign-language sources, and it's evident such issues exist in this case.Psalm84 (talk) 10:35, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618 @Morbidthoughts According to Google Translate, the Hankook Ilbo story says this about Lee:

"Lee Soon-ok, a former defector from North Korea, was also a political prisoner from #14. She even testified in the US Congress that North Korea pours molten iron to kill Christians, but later it turned out to be false."

But in Hidden GULAG Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps (by David Hawk of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2003) it refers to Lee as "WITNESS: LEE Soon Ok, Kyo-hwa-so No. 1," and says:

"To escape even further torture and threats against her family members, Lee ultimately agreed to sign a confession. Afterwards, she was given a public trial and sentenced to fourteen years at Kyo-hwa-so No. 1, located at Kaechon, South Pyong-an Province, where, among other things, the prisoners manufacture garments," (pg. 44).

These news articles carry accusations that Lee said she was in Camp 14, which is mistaken. She's always claimed to have been in Kyo-hwa-so No. 1.

To introduce obviously false and contradictory information into the article would not improve it.Psalm84 (talk) 12:43, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts In case you're not familiar with this, or for anyone reading who might not be, here's the difference:

Kyo-hwa-so No. 1 in Kaechon (Kaechon concentration camp) is a reeducation prison principally for economic criminals, common criminals, etc. (though there's evidence of political prisoners being there as well).

Kwan-li-so (Penal-labor colony) No. 14 in Kaechon (Kaechon internment camp), "commonly known as Camp 14," is a penal labor colony only for political prisoners.

Kyo-hwa-so and Kwan-li-so prisons are two very different systems in North Korea.

For more information: Prisons in North Korea. Psalm84 (talk) 13:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to agree that the Guardian article falls under WP:RSOPINION and cannot directly be used to support factual assertions. Further, it does not refer to her as an economic criminal. So that assertion must be supported by more than one reliable source under WP:PUBLICFIGURE. Morbidthoughts (talk) 07:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts I agree with you on not directly using the Guardian article, and it should be treated more as a primary source. But it isn't needed to directly support any factual assertions. I've included above six different secondary sources (two scholarly, four newspaper) which record doubts about parts of Lee's accounts (for instance by named North Korean defectors active in the defector community and various researchers). The first scholarly source from Global Society (journal) (the main source for the original diffs above) quotes one version of Song's work as saying "later found not to be a political prisoner but a petty economic criminal" and The Chosun Ilbo reports on a defector saying she "worked at...an economic prison, not a political prison camp", though I don't think the specific wording "economic criminal" is essential to include. This dispute seems to more broadly be about whether or not to include any information at all about these doubts.

An alternative, more general wording I might propose is to add "The authenticity of some of Lee's accounts of North Korean prison camps have been questioned by some South Korean researchers and North Korean defectors." Fiwec81618 (talk) 08:42, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The neutral alternative description would satisfy BLP concerns. You could even describe their reasoning for the dispute, or the potential inaccuracy if she was not at the prison to observe if more than one of those sources support it under WP:WELLKNOWN as long as they are not tabloid journalism. Morbidthoughts (talk) 16:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts Lee actually is a convicted economic criminal in North Korea, though. She says so herself and so it's in reliable sources. It's actually what's in her Wikipedia article:

"According to Lee, she was a manager in a North Korean government office that distributed goods and materials to the country's people when she was falsely accused of dishonesty in her job. She believes she was one of the victims of a power struggle between the Workers' Party and the public security bureau police.

"She describes being severely tortured and threatened for months following her arrest while maintaining her innocence; however, a promise made by an interrogator to not take any punitive action against her husband and son if she confessed—a promise that she said she would find out to have been false—finally convinced her to plead guilty to the charges."

She was an "economic criminal" and has never claimed to have been a textbook "political prisoner."

But that is the claim in the South Korean news articles -- that Lee claimed to have been a political prisoner, not an economic criminal. And of course that claim was "debunked" because she is a convicted "economic criminal"!

It doesn't improve the article to introduce false claims that make the article self-contradictory. Without the disputed edit, the article clearly relates that Lee says she was an economic criminal in a reeducation prison. The disputed edit claims -- directly against what's in the rest of the article -- that Lee claims she was NOT an economic criminal, but a political prisoner in a political prison.

The South Korean news articles were in response to the U.S. State Department's 2004 Religious Freedom Report, and used Lee's 2002 testimony to the U.S. Senate. There are clear translation errors in Lee's testimony, and then the South Korean media translated it back into Korean. So, from Korean to English back to Korean. Some mistake was likely made there. That doesn't make Lee a liar. A likely mistranslation doesn't make someone a liar or debunk their story.

The difficulty in all this is that the basic falsehood is grounded in South Korean news media.

At Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources, it says this under Quoting:

"Editors should not rely upon machine translations of non-English sources in contentious articles or biographies of living people."

I recognize that these aren't direct quotes. Nevertheless, this statement suggests that adding contentious material to a BLP when the material is based on machine translations is potentially very problematic. Psalm84 (talk) 11:01, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

A little earlier here I've suggested an alternative wording: The authenticity of some of Lee's accounts of North Korean prison camps have been questioned by some South Korean researchers and North Korean defectors. We don't need to rely on machine translations because, as I described in my first reply here, we have two perfectly good English-language RS for this (peer-reviewed paper published in Global Society (journal) and scholarly book published by Amsterdam University Press), listed above under "Sources and quotes on doubts about portions of Lee's accounts (expanded)". I provided the additional multiple Korean language mainstream news sources above to further emphasize here that these questions have been widely-covered and are far from WP:FRINGE as you claimed earlier, and to provide a fuller picture of these questions in the context of RS.

As I also mentioned before, I don't think it's essential to include the wording "economic prisoner"/"political prisoner", although the English-language Global Society journal paper does describe these accusations and we can seek non-machine translations of the South Korean newspaper sources if these words end up being included and we want additional sources. Regarding some of your disagreements with the "political prisoner" description in various newspaper/scholarly RS, in the record of her 2002 U.S. Senate testimony she says I was a prisoner at one of these political prisons. From your quote from Lee's current Wikipedia article: she says she was falsely accused of dishonesty in her job. She believes she was one of the victims of a power struggle between the Workers' Party and the public security bureau police. So the descriptions and quotes in our many scholarly/newspaper RS describing her as claiming to be a "political prisoner" seem reasonable and there's no reason to simply discard all of these RS as you appear to be suggesting. Fiwec81618 (talk) 22:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I have only been vaguely paying attention to this thread and missed the machine translation bit until now. I agree with Psalm84, we really should not be adding anything contentious based on our machine translations. It's fine IMO to use machine translations to get an idea of what a source is saying you can see if it might be useful. Perhaps it's even okay to come up with a proposed wording based on the machine translations. But before you add it, you need to find someone to confirm the accuracy of the translations. It can't be that hard to find a Korean speaker who can help and someone needs to do that and confirm what the source actually says before you use a source in Korean. But as suggested by Fiwec81618, it may be that we can rely on English sources including English language Korean sources. As for the other stuff, is there have been possible translations failures by sources that's far more complicated. Generally the point of RS is we assume that we can trust them to get things right. Given this is BLP, it might be okay if you can provide strong evidence that the sources made translations errors but it's complicated. Nil Einne (talk) 09:13, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Looking into this quickly, I think Fiwec81618 has a point here. The issue of whether Lee should be called a political prisoner or economic criminal isn't really that important. I don't see it even matters whether the "political prison" is an accurate translation of what Lee said in her Senate testimony assuming it was in Korean. Whatever you want to call the prison Lee was in, the point seems to be that some sources have strong doubts that Lee would have witnessed what she claims to have witnessed in the prison she was sent to since it's not the sort of prison where such things occur in North Korea. This isn't to suggest that such things don't occur, they may do so, but those people are sent to different prisons. Likewise there may have been horrific things happening at Lee's prison, simnply not what she reported. Since Lee reports it as a first hand account, if there's no way it would have occurred at the prison she was sent to then it's not unreasonable sources challenge her account whatever you want to call the type of prison she was sent to or the type of prisoner she was. Note I have no idea whether these sources are right, perhaps the segregation of prisoners and prisons isn't as rigid as these sources think or these people were economic criminals who were later during their imprisonment found or alleged to be Christian. But if enough sources dispute her claims it seems fair to report that dispute in some way. If there are enough sources we'd need strong reason to exclude these sources not simply an editor's doubt they're correct. Nil Einne (talk) 09:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nil Einne Generally the point of RS is we assume that we can trust them to get things right.

Absolutely. But that's partly because in the flagship Wikipedia version, at least -- English -- usually most editors are dealing with RS in our own familiar language and milieu we've been immersed in. And this isn't a mere case of taking something from a Korean source that's about a non-controversial or non-BLP subject. It's both.

And all the sources without exception are based on materials from news reports that are false. Encyclopedias, Wikipedia included, are about providing accurate, not inaccurate, information--the most accurate information possible. RS can be wrong, and I don't think there would have been any issue if there had been two social and language milieus involved which apparently corrupted the information.

"Given this is BLP, it might be okay if you can provide strong evidence that the sources made translations errors but it's complicated."

There is strong evidence that the reliable sources in this case aren't so reliable. One of the news articles offered by Fiwec81618 says Lee was in Camp #14, when very strong reliable sources (Lee's own biography, expert reports and at least one other book on North Korea) say she was in #1. That's not irrelevant. The news article wrongly mentions that she was in #14 because it's integral to the claim that she lied. In actuality, the article is wrong, and she didn't lie. Two other news articles (which appear to be the same one published in two different newspapers) falsely suggest the same -- that Lee claimed to have been a political prisoner (in a camp like 14) when she was actually an economic prisoner (in one like 1). And that's a straw man because she's never claimed what the article says she did. It's a patently incorrect claim. These two (or three) articles are then the basis for all the rest of the sources that have been put forward. Psalm84 (talk) 11:21, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the Hankook Ilbo appears to refer to Camp #14, when other sources say Camp #1, so this may be a factual error and we should be careful about this. But your criticism that other news articles falsely suggest the same is inaccurate: they don't mention camp numbers. Referring to the actual text in those articles, I don't see how you can claim controversy...over...Lee's status and whether [s]he actually lived in a political prison camp is "a straw man" when Lee in her U.S. Senate testimony linked before says I was a prisoner at one of these political prisons. Fiwec81618 (talk) 06:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Nil Einne The issue of whether Lee should be called a political prisoner or economic criminal isn't really that important.

It is, though. Which is why Fiwec81618's first proposed edit includes to a defector saying he allegedly knows that she was an economic criminal, not a political prisoner. And whether it's present or not, that's the basis for saying Lee's story is doubtful or even has been "debunked."

Whatever you want to call the prison Lee was in, the point seems to be that some sources have strong doubts that Lee would have witnessed what she claims to have witnessed in the prison she was sent to since it's not the sort of prison where such things occur in North Korea...

Extreme brutality happens in both types of prison, and in the jails and holding centers as well. There are all sorts of RS attesting to that, most not even mentioning Lee. But her story has appeared in a number of RS, too, including the 2004 Religious Freedom Report put out by the U.S. State Department (the South Korean news stories here were written in response to it). Certainly experts on North Korea would be involved in creating the Religious Freedom Report, and Lee's story has been included in the works of other North Korean experts, too.

This is from the Chosun Ilbo article:

Jang In-sook, chairman of the North Korean Refugee Association, who had a deep relationship with Lee, said, "Lee worked at a brothel camp, an economic prison, not a political prison camp, for about eight years...

Lee's detailed story, which fills whole chapters of her book, explains that she was convicted of economic crimes. She has never claimed to have been a textbook "political prisoner."

Chairman Jang explained, "Lee is making too exaggerated remarks to raise his ransom," adding, "Even if it is a political prison camp, there is no case of killing people so brutally."

According to experts, brutal killings happen in all of North Korea's prisons. In this case, Lee said she witnessed a group of five or six Christians having molten iron poured on them to kill them when they refused to deny their faith. It was not a method of execution, however. The prison used a firing squad. Instead, guards were (and probably still are) able to kill prisoners with impunity and were rewarded for doing so. So this was an impulsive act by one or two prison staff members. If it was reported on in South Korea as though it were a formal execution method, however, then that would be untrue and could have prompted defectors to say it was unrealistic. It would actually make a lot of sense for defectors to say that was unrealistic. Chang's statement would then make much more sense:

"Even if it is a political prison camp, there is no case of killing people so brutally."

Meaning: "Even if it is a political prison camp, there is no case of [executing] people so brutally."

But if enough sources dispute her claims it seems fair to report that dispute in some way. If there are enough sources we'd need strong reason to exclude these sources not simply an editor's doubt they're correct.

There's very strong evidence that North Korean (correction: South Koreans) newspapers simply misconstrued and misreported Lee's testimony, giving the impression that she'd been caught in a huge lie, and then those erroneous reports were the basis for the rest of the sources. Psalm84 (talk) 12:36, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618

On the alternative wording, if Soon Ok Lee didn't lie, as the evidence very, very strongly suggests, then the alternative wording is still based on falsehood. To reflect reality is the highest goal. Is Wikipedia ultimately about giving people accurate information or giving them false information? Which is better? When you look on this page at the other articles being discussed, truth is very important. Often it's clear what the truth is and then reliable sources need to be found. There have been parties posting here saying what the truth is and then RS are found.

So, all Wikipedia guidelines and principles should, if properly used, work together to set us towards that goal. The guidelines and principles are means to an end, and none are ends in themselves. If an edit would add false, misleading and contradictory information, that's a problem that simply shouldn't be ignored under the rationale of "reliable sources." Even same-language reliable sources have been known to become unreliable sources here, and the fact that the doubts come from a foreign milieu and contradict the English milieu seems to be quite telling. Wikipedia already has caveats on the issue of foreign material. This dispute is not all happening within the English-language milieu, and I don't think there would be an issue in the first place if there weren't two different-language milieus involved. That seems to be the problem -- miscommunication -- not that Lee lied. Can you at least admit that as a possibility? But in any case, the editing problem should be able to be properly resolved. I'm sure that Wikipedia policies, including RS policies, and guidelines can be properly followed AND we can still end up with as accurate an article as possible. It just takes enough work.

On the journal articles, I'm going to look into them further, but they do nothing but relay what's in the news articles. If the news articles don't provide accurate information, then they don't, either. For example, one journal article says Lee's story has been debunked, which is a false claim. But there are other issues to take care of first.

The "economic criminal" (prisoner) versus "political prisoner" issue is at the heart of the edit, the alleged "proof" that Lee lied and where the doubts and claims of "debunking" come from. That point can't be glossed over.

Regarding some of your disagreements with the "political prisoner" description in various newspaper/scholarly RS, in the record of her 2002 U.S. Senate testimony she says I was a prisoner at one of these political prisons.

As I've already brought up and explained to you at length, the meaning of "political prisoner" is debatable, and it's used in different way by experts and journalists. Context matters. So doing due diligence while editing means taking that into consideration and incorporating it into your perspective once you become aware of the issues with the term--and I previously made you aware of them if you already weren't.

As a reminder, Wikipedia is a collaborative project, not an adversarial editing process. That means the whole of the article matters, not just the one part of it which an editor might be interested in. Being collaborative means going beyond our personal interests. The whole of an article should be our concern and those concerns should come into play in editing.

I can assure you, every single detail you've brought up to me I'm incorporating into my thinking about this disputed edit and the article as a whole, as to how it all fits into the whole picture, and that includes Wikipedia and proper application of all of its relevant policies and guidelines also. But it's as though I've never even pointed out and explained to you the issues with the term "political prisoner" because you don't take them into account. Your remarks here demonstrate that. Yet these issues are real, and documented. Collaboration entails both working against (as different perspectives cause disagreements) and working with other editors despite disagreement. In the same way, you ignored the huge disparity between Lee always saying she was in Kaechon #1, as reliable sources demonstrate, and the (unreliable) news article that explicitly and falsely claims she was in Kaechon #14. That's one piece in the puzzle, and the puzzle can't be solved by ignoring any pieces and how they fit together.

Both types of North Korean prisons have been referred to in multiple reliable sources as a "gulag." And they are sometimes, in a less formal sense, vaguely lumped together in RS as political prisons. And that is because, compared to prisons in the West, that's closest to what they are--even the so-called reeducation camps--and that's the easiest way to tell people about them. So someone might easily put that term in Lee's statement. I know that before I learned of the technical difference, both types were "political prisons" to me due to their gross and inhumane violations of the prisoners' human rights and their imprisonment of people for political crimes that violate their human rights.

And then there are the issues in translation, and in having translators who choose the words.

But in terms of Lee's story, once again I will say it: she has been absolutely 100% clear in her telling of it in terms of what prison she was in, Kaechon #1. The mistakes of other people due mistranslation, misinterpretation and/or the use of imprecise terms ≠ lies. The idea that "misreporting/misunderstanding = lies" signals a big problem somewhere.

In a properly written article, the pieces fit together, just like truth does in real life. Even where there are questions and unknowns, they can be put into the picture as questions and unknowns. The demonstrable falsehoods and contradictions can't simply be overridden by the "reliable sources" argument. There are other Wikipedia considerations, as I've mentioned.

Considered in light of the larger scheme of the whole article, the falsehoods and contradictions demonstrate that there are problems in going between languages and social milieus of the U.S. and the Koreas. This is the English-language milieu. Not to say that information emanating from outside of it can't be used, but it should all fit together without major contradiction. And there are reliable sources based in the English-language milieu that document Lee's story and haven't questioned it and called it "debunked" on the basis of mere mistranslation, misinterpretation, or confusing terminology. Lee's testimony has been included in reports and books. Doubts based on false information is fringe to the English-language milieu, therefore. A few defectors in South Korea were upset apparently because Lee's words were misreported, and not because she lied. That means it likely makes more sense to trust an item arising from a foreign-language milieu when the subject is something like the history of Korean kings, or Korean religion, or Korean foods. On controversial matters, foreign milieu sources might not be as reliable as native milieu sources.

From your quote from Lee's current Wikipedia article: she says she was falsely accused of dishonesty in her job. She believes she was one of the victims of a power struggle between the Workers' Party and the public security bureau police. So the descriptions and quotes in our many scholarly/newspaper RS describing her as claiming to be a "political prisoner" seem reasonable and there's no reason to simply discard all of these RS as you appear to be suggesting.

That's confusing the issue. It's actually an argument against what you're saying, not for it. The point is she didn't lie. She says that she was convicted of economic crimes and was imprisoned in Kaechon #1, not #14, and she's always said she went to a reeducation center and not one of the political prison camps.

She's always said was convicted of economic crimes, and she was.

She's always said she was imprisoned in a reeducation center, and she was.

She's always said she was in Kaechon #1, and she was.

In those three statements, then, what isn't true? Where is she lying?

This is basic tautological logic. A cannot be non-A. Truth ≠ lies.

On the other hand, the news articles variously claim that she said she was a political prisoner instead of an economic prisoner (hence, she's been untruthful), and that she claimed to be in a political prison, not an economic one. That's why her story is claimed to be doubtful, unreliable or even "debunked." Psalm84 (talk) 10:18, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I understand you don't agree with the provided RS and advocate for excluding all six of them based on your individual interpretation of the situation. I think you've essentially made these points before, and I am mostly repeating myself as well in response.

What you've written does not void the plain fact that we have many quality RS as provided above under "Sources and quotes on doubts about portions of Lee's accounts (expanded)", with multiple English-language and multiple Korean-language ones, which clearly document various researchers and North Korean defectors having significant doubts about some of Lee's accounts. It is a simple matter to check that the two peer-reviewed scholarly English-language sources provided above do indeed tell us that The authenticity of some of Lee's accounts of North Korean prison camps have been questioned by some South Korean researchers and North Korean defectors, as in the recently proposed addition, without us even having to refer to Korean-language sources which contain more detail (which we may or may not need to include).

You discuss quite extensively this issue of "true" vs. "false", and whether or not Lee has lied. To answer your question, Lee may or may not have lied; in some aspects, neither of us can know for sure (assuming neither of us has firsthand knowledge of Lee, etc.). But as I've said before, we aren't making a determination on her veracity. We are just reporting the verifiable fact that there are notable instances covered by multiple RS in which some researchers and defectors have expressed doubts about some of her accounts. You can't just exclude these by declaring these doubts invalid based on your own opinion (especially since you haven't provided any RS that say their doubts are somehow invalid). From WP:V: Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. I believe Nil Einne has mentioned something similar above. Fiwec81618 (talk) 05:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Fiwec81618 I'd happily not repeat myself if you weren't repeating yourself, and so often not responding on the issues raised by your proposed edits.

For instance, I have brought up to you more than once now the FACT that there is debate over the meaning of political prisoner among experts. There are different ways that it can be meant and applied. Do you acknowledge that? Because understanding all this should be a part of your own research and editing work in this article. There's a lot of subtlety with it that should be understood and considered. Many experts consider North Koreans who thrown into prison for singing a South Korean song or not treating pictures of the Kims with enough care to be "political prisoners" in a loose sense because they committed a political "crime" that wouldn't be a crime in a free country. What's more, even though people who do things like that probably don't mean to go against the government, the government treats them as though it was a deliberate attempt at subversion. Properly considering this disputed edit requires recognizing and working with all the complexities having to do with the term "political prisoner."

And it also means acknowledging the basic facts we have. Doing that has nothing directly to do with eyewitness truth and the fact that we weren't eyewitnesses to these events. That's obviously not the level of truth that Wikipedia operates at. It operates at the level of truth about the source material we have at our disposal and how to deal with it in Wikipedia fashion (chiefly the principles and guidelines).

And the facts/truth are that there is no substance to the reported "doubts" about Lee's testimony. At the prima facie level, there was erroneous reporting and people reacted to it. And then that has been repeated in a journal article and a book, neither of which are even in part are about Lee as a main subject or go into her story.

But news articles aren't even necessarily that reliable:

"News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors). News reporting from less-established outlets is generally considered less reliable for statements of fact," (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources, emphasis added)

And we are talking about, again, contentious material that arose out of a foreign milieu and in a foreign language.

Also from the RS page:

"Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis. Multiple sources should not be asserted for any wire service article. Such sources are essentially a single source" (emphasis added).

I'll check into it further to be more certain, but it seems like two of the articles are likely similar versions of a Yonhap News article (I just saw it on the byline of the Chosun Ilbo article).

Also, I know I've run across further statements in Wikipedia principles and guidelines that put caveats on the use of news articles.

I also thought at first that Chang himself had been a prisoner in the same prison Lee was in, but that was likely just a poor machine translation. In the second article you posted that's very similar to the first, it appears he's talking about Lee and not himself.

And, too, this issue doesn't just involve Lee Soon Ok, but the U.S. government. It's actually the U.S. State Department's 2004 Religious Freedom Report that defectors in those South Korean news articles are reacting to. Here's the Chosun Ilbo headline:

"The State Department's Religious Report... North Korean defectors 'no way'"

The U.S. State Department's report is a reliable source as far as facts go. It has experts who carefully study the situations they're reporting on. From the Introduction to the report:

"As I continue my term as the second Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, I wish to thank all the employees of the Department of State here and abroad who have made this report possible. In particular, I want to acknowledge the dedicated work of our human rights officers throughout the world, as well as the members of the Office of Country Reports and Asylum Affairs at the State Department, who have worked long and hard to craft this report. I also want to express appreciation for the vigilant and bipartisan support that Congress has demonstrated on this issue. In addition, a debt of gratitude is owed to so many who work on behalf of the oppressed in non-governmental organizations. We rely on their on-the-ground reporting and extensive network of contacts to ensure that our report is as fair, accurate, and comprehensive as possible. Finally, I wish to thank my own staff in the Office of International Religious Freedom, whose commitment to religious freedom for all people is both indefatigable and inspiring."

The report also details in "Appendix C: Training at the Foreign Service Institute Related to the International Religious Freedom Act," some of the extensive training that State Department staff undertake in order to compose this report.

All in all, this report was very carefully put together by experts and professionals from the U.S. government and NGOs. They have no confusion over the various uses of the term "political prisoner" and no confusion over Lee's story clearly putting her in an economic prison for having been convicted for economic crimes. Literally, the South Korean newspaper printed a misunderstanding and then some reactions to that misunderstanding. That's not at all uncommon in the news business. But those obvious misunderstandings don't belong in an encyclopedia.

So how do you see the U.S. State Department's report figuring into this, in your view?

Overall, I advocate for excluding those six sources because they're not quality sources. What's in them is obviously and simply wrong on its face. The journal article and book merely repeat the obvious mistakes of the newspaper articles. And all of it is fringe to the prevailing view of Lee's testimony. Psalm84 (talk) 04:49, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Reports by the U.S. State Department are not RS especially given that time period, and are, by themselves, inappropriate to assert facts about BLPs per WP:BLPPRIMARY. You've been beating this issue into the ground. Your attempts to nullify the journal and newspapers articles have not convinced me that the dispute should not be mentioned. Fiwec81618, I recommend that you request a WP:RfC on the article talk page and invite the WP:Wikiproject Korea to participate to get other uninvolved editors to look at it. Morbidthoughts (talk) 09:20, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts Your comment doesn't include any analysis on any of the issues related to this disputed edit. That's not convincing. We should talk about the issues raised here first before talking about the other editor.

I've actually been engaging in the whole Wikipedia process of discussion and debate. Is it worthless "beating this issue into the ground" to quote from what Wikipedia says about the dependability of news articles? (That's what the disputed edit is ultimately based upon.) Or to point out that one of the news articles erroneously says that Lee was in Camp 14 when it was really Camp 1? (That distinction is at the crux of the issue here.) And to quote Wikipedia where it says that the same article published in two different newspapers should count as one article source? (Unless one article plagiarized the other, the Chosun Ilbo and Maeil Business stories are the same story, with one only including more of the original text than the other. And going on the evidence we have to date, all of the other sources that have been presented here are based on material in that one story.)

Is it also worthless to bring up the debate over the term political prisoner and insist it be considered since it's one of the issues in the disputed edit? This debate over what "political prisoner" means is discussed at Political_prisoner#Definitions, and it's brought up in the testimony to the U.S. Congress of expert David Hawk, who's written on the North Korean "gulag" and on Lee's case. And if you search on it, there's no end of articles on the issue: "Who is a political prisoner?, "Showdown in Strasbourg. The political prisoner debate in October 2012", "What is a political prisoner?" (Ireland debate), "Who is a political prisoner? Time to define one" (India) and "Leaders in Burundi are divided over the definition of what constitutes a political prisoner...". And this is a short, but very useful "explainer" article: "Explainer: What Defines A Political Prisoner?". That's just basic background information to some of the issues in this disputed edit.

You've also not gotten back to me on the one exchange we had, which touched on the crux of the issue as well:

"I'm going to agree that the Guardian article falls under WP:RSOPINION and cannot directly be used to support factual assertions. Further, it does not refer to her as an economic criminal. So that assertion must be supported by more than one reliable source under WP:PUBLICFIGURE. Morbidthoughts (talk) 07:50, 28 March 2022" [emphasis mine]

And my reply:

"@Morbidthoughts Lee actually is a convicted economic criminal in North Korea, though. She says so herself and so it's in reliable sources. It's actually what's in her Wikipedia article:

"According to Lee, she was a manager in a North Korean government office that distributed goods and materials to the country's people when she was falsely accused of dishonesty in her job. She believes she was one of the victims of a power struggle between the Workers' Party and the public security bureau police"...

Does that or does that not mean that Lee was "an economic criminal"?

It's certainly a valid issue to bring up how the disputed edit violates the law of noncontradiction:

1. What the article says: Lee revealed that she'd been an economic criminal in North Korea, (she's told this same story since the late 1990s).

2. What the disputed edit says: Lee didn't reveal she'd been an economic criminal in North Korea, (so Chang revealed that fact instead, and that has cast serious doubt on her story).

Statement "2" is a falsehood which contradicts evidence in the rest of the article on Lee and also what's clearly laid out in all sorts of RS. Statement "2" is also the only doubt about Lee's story allegedly based on substance (Chang's personal knowledge). The other comments by alleged defectors (most speaking anonymously on a web site forum) quoted in Chosun Ilbo are mere reaction/opinion, and without evidence to contrary, it has to be assumed that their reactions have been corrupted by the false assertion that Lee lied about the type of prisoner she was. Psalm84 (talk) 05:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts. Your comment: "Reports by the U.S. State Department are not RS especially given that time period, and are, by themselves, inappropriate to assert facts about BLPs per WP:BLPPRIMARY. "

First, besides Colin Powell, the State Department, and others in the government, the news media also played a well-publicized role in reporting false information in the run-up to the Iraq War. Let's not overlook that.

Second, the State Department Religious Freedom report is a level up from raw public documents like a police report or court transcript where there's been no expert or professional mediation. It's roughly at the level of an opinion article where the opinion is the government's and has to be identified as such in a Wikipedia article. But whether it would be used as a source or not, it again speaks to the facts in Lee's case: her story went through investigation by various experts on the North Korean prison situation.

And third, and above all, the U.S. State Department is not just a source of information in this case, but as I pointed out, it's actually one of the parties in this dispute, so that in itself is why its credibility matters.

The Chosun Ilbo/Maiel Business story is actually about, not just Lee Soon Ok, but firstly the 2004 Religious Freedom Report:

The State Department's Religious Report... North Korean defectors 'no way'

Seoul = Yonhap News Input: 2004.09.16 11:48 17'

To the US State Department's '2004 Religious Report' stating that the North Korean authorities conducted biological experiments on Christians, defectors in South Korea responded on the 16th, saying, 'It's absurd,' saying that it was far from the reality of North Korea.

In particular, the US State Department expressed concern that some North Korean defectors' vague remarks were unfiltered in response to the report stating that "they were pouring boiling molten iron to the death of a Christian who said they could not accept the Juche idea." The controversial part of the report is the molten iron murder case of a Christian and the biological experiment case that North Korean defector Lee Soon-ok (60 years old, living in the United States) testified at the US Congress last year...

Lee actually testified before Congress in 2002, not 2003. This article was not very good overall with getting facts straight. Lee was born in 1947, too, making her only 57 in 2004.

And clearly, the defectors were responding with doubt not only to Lee, but to the U.S. State Department as well. So the care that the State Department claims to have taken in creating its report is relevant in defense of both Lee and the State Department.

A related story also published in Chosun Ilbo on the same day as the defector piece, "U.S. State Department claims 'North Korea conducts Christian living experiments' Washington = Yonhap News Input: 2004.09.16 06:53 29'", says the following:

According to the US State Department, this published report is a compilation of information collected by hundreds of people from July 2003 to June 2004, including the State Department, US embassies abroad, journalists, and NGOs.

In contrast, the other Chosun Ilbo story is nothing but a brief laundry list, without any journalistic analysis, critique or context, of some off-the-cuff reaction comments from a total of seven North Korean defectors. Most (or all) of these comments were made anonymously online, and it's not even clear how Chang In-suk commented, but in any case, his brief comment about Lee is wrong. And the rest of the defectors say they just don't believe North Korea prisons are that bad, or they opine that defectors make things up and North Korea wouldn't test biological weapons on prisoners, but they have no specific reasons for any of their remarks. Only one claims to have been in a prison camp, but in doing so he falsely asserts that Lee claimed to have been in a prison camp. Psalm84 (talk) 05:26, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Morbidthoughts Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to look at this and will do what you suggested. Fiwec81618 (talk) 05:45, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Peter Matthew Hutton

I'm guessing whoever created Peter Matthew Hutton created it with the middle name in order to differentiate him from other people with same name. He is one of five Peter Hutton here and the only one with a middle name. But it looks strange with the middle name and given it's not convention, I think it should be changed. Maybe to Peter_Hutton_(sports broadcaster) or something like this. Thoughts? MaskedSinger (talk) 20:28, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

At first, I was very confused by your choice of "sports broadcaster" as the lede focuses on his completely undiscussed in the article role at Meta. I'd clear up what he is notable for before moving the article. Then open a move discussion on talk page or be WP:BOLD and move yourself.Slywriter (talk) 20:48, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Slywriter for your advice. Maybe sports broadcaster isn't the right description but it should be something like this as opposed to his middle name. Ill go to his talk page now. MaskedSinger (talk) 21:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

If broadcaster was accurate, we would only use broadcaster per WP:NCPDAB and WP:TITLEDAB. There's no need for additional disambiguation/precision like sports, there's no other Peter Hutton broadcaster we have an article on. But I agree with Slywriter, it doesn't to be a that good going by our article's description of the person. Executive seems a better choice than sports broadcaster and also doesn't seem to conflict with any of the other Peter Huttons. If you can't work out what's the best and don't get any response from your current post on the talk page, it's probably better just to start a WP:RM with your best choice and make it clear your not certain and welcome additional suggestions. This will hopefully attract editors more familiar with out titling guidelines etc. Note that you probably should look at whether the article should be renamed. It doesn't really matter if he's the only one referred to by the middle name in the disambiguation page nor does it matter if it looks "strange". What matters is whether he's generally referred to with his middle name per WP:MIDDLENAME. The headlines in the sources don't seem to use use it but you probably should have a look at them and see beyond the headline. Nil Einne (talk) 12:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Nil Einne Thanks for your great advice! MaskedSinger (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Ryan Kavanaugh

I fought vandalism on this page some months back. Lots of IP editors coming to edit the page each time. This has led to incessant pad-klocking of the page. Nevertheless, the page continues to be a beehive of activity for multiple editors on daily basis even while on lock an.

Taking a look at the current state of the page, it seems to be at variance with the dictates of our WP:BLP especially in terms of the writing style, the use of "Reliable sources", and citing of claims.

Specifically, I found the following:

• There are no valid sources cited to back-up the claims at the lead section

• The career section attracts daily edits from IP editors anytime the lock on the page expires. Also once the page is locked again, other auto-confirmed and extended editors will continue to battle on the page on daily basis. Lots of edits and reverts occur on the page on daily basis.

• There has been repeated additions of defamatory or libelous material on the career sections. There are lots of gossips and feedback loops as well.

• It also appears that some parties use the career section to continue disputes, accusations and counter-accusations against themselves and the subject of the page. Some portions appear completely negative or look like "attack" writing. Lots of ongoing legal tussle issues and the like adorn the page. Other portions appear verbose, poorly written and unsourced. The whole scenario is quite confusing for any neutral editor coming in.

I am of the opinion that BLP admins/editors who are conversant with the BLP policy can help in cleaning up the page to suit our BLP policy. If possible an extended lock can also be introduced to limit this daily edit battle on the page.Min-Premuzi (talk) 18:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I removed one sentence that wasn't supported by the sources, and did a bit more digging. Nothing else stands out as a blatant issue, but the article is pretty long, and I didn't go over it with a fine tooth comb. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:41, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish, you're very correct, the article is pretty long especially at the career section. I guess it needs to be trimmed. It can be very clumsy and cloudy to read.Lots of edits on the page every now and then. Quite a problematic page indeed. A lot needs to be done. Min-Premuzi (talk) 19:12, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

There's quite literally not a single unsourced claim on the entire page. Please also list any passages that you perceive to be libelous or defamatory as any such claims should obviously be immediately removed. I don't see how "legal tussle" could "adorn" the page in and of itself if sources are accurately reflected and info is DUE. As it stands now, the article doesn't seem particularly poorly written either. Throast (talk | contribs) 20:12, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

That's where I'm at. Without some specifics to look into, I don't see any BLP issues. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Happy to work on conforming to guidelines if specifics are available. Regarding the lead, it summarizes information cited in the body, but if any of the material is challenged, citations will be added per MOS:LEADCITE. Popoki35 (talk) 14:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish, Min-Premuzi, Popoki35 & Throast, I found out that Ryan is actually the founder and former CEO of Relativity Media and not "a co-founder" according to these two sources Los Angeles Times, and Fox. Both are good WP:RS. I couldn't find any good source that addressed him as a "co-founder". So, I effected the change on the page and added the two sources. I stand to be corrected if I am mistaken.KukkaPUPA (talk) 20:48, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Imran Khan

Imran Khan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Current prime minister of Pakistan, in name at least. See 2022 Pakistani constitutional crisis for some background. Various well-meaning but ultimately incorrect changes describing him as a former PM and associated end term dates and so on. More eyes on this would be welcome. FDW777 (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Saba Hasan

Although I'm sure this person is notable, I'm not happy about the laudatory nature of the article (mainly written by one person}. What caught my eye in particular was "Her art evokes the forces of time, nature and personal histories in a potent, nuanced voice." This statement is directly copied from the source and for all I know was written by Hasan herself. Doug Weller talk 09:04, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I have removed that promotional quote. The Celeste Network is (or was) a pay-to-play "social media network" set up to assist artists with marketing and sales, awarding prizes to its own members, and is by no means the type of independent source required for a critical assessment. Cullen328 (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

@Cullen328: thanks. A lot of articles such as this one and including this one include dubious awards/recognitions etc, but life's too short to deal with them. :-) Doug Weller talk 08:06, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Arthur Bremer

• Arthur Bremer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Your article stated he graduated in 1969 from Dominican High School in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. He is not listed in the year book from this school. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:9308:4800:B8C6:A1F0:9833:9918 (talk) 04:17, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• The source cited indeed says South Division High School not Dominican High School (Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin). This is because "high school", which is what was originally written, was changed by Special:Diff/927036273. Next time, please read the source, the New York Times article in this case, then you can not only tell people what's wrong, you can even tell them what's right, or even fix the error yourself. It's a lot simpler to do than laboriously digging through yearbooks, too. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 08:11, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

John Rose (Tennessee politician)

Some additional eyes at John Rose (Tennessee politician) would be appreciated, as a recent Twitter thread has garnered some additional attention. There's also a talkpage discussion. Connormah (talk) 22:56, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• One of the new single-purpose accounts put the controversial biographical content into a section heading, and then started advocating political stances. If this continues, some editing privileges will need to be revoked. It may be that autoconfirmed protection status will need to be raised, too, as even autoconfirmed editors are making edits like Special:Diff/1081374384 without any sourcing let alone good sourcing. Uncle G (talk) 08:26, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

MOHAMMAD SARWAR

• Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Dear Sir / Madam

My wikipedia page is being changed by someone who is putting misinformation about me on the page.

Please can you let me know how to restrict edit access to my wikipedia account.

My current website and other social media handles are as below: www.sarwar.pk Twitter @ChMSarwar Twitter @TeamSarwar Instagram @mohammadsarwar.pti Fb: ChMohammadSarwar Regards MOHAMMAD SARWAR — Preceding unsigned comment added by TeamSarwar (talk • contribs) 10:42, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

TeamSarwar, restricting access to your Wikipedia account is entirely unrelated to the Wikipedia page about you – but if you would like for information in the article to be changed, you can make an edit request on the article talk page. Thanks, Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 10:54, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Veracity of statements by Scott Morrison

• Veracity of statements by Scott Morrison (AfD discussion)

Scott Morrison is the current Australian Prime Minister. The country is in election mode and the various parties are jostling for airtime and media attention.

The article Veracity of statements by Scott Morrison has recently appeared. The only other article I can find along the same lines is Veracity of statements by Donald Trump and while ScoMo is reported to bend the truth - as does any notable politician - he is not in Trump's league.

My concern is with the opening statement:

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made numerous false and misleading statements over the course of his political career.

While this is as true for Morrison as it is for any other politician, I am not sure that we can say this in Wikivoice if we do not have a reliable source making the claim. Surely it is a synthetic argument and if we want to say this we should be able to find a good source making this claim rather than asking the reader to join the dots?

There are some opinion pieces from political opponents but I am uneasy about not just basing a BLP article around comments made by hostile pundits but tying it in via the sidebar to the subject as an integral part of his life.

I have asked for a source and commenced a discussion on the talk page but the single-minded editor seems unaware of the BLP need for good sourcing. --Pete (talk) 15:41, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I rarely go to AFD, but felt compelled this time, because this is a perfect example of what Wikipedia is not. We define things, unlike a dictionary which defines words. We don't have exposés or report the "truth" (aka: veracity) of things. Oh, and I'd say the same for the Trump exposé, or any other like it. There is no thing being defined. It's just a "report that reveals the shocking truth". An encyclopedia article should begin: "[Subject] is...", and if you can't, then it's a good indication it doesn't belong. Zaereth (talk) 18:22, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Rachael Sage

There is a discussion at the talk page that could use some extra opinions, specifically with regard to whether to include some personal/family details. Primefac (talk) 09:39, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. It is an interesting discussion. Edwardx (talk) 19:33, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Bruxy Cavey

Originally at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Outing a potential victim, now moved to here. Uncle G (talk) 09:50, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Bruxy Cavey (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This edit, which has been deleted and cannot be seen by most editors, and this edit, also deleted, attempts to out and shame an individual who raised substantiated sexual misconduct allegations against a popular pastor. For those who can see the content, the first video is from an individual who recorded the accuser years before the accusations were made. The second video is purportedly from Anonymous but is not free speech, it is outing a victim. The editor was accused of conflict of interest in April 2019 and has had most of their work removed from the project. It seems that the editor has a narrow self-interest here, is trying to score brownie points outside of Wikipedia and has both a major conflict of attitude or intention with Wikipedia and has along-term agenda inconsistent with building an encyclopedia. These are all clear signs of WP:NOTHERE and an indefinite block is probably warranted. At the very least, based on the content of the second video, admin oversight of the article will be necessary to avoid further incidents like this. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Administrators cannot see this either, as it has been oversighted. There is no article activity in April 2019, and no talk page activity in 2019 apart from Special:Diff/929273296. Special:Contributions/2607:FEA8:9240:6820::/64 is from 2022. Couldn't you have pointed to that instead of making us find it? That person clearly first wanted no mention of this in the article in 2021, and when that didn't work persisted in naming the other person in 2022. Xe has already been blocked, by Ohnoitsjamie who is already paying attention (c.f. User talk:Ohnoitsjamie/archive40#Protection Bruxy Cavey). Uncle G (talk) 05:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I did not see a block notice on the editor's talk page. Page protection still allowed the editor to add the content, but should be enough to prevent new editors from doing so. Thanks. I think it's safe to close as already blocked. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:16, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

BLP concerns

This article needs some serious BLP attention. It is currently sourcing some significant biographical assertions to a YouTube video that is an hour and a quarter long and a primary source. On the Administrators' Noticeboard we've just been discussing (as you can see above) some equally poor sourcing and even worse biographical content that was sourced to another YouTube video (now oversighted and unavailable to me, but I worked it out) of unknown authorship and provenance. This sourcing to competing YouTube videos is not on. There does seem to be independent and reliable sourcing available, from a quick look around, but it is not being used nearly as much as it should be. Help required. Uncle G (talk) 09:50, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I changed the source for the assertion in the lede to a long account from Christianity Today[9].Jahaza (talk) 13:50, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Omid Cameron Farokhzad

• Omid Cameron Farokhzad (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The attempts to include alleged academic bullying appear to run contrary to WP:BLPGOSSIP. Someone more knowledgeable than I should take a look. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

It should absolutely not be in the article. The sources do not mention the article subject, and there's a huge load of WP:OR going on. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:08, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Discospinster, who had restored the prose to get their opinion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Whatever is true, phrases like "greater liklihood" and similar do not belong in a BLP. Either sources are clear and it is WP:DUE or it gets left out, no middle ground here.Slywriter (talk) 14:38, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but I was wondering if I missed something that Discospinster picked up on, or if it was a (perfectly normal) reaction to seeing an IP remove what appeared to be validly sourced content. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:39, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't know whether I'd entirely agree with Slywriter here. I can see wordings similar to "greater likelihood" being justified in certain circumstances. For example balance of probabilities is a legal term which basically means more likely than not. Mentioning it in BLP in legal cases may be fully justified if there is sufficient sourcing about the legal case in relation to the person. Outside legal cases, the term and similar terms may occur in official investigations and again based on the sourcing it can be justified to mention these. Indeed even where there was no finding of some misconduct, it can be justified to mention some official investigation or other especially if there was a lot that lead up to it (e.g. long term suspension), and in mentioning that investigation it can be justified to briefly mention some details again depending on the sources etc. While people have a tendency to mention too many details which is something we need to avoid, it doesn't mean we should never mention any details even if there were no firm finds. Simply saying they were "cleared" or something is not always enough, remembering also that sometimes such things can affect multiple named (probably notable) living persons. Obviously, we should never say anything like this [10] nor anything based on OR or poor sourcing. Nil Einne (talk) 17:11, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

In this situation there is no mention of the article subject in the sources, just an editor who said "They probably bullied someone because someone wrote a paper about being bullied, and that person wrote some papers with the article subject." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

(EC) For a completely unrelated example consider how we deal with Satoshi Nakamoto. Several named people are mentioned there and most of them are still alive. Some of these are notable and for most of these I think the speculation is briefly mentioned in their articles (to varying degrees depending on the significance). Nil Einne (talk) 17:34, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I think for allegations against a non-public figure, WP:BLPCRIME applies. It would need a pretty significant amount of solid coverage in good RS to get over that hump. A lot of it comes down to the particular circumstance. In this specific circumstance, it's all fairly moot, because there was no sourcing, just OR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Kenneth Gentry

This is probably some kid playing around, but I'm requesting RevDelete. —Confession0791 ^talk 01:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• It's not. But it is a fool who thinks that a WWW page with no identifiable author or fact checking process on a one-note clearly agenda-pushing four-page blogspot site not touched in 12 years is a reliable source of information. And it has been rightly revision deleted. That's not in line with writing good content at all. Uncle G (talk) 08:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Victoria Asher

• Victoria Asher (AfD discussion)

An SPA has repeatedly added to Victoria Asher the claim that Asher is Britney Spears' "good friend" and personal assistant. Past sources have tended to be from gossip sites or social media. Most recently, "thethings.com" has been cited, with a citation to this article: https://www.thethings.com/who-is-britney-spears-assistant-vicky-t-victoria-asher-details/ (is this at all reptuable?), and an Instagram link. It's entirely possible that this is true, but there is no mention of this at Britney Spears, and the editor has thus far declined to add it to the Spears article, which makes me suspicious, and I don't see any recognizable reliable sources. It's a bizarre focus for this editor to continue to re-add this content, particularly as poorly sourced as it is, eyes requested. Echoedmyron (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

• I removed huge swathes of unreferenced material. If I could do a decent WP:BEFORE check on my phone, I'd probably bring it to AfD. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:56, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Now at AfD. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:19, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
    • While I am always reluctant to see articles deleted it's probably for the best, thanks for sorting it - policy-driven deletion isn't my forte. There was a lot of puff in there to attempt "inheritance" of notability via who she is supposedly friends with etc. I thought perhaps I might have found something useful via her father Peter Asher, but even in his article there's a cn tag on the sentence about about her, so I'm even suspicious of her lineage now. Echoedmyron (talk) 01:42, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
      • The only secondary reliable source in her article was about her lying about collaborating on a song with other artists. If there's a cn for that on Peter Asher, it should be removed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:46, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
• The lineage is documented by the actual father directly in print, independent sources with identifiable authors/editors and at least claims to good journalistic fact checking processes, and an autobiography of Chris O'Dell talking about what happened to other people in later years, people. There are also, amazingly (and bizarrely in the second case), two university press books confirming this person as a career musician. Uncle G (talk) 08:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Walter Goffart

• Walter Goffart (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have an external relationship with the subject of this article -- and I discuss this in the article's talk section. My minor changes to the text over the past year(s) have aimed at accuracy/verifiability (place of birth, title of books, spellings, name of mentors) and style (e.g., removal of repeated adjectives in one sentence that seem to cast aspersions/smears; none of my changes has been promotional in tone. I would like the "warning" attached to this article by one Thomas W. to be removed since my relationship to the subject does not in any way (as explained s.v. 'talk') violate the biographies of living persons policies but added some needed correctness. Thank you for taking a look. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Jessica Flack (talk • contribs) 19:04, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

• Just for clarity: Are you both Dr Jessica Flack (talk · contribs) and Roberta A Frank (talk · contribs)? Uncle G (talk) 07:48, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

  Dear Uncle G,

  Thank you for responding -- I am grateful -- even though I am writing this in difficult personal circumstances.

  1. Jessica Flack is indeed the pseudonym for Roberta Frank, as "Jessica" clearly demonstrates in the entry for the latter scholar. My identity was not hidden.

  2. Attention was first drawn to problems in the Goffart Wikipedia entry by a friend's comment about two or three years ago (I seem unable to retrace the history online beyond last year); she told me that it was not a biography but a "hit job." The biographical details were sometimes wrong (easily fixed). More seriously, the interpretation of the supposed facts seemed unbalanced. The subject's 70 years of serious scholarship and multiple books in five or six very different areas ranging from early medieval monastic forgeries to early modern cartography were ignored. Instead one field -- fall of Rome, Germanic barbarians and their settlement -- was focused on to the exclusion of all others. Other individuals (whose identity I don't know) made important changes, noting that the entry with its out-of-context quotations had the effect of depicting Goffart as a monomaniacal nut-case. (The quotations remain -- but now in the section of Wikipedia to which readers are directed called "Goffart quotes.") The changes I made were not "white-washing" (an insult to Goffart and to those attempting to set the record straight) but a striving for accuracy and a desire to eliminate unjustified conclusions: his childhood removal from Europe in 1941 did not make him a hater of Germany, as the first entry-draft strongly hinted; the idea of a Toronto School of History led by Goffart in his time there is far from an accepted fact -- but remains oddly unchallenged in the entry and I believe has a separate Wikipedia article under Toronto School (or did the last time I looked).

  I shall stop here. Wikipedia is a magnificent source and I have done what I could in a small way to keep it so. Dr Jessica Flack (talk) 14:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• Special:Diff/1006241269 is in no way a minor change to the article, whether correct or not. Uncle G (talk) 07:57, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Olaf Scholz - false text

Dear Madam/Sir,

In a Italic textfacebook debate a user claimed TODAY that Olaf Scholz’s grandfather was a nazi general. He also claimed that wikipedia sources are unreliable.

And later he cited the wikipedia page of Olaf Scholz with below text “ Olaf Scholz is the grandson of Fritz von Scholz, SS Gruppenfuhrer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS. Permanent commander of the SS regiment "Nordland" Fritz von Scholz served in the SS auxiliary corps in the Dachau concentration camp, and from January 1935, with the rank of SS Obersturmfuhrer, he headed the Austrian SS battalion. In 1943, he performed leadership functions in the Ukrainian SS division, personally executed Jews in Poland and Ukraine.”

I checked, and this text eas added TODAY 10th of April 10th at 15:28CET.

Can you please verify this text and take the necessary actions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Olaf_Scholz&diff=prev&oldid=1081943104 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.23.136 (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

It looks like the edits in question have already been undone. —C.Fred (talk) 20:11, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Aryan Republican Army and deadnaming

This is an odd one. I found these edits [11] trying to fix deadnaming. But I'm not sure. Peter Kevin Langan was main leader of the ARA. After being arrested Langan became Donna Langan and has since publicly renounced her political and racist views. So what name should we use in the infobox or as spearheading the movement? I can understand changing it to Donna, but I'm wondering if that is correct or even fair. I am not at all sure which is correct. Doug Weller talk 13:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Use the preferred name, with the name used at the time as a note. Given the transition was after the events in question, it's necessary to make a note of the name they happened under, but that does not change their deadname is not appropriate to actually use as their name. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 13:54, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

• Reading WP:DEADNAME, it looks like we should use "Donna" when we need to identify Langan with first and last name, and to help alleviate confusion, use simply "Langan" the rest of the time. We should also include a note, like in parentheses, the first time we mention the first name explaining that she used to be known as "Peter". Happy (Slap me) 13:57, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I gave it my best shot. Per LLL and Happy, I used her current name wherever a full name was needed. I added an explanatory footnote including her notable deadname and referenced the footnote in two places. Firefangledfeathers (talk | contribs) 14:35, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Donna is correct because there are reliable sources that make clear this is her current name. This is a rare case where the subject would likely prefer us to deadname and it is quite BLP-sensitive not to do so, but WP:DEADNAME is clear. — Bilorv (talk) 14:46, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Why do you think the subject would prefer us to deadname her? I understand that she's renounced her prior views, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a desire to be deadnamed when discussing them. Happy (Slap me) 15:01, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I don't think it's useful to speculate what she may prefer, we need sources. I'd note that dead name isn't so clear cut as Bilorv indicated if the subject would prefer us to use their former name for past events. It actually suggests we should generally follow the subject's preference if it's different from our default although is somewhat unclear on that for non notable subjects. Also we don't really have any guidance on what to do with a hypothetical case where a subject may prefer their current name for their life prior to transition generally but prefer to keep only their deadname associated with certain events. In any case, as said at the beginning, we do need sources demonstrating such a preference, not simply a guess. Nil Einne (talk) 16:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree. If someone indicates a clear preference of "Always deadname me when discussing me pre-transition", we should follow that just as zealously as we follow the default presumption of "Never deadname me". But that needs to be a clear preference. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 21:08, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Related to the above, I made this change (diff) to Federal Correctional Institution, Marianna, changing Langan's entry to read "Donna Langan (registered as Peter Kevin Langan)". If there's a more suitable way of listing her there, feel free to adjust. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 20:23, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

David Fisher (architect)

Further information: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive123 § David Fisher, and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive135 § David Fisher (architect)

• David Fisher (architect) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• David Fisher (architect) (AfD discussion)

Bringing recent edits regarding content referencing 2008 to the attention of the Noticeboard. Removing the content seems to have no basis in anything other than one editor not liking it. Thoughts? –Skywatcher68 (talk) 14:04, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME would seem to apply here. Was he actually convicted of the embezzlement? The translated quote of one of the references say that he was convicted of bankruptcy? Morbidthoughts (talk) 18:34, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, that whole section looks like a hit piece with information cited to a case study by a law firm and WP:BLPPRIMARY? Morbidthoughts (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Michael Eric Dyson

I just fully protected the article (just for a day) to investigate a bit; I was somewhat surprised to find serious allegations in the lead (likely UNDUE, overwhelming the lead) and less than properly verified in the article text, and nothing whatsoever on the talk page. One of the references was a tweet, the others were from campus newspapers, and for now--apparently--they are only allegations. I would like a larger discussion about the appropriateness of the content and the strength of the sourcing. I don't have an opinion, really, other than we need to protect the BLP--but we should also not sweep serious allegations (that can possibly be sourced better than they were) under the rug. Your help is appreciated. Pinging User:Curbon7 also. Drmies (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

I only saw the IP edits while Recent Changes patrolling, so I don't have a stick in this fight, but I'll help out and see if I can find some reliable sources. Curbon7 (talk) 22:09, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, that's what caught my eye too. Drmies (talk) 22:12, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Bernard poulin

• Bernard Poulin (businessman) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

One Editor keeps removing Poulin's profile and focusing main page on 2 episodes of Poulin's life. The articles he keeps adding are non factual news paper articles where the mater described in the article is in part false. This editor also removes the fact that Poulin's case was dismissed in the first and the fact that election Canada reduced substantially the charges. This are substantiated by ref and court case number. This in itself is defamation. He goes further and rearranges the articles as this being the center point of Poulin's career. I want the article reestablish as it was on my last correction and this Editors corrections removed and banded — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colt2020 (talk • contribs) 10:24, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I've gone through and tidied what I saw as the BLP issues. The charges stemming from the arrest were stayed, "after Court of Quebec Judge Joëlle Roy ruled their charter rights had been violated during the investigation." Arrests from investigations that violated rights and resulted in no verdict don't seem to be necessary in a BLP. I expanded the information on his guilty plea and the fallout, and removed it from the lead, as it didn't seem WP:DUE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:00, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Robert W. Malone

(Editing) Ref this diff: [[12]] and this ref: [[13]] I don’t really have a dog in the fight, and the allegations are clearly sourced. But the subject clearly feels they’re defamatory and I know we have to be very careful about these things. All good wishes, Springnuts (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

No problem here. Alexbrn (talk) 16:57, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there was a very big problem here. Do not remove well-sourced and cited information just because someone complains on the internet. ValarianB (talk) 13:02, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

True that. Alexbrn (talk) 13:03, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Vladimir Gutierrez

Vladimir Gutierrez

There is an accent incorrectly being used on MLB player Vladimir Gutierrez. The aforementioned spelling/accent use is the correct one as referenced in the following links below. I'm not entirely familiar with Wikipedia's editing system but the page itself may have to be moved to fix this issue in the page's title, as well as informing the appropriate team familiar so it is not re-edited incorrectly (as it already has been several times). Thank you!

https://twitter.com/vladimi83418418 https://www.mlb.com/player/vladimir-gutierrez-661269 https://milb.bamcontent.com/documents/7/9/6/269570796/2018_media_guide_early_version.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paytheprice92 (talk • contribs) 16:52, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

@Paytheprice92:, I do not think this is correct. MLB.com pages often don't have accents (here's one of his teammates whose name definitely should have an accent.) Further, this Spanish language source in the article does use the accent. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:41, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I completely understand, this is widely debated in the sports industry as I've heard quite a bit of back and forth on the subject recently, and you are definitely correct the MLB does often miss accents even though they are slowly improving. However, Gutierrez himself does not spell his name with the accent and I believe he should be considered the most credible source here with all this confusion. His own social media pages omit an accent completely and skimming through his tweets he regularly uses accents when writing in Spanish so I think it's unlikely he's missed the accent on his own name.

Vladimir Gutierrez's Twitter: https://twitter.com/vladimi83418418 & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elvladi92/?hl=en Paytheprice92 (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Rampal

Should we be using his own sites for sources? See refs 13 and 46. Doug Weller talk 15:32, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I think it's fine as it's attributed and WP:ABOUTSELF. Rampal claims to be an incarnation of Kabir, whom he considers to be the supreme god. is fine sourced to himself and a secondary source, and everything cited to 13 is attributed with According to his official biography... Rampal states... I did clarify a little bit, to make it more clear in the last paragraph of the section where 13 is used. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:42, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

This was my gut reaction as well, although I will admit the heavy involvement of Swami Ramdevanand in the "official biography" leaves me with some qualms. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:56, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all. Doug Weller talk 11:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Jamie-Lee O'Donnell

Jamie-Lee O'Donnell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

With the new series of Derry Girls airing, some more eyes on this article would be welcome so it doesn't continually fall to me to remove a claimed date of birth.

For some background see Talk:Jamie-Lee O'Donnell#Age. There's an age of 33 on 27 May 2020, 28 on 2 August 2019, "20-something" on 18 January 2018, 34 on 1 January 2022, 29 on 6 January 2022. So it's a complete mess, and per WP:BLPDOB we are supposed to follow If multiple independent reliable sources state differing years or dates of birth in conflict, the consensus is to include all birth dates/years for which a reliable source exists, clearly noting discrepancies. In this situation, editors must not include only one date/year which they consider "most likely", or include merely a single date from one of two or more reliable sources. Original research must not be used to extrapolate the date of birth. I personally prefer to take the path of slightly less resistance and leave it out completely, but others may disagree.

Despite all this we still get editors adding their preferred date of birth. Only last night I had to revert this attempt (from an editor with 32,000+ edits no less). Upcoming Season may look vaguely reliable at first glance, but since their Facebook page has 23 likes I'm incldined to see it's garbage. I have no idea who "MakDPostmodern" on Twitter is and don't much care, that an editor with 32,000+ edits thinks it's acceptable for referencing in a BLP boggles the mind. Dayto News (somewhat alarmingly, all content has vanished from their live website) only said 30-year-old Jamie-Lee in an article dated 7 April 2022, so of no use for an actual date of birth.

Absent a consensus to the contrary, I believe the best option is to exclude the age completely. FDW777 (talk) 15:30, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Anna Khachiyan

An IP editor has been insisting that Anna Khachiyan is not a writer, but a Twitter user. Assistance would be appreciated. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 03:47, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Two IP editors actually. Thriley (talk) 03:49, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I reverted to writer since at least there's something in the body about it although it's only a single screenplay. Other than being a very dumb description, there's zero mention of Twitter in the body. Frankly it's probably best to simply leave it at podcast co-host since that seems to be what she's notable for at least going by the current version of our article. Nil Einne (talk) 14:37, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

sam rents

I added factual information based that is backed uo by multiple articles of very reputable sources but it still wants to revert my edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conservative cheese ball (talk • contribs) 13:18, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

For context this is the edit in question [[14]].--65.92.163.109 (talk) 23:05, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Nina Elgo

Numerous, repeated libelous edits made under personal information. Appears to be the same person under two in addresses. Nina Elgo

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nina_F._Elgo&action=edit&section=5&editintro=Template%3ABLP_editintro — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ckriesen (talk • contribs) 18:13, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the vandalism and watchlisted the article. Thanks for the heads up. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:22, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Favonian was kind enough to semi protect for three months, as well. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Monisha Shah

After I added a date of birth to Monisha Shah, my edit was reverted and I was directed to WP:DOB. After reading it, I am confused by several things. The date of birth that I added was taken from the source already used. I changed the existing "1969" to "September 11, 1969", which is the date of birth given in the source. Since we are already using a reference that gives Monisha Shah's full birth date (see online version here), what is the rationale for not including the birth date as given by the source? Polycarpa aurata (talk) 22:57, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

It needs to be widely covered, not just found in a single source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:27, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I have read the guideline. I'm trying to understand it. I have never seen another biographical page on Wikipedia that didn't have the full date of birth. I can't wrap my head around how someone can be notable enough to have a Wikipedia page but also not notable enough that we leave out their date of birth because of "identity theft"? Really? Anyone can simply Google "Monisha Shah birth date" if they want to know her birth date. Go ahead, try it. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 03:06, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Quite a few biographies on Wikipedia lack date of birth; see Category:Date of birth missing (living people). Schazjmd (talk) 17:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

By the way, Monisha Shah's birth date is on Wikidata. All one has to do to see it is click on the Wikidata link found on her page. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 03:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikidata has virtually no standards for reliable sourcing, and near zero enforcement of BLP concerns. That beast cares only about data and more data, right or wrong. A source can be literally any random URL (except perhaps some blacklisted sites), Tweet, or primary source. Many Wikidata statements have no references whatsoever (even when there is no reason to doubt them) because constructing and adding correctly-formatted references is a tedious labor-intensive task, and many other statements are sourced only to the respective Wikipedia article (in any language), creating a dangerous WP:CIRCULAR situation. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand how this can be possible. Don't all Wikipedia sites have to follow the same rules? Polycarpa aurata (talk) 15:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Not even slightly. The English language version of Wikipedia is significantly more stringent (rightly) on things like notability and sourcing. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:52, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Given that this article was recreated despite being deleted due to a well attended AfD that was affirmed with a deletion review, I have nominated the article for deletion again, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monisha Shah (2nd nomination). Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:41, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I need to claim I have received a (non public) email from oversight on Ticket#2022032710000821 which I raised sent Sun, 27 Mar 2022 06:57:39 which has informed me: "They are completely correct; if there is a reliable source that provides a DOB, there is no *procedural* reason to remove it, only one based on discussion and consensus." Unfortunately I have read that email just now, some 30 hours later. On that basis I need to revert the full DOB on the article and stand back from the discussion in this point of time. As this claim is hearsay unless verified and the discussion on the DOB must go as it goes and if someone determines change the article until this discussion is concluded so be it. Under most circumstances I would not make this change while under discussion. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that email may be slightly incorrect. WP:DOB makes it clear that it must be widely covered, and simply passing verification is not enough for inclusion. Because of that, and what Lee Vilenski pointed out below, I have removed it again. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think this is all missing the point. The reference being used (who's who (UK)) is deemed unreliable WP:RSN. Shouldn't be sourcing anything, let alone something as important as a date of birth to it. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:16, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I guess I wandered into a minefield, which I have discovered is very easy to do here. I am now being threatened and harassed on my talk page by Djm-leighpark and I see the page has been put up for deletion. What happens now? We leave the page with no birth date at all? "Monisha Shah" is not "John Smith" but there should be some way to distinguish this Monisha Shah from the others. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 15:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Is their birthdate really the only thing that differentiates these people? Our policy WP:BLP requires living people live to a higher level of sourcing, specifically that even slighly contentious info is sourced. Dates and places of birth are very much so. Unless you can find a good reliable source commenting on this, leave it blank, it's really not a big deal. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:52, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The source I used for the full birth date was the same source that had been being used for the birth year. Until this discussion, there was no argument about it being a reliable source. That was not the issue. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Over at the AfD it has been pointed out the Times has been publishing her Birthdate and age on an annual basis relating to her chairwomanship of Rose Bruford College. I don't have direct access to the publication and while I know someone who does I could be accused of a CANVAS if I contacted them at this point. Some ProQuest trawls have strongly indicated her day, month and age was published in the times on her birthday in 2017, 2018, 2019 & 2020 at least in the "Birthdays Today" section. For example "Birthdays today [Eire Region] The Times; London (UK) [London (UK)]. 11 Sep 20172 (page 21???) from where I can quote "... newsreader, Radio 4 (1965-69, 1978-2003), 74; Monisha Shah, chairwoman, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, 48; Sir.." That would surely count towards widely publicized and mean the full DOB could be re-instated. If it itsn't then appropriate Wikipedia:Revision deletion surely need to be organized, which happens to include this discussion. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC) I'm a bit slow here as someone has added it back in slightly over an hour ago. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

If it helps with coverage of age, Business India in its May 14–27, 2001 edition on page 160 said

Take the case of 30-year-old Monisha Shah who was BBC Worldwide's London-based territory manager for South Asia. In less than 16 months this Bandra girl has been promoted to director of BBC Worldwide India Pvt Ltd and her new responsibility is to handle non-news business activities across South Asia.

Uncle G (talk) 18:56, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

A lot of people not actually reading the policy here. WP:DOB says dates of birth must be widely covered or covered "by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object to the details being made public". The information in Who's Who comes directly from subjects, therefore it clearly qualifies under the second point. Frickeg (talk) 21:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The whole rule needs to reviewed and rewritten. I was surprised to see that an encyclopedia would leave out a biographical detail such as date of birth. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 14:35, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Full birthdates are really just trivial information. It doesn't tell us anything about who this person is, which is far more important. I would equate this to other statistical data such a height, eye color, and weight. Just not necessary for an encyclopedia. When it comes to birthdates, some people consider that private information, what with all the identity theft and stuff going on. We take the privacy and safety of our subjects very seriously, and if someone doesn't want their full birthdate published then we simply omit it. One source is not enough to tell us the subject is fine with us publishing it. You need to find many sources, and that way we can accurately infer that the subject wouldn't mind if we publish it too. I hope that helps explain. Zaereth (talk) 17:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with just about every point you have made here. Birth dates are a typical and expected piece of biographical information. The reason we are able to cite sources for birth dates is because they are so much a part of biographies. Birth dates allow us to understand what was going on in the world when a person was born, lived, and died. They are not trivial - they are vital to situating someone in history. "Identity theft" is a boogeyman and a red herring. You are "protecting" no one's privacy. Birth dates that one can find by simply Googling them (or in the source used for the birth year) are not secrets that can be protected. The assumption that someone "wouldn;t mind" because a birth date (or any other fact) is widely reported is just wildly wrong. This rule seems like it is well intentioned but poorly thought through. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 03:00, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

It's one that evolved over time due to the discussion and consensus of a large number of people. It's something that coincides well with the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists. It doesn't matter the reason, if a person doesn't want their full birthdate published here out of privacy concerns, then we have a responsibility to respect their decisions. And, yes, we get a lot of subjects that come here to request their date be removed. We cannot assume that any of them are ok with it unless there is sufficient reason to make that inference. For example, any good, reliable source will redact someone's birthdate if they complain about it. If it's is widely published, then we can reasonably infer that they are aware and have never complained about it. Zaereth (talk) 03:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel like this one is probably due for reconsideration and clarification, though, to be fair - it's a very old and rather confusing guideline, and one that is very inconsistently followed across the encyclopedia. I strongly disagree with the idea that birth dates are trivial or equivalent to something like eye colour - knowing someone's age is pretty important (and something people refer to Wikipedia for a lot!) and without a date it is only ever an approximation; it is also standard to include across encyclopedias generally (Britannica, pretty much all biographical dictionaries, etc.). Of course we should not be digging in birth registers or including anything from unreliable sources, but I'm far from comfortable with the idea that this particular biographical detail should be treated differently from any other (e.g. place of birth). Anyway, this is all off topic since the point at issue here clearly falls under the guideline. Frickeg (talk) 07:30, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I guess then I should clarify what I mean by trivial. All trivia is important to someone, but to tell if some detail is trivial or not, I ask myself, would the story read just the same without it, or would removing it somehow alter the story and greatly diminish the general reader's understanding of the subject? That a capacitor stores energy is vital information. That they were used on the space shuttles is trivial, even though a fact. As an encyclopedia, that's what we do, is take a subject and summarize it, and to do that we need to cut through all the boring details and trivia and get to the nitty gritty. Now, if you're comparing us to Britannica or similar paper encyclopedias, then we have a whole different set of standards, as in you wouldn't even find this person there. Not even remotely notable enough.

Now don't get me wrong. Birthdates are great to have --when we can get them-- but the world is not going to end if we can't. The article will still read just the same. Narrowing it down to a birth year is usually good enough to tell one Steve Smith from the next. Zaereth (talk) 08:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

There's no real need for the exact birthdate, and while I've often used Year-month I'll probably switch to just year in future. An approximate year of birth is I find typically useful to fit a person to the time period they are operating in which can and generally how old they were when they did something. At least in UK date of births from the start of the century could have inaccuracies of a few days, and might be the date the birth was registered. The debate of the UK Who's who's is fascinating as we can't seem to dither whether its SPS or inaccurate. In some UK use cases there are public sources which are accurate (insofar as anything that can be accurate) but can't be used. The case in question here seems widely enough published not to be an issue. If it had have proven to be a privacy issue then it would surely have appropriate to request Wikipedia:Revision deletion? as diff's had not been used. Interesting. An update to WP:DOB might be useful though, and that Year of birth missing category (or whatever it is) is annoying. Djm-leighpark (talk) 00:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I haven't looked into the specifics. Too busy in real life now. I just saw a policy question that seemed simple enough to answer, so I'll let you all work out the specifics. I agree we need some kind of time frame, yet sometimes we can't even name a specific year. Sometimes you get conflicting sources, or people lie about their age all the time. There are times when all we can get is a range, and I think our very own Jimbo Wales had a situation like this. We can't go digging up birth certificates in some misguided quest of the truth. Sometimes you give what you can get, and if we can't, just leave it out.

I'd like to put in the Japanese swordsmithing article information about the soft-iron cores, in that they don't actually help prevent breakage anymore than the soft pearlite jacket already does. What it does do is dampen the recoil considerably, like a dead-blow hammer (little or no bounce back). Moreover it stops the thing from ringing like a bell, which feels like a jackhammer beating against your knuckles. It's similar to what happens if a bell maker doesn't get a good, homogenous cast. Knowing that from my own expertise doesn't cut the mustard, however. I would need to find it in an extremely reliable source first. Birthdays are really no different, except you need multiple sources.

As for your suggestion about clarifying the policy, that is probably a good idea, but this isn't really the place to do that. If you go to the policy talk page you can make your suggestions there, and who knows, you may even succeed and help eliminate some of the confusion. Zaereth (talk) 03:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Monisha Shah page on Hindi Wikipedia

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.

---

Djm-leighpark has created a page for Monisha Shah on Hindi Wikipedia (see मोनीषा शाह). They have used Shah's full birth date, despite saying in this discussion that "There's no real need for the exact birthdate, and while I've often used Year-month I'll probably switch to just year in future.". This seems inconsistent. As far as I can tell, none of the sources used contain her birth date (but one is a paid access, so I can't be sure). The Hindi version *appears* to be a word for word translation of the page that was here before it got deleted, except most of the sources have been removed. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 23:26, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I accept that is a word for word translation and the big issue which I need to to hold my hands up to is it is not back attributed yet (OK I've just added a sentence to the talk page), and that is one of the serious issues I have alluded to as a priority on other Wikipedias other than the English Wikipedia, I've actually focused on the other issue today but it won't be immediately obvious from any edit contributions. Given I call CWW out at times that can be argued I can get a slap on the wrist for that but the issue is back fixable. While I have edited low level on English Wikipedia for the past few days its mostly been short stuff though I've attempted to cite an article in the last hour, its late but its relatively easy going. Refer also to the discussion on my talk page at User talk:Djm-leighpark/Your interest in Monisha Shah. In short the rational for using the full date of birth was the effective conclusion of this article that full publication of the data of birth was permissible as it had been widely published, thus compliant with WP:DOB; whereas the comment I would switch from using Month-Year to Year was intended to apply to BLPs were there was no evidence of the DOB being widely published. I do have concerns the the full DOB was splattered on this discussion rather than diffs before the identification of evidence of wide publication which strictly may have required REVDELs. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 00:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark I don't understand much of what you are saying. To be honest, I generally have a great deal of trouble deciphering your replies and usually give up. I don't understand why you would create a page about Monisha Shah in the Hindi Wikipedia while there was a deletion discussion going on. Is she more notable if the words are translated to another language? You didn't add any Himdi sources. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 01:34, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to The Cloud of Unknowing. Djm-leighpark (talk) 01:41, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I am unable to see how that is helpful or productive. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 02:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark You used this article to source the sentence "Shah joined BBC Worldwide (BBCW - a commercial sales and distribution arm of the BBC) in 1999." (as translated back to English). I am not able to view the contents of that article. Are you able to view it? Polycarpa aurata (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Djm-leighpark I am waiting for your response before taking this further. The same source was used on the page here so this isn't just about your Google-translated Hindi version. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 21:16, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we at English Wikipedia have absolutely no control or influence on what happens at Hindi Wikipedia. All the different language Wikipediae are completely separate entities, each with their own rules and way of doing things. I'm not necessarily in favor of that, but what else can we do? I doubt many of us here speak Hindi, so mostly people have to work these things out on the articles and policy pages of their respective sites. That said, the rules and formats of different writing styles is universal, and allows us to accurately evaluate sources and articles from other languages even with tools as crude as google translate. The core tenets of journalism and other forms of expository writing goes back to medieval times. This all really started with encyclopedic writing, which originated even farther back in the first century with Pliny the Elder, who is the father of the modern encyclopedia.

The problem, even in English Wikipedia, is convincing everybody else of this, and believe you me, it is something I struggle with every time I come to these forums. Good luck getting uniformity across all sites if we can't even forge it on one. (I mean it. Go for it, and the best of luck! Someone needs to fight the good fight, and maybe someday, once society as a whole has grown past the stage of a self-centered 5 year-old child, we will. But I foresee that as a long and arduous journey.) Zaereth (talk) 03:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not trying to influence all of Hindi Wikipedia, just the actions of one particular editor from right here on English Wikipedia. I feel like that might be an achievable goal. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 03:36, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, actually I wasn't talking to you, or, at least not to you in specific. You can tell by the way I indented. That was more of a general statement. In any debate on Wikipedia, or actually any debate in life in really, it is going to be nearly impossible to convince your opponent. People just have this odd human-tendency to dig in their heels and resist any attempt to get them to see a different viewpoint. We all at times lose sight of the forest for the few trees right in front of our face, and once someone is dug into their little hole it can be next to impossible to get them to rationally consider alternate possibilities. In any debate, the people you really need to convince is everybody else. All those hundreds of people who are reading this and not commenting ... yet. Those are who you should be talking to.

Now, it sounds to me --by your own admission just now-- that this isn't really about improving either encyclopedia. It sounds a lot more like you have a WP:AXE to grind, and that is going to come around to bite you if you're not careful. Just FYI. (I hear on Hindi Wikipedia they still cut off your hands for that :-) Zaereth (talk) 04:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Zaeretg, your *joke* "(I hear on Hindi Wikipedia they still cut off your hands for that :-)" is quite offensive and inappropriate. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 04:21, 14 April 2022 (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.

Howard Doyle Berry

Yo, I've been libeled! Seriously, like I've libeled, had my name dragged through the mud! Th accusses me of like a murder! This so-called 'article' here Satan's Choice–Popeyes War like sayys 'Howard "Pigpen" Berry, a notorious Hitman of the Satan's Choice opened fire on the clubhouse of the Popeyes Motorcycle Club with a sawed-off Lee–Enfield .303 bolt action rifle with a ten-round clip, killing one member of the Popeyes motorcycle club and injuring two more'. Like yo, I like never killed anybody like ever! Like never like any like once in a while! Yeah, this is a lie about Pigpen! It doesn't even sayy who I like was supposed to have liked killled. Like if I like killled anybody, shouldn't it like name the guy I like killled? Just go to page 73 of Peter's book. He tells the truth. like here [15] He's the real deal. And he certainly does not say that I killed anybody, like what this so-called 'article' like says about me! Like this article lies about me and it like makes Peter sound like a liar because it is like quotes Peter's book and makes it sound like Peter sayys I killed somebody. What Peter actually says if you like go to his book is 'Kirby said he was in Montreal when Pigpen opened fire on the Popeyes clubhouse with a sawed-off .303 with a ten-round clip "It was like a cannon going on" Kirby said'. Like Peter does NOT sayy I likke killed or wounded anybody! Like I'm going to contact my lawyer about like suing you if you know what I mean!!!

Drop the last line, since we can discuss here or you can go to court, but not both. With that said, the source does seem to be taken out of context and the article is going further than the source material supports.Slywriter (talk) 02:40, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Barry Smolin

A while back, I included some sexual harassment allegations in this article. Smolin is a mildly popular radio host and high school teacher, so I thought the first bit qualified the sexual harassment allegations for inclusion. Xxanthippe reverted the additions, but I reverted their revert and discussion never commenced. Since then, several editors pointed out to me that the inclusion (and the reversion) ignored the nuance of due weight given the profile of the subject, and therefore still fell somewhat afoul of BLP. I was still personally ambivalent for a while, so I left it alone. Revisiting this, I think it's pretty clear that the amount of detail I gave to it—while not intentionally larger than every other section—was far too much for a BLP. I've cut out most of the detail, but I'll leave it to this place to decide whether it should be included at all. So, late to the party, but at least I'm here. Thanks very much! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 05:47, 14 April 2022 (UTC) also see Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles)#Misconduct

If you argue that he is a WP:PUBLICFIGURE, and it seems like he is, every detail of the allegation needs to be supported by multiple reliable sources. The mutual coverage dictates the depth of detail you should include. Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Anybody can make allegations about anything against anybody. Wikipedia should not report allegations until they are proven by admission or by a court of law. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC).

While I absolutely agree that we should be careful and have a high bar for such information, an absolute ban would not work by my lights. Sometimes accusations receive so much attention in reliable sources that Wikipedia would be delinquent not to mention them. Michael Jackson would be one example for me, but there are others. Still, as I say, I agree with the spirit of your comment. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

In my view the event doesn't warrant mention at all, and certainly should not be tacked onto the lead. Remember Wikipedia isn't a place for everything, and not a newspaper. Newspapers state what happens today, regardless of long-term significance ("Joe Blow enjoys peanut butter sandwich at new deli"). Wikipedia articles should not mirror the myopic daily journalism tone of "as of X he has not responded". I don't yet see a long term significance for encyclopedic inclusion: The LA Times article says "He has not faced any criminal charges related to the allegations and it’s unclear if there was a police investigation." The CBS article says "accused". There appears to have been a 2 day spike of breaking news (WP:RSBREAKING), but 1 year later I find zero follow-up coverage to evaluate due wight and biographical relevance: did he lose his career? Was he exonerated? Convicted? If we can't answer the "so what" of a statement, it probably shouldn't be in an article, as it looks tacked on for the mere sake of pedantry at best. "Joe ate a peanut butter sandwich" might be a verifiable fact, but unless the follow-up is "Joe then died because of his peanut allergy", it shouldn't be in a biography. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:58, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Animalparty!. There have been no charges thus far. I have a feeling there won’t be anymore reporting on this. Thriley (talk) 03:57, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

well, hang on; the Marion Vree case at the same school received follow-up coverage—the lawsuit was settled out of court. And Vree isn't as notable as Smolin. It's entirely possible that there will be new coverage, it'll just take time, lawsuits take time. I'm not saying that's a reason to keep; we could always wait for said coverage to materialize. But it should be kept in mind that the story probably isn't over. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

(Redacted) Thriley (talk) 16:21, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

For transparency, I have redacted the above comment by Thriley on grounds of potential disclosure of personal information relating to Theleekycauldron — please do not reinstate this information. ~TNT (talk • she/her) 17:11, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I recall that information was on Leeky’s page until a few months ago. I think it is relevant to the discussion here. Thriley (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I just checked. I guess I just assumed that when I saw Hamilton and Smolin mentioned on their page. Thriley (talk) 17:41, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree with Animalparty. PUBLICFIGURE is pretty clear it is an exception for celebrities and people of similar public interest. In addition, the policy clearly states that there should be very wide and ongoing coverage of the event, to the extent that there is no point in trying to protect their right to be innocent until proven guilty thus we would be remiss in not covering it as well. That is the most important thing, because most people who become celebrities do so knowing full well they're giving up their standard rights to privacy, but sometimes even regular people are pulled into the spotlight and reach celebrity status for things like criminal acts alone. Examples would be the likes of Charles Manson or any of his gang, or Mary Kay Letourneau. Still, if you look at the sheer level of coverage they got, and how it was ongoing from start to completion, then we would be remiss in not covering them as well. None of that is the case here. This looks like an allegation that received only a smattering of coverage and was quickly forgotten by the media, due to low public interest, and as such we should not be covering it either. Zaereth (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

I have to say that I am disturbed by how many attempts are made to make Wikipedia into an attack site. Users should take WP:BLP very seriously. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:29, 17 April 2022 (UTC).

Emmanuel Faber

In the last few days, material has been added which I think is contentious and unsourced (whether without reference or where the reference does not actually support the contentious statement). I have twice attempted to remove it, and also tried to explain the problem on the talk page of the editor who added the material. That editor reinstated the contentious and unsourced material. I am no legal expert but I guess the material might also be defamatory and libelous. Someone please help. Mrmedley (talk) 09:36, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, that's problematic. I have put the article back to what I think is the last good version, and have partial blocked User:Primeditor from the article itself; they may still contribute on the talk page. Black Kite (talk) 10:13, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Polonca Frelih

• Polonca Frelih (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An anonymous user is constantly inserting unsupported pro-Kremlin accusation to this person. Please stop him changing this biography with unsubstatiated claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Irrevocabile tempus (talk • contribs) 10:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Jami Floyd

New York journalist Jami Floyd has been the subject of allegations that some of the work she has published over the last ten years has used information that was unattributed. Coverage is here: Columbia Journalism Review. Current. The difference between publishing "unattributed information" and plagiarism is hazy to me. I guess publications are staying away from saying it absolutely for now. Floyd herself has posted on the article's talk page and is making suggestions. I am wary of using what she has proposed. I think these allegations should be thoroughly covered in several paragraphs so nothing is lost in the timeline. I don't normally get involved with issues like this and would appreciate assistance from those that do. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 16:49, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

• The article has need of experienced BLP editors. I've started trimming WP:PROMO material cited to unreliable sources (IMDB, a copyvio YouTube video) but it's likely there's more to do. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:52, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
• The section header was inappropriate. This is another part of the person's career, and doesn't belong outside of that, especially with wording that is at the core of the difference here. Just blamming news reportage in under new top-level headings, like "Controversies", "Legal troubles", and so forth, has been the cause of so much trouble over the years. (Much like "Trivia" and "In popular culture", in fact.)

  The text could do with some work here. The IP address has a point, but equally the IP address's suggested text seems one-sided. Although https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/wnycs-jami-floyd-accused-of-plagiarism-in-45-articles-dating-back-to-2010/ is another NYP piece, it seems that it's sourcing in the main to the CJR pieces, which include https://www.cjr.org/special_report/audrey_cooper_wnyc_public_radio_merger.php , and carefully using standard weaselling tactics such as "accused of", "allegedly", and "claimed" with its only other source. Current is also sourcing to the CJR in large part, with added material from the union. So the CJR pieces would seem to be the things to be reading here, not someone else's reporting of what the CJR reported.

  In that light, note that the CJR piece says two things which should not be conflated, the numbers of articles taken down, and the number of examples shown.

  Uncle G (talk) 20:03, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Tom Devine

I am concerned with the promotional tone of Tom Devine, which is little more than a collection of awards and promotional phrases "oldest and most prestigious Professorial Chair in that field", "retirement celebration focused on a discussion of his career with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a sell out event in the University's McEwan Hall.Messages of congratulation were received from the Prime Minister of the UK and the First Minister of Scotland", "the nation's preeminent historian ...an academic tornado from early in his career", etc. Very little material about his actual work. Most of this material added by a succession of IPs, and gets re-added if I remove it. I added a "promotional tone" tag which was promptly removed without explanation by IP. Has previously been raised on this board Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive329#Tom Devine. Pinging @Textualism: and @Wallyfromdilbert: who were involved then. I rather suspect some COI editing is behind the IPs. DuncanHill (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

• Agree, the article was flagged a long time ago as reading more like a CV than an article about a living person. Suspect the anonymous IP editors have a COI or are the actual subject in question ~~~ Textualism (talk | contribs) 16:13, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
• From a quick look, I'd have to agree with DuncanHill's assessment. A great deal of stuff about awards etc, and next to nothing about why he deserves them. I'm inclined to believe, based on their shear volume, that he quite likely does, and it would seem rather a disservice to our readers not to explain why. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:18, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
• I've warned the latest IP that's been removing the "promotional tone" tag somewhat more sharply than you did, Duncan. Then I thought I'd remove some of the WP:NOTCV-violating material (especially the details about his father's education and career - honestly - and the cute specification of who his wife is, namely "Lady Devine"). But no, I have now acted as an admin at the page, by warning him about potential blocking, and by fully intending to block him if it comes to that, so I shouldn't edit it. The IPs are all the same /64 range, so can easily be blocked if the disruption continues. Better than semi, at least as an initial action. Bishonen | tålk 18:23, 12 April 2022 (UTC).

Indeed, AndyTheGrump. Here's a little content on a little bit of the subject's works, in a little brown box, from reviews of said work:

Hello Drmies. Another little brown box. We have an academic whose works aren't being discussed in the article at all by the looks of things but whose biography is full of unnecessary peacockery (c.f. Special:Diff/1030686643/1082338262) about awards and chairs (whose own articles are surely enough to tell one about them) and whose subject is talking (via OTRS) about "My CV" on the article talk page. That's just 2 reviews, Drmies. JSTOR has 3 pages of book review results. Uncle G (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

An IP claiming to be Devine has started a thread at WP:AN. [16] I've responded there, and linked this discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:34, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

• I hear you, Uncle, but I really do not want to be doing any favors here, not even for the greater good--this is so blatant and careless. Professors, teachers, should know better. Drmies (talk) 22:46, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
  • True. But I know that you're good for some puffery removal. Uncle G (talk) 23:08, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

That article was in a very sorry state indeed: peacockery, sourcing to autobiography, text just lifted wholesale from the sources, partial citations, hidden unsourced parts where the source only applied to the final sentence, false sourcing where the sources didn't support the content, and even outright false content in one instance. I've cleaned out all of the peacockery, with a little help from Cullen328 who has also done the introduction, marked the things that in fact did not have sources, and put the little brown box in. I leave the decision on removing the cleanup tag to DuncanHill, User:Textualism, et al.. I'll put some more in from the 1st page of JSTOR results in a little while; but that was almost 8 hours of my time cleaning up bad biography. Uncle G (talk) 07:51, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I have gone beyond the first page. I thought that you should probably know. Scotland owes me some articles. Uncle G (talk) 22:10, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

bis

There are a series of inaccuracies in my bio and gross imbalances in the reviews of my books.I request access asap to correct these errors.

Prof Emeritus Sir Tom Devine.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:1394:9C00:3C1A:3760:1D75:4D32 (talk) 22:31, 19 April 2022 (UTC) 

That isn't going to happen because (a) we have no way of knowing that you are Devine, and (b) we have policies regarding editing, which don't include individuals controlling the content of biographies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:37, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

• The real Tom Devine wouldn't have done Special:Diff/926368662/953734739 erasing the name of xyr predecessor. Uncle G (talk) 01:56, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'd rate the chances of this IP actually being Devine about the same as it being Shergar. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:21, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
    • IMO for various reasons I won't go in to here, best not to speculate. To the original poster: regardless of who you are, you need to articulate specific problems with the article that we can look in to. Maybe find one or two specific sentences that you feel are the worst and a brief description of why. The article has already been worked on extensively by Uncle G an experienced editor and I think been looked at by others so there's not any obvious problems to us. As others have said, there's no guarantee we will be able to change anything since we have to go by our own guidelines and policies on what content we include, and do not change articles just because the subject of the article, or someone else, objects. Also normally here at BLPN, it doesn't matter whether you are who you say you are. precisely for the reason that it's irrelevant, there's either a problem with the article or there is. But in this case given your high profile and that you have been very active before, it's probably better if you WP:create an account and contact the Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team with the specific purpose of verifying your identity if you are going to continue to identify as Tom Devine. Nil Einne (talk) 14:42, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
      • You're not caught up on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Tom Devine. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 15:03, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
        • I was aware of that thread it actually adds to my concerns about speculation. I didn't see clear articulation of problems with the article there either, and as I understand it, after some confusion it appears their identity wasn't verified in the older contact with the VRT. It was already suggested they should verify their identity there, IMO it's reaching the point where for various reasons they should either do it, or stop claiming to be Tom Devine. They can still talk about problems with the article without having to make such statements. Nil Einne (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
          • As I said at Special:Diff/1082995292 I am certain that these IP addresses are not the article subject. Claiming to be the article subject and trying to inject puffery into the article should indeed stop. foundation:Terms of Use/en#4. Refraining from Certain Activities are being violated. I hope that the person doing it sees sense and just stops. And Scotland does indeed owe me some articles. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Gonzalo Lira

Gonzalo Lira (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This is currently at AFD and looks like it is going to be kept. I am concerned about potential BLP issues in the article. Can someone else please review it? User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:53, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Charles Lane

• Charles Lane (journalist) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The Wikipedia biography about me Charles Lane (journalist) is marred by negative information about me that is poorly sourced and inaccurate. Specifically, it asserts that I was fired from my job as Editor of the New Republic because my employer blamed me for the notorious Stephen Glass fabrication scandal. The only attribution for this is a busted link. The allegation is completely false as I know from personal experience. In addition, the controversies section is one-sided, out of date and clearly not written in good faith. After leaving this alone for many years, I have spent time this weekend attempting to correct the record but my edits keep reverting to the false and inflammatory information. Wikipedia should address this situation. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SuzukaBlue (talk • contribs) 21:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

This might have been the busted link which said you were fired,[17] while Salon said you were replaced.[18] Morbidthoughts (talk) 22:36, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

After reviewing the sources, I have updated the article stating that you resigned and sourced it to the NY Times and the Washington Post. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

I need some other editors to review the controversies section. I chopped what I can,[19] but it still looks WP:UNDUE. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:44, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

It certainly is. And more continues to be added. I am at 3RR removing what I consider uncited information entirely out of bounds for a BLP. I would ask others to have a look. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 03:04, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I removed more. The restoration of an unsourced controversy was a solid BLPvio, and the other stuff I cut was purely sourced too. I left the actual attributed opinion, and moved it into the career section, but to be honest, who cares about that opinion, without a secondary sources to show it's due it should probably go to. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:30, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I removed that last bit, because along with being sourced to a blog, it was also just the WP:HEADLINE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:40, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Putinversteher

"Putinversteher" (literally, "Putin understander") is a derogatory political epithet in Germany. The page currently labels various people and political parties using the epithet in Wikivoice. For example, the first paragraph of the lede states,

There are Putinversteher above all in the right-wing party AfD, the socialistic party Die Linke, and in the SPD.

Just for reference, the SPD is one of the two largest political parties in Germany, and is the party of the current German chancellor.

I think the page needs additional attention to ensure that it's neutrally written and in compliance with WP:BLP. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the article deserves extra attention. A couple minutes ago I removed several items I recognized as WP:NOR and added attribution to info coming from analytical reliable sources. I moved away the abovementioned phrase from the lede and gave an attribution. Loew Galitz (talk) 06:31, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement that Wikipedia's article "labels people and parties" - someone else does. And the sources cited did notice that and report on the term. Loew Galitz (talk) 06:34, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I came to this article after reading the recent Signpost about it, which cited a Deutsche Welle article lauding the Wikipedia article and essentially confirming its text. I didnt bother to cite it, because it would be a case of "citogenesis" :-) Loew Galitz (talk) 06:31, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

P.P.S. While I am here, I reviewed all clauses of the WP:BLP and find none that are violated by the article. Of course, I may be mistaken. Loew Galitz (talk) 06:41, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Justin Trudeau

On Wikiquote, I deleted a section referencing baseless allegations from Buffalo Chronicle, a known fake news outlet with a reputation for publishing libelous information about public figures in Canada — Trudeau in particular. Is there any way to blacklist this toxic website, or anyone who cites it as a resource, from Wikipedia and its cousins altogether?

https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2019/10/18/theres-little-canada-can-do-to-stop-the-flow-of-false-viral-stories-from-buffalo-website.html

--49thParallelUniverse (talk) 04:01, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@49thParallelUniverse: While the problem may be the effect on BLPs, it's probably better to ask at WP:RSN than here since what you're saying is the site is complete inappropriate for anything. But briefly, theoretically the site could be added to either the global or local Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. The local black list would only affect en.Wikipedia, global will affect all sites including Wikiquote. Despite the name, the blacklist isn't used only for stuff that could be considered spam. Locally, it's also possible for an edit filter to either warn or prevent the addition of links to the site although AFAIK that's generally only used for cases where we either want to warn only, or otherwise want to allow links in some cases in ways more complicated than whitelisting would allow. (I assume edit filters are used the same way on other sites when needed, but I have no idea.) However in all cases, although the site doesn't have to be spammed, I'm pretty sure it generally has to be misused enough to be worth adding. I suspect the global blacklist is especially stringent on establishing there's enough misuse for it to be worth adding since you're basically forbidding any project from linking to it, often without people from said projects knowing about this. It think it also has to be clear no projects would ever have a significant reason to link to it. While an occasional link could be fixed with a whitelist, and a local project can even whitelist the entire site, these aren't really consider an acceptable solution to other projects inappropriately deciding one project can't use the site.) Unfortunately there are way more completely unreliable sites, even completely unreliable sites that someone may mistake for reliable, for us it to be worth us adding all to any such list. So if if this site is only being added once in a blue moon, it may not be worth pursuing more. Locally, there are also bots like User:XLinkBot which undoes such additions, although AFAIK these are again only used for cases when we want to warn of disallow the links in certain cases since otherwise we might as just use the spam blacklist. Nil Einne (talk) 08:49, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Ika Hügel-Marshall

A number of editors have recently updated this article to say she's died. I had a quick look and cannot find any sources saying this. Is her death true, or is this vandalism? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I see some chatter on twitter, but nothing from a reliable source.Slywriter (talk) 16:15, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

It may be true, but without reliable sources we can't say it in the article. We may have to wait for an obituary, although not everyone who dies gets one. It's up to their loved ones to write it and submit it to the newspaper, so sometimes we can't get any confirmation of death. But it's by far better and less traumatic to have an article that simply hasn't reported someone's death than to falsely declare a person dead before their time. I'd keep it out until we have something concrete. Zaereth (talk) 20:21, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Vicente Fox

Can someone take a look at Vicente Fox please. The stuff about his German ancestry all appears to be OR sourced from findagrave and ancestry.com, neither of which we accept as reliable sources. The weasely "...but it was discovered that..." without the source of who exactly was doing the discovering implies to me that it was Wikipedia editors themselves. SpinningSpark 11:47, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I removed that paragraph, I agree, it was pretty bad OR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:53, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Andrew Lack (executive)

The page about Andrew Lack (executive), the former chairman of NBC News, is riddled with inaccuracies and bias. I’ll focus just on the statements about Ronan Farrow. FYI, I have declared COI as a consultant being paid by NBC News.

First, In the Career section, NBCUniversal (2015-2020) subsection, the third and fourth sentences read:

Farrow also reported that Lack had ordered Richard Greenberg to scuttle reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases because "it was an Andy decision."  Farrow later published his work in The New Yorker. 

The cited Variety story says Farrow had been told to stop reporting while his reporting was being reviewed by NBC News. It does not say Lack ordered Richard Greenberg to “scuttle reporting.” “Scuttled” would mean an order had been given to cease the reporting entirely, not that the matter was under review. Variety says Farrow didn’t “believe” NBC would run the story after the internal review. Farrow would not have to “believe” what might happen next had the matter been settled.

Furthermore, the language on Wikipedia accepts (a distorted version) of Farrow’s allegations as fact without balancing it with high-quality press coverage about NBC News' vehement refutation. New York Times ("[Farrow's allegations are] built on a series of distortions, confused timelines and outright inaccuracies.”) Washington Post (“...Farrow has distorted, exaggerated and flat-out lied in his account of NBC’s actions..”)

New York Times media reporter Ben Smith also reported that Farrow made the accusations about NBC News without proof. Smith also read Farrow's last NBC News script and confirmed it had no on-the-record sources. New York Times (“[Farrow] often omits the complicating facts and inconvenient details... At times, he does not always follow the typical journalistic imperatives of corroboration and rigorous disclosure, or he suggests conspiracies that are tantalizing but he cannot prove.”)

The actual events are more nuanced and require a more thorough review of press coverage than a single Variety story. If it is to be included, a balanced version might be:

Lack and other NBC News executives were accused by Ronan Farrow, in his book “Catch and Kill”, of slowing and eventually obstructing Farrow’s seven month investigation into Harvey Weinstein. NBC News denied Farrow’s allegations, saying Farrow’s reporting at NBC News was not ready for publication in large part because he did not have anyone on the record.  On October 10, 2017, The New Yorker ran a story by Farrow about Weinstein with seven named women accusing him of sexual misconduct. 

BC1278 (talk) 21:51, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

This looks like whitewashing to me, so this is declined forever. Quetstar (talk) 14:39, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you can't just decline forever. NPOV days we should be covering all significant viewpoints, Which the NBC refutations certainly are, and there is plenty of coverage of them. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:49, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

For me, neutrality is paramount. And when it comes to controversial articles like this one, I belive that paid editors should stay away from them. Quetstar (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

@Quetstar: If you wish to reverse well-established Wikipedia policy that allows those with a declared conflict of interest to participate on Wikipedia, you should draft such a proposal. The BLPN noticeboard is not the place for such debates and distracts from the merits of the discussion. I will note that in cases like this -- involving potentially libelous statements on a BLP -- policy says a COI editor can simply remove the passage directly. I've brought it here so independent editors with an interest in BLP can discuss and decide. BC1278 (talk) 19:19, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Agree that this isn't nuance but rather whitewashing. It reads OK to me as is, but if you really think there's improvement to be had, I'm sure you can find a way to include the (paid) NBC refutations without being pedantic about the use of the word "scuttle" and trying to defang the heft of what's been said with flowery language. 98.217.255.37 (talk) 09:40, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I would just like this to be accurate instead of grossly wrong. The Variety source does not say Farrow reported Lack ordered Greenberg to do anything, let alone "scuttle" reporting. Variety says Farrow alleges in his book that Greenberg told Farrow it was NBC Universal chairman Steve Burke and Andy Lack who had Farrow's story put "under review." Greenberg never said he was ordered to stop Farrow before the review (by Lack or anyone else) -- in fact, Greenberg helped run the review and concluded: “The standard [for publication] would be, at a bare minimum, a credible person making an allegation on the record — willing to be identified by name — ideally on camera. We never quite got there.” Farrow alleges in his book that Lack coordinated with NBC News president Noah Oppenheim to "obstruct" his reporting - but mostly he blames Oppenheim.) The gross misrepresentation of Variety on Wikipedia is also naive about the entirety of the allegations against NBC News and counter-allegations against Farrow from dozens of other sources. My proposed language says "slowing and eventually obstructing" the reporting instead of "scuttling" because obstructed or "blocked" is what Farrow says. NBC News, through Oppenheim, assigned Farrow this investigation into Weinstein and let it go on 7 months - that's why it says "slowing" because at first, Farrows says NBC News assigned it to him. Farrow quit rather than wait out the NBC News review because he says thought they'd never find his way, as reported in the Variety source. He also said he had a magazine ready to immediately run the story. My proposed version also gives a very gentle version of NBC's explanation of why it didn't run Farrow's reporting (lack of sourcing.) You can read the vicious counter-allegations I did not include in the excerpted quotes above, including from the Washington Post (“...Farrow has distorted, exaggerated and flat-out lied in his account of NBC’s actions..”) BC1278 (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I used the prose that was there and the suggested prose, and came up with:

In 2019, investigative journalist Ronan Farrow reported that Lack downplayed a human resources complaint of rape against Today anchor Matt Lauer in 2014. Lauer was not fired until late 2017. Lack was also accused by Farrow, in his book Catch and Kill, of slowing and eventually blocking Farrow’s seven month investigation into Harvey Weinstein. Farrow also alleged that Lack had ordered Richard Greenberg to block reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases. NBC News denied Farrow’s allegations, saying Farrow’s reporting at NBC News was not ready for publication in large part because he did not have anyone on the record. On October 10, 2017, The New Yorker ran a story by Farrow about Weinstein with seven named women accusing him of sexual misconduct. Farrow also reported that NBC News hired a "Wikipedia whitewasher" who removed references to NBC News's role in the Harvey Weinstein case from several Wikipedia articles, including Lack's.

References

I think that's the best of both worlds, and it contains the NBC News rebuttal. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

That's good, but why is this discussion even necessary?. IMO, I prefer the version that's currently on the page. Quetstar (talk) 12:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

That is the version that's currently on the page, I had already made the edit. WP:NPOV demands that we include the information found in sources, in proportion to the coverage. There isn't a single source discussing this that do not cover the NBC News rebuttals. Also, matching the wording used by sources is better than using an NPOV and unencyclopedic term like "scuttling." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:26, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

OK, but you're not supposed to make changes until this discussion is over, so i am going to restore the original version. Quetstar (talk) 12:37, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no moratorium on making changes to an article while it is being discussed here unless there are WP:BLPRESTORE concerns. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:55, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

The article as it stood prior to ScottishFinnishRadish's edit was a clear and unambiguous violation of WP:BLP policy. I have removed a further unambiguous violation from the lede. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:12, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I understand now. I am going to wait a little bit and then close this as resolved. Quetstar (talk) 13:45, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Just leave it. If anyone wants to contribute, they can, and if not it will be archived. No need for formal closure. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Phineas Fisher

There's currently no consensus on the website Vice. At Phineas Fisher (in section AKP Hack) and at WikiLeaks#Reception there are a number of statements sourced only to Vice, and one sourced to Vice and a website called "Cyberwire". I've removed these per BLPREMOVE (as have others) but they've been reinserted multiple times by the same editor. What are people's views on using material from Vice not covered in other sources for BLP? It looks like very poor sourcing for BLP content. Cambial — foliar❧ 21:24, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

"I've removed these per BLPREMOVE (as have others) but they've been reinserted multiple times by the same editor."

That is not true, both me and @Geogene reverted it and he said your edit summaries were a lie. You also keep ignoring consensus on Talk:WikiLeaks. Softlemonades (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

"as have others"[citation needed] Softlemonades (talk) 21:09, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

@Cambial Yellowing Who are the other editors? diffs? Softlemonades (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Most of the citations for Phineas Fisher have the same status @Cambial Yellowing is cherry picking challenges as part of an edit war on the WikiLeaks page. Cambial isnt trying to remove any of the other VICE citations Softlemonades (talk) 17:40, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

If there are others sources to Vice for contentious content they should also be removed. The issue with the content you’re insisting on is that the living person is claimed to have carried out an illegal computer hack on a national government/ political party. That requires reliable sources, not Vice and an archive copy of an obscure website. Cambial — foliar❧ 17:44, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Who are the other editors? You didn't lie did you? Softlemonades (talk) 17:49, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I just ask because you keep edit warring and your reasons change a lot and you make claims like and then leave them or make accusations instead of explaining your position, like on Talk:Wikileaks Softlemonades (talk) 17:51, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Except none of that happened, did it. My reasons don’t “change a lot”, they’re consistent and accord with policy; and no accusations have been made, simply statement of facts about your increasingly disruptive violations of our policy on Wp:BLPs. Cambial — foliar❧ 18:13, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

It just happened again - you accused me of disruptive edits and violations after making false claims in this thread and refusing to back them up.

Who were the other editors who removed the content? You made that claim. Who were they? What were the diffs?

You claimed only one editor reinsterted it. That was false. Geogene also did it. I can back that up. Can you?

I solved it with additional sources by the way, go find a new angle in the Wikileaks article you dont like to complain about Softlemonades (talk) 18:29, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I added sources. Go find a new objection Softlemonades (talk) 18:30, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, you all need to just settle down please. It doesn't matter who accused who of what. All that matters is the article, and I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the article is terrible. To start with, the sources: Vice is extremely poor quality. The stories are all very well written, but the content is like, who cares? It's basically clickbait titles with little substance in between. Then we have sources like twitter and github. And Worldcat! Seriously? All they do is sell books. I haven't gone through all the sources, but from what I have seen it doesn't look great.

Then we have the article itself. The last thing a person like this needs is an article in Wikipedia. The writing is very newspaperish and not really encyclopedic. Too many fine details and, like the sources, little substance in between. I have to question if this person even deserves an article, because neither the article nor the sources give much indication of why any of this should be important to me, the reader. This looks like a case of WP:Blow it up and start over. Zaereth (talk) 20:52, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

C clas isn't terrible, the BS issue they raised is solved, and the issue you raise should be raised on Talk:Phineas Fisher if at all but I see someone else foudn new objections for him Softlemonades (talk) 22:55, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

And it does matter if someone comes in making bad faith claims to push their agenda through. Obviously Softlemonades (talk) 22:57, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Only if on some level you believe those claims to be true. Otherwise, paying them any attention only helps them. And regardless of class, the article is in very bad shape. If you believe there are problems with an editor, then ANI is the place to discuss it. If sources are the problem, the RSN is for that. This noticeboard is for BLP issues, which I don't know how that would even apply to an unknown person. I don't think it would. I bring this up here only because it is getting tiresome. That's not what this board is for. Zaereth (talk) 23:09, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Gotcha thanks Softlemonades (talk) 01:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Peter Winter (philately)

• Peter Winter (philately) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

He is pretty much dead. See here for reference.

BDPh for Germany is widely equivalent to RPSL for UK. However there is also an English edition of Winter's Biography by Wolfgang Maaßen (2019) available.

German Wikipedia gives year of death of Winter as 2018. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:C22:B9D8:4000:E5D8:FCA8:776F:3E84 (talk) 02:34, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

• Please don't treat other people as your unpaid editing service. The page isn't protected, and clearly you know how to edit a wiki and that ISBN 9783928277983 exists. Uncle G (talk) 05:52, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Libs of TikTok

This article, about a controversial Twitter account, contains some personal information about the manager of the account, statements about her intent ("to mock people") and a collection of her personal views, which are cleary there to discredit her. The whole page is loaded with recent controversy. It seems to be a thorny and charged issue, so I'm happy to leave this to more experienced editors. – St.nerol (talk) 18:00, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

• I think that part of the problem with these sorts of articles is using "Controversy" in a section heading. It's one of those bad section headings like "Trivia" or "In popular culture". Bad structure leads to bad growth. "Trivia" and "In popular culture" leads to random mountains of largely unedifying factoids, as people think that that is what they should be adding. "Controversy" leads to more he-said/she-said stuff than simple facts. I've done a little restructuring, which I hope will help, but apart from strengthening a weak section start after moving stuff around I'm leaving the content and what the lead should say to others. Uncle G (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
  • While I don't disagree with the general point, I think a bigger issue in this case is something akin to BLP1E. Our article was only created after the controversial Washington Post article and the only sources from before the Washington Post article are 2 about a week ago from the time of her suspension (one is the Federalist but seems to only be used for attributed opinions so I expect it's fine) and 1 from 2021 from PinkNews about something shared by the account and the resulting fall out from others. I had a very quick look at articles before 18 April using Google News and there's a bunch mostly from Fox News on her suspension. If I looked before April, most are either from unreliable sources like NY Post or the Federalist or other questionable sources like Distractify. And those that aren't look to just be brief mentions like the PinkNews one, about stuff the account shared or reposted or whatever I suspect with little or no commentary on the account itself. It's not strictly BLP1E since it arose from a Washington Post article on the account rather than an event per se, but it's a very similar principle where virtually the entirety of coverage is about that stuff. There was a Daily Dot article before the Washington Post one but it seems to have only been about a day before. The other thing is that the accounts raison d'etre seems to be to repost on Twitter of 280 character fame what it considers liberal craziness from Tik Tok so virtual everything it does is likely to generate controversy. This isn't like Slate Star Codex, or even Alex Jones or Cameron Slater where at least they tend write or talk a lot. Nil Einne (talk) 06:48, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

See also Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Libs_of_TikTok Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:34, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The reveal of he person behind the account is pretty much the central narrative. What the person posts on social media about (perceived) leftish outlandish happenings is almost secondary. ValarianB (talk) 14:37, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

The way it was revealed is important and perhaps WP:BLPNAME matters, but if we keep the article then I suppose the name must stay, since it's by now widely disseminated and arguably it wasn't a single event since there have been multiple posts. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:35, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

I think we should err on the side of removal. Remember that during the Trump administration there was a person who was reported to be a whistle blower inside the admin. If their name was even mentioned on Wikipedia the editor would be admonished and the name would be rev suppressed. As with this case, that name could be found in RSs. Unless the name is critical to understanding the event, and I'm not sure how it is, we shouldn't include it. I mean if the name were John/Jane Doe would it change the rest of the story or the controversy about how it was released? Springee (talk) 19:35, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Her name is widely known now. The cat's out of the bag and it would look very strange not to include her name. If we did we'd have continued attempts to try to keep out something that is publicly known. Doug Weller talk 13:04, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

We have a situation like the Star Wars Kid (prior to when the person there readily accepted the identity as a means to fight bullying), in which many mainstream, non tabloid sources reported the name but we knew the person was trying to avoid the connection, and thus we did not include the name purposely despite the availability in reliable sources. The question that needs to be asked here is similar: I'm aware that the real person used a handle connected to their name (prior to that, clearly NOT a public figure) and then switched to this "anonymous" identity as they started posting on this attention-getting stuff, and from what I have seen, seems to have shied away from affirming connection between that name and this account since. I say seems because I haven't been able to review all the sources and so if there are some where they say "Yes, I am so-and-so and started the Libs of TT account..." willingly...", clearly no longer trying to mask their identity, then all bets all off and we're okay with using the name. But absent that clear indication that they are now opening the connection between their real name and this account name, we should be following the same practice, despite the ready availability of the name in sources. --Masem (t) 13:25, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I have no clear opinion on whether we should keep the name, but I don't think this is particularly comparable to the Star Wars Kid. The Star Wars Kid made one video when then went uberviral. I don't think it was ever their intention for this to happen, and AFAIK they didn't really do anything to keep themselves in the lime light after that. While the Twitter account uses a pseudonym, they continue to post and it's clearly their intention for their content to get wide attention even if they wish to remain pseudonymous. Further they chose to appear on a Tucker Carlson Tonight after one of their Twitter suspensions (but before the Washington Post or Daily Dot articles). Slate Star Codex is IMO more similar than this although the author no longer tries to maintain their pseudonymity. In some ways I'd argue that a better example than Star Wars Kid would be one of those internet meme cases where someone does seem to be continually seeking attention, sometimes even under their real name but we intentionally exclude any mention of it although AFAIK we've only ever done so when the sources are low quality. There is a prominent example that was discussed at least once here (after an arrest) which we can't and shouldn't name here but which some editors may be familiar with. Nil Einne (talk) 09:36, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to agree with Doug and Peter that BLPNAME has been met with the wide dissemination of her name. Given the account's targeted harassment and outing of others aka the attention-getting stuff, RS widely treated her identity as all bets were off and the wikipedia article should reflect this. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Article as it stands contains numerous WP:BLP violations. Even if it wasn't a BLP, countless claims are stated without attribution to their origin (columnists, Media Matters, self-published sources, blogs, etc) or to any source - let alone a RS - at all. Involved editors on the Talk Page seem to think Wikipedia is a democracy and they can simply force their POV into the article by force of numbers, deleting any evidence of any content disputes. Input from an uninvolved Admin desperately needed. EnlightenmentNow1792 (talk) 05:04, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

General FYI that EnlightenmentNow has since been blocked indefinitely. SiliconRed (he/him • talk) 17:40, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Graham Bensinger

Graham Bensinger (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The Legal Troubles section of this page is inaccurate and needs to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gdun1234 (talk • contribs) 15:29, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

It cites what appears what appears to be a credible source, [20] though admittedly I'm having to rely on Google Translate. What makes you think it is inaccurate? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:49, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

DV (newspaper) does not appear to be massively credible, sounds like the Icelandic Sun or Daily Mail. Black Kite (talk) 17:47, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

I've removed it. Regardless of how reliable DV is, a traffic violation does seem to be WP:UNDUE. Black Kite (talk) 17:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Having looked into this further, I'd come to the same conclusion. Even if the source is considered reliable (which seems open to debate), the lack of detail makes it rather undue. The article cited doesn't even tell us what the traffic offence was. AndyTheGrump (talk)

David Leeson

See David Leeson. Several accounts have been trying to put WP:BLP-violating content into the article. Person very recently died, still covered under BLP policy. The content is regarding a court case; and lacks any reliable secondary sources (like reliable newspaper reports, etc.) to verify conviction in said case. They either site older news reports with allegations (but no conviction) or direct cites to primary court documents (which per WP:BLPPRIMARY are not sufficient). Please keep an eye on this. If someone starts to follow proper BLP citation rules, then this may be okay to include, but as it stands right now, we don't have proper citations to include such information in the article on this recently deceased person. Thanks for your additional attention to this. --Jayron32 11:12, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

• I've revdeleted the relevant edits until we have proper citations, especially as some of them (and the edit summaries) definitely fell foul of BDP/BLP. Black Kite (talk) 11:42, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yael Eckstein

• Yael Eckstein (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The main editor responsible for the page, Dmackay27, constantly reverts any edits to the page or that of their organization (International_Fellowship_of_Christians_and_Jews), especially requests for notability or external sources. he admits on his talk page that he is a paid employee of the organization. As such the page reads like an advert, and has no real explanation of why she's notable. Mostly it seems to be she's notable because shes the CEO of that org, and the org is notable because it got a lot of donations last year and has her as the CEO (circular justification). Would appreciate some other editors taking a look and checking. 2600:6C5A:67F:ED90:9D73:2376:9E9F:3621 (talk) 15:51, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Main editor? Constantly reverts? Total nonsense. In fact he has made the huuuuuge total of two, count them, I did, edits to the page out of the last 500. Also note that eckstein was a he, not a she. Disruptive, much? -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 15:59, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yael Eckstein is a woman. Maybe you're thinking about her father, who died a few years ago (did you not even look at the article?) He's used multiple accounts that have been merged in the past (see the org logo discussion, where he admits to being an employee. 2600:6C5A:67F:ED90:9D73:2376:9E9F:3621 (talk) 16:06, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, I looked at your edit history, and Yael is not on it I do wish people would not edit as IPs. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:11, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Main editor? Constantly reverts? Total nonsense. In fact he has made the huuuuuge total of three, count them, I did, edits to the page. Disruptive, much? -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:22, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I've had major issues with harrassment in the past as a result of edits. And now IPV6 seems to change frequently, far moreso than IPv4 (I could just create a random throwaway account, but that would be less than 100% candid). Nonetheless, the editor in question seems to be heavily patrolling the page, has WP:ACtualCOI (as he admits in his talkpage he is employee of IFCJ which is run by Yael Eckstein, and appears to be practicing WP:advocacy. There's no notability, beyond 3 listicles calling her 'an influential jew' with no reason why, and the other 7 sources are otherwise related to her, and not reputable sources. I'm all for 'assume good faith', but to jump on and revert an edit within 7 minutes, for an article he had no prior edit history on (it seems) when the last substantive edit was more than a year ago, indicates something not right here. If you take the situation in the totality, including that he's not the only employee to have spent time patroling the pages (Teachtosing admits being employed by the org and did a lot of the editing, and sparky1405 existed only to make the page). This is usually WAY beyond the evidence level needed to show there's been bad faith in creating and editing the pages. 2600:6C5A:67F:ED90:9D73:2376:9E9F:3621 (talk) 16:43, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

She's definitely notable, [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]. The article needs to use some more secondary sources, but there's no lack of them that provide significant coverage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Problematic IP edit in lead of Robert Rubin article

Hello, earlier today an IP editor made this edit to the article about Robert Rubin. No source is provided, the claim is tendentious, and it doesn't belong in the introduction. I have a COI with Mr. Rubin, as disclosed on that talk page, so I should not be the one to remove it. Would another editor be willing to look into this? Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:47, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it is inappropriate for multiple reasons, so I've removed it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the quick action. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 00:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Gerald Ward (biker)

Further information: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § Gerald Ward (biker) and user:Grasshopper1970

• Gerald Ward (biker) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Grasshopper1970 (talk · contribs)

The article is making claims that the article subject did various criminal things, and with edits and in edit summaries an editor with an account has been challenging the veracity of this, as well as the veracity of things like the date and place of birth being off. All that anyone else has done so far is use anti-vandalism tools. More attention is needed to the substance here, I think.

One Welland Tribune article (LaFleche's and Walter's 2008 "Angels in Niagara", not cited here) does call Welland the article subject's "home town", for example. Is that justification for place of birth? The original content that says Niagara isn't linked to a source at all. This sort of thing is being ignored with vandalism rollback.

Uncle G (talk) 08:04, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I came across this at ANI and I've dealt with some of the more minor concerns, date of birth and place of birth. And also something else which seemed to be poorly cited; the claim he forced someone to pay $10000 for misusing his name since the source seemed to present this as something he told someone else, probably on a wire so there was no doubt he said it, but with no clarity on it ever being corroborated by anything. (I also dealt with something related which I'm not sure if Grasshopper1970 complained about again since the inline sources didn't seem to clearly support it.) The creator of the article who's active may be able to help deal with some of the alleged issues, especially those sourced to 'The Hard Way Out: My Life with the Hells Angels and Why I Turned Against Them'. Nil Einne (talk) 09:58, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Anyway, I didn't come across the home town source but IMO it's clearly insufficient and actually said something similar on ANI before I noticed this. I think something similar has been discussed before. But in brief, while I'm not familiar with Canadian usage of the term, at least the way I'm familiar with it, someone's home town is not necessarily where they were born. In a Western context, it's generally where they grew up, if there was one place. (In parts of Asia it may be where someone's grandparent/s, especially paternal grandparent/s live or maybe where they lived or your parents or father grew up.) For a variety of reasons like health care facilities and staff and perceptions of their cost, quality and availability (even for full funded care, access to maternal care may cross internal borders especially lower level ones), family or friend support especially in the later stages of pregnancy and maybe post-partum, an early labour, living close to the borders of whatever place where's specifying and plenty of other things; a person may be born somewhere besides where their mother is resident in the months before their birth. And even if born where their mother was resident in the months before their birth this doesn't mean it's where they grew up. Even if someone is raised by their mother which isn't always the case, their mother's residency could easily change in the months after birth especially if a first child and at a young age. These will vary somewhat depending on how specific we are, the country and the ways they manage the various things, traditions & norms etc, but ultimately I don't think we should ever assume someone's home town or where they spent their early life etc is where they were born. I don't think we should do it even for country of birth although that's something that's a lot less likely to vary. Nil Einne (talk) 09:58, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Dan Siegel

On his page, Dan Siegel is listed as clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of medicine, which is false. His name is not listed on the faculty associated with the Department of Psychiatry. This is important because Dan Siegel is currently selling online access to a course he is teaching, at $700/person. Faculty affiliated with UCLA (a public school) are legally prohibited from selling courses. the wiki page advertises false credentials used to sell a product. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabrielakpopescu (talk • contribs) 14:58, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

He's still listed in the faculty at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, where it still says he is "Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine". Is this outdated and he left at some point? Endwise (talk) 15:03, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

This seems to support it. Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Founding Co-Director, MARC Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine. There's other sourcing for it as well. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:05, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Stephen Smyk

• Stephen Smyk (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Stephen T. Smyk is an American elected official serving in the Delaware House of Representatives.[1] He has represented District 20 since 2013. [2] Smyk has filed for an open seat for DE State Senate, District 6. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ccrowe321 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Ccrowe321: All of which is present in the article. —C.Fred (talk) 20:16, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I didn't see the mention of the open Senate seat. I also do not see where the reported false allegations have been removed. Ccrowe321 (talk) 20:19, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

They're a WP:PUBLICFIGURE and the content is sourced. Are there sources for updates that are missing? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@CCroew321: I may have glossed over the state senate seat. We'll need reliable sources before that can be added. As for the lawsuit he is a party to, there is ample sourcing for him being named as a defendant in the discrimination suit. —C.Fred (talk) 20:24, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Ramon Nomar

Given WP:DOLT, I have some concerns that this is a potential CC washing by someone who is not the copyright holder and that inclusion violates the spirit of WP:BLPNAME.[27][28] I removed it and nominated it for deletion at the Commons. Please keep an eye on this article. Morbidthoughts (talk) 18:50, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

WILL GALISON Libelous, false and incomplete information

• William Galison (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

In the Wikipedia article regarding me (Will Galison), there are statements that are untrue and libelous and there are important facts that are absent. The libelous statements are extremely detrimental to my professional livelihood and my personal well-being, and must be corrected immediately.

Most egregiously: The section "Got You On My Mind and Madeleine Peyroux" appears to have been written or edited specifically to misrepresent facts and to cast aspersions on my character.

"In 2002, Galison met jazz singer and guitarist Madeleine Peyroux in a bar in Greenwich Village.[4] They started to play music together and eventually moved in together.[4]

By the end of the year Peyroux had moved out and the couple had broken up, but they continued playing together and recorded a seven-song CD called Got You on My Mind in February 2003.[4] Peyroux and Galison maintained an intermittent relationship, and Peyroux alleged that Galison became abusive at times; Galison denied the allegation.[4]

Peyroux's contract with Rounder Records prohibited her from selling the Got You on My Mind recording, and she stopped performing with Galison.[4] Galison continued to sell the recording and claimed that he was owed payment for canceled performances.[4] The two artists and Peyroux's record label commenced an extended series of lawsuits and court cases.[4]"''Italic text

The first sentence is accurate. The statements "By the end of the year Peyroux had moved out and the couple had broken up, but they continued playing together and recorded a seven-song CD called Got You on My Mind in February 2003.[4] Peyroux and Galison maintained an intermittent relationship, and Peyroux alleged that Galison became abusive at times; Galison denied the allegation.[4]" are false and defamatory.

The album "Got You on My Mind" was recorded when Ms. Peyroux and I were still living and performing together, and on very good terms. In 2004 I learned from Rounder Records that Ms. Peyroux's lawyers had misrepresented the copyright ownership of the album to Rounder Records in a contract. In thecontract, Ms. Peyroux's lawyers told Rounder that Peyroux was the sole copyright owner of "Got You on My Mind", which was patently false. I challenged this claim that in NY Federal court and my ownership was legally established. Hence, I have been selling the album since it was released in 2005. Rounder was understandably upset with this misrepresentation in the contract, and Peyroux's lawyer, Jeffrey Greenberg had to do what he could to prevent me from selling the album to avoid being sued for fraud. Their claim of Peyroux's exclusive ownership of the album having been denied by the court, and in jeopardy of being sued by Rounder for making a fraudulent contract, Peyroux's lawyers tried to prevent me from selling the album by other means. They wrote a letter to my lawyer- and copied to Rounder- that they had evidence of abuse by me towards Ms. Peyroux, and that if I tried to commercialize the album, they would press criminal charges against me. This statement was not only libelous but illegal, as it illegal for a lawyer to threaten someone with criminal charges (especially false ones) to gain advantage in a civil dispute. Peyroux's lawyers stated that the "evidence" came from Peyroux, but Ms. Peyroux has NEVER personally accused me of abuse of any kind to me or anyone else. It was her lawyer, Jeffrey Greenberg, who made that allegation in a cynical ploy to prevent me from selling the album that I owned. Greenberg also contacted numerous distributors and falsely told them that Peyroux was the sole owner of the album and that they should not distribute the album on my behalf. My lawyer recommended that for the sake of my professional and personal reputation, and to defend my business interest, that I sue for libel and tortious interference.

I filed a lawsuit against Peyroux and her lawyers for libel and for "Tortious Interference with Business Interests". In her deposition, which took several years to obtain, Ms. Peyroux stated under oath that she did not know the legal definition of "abuse", and that she had never told her lawyers or anyone else that I had abused her in any way. When asked what she did tell her lawyers about me, she claimed client/lawyer provide and refused to answer. All of the above is documented in court records which are publicly available. So the statement in Wikipedia that "Peyroux alleged that Galison became abusive at times" is false and defamatory, and must be removed immediately.

Suffice it to say, I have gone on to sell many thousands of copies of "Got You On My Mind", and I have never been charged with or accused of any form of abuse by either Ms. Peyroux or her lawyers (or anyone else).

Furthermore I never "claimed that [I] was owed payment for canceled performances". That statement is entirely false and unfounded.

Furthermore, there was not "an extended series of lawsuits and court cases". There were exactly two court cases; the first to establish my copyright ownership of the album in Federal Court, the second for libel and tortious interference.

The story of my legal ordeal with Ms. Peyroux and her lawyers is interesting and worthy of inclusion in the Wikipedia profile, but the facts in your article are entirely inaccurate. I suspect that someone associated with Ms. Peyroux or her lawyers submitted the information on your page in order to skew the facts, protect the reputation of Ms. Peyroux and her lawyers and to defame me. I cannot imagine the incalculable damage to my professional career and personal life this article has already engendered.

WHAT IS MISSING:

My musical legacy:

I have many other albums under my own name, and significant musical projects and collaborations, which are not mentioned in your article. Many of these can be found at my website: www.willgalison.net

My Social Justice advocacy and work as an investigative reporter:

I have spent much of the past 12 years advocating for justice for my friend Sunny Sheu, who was murdered by the NYPD in 2010. That effort is mentioned in this article from "Wikispooks" (https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Will_Galison) , and documented extensively at my blog www.sunnysheu.blogspot.com. My investigative reporting on this and other public corruption matters have been published in many prominent news venues, including Truthout, Business Insider, Naked Capitalism, Daily Koz and others. I have also been an advocate against Judical corruption and have testified on numerous occasions before the NY State Senate and the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption.

I hope some volunteer will take it upon themselves to mention these accomplishments in my Wikipedia profile.

Meanwhile, I insist that the false and libelous material regarding my relationship with Ms. Peyroux be corrected immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.16.202 (talk) 12:39, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

• The content in question is an accurate summary of the Boston magazine article. If you have a problem with the claims therein, you can take it up with them - we would take action here when they retract the article. - MrOllie (talk) 13:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
• MrOllie pretty much summed up what I was going to say, but I will also add that if you have a reliable source that has an update on the mentioned lawsuits, please provide this (on the talk page, do not edit your own article again). And no, your website and your blog don't count. As of now, the only argument I could see having any bearing would be undue weight, given that there is only one source. --Pokelova (talk) 13:15, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Allegations require more than one RS per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. It looks like they are discussed in the Independent but I can't confirm through the paywall.[29]. The UPI report of the Independent article attribute the allegations to the record label's lawyers.[30]. Morbidthoughts (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
    • @Morbidthoughts Here's a link around the paywall: https://web.archive.org/web/20180806070600/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/former-boyfriend-sues-the-disappearing-jazz-singer-claiming-he-discovered-her-307882.html EvergreenFir (talk) 16:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
      • Thanks. I revised the article based on some of the info there.Is it appropriate that the dispute is only mentioned in William Galison's article but not Madeline Peyroux's article? Morbidthoughts (talk) 17:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
        • Perhaps a dumb question but the stuff in there now (before this addition) is also only sourced to one source, and while Boston mag is reliable, we are talking a story that relies on allegations of who blamed who. Perhaps it is better to trim down to mentioning there were legal disputes without any specifics until more corroborating sources emerge, for both Bio articles' sake?. --Masem (t) 21:02, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
          • Did you read the contemporary (2006) feature article in Jazz Times? Uncle G (talk) 05:55, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

It appears that this page (which is about me) is being curated and edited by a person attempting to impugn my character and reputation. To this end, they have made false and libellous statements, and when corrected, added other false and potentially libellous statements. I have now attempted to correct these statements.

Specifially, in the section regarding my association with Madeleine Peyroux they wrote that Madeleine Peyroux had accused me of abuse. I corrected that several days ago, and explained that Ms. Peyroux never accused me of abuse, a fact that is reflected in her deposition testimony under oath.

The following day the person wrote that Peyroux's lawyers accused me of abusing Ms. Peyroux. That is also not true. Ms. Peyroux's lawyers represented in a letter that they had "evidence of abuse" by me against Peyroux, but they never presented any evidence of abuse in court, and under deposition confessed that they had none. Moreover, Ms. Peyroux testified under oath that she had never told anyone that I abused her. She also said that she did not know what "evidence" her lawyers were referring to.

The person also wrote that I had sued Peyroux for cancelled tour dates. That is patently untrue, and there is no evidence to back it up. I corrected this statement and the person maliciously reposted it the next day.

As is clear from every single publicly available court document, I sued to protect my copyrights, to prevent tortious interference to my business interests, and to contain the damage of the false and libellous claims of Peyroux's lawyers. Peyroux testified under oath that she never told anyone that I had abused her.

The person is presenting a specious and libellous claim that is only of interest as a demonstration of the malice and ethical violations of Ms. Peyroux's lawyers. As is made clear in my lawsuit, Ms. Peyroux's lawyers had misrepresented the copyright ownership of the album "Got You On My Mind" to Rounder Records, telling then that Peyrox was the sole owner. When I refused to surrender my rights, Peyroux's lawyer Jeff Greenberg wrote a letter to my lawyer saying that he had evidence of abuse by me, and that if I proceeded to commercialise the album, they would place charges against me. Of course, I have been commercializing the album for twenty years and no one has ever placed charges against me ever.

The illegality and perverse intention of that letter is obvious. If I had abused Ms. Peyroux, he would have pressed charges whether I sold the album or not. But I did sell the album - a lot- and he did not press charges. It was simply extortion, and the lawyer should have been punished.

"Rule 3.4(e) provides: “A lawyer shall not . . . present, participate in presenting, or threaten to present criminal charges solely to obtain an advantage in a civil matter.” Rule 3.4(e) is the same as its predecessor, New York Disciplinary Rule (“DR”) 7-105(A)."

I have added more information to the article which is true and documented. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.16.202 (talk) 06:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

• I just received this lengthy, confused message on my user talk page. Would someone please try to explain to Mr. Galison what is actually going on here? I don't think they'll listen to me. - MrOllie (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  Got eyes on the article and requested protection at RFPPI. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

I have semi-protected the article and posted a note on the user's talk page with explanations and advice. A couple of people have been working on the page. Hopefully we're done here. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:31, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Pedro Pascal

Pedro Pascal

repeated inserts of information which is irrelevant to his biography (there is only a wikipedia page because he is an actor, yes?) as well as not public information (instagram available only if you're stalking his family) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:14D:4580:94C0:77:F1D:763F:8A01 (talk) 19:36, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

The article is fully protected for a few days due to the edit warring. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:19, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Jonathan Blow

Hello, Yesterday an editor made this edit to the article on Jonathan Blow, which I reviewed and reverted due to WP:TWITTER and WP:NPOV. The editor recently undid my reversion and made some very slight modifications seven minutes later, and by and large I still think it violates both the aforementioned policies. I don't want to get in an edit war with an editor who did not put very much serious effort into the edit (they spelled twitter tweeter, there are many grammatical errors, some of the English is broken, many of the citation templates are reporting errors, etc).

Could someone else please look at the edit? Neuroxic (talk) 20:28, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, all of that needs secondary sourcing to show it's WP:DUE and not WP:OR. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:34, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I took a quick swing at fixing it up. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:42, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree fully, and would have deleted it myself, but you beat me to it. This is a perfect example of why I think we should never use twitter as a source. It's way too open to interpretation, and all of these tweets seem to be interpreted wrong as far as I can tell. This is a huge problem, not just on Wikipedia, but on social networking and even in the news. If certain tweets are picked out and discussed by RSs, giving expert interpretation and their own opinions, then that would be one thing, but trying to interpret them ourselves is doing the work of reporters, and is definitely OR. It also violates the twitter policy in that it is not info about himself, yet I still think that policy is too lax. Also, the word controversy was once again misused here, which is a pet peeve of mine. I wish people would look it up in the dictionary, because a controversy is not simply anything negative about a subject. It is a "widespread public debate", and unless we're covering a widespread public debate, then "controversy" is the wrong title. (For example, Watergate was not a controversy. However, it did cause a controversy, which is a separate and distinct thing.) Zaereth (talk) 20:50, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Fully support the revert/removal. I would say that calling these "controversies" sourced only to his twitter is original research by Wikieditors, as it can only be a controversy if there is clear secondary or third-party reliable sourcing to identify as such. --Masem (t) 21:04, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Also, took out the covid-19 stance, as unless multiple sources have called out those views, even just one RS calling it out is a similar problem. This is how our articles tend to end up as laundry lists of every negative thing that can be said about a person when we should be seeking summary views at the larger scale. --Masem (t) 21:08, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

That's good. I left it as an attempt at compromise before any discussion took place, since at least it had a real source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:16, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks editors, especially for the quick responses and actions so far. I'm learning some things about Wikipedia policy in the process too :) Neuroxic (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with that, Masem, because even sources sometimes misuse the word. To give a clearer example, a school shooting is not a controversy. Gun control is not a controversy. However, anytime there is a school shooting a large controversy about gun control ensues, where you see a massive increase in the public debate on the news, or social media, or around the water cooler at work. When something is truly controversial, then we can tell by the sheer number of sources discussing it without the need for them to say it. Things like lawsuits, marital problems, fights between neighbors, or even stuff a person says that may be deemed controversial by someone, does not rise to the level of a controversy until everyone is talking about it. If someone decides to do a story, say .. not on gun control, by on the controversy surrounding gun control, then and only then would we have a reason to have section titled "Controversy". But it should be about the public debate and not gun control itself. It's simply a matter of using the word in the correct way. Since it rarely happens that a source actually covers a controversy rather than taking part in it, then it should be rarely used as a section title on Wikipedia. Zaereth (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Let me stress a larger point, particularly on BLP: we generally should not highly views held by a person if they are not called out by multiple third-party sources, and definitely not pulling from self-published sources. The major exception here would be when a person is talking explicitly in the positive about their self-identity such as their gender identity, sexual identity, faith, etc. Otherwise, when we carve out a person's views to a single source or to self-pub sources, we're inappropriately highlighting something that third-party sources have not really highlighted themselves, and thus would be OR. On the other hand, if the views are part of coverage by third-party sources (as in the case of Blow, his commentary on game development) then we're absolutely justified to include his views within this topic as long as they are not unduly self-serving; that's avoiding the OR factor. --Masem (t) 13:41, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that I agree with completely. Zaereth (talk) 00:01, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Jah_Prayzah

Under the "Personal life" section, the article insinuates, that getting circumcised is protective of HIV. This is in contradiction with medical science and could put peoples life at risk. The sentence should therefore be removed or it should be accompanied with a statement that this is in contradiction with medical science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prahmsson (talk • contribs) 21:21, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Except that it isn't in contradiction of medical science. See our article Circumcision and HIV. Nil Einne (talk) 12:21, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I added a wikilink to our article in the sentence at Jah Prayzah#Personal life which mentions this. I also brought this up at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Circumcision and HIV as while it concerns a BLP, FTN seems a better place to deal with your concerns. Nil Einne (talk) 12:35, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Non-admin response

I can't possibly see how this would be in violation of WP:BLP, the claim is wikilinked to an article that's properly sourced by various reputable medical institutions such as the WHO and many others.

@Prahmsson: If you were to contest the claim that circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV infection, filing a notice about this article is not the way to go, and instead I'd recommend contesting the article content of Circumcision and HIV on that article's Talk page. If you're to pursue this course of action I wish you the best of luck though, I personally see no merit and very slim chances. ★Ama ^{TALK CONTRIBS} 02:33, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Kevin Priola

Kevin Priola The current edit of Kevin Priola's page (as of 18:55 on May 2, 2022) is the one I have created. The previous version, while technically true and citing 'credible' sources as per wikipedia standards, has been written in an attempt to skew the perception of the Senator's political beliefs. Information listed in the Political Positions section are individually correct and technically neutral, but the conditions of biographies of living persons specifies that the text must have an overall neutral point of view. Including information concerning his losses is irrelevant, and combined with assertions that he is not compliant with republican beliefs, the previous edit is not told from a neutral point of view. The most recent edit states only facts, cited from the Colorado General Assembly website instead of argumentative new articles, and is truly neutral. It should not be reverted or changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100E:B038:8C66:A094:C9FF:B37C:9242 (talk) 19:09, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

• Ignore this. Kevin's staffers have been vandalizing the page for months. They have been attempting to remove routine news coverage of his political positions and legislative votes and putting in puffery about how glorious his bipartisanship is. What the page really needs is protected to prevent new accounts and IP addresses from editing it since Kevin and his staffers refuse to understand conflict of interest despite multiple warnings given to other staffer accounts. Jon698 (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

• Concur. History shows a concerted campaign with no regard for Wikipedia policies.Slywriter (talk) 19:25, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

  My comment concerns only the edit that I am referencing which is not at all related to campaigning efforts. 2600:100E:B038:8C66:AC7B:FFA7:A706:F18D (talk) 20:06, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Untrue. The only information I am adding is a list of bills he has passed and part of his career history. The 'new coverage' mentioned is meant to skew public perception. 2600:100E:B038:8C66:AC7B:FFA7:A706:F18D (talk) 20:04, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

If you're the IP who was editing the article, you removed any mention of his Whip resignation, which is clearly an important event in his career. Schazjmd (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I did not feel that it was; however, I don't protest to it being left on there. If that is the only issue, then why delete the rest of my edits? 2600:100E:B038:8C66:AC7B:FFA7:A706:F18D (talk) 20:13, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I am trying to learn to edit political pages and have done many others successfully. I am willing to adapt and learn from your examples, but I don't agree that I am trying to campaign, I'm just trying to make the page neutral. 2600:100E:B038:8C66:AC7B:FFA7:A706:F18D (talk) 20:15, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

A laundry list of bills he's sponsored sourced only to the legislative site is undue. If independent sources have given any coverage to bills he's sponsored or passed, they might be appropriate for inclusion. If you think there is significant independent coverage of his activities that isn't reflected appropriately in the article, you should raise the issue on Talk:Kevin Priola for discussion. Schazjmd (talk) 20:18, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

A list of well-cited legislation is more informational and neutral than biased news coverage. 2600:100E:B038:8C66:AC7B:FFA7:A706:F18D (talk) 20:22, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect. Like all encyclopedias, we're a tertiary source, which means we get our info from secondary sources. We let those sources tell us what is important info and what is not, because they make their money by printing what the public is interested in. All we need is a summary of the subject, not every boring detail. A legislative site is a primary source, and not really suited to our goals as a tertiary source. This isn't something new or specific to Wikipedia. If anything, Wikipedia is far more lax on those things than paper encyclopedias are. But that is doing the work of reporters instead of researchers. Zaereth (talk) 20:50, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Ok that makes sense! Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I will make future edits with this in mind. 2600:100E:B038:8C66:E1C7:2758:221B:A677 (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

kira reed

What appears to be a single-purpose account has been editing the page for Kira Reed trying to remove any evidence that she prominently worked in the porn industry. All of the user's post history is edits just to Reed's page, the page of Reed's late husband, and one other person, which leads to believe they are either Reed herself or someone representing her which is a major conflict of interest. They claim that this information is libellous even though it is certifiably true with ample evidence, and it's frankly the thing Reed is best known for, but someone seems to want to hide this information from readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Outsulation (talk • contribs) 18:03, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you read WP:BLP to get a handle on what sources are acceptable. An archive.org copy of an adult site is not RS for someone's marriage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:31, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Wow, this article isn't great. Could definitely use more eyes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:38, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Page has since been protected but I've watchlisted as well. Meatsgains^(talk) 00:25, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. At some point I plan on going through and doing some cleanup. The DOB was sourced to Mr. Skin... ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:29, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Randy Cornor

Randy Cornor supposedly died on March 24, but other than a single Facebook post and a dodgy looking obit site, I have not found any proof of this. No obits from the Deer Park-Houston area list anyone with the last name "Cornor". I am looking for anyone to keep an eye out on anything reputable regarding his death. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 05:43, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

The Facebook post seems to be legit, as a search on that dude shows he's a published dobroist and seems to have known Cornor; additionally there is a memorial Facebook page and group setup, so it's a good bet to say he's deceased; however, no reliable sources seem to exist. Nothing so far on newspapers.com or in a general search. Curbon7 (talk) 06:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

His full name is Randall James Cornor, but a search with that returns even less. Curbon7 (talk) 06:37, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Only thing I can find.[31] Morbidthoughts (talk) 09:42, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Andriy Melnyk (ambassador)

Andriy Melnyk (ambassador) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Melnyk is the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. Since early March this year, brief passages about his visit to the grave of Stepan Bandera have been inserted by unregistered users toward the bottom of the Biography section in terms that unnecessarily insinuate (but don't assert outright) that Melnyk has Nazi sympathies. Is that defamatory? The two sources cited don't robustly justify the insinuation. The passage has been removed several times on BLP and verification grounds but it keeps reappearing. There is a discussion on the Talk page ("Stepan Bandera flower laying claims...") – I have added a contribution to that discussion today that may help you. Please review, advise on the Talk page, and take any steps you think appropriate to end the to-and-fro. Thanks and kind regards, --Frans Fowler (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

The source of the disputed entry does not directly verify what is stated and should continue to be removed. I have requested page protection. Even if the source did satisfy WP:V, once it is removed on BLP grounds, the adder must fix or obtain consensus to re-add. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:45, 4 May 2022 (UTC)